Payola

American Scofflaw

As the blogs become the new mainstream media, mainstream-style corruptions are starting to sneak in, and the issue of payola has become a major problem. Some bloggers now accept gifts from advertisers.

There is another problem with the blogs still unaddressed by the FTC and that is the practice for public relations companies to create hundreds of fake identities on popular review blogs and use them to skew the online opinions. A typical example is for popular movie review blogs to get "front loaded" with fake positive reviews for a movie as a form of covert advertising.

Hey, He's Painting

Cacca Boy

The Global Warming Cabal

American Scofflaw

Hillary Clinton says that, unless something is done, global warming could spark food and resource shortages and wars. According to Senator John Kerry she is one of the first to recognize that global warming is an “unambiguous security threat”.

Yes, and I’m sure global warming is responsible for all natural disasters on earth. Or at least, that’s where the blame is going from some of these Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and Al Gore alarmist types. Essentially, even as science is still very divided in the issue–although the opposition to it is silenced due to the threat of pulling funding–there is still a very popular political movement which wants people to succumb as a whole to their agenda.

Heck, there’s even evidence that we are heading towards a natural global cooling stage.

Kosher Scofflaws

By Ben Harris

The Anti-Defamation League has asked the U.S. attorney general to ensure that Israel's Law of Return is not used to deny bail to Jewish defendants.

In a letter Wednesday to Michael Mukasey, an Orthodox Jew, ADL National Director Abraham Foxman took note of a federal magistrate judge's recent denial of bail to the former manager of the Agriprocessors kosher meatpacking plant.

The judge, Jon Scoles, ruled that Rubashkin posed a risk of flight and declined to release him on bail, pointing to evidence that he had a travel bag with cash and travel documents on hand at the time of his arrest. He also noted that two others accused of crimes connected to their work at Agriprocessors are believed to have fled to Israel.

Scoles took note of Israel's Law of Return, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews.

On Monday, the judge denied a request to reconsider the judgment. Rubashkin's attorneys are said to be considering an appeal.

“The most troubling aspect here is that the government does not appear to have alleged, nor does the Detention Order conclude, that Defendant Rubashkin has any particular ties to Israel (he is alleged to have visited Israel in December 2007),” Foxman wrote. “Instead, the government and the Detention Order appear to conclude that simply because Defendant Rubashkin is Jewish, and because Jews may have a claim on Israeli citizenship, his religion is relevant to a bail hearing.”

In their request for consideration, Rubashkin's attorneys argued at length that invoking the Law of Return was illegitimate, noting that under the government's reasoning, every American Jew would be viewed as a heightened flight risk, including Mukasey himself and two justices of the U.S. Supreme Court. They further proposed several additional measures to ensure Rubashkin did not flee, including 24-hour security surveillance at the defendant's expense.

In denying the motion, Scoles asserted that Rubashkin's attorneys “attach too much significance” to the Law of Return factor in the original decision and that they had not produced any new information bearing on his risk of flight.

Rubashkin was arrested in late October on charges relating to the hiring of illegal workers at the company's Postville, Iowa, packing plant. While free on bond, he was arrested a second time and charged with bank fraud.

The Magic of Mushrooms

Food for Thought

American Scofflaw
I’m a firm believer that 9/11 was an inside job. Because there are 1000s of reasons on the Internet why a few raggedy Saudis could not have done it, I have not read all the theories.

This morning, this theory popped into my puny brain.

The questions and theories of why World Trade Center building 7, which was not hit by an aircraft, also fell on 9/11 are often thought as “the smoking gun” in this crime.

What about if United Flight 93, the ill-fated plane that crashed in the rural fields of Pennsylvania, was not really routed by the “terrorists” to Washington DC as many claim, but was scheduled to hit WTC7?

If the “insiders” who did 9/11 were planning to crash a third plane in New York City, that plane would probably have been scheduled to hit WTC7.

In my theory, a floor in WTC7 was the staging area for the 9/11 “attacks”. This floor had much of the incriminating evidence of what was to be. Because of this, explosive charges had also been set in WTC7 along with the charges set to take down WTC 1 and 2. And of course, a third plane, United 93, would have “taken down” this third building.

But plans failed, as all perfect plans must, and United 93 was probably shot down by accident by US Air Force planes which did not get the “stand down” orders from Washington as most fighters in the Northeast USA had been ordered.

So, the “insiders” had a dilemma.

They had incriminating evidence in WTC7 and the building had already been rigged with explosives to be detonated after United 93 crashed into it, like the other two buildings.

They could not allow this building to stand.

Maybe this theory has been out there, but I have not read it yet.

Them Poor Little Bastards

American Scofflaw

Them poor little Russians (sob), the got it so bad (choke) under that bad ol' Putin (sniffle). He is so mean and bad (spittle-drool)!

What crap.

First, the neoliberals, the "Chicago boys", advisors to Yeltsin and the Russians, who only wanted to be "free" like us in the United States, helped the Russian Israeli oligrachs to loot the country, in the wake of the implosion of the Soviet Union. Another Friedman "shock and awe laboratory".

Then when Putin wrested power from the impending plutocracy, and prevented these same oligarchs from selling Russia's oil and gas assets off to Exxon, imprisoning some, and banishing others to Great Britain and Israel, they get Henry Kissinger to go over to offer Putin the same time-honered offer given to many a U.S. backed dictator: get with the program or be targeted for replacement (elimination).

Next, we got a phoney-baloney missle shield stationed in color-coded revolutionary Poland and the Ukraine, the so-called war on terror inflaming all of muslim, oil-rich middle east and central asia, Pakistan being torn apart, India, hoping to get water and oil from Kashmir and central asia being subjected to a false-flag attack; and now facing nuclear war with Pakistan...all of this basically cutting off all oil and gas supply routes from the middle east and central asia to Russian and China...with Israel just sitting there, waiting, to get all of that oil and NG gas flowing to its terminal in Haifa:

http://img101.imageshack.us/img101/5834/pnacplanwo7.jpg

Now we have a global economic crisis, an implosion that originated on Wall Street (U.S. and Israel) wrapping up sub-prime mortgage junk, and then flooding the world with this junk.

But Russia is a parasite because its suffering the same economic fate as the rest of the world, and it's cutting off NG to Ukraine, the same country subjected to an NED color-coded revolt, who just happens to be part of the missle shield, whose sole purpose to undermine Russia?

More Literary Frauds If You Need 'Em

A man whose memoir about his experience during the Holocaust was to have been published in February has admitted that his story was embellished, and on Saturday evening his publisher canceled the release of the book.

And once again a New York publisher and Oprah Winfrey were among those fooled by a too-good-to-be-true story.

This time, it was the tale of Herman Rosenblat, who said he first met his wife while he was a child imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camp and she, disguised as a Christian farm girl, tossed apples over the camp’s fence to him. He said they met again on a blind date 12 years after the end of war in Coney Island and married. The couple celebrated their 50th anniversary this year.

Ms. Winfrey, who hosted Mr. Rosenblat and his wife, Roma Radzicki Rosenblat, on her show twice, called their romance “the single greatest love story” she had encountered in her 22 years on the show. On Saturday night, after learning from Mr. Rosenblat’s agent that the author had confessed that the story was fabricated, Berkley Books, a unit of Penguin Group that was planning to publish “Angel at the Fence,” Mr. Rosenblat’s memoir of surviving in a sub-camp of Buchenwald with the help of his future wife, canceled the book and demanded that Mr. Rosenblat return his advance.

Harris Salomon, who is producing a movie based on the story, said he would go ahead with the film, but as a work of fiction, adding that Mr. Rosenblat had agreed to donate all earnings from the film to Holocaust survivor charities.

Berkley’s decision came in the same year that another unit of Penguin, Riverhead Books, was duped by Margaret Seltzer, the author of “Love and Consequences,” her fabricated gang memoir about her life as a white girl taken into an African-American foster home in South Central Los Angeles. She had in fact been raised by her biological family in a well-to-do section of the San Fernando Valley. It also followed the revelations, nearly three years ago, that James Frey, the Oprah Winfrey-annointed author “A Million Little Pieces,” had exaggerated details of his memoir of drug addiction.

Doesn't Regret 'F*ck yourself' Remark

American Scofflaw

Dick Cheney is leaving office without remorse and taking some potshots at his successor on the way out the door.

Cheney mocked Joe Biden during a Fox News interview for misstating the section of the constitution that defines executive branch power, and he was dismissive of criticism that his amassing the power of the vice presidency was a trend that needed to be reversed.

"If he wants to diminish the office of the vice president, that's obviously his call," Cheney shrugged. "President-elect Obama will decide what he wants in a vice president and apparently, from the way they're talking about it, he does not expect him to have as consequential a role as I have had during my time."

Biden bit back, however, in a dueling Sunday morning interview that aired on ABC's "This Week" in which he said he stood by his statements.

"His notion of a unitary executive, meaning that, in time of war, essentially all power, you know, goes to the executive, I think is dead wrong. I think it was mistaken. I think it caused this administration, in adopting that notion, to overstep its constitutional bounds, but, at a minimum, to weaken our standing in the world and weaken our security. I stand by that -- that judgment," Biden said.

Cheney also seemed nonplussed at the idea that it was inappropriate for him to tell a senator to "Fuck yourself" on the floor of the Senate.

WALLACE: Did you really tell Senator Leahy, bleep yourself?

CHENEY: I did.

WALLACE: Any qualms or second thoughts or embarrassment?

CHENEY: No, I thought he merited it at the time. And we've since, I think, patched over that wound and we're civil to one another now.

Check out all these unexpected deaths of people involved with elections

by Pokey Anderson

1. Dan Rocco -- April 1, 2002 -- ChoicePoint VP -- plane crash
He died on April 1, 2002, in a plane crash in Gainesville, Georgia. He was an executive vice president at ChoicePoint, the firm that gained infamy with their faulty "felons" list supplied to Katherine Harris during the 2000 election in Florida. As a result of this list, over 90,000 voters (mostly African-American voters) were wrongly identified as felons and purged from the rolls.
http://www.bk2k.com/bushbodycount/stolen-election/bodies.shtml


2. Wesley Vance -- April 26, 2003 -- Diebold VP -- plane crash
Pilot Killed In Plane Crash Was Top Exec At Diebold
April 28, 2003
http://www.wkbn.com/Global/story.asp?S=1253108
(Jackson-AP) -- The pilot of a single-engine airplane that crashed in southern Ohio over the weekend was the chief operating officer of Canton-based Diebold Incorporated.
The company says 45-year-old Wesley Vance of Canton was flying a private plane that crashed Saturday near the Jackson County Airport. ...The company says Vance joined Diebold in October, 2000, as president of its North America business unit. He was named chief operating officer in 2001. Chief Executive Walden O'Dell will assume the company's daily operational responsibilities until a successor is found for Vance. An airport spokesman says Vance was practicing takeoffs and landings in a six-seat Beachcraft A-36 when it crashed near the airport.

[Note - On September 21, 2005, Diebold announces that its current COO will leave his post and the board. Stock drops 16% intraday. O'Dell will temporarily assume the post.]

~~~

http://www.abqjournal.com/obits/profiles/vance05-02-03.htm

Vance was an Eagle Scout, elected to Boys State, and a church-going Mormon, married, father of five. He earned a degree from Brigham Young University. He was described as a confident person who people liked to be around. His senior class in high school voted him "favorite boy". He had been a pilot for over twenty years. He was named to Diebold's No. 2 position as COO in 2001, managing the company's global operations.


3. Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr. -- July 4, 2003 -- Diebold consultant -- cause of death not confirmed
Anthony Celebrezze Dies
07/05/03
<http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news/1057397985113640.xml>

Former Ohio Attorney General Anthony J. Celebrezze Jr., 61, died yesterday in an Urbana hospital. Champaign County Coroner Joshua Richards confirmed that Celebrezze died about 9 p.m. yesterday, but would not confirm a cause of death.

Celebrezze, a Democrat of Columbus, was a stalwart in Cleveland and Ohio politics.... He was 38 when he was elected secretary of state in 1978.

He was Ohio attorney general from 1983 to 1991, and Ohio secretary of state from 1979 to 1983. Celebrezze ran against George Voinovich for governor in 1990 but lost.

Wayne Hill, Celebrezze's longtime communications director during the 1978 campaign for secretary of state and then attorney general, was in shock at Celebrezze's death yesterday.

Hill said Celebrezze, who enjoyed racing cars, was at Shady Bowl Speedway in De Graff for a Fourth of July race when he felt ill. De Graff is west of Columbus.

"It's beyond a shock. Tony had a passion for racing," said Hill in a telephone interview. "It's unbelievable. It's not right."

...After his loss to Voinovich, Celebrezze joined the law firm of Kegler, Brown, Hill & Ritter, and recently was a consultant for Diebold Inc., promoting electronic voting machines.

4. Athan Gibbs, Jr. -- March 12, 2004 -- invented the TruVote system -- car crash - collided w/ 18-wheeler
Was planning to present his new voting machine, and its paper verification features, to the Georgia legislature within a week of the crash.

"Death of a Patriot: No More 'Blind Faith Voting,'" by Bob Fitrakis http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0318-02.htm

5. Andy Stephenson -- July 7, 2005 -- nationally known election activist -- pancreatic cancer

Andy had worked for Black Box Voting and barnstormed around the country investigating and speaking. It was Andy who uncovered (among other things) much of the story of Jeffrey Dean, the VP at Diebold who did software programming, who was a convicted felon whose crime had been embezzlement using computers. Andy went to many of the nation's election hotspots, including Florida and Ohio.

In January 2005, Andy noticed he didn't feel well. In April, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was eventually treated at Johns Hopkins, after the national election community raised $50,000 in eleven days for his treatment. He died of post-surgery complications and a series of strokes. He was 43. His surgery had been postponed for two weeks due to the efforts of people who tried to monkeywrench Paypal and Johns Hopkins, and who spread nasty rumors that Andy wasn't really sick, and that this was all a scam. Someone managed to shut down his Medicaid after the surgery, once again slowing things down. One of his supporters in Baltimore had her car vandalized.

He had said a year earlier: "I've been threatened by these people [makers of voting machines]. I've been followed from my home to work. The president of Diebold told me to back off or I would get a visit. My phone's been tapped. I've been ridiculed. I've been called a conspiracy theorist. You bet I'm going to demonize them. It's wrong. We're privatizing our elections. It's something that should remain in the hands of the people...We need to take it back. It's We the People." "If they take our right to vote away, we're nothing but slaves. I'm sorry. I'm not willing to be a slave. I'm not willing to go quietly into the night." --Andy Stephenson, July 13, 2004 in an interview following a press conference next to the Austin State Capitol Rotunda.

6. Rev. Bill Moss -- August 2, 2005 -- lead plaintiff in Moss v. Bush -- stroke

Columbus, Ohio resident Bill Moss was highly visible in the efforts to rectify the many wrongs of the November 2004 election in Ohio. Elected five times to the Columbus Board of Education, Rev. Moss was an eloquent speaker. He was considered a possible national spokesperson for the election reform movement, in an informal meeting held in Houston on June 30, 2005 after the Election Assessment Hearing. Like Athan Gibbs, Moss was African-American.

7. Mike Connell -- December 19, 2008 -- national GOP computer guru -- solo plane crash

"Pilot killed as plane crashes in Lake Twp."
By Jewell Cardwell, John Higgins and David Knox
Akron Beacon Journal staff writers
11:30 p.m. EST, Dec 19, 2008
http://www.ohio.com/news/break_news/36482529.html

Happy Harry Says

The Capitol Visitors Center, which opened this morning, may have tripled its original budget and fallen years behind schedule, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid found a silver lining for members of Congress: tourists won't offend them with their B.O. anymore.

"My staff tells me not to say this, but I'm going to say it anyway," said Reid in his remarks. "In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol. It may be descriptive but it's true."

But it's no longer going to be true, noted Reid, thanks to the air conditioned, indoor space.

And that's not all. "We have many bathrooms here, as you can see," Reid continued. "Souvenirs are available."

Get A Life, Bobby

American Scofflaw

Tallan Latz is an American blues guitar prodigy. He received his first musical instrument, a drum kit, at the age of three and began playing acoustic guitar at age four. By the age of eight, he had played on-stage with performers the likes of Jackson Browne and Les Paul.

He's in two blues bands and used to play in public, until bureaucrat Robert Anderson of the Wisconsin Labor Standards Bureau found out.

You see, in Wisconsin it's perfectly legal for Tallan to drink in a bar with his father present. It is not, however, legal for Tallan to "perform" in the same setting.

Tallan was quoted in a local article saying, "It feels pretty bad because that just broke my dream. My dream is to play guitar."

Bureaucrat Anderson could care less: "The kid is definitely a prodigy, and you'd like to see him have opportunities. But if I'm made aware of a violation, I have to enforce the statute." One has to wonder if he makes the same attempt to enforce all of the other stupid laws in his state.

Bureaucrat Robert Anderson can be reached at 608-266-3345.

Leave Her Alone, You Bastards

A young Pittsburgh woman who needs a transplant has another fight on her hands. She's being sued by the music industry for illegally downloading music from the Internet.But 19-year-old Ciara Sauro strongly denies the charge and says she and her mother are overwhelmed with medical debts."Look and see where it (the downloads) came from, and look and see that it's not me. It's not fair to do to me," said Sauro.

Sauro, who lives in Ross Township, is disabled with pancreatitis. She needs an islet cell transplant and is hospitalized weekly.

Because she didn't defend herself against a copyright lawsuit, a federal judge in Pittsburgh ruled she's a music pirate, and that could cost the Sauros almost $8,000 in fines."

I already have severe depression. I mean, it's so hard to sit there and think that I have to get in trouble for something that I didn't do. It's not fair," Sauro said.

Sauro and her mother, Lisa, are being sued for the fines because they didn't challenge a music industry lawsuit in Pittsburgh federal court.

The lawsuit accuses Ciara Sauro of illegally sharing 10 songs online with strangers through free Internet software."

You want to know the truth? I make $8.25 an hour. She can't work. This child is very sick. I mean, what am I supposed to do?" Lisa Sauro said.

The Sauros said they've lived in their home since Ciara's father moved out. They claim the Internet account in the lawsuit was opened by him at his new address."

I just want them to know that I have to go through enough stress in my life with my sickness and my family, and I don't think that they should go after people just because they want money for something that's not even fair to us," Ciara Sauro said.

Attorney James Brink told WTAE Channel 4 Action News that he's offering to represent the Sauros for free and ask a judge to reopen the case.

Brink, who has defended other similar lawsuits, said the persons being sued only have so many days to respond before a judge enters a default judgment. He also said it's common for people to be intimidated by the legal documents."

A lay person getting this -- first of all, it's 60 pages thick," he said. "It's full of legalese and jargon from the company. They see the record company suing them for thousands of dollars. They get scared."

An attorney who represents the record companies in the lawsuit against the Sauros did not return phone calls for comment Monday.

Theft Everywhere

Sexy Killer

Good Ole Gold

Real Deal---Not

Wow, I Wondered Where I Had Left That!

Researchers say they have located the world's oldest stash of marijuana, in a tomb in a remote part of China.

The cache of cannabis is about 2,700 years old and was clearly "cultivated for psychoactive purposes," rather than as fibre for clothing or as food, says a research paper in the Journal of Experimental Botany.

Oh, let It be