I REALLY WANT TO ROOT FOR SOMEONE IN AFGHANISTAN

On one side you got the Taliban, on the other side you have the US led NATO forces, in the middle you have the people, and most especially the women, of Afghanistan. Where, oh where, in their some sort of, at least, progressive force to support. You know there are such folks in Afghanistan, but whether or not they exist in an organized fashion capable of battling everybody else, well, you tell me. What I would give to hear of something called the People's Revolutionary Front of Afghanistan...

In the meantime...after nine years of war...

The following is from RAWA.

Taliban Hang a 47-year Old Woman

The source further added that the execution sentence for the woman was passed by one of the judges of the Taliban in the area called Ahmad

By Abdul Latif Ayubi

Armed Taliban hung a 47-year old woman in the Qaadis District of Badghis Province.

The Taliban accused Sanubar of having an "illicit affair" that left her pregnant. She was first punished with 200 lashes in public before being shot, deputy provincial police chief Ghulam Mohammad Sayeedi told AFP.
"She was shot in the head in public while she was still pregnant," Sayeedi said.

AFP, Aug. 9, 2010

This was reported to PAN by Mullah Muhammad Yousuf, one of the local commanders of the Taliban in the Qaadis Khordak area of Badghis Province, this morning (August 8th).

He said that the woman named Baidi Sanam, resident of the Qaadis Khordak in Qaadis District, was hung for the crime of getting pregnant. He added that the woman had given birth to a stillborn baby. According to his information, the husband of the woman had died four years back, two of her sons were refugees in Iran and the woman was living alone.

The source further added that the execution sentence for the woman was passed by one of the judges of the Taliban in the area called Ahmad.

Abdul Wahid one of the residents of the districts said that the woman was a widow. While confirming her pregnancy, he said that she shouldn’t have been hung but punished in some other way.

HOW CAN WE DANCE WHEN OUR WORLD IS BURNING, HOW CAN WE SLEEP WHEN OUR BEDS ARE BURNING

 So where are all those yokels who write into the newspaper on a warm winter today and make stupid jokes about global warming? They haven't been very active this summer...anywhere in the world.

What those fools fail to realize, or just won't accept, or just pretend not to know is that global warming is really global climate change. It doesn't mean we just get hotter and hotter every day. It means lots of torrential rains and flood, it means lots of heat and fires, it means lots storms, tornadoes, hurricanes, it means, more blizzards and snow. In short, it means as the globe gradually heats up all weather becomes more extreme.


Gee, isn't that what we are seeing as we look around the world today, and I do mean today.

Get used to it. It isn't going away. 

A man stands with his cattle in a flooded area of Ghouspur, about 100 kilometers from Sukkur

Picture: AFP/GETTY

I'm so tired of even those who know what is going on always saying, "one storm, one flood, one this or that doesn't mean anything." We all know that. However, when everyday, every year, every decade, the one mores just keep adding up only a dunce wouldn't come to the conclusion that the jigs up.

As Midnight Oil once sang, it's time to pay the rent.

The following is from The Telegraph (UK).  The article below that one is from the Toronto Star.

Pakistan floods: Climate change experts say global warming could be the cause

The world weather crisis that is causing floods in Pakistan, wildfires in Russia and landslides in China is evidence that global warming predictions are correct, according to climate change experts.

Almost 14 million people have been affected by the torrential rains in Pakistan, making it a more serious humanitarian disaster than the South Asian tsunami and recent earthquakes in Kashmir and Haiti combined.

The disaster was driven by a ‘supercharged jet stream’ that has also caused floods in China and a prolonged heatwave in Russia.

It comes after flash floods in France and Eastern Europe killed more than 30 people over the summer.

Experts from the United Nations (UN) and universities around the world said the recent “extreme weather events” prove global warming is already happening.

Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, vice-president of the body set up by the UN to monitor global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said the ‘dramatic’ weather patterns are consistent with changes in the climate caused by mankind.

“These are events which reproduce and intensify in a climate disturbed by greenhouse gas pollution," he said.

"Extreme events are one of the ways in which climatic changes become dramatically visible."

The UN has rated the floods in Pakistan as the greatest humanitarian crisis in recent history, with 13.8 million people affected and 1,600 dead.

Flooding in China has killed more than 1,100 people this year and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions.

In Russia the morgues are overflowing in Moscow and wildfires are raging in the countryside after the worst heatwave in 130 years.

Dr Peter Stott, head of climate monitoring and attribution at the Met Office, said it was impossible to attribute any one of these particular weather events to global warming alone.

But he said there is “clear evidence” of an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events because of climate change.

"The odds of such extreme events are rapidly shortening and could become considered the norm by the middle of this century," he warned.

Dr Stott also said global warming is likely to be make extreme events worse. For example, when there is more heat in the atmosphere it holds more water and therefore floods in places like Pakistan are heavier.

“If we have these type of extreme weather patterns then climate change has loaded the dice so there is more risk of bad things happening,” he said.

Professor Andrew Watson, a climatologist at the University of East Anglia, which was at the centre of last year's 'climategate' scandal, said the extreme events are "fairly consistent with the IPCC reports and what 99 per cent of the scientists believe to be happening".

"I'm quite sure that the increased frequency of these kind of summers over the last few decades is linked to climate change," he said.

TODAY RUSSIA, TOMORROW THE WORLD

Gwynne Dyer

It cannot be proved that the wildfires now devastating western Russia are evidence of global warming. Once-in-a-century extreme weather events happen, on average, once a century. But the Russian response is precisely what you would expect when global warming really starts to bite: Moscow has just banned all grain exports for the rest of this year.

At least 20 per cent of Russia’s wheat crop has already been destroyed by the drought, the extreme heat — around 40 degrees C (104F) for several weeks now — and the wildfires. The export ban is needed, explained Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, because “we shouldn’t allow domestic prices in Russia to rise, we need to preserve our cattle and build up supplies for next year.” If anybody starves, it won’t be Russians.

That’s a reasonable position for a Russian leader to take, but it does mean that some people will starve elsewhere. Russia is the world’s fourth-largest grain exporter, and anticipated shortages in the international grain market had already driven the price of wheat up by more than 80 per cent since early June. When Putin announced the export ban, it immediately jumped by another 8 per cent.

This means that food prices will also rise, but that is a minor nuisance for most consumers in the developed countries since they spend only about 10 per cent of their income on food. In poor countries, where people spend up to half their income on food, the higher prices will mean that the poorest of the poor cannot afford to feed their children properly.

As a result, some will die — probably a hundred or a thousand times as many as the more than 50 Russians who have been killed by the flames and the smoke. But they will die quietly, one by one, in under-reported parts of the world, so nobody will notice. Not this time. But when food exports are severely reduced or banned by several major producers at once and the international grain market freezes up, everybody will notice.

Two problems are going to converge and merge in the next 10 or 15 years with dramatic results. One is the fact that global grain production, which kept up with population growth from the 1950s to the 1990s, is no longer doing so. It may even have flat-lined in the past decade, although large annual variations make that uncertain. Whereas the world’s population is still growing.

The world grain reserve, which was 150 days of eating for everybody on the planet 10 years ago, has fallen to little more than a third of that. (The “world grain reserve” is not a mountain of grain somewhere, but the sum of all the grain from previous harvests that is still stored in various places just before the next big northern hemisphere harvest comes in.)

We now have a smaller grain reserve globally than a prudent civilization in Mesopotamia or Egypt would have aimed for 3,000 years ago. Demand is growing not just because there are more people, but because there are more people rich enough to put more meat into their diet. So things are very tight even before climate change hits hard.

The second problem is, of course, global warming. The rule of thumb is that with every one degree C rise (1.8 degrees F) in average global temperature, we lose 10 per cent of global food production. In some places, the crops will be damaged by drought; in others by much hotter temperatures. Or, as in Russia’s case today, by both.

So food production will be heading down as demand continues to increase, and something has to give. What will probably happen is that the amount of internationally traded grain will dwindle as countries ban exports and keep their supplies for themselves. That will mean that a country can no longer buy its way out of trouble when it has a local crop failure. There will not be enough exported grain for sale.

This is the vision of the future that has soldiers and security experts worried: a world where access to enough food becomes a big political and strategic issue even for developed countries that do not have big surpluses at home. It would be a very ugly world indeed, teeming with climate refugees and failed states and interstate conflicts over water (which is just food at one remove).

What is happening in Russia now, and its impacts elsewhere, gives us an early glimpse of what that world will be like. And although nobody can say for certain that the current disaster there is due to climate change, it certainly could be.

Late last year, Britain’s Hadley Centre for Climate Change produced a world map showing how different countries will be affected by the rise in average global temperature over the next 50 years. The European countries the Hadley map predicts will be among the hardest hit — Greece, Spain and Russia — are precisely the ones that have suffered most from extreme heat, runaway forest fires and wildfires in the past few years.

The main impact of global warming on human beings will be on the food supply, and eating is a non-negotiable activity. Today Russia, tomorrow the world.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based political commentator. The second edition of his latest book, Climate Wars, has just been published in Canada by Random House.

IF YOU'RE A PERSON OF COLOR, BP'S GOT SOME CRAP FOR YOU

 Proving once again that racism and white supremacy permeate virtually everything that happens in the USA is the not surprising fact that most of the waste collected by BP from the Gulf is being dumped in communities inhabited by people of color.

On the Environmental Justice Blog we find, "According to BP’s Oil Spill Was te Summary, as of of July 15, more than 39,448 tons of oil garbage had been disposed at nine approved landfills in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. More than half (five out of nine) of the landfills receiving BP oil-spill solid waste are located in communities where people of color comprise a majority of residents living within near the waste facilities. In addition, a significantly large share of the BP oil-spill waste, 24,071 tons out of 39,448 tons (61 percent), is dumped in people of color communities. (Dissident Voice, 7/29/2010)"

One of the "fathers of Environmental Justice" and NAACP member Dr. Robert D. Bullard writes, ""Given the sad history of waste disposal  in the southern United States, it should be no surprise to anyone that the BP waste disposal plan looks a lot like "Dumping in Dixie," and has become a core environmental justice concern, especially among low-income and people of color communities in the Gulf Coast - communities whose residents have historically borne more than their fair share of solid waste landfills and hazardous waste facilities before and after natural and man-made disasters."

Let's face it, if you are poor, especially, if you are a person of color, your life ain't worth crap to corporate power...and it doesn't matter if that corporation bases itself in the US, Britain, or anywhere else.

What a shock.

My old pal Bill wrote the linked article below which can be found at BuzzFlash.

Toxic Nightmare: Where are the Tons of BP’s Oil-spill Garbage Going?

By BuzzFlash

Created 08/10/2010 - 9:56am

BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH

Municipal landfills, often located near majority minority communities, have become the final resting place for tons of toxic debris from BP’s Gulf Coast oil spill.
What’s happening with the hazardous waste from the Gulf gusher – the biggest environmental disaster in American history? Where is it being shipped to?
Would it surprise you to learn that several municipal landfills located near majority minority communities are the final resting place for tons of toxic debris?  
From the first hours of BP’s oil spill, most of the coverage concentrated on: how and when the well would be capped; how much oil was spilling into the Gulf; what the overall economic damage would be to Gulf Coast communities, and to those dependent on the Gulf for their livelihoods; and, how would BP’s feet be held to the fire in terms of it paying for all the damage it had caused.
These were, and continue to be, essential questions.
Other issues, including what the long-term health hazards for the workers involved cleaning up the spill, hasn’t received a great deal of attention from BP or the media.
Even less attention has been paid to how the thousands of trash bags with tar balls; disposable oil-soaked booms that can’t be recycled; the oil-stained sand; the oil-soaked sea-grass; medical waste used for wildlife rehabilitation; and the tons of oil contaminated rags, gloves, protective gear and now-toxic clothing used by clean-up workers are being disposed of.
“Since the first trucks began rolling in June, nearly 40,000 tons of ‘oily solids’' and related debris have been sent to municipal landfills from Louisiana to Florida, sparking enough consternation that BP agreed late last week to stop dumping in one Mississippi landfill,” theMiami Herald reported [1] last week.
“Under a 34-page waste management plan developed by the federal government, oily solid waste that reaches Gulf Coast beaches is bagged by BP contractors and transferred to area landfills by waste management giants: Heritage Environmental Services in Louisiana; Waste Management Inc., which is working from the Louisiana-Mississippi border east to the Ecofina River, southeast of Tallahassee; and Republic Services, which covers Florida's west coast, the Keys and Miami,” according to the Herald, “Oily water is handled differently: mostly it's processed for recovery.”
(The newspaper pointed out that “The oily water is taken to facilities -- including a vacant shipyard near the Alabama landfill -- where the oil is separated from the water and sent to refineries for processing as fuel. BP's website says it gets about one gallon of oil from each 17 gallons of seawater. BP has said it will donate the net revenue from recovered oil to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.”)
The newspaper’s Lesley Clark and Fred Tasker reported that, “The EPA and each state's environmental protection agency have signed off on the plans for the oil-smeared bulky waste. And the operators of the landfills insist the BP garbage is not unprecedented and is suitable for the type of landfills they've selected: disposal sites that take household waste, as well as ‘special waste’ like contaminated soil. They note much of the waste is generated by the cleanup operation itself: soiled cleanup coveralls, gloves, sandwich wrappers and drink containers. Some 44 tons of waste materials have been recycled.”
So, the waste is being dumped into regular municipal landfills in Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. And that’s where things get more than a little dicey.
Robert D. Bullard, director of the Environmental Justice Resource Center (EJRC) at Clark Atlanta University and author of Race, Place, and Environmental Justice After Hurricane Katrina: Struggles to Reclaim, Rebuild, and Revitalize New Orleans and the Gulf Coast(Westview 2009), recently wrote [2] that “Given the sad history of waste disposal in the southern United States, it should be no surprise to anyone that the BP waste disposal plan looks a lot like 'Dumping in Dixie [3],' and has become a core environmental justice concern, especially among low-income and people of color communities in the Gulf Coast — communities whose residents have historically borne more than their fair share of solid waste landfills and hazardous waste [4] facilities before and after natural and man-made disasters.”
Bullard maintained that “Because of the haphazard handling and disposal of the wastes from the busted well, the U.S Coast Guard and the U.S. EPA leaned on [5] BP and increased their oversight of the company’s waste management plan.  BP’s waste plan, ‘Recovered Oil/Waste Management Plan Houma Incident Command’ [6]  was approved on June 13, 2010.”
According to Bullard, “The nine approved Gulf Coast solid waste landfills, amount of waste disposed, and the percent minority residents living within a one-mile radius of the facilities are: Alabama -- Chastang Landfill, Mount Vernon, AL, 6008 tons (56.2%) Magnolia Landfill, Summerdale, AL, 5,966 tons (11.5%); Florida -- Springhill Regional Landfill, Campbellton, FL, 14,228 ton (76.0%); Louisiana -- Colonial Landfill, Ascension Parish, LA, 7,729 (34.7%), Jefferson Parish Sanitary Landfill, Avondale, LA, 225 tons (51.7%), Jefferson Davis Parish Landfill, Welsh, LA, 182 tons (19.2%), River Birch Landfill, Avondale, LA, 1,406 (53.2%), Tide Water Landfill, Venice, LA, 2,204 tons (93.6%); and, Mississippi -- Pecan Grove Landfill, Harrison, MS, 1,509 tons (12.5%).”
Bullard pointed out that as of July 15, BP’s Oil Spill Waste Summary showed that “more than 39,448 tons of oil garbage had been disposed at nine approved landfills in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi. More than half (five out of nine) of the landfills receiving BP oil-spill solid waste are located in communities where people of color comprise a majority of residents living within near the waste facilities.
“In addition, a significantly large share of the BP oil-spill waste, 24,071 tons out of 39,448 tons (61 percent), is dumped in people of color communities.  This is not a small point since African Americans make up just 22 percent of the coastal counties in Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana, while people of color comprise about 26 percent of the population in coastal counties.”
Bullard maintained that “the flow of BP oil-spill waste to Gulf Coast communities is not random.” In fact, he points out: “The mix of waste and race was the impetus behind the Environmental Justice Movement in Warren County, North Carolina more than twenty-five years ago. In 1982, toxic PCBs were cleaned up from North Carolina roadways and later dumped in a landfill in mostly black and poor Warren County. We also saw the pattern in 2009 when 3.9 million tons of toxic coal ash from the massive Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) power plant spill in East Tennessee was cleaned-up and shipped more than 300 miles south by train and disposed in a landfill in rural and mostly black Perry County, Alabama.” 
At the time of Bullard’s research, “The largest amount of BP oil-spill solid waste (14,228 tons) was sent to a landfill in a Florida community where three-fourths of the nearby residents are people of color. Although African Americans make up about 32 percent of Louisiana’s population, three of the five approved landfills (60 percent) in the state that received BP oil-spill waste are located in mostly black communities.  African American communities in Louisiana’s Gulf Coast were hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and have experienced the toughest challenge to rebuild and recover after five years.  Dumping more disaster waste on them is not a pathway to recovery and long-term sustainability.”
According to Bullard, Environmental Justice Executive Order 12898, “Federal Actions to Address Environmental Justice in Minority Populations and Low-Income Populations [7],” signed by President William J. Clinton in 1994, “requires the EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard to do a better job monitoring where BP oil-spill waste ends up to ensure that minority and low-income populations do not bear an adverse and disproportionate share of the burdens and negative impacts associated with the disastrous BP oil spill.” Bullard pointed out that “Allowing BP, Gulf Coast states, and the private disposal industry to select where the oil-spill waste is dumped only adds to the legacy of environmental racism [8] and unequal protection.”

In mid-June, the New York Times’ Felicity Barringer reported that Marlin Ladner, a supervisor in Harrison County, Miss., “spoke angrily about the prospect of debris from the spi

ll being deposited in the local Pecan Grove landfill in his district”: “BP oil is responsible for polluting our sand beaches and our estuaries,” Ladner said. Now, he noted, “They pick it up, put it on trucks, take it four or five miles north and dump it on us again.”

Technorati Tags: Guest Commentary [9] BP [10] Oil Dumping [11]

• Guest Commentary

Unless otherwise noted, all original content and headlines are © BuzzFlash. Contact BuzzFlash for reprint rights.

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Source URL: http://blog.buzzflash.com/contributor/3577

Links:
[1] http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/02/v-fullstory/1758452/for-oil-the-final-spot.html
[2] http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/07/bp’s-waste-management-plan-raises-environmental-justice-concerns/
[3] http://www.ciesin.org/docs/010-278/010-278chpt2.html
[4] http://www.ejrc.cau.edu/TWART-light.pdf
[5] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory?id=11067774
[6] http://www.epa.gov/bpspill/waste/r6_waste_plan.pdf
[7] http://www.epa.gov/region2/ej/exec_order_12898.pdf
[8] http://environment.about.com/od/activismvolunteering/a/enviro_racism.htm
[9] http://technorati.com/tag/Guest Commentary
[10] http://technorati.com/tag/BP
[11] http://technorati.com/tag/Oil Dumping

SLEEPING OUTSIDE IS/NOT A CRIME

PEACE CAMP 2010--a protest and the only safe, secure area where homeless people can sleep in the City of Santa Cruz. It exists between 8PM and 8AM on the steps of the Santa Cruz County Courthouse at 701 Ocean St. PEACE CAMP 2010 is planning to stay in this location every night until the City of Santa Cruz repeals or suspends its Sleeping Ban and grants an amnesty for all sleeping and camping tickets ever issued.

That's how they describe themselves and its just too much for the cops in Santa Cruz County to tolerate.


I mean, can you imagine, a gaggle of people who just don't look like mainstream, middle class Americans camping outside in full view.  

Numbers of these grubby campers were netted by the police and charged with violating a city ordinance against camping. 

No one can remember the last time anyone was so charged.


These radical sleepers are making demands which would lead to chaos and anarchy if implemented.  They are for an end to the "sleeping ban", 


specifically: the suspension of ticketing under MC 6.36.010 section a, 


also known as the Sleeping Ban, MC 6.36.010 section b, also known as 


the "Blanket Ban" as cruel and unusual punishment serving no public 


benefit, and an amnesty for all tickets ever written for the offense of 


sleeping. 


The following is from the Mercury News.

Homeless continue protest on steps of Santa Cruz County courthouse

By Cathy Kelly 

ckelly@santacruzsentinel.com

SANTA CRUZ -- Participants of the so-called Peace Camp 2010 have been cited, but apparently not defeated.

The camp is a protest against a city law which makes it an infraction to sleep outside from 11 p.m. to 8:30 a.m.

It began on the county courthouse steps July 4 and drew as many as 60 participants until a visit by deputies Saturday.

Part of the reason it grew unabated is because it is on county property within city limits, so city police officers didn't enforce the city's ordinance and county deputies showed little interest. But the county announced last week the camp did violate the city ordinance and said campers were subject to citation.

Deputies paid a few warning visits and then began writing tickets under a state law which makes it a misdemeanor to "lodge" in a structure, vehicle or place without permission of the owner.

Just after midnight Saturday, deputies descended on a group of 40 or so people sleeping there and cited 17 people and arrested five who allegedly refused to sign the citations or to dislodge, deputies said.

A flier deputies handed out stated "this action is not intended to interfere with your non-lodging demonstration during business hours."

Early Sunday, deputies paid another visit, writing five tickets and arresting two campers.

One of those arrested was Ed Frey, an attorney helping the protesters.

By noon, Frey was out of jail. Outside the courthouse, about a dozen people and

four dogs slept, sat and milled about. A few passed a pipe around; one young woman typed on a laptop; an older man on the outskirts of the group yelled obscenities and then called for an ambulance and was taken away due to an undiagnosed medical problem.

Group spokesman Chris Doyon said "it was ugly" when Frey was arrested during the "assault" by deputies.

He vowed to continue until the group's goals are met -- to change the "camping ban" and to have the tickets rescinded.

He said he would love a "cease-fire," but will stay until his basic right to sleep outside if he doesn't have a place to do so indoors is recognized.

"This is a fight about aesthetics," he said. "One man's garbage is another man's belongings. I think millionaires are unaesthetic; I think Hummers are disgusting. You see the ridiculousness. This is class warfare.

"There is room for negotiation; why don't our government representatives come out here and talk to us?" Doyon, who was arrested early Saturday on a warrant for petty theft, said he intended to request a jury trial to fight the charge, which will be costly and time-consuming.

Doyon, 45, said he grew up in Maine and came to Santa Cruz about 23 years ago while following The Grateful Dead.

He said he fell in love with the area and has come back on and off over the years.

Doyon said he wants to live outdoors and doesn't want anything from the government except to be left in peace. He said he has a "survival camp" in the mountains.

"Does that mean I'm less than?" he said.

He said people are typically homeless due to economic problems, mental illness, drug addiction or because they are "travelers" like him who chose to be "permanently un-homed" and don't need help.

Either way, he said, there are not enough shelter beds and it shouldn't be a crime to sleep outside.

Sunday's campers ranged in age from their early 20s to their early 70s.

One couple, Crow and Red, said they were not cited Saturday night because they simply sat up in some chairs.

The couple said they became homeless in May after their motorhome was impounded.

Crow, 46, a New Jersey native, worked in construction until those jobs became scarce and said he wants to work but can't find any. A childhood leg injury gives him trouble too, he said, and he doesn't know how to type or use a computer.

Red, 51, who grew up in Ohio, said she was crushed by a forklift while working locally as a heavy equipment operator and that those injuries caused a degenerative bone disease to come out of remission. She can hardly stand some days, and hopes to qualify for disability so she can get off the streets, she said.

"It's scary and degrading," she said. "I want a home." Another camper, Colette Connolly, 72, said she has been homeless for about 20 years, 15 of them in Santa Cruz.

She was once married and had four young children, but her life story goes downhill from there and includes a divorce, suicide attempt, mental illness and the inability to finish college at the University of Washington.

She studied literature there, she said, and once worked for the post office.

Nearby, T.S. Orbit sat wrapped up in a blanket, nursing wounds he said he acquired at a single room occupancy building in San Francisco, courtesy of some bed bugs and parasitic worms.

Orbit, 39, who grew up in Pennsylvania, has only been in town about 45 days.

He wants a home and wants to go to law school, saying his interest in law was sparked when his dad killed his mom.

A few thick law books sat beside his blanket. He brightens when relating how he used to have a business selling Grateful Dead stickers and T-shirts; he was struck by lyrics about "what love will do for you." Orbit believes the "camping ban" constitutes targeted enforcement against a certain group of people, those who are homeless, and is unconstitutional.

"This is a good fight, and I'm glad God has given me this battle with some company," he said. "I have faith we have a pretty good chance once people hear about it. But we can't fight the criminal justice system unless we have the public's interest.

"Please come down, if you have any activist urge in your heart, just bring a sign, write a letter to the mayor, something." Homeless activist Becky Johnson said they never intended to do battle with the county and that she was ready to move on.

But, she said, a "dogged core" of the group feel strongly about it and doesn't seem intimidated by the threat of jail.

"Personally, I'm ready for a new tactic," Johnson said. "We've accomplished quite a few goals already. People have had a clean place to sleep and rest and restore. They feel more hopeful that not everyone hates the homeless."

NO TALKING IN THE HALLS AND NO THINKING ANYWHERE ALLOWED

Are you kidding me.


Poor old Francis Laskowski had the temerity to say he could understand how Omar Thornton felt before he shot and killed a whole slew of people last week at Hartford Distributors.  Thornton, as you know, chronicled a history of racism directed at him at the plant before he killed himself.


Anyway, Mr. Laskowski was arrested, yes, arrested, and charged with breach of peace for making the comment.

Laskowski, who is currently out on bail, told reporters that his comments were “blown out of proportion.”

"Come on people, lighten up! I heard Omar’s 911 call and you know what, I understand why he felt he had to do what he did. Does that mean I am going to do the same? No!"

The moral of the story, if you sympathize with someone who says he was a victim of racist abuse, it might be best to keep your mouth shut...or maybe be in touch with your local bondsman.  I mean you never know what the guy or the woman might do...

By the way those on the ball Connecticut cops have also arrested a 33 year old woman who was caught on tape accepting beer from a truck driven by Thornton.  So don't accept beer from anyone either.  Buy your own and down't risk jail.

I'm losing my mind.

The following is from The Star Tribune.

Police: Man arrested at Conn. company for saying he understood mindset of shooter who killed 9

NEW HAVEN, Conn. - Connecticut police say they arrested a man at a management company after he mentioned the shooting rampage across the state that killed nine people and said he understood the killer's mindset.

Fifty-eight-year-old Francis Laskowski of Derby was charged with breach of peace Wednesday after making the comments while working at Fusco Management Co. in New Haven.

Nine people died in the shootings Tuesday at Hartford Distributors in Manchester, including gunman Omar Thornton. Thornton told police in a 911 call that he wanted to avenge racial discrimination, allegations that company officials denied.

Laskowski told The Associated Press on Friday that his comments were blown out of proportion. He says his arrest was "ridiculous" and he didn't make any threats.

Laskowski posted bail and is due in New Haven Superior Court on Tuesday.