Corporate media refuses to report on failure of FPTP; it's now up to the majority of the House of Commons to introduce a new electoral system

A "letter to the editor" nobody should miss.

Lawrence Hearn from North Vancouver, writer of the letter, starts of with the problem of our FPTP system:

Dear Editor:

The federal election once again has shown that Canada's electoral system of first by the post results in an unrepresentative government.

The parties' percentage of popular vote was: Conservatives 37.6 per cent; Liberals 26.2 per cent; NDP 18.2 per cent; Bloc 10 per cent; Greens 6.8 per cent.

In other words, Canadian voters soundly rejected the Conservative agenda yet they still get to form the government, fortunately with a continuing minority preventing them from doing the nasty on all and sundry without hindrance.

The corporate media's refusal to report on this failure of the electoral system amounts to nothing less than collusion with the anti-democratic forces of the extreme right in the Conservative party.

The solution follows:

The simplest way to introduce a fair and representative electoral system would be to use the ranked choice voting system in use in San Francisco and some other U.S. jurisdictions.

How it works:

Candidates must receive more than 50 per cent of votes to be elected. Voters, instead of simply marking an X, would rank (one, two) their choices.

Candidates failing to get 50 per cent would move to an instant runoff where the lowest candidate is dropped and the second choices of that candidate's voters distributed to the remaining candidates.

If no one gets the required 50 per cent plus one then the next lowest candidate would be dropped and the second choice votes distributed and so on until a candidate achieved the required threshold.

Why this system is preferable above other options:

The ranked choice voting system would require the least change to the present system with the maximum result.

Who can introduce changes to our electoral system?

Hopefully, the House of Commons majority can move to introduce such a system (or any better system) before the next election, thereby establishing a more representative system of government in Canada.

Lawrence Hearn

North Vancouver

LINKS

- Canada.com: Reform our electoral system
- Wikipedia: FPTP
- Wikipedia: Why FPTP sucks

Head of "Taser France" arrested for spying on leftist presidential candidate

The French are fed up with the tactics of Taser & Co. and have now arrested the head of SMP Technologies (also nicknamed "Taser France"), Antoine Di Zazzo.

No reason to doubt Arizona's TASER INTERNATIONAL has something to do with this, although they love to pretend they don't: TASER INTERNATIONAL is a company that how showed again and again (and again) that it cannot be trusted.

Read on to see how real scum operates:

The Connextion
Police have arrested the head of a French company that supplies Taser stun guns [nicknamed Taser France] to security forces on suspicion of spying on a Trotskyist leader who has campaigned for a ban on the controversial weapons.

Six police officers, a customs official and two private detectives were detained along with Antoine Di Zazzo, head of SMP Technologies ["Taser France", the sole importer and distributor of taser] guns in France, officials said.

Paris prosecutors launched a probe in May after a magazine reported that a private detective firm was tailing ex-presidential candidate Olivier Besancenot, the postman leader of the Ligue Communiste Révolutionnaire(LCR) [and a fierce critic of taser use in France].

Indeed; "Taser France", in a concerted effort with some police officers, customs, and private investigators tried to frame one of France's main taser critics, Olivier Besancenot.

Why? Read on:

Besancenot said he was due to appear next Monday in a Paris court because Di Zazzo was suing him for libel, "seeking 50,000 euros from me simply because I drew attention to an Amnesty International report" on Taser guns.

And for this libel suit, any more information on perhaps less-than-legal practises on the side of Besancenot would be excellent "discoveries" for the DiZ Zazzo and his rightwing capitalist and statist friends.

It's interesting to read that Di Zazzo is suing merely for mentioning the Amnesty International report on Tasers; how can that be libel? I'm sure the famous report is much hated by TASER INTERNATIONAL, and I don't think it will end up in its own junk science section of their site:

Rights group Amnesty says that nearly 300 people have died around the world after being zapped with a Taser and has demanded a moratorium on the weapon's use while a full investigation is conducted.

A United Nations committee said last year that use of the gun constitutes "a form of torture" that can result in death.

Tasering IS torture, I couldn't agree more.

Di Zazzo, whose company has supplied Tasers to the French army, police and gendarmerie since 2004, has adamantly denied that the guns can be lethal.

Of course tasers are lethal, nobody is denying THAT anymore in North America (unless they are really, really stupid), even TASER INTERNATIONAL doesn't make any of those bigoted claims on their site anymore.

Besancenot is currently winding up his LCR party to found a Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in January, which will seek to attract members of the Parti Communiste, environmentalists, disaffected Socialists and anti-globalisation activists.

In last year's presidential election [Besancenot] won 4% of the vote.

Four percent of the vote for a communist party? That's not bad.

LINK
- Taser France
- Wikipedia: Olivier Besancenot
- The Connexion: Taser head under arrest for spying
- TASER INTERNATIONAL: the amount of junk science we produce is only second to the amount of killings
- Truth not Taser: See for yourself how well the taser saves lives

More on the domain taser.fr and SMP TECHNOLOGIES

Domain name : taser.fr
Status: Active (see also Web Site)

Registrar : AMEN / Agence des Médias Numériques

Creation date: 03/05/2004
Anniversary date: 26 May

Domain Name Servers (DNS):

* Server # 1 : ns1.amen.fr [62.193.206.141]
* Server # 2 : ns2.amen.fr [212.43.229.70]

More info Holder : SMP TECHNOLOGIES
55, avenue Marceau
75116 Paris
France
Phone: +33 1 45 00 40 83
Email: info@taser.fr

More info Administrative contact: Antoine Di Zazzo
SMP TECHNOLOGIES
55, avenue Marceau
75116 Paris
France
Phone: +33 1 45 00 40 83
Email: info@taser.fr

More info Technical contact : AMEN France
Departement Noms de domaine
12, Rond-Point des Champs-Elysees
75008 Paris
France
Phone: +33 8 92 55 66 77
Email: afnic@amen.fr

TSX major drop

Watch it here:

9,874.01
-929.34 (-8.60%)

LINK
- Google Finance: Major drop TSX
- Globe and Mail: Stock markets in freefall as TSX dives more than 1,000 points

Naomi Klein: Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neo-Liberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism (video)

Watch it here: Naomi Klein: Wall St. Crisis Should Be for Neo-Liberalism What Fall of Berlin Wall Was for Communism

Introduction
As the world reels from the financial crisis on Wall Street and the taxpayer-funded $700 billion bailout, we spend the hour with Naomi Klein on the economy, politics and “disaster capitalism.” The “Shock Doctrine” author recently spoke at the University of Chicago to oppose the creation of an economic research center named after the University’s most famous economist–Milton Friedman. Klein says Friedman’s economic philosophy championed the kind of deregulation that led to the current crisis.

The credit crunch is spreading to financial markets around the world. Nearly 160,000 jobs were lost here in the United States in September, and that"s not including losses directly resulting from the financial meltdown. Wall Street might be breathing a little easier since Congress passed the $700 billion dollar bailout plan on Friday, but there are no signs of an easy or quick recovery.

Today we take a look back at the economic philosophy that championed the kind of deregulation that led to this crisis. We spend the hour with investigative journalist and author Naomi Klein. She is the bestselling author of “The Shock Doctrine.”

Naomi Klein spoke at the University of Chicago last week. She was invited by a faculty group opposed to the creation of an economic research center called the Milton Friedman Institute. It has a $200 million dollar endowment and is named after the University"s most famous economist, the leader of the neoliberal Chicago school of economics.

Naomi Klein, journalist and author of the books “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” and “No Logo.”

LINKS
- Democracy Now! : The end of Milton Freedman's Neo-Liberalism
- Wikipedia: Milton Freedman

What the Americans Could Buy with $700 Billion

From The Progressive:

• Covering health care costs plus out-of-pocket medical expenses for all of America's uninsured: $100 billion

• Universal preschool: $35 billion

• Rebuilding New Orleans: $100 billion

• Free college education for everyone: $50 billion

• Total energy independence for the United States, with a shift to renewables within the next ten years: $500 billion

LINKS
- The Progressive: What $700 Billion Could Buy

Major Dutch Bank FORTIS Nationalised by Dutch Government due to international credit crisis

Radio Netherlands Worldwide:
The Dutch government is taking over the Dutch activities of Fortis bank, at a cost of 16.8 billion euros. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende announced the takeover at a press conference on Friday afternoon, alongside Finance Minister Wouter Bos and Central Bank President Nout Wellink.

The move is meant to reassure investors in the troubled banking group. It comes just one week after the Dutch government said it would buy 49 percent of the Fortis activities in the Netherlands, part of a deal agreed with the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg. The new arrangement supersedes last week's deal.

Fortis has been victim to the international credit crisis. It could no longer raise the money needed to pay for its purchase of the ABN AMRO bank, a deal reached eighteen months ago and also involving Royal Bank of Scotland and Banco Santander. The Fortis share in that deal has now been brought into question.

In addition, the bank started losing customers in the Netherlands and in Belgium. The value of its shares fell to a record low.

Turbulence
Prime Minister Balkenende says that, with the purchase of Fortis, he wants to bring calm and stability to the financial sector during a turbulent time. Finance Minister Bos said the Dutch government is protecting the interest of the bank's customers, and making sure the finance climate in the Netherlands is safe.

Asked what the criteria for such a move was, Mr Bos said, "The Netherlands will take action if and when financial institutions crucial to the stability and integrity of the financial system get into significant trouble." He was quick to add that no other Dutch institution is currently facing such trouble.

Explanation
The finance minister will have some explaining to do in parliament this coming week. He has been reassuring Dutch lawmakers about the soundness of the deal agreed last week to buy 49 percent of Fortis activities in the Netherlands, while behind-the-scenes negotiations were underway for a complete takeover of the Dutch divisions of the bank.

The move, effectively nationalising one of the largest banks in the Netherlands, goes against the trend of the last few decades of selling off government interests. Mr Bos says he cannot say yet how long the government will keep the bank.

LINKS
- Radio Netherlands:Dutch government nationalises Fortis

This week's bear market, even AFTER the passing of the $700bn bail-out (video)

Financial Times London: The US Congress on Friday passed the Bush administration’s $700bn financial rescue package after a tense week on Capitol Hill, but stocks fell sharply afterwards amid continuing turmoil in the credit markets.

The 263-171 vote in the House of Representatives, which rejected an earlier proposal only four days before, came after $149bn in tax breaks was added to the bill to help sway reluctant legislators to back the plan.

Reaction on Wall Street turned increasingly negative after the vote. The S&P 500 – which rose as much as 3.6 per cent ahead of the decision – fell 1.4 per cent, closing below its level on Monday after the House voted against the bill. It was the worst week for US stocks since markets re-opened after the September 11 2001 terrorists attacks.

Watch the video here: Bear Market

LINKS
- Financial Times: Fall in markets as bail-out is approved

Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! wins Right Livelihood Award, also dubbed the Alternative Nobel (Sweden)

From Democracy Now!:

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman has become the first journalist to receive the Right Livelihood Award, established to honor those “offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today." The annual prize, also known as the Alternative Nobel, will be awarded in the Swedish parliament in December. The other winners were Indian activists Krishnammal and Sankaralingam Jagannathan, women’s rights advocate Asha Hagi of Somalia, and sexual violence victims’ advocate Monika Hauser of Germany.

About the award:

The Right Livelihood Award was established in 1980 to honour and support those "offering practical and exemplary answers to the most urgent challenges facing us today".

It has become widely known as the 'Alternative Nobel Prize' and there are now 133 Laureates from 57 countries.

Presented annually in Stockholm at a ceremony in the Swedish Parliament, the Right Livelihood Award is usually shared by four Recipients.

[...]

The Right Livelihood Award is widely recognized as the world's premier award for personal courage and social transformation. Besides the financial support, it enables its Recipients to reach out to an international audience that otherwise might not have heard of them. Often, the Award also gives crucial protection against repression. For the Laureates, the Award has opened many doors, including prison doors.

Unlike the Nobel Prizes (for Physics, Physiology/Medicine, Chemistry, Literature, and Peace), the Right Livelihood Award has no categories. It recognises that, in striving to meet the human challenges of today's world, the most inspiring and remarkable work often defies any standard classification. For example, people who start out with an environmental goal frequently find themselves drawn into issues of health, human rights and/or social justice. Their work becomes a holistic response to community needs, so that sectoral categories lose their meaning.

LINKS
- Democracy Now!: Amy Goodman wins Alternative Nobel
- Right Livelihood Award: For Outstanding Vision and work on behalf of our planet and its people

Another taser death: NYPD officer kills himself over Taser episode

I'm sincerely saddened by the follow up on this story. When are those people, that write policy on taser use, going to realize that tasers cause harm to suspects AND police officers?

NYPD officer kills himself over Taser episode

NEW YORK — The man was naked, teetering on a building ledge and jabbing at police with an 2.5-metre-long fluorescent light bulb as a crowd gathered below.

Lt. Michael Pigott responded by ordering an officer to fire a stun gun at the man, who froze and plunged headfirst to his death in a scene captured on amateur video and replayed frequently on the Internet.

The officer was remorseful and distraught. He apologized and sought the family's forgiveness. Then he went to his unit's headquarters Thursday morning and fatally shot himself, just hours before the family laid the victim to rest.

"The lieutenant was deeply distraught and extremely remorseful over the death of Iman Morales in Brooklyn last week," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. "Sadly, his death just compounds the tragedy of the loss of Mr. Morales."

The suicide marks another tragic turn in a case that has raised questions about the use of Tasers by the country's largest police force.

In Canada, police have come under intense scrutiny for using the shock weapons after a would-be Polish immigrant died at Vancouver International Airport last fall.

Robert Dziekanski was twice jolted by RCMP Tasers after the officers were called to deal with an agitated Dziekanski, who had been wandering around lost for hours after his flight arrived.

The latest Canadian victim in a Taser-related incident is a 49-year-old from Langley, B.C. who died on Tuesday after crashing through the window of a home and being jolted by an RCMP stun gun.

In New York, thousands of police sergeants began carrying Tasers on their belts this year after the NYPD expanded use of the weapons, a trend that has been playing out in police departments across the country in recent years. The pistol-shaped weapons fire barbs up to 10 metres and deliver powerful shocks to immobilize people.

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has acknowledged that the weapon is controversial, and some organizations are strongly opposed to police use of Tasers - fearful that the guns can be abused without clear guidelines.

Police said the use of the stun gun in the death of Morales appeared to violate department guidelines, which explicitly bar their use "in situations where the subject may fall from an elevated surface." Marchesona also was reassigned to desk duty but was not stripped of his gun and badge.

Pigott learned firsthand the dangers of Tasers after he was called to a Brooklyn apartment building on the night of Sept. 24.

Witnesses and neighbours said Morales grew increasingly agitated and threatened to kill himself, leading his mother to call 911. When police arrived, Morales fled naked out the window of his third-floor apartment to the fire escape. He tried to get into an apartment on the floor above, and then climbed down until he reached a ledge over a shuttered storefront, where he started jabbing at officers with the light bulb.

Pigott had to make a decision about what to do. He ordered Officer Nicholas Marchesona to fire the Taser.

The 5,000-volt shock immobilized the 35-year-old Morales, who then toppled from his perch. He plunged three metres to the ground and died. Officers had radioed for an inflatable bag as the incident unfolded, but it had not yet arrived when Morales fell.

Authorities believe the fall killed Morales, but an autopsy was inconclusive.

After the episode, Kelly ordered refresher training for the NYPD's emergency services unit on how to deal with the mentally ill and appointed a new commander of the unit.

Pigott was stripped of his gun and badge and assigned to a job with the department's motor vehicle fleet - a huge demotion for a 21-year veteran who was assigned to such an elite team. The Brooklyn district attorney's office and the police department investigated.

Pigott apologized for what happened, telling the Long Island newspaper Newsday that he was "truly sorry."

Sometime before 6 a.m. Thursday, the lieutenant went to the locker room at his unit's headquarters by himself and found a weapon that was not his. The married father of two sons and a daughter shot himself in the head on his 46th birthday.

About four hours later, the Morales family gathered at a church in Manhattan for their relative's funeral.

"This is horrible," said Morales' aunt, Ann DeJesus Negron. "I mean, for me personally, I know it's horrible because I would have never wished this on anyone, and we never wanted, of course, this for Iman, and we would never wanted this to happen to the officer at all, or anybody at all."

The episode also cast the spotlight on the NYPD's emergency services unit, a team of officers who deal with dozens of hostile scenarios every day, such as hostage situations, suicidal suspects, building collapses and hazardous materials threats.

"These guys are the best of the best, they really are," said Eugene O'Donnell, a professor of police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "When people need help, they call the police, and when police need help, the call the ESU."

O'Donnell said that even a mistake caught on camera shouldn't take away from what the unit and the officers there do on a daily basis.

"You have a guy who made a mistake where there's no allegation of malice or ill will," he said. "And what happened after he made a mistake? He was named in the paper, shamed in the paper, suspended, and there was a strong story line that he could be criminal suspect."

NYPD officers are allowed to use Tasers if they believe emotionally disturbed people are a danger to themselves or to others. The department uses stun guns about 300 times on average. So far this year, stun guns have been used 180 times.

The department has used Tasers since 1984, but policy previously called for sergeants to store the stun guns in their trunks while patrolling.

"It is worth remembering that our police officers are not super men, but rather flesh-and-blood human beings who deal with life-and-death situations that most of us cannot even imagine on a daily basis," said Thomas Sullivan of Lieutenants Benevolent Association. "They deserve a kind thought and the benefit of the doubt for all the good that they try to do, especially when things do not work out exactly as we would have hoped for."

Pigott was a licensed pilot and a motor boat operator. He had worked as a lieutenant in ESU since 2002, and previously served as a lieutenant in a Brooklyn precinct and as a sergeant in precincts that covered Queens neighbourhoods.

LINKS

- the Canadian Press: NYPD officer kills himself over Taser episode

Sarah Palin's Apocalypse (video)

American News Project: Would biblical prophecies influence Palin's foreign policy positions? Nobody's asking her so far.

Does Sarah Palin believe in the Anti-Christ? Does she believe true Christians will be whisked up to heaven sometime in the near future? Does she expect Jesus to come back to earth in our lifetimes and battle the armies of Satan? Would biblical prophecies about Armageddon influence her foreign policy positions on Israel and Russia? These are urgent questions the media have failed to ask. According to Chip Berlet, a leading expert on the Christian right, mainstream reporters tend to view apocalyptic fundamentalists as a "silly little side show" in American political life, when, in fact, one of their own may soon be a heartbeat away from the most powerful office in the world.

Langley RCMP kill unarmed (and seriously wounded) man with taser

Another day, another taser death. Who's still counting all taser deaths?

A man is dead after he crashed through a second-storey window, naked and bleeding from a chest wound, and was hit with an RCMP Taser.

If this man was seriously bleeding from a chest wound, then why would someone taser him? Is having crashed through a window any reason to taser someone to death?

RCMP say they converged on a home in suburban Langley, B.C., Tuesday, following an armed robbery earlier in the day. A witness who saw a vehicle leaving the scene of the hold-up alerted police and followed the car to the home.

That's quite the stretch, "following an armed robbery". Is the account of one eyewitness enough to taser somebody to death?

Cpl. Peter Thiessen said police heard a man and woman arguing inside the home, and then witnessed the man come through an upper-floor window and hit the ground.

Did the woman throw this guy out? Then why taser the guy and not the woman?

With the gun used in the robbery nowhere in sight and the suspect trying to run inside the home despite a serious chest wound, police decided to use the Taser, Thiessen said.

What do you mean, despite? If I was naked and bleeding like hell I wouldn't consider going for a drink or see a movie; I would go inside, call an ambulance and if possible get dressed. What's so weird about that reaction?

[Thiessen] said the man was still alive when he was arrested but died en route to hospital.

Does anyone else have a Robert Dziekanski deja-vu here? Robert was still alive when he was arrested. But not much later he was dead, thanks to the great work of the RCMP.

Thiessen said a woman who was inside the home was arrested.

Well, problem solved then. It was all the woman's fault. How wonderful to turn the single reason for tasering the now dead man (to protect the female) into the perfect scapegoat.

This story stinks, and I don't like it.

LINKS
- Canadian Press: Langley RCMP kill seriously wounded and unarmed man with taser
-Truth not Tasers: 371+ Taser deaths, and still counting...

Full Article follows, comments at the bottom.

PS: RCMP spokesman Cpl. Peter Thiessen says that they killed the suspect "in the interest of public safety and the safety of police officers". Well done, Peter.

Wounded B.C. robbery suspect dies after being Tasered

LANGLEY, B.C. — A man is dead after he crashed through a second-storey window, naked and bleeding from a chest wound, and was hit with an RCMP Taser.

RCMP say they converged on a home in suburban Langley, B.C., Tuesday, following an armed robbery earlier in the day. A witness who saw a vehicle leaving the scene of the hold-up alerted police and followed the car to the home.

Cpl. Peter Thiessen said police heard a man and woman arguing inside the home, and then witnessed the man come through an upper-floor window and hit the ground.

With the gun used in the robbery nowhere in sight and the suspect trying to run inside the home despite a serious chest wound, police decided to use the Taser, Thiessen said.

He said the man was still alive when he was arrested but died en route to hospital.

Thiessen said a woman who was inside the home was arrested.

The RCMP Major Crimes Unit and the Integrated Homicide Investigation Team are investigating the incident with the oversight of Vancouver police.

The use of the shock weapons has been under scrutiny since Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski died after RCMP officers shocked him with a Taser at the Vancouver airport in October 2007.

A public inquiry into Dziekanski's death is scheduled to get underway in November.

Last week, Vancouver police used a Taser on a 16-year-old mother who refused to hand her one-month-old baby over to social workers.

Police said they acted because of fears the "mentally distraught" mother might smother the little boy during the three-hour standoff.

Alan Greenspan's email address and why Republicans bailed out on the bail out

BBC:

Members of Congress have been dealing with two powerful conflicting forces over the last week.

The first was remorseless pressure from the White House - the argument that the country faced a crisis so profound that unless they approved the government's plans, American capitalism would grind to a halt as funds flowing between the banks began to dry up.

But the second pressure which is much harder to measure came from ordinary voters writing or emailing their own members of Congress angrily demanding that they reject a scheme which is universally perceived here as a bail-out of Wall Street bankers.

They are perceived as greedy, incompetent fat cats who have created this crisis themselves and who are now being allowed to pick the pockets of American voters to fix it.

Direct democracy at work, ain't it great?

BTW does anyone have the email address of Alan Greenspan, the architect of this mess?

LINKS
- BBC: emailing works
- Aljazeera: Greenspan's crime of market deregulation

"If BS were currency, Palin could bail out Wall Street herself"

Kathleen Parker:

Palin’s recent interviews with Charles Gibson, Sean Hannity, and now Katie Couric have all revealed an attractive, earnest, confident candidate. Who Is Clearly Out Of Her League. [...]

If Palin were a man, we’d all be guffawing, just as we do every time Joe Biden tickles the back of his throat with his toes. But because she’s a woman — and the first ever on a Republican presidential ticket — we are reluctant to say what is painfully true.

What to do?

McCain can’t repudiate his choice for running mate. He not only risks the wrath of the GOP’s unforgiving base, but he invites others to second-guess his executive decision-making ability. Barack Obama faces the same problem with Biden.

Only Palin can save McCain, her party, and the country she loves. She can bow out for personal reasons, perhaps because she wants to spend more time with her newborn. No one would criticize a mother who puts her family first.

Do it for your country.

PS: It's great to make fun of BS:



LINKS
- National Review: Palin Problem
- Wikipedia: National Review

Bailout Anger in the Streets (video)

American News Project: While government leaders worked behind closed doors to solve the bailout crisis, groups of concerned citizens took to the streets to express their anger and frustration. While some felt their voices would be heard, others felt helpless and lost.



LINKS
- American News Project: Bailout Anger in the Streets (video)
- Wikipedia: Subprime Mortgage Crisis

Video of New York Police tasering to death 35 year old mentally handicapped

THIS is quite upsetting:

New York Police taser 35 year old mentally handicapped to death

From Democracy Now!: Mentally Handicapped Man Falls to Death After Police Tasering

And here in New York, police are admitting at least partial fault in the death of a mentally handicapped man who fell from a building after he was tasered. Thirty-five-year-old Inman Morales was standing naked on a ledge when police confronted him to try to bring him down. Police say they had called for an inflatable bag to break Morales’s fall. But it had not arrived before an officer struck him with the taser weapon, sending him plunging to his death. [...]

More from the New York Daily News: NYPD investigates two officers in Taser death [of] Brooklyn man

Instead of waiting for backup to arrive with an airbag that would have broken his fall, "an [Emergency Service Unit] lieutenant directed another ESU officer on the sidewalk to employ a [taser] against Morales, who fell to the sidewalk, striking his head," Browne said.

Morales, 35, fell 10 feet and landed headfirst on the pavement. He was declared dead at Kings County Hospital.

"It just wasn't a smart move. When you Taser someone, they drop like a stone. No muscle control. Under regular circumstances, the (suspect) could have jumped himself and been OK," a police source said.

Indeed, not a smart move. Hell, this NY police officer is smarter than I thought.

"He froze and pitched forward," witness Ernestine Croom said. "They didn't put out a mattress or net or anything."

"That's a human being. You just let the man fall and kill himself?" said Robin Overton, 45, who works nearby. "I thought the cops were here to help him."

Inman Morales, dead at 35.

LINKS
- Democracy Now! Mentally Handicapped Man Falls to Death After Police Tasering
- New York Daily News: NYPD investigates two officers in Taser death [of] Brooklyn man.

Progressive Re-Framing, Democracy Now! Style

At issue is the US hypocrisy allegations in Russia criticism, well re-framed by the Democracy Now! crew at the end of the segment (in bold):

Rice Rejects Hypocrisy Allegations in Russia Criticism

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has escalated US rhetoric against Russia. On Thursday, Rice said the West should stand up to what she called Moscow’s “bullying.”

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: “Russia’s intimidation of its sovereign neighbors, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, its unilateral suspension of the CFE Treaty, its threat to target peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, its arms sales to states and groups that threaten international security, and its persecution—and worse—of Russian journalists and dissidents and others. The picture emerging from this pattern of behavior is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad."

Rice’s comments were her harshest to date since Russian troops invaded Georgia after Georgia attacked the breakaway province of South Ossetia. It’s widely speculated the Bush administration helped encourage the Georgian attack, which ended up backfiring for the Georgian government. The White House has been widely ridiculed over its protests of Russia’s response to the attack. Rice was questioned on accusations of Bush administration hypocrisy in light of its own invasion of Iraq.

Rice: “If you look at an Iraq that will not seek weapons of mass destruction like the Saddam Hussein regime, that will live in peace and security with its neighbors and that will give its own people a chance for democratic governance, I don’t think that that bears any resemblance to invading a small democratic neighbor whose only crime apparently was that it wished to be a part of the emerging transatlantic world.”

There were other differences: the Russia-Georgia conflict led to several hundred deaths; the US invasion of Iraq has led to the deaths of anywhere between hundreds of thousands to more than one million Iraqis.

LINKS
- Democracy Now!: Headlines for September 19, 2008
- Wikipedia: Framing in Politics

TN! of the Week: Julian Fantino, Commissioner Ontario Police

Tasers, tasers, tasers!

If you were waiting for this week's report on taser abuse in Canada then you can keep waiting for while.

A report on [taser use] that was expected this week at a police chiefs convention has been delayed until next year.

I suppose it's tough to report on such an inconvenient truth when one of your main sponsor is so heavily involved in the outcome of the report.

Taser International is one of the top $ponsor$ of the police chiefs' conference.

Indeed, the always humble Taser International. Not that Steve Palmer (Canadian Police Research Centre) would tell you about this particular conflict of interest, no, there's a better explanation (wink, wink):

"It's important that this (report) is done well and that this is done in a way that brings value to a broad group of stakeholders: public, police, and policy makers," Palmer said at a news conference Tuesday at the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police convention.

I see, "done well". Yes of course, now I get it, "well done" Steve. Taser's sponsorship of the convention has got nothing to do with it.

Taser International is one of the top $ponsor$ of the police chiefs' conference.

Oh really? Gosh, I had no idea. Are you sure?

Taser International is one of the top $$$$$ponsor$$$$$ of the police chiefs' conference.

But that wouldn't affect any of the "events" at such a conference, would it?

Ontario's provincial police commissioner says there is nothing wrong with Taser International sponsoring a police chiefs' conference.

I told you so, didn't I?

Taser Nazi of the Week - Julian Fantino
Now here's how Julian Fantino got himself nominated for Taser Nazi of the Week.

Julian Fantino says the weapons have saved many lives and are a tool like any other.
"The issue is not so much the tool as the rhetoric that revolves around it," he said. "I think the debate has gone off the rails.
"In my experience that particular device has saved many lives."

Fortunately the lazy-lapdog-journalists of "the Canadian Press" had for once their follow up question ready, asking for some evidence of this so often repeated but false claim that tasers save lives:

....

Indeed, lazy-lapdog-journalists don't ask such serious questions, nor would there be a valid answer (which I've explained before here: tasers DON'T save lives).

Congrats, Julian Fantino, you're the "Taser-Nazi of the Week"!

LINKS
- the Canadian Press: We at the Canadian Press only ask soft-ball questions about the safety of Tasers
- Getting it Right: Tasers save lives? You decide!

Democracy Now!'s TWO HOUR shows on the Democratic National Convention in Denver

One word: Wow!!!

Watch it.

LINKS
- Democracy Now!

Ron Suskind reveals Bush administration ordered Iraq/9-11 fakery

From Democracy Now!
Thursday August 14, 2008

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind joins us for part two of an interview on his new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Suskind reports that in 2003 the White House ordered the CIA to forge and disseminate false intelligence documents linking al-Qaeda and Iraq. While much of the attention on the book has focused on the forged letter, Suskind also reveals that the Bush administration and the British government knew prior to the war that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. We also speak to Rep. John Conyers, chair of the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating some of the explosive findings in Suskind’s book. [...]

The CIA allegedly forged a letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein. It was backdated July 1, 2001 and stated 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta was trained for his mission in Iraq.

While much of the attention on the book has focused on the forged letter, Suskind also reveals that the Bush administration and the British government knew prior to the war that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.

Ron Suskind interviewed Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, Britain’s secret intelligence service. Dearlove said that Britain received intelligence in the beginning of 2003 about Iraq’s lack of WMDs but the Bush administration buried the information.

Dearlove told Suskind: “The problem was the Cheney crowd was in too much of a hurry, really. Bush never resisted them quite strongly enough.” Ron Suskind joins us again here in the Firehouse studio. We are also joined on the phone by Congressman John Conyers, the chair of the House Judiciary Committee. John Conyers has said his committee will review some of the explosive findings in Suskind’s new book, “The Way of the World.”

Lots more at Democracy Now!: After Ron Suskind Reveals Bush Admin Ordered Iraq-9/11 Fakery, House Judiciary Chair John Conyers Opens Congressional Probe