That's nothing new for kids.
First breakfast and now lunch:
"Some school districts dropping out of healthy lunch program" by Carolyn Thompson | Associated Press, September 01, 2013
BUFFALO — After just one year, some schools around the country are dropping out of the healthier, new federal lunch program, complaining that so many students turned up their noses at meals packed with whole grains, fruits, and vegetables that the cafeterias were losing money.
Spoiled god-damn kids when this government loves you so much that it lies to you all the time and sends you off to war to die with a ball-and-chain of student loan debt attached!
But they want to make sure you are eating healthy! I suppose that's why they slimed you.
Federal officials say they don’t have exact numbers but have seen isolated reports of schools cutting ties with the $11 billion National School Lunch Program, which reimburses schools for meals served and gives them access to lower-priced food.
Districts that rejected the program say the reimbursement was not enough to offset losses from students who began avoiding the lunch line and bringing food from home or, in some cases, going hungry.
Oh, my goodness, can you imagine BRINGING a lunch from home!
Look at that stoopid Glee lunch box! Talk about bullying.
‘‘Some of the stuff we had to offer, they wouldn’t eat,’’ said Catlin, Ill., Superintendent Gary Lewis, whose district saw a 10 to 12 percent drop in lunch sales, resulting in a loss of $30,000 last year. ‘‘So you sit there and watch the kids, and you know they’re hungry at the end of the day, and that led to some behavior and some lack of attentiveness.’’
Near Albany, Voorheesville Superintendent Teresa Thayer Snyder said the program didn’t even make it through the school year after students repeatedly complained about the small portions and apples and pears went from the tray to the trash untouched.
They are just getting you used to the coming rations, kids.
And that last part is nothing but waste. Why would the school waste food?
Districts that leave the program are free to develop their own guidelines. Voorheesville’s chef began serving such dishes as salad topped with flank steak and crumbled cheese, pasta with chicken and mushrooms, and a panini with chicken, red peppers, and cheese.
In Catlin, soups and fish sticks will return to the menu this year, and the hamburger lunch will come with yogurt and a banana — not one or the other, like last year.
Dr. Janey Thornton, deputy undersecretary for the US Department of Agriculture’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services, said she is still optimistic about the program’s long-term prospects.
‘‘Many of these children have never seen or tasted some of the fruits and vegetables that are being served before, and it takes a while to adapt and learn,’’ she said.
That is so condescending it makes one sicker than the food. The government thinks we all stoopid, and given the state of the public schools....
Also see: Spoonfeeding America's Children
Bad enough they feed them agenda-pushing lies.
--more--"
You might just want to skip lunch, kids.
Maybe you should just get a snack instead:
"US plans new restrictions on the snacks schools sell" by Mary Clare Jalonick and Connie Cass | Associated Press, June 28, 2013
WASHINGTON — The days of eschewing healthier school lunches and filling up on cookies from the vending machine are numbered.
Maybe. Maybe not.
For the first time, the Agriculture Department is telling schools what sorts of snacks they can sell....
I don't think even the Nazis did that, and the big fella was a vegetarian. He didn't say no bratwurst, did he?
‘‘Parents will no longer have to worry that their kids are using their lunch money to buy junk food and junk drinks at school,’’ said Margo Wootan, a nutrition lobbyist for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who pushed for the new rules.
No, now they will just worry if they even ate.
Related: Skipping Lunch Today
But the school wants to make sure you eat right.
That does not mean schools will be limited to doling out broccoli and brussels sprouts.
Snacks that still make the grade include granola bars, low-fat tortilla chips, fruit cups, and 100 percent fruit juice. And high school students can buy diet versions of soda, sports drinks, and iced tea.
Banned are some beloved school standbys, such as doughy pretzels, cookies, and those little ice cream cups with their own spoons.
The bottom line, Wootan said, is that the food must have nutritional value.
That's going to affect the bottom line.
‘‘There has to be some food in the food,’’ she said.
Still, 17-year-old Vanessa Herrera of Rockaway, N.J., is partial to the Cheez-Its and sugar-laden vitamin water in her school’s vending machine.
Granola bars and bags of peanuts?
*****************
The snack rules don’t take effect until the 2014-15 school year.
That's when the new machines will be installed.
--more--"
Good thing there is always Mickey D's, kids -- as long as it's quick.
Time for me to go have my lunch.
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Sunday Globe Special: Vietnamese Bird's Nest
It's not a hair-do, either....
"Vietnamese hope to meet demand for edible bird’s nests; Delicacy sought by Asia’s growing affluent group" by John Boudreau | Bloomberg News, September 01, 2013
HANOI — In Vietnam, where the average income is $151 a month, Mai Vu and husband David Nguyen routinely spend $250 on edible bird’s nest.
The couple account for the soaring appetite among Vietnam’s young and upwardly mobile population for one of the world’s most expensive foods, congealed saliva of Asian swiftlets.
It's spit?
The country’s expanding middle class hungers for healthy food. Bird’s nest is believed to ward off diseases and feeds a growing demand for luxury products.
Like rhino horns, elephant tusks, and tiger balls?
‘‘It’s one of the most valuable products one can give to those who have everything,’’ said Vu, 28, who works at an international bank in Hanoi and was shopping for bird’s nest for her toddler daughter at a new, upscale mall. ‘‘You want to impress people.’’
I didn't know "middle class" meant you had everything, but Vietnam must be different.
The demand for bird’s nest, once reserved for emperors and their courts, has created a global market with annual revenue as high as $5 billion that caters to Asia’s growing wealthy consumers, said Tok Teng Sai, president of the Federation of Malaysian Bird’s Nest Merchants Association. Vietnam is racing to catch up with Malaysia and Indonesia, the region’s top producers of the delicacy, and cash in on the demand.
I didn't know middle class was wealthy, but I guess we are talking Asia. Good thing no one is living in poverty there.
‘‘People have a lot of money now, especially people in China,’’ Tok said.
Known as the “caviar of the East,” edible nests sell for about $500 to $700 a pound wholesale and about $1,500 a pound retail, according to Le Danh Hoang, founder of Ho Chi Minh City-based NutriNest.
It really is a new$paper of, by, and for the $elected elite. So middle class eating caviar now, huh? How gross and disgusting.
‘‘A lot of people are making a ton of money,’’ said Loke Yeu Loong, group managing director of Malaysia’s Swiftlet Eco Park, which produces an array of bird’s nest-based products, from coffee to skincare.
And a lot of people are not, or are losing a lot of money after being thieved out of it by banks.
Of cour$e, that is why this story is in my Sunday Globe.
Indonesia produces about 70 percent of the world’s bird’s nest, followed by Malaysia with 20 percent, Tok said.
In Vietnam, demand for bird’s nest is spawning a cottage industry that has attracted investment from VinaCapital Group, the nation’s largest fund manager, and helping mint new millionaires.
Wow, I feel like DiCaprio having dinner on the Titanic. No bird's nest for me, thanks, never much cared for it.
Provincial governments are also jumping in to set up bird’s nest production zones to spur jobs and exports.
We all serve the elite lords do us serf.
In mid-2011, VinaCapital invested $7.5 million in a bird house in central Vietnam with about 100,000 birds, one of the nation’s largest, said Dang Pham Minh Loan, VinaCapital’s deputy managing director. The firm recently increased its stake to 65 percent in the company, Yen Viet Joint Stock Co., she said.
No concern about bird flu?
The edible nests are as much as 70 percent protein, one reason aristocracy has consumed the delicacy for thousands of years, according to Massimo Marcone, an associate professor of food science at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
And now it is trickling down to you middle-class Asians.
--more--"
None for me, thanks.
Next thing you know they will be telling you how great bugs are for you.
"Vietnamese hope to meet demand for edible bird’s nests; Delicacy sought by Asia’s growing affluent group" by John Boudreau | Bloomberg News, September 01, 2013
HANOI — In Vietnam, where the average income is $151 a month, Mai Vu and husband David Nguyen routinely spend $250 on edible bird’s nest.
The couple account for the soaring appetite among Vietnam’s young and upwardly mobile population for one of the world’s most expensive foods, congealed saliva of Asian swiftlets.
It's spit?
The country’s expanding middle class hungers for healthy food. Bird’s nest is believed to ward off diseases and feeds a growing demand for luxury products.
Like rhino horns, elephant tusks, and tiger balls?
‘‘It’s one of the most valuable products one can give to those who have everything,’’ said Vu, 28, who works at an international bank in Hanoi and was shopping for bird’s nest for her toddler daughter at a new, upscale mall. ‘‘You want to impress people.’’
I didn't know "middle class" meant you had everything, but Vietnam must be different.
The demand for bird’s nest, once reserved for emperors and their courts, has created a global market with annual revenue as high as $5 billion that caters to Asia’s growing wealthy consumers, said Tok Teng Sai, president of the Federation of Malaysian Bird’s Nest Merchants Association. Vietnam is racing to catch up with Malaysia and Indonesia, the region’s top producers of the delicacy, and cash in on the demand.
I didn't know middle class was wealthy, but I guess we are talking Asia. Good thing no one is living in poverty there.
‘‘People have a lot of money now, especially people in China,’’ Tok said.
Known as the “caviar of the East,” edible nests sell for about $500 to $700 a pound wholesale and about $1,500 a pound retail, according to Le Danh Hoang, founder of Ho Chi Minh City-based NutriNest.
It really is a new$paper of, by, and for the $elected elite. So middle class eating caviar now, huh? How gross and disgusting.
‘‘A lot of people are making a ton of money,’’ said Loke Yeu Loong, group managing director of Malaysia’s Swiftlet Eco Park, which produces an array of bird’s nest-based products, from coffee to skincare.
And a lot of people are not, or are losing a lot of money after being thieved out of it by banks.
Of cour$e, that is why this story is in my Sunday Globe.
Indonesia produces about 70 percent of the world’s bird’s nest, followed by Malaysia with 20 percent, Tok said.
In Vietnam, demand for bird’s nest is spawning a cottage industry that has attracted investment from VinaCapital Group, the nation’s largest fund manager, and helping mint new millionaires.
Wow, I feel like DiCaprio having dinner on the Titanic. No bird's nest for me, thanks, never much cared for it.
Provincial governments are also jumping in to set up bird’s nest production zones to spur jobs and exports.
We all serve the elite lords do us serf.
In mid-2011, VinaCapital invested $7.5 million in a bird house in central Vietnam with about 100,000 birds, one of the nation’s largest, said Dang Pham Minh Loan, VinaCapital’s deputy managing director. The firm recently increased its stake to 65 percent in the company, Yen Viet Joint Stock Co., she said.
No concern about bird flu?
The edible nests are as much as 70 percent protein, one reason aristocracy has consumed the delicacy for thousands of years, according to Massimo Marcone, an associate professor of food science at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.
And now it is trickling down to you middle-class Asians.
--more--"
None for me, thanks.
Next thing you know they will be telling you how great bugs are for you.
Sunday Globe Special: Diner Discriminates Against Dogs
"Diner owner apologizes for turning away veteran, service dog" by Kathy McCabe | Globe Staff, August 31, 2013
OXFORD — A disabled Iraq War veteran who was not allowed to enter Big I’s diner with his service dog accepted an apology from the embattled restaurant owner at a veterans rally that drew about 500 people Saturday.
“I stand before you embarrassed, ashamed,” said Big I’s owner, Russell Ireland, 51, addressing the crowd that gathered on a humid, overcast morning at the Greenbriar Recreation Area, just yards from his Main Street diner. “I ask for your forgiveness.”
The apology was a high point in a 90-minute rally organized by the state’s chapter of the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, a national nonprofit. Ireland had first apologized last Wednesday for the Aug. 24 incident that drew national attention.
But Saturday was the first time he apologized directly to James Glaser, 41, the Air Force veteran who, along with his service dog, Jack, was turned away from Ireland’s 34-seat diner last weekend. As Ireland and Glaser shook hands and briefly embraced, Jack, a long-haired Jack Russell terrier, stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on Ireland’s hip.
“I just want to thank you for the apology,” said Glaser, who said he retired from active duty in 2011 and has post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the rally, Ireland invited Glaser and his wife to visit Big I’s sometime for a complimentary meal.
The truce followed an emotional week during which Ireland said he received obscene phone calls and death threats. After not being allowed into Big I’s, Glaser contacted Oxford police, saying there had been an Americans with Disabilities Act violation.
The snub outraged disability advocates and veterans, who created a Facebook page calling for a public boycott of Big I’s. But organizers at Saturday’s rally canceled the boycott and said they will remake the page into one that educates people about PTSD. Several at the rally spoke about the importance of increased awareness.
“The incident is a symptom of the larger problem of a lack of awareness and understanding on the issue of PTSD and some of the treatments available, like service dogs,” said Chris Aker, the Massachusetts representative to the motorcycle association.
The rally began with a motorcycle ride, which drew about 300 veterans who roared past Big I’s at about 8:40 a.m., American flags flying from some bikes.
Related: Hell's Angels Banned in New Hampshire
The ride caused barely a stir in the diner, where a half-dozen patrons sat at the counter.
“I understand he’s a veteran,” said Sandy DeLisle, 61, of Oxford, who sat eating corned beef hash. “But [Ireland] still has a responsibility to protect other patrons from a dog prancing around.”
Or leaving something on the floor.
A Dudley veteran questioned the protests of the past week. Franny Mik said he’d eaten at the restaurant five times since the boycott was declared.
“I know he’s a veteran,” said Mik, 72, who served in the Navy and wore a gray T-shirt with “Navy” printed on the front. “But how could people do this to [Ireland’s] restaurant?”
Ireland later learned Jack had been certified as a service dog on Aug. 9, and his apology last Wednesday opened the door for Saturday’s rally.
“That’s when I said, ‘OK, we’ve got to make this about education. . . . That’s my ultimate goal now,” Glaser told the crowd Saturday.
Ireland conceded he had not known much about PTSD or service dogs until Glaser and Jack showed up. “I was very uneducated about post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “I now realize how important the love of the animals are” to those who suffer from the disorder.
Glaser said he hopes he and Ireland can work together to educate business owners about the value of service dogs.
“This isn’t about me,” Glaser said. “This was about an ADA law that was not known.”
After the rally, Paula Jean of Marlborough headed to Big I’s with her service dog, Cooper the Motorcycle Dog . As Jean ate a western omelette, Cooper sat quietly in the seat beside her.
“I didn’t expect any problems,” said Jean, who said the rally changed her mind about Big I’s. “The food is good here.”
--more--"
What started it all:
"Controversy over booting veteran’s service dog splits Oxford" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, August 30, 2013
OXFORD — When James Glaser and his Jack Russell terrier padded into Big I’s diner last weekend, a firestorm erupted that has shaken and divided this small town. The Iraq war veteran was greeted with expletives by the owner, Glaser and his service dog were evicted, and police were summoned to the door of the modest Main Street eatery.
“Get that [expletive] dog the hell out of here,” Big I’s owner Russell Ireland yelled at Glaser, according to the police report.
Nearly a week of invective followed, leading to a possible climax on Saturday when hundreds of veterans are expected to descend on this Worcester suburb to heighten awareness about post-traumatic stress syndrome.
To Glaser, the issue is callous disregard for a retired Air Force veteran who uses a service dog to calm his post-traumatic stress disorder. But to many others in Oxford, the vilification of Big I’s owner Russell Ireland, who has since apologized, is a symptom of how a petty dispute can become inflamed and distorted.
The incident has generated national coverage, and more than 30,000 people approved of a call on Facebook to boycott Ireland’s business.
“It’s the talk of the town; you can’t go anywhere without hearing about it,” said Gordon Cook, 50, as he worked the grill at Carl’s Oxford Diner about a mile away. “The guy screwed up. He apologized. Let’s get on with it.”
Although Ireland concedes he made a mistake, moving forward might not be so simple. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination is investigating, and outraged veterans in Oxford are predicting that Ireland’s business will suffer.
“I think the damage is done,” said Don Bilodeau, 63, a Navy veteran who sat outside the American Legion Post in Oxford this week. “These are the guys who fight wars, and they’re still fighting the wars, and you’re going to treat someone like that? It’s crazy.”
Ireland, 51, said he lashed out at Glaser Saturday morning because he did not believe that the terrier, named Jack, was a trained service dog. Jack had eaten off a regular plate that Glaser placed on the floor during a previous visit, Ireland said, and customers had been allowed to pet him.
Those actions, the owner continued, did not match the behavior of other service dogs and owners who had eaten at Big I’s. Besides, Ireland said shortly after the incident, “how much emotional support do you need when you’re eating breakfast?”
According to federal law, however, service dogs can accompany people with disabilities in all areas of a facility where the public is normally allowed. The dogs must be tethered and under control.
Glaser, 41, who retired as a master sergeant after 20 years in the Air Force, did not respond to repeated phone messages from the Globe. But he told police that Ireland was not interested in seeing Jack’s certification as a trained service dog, which the terrier received Aug. 9 from a Massachusetts trainer affiliated with a San Antonio organization called Train a Dog Save a Warrior.
Bart Sherwood, the group’s director, said the organization specializes in service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. When panic or other symptoms begin to emerge, Sherwood said, “the dog will put his paw on the foot of the person, or against his leg, or scratch at him, or jump in his lap to try to get him to pay attention to him.”
The effect is intended to calm a veteran, Sherwood said, who “does not have a missing limb, he doesn’t have any missing fingers, he’s pretty much scar-free. The only wound he has is an invisible wound.”
The 9 a.m. rally Saturday is not intended to be a protest, but rather is an opportunity to educate the public about the needs of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, said Christopher Aker, an Army veteran of Iraq who is Massachusetts representative for the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association.
“We are making every effort not to impact the business in any way, shape, or form,” Aker said after a Wednesday meeting with Police Chief Michael Hassett. “We’re not allied with the boycott.”
Ireland said he has learned from the incident, which led to phone threats to burn down his building, other angry calls, and profanities from passers-by.
“I was ignorant. I didn’t understand the scope of PTSD,” Ireland said. “I have learned how important service dogs are for these people with post-traumatic stress.”
Still, he said, business is suffering, and patrons such as Sharon Milosh, 62, worried that Big I’s might not survive.
“This has been a living nightmare,” Ireland said. “I am an old-fashioned guy, and this seems to be part of the problem. I am not well known for being politically correct.”
Glaser wrote on Facebook that he accepts Ireland’s apology and that he endorses the rally’s emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder education.
Ireland said he plans to be in the diner when the rally’s participants, many of them on motorcycles, pass Big I’s on Saturday morning.
“To me, it started as two guys fighting in the schoolyard, and then it became two countries going to war,” Ireland said with a weary shrug.
But after a week of battle, Glaser will be welcomed if he returns to the restaurant, Ireland said. By then, Big I’s might be equipped with a new, custom accommodation for service dogs like Jack.
“I think,” Ireland said, “that I’m going to buy some paper plates.”
OXFORD — A disabled Iraq War veteran who was not allowed to enter Big I’s diner with his service dog accepted an apology from the embattled restaurant owner at a veterans rally that drew about 500 people Saturday.
“I stand before you embarrassed, ashamed,” said Big I’s owner, Russell Ireland, 51, addressing the crowd that gathered on a humid, overcast morning at the Greenbriar Recreation Area, just yards from his Main Street diner. “I ask for your forgiveness.”
The apology was a high point in a 90-minute rally organized by the state’s chapter of the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, a national nonprofit. Ireland had first apologized last Wednesday for the Aug. 24 incident that drew national attention.
But Saturday was the first time he apologized directly to James Glaser, 41, the Air Force veteran who, along with his service dog, Jack, was turned away from Ireland’s 34-seat diner last weekend. As Ireland and Glaser shook hands and briefly embraced, Jack, a long-haired Jack Russell terrier, stood on his hind legs, placing his front paws on Ireland’s hip.
“I just want to thank you for the apology,” said Glaser, who said he retired from active duty in 2011 and has post-traumatic stress disorder.
After the rally, Ireland invited Glaser and his wife to visit Big I’s sometime for a complimentary meal.
The truce followed an emotional week during which Ireland said he received obscene phone calls and death threats. After not being allowed into Big I’s, Glaser contacted Oxford police, saying there had been an Americans with Disabilities Act violation.
The snub outraged disability advocates and veterans, who created a Facebook page calling for a public boycott of Big I’s. But organizers at Saturday’s rally canceled the boycott and said they will remake the page into one that educates people about PTSD. Several at the rally spoke about the importance of increased awareness.
“The incident is a symptom of the larger problem of a lack of awareness and understanding on the issue of PTSD and some of the treatments available, like service dogs,” said Chris Aker, the Massachusetts representative to the motorcycle association.
The rally began with a motorcycle ride, which drew about 300 veterans who roared past Big I’s at about 8:40 a.m., American flags flying from some bikes.
Related: Hell's Angels Banned in New Hampshire
The ride caused barely a stir in the diner, where a half-dozen patrons sat at the counter.
“I understand he’s a veteran,” said Sandy DeLisle, 61, of Oxford, who sat eating corned beef hash. “But [Ireland] still has a responsibility to protect other patrons from a dog prancing around.”
Or leaving something on the floor.
A Dudley veteran questioned the protests of the past week. Franny Mik said he’d eaten at the restaurant five times since the boycott was declared.
“I know he’s a veteran,” said Mik, 72, who served in the Navy and wore a gray T-shirt with “Navy” printed on the front. “But how could people do this to [Ireland’s] restaurant?”
Ireland later learned Jack had been certified as a service dog on Aug. 9, and his apology last Wednesday opened the door for Saturday’s rally.
“That’s when I said, ‘OK, we’ve got to make this about education. . . . That’s my ultimate goal now,” Glaser told the crowd Saturday.
Ireland conceded he had not known much about PTSD or service dogs until Glaser and Jack showed up. “I was very uneducated about post-traumatic stress disorder,” he said. “I now realize how important the love of the animals are” to those who suffer from the disorder.
Glaser said he hopes he and Ireland can work together to educate business owners about the value of service dogs.
“This isn’t about me,” Glaser said. “This was about an ADA law that was not known.”
After the rally, Paula Jean of Marlborough headed to Big I’s with her service dog, Cooper the Motorcycle Dog . As Jean ate a western omelette, Cooper sat quietly in the seat beside her.
“I didn’t expect any problems,” said Jean, who said the rally changed her mind about Big I’s. “The food is good here.”
--more--"
What started it all:
"Controversy over booting veteran’s service dog splits Oxford" by Brian MacQuarrie | Globe Staff, August 30, 2013
OXFORD — When James Glaser and his Jack Russell terrier padded into Big I’s diner last weekend, a firestorm erupted that has shaken and divided this small town. The Iraq war veteran was greeted with expletives by the owner, Glaser and his service dog were evicted, and police were summoned to the door of the modest Main Street eatery.
“Get that [expletive] dog the hell out of here,” Big I’s owner Russell Ireland yelled at Glaser, according to the police report.
Nearly a week of invective followed, leading to a possible climax on Saturday when hundreds of veterans are expected to descend on this Worcester suburb to heighten awareness about post-traumatic stress syndrome.
To Glaser, the issue is callous disregard for a retired Air Force veteran who uses a service dog to calm his post-traumatic stress disorder. But to many others in Oxford, the vilification of Big I’s owner Russell Ireland, who has since apologized, is a symptom of how a petty dispute can become inflamed and distorted.
The incident has generated national coverage, and more than 30,000 people approved of a call on Facebook to boycott Ireland’s business.
“It’s the talk of the town; you can’t go anywhere without hearing about it,” said Gordon Cook, 50, as he worked the grill at Carl’s Oxford Diner about a mile away. “The guy screwed up. He apologized. Let’s get on with it.”
Although Ireland concedes he made a mistake, moving forward might not be so simple. The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination is investigating, and outraged veterans in Oxford are predicting that Ireland’s business will suffer.
“I think the damage is done,” said Don Bilodeau, 63, a Navy veteran who sat outside the American Legion Post in Oxford this week. “These are the guys who fight wars, and they’re still fighting the wars, and you’re going to treat someone like that? It’s crazy.”
Ireland, 51, said he lashed out at Glaser Saturday morning because he did not believe that the terrier, named Jack, was a trained service dog. Jack had eaten off a regular plate that Glaser placed on the floor during a previous visit, Ireland said, and customers had been allowed to pet him.
Those actions, the owner continued, did not match the behavior of other service dogs and owners who had eaten at Big I’s. Besides, Ireland said shortly after the incident, “how much emotional support do you need when you’re eating breakfast?”
According to federal law, however, service dogs can accompany people with disabilities in all areas of a facility where the public is normally allowed. The dogs must be tethered and under control.
Glaser, 41, who retired as a master sergeant after 20 years in the Air Force, did not respond to repeated phone messages from the Globe. But he told police that Ireland was not interested in seeing Jack’s certification as a trained service dog, which the terrier received Aug. 9 from a Massachusetts trainer affiliated with a San Antonio organization called Train a Dog Save a Warrior.
Bart Sherwood, the group’s director, said the organization specializes in service dogs for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. When panic or other symptoms begin to emerge, Sherwood said, “the dog will put his paw on the foot of the person, or against his leg, or scratch at him, or jump in his lap to try to get him to pay attention to him.”
The effect is intended to calm a veteran, Sherwood said, who “does not have a missing limb, he doesn’t have any missing fingers, he’s pretty much scar-free. The only wound he has is an invisible wound.”
The 9 a.m. rally Saturday is not intended to be a protest, but rather is an opportunity to educate the public about the needs of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder, said Christopher Aker, an Army veteran of Iraq who is Massachusetts representative for the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association.
“We are making every effort not to impact the business in any way, shape, or form,” Aker said after a Wednesday meeting with Police Chief Michael Hassett. “We’re not allied with the boycott.”
Ireland said he has learned from the incident, which led to phone threats to burn down his building, other angry calls, and profanities from passers-by.
“I was ignorant. I didn’t understand the scope of PTSD,” Ireland said. “I have learned how important service dogs are for these people with post-traumatic stress.”
Still, he said, business is suffering, and patrons such as Sharon Milosh, 62, worried that Big I’s might not survive.
“This has been a living nightmare,” Ireland said. “I am an old-fashioned guy, and this seems to be part of the problem. I am not well known for being politically correct.”
Glaser wrote on Facebook that he accepts Ireland’s apology and that he endorses the rally’s emphasis on post-traumatic stress disorder education.
Ireland said he plans to be in the diner when the rally’s participants, many of them on motorcycles, pass Big I’s on Saturday morning.
“To me, it started as two guys fighting in the schoolyard, and then it became two countries going to war,” Ireland said with a weary shrug.
But after a week of battle, Glaser will be welcomed if he returns to the restaurant, Ireland said. By then, Big I’s might be equipped with a new, custom accommodation for service dogs like Jack.
“I think,” Ireland said, “that I’m going to buy some paper plates.”
--more--"
Sunday Globe Special: The Ringing Silence of Drone $urveillance
"Small drones stir privacy concerns in the US; Personal devices can by bought for only $300" by Michael S. Rosenwald | Washington Post, September 01, 2013
WASHINGTON — Kevin Good thought there was an 80 percent chance he could deliver his brother’s wedding rings with a tiny drone.
‘‘The other 20 percent is that it could go crashing into the bride’s mother’s face,’’ the Bethesda cinematographer somewhat jokingly told his brother.
His brother was OK with those odds, so he signed off.
A few weeks ago, sitting in the back row at the ceremony near San Francisco, Good steered the drone to the altar, delivering the payload in front of 100 or so astonished guests. His brother grabbed the rings, then watched as Good buzzed the drone off into the blue sky.
‘‘At the end of the wedding, that was what everyone was talking about,’’ Good said. ‘‘It was pretty awesome.’’
This is the gee-whiz side of drones, a technology typically associated with surprise air assaults on terrorists. Drones designed to do the bidding of ordinary people can be bought online for $300 or less.
They are often no larger than hubcaps, with tiny propellers that buzz the devices hundreds of feet into the air. But these flying machines are much more sophisticated than your average remote-controlled airplane: They can fly autonomously, find locations via GPS, return home with the push of a button, and carry high-definition cameras to record flight.
Besides wedding stunts, personal drones have been used for all kinds of high-minded purposes — helping farmers map their crops, monitoring wildfires in remote areas, locating poachers in Africa. One local drone user is recording his son’s athletic prowess from a bird’s-eye view, for recruiting videos. But not every flier is virtuous.
There are videos on YouTube of people arming drones with paintball guns. In one video — apparently a well-done hoax to promote a new video game — a man appears to fire a machine gun attached to a small drone and steer the device into an abandoned car to blow it up.
Privacy and civil rights activists worry about neighbors spying on each other and law enforcement agencies’ use of drones for surveillance or, potentially, to pepper-spray protesters.
“Drones make it possible to invade privacy without even trespassing,” said Amie Stepanovich, a surveillance expert at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
But already, several law enforcement agencies across the country, including the Queen Anne’s County sheriff’s office on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, have purchased the devices.
Meanwhile, as many as 40 states, including Maryland, have considered legislation to limit police drone use or ban the devices. A Colorado town is weighing an ordinance to allow hunters to shoot down drones.
Drone defenders, including the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, say those fears are overblown and threaten the potential economic benefits of commercial drones. The group predicts 70,000 new US jobs and a nearly $14 billion economic boost.
Yeah, what are you trying to do, ruin a going concern of an indu$try?
--more--"
Looks like I'm standing you up at the alter.
Also see: Do You Hear a Buzzing Sound?
It's a good sound:
"Drones migrate from battlefields to fields; Scientists retrofit technology, monitor wildlife" by Sean Patrick Farrell | New York Times, May 07, 2013
MONTE VISTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Colo. — An electric whir filled the air of this high desert valley as Jeff Sloan, a cartographer for the US Geological Survey, hurled a small remote-controlled airplane into the sky.
The plane, a 4½-pound AeroVironment Raven, dipped; then its plastic propeller whined and pulled it into the sky.
There, at an altitude of 400 feet, the Raven skimmed back and forth, taking thousands of high-resolution photographs over a wetland teeming with ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes.
The Raven, with its 55-inch wingspan, looks like one of those radio-controlled planes beloved of hobbyists. But its sophisticated video uplink and computer controls give it away as a small unmanned aerial system, better known as a drone.
Drone technology, which has become a staple of military operations, is now drawing scientists with its ability to provide increasingly cheaper, safer, and more accurate and detailed assessments of the natural world.
“This is really cutting edge for us,’’ said Jim Dubovsky, a migratory-bird biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for the health of more than a thousand bird species.
Designed to monitor enemy positions from afar, the early Ravens, from about 2005, which cost $250,000 per system, were slated for destruction when an Army colonel thought they might be better used for scientific research and were donated to the Geological Survey.
They were retrofitted for civilian life with new cameras and other gauges. Their first noncombat mission was counting sandhill cranes.
Traditionally, species counts are done by a biologist flying in a small plane or a helicopter. While many missions will still require the range of those craft and the experienced eyes of a scientist, drones offer many advantages, including the ability to fly very close without scaring animals.
It's a loving tyranny.
‘’I think I’m the only electrical engineer who’s ever applied for a marine mammal harassment permit,’’ Gregory Walker, director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said, referring to a federal permit necessary for close study of the animals.
He has used drones to gather images of seals and sea lions that might have slipped underwater as a full-size plane or helicopter approached.
Though such mammals are less startled by drones than by airplanes, birds, particularly easily spooked species like cranes, require a more cautious approach.
In 2010, when researchers first tried out the Raven, no one knew what to expect; there were even worries that the birds might fly into the drone. While that did not happen, the cranes promptly scattered, perhaps mistaking it for a predatory eagle.
But then the scientists changed their approach. Sand-hill cranes settle in the wetlands each evening and rarely move until morning, making them an easy target for a drone with a thermal imaging camera.
Video of the birds appeared as ‘‘a bunch of rice grains on a piece of paper, a dark piece of paper,’’ Dubovsky said. A complete count, which was conducted in an evening, proved to be as accurate as manned flight counts.
Since that flight, drones have scanned Idaho’s backcountry for pygmy rabbits; been battered by trade winds and rain in Hawaii while monitoring fencing protecting rare plant species; and gauged the restoration of the recently undammed Elwha River in northwest Washington.
They are already flying overhead in AmeriKa.
Every week brings more requests from other Interior Department agencies, Sloan said. The greatest problem now is a lack of trained pilots and equipment.
Politics may affect the studies as well. Last week Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, called for halting wildlife drone missions as a cost-saving measure under the federal budget sequestration.
Another hurdle is getting clearance to fly. Federal Aviation Administration approvals for this year’s sandhill crane study came too late for the peak migration to Colorado, so crew members tested new camera systems and mapping abilities and demonstrated the drone’s operation for a journalist.
The FAA is working on new guidelines that will smooth the integration of private commercial drones into the airspace in 2015. Until then, most scientific flights are operated experimentally by the federal government and by public institutions such as the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Florida, which have robust drone research programs.
Those new rules cannot come soon enough for Phillip A. Groves, a fisheries biologist with Idaho Power, which operates dams on the Snake River. He sees drones as a safer alternative to manned flights. Three years ago a biologist and a pilot he knew were killed while on a salmon survey when their helicopter crashed.
While small drones do have drawbacks, including short battery lives, they can be flown in less-than-ideal weather and in areas where a manned craft might not venture.
Groves said he had steered his drones into canyons with 40 miles-an-hour gusts — enough to abort a manned helicopter mission. The device struggled but flew, and no one’s life was put in danger.
And that margin of safety, Groves said, is ‘‘priceless.’’
I don't want people dying, but maybe you ought to just leave the animals alone.
--more--"
"Update to privacy laws urged as use of drones increases
WASHINGTON — Privacy laws urgently need to be updated to protect the public from information-gathering by the thousands of civilian drones expected to be flying in US skies in the next decade or so, legal specialists told a Senate panel Wednesday.
What a rotten, shitty world we will be entering if we make it past the last phase of the Jew World Order.
A budding commercial drone industry is poised to put mostly small, unmanned aircraft to countless uses, from monitoring crops to acting as lookouts for police SWAT teams....
And the contract$, the contract$!
Drones can be flown more cheaply, for longer periods of time, and at less risk to human life. That makes it likely that surveillance and information-gathering will become much more widespread, legal experts said....
Even more than it is now with them scooping up all world communications and movements.
--more--"
I'm counting on Markey to protect our privacy.
"Drone makers struggle for acceptance" by David Uberti | Globe Correspondent, April 07, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Danvers-based drone manufacturer CyPhy Works doesn’t build flying robots that rain Hellfire missiles on people or record license plate numbers from 40,000 feet. Its drones are designed for peaceful missions — aerial inspections of buildings and bridges, or observing crime scenes.
But CyPhy and other manufacturers are battling the negative images of better-known military drones as they struggle to win public and political acceptance for commercially marketed drones for domestic airspace. The consequences are significant for a nascent industry that claims the potential to create 70,000 US jobs by 2017, including 2,000 in Massachusetts.
The use of drones to combat terrorism overseas is attracting increasingly negative attention in Washington. President Obama is considering taking its lethal drone program away from the Central Intelligence Agency and placing it in the hands of the Pentagon, which has greater restrictions and accountability.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: U.S. Military Saving Endangered Species
DIA is CIA!
Lawmakers, meanwhile, including Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a candidate for Senate, are introducing legislation to limit how drones can be used by law enforcement, firefighters, farmers, the media, and others in American skies.
The domestic drone industry is scrambling to respond in Washington in public testimony, lobbying, and trade conferences — with limited effectiveness. Companies are trying to purge the word “drone’’ and its lethal connotations from the lexicon — an effort that is failing dismally so far.
“I appreciate you telling us what we should call them. You leave that decision to us,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick J. Leahy snapped, as an industry association representative vainly sought to persuade senators at a hearing to use terms like “pilotless vehicle.’’
Founded in 2008, CyPhy unveiled its first commercial drone models in December. They are nothing like the American robotic weapons flying over Pakistan and Yemen. CyPhy’s EASE drone, ideal for aerial inspections, fits into a backpack, while the PARC model is tailored to longer-term observation of crime scenes or disaster areas.
Other companies producing drones boast of firefighting capabilities and real-time weather analysis. The largest industry trade group — the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International — predicts that most manufacturing growth will be spurred by agriculture demand and law-enforcement work.
But civil liberties advocates unleashed a torrent of criticism last year when Congress mandated the Federal Aviation Administration to craft regulations for drone use in US skies by the end of 2015. Fears of unwarranted privacy violations, domestic spying, and even questions about armed attacks on US soil reached a crescendo this month and forced the industry into a defensive posture.
How those regulations are shaped will have a major impact on whether the market for domestically operated drones truly takes off.
Markey’s legislation, introduced last week, aims to prevent “flying robots from becoming spying robots,” a statement said. His legislation would not permit an FAA license unless the applicant discloses who will operate the drone, where it will be flown, what sort of data it will collect, how the data will be used, and whether the information will be sold to third parties.
Concern about the potential use of domestic drones reached its peak on March 6 when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul mounted a 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor questioning the Obama administration’s ability to preemptively target American citizens suspected of terrorist activities.
Also see: Nominated For Your Consideration: On Drones Brennan Confirmation
His confirmation moved forward.
“No American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found guilty by a court,” Paul declared.
Then why did you indicate you had no problem with a liquor store robber getting blown away?
And if he's charged and found guilty by a court on an American soil, wouldn't he already be in custody? What, Rand, drones going to be an option for execution now?
The administration’s response — that it had no power to target citizens within US borders — didn’t end the argument, and start-up executives, and engineers and inventors around the country have been shocked by the depth of the controversy.
I'm shocked that they would be shocked.
“It comes up in almost every conversation about the products and the company and the way forward,” CyPhy director of operations Jason Walker said. “The word [drone] has a lot to do with it. The idea that there are these robots flying around mindlessly doing some nefarious thing is not accurate. From a technical standpoint, it’s silly.”
Advocates of the fledgling domestic industry — ranging from biologists to border patrol agents — are now rallying resources to stem the tide of bad press.
“This happened so fast that it took all of us aback,” Stephen Ingley, director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said at an unmanned systems conference in March in Arlington, Va.
He added that the industry doesn’t have the political clout or social foothold to shift the conversation from potential dangers to likely benefits.
Or the campaign contribution$?
To be sure, UAV proponents agree that privacy concerns are valid, acknowledging the potential for misuse among criminals, paparazzi, and government agencies. But they contend the anxiety is overblown, as drone sensors and cameras are no different than those used in manned aircraft.
“This is more than a pilotless vehicle,” Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said at Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, convened to consider privacy risks. “There’s nothing unmanned about unmanned systems.’’
Though defense giants that produce military drones have been lobbying Congress for years, smaller start-ups and inventors began seeking to influence lawmakers’ opinions only in 2007.
No clout there.
The Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, cochaired by Representatives Buck McKeon of California and Henry Cuellar of Texas, has grown to nearly 60 members. It aims to “educate” lawmakers on an industry that will “improve our lives as public acceptance progresses,” according to its website.
Caucus members have garnered nearly $8 million in campaign contributions from drone firms over the past four years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks money in government. The industry trade group, meanwhile, has doubled its lobbying expenditures to about $250,000 annually as Congress and government agencies craft regulations.
Ha$n't bought 'em a damn thing, huh?
At a trade meeting held at a Virginia Tech research center last week, industry leaders discussed the need to increase public outreach to overcome drones’ cloak-and-dagger stigma.
The emphasis on dagger!
Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover is among the firms making the transition from defense to domestic uses, tailoring drones for law enforcement agencies and anticipating a price tag of $1,000 or less, said Tom Vaneck, vice president of space technologies.
Related: A Springfield Success Story
I hate it when us crazy conspiracists are right.
Though his firm hasn’t thought of a catchy replacement for the term UAV, it has begun discussing more proactive ways to laud everyday uses such as aiding first responders. Such efforts will probably target youth at the local level since “the younger generation is almost always more open to new technology,” he said.
And BRAINWASHING!
“Let’s go to grade schools and have kids fly one of these things,’’ Vaneck said, “so it’s not the boogeyman anymore.”
A true fa$ci$t.
Mary Cummings, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, said public suspicion will dissipate as the technology becomes more familiar. She’s one of the few in the industry who doesn’t mind the “drone’’ moniker.
“If that’s the name the public wants to call it, then let’s just make a real definition of it,” the former Navy fighter pilot said. Besides, she added, “it’s not a mouthful.”
They just keep droning on and on in their world of delusion.
--more--"
Maybe they might have better luck in Europe.
"US must guide the world on new rules for drones" May 25, 2013
There was much to applaud in President Obama’s landmark speech about counterterrorism on Thursday, which signaled that America’s 12-year “war on terror” must soon come to an end.
See: Obama Opens His Mouth Again
It was refreshing to hear the president speak openly about drones for the first time. In his long-awaited acknowledgment of the once-secret program, he both offered a vigorous defense of drones — “these strikes have saved lives” — and a pledge to limit their use.
After he expanded their use.
For an administration that is believed to have launched about 300 drone attacks — five times as many as under George W. Bush — it was high time to admit the program’s existence and offer a legal and moral justification for it. Obama did just that, and more.
That was change in the wrong direction.
He explained that drones are often the least destructive way to fight people in remote, dangerous places who are actively conspiring against the United States. Drones are more accurate than bombs lobbed out of planes. They are not as deadly as ground wars. The debate about drones has overshadowed the fact that it is, above all, civilian casualties that should concern us, not what kind of weapon delivers the blow against a legitimate terrorist target.
But the president still needs to be clearer about what constitutes a legitimate target. Obama promised that strikes will be reserved for individuals who pose a continuing imminent threat to Americans, when no other alternative can be found to address the threat. Drones will be a tool of last resort.
These broad principles are reasonable, but how they will be applied makes a difference. The president promised greater restraint and oversight, but he didn’t outline how he would achieve it. Will the drone program be transferred from the CIA to the Pentagon? Will the ostensibly strict guidelines for strikes ever be made public?
For the first time, Obama expressed a willingness to consider a special “drone court” to weigh evidence against targets — a welcome step for those who worry that the president is acting as both judge and executioner.
They do present him with a kill list, yeah.
Ultimately, the American people must come up with a system that satisfies our conscience, our Constitution, and our right to self-defense. It was a relief to hear that the White House has briefed Congress on every drone strike, but that is no substitute for due process during peacetime.
This is precisely why the “war on terror” has dragged on so long. The authorization for the use of force in the wake of 9/11 has served as the legal foundation for drones, and so many other expanded powers that would not have been granted outside of war. Now, as the US faces new threats that have nothing to do with the attacks of 2001, Congress and the White House should revisit this piece of legislation to put the country on a different path.
Policy makers are scrambling to figure out how to legally retain just enough of these war powers to allow for limited drone strikes. Whichever approach they take will have implications well beyond America’s borders. As the methods of war evolve, so too must the laws that govern war.
Why not outlaw war?
Other countries are pursuing drone technology. It is not too late for the United States to lead the world in developing universally accepted rules and standards to which we can eventually hold our adversaries accountable.
Like the chemical weapons crap regarding Syria?
--more--"
Also see: Drones may soon buzz through local skies
And no, it wasn't a UFO!
WASHINGTON — Kevin Good thought there was an 80 percent chance he could deliver his brother’s wedding rings with a tiny drone.
‘‘The other 20 percent is that it could go crashing into the bride’s mother’s face,’’ the Bethesda cinematographer somewhat jokingly told his brother.
His brother was OK with those odds, so he signed off.
A few weeks ago, sitting in the back row at the ceremony near San Francisco, Good steered the drone to the altar, delivering the payload in front of 100 or so astonished guests. His brother grabbed the rings, then watched as Good buzzed the drone off into the blue sky.
‘‘At the end of the wedding, that was what everyone was talking about,’’ Good said. ‘‘It was pretty awesome.’’
This is the gee-whiz side of drones, a technology typically associated with surprise air assaults on terrorists. Drones designed to do the bidding of ordinary people can be bought online for $300 or less.
They are often no larger than hubcaps, with tiny propellers that buzz the devices hundreds of feet into the air. But these flying machines are much more sophisticated than your average remote-controlled airplane: They can fly autonomously, find locations via GPS, return home with the push of a button, and carry high-definition cameras to record flight.
Besides wedding stunts, personal drones have been used for all kinds of high-minded purposes — helping farmers map their crops, monitoring wildfires in remote areas, locating poachers in Africa. One local drone user is recording his son’s athletic prowess from a bird’s-eye view, for recruiting videos. But not every flier is virtuous.
There are videos on YouTube of people arming drones with paintball guns. In one video — apparently a well-done hoax to promote a new video game — a man appears to fire a machine gun attached to a small drone and steer the device into an abandoned car to blow it up.
Privacy and civil rights activists worry about neighbors spying on each other and law enforcement agencies’ use of drones for surveillance or, potentially, to pepper-spray protesters.
“Drones make it possible to invade privacy without even trespassing,” said Amie Stepanovich, a surveillance expert at the Electronic Privacy Information Center.
But already, several law enforcement agencies across the country, including the Queen Anne’s County sheriff’s office on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, have purchased the devices.
Meanwhile, as many as 40 states, including Maryland, have considered legislation to limit police drone use or ban the devices. A Colorado town is weighing an ordinance to allow hunters to shoot down drones.
Drone defenders, including the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, say those fears are overblown and threaten the potential economic benefits of commercial drones. The group predicts 70,000 new US jobs and a nearly $14 billion economic boost.
Yeah, what are you trying to do, ruin a going concern of an indu$try?
--more--"
Looks like I'm standing you up at the alter.
Also see: Do You Hear a Buzzing Sound?
It's a good sound:
"Drones migrate from battlefields to fields; Scientists retrofit technology, monitor wildlife" by Sean Patrick Farrell | New York Times, May 07, 2013
MONTE VISTA NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Colo. — An electric whir filled the air of this high desert valley as Jeff Sloan, a cartographer for the US Geological Survey, hurled a small remote-controlled airplane into the sky.
The plane, a 4½-pound AeroVironment Raven, dipped; then its plastic propeller whined and pulled it into the sky.
There, at an altitude of 400 feet, the Raven skimmed back and forth, taking thousands of high-resolution photographs over a wetland teeming with ducks, geese, and sandhill cranes.
The Raven, with its 55-inch wingspan, looks like one of those radio-controlled planes beloved of hobbyists. But its sophisticated video uplink and computer controls give it away as a small unmanned aerial system, better known as a drone.
Drone technology, which has become a staple of military operations, is now drawing scientists with its ability to provide increasingly cheaper, safer, and more accurate and detailed assessments of the natural world.
“This is really cutting edge for us,’’ said Jim Dubovsky, a migratory-bird biologist with the US Fish and Wildlife Service, which is responsible for the health of more than a thousand bird species.
Designed to monitor enemy positions from afar, the early Ravens, from about 2005, which cost $250,000 per system, were slated for destruction when an Army colonel thought they might be better used for scientific research and were donated to the Geological Survey.
They were retrofitted for civilian life with new cameras and other gauges. Their first noncombat mission was counting sandhill cranes.
Traditionally, species counts are done by a biologist flying in a small plane or a helicopter. While many missions will still require the range of those craft and the experienced eyes of a scientist, drones offer many advantages, including the ability to fly very close without scaring animals.
It's a loving tyranny.
‘’I think I’m the only electrical engineer who’s ever applied for a marine mammal harassment permit,’’ Gregory Walker, director of the Alaska Center for Unmanned Aircraft Systems Integration at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said, referring to a federal permit necessary for close study of the animals.
He has used drones to gather images of seals and sea lions that might have slipped underwater as a full-size plane or helicopter approached.
Though such mammals are less startled by drones than by airplanes, birds, particularly easily spooked species like cranes, require a more cautious approach.
In 2010, when researchers first tried out the Raven, no one knew what to expect; there were even worries that the birds might fly into the drone. While that did not happen, the cranes promptly scattered, perhaps mistaking it for a predatory eagle.
But then the scientists changed their approach. Sand-hill cranes settle in the wetlands each evening and rarely move until morning, making them an easy target for a drone with a thermal imaging camera.
Video of the birds appeared as ‘‘a bunch of rice grains on a piece of paper, a dark piece of paper,’’ Dubovsky said. A complete count, which was conducted in an evening, proved to be as accurate as manned flight counts.
Since that flight, drones have scanned Idaho’s backcountry for pygmy rabbits; been battered by trade winds and rain in Hawaii while monitoring fencing protecting rare plant species; and gauged the restoration of the recently undammed Elwha River in northwest Washington.
They are already flying overhead in AmeriKa.
Every week brings more requests from other Interior Department agencies, Sloan said. The greatest problem now is a lack of trained pilots and equipment.
Politics may affect the studies as well. Last week Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican, called for halting wildlife drone missions as a cost-saving measure under the federal budget sequestration.
Another hurdle is getting clearance to fly. Federal Aviation Administration approvals for this year’s sandhill crane study came too late for the peak migration to Colorado, so crew members tested new camera systems and mapping abilities and demonstrated the drone’s operation for a journalist.
The FAA is working on new guidelines that will smooth the integration of private commercial drones into the airspace in 2015. Until then, most scientific flights are operated experimentally by the federal government and by public institutions such as the University of Alaska Fairbanks and the University of Florida, which have robust drone research programs.
Those new rules cannot come soon enough for Phillip A. Groves, a fisheries biologist with Idaho Power, which operates dams on the Snake River. He sees drones as a safer alternative to manned flights. Three years ago a biologist and a pilot he knew were killed while on a salmon survey when their helicopter crashed.
While small drones do have drawbacks, including short battery lives, they can be flown in less-than-ideal weather and in areas where a manned craft might not venture.
Groves said he had steered his drones into canyons with 40 miles-an-hour gusts — enough to abort a manned helicopter mission. The device struggled but flew, and no one’s life was put in danger.
And that margin of safety, Groves said, is ‘‘priceless.’’
I don't want people dying, but maybe you ought to just leave the animals alone.
--more--"
"Update to privacy laws urged as use of drones increases
WASHINGTON — Privacy laws urgently need to be updated to protect the public from information-gathering by the thousands of civilian drones expected to be flying in US skies in the next decade or so, legal specialists told a Senate panel Wednesday.
What a rotten, shitty world we will be entering if we make it past the last phase of the Jew World Order.
A budding commercial drone industry is poised to put mostly small, unmanned aircraft to countless uses, from monitoring crops to acting as lookouts for police SWAT teams....
And the contract$, the contract$!
Drones can be flown more cheaply, for longer periods of time, and at less risk to human life. That makes it likely that surveillance and information-gathering will become much more widespread, legal experts said....
Even more than it is now with them scooping up all world communications and movements.
--more--"
I'm counting on Markey to protect our privacy.
"Drone makers struggle for acceptance" by David Uberti | Globe Correspondent, April 07, 2013
WASHINGTON — The Danvers-based drone manufacturer CyPhy Works doesn’t build flying robots that rain Hellfire missiles on people or record license plate numbers from 40,000 feet. Its drones are designed for peaceful missions — aerial inspections of buildings and bridges, or observing crime scenes.
But CyPhy and other manufacturers are battling the negative images of better-known military drones as they struggle to win public and political acceptance for commercially marketed drones for domestic airspace. The consequences are significant for a nascent industry that claims the potential to create 70,000 US jobs by 2017, including 2,000 in Massachusetts.
The use of drones to combat terrorism overseas is attracting increasingly negative attention in Washington. President Obama is considering taking its lethal drone program away from the Central Intelligence Agency and placing it in the hands of the Pentagon, which has greater restrictions and accountability.
Related: Sunday Globe Special: U.S. Military Saving Endangered Species
DIA is CIA!
Lawmakers, meanwhile, including Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a candidate for Senate, are introducing legislation to limit how drones can be used by law enforcement, firefighters, farmers, the media, and others in American skies.
The domestic drone industry is scrambling to respond in Washington in public testimony, lobbying, and trade conferences — with limited effectiveness. Companies are trying to purge the word “drone’’ and its lethal connotations from the lexicon — an effort that is failing dismally so far.
“I appreciate you telling us what we should call them. You leave that decision to us,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick J. Leahy snapped, as an industry association representative vainly sought to persuade senators at a hearing to use terms like “pilotless vehicle.’’
Founded in 2008, CyPhy unveiled its first commercial drone models in December. They are nothing like the American robotic weapons flying over Pakistan and Yemen. CyPhy’s EASE drone, ideal for aerial inspections, fits into a backpack, while the PARC model is tailored to longer-term observation of crime scenes or disaster areas.
Other companies producing drones boast of firefighting capabilities and real-time weather analysis. The largest industry trade group — the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International — predicts that most manufacturing growth will be spurred by agriculture demand and law-enforcement work.
But civil liberties advocates unleashed a torrent of criticism last year when Congress mandated the Federal Aviation Administration to craft regulations for drone use in US skies by the end of 2015. Fears of unwarranted privacy violations, domestic spying, and even questions about armed attacks on US soil reached a crescendo this month and forced the industry into a defensive posture.
How those regulations are shaped will have a major impact on whether the market for domestically operated drones truly takes off.
Markey’s legislation, introduced last week, aims to prevent “flying robots from becoming spying robots,” a statement said. His legislation would not permit an FAA license unless the applicant discloses who will operate the drone, where it will be flown, what sort of data it will collect, how the data will be used, and whether the information will be sold to third parties.
Concern about the potential use of domestic drones reached its peak on March 6 when Kentucky Republican Rand Paul mounted a 13-hour filibuster on the Senate floor questioning the Obama administration’s ability to preemptively target American citizens suspected of terrorist activities.
Also see: Nominated For Your Consideration: On Drones Brennan Confirmation
His confirmation moved forward.
“No American should be killed by a drone on American soil without first being charged with a crime, without first being found guilty by a court,” Paul declared.
Then why did you indicate you had no problem with a liquor store robber getting blown away?
And if he's charged and found guilty by a court on an American soil, wouldn't he already be in custody? What, Rand, drones going to be an option for execution now?
The administration’s response — that it had no power to target citizens within US borders — didn’t end the argument, and start-up executives, and engineers and inventors around the country have been shocked by the depth of the controversy.
I'm shocked that they would be shocked.
“It comes up in almost every conversation about the products and the company and the way forward,” CyPhy director of operations Jason Walker said. “The word [drone] has a lot to do with it. The idea that there are these robots flying around mindlessly doing some nefarious thing is not accurate. From a technical standpoint, it’s silly.”
Advocates of the fledgling domestic industry — ranging from biologists to border patrol agents — are now rallying resources to stem the tide of bad press.
“This happened so fast that it took all of us aback,” Stephen Ingley, director of the Airborne Law Enforcement Association, said at an unmanned systems conference in March in Arlington, Va.
He added that the industry doesn’t have the political clout or social foothold to shift the conversation from potential dangers to likely benefits.
Or the campaign contribution$?
To be sure, UAV proponents agree that privacy concerns are valid, acknowledging the potential for misuse among criminals, paparazzi, and government agencies. But they contend the anxiety is overblown, as drone sensors and cameras are no different than those used in manned aircraft.
“This is more than a pilotless vehicle,” Michael Toscano, president of the Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International, said at Leahy’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, convened to consider privacy risks. “There’s nothing unmanned about unmanned systems.’’
Though defense giants that produce military drones have been lobbying Congress for years, smaller start-ups and inventors began seeking to influence lawmakers’ opinions only in 2007.
No clout there.
The Congressional Unmanned Systems Caucus, cochaired by Representatives Buck McKeon of California and Henry Cuellar of Texas, has grown to nearly 60 members. It aims to “educate” lawmakers on an industry that will “improve our lives as public acceptance progresses,” according to its website.
Caucus members have garnered nearly $8 million in campaign contributions from drone firms over the past four years, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks money in government. The industry trade group, meanwhile, has doubled its lobbying expenditures to about $250,000 annually as Congress and government agencies craft regulations.
Ha$n't bought 'em a damn thing, huh?
At a trade meeting held at a Virginia Tech research center last week, industry leaders discussed the need to increase public outreach to overcome drones’ cloak-and-dagger stigma.
The emphasis on dagger!
Physical Sciences Inc. in Andover is among the firms making the transition from defense to domestic uses, tailoring drones for law enforcement agencies and anticipating a price tag of $1,000 or less, said Tom Vaneck, vice president of space technologies.
Related: A Springfield Success Story
I hate it when us crazy conspiracists are right.
Though his firm hasn’t thought of a catchy replacement for the term UAV, it has begun discussing more proactive ways to laud everyday uses such as aiding first responders. Such efforts will probably target youth at the local level since “the younger generation is almost always more open to new technology,” he said.
And BRAINWASHING!
“Let’s go to grade schools and have kids fly one of these things,’’ Vaneck said, “so it’s not the boogeyman anymore.”
A true fa$ci$t.
Mary Cummings, an associate professor of aeronautics and astronautics at MIT, said public suspicion will dissipate as the technology becomes more familiar. She’s one of the few in the industry who doesn’t mind the “drone’’ moniker.
“If that’s the name the public wants to call it, then let’s just make a real definition of it,” the former Navy fighter pilot said. Besides, she added, “it’s not a mouthful.”
They just keep droning on and on in their world of delusion.
--more--"
Maybe they might have better luck in Europe.
"US must guide the world on new rules for drones" May 25, 2013
There was much to applaud in President Obama’s landmark speech about counterterrorism on Thursday, which signaled that America’s 12-year “war on terror” must soon come to an end.
See: Obama Opens His Mouth Again
It was refreshing to hear the president speak openly about drones for the first time. In his long-awaited acknowledgment of the once-secret program, he both offered a vigorous defense of drones — “these strikes have saved lives” — and a pledge to limit their use.
After he expanded their use.
For an administration that is believed to have launched about 300 drone attacks — five times as many as under George W. Bush — it was high time to admit the program’s existence and offer a legal and moral justification for it. Obama did just that, and more.
That was change in the wrong direction.
He explained that drones are often the least destructive way to fight people in remote, dangerous places who are actively conspiring against the United States. Drones are more accurate than bombs lobbed out of planes. They are not as deadly as ground wars. The debate about drones has overshadowed the fact that it is, above all, civilian casualties that should concern us, not what kind of weapon delivers the blow against a legitimate terrorist target.
But the president still needs to be clearer about what constitutes a legitimate target. Obama promised that strikes will be reserved for individuals who pose a continuing imminent threat to Americans, when no other alternative can be found to address the threat. Drones will be a tool of last resort.
These broad principles are reasonable, but how they will be applied makes a difference. The president promised greater restraint and oversight, but he didn’t outline how he would achieve it. Will the drone program be transferred from the CIA to the Pentagon? Will the ostensibly strict guidelines for strikes ever be made public?
For the first time, Obama expressed a willingness to consider a special “drone court” to weigh evidence against targets — a welcome step for those who worry that the president is acting as both judge and executioner.
They do present him with a kill list, yeah.
Ultimately, the American people must come up with a system that satisfies our conscience, our Constitution, and our right to self-defense. It was a relief to hear that the White House has briefed Congress on every drone strike, but that is no substitute for due process during peacetime.
This is precisely why the “war on terror” has dragged on so long. The authorization for the use of force in the wake of 9/11 has served as the legal foundation for drones, and so many other expanded powers that would not have been granted outside of war. Now, as the US faces new threats that have nothing to do with the attacks of 2001, Congress and the White House should revisit this piece of legislation to put the country on a different path.
Policy makers are scrambling to figure out how to legally retain just enough of these war powers to allow for limited drone strikes. Whichever approach they take will have implications well beyond America’s borders. As the methods of war evolve, so too must the laws that govern war.
Why not outlaw war?
Other countries are pursuing drone technology. It is not too late for the United States to lead the world in developing universally accepted rules and standards to which we can eventually hold our adversaries accountable.
Like the chemical weapons crap regarding Syria?
--more--"
Also see: Drones may soon buzz through local skies
And no, it wasn't a UFO!
Slow Sat. Work Back: CIA Admits Alien Conspiracy
This and the decades of media promotion and proliferation of this topic have prompted me to believe we are alone on this planet:
"CIA acknowledges secret Area 51" by Hannah Dreier | Associated Press, August 17, 2013
LAS VEGAS — UFO buffs are celebrating the CIA’s clearest acknowledgment yet of the existence of Area 51, the top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for decades.
The recently declassified documents have created a buzz online, though there’s no mention in the papers of UFO crashes, extraterrestrials, or staged moon landings.
Related: Fly Me To the Moon
I'm starting to doubt that, too, and I know I'll be scolded in some quarters, but after 9/11, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon, who knows what seeing is believing means anymore?
‘‘I’m thinking that they’re probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and coverup,’’ said Audrey Hewins, a Maine woman who runs a support group for people who believe they have been contacted by extraterrestrials....
The woman is either under mind-controlling hypnosis (how odd that David Frost died today), a disinformation agent in on the game, or is just flat out nuts.
--more--"
"Area 51’s boring reality" August 22, 2013
Area 51 — the secret government site in Nevada whose existence remained unconfirmed for decades — occupies such a fertile place in the imaginations of conspiracy theorists that the CIA’s admission last week that it actually exists came as an anticlimax. It turns out that the secret camp in the Mojave Desert was the test site of the U-2 spy plane, one of America’s most famous Cold War weapons. Also included in the newly declassified release were kernels of information regarding the site itself, such as how it was originally going to be named “Paradise Ranch,” presumably to make it seem more appealing to the grumbling operatives sent to the desert to work on the U-2 project.
The documents also revealed previously classified information about the U-2, such as the fact that Taiwanese pilots flew the spy planes for the CIA to gather intelligence on the Chinese, and that the U-2 was used to spy on French nuclear test sites in Polynesia.
And now the U.S. just sweeps up all world communications.
Such revelations might have raised some ire in France and China a half century ago, but caused barely a ripple today.
Have you forgotten all about Snowden yet?
Less satisfied were those who believed the rumors that the secret site was home to an alien spaceship or even a living Martian. The government release, made in response to a request by Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at George Washington University’s National Security Archive, made no mention of space aliens or UFOs. But that’ll hardly appease the most hardcore conspiracy theorists — for whom the new release probably looks like more proof of a coverup.
--more--"
The fact that the Globe would editorialize on such a thing let's you know it's a crap conspiracy as they shoot it down. This goes into the file with the Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster baloney.
Sorry, Jesse.
"Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., said he handled UFO debris; at 76" by Amy Beth Hanson | Associated Press, August 29, 2013
HELENA, Mont. — Jesse Marcel Jr., who said he handled debris from the 1947 crash of an unidentified flying object near Roswell, N.M., has died at the age of 76.
The timing sure is odd, huh?
Denice Marcel said her father was found dead at his home in Helena Saturday, less than two months after making his last trip to Roswell. He had been reading a book about UFOs.
His dad finally rubbed off on him.
Over the past 35 years, Dr. Marcel appeared on television shows, documentaries, and radio shows; was interviewed for magazine articles and books; and traveled the world lecturing about his experiences in Roswell.
‘‘He was credible,’’ said his wife, Linda. “He wasn’t lying. He never embellished — only told what he saw.”
Unlike the AmeriKan government or it's mouthpiece media when trying to gin up wars.
Dr. Marcel’s father was a US Air Force intelligence officer and reportedly the first military officer to investigate the wreckage in early July 1947. Dr. Marcel said he was 10 when his father brought home some of the debris, woke him up in the middle of the night, and said the boy needed to look at it because it was something he would never see again.
His father maintained the debris ‘‘was not of this Earth,’’ Linda Marcel said. ‘‘They looked through the pieces, tried to make sense of it.’’
The item that Dr. Marcel said fascinated him the most was a small beam with some sort of purple-hued hieroglyphics on it, Linda Marcel said.
After an initial report that a flying saucer had been recovered on a ranch near Roswell, the military issued a statement saying the debris was from a weather balloon.
‘‘They were told to keep it quiet, and they did for years and years and years,’’ Linda Marcel said. Interest in the case was revived, however, when physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman spoke with Jesse Marcel Sr. in the late 1970s.
Now I am suspicious of the whole damn thing.
Friedman wrote the forward to Dr. Marcel’s 2007 book ‘‘The Roswell Legacy,’’ and described him as a courageous man who ‘‘set a standard for honesty and decency and telling the truth.’’
‘‘His legacy is that he had the courage to speak out when he didn’t have to about handling wreckage that his dad brought home,’’ Friedman said Tuesday. ‘‘He worked with artists to come up with what the symbols on the wreckage looked like. He didn’t have to do that. He could have kept his mouth shut. A lot of people did.’’
Dr. Marcel graduated from medical school at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in 1961 and joined the US Navy in 1962. He retired after nine years and later joined the Montana Army National Guard and became a flight surgeon in 1981.
He was called back to active duty in October 2004 and served as a flight surgeon in Iraq for just over a year. He reached the rank of colonel.
He worked as an ear, nose, and throat doctor and retired from the Veterans Administration Hospital near Helena.
--more--"
Related: Roswell
It's a good movie, and that's all. The fact that it is a movie at all should tell you something. Like Mulder, I wanted to believe once, and isn't the timing of that suspect now?
Printed Globe still covered this up as I searched the stars with Google:
"Area 51 is real, according to declassified documents" by Hannah Dreier | Associated Press, August 16, 2013
LAS VEGAS — UFO buffs and believers in alien encounters are celebrating the CIA’s clearest acknowledgment yet of the existence of Area 51, the top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for decades.
The recently declassified documents have set the tinfoil-hat crowd abuzz, though there’s no mention in the papers of UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or staged moon landings.
Audrey Hewins, an Oxford, Maine, woman who runs a support group for people like her who believe they have been contacted by extraterrestrials, said she suspects the CIA is moving closer to disclosing there are space aliens on Earth.
They are walking among you! They are called war criminal world leaders!
I can't imagine anything more alien that mass-murdering war-mongers, can you?
‘‘I’m thinking that they’re probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and cover-up,’’ she said.
For a long time, U.S. government officials hesitated to acknowledge even the existence of Area 51.
Which makes you really wonder WHY NOW? What propaganda purpose does this diversion serve?
The CIA history released Thursday not only refers to Area 51 by name and describes some of the aviation activities that took place there, but locates the Air Force base on a map, along the dry Groom Lake bed.
It also talks about some cool planes, though none of them are saucer-shaped.
George Washington University’s National Security Archive used a public records request to obtain the CIA history of one of Area 51’s most secret Cold War projects, the U-2 spy plane program.
National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson first reviewed the history in 2002, but all mentions of the country’s most mysterious military base had been redacted. So he requested the history again in 2005, hoping for more information. Sure enough, he received a version a few weeks ago with the mentions of Area 51 restored.
The report is unlikely to stop the conspiracy theorists. The 407-page document still contains many redactions, and who’s to say those missing sections don’t involve little green men?
Not me because I really don't care. Either get down here and free us from these war criminal leaders, or get lost in space!
It’s not the first time the government has acknowledged the existence of the super-secret, 8,000-square-mile installation. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush referred to the ‘‘location near Groom Lake’’ in insisting on continued secrecy, and other government references date to the 1960s.
Related: Welcome to Utah, the NSA's desert home for eavesdropping on America
Forgot all about that, haven't you?
But Richelson, as well as those who are convinced ‘‘the truth is out there,’’ are taking the document as a sign of loosening secrecy about the government’s activities in the Nevada desert.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
It better be because it is not here in my newspaper.
The site is known as Area 51 among UFO aficionados because that was the base’s designation on old Nevada test site maps. The CIA history reveals that officials renamed it ‘‘Paradise Ranch’’ to try to lure skilled workers, who can still be seen over Las Vegas flying to and from the site on unmarked planes.
Beginning with the U-2 in the 1950s, the base has been the testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the SR-71 Blackbird, F-117A stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber.
Thus the "aliens are here, and all those rotten 1950s movies.
Some believe the base’s Strangelovian hangars also contain alien vehicles, evidence from the ‘‘Roswell incident’’ — the alleged 1947 crash of a UFO in New Mexico — and extraterrestrial corpses.
The CIA history mentions an ‘‘unexpected side effect’’ of the high-flying planes: ‘‘a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects.’’ The report notes that the U-2 and Oxcart planes, which flew higher than civilians believed possible, accounted for half of UFO sightings during the 1950s and ‘60s.
A likely story, said Stanton Friedman, a self-described Ufologist from Canada.
Another Unbelievable Friedman Outrage sighting --
‘‘The notion that the U-2 explains most sightings at that time is utter rot and baloney,’’ he said. ‘‘Can the U-2 sit still in the sky? Make right-angle turns in the middle of the sky? Take off from nothing? The U-2 can’t do any of those things.’’
Even for those who do not believe in UFOs, the mystery surrounding the site — situated about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, across miles of desert speckled with Joshua trees and sagebrush — has been a boon.
One Nevada bicycle event company produces an ‘‘X Rides’’ event that incorporates mountain biking near a certain heavily guarded patch of Nevada desert. Las Vegas’ minor league baseball team is called ‘‘the 51s.’’
Small-town restaurants along State Route 375, officially designated the Extraterrestrial Highway, sell souvenir T-shirts to tourists making their way to the boundary of Area 51, which consists of a no-trespassing sign, a surveillance camera and an armed guard on a hill.
Well, I'm glad $omeone is making a buck.
--more--"
But I know aliens are real because I saw 'em -- as if you could believe anything you see on your TV today!
Related: Operation Mockingbird
I hope that is not too conspiratorial for you.
"CIA acknowledges secret Area 51" by Hannah Dreier | Associated Press, August 17, 2013
LAS VEGAS — UFO buffs are celebrating the CIA’s clearest acknowledgment yet of the existence of Area 51, the top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for decades.
The recently declassified documents have created a buzz online, though there’s no mention in the papers of UFO crashes, extraterrestrials, or staged moon landings.
Related: Fly Me To the Moon
I'm starting to doubt that, too, and I know I'll be scolded in some quarters, but after 9/11, Sandy Hook, and the Boston Marathon, who knows what seeing is believing means anymore?
‘‘I’m thinking that they’re probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and coverup,’’ said Audrey Hewins, a Maine woman who runs a support group for people who believe they have been contacted by extraterrestrials....
The woman is either under mind-controlling hypnosis (how odd that David Frost died today), a disinformation agent in on the game, or is just flat out nuts.
--more--"
"Area 51’s boring reality" August 22, 2013
Area 51 — the secret government site in Nevada whose existence remained unconfirmed for decades — occupies such a fertile place in the imaginations of conspiracy theorists that the CIA’s admission last week that it actually exists came as an anticlimax. It turns out that the secret camp in the Mojave Desert was the test site of the U-2 spy plane, one of America’s most famous Cold War weapons. Also included in the newly declassified release were kernels of information regarding the site itself, such as how it was originally going to be named “Paradise Ranch,” presumably to make it seem more appealing to the grumbling operatives sent to the desert to work on the U-2 project.
The documents also revealed previously classified information about the U-2, such as the fact that Taiwanese pilots flew the spy planes for the CIA to gather intelligence on the Chinese, and that the U-2 was used to spy on French nuclear test sites in Polynesia.
And now the U.S. just sweeps up all world communications.
Such revelations might have raised some ire in France and China a half century ago, but caused barely a ripple today.
Have you forgotten all about Snowden yet?
Less satisfied were those who believed the rumors that the secret site was home to an alien spaceship or even a living Martian. The government release, made in response to a request by Jeffrey T. Richelson, a senior fellow at George Washington University’s National Security Archive, made no mention of space aliens or UFOs. But that’ll hardly appease the most hardcore conspiracy theorists — for whom the new release probably looks like more proof of a coverup.
--more--"
The fact that the Globe would editorialize on such a thing let's you know it's a crap conspiracy as they shoot it down. This goes into the file with the Bigfoot and Loch Ness monster baloney.
Sorry, Jesse.
"Dr. Jesse Marcel Jr., said he handled UFO debris; at 76" by Amy Beth Hanson | Associated Press, August 29, 2013
HELENA, Mont. — Jesse Marcel Jr., who said he handled debris from the 1947 crash of an unidentified flying object near Roswell, N.M., has died at the age of 76.
The timing sure is odd, huh?
Denice Marcel said her father was found dead at his home in Helena Saturday, less than two months after making his last trip to Roswell. He had been reading a book about UFOs.
His dad finally rubbed off on him.
Over the past 35 years, Dr. Marcel appeared on television shows, documentaries, and radio shows; was interviewed for magazine articles and books; and traveled the world lecturing about his experiences in Roswell.
‘‘He was credible,’’ said his wife, Linda. “He wasn’t lying. He never embellished — only told what he saw.”
Unlike the AmeriKan government or it's mouthpiece media when trying to gin up wars.
Dr. Marcel’s father was a US Air Force intelligence officer and reportedly the first military officer to investigate the wreckage in early July 1947. Dr. Marcel said he was 10 when his father brought home some of the debris, woke him up in the middle of the night, and said the boy needed to look at it because it was something he would never see again.
His father maintained the debris ‘‘was not of this Earth,’’ Linda Marcel said. ‘‘They looked through the pieces, tried to make sense of it.’’
The item that Dr. Marcel said fascinated him the most was a small beam with some sort of purple-hued hieroglyphics on it, Linda Marcel said.
After an initial report that a flying saucer had been recovered on a ranch near Roswell, the military issued a statement saying the debris was from a weather balloon.
‘‘They were told to keep it quiet, and they did for years and years and years,’’ Linda Marcel said. Interest in the case was revived, however, when physicist and UFO researcher Stanton Friedman spoke with Jesse Marcel Sr. in the late 1970s.
Now I am suspicious of the whole damn thing.
Friedman wrote the forward to Dr. Marcel’s 2007 book ‘‘The Roswell Legacy,’’ and described him as a courageous man who ‘‘set a standard for honesty and decency and telling the truth.’’
‘‘His legacy is that he had the courage to speak out when he didn’t have to about handling wreckage that his dad brought home,’’ Friedman said Tuesday. ‘‘He worked with artists to come up with what the symbols on the wreckage looked like. He didn’t have to do that. He could have kept his mouth shut. A lot of people did.’’
Dr. Marcel graduated from medical school at Louisiana State University School of Medicine in 1961 and joined the US Navy in 1962. He retired after nine years and later joined the Montana Army National Guard and became a flight surgeon in 1981.
He was called back to active duty in October 2004 and served as a flight surgeon in Iraq for just over a year. He reached the rank of colonel.
He worked as an ear, nose, and throat doctor and retired from the Veterans Administration Hospital near Helena.
--more--"
Related: Roswell
It's a good movie, and that's all. The fact that it is a movie at all should tell you something. Like Mulder, I wanted to believe once, and isn't the timing of that suspect now?
Printed Globe still covered this up as I searched the stars with Google:
"Area 51 is real, according to declassified documents" by Hannah Dreier | Associated Press, August 16, 2013
LAS VEGAS — UFO buffs and believers in alien encounters are celebrating the CIA’s clearest acknowledgment yet of the existence of Area 51, the top-secret Cold War test site that has been the subject of elaborate conspiracy theories for decades.
The recently declassified documents have set the tinfoil-hat crowd abuzz, though there’s no mention in the papers of UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or staged moon landings.
Audrey Hewins, an Oxford, Maine, woman who runs a support group for people like her who believe they have been contacted by extraterrestrials, said she suspects the CIA is moving closer to disclosing there are space aliens on Earth.
They are walking among you! They are called war criminal world leaders!
I can't imagine anything more alien that mass-murdering war-mongers, can you?
‘‘I’m thinking that they’re probably testing the waters now to see how mad people get about the big lie and cover-up,’’ she said.
For a long time, U.S. government officials hesitated to acknowledge even the existence of Area 51.
Which makes you really wonder WHY NOW? What propaganda purpose does this diversion serve?
The CIA history released Thursday not only refers to Area 51 by name and describes some of the aviation activities that took place there, but locates the Air Force base on a map, along the dry Groom Lake bed.
It also talks about some cool planes, though none of them are saucer-shaped.
George Washington University’s National Security Archive used a public records request to obtain the CIA history of one of Area 51’s most secret Cold War projects, the U-2 spy plane program.
National Security Archive senior fellow Jeffrey Richelson first reviewed the history in 2002, but all mentions of the country’s most mysterious military base had been redacted. So he requested the history again in 2005, hoping for more information. Sure enough, he received a version a few weeks ago with the mentions of Area 51 restored.
The report is unlikely to stop the conspiracy theorists. The 407-page document still contains many redactions, and who’s to say those missing sections don’t involve little green men?
Not me because I really don't care. Either get down here and free us from these war criminal leaders, or get lost in space!
It’s not the first time the government has acknowledged the existence of the super-secret, 8,000-square-mile installation. Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush referred to the ‘‘location near Groom Lake’’ in insisting on continued secrecy, and other government references date to the 1960s.
Related: Welcome to Utah, the NSA's desert home for eavesdropping on America
Forgot all about that, haven't you?
But Richelson, as well as those who are convinced ‘‘the truth is out there,’’ are taking the document as a sign of loosening secrecy about the government’s activities in the Nevada desert.
Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah, wah.
It better be because it is not here in my newspaper.
The site is known as Area 51 among UFO aficionados because that was the base’s designation on old Nevada test site maps. The CIA history reveals that officials renamed it ‘‘Paradise Ranch’’ to try to lure skilled workers, who can still be seen over Las Vegas flying to and from the site on unmarked planes.
Beginning with the U-2 in the 1950s, the base has been the testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the SR-71 Blackbird, F-117A stealth fighter and B-2 stealth bomber.
Thus the "aliens are here, and all those rotten 1950s movies.
Some believe the base’s Strangelovian hangars also contain alien vehicles, evidence from the ‘‘Roswell incident’’ — the alleged 1947 crash of a UFO in New Mexico — and extraterrestrial corpses.
The CIA history mentions an ‘‘unexpected side effect’’ of the high-flying planes: ‘‘a tremendous increase in reports of unidentified flying objects.’’ The report notes that the U-2 and Oxcart planes, which flew higher than civilians believed possible, accounted for half of UFO sightings during the 1950s and ‘60s.
A likely story, said Stanton Friedman, a self-described Ufologist from Canada.
Another Unbelievable Friedman Outrage sighting --
‘‘The notion that the U-2 explains most sightings at that time is utter rot and baloney,’’ he said. ‘‘Can the U-2 sit still in the sky? Make right-angle turns in the middle of the sky? Take off from nothing? The U-2 can’t do any of those things.’’
Even for those who do not believe in UFOs, the mystery surrounding the site — situated about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, across miles of desert speckled with Joshua trees and sagebrush — has been a boon.
One Nevada bicycle event company produces an ‘‘X Rides’’ event that incorporates mountain biking near a certain heavily guarded patch of Nevada desert. Las Vegas’ minor league baseball team is called ‘‘the 51s.’’
Small-town restaurants along State Route 375, officially designated the Extraterrestrial Highway, sell souvenir T-shirts to tourists making their way to the boundary of Area 51, which consists of a no-trespassing sign, a surveillance camera and an armed guard on a hill.
Well, I'm glad $omeone is making a buck.
--more--"
But I know aliens are real because I saw 'em -- as if you could believe anything you see on your TV today!
Related: Operation Mockingbird
I hope that is not too conspiratorial for you.
Slow Sat. Work Back: The Boston Globe's Bad Hair Day
For a newspaper that is supposed to be pro-women's rights they sure do stereotype you gals an awful lot. If it is not a monolithic voting bloc or where you stand on abortion that defines you as a woman, it's your hair:
"Blow-dry salons come to Boston" by Gail Waterhouse | Globe Correspondent, August 24, 2013
Only $35.... to return a woman’s hair to that fresh-cut look.
Common in New York and Los Angeles, so-called blow-dry salons have begun to invade Boston.
How many missiles have they launched?
I guess I'm the one having the bad day, huh?
They are being embraced by women frustrated at seeing their expensively coiffed hair turn limp shortly after a stylist spent hours setting it just right. Hard as it may be for men to understand, there is more than simple vanity at stake; many women see their hairstyles as critical to the image they project, and to have less than stellar hair can be deflating....
I don't think that i$ true anymore. The vanity market found men a while back, or am I the only one seeing the hair club commercials?
Many women are turning to blow-dry bars to supplement or even replace daily beauty routines, feeling it’s worth the money to have a trained professional do a better job on hair than they could....
Wow, the Globe really is $erving a $elect clientele the$e days.
The blow-dry shops fill a significant niche, serving professional women who typically go weeks between hair appointments and either have to wrestle with a brush and blowdryer on their own or see if their salon can squeeze them in for a refresher that can easily run $60.
Indeed, many hair salons are so busy they don’t have time for blow-dry-only appointments....
Depending on the type of hair a woman has, a simple wash and blow-dry can do wonders....
--more--"
I don't think I have to worry about the sparse quantity of ever-receding hair I have. Fact is, I give myself my own haircuts because I like to keep it short. Not skin, short.
"Blow-dry salons come to Boston" by Gail Waterhouse | Globe Correspondent, August 24, 2013
Only $35.... to return a woman’s hair to that fresh-cut look.
Common in New York and Los Angeles, so-called blow-dry salons have begun to invade Boston.
How many missiles have they launched?
I guess I'm the one having the bad day, huh?
They are being embraced by women frustrated at seeing their expensively coiffed hair turn limp shortly after a stylist spent hours setting it just right. Hard as it may be for men to understand, there is more than simple vanity at stake; many women see their hairstyles as critical to the image they project, and to have less than stellar hair can be deflating....
I don't think that i$ true anymore. The vanity market found men a while back, or am I the only one seeing the hair club commercials?
Many women are turning to blow-dry bars to supplement or even replace daily beauty routines, feeling it’s worth the money to have a trained professional do a better job on hair than they could....
Wow, the Globe really is $erving a $elect clientele the$e days.
The blow-dry shops fill a significant niche, serving professional women who typically go weeks between hair appointments and either have to wrestle with a brush and blowdryer on their own or see if their salon can squeeze them in for a refresher that can easily run $60.
Indeed, many hair salons are so busy they don’t have time for blow-dry-only appointments....
Depending on the type of hair a woman has, a simple wash and blow-dry can do wonders....
--more--"
I don't think I have to worry about the sparse quantity of ever-receding hair I have. Fact is, I give myself my own haircuts because I like to keep it short. Not skin, short.
Slow Sat. Work Back: Bulger Jury Speaks
Related: Bulger Found Guilty
They are making it into a movie, "The Trial of Whitey Bulger!"
"Bulger jurors focused on victims, foreman says" by Shelley Murphy, Maria Cramer and Todd Wallack | Globe Staff, August 17, 2013
The trial was more riveting than any Hollywood movie....
Terry Fife, 49, a stay-at-home father, and two other jurors spoke during separate interviews Friday after the court released the names of the 12 jurors and six alternates. The three said the panel worked diligently while deciding the fate of one of Boston’s most notorious figures, after hearing 35 days of testimony from 72 witnesses....
“This was way better than the movies,” Fife said. “These were the real guys. . . . The cast of characters that came walking through that courtroom door and onto the witness stand each and every day, it was captivating.”
It was also sobering and at times horrifying, he said. Jurors were shown gruesome photos of bullet-riddled bodies and skeletal remains unearthed from secret graves....
They are making it into a movie, "The Trial of Whitey Bulger!"
"Bulger jurors focused on victims, foreman says" by Shelley Murphy, Maria Cramer and Todd Wallack | Globe Staff, August 17, 2013
The trial was more riveting than any Hollywood movie....
Terry Fife, 49, a stay-at-home father, and two other jurors spoke during separate interviews Friday after the court released the names of the 12 jurors and six alternates. The three said the panel worked diligently while deciding the fate of one of Boston’s most notorious figures, after hearing 35 days of testimony from 72 witnesses....
“This was way better than the movies,” Fife said. “These were the real guys. . . . The cast of characters that came walking through that courtroom door and onto the witness stand each and every day, it was captivating.”
It was also sobering and at times horrifying, he said. Jurors were shown gruesome photos of bullet-riddled bodies and skeletal remains unearthed from secret graves....
--more--"
Related: This was a show trial
Maybe it was all a movie. I certainly think the timing of the arrest was scripted.
Slow Sat. Work Back: Wheelchair Wilding
Just well-meaning kids, I'm sure....
"Winthrop teen charged in attack on disabled man" by Jasper Craven | Globe Correspondent, August 09, 2013
A Winthrop teenager is facing charges that he beat a developmentally disabled man and fractured his jaw, prosecutors said.
“This was an utterly shameful example of unprovoked violence against a person who could not defend himself,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “It was the act of a coward and a bully.”
He must have got it from the United States government because that's exactly what we do around the planet when we wage war on people on the basis of damnable lies from this government.
Anthony Gallo, 17, is accused of punching the 59-year-old disabled man in the face Tuesday night on Pauline Street. The victim encountered Gallo and two other young men in a parking lot, where the youths were apparently drinking and shaking a car, according to the district attorney’s office.
Time to end prohibition on weed and reinstitute prohibition on booze. To those who say we already tried that, doesn't work, I say you didn't try hard enough. Either that or quit being such a stinker on the medicine.
The victim told Gallo and his friends to stop their behavior, sparking a verbal altercation that ended with the victim allegedly being punched in the face. Gallo used epithets mocking the victim's disability during the interaction, prosecutors said.
Lesson: it's never worth it to be a good samaritan, especially when alcohol is involved. It leads to broken body parts, and I say this from personal experience.
The alleged victim notified Winthrop police the next afternoon. He was subsequently taken to Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett and then to Massachusetts General Hospital for surgery, prosecutors said. He was released from the hospital Friday.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said he has cultivated a relationship with the victim, whom he referred to as Richie, dating back to when DeLeo was a selectmen in Winthrop more than 20 years ago.
“I just can’t tell you the anger I have over this,” DeLeo said....
Judge Robert Ronquillo Jr. released Gallo on his own recognizance Thursday, but ordered him to stay away from the victim and to stay alcohol-free.
???????
Gallo is slated to return to court Oct. 1 for a pretrial conference, Conley’s office said.
"Winthrop teen charged in attack on disabled man" by Jasper Craven | Globe Correspondent, August 09, 2013
A Winthrop teenager is facing charges that he beat a developmentally disabled man and fractured his jaw, prosecutors said.
“This was an utterly shameful example of unprovoked violence against a person who could not defend himself,” Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said in a statement. “It was the act of a coward and a bully.”
He must have got it from the United States government because that's exactly what we do around the planet when we wage war on people on the basis of damnable lies from this government.
Anthony Gallo, 17, is accused of punching the 59-year-old disabled man in the face Tuesday night on Pauline Street. The victim encountered Gallo and two other young men in a parking lot, where the youths were apparently drinking and shaking a car, according to the district attorney’s office.
Time to end prohibition on weed and reinstitute prohibition on booze. To those who say we already tried that, doesn't work, I say you didn't try hard enough. Either that or quit being such a stinker on the medicine.
The victim told Gallo and his friends to stop their behavior, sparking a verbal altercation that ended with the victim allegedly being punched in the face. Gallo used epithets mocking the victim's disability during the interaction, prosecutors said.
Lesson: it's never worth it to be a good samaritan, especially when alcohol is involved. It leads to broken body parts, and I say this from personal experience.
The alleged victim notified Winthrop police the next afternoon. He was subsequently taken to Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett and then to Massachusetts General Hospital for surgery, prosecutors said. He was released from the hospital Friday.
House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo said he has cultivated a relationship with the victim, whom he referred to as Richie, dating back to when DeLeo was a selectmen in Winthrop more than 20 years ago.
“I just can’t tell you the anger I have over this,” DeLeo said....
Judge Robert Ronquillo Jr. released Gallo on his own recognizance Thursday, but ordered him to stay away from the victim and to stay alcohol-free.
???????
Gallo is slated to return to court Oct. 1 for a pretrial conference, Conley’s office said.
--more--"
Slow Sat. Work Back: New York Cop Prevented Boston Purse Snatching
I'm going to be dropping a few down here in what are one-day wonders or items I will no longer be covering.
Enjoy!
"An off-duty police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey chased and caught a purse snatcher in Allston Tuesday, police said....
--more--"
Enjoy!
"An off-duty police officer for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey chased and caught a purse snatcher in Allston Tuesday, police said....
--more--"
Mugabe Remains President of Zimbabwe
Related: Zimbabwe's Vote
"Mugabe’s party appears headed for win in Zimbabwe" by Lydia Polgreen | New York Times, August 03, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe — The party of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s long-ruling president, appeared to be on track to win a huge majority in Parliament after Wednesday’s elections, the Zimbabwe Election Commission announced Friday, allowing it to recapture parliamentary control from its main challenger, the Movement for Democratic Change.
The partial results were announced as African election observers on Friday presented a mixed report on the voting, saying that while it had been peaceful and orderly, serious problems were detected, including voters’ being turned away, too many ballots being printed, and bias in the news media.
That is so odd and strange because the link I led this post with told us "voting had gone well."
What we are looking at here is the "wrong guy" won because the rig didn't work, so now the charges of unclean and unfair elections is razed.
As for bias in the media, none one receives that more than Americans.
But monitors from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, a regional trade bloc, concluded that the problems were not serious enough to invalidate the election.
“I have never seen an election that is perfect,” said Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria who led the African Union delegation, after cataloging the problems that plagued the vote. “We do not believe these instances will add up to the result not reflecting the will of the people.”
The regional trade bloc echoed this conclusion, calling the election “free and peaceful,” but officials stopped short of calling it fair, saying further investigation into the process was needed....
Patrick Chinamasa, a senior official of Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, and the minister of justice, castigated Morgan Tsvangirai, the main presidential challenger, in a news conference, who on Thursday called the election a “farce” and demanded an investigation by the African Union and the regional trade bloc.
“He makes the point the election was a farce, a sham election,” Chinamasa said. “Really? When 3.95 million people go to vote in cold weather, you call it a sham and a farce?”
The sham is not Mugabe, it's the fart-misters!
On Thursday a coalition of local charities that had sent 7,000 observers to the polls said that as many as 1 million voters were either missing from the registration roll or were turned away from polling stations, casting doubt on the validity of the election. Chinamasa scoffed at the assertion that that many people had been disenfranchised....
Tsvangirai and other leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change were in emergency meetings Friday, trying to decide what to do next, party officials said.
“The MDC totally rejects the electoral process and the outcome as announced so far, as both were not free and fair,” the party said in a statement. “The Zimbabwean election was a monumental fraud by the state security agents and ZANU-PF.”
Translation: Tsvangirai is the West's man!
Under the constitution, the challengers can go to the Constitutional Court within seven days of the announcement of the final result, but the top court is packed with ZANU-PF loyalists, analysts say, making it unlikely that an appeal would succeed.
Al Gore tried it anyway, but....
--more--"
"Mugabe wins again in Zimbabwe, leaving rival greatly weakened
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Robert Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since it threw off white rule in 1980, won another term as president after a disputed election held Wednesday, defeating his main challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, with 61 percent of the vote, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said Saturday. Mugabe’s party also won more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, giving it a supermajority to make changes to the constitution (New York Times)."
Now that is a mandate!
"Botswana criticizes Zimbabwe vote" by Angus Shaw | Associated Press, August 07, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Botswana emerged Tuesday as a rare African voice of criticism of Zimbabwe’s disputed election, saying it was unfair and warning the region not to flout its own guidelines by accepting the result.
Botswana must be a client state.
In breaking ranks with other African observers, Botswana said the region ‘‘should not create the undesirable precedent of permitting exceptions to its own rules’’ on the conduct of Zimbabwe’s voting. In a statement in Harare, Botswana said its 80 observers concluded that conditions for free and fair elections were not met because of widespread irregularities.
The opposition and nongovernmental groups have alleged that massive vote-rigging enabled President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party to win a landslide over its challenger, the Movement for Democratic Change party. Mugabe’s supporters counter that such allegations are part of a smear campaign.
The announcement by sparsely populated Botswana, which shares a border with Zimbabwe, contrasted with cautious support for last week’s vote from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community.
But it gave a hint of the unease over the vote in Zimbabwe among neighbors that have issued calls for reform and reconciliation there.
If any foreigner suggests that about AmeriKa's rig jobs they are blasted.
--more--"
"Mugabe takes oath in Zimbabwe" by Lydia Polgreen | New York Times, August 23, 2013
JOHANNESBURG — Robert G. Mugabe was sworn in as president of Zimbabwe on Thursday in a pomp-filled ceremony in the capital, Harare, that extends by five years his 33-year rule.
Mugabe won a broad but disputed victory in Zimbabwe’s national election July 31, defeating his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, by nearly 30 percentage points. It was a surprising turnabout for Mugabe, 89, who won fewer votes than Tsvangirai did in the previous presidential election, in 2008, and was forced into forming a unity government.
Oh, the West just thought they would breeze through this regime change.
Mugabe struck a conciliatory note in his inaugural speech, given in a stadium filled with thousands of cheering supporters. He praised Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders, and called for unity.
“We will have competition and winners and losers,” Mugabe said. “We shall never be competing to be Zimbabweans.”
Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, called the election a farce and rejected the result as illegitimate, a view shared by many local observers and the United States, which said the vote did not represent the will of the Zimbabwean people.
But not most of Africa or the observers.
--more--"
And what did NOT make my printed paper:
"Zimbabwe's Mugabe threatens foreign-owned firms" by GILLIAN GOTORA / Associated Press / August 25, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s long-serving president on Sunday threatened to expel foreign-owned companies over what he said was the West’s interference in the politics of the country he has led since 1980.
President Robert Mugabe said he wanted no ‘‘ideas from London or Washington,’’ speaking before supporters at the funeral of a top military chief in Harare. He warned the Western powers that although his government hasn’t ‘‘done anything to your companies, time will come when we will say tit for tat.’’
He's taking on some pretty big beef, although someone might have his back.
He said: ‘‘You hit me, I hit you. We have a country to run and we must be left free to run it.’’
Britain, the former colonial power, the European Union and the United States have refused to endorse Mugabe’s landslide victory in the July 31 elections, citing evidence of vote rigging.
Gee, who would help him do that?
The Western countries maintain economic restrictions on Mugabe and leaders of his ruling party.
Mugabe insists his party won ‘‘a resounding mandate’’ in the last election and denies allegations of voting fraud. Zimbabwe’s state election panel said Mugabe won the July 31 elections with 61 percent of the presidential vote.
Mugabe, who was sworn in Thursday for another five-year term at the age of 89, said that ‘‘there will come a time when we lose our patience’’ with the West’s pressure for democratic reforms.
‘‘I want to assure you our attitude will not continue to be passive,’’ Mugabe said Sunday. ‘‘We have had enough and enough is enough.’’
Since winning another term Mugabe has vowed to push ahead with a black empowerment program to force foreign and white-owned businesses to cede 51 percent ownership to black Zimbabweans. Some economists warn that the program will trigger another economic downturn, like that Zimbabwe suffered after Mugabe’s government seized white-owned farms in 2000.
Mugabe, on the other hand, says the new economic plan to force black control of companies will create jobs and economic growth that had been hindered by what he called ‘‘a tenuous and fraught coalition with uneasy partners’’ in the opposition led by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai had favored attracting Western investment during the five-year coalition forged by regional leaders after the last disputed elections in 2008.
Mugabe says Britain has opposed black empowerment since he forced thousands of white farmers to surrender their land. Critics of the program say it disrupted Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy, shut down industries and scared away foreign investment in mining and other businesses.
--more--"
Also related:
"Foreign players in the Zimbabwe platinum, diamond and aluminum business face forfeiture of their mining facilities as part of a government program aimed at nationalizing industries, according to Indiginization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere. While banks will be compensated for their losses and other industries, such as telecommunications, will be allowed to cede smaller stakes, it appears the mining sector will be asked to surrender control gratis. Companies affected by the plan may include Anglo American Platinum Ltd, Standard Chartered Plc, Aquarius Platinum Ltd, Impala Platinum, and Barclays. Robert Mugabe won the recent Presidential election in a landslide which was verified by African Union observers as "free and credible."
That explains the charges of fraud and such, doesn't it, although it must be the reason the West is not making too much of a stink (that and the connections to you-know-who).
Also see: Zimbabwe opposition glum, resigned to more Mugabe
It really is never-ending agenda-pu$hing in my corporate pre$$.
"Mugabe’s party appears headed for win in Zimbabwe" by Lydia Polgreen | New York Times, August 03, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe — The party of Robert G. Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s long-ruling president, appeared to be on track to win a huge majority in Parliament after Wednesday’s elections, the Zimbabwe Election Commission announced Friday, allowing it to recapture parliamentary control from its main challenger, the Movement for Democratic Change.
The partial results were announced as African election observers on Friday presented a mixed report on the voting, saying that while it had been peaceful and orderly, serious problems were detected, including voters’ being turned away, too many ballots being printed, and bias in the news media.
That is so odd and strange because the link I led this post with told us "voting had gone well."
What we are looking at here is the "wrong guy" won because the rig didn't work, so now the charges of unclean and unfair elections is razed.
As for bias in the media, none one receives that more than Americans.
But monitors from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community, a regional trade bloc, concluded that the problems were not serious enough to invalidate the election.
“I have never seen an election that is perfect,” said Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria who led the African Union delegation, after cataloging the problems that plagued the vote. “We do not believe these instances will add up to the result not reflecting the will of the people.”
The regional trade bloc echoed this conclusion, calling the election “free and peaceful,” but officials stopped short of calling it fair, saying further investigation into the process was needed....
Patrick Chinamasa, a senior official of Mugabe’s party, ZANU-PF, and the minister of justice, castigated Morgan Tsvangirai, the main presidential challenger, in a news conference, who on Thursday called the election a “farce” and demanded an investigation by the African Union and the regional trade bloc.
“He makes the point the election was a farce, a sham election,” Chinamasa said. “Really? When 3.95 million people go to vote in cold weather, you call it a sham and a farce?”
The sham is not Mugabe, it's the fart-misters!
On Thursday a coalition of local charities that had sent 7,000 observers to the polls said that as many as 1 million voters were either missing from the registration roll or were turned away from polling stations, casting doubt on the validity of the election. Chinamasa scoffed at the assertion that that many people had been disenfranchised....
Tsvangirai and other leaders of the Movement for Democratic Change were in emergency meetings Friday, trying to decide what to do next, party officials said.
“The MDC totally rejects the electoral process and the outcome as announced so far, as both were not free and fair,” the party said in a statement. “The Zimbabwean election was a monumental fraud by the state security agents and ZANU-PF.”
Translation: Tsvangirai is the West's man!
Under the constitution, the challengers can go to the Constitutional Court within seven days of the announcement of the final result, but the top court is packed with ZANU-PF loyalists, analysts say, making it unlikely that an appeal would succeed.
Al Gore tried it anyway, but....
--more--"
"Mugabe wins again in Zimbabwe, leaving rival greatly weakened
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Robert Mugabe, who has led Zimbabwe since it threw off white rule in 1980, won another term as president after a disputed election held Wednesday, defeating his main challenger, Morgan Tsvangirai, with 61 percent of the vote, the Zimbabwe Election Commission said Saturday. Mugabe’s party also won more than two-thirds of the seats in Parliament, giving it a supermajority to make changes to the constitution (New York Times)."
Now that is a mandate!
"Botswana criticizes Zimbabwe vote" by Angus Shaw | Associated Press, August 07, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe — Botswana emerged Tuesday as a rare African voice of criticism of Zimbabwe’s disputed election, saying it was unfair and warning the region not to flout its own guidelines by accepting the result.
Botswana must be a client state.
In breaking ranks with other African observers, Botswana said the region ‘‘should not create the undesirable precedent of permitting exceptions to its own rules’’ on the conduct of Zimbabwe’s voting. In a statement in Harare, Botswana said its 80 observers concluded that conditions for free and fair elections were not met because of widespread irregularities.
The opposition and nongovernmental groups have alleged that massive vote-rigging enabled President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party to win a landslide over its challenger, the Movement for Democratic Change party. Mugabe’s supporters counter that such allegations are part of a smear campaign.
The announcement by sparsely populated Botswana, which shares a border with Zimbabwe, contrasted with cautious support for last week’s vote from the African Union and the Southern African Development Community.
But it gave a hint of the unease over the vote in Zimbabwe among neighbors that have issued calls for reform and reconciliation there.
If any foreigner suggests that about AmeriKa's rig jobs they are blasted.
--more--"
"Mugabe takes oath in Zimbabwe" by Lydia Polgreen | New York Times, August 23, 2013
JOHANNESBURG — Robert G. Mugabe was sworn in as president of Zimbabwe on Thursday in a pomp-filled ceremony in the capital, Harare, that extends by five years his 33-year rule.
Mugabe won a broad but disputed victory in Zimbabwe’s national election July 31, defeating his main rival, Morgan Tsvangirai, by nearly 30 percentage points. It was a surprising turnabout for Mugabe, 89, who won fewer votes than Tsvangirai did in the previous presidential election, in 2008, and was forced into forming a unity government.
Oh, the West just thought they would breeze through this regime change.
Mugabe struck a conciliatory note in his inaugural speech, given in a stadium filled with thousands of cheering supporters. He praised Tsvangirai and other opposition leaders, and called for unity.
“We will have competition and winners and losers,” Mugabe said. “We shall never be competing to be Zimbabweans.”
Tsvangirai’s party, the Movement for Democratic Change, called the election a farce and rejected the result as illegitimate, a view shared by many local observers and the United States, which said the vote did not represent the will of the Zimbabwean people.
But not most of Africa or the observers.
--more--"
And what did NOT make my printed paper:
"Zimbabwe's Mugabe threatens foreign-owned firms" by GILLIAN GOTORA / Associated Press / August 25, 2013
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwe’s long-serving president on Sunday threatened to expel foreign-owned companies over what he said was the West’s interference in the politics of the country he has led since 1980.
President Robert Mugabe said he wanted no ‘‘ideas from London or Washington,’’ speaking before supporters at the funeral of a top military chief in Harare. He warned the Western powers that although his government hasn’t ‘‘done anything to your companies, time will come when we will say tit for tat.’’
He's taking on some pretty big beef, although someone might have his back.
He said: ‘‘You hit me, I hit you. We have a country to run and we must be left free to run it.’’
Britain, the former colonial power, the European Union and the United States have refused to endorse Mugabe’s landslide victory in the July 31 elections, citing evidence of vote rigging.
Gee, who would help him do that?
The Western countries maintain economic restrictions on Mugabe and leaders of his ruling party.
Mugabe insists his party won ‘‘a resounding mandate’’ in the last election and denies allegations of voting fraud. Zimbabwe’s state election panel said Mugabe won the July 31 elections with 61 percent of the presidential vote.
Mugabe, who was sworn in Thursday for another five-year term at the age of 89, said that ‘‘there will come a time when we lose our patience’’ with the West’s pressure for democratic reforms.
‘‘I want to assure you our attitude will not continue to be passive,’’ Mugabe said Sunday. ‘‘We have had enough and enough is enough.’’
Since winning another term Mugabe has vowed to push ahead with a black empowerment program to force foreign and white-owned businesses to cede 51 percent ownership to black Zimbabweans. Some economists warn that the program will trigger another economic downturn, like that Zimbabwe suffered after Mugabe’s government seized white-owned farms in 2000.
Mugabe, on the other hand, says the new economic plan to force black control of companies will create jobs and economic growth that had been hindered by what he called ‘‘a tenuous and fraught coalition with uneasy partners’’ in the opposition led by former Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai. Tsvangirai had favored attracting Western investment during the five-year coalition forged by regional leaders after the last disputed elections in 2008.
Mugabe says Britain has opposed black empowerment since he forced thousands of white farmers to surrender their land. Critics of the program say it disrupted Zimbabwe’s agriculture-based economy, shut down industries and scared away foreign investment in mining and other businesses.
--more--"
Also related:
"Foreign players in the Zimbabwe platinum, diamond and aluminum business face forfeiture of their mining facilities as part of a government program aimed at nationalizing industries, according to Indiginization Minister Saviour Kasukuwere. While banks will be compensated for their losses and other industries, such as telecommunications, will be allowed to cede smaller stakes, it appears the mining sector will be asked to surrender control gratis. Companies affected by the plan may include Anglo American Platinum Ltd, Standard Chartered Plc, Aquarius Platinum Ltd, Impala Platinum, and Barclays. Robert Mugabe won the recent Presidential election in a landslide which was verified by African Union observers as "free and credible."
That explains the charges of fraud and such, doesn't it, although it must be the reason the West is not making too much of a stink (that and the connections to you-know-who).
Also see: Zimbabwe opposition glum, resigned to more Mugabe
It really is never-ending agenda-pu$hing in my corporate pre$$.
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