Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Okies botch double execution of blacks

To say things didn’t go as planned would be an understatement.
Oklahoma was planning its first ever double execution.
In the end, one man died of a heart attack after witnesses had to briefly watch him shaking and writhing in pain before a curtain was pulled shut
The execution of the second man was delayed. Later, it was announced executions were being delayed for at least 14 days to allow an investigation.
Both men are black.
The state, like others facing a shortage of certified execution drugs, was trying a new cocktail of drugs.
The manufacturers of the drugs previously used to execute prisoners have stopped making them or in the case of European companies, stopped selling them to the US. The death penalty is not used in Europe.
The lack of drugs has delayed many executions, and Tuesday’s incident was not the first time a prisoner faced what was undoubtedly cruel and unusual punishment.
Allvoices Stephen Pope reported it was the second execution in a row to be botched using midazolam. The dose used in Ohio's botched execution of Dennis McGuire was a subclinical dose. There have been other similar cases.
Mother Jones identified the drug combination as including midazolam but the exact ingredients and dosages are unclear. The state pays for the drugs with petty cash so the drugs cannot be traced.
Oklahoma had said it would use a combination of midazolam (a sedative) and hydromorphone (a pain killer) plus a third drug, possibly pancuronium bromide.
Oklahoma Department of Corrections Director Robert Patton said inmate Clayton Lockett died after all three drugs were delivered. Patton halted the execution attempt after 20 minutes.
It was reported that he was heard saying: "Something's wrong."
The date for the execution of the second inmate, Charles Warner, will be determined after the moratorium of 14 days is up.
Death penalty opponents hoped the latest medieval type execution would turn public opionion around. "This could be a real turning point in the whole debate as people get disgusted by this sort of thing. This might lead to a halt in executions until states can prove they can do it without problems. Someone was killed tonight by incompetence," Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, told AP. The center tracks executions.
Dieter had earlier said, "It is an experiment, and I don’t think anybody is absolutely certain what will happen in Oklahoma," said Dieter.
"After weeks of Oklahoma refusing to disclose basic information about the drugs for tonight's lethal injection procedures, tonight, Clayton Lockett was tortured to death," his lawyer, Madeline Cohen, said.
The fiasco Tuesday made it even more poignant that the two prisoners had filed a request with the Oklahoma courts to be told which drugs would be used to kill them. The Oklahoma Supreme Court said they had no right to know.
Both men were convicted of brutal murders.
Lockett, 38, was convicted of the June 1999 shooting death of 19-year-old Stephanie Lockett, who was buried in shallow grave. He also was convicted of rape, kidnapping and other charges.
The 46-year-old Warner, who maintains his innocence, was convicted of raping and killing his roommate's 11-month-old daughter in 1997.
Here is how the Oklahoman described the event:
Lockett grimaced and tensed his body several times over a three-minute period before the execution was shielded from the press. After being declared unconscious 10 minutes into the process, Lockett spoke at three separate moments. The first two were inaudible, however the third time he spoke, Lockett said the word 'man.'”
Sources:
Associated Press
USA Today
Oklahoman

Drug resistance making some common diseases incurable

In a sense the world may be killing itself with medicine. The same discoveries that have extended the life span of humans may be turning into an evolutionary killer.
If Hollywood were telling the story the plot would have people turning into Zombies. Wait, they already did that, in “World War Z.”
In that story scientists were forced to use a curable virus like meningitis to defeat Zombies who otherwise were difficult to exterminate.
Scientists have been predicting for more than 20 years what the World Health Organization says has happened. Drug resistant diseases have been found in every country on the planet.
Drug resistance has even reached the Third World, brought by aid groups trying to help.
The WHO report released Thursday says drug resistance is showing up “in every region of the world,” the BBC reported.
Even a common disease like gonorrhea cannot be treated in some developed countries. More than one million daily contract the disease.
Antimicrobial resistance “threatens the achievements of modern medicine,” reports the study released by the WHO, Science News reports.
Andrew Read, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, says the WHO has alerted the world but has no plan to deal with the problem.
"I think it's scary how bad the antibiotic surveillance is, given the seriousness of the problem,” said Dr. Read.
Doctors contribute to the problem by using antibiotics too often and patients by not using the full course of the antibiotic pills they receive. Both help the diseases to survive in a stronger form.
Dr. Marlene Zuk, an evolutionary biologist, says people need to understand how germs survive if they want to go to war with them. In many cases what she calls “mechanical” solutions like washing work better because they kill all the germs.
She said saying the germs develop resistance is inaccurate because the resistance was always there, but antibiotics have killed out the majority of germ cells leaving only the anti-resistant ones.
In a column in the New York Times she wrote: In contrast, although soap and water don’t completely annihilate the bacteria either, they aren’t selective. The bacteria that remain are genetically similar to the ones that went swirling down the drain, and so their offspring are equally vulnerable to the next scrubbing. It’s like the difference between ethnic cleansing and dropping a bomb on a city; the population will look very different following one compared to the other, and using a bomb once doesn’t compromise the ability to use one again.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Clippers owner banned from NBA for life for racist remarks

The owner of the Los Angeles Clippers, in the middle of a run in the NBA playoffs, has been banned from basketball for racist remarks he made.
A woman described as his mistress, V. Stiviano, recorded Donald Sterling's remarks and made them public. Sterling, among other things, said he preferred not to have blacks attend the team's games.
His team had already protested the actions of owner Donald Sterling by wearing their warm up shirts inside out before a playoff game against the Golden State Warriors. The teams are tied at two games each with the next game Wednesday in Los Angeles.
The league said it would force Sterling to sell the team, and fined him $2.5 million. It might be the biggest sports shake up since Pete Rose [Unlink] was banned from baseball in 1989 for gambling on teams.
“The central findings of the investigation are that the man whose voice is heard on the recording, and on a second recording from the same conversation — that was released on Sunday — is Mr. Sterling, and that the hateful opinions voiced by that man are those of Mr. Sterling. “The views expressed by Mr. Sterling are deeply offensive and harmful. That they came from an NBA owner only heightens the damage and my personal outrage. Sentiments of this kind are contrary to the principles of inclusion and respect that form the foundation of our diverse multi-cultural and multi-ethnic league, NBA Comissioner Adam Silver said in a New York media conference.
"I am banning Mr. Sterling for life from any association with the Clippers organization or the NBA," Silver said.
The New York Times reported that Silver discussed the decision with Coach Doc Rivers [Unlink] and guard Chris Paul [Unlink] of the Clippers. “I believe the players will be satisfied with the decision,
The Washington Post said speculation about the new owner focused on the legendary Magic Johnson [Unlink].
“Magic Johnson knows he is always welcome as an owner in this league,” Silver said when asked about him as a potential owner.
Johnson has won plaudits for his battle against AIDS. He retired from the game after reporting he was positive in 1991.
The Clippers began in the NBA as the Buffalo Braves in 1970, moved to San Diego and then Los Angeles.
Sterling bought them for $13 million in 1981 when they were struggling in San Diego and moved them to Los Angels three years later.

Monday, April 28, 2014

Climate change feared to be reason for deadlier tornadoes



The longest beginning of a year since 1915 without a tornado was broken Sunday when an 11-year-old was killed in North Carolina. Seventeen more people were killed, 16 in Arkansas and one in Oklahoma.
The Weather Channel said the year started 126 days without a twister, the latest start since 1915.
The wide spread of the tornadoes, from Arkansas to North Carolina, also was odd. It raised questions about whether climate change was a factor.
Given that the strongly Fundamenalist South was hit it was ironic, as it is a haven for opponents to evolution.Police had to search through overturned semitrailers and homes in a half dozen state hit by tornadoes Sunday. All but two of the 18 deaths intitially reported were in Arkansas.
President Obama promised “Your country will be there to help you recover and rebuild, as long as it takes.”
Residents of the southern and southwest states could be forgiven if they began to worry that climate change is a reality.
In the town of Mayflower, near Little Rock, “an entire neighborhood of 50 homes or so (were) completely gone exception the foundation,” Congress Tim Griffin told Reuters.
The National Guard was mobilized. Matt DeCample, a spokesman for the Arkanas governor’s office, said there were many injuries.
“They’ve been pulling people out of the rubble all night,” he told the New York Times.
AP said it was “a violent kick-start to the nation’s tornado season.”
State troopers searched through houses and 18-wheelers blown over on Interstate 40.
The US tornado season actually varies from region to region. It can start as early as March in Sothern states and then heads to the north, ending only December in Tennessee and other areas nearby.
During the latest storms one death was reported in Quapaw, Oklahoma and one 700 miles away in Edenton, North Carolina.
Scientists fear climate change is playing a role. Scientific American quotes corresponded with climate scientist Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., as predicting changing climates will cause more tornados and make them stronger. More and intense hurricanes are likely in the Atlantic Ocean.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/kevin-trenberth-on-climate-change-and-tornadoes/
AccuWeather says the way tornadoes are tracked has made it harder to prove the connection with climate change.
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/severe-weather-and-climate-change/62715
Sometimes people ignore tornado warnings, making the improvements less effective.
On the other hand, residents of Tornado Alley have developed a keen sense for whan the twisters may be coming, and some have built underground shelters.

Sunday, April 27, 2014

Russian militia European hostages paraded before news cameras

A few weeks ago residual resentment of the US because of its unjustified invasion of Iraq had been giving Russia cover for its blatant invasion of the Crimea.
Combined with discrete support for businesses that do business with President Vladimir Putin [Unlink]’s regime, especially energy companies, Moscow bullied Ukraine without fear of meaningful reprisals.
Certainly, NATO was not going to send troops into the former Soviet republic, and still won’t, but the image of Ukraine has gone from a haven for neo-Nazis to a victim like Hungary, Czechoslovakia [Unlink] and Poland.
Now it appears Putin’s decision to blow a Ukraine peace deal produced after only a day after talks in Geneva is backfiring.
"Russia has not lifted a finger to help -- in fact, there's strong evidence that they've been encouraging the kinds of activities that have taken place," said US President Obama.
The Russian militias that Moscow created first took journalists hostage and now a team of observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
It’s been a day since Russia told the OSCE it would obtain the releae of the hostages but they remain in a Russia rebel held city.
The so-called leaders of Slavyansk seem to be ignoring Moscow. They say they will exchange the hostages for prisoners, apparently meaning rebels being held by Kiev.
The situation remains murky, which has benefited Putin, the ex-KGB officer.
The Russian militia paraded their captives in front of news cameras, the Guardian reported. It was the kind of thing one might expect from North Korea. Members of the eight-man group were allowed to talk to the media, and defended their mission. They denied any ties to NATO.   For most people the OSCE, a Vienna-based organization is itself murky. Russia is a member. Here is its website. OSCE
Monday the US and Europe will be announcing new sanctions, which are likely to be tougher than those already in place. Washington and the European Union have considerable experience with sanctions, starting with South Africa in the 1980s and extending to Iran and North Korea.
Speaking of murky, where are Putin’s billions? The White House is reviving a search to find them, the New York Times reports.
The Russian President’s reported income for last year was $102,000. Putin is so duplicitous he may himself be fueling rumors of his massive wealth, says Fiona Hill.
Hill, who wrote a biographer of Putin and was the chief Russia expert at the National Intelligence Council, said, “Russians have to have the biggest and the best. It’s part of the mystique, part of the image.”
Analysts say the sanctions in place haven’t really had much impact, but they came at a time when the Russian economy was already in trouble. Tensions in the Ukraine come packed with a wallop. Investors are fleeing. Companies may want to hang on to their assets but stockholders will raise questions. It is not a far fetched idea to imagine breadlines in Moscow again.
Grain embargoes in the past have hurt the world’s largest nation, measured by land mass. Much of it is not prime farmland.
The only thing Russia has plenty of is oil. It has become a mono-crop economy. Again, the timing is bad, because the US has allowed the widespread use of the controversial practice of fracking to become the world’s biggest energy supplier. There is a glut of oil.
Threatening Europe with a cut off of their natural gas was counterproductive. It has resulted in a speeding up of efforts to develop alternative energy sources and alternative sources for fossil fuel supplies.
Moscow also has begun to lose the propaganda war. Russian Television, perhaps the most obvious liar on events Ukrainian, only had one story about it on Sunday. The BBC reported that a Russian Television was the only one allowed to see the dog tags of the hostages.

Saturday, April 26, 2014

Workers still being ripped off in improving economy

Workers around the country start the week not knowing which days they will, when they will start their shifts or end them and even in the highly paid software engineering section there are rip-offs.
The Justice Department sued Google, Apple, Intel and Adobe for cutting an intercompany deal that stops any one of them from recruiting the employees of another.
So much for the “don’t be evil” slogan.
High-tech workers use to change hats frequently, often getting higher wages and better conditions.
“When labor advocates and law enforcement officials talk about wage theft, they are usually referring to situations in which low-wage service-sector employees are forced to work off the clock, paid subminimum wages, cheated out of overtime pay or denied their tips. It is a huge and under policed problem. It is also, it turns out, not confined to low-wage workers,” a New York Times editorial said.
The high-tech workers may win billions, they claim they lost $3 billion while the antitrust scheme was in place from 2005-2009. Some Silicon Valley workers get free rides on luxury buses from San Francisco, driving up housing prices.
But the people at fast-food joints and call centers will gain nothing. Forget the eight-hour day.
Even choosing to live closer to their jobs is a win-lose proposition. As soon as their bosses find out, they can expect phone calls telling them come to worker earlier or later, or to come to work on their days off when other workers do not show up.
Obamacare still hasn’t come to most of these companies, thanks to the president’s decision to delay the program until the economy improves. Now that there are many more jobs to choose from some employers may find that they have cut costs so much few people will work for them. They may have to hire those folks who haven’t had a job for several or more years. Or paying for health care may become a cost of doing business, which will drive down government costs.

Putin boldly goes where village idiots thrive

Last week the New York Times apologized for buying into White House claims that Russian Army soldiers who worked in other black ops had been photographed in the Ukraine.
Russia even denied that one of them, Col. Colonel Igor Strelkov, existed.
On Saturday the Kiev Post reported that Strelkov had appeared in public and had named himself commander of the “Donbass People’s Militia.”
No more need for sketches, though Strelkov doesn’t as yet have a Facebook page.
Masha Gessen, author of the Putin biography “The Man Without A Face,” said this is consistent with the Russian president’s bullying tactics. What others would try to cover up, Putin flaunts.
He may be losing the disinformation war. Buzzfeed did an association test with Madonna [Unlink] and Putin came back as "gay."
Denis Pushilin, who calls himself the chairman of the “People’s Republic of Donblast” or is that the “Donblast People’s Republic,” sat next to Strelkov while announcing a reference would be held in the Donetsk oblast on May 11 to see if people wanted to join Russia.
Numerous polls have shown large majorities oppose that, but figures lie, and liars figure. Putin apparently has not read Napoleon's warning: Never interrupt your enemy when it is about to make a big mistake.
Russian Television ranted on, its top story headlined: “Russia questions NATO military buildup near border.”
Apparently Russia is now enforcing a 200-mile limit, or even larger, on both sea and land.
“Our concern is caused by an increase of US air force and the American military personnel in the Baltic, Poland, and also the Alliance's ships in the Black Sea,” said the Defense Ministry.
The irony was not lost on Ukrainian officials, who were faced with a buildup of many thousands of drilling Russian troops on their common border.
Big business, including big oil, was showing where its loyalties lie but holding off on new investments in Russia. Stockholders read the news. Not only is Moscow unpopular, there is a glut of oil and it is becoming what a character in “Casablanca” called on a drag on the market. Investments in alternative energy are hot now.
Bloomberg reported that VTB is considering cutting its New York staff to skeleton levels. It is Moscow’s biggest investment investment bank.
The European Union and US plan to announce more sanctions Monday. The New York Times reported European businesses are colluding with Russia to protect their interests.
Associated Press reported Russian rebels said they were ready to negotiate the release of European monitors, who they said were "NATO spies." The BBC said the Russian representative to the Organization for Cooperation and Security in Europe promised his government would intervene to help the monitors, one of whom was reported as ill. There was no mention of this on major Russian media.
Russian military spending spree

Friday, April 25, 2014

Putin cuts off talks with Obama as violence increases in Ukraine and Europe gets closer to war

Russian President Vladimir Putin [Unlink] ended Ukraine crisis talks with US President Obama on Friday as violence increased in the Ukraine.
The Daily Beast said, “Putin will not talk to Obama under pressure,” quoting Igor Yurgens, a close associate of the Russian president.
The day began with both Kiev and Moscow saying Russian rebels in eastern Ukraine had shot down a government helicopter.
The Kiev Post said Russian-backed insurgents held at least 30 buildings in eastern Ukranian towns.
The Post reported that an unknown number of rebels were killed. There was no word on what kind of helicopter was shot down, or the number of casualties. The attack suggests Russia has supplied the insurgents with ground-to-air missiles.
The new European Union-backed government was barraged by escalating threats from Russia, but so far President Vladimir Putin’s forces were sticking to running the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
The Washington Post reported Kiev “brushed off” the threat of Russian intervention.
“There’s been no suspension of the ATO (anti-terror operation) in the face of threats from an invasion by Russian armed forces,” Ukrainian Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
“The terrorists should be on their guard around the clock. Civilians have nothing to fear.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister told the Associated Press his country is ready to fight after the Crimea takeover and the recent seizure of buildings in the eastern Ukraine. “ “having this experience, we will now fight with Russian troops if ... they invade Ukraine.”
Later Friday the BBC reported that the Ukrainian interior minister said a bus carrying observers from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe had been seized Russian gunmen.
US Secretary of State John Kerry [Unlink] said Moscow had created the insurgency, and new sanctions were being considered. Kerry said it would be an “expensive mistake” if Putin doesn’t call off the dogs of war.
Support was growing from both US political parties for sending lethal and protective aid to the Ukraine.
“If they need them, we should provide them. I would support that,” said Sen. Carl Levin [Unlink] (D-Mich.), who is chairman of the Senate Committee on the Armed Services.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel [Unlink] is getting on board. She said she spoke to Putin on Friday morning and told him to conform to the Geneva agreement, The Guardian reported.
“I spoke to the Russian president this morning and made clear again that on the one hand Ukraine has taken a whole series of steps to implement the Geneva accord but on the other side I see no Russian backing for the accord which would of course have an effect on the separatists in Ukraine,” she said.
Russia made a belated offer to use its control of the insurgents to calm Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the rebels would put down their weapons if Kiev pulled back.
Washington opened a new front by accusing Syria of refusing to honor its Moscow-backed commitment to destroy its huge chemical weapons stash. Some geopolitical experts have said the way to block Putin's adventurism is on the road to Damascus. International officials accused the Syrian regime of continuing to manufacture chlorine gas and of using chemical weapons against its opponents.
France raised the Kremlin’s hackles by sending warplanes to join a NATO exercise in the Baltic states.
That led to a chorus of attacks on France, and its alleged lack of military prowess by Putin’s compliant Russian media.
Russian Television, perhaps the most rabid, must have had a crew at the ready, as it published smoke from what it said was the chopper that was shot down.
“Our people approached the airfield, shot a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in the direction of the helicopter. There was an explosion. [Kiev] militants started shooting and we [protesters] retreated,” a representative from the Kramatorsk self-defense troops told RIA Novosti.
Russian media splashed reports of Putin’s troops massed on the Russian border, 11,000 by one estimate though Western intelligence said it was much more.
Masha Gessen, author of “Man Without a Face,” a biography of Putin, told Allvoices the Russian leader was in total control of the Kremlin and was unlikely to back off. She spoke at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Putin was accused of being willing to start World War III [Unlink].
Ukraine acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said: "The aggressive efforts of the Russian military on Ukraine's soil will lead to a conflict on European soil," reports quoted him as saying in a televised cabinet meeting.
"The world hasn't forgotten the Second World War and Russia wants to start a third world war," he said.
Putin’s lack of understanding of economics was apparent as his Central Bank surprisingly raised its borrowing costs to support the ruble. The vast majority of economists had predicted that wouldn’t be necessary under the light sanctions imposed so far, Bloomberg reported.
Standard and Poors lowered Russia's creditworthiness to B on Friday.

Russian rebels shoot down Ukranian helicopter, Kiev brushes off Kremlin threats

Kiev was not backing off on its anti-terror operation Friday, and reported Russian rebels had shown down one of its helicopters.
The Kiev Post said Russian-backed insurgents held at least 30 buildings in eastern Ukranian towns.
The Post said an unknown number of rebels were killed. There was no word on what kind of helicopter was shot down, and casualties. The attack suggests Russia has supplied the insurgents with ground-to-air missiles.
The new European Union-backed government was barraged by escalating threats from Russia, but so far President Vladimir Putin [Unlink]’s forces were sticking to running the insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
The Washington Post said Kiev “brushed off” the threat of Russian intervention.
“There’s been no suspension of the ATO (anti-terror operation) in the face of threats from an invasion by Russian armed forces,” Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said.
“The terrorists should be on their guard around the clock. Civilians have nothing to fear.”
US Secretary of State John Kerry [Unlink] said Moscow had created the insurgency, and new sanctions were being considered. Kerry said it would be an “expensive mistake” if Putin doesn’t call off the dogs of war.
Russia made a belated offer to use its control of the insurgents to calm the Ukraine. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavror said the rebels would put down their weapons if Kiev pulled back.
Washington opened a new front by accusing Syria of refusing to honor its Moscow-backed commitment to destroy its huge chemical weapons stash. Some geopolitical experts have said the way to block Putin's adventurism is on the road to Damascus. International officials accused the Syrian regime of continuing to manufacture chlorine gas and of using chemical weapons against its opponents.
France raised the Kremlin’s hackles by sending warplanes to join a NATO exercise in the Baltic states.
That led to a chorus of attacks on France and its alleged lack of military prowess by Putin’s compliant Russian media.
Russian Television, perhaps the most rabid, must have had a crew at the ready, published smoke from what it said was the chopper that was shot down.
“Our people approached the airfield, shot a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) in the direction of the helicopter. There was an explosion. [Kiev] militants started shooting and we [protesters] retreated,” a representative from the Kramatorsk self-defence troops told RIA Novosti.
Russian media splashed reports of Putin’s troops massed on the Russian border, 11,000 by one estimate though Western intelligence said it was much more.
Masha Gessen, author of “Man Without a Face,” a biography of Putin told Allvoices the Russian leader was in total control of the Kremlin and was unlikely to back off. She spoke at the University of Colorado in Boulder.
Putin was accused of being willing to start World War III [Unlink].
Ukranian acting Prime Minister Arsniy Yatsenyk said: "The aggressive efforts of the Russian military on Ukraine's soil will lead to a conflict on European soil," reports quoted him as saying in a televised cabinet meeting.
"The world hasn't forgotten the Second World War and Russia wants to start a third world war," he said.
Putin’s lack of understanding of economics was apparent as his Central Bank surprisingly raised its borrowing costs to support the ruble. The vast majority of economists had predicted that wouldn’t be necessary under the light sanctions imposed so far, Bloomberg reported.

Thursday, April 24, 2014

Ways to avoid the appearance of plagiarism

Few writers are likely to intentionally steal the work of others, but these days appearances are sometimes more important than what actually occurred.
The computer practice of cut and pasting was initially welcomed by the media to improve productivity. Soon it became clear that sometimes it led to lazy writers, or writers under pressure from editors, to cut corners.
The Associated Press reached a point where it was trying to make writers say something different than other publications even when it was silly. AP had the right to pick up stories from its members, which made the whole thing more confusing. The long-standing rule had been to not give yourself a byline if you were cut and pasting or even just taking the reporting and rewriting it
How many ways are there to say that 100 people died in a plane crash. It has to be in the lede, as the first paragraph is called.
In some cases, trying to make a story look unique makes it weaker.
It is generally accepted that material from another news organization can be picked up, if credited, and if the writer gets some information from other sources. This is called “reasonable use.”
It partly depends on whether the information is exclusive, or comes from a source speaking to the media as a whole. Exclusive stories need more crediting.
And attempts should be made to confirm with other sources.
With a breaking story it all becomes more complicated, but the rules still exist.
One way to minimize the risk is to limit cut and pasting to quotations, which should be attributed. Obviously what a person says should not be changed it quotation marks are used.
A good way to start is by not copying from a document into a word processor. Write the story on a separate screen in your own words.
If there is concern a story can be run through a plagiarism checker.
Others may be looking at your stories, keep that in mind.
Headlines also should be different than the source uses. While it cannot strictly be considered a copyright infringement it will start people talking.
Yes, it will take longer. Unless a writer is working for a news agency and under pressure to get a dozen stories out each day then the time should be taken to avoid ripping off other writers.
Sources:
Plagiarism
How to avoid plagiarism

Ukraine fights back

It’s time for Vladimir Putin to put up or shut up. Or is it going to be the endless summer of military drills.
Russia’s reaction to reports that Ukraine had committed what Putin said would be a “serious crime” resulted in a Moscow announcement of more drills on the Ukrainian frontier.
Of course it is not exactly clear what happened overnight and on Thursday, any more than it has been clear what is going on in the eastern Ukraine.
Making it even less clear were reports from Kiev that the anti-terror operation had been suspended because of Russian troops on its border. Cat and tiger.
Some reports say five people died at a Russian-rebel roadblock.
Do activists normally come with automatic weapons? Perhaps they do on Nevada ranches.
But Putin is going to have use some of the “special forces” from Washington’s digital library or lose face.
The imposition of even more draconian laws barring demonstrations, and the effective castration of the Russian media won’t be effective without some Kremlin action.
Russian Beyond the Headlines reported: “Pavel Durov, the founder of the “Russian Facebook,” has allegedly been fired for incorrectly revoking the resignation he tendered on April 1. Durov found out about his ouster from the newspapers. In his opinion, the company is now controlled by structures with ties to the Kremlin.”
In fact, Putin may have to tone down Ria Novosti and Russian TV who were leading the charge for action with dramatic accounts of the killings in eastern Ukraine.
The alternative is for Putin’s support to disappear faster than the crew of a South Korean or Italian tourist boat.
Sanctions that were laughed off have economists saying Russia may tumble into the recession the US and Europe are just exiting. President Obama threatened new sanctions.
Amnesty International called on Russian separatists to release journalists it is holding, including Simon Ostrovsky of New York-based Vice News.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Poland doesn't have to fear a Russian Redux

If Russian President Vladimir Putin [Unlink] decides Poland should under the control of the Moscow again, Warsaw doesn’t have to worry about being stabbed in the back again.

This time, unlike at the beginning of World War II in 1939, Poland will not be attacked on one side by Hitler and the other by Stalin.
The Soviet Union’s military defense group was known during the Cold War as the Warsaw Pact.
Now, NATO, has dispatched US troops to members Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. The numbers are too small to stop a Russian attempt to annex territory as it did in Crimea, but enough to serve as trip wire.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk [Unlink] had asked NATO to send troops.
If Putin wants to attack Finland he would be well advised to do it before winter comes, based on what happened the last time.
The first US troops arrived in Poland on Wednesday, the Voice of America said.
Meanwhile, US President Barack Obama [Unlink] has accused Russia of flouting a deal on Ukraine reached in Geneva last week, under which illegal armed groups, including those who have seized public buildings, would return home.

Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, reported the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization believed the NATO action was a “psychological attack.”
At the same time Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was talking tough, Xinhua quoted a senior Russian official as saying war was unlikely.
"I don't believe the Russians and Ukrainians will fight each other," Deputy Defense Minister Anatoly Antonov said.
Putin said it would be a “serious crime” if Ukraine moved against Russian militants in the eastern Ukraine.

But that is exactly what Kiev seemed to be doing, according to the BBC. It said some casualties had been incurred when Ukranian forces seized several towns. The Russian-backed rebels had seized buildings in a dozen towns.

The Kiev Post said five deaths were reported when a separartist attack on a government position was beaten back.
Moscow racheted up the pressure with more threats to intervene if ethnic Russians were attacked. They continue to deny the presence of Russian soldiers, though the faces of some of their troops in the eastern Ukraine showed up in digital libraries.
If money talks Russia was nearly silent.
Bloomberg said investors demanded higher yields because of the Ukraine tension, forcing Russia to terminate bond sales for the seventh time in eight weeks.
The Central Bank had to intervene again to support the ruble.
Sources:

Just cross the bridge to get your post

It still isn’t possible to buy the Brooklyn Bridge, but you may be able to settle for Manhattan Silver.
The New York Times reports that Brooklyn’s district attorney is joining dozens of DAs from coast-to-coast who will not prosecute people on charges of possessing small amounts of marijuana.
Those who live nearby in Manhattan may now be able to stop flushing their weed down the toilet, producing a cash crop in nearby rivers.
Officials in New York and elsewhere have become sensitive to the fact that the vast majority of marijuana users who are arrested are black. Such arrests have sent hundreds to already crowded prisons, making the private prison industry a great investment.
Colorado and Washington have already legalized marijuana, as has the entire country of Uruguay.
It is bringing in millions of taxes to Colorado, which allowed recreational marijuana stores to open sooner than the Evergreen state. Both have allowed sales of medicinal marijuana for years.
A wave of marijuana legalization, at least for medicinal marijuana, seems to be sweeping the nation. It is turned up in the most unlikely places, like George and Florida.
Seeing the goldmine in Colorado, Puerto Rico is considering legalizing marijuana and prostitution, High Times reports. Gov. Alejandro Garcia Padilla has promised creditors that he will reduce the island’s deficit of $820 million, High Times reported.
The industry has become so lucrative that drones are now being, but not by cops looking for crops. “Tech savy British criminals use drones to target cannabis farms…,” reported Marijuana.com.
This weekend tens of thousands of people gathered at downtown festivals in Denver. A third of them came from out of state, according to KMGH TV.
Cops looked the other way as smoke arose from the Civic Center. Only 47 people were dumb enough to smoke right in the face of the law _ and they got tickets.

Putin making Russia disappear as nation

Vladimir Putin is in new battlegrounds, where masks won’t help. They include tight sanctions likely to soon be imposed, the emotional drain of being a pariah again, and unfriendly courtrooms.
And all the friendly Russian media in all the world won’t be able to put the Soviet Empire back together again.
In fact, it is argued in the Interpreter that Russia has already disappeared.
Yevgeny Gontmakher argues that Putin’s actions “are accelerating the disappearance of Russia not so much in the sense of pointing to a change in its borders but rather with regard to the existence of a distinctive Russian society capable of surviving into the future.
“Russia is disappearing” as a separate civilization, says the deputy director of the Institute of World Economy and International Relations.
He predicts more and more former Soviet Republicans, like the Ukraine, will say “good bye to Russia.”
His comments could be applied to the US as well, or China. How does a civilization stay together? Apparently Putin believes tanks can do it.
Gontmakher says two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall the Kremlin has not been able to establish an effective government. “Corruption, ineffectiveness, unprofessionalism, and personal rule” prevent Russia from becoming an established state.
Instead of consolidating the nation it is trying to unify all Russian speakers distracts from solidifying the country. Imagine if Britain tried to bring all English speakers together?
Putin may be a tactical master but a strategist he is not. He doesn't even understand the new paradigm. Cypher warfare is the state of the art.
If he fulfills his threat to invade Ukraine his country is likely to face evertighter sanctions that will rattle an already fragile economy.
His oligarch buddies are finding themselves facing arrest if they leave the homeland. Serhiy Kurchenko has been detained in Austria and could be extradited to the US to face racketeering charges because he allegedly used American banks. A lawsuit also has been filed in US courts.
Putin clearly does not understand economics. His boasts of new oil arriving from the Arctic and his plans to build a submarine base there has raised the hackles of environmentalists. Europe does not need another warning to move away from its reliance on Russian energy.

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Sex slaves and Oil in Nigeria

Sometimes it seems like a modern day Hieronymus Bosch painting combined with Dante’s Inferno, updated with automatic weapons.
Nigeria should be Africa’s powerhouse, even though its boundaries were arbitrarily created by its British colonizers.
The story is so incredible that only fiction can make any sense of what happened. For that go to Chinhua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.”
Within seven years of independence it was plunged into a civil war mostly between Muslims in the north on one side and Christians and Animists in the south and east on the other side.
Oil riches have made it a leading OPEC producer, and it should be the giant of Africa.
Instead it is back to struggling between Muslims and Christians.
It usually makes the news only when churches are blown up and girls captured and enslaved, most often by fantatical Muslims or when foreign workers are seized.
It is so unsafe for journalists to travel there that news giants like the BBC rely to certain extent by begging for news from its Web site. To its credit the BBC was continuing to focus on the kidnap of hundreds of girls, allegedly by the Muslim group, Boko Haram. The Lagos government, the BBC said, is avoiding talking about it, sticking to its concern about deadly bombings. Hundreds have already died despite President Goodluck Jonathan deploying the Army to suppress them.
The New York Times this week reported the lack of success in finding the girls. They were abducted in an area with a strong Boko Harem presence.
The Times said it was feared the girls would be used as “sex slaves and cooks.”
People who have visited West Africa talk about WAWA: West African Wins Again.
Clumsy reporting by Western journalists was celebrated in Edward Behr’s “Anyone Here been Raped and Speaks English.” It tells of remarks made by foreign TV journalists to Belgian nuns in the Congo.
It may not only be apocryphal that someone once painted on the wall of a luxury Lagos hotel saying “Beam me up Scotty.”
Again, the struggles of Africa leave journalists with no words to describe them.
Children are widely used as soliders, as shown in the Oscar-nominated film “War Witch.”

Benevolent Putin rehabilitates Crimean Tatars











Tatar leader Mustafa Dzhemilev


The 250,000 Muslim Tatars in the recently annexed Russian Crimea can sleep soundly at night.


Certainly after Russian troops arrived in February their homes were marked, and they were told to be prepared to move to different areas they were a bit queasy.


But now Russian President Putin has rehabilitated them.


They weren’t included in a 1991 general rehabilitation for all citizens of the Soviet Union.


The Tatars, now accepted by official edict, must have felt like the man who was ridden out of town on a rail for displeasing the community. Abraham Lincoln said the unnamed man was asked how that felt. “If it was not for the honor of the thing, he would much rather walk."


Russian Television said: “Since gradually returning to the peninsula following their banishment, many have been locked in land disputes, and have struggled with a lack of political representation.”


Although Russia and its media spend much time comparing opponents in the Ukraine to Nazis what happened to the Tatars under Stalin sounds like something Hitler would have done.


Again quoting Russian TV: “A week after the Soviet Army recaptured the peninsula - on May 18, 1944 - those living in Tatar households were woken up by NKVD agents with prepared deportation lists, and according to eyewitness reports, forced to pack their possessions in less than an hour.


“Under armed supervision, Tatars of all ages were escorted to cattle trains – used for most mass transport during the Stalin era - and ordered to board them. The trains were headed to the central Asian republic of Uzbekistan more than 1,800 miles away and other hinterlands.”


The latest Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin suspected the Tatars of disloyalty, but of course he suspected everyone.


The Tatars may even able to gamble in the casinos Putin plans to build in the Crimea, the BBC said.


Crimean Tatars traditional leader, meanwhile, was handed an order barring him from entering Russia because he was considered a threat to public order, he said in a statement reported by the Wall Street Journal.


"If in recent time, diplomats and representatives of international organizations have been denied entry into the territory of Crimea and then they hand out this 'decision,' it is nothing more than a sign of how 'civilized' a state we are dealing with," the statement Dzhemilev as saying.


He also was barred from reentering the Crimea after visiting Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the joy of becoming part of Russia is tempered by the fact that many businesses, stores and offices are closed, suddenly cell phones are an hour behind as they are set for Ukrainian time.

Hotels at this time of year usually taken by tourists with foreign exchange are full of Russian bureaucrats.


"Nonsense!” Yelena Yurchenko, the minister for tourism and resorts, told the New York Times, Yurchenko, daughter of a Russian admiral who retired in Crimea, said the problems “lazy people who do not want to make progress.”
























































Monday, April 21, 2014

Russia loses credibility in the Ukraine


Maj. Rudolph Anderson died taking aerial photos of missile silos in Cuba.

It is a well-accepted axiom, even by terrorists, that to gain the most from any violent action there must be a claim of credit or responsibility.
President Vladimir Putin believes he can have it both ways: first denying any role in the seizure of Crimea and then boasting of it.
Mixed messages are always confusing, though apologists for Moscow, including here on Allvoices, aren’t bothered by the contradictions.
Some people will believe the denials. Some others won’t believe anything Putin says. The inescapable conclusion is that nothing the former KGB staffer says can be taken as the final word.
It has reached the point where Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is forced to assert that his country is “a big and independent power that knows what it wants,” the BBC reported.
When Russia, as the Soviet Union, was a super power it didn't hesitate to send troops into Hungary and Czechoslovakia.
Moscow is risking becoming a paper tiger. Now if it doesn't invade the Ukraine it will look weak.
Putin has made clear that includes incorporating the Ukraine what was called in the Czarist era “New Russia.”
This weekend he blamed the Kiev government for the failure of a deal reached in Geneva to end all violence in the Ukraine. He said Kiev had failed to disarm right-wing elements attacking pro-Russian separatists.
Yet these same separatists told many journalists that they would not surrender their weapons, and clearly hadn’t. Washington was quick to point this out.
Russia also agreed to allow monitors from the Organization for Security and Cooperate in Europe, or OSCE, to enter areas controlled by pro-Russian militias but on Monday the organization said it was able to enter the area.
The Russian strategy, called “maskirovka” or disguised warfare worked well in Chechnya, the New York Times reported.
Yet this strategy has its limits. The Soviet Union couldn’t hide the missiles it had placed in Cuba in October 1962. The late Adlai Stevenson, US ambassador to the United Nations, showed aerial photos of the missile sites. The numerous photos had cost the life of US Air Force Maj. Rudolph Anderson.
On Sunday, US President Obama’s administration endorsed photos of Russian military forces in eastern Ukraine, outside Crimea. The Times said some of the Russian soldiers shown in the photos had been photographed previously elsewhere.
On every front Putin was the loser. Environmentalists were horrified that Russia trumpeted on Friday the first shipment of oil from an Arctic Ocean offshore drilling rig. With the Soviet history of environmental disasters, including Chernobyl, major oil spills in the Arctic were a distinct possibility.
Just as the West is coming out of its recession Russia is about to plunge into one, the Economic Times reported. Its economy is already facing structural problems.
“Data released over the last week showed that Russian is beginning to suffer the effects of the worst East-West political crisis since the Cold War,” the Economic Times reported.

Putin, it has been widely reported, will listen to no one who disagrees with his plane to restore the Soviet Union. A top adviser to the Russian president had to flee the country a year ago, the New Yorker reported Monday.

Sergei Guriev had lived a privilege life until he crossed Putin. He was subject to ominous warnings, interrogations and search warrants. He lives in Paris now.

“Better Paris than Krasnokamensk,” the site of a notorious Russian prison,” he said.

Sunday, April 20, 2014

Colorado and national media hype two "marijuana" deaths

Focus on two deaths in the Denver in the past few weeks is verging on the kind of hysteria about marijuana that existed a century ago.

There is a market for such stories with the attention being focused on 4/20, a sort of national marijuana celebration day. Anything to sell website viewers.

In Denver marijuana advocates plan to meet at the Civic Center, a rally that is likely to draw thousands. Organizers have urged supporters not to flout the state’s legalization of pot by smoking it right in front of cops.

Police have said they will have a large presence at the event but will use discretion in enforcing the federal law banning the drug.

It might be that for those who couldn’t see the Rockies from downtown it wasn't because of the legendary Mile High City smog. Tens of thousands gathered at several 4/20 festivals near the downtown area.


Denver’s KMGH TV estimated that a third of those at the rallies were from out of state, based on a random survey. A woman who said she was from St. Louis boasted that she had been at Woodstock.

The Colorado law legalizing pot says it must be consumed in private. It is a conflict that remains unresolved with President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, saying enforcing the prohibition will not be a priority.

The reporting suggests that a young man who ate an entire marijuana cookie, far higher than the recommended dosage, jumped to his death from a balcony.

In the other case, a man who shot his wife to death while she was calling 911 for help was reported to have eaten marijuana candy, another edible.

“If all of this hysterical talk over the past week about marijuana being a contributing factor in the deaths of two people in Denver seemed familiar to you, dear cannabis historian, it's because it should be. This isn't the first time Colorado news outlets have latched onto the myth that cannabis causes violence,” reported the Denver alternative weekly Westword.

It reported that in 1910 opponents of marijuana had sought to convince the public that cannabis was the source of the word “assassin” and brought on great violence.

 “According to legend, hash-stoned mercenaries carried out murders for their blood-thirsty ruler in exchange for more ganja.”

This claim is being rejected across the nation. Twenty states have legalized medical marijuana or are about to and a few are considering legalizing medical marijuana.

Heart-warming stories about medical marijuana, largely made up of CBD, helps children with epilepsy are fueling the advances. THC is the ingredient in marijuana is what produces highs.

This information is only now becoming widely known because very little research was being done on marijuana because of the federal ban. Even hemp was made illegal because of its association with marijuana. That prohibition also is crumbling. Costco now sells hemp seeds.

To answer an obvious question: No, the number of deaths involving alcohol during the same period as the "marijuana" deaths is not known. It hasn’t been reported. Nor have the number of people jailed for being drunk or who showed up in emergency rooms because they suffered alcohol poisoning.

The bottom line is the state is making millions each month from the sale of recreational and medicinal marijuana. Giving up revenue is anathema to politicians.

Polls show support for marijuana legalization in Colorado remain high. A recent poll showed 51 percent of the state's residents have tried marijuana. And tourists are coming to Colorado to get high, and not only in the state's ski areas.

Last year Colorado and Washington state became the first two states in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana. Medical marijuana has been around for a decade, starting in California.

Sources:

USA Today

Denver Post



Saturday, April 19, 2014

Though no major country has a clean record on energy development, few can compare with Russia’s flagrant violation of environmental safety rules. Chernobyl is only the tip of the iceberg.

Russia shipped its first Arctic offshore oil Friday.

Even now unless people have read of the Russian coverup in “Chernobyl Notebook” or other accounts few know that 14 people were boiled alive less than a year earlier at the Balakov nuclear plant only 540 miles southeast of Moscow.

The slightest accident in the US, would be trumpeted to the world, even if no one had died. Covering up all accidents was the norm in the Soviet Union, writes former Soviet nuclear engineer Grigory Medvedev.

Greenpeace, whose activists were dragged off by Russian secret police while protesting oil developments in the Arctic, has a page devoted to Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, instead of covering up the Arctic activities, boasts that they will increase production. “The (Prirazlomnoye) project will increase Russia’s presence on the global energy markets, boost its overall economy and our energy industry in particular,” he told Ria Novosti.

He apparently has made a tactical decision that because it is  impossible in this era of satellites it makes sense to promote it.

“It is the beginning of our country’s massive effort to extract mineral resources and oil in the Arctic,” Putin said.

It is a strategy he has employed in the Ukraine, with varying success. One reaction has been for the West to push even harder for alternatives to fossil fuels.

Russia has already become a mono-crop economy, and it has not fared well in recent weeks. Threatening Europe with a gas cutoff is not the way to win friends.

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times said a Russian oil boycott would be the best thing that could happen to the West. Unlike in 1973 Arab oil embargo there are now many alternative sources of energy and even more choices for fossil fuel.

Dependence on Russia for energy remains a scary prospect because there is no doubt it will come at the expense of more Arctic oil spills.

Greenpeace says Russian already spills 5 million tons of oil each year in the Arctic. That is the equivalent of six BP Deep Horizon Gulf oil spills.



Friday, April 18, 2014

Russian-backed militants ignore Ukraine peace deal




 Only the Russian media, which these days is entirely the “official” media, was ignoring reports that the Geneva peace deal for Ukraine had broken down.

To be fair, it is true that some anti-Yanukovych demonstrators have not left Keiv’s Euromaidan square months after he was ousted, but the Russian-backed militia’s refusal to accept the deal showed that either President Putin was unable to control them or didn’t want to stop them.

In either case his credibility could suffer dramatically.

US President Obama had been cautious about the agreement since it was reached in record time Thursday, though no records are really kept for such negotiations. The talks Thursday lasted less than one full day.

"My hope is that we actually do see follow-through over the next several days, but I don't think -- given past performance -- that we can count on that," Obama said during a White House news conference.

World history is replete with stories of insurgencies abandoned by their creators that refused to die.



The BBC said the Kiev government reached out to the rebels, promising to make Russian an official language in regions where it is spoken by the majority of the population.
A US State Department spokeswoman said the Russian government has a responsibility to ”encourage the separatists to stand down.”

The Guardian said the Russian militia groups said they would not leave until a referendum on regional autonomy had been held, and objected to not being part of the negotiations.

There was no sign any of the buildings occupied in several eastern cities were being handed over to the government. Ukrainian government forces nearby also remained in place.

Dennis Pushilin, leader of a group in Donetsk, said “Putin did not sign anything for us, according to the New York Times.

The Kiev government indicated it was proceeding with the plan to disarm “illegal groups,” but not clashes had been reported by Friday evening.

Critics say Putin’s statements about Russia’s historic claims to Ukrainian territory were more important than any resolution that, at the least, was not likely to be historic.

A joint statement by the negotiators said: “All illegal armed groups must be disarmed. All illegally seized buildings must be returned to legitimate owners; all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated.” The US, European Union, Ukrainian government and Russia participated in the talks.

In their wake, the Russian ruble and Russian markets rebounded from a year-long slump. That showed how much impact the minimum sanctions imposed so far had been effective.