Friday, May 18, 2012
Chicagoans reported seized
in advance of NATO summit
The National Lawyers Guild is a far left-wing outfit. However, Newz From Limbo is willing to publish the Guild's press release because it raises an issue that affects all Americans.in advance of NATO summit
Chicago Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild
The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) condemns a preemptive police raid that took place at approximately 11:30pm Wednesday in the Bridgeport neighborhood of Chicago, and instances of harassment on the street, in which Chicago police are unlawfully detaining, searching, and questioning NATO protesters. The Bridgeport raid was apparently conducted by the Organized Crime Division of the Chicago Police Department and resulted in as many as 8 arrests.
According to witnesses in Bridgeport, police broke down a door to access a 6-unit apartment building near 32nd & Morgan Streets without a search warrant. Police entered an apartment with guns drawn and tackled one of the tenants to the floor in his kitchen. Two tenants were handcuffed for more than 2 hours in their living room while police searched their apartment and a neighboring unit, repeatedly calling one of the tenants a "Commie faggot." A search warrant produced 4 hours after police broke into the apartment was missing a judge's signature, according to witnesses. Among items seized by police in the Bridgeport raid were beer-making supplies and at least one cell phone.
"Preemptive raids like this are a hallmark of National Special Security Events," said Sarah Gelsomino with the NLG and the People's Law Office. "The Chicago police and other law enforcement agencies should be aware that this behavior will not be tolerated and will result in real consequences for the city."
In another incident, 3 plainclothes police officers unlawfully stopped, handcuffed, and searched a NATO protester on Michigan Avenue and Wacker Drive at approximately 2pm today. According to the protester, he did not consent to a search and there was no probable cause to detain him. The police also photographed and questioned him about where he was from, how he got to Chicago, how long it took, what he was doing here, where he was staying, who he was with, and how long he was planning to say in Chicago. The protester refused to answer any questions and was eventually released.
The NLG has received reports that at least 20 people have been arrested so far this week, and two people are still in custody, not including the Bridgeport residents who are still unaccounted for. One of the protesters currently being detained, Danny Johnson of Los Angeles, has been accused of assaulting a police officer during an immigrant rights rally on Tuesday afternoon. However, multiple witnesses on the scene, including an NLG Legal Observer, recorded a version of events that contradict the accusations of police.
During the week of NATO demonstrations, the NLG is staffing a legal office and answering calls from activists on the streets and in jail. The NLG will also be dispatching scores of Legal Observers to record police misconduct and representing arrestees in the event the city pursues criminal prosecutions.
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Press rights battle brews
as NATO summit looms
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stood up for the public’s right to be informed about the actions of public officials Tuesday when it declared unconstitutional provisions in the Illinois wiretapping law that prohibits audio recording of police activity in public places.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press had argued in a friend-of-the-court brief to the Chicago-based court that the overbroad law was a danger to journalists’ and the public’s First Amendment rights.
“This decision is a First Amendment slam-dunk. The court could not have been clearer about the importance of protecting the public’s right to observe and record the actions of public officials in public places,” said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish. “Although Chicago police had indicated they would not enforce the law during the NATO Summit later this month – which we all expect will be accompanied by protests and police activity – it’s nice to have the force of the court’s decision on the right to record those events.”
“The notion that audio recording police activity in a public place, where there is no expectation of privacy, constitutes a felony is absurd and advances absolutely no government interest,” Dalglish added. “We are delighted that the appeals court agreed.”
The Reporters Committee was joined it its amicus brief in ACLU v. Alvarez by six news industry associations. An RCFP summary of today's opinion can be found here.
On Wednesday, May 9, the Reporters Committee will host a free webinar for reporters and photographers covering protests and other public events where arrests might occur. The webinar will explain their rights to collect news, as well as what to do if they are arrested. Information and registration is on the Reporters Committee website.
To aid reporters and photographers who may be detained, arrested or otherwise thwarted from covering protests and other off-program activity at the NATO Summit May 21-22, the Reporters Committee has partnered with the Chicago law firm of Mandell Menkes LLC to provide a 24-7 legal hotline. The Reporters Committee also will be offering hotlines during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Aug. 27-30 (with the firm Thomas & LoCicero), and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, Sept. 3-6 (with the firm McGuireWoods LLP). Local numbers will be posted on the Reporters Committee website, www.rcfp.org, and the year-round Reporters Committee hotline will also be available at 800-336-4243.
Control freaks angle to strangle new media
http://www.cjr.org/feature/
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
as NATO summit looms
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
The Seventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stood up for the public’s right to be informed about the actions of public officials Tuesday when it declared unconstitutional provisions in the Illinois wiretapping law that prohibits audio recording of police activity in public places.
The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press had argued in a friend-of-the-court brief to the Chicago-based court that the overbroad law was a danger to journalists’ and the public’s First Amendment rights.
“This decision is a First Amendment slam-dunk. The court could not have been clearer about the importance of protecting the public’s right to observe and record the actions of public officials in public places,” said Reporters Committee Executive Director Lucy A. Dalglish. “Although Chicago police had indicated they would not enforce the law during the NATO Summit later this month – which we all expect will be accompanied by protests and police activity – it’s nice to have the force of the court’s decision on the right to record those events.”
“The notion that audio recording police activity in a public place, where there is no expectation of privacy, constitutes a felony is absurd and advances absolutely no government interest,” Dalglish added. “We are delighted that the appeals court agreed.”
The Reporters Committee was joined it its amicus brief in ACLU v. Alvarez by six news industry associations. An RCFP summary of today's opinion can be found here.
On Wednesday, May 9, the Reporters Committee will host a free webinar for reporters and photographers covering protests and other public events where arrests might occur. The webinar will explain their rights to collect news, as well as what to do if they are arrested. Information and registration is on the Reporters Committee website.
To aid reporters and photographers who may be detained, arrested or otherwise thwarted from covering protests and other off-program activity at the NATO Summit May 21-22, the Reporters Committee has partnered with the Chicago law firm of Mandell Menkes LLC to provide a 24-7 legal hotline. The Reporters Committee also will be offering hotlines during the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Aug. 27-30 (with the firm Thomas & LoCicero), and the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, Sept. 3-6 (with the firm McGuireWoods LLP). Local numbers will be posted on the Reporters Committee website, www.rcfp.org, and the year-round Reporters Committee hotline will also be available at 800-336-4243.
Control freaks angle to strangle new media
http://www.cjr.org/feature/
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
Friday, May 4, 2012
Supercomputer technology zooms
with 'quantum simulator' device
'This order of magnitude increase in qubit-number increases the simulator’s quantum state space exponentially. Just writing down on paper a state of a 350-qubit quantum simulator is impossible—it would require more than a googol of digits: 10 to the power of 100.'
Newz from Limbo comment: The development of this technology may drive the cyber-security 'arms race' to a whole new level of magnitude. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which helped fund this experiment, is doubtless looking forward to the ability to factor huge numbers in order to break into certain types of encryptions. The National Security Agency, which is building a vast data analysis center in Utah, will likewise be all over this technology. And, businesses worldwide will be profoundly affected once this technology becomes practical. It is likely that what economist's call productivity -- the inverse of the effort put into the making and marketing of a good -- will climb rapidly everywhere, profoundly affecting global standards of living, in many cases for the better.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
'This order of magnitude increase in qubit-number increases the simulator’s quantum state space exponentially. Just writing down on paper a state of a 350-qubit quantum simulator is impossible—it would require more than a googol of digits: 10 to the power of 100.'
Newz from Limbo comment: The development of this technology may drive the cyber-security 'arms race' to a whole new level of magnitude. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which helped fund this experiment, is doubtless looking forward to the ability to factor huge numbers in order to break into certain types of encryptions. The National Security Agency, which is building a vast data analysis center in Utah, will likewise be all over this technology. And, businesses worldwide will be profoundly affected once this technology becomes practical. It is likely that what economist's call productivity -- the inverse of the effort put into the making and marketing of a good -- will climb rapidly everywhere, profoundly affecting global standards of living, in many cases for the better.
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have built a quantum simulator that can engineer interactions among hundreds of quantum bits (qubits)—10 times more than previous devices. As described in the April 26 issue of Nature, the simulator has passed a series of important benchmarking tests and scientists are poised to study problems in material science that are impossible to model on conventional computers.
[The experimenters are J.W. Britton, B.C. Sawyer, A. Keith, C.-C. J. Wang, J.K. Freericks, H. Uys, M. J. Biercuk and J.J. Bollinger.]
Many important problems in physics—especially low-temperature physics—remain poorly understood because the underlying quantum mechanics is vastly complex. Conventional computers—even supercomputers—are inadequate for simulating quantum systems with as few as 30 particles. Better computational tools are needed to understand and rationally design materials, such as high-temperature superconductors, whose properties are believed to depend on the collective quantum behavior of hundreds of particles.
The NIST simulator consists of a tiny, single-plane crystal of hundreds of beryllium ions, less than 1 millimeter in diameter, hovering inside a device called a Penning trap. The outermost electron of each ion acts as a tiny quantum magnet and is used as a qubit—the quantum equivalent of a “1” or a “0” in a conventional computer. In the benchmarking experiment, physicists used laser beams to cool the ions to near absolute zero. Carefully timed microwave and laser pulses then caused the qubits to interact, mimicking the quantum behavior of materials otherwise very difficult to study in the laboratory. Although the two systems may outwardly appear dissimilar, their behavior is engineered to be mathematically identical. In this way, simulators allow researchers to vary parameters that couldn’t be changed in natural solids, such as atomic lattice spacing and geometry. In the NIST benchmarking experiments, the strength of the interactions was intentionally weak so that the simulation remained simple enough to be confirmed by a classical computer. Ongoing research uses much stronger interactions.
The NIST quantum simulator permits study of quantum systems that are difficult to study in the laboratory and impossible to model with a supercomputer. The heart of the simulator is a two-dimensional crystal of beryllium ions (blue spheres in the graphic); the outermost electron of each ion is a quantum bit (qubit, red arrows). The ions are confined by a large magnetic field in a device called a Penning trap (not shown). Inside the trap the crystal rotates clockwise.
Simulators exploit a property of quantum mechanics called superposition, wherein a quantum particle is made to be in two distinct states at the same time, for example, aligned and anti-aligned with an external magnetic field. So the number of states simultaneously available to 3 qubits, for example, is 8 and this number grows exponentially with the number of qubits: 2N states for N qubits.
Crucially, the NIST simulator also can engineer a second quantum property called entanglement between the qubits, so that even physically well separated particles may be made tightly interconnected.
[The experimenters are J.W. Britton, B.C. Sawyer, A. Keith, C.-C. J. Wang, J.K. Freericks, H. Uys, M. J. Biercuk and J.J. Bollinger.]
Many important problems in physics—especially low-temperature physics—remain poorly understood because the underlying quantum mechanics is vastly complex. Conventional computers—even supercomputers—are inadequate for simulating quantum systems with as few as 30 particles. Better computational tools are needed to understand and rationally design materials, such as high-temperature superconductors, whose properties are believed to depend on the collective quantum behavior of hundreds of particles.
The NIST simulator consists of a tiny, single-plane crystal of hundreds of beryllium ions, less than 1 millimeter in diameter, hovering inside a device called a Penning trap. The outermost electron of each ion acts as a tiny quantum magnet and is used as a qubit—the quantum equivalent of a “1” or a “0” in a conventional computer. In the benchmarking experiment, physicists used laser beams to cool the ions to near absolute zero. Carefully timed microwave and laser pulses then caused the qubits to interact, mimicking the quantum behavior of materials otherwise very difficult to study in the laboratory. Although the two systems may outwardly appear dissimilar, their behavior is engineered to be mathematically identical. In this way, simulators allow researchers to vary parameters that couldn’t be changed in natural solids, such as atomic lattice spacing and geometry. In the NIST benchmarking experiments, the strength of the interactions was intentionally weak so that the simulation remained simple enough to be confirmed by a classical computer. Ongoing research uses much stronger interactions.
The NIST quantum simulator permits study of quantum systems that are difficult to study in the laboratory and impossible to model with a supercomputer. The heart of the simulator is a two-dimensional crystal of beryllium ions (blue spheres in the graphic); the outermost electron of each ion is a quantum bit (qubit, red arrows). The ions are confined by a large magnetic field in a device called a Penning trap (not shown). Inside the trap the crystal rotates clockwise.
Simulators exploit a property of quantum mechanics called superposition, wherein a quantum particle is made to be in two distinct states at the same time, for example, aligned and anti-aligned with an external magnetic field. So the number of states simultaneously available to 3 qubits, for example, is 8 and this number grows exponentially with the number of qubits: 2N states for N qubits.
Crucially, the NIST simulator also can engineer a second quantum property called entanglement between the qubits, so that even physically well separated particles may be made tightly interconnected.
Recent years have seen tremendous interest in quantum simulation; scientists worldwide are striving to build small-scale demonstrations. However, these experiments have yet to fully involve more than 30 quantum particles, the threshold at which calculations become impossible on conventional computers. In contrast, the NIST simulator has extensive control over hundreds of qubits. This order of magnitude increase in qubit-number increases the simulator’s quantum state space exponentially. Just writing down on paper a state of a 350-qubit quantum simulator is impossible—it would require more than a googol of digits: 10 to the power of 100.
Over the past decade, the same NIST research group has conducted record-setting experiments in quantum computing, atomic clocks and, now, quantum simulation. In contrast with quantum computers, which are universal devices that someday may solve a wide variety of computational problems, simulators are “special purpose” devices designed to provide insight about specific problems.
Over the past decade, the same NIST research group has conducted record-setting experiments in quantum computing, atomic clocks and, now, quantum simulation. In contrast with quantum computers, which are universal devices that someday may solve a wide variety of computational problems, simulators are “special purpose” devices designed to provide insight about specific problems.
This work was supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Co-authors from Georgetown University, North Carolina State University and in South Africa and Australia contributed to the research.
Japan nuke peril said to remain severe
Japan nuke peril said to remain severe
Robert Alvarez of the Institute of Policy studies gives his analysis here
The institute has been known since formation in the sixties as a radical (or, in more polite language, progressive) think tank. Some have accused it of being excessively close to the communists.
Newz from Limbo, with its libertarian viewpoint, is willing to link to reasoned arguments, whatever the ideology behind them. There is little doubt that IPS has been more aware than most of the duplicitous and dangerous activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Newz from Limbo, with its libertarian viewpoint, is willing to link to reasoned arguments, whatever the ideology behind them. There is little doubt that IPS has been more aware than most of the duplicitous and dangerous activities of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Scientist's strong background
undermines official 9/11 fables
A.K. Dewdney's trenchant criticisms of the official 9/11 yarn are backed up by a sterling professional career as a mathematics professor, computer scientist and writer on mathematical and scientific subjects -- including a stint writing the Mathematical Recreations column for Scientific American.
His book Yes, We Have No Neutrons succinctly and deftly skewers examples of "bad science" and shows that he is an unlikely candidate to be a sucker for silly conspiracy scenarios.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/
His book Yes, We Have No Neutrons succinctly and deftly skewers examples of "bad science" and shows that he is an unlikely candidate to be a sucker for silly conspiracy scenarios.
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/
http://www.csd.uwo.ca/faculty/
Is intelligent life a grand computation?
Is intelligent life a grand computation?
Newz from Limbo's editor, in a bit of self-indulgence, takes a crack at Stephen Wolfram's "principle of computational equivalence," a conjecture the Mathematica entrepreneur sees as a basis for complex computation in nature.
Paul Conant has no formal scientific or mathematical training, although he does touch base with experts from time to time. The page below will be comprehensible to those who have some familiarity with Turing machines; if not, your eyes will surely glaze over.
Paul Conant has no formal scientific or mathematical training, although he does touch base with experts from time to time. The page below will be comprehensible to those who have some familiarity with Turing machines; if not, your eyes will surely glaze over.
http://paulpages.blogspot.com/2012/04/draft-probabilities-pose-difficulties.html
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
PayPal expands its 'thought police' role
Electronic Frontier Foundation
PayPal has instituted a new policy aimed at censoring what digital denizens can and can't read, and they're doing it in a way that leaves us with little recourse to challenge their policies in court. Indie publisher Smashwords has notified contributing authors, publishers, and literary agents that they would no longer be providing a platform for certain forms of sexually explicit fiction. This comes in response to Paypal's initiative to deny service to online merchants selling what it deems to be obscene written content. PayPal is demonstrating, again and to our great disappointment, the dire consequences to online speech when service providers start acting like content police.
[PayPal came under fire for barring donations to Wikileaks after Sen. Joseph Lieberman and others made an issue of those doing business with the group that is on a different political wavelength from Lieberman.]
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Murdoch takes beating in report
that vanishes from the internet
Rupert Murdoch's hold on his British television firm came under intense new pressure with the release of a scathing parliamentary report on the phone hacking scandal.
Murdoch and his son James should be "prepared to take responsibility" for a pattern of misconduct by company employes, the report said, adding that Parliament may wish to consider issuing a formal rebuke for contempt of Parliament, a move so rare in modern times that its use would carry added political impact.
Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party has drawn withering fire over evidence that Murdoch and his top aides had undue influence at top levels of the British government. Conservatives refused to endorse the culture committee report, but this doesn't mean Murdoch's troubles are over.
Jack Welch, former head of GE, which owns NBC, quickly vouched for Murdoch's fitness to run the television company, BSkyB, which under British law would be precluded if Murdoch is found unfit for such responsibility.
Welch may have been responding to an appeal from Murdoch that media owners should circle their wagons to fend off an assault on media rights; media owners, particularly in the United States, have long followed such an unwritten protocol, similar to the "blue wall of silence" employed by police officers.
As this reporter was working on this story, it appeared as though hacking was going on in an attempt to disrupt fact-gathering.
For example, a copy of the culture committee report was found online but vanished by the time this writer returned to the site. Use of Google and other search engines then proved fruitless in obtaining access to the report. Parliament's web site was also devoid of a link to the report.
Links to the report in two Guardian stories were met with:
"Sorry - we haven't been able to serve the page you asked for
"You may have followed a broken link, an outdated search result, or there may be an error on our site. If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it in correctly. In particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case."
Before access was denied, two passages were copied from the report:
"The integrity and effectiveness of the Select Committee system relies on the
truthfulness and completeness of the oral and written evidence submitted. The
behaviour of News International and certain witnesses in this affair demonstrated
contempt for that system in the most blatant fashion. Important lessons need to be
learned accordingly and we draw our Report to the attention of the Liaison Committee
which is considering possible reforms to Select Committees.
"We note that it is for the House to decide whether a contempt has been committed
and, if so, what punishment should be imposed. We note that it makes no difference—
in terms of misleading this Committee—that evidence was not taken on oath.
Witnesses are required to tell the truth to committees whether on oath or not. We will
table a motion inviting the House to endorse our conclusions about misleading
evidence."
that vanishes from the internet
Rupert Murdoch's hold on his British television firm came under intense new pressure with the release of a scathing parliamentary report on the phone hacking scandal.
Murdoch and his son James should be "prepared to take responsibility" for a pattern of misconduct by company employes, the report said, adding that Parliament may wish to consider issuing a formal rebuke for contempt of Parliament, a move so rare in modern times that its use would carry added political impact.
Prime Minister David Cameron's Conservative Party has drawn withering fire over evidence that Murdoch and his top aides had undue influence at top levels of the British government. Conservatives refused to endorse the culture committee report, but this doesn't mean Murdoch's troubles are over.
Jack Welch, former head of GE, which owns NBC, quickly vouched for Murdoch's fitness to run the television company, BSkyB, which under British law would be precluded if Murdoch is found unfit for such responsibility.
Welch may have been responding to an appeal from Murdoch that media owners should circle their wagons to fend off an assault on media rights; media owners, particularly in the United States, have long followed such an unwritten protocol, similar to the "blue wall of silence" employed by police officers.
As this reporter was working on this story, it appeared as though hacking was going on in an attempt to disrupt fact-gathering.
For example, a copy of the culture committee report was found online but vanished by the time this writer returned to the site. Use of Google and other search engines then proved fruitless in obtaining access to the report. Parliament's web site was also devoid of a link to the report.
Links to the report in two Guardian stories were met with:
"Sorry - we haven't been able to serve the page you asked for
"You may have followed a broken link, an outdated search result, or there may be an error on our site. If you typed in a URL, please make sure you have typed it in correctly. In particular, make sure that the URL you typed is all in lower case."
Before access was denied, two passages were copied from the report:
"The integrity and effectiveness of the Select Committee system relies on the
truthfulness and completeness of the oral and written evidence submitted. The
behaviour of News International and certain witnesses in this affair demonstrated
contempt for that system in the most blatant fashion. Important lessons need to be
learned accordingly and we draw our Report to the attention of the Liaison Committee
which is considering possible reforms to Select Committees.
"We note that it is for the House to decide whether a contempt has been committed
and, if so, what punishment should be imposed. We note that it makes no difference—
in terms of misleading this Committee—that evidence was not taken on oath.
Witnesses are required to tell the truth to committees whether on oath or not. We will
table a motion inviting the House to endorse our conclusions about misleading
evidence."
Coroner's poisoning death troubles Brietbart fans
It could takes months to get a final determination on the cause of death for Los Angeles County coroner's official Michael Cormier, who officials said appears to have died from poisoning, the LA Times blog LA Now has reported.
This possibility caught the attention of a number of bloggers, who noted that conservative commentator Andrew Brietbart's sudden death had been examined by Cormier (a statement that Newz from Limbo has not verified).
Brietbart dropped dead of "natural causes" after proclaiming that he would air videotapes extremely damaging to President Obama's re-election chances. After his death, one such tape -- showing a youthful Obama embracing a man identified as a communist -- was aired by Fox News.
Brietbart had broken a big media protocol of silence -- in place since Sen. Joe McCarthy's political downfall -- wherein virtually no mention of communist activities or connections inside America is permitted. Those who break the protocol face retribution from "the system." Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News have been ambivalent about this protocol, generally honoring it but permitting -- for a limited time -- commentators such as Glenn Beck to break the silence, as long as they don't perturb the powers that be excessively.
The LA Times reported that law enforcement sources said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide because the substance could have accidentally entered his system. According to sources, arsenic was one poison being examined as a potential cause but stressed that no final determination has been made.
Hospital staff notified police about concerns surrounding the cause of Cormier's death, the Times said.
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
This possibility caught the attention of a number of bloggers, who noted that conservative commentator Andrew Brietbart's sudden death had been examined by Cormier (a statement that Newz from Limbo has not verified).
Brietbart dropped dead of "natural causes" after proclaiming that he would air videotapes extremely damaging to President Obama's re-election chances. After his death, one such tape -- showing a youthful Obama embracing a man identified as a communist -- was aired by Fox News.
Brietbart had broken a big media protocol of silence -- in place since Sen. Joe McCarthy's political downfall -- wherein virtually no mention of communist activities or connections inside America is permitted. Those who break the protocol face retribution from "the system." Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News have been ambivalent about this protocol, generally honoring it but permitting -- for a limited time -- commentators such as Glenn Beck to break the silence, as long as they don't perturb the powers that be excessively.
The LA Times reported that law enforcement sources said that finding the presence of poison does not necessarily mean the death was a homicide because the substance could have accidentally entered his system. According to sources, arsenic was one poison being examined as a potential cause but stressed that no final determination has been made.
Hospital staff notified police about concerns surrounding the cause of Cormier's death, the Times said.
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The worst school bullying:
excessive reliance on tests
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/
excessive reliance on tests
http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Running interference for assassins,
pooh-poohing communist networks
A few factoids about Tom Wicker, the late New York Times writer, who was in John F. Kennedy's press entourage when the president was slain in Dallas.
Wicker used his position to for decades argue against conspiracy in Kennedy's assassination. He also used his position to portray Joe McCarthy as a wack job who had produced very little. Just as Wicker ignored crucial data in the JFK murder that proves conspiracy and cover-up, so he also ignored almost all the damning material that McCarthy dredged up during his investigations, preferring to focus on purported missteps.
Wicker, in his book Shooting Star: the Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy (Harcourt 2006), wrote what is in effect a long column, short on information and long and skillful interpretation (or what is popularly known as "spin").
For example, Wicker avoids mentioning that a parade of witnesses went before McCarthy and invoked the Fifth Amendment on communism. A number of these people worked in government and media. It may be true that a witness's use of this right can't be used against him in a court of law, but that doesn't mean the startling number of such decisions wasn't valid information and something the public deserved to know. Would you, as a normal American, go before a government committee and refuse to answer questions about communism?
Wicker of course was sticking with the protocol that was agreed to by major media players after McCarthy's political demise: never again give currency to communism-in-government material, never again permit another McCarthy to shake up the country the way he had.
Some years ago, this reporter put together a longish report entitled something like "The New York Times and the communism controversy" which went through in some detail the Times' difficulties with this subject (and if you have a copy, please send it to krypto78 atttt gmail.com). Wicker was typical of a number of Times luminaries in damning McCarthy's exposes of communist influence in government and press and defending the Warren commission's "lone deranged gunman" theory of JFK's assassination.
Though the Kremlin accurately charged that JFK had been killed by U.S. "ruling circles," the Communist movement in America only slapped the Warren Commission with a wet noodle, as has also happened with respect to 9/11. And it is certainly true that Kennedy had humiliated the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. The Communists were known to exact "Communist revenge" against those who were too effective, pretty much along the lines of Mafia intimidation tactics.
A news report of the era pointed out that the Communist Party under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had been pressured into near impotence with the requirement that all party officials register as agents of a foreign power. That requirement was lifted after RFK left Lyndon Johnson's administration. Johnson's top political adviser was Abe Fortas, a founder of the National Lawyers Guild, which on principle refuses to deny being communist.
A recent book by former Helter Skelter prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi quotes Wicker with approval. Bugliosi's thousand-page opus purports to document that all JFK conspiracy theories are nonsense. Bugliosi says he spent 20 year putting the evidence together for the book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 2007) and yet it reads like a very long defense brief put together by a committee of researchers.
It's certainly true that the Central Intelligence Agency was furious when told to release JFK files, a number of which point to conspiracy.
More to the point, the control clique in the Pentagon-Intelligence establishment has been unleashing propagandistic smokescreens in order to veil the facts about the events of 9/11. Bugliosi's book tends to defang those who argue that if Kennedy was slain in an "inside job" conspiracy, why would a 9/11 "inside job" conspiracy be such a ridiculous idea?
It's true that sometimes congressional committees play to the press and that some lawmakers are irresponsible (so what else is new?). However, even a casual reading of some of the old transcripts of the red-hunting committees shows a reasonable observer that there was indeed a severe problem of Communist subversion -- though it often happened that the most disturbing material was not the most newsworthy and that sometimes lawmakers engaged in reprehensible behavior.
The problem of subversion has not gone away, despite the major setback wrought by the collapse of the Soviet empire. Now that conservatives have control of the House, now might be a good time to empanel a new House Committee on Un-American Activities, even if under another name.
After all, the protocol of silence has weakened. Glenn Beck, for example, was able to air charges concerning A White House aide who had been a member of the Communist Party. In addition, internet media were able to focus on a Washington rally in which the organizers welcomed Communist Party participation.
Such a committee might well be a useful campaign weapon at this point, although the main idea would be to make sure Americans get an eyeful of what has been ignored by media that obey the silence-on-subversion protocol.
That doesn't mean -- thinking in particular of Muslims and Jews -- license to smear people based on their religious preference. Nor does it mean smearing someone, like Ron Paul, as leftist when he espouses a libertarian point of view. However, it would be beneficial if investigators were able to trace the Communist networks operating on borth sides of the "War on Terror."
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
pooh-poohing communist networks
A few factoids about Tom Wicker, the late New York Times writer, who was in John F. Kennedy's press entourage when the president was slain in Dallas.
Wicker used his position to for decades argue against conspiracy in Kennedy's assassination. He also used his position to portray Joe McCarthy as a wack job who had produced very little. Just as Wicker ignored crucial data in the JFK murder that proves conspiracy and cover-up, so he also ignored almost all the damning material that McCarthy dredged up during his investigations, preferring to focus on purported missteps.
Wicker, in his book Shooting Star: the Brief Arc of Joe McCarthy (Harcourt 2006), wrote what is in effect a long column, short on information and long and skillful interpretation (or what is popularly known as "spin").
For example, Wicker avoids mentioning that a parade of witnesses went before McCarthy and invoked the Fifth Amendment on communism. A number of these people worked in government and media. It may be true that a witness's use of this right can't be used against him in a court of law, but that doesn't mean the startling number of such decisions wasn't valid information and something the public deserved to know. Would you, as a normal American, go before a government committee and refuse to answer questions about communism?
Wicker of course was sticking with the protocol that was agreed to by major media players after McCarthy's political demise: never again give currency to communism-in-government material, never again permit another McCarthy to shake up the country the way he had.
Some years ago, this reporter put together a longish report entitled something like "The New York Times and the communism controversy" which went through in some detail the Times' difficulties with this subject (and if you have a copy, please send it to krypto78 atttt gmail.com). Wicker was typical of a number of Times luminaries in damning McCarthy's exposes of communist influence in government and press and defending the Warren commission's "lone deranged gunman" theory of JFK's assassination.
Though the Kremlin accurately charged that JFK had been killed by U.S. "ruling circles," the Communist movement in America only slapped the Warren Commission with a wet noodle, as has also happened with respect to 9/11. And it is certainly true that Kennedy had humiliated the Soviets during the Cuban missile crisis. The Communists were known to exact "Communist revenge" against those who were too effective, pretty much along the lines of Mafia intimidation tactics.
A news report of the era pointed out that the Communist Party under Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy had been pressured into near impotence with the requirement that all party officials register as agents of a foreign power. That requirement was lifted after RFK left Lyndon Johnson's administration. Johnson's top political adviser was Abe Fortas, a founder of the National Lawyers Guild, which on principle refuses to deny being communist.
A recent book by former Helter Skelter prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi quotes Wicker with approval. Bugliosi's thousand-page opus purports to document that all JFK conspiracy theories are nonsense. Bugliosi says he spent 20 year putting the evidence together for the book, Reclaiming History: The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy (Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. 2007) and yet it reads like a very long defense brief put together by a committee of researchers.
It's certainly true that the Central Intelligence Agency was furious when told to release JFK files, a number of which point to conspiracy.
More to the point, the control clique in the Pentagon-Intelligence establishment has been unleashing propagandistic smokescreens in order to veil the facts about the events of 9/11. Bugliosi's book tends to defang those who argue that if Kennedy was slain in an "inside job" conspiracy, why would a 9/11 "inside job" conspiracy be such a ridiculous idea?
It's true that sometimes congressional committees play to the press and that some lawmakers are irresponsible (so what else is new?). However, even a casual reading of some of the old transcripts of the red-hunting committees shows a reasonable observer that there was indeed a severe problem of Communist subversion -- though it often happened that the most disturbing material was not the most newsworthy and that sometimes lawmakers engaged in reprehensible behavior.
The problem of subversion has not gone away, despite the major setback wrought by the collapse of the Soviet empire. Now that conservatives have control of the House, now might be a good time to empanel a new House Committee on Un-American Activities, even if under another name.
After all, the protocol of silence has weakened. Glenn Beck, for example, was able to air charges concerning A White House aide who had been a member of the Communist Party. In addition, internet media were able to focus on a Washington rally in which the organizers welcomed Communist Party participation.
Such a committee might well be a useful campaign weapon at this point, although the main idea would be to make sure Americans get an eyeful of what has been ignored by media that obey the silence-on-subversion protocol.
That doesn't mean -- thinking in particular of Muslims and Jews -- license to smear people based on their religious preference. Nor does it mean smearing someone, like Ron Paul, as leftist when he espouses a libertarian point of view. However, it would be beneficial if investigators were able to trace the Communist networks operating on borth sides of the "War on Terror."
Newz from Limbo is a news site and, the hosting mechanism notwithstanding, should not be defined as a web log or as 'little more than a community forum'... Write News from Limbo at Krypto78=at=gmail=dot=com... The philosophical orientation of Newz from Limbo is best described as libertarian... For anti-censorship links: http://veilside78.blogspot.com/2010/12/anti-censorship-spectrum_23.html (If link fails, cut and paste it into the url bar)... You may reach some of Paul Conant's other pages through the sidebar link or at http://paulpages.blogspot.com/ See http://www.blacklistedjournalist.com/column104e.html for photo
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