Docudharma Times Friday Nov. 9

This is an Open Thread: The First Amendment Lives

In a brilliant act of courage the United States Senate confirmed Michael Mukasey as the next Attorney General of the United States. Let the reign of Alberto lite begin.

USA

Protest Greets Police Plan to Map Muslim Angelenos

By NEIL MacFARQUHAR

Published: November 9, 2007

A plan by the counterterrorism bureau of the Los Angeles Police Department to create a map detailing the Muslim communities in that city, an effort described as a step toward thwarting radicalization, has angered civil rights groups, which say it is no better than racial profiling.

At least three major Muslim groups and the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter yesterday to top city officials raising concerns about the plan.

“When the starting point for a police investigation is ‘let’s look at all Muslims,’ we are going down a dangerous road,” Peter Bibring, a lawyer with the A.C.L.U. of Southern California, said in an interview. “Police can and should be engaged with the communities they are policing, but that engagement can’t be a mask for intelligence gathering.”

Thanks to the Bush administrations fear mongering, overt racism and all around hatred Los Angles police department has made a map. Does this remind anyone of a other place and time, say from the 1930’s.

Lawmakers Criticize FEMA’s Handling of Hazards Posed by Trailers

By Spencer S. Hsu

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, November 9, 2007; Page A05

Nearly four months after the Federal Emergency Management Agency promised to study the risk of formaldehyde in trailers provided to Hurricane Katrina survivors, none of 52,000 occupied units have been tested, and FEMA has warned its employees for their own safety to stay out of 70,000 similar trailers in storage.

“This double-standard is wholly unacceptable,” Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) said in a written statement, accusing FEMA of hiding the extent of trailer contamination and leaving “American disaster victims exposed to a whole new nightmare.”

Ah FEMA: Diligently working to keep the no-bid contracts of Bush’s cronies safe and those effected by Katrina in as much distress as they can muster.

California, other states sue U.S. on car emissions

By Adam Tanner

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – California sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, demanding a quick federal decision that would allow the nation’s most populous state to limit greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles.

“California is ready to implement the nation’s cleanest standards for vehicle emissions, but we cannot do that until the federal government grants a waiver allowing us to enforce those standards,” Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

According to Rush Limbaugh and his Luddite friends there is no global warming. Its a lie created by liberals. Such big lies that permafrost in Alaska is melting for the first time, Arctic sea ice is disappearing and temperatures have gone up. But, no worries we’ll just purchase life jackets and tread water for the rest of our days. It will be a regular pool party.

Asia

Police ring Bhutto home in crackdown

By Henry Chu, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 9, 2007

LAHORE, Pakistan – Security forces placed former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto under virtual house arrest early today as a crackdown on President Pervez Musharraf’s opponents continued, a day after he bowed to enormous political pressure and pledged to hold parliamentary elections by mid-February.

Tensions and the threat of violent confrontation are likely to remain high. Bhutto vowed Thursday to press ahead with a rally planned today in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, despite warnings from authorities that it would not be allowed and could come under attack by suicide bombers

Democracy returning to Pakistan: Benazir Bhutto under arrest and phony elections scheduled for February 15, 2008. I’m sure the anticipation for this seminal event is as high as a sunken ship.

Japan’s police see no evil

TOKYO – Photos of the teenager’s corpse show a deep cut on his right arm, horrific bruising on his neck and chest. His face is swollen and covered with cuts. A silhouette of violence runs from the corner of his left eye over the cheekbone to his jaw, and his legs are pocked with small burns the size of a lighted cigarette.

I see nothing! Of course not. why try to find out the real cause of death it just might embarrass some one.

Europe

An exasperated Italy targets foreigners

ROME — Alexandru Nekifor, a waiter, thinks it’s advisable these days not to tell anyone he’s Romanian. Laurentiu Apostal, a construction worker, has watched this last week as terrified friends packed up and fled Italy, headed back to Romania or to other lands.

A wave of violent crime blamed largely on foreigners, including the especially brutal killing of a naval commander’s wife, has pushed the center-left Italian government into deportations that human rights activists say are unprecedented in European Union history.

The Italian government Nov. 2 enacted an emergency decree that allows local authorities to swiftly expel foreign nationals from EU countries if they are deemed a threat to public health or security. So far, about 30 people have been rounded up and ordered deported, all of them thought to be Romanians and many of Roma, or Gypsy, background.

Racism always the best excuse for dehumanizing those not like you.

North Sea surge brings flood risk

A storm in the North Sea has left Britain and the Netherlands facing the worst flood threat in decades with tidal surges predicted early on Friday.

Flood defences have been put on alert on the entire Dutch coast and flood warnings are in place for the eastern and northern coasts of Britain.

A tidal wave in 1953 killed more than 2,000 people in both countries.

Middle East

US releases nine Iranians in Iraq

The US military in Iraq has released nine Iranians detained there, including two held on suspicion of helping Shia militants, it has said in a statement.

The release followed a review of their cases which concluded that the men no longer posed a security risk and were “of no continued intelligence value”.

The Iranians were released to the Iraqi government, which will later transfer them to the Iranian embassy in Baghdad.

Tehran has dismissed US accusations that it is aiding insurgents in Ira

Making friends and creating enemies. Heck of a job George.

Institute to get ancient bible parchment

JERUSALEM – The family of man who held a fragment of a more than 1,000-year-old manuscript of the Hebrew Bible for six decades as a good luck charm will present it to a Jerusalem institute next week, officials said Thursday.

The parchment, about “the size of a credit card,” is believed to be part of the most authoritative manuscript of the Hebrew Bible, the Aleppo Codex, said Michael Glatzer, academic secretary of the Yad Ben Zvi institute. It contains verses from the Book of Exodus describing the plagues in Egypt, including the words of Moses to Pharaoh, “Let my people go, that they may serve me.”

Latin America

New UN envoy sees long Haiti mission

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – U.N. peacekeepers will likely remain in Haiti for several more years because the troubled Caribbean country is not close to managing its own security, the mission’s new chief envoy said Thursday.

Hedi Annabi, in his first interview since assuming control of a 7,800-member U.N. force and hundreds of international staff in Haiti, told The Associated Press that the U.N. mission has made great strides, but will not seek to leave the volatile country anytime soon.

“The security situation is extremely fragile. And if we were to downsize dramatically there would be a vacuum that would be immediately backfilled by the same people that were there when we got started,” said Annabi, sitting in his office in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

U.S. says war on narcotics is working

By Chris Kraul, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

November 9, 2007

BOGOTA, COLOMBIA — Interruptions of the flow of cocaine to the United States are causing street prices to rise, a sign that the “war on drugs” is working, the White House anti-drug chief said here Thursday.

John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, told reporters that interdictions in Colombia, in other countries along cocaine transit routes and on the open seas were reducing drug supplies, according to data on price and purity gathered in 37 major U.S. cities.

As a result of reduced supply, street cocaine prices over the first nine months of the year rose to an average $136.93 per pure gram at the end of September, a 44% increase from January, he said. Price and purity data were supported by other measures, including reduced evidence of cocaine use as found in workplace tests, he said.

Africa

Appeal court ruling against Zuma intensifies ANC power struggle

Chris McGreal in Johannesburg

Friday November 9, 2007

The Guardian

The bitter power struggle between President Thabo Mbeki and his former deputy, Jacob Zuma, for control of the ruling African National Congress intensified yesterday when a South African court opened the way for Mr Zuma to be charged with corruption over a multi-billion dollar weapons deal.

The court of appeal’s ruling that the police seizure of allegedly incriminating documents from Mr Zuma’s home and office was legal was expected to undermine his campaign as the favoured candidate to unseat Mr Mbeki as party leader at an ANC congress next month and so become the country’s president in 2009.

Church row evolves over fossil boy

Rob Crilly in Nairobi

Turkana Boy, considered the most complete early human fossil, is being removed from his bomb-proof vault to take centre stage at an exhibition that curators say will provide the most complete record of the evolution of Man.

However, the collection, to be show-cased for the first time at the Nairobi National Museum after a £5 million renovation financed by the European Union, has drawn sharp criticism from evangelical Christians who deny the theory of evolution.