Hello. I've received almost no notifications of peace vigils and other appropriate activities around Christmas. This is unusual and I hope accidental. Please do send me notice of such and I'll send out a couple of nice calendars. Today's are strong and appropriate, but not coming from churches and related organizations. 'Tiz the season. Ed
Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit sent by Dave Muller (southnews) - Dec 19, 2004 Riverbend Blog http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ Baghdad Burning. Girl Blog from Iraq... Christmas Wishlist... I have to make this fast. No electricity for three days in a row (well, unless you count that glorious hour we got 3 days ago...). Generators on gasoline are hardly working at all. Generators on diesel fuel aren't faring much better- most will only work for 3 or 4 straight hours then they have to be turned off to rest. Ok- what is the typical Iraqi Christmas wishlist (I won't list 'peace', 'security' and 'freedom' - Christmas miracles are exclusive to Charles Dickens), let's see: 1. 20 liters of gasoline 2. A cylinder of gas for cooking 3. Kerosene for the heaters 4. Those expensive blast-proof windows: http://www.sommer-hof.de/usa/blast_proof.html 5. Landmine detectors: http://www.foerstergroup.com/UXO/minex.html 6. Running water 7. Thuraya satellite phones: http://www.thuraya.com/ (the mobile phone services are really, really bad of late) 8. Portable diesel generators:http://www.generatorjoe.net/subcat.asp?0=541 (for the whole family to enjoy!) 9. Coleman rechargeable flashlight with extra batteries: http://www.tacticalflashlights.com/flashlights/CO5387-700.html ( you can never go wrong with a fancy flashlight) 10. Scented candles (it shows you care- but you're also practical) When Santa delivers please make sure he is wearing a bullet-proof vest and helmet. He should also politely ring the doorbell or knock, as a more subtle entry might bring him face to face with an AK-47. With the current fuel shortage, reindeer and a sleigh are highly practical- but Rudolph should be left behind as the flashing red nose might create a bomb scare (we're all a little jumpy lately). By the way, until further notice, please send any emails to [EMAIL PROTECTED] as I'm having some minor problems with the other accounts. posted by river @ 3:57 PM *** sent by Rich Winkel (activ-l) The Dark Alliance, part 6/8 by Gary Webb Aug 23, 1996 Cocaine sentences weighted against blacks by Gary Webb San Jose Mercury News When it comes to cocaine, it isn't just a suspicion that the war on drugs is hammering blacks harder than whites. According to the U.S. Justice Department, it's a fact. The "main reason" cocaine sentences for blacks are longer than for whites, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported in 1993, is that 83 percent of the people being sent to prison for "crack" trafficking are black "and the average sentence imposed for crack trafficking was twice as long as for trafficking in powdered cocaine." Even though crack and powder cocaine are the same drug, you have to sell more than six pounds of powder before you face the same jail time as someone who sells one ounce of crack - a 100-to-1 ratio. That logic has eluded Dr. Robert Byck, a Yale University drug expert, from the moment he discovered the 100-to-1 ratio may have been his inadvertent doing. In 1986, at the height of an election-year hysteria over crack, Byck was summoned before a U.S. Senate committee to tell what he knew about cocaine smoking. Byck, a renowned scientist who edited and published Sigmund Freud's cocaine papers, had been studying crack smoking in South America for nearly 10 years, with growing alarm. Sen. Lawton Chiles, a Florida Democrat (and now that state's governor), was pushing for tougher crack laws, and he asked Byck about testimony he had given previously that "some experts" believed crack was 50 times more addictive than powder cocaine. Byck acknowledged some people believed that. Despite the speculative nature of the figure, Byck said, the addictive factor of 50 was "doubled by people who wanted to get tough on cocaine" and then, for reasons he still finds incomprehensible, turned into a measurement of weight. The resultant 100-to-1 (powder-vs.-crack) weight ratio, Byck said, was "a fabrication by whoever wrote the law, but not reality. . . . You can't make a number." Recently, the U.S. Sentencing Commission - a panel of experts created by Congress to be its unbiased adviser in these matters - tried and failed to find a better reason to explain why powder dealers must sell 100 times more cocaine before they get the same mandatory sentence as crack dealers. The "absence of comprehensive data substantiating this legislative policy is troublesome," it reported last year. In 1993, cocaine smokers got an average sentence of nearly three years. People who snorted cocaine powder received a little over three months. Nearly all of the long sentences went to blacks, the commission found. Justice Department researchers estimated that if crack and powder sentences were made equal, "the black-white difference . . . would not only evaporate but would slightly reverse." Based on such findings, the commission recommended in May 1995 that the cocaine-sentencing laws be equalized, calling the 100-to-1 ratio "a primary cause of the growing disparity between sentences for black and white federal defendants." Apparently fearful of being seen as soft on drugs, Congress voted overwhelmingly last year to keep the crack laws the same. On Oct. 30, President Clinton signed the bill rejecting the commission's recommendations. continued in part 7... To subscribe: http://olm.blythe-systems.com/mailman/listinfo/nytr ==================================================== NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ==================================================== *** INTERNATIONAL DAY OF ACTION! Protest NO TO CAFTA (Central America Free Trade Agreement) End the repression in El Salvador Solidarity with the Salvadoran People. When? Tuesday December 21st 2004 Time? 12:00 P.M Location? Salvadoran Consulate in Los Angeles 3450 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, 90010 (just east of Normandie Ave) Endorsers: SANA, CARECEN, CISPES, Casa El Salvador, FMLN-Los Angeles, Comites de Bases, unions and churches Nota: Protests have been confirmed for the same day in El Salvador, San Salvador, Washington D.C, New York, Maryland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Santa Rosa, and Canada. More cities to be confirmed. For more information call (909) 645-1061 *** Study Tour to Israel and Palestine Applications are being received for a ten day study tour to Israel/Palestine in the spring of 2005. The tour, which is being done in conjunction with a company in the UK, will guide participants in understanding the situation on the ground through our encounters with people on both sides of the divide - Israelis and Palestinians, Jews, Christians and Muslims. The tour looks at aspects of life today in Jerusalem, Palestine and Israel where participants will be exposed to fundamental differences of opinion amongst people who live in such close proximity. Many of the people we will meet have put their lives on the line for their fellow human beings. Some are also founders of organisations which have become known internationally. Tour participants will have the opportunity to meet ICAHD staff members and to visit the Beit Arabiya Peace Centre, where they will have a meal hosted by Salim Shawamreh, and the Daila Centre, the new civil society empowerment and cultural project in West Jerusalem. Jeff Halper will address participants and will lead the 'Greater' Jerusalem tour, seeing the Separation Wall, going into the settlement of Ma'ale Adumin and seeing the Israeli 'matrix of control' road system... To find out more, please email [EMAIL PROTECTED] ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> $4.98 domain names from Yahoo!. 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