News, Weather, Mozart, Sports, Eurovision Love Ænema & Perverted Videogames from Vleeptron

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old dude, all hair, swell new teeth

30 April 2006

THEY FIXED THE ZETA BEAM!!!


Click, gets bigger.



Army Officer Corps Elite -- TNG

Okay, who's going to start an SSDP chapter at West Point?

Times Herald-Record (Middletown, NY USA)
Thursday 27 April 2006

Angry West Point Cadets
Riot Following Drug Search


West Point (U.S. Military Academy) -- Cadets angry over a drug search rioted for more than an hour last week, throwing fireworks and garbage from their barracks in an uproar one officer described as "shameful."

"Hundreds of cadets were hollering obscenities out of their windows and some were throwing objects," in what the unidentified officer termed a riot in an incident summary obtained by the Times Herald-Record.

"A team-size element of firemen responded to the scene as cadets were throwing objects that were on fire out of the windows in Bradley Barracks," the summary continued. "It was a shameful, pitiful day for" the U.S. Military Academy.

Lt. Col. Kent P. Cassella, a West Point spokesman, confirmed the events but downplayed their significance. He said no one was injured and nothing was damaged during the disturbance on April 19. He said no one was disciplined as a result of the incident.

One cadet apparently was hit with a flying peanut butter jar around 11 p.m., the incident log said, but wasn't hurt.

"It sounded like the cadets were blowing off a little steam," Cassella said. "Basically, there were some cadets voicing their frustrations, and there were some firecrackers going off. But in the end, there was nothing more than that."

The frustration apparently stemmed from an unannounced drug and weapons search of cadets' quarters earlier in the day. Around 6 a.m., cadets awoke to a fire drill in the barracks complex. They left the barracks, as ordered.

Then, while cadets were still outside, teams of drug-sniffing canine units entered the dormitories. The academy's 4,000 students waited while military and local police combed through their rooms.

While it's common in the military for commanding officers to toss the rooms of subordinates, Cassella said some cadets felt like they were tricked by the timing. He said leadership made a mistake by scheduling the fire drill and the search so close together.

An Orange County sheriff's deputy who participated in the search said no narcotics were found.

Most cadets who witnessed the subsequent riot, which started around 10:30 p.m. and ended an hour later, said the disturbance was no big deal. The chaos subsided after cadets and officers began cleaning up the barracks' courtyard.

"It comes down to people being immature," said one freshman, who asked that his name not be used. "The majority of cadets were apathetic."

But the incident report suggested otherwise.

"About 2,000 cadets were involved and witness to this travesty," it read. Officers on duty "could not believe what they were witnessing!"

Copyright: 2006 Orange County Publications
Letters to the Editor: letters@th-record.com

- 30 -

2 images by Boris Artzybasheff


"Radio Propaganda" (top), and a World War II fantasy of a fighter ambushing a bomber, by the Russian-born American artist Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965), for many years one of Time magazine's top cover artists. Artzybasheff also illustrated the 1935 fantasy novel "The Circus of Dr. Lao" by Charles G. Finney.

Clicking might do good things.

29 April 2006

I Love My Love with an M







Click.
"L" adjective & monster stamp coming soon.
"Hard to Get" is World War II US Army Air Corps
bomber nose art.



Mean Monster Loves His Love with a K because she's KRISPY! ... also Vleeptron Correction

Click: The Monster gets HUGE!!!
Copyright © 2006 Ron Bizer,

All rights reserved.

Nice!

CORRECTION!!!

So the next one is "I Love My Love with an L," and anyone's invited. Don't forget a Monster.

This was My Fault, I was asleep at the switch. Fortunately I was just making Art, not running a nuclear power plant.

For my own and others' future reference:

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

Other lingos which use versions of the Roman alphabet have different alphabets.

Tony Snow's previous media credential


Rev. Sun Myung Moon and Mrs. Hak Ja Han Moon after being crowned King and Queen of Peace at a reception in a U.S. Senate office building in Washington DC in 2004.

Oh yeah, Tony Snow, the new White House Press Secretary, has great media credentials -- he's a TV commentator for Fox News Channel. The New York Times expresseth it this way:

Mr. Snow is the host of "The Tony Snow Show" on radio and "Weekend Live with Tony Snow" on the Fox News Channel; he also had been the host of "Fox News Sunday," one of the five major Sunday morning public affairs programs. Before that, he was a columnist at USA Today and the editorial page editor of The Washington Times.

Okay, well, the entire mainstreamedia and blogosphere are fixated on the Fox News "credential." The astonishing thing is that most mainstreamedia accounts accept this as a credential -- The NY Times quotes Bush campaign media cheese Mark McKinnon:

"Yeah, he's a conservative commentator journalist; that makes sense if he's reflecting a conservative president," said Mark McKinnon, the president's campaign media consultant.

But, citing Mr. Snow's critical columns, Mr. McKinnon said: "Tony has huge street cred. It gives him credibility, and that's the most important thing for a press secretary."

Tony Snow has huge street cred.

What street can he possibly be referring to?

Snow began his meteoric rise to the top of the conservative media clusterfuck as a paid political text distorter for the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, savior (literally -- from time to time the Unification Church suggests Moon is the reincarnation of Jesus Christ), ex-con (US federal tax rap), and founder and leader of The Moonies.

Here's Wikipedia, the do-it-yourself encyclopedia where anyone can take a whack at improving the accuracy of any potentially controversial article.

This is where Tony Snow flowered as a journalist.

We'll start with News World Communications, owner of The Washington Times and the wheezing, last-gasping remnant of the once-proud United Press International wire service.

Vleeptron is running these things as stet as we can, but forgive us if we go a little funny with the colors and boldfacing and occasional lapses into Second-Coming font.

===============
from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

News World Communications, Inc. is a media corporation owned by the Unification Church, which is run by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon. News World owns The Washington Times, a newspaper Moon began publishing in 1982. Reportedly the paper has lost

[US] $1,000,000,000,

though it is widely believed that Moon has funded it at a loss to provide a political voice for the conservative right and the Church. Moon declared:

"The Washington Times will become the instrument
in spreading the truth about God to the world." [1].

News World also owns Insight Magazine, The World and I magazine, Middle East Times, Tiempos del Mundo, Segye Ilbo, Sekai Nippo, Zambezi Times, and United Press International.

Corporate leaders

* Chairman and President, News World Communications
and United: Chung Hwan Kwak
* VP and CFO: Keith Cooperrider
* Director Marketing, The Washington Times: Tom McDevitt

* Who Owns What: News World Communications, Inc. -- Columbia Journalism Review

* This page was last modified 18:03, 23 April 2006.

* All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License (see Copyrights for details).
Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.

==============

Chung Hwan Kwak (born 1936) is the leader of several key organizations of the Unification Movement and has been described as "Rev. Moon's right hand man."

Educated in his native South Korea, he holds a B.A. in law from Sangji University and an M.A. in western philosophy from Kun Kook University Graduate School. He received an honorary Ph.D. in humanities in 1986 from the University of Baguio, the Philippines.

Organizations:
* Professors World Peace Academy - chairman of the board
* International Cultural Foundation - chairman of the board
* HSA-UWC World Missions - executive director
* World Cultural and Sports Festival - organizing chairman
* Unification Foundation of Korea
* International Religious Foundation
* Paragon House Publishers
* HSA-UWC of Korea
* International Religious Federation for World Peace
* International Relief and Friendship Foundation
* News World Communications

See:
* whole purpose
* Divine Principle

==============

The Washington Times [1] is a daily broadsheet newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States. On Sundays its masthead reads The Sunday Times, a nod to The Sunday Times of London. The paper also calls itself America's Newspaper.

As of March 31, 2005, the Times had an average daily circulation of 103,017, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations. This is dwarfed by the 751,871 held by the Washington Post, although its readership grew nearly 3% in 2004, while the Post's dropped 2.7%.

History

The Times was founded in 1982 by Reverend Sun Myung Moon, leader of the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification (Unification Church), to be a conservative alternative to the larger and mainstream Washington Post. To this day, it is widely perceived as maintaining a right-leaning editorial stance. By 2002, the Unification Church had spent about $1.7 billion in subsidies for the Times. [2].

Throughout its existence the Times has portrayed itself as being in a challenging rivalry with the Post. In truth, most established journalists [3] (apart from conservative columnists) do not view the Times positively[4] and would not wish to work there in light of its ownership,[5] underlying religious posture (see below), and potentially negative[6] impact on a journalist's career. Nonetheless, committed American conservatives have greatly welcomed the publication as an alternative to main stream news that many conservatives find distasteful.

The Times was founded the year after the Washington Star, the previous second paper of D.C. went out of business. Without the Times there would be no "second paper" in Washington, so the daily is able to position itself as an underdog competing for attention and respect with a more prestigious and established rival. In many ways that has been a one-sided affair, with the Post seeing itself as competing with the New York Times, and preferring to ignore the cross-town broadsheet. Each day on page 2 the Washington Times prints a list of all its front page headlines side by side with those of the Post, to let readers compare what stories each paper is emphasizing and how. Some see the Times' coverage of local politics in particular as stronger than the Post's; even Post veteran Ben Bradlee has said "I see them get some local stories that I think the Post doesn’t have and should have had."[7]

When the Times began, it was unusual among American broadsheets in publishing a full color front page, along with full color front pages in all its sections, and color elements throughout. USA Today pioneered this approach to an even greater degree. It took several years for the Washington Post, New York Times, and others to follow suit. The Times originally published its editorials and opinion columns in a physically separate Commentary section, rather than at the end of its front news section as is common practice in U.S. newspapers. It ran television commercials highlighting this fact. Later, this practice was abandoned, (except on Sundays, when many other newspapers, including the Post, also do it). The Washington Times also used ink that it advertised as being less likely to come off on the reader's hands than the Post's.

Political leanings

Editorially, The Times is politically conservative. For example, it almost always supports Republican candidates when making political endorsements. Some have cited it along with the Fox News Channel and talk radio as epitomizing the "conservative media". [8] [9] [10] [11]

Many conservatives, particularly inside the Beltway, are very grateful to the Times. Paul Weyrich has praised the Washington Times as an "antidote" to its "liberal competitor": "The Washington Post became very arrogant and they just decided that they would determine what was news and what wasn't news and they wouldn't cover a lot of things that went on. And the Washington Times has forced the Post to cover a lot of things that they wouldn't cover if the Times wasn't in existence." [12] The Times was also President Ronald Reagan's preferred newspaper.

Others tend to be much less enthusiastic. Salon.com ([13], [14]) and The Daily Howler (examples: [15], [16], [17], [18]) have published scathing analyses of what they say are serious factual errors and examples of bias in the paper's news coverage. Conservative turned liberal writer David Brock, who worked for the Times' sister publication Insight, said [in] his book Blinded by the Right that the news writers at the Times were encouraged and rewarded for giving news stories a conservative slant. In Right-Wing Media and How It Corrupts Democracy Brock wrote "the [Washington Times] was governed by a calculatedly unfair political bias and that its journalistic ethics were close to nil." [19]

The paper has attracted occasional controversy over its coverage of racially sensitive matters. Editor Robert Stacy McCain has drawn fire from gay activist Michelangelo Signorile and the Southern Poverty Law Center for his criticism of Abraham Lincoln and apparent sympathies toward the Confederacy in the Civil War. Award-winning Times columnist Samuel Francis was fired by editor-in-chief Wesley Pruden after speaking at a conference hosted by American Renaissance, a "pro-white" group, essentially ending his mainstream journalistic career.

Relationship to the Unification Church

The Times is the flagship publication of News World Communications, Inc. (NWC). NWC was founded by the Rev. Moon, and some of its officials are members of the Unification Church he leads, a fact that has drawn some criticism and controversy. NWC published Insight Magazine and The World & I until they were closed in 2004, and continues to publish the The Washington Times National Weekly Edition (a tabloid compilation, designed for subscribers outside the metropolitan area, of the previous week's published Washington Times stories). NWC also owns UPI.

NWC is described by the Columbia Journalism Review as "the media arm of Reverend Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church" [20]. The Unification Church calls Moon the "founder" of the Times. In 1997, on the 15th anniversary of the founding of the paper, Rev. Moon gave an address to staff members that began:

Fifteen years ago, when the world was adrift on the stormy waves of the Cold War, I established The Washington Times to fulfill God's desperate desire to save this world. Since that time, I have devoted myself to raising up The Washington Times, hoping that this blessed land of America would fulfill its world-wide mission to build a Heavenly nation. Meanwhile, I waged a lonely struggle, facing enormous obstacles and scorn as I dedicated my whole heart and energy to enable The Washington Times to grow as a righteous and responsible journalistic institution.[21]

The Unification Church has been willing to run the paper at a loss to provide a political voice for the conservative right. In 2003, The New Yorker reported that a billion dollars had been spent since the paper's inception, as Rev Moon himself had noted in a 1991 speech ("Literally nine hundred million to one billion dollars has been spent to activate and run the Washington Times"[22]). In 2002, Columbia Journalism Review suggested Moon had sunk nearly $2 billion into the Times[23]. Ads fill an average of 35% of the Times' pages, compared to an industry average of 50-60%.[24]

Critics of the Unification Church claim that operation of the Times is part of an attempt by the Unification Church to gain political influence in Washington, D.C.; to back up this claim, they also refer to the purchase of the UPI newswire service by the Church in 2001 -- a move that gives the Unification Church a press seat on Air Force One.

[VLEEPTRON EXTRA: Helen Thomas, the longest-serving reporter in The White House Press Corps, resigned from UPI the day it was sold to News World. She now works for Hearst Newspapers. She asks the toughest questions and doth not suffer fooles gladly.]

Editorial independence

Several critics have claimed that the Times is little better than a mouthpiece for the Unification Church, its owner, noting that the paper's op-ed pages are often sympathetic to Unification movement concerns. Times critics such as Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting assert significant influence by the Church on the paper and give the Church significant credit (or blame) for the Times' actions. [25][26]

In 2002, during the 20th anniversary party for the Times, Rev. Moon declared:

"The Washington Times will become the instrument in spreading the truth about God to the world."[27].

Moon has also claimed to have direct influence on the Republican Party through his funding of the newspaper. The paper's first editor-in-chief, James Whelan, said that he resigned rather than accepting what he saw as church interference with his operation of the paper. "I have blood on my hands," he declared. The paper's current editor says Whelan was fired because he was difficult to work with and other staffers were threatening to quit because of this.

Washington Times editors firmly deny any Church influence on their news coverage and editorial policy, or that they have any interest in proselytizing directly for the Unification Church. (Compare the Christian Science Monitor.) According to Wesley Pruden, the current editor-in-chief, the paper's editorial independence is guaranteed by a contract between him and the owners, and no editor in chief has been a member of the Unification Church. He estimated that no more than ten of the editorial staff of 230 are members of the Unification Church.[28]

Many of the positions taken by the Times are those that other Christian conservative organizations support, including religious freedom for Christians worldwide, discouraging the formation of gay families, and the prosecution of pornography and other violations of conservative values. Sometimes, however, the paper has been at odds with the church's position. For example, on March 3, 2003, the lead editorial declared:

"The time has come for the president to publicly declare that it is the decision of the United States government to lead an invasion of Iraq with the intent to change the regime."

Members and observers of the Unification Church note that this is counter to the official church position, which opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

=================

The Washington Times
30 June 2004

Clerics defend
Moon event


by Jon Ward, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Religious leaders affiliated with the Unification Church yesterday defended the Rev. Sun Myung Moon against media criticism of a ceremony honoring him in a Senate office building meeting room three months ago.

More than a dozen Christian, Jewish and Muslim figures -- including Rev. Moon's North American representative, Chang Shik Yang -- held a press conference at the National Press Club to dispute assertions of several legislators who attended the dinner and ceremony that they did not know Rev. Moon would be the main honoree.

Several of the religious figures further defended Rev. Moon's use of the term "Messiah" to describe himself. They said he should be judged based on his efforts to promote peace.

"The term 'Messiah' is relative," said the Rev. George A. Stallings, the archbishop of the Imani Temple African-American Catholic Congregation in the District. "It depends on your particular religious persuasion. Ultimately, we must judge Reverend Moon not by what he says but by what he does."

The Rev. Michael Jenkins, co-chairman of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a Unification Church affiliate, was one of several speakers who compared Rev. Moon to Martin Luther King, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jesus Christ. He said Rev. Moon has not claimed to be God.

The Washington Post and the New York Times, among other newspapers, reported last week that several legislators who attended the March 23 ceremony in the Dirksen Senate Office Building had attempted to distance themselves from the event, saying they were not told that Rev. Moon would be there or that he would be the main honoree. (The Washington Times identified the congressmen in an account of the dinner on March 24.)

About 300 people attended the dinner and ceremony, which recognized men and women from 50 states for their efforts to promote peace.

At that ceremony, Rep. Danny K. Davis, Illinois Democrat, carried a crown for Rev. Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han Moon, as "King and Queen of Peace" to commemorate their efforts to promote interfaith cooperation and reconciliation. In his speech, Rev. Moon proclaimed himself to be "humanity's Savior, Messiah, Returning Lord and True Parent."

Archbishop Stallings offered his explanation of those remarks yesterday.

"He does not mean 'Messiah' in the context that a traditional Christian means Messiah," he said. "He is not God. He is the Messiah, namely, the one who has been given the mission by Jesus to bring the world to restoration, to return it to God's original ideals for men and women."

Other legislators at the ceremony were Sens. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, and Mark Dayton, Minnesota Democrat; Reps. Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, Christopher B. Cannon of Utah and Roscoe G. Bartlett of Maryland, all Republicans, and Sanford D. Bishop Jr. of Georgia and Harold E. Ford Jr. of Tennessee, both Democrats.

Mr. Dayton's spokeswoman told The Washington Post last week that the senator attended to honor one of his constituents who was receiving an award and that Mr. Dayton was "duped" into attending. The New York Times quoted Mr. Bartlett as saying: "I remember the king and queen thing. But we have a king and queen of the prom, the king and queen of 4-H, the Mardi Gras and all sorts of other things. I had no idea what he was king of."

Archbishop Stallings said yesterday he did not know who sponsored the dinner. Any group seeking to hold an event in the Dirksen building must have a Senate sponsor; the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which approves such requests, has not disclosed which senator sponsored the event.

"That is not our responsibility to respond to that question," the archbishop said. "Read my lips: We do not know."

- 30 -

28 April 2006

AGENCE VLEEPTRON-PRESSE UPDATE OF BREAKING NEWS DING! DING! DING!

Time Magazine
1 November 1993
Fascist Oaf (right)

The Associated Press
Friday April 28 2006 19:40 USA East Coast

18 Months Drug Rehab
May Keep Fascist Oaf
Out Of Prison

by BRIAN SKOLOFF, The Associated Press

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida USA -- Rush Limbaugh and prosecutors in the long-running prescription fraud case against him have reached a deal calling for the only charge against the conservative commentator to be dropped without a guilty plea if he continues treatment, his attorney said Friday.

Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities on a warrant filed Friday charging him with fraud to conceal information to obtain prescriptions, said Teri Barbera, a spokeswoman for the Palm Beach County Jail. He and his attorney Roy Black left about an hour later, after Limbaugh was photographed and fingerprinted and he posted $3,000 bail, Barbera said.

Prosecutors' three-year investigation of Limbaugh began after he publicly acknowledged being addicted to pain medication and entered a rehabilitation program. They accused Limbaugh of "doctor shopping," or illegally deceiving multiple doctors to receive overlapping prescriptions, after learning that he received about 2,000 painkillers, prescribed by four doctors in six months, at a pharmacy near his Palm Beach mansion.

Limbaugh, who pleaded not guilty Friday, has steadfastly denied doctor shopping. Black said the charge will be dismissed in 18 months if Limbaugh complies with court guidelines.

"Mr. Limbaugh and I have maintained from the start that there was no doctor shopping, and we continue to hold this position," Black said in an e-mailed statement.

Limbaugh spokesman Tony Knight said the commentator signed the agreement Thursday, and that it called for him to enter the not guilty plea. "It's not in the system moving toward trial. It was all a formality. It's a concluded deal," Knight said.

Mike Edmondson, a spokesman for the state attorney's office, said prosecutors had not yet received the signed agreement.

"I am not disputing the facts, the conditions that Black represented, but until his client signed the agreement, we don't have a full agreement," Edmondson said. "I am sure it's just a timeline issue."

He refused to comment further.

As a primary condition of the dismissal, Limbaugh must continue to seek treatment from the doctor he has seen for the past 2 1/2 years, Black said. Among other provisions, he also has agreed to pay the state $30,000 to defray its investigative costs, Black said.

The warrant alleges that sometime between February and August 2003, Limbaugh withheld information from a medical practitioner from whom he sought to obtain a controlled substance or a prescription for a controlled substance.

Prosecutors began investigating Limbaugh in 2003 after the National Enquirer reported his housekeeper's allegations that he had abused OxyContin and other painkillers. He soon took a five-week leave from his radio show to enter a rehabilitation program and acknowledged he had become addicted to pain medication. He blamed it on severe back pain.

Before his own problems became public, Limbaugh had decried drug use and abuse and mocked President Clinton for saying he had not inhaled when he tried marijuana. He often made the case that drug crimes deserve punishment.

"Drug use, some might say, is destroying this country. And we have laws against selling drugs, pushing drugs, using drugs, importing drugs. ... And so if people are violating the law by doing drugs, they ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up," Limbaugh said on his short-lived television show on Oct. 5, 1995.

Prosecutors seized Limbaugh's medical records after learning about the painkillers he had received at the Palm Beach pharmacy. The investigation was held up as the prosecutors and Black battled in court over whether the records were properly seized.

Limbaugh reported five years ago that he had lost most of his hearing because of an autoimmune inner-ear disease. He had surgery to have an electronic device placed in his skull to restore his hearing. But research shows that abusing opiate-based painkillers also can cause profound hearing loss.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

AGENCE VLEEPTRON-PRESSE HOT BREAKING NEWS THIS JUST IN HOLD PAGE ONE


The Associated Press
Friday 28 April 2006

Fascist Oaf
Busted for Drugs


WEST PALM BEACH, Florida USA (AP) -- Rush Limbaugh was arrested Friday on prescription drug charges, law enforcement officials said.

Limbaugh turned himself in to authorities on a warrant issued by the state attorney's office, said agency spokeswoman Teri Barbera.

The conservative radio commentator came into the jail at about 4 p.m. with his attorney Roy Black and was released an hour later on $3,000 bail, Barbera said.

The warrant was for fraud to conceal information to obtain prescription, Barbera said.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

U.S. Rep. Mark Souder wins Vleeptron 12 Monkeys Prize

image from the motion picture
"12 Monkeys" directed by Terry Gilliam
inspired by Chris Marker's short film
"La Jetée" (1962)

INSET: Fusarium oxysporum
Fusarium culmorum Sporen
im Lichtmikroskop
bei 400-facher Vergrößerung

[a spore of the fungus
Fusarium oxysporum
magnified 400 x
from the enius AG website]

Fusarium oxysporum gehört zur Gattung des Fusarium. FusariumFusarium kommt sehr häufig in Futtermitteln, Lebensmitteln, Getreide, Anstrichen und Tapeten vor. Die meisten Fusarium-Arten sind Pflanzenparasiten und können Mykotoxine (Schimmelpilzgift) bilden. ist eine Gattung der Schimmelpilze.

help help the man is insane we're all going to die of mass starvation

If you think the Bush Administration's and the Fundie-era politicization of Science doesn't affect you, stop eating food for a month -- to get a realistic sense of a Future shaped by the politicization of Science.

Vleeptron is proud to award the first 12 Monkeys Prize to U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, Republican psycho frothing loony rabid fundie from Fort Wayne, Indiana USA, and wishes to remind all the voters of Fort Wayne that Souder is up for un-election on Tuesday 7 November 2006.

~ ~ ~

New Scientist (issue 2549 page 6)
Saturday 29 April 2006

Call for biowar on drugs

Congressman Mark Souder has been busy in his personal war on drugs. As well as fighting against the legalisation of cannabis for medical use (see below), the Indiana Republican has slipped a provision into a bill calling for the fungus Fusarium oxysporum to be used as a biological control agent against drug crops in foreign countries.

The CIA, however, has had moral doubts about using the fungus. In 2000, a CIA official told The New York Times that it was unsafe both for humans and for the environment: "I don't support using a product on a bunch of Colombian peasants that you wouldn't use against a bunch of rednecks growing marijuana in Kentucky."

The Department of Agriculture and the Drug Enforcement Agency agree. Fusarium species are highly prone to mutation, so they can readily change hosts and infect plants they were not supposed to. This was the main reason Florida's Department of Environmental Protection rejected the fungus in 1999 as a biocontrol agent for use on outdoor marijuana crops.

The House of Representatives proposal to use F. oxysporum in biocontrol is not included in the Senate version of the bill, which concerns the office of the US "drug czar", and a committee will now meet to decide on the final version.

Meanwhile, Bausch & Lomb recalled a contact-lens solution last week amid fears that it is associated with the spread of an eye disease across the US. The disease is caused by F. oxysporum.

===============
from imbd
===============


Date of birth (location)
29 July 1921
Neuilly-sur-Seine, Hauts-de-Seine, Île-de-France, France
Trivia
Chris Marker took name Marker from Magic Marker pen. (show more)

Sometimes Credited As:
Jacopo Berenzini


27 April 2006

AV-P YOUTH NEWS: cheese

A few days before Valentine's Day, the Mattel company announced that Barbie had broken up with Ken, her boyfriend of 43 years, and has begun spending time with Blaine, an Australian surfer.

In other Youth News ...
first sing this song, then read what the Blaines and Barbies of Texas are up to. doo doo doo doo doo dee dee doo
doo doo doo doo doo dee dee doo
==================

I Want a New Drug

Huey Lewis and The News

I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick
One that won't make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red

One that won't make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you
When I'm alone with you

I want a new drug
One that won't spill
One that don't cost too much
Or come in a pill

I want a new drug
One that won't go away
One that won't keep me up all night
One that won't make me sleep all day

One that won't make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you
When I'm alone with you
I'm alone with you baby

I want a new drug
One that does what it should
One that won't make me feel too bad
One that won't make me feel too good

I want a new drug
One with no doubt
One that won't make me talk too much
Or make my face break out

One that won't make me nervous
Wondering what to do
One that makes me feel like I feel when I'm with you
When I'm alone with you

=================
Huey Lewis And The News I Want A New Drug lyrics are the property and copyright of Huey Lewis And The News. Huey Lewis And The News lyrics provided for educational purposes and personal use only.
=================

Newshawk: Richard Lake
Pubdate: Thu, 27 Apr 2006
Source: USA Today (USA national daily)
Page: 1A - Front Page
Webpage:
http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20060427/1a_bottomstrip27.art.htm
Copyright: 2006 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact: editor@usatoday.com
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm


TEXAS SCHOOLS BATTLE
'STARTER HEROIN'


DEA Alerts Agents in Bid to Curb Rising Problem

by Donna Leinwand, USA Today

A new heroin-laced powder known as "cheese" is popping up in middle and high schools in Texas, where dozens of youths have been caught with the drug, federal and local officials say.

So far the problem has been focused on schools in Dallas, where police first reported kids snorting the mixture of ground-up cold medicines and heroin at the start of this school year. However, the Drug Enforcement Administration, which calls the addictive concoction "starter heroin," is concerned enough about the drug's appearance in Dallas that it has alerted agents nationwide to watch for it.

"It's an emerging problem," DEA spokesman Steve Robertson says. "It's something we're tracking to see if we can spread the word before it becomes a huge problem."

Police in Dallas have logged 78 incidents involving cheese in 11 middle and high schools, says Jeremy Liebbe, an investigator with the Dallas Independent School District Police Department.

As is the case on campuses across the USA, marijuana remains the most popular illegal drug in Dallas schools, Liebbe says. Monitoring the Future, a national survey of drug use, said last year that about 27% of 10th-graders had used marijuana during the previous year; the rate for heroin use among such students was less than 1%.

Cheese
is a tan powder made mostly from acetaminophen and diphenhydramine HCL -- the ingredients in Tylenol PM -- with a little heroin mixed in. Liebbe says samples confiscated in Dallas have been up to 8% heroin. The drugs are crushed together and typically folded into notebook paper. A quarter-gram sells for $5, Liebbe says, and a single hit usually sells for $2.

Users feel euphoric and then sleepy, lethargic and hungry, he says. Cheese has been a nickname for heroin, Liebbe says.

The powder has been sold by 18- and 19-year-olds near school campuses and by older students in those schools, Liebbe says. The heroin has been brought from Mexico and then has been mixed with other drugs in the USA, he says.

Six teens in drug treatment at the Phoenix Academy in Dallas used cheese, director Michelle Hemm says. One boy was 12 when he started using it, she says.

Hemm expects to see more youths hooked on cheese, which is so affordable "little kids can purchase it. Kids in here, they all know lots of other kids using cheese. This is the tip of the iceberg."

- 30 -

poesia


UN MAMA AWE

by Gileo

Silenciosamente, mamai
cu wowonan yen di lagrima
y un curpa cun’ ta duna mas
ta observa e situashon den cua ela cai

Bayendo bek den tempo, e ta realisa su mes
cu pa via dj'un amor profundo
awe, e ta hañ'e cu tanto yiu pa cria
un tarea, birando mas dificil dia pa dia

Cu cara hinca den scochi
mamai, yorando sin fin
ta puntra su mes
di unda e placa pa cuminda di mañan lo bin

Diripiente un sonido conoci p'e ta conmov'e
y ta e ora ei numa, habriendo su wowonan
y hisando su cabes na laira
e ta mirando diesseis wowo bashando awa

Y su tristesa ta cambia den alegria
ora di e yiu muher mas chikito
ta sali e palabranan:
"Mamai ata: "Den nos, m'a colecta 3,85 pa mañan ...

Lignum Vitae, the beautiful hardwood with amazing physical and magical powers



Urn (U$250) made of Lignum Vitae wood, or Ironwood. Harrison carved the gears at the heart of his chronometers from this self-lubricating hardwood.

From the ever-dependable Wikipedia. I suspect this entry was written by someone who is not a native English writer, so there are some odd quirks and communications mysteries which Vleeptron has attempted to redact:

=========

Lignum vitae is the [hardwood] of species of the genus Guaiacum, the trees of which are usually called guayacan. The name is Latin for "wood of life," and derives from its medicinal uses. Other names are palo santo and of course ironwood (one of many). The wood is obtained chiefly from Guaiacum officinale and Guaiacum sanctum, both slow growing trees that do not become large.

This wood has a specific gravity between 1.28 and 1.37, so it will sink in water. It is a hard, dense and durable wood, one of the densest woods in the trade. The wood was important for uses requiring strength, weight and hardness. Master clockmaker John Harrison used lignum vitae as the basis for his nearly all-wood clocks, since the wood provides natural lubricating oils which do not dry out. The Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton's ship Endurance was ribbed with lignum vitae on the recommendation of [?] scientist extraordinaire Jack Kelly. Due to its weight cricket balls are sometimes made of this wood.

The resin has been used to treat a variety of medicinal conditions from coughs to arthritis. Wood chips can also be used to brew a tea.

Various other hardwoods of Australasia (e.g., the acacia and eucalyptus) are also called lignum vitae and should not be confused. Argentine lignum vitae has a strong, fresh aroma and is used as incense.

According to T.H. White's Version of the [King Arthur] Saga "The Once and Future King," Lignum vitae has special magical powers as the staff of Merlin is made from it.

According to the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association website, the shaft bearings on the WWII submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383) were made of this wood.

H1 at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich

H1, ticking relentlessly and precisely away, for your viewing thrill, at the Royal Observatory at Greenwich, England UK, in a building designed by Christopher Wren. This machine saved the lives of thousands of sailors; before H1, their lives were doomed, and as they did their duty aboard ship on the world's oceans, they knew it. The Royal Navy's best navigators knew precisely how far North or South they were, but had only vague and hazy clues to where their ships were East/West.

At the very heart of this machine are gears of Lignum Vitae wood -- self-lubricating, it exudes its own lubricating oil. It is possible that Gould's restoration (circa 1930) used Harrison's original Lignum Vitae gears.

Gould actually found that some of Harrison's H1 mechanisms were not necessary to perform the chronometer's sole function: Keeping perfect time anywhere on the surface of Earth, on wild rolling seas, in any humidity and temperature, from the Antarctic or Arctic Oceans to the Funda Straits.

H2, next to it, is better and smaller. By H3, I think Harrison had shrunk the amazing Time Machine to the size of a gentleman's pocket watch.

The scientifically educated men of the Admiralty and the Royal Observatory who had to judge Harrison's work found it impossible to believe that a pocket watch could determine a ship's precise Longitude on the other side of the planet. They attributed H3's capabilities to some sort of clever fraud, or perhaps some sort of magicke or witchcraft.

Harrison, after all, was an unschooled self-taught clockmaker, originally just a carpenter from the north of England. Harrison's lifetime of frustration to win the Longitude prize reeks of the ugliest kind of class snobbery and prejudice.

Does H1 work? Go to Greenwich, gaze at this sublime machine, check what it says against your own digital watch or atomic-time wristwatch. If the two don't agree, you better get your wristwatch checked, or reset the correct time. H1 will have the correct time.

Sailors' lives were at stake, and the English scientific and military establishment could only see that Harrison was not a Gentleman.

When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead


2390 US military personnel -- Army soldiers, Marines, Air Force, the odd luckless sailor, women serving in these uniform branches -- had been killed from hostile action in Iraq from 20 March 2003, the day America invaded Iraq, to 25 April 2006.

Now it's two days later, and not very many more American service personnel have been killed in Iraq, just two. We're up to 2392 now. Check back tomorrow, or next week, or a month from now.

If you wait long enough, you can see how many American soldiers and Marines will have died in the War in Iran. Bush and his fundie neocons don't have much time left to invade Iran. They have almost no political power any more, but since Congress stopped doing its Constitutional duty of declaring war, the Commander-in-Chief can start a war anywhere he pleases, and it will take years for the rest of the body politic to stop it. Bush will be hosting evening receptions at his presidential library in Texas by the time we Bring The Boys and The Girls Home from Iraq and Iran.

No image today.

I found a soldier without legs in a wheelchair who's now a patient at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington DC, receiving the finest medical care the US military has to offer. But I don't want to show the image; if I were in his wheelchair, I don't think I'd want my photo blogged all over the place. I've just said enough for you to find the photo if you want to see it. But it might not be the same photo. There are more than one on the Web that answer to this description -- particularly if you broaden the search to other military hospitals or the hospitals of the Department of Veterans Affairs --

"For him who will have borne the battle."

I found photos of Union and Confederate army hospital wards from the US Civil War, the places that inspired the heartbreaking song from 133 years ago, "Somebody's Darling."

If you are in any Fox-infected confusion about what to make of Cindy Sheehan, I strongly recommend you Google and read about how "Somebody's Darling" was written. And listen to a woman sing the song. Kathy Mattea sings a wonderful version on the CD "Songs from the Civil War."

I found lots of images. Or I could have made another virtual Brick Wall graffiti image. They're easy to make -- you just erase the old integer, click here, and spraypaint a bigger integer.

But let this poor schmuck speak for me today.

Poor MacSchmuck. Great poet. Poor schmuck.

+ + +

Charles Sorley, a Scot from Aberdeen, was shot through the head and died instantly at age 20, at the Battle of Loos, on Wednesday 13 October 1915. His body was lost, but his kit bag was found and sent home to his family. They found this poem inside it.


When You See Millions
of the Mouthless Dead

Charles Hamilton Sorley (1895-1915)


When you see millions of the mouthless dead
Across your dreams in pale battalions go,
Say not soft things as other men have said,
That you'll remember. For you need not so.
Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know
It is not curses heaped on each gashed head?
Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow.
Nor honour. It is easy to be dead.
Say only this, "They are dead." Then add thereto,
"Yet many a better one has died before."
Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you
Perceive one face that you loved heretofore,
It is a spook. None wears the face you knew.
Great death has made all his for evermore.

Original text: Charles Hamilton Sorley. Marlborough and other Poems. 4th edition. Cambridge: University Press, 1919: 78 (no. XXXIV). First publication date: 1916. Composition date: 1915. Form: sonnet. Rhyme: ababbabacdcdcd

26 April 2006

Vleeptron Apologia re Flamsteed, the first Astronomer Royal

Rev. John Flamsteed, first Astronomer Royal

Okay okay Vleeptron got Rev. John Flamsteed mixed up with the fifth Astronomer Royal, Rev. Nevil Maskelyne (1765-1811); Maskelyne was the real jerk, crook and liar.

(Almost every university scholar in those times was required, in order to qualify for an Oxford or Cambridge chair, to be in Anglican holy orders; how profound these astronomers' devotion to their clerical duties was is left as an exercise for the reader. If you get lucky, Leave A Comment.)

In the troubles between Isaac Newton and Flamsteed, Flamsteed appears to have been the injured party. Newton was a lifelong paranoid, recluse, adept at scheming, lacked most ordinary human-to-human emotions and bonds, and was susceptible to bad advice from his scientific peers.

Here's The World's Foremost Collection of Biographies of Mathematicians on

John Flamsteed

Born: 19 Aug 1646 in Denby (near Derby), Derbyshire, England
Died: 31 Dec 1719 in Greenwich, London, England

John Flamsteed's father was a business man who was quite wealthy. Flamsteed's mother however died when he was still a child and this affected his upbringing.

Flamsteed attended Derby free school which prepared children for a university education. However life did not go smoothly for Flamsteed who, at the age of 14, developed severe health problems. A chronic rheumatic condition led to his father deciding not to send him to university. Flamsteed was extremely disappointed but he did not let it prevent him from studying.

Between 1662 and 1669 Flamsteed studied astronomy on his own without the help of teachers. In fact he does not seem to have missed the formal teaching but his father continued to oppose his studies and this made far more difficulties for Flamsteed than the fact that he could not attend lectures. Flamsteed's father always maintained that it was because of his son's ill health that he opposed his studying but Flamsteed, in his correspondence in later life, suggested that his father may have had other motives. Since Flamsteed's mother had died when he was young, Flamsteed was useful to his father as someone to look after the home. Whether or not this was his father's motive, certainly Flamsteed felt bitterness towards his father.

Flamsteed began systematic observations in 1671. He also began corresponding with Henry Oldenburg and John Collins. These two arranged for Flamsteed to meet Jonas Moore during a visit Flamsteed made to the Royal Society in London in 1670. Moore became his patron and persuaded [King] Charles II to grant a warrant so that Jesus College Cambridge could award an M.A. to Flamsteed in 1674.

In February 1675 Flamsteed arrived in London to stay with Moore and Moore arranged that Flamsteed visit the King, Charles II, to ask for a Royal Observatory. In fact Flamsteed had to some extent paved the way to find favour with the King, having made a barometer and a thermometer for Charles II and the Duke of York in previous year. On 4 March 1675 the King appointed Flamsteed his astronomical observer by Royal Warrant. From his salary of pounds100 he had to pay taxes and also provide all his own instruments. The Royal Observatory at Greenwich was built and equipped for his observations and he began observing there in 1676.

Ordained in 1675, Flamsteed received the income of the living of Burstow, Surrey from 1684. In 1677 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

Flamsteed was a skilled observer and had a number of observing programmes at the Royal Observatory to answer major questions. Among his other achievements was the fact that Flamsteed invented the conical projection, an important projection of the sphere onto a plane which is used in cartography.

Newton required data for his understanding of the orbit of the Moon, a difficult problem to which Newton applied his universal law of gravity. Flamsteed never quite seemed to understand what Newton required and the two were not on the best of terms, in fact Flamsteed was a perfectionist and was not an easy man to get on with.

In [1] he is described as follows:-

Possessed of an attitude that can only be described as uncompromising, he was an intemperate man even by the standards of an intemperate age. The particular and enduring subject of his passion was Edmond Halley. The last thirty years of Flamsteed's extensive correspondence is infused with vituperative remarks about the man who should have been his most natural ally.

It is hard to say exactly why Flamsteed was so bitter towards Halley but their personalities certainly clashed while there must have been a certain professional jealousy between them. The battle Flamsteed had with Halley over the publication of his carefully made observations is described in [2]:-

The latter part of Flamsteed's life passed in controversy over the publication of his excellent observations. He struggled to withhold them until completed, but they were urgently needed by Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley, among others. Newton, through the Royal Society, led the movement for their immediate publication. In 1704 Prince George of Denmark undertook the cost of publication, and, despite the prince's death in 1708 and Flamsteed's objections, the incomplete observations were edited by Halley, and 400 copies were printed in 1712. Flamsteed later managed to burn 300 of them.

Flamsteed did publish his star catalogue Historia Coelestis Britannica in 1725 containing data on 3000 stars. It listed more stars and gave their positions considerably more accurately than any other previous publication had done. It was ironical that his greatest enemy, Halley, should succeed him as the second Astronomer Royal.

Article by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson

Honours awarded to John Flamsteed:
Fellow of the Royal Society, elected 1676
Lunar features: Crater Flamsteed [Moon]

Cross-references in MacTutor:
1. History Topics: English attack on the Longitude Problem

JOC/EFR © April 1997
School of Mathematics and Statistics
University of St Andrews, Scotland

where Time begins

The Royal Observatory overlooking
the Thames River, Greenwich, England

Architect: Christopher Wren. Through its campus runs the Greenwich Meridian, Zero Degrees Longitude.

A laser blares the line into the night skies over the Thames Valley, and in the sidewalk there's an imbedded illuminated line, so schoolkids (and Bob) can skip and dance back and forth between the Western and Eastern Hemispheres.

The Observatory's Motto: Where Time Begins.

The red thing on the left tower is The Time Ball. Each day precisely at noon it's dropped, so ships in the Thames could look up and set their clocks by it, a necessary first step for determining Longitude during their voyages around the world.

The first clocks precise enough to compute Longitude were invented in the 18th century by a self-taught clockmaker, John Harrison, whose originals have been restored and tick merrily away at the Observatory. Though magnificent machines of brass and steel, the hearts of the Harrison Chronometers are actually made of Lignum Vitae wood, and lubricate themselves.

The second Astronomer Royal Edmond Halley (famed for predicting the return of his Comet) got drunk one night with Tsar Peter the Great, and they rolled each other around the Observatory grounds in a wheelbarrow. The first Astronomer Royal, Flamsteed, was a real jerk and a liar and a crook.

The standard history of all this is in Dava Sobel's wonderful book "Longitude." The cable channel A&E (Arts & Entertainment) made a movie of it, featuring a scene of attractive young topless women playing strip whist with rich aristrocrats. But Jeremy Irons wonderfully plays the ex-Naval officer Gould, who found the Harrison Chronometers in a heap of junk in the basement, and spent years between the World Wars restoring them to original specifications, working order, Bristol fashion.

give it up


At the bottom is a somewhat stale DPA story about Belgian police identifying the murder suspects as immigrants from Poland, and the PM of Poland promising to help Belgium catch the suspects.

Now we get the hot breaking news -- and some nasty anger from Iran.

The top two stories are 4 and 5 hours old, so what's that in GMT? about 10:30 and 09:30 GMT. (Agence Vleeptron-Presse always uses 24-hour time format.)

Originally the Belgian media and government agencies had suggested the suspects were "of North African origin" -- i.e., Muslim immigrants.

=============================

Radio New Zealand
Wednesday 26 April 2006


Belgium identifies
murder suspects,
causing outcry

Belgian authorities revealed on Tuesday that the suspects in the murder of a teenager that shocked the nation were Polish, sparking an outcry over original assumptions the perpetrators were of North African origin.

Public prosecutors confirmed on Monday that they had arrested one of the two youths they believed had killed Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17. The second youth was thought to have fled to Poland, authorities said on Tuesday.

Van Holsbeeck was stabbed five times in the chest during evening rushhour at the capital's central railway station on April 12 when he refused to hand over his MP3 player.

More than 80,000 people marched silently through Brussels on Sunday, the largest such demonstration since 300,000 people took to the streets in 1996 for the victims of paedophile Marc Dutroux.

Local media reports, citing witnesses, originally said the police were seeking two youths of North African origin.

Immediately after close-circuit television footage was released, Muslim religious leaders called on their community not to shield the suspects but to help police with their enquiries.

News on Tuesday that the suspects were Polish prompted outrage from the Muslim community and criticism from the federal justice minister.

Copyright © 2006 Radio New Zealand

==================================

Islamic Republic News Agency (Iran)

Belgium's Muslim
organization says
stigmatization of Muslims
has increased


BRUSSELS, April 26, IRNA -- Just after a 17-year-old Belgian teenager was stabbed to death at the busy Brussels Central train station on April 12, both the Belgian media and officials suggested that his killers were of "North African" origin, implying they were Muslims.

Imams in Friday sermons in Brussels denounced the killing as a heinous crime and urged the Muslim community to cooperate with the police to find the murderers.

Police even distributed video footage and pictures of the suspected "North Africans."

But it has turned out that the killers of the Belgian youth were not "North Africans" but were from Poland.

Local media reports said one of the two suspects has been arrested by the police while the other has escaped to Poland.

Belgium's Muslim Executive, the official body representing Muslims in the country, said that it regrets that the media had called for the killers to be sought among the country's North African community.

The Executive expressed its displeasure that the mistake had led to speculation about the religion of the killers.

It said that as a result stigmatization of Belgian Muslims has increased.

Meanwhile, the Brussels Public Prosecutor's Office has apologized for saying that the suspects were North African in appearance.

Belgian Justice Minister Laurette Onkelinx has warned of the danger of stigmatizing particular social groups now that it has been proven that the criminals are not of north African origin.

Some 80,000 demonstrators walked through Brussels Sunday to protest the killing of the teenager, who refused to give his digital music player to the two robbers.

An estimated 400,000 Muslims, mainly from the North African countries of Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia, and Turkey, live in Belgium.

- 30 -

=====================

Deutsche Presse-Agentur / Monsters and
Critics
Wednesday 26 April 2006

Europe News

Belgian police arrest suspect
in MP3-player murder case

BRUSSELS / WARSAW -- Belgian police arrested a 16-year-old suspect of Polish origin Tuesday in connection with the murder of a 17-year-old youth who was robbed of an MP3 player.

The suspect was identified with the help of video surveillance footage of the attacker in a city subway station. Another 16-year-old Polish national, who is believed to have dealt the victim fatal stab wounds in the April 13 attack, is still at large.

Investigators did not find the prime suspect at his address in Brussels. 'But we know his identity and have a photograph of him,' senior police officer Glenn Audenaert said. 'We are confident of apprehending him.'

Polish Prime Minister Kazimierz Marcinkiewicz said his government would support the investigation.

'The Polish government will do everything to apprehend and fully prosecute the perpetrators,' Marcinkiewicz told Poland's TVN24 news channel Tuesday evening. 'But Poland and Poles cannot be blamed for this terrible event.'

The murder of the 17-year-old Belgian youth in the afternoon and during rush hour at Brussels' main railway station caused nationwide dismay.

Last Sunday, 80,000 people took to the streets of Brussels to demonstrate silently for peaceful coexistence with the country's large immigrant population.

Video footage from surveillance cameras at first led many Belgians to believe the young suspect was a North African immigrant.

© 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

Anon Apr 26th, 2006 - 01:42:41
Wow, even in Belgium brothers get the blame for living while black (or brown)

aghori Apr 26th, 2006 - 04:14:44
if some one needs anything, better try to fulfill the need, but it is difficult, i have many books, would i give one away, no. If he then kills me and takes the book, is it his fault, no. I think its my own fault.

© 2003 - 2006 by Monsters and Critics.com, WotR Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

spam from afar. what do they want from me? if u know, pls Leave A Comment


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US Congress poised to sell the Internet to the telecom Fat Cats -- please sign petition QUICK!

The United States Congress is increasingly comfortable doing Nasty Corrupt Things in Total Secrecy, and the Nasty Secret Thing du Jour Congress is about to pass, after gorging itself on money and Free Nifty Stuff from giant telecommunications monopoly lobbyists from Comcast, Verizon and American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T, in Ancient Times better known as Bell Telephone) is a law which will fuck up the Internet as we've come to know and love it.

Right now Vleeptron (just as an example) can put its Dog & Pony Show on the Internet, and surfers around the world can click into Vleeptron just as quickly and easily as they can click on The New York Times or an agency of the U.S. Government.

If Congress passes this suck-ass corrupt new law, all the Big For-Profit websites will be able to buy Special Access Cadillac Escalade Express Limo Service to the Internet, and private citizen sites like Vleeptron and LastOneSpeaks (which alerted Vleeptron to this Piece-o-Shit Corrupt Bill, thanks Libby!) will get to drive the Information Superhighway in 1981 Fiats and Yugos, or be forced to hitchhike the InfoSuperHiway in the breakdown lane in winter because we can't afford the Premium Fees for the 1st Class Complementary Champagne Ride.

Read the following, and then click on and SIGN THE PETITION and please do it PDQ -- Pretty Darn Quick.

********************
e-mail from Libby of the excellent blog LastOneSpeaks:
********************

We need to blitz Congress tonight and tomorrow morning
so time is too short to fool around and forgive the
self promotion. I'm passing this on to everyone in
case you haven't heard about it.

Please read this post and act accordingly. If we don't
stop them, these idiots inside the beltway really are
going to screw up the internets.

http://lastonespeaks.blogspot.com/2006_04_23_lastonespeaks_archive.html#114601100032371179


the disputed succession of the Satmar rabbinate


Grand Rebbe Moses Teitelbaum of Satmar dressed in a special Shabbat bekishe. Next to him is his son Zalman Leib Teitelbaum. (Wikipedia)

I have often described myself as the Huckleberry Finn of World Jewry. The closest I have been to a Hassidic rabbi was on a train ride to Toronto. The Intersection Set of languages he spoke and languages I spoke was the Null Set; my Hebrew is pathetic, he did not respond to my German, so he may not even have spoken Yiddish, and I can't speak any Slavic lingos, or Romanian, and certainly not Hungarian. I helped him schlep (Yiddish) his 40 hardbound Hebrew religious books out to the street and helped him into a cab and asked the Rastafarian cabbie to take him to an address handwritten on a scrap of paper.

So here is Huckleberry Finnstein helping you understand the disputed succession of the rabbinate of the Satmar Hasidim. Please direct all questions to Vleeptron, which will have either the wrong answers, or no answers whatsoever.

I was on much more solid footing when Vleeptron posted about evolving Talmudic Law concerning Jewish prayer and observation in Outer Space. (Tang is neither Kosher nor Trayfe, but Parve -- a non-animal product, and thus neutral within the dietary laws of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Drink all the Tang you want on your voyages between Earth and Vleeptron.)

The following, btw, is serious. Here in the West we've been constantly bombarded by news reports of sectarian divisions within Islam -- primarily simplified as the ferocious enmity between Shia and Sunni. At this moment in Iraq, this enmity is a matter of life, death and civil war.

And yet Sunni and Shia must all, at least once in their lives as Muslims, journey to Mecca to show their devotion to the Prophet Mohammed. The stewardship of the Holy Places of Islam -- still forbidden to all non-believers -- puts the monarchy of Saudi Arabia smack in the middle of the Shia/Sunni division, and if the Saudi royal family likes to ice skate, it's always on thin ice.

If we're skating on thin ice
Then we might as well dance

-- Jesse Winchester,
the Canadian folksinger
with the Mississippi accent

Far less reported about in the English-lingo Western press are the sectarian divisions within Judaism. Anyone who begins a sentence with "All Jews ..." or with "All Muslims ..." has pretty much just certified himself or herself an idiot. Making generalizations about the belief systems of all Muslims or all Jews is like herding cats. This generalization applies to Christianity and to Buddhism as well.

Theological divisions within Judaism play crucial roles in Israeli domestic politics, particularly in government policy toward or against Jewish settlement in the military occupied territories of the West Bank of the Jordan River. Most Sabras -- Jews born in Israel (a Sabra is a desert cactus) -- are relatively unobservant, what we would recognize in the USA or Canada as Reform Jews. They dress like Californians. They consider their life-risking multi-year commitment drafted into the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) to be a sufficient commitment to Jewish theology. (Many Orthodox Jews believe they are religiously prohibited from serving in the IDF, but nevertheless push hard-butt Israeli government policies of military suppression and displacement of Palestinians.)

Many Orthodox Jews in the Diaspora believe Zionism -- the modern re-establishment of the ancient Jewish theocracy in Israel -- to be heresy. All Jews are not Zionists. And among Zionists, there are those who simply want a safe nation for Jews, and then there are those who want, among other things, to rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem which was destroyed by the Romans, resanctify it, and you don't even want to know what comes after that. Take some Valium, Google "red heifer", and stand back.

Even traditional Christian antisemitism ain't what it used to be in the bad old days. In recent decades a bizarre and meshugineh intimate alliance has sprung up between fundamentalist Christians in the American South and ultra-Orthodox Jews, both bent on rebuilding the Temple.

Why, exactly, ultra-Orthodox Jews want to rebuild the Temple is unclear to Huckleberry Finnstein.

But the fundies want to help their Meshugineh Frumm Ultra-Orthodox Brethren rebuild the Temple because shortly afterwards, according to their theology, The World Will Erupt into The Mother Of All Wars between the forces of God and the forces of Satan the Antichrist, and shortly after that, THE WORLD WILL END, and Jesus will return, and the dead will climb out of their graves, and Vleeptron recommends you stock up on Valium and iodine pills now. Oy vey. (Yiddish = Ach Weg = Oh Woe)

~ ~ ~

Associated Press (headline: Newsday)
Tuesday 25 April 2006


Religious authorities announce
Satmar Hasidim leader

by ADAM GOLDMAN
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK -- The leader of an ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect who died this week arranged for an organized succession by naming one of his sons as the next grand rabbi of the Satmar Hasidim, religious authorities announced Tuesday.

In his will, Rabbi Moses Teitelbaum, who died Monday at the age of 91, recognized Zalmen Teitelbaum, the third of his four sons, as the next rebbe, or grand rabbi.

"He shall occupy my position and succeed me without any shortfall, for effective immediately I have granted him the position," Moses Teitelbaum wrote in his will.

But the decision, announced by the Satmars' Rabbinical Court, is unlikely to settle the divisive issue of succession that has pitted Zalmen Teitelbaum, 54, against the eldest brother, Rabbi Aron Teitelbaum of Kiryas Joel in upstate New York.

That is because the 58-year-old Aron Teitelbaum has thousands of his own followers who believe he is the rightful successor.

The brothers have been feuding over the question for years. In 2004, a judge in Brooklyn refused to rule in the sons' dispute over the heir to the Satmar sect, saying the matter was for the grand rabbi to decide.

In his will, Moses Teitelbaum also directed that "not one of my descendants or among the persons within the community shall challenge or commit any act to diminish the powers of the above-mentioned appointment."

Moses Teitelbaum led the Satmar congregation in Brooklyn after the death of Grand Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum in 1979. He helped guide the fast-growing Satmar Hassidim in Brooklyn, Israel and other spots around the world.

The Satmar Hasidic sect has between 65,000 to 75,000 disciples in the United States, with almost all of them living in New York state. The biggest congregations are in Williamsburg [Brooklyn] and the town of Kiryas Joel, about 45 miles northwest of New York City.

Moses Teitelbaum was buried in Kiryas Joel early Tuesday after a service in Williamsburg that drew thousands of followers filled with intense grief.

In 1999, Moses Teitelbaum summoned Zalmen Teitelbaum back from Jerusalem, where he was serving as the Satmar chief rabbi. Upon his return, the father named the son chief rabbi of the Satmars' main synagogue in Williamsburg.

"Leaders of the Satmar community expressed the fervent hope that with the naming of Rabbi Zalmen Teitelbaum as Grand Rabbi, divisions which have afflicted this community in recent years will now heal," according to a Satmar statement released Tuesday.

Richard Schwartz, an adviser to the followers of Aron Teitelbaum, disputed the court's decision.

"The will is not the vehicle for establishing succession if history is to be our guide," Schwartz said.

Schwartz also claimed that Moses Teitelbaum was not in a lucid state of mind when he wrote the will and Satmar tradition says the eldest son should be the designated successor.

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from Wikipedia

Rabbi Moshe (Moses) Teitelbaum (1 November 1914 - 24 April 2006) was a Hasidic rebbe and the world leader of the Satmar Hasidim, which is believed to be the largest Hasidic community in the world, with some 100,000 followers.

Early life

Moshe was the youngest son of Rabbi Chaim Tzvi Teitelbaum, the previous Sigheter Rebbe, and brother of author of Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum. His mother's name was Bracha Sima. He authored the Atzei Chaim. Moshe and his brother, Yekutiel Yehuda Teitelbaum, were born in Sighet, then Hungary, now Romania, and were orphaned in 1926, when they were eleven and fourteen, respectively. Moshe was raised by family friends and relatives, including his uncle, Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum, and his grandfather, Rabbi Shalom Eliezer Halberstam of Ujfeherto.

In 1936, he married his cousin Leah Meir, daughter of Rabbi Hanoch Heinoch Meir of Karecska, where Moshe worked as a rosh yeshiva [head of a religious school]. In 1939, he became the rabbi of Senta (presently in Yugoslavia; then Hungary).

In late-spring 1944, the Hungarian government, assisted by Nazi forces led by Adolf Eichmann, began deporting Jews en-masse. Rabbi Moshe and his wife were sent to Auschwitz, where Leah died. Moshe was then transferred to Theresienstadt [near Prague, Czechoslovakia], where he was liberated in 1945.

Post-war

After the war, Rabbi Moshe married the daughter of Rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum of Volovo, and moved back to Sighet. Fleeing Communist persecution, the couple eventually immigrated to New York City, where Rabbi Moshe became known as the Sigheter Rebbe. Moshe initially established a beth midrash, Atzei Chaim Siget in his uncle Rabbi Joel Teitelbaum's Satmar enclave in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, and later moved to Boro Park. He succeeded his uncle as Satmar rebbe following his death in 1979.

Rabbi Moshe Teitelbaum was the author of a Hasidic book called Berach Moshe. He left behind eight children and over eighty-six grandchildren, many great grandchildren, and one great-great granddaughter, born earlier on the day that he died.

Death and succession

On 24 April 2006, at the age of 91, the Rebbe passed away. Over 100,000 members of the Jewish community attended his funeral and burial procession. Eulogies in the main Satmar synagogue in Williamsburg were said by all the Rebbes’ children or their husbands in order of their respective ages. The Rebbe was buried near his uncle, the previous Rebbe, in the sect's cemetary in Kiryas Joel.

Two of Rabbi Moshe's sons, Rabbi Aaron and Rabbi Zalman, are likely candidates to succeed their father. Rabbi Aaron's followers are mainly in Kiryas Joel, New York while Rabbi Zalman's followers are mainly in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A major split has developed among the Satmar Hasidim as to who will become the leader of the Satmar sect. The split is believed to have originated in 1999, when the present Rebbe bypassed his oldest son in a key appointment that was seen, by some, as a stepping stone for the movement's leadership.