marmar
marmar's JournalQuick! Gimme the maple syrup !!!!
from the Toronto Star:
Maple syrup heist threatens Quebec’s reserve of Canada’s sweetest export
Emily Jackson
Staff Reporter
Maple syrup burglars left behind only empty barrels and questions after pilfering from Quebec’s maple syrup reserves last week.
The heist was discovered during a routine inventory check at the St-Louis-de-Blandford warehouse, the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers’ temporary storage facility for 10 million pounds of Canada’s sweetest export.
Worth $30 million, there was enough maple syrup in the warehouse to fill one and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools, or about 3.75 million litres, federation director Anne-Marie Granger Godbout said.
That would fill about 7.5 million bottles on grocery store shelves. ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/1249877--maple-syrup-heist-threatens-quebec-s-reserve-of-canada-s-sweetest-export
Toronto Star: Iraq War resister speaks out after deportation order
Long before U.S. war resister Kimberly Rivera and her family fled to Canada in 2007, she stopped carrying her rifle while on duty as a soldier in Iraq.
When she got in trouble for that, she secretly stopped carrying ammunition.
On Friday, the quiet Texan spoke out for the first time after learning this week from Citizenship and Immigration Canada that she had been given a negative pre-removal risk assessment and must leave the country by Sept. 20.
“I’m just a bit overwhelmed. I don’t want to face reality. I respect Canada’s law. I’m going to take it one step at a time so I don’t have a meltdown,” said Rivera, who was surrounded by supporters and peace activists. “But it’s is very difficult.” .............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/1249942--iraq-war-resister-speaks-out-after-deportation-order
The Nation: For Julian Assange, Justice Foreclosed
For Julian Assange, Justice Foreclosed
JoAnn Wypijewski
August 29, 2012
Every once in a while, a situation arises that so completely captures the spirit of the time—in this case, the horror moving like an amoeba under the surface of our pleasant days, our absurd distractions, our seemingly serious politics—that ordinary assumptions, ordinary arguments and their limited conclusions serve only to obliterate honesty, and so any hope of grappling with the real. Such is the case of Julian Assange now.
He is the wanted man. Wanted for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings, ostensibly on sexual misconduct allegations in Sweden, but maybe not; maybe on charges of espionage or conspiracy in the United States instead; maybe to face indefinite detention, maybe torture or life in prison. It’s so hard to know… But one thing is not mysterious: the law is no more capable of delivering justice in his case today than it was for a black man alleged to have raped a white woman in the Jim Crow South.
I am not comparing the founder of WikiLeaks, a white man benefiting from not only white-skin privilege and straight-man privilege but also class and celebrity privilege, with black men on the other side of a lynch mob. This is not about the particulars of oppression; it is about the political context of law, the limits of liberal expectations and the monstrosity of the state.
Liberals have no trouble generally acknowledging that in those rape cases against black men, the reasoned application of law was impossible. It was impossible because justice was impossible, foreclosed not by the vagaries of this white jury or that bit of evidence but by the totalizing immorality of white supremacy that placed the Black Man in a separate category of human being, without common rights and expectations. A lawyer might take a case if it hadn’t been settled by the mob, but the warped conscience of white America could do nothing but warp the law and make of its rituals a sham. The Scottsboro Boys might have been innocent or they might have been guilty; it didn’t matter, because either way the result would be the same. ..........(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.thenation.com/article/169632/julian-assange-justice-foreclosed#
Are Liberals Too Eager to Believe Sex Charges Against Julian Assange?
via truthdig:
Are Liberals Too Eager to Believe Sex Charges Against Julian Assange?
Posted on Aug 31, 2012
What happens when the predatory interests of a national security state and those of women’s rights advocates seem to coincide, as in the case of WikiLeaks publisher and accused rapist Julian Assange? A murky witch hunt, in which some liberals forget that suspects are innocent until proven guilty, JoAnn Wypijewski writes in The Nation.
Wypijewski reminds us that Swedish police were unusually quick to initiate the process of arrest when one of the women now involved in the charges against Assange asked authorities to require that he take an STD test after the two had unprotected sex. Upon seeing the authorities’ eagerness to arraign Assange, that woman refused to give further testimony. Not long after, the Swedish prosecutor’s office withdrew the arrest warrant for rape and molestation on the grounds that the charges were not appropriate to the women’s claims. For some reason, that decision was overturned a week later, after the Swedish authorities allowed Assange to leave the country. (A detailed account of this sequence of events, with statements from the women that seem to exonerate Assange, can be read here.)
The dubious circumstances surrounding Sweden’s sexual misconduct charges—taken with Assange’s status as public enemy No. 1 in the West—suggest that the public’s legitimate desire to see officials investigate suspects of rape and violence against women is being exploited by governments looking to protect their own interests—namely, their ability to continue committing illegal acts in secret worldwide. In their eagerness to defend the rights of women, Wypijewski argues, some writers and activists, however just their cause in general, may have become unwitting supporters of a government’s malicious attempt to silence one of its ablest critics.
—Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly. Follow him on Twitter: @areedkelly.
If the Swedish claims against Assange had involved anything but sex, it’s unlikely that liberals, and even some self-described radicals, would be tiptoeing around this part of the story, either by asking “So I guess he’s a bad guy?” or by arguing “Of course he needs to answer for his crimes.” If it were anything but sex, we would insist on the presumption of innocence. We have instead gotten comfortable with presuming guilt and trusting in the dignified processes of law to guarantee fairness.
“Believe the victim” entered the lexicon decades ago for historically understandable reasons. Women had been denied their own due process, in a sense—their right to make a complaint and expect justice, not vilification or worse. They are still being denied and derided, as the idiot spewings of Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin illustrate. The mutation of basic rights into an imperative for belief, and of full citizens into victims, has not made women any safer, but its cultural manipulation—particularly in high-profile cases—has struck at the foundations of civil liberty in a way that may not have been anticipated.
So here is the spectacle of Assange, as yet unindicted, bearing the dual brand of Sex Offender and Terrorist, the subhuman beings of the twenty-first century. The fusing of abuse and terror in his case thus implies two victims who must be believed, the women and the state. But the women’s claims are murky, and the state is not credible.
Read more
http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/are_liberals_too_eager_to_believe_sex_charges_a_j_assange_20120831/
3rd death tied to Chicago Legionnaires' outbreak
Source: Chicago Tribune
A third visitor to a downtown hotel earlier this summer has died after contracting Legionnaires’ disease, city officials announced Friday.
Media in Ireland are reporting that the man was a retired plumber who was in Chicago to celebrate his 40th wedding anniversary when he apparently contracted the disease.
Newly released test results indicate the primary source of the Legionnaires' outbreak at the JW Marriott at 151 W. Adams St. was a decorative fountain in the hotel’s main lobby.
The Irish Examiner reported that Thomas Keane, 66, shared a meal with his wife at the JW Marriott during their July trip to Chicago.
Read more: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-3rd-death-tied-to-chicago-legionnaires-outbreak-20120831,0,6053909.story
Up to 10,000 Yosemite visitors at risk of virus
FRESNO, Calif. (AP) — Up to 10,000 people who were guests in certain lodging cabins at Yosemite National Park might have been exposed to a deadly mouse-borne virus, park officials confirmed Friday as rangers handled a slew of calls from frightened visitors.
Park concessionaire Delaware North Co. sent letters and emails this week to nearly 3,000 people who reserved the insulated "Signature" cabins between June and August, warning them that they might have been exposed.
The cabins hold up to four people, and park spokesman Scott Gediman said Friday that means up to 7,000 more visitors might have been exposed to the virus that so far has killed two people and sickened four others.
Meanwhile, more than 1,000 calls a day are coming into Yosemite's new hantavirus hotline as visitors frightened about the growing outbreak of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome call seeking answers. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20120831/US.Yosemite.Rodent.Disease/
Third person dies from Legionnaires’ at Chicago hotel
from the Sun-Times:
A third person has died from the Legionnaires’ Disease outbreak linked to a downtown hotel — and the hotel’s main fountain has been identified as the source of the disease.
The fountain in the lobby of the JW Marriott, 151 W. Adams St., was removed from the hotel and identified as the primary source, according to the Chicago Department of Public Health.
Secondary sources were found — including the pool and locker rooms — but they “remain disabled or inaccessible to the public,” the health department said, adding officials believe there is no further risk of illness at the hotel.
The department has confirmed 10 cases of the illness and now three deaths. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.suntimes.com/14856619-761/third-person-dies-from-legionnaires-at-loop-hotel.html
Bill Moyers: Ralph Reed: From Purgatory to Power
http://vimeo.com/48602673
Ralph Reed: From Purgatory to Power
August 31, 2012
Media attention on Romney, Ryan, Rubio and Eastwood notwithstanding, the true surprise at the Tampa convention was Ralph Reed’s resurrection. When the former head of the Christian Coalition was discovered to have raked in millions of dollars from the super lobbyist — and eventually convicted felon — Jack Abramoff, Reed wound up in political purgatory. But outraged by the election of Barack Obama, and responding to what he describes as God’s call (via Sean Hannity), Reed returned to start the Faith and Freedom Coalition with the aim of toppling Barack Obama from the White House. To succeed, Reed needs to win the allegiance of many of the trusting Christian followers he had duped and double-crossed while working with Abramoff.
http://billmoyers.com/segment/ralph-reed-from-purgatory-to-power/
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