Order Out of Chaos

The US Army is ready to deal with civil unrest as the economy heads south.

Vigilante Injustice

Of all the fucked up stories to come out of Hurricane Katrina, the shootings of black residents trying to escape the flooding by white "vigilantes" is among the most disturbing. At least 11 people had been shot and the authorities don't seem to be concerned.



At least 11 black people were shot by white gunmen in the days following Hurricane Katrina's destruction of New Orleans, and in the three years since those crimes, little has been done by law enforcement.

According to an 18-month investigation published in The Nation, a predominantly white neighborhood formed a militia after the levees broke to simply keep out people who "didn't belong."

But the investigation reveals a more sinister outcome: black men suffering brutal and unprovoked attacks from white men armed with shotguns, handguns and even assault rifles.

Read the rest here. Democracy Now! has more reporting on the situation here.

Ultraviolence

Many US teens believe "violent behavior is at least sometimes acceptable".

More than a quarter of all U.S. teenagers think violent behavior is at least sometimes acceptable, and one in five say they behaved violently toward another person in the past year, according to a new poll.

I always take surveys of young people with a grain of salt. I lied my ass off on those things back in the day.

Be Happy

And now for Real Books/Fake Excerpts with comic genius Dan Naturman.

Drug War

Were the Mumbai terrorists fueled by cocaine and LSD?

"We found injections containing traces of cocaine and LSD left behind by the terrorists, and later found drugs in their blood," the Telegraph was told by one official, whose nationality and relation to the investigation were not specified. "This explains why they managed to battle the commandos for over 50 hours with no food or sleep."

Black Friday Indeed

'Tis the season to abandon reason. One Wal-Mart employee was killed & a pregnant woman injured during a stampede of customers wanting to find mind-blowing, undergarment moistening deals. Apparently they were beginning to rip the doors from their hinges. Meanwhile, across the country two men shot and killed one another in a Toys R Us.

Malware Ruins Lives

Pop-Up ads killed this teacher's career.

Ms. Amero, a substitute teacher prosecuted on felony charges after a malware-infected computer in her classroom began spewing ads for adult entertainment sites, agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor disorderly conduct charge, pay a $100 fine, and surrender her credentials to teach in the state of Connecticut.

The incident occurred in October 2004. Parents of some students complained, and the school district contacted the police. To the dismay of forensics experts, the district was unable to provide firewall records or prove that any significant anti-malware protections were installed on Amero's machine, although she had been instructed never to shut it off.

The original trial, in which Amero was convicted on all counts and faced a maximum of forty years in prison, barred the defense from presenting expert testimony on how pop-ups work, and included bizarre tech claims by Lounsbury. For example: "When you link on a link, again, links are Javascripted, you click on a link, it changes color..."

Read the the article here.

Live by the Sword

A dude wielding two samurai swords was shot by a guard at the Church of Scientology's Celebrity Centre in Hollywood Sunday.

...the man had a history with the church but was not a member now. The tape showed the man arriving at the Celebrity Centre's Bronson Avenue parking lot in a red convertible, getting out of the vehicle and approaching a trio of security guards and waving a sword in each hand ... the man, who was described as being in his 40s, was "close enough to hurt them" when the guard fired.

The Coming Quake?

FEMA predicts a catastrophic earthquake for the American south and midwest.

FEMA predicted a large earthquake would cause "widespread and catastrophic physical damage" across Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee -- home to some 44 million people.

Tennessee is likely to be hardest hit, according to the study that sought to gauge the impact of a 7.7 magnitude earthquake in order to guide the government's response.

In Tennessee alone, it forecast hundreds of collapsed bridges, tens of thousands of severely damaged buildings and a half a million households without water.

Transportation systems and hospitals would be wrecked, and police and fire departments impaired, the study said.

Dire Predictions

A new intelligence report suggests tough times ahead.

...the latest Global Trends report says that rising economies such as China, India, Russia and Brazil will offer the US more competition at the top of a multi-polar international system.

The EU is meanwhile predicted to become a "hobbled giant", unable to turn its economic power into diplomatic or military muscle.

A world with more power centres will be less stable than one with one or two superpowers, it says, offering more potential for conflict.

Global warming, along with rising populations and economic growth will put additional strains on natural resources, it warns, fuelling conflict around the globe as countries compete for them.

"Strategic rivalries are most likely to revolve around trade, investments and technological innovation and acquisition, but we cannot rule out a 19th Century-like scenario of arms races, territorial expansion and military rivalries," the report says.

"Types of conflict we have not seen for a while - such as over resources - could re-emerge."

Such conflicts and resource shortages could lead to the collapse of governments in Africa and South Asia, and the rise of organised crime in Eastern and Central Europe, it adds.

And the use of nuclear weapons will grow increasingly likely, the report says, as "rogue states" and militant groups gain greater access to them.

Read the article here.

Moving Images

A couple photos that changed the world.





There's a nice collection of thought-provoking photographs at the link above. Just watch out for some of the nastiest, most ignorant, xenophobic and racist douche bags on the web in their comment sections.

via

Ambushed

A journalist's Obama election celebration ends in jail.

Even the police were swept up in the mood, smiling and posing for photos. An occasional handful of students would venture into the streets to high-five enthusiastic, honking motorists, only to be waved back by the police, but otherwise, it was as peaceful and well-behaved as a high school pep rally.

Then I looked up the street, to where the police had blocked off St. Paul Street with almost a dozen cruisers. A phalanx of about a dozen cops had lined up.

They began marching, and I saw one of the cops holding a pile of plastic flexicuffs. No one had a bullhorn or a PA. They just moved into the crowd and started yelling at people. There was no clear officer in charge, just a group of belligerent, angry police.

My brother came running up the sidewalk. "Some guy just got tasered!" he said. I saw some cops walking back toward us, so I crossed the street to stay out of their way. The first arrestees were being led to the paddy wagon. I pulled out my cell phone and started snapping pictures.

A beefy officer saw me taking photos and approached. I held my hands at my side and said, "I'm a journalist. I'm just taking pictures."

He slapped my cell phone out of my hand and grabbed my shirt. "Well, write a nice, long story about this," he said, spinning me around as another officer cuffed me. I was in the paddy wagon before I could even comprehend what was happening. After processing at Northern District I was thrown into a concrete cell, strip-searched, fingerprinted, and subject to the singular degradation of a long night spent in Central Booking.

Read the entire story here.

One Step Closer to Zombies

"Quantum of Solace" director to lead an army of zombies.

One of the most hotly anticipated zombie (or is that post-zombie?) books finally has a director! According to Variety, the adaptation of Max Brooks' insanely popular "World War Z" has snagged Bond helmer Marc Forster for the job. It's like they didn't think it was buzzworthy enough, what with J. Michael Straczynski writing the script, and Brad Pitt's Plan B producing.

If you haven’t read the book, "World War Z" is a seriously detailed, often creepy account of the zombie apocalypse that wiped out humanity in the 2010s. Compiled by a U.N. Postwar Commission researcher, its a first-person retelling of the war that wiped out every country on the map. Forster was drawn to the project for its journalistic style. "The genre always fascinated me, and when they pitched it to me, it reminded me of the paranoid conspiracy films of the '70s like 'All the President’s Men.'"

I can't wait. The book was enjoyable and even frightening. I read it while alone in the woods before settling down next to a campfire for the evening. Yeah, kinda spooky.

Extreme Home Takeover

Squatters take over multimillion dollar estate.

Five squatters made their entrance last month by donning high-visibility jackets, to make them look like builders, and putting up a rented ladder against the front of the building. One man climbed up on to a balcony, and was delighted to find an unlocked window.

They have since connected up to the utilities, and say that they will pay their energy bills. Bedding paraphernalia, rucksacks and "artworks" cover the floors. The new tenants feed themselves by rummaging in bins. They claim that far from damaging the house, they are improving it after years of neglect, and deny that they are breaking the law.

"Other people can come here," one of the squatters, 21-year-old Stephanie Smith, said. "We want people to use it as project space. People can work here, stay wherever they want."

Dark Flow

What's waiting for us in the depths of space?

On the outskirts of creation, unknown, unseen "structures" are tugging on our universe like cosmic magnets, a controversial new study says.

Everything in the known universe is said to be racing toward the massive clumps of matter at more than 2 million miles (3.2 million kilometers) an hour—a movement the researchers have dubbed dark flow.

The presence of the extra-universal matter suggests that our universe is part of something bigger—a multiverse—and that whatever is out there is very different from the universe we know, according to study leader Alexander Kashlinsky, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Read more here.

Killing Time

5 more homeless people murdered in Los Angeles.

Five homeless people -- three men and two women -- were found shot dead on Sunday in Los Angeles area, a police spokesman said.

Several homeless people have been attacks these past few months in the Los Angeles region, a city of 10 million inhabitants where some 73,000 homeless people are estimated to be living.

Dumb and Dumber

Teens today are, like, more stupider and stuff than previous, um, generation.

Oprah Rocks the Vote

Voting machine tries to eat Oprah's vote?

Religious Rule

Somali woman stoned to death after adultery conviction.

No Going Home

The number of American homeless is "alarming".

"Everywhere I go, I hear there is an increase" in the need for housing aid, especially for families, says Philip Mangano, executive director of the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, which coordinates federal programs. He says the main causes are job losses and foreclosures.

Other factors have been higher food and fuel prices hitting families with "no cushion," says Nan Roman of the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Turdblossom Steals the Election

Karl Rove tells you how they steal elections:



Learn more here

Stop the Vote

Certain people don't want you to vote this November.

As the moment of truth arrives, McCain-Palin attacks based on race, alleged "terrorist" ties and more are sure to increasingly dominate the GOP campaign. But far more insidious will be an all-out assault on voter registration in the name of "voter fraud," and on finding new ways to undermine the national vote, most importantly on electronic voting machines of the kind programmed by Michael Connell.

Fire Starter

Homeless man set on fire in LA.

A man in his 20s was seen throwing gasoline on the man, chasing him, throwing more on him and running from the scene, said Deputy Chief Sergio Diaz. Scorch marks stained a wall Friday where the man was burned.

The burning horrified even officers who routinely witness violent crimes, Diaz said.

"To murder somebody who's probably suffering from mental illness issues and not bothering anyone -- just a poor wretch on the street -- you've got to be a soulless nitwit to do something like this." he said.

Cyber Siege

The World Bank Group under repeated cyberattacks?

The World Bank Group's computer network — one of the largest repositories of sensitive data about the economies of every nation — has been raided repeatedly by outsiders for more than a year, FOX News has learned.

Body Count

Mexican drug lords & their hitmen have been very busy lately.

Bodies are cut up and dumped in acid. Victims are stripped naked and hung from bridges. Others have their tongues cut out before being killed – Mexican gangs are using horrifying tactics in an escalating drugs war.

Hitmen working for the cartels have massacred 70 people in the past ten days in Tijuana on the US-Mexico border. Once a freewheeling city serving Americans tequila, cheap medicines and sex, Tijuana is being devastated by the war.

Game Over?

Is the Western world about to become a lot less wealthy? Meanwhile the banksters will walk away smiling - set for life as they make their way East.

Beat the Press

St. Paul officials are feeling the heat after what may have been an orchestrated round-up of journalists covering the Republican's convention.

Journalists and St. Paul citizens assembled outside St. Paul City Hall today to deliver more than 60,000 letters to Mayor Chris Coleman and prosecuting attorneys demanding that they immediately drop charges against all journalists arrested this week as they covered the Republican National Convention

By Friday morning, dozens of journalists, photographers, bloggers and videomakers had been booked by the Ramsey County Sheriff's office in what appears to have been an orchestrated round-up of media makers covering protests during the convention.

"From the pre-convention raids to the ongoing harassment and arrests of journalists, these have been dark days for press freedom in the United States," said Nancy Doyle Brown of the Twin Cities Media Alliance, who delivered the letters on behalf of the nonpartisan media reform group Free Press.

"Tragically, there are stories that the world needed to hear this week that will never be told," Brown said. "They won't be told because reporters working on them were sitting in the back of squad cars, were stripped of their cameras, or were face down on the pavement with their hands cuffed behind their backs."

Read more here.

Digital Damage

Are cyberattacks the planet's biggest threat?

No More Games

A board game has been seized by police in the name of fighting terror.



Police in Kent, UK arrested some climate protestors and confiscated their "criminal" equipment, including a satirical boardgame about the war on terror. The police claim that the ski mask that came with the game could be used in a criminal act.

Whew, I feel safer already.

Land Grab

Foreign investors eye US foreclosures.

There's a new land grab starting in America.

Foreign money, which up to now has focused its attention on investing in iconic commercial real estate - like Barneys New York and the Chrysler Building - is now moving to scoop up tens of thousands of discounted foreclosed homes across the country.

One sovereign fund, said to have earmarked $29 billion to purchase foreclosed residential real estate, recently hired a West Coast mortgage broker and is starting to search for bargains, The Post has learned.

Clones, Mormons, Sex Slaves

Did this cloned-dog owner make a Mormon missionary her sex slave? Yes, this is a real article.

Superbug

The next generation of resistant infections impossible to treat?

Unrest

Heartbreaking photos of the "unrest" in Georgia.

Raid

SWAT team raids mayor's house, kills his dogs in drug investigation.

A Maryland mayor is asking the federal government to investigate why SWAT team members burst into his home without knocking and shot his two dogs to death in an investigation into a drug smuggling scheme.

The raid last week was led by the Prince George's County Police Department, with the sheriff's special operations team assisting, after a package of marijuana was sent to Calvo's home.

Authorities say the package was part of a scheme in which drugs are mailed to unknowing recipients and then intercepted.

Where Will They Go?

The thought of growing old, ending up alone, disabled, and in a nursing home is awful enough... then you read this.

Since Jasmine Nguyen collapsed nine years ago, apparently from a seizure, the 32-year-old has lived in a nursing home in Lodi, Calif., dependent on a ventilator to breathe and the facility's staff for her daily needs.

But since early this year, the nursing home has been seeking to evict Ms. Nguyen and a dozen other residents in similar situations, potentially replacing them with shorter-term residents likely to bring more revenue.

Across the country, nursing homes are forcing out frail and ill residents. While federal law permits nursing-home evictions in some circumstances, state officials and patient advocates say facilities often go too far, seeking to evict those who are merely inconvenient or too costly. Residents with dementia or demanding families are among the most vulnerable, particularly if -- like Ms. Nguyen and the other Lodi residents -- they depend on Medicaid to pay their bills, the officials and advocates say.

Blood Money

Suicide spreads as a solution to overwhelming debt.

Suicide is becoming an increasingly popular response to debt. James Scurlock's brilliant documentary, Maxed Out, features the families of two college students who killed themselves after being overwhelmed by credit card debt. "All the people we talked to had considered suicide at least once".

The article points out the violence wasn't always directed inward.

...in the early 30s, a number of cities were so shaken by the resistance that they declared moratoriums on further evictions. A 1931 riot by Chicago tenants who had fallen behind on their rent, for example, had left three dead and three police officers injured.

According to Piven, these actions were often spontaneous. A group of unemployed men would get word of a scheduled eviction and march through the streets, gathering crowds as they went. Arriving at the site of the eviction, they would move the furniture back into the apartment and stay around to protect the threatened tenants. In one instance in Detroit, it took 100 cops to evict a single family. Also in Detroit, Piven said, "two families protected their apartments by shooting their landlord and were acquitted by a sympathetic jury."

Pot Head

A couple teens in Texas dug up a corpse & used the skull as a bong. Goddamn, now that's just creative.

Dark Forces

Would both McCain and Obama like to see militarized domestic security forces?

Appearing before the Urban League this week, John McCain revealed his plan for imposing a military dictatorship in "high crime neighborhoods" in the United States.

On the other side of the fixed race, we have Obama's Hitlerjugend, a "national security force… as big, powerful and well-funded as our combined U.S. military forces".

Read more here.