Archive for June, 2010
U.S. Supreme Court Limits Miranda Rights
Here we go again – the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, one of the enduring parts of the Bush legacy, is messing with a previous Supreme Court decision that most Americans hold sacred: the Miranda warning. From Detroit News:
A Michigan man will continue serving a life sentence for murder after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that he gave up his rights against self-incrimination because he did not explicitly tell police he wanted to remain silent after his arrest.
The 5-4 decision overturns a ruling by the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals and reinstates Van Chester Thompkins’ conviction for a Jan. 10, 2000, murder in Southfield.
Detroit attorney Elizabeth Jacobs, who argued the case for Thompkins, 33, in front of the Supreme Court in March, said the ruling is “very disappointing.” The court is “diminishing Miranda rights as we know them,” Jacobs said.
Miranda rights are the rights of a suspect to remain silent.…
U.S. to Take Control of Opium Smuggling in Afghanistan
Click on this map from PBS for interactive features showing Afghanistan's opium production.
Sometimes the news speaks for itself. I have long contended that one of the main reasons we are in Afghanistan is for the almighty opium poppy dollars.
It’s interesting that by 2000 the Taliban had cut the amount of poppy growth by 90%. But then, by 2002, poppy production increased by about the same amount. Coincidental timing, I’m sure, considering that something historically monumental happened between that time to give the United States a reason to go into Afghanistan.
This is from Al-Jazeera.net in 2008 on opium production:
“The Afghanistan Opium Survey 2008, made public by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on Wednesday indicated that there was a decline of 19 per cent in the areas known for poppy cultivation.
The report, also released in conjunction with the Afghan Ministry of Counter Narcotics, said that in the past year…
How The U.S. Government Killed The Safest Car Ever Built
Ah, somehow this isn’t even a surprise: the U.S. government commissioned the creation of a car far safer than those offered by auto companies, and then covered it up. From Jalopnik:
Thirty-five years ago, the U.S. government built a fleet of cars that were safer than anything on the road. Twenty-five years ago, the government shredded them in secret. Two escaped the crusher. This is their story.
For a piece of American-built iron from the depths of the Carter administration, the 14 Minicar Research Safety Vehicles had a massive amount of technology. The fender and front fascia were plastic composites that could take a 10-mph smack unscathed. Under the plastic body of the most advanced version were run-flat tires, anti-lock brakes with crash-sensing radar and dual-stage airbags.
Test drives scored about 32 miles to the gallon, but test crashes suggested passengers might walk away from most crashes up to 50 mph with minimal…
Dudus: It’s Not About Cocaine, It’s About Oil
Douglas Valentine tipped us off to this insightful story about the Jamaican street battles currently fueling drug war enthusiasts’ fantasies, from NegrilStories.ca:
As the Dudus saga plays itself out in Kingston, two of the questions that remain unanswered are ‘why is the United States pushing so hard?’ and ‘why now?’. The world is full of dons and drug lords, not to mention the fact that the American plate is full with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a billion Muslims who are being encouraged to attack anywhere at anytime. You would think that they had more immediate things to concentrate on.
Yet they continued to poke and push, treating every Jamaican that went through U.S. customs like a criminal, openly questioned the personal honesty of the the Prime Minister Bruce Golding and even suggested that the Jamaican Labor Party were in violation of their mandate to govern Jamaica. In fact, the Americans haven’t…
Massive Guatemala Sinkhole (Photo)
This image is NOT a Photoshop alteration. This is a real sinkhole that spontaneously appeared in Zone 2 of Guatemala City due to tropical storm Agatha, and was posted to the Guatemalan government’s image feed:
Photo: Gobierno de Guatemala (CC)
How’d you like to have that just drop out from under you?
The roundness of the hole makes it all the more freakish, and I think we can probably count the seconds between now and when someone will say “aliens”, “end times”, “2012″, or “satellite weapon test” due to that one physical property of this crazy pit.
On a more serious note, this is just the most obvious sign of the destruction that was visited upon already impoverished Guatemala with the first big storm of the upcoming hurricane season in the Gulf. 30,000 people displaced from their homes, roughly 120,000 evacuated, and 93 dead. Does not bode well.
Puerto Rican Man Nearly Deported To Mexico
Your ethnicity, citizenship, and place of birth don’t matter — if you’re brown, you’re now in danger of being deported “back to Mexico”:
New York City’s Climate Change Plans
Remember that Vanity Fair issue with all the photos of Manhattan partially submerged because of rising sea levels (example at right)? Well New York City is taking climate change seriously and has just issued the following press release detailing its preparations:
New York City is establishing itself as a global leader in forming a proactive response to climate change, reveals a new report detailing the city’s plans to adapt to the challenges and opportunities the changing climate presents. The plans, revealed in the first report of the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) and published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, outline the measures the city will take to proactively respond to climate change in a way that will provide both long-term environmental, and short-term economic, benefits to the city.
“Cities are at the forefront of the battle against climate change. We are the source of approximately…
BP CEO On The Gulf Spill: “I Want My Life Back”
Who’s the greatest victim of the “relatively tiny” oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? BP Ceo Tony Hayward explains that there’s “no one who wants this thing over” more than he does, because, “I’d like my life back.”
New Vaccine ‘Could Eliminate’ Breast Cancer
Too good to be true? From Murdoch-owned Fox/Sky News:
U.S. scientists developed a vaccine that could prevent breast cancer and save the lives of millions of women, Sky News reported Monday.
The treatment was tested on mice and showed “overwhelmingly favorable results.”
Dr. Vincent Tuohy, who led the research at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, said there was evidence in the initial tests that the vaccine could prevent cancers from forming and stop the growth of existing tumors.
“If it works in humans the way it works in mice, this will be monumental,” he said.
“We could eliminate breast cancer. We believe that this vaccine will someday be used to prevent breast cancer in adult women in the same way that vaccines have prevented many childhood diseases.”
Researchers injected the test vaccine into six mice that were specifically bred to be prone to breast cancer. None developed any signs of tumors.
A further six mice bred in…
We Are Living In A Screenworld – Reality Isn’t In The Real World Anymore
Michael Ventura writes on AlterNet:
Not so long ago, I taught a graduate writing seminar in which I got caught in an argument about virtual vs. “real” experience. Two students—among the brightest in the class—insisted that they could go to Rome via a computer program through which they could view every street, turn this corner and that as they pleased, look at every ruin and work of art, and their experience would be as real, as engaged, as if they’d actually been there. n “But,” said I, “a pigeon couldn’t shit on your head.”
Granting that any experience can be called “real,” in that it is an experience, I argued that there are differences in the nature of virtual and actual reality. For one thing, on your walk through a virtual Rome, you aren’t even walking: you’re sitting. And what’s Rome without the wonderful smells of food? Even if your virtual Rome is accompanied by…
National Anarchists at Folsom Street Fair
From Nick Pell at Red Star Times
I was contacted this morning by Bay Area National Anarchists founder Andrew Yeoman. He felt that I had unfairly maligned his group in my recent article on radical traditionalist website Alternative Right. I don’t really want to get into the specifics of our exchange, however, I would now like to present the videos I referenced (but did not post) in my previous article. The event they are protesting is the Folsom Street Fair, which is a leather / BDSM event, not explicitly a gay pride event.
I stand by my claim that harassment takes place on these videos and that the demonstration attempts to target homosexuals. Indeed, Folsom Street Fair is largely (if not predominantly) an event for the gay leather / BDSM community.
Israeli Prime Minister Cancels White House Meeting
From AP:
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel’s prime minister has called off a planned visit to the White House to deal with a crisis over a botched naval raid that killed 10 pro-Palestinian activists.
Netanyahu, who is in Canada, was set to travel to Washington to meet with President Barack Obama on Tuesday. But his office says he decided to return home early after Monday’s commando raid.
The commandos intercepted a flotilla of activists trying to deliver aid to the Gaza Strip. The deadly crackdown has drawn widespread international condemnations.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.
JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing at least 10 passengers in a predawn raid that set off worldwide condemnation and a diplomatic crisis.
Israel said its commandos were attacked by…
