Pennsylvania lawyer H. Beatty Chadwick either could not or really did not want to hand over the $2.5 million his ex-wife was awarded after their divorce, and he was prepared to go to jail for contempt rather than do so.
That was 14 years ago.
Chadwick has consistently claimed that he could not and cannot pay because he lost the money in "bad investments." But the judge that jailed him did not believe that, and neither did the judge who let him go last week. Judge Joseph Cronin said he agreed with previous rulings that Chadwick had the ability to comply with the order to pay but had "willfully refused to do so."
He released Chadwick, though, because he found that continued imprisonment would be legal only if there was some likelihood that ultimately he would comply with the order; otherwise, the confinement would be merely punitive instead of coercive. Apparently 14 years of incarcerated non-compliance - believed to be the longest sentence served for contempt of court in U.S. history - is enough to support a finding that future compliance is unlikely.
Albert Momjian, the ex-wife's lawyer, was not happy with the ruling. "Here's a guy who thumbed his nose at a court order for 14 years," he was quoted as saying. "There should be some kind of sanctions for doing that." Good point - the guy should serve some jail time, or something.
Momjian said he still thought Chadwick had the money to pay, pointing out that if he was broke, "how does he pay all these lawyers?" (The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that Chadwick's attorney has been working pro bono for the past six years, though Momjian's question might be relevant to the first eight.)
Others were not sure what to think, like John Reilly, the prison superintendent who has hosted Chadwick since 1995. Reilly noted that Chadwick had done more time than many murderers do, and found it hard to imagine that anyone "in his right mind" would defy a court for that long if he was actually able to comply.
He also noted that Chadwick had been a "model inmate," apparently so much so that he became good friends with guards and administrators, many of whom, according to the Philadelphia Daily News, were "crying and hugging" Chadwick as he departed.
(On the other hand, the Daily News also said that Chadwick, at least in his life before prison, had "reportedly [been] a control freak who would ration his spouse's toilet-paper usage and designate specific times for sex." So there's that. Prison probably cures a man of control-freak habits, though.) Ultimately, Reilly wasn't sure what to think. "To me, he's an enigma," he said. "I can't get a read on the guy."
Chadwick, now 73, said he wasn't yet sure what he would do with the rest of his life, but that it would probably include trying to get his law license reinstated. I'd guess it will probably not include paying his ex-wife $2.5 million, but time will tell.
#1
Works out to about $178k a year, which isn't bad pay while cooling your heels in stir. But the satisfaction of not giving the *itch a dime is priceless.
#3
Prison probably cures a man of control-freak habits, though.
Whoever wrote this has obviously never heard of "institutionalization". There's precious little in this world less regimented, ordered, and structured than a properly-run prison.
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/21/2009 21:05 Comments ||
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True, Mitch, but Mr. Chadwick, formerly esq., was not the one to define the rules. so essential to the control freak.
"The island up and down the coast has a very bad reputation," Acheson said. "I was talking to a man from Stonington who said fishermen on Matinicus think of themselves as being outside the United States."
Blue though it may be, not everyone is a effete windsurfer.
Visitors should be prepared to have their pictures taken as they enter and leave this picturesque town of million-dollar views and homes along the San Francisco Bay.
Officials want to photograph every car and use the license plate information to solve crimes in the town of 9,000. Critics see the plan as an intrusion into the rights of visitors, but proponents say it is a sensible precaution that absolutely will not cross privacy lines. I guess their definition of "probable cause" is different than the one I learned a while back...
"As long as you don't arrive in a stolen vehicle or go on a crime spree while you're here, your anonymity will be preserved," said Town Manager Peggy Curran. "We don't care who you are and we don't know who you are." Then why do you want to run plates? To make sure NCIC is working?
But Tiburon's plan may be a little different if only because its geography -- laid out on a narrow peninsula with only two roads in and out -- makes it possible to keep a close eye on everyone who comes to town.
Melissa Ngo, a privacy rights attorney and consultant who publishes privacylives.com, said she is not aware of a situation where a town is keeping a record of all visitors. "The point is we live in a land where people are considered innocent until proven guilty," Ngo said. "Not a land where it's supposed to be -- prove that you're not doing anything wrong by letting us watch you do everything."
Curled on the edge of the San Francisco Bay in Marin County, Tiburon is not a high-crime spot. In 2008, police report there were 99 thefts, 20 burglaries and two auto thefts. That was not a significant change from the year before. But police say with most of the crimes taking place at night, and suspects identified so far as out-of-towners with criminal records, they believe having the license plate information would be helpful in solving crimes. Well, maybe you could reassign a community resource officer to, ya know, patrol the area when the sun goes down, too. Just a thought.
Walking his dogs along Tiburon's stunning waterfront on a recent sunny morning, Bill McDougal, who lives in nearby Sausalito, was not enthusiastic about the license plate plan. "It's one more step to Big Brother," he said.
But Brooke Togmazzini, owner of a wine tasting room near the waterfront, said that while she initially had qualms about the system, she has become convinced there are enough safeguards in place to make it nothing more than a useful investigative tool. "There isn't someone watching every car that comes in and out," she said. Technically you're right, Brookie, but that's the point of the whole exercise, ok? Stop drinking that two-buck Chuck you probably pass off as Zinfandel and it may be a bit clearer to you.
Curran believes the proposal, expected to go before the Town Council for final approval within a few months, has been misunderstood.
If they go forward, officials intend to set clear limitations on how the license plate database can be used. For instance, they said the system will not be used for traffic enforcement yet, and the data will not be public record -- no trying to find out if a spouse has been wandering.
The way the system would work is still cameras set up at town entry points will take a photograph of license plates -- but not drivers. Good idea....'cause a criminal would never borrow someone else's car, rent one, or steal a car and go commit a crime, right??
License plate numbers collected would be erased within 30 to 60 days and would not be viewed unless there is a crime to solve.
Officers would search for plates of vehicles in town at the time of the crime that are connected to someone with a criminal history. Any hits would be used as leads. "Criminal history" could mean anything from mass murder to protesting Da Man.
"There'd be just none of the real-time monitoring that people worry about or that we're somehow wanting to be unfriendly or discourage visitors in any way," Curran said. "Oh, heavens, no! We still want yer money! Just because we think youse guys all wanna kill us or steal from us if we didn't watch you like hawks, that don' mean that we can't help lighten your wallets!"
Civil liberties groups have concerns about the data being collected on Americans.
A 2007 study by California affiliates of the American Civil Liberties Union of 131 jurisdictions found that 37 cities in the state had some type of video surveillance program and 18 cities had significant surveillance of public streets and plazas.
Lee Tien, senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, appreciates Tiburon officials' efforts to limit the use of the license plate database. But he is still not sold on the idea.
"The logic is always, well, wait a minute. If you keep pushing this, then that means we should track everyone just because some people might be bad guys. That's not the way I think America is supposed to be."
Thank goodness I'm vacationing in Florida
The MARTA Buckhead station was shutdown due to a suspicious package, said MARTA officials Tuesday. The station is located near the Atlanta Financial Center.
MARTA spokesperson Andrea Coleman said the package was not on the rail nor was it in the station. The station had been evacuated as a precaution. Peachtree Road was also been shut down.
A bus bridge has been established between the Lindbergh, Buckhead and Medical Center rail stations to transport passengers.
MARTA officials gave the all clear shortly before noon. Officials released no other information. The MARTA Police Department is investigating.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With no legal challenges expected, Ohio prepared today to execute a man who took part in a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead and two wounded. Attorneys for Marvallous Keene, 36, said they planned no late appeals for a series of slayings that included an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone. Keene regrets the crimes and doesn't want to die but opted not to fight the death sentence, public defender Rachel Troutman said.
Keene, who was convicted in five of the murders, was scheduled to die by lethal injection at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville one week after Ohio's most recent execution. It would be the fastest turnaround since the state executed two inmates in six days in 2004.
Gov. Ted Strickland denied clemency last week for Keene, who didn't request it. At a June 17 clemency hearing, Keene directed his attorneys not to present evidence on his behalf, saying he didn't want to cause additional pain to his family or to the victims' families.
Keene and three accomplices went on a three-day murder and robbery rampage in Dayton that began on Christmas Eve 1992.
Other victims included Sarah Abraham, 38, a convenience store clerk shot in the head after handing over $30 from a cash register, and Marvin Washington and Wendy Cottrill, two teenage acquaintances who Keene feared would tell police about his crimes.
His three accomplices are serving life sentences.
Keene was examined Monday by the prison's medical staff for suitable injection sites. No problems with his veins were reported, prison spokeswoman Julie Walburn said.
He also ordered a special meal for dinner that included a porterhouse steak, jumbo deep-fried shrimp and German chocolate cake. Keene was calm and quiet and spent the day watching television and writing a letter, Walburn said.
Seven members of the victims' families were expected to witness today's execution. Keene's two defense attorneys were to be his only witnesses.
Defense attorneys said Keene, who was 19 at the time of the slayings, was despondent over the death of his brother, who was shot and killed a year earlier. At his trial, Keene also told a three-judge panel that a falling-out with his father contributed to his troubled emotional state.
Prosecutors described Keene as the ringleader of a group that called itself the Downtown Posse. The killings began with 34-year-old Joseph Wilkerson. Keene and his accomplices arrived at Wilkerson's home under the pretext of wanting to participate in an orgy, prosecutors said. They tied Wilkerson to his bed and ransacked the house, and when Keene found a .32-caliber handgun in the garage, he returned to the bedroom and shot Wilkerson twice.
Later Christmas Eve, Keene and accomplice DeMarcus Smith approached 18-year-old Danita Gullette at a pay phone, took her jacket and shoes and fatally shot the woman, prosecutors said. Gullette was the mother of a 2-year-old girl.
Washington, 18, and Cottrill, 16, were acquaintances who sometimes stayed at Keene's apartment and observed Keene returning with stolen items, prosecutors aid. They were shot and killed behind a gravel pit.
An Australian man burst into flames after a policeman hit him on the bridge of the nose with his Taser. I hate when that happens.
Sound ridiculous? Not so much if you know the man was arrested on suspicion of huffing gasoline.
The man pretty immediately went up in flames, and the officer, recognizing that a man becomes significantly less dangerous once he's on fire, went to the suspect's aid, patting him all over (and getting burned himself) to quell the flames. While the officer tried to help the flammable man, he was hit by rocks thrown by a young woman also on the scene, also presumably high or stupid or both. Both the man and woman, as well as two others, were charged with sniffing a prohibited substance, and the young woman was charged with throwing rocks at a policeman.
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2009 14:52 Comments ||
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#8
AlmostAnonymous5839, what's a taser's carbon footprint?
Or should we say cap and zap?
Posted by: no mo uro ||
07/21/2009 14:56 Comments ||
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#9
Dang, not even just a 'controlled substance', it's outright prohibited. So, what do they run their cars on down under?
Most vehicles in the aboriginal communities are diesel. They have introduced aviation fuel as a substitute for petrol. Apparently you can't get high sniffing it.
Arguably the problem is alcohol is banned in many of these places and you have to drive a couple of hundred kilometers to buy it anyway.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A Saudi man who married a Filipino woman was hoping to exchange a kidney in addition to wedding vows, Philippine officials said Monday. But his wedding bliss was cut short as authorities caught on to the scam and blocked the planned transplant.
The wealthy foreigner proposed to the woman, whose name was not given, in an attempt to bypass the Philippines' strict regulations set up to fight the country's widespread organ trafficking.
Foreigners are banned from receiving organ transplants from local donors and organ sales are punishable by up to 20 years in jail. Exceptions are made for family members.
The Saudi man, however, did not succeed in marrying the woman to circumventing the rules.
Hospital officials noticed the couple spoke no common language and had wed only very recently. The government-run hospital refused the transplant despite the foreigner's claim the donor was indeed his wife and that the donation was voluntary.
"Clearly, it was not a donation. It was actually an organ sale," Esperanza Cabral, Social Welfare Secretary, told a news conference Monday, adding that the case was refused two months ago but no charges had been filed against either party.
Officials offered no details about the man's identity or why he needed a transplant.
Because he had, you know, kidney failure?
Holmes! How do you do it?
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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A five-legged puppy was saved from life in a Coney Island freak show thanks to a kindhearted Southerner who paid $4,000 for the pooch.
Allyson Siegel, 45, of Charlotte, N.C., outbid a Brooklyn freak show operator to buy the pup because she couldn't bear the thought of the Chihuahua-terrier mix ending up at the sideshow that featured disfigured animals, the Charlotte Observer reported.
Sideshow owner John Strong, who heard about the puppy through a friend, had paid Owensby $1,000 as a deposit on a $3,000 agreement so he could add the pup to his "Freaks of Nature" show. "I told him it was an amazing animal show with freaks and oddities," Strong told the New York Daily News. "I told him the puppy was very rare, but someone offered more money."
Otherwise healthy, the puppy was born in a litter of six at Calvin Owensby's Chihuahua Diamond about six weeks ago. Owensby, an electrician unemployed since December, said he needed the money. "[Precious] wasn't a freak, she was just a dog born with five legs," Owensby told the News. "My girlfriend decided she didn't want to see her in a freak show."
"Sometimes, you just gotta say, 'OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals' and move on.''
Siegel changed the puppy's name from Precious to Lilly and plans to spend an additional $2,000 to have the extra appendage removed. Surgery is set in two weeks. The fifth leg, which trips Lilly as she tries to walk, hangs limply between the puppy's two back legs. "I called Calvin and I said, 'I understand this is about money,' and I just said, 'How much?'" Siegel told the New York Daily News. "She's beautiful, she's not a freak, she's a normal little puppy dog and she should be just like all the others."
Following the surgery, Siegel -- who already has six cats -- plans to give Lilly to her sister in Charlotte.
Strong, who got his deposit back, said he would have given Lilly a good life. Though he's disappointed, he said, "Sometimes, you just gotta say, 'OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals' and move on.''
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 11:37 ||
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That big, oily black blob floating in the Arctic north of Alaska? Perfectly natural, say scientists.
"We got the results back from the lab today," Ed Meggert of the state Department of Environmental Conservation told the Anchorage Daily News late last week. "It was marine algae."
No one in the area whether biologist, Inuit hunter or oil worker had ever seen anything like the strange stuff, which moved slowly through the Chukchi Sea last week between the towns of Barrow and Wainwright. It stank, trapped sea birds in its gooey mass and, perhaps most alarmingly, was pretty hairy....
Okay, Rantburgers, everybody sing along--follow the bouncing blob:
Beware of the Blob!
It creeps
and leaps
and glides
and slides
across the floor
right through
the door
and all around the wall
a splotch
a blotch
Be careful of the Blob!
Posted by: Mike ||
07/21/2009 17:47 ||
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California's Channel Islands Hold Evidence Of Clovis-age Comets
A 17-member team has found what may be the smoking gun of a much-debated proposal that a cosmic impact about 12,900 years ago ripped through North America and drove multiple species into extinction. In a paper appearing online ahead of regular publication in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Oregon archaeologist Douglas J. Kennett and colleagues from nine institutions and three private research companies report the presence of shock-synthesized hexagonal diamonds in 12,900-year-old sediments on the Northern Channel Islands off the southern California coast.
These tiny diamonds and diamond clusters were buried deeply below four meters of sediment. They date to the end of Clovis - a Paleoindian culture long thought to be North America's first human inhabitants. The nano-sized diamonds were pulled from Arlington Canyon on the island of Santa Rosa that had once been joined with three other Northern Channel Islands in a landmass known as Santarosae.
The diamonds were found in association with soot, which forms in extremely hot fires, and they suggest associated regional wildfires, based on nearby environmental records.
Such soot and diamonds are rare in the geological record. They were found in sediment dating to massive asteroid impacts 65 million years ago in a layer widely known as the K-T Boundary. The thin layer of iridium-and-quartz-rich sediment dates to the transition of the Cretaceous and Tertiary periods, which mark the end of the Mesozoic Era and the beginning of the Cenozoic Era.
"The type of diamond we have found - Lonsdaleite - is a shock-synthesized mineral defined by its hexagonal crystalline structure. It forms under very high temperatures and pressures consistent with a cosmic impact," Kennett said. "These diamonds have only been found thus far in meteorites and impact craters on Earth and appear to be the strongest indicator yet of a significant cosmic impact [during Clovis]."
The age of this event also matches the extinction of the pygmy mammoth on the Northern Channel Islands, as well as numerous other North American mammals, including the horse, which Europeans later reintroduced. In all, an estimated 35 mammal and 19 bird genera became extinct near the end of the Pleistocene with some of them occurring very close in time to the proposed cosmic impact, first reported in October 2007 in PNAS.
In the Jan. 2, 2009, issue of the journal Science, a team led by Kennett reported the discovery of billions of nanometer-sized diamonds concentrated in sediments - weighing from about 10 to 2,700 parts per billion - in six North American locations.
"This site, this layer with hexagonal diamonds, is also associated with other types of diamonds and with dramatic environmental changes and wildfires," said James Kennett, paleoceanographer and professor emeritus in the Department of Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
"There was a major event 12,900 years ago," he said. "It is hard to explain this assemblage of materials without a cosmic impact event and associated extensive wildfires. This hypothesis fits with the abrupt cooling of the atmosphere as shown in the record of ocean drilling of the Santa Barbara Channel. The cooling resulted when dust from the high-pressure, high-temperature, multiple impacts was lofted into the atmosphere, causing a dramatic drop in solar radiation."
The hexagonal diamonds from Arlington Canyon were analyzed at the UO's Lorry I. Lokey Laboratories, a world-class nanotechnology facility built deep in bedrock to allow for sensitive microscopy and other high-tech analyses of materials. The analyses were done in collaboration with FEI, a Hillsboro, Ore., company that distributes the high-resolution Titan microscope used to characterize the hexagonal diamonds in this study.
Transmission electron microscopy and scanning electron microscopes were used in the extensive analyses of the sediment that contained clusters of Lonsdaleite ranging in size from 20 to 1,800 nanometers. These diamonds were inside or attached to carbon particles found in the sediments.
These findings are inconsistent with the alternative and already hotly debated theory that overhunting by Clovis people led to the rapid extinction of large mammals at the end of the ice age, the research team argues in the PNAS paper. An alternative theory has held that climate change was to blame for these mass extinctions.
The cosmic-event theory suggests that rapid climate change at this time was possibly triggered by a series of small and widely dispersed comet strikes across much of North America.
The National Science Foundation provided primary funding for the research.
#1
Meh. I'm not sold. There's too much sentiment against the idea of noble savages driving large numbers of mammals into extinction to *not* inspire an awful lot of thumbs on the scale 'gainst the "injuns done kilt 'em oft" hypothesis. And this Clovis impact seems awfully sharp-targeted, in that it kilt off a bunch of herbivores but not the big mean predators which lived off the herbivores. In other words, if this strike or strikes was ruinous enough to kill off the native North American horse, why didn't it also kill off the grizzly or wolf? Or, for that matter, the people?
This all just reeks of "let's dig around until we find something, and make a lot of analogies & bury them under with technobabble about impact diamonds to make up for the lack of a serious impact crater we can offer".
Posted by: Mitch H. ||
07/21/2009 21:14 Comments ||
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#2
ION FREEREPUBLIC > GIANT CHINESE DUSTBALL CIRCLING THE EARTH.
Also, ISRAEL FORUM > INDIA TELLS DEAR HILLARY CLINTON: SORRY, WE WILL NOT CAP CARBON EMISSIONS.
With 3,000 camels on its Dubai farm, the company sells chocolates through its farm-attached store as well as in luxury hotels and private airlines. It plans to launch an online shopping facility within a month.
"We aim to be the Godiva of the Middle East," said Martin Van Almsick, its general manager. "The plan is to be in one mall in each UAE city."
All chocolates are produced without preservatives or chemical additives with a range of locally popular spices, nuts and honey, the company says.
Camels' milk is seen as healthier than cows' milk, containing five times more vitamin C, less fat, less lactose and more insulin, making it a good option for diabetics and the lactose intolerant, according to Mr Van Almsick.
Posted by: Frozen Al ||
07/21/2009 15:31 ||
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#1
I'll add this to to my list of foods I have no desire to sample, right up there with Kopi Luwak.
Jupiter has apparently been smacked again by a rogue object hurtling through space, new images from amateur astronomers and NASA reveal.
A giant scar-like blemish has appeared in the clouds near Jupiter's south polar region, which NASA observed in infrared after receiving a tip from an amateur skywatcher in Australia. The likely impact appears to have occurred exactly 15 years after the remnants of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 bombarded the planet in 1994 in an event that was widely predicted and scrutinized as it happened.
The latest impact was not predicted, and it was caught by chance.
"We were extremely lucky to be seeing Jupiter at exactly the right time, the right hour, the right side of Jupiter to witness the event," said Glenn Orton, a scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., in a statement. "We couldn't have planned it better."
Orton and his colleagues used JPL's Infrared Telescope Facility atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii to collect evidence of the impact. The initial call came from Anthony Wesley of Murrumbateman, Australia, who told NASA he noticed a new dark "scar" suddenly appear on Jupiter early Friday between 6 a.m. and 12 p.m. EDT (1000 and 1600 GMT).
[Al Arabiya Latest] General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who ousted Mauritania's first democratically elected leader in a coup last year, won the desert nation's presidential election in the first round, the government said late Sunday.
Abdel Aziz won 52.6 percent of the vote, Interior Minister Mohamed Ould Rzeizim said, hours after the main opposition candidates rejected the poll as a sham.
Rzeizim said there had been no formal complaints, removing the need for a run off, and Abdel Aziz declared himself president of all Mauritanians. But the result must still be confirmed by Mauritania's Constitutional Court. "This is a victory against poverty and ignorance ... those who say there was fraud should come forward with concrete proof," said Abdel Aziz, who also vowed to tackle terrorism in a country that has seen sporadic attacks by al-Qaeda.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Police have arrested five suspects in the United Arab Emirates over attempts to withdraw billions of dollars from the country's central bank using forged documents, the state news agency WAM reported Sunday.
The five suspects allegedly tried to withdraw AED154 billion ($42 billion) over a period of 39 days, Brigadier Maktoum Al-Sharifi, director of the criminal investigation department in Abu Dhabi, the leading emirate of the UAE federation, WAM reported.
The suspects, one of whom was the branch manager of a bank in the UAE, produced forged documents claiming that the UAE Central Bank owed AED 52 billion ($15 billion). But the Central Bank notified the police and the three were arrested.
The second attempt came 39 days later and involved two other suspects, a tourist and a resident investor, who produced a new set of forged documents of family inheritance claiming the Central Bank owed them a total of AED 101 billion ($27 billion).
Police said both attempts were masterminded by a sixth suspect known as A.F.K who lives in a neighboring country.
Oman? Yemen? Bahrain? Kuwait? Saoodi-controlled Arabia? I'm forgetting one, I'm sure of it ...
Dubai, one of the seven emirates and the Gulf's trade and tourism hub, launched an anti-corruption campaign last year, arresting some business and political figures.
The UAE, one of the world's top oil exporters, has been hit by the global financial downturn. But Abu Dhabi, where most of the country's oil is located, has fared better than Dubai, where the once booming property sector has slowed sharply.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
No one in their right mind rocks up to a bank and asks to withdraw $150 billion.
A Saudi princess who got pregnant during an affair with a British man has been granted asylum in the UK after she claimed she could face death penalty if she returned home, a newspaper reported on Monday. A British court granted refugee status to the young woman, who is married to a member of the Saudi royal family, after she told the judge her adultery made her liable to death by stoning under the Sharia law in Saudi Arabia, The Independent said.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Look on the bright side - with a few more years' worth of immigration they'll be able to convict her in Britain too.
MANAGUA (AFP) - Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega announced Sunday, on the 30th anniversary of the leftist Sandinista revolution he led, that he would seek a referendum to change the constitution to allow him to seek reelection. Following in the footsteps of elected regional allies, Ortega told thousands of supporters here that he would seek a referendum to let "the people say if they want to reward or punish" their leaders with reelection.
Following the Chavez model to a T ...
His close leftist allies who have had rules changed enabling them to remain in power include presidents Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. In the last month President Manuel Zelaya in neighboring Honduras was ousted in a coup by his own military after seeking similar action.
Wait for the U.S. in mid-2015 ...
Ortega was leading celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the 1979 Sandinista uprising that removed a decades-long dictatorship when he made the announcement. The revolution sparked years of unrest and its leaders were eventually reelected to power in 2006.
Nicaragua's constitution, amended since 1995, allows only one presidential term at a time and two non-consecutive terms.
The government, however, will "not continue to deny the (people's) right to choose (their leaders)," insisted Ortega before thousands of flag-waving supporters at Managua's John Paul II Plaza de la Fe (Faith Square). "The right to reelection should be up to everyone; and the people should be the one to decide whom to reward or punish" with their votes for a possible reelection in the November 2011 polls, the president stressed.
Classic. The constitution recognizes the danger of a strongman. Ortega is just the one the constitution was designed to stop.
Surrounded by regional leftist allies -- with top representatives attending from Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia -- the rally, even before Ortega announced his intention to seek a referendum, was already a venue to express solidarity with Zelaya. Nicaragua's government has thrown its support decisively behind Zelaya in the dispute, even going so far as denying interim Honduran leader Roberto Micheletti use of its airspace to travel to the talks.
Ortega, now 63, led the revolution as a young man and now has a less radical tone but remains a committed leftist -- backed by support from Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. Caracas last year alone gave this impoverished mountainous Central American nation some 457 million dollars.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
And he knows he's gonna win, because he's already counted the ballots!
The European Union has suspended more than $90m (63m euros; £54m) in aid to Honduras in the wake of a coup there. It follows the failure of talks to resolve the country's political crisis.
President Manuel Zelaya was ousted from office by troops on 28 June over his plans to hold a referendum on changing the constitution. The current interim government, led by Roberto Micheletti, has rejected a proposal that Mr Zelaya return as leader of a unity government.
The EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said in a statement: "In view of the circumstances, I have taken the difficult decision to suspend all budgetary support payments. I strongly appeal to both parties to refrain from any action or declaration which might further escalate tension, thus making the prospect of a solution more difficult."
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
So it's not just "anti-Zionism" & "anti-neocolonialism"---they hate Freedom and Law everywhere.
#2
Life's so much easier when all you have to do is wear the right colored shirt and show up at party rallies.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 8:20 Comments ||
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What would you expect of people who think they can [and do] ignore plebiscites that say the unwashed masses don't want to be part of the governed class under Eurocrats? [keep doing it over till you vote the way the enlightened classes expect]. I understand the solidarity with a wannabe dictator like Zelaya.
As the economic crisis deepens and fears of crime spread, not only are more Russians buying guns of various kinds including pistols and gas guns -- but many of them are buying more than one, trends that are prompting some Duma deputies to consider repealing existing restrictions on the purchase of hunting rifles for self-defense.
But as could be expected on the basis of the experience of other countries, many of these guns are not used for self-defense but rather in settling personal scores or, the Russian interior ministry says, in the kind of ethnic and group conflicts that have already left many dead and could claim more lives as gun ownership spreads.
According to an article in todays Novyye izvestiya, besides the unemployed, activists of certain organizations are arming themselves. The paper gives as an example, the Movement against Illegal Immigration (DPNI) whose members have been directed to obtain for themselves not only licenses for guns but guns themselves.
Over the past decade, the paper reports, ownership of guns of all types has increased approximately five percent a year, but in the course of the last crisis year, the number of people owning them has gone up by seven percent and the number owning self-defense weapons has risen more than 10 percent annually.
Residents of the capital, the paper continues, are arming themselves more actively than others, with the number of guns for self-defense as opposed to hunting and sports shooting officially sold in Moscow from July 2008 through June 2009 amounting to 37,000, with the possibility that the actual number was still higher.
Novyye izvestiya says that there are already 213,000 people in the Russian capital with officially registered self-defense weapons approximately one gun for every 60 residents and there are 1.2 million owners of such guns in Russia as a whole, a figure that it just under one percent of the countrys total population.
Owning and carrying weapons of self-defense, Vladimir Yermochenkov, the deputy head of the Moscow militias licensing administration told the paper, is becoming generally accepted. And Vladimir Zhikharev, the head of the interior ministrys department for weapons control, added that people do not intend to stop buying guns for this purpose.
The main reason Russians are doing so, polls suggest, is fear of criminals. The interior ministry reports that crime has been falling, but, as Novyye izvestiya points out, citizens do not believe the assurances of the law enforcement agencies and not infrequently purchase guns with their last rubles.
Purchasing such guns can be expensive, with a gas or trauma pistol costing a minimum of 20,000 rubles (600 US dollars), and the licensing procedure prolonged, often lasting two months or more. Electro-shock pistols are cheaper (1500 to 4000 rubles or 50 to 130 US dollars), and gas canisters are even less expensive but experts say they work only as a defense against dogs.
Any adult can acquire a license for such guns unless he or she has been convicted of a crime, is an alcoholic or drug addict, or has been judged psychologically ill. Such licenses are good for five years and must be carried at all times, the paper notes. Losing a self-defense weapon entails a fine of 2500 rubles (80 US dollars), far less than the cost of a pistol.
As part of the licensing procedure, applicants are required to take an examination on their knowledge about the rules of using guns. The interior ministry has proposed that in addition, they be required to take special courses in order to reduce the speed with which citizens are arming themselves.
But if Russian law enforcement agencies are moving in one direction on the regulation and control of weapons, at least some members of the Duma are moving in another, with several deputies having proposed a bill that would allow some Russians to acquire more heavy-gage weaponry for self-defense.
Admittedly, Novyye izvestiya says, not all Russians would be given that right: Only those who had served in the force structures not less than five years, an idea that the Russian government says it opposes and one that certainly will do little or nothing to reassure ordinary Russians about their safety.
#1
"The interior ministry has proposed that in addition, they be required to take special courses 'in order to reduce the speed with which citizens are arming themselves.'"
So the Russian gummint is run by Democrats too?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
07/21/2009 19:47 Comments ||
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[Al Arabiya Latest] Two retired Turkish generals went on trial Monday in a group of 56 people accused of plotting in a rightwing organization to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government.
The trial coincided with the 35th anniversary of the Turkish invasion of Greek Cypriot towns and villages, many of whom commemorated the invasion that left many ethnic divisions with wailing sirens.
Among the 56 people who went on trial on Monday at Silivri prison near Istanbul are two four-star generals, for whom prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment.
Sener Eruygur, a former commander of the paramilitary gendarmerie forces, and retired general Hursit Tolon, a former army commander are the two four star generals and the latest in a batch of 86 others already being tried since October for planning to carry out a campaign of bombings and assassinations, and force the army to step in against Erdogan's government.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/21/2009 00:00 ||
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WASHINGTON -- The argument over whether spending $1.75 billion on seven additional F-22 jets makes good economic sense is coming to a head between Congress and the Obama administration.
Lawmakers from states that would benefit from manufacturing the jets want the money pumped into the aerospace and defense industries. Defense Secretary Robert Gates counters that the money would be better spent on ensuring that the military has the tools it needs to fight the unconventional wars taking place in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An amendment to strip the F-22 money from a $680 billion defense spending policy bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate on Tuesday. President Barack Obama has threatened what would be the first veto of his presidency if the F-22 money remains in the bill presented for his signature.
"What I have not heard is substantive reason for adding more aircraft in terms of our strategic needs," Gates said Monday while reiterating his opposition to the purchase.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., and the top Republican on the panel, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, sponsored the amendment to take out the F-22 money. But there's strong resistance, particularly from senators representing states where the plane and its parts are made.
According to Lockheed Martin Corp., the main contractor, 25,000 people are directly employed in building the plane, and another 70,000 have indirect links, particularly in Georgia, Texas and California. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., a supporter of the program, said there are 1,000 suppliers in 44 states.
Dodd, speaking on the Senate floor last week, questioned why Congress should approve $65 billion to prop up the automobile industry but can't spend $1.75 billion to support an important segment of the aerospace industry.
Supporters of the program also argued that it would undermine the nation's security to terminate the F-22 when China and Russia are both developing fighter jets that can compete with it.
The Senate took up the F-22 issue last week, but then put it aside to deal with two amendments having nothing to do with defense. On Thursday senators voted to adopt a major expansion to hate crimes law, and on Monday they turned to a proposal allowing people with concealed weapons permits in one state to carry their weapons into other states. A vote on the gun law was expected Wednesday.
Its sponsor, South Dakota Republican John Thune, said the permit holder must respect the concealed weapon laws of the state he is visiting, such as bans on firearms in certain locations. There would be no right to carry concealed firearms in the two states that do not allow the practice, Wisconsin and Illinois. The measure is backed by the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups.
Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., a gun control advocate, charged that it was a "reckless amendment that would force states from coast to coast to comply with the weakest concealed carry laws." For example, he said, a state that requires training for those seeking permits would have to allow people from states that don't require training to enter with hidden weapons.
The House last month approved its version of the defense bill with a $369 million down payment for 12 additional F-22 fighters. The House Appropriations Committee last week endorsed that spending in drawing up its Pentagon budget for next year. It also approved $534 million for an alternate engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, another program that Obama, backed by the Pentagon, says is unwarranted and would subject the entire bill to a veto.
The defense bill authorizes $550 billion for defense programs and $130 billion for military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and other anti-terrorist operations.
Not exactly. Presently 48 states (IIRC) allow concealed carry but no CC state is required to honor a CC permit from any other CC state though some voluntarily choose to do so.
The amendment would require all states that allow CC by private citizens to honor CC permits from all other states that allow CC. It's solid law though I'd argue redundant since the Full Faith & Credit Clause of the US Constitution should force every state (CC or not) to honor a CC permit issued elsewhere. Of course the courts are a bit behind my opinion on this one. ;)
The Supreme Court on Tuesday frowned upon the imposition of mother-tongue as a compulsory medium of instruction in educational institutions and warned it could go against the interests of students struggling in the competitive world dominated by English language.
A three-judge bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justices P. Sathasivam and B.S. Chauhan observed if states try to impose their mother-tongue on unwilling students, it could turn counter-productive and make them ineligible even for clerical jobs.
"They are unable to get even clerical posts. It is easy to say things. How do we survive in the world?," the bench told the Karnataka government for its decision to impose Kannada language as a compulsory medium of instruction for Class I to IV.
The apex court rejected the argument of senior counsel P.P. Rao appearing for the state who, quoting experts, claimed mother-tongue was essential to be imparted at an impressionable age for overall intellectual and cultural development of the child.
"Parents are ready to pay Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 for getting their children admitted in English medium schools. This is the real state of affairs. They do not want to send them to schools of their mother-tongue. It should be left to the parents," the bench observed.
The apex court said if mother-tongue is sought to be imposed on the students, it would only further aggravate the problems of those studying in villages.
"Otherwise, students from villages can't compete with their peers in urban areas," the bench observed.
The apex court made the remarks while refusing to stay a Karnataka High Court judgment that had quashed an order passed by the state government making it mandatory for all schools to have Kannada language alone as a medium of instruction in all government and private schools from Class I to IV.
The high court also had asked the state to grant permission to those institutions that wanted to start new schools with English as a medium of instruction.
Karnataka government, instead of complying with the directions, filed a special leave petition in the apex court and declined to grant permission to new schools unless they complied with the condition for making Kannada as a medium of instruction.
It took the argument that the directions passed by the high court was not binding on it since the SLP was pending in the apex court.
However, some of the aggrieved institutions filed contempt petitions in the high court which initiated contempt proceedings against the state government which, in turn, moved the apex court for staying the same.
The apex court, while ordering that the contempt proceedings would remain "stayed", however, asked the state not to take any action against the schools which had applied for recognition.
Posted by: john frum ||
07/21/2009 17:46 ||
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#2
ION INDIA, PAKISTANI DEFENCE EFORUM > PAKISTAN: INDIA FUELING TENSIONS [read, INSURGENCY] in BALUCHISTAN. Suppor for local Baluch/Balochi autonomy-sovereignty and all that armed jazz.
* SAME > INDIAN MAOISTS THREATEN TO KILL PM SINGH AND SONIA GANDHI [Maoists raise the bar]. Artic also indics that INDIA'S MAOISTS ARE ACTIVE IN APPROXI 1/3 OF INDIA'S 630 DISTRICTS, i.e. roughly 200-plus, AND DESIRE MORE???
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- With no legal challenges expected, Ohio prepared today to execute a man who took part in a 1992 Christmas holiday killing spree that left six people dead and two wounded. Attorneys for Marvallous Keene, 36, said they planned no late appeals for a series of slayings that included an 18-year-old mother gunned down at a pay phone. Keene regrets the crimes and doesn't want to die but opted not to fight the death sentence, public defender Rachel Troutman said. 
An Australian man burst into flames after a policeman hit him on the bridge of the nose with his Taser. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] A Saudi man who married a Filipino woman was hoping to exchange a kidney in addition to wedding vows, Philippine officials said Monday. But his wedding bliss was cut short as authorities caught on to the scam and blocked the planned transplant.
With 3,000 camels on its Dubai farm, the company sells chocolates through its farm-attached store as well as in luxury hotels and private airlines. It plans to launch an online shopping facility within a month. 
Jupiter has apparently been smacked again by a rogue object hurtling through space, new images from amateur astronomers and NASA reveal. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] General Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, who ousted Mauritania's first democratically elected leader in a coup last year, won the desert nation's presidential election in the first round, the government said late Sunday.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Police have arrested five suspects in the United Arab Emirates over attempts to withdraw billions of dollars from the country's central bank using forged documents, the state news agency WAM reported Sunday.
MANAGUA (AFP) - Nicaragua's President Daniel Ortega announced Sunday, on the 30th anniversary of the leftist Sandinista revolution he led, that he would seek a referendum to change the constitution to allow him to seek reelection. Following in the footsteps of elected regional allies, Ortega told thousands of supporters here that he would seek a referendum to let "the people say if they want to reward or punish" their leaders with reelection.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Two retired Turkish generals went on trial Monday in a group of 56 people accused of plotting in a rightwing organization to overthrow Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan's government. 
WASHINGTON -- The argument over whether spending $1.75 billion on seven additional F-22 jets makes good economic sense is coming to a head between Congress and the Obama administration. 
Supporters of the program also argued that it would undermine the nation's security to terminate the F-22 when China and Russia are both developing fighter jets that can compete with it. 
