Monday, July 27, 2009

"We Came in Peace for All Mankind"



Some 40 years ago, my Mom made her 3 children walk out into a sweltering FL night to look up at the moon where men walked.

Now NASA has come out with new high resolution videos of men on the moon.

To have people reach the moon and return safely marks perhaps the greatest technological feat in recorded history.

Lived there e're a human who looked up at the stars at night and did not dream?

Friday, July 24, 2009

No Racism in America. Nope. Nosiree.




[Ormond Beach Police this morning found a burned cross on city property.

Scratched in the dirt below the cross were the letters " KKK," an abbreviation for the white supremacy group Ku Klux Klan.

The cross was found at a water-tower site on Leeway Trail, just north of Airport Road.]
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-bk-ormond-beach-burned-cross-072409,0,7106671.story

Thursday, July 23, 2009

"You're Going to the Moon, Alice."



FL Drugs Children in Foster Care

In the category of should feel surpised but ain't, FL adoptive parents told our Governor Great Tan about the pills taken by their kids.

[Mirko and Regina Ceska told Crist that when they adopted their two 12-year-old children last year, each was taking 11 pills daily, including the powerful antipsychotic drug Seroquel.

"These girls were overdosed and would fall asleep right in front of us several times a day," said Mirko Ceska.

"It seems to be a prerequisite for foster children to be on medication," he added.

The Crawfordville couple weaned the girls off their medication, and their behavior markedly improved, they said...

Shortly after the Ceskas spoke, Crist's head of the Department of Children and Families, George Sheldon, asked them to testify Friday in Tampa before a special panel that's investigating the April suicide of a Margate 7-year-old, Gabriel Myers.

Like the Ceskas' adopted children, Gabriel was prescribed a number of medications including a psychotropic drug. One of the drugs, the antidepressant Symbyax, isn't supposed to be prescribed to children and has been linked to suicidal behavior...

Of the 20,000 children in state care, about 3,100 — or 15.5 percent — are medicated, primarily with psychotropic drugs, Sheldon said. In the general population, he said, about 4 to 5 percent of children are on some form of medication.

A DCF study of the 268 6- and 7-year-olds medicated while in state care found that child-welfare doctors and case managers routinely failed to complete legally required treatment plans, share information or properly document the prescribing of powerful psychiatric drugs.]emphasis added

Medicating 6 and 7 year olds?

Sure you can control kids better when you dope them up, but it's wrong, Governor Great Tan, FREAKIN' wrong, you bastard.

Don't raise taxes. Let kids die. That's the Republiklan way.

Bastards.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/article1020793.ece

"International Space Plumbers Fix Balky Orbital Toilet"

[A Russian cosmonaut joined an astronaut from Belgium in a classic example of international plumbing cooperation on Monday and succeeded in fixing a faulty toilet on the international space station.

Station commander Gennady Padalka and flight engineer Frank De Winne swapped out some parts on the balky toilet and got it up running again a day after it broke down.

The toilet is one of two orbital commodes on the space station for the outpost's permanent six-person crew and seven visiting astronauts from the docked shuttle Endeavour. It flooded on Sunday, forcing Mission Control in Houston to ask the astronauts to put up an "out of service" sign on the potty door.]
emphasis added
http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/news_space_thewritestuff/2009/07/space-plumbers-fix-balky-orbital-toilet.html

"Naked Bicyclist Arrested on Sex Charge"

"A naked bicyclist was arrested today on a child-sex charge after he ran from Altamonte Springs police, they said.

An officer saw Jose Antonio Torres, 23, pedaling down State Road 436 at Frances Drive about 2 a.m. and stopped him, said Cpl. Robert Pelton, a department spokesman.

Torres "hopped off the bicycle and ran," Pelton said. When he was caught, he had a cut on his head.

Police soon discovered that the father of a 14-year-old girl had found Torres and the teen having sex in her room at a nearby apartment complex, Pelton said. The father stopped them and struck Torres, who ran away."
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/breakingnews/orl-bk-naked-bicyclist-07212009,0,5071618.story

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Random Poem

Please pour my ashes into the river
Please pour them into the outgoing tide
Let the river take me to the ocean
Take me on that one last ride

But the sea evaporates
That turns into rain
So when rain falls
I'll be with you again

Sunday, July 12, 2009

FL RepubliKKKans: privatize everything, even foster care for children

The Orlando Sentinel, in a stunning investigation of Dept of Children and Families records, found that more than 70 caseworkers lie and falsified documents pertaining to safety of children.

"During the past two years, more than 70 Florida child-welfare workers have been caught falsifying records -- lying about their on-the-job efforts to protect children, according to state and county records reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel.

As a consequence, the Florida Department of Children and Families temporarily lost track of at least six children, sometimes for months. Fourteen children were left in unsafe homes, the Sentinel found in a review of agency records..."

Lost children? The state of FL lost track of 5 year old Rilya Wilson in 2001, leaving her missing and presumed dead.

A study found 88 children, including Wilson, missing and uaccounted for.

Governor JEB!'s solution? Hire private companies to keep track of foster kids.

"...Florida overhauled its child-welfare system after authorities discovered in 2002 that a Miami foster child, 5-year-old Rilya Wilson, had been missing for 15 months without DCF knowing. Her caseworker had stopped making face-to-face visits.

The child has never been found.

In response to the scandal, the agency began outsourcing much of its child-safety work to private contractors.

What's left today is a much smaller government agency with limited oversight of the companies in charge of child safety..."
[This quote comes after quote below from Sentinel.]

"•The day after a caseworker reported that she had inspected a foster home in Wildwood, police found its four foster children living in tents in the yard. The house had no running water, no food and no clean clothes. [emphasis added]

•After a Hardee County social worker lied about making home visits, one child wound up living with an uncle awaiting trial on child-rape charges.

•Two children in Hernando County lived, for a time, with a grandfather who had been arrested two years earlier and accused of physically abusing his own child.

No child was hurt or killed because of phony paperwork, DCF said. But an investigation into the 2007 death of a neglected Jacksonville newborn revealed that his caseworker had falsified records in four other cases."

Lying caseworkers split 50 50 between state and private workers.

Still, we give lipservice to importance of protecting children but not enough money.

[Longtime child advocate Jack Levine of the 4Generations Institute in Tallahassee, a family-policy advisory group, said DCF clearly is policing itself, firing bad workers and trying to make children safer.

But the state also has a legacy of failing to meet its goals.

"Florida is a state that has always had among the finest child-protection laws and among the most paltry budgets to pay for those good intentions," Levine said.]

In Guv JEB!s delusional second inaugural speech, he imagined capital empty of government workers.

What a freaking tool!!! As Thomas Hobbes observed in Leviathan, government exists to enforce a social compact that works for all, whether weak or strong or poor or rich.

Privatize power grid and we got Enron.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Driving While Hispanic

Sheriffs deputies in Lake County, FL, routinely detain Hispanics whom they suspected of bring illegal aliens, dettaining them without charges while contacting the US Border Patrol.

For those of you not from my great state, Lake County had an infamous sheriff, Willis McCall, known for racism, lynching, and black people mysteriously disappearing from his custody.

Some things don't change.

[During the past two years, the Lake County Sheriff's Office detained more than 200 people solely because they were suspected of being an illegal or undocumented immigrant.

The arrest count is by far the highest of any other Central Florida county
that could provide statistics from the same period, and the practice of detaining individuals without criminal charges is being called into question by civil-liberties and immigration advocates who suggest the Sheriff's Office is conducting racial or ethnic profiling.

"There's a reason why we are in contact with them," Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said. "We're not profiling. We have very strict policies against profiling. I've got a federal law-enforcement agency telling me to detain them."

Although the Sheriff's Office does not have a formal agreement with federal authorities to enforce certain immigration laws, Borders said his deputies are on solid legal ground in detaining suspected illegal immigrants for the federal government. He said every case begins with a legitimate stop or inquiry by a deputy — a traffic violation, for instance.

According to arrest records in the 215 cases reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, Lake County deputies customarily stopped vehicles, questioned occupants and then became suspicious about immigration status.

They then typically contacted the U.S. Border Patrol, which issued "detainers," and the individuals usually were then held at the Lake County Jail until they were picked up by federal authorities for deportation proceedings.] emphasis added




[Following printed under Fair Use Doctrine because of important public polcy issues presented. Orlando Sentinel retains all copyrights to this story.]

Is it profiling? Lake County detains more than 200 suspected of being illegal immigrants
Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders denies his office profiles Hispanics
By Anthony Colarossi

Sentinel Staff Writer

July 10, 2009

TAVARES

During the past two years, the Lake County Sheriff's Office detained more than 200 people solely because they were suspected of being an illegal or undocumented immigrant.

The arrest count is by far the highest of any other Central Florida county that could provide statistics from the same period, and the practice of detaining individuals without criminal charges is being called into question by civil-liberties and immigration advocates who suggest the Sheriff's Office is conducting racial or ethnic profiling.

"There's a reason why we are in contact with them," Lake County Sheriff Gary Borders said. "We're not profiling. We have very strict policies against profiling. I've got a federal law-enforcement agency telling me to detain them."

Although the Sheriff's Office does not have a formal agreement with federal authorities to enforce certain immigration laws, Borders said his deputies are on solid legal ground in detaining suspected illegal immigrants for the federal government. He said every case begins with a legitimate stop or inquiry by a deputy — a traffic violation, for instance.

According to arrest records in the 215 cases reviewed by the Orlando Sentinel, Lake County deputies customarily stopped vehicles, questioned occupants and then became suspicious about immigration status.

They then typically contacted the U.S. Border Patrol, which issued "detainers," and the individuals usually were then held at the Lake County Jail until they were picked up by federal authorities for deportation proceedings.

No criminal charges are listed on any of the booking sheets, records show.

Instead, deputies cited "Courtesy Hold for Border Patrol" or "Hold for Border Patrol" and a Florida civil statute regarding contempt of court.

Virtually all the cases involve individuals with Hispanic surnames.

Similar detentions without local charges are rare among neighboring sheriff's offices during the same span:

•The Seminole County Sheriff's Office detained eight without charges.

•In Volusia County, jail records show the Sheriff's Office detained two people.

•Osceola County never held anyone on one of the detainers without first arresting them on some criminal count. Osceola honored 23 detainers; all were charged first with local crimes.

• Orange County officials said they could not produce a number without significant time for special computer programming.

The issue prompted an emotional debate last month when Lake Sheriff Borders met with Hispanic groups and immigrant advocates.

"It used to be [called] 'driving while black,'" Sister Ann Kendrick with the Hope Community Center told Borders. "Now it's 'driving while Mexican or Latino.' People are terrified. They're afraid to drive. ... People are terrified of you."

Police departments across Central Florida — from Orlando to Kissimmee to Leesburg — generally do not ask about federal detainers unless they've arrested someone on a criminal charge and the individual's citizenship comes into question.

"It doesn't happen at all with us," said Stacie Miller, a spokeswoman for Kissimmee police. "We don't arrest them and hold them until a detainer comes in. ... We focus on if there is a crime."

Among Lake County crime fighters from late 2007 to early this year, the Sheriff's Office was the arresting agency in 215 cases in which detainers were issued without charges.

Astatula police handled three cases, Clermont police handled five and Tavares police handled seven.

The detentions in Lake gained widespread attention earlier this year when Tavares police arrested an illegal-immigrant mother from Honduras without a criminal charge.

Rita Cote — who had an administrative warrant for deportation — was held in jail for more than two weeks, well beyond the 48 hours allowed under federal law.

Cote and her husband are now preparing to sue Tavares police and the Lake County Sheriff's Office, according to their attorney.

Michael Reilly, an assistant chief with Border Patrol's Office of Public Affairs in Washington, said it's not uncommon for local law-enforcement agencies to contact Border Patrol during traffic stops when the citizenship of an individual is in question.

Agents usually can question people and determine quickly whether a detainer should be issued, he said.

"If the sheriff decides to drop a misdemeanor charge, that's up to the sheriff. I can't comment on that," Reilly said. However, he added, "Say they do issue a citation. What's the probability of this person showing up in court, if ultimately the person is going to be deported from the United States?"

Since 2001, there has been "a great deal of confusion regarding the actual authority of local and state police to enforce federal immigration law," according to a 2007 immigration report written by Michele Waslin, a senior analyst with the Immigration Policy Center.

Even the federal regulation governing the detainers is open to interpretation about whether local law enforcement should first have custody of an individual before they get issued.

The Miami-Dade Police Department has issued a Legal Bulletin citing court cases and stating "local or state police officers should not arrest or detain an individual solely on the basis of such a detainer or other civil hold order ..."

Borders defends his deputies: "If here's a traffic stop and they [suspects] cannot produce identification and it's determined they may be here illegally, we contact Border Patrol," he said. "If a federal law-enforcement agency — whether they ask or demand [to hold someone on a detainer] — we're going to do that."

Anthony Colarossi can

be reached at

352-742-5931 or acolarossi@

orlandosentinel.com.