Monthly archives for December, 2008
Written by Warsaw protesters demonstrate at Israeli embassy
Warsaw – Some 100 people protested outside the Israeli embassy in Warsaw on Monday, calling for an end to ‘killing civilians’ after three days of airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.
‘What’s happening in Gaza now is not a war against Hamas, it’s a genocide against a people who’ve been kept imprisoned for the past two years,’ said a Palestinian protester who declined to give his name. ‘They’re bombing mosques. They’re bombing hospitals. Is this democracy?’
Full Article
Israel puts Gaza attack on YouTube
A spokesman for the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it created the channel – youtube.com/user/idfnadesk – this week to “help us bring our message to the world”.
The channel currently has more than 2000 subscribers and hosts 10 videos, some of which have been viewed more than 20,000 times.
The black-and-white videos include aerial footage of Israeli Air Force attacks on what are described as rocket launching sites, weapons storage facilities, a Hamas government complex and smuggling tunnels.
Berg files new challenge to eligibility
A lawyer who already has two conferences pending before the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of Barack Obama’s eligibility to be president has filed a new lawsuit, this one on behalf of a retired military colonel who would need to know whether to follow any orders issued by Obama as commander-in-chief.
Philip Berg’s earlier case and a request for an injunction in the case are scheduled for conferences with the justices on Jan. 9 and Jan. 16.
The new case, filed with co-counsel Lawrence J. Joyce, was submitted to U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., and names as defendant “Barry Soetoro a/k/a Obama.”
It demands to know Obama’s real name and his constitutional qualifications to occupy the Oval Office. The plaintiff is Gregory S. Hollister, a resident of Colorado Springs, who has “standing” and “needs a decision so he knows whether or not to follow any order of Soetoro a/k/a Obama.”
Movement to protect secret ballots is launched
Congress is a single vote away from passing H.R. 800, a.k.a the Employee Free Choice Act. The controversial bill, that was first introduced in January 2007 by California Congressman George Miller and supported by Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy, died after a Republican filibuster. Revived and renamed the “Forced Choice Act” by its opponents, the bill calls for amending National labor relations law by “streamlining union certification” and creating penalties for employers who threaten their union organizers. But it’s the language in the bill, stating that “signed valid authorizations” favoring unionization would replace holding an election, that has led to a counter movement.
Save Our Secret Ballot (SOS), a newly formed national 501 c(4) organization set up a conference call, December 30, 2008, to launch the movement that, they say, counters the political might of Big Labor and seeks to protect secret ballots in state constitutions. The group announced that representatives of Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Nevada and Utah would be the first to form state level initiatives that would create guarantees for the secret ballot process.
Report argues for domestic police role for military
The Posse Comitatus Act was passed in 1878, just after the end of the Reconstruction following the Civil War, and prohibited the federal government from using the military for domestic law enforcement purposes except in very rare cases. Per Wikipedia, the Act was a political concession to Southern states, withdrawing the Union military forces that policed ex-Confederate states during the Reconstruction.
A couple months ago, the Department of Defense announced it was assigning a full-time Army unit to be on call to facilitate military cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security in the event of another terrorist attack.
Texting and tweeting through Obama’s swearing in
Crowd control at President-elect Barack Obama’s January 20 inauguration ceremony will present quite a challenge: On top of the 240,000 ticketed guests who will descend upon the National Mall that day, millions more are expected to join. Ten thousand charter buses will converge on the Washington area. Metro riders have been warned to be prepared “to stand in close proximity to several thousand people.”
To manage all of those people, inauguration organizers are turning to text messaging and Twitter.
In an advisory released Monday, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies warned that making calls from cell phones that day may be difficult and that critical messages should be sent via text message.
The organization is also urging inauguration-goers to check out the District of Columbia’s inaugural Web site. There visitors can sign up for Alert DC, through which DC Homeland Security and Emergency Management sends text notifications and updates during a major crisis or emergency.
Iranian students storm British compound
Iranian students, incensed over British support for the Israeli military attack on the Gaza Strip, have broken into a British embassy compound in Tehran.
“A large number of people and students entered the Gholhak garden, which is occupied by the British embassy, to protest against the British government’s support for the Israeli attacks on Gaza,” IRNA reported.
US apocalypse in 2010, scholar predicts
A former KGB analyst and Russian academic predicts a civil war in the United States which will lead to the eventual fall of the country.
Igor Panarin, doctor of political science and dean of the foreign affairs department at the Diplomacy Academy of the Russian Foreign Ministry said while he does not dislike Americans, the outlook for them is gloomy.
He said he has based his forecast on classified data provided by analysts at the Federal Agency of Government Communications and Information (FAGCI). The Russian intelligence agency is one of the successors of KGB and an equivalent to the American National Security Agency (NSA).
Panarin believes that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war in the United States as early as the autumn of 2009.
Israeli rabbis: Thou shalt kill civilians
Four leading Israeli rabbis have sanctioned the murder of civilian population in the Gaza Strip amid the Israeli onslaught on the region.
“When a population living near a Jewish town sends bombs at the Jewish town with the purpose of killing and destroying Jewish lives there, it is permitted, according to Jewish Law, to fire shells and bombs at the firing sites, even if they are populated by civilians,” read a ruling issued by Rabbi Yaakov Yosef, Rabbi Dov Lior, Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe and Rabbi Meir Mazuz.
The four added that a warning should be issued prior to any attacks; however, they reiterated that the army’s response to rocket or mortar fires may be immediate “even if there is no time for a warning.”
Activists rally for fired farm workers
TORONTO — Toronto immigration workers are rallying to stop the departure to Guatemala today of 18 mostly-female mushroom pickers who were fired from a Blenheim farm a week before Christmas.
The pickers, among a group of 50 let go, were to board a flight to Guatemala City today at Pearson airport.
“They are very disappointed and angry,” Alexes Barillas, of the United Food and Commercial Workers of Canada, said yesterday. “Many of them incurred debt to get here and left Canada empty-handed.”
Facebook decides what’s obscene about breastfeeding
It’s nearly 2009, but apparently life has not improved that much for women when it comes to breastfeeding. The social networking site Facebook has removed photos that show too much of a mother’s breast while feeding her baby so that the site remains safe and secure for all users, including kids, Reuters reports.
“Photos containing a fully exposed breast (as defined by showing the nipple or areola) do violate those terms (on obscene, pornographic or sexually explicit material) and may be removed,” a Facebook spokesman said in a statement, Reuters reports. Some users are angry about the ban—including the American mom whose photo was removed by Facebook—and have launched an online protest dubbed, “Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!”
Nuke security privatized: State pulling police at plants
Dec. 29–New Jersey State Police patrols in place since 2001 are giving way to video cameras and an increased private security presence at the state’s nuclear power plants.
Attorney General Anne Milgram announced the policy Friday but said new advanced camera systems and increased private security guard patrols have already been in effect at New Jersey’s three nuclear plants.
