The “flotilla video”: Israeli troops storm boat with aid supplies bound for Gaza Strip

Source In the news today, worldwide controversy around an Israeli commando attack on a “Free Gaza Movement” flotilla carrying aid supplies to the blockaded Gaza strip. NYT story here. Varying reports on how many were killed: 10 according to Israel, and 19 or more according to the activists and some news organizations. Some 600 people [...]

California passes bill to counteract ‘disturbing’ Texas curriculum

Measure ensures Texas standards don’t ‘creep into our textbooks,’ senator tells Raw Story The California Senate on Friday approved legislation that sends a clear message to Texas and textbook publishers: don’t mess with our kids’ minds. “My bill begins the process of ensuring that California students will not end up being taught with Texas standards,” [...]

US base row puts Japan coalition at risk

Japan‘s Social Democratic Party (SDP) is threatening to leave the ruling coalition over the controversial US military base on the southern island of Okinawa. Senior SDP official Seiji Mataichi said Saturday that it was natural for the party to leave the coalition. The development comes after the Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama dismissed the SDP [...]

Synthetic Biology Breakthrough: Your Questions Answered

Yesterday, researchers led by John Craig Venter reported that they had built a genome from scratch and used it to control a cell. We asked if you had any questions about the discovery—which raises important scientific and ethical issues—and you responded in force. Below is a selection of some of our favorites (edited for length [...]

Knowledge Discovery Resources 2010 – An Internet MiniGuide Annotated Link Compilation

This compilation is dedicated to the latest and most competent resources for knowledge discovery available over the Internet. The key is to be able to find the important knowledge discovery resources and sites both in the visible and invisible World Wide Web. The following selected knowledge discovery resources and sites offer excellent knowledge and information [...]

Study: Occupied Baghdad is least livable city on planet

The Iraq war is still being touted by Washington and the Pentagon as a war for progress and stability in the region. A study released May 26, however, reveals a radically different reality. The Mercer Quality of Living Survey ranked Baghdad last in a list of “most livable cities.” The study took into account political, [...]

Marine Corps Major accused of taking reconstruction funds

OCEANSIDE, Calif. – A Marine Corps fighter pilot accused of stealing $440,000 in Iraq reconstruction funds turned himself in on Monday, federal officials said. Maj. Mark R. Fuller, 42, of Yuma, Ariz., is facing 22 counts under an indictment issued by a federal grand jury, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Phoenix. An arrest [...]

USMC Recruiter arrested on child porn charges

GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — A Marine Corps recruiter for the Grand Junction area faces charges alleging more than 200 files of child pornography had been downloaded to his computer. Craig Thomas Walker surrendered Monday on a warrant alleging sexual exploitation of a child. An arrest warrant affidavit says authorities tracking IP addresses of computer systems [...]

Wainwright GI told to remove Facebook video

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaska-based soldier is under investigation for a video on his Facebook page that taunts smiling Iraqi children by asking if they’re gay, if they engage in certain sex acts and if they would grow up to be terrorists. The two young boys did not appear to understand the questions, which were [...]

Captain pleads guilty to online enticement

An officer from Scott Air Force Base, Ill., pleaded guilty in federal court May 17 to a charge of online enticement after traveling to Tennessee to have sex with a 15-year-old girl. Capt. Felix Tran, assigned to Air Mobility Command, will be sentenced Sept. 23 in Chattanooga, Tenn. He faces a minimum sentence of 10 [...]

Gun Running, Drugs and Flamenco: US Army Human Terrain System Has It All

See also:  Nature: Shut Down Army’s Human Terrain Program A member of the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command management team in Afghanistan, according to sources, is a “gun runner.” That individual is allegedly listed in an “Federal Bureau of Investigation database” and has “ties to Ahmad Wali Khan Karzai and the drug business.” Another [...]

Britain to change arrest rule

Britain’s new Foreign Secretary William Hague promises to “act speedily” to change the way arrests are ordered under international law in Britain. “The current situation is as unsatisfactory as it is indefensible. We cannot have a position where Israeli politicians feel they cannot visit this country… and indeed this would apply to many other nations [...]

Japan minister fired over US airbase

The Japanese premier fires a minister for rejecting Tokyo’s recent compromise with Washington on a controversial US airbase on Okinawa Island. Japan’s Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama dismissed consumer affairs minister, Mizuho Fukushima, The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. Tokyo and Washington have issued a statement, saying that Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in the [...]

Marine confesses threatening, robbing cabbie last August

A 19-year-old Marine has pleaded guilty to injuring a taxi driver with a knife last year, and then robbing him, during the first ever lay judge trial involving a U.S. serviceman. The Marine, who the court declined to identify, was accused of stealing ¥21,000 and $100 cash from the driver at knifepoint on August 1, [...]

Oakland police banned from amateur boxing events

OAKLAND, Calif.—Trouble at an amateur boxing match has resulted in the Oakland Police Department being banned from future events.The head of the International Association of Boxing says after a fracas at the Sacramento Radisson Friday night, Oakland police officers will be banned from fights sanctioned by the association until tape of the incident is reviewed. [...]

The Gun is Civilization

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without [...]

VicPD Officer Ordered to Stay Quiet

Former client sues DA candidate Guzman

The former defendant in a real estate fraud case has sued her former attorney, alleging he breached attorney-client privilege and libeled her by posting false information on his campaign Web site. Jane Un filed the lawsuit Thursday in San Bernardino Superior Court against Frank H. Guzman, who is running against incumbent Michael A. Ramos for [...]

Hells Angels ride no more in German state

The interior ministry of the north-German state Schleswig-Holstein has made membership in local chapters of the Hell’s Angels and Bandidos biker gangs illegal. Over 300 police officers raided the headquarters of the “Hells Angels MC Charter Flensburg” und “Bandidos MC Probationary Chapter Neumuenster” on Thursday morning, as a ban against the groups came into effect. [...]

Snails on speed

Biologists turned snails into tweakers to learn more about how crystal meth seems to improve memory in humans. According to the Washington State University and University of Calgary researchers, memories formed while on methamphetamine may be more durable. (They ran another snail study in 2006 using cocaine instead of meth.) Their work could someday provide [...]

Scientists Join Protests Against Award in Honor of African Dictator

Scientists, including two Nobel Laureates, and public health groups have joined protests against a new, highly controversial UNESCO award sponsored by and named after Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, the president of Equatorial Guinea. In a letter sent yesterday to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Director-General Irina Georgieva Bokova, a group of organizations [...]

San Jose union begins organizing pot workers

A major California labor union is organizing medical cannabis workers in Oakland, a move that analysts say will help efforts to legalize marijuana and open the door for the union to organize thousands more workers if state voters pass a measure in November to allow recreational marijuana use by adults. The 26,000-member United Food and [...]

San Bernardino County Sheriff Candidates to Participate in June 1 Forum in Big Bear

The California Statewide Direct Primary Election will be held on Tuesday, June 8, and those voters who plan to request a vote-by-mail ballot have until June 1 to do so. In addition to five statewide measures on the June 8 ballot, San Bernardino County voters will have opportunity to vote for the San Bernardino County [...]

Local opposition to Arizona law sought

At Tuesday’s Beaumont Unified School District board meeting, trustee Mark Orozco called on his fellow board members to consider a resolution opposing Arizona’s SB1070 immigration law, which he pointed out gives police in that state the right to detain anyone who is suspected of being in this country illegally, or for failing to provide proper [...]

Former DA investigator sentenced to probation

A former investigator in the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office was sentenced to probation Thursday for accessing criminal rap sheets in a law enforcement database for his personal benefit and that of his friends and colleagues. Christopher Cardoza, 46, was sentenced to three years probation and 420 hours of community service by Judge Kyle [...]

Former Operation Phoenix manager sentenced in San Bernardino

A former community center manager in San Bernardino’s anti-crime program was sentenced this morning to 28 years in state prison in his child molestation case. Michael Steven Miller, 50, was sentenced according to a plea bargain that he had initiated with prosecutors. As part of that agreement, he admitted in March to 10 felony counts [...]

Bill Cranfill, former Redlands police officer, charged with child molestation

A retired Redlands Police Department lieutenant jailed in a 2008 molestation probe posted $100,000 bail over the weekend and was given a July court date. Billy Lee Cranfill, 55, of Redlands, had been held on suspicion of lewd acts with a minor under 14 years old. San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department detectives arrested him Thursday [...]

Maryland Citizens Face Felony Charges for Recording Cops

In Maryland, it is a felony to record thuggish cops as they push around skateboarding teenagers, beat sports patrons, and pull guns on motorists for speeding. “Several Marylanders face felony charges for recording their arrests on camera, and others have been intimidated to shut their cameras off,” reports WJZ 23 in Baltimore. Maryland cops are [...]

Radley Balko on the Militarization of Police

Congress Coaxes States to Collect DNA

Federal lawmakers are using the purse strings to coax more states into adopting rules that require suspects who are arrested for various crimes — but not charged — to submit to DNA sampling for inclusion into a nationwide database. It doesn’t matter if the suspect was charged or even acquitted. Sponsored by Harry Teague (D-New [...]

Washington deputy shoots three family members, kills self

TACOMA, Wash. — Tacoma Police Department officials say a Pierce County Sheriff’s Department deputy who fatally shot his in-laws and then killed himself told his teenage daughter as the violence unfolded that it was all the fault of his wife and her parents. Police also revealed Thursday that Deputy Allen Myron‘s wife Sara Myron had [...]

Pirates take over small-town radio signal

Residents of San Mateo County, California are hearing an unusual sound on the 89.3 frequency of their FM radios these days. Commercial-free radio programmed by real, local people. San Francisco-based Pirate Cat Radio has put KPDO on the air full-time. The station’s new home, nestled among coastal farmlands, is about an hour south from the [...]

Stupid Drug Story of the Week: The Associated Press on the arrival of “deadly, ultra-pure heroin.”

Yesterday, the Associated Press moved a story completely devoid of historical context. The piece, titled “Deadly, Ultra-Pure Heroin Arrives in U.S.,” claims that in “recent years”—a time frame that goes undefined—Mexican dealers have started peddling “ultra-potent” black tar heroin and are selling it for as little as $10 a bag. In alarmist prose, the article [...]

2010 National Drug Control Strategy

President Obama’s 2010 National Drug Control Strategy uses a multifaceted approach to combat drug abuse and drug use in America’s communities. This Strategy “provides a collaborative and balanced approach that emphasizes community-based prevention, integration of evidence-based treatment into the health care system, innovations in the criminal justice system, and international partnerships to disrupt drug trafficking [...]

Columbia, Missouri Police Chief on Board With Legalizing Marijuana?

Oakland Lab Creates ‘Low Anxiety’ Pot

One of the nation’s most sophisticated cannabis testing labs has yielded powerful results this spring, isolating a “low-anxiety” strain of the plant by closely tracking the potency of local crops. The strain of medical marijuana from Oakland’s Harborside Health Center is based on findings from the dispensary’s new Steep Hill laboratory. The strain is a [...]

Georgia may Put PTSD Diagnosis on Licenses

Current and former service members living in Georgia could soon add a new piece of information to their driver’s license: a posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis. Under a law recently pushed through the state legislature, post-traumatic stress disorder would be noted on the license in the same way that a person’s license might indicate corrective lenses [...]

Medical marijuana stores firebombed in Montana

The Billings, Montana, City Council will take up the issue of regulating medical marijuana on Monday night in a meeting expected to be intense in the wake of the firebombings of two of the city’s medical marijuana storefronts in the last two days. The southern Montana city’s dispensaries legally provide marijuana to medical patients who [...]

Airman accused of killing bride’s ex

OPELOUSAS, La. — A 25-year-old airman is being held without bond in Opelousas after the shooting death of his bride’s ex-husband. Jason Rolls, of Fort Dix, N.J., has been booked on manslaughter charges in the death of 32-year-old Michael Hall, a Krotz Springs firefighter shot and killed just hours after the couple married. Police Chief [...]

3rd Quantico death in one week

For the third time in a week, Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., has seen the death of a Marine on base. The latest incident occurred early Sunday morning in base housing with the shooting death of Lance Cpl. Kevin P. Grant of Harvey, Ill., according to published reports. Base spokesman Chuck Jenks said Grant, 20, [...]

Red Cross confirms ‘secret jail’ in Bagram, Afghanistan

The US airbase at Bagram in Afghanistan contains a facility for detainees that is distinct from its main prison, the Red Cross has confirmed to the BBC. Nine former prisoners have told the BBC that they were held in a separate building, and subjected to abuse. The US military says the main prison, now called [...]

San Diego County Now Has ‘Majority, Minority’ Population

SAN DIEGO — The San Diego metro area has one of the largest immigrant populations in the country. A new study out today from the Brookings Institution says more than 22 percent of San Diego’s population was born in another country. The State Of Metropolitan America report looked at the changing demographics of the 100 [...]

Fallujah birth defects investigated

An investigation of a rise in birth defects in Fallujah is underway, which is being attributed to the use of chemical weapons by British and American soldiers. Public Interest Lawyers, representing Iraqi families, has requested that the Ministry of Defence release information regarding whether any British soldiers were involved in the fighting or helped to [...]

Canada not to extend Afghan mission

Canada has rejected US calls for extending the presence of its troops in Afghanistan, standing opposed to Washington’s strategy in the war-torn country. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper reiterated that Canada would not keep the troops deployed in the country. During a Tuesday meeting with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Ottawa, Harper stated [...]

US army captain convicted of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars allocated to humanitarian work

Michael Dung Nguyen, 28, was sentenced to 30 months in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to theft and money laundering charges in December. The Oregon man, a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, admitted to stealing more than $690,000 from Commander’s Emergency Response Program funds entrusted to him. The currency [...]

Derry’s controversial team—continued

See also: Derry buys more police protection Another Nazi Pig Comes to Town: San Bernardino County supervisor hires controversial activist Last week, The Alpenhorn News revealed that Third District Supervisor Neil Derry had appointed Wanda Nowicki to his staff as an administrative analyst, even though her background check had revealed a criminal history. At the time, the [...]

Los Angeles teacher call for Mexican revolution in the US

News videographer at center of media battle after shooting video of abusive cops

Source A freelance news videographer in Seattle lost his gig with a television station over a police abuse video they rejected after he posted the video on Youtube. The video showed the customary abuse we expect from the Seattle Police Department; a cop kicking a detained suspect in the head after threatening to beat the [...]

A Tutorial on the Classified Information Procedures Act

Last week, prosecutors in the case of Thomas A. Drake, the former National Security Agency official who is charged with unlawfully retaining classified information that he allegedly disclosed to a reporter, asked the court to hold a pre-trial conference on the use of the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) in that case. CIPA was passed [...]

War on drugs goes literal: biowarfare on poppies

US and British forces in Afghanistan have been accused of waging biological warfare on poppy fields to stymie opium crop production. Last week, the UK’s Daily Telegraph reported: Poppy plants have been suffering from a mysterious disease which leaves them yellow and withered and slashes the yield of opium resin which is sold on and [...]