In the U.S., the “one-drop rule” — also known as hypodescent — dates to a 1662 Virginia law on the treatment of mixed-race individuals. The legal notion of hypodescent has been upheld as recently as 1985, when a Louisiana court ruled that a woman with a black great-great-great-great-grandmother could not identify herself as “white” on her passport.
If you have not loved you have not lived.
The Geminids are a different story. The first Geminid meteors suddenly appeared in the mid-1800's. Those early showers were unimpressive, boasting a mere 10-20 shooting stars per hour. Since then, however, the Geminids have grown in intensity until today it is one of the most spectacular annual showers. In 1996, the last time the Geminids appeared in a dark moon-less sky, observers saw as many as 110 per hour. Sky-watchers with clear skies should see at least that many this year if the Geminids continue to intensify. After the discovery of the Geminids in 1862 astronomers began searching for the parent comet. Most meteor showers result from debris that that boils off a comet's nucleus when it passes close to the sun. This debris orbits the sun along with the comet, forming a thin, elongated stream of meteoroids that become shooting stars when they hit Earth's atmosphere. Years of searching proved to no avail until finally, in 1983, NASA's Infrared Astronomical Satellite discovered a curious object moving in the same orbit as the Geminid meteoroid stream. The orbital match was so good that it had to be the source of the debris, but to the surprise of many it wasn't a comet. The source of the Geminids was apparently a rocky asteroid.
3200 Phaethon, as the asteroid is now known, is in a highly elliptical 1.4 year orbit that brings it within 0.15 AU (astronomical units) of the Sun. It made its closest recent approach to Earth in December 1997 when it passed within 0.31 AU of our planet.
Monarch butterflies seem to “treat” their unborn offspring for a parasitic infection by laying the eggs on a plant that helps fight the illness, a new study suggests.
Infected butterflies “prefer to lay their eggs on plants that will make their offspring less sick, suggesting that monarchs have evolved the ability to medicate their offspring,” said Jaap de Roode, an evolutionary biologist with Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., who led the research.
Innocence is No Defence
In fact, being innocent is one of the biggest handicaps to the defence of an innocent person, because their ignorance of the system and how it works is used against them, time and time again.
For many people, being questioned in relation to a serious crime is not, initially, something to be afraid of. They proceed on the basis of the old maxim "I've done nothing wrong, so I have nothing to fear." What these people don't realise is that a police investigation does not, necessarily, exist to clear the innocent and find the guilty. It exists to allow the police access to enough information to secure a conviction. There is a big difference.
If the police have decided, often quite arbitrarily, on a "suspect," they will systematically gather information which backs up their decision, even if that person is innocent. Information, for example, pointing to other suspects, will either be ignored or discounted as "irrelevant" because it does not fit with the picture the police are trying to piece together. Indeed, in many cases, the "investigation" becomes an exercise in finding "evidence" to back up only one line of "suspicion", and other areas are simply not investigated at all.
Innocent people try very hard to help the police by giving them as much information, however small or seemingly innocuous, believing that nothing they say can in any way incriminate them, because they haven't done anything wrong in the first place. They will backtrack, remembering small detailsÅ . "I went from the house to Joe's, and then onto Billy's at eight o'clock." Later, they might say, "No, wait, I've just remembered, after Joe's, I had to come back here because I'd left my phone at home."
The first sense of unease may begin when the police start to question this "change" in the story. Why did you tell us you went straight to Billy's? Why didn't you tell us you'd gone home? Was anybody in your house to confirm that you went there? The only answer an innocent person can give is "I forgot," but the police won't accept that. Still trying to explain themselves, an innocent person may then go on to try to provide explanations as to why they forgot, digging themselves into a deeper hole from the police perspective.
Still, though, people believe that the system will, sooner or later, highlight their innocence, and even if they have become a little uneasy about the line the police questioning is taking, they are still fairly confident that someone, somewhere will realise the police are on the wrong track, and it's all just a big mistake.
Then they are arrested. At this stage, the shock and bewilderment are overwhelming. Many wrongfully convicted people can't wait for the trial. The police, they reason, have got it all totally wrong, and a trial will show it. When the evidence comes out in court, it will become clear that the police constructed a case against the wrong person.
What they don't realise is that the information the police have gathered may very well "substantiate" the prosecution claims. That being the case, questions will not be asked in court about other possible areas of investigation, or other possible suspects, because neither of those have anything to do with the case being tried in court.
Only when the foreman of the jury stands up and says "Guilty" do these people realise that no-one is coming to rescue them. No-one cares that the wrong person is in the dock, or that an innocent person has just been convicted. All that matters is that a conviction has been secured.
Innocence is no defence. In fact, being innocent is one of the biggest handicaps to the defence of an innocent person, because their ignorance of the system and how it works is used against them, time and time again.
by Sandra Lean - June 2008
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Under Arrest?
We all know and recognise the famous "caution" -
"Joe Bloggs, you are being arrested for the murder of Jack Black. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used in evidence against you."
You'd think, then, that anyone who has been arrested would know they had been arrested, and would have the right not to answer any questions until they have a solicitor present.
Well, if the caution was delivered exactly as it's shown here, that would be the case. But there are two significant problems with this.
Firstly, it's rarely delivered as clearly, or as obviously. Often the caution is hidden within a whole bunch of "information" fired at the "suspect" (who probably has no idea he is a suspect) by the arresting officer or officers.
Secondly, many people who are taken into a police station for questioning "under caution" have not actually been arrested.
In Scotland, there are two circumstances in which a person will be cautioned, held and questioned without actually having been arrested.
The first is as a "Voluntary Attender." Most people believe, at this stage, they are witnesses, helping the police with their enquiries. What they do not understand is that they are already a suspect, and anything they say may be used against them.
Consider the following, from a real life case:
The police officer first explains why they are in the police station, saying they need more information about the deceased from her "immediate friends" and a clearer understanding of the witness's "observations at that time." It's all very innocuous, with no hint that the "witness" is in any way "under suspicion." The officer then asks the witness to complete and sign a declaration of "Voluntary Attendance" which says "I agree to remain with police for interview regardingÅ Å " and then "I understand I may terminate this interview at any time."
This might seem self evident - once there's nothing more you can tell the police, the interview will naturally come to an endÅ . won't it? But then, after all this softly, softly introduction, and after the form is signed, the officer states, "OK, in fairnessÅ it's a procedural thingÅ I have to caution you that you're not bound to answer any of these questions we put to you today, but if you do, your answers will be recorded, may be noted, and may be used in evidence."
Helping the police with their enquiries as a witness, you may believe the fact that it's just a "procedural thing" because the officer didn't say "may be used in evidence against you." There would be no point in obtaining information if it wasn't going to be used in evidence - it's the omission of the critical words "against you" that keeps the person believing he only a witness.
Weeks later comes "Detention under Section 14." Here the "witness" is told he is being detained for questioning. He is told "OK, you're going to be asked questions about the murder of X, you're not bound to answer these but if you do, your answers will be recorded and may be used in evidence." Once again, the words "against you" are omitted. This time, though, he is not free to terminate the interview - he must stay with the police for the full duration allowed by Section 14, after which the police must either arrest him, or set him free. But this is not explained to him by the police. He is still not told he is a suspect, and worse, he is not entitled to have a solicitor present, either as a Voluntary Attender or under Section 14.
He asks if he has been arrested and is told "No." He asks if he is being accused of the murder and is told "No."
Put yourself in that position. You haven't been arrested, you haven't heard the proper version of "the caution," you're not being accused of anything and you haven't been told that your answers may be used in evidence against you. What would you think had happened to you?
If you ever find yourself in a police station, helping police with their enquiries and are told that your evidence may be used "in evidence," beware. Your witness status has just turned to suspect status, and you won't even know it.
by Sandra Lean - July 2008
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Former Jurors Can Speak!
It is illegal in this country to approach anyone who has served on a jury and ask them questions about how they came to their verdict. It is not, however, illegal for people who have served on a jury to talk about their experiences after the event.
Given that so many jury decisions seem to fly in the face of the evidence before them, the only way these decisions can be studied, and the underlying reasons for such strange decisions identified, is if people voluntarily discuss their experiences.
Any study of the causes of wrongful convictions must, of necessity, remain incomplete when researchers are forbidden to approach jurors, and also when police officers, people working in the CPS, etc, are unable to discuss their concerns for fear of losing their jobs, or breaking rules of "confidentiality."
Any researcher, myself included, can accept information which is voluntarily offered, and can, and will, assure anonymity for those who are willing to offer such information.Without it, we can never truly understand how our criminal justice system gets it so wrong, so often.
Also, our current system means there is no support or assistance for people who have served on a jury which has wrongfully convicted someone, when that conviction is overturned, or for people who have worked on an obviously flawed case. It's not hard to imagine how people must feel, discovering that they were duped into believing they were hearing "all of the evidence," or that they assisted in locking up a completely innocent person, yet all we can do is imagine, because, once again, we have no means of asking directly. Only if people in that position willingly and voluntarily discuss their feelings do we have any real way of knowing.
by Sandra Lean - August 2008
End of Bulletin
Source for this message:
http://www.miscarriageofjustice.org/
Contact sandra@miscarriageofjustice.org
The phenomenon we commonly refer to as chance is merely a result of a lack of knowledge. If we knew the location, speed and other characteristics of all of the particles in the universe with absolute certainty, according to classical physics we could predict everything, including dice throws and lottery results.
By the same token, computer-generated random numbers “simulate randomness, but with the help of suitable tests and a sufficient volume of data, a pattern can usually be identified,” said researcher Christoph Marquardt of the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Light in Erlangen, Germany.
1) Choose to get up before you go to sleep. You’re not very good at making decisions when you’ve just woken up. This is not the time to be making decisions about whether or not you should stay in bed! If you want to be a consistently early riser, try making your decision to rise at a specific time before you go to sleep the night before.
2.)Have a plan for your extra time. Let’s say you’ve actually made it out of bed 2 hours before you normally would. If you don’t have something planned to do with your extra time, you risk falling for the temptation of a “morning nap” that wipes out all the work you put into getting up.
3.)Make rising early a social activity. Wouldn’t it be great to join an early breakfast club, running group, or play chess in the park at 5 AM?
4.)Don’t use an alarm that makes you angry. If we’re all wired differently, why do we all insist on torturing ourselves with the same sort of alarm each morning? Experiment a bit and see what works best for you. Light, sound, smells, temperature, or even some contraption that dumps water on you might be more pleasant than your old alarm clock.
5.)Get your blood flowing right after waking. It doesn’t take much to get your blood flowing and chase the sleep from your head. Just pick something you don’t mind doing and go through the motions until your heart rate is up. Jumping rope, push-ups, crunches, or a few minutes of yoga are typically enough to do the trick.
Confronting attack by antibiotics, some bacteria help each other out—and unfortunately for us, they’re better off for it, researchers have found.
But the new study, to appear in the Sept. 2 issue of the research journal Nature, indicates there are also population-wide changes in the bacterial community at work. Faced with an onslaught of antibiotics, resistant Escherichichia coli microbes produce—at an energy cost to themselves—a protein molecule that seeps into the communal broth and triggers a slew of protective mechanisms in their non-resistant neighbors.
One of the most dangerous places in society is the hospital. Medical errors include misdiagnoses, bad prescriptions, prescriptions of medications that should not be combined, unnecessary surgery, unnecessary or badly administered treatments including chemotherapy, radiation treatment, and corrective surgeries.
Meanwhile no mainstream economic theory makes any mention of the fact that money itself is created wholesale in a fractional reserve banking system owned by secret private interests given a licence to fabricate and deliver debt that must be paid back (with interest) from the real economy, thereby continuously concentrating ownership and power over all local and regional economies.
As well, in a UPI interview on September 26, 2001, two weeks after the 9-11 attacks, Gul stated, in reply to the question who did Black Sept. 11?, “Mossad and its accomplices. The US spends $40 billion a year on its 11 intelligence agencies. That’s $400 billion in 10 years. Yet the Bush Administration says it was taken by surprise. I don’t believe it. Within 10 minutes of the second twin tower being hit in the World Trade Center CNN said Osama bin Laden had done it. That was a planned piece of disinformation by the real perpetrators...”
For the first time, it appears that more than half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems, a study shows.
1. The cluster bomb, in this case a CBU-87, is dropped from a plane and can fly about nine miles before releasing its load of about 200 bomblets.
2. The canister starts to spin and opens at an altitude between 1,000m and 100m, spraying the bomblets across a wide area.
3. Each bomblet is the size of a soft drink can and contains hundreds of metal pieces. When it explodes, it can cause deadly injuries up to 25m away.
The Charity Commission’s fourth Economic Survey of Charities demonstrates the continuing effect of the recession on charities in England and Wales. The key findings of the survey of 1,010 charities, carried out by MVA Consultancy, include:
59% of charities report having been affected by the downturn, up from 38% in September 2008 and 56% in September 2009. Of those affected, 62% have experienced a drop in income.
Larger* charities have been hit hardest, with 79% feeling the impact of the downturn and a third seeing an increase in demand for services. These charities are also more likely to predict a decrease in income than small and medium charities, with 28% anticipating a drop in funds compared with 14% of small and 16% of medium charities.
This disparity is also reflected when looking at the steps that charities have taken in response to the downturn, with 79% of the largest charities putting measures in place, compared to 31% of small charities.
Yet, 84% of all charities said they were optimistic about the outlook for the next year. This figure has increased from 69% expressing optimism six months ago.
Almost half of charities (47%) expect the recovery of the charity sector to lag behind that of the rest of the economy.
International, health and social service charities have been most affected by the downturn. 74%, 74% and 65% respectively of these types of charity report having felt the impact, compared with 59% of all charities.
19% of charities have seen an increase in demand for services in the last six months. This compares with 17% reporting an increase in demand in September.
45% of the charities surveyed fundraise from the public; this is the most important source of income for almost a quarter of all charities (23%).
Investment income continues to be the most affected, with 62% of charities with investments having seen a decrease in the past six months.
"False flag terrorism" is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:"False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension."
The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship in its own navy. Because the enemy's flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a "false flag" attack.
..........Here is Kelley Eidem's short (but anything but sweet!) recipe.
(1) Freshly grate one habaneros pepper each day and put it on bread (persons unable to tolerate peppers can substitute freshly grated ginger (never from a jar).
(2) Freshly grate two cloves of garlic each day and put them on bread (since the "potent active ingredients from the peppers and the garlic disperse quickly... they must be grated each day, and eaten immediately". The bread used by Eidem was high quality Ezekiel sprouted bread [possibly found in the freezer section of health food stores]
(3) Take 1-2 tablespoons of emulsified cod liver oil [or in certain cases evening primrose oil, see further details below] each day.
(4) Smother the grated garlic and habaneros peppers with real butter and eat it. No margarines of any type.
The use of both hot peppers (which contain capsaicin) and garlic as well as ginger is actually backed up by "mainstream" scientific research as all of these have been found to have anti-cancer activity, to wit for instance the article "How spicy foods can kill cancers" found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6244715.stm.
Low-priced soft toilet paper comes largely from recycled office paper, but the rise of e-mail and paperless communications means used white office paper “is getting increasingly hard to find,” wrote Melody Voith, senior editor of the publication, in the article.
The shortage of used office paper as well as newsprint is affecting other sectors of the paper market as well, the article adds. A shortage of recycled paper can be made up with paper from freshly chopped trees, but this is costlier and tougher on the environment.
Paper from “virgin” trees is the highest quality and contains long fibers from the cell walls of plants. As paper is recycled one or more times, the fibers are progressively broken down and weakened, and the paper quality diminishes.
The UK Government is seeking to rid itself of a billion pounds worth of unwanted swine flu vaccine -- because the “deadly” H1N1 epidemic never materialized. Major drug companies may have pushed the World Health Organization (WHO) to warn that swine flu could be a worldwide 'pandemic' killing tens of millions.
But even more shocking is the fact that the scandalous waste of public money, and the wild overreaction which gave rise to it, were both entirely predictable. It has long been clear that governments all over the world, led by the WHO, were in the grip of a hysterical panic over swine flu.
In the early days of the panic, the BBC Today program brought in a WHO 'expert' to predict that 40 percent of Britons would catch swine flu, while citing another unnamed 'expert' as predicting that up to 1.2 million could die.
Yet eight months later it was being reported by scientists that swine flue is only a tenth as virulent as ordinary flu, and only one 100th as virulent as that Spanish flu at the end of World War I.
In other words, swine flu -- just like the bird flu which a senior WHO official said in 2005 was going to kill 150 million people worldwide (the true death toll turned out to be barely 200) -- has predictably turned out to be yet another example of that all-too-familiar and very dangerous disease of our time, the 'scare phenomenon.'
These scares consistently follow an identifiable pattern.
I have a story to tell you. You will think that I is stupid n ole.
I red the bible n i thout...... how can one persen b three?
Mo i thuot aboot it mo.... sory i fogot wat i b saing.
If this episode is to be examined seriously, the question must be asked: What would have happened had Northwest Flight 253 been destroyed?
There is no question but that such a catastrophe would have had immense repercussions both internationally and within the United States. It would have seriously destabilized the Obama administration, politically strengthened the most extreme right-wing sections of the ruling class, and cleared the way for an even more massive expansion of military-intelligence operations overseas and a drastic curtailing of democratic rights at home.
Even the failed attempt has touched off a firestorm of criticism by the Republican right of the Obama administration’s supposed laxity in the face of terrorism.
This found its distilled expression in a statement released Wednesday by former Vice President Dick Cheney.
“We are at war, and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” said Cheney. The former vice president and de facto leader of the “war on terror” in the Bush administration condemned Obama for proposing to close down the Guantánamo prison camp and try some of those held there in normal federal courts. He also denounced the US president for jettisoning the words “war on terror” in describing Washington’s continuing wars abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home.
The statements from Cheney—who was at the center of a secret government for eight years, has the closest ties to the military-intelligence apparatus, and is a ruthless advocate of torture, assassinations and a sweeping curtailment of democratic rights—shed light on the political calculations that may have encouraged elements within the CIA and related agencies to keep the “dots” separated and, thereby, facilitate a terrorist action.
Increasingly, the failure to identify Abdulmutallab and alert other government agencies to the threat revealed in Nigeria and Yemen has been attributed to the CIA. How many of the key figures in this agency had close connections to Cheney?
The key to this event may well lie in bitter struggles over policy taking place within the ruling establishment and the state. Despite all that Obama has done to continue the policies of the Bush administration, both in terms of aggressive war abroad and the buildup of police state powers at home, there are elements who want to go much further.
