Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Tuesday 10-25-11

This will come eventually in the future, so it is not really a surprise

Vatican calls for global authority on economy, raps “idolatry of the market”

The Vatican called on Monday for the establishment of a “global public authority” and a “central world bank” to rule over financial institutions that have become outdated and often ineffective in dealing fairly with crises. The document from the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department should please the “Occupy Wall Street” demonstrators and similar movements around the world who have protested against the economic downturn.

“Towards Reforming the International Financial and Monetary Systems in the Context of a Global Public Authority,” was at times very specific, calling, for example, for taxation measures on financial transactions. “The economic and financial crisis which the world is going through calls everyone, individuals and peoples, to examine in depth the principles and the cultural and moral values at the basis of social coexistence,” it said.

It condemned what it called “the idolatry of the market” as well as a “neo-liberal thinking” that it said looked exclusively at technical solutions to economic problems. “In fact, the crisis has revealed behaviours like selfishness, collective greed and hoarding of goods on a great scale,” it said, adding that world economics needed an “ethic of solidarity” among rich and poor nations.

“If no solutions are found to the various forms of injustice, the negative effects that will follow on the social, political and economic level will be destined to create a climate of growing hostility and even violence, and ultimately undermine the very foundations of democratic institutions, even the ones considered most solid,” it said.

It called for the establishment of “a supranational authority” with worldwide scope and “universal jurisdiction” to guide economic policies and decisions.

Asked at a news conference if the document could become a manifesto for the movement of the “indignant ones”, who have criticised global economic policies, Cardinal Peter Turkson, head of the Vatican’s Justice and Peace department, said: “The people on Wall Street need to sit down and go through a process of discernment and see whether their role managing the finances of the world is actually serving the interests of humanity and the common good. “We are calling for all these bodies and organisations to sit down and do a little bit of re-thinking.”

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/24/idUS264245887020111024

More preverts found at the tsa. TSA stands for Toomuch Sex Advice? Makes you just want to trust them more and more.

TSA Sex Advice? Woman Finds 'Freaky' Note In Luggage

Frequent travelers may be used to finding an official note from the Transportation Security Administration alerting them that their checked bags have been searched, but rarely does the TSA take the opportunity to get a little more -- or a lot more -- personal with travelers.

But that's what one blogger said a TSA officer did based on an unusual note she found in her luggage today. Jill Filipovic, a blogger at Feministe.us, tweeted a picture of the TSA notification on which, alongside the official form, someone had scrawled "GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL" in big capital letters.

"Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA," Filipovic tweeted. "Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow."

Attempting to discreetly explain the "personal item" to commenters on Feministe, Filipovic wrote it was "the most basic lady-thing you can imagine."

Jill Filipovic said she discovered a personal note written on a TSA form in her checked bags that urged her to "get [her] freak on."
Filipovic had traveled from Newark, New Jersey, to Dublin, Ireland, over the weekend and had just this morning opened her luggage. She said that except for when the bag was checked -- from the time she packed to the time she unpacked -- she had been with the bag, meaning it was unlikely an elaborate practical prank by a friend. She said the fact that the note was left on the TSA notice led her to believe a TSA officer had written it.

A spokesperson for the TSA said that they are "one of several entities" that handle checked bags and that at this time there is "no concrete evidence who wrote the note."

Still, the TSA said that "if inappropriate conduct is discovered, TSA [will take] appropriate disciplinary action."

Initially, Filipovic wrote on her blog that the note was "total violation of privacy, wildly inappropriate and clearly not OK, but I also just died laughing in my hotel room."

But upon further reflection, Filipovic told ABC News she believed it to be "offensive" and said she'd likely be filing a complaint with the TSA once she returns to the U.S.

"I hope they do see the complaint, they'll look into it and remind their staff that going through people's personal belongings is a responsibility that should be treated with some modicum of professionalism," Filipovic said.

The TSA said it opens checked bags for hand inspections if any alarms are sounded during the screening process and the TSA inserts the inspection card after the search.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/tsa-sex-advice-woman-finds-freaky-note-luggage/story?id=14803656

Drivers face drug checkpoints on highways near Flint

Motorists driving on expressways around Flint are getting surprised by a stunning tactic that the Genesee County sheriff has been using to fight the flow of illegal drugs -- one that legal experts said will not withstand a court challenge.

At least seven times this month, including Tuesday, motorists have said they have seen a pickup towing a large sign on I-69 or U.S.-23 that depicts the sheriff's badge and warns: "Sheriff narcotics check point, 1 mile ahead -- drug dog in use."

The checkpoints are part of a broad sweep for drugs that Genesee County Sheriff Robert Pickell and his self-titled Sheriff's Posse said are needed, calling Flint a crossroads of drug dealing because nearly a half-dozen major roads and expressways pass in and around the city. Pickell said he decided to try checkpoints when he learned that drug shipments might be passing through Flint in tractor-trailers with false compartments.

"We're doing everything by the book," Genesee County Undersheriff Christopher Swanson said. "We think there's major loads (of drugs) coming through here from all over, every day. And this is one of the tools we use -- narcotics checkpoints."

He said the dogs are used to sniff around the vehicles to check for drugs.

The practice has legal experts on searches and seizures at two law schools in Michigan, a constitutional law expert in Lansing and the American Civil Liberties Union calling the practice out of bounds and out of touch with state and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that ban such practices.

Based on a case out of Indianapolis, the U.S. Supreme Court held in 2000 that narcotics checkpoints where everyone gets stopped on a public road are not legal and violate Fourth Amendment protections against illegal searches and seizures, professor David Moran at the University of Michigan Law School said.

Wayne State University Law School professor Peter Henning said police can set up roadblocks to search all who pass by, but only if a crime has just been committed.

And Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who said he was not consulted by Pickell about the checkpoints, said that after a court challenge, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in 1990 that so-called "sobriety check lanes," put in place to nab drunken drivers, were illegal.

The new practice of narcotics checkpoints "certainly brings up probable-cause issues," Leyton said Thursday.

Leyton said he has no power to stop the practice, however. That, he said, would require someone arrested at a checkpoint to contest the evidence in court.

The checkpoints have caused an uproar, officials said. And, as a result, the sheriff's office has altered its methods: Instead of using the checkpoints daily -- even Sundays when they started at the beginning of the month -- they are used sporadically. And instead of stopping everyone, law enforcement has been putting the signs out and waiting for a motorist to make an illegal U-turn in the freeway median to try to avoid the checkpoint, thus giving them cause to pull the driver over and search the vehicle.

But even that method raises question, U-M professor Moran said. The technique has not been tested in Michigan courts, he said. But judges would take a dim view of it because "it's perilously close to entrapment," he said.

"It's just the kind of shabby treatment that the Fourth Amendment was designed to prevent," Moran said.

Among the groups of motorists most stunned by the checkpoints are state-registered medical marijuana users and caregivers. Pickell and Swanson said the checkpoints weren't meant to target medical-marijuana users, but word of the new tactic spread quickly through that community.

Many registered users and caregivers told the Free Press they now fear driving near Flint, even when they possess their medical-marijuana registry cards.

At a checkpoint Tuesday afternoon just west of Flint on I-69, officers pulled over only those who saw the checkpoint sign, then made an illegal U-turn on the freeway, Jamie Fricke, 31, of Lapeer said.

"But my buddy went through this on Monday and he said they were pulling over all enclosed trailers. They had drug-sniffing dogs out that day," on I-69 east of Flint, in Burton, she said.

Fricke, a state registered medical-marijuana user, said she had a small amount of the drug with her, but her car was not searched.

Larry and Diane Foster, both of Muskegon, said they saw a checkpoint Oct. 5 in which officers were stopping every motorist on eastbound I-69.

"We were going in the opposite direction or we would've been stopped," said Diane Foster, 55, a state-registered medical-marijuana user and caregiver. "I had medication (marijuana) on me, so I don't know what the outcome would've been."

http://www.freep.com/article/20111021/NEWS06/110210365/Drivers-face-drug-checkpoints-highways-near-Flint?odyssey=tabtopnewstextFRONTPAGE

More stupidity from our government

NASA SWAT Team Terrifies Woman

Woman’s dead husband leaves her a speck (about the size of a grain of rice) of moon dirt. She wants to sell it. Apparently that’s against the law. So much so that NASA and Sheriff’s Officers storm a Denny’s in California to retrieve the speck from her. Full details here. Talk about overkill; there must have been a better way to handle this, especially since lax security and record keeping by NASA allowed a whole lot of moon dust specks to wander into the general public.

After all, it’s not like she was dealing in cocaine or — you know — facilitating in the sale of so-called “assault weapons” and allowing them to cross the border to fall into the hands of the murderous Mexican drug cartels.

http://www.alphecca.com/?p=887

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