new orleans police steal 200 cars from car dealership. New Orleans cop Warren Riley said its not looting if the cops patrolled in the cars.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1008katrina-cadillacs08.html
Officers under scrutiny in car dealership case
Mary Foster
Associated Press
Oct. 8, 2005 12:00 AM
NEW ORLEANS - State authorities are investigating allegations that New Orleans police officers broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars, including 41 new Cadillacs, as Hurricane Katrina closed in.
"It is a very, very active investigation," Kris Wartelle, spokeswoman for the Louisiana attorney general, said Friday. "We expect developments quickly."
Wartelle would not comment on why the officers may have taken the cars or whether they were used in the line of duty.
However, the cars may have been taken before the hurricane even roared into town Aug. 29, according to the president and general manager of the dealership, Doug Stead.
Stead said the cars included 88 new Cadillacs and Chevrolets, 40 used cars, 52 customers' cars and a restored 1970 El Camino and 1966 Impala.
"We put the loss on new cars at $3.7 million," Stead said. "The used cars ran another $900,000."
When reports surfaced last month that officers may have taken the cars, New Orleans Police Superintendent Warren Riley said it was not considered looting because the officers patrolled in the cars.
"There were some officers who did use Cadillacs," Riley said. "Those cars were not stolen."
On Friday, police spokesman Capt. Marlon Defillo said the department's only comment was that it was cooperating with the attorney general's investigation.
Police are also investigating 12 officers on allegations of looting or failing to stop looting. And about 250 police officers, roughly 15 percent of the force, could face discipline for leaving their posts without permission during Katrina and its aftermath.
Stead said he got calls from people telling him they had seen his cars in Baton Rouge, Houston and other cities with uniformed police officers driving them. He said people saw his cars parked outside a police precinct.
Keys to the new and used cars were kept in a locked box on the second floor, Stead said. The box was taken on a forklift to the third floor, where a blowtorch was used to open it, he said. For cars without keys, the ignitions were jimmied, he said.
Because of the damaged garage doors at Stead's dealership, wind funneled into the building and a wall blew down, he said. "The sad thing is if the building hadn't been vandalized, there would have been no damage at all," the dealer said.
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bringing peace, freedom, democracy to iraq!! at least thats what george bush says. my only question is where is my 25 cent gallon of gas i though george bush was going to sell me after we stole their oil? just joking :)
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1008iraq-deathsquad08.html
539 bodies in 5 months; death units blamed
Sinan Salaheddin
Associated Press
Oct. 8, 2005 12:00 AM
BAGHDAD - The 22 bodies, lined up in coffins in a mosque courtyard Friday, are as shriveled as ancient mummies after lying a month in the desert where they were dumped, bound and bullet-ridden. They were Sunni Arabs, rounded up from their Baghdad homes one night by men in police uniforms.
Relatives and neighbors in mourning are convinced they were killed by government-linked Shiite death squads they say are behind corpses that turn up nearly every day in and around the capital, including two more on Friday. Now some Sunnis are vowing to take action to protect themselves.
At least 539 bodies have been found since Iraq's interim government was formed on April 28, 204 of them in Baghdad, according to an Associated Press count. The identities of many are unknown, but 116 are known to be Sunnis, 43 Shiites and one Kurd. Some are likely victims of crime, including kidnappings, rampant in some cities and as dangerous to Iraqis as political violence.
The count may be low since one or two bodies are found almost daily and never reported.
Both minority Sunnis and Shiites accuse one another of using death squads, and the accusations are deepening the Sunni-Shiite divide at a time when mistrust is already high over a new constitution that Iraqis will vote on next Saturday. Shiites overwhelmingly support the charter. Sunnis oppose it.
Shiite deaths are generally attributed to Sunni insurgents, who hit Shiite sites with suicide attacks, bombings and shootings, but also carry out targeted slayings, leaving groups of Shiite bodies to be found later. Insurgents have disguised themselves as police, most recently in an attack last week south of Baghdad in which they dragged five Shiite teachers and their driver into a school and shot them to death.
But there have been several cases of Sunni Arabs who turn up dead in large groups after being taken by men claiming to be Interior Ministry forces. The largest group of bodies found outside Baghdad was 36 Sunnis discovered Aug. 25 in a riverbed near Badrah, close to the Iranian border, after being kidnapped in Baghdad.
The grisly finds have led Sunnis to believe that Shiite Muslims who dominate the government and the Interior Ministry are waging campaign against them. But the Interior Ministry denies any role and blames insurgents using stolen police equipment.
On Friday, in a Baghdad mosque, mourners for the 22 men shouted slogans against the Badr Brigade, a Shiite militia linked to one of the main parties in the government.
The desiccated, unrecognizable bodies lay in wooden coffins, each with a photo of the victim attached. Mourners wept. "Why were they killed? They had done nothing wrong," wailed one man.
The bodies were found Sept. 27 in the same Badrah region near the Iranian border outside the southern town of Kut, where they had lain for weeks exposed to the sun. They had been shot, some in the head. Some were blindfolded. All had their hands bound by ropes, plastic or metal handcuffs. The site was 100 miles from where the men had last been seen.
On Aug 18, about 50 vehicles full of men in Interior Ministry uniforms swept into Baghdad's Iskan neighborhood just after dawn and surrounded several streets, going into houses and grabbing the 22 young men, some of them pairs of brothers, said Jamal Amin Mustafa, 60, who lives nearby and was at Friday's funeral service.
"They took them from their bedrooms," said Mahmoud al-Sumeidaie, the cleric who delivered prayers during the service. "We blame the government, which came to save us from Saddam's terrorism but has brought terrorism worse than Saddam."
The story is echoed by Tahir Dawood, who on Sept. 28 went to the Baghdad morgue to identify his two younger brothers and five of his cousins whose bodies - bound, blindfolded and shot - were found that morning dumped in a lot near his neighborhood of Hurriyah.
The seven, all construction workers, had been taken from their homes the previous day before dawn by a large force of men in police uniforms who told families they were from the Interior Ministry, Dawood told the AP. He has since fled Baghdad with most of his immediate family.
At a three-day wake held last weekend, a cousin of the victims, Khaled al-Azawi, fumed. He accused the Interior Ministry of waging "genocide against the Sunni Arabs in Iraq with the knowledge of the American forces." He and Dawood said the slain men had no connection to Sunni insurgents or any link to the government or U.S. forces that might make them insurgent targets.
"We have no other choice but to take up our rifles and protect ourselves," Azawi said.
Sheik Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a prominent cleric with the influential Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars, accused the government of aiming to "liquidate Sunnis" to knock them out of the political process. He, too, blamed the Badr Brigade, the military wing of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the largest Shiite party in the government.
Under Saddam Hussein, the minority Sunni Arab sect, 20 percent of the Iraq population, was dominant. It brutally oppressed the Shiite sect, 60 percent in central and south Iraq, and the rebellious Kurds in the north. Now, the largely Sunni insurgency is fighting to regain its political standing.
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hmmm... if this is approved it will mean that the $350 billion spent on forcing democracy and christianity on iraq has cost every american man, woman, and child $1,160. if you ask me i dont think it i got my moneys worth.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1008defense08.html
Senate approves $50 bil more for Bush war efforts
Liz Sidoti
Associated Press
Oct. 8, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - The Senate voted Friday to give President Bush $50 billion more for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and U.S. military efforts against terrorism, money that would push total spending for the operations beyond $350 billion.
In a 97-0 vote, the Senate signed off on the money as part of a $445 billion military spending bill for the fiscal year that began last Saturday.
The measure also includes restrictions on the treatment of detainees who are suspected terrorists, a provision that has drawn a White House veto threat and shown a willingness by Republicans to challenge Bush.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1008phxdeputy08.html
Deputy's gear stolen from car's trunk
Matt Dempsey
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 8, 2005 12:00 AM
Thieves stole a gun, body armor and other items from a Maricopa County detention officer's personal vehicle early Friday morning.
Officer Alden Jackson, who works as a detention officer on the county's special response team, was parked at 537 E. Camelback Road when his large black duffel bag was stolen out of the locked trunk of his 1992 Honda.
The duffel bag contained Jackson's gun, badge, body armor, office ID and sheriff's office T-shirt and pants.
The theft occurred between 11:45 p.m. Thursday and 2:20 a.m. Friday while Jackson was off-duty.
Sheriff Joe Arpaio said the theft was bound to happen to one of his officers.
"We have a high crime rate with automobile thefts," Arpaio said. "No one is immune. It's a wonder they did not steal the car."
It's especially dangerous when thieves break into law enforcement officers' vehicles because of the items they carry, he said.
"Someone could use the badge and pose as a law-enforcement officer," Arpaio said.
Jackson is at least the second officer in the past three months to have his equipment stolen out of a vehicle.
Cmdr. Tom Long of the Tempe Police Department had his police equipment and unmarked car stolen Aug. 6. Long's vehicle was left unlocked and running at the end of a driveway. The vehicle was recovered but the gun, uniform, badge and ID were not found.
Anyone with information related to the theft can call the sheriff's office at (602) 876-1000 or the Phoenix Police Department at (602) 262-6151.
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31 August 2005
Dear *********,
I’m sorry it took me so long to write you, but they did not let me transfer any of my belongings from jail, and it took some time to obtain paper, pen, envelopes and stamps.
This will be my home for the next five months. My cellmate is not so fortunate. He is doing life for two murders. I am at the Rincon Unit. It is a level four security yard. Apparently since I pulled a gun in the presence of the police they consider me to merit a high security classification.
The food here is much better than that at the jail. We also get two hours of outdoor recreation three times a week. I have access to a library every two to three weeks.
They have many rules to observe, most dictated by the inmates. One is that one is not to sit next to people of a different race in the dining hall or in the recreation field.
I am only a mile away from Laro, but I can’t communicate with him. Let him know I wish him the best.
Yours,
Kevin
<#==#>
21 September 2005
Dear ********:
Thank you for writing. I’m glad you now have some work now after quite a long time. I worked a little with UNIX when I was a graduate student, but I have forgotten most of it. Most computer stuff is Greek to me now.
I remember when I moved to Austin, the hotel required my photo I.D. I did not know that some cities have made this law. The police state gets worse every year. I need a state issued photo I.D. just to leave my cell to go eat or go to the recreation field. My I.D. is very simple. It just shows a photograph and a serial number, 197573.
I had though I might be transferred, but I’m told I haven’t been here long enough to change cells. Therefore I must put up with my ornery cellmate.
In a way it’s a relief because I found out my supposed future cellmate was involved with a drug deal gone bad and for a while he was afraid of being attacked by the drug dealers. But I think he has settled thing with them now. The Aryan Brotherhood runs this yard, and I think some of them are involved in drug dealing.
There are surprisingly few guards here, and that fits with the news that there is a shortage of corrections officers statewide.
I can often hear the fighter planes from Davis-Mothan. They fly over frequently. There are also good views of the mountains from the yard.
I hope the job works out for you.
Yours,
Kevin
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26 September 2005.
My cellmate and I had applied for a cell transfer, but it has been disapproved on the grounds that I have not been here long enough. The friction between us does not seem to be as bad as before. He has a job now and is gone part of the day, allowing me to turn off the television and get some reading done.
This is a violent place. I have witnessed two fights since I have been here. There was a riot in the dining hall one morning shortly after I had breakfast there. A guard was stabbed yesterday.
The Aryan Brotherhood runs this yard. They make the rules to be followed by the white inmates. They tell us where too sit in the dining hall. They monitor all written communication with the prison authorities, even medical requests. They have even told me that they don’t want me walking alone on the recreation field and want me to participate in other activities. They charge a tax of one postage stamp per month.
______, an inmate in cell No. __, was entrusted with a quantity of cocaine, which he lost. For a time he feared being attacked by the drug dealers in retaliationfor this, but he has since paid his debt.
Another inmate, ________, was a millionaire on the outside who was given 25 years for fraud. He is only in this high-security yard because he tried to escape. Although he has only served twelve and a half years of his sentence, he says he will be released soon.
There is a scarcity of jobs here and the wages are extremely low, ranging from 10 cents to 45 cents per hour. It is rumored that the sex-offender yard has jobs at minimum wage, but apparently that doesn’t apply here.
I am told that since I have a college education, I am eligible to become a teacher’s aide, so I have applied for that position.
I have been informed that my release date will be 20 January 2006. This is with good time, so I may have to stay longer if I have disciplinary issues. I haven’t had any thus far. Once I am released, I have five years of probation to do. That will also involve psychiatric treatment. I told the psychiatric nurse here that I didn’t need any medications, and, thus far I have not received any. I don’t notice any change in how I feel from being off my medications.
Comradely,
Kevin
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Dear *******,
I have been moved again. This time it is because my security classification has been lowered. Perhaps they think that taking the plea agreement makes me not quite as dangerous. In my new location I am allowed out of my cell for one hour each day.
The air conditioning at this new jail is rigorous and reliable. I have seldom been uncomfortably warm here. Given what I read about the temperatures on the outside I am glad that I am not in the tent city. Dangerous prisoners like my self can have air conditioning. Petty offenders in tent city must endure the desert heat.
My lawyer says Officer Redmon did indeed suffer a knee injury and had to have surgery for it. I think there was a supplement to the police report that detailed that. My guess is that he tore cartilage by overexerting himself doing some kind of judo maneuver to make me fall down during the struggle. My role was passive, but since I was resisting arrest the technical fault is mine.
Thank you for conveying the greetings from Eric and Ibrahim. I greatly miss corresponding with them.
The other officers did not confirm Redmon’s story that my pistol was pointed at them. One officer confirmed that Redmon approved the police report without any mention of that aspect of his story.
Yours,
Kevin
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while the american government will soon hit 2,000 dead in the invasion of iraq we also just hit 200 dead in the invasion of Afghanistan.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHANISTAN?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 8, 4:51 PM EDT
U.S. Death Toll in Afghanistan Hits 200
By DANIEL COONEY
Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- An American soldier who stepped on a land mine became the 200th U.S. military member to be killed in and around Afghanistan since the Taliban was ousted four years ago, officials reported Saturday.
This year has been the deadliest yet for the 21,000-strong U.S.-led coalition force, with 84 soldiers killed. The toll comes amid a major increase in insurgent violence that has left more than 1,300 people dead since March.
The latest American death came Friday while U.S. troops patrolled in a part of Helmand province that has been wracked by violence by Taliban-led rebels, a military statement said.
A spokeswoman, Sgt. Marina Evans, said it was not immediately clear whether the mine had been recently laid - and was meant as an attack on the patrol - or whether it was one of thousands around the country left from a quarter-century of war.
The soldier's name was withheld pending notification of next of kin.
The statement quoted Brig. Gen. Jack Sterling, a deputy commander of the U.S.-led coalition, as saying, "Its a sad day any time a comrade dies in this ongoing struggle."
"While we mourn this loss, we will continue to work to ensure that Afghanistan remains a stable democracy," he added.
According to Pentagon figures, 200 U.S. personnel have died in the Afghanistan region since the Taliban regime was toppled in late 2001, when it refused to turn over Osama bin Laden and stop offering haven to al-Qaida camps following the Sept. 11 terror attacks on the United States.
"Two hundred lives is a very big price to pay for a cause that we both share. ... We value the sacrifice they made for the people of Afghanistan and the people of the United States," President Hamid Karzai's chief of staff, Jawed Ludin, told The Associated Press in an interview last week when asked about the approaching toll.
"But one thing that we can be sure is: Those lives have not been lost in vain," Ludin said.
But Karzai himself has been critical of the U.S. military lately, challenging the need for major military operations by foreign troops, saying there was no longer a major terrorist threat in Afghanistan.
His comments followed landmark legislative elections held relatively peacefully despite Taliban threats of violence.
Karzai's optimistic views aren't shared by U.S. military commanders, who say that they expect to be battling Taliban rebels well into next year and that the militants are recruiting younger fighters to bolster their numbers after suffering heavy losses in recent fighting.
Still, the burden of the fighting now shouldered by U.S. forces may soon decrease. An 11,000-soldier NATO-led peacekeeping force, already responsible for security in Afghanistan's north and west, is gearing up to expand next year into the volatile south and east.
The move will allow the separate coalition force to reduce its size and focus on hunting down Osama and his allies, thought to be hiding in rugged mountains in the region.
U.S. Gen. B.B. Bell, commander of NATO's Allied Land Component Command Headquarters, told AP in an interview Saturday while touring western Afghanistan that NATO troops were instrumental in keeping the peace during last month's election.
He said the key to the peacekeeping force's success was the large number of countries contributing troops.
"It does help the credibility of the mission," Bell said. "Pulling together with all of the energy of 26 nations in helping reconstruct this country ... I think that sends a huge message."
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Sobriety checkpoint guidelines & a call for assistance
by Terry Bressi
some interesting facts on how to beat being stopped at a sobriety check point which will work in pima county buy may or may not work in other parts of the state. in pima county if you drive around the check point their guidlelines say they won't arrest you but they may follow you. if you refuse to roll down your windows and talk to them their guidlines say they have to wave you thru but they may follow you (unless they have probable cause that you are committing some other crime or the make us some imaginary probable cause)
Sobriety checkpoint guidelines & a call for assistance
Terry wrote:
> I think I'll make an Open Records query to find out where they were
> setup, whether or not they posted locations prior to manning the
> checkpoints, and to acquire a copy of their roadblock guidelines that
> are required to be in place prior to such operations.
Last week, I received copies of the Pima County Sheriff's Dept. (PCSD) sobriety roadblock procedures and guidelines that I had requested in early September through Arizona's Open Records law. I've posted these documents along with my original request, results of the September 3rd roadblock & a brief analysis at:
http://www.terrybressi.org/roadblock/state.htm#procedures
In general, the PCSD made 571 stops utilizing over 30 officers resulting in 4 DUI arrests. This represents a 0.7% hit rate which underscores how much of a waste of time and resources such operations are. This fact is further highlighted by the mission statement which says the purpose of such roadblocks is to increase the 'PERCEPTION' that motorists who
drink and drive will be caught. Finally - officers were directed to work their schedules such that time spent on the operation would represent over-time since it was being paid for by the Governor's Office of
Highway Safety.
Within the guidelines, I found the following instructions to be particularly noteworthy because they reinforce my own legal understanding of individual rights at suspicionless roadblocks:
* "A motorist who chooses to avoid the checkpoint should be allowed to proceed unless traffic violations are observed or probable cause exists to take other action. The mere act of avoiding a checkpoint will not
constitute grounds for a stop."
* "Drivers who refuse to roll down their windows in order to avoid contact with a law enforcement officer will be waived through and may be followed by an observation car unless reasonable suspicion/probable
cause exist to further the investigation."
* "A search of the vehicle or passengers, should be conducted upon probable cause or incident to arrest only."
* "The following question/statement shall be made upon approaching a vehicle: 'Good evening, this is a Sobriety Checkpoint aimed at deterring
impaired driving. Have you consumed any alcohol and/or drugs today?'"
* "If the answer is no and there is no compelling reason to detain the vehicle, hand the driver a pamphlet and state, "This brochure explains the Sobriety Checkpoint program. Please look it over at your leisure."
In other words, the PCSD acknowledges the fact that they cannot force you to interact with them if you choose not to. You may avoid the roadblock all together by turning around when safe to do so or you can stop when directed to do so but refuse to roll down your window and interact with them. In addition, you'll note there are no requests for insurance, driver's licenses, or registration made during the initial stop. I figure the guidelines had to be written in this fashion in order to be in compliance with Supreme Court rulings regarding suspicionless 'public safety' stops.
The immediate utility of these documents to me is that I may be able to use them in court to compare and contrast my experience with the tribal police back in 2002 in which the tribe had no guidelines or procedures in place, demanded to search vehicles absent reasonable suspicion, demanded documentation in order to conduct general warrant checks and to determine immigration status, and actively chased down or persecuted individuals who chose to avoid the roadblock or limit their interaction at the roadblock.
I plan on expanding my information requests to the Tucson Police Dept and the State police as well in order to see what kind of guidelines they have in place.
I think it's important for this kind of documentation to be readily available to everyone because it clarifies the legal issues immensely and establishes a baseline of expectations when confronted with such encounters. If the police act outside of their written guidelines then there is a cause of action. Similarly, individuals know what to expect when so confronted. If the guidelines are unreasonable or fall outside of legal restrictions then the documents provide a baseline for taking corrective action. Regardless, having ready access to such documentation BEFORE an encounter can act as a great equalizer for the individuals seeking to protect their rights.
With this in mind, I am very interested in putting together a website that makes this type of documentation readily available. Unfortunately I have limited time and resources in order to pursue such Open Records Requests outside of the county I live in. My open ended question to this list is whether or not folks are willing to submit similar Open Records requests for their county and/or local communities? If so, I am willing to scan those documents in and post them to the web.
In essence, I propose the start of a clearing house or 'Citizen's Intelligence Agency' if you will for gathering information on government procedures, policies, practices & guidelines in order to assist individuals in holding government accountable to the rule of law at the local and state level.
Feedback on this idea would be much appreciated.
Terry Bressi
www.terrybressi.org/roadblock/state.htm#procedures
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You can fool some of the people all of the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
– George W. Bush
"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think."
-Adolf Hitler
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790 homeland security thugs will soon be terrorizing american citizens and mexican nationals along the mexico border
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1009homeland09.html
Homeland Security funds to bring agents, construction to Ariz.
Arthur H. Rotstein
Associated Press
Oct. 9, 2005 12:00 AM
TUCSON - The massive Homeland Security appropriations bill that Congress passed will bring 790 new Border Patrol agents, including an unspecified number for Arizona.
It also will provide $35 million for construction of roads, lights and barriers on the Arizona-Mexico border, and two replacement Border Patrol stations in the state - at Sonoita and Willcox - with facilities for processing and detaining illegal immigrants.
The $31.9 billion budget package includes $9 billion for border security nationwide.
Earlier this year, another 210 new Border Patrol agents were funded in President Bush's fiscal 2006 budget, and a supplemental budget package in support of the Iraqi war effort provided for 500 more Border Patrol agents and additional resources, said Sal Zamora, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington.
He said it was too soon to say where and how agents and other new resources will be deployed.
"It would be safe to assume that the Southwest border is the focus and that Arizona and New Mexico will receive some of the new agents," he said.
The Homeland Security bill also will add 250 U.S. Customs and immigration investigators and 460 other enforcement officers, along with about 1,800 beds in expanded detention facilities to improve capabilities for expedited removal of non-Mexican illegal immigrants who have been apprehended.
The border and immigration provisions of the bill are "a huge step forward in getting serious about securing our border with Mexico," said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
With the new detention facilities, there will be 20,300 beds nationwide for illegal immigrants caught from countries other than Mexico. Many now have to be released pending the removal process for lack of bed space, most of whom subsequently disappear within this country to avoid removal.
Kyl said the $35 million in infrastructure investments will significantly improve the Border Patrol's ability to cover remote areas along the border.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0929evolution29.html
'Intelligent design' trial hears foe
Martha Raffaele
Associated Press
Sept. 29, 2005 12:00 AM
HARRISBURG, Pa. - The concept of "intelligent design" is a form of creationism and is not based on scientific method, a professor testified Wednesday in a trial over whether the idea should be taught in public schools.
Robert T. Pennock, a professor of science and philosophy at Michigan State University, testified on behalf of families who sued the Dover Area School District. He said supporters of intelligent design don't offer evidence to support their idea.
"As scientists go about their business, they follow a method," Pennock said. "Intelligent design wants to reject that and so it doesn't really fall within the purview of science."
Pennock said intelligent design does not belong in a science class, but added that it might be addressed in other courses.
In October 2004, the Dover school board voted 6-3 to require teachers to read a brief statement about intelligent design to students before classes on evolution. The statement says Charles Darwin's theory of natural selection is "not a fact" and has inexplicable "gaps," and refers students to an intelligent-design textbook.
Proponents of intelligent design argue that life was the product of an unidentified intelligent force, and that natural selection cannot fully explain the origin of life or the emergence of highly complex life forms.
Eight families are trying to have intelligent design removed from the curriculum, arguing that it violates the separation of church and state. They say it promotes the Bible's view of creation.
A lawyer for two newspaper reporters said Wednesday the presiding judge will limit questioning of the reporters. Both wrote stories that said board members mentioned creationism as they discussed intelligent design. Board members have denied that. The reporters only have to verify the content of their stories.
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kids dont have no stinking 1st amendment right in california.
http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/12854839.htm
Posted on Sun, Oct. 09, 2005
California to restrict video game sales
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed a bill making it illegal to sell or rent violent video games to minors in California.
California joins Illinois and Michigan in passing an anti-violent video game bill in the past year. Similar bills have been proposed in almost every state, even though the courts have found prior prohibitions unconstitutional.
The law takes effect Jan. 1, although the video game industry vows to challenge it in court.
“Many of these games are made for adults, and choosing games that are appropriate for kids should be a decision made by their parents,” said Schwarzenegger.
Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Leland Yee, a Democrat, the bill’s sponsor, said many legislators were ready to sign on after hidden sex scenes were uncovered this summer in “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” causing the game’s maker to pull the game from stores.
Until now, California stores have had only a voluntary obligation to restrict the sales of games rated for adults.Children can walk into some stores and buy whatever they want.
Based on studies showing that violent games make children more aggressive, various teacher, medical, psychological and youth groups supported the legislation. The game industry cites studies that suggest there is no harm from playing violent games.
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i dont remember smoking pot more then 15 times. i guess that means i can join the FBI. "the FBI is a known national" - arent they the police thugs who murdered almost 100 christians in waco texas by burning them to death???? no they just finished the work of the BATF who didnt get the job done on the first day.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/F/FBI_MARIJUANA?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 9, 3:44 PM EDT
AP: FBI Considers Relaxing Hiring Policy
By TED BRIDIS
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The FBI, famous for its straight-laced crime-fighting image, is considering whether to relax its hiring rules over how often applicants could have used marijuana or other illegal drugs earlier in life.
Some senior FBI managers have been deeply frustrated that they could not hire applicants who acknowledged occasional marijuana use in college, but in some cases already perform top-secret work at other government agencies, such as the CIA or State Department.
FBI Director Robert Mueller will make the final decision. "We can't say when or if this is going to happen, but we are exploring the possibility," spokesman Stephen Kodak said
The change would ease limits about how often - and how many years ago - applicants for jobs such as intelligence analysts, linguists, computer specialists, accountants and others had used illegal drugs.
The rules, however, would not be relaxed for FBI special agents, the fabled "G-men" who conduct most criminal and terrorism investigations. Also, the new plan would continue to ban current drug use.
The nation's former anti-drug czar said he understands the FBI's dilemma.
"The integrity of the FBI is a known national treasure that must be protected," said retired Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who used to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. "But there should be no hard and fast rule that suggests you can't ever have used drugs. As long as it's clear that's behind you and you're overwhelmingly likely to remain drug free, you should be eligible."
Current rules prohibit the FBI from hiring anyone who used marijuana within the past three years or more than 15 times ever. They also ban anyone who used other illegal drugs, such as cocaine or heroin, within the past 10 years or more than five times.
"That 16th time is a killer," McCaffrey said.
The new FBI proposal would judge applicants based on their "whole person" rather than limiting drug-related experiences to an arbitrary number. It would consider the circumstances of a person's previous drug use, such as their age, and the likelihood of future usage. The relaxed standard already is in use at most other U.S. intelligence agencies.
Entry-level intelligence analysts usually earn between $36,000 and $53,000, depending on qualifications and where they are assigned to work. Entry-level FBI special agents earn $42,548.
The FBI proposal contrasts with the agency's starched image and its drug-fighting history. A generation of video game players can remember seeing the FBI seal and slogan, "Winners don't use drugs," attributed to former FBI Director William Sessions, on popular arcade games from the late 1980s.
Private companies have wrestled with the same problem. Employers complain they can't afford to turn away applicants because of marijuana use that ended years earlier, said Robert Drusendahl, owner of The Pre-Check Co. in Cleveland, which performs background employment checks for private companies.
"The point is, they can't fill those spots," Drusendahl said. "This is a microcosm of what's happening outside in the rest of the world. Do we dilute our standards?" He said the FBI should have a low tolerance for any illegal behavior by applicants. "If they used marijuana, that's illegal. It's pretty cut and dried."
A recently retired FBI polygraph examiner, Harold L. Byford of El Paso, Texas, was quoted in a federal lawsuit in February 2002 arguing that "if someone has smoked marijuana 15 times, he's done it 50 times. ... If I was running the show there would be no one in the FBI that ever used illegal drugs!"
The proposed FBI change also reflects cultural and generational shifts in attitudes toward marijuana and other drugs, even as the Bush administration has sought to establish links between terrorists and narcotics.
"I don't think you could find anybody who hasn't tried marijuana, and I take a lot of credit for that," said Tommy Chong, the comedian whose films with Cheech Marin provided over-the-top portrayals of marijuana culture during the 1980s. "They're going to have to change their policy."
While marijuana use is hardly universal, it remains the most commonly used illegal drug in the United States, with about half of teenagers trying the drug before they graduate high school.
"What people did when they were 18 or 21, I think that is pretty irrelevant," said Richard Clarke, a former top White House counterterrorism adviser. "We have to recognize there are a couple of generations now who regarded marijuana use, while it's technically illegal, as nothing more serious than jaywalking."
An agency's attitude toward drug use has been blamed for unexpected consequences. The CIA forced one of its officers, Edward Lee Howard, to resign in May 1983 after he failed a polygraph test and disclosed his drug use in Colombia during 1975 when he was a Peace Corps volunteer. Howard defected to the Soviet Union in 1985 after he was accused of espionage activities that spy hunters believe were driven by resentment over his forced resignation.
"I had been totally honest about each and every misdeed in my past, including my drug use in South America and my occasional abuse of alcohol," Howard wrote in his 1995 memoirs. He died in July 2002 at his home outside Moscow.
Some other federal agencies also have tough marijuana policies. The Drug Enforcement Administration will not hire applicants as agents who used illegal drugs, although it makes exceptions for admitting "limited youthful and experimental use of marijuana." The DEA, however, permits no prior use of harder drugs.
"Recreational marijuana use is a fact of life nowadays," said Mark Zaid, a Washington lawyer who has represented people rejected for FBI jobs over drugs. "It doesn't stop Supreme Court justices from getting on the bench and doesn't stop presidents from getting elected, so why should it stop someone from getting hired by the FBI?"
<#==#>
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/N/NEW_ORLEANS_TAPED_BEATING?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 9, 3:53 PM EDT
New Orleans Police Beating Caught on Tape
By MARY FOSTER
Associated Press Writer
NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- Two New Orleans police officers repeatedly punched a 64-year-old man accused of public intoxication, and another city officer assaulted an Associated Press Television News producer as a cameraman taped the confrontations.
There will be a criminal investigation, and the three officers were to be suspended, arrested and charged with simple battery Sunday, Capt. Marlon Defillo said.
"We have great concern with what we saw this morning," Defillo said after he and about a dozen other high-ranking police department officials watched the APTN footage Sunday. "It's a troubling tape, no doubt about it. ... This department will take immediate action."
The assaults come as the department, long plagued by allegations of brutality and corruption, struggles with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the resignation last month of Police Superintendent Eddie Compass.
The APTN tape shows an officer hitting the man at least four times in the head Saturday night as he stood outside a bar near Bourbon Street. The suspect, Robert Davis, appeared to resist, twisting and flailing as he was dragged to the ground by four officers. One of the four then kneed Davis and punched him twice. Davis was face-down on the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.
Meanwhile, a fifth officer ordered APTN producer Rich Matthews and the cameraman to stop recording. When Matthews held up his credentials and explained he was working, the officer grabbed the producer, leaned him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.
"I've been here for six weeks trying to keep ... alive. ... Go home!" shouted the officer, who later identified himself as S.M. Smith.
Police said Davis, 64, of New Orleans, was booked on public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation. He was treated at a hospital and released into police custody.
Matthews reports he saw a New Orleans police officer confront a 64-year-old man who was walking on Bourbon Street.
"The incidents taped by our cameraman are extremely troubling," said Mike Silverman, AP's managing editor. "We are heartened that the police department is taking them seriously and promising a thorough investigation."
Davis, who is black, was subdued at the intersection of Conti and Bourbon streets. Three of the officers appeared to be white, and the other is light skinned. The officer who hit Matthews is white. Defillo said race was not an issue.
Three of the five officers - including Smith - are New Orleans officers, and two others appeared to be federal officers. Numerous agencies have sent police to help with patrols in the aftermath of Katrina.
Under normal circumstances, it takes unusually offensive behavior to trigger an arrest on Bourbon Street. But New Orleans police have been working under stressful conditions since the hurricane.
Officers slept in their cars and worked 24-hour shifts after the storm. Three-quarters lost their homes and their families are scattered across the country.
"Our police officers are working under some very trying times," Defillo said. "So it's a difficult time, but it doesn't excuse what our jobs are supposed to be."
Many officers deserted their posts in the days after Katrina, and some were accused of joining in the looting that broke out. At least two committed suicide.
Conditions have improved - officers now have beds on a cruise ship - but they don't have private rooms and are still working five, 12-hour days.
Compass, the police superintendent, resigned Sept. 27. Despite more than 10 years of reform efforts dating to before he took office, police were dogged by allegations of brutality and corruption.
On Friday, state authorities said they were investigating allegations that New Orleans police broke into a dealership and made off with nearly 200 cars - including 41 new Cadillacs - as the storm closed in.
<#==#>
how do the police spell $revenue$ - out of state plates????
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1010outofstate.html
Out-of-state plates draw crackdown
Rachel Stults
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 10, 2005 12:00 AM
If you have an out-of-state license plate, state authorities are waiting for you.
Where you work. Where you shop. Even where you take the kids to school.
State authorities, eager to recoup the millions of dollars lost each year from drivers who don't properly register their vehicles, are on the lookout for license plates that don't say "Arizona." That means people who work in the state - even those who are only here temporarily - must obtain proper plates, or they could soon see a citation stuck to their windshield.
Just ask Josh Laurandeau of Montana. The electrical engineer was brought in as an expert to work on the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station. But as he left work Thursday, 20 MVD officers greeted him and other employees outside the plant's exit at the end of their shift. By the end of the day, the officers handed out 111 citations to 82 employees, mostly for out-of-state plates.
"I'm a resident of another state, but we come in to fix this plant because there's not enough experts here to do it," Laurandeau said. "Next time they have a power problem, they better buy candles."
Laurandeau, who has been here for about six months and is renting an apartment per diem in Avondale, said he plans to stay in Arizona for at least 70 days or until the project is done. When it is, Laurandeau said, he won't come back if he can help it.
"I've been doing this for eight years, and no other state has ever done this," said Laurandeau, who works for Bechtel Corp., a company that contracts across the country.
People who receive a citation may have to go to court to prove their temporary status, or pay up to a $300 fine.
A spokeswoman with the state's Motor Vehicle Division said all drivers must pay their fair shares to keep up with the state's growth. So enforcement officers are targeting everything from small to large businesses, school districts, state agencies and even strip-mall parking lots.
But some experts warn that such a tough stance could alienate potential employees and residents, especially contractors and consultants who work on a temporary basis.
Contractor Bruce Gendvil, 67, who got here just over a week ago and received a citation Thursday, said he thinks the MVD enforcement is a scam.
"If we had to register in every state we work in, it wouldn't be worth it," Gendvil said.
In Arizona, registration fees vary depending on the value of the car. For example, a $20,000 vehicle could cost about $330 in fees. New residents are required to register their out-of-state vehicles immediately.
State law defines a resident as a person employed in Arizona or someone who remains here for seven months or more in a calendar year. Temporary workers are given a three-month grace period. But once that time is up, residents should get their plates changed or risk going to court.
The law is not a new one, but as more people move to the state, officials say they need to help fund the roadways, said Cydney DeModica, an MVD spokeswoman.
"We're an extremely transient state," she said. "We have many people moving here every single day, and everybody out there is enjoying some of the best roads in the nation."
Officials don't have a good estimate of just how much they could be losing, but since July, the state has raked in nearly $5 million from enforcement of unregistered and expired plates. The incident at Palo Verde was one of MVD's biggest, and enforcement officers spent more than two weeks planning the sweep.
Arizona Public Service Co. officials said they did not know about the enforcement until it happened. But they condone what MVD is doing and see no repercussions to their future business interactions with contracting companies.
"As a company, we certainly advocate people following the laws of the state," said Jim McDonald, an APS spokesman. "I don't see a controversy about it. We all have to pay our taxes."
But some Valley contracting recruiters disagree.
Such strict laws could cause major repercussions in the state's needy market for contracting and consulting, said Kathy Garcia-Colace, managing partner of JBN & Associates, a Scottsdale-based national recruiting firm.
Out-of-state experts are a necessity in a growing city, and the consequences of the laws could alienate potential employees and residents, Garcia-Colace said.
"It's a positive impact any time we get people in to the city to work," she said. "I think it's unrealistic to expect that anybody who's coming here on a contract basis would pay for registration.
JBN executive recruiter Matthew Lissy said that if the state continues its crackdown, it will have an impact.
"There's already a shortage of people to get these jobs done," he said. "If that's going to be the case, it's just going to present that many more challenges."
Reach the reporter at rachel.stults@arizonarepublic .com or (602) 444-4138. Reporter Lindsey Collom contributed to this article.
<#==#>
sure the voice-stress lie detector doesnt work, but any detective will tell you that it is a great way to force a person to make a confession. (remember when your a cop its how many people you put in jail that gets you raises. it doesnt matter if you jail innocent people)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1010voicestress.html
Arguments rage over voice-stress lie detector
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 10, 2005 12:00 AM
At least 20 Arizona law enforcement agencies are relying on a voice-measuring lie detector for criminal investigations even though experts say the device does not stand up to scientific scrutiny and may prompt innocent suspects to make false confessions.
The Computer Voice Stress Analyzer, or CVSA, purportedly measures FM radio waves produced by muscles around the larynx. Deceptive answers cause stressful "micro-tremors" in the voice that are charted by the device's software program, the manufacturer says.
Yet, independent experts have consistently found the instrument to be dubious, at best, when it comes to separating truth from lies. And, while increasingly more police agencies are using it to interrogate suspects and assess witnesses, they don't use the machine for internal investigations or to screen recruits.
The Department of Defense Polygraph Institute concluded that CVSA produced "dismal results" and "no examiner did better than the chance level."
Two years ago, the National Academy of Sciences reviewed voice-stress studies and concluded there is "little or no scientific basis" to consider the device an alternative to polygraph machines.
And a report done for the International Association of Chiefs of Police found: "Whatever the CVSA may record, it is not stress. . . . The poor validity for the current voice stress-technology should provide a caveat to agencies considering adding voice stress to their investigative toolboxes."
Despite those critiques, the company behind CVSA claims its device is more accurate than a polygraph machine, and has solved hundreds of crimes across the country.
Charles Humble, chairman and chief executive officer of the business known as National Institute for Truth Verification, said voice-stress technology helps detectives target the bad guys during investigations, and clears innocent suspects who might otherwise remain under suspicion. It also is used to check witnesses' veracity.
"We believe the system is 100 percent accurate," Humble added.
Widespread popularity
According to the institute, 1,400 American law enforcement agencies have purchased Computer Voice Stress Analyzers in recent years, at $10,760 per machine.
The device is purportedly used in Iraq by counterintelligence forces and at the military's terrorism detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In Arizona, it is employed by the state Department of Public Safety, Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and police in Mesa, Glendale, Gilbert and Avondale, to name a few. It also has been used in training programs at Fort Huachuca, the Army's intelligence training center in southern Arizona.
The institute's literature identifies research works that seem to endorse the instrument. One study found "100 percent agreement between CVSA and the polygraph." Another concluded it is "accurate when utilized as a truth verification device, and produced a confession rate of 94.8 percent."
Humble acknowledged, however, that no independent testing has demonstrated the machine's integrity. He claimed CVSA cannot be evaluated under laboratory conditions because stressful deviations occur only when an interrogation subject is afraid of prison or the death penalty.
"We never really had the funding to do that, to take it to a university and pay for all the researchers," he said.
Competes with polygraph
Peoria police Detective Tom Stewart, who has administered dozens of CVSA exams, said suspects often crack when told they are facing a foolproof deception-detector.
"I don't know if this thing works," Stewart admitted. "But it works for me in getting people to see the light. . . . They deny doing it right up to the point of me asking the first question. Then they break down and say, 'You don't need to do the test. I'm guilty.' "
Before CVSA, Stewart said, police departments had to pay $150 for private polygraph exams or wait days for state examiners to be available. With voice-stress testing, he said, getting confessions is faster, cheaper and easier.
CVSA technology is based on research first conducted by the Army four decades ago. A pair of retired officers took their findings to the public in 1970 with an instrument called the Psychological Stress Evaluator.
Several other machines also hit the market, producing inaccurate results and false convictions. Scandal nearly killed the industry.
In 1988, the institute began manufacturing a new, improved machine that now dominates the market. The company Web site advertises several advantages over polygraphy:
• While the CVSA laptop is more expensive, total costs are about half because examiners need only six days of training, compared with eight weeks for polygraphers.
• CVSA can evaluate statements, rather than just yes or no answers.
• Results are valid even if a subject is sick, drunk or drugged.
• The machines are portable and testing can be done with live subjects or recordings.
• There are no "inconclusive" results.
But critics say the biggest advantage for detectives is that validity doesn't matter.
"It's complete nonsense," said Richard Leo, a professor of psychology and criminology at the University of California-Irvine who specializes in police interrogations. "It's junk science with a capital J. I think these CVSA machines are dangerous, and they are contributing to the process that elicits false confessions."
Added Steve Drizen, legal director at Northwestern Law's Center on Wrongful Convictions: "The problem is that an innocent suspect volunteers to take the test and, when told that he failed, reaches the point of hopelessness where he can be easily persuaded to confess."
False confessions
Stewart, the Peoria detective, said he is convinced an innocent suspect would not confess "unless maybe he's a little bit off, a little crazy."
Defense lawyers and researchers point out that criminal suspects frequently are "a little bit off" due to mental illness, drug addiction or alcoholism.
Drizen said death-penalty reviews and DNA evidence have exposed "legions of false confessions" made after prolonged interrogations and failed lie-detection exams. Because detectives are legally entitled to lie during questioning, often fabricating witnesses and evidences, some suspects lose a sense of reality.
They want to be good citizens. They are eager to cooperate. After failing a lie-detector exam, Drizen said, some inexplicably embrace crimes they never committed.
The result: Detectives waste time on the wrong suspect, justice is eroded, tax dollars are squandered, and the real culprit is never apprehended.
Despite the controversy, use of voice stress analyzers is proliferating. As Humble put it, "We're growing almost dramatically."
Vallejo, Calif., police Cpl. Harry Bennigson, who heads the Pacific Association of Certified Stress Analysts, said the machine gets results.
"I'm convinced it works," he said. "What I like about it is we actually clear a lot of (innocent) people that we otherwise would not be able to clear."
Despite such testimonials, Arizona police departments do not use CVSA for internal affairs investigations.
The state's Peace Officer Standards and Training agency, which regulates law officers statewide, does not allow voice-stress screening of certificate candidates.
Robert Forrey, standards and certification manager, said only polygraph exams are accepted because CVSA science is unproven.
Most of the Arizona CVSA examiners contacted for this story would not comment publicly.
Still, Humble insists that the criticism and damning research come mainly from polygraph advocates who are hell-bent on slandering CVSA to protect their lucrative lie-detection market.
Frank Horvath, former president of the American Polygraph Association and a justice professor at the University of Minnesota, denied the claim.
"It's just marketing hype. If they actually worked, you can bet your life I'd be using them," Horvath said.
He expressed shock that military and counterterrorism officials may be using CVSA, and warned about the nation gathering false intelligence.
"I believe the manufacturers know that they are just a gimmick, a toy," he added.
"It just misleads investigators."
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1010voicestress-side.html
Phoenix case is example of innocent confessing
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 10, 2005 12:00 AM
At the heart of the debate over voice-stress analysis is the possibility that innocent people will confess to crimes they never committed.
Consider what happened in June 2003, when Maricopa County sheriff's detectives developed a lead on one of their biggest unsolved murder cases.
A woman told investigators that 51-year-old machinist Robert Louis Armstrong was the triggerman in a triple homicide that occurred on Easter 1998.
The informer purportedly passed a Computer Voice Stress Analyzer test.
Armstrong, with a history of brain damage and drug abuse, had no idea why he was picked up for questioning. He denied knowing victims Ronald Hutchinson, Dewey Peters and Crystal Allison, who were gunned down while enjoying beer and a bonfire along the Agua Fria River bottom.
He swore that he was visiting his mother in Oregon.
Detectives told Armstrong he got the date wrong. They had physical evidence and a witness. They showed Armstrong pictures of the bloodied victims. They suggested he must have blacked out, and offered scenarios to explain his involvement.
Armstrong wept and pleaded. He said he was a good person.
After several hours, detectives offered Armstrong a CVSA exam. He eagerly agreed.
"I'm not trying to beat it," he noted minutes later.
"You didn't," replied a detective, laughing. "It caught ya, OK?"
"(But) I was in Oregon," Armstrong protested.
"That was one of the questions you failed."
Armstrong cried out to God for forgiveness. Then, with details provided by deputies, he told of a drunken slaughter: "I just panicked and started shootin' everything," he said. "I'm sorry. I deserve to die."
Armstrong spent a year in jail, awaiting trial and a possible lethal injection.
Then his defense team discovered bus company records placing the defendant in Portland, Ore., at the time of the killings.
The state's lead witness, confronted with that evidence, recanted.
Armstrong was freed. He is suing the Sheriff's Office, which declined comment for this article.
Buddy Rake, Armstrong's attorney, said: "It's so easy to abuse the voice-stress analyzer.
"We know of other instances where they extracted confessions from people who were not guilty."
Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8874.
<#==#>
watch out!!!! those pig dogs are dangerous. in this scottsdale police killing the k-9 dog attacked the cops.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=50222
Scottsdale officer shoots, kills man
By Gary Grado, Tribune
October 10, 2005
A Scottsdale police officer shot and killed a man who was reportedly wielding a metal pipe early today on Hayden Road. Police spokesman Sam Bailey said an employee at Scottsdale Paint and Body Shop, 315 N. Hayden Road, called police after seeing a man break a car window in the parking lot.
The man attacked the employee, who wasn’t injured, police said. Police have not identified the man.
The responding officer confronted the man in the middle of Hayden Road, where the officer, who was alone, shot the man at least once in the upper torso, police said.
“He continued to fight after he was shot,” Bailey said.
A second officer arrived with a K-9 unit and began helping the first officer subdue the man, but the dog attacked the two officers. The man was pronounced dead at Scottsdale Healthcare Osborn hospital.
It was the second officer-involved shooting this year in Scottsdale. A Scottsdale officer shot and killed an armed parole violator Sept. 7 when he resisted arrest.
Contact Gary Grado by email, or phone (602) 258-1746
<#==#>
this is government double speak for saying "we are stealing the property of homeless people and destroying their campsites to chase them out of town"
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AZ_HOMELESS_CAMPS_AZOL-?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 10, 11:58 AM EDT
Dump sites left by homeless a growing problem in Pima County
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Pima County has cleaned up nearly twice as many homeless camps since early 2002 as it did in the 10 years prior, a sign of what environmental officials are calling a growing problem.
Homeless camps pose problems because of the trash that accumulates around them, worrying both nearby residents and environmental officials.
The increase is a direct sign that more people have complained about the trash dumping, although it's not certain if there are actually more dumps, said K.C. Custer, an environmental enforcement officer for the County Department of Environmental Quality.
Department records show that about 29 percent of all wildcat dumps the department cleaned up in the past three years and nine months were homeless camps.
Most recently, officials removed about 200 pounds of trash from a camp across the street from an elementary school.
The camp, which was used by at least two transients, was far from the biggest. A backpack, a chair, a crumpled tent and two bicycles were among the most prominent sights at the dump, which sat hidden from many passersby by a mesquite grove.
"I'd gotten to the point where I wouldn't go out after dark to take out the garbage," said Kathy McCall, who lives in a nearby neighborhood. "Maybe I'm paranoid, but it just makes you nervous when you know the stuff that goes on in places like that."
Most camps are far larger, holding up to 50 people and 8 tons of garbage. A cleanup in another area consumed four weekends. Five camps were cleaned two to three times each since 2002 after transients kept returning.
"They are a big health problem. You've got disease in the feces, and disease in the garbage, bedding and clothing," Custer said. "They get moldy. Some people out there are druggies. You get syringes all around."
Before the county empties a homeless camp, it sends in social service officials, offering to get the homeless job training, food and temporary housing.
Many or most times, the homeless people choose not to take advantage of those services, Custer and other county officials said.
Lonnie Reiger, a volunteer at a food kitchen, said he keeps a clean camp in the Santa Cruz River and hauls his trash out.
He said many transients don't want social services to change their lifestyles because they believe that most of the help they get is temporary, and "then they're back out there."
<#==#>
To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com
From: terry@terrybressi.org
Date: Mon, 10 Oct 2005 15:28:45 -0700 (MST)
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] Re: How I Said No to the Automatic Social Security Number
Bennett Samuel Kalafut wrote:
>>And, of course, we're all still wondering how it is you imagine she
actually HAS some future tax liability.... ;-)
>
>Just like you and me.
>
>-BSK
I don't have the time right now to fully develop this thought so I'll point you to a few links that may be a little eye-opening.
There are currently several counties in Texas whose employees do not participate in social security. The counties specifically opted out of social security back in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Consequently, county employees within these geographic areas pay NO social security taxes.
How is this legally permissable if the Supreme Court has ruled that revenue raised from the social security program represent general taxes that go into the general treasury - to be budgeted and spent as Congress deems fit with no vestment rights associated with individual payers of the tax?
* http://www.window.state.tx.us/comptrol/fnotes/fn0110/outside.html
* http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20050316/oplede16.art.htm
*
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:LfKYOmQOlEYJ:www.tppf.org/government/perspect/holbrook.html+Texas+county+no+social+security&hl=en
If employees in Galveston, Brazoria and Matagorda Couny (Texas) are indviduals "just like you and me", why do they pay NO social security taxes? How/why were they able to 'opt out' of the system and what does that say about the constitutionality of social security to begin with? How can social security taxes meet the constitutional requirements of being either geographically uniform or apportioned if certain classes of individuals with similar circumstances are not treated 'just like you and me'? How can some individuals be prosecuted and jailed for failure to pay social security taxes when others making a similar level of 'income' not only don't pay but have the blessings of the federal government behind them?
On a different note - I don't know how you're using it but the phrase 'tax protestor' refers to individuals that either know or believe they have a tax liability but seek to avoid their legal obligation through deceit, fraud, etc. This term obviously doesn't apply to individuals who either do not believe they have a tax liability or are seeking answers to the legality and constitutionality of the current taxing system.
The first step in determining whether or not one has an individual liability is to determine whether or not the taxing scheme is legal in its implementation and constitutional in its origins. Questions that all three branches of the federal gov't have repeatedly refused to answer or discuss in any relevant detail regarding the income tax. Indeed, many judges at the federal level even refuse to allow defendants to reference the law in their own defense during tax trials. Given the lack of due process surrounding tax trials within the judicial system, the question to ask is not why aren't there more successful court cases but rather - how have individuals such as Lloyd Long, Vernie Kuglin, and Joe Banister been successful at all....
The CATO Institute put together a good summary of the various civil rights abuses associated with the income tax system several years ago. The article can be accessed at:
http://www.cato.org/dailys/04-11-02.html
Terry
<#==#>
hey kevin i forgot to ask you this.
but it is real intersting that prior to your conviction that they forced you to take your drugs under the guise that they claimed that you were a danger to your self and the rest of society. and i suspec that they also made the lie that you needed the drugs so you could think properly for your trial.
now if it were true and your really are a danger to yourself and everybody around you it would seem REALLY important that they make you take the drugs in prison so you dont become violent and hurt other inmate.
of course that shame is exposed when you tell the nurse that the drugs dont help you at all and instead of her forcing you to take the drugs she says "no problem. the drugs dont help you, then dont take them"
i suspect that she knows also that it was a sham all along and that you never really needed the drugs and that this nonsense about you being a schizophrenic was just a sham for the secret service to jail you and use the shrinks to see if you were a threat to the president.
and even that is a sham because the reason reason for jailing you is to provide a jobs program for secret service agents. if they dont tell the president that there are all kinds of crazy people who are a real threat to him and could kill him they lose there jobs. so by demonizing you and other people they get to prove to the president and congress that there are lots of dangerous people who want to kill the president. so sadly all your misery you have had to suffer is because you are part of a jobs program to justify secret service jobs. i suspect a good case for my anarchist views that govenrment doesnt really would and should be eliminated
<#==#>
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2005 13:49:19 -0700
From: "Alan Korwin" <alan@GUNLAWS.COM> Add to Address Book Add Mobile Alert
Subject: Hard Facts on Voter ID
To: AZRKBA@asu.edu
Good points John:
Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 09:07:10 -0700
From: John Wilde <imptaskforce@GETNET.NET>
Subject: Re: Voter ID Hard Facts
As is the usual case, the discussion avoids the real issue. At the federal level, universal sufferage was never intended to be the rule. Only property owners and businessmen subject to tax were to vote because the laws could only be written to affect them. Of course with the implimentation of the income tax and the attempt to impose general universal taxation during WWII, people were conned into participating in the elective process at the federal level. And now that universal sufferage does exist, the inscrupulous folks have injected fraud into the mix. Voter fraud is a symptom of a system of sufferage that should not exist. It is not a problem.
Remove the income tax and a whole passle of unintended consequences will cease to exist, including for the most part voter fraud.
g'day
John Wilde
My campaign to identify good laws we could use yielded this thought from Gun Rights Policy Conference, which relates to your point (I'll be circulating a full list of ideas soon):
A person receiving welfare payments cannot vote while on the dole.
Alan.
--
Contact:
Alan Korwin
BLOOMFIELD PRESS
"We publish the gun laws."
4718 E. Cactus #440
Phoenix, AZ 85032
602-996-4020 Phone
602-494-0679 FAX
1-800-707-4020 Orders
http://www.gunlaws.com
alan@gunlaws.com
Call, write, fax or click for a free catalog.
Encourage politicians to pass more laws...
with expiration dates.
<#==#>
man who was beaten up by new orleans police for being drunk says he hasnt had a drink for 25 years!!!!
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1011tapedbeating11.html
Beaten retiree denies police accusations
Rachel La Corte
Associated Press
Oct. 11, 2005 12:00 AM
NEW ORLEANS - A retired elementary teacher who was repeatedly punched in the head by police in an incident caught on videotape said Monday he was not drunk, put up no resistance and was baffled by what happened.
Robert Davis, who said he had returned to New Orleans to check on property his family owns in the storm-ravaged city, said he was out looking to buy cigarettes when he was beaten and arrested Saturday night in the French Quarter.
Police have alleged that the 64-year-old Davis was publicly intoxicated, a charge he strongly denied as he stood on the street corner where the incident played out Saturday.
"I haven't had a drink in 25 years," Davis said. He had stitches beneath his left eye, a bandage on his left hand and complained of soreness in his back and aches in his left shoulder.
A federal civil rights investigation into the case was to begin. Davis is Black. The three city police officers seen on the tape are White. Police spokesman Marlon Defillo said race was not an issue.
Two city officers accused in the beating, and a third officer accused of grabbing and shoving an Associated Press Television News producer who helped document the confrontation, pleaded not guilty Monday to battery charges.
Trial was set at a hearing Monday for Jan. 11. Afterward, officers Lance Schilling, Robert Evangelist and S.M. Smith were released on bond. They left without commenting.
Police Superintendent Warren Riley said any misconduct would be dealt with swiftly. He noted the video showed "a portion of that incident."
"The actions that were observed on this video are certainly unacceptable by this department," Riley said.
Two other officials in the video appeared to be federal officers, according to police. Numerous agencies have sent officers to help with patrols in the aftermath of Katrina.
Stephen Kodak, an FBI spokesman in Washington, said none of its agents had been disciplined. He said the FBI was taking part in the Justice Department's civil rights probe.
Davis said he had been walking in the French Quarter and approached a mounted police officer to ask about the curfew in the city when another officer interrupted.
"This other guy interfered and I said he shouldn't," Davis said. "I started to cross the street and - bam - I got it."
He said he did not know why the punches were thrown.
The APTN tape shows an officer hitting Davis at least four times in the head outside of a bar.
Davis twisted and flailed as he was dragged to the ground by several officers. Davis' lawyer said his client did not resist.
"I don't think that when a person is getting beat up there's a whole lot of thought. It's survival. You don't have a whole lot of time to think when you're being pummeled," lawyer Joseph Bruno said.
Davis was kneed and pushed to the sidewalk with blood streaming down his arm and into the gutter.
The officers accused of striking Davis were identified as Schilling and Evangelist.
Mayor Ray Nagin said, "I don't know what the gentleman did, but whatever he did, he didn't deserve what I saw on tape."
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i guess the new orleans cops are saying that all that stress makes it tough on them and it is ok for them to rob, loot and beat up black grandfathers. too bad they wont give us civilians the same slack.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1011neworleans-police11.html
Unprecedented strain taking its toll on New Orleans police
Mary Foster
Associated Press
Oct. 11, 2005 12:00 AM
NEW ORLEANS - Their homes are gone, their families scattered, their reputations sliding by the day.
Home for most New Orleans police officers is a cramped cruise ship, and work is 12- to 14-hour days in a wrecked city. When time off does come along, there is nowhere to go and no one to spend it with.
Experts say the personal and professional upheaval is catching up with the New Orleans police force in the form of desertions, suicides, corruption and perhaps even the videotaped beating by officers of a 64-year-old man in the French Quarter.
"This is unprecedented in our country," said Dr. Howard Osofsky, chairman of psychiatry at the LSU Medical School Health Sciences Department. "There is no disaster that has had the amount of trauma for a department that this has, where so many police officers have lost homes, been separated from their families, had loved ones living in other places with no idea when they'll return."
Not even the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 have matched the strain produced by the hurricane and its ensuing rescues, evacuations and searches for the living and dead, said Osofsky, who is working with New Orleans officers and their families.
Like about 80 percent of the New Orleans force, 46-year-old Ronald Gillard, a 15-year veteran, lost his house to the storm. But when the winds died down, he was back at work.
"We went to the flooded areas and just started rescuing people," he said. "We worked as long as we could, then I slept on the floor in a hotel lobby. We were eating cold food out of cans we found."
Gillard called the cruise ship housing a lifesaver, even though police are usually two to a room. "If it wasn't for that, being able to eat a hot meal, having a place to stay, I think I would have lost my mind," he said.
When Katrina passed, the department found itself without communications, with officers cut off from each other and headquarters. Lawlessness spread through the city. Rescue workers reported being shot at. Police Superintendent Eddie Compass publicly repeated allegations - later debunked - that people were being beaten and babies raped at the convention center.
At least two officers took their own lives in Katrina's aftermath. Compass resigned last month. At the same time, the 1,450-member department said it was investigating nearly 250 officers accused of leaving their posts and 12 suspected of looting or condoning looting.
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this shows that the people in governments write the history books. and in this history book instead of john mccain being a murder who dropped napalm on women and children in vietnam he is a hero. pat tillman another murder who quit being a football star to help the american empire enslave the people afganhistan is also listed in this book as a hero.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1011mccainbook.html
McCain's book mines history for virtues
Senator writes to kids, adults about choices
Billy House
Republic Washington Bureau
Oct. 11, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - Arizona Sen. John McCain, a potential 2008 presidential candidate, speaks to children and young adults about making virtuous choices in his latest book, Character Is Destiny: Inspiring Stories Every Young Person Should Know and Every Adult Should Remember.
The book, the fourth the Republican senator has written with co-author Mark Salter, tells the stories of 34 historical figures and lesser-known "heroes," from George Washington, Tecumseh and Mother Teresa, to former Arizona Cardinals football player Pat Tillman and a nun who works with prisoners in Mexico's worst prisons.
Through their lives, McCain writes, these people have illustrated any of 35 virtuous character traits such as honesty, loyalty, curiosity and enthusiasm, and exemplify the best of the human spirit.
Young Americans too often are ignored by politicians, except for platitudes about education, "just say no" messages and hackneyed slogans about them being "our future."
Here, though, a major political figure is writing directly to youngsters, in a non-condescending way, about tough choices that arise in life and the need to be true to oneself.
The underlying message in the book (Random House, $23.95. Publication date Nov. 1) is that McCain does not believe in inevitable destiny. Rather, he explains, "It is your character, and your character alone, that will make your life happy or unhappy. That is all that really passes for destiny. And you choose it."
In the end, McCain insists, it's up to the readers themselves to decide whether to be honest or deceitful, responsible or unreliable, brave or cowardly, kind or cruel. Athletic ability, good looks, intelligence and popularity, he says, have nothing to do with making the right choices.
For example, in a chapter on "citizenship," McCain focuses on Tillman, the football player who turned down a multimillion-dollar contract with the Arizona Cardinals to enlist in the Army, then was killed in 2004 in Afghanistan.
The precise manner of Tillman's death by friendly fire and the Army's initial withholding of those facts make him no less heroic, McCain writes of Tillman, who he says gave away fortune and fame as a celebrity to serve his country.
"We can only remember him as someone to admire, someone to emulate if we have his courage and decency and patriotism," McCain says.
In a chapter describing "mercy," McCain turns to the story of Mother Antonia, also known as "Madre Antonia," a one-time Beverly Hills debutante who now works with prisoners in some of Mexico's worst prisons.
And in the only chapter touching on his own 5 ½-year ordeal as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, McCain writes about "faith" by recalling a brief moment of kindness from one of his Vietnamese guards.
McCain also seeks to illustrate "idealism" through a chapter on abolitionist Sojourner Truth; writes about "curiosity" with a look at Charles Darwin; "humor" by recalling Mark Twain; "cooperation" with a part about college basketball coaching legend John Wooden; "respect" through the example of Gandhi; "enthusiasm" with a chapter on Theodore Roosevelt; "forgiveness" with a glimpse at Nelson Mandela; and a list of other virtues through the stories of more than two dozen others.
As for himself, McCain, 69, says he stands to learn as much as any reader from the stories of individual character the selected subjects in his book provide.
"The best I can claim for my own character is that it is still, even at this late date, a work in progress," the four-term GOP senator says.
"Many good people mistake their reputation for their character. It is a mistake I have made many, many times," McCain writes. "Of course, our reputation should be a reflection of our character. But sometimes, through no fault of our own, it is not.
"We must be true to ourselves. And we must be true to others, whether they believe we are or not."
The father of seven children, McCain also writes that parents can be the best teachers, but like everyone else, they make mistakes.
"Parents are not the all-knowing, ideal people we would like you to think we are. We've made wrong choices before, and will again, like everyone else," McCain writes. "But our mistakes are not the measure of our love for you. You are that measure, and how well you are prepared to make better choices than we have made."
McCain even recounts how his 93-year-old mother, Roberta, still gives him character advice and lessons.
He tells how his mother once rebuked him, though he was already over age 60 at the time, upon reading an article in which he was quoted using what she considered inappropriate language in referring to his Vietnamese jailers during the war.
"But mother," McCain said he argued, "they were very bad men."
"That doesn't matter," was her response. "I never taught you to use that kind of language, and I have half a mind to wash your mouth out with soap."
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHURCH_ABUSE?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 12, 8:07 AM EDT
Complaints of Priest Abuse Were Ignored
By LAURA WIDES
Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- For decades, the Los Angeles Archdiocese ignored parishioners' sex abuse complaints and shipped accused priests between therapy and new assignments, according to newly released personnel records involving 126 clergymen.
In many cases, there was little mention of child molestation. Instead, euphemisms such as "boundary violations" were used to describe the conduct.
The summaries of the personnel records were released Tuesday as part of settlement talks with lawyers for more than 500 accusers who sued the nation's largest Roman Catholic archdiocese.
The records, released after nearly three years of legal wrangling, cover priests who were ordained as far back as the 1920s. The documents offer details in numerous cases, though much of the information has already been published.
Raymond P. Boucher, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said the newly released information was a first step but that complete personnel files, including letters of transfer and other confidential documents, should be made public.
"The significance of these files is that they provide a little more information for the public about the church's knowledge and frankly their participation in the molestation of children, but until the (entire) files are made public, we're not going to be satisfied," he said.
Archdiocese and plaintiff attorneys had agreed to release the information, but lawyers for the accused clergy succeeded in blocking publication, arguing it would violate their clients' privacy rights.
An appellate court ordered the documents released last month.
Archdiocese attorney J. Michael Hennigan called Boucher's concerns that the summaries might be whitewashed "nonsense."
"Ray has not seen the files themselves and has no basis to say that beyond speculation," he said. "These are accurate descriptions of the content of the files, without disclosing confidential communication."
One priest, who served as a teacher and administrator at numerous Southern California schools, was convicted of molesting two boys and given probation. The conviction was later expunged from his record.
A subsequent report was made in 1994 of "boundary violations," in which he allegedly patted the buttocks of a teenager. He entered alcohol treatment days later and was eventually placed on leave.
Another priest's file shows the archdiocese received repeated complaints that he engaged in "inappropriate sexual conduct with children" beginning in 1959, but that it did not appear to take significant action against him until 1994 when he was relieved of his duties, documents said.
David Clohessy, who heads a victims' rights group, called the information release a "shrewd public relations effort," as civil cases against the clergy inch toward trial.
But Hennigan said in the early days of the accusations, church officials did not go to civil authorities because "parents of children who had been victims did not want their children famous for this. They did not want people talking about this."
Hennigan said that in many cases counseling was offered to clergymen accused of abuse. Those accused were generally removed from the ministry altogether as church officials' understanding of sexual abuse increased, he said.
The files show that in many cases the church provided years of therapy to some of the clergy.
The archdiocese has posted nearly 150 pages of summaries from the clergy files on its Web site.
http://www.la-archdiocese.org
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these are the goverment rulers that we have trusted to make our children smarter by educating them in public schools?????
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1012tombstone.html
No students attend Tombstone school
Local officials can't afford to pave road
Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Oct. 12, 2005 12:00 AM
TOMBSTONE - Tombstone has a brand-new, state-of-the-art, $6.8 million high school for the first time in 83 years.
But there's one problem: Local officials ran out of money before they fixed the road that leads to the school.
"The school looks great," said J. Ronald Hennings, the school superintendent. "We just can't get kids to it."
The new Tombstone High School, funded by the Arizona School Facilities Board, is about 15 months behind schedule and about $600,000 over initial budget estimates, Hennings said.
Worse, Tombstone Unified School District is about $250,000 to $350,000 short of the amount needed to make the city-owned road that connects the school to Arizona 80 safe enough for school buses, delaying the opening of the school indefinitely.
So instead of hosting its first homecoming this fall, the school sat unoccupied while state and local school officials argued about how to pay for a short stretch of road.
The shelves in the library, with floor-to-ceiling windows, are still empty. The cafeteria is full of boxes of new chairs and desks, just waiting to be unwrapped.
"It's like David and Goliath," Hennings said of the local district's struggle to get enough money from the Phoenix-based facilities board, which administers state money for school construction projects. "We've got a little, impoverished school district down here. We're too small and unimportant for (the facilities board) to be worried about us."
But former executive director of the board, William Bell, who on Oct. 6 accepted an appointment by Gov. Janet Napolitano to head the state Department of Administration, says the state has made exceptions to its rules to help Tombstone. He said the state even picked up the tab when the project ran over budget. And he accused Hennings of misrepresenting the board's actions, saying he's tried to be as responsive as possible.
"We built the school," Bell said. "And in addition to that, we provided . . . more than what was in the budget."
As for the road, he said, "That's a separate issue," adding that the facilities board "does not do off-site improvement."
Anything considered "off-site," like building a road, typically is covered by a local school district's tax money, Bell said. Though he added that in this case, the board is looking into making an exception for Tombstone's new school, considering the financial woes of the small, rural district in southeastern Arizona.
A money pit
The new site, some 57 acres of desert that sits in a valley with clear views of the Huachuca and Dragoon mountains, seemed like a bargain a few years ago, school officials said. The land itself, owned by the state, cost about $75,000 in a lease agreement signed in 2003.
But the bills started racking up quickly, Henning said. There were no gas, electric or fiber-optic lines to the site, some three miles north of Tombstone.
The gravel road that led from the highway to a city sewage treatment plant, also used by a construction crew to build the school, was deemed unsafe for 30,000-pound school buses full of students, according to engineering reports and school facilities records. The road would need to be leveled out and paved, and connected to Arizona 80 with turning lanes, according to the reports.
The school district, which plans to drain a reserve account of $300,000 for road improvements, simply can't afford to shoulder the whole cost of the road improvements, Hennings said. Most of roughly 1,500 people who live in Tombstone work in the service industry, and about 62 percent of students in the district already receive free and reduced lunch, an example of the former mining town's poverty.
Cochise County agreed to pave the roughly 1,000-yard stretch of dirt road that connects the highway to the school at cost, using local gravel, saving $170,000 for the district. And the Arizona Department of Transportation agreed to waive $61,000 in permits, Henning said.
But that still leaves about $250,000 to $350,000, depending on how the bids come in, he said.
Hennings has asked the Arizona School Risk Retention Trust, a Phoenix-based corporation that insures Arizona schools, to chip in $100,000. A spokesman for the school trust did not return phone calls.
Bell said the board is waiting for a formal commitment from the insurance company before chipping in the $150,000 that Tombstone officials have requested.
Bell also said that board members have another lingering question: Why isn't the city of Tombstone, which owns the road, helping to pay for the improvements?
When asked about the road funding, Tombstone Mayor Andree De Journett said: "I don't know anything about it," and referred comment to Hennings and Marilynn Slade, the city clerk.
Slade said the city has its own "budget issues," but is working to ensure students can move into to the new school. The city has applied for an Arizona Department of Transportation loan as backup in case the facilities board decides against chipping in for the road, she said.
"One way or another," Slade said, "that road will get built."
Looking forward
In the meantime, the roughly 350 high school students are attending classes in a 30,000-square-foot building built in 1922, one of the longest continually used school buildings in the state, Hennings said.
The school district has taken students out for a peek at the new school, which is more than twice the size of the old one, with a brand new, indoor basketball court.
David Lopez, an 11th-grader at Tombstone High School, said there has been talk of the new school since his freshman year.
"It's kind of dragging out," he said. "We'll hear one thing . . . that we're moving in by Christmas, and then the next day we'll hear another, and week later we'll hear that we're not, that it won't be ready."
The 16-year-old, who plays basketball, baseball and football, said he expects to graduate from the new school, but he's not in a hurry. The old school has a connection for him, like many in Tombstone.
"I'm looking forward to going to a new school, but my dad and all my sisters and my family graduated from the old school, so I kind of want to graduate from the same place they did," he said.
Hennings hopes the facilities board will take up the road improvement funding at its next meeting, scheduled for Nov. 3 in Tucson.
"The kids are ready to move in," he said. "Our objective all along has been to get a safe and durable school for this community. We just need a little help."
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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/1013church13.html
Priest sex-abuse info could speed lawsuit deals
Gillian Flaccus
Associated Press
Oct. 13, 2005 12:00 AM
LOS ANGELES - Newly released documents detailing sex-abuse allegations against Roman Catholic priests could help speed hundreds of lawsuits toward settlement as the Los Angeles Archdiocese faces potentially damaging developments on other fronts in the abuse crisis.
The archdiocese posted summaries of the confidential files of 126 priests on its Web site at midnight Tuesday, even though they weren't expected to be made public for several weeks.
The archdiocese said it released the summaries to help victims heal and to make good on a deal made with plaintiffs during nearly three years of settlement talks. An appeals court ruling last month made it possible for the church to post the summaries, said Michael Hennigan, an archdiocesan attorney.
Critics who have been following the case called the release of the summaries a "public relations ploy" designed to move 560 sex-abuse cases closer to a settlement before damaging testimony in the upcoming sex-abuse trial of former priest Michael Wempe and the possible release of personnel files to the Los Angeles County district attorney, who is investigating clergy abuse in the nation's largest archdiocese.
The state's 2nd District Court of Appeals recently rejected the archdiocese's attempt to keep those files from prosecutors. The archdiocese has appealed to the state Supreme Court and expects to learn within weeks if the high court will hear its case.
District Attorney Steve Cooley did not address the latest document release in the civil cases, but said in a statement issued Wednesday that his office was "looking for . . . evidence and investigative leads, not institutional mea culpas" from Cardinal Roger Mahony, head of the archdiocese.
The clergy abuse litigation in Los Angeles is the largest such litigation that remains unsettled nationwide - and that, too, increases pressure on Mahony and the archdiocese, said Marci Hamilton, a professor at Cardozo Law School at New York City's Yeshiva University who consults with plaintiffs on constitutional law.
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saying dirty words around children is a crime???? i guess so f*ck the 1st to protect the children.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/1013nebriefs13.html
Man nabbed, suspected of luring 2 girls into car
SCOTTSDALE - Police arrested a man suspected of trying to lure young girls into his car in two incidents in Scottsdale.
Derek Herron was arrested and charged in connection with an incident with a 12-year-old near Scottsdale Road and Sutton Drive on Oct. 7 and a 15-year-old girl near Thunderbird Seventh Day Adventist Academy in September.
Herron, 20, reportedly made sexually explicit comments to the 12-year-old, police said.
The 15-year-old, to whom Herron reportedly made an advance near the Thunderbird Academy campus at 7410 E. Sutton Drive, was able to provide police with a description of the suspect.
Herron did not make contact with either girl, although police said he admitted being involved in both incidents.
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4 October 2005
Dear ******,
Thank you for writing, and thank you for the news summary you send me.
You ask what they make me do everyday. The answer is very little. We go to breakfast, get a sack lunch served in our cell, and go to dinner. Sundays, Wednesday, and Fridays we also have recreation and phones. Apart from that we are locked in our cells all day unless we are in some kind of program or have a work assignment. I have neither, so I spend most of my time reading or watching television.
I am not considered too dangerous to work. There just aren’t enough jobs available on the Rincon Unit for those who want to work. The CO III told me that only about one inmate in eight here has a job. Tom my cellmate, has a job cleaning the dining hall floor. He works a split shift seven days a week for a total of about 40 hours. For that he earns 25 cents per hour, but they deduct 45% from his paycheck for restitution he owes the victims.
I have applied for a job as a teacher’s aide, which pays 45 cents per hour. There are four other people applying for that one opening, however, and I am handicapped by only having a few more months to do. If I don’t get the job, I may sign up for Bible study just to get out of my cell for a little while (note: Kevin is an atheist and doesn’t believe in the Jesus myth).
I am sorry to hear your will be losing your job. I hope you find something else soon.
The administrator here is screwing up my paperwork. I completed a telephone call list when I got here but somehow it got lost and now I have to resubmit it again. I have been here since 17 August, and I have been unable to telephone my family. At least my mother was approved for visitation. I hope to see her soon.
I read in the newspaper that there was recently a large anti-war demonstration at 24th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix. It’s good to know the anti-war movement isn’t dead.
Yours,
Kevin
P.S. They don’t have any spare price lists now, but I’ll try to get you one.
From these Arizona laws I grabbed off the web it seems like the people that run the Arizona State prison are by law required to either work the inmates as much as possible as slave labor or put them into programs to make them better people or give them better job skills. It seems they are doing neither of these at the Rincon Prison.
Here are the laws I grabbed off the web:
State Prison
(a work week of OVER 40 hours is required)
ARS 31-251.
The director has the authority to require that each able-bodied prisoner ... engage in hard labor for not less than forty hours per week
"hard labor" means compulsory physical activity
no prisoner given a work assignment ... shall be considered an employee or to be employed by the state or the state ... whether the prisoner is compensated or not
ARS 31-253
The director ... shall use prisoner labor to the maximum extent feasible in the construction of all prison facilities.
(a maximun wage for prison slaves)
ARS 31-254.
Each prisoner who is engaged in productive work in any state prison or institution ... shall not exceed fifty cents per hour
(slaves get punished for filing lawsuits)
If the prisoner initiates a lawsuit, twenty per cent from all deposits to the prisoner's spendable account until the court fees are collected in full.
(slaves have to pay for their room and board)
Thirty per cent of the prisoner's wages for the room and board costs of maintaining the prisoner at the facility.
From Arizona Revised Statutes Title 31
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flagstaff cracks down on dirty sidewalks.
http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=117073
City cracking down on dirty sidewalks
10/12/2005
Don't forget to clean the sidewalks.
Beginning this week, the city of Flagstaff will enforce more strictly a sidewalk maintenance code because of an increase in the number of complaints regarding dirty city sidewalks.
The code mandates business and home owners, or the tenant in charge of any parcel of land, clear the sidewalks that sit adjacent to it within the first six hours of daylight after the debris accumulation. Debris includes cinders, trash, dirt, snow, ice or any other obstruction on the sidewalk.
Business districts will be inspected more thoroughly, and those found in violation will receive a letter requiring it cleaned within 24 hours. If it's not done, the city will perform the required cleaning, costing the business or property owner in charge up to $130 per hour.
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damn right there are too many government nannies passing silly and stupid rules to micromanage our lives. this is another good reason to get rid of the "government schools" which most of us call "public schools"
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=50434
Are there too many safety rules for kids?
By Hayley Ringle, Tribune
October 13, 2005
Merry-go-rounds, seesaws and tall metal slides are gone. East Valley schools also forbid tackle football, jumping off swings and hanging upside down from monkey bars. Students can still play tag — but they must "power walk" or skip at some schools because running is too dangerous. Pioneer Elementary School in Gilbert prohibits tag altogether.
And that’s just the beginning of the rules that principals, playground aides and lawmakers have created in recent years to keep schoolchildren safe.
Johnson Elementary School in Mesa banned flip-flops this semester to protect children from twisted ankles and stubbed toes. Sonoran Sky Elementary School in the Paradise Valley Unified School District requires children to wear hats when they go outdoors — a response to a new state law that requires public schools to teach about skin cancer. State lawmakers also passed a junk food ban this year to protect children from obesity.
And the Mesa Unified School District installed fences around its high schools this summer to keep students inside and protect them from lunchtime traffic crashes.
Gilbert parent Cindy Duffy said she agrees with some of the precautions, but she said many schools go too far in dictating what children can and cannot do.
"I think they’re taking away kids’ creativity," Duffy said. "Schools are telling them how to play, and that’s their creative time."
But Deb Pangrazi, program specialist for elementary physical education in the Mesa district, said educators have learned from all the broken bones and other injuries.
"I just think we’re much more responsible now," she said.
LETTING KIDS BE KIDS
Rhonda Clements, past president of the American Association for the Child’s Right to Play, disagreed. She said too many safety rules rob children of a chance to explore their world and take healthy risks.
"We’re seeing way too much adult-structured activity, and children aren’t free to make their own decisions," said Clements, director of graduate physical education at Manhattanville College in New York. "Sometimes children have to learn through trial and error."
She said kids need a chance to be kids.
"When they lowered the height of slides, kids began to jump off the top of the slide," she said. "A child is naturally going to find a way for that risk taking, and if we don’t give them that chance, we’ll have a society of children that are totally sheltered."
Chandler Christian School fifth-grader Kenzie McGinnis, 10, said she would welcome more playground freedom. She said she misses games such as dodgeball, which her school prohibits.
"We also can’t play tag on the playground equipment, which is really fun," Kenzie said. "I wish I could because it’s fun."
MODERN PLAYGROUND
School maintenance workers in Mesa used to design and build their own playground gear for students.
But the wood splintered, pieces came loose and metal bars grew hot in the Arizona sun.
Susan Hudson, education director for the National Program for Playground Safety, said the first playground regulations emerged in 1981.
"You want to make sure that kids aren’t going to get their head entrapped in guardrails, that there is adequate surfacing under and around the playground equipment," she said. "That there aren’t pinch points or loose nuts or bolts, entrapment areas or entanglement areas."
She said the notion that height increases the fun factor is not always true.
"What you have done with height is only increase the risk, but you have done nothing to increase the challenge," Hudson said. "That’s why kids start to misuse the equipment. They will go down the slide backward or climb up the slide chute. What the child is trying to do is increase the complexity of the task. Rather than worrying about if fun has been taken out, (we should look at) what we are doing for the child. Maybe it means a different design of the playgrounds of the 21st century that don’t look like the playgrounds of the 19th century."
REVAMPING P.E.
T.J. Jackson, 47, has taught physical education in the Mesa district for more than two decades and has seen many changes.
He said teachers today not only protect children from injury but also from hurt feelings.
Students used to share one basketball and took turns shooting baskets. Now, he said, teachers give children their own balls so they can focus on their skills and not worry about classmates making fun of them if they don’t perform as well.
"We want to (teach) in a way that nobody’s going to walk out of here humiliated or hurt," said Jackson, a teacher at Hale Elementary School.
During a recent class, Jackson had his first-graders toss colorful yarn balls into the air. The balls are softer than the beanbags the school sometimes uses, he said, and the children feel comfortable tossing them because they know the balls won’t hurt if they fail to catch them.
"We’re looking out for the masses," Jackson said. "I don’t think we can be too safe."
‘LITIGATION HAPPY SOCIETY’
Jackson acknowledged that trip-and-fall lawsuits have also influenced safety rules.
"I don’t know what caused teeter-totters to go, but I bet it was litigation," he said. "It doesn’t take much for people to go that route."
Lawsuits have meant fewer swing sets in places such as Scottsdale.
"I think swings were the one piece of playground equipment that went by the wayside," said Scottsdale Unified School District governing board president Christine Schild, who also is an attorney. "Too many kids got killed or had brain damage as a result of falling off swings and hitting their heads on the ground."
Paradise Valley district spokeswoman Judi Willis said playgrounds in her district are reviewed for safety by the Valley Schools Insurance Trust, an intergovernmental risk retention pool that provides liability coverage to several Valley school districts.
The group also provides training for all Paradise Valley playground aides, said risk management supervisor Tom Bock.
"When I was a kid, we played on the swings and stuff and there was no sand underneath us, and no one cared," Bock said. "If you fell and got hurt, you went to the doctor and got it taken care of. Now there is more supervision — but there are still losses. We’re a litigation happy society."
Gilbert parent Chad McGinnis said he understands the influence of lawsuits on school safety rules.
"The way our society is with lawsuits and everything, I don’t blame them from doing it," said McGinnis, who has three children attending Chandler Christian School.
NO END TO INJURIES
But the precautions might not be working.
Bock said he has heard that students today have more serious playground injuries when they fall, as compared to 20 years ago.
"Now when a kid falls, they break something — whereas 20 years ago, they didn’t," he said. "The equipment and grounds were much worse than they are today, with sand and wood chips and that rubber stuff, yet the injuries are often worse."
He said perhaps childhood obesity and lack of exercise could mean that students today are less fit and, therefore, more likely to fall the wrong way and injure themselves.
Each year about 200,000 children age 15 and younger in the U.S. are taken to emergency rooms for playgroundrelated injuries. Forty-five percent of the injuries are fractures, concussions and dislocations, he said.
Safety sampler
PROTECTING KIDS: Here are some random policies and procedures from East Valley schools:
MESA: Children use beach balls when learning volleyball at Hale Elementary School. Children must not wear flip-flops at Johnson Elementary School.
CHANDLER: Impact-absorbing wood chips cover the ground under playground equipment at San Marcos Elementary School. Bike riders must wear helmets at Bologna Elementary School and outdoor drinking fountains have chilled water to encourage students to stay hydrated. No hanging upside down at the Traditional Academy-Liberty campus.
GILBERT: The Gilbert Unified School District has cut back on the purchase of swing sets.
QUEEN CREEK: Frances Brandon-Pickett Elementary School weighed children’s backpacks this semester as a deterrent against back injuries.
SCOTTSDALE: The Scottsdale Unified School District playground safety manual bans the following activities:
• Climbing up a slide.
• Hanging by your knees on a jungle gym.
• Twisting or twirling on swings.
• More than one child at a time on a playground ladder.
Contact Hayley Ringle by email, or phone (480)-898-6301
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AZ_BACKGROUND_CHECKS_AZOL-?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 13, 4:30 AM EDT
Councilman wants background checks for ice cream truck drivers
TUCSON, Ariz. (AP) -- Ice cream truck drivers would have to pass a background check to get a Tucson business license under a proposal by a city councilman.
Tucson currently has no restrictions on who can sell ice cream from a vehicle.
Democrat Steve Leal has asked the council to consider requiring fingerprints and criminal history checks to protect kids from potential molesters.
The council will discuss the proposal on Tuesday.
Leal said he wants the city to act quickly because an ice cream truck could provide a pedophile with access to victims.
Although no cases have been reported in Tucson recently, two girls in the Phoenix area have been molested by ice cream vendors.
The proposal would apply to vendors who cater primarily to children, said City Attorney Mike Rankin.
Applicants would likely have to pay for the checks, which Rankin estimates would cost around $30.
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hmmmmm..... did a crime even occur????
http://www.azcentral.com/community/gilbert/articles/1013gr-lockdowns13-ON.html
Suspect in abduction attempts in Gilbert in custody
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 13, 2005 04:15 PM
Gilbert Police apprehended a man Thursday afternoon suspected of trying to abduct several young girls near Gilbert-area elementary schools Thursday morning.
The incidents led to a lockdown of 26 Gilbert Public Schools.
The police located the suspect after tracking a license plate to three different addresses and setting up surveillance, said Lt. Joe Ruet, a police spokesman.
"We located him when he returned to his apartment in Gilbert," Ruet said.
The suspect, whose name has not been released, was being detained and had not been arrested as of late Thursday afternoon, Ruet said. However, he is considered the prime suspect, Ruet said.
No victims were touched, hurt or kidnapped, police said.
At about 8 a.m., police received a call that a man had approached a young girl near Islands Elementary School, 245 S. McQueen Road, and either said he had a gun or displayed a gun to get the victim into the vehicle, police said. The young girl ran away and was helped by an adult nearby.
About 20 minutes later, the suspect contacted four young victims, but there were several adults and children nearby, said Lt. Joe Ruet. The suspect drove away, but at least one adult was able to provide police with the license plate, Ruet said.
School resource and patrol officers have been assigned to perform close patrols near the schools, Lyle said.
The attempted kidnappings occurred near Islands Elementary and Settler's Point Elementary, 423 E. Settler's Point Drive, prompting officials to put all schools west of Recker Road on lockdown, which means students could move about the school but no one was allowed on or off campus.
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cops say the video tape of police beating up a 64 year old black man doesnt tell the full story. (they always says this when they get caught in the act on video tape)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1013orleans-tapedbeating13-ON.html
Police lawyer: Video fails to tell full tale of Bourbon Street arrest
Ross Sneyd
Associated Press
Oct. 13, 2005 08:15 AM
NEW ORLEANS - A lawyer for the officers accused of beating a retired teacher as they tried to arrest him said a videotape of the Bourbon Street confrontation doesn't tell the whole story.
Attorney Frank DeSalvo disputed details the video shot by Associated Press Television News appears to have captured, including whether the 64-year-old suspect was punched in the face.
"I see an incident of a man trying to be brought under control who doesn't want to be brought under control," DeSalvo said Wednesday.
The man who was beaten, Robert Davis, pleaded not guilty to charges of public intoxication, resisting arrest, battery on a police officer and public intimidation.
Davis has described himself as a recovering substance abuser who has not had a drink in 25 years. His lawyer asked prosecutors to dismiss charges, but his trial was set for Jan. 18.
The two city officers accused in the beating, and a third accused of grabbing and shoving an APTN producer, are due to go on trial on battery charges a week before Davis' trial.
Davis' lawyer, Joseph Bruno, said the APTN videotape of the confrontation shows his client being brutalized by police for no reason. After the arraignment, however, leaders of the city's police union offered their own interpretations.
Police union officials described Davis as so intoxicated that he staggered down the street, stumbled into a police horse and became belligerent when officers intervened.
DeSalvo said police union officials had "broken the thing down frame by frame" and saw officers trying to bring under control an angry man. "He brought it on by his actions," DeSalvo said.
No tests for intoxication were administered following the arrest. In such cases, judges typically rely on officers' observations, said police spokesman Marlon Defillo.
The officers involved in the incident - Lance Schilling, Robert Evangelist and S.M. Smith - did not speak during the news conference. DeSalvo said Schilling and Evangelist hit Davis' shoulders, and he denied the arrest was as violent as has been portrayed.
"He clearly was not hit in the face," DeSalvo said.
DeSalvo also disputed Davis' lawyer's contention that Davis suffered fractures to his cheek and eye socket. DeSalvo said the injuries were scrapes caused when he was placed face down on the pavement.
The three officers have been suspended without pay. Lt. David Benelli, president of the police union, said the suspensions would be appealed, although that's been delayed by a city government stalled in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Davis did not speak to reporters after his arraignment. He has said he approached a mounted police officer to ask about the city's curfew while searching for cigarettes on Bourbon Street and a confrontation ensued with another officer.
DeSalvo also claimed that APTN producer Rich Matthews grabbed Smith and spun him around before the officer responded by pushing the producer away from the arrest.
The video shows that when Matthews held up his media credentials, the officer shoved him backward over a car, jabbed him in the stomach and unleashed a profanity-laced tirade.
Matthews, who was not charged, disputed DeSalvo's account and said he never touched the officer.
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some caca toro coming from the mouth of president bush
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/B/BUSH_IRAQ?SITE=AZPHG&SECTION=HOME
Oct 13, 7:18 PM EDT
Bush teleconference with soldiers staged
By DEB RIECHMANN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- It was billed as a conversation with U.S. troops, but the questions President Bush asked on a teleconference call Thursday were choreographed to match his goals for the war in Iraq and Saturday's vote on a new Iraqi constitution.
"This is an important time," Allison Barber, deputy assistant defense secretary, said, coaching the soldiers before Bush arrived. "The president is looking forward to having just a conversation with you."
Barber said the president was interested in three topics: the overall security situation in Iraq, security preparations for the weekend vote and efforts to train Iraqi troops.
As she spoke in Washington, a live shot of 10 soldiers from the Army's 42nd Infantry Division and one Iraqi soldier was beamed into the Eisenhower Executive Office Building from Tikrit - the birthplace of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"I'm going to ask somebody to grab those two water bottles against the wall and move them out of the camera shot for me," Barber said.
A brief rehearsal ensued.
"OK, so let's just walk through this," Barber said. "Captain Kennedy, you answer the first question and you hand the mike to whom?"
"Captain Smith," Kennedy said.
McClellan says he sees nothing wrong with the fact that Pentagon officials coached the soldiers.
"Captain. Smith? You take the mike and you hand it to whom?" she asked.
"Captain Kennedy," the soldier replied.
And so it went.
"If the question comes up about partnering - how often do we train with the Iraqi military - who does he go to?" Barber asked.
"That's going to go to Captain Pratt," one of the soldiers said.
"And then if we're going to talk a little bit about the folks in Tikrit - the hometown - and how they're handling the political process, who are we going to give that to?" she asked.
Before he took questions, Bush thanked the soldiers for serving and reassured them that the U.S. would not pull out of Iraq until the mission was complete.
"So long as I'm the president, we're never going to back down, we're never going to give in, we'll never accept anything less than total victory," Bush said.
The president told them twice that the American people were behind them.
"You've got tremendous support here at home," Bush said.
Less than 40 percent in an AP-Ipsos poll taken in October said they approved of the way Bush was handling Iraq. Just over half of the public now say the Iraq war was a mistake.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Thursday's event was coordinated with the Defense Department but that the troops were expressing their own thoughts. With satellite feeds, coordination often is needed to overcome technological challenges, such as delays, he said.
"I think all they were doing was talking to the troops and letting them know what to expect," he said, adding that the president wanted to talk with troops on the ground who have firsthand knowledge about the situation.
The soldiers all gave Bush an upbeat view of the situation.
The president also got praise from the Iraqi soldier who was part of the chat.
"Thank you very much for everything," he gushed. "I like you."
On preparations for the vote, 1st Lt. Gregg Murphy of Tennessee said: "Sir, we are prepared to do whatever it takes to make this thing a success. ... Back in January, when we were preparing for that election, we had to lead the way. We set up the coordination, we made the plan. We're really happy to see, during the preparation for this one, sir, they're doing everything."
On the training of Iraqi security forces, Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo from Scotia, N.Y., said to Bush: "I can tell you over the past 10 months, we've seen a tremendous increase in the capabilities and the confidences of our Iraqi security force partners. ... Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting independent operations."
Lombardo told the president that she was in New York City on Nov. 11, 2001, when Bush attended an event recognizing soldiers for their recovery and rescue efforts at Ground Zero. She said the troops began the fight against terrorism in the wake of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and were proud to continue it in Iraq.
"I thought you looked familiar," Bush said, and then joked: "I probably look familiar to you, too."
Paul Rieckhoff, director of the New York-based Operation Truth, an advocacy group for U.S. veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, denounced the event as a "carefully scripted publicity stunt." Five of the 10 U.S. troops involved were officers, he said.
"If he wants the real opinions of the troops, he can't do it in a nationally televised teleconference," Rieckhoff said. "He needs to be talking to the boots on the ground and that's not a bunch of captains."
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if drugs were legal stuff like this would not be happening
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014undercovershooting14-ON.html
Undercover Phoenix cops kill man in drug buy
William Hermann
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 14, 2005 09:35 AM
Undercover Phoenix police officers shot a suspect to death late Thursday after he pointed a gun at them during a drug buy in north Phoenix, officials said.
Police spokeswoman Lauri Williams said Drug Enforcement Bureau officers Andy Barciz, James Sink and Delbert Wheeler, were negotiating a narcotics purchase from a suspect in the area near Glendale and 21st avenues when the suspect told the officers to follow him in their car. As the suspect drove south on 21st Avenue, he stopped, got out of his car and, as he approached the officers, allegedly took a pistol from his back pocket and pointed it at their car.
William said one of the officers got out of the car and shot at the suspect as another officer from within the car also fired. The suspect was hit by at least one round and was pronounced dead at the scene.
Relatives of the dead suspect had not been notified as of Friday morning, and his name was not available.
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J. Michael Dorsey a government bureaucrat who served in several high-profile federal government posts says the voters are misguided. This government ruler forgets that at least in THEORY the government rulers are servants of the people. I suspect that when he was a government bureaucrat he also though he was a government ruler, not a public servant.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014telluride-pot140.html
Pot unenforcement goes on town's ballot
Scott Gold
Los Angeles Times
Oct. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
TELLURIDE, Colo. - Nestled in the San Juan Mountains, home to moneyed hippies, artists and nature buffs, Telluride is a live-and-let-live kind of town.
A sign assures visitors that they are in a "civil liberties safe zone."
The 15-mph speed limit, which applies in most of the town, is largely enforced by placing a police hat on the tip of a stick and perching it in the driver's seat of a squad car.
In the center of town is the Freebox, a collection of wooden bins where people swap bootleg concert tapes, alpine gear and more, regulated only by the principles of karma.
So perhaps it should come as no surprise that although Telluride cannot legalize marijuana, it may do the next closest thing: officially declare possession of pot for personal use to be the town's "lowest law enforcement priority."
In August, the Town Council voted 6-0 to put the issue on the Nov. 1 ballot. Residents will be asked whether to instruct town marshals, the local law enforcement, to make the investigation, arrest and prosecution of marijuana possession their lowest priority. The proposal applies only to the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana by people 18 or older.
Several cities already have what proponents term "sensible" pot ordinances, most notably Seattle, where voters in 2003 approved an initiative to make the possession of small amounts of marijuana law enforcement's lowest priority.
Still, Telluride's vote will be closely watched, experts said, because it is the first marijuana ballot proposal since the Supreme Court ruled in June that the federal government could enforce its zero-tolerance policy on pot, even in the 10 states that permit its use for medical purposes. Colorado is among those states; the others are Alaska, California, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington.
Executive Director Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said the fact that the Supreme Court did not strike down the state laws seemed to suggest "concern by justices about thwarting local control, local values."
"The great disconnect at the policy level is here in Washington, D.C.," he said. "Congress is frozen in a sort of reefer madness that states and localities are not."
But Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation, said the agenda behind local initiatives "clearly is the legalization of drugs. ... They have made it very clear that they are going to keep pushing."
Her argument has gained more traction here recently than it might have a few years ago.
A famously fun-loving town with a year-round population of about 2,000 and an "in-season" population close to 10,000, Telluride has become a ritzy resort in recent years and is peppered with log cabin mansions and swanky restaurants that require reservations, even if you can still wear flip-flops or the T-shirt you hiked in all day.
But the town's newer arrivals have tempered its freewheeling ways.
"Telluride is really in transition," Chief Marshal Mary Heller said.
J. Michael Dorsey, who served in several high-profile federal government posts before he retired, moved to town a year ago. He was the assistant secretary for public and Indian housing during the Reagan administration and sat on the national drug-policy board.
And he has become a leading critic of the Telluride proposal.
Dorsey said the proposal was misguided, partly because voters should not establish law-enforcement priorities. He also objected to a second portion of the initiative, which would declare that Telluride would approve if Colorado decided to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana use.
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isnt this what they do in the soviet union, red china and cuba when they want to sell the public on what a great job the government is doing
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014iraq-bush14.html
Soldiers upbeat in teleconference with Bush
Jim VandeHei
Washington Post
Oct. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - President Bush sought Thursday to rally U.S. troops behind his Iraq strategy, and he and his aides left little to chance.
Before the president spoke via a video link, his event planners handpicked 10 soldiers from the Army's 42nd Infantry and one Iraqi soldier, told them what topics the president would ask about, and watched them briefly rehearse their presentations before going live.
The soldiers did not disappoint. Each one praised the president, the war and the progress in training Iraqi troops. Several spoke in a monotone voice, as if determined to remember and stay on script.
The Iraqi, Sgt. Maj. Akeel Shaker Nassir, who is in charge of the Iraqi Army Training facility in Tikrit, had only a few words for Bush, but they were gushing: "Thank very much for everything. I like you."
Nassir's comments came near the end of one of the stranger and most awkwardly staged publicity events of the Bush presidency. It started with Bush, in Washington standing at a lectern, talking to the soldiers via video on a large flat-screen. The soldiers sat shoulder to shoulder and stared dutifully at the screen.
The president's delivery was choppy, as he gazed frequently at his notes. Bush told the soldiers they are facing a "ruthless and cold-blooded" enemy intent on "the killing of innocent people to get the American government to pull you out of there before the mission is accomplished."
Two days before Iraq votes on a new constitution that Bush considers essential to creating a democracy in the Middle East, he said the United States is making steady progress, both in defeating the insurgents and in training Iraqi troops to take over full control of the military operation.
At the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan said the troops at Bush's event were told "what to expect."
Before they spoke, Allison Barber, a midlevel Pentagon official, helped coach the troops on who would be asked what by Bush.
This isn't a new technique for Bush; his White House has perfected the public relations strategy of holding scripted events featuring the president's supporters. Earlier this year, when Bush traveled the country to discuss his Social Security plan, aides stacked the audience with Republicans and tutored participants in town hall events on what to say.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was not impressed. "The American people and our brave troops deserve better than a photo op for the president and a pep rally about Iraq," he said. Capt. Stephen Pratt, who was tapped to respond to Bush's inquiry about the capability of Iraqi forces, said significant progress is being made. "It was impressive to me," said Pratt, "to see the cooperation and the communication that took place among the Iraqi forces."
Master Sgt. Corine Lombardo told Bush the budding partnership should allow for the Iraqis to take over a large number of operations within a month.
"Since we began our partnership, they have improved greatly, and they continue to develop and grow into sustainable forces," Lombardo said. "Over the next month, we anticipate seeing at least one-third of those Iraqi forces conducting independent operations."
Offering the Defense Department's own appraisal, Pentagon officials presented a 43-page unclassified report as part of a congressional requirement for quarterly updates on the situation in Iraq.
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i dont have any money but i am thinking about making an offer to donate a rifle to the recall effort :)
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014wvstipend14.html
City Council gives itself option to raise auto stipend
David Madrid
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
The Surprise City Council voted 4-3 Thursday to give itself the option of taking an auto stipend of $450 a month or documenting mileage driven on city business.
The council's efforts to give itself a huge increase in its car allowance on the heels of massive salary increases have not set well with some residents, who have mounted recalls against most of the council.
Another group has emerged that is not connected to previous recall efforts.
Kenneth Wright, spokesman of Friends of Open Government in Surprise, said the group will analyze the mileage documented by those council members who choose that route. Then the group will compare those numbers with those council members receiving the stipend to ensure that the compensation is "fair and equitable."
Under the ordinance passed Thursday, those council members who choose the auto stipend will receive a 200 percent increase in their car allowance from $150 a month to $450 a month.
The council members who choose to document mileage will be paid the IRS rate of 48.5 cents per mile.
Voting for the agenda item were Vice Mayor Danny Arismendez and council members Gary "Doc" Sullivan, Joe Johnson and Gwyn Foro. Voting "no" were Mayor Joan Shafer and council members Cliff Elkins and Martha Bails.
Reach the reporter at david.madrid@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-6926.
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bible bashers in the city of phoenix trying to use light rail to shut down Teasers topless bar
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014topless14.html
Phoenix tries to derail topless bar move
Monica Alonzo-Dunsmoor
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
A Phoenix topless bar that is being forced out to make way for light rail is having trouble finding a new home.
Teasers owner Tony DiBernardo said city planners helped him find a new spot at 3308 N.W. Grand Ave., just as they're assisting other businesses in the light rail path. However, on Wednesday, the City Council decided to ask the State Liquor Board to deny his request to transfer his liquor license to the new location.
Without a license, the bar that has be doing business for about 17 years at Seventh Avenue and Camelback Road will effectively be shut down.
"I don't believe our city should be opening up these businesses, whether it's because of a light rail relocation or not," said Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon. "This city isn't going to build its future on sexually oriented businesses. That's a false economy, and not one I'm going to rely on."
DiBernardo said he would love to stay at his old location, but he doesn't have that option.
He told council members that his business would have no impact on residents.
"In a neighborhood, you open your front door and you see kids playing," he said. "You look to your left and there's a church, to your right, and there's a school."
But his new place is smack in the middle of an industrial area, across the street from railroad tracks and a lumberyard, between a junkyard with old, rusting cars and a vacant shopping center.
But residents from the nearby Granada and Alhambra neighborhood associations disagree.
Diane Harris, speaking on behalf of the Alhambra association, said that adding another liquor license and sexually oriented business would only hurt their ailing neighborhood.
"We are struggling to revive and revitalize our way of life," she said. "This establishment isn't going to do anything but damage our fragile neighborhood. This business does no justice to the area."
Violent crimes are nearly three times higher in that part of town compared with the average rate in the rest of the city, and the property crime rate is almost twice as high, according to city crime data.
The state has also already granted 31 liquor licenses within one mile of the proposed topless bar, including to restaurants, liquor stores and bars.
There are at least two other sex-based businesses near the Teasers location on Grand Avenue.
Michael Jones, the owner of Sexee Ladies, an all-nude club, also urged the council to deny DiBernardo his license.
"I really don't want Teasers next door," Jones said. "We don't serve alcohol and when our customers leave, at least they won't hurt anyone."
Gordon said that for many years Teasers had a negative impact on the neighborhood near its previous location on Camelback Road, and relocating to near another neighborhood is "something I won't support."
Gordon said that DiBernardo will be "fully compensated, not only for the real estate, but for the business operation, as required by law."
He said he understands the city may have to pay more because of the license being denied.
"To save a few dollars at the expense of a neighborhood is something that I can't support," he said.
The final decision rests with the Arizona State Liquor Board, a seven-member panel appointed by the Governor's Office. The case will likely go before the board in December or January, according to city staff.
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12897190.htm
Posted on Fri, Oct. 14, 2005
IN MY OPINION
In New Orleans beating, don't blame `stress'
BY LEONARD PITTS JR.
lpitts@herald.com
Say what you want about last weekend's incident in New Orleans. Just spare me one word.
Please do not say ``stress.''
For those who missed it, here's the scene: It is Saturday night in the fabled French Quarter. Police are arresting one Robert Davis, a 64-year-old former schoolteacher.
As an Associated Press camera records the episode, an officer on horseback moves into the frame, apparently to block the camera's view. But the camera operator, shooting over the horse's flank, captures officers pinning the old man to a brick wall and one apparently delivering vicious blows to the head. Davis is then wrestled to the ground, several officers on top of him. Another tape, this one shot by CNN, shows him writhing handcuffed in a pool of blood. When he tries to roll over, an officer's foot shoves him back.
Police say he was arrested for public drunkenness, battery and public intimidation. Davis later told reporters he had simply asked an officer on horseback about the curfew time when another officer barged into the conversation. Davis called that officer unprofessional and walked away, at which point, he says, the cop hit him from behind.
DON'T SAY IT
Which brings me back to that word I don't want to hear.
Actually, I'm hearing it already. Observers are explaining what happened by pointing out that New Orleans police have suffered great hardship since Hurricane Katrina. We are reminded by reporters and civic leaders that they've been working 12-hour shifts and that most are homeless. Daniel Winn, who works at a bar, told The New York Times, ``Look at what these cops have gone through. Sleeping in their cars, lost their families. They can't control their behavior.''
If that's true, heaven help us all. So before we cue the violins, consider three things.
One: Davis, though arrested for public drunkenness, says he hasn't had a drink in 25 years. He apparently wasn't tested for blood alcohol, but if the man's been a teetotaler since the Reagan years, it should be easy to prove. Which would blow holes in the stated reason for his arrest.
Two: The image of out-of-control cops painted by Davis is supported by footage showing one officer cursing at and roughing up an AP producer after the arrest.
Three: You don't generally try to block people from seeing what you're doing, as the officer on horseback did, unless you know what you're doing is wrong.
3 OFFICERS FACING CHARGES
Three officers have been arrested on battery charges and suspended without pay. I have no idea what will happen to them in the court of law. I fear the verdict in the court of public opinion.
That fear is rooted in the fact that we are often loath to hold police accountable. Indeed, some of us are still making excuses for the miscreants who bashed Rodney King's head in. Some folks just find it convenient to look the other way as extralegal ''justice'' is dispensed. They assuage conscience by assuring themselves the bad guy must have had it coming.
And stress is such a convenient excuse. Who doesn't understand stress?
Problem is, that explanation dishonors every harried cop in the Big Easy who somehow manages to do his or her job professionally. Heck, if stress is an excuse, everyone in town should get a free whack at somebody.
NO EXCUSE FOR MISBEHAVIOR
I am not without sympathy for the burdens borne by New Orleans' finest.
For that matter, I have sympathy for Davis, who, before he was beaten, had enjoyed a free dinner served to those left homeless by the storm.
But sympathy is not a blank check for misbehavior.
''It's a difficult time, but it doesn't excuse what our jobs are supposed to be,'' police spokesman Marlon Defillo told a reporter.
I couldn't have said it better myself.
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another man who is probably innocence is released after spending 16 years on death row.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1014B1-newsupdate14.html
Man who spent 16 years on death row a free man
Oct. 14, 2005 12:00 AM
KINGMAN - An Arizona man who spent nearly 16 years on Arizona's death row is now a free man.
Clarence David Hill, 57, had his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence overturned.
Faced with a prospect of a new trial, the Fort Mohave man accepted an agreement that allowed him to plead guilty to second-degree murder and be sentenced to time already served.
Hill's defense attorney Rick Williams, said his client still maintains his innocence in the 1989 death of his landlord. Williams said Hill is terminally ill.
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well this isnt my usual article about the cops beating up a 74 year old man for the crime of being negro or murdering a white woman for buying drugs but you may find it interesting.
http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=50512
Safety concern triggers Palo Verde shutdown
By Nick Martin, Tribune
October 13, 2005
The country’s largest nuclear power plant, 50 miles west of the Valley, was shut down Tuesday night and officials don’t know when it will be back up.
Two out of three units at the Palo Verde nuclear plant were taken offline Tuesday when officials could not verify that safety systems would work during an accident or other situations, said Jim McDonald, a spokesman for Arizona Public Service, which operates the plant.
The plant’s third unit was already offline for maintenance, which had been scheduled for several years, McDonald said.
It will be 10 to 12 weeks before the maintenance is finished.
The other two units are shutdown indefinitely.
"We do have people working on it very hard around the clock," McDonald said Wednesday night.
It’s not clear whether the 4 million customers served by the power plant will pay higher prices for their electricity.
But McDonald said APS has enough power from other sources to serve its own nearly 1 million customers.
The plant, which has been online since 1986, also serves customers in New Mexico and California.
Tuesday’s shutdown was not caused by an accident or equipment failure, McDonald said.
"It doesn’t mean the system couldn’t perform as it’s supposed to," he said. "It just means we couldn’t prove it would."
The safety systems were tested Tuesday after a Nuclear Regulatory Commission inspection team asked about them over the weekend.
The last time all three units of the plant were shut down was June 2004.
Contact Nick Martin by email, or phone (480) 898-6514
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perhaps it should be a federal crime for cops and government officials to beleive these silly stories.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TERROR_HOAXES?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 14, 3:45 PM EDT
Fake Terror Threats Bedevil Investigators
By TOM HAYS
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- The tip last year from would-be FBI informant Tanveer Choudhry sounded frightening. Two brothers intent on killing Jews planned to hijack a pair of gasoline trucks and turn the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into an inferno, the Pakistani immigrant told agents. But before New Yorkers knew anything about it, investigators came to a familiar conclusion: The tipster was lying.
Authorities say that since the Sept. 11 attacks, an untold number of hoaxers have preyed on fears of terrorism on U.S. soil by telling phony stories in hopes of winning favors from the government, settling scores or simply causing mischief.
Most of the tales are quickly and quietly discounted. But this week an alleged al-Qaida plot to bomb the New York subway system highlighted the potential for tips to spread fear and tie up investigators before they are proven to be false alarms.
Hoping to discourage phony threats, Congress passed a law last year making it a crime to convey false or misleading information about a terrorist attack. The offense carries up to five years in prison - and 20 years to life if the hoax causes injury or death.
"Hoaxes waste resources that are needed to chase down real tips," said Dean Boyd, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the investigative arm of the Homeland Security Department.
Choudhry was deported after admitting he provided the fake tip about the bridge plot in a bid to win asylum - a common motive. Other tipsters make false accusations "to get back at their ex-wives or someone they were in car accident with. ... You name it," Boyd said.
The recent subway threat apparently was more a case of bad information than outright fabrication, some officials said.
Acting on a tip volunteered to U.S. authorities by a paid informant in Baghdad, city officials and the FBI last week issued a public warning and sent thousands of extra police officers to guard the subways. Four days later, the protection was lifted after investigators found no evidence to support his story that a team of terrorists would use briefcases and baby strollers packed with explosives to attack the subway.
Some news reports have said the threat was a hoax. But some federal officials said it is more likely the informant was passing along false information he believed was true.
Local officials have stood by their decision to boost security, saying that the informant had passed a lie detector test and had a good track record, and that his warning was too detailed and too dire to be ignored.
"This was a planned attack that had a specific time and target and method," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said this week after the informant's story unraveled. "It was the first really serious allegation of a direct attack on this city since 9/11."
Other chilling threats have come and gone without becoming full-blown scares.
Last December in upstate New York, Danian Terzi alarmed the state troopers who arrested him for purse snatching by claiming he and others had smuggled C-4 explosives from St. Louis to New York with plans to detonate a bomb in Times Square on New Year's Eve. Court papers say that after the FBI was called in, Terzi "recanted the story and admitted the story was an elaborate hoax."
Ahmed Allali - an Algerian immigrant and Indianapolis gas station owner facing deportation for having a fraudulent passport - claimed last year that he had traveled to the United States in 1998 with al-Qaida operatives, and provided extensive details about a sleeper cell that was planning to set off bombs in five major cities. The scare tied up scores of investigators before Allali admitted making up the tale to avoid being kicked out of the country.
Earlier this year, a suspected immigrant-smuggler in Mexico sent investigators scrambling when he reported that two Iraqis had crossed the border and were plotting to strike Boston with a dirty bomb. Authorities concluded that the caller, Jose Ernesto Beltran Quinones, may have made up the story to frame another smuggler.
Mexican officials said Beltran was under the influence of alcohol and drugs. He told them the call was "only a joke."
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http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SADDAM_HUSSEIN?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 14, 1:17 PM EDT
Saddam Lawyers May Challenge Tribunal
LONDON (AP) -- Saddam Hussein's lawyers plan to challenge the legitimacy of the tribunal set to try him in Iraq and argue that he is immune from prosecution for alleged crimes he committed as president, one of his lawyers said.
The tribunal "was drafted by an occupying power," Abdel-Haq Alani, an Iraqi-born lawyer involved in Saddam's defense, told the British Broadcasting Corp. in an interview aired Thursday night. "It has no right under international law to change the legal system of the occupied land."
He said Saddam was feeling "upbeat" and "very defiant" about the trial, scheduled to start Wednesday.
The case centers on the role he and his co-defendants played in a 1982 massacre of 143 people in Dujail, a mainly Shiite Muslim town north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt on Saddam.
Alani showed the BBC a list, signed by Saddam, of the 143 people killed, and said the leader had simply signned off on sentences handed down by the court system.
"These people were tried and found guilty and sentenced to death according to the Iraqi criminal court ... then the president signed the death sentence," he said.
The BBC said the legal team compared the signatures to U.S. President George W. Bush's affirmations of criminals' death sentences when he was governor of Texas.
Alani told the network that the defense team also planned to argue that Saddam should be immune from prosecution because his alleged crimes were committed while he was head of state.
"He has full immunity under the prevailing Iraqi constitution," the lawyer said. "You can't have retroactive legislation that removes that immunity."
The office of Anthony Scrivener, a leading British lawyer, said Friday that he had been asked to help defend Saddam.
Scrivener, who once helped free four men wrongfully imprisoned as Irish Republican Army bombers, had not yet decided whether to take the job, said Martin Hart, senior clerk in Scrivener's office.
"Mr. Scrivener has been approached by the people involved in the case but it is wrong to say that he has been instructed on the case," Hart said. "I don't know how many other people have been approached or if Mr. Scrivener will be instructed to undertake the case."
Hart said the approach was only an initial one and that it was too soon for Scrivener to make a decision about joining Saddamn's defense.
Scrivener, 70, was part of the legal team that freed the "Guildford Four," jailed for two 1975 pub bombings.
Desmond Doherty, a Northern Ireland-based lawyer who worked on the inquiry into the "Bloody Sunday" killings, said he had also been approached about joining the team.
"The arrangements in respect of this are in hand and it is hoped they will be finalized very soon," Doherty said in a statement.
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religion is the problem, not the solution
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SAUDI_ABDULLAH?SITE=AZMES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Oct 14, 9:37 AM EDT
Saudi King: Terror Is Work of the Devil
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) -- Islamic terrorism is "the work of the devil," and Saudi Arabia will fight it "until we eliminate this scourge," King Abdullah said in an interview broadcast Friday.
In the interview with ABC-TV's Barbara Walters, he also said the kingdom will expand the rights of women and eventually allow them to drive.
The king denied assertions that his government finances schools that teach a fundamentalist philosophy of Islam that can lead to militancy.
Saudi Arabia "will fight the terrorists, and those who support them or condone their actions, for 10, 20 or 30 years if we have to, until we eliminate this scourge," the king said.
When asked why groups such as al-Qaida, the terror network led by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden, had taken root in the kingdom, he replied: "Madness and evil. It is the work of the devil."
Foreign observers and liberal Saudis have long contended that the way Islam is taught in Saudi schools encourages attitudes that may lead students to become terrorists later.
"For those who level these charges against us, I say provide us with the evidence that this is happening and we will deal with it," the king said. "It is not logical or rational for us to be supporting it.
"We have also regulated our charities and we have closed offices around the world, and we have withdrawn support for institutions that we found to be extremist," he added.
After the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the kingdom took steps to prevent money collected by Islamic charities from being diverted to terrorist groups.
The kingdom was initially faulted for being slow to clamp down on militants and their financing, but it drastically stepped up its measures after al-Qaida-linked groups launched a series of terror attacks on Saudi soil in May 2003.
Abdullah, who became king on the death of his half-brother Fahd in August, told ABC he was committed to increasing the rights of Saudi women, who are currently not permitted to drive cars and who need a male relative's permission to travel abroad or attend university.
"I believe the day will come when women drive," he said. "In fact, if you look at the areas in Saudi Arabia, the deserts and in the rural areas, you will find that women do drive.
Driving licenses for women "will require patience. In time, I believe it will be possible," the king said in the ABC report, which was posted on the network's Web site.
But when pressed on whether he would legalize female driving, Abdullah indicated Saudi men were too conservative for such a step any time soon.
"I value and take care of my people as I would my eyes," he said. "I respect my people."
Parts of the interviewed were aired Friday morning on "Good Morning America." The full interviewed was scheduled for broadcast Friday night on ABC's "20/20" news magazine show.
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http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1015alaskaguns15.html
Gun rights boom in Alaska
Concealed carry is OK statewide, city permits not
Matt Volz
Associated Press
Oct. 15, 2005 12:00 AM
JUNEAU, Alaska - Starting Wednesday, a new anti-gun-control law in Alaska will allow the carrying of concealed weapons without a permit, even in the seven Alaska cities where permits are now required.
Keeping a firearm in a vehicle, even if it is parked on property where the owner has a no-gun policy, will be allowed.
And, some police chiefs say, local ordinances that ban guns from public buildings will no longer be enforceable.
Alaska's new law forbids municipalities from passing gun laws that are more restrictive than state law.
The National Rifle Association, which helped Republican state Rep. Mike Chenault draft the new law, said it wants to prevent cities from passing restricting laws in the future. Alaska will be the 44th state to have such a law against state pre-emption on its books.
"We are looking to make it uniform to all 50 states," spokeswoman Kelly Hobbs said from the NRA's Fairfax, Va., headquarters. "Without it, it creates an unfair, inconsistent and confusing patchwork of local firearms ordinances."
Chenault said a law-abiding citizen should be able to carry a firearm wherever he wants to, but in Alaska, that citizen may be breaking the law and not even know it.
"You could leave Homer (a city) with a gun in your vehicle and find yourself in conflict with laws in other municipalities just by driving through those municipalities," he said.
The part of the law that most concerns some police chiefs is the lifting of bans on guns in public buildings. That could leave workers vulnerable to attack, Anchorage Police Chief Walter Monegan said.
"There are lots of people, myself included, we really value our constitutional rights," Monegan said. "But if we had the same enthusiasm to also support our constitutional responsibilities, then I would be less concerned."
Across the state in Bethel, Police Chief Ben Dudley said he also is concerned that he will no longer have the option of charging people with entering a municipal building with a weapon. But he's more philosophical on the effects of that city law when it comes to stopping somebody who means to do harm.
"If there were people with bad intentions entering into municipal buildings, the law isn't going to stop those people anyway," Dudley said. "They're going to stick a pistol down their pants anyway."
The new law would allow cities to keep guns out of places beyond a restricted access point, such as a metal detector, but the chiefs say their cities can't afford to staff and equip such points.
Plus, "It runs counter to the intent of public buildings to establish the checkpoints," Juneau Police Chief Richard Gummow said.
Chenault said his interpretation of the new law differs. State law now does not specifically prohibit weapons in municipal buildings, but it does in state buildings. If municipalities pass their own weapons bans for public buildings, those laws shouldn't be considered any more restrictive than the state's ban, he said.
But he acknowledged that it may take a court case to see if his interpretation is correct.
<#==#>
we all know that in arabic you spell vietnam as i r a q . but how do you spell cambodia in arabic. thats easy too - s y r i a.
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1015iraq-syria15.html
Syria-GI clashes indicate problem
Fights may be dangerous new front in Iraq war
James Risen and David E. Sanger
New York Times
Oct. 15, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - A series of clashes in the past year between U.S. and Syrian troops, including a prolonged firefight this summer that killed several Syrians, has raised the prospect that cross-border military operations may become a dangerous new front in the Iraq war, according to current and former military and government officials.
The firefight, between Army Rangers and Syrian troops along the border with Iraq, was the most serious of the conflicts with President Bashar al-Assad's forces, according to U.S. and Syrian officials.
It illustrated the dangers facing U.S. troops as Washington tries to apply more political and military pressure on a country that President Bush last week labeled one of the "allies of convenience" with Islamic extremists.
One of Bush's most senior aides, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that U.S. military forces in Iraq had moved right up to the border to cut off the entry of insurgents, but he insisted that they had refrained from going over it.
But other officials, who say they got their information in the field or by talking to Special Operations commanders, say that as U.S. efforts to cut off the flow of fighters have intensified, those operations have spilled over the border, sometimes by accident, sometimes by design.
Some current and former officials add that the U.S. military is considering plans to conduct special operations inside Syria, using small covert teams for cross-border intelligence gathering.
The broadening military effort along the Iraqi-Syrian border has intensified as the Iraqi constitutional referendum scheduled for today approached, and as frustration mounts in the Bush administration and among senior U.S. commanders over their inability to prevent foreign radical Islamists from engaging in suicide bombings and other deadly terrorist acts inside Iraq.
Increasingly, officials say, Syria is to the Iraq war what Cambodia was during the Vietnam War: a sanctuary for fighters, money and supplies to flow over the border and, ultimately, a place for a shadow struggle.
Covert military operations are among the most closely held of secrets, and planning for them is extremely sensitive politically as well, so none of those who discussed the subject would allow themselves to be identified. They included military officers, civilian officials and people who are otherwise actively involved in military operations or have close ties to Special Operations forces.
In the summer firefight, several Syrian troops were killed, leading to a protest from the Syrian government to the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, according to U.S. and Syrian officials.
In a meeting at the White House on Oct. 1, senior aides to Bush considered a variety of options for further actions against Syria, apparently including special operations along with other methods for putting pressure on Assad in coming weeks.
U.S. officials say Bush has not yet signed off on a specific strategy and has no plan to try to oust Assad, in part for fear of who might take over. The United States is not planning large-scale military operations inside Syria and the president has not authorized any covert action programs to topple the Assad government, several officials said.
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trigger happy cop
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1015neshooting15.html
Police officer in shooting also killed man in '03 incident
Michael Ferraresi
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 15, 2005 12:00 AM
SCOTTSDALE - The officer who shot and killed a pipe-wielding man this week was involved in a similar incident in 2003, just months after he was suspended for unprofessional conduct.
Officer James Peters, one of two officers under investigation in the Monday shooting of Mark Wesley Smith, also was responsible for the death of a man with a deadly weapon in March 2003.
In that incident, Peters fired one shot at disbarred lawyer Brent Bradshaw, who was wandering along the Arizona Canal at Miller and Chaparral roads armed with a shotgun. Bradshaw died later.
In his six-year career with Scottsdale, Peters had a handful of superior-performance awards in his record, but he had one demerit.
In December 2002, Peters was suspended for eight days without pay for not stopping a police trainee from using excessive force while transporting a suspect.
The trainee, who was driving, "deliberately applied the brakes several times, causing the prisoner to strike the cage divider" in a patrol car, according to police records.
On Monday, Peters reportedly shot Smith, a burglary suspect, outside an auto body shop near Hayden and McKellips roads. Police officials said four shots were fired.
The investigation into Peters and Officer David Alvarado is ongoing, police said.
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10 October 2005
Dear ??????,
Thank you for writing and for your news updates. My mother finally got to visit me yesterday. She is afraid to drive on freeways, so she took a shuttle and a cab, and it took her four hours to get here. There is no provision for securing her belongings while she visits me, so she left her belongings with the cab driver. That seemed unwise to me as I have known some cab drivers who were none too honest. I hope she and her things make it back to Phoenix all right.
There was some unpleasantness here last week. The Aryan Brotherhood, the gang that runs this prison, was conducting a lottery for a couple of porno magazines. Postage stamps were to be paid for the entry fee. Several people approached me asking me to sign up, but each time I said I wasn’t interested.
Then Kenneth, one of the inmates who had asked me came back to me and told me that an inmate know as “Riot” said my participation was mandatory and took me to see him in the recreation yard. Riot threatened me and called me some names, but I refused to participate. He then told me to go away from him. Nothing more has come of this, but I shall remain wary.
I must say to in answer to your question that overall this place is better than the Maricopa County Jail. The food is better. The recreational opportunities are better. The library is better. There is a better commissary. Medical care is cheaper, and there is actually dental care available.
There are a few things that are worse here. As I mentioned, it is more dangerous here than at county jail. Also the visitation and telephone systems are worse. I still have not been able to telephone my mother, and even when I get telephone privileges, I will only be able to do three times a week, not everyday like I could in county.
I am glad you found some good computer activities at the University of Arizona and Pima College. I hope you find a good job soon.
Interesting about Joe Bonanno’s home. I had a friend who lived only a few blocks away from the church where his funeral was conducted. She didn’t drop in to see it though.
Yours,
Kevin
my comments
Hmmmm….. I always had the impression from TV and Hollywood that cigarettes where money in jail. I guess postage stamps are the currency of choice at Kevin’s home in Tucson location of the Arizona state prison. Maybe cigarettes are money but Kevin doesn’t use them because he doesn’t smoke.
Kevin’s state prison seems much move violent then Laro’s federal prison. Laro has only mentioned one bad incident. That was when he was being transferred from the federal prison in Tucson to the federal prison in Safford. During the transfer he was held for 3 weeks at the Phoenix federal prison. At lunch one of the inmates at the Phoenix prison threatened Laro for sitting next to a non-white person. Lare more or less told the guy to "fuck off" although he didnt use those words. Laro said the guy backed down and didn't bother him again. Other then that he has not mentions any stuff that could threaten his life other then that prison sucks.
it would be intersting to have laro write about this stuff? do you guys uses stamps for money like kevin does? how about cigarettes and tobacco for money like they do in the movies? is your prison run by gangs like kevins is? do they try to shake you down for a one postage stamp a month bribe. do people openly deal dope in your prison like they do in kevins prison? if so what type of dope are they selling? thats assuming you wont get punished for saying this type of stuff. but if it is happening i suspect that the gaurds know almost as much about it as you do.
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kevin im pissed off at jason but here is a letter you may be interesting reading from him in new zealand. i think he is a creep now.
mike
To: lpaz-discuss@yahoogroups.com, lpaz-pima@yahoogroups.com
From: "Jason" auvenj@gmail.com
Date: Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:53:09 -0700
Subject: [lpaz-discuss] New Zealand: Our first two weeks
This message is going out to a bunch of lists, some with people who know me very well and some with people who hardly know me at all but where the topic is relevant. Those who know me well can just skip right to the next paragraph. I've seen people write about New Zealand as if their experiences would apply to everyone, which I think can be misleading since everyone's experience is affected by the myriad of factors in their life. Here is a brief introduction which will hopefully help people who don't know me evaluate how my opinions might relate to their own situation: I am married to Sharon, with 2 boys aged 7 and 4. Our kids are homeschooled; Sharon does not work outside the home. I work in the Information Technology industry; and telecommute for a US company so I didn't have to look for a job in NZ. We tend to be introverts – We're not into socializing or going out and meeting people as much as others might be. We are definitely into functionality in life rather than keeping up appearances -- We're just not into fancy looking houses, cars, furniture, etc. that most other people seem to place a lot of value on. I am a sucker for electronic gadgets though. Our politics are of the libertarian variety, neither left-wing nor right-wing though we have some views in common with both. I am more interested in the ways the government can leave people alone, than I am in what government can "do for them". Our problems with the current US political regime, and part of our motivation for coming to New Zealand, include the decline in civil liberties and increase in police state after the Sept. 11th attacks, profligate deficit spending, the war in Iraq, deterioration of separation of church and state, and endemic cronyism. We are not religious and do not believe in God. We hail from Tucson Arizona, which is hotter, drier, and has a lower cost of living compared to other parts of US. I have traveled extensively within the US. Outside of the US, before NZ I had only been to Canada, Mexico, and Ireland and only spent a significant amount of time in Mexico and Ireland. This was the first significant trip outside the US for the rest of my family. We applied for and were granted New Zealand permanent residency visas a few months ago.
We landed in NZ for the first time two weeks ago. We decided NOT to do a "tourist trip" before just taking the plunge for a 6-month period to see what living here is really like. We're not good tourists anyway, and tourism is not the same as living in a place. The trip itself was fairly uneventful. We rented a van to drive to LA from Tucson. Our rental car company was woefully unhelpful with our many bags in L.A., but once we got through that mess everyone else was helpful and pleasant, including the Air New Zealand staff. We all took Benadryl and Dramamine so we slept most of the flight – it worked like a charm and the kids weren't restless until the very end.
NZ climate is a big change for us just as we knew it would be. Sharon is finding the cold a bit of a challenge (to her 50 degrees Fahrenheit...as cold as it has been since we got here...is REALLY COLD) but it's only going to get warmer here over the next 6 months and folks tell us it has been unseasonably cool and wet. There's a joke I've heard about weather forecasts – in the East US when they say "20% chance of rain" it means there's a 20% chance that it will be a rainy day. In Arizona when they say "20% chance of rain" it means 20% of the area will get some rain that day. I have an addition for NZ: "20% chance of rain" here seems to mean that it will rain wherever you are, for about 20% of the day. The good side of all this is that the Waiwera beach is beautiful, the rain doesn't seem to last too long, the river and park here (Wenderholm) is a natural wonder, and the hot spring spa in the back yard feels really good even when it's 55 degrees outside. We've had some great days too when the temps climb to 70 and it's sunny almost the entire day. New Zealand uses Celsius to measure temperature but the web sites we use to look at the weather show Fahrenheit as does the little digital thermometer we brought, so we haven't made the mental conversion to using Celsius ourselves yet. The people we've met so far are nice and friendly, also even more casual and laid-back than we're used to seeing in Arizona, itself more casual than much of the US. A good example is the phone company repair man who showed up to fix my DSL connection. Other than a laminated badge on a string around his neck he could easily have been mistaken for a bum on a nature hike…aussie style hat, regular looking T-shirt and shorts (definitely not a company uniform). He casually kicked off his shoes before coming in the house, presumably because they were dirty and he didn't want to get dirt on the carpet. He seemed to know what he was doing, it was just a totally different impression from what you would get from a phone company repair man in the states. The other aspect of the casual attitude is summed up in the seemingly popular phrase, "give it a go". New Zealander's don't seem as obsessed as Americans with getting things right on the first try, or needing formal education before trying something you've never done before. The attitude towards crime seems to be, if somebody does something bad they're stuck in a relatively small, island nation with 4 million people, and so they will be caught. To the extent that it is true (and to a fair degree it seems to be) it's a good thing. The flip side is that the average person feels little need for personal protection here and this is reflected in government policy, which I view as the biggest downside I've run into so far. Upon arrival I was advised that the little pocket-sized cans of pepper spray my wife and I brought were illegal. We just dumped them in a bin with no further comment. It's no big deal to lose a couple of $5, 2-year-old cans of pepper spray at customs (we would need to replace them before long anyway), but the underlying principle that you are not allowed a fairly benign means to defend yourself is worrisome. You can definitely own guns here, but there doesn't appear to be any affirmative right to actually carry or use them for defense – certainly of property and perhaps even yourself (still looking into that one). As others have commented, the regular police here don't even carry guns, which I have both positive and negative feelings about. The fact seems to be, most of the time here you really don't need protection, and on the whole it seems a lot safer than most of the US, which as I said is a very good thing. But when and if Kiwis ever encounter real thugs, it seems to me that most are not prepared to deal with the situation and don't want to be.
Other than the pepper spray, we lost nothing else at customs and were not charged any duties. We declared absolutely everything, because we wanted to know what would and would not pass customs. We brought a TON of stuff, including electronics, vitamins and OTC and prescription medications, used hiking boots (well cleaned of course), etc.
Reactions when we tell people here that we home educate have all been positive, most of the "Oh, that's very popular here" variety. Nothing at all like what I ran into in Ireland and some eastern US states which ranged from "what's that?" to barely disguised "that's deviant" kind of reactions. We have yet to attend a homeschool group meeting – that's on the agenda for next week.
Regarding cars and driving in NZ, the roads are narrower, making a smaller car a necessity regardless of economics, particularly if you have trouble visually judging distances as I do. Otherwise it's not too hard to adjust to driving here. Petrol prices seem to net about 20 30% higher than US, and prices between stations are extremely uniform (everyone seems to have the same price). We're still renting a car, though we have looked a little at cars to buy and the prices for used cars don't seem too high.
More drugs seem to be legal without prescription here than in the US. For example, you can get codeine over the counter which is a fairly strictly controlled substance in the US. There were other drugs I noticed that require a prescription in the US. Also, a chemical called piperazine which I've never heard of is available, which they call "party pills". I guess they give you a kick several times stronger than caffeine. I have no desire to try them – I'm even avoiding caffeine like the plague since I need to fall asleep by 9pm each night. Also, I found out that Acetaminophen ("Tylenol") is called Paracetamol here. I only found this after looking it up on the 'net after getting very blank stares asking for Acetaminophen in pharmacies. The only thing I didn't see that you typically see in the states was pseudoephedrine – not sure if there's another name for it or if it's just not available.
Food-wise, there seems to be no uniquely "New Zealand food" that I've run into yet…probably Maori dishes, but we've found all kinds of things we really like to eat and drink that we never saw in the states: Lift soda, mint peas, cream of pumpkin soup, and a natural "fruit salad" candy are the standouts so far, with lots of very good also-rans. I also really like the lamb, but Sharon doesn't and the boys don't seem to. We've only tried one kind of ice cream so far (due to the cold) – it was excellent but not extraordinary. And comments about good cheap Shiraz are spot on – we've picked up bottles of Shiraz for $6-7 NZ ($4.20 - $5 US) including tax on sale at the grocery store, that were far better quality than wine we paid $10 and up per bottle for in the US. I am unimpressed with the Thai food here, which seems to be everywhere but more appealing stuff can be had at the two or three Thai restaurants in Tucson. The Indian food on the other hand is delicious, if a tad on the formulaic side. I'm not judging authenticity here in either case – I have no idea what "real" Thai food or Indian food should actually taste like. I only know what tastes good to me. It is true that sometimes the same food in NZ has a different taste to it than in the US. We've noticed it with meats in particular, and while they taste just fine to Sharon and I (just different) the kids seem to have more trouble with eating it. On the other hand, we were able to find American style ketchup and peanut butter a lot easier than we thought we would. It's not pervasive, but you don't have to order it from a specialty store either – we picked it up at Pak-n-save, a warehouse style store like a Costco only just for food and with no membership fee…but you do have to bring and pack your own grocery bags.
The difference in not only brands but names of foods and other products does take some experimentation and getting used to (we're still not all the way there yet). For example it took Sharon 15 minutes to find beef bullion cubes in the grocery because here they're called beef stock and in a totally different place. Sometimes you recognize a brand (like Kellogg's cereal) but all the product names are different. Sometimes, as with laundry soap, you recognize nothing at all and have to ask someone for a recommendation and start figuring out what works for you from scratch. This is nothing that can't be overcome with a bit of time and experience, but it is definitely something to be aware of that we weren't quite expecting.
Regarding electrical power, all of the adapters/transformers I purchased before I left have worked beautifully and all my US electronic equipment works fine on NZ power. I spent less than $50 US for all the adapters and transformers I needed, and you'd have to be a truly insane geek to need more than I did. I did bring along US multiplugs and power strips, which somewhat consolidates all the electrical plugs. You have to know what you're doing (voltage, wattage, grounding, etc.) but if you do, it's a piece of cake.
As hinted above, I had some initial trouble with the DSL broadband connection. It initially worked OK but kept dropping packets, then periodically dropped out entirely, then finally totally died and wouldn't come back on. The guy they sent out to fix it switched me to
a different DSL port and now it appears to be working much better. The voice over IP delay from here to the US is noticeable if you're listening for it, but not bad once the DSL connection got fixed -- better than I thought it would be and most people who don't already know I'm not in the US probably won't notice anything at all. I was just speaking to someone in Iowa who was absolutely flabbergasted when I told her I was in NZ – she said my connection was better than some of the people who call her from Iowa. I'll be working an early morning schedule Tuesday – Saturday starting at 5am to correspond to M-F 9am in Tucson. This is totally doable as long as I get to bed fairly early each night, which so far we've been able to do without problems. So it appears I will be able to work successfully here, and I've been back at work the last two days. Not that I really thought it would turn out otherwise…but it's always nice to have one's projections confirmed. I'll take another couple of weeks off work around the American Thanksgiving holiday (which means nothing here) to see the country when it's warmer than now but still uncrowded. We've heard the popular destinations are crowded around the December holidays so we will avoid doing our major sightseeing then.
The total cost of living here seems reasonable; downright cheap if compared to some US large cities and coastal areas, but ONLY if you're very smart and patient about how you shop for just about everything. You can very easily pay two to five times what you have to for most everything here, whereas the difference between a smart shopper and an impulse buyer for most items in the states is not nearly as large. The house we're in now is indicative of what you can find in rents if you look. It's definitely not luxury, but it's good size for our family of four, furnished, functional, with a separate fully self contained office area I use for work, 40 minutes drive north of the Auckland city centre, not at all in the middle of nowhere (shops close by in Orewa and Albany) but with a good sized section (yard) at the back, wonderful natural hot spring spa in the back also and walking distance to the beach as well as the river and a wonderful state park, and it rents for $280 NZD per week which works out to about $850/month US at current exchange rates. That's about what I would expect to pay for the same size accommodations in the Arizona desert! Never mind what you'd pay to rent a house in a similarly nice geographic location in the US (probably $3K per month). But I've also seen similar places going for $2K-3K/month US equivalent here. Another example, we needed a printer/scanner combo (printers and scanners are too big to carry from the US), which most stores have in the $200 - $300 range but we were able to find one for $98 NZD tax included (less than $70 US). Same thing with the wine, though big price differentials are normal with wine in the US too – those $6 NZD bottles of good Shiraz on sale I mentioned sat right next to $20 NZD bottles not on sale which I doubt taste any better. That sort of price differential seems to be the norm for everything here, not just house rents and electronics and wine. The glaring exception is petrol, which as I said seems to be of uniform price. If you're picky about having the best of everything you buy, or not smart about how you shop or if you buy on impulse, I can see how it would be very hard to make ends meet in NZ. It also depends on what you buy – the "smart shopper" price of some things is higher here and some things is lower as compared to the US, but IMHO if you're smart and flexible, overall cost of living should not be a deterrent to coming to NZ. A lower effective salary, which I've heard is common for many jobs, very well might be much more of a reason to stay away – I can't speak to that, as I'm not changing jobs and I'm still earning my American salary.
Post shops (mail services) are private, as is rubbish collection. The latter especially takes a bit of getting used to: Various rubbish collection providers service the same area, and each provider uses a different color bag with the cost of their service included in the price of the bags, which you buy at the grocery store. So…you have to know which service providers cover your particular area and what color bags they use, then buy those bags at the grocery store and leave your trash in them out on the curb on the correct day. Once you get the hang of it, it's a really good model. Sure beats Tucson's scam garbage tax model. Recycle collection is still a government project here though.
Though gambling is legal here, it's not pervasive like it is in Las Vegas where it seems there's a slot machine in every store. And if I didn't know it from political discussions, I'd never even notice that prostitution is legal here too. I'm not sure if the unobtrusiveness of these two industries owes to government regulations or the fact that NZ is isolated so there isn't as much "vice tourism" going on here as compared with Nevada.
Anyway, I guess that's enough for now. Questions/discussion is welcome.
--Jason Auvenshine, Waiwera, North Auckland, New Zealand
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http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/355272p-302744c.html
Terror tip for rich
E-mails warned bigs of city attack
By ALISON GENDAR
DAILY NEWS POLICE BUREAU CHIEF
Cop guards downtown Broad St. subway station Monday as New Yorkers’ nerves are frayed by terror warning.
The city's rich and well-connected were tipped off to last week's subway terror threat days before average New Yorkers, the Daily News has learned.
At least two E-mails revealing the purported plot were sent to a select crowd of business and arts executives early last week by New Yorkers who claimed to have close connections to Homeland Security and other federal officials, authorities said.
The NYPD confirmed that it learned of the E-mails on Oct. 3 - three days before Mayor Bloomberg, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly and the FBI went public with the threat.
"I have just received a most disturbing call from one of my oldest friends from growing up in Washington," one E-mail began. "He called with a very specific caution to not enter or use the New York City subway system from Oct. 7 through 10th."
A second E-mail sounded a similar ominous tone: "As some of you know my father works for Homeland Security, at a very high position and receives security briefings on a daily basis.
"The only information that I can pass on is that everyone should at all costs not ride the subway for the next two weeks in major areas of NYC."
One of the E-mails was dated Oct. 3 with a 6:05 p.m. time stamp, about 90 minutes before Bloomberg was fully briefed on the threat, a police source said.
The early warning infuriated several police officials, who noted that Homeland Security officials had challenged the credibility of the threat after the city and FBI warned the public.
"We're briefing the mayor, ratcheting up security, talking about when to go public - and Homeland Security is downplaying the whole thing while their people are telling friends to stay out of the subways," a police source said. "It's pretty bad."
NYPD investigators obtained copies of the E-mails on Oct. 4, as Bloomberg and Kelly were finalizing a plan to respond to the threat, and police officials gave the E-mails to the Homeland Security Department, police said.
'Members of our corporate security network informed the Police Department of the E-mails' existence days prior to any announcement of the threat," NYPD Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said yesterday.
Homeland Security officials confirmed that they were told about the early E-mail warnings.
"We have looked into them, but do not consider them to be of great significance," Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said yesterday.
"At best, they were based on anecdotal accounts of very limited information," he added, declining to reveal whether the feds were investigating.
The News obtained copies of two E-mails, one with the foreboding subject line: "Alarming call from Washington." Unsigned versions were also posted on Snopes.com, a site that examines urban legends.
One of the E-mail senders, when reached by The News, declined comment.
The plot, calling for terrorists to detonate bombs hidden in briefcases, suitcases or strollers, has been largely discredited since the public warning.
Bloomberg has defended his response, arguing the city had no choice but to act on the "specific threat." He has said he held off alerting the public until Oct.6 to give authorities time to round up suspects in Iraq.
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http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/index.php?sty=50679
Tempe contests land ruling
By Garin Groff, Tribune
October 15, 2005
Tempe has issued the first challenge to the landmark Randy Bailey condemnation case, asking the Arizona Supreme Court to overturn it as the city tries to seize land for a massive shopping center.
The city argues that the public will benefit from seizure of blighted properties, even if that means condemning land and turning it over to a private developer who will profit in the deal.
Tempe’s challenge could shape the way governments use eminent domain in Arizona for years to come if the Supreme Court overturns Mesa’s Bailey case. The case could have just as substantial an impact if the Supreme Court upholds the Bailey standard for seizing land in redevelopment efforts.
Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman said the city is challenging the Bailey case to ensure it can fix safety and environmental hazards. The 120-acre site Tempe wants is heavily polluted and was once designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund site.
"Remember these are messes made not by the city of Tempe, not by the taxpayers, but by people who have used and abused that property for the last 40 years," Hallman said. "And the taxpayers deserve at least as good a treatment in this process as the property owners."
The city asked the court to clarify the Bailey case if it doesn’t overturn it by expanding the standard for "public use" to more readily include things such as environmental cleanup and economic growth.
A representative of the holdout landowners said Tempe’s challenge is "outrageous."
"They’re saying it was too tough for them to meet the public use standard so they are asking the court to make it easier," said Jennifer Barnett, a staff attorney for the Arizona chapter of the Institute for Justice. The group has worked with attorneys who represent landowners who refuse to sell to Tempe Marketplace developers.
The institute successfully defended brake shop owner Randy Bailey when Mesa tried to condemn his land so a hardware store could be built there. Mesa lost the case in 2003, when the Arizona Court of Appeals ruled the proposed public benefit didn’t outweigh the seizure of land for a private landowner.
The highly publicized case got attention on CBS’s "60 Minutes" and continues to be cited by critics of eminent domain as an abuse of government power.
Tempe’s legal challenge states the Bailey case set an "unworkable legal standard." The court shouldn’t use benefits to private businesses as a counterweight to public benefit, the city argues.
"Our concern here is that we really think the court should have focused on the substantial public benefit of slum clearance, environmental cleanup and area redevelopment — and those are all proper public uses," City Attorney Marlene Pontrelli said.
Hallman said it’s still possible to build Tempe Marketplace if the court upholds Bailey. For example, the court could issue a ruling that gives Tempe more grounds for condemning land. And Hallman said other solutions could arise from the legal case, though he declined to say if that means other negotiations are ongoing to buy remaining parcels.
Most of the land is in the hands of Miravista Holdings and Vestar Development Co. The developer has all but 28 acres of the property on the southwest corner of loops 101 and 202. Tempe argues those holdouts are blocking its efforts to clean two former landfills, remove potentially explosive methane gas and tear down dilapidated buildings that are a fire hazard.
Barnett argues the city can fix the problems without getting the remaining properties. And if the city or developer want the parcels, she said, they must be purchased on the open market without forcing the sale.
"Any time that a city is trying to take private property from one individual and turn it over to another individual, that’s an abuse of the eminent domain power," Barnett said.
The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled on Sept. 13 that Tempe’s attempted condemnation didn’t meet the standards for public use. The city’s challenge asks the state Supreme Court to consider a highly controversial recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the issue.
The U.S. court ruled in favor of New London, Conn., which tried to seize land to redevelop nearly 90 acres of waterfront. The court said the city could seize homes in certain economically depressed areas even if they weren’t formally declared a slum or blighted. Some homeowners argued the city couldn’t do that because the goals were purely for economic development. The U.S. court ruled the condemnation was a justifiable public benefit.
The city argues that since the Tempe Marketplace site was declared a slum, this condemnation serves a public use.
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this is a newly released book i found at borders.
"the UN GANG - a memoir of incompetence, corruption,
espionage, anti-semitism, and islamic extremism at the
un secretariat"
its by a guy named
perdo a sanjaun
it documents how the UN is pretty much a corrupt organization that doesnt do much of anything other then take government money and use it for special interests groups and UN employees. my favorite quote of the book is when he explains several times how most UN employees at the New York location work real tough days that usually start at 10am to 10:30 am and last till 4 or 4:30pm. and to get some releif from their hard days most employees take a 2 and a half hour lunch at noon.
perdo a sanjaun is someone most of us anti-war folks would hate, but still he does a good job pointing out that the UN is correct and does very little good to make the world a better place to live. perdo a sanjaun he was apointed to the UN by the first george bush when he was a vice-president.
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the CIA mixing government and religion for American imperalisim?????
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1016venezuela16.html
Venezuelan tribe criticizes missionaries' expulsion
Indians say president doesn't know what's good for them
Natalie Obiko Pearson
Associated Press
Oct. 16, 2005 12:00 AM
CARACAS, Venezuela - Members of an indigenous tribe in Venezuela on Saturday criticized President Hugo Chavez's order to expel a U.S. missionary group he accused of links to the CIA, saying the decision goes against the interests of their impoverished communities.
Jose Kayupare of the Puinare tribe challenged Chavez's claims that the Sanford, Fla.-based New Tribes Mission constituted an "imperialist infiltration" that was exploiting native communities.
"For those of us who live in the jungle, this really is a decision that the majority of indigenous people in Amazonas (state) don't support and that we are not going to accept under any circumstances," Kayupare told reporters.
He said the New Tribes Mission has helped Indian communities ravaged by malaria and other diseases in Venezuela, sometimes airlifting the sick to medical assistance after the government and others had abandoned them.
Chavez has accused the missionaries of ties to the CIA and collecting "strategic information" on Venezuela, charges the group denies. Although Venezuela is a key oil supplier to the United States, relations between the two countries have long been strained, and Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of supporting efforts to oust him.
The government also has said the group has built luxurious camps next to poor Indian villages, circumvents Venezuelan customs by flying in and out of dozens of private airstrips with their planes and is conducting mining studies in the gold-rich region.
"Why don't they ask (the Indian communities) ... if they've really been abused?" asked Domingo Gonzalez, an indigenous Venezuelan working with the group.
"The indigenous Venezuelans need to be heard, not to be spoken for," Gonzalez said, accusing the government of being "the ones who really harm and oppress them."
The country's top evangelical organization, the Evangelical Council of Venezuela, issued a statement defending the missionaries' work and denied that the group had any ties with the U.S. government or was working for profit.
It said the group, aside from its missionary work, was involved in programs to help Indian communities preserve their languages and bilingual programs to teach them Spanish.
Amazonas Gov. Liborio Guarulla, acting on Chavez's decision, on Friday ordered New Tribe missionaries in the area to leave.
The New Tribes Mission, founded in 1942, specializes in evangelism among indigenous groups and has 3,200 workers worldwide in 17 nations. Its 160 members working in Venezuela include Canadian, British and U.S. citizens, as well as about 30 Venezuelans.the CIA mixing government and religion for American imperalisim?????
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1016venezuela16.html
Venezuelan tribe criticizes missionaries' expulsion
Indians say president doesn't know what's good for them
Natalie Obiko Pearson
Associated Press
Oct. 16, 2005 12:00 AM
CARACAS, Venezuela - Members of an indigenous tribe in Venezuela on Saturday criticized President Hugo Chavez's order to expel a U.S. missionary group he accused of links to the CIA, saying the decision goes against the interests of their impoverished communities.
Jose Kayupare of the Puinare tribe challenged Chavez's claims that the Sanford, Fla.-based New Tribes Mission constituted an "imperialist infiltration" that was exploiting native communities.
"For those of us who live in the jungle, this really is a decision that the majority of indigenous people in Amazonas (state) don't support and that we are not going to accept under any circumstances," Kayupare told reporters.
He said the New Tribes Mission has helped Indian communities ravaged by malaria and other diseases in Venezuela, sometimes airlifting the sick to medical assistance after the government and others had abandoned them.
Chavez has accused the missionaries of ties to the CIA and collecting "strategic information" on Venezuela, charges the group denies. Although Venezuela is a key oil supplier to the United States, relations between the two countries have long been strained, and Chavez has repeatedly accused Washington of supporting efforts to oust him.
The government also has said the group has built luxurious camps next to poor Indian villages, circumvents Venezuelan customs by flying in and out of dozens of private airstrips with their planes and is conducting mining studies in the gold-rich region.
"Why don't they ask (the Indian communities) ... if they've really been abused?" asked Domingo Gonzalez, an indigenous Venezuelan working with the group.
"The indigenous Venezuelans need to be heard, not to be spoken for," Gonzalez said, accusing the government of being "the ones who really harm and oppress them."
The country's top evangelical organization, the Evangelical Council of Venezuela, issued a statement defending the missionaries' work and denied that the group had any ties with the U.S. government or was working for profit.
It said the group, aside from its missionary work, was involved in programs to help Indian communities preserve their languages and bilingual programs to teach them Spanish.
Amazonas Gov. Liborio Guarulla, acting on Chavez's decision, on Friday ordered New Tribe missionaries in the area to leave.
The New Tribes Mission, founded in 1942, specializes in evangelism among indigenous groups and has 3,200 workers worldwide in 17 nations. Its 160 members working in Venezuela include Canadian, British and U.S. citizens, as well as about 30 Venezuelans.
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i think the messy yard laws are all unconstitional. but its nice to know that supreme court canidate Harriet Miers is a dangerous messy yard criminal just like me!!!!
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1016miers-liens16.html
Miers faced 10 liens in Dallas
Newsday
Oct. 16, 2005 12:00 AM
WASHINGTON - The year Harriet Miers began work as a senior presidential aide in the White House, the city of Dallas slapped three liens in three months on a property she controls in a low-income minority Dallas neighborhood, records show.
The city placed the liens in 2001 to force her to reimburse it for clearing the vacant lot of tall grass, weeds and debris after Miers failed to have the work done herself, as required by city law, and after she did not respond to city notices to maintain the property.
It wasn't the first time the city had to take action - records show that since Miers assumed power of attorney for her elderly, ailing mother in 1995, the city has issued seven other liens on vacant lots that Miers controls in the same area around Tipton Park.
All 10 liens, totaling less than $2,000, have been paid, a city spokesman said.
But the failure of Miers, a former Dallas City Council member, to comply with city law and her slow response in reimbursing the city run counter to her image as a meticulous, detail-oriented attorney who is always well prepared.
http://www.newsday.com/news/printedition/nation/ny-usmier164472250oct16,0,5032623.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print
Miers land had liens
Court nominee had to reimburse Texas city for failing to clear weeds, debris from vacant lots
BY TOM BRUNE
WASHINGTON BUREAU
October 16, 2005
WASHINGTON - The year Harriet Miers began work as a senior presidential aide in the White House, the city of Dallas slapped three liens in three months on a property she controls in a low-income minority Dallas neighborhood, records show.
The city placed the liens in 2001 to force her to reimburse it for clearing the vacant lot of tall grass, weeds and debris after Miers failed to have the work done herself, as required by city law, and after she did not respond to city notices to maintain the property.
It wasn't the first time the city had to take action - records show that since Miers assumed power of attorney for her elderly, ailing mother in 1995, the city has issued seven other liens on vacant lots that Miers controls in the same area around Tipton Park.
All 10 liens, totaling less than $2,000, have been paid off, a city spokesman said.
But the failure of Miers, a former Dallas City Council member, to comply with city law and her slow response in reimbursing the city run counter to her image as a meticulous, detail-oriented attorney who is always well prepared.
That image is undergoing intense scrutiny now that President George W. Bush has nominated Miers, his former personal attorney, to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court.
Bush's selection of Miers has drawn harsh criticism by many activists on the right, who question her conservative credentials and her legal qualifications to be on the high court.
The White House appeared to be caught off guard by questions about the liens and the properties, initially unaware of Miers' responsibility for them.
After looking into the issue, White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said yesterday that Miers had control of the properties, which technically are owned by her mother Sally, who is in a skilled nursing facility.
"The issues were resolved to the city's satisfaction," Perino said. "She has great respect for the city and its process." She added, "For the last several years they have had a contractor handling the maintenance."
Miers' financial disclosure filings list ownership of only two properties, her home in a fashionable north Dallas neighborhood and a vacant lot in the Tipton Park area.
But records show Miers has been the attorney of record for her mother's properties since 1973 and has held power of attorney for her mother since 1995.
The undeveloped housing lots are among the remnants of the real estate business that her father, Harris W. Miers, built in the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s in the black and Latino Tipton Park area, where now more than half live in poverty.
In anticipation of a post-World War II real estate boom, Harris Miers bought many of the lots, which range from 55 x 180 feet to 70 x 266 feet, on contract. He bought in the hardscrabble area even before it was a part of Dallas, in the belief that the city would grow west, toward Fort Worth. But it didn't - it grew north.
Harris Miers suffered a debilitating stroke in 1963, and his wife served as his guardian and managed and sold properties to keep the family going. When he died in 1973, he left 36 properties - nearly all of them around Tipton Park - worth $271,500 to his wife, court records show.
Harris Miers' stroke had a deep impact on Harriet Miers, forcing her to become a scholarship student at Southern Memphis University in Dallas and influencing her career choice as an attorney because lawyers helped the family so much.
But the vacant lots he left behind also have created problems for her.
In 1989, as she was preparing to run for Dallas City Council, the city placed a lien on a property she owned in the Tipton Park area. She paid off the lien and later sold the property.
In 1990, as a City Council member, Miers was barred from voting or participating in a $118 million public housing desegregation lawsuit because the city attorney said she had a conflict of interest: she and her mother owned lots near a housing development that would benefit from the proposed settlement.
Since 1995, the city has placed liens on three of Miers' properties: three on 3423 Bernal Dr. in 2001, one on 3552 Toronto St. in 2000 and six on the connected 3439-3443-3447 Bickers St. property in 1996, 1997 and 1999, city and county records show.
The liens on the properties have been paid off, but the city has no record of the dates, amounts, who paid them or how they did it, said Celso Martinez, a spokesman for the city.
Martinez said the city law is necessary for health and safety reasons, to keep vermin from flourishing and to avoid creating hide-outs for crime.
City records show that the city's costs were usually reimbursed within months of the liens being put on the lots. But one 1997 lien was not paid off until 2002, two months after the city turned over the debt to a collection agency.
That debt was for the Bickers Street lots, across the street from an elementary school.
Lewis Simpson, 64, who lives on Bickers Street, said he could not recall anyone cutting the grass before this year. Now, he said, "A guy comes out about every two weeks with a tractor. He started coming out about six months ago."
Lifelong west Dallas resident and former community activist Luis Sepulveda, now a justice of the peace, said he was surprised to hear Miers had not taken care of her properties.
"I'm forced to do that. So is she," he said. "If it's not done, shame on her."
The impact could extend beyond that Dallas neighborhood.
"The Bush administration has been trying to sell Miers as an extremely competent religious conservative," said Jeffrey Segal, a Supreme Court expert at Stony Brook.
"Nobody is buying the religious conservative argument," he said, "so if the super-competent argument doesn't hold, they don't have anything to justify the nomination."
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yea like you guys can go!!!!
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/ae/articles/1016guvtv1016.html
'GUV' puts state politics on firing line
Kyle Lawson
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 16, 2005 12:00 AM
When Rose Mofford heard what they were saying about her in GUV: The Musical, she reportedly burst into tears.
When Ev Mecham received an invitation to attend the satirical comedy, he reportedly ripped it into small pieces.
When Sheriff Joe Arpaio got wind of a certain segment in the sequel that involved him and a prisoner in pink underwear, he reportedly . . .
Well, there were no reports of what he did. For the first time in history, the sheriff didn't call a press conference.
Whatever else you might say about the GUV satires, they struck a nerve.
There have been two: GUV: The Musical in 1991 and GUV: The Emperor Strikes Back in 1996. A third - GUV TV - is about to open in Scottsdale. Like its predecessors, the latest compilation of low blows in high places promises to be an equal-opportunity jibber.
OK, mostly equal. Republicans do seem to be favorite targets. Ex-Gov. Fife Symington, Sen. John McCain and the Republican now-I'm-running, now-I'm-not candidates for Democrat Janet Napolitano's office at the statehouse take the spotlight. But don't worry, the show doesn't call Napolitano "Gov. No" because it's unwilling to take pot shots at her. Billboards, anyone?
When GUV: The Musical made its debut at Tempe's now defunct Mill Avenue Theatre, it marked the end of a long drought in political satires. By and large, the Valley's theater community was happy to concentrate on singing nuns and fiddling milkmen on the roof. Not since the heyday of Ajo Repertory Company in the late '70s and early '80s had local politicos had their idiocies paraded on the stage.
Audiences flocked to see what they'd been missing. GUV: The Musical ran for 21 months, making a bundle for all concerned. GUV: The Emperor Strikes Back wasn't quite that successful, maybe because Fife Symington wasn't as easy to spoof as Ev Mecham, but it had its fans.
Ben Tyler, who co-wrote the first GUV with Candice Miles and directed the second, is back on board for the third, this time as co-writer with Philip Taylor and as one of the actors.
"Don't expect a repeat," he says. "Political humor has the shelf life of sushi. Ev Mecham is a faded memory. There's a lot of people out there who've never heard of him."
What audiences will get with GUV TV is a satire within a satire. Tyler and Taylor have set their barbs in the context of "a day at a television station." Segments follow the format of sit-coms, newscasts, cooking shows, game shows and commercials. The only thing GUV TV has in common with its predecessors is that (a) state politics are still a joke and (b) nothing is funnier than watching an Arizona governor trying to dance (literally) around the issue.
Among the juicier-sounding routines is a game show based on a popular Mexican example. The Big Saturday becomes The Big Border as Mexico's president, Vicente Fox, hosts a group of contestants vying for a phony driver's license, fake Social Security Card and minimum-wage job in Arizona.
Then, there's Cooking With Fife, in which ex-governor turned chef Symington makes mincemeat of Emeril and Julia Child, and Everybody Loves Raynerd, a sitcom about a polygamous family in Colorado City.
Newscasts will catch the audience up with the latest activities of Gov. No and Sen. John ("I'm running for president, but I'm not announcing it") McCain. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor shows up at the studio to judge Arizona Idol, a show in which state politicians do their best to appear talented.
"I admit it was a lot easier to write a show about Ev Mecham," Tyler says. "He was a quote a day. But if you read the papers, you know that it's still crazy out there. We haven't lacked for inspiration. We ended up cutting 40 pages out of the first draft because there wasn't time to include it all."
Taylor has rounded up an A-list cast for GUV TV, including Cathy Dresbach, Kristen Drathman, Tracy Coe, Christian Miller, Mel Reid and Tyler.
"We're fortunate to have people who know how to get laughs," the director says. "One of the reasons we're doing GUV TV is that we think it's time people lightened up about politics. My God, if you listen to some of the talk shows . . . "
"We've been laughing a lot during rehearsals," Tyler says. "I hope that's a good sign."
Reach the reporter at kyle.lawson@arizonarepublic.com or (480) 947-9673.
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