Secret Service agent, others shot in food court gunfight

At least four people were shot at the crowded Annapolis (Maryland) mall last night, including an off-duty Secret Service agent who opened fire on a teen involved in a food court gunfight.

…Authorities kept a man suspected in a triple shooting at a shopping mall under police guard Sunday in a hospital, and said charges were expected.An off-duty U.S. Secret Service agent who tried to break up the melee and returned gunfire also was recovering from a gunshot wound to the leg, officials said. - chron

Iceberg Spotted From New Zealand Shore

An iceberg has been spotted from the New Zealand shore for the first time in 75 years, one of about 100 that have been drifting south of the country. The giant ice chunk was visible Thursday from Dunedin on South Island but has since moved away, driven by winds and ocean currents. The flotilla of icebergs ? some as big as houses ? were first spotted south of New Zealand early this month. - happynews

China admits using organs from executed prisoners

? After years of denial, China has acknowledged that many of the human organs used in transplants here are taken from executed prisoners and that many of the recipients are foreigners who pay hefty sums to avoid a long wait.Speaking at a conference of surgeons in the southern city of Guangzhou, Deputy Health Minister Huang Jiefu called for a strict code of conduct and better record-keeping to stem China’s thriving illegal organ trade, state media reported.

“Apart from a small portion of traffic victims, most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners,” said Huang, reported the English-language China Daily newspaper Thursday. “The current organ donation shortfall can’t meet demand.” - chron

Don’t worry, the photo is fake. It is from Monty Python’s “the Meaning of Life“. In this scene some door-to-door organ collectors take a living persons liver because he filled out a donor card. One of them then convinces his wife to donate hers as well. Funny stuff, but the fact that China is convicting real people to make money from their organs after they execute these unfortunate souls is beyond repulsive. The rich (people who can afford organs) are buying extended life from cannibalizing the poor. I think the main reason this is happening is that people are like rats. Rats get very nasty when there are too many of them in one small space. Thus it is with China’s population. I predict this same thing will happen elsewhere as the human population grows.

Freak Dancing Banned at California High School

“Why do our girls have to have themselves so exposed? Why do they have to have cleavage displayed so overtly and slits high up their thighs and then allow boys to dance right up against them? ? I am not going to allow this to continue to happen. - abc

Torture and war is fine these days, but God forbid young people express their natural biological tendencies. Abc’s video with slowmotion goodness is totally exploitation. If you are going to raise a stink, complain about that.

3 Guantanamo detainees released to Albania

Men are last of 38 recently determined to no longer be ?enemy combatants?

Three detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects have been released to Albania, after authorities determined they were no longer “enemy combatants,” officials said Friday.

The State Department announced that the Albanian government agreed to accept an Algerian national, an Egyptian national and an ethnic Uzbek who was born in the former Soviet Union. Their names were not released.

“The United States has done the utmost to ensure that these three detainees will be treated humanely upon release,” the Pentagon said in a separate announcement of their release. “Our key objective has been to resettle these detainees in an environment that will permit them to rebuild their lives. Albania will provide this opportunity.”

…There are still about 430 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon said. Some have been held since the detention center opened in January 2002.

According to the Pentagon’s count, since 2002 approximately 345 detainees have left Guantanamo for other countries… - msnbc

This pisses me off so much. Our own govt. with this release is admitting that innocent people are being held for years. They are also being tortured. We must Impeach Bush and everyone else responsible and get back to proper American justice: Capture suspected criminals, bring charges, have a speedy trial, present the evidence, sentence them, and carry out the sentence. Release the innocent people right away. Our constitution requires this and there is nothing ‘weak on terrorists’ about it. This is Guantanamo:

“When they wanted to take one of us, they would order us to lie on our stomachs on the floor, and then they would tie our hands behind our backs. When it was my turn, two soldiers took me. I was barefoot and they beat me before I met the investigator. They banged my head against the metal building and made me walk on the barbed wire. They raised my hands from behind my back so high that my shoulders were almost dislocated. When I entered the investigation tent, I found that there were two Americans among the investigators, one of whom was white and the other was black. I said to them, “why are you torturing me and you haven’t even started questioning me? What do you want from me? Give me a piece of paper and I will sign anything you want”. He said to me, “there is no torture here and there are no beatings”.

… They went to a detainee and put his head in the toilet. The toilets in Camp Delta are iron, Turkish-style toilets and then they flushed his head down the toilet until he almost died. They went to a detainee and started beating his head against the toilet rim until he lost consciousness and he could not see for more than 10 hours.

…I would thus like to point out that NOT all of the soldiers in Guant?namo tortured and oppressed us. There were some soldiers who treated us humanely, some of them would cry because of what was happening to us and were embarrassed by the style of management at the camp and even by the American government, their lack of justice and oppression of us. ” - truthout

The Homeland Security Discount Vacation

Starting Jan. 8, U.S. citizens returning from the Caribbean must have a passport to reenter the country. Because about 75% of Americans don’t have a valid passport, resorts and businesses across the Caribbean are concerned that potential visitors will decide to skip the hassle and $97-per-person expense of obtaining one. Though some islands have long required passports, most have allowed visits with just a driver’s license and birth certificate.

The Department of Homeland Security says it is working on a plan to assist Americans whose trip to the Caribbean straddles the Jan. 8 changeover date, and who can’t get back to the U.S. because they’re not carrying a passport. -yahoonews?