New poll shows Emmer losing to all 3 possible DFL candidates
It was released today by Decision Resources and published in the Pioneer Press.
Scenario No. 1: Dayton 40 percent, Emmer 28 percent, Horner 18 percent.
Scenario No. 2: Kelliher 38 percent, Emmer 28 percent, Horner 17 percent.
Scenario No. 3: Entenza 34 percent, Emmer 27 percent, Horner 19 percent.
Emmer supporters are up in arms (via MinnesotaDemocratsExposed.com!). They say the poll is tainted by the polling firm’s relationship to Independence Party candidate and former Republican Tom Horner. Decision Resources is owned by former GOP state chair, and Horner supporter, Bill Morris, and the company has worked with Horner’s Himle Horner p.r. firm in the past.
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The pictures BP doesn’t want you to see: Round 2. As of yesterday, 874 animals (birds, sea turtles, other mammals, and reptiles) had been collected dead in the affected area. Another 466 had been collected with alive, but visibly oiled.
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Physicians group accuses CIA of testing torture techniques on detainees
Physicians for Human Rights charged Monday that CIA doctors and other medical personnel collected data to study and calibrate the use of waterboarding, sleep deprivation, severe pain and other “enhanced” interrogation techniques, but did so under the guise of trying to protect the detainees’ health. […]
The physicians group spent two years evaluating declassified but redacted records about harsh treatment of detainees after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and did not obtain additional material. It called for a White House and congressional investigation of its charges. […]
After the Sept. 11 attacks, Bush administration lawyers approved CIA use of waterboarding, forced nudity, stress positions, extreme temperatures and other so-called enhanced techniques as long as doctors ensured the interrogators did not inflict “severe physical and mental pain.” […]
At one point, the report said, doctors recommended adding salt to the water used in waterboarding. Records show they hoped a saline solution would reduce the risk of pneumonia or hyponatremia, a condition where excessive ingestion of water lowers blood sodium levels. Hyponatremia can lead to coma and death.
Dr. Alan Keller, director of the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture in New York, said the study of waterboarding data “certainly should be considered” unethical medical research on prisoners without their consent. “But it’s also junk science, the notion that it’s safer to drown in the ocean than in the pool.” […]
Health professionals also monitored sleep deprivation of more than a dozen detainees, and then made recommendations on the effect of keeping a prisoner awake for 48 hours to 180 hours.
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This is not an environmental disaster, and I will say that again and again because it is a natural phenomenon. Oil has seeped into this ocean for centuries, will continue to do it. We will lose some birds, we will lose some fixed sealife, but overall it will recover.
-Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska)
"(via hollowtronix)
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BP has purchased several phrases on search engines such as Google and Yahoo so that the first result that shows up directs information seekers to the company’s official website.
A simple Google search of “oil spill” turns up several thousand news results, but the first link, highlighted at the very top of the page, is from BP. “Learn more about how BP is helping,” the link’s tagline reads. […]
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Surveillance cameras in Birmingham track Muslims’ every move
“Counterterrorism police have targeted hundreds of surveillance cameras on two Muslim areas of Birmingham, enabling them to track the precise movements of people entering and leaving the neighbourhoods….
Police sources said the initiative, code-named Project Champion, is the first of its kind in the UK that seeks to monitor a population seen as “at risk” of extremism…
When the cameras become operative, residents will not be able to drive into or leave the two neighbourhoods without their movements being tracked.”
- full text at The Guardian
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Violent protest is actually more effective?
“STRATFOR’S George Friedman correctly writes that the Gaza Freedom Flotilla “achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.” …I think another big point you have to take away from this episode is that employing a bit of violence in your protest, enough to provoke a murderous reaction, is more effective than eschewing violence altogether. Five of the six ships taken over by Israeli commandos put up no resistance. They didn’t make the news. The sixth, the Mavi Marmara, had about 600 passengers on board, and of those, 570 or so appear to have stayed below deck as the commandos arrived. They didn’t make the news either. The other 30 went up on deck. As is clear in video of the clash released over the past day, they attacked the commandos as they landed one by one, beating them with metal pipes and chairs, trying to strip their body armor and guns, and throwing them over the side of the ship. This led the commandos to respond with live ammunition, ultimately killing at least nine protestors.
“That made the news.
“But here’s the thing: the violence employed by those 30 protestors is what achieved the Freedom Flotilla’s goals. No metal pipes, no Israeli shooting. No Israeli shooting, no dead protestors. No dead protestors, no recall of the Turkish ambassador or emergency UN Security Council meeting. The protestors who swung those pipes risked their own (and others’) lives; some of them are probably dead now. And, unlike the ones who joined arms below deck and sang “Kumbaya”, they succeeded in weakening the international negotiating position of Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians, placed the Gaza blockade on the international agenda, and may ultimately topple the Israeli government. Lesson: if you’re willing to die for your cause, punch a soldier in the face and try to get him to shoot you. It’ll get you a lot further than stuffing flowers in gun barrels.”
- The Gaza flotilla: Violent protest is actually more effective | The Economist
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Iranian lesbian, Kiana Firouz at risk of deportation from the U.K.
Kiana Firouz, 27 years old, actress and lesbian activist from Teheran, Iran, has long been engaged in the battle against the discrimination and persecution of homosexuals by the Ahmadinejad regime. After photograms of her video documentary on the condition of lesbians and gays fell into the hands of the Iranian intelligence, agents began to follow and intimidate her.
Concerned about her safety, Kiana left Teheran and sought refuge in the U.K., where she could continue her work and studies. She filed for asylum but her application was rejected by the Home Office even though the Ministry recognized her being persecuted for her sexual orientation and despite the fact that the Ministry is well aware that under Islamic law homosexuality is considered a heinous crime punishable by hanging and that gays and lesbians are enemies of Allah.
In Iran, punishment for an adult consenting lesbian of healthy mind and is 100 whippings. If the act is repeated three times and punished each time, the death sentence is applied the fourth time (Art. 127, 129, 130).
Kiana filed for a court appeal following the Home Office’s decision to reject her application for asylum, but the judge overruled her appeal According to Kiana’s lawyer, the last remaining chance is to appeal the judge’s decision, but the risk of deportation is imminent.
Kiana recently took part in the film Cul de sac, which focuses on her life and civil rights battles in Iran. “It was important for me to take part in the film,” she stated in a recent interview. “As an Iranian lesbian I think the film is the best way to show how difficult life is for lesbians in my country. This film,” she continued, “contains sex scenes that would be sufficient evidence for receiving a death sentence if I were sent back to Iran. Now, my only hope is to mobilize the international LGBT community.
The EveryOne activists invite concerned readers to send protest e-mail messages to the British Home Office (public.enquiries@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk) requesting that Kiana receive refugee status as soon as possible, for she is a symbol of the international fight against homophobia and repression of gays and lesbians in Islamic countries.”
- from Every One Group
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Sex and the City 2
“Allow me to save you $8. Here is the plot of Sex and the City 2: Four privileged white women take a break from relentlessly moaning about their privileged lives to go on an Orientalist fantasy excursion to Abu Dhabi, where they are each assigned a brown servant to wait on them as they maraud through the country, dressed like assholes, exoticizing people, mocking culture, flouting religious custom, rubbing yams on their bodies and, on occasion, because they are our heroines, “saving” the natives with their American liberation and largess.”
- Tami, from Racialicious
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