from seattle times: Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul brought his anti-war, anti-tax message to Seattle on Thursday, delighting a youthful throng of devotees with calls to "obey the Constitution" and drastically pare back the power of the federal government.
In a speech at a Lake Union boathouse and later before hundreds of supporters on the University of Washington campus, the Texas congressman traced many of America's problems to what he characterized as a flawed monetary policy controlled by a wealthy and secretive elite.
fema covered up cancer risks to katrina victims from salon: Last summer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency was publicly shamed when lawmakers revealed the agency, to avoid lawsuits, put off testing trailers used to house Hurricane Katrina victims for formaldehyde, a toxic chemical. Now, documents obtained by Salon show that FEMA also pressured scientists to water down a report on the health risks of formaldehyde. FEMA officials instructed the scientists to omit any references to cancer or other long-term health risks from exposure to formaldehyde in FEMA trailers.
hawaii lawmaker calls for aspartame ban
from khon2: Many popular foods and drinks would be pulled from store shelves under a bill in the state Legislature to ban the sweetener aspartame. While the Food and Drug Administration and many doctors say it's safe, a growing contingent of consumers thinks the additive is dangerous if not deadly. One lawmaker is bringing the debate to the Capitol.
tennessee news report about fight against fluoride
cdc: adults skipping protective vaccinations from ap: Vaccines aren't just for kids, but far too few grown-ups are rolling up their sleeves, disappointed federal health officials reported Wednesday. The numbers of newly vaccinated are surprisingly low, considering how much public attention a trio of new shots - which protect against shingles, whooping cough and cervical cancer - received in recent years.
coal producer pays $20m pollution fine from ap: The country's fourth-largest coal producer, Massey Energy Co., will pay a $20 million fine as part of a settlement with the government over allegations it routinely polluted hundreds of streams and waterways in West Virginia and Kentucky with sediment-filled waste water and coal slurry.
from raw story: The Clinton campaign may be stopping President Bill from taking on Senator Barack Obama in his public appearances on his wife's behalf. But that doesn't mean he can't go on the rampage against '9/11 hecklers.'
"9/11 was not an inside job, it was an Osama Bin Laden job," President Clinton proclaimed in the campaign stop.
"We look like idiots, folks, denying that the people who murdered our fellow citizens didn't when they are continuing to murder people all around the world," he added. "So we heard from you, you go away." This video is from ABC's World News Webcast, broadcast January 31, 2008.
mailings to scientology sites probed from los angeles times: Mailings of a suspicious white powder to 10 Church of Scientology addresses prompted the evacuation of dozens of people and the closure of a major thoroughfare Wednesday as hazmat teams were called to examine the packages... The incidents appeared to be part of a hoax. Preliminary tests showed the powder to be cornstarch and wheat germ. The Church of Scientology had no comment about the incidents. The mailings come after a cyber attack last week on the Church's website. Authorities said there was no evidence that Wednesday's mailings were connected to the hacking.
711chan.org admin calls for end of attacks on scientology from wikinews: Administrators for 711chan.org, one of the websites responsible for starting Project Chanology, a "raid" or attack against the Church of Scientology and their website, slowed down their "attack". In an exclusive interview with Wikinews, an administrator of 711chan states that they will "probably stay away from the CoS [Church of Scientology]." "We're probably just going to stay away from the CoS raid. It was poorly managed. We could've brought down a lot more if we weren't just a bunch of unorganized brats," said 'Plasma', an administrator on 711chan.org.
bart simpson gives $10m to scientology from page six: Longtime Scientologist Nancy Cartwright - best known as the voice of Bart Simpson - last year gave the church $10 million to help spread the word of founder L. Ron Hubbard into other galaxies. It was all part of Scientology’s Global Salvage effort, which aims to “de-aberrate” Earth - meaning to rid mankind of psychology ills and other “aberrant” behavior.
scientology buys historic building in port elizabeth from herald online: One of the historic landmarks in Port Elizabeth's central business district – the United Building on the corner of St Mary‘s Terrace and Govan Mbeki Avenue – is soon to have a R6-million facelift, adding a new look to the inner city. The building has been bought by the Church of Scientology, which wants to turn it into its regional headquarters, for about R8-million.
danny elfman sues scientology for copyright infringement from holy juan: By now, you probably have seen the slightly creepy, nine minute video of Tom Cruise discussing his infinite love of the Church of Scientology with the theme from Mission: Impossible looping every eight seconds in the background. As the video spread across the internet, the distraught Church of Scientology sent out several cease and desist letters claiming copyright infringement. Apparently this has backfired. Not only has the mainstream media picked up the story and shown the video in its own endless loop, but Danny Elfman, who composed the music to Mission: Impossible, is also claiming copyright infringement for his music being used without his permission. That horrible, looping in the background of the video is copyrighted and Mr. Elfman has stated through his lawyer that permission to use the music was never granted. Mr. Elfman’s lawyer filed suit in the Los Angeles County Superior Court...
anonymous hackers shoot for scientologists, hit dutch school kids from threat level: Scientology hiredProlexic, a company that specializes in protecting websites fromDDOS attacks... One of the moderators on 711chan.org thought he had learned from a friend what the real server's address was on Friday... But within minutes, users began complaining the software was crashing and others analyzed the traffic and found that the IP address didn't belong to the Church of Scientology, reporting that that the software was actually targeting a school in the Netherlands.
from ap: It's the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials. Airport control towers are disrupted in Philadelphia and Chicago. Overseas, a mysterious liquid is found on London's subway. And that's just for starters.
Those incidents were among dozens of detailed, mock disasters confronting officials rapid-fire in the U.S. government's biggest-ever "Cyber Storm" war game, according to hundreds of pages of heavily censored files obtained by The Associated Press. The Homeland Security Department ran the exercise to test the nation's hacker defenses, with help from the State Department, Pentagon, Justice Department, CIA, National Security Agency and others...
Imagined villains include hackers, bloggers and even reporters. After mock electronic attacks overwhelmed computers at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, an unspecified "major news network" airing reports about the attackers refused to reveal its sources to the government. Other simulated reporters were duped into spreading "believable but misleading" information that worsened fallout by confusing the public and financial markets, according to the government's files.
The AP obtained the Cyber Storm internal records nearly two years after it requested them under the Freedom of Information Act. The government censored most of the 328 pages it turned over, marked "For Official Use Only," (2.32mb PDF) citing rules preventing the disclosure of sensitive information.
However, the government's files hint at a tantalizing mystery: In the middle of the war game, someone quietly attacked the very computers used to conduct the exercise. Perplexed organizers traced the incident to overzealous players and sent everyone an urgent e-mail marked "IMPORTANT!" reminding them not to probe or attack the game computers.
"Any time you get a group of [information technology] experts together, there's always a desire, 'Let's show them what we can do,'" said George Foresman, a former senior Homeland Security official who oversaw Cyber Storm. "Whether its intent was embarrassment or a prank, we had to temper the enthusiasm of the players."
ron paul: gop rivals are 'so-called conservatives' from asd: “A real fiscal conservative always votes for balanced budgets, lower spending and would never, ever raise taxes. Every one of my opponents fails that litmus test. These so-called conservatives are misleading the American people about their records,” said Dr. Paul.
video: interview with romney pushes talk show host mark larsen to support ron paul from ozlo: Mark Larsen of 1040 AM WWBA interviewed Mitt Romney on the morning of 1/29/2008. The sneers and chuckles from slippery Romney pushed him over the edge and drove him to support the only real candidate - Ron Paul.
why zionists should not support ron paul from israel e news: Ron Paul's supporters have been quite adept at repackaging their anti-semitic candidate's negatives as positives, have tried to spin Ron Paul's repeated criticisms of Israel and foreign aid to Israel as a positive. Some Zionists have fallen for that line and are considering supporting Ron Paul in order to end American intervention in Israel.
the maniacal media factory and dr. no from blogcritics: It is one thing to either disagree with or fear a Presidential Candidate's position on the issues of the day, but quite another thing to use the "news" to unfairly and untruthfully characterize his positions, not to mention overtly ignore him in such an unseemly fashion.
ron paul says no to mandatory immunization from huffington post: Ron Paul's libertarian ideology is dramatically revealed when you get him started on topics such as the War on Drugs, the FDA and forced immunization that draw on his background in medicine. Paul, a ten-term member of Congress who's hoping to pick up the Republican nomination for president, feels strongly that the federal government, in most cases, shouldn't be telling Americans what they can and cannot put into their bodies.
from whitman times/daily dose of terror: What if foreign terrorists linked to al-Qaeda besieged several area schools and took students hostage? That’s a frightening “what if?” question that attracted hundreds of police officers, firefighters and medics from dozens of communities and agencies to Whitman's Holt School on a recent Saturday morning.
To test local law enforcement’s response to such a scenario, Officers Bob Stokinger and Andrew Stafford, who are members of the Old Colony Special Operations Team, suggested holding the drill at the former school building on Essex Street...
The vacant Holt School, once used as the town's high school, is set to be demolished early this year. The town is looking into building a new police station on the former school site.
The drill simulated an incident in which terrorists simultaneously besieged a school in Whitman and five other Massachusetts schools, she said.
“They were threatening to blow up the school unless they talked to someone in charge and their demands were met,” May-Stafford said...
Adding to the magnitude of the scenario, live ammunition, smoke grenades, and flash-bang grenades were used in the final assault on the school...
“The jobs of both police and fire departments are always broadening and we must train for every possible scenario. It is unfortunate that our departments must train for situations like we trained for on Saturday (Jan. 19), but in this time of world-wide as well as domestic terrorism we must train for all situations.”
from danger room: Two years ago ex-Lockheed Martin engineer Michael DeKort, in a bout of frustration, posted a video on Youtube accusing his former employer of cutting corners on the electronics suites for 123-foot patrol boats for the Coast Guard - allegations that have since been proved by leaked Coast Guard documents. Today DeKort continues to hound the defense industry and the Coast Guard for wasting billions of dollars on the Coast Guard's badly-managed, poorly executed "Deepwater" family of ships and aircraft.
from hollywood reporter: Remember Clean Flix? It's the Utah-based DVD business that was a favorite of conservative politicians and an anathema to the studios because it edited feature films to remove or alter content deemed inappropriate.
The company's activities sparked a number of lawsuits, including one huge one filed by 16 prominent directors, including Steven Spielberg and Robert Redford, and entertainment studios such as Disney, Sony, Universal, Paramount and Twentieth Century Fox. In 2006, Hollywood won its copyright claims against Clean Flix and the company recently shut down, supposedly due to the industry's legal force.
Well, cover your eyes for this story. Clean Flix founder Daniel Thompson has just been arrested and is accused of having sex with underaged girls. And according to the Salt Lake Tribune, the "booking documents state Thompson told the 14-year-olds that his film sanitizing business was a cover for a pornography studio." Police found a "large quantity" of porno movies inside the business, "along with a keg of beer, painkillers and two cameras hooked up to a television." Thompson has been released after posting $30,000 bail.
We wish we could edit that story out of our heads.
update: ralph nader enters US election race from press tv: US political activist Ralph Nader sets aside memories of previous losses and bows into the presidential race as independent candidate. Nader, who has come under fire from Democrats for costing them the 2000 election, said he was planning a new bid for the 2008 elections.
Frustrated by the leading democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, Nader told AFP that he has decided to "jump into the fray." The 73-year-old hopeful said he is appearing in order to tackle the injustice and deprivation that the candidates are ignoring.
Democrats once pinned the blame on Nader for losing the 2000 election, but Al Gore was edged out in Florida by George W. Bush in a vote count. Nader rejects the "spoiler" title.
As for Nader, the legendary consumer advocate has never been subtle about his disdain for the two major parties, seeing them as relatively inseparable and equally in thrall to the corporate interests that Nader has been fighting since the 1960s (which, coincidentally, was the driving theme of Edwards' campaign)...
But if Nader jumps in and Michael Bloomberg jumps in, we could find ourselves reliving history. Say, 1912, when Teddy Roosevelt ran on the Bull Moose ticket and derailed the reelection hopes of fellow Republican William Howard Taft who lost to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, with Socialist Eugene V. Debs bleeding off votes on the left.
from press tv: Democrat John Edwards gives up his bid to become the next US president, after coming in third in all the nominating contests so far. Edwards is expected to make his formal announcement in New Orleans later today.
An advisor in Edwards' campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the former North Carolina senator will not immediately endorse either of his rivals, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, the Associated Press reported. Edwards waged a spirited top-tier campaign as a champion for the middle class in the Democratic nomination race, which is now a two-person competition.
Patients suffering from chronic pain, loss of appetite and other ailments that marijuana is said to alleviate can get their pot with a dose of convenience at the Herbal Nutrition Center, where a large machine will dole out the drug around the clock.
"Convenient access, lower prices, safety, anonymity," inventor and owner Vincent Mehdizadeh said, extolling the benefits of the machine.
giuliani's final act is tragic collapse from ny daily news: For Rudy Giuliani, it was a death as dramatic and self-inflicted as Verdi's "Otello," his favorite Italian opera, in which the beaten general plunges a dagger into his own heart at the end... "You don't always win, but you should always try to do it right and we did," he told his supporters - one of whom shouted out, "Don't be sorry!" But it wasn't supposed to be this way. His dramatic fall - from the pedestal afforded America's Mayor, basking in the glow of his 9/11 celebrity, to the shadows of presidential has-been - came quickly.
giuliani to quit, will back mccain from monsters & critics: Former mayor of New York and presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani is set to quit the race for the Republican nomination and endorse John McCain, press reports say. Meanwhile Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut has said he will not consider running as Mr McCain's running mate.
giuliani has all but disappeared from toronto star: Today, Rudolph Giuliani is yesterday's news. Both for what didn't happen and what did. "America's Mayor," a designation he's exploited since 9/11, is now po-faced as a pol, the victim of hubris and ruinous strategy, obsolete as presidential supplicant.
hey paul folks, giuliani pays tribute to your guy from los angeles times: But Tuesday night as he was preparing to bow out, as first reported on the Ticket Monday noon, Giuliani gave a gracious concession speech in which he listed all of his Republican competitors and called them good men. He added Ron Paul on the end, smiling, and said after all the debates he'd go back to his hotel room and watch television and how every time, according to the texted tallies, Ron Paul won all the debates, much, he did not say, thanks to the determined voting of his many busy-fingered followers. "Ron Paul won every debate!" Giuliani said.
