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	:: Pip		11:27 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | 'Now I've Heard Everything' Dep't

Consumerism's tentacles keep reaching further into the lives of Westerners. Now, clubs exist for 'mall walkers' – people who not only love to walk, they love to do it in shopping centres. Mmmm, now there's a great way to spend an idle hour!

If you feel like taking some exercise and some window shopping simultaneously, this site will guide you, and Tips for Mall Walkers might come in handy. Need therapy? Here's a great link.

	:: Veralynne		4:58 PM

*Ø* Blogmanac | Attention, America!

From DUG:

The IRS Claims New Patriot Act Type Powers
to Punish Political Dissenters

By Robert R. Raymond


In a precendent-setting case, the IRS wielded new power
to punish the political speech of those who "espouse views"
the government considers "inconsistent" with government-
held beliefs.

In a hearing originally closed to the public in a secret tribunal on a military island, but moved to a public location after protests from the press and the public, the IRS wants to wield this power against a former IRS whistleblower, who was forced to resign upon his discovery of fraud in the agency.

After monitoring and taping the whistleblower's appearances on Sixty Minutes, talk radio shows, and political publications where he rebroadcast his findings of IRS fraud, the IRS initiated this inquisition against their former whistleblower. [At right: One very fear-filled fear mongerer. -v]

This new power may find new political targets soon enough.

The IRS, through the small office of "Director of Practice," claims the authority to wield carte blanche authority over all the other powers of government -- the authority to monitor, surveil, and eavesdrop on political dissenters, the authority to pry into the private financial records of banks, businesses, and taxpayers, the authority to conduct secret investigations under a criminal grand jury, and the authority to censure political dissenters by branding on them a badge of infamy and stripping them of governmentally-protected licenses.

In short, under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS claims the right to wield all intrusive and invasive powers of government available.

A "license" to practice before the IRS -- even for people who have never requested such a license or actually practiced before the IRS, but are given one as a matter of law if they are accountants -- "licenses" the IRS to conduct private audits without notice to the taxpayer, confer with criminal prosecutors without disclosure, and bring special
"disbarment" proceedings against disfavored dissenters, even if the alleged "disreputable" conduct has nothing to do with any "practice" before the IRS.

The IRS now claims it can use these so-called "practice" investigations of anyone who Congress licenses to practice before the IRS -- regardless of whether they actually practice before the IRS -- to surveil the public appearances of dissenters, eavesdrop on the political conversations of dissenters, benefit from secret grand jury investigations, hold secret conferences with the criminal investigators, surreptiously tap the private database of taxpayer information, including taxpayers who merely have some financial "connection" to the accused, audit the political dissenter's personal financial records, and use all this information against the dissenter in the "practice" proceeding.

Under the guise of a "practice" investigation, the IRS can ignore all the normal procedural protections against an illicit audit while it conducts such an audit.

Simultaneously, the IRS can ignore all the legal protections afforded a person accused of a crime while conferencing with the people conducting a criminal investigation.

Indeed, the IRS can even ignore the sunshine laws, as the records of such "practice investigation" are exempt from disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act, as are grand jury proceedings.

The IRS claims it can exercise this authority in a secret proceeding without allowing a person the opportunity to cure any alleged mistakes, the opportunity to prepare a defense by knowing the exact facts they are accused of, without any opportunity for discovery, without any opportunity to call witnesses necessary for their defense, without any opportunity to cross examine their accusers, without any opportunity to testify at their own hearing about the merits of their position, without being forced to testify against themselves without such an assertion being held against them, and without even an opportunity for a hearing on the evidence.

This power of this little office with a Napoleonic vision goes even beyond the Patriot Act type authority and stories of FBI monitoring of war protestors.

Too Hoover-ish to be true in modern America?

Just read the case of the IRS against Joe Banister scheduled for a "hearing" -- a hearing where the IRS prohibited Banister from introducing any witnesses or presenting any evidence as to his defenses, and even discussing the sincerity, the truth or the "reasonableness" of his positions -- on December 1 in the city by the bay, in the Tax Court chambers of the federal courthouse in San Francisco.


History is being made.


Robert R. Raymond is the past Independent candidate for the U.S House of Representatives for Wisconsin's 5th District in the 2002 elections.

Please forward to any interested parties.


SOURCE

Joe Banister's web page

Sierra Times Homepage

	:: Veralynne		4:13 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | So funny I forgot to laugh!

From Colleen:

As Lily Tomlin's little girl character used to say,
"And that's the twoofthphbbbttth!!!"


The Grownups Have Left the Building
By Molly Ivins, AlterNet
December 2, 2003

AUSTIN, Texas – Call them – irresponsible ... Call them – unreliable ... Throw in – undependable, too ... Yes, it's undeniably true – the Congress of the United States makes Bart Simpson look like Averell Harriman.

The grownups have left the building. Good grief, what a horror show.

Just when you thought you'd seen the worst of the scams . . . .

	:: N		5:09 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | Governments must tackle the "pain merchants"

Amnesty International
2 December

"Governments' failure to control the expanding trade in and use of security equipment is contributing to the incidence of torture and ill-treatment, reveals Amnesty International in its new report 'The Pain Merchants'.

"The latest research by the human rights organization highlights how a wide range of police and prison services are misusing old technologies and being encouraged to use new ones despite a lack of rigorous testing to establish if they are consistent with international human rights standards:

· Steel batons with spikes have been offered for sale at a police equipment fair in China.

· A metal and plastic projectile fired by a police officer permanently injured a woman in Switzerland in March this year, leaving fragments in her face which cannot be removed for fear of paralysis. This occurred before any other means of control had been attempted.

· More than nine tonnes of leg irons (an implement banned by UN rules for the treatment of prisoners) were exported from the USA to Saudi Arabia during 2002.

· Since the report went to press AI has discovered a South African government tender notice of 31 October 2003 calling for bids for the supply to the Department of Correctional Services of leg irons and belly chains, as well as electronic riot shields.

· The UK government has authorised trials on Britain's streets of the taser gun -- which delivers a 50,000 volt electric shock through two darts fired from a distance, or can also be used up close as a stun gun. In AI's opinion it has yet to publish full medical tests on the taser's effects.

· Sedative chemical incapacitating agents such as the one which killed more than 120 hostages when Russian security forces ended a siege in a Moscow theatre last year should be banned unless it can be proved that people will be protected from any indiscriminate or arbitrary effects.

"'Just because security equipment may be described as 'less than lethal' does not mean it cannot be abused, nor that it cannot injure or kill, said Brian Wood, Amnesty Internationals expert on security equipment. "We are extremely concerned that in many countries devices are being authorised for use on the population without sufficient investigation of their effects on human rights.' ...

Background:
Amnesty International reported torture by police or security forces in 106 countries last year.

There are now at least 856 companies in 47 countries involved in the manufacture or marketing of weapons described as being a "less than lethal" alternative to firearms, many of which easily lend themselves to torture.

Stopping the Pain Merchants, take action!

For more information see "The Pain Merchants: Facts and Figures"

THE PAIN MERCHANTS -
Security equipment and its use in torture and other ill-treatment
The full report online

	:: N		1:13 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | EU accused of covering up its anti-Semitism report

Irish Times, 3 December

"EU: The World Jewish Congress yesterday made public a disputed anti-Semitism report kept under wraps by the European Union.

"The Congress accused the EU of not facing up to anti-Jewish sentiment among Muslim immigrants in Europe.

"The WJC and Jewish community organisations in the 15-nation EU put the report on their websites even though it has not been released by the EU's European Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC), which commissioned the study.

"The report was also posted on at least one European news website, that of Danish television station TV2 (http://gfx.tv2.dk/images/Nyhederne/Pdf/report_en.pdf).

"The EUMC has denied accusations in the European press that it had shelved the report because it singled out Muslim immigrants and pro-Palestinian groups as the main culprits.

"'We think the failure of the EU to release it until now was an act of intellectual dishonesty and cowardice,' said Mr Elan Steinberg, executive vice-president of the New York-based WJC. 'To be candid, I think they are not prepared to deal with the sensitive subject of anti-Semitism among Muslims, who constitute Europe's largest minority.'

"The WJC and the affiliated European Jewish Congress said the EUMC report was being published in English on websites including those of the French umbrella group CRIF (www.crif.org), Britain's Board of Deputies of British Jews (www.bod.org.uk) and the Central Council of Jews in Germany (www.zentralratdjuden.de)."

Source

	:: N		12:38 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | Bits and bobs that caught my eye ...

Rumsfeld Ramble Wins 'Foot in Mouth' Award
[But Arnie is learning fast]

LONDON (Reuters) -- "Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's curious statement at a press briefing was named on Monday as the year's most baffling comment by a public figure.

"Rumsfeld, usually renowned for his uncompromising tough talking, was awarded the 'Foot in Mouth' award for a confusing message which probably left his audience in the dark as to its meaning, Britain's Plain English Campaign said.

"'Reports that say something hasn't happened are interesting to me, because as we know, there are known unknowns; there things we know we know,' Rumsfeld told the briefing. 'We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know.'

"John Lister, spokesman for the campaign which strives to have public information delivered in clear, straightforward English, said: 'We think we know what he means. But we don't know if we really know.'

"Rumsfeld, whose boss President Bush is often singled out by language critics for his sometimes unusual use of English, took the booby prize ahead of a bizarre effort from actor-turned politician Arnold Schwarzenegger.

"'I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman,' was the odd statement from the new California Governor.

Source

	:: Pip		10:00 PM

*Ø* Blogmanac December 3 | The naughty feast of Bona Dea

Men need not apply

At around December 3, and also around May 4 (though as early as May 1; called the Tarentia), the ancient Romans commemorated the “Good Goddess”: Bona Dea, which is the most popular name by which the goddess Fauna or Fatua (Fate) was known. She is also an aspect of the goddess Artemis Calliste, the Lily of Heaven. Angitia, a deity of the Marsii might have been the same goddess, and the Good Goddess is also identified with Cybele, Maia, Ge, Ops, Terra, Tellus, Semele, Marica and Hecate, and was thus a fertility and earth goddess. Her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and the sick were tended to in the gardens outside her temples. She was associated with the cornucopia, snakes and coins and her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins.

It was said that her father, Faunus, (known to the Greeks as Pan), had tried to seduce her but failed, despite having got her drunk on wine and having whipped her with a myrtle branch. Eventually, he father turned himself into a serpent and in that form succeeded in penetrating his daughter. Another legend says that Faunus was her husband and became incensed at Fauna's drunkenness, so he killed her, but then deified her ...

Not a lot is known about the nature of the Bona Dea mysteries. We do know that a sacred serpent appeared alongside the goddess and that her tabernacles were covered in vine leaves. The Roman satirist Juvenal said that the rites were orgiastic. A pig was sacrificed (a sow is the usual sacrifice for deities such as Ceres and Tellus), wine under the name of milk was offered to the goddess, the congregation danced to the sound of harps and flutes. Plutarch wrote that myrtle was excluded from the private use in the cult at home, because it was sacred to Venus and could have overtones of sexual impurity, and Macrobius tells us that myrtle was banned from use in the temple ...

This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

	:: Pip		10:31 PM

*Ø* Blogmanac December 2, 1793 | Coleridge becomes Comberbeck

1793 English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge (October 21, 1772 - July 25, 1834) enlisted in the Light Dragoons, fleeing his creditors.

Coleridge used the alias Silas Tompkyns Comberbeck, to retain his initials. A legend has it that when a drill sergeant asked, “Whose dirty rifle is this” Coleridge asked in return, “Is it very, very dirty?” The sergeant answered that it was. “Then it must be mine,” Coleridge replied. His only real service was in a military hospital, from which possibly he found the imagery for the dead sailors in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

Later, after his parents had paid off his commission, at Cambridge University he came into contact with political and theological ideas then considered radical. Motivated by the heady political and intellectual atmosphere of the early years of the French Revolution, he dropped out of Cambridge without a degree and joined the Oxford poet Robert Southey (the two poets later married two sisters, Sarah and Edith Flicker) in a plan, soon abandoned, to found a utopian communist-like society in the wilderness of Pennsylvania, called ‘pantisocracy’, to be established on the banks of the Susquehanna on land bought by the radical Joseph Priestley after his exile from England. Southey later became a conservative and was appointed Poet Laureate.

Coleridge’s life was plagued by opiate addiction.

Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner


This is just a snippet of today's stories. Read all about today in folklore, historical oddities, inspiration and alternatives at the Wilson's Almanac Book of Days, every day. Click today's date when you're there.

	:: Veralynne		7:09 AM

*Ø* Blogmanac | The Internet Patriotic to Whom?

Expanded Patriot Act Reach Would Hit The Net, Too
By Charles Farrar

WASHINGTON - A bill approved by Congress last week to extend the reach of the Patriot Act would expand the FBI's business document and transaction power to cyberspace stations like eBay, Internet logs, and Internet service providers, and without requiring a judge's approval.

It's part of the new bill's redefinition of the term "financial institution" and "financial transaction," according to Wired, and allows the FBI to get such records by handing itself a national security letter saying those records are relevant to a terrorism investigation.

"The FBI doesn't need to show probable cause or consult a judge," the magazine said. "What's more, the target institution is issued a gag order and kept from revealing the subpoena's existence to anyone, including the subject of the investigation."

This bill follows a stalled attempt earlier this year by the Justice Department to write and push the so-called "Patriot II" act, but a leak of the draft provoked such an outcry that the department backed away from that proposal, but Wired said the newly passed bill involves one of Patriot II's most controversial aspects.

According to Duke University law professor Chris Schroeder, that shows those who wanted to expand the FBI's powers didn't want to stop despite the hoopla over Patriot II. "They are going to insert these provisions on a stealth basis," Schroeder told Wired. "It's insidious." [Emphasis added. -v]

He has an ally in the Center for Democracy and Technology's executive director, James X. Dempsey. "On its face, it's a cryptic and seemingly innocuous amendment," he told the magazine. "It wasn't until after it passed both houses that we saw it. The FBI andd CIA like to try to graft things like this into intelligence bills."

But don't tell those things to House Intelligence Committee chairman Porter Goss (R-Florida), who calls the new definitions of financial institutions and financial transactions bringing them up to date "with the reality of the financial industry. This provision," Goss said in a House floor speech, "will allow those tracking terrorists and spies to 'follow the money' more effectively and thereby protect the people of the United States more effectively."

Protect them from what -- strip clubs? The current issue of Newsweek, which hit the stands Nov. 24, includes a report saying that a little-enough known Patriot Act portion already redefined "money laundering" to the point where the FBI is suspected of using it to investigate anyone it pleases on pretexts having little to do with terrorism investigations. [Emphasis added. -v]

A recent case nicknamed Operation G-String, in fact, found the FBI using the money laundering provision to investigate whether the owner of a Las Vegas adult club was trying to bribe top city officials. They used it to look at all the financial records of those officials, Newsweek said. And that isn't all, potentially.

"Treasury Department figures show that this year the Feds have used the Patriot Act to conduct searches on 962 suspects, yielding ‘hits’ on 6,397 financial records," the magazine said announcing the Nov. 24 issue. "Of those, two thirds (4,261) were in money-laundering cases with no terror connection. Among the agencies making requests, Newsweek has learned, were the IRS (which investigates tax fraud), the Postal Service (postal fraud) and the Secret Service (counterfeiting). One request came from the Agriculture Department -- a case that apparently involved food stamp fraud." [Emphasis added -v]

Source of reports on mis-use of new laws

Related article: "Are You A Patriot?" by John Kaminski

	:: Pip		2:27 PM

*Ø* Blogmanac November 30 | Today in the Book of Days

Feast day of St Andrew and beginning of Advent

St Andrew the King
Three weeks and three days before Christmas begins.

Saint Andrew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ and the brother of Simon (later the apostle Peter), was a Galilean fisherman of Bethsaida, and originally a disciple of John the Baptist. In the Gospel of John (1:35-42), Andrew was the first called of Jesus’ disciples.

According to tradition, Andrew was crucified at Patmos, in Achaia, on an X-shaped cross, the form of which became known as St Andrew's Cross, which is still on the Scottish and British flags. His cross is the same as the cross of Wotan which Norse invaders of Scotland carried. In Scotland it became the national symbol, as Andrew the national patron saint. Waverly Fitzgerald points out, “The cross saltire, is also a sun symbol, which looks similar to a Catherine wheel or the rune of Gefjon, the Giver, which is associated with Freya, the great Scandinavian goddess who is much honored at wintertide.”

Pagan origins
According to Nigel Pennick (The Pagan Book of Days, 1992, 131), Andrew is a version of the divinity Andros, the Man, personification of virility, seen as an aspect of Dionysus. Scotland’s matronal goddess is Skadi, the Scathing One.

St Andrew and the meaning of ‘X’ on a letter
People used to sign with an X if they couldn't sign their name. Then they would kiss the X and promise by St Andrew (whose cross the X resembles) to abide by their oath or contract. Over the years, ‘X’ on a letter came to mean a kiss ...