Killing Two Birds With One Bomb

Welcome to war 21st century style. One country
supplies both sides of another country's civil war
with arms and training then when both sides wear
each other down, then the country thats been fanning
the flames moves in and it's all over. But why supply
both sides you say? Because in this situation you have
a third party involved trying to keep the two sides apart.
It's like a referee between two fighters in the ring. Both
fighters are throwing punches but the ref is catching the
brunt of the blows and sooner or later the ref is going
to move out of the way. When that happens all hell
breaks loose. What I'd like to know is what should we do
now? Any suggestions.


The chief U.S. military spokesman in Iraq asserted Wednesday that Iranian-made arms, manufactured as recently as last year, have reached Sunni insurgents here, which if true would mark a new development in the four-year-old conflict.
Citing testimony from detainees in U.S. custody, Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell said Iranian intelligence operatives were backing the Sunni militants inside Iraq while at the same time training Shiite extremists in Iran.

We have, in fact, found some cases recently where Iranian intelligence services have provided to some Sunni insurgent groups some support," Caldwell told reporters, adding that he was aware of only Shiite extremists being trained inside Iran. Caldwell cited a collection of munitions on a nearby table that he said were made in Iran and found two days ago in a majority-Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad.

Khalil Sadati, media adviser for the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad, denied his government was backing militant groups inside Iraq. "There's no such thing." Sadati said. "Why don't you ask the Americans why they continue to make accusations without any evidence?"
For months, U.S. officials have alleged that Iranian entities have provided Shiite militias with weapons, including potent roadside bombs the military calls EFPs, or explosively formed penetrators, that have killed dozens of U.S. soldiers. Wednesday marked the first time that U.S. officials have asserted that Sunni insurgents were also receiving arms from Iran.

It was unclear what motivation Iran, a Shiite theocracy, would have for backing Sunni insurgents, many of whom are staunchly anti-Iranian and fear the rise of Shiite power in the region. Critics have dismissed the U.S. assertions, saying that evidence provided so far gives no solid proof that Iran has supplied weapons to Iraqi militants.





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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Can Bush Even Spell Unethical ?

Here we are smack dab in the middle of an unethical civil war
where Americans are dying by the carloads and our knuckle-
headed president is going to veto funding on stem cell research.
I don't know about you but I can't wait for the presidential
elections next year. Believe me I'm gonna be the first person
in line at the voting polls. How does old boy begin to say that
stem cell research is unethical when an article in today's LA
Times says Reseachers use stem cells to rein in Type 1 diabetes.
Diabetes is rampant in Hispanic an Africna American communities.
Continue reading the article below and please offer up your opinion.



In 2003, federal officials inspected California-based Advanced Cell Technology. They rummaged through refrigerators, scrutinized labs and checked microscopes to make sure the firm wasn't using federally funded equipment to work on embryonic stem cells.Similar scenes have played out across the U.S. since President Bush issued an executive order banning federally funded research on embryonic stem cells created after 2001. The president and other religious conservatives believe such research is unethical. Scientists like those at Advanced Cell Technology, meanwhile, say that the limitation has hampered the search for cures and put them at a competitive disadvantage.

That debate played out on the floor Tuesday as the Senate began two days of debate on stem-cell research, the latest battleground on which Democrats are challenging the president. A bipartisan Senate bill that would make more stem-cell lines available to scientists, with certain limits, is expected to pass with broad support and face a veto from Bush, who rejected a similar bill last year. "He would veto again, if it were to pass," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "It is incumbent upon the president to balance both the moral and the ethical boundaries for new scientific research."

Citing strong public support for the bill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) noted Tuesday that stem-cell research is thought to hold the potential to cure diseases that afflict about 100 million Americans, including cancer, Alzheimer's disease, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, spinal cord injuries, heart disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. "We must take on this urgent cause once again," Reid said, referring to Bush's previous veto. "We will fight to see that it becomes law."The House passed a similar bill in January, 253 to 174, well short of the two-thirds majority needed to overturn a presidential veto.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Put Apology Back In Your Pocket

Why do we keep falling for the same tired-axx cons.
Two things that sell in this country is sex and black
blasting. This isn't something that the white man
invented either. As long as rappers where making
money calling black sisters B#$%&*s and ho's we
made a little noise about it but in the long run it be-
came the norm. Rap songs continued to sell and a
great many of them were bought by black women.
So now a white radio talk show host who is known for
blasting women and blacks says something derogatory
about the Rutger's womens basketball team and black
folks bite into it, locking on like a pit bull. Calls short
of public lynching are now heard comming from prominent
African-American activist which in turn is picked up
by the media and a frenzy starts. Then the talk show
host makes a watered down apology that usually
satisfies his bosses because by then there's been a
spike in the overnight ratings. And quess what, the
longer we bicker about the situation the higher the
ratings go for the talk show and larger ratings mean
larger ad dollars. Anyway check out the column below
and feel free to holler at me about how you feel about this
latest media frenzy.


Mo'Kelly doesn't want an apology from Don Imus. Mo'Kelly would want an apology from Don Imus about as much as he wants a Senate discussion on reparations or an official slavery "apology" from the United States government. Save it. Don't insult Mo'Kelly's intelligence or waste his time. Two week simulcast suspension? Whatever. It's all the same. Although the outrage and outcry for the ouster of Don Imus from the terrestrial radio airwaves has been deafening; Imus should keep his apology…AND his show for that matter. In fact, NBC could've just kept their two-week simulcast suspension too.

Hear Mo'Kelly out… This is all too familiar to "other" incidents in recent memory. If you know the words to this song, feel free to sing along. Public figure makes horrible remark, public becomes angry and demands his/her job in retribution. Public figure apologizes and goes "slumming" on a Black press tour. Public moves on. Public figure keeps job. With the exception of Rush Limbaugh's removal from the ESPN football crew in the wake of his disparaging remarks regarding Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb…exactly when does anyone lose his/her job for disrespecting my people?

Probably not since former sports analyst Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, has a public media figure gone completely up in flames in a professional sense after grossly demeaning African-Americans. It just doesn't happen.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

DNA vs The Texas System of Justice

After reading articles like the one below I often wonder
just how many black people sit in prisons today wrongly
convicted of a crime they didn't commit. Today many
such peoples innocence is being proven by a simple DNA
test and many more could walk free if this test is used in
their cases. But justice as they say moves slowly and even
slower for those already convicted of crimes. Today
more and more courts are using DNA testing to prove guilt
or innocence but it is also exposing a justice system that is
far from being perfect at least if your black. In Texas where
executions occur more often than in any other state, how
many do you think have died under false persecution?
I'll be waiting for your comments


Many men claim innocence when staring at iron bars. But James Giles knew he was no rapist — and he believed three fellow Texas prisoners who told him they too were wrongly convicted of rape. They shared their despair over games of chess and dominoes, worked on longshot appeals together in the law library, and dreamed of the day they would win exoneration from a justice system that failed them. It has taken nearly 25 years, but with the assistance of DNA testing, the men — all African American — are proving they are indeed innocent.

Two were freed from prison. A third was cleared last month, years after serving his sentence. Today, Giles is expected to clear his name and become the 13th man from Dallas County to prove with genetic testing that he was wrongly imprisoned. Giles, who spent 10 years in prison and was paroled in 1993, is seeking to vacate his 1983 conviction. New evidence suggests that another man — also named James Giles — committed the rape. Dallas County prosecutors more than two decades ago knew about the other James Giles, who lived across the street from the victim, but never told Giles' defense."I lost everything in the world," said Giles, 53.

"I just thank God we finally got someone to see that I was the wrong guy."Giles struggled to rebuild his life after he got out of prison, branded a rapist. The skilled construction laborer had a hard time finding menial jobs, and his wife, who stuck with him through his prison term, eventually sought a divorce. The Dallas County district attorney was scheduled to personally apologize to Giles today. The three wrongly convicted men whom Giles befriended in prison will be cheering in the courtroom.The wrongful convictions of these four men are some of the most dramatic examples of prosecutions in the Lone Star State that have come under increasing scrutiny.

Dallas County has had more people exonerated by DNA than all but three entire states. Texas, which leads the nation in convictions overturned by genetic testing, has had 27, Illinois, 26, and New York, 23. California has had nine exonerations.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Drug War Or Minority War-How Can I Tell ?

When you look at the statistics below they are quite
shocking. Blacks are the smallest users of illegal drugs
in the country but garner the most prosecutions. So
why is that? Those figures would also seem to reflect
that not only are blacks the smallest users percentage
wise but it would seem also the major players of the drug
game drugs based on convictions. The article below deals
with the fact that none of the candidates for president
seem to want to talk about this miscarriage of
justice for fear of seeming soft on crime. After
reading the article please tell me what you think of
this issue.



THERE IS A subject being forgotten in the 2008 Democratic race for the White House.
While all the major candidates are vying for the black and Latino vote, they are completely ignoring one of the most pressing issues affecting those constituencies: the failed "war on drugs" — a war that has morphed into a war on people of color. Consider this: According to a 2006 report by the American Civil Liberties Union, African Americans make up an estimated 15% of drug users, but they account for 37% of those arrested on drug charges, 59% of those convicted and 74% of all drug offenders sentenced to prison.

Or consider this: The U.S. has 260,000 people in state prisons on nonviolent drug charges; 183,200 (more than 70%) of them are black or Latino. Such facts have been bandied about for years. But our politicians have consistently failed to take action on what has become yet another third rail of American politics, a subject to be avoided at all costs by elected officials who fear being incinerated on contact for being soft on crime. Perhaps you hoped this would change during a spirited Democratic presidential primary? Unfortunately, a quick search of the top Democratic hopefuls' websites reveals that not one of them — not Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama, not John Edwards, not Joe Biden, not Chris Dodd, not Bill Richardson — even mentions the drug war, let alone offers any solutions. The silence coming from Clinton and Obama is particularly deafening.

Obama has written eloquently about his own struggle with drugs but has not addressed the tragic effect the war on drugs is having on African American communities.As for Clinton, she flew into Selma, Ala., to reinforce her image as the wife of the black community's most beloved politician and has made much of her plan to attract female voters, but she has ignored the suffering of poor, black women right in her own backyard. Located down the road from her Chappaqua, N.Y., home are two prisons housing female inmates, Taconic and Bedford. Forty-eight percent of the women in Taconic are there for nonviolent drug offenses; 78% of those in the prison are African American or Latino.

And Bedford, the state's only maximum-security prison for women, is home to some of the worst victims of New York's draconian Rockefeller-era drug laws — mothers and grandmothers whose first brush with the law resulted in their being locked away for 15 years or more on nonviolent drug charges. Yet even though these prisons are so nearby, Clinton has turned a blind eye to the plight of the women locked away there, notably refusing to speak out on their behalf. Avoidance of this issue comes at a very stiff price (and not just the more than $50 billion a year we're spending on the failed drug war). The toll is paid in shattered families, devastated inner cities and wasted lives (with no apologies for using that term).
\
During the 10 years I've been writing about the injustice of the drug war, I've repeatedly watched as politicians paid lip service to the problem but then ducked as the sickening status quo claimed more victims. Here in California, of the 171,000 inmates jamming our wildly overcrowded prisons, 36,000 are nonviolent drug offenders. I remember in 1999 asking Dan Bartlett, then the campaign spokesman for candidate George W. Bush, about Bush's position on the outrageous disparity between the sentences meted out for possession of crack cocaine and those given for possession of powder cocaine — a disparity that has helped fill U.S. prisons with black low-level drug users (80% of sentenced crack defendants are black).





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Remembering Where He Came From !

It's nice to see that somebody that has made it big remembers
from which he came from. When I was growing up All-Stars
were the tennis shoe to have and at $8.00 a pop even that
was too steep for my parents who both worked and also had
8 of us to feed. Back then too I can't recall there being any big
time shoe endorsements such as there are today. So Stephon
Marbury should be commended for forgoing the big bucks in
the shoe endorsement game and giving back to the community
and at the same time not sticking his hand deeply into the pockets
of those trying to make ends meet.


Waiting in a winding line for autographs from his favorite NBA player, 15-year-old Brian Cox lifted the lid of a shoebox to show off his synthetic leather high-top sneakers with black sides and blue-and-orange soles. At a price his mother doesn't mind — $14.98 — he got his fourth pair of Starburys this week, a sneaker created by New York Knicks point guard Stephon Marbury. Joanne Cox brought her two teenage sons to Steve & Barry's University Sportswear after church Sunday for the launch of Marbury's spring line. The NBA star "grew up in a poor neighborhood just like we did," said Cox, who is raising the boys on her own.

She says it is not easy on the wages she earns as a city traffic officer, and she has spent thousands on her sons' shoes over the years. "Now that we got a price of $15, we're not going higher than that."This is the world the 10-year NBA veteran is trying to change with his $15 shoes — a world where parents are pressured to shell out money for expensive sneakers while struggling to pay rent and buy groceries; a world where kids get robbed, shot and strangled over the latest styles. (In January, 10 Detroit middle school students were robbed of their Nike boots and Air Force One sneakers at gunpoint.)

Marbury knows it will take a while to pull off a Michael Jordan impact at a Wal-Mart price. So far, he says, he's willing to do it one sneaker-crazed teen at a time. Starburys have been holding their own in schools and on basketball courts alongside kicks that cost 10 times as much. Marbury is so confident of the sturdiness of his shoes that he is wearing them on the court this season. He says his pair is straight off the shelf, with no alterations or enhancements. Chicago Bulls center and four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year Ben Wallace has also partnered with Steve & Barry's to release his own inexpensive sneaker — Big Ben — in late August or fall. Still, sneaker aficionados wonder whether a $15 shoe will change a cultural phenomenon that has thrived since Jordan came out with his line in 1985.

Not all kids are sold on the idea, even if the sneaker is endorsed by someone they admire. "The theory is because an NBA athlete is playing in the shoe, it's a perfect shoe," said Matt Powell, a senior retail analyst with SportsOneSource, a data and research firm for sporting goods. "I could go out and play basketball in a pair of flip-flops, but that doesn't make them a perfect shoe."





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Fifty-Five And Still Going !

At fifty-three the thought of retiring is the furtherest
thing from my mind. The way I see it I'm just hitting
my stride. Besides with all that extra time on my hands
I'd probably get in trouble running behind a young skirt.
The mind is still sharp and my health is ok so why would
I want to retire. My dad still works because he says he gets
bored sitting around the house. So why not continue to work
if you can. Lots of employers are begging for qualified people
to fill positions. I'll retire when they put me in the ground.


Gary Passmore sold his thriving public affairs business and moved to California with retirement in mind — a little fishing, some travel and a lot of relaxation. Then the stock market took a nosedive, his savings dried up and the blue suits came back out of the closet."I love my work and I'm happy with what I do, but it was not a choice," said Passmore, the 61-year-old director of the Congress of California Seniors, a Sacramento-based advocacy group. "I thought I should go back to work to re-create a nest egg…. I'll work as long as I can."

Passmore is one of a growing number of Californians who find themselves working later in life, according to a report released Monday by the California Budget Project. The proportion of women ages 55 to 69 who were working rose 9.2 percentage points between 1995 and 2006;
for men, the increase was 10.6 percentage points. Experts in aging and the workplace called the change significant and said it has been fueled by a complex mix of social factors, good and bad.

Longer lives and better health mean people are physically able to work longer. A diminished retirement system and a sharp rise in baby boomers who feel financially unprepared to swap briefcases for golf bags mean that many will be forced to work longer. Some industries — healthcare, for one — are so strapped for qualified workers that older employees have more opportunity to work longer. And a cultural change in the way Americans think about employment means that some may actually want to work — in second careers, new small businesses or jobs that are less lucrative but more fulfilling.

"Financial security, retirement security, is a lot more precarious," said Mark Beach, spokesman for AARP California. "That's the downside. The upside is that a lot of people are looking at work differently. They are embarking on second careers, seeing their work life as multitiered." The California Budget Project is a Sacramento-based think tank that works as an advocate for low- and middle-income residents. Its report, which culled data from federal statistics, showed that workers ages 55 to 64 and those from the traditional retirement age of 65 to age 69 are working more than in the past.Workers in the younger group were employed at a fairly steady rate of about 54% between 1979 and 1995, but then the percentages began to surge — to about 59% in 2000 and nearly 62% in 2006.





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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of its
Drum Major for Peace,
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/