KINGSTON — Trucks laden with bodies rushed to hospitals in Jamaica's capital as the government vowed an all-out assault to nab a powerful alleged drug kingpin barricaded by his gang in the teeming slums.
Hospital sources said they saw more than 60 bodies, although police put the death toll at 27. But Prime Minister Bruce Golding warned the figures would likely rise, and police late Tuesday reported several murders.
Gun-toting troops and police circled the streets into the night as rain descended on Kingston, an impoverished Caribbean city ringed by mountains that is a world away from the sun-kissed beaches for which Jamaica is best known.
Supporters set up tree branches, old cars and even abandoned refrigerators to form makeshift barricades to seal off the stronghold of local don Christopher "Dudus" Coke, who is wanted by the United States on drug charges.
Coke has developed a loyal following among some slum-dwellers, who see him as a savior for offering jobs, education and security that are sorely lacking. He also had developed ties with the political establishment.
But after months of stalling, Golding on Sunday declared a state of emergency to arrest Coke, declaring a battle to rid this nation of its image as one of the world's murder capitals.
"The violence that has been unleashed on the society by armed, criminal elements must be repelled," Golding told a heated session of parliament, where opposition members accused him...
But he pledged to investigate any excesses in the assault, which is being carried out by police and troops backed by clattering helicopters.
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Police also told AFP they have detained 211 people, including four women.
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Federal prosecutors in New York last year accused Coke of running an armed network that has been a major supplier of cocaine and marijuana to New York and other US cities.
------------------------------http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0528/radio-host-hopes-nyc-mosque-blown/
Right-wing radio host ‘hopes’ NYC mosque gets blown up
Islamic Relations said Michael Berry of KPRC 950 AM "made a call to violence" when he said he hoped someone would blow up the mosque being proposed for a location in lower Manhattan, near the site of the 9/11 attacks.
During an argument with a caller who supported the mosque's construction, Berry said, "You can't build a mosque at the site of 9/11. No you can't. No you can't. And I'll tell you this -- if you do build a mosque, I hope somebody blows it up. ... I hope the mosque isn't built, and if it is, I hope it's blown up, and I mean that."
Download audio of Berry's comments here (WAV file).
"Calls for acts of violence against houses of worship must never be tolerated or excused," CAIR National Executive Director Nihad Awad said. "We ask the FCC to demonstrate that incitement to violence is never acceptable on our nation's airwaves."
---------------------------------------http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0528/rand-paul-deny-citizenship-kids-illegal-immigrants/
As Rand Paul aligns himself with anti-immigrant forces,
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an interview with Russia Today, flagged by Jillian Rayfield at TalkingPointsMemo, Paul appeared to join the anti-immigrant sentiment running through his party in recent years, telling the news network that the practice of granting citizenship to all persons born on US soil -- as mandated by the 14th Amendment -- "should stop."
"We're the only country that I know that allows people to come in illegally, have a baby, and then that baby becomes a citizen," Paul said.
On that point, it would appear Paul is misinformed. Dozens of countries around the world adhere to the principle of Jus soli, "right of soil," meaning citizenship based on a person's place of birth. Among the countries where persons are automatically granted citizenship by virtue of being born there are Australia, Canada, France and the UK
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http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0529/energy-expert-nuke-oil-leak/
Energy expert: Nuking oil leak ‘only thing we can do’
Matt Simmons, founder of energy investment bank Simmons & Company, also says that there is evidence of a second oil leak about five to seven miles from the initial leak that BP has focused on fixing. That second leak, he says, is so large that the initial one is "minor" in comparison."A week ago Sunday the first research vessel ... was commissioned by NOAA to scour the area," he said. They found "a gigantic plume" growing about five to seven miles from the site of the original leak, Simmons said.
Simmons said the US government should immediately take the effort to plug the leak out of the hands of BP and put the military in charge.
"Probably the only thing we can do is create a weapons system and send it down 18,000 feet and detonate it, hopefully encasing the oil," he said.
His idea echoes that of a Russian newspaper that earlier this month suggested the US detonate a small nuclear bomb to seal the oil beneath the sea. Komsomoloskaya Pravda argued in an editorial that Russia had successfully used nuclear weapons to seal oil spills on five occasions in the past.
A first test in the fall of 1966 proved successful in sealing up an underground gas well in southern Uzbekistan, and so the Russians used nukes four more times for capping runaway wells.
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"After serving in Iraq as a Marine, I returned disillusioned with our policies, just like many other veterans. It is a tragic indictment of our policies that more soldiers have taken their own lives than have died in combat." ~ Adam Kokesh
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2011972590_flaimmig28.html
Florida legislator says he supports an Arizona-style immigration law
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"I would absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally support an Arizona law," said Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, a former police officer and chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Committee. "The state has its own
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"I would absolutely, 100 percent, unequivocally support an Arizona law," said Rep. William Snyder, R-Stuart, a former police officer and chairman of the Criminal and Civil Justice Committee. "The state has its own
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Rick Scott, a Naples multimillionaire and Republican candidate for governor, has made illegal immigration a centerpiece of his campaign.
In his latest TV ad, Scott pledges to bring the Arizona law to Florida and criticizes his Republican primary...
The leading Democratic candidate for governor, Florida Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, opposes the Arizona law. Sink said it "unfairly discriminates against U.S. citizens, residents and lawful visitors."
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Our main media organizations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to fill the airwaves with misinformation. Let's reiterate a few simple facts.It is quite astounding that Israel has been able to create over the past 12 hours a news blackout, just as it did with its attack on Gaza 18 months ago, into which our main media organisations have willingly allowed Israeli spokespeople to step in unchallenged.
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Israeli soldiers invaded these ships in international waters, breaking international law, and, in killing civilians, committed a war crime. The counter-claim by Israeli
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The Israeli government approved the boarding of these aid ships by an elite unit of commandoes. They were armed with automatic weapons to pacify the civilians onboard, but not with crowd dispersal equipment in case of resistance. Whatever the circumstances of the confrontation, Israel must be held responsible for sending in soldiers and recklessly endangering the lives of all the civilians onboard, including a baby and a Holocaust survivor.
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occupation of the enclave and its 1.5 million inhabitants. And if it is occupying Gaza, then under international law Israel is responsible for the welfare of the Strip’s inhabitants. Given that the blockade has put Palestinians there on a starvation diet for the past four years, Israel should long ago have been in the dock for committing a crime against humanity.
Today Israel chose to direct its deadly assault not only at Palestinians under occupation but at the international community itself.
Will our leaders finally be moved to act?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/9/15/782252/-Sociopathy-on-the-Right:-Ayn-Rand-and-the-Triumph-of-Conservative-Cultism
being endorsed by tea party protesters and anti-Obama minions across the nation (indeed the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights was among the sponsors of the 9/12 march on Washington)--was predicated on one overarching notion: that a commitment to selfishness and a rejection of altruistic behavior were the height of morality. That's not to say that she merely rejected compulsory altruism via taxation, but altruism even privately chosen. To do for others, out of a charitable impulse or out of some faith-based commitment, for example, is morally and ethically suspect, for neither feelings nor faith are rational bases for human actions, according to her philosophy known as Objectivism. Unless one's assistance to another were rooted in some self-interested motivation, it was to be condemned. It is especially fascinating to see the so-called "average, everyday folks" at the tea party rallies embracing Rand's thinking and literature. After all, Rand's view of the common man and woman--presumably the very Joe Six Packs and Hockey Moms recently enthralled by her--was decidedly grotesque. So, for in
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Interestingly, despite her general disdain for humanity, there were people she seemed to admire greatly, such as William Edward Hickman, whose credo, "What is good for me is right," she described in her Journals as, "The best and strongest expression of a real man's psychology I have heard." But Hickman was no simple expositor of personal greed and self-interest; no mere modern day libertarian; no pedestrian practitioner of excessive self-love. No indeed. He was a sociopathic murderer. In 1927 he kidnapped a 12-year old girl from a school in Los Angeles by the name of Marian Parker, chopped off her legs, cut our her internal organs, drained all of her blood and then spread parts of her body all over the city.
Of Hickman, this sick murderer, Rand had almost nothing but positive things to say.
She indeed critiqued those who would condemn Hickman's actions for having committed "worse sins and crimes," such as those she ascribed to his jury. Among those "greater" crimes--greater than mutilating a child--she included being, "Average, everyday, rather stupid looking citizens. Shabbily dressed, dried, worn looking little men. Fat, overdressed, very average, 'dignified' housewives." Their ordinariness, in other words, placed them below Hickman, in Rand's mind. "How can they decide the fate of that boy? Or anyone's fate?" she implored in her Journals.
It was Hickman's willfulness, his disregard for others, which so seems to have resonated with Rand. It fit perfectly with her own developing philosophy, which she would articulate perfectly in her original notes for The Fountainhead, wherein she wrote, "One puts oneself above all and crushes everything in one's way to get the best for oneself. Fine!" Thus H...
This is what the right is coming to. This is what they really mean when they call themselves "values voters." The values of which they speak, far from being "Christian," and far from being rooted in concern for the country, are--at least for many--firmly grounded in selfishness, applied narcissism and operationalized, organizational sociopathy. That
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They want their country back, they tell us. And the country they want, so far as their reading habits would suggest, is a nation based on greed, me-firstism and an utter disregard for the well-being of the community. As for me, I will gladly stand with the opposite tradition. Do we want a culture of compassion or contempt? That is the choice. And we should proclaim our answer, compassion, boldly and without apology.