Why Are Things As They Are?

We Say Fightback!

above, Montreal Cops using pepper spray on student strikers

Montreal Strike Continues With the suspended winter term set to resume next week at many CEGEPs, Montreal police say they won’t enforce certain clauses of Bill 78, Quebec’s contentious student strike law, unless school authorities ask them to.
The law makes it an offence to organize or partake in a protest “that could result in” a student being blocked from a classroom, where the demonstration is in or within 50 metres of a school building. It is also an offence to “contribute to slowing down, degrading or delaying” university or college classes.
Violators face fines of $1,000 to $5,000 for individuals and up to $125,000 for a student or faculty association. The amounts double for a subsequent offence.
The measure was passed in May as the Liberal provincial government sought to contain the sometimes tumultuous protests stemming from Quebec’s student crisis.
The Montreal Police Service said in a communiqué Friday evening that it won’t take action on the provisions relating to demonstrations blocking or delaying access to schools, or others forcing professors to report to work, unless a school’s administration makes a request for police intervention.
Spokesperson Cmdr. Ian Lafrenière said it wouldn’t make sense to disperse protesters and free up an entry into a school building if, for example, classes were already cancelled.

AtandT on Strike–scabbing begins About 20,000 AT&T Inc. workers in the East and West started striking Tuesday even as the telecommunications giant reached tentative deals with unions in the Southeast.
The company’s contracts with two major branches of the Communications Workers of America expired in early April, leading to months of acrimonious negotiations. Now, 17,000 wireline employees in California and Nevada and 3,000 employees in Connecticut have decided to strike, AT&T said in a statement.   www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-att-strike-20120807,0,1704022.story

Levins Versus EO Wilson Obviously I am not arguing that evolution doesn’t happen. The point is that we need a much better argument than just a claim that some genotype might be beneficial. And we need a much more rigorous understanding of the differences and linkages between the biological and social components of humanity’s nature. Just calling some social behavior a “trait” does not make it heritable.
In a book that attempts such a wide-ranging panorama of human evolution, there are bound to be errors. But the errors in The Social Conquest of Earth form a pattern: they reduce social issues to biology, and they insist on our evolutionary continuity with other animals while ignoring the radical discontinuity that made us productivores and divided us into classes.  http://climateandcapitalism.com/2012/08/01/is-human-behavior-controlled-by-our-genes-richard-levins-reviews-the-social-conquest-of-earth/

Petition to Save Tenure at Detroit’s Wayne State U The undersigned individuals and organizations of the academic community, from local and neighboring states, write to express their concern with the attempt to end tenure for the faculty at Wayne State University, and eliminate job security for Academic Staff at the negotiations table. docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?fromEmail=true&formkey=dFJRR1BYYVRoYmlYQmd3OVBCOXRtRGc6MQ

Teachable Moment as Kiddies Return: Why Have School? As schools open throughout the US, one typically ignored question needs to be asked in every classroom: Why have school? Why are we here?
Let’s step back a moment in order to put school in its proper, social, perspective.
Schools are the centripetal organizing point of de-industrialized North American life, and much of life elsewhere. Evidence: School workers, not industrialized workers, are by far the most unionized people in the USA, more than 3.5 million union members. School unions are growing, if slowly, while industrial unions collapse, evaporate, because, in part, industry evaporates, and because industrial union leaders abandoned the heart of unionism—the contradictory interests of workers and employers. Nearly one-half of the youth in high school today will be draft-eligible in the next seven years.
What is going on in schools?
The demagogue, Obama, invaded US schools with his Race to the Top (RaTT) project personified by Chicago’s education huckster Arne Duncan. The RaTT speeds what was already happening in capital’s schools and adds a few factors for spice.
The RaTT’s predecessor, a bi-partisan project touted by Democrats and Republicans alike called the No Child Left Behind Act had at least these key factors:
(1) The development of a regimented national curriculum to promote nationalism;
(2) High stakes standardized tests to promote segregation and ignorance through with a pretense of scientific backing; and
(3) the militarization of schools in poor and working class areas.
The RaTT makes logical extensions:
– Sharpened demands for a national curriculum in more subjects (beyond literacy and math),
– merit pay based on student test scores,
– attacks on all forms of tenure (made palatable to the public because they know through experience that there is no shortage of incompetents in schools),
– Layoffs, hits on pay and benefits, increases in class size,
– Tuition hikes driving youth out of college with razor-like precision, typically rooted in inherited wealth.
– Some privatization, but hardly only privatization (the corporate state reflects both the unity and contradictions internal to the ruling classes who have different short term views of profitability).
– Calls for national service setting up a syphon for middle class opposition to a draft.
– Intensified moves into cities and schools in crisis, like Detroit, demonstrating the contradictory goals of social control and profiteering.
– Ruthless competition between school districts and states for limited RaTT
reward dollars.
– A harsh rule of fear and intimidation sweeping across all of capitalist schooling.

Fear seems to be the core emotional value in schools today.

What is the social context of school?

The education agenda is a class war agenda, and an imperialist war agenda. One begets the other.   www.counterpunch.org/2010/09/07/why-have-school/

The Little Red Schoolhouse

above, high school teacher Bill Boyer inside Detroit’s Dexter Ferry School.

A Reminder: Why Have School? As schools open throughout the US, one typically ignored question needs to be asked in every classroom: Why have school? Why are we here?
Let’s step back a moment in order to put school in its proper, social, perspective.
Schools are the centripetal organizing point of de-industrialized North American life, and much of life elsewhere. Evidence: School workers, not industrialized workers, are by far the most unionized people in the USA, more than 3.5 million union members. School unions are growing, if slowly, while industrial unions collapse, evaporate, because, in part, industry evaporates, and because industrial union leaders abandoned the heart of unionism—the contradictory interests of workers and employers. Nearly one-half of the youth in high school today will be draft-eligible in the next seven years.
What is going on in schools?  http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/09/07/why-have-school/

above, Bill Boyer at Dexter Ferry School in Detroit, holding thrown away American Civilization text.

Tweedle Dee vs Tweedle Crook, LAUSD vs AIG Insurance giant AIG will pay nearly $79 million to the Los Angeles Unified School District to settle a lawsuit over its failure to pay claims on properties with environmental and pollution hazards, The Times has learned.
Although AIG admitted no wrongdoing, the $78.8-million settlement, combined with earlier payments under the policy, approach the full value of $100 million in coverage the district purchased in 1999.
“This is a gold medal, not a bronze, in terms of success, a lot of money,” said David Tokofsky, a former member of the Board of Education that voted to purchase the policy and later sued to enforce it. “Sometimes the huge L.A. Unified is the little guy against such giants as AIG.”
The district’s goal at the time was to provide a financial hedge against any extraordinary cleanup costs incurred during its $20-billion school construction effort.
The move proved wise for L.A. Unified and a poor gamble for AIG, which is best known for its central role in helping trigger the nation’s 2008 economic crisis.
The district paid about $7.5 million up front for the 20-year policy and also agreed to pay the first $100,000 on any claim. Even so, the claims quickly absorbed what the district put in, and AIG resisted paying more. L.A. Unified filed suit in 2006, beginning a protracted legal battle that consumed millions of dollars, according to people inside the district who were not authorized to disclose the information. www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-lausd-insure-20120806,0,5918915.story

Ohio Ed Boss, Procuring for ETS, Bolts Ohio Schools Superintendent Stan Heffner resigned on Saturday, under fire after the state inspector general found he lobbied improperly for a private education company he planned to work for.
Heffner gave no reason for the resignation, which is effective on Friday, in a two-sentence letter released by the state Education Department.
A report issued Thursday by Inspector General Randall Meyer said Heffner already had signed an employment agreement with Educational Testing Service when he testified before the state Senate Finance Committee in May 2011 for legislation that benefited the firm. Heffner was the interim state superintendent at the time.  http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2012/08/ohio_schools_chief_stan_heffne.html

The International Hot War of the Rich on the Poor

Reminder from the Recent Past–Chalmers Johnson On Blowback and the CIA “Blowback” does not refer simply to reactions to historical events but more specifically to reactions to operations carried out by the U.S. government that are kept secret from the American public and from most of their representatives in Congress. This means that when civilians become victims of a retaliatory strike, they are at first unable to put it in context or to understand the sequence of events that led up to it. Even though the American people may not know what has been done in their name, those on the receiving end certainly do: they include the people of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Cuba (1959 to the present), Congo (1960), Brazil (1964), Indonesia (1965), Vietnam (1961-73), Laos (1961-73), Cambodia (1969-73), Greece (1967-73), Chile (1973), Afghanistan (1979 to the present), El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua (1980s), and Iraq (1991 to the present). Not surprisingly, sometimes these victims try to get even.

There is a direct line between the attacks on September 11, 2001 — the most significant instance of blowback in the history of the CIA — and the events of 1979. In that year, revolutionaries threw both the Shah and the Americans out of Iran, and the CIA, with full presidential authority, began its largest ever clandestine operation: the secret arming of Afghan freedom fighters to wage a proxy war against the Soviet Union, which involved the recruitment and training of militants from all over the Islamic world. Steve Coll’s book is a classic study of blowback and is a better, fuller reconstruction of this history than the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (the “9/11 Commission Report” published by Norton in July).   www.tomdispatch.com/post/175578/best_of_tomdispatch%3A_chalmers_johnson%2C_the_cia_and_a_blowback_world/?utm_source=TomDispatch&utm_campaign=db3e64c238-TD_Johnson8_5_2012&utm_medium=email#more

Bill Blum on the US War for the Nearest Opportunistic $ Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, has the United States invested so much blood and treasure against the PLO, Iraq, and Libya, and now Syria, all mideast secular governments?
Why are Washington’s closest Arab allies in the Middle East the Islamic governments of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, and Bahrain? Bahrain being the home of an American naval base; Saudi Arabia and Qatar being conduits to transfer arms to the Syrian rebels.
Why, if democracy means anything to the United States are these same close allies in the Middle East all monarchies?

Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States shepherd Kosovo — 90% Islamist and perhaps the most gangsterish government in the world — to unilaterally declare independence from Serbia in 2008, an independence so illegitimate and artificial that the majority of the world’s nations still have not recognized it?
Why — since Kosovo’s ruling Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) have been known for their trafficking in women, heroin, and human body parts (sic) — has the United States been pushing for Kosovo’s membership in NATO and the European Union? (Just what the EU needs: another economic basket case.) Between 1998 and 2002, the KLA appeared on the State Department terrorist list, remaining there until the United States decided to make them an ally, due in no small part to the existence of a major American military base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel, well situated in relation to planned international oil and gas pipelines coming from the vast landlocked Caspian Sea area to Europe. In November 2005, following a visit to Bondsteel, Alvaro Gil-Robles, the human rights envoy of the Council of Europe, described the camp as a “smaller version of Guantánamo”. 2
Why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did the United States pave the way to power for the Libyan Islamic rebels, who at this very moment are killing other Libyans in order to institute a more fundamentalist Islamic state?

Why do American officials speak endlessly about human rights, yet fully support the Libyan Islamic rebels despite the fact that Doctors Without Borders suspended its work in prisons in the Islamic-rebel city of Misurata because torture was so rampant that some detainees were brought for care only to make them fit for further interrogation? 3
Why is the United States supporting Islamic Terrorists in Libya and Syria who are persecuting Christians?

And why, if the enemy is Islamic terrorism, did US Ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice — who daily attacks the Syrian government on moral grounds — not condemn the assassination of four Syrian high officials on July 18, in all likelihood carried out by al Qaeda types? RT, the Russian television channel broadcast in various parts of the United States, noted her silence in this matter. Does anyone know of any American media that did the same?
So, if you want to understand this thing called United States foreign policy … forget about the War on Terrorism, forget about September 11, forget about democracy, forget about freedom, forget about human rights, forget about religion, forget about the people of Libya and Syria … keep your eyes on the prize … Whatever advances American global domination. Whatever suits their goals at the moment. There is no moral factor built into the DNA of US foreign policy.  http://killinghope.org/bblum6/aer107.html

War in Afghanistan? Still on? Who knew? There are still almost 80,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and each month brings a few dozen home in coffins — more than 2,000 since 2001. Hundreds more arrive on medical evacuation flights, many of them without a limb. The war will cost taxpayers more than $100 billion this year. The Taliban, which enjoys sanctuary in nuclear-armed Pakistan, continues to conduct devastating attacks on the Afghan government and the civilian population.
But you wouldn’t know any of it from listening to President Obama and Mitt Romney on the campaign trail. They may not agree on much, but when it comes to the decade-old conflict, they have adopted the same strategy on the stump: Say as little as possible — sometimes not a word — and quickly change the subject.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/remember-the-war-in-afghanistan-obama-and-romney-dont-seem-to/2012/08/03/e6579d4c-dcc2-11e1-9974-5c975ae4810f_story.html

Warmakers Fight it Out Over US $ Allocations (Kolko) The allocation of money within the American military system is reflected in which weapons are chosen—and why. What is at stake are rivalries among military branches, which have influence and connections with arms producers, the Congress, and the entire complex matrix of factors that determine who wins and loses in the Pentagon budget process. The United States has, by far, the largest military budget of any nation on earth but it also loses wars, cannot procure everything the military services dream up, and ultimately it too must choose between weapons at the expense of the priorities and demands of other services.
In plain English, if the Air Force gets an ultra-modern aircraft which may cost many billions, even trillions, and takes years to iron out the technology (and may ultimately even never operate) there will be less money for the Army and Navy to attain its dreams—or visa versa.  http://www.counterpunch.org/

More on the CIA/Obamagogue Invasion of Syria (add jihadists) US President Barack Obama has signed a secret order allowing the CIA and other American agencies to support rebels seeking to overthrow the Assad regime, a US government source told Reuters.
Obama reportedly gave the order, known as an intelligence “finding”, earlier this year. The presidential finding also provides for US collaboration with a secret command center operated by Turkey and its allies.
The full extent of the assistance the “finding” allows the CIA to give the Syrian rebels is unclear. It is also unknown precisely when Obama signed the order.   www.rt.com/news/us-support-syrian-rebels-obama-650/

AQ Teaching in Syria Abu Khuder split with the FSA and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida’s organisation in Syria, the Jabhat al Nusra or Solidarity Front. He let his beard grow and adopted the religious rhetoric of a jihadi, becoming a commander of one their battalions.
“The Free Syrian Army has no rules and no military or religious order. Everything happens chaotically,” he said. “Al-Qaida has a law that no one, not even the emir, can break.
“The FSA lacks the ability to plan and lacks military experience. That is what [al-Qaida] can bring. They have an organisation that all countries have acknowledged.
“In the beginning there were very few. Now, mashallah, there are immigrants joining us and bringing their experience,” he told the gathered people. “Men from Yemen, Saudi, Iraq and Jordan. Yemenis are the best in their religion and discipline and the Iraqis are the worst in everything – even in religion.”
At this, one man in the room – an activist in his mid-30s who did not want to be named – said: “So what are you trying to do, Abu Khuder? Are you going to start cutting off hands and make us like Saudi? Is this why we are fighting a revolution?”
“[Al-Qaida’s] goal is establishing an Islamic state and not a Syrian state,” he replied. “Those who fear the organisation fear the implementation of Allah’s jurisdiction. If you don’t commit sins there is nothing to fear.”   www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/30/al-qaida-rebels-battle-syria

US Gunboats (drones) Firing into the Jungle (and arming the Taliban) An Afghan security official with extensive knowledge of southern Afghanistan said the tactic of using assailants embedded in the army or police forces to kill their coalition partners was a particularly worrisome one and had become one of the three main Taliban tactics.  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/world/asia/forces-killed-were-shot-in-company-of-afghans.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

US Military and Mental Health In 2010, mental disorders surpassed pregnancy as the leading cause of hospitalization in the armed services. This year, service members are killing themselves at the pace of almost one a day. Defense Secretary Panetta told Congress June 13 that there are “huge gaps” in the system for caring for psychological wounds.
“The years of denial and pushing things under the rug are things we know about first hand,” said Susan Springle, the Camp Liberty social worker’s widow, who asked the Army to return the peace symbol that hung around his neck. “My husband was not a warrior. He was there to help people like Russell. He had dedicated the rest of his career to doing that.”   www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-01/military-mental-health-crisis-exposed-with-camp-liberty-killings.html

After Dousing all of Vietnam With Agent Orange, US to Clean up a Bit The United States began a landmark project Thursday to clean up a dangerous chemical left from the defoliant Agent Orange — 50 years after American planes first sprayed it on Vietnam’s jungles to destroy enemy cover.
Dioxin, which has been linked to cancer, birth defects and other disabilities, will be removed from the site of a former U.S. air base in Danang in central Vietnam. The effort is seen as a long-overdue step toward removing a thorn in relations between the former foes nearly four decades after the Vietnam War ended..The U.S. military dumped some 20 million gallons (75 million liters) of Agent Orange and other herbicides on about a quarter of former South Vietnam between 1962 and 1971, decimating about 5 million acres (2 million hectares) of forest — roughly the size of Massachusetts..  http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/us-starts-landmark-cleanup-of-agent-orange-nearly-4-decades-after-vietnam-wars-end/2012/08/09/3bfc819a-e1d7-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_story.html?hpid=z5

Coup? What Coup? Paraguay (again) On June 22 of this year, a new tyrant entered the government palace. The right-wing Federico Franco became president in what has been deemed a parliamentary coup against democratically elected, left-leaning President Fernando Lugo.
What lies behind today’s headlines, political fights and struggles for justice is a conflict over access to land. Land in Paraguay is power and money for the elites and survival and dignity for the poor, and has been at the centre of major political and social battles in Paraguay for decades. In order to understand the crisis in post-coup Paraguay, it’s necessary to grasp the political weight of the nation’s soil at the heart of its current crisis.  …, Lugo was no friend of the campesino sector that helped bring him into power. His administration regularly called for the severe repression and criminalisation of the country’s campesino movements. He was therefore isolated from above at the political level, and lacked a strong political base below due to his stance towards social movements and the slow pace of land reform. None the less, many leftist and campesino sectors still saw Lugo as a relative ally and source of hope in the face of the right-wing alternative.
The issue that finally tipped the scales towards the parliamentary coup against Lugo was a conflict over land. In April of this year, 60 landless campesinos occupied land in Curuguaty, in northeastern Paraguay. This land is owned by former Colorado Senator Blas N Riquelme, one of the richest people and largest landowners in the country. On June 15, security forces arrived in Curuguaty to evict the landless settlement. The subsequent confrontation during the eviction – the specific details of which are still shrouded in confusion – led to the death of 17 people, including 11 campesinos and 6 police officers….Approximately two per cent of landowners control 80 per cent of Paraguay’s land, and some 87,000 farming families are landless. While Lugo failed to meet many of his campaign promises to the campesino sector, he did in fact work to block many of the right’s policies that could worsen the crisis in the countryside. For example, Lugo and his cabinet resisted the use of Monsanto’s transgenic cotton seeds in Paraguay, a move that likely contributed to his ouster. But now that Franco is in power, negotiations with the Canadian mining company Rio Tinto have moved ahead – discussions that had stalled under the Lugo government due to the controversial economic and environmental implications of the company’s plans for Paraguay.   www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/07/2012724104721484209.html

The International Economic War of the Rich on the Poor

Men of commerce have had neither heart nor soul: their cash box is their god; they only know how to thieve and deceive; they would shave an egg; they would kidnap their own fathers; they traffic in all things, even human flesh; theirs are the ships which sail to the African coasts to capture Negroes whom they treat as worthless cattle. Could it ever be expected that these worthless creatures could become citizens? ..J.R. Hebert, France, 1793 , Sept 1.

Shocker! Goldman Sachs off the Hook. The U.S. Justice Department’s decision not to prosecute Goldman Sachs Group Inc for its subprime mortgage trades resulted from either “weak laws or weak enforcement,” the senator who asked for a criminal investigation of the firm said on Friday.
A day after the department announced its decision, Democratic Senator Carl Levin reiterated in a written statement the criticisms he lodged against Goldman beginning more than two years ago. He called the firm’s actions “deceptive and immoral.”
Goldman said it did nothing wrong in its marketing of mortgage securities, including one known as Abacus that was the subject of televised hearings before Levin’s investigative subcommittee in 2010. The hearings focused on whether Goldman was wrong to sell products that it disparaged internally.
Levin said he is still convinced Goldman was in the wrong.
“It misled investors by claiming its interests in those securities were ‘aligned’ with theirs while at the same time it was betting heavily against those same securities, and therefore against its own clients, to its own substantial profit,” he said on Friday.
Goldman settled a related civil investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $550 million in July 2010 without admitting wrongdoing.    http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/10/usa-goldman-levin-idINL2E8JAAO220120810

Glenn Ford: Obamagogue as the Most Effective Evil Obama has advanced the corporatization of the public schools beyond Bush’s wildest dreams, methodically constructing a national, parallel system of charter schools that, in practice, undermine and subvert the traditional public schools. In some places, they have replaced, or soon will replace, the public schools. The hedge funds and billionaires are ecstatic! The teachers unions then endorse their undertaker, foolishly believing he is the Lesser Evil.
So, what does the Left do in this election? The Left should do what it is supposed to do here in the Belly of the Beast at all times: disarm the Beast. This is their singular duty – not to advise the Beast, but to disarm it. At this time on the world historical clock, that means ripping the farcical “humanitarian” veil from the face of U.S. wars – and that face is Obama’s face.
No genuine anti-war activist can endorse the war-maker, Obama. If you want to resist actual imperial wars, you must fight Obama. Period. Anything else is to endorse or acquiesce in his wars.  http://blackagendareport.com/content/why-barack-obama-more-effective-evil/

Killer Cuckoldette and Quisling Laugh at the World’s Poor

Clinton and several others posed for pictures with Mandela, who at times seemed to take little notice.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/hillary-clinton-visits-ailing-icon-nelson-mandela-in-south-africa/2012/08/06/7af00da0-dfec-11e1-8d48-2b1243f34c85_story.html?hpid=z7

The Emergence of Fascism as a Popular Mass Movement

DHS NEEDS 450 million more piercing bullets for the Homeland The DHS has signed off on an “indefinite delivery” from defense contractors ATK that will include, for some reason, nearly 500 million high-power ammunition for .40 caliber firearms. The department has yet to discuss why they are ordering such a massive bevy of bullets for an agency that has limited need domestically for doing harm, but they say they expect to continue receiving shipments from the manufacturer for the next five years, during which they to blow through enough ammunition to execute more people than there are in the entire United States.

Ten Years on–The Yoo Torture Memos What was never officially mentioned, and is still unknown to many U.S. citizens, is that the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which Ronald Reagan signed in 1988, confirms that there are never, ever any excuses for the use of torture. Article 2.2 states unambiguously, “No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”
In the “torture memos,” Yoo — with Bybee’s approval — attempted, cynically, to redefine torture so that it could be used on Abu Zubaydah, the “high-value detainee” seized in a house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002. Yoo claimed that torture was the infliction of physical pain “equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death,” or the infliction of mental pain which results “in significant psychological harm of significant duration e.g. lasting for months or even years.” Compounding his arrogance, it was later discovered that Yoo had lifted his definitions from a Medicare benefits statute and other health-care provisions.
Yoo — and Bybee — also approved 10 techniques for use on Abu Zubaydah, including waterboarding, an ancient torture technique, known as tortura del agua to the more honest torturers of the Spanish Inquisition, which involves controlled drowning. As a result, Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times;  http://www.fff.org/comment/com1208c.asp

First of Two Classics on those Who Keep the Borders Safe Two former Border Patrol agents were found guilty Friday of smuggling hundreds of people into the U.S. in Border Patrol vehicles.
Raul and Fidel Villarreal were convicted of charges that they brought illegal immigrants into the U.S. for money and received bribes by public officials, and counts of conspiracy to launder money. Prosecutors said Raul Villarreal started a ring that smuggled in Mexicans and Brazilians and made Fidel Villarreal, his older brother and a fellow agent, one of his first recruits.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2-border-patrol-agents-convicted-of-human-smuggling-in-high-profile-corruption-case/2012/08/10/a56de740-e34e-11e1-89f7-76e23a982d06_story.html

China’s Show Trial China’s most widely anticipated trial in a generation ended Thursday less than eight hours after it began, with Gu Kailai — a daughter of the Communist Party’s “red aristocracy” and the wife of deposed charismatic leader Bo Xilai — confessing that she poisoned a British businessman who she believed threatened her son, according to an inside observer’s courtroom account.
The observer’s account, buttressed by an official court statement, detailed a dramatic case — including an e-mailed threat purportedly from the victim, Neil Heywood, and a description of how Gu poured a concoction of cyanide into Heywood’s mouth after he vomited and asked for water. Finally, the observer said, Gu stood and addressed the court.  “I committed a crime that brought negative consequences to the party and the country,” Gu said, according to the courtroom spectator who has been closely involved in the case but asked not to be named. Gu thanked not only her lawyers but the judge in the case, for giving her “an open trial,” and the prosecutors, who she said “opened the curtains a little bit, to reveal the hidden dirty secrets.”
“I am willing to receive any punishment,” Gu said calmly, according to the courtroom observer.   www.washingtonpost.com/world/gu-kailai-wife-of-bo-xilai-does-not-contest-murder-charge-at-closed-trial-in-china/2012/08/09/24153ebc-e206-11e1-ae7f-d2a13e249eb2_story.html?hpid=z5

NYC Coppers Beat and Jail NYT Photog Robert Stolarik, a photographer for the New York Times since 2000, has covered conflict zones, natural disasters, and protests for the paper, so he knows his way around a volatile situation. What was strange about his arrest over the weekend, in which Stolarik says he was beaten up by police and arrested without provocation, is that there was no warning. “I’ve been doing this a long time,” he told Daily Intel. “There was no tension.” One second he was photographing a street fight in the Bronx, and the next he was on the ground beneath six officers, suffering cuts and bruises to his arms, legs, and head.
After spending most of Saturday night in jail, charged with obstructing government administration and resisting arrest, Stolarik checked himself into the hospital on Sunday. “They said I have no broken bones or internal injuries,” he told us Monday night. “That’s a relief, because it feels like I have broken bones and internal injuries.” More important, he still doesn’t have his cameras.
Stolarik was on assignment with two Times journalists (reportedly covering the NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk practices) when he happened upon an escalating scene.   nymag.com/daily/intel/2012/08/robert-stolarik-new-york-times-photographer-beaten-up-nypd.html

Solidarity Fornever

Above, the Obama scam continues (available on many liberal web sites, from the biggest War Prezzie yet)

Drug  Addicted, Brain Addled, Repeatedly Convicted National Felon League Players Scab on Refs “Finally, we remind you that club personnel should not engage in public discussions about the lookout. We have attached some talking points for use by owners and a separate set of talking points for use by head coaches, if necessary. If you are asked about the negotiations or the replacement offcials, feel free to refer the question to our office. Please share these expectations with your coaches, players and operations staff so that all may contribute to the success of our officials on the field in 2012.”   www.sbnation.com/nfl/2012/8/9/3231340/replacement-refs-lockout-nfl-preseason

Spy Versus Spy

Yes, of course, They are Watching Former senior intelligence officials have created a detailed surveillance system more accurate than modern facial recognition technology — and have installed it across the US under the radar of most Americans, according to emails hacked by Anonymous.
Every few seconds, data picked up at surveillance points in major cities and landmarks across the United States are recorded digitally on the spot, then encrypted and instantaneously delivered to a fortified central database center at an undisclosed location to be aggregated with other intelligence. It’s part of a program called TrapWire and it’s the brainchild of the Abraxas, a Northern Virginia company staffed with elite from America’s intelligence community. The employee roster at Arbaxas reads like a who’s who of agents once with the Pentagon, CIA and other government entities according to their public LinkedIn profiles, and the corporation’s ties are assumed to go deeper than even documented.
The details on Abraxas and, to an even greater extent TrapWire, are scarce, however, and not without reason. For a program touted as a tool to thwart terrorism and monitor activity meant to be under wraps, its understandable that Abraxas would want the program’s public presence to be relatively limited. But thanks to last year’s hack of the Strategic Forecasting intelligence agency, or Stratfor, all of that is quickly changing.
Hacktivists aligned with the loose-knit Anonymous collective took credit for hacking Stratfor on Christmas Eve, 2011, in turn collecting what they claimed to be more than five million emails from within the company. WikiLeaks began releasing those emails as the Global Intelligence Files (GIF) earlier this year    http://rt.com/usa/news/stratfor-trapwire-abraxas-wikileaks-313/

The Magical Mystery Tour

The Sports Prof and PSU Yesalis was blindsided and shaken by the sexual abuse scandal that rocked Penn State and led to the firing of Joe Paterno, the conviction of his former top assistant Jerry Sandusky and the resignation of the president and athletic director. For Penn State football, too, victory and the games were the unabashed priorities.
Yesalis was stunned by the scandal and disheartened by the reaction internally to it. He said he thought the university should have postponed this football season.
“What bothered me most was the continued addiction to college football in State College, Pa., among the Penn State fans, that they just can’t put it away for a year,” he said. “You know about the dark side of sport and you get to a point where nothing surprises you. I’ve been dealing with the dirty side of sports for going on 30 years. I really thought I was impervious to it at this point. But this has really hit me.
“I’ve been taken back by how I’ve been taken back by all this.”
It’s possible we have become so anesthetized to scandal that our numbed sensibilities allow us to take athletic feats at face value.   www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/sports/olympics/savoring-olympic-games-despite-their-history-of-doping.html?pagewanted=all

Drunk Priest Trolling Naked A Catholic priest who allegedly drove through the city naked and intoxicated was suspended by the Archdiocese of Detroit.
The Rev. Peter Petroske, pastor of Sacred Heart Parish in Dearborn, was placed on administrative leave Monday, Archdiocese officials.
The 57-year-old is charged with misdemeanor counts of operating while intoxicated and disorderly/obscene conduct, according to officials with Dearborn’s 19th District Court.   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120807/METRO/208070421/Priest-Dearborn-church-accused-driving-drunk-naked?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE MORE According to the police report, Petroske explained: “I was … uhh … hot. I like to drive around naked. I don’t know what to say. I’m embarrassed.”
Gafford noted Petroske was unable to touch the ends of fingers together and couldn’t count one to four. The officer also asked Petroske to recite the alphabet from A to Q.   www.detroitnews.com/article/20120809/METRO01/208090465/Dearborn-police-Priest-said-he-liked-drive-around-naked-?odyssey=tab|topnews|text|FRONTPAGE

Tragedy at PSU Thickens Convicted former Penn State assistant coach Jerry Sandusky is the focus of an investigation by the U.S. Postal Service, which is looking into whether he sent child pornography across state lines, a national news outlet is reporting today.
CBS News reports that federal investigators are analyzing a computer seized from Sandusky, who was convicted in June on 45 of 48 counts of child sex abuse.
The investigators are also attempting to determine if Sandusky mailed “seductive letters” across state lines.  http://www.centredaily.com/2012/08/10/3295414/jerry-sandusky-reportedly-focus.html

The Best and Worst Things in the History of the World

Hey Border Patrol! Get a Room. Don’t be part of the act A military doctor left a California-area Cirque Du Soleil show battered and bruised after reportedly getting into a fight with a pair of Border Patrol agents.
The military doctor, identified only as Jenny, said she confronted the pair after she saw the woman performing oral sex in the audience, 10 News reported.
“Her head and her hands were moving up and down rhythmically,” Jenny told the station. “I could only assume that there was some sort of sex act being performed.”
A pair of children were sitting in front of the couple and turned around to watch the incident, CBS 8 reported.

Security eventually escorted agents Kellie Helwig and Gerald Torello out of the show.
But the pair was reportedly waiting for Jenny after the performance and began hitting her as she exited the venue.
“Next thing I knew, she punches me on my left temple,” Jenny told 10 News. “I didn’t feel the other two hits. She hit me on the right side of my jaw and the left side of my jaw.” www.businessinsider.com/border-control-agents-allegedly-got-aggressive-after-having-oral-sex-at-cirque-du-soleil-2012-6

Little Stevie, Summer 1963, at the Village, in Detroit–“what key, what key???”

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjCfRvcXuY0