this and that… created and uploaded more stuff for Hybrid Elephant. got contacted yesterday by the american representative of the Rudra Centre, and Hybrid Elephant is now the washington state representative for the Rudra Centre, which is the largest provider of rudraksha seeds in the world, and also has ratna and a bunch of other things. also recieved, filled, and shipped (!) an incense order today… i really like it when they order stuff that’s in stock and they don’t have to wait around for delivery. 8)
removed the hybrid elephant P.O. box number from two more postal spam lists that it was on from the previous occupant, and i have two more that have to wait until monday, because by the time i checked the box, they were already closed for the weekend. i gather she (ellen or ella alexander) was a “christian” grandmother, or something like it, because since i opened the box, it has gotten literally hundreds of different catalogues for grandmother-like “gifts”, snow-globes, “antique” figurines and other “cute” and/or “biblical” crap. it’s busy enough that if i don’t check the box two or three times a week, it overflows, which is really frustrating, because i have to go through every piece of mail to find the one or two things that are actually addressed to the business.
i moved up two more sizes in my quest to buy a 0-gauge ear-plug. i had an 8-gauge spiral, and i’m at up to a 4-gauge now. also met with ned the ptsd counsellor, finally, for the first time yesterday. he said it would be nice if he could see me again next week, but that next week was already booked, so he’s got me in two weeks. as i suspected, nothing was accomplished, and he forgot a couple of very important forms that i was supposed to have filled out before having seen him, so i have to pretend like the appointment in two weeks is actually the first appointment… and this is after being put off by him for two weeks and getting confused about the actual date for a week… 8/
By WAYNE PARRY
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) – Five Muslim football fans were detained and questioned during a game at Giants Stadium because they were congregating near an air duct on a night former President Bush was in the stadium, the FBI said Wednesday.
Some of the Muslims said they did not know they were in a sensitive area, and they complained that they were subjected to racial profiling while they were praying, as their faith requires five times a day.
“I’m as American as apple pie and I’m sitting there and now I’m made to feel like I’m an outsider, for no reason other than I have a long beard or that I prayed,” said Sami Shaban, a 27-year-old Seton Hall Law School student who lives in Piscataway.
At a news conference Wednesday, Shaban said he and four friends had just gotten to the Sept. 19 New York Giants-New Orleans Saints game when they left their seats to pray. Around halftime, 10 security officers and three state troopers approached the men and told them to come with them, Shaban said.
The men were questioned and then were not allowed to return to their seats, but were instead assigned to seats in another section, Shaban said. Three guards stood near them, and escorted them to their cars when they left the stadium, he said.
FBI agent Steven Siegel, a spokesman for the bureau’s FBI office, said the men had aroused suspicion because they were congregating near the main air intake duct. Bush was in the stadium that night as part of a fundraising campaign he and former President Clinton were leading for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
“You had 80,000 people there, Bush 41 was there, and you had a group of gentlemen gathering in an area not normally used by the public right near the main air intake duct for the stadium, and a food preparation facility,” Siegel said. “It was where they were, not what they were doing.”
The site is now fenced off and is no longer accessible to fans.
“We do not profile anyone that comes into our arena, stadium or racetrack on any basis,” said George Zoffinger, president of the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority, which operates the stadium. “There was no profiling of our customers. I want to make that clear.”
if they weren’t profiled, then how come the site is now fenced off? what if it was a group of “christians” “praying”? if it was such a sensitive area, then why didn’t someone think of that before bushy junior showed up? huh?!?
By DAVID ESPO and LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writers
Friday, November 4, 2005
(11-04) 17:10 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) —
Vice President Dick Cheney made an unusual personal appeal to Republican senators this week to allow CIA exemptions to a proposed ban on the torture of terror suspects in U.S. custody, according to participants in a closed-door session.
Cheney told his audience the United States doesn’t engage in torture, these participants added, even though he said the administration needed an exemption from any legislation banning “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment in case the president decided one was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack.
The vice president made his comments at a regular weekly private meeting of Senate Republican senators, according to several lawmakers who attended. Cheney often attends the meetings, a chance for the rank-and-file to discuss legislative strategy, but he rarely speaks.
In this case, the room was cleared of aides before the vice president began his remarks, said by one senator to include a reference to classified material. The officials who disclosed the events spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the confidential nature of the discussion.
“The vice president’s office doesn’t have any comment on a private meeting with members of the Senate,” Steve Schmidt, a spokesman for Cheney, said on Friday.
The vice president drew support from at least one lawmaker, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, while Arizona Sen. John McCain dissented, officials said.
McCain, who was tortured while held as a prisoner during the Vietnam War, is the chief Senate sponsor of an anti-torture provision that has twice cleared the Senate and triggered veto threats from the White House.
Cheney’s decision to speak at the meeting underscored both his role as White House point man on the contentious issue and the importance the administration attaches to it.
The vice president made his appeal at a time Congress is struggling with the torture issue in light of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and allegations of mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The United States houses about 500 detainees at the naval base there, many of them captured in Afghanistan.
Additionally, human rights organizations contend the United States turns detainees over to other countries that it knows will use torture to try and extract intelligence information.
Cheney’s appeal came two days before a former senior State Department official claimed in an interview with National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” that he had traced paperwork back to Cheney’s office that he believes led to U.S. troops abusing prisoners in Iraq.
“It was clear to me there that there was a visible audit trail from the vice president’s office through the secretary of defense down to the commanders in the field,” Lawrence Wilkerson, a former colonel who was Secretary of State Colin Powell’s chief of staff during President Bush’s first term, said Thursday.
Wilkerson said the view of Cheney’s office was put in “carefully couched” terms but that to a soldier in the field it meant sometimes using interrogation techniques that “were not in accordance with the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and the law of war.” He said he no longer has access to the paperwork.
Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Mayfield declined to comment on Wilkerson’s remarks.
The Senate recently approved a provision banning the “cruel, inhuman or degrading” treatment of detainees in U.S. custody. The vote was 90-9, and an identical provision was added to a second measure on a voice vote on Friday.
Comparable House legislation does not include a similar provision, and it is not clear whether anti-torture language will be included in either of two large defense measures Congress hopes to send to Bush’s desk later this year.
The White House initially tried to kill the anti-torture provision while it was pending in the Senate, then switched course to lobby for an exemption in cases of “clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States.” The president would have to approve the exemption, and Defense Department personnel could not be involved. In addition, any activity would have to be consistent with the Constitution, federal law and U.S. treaty obligations, according to draft changes in the exemption the White House is seeking.
Cheney also has met several times with McCain, including one session that CIA Director Porter Goss attended in a secure room in the Capitol.
grumble, bomb, mutter, president george bush, gripe, kill republicrats, complain… 8/
Slain Girl’s Father Faces Judge on Nov. 16
ATLANTA — A woman accused of helping her husband kill their daughter because they believed she was demonic has pleaded guilty to murder.
Valerie Carey, 29, has been sentenced to life in prison for the child’s death at a downtown Atlanta motel last year. She’s agreed to testify against her husband as part of a plea bargain. Investigators said Christopher Carey stabbed the child with a knife until it broke.
Police found 8-year-old Quimani Carey on the floor of a extended stay motel room after finding the couple walking naked down a busy street in freezing temperatures. They were carrying their two other children.
Quimani’s arms had been broken, she had been strangled and she had been stabbed several times, prosecutors said. Authorities said pages from the Bible had been torn out and thrown on the girl’s body. Testimony indicated that the girl’s father believed she was demonic and had been implanted with a chip that sent signals to the planet Jupiter, which would allow the family to be tracked.
The woman pleaded guilty to several charges, including malice murder, felony murder, aggravated assault and first- and second-degree cruelty to children. During the court proceeding, testimony indicated that the man and woman both suffered from dual psychosis, a condition in which they both believed and saw each other’s delusions.
Valerie Carey will be eligible for parole after serving a set number of years in the death of her daughter. Quimani was killed Jan. 19, 2004.
Prosecutors said they were told by relatives that the mother had suffered from a history of mental illness.
“We thought the rapture would take the four of us to heaven,” a tearful Valerie Carey said to the judge during sentencing. “But I ended up in jail and a mental hospital. Everything I thought was real in my life proves to be false.”
Prosecutors had recommended life in prison with the possibility of parole for the mother and life in prison with no parole for the father.
Christopher Carey, 31, remains jailed without bond and faces a death penalty trial if he does not agree to a plea deal.
It was not clear how long Valerie Carey would have to serve before she is eligible for parole. The judge ordered that she continue to receive mental counseling while incarcerated.