weird

Woman arrested over 96 cent tax bill

2005-03-16T17:03:00.000-08:00

Woman arrested over 96 cents
Mansfield mom jailed for paltry '01 income tax bill

By Linda Martz
News Journal

Jason J. Molyet/News Journal

Markeeta Gould holds 96 cents in her hands, the amount she was jailed for because she did not file her 2001 city income tax.

MANSFIELD -- Markeeta Gould, 26, says she was stunned and embarrassed when police arrested her Feb. 19 in front of her children.

Her alleged offense: failure to appear in court on a charge of failure to file a 2001 city income tax form. She says she owed the city only 96 cents.

Gould says she received a letter from the Income Tax Division of the city Finance Director's Office last year about her 2001 return.

She contends she then called the city and reported she worked as a nurse's aide only one day because of pregnancy difficulties. Her entire income in 2001 was $55, and her city income tax bill was 96 cents, she said.

According to Gould, a woman in the income tax office let her off the hook.

"She said, 'If you only made $55, we won't worry about it,' " Gould said.

Gould reported a break-in Feb. 19, and that's when she learned she was in trouble.

"The officer who came out said, 'Do you know you have a warrant out for your arrest?' " she said.

Gould was shocked.

"I had to call my brother to come and get my kids," she said. "I bailed myself out of jail."

She pleaded innocent to the charges of failure to file a tax return. Her bench trial is scheduled for March 15.

"This is crazy. I'm not a hardened criminal," she said.

But Finance Director Sandra Converse said the city has a mandatory income tax return filing requirement for working-age residents -- whether they earned income or not. She says her employees repeatedly tried to get Gould to file the return, and tried to contact her five times by mail, phone or in person between Oct. 10, 2003, and Dec. 8, 2004.

"We deliver all of our (pre-court) summonses in person. That way, we make sure they get them," Converse said.

Converse said Gould's initial court date was Jan. 7, but she didn't show.

Gould said Thursday she knew nothing about the court date or court appearance.

She acknowledged she has lived at her current address for only a year, but has moved many times in the last five years.

According to Converse, Gould promised income tax division workers last year she would complete a return. City records show she called Dec. 27 to report she had a copy of a Social Security report of her wages, and promised to file.

"On Feb. 22, she did come in and file -- after she was in court (following her arrest)," Converse said.

That was absolutely too late, she said.

The city sometimes dismisses charges of failure to file a tax return, Converse said, as long as people cooperate by filing a return before their court date, paying what's owed or going on a payment plan.

When the city brings charges, the amount owed is not the issue; it's non-compliance with rules everyone else has to follow, Converse said.

"We don't know what people owe if they do not file," she said. "We wouldn't be doing our jobs if we didn't enforce this (filing rule). Sometimes people owe quite a bit of money and that's why they haven't filed."

Individuals who did not work "can file a zero return, telling us that they made nothing, that they did not work," Converse said.

"If they owe less than $3, of course they don't have to pay anything. But they still have to file," she said.

Gould said she was embarrassed to be arrested.

"I'm a mother and I'm a law abiding citizen. I paid my taxes every year before and I paid my taxes every year after," she said. "With me getting arrested, I could lose my job."

Gould said the city should focus its collection efforts on people who owe significant amounts or don't file year after year.

"It surely costs the city more than 96 cents to put a warrant out for my arrest," she said.

Converse said the principle involved is what's important.

"I think most people are very honest," Converse said. "(But) there's a lot of misinformation and misunderstandings about our mandatory filing."

Judge dismisses Agent Orange lawsuit

2005-03-10T08:58:00.000-08:00

By Michael Weissenstein, Associated Press Writer | March 10, 2005

NEW YORK --A federal judge Thursday dismissed a lawsuit by some 4 million Vietnamese claiming that U.S. chemical companies committed war crimes by making Agent Orange for use during the Vietnam War.

U.S. District Judge Jack B. Weinstein disagreed that allegedly toxic defoliant and similar U.S. herbicides should be considered poisons banned under international rules of war, even though they may have had comparable effects on people and land.

The Brooklyn judge also found that the plaintiffs could not prove that Agent Orange had caused their illnesses, largely because of a lack of large-scale research.

Plaintiffs' lawyers said an appeal was planned.

The lawsuit was the first attempt by Vietnamese plaintiffs to seek compensation for the effects of Agent Orange, which is laden with the highly toxic chemical dioxin and has been linked to cancer, diabetes and birth defects among Vietnamese soldiers, civilians and American veterans.

U.S. aircraft sprayed more than 21 million gallons of the chemical between 1962 to 1971 in attempts to destroy crops and remove foliage used as cover by communist forces.

Lawyers for Monsanto, Dow Chemical and more than a dozen other companies had said they should not be punished for following what they believed to be the legal orders of the nation's commander in chief.

They also argued that international law generally exempts corporations, as opposed to individuals, from liability for alleged war crimes.

"We've said all along that any issues regarding wartime activities should be resolved by the U.S. and Vietnamese governments," said Dow Chemical spokesman Scot Wheeler. "We believe that defoliants saved lives by protecting allied forces from enemy ambush and did not create adverse health effects."

The Department of Justice had supported the chemical companies in court, saying a ruling against the firms could cripple the president's power to direct the military.

A plaintiffs' lawyer, William Goodman, said the judge made "a clear error" in deciding Agent Orange was not a poison and said an appeal was planned.

"The use of this chemical in Vietnam was a scandal from the very beginning, and the failure of this court to redress these wrongs is a continuation of that scandal," Goodman said.

Some 10,000 U.S. war veterans receive medical disability benefits related to Agent Orange.

The Vietnamese government has said the United States has a moral responsibility for damage to its citizens and environment but has never sought compensation for victims.

GOP = Gang Of Pedophiles

2005-03-03T16:08:00.000-08:00

Republican County Commissioner David Swartz pleaded guilty to molesting two girls under the age of 11 and was sentenced to 8 years in prison.

Republican judge Mark Pazuhanich pleaded no contest to fondling a 10-year old girl and was sentenced to 10 years probation.

Republican anti-abortion activist Nicholas Morency pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography on his computer and offering a bounty to anybody who murders an abortion doctor.

Republican legislator Edison Misla Aldarondo was sentenced to 10 years in prison for attempted rape of an underage girl.

Republican Mayor Philip Giordano is serving a 37-year sentence in federal prison for sexually abusing 8- and 10-year old girls.

Republican campaign consultant Tom Shortridge was sentenced to three year’s probation for taking nude photographs of a 15-year old girl.

Republican racist pedophile and United States Senator Strom Thurmond had sex with a 15-year old black girl which produced a child.

Republican pastor Mike Hintz, whom George W. Bush commended during the 2004 presidential campaign, surrendered to police after admitting to a sexual affair with a juvenile.

Republican legislator Peter Dibble pleaded no contest to having an inappropriate relationship with a 13-year-old girl.

Republican activist Lawrence E. King, Jr. organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Republican lobbyist Craig J. Spence organized child sex parties at the White House during the 1980s.

Republican Congressman Donald "Buz" Lukens was found guilty of having sex with a minor and sentenced to one month in jail.

Republican fundraiser Richard A. Delgaudio was found guilty of child porn charges.

Republican activist Mark A. Grethen convicted on six counts of sex crimes involving children.

Republican activist Randal David Ankeney pleaded guilty to attempted sexual assault on a child.

Republican Congressman Dan Crane had sex with a minor working as a congressional page.

Republican activist and Christian Coalition leader Beverly Russell admitted to an incestuous relationship with his step daughter.

Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had sex with a 16 year old when he was 28.

Republican congressman and anti-gay activist Robert Bauman was charged with having sex with a 16-year-old boy he picked up at a gay bar.

Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Patti was arrested for distributing a video clip of a 5-year-old girl being raped.

Republican activist Marty Glickman (a.k.a. "Republican Marty"), was taken into custody by Florida police on four counts of unlawful sexual activity with a juvenile and one count of delivering the drug LSD.

Republican legislative aide Howard L. Brooks was charged with molesting a 12-year old boy and possession of child pornography.

Republican Senate candidate John Hathaway was accused of having sex with his 12-year old baby sitter and withdrew his candidacy after the allegations were reported in the media.

Republican preacher Stephen White, who demanded a return to traditional values, was arrested after allegedly offering $20 to a 14-year-old boy for permission to perform oral sex on him.

Republican talk show host Jon Matthews pleaded guilty to exposing his genitals to an 11 year old girl.

Republican anti-gay activist Earl "Butch" Kimmerling was sentenced to 40 years in prison for molesting an 8-year old girl after he attempted to stop a gay couple from adopting her.

Republican Party leader Paul Ingram pleaded guilty to six counts of raping his daughters and served 14 years in federal prison.

Republican election board official Kevin Coan was sentenced to two years probation for soliciting sex over the internet from a 14-year old girl.

Republican politician Andrew Buhr was charged with two counts of first degree sodomy with a 13-year old boy.

Republican politician Keith Westmoreland was arrested on seven felony counts of lewd and lascivious exhibition to minors under 16 (i.e. exposing himself to children).

Republican anti-abortion activist John Allen Burt was charged with sexual misconduct involving a 15-year old girl.

Republican County Councilman Keola Childs pleaded guilty to molesting a child.

Republican activist John Butler was charged with criminal sexual assault on a teenage girl.

Republican candidate Richard Gardner admitted to molesting his two daughters.

Republican Councilman and former Marine Jack W. Gardner was convicted of molesting a 13-year old girl.

Republican activist Parker J. Bena pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography on his home computer and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison and fined $18,000.

Republican parole board officer and former Colorado state representative, Larry Jack Schwarz, was fired after child pornography was found in his possession.

Republican strategist and Citadel Military College graduate Robin Vanderwall was convicted in Virginia on five counts of soliciting sex from boys and girls over the internet.

Republican businessman Jon Grunseth withdrew his candidacy for Minnesota governor after allegations surfaced that he went swimming in the nude with four underage girls, including his daughter.

Republican director of the "Young Republican Federation" Nicholas Elizondo molested his 6-year old daughter and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Republican benefactor of conservative Christian groups, Richard A. Dasen Sr., was charged with rape for allegedly paying a 15-year old girl for sex. Dasen, 62, who is married with grown children and several grandchildren, has allegedly told police that over the past decade he paid more than $1 million to have sex with a large number of young women.

ring

2005-03-03T12:57:00.000-08:00

Boy 'crushed by giant snowball'

2005-02-28T16:48:00.000-08:00

This is LONDON
28/02/05 - News and city section

Boy 'crushed by giant snowball'

A 10-year-old boy died after being crushed by a giant snowball, it was reported today.

Police refused to name the youngster or release any further details of the incident, but the boy was named locally as Peter Strang, according to the Daily Record newspaper.

The accident happened at about 5.45pm on Saturday in Torphins, Aberdeenshire, Grampian Police said.

The death was "the result of a tragic accident", a police spokesman said.

The primary school pupil apparently died playing with a friend after a "giant snowball" rolled down a hill and engulfed him.

Local minister Norman Nicoll told the paper: "It seems there was a giant snowball the boys had made themselves.

"Apparently it rolled and unfortunately Peter was caught under it.

"The boys had just gone out there to play and then something like this happens. It's very difficult to find words to explain it all."

There were no suspicious circumstances surrounding the incident and a report is to be sent to the Procurator Fiscal.

The boy's parents, Hamish and Carol, were too upset to comment.

what is it about San Diegans..?

2005-02-28T14:28:00.000-08:00

How insecure, how hysterically insecure, was the person who designed and produced this stupid fish? The original IOXYE fish were just another plastic Christian artifact. Then came the Darwin fish, sprouting little legs, very cute, then THIS thing, seen only in San Diego (I don't get out too much) -- what a curiousity. The "truth" is consuming the Darwin fish! Survival of the fittest..? Yes, well, it's the TRUTH, the owners would no doubt repeat, over and over, more and more emphatically. The TRUTH! THE TRUTH!! OK, sure, you bet, the truth, uh huh... you a little insecure about something, there, buddy..?

air crashes

2000-07-25T07:23:00.000-07:00

LONDON (Reuters) - An Air France Concorde carrying 110 passengers and crew crashed after taking off from Paris Tuesday bound for New York.

Following is a chronology of major airline crashes since January 1996.

Jan 8, 1996 - At least 350 people died when a Russian-built Antonov-32 cargo plane crashed into a crowded market in the center of the Zaire capital, Kinshasa.

Feb 6, 1996 - A Dominican Alas Nacionales Boeing 757 plunged into waters off the Dominican Republic, killing all 189 on board.

Feb 29, 1996 - A Boeing 737 of the Peruvian Faucett airline slammed into a mountain as it prepared to land at Arequipa, 600 miles south of Lima. All 123 aboard were killed.

May 11, 1996 - A ValuJet Airlines DC-9 jet with 110 people on board crashed in the swampy Everglades near Miami airport. There were no survivors.

July 17, 1996 - TWA Flight 800 exploded in a fireball over the Atlantic after taking off from New York's Kennedy Airport, en route for Paris. All 230 on board died.

Aug 29, 1996 - A Tupolev 154, chartered by the Russian mining company Trust Arktik Ugol and carrying 141 passengers and crew to the remote Arctic island of Spitzbergen, crashed killing all aboard.

Nov 7, 1996 - A Nigerian Boeing 727 flying from Port Harcourt to Lagos crashed, killing all 151 aboard.

Nov 12, 1996 - 349 people died when a Saudi jumbo jet and a Kazakhstan cargo plane collided in mid-air over India in the worst-ever mid-air collision.

Nov 23, 1996 - A total of 125 of the 175 on board died when a hijacked Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 767 crashed into the sea off the Comoros Islands.

Aug 6, 1997 - Korean Air Lines flight 801 carrying 254 people from Seoul crashed into a hilly area near Guam's airport. Only 26 survived.

Sept 26, 1997 - An Indonesian Garuda Airbus A-300-B4 crashed in northern Sumatra, in a mountainous area about 30 miles south of Medan. All 222 passengers, 10 cabin crew and the pilot and co-pilot were killed in the crash, which was Indonesia's worst ever.

Dec 19, 1997 - All 104 people on board died when a Singapore SilkAir Boeing 737-300 airliner crashed near the Indonesian city of Palembang.

Feb 2, 1998 - Cebu Pacific Air DC-9 crashed into a mountainside 40 miles northeast of Cagayan de Oro airport, Philippines, killing all 104 on board. The crash was the worst in Philippines history.

Feb 16, 1998 - A China Airlines Airbus en route from Bali, Indonesia, crashed and disintegrated at Taipei's international airport killing 196 people on board and seven on the ground. The dead included Taiwan's central bank governor, Sheu Yuan-dong.

Sept 2, 1998 - A Swissair wide-bodied MD-11, en route from New York to Geneva, crashed off Nova Scotia as it prepared to make an emergency landing in Halifax. All 229 aboard were killed.

Dec 11, 1998 - Thai Airways Flight TG261 carrying 146 people crashed as it approached the airport in Surat Thani in southern Thailand at the end of a flight from Bangkok. A total of 101 people died.

Oct 31, 1999 - EgyptAir Flight 990 crashed off Nantucket, Massachusetts, killing 217.

What about that Alaska Airlines jet that crashed into the Pacific..???

Jan 30, 2000 - A Kenya Airways Airbus A-130 crashed in the sea shortly after takeoff from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, killing all 179 aboard.

April 19, 2000 - An Air Philippines Boeing 737-200 crashed near the southern city of Davao, killing all 131 on board.

July 25, 2000 - An Air France Concorde supersonic airliner chartered by a German tour operator crashed after taking off from Paris Charles de Gaulle airport bound for New York. Early reports said more than 100 on board died along with several on the ground.

New York prankster makes April fools of the media

2000-04-01T15:19:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK (CNN) -- High noon meant red faces for the media in New York City on Saturday, after they showed up on Fifth Avenue to cover a nonexistent April Fool's Day parade.

At least two television news crews were dispatched after a news release sent to the local media stated than an April Fools' Day parade would begin at 59th Street and march down Fifth Avenue, starting at noon.

Crews from CNN and the Fox affiliate WNYW duly arrived at noon, only to find the usual parade of people and traffic.

A New York City police spokesman said organizers have to notify police before any parade: they had heard nothing about any April Fools' event.

The news release sent to the media also gave hints that something was amiss.

Three "Beat 'em, Bust 'em, Book 'em" floats were said to have been created by the New York, Los Angeles and Seattle police departments "portraying themes of brutality, corruption and incompetence."

The "Where's Mars?" float, "portraying missed Mars missions," was said to have cost "at least $10 billion."

The Atlanta Braves Baseball Tribute to Racism" float was to have featured John Rocker, "who will be spewing racial epithets at the crowd."

The telephone listed as the press contact number belongs to a man identified in news articles as a "master of hoaxes."

The news articles say the man is known for devising elaborate stories to fool the media in order to expose their fallibility.

my sister's Christmas letter

2000-02-25T08:34:00.000-08:00

Dear Friends,

Another holiday season is upon us, full of love and compassion for our fellow man. In the spirit of the season, we wanted to share our exciting year with you.

Brent started his first year at MIT! Yes, he's their youngest student ever, but the other kids all love him and look after him. He's just about solved that pesky problem those wacky NASA scientists have been having with the Mars Lander.

Carly's now being tutored at home (only 8 and learning at a 9th grade level, natch), so she can concentrate on her art full-time. How delighted we are that her paintings are now hanging in the homes of Bill Gates, Barry Manilow, Danielle Steele, and countless others! Of course, Carly remains totally unaffected by her "celebrity," still wearing her little denim shorts and t-shirts wherever she goes.

On The Wall Frames has gone global! We now have outlets in over 100 countries throughout the world. Be sure to stop in when you're in Hong Kong, Belize, or the Ukraine. Boy, those Ukrainians sure love their picture frames!

xAnd speaking of traveling, we had some exciting adventures this year. Switzerland is always wonderful, as are Indonesia and Fiji. But it was our month-long safari in Africa that really took the cake!

Bob keeps very busy now that he's a world-renowned art appraiser. The Louvre is calling practically daily requesting his services. Thank heavens for the Concorde! Too bad he doesn't earn frequent flyer miles on that thing. He also still has his hand in our various companies, working sometimes up to 20 hours per week!

Kelly is still Chief Financial Officer of On The Wall, Inc. It's her shrewd money management that's gotten us where we are today. There's even a rumor she's being considered by the White House for an appointment as a financial consultant. Fingers crossed!

We're now settled in our new home in Irvine. When we moved in, it was only 5,000 square feet! We don't know how we managed. Now after adding an additional 10,000 feet, we don't feel like we're on top of one another anymore. We're still in the process of decorating -- but you know how long it takes to get custom Italian marble! Be sure to stop by when you're in town. But don't forget your I.D. -- the guards are very strict about who gets in.

This Christmas our wonderful children have decided to donate not one but three of their 100 gifts to children less fortunate than they are. Doesn't that just warm your heart? Of course, we all stay busy throughout the year with various charities, including Former Framers Fallen on Tough Times (FFFOTT), The Greater Irvine Leper Colony, and Braggers Anonymous.

We wish you a joyous, peaceful, and meaningful Christmas, free of all the hype and commercialism that so often overshadows the more important things in life. God Bless You.

Sincerely,

[sig]

P.S. Almost forgot! Kelly donated a kidney to a blind Tibetan monk in September. She even had her scar shaped into a tiny Buddha to commemmorate her gift. Isn't she incredible?

'Live' Gamma Burst Was Huge, Astronomers Say

1999-03-25T00:33:00.000-08:00

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The first gamma-ray burst that astronomers got to watch ``live'' was the biggest explosion ever seen, second only to the ``big bang'' that gave birth to the universe, they said Thursday.

The burst of energy, caught on camera with the help of a complex link of satellites, telescopes and e-mail, came from the far reaches of the universe, sending light, X-rays and radio waves two-thirds of the way across the universe.

But it probably looked so intense because it came as a beam of energy, rather than in an explosion in all directions, the international team of astronomers said in a series of reports.

Nonetheless, the explosion -- probably caused by the birth of a black hole, or by the collision of two massive stars known as neutron stars -- was so enormously powerful that it projected its energy across nine billion years worth of time and space.

Gamma ray bursts have long mystified astronomers. First seen by accident in the late 1960s by U.S. scientists looking for Soviet nuclear weapons tests in space, they come without warning and only the fading afterglow could be detected.

But thanks to a system set up by NASA and European scientists working with teams at various universities, on the morning of January 23 orbiting detectors caught the burst and within seconds signaled a computer that in turn woke up an observatory in New Mexico and caught the explosion on film.

``It's like the difference between watching two cars collide and coming on the accident scene several hours later,'' said physics professor Carl Akerlof of the University of Michigan.

What they saw was bright.

``If you had been gazing at that spot with binoculars, you would have seen a 'star' appear, brighten, and fade within minutes, an unbelievably violent event from the very edge of our universe,'' Galen Gisler, an astrophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, said in a statement.

In a series of papers published in the journals Nature and Science, the teams of scientists described what they saw.

Shrinivas Kulkarni, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), and colleagues looked at the ''redshift'' of the star -- which tells how much the light has been faded and changed as it traveled trillions of miles (km) to reach the Earth.

The redshift is 1.6, which means the burst was very far away and thus extremely powerful.

``It is 70 percent of the age of the universe,'' Kulkarni said. ``So if you think the universe is 12 billion years old, this is about nine billion years old.''

That also makes it nine billion light years away -- a light year being equal to the distance light travels in one year at a speed of 189,000 miles (300,000 km) a second, or a total of about 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

This alarmed astronomers. ``The object would be so bright that for (the) 100 seconds it was on, it outshone the whole universe, which to me is an amazing concept,'' Kulkarni said.

``We were stunned,'' Caltech's George Djorgovski added in a statement. ``This was much further than we expected.''

But the idea is not so alarming if the energy was concentrated in a beam, like a laser. And other teams found evidence of this.

Alberto Castro-Tirado of the Laboratorio de Astrofisica Espacial y Fisica Fundamental in Madrid, Spain and an international team of colleagues found the light faded in a way that did not look like a fireball-type burst.

Jens Hjorth and colleagues at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark found that the light from the burst, dubbed GRB 990123, was hardly polarized at all -- surprising if it had passed through the magnetic field created by a fireball but not surprising if it came in a beam.

In turn, this fits in with the idea of a super massive star collapsing on itself to form a black hole, Kulkarni said.

``We think that when very massive stars die, they form a black hole and when the debris rains in on the black hole, you get a gamma-ray burst,'' he said.

``It's not an unreasonable assumption,'' Akerlof said in a separate interview. But it could be something else.

``The first thing that came to mind when it was obviously cosmological is that this would be a binary pair of neutron stars that would spiral into each other,'' he added.

``If you have something spinning, it is easier for it to go out from the axis of spin than from the sides.''

The only way to know more, he said, will be to look for more gamma-ray bursts and study them.

'Meltdown' Sparks War Of Words Over Three Mile Island

1999-03-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

MIDDLETOWN, Pa. (Reuters) - Nearly 20 years after the worst U.S. commercial nuclear accident, members of the public are still trying to get the powers-that-be to admit that what happened at Three Mile Island was a meltdown.

Thursday, just three days before the 20th anniversary of the disaster, Pennsylvania will unveil the official historical marker for the site along the Susquehanna River just south of Harrisburg, where two of the four 350-foot cooling towers that once symbolized a nuclear nightmare continue to belch steam into the atmosphere.

A committee made up mainly of politicians, bureaucrats and utility executives avoided ``the m-word'' in a message that will appear in gold lettering on a dark blue metal scroll. Instead, the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission marker will tell posterity that ``part of the nuclear core was damaged.''

``It should say that a partial meltdown occurred, but this was the best I could get,'' said Eric Epstein of the group Three Mile Island Alert, the committee's lone environmentalist.

``The original was even worse. They wanted to say that a major disaster was averted. No, it was a major disaster.''

Yet the word ``disaster'' also is absent from the marker's 64-word synopsis of the accident that changed the face of nuclear power and made the oafish cartoon character Homer Simpson a parody of nuclear plant operations.

At about 4 a.m. on March 28, 1979, sirens pierced the darkness around Three Mile Island's Unit-2 reactor when a relief valve stuck, releasing radioactive water as steam. Plant operators then mistakenly shut off cooling water for the 150-ton radioactive core, prompting a partial meltdown and the evacuation of about 140,000 people from the Harrisburg area.

Half the core melted and 20 tons of molten material ran to the bottom of the reactor where the remaining water held it in check. The plant spewed radioactive gas into the air for days.

TMI spokesman Ralph DeSantis says there is a very good reason why damage is a better descriptive word than meltdown.

``It's more accurate,'' he said. ``Some of the fuel did melt. But the damage to the reactor wasn't just from melting. Very hot fuel that had not melted shattered like glass when water was reintroduced to the reactor. And other components, like fuel rods, were damaged. It was all inter-mixed.''

Critics say the utility and the state want to avoid the word meltdown because it conjures images of the deadly 1986 explosion at the Soviet Chernobyl plant, at a time when the U.S. nuclear power industry is entering a new era of utility deregulation.

But the war of words means little to people like Debbie Baker, who lived 5-1/2 miles from the plant at the time of the disaster. Her son Bradley, now 19, was born nine months later with Down's syndrome. Her doctor blamed radiation and she became one of only a handful of local residents to reach settlements with Morristown, N.J.-based plant owner GPU Inc. (NYSE:GPU - news)

``What I want, is to know for certain. My doctor may say he firmly believes that radiation was the cause of my son's disability. But I want the 100-percent answer. That's what is frustrating to me,'' she said.

More than 2,000 lawsuits that followed her settlement were dismissed for lack of evidence by a U.S. judge in 1996, after government studies showed no evidence of accident-related health effects, other than mental and emotional stress. The dismissal ruling has been appealed.

Meanwhile, Baker said the debate over the historical marker is only the latest example of how local residents are ignored. The most glaring was in 1985, when the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission allowed GPU to restart the undamaged TMI Unit-1 reactor, even though Dauphin County residents had voted 2-to-1 against the move in a nonbinding referendum.

``People don't have a vote on what goes into their neighborhoods. Democracy really isn't alive here,'' said Harrisburg activist Gene Stilp, whose No Nukes Pennsylvania group will place their own historical marker at Three Mile Island during an anniversary ceremony set for next Sunday.

Their marker blames a ``nuclear meltdown'' in part on ''corporate criminal acts,'' recalling the fact that a GPU subsidiary pleaded guilty and no-contest to criminal charges that Three Mile Island safety records were falsified just before the accident.

Meanwhile, Three Mile Island is expected to make history again this summer. After a $1 billion 14-year cleanup, TMI-2 will never reopen. But TMI-1 will be sold for $100 million to AmerGen Energy Co., a joint venture of PECO Energy Co (NYSE:PE - news) . and British Energy, in the first-ever sale of a nuclear plant.

why bother?

1999-02-25T07:52:00.000-08:00

Getting a life in a locked down land
By Sam Smith

INTRODUCTION

Let's turn off the television, step into the sunlight, and count the bodies.

As we were watching inside, the non-virtual continued at its own pace and on its own path, indifferent to our indifference, unamused by our ironic detachment, unsympathetic to our political impotence, unmoved by our carefully selected apparel, unfrightened by our nihilism, unimpressed by our braggadocio, unaware of our pain. Evolution and entropy remained outside the cocoon of complacent images, refusing to be hurried or delayed, declining to cut to the chase, unwilling to reveal either ending or meaning.

We shade our eyes and scan the decay. We know that this place, this country, this planet, is not the same as the last time we looked. There are more bodies. And fewer other things: choices, unlocked doors, democracy, satisfying jobs, reality, unplanned moments, clean water and a species of frog whose name we forget, community, and the trusting, trustworthy smile of a stranger.

Someone has been careless, cruel, greedy, stupid. But it wasn't us, was it? We were inside, just watching. It all happened without us -- by the hand of forces we can't see, understand, or control. We can always go in again and zap ourselves back to a place where the firestorms and tornadoes and wars are never larger than 27 inches on the diagonal. We can do nothing out here. Why bother?

Why bother? Only to be alive. Only to be real, only to be made not of what we watch and acquire, but of what we think and do. Only, Winston Churchill said, to fight while there is still a small chance so we don't have to fight when there is none. Only to climb the rock face of risk and doubt in order to engage in the most extreme sport of all -- that of being a free and conscious human. Free and conscious even in a society that seems determined to reduce our lives to a barren pair of mandatory functions: compliance and consumption.

What safety we have, the privilege of the cocoon, comes from those who, at much greater danger and with far less chance, climbed that wall, insisted on being human, fought despair, suppressed fear, and denied themselves the illusion of detachment. Some were only a generation or two away and carried our name, some were more distant. Our present safety is built upon their risks, on their integrity, rebellion, and passion, and upon the courage that propelled them.

Part of the reckless hubris of our time is to believe that we have become so clever and complex as to render such qualities superfluous. We are assured that if we are competitive and hip enough, if we just obey the rules of the marketplace, all will be well.

Yet, as Lily Tomlin said, even if you win the rat race, you are still a rat. And there is another irony. The rules of the marketplace recreate by artificial means the brutality, unfairness, and helplessness that humans have sought to escape for most of their evolution. Only during the last one-tenth of one percent of our history have at least some broken away from tyrannies of nature and culture to build societies hospitable to the free individual. No small part of this work has occurred in our own land.

Yet, rather than acting as stewards of this fragile achievement, we have lately become increasingly indifferent toward its lessons and profligate with its rewards. Too many, particularly in places of power, have become the spoiled brats of human progress.

For the rest, there is seldom power commensurate with available conscience or opportunities enough for available will. Worse, in the land of the bottom line, virtue often is not only devalued and fails to be its own reward, it is undermined and becomes an object of ridicule.

To survive in such a time, to retain the will to be human, to build good communities, and to be decent and caring in such places, is extraordinarily difficult. The carelessly powerful are not about to tell us how. We have to help each other.

What follows is my contribution to this common endeavor. It suggests three exercises. The first is to see clearly our present condition and to examine honestly our losses. The second is to pass safely through a maze of faulty promises and failed prophets. And the third is to consider some of the possibilities that remain.

Life is a endless pick-up game between hope and despair, understanding and doubt, crisis and resolution. "Evermore," Emerson said of it, "beauty and disgust, magnificence and rats." Sisyphus nears the mountaintop and the rock rolls down again. We lose courage and suddenly there is a light. What follows reflects this contest in which the grim and the glad are only oscillations and never the end.

For such reasons, I'll speak of possibilities and not of solutions, for it is in the abundance of our choices rather than in the perfection of our path that our future lies. And I'll not dwell on hope and faith because, central as they may be to our lives, far too many politicians, preachers, and publishers have used such words to defer present responsibilities, opportunity, and consciousness. Further, it has been wisely said that hope won't pay the cable bill, and faith is too often just another drug, producing hallucinogenic visions of a flawless future. This is not to reject either, but rather to return them to their rightful role, that of planting seeds of possibility rather than sowing false prospects.

Are these possibilities enough? Well, they have served others in far more dismal times. We have come to expect more -- including the entitlement of certitude. Hence we sometimes approach these concerns much as though we were apostles out on a Saturday shopping for a creed. If this is you, I'm afraid I can't help you. You've come to the wrong door. There's nobody here but another member of the search party. Let's step into the sunlight together and see what we find.

Sam Smith

why does San Diego suck so hard?

1998-09-06T08:21:00.000-07:00

Overdevelopment

Start with corrupt politicians and greedy developers. In virtually no time, you have suburbs that are overbuilt like rabbit warrens and gridlock!!! The politicians get their campaign money, the developers make a SHITLOAD of money, and the people that live here are fucked

Fucked without a kiss, I might add.

Heaven's Gate

What more needs to be said? Only in San Diego would you find something like this, 39 morons gathered in one place.

Mmm. Good pudding.

If A Drop Of Rain Falls Here, Civilization Ends.

Seriously. Traffic comes to a stop if there's so much as a light mist here. People cannot drive in the rain.

This is probably a corollary to people generally being not terrible bright here, too much sunshine and all, rather than a separate fault of San Diego's.

My fellow San Diegans: You CAN drive in the rain if you use both of your brain cells.

Especially all you assholes with Chargers stickers on your vehicles.

KPBS. I don't think we're in Santa Monica anymore, Toto

The local NPR station was wildly enthusiastic about the Alex Spanos football stadium deal. Really pathetic, the last thing I'd have ever expected from an NPR station.

This is what happens since San Diego is far enough away from LA stations to get its information through corporate filters. Owned by interests who want to see the city government prostitute itself to keep a pro football team in this city at any cost.

Please nuke this city immediately before it can spread.

Are They Putting Something In The Water?

Maybe Disney chemicals, make you stupid, make you want to not think.

consume and keep silent.

Border Town With A Tiny Dick

You want corrupt politicians? We have a wide selection of them. And when they're bought, they stay bought.

Corporate Welfare for Alex Spanos

Why would any city agree to a minimum ticket guarantee the way the San Diego City Council did? The Chargers have no motivation to win any games, or draft any good players, or keep a good coach -- between television money and the outrageous deal they got from the city, they don't have to lift a finger to make money, and a lot of it.

San Diego Stupid. We're a lonely old whore down here by the border with no real reason to exist.

Jobs and Traffic

People think "zoo" when they think San Diego. I believe they ought to think "traffic." It's fucking impossible to get from Point A to Point B here, and unfortunately all the affordable homes are at Point A and all the jobs are at Point B.

Are there freeways built where they need to be? Ask any of the thousands of people stuck on the 15 and 805 freeways every morning and every evening. Who planned this mess?

"The job market of Muncie, Indiana, with the traffic of Santa Monica, California"

If you're a real estate developer, remember our government is open to your dollars and your suggestions, in that order.

Red Cars and Nissan Quests

If a red car is a sign of insecurity, then there are a shitload of insecure people in San Diego. You've never seen so many red cars in your entire life. And people drive like wild animals.

I could tell you stories, but unless you were there to see it yourself, there's no way you'd ever believe any of them.

San Diego is too far from civilization, and it shows. Things are deteriorating here. The UN should send a mission to make sure cannibalism doesn't break out here. This is a backwards frontier outpost.

more Clinton deaths

1998-09-06T08:18:00.000-07:00

Obit: Caity Mahoney http://www.washblade.com/meta/obit/archives/970718_1.htm

D.C. Police Delayed Seizing Possible Starbucks Evidence http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/daily/dec/06/police.htm

***************************************************************

What about Mary Mahoney White House Intern MURDERED 7/97

Mahoney was also Alexis Herman's aide, who is under fire for fraud and abuse.

An attractive 25 year old woman, Mary was a former White House Intern for Bill Clinton working as the Assistant Manager at a Starbuck's Coffee shop in Georgetown. In the pre-trial publicity surrounding Paula Jones lawsuit, and mere days after Newsweek's Mike Isikoff had dropped hints that a "former White House staffer" was about to go public with her story of sexual harassement at 1600 Pennsylvania, gunmen entered the Starbuck's while the crew was cleaning up after closing. Mary's two associates were taken to a room and shot. Mary herself had five bullets in her. No money was taken. As of this writing, Mike Isikoff's "former White House staffer" has never appeared.

DC TOP STORY 7/7/97 The three employees found shot to death at a Georgetown Starbucks have been identified. A co-worker found the bodies of 18-year-old Aaron Goodrich, 24-year-old Mary Mahoney, and 25-year-old Emory Evans locked in the Northwest store, Monday morning. Police say the victims died from repeated gunshot wounds-- apparently inflicted the night before. However, the bodies were not discovered at the shop-- located in the 1800 block of Wisconsin Avenue-- until early dawn, Monday. Authorities say the woman who opened the Starbucks immediately ran across Wisconsin Avenue and flagged down a Metro bus, screaming, "They've been shot. They've been shot." Investigators closed Wisconsin Avenue for several hours-- halting District commuters at the height of the morning rush hour. The road was reopened shortly before noon. Oddly, no money was missing from the store, and police have not announced any motive or suspect in the case. Stay tuned to NEWSCHANNEL 8's Washington Report at 6pm for more details as they become available.

Obit: Caity Mahoney http://www.washblade.com/meta/obit/archives/970718_1.htm

D.C. Police Delayed Seizing Possible Starbucks Evidence http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/digest/daily/dec/06/police.htm

* Caity Mahoney Mary Caitrin "Caity" Mahoney, 24, a founder of the Baltimore Lesbian Avengers, died Sunday, July 6, 1997, at the Starbucks coffee shop on 1810 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, in Georgetown.

Mahoney, who was the night manager at Starbucks, and two other Starbucks employees died of gunshot wounds sometime after the shop closed at 8 p.m., according to D.C. police detective Tony Patterson. Patterson said police still have no suspect in the case. The bodies of Mahoney and her co-workers were discovered early Monday morning, July 7, by an employee who was to open the store.

Mahoney was one of a core group of six women who founded the Baltimore Lesbian Avengers, a political activist group, in February 1995, according to her best friend, Mary Hall of Baltimore, Md.

"She was very passionate about everything she did, and she did everything the best she could," Hall said.

The Lesbian Avengers have a tradition of eating fire as a stunt at their actions. Hall said that once the Avengers were having a picnic at the house where she lived with Mahoney when they decided to do fire-eating for fun. Hall said Mahoney wanted to impress her girlfriend.

"She decided to show off and do two torches at once and she ended up burning her lips," Hall said.

"But she was a Leo," Hall said. "She was in her element when she ate fire."

Mahoney's activism spanned many arenas, including founding a women's issues discussion group at Towson State University in 1993; sitting as a board member of the 31st Street Bookstore in Baltimore, a Lesbian/feminist cooperative; and working on Bill Clinton's presidential campaign as well as interning for the Clinton White House when he was newly elected.

In 1994, Mahoney and others raised more than $1,000 for Baltimore's Pride festival while participating in a musical spoof of The Sound of Music known as The Camp of Music. In the musical, Mahoney played Gretel -- the youngest of the "VonCamp" children.

"Her passion was contagious, she was just amazing," Hall said.

Mahoney was born July 22, 1972, in Baltimore. From the sixth grade on, she attended the McDonogh School near Pikesville, Md., where she graduated in 1991. She did a year of studies at Ithaca College in New York state, a semester at Fordham University in New York City, and then two years at Towson State University in Maryland, where she received a bachelor's degree in women's studies in the spring of 1995.

While studying at Towson, Mahoney worked as a shift supervisor at Cafe Diana, a Baltimore Lesbian/feminist coffee house from September 1993 to June 1995. During the summer of 1995, she worked as a cook at the City Cafe, a Gay-owned coffee house in Baltimore.

In September 1995, Mahoney moved to Washington, D.C., and took a job with Starbucks.

Mahoney's hobbies and interests included her cat, Marlu; Lesbian and women's rights; politics; and jogging.

"She was a wonderful person and lots of people miss her," Hall said. "She was such a sweet, kind, and generous person."

In addition to Hall, Mahoney is survived by her mother and stepfather, Mary Belle Annenberg and Barnet Annenberg, both of Baltimore; father and stepmother, Patrick Mahoney Sr. and Ginny Mahoney, both of Towson; sister, Molly Mahoney of Baltimore; brother and sister-in-law, Patrick and Lelah Mahoney of Baltimore; three stepsisters, Stacy Wenzl, Missy Gray, and Toni Hamilton, all of Baltimore; grandmother, Elizabeth H. Mahoney of Annapolis, Md.; and grandmother, Maria W. Simms of Ardmore, Pa.

She is also survived by several friends, including Beth Kuhns, Sally Franklin, Amanda Joyce, and Dawn Heddrick, all of Baltimore; as well as a number of friends she worked with at Starbucks.

Her remains were cremated. Memorial services were at the McDonogh School on July 18 and at Georgetown University on July 15.

"A Celebration of Caity's Life" will be Saturday, July 19, at 1 p.m. at the Metropolitan Community Church of Baltimore, 3401 Old York Rd., Baltimore, Md.

The Baltimore Lesbian Avengers will hold a Caity Mahoney Memorial/Anti-Violence Vigil in front of the Starbucks coffee shop Tuesday, July 22 -- Mahoney's 25th birthday -- at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Memorial contributions may be sent to the Caity Mahoney Memorial Fund at the McDonogh School, Box 380, 8600 McDonogh Rd., Owings Mills, MD 21117.

This article appeared in the issue of: July 18, 1997

Copyright 1997 The Washington Blade Inc. A member of the gay.net community.

***********************************************************

Clinton-related Deaths/Injuries

A large number of people have died in operations or investigations closely linked with Bill Clinton. The term "Arkanacide" has even been coined to define a murder which has been, disguised as a suicide. Arkansas is one of the only states in the Union in which no autopsy is required in a death which has been ruled a suicide, even if foul play is suspected. This law was one of the last enacted by Governor Clinton before coming to

Washington.

Who are the people who have died under suspicious circumstances who were close to Bill Clinton?

[It is important to note in the following list, that many of the dead had direct connections to Bill Clinton. Others were tied to Clinton via the Mena drug-running operation, which has been rather conclusively linked to the Clinton administration. There is no suggestion that all of these people were killed with direct "orders" from Bill Clinton, although, in

some cases, this is not ruled out, either. As the sheer number of dead rises, one should ask himself/herself, "How many people do I know, or am I connected with who have been brutally murdered, died in an airplane crash, or have committed suicide?" Either friends of Bill Clinton are incredibly unlucky, they are horrible pilots, or something more sinister is at work.]

1. James Bunch-

????? - Suicide similar to Vince Foster. Texan w/"black book" of influential Texans & Arkansans who visited prostitutes.

2. Stanley Huggins-

????? - Murdered -Partner in Memphis law firm - investigating Madison Guarantee. His 300 page report has never been released.

3. Florence Martin-

????? - Murdered - Accountant who subcontracted to the CIA in the Barry Seal case. Dead of three gunshot wounds to the head.

4. Susan Coleman-

????? - Suicide? - Had affair with Clinton while he was Arkansas Attorney General. Gunshot wound to the back of her head. Was 7 1/2 months pregnant. Death was ruled an apparent suicide.

5. Calvin Walraven-

????? - 24 year old Walraven was a key witness against Jocelyn Elder's son's drug case. Walraven was found dead in his apartment with a gunshot wound to the head. Tim Hover, a Little Rock police spokesman says no foul play is suspected.

6. Barry Seal-

2/19/86 - Mr. Adler "Barry" Seal was a flamboyant CIA contractor who ran the gun/drug- running operation between Mena and Nicaragua. His legend was so famous, it was made into an HBO movie, "Double-Crossed." Mr. Seal was eventually arrested by the DEA, and he set up a sting operation for the CIA to finger some Medellin Drug Cartel operatives. He received a light sentence to a halfway house in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where he was gunned down a few days later. According to Terry Reed, another CIA employee, Clinton told him, "Seal just got too big for his britches and the scum basically deserved to die, in my opinion..."

7. Larry Guerrin-

2/87 - Was killed while investigating the INSLAW case.

8 & 9. Kevin Ives & Don Henry-

8/23/87 - Kevin Ives & Don Henry were two teenagers who lived near Mena. On 8/22/87, it is believed that they witnessed part of the drug operations at or near the Mena airport. That night they had gone, flashlight hunting for deer. Their bodies were discovered the next morning laid out across a train- track nearby, run over by a train. The state coroner, a FOB, declared their deaths accidental, and that the boys had been smoking marijuana and "fell asleep on the tracks".

The boys' parents' refused to believe the verdict and pressed for months for an independent autopsy, which was eventually performed. The independent autopsy revealed that Henry had been stabbed in the back repeatedly, and that Ives' skull was crushed. Both boys were dead BEFORE the train ran over their bodies.

10. Kevin Coney -

07/88 - Died in a motorcycle accident with unconfirmed reports of a high speed car chase. - Came forward with info about the "Kevin Ives and Don Henry" Murders. Died before testifying.

11. Kieth McKaskle-

11/88 - Had information on the Ives/Henry deaths.He was stabbed to death.

12. Gregory Collins-

1/89 - Had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. He died from a gunshot wound to the face.

12. Jeff Rhodes-

04/89 - He had information on the deaths of Ives, Henry & McKaskle. His burned body was found in a trash dump in April 1989. He died of a gunshot wound to the head and there was some body mutilation, leading to the probable speculation that he was tortured prior to being killed.

13. Jordan Ketelson-

6/90 - had information on the Ives & Henry deaths.

He was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup.

14. James Milam-

7/90 - James Milam claimed to have knowledge about the deaths of Kevin Henry and Don Ives. He was decapitated, and the State Coroner (the same one as in the Ives and Henry murders) initially ruled his death a suicide.

(NOTE)-

Six Arkansas people came forward with info about the death of Kevin Ives and Don Henry near the Mena airport operations. All were killed before testifying. John Brown, reportedly solved the Richard Winters case and gave findings to the FBI which sat on them. According to Brown, "We know who killed these kids. The reason this case has been stopped ... is because it tracks to Bill Clinton being involved in the cover-up".

Alan Standorf-

15. 1/31/91 - An employee of the National Security Agency in electronic intelligence. Standorf was a source of information for Danny Casalaro who was investigating INSLAW, BCCI, etc. Standorf's body was found in the backseat of a car at the Washington National Airport.

16. Dennis Eisman-

4/5/91 - Eisman was a Washington D.C. lawyer with information on the INSLAW scandal. He was found shot to death.

17. Danny Casolaro-

8/10/91 - Danny Casolaro was an investigator who was writing a story connecting Mena, BCCI, the ADFA, Park-O-Meter, Inslaw, and the 1980 "October Surprise." After working on the story for awhile, he told a family member that if he was ever found dead, that he would never commit suicide.

On his date of death, he was in West Virginia to receive some key

information for his story. His body was found with his wrists slit in the bathtub of his hotel room. His death was ruled a suicide. (His wrists were slit up to 10 times each!) His research materials were never recovered.

18. Victor Raisner III-

7/30/92 - Victor Raisner was killed in an odd plane crash near Anchorage, Alaska in good weather. Mr. Raisner was the finance co-chairman of Clinton's presidential campaign and had access to potentially damaging information on the Clintons.

19. Montgomery Raisner-

07/30/92 - Victor Raiser's son, killed in the above same plane crash.

20. Paul Tully-

9/24/92 - Murdered? - Democratic Nat'l Committee Dir. found dead of unknown causes in his hotel room . "Dear Friend" of Clinton and a trusted advisor. Authored key strategies for Clinton and the Democratic party. - No autopsy performed.

21-24. Ian Spiro-

11/01/92 - Spiro had supporting documentation for grand jury proceedings on the INSLAW case. His wife and 3 children were found murdered on in their home. They all died of gunshot wounds to the head. Ian's body was found several days later in a parked car in the Borego Desert.

Cause of death? The ingestion of cyanide. FBI report indicated that Ian had murdered his family and then committed suicide.

25. Paul Grober-

12/09/92 - Car Accident - no witnesses - he was a speech interpreter for deaf for Bill Clinton. Traveled extensively with Clinton from 1978 `til death.

26. Jim Wilhite-

12/21/92 - Skiing Accident -Vice Chair. of Arkla, Inc. with ties to Clinton & Mack Mclarty, whom he called just hours before his death.

27. Steve Willis-

02/93 - Waco Assault Killed in assault on Davidian compound. - Accidental Shooting? Gunshot to left temple.

28. Robert William-

02/93 - Waco Assault Killed in assault on Davidian compound. Accidental Shooting? Gunshot to left temple.

29. Conway LeBleu-

02/93 - Waco Assault Killed in assault on Davidian compound. Accidental Shooting? Gunshot to Left Temple.

30. Todd McKeehan-

02/93 - Waco Assault Killed in assault on Davidian compound. Accidental Shooting? Gunshot to Left Temple

***

Steve Willis, Robert William, Conway LeBleu, and Tod McKeehan were (see above)

transferred from the Secret Service, where they were Clinton guards - to BATF prior to

the assault - Killed by friendly fire. All died with gunshot wounds to the left temple.

***

31. Gen. Robertson-

02/93 - Helicopter Crash former escort to Clinton.

32. Col.W Densberger-

02/93 - Helicopter Crash former escort to Clinton.

33. Col. R. Kelly-

02/93 - Helicopter Crash former escort to Clinton.

34. Spec. G. Rhodes-

02/93 - Helicopter Crash former escort to Clinton.

35. John Crawford-

04/93 - An attorney with information on INSLAW. He died from a

heart attack in Tacoma.

36. Sgt. B. Haney-

05/93 Helicopter Crash - escort to Clinton on flight to aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt.

37. Sgt. Tim Sabel

05/93 Helicopter Crash - escort to Clinton on flight to aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt.

38. Maj. William Barkley-

5/93 Helicopter Crash - escort to Clinton on flight to aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt.

39. Capt. Scott Reynolds-

5/93 Helicopter Crash - escort to Clinton on flight to aircraft carrier USS Roosevelt.

40. John A. Wilson-

5/19/93 - Mr. Wilson , a D.C. councilman known for his honesty, allegedly knew of some dirt which would embarrass Mr. Clinton. He was supposedly preparing to come forward to talk about the "dirt," but suddenly decided he wanted to hang himself. ( It is interesting to note that the Travel Gate firings occurred the next day.

41. Paul Wilcher-

6/22/93 - A lawyer who was investigating drug running out of Mena, Arkansas and who also sought to expose the "October Surprise", BCCI and INSLAW. Found dead on the toilet of unknown causes, in his Washington DC apartment, before meeting with Danny Casolaro's attorney.

42. Vincent Foster-

7/20/93 - A Whitehouse deputy counsel and long-time personal friend of Bill and Hillary's. Alleged possible affair with Hillary, tracked Clinton finances. Found dead of a gunshot wound to the mouth -- a death ruled suicide. Many different theories on this case!

43. Jonathon Parnell Walker-

8/15/93 - Walker was an investigator for the Resolution Trust Corporation who was frustrated with the investigation of Madison Guarantee Savings & Loan based in Kansas City, where he felt that Clinton appointees were interfering with the investigation. He was pushing for the case to be moved to Washington D.C. While he was apartment hunting at Lincoln Towers in Arlington, Virginia, he suddenly decided to throw himself off of the roof. His death was ruled a suicide.

44. Stanley Heard -

9/10/93 - Plane Crash Chair of Chiropatric Health Care Advisory Comm. for Clinton who had treated Clinton's mother, stepfather & brother. Killed when airplane crashed after reporting fire on board.

45. Steve Dickson -

9/10/93 - Plane Crash - Counsel to Mr. Heard, killed in same crash. (see above)

46. Luther Jerry Parks -

10/26/93 - Murdered - Head of Clinton's security team in Little Rock, machine gunned down in his car outside of Little Rock. Luther "Jerry" Parks ran American Contract Services, the business which supplied bodyguards for Clinton during his presidential campaign and the

following transition. Bill Clinton still owed him $81,000. Parks had collected detailed data on Clinton's sexual escapades, including pictures and dates. Parks was gunned down in a mafia-style hit just outside of an upscale Little Rock neighborhood. A week before his death, Jerry Parks' alarm system was disabled and the files were stolen from his home. Witnesses reported that a state trooper who was an ex-bodyguard of Clinton's was the shooter.

47. Ed Wiley -

11/30/93 - Suicide - Alledgedly shot himself in head in Virginia. Attorney and manager of Clinton presidential campaign finance committee.

48. Hershel Friday-

3/01/94 - A "top-notch pilot," Mr. Friday died in the crash of his small airplane during a light drizzle at his private airstrip in Arkansas. He was a member of Clinton's presidential campaign finance committee, and was a close associate of C. Victor Raiser, who died in the crash of another private aircraft. Supposedly, his fuel gauge had been rigged to read

"empty" when the plane pitched forward to land, and cut off the gas supply. This method was allegedly used on the plane of Dr. Ronald Rogers, who died two days later in a plane accident.

49. Dr. Ronald Rogers-

3/3/94 - Dr. Rodgers had been the Clinton's dentist at one time, and was an Arkansas native. His private airplane crashed on March 3, 1994 in clear weather with a full tank of gas, right after his pilot called into the Lawton, Oklahoma airport saying that he needed to refuel.

Dr. Rodgers was on his way to an interview with a reporter from the London Sunday Telegraph, where he was going to reveal evidence of Clinton's alleged cocaine use.

Supposedly, his fuel gauge had been rigged to read "empty" when the plane pitched forward to land, and cut off the gas supply. This method was allegedly used on the plane of Hershel Friday, who died two days earlier in a similar plane accident.

50. Gandy Baugh-

03/08/94 - Attorney for Dan Lasater- Suicide? Alledgedly jumped out of a building to kill himself. He represented Dan Lassiter, (a close friend of Bill Clinton), who was indicted on drug charges and sent to prison. - Baugh's partner committed suicide exactly one month later on February 8, 1994.

51. Kathy Ferguson-

05/11/94 - A 38 year old hospital worker whose ex-husband Danny Ferguson, is a co- defendant in the Paula Jones sexual harassment law suit, engaged to trooper, Bill Shelton, who assisted Bill Clinton. She had information supporting Paula Jone's allegations. She died of an apparent suicide from a gunshot wound to the head. Alledgedly shot herself behind left ear.

52. Bill Shelton-

06/12/94 - Shelton was an Arkansas police officer and was found dead as an

apparent suicide on Kathy Ferguson's grave (Kathy was his girl friend.)

Allegedly shot himself behind the left ear.

53. Stanley Huggins-

07/94 - Huggins, 46, was a principal in a Memphis law firm which headed a 1987 investigation into the loan practices of Madison Guaranty S&L.

Stanley died in Delaware -- reported cause of death was viral pneumonia.

54. Calvin Walraven-

7/28/94 - Walraven, 24, was a police informant who was the key witness in the conviction and sentencing of Kevin Elders, the son of Surgeon General Jocelyn Elders, on drug charges. Right after the trial was over, Walraven's body was found dead of a gunshot to the head. His death was ruled a suicide.

55. Ron Brown-

04/96 Plane Crash.

56. Ron Brown's Lawyer-

04/96 - Murdered - Drive by shooting, the day after Ron Brown's plane crashed.

(Re: this report: This is a rumor pertaining to lobbyist Tommy Boggs, brother of Cokie

Boggs Roberts and law partner of Brown's in the D.C. firm, Patton, Boggs and Blow.

Boggs was allegedly on a trip to South Africa at the time of Brown's crash, was in a car accident, and suffered no known injury.)

57. Charles Meissner-

????? Assistant Secretary of Commerce for

International Economic Policy. "died: UNK - Following Ron Brown's death, John Huang was placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his security clearence by Charles Meissner. Shortly thereafter, Charles Meissner died in the crash of a small plane. "

(Mike Rivero's site) http://www.accessone.com/~rivero/

58. Adm. Borda-

1996 Chief of Naval Operations - Suicide?

59. Barbera Alice Wise-

11/29/96 - Commerce Department Staffer. Found dead in her locked office at the Department of Commerce, partially nude and covered with bruises. No cause of death has ever been announced.

60-62. Mary Mahoney-and two others

7/08/97 - Former White House Intern for Bill Clinton. Shot to death with two others in a Washington, D.C. Starbucks coffee shop - in an alledged robbery attempt - but no money was taken.

The Injured/Threatened

1. Gary Johnson

Gary Johnson, the lawyer for Larry Nichols, happened to live across the hall from

Gennifer Flowers in Little Rock's Quapaw towers. He saw Bill and Hillary's famous "60

Minutes" interview, in which Bill claimed he had NEVER been to Flowers' apartment and that he was not sexually involved with her. The only problem with this was that Johnson had installed a security camera which included a view of Flowers' door. He had a tape of Clinton entering and exiting Flowers' apartment with his own key on several occasions.

After he told friends about the tape, some large men showed up a Johnson's door, insisting that he give them the tape. He gave it to them, and they proceeded to break both of his elbows, rupture his bladder and his spleen, and then left him for dead.

2. L. J. Davis

Davis, a reporter for "The New Republic," was researching an article on the Rose Law Firm in February, 1994. On the 14th, he was knocked unconscious as he entered his hotel room in Little Rock, Arkansas. When he regained consciousness, he had a huge lump on his head and some pages from his notebook were missing.

3. Bill Duncan

Bill Duncan was a federal agent in charge of the IRS investigation of Mena.

While in Washington, D.C., where he held a permit to carry a gun, he was arrested for weapons possession (his service revolver) and was handcuffed to a pipe in the basement of the D.C. police station. After this incident, he was taken off of the Mena investigation.

Later, when he was asked to falsify testimony for a Federal Grand Jury, he refused and was fired on the spot.

4. Russel Welch

Russel Welch is a former investigator for the Arkansas State Police who was the head of one of the first Mena investigations. He compiled large volumes of evidence of the Mena operations (at a time before Iran-Contra became public), and was thwarted when he tried to continued to pursue the investigation. He was poisoned with military-grade Anthrax (a substance only available to military sources) and nearly died.

further stadium corruption

1998-07-24T07:56:00.000-07:00

SAN DIEGO — Local officials are letting friends and family use a luxury stadium box, when they really should use it for guests who will promote city and county interests, according to a grand jury report.

In a report scheduled to be released tomorrow, the grand jury claims that officeholders who get two free tickets for all stadium events use the "city box" for family, friends and employees.

The panel reviewed randomly selected sign-in sheets for 21 Padres games, four Chargers games and a U2 concert.

The policy establishing guidelines for the box states: "The Director's Area was developed for use by the San Diego City Council, San Diego County Supervisors and the San Diego Stadium Authority and their guests, to provide access to the Stadium for persons who can aid the growth and promotion of the City and County of San Diego."

The grand jury found, however, that those guidelines are largely ignored because the city is not getting any promotional value from the box.

The report, called "Take Us Out to the Ballgame,"does not allege laws have been broken. But it does recommend that the policy either be observed or rewritten. It also recommends that, in the future, elected officials reimburse the city for tickets used by friends and family.

The unusual grand jury topic is appropriate to the panel's mission of "serving as a watchdog and uncovering waste and inefficiency in government," said Scott Barnett, executive director of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association.

Many of the politicians indirectly criticized in the report reportedly objected to its characterizations.

The policy is "very general," according to Councilman Byron Wear, who said his guests have included constituents involved in youth programs and community groups. His most frequent guest, however, reportedly appeared to be his brother, a city fire captain.

Wear countered that the stadium is a "city asset" and it's one of the opportunities that councilmembers have "to share with other people," Wear said.

Councilwoman Barbara Warden was one of several politicians who refused to give the grand jury any information about guests whose names appeared on sign-in logs. Her guests reportedly included a daughter-in-law and a niece.

The five county supervisors were not forthcoming either. The report cited that on four different occasions, for example, Supervisor Bill Horn's tickets were used by his children and by Fallbrook constituents on others. In each case, he identified them as "guests of Supervisor Horn, pursuant to council policy."

It would be difficult to calculate the value of the 52-seat city box and its 26 free parking spaces and catered food and drinks, said assistant stadium manager Steve Shushan.

However, the box could reportedly generate about $400,000 a year.

For comparison, an eight-seat box costs $50,000 a year while the cost for a 20-seat box runs from $80,000 to $90,000.

Salvador guardsman freed in murdered nuns case

1998-07-22T08:53:00.000-07:00

By Alberto Barrera

SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (Reuters) - A former El Salvador guard condemned for the rape and murder of three U.S. nuns has been freed after 17 years in jail, court officials said.

Two other guards convicted in the same case should be released in the next two days, they added.

They were convicted of abducting, raping and murdering American nuns Maura Clarke, Ita Ford and Dorothy Kazel, who were killed along with lay worker Jean Donovan on Dec. 2, 1980. The nuns belonged to the Maryknoll order.

Judge Gloria Platero ordered the men freed on parole after a group of U.S. lawyers said they acted on orders from above in the crime which occurred near the start of El Salvador's brutal civil war. Two other men were also convicted in the case but were not granted parole.

Former agent Daniel Canales was the first of the men granted liberty. He left Quezaltepeque prison some 12 miles north of San Salvador on Tuesday evening after a court official delivered the release order.

He said only that he was "satisfied" at regaining his liberty.

Former agent Jose Roberto Moreno, behind bars in the town of La Esperanza about four miles further north, will have to wait until later Wednesday morning for his release, prison officials said.

Former deputy sergeant Luis Antonio Colindres was expected to be freed early Wednesday from jail in San Vicente, 38 miles east of San Salvador.

Two other former national guards, Carlos Joaquin Contreras Palacios and Francisco Orlando Contreras, will remain in jail despite appeals by their lawyers, which were overturned.

They were ordered to serve full sentences after being convicted of subsequent crimes while in custody.

The rejection of their appeal cleared the way for Platero to issue the release orders on Tuesday. All five men had to stay behind bars until judges ruled on the appeal.

The case received international attention in April when four of the five former guards told a group of New York lawyers they were following orders in committing the crimes.

Relatives of the victims, members of the Catholic church and other humanitarian organizations have appealed for the case to be reopened in order to find and punish the crime's intellectual authors.

But El Salvador authorities have rejected the request, saying that reopening the case was not possible under national law since the events occurred more than 10 years ago.

The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794

1998-07-16T08:44:00.000-07:00

- by Elmer E. Specht (SPECHTELME@aol.com)

Be sure to celebrate, and encourage others to do so, the upcoming anniversary of Whiskey Rebellion Day --- July 16th. Back when we knew how to run a country, the farmers of western Pennsylvania (and others in Carlisle, PA, Hagerstown, MD, and various parts of Virginia later joined the fray) rose up at the imposition of a tax on spiritus frumenti, of which it is duly recorded they produced and consumed prodigious amounts. It seems moonshining was the only way they could get their produce to market in the east, notably Philadelphia, without undesirable spoilage. But Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of the Treasury, in his wisdom, imposed an ad valorem tax amounting to twenty-five percent of the value of the spirits.

Thus ired, the western Pennsylvania rustics, restless since June, surrounded the home of the local tax man, one John Neville of Bower Hill, near Pittsburgh, and invited him to depart the county. He thought to demur, having some militiamen with him, and succeeded in killing one Oliver Miller in what was the opening shot in the rebellion. The "rebels" then fired back, Neville signaled his slaves to fire from the rear, and more blood flowed. Thus it was a scant 24 years between the time the "lobsterbacks" of King George fired on the colonists in Boston (in 1770), killing five, and the time the federal government took to killing its own citizens. The next day, July 17, 1794, James McFarlane, a Revolutionary War veteran, and popular commander of the local militia, was shot dead in what may have been a ruse to lure him into the open, thinking the soldiers defending Neville wished to parley. That ended any hope of peaceful resolution, and the locals proceeded to burn Neville's buildings to the ground as he was spirited away by the federal troops.

The federal government responded as one might anticipate, by relying on yet more force. President Washington recruited a militia from the surrounding states (to their everlasting shame) --- which was dubbed, derisively, the "watermelon army." After a few more months, during which time some of Neville's sycophants were tarred and feathered just prior to their hasty and unscheduled departures for the east, the rebels, realizing they could not withstand the onslaught of the government, disappeared into the countryside. Two of these stalwarts were tried for treason, convicted, and pardoned by Washington. Thomas Jefferson condemned the use of military force and Hamilton's arrogation of power by the feds. It was, along with some other intraparty miscues, the (ignominious) end of the Federalist Party. Jefferson was elected as a Republican-Democrat in 1800, defeating John Adams in his bid for a second term.

You will not read much, if any, of this in your local newspaper, but I am committed to bringing back the memory of this mirific and glorious event in the history of our great country, so mark your calendars for July 16th accordingly, and drink a toast to those who knew how to deal with corruption and greed in high places, and share a moment of silence for Oliver Miller and James McFarlane, the first two American patriots killed by their own government.

Credit where credit is due department: read Thomas P. Slaughter's The Whiskey Rebellion (Oxford University Press) for the whole unvarnished story.

1998-05-05T08:47:00.000-07:00

Copyright © 1998 Nando.net Copyright © 1998 Reuters News Service BOGOTA (May 5, 1998 1:32 p.m. EDT http://www.nando.net) - A right-wing death squad massacred at least 17 people and "disappeared" eight others in a remote village in eastern Colombia, local officials said on Tuesday.

The attack, by about 200 paramilitary gunmen, took place in the village of Puerto Alvira in Meta province Monday afternoon, Narciso Matus, the provincial government secretary, told reporters.

"We have confirmed that there are 17 dead, eight disappeared and six people who were seriously injured," Matus told Radionet news radio.

The radio quoted local residents as saying the death toll could easily climb to at least 25, however, since the bodies of at least eight villagers who were dragged off by the gunmen had been discovered on the outskirts of the village.

Why are governments so eager to kill their own?

the Clinton body count

1998-02-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

The following is a partial list of people with connections to the Clintons who have died under suspicious circumstances.

THE MOST RECENT

James McDougal
Banker
Died March 8, 1998

Jim McDougal was serving his three-year sentence for bank fraud at the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center in Texas, a facility operated by the federal Bureau of Prisons for inmates who need medical attention.

Just prior to another round of testimony before Kenneth Starr's grand jury, McDougal, while in solitary confinement, suffered a heart attack that may have been brought on by diuretics forced on him. When Jim McDougal was finally taken out of solitary, instead of attempting to defibrillate his heart with equipment on hand at the facility, he was driven over to John Peter Smith Hospital. Not the closest hospital to the Fort Worth Federal Medical Center, John Peter Smith hospital is a public hospital, where (in the words of one local) ,"They let interns practice on deadbeats."

The single most damning fact to come out of the McDougal death was his injection with Lasix, a diuretic, to force his giving of a urine sample for drug testing, even though McDougal was not a known drug user. Lasix is contra-indicated in cases of heart disease and can cause excessive diuresis, blood volume reduction, circulatory collapse and vascular thrombosis or blood clots. If a matching potassium supplement is not administered at the same time, Lasix can kill.

McDougal may have been taking the heart medication Digitalin, which cannot be combined with Lasix.

Several inmates had gone public with the claim that McDougal was given a heavy injection of Lasix right after he ate lunch, but the prison system has refused to allow those prisoners to be interviewed or to release McDougal's medical records.

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently acquired the official report of the McDougal death via a Freedom Of Information Act request, and found that doctors ignored McDougal's signs of imminent death.

Ron Miller
Witness
Died Oct. 12, 1997

Ron Miller, investigated by authorities over the sale of his company, Gage Corp. to Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc. was the man who tape-recorded Gene and Nora Lum and turned those tapes (and other records) over to congressional oversight investigators. The Lums were sentenced to prison for campaign finance violations, using "straw donors" to conceal the size of their contributions to various candidates. Indeed, Dynamic Energy Resources, Inc. had hired Ron Brown's son Michael solely for the purpose of funneling $60,000 through him to the Commerce secretary, according to Nolanda Hill's testimony.

Reportedly a healthy man, Miller suddenly took ill on Oct. 3, and steadily worsened until his death nine days later. (This pattern fits Ricin poisoning.) Owing to the strangeness of the illness, doctors at the Integris Baptist Medical Center referred the matter to the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office.

The Oklahoma State Medical Examiner's Office promptly ran tests on samples of Ron Miller's blood, but has refused to release the results or even to confirm that the tests were ever completed.

Mary Mahoney
White House intern
Died July 1997

An attractive 25-year-old woman, Mahoney was a former White House intern for Bill Clinton working as the assistant manager at a Starbuck's Coffee shop in Georgetown.

Gunmen entered the Starbuck's while the crew was cleaning up after closing. Mahoney's two associates, Aaron Goodrich, 18 and Emory Evans, 25, were taken to a room and shot. Mary herself had five bullets in her, from at least two different guns, most likely with silencers. A total of 10 shots were fired; none of them heard by neighbors in the densely populated Georgetown section. Mahoney was shot in the chest, her face, and in the back of the head. Even though more than $4,000 remained in the store, the police have categorized the triple murder as a robbery, even as they acknowledge the "execution style" killings.

There was no sign of forced entry. One report said the cafe was still locked when the bodies were found the next morning.

George Stephanopoulos, Monica Lewinsky and Chelsea Clinton were all regulars at the Starbuck's.

THE MOST FAMOUS

Vincent Foster
White House Counsel
Died July 21, 1993

Found dead in Fort Marcy Park in Virginia of a supposed suicide by gunshot. A suicide note was supposedly found a few days later, torn into 28 pieces, in his briefcase, after his office had been entered by White House staff and materials removed.

The gun which he supposedly used to kill himself was reported to be still in his hand, but the person who first found the body reports that there was no gun at that time. Many irregularities surround the death and the investigation of it.

Like Clinton, Foster was from Hope, Ark. He worked for the Rose Law firm with Hillary Clinton. London Telegraph reporter Ambrose Evans-Pritchard reports a member of the Foster family has confirmed to him that Foster and Mrs. Clinton were lovers. Foster had intimate knowledge of the Clintons' personal finances. Foster was involved in an investigation of their finances, and reportedly made a phone call to Hillary Clinton, in Los Angeles, just hours before his death.

Recently, the signed report of medical examiner Dr. Donald Haut was uncovered at the National Archives. It stated that Foster had a previously unreported gunshot wound to his neck.

Finally, an FBI memo has surfaced dated the day after the date of the official autopsy, in which the autopsist informs the FBI that there was no exit wound.

William Colby
Director of Central Intelligence (ret)
Died April 27, 1996

William Colby had been the DCI from 1973 to 1976 under Nixon and Ford.

At age 76, Colby had found a new career and had just started writing for Strategic Investment at the time of his death. This had worried many insiders in the intelligence community who felt that Colby had already divulged too many of the CIA's secrets in the preceding years. Indeed, his dismissal by Ford because of his over-cooperation with congressional investigations into CIA wrongdoing. It was Colby who had revealed to Congress the plans to kill Fidel Castro, the spying on American citizens (in direct violation of the CIA charter) and the conducting of biological tests by the CIA on unsuspecting citizens. He was replaced by George Bush.

According to the original CNN report, Colby was reported missing by neighbors who "recovered" his canoe, by one story from under the dock at Colby's house, by another report, a quarter mile downstream.

Colby was, by all reports, a methodical, tidy man, yet police found his home unlocked, his computer on, and a partly eaten dinner on the table. The official story is that Colby just put down his fork and decided to drop everything and go canoeing.

Colby at 76 was still a world-traveler and consultant to many corporations. He recently became an editor of an important financial newsletter, "Strategic Investment," which covered the Vince Foster "suicide" in detail. Its editors hired three renowned handwriting experts to investigate Foster's suicide note, which hadn't been found when his briefcase was first searched, but later materialized, torn into pieces, with no fingerprints on any of the pieces. Upon comparing this document with others of Foster's writings, these experts declared it was a forgery, and a not very good one at that.

Colby had old enemies as well as new, with plenty of motives for his extermination. He was in charge of the infamous Operation Phoenix during the Vietnam War, in which more than 20,000 South Vietnamese citizens -- supposedly Viet Cong sympathizers -- were rounded up, tortured and executed. In the 1970s he opened some of the secrets of the CIA to Congress: "Colby insisted on going public about the agency's role in tapping the telephones and opening the mail of Americans; plotting the assassination of Fidel Castro, and using human guinea pigs for mind-control experiments involving LSD," the Times reports.

On Monday, May 6, Colby's body was found just 20 yards from where his canoe had been recovered, in an area that had been thoroughly searched several times by helicopters and search teams.

Most notable about the body was the absence of a life jacket, which according to his wife, Colby always wore on the water.

DEAD BODYGUARDS

Maj. Gen. William Robertson
Deputy Commanding General, V Corps, Europe
Died Feb. 23, 1993

Col William Densberger
V Corps Chief of Operations and Plans
Died Feb. 23, 1993

Col. Robert Kelly
V Corps Chief of Intelligence
Died Feb. 23, 1993

Spec. Gary Rhodes
Crew Chief
Died Feb. 23, 1993

All were killed when their Army UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter crashed in Weisbaden, Germany. No cause was ever determined. V Corps figured prominently in the US Bosnia-Serbia peacekeeping operations, along with the carrier Roosevelt. These men, and eight others associated with Clinton's visit to the Roosevelt all died within four months of each other.

Steve Willis
Clinton bodyguard
Died Feb. 28, 1993

Robert Williams
Clinton bodyguard
Died Feb. 28, 1993

Conway LeBleu
Clinton bodyguard
Died Feb. 28, 1993

Todd McKeehan
Clinton bodyguard
Died Feb. 28, 1993

Killed by gunfire in the Waco, Texas, assault on the Branch Davidians. All four were examined by a "private doctor" and died from nearly identical wounds to the left temple, so-called execution style. In his address to employees of the Treasury Department in the Cash Room on March 18, 1993, Clinton said: "My prayers and I'm sure yours are still with the families of all four of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents who were killed in Waco -- Todd McKeehan and Conway Le Bleu of New Orleans; Steve Willis of Houston, and Robert Williams from my hometown of Little Rock. Three of those four were assigned to my security during the course of the primary or general election." However, the Little Rock, Arkansas, office of the ATF confirmed that all four had at one point been bodyguards for Bill Clinton, three while he was campaigning for president, and one while he had been governor of Arkansas. In the autopsies of these agents, three had virtually identical wounds to the left temple that exited through the rear of the head, execution-style. All four were treated by a "private physician."

Alan G. Whicher
Died April 19, 1995

Oversaw Clinton's Secret Service detail. In October 1994, Whicher was transferred to the Secret Service field office in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. Whicher was the only agent killed in the bomb blast of April 19, 1995.

Five Navy aviators
Clinton bodyguards/escorts
(names not determined)
Died March 26, 1993

All died in the crash of an E-2C Hawkeye in Italy. The crash occurred shortly after the plane was "waved off" from a landing attempt on the Carrier Roosevelt, due to a "foul deck." All five men had been Clinton's escorts during Clinton's visit to the Roosevelt two weeks prior. Three other men, who had flown Clinton to the Roosevelt for that visit also died later in a helicopter crash.

Staff Sgt. Brian Haney
Clinton bodyguard
Died May 19, 1993

Marine Sgt. Tim Sabel
Clinton bodyguard
Died May 19, 1993

Maj. William Barkley
Clinton bodyguard
Died May 19, 1993

Capt. Scott Reynolds
Clinton bodyguard
Died May 19, 1993

All four men died when their helicopter crashed in the woods near Quantico, Va. Reporters were barred from the site, and the head of the fire department responding to the crash described it by saying, "Security was tight," with "lots of Marines with guns." A videotape made by a firefighter was seized by the Marines. All four men had escorted Clinton on his flight to the carrier Roosevelt shortly before their deaths.

Unknown SS agent

Killed when the C-130 carrying the presidential limos crashed near Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

DEAD FUNDRAISERS

C. Victor Raiser II
National Finance Co-Chairman, Clinton for President Campaign
Died July 30, 1992

Montgomery Raiser
Son of C. Victor Raiser II
Died July 30, 1992

Both men died in a private plane crash in Alaska, en route to a fishing expedition. No cause was ever determined. Five others not connected to Clinton died with them. DeeDee Meyers described Raiser as a "major player" in the Clinton organization. Victor raiser was also chairman of Mobile Telecomm Technologies Corp., whose subsidiary, SkyTel Corp. is an international paging company used by federal police agencies such as the FBI.

Victor Raiser was a Washington lawyer and he was counsel to the Washington law firm of Jones Day Reavis & Pogue until 1991. At his death, he was the national finance co-chairman of the Clinton for President campaign. He and his wife had been friends of the Clintons for ten years. He was the past national finance chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He served on the boards of the Democratic Business Council and the Center for National Policy and the board of advisers of the Democratic Leadership Council.

On May 29, 1993, President Clinton announced that he had selected Raiser's widow, Molly Raiser, 50, former Democratic co-chair of the Women's Campaign Fund, to be his protocol chief and stated that he planned to nominate her for confirmation as an ambassador.

Paul Tully
Democratic National Committee Political Director
Died Sept. 24, 1992

Found dead in a hotel room in Little Rock Arkansas of "unknown causes." No autopsy allowed. Described by Clinton as a "dear friend and trusted advisor. Tully authored several key strategies for Clinton and the party. Paul Tully, 48, Democratic National Committee political director and architect of a strategy to make the party competitive again in presidential elections, was found dead in his hotel room on September 24, 1992, in Little Rock, Arkansas of unknown causes. Authorities speculated his death was from a heart attack or stroke.

Tully devised a strategy of targeting states based on their value in the Electoral College, and coordinating the presidential campaign with state and congressional races.

Ed Willey
Real Estate Attorney, Clinton Fund Raiser
Died Nov. 30, 1993

Died of a shotgun blast to the head. Body found in deep woods in Virginia. Ruled a suicide, no note was found. Died on the same day his wife was allegedly sexually accosted in the White House by Bill Clinton. Intimately involved in several Clinton fund raising events.

Hershell Friday
Attorney and Clinton fund raiser.
Died March 1, 1994

Killed when his plane exploded. Cause unknown.

Larry Lawrence
Ambassador to Switzerland nominee.

Larry Lawrence was a fundraiser, made famous by his burial at Arlington which revealed not only the special treatment given him but the depths of his legal troubles prior to his being nominated as ambassador to Switzerland. Less well known is that at the time of his death, allegedly from a heart attack, Larry Lawrence had just come under criminal investigation by the State Department and had (as had Ron Brown) indicated a willingness to cooperate.

DEAD WITNESSES

Luther Parks
Head of Clinton's ecurity team in Little Rock.
Died Sept. 26, 1993

Gunned down in his car at the intersection of Chanaul Parkway and Cantrell Road, near Jacksonville, Arkansas, (near Little Rock). Parks was shot through the rear window of his car. The assailant then pulled around to the driver's side of Park's car and shot him three more times with a 9mm pistol.

His family reported that shortly before his death, they were being followed by unknown persons, and their home had been broken into (despite a top quality alarm system). Parks had been compiling a dossier on Clinton's illicit activities. The dossier was stolen.

When news of the discovery of Vincent Foster's body was reported, Parks is reported to have said, "Bill Clinton is cleaning house."

Bill Shelton
Arkansas state trooper and fiancee of Kathy Ferguson
Died June 1994

He allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself in the back of the head at the grave site of his fiancee. Officer Shelton was the fiancee of Kathy Ferguson, who was the ex-wife of Trooper Danny Ferguson. Kathy Ferguson also committed "suicide" a month earlier by allegedly shooting herself in the back of the head. Oddly, next to the body were her packed bags, as if she was expecting to be going somewhere. Danny Ferguson is a co-defendant along with Bill Clinton in Paula Corbin Jones' sexual harassment suit. His ex-wife was reported as a corroborating witness for Ms. Jones.

Kathy Ferguson
Ex-wife of Trooper Danny Ferguson
Died May 1994

Died of a supposed gunshot suicide in her living room. There was a suicide note found by the body. However, friends were surprised at having noticed nothing wrong previously. And even more curious, found nearby were several packed suitcases, as if she expected she was going somewhere. She was the former wife of Trooper Danny Ferguson, who is the Arkansas state trooper alleged to have escorted Paula Corbin Jones to the hotel room for her alleged episode of sexual harassment by then-Governor Clinton. Ferguson's wife was reported as a possible corroborating witness for Jones.

Gandy Baugh
Died Jan. 8, 1994

Attorney representing Dan Lasater in a case concerning alleged financial misconduct. Died in an alleged suicide by jumping out of a window of a multi-story building. Lasater was a close associate of Gov. Clinton, and was convicted of cocaine distribution. Baugh's law partner was also "committed suicide" one month later on Feb. 9, 1994.

Dr. Ronald Rogers
Dentist from Arkansas

Killed in plane crash as he was on his way to an interview with a London Sunday Telegraph reporter to reveal information about Clinton scandals.

Stanley Huggins
Partner in Memphis law firm

Investigating Madison Guaranty Savings & Loan, he was reported to have succumbed to viral pneumonia. His 300-page report has never been released.

Calvin Walraven

A key witness in Joycelyn Elder's son's drug case. Ten days after Elder's son was convicted of trafficking in cocaine, Walraven was found dead in his apartment with a gunshot blast to the head. Tim Hover, a Little Rock police spokesman, said no foul play is suspected.

Neil Moody
Died Aug. 25, 1996

Following Vincent Foster's murder, Lisa Foster married James Moody, a judge in Arkansas, on Jan 1, 1996. Near the time Susan McDougal first went to jail for contempt, Judge Moody's son, Neil, died in a car crash. There were other reports that Neil Moody had discovered something very unsettling among his stepmother's private papers and was threatening to go public with it just prior to the beginning of the Democratic National Convention. Witnesses said they saw Neil Moody sitting in his car arguing with another person. Then his car sped off and hit a brick wall.

Johnny Franklin Lawhon
Died March 29, 1998

In the spring of 1997, a tornado ripped through some junked cars at Johnny's Transmission shop and opened up the trunk of a car that proved to have a box of Whitewater records in it, including a copy of a $27,000 cashier's check drawn on Madison and payable to Bill Clinton. Lawhon realized what he was looking at and turned the box of documents over to the FBI.

According to police, Lawhon and a friend hit a telephone pole at a high rate of speed after their car had become airborne and left the road. They had driven less than a quarter mile at the time of the impact.

Eric Butera

An informant who came forward offering information regarding the murder of White House intern Mary Mahoney. He was then sent into a known crack house to make an undercover buy for the police and was beaten to death.

DEAD WOMEN

Suzanne Coleman

Had affair with Clinton when he was attorney general. Died of "suicide" with gunshot wound to the back of her head. No autopsy allowed. Was seven months pregnant at time of her death. She had told friends it was Bill Clinton's child.

Paula Grober
Clinton's speech interpreter for the deaf.
Died Dec. 9, 1992

Died in a one-car accident with no known witnesses. Her body was thrown 33 feet from the car, indicating a very high speed. A very attractive woman, Paula traveled extensively with Clinton from 1978 until her death. Clinton, through a spokesman, called Gober's death "a great personal loss." He also said, "Hillary and I extend our sincere sympathy to Paula's family. I had the privilege of working with her over many years."

Judy Gibbs
Penthouse model and call girl

Judy Gibbs, who appeared in the December 1979 issue of Penthouse, and her sister Sharon were part of a house of prostitution in Fordyce, Arkansas, that also engaged in blackmail of its more powerful clients. Linked to Bill Clinton by both her own family and by one of Bill's bodyguards, Judy had just decided to cooperate with police in an investigation of Arkansas cocaine trafficking when she burned to death inside her home from a fire of undetermined origin.

DEAD INVESTIGATORS

Paul Wilcher
Washington attorney investigating gun running out of Mena, Arkansas.
Died June 22, 1993

Found dead on a toilet in his Washington apartment. No cause of death was ever reported by the coroner.

At the time of his death, he was investigating connections between the "October Surprise" during the 1980 federal election campaign and drug and gun-running out of Mena, Arkansas, as well as the assault on the Waco, Texas, Branch Davidians. Was planning on producing a television documentary on his findings. He had delivered a 105-page affidavit to Janet Reno detailing the evidence he had collected regarding the drug operation at Mena, just three weeks before his death.

Jon Parnell Walker
Resolution Trust Commission investigator
Mysteriously fell to his death from an apartment balcony.

COMMERCE DEPARTMENT DEATHS

Ron Brown
Former Chairman, DNC; Commerce Secretary
Died May 3, 1996.

Ron Brown died along with 39 other people when the T-43 (a converted 737 used by the Air Force) carrying the group on a trip to Bosnia crashed while approaching the Dubrovnik airport. On the verge of being indicted and having stated his willingness to make a deal with prosecutors, Ron Brown's death brought to an end his ability to testify.

Military investigators concealed from the public the fact that a perfectly cylindrical hole, the size of a .45-caliber round, was found in the top of his head. No autopsy was performed.

Barbara Wise
Commerce Department staffer
Died Nov. 29, 1996

As the scandals continued to swirl around the Commerce Department, and most of all about John Huang, one of Huang's associates, Barbara Wise, was found dead in her locked office at the Department of Commerce, partially nude and covered with bruises. No cause of death has ever been announced.

Charles Meissner
Assistant Secretary of Commerce for International Economic Policy.

Following Ron Brown's death, John Huang was placed on a Commerce Department contract that allowed him to retain his security clearance by Charles Meissner. Shortly thereafter, Charles Meissner died in the crash of a small plane.

THE HENRY - IVES DEATHS
A.K.A. THE "TRAIN DEATHS"

Kevin Ives & Don Henry

Initial cause of death was reported to be the result of falling asleep on railroad tracks in Arkansas on Aug. 23, 1987. This ruling was reported by the state medical examiner Fahmy Malak, appointed at the pleasure of Gov. Bill Clinton. Later it was determined that Kevin died from a crushed skull prior to being placed on the tracks. Don had been stabbed in the back. Rumors indicate that they might have stumbled upon part of the Mena drug operation.

Keith Coney

Keith had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. Died in a motorcycle accident in July 1988 while being chased by a car. Ruled a traffic accident.

Keith McKaskle

McKaskle had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. He was stabbed to death in November 1988. He had told his family someone was out to kill him and told them "goodbye."

Gregory Collins

Greg had information on the Ives/Henry deaths. He died from a gunshot blast to the face in January 1989. Declared a suicide.

Paul Olson

A federal witness in investigations to drug money corruption in Chicago politics, Paul had just finished two days of FBI interviews when his plane ride home crashed, killing Paul and 130 others on Sept 8, 1994. The Sept. 15, 1994, Tempe Tribune newspaper reported that the FBI suspected that a bomb had brought down the airplane.

Jeff Rhodes

He had information on the deaths of Ives, Henry & McKaskle. His burned body was found in a trash dump in April 1989. He died of a gunshot wound to the head and there was some body mutilation, specifically that his hands and feet had been partially sawed off, leading to the speculation that he was tortured prior to being killed. The body was then burned.

James Milan

Milam had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was decapitated. The state Medical examiner, Fahmy Malak, initially ruled death due to natural causes, claiming that the victim's small dog had eaten the head, which was later recovered from a trash bin several blocks away.

Richard Winters

Winters was a suspect in the deaths of Ives & Henry, and had offered to cooperate. He was killed by a shotgun blast to the face during a "robbery" in July 1989.

Dan Harmon, the prosecutor to whom Winters reportedly made the offer, has been accused of involvement in the Kevin/Ives deaths and is now in jail for running his office as a racket.

Jordan Kettleson

Kettleson had information on the Ives & Henry deaths. He was found shot to death in the front seat of his pickup in June 1990.
© 1998 Western Journalism Center

McDonald's coffee case

1996-04-03T08:49:00.000-08:00

The following courtesy of the Consumers Attorneys of California:

There is a lot of hype about the McDonald's scalding coffee case. No one is in favor of frivolous cases or outlandish results; however, it is important to understand some points that were not reported in most of the stories about the case. McDonald's coffee was not only hot, it was scalding capable of almost instantaneous destruction of skin, flesh and muscle. Here is the whole story.

Stella Liebeck of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was in the passenger seat of her grandson's car when she was severely burned by McDonald's coffee in February 1992. Liebeck, 79 at the time, ordered coffee that was served in a styrofoam cup at the drivethrough window of a local McDonald's.

After receiving the order, the grandson pulled his car forward and stopped momentarily so that Liebeck could add cream and sugar to her coffee. (Critics of civil justice, who have pounced on this case, often charge that Liebeck was driving the car or that the vehicle was in motion when she spilled the coffee; neither is true.) Liebeck placed the cup between her knees and attempted to remove the plastic lid from the cup. As she removed the lid, the entire contents of the cup spilled into her lap.

The sweatpants Liebeck was wearing absorbed the coffee and held it next to her skin. A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonald's refused.

During discovery, McDonald's produced documents showing more than 700 claims by people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. Some claims involved third degree burns substantially similar to Liebecks. This history documented McDonald's knowledge about the extent and nature of this hazard.

McDonald's also said during discovery that, based on a consultants advice, it held its coffee at between 180 and 190 degrees fahrenheit to maintain optimum taste. He admitted that he had not evaluated the safety ramifications at this temperature. Other establishments sell coffee at substantially lower temperatures, and coffee served at home is generally 135 to 140 degrees.

Further, McDonald's quality assurance manager testified that the company actively enforces a requirement that coffee be held in the pot at 185 degrees, plus or minus five degrees. He also testified that a burn hazard exists with any food substance served at 140 degrees or above, and that McDonald's coffee, at the temperature at which it was poured into styrofoam cups, was not fit for consumption because it would burn the mouth and throat. The quality assurance manager admitted that burns would occur, but testified that McDonald's had no intention of reducing the "holding temperature" of its coffee.

Plaintiff's expert, a scholar in thermodynamics applied to human skin burns, testified that liquids, at 180 degrees, will cause a full thickness burn to human skin in two to seven seconds. Other testimony showed that as the temperature decreases toward 155 degrees, the extent of the burn relative to that temperature decreases exponentially. Thus, if Liebeck's spill had involved coffee at 155 degrees, the liquid would have cooled and given her time to avoid a serious burn.

McDonald's asserted that customers buy coffee on their way to work or home, intending to consume it there. However, the company's own research showed that customers intend to consume the coffee immediately while driving.

McDonald's also argued that consumers know coffee is hot and that its customers want it that way. The company admitted its customers were unaware that they could suffer third degree burns from the coffee and that a statement on the side of the cup was not a "warning" but a "reminder" since the location of the writing would not warn customers of the hazard.

The jury awarded Liebeck $200,000 in compensatory damages. This amount was reduced to $160,000 because the jury found Liebeck 20 percent at fault in the spill. The jury also awarded Liebeck $2.7 million in punitive damages, which equals about two days of McDonald's coffee sales.

Postverdict investigation found that the temperature of coffee at the local Albuquerque McDonald's had dropped to 158 degrees fahrenheit.

The trial court subsequently reduced the punitive award to $480,000 or three times compensatory damages even though the judge called McDonald's conduct reckless, callous and willful. Subsequent to remittitur, the parties entered a postverdict settlement.