A frame from the video of Agha-Soltan's death by gunfire

Iran's tortured Green movement is down but not out. We can still help

Timothy Garton Ash guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 9 June 2010 18.59 BST

One harrowing year since the stolen election, the people of Iran need the world's attention to go beyond the nuclear issue.

Do not forget Iran. Remember Neda. If there are green-clad protests in Tehran this weekend, to mark the first anniversary of the election that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stole, they will doubtless again be crushed with casual brutality by the thugs of the basij militia, secret police and Revolutionary Guard. Imprisonment, torture, male rape and execution are the offerings these henchmen of the Islamic Republic bring to honour Allah, the compassionate, the merciful.

Faced with such violent repression, the Green movement is a long way down – but not out. Iran will never again be the country it was before the election of 12 June 2009. In the great demonstration three days later, one of the largest in recorded history, everything was changed, changed utterly. In the subsequent repression, a terrible beauty was born. The historical process may take years, but one day, as the economy worsens and discontent spreads to more sections of society, the movement will be back in force, though perhaps in a different form. Eventually, in Iran there will be statues of Neda Agha-Sultan, the young woman shot in one of the early mass demonstrations, and memorials to the martyrs of this struggle for freedom, as there are now memorials to the martyrs of the Iran-Iraq war.

We should also never forget that this is a self-generated movement from within a Muslim society, dedicated to transforming the contemporary world's longest-running and still most formidable Islamist regime into something very different.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jun/09/iran-tortured-green-elections-nuclear

Getting Stoned How many police officers have been killed by rocks?

By Brian PalmerPosted Wednesday, June 9, 2010, at 5:46 PM ET

Ciudad JuarezA U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed a teenager who was hurling rocks at him near El Paso, Texas, on Monday. A representative from the Border Patrol agents' union noted that rock throwing can be deadly, and police are permitted to fire in response. How many officers have been killed by rocks?

Three in the United States, but none in almost seven decades. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund has gathered records on all police officers killed in the line of duty since the first U.S. patrolman went down in 1792.

According to their database, rocks were responsible for three of 18,983 fatalities.

http://www.slate.com/id/2256457/

Good news! Thighs don't hurt anymore but now I am thinking I should......work out. I have this old Suzanne Summers Thigh Master hanging in a tree in the back yard. I don't know why it is there but that is where Grandma and Grandpa Sausage put the invert torture equipment.

I am at a loss though. My VCR just tanked it and I won't have suitable accompaniment to go with my Lycra exercise pants and matching sweet bands.

I could also try to work out with the dozen or so ten pound weights that are buried in the rocks. That's right, just buried. I guess it was too much work to throw it out during bulk trash pickup.

Okay, so I grab the rope that is mysteriously attached to one of the smaller orange trees (used to keep Grandma in line no doubt). I will attach all the weights evenly on the Crotch Commando and ......hurt myself.

Ok, so step one. Beer.

Step two?

Step three, ripped Rocky 2 style.

Arizona Politics

Debtor's Prisons......watch out. Arizona is the leader in offending people throughout the world.

http://www.startribune.com/templates/Print_This_Story?sid=95692619

In jail for being in debt (Minnesota)

As a sheriff's deputy dumped the contents of Joy Uhlmeyer's purse into a sealed bag, she begged to know why she had just been arrested while driving home to Richfield after an Easter visit with her elderly mother.

No one had an answer. Uhlmeyer spent a sleepless night in a frigid Anoka County holding cell, her hands tucked under her armpits for warmth. Then, handcuffed in a squad car, she was taken to downtown Minneapolis for booking. Finally, after 16 hours in limbo, jail officials fingerprinted Uhlmeyer and explained her offense -- missing a court hearing over an unpaid debt. "They have no right to do this to me," said the 57-year-old patient care advocate, her voice as soft as a whisper. "Not for a stupid credit card."

It's not a crime to owe money, and debtors' prisons were abolished in the United States in the 19th century. But people are routinely being thrown in jail for failing to pay debts. In Minnesota, which has some of the most creditor-friendly laws in the country, the use of arrest warrants against debtors has jumped 60 percent over the past four years, with 845 cases in 2009, a Star Tribune analysis of state court data has found.

Not every warrant results in an arrest, but in Minnesota many debtors spend up to 48 hours in cells with criminals. Consumer attorneys say such arrests are increasing in many states, including Arkansas, Arizona and Washington, driven by a bad economy, high consumer debt and a growing industry that buys bad debts and employs every means available to collect.

Arizona Politics

A Prescott city councilman who publicly ridiculed a mural depicting minority students at a local elementary school has been fired from his radio talk-show job and now faces a recall campaign.

And the mural artists, who last week were ordered to lighten the features of the minority students, have been told to restore the original tone of the children's faces.

Read more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/2010/06/09/20100609prescott-councilman-loses-job-over-mural.html#ixzz0qOJZklEy

Justice

Posted on Monday 7 June 2010 - 16:10

Walter Wilson Nana, AfricaNews reporter in Buea, Cameroon

Thirty-two Cameroonian female police officers have been posted to trouble-stricken Darfur in Sudan, according to the officer in charge of coordinating the UN peacekeeping mission, Commissioner of Police Nyake.

Nyake said the move to send more Cameroonian police officers to Darfur, was as a result of the previous performance of Cameroonians in peacekeeping missions, described by UN authorities as very positive.

According to the Director of the Yaounde Police Academy, Ndoum Ndongo, the Cameroonian Police have actively participated in UN Peacekeeping Missions in countries such as Cambodia, Chad, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ivory Coast, Haiti and Burundi.

“Our Academy trains and sends out police officers with unquestionable morale, especially our female officers,” he added.

NO JUSTICE, NO PEACE!

funny

Paging Dr. "Bones" McCoy: Needle-Free Injections With Lasers

BY Kit EatonToday

This is going to be fascinating news for those of you out there with trypanophobia--fear of hypodermic needles. Pantech Biosolutions has just been given approval for its painless drug delivery system that uses frickin' laser beams.

Liar! Liaaarrrrrr!

Gov. Jan Brewer said in a recent interview that her father died fighting Nazis in Germany. In fact, the death of Wilford Drinkwine came 10 years after World War II had ended.

During the war, Drinkwine worked as a civilian supervisor for a naval munitions depot in Hawthorne, Nev. He died of lung disease in 1955 in California.

Brewer made the comment to The Arizona Republic while talking about the criticism she has taken since signing SB 1070, the new immigration law that makes it a state crime to be in the country illegally.

"Knowing that my father died fighting the Nazi regime in Germany, that I lost him when I was 11 because of that... and then to have them call me Hitler's daughter. It hurts. It's ugliness beyond anything I've ever experienced," Brewer said in the story, published Tuesday.

Officials with the governor's administration said her statement should not be taken to mean that she was claiming her father was a soldier in Germany during the Nazi regime

Overly Dramatic

I love Nancy Grace O Face.

ouch

My thighs hurt and not from anything dirty....damnit. We rented Jet Skis. Now I can't sit down to pee without groaning like my Aunt Helen. Ew.