Drinking Liberally in New Milford: 2006-12-31

1/6/07

Spocko, Disney, ABC and Blogger Harassment

Here is vid about a Blogger, Spocko, that was shut down for...

... For telling the truth about Disney and ABC.

Rather than suing and harrassing a blogger for telling the truth you think those two companies could be ethical enough to just fire their radio hosts? NOPE!

It is cheaper and easier for them to harass the Blogger.

Blogger/Journalist Arrested At Inauguration Parade

(h/t to the CTnewsjunkie that broke all of this first)

OK. He has worked on the Green party campaign for the Governor, the Lamont campaign for Senate, and does a lot of Blogging and work as an indie Journalist. Apparently he is perceived as a serious enough threat to our paranoid Governor Jodi Rell that he was arrested at her innaugural prade.

Activist Arrested At Inauguration Parade:
"HARTFORD, Conn. -- Gov. M. Jodi Rell's security detail only watched when a woman left the sidewalk and quickly walked toward Rell during the inaugural parade Wednesday. The woman shook Rell's hand and melted into the crowd.

But a slightly built man who jumped off a mountain bike and ran into the parade route ahead of Rell was intercepted by a state trooper and arrested by a Hartford police officer.

One difference in the way the two incursions were handled: A state police intelligence unit had previously identified the man, Ken Krayeske, as a political activist and potential threat.

A potential threat? What was so threatening about Krayeske that the Trooper had to step in and grab him? And why, and how, had they identified him?

Hartford Det. Jeff Antuna wrote in his report that Krayeske drew his attention by rapidly riding up to the parade route near Bushnell Park, dumping his bike and running to a position in front of Rell.

"I immediately recognized the accused as Kenneth Krayeske from the photograph provided by the state police," Antuna wrote.

A state police detective intercepted Krayeske. When Antuna grabbed his arm, police said, Krayeske pulled away.

Photograph provided by State Police? Huh??? They have more on this in the article:

A Hartford police report released Friday by Krayeske says that state police had given them photographs of activists who might be 'possible threats' to Rell, including Krayeske, a free-lance journalist and anti-war protester who managed the Green Party's gubernatorial campaign.

His lawyer says Krayeske apparently came to the attention of state police by heckling Rell during a campaign stop in Glastonbury last year over her refusal to debate his candidate, Clifford Thornton.

"Are there little circles of law-enforcement officers who have lists of who is naughty and who is nice?" asked Krayeske's lawyer, Norm Pattis. "What is the criteria for inclusion?"

Lt. J. Paul Vance, a spokesman for the state police, declined to comment on how Krayeske came to the attention of the state police intelligence unit or a regional police clearinghouse mentioned in the report, the Connecticut Intelligence Center.

"We share intelligence. We share information," Vance said.

Nancy Mulroy, a Hartford police spokeswoman, played down the list, saying Krayeske was arrested for his actions.

Pay no attention to the McCarthy inspired list! Just move along to the dangerous actions of Krayeske... OK, Let's do that for the moment. Situation, according to the Hartford police:

"List or no list, if you rush off a bike and start charging toward the governor during a processional parade, you are going to be arrested," Mulroy said. "In this day and age, when security is a very serious matter, you cannot expect to act like that and not have to face the consequences. Our job was to protect the governor, and we took it seriously."

Whoa! He was charging at our Governor? This seems to match the arrest report filed by the officer on the scene dug up and posted at The Courant website. (h/t to Journalist, radio host, and Blogger Colin McEnroe)

According to The Courant article there was a witness to back up the police version of the arrest:

But one witness to the arrest, Eliot Streim, contradicted the police account.

Streim, a Hartford lawyer who was watching the parade with a colleague, said police did not intercept Krayeske as he ran into the parade route. On the contrary, Krayeske photographed the governor without incident and was detained by police only after Rell had passed by, Streim said.

Well? He did back them up against the wall. OK... Someone is lying, and the only one I can see with nothing to gain or lose here is the Lawyer/witness. Can Krayeske shed any light on what he was doing at the parade? Take a look:

Photo by Ken Krayeske (photo h/t ct bob)

He was taking pictures! That was a photo taken by Krayeske shortly before he was arrested. Does that look like a photo that someone charging at Granny Paranoia might be able to take? Half of my pictures come out blurry even when I am standing as still as I can. That is a damned good picture considering the subject. (FYI: Krayseke is having a caption contest for the photo to poke fun at inauguRellgate, and celebrate the glorious circumstances of his arrest and 13 hours in jail)

It is bad enough that this guy got arrested for taking pictures, but what is a really scary thought is that Connecticut now has a "LIST" of potential dangegerously threatening people that seems to include peaceful activists like Bloggers, Journalists, campaign volunteers, and obviously photographers.

So now we have a "List", an apparently ginned up arrest, spying on peaceful political activists... And yes he is your typical peaceful activist:

Krayeske, 34, of Hartford was charged with breach of peace and interfering with a police officer. He said he has a record of three previous arrests involving acts of civil disobedience protesting the war in Iraq and the launching of a nuclear submarine, the U.S.S. Jimmy Carter.

"I'm a pacifist. I see violence as the problem," Krayeske said. "I decry violence, and I never would hurt anybody."

Krayeske acknowledged, however, he also is passionate about his beliefs.

During the gubernatorial campaign, he confronted Rell's campaign staff at her headquarters and heatedly complained about her refusal to debate Thornton. He also questioned Rell at a campaign stop in Windsor about the debates, though reporters who were present recalled nothing threatening about his demeanor.

Atalbot at MLN can give you a little more background on Krayeske.

Now to the last little part in this story: What helped to get all of Connectucut's various secret and not so secret policing efforts and attention and put him on the "LIST". According to Maura at MLN:

Paz makes note in his article of this comment that Ken wrote at Connecticut Local Politics:

Whose going to protest the inaugural ball Jan. 3 with me? No need to make nice after watching this documentary about CJTS
Paz hasn't yet connected this comment to the aspect of this whole outrage that I think is nearly as interesting as the revelation that CTIC has a list of political activists deemed troublesome to Rell -- the fact that the bond for Krayeske was set at the absurdly high level of $75,000.
Since Ken couldn't make this bond, he was kept in lockup all afternoon and night...and then mysteriously sprung without having to make bond at all, simply on promise to appear, at 1:00 AM.
Rell's inaugural ball, which Ken commented at CLP that he'd like to protest, ended at 1:00 AM.

Krayeske, who is a a freelance writer and photographer, said his only intent when he ran into the parade route was to take a photograph of Jodi Rell. They arrested him on ginned up charges, and held him until after that Rell's ball ended. You have seen most of the the evidence. Do I need to tell you what to make of this?

The Day has a bit more on this from Krayeske's lawyer today:

Pattis called the police department's version “ridiculous,” accusing them of “lying and making it up as they go along.”
Equally important, he said, is the question of the surveillance and whether Krayeske and other political activists and freelance journalists are being investigated and monitored.
The number of other people on the list and their identities were not available Friday.
“It's not a crime in this country to be a political activist, at least not yet,” Pattis said. “It's not apparent that Mr. Krayeske broke any law, it's not apparent that he did anything that any of the rest of us are not allowed to do. This is sort of, police state run riot.”
A spokesman for the governor's office declined to comment Friday.

CT police and not so secret police (not secret anymore) have stepped in it big time, and all for the benefit of our paranoid GOP Governor Jodi Rell. They have crossed way over the line of what their stated purposes are. Just check Colin McEnroe's site to see the proof of that:

I am trying to stay with this story as I do the show. I now have the police report on the arrest of Ken Krayeske. The information about him seems to have come, at least partly, from the Connecticut Intelligence Center, a creature of Homeland Security.

Here is its stated purpose. I fail to see how it includes monitoring members of the Green Party:

* Connecticut Intelligence Center

The DEMHS Statewide Anti-Terrorism Task Force is now co-located with the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, in an effort to streamline investigations and response to terrorism-related allegations and incidents. A key component of this investigative and law enforcement asset created in 2005 is the Connecticut Intelligence Center (“CTIC”), a multi-agency collaborative operation that includes representatives of the FBI, DEMHS, Connecticut State Police, municipal law enforcement agencies and the U.S. Coast Guard.

CTIC collects, analyzes and disseminates both criminal and terrorism related intelligence to all law enforcement agencies in Connecticut. Serving as a statewide central resource to affect intelligence sharing, CTIC also acts to identify emerging threats and trends. CTIC produces a number of intelligence reports and bulletins, including the CTIC Weekly Briefing and has conducted three seminars for state and local law enforcement professionals. The seminars have helped increase the knowledge of local law enforcement professionals in dealing with terrorist prevention and incidents.

And like the typical GOP low-life she personifies, Jodi Rell will typically do nothing and say nothing about this until everyone dogpiles on her. She would prefer to just try and sweep it under the rug. What she didn't count on was that not just the Blogosphere was latching on to this, BUT the MSM has grabbed this one early and done a lot of digging as well.

There are a couple of F words that come to mind when I see shit like this from our government... One of them is: Fascism. And it can even happen here in one of the bluest of blue states, Connecticut. Fortunately there are too many in the left for them to arrest us all here. At least, I hope there are too many of us?

1/5/07

Is Rell Going To Arrest The Entire State?

OK, maybe not the entire state... Justthe people that don't like her style of politics according to Maura at MLN:

My Left Nutmeg :: Where Connecticut Dems Scratch That Progressive Itch: "Colin McEnroe is delving into the arrest of an political activist and independent photojournalist opposed to Gov. Rell.

One of the questions it raises, of course, is what is the Connecticut Intelligence Center? Why is it, apparently, collecting information on citizen activists opposed to Rell? "

And my wife thinks I am paranoid? She ought to take a good hard look at our Governor.

If you don't ever see a post here again it may have nothing to do with the new BETA version of Blogger. Just chalk it up to granny Rell's GOP style of "democracy".

How bipartisan is Joe Liberman?

Come on? Really? How bipartisan are you Joe Lieberman, really?

If Senators Knew Then What They Know Now:
"If Senators Knew Then What They Know Now, By 57 To 43 They Would Have Voted Against Going To War........"

And the semi-epsilon-moron-minus brigade of bush, liebrman and mccain want to escalate the war?

Just curious Joe? Enquiring minds want to know... Do you still stand on one broken leg, pissing in the neocon wind, squinting with your one blind eye, and howling about the glorious victory that awaits you in Iraq like a maniac on right-wing-crack? Is that your idea of bipartisan?

Joe Lieberman is just a complete and total fucking "WARMONGERING RIGHT-WINGNUT-TURD" kindof bipartisan.

1/4/07

Mr. Ellison Goes to Washington

Becomes a Representative and meets a bigot on the floor all in one day:

(h/t Daily Muck)

You can see Kucinich is there giving Ellison some moral support as he walks up to introduce himself to the bigot Goode... Did you ever wish you could read lips? lol

[update]No need to read lips... CNN brews up the story for us:

Ellison asked another Democratic member to introduce him to Rep Virgil Goode, R-Virgina, who spoke out against Ellison in a letter to constituents last month. Ellison told CNN that he approached Goode on the House floor and the brief meeting went well.

"I shook his hand and shook mine. We greeted each other." Ellison asked Goode to grab a cup of coffee with him soon and Goode accepted.

Asked if he was felt singled out as the first Muslim member, Ellison said no and added, "By reaching out to Congressman Goode I'm not trying to be accepted, I'm trying to build bridges. In this world there are too many misunderstandings. I want to put a human face on things."

I am making the Jump to Beta today...

So... If my posts seem mangled OR temporarily disappear OR are gone forever... Well, you can thank Blogspot for that! lol jk Hopefully I will see you on the other side with a better and more functional blog? :)

[update] It wouldn't let me jump to Beta? Dagbnabit! I guess i will have to put that one on hold... :(

Murtha: No Funding For Escalation

Arianna Huffington over at HuffPo has the scoop:

Murtha Again Taking the Lead on Iraq:
"When we asked about the likelihood of the president sending additional troops to Iraq, Murtha was adamant. 'The only way you can have a troop surge,' he told us, 'is to extend the tours of people whose tours have already been extended, or to send back people who have just gotten back home.' He explained at length how our military forces are already stretched to the breaking point, with our strategic reserve so depleted we are unprepared to face any additional threats to the country. So does that mean there will be no surge? Murtha offered us a 'with Bush anything is possible' look, then said: 'Money is the only way we can stop it for sure.'

To this end, Murtha, the incoming Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, is planning to hold wide-ranging hearings, starting January 17th, that will focus on the depleted state of our military readiness , as well as contractor corruption in Iraq and Afghanistan. The goal is to turn the spotlight on how drained the military has become, and on how any talk of a troop surge is utterly irresponsible (as well as strategically misguided). 'The public,' he said repeatedly, 'is already ahead of us on all this.

He says he wants to 'fence the funding,' denying the president the resources to escalate the war, instead using the money to take care of the soldiers as we bring them home from Iraq 'as soon as we can.'"

Murtha will deny the stupid politicians the McCain/Lieberman option of sending more targets to Iraq.

1/3/07

The US Dollar is Crippled by the Euro

Thanks bush!

Euro Officially Surpasses Dollar | The Agonist: "
For market and economic analysis, go to the Bonddad Blog

The financial press reported last week that the euro, the new currency created only five years ago and used by most European nations, has supplanted the U.S. dollar as the most widely used form of cash internationally. There are now more Euros in circulation worldwide than dollars.

This alone is not necessarily troubling, as the dollar remains the world’s most important reserve currency. About 65% of foreign central bank exchange reserves are still held in dollars, versus only about 25% in euros. And the European Central Bank faces the same inflationary pressures that our own Federal Reserve Bank Governors face, including a growing entitlement burden that threatens economic ruin as both societies age. European politicians want to spend money just as badly as American politicians, and undoubtedly will clamor to inflate-- and thus devalue-- the euro to fund their creaky social welfare systems.

snip

Still, the rise of the Euro internationally is another sign that the U.S. dollar is not what it used to be. There is increasing pressure on nations to buy and sell oil in euros, and anecdotal evidence suggests that drug dealers and money launderers now prefer euros to dollars. Historically, the underground cash economy has always sought the most stable and valuable paper currency to conduct business.

This is what happens when supply-side economics and rampant 'shop 'til you drop' consumerism is the dominant economic policy of a nation."

Get ready to buy Euros and gold if you want to get by in this world. The rest of us that can't afford to? We're fucked! Thanks to bush voodoo economics and his limitless funding of endless war...

In U.S., it's pay more, get less - Universal Healthcare

Why is this man smiling?

In U.S., it's pay more, get less:

"A RELATIVE BARGAIN: George Mercieca, a worker at a GM assembly plant in Oshawa, Ontario, shows off his Canadian health care card. GM spends an average of $1,385 a year on medical bills for hourly workers in Canada. An American autoworker costs the company about $5,000, but studies show Americans are no healthier than their foreign counterparts."

He is smiling because he has a great job with better medical benefits than most Americans could ever hope for under our failed healthcare for profit system. The kind of job that Connecticut , and the USA as a whole, can never hope to attract under our current system. If you do not believe me than ask youself "what does the manufacturing industry have to say about this?"

While training issues are less of a problem here in Connecticut, because we have a decent educational system, healthcare is cited as a major issue for Toyota's decision to chose Ontario as the location of a new factory for their Rav-4s slated to open in 2008:

"The level of the workforce in general is so high that the training program you need for people, even for people who have not worked in a Toyota plant before, is minimal compared to what you have to go through in the southeastern United States," said Gerry Fedchun, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, whose members will see increased business with the new plant.

Acknowledging it was the "worst-kept secret" throughout Ontario's automotive industry, Toyota confirmed months of speculation Thursday by announcing plans to build a 1,300-worker factory in the southwestern Ontario city.

"Welcome to Woodstock - that's something I've been waiting a long time to say," Ray Tanguay, president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada, told hundreds gathered at a high school gymnasium.

The plant will produce the RAV-4, dubbed by some as a "mini sport-utility vehicle" that Toyota currently makes only in Japan. It plans to build 100,000 vehicles annually.

The factory will cost $800 million to build, with the federal and provincial governments kicking in $125 million of that to help cover research, training and infrastructure costs.

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said.

In addition to lower training costs, Canadian workers are also $4 to $5 cheaper to employ partly thanks to the taxpayer-funded health-care system in Canada, said federal Industry Minister David Emmerson.

"Most people don't think of our health-care system as being a competitive advantage," he said.

It is clearly an advantage for any company that wants to open up a business in any industry... A 4 to 5 dollar per hour advantage. An advantage so great that any state that passes true-single-payer Universal Healthcare first will be positioned to become a mecca for any company considering opening any kind of business.

We already have an educatinal advantage over the most of the USA, having a highly rated school system and a high rate of college graduates. Why the hold up on giving these businesses the real money savings that Universal Healthcare would provide and the other best reason to set up shop in Connecticut?

Because of lobbying from the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. We need to take them out of the loop in the decision making process for this issue since we know they will fight it tooth-and-nail. We need to look at what is best for the people of Connecticut and for all industries, not just those two lobbying behemoths.

And just how much more is healtcare costing us?

Medical bills soar

Divide the nation's medical bill evenly across the population, and each of us paid $6,102 in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. That's 50 percent more than the residents of the country with the next-highest health care bill, Switzerland ($4,077), and more than double the average for industrialized nations ($2,546).

...snip...

Those countries provide health care for all their residents for less money than the United State spends while it leaves an estimated 46 million without insurance.

That's contradicted by studies conducted by Gerard Anderson, director of the Center for Hospital Finance and Management at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. "We have about the same number of MRIs and CT scanners as Canada, the U.K. and France, and far fewer than Japan," Anderson said. "We have the same number of doctors, doctor visits, hospitals and inpatient days at hospitals.

"The difference is we pay two to 2 1/2 times more for virtually identical services."

The average U.S. physician earned $180,000 in 2004, Anderson said; in Canada, it was $100,000 (in U.S. dollars).

Even after adjusting for the higher income of U.S. residents, Americans pay on average $2,000 more per year for health care than the residents of the next-highest paying country, Anderson said.

One out of every seven dollars spent today in the United States goes for health care -- a record 15.3 percent of the gross domestic product in 2004, the latest year for which statistics are available. By comparison, Canada spends 9.9 percent of its GDP; Japan spends 8.0 percent.

By 2015, one out of every five dollars spent in the United States will go for health care, according to projections by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. If those projections hold, the average American's share for medical needs alone will be a staggering $12,320.

For all that money, you would expect Americans to be healthier than their foreign friends. The opposite is true.

Whoa! They are healthier than us, and they pay less? And it is not just a monetary cost:

# If you're born in the United States, chances are that you'll die younger than people born in other industrialized nations. The United States has the lowest life expectancy of 14 nations measured by the World Health Organization. U.S. life expectancy in 2001 was 77.1; Canada, 79.7; Italy, 79.8; Japan, 81.5

# The infant mortality rate is higher in the United States than in other industrialized nations. In 2003, seven infants died for every 1,000 live births in the United States -- the worst rate of 19 countries measured by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

I am thinking that anyone that is really PRO-LIFE, and not just talking about it for political reasons, would have to be shocked by those infant mortality rates. Why aren't they screaming about this issue? If they are really honest about being pro-life than they should be our allies on true Universal Heathcare.

A s for manufacurers, just how much profit margin can healthcare open up for them?

Those vehicles, often parked on the same dealer lot as identical vehicles produced in U.S. plants, have one notable difference: Each vehicle assembled in the United States cost GM $1,525 for health care; those made in Canada cost GM $197.

The higher salaries of Canadian autoworkers offset much of the health care savings for the company, said Jim Cameron, labor relations director for GM Canada. But at the cash-strapped automaker, such a huge health care cost differential is hard to ignore. The difference is primarily a result of Canada's national health care system, in which most medical bills are paid by the government. Most countries have similar systems.

WHAT THE FUCK!!! They get higher wages up there too? And GM still racks up more profits from production up north in Canada then they can down here? How much more of this are you Nutmeggers willing to take?

Can you imagine the shockwave across the nation if a car manufacturer or some other large industry chose to locate in Connecticut over other states or countries... And it could happen.

Do you want to continue to pay more just to get less? Less healthy workers, less money, less jobs, less profit for industry as a whole.

Why not get more? More people that actually have coverage? More healthy workers that are more productive? More savings in healthcare for us and for industry? More manufacturers picking Connecticut as their destination of choice? More smiles on Nutmeggers' faces.

Universal Healthcare is the answer to everyone getting more.

1/2/07

Sacrifice YOUR Ego Mr. Bush

Via Scarce at MLN:

Channeling Edward R. Murrow again, Countdown's Keith Olberman delivers another Special Comment KO.

It's The End Of Time

tic tic tic... Time's up.

Crooks and Liars:
"William the Bloody' Kristol, (I have many names for him) is being hired by TIME magazine. The neocons have been totally discredited in their world domination aspirations and they decide to give him a new gig,"

What on earth are they thinking?

This is a guy that should have his pens and keyboard taken away from him for the good of our nation and Time gives him a new tub to thump from?

Say "NO!" To Joe

Jane Hamsher over at FDL had this to say today:

I just wanted to point out something that gave me a lot of hope today. Sue mentioned it in the FDL comments — over at the WaPo, in response to Joe Lieberman's Op-Ed calling for a "troop surge," there are 37 pages of negative responses.

Why not start the year off right by doing yourself and this country a favor. Go on over to the WaPo and just say "NO!" to Joe Lieberman's insanity. It'll surely put a smile on yer face. :)

1/1/07

Givaudon Flavors Corp. Closing Shop in New Milford

Litchfield County Times:
"an announcement that the Givaudon Flavors Corp. was closing its New Milford facility, affecting 95 jobs."

Another company closing up and leaving New Milford. Just the kind of news this town needs.

[update] This post is redundant and the result of being half a sleep at the keyboard... I should've checked the date on the article before posting. DOH! Thanks for pointing that out FT.

12/31/06

Happy New Year!

Just a major tip of the hat to the left side of the Blogosphere with a free link out to your site to start the year off right. I gacked them from blogrolls of many of my favourite sites. There is a good chance that this could be your very first link of the new year. This is what it is all about... Let's build on a very successful year.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!