By KEN RITTER, Associated Press Writer
November 15, 2007
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- A judge accepted a plea deal Thursday reducing felony charges against suspended NFL player Adam "Pacman" Jones to a gross misdemeanor that will get him probation in return for his testimony about a strip club triple shooting.
The Tennessee Titans cornerback did not appear before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Tony Abbatangelo, who accepted the written agreement and waived Jones' preliminary hearing on two felony coercion charges.
Abbatangelo scheduled Jones to plead no contest Dec. 5 in state court to one charge of conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct.
Jones will be sentenced later to one year of probation, Clark County prosecutor Victoria Villegas said after a brief hearing. Two charges of coercion, a felony carrying a possible sentence of one to six years in prison, will be dropped.
"The goal is to find the shooter," Villegas said.Las Vegas police have not linked Jones to the Feb. 19 gunfire that left three people wounded outside the Minxx Gentlemen's Club at the end of NBA All-Star weekend in Las Vegas. No one has been charged in that case.
But police called the 24-year-old Jones "an inciter" of a melee that broke out after he showered dancers inside the strip club with dollar bills pulled from a black plastic trash bag -- a stunt known as "making it rain."
Witnesses told police that Jones and members of his entourage threatened people while they were being ejected, and that Jones spoke outside the club with a man who was suspected of opening fire minutes later.
Defense attorney Robert Langford declined to say if Jones knew the identity of the gunman. He cited the ongoing police investigation.
Las Vegas police Lt. George Castro declined to say what information police believe Jones can provide.
Under the Las Vegas plea deal, Jones will received a suspended one-year jail sentence. He also must attend an anger management program, complete 200 hours of community service within a year and submit to random drug testing.
Langford said the probation and community service requirements might be fulfilled near Jones' home in Tennessee. Jones already is subject to the NFL's drug testing program.
The three people who were wounded -- club employee Tommy Urbanski, co-worker and bouncer Aaron Cudworth and club patron Natalie Jones -- have each have filed civil lawsuits seeking damages from Jones.
The lawsuit by Urbanski, who was paralyzed from the waist down, also seeks damages from the NFL, the Titans and the owners of Harlem Knights, a Houston strip club that hosted events at the Minxx club.
Urbanski's wife, Kathy, expressed anger this week about Jones' plea deal and said she wants the shooter identified and charged. She declined comment Thursday.
Two co-defendants in the case also are taking plea deals, said Langford, who represents all three.
Jones' bodyguard, Robert "Big Rob" Reid, 37, of Carson, Calif., is scheduled to plead no contest Dec. 5 to conspiracy to commit disorderly conduct and receive one year probation. Reid faced one felony coercion charge.
Sadia Morrison, 25, of New York, will plead no contest to a felony battery charge in return for dropping other felony charges. Morrison faced five charges, including coercion, felony assault with a deadly weapon and battery. She is expected to receive up to three years' probation, and her conviction would be reduced to a gross misdemeanor if she stays out of trouble, Langford said.
Jones' Atlanta-based attorney, Manny Arora, has said he believed Jones could beat the coercion charge, but a trial might hurt Jones' chances for reinstatement to the NFL. Arora did not immediately respond Thursday to messages seeking comment.
Jones has been arrested six times since the Titans drafted him in April 2005 from West Virginia, and has other criminal cases pending. A felony count of obstruction in Georgia from a February 2006 arrest has been postponed, and August 2006 public intoxication and disorderly charges in Tennessee were delayed pending the outcome of the Las Vegas case.
Commissioner Roger Goodell suspended Jones for the 2007 season for violating the league's personal conduct policy. The NFL Players Association is asking Goodell to reconsider.
Thursday, November 15, 2007
Barry Bonds indicted on 4 perjury counts, obstruction of justice
Lance Williams, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The perjury case against former Giants star Barry Bonds is built on documents seized in a federal raid on a Burlingame steroids lab and positive drug test results indicating that baseball's all-time home run king used steroids, court records show.
Bonds, perhaps the greatest hitter of his generation, was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. He is accused of lying under oath in December 2003 when he told the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroid ring that he had never used banned drugs.
The 43-year-old free-agent outfielder faces arraignment Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, months of legal proceedings - and a federal prison term of about 30 months if he is convicted at trial, legal experts said.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors said Bonds lied when he denied using a long list of banned drugs, including steroids, testosterone, human growth hormone and "the clear," the undetectable designer steroid marketed by BALCO.
Bonds also lied when he testified that his longtime personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had never injected him with drugs, the government contended. The trainer, who was imprisoned for contempt of court after he refused to testify against Bonds, was freed Thursday night, hours after Bonds' indictment was unsealed.
To buttress its perjury case, the government has what prosecutors have called a "mountain of evidence" seized in a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in September 2003 - documents including doping calendars showing Bonds' drug regimen and payment records of drug purchases. In addition, the indictment says investigators have obtained "positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds."
The indictment gave no details. But a source familiar with the case said BALCO founder Victor Conte had arranged repeated private steroid tests for Bonds to track the effects of his drug regimen. In the BALCO raid, the government seized those test reports, said the source, who asked not to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Since the BALCO scandal began to unfold, Bonds has adamantly denied using steroids. He told the grand jury he used only flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm, not BALCO's designer drugs. In August, when he broke Hank Aaron's record to become baseball's all-time home run leader, Bonds declared that his record was "not tainted at all."
On Thursday, his lawyer, Michael Rains, vowed to fight the charges and predicted Bonds would be exonerated at trial.
Bonds' indictment roiled a sport that has been struggling to put an end to what's been called its "steroid era." Mostly in response to exposes about BALCO, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has ratcheted up the sport's drug-testing programs and hired a former U.S. senator, George Mitchell, to investigate steroid use in the game.
On Thursday, Selig issued a statement saying he was watching the Bonds case carefully, but he gave no indication what action he might take. Mitchell's report is supposed to be released by the end of the year.
The indictment also marked the end of a yearlong government effort to force Anderson, Bonds' trainer and boyhood friend, to testify about Bonds and drugs. Anderson pleaded guilty to a steroid conspiracy charge in the BALCO case and was jailed for three months.
Then, last year, the government subpoenaed Anderson to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury. Anderson refused and was imprisoned for contempt of court. Thursday night, more than a year after he went to prison, a federal judge ordered him freed. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said Anderson had not cooperated with the government.
Bonds won the National League's Most Valuable Player award an unprecedented seven times - five times as a Giant and twice as a young player with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the Giants to the pennant and the World Series in 2002. On Aug. 7, in his 15th year as a Giant, he broke Aaron's mark of 755 career home runs, perhaps the most hallowed record in all sports.
Bonds finished the season with 762 home runs. His $17 million-per-year contract expired in 2007, and the Giants refused to offer him a new one. He has said he hopes to sign with another team and play in 2008.
Bonds is the most famous baseball star to be accused of a crime since 1989, when Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose, holder of the lifetime record for most hits, was banned from the game and indicted for tax evasion in a gambling scandal. Rose served five months in federal prison.
Former baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent called the prospect of Bonds' indictment "a terrific blow to the game," more troubling than the Rose scandal.
Rose was "one guy betting on baseball," Vincent told The Chronicle last year, while Bonds' indictment reflects a problem that strikes "right at the heart and the gut of baseball" - the sudden rise in the use of steroids and human growth hormone.
Vincent likened the Bonds case to the worst scandal in baseball history: the 1919 "Black Sox" affair, in which Chicago White Sox hitting star "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and seven teammates were indicted for conspiring with gamblers to fix the World Series. The players were acquitted at trial, but baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former judge who had been hired to clean up the game, banned them all for life anyway.
Selig cannot act so boldly, experts said. If Selig were to respond to the indictment by banning Bonds from the game, baseball's powerful players' union almost certainly would object, and an arbitrator might well reinstate him, said baseball labor historian Robert Burk, a professor at Muskingum College in Ohio. In the modern era, baseball players accused of crimes have been allowed to continue playing until their cases are resolved, he said.
Bonds set off down the path that led to his indictment during the 1998 season, when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire was winning acclaim for breaking the single-season home-run record then held by Roger Maris.
According to Bonds' former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, and other people who know him, Bonds became jealous of the attention paid to McGwire, whom he regarded as an inferior player and a steroid user. In the offseason, Bonds began training with Anderson, a friend from the San Carlos Little League.
According to documents seized by investigators, Anderson began supplying the Giants star with steroids and human growth hormone. Through the drug use and weight training, Bonds became far more muscular and transformed himself into the greatest slugger of his era.
After the 2000 season, Anderson took Bonds to BALCO and introduced him to Conte, who at the time was providing undetectable steroids to Olympic athletes so they could beat drug tests. After baseball began steroid testing in 2003, Anderson began supplying an undetectable steroid to Bonds to ensure that he would pass baseball's new drug tests, the trainer said on a tape recording made without his knowledge.
By then, BALCO was the target of a drug probe led by a dogged investigator from the Internal Revenue Service's criminal division, agent Jeff Novitzky, a former basketball player at San Jose State. In September 2003, he led raids on BALCO and Anderson's home in Burlingame, taking away significant evidence of drug use by a long list of elite athletes - including Bonds.
After the raid, more than 30 athletes with ties to BALCO were subpoenaed before a federal grand jury, where they were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for truthful testimony about BALCO and drugs.Five baseball players - including New York Yankees star Jason Giambi - acknowledged using banned BALCO drugs obtained from Anderson. A sixth, outfielder Gary Sheffield, testified that Anderson, at Bonds' direction, had provided him "the cream" and "the clear." Sheffield said he had been told the substances weren't steroids.
But Bonds testified that he had never used banned drugs, telling the grand jury Anderson had only given him flaxseed oil and arthritis balm. Those denials form the crux of the perjury allegations.
After Bonds' grand jury testimony, federal agents began a wide-ranging investigation of the Giants slugger. In March 2005, Bell testified that Bonds had told her he had used steroids in 1999.
She also told the grand jury that Bonds had given her $80,000 cash to make the down payment on a house in Arizona. Bell said Bonds obtained the money by selling sports memorabilia for cash.
For more than three years, the BALCO probe was directed by U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan. In December 2006, Ryan was among nine U.S. attorneys who were abruptly fired by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Since then, the Bonds probe has been supervised by an acting U.S. attorney, Scott Schools.
Last month another star athlete suspected of lying about her role in BALCO - track and field superstar Marion Jones, sweetheart of the 2000 Sydney Olympics - pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to falsely telling federal agents she had not used banned drugs and making false statements about her participation in a check fraud scheme. After Jones pleaded guilty, BALCO investigators turned their attention back to Bonds.
Bonds joins a long list of celebrities and historic figures accused of perjury, the crime of making a false statement under oath.
Former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss spent 44 months in prison for lying in a Cold War-era probe of a Communist spy ring. In his 1999 impeachment trial, then-President Bill Clinton was acquitted of perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair. In March, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying to a grand jury in connection with the leak of an undercover CIA operative's name to news reporters.
But the perjury case that many experts liken to the Bonds case is that of former NBA star Chris Webber, indicted in 2002 after denying under oath that during his college basketball career that he had received money and gifts from a University of Michigan booster. Webber pleaded guilty to criminal contempt, paid a $100,000 fine and was ordered to perform community service rather than be imprisoned.
Steve Fishman, the Detroit lawyer who represented him, said Webber was able to settle the case because the prosecution's evidence was weak and Webber was a sympathetic defendant.
"The accusation against Webber was that he was not telling the truth about something that occurred when he was a teenager," Fishman said in an interview last year. "There are miles of differences between allegations that you received gym shoes when you were playing at the University of Michigan versus you received steroids while you were the National League MVP."
If convicted of perjury, Bonds would be lucky to avoid prison, legal experts said. Technically, the maximum sentence on a conviction for a single count of perjury is five years in prison and 10 years for obstruction of justice. But Patrick Mullin, a criminal defense specialist who practices in New York and New Jersey, said federal sentencing guidelines would call for a term of from 24 to 30 months if Bonds is convicted of all the charges.
"It could go higher," Mullin said. "This is tough stuff."
Thursday, November 15, 2007
The perjury case against former Giants star Barry Bonds is built on documents seized in a federal raid on a Burlingame steroids lab and positive drug test results indicating that baseball's all-time home run king used steroids, court records show.
Bonds, perhaps the greatest hitter of his generation, was indicted Thursday on four counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice. He is accused of lying under oath in December 2003 when he told the grand jury that investigated the BALCO steroid ring that he had never used banned drugs.
The 43-year-old free-agent outfielder faces arraignment Dec. 7 in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, months of legal proceedings - and a federal prison term of about 30 months if he is convicted at trial, legal experts said.
In the indictment, federal prosecutors said Bonds lied when he denied using a long list of banned drugs, including steroids, testosterone, human growth hormone and "the clear," the undetectable designer steroid marketed by BALCO.
Bonds also lied when he testified that his longtime personal trainer, Greg Anderson, had never injected him with drugs, the government contended. The trainer, who was imprisoned for contempt of court after he refused to testify against Bonds, was freed Thursday night, hours after Bonds' indictment was unsealed.
To buttress its perjury case, the government has what prosecutors have called a "mountain of evidence" seized in a raid on the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative in September 2003 - documents including doping calendars showing Bonds' drug regimen and payment records of drug purchases. In addition, the indictment says investigators have obtained "positive tests for the presence of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing substances for Bonds."
The indictment gave no details. But a source familiar with the case said BALCO founder Victor Conte had arranged repeated private steroid tests for Bonds to track the effects of his drug regimen. In the BALCO raid, the government seized those test reports, said the source, who asked not to be quoted by name because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Since the BALCO scandal began to unfold, Bonds has adamantly denied using steroids. He told the grand jury he used only flaxseed oil and an arthritis balm, not BALCO's designer drugs. In August, when he broke Hank Aaron's record to become baseball's all-time home run leader, Bonds declared that his record was "not tainted at all."
On Thursday, his lawyer, Michael Rains, vowed to fight the charges and predicted Bonds would be exonerated at trial.
Bonds' indictment roiled a sport that has been struggling to put an end to what's been called its "steroid era." Mostly in response to exposes about BALCO, baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has ratcheted up the sport's drug-testing programs and hired a former U.S. senator, George Mitchell, to investigate steroid use in the game.
On Thursday, Selig issued a statement saying he was watching the Bonds case carefully, but he gave no indication what action he might take. Mitchell's report is supposed to be released by the end of the year.
The indictment also marked the end of a yearlong government effort to force Anderson, Bonds' trainer and boyhood friend, to testify about Bonds and drugs. Anderson pleaded guilty to a steroid conspiracy charge in the BALCO case and was jailed for three months.
Then, last year, the government subpoenaed Anderson to testify before the grand jury investigating Bonds for perjury. Anderson refused and was imprisoned for contempt of court. Thursday night, more than a year after he went to prison, a federal judge ordered him freed. His lawyer, Mark Geragos, said Anderson had not cooperated with the government.
Bonds won the National League's Most Valuable Player award an unprecedented seven times - five times as a Giant and twice as a young player with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He led the Giants to the pennant and the World Series in 2002. On Aug. 7, in his 15th year as a Giant, he broke Aaron's mark of 755 career home runs, perhaps the most hallowed record in all sports.
Bonds finished the season with 762 home runs. His $17 million-per-year contract expired in 2007, and the Giants refused to offer him a new one. He has said he hopes to sign with another team and play in 2008.
Bonds is the most famous baseball star to be accused of a crime since 1989, when Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose, holder of the lifetime record for most hits, was banned from the game and indicted for tax evasion in a gambling scandal. Rose served five months in federal prison.
Former baseball Commissioner Fay Vincent called the prospect of Bonds' indictment "a terrific blow to the game," more troubling than the Rose scandal.
Rose was "one guy betting on baseball," Vincent told The Chronicle last year, while Bonds' indictment reflects a problem that strikes "right at the heart and the gut of baseball" - the sudden rise in the use of steroids and human growth hormone.
Vincent likened the Bonds case to the worst scandal in baseball history: the 1919 "Black Sox" affair, in which Chicago White Sox hitting star "Shoeless Joe" Jackson and seven teammates were indicted for conspiring with gamblers to fix the World Series. The players were acquitted at trial, but baseball Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis, a former judge who had been hired to clean up the game, banned them all for life anyway.
Selig cannot act so boldly, experts said. If Selig were to respond to the indictment by banning Bonds from the game, baseball's powerful players' union almost certainly would object, and an arbitrator might well reinstate him, said baseball labor historian Robert Burk, a professor at Muskingum College in Ohio. In the modern era, baseball players accused of crimes have been allowed to continue playing until their cases are resolved, he said.
Bonds set off down the path that led to his indictment during the 1998 season, when St. Louis Cardinals slugger Mark McGwire was winning acclaim for breaking the single-season home-run record then held by Roger Maris.
According to Bonds' former girlfriend, Kimberly Bell, and other people who know him, Bonds became jealous of the attention paid to McGwire, whom he regarded as an inferior player and a steroid user. In the offseason, Bonds began training with Anderson, a friend from the San Carlos Little League.
According to documents seized by investigators, Anderson began supplying the Giants star with steroids and human growth hormone. Through the drug use and weight training, Bonds became far more muscular and transformed himself into the greatest slugger of his era.
After the 2000 season, Anderson took Bonds to BALCO and introduced him to Conte, who at the time was providing undetectable steroids to Olympic athletes so they could beat drug tests. After baseball began steroid testing in 2003, Anderson began supplying an undetectable steroid to Bonds to ensure that he would pass baseball's new drug tests, the trainer said on a tape recording made without his knowledge.
By then, BALCO was the target of a drug probe led by a dogged investigator from the Internal Revenue Service's criminal division, agent Jeff Novitzky, a former basketball player at San Jose State. In September 2003, he led raids on BALCO and Anderson's home in Burlingame, taking away significant evidence of drug use by a long list of elite athletes - including Bonds.
After the raid, more than 30 athletes with ties to BALCO were subpoenaed before a federal grand jury, where they were granted immunity from prosecution in exchange for truthful testimony about BALCO and drugs.Five baseball players - including New York Yankees star Jason Giambi - acknowledged using banned BALCO drugs obtained from Anderson. A sixth, outfielder Gary Sheffield, testified that Anderson, at Bonds' direction, had provided him "the cream" and "the clear." Sheffield said he had been told the substances weren't steroids.
But Bonds testified that he had never used banned drugs, telling the grand jury Anderson had only given him flaxseed oil and arthritis balm. Those denials form the crux of the perjury allegations.
After Bonds' grand jury testimony, federal agents began a wide-ranging investigation of the Giants slugger. In March 2005, Bell testified that Bonds had told her he had used steroids in 1999.
She also told the grand jury that Bonds had given her $80,000 cash to make the down payment on a house in Arizona. Bell said Bonds obtained the money by selling sports memorabilia for cash.
For more than three years, the BALCO probe was directed by U.S. Attorney Kevin Ryan. In December 2006, Ryan was among nine U.S. attorneys who were abruptly fired by then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Since then, the Bonds probe has been supervised by an acting U.S. attorney, Scott Schools.
Last month another star athlete suspected of lying about her role in BALCO - track and field superstar Marion Jones, sweetheart of the 2000 Sydney Olympics - pleaded guilty in federal court in New York to falsely telling federal agents she had not used banned drugs and making false statements about her participation in a check fraud scheme. After Jones pleaded guilty, BALCO investigators turned their attention back to Bonds.
Bonds joins a long list of celebrities and historic figures accused of perjury, the crime of making a false statement under oath.
Former U.S. State Department official Alger Hiss spent 44 months in prison for lying in a Cold War-era probe of a Communist spy ring. In his 1999 impeachment trial, then-President Bill Clinton was acquitted of perjury in the Monica Lewinsky affair. In March, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, was convicted of lying to a grand jury in connection with the leak of an undercover CIA operative's name to news reporters.
But the perjury case that many experts liken to the Bonds case is that of former NBA star Chris Webber, indicted in 2002 after denying under oath that during his college basketball career that he had received money and gifts from a University of Michigan booster. Webber pleaded guilty to criminal contempt, paid a $100,000 fine and was ordered to perform community service rather than be imprisoned.
Steve Fishman, the Detroit lawyer who represented him, said Webber was able to settle the case because the prosecution's evidence was weak and Webber was a sympathetic defendant.
"The accusation against Webber was that he was not telling the truth about something that occurred when he was a teenager," Fishman said in an interview last year. "There are miles of differences between allegations that you received gym shoes when you were playing at the University of Michigan versus you received steroids while you were the National League MVP."
If convicted of perjury, Bonds would be lucky to avoid prison, legal experts said. Technically, the maximum sentence on a conviction for a single count of perjury is five years in prison and 10 years for obstruction of justice. But Patrick Mullin, a criminal defense specialist who practices in New York and New Jersey, said federal sentencing guidelines would call for a term of from 24 to 30 months if Bonds is convicted of all the charges.
"It could go higher," Mullin said. "This is tough stuff."
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tech Law Guru Larry Lessig Endorses Barack Obama
Well known tech law expert and Stanford professor Lawrence Lessig has thrown his support to Barack Obama for President. Here's what he wrote...
"DON'T DO THIS!" a friend wrote, a friend who never uses allcaps, a friend who cares genuinely about what's good for me, and who believes that what's good for me depends in part upon how easily I can talk to the next administration. "He is NOT going to win. She has it sewed up. DON'T burn your bridges before they're hatched -- so to speak."
So was my suggestion that I come clean publicly about what many here will have intuited long ago -- tha I support Barack Obama for President -- met by my friend. But I said as much in March, 2004, though I expected this year would be four years later. Barack was a colleague from way back. I've supported every campaign since the first. And from the very first moments I knew the guy, I thought that he was precisely the sort we should be able to elect as President.
Friendship, however, isn't the most compelling reason (for at least others) to support a candidate for President. I was therefore relieved and very happy that on substance, too, this is my candidate.
The closest leading competitor for my loyalty is of course Edwards. He's got great views about technology and privacy. He's got a fantastic commitment to changes that might well address the corruption that has become my focus. And he's come around to the right views about the war. I've long admired his passion and conviction. And but for fears about his flirting with protectionism, he would, in my view, make a great President.
The other front running Democrat, however, is not a close call for me. (Saying this is what terrified my newly allcaps friend.) She supported the war, but as my support of Edwards last time round indicates, I can forgive that. The parts I can't get over all relate to the issues around corruption. I signaled as much in my comments about her comments about lobbyists. We see two radically different worlds here. And were she President, I'd bet everything that we'd see radically little change.
But the part that gets me the most about Senator Clinton is the eager embrace of spinelessness. I don't get this in Democrats generally. I never have, but I especially don't get it after two defeats to the likes of George Bush (ok, one defeat, but let's put that aside for the moment). Our party seems constitutionally wedded to the idea that you wage a campaign with tiny speech. Say as little as possible. Be as uncontroversial as you can. Embrace the chameleon as the mascot. Fear only that someone would clearly understand what you believe. (Think of Kerry denying he supported gay marriage -- and recognize that the same sort of people who thought that would win him support are now inside the control room at ClintonHQ).
All politicians of course do this to some degree. And about some issues, I even get it. But what put me over the line with Senator Clinton was the refusal to join the bipartisan call that presidential debates be free. Not because this is a big issue. But because even on this (relatively) small issue, she couldn't muster the strength to do the right thing.
Her failure here was not because her campaign didn't know of the issue. I spoke directly to leading figures (or so they said) in the campaign. The issue was discussed, and a decision was made. And the decision was to say nothing about the issue. You can almost see the kind of tiny speak that was battered around inside HQ. "Calling for free debates might be seen as opposing copyright." "It might weaken our support among IP lawyers and Hollywood." "What would Disney think?" Better to say nothing about the issue. Better to let it simply go away.
And no doubt that was the safe bet, highly likely and politically sensible. But the issue of course didn't go away. The legal threats that motivated us to launch this call for free debates materialized in a threat against Senator McCain. But that again gave the Senator an opportunity to say something true and principled and consistent with values she certainly ought to hold dear: That Fox should not not silence McCain, even if his words were an attack on her. Again, there was an opportunity for principled, and strong character. Again, it was frittered away by tiny speak among the very same sorts who frittered away 2000, and 2004.
We (Democrats) and we (Americans) have had enough of this kind of "leadership." That (plus the Lincoln Bedroom) made it impossible for me, honestly, to support Senator Clinton. No doubt I would prefer her to any Republican (save, of course, the amazing Ron Paul). But I can't support the idea that she represents the ideals of what the Democratic Party must become.
And that leaves Barack -- an easy choice for me (except for the "trailing Clinton" part) for lots of reasons.
First, and again, I know him, which means I know something of his character. "He is the real deal" has become my favorite new phrase. Everything about him, personally, is what you would dream a candidate should be. Integrity, brilliance, warmth, humor and most importantly, commitment. They all say they're all this. But for me, this part is easy, because about this one at least, I know.
Second, I believe in the policies. Clearly on the big issues -- the war and corruption. Obama has made his career fighting both. But also on the issues closest to me. As the technology document released today reveals, to anyone who reads it closely, Obama has committed himself to important and importantly balanced positions.
First the importantly balanced: You'll read he's a supporter of Net Neutrality. No surprise there. But read carefully what Net Neutrality for Obama is. There's no blanket ban on offering better service; the ban is on contracts that offer different terms to different providers for that better service. And there's no promise to police what's under the technical hood (beyond the commitment already articulated by Chairman Powell): This is a sensible and valuable Net Neutrality policy that shows a team keen to get it right -- which includes making it enforceable in an efficient way, even if not as radical as some possible friends would like.
Second, on the important: As you'll read, Obama has committed himself to a technology policy for government that could radically change how government works. The small part of that is simple efficiency -- the appointment with broad power of a CTO for the government, making the insanely backwards technology systems of government actually work.
But the big part of this is a commitment to making data about the government (as well as government data) publicly available in standard machine readable formats. The promise isn't just the naive promise that government websites will work better and reveal more. It is the really powerful promise to feed the data necessary for the Sunlights and the Maplights of the world to make government work better. Atomize (or RSS-ify) government data (votes, contributions, Members of Congress's calendars) and you enable the rest of us to make clear the economy of influence that is Washington.
After the debacle that is the last 7 years, the duty is upon the Democrats to be something different. I've been wildly critical of their sameness (remember "Dems to the Net: Go to hell" which earned me lots of friends in the Democratic party). I would give my left arm to be able to celebrate their difference. This man, Mr. Obama, would be that difference. He has as much support as I can give.
(Oh, and to my allcaps friend, this was my reply: "Don't be ridiculous. This isn't about misplaced courage. Barack is going to win this one easily.")
EARTHQUAKE - CHILE - Magnitude 7.7 - ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
Magnitude 7.7
Date-Time
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 15:40:53 UTC
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 12:40:53 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 22.189°S, 69.843°W
Depth 60 km (37.3 miles)
Region ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
Distances 40 km (25 miles) ESE of Tocopilla, Chile
100 km (60 miles) WNW of Calama, Chile
170 km (105 miles) NNE of Antofagasta, Chile
1245 km (780 miles) N of SANTIAGO, Chile
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 8.6 km (5.3 miles); depth +/- 12.3 km (7.6 miles)
Parameters Nst=192, Nph=192, Dmin=106.7 km, Rmss=1.09 sec, Gp= 76°,
M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID us2007jsat
Date-Time
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 15:40:53 UTC
Wednesday, November 14, 2007 at 12:40:53 PM at epicenter
Time of Earthquake in other Time Zones
Location 22.189°S, 69.843°W
Depth 60 km (37.3 miles)
Region ANTOFAGASTA, CHILE
Distances 40 km (25 miles) ESE of Tocopilla, Chile
100 km (60 miles) WNW of Calama, Chile
170 km (105 miles) NNE of Antofagasta, Chile
1245 km (780 miles) N of SANTIAGO, Chile
Location Uncertainty horizontal +/- 8.6 km (5.3 miles); depth +/- 12.3 km (7.6 miles)
Parameters Nst=192, Nph=192, Dmin=106.7 km, Rmss=1.09 sec, Gp= 76°,
M-type=moment magnitude (Mw), Version=6
Source
USGS NEIC (WDCS-D)
Event ID us2007jsat
Colts sign DE Rice as Freeney could miss 4 games
November 13, 2007
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The Indianapolis Colts have claimed defensive end Simeon Rice off waivers, expecting him to fill in for injured Pro Bowler Dwight Freeney.
The announcement was made by team president Bill Polian on his weekly radio show Monday night and later posted on the team's Web site.
Rice, released by Denver on Friday, played one season for Colts coach Tony Dungy in Tampa Bay. He has 121 career sacks, second among active players to Michael Strahan of the New York Giants.
The Colts (7-2) are uncertain how much time Freeney will miss. Dungy said earlier Monday he had not yet met with the doctors and he did not anticipate it to be season-ending.
But Polian said Freeney could miss four or more games because of a left foot injury that caused him to be carted into the locker room during Sunday night's 23-21 loss at San Diego. The Colts have not yet released details of the injury.
"We anticipate that Dwight will miss some significant amount of time," Polian said.
The Colts signed Freeney in July to a six-year deal, paying an average of $12 million. He has 32 tackles and 3 1/2 sacks on the season.
The 33-year-old Rice was deactivated for two games in October and has six tackles and five assists on the season. He signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Broncos on Sept. 3.
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) -- The Indianapolis Colts have claimed defensive end Simeon Rice off waivers, expecting him to fill in for injured Pro Bowler Dwight Freeney.
The announcement was made by team president Bill Polian on his weekly radio show Monday night and later posted on the team's Web site.
Rice, released by Denver on Friday, played one season for Colts coach Tony Dungy in Tampa Bay. He has 121 career sacks, second among active players to Michael Strahan of the New York Giants.
The Colts (7-2) are uncertain how much time Freeney will miss. Dungy said earlier Monday he had not yet met with the doctors and he did not anticipate it to be season-ending.
But Polian said Freeney could miss four or more games because of a left foot injury that caused him to be carted into the locker room during Sunday night's 23-21 loss at San Diego. The Colts have not yet released details of the injury.
"We anticipate that Dwight will miss some significant amount of time," Polian said.
The Colts signed Freeney in July to a six-year deal, paying an average of $12 million. He has 32 tackles and 3 1/2 sacks on the season.
The 33-year-old Rice was deactivated for two games in October and has six tackles and five assists on the season. He signed a one-year, $3 million contract with the Broncos on Sept. 3.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Jack Cafferty Reads My (Zennie Abraham's) Response To His Question On CNN's The Situation Room
On today's CNN Situation Room, Jack Cafferty asked why Black's economic mobility was declining over past years. I wrote in this answer:
Hi Jack,
Even though I'm Black, I'm going to resist the temptation to fall right into the question. First, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago found that economic mobility for ALL Americans has declined sharply since 1980. Thus, it's logical that Blacks would be part of that statistical whole. We have a HUGE problem which stems from America's lack of desire to support manufacturing industry and allowing it, and now service industry firms, to move offshore and not subsidizing American firms to pay a living wage and compete internationally.
Zennie Abraham, Oakland, CA
Well, to my surprise, Jack read the entire email -- just as you see it -- on the air! It was nice to hear my message get out in the open!
Houston Texans Offensive Lineman Fred Weary Sues Houston - Racial Profiling - ESPN & AP
Weary sues city of Houston, two officers over Taser arrest
ESPN.com news services
HOUSTON -- Houston Texans offensive lineman Fred Weary is suing the city and two police officers for a November 2006 arrest in which he was shot with a Taser gun during a traffic stop.
In his lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, Weary is accusing the city and the officers of excessive force, assault, racial profiling, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
"I have to put closure on this situation and this is my first step to closure," Weary told KRIV-TV in Houston. "It's really taken a toll on my life and my family. I didn't know last year that it would affect me the way it has. It's my right that I need to do something about it.
"I feel my rights have been violated that day last year," Weary told KRIV-TV. "I have had to deal with that for this whole entire year. I've thought about it a lot. It's been on my mind constantly."
The two officers said they stopped Weary because he didn't have a front license plate and was driving "suspiciously."
According to the police report, the 6-foot-4, 308-pound Weary became angry and uncooperative after being stopped in an area near Reliant Stadium, where authorities were on alert because of criminal activity. Weary was coming from a team practice when he was stopped.
Police said Weary was shot with a Taser after he pushed one of the officers away and then tried to come toward them after being told to put his hands on his vehicle.
A misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest was later dismissed because of insufficient evidence.
Weary's attorney, Joe Walker, told KRIV that his client's lawsuit doesn't specify a dollar amount.
"I will leave that to the sound discretion of the jury," Walker told KRIV.
The officers "clearly used race as a factor for reasonable suspicion and making a traffic stop of Mr. Weary," Walker said.
Walker said Tuesday that Weary would not have filed the lawsuit if he had received letters of apology from Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt.
He had also asked for monetary compensation, which would have been donated to a police charity, and that the city review its policies regarding racial profiling and the use of Tasers.
"He never got his letter of apology or a concrete review of tasering," Walker said. "He asked for a copy of [taser] policies and they sent him a policy that was completely blacked out, censored."
Walker said the city's policy on Taser use needs to be re-examined because some reviews done by local media and advocacy groups show that in more than 350 of the first 900 police Taser incidents, no person was charged.
Weary's taser incident renewed controversy over the stun guns' use, prompting White to call for a study of how officers have used the devices. The study, being conducted by the University of Houston Center for Public Policy, is set to be done by January.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
ESPN.com news services
HOUSTON -- Houston Texans offensive lineman Fred Weary is suing the city and two police officers for a November 2006 arrest in which he was shot with a Taser gun during a traffic stop.
In his lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, Weary is accusing the city and the officers of excessive force, assault, racial profiling, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
"I have to put closure on this situation and this is my first step to closure," Weary told KRIV-TV in Houston. "It's really taken a toll on my life and my family. I didn't know last year that it would affect me the way it has. It's my right that I need to do something about it.
"I feel my rights have been violated that day last year," Weary told KRIV-TV. "I have had to deal with that for this whole entire year. I've thought about it a lot. It's been on my mind constantly."
The two officers said they stopped Weary because he didn't have a front license plate and was driving "suspiciously."
According to the police report, the 6-foot-4, 308-pound Weary became angry and uncooperative after being stopped in an area near Reliant Stadium, where authorities were on alert because of criminal activity. Weary was coming from a team practice when he was stopped.
Police said Weary was shot with a Taser after he pushed one of the officers away and then tried to come toward them after being told to put his hands on his vehicle.
A misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest was later dismissed because of insufficient evidence.
Weary's attorney, Joe Walker, told KRIV that his client's lawsuit doesn't specify a dollar amount.
"I will leave that to the sound discretion of the jury," Walker told KRIV.
The officers "clearly used race as a factor for reasonable suspicion and making a traffic stop of Mr. Weary," Walker said.
Walker said Tuesday that Weary would not have filed the lawsuit if he had received letters of apology from Mayor Bill White and Police Chief Harold Hurtt.
He had also asked for monetary compensation, which would have been donated to a police charity, and that the city review its policies regarding racial profiling and the use of Tasers.
"He never got his letter of apology or a concrete review of tasering," Walker said. "He asked for a copy of [taser] policies and they sent him a policy that was completely blacked out, censored."
Walker said the city's policy on Taser use needs to be re-examined because some reviews done by local media and advocacy groups show that in more than 350 of the first 900 police Taser incidents, no person was charged.
Weary's taser incident renewed controversy over the stun guns' use, prompting White to call for a study of how officers have used the devices. The study, being conducted by the University of Houston Center for Public Policy, is set to be done by January.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
Racism's Alarming Spread On YouTube
This video below shows on YouTubers concern over the rampant spread of racism on YouTube. It comes out in comments on certain videos and is so prevanlent one has to ask if YouTube is safe. I personally think so, but I do think this issue should be adressed before a crisis sets in.
And this is another video expressing concern.
We need a reminder that racism is mental illness and should not be tolerated or spread on any medium like YouTube.
And this is another video expressing concern.
We need a reminder that racism is mental illness and should not be tolerated or spread on any medium like YouTube.
Hillary Clinton Campaign Staffers Warn CNN's Wolf Blitzer To "Take It Easy" On Her
That's according to the Drudge Report and Sayanthingblog. Wolf made fun of it on The Situation Room, still it came from somewhere. Blitzer says he doesn't know where it came from. Stay tuned.
Hillary Clinton Iowa Student Question "Plant" Scandal Hits CNN
Hillary Clinton Iowa Student Question "Plant" Scandal Hits CNN
Wow. This is a story that's picking up legs and growing -- not going away. CNN has this exclusive interview with the student who's upset that she was picked as a plant by the Clinton campaign. Read it below and watch the video!
CNN Interview of Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff
GRINNELL, Iowa (CNN) -- The college student who was told what question to ask at one of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign events says "voters have the right to know what happened" and she wasn't the only one who was planted.
Student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said a staffer told her what to ask at a campaign event for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
In an exclusive on-camera interview with CNN, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, said that giving anyone specific questions to ask is "dishonest," and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics.
Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was really pretty simple: She says a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.
"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.
"'I don't think that's a good idea," the staffer said, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, "because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans." Watch the student describe how she was approached »
He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.
"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. " It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."
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Topping that sheet of paper was the following: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?" Watch the student ask the planted question »
And while she said she would have rather used her own question, Gallo-Chasanoff said she generally didn't have a problem asking the campaign's because she "likes to be agreeable," adding that since she told the staffer she'd ask their pre-typed question she "didn't want to go back on [her] word."
Clinton campaign spokesman Mo Elleithee said Clinton had "no idea who she was calling on."
"This is not acceptable campaign process moving forward. We've taken steps to ensure that it never happens again," she said in a written response to CNN.
Gallo-Chasanoff wasn't so sure.
"I don't know whether Hillary knew what my question was going to be, but it seemed like she knew to call on me because there were so many people, and ... I was the only college student in that area," she said. Watch the full interview »
In a separate statement in response to the campus article, the campaign also added, "On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Senator Clinton's energy plan at a forum. ... This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again."
Gallo-Chasanoff may have some doubts about that one as well.
"After the event," she said, "I heard another man ... talking about the question he asked, and he said that the campaign had asked him to ask that question."
The man she references prefaced his question by saying that it probably didn't have anything to do with energy, and then posed the following: "I wonder what you propose to do to create jobs for the middle-class person, such as here in Newton where we lost Maytag."
A Maytag factory in Newton recently closed, forcing hundreds of people out of their jobs.
During the course of the late-night interview on Grinnell's campus, Gallo-Chasanoff also told CNN that the day before the school's newspaper, Scarlet and Black, printed the story, she wanted the reporter to inform the campaign out of courtesy to let them know it would be published.
She said the "head of publicity for the campaign," a man whose name she could not recall, had no factual disputes with the story. But, she added, a Clinton intern spoke to her to say the campaign requests she "not talk about" the story to any more media outlets and that if she did she should inform a staffer.
"I'm not under any real obligation to do that, and I haven't talked to [the campaign] anymore," Gallo-Chasanoff said, adding that she also doesn't plan to.
"If what I do is come and just be totally truthful, then that's all anyone can ask of me, and that's all I can ask of myself. So I'll feel good with what I've done. I'll feel like I've done the right thing."
The Clinton campaign's acknowledgment that it planted a question re-enforces a widely held criticism of the senator -- that she is not entirely honest, said Bill Schneider, CNN's senior political analyst.
"It's the same criticism often made of her husband," Schneider said. "Most Americans never felt Bill Clinton was honest and trustworthy, even when he got elected in 1992 -- with only 43 percent of the vote. His critics called him 'Slick Willy.' ... Will her critics start referring to the New York senator as `Slick Hillary?'"
Asked if this experience makes her less likely to support Clinton's presidential bid, Gallo-Chasanoff, an undecided voter, said, "I think she has a lot to offer, but I -- this experience makes me look at her campaign a little bit differently."
"The question and answer sessions -- especially in Iowa -- are really important. That's where the voters get to ... have like a real genuine conversation with this politician who could be representing them."
While she acknowledged "it's possible that all campaigns do these kind of tactics," she said it still doesn't make it right.
"Personally I want to know that I have someone who's honest representing me."
Gallo-Chasanoff's story comes at a time when a second person has also come forward with a similar one. Geoffrey Mitchell of Hamilton, Illinois, a town located on the Iowa border, told CNN the Clinton campaign also wanted him to ask a certain question at an Iowa event in April.
"He asked me if I would ask Sen. Clinton about ways she was going to confront the president on the war in Iraq, specifically war funding," said Geoffrey Mitchell, a supporter of Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois. "I told him it was not a question I felt comfortable with."
No questions were taken at the event. Elleithee said this incident was different than what happened with Gallo-Chasanoff in Newton. Elleithee said the staffer "bumped into someone he marginally knew" and during a conversation with Mitchell, "Iraq came up." Elleithee denied the campaign tried to plant him as a friendly questioner in the audience.
Mitchell said he had never met the staffer before the event.
Rackspace? Never Heard Of It Until Now; It's Got Bad Publicity On Technorati!
I had never heard of Rackspace until now, and I know I'll never use them! Look at this sample of posts over at Technorati! Wow. Apparently the system was taken out by a truck!
Rackspace.com had downtime? That’s impossible!
It’s a pity that Rackspace, a company with a stellar reputation for uptime and “Fanatical Support” ... to be happy Rackspace customer. I studied the way they did business and implemented it in my own ...
Web Host Rackspace Knocked Offline
Web Host Rackspace Knocked Offline First, Web hosting company Rackspace had a “maintenance failure” at its Dallas data center Sunday, then a truck on Monday hit a transformer providing its power.
Web Host Industry Review | Find Web Hosting, Reseller Hosting, ... Rackspace Servers See Downtime Web Host SoftLayer to Host Internap RatePoint Partners with IPOWER
US Data Center chillers not backed up by diesel generators?
US Data Center chillers not backed up by diesel generators? Published by Tom Raftery on 13/11/2007 in cix and data centre. 0 Comments Rackspace are a high-profile data centre ... .
Datacenters can suck. Communication can be great.
Datacenters can suck. Communication can be great. If you consider that you and your users are in some sort of a ‘relationship’, then good communication is pretty important. The Rackspace datacenter outage reminds me yet again that we’re lucky to have a handful of
RackSpace Data Center Goes Dark After Accident
[ Batteries_2] The internet may seem omnipresent and infallible, ... at 365 Main that brought down our site, one of RackSpace's data centers in San Antonio went dark ... for the count for almost three hours.
Rackspace Hit By Outage Caused By Wayward Truck
Rackspace reported that it had two separate incidents at its Dallas/Forth Worth data center Monday, which resulted in visible downtime at a number of Internet customers. The firm reported
MyBlogLog outage - civrf.yahoo.com lookup failed
[ MyBlogLog outage]It must be outage week, since I not only discovered Skype had a brief outage but ... to a major outage at Rackspace, which is Om's hosting company, along with several other large websites. I wonder if Yahoo uses Rackspace - which would explain the MyBlogLog outage.
Cooling Challenges an Issue In Rackspace Outage
miller60 writes “If your data center’s cooling system fails, how long do you have before your servers overheat? The shrinking window for recovery from a grid power outage appears to have been an issue in Monday night’s downtime for some customers of Rackspace, which
Facebookers Launch Official Petition Against Hillary Clinton's Insult
In The Politico.com , it was reported that On Saturday, November 10th, Clinton advisers told reporters this about Barack Obama's voters:
“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”
Penn added, “Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state.”
This was reported by Roger Simon in his column today and the well-reported quip angered more than a few Facebook users. It was one of the dumbest errors commited by the Clinton campaign, and could serve as another nail in the coffin of her Presidential campaign.
The Clinton camp's way too arrogant, and comments like those of Gruwald and Penn prove it.
The anger of Facebook users has materialized into a petition against Hillary Clinton, which you can see and respond to with a click here.
“Our people look like caucus-goers,” Grunwald said, “and his people look like they are 18. Penn said they look like Facebook.”
Penn added, “Only a few of their people look like they could vote in any state.”
This was reported by Roger Simon in his column today and the well-reported quip angered more than a few Facebook users. It was one of the dumbest errors commited by the Clinton campaign, and could serve as another nail in the coffin of her Presidential campaign.
The Clinton camp's way too arrogant, and comments like those of Gruwald and Penn prove it.
The anger of Facebook users has materialized into a petition against Hillary Clinton, which you can see and respond to with a click here.
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