US Airways finds problems on 7 planes - CNN.com:


TEMPE, Arizona (AP) -- US Airways Group Inc. has found problems on seven of its Boeing 757 aircraft during inspections prompted by the loss of a wing part from another company plane during a flight.

US Airways spokesman Phil Gee says the Tempe, Arizona-based carrier inspected 17 Boeing 757s with similar wing specifications as the damaged jetliner.

Last week, a small part of a 757's wing dislodged and hit a passenger window. Nobody was injured.

During the inspections that followed, crews found problems on seven planes. They performed minor repairs before returning them to service.

US Airways is also rechecking paperwork on 86 older model 737s to make sure they follow federal rules regulating inspection for fuselage and window cracks.

Posted by mikki at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

FBI's $500 Million Wiretap Retrofitting Fund Empty | Threat Level from Wired.com:


The FBI has gone through nearly all of its $500 millon budget for making old telephone switches wiretap friendly, but an FBI survey showed that nearly 40 percent of the nation's switches still aren't up to federal wiretapping standards, according to a new report from the Justice Department's inspector general.

When listening in to criminals, the FBI uses DCS-3000 to connect to wiretap-friendly telephone switches.

A 1994 law known as the Communications Assistance to Law Enforcement Act or CALEA requires all telephone switches installed after 1995 to comply with detailed wiretapping rules, and Congress set aside a half billion dollars for the FBI to dole out to help carriers make older landline switches compliant.
Cell phone switches, however, are all compliant and nearly all FBI surveillance targets cell phones and pagers. In 2005, the feds got some 1800 criminal wiretap court orders, along with nearly 2,200 court orders for anti-terrorism and foreign intelligence wiretaps.
According to a redacted report (.pdf) from the DOJ's Inspector General, the FBI has only a little more than $5000 left in dedicated CALEA funds, which mostly went towards paying switch manufacturers to write wiretapping software and issue licenses to use that software for older switches.
The audit says it is not possible to tell if the money was well-spent, since neither the telecoms nor the switch makers are keen on sharing information.
Though the FBI has a well-earned reputation for bungling large technology projects, the FBI successfully built a sprawling surveillance network that taps into key telecom facilities around the country. The Digital Collection System comprises dedicated surveillance nodes around the country that run specialized software packages for criminal and intelligence wiretaps. The feds use a secure Sprint fiber optic network to interconnect the surveillance centers.
Though the internet was originally exempt, the government changed the rules later and as of May 2007, all cable, DSL and satellite internet companies also have to make their networks wiretap compliant. Even some universities have to comply as well. 
Surveillance of VOIP calls jumped 400% in 2006, according to the report, despite the number of old wireline switches that are not yet compliant.
But the feds biggest complaint remains that wiretaps are too expensive.
Cox Communications, for instance, charges $1,500 for a 30 day wiretap or for 60 days of real-time call record information. Some telecoms have even shut off wiretaps after the FBI repeatedly failed to pay their spying bill.
Separately, the FBI also has secret contracts with a few carriers, paying each around $1.5 million a year to store telephone records for longer periods and to respond quicker to subpoenas and court orders.

Posted by mikki at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Hampshire Joins Montana in Real ID Victory | Threat Level from Wired.com:


Détente has arrived in the fight between independence-minded states and a federal bureaucracy keen to claim a unanimous victory in its drive to create a de facto national identity database.

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch followed the lead of Montana and secured a reprieve from federal ID-rule punishment, without agreeing to comply with Real ID>The key? The renegade states send a nice letter that is not a request for an extension of a looming deadline but touts the security of their driver's licenses, which the Department of Homeland Security accepts as an official extension request. That lets DHS save face, even as it backs down from repeated threats to punish the citizens of rogue states.
On Thursday, New Hampshire became the second of the four holdout states to get an unasked-for extension, following the path blazed by Montana's feisty Democratic governor Brian Schweitzer last Friday. Schweitzer told Threat Level he sent DHS "a horse, and if they want to call it a zebra, that's up to them."
The legislators in the Live Free or Die state, like those in Montana, banned the state from complying with the Real ID mandates, citing state's rights, the inequity of unfunded federal mandates, and privacy issues. Under the rules, almost all license holders will have to return to the DMV with notarized "breeder documents" like birth and marriage certificates, and states will have to interlink their databases of digital photos and personal information. Citizens of states that opt out can't use their licenses for federal purposes, such as entering airport screening lines or going to a Social Security office.
DHS says the new licenses will prevent terrorism and identity theft, and Secretary Michael Chertoff says it's one of his top priorities in his last nine months in office.
In a terse February letter, New Hampshire Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, asked that DHS not stop accepting New Hampshire licenses come the May 11 deadline, as DHS had threatened to do to the citizens of any state that didn't agree to eventually comply with Real ID. If that had happened, New Hampshire residents who didn't have passports would have been frisked at airports and banned from federal buildings.
However, Earl Sweeney, assistant commissioner of New Hampshire's Department of Safety   wrote a new letter (.pdf) Thursday. It highlighted the state's efforts to include more anti-counterfeiting features in its identification cards and to verify people's documents and eligibility for a license. But Sweeney also noted that New Hampshire is "currently prohibited by law from implementing Real ID."
DHS Undersecretary Stewart Baker promptly responded by interpreting the letter as a request for an extension (.pdf), thereby averting a May 11 showdown.
Now only Maine and South Carolina remain without extensions, but it's very likely both states will submit similar letters by the April 1 deadline. That will turn the Real ID map all green, clearing the way for a DHS victory proclamation.
That lets the Bush administration claim credit for implementing Real ID, even though no states will begin offering Real ID-compliant licenses until at least 2010, well into someone else's term at the White House.
And the states get to claim victory over the federal bullies.
And it leaves time for Congress to step in, if it wishes, to actually hold hearings on identification policy and figure out if a de facto national ID, complete with a national biometric database, is really the right solution to preventing someone from blowing up a mall full of shoppers

Posted by mikki at 09:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Associated Press: Penalty for Pharmacist's Refusal Upheld:


WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) — A state appeals court upheld sanctions Tuesday against a pharmacist who refused to dispense birth control pills to a woman and wouldn't transfer her prescription elsewhere.
The 3rd District Court of Appeals ruled that the punishment the state Pharmacy Examining Board handed down against pharmacist Neil Noesen did not violate his state constitutional rights, specifically his "right of conscience" to religiously oppose birth control.
"Noesen abandoned even the steps necessary to perform in a minimally competent manner under any standard of care," the three-judge panel said. The decision upheld a ruling by Barron County Circuit Judge James Babler.
Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin praised the ruling as important for women's access to reproductive health care. Several states have been wrestling with the issue of pharmacists who refuse on religious grounds to dispense birth control or "morning-after" pills.
Noessen's attorney Paul Linton said that he was disappointed but that no decision had been made on whether to appeal.
The ruling "can curtail the religious rights of pharmacists and perhaps other health care professionals," Linton said.
According to court records, Noesen was working as a substitute pharmacist at a Menomonie Kmart in 2002 when a University of Wisconsin-Stout student sought to refill her birth control prescription.
Noesen testified he advised the woman of his objection to the use of contraception and refused to fill the prescription or tell her how or where she could get it refilled.
The woman was able to get the prescription filled two days later but missed the first dose of the medication, court records said. She filed a complaint with the state Department of Regulation and Licensing.
Noesen, 34, of St. Paul, Minn., told regulators that he is a devout Roman Catholic and refused to refill the prescription or release it to another pharmacy because he didn't want to commit a sin by "impairing the fertility of a human being."
The Pharmacy Examining Board ruled in 2005 that Noesen failed to carry out his professional responsibility to get the woman's prescription to someone else if he wouldn't fill it himself.
The board reprimanded Noesen and ordered him to attend ethics classes. He was allowed to keep his license as long as he informs all future employers in writing that he won't dispense birth control pills and outlines steps he will take to make sure a patient has access to medication.
The board also found Noesen liable for the cost of the proceedings against him — about $20,000 — but the appeals court ordered the board to reconsider that decision.
Larry Dupuis, legal director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin, which like Planned Parenthood participated in the appeal, said the ruling struck the proper balance between patients' and pharmacists' rights.
A pharmacy should accommodate its pharmacists' religious beliefs but it can't leave "a patient high and dry," Dupuis said.
Noesen said the discipline "critically devastated" his business as a traveling pharmacist because some pharmacies refused to hire him and he lost his liability insurance, court records said.
There was no telephone listing for Noesen in St. Paul. Linton said he had not talked to Noesen in several months and didn't know whether he still lived in St. Paul.

Posted by mikki at 09:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Pagan Prattle Online: Bargain of the Day: Good stuff, for a change.:


Englandshire: Dr. Who fans could find themselves a bargain as the memorabilia collection of Simon White goes on sale after he swapped science fiction for fantasy.

The collection, which Mr White estimates is worth nearly £7,000, was built up over a number of years but is to be cast aside because of his religious beliefs.

Dr Who and his materialistic obsession with it represents the greatest lie that Satan ever told according to Mr White...

He said: God delivered me from the evil that is Dr Who.
Don't offer too much now. We wouldn't want to reward him for his sinfulness now, would we?

Posted by mikki at 09:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So we're not allowed to protect ourselves by deciding from whom to purchase our food from based on their prior performance in the market.

U.S. may withhold names of retailers in certain meat recalls -- Healthcare Policies, The White House, Richard Raymond -- chicagotribune.com:


WASHINGTON (AP) — Under pressure from the food industry, the Agriculture Department is considering a proposal not to identify retailers where tainted meat went for sale except in cases of serious health risk, The Associated Press has learned.

Had that been the rule in place last month, consumers would not have been told if their supermarkets sold meat from a Southern California slaughterhouse that triggered the biggest beef recall in U.S. history.

The plan is being considered as the USDA puts the final touches on a proposed disclosure rule. It had lingered in draft form for two years until February, when 143 million pounds of beef were recalled by Westland/Hallmark Meat Co. in Chino, Calif., after undercover video by an animal-rights activist showed workers abusing crippled cows.

Agriculture Department spokesman Chris Connelly confirmed Wednesday that the agency is weighing whether to make naming the stores mandatory only for so-called "Class I" recalls, which pose the greatest health hazard. The Chino recall was categorized as "Class II" because authorities determined there was minimal risk to human health.




Currently, the government discloses only a recall itself. It does not list which retailers might have received recalled meat. The same holds true for recalled vegetables.

Consumer groups and Democratic lawmakers contended that the public should have access to the names of retailers in all recalls. As originally written, the rule would have applied to all recalls.

"It's unacceptable to us because of the way the rule was originally fashioned, and we have an immediate example of the Hallmark case being exempted," said Tony Corbo of Food & Water Watch, a Washington, D.C., advocacy group.

At an appearance in Sacramento, Calif., earlier this week, Agriculture Secretary Edward Schafer said there are "differences with the different classes of recalls."

"But, you know, a Class I recall, to have a retailer notification, I think, is important," Schafer said.

Partly for competitive reasons, industry groups support the way recalls are currently done, where a description of the recalled product is released by the Agriculture Department's Food Safety and Inspection Service along with some other information including where it was produced.

Retailers must remove recalled meat from their shelves but there's no requirement that they notify their customers about meat already sold, though some take voluntary steps to do so.

Consumers may be able to identify prepackaged foods like hot dogs that the Agriculture Department mentions by brand name, but with ground beef or other items that are repackaged at grocery stores, there's usually no identifying information on the package to tell consumers it's a recalled item.

That's what has led consumer groups to argue that customers need more information, a position shared by Dr. Richard Raymond, who made publishing the retailer rule a top priority when he took over as the Agriculture Department's undersecretary for food safety in 2005.

In an interview this week Raymond said that it was "common sense to assume" that some consumers may have fallen ill because they didn't have access to names of retailers selling tainted meat. But he disputed the suggestion that industry opposition — expressed in written and public comments, meetings with the White House Office of Management and Budget, and other venues — has stalled the rule.

"It's going through the normal process," Raymond said. "It does unfortunately take a long time to go through the normal process."

Industry groups argue that even if just Class I recalls are covered, the rule could create confusion for consumers since retailer lists could be incomplete or take days or weeks to compile. Customers could have a false sense of security if their grocery store doesn't immediately show up on the list, the groups contend.

Some cite the example of California, which is unique among states in having a law requiring disclosure of retailers' names in recalls. California's list of retailers from the Westland/Hallmark recall is 147 pages long and has been continuously updated.

"We've met with USDA numerous times to be sure that they understand our goal, which is to be sure that if a consumer has bought a product that has been recalled we do not want them to eat that food," said Jill Hollingsworth of the Food Marketing Institute in Arlington, Va.

But some industry officials also acknowledge competitive concerns, because if lists of retailers selling recalled meat become public, competitors would know who to approach to offer the product at a lower price. "That does cause some issues in the marketplace," said Jeremy Russell, spokesman for the National Meat Association.

Posted by mikki at 09:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Traveler says she was forced to remove nipple ring - CNN.com:


LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- A Texas woman who said she was forced to remove a nipple ring with pliers in order to board an airplane called Thursday for an apology by federal security agents and a civil rights investigation.

"I wouldn't wish this experience upon anyone," Mandi Hamlin said at a news conference. "My experience with TSA was a nightmare I had to endure. No one deserves to be treated this way."

Hamlin, 37, said she was trying to board a flight from Lubbock to Dallas on February 24 when she was scanned by a Transportation Security Administration agent after passing through a larger metal detector without problems.

The female TSA agent used a handheld detector that beeped when it passed in front of Hamlin's chest, the Dallas-area resident said.

Hamlin said she told the woman she was wearing nipple piercings. The agent called over her male colleagues, one of whom said she would have to remove the jewelry, Hamlin said.

Hamlin said she could not remove them and asked whether she could instead display her pierced breasts in private to the female agent. But several other male officers told her she could not board her flight until the jewelry was out, she said.

She was taken behind a curtain and managed to remove one bar-shaped piercing but had trouble with the second, a ring.

"Still crying, she informed the TSA officer that she could not remove it without the help of pliers, and the officer gave a pair to her," said Hamlin's attorney, Gloria Allred, reading from a letter she sent Thursday to the director of the TSA's Office of Civil Rights and Liberties. Allred is a Los Angeles lawyer who often represents high-profile claims.

Applying pliers to the torso of a mannequin wearing a bra with the rings on it, Hamlin showed reporters how she took off the second ring.

She said she heard male TSA agents snickering as she took out the ring. She was scanned again and was allowed to board even though she still was wearing a belly button ring.

"After nipple rings are inserted, the skin can often heal around the piercing, and the rings can be extremely difficult and painful to remove," Allred said in the letter.

TSA officials said they are investigating whether the agency's policies were followed.

"Our security officers are well-trained to screen individuals with body piercings in sensitive areas with dignity and respect while ensuring a high level of security," the agency said in a statement.

On its Web site, the TSA warns that passengers "may be additionally screened because of hidden items such as body piercings, which alarmed the metal detector."

"If you are selected for additional screening, you may ask to remove your body piercing in private as an alternative to a pat-down search," the site says.

Hamlin would have accepted a "pat-down" had it been offered, Allred said.

If an alarm does sound, "until that is resolved, we're not going to let them go through the checkpoint, no matter what they're wearing or where they're wearing it," said TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird in Salt Lake City.

People routinely pass through security wearing wedding rings without problems, and it might take a larger bit of metal to trigger an alarm, Baird said.

Hamlin filed a complaint, but the TSA's customer service manager at the Lubbock airport concluded that the screening was handled properly, Allred said.

Hamlin wants an apology from the TSA and an investigation by the agency's civil rights office.

Allred said she might consider legal action if the TSA does not apologize.

Hamlin was publicly humiliated and has "undergone an enormous amount of physical pain to have the nipple rings reinserted" because of scar tissue, Allred said.

Hamlin said her piercings have never set off an airport metal detector.

"The conduct of TSA was cruel and unnecessary," Allred wrote. "The last time that I checked, a nipple was not a dangerous weapon."

Posted by mikki at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Leaving Friday, returning the next Wed. or perhaps later if things work out. I'll be on the South Coast most of the time. Can't wait to get back to my "second home."

Posted by mikki at 01:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Records: Southwest Airlines flew 'unsafe' planes - CNN.com:


WASHINGTON (CNN) -- -- Discount air carrier Southwest Airlines flew thousands of passengers on aircraft that federal inspectors said were "unsafe" as recently as last March, according to detailed congressional documents obtained by CNN.

Documents submitted by Federal Aviation Administration inspectors to congressional investigators allege the airline flew at least 117 of its planes in violation of mandatory safety checks.

In some cases, the documents say, the planes flew for 30 months after government inspection deadlines had passed and should have been grounded until the inspections could be completed.

The planes were "not airworthy," according to congressional air safety investigators.

On Thursday, the FAA initiated actions to seek a $10.2 million civil penalty against Southwest for allegedly operating 46 airplanes without conducting mandatory checks for fuselage cracking.

"The FAA is taking action against Southwest Airlines for a failing to follow rules that are designed to protect passengers and crew," Nicholas A. Sabatini, the FAA's associate administrator for aviation safety, said in a written statement.

Calling it "one of the worst safety violations" he has ever seen, Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minnesota, is expected to call a hearing as soon as possible to ask why the airline put its passengers in danger.But Southwest Airlines -- which carried more passengers in the United States than any other airline last year -- said there was never a flight safety issue.

"The FAA penalty is related to one of many routine and redundant inspections on our aircraft fleet involving an extremely small area in one of the many overlapping inspections. These inspections were designed to detect early signs of skin cracking," the airline said in a statement Thursday evening.

"Southwest Airlines discovered the missed inspection area, disclosed it to the FAA, and promptly reinspected all potentially affected aircraft in March 2007. The FAA approved our actions and considered the matter closed as of April 2007."

The airline said it understood the FAA's concerns and was anxious to work with the agency.

The documents obtained by CNN allege that some management officials at the FAA, the agency responsible for commercial air safety, knew the planes were flying "unsafely" and did nothing about it. CNN's Drew Griffin uncovers 'troubling information' »

"The result of inspection failures, and enforcement failure, has meant that aircraft have flown unsafe, unairworthy, and at risk of lives," Oberstar told CNN.

He said both FAA managers and the airline may also have broken the law as well as threatened the safety of Southwest passengers.

The documents were prepared by two FAA safety inspectors who have requested whistle-blower status from the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which is headed by Oberstar.

The two inspectors have been subpoenaed to testify before the committee. The nation's "Whistle-Blower Protection Program" protects federal employees from being fired or retaliated against by their employer.

The inspectors say FAA managers knew about the lapse in safety at Southwest, but decided to allow the airline to conduct the safety checks on a slower schedule because taking "aircraft out of service would have disrupted Southwest Airlines' flight schedule."

According to statements made by one of the FAA inspectors seeking whistle-blower status, a manager at the FAA "permitted the operation of these unsafe aircraft in a matter that would provide relief" to the airline, even though customers were on board.

Laura Brown, an FAA spokeswoman, told CNN that the administration has taken action and that a supervisor who was in charge of overseeing Southwest is "no longer in a supervisory position."

The FAA's announcement that it would seek civil penalties against Southwest came after news of the congressional reports became public. Watch passengers react to the violations »

The safety inspections ignored or delayed by the airline were mandated after two fatal crashes and one fatal incident, all involving Boeing's 737, the only type of airplane Southwest flies.

In 1994, a US Air Boeing 737 crashed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, killing 132 people. Three years earlier, a United Airlines Boeing 737 crashed in Colorado Springs, Colorado, killing 25 people. Investigators blamed both crashes on problems in the planes' rudder control system, leading the FAA to demand regular checks of the 737's rudder system.

Documents provided to CNN show 70 Southwest jets were allowed to fly past the deadline for the mandatory rudder inspections.

The documents also show 47 more Southwest jets kept flying after missing deadlines for inspections for cracks in the planes' fuselage, or "skin."

The long-term, mandatory checks for fuselage cracks were required after the cabin of an Aloha Airlines 737 tore apart in mid-air in 1988, killing a flight attendant. That incident, which opened much of the top of the plane during flight, was attributed to cracks in the plane's fuselage that grew wider as the plane underwent pressure changes during flight.

An FAA inspector at a Southwest Airlines maintenance facility spotted a fuselage crack on one of the airline's 737s last year, according to the congressional documents. He notified the airline and then began looking through safety records, discovering dozens of planes that had missed mandatory inspection deadlines.

According to the inspector's statement in congressional documents: "Southwest Airlines at the time of discovery did not take immediate, corrective action as required to address this unsafe condition and continued to fly the affected aircraft with paying passengers."

In a news release Thursday afternoon, the FAA said Southwest operated 46 Boeing 737s on nearly 60,000 flights between June 2006 and March 2007 while failing to comply with an FAA directive that requires repeated checks of fuselage areas to detect fatigue cracking.

The FAA alleges that after Southwest discovered it had failed to comply, it continued to operate the same planes on an additional 1,451 flights. The airline later found that six of the 46 planes had fatigue cracks, the FAA said.

"We expect the airline industry to fully comply with all FAA directives and take corrective action," the FAA's Sabatini said in the statement.

Southwest has 30 days to respond to the agency.

The documents show Southwest voluntarily disclosed some of the missed inspections last spring. Earlier, Southwest told The Wall Street Journal it did not expect any civil penalties to be imposed because of the self-disclosure.

But, even after the airline's disclosure, FAA inspectors assert that planes continued to fly, in some cases for more than a week, before inspections were complete. The airline "did not take immediate, corrective action," according to the congressional documents obtained by CNN.

"That is wrong," said Oberstar. "When an aircraft is flying out of compliance with airworthiness directives, it is to be shut down and brought in for maintenance inspection. That's the law."

Southwest Airlines has never had a catastrophic crash. Federal investigators determined a 2005 incident at Midway airport in Chicago that killed one person on the ground was the result of pilot error, as was a 2000 incident at Burbank airport in California that seriously injured two passengers.

Posted by mikki at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soldier: Army blocked promotion over religion - CNN.com:


TOPEKA, Kansas (AP) -- A soldier claimed Wednesday that his promotion was blocked because he had claimed in a lawsuit that the Army was violating his right to be an atheist.

Attorneys for Spc. Jeremy Hall and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation refiled the federal lawsuit Wednesday in Kansas City, Kansas, and added a complaint alleging that the blocked promotion was in response to the legal action.

The suit was filed in September but dropped last month so the new allegations could be included. Among the defendants are Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Hall alleges he was denied his constitutional right to hold a meeting to discuss atheism while he was deployed in Iraq with his military police unit. He says in the new complaint that his promotion was blocked after the commander of the 1st Infantry Division and Fort Riley sent an e-mail post-wide saying Hall had sued.

Fort Riley spokeswoman Alison Kohler said the post "can't comment on ongoing legal matters" and offered no further statement.

According to the lawsuit, Hall was counseled by his platoon sergeant after being informed that his promotion was blocked. He says the sergeant explained that Hall would be "unable to put aside his personal convictions and pray with his troops" and would have trouble bonding with them if promoted to a leadership position.

Hall responded that religion is not a requirement of leadership, even though the sergeant wondered how he had rights if atheism wasn't a religion. Hall said atheism is protected under the Army's chaplain's manual.

"It shouldn't matter if one is Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist or atheist," said Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney whose firm filed the lawsuit. "In the military, all are equal and to be considered equal."

Maj. Freddy J. Welborn was named in the lawsuit as the officer who prevented Hall from holding a meeting of atheists and non-Christians. It alleges that Welborn threatened to file military charges against Hall and to block his re-enlistment. Welborn has denied the allegations.

The lawsuit alleges that Gates permits a military culture in which officers are encouraged to pressure soldiers to adopt and espouse fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and in which activities by Christian organizations are sanctioned.

Hall's attorneys say Fort Riley has permitted a culture promoting Christianity and anti-Islamic sentiment, including posters quoting conservative columnist Ann Coulter and sale of a book, "A Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam," at the post exchange.

The Pentagon has said that the military values and respects religious freedoms, but that accommodating religious practices should not interfere with unit cohesion, readiness, standards or discipline.

Mikey Weinstein, president and founder of the religious freedom foundation, said the lawsuit would show the "almost incomprehensible national security risks to America" posed by the military's pattern of violating the religious freedom of those in uniform.

"It is beyond despicable, indeed wholly unlawful, that the United States Army is actively attempting to destroy the professional career of one of its decorated young fighting soldiers, with two completed combat tours in Iraq, simply because he had the rare courage to stand up for his constitutional rights," Weinstein said in a statement.

Weinstein previously sued the Air Force for acts he said illegally imposed Christianity on its students at the academy. A federal judge threw out that lawsuit in 2006

Posted by mikki at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the Cartel Turns:

Hometown paper the LA Times runs an extensive piece on the complete screw-over that studios give to writers. To say that they lie, cheat, and defraud doesn't begin to cover it.

In this case the victim is one Deborah Gregory and the villain is Disney but the same story could be told hundreds of times - just change the names and it's the same again and again. In this case Gregory started as a successful but naive author, then signed with Disney for 4% of net. After two movies, millions of CD and DVD sales, and god-knows-how-much spin-off merchandising, Gregory has gotten exactly nothing for any of this. In fact, Disney won't even give her statements showing revenue and expenses that would allow her to pursue her share of the profits.

As the Times piece points out Hollywood has been using shady accounting and unfair contract terms to screw people for decades. They have all the power, especially when dealing with newcomers, and they use it shamelessly. Keep that in mind the next time they cry about how much money they're losing to "piracy"; I'm not a big fan of theft, but I sure do love schadenfreude.

Posted by mikki at 12:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)