42 posts from April 2008

ROBBER BARONS

John McCain Funded By The Freaking ROTHSCHILDS

For somebody who's always accusing his opponents of being "out of touch" with the Working Man, John McCain sure does hang out with a lot of fat-cat plutocrats who don't even have the decency to be American. On a recent visit to the tony U.K. — a nation populated entirely by decadent, incestuous polo players with "smart" accents and harelips — McCain attended a fundraising luncheon hosted by Lord Rothschild and Nathaniel Rothschild. The problem is, American candidates aren't allowed to take campaign contributions from such fancy foreign nationals as the Rothschilds! But does "hosting" an event constitute a "contribution"?

According to watchdog group Judicial Watch, yes! But then again, they also thought that Elton John, a known Englishman, should not have performed at a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton. However, this objection had more to do with violating the laws of good taste than campaign finance regulations.

McCain accused of accepting improper donations from Rothschilds [Guardian]

By CRAIG S. SMITH
The New York Times
Published: April 30, 2008

PARIS — Albert Hofmann, the mystical Swiss chemist who gave the world LSD, the most powerful psychotropic substance known, died Tuesday at his hilltop home near Basel, Switzerland. He was 102.

The cause was a heart attack, said Rick Doblin, founder and president of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a California-based group that in 2005 republished Dr. Hofmann’s 1979 book “LSD: My Problem Child.”

Dr. Hofmann first synthesized the compound lysergic acid diethylamide in 1938 but did not discover its psychopharmacological effects until five years later, when he accidentally ingested the substance that became known to the 1960s counterculture as acid.

He then took LSD hundreds of times, but regarded it as a powerful and potentially dangerous psychotropic drug that demanded respect. More important to him than the pleasures of the psychedelic experience was the drug’s value as a revelatory aid for contemplating and understanding what he saw as humanity’s oneness with nature. That perception, of union, which came to Dr. Hofmann as almost a religious epiphany while still a child, directed much of his personal and professional life.

Dr. Hofmann was born in Baden, a spa town in northern Switzerland, on Jan. 11, 1906, the eldest of four children. His father, who had no higher education, was a toolmaker in a local factory, and the family lived in a rented apartment. But Dr. Hofmann spent much of his childhood outdoors.

He would wander the hills above the town and play around the ruins of a Hapsburg castle, the Stein. “It was a real paradise up there,” he said in an interview in 2006. “We had no money, but I had a wonderful childhood.”

It was during one of his ambles that he had his epiphany.

“It happened on a May morning — I have forgotten the year — but I can still point to the exact spot where it occurred, on a forest path on Martinsberg above Baden,” he wrote in “LSD: My Problem Child.” “As I strolled through the freshly greened woods filled with bird song and lit up by the morning sun, all at once everything appeared in an uncommonly clear light.

“It shone with the most beautiful radiance, speaking to the heart, as though it wanted to encompass me in its majesty. I was filled with an indescribable sensation of joy, oneness and blissful security.”

Though Dr. Hofmann’s father was a Roman Catholic and his mother a Protestant, Dr. Hofmann, from an early age, felt that organized religion missed the point. When he was 7 or 8, he recalled, he spoke to a friend about whether Jesus was divine. “I said that I didn’t believe, but that there must be a God because there is the world and someone made the world,” he said. “I had this very deep connection with nature.”

Dr. Hofmann went on to study chemistry at Zurich University because, he said, he wanted to explore the natural world at the level where energy and elements combine to create life. He earned his Ph.D. there in 1929, when he was just 23. He then took a job with Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, attracted by a program there that sought to synthesize pharmacological compounds from medicinally important plants.

It was during his work on the ergot fungus, which grows in rye kernels, that he stumbled on LSD, accidentally ingesting a trace of the compound one Friday afternoon in April 1943. Soon he experienced an altered state of consciousness similar to the one he had experienced as a child.

On the following Monday, he deliberately swallowed a dose of LSD and rode his bicycle home as the effects of the drug overwhelmed him. That day, April 19, later became memorialized by LSD enthusiasts as “bicycle day.”

Dr. Hofmann’s work produced other important drugs, including methergine, used to treat postpartum hemorrhaging, the leading cause of death from childbirth. But it was LSD that shaped both his career and his spiritual quest.

“Through my LSD experience and my new picture of reality, I became aware of the wonder of creation, the magnificence of nature and of the animal and plant kingdom,” Dr. Hofmann told the psychiatrist Stanislav Grof during an interview in 1984. “I became very sensitive to what will happen to all this and all of us.”

Dr. Hofmann became an impassioned advocate for the environment and argued that LSD, besides being a valuable tool for psychiatry, could be used to awaken a deeper awareness of mankind’s place in nature and help curb society’s ultimately self-destructive degradation of the natural world.

But he was also disturbed by the cavalier use of LSD as a drug for entertainment, arguing that it should be treated in the way that primitive societies treat psychoactive sacred plants, which are ingested with care and spiritual intent.

After his discovery of LSD’s properties, Dr. Hofmann spent years researching sacred plants. With his friend R. Gordon Wasson, he participated in psychedelic rituals with Mazatec shamans in southern Mexico. He succeeded in synthesizing the active compounds in the Psilocybe mexicana mushroom, which he named psilocybin and psilocin. He also isolated the active compound in morning glory seeds, which the Mazatec also used as an intoxicant, and found that its chemical structure was close to that of LSD.

During the psychedelic era, Dr. Hofmann struck up friendships with such outsize personalities as Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg and Aldous Huxley, who, nearing death in 1963, asked his wife for an injection of LSD to help him through the final painful throes of throat cancer.

Yet despite his involvement with psychoactive compounds, Dr. Hofmann remained moored in his Swiss chemist identity. He stayed with Sandoz as head of the research department for natural medicines until his retirement in 1971. He wrote more than 100 scientific articles and was the author or co-author of a number of books

He and his wife, Anita, who died recently, reared four children in Basel. A son died of alcoholism at 53. Survivors include several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Though Dr. Hofmann called LSD “medicine for the soul,” by 2006 his hallucinogenic days were long behind him, he said in the interview that year.

“I know LSD; I don’t need to take it anymore,” he said, adding. “Maybe when I die, like Aldous Huxley.”

But he said LSD had not affected his understanding of death. In death, he said, “I go back to where I came from, to where I was before I was born, that’s all.”

You have my never-ending gratitude for all your difficult and surreal work, dear Uncle Albert.  May you have great and fortunate rebirths, and reach complete and total enlightenment.

Shouldn't take you long.  :)

our flourishing economy

Bush Fixes Economy Whines About Congress

Dorkus W. Dildo had a press conference today, in his garden. He is very rich and has an entire hospital to attend to him and bombs anything that makes him confused and no matter what crime he does, he never gets sent to prison, so he is exactly like ordinary poor Americans like you. Bush Junior has heard about how maybe the "economic" is a problem, so he told those losers who still have to act like he's important — you know, the White House correspondents — that he "figured out" what was wrong and guess what, it's Congress, which has Democrats.

"The average person wants to know whether or not we know that they're paying higher gasoline prices and they're worried about staying in their homes," Bush said. Yes, that's a bunch of jumbled nonsense with a slight relation to the subject, so Consumer Confidence immediately plunged to its lowest level in nearly six years and consumer sentiment plunged to its lowest level in 26 years and inflation rose again and home prices are falling faster than ever with "no sign of the bottom" and the number of Americans who can even dream of affording a little vacation in the next six months fell to a 30-year low.

Said Bush Junior: "I repeatedly submitted proposal to help address the problems. Time after time, Congress chose to block them."

Nobody has any idea what he's talking about, or even cares about how he thinks he "repeatedly submitted proposal."

Congress and the White House did agree to send everybody in America a little bit of money, and those checks will start arriving this week. Many people plan to "splurge" by spending their Economic Stimulus money on the heating bill, or a 50-lb. sack of rice, or half a tank of gas.

Bush Says Congress Blocking Progress [CNN]

Too stupid to learn how to speak Yankistani let alone English, but can make $$$ hand over fist while we move and change jobs so we can afford gasoline.

Wonkette's so lovely.

MOON HALOES: When moonlight shines through icy clouds, the usual result is a simple pair of moondogs. But recently near Mt. Hekla, Iceland, photographer Agust Gudmundsson saw much more:

"It was a spectacular night," says Gudmundsson who needed two pictures to encompass the full display: #1, #2. "I don't know the names of all the optics in the photos, but they were fantastic."

Atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley identifies them for us: "This truly beautiful display has everything. A lunar parhelic circle courses through the moon and its dog companions. There is a 22 degree halo topped by an upper tangent arc. Higher still there is a rare lunar circumzenithal arc and something seen even less often: a lunar supralateral arc." For a quick-look summary, click here.

"In one of the photos, there is a hole in the snow," notes Gudmundsson. "It is a snowhouse where my son Atli age 12 slept this amazing night!" Can you find it?

SOLAR BLAST: No sunspots? No problem. Yesterday the blank sun unleashed a solar flare without the usual aid of a sunspot. At 1408 UT on April 26th, Earth-orbiting satellites detected a surge of X-rays registering B3.8 on the Richter scale of solar flares. Shortly thereafter, SOHO coronagraphs photographed a coronal mass ejection (CME) billowing away from the sun:

The expanding cloud could deliver a glancing blow to Earth's magnetic field late on April 28th or 29th. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras when it arrives.

This strange solar flare came from a patch of sun (N08,E08) where magnetic fields were not intense enough to form a visible sunspot (sunspots are made of magnetism). Nevertheless, magnetic fields were present with sufficient energy and instability to produce a powerful explosion. NASA's twin STEREO spacecraft, observing the sun from widely separated vantage points, recorded a million mph shock wave or "solar tsunami" spreading from the blast site through the sun's atmosphere: movie.

Not bad for a "blank sun." Stay tuned for updates.

more images: from David Strange of Branscombe, Devon, UK; from Emiel Veldhuis of Zwolle, the Netherlands; from Stephen Ames of Hodegenville, KY; from Will Gater of Bristol, UK; from Patricia Cannaerts of Belgium; from Joel Bavais of Anvaing, Belgium

A high school student finds conservative bias in his American government textbook.

Throughout my life, my teachers have told me that school is a neutral environment where my classmates and I can count on teachers and textbooks to provide us with the factual and unbiased information that will equip us for life. Lately, though, I've begun to wonder whether they really mean it.

In my junior year of high school in New Jersey, my U.S. history teacher used the first week of class to preach his religious beliefs. He told students, among other things, that they "belong in hell" if they reject Jesus as their savior, that evolution and the Big Bang are ridiculous and unscientific theories, and that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark.

When I confronted him in the principal's office, he denied making the remarks. What he didn't realize was that I had recorded the classes. But even after I informed school officials what had happened, they ignored my concerns. So after more than a month, my parents and I took the news to the media.

At first, I was harassed and intimidated by other students. School officials ignored the harassment and even a death threat I received.

Only after the story became national news did the school district begin to take us seriously. After lengthy negotiations (and against continuing opposition from the school board), we finally persuaded the district to address the teacher's false and inappropriate remarks. The Anti-Defamation League was brought in to teach the faculty about the separation of church and state, and experts in the fields of church-state separation, evolution and cosmology came to our school to conduct assemblies.

After that, I thought I was done with controversy for a while. But now, in my senior year, I am back in the midst of it. In one of my classes, we use the 10th edition of "American Government" by James Q. Wilson, a well-known conservative academic, and John J. DiIulio, a political scientist and former head of President Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. (2005). The text contains a statement, repeated three times, that students may not pray in public schools. In this edition of the text, the authors drive the point home with a photograph of students holding hands and praying outside a school. The caption reads: "The Supreme Court will not let this happen inside a public school."

I knew this was false. In fact, students are allowed to pray in schools; courts have ruled many times that a student's right to pray may not be abridged. What's generally impermissible is state-sponsored prayer, in which school officials lead prayer or students are called on or required to pray. It seemed clear to me that the purpose of the discussion in the textbook was to indoctrinate, not to educate.

Continued reading revealed numerous other instances of bias, as well as erroneous and misleading statements. For example, the section on global warming begins with a few well-chosen words to set the tone: "It is a foolish politician who today opposes environmentalism. And that creates a problem because not all environmental issues are equally deserving of support. Take the case of global warming."

The authors neglect to mention the growing scientific consensus on this subject. They dismiss those who are concerned about global warming -- that is, the overwhelming majority of scientists -- as "activists" motivated not by data but by "entrepreneurial politics." Those who deny or downplay it are described as "skeptical scientists."

Pointing out dissent within the scientific community is appropriate. Suggesting that the majority, but not the minority, is politically motivated is not appropriate. If a controversy truly exists, then the authors should not instruct students which side to "support."

I contacted a not-for-profit group called the Center for Inquiry. It enlisted support from scientists, including James Hansen, NASA's top climate scientist, and organizations, including Friends of the Earth and People for the American Way, to address concerns about the textbook.

What is most distressing is not that some public school teachers preach their religion, or that some authors put politics ahead of education. It is that it is so rare for anyone to call them on it. This text is widely used. Yet to my knowledge, no one has challenged these incorrect and misleading statements.

As Americans, we should stand up for our common values. We should champion education and settle for nothing less than the best. Our teachers should do the same and should not misuse their positions to promote their personal agendas.

Matthew LaClair is a high school student in Kearny, N.J.

Saturday, April 26, 2008

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. (AP) -- Police say a 7-year-old Florida boy faces grand theft auto charges after taking his grandmother's sport utility vehicle for a joyride. The eight minute trek left a swath of damage in his Palm Beach Gardens neighborhood Friday. The boy smashed mailboxes, hit parked cars and signposts. He was unhurt.

Police say he literally drove until a wheel fell off. The right front wheel, to be exact, which broke off after the boy hit a sign.  

Police spokeswoman Ellen Lovejoy says the boy is unlikely to be prosecuted. They arrested him so he can get some help, noting the excursion was "unusual behavior for a 7-year-old."

Capitol Launches Intra-Office Laser War?

12:53 PM on Fri Apr 25 2008
By Jim Newell

Thanks to Wonkette laser operative "A." for sending this photo from outside the House office buildings today. Apparently everyone on Capitol Hill is going to stop pretending to "fix the country" and play Laser War all afternoon instead.

Wonkette rocks.

Key fundraisers have city contracts, but deny conflict of interest.

Christine MacDonald and David Josar / The Detroit News

Thursday, April 24, 2008

DETROIT -- Key players on Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick's legal defense fundraising team have at least $5 million in current or pending city contracts, and others stand to make much more from the mayor's proposed $300 million economic stimulus project if he remains in office.

Of the 13 known committee members on Kilpatrick's Detroit Justice Fund, at least five have Detroit contracts or other financial ties to city business or the mayor. Fund members, four of whom live in Detroit, are raising money to pay lawyers who will seek to exonerate Kilpatrick of felony charges stemming from the text-message scandal and whistle-blowers' lawsuits.

Attorney David Baker Lewis is one of the fundraisers with the strongest City Hall financial interests. Kilpatrick wants Lewis' law firm as a counsel on his stimulus bond sale. Another is banker Donald Davis, who has two proposed contracts, including one for $4.6 million to lease computer software to the city.

Some critics say it's a conflict of interest to tap city contractors for help in raising money to cover the mayor's legal fees.

"By any standard definition ... about what a conflict of interest is, this is one," said Wayne Norman, an ethics professor at Duke University, who added that just the perception of a conflict, without evidence of wrongdoing, can undermine citizens' trust. "He is supposed to do what is best for the city. ... The fact that a citizen can reasonably wonder about that undermines the trust in the office and institution."

But some of the fund's members say they've done city work for decades -- long before the scandal and $8.4 million whistle-blower settlement. They say they just want to assure that Kilpatrick can afford to mount a good defense.

"My motive is not to get rich," said the Rev. Horace Sheffield III of New Galilee Baptist Church, denying a connection between fundraising and his $220,000 in current city contracts. "I think (Kilpatrick) is a gifted young man and needs support.

"If I am in trouble, I am not going to expect people I haven't helped to help me. That's the way it is."

Of Sheffield's two city contracts, he said one is for about $100,000 to teach people how to create nonprofits, and he said he has held the annual contract for more than 20 years. A more recent $120,000 contract is intended to teach young adults job skills.

Councilwoman Sheila Cockrel said the connections create at least the appearance of a troubling conflict, and she plans to grill Kilpatrick staffers about upcoming contracts in the budget committee she heads.

"The question is what is the relationship between the award of these contracts" and the Detroit Justice Fund, Cockrel said.

The defense committee members were picked in an "organic process" facilitated by the mayor, said Marcus Reese, a spokesman from Strategic Impact Strategies LLC, an East Coast-based company hired by the mayor to shape his side of the story.

"Most, if not all, of these people are strong supporters of the mayor who think he will be vindicated," Reese said.

As for conflicts of interest, Reese said there is "none."

The fund will become vital for Kilpatrick, a career politician who makes about $176,000 a year, as he racks up legal and public relations bills. Privately some of his advisors have estimated that tally will reach $2 million.

By comparison, President Clinton raised about $6 million through his defense fund but faced about $10 million in legal bills when he was under fire in the Monica Lewinsky controversy.

Who has ties

Among the Detroit Justice Fund members who have financial ties to the city:

• Lewis' law firm billed Detroit more than $300,000 for representing the mayor in the whistle-blower suits, and Kilpatrick is recommending the firm as counsel for the bond sale that would finance the mayor's economic stimulus plan. James Canning, a Kilpatrick spokesman, wouldn't provide the contract value.

The Lewis & Munday law firm has long-standing ties with the mayor, representing him personally in a recount challenge to the 2005 general election, as well as helping with police discipline cases and providing legal advice to the Detroit Building Authority, which manages capital improvements.

Lewis, who declined comment when contacted by The Detroit News, has done city work with his various firms since the 1970s.

• Davis runs two companies with pending contracts before the Detroit City Council, including the software proposal.

He is chairman of First Independence Bank, which already manages some city money, and chairman of Minority Alliance Capital, a joint venture between First Independence and two other minority banks.

Kilpatrick, who proposes contracts generally for council approval, wants the bank to be an investment manager for the stimulus bond sale and would be "managing money" for the city, Canning said. He wouldn't provide figures Wednesday on how much the city would pay Independence Bank for that service.

The mayor's office would not answer questions on how or why they selected First Independence Bank to help with the bond issue. Documents that Kilpatrick submitted to the council listed the bank as a trustee but Canning said that wasn't accurate.

Davis sees no conflict of interest with either contract. He said the five-year, $4.6 million Minority Alliance Capital software contract was an open bid and his proposal was the best. He did say his work with the bond project wasn't competitively bid by the city.

Davis said he is a part of the mayor's defense fund effort because he believes in the "constitutional right of due process."

"I don't think due process is a conflict of interest," he added.

• A. Gregory Eaton, of the high-powered Lansing-based lobbying firm of Karoub Associates, has a business partner who recently sold property to the city. Eaton's partner in Metro Cars, Cullen Meathe, bought a warehouse near Tiger Stadium in 2002 for $3.5 million and then sold it to the city two years later for $8.6 million. The building now will be used for the city's forensic crime lab, which would be funded through the mayor's proposed bond sale.

Eaton said his job is to solicit donations. "Some people say 'No,' some say 'Hell no,' some say 'Yes,'" he explained.

Kilpatrick served five years in the state House; Eaton's lobbying firm is among the most influential in the capital.

"It's like your son is in trouble, tells you he's made mistakes and you want to help," Eaton said.

• Donald Watkins, a Birmingham, Ala., lawyer considered to be among the nation's wealthiest African Americans, was recruited by Kilpatrick to open a branch of his bank, Alamerica, to fill the void created when Comerica, which has provided City Hall banking services, moved its headquarters to Texas.

"He was not what the media portrayed ... he wasn't the hip-hop mayor or wearing an earring," said Watkins, who met the mayor once."I've not started fundraising yet but I've helped suggest some legal counsel," said Watkins, who got HealthSouth Chief Executive Officer Richard Scrushy acquitted of 36 charges in 2005.

Watkins said he convinced Kilpatrick to hire James W. Parkman III as part of his legal team. Parkman helped represent Scrushy.

Watkins hasn't decided whether to open a branch of Albama-based Alamerica Bank in Detroit.

"We're waiting to see what will happen with the current situation, if it will blow over," he said.

'Why should I?'

Among prominent CEOs contacted by The News, Roger Penske, Jim Nicholson and Dan Gilbert declined to say whether they'd contribute, or even if they have had recent discussions with Kilpatrick.

In fact, they've been silent throughout the unfolding scandal.

Former Piston and successful entrepreneur Dave Bing said the fund won't see a dime from him.

"Why should I?" asked Bing. "I don't think there's a reason.

"I have money invested in the city. I've invested my money where I want to, where it's most needed."

A spokesman for Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos, who gave $100,000 to one of the mayor's Political Action Committees in 2005, said the businessman hasn't been approached as a donor. But he'd "probably give" if asked

"The mayor deserves a good defense and that's not showing prejudice one way or the other," said Karmanos spokesman Jason Vines.

Reese, the spokesman for Kilpatrick's PR firm, says no running total of contributions is available.

Updates on committee members and how much has been raised will be disclosed according to the IRS reporting requirement for a tax-exempt 527 group, he said.

Says Company Stole Bra Strap Design
April 22, 2008

NEW YORK (AP) -- Katerina Plew is suing Victoria's Secret, alleging that the company stole her secret. She claims the lingerie company stole her idea for hiding bra straps.

Plew has filed suit in a New York federal court. There's no comment yet from lawyers for Victoria's Secret.

Plew is a single, working mother of four, including triplets. She said she created the bra in 1999 after becoming frustrated that her bra straps were showing.

Plew received a patent on the bra in 2004. She claims officials of Victoria's Secret canceled a meeting with her after she e-mailed them a mock-up of the bra.

Go get 'em, girlfriend!