Pamela Martinez is a textbook case of the waste, cruelty, and injustice of our criminal justice system. After serving 7 years of her 25 years-to-life, Three Strikes sentence for stealing a toolbox valued at $30, she succeeded in overturning the sentence. She's rebuilt her life, has a job and pays taxes, and contributes as an activist and volunteer to making a better California, but California's criminal justice system wants to pull Pam back and derail her hard-won successes.
Attorney General Bill Lockyer has spent over 2 million dollars of taxpayers' money to pursue Pamela's return to prison for 65 additional days. This will disrupt Pam's new life, force her out of her new apartment, and take away her job, just short of her one-year anniversary. This is wasteful, cruel, and unjust
Rally for Clemency Wed, tomorrow, 3-6pm Gov. Schwarzenegger's Los Angeles office 300 South Spring St. Suite 16701
2:05:50 PM
Why the Iraq war is increasing terrorism
From former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook comes this extraordinary missive:
The invasion of Iraq was Britain's biggest foreign policy mistake since Suez.
A fitting way to mark the anniversary would be to drive a stake through the doctrine of pre-emptive strike.
Cook eloquently explains why the Iraq debacle has increased, not decreased, the chances of terrorism, as Bush and Blair stupidly fell into a trap. Read the whole thing, then circulate it widely. (From a Cape Town newspaper reprint from The Independent.)
"The new Bush doctrine claimed the right to make war on any country that could be a potential threat. Iraq has proved beyond any reasonable doubt that intelligence cannot provide evidence reliable enough to justify war on such a speculative basis.
A year later ministers do not justify our presence in Iraq by the hunt for those elusive weapons of mass destruction, but by the need, as the prime minister put it last week, to be "steadfast against terrorism". Yet the conversion of Iraq into an extended battlefield between the West and al-Qaeda is a measure of the failure of our policy, not a justification for invasion.
The Islamic fundamentalists regarded Saddam with as much hostility as anyone else, and he reciprocated by keeping them out of Iraq. It was our occupation that gave al-Qaeda the motivation to target Iraq and the incompetence of our plans after Saddam that offered them the open door through which they entered it.
The invasion of Iraq has made the world more vulnerable to a heightened threat from al-Qaeda, which is precisely what our intelligence agencies warned the government about on the eve of war.
Our own experience in Northern Ireland has demonstrated that the only way to diminish the threat from terrorism is to isolate the terrorists and deny them any sympathy from their own public.
The British tried bombing the IRA into submission. It didn't work. As with al-Qaida, the IRA gained strength and support from these attacks, which many viewed as atrocities committed by an occupying army. And IRA members are now part of the government. However his point is valid, that intelligent tactics and strategy, not carpet-bombing, is the only way to defuse terrorists.
The invasion of Iraq has handed the terrorists a whole new weapon to deploy on the Arab street. The great irony is that invading Iraq is precisely what al-Qaeda wanted us to do, because it served their agenda of polarising the West and the Islamic world. As George Soros has observed, "We have fallen into a trap".
On this first anniversary it seems only too likely that the judgment of history may be that the invasion of Iraq has been the biggest blunder in British foreign and security policy in the half century since Suez."
12:09:26 AM
Be a Net
With this, you aren't on the net, you are a net, connected to anyone else with this wearable mobile hotspot.
Why would you do this? Well, imagine, oh 500 people in a given area, all wearing their own mobile net. Or wandering into Wi-Fi spots and joining in. Or creating little nets wherever you go...
This is yet another account, this one from the former British Ambassador to Washington, which seems to confirm the allegations that the Bush Administration was pushing for war with Iraq immediately after September 11th despite the fact that Iraq was not connected to the attacks.
How many people have to testify to this before the claim is taken seriously?
12:00:45 AM
Monday, March 22, 2004
How not to have peace in the Mideast
Israel assassinated Hamas leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin Monday, striking its heaviest blow against the Palestinian Islamic militant group and provoking threats of bloody revenge.
Israeli security sources said Prime Minister Ariel Sharon personally ordered and monitored the helicopter attack on the paralyzed cleric, whose wheelchair lay smashed in a pool of blood after three missiles exploded outside a Gaza mosque.
An Israeli helicopter gunship fired missles directly at the quadripelgic sheikh who was being pushed in his wheelchair, killing several innocent bystanders. He, according to some, was a moderating force (yes, moderating) force on Hamas.
United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said it was not only against international law, but did nothing to help find a peaceful solution.
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak described it as cowardly and King Abdullah of Jordan called it a crime.
In Brussels, European Union foreign ministers condemned Israel for an "extra-judicial killing", which they said undermined the rule of law.
And the reaction of the White House?
But the US State Department avoided direct criticism of Israel, urging all parties in the conflict to remain calm and show restraint.
Uh, huh...
10:01:21 AM
Ex- counter-terrorism head says Bush ignored al-Qaida
The former White House head of counter-terrorism said last night that President George W Bush refused to take al-Qa'eda seriously before the September 11 attacks, preferring to focus on Iraq instead.
Richard Clarke, who resigned a year ago, told CBS television that Mr Bush had "ignored" the terrorist threat in the months before the 2001 attacks despite unprecedented alarm in intelligence circles.
Lord, when an ex-head of counter-terrorism says the President is incompetent and worse, well, this indicates a rather serious split in the ruling elite, doesn't it?
Predicting, correctly, that Bush loyalists would denounce his claims as sour grapes and partisan politics, Mr Clarke said: "I am sure they will launch their dogs on me. But frankly I find it outrageous that the president is running for re-election on the grounds that he has done such great things about terrorism. He ignored it; he ignored terrorism for months."
President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, "looked skeptical" when she was warned early in 2001 about the threat from al-Qaida and appeared to never have heard of the terrorist organization, according to Bush's former counterterrorism coordinator.
And why did Bush ignore al-Qaida? Because he wanted to invade Iraq and didn't care what the facts were, that's why.
<Clarke> said that in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks Bush took him aside, pressing him for information about alleged links between the al-Qaeda terror network, the chief suspect in the strikes, and the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein, despite reports from the intelligence community that Baghdad was not involved.
"The entire conversation left me in absolutely no doubt that George Bush wanted me to come back with a report that said Iraq did this," Clarke told 60 Minutes.
PS. John Kerry said "he has asked for copies of a new book in which a former White House counterterrorism coordinator accuses the Bush administration of manipulating America into war with Iraq with dangerous consequences,"
8:00:49 AM
Jmmy Carter says Iraq war based on lies
"There was no reason for us to become involved in Iraq recently. That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington, claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence ... a decision was made to go to war [then people said] 'Let's find a reason to do so'."
Former President Jimmy Carter, is ignoring the unspoken rule that ex-Presidents don't directly attack sitting Presidents. Apparently he believes the lunacies of the Bushies require speaking out.
From Sydney to Tokyo, from Santiago, Chile, to Madrid, London, New York and San Francisco, demonstrators condemned U.S. policy in Iraq and said they did not believe Iraqis are better off or the world safer because of the war.
Journalists estimated that at least a million people streamed through Rome, in probably the biggest single protest.
Hundreds of thousands of people around the world rallied against the U.S. presence in Iraq on the first anniversary of the war Saturday, in protests that retained the anger, if not the size, of demonstrations held before the invasion began.
(The Feb 2003 demos the above refers to were completely off the map in terms of size compared to any protest ever. And one million people in Rome yesterday is still knocking the ball out of the stadium!)
In Los Angeles, one of thousands of protesters held photographs of Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney with the words, "forget Janet Jackson's — expose the real boobs."
The pair unfurled a banner which read "Time for Truth" after they reached the clockface 328 feet (100 meters) above London using mountaineering equipment.
Here in LA, our sound system in L.A. wasn't powerful enough, because the crowd was larger than expected! At least 20,000 came, and there were spirited rallies both at the assembly point and at march conclusion.
I helped set up the sound system and stages at both rally sites, got there at 8 am, left at 6 pm, and took a gaggle of photos. Check the ANSWER LA home page, my camblog, and here.
12:22:20 AM
Ron Kovic, peaceful warrior
Co-founder of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, author of "Born on the 4th of July", tireless antiwar activist for thirty years, Ron always has a message of hope
12:15:17 AM
Is that Laura Bush with the head of bin Laden?
(Hmmm, it might be John Price impersonating Laura Bush...)
Thousands of people have taken to the streets of Australia, beginning a day of protests around the world to mark the first anniversary of the Iraq war.
Rallies are expected later in Britain, Italy and Spain - whose governments supported the US-led invasion of Iraq. More than 250 demonstrations are being organised across the United States.
I'll be at the Hollywood rally and march early, helping set up, and will post photos to my camblog as the day progresses.
12:05:47 AM
Oh heck, let's bomb London too
A former White House anti-terrorism advisor says the Bush administration considered bombing Iraq in retaliation after Sept. 11, 2001 even though it was clear al Qaeda had carried out the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"Why do they hate, oh why do they hate us???"
12:04:33 AM
Coke screws up water!
The Coca-Cola Co said on Friday it had recalled its entire Dasani range of bottled water from the British market after levels of bromate, a potentially harmful chemical, were found to exceed legal standards.
Noam Chomsky, the political theorist and leftwing guru, yesterday gave his reluctant endorsement to the Democratic party's presidential contender, John Kerry, calling him "Bush-lite", but a "fraction" better than his rival.
<Chomsky> said there were "small differences" between Senator Kerry and the Republican president. But, in an interview on the Guardian's politics website, he added that those small differences "can translate into large outcomes".
Kerry is orders of magnitude less extreme on domestic social issues. But on the war(s), I'm not sure there is much difference. We shall see.
12:02:50 AM
Fur once, I'm at a loss for a snappy title
A San Diego computer programmer who has spent £100,000 on tattoos and plastic surgery to turn himself into a 'tiger' wants a fur graft.
Dennis Smith is tattooed from head to toe with orange and black stripes and his teeth have been filed to needle point. He has also had latex whiskers implanted and surgery to his lips so he has a permanent snarl. He now wants a surgeon to graft tiger fur on to his skin, like a perma-wig.
However, he arguably is still not quite as strange as this...
12:01:54 AM
Friday, March 19, 2004
Hmmm. Could this approach work in dealing with the Bushies?
Dr. Harvey Karp has a novel approach to communicating with toddlers. Think of them as Neanderthals and chimpanzees.
12:12:32 AM
Europe to slap BillG upside the head
Microsoft Corp. failed on Thursday to reach a deal with the European Commission setting the stage for a landmark antitrust ruling next week that will brand the software giant an abusive monopolist.
About time! Our flaccid courts have done little to stop Microsoft. It appears Europe will be doing quite a lot.
12:11:29 AM
Lack of water a serious threat in US
Above-average snowfall has soothed drought worries for some states, but for others in the Southwest, the lack of water is still a serious threat.
Areas in New Mexico, Utah, Arizona and Nevada are of particular concern to officials, who said yesterday, March 16, that prolonged drought will cause serious problems in coming years.
This drought has been going on for several years now, and here in L.A., we got little rain during our rainy season. Not that it matters, as our water comes from hundreds of miles away, often from different states. Is this a sustainable model? No.
General sacked by Bush says he wanted early and free elections
Jay Garner, the US general abruptly dismissed as Iraq's first occupation administrator after a month in the job, says he fell out with the Bush circle because he wanted free elections and rejected an imposed programme of privatisation.
Lordy, which is worse, allowing Iraqis to vote for those Halliburton, er, the US government might not approve of - or, gasp, not privatizing everything, whether they like it or not?
12:06:22 AM
Bush blunder # 481
"Our cowboy mentality has failed us miserably in Venezuela," said Fadel Gheit, an energy industry analyst at Oppenheimer & Company in New York. "We could have pumped up Chávez to be our back-alley oil reserve but instead we squandered our attention and resources elsewhere. We're paying for having botched Venezuela."
12:05:25 AM
Thursday, March 18, 2004
You might wish to rethink that Australian vacation
An Australian woman said she was picking roses outside her home on the outskirts of Brisbane when a large kangaroo pushed her down and then kicked, bit and scratched her.
Neighbors said they have been terrorized in recent years by a mob of about 50 kangaroos.
When interviewed by Fox News, a high ranking White House staffer said "the kangaroos had obviously been trained by al-Qaida to hate freedom", warned Australians to be on guard against duck-billed platypuses with suicide bomber belts, and added that tax cuts for the wealthy would solve the terrorism problem.
12:09:33 AM
How NOT to win a "war on terror"
Terrorism is increasing, not decreasing, as witness the hotel bombing in Baghdad Wednesday. The US is losing friends and potential allies everywhere - all thanks to the idiot schemes of George Bush. Some say, "he's a leader!", to which I respond - "he's leading us off a cliff."
Bush acts like he is competent. He thinks he is competent. But he is neither. He's destroyed whatever residual goodwill others had towards the US, and has failed completely at stopping terrorism. Leaders inspire people to follow, leaders get stuff done, the precise opposite of what Bush is "accomplishing."
Osama bin Laden is more popular than George W. Bush in Pakistan, Jordan and Morocco, according to a new poll of foreign attitudes toward the United States.
The finding is contained in a nine-country poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, which found that extreme anti-American sentiment is spreading across Europe and the Muslim world a year after the invasion of Iraq.
When else has a US President failed so miserably that he alienated Europe? And to what end? His invasion of Iraq is blowing up in his face and the terrorism he claims to be fighting has not abated, in fact there is more of it, not less.
PoliZeros readers comment on Spain and terrorism:
From DJ Mitchell -
"Fighting terrorism with bombs, with operations of 'shock and awe', with missiles, that does not combat terrorism it only generates more radicalism. The way to fight terrorism is with the rule of law, with international legislation, with intelligence services. This is what the international community should be talking about." --Incoming Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero
BTW, Bush has called outgoing Spanish PM Aznar a "hero" because, against the will of the Spanish people, he supported the invasion of Iraq and also sent troops. Regardless of one's position on the war, a leader who goes against the will of his people is not a democratic leader!
From Joe -
I have just finished watching the right-wing media (all that's available outside PBS) bewail how the Spanish are encouraging terrorism by wanting to withdraw from Iraq. They all try to conflate this to withdrawal from the war against terrorism.
Given that the Spanish have been remarkably efficient against Al Qaeda, I originally wrote this off as yet more proof that Americans know nothing about the world beyond the US borders. After considering the problem for a moment, it occurred to me that they Bushies are asking the wrong question. They ask: "will this encourage Al Qaeda to bomb other countries close to their elections"?
The better question, one that alas requires some subtlety and nuance (and therefore off-limits according to Dubya himself) would be "Would the bombings have had any effect on the war on terror had the US listened to its European allies and stayed out of Iraq?"
Instead of having an outcome that could be galvanizing the Western world against Islamic fascism, we have blurred the focus through our own inept, unplanned, and underconsidered policies.
Ironically, we want the Iraqis to experience democracy, but get grumpy when a Western electorate tells its government that it's pissed off at being ignored on big decisions of war and peace (polls showed 90% of the Spanish voting population opposed to the Iraqi advenutre). It's only a democracy, I guess, if the rest of the world agrees with us.
"It's nice to be feared by your enemies, but it's not nice to be feared by your friends", Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of state
Because then, of course, you no longer have any friends left.
12:08:40 AM
March 20 worldwide antiwar demos
From ANSWER NY, the national office
Opposition to the Iraq war and occupation is deep and it is global. It stunned the war-makers that the people of Spain, having experienced a horrific terrorist attack on civilians, could three days later resist the right-wing pressure applied by the pro-Bush Aznar government and turn that government out of office. This incredible upset was a focused repudiation by the people of the government's cooperation with Bush and Blair in carrying out the aggression in Iraq. That was a remarkable political development which will have widespread repercussions. The people of Spain will be in the streets on March 20th. So must we.
As usual, NYC police and mayor are trying to block that demonstration from happening.
In response to the call from the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, New York City Mayor Bloomberg and the City Council received more than 5,000 e-mails and letters demanding that they uphold the free speech rights of demonstrators who have a permit to march and rally in the heart of mid-town Manhattan on Saturday.
Thousands more are showing their support and rejecting the efforts of the government to intimidate people from coming, by buying bus tickets and making plans to come out into the streets. For the regional action in New York, buses, vans, car caravans and trains are bringing people from as far south as Charlotte, North Carolina to as far north as Burlington, VT. Currently there are over 30 cities organizing transportation to New York City.
And as usual, ANSWER laywers will go to court to block the expected odious moves by NYC to stop the demo.
12:06:02 AM
Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Spain's leader: Iraq ocupation a 'fiasco'
The Bushies have been yapping at Kerry to produce the names of foreign leaders who would back him. Well, of course the Bushies were lying about that too, because Kerry never actually said that.
But as it turns out, the Bushies got their wish.
In an extraordinary turn of events, the new leader of Spain just point-blank attacked the Iraq war calling it a "fiasco", and aligned himself with Kerry.
Spain's new leader intensified his criticism of the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq on Wednesday, saying it was "turning into a fiasco."
Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero also refused to reconsider his pledge to pull his 1,300 troops out of Iraq by June 30, in a sharp break with the Bush administration.
Zapatero had signaled his dislike of President Bush's policies during the Spanish election campaign when he said he hoped Democratic challenger John Kerry would win in November.
The International Herald Tribune recently quoted Zapatero as saying, "We're aligning ourselves with Kerry. Our allegiance will be for peace, against war, no more deaths for oil, and for a dialogue between the government of Spain and the new Kerry administration."
In the hourlong interview Wednesday on Onda Cero radio, Zapatero said that "fighting terrorism with bombs ... with Tomahawk missiles, isn't the way to defeat terrorism. ...
"Terrorism is combatted by the state of law. ... That's what I think Europe and the international community have to debate," he said.
Zapatero said the Iraq occupation "is turning into a fiasco," noting that "there have been almost more deaths since the end of the war" than during last year's U.S.-led invasion, and the United Nations still is not in control.
AT&T Wireless is requiring customers in parts of California and New York and elsewhere to "upgrade" their phones and offering free replacements. The catch? In most cases the upgrades have worse features than the phones they're replacing.
Slashdot is completely correct. The replacement phones are inferior.
I recently swapped my Nokia 3650 cell phone for a newer, supposed next generation cell phone, the Nokia 3200. As it turned out, compared to the Nokia 3650, the 3200 has a smaller screen, poorer audio, worse reception, and the photos are much poorer quality - a mere 10k vs. 40k for the Nokia 3650.
What's more, and here's where it gets completely absurd, the phone does not appear capable of actually emailing a photo! Oh yes, after going through the (highly convoluted) process of attaching a photo to the email and sending it, it acts like it sent the email. Yet the email is never seen again, certainly not by the recipient.
I spent over an hour on the phone with AT&T tech support on two calls, no one had a clue why it couldn't send photos. Rather than waste more time with this phone, I returned it and got my old phone back. The clerk wasn't even slightly surprised, I suspect they're getting many, many such returns.
Do not take the AT&T offer. Wait. They'll be forced to offer better phones. Or I and many others will go elsewhere.
12:15:27 AM
Spain bombings
Were the Spain train bombings a deliberate, calculated attempt to depose the ruling party, or was the upset win by the Socialists an unexpected outcome of the bombings?
Given that the bombings were directly before the election and were apparently done by al-Qaida, I'm leaning towards believing it was deliberate. If so, then other conclusions can be drawn. Those responsible are brilliant tacticians and strategists. They are bold, committed, and execute plans with remarkable skill.
I see nothing in the blundering, arrogant US "strategy" that comprehends any of this. Quite the contrary, rather than form coalitions to work together, the Bushies have instead alienated the planet with their ignorant yokel "We have the biggest guns" macho strutting - which rather clearly isn't working.
Mistrust of the United States, particularly U.S. President George W. Bush has grown steadily in western Europe over the ten months, while anti-American sentiment in the Arab world remains pervasive, according to a major new public-opinion poll of nine countries.
Bush's war on terrorism really has been quite a flop, hasn't it? It's not stopping terrorism and it's losing the US valuable friends and allies... It's one thing to yap about gittin' the evildoers, it's another to have produced actual results.
12:09:01 AM
Politics makes strange bedfellows
Things may be shaping up nicely for Ralph Nader, who could very soon receive an unlikely endorsement from the Ross Perot founded Texas Reform Party.
This may prove to be a huge victory for Nader’s solo candidacy, as the support from the conservative Reformers could help him gain ballot access for the upcoming November election.
12:04:41 AM
How much does gas cost in Los Angeles?
This much (via my camblog). And prices are rising.
Here in LA, our sound system in L.A. wasn't powerful enough, because the crowd was larger than expected! At least 20,000 came, and there were spirited rallies both at the assembly point and at march conclusion.
Fur once, I'm at a loss for a snappy title 