Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Friday, October 9, 2009
Your joking, right...
President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize
OSLO — President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.
Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.
The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.
"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," said Thorbjoern Jagland, chairman of the Nobel Committee.
Still, the U.S. remains at war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. Congress has yet to pass a law reducing carbon emissions and there has been little significant reduction in global nuclear stockpiles since Obama took office.
"So soon? Too early. He has no contribution so far. He is still at an early stage. He is only beginning to act," said former Polish President Lech Walesa, a 1983 Nobel Peace laureate.
"This is probably an encouragement for him to act. Let's see if he perseveres. Let's give him time to act," Walesa said.
The award appeared to be a slap at President George W. Bush from a committee that harshly criticized Obama's predecessor for his largely unilateral military action in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The Nobel committee praised Obama's creation of "a new climate in international politics" and said he had returned multilateral diplomacy and institutions like the U.N. to the center of the world stage.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa, who won the prize in 1984, said Obama's award shows great things are expected from him in coming years.
"It's an award coming near the beginning of the first term of office of a relatively young president that anticipates an even greater contribution towards making our world a safer place for all," Tutu said. "It is an award that speaks to the promise of President Obama's message of hope."
Until seconds before the award, speculation had focused on a wide variety of candidates besides Obama: Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a Colombian senator, a Chinese dissident and an Afghan woman's rights activist, among others. The Nobel committee received a record 205 nominations for this year's prize, though it was not immediately apparent who nominated Obama.
"The exciting and important thing about this prize is that it's given to someone ... who has the power to contribute to peace," Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said
More here...
Lets see: Under the Obama administration the US military has increased its presence in Afganistan. Removed a few troops from Iraq and then replaced them with contractors. Started a war with Pakistan, what you didn't know we have been bombing Pakistan on an almost daily basis since Obama took office. Bombed Somalia and Sudan. And the military just received its biggest appropriations budget ever. Am I living in a George Orwell novel. Since when did spreading "democracy" through the barrel of a gun become the same thing as making peace.
Peace, Joey
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Max Keiser US Dollar is Finished
If this kind of truth were to be portrayed in the US mainstream media, oh what a different world we would be living in.
SWAT raid on food storehouse heading to trial
Family sues over confiscation of supplies, computers
Posted: October 06, 2009
8:29 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
A lawsuit brought by an Ohio family whose children were held at SWAT-team gunpoint while their food supplies were confiscated is scheduled to go to trial this week.
John and Jackie Stowers are suing the Ohio Department of Agriculture and the Lorain County General Health District over the raid on their "Manna Storehouse," an organic food co-op that operated in LaGrange.
The Stowers and their 10 children and grandchildren were detained in one room of their home for six hours while sheriff's officers confiscated 60 boxes of fresh farm food, computers, phones and records, including USDA-certified meat from the children's mini-farm, according to lawyers for the plaintiffs.
The state and county are accused of 119 counts, including unlawful search and seizure, illegal use of state police power, taking of private property without compensation, failure to provide due process and equal protection and a multitude of constitutional rights violations, including the right to grow and eat one's own food and offer it to others.
WND reported when the case developed a year ago.
At that time, a state agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture pressured the Stowers to "sell" him a dozen eggs, then returned with a SWAT team to detain the family's children and confiscate food supplies.
The case brought by state and local authorities against the Stowers came to a head Dec. 1, 2008, when police officers used SWAT-style tactics to burst into the home, hold family members, including children, at gunpoint and confiscate the family's personal food supply.
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Two organizations, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund and the Buckeye Institute's legal arm, the Center for Constitutional Law, initially started working to defend the family.
But now the family is on the offense, accusing the government agencies and their individuals of rights violations.
David Cox, an attorney for the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund, confirmed that nothing ever resulted for the family after the confiscation of the food.
There were no charges, "civil, criminal or otherwise," he said.
In an audio podcast posted online, Maurice Thompson of the Buckeye Institute said the family has run the Manna Storehouse, focusing mainly on organic supplies, for several years near Cleveland.
The confrontation began developing several years ago when local health officials demanded the family hold a retail food license to run their co-op. Thompson said the family wrote a letter questioning the requirement and asking for evidence that would indicate they were operating a food store.
The Stowers family members simply "take orders from (co-op) members … then divide up the food," Thompson explained.
"The health inspector didn't like the tone of the letter," Thompson said, and the result was that law enforcement officials planned, staged and carried out the raid on the family's home.
The "sale" of the eggs to the undercover agent was entrapment, the family's lawyers have contended, since the family members had told him they didn't sell food to the public and couldn't help him.
Eventually, when he refused to leave, the family gave him a dozen eggs to hasten his departure, Thompson explained.
The case goes to trial Thursday and Friday in Elyria.
Among other things, the case demands the return of the family's property, as well as an injunction prohibiting enforcement of any licensing requirements of the Ohio Uniform Food Safety Code upon the cooperative.
The case focuses first on the "paramilitary style execution of a search warrant against a peaceful family" whose only alleged crime was not getting a state permit. The second is a challenge to government claims the cooperative is a retail food establishment.
"Between the physical things they took and the emotional and spiritual trauma they caused in our lives, it's our hope we can somehow help others with this [lawsuit]," Jacqueline Stowers said.
In a video posted both on YouTube and on the Buckeye Institute's website, the couple explained how they just wanted to provide a resource for both farmers and consumers.
Officials with the Weston A. Price Foundation, a nutrition education non-profit, said several of their members had been participating in the co-op, but now their food supplies are disrupted.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Tour de Lilly...
Tour de Lilly was a hoot this year. Roger and the crew at BWB know how to have a good time and put together a good ride.
Joey.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
U.S., NATO Poised For Most Massive War In Afghanistan’s History
Rick Rozoff
Global Research
September 26, 2009
Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have been abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year.
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| The Pentagon and the CIA worked hand-in-glove with Pakistan’s ISI from 1979 onward to subvert successive governments in Afghanistan. Photo: Zbigniew Brzezinski with Afghan “freedom fighter” in the late 1980s. | |
The number, based on as yet unsubstantiated reports of what U.S. and NATO commander Stanley McChrystal and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen have demanded of the White House, range from 10,000 to 45,000.
Fox News has cited figures as high as 45,000 more American soldiers and ABC News as many as 40,000. On September 15 the Christian Science Monitor wrote of “perhaps as many as 45,000.”
The similarity of the estimates indicate that a number has been agreed upon and America’s obedient media is preparing domestic audiences for the possibility of the largest escalation of foreign armed forces in Afghanistan’s history. Only seven years ago the United States had 5,000 troops in the country, but was scheduled to have 68,000 by December even before the reports of new deployments surfaced.
An additional 45,000 troops would bring the U.S. total to 113,000. There are also 35,000 troops from some 50 other nations serving under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in the nation, which would raise combined troop strength under McChrystal’s command to 148,000 if the larger number of rumored increases materializes.
As the former Soviet Union withdrew its soldiers from Afghanistan twenty years ago the New York Times reported “At the height of the Soviet commitment, according to Western intelligence estimates, there were 115,000 troops deployed.” [1]
Nearly 150,000 U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan would represent the largest foreign military presence ever in the land.
Rather than addressing this historic watershed, the American media is full of innuendos and “privileged” speculation on who has leaked the information and why, as to commercial news operations the tawdry world of Byzantine intrigues among and between American politicians, generals and the Fourth Estate is of more importance that the lengthiest and largest war in the world.
One that has been estimated by the chief of the British armed forces and other leading Western officials to last decades and that has already been extended into Pakistan, a nation with a population almost six times that of Afghanistan and in possession of nuclear weapons.
Two weeks ago the Dutch media reported that during a visit to the Netherlands “General Stanley McChrystal [said] he is considering the possibility of merging…Operation Enduring Freedom with NATO’s ISAF force.” [2] That is, not only would he continue to command all U.S. and NATO troops, but the two commands would be melded into one.
The call for up to 45,000 more American troops was first adumbrated in mid-September by U.S. armed forces chief Michael Mullen, with the Associated Press stating “The top U.S. military officer says that winning in Afghanistan will probably mean sending more troops.” [3]
Four days later, September 19, Reuters reported that “The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan has drawn up a long-awaited and detailed request for additional troops but has not yet sent it to Washington, a spokesman said on Saturday.
“He said General Stanley McChrystal completed the document this week, setting out exactly how many U.S. and NATO troops, Afghan security force members and civilians he thinks he needs.” [4]
The Pentagon spokesman mentioned above, Lieutenant-Colonel Tadd Sholtis, said, “We’re working with Washington as well as the other NATO participants about how it’s best to submit this,” refusing to divulge any details. [5]
Two days later the Washington Post published a 66-page “redacted” version of General McChrystal’s Commander’s Initial Assessment which began with this background information:
Read the rest here...Sunday Ride Pics...
Decided to skip the hypothermia fest that was the Revenge and did a big ride on Sunday. Mandi, John, The Viking and I did a loop on Shingletree and then headed across 219 and did South Haddix. All of which are in wonderful shape. Lots of yellows and reds. Get out and shred why the shredding is good.
Peace, Joey.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Wednesday # Who knows...
Peeping through a leaf.
Douglas Falls. The orange rocks are so beautiful!
Yes, I got another new bike! I know, I know. What can I say I am totally schizophrenic.
Them there are some rocks!
Mandi and I rode up the Allegheny Highlands Railtrail along Blackwater canyon Yesterday. Then we headed up Canyon Rim road to Limerock trail. Limerock is so rough but totally worth the effort just to see the runs that cross it. It is worth doing once every four or so years. Sorry no Garmin map of the ride, I am so over that thing.
Peace, Joey
Friday, September 11, 2009
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