San Francisco fest features public sex with no arrests

‘This is what the gay agenda is all about’

Nude men engaged in multiple instances of public sex on a municipal street while police officers, on foot and bicycle, congregated nearby making no attempt to enforce public indecency regulations, according to a report on the latest homosexual-fest in San Francisco.

The behavior was documented in photographs of an event called “Up Your Alley,” which is sponsored by the same group that organizes the city’s fall “gay”-fest, the Folsom Street Fair, on which WND has reported.

“Consider how liberal government authorities like Mayor [Gavin] Newsom have corrupted the men in blue by stipulating that police not prosecute public nudity and indecency at homosexual festivals,” said a report from Americans for Truth on the graphic activities documented at the event.

“What honor can there be in protecting the public practice of heinous perversions and nudity in the city’s streets? The shame of pandering politicians is transferred to the cops who were intended to be guardians of the law and public order,” said the organizer’s chief, Peter LaBarbera. Nude men engaged in multiple instances of public sex on a municipal street while police officers, on foot and bicycle, congregated nearby making no attempt to enforce public indecency regulations, according to a report on the latest homosexual-fest in San Francisco.

The behavior was documented in photographs of an event called “Up Your Alley,” which is sponsored by the same group that organizes the city’s fall “gay”-fest, the Folsom Street Fair, on which WND has reported.

“Consider how liberal government authorities like Mayor [Gavin] Newsom have corrupted the men in blue by stipulating that police not prosecute public nudity and indecency at homosexual festivals,” said a report from Americans for Truth on the graphic activities documented at the event.

“What honor can there be in protecting the public practice of heinous perversions and nudity in the city’s streets? The shame of pandering politicians is transferred to the cops who were intended to be guardians of the law and public order,” said the organizer’s chief, Peter LaBarbera.

His organization is one of the few in the country to call officials from San Francisco on the issue of the obscene behavior, including public acts of sex, documented during the festival in late July.

Americans for Truth previously worked to raise the nation’s awareness of the Folsom Street Fair, which last fall broke into the headlines with its promotional image mocking the Last Supper scene of Jesus Christ and his disciples, replacing the biblical leaders with leather-adorned men and the bread and wine with sex toys.

LaBarbera, who had to edit photos to conceal full nudity in images from the public street festival before he could post them as part of his report, said there were exhibitionists who “walked around baring their genitals, with no fear of being arrested.” Other websites, to which WND is unable to link because of their graphic content, published fully explicit photographs of various public acts of sex and nudity. They featured explicit photographs of oral and anal sex between men and men urinating on each other, among other activities.

The Americans for Truth report follows the July 27 event, “one of the city’s two open-air celebrations of sadomasochism (euphemistically called the ‘leather’ lifestyle by practitioners),” AFT said. “It is telling to us that the same city whose mayor, Gavin Newsom (D), ignited the ‘same-sex marriage’ crusade in California by illegally issuing ‘gay marriage’ licenses – openly tolerates and celebrates gross perversions, nudity and sexual lawlessness on its streets.”

The images captured in the photos were described by one WND reader as “vomit-inducing.”

“This is what the gay agenda is all about,” the reader said. “I’ll go even further and call [the images] depraved and disgusting.

“Remember, this is on the public streets of San Francisco,” the reader said.

“These photos do not fit in with the slick, national ‘gay’ marketing plan, to be sure,” LaBarbera wrote. “Nevertheless, the pathetic and debased spectacle is as much an offspring of the ‘GLBT’ movement as the current quest for homosexual ‘marriage.’ The latter radically redefines and corrupts an ancient institution created by God to order relations between man and woman as the basis for family life.

Perverse events like ‘Up Your Alley’ … mock any notion of right and wrong – as the reckless pursuit of anything-goes ‘tolerance’ leads governmental authorities to enable and promote evil, turning freedom into sexual anarchy while causing a breakdown in law and order.”

WND made multiple attempts to reach officials in San Francisco for a comment on the apparent lack of obscenity and indecency regulation enforcement during the festival.

Officials with the San Francisco police department’s media relations office declined to return a message left by telephone. Also declining to return a message requesting a comment was the office of Newsom. Officials in the media office for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who represents the district, also declined to comment at all on the XXX-rated festival.

“One San Francisco policeman told our volunteers that the police were instructed not to make arrests for indecency on the city streets at “Up Your Alley” – but merely to ‘contain’ the activity to the street fair, which encompassed several city blocks,” Americans for Truth reported.

“San Francisco’s extreme political correctness has turned cops into impotent Perversion Protectors,” the group said.

The organization said the events included whippings, public sex between men, and even advocacy for slavery, with one man wearing nothing but cuffs and chains.

“Homosexual activists mock and deride Americans For Truth relentlessly for exposing sordid realities like ‘Up Your Alley’ – and showing you what happens when sexual radicals come to dominate a major city,” LaBarbera said.

“They don’t want Americans to see this side of their agenda … But we must face reality and come to grips with the truth that ‘rights’ based on aberrant sex are not genuine civil rights,” he said.

“Like the pantless perverts wandering around in sneakers-only at ‘Up Your Alley,’ the liberals’ pro-homosexual ‘tolerance and diversity’ program is now fully exposed as a soulless and bankrupt ideology,” LaBarbera said. “According to its precepts, nothing can be judged as wrong (sexually-speaking) – except, of course, normal, historic Judeo-Christian mores.”

And people ask me why I’m moving out of California. And depending on the upcoming election I just might move abroad.

Mexican army invades U.S., holds border cop at gunpoint

‘It is fortunate this incident didn’t end in a very ugly gunfight’

Mexican army soldiers invaded U.S. territory and held a member of the U.S. Border Patrol at gunpoint, according to a report from the union representing the guards.

“Unfortunately, this sort of behavior by Mexican military personnel has been going on for years,” a statement from Local 2544 of the National Border Patrol Council said.

“They are never held accountable, and the United States government will undoubtedly brush this off as another case of ‘Oh well, they didn’t know they were in the United States,'” the group said.

The organization reported the Tucson Sector Border Patrol agent was held Sunday at gunpoint near Ajo, Ariz.

“Mexican military personnel crossed over the border and pointed rifles at him,” the union said. “Backup units arrived from the Ajo Border Patrol station, and the Mexican military personnel eventually returned to Mexico.”

WND reported an investigation by Judicial Watch that revealed dozens of armed incursions by Mexican soldiers and police into the U.S. during fiscal year 2007.

The report obtained by the Washington-based organization that investigates and prosecutes government corruption documented 29 confirmed incidents along the U.S.-Mexican border involving Mexican military and/or law enforcement personnel during that time.

“These documents not only show the dangerous and chaotic situation at the Mexican border, but also the complicity of some Mexican government agents in violating U.S. law,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said at the time of the report.

“The U.S. government must begin to take these incidents more seriously, publicize them and take measures to bring the crisis at our border under control,” he said.

Referring to Sunday’s encounter, the Border Patrol union said it was “fortunate that this incident didn’t end in a very ugly gunfight.”

The situation isn’t altogether new, the union said.

“A few years ago the Mexican military went a step further and put a .50 calibre rifle round through the rear window of a Border Patrol agent’s patrol vehicle south of Ajo. Nothing was ever done. Nobody was ever held accountable. Particularly galling is the fact that the Mexican military often pulls these stunts in Humvees donated to them by the American taxpayers (although they were apparently on foot this time),” the union said.

According to a report in the Washington Times, it was unclear exactly what the Mexican soldiers were doing inside the U.S., but the report said law enforcement authorities long have said Mexican soldiers have been hired to protect drug and migrant smugglers.

The National Border Patrol Council represents nonsupervisory personnel among the federal agency’s estimated 16,000 agents.

Ricardo Alday of the Mexican Embassy in Washington told the Times his nation and the U.S. are pursuing “an all-out struggle to deter criminal organizations from operating on both sides of our common border.’

“Law enforcement operations have led, from time to time, to innocent incursions by both U.S. and Mexican law enforcement personnel and military units into the territory of both nations, and in particular along non-demarcated areas of our border,” he told the newspaper.

But local law enforcement authorities are worried. Sheriff Sigifredo Gonzalez Jr. of Zapata County, Texas, founded a coalition of sheriffs demanding the U.S. and Mexican governments investigate incursions.

He said the problem needs to be solved before “someone gets killed.”

On the Post’s forum page, a participant said, “I’m surprised the Bush administration doesn’t arrest and convict the border agents involved like they did agents [Ignacio] Ramos and [Jose] Compean. Don’t worry, soon we won’t have borders anyway. We’ll be the North American Union, and will be nothing more than a third world oligarchy just like good ‘ol Mexico.”

Added another, “My brother-in-law, a very wise man, suggested years ago that we build a half-mile wide trench the length of the Mexican border with guard towers every 100 yards, fill it with all the chemical and nuclear waste we have, and then shoot anything that glows in the dark. He was right.”
The Judicial Watch report for 2007 had cited earlier incidents such as one at the Fort Hancock Station in El Paso:

“[Troopers] attempted to apprehend three vehicles believed to be smuggling contraband on I-10 … As the vehicles approached the border, [troopers] stated that a Mexican Military Humvee armed with a .50 caliber weapon and several soldiers were seen assisting smugglers return to Mexico … Officers then noticed several armed subjects dressed in fatigue type clothing unload the contraband into the Humvee. These subjects set fire to the stalled vehicle before leaving the area.”

Where’s Sheriff Joe when we need him?

McClintObama Amnesty Plan: 20 million Illegal Alien Voters by 2010

Have GOP Voters forgotten that just a few months ago, John McCain stood hand-in-hand with liberal icon Ted Kennedy pushing for the largest amnesty for illegal aliens in American history? While Rasmussen polling showed that Americans following the legislation very closely opposed it 3 to 1 (69% to 23%), McCain ignored the massive public outcry!

The angry calls rolling into the Senate offices, including John McCain’s, were between 50 and 100 to 1 against McCain and Kennedy’s bill. We know this because we stood outside his door counting calls received by his staff and because other Senators told us the ratios they were receiving. History was made when the Capital phone system shut down, due to overload of calls from angry Americans.

John McCain refused to listen to Americans and went so far as to call members of the Senate who refused to support the McKennedy Amnesty “Racists”! John McCain showed no regard for American voices and instead called those who disagreed with him petty names. Who was John McCain listening to? He was listening to the US Chamber of Commerce and the racist illegal alien support groups like La Raza (The Race) whom he openly coordinated the effort with.

John McCain has illustrated in dramatic fashion that when he feels safe in his office, he couldn’t care less about what a majority of Americans think.

Now, John McCain claims he is listening because he wants to be President in a few months. He says he will “Secure the Border First!” Even if you could trust John McCain, which you cannot, his border security pledge will be quickly reduced to irrelevance, if his desire for Amnesty for 20 million illegal aliens becomes a reality…

Barrack Obama brags about how he worked with Senator McCain for “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” amnesty. If the GOP voters allow McCain to win the primary, they will be denying Americans any real choice against Amnesty in November. Unless an independent candidate enters the race, our choice will be between Clinton, Obama, or McCain all pushing for Amnesty from the White House, just like Bush!

Some conservatives will hold their nose and vote for McCain out of fear of the Democrats, others will go third party. Many conservatives would not vote for McCain at gunpoint!

The Republican Party will not be destroyed, if the McCain, Obama, Clinton Amnesty becomes a reality. Each party will race to replace American voices in their ranks, with the twenty million new voters who were recently illegal aliens. Does this surprise anyone who is knowledgeable about how American homes, jobs, tax dollars, limited health care resources, and finite seats in schools are being given to illegal aliens as well?

Any border security promised by McCain will quickly fade into irrelevance beneath the political weight of America’s new race based voting block of legalized illegal aliens. What hope will Americans have for border security or immigration enforcement once this happens? The answer is clear… NONE!

Seventy Seven percent of Americans oppose licenses for illegal aliens. Under the McClintObama plan, twenty million illegal aliens will be eligible for licenses within a few years.

Over seventy percent of Americans oppose taxpayer benefits and welfare for illegal aliens. Under the McClintObama plan, twenty million illegal aliens will be turned into citizen voters and will be eligible for welfare and all taxpayer benefits.

Over 80 percent of Americans oppose in-state tuition for illegal aliens. Under the McClintObama plan, twenty million legalized illegal aliens will qualify for in-state tuition.

Under the McClintObama plan, employers will only have to worry about hiring the next twenty million illegal aliens flooding the country, in response to the Amnesty provided to the most recent wave.

John McCain supports Amnesty. If you have any doubts, then ask yourself why his campaign has deployed open borders fanatic, Juan Hernandez to secure the Hispanic vote for McCain.

Juan Hernandez is a dual citizen of Mexico and America. He used to work for Mexican President Vicente Fox by reaching out to and organizing illegal aliens from Mexico inside the US. Hernandez is known for his stance called, “Mexico First”. He is a regular on national television, where he flagrantly advocates amnesty and Open Borders with Mexico.

Juan Hernandez is the face of the McCain’s campaign to Hispanic voters and he did a great job delivering the Hispanic vote in Florida to McCain!

There are two main reasons McCain is winning the GOP Primary right now. One is the anti-illegal immigration vote is split up between Romney and Paul, who appear to be sincere in their “No Amnesty” pledges. The anti-illegal immigration vote is also splitting to Mike Huckabee, who truthfully supports Amnesty and a path to citizenship for illegal aliens, but is a very skillful liar. Huckabee is deceiving voters by mailing out endorsment cards from lone Minuteman Jim Gilchrist. The anti-illegal immigration vote is divided three ways, and the pro-amnesty vote is now collected around John McCain.

The second reason McCain is winning is that many GOP voters don’t know his immigration stances, have forgotten his immigration stances, or have forgiven his immigration stances. They say, “He has changed” or “We have to stop Clinton and Obama”.

John McCain has not changed or he would not have Juan Hernandez out promising Amnesty for illegal aliens. John McCain has not changed or he would not be saying, “Secure the Borders first”, without getting into the part where amnesty is then passed. John McCain has not changed because he recently stated on the national news that he would still vote for his amnesty bill or sign it into law as President!

Do GOP voters really prefer to have one of their own pushing amnesty than a Democrat? I am a Republican, getting closer to independent every day, but I will say that at very least the Democrats are more honest about their pro-amnesty positions than McCain and Huckabee.

What madness, lies, or misinformation would infect the mind of a GOP voter for them to support a man like John McCain, who works openly with ultra-liberal Democrats, almost changed parties to join the Democrats in 2001, and has the worst record on immigration of any of the GOP candidates?

Why would anyone support a man who is so detached from reality that he told a booing crowd of Union workers that they would not pick lettuce for even $50 an hour!?!?!

John McCain says he knows all about securing the border because he is from Arizona. Say what? Has anyone seen the conditions in Arizona lately, where they have declared a state of emergency and fought to pass strict state laws to enforce the immigration laws, which John McCain and his DC insiders refuse to enforce?

There are good reasons why Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Laura Ingram, Hugh Hewitt, and Michelle Malkin are heavily criticizing John McCain. There are good reasons for Ronald Reagan’s son, Michael to condemn the McCain candidacy. There are good reasons why ALIPAC, NumbersUSA, and almost every other organization in America fighting against Amnesty and illegal immigration, while supporting Border Security, are screaming NO to McCain!

The principles of this nation are at stake. The value of our votes is at stake. The survival of the United States, in its current form, is at stake.

We must stop the McClintObama Amnesty Plan. We must stop twenty million illegal aliens from becoming voters by 2010. We must race against time to warn every GOP voter before Super Tuesday, because we must do all we can to stop John McCain.

No one with any sense can make any sense out of our senseless politicans!

Readers don’t buy ‘explanation’ of donations

A Wall Street Journal report brushed off concerns about contributions of more than $30,000 to Sen. Barack Obama campaign from three brothers in Gaza, but the newspaper’s readers weren’t swallowing the explanation.

WND reported Obama’s campaign admitted to receiving $33,500 in illegal foreign contributions from three brothers in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip and reported the left-wing Daily Kos website suggesting WND – whose Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein investigated the story – might have concocted a convoluted scheme to make the Illinois senator look bad.

The WSJ report from Glenn R. Simpson sadi the donations came in between Sept. 20 and Dec. 6 and virtually all of the money was returned by Dec. 6. But the refunds weren’t reported to the Federal Election Commission due to a technical error, campaign officials told the paper.

However, the newspaper’s comments page, following a supportive comment signed Obama ’08, was flooded with skepticism. That first comment was: “That’s why Obama is ethical and why both of his administrations will start a new chapter in honesty and hope for the American people (and world citizens).”

Other readers said:

• “I wonder why these guys are supporting Obama and not McCain… Maybe they know something that we don’t,” said an anonymous forum participant.
• “Living in a refugee camp saving $3,3500.00 (sic) donating it to BO is an act of hero, that has never [been] seen in human history!”
• “We need to figure out where this money ACTUALLY came from. I am guessing that someone living in a refugee camp does not have such $$ laying around. … This is a red flag that warrants further investigation.”
• “Well that’s very Clintonian of you Mr. Obama … Seems to me I read in some other story just yesterday that some reporter had interviewed one of these mugs on the phone and there was no mention of any $$$ being returned… Hmmmm.”
• “The average wage in the Gaza Strip is $416 a month. … This begs the question: Who really funded this contribution?”
• “Why do a bunch of terrorists need Obama T-shirts?”
• “I fear this is just the tip of the iceberg. What about all those donations that can be traced to Iran and Saudi Arabia? This needs to be investigated.”
• “Are you sure the Obama campaign returned the donations?”

The brothers in question – Monir, Hosan and Osama Edwan – spoke on the record with WND about the online donations to the presidential candidate.

WND spoke to the brothers after Obama’s campaign contended it returned the $33,500 in illegal contributions, but the donors said they have not received any money.

Last week, the blog Atlas Shrugs outlined the series of donations made on Obama’s official website last year by Monir Edwan and Hosam Edwan, totaling $29,521.54. The third brother, Osama, reportedly gave the campaign about $4,000.

NC man dies after waiting 22 hours at hospital

RALEIGH, N.C. – A mental patient died after workers at a North Carolina hospital left him in a chair for 22 hours without feeding him or helping him use the bathroom, said federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding.

The state sent a team Tuesday to help Cherry Hospital in Goldsboro draft new procedures to ensure patients receive proper care.

An investigator’s report released Monday found that 50-year-old Steven Sabock died in April after he at one point choked on medication and had been left sitting in a chair for close to a day at the facility about 50 miles southeast of Raleigh. Surveillance video showed hospital staff watching television and playing cards just a few feet away.

It was not clear from the report exactly how Sabock died. The report states that he was in a hospital bed and later found unresponsive. A phone call placed after business hours to the state Office of the Chief Medical Examiner rang unanswered Tuesday.

Federal officials have threatened to cut off funding because of Sabock’s death and a report that a physician punched a patient after the teen bit the doctor.

Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Tom Lawrence said the state team also may investigate what, if any, disciplinary action should be taken following Sabock’s death.

Lawrence said the Sabock incident is isolated but that officials are concerned.

“It’s not the kind of thing that we in our wildest dreams would expect to happen in our hospitals — in our wildest nightmares, I guess,” Lawrence said.

Sabock’s father, Nicholas, declined comment when reached by telephone Tuesday evening. A man who answered the phone listed for Susan Sabock, Steven’s wife, hung up without commenting.

The investigation released Monday said Sabock died in April after Cherry Hospital nurses left him unattended in a chair and did not feed him or help him to the bathroom.

The report said Sabock sat, unattended, in the room for four work shifts. The report also found that Sabock, formerly of Roanoke Rapids, ate nothing the day he died and had little food in the three days preceding his death. The 47-page report also said workers were supposed to be closely monitoring Sabock’s condition and may have forged documents that said they had.

The state has until Aug. 23 to file a report with the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services detailing what changes officials are making, Lawrence said.

If the center rejects the report, federal funds will be cut off beginning Sept. 1, Lawrence said.

Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Dempsey Benton said in a statement that nurses may be reassigned to provide more patient supervision. Officials are also considering better ways to manage staff resources, he said.

A patient in New York died in June after she waited in a hospital’s mental ward waiting area for nearly 24 hours. Security video showed her writhing on the floor. It was nearly an hour before someone else flagged down a staff member who got help for the unresponsive woman.

“Federal officials who have threatened to cut off the facility’s funding”??? How many more deaths would it take?

Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Belongs in Denver

Shame on Barack Obama, Howard Dean, and all of the other “inclusive” liberals for ripping the Welcome mat out from under Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick at the convention site in Denver.

According to an AP report, “Barack Obama doesn’t want Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and his legal troubles to be a distraction at the upcoming Democratic National Convention.”

What a hypocritical outrage!

All of this scorn heaped upon Da Mayor just because he faces eight felony charges in a perjury case and two felony charges in an assault case.

Why should “alleged” behavior prevent the Democrat mayor of a major American city from serving as a superdelegate during the crowning of America’s presumptive 44th president and First-ever Messiah?

After all, the Democrats have cleared the way for former President Bill Clinton, a perjurer and sexual predator, to address the assembled masses.

Democrats are mostly felons and liars anyhow, so what is the point?

Why not show the same level of respect for Mayor Kilpatrick as is being extended to an impeached president?

What is that you say? By court order, Kilpatrick must wear an electronic monitoring device as part of his bond in an assault case?

So just what the hell do Democrats have against poor black dudes manacled to electronic monitoring devices by racist judges?

In truth, that electronic monitoring devise is all the more reason for welcoming Kilpatrick to the festivities since he will be a living, breathing testament to the shackles still enslaving black Americans.

A shackled Mayor Kilpatrick would be a perfect illustration of why change, ALA Barack Obama, is so vital to America!

Two words of wisdom for team Obama:

Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick Belongs in Denver! and,

Let Kilpatrick be Kilpatrick!

College presidents seek debate on drinking age

College presidents from about 100 of the nation’s best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus.

The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age.

”This is a law that is routinely evaded,” said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. ”It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory.”

Other prominent schools in the group include Syracuse, Tufts, Colgate, Kenyon and Morehouse.
But even before the presidents begin the public phase of their efforts, which may include publishing newspaper ads in the coming weeks, they are already facing sharp criticism.

Mothers Against Drunk Driving says lowering the drinking age would lead to more fatal car crashes. It accuses the presidents of misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. MADD officials are even urging parents to think carefully about the safety of colleges whose presidents have signed on.

”It’s very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses,” said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD.

Both sides agree alcohol abuse by college students is a huge problem.

Research has found more than 40 percent of college students reported at least one symptom of alcohol abuse or dependance. One study has estimated more than 500,000 full-time students at four-year colleges suffer injuries each year related in some way to drinking, and about 1,700 die in such accidents.

A recent Associated Press analysis of federal records found that 157 college-age people, 18 to 23, drank themselves to death from 1999 through 2005.

Moana Jagasia, a Duke University sophomore from Singapore, where the drinking age is lower, said reducing the age in the U.S. could be helpful.

”There isn’t that much difference in maturity between 21 and 18,” she said. ”If the age is younger, you’re getting exposed to it at a younger age, and you don’t freak out when you get to campus.”
McCardell’s group takes its name from ancient Greece, where the purple gemstone amethyst was widely believed to ward off drunkenness if used in drinking vessels and jewelry. He said college students will drink no matter what, but do so more dangerously when it’s illegal.

The statement the presidents have signed avoids calling explicitly for a younger drinking age. Rather, it seeks ”an informed and dispassionate debate” over the issue and the federal highway law that made 21 the de facto national drinking age by denying money to any state that bucks the trend.

But the statement makes clear the signers think the current law isn’t working, citing a ”culture of dangerous, clandestine binge-drinking,” and noting that while adults under 21 can vote and enlist in the military, they ”are told they are not mature enough to have a beer.” Furthermore, ”by choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.”

”I’m not sure where the dialogue will lead, but it’s an important topic to American families and it deserves a straightforward dialogue,” said William Troutt, president of Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn., who has signed the statement.

But some other college administrators sharply disagree that lowering the drinking age would help. University of Miami President Donna Shalala, who served as secretary of health and human services under President Clinton, declined to sign.

”I remember college campuses when we had 18-year-old drinking ages, and I honestly believe we’ve made some progress,” Shalala said in a telephone interview. ”To just shift it back down to the high schools makes no sense at all.”

McCardell claims that his experiences as a president and a parent, as well as a historian studying Prohibition, have persuaded him the drinking age isn’t working.

But critics say McCardell has badly misrepresented the research by suggesting that the decision to raise the drinking age from 18 to 21 may not have saved lives.

In fact, MADD CEO Chuck Hurley said, nearly all peer-reviewed studies looking at the change showed raising the drinking age reduced drunk-driving deaths. A survey of research from the U.S. and other countries by the Centers for Disease Control and others reached the same conclusion.

McCardell cites the work of Alexander Wagenaar, a University of Florida epidemiologist and expert on how changes in the drinking age affect safety. But Wagenaar himself sides with MADD in the debate.
The college presidents ”see a problem of drinking on college campuses, and they don’t want to deal with it,” Wagenaar said in a telephone interview. ”It’s really unfortunate, but the science is very clear.”

Another scholar who has extensively researched college binge-drinking also criticized the presidents’ initiative.

”I understand why colleges are doing it, because it splits their students, and they like to treat them all alike rather than having to card some of them. It’s a nuisance to them,” said Henry Wechsler of the Harvard School of Public Health.

But, ”I wish these college presidents sat around and tried to work out ways to deal with the problem on their campus rather than try to eliminate the problem by defining it out of existence,” he said.
Duke faced accusations of ignoring the heavy drinking that formed the backdrop of 2006 rape allegations against three lacrosse players. The rape allegations proved to be a hoax, but the alcohol-fueled party was never disputed.

Duke senior Wey Ruepten said university officials should accept the reality that students are going to drink and give them the responsibility that comes with alcohol.

”If you treat students like children, they’re going to act like children,” he said.

Duke President Richard Brodhead declined an interview request. But he wrote in a statement on the Amethyst Initiative’s Web site that the 21-year-old drinking age ”pushes drinking into hiding, heightening its risks.” It also prevents school officials ”from addressing drinking with students as an issue of responsible choice.”

Hurley, of MADD, has a different take on the presidents.

”They’re waving the white flag,” he said.

How many of the colleges sell or have interests in alcoholic beverage vendors? That would be an interesting thing to know. These ‘leaders of education’ are so off base it’s astounding. No wonder our young are so screwed up.

Sacramento CPS report in child death was altered

(SACRAMENTO, CA) – In the 16 days between the time 4-year-old Jahmaurae Allen was beaten to death and Sacramento Child Protective Services publicly released portions of its records, the case file was altered to change the original finding in the case, The Bee has learned.

One early version of the report from the social worker, who began handling an allegation of abuse involving the 4-year-old on June 19, described the allegation as “unfounded,” two sources who read the document told The Bee this week.

Another early version obtained by The Bee described the allegation of abuse of the little boy as “inconclusive.”

But the portions released by CPS to The Bee this week under a new public records law do not reflect either of those findings. Instead, those files indicate the allegation of abuse was “substantiated,” a finding listed as “effective 7/21/08” – the day Jahmaurae was beaten to death, allegedly by his mother’s boyfriend.

A top county official said Friday she was unaware of the varying case files until The Bee raised questions.

“We’re pulling computer records right now to find out what’s happened,” said Lynn Frank, director of the Health and Human Services Department, which oversees CPS.

Late Friday, CPS Director Laura Coulthard issued the following statement:

“CPS policy and procedures requires supervisors to review social worker’s cases, and update or correct findings based on their independent assessment. In the Jahmuaure (sic) Allen matter, supervisors and management did such a review and made new findings that differed from the social worker’s original assessment …

“The county is reviewing allegations by The Sacramento Bee that original documents were altered. If it is established that those documents were altered, the county will take appropriate responses as warranted by this investigation.”

Children’s advocates outraged.

The existence of differing versions of the case file outraged children’s advocates who work with the agency. Some had been instrumental in pushing for the new law, which forces child welfare agencies to open files of children who die on their watch.

“This is unbelievable,” said Robert Fellmeth, a law professor and director of the San Diego-based Children’s Advocacy Institute.

“If you don’t take the kid (from the home), the only check you have is this: the record of what you did or did not do … ” he said. “If you start playing with that and altering that, you undermine the only check these kids have on failure to protect.”

Alarm over child welfare files being falsified or backdated has surfaced elsewhere.

Last week in Philadelphia, criminal charges were filed against two social workers in a case that led to the starvation death of a disabled 14-year-old girl. Workers were accused by the grand jury of falsifying documents after her death to make it appear they had performed their jobs properly.
Jahmaurae’s death has spawned a grand jury probe of CPS, and the agency said Tuesday it was planning to launch its own independent review.

CPS has conceded it should have done more to protect Jahmaurae, and suspended the social worker. At the time, the agency said the social worker “worked in isolation and did not follow established department procedures.”

Sources familiar with the case say the social worker’s entries and narrative about what happened were not accessible until after Jahmaurae was killed. It remains unclear who completed portions of the file.

CPS documents show the social worker evaluated the case after a doctor reported June 17 that Jahmaurae might be the victim of physical abuse. That doctor reported a painful swelling and bruise on the boy’s chest the size of an adult fist.

CPS documents indicate the social worker tried to contact the boy and his mother on June 19, going to their Foothill Farms apartment. The worker went to the wrong apartment at first, and when she found the right apartment, no one was home. She left her card on the door and returned June 21, the documents state, and left her card again.

She finally made contact when the mother called her June 23, according to one early version of the case file that was not released by CPS. The social worker went to see the family the next day, and Jahmaurae told her that the bruise on his chest had come from a fight with his 3-year-old brother. He “denied being hit by anyone else,” it said.

Initially, the social worker filed a report that the allegation of abuse was “unfounded,” sources said.
In CPS jargon, “unfounded” means the report is determined not to be true, according to agency literature.

But a subsequent report on the case obtained by The Bee – also not the one ultimately released by CPS – does not reflect that finding. Instead, that version reads:

“The allegation in regard to physical abuse was assessed by this reporter with a case disposition of inconclusive. This was evidenced by lack of disclosure from the minor that the mother’s boyfriend had hit him. Also, the minor’s (sic) were observed jumping off furniture and throwing things at each other.”

“Inconclusive” means there isn’t enough information to know either way, according to a CPS pamphlet.
The documents CPS eventually provided The Bee under the new law do not contain either the “unfounded” or “inconclusive” findings. Instead, those documents say: “Effective 7/21/08” – the day Jahmaurae died – “a review of this case has deemed the conclusion to be substantiated.”

That finding means there is credible information to believe child abuse or neglect did occur, CPS materials show.

Had the doctor’s abuse allegation been deemed “substantiated” a month earlier, it would have set off a more detailed investigation that could have led to Jahmaurae being removed from the home. As it was, it appears CPS had no contact with the family after the social worker’s June 24 visit.

Altering record criminal offense.

The documents CPS provided also differ from an earlier version of the case file in other ways.
An entire passage in the document provided by a source does not appear in the documents released by CPS.

That passage, dated June 23, 2008, discusses what happened when the social worker finally heard from Jahmaurae’s mother:

“The mother stated she was afraid that this social worker was trying to take her children. The mother stated she is new here from the Bay Area.

“This social worker told her that I have to see her and the children and do an assessment and then we would talk further. This social worker told her not to be concerned about the article in The Bee Sunday (sic) CPS is supportive of families.”

That was a reference to an investigative series on CPS that began in The Bee that day.

William Grimm, a senior attorney at the Oakland-based National Center for Youth Law, said he was deeply disturbed by the initial “unfounded” report on Jahmaurae.

“If a physician sees a fist-sized bruise on a 4-year-old, the red flag automatically goes up,” he said. “I just don’t understand how any reasonable person could make a judgment other than ‘substantiated’ – period.”

Jahmaurae was the seventh child to die since September whose family had had previous contact with CPS.

The suspect in the case is 26-year-old Jonathan Lamar Perry, a 6-foot-4-inch, 250-pound man who was in the apartment with Jahmaurae and the boy’s 18-month-old sister.

Perry is charged with murder and child endangerment. He is being held in the Sacramento County jail and has yet to enter a plea.

Robert Wilson, executive director of Sacramento Child Advocates, said Friday he “would sure be interested to see how CPS explains” the different versions of the case file. His office, whose attorneys represent children in dependency court, received the same version from CPS that The Bee was given this week.

Fellmeth, a former prosecutor, said the California government code makes it a criminal offense to alter a public record – even if that record won’t be given to the public. “You’re not supposed to be altering, period,” he said.

The proper way to make changes in public documents is to “overlay, or add the correction – not subtract or erase or alter.”

“You don’t create a new reality,” he said.

Safe sex ring tone sings ‘Condom, condom!’

NEW DELHI – A cell phone ring tone that sings “Condom, condom!” has been launched to promote safe sex in India, where condoms carry a strong social stigma and HIV and AIDS are growing problems, health experts said Tuesday.

The a cappella ring tone features a professional singer chanting the word condom more than 50 times, a playful approach that public health activists hope will spark discussion and make condoms more socially acceptable.

“We’ve made a conscious effort to move the concept of the condom away from negative association, like HIV and sex work,” said Yvonne MacPherson, country director of BBC World Service Trust India. “Condoms are actually health products and if you have a condom and you use it, you are seen to be smart and responsible.”

Nearly 2.5 million people in India are infected with HIV and the disease is still largely taboo.

The BBC group, which is funded by The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, hopes the condom ring tone can make people in India more comfortable with safe sex issues.

More than 270 million people use mobile phones in India and ring tones, especially those featuring hit Bollywood songs, are extremely popular.

“A ring tone is a very public thing,” she said. “It’s a way to show you are a condom user and you don’t have any issues with it.”

The ring tone was launched Aug. 8 and has been downloaded 60,000 times, MacPherson said.

How about having a cell phone ring tone that sings “Abstinence, abstinence”?

Obama site: Jews must be ‘burned’

Anti-Semites congregate on candidate’s official presidential campaign blog.

JERUSALEM – Jews should be “burned” and “thrown in the oven.”

Israel murdered 6 million Arabs.

Jews control American politics and dictate decisions of war and peace.

The Jewish state is leading a “Holocaust” against the Palestinian people and was responsible for 9/11.
The above are just a sampling of a large volume of racist, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda that can be found on user-generated pages on Sen. Barack Obama’s official campaign website, which allows registered members to form groups and post content in online “community” blogs.

The Obama campaign does not monitor all blog material but says it removes offending posts brought to the attention of site administrators.

A search through the community blogs on Obama’s official site under such key words as “Zionists,” “Israel Lobby,” or “Jews” brings up thousands of entries, some containing what can easily be described as hate material.

In a blog posting on Obama’s site titled, “Are Israeli Zionists in Control of Our Democracy?” user “Stan” claims “Israeli elements” in the U.S. who possess both American and Israeli citizenship “dominate our political process so we cannot act as an honest broker in the Middle East.”

He said members of Congress “know that they must support the will of Israel or be subjected to the wrath of [pro-Israel groups].”

The posting goes on to urge a U.S. military boycott of Israel, lamenting that Hamas is labeled a terror group while the U.S. supplied Israel with “planes, rockets, cluster and phosphorus bombs for Israel to use at will.”

Another blog entry, simply titled “Palestinians,” concocts “Jewish genocide of six million Palis (Palestinians)” and urges Obama to “level the playing field for the suffering Palestinians.”

“Many non-militant Arabs and Muslims await some degree of fairness from you if you are elected,” noted the entry.

In a blog titled “Palestine vs. Israel,” MyObama user “Patti” complains she “cannot comprehend how many Jewish people can speak of the Holocaust as well as stating that Israel is the Holy Land and commit the atrocities they are committing against the Palestinian people.”

A blog labeled “The only way to free America” urges Americans to “throw the Jews in the oven.”
“Shed ourselves from the racist Zionists in America. They control everything. But they won’t keep us down any longer. Throw the Jews in the oven this November. Its the only way we can free America and make sure barack obama is elected!

One entry titled, “Stop the attacks on Muslim Nations to please Zionists,” announces “Israel has destroyed its own image in the world and is taking America down with its Zionist aggression.”

Anti-Semitic rhetoric is not limited to blog entries alone, but can also be found in user comments on some of the blog postings.

For example, a comment on a blog discussing energy, reads “Burn something else besides oil…start with the Zionists.”

Many of the “Israel Lobby” entries have comments accusing Jews of controlling the U.S.

If Barack can’t manage his own web site, how can we possibly think he can manage our country?