The Tampon rebels of Zimbabwe.

Africa: Women are treated like garbage in Zimbabwe. Also is water is wet.

SHE has been arrested 22 times, tortured so badly that her front teeth were knocked into her nose and had an AK-47 thrust up her vagina until she bled. Thabitha Khumalo’s crime: to campaign against a critical shortage of tampons and sanitary towels in Zimbabwe, one of the least talked about and most severe side-effects for women of the country’s economic crisis. Now her cause has been taken up in Britain by celebrities including the actors Anna Chancellor, Gillian Anderson, Prunella Scales and Jeremy Irons. Later this month they will launch “Dignity. Period!”, a fundraising campaign to buy sanitary products for Zimbabwe’s women. It will start with a night of entertainment at the 20th Century theatre in Notting Hill, west London, hosted by Stephen Fry. So desperate is the situation that women are being forced to use rolled-up pieces of newspaper. Zimbabwe already has the world’s lowest life expectancy for women — 34 — and Khumalo believes these unhygienic practices could make it drop to as low as 20 because infections will make them more vulnerable to HIV. “It’s a time bomb,” she said. The shortage is forcing schoolgirls to stay at home when they start menstruating. The crisis began in 1999 when Johnson & Johnson, the healthcare manufacturer, pulled out of the country because of the worsening economic situation. Zimbabwe then had to import products from neighbouring South Africa. But the collapse of the currency and the world’s highest inflation, now more than 1,000%, have made the products unaffordable to all but the elite. In a country where the minimum wage is Z$6m (£17.14) a month, the cost of a box of 20 tampons is Z$3m. “Who in their right mind is going to spend half their earnings on tampons?” asked Khumalo. “As it is most people can only afford to eat once a day. Women are being forced to choose between their own health and the survival of their family.” Khumalo, 45, general secretary of the Women’s Advisory Council of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and a mother of two, started her campaign after she saw a woman walking awkwardly on the street: “She told me she was going home from work because she had her period and could no longer afford sanitary protection or cotton wool.” When an MP raised the issue in parliament, government ministers fell about laughing and dismissed the matter. Khumalo has tried to highlight it through public meetings and distributing scarves printed with demands for affordable sanitary wear. As a result she has been repeatedly arrested and beaten, but refuses to be deterred.

The celebrity part annoys me because you buy the products and then what? Anyone think they will be enough or even passed out by the government? This is a small part of the horror that Mugabe has given that country. It seems just an excuse to show you care about women in that superficial sorta way and claim you did something. I guess every little part helps out.

'Katrina effect' blamed for rise in homicides

Crime: Houston finally admits the obvious.

Violence among Hurricane Katrina evacuees, much of it occurring in southwest Houston neighborhoods targeted in a new anti-crime campaign, accounted for nearly a quarter of homicides in the city so far this year, police officials said Friday. Since Jan. 1, police have investigated 124 homicides, 29 of which involved evacuees as victims or attackers, said Capt. Dale Brown of the Houston Police Department. There were 103 homicides over the same period last year; without the evacuee-related deaths this year, the city would have experienced a 7.8 percent decrease. In the last four months of 2005, evacuees were victims or suspects in 18 homicides, accounting for 13 percent of such crimes during that period. A total 336 killings were investigated last year, representing a 22 percent increase over 2004. "As it relates to murders, there's a definite Katrina effect, and it's most noticeable since December," Brown said.

Dana Priest with a clusterbomb of an article about Goss

Nation: I would recommend reading the whole article first and then come back here because it is a mish mash of whine and complaints that goes everywhere.

Porter J. Goss was brought into the CIA to quell what the White House viewed as a partisan insurgency against the administration and to re-energize a spy service that failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq's weapons capability. But as he walked out the glass doors of Langley headquarters yesterday, Goss left behind an agency that current and former intelligence officials say is weaker operationally, with a workforce demoralized by an exodus of senior officers and by uncertainty over its role in fighting terrorism and other intelligence priorities, said current and former intelligence officials.

The CIA has been weak for years and Goss was rightly brought in to see what was going on and how to fix it. The problem is a culture so entrenched with turf wars that people left because they didn't like the new rules/boss. This poor ole CIA image Priest is trying to make is hilarious.

As important, Goss -- who did not like to travel overseas or to wine and dine foreign intelligence chiefs who visited Washington -- allowed the atrophy of relations with the foreign intelligence services that helped the CIA kill or catch nearly all the terrorists taken off the streets since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, in the view of these officials and several foreign intelligence officials. Foreign intelligence heads, who used to spend hours with Goss's predecessor, George J. Tenet, discussing strategy and tactics, are now more likely to meet with the director of national intelligence, John D. Negroponte, whose position was created in the overhaul of U.S. intelligence agencies.

I would think the fact the CIA leaks out important spy programs to reporters like Dana Priest and Risen would make foreign agencies wary of dealing with the CIA more than Goss not liking to wine and dine. Given the fact based on the 9/11 commission stupid recommendation of overhauling the spy agencies by creating the boss of bosses(Negroponte) why would the heads of other agencies meet with Goss? You don't deal with the middle man, talk to his boss. Business 101.

As an aside, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana is under fire from EU MEPs for pointing out there has been no evidence given to him about torture or jails by the CIA on EU soil.

Last week, an interim report by the parliament committee found that the CIA has carried out as many as 1000 secret flights through Europe since the 9/11 attacks. The report also said that the CIA kidnapped terror suspects from European countries and took them to the Middle East or to the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay for torture. But like EU anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries, Solana ruled out the practice of torture on EU soil. “I trust EU member states to not obtain information through torture,” he said. “If anyone has information to the contrary, I would like to see it.”

Back to the story.

Goss, then the Republican chairman of the House intelligence panel, was handpicked by the White House to purge what some in the administration viewed as a cabal of wily spies working to oppose administration policy in Iraq. "He came in to clean up without knowing what he was going to clean up," one former intelligence official said. Goss's counterinsurgency campaign was so crudely executed by his top lieutenants, some of them former congressional staffers, that they drove out senior and mid-level civil servants who were unwilling to accept the accusation that their actions were politically motivated, some intelligence officers and outside experts said. "The agency was never at war with the White House," contended Gary Berntsen, a former operations officer and self-described Republican and Bush supporter who retired in June 2005. "Eighty-five percent of them are Republicans. The CIA was a convenient scapegoat."

You can take this two ways, first is that is a big fat lie or Goss had to work on the other 15% who were running amok. The CIA apologists are out in force and the papers are happy to quote them.

Less than two months after Goss took over, the much-respected deputy director of operations, Stephen R. Kappes, and his deputy, Michael Sulick, resigned in protest over a demand by Goss's chief of staff, Patrick Murray, that Kappes fire Sulick for criticizing Murray. Kappes "was the guy who a generation of us wanted to see as the DDO [operations chief]. Kappes's leaving was a painful thing," Berntsen said. "It made it difficult for [Goss] within the clandestine service. Unfortunately, this is something that dogged him during his tenure." The confrontation between Murray and the agency's senior leadership continued throughout Goss's tenure, exacerbated by the fact that Goss effectively allowed Murray and other close aides to run the agency, in the view of some current and former intelligence officials. Many agency officials felt the aides showed disdain for officers who had spent their careers in public service. Four former deputy directors of operations once tried to offer Goss advice about changing the clandestine service without setting off a rebellion, but Goss declined to speak to any of them, said former CIA officials who are aware of the communications. The perception that Goss was conducting a partisan witch hunt grew, too, as staffers asked about the party affiliation of officers who sent in cables or analyses on Iraq that contradicted the Defense Department's more optimistic scenarios.

There is the CIA culture, people within the agency wanted their favorites to be promoted, the same people who were around at the time as Priest pointed out at the beginning of the article "failed to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks or accurately assess Iraq's weapons capability."

Entrenched mediocrity would be difficult to cut out and drive off those who refuse to be questioned. The CIA needs a cleaning out not former officers who have a vested interest in seeing other agents and friends not get harmed by it, which is why Goss was right not to talk to them.

But now we get to the good part.

While the stature and role of the CIA were greatly diminished under Goss during the congressionally ordered reorganization of the intelligence agencies, his counterpart at the Pentagon, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, continued his aggressive efforts to develop a clandestine intelligence operation within his department. The Pentagon's human intelligence unit and its other clandestine military units are expanding in number and authority. Rumsfeld recently won the ability to sidestep U.S. ambassadors in certain circumstances when the Pentagon wants to send in clandestine teams to collect intelligence or undertake operations. "Rumsfeld keeps pressing for autonomy for defense human intelligence and for SOF [Special Forces] operations," said retired Army Col. W. Patrick Lang, former head of Middle East affairs at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "CIA has lost the ability to control the [human intelligence] process in the community." Now, "the real battle lies between" Negroponte and Rumsfeld, said retired Army Lt. Gen. Donald Kerrick, a former deputy national security adviser and once a senior official at the Defense Intelligence Agency. "Rumsfeld rules the roost now."

CIA lost its ability to control the human intelligence process because they were horrible at it. Now other parts of the infrastructure who disdain the CIA and want to boost their own capabilities are pushing ahead. There is going to be a turf war unless everyone work together in gathering and figuring out the information it gets from their operations.

Mexico going to hell in a handbasket more than before.

Mexico: Nothing like a peaceful run up to the election.

Street riots, decapitations of police officers by drug gangs and the worst union conflict in years have raised tension in Mexico's presidential race with the government under fire for its handling of the violence. Thousands of police swarmed a town near Mexico City this week to free fellow officers taken hostage in riots that left a 14-year-old boy dead and led to scores of arrests. The violence, triggered by a dispute with police over unlicensed flower sellers, came two weeks after two steel workers were killed during running battles with police sent in to break a long strike. The same day, the heads of two policemen decapitated by presumed drug gang hitmen were found outside government offices in Acapulco, a symbol of the spiraling drug violence that has spread from the U.S. border to Pacific coast resorts. The events are unrelated and localized, and foreign analysts see little risk of wider instability. But they have raised the temperature of the election campaign, with one candidate warning of worse to come. "Things are going to be violent," said Roberto Madrazo, who is running in third place as candidate of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before it was ousted in the last election in 2000. "We are going to have a very heated climate for the election." He charged the government with being heavy-handed in trying to break the steel plant strike and said at a campaign rally that Mexican President Vicente Fox "shook at the knees" when fighting erupted this week in San Salvador Atenco, near the capital. The state governor then accused leftist presidential hopeful Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador's party of fanning the riot. Lopez Obrador, who is in a tight race with ruling conservative party candidate Felipe Calderon, denied the allegation, saying he was a pacifist.

Republican rebranding? Nope, just politics.

Politics: E. J. Dionne Jr. in an everlasting quest to show that conservatism is dead tries to point out examples of Republicans changing their image and politics.

Santorum is nothing if not shrewd. Running with the 1994 conservative tide, he won his seat from then-incumbent Harris Wofford after characterizing AmeriCorps, the national service initiative and a Wofford legislative monument, as a program "for hippie kids to stand around a campfire and sing 'Kumbaya' at taxpayers' expense." (Santorum later became an AmeriCorps supporter.) With the tide running the other way 12 years later, Santorum is eager to cast himself as a champion of social justice. Santorum is not alone. All over the country, Republicans are engaged in a massive effort at rebranding, reframing and, in some cases, wholesale retreat from past positions. The surest sign that the nation is in the middle of an ideological transition is that Republicans don't want to sound like -- well, Republicans.

All that shows is Santorum is a politicians willing to sound differently to whatever the situation needs which in an era where soundbites and image rules, not a bad ida.

Thus are those who once derided Al Gore's environmentalism now painting themselves in very bright shades of green. Last month Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) took a drive in a hydrogen-powered car to show how much he cares about conservation and the planet. Members of Congress who once eagerly showered tax breaks on the energy companies now want you to know they're tough on Big Oil. Last month House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) urged federal agencies to investigate possible price gouging by the petroleum giants. Of course, turning on a dime is not that easy, and the GOP leaders -- under pressure from their business allies -- have been all over the lot on changes in accounting rules that would have levied higher taxes on the energy companies. For the moment, they seem to have dumped the idea.

As I pointed out before, Americans when it comes to gas prices fail economics 101. These plans have irritated conservatives(rebate nonsense) and some are just to show the public something is being done like price gouging which will end in a whimper as nothing will be found. Just like every other price gouging investigations.

BNP makes gains, lets blame the Labour minister.

Politics: The ass-backward logic behind this nutty move just shows everyone how out of touch Labour is at this point.

The British National Party claimed it was "on its way" yesterday after doubling the number of far-Right councillors in the country's town halls and becoming the biggest opposition party in Labour-dominated Barking and Dagenham. The party, which promotes openly racist policies, now has 44 councillors following gains on Thursday night. Its most dramatic victories were in the east London borough, where it won 11 seats of 13 contested. Barking and Dagenham enjoys the dubious honour of being the first local authority in the country to have a neo-fascist party as the leading opposition group. ....The Barking and Dagenham result sparked a bitter row within the local Labour Party, with some party activists calling for disciplinary action to be taken against Margaret Hodge, the employment minister and MP for Barking. She was said to have given the BNP the "oxygen of publicity" with her warning last month that eight out of 10 white families were considering voting for the far-Right group. Her comments were said to have lent credibility to what has always been a fringe party, focusing media attention upon its campaign. Val Rush, a Labour councillor in Barking, said she would push the case for disciplinary action. "We cannot have our local MP stepping out of line," she said. "The MP is there to represent us and a lot of people are very unhappy about what she has said." Mrs Hodge defended herself following the count, saying her comments merely reflected her findings on the doorstep during campaigning. The result will reinforce the position of Nick Griffin, the BNP leader, who has sought to soften his party's image. Mr Griffin, a Cambridge law graduate who has a conviction for inciting racial hatred, said: "We're not a Nazi party. People can look at our manifesto on-line and see we're committed to a libertarian position in many things."

Hawaii kills the gas cap.

Bidness: Just keep slapping the idiots who came up with the idea and passed it with a heavy economic book.

HONOLULU -- Gov. Linda Lingle signed into law a bill to suspend Hawaii's controversial gas cap on Friday afternoon. That means Hawaii's wholesale cap, the only one of its kind in the nation, has been suspended immediately and indefinitely. Under the new law, the governor can reinstate the gas cap -- now modified with a new formula -- whenever she wants. "I can't see any conditions that I would reinstate the gas cap. It is a bad idea, and it is not going to keep gas prices down for Hawaii," Lingle said. Many Hawaii residents lost faith in the gas cap when prices at the pump continued to increase. The governor said residents should not expect prices to drop when the gas cap is lifted because gas prices are determined by fluctuations on the international oil market.

Florida Rino sells kids out to unions, keeps baseball.

Edumacation: As you know baseball stadium is more important that allowing parents take their kids out of the rat-infested factories that is called the Florida public education system. The only purpose it serves at this point is paying the teachers union while pushing out warm bodies they call graduates.

TALLAHASSEE - Only a couple of months ago Alex Villalobos was on the cusp of making history as a future president of the state Senate, the first Cuban American who would hold the post. But the Miami senator's long history as a moderate and independent cost him the leadership post. Then, Monday night, it led to his firing as Senate majority leader minutes after he cast a deciding vote to kill Gov. Jeb Bush's efforts to revive one of his prized education jewels: giving parents public money vouchers to send their kids to private school. Three days earlier, Villalobos had helped to kill another Bush-backed effort to scale back Florida's law capping class sizes. By Tuesday morning, four days before the end of the lawmaking session, the aftershocks were clear: The Florida Senate stewed in political disarray and bitterness. Villalobos was forced to move from his spacious majority-leader digs into a cramped office. And a whisper campaign -- implicating Bush himself -- began in earnest to find a political opponent for a man who hasn't faced a challenger in 14 years. It didn't have to go this far. Villalobos had twice offered Senate President Tom Lee his resignation as majority leader this session, but Lee said he kept Villalobos in power because he had faith in him. Lee said he wanted to make sure he ''had clean hands'' in asking for Villalobos' resignation when he was sure his majority leader was working against him. Villalobos said he didn't understand. He said he has been ''consistent'' all along. ''My legacy, whatever it is, was not going to be that I helped bring down public education in the state of Florida,'' he said. ``And if I have to lose my position in the Senate because of that, then that's fine. And if I don't get to come back as a senator, then that's fine, too. I will not sell my soul or sell my vote.''

The legacy is keeping children in a system that is broken under the guise of saving the children. We wouldn't want them to leave a failing crime ridden school to a better education environment, think of the children!

BUt in other news, he has more than enough time for this nonsense.

TALLAHASSEE - Gov. Jeb Bush, who has both supported and killed the Florida Marlins pitch over the years to win state money to build a retractable-roof stadium in Miami, said today ''he will keep an open mind'' as long as there is local financial support to make it happen. ''I've not seen the particulars of the bill,'' Bush said, referring to a last-minute move by three Miami senators to bring the issue to life by attaching it to another sports franchise bill the governor has supported. With two days left in the legislative session, the governor said he was unaware of a ''local deal'' involving Hialeah and had not read the amendment but agreed to review it. ''I don't even know what the bill is attached to,'' Bush said. ``We'll certainly give it a hard look.'' The plan proposed late Wednesday by Sen. Rudy Garcia, a Hialeah Republican, and Miami Sens. Alex Villalobos and Alex Diaz de la Portilla, would give the Marlins a $60 million tax break over 30 years to help the team offset some of the cost of building a $430 million stadium with a retractable roof. The Senate attached the measure to a bill intended to give the Orlando Magic basketball team a similar tax break, and must give the bill final approval today or Friday. The House then would have to pass the plan before the session ends by midnight Friday. The governor has publicly said he supports the bill giving the Orlando Magic the designation, but he said he isn't prepared to commit to support the Marlins proposal for a stadium in Hialeah. ''There has to be a deal attached to it,'' Bush said. ``I've got to look at the whole thing.'' In 2000, Bush single-handedly sank the Marlins' bid for stadium money. But last year he said he might have agreed to a similar plan because it included a commitment from Miami-Dade County and the City of Miami to offer a significant share of the financing.

Why should Jeb care, if the locals are dumb enough to pay for it.

UK elections: Labour big losses, Tories and BNP big gains.

UK: If this were the Thatcher Tories I would be happy, but with Swampy Dog Sledder Cameron leading the way, I don't know how to feel about it. BNP unfortunately made gains as people warned because of frustration with the Multicult attitudes of the main parties. If the BNP ever got smart enough to morph its message more benign, there could be a problem down the road for everyone.

Tony Blair has suffered a poor night in England's local elections as Labour suffers losses of more than 200 seats. The Tories made big gains, while the Lib Dems had a mixed showing. The BNP has doubled its councillors, including winning 11 in Barking and Dagenham. The prime minister will reshuffle his Cabinet on Friday as he seeks to regain momentum after days of bad headlines. The projected vote share if the polls were held nationwide shows the Tories on 40%, Lib Dems 27% and Labour 26%. Turnout is at 36% - down from three points from 2004. In David Cameron's first test as Tory leader, the Conservatives are on course for their best local poll showing since 1992 - when they last won national power.

$100 Rebate: Rise and Fall of G.O.P. Idea

Politics: One of the dumbest plans I have seen come out of the GOP leadership. Bill Frist is a horrible senate leader and the thought that Trett Lott might get back in the chair when he is gone scares the hell out of me.

The story of the $100 rebate began with a proposal from Democrats, who are trying to use the high price of gasoline against Republicans. Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, was pushing his own proposal for a gas-tax holiday, different from Mr. Thune's, and Senator Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, had been promoting a $500 rebate. The Democrats were trying to attach their proposals as amendments to an emergency spending bill. Senate Republicans, fearing they would be forced into the uncomfortable position of voting against the Democratic amendments, began pushing Mr. Frist to come up with an alternative. That set the stage for the April 26 meeting of the Energy Working Group, where Mr. Thune pitched his idea for a temporary suspension of the 18.4-cent-a-gallon federal gasoline tax. But it was rejected as unworkable, partly because there were no guarantees that the oil companies would pass the saving onto consumers, partly because the tax pays for federal highway projects, and partly because many Republicans say the only answer to the problem of high gas prices is to increase supply. "I said That's a stupid idea," said Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, who is a member of the working group and who favors oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as one solution. "It is short term; it's not a fix." The meeting ended without a plan to provide consumers quick relief. Mr. Ueland turned to a senior aide on the Senate Finance Committee, Mark Prater, for guidance. The committee staff had calculated the cost of the federal gasoline tax at $11 a month for the average consumer, roughly $100 over nine months. Mr. Prater reminded Mr. Ueland that the Bush administration in 2001 sent rebate checks to taxpayers . Mr. Ueland ran the idea past his boss. "It seemed reasonable to him," Mr. Ueland said, describing Mr. Frist's reaction. But the reaction of conservative talk-show hosts was hostile. Though the rebate was couched in a broader plan that included provisions to allow drilling in the Arctic refuge, protect against price gouging and repeal tax incentives that benefit energy companies, the proposed $100 rebate provided a neat sound bite. Callers denounced it as pandering, and Rush Limbaugh said senators were "treating us like we're a bunch of whores." In one sign of how haphazardly the plan had been thrown together, lobbyists for businesses — an important element of the Republican base — quickly mobilized against a provision that would have generated billions of dollars by changing the way businesses treat inventories for tax purposes The business lobby complained that it had not been consulted, and by Monday Mr. Frist had scuttled the provision.

Day Laborers win right to be a public hazard in California.

Immigration: What a novel way of allowing day laborers to create a unsafe environment.

A federal judge has barred Redondo Beach from enforcing its 19-year-old ordinance designed to prohibit day laborers from seeking work on city streets. U.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall issued the decision last week in favor of the Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which argued the ordinance violated First Amendment free-speech rights. Marshall's ruling was made public Tuesday. The 29-page decision comes at a time when the debate on illegal immigration and its impact on the economy is at the national forefront. Supporters of the day laborers said they hoped it would help show lawmakers that these workers have rights. Redondo Beach City Attorney Mike Webb said he was not surprised by the decision but he found it "frustrating" because officials regularly field complaints about day laborers. Webb said Marshall's rulings have taken away one of the city's best tools in addressing complaints about day laborers. The ordinance gave the city "an effective means of addressing the concerns without going to a more aggressive approach," such as working with federal immigration authorities. Webb called that approach "more heavy handed," but said that other means of cutting down on day laborer complaints -- such as enforcing city traffic provisions or the state loitering law -- aren't likely to help the situation. With loitering, Webb said, police would have to prove that a worker was doing so with an intent to commit a crime. Unless the City Council directs him otherwise, he said he plans to appeal Marshall's ruling decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

This means this other case made in New York is going to go the way of laborers.

WHITE PLAINS, April 27 — A heated battle over the closing of a day-laborer hiring site in Mamaroneck moved into the courtroom on Thursday when a Latino civil rights organization sued the village, saying it violated the rights of the laborers by refusing to let them congregate. The lawsuit, filed in Federal District Court here on behalf of six unnamed laborers, accuses the mayor and the police chief of Mamaroneck of using various tactics, from police checkpoints to aggressive ticketing, in a "deliberate and coordinated" campaign to drive immigrant workers off the streets. The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund, which filed the suit, said it hoped to win an injunction against the village and the police. "This village has decided that it will no longer allow day laborers to solicit work anywhere in the town, and it is harassing them with the intention of making them leave the community," said Cesar Perales, the president of the group. "It's a rare situation in which a village is devoting its police force to actually intimidate a group of people until they leave. This is astounding." Mayor Philip J. Trifiletti of Mamaroneck responded to the suit on Thursday with disappointment, calling it misguided. He defended the closing of the day-laborer site, saying the village had sought to create a safer and cleaner environment near Columbus Park, where for years crowds of immigrant men have gathered each morning to wait for independent contractors to hire them for the day. Before the site was closed in February, 200 men typically gathered there each day and used it as a public toilet and a place to sleep or loiter, Mr. Trifiletti said. "They were trashing our village and they were trashing our park, and we brought that situation under control," he said. "All we did was take a totally out of control situation and bring it under control. We've had no problems since then, there have been no confrontations, and I've had no complaints."

What a system where an obvious blight in a community/business district in both cases have more rights than the actual people living in the community who thought they were living in a safe place.

The downplaying of Herndon's elections begins

Immigration: You knew it was coming, the pro illegal aliens members were voted out because the people were confused or racists is the theme of the article. I mean look at the title and the first sentence. Anti-immigration groups? No, anti-illegal immigration groups? Yes.

Seeing Vote's Effects Far Beyond Herndon Immigration Opponents Cheer Election By Bill Turque and Karin Brulliard Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, May 4, 2006; B01 National anti-immigration groups warned politicians yesterday that Tuesday's election in Herndon was the beginning of a voter backlash against local and federal immigration policy. "Politicians across the country should take note of the results of this election," said Chris Simcox, president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, an organization that patrols the U.S.-Mexico border. The group's Herndon allies videotaped hiring activity at a day labor center created to help immigrant workers find employment. Voters unseated one-term Mayor Michael L. O'Reilly and two Town Council members who supported creation of the day labor center. They replaced them with challengers who want to bar the use of taxpayer money for the facility and limit access to legal immigrants. Fewer than 2,600 people voted. But immigrant rights organizations called it a small election in a small town, carrying no larger message. And for many residents of the community of 23,000 in western Fairfax County, the result was a stunner. "I was very disappointed in how it worked out," said Tricia Mussante of Herndon, who said she had favored establishing a day laborer center from the start. "I felt the Town Council did a good job. The other side felt they weren't listened to. It wasn't like they [council members] weren't listening. They took the higher road." "This is ultimately about the rule of law, what ties a diverse society together," said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates strict controls on immigration. "Politicians have been flagrantly ignoring what people feel in their gut." "It's clearly a local issue," said Flavia Jimenez, a policy analyst with the National Council of La Raza, a civil rights group. "It is just one community that is facing a situation of laborers looking for work and trying to find a solution." In Herndon yesterday, people on both sides of the issue agreed that the larger national events of the last several weeks -- dramatic marches, Monday's Day Without Immigrants and the release of a Spanish-language edition of the national anthem -- inflamed a segment of the electorate already alienated by the opening of the labor center in the town's former police station on the Herndon-Loudoun County line. Aubrey Stokes, a member of Help Save Herndon, a group opposed to the center, said the outcome was "in part due to outrage over events that have happened in the last 10 days." Those events included, Stokes said, a Monday rally of immigrants at a supermarket parking lot in Herndon, where Salvadoran flags were displayed. Even some of the town's immigrant day laborers conceded that the charged political environment of recent days hurt their cause. "The marches made it worse," said Francisco Bacila, 35, a Herndon resident for five years. "There is more fear in the North Americans because they know we are here."

That is not fear from people but anger that illegals want to dictate what rights and when they want them. You confuse the two at your own risk. Day laborers should not be given special treatment above everyone else. Create an all-encompassing job center for everyone.

USAToday picks up on the various fringe groups.

Immigration: Surprising to see this in USAToday of all places.

MEChA has been in the thick of the latest immigration protests, from San Diego State University members trying to avert arrests of marching high school students, to "mechistas" organizing a rally at an Albuquerque high school at which signs bore the now-familiar refrain: "We didn't cross the border. The border crossed us." The group's constitution requires that its chapters read "El Plan de Aztlan." A line in its introduction translates into "for the race, everything; for those outside the race, nothing." MEChA's belief in the "liberation" of Aztlan — Southwest territory acquired by the United States after the Mexican-American War in the mid-1800s — andethno-exclusive views continue to disturb. "Aztlan belongs to those who plant the seeds, water the fields, and gather the crops and not to the foreign Europeans," reads El Plan de Aztlan. At a time when immigrant-rights groups should be trying to present a persuasive, less-strident case to the American people, several groups have instead taken to in-your-face activism against tighter immigration laws: • The Mexican American Political Association, which mapped out its demands in a flier for Monday's boycott: "Immediate legalization without conditions, no border walls, no criminalization." MAPA President Nativo Lopez has stated his desire for Spanish to be California's primary language. MAPA also called for a campaign of non-cooperation with Los Angeles County law enforcement when the sheriff's department flirted with a Department of Homeland Security partnership to better identify criminal aliens in county jails. • Carlos Montes, a co-founder of the original Brown Berets in 1960s Los Angeles, is helping put together an August demonstration — sponsored by MAPA and others — against a border fence, the Minutemen, and even the Iraq war. He lauds Venezuela and Cuba as "examples of the possibilities for humankind." The involvement of separatist or militant groups in a movement for illegal immigration can only backfire. By building the issue into "them vs. us," by painting tolerant Americans as racists, by sowing separatist seeds among youth in the name of cultural identity, these activists will alienate Americans who might have sympathized with the plight of immigrants but find few moderate voices left to back.

Navigator Kilpatrick channels George Wallace.

Culture: Preach it from the mountain top! Leg ups forever!

Speakers at Sunday's fund-raiser spoke passionately about the need to reject the November ballot initiative to bar race-based hiring and college admissions. California businessman Ward Connerly brought the initiative to Michigan and defeated a lengthy legal battle to block the referendum. "We are under attack in Michigan," the Rev. Wendell Anthony, president of the Detroit Branch NAACP, told the crowd. "We believe in one Michigan, and we have come too far to come back now."

One Michigan! which means certain sections get special treatment as AA is now carried out instead of how it should be done correctly.

An impassioned Kilpatrick welcomed the ballot initiative as a chance to prove that state voters support affirmative action. "Bring it on," he roared. "We will affirm to the world that affirmative action will be here today, it will be here tomorrow and there will be affirmative action in the state forever."

Yes, that sorta crap rubs me the wrong way.

Vincente Fox doesn't sign Mexico's drug bill.

Mexico: Pressure from America and some in Mexico who didn't want drug tourism going on among other things.

MEXICO CITY, Mexico (AP) -- Mexican President Vicente Fox backed off a bill that would have decriminalized possession of small amounts of drugs, sending it back to Congress for changes rather than signing it into law. The announcement late Wednesday came after U.S. officials urged Mexico to tighten the proposed law "to prevent drug tourism." On Tuesday, Fox's spokesman had said he would sign the bill. Fox will ask "Congress to make the needed corrections to make it absolutely clear in our country, the possession of drugs and their consumption are, and will continue to be, a criminal offense," according to a statement from the president's office released Wednesday. The measure, which was passed Friday by Mexico's Congress, drew a storm of criticism because it eliminates criminal penalties for possession of small amounts of heroin, methamphetamine and PCP, as well as marijuana and cocaine. .....The bill contained many points that experts said were positive. It empowered state and local police -- not just federal officers -- to go after drug dealers, stiffened some penalties and closed loopholes that dealers had long used to escape prosecution. But the broad decriminalization clause was what soured many -- both in Mexico and abroad -- to the proposal. Earlier Wednesday, U.S. Embassy spokeswoman Judith Bryan said that "U.S. officials expressed their opposition to legalization or decriminalization of narcotics in any country" and "urged Mexican representatives to review the legislation urgently, to avoid the perception that drug use would be tolerated in Mexico, and to prevent drug tourism." Some U.S. officials have expressed concern that the measure could increase drug use by border visitors and U.S. students who flock to Mexico on vacation. Bryan said the U.S. government wants Mexico "to ensure that all persons found in possession of any quantity of illegal drugs be prosecuted or be sent into mandatory drug treatment programs." Mexico's top police official, Eduardo Medina Mora, acknowledged on Tuesday that the U.S. anti-drug agency has expressed concern about the law. Some senators and community leaders in Mexico also objected to the bill. But even if it had been signed, Medina Mora noted that Mexican cities have the power to impose fines and overnight jail detentions for those caught with drugs in public. Medina Mora said legislators had changed Fox's original proposal by inserting a controversial table laying out maximum amounts of drugs for "personal use," including cocaine, heroin, marijuana and ecstasy. Current Mexican law allows judges latitude to drop charges if suspects can prove they are addicts and the quantity they were caught with is small enough to be considered "for personal use," or if they are first-time offenders. The new bill would have made the decriminalization automatic, allowed "consumers" as well as addicts to have drugs, and delineated specific allowable quantities, which do not appear in the current law.

Casino Royale and New Superman trailer.

Entertainment: First off Superman, watching the trailer I spot a kid, bad sign. I see Superman acting like a tool with tears in his eyes like a wussy, bad sign #2. Bad sign #3 is Kevin Spacey playing the part of Gene Hackman playing the part of Lex Luthor really goofy. Lois Lane looks boring, Routh doesn't look or sound as you would think Superman should look or sound. I got a bad feeling about this.

Next up Casino Royale. I understand the want to take it back to its roots and showing Bond just starting out but the big problem is Daniel Craig looks nothing like a James Bond from the trailer, you don't even see a sign of natural Bond attitude in it. The worst part is at the end of the trailer. Look at this pic.



This is supposed to be the money shot and he looks drugged out, beat up and his suit came from a dumpster.

Sean Connery is not amused.

Day Labor site lovers get voted out in Herndon.

Virginia: According to a FR post all but one who voted for the site got voted out. AP sorta hints at it in this early report.

Herndon elects new mayor HERNDON, Va. The day labor site in Herndon may have changed the face of politics in Herndon. Steve DeBenedittis, a resident who opposed the center, has been elected mayor of Herndon, defeating incumbent Michael O'Reilly. DeBenedittis captured one-thousand, three-hundred and sixty-three votes, 130 more than O'Reilly. The center opened late last year, replacing a chaotic unofficial site in a Seven-Eleven parking lot as a spot for employers to recruit day laborers. There was also turnover on the Herndon town council, as only two -- Dennis Husch and Harlon Reece -- were re-elected. Connie Hutchinson, Dave Kirby, Bill Tirrell and Charlie Waddell have been newly elected to the council. The mayor and town council take office on July 1st.

Hint hint open border amnesty politicians. Voters are not happy and you better listen up.

Update# Washington Post carries it as front page news.

Herndon voters yesterday unseated the mayor and Town Council members who supported a bitterly debated day-labor center for immigrant workers in a contest that emerged as a mini-referendum on the turbulent national issue of illegal immigration. Residents replaced the incumbents with a group of challengers who immediately called for significant changes at the center. Some want to bar public funds from being spent on the facility or restrict it to workers residing in the country legally. Others want it moved to an industrial site away from the residential neighborhood where it is located. The day-labor center thrust the western Fairfax County town into the national spotlight as the issue of illegal immigration became emotional. Even though fewer than 3,000 people voted yesterday, advocates on both sides of the issue looked at the election as a test case of public sentiment. Outside groups such as the Minutemen Project, which favors sharp curbs on illegal immigration, intervened in the town debate. Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, is suing the town over establishment of the center.

Here comes the race card as even the title of the Washington Post article is slanted, the major players all wanted to shout down anyone who was opposed to this site.

DeBenedittis, the son of a popular former high school art teacher in Herndon, said his victory was the product of intense door-to-door campaigning and deep discontent over how the labor center issue was handled by the mayor and council in the town of 23,000 residents. "They didn't like the way the debate went down, and there was the feeling that they were not heard," he said. DeBenedittis frequently skirted specifics on the labor center issue during the campaign, but he said in at least one candidate questionnaire that the facility on Sterling Road should be limited to legal immigrants. A disappointed O'Reilly said last night that he was proud of the way he and the council handled the controversy. He said the center remains a quantum improvement over the chaotic ad hoc site in a 7-Eleven parking lot that had become a community eyesore. "I'm really proud of what I stood for and proud of what I did," said O'Reilly. "I think there was a lot of misinformation that was out there. There may be a lot more resentment and hatred out there than I anticipated." The victorious challengers said it was not hatred but a matter of the council falling out of touch with voters. "It's a new direction for Herndon," said Waddell, a systems engineer and opponent of the center. "We've got a new slate. We've got a new council. We've got a new mayor. We are going to try to be responsive to the people. That was lost on the council." Waddell said he favors moving the center to a commercial area and will try to tap private funds for its operation. It currently operates in part on a grant from Fairfax County. "That area now is a residential area with a commercial overlay," he said. "You've got day laborers cutting between yards to get to the center. I've talked to residents who said they have been awakened at 6 in the morning by laborers sitting on their lawn furniture in the back yard because they are waiting for the center to open. That's not good for the neighborhood."

Illegals in Toronto live in fear of being deported.

Canada: The is now a radical conclusion?

It is estimated that more than 100,000 people live and work in Toronto without legal immigration status. These people live in a perpetual state of fear, terrorized by rumours of police and immigration authorities raiding public places, malls, construction sites, laundromats, cafés, factories, and housing buildings. In the past few weeks, many professionals working with non-status persons have been contacted by fearful clients who have been arrested and given deportation orders stating that they must leave the country within two to three weeks. They are also reporting a sharp increase in unfavourable decisions of immigration cases. Given these alarming circumstances and echoing the wave of deportations in the Portuguese community, both the non-status community and those concerned with social justice are mobilizing to respond to the current strategy of strict enforcement of Canada's Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Now strict enforcement of the law is considered a bad thing. The Red star does it again.

Not going to say much about immigration rallies.

Immigration: I have said more than enough on it, but the arrogance and disrespect shown today should create a backlash big enough to stall the senate amnesty bill.

From Los Angeles to Chicago, Houston to Miami, the "Day Without Immigrants" attracted widespread participation despite divisions among activists over whether a boycott would send the right message to Washington lawmakers considering sweeping immigration reform. "We are the backbone of what America is, legal or illegal, it doesn't matter," said Melanie Lugo, who with her husband and their third-grade daughter joined a rally of some 75,000 in Denver. "We butter each other's bread. They need us as much as we need them." ....Jesse Hernandez, who owns a Birmingham, Ala., company that supplies Hispanic laborers to companies around the Southeast, shut down his four-person office in solidarity with the demonstrations. "Unfortunately," he said, "human nature is that you don't really know what you have until you don't have it."

Lets test that theory, extend the boycott till amnesty is given, lets see who breaks first.

11 Africans found dead on boat off the coast of Barbados.

West Indies: It sounds like a refugee trip gone horribly wrong. The travel route to get to Europe from Western African countries is north up the coast and use one of the northern African countries as a point to get into Europe. Something happened and it looks unfortunately they drifted across the ocean.

floating grave 11 bodies found in boat off Barbados Tim Slinger Barbados timslinger@nationnews.com Monday, May 1st 2006 POLICE forensic experts were last night trying to determine how 11 people, believed to come from an African country, perished at sea. The badly decomposed bodies were discovered in the cramped cabin of a 20-foot unnamed boat drifting about 70 nautical miles off the Ragged Point, St Philip coastline yesterday morning. Police and Coast Guard officials were up to press time unable to verify their origin, but preliminary investigations indicated the deceased, believed to be all men, hailed from western Africa. Among some of the personal items found on board the floating graveyard were an undisclosed sum of euro currency and a document indicating travel aboard one of Senegal's airlines. Sources close to the investigations believed the men, who were mostly dressed in shorts and colourful jerseys, might have died from hunger and thirst or exposure to the elements. Earlier reports had indicated that the men were shot. Sources also believe the men might have been refugees whose vessel went adrift and were probably exposed to the elements for several days before collapsing and dying of hunger.

Gas prices soaring, but Americans resist!

Culture: You can't stop American driving habits, you can barely hope to contain it.

With gasoline prices in the U.S. approaching an average $3 a gallon, Americans are moaning about the rising cost, but so far they are resisting big changes in their gas-guzzling ways. A 25% jump in prices at the pump since December has set off a firestorm in Washington. Politicians are threatening auto makers with tougher federal fuel-economy standards and oil companies with higher taxes on record profits, while warning against price gouging. Auto and oil executives are predicting that a long-term shift toward greater fuel efficiency is under way. But none of these influences is likely to have much effect on gasoline prices or oil consumption in the near term. Unlike the energy crises of the 1970s, which resulted from reduced supplies of Mideast oil, today's crunch is due largely to a swift rise in global oil demand. The surest way out of the problem, most experts agree, would be to curb consumption of vehicle fuel, particularly in the U.S. For years, economists have argued that the most effective way to moderate U.S. demand would be to hit Americans with significantly higher gasoline taxes. Today's high prices amount to a market test of that theory. The early results: High prices do have some effect, but prices would have to be higher than they are today -- and would have to stay high for a long time -- to meaningfully curb gasoline consumption by the nation's massive fleet of cars and trucks, which accounts for about 10% of global oil use.

The biggest influence of gas usage is personal income and since that is rising, a lot of complaints, but no drastic cuts.

What influences gasoline use more quickly than gasoline prices, experts say, is a change in personal income. Among the first things Americans do as their paychecks get bigger is to buy zippier cars and drive their existing cars more. Incomes have been rising in the U.S., as they have throughout most of the industrialized world. The result: "It takes a very big price increase to have a big impact today," says Philip Verleger, a Colorado-based oil economist. Mr. Verleger estimates that real, or inflation-adjusted, gasoline prices have to rise at roughly five times the rate of real income just to keep the nation's gasoline demand flat. Given that real income is rising at about 3% a year, real gasoline prices would have to surge 15% to prevent consumption from growing, according to his analysis.

SUV market is going down fast and oil companies are betting on an interesting outcome.

The traditional-SUV market is "collapsing," says George Pipas, Ford Motor Co.'s U.S. sales-analysis manager. When gas prices first began creeping higher, auto makers offered bigger sales incentives on SUVs, effectively giving buyers "a gas card in the glove box," Mr. Pipas says. But the continued rise in gasoline prices has largely inured buyers to such inducements. "If you think that by putting an extra $1,000 on an Expedition you can sell enough to make it worth your while, you're wrong," Mr. Pipas says, referring to one of Ford's large SUVs. "You're pushing on a string. At some point you say, 'Pull back. The market is what it is.' " Yet plenty of Americans still are buying fuel-thirsty rides. Despite the weakness of the SUV segment overall, U.S. sales of the recently redesigned Chevrolet Tahoe SUV soared 37% in the first quarter. And luxury cars not known for their fuel economy also remain hot sellers. In the first quarter in the U.S., BMW sales rose 11%, Mercedes sales climbed 17%, and Porsche sales surged 26%. The oil industry also is betting that a change is under way. Exxon Mobil Corp. says it believes that, by 2030, hybrid gasoline-and-electric cars and light trucks will account for nearly 30% of new-vehicle sales in the U.S. and Canada. That surge is part of a broader shift toward fuel efficiency that Exxon thinks will cause fuel consumption by North American cars and light trucks to peak around 2020 -- and then start to fall. "For that reason, we wouldn't build a grassroots refinery" in the U.S., Rex Tillerson, Exxon's chairman and chief executive, said in a recent interview. Exxon has continued to expand the capacity of its existing refineries. But building a new refinery from scratch, Exxon believes, would be bad for long-term business.

Auto companies that can combined the big size of automobiles that Americans want with better M.P.G who will own the industry for decades please step forward. Not you Ford or GM.

Meet the Press hilarity on economics.

Media: This shouldn't surprise me but it did anyway.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, if, if demand is up but supply is down, why are the profits so high? MR. BODMAN: For that reason. MR. RUSSERT: No, think about that. MR. BODMAN: You know? MR. RUSSERT: Play it out. MR. BODMAN: Demand is up. MR. RUSSERT: Correct. MR. BODMAN: Right? MR. RUSSERT: Right. MR. BODMAN: So you’ve got more demand, you’re going to force price up. You’ve got, you’ve got limited supply, and you’re going to have... MR. RUSSERT: But that’s a decision by the oil companies.

I am hoping he was playing devil's advocate though I know Durbin wasn't with this quip.

SEN. DURBIN: Am I the only one of your guests here that think that profit taking is a problem? I mean, I understand the basic laws of supply and demand. I understand that if the input costs have gone up, it’s going to reduce your, your profitability. But here we have the most enormous profits in the history of the United States of America in business.

Just you and communists Dick.