Massachusetts Police Get Black Uniforms to Instill Sense of 'Fear'

Not a good way to instill trust. People will hate what they fear....automatically instigates violence and dangerous conditions in the streets.
Tom

Thursday, April 24, 2008

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — Springfield's men in black are returning. The city's new police commissioner, William Fitchet, says members of the department's Street Crime Unit will again don black, military-style uniforms as part of his strategy to deal with youth violence.

Fitchet's predecessor, Edward Flynn, had ditched the black attire as part of an effort to soften the image of the unit. Flynn left Springfield in January to become the police chief in Milwaukee.

Sgt. John Delaney told a city council hearing Wednesday that the stark uniforms send a message to criminals that officers are serious about making arrests.

Delaney said a sense of "fear" has been missing for the past few years.

Saving the Honeybee Through Organic Farming

Professor Joe Cummins

Synergistic effects of pesticides and parasitic fungi and worsening decline of honeybees
The decline of the honeybee attracted worldwide attention in 2007. Investigations carried out by the Institute of Science in Society implicated a synergistic interaction between the recent widespread use of new pesticides (including Bt toxin from GM crops) and fungal infections [1, 2] (Parasitic Fungus and Honeybee Decline , Parasitic Fungi and Pesticides Act Synergistically to Kill Honeybees?, SiS 35). Sub-lethal levels of neonicotinoid pesticides act synergistically with parasitic fungi in killing insects pests. Fungal spores, widely used as biocontrol agents are applied in sprays and baits, and when delivered in suspension with sub-lethal levels of pesticides are much more effective in killing insects. Equally, Bt biopesticides enhance the killing power of parasitic fungi synergistically. That information was transmitted through a written question to the European Parliament [3].

Last year’s decline was serious enough and described as “beepocalypse now” by a news report [4]. According to the US Department of Agriculture one mouthful in three of the foods we eat directly or indirectly depend on pollination by honeybees [5]. Most fruit and many vegetables would disappear from our diet along with an immediate shortage of meat due to the loss of forage. This winters’ bee loss was 34 percent, up from the 25 percent the previous year [6].

The decline is attributed to ‘Colony Collapse Disorder’ (CCD), most likely to be multi-factorial. The main suspects include pesticides, parasites, viruses, radiation from cell phone transmitters [7-9] (Mystery of Disappearing Honeybees, Requiem for the Honeybee, Mobile Phones and Vanishing Bees, SiS 34) and even brood temperature [10]. The impact of sub-lethal levels of pesticides on the immune system of the bee leads to synergistic infection of the bees by fungal parasites. In addition, the behaviour of the bees is frequently modified leading to confusion in foraging and failure to return to the hive.

Organic farming practices that retain more natural habitats and avoid the use of chemical pesticides should provide environments that serve as honeybee sanctuaries from the ravages of CCD. There are scientific studies showing that agricultural landscapes with organic crops are far superior environments for both honey- and bumblebees [11, 12]. It would be prudent to create organic bee sanctuaries as widely and as soon as possible.

Fungal infections more deadly with increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
With regard to the fungal parasites, it was recently shown that the prominent fungal parasite Nosema ceranea has been a longstanding and widespread infection of honeybees in the United States [13]. Nosema ceranae was detected also in Canada [14]. Spores of a related parasite, Nosema apis, was found to respond to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by enhanced germination, resulting in higher mortality of infected bees [15]. Will global warming result in the honeybee losing its struggle with fungal parasites?

Sub-lethal effects are the silent killers
The sub-lethal effects of insecticides go beyond the synergistic effect of insecticides on the immune system, as they may also affect learning and foraging competence of the honeybee, A recent study from France showed that bees fed sub-lethal levels of Bacillus thuingiensis Cry1Ab protein (a toxin in MON810 maize) affect food consumption and or learning processes leading to disturbed foraging [16]. The neonicotinoid pesticides that also affect bees in similar ways [2] are used extensively as systemic insecticides, and frequently originate from seed treatment. One member of that group, Imidacloprid, was tested extensively, leading to its ban in France, Another of the neonicotinoid pesticide, Acetamiprid, was found to impair olfactory learning in the honeybee while the pesticide Thiamethoxam did not appear to effect bee behaviour [17]. The regulation of insecticides should definitely be extended to include sub-lethal behavioural impairment of the honeybees, and those insecticides having such an effect should be banned immediately. A risk assessment to honeybees was developed in France for non-sprayed (seed treatment) systemic chemicals [18], though predictably industry representatives argued that field test data should override trials on sub-lethal effects [19]. Along those lines, industry and its associated academics selected and reviewed 25 laboratory studies showing that Bt toxins including Cry1Ab have no adverse effects on honeybees [20], but the only adverse outcome considered was mortality directly due to the pesticide, excluding learning impairments that could also result in the bees dying. Unfortunately, regulatory agencies appear to be similarly impaired when it comes to recognizing evidence related to sub-lethal impairment of the bees.

Organic agriculture must be widely adopted to save the honeybee
In conclusion, sub-lethal levels of pesticides, including the Bt biopesticides produced in genetically modified (GM) crops covering some 30 percent of the global area, disorientate the bees, making them behave abnormally, and compromise their immunity to infections. Regulators have allowed the widespread deployment of systemic neonicotinoid pesticides based on assessments of lethal dose in bees of the pesticides alone, ignoring clear evidence that sub-lethal pesticide levels act synergistically with fungal parasites in killing insects. The honeybees may well be succumbing to such synergistic effects. There is every reason to eliminate the use of all pesticides that act synergistically with parasitic fungi, and all Bt crops should be banned for the same reason. Obviously, these problems will disappear with the widespread adoption of organic, non-GM farming.

Rev. Al Sharpton vows to 'close the city down' after cops' acquittal in Bell trial

This is disgusting and a damn outrage.....More evidence of police and judicial corruption. Al Sharpton is right on and needs more support. Shut that crazy city down for a day or two.

To all those who care very deeply about how this judgment came out, one word of caution. Please make sure, if there are demonstrations, that they are peaceful.
The person in any group agitating for rough measures, damage to property, and assault on people, is usually the plainclothes spook paid for by law enforcement. And remember; there are those elements in this government which would just love a justification for invoking martial law, not only in New York, but also nationally

Tom

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Friday, April 25th 2008

Rev. Al Sharpton leaves court with Sean Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, and her mother, Laura.

They waited for hours, singing spirituals, praying and chanting for justice, but in a flash, the crowd gathered outside a Queens courthouse Friday erupted in anger and grief.

Men cursed and shouted. Women wailed and covered their faces. "Oh, no! No!" they yelled, as word spread that three police officers had been cleared of all charges in the 50-bullet shooting that took Sean Bell's life on his wedding day in 2006.

To some, the acquittal seemed like more proof that blacks can't get a fair shake in the criminal justice system.

Moments after the verdict was announced, Trent Benefield, a friend of Bell's who was wounded in the hail of gunfire, staggered down the courthouse steps with a look of angry disbelief on his face, a friend's arms tightly wrapped around his shoulders.

"Not guilty. Not guilty. It's real," he said, while dozens of people wearing Bell's face on hats, T-shirts and buttons burst into sobs.

Within an hour, the crowd of about 200 people had settled down and dispersed. Despite a few scuffles between members of the throng and police officers, no arrests were made.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, who represented the Bell family, angrily denounced the verdicts on his radio show later and called on his followers to protest the outcome, but without violence.

He vowed to lead a campaign of "economic withdrawal" and civil disobedience that could include demonstrations at police headquarters and outside the judge's home.

"We are coming back to demonstrate to the federal government that New Yorkers will not take this abortion of justice lying down," Sharpton said. "We are going to close the city down in a nonviolent, effective way."

The protests were muted compared with past verdicts where officers were cleared in police shootings of black men, perhaps a result of improved race relations and the complicated nature of the Bell case.

Bell was black, but so were two of the three officers charged in the shooting, including the one who fired the first shot.

Supporters of the Bell family began arriving early at the courthouse. Few were able to get inside. Most waited in a long line on the sidewalk, leaning against police barricades.

A few carried signs reading "Justice for Sean Bell." One group held a banner proclaiming, "50 Shots. 50 More Reasons We Need Revolution."

Scores of officers wearing blue NYPD polo shirts, along with others in standard uniform, ringed the building and kept the sidewalk clear of swarming journalists.

Inside the packed courtroom, gasps could be heard when Justice Arthur Cooperman acquitted the officers. Bell's mother cried; her husband put his arm around her and shook his head. Bell's fiancee, Nicole Paultre Bell, rushed from the courtroom. Officer Michael Oliver, who fired the most shots, also cried.

Word spread immediately to the crowd outside, and the reaction was intense.

William Hardgraves, 48, an electrician from Harlem who brought his 12-year-old son and 23-year-old daughter to hear the verdict, paced angrily.

"I hoped it would be different this time. They shot him 50 times," Hardgraves said. "But of course, it wasn't."

Calvin Hunt of Harlem shared his anger.

"This was a disgrace, what happened today," he said.