Swine Flu Hubbaloo

I just want to throw out there that hundreds of thousands of people die each year from common seasonal influenza. Let's say a low end estimate is close to 5000 a week. Just put that in perspective and think about it...

Here Saturday

At the Bell Auditorium- Hal Holbrook as Mark Twain

Arlen Specter!!!!

Arlen Specter has left the Republican Party in light of its shift to the right. The change comes because he feels is values are now "more in line with the Democrats than the Republicans." Though he vows not to be a party-line voter, which is a good thing, Specter's switcheroo will allow Al Franken to become the 60th Democratic seat* in the Senate once Norm Coleman realizes he's lost in Minnesota.

*Technically 58th. The two Independents caucus with the Democrats.

OMGZZZ!!!! PANIC!!!

So, press the panic button! One hundred and thirteen cases of swine flu have been confirmed worldwide! This certainly is a pandemic! Shut everything down! Be afraid! SARS, monkeypox, and bird flu didn't get you, but swine flu most definitely will!!! It has already affected 1 in 6,000,000 people worldwide! You could be next! That's almost two 10 millionths of a percent! Be afraid!!!!!!!

Carbo Dioxide is a Natural Byproduct of Nature...

One Small Step...

Well, uh, here.

Troy Davis Denied Trial to Consider Innocence

On April 16, a federal appeals court decided not to grant death row inmate Troy Davis a hearing to present evidence of innocence.
Davis was arrested in 1989 for the murder of a police officer in Savannah. The officer was responding to calls for help from a drunken homeless man who was being pistol whipped over his beer when the attacker shot the officer once and then stood over him to shoot again.
The police department was naturally interested when Sylvester "Red" Coles made a visit to the station the next day (with his attorney) with not only a tip, but a name- Troy Anthony Davis.
Morris Publishing's Savannah Morning News ran Davis's photo with the words "cop killer" before the police had even had a chance to question Davis. Davis went in voluntarily to talk to the police and never came back out. He has been on death row for nearly twenty years. In fact, he's been scheduled for execution three times now, coming within hours of the needle- close enough to have gotten a pre-execution enema.
The postponements are not exactly fancy legal wrangling by Davis. Public defense is overloaded in Georgia to the point that Davis was without proper representation as crucial deadlines came and went, and courts have consistently denied him new trials on procedural grounds.
Davis's executions have been resisted by huge public protest and not only from the anti-death penalty crowd. This execution is also denounced by such toughies as Libertarian Presidential Candidate Bob Barr and former FBI Director William Sessions. The dissenting judge in the panel of three last week, Judge Rosemary Barkett, wrote, “to execute Davis, in the face of a significant amount of proffered evidence that may establish his actual innocence, is unconscionable and unconstitutional."
No physical evidence links Davis to the murder; he was convicted on the testimony of nine witnesses' accounts. New evidence that Davis would like to have heard includes recantations (at the risk of being found guilty of perjury) from seven of those nine witnesses, some citing police coercion, such as this from Darrell "D.D." Collins, who says the day after the shooting when 15 or 20 officers came to his house to take him in for questioning- "a lot of them had their guns drawn." His affidavit reads,

When I got to the barracks, the police put me in a small room and some detectives came in and started yelling at me, telling me that I knew that Troy Davis...killed that officer by the Burger King. I told them that... I didn't see Troy do nothing. They got real mad when I said this and started getting in my face. They were telling me that I was an accessory to murder and that I would pay like Troy was gonna pay if I didn't tell them what they wanted to hear. They told me that I would go to jail for a long time and I would be lucky if I ever got out, especially because a police officer got killed... I didn't want to go to jail because I didn't do nothing wrong. I was only sixteen and was so scared of going to jail. They kept saying that...[Troy] had messed with that man up at Burger King and killed that officer. I told them that it was Red and not Troy who was messing with that man, but they didn't want to hear that...
After a couple of hours of the detectives yelling at me and threatening me, I finally broke down and told them what they wanted to hear. They would tell me things that they said had happened and I would repeat whatever they said.

Here is the recantation from the homeless man who was assaulted, Larry Young:

After I was assaulted that night, I went into the bathroom at the bus station and tried to wash the blood off my face. I had a big gash on my face and there was blood everywhere. I was in a lot of pain. When I left the bathroom, some police officers grabbed me and threw me down on the hood of the police car and handcuffed me. They treated me like a criminal, like I was the one who killed the officer. Even though I was homeless at that time and drinking and drugging, I didn't have nothing to do with killing the officer. I told the officers that, but they just locked me in the back of the police car for the next hour or so. I kept yelling that I needed to be treated but they didn't pay me no mind. They then took me to the police station and interrogated me for three hours. I kept asking them to treat my head, but they wouldn't.
They kept asking me what had happened at the bus station, and I kept telling them that I didn't know. Everything happened so fast down there. I couldn't honestly remember what anyone looked like or what different people were wearing. Plus, I had been drinking that day, so I just couldn't tell who did what. The cops didn't want to hear that and kept pressing me to give them answers. They made it clear that we weren't leaving until I told them what they wanted to hear. They suggested answers and I would give them what they wanted. They put typed papers in my face and told me to sign them. I did sign them without reading them.
I never have been able to make sense of what happened that night. It's as much a blur now as it was then.

There is also additional testimony from new witnesses implicating Red Coles.
Two witnesses have not recanted their testimony. One is a man who told police just hours after the incident that he wouldn't be able to recognize the killer, but managed to identify Troy Davis as the murderer at the trial two years later.
The other witness sticking to his story is Red Coles.
The court has granted Davis thirty days to try for the U.S. Supreme Court which has already turned down the chance to consider his case once earlier this session. If the Court doesn't decide to hear his case, Georgia may execute as early as June.

Saxby Chambliss: Seriously?

Saxby Chambliss, Republican Senator from Georgia, today responded to Defense Secretary Robert Gates' proposed defense budget with this statement: the Obama administration is "willing to sacrifice the lives of American military men and women for the sake of domestic programs."

Mr Chambliss, if you are going to criticize the President, and there are things he can and should be criticized for, please do so after checking facts and do so in an semi-informed manner. You criticize this budget because of the call to cut the F-22 Raptor program. Obviously this will cause a loss of jobs in Georgia, and will impact your constituents. HOWEVER, to claim that this budget cut will result in the deaths of American troops is fear mongering and unfounded. If anything, the budget recommendations take troops out of harm's way by significantly boosting funding for unmanned aerial vehicles and shifting troops away from Iraq. Please, sir, criticize where criticism is due, but do not make yourself look like a fool by spreading worthless, partisan propaganda.

To Mr. Obama