Illegal Invader Number 3000 Now Dead

And 3000 is only the number of troop deaths to which the Euro-slavers will admit. We all know the number is likely far, far higher. I believe the rush to murder Saddam is motivated in part by the impending defeat of the crusader army. I predict that an overwhelming rout of the occupation armies will happen in 2007. This rout will destroy the US military as Nations around the world continue to recover ever greater aspects of their sovereignty.

Denver Snow Storms: The Big Melt

The sun came out today, and so did all the people. Everything seemed to smile in the glittering light.



The local liquor stores did a whopping business during the two storms as their shelves (and bottles) emptied as fast as the grocers...

Saddam Hanged

The Plot Thickens: Lon Garner's Judge Grafton Biddle Resigns Over Alleged Affair with Prosecutor

Observant readers will recall that Ivan Moreno is also the reporter on the Lon Garner story. Agent Garner is the Secret Service employee arrested on felony domestic violence charges for allegedly choking his wife, Christine Garner.

See previous post: Denver SS Agent Lon Garner Kicked in the Balls, Hit Over the Head, Then Arrested!



Judge quits, prosecutor fired amid relationship claims

Official: Two could face disbarment if misconduct found
Grafton M. Biddle signed resignation, "With regrets."

By Ivan Moreno, Rocky Mountain News
December 29, 2006

A Douglas County judge has resigned and a deputy district attorney who handled cases in his court has been fired amid allegations of an improper romantic relationship between the two.

Carol Chambers, the district attorney for the 18th Judicial District, which includes Douglas County, confirmed Thursday that she fired deputy district attorney Laurie Steinman on Dec. 22.

Read the rest...

UPDATE: January 6, 2007: Here is an excellent source for legal information for women facing abusive partners. It is searchable by state:

check out http://www.womenslaw.org

The Mission of WomensLaw.org is to provide easy-to-understand legal information and resources to women living with or escaping domestic violence. By reaching out through the Internet, we empower women and girls to lead independent lives, free from abuse.As you will see on these pages, the site publishes state-specific legal information for domestic violence. It also publishes information on getting help in your community. We also provide help through email, directly to women and advocates, throughout the U.S.

It's Called Peak Oil, Kids

Did ya'll really think Industrial Civilization was sustainable? Did you really think the rape of earth could continue without our landbases fighting back?

Ha!

Get out yer bow drill firemakers, folks. The only sustainable technology is Stone Age technology.

Another thought for the End of the Oil Age: The difference between what you WILL eat and what you will NOT eat is approximately twenty-four hours.

Iran Oil Revenue Quickly Drying Up, Analysis Says

Associated Press
Tuesday, December 26, 2006; A09

Iran is suffering a staggering decline in revenue from its oil exports, and if the trend continues income could virtually disappear by 2015, according to an analysis published yesterday in a journal of the National Academy of Sciences.

Iran's economic woes could make the country unstable and vulnerable, with its oil industry crippled, Roger Stern, an economic geographer at Johns Hopkins University, said in the report and in an interview.

Iran earns about $50 billion a year in oil exports. The decline is estimated at 10 to 12 percent annually. In less than five years, exports could be halved, and they could disappear by 2015, Stern predicted.

Read the rest...

JonBenet Ramsey's Dirty Old White Men and Their (Yeah, Right) Regrets

Photo: In some Denver neighborhoods, the Rocky Mountain News gets no respect.

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

- McBeth, Act V, Scene V

Justice That Faltered

Note that when the reporter is Charlie Brennan, it is not the humans that faltered, but some abstract (and therefore unaccountable) entity called "Justice."

Meanwhile... as The Native Blog reminds us - at the Red Lake Indian Reservation, two Native boys remain missing without a peep from the whitemale media.



Please. Don't believe Charlie Brennan's story about Ramsey regrets for a nanosecond. These Dirty Old White Men regret nothing. They all made a fortune off that little girl's corpse and Lolita photos, and they will continue to twist around in the now-ten-year-old story like the feeding maggots they are.

If they cared a whit about justice, the Red Lake children would be making the paper today instead of JonBenet Ramsey.

Cable News











The 800lb Gorilla also points out that Greta Van Sustern, who specializes in missing white children stories, is tellingly absent from any reportage on the missing Indian boys.

Persecuted Journalist Blogs From Jail

Oh, you better believe the corporate media is running scared as hell of citizen journalists if they are ignoring and therefore enabling this travesty of justice.

Josh Wolf insists in the article below that the citizen journalist movement is rendering corporate reporters' jobs obsolete and is part of the reason why he remains jailed for refusing to give up his sources.

A Canary in a Coal Mine

December 18th, 2006
Posted by Insurgent in Uncategorized

Although my plight has garnered some attention from the media, some people have been left to wonder why the story has been neglected by much of the mainstream press. The simple answer is that I am the canary in the coal mine that they are afraid to acknowledge.

Canaries were used in mine shafts to act as early warnings that the environment had become poisonous – if the bird dies then the miners knew they would be next if they didn’t do something to remedy the situation.

As an independent jouralist and videoblogger, I am more vulnerable than my corporate equivalent. As an individual who focuses on civil dissent, this is doubly so. By throwing me in jail and asserting my rights as part of the free and independent press guaranteed in the constitution, I should serve as a warning sign of things to come. It should trigger alarms to journalists far and wide; to some extent it has.

At the same time, the mainstream media has not exactly embraced the so-called “citizen journalist” movement with open arms; some are afraid their careers may become obsolete. It may be a result of this defensive attitude that many news outlets have turned a blind eye to my situation – after all, I’m not employed by a multinational media conglomerate, so how can I be a “real journalist”? But like that canary, my situation is only a precursor to what is likely in store for the future.

My fear that I will have to tell my children about the days when there was a free press is not unfounded; it is a fear that did not materialize when the FBI showed up at my door. The experience has simply been the confirmation that I expected would come sooner or later.

But when I do have children, at least I’ll be able to tell them that I did what I could to sound the alarm. I may be a canary in a coal mine, but I’m not dumb.

It Was A Beautiful Day: Denver Blizzard 2006

The big story in Denver today was how hard everyone out at Denver International Airport had it because hundreds and hundreds of flights were cancelled due to the blizzard. There was an overabundance of print and TV media coverage at DIA. The National Guard was even called out to bring bottled water to the poor souls who could very much afford to fly, but weren't going anywhere.

So naturally, Your Correspondent decided to head on down to the Greyhound bus station to see how real people on real wages were faring.

What immediately follows is what happened on the way...



Sometimes you just need a little push (off the hill at the Capitol).





Media feeding frenzy on all things hurling downhill...



Yes, urban anarchists take their kids sledding...



'Bout twenty inches...



The hard working crew at the Adams Mark Hotel...



Snowball fight at the Greyhound station





According to bus passengers waiting at the Greyhound station, the only channel permitted was The Weather Channel. Information and baby formula (but not patience) were what was most in short supply. The Rocky sent a photographer, but there were no papers from today available at any of the nearby news boxes or Seven Eleven. People at the bus station had more questions for me than I had for them. Top questions: Are they clearing the roads? Is I-25 open yet? Have they even sent out any crews? Are flights leaving DIA? What paper do you work for?

People came from as far away as Baltimore, Maryland, New York City, and North Carolina. They were waiting for buses going as close as Colorado Springs and as distant as California. A news crew from Japan had been there early in the day.



Contrary to what I had heard, the Red Cross did not come and feed people at this bus station. Greyhound provided food for its passengers, as well as setting out cots. However, their one lone rent-a-cop warned both myself and the Rocky photog that we were not allowed to take photos unless we signed some sort of paper. The manager who could explain why this was necessary was apparently in hiding, so I went and made good photographic use of the time spent waiting for her to appear.

For the passengers, card games, portable video games, and sleeping were the time-passers of the day...



Yo. Dude in the suit. Like take the day off already...



Not so fresh off the RTA bus from DIA - and trying to find a hotel in downtown Denver.





Nasty, wicked dropoffs at the Colorado History Museum.



Slide down that "hill," get your name in the paper.





Call Sports Illustated. I'm about to get the photo...







Umm BTW, there's also a nasty, wicked dropoff at the end...











Die harder. One more time...

Denver Blizzard Cabin Fever

Snow day!

All the stores are closed, nobody went to work, and the governor of Colorado has called out the National Guard.

Hot damn! Prefigurative revolution!

And this Witch is so going outside....

Humvee Piñata Stuffed with US Soldiers

I know you all are trying very hard not to laugh!

Humvee piñata stuffed with US soldiers

Is this supposed to be for kids' GI Joe parties, or anti-American rallies? Iraq-themed "Army vehicle piñata," $15.95 from Oriental Trading Company.

The Native Blog: Cable News Neglects Two Missing Indian Boys

But they never fail to give extensive coverage to hikers or pretty white girls who go missing. Just think - JonBenet Ramsey - and the white supremacist bias becomes obvious.

Cable News

Fire Witch Rising's Editor is Time Magazine's Person of the Year

Eat THAT, Rocky Mountain News! All you lying, corporate media functionaries SO had it coming.

Shout out to the anti-apartheid editors on the blog roll to the left: Every single one of YOU are Time Magazine's Person of the Year.

Time magazine's "Person of the Year" is You

By Michelle Nichols Sat Dec 16, 9:05 PM ET

NEW YORK (Reuters) - You were named Time magazine "Person of the Year" on Saturday for the explosive growth and influence of user-generated Internet content such as blogs, video-file sharing site YouTube and social network MySpace.

"For seizing the reins of the global media, for founding and framing the new digital democracy, for working for nothing and beating the pros at their own game, Time's Person of the Year for 2006 is you," the magazine's Lev Grossman wrote.

The magazine has put a mirror on the cover of its "Person of the Year" issue, released on Monday, "because it literally reflects the idea that you, not us, are transforming the information age," Editor Richard Stengel said in a statement.

You beat out candidates including Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, China's President Hu Jintao, North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and James Baker, the former U.S. Secretary of State who led Washington's bipartisan Iraq Study Group.

Time has been naming its person of the year since 1927 and the tradition has become the source of speculation every year, as well as controversy over unpopular choices such as Adolf Hitler in 1938 and Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979.

The aim is to pick "the person or persons who most affected the news and our lives, for good or for ill, and embodied what was important about the year, for better or for worse."

Grossman said the creators and consumers of user-generated Internet sites showed a community and collaboration on a scale never seen before.

"It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes," said Grossman, Time's technology writer and book critic.

"The tool that makes this possible is the World Wide Web," he said. "It's a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter."

MySpace -- bought by media giant News Corp. last year for $580 million -- has more than 130 million users around the world and adds around 300,000 members a day, while YouTube -- bought by Internet search leader Google Inc. last month for $1.65 billion -- gets about 100 million daily views.

"These blogs and videos bring events to the rest of us in ways that are often more immediate and authentic than traditional media," Stengel said.

"Journalists once had the exclusive province of taking people to places they'd never been. But now a mother in Baghdad with a videophone can let you see a roadside bombing or a patron in a nightclub can show you a racist rant by a famous comedian," he said.

Time's 2005 Person of the Year was the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, his wife Melinda, and Irish rocker Bono for being Good Samaritans, while the 2004 choice was
President Bush. In 2003 "The American Soldier" graced the cover in a year when U.S. troops invaded Iraq.

One Fish, Two Fish: Beat A Woman Blue Fish

Before He Cheats - Carrie Underwood


Ha, ha you smug prick. Very funny. You'd think you were mad at some woman or something the way you write hamfisted, trivializing crap like that story below, which gives precious newspaper inches to information about a fish rather than a battered women's shelter or other outreach organization.

So here's a song for Ministry of Truth sexist haters just like you, because domestic violence is no laughing matter.

"Before He Cheats"

Right now he's probably slow dancing with a bleach blonde tramp,
and she's probably getting frisky...
right now, he's probably buying her some fruity little drink cause she can't shoot whiskey...

Right now, he's probably up behind her with a pool-stick, showing her how to shoot a combo...

And he don't know...

That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats...
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

Right now, she's probably up singing some
white-trash version of Shania karoke..
Right now, she's probably saying "I'm drunk"
and he's a thinking that he's gonna get lucky,
Right now, he's probably dabbing on 3 dollars worth of that bathroom polo...
And he don't know...

That I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats,
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

I might have saved a little trouble for the next girl,
Cause the next time that he cheats...

Oh, you know it won't be on me!

Ohh... not on me...
Cause I dug my key into the side of his pretty little souped up 4 wheel drive,
carved my name into his leather seats...
I took a Louisville slugger to both head lights,
slashed a hole in all 4 tires...

Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats.

Ohh.. Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats...

Ohh... before he cheats...

Fish ends up in disposal; ex ends up arrested

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
December 16, 2006

There's not much left of one alleged victim in this domestic-violence case.

Uriah Williams, 23, of Aurora, allegedly broke into his ex-girlfriend's home just after midnight Dec. 8, took her Betta fish from its bowl, put it down a disposal and flipped the "on" switch while she watched, horrified, according to charges filed against him on Thursday.

There was a bit of the possibly-to-be-expected gallows humor around the Denver District Attorney's office this week. Someone said there might be something fishy about the case.

But to prosecutors, it's really no laughing matter.

Williams, free on a $3,000 bond, is charged with first-degree criminal trespass, a class-five felony, and aggravated cruelty to animals, a class-six felony. It's been filed as a domestic-violence case.

He is due back in court Jan. 9. The more serious charge against him carries a prison sentence of up to three years.

Williams could not be reached for comment.

"You have to look at it as an act of domestic violence," said deputy district attorney Diane Balkin. She handles many of Denver's animal cruelty prosecutions.

"It's really almost a stereotypical case, when abuse of an animal is involved. It's to control and intimidate a victim and force them into compliance. What better way to do that than to take something they care about, rather than something that could be replaced?"

"Some people might be tempted to laugh or think it was a joke, when really, that's far from the reality of it," added Denver district attorney's spokeswoman Lynn Kimbrough.

"They're (prosecutors)looking at the circumstances in their totality. It wasn't simply the breaking in. It wasn't simply killing her fish. It wasn't any one single thing. The charges are alleging these two criminal acts and that they were done as part of a whole domestic-violence act."

Balkin has no doubt that a fish fits the definition of "animal" for the purpose of being covered by the state's animal cruelty statute.

"It's not a question at all," she said. "It's an animal. We have endorsed a veterinarian that would testify to that. It is not a gray area. And according to the veterinarian, it is a creature that feels pain."

Kimbrough wouldn't speak about how much of the fish - if any - was recovered as evidence.

But she said officers in domestic-violence cases are thoroughly trained in evidence gathering and documentation.

"While I can't speak to the particular pieces of evidence that were recovered or would be available as this goes toward trial, the evidence documentation in this case was done, and done well."

Prosecutors refused to identity Williams' 24-year-old ex-girlfriend, since she's a victim of alleged domestic violence.

But the fish's name was Blue.

Meet the Siamese fighting fish

They're sold in pet stores as simply "betta" or "beta" fish, but the Siamese fighting fish are known as the "jewel of the orient" in their native Thailand.

• Scientific name: Betta splendens

• Size: 3 inches

• Lifespan: 2-3 years

• Description: Colors range from red to blue to white. Females have shorter fins and not as much color. A breeding female has horizontal stripes.

• Getting along: Males can't be kept togetherSource: Freshaquarium.About.Com

brennanc@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2742

Copyright 2006, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

*********************************************************

Follow-Up February 15, 2007

Note the muted, just-the-facts-ma'am tone of this report, two months later. Blogger outrage works, folks.

A man, a fish a disposal and a guilty plea

By Charlie Brennan, Rocky Mountain News
February 15, 2007

An Aurora man arrested after putting his ex-girlfriend's Betta fish down her disposal while she watched pleaded guilty today to a misdemeanor count of animal cruelty.

Uriah Williams, 23, entered his plea in an appearance before Denver District Court Judge Shelley Gilman. He is to be sentenced April 12, following preparation of a pre-sentencing evaluation.

Williams could be sentenced to up to 18 months in jail and could be fined as much as $5,000.

WIlliams was arrested after breaking into the woman's Denver apartment just after midnight Dec. 8, taking her Betta fish named "Blue," and putting it in the disposal, which he then turned on.

Several other charges against Williams, including a class-five felony of first-degree criminal trespass, were dismissed in the plea agreement.

Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.

Swift ICE's Deported Workers: Guilty of Nothing More Than Hard Work

ICE and the other racist agencies, however, ARE guilty of unionbusting.

...
In Grand Island, Nebraska, site of another Swift plant, police chief Steve Lamken refused to help agents drag workers from the slaughterhouse. "When this is all over, we're still here," he told the local paper, "and if I have a significant part of my population that's fearful and won't call us, then that's not good for our community." In Greeley, hundreds of people, accompanied by the local priest, lined the street as their family members were brought out, shouting that they'd been guilty of nothing more than hard work.

ICE rhetoric would have you believe these deportees had been planning to apply for credit cards and charge expensive stereos or trips to the spa. The reality is that these meatpacking laborers had done what millions of people in this country do every year. They gave a Social Security number to their employer that either didn't belong to them, or that didn't exist. And they did it for a simple reason: to get a job in one of the dirtiest, hardest, most dangerous workplaces in America. Mostly, these borrowed numbers probably belong to other immigrants who've managed to get green cards. But regardless of who they are, the real owners of the Social Security numbers will benefit, not suffer.

Swift paid thousands of extra dollars into their Social Security accounts. The undocumented immigrants using the numbers will never be able to collect a dime in retirement pay for all their years of work on the killing floor. If anyone was cheated here, they were. But when ICE agents are calling the victims criminals in order to make their immigration raid sound like an action on behalf of upright citizens.

ICE has not, of course, accused the immigrant workers of the real crime for which they were arrested. That's the crime of working.

Since passage of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, hiring an undocumented worker has been a violation of federal law. Don't expect Swift executives to go to jail, however, or even to pay a fine. The real targets of this law are workers themselves, who become violators the minute they take a job.

Arresting people for holding a job, however, sounds a little inconsistent with the traditional values of hard work supported so strongly by the Bush administration. It makes better PR to accuse workers of a crime that sends shivers down the spines of middle-class newspaper readers, already maxing out their credit cards in the holiday rush.

The real motivation for these immigration raids is more cynical. The Swift action follows months of ICE pressuring employers to fire workers whose Social Security numbers don't match the agency's database. These no-match actions have been concentrated in workplaces where immigrants are organizing unions or standing up for their rights.

Read the rest...

What Every Successful Revolution Requires

Excerpt from Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder: The Military in the New American Century.

Every successful revolution requires either the neutralization or active participation of military people. It's really time to factor that into our thinking. It's time we thought about organizing within the military. And organizing is not helping out a handful of conscientious objectors (though that is important) or dropping into Fayetteville with antiwar petitions for GIs to sign. Organizing is getting to know them, listening to them, building relationships with them, and standing along side them as they confront their own institution.

My vision is not that we beat our swords into plowshares. I am not a pacifist.

There are enough criminals like those who are our political leaders right now to ensure we will need the armed forces. Let's not forget that those anti-imperialist movements making the most headway in Latin America these days - in Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador - all have significant armed forces behind them. In Colombia, the resistance has a viable armed insurgent force, and in the other two, the rebellious governments have the majority of their officially recognized armed forces behind them.

My vision is that the American armed forces, when they are harshly taught as the current conjecture will teach them, will unite with the people, and that sections of it will break away and become the defenders of their families, and thereby a liberatory force. As America's political class becomes ever more lawless, ever more compelled to scrap bourgeois democracy and slouch toward fascism, we shall need them and they shall need us.

Denver Swift ICE Raids Vigil

Help Families Affected by the SWIFT ICE Raids in Greeley:

You are invited to donate GROCERY GIFT CARDS to Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church who will distribute these to the affected families.

http://www.kingsoopers.com/
click on GIFT CARDS!

[Safeway Gift Cards here]
order on line!

Send GROCERY CARDS to:

Our Lady of Peace Catholic Church
Attn: Rev. Bernard Schmitz
1311 Third Street
Greeley, CO 80631
Phone: 970.353.1747 (please don’t flood them with calls)
Fax: 970.353.4830
Please write in the Memo line: for the families affected by ICE

-Jordan Garcia, CFIR
-Julien Ross, CIRC