Beyond The Broken Spectrum

I’ve been following the story in Illinois concerning Governor Blagojevich since the issue of him trying to sell Barack Obama’s senate seat. I believe its safe to say this is a gigantic mess, but I’m not so sure this is entirely the governor’s fault.

I watched yesterday as the governor held a press conference and selected Roland Burris to fill the senate seat. Soon after the conference had begun, congressman Bobby Rush who happened to be standing in the back of the room, was asked to come up to the microphone and speak about the situation. He applauded the governor’s choice and said he had prayed for this to happen. He went on to say that the senate currently had no black senators which is an injustice and that this was a step towards ensuring that there are more black senators.

Back on December 9th, Bobby Rush stated that the governor has no moral basis for appointing the next senator for the state of Illinois and if he were to appoint someone, they would be just as tainted as the governor. Odd that he is fully supporting the governor now that he has appointed a black man to the senate seat. I can’t help but feel that this is becoming a race issue, which it should clearly not be, and that Bobby Rush is acting in a racist manner. He then went on the CBS Early Show and talked about segregation in schools back in the mid 1900’s, and compared the white Democrat Senators to the same people who supported segregation, stating that they should not put themselves in the same situation as segregationists. While I don’t believe the senate should be able to block someone from being seated if they are legally able to take the seat, this is nothing like segregation.

Bobby Rush aside, I believe that Governor Blagojevich does have the power to appoint whoever he see’s fit to that senate seat. He has not been impeached or convicted of any crimes and the Illinois congress has not restricted his power to appoint, therefore he has every legal right and an obligation to appoint someone to the empty senate seat before the new session of congress convenes. Perhaps he did do something illegal, maybe he didn’t. However here in the United States, we are innocent until proven guilty, at least that’s what they say.

However I don’t believe the governor should have appointed someone to the seat, even though he had the power to do so. Seeing as how he is currently being charged for several issues, the senate seat being the top matter, he should not have appointed anyone due to a conflict of interest. The Illinois congress could have held a special election to fill the seat, the Governor even gave his support for such an election. The election was talked about shortly and then scrapped by Illinois Democrats under the guise of not wanting to have the tax payers pay for a special election. They normally don’t have any problems spending and wasting our money, why is this case so different? The truth of the matter is likely that the election was scrapped for fear of losing the seat to a Republican, great confidence they have their.

I might have to agree with Illinois possibly having the most corrupt state government, if not a few other choice words.

Happy New Year!

Bombing in the Gaza strip by Israeli planes heads into its fourth day today, still going strong since they began bombing on Saturday. The bombing began in response to continuous rocket fire from Hamas militants in the Gaza strip after a cease fire was agreed to.

For those that don’t know, Hamas was elected to power in Palestine during the last election, which did not go very smoothly as there was much intimidation during the polling. Hamas believes that Israel has no right to be here in the world and constantly calls for their destruction. They refuse to live in peace with the Israelis and have ignored countless ceasefires. Recently, a Hamas spokesperson in Egypt stated that they had no choice but to resume rocket fire and that they would be steadfast and swift, and then victory would be at hand. They gave no actual reason for why they have no choice to resume firing rockets into Israel, however Israel has upheld their end of the ceasefire and had not fired on Gaza militants until recently when the bombing began.

So far the Israelis have bombed several military compounds, training centers, a Hamas sports complex, several Hamas government buildings, and a Hamas university, all mostly deserted at the time when they were bombed. Most Hamas installations are grouped among civilians areas, designed to prevent them from being bombed or attacked by using civilians as shields. Somewhere around 50 civilians have been killed so far, and well over 300 militants have been killed.

People around the middle east, France, and Britain have been protesting the Israeli bombings and have been very supportive of Hamas. People who have given interviews from the middle east, including a Palestinian woman who was interviewed earlier today, have all portrayed Hamas as the victim here, and several have called for Israel to face war crimes. There is no reasoning with a lot of these people, and while we should continue to pursue diplomatic options, we need to remember that these people are unreasonable and military options should always be on the table. I’d like to hope that I speak for most all Americans when I issue my support to the Israelis, and I feel that we should help them in any manner we can.

The Israelis are a peaceful people, that just want to live their lives without the constant threat of rockets being fired into their communities. If this were happening to us from Mexico, we would have already gone in and probably overthrown the government. Our citizens would be outraged if they would of had to endure such conditions for an extended period of time, as the Israelis have had to do. I support peace in the middle east, but I will not stand idly by as our allies uphold a ceasefire and their enemies continue to fire rockets at them.

Put yourselves in their situation, what would you do?

What do you do once you begin spending so much money that you risk facing a one billion dollar spending gap? Easy, instead of cutting your massive spending on programs that shouldn’t be getting as much or any money at all, just go ahead and close down some libraries. That’s what the mayor of Philadelphia is planning to do.

Imagine that, the government is overspending and is putting the burden on the citizens. I almost find that hard to believe, considering our federal government is in trillions of dollars of debt and climbing each day. Instead of making wise and much needed spending cuts, Mayor Michael Nutter has decided that closing down our education centers will solve the problem. Never mind that our education system is underfunded as it is. Next they’ll start closing down schools because of a lack of money, oh wait, they did that here in Waco a couple months back. Our education isn’t that important anyways I suppose.
Why is it that our government feels the need to waste so much money and spend on projects that don’t enhance our society and living situations? We are taxed so much to the point that we should have a first class education system with a library every couple of blocks. Our government generates so much revenue from taxes, they could afford to have normal government operations, improve our education system, ensure defense, improve the community, and still give us a tax cut in the end. This is just on a local state and city level, as the federal government is a far worse offender.

As it stands and we continue forward as is, the government will continue to spend more and more money and cut spending in much needed areas to fund other unneeded projects, both raising our taxes and borrowing more and more from the Chinese, who owns about 46% of our federal debt. In the end, it all comes to a screeching halt as we run out of money and crumble due to our government’s irresponsible fiscal spending. All the while as our elected officials vote to raise their pay year after year as the rest of us struggle.

I sure feel comfortable knowing that while I’m at the grocery store trying to make my small food budget work, my hard earned money is lining the pocket of some person that probably doesn’t even pay for most of their meals and plane rides, and takes about 3 months of vacation a year.

An article on yahoo news tells a story of how a man in Idaho was driving his two children, a boy 12, and girl 11 to see their mother and ended up getting stuck in a snow drift. The man then allowed the children to walk the rest of the way to their mother’s house while he and another person worked to free the truck. The children never made it to their mother’s house, and the distance from the area where the vehicle was stuck to their mothers house is not known. The two got about four miles, separated, and the girl started to walk back to where they came from, the boy kept going.

The boy was found at a rest stop about 4.5 miles away from where they began, and was in nothing but his underwear. He had become delusional from the cold and had taken most of his clothes off. He was treated at a hospital and released. The girl was found about two the next morning around 2.7 miles from where they began, laying in a snowdrift. She was pronounced dead at the hospital due to hypothermia.

The father was charged with second-degree murder and felony injury to a child and held on $500,000 bail. The sentence carries a maximum of life in prison. While this is a very tragic story and I do believe that the father should be held responsible for this, I do no believe he deserves such charges against him. He didn’t intentionally put the child in harms way and never meant to harm either child in any way. The only thing he is guilty of is being irresponsible by allowing these children to walk through snow and temperatures that ranged from -5 to 27 degrees.

If we send this man to prison for the rest of his life for this, we will make a tragic situation all the more horrible. Prison is not the answer to everything, and we have already imprisoned too many people for such minor offenses or for other reasons beyond what the system is actually intended for. He should be charged with two counts of reckless endagerment of a child, serve a couple months in county, probation for a year or two, and have custody of his son granted to his ex-wife, however he should also retain his full rights with the child as well. The boy has already lost his sister, we shouldn’t take his father from him too.

The Wall Street Journal
MOSCOW — For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument — that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. — very seriously. Now he’s found an eager audience: Russian state media.

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it’s his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin’s views also fit neatly with the Kremlin’s narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

A polite and cheerful man with a buzz cut, Mr. Panarin insists he does not dislike Americans. But he warns that the outlook for them is dire.

“There’s a 55-45% chance right now that disintegration will occur,” he says. “One could rejoice in that process,” he adds, poker-faced. “But if we’re talking reasonably, it’s not the best scenario — for Russia.” Though Russia would become more powerful on the global stage, he says, its economy would suffer because it currently depends heavily on the dollar and on trade with the U.S.

Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces — with Alaska reverting to Russian control.

In addition to increasing coverage in state media, which are tightly controlled by the Kremlin, Mr. Panarin’s ideas are now being widely discussed among local experts. He presented his theory at a recent roundtable discussion at the Foreign Ministry. The country’s top international relations school has hosted him as a keynote speaker. During an appearance on the state TV channel Rossiya, the station cut between his comments and TV footage of lines at soup kitchens and crowds of homeless people in the U.S. The professor has also been featured on the Kremlin’s English-language propaganda channel, Russia Today.

Mr. Panarin’s apocalyptic vision “reflects a very pronounced degree of anti-Americanism in Russia today,” says Vladimir Pozner, a prominent TV journalist in Russia. “It’s much stronger than it was in the Soviet Union.”

Mr. Pozner and other Russian commentators and experts on the U.S. dismiss Mr. Panarin’s predictions. “Crazy ideas are not usually discussed by serious people,” says Sergei Rogov, director of the government-run Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies, who thinks Mr. Panarin’s theories don’t hold water.

Mr. Panarin’s résumé includes many years in the Soviet KGB, an experience shared by other top Russian officials. His office, in downtown Moscow, shows his national pride, with pennants on the wall bearing the emblem of the FSB, the KGB’s successor agency. It is also full of statuettes of eagles; a double-headed eagle was the symbol of czarist Russia.

The professor says he began his career in the KGB in 1976. In post-Soviet Russia, he got a doctorate in political science, studied U.S. economics, and worked for FAPSI, then the Russian equivalent of the U.S. National Security Agency. He says he did strategy forecasts for then-President Boris Yeltsin, adding that the details are “classified.”

In September 1998, he attended a conference in Linz, Austria, devoted to information warfare, the use of data to get an edge over a rival. It was there, in front of 400 fellow delegates, that he first presented his theory about the collapse of the U.S. in 2010.

“When I pushed the button on my computer and the map of the United States disintegrated, hundreds of people cried out in surprise,” he remembers. He says most in the audience were skeptical. “They didn’t believe me.”

At the end of the presentation, he says many delegates asked him to autograph copies of the map showing a dismembered U.S.

He based the forecast on classified data supplied to him by FAPSI analysts, he says. He predicts that economic, financial and demographic trends will provoke a political and social crisis in the U.S. When the going gets tough, he says, wealthier states will withhold funds from the federal government and effectively secede from the union. Social unrest up to and including a civil war will follow. The U.S. will then split along ethnic lines, and foreign powers will move in.

California will form the nucleus of what he calls “The Californian Republic,” and will be part of China or under Chinese influence. Texas will be the heart of “The Texas Republic,” a cluster of states that will go to Mexico or fall under Mexican influence. Washington, D.C., and New York will be part of an “Atlantic America” that may join the European Union. Canada will grab a group of Northern states Prof. Panarin calls “The Central North American Republic.” Hawaii, he suggests, will be a protectorate of Japan or China, and Alaska will be subsumed into Russia.

“It would be reasonable for Russia to lay claim to Alaska; it was part of the Russian Empire for a long time.” A framed satellite image of the Bering Strait that separates Alaska from Russia like a thread hangs from his office wall. “It’s not there for no reason,” he says with a sly grin.

Interest in his forecast revived this fall when he published an article in Izvestia, one of Russia’s biggest national dailies. In it, he reiterated his theory, called U.S. foreign debt “a pyramid scheme,” and predicted China and Russia would usurp Washington’s role as a global financial regulator.

Americans hope President-elect Barack Obama “can work miracles,” he wrote. “But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.”

The article prompted a question about the White House’s reaction to Prof. Panarin’s forecast at a December news conference. “I’ll have to decline to comment,” spokeswoman Dana Perino said amid much laughter.

For Prof. Panarin, Ms. Perino’s response was significant. “The way the answer was phrased was an indication that my views are being listened to very carefully,” he says.

The professor says he’s convinced that people are taking his theory more seriously. People like him have forecast similar cataclysms before, he says, and been right. He cites French political scientist Emmanuel Todd. Mr. Todd is famous for having rightly forecast the demise of the Soviet Union — 15 years beforehand. “When he forecast the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1976, people laughed at him,” says Prof. Panarin.

So I was at Home Depot the other night, and was able to see a verbal fight over a Christmas tree.

This couple was looking at the different trees “real trees” and had been there for a while looking at the trees. They had decided on two trees and were trying to decide which one to buy. Another group of people came in and began to look at trees as well and they liked one of the trees that these other people liked. When they tried to buy the tree, an argument ensued as the first couple threw a complete fit over the fact that these other people wanted to buy one of the trees they wanted to buy and would not let them have it, even though it was for sale. A manager was called and came to try and solve the problem and soon became a target for everyone. He ended up talking the family that had come in after the other couple into waiting until the people had decided which tree to buy.

After 15 minutes of waiting, the woman got tired of waiting and started arguing with the first couple again after they said they still hadn’t decided. When the manager went to intervene again, the second woman told him that she felt she was being harassed and said she was going to call the police. The manager calmed her down and everything seemed fine. The first couple decided that since they couldn’t decide which tree they would buy, that they would just buy both trees instead. The other group of people decided on another tree. Everyone had their trees, everyone was happy, and then they left. About 20 minutes later, the police showed up and wanted to talk to the manager that had talked to the people.

The manager explained the situation, the police felt that there was nothing wrong, so they left. I just have a few words for these people, and other people out there like them.

Its just a tree, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves. Pretty silly if you ask me.

I came across an article earlier that I found immensely interesting and definitely worthy of being followed.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081218/ap_on_re_us/samaritan_protection

A woman in California was riding in the passenger seat of a car that slammed into a lightpole at 45 mph. A friend was following in a car behind and witnessed the accident. The friend, Lisa Torti, feared that the car was going to catch on fire and decided to pull her friend from the car before it did catch fire. While the exact details of what happened while the girl was being pulled from the car are not clear, the woman alleges that her friend pulled her from the car carelessly like a ragdoll and caused her to become a paraplegic and is now sueing her friend. The California Supreme Court has ruled that the suit can go forward due to the law only protecting people from liability when they are rendering emergency aid, which they have decided that her friend was not.

While we will have to wait for more details, I can say that this could set a precedent for people to sue others who have rendered them aid, which in turn will cause people to not stop and render aid to others. People shouldn’t have to be afraid of being sued if they help someone in a situation such as this, and with the possibility of being sued, even the best of people will ultimately decide not to help someone.

I will continue to follow this story and will write more as the story developes.

Story printed by Yahoo News

The story is everywhere already, and in case you weren’t aware, President Bush was nearly assaulted.

An Iraqi reporter threw his shoes at President Bush during his surprise visit to Iraq, which is considered one of the worst insults in the middle east. After the reporter threw his shoes, he was dragged from the room by security and is currently being held in jail.

A lot of people around Iraq are talking about the reporter and he is hailed as a national hero to marchers, with several calling for his release citing our first amendment rights. They go even further to state that if the reporter is held, it would be a reminder of the dictatorial era and should be released “in accordance with the democratic era and the freedom of expression that Iraqis were promised by U.S. authorities.” The news station that employs the reporter, Al-Baghdadiya television played endless patriotic music, with Zaidi’s face plastered across the screen and has demanded his release.

Our first amendment right is the right to free speech, not the right to free assault. This man has every right to express his feelings in any peaceful manner that he so chooses. However he chose to act in a violent manner, nearly clocking our President in the face with a pair of shoes. While this would have been at least a little funny to us all, it is attempted assault, and possibly attempted assault with a deadly weapon. I’m not sure of the Iraqi laws governing this matter, however these people have chosen to use our laws as an example, so this man should be held until bail can be set, he should be charged with aggravated assault, and he should be tried for his crime. Just because they now live in a society that allows freedom of expression, it does not give the right to act in a barbaric manner, as the Iraqi government has labeled the reporter’s actions.

These people are upset at the wrong person as well. They’ve complained about the amount of people killed, the unsafe conditions, at times the lack of security, and many others things. The real people to blame in this matter are the people that have continued to fight our soldiers, the people that continue to blow up innocent civilians, the people that make it unsafe to play outside, the people that make entire neighborhoods unsafe at night. These people have a mindset, and while many have seen that we are there helping them, there will always be others that believe we are pure evil, because of what they’ve been taught or told.

On a side note, the Japanese thought we were the most horrible people in the world during World War 2. Their government told them that when we came to their mainland, we would rape their women, slaughter their children, and torture their men. We would do every imaginable horror that these people could think of, all for the fact that their government fed them this propaganda to keep their support. The situation here is no different.

“I’m sure many Iraqis want to do what Muntazer did. Muntazer used to say all the orphans whose fathers were killed are because of Bush.” This is a quote taken from the article, to which I have one remark. The people responsible for all of the orphans of Iraq are not the soldiers, or George Bush, or our policies. The people responsible are Saddam Hussein, his loyalists, the insurgents, the terrorists, Iran, and probably Syria. All of these people have contributed to the bloodshed.

We should not have went into Iraq, however it happened and any amount of debate on the subject would be useless. The real question is, where do we go from here and how do we deal with the rest?

Bush’s only comment, “the only thing I can report is that they were a size 10″.

I’ve been following the coverage on the situation in Greece since a 15 year old boy was killed by an officer last Saturday. Reports indicate that two police officers were confronted by a group of youths that started to throw things at the officers. Things get a bit hazy from here, as the lawyer for the officer said that he fired a warning shot in the air and the bullet ricocheted and hit the teen. While that is a little hard to believe, that’s really not the subject of this article and I have to give him the benefit of a doubt. The two officers have since been arrested and are awaiting trial, with the 2nd officer being charged as an accomplice. These boys should have never confronted these officers and thrown stuff at them in the first place though. They put themselves into a confrontation with two officers that were outnumbered and had only their weapons to defend themselves with.

Soon after the incident, self described youth anarchists began rioting in various parts of Greece and have been rioting ever since, causing massive damage to stores and other buildings. They have been throwing firebombs at stores and police and erecting burning barricades in the streets. Complete lawlessness has overtaken parts of Greece by what appears to be the youth socialist movement. For those that don’t understand Greek society, it is mostly comprised of a younger generation of socialists and an older generation of capitalists, with the current government being pro-capitalist.

Overall, this appears to be an incident that these people have taken advantage of to justify taking to the streets and destroying anything they can, all the while calling for the Prime Minister to resign over the matter as well, supported by socialist party politicians. These people that have caused all of this destruction should be detained, charged, fined, and should have to serve jail time for acting like lawless savages. They should also have to personally apologize to the owners of the stores that they have destroyed.

If these people don’t like the current direction of the government, they should organize peacefully and vote the current politicians out of office that they don’t agree with. While fully accomplishing what I’m sure are their real goals of removing all elements of the government that aren’t in line with their socialist views won’t happen, they need to realize that they aren’t living in a country where everyone agrees on the same ideas and must accept that they have to live peacefully beside people who may not agree with their views, and that includes living with a majority elected government.

The only time I would give consent to physically overthrow a government, is if the government has acted in a way to severely infringe upon the rights of the citizen, which hasn’t happened here. We live in a modern world full of civil societies, I expect people to act in a civil manner.

BCS DECLARES GERMANY WINNER OF WORLD WAR II
US Ranked 4th

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

“Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work–including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule–our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking.”

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated “The US only had two major victories–Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren’t influenced by head-to-head contests–they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event.”

German Chancellor Adolph Hiter said “Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks.” Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn ’style points’ to enhance Germany’s rankings. Hitler protested “Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces.”

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented ” France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2.”

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.

Clarence Aaron’s road has been long.

Sentenced to three concurrent life terms in prison for introducing two drug dealers in 1993, he has spent the last 15 years in high-security federal prison. He is 39 years old and he will spend the rest of his life in prison — unless the president of the United States commutes his sentence.

A junior at Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., Aaron was convicted of conspiracy to distribute 24 kilos of crack cocaine in 1993. He refused to plead guilty and to testify against his co-conspirators. His partners, career drug dealers, flipped on him and testified against him at his trial.

Mandatory minimum sentencing guidelines on crack charges were harsh, and he was sentenced to three terms of life in prison. In 1996, a court denied his appeal.

The amount of drugs involved was just too great, and the changes in the law didn’t apply to Aaron, even if the result seemed unfair.

His legal avenues are exhausted. Now his only hope of ever walking out of the federal prison in Coleman, Fla., is a grant of clemency from the president.

Aaron has had an application in with the Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney since 2001. The office reviews clemency applications — for pardons and sentence commutations of federal convicts — and makes recommendations to the president.

The Justice Department does not comment on pending cases. But Aaron’s chances don’t look good.

During his time in office, President Bush has received almost 8,000 petitions for commutation from federal convicts.

He has granted eight.

One was his friend and Vice President Dick Cheney’s aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of obstruction of justice, perjury and making false statements concerning the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. The Pardon Attorney’s office said Libby did not apply.

Bush commuted the sentences of non-violent drug offenders John Edward Forte of North Brunswick, N.J., and James Russell Harris of Detroit in November in his first round of clemency actions since March.

The other five whose sentences were commuted were also jailed for drug-related crimes.

Bush has used his power to grant reprieves and pardons less frequently than his predecessors in the White House. Former President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 61 federal convicts and pardoned 396.

One of the felons on Clinton’s list was Dorothy Gaines, who, like Aaron, was convicted on drug conspiracy charges. She was released on Dec. 22, 2000, and now does public speaking engagements on mandatory minimum sentencing laws.

In addition to his eight sentence commutations, Bush has pardoned 157 convicts, including 14 last month.

Bush is expected to make additional decisions on pardons and sentence commutations before he leaves office in January. Decisions on petitions that aren’t reviewed and decided upon before the transfer of power will be made by the Obama administration.

“Clarence Aaron’s life without parole sentence is exactly the sort of abusive punishment [that] the presidential pardon was designed to redress,” said Debra Saunders, a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle who has been writing about Aaron’s case in her column for several years.

“When the feds put away drug kingpins for long terms, the system works. But when they free two kingpins and put a nonviolent low-level novice behind bars for the rest of his young life, I believe President Bush’s sense of justice and compassion will compel him to free Clarence Aaron,” she said.

Eric Sterling, former counsel for the House Committee on Judicial Affairs and president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, said that drug offenders deserve punishment, but agrees that in the case of Clarence Aaron, the president would be right to commute Aaron’s sentence.

“He’s been in 15 years. Before the mandatory minimums were enacted, the maximum you could get under the federal controlled substances act was 15 years unless you were convicted of the kingpin statute ….

“He has served enough time. Justice is done.”

Aaron wrote in a declaration to the court this year when he sought a resentencing that he regrets his decision to participate in the drug deal, and that he has accepted responsibility for his actions.

“Every day I wake up I have to deal with my reality. Those years ago, I made a horribly selfish, foolish and wrong decision that I am truly sorry for. I so regret all the hurt and damage I have caused others through my transgression,” Aaron wrote.

“One of my life goals is to be the best person I can be. I want to be the best son, uncle, friend and citizen I can be. As I sit here now and reflect on my current plight, I feel the growth, maturity and strength that my experience in prison has, in God’s loving hands, brought about in me. I just pray for a second chance to be a productive citizen.”

Story originally published by Fox News

Sometimes I am astounded by the injustices and atrocities of the world, which is rare as I am not easily surprised when something happens in our often cruel world. We should live in a better world, we have the power to do so, but collective greed prevents it. Greed exists everywhere within every person, more in some then the others. These people that indulge in excessive amounts of greed, are often the worst people, who have the power to do the worst things.

Africa has always been a horrible place. The societies of the continent constantly fought one another in tribal warfare and these tribes would sell prisoners of war into slavery. Then came colonization, which wasn’t much better for the people of Africa. The colonial powers of the world viewed Africa as ripe in resources and available to be exploited. For many years Africa’s resources were used to fund wars and pad the coffers of the countries who had grabbed their piece of the colonial pie. A primitive continent was used and abused for years, not only by colonial powers, but their very own leaders as well. In a society of people with limited education and other basic necessities, they can be easily manipulated.

Over time, with such conditions, hatred and radicalism festers. Once we arrived at the modern age, colonies started to become a thing of the past. Replacing these colonies were countries with factions, each picking up where the colonial powers left off. They continued to abuse and take advantage of the people of Africa. This all led to a gap, the poor and the powerful, and that is what we have today. Men with power, consumed by greed, that do nothing to advance their society, only to advance themselves and their own agenda.

The country of Zimbabwe is one of many examples of these conditions. Robert Mugabe has held control of the country since 1980 after the country was released from British rule. He was a strong supporter of independence from the colonial powers throughout his life, which has earned him some fame among Africans. Last June, he won another 5 year term, however not without controversy. There had to be a runoff between Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader. However before the runoff vote, Tsvangirai withdrew from the election as many of his supporters were killed and their homes set on fire by Mugabe forces. This in turn led to a landslide victory for Mugabe. Since then, a power sharing deal was reached between the two men, however currently there is deadlock over which ministers each of them will control.

Mugabe continues to run the country, unopposed. The country has fallen on severe hard times, with hundreds of thousands dieing from a Cholera outbreak as the country’s healthcare system has crumbled, millions are starving as there is no food. The country’s economic sector is nearly non-existant, as the inflation rate has skyrockted to over 14 mill percent. A loaf of bread costs 33 million Zimbabwe Dollars, which amounts to roughly 1 US Dollar. The country is in shambles, with many in the world calling for Mugabe’s resignation, he has refused. However the African Union refuses to do anything to intervene in the situation. Some AU leaders, such as the Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga, have called for intervention though and support an AU or UN force going into the country to intevene. One can only hope that people such as PM Odinga, can be an agent of such change.

What should be done in this situation? It’s complicated, but a few options exist. An ideal situation would have African forces going in to help stabilize the country and bring about a new government. This would be the most beneficial solution, however at this point, the AU has rejected such actions. A UN force could be sent in, however the UN has miserably failed in its past and current peacekeeping missions in Africa, so I do not believe this would be any better. An independent group of nations could send a massive force to try and stabilize the country, however this could possibly cause a scenario similar to Iraq, which is not ideal.

I have my own solution though, and while some may not agree, I believe it will probably be the only way. The people of Africa need to unite against such leaders like Mugabe and lead a revolution to overthrow these people in order to help provide a better future for themselves. As it stands, the people of Africa face a very bleak future. They alone have the power to free themselves from such oppression and tyranny. Throwing money at this problem isn’t helping either, it just empowers these warlords and oppressors, giving them more money to put towards arming themselves even further against the poor.

Clarence Aaron was a college boy from Mobile, Ala., when he introduced two drug dealers to each other — the mistake that got him three concurrent life sentences in a high-security federal prison.

But Aaron didn’t grow up destined to be a criminal.

He told his story in a declaration to the court filed earlier this year with a motion to be resentenced:

He said his father was out of work and in poor health during his childhood in a Mobile housing project, and his mother worked as a maid and nanny to support the family.

But when he was 10, his parents sent him to live with his grandfather in a middle-class neighborhood so that he could avoid the trouble of the projects and go to better schools.

His grandfather taught him about responsiblity and getting a good education. He told Aaron that he wanted him to go to college. Aaron attended church regularly and was close to his pastor, the Rev. George McNeil, with whom he had conversations about the Bible.

When his grandfather — Aaron called him his best friend in his declaration to the court — died from prostate cancer in 1991, Aaron lost both a mentor and his financial support.

Desperate to stay in school, he made what he calls “the biggest mistake of my life,” and agreed to help Robert Hines and Marion Teano Watts buy cocaine.

“I am ashamed that I had any involvement with cocaine,” Aaron said in his declaration. “I am just grateful my grandfather was not alive to see my disgraceful behavior.”

Aaron had never been arrested before, and this was his first and only brush with the law.

How does a guy like that get life times three?

Aaron was sentenced according to guidelines Congress passed at the height of the crack epidemic in the 1980s. The laws mandate sentences based on the quantity of drugs involved in a crime and have led to an explosion in the U.S. prison population, as low-level non-violent drug offenders are given lengthy prison sentences.

According to the Drug Policy Alliance Network, 80 percent of the increased number of federal prisoners between 1985 and 1995 were convicted of drug crimes.

Aaron was involved in two drug buys. The first deal involved 9 kilos of cocaine. The second, which never actually happened because thieves stole the money, was a 15-kilo deal. Since the buyer was planning to turn that cocaine into crack, Aaron was sentenced for conspiracy to distribute 24 kilos of crack.

“By virtue of going to trial and the quantity that was involved under the sentencing guidelines, Clarence got these three life terms. It’s a paradigmatic case of the injustice of mandatory minimums,” said Eric Sterling, president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation and one-time counsel for the House Committee on the Judiciary, the group that created the mandatory minimum laws.

“It was all politics. There was a desire to go back to the public and be able to say we’re cracking down. We’re getting tough. We’re punishing dope dealers. We’re sending a message to the dope dealers that they’re going to be tracked down and sent away to prison for a long time,” Sterling said.

Advocates of the mandatory minimum sentencing laws say that they’re a response to judicial discretion gone haywire and that harsh punishments for drug dealers are needed to keep the innocent safe.

“Drug dealing is inextricably linked with violence in every direction,” said James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. “The way you deter people from becoming involved in that kind of activity is to make it very clear to them that there are going to be consequences for their illegal activities.”

People living in poorer neighborhoods deserve the same protection from crime and violence that those living in wealthier neighborhoods expect, he said.

“Generally speaking, people who deal in drugs are dealing in violence, both in the sense that violence is commonplace in their business — it takes violence to get the money to buy their products — and once under the influence of their products people tend to do more violence,” Pasco said.

Other factors also influenced Aaron’s sentencing.

The government decided to prosecute Aaron for a crack conspiracy, not cocaine possession, because crack was considered more dangerous than powder cocaine and carried heftier punishments during the crack epidemic

Aaron was also sentenced as a “manager or supervisor” of the crack ring and for pleading not guilty and not accepting responsibility for his actions.

How did a man whose role in the so-called conspiracy was to introduce two drug dealers and go with them to pick up drugs wind up being pegged as a ringleader?

Aaron’s supporters blame the “snitches.”

“So many times it is the race to the courthouse,” said Dennis Knizley, Aaron’s defense lawyer at his 1993 trial. “The first one there gets on board to cooperate against his sometimes lifelong friends, sometimes family members, and that’s who gets the deal — the first one to the courthouse.”

Aaron’s five co-conspirators, career drug dealers, agreed to testify in the cases against the others in exchange for reduced sentences. They will have spent an average of eight years in prison for their role in the deals.

Aaron did not testify against the others. He said he was told that if he didn’t cooperate, he couldn’t plead guilty. He pleaded not guilty, and he was convicted. Now he is 39, he’s been in prison for 15 years, and he will spend the rest of his life in prison.

Unlike the men who testified against him, like ring leader Marion Teano Watts who told the jury at Aaron’s trial that he had made over a million dollars selling crack, Aaron had no history of drug involvement before the trial.

Knizley said that if he had the case to try again, he would have to stick by his client and plead not guilty, even though cooperation might have gotten him less prison time.

“Clarence said he was not guilty, and if my client tells me he’s not guilty I’m not going to twist his arm or pressure him into saying something that’s not true,” Knizley said.

In September, a federal judge denied Aaron’s motion to have his sentence reduced based on a November 2007 change to the crack guidelines — Aaron’s unexpected last shot at freedom through the legal system. Now his only hope is a presidential pardon.

Originally Printed By Fox News

I have always been a critic of our child support system. It’s an inefficient joke that needs to be restructured with new people running the program. I’ve read many stories of child support cases where many men have been ordered to pay support for children that weren’t theirs. However I came across a new story today, and it pretty much takes the cake.

Story Originally From Fox News

HARRISBURG, Pa.  — A Philadelphia man was forced to pay more than $12,000 in child support for another man’s daughter and spent two years in jail for falling behind on payments.

Dauphin County prosecutor Edward M. Marsico Jr. told The Patriot-News of Harrisburg that he is examining the case of Walter Andre Sharpe Jr., who has been unable to recover the money even after establishing that he isn’t the girl’s father.

The investigation has no specific targets, Marsico said.

Sharpe’s troubles began in 2001, when he signed for a certified letter addressed to Andre Sharpe, the girl’s father. The letter ordered Andre Sharpe to attend a child support conference in Dauphin County, where the girl’s mother lived at the time.

Walter Sharpe, who was already supporting four children from a previous marriage, ignored the letter, and a judge ruled he was the father after neither man showed up. The county family welfare agency then began garnishing Walter Sharpe’s wages from his job at a trash-hauling company.

He served four six-month jail terms for not keeping up with support payments between 2001 and 2005, then lost his job. Petitions he filed for DNA testing were opposed by the court’s domestic relations officials and denied by the judge.

Walter Sharpe and his attorney, Tabetha Tanner, claim his identity was stolen in 2002, when he met with agency officials and provided identification showing he was not the father. Instead, his personal information was entered into the agency’s computer records, he said.

Officials in the court’s domestic relations office would not respond to the newspaper’s questions. They said in court papers that they determined Walter Sharpe was the father “after reasonable investigation.”

Andre Sharpe has said he has always supported the girl, who is now living with him in Philadelphia and about to graduate from high school.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081204/ap_on_re_ca/canada_political_crisis

I’m not too buffed up on my Canadian politics, I don’t have a firm grasp of their system, however I have enough general knowledge to know that something is amiss when the Prime Minister can have parliament shut down in the face of a no confidence vote. I’ve always known Canadian politics to be a little screwy, but this takes the cake.

How is it that PM Harper can ask the unelected Governor General, who represents the Monarch of England, for permission to shut down parliament when it is clear that he will be voted out of power. He is scrambling to save a job that I would hope is no longer his once Parliament is re-opened. His peers believe that he has done a bad job and there is an overwhelming majority supporting a vote of no confidence. Thats the way I look at it.

I’ve talked with Canadians prior to this and have heard several times that they are displeased with their current Prime Minister, and with some of the actions I have seen the Canadian government take, I’d have to agree with these people as well. I know the Prime Minister can’t be held responsible for the whole show, just like our President can’t be held responsible for some situations here in the US, parliament and congress shoulder the blame too, but he is in charge and controls a lot of the decisions that make or break the economy and other aspects of Canada.

They’ll go and work on a plan and when Parliament reopens, they’ll hope it will save his job. But I believe he’s gone no matter what, and thats how it should be. The Canadian citizens should then elect a new Prime Minister.