Defense advocates have argued for more than 20 years that the more severe sentences given for crack cocaine offenses, compared to those handed down for crimes involving powder cocaine, were unfair to African-American defendants. A majority of crack cocaine defendants are African-American, while most powder cocaine defendants are white.

Last year, the U.S. Sentencing Commission recognized the disparity and recommended lighter penalties in crack cocaine cases.

Now the 20,000 prisoners who're eligible for the lower sentences must ask a court to reconsider their cases. Many have said they're too poor to hire lawyers to ask for the lower sentences, and judges have appointed federal defenders to represent them at taxpayers' expense.

But other judges have declined to appoint attorneys, saying they aren't needed for what should be a straightforward sentencing matter nor are they required under the Constitution. Judges have the sole authority to appoint such attorneys.

The article goes on to note that crack sentences are usually 5 times longer than those for powdered cocaine, and that blacks are much more likely to be arrest for crack than powedered cocaine...

These folks have state's attorneys filing 24-page briefs against the people who've been harshly sentenced, while denying them a public defender.

Justice in america.

OUR family motto regarding lawn care is succinct and laissez-faire: If it's green, mow it. Weeds, moss, what the heck. Reliant on a well for water, we do our best to avoid chemicals. And, having no interest in or aptitude for turf aesthetics, we can't get in lockstep with suburban squires trudging behind their spreaders amid noxious clouds of grub treatment. I've spotted some locals sporting a T-shirt that reads: I fought the lawn and the lawn won. At least they manage a wry acceptance of their servitude.

Recently, I spent an enlightening afternoon with a plant care professional who convinced me that the tyranny is just the other way around -- that as a generation, we've tamed, tamped, hybridized and sodded the American lawn into a monochrome, force-fed, chemically induced coma. But hark! He also told me that a relaxed, weed-tolerant aesthetic like ours might actually help reverse some of the damage.

The article goes on to advocate for longer grass, and no raking of the clippings (do people really do that?), using them instead as a natural fertilizer.  

A stunt driver has crashed the car used by movie secret agent James Bond into Italy's Lake Garda during filming of 007's latest movie, Quantum of Solace.

The driver was delivering the iconic Aston Martin DBS to the film scene in heavy rain when he lost control around one of the lake's narrow curves.

The driver was quickly rescued and taken to hospital with minor injuries.

Italian TV showed the car, reportedly the only one available for use in the film, being winched out of the lake.

Buzzflash links to this photo of the official white house welcome of the pope, asking why the iconic Confederate flag is on display.

I wonder about that too.

FOOD WARS: a battle for our daily food.

The Economist - The Silent Tsunami

Food prices are causing misery and strife around the world. Radical solutions are needed.

"traditionally means mass starvation. The measures of today's crisis are misery and malnutrition. The middle classes in poor countries are giving up health care and cutting out meat so they can eat three meals a day. The middling poor, those on $2 a day, are pulling children from school and cutting back on vegetables so they can still afford rice. Those on $1 a day are cutting back on meat, vegetables and one or two meals, so they can afford one bowl. The desperate--those on 50 cents a day--face disaster.."

The New York Sun - Food Rationing Confronts Breadbasket of the World

"MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.

At a Costco Warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy."

[.]

Reuters - Food price rises are "mass murder": U.N. envoy

VIENNA (Reuters) - Global food price rises are leading to "silent mass murder" and commodities markets have brought "horror" to the world, the United Nations' food envoy told an Austrian newspaper on Sunday.

Jean Ziegler, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, told Kurier am Sonntag that growth in biofuels, speculation on commodities markets and European Union export subsidies mean the West is responsible for mass starvation in poorer countries.

Ziegler said he was bound to highlight the "madness" of people who think that hunger is down to fate.

[.]

Ziegler blamed globalization for "monopolizing the riches of the earth" and said multinationals were responsible for a type of "structural violence".

"And we have a herd of market traders, speculators and financial bandits who have turned wild and constructed a world of inequality and horror. We have to put a stop to this," he said.

can anyone see this crisis taking over in importance from the fight against AQ terror?  


Well, "You can't vote for war and disown the results"

Exxon Loses U.S. Supreme Court Challenge to $112 Million Award

The U.S. Supreme Court let stand a $112 million punitive damage award against Exxon Mobil Corp. in a Louisiana land-contamination case, rejecting the company's contention that the award violated constitutional limits.

The rejection, issued without comment today in Washington, means landowner Joseph Grefer and his siblings can keep the $146 million Exxon Mobil paid in 2006 to satisfy the award and interest.

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, argued unsuccessfully that jurors improperly penalized the company for potential medical problems suffered by workers at the site.

The trial ``became a referendum on whether Exxon Mobil should be punished for the alleged risk of health problems it may have imposed on individuals not before the court,'' Exxon's lawyer, Walter Dellinger, argued in the appeal.

The lawsuit said a company Exxon hired polluted the 33-acre site near New Orleans with radioactive residue from an oil pipe- cleaning operation. The Grefers said Exxon left them with massive cleanup costs and endangered the health of neighbors and workers on the site.

A Louisiana appeals court called Exxon's conduct ``callous, calculated, despicable and reprehensible.''
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The Supreme Court already is considering a larger Exxon punitive-damages case, the company's appeal of the $2.5 billion award to victims of the 1989 Valdez oil spill. The court will rule on that case by July. Exxon is based in Irving, Texas.

bloomberg

they can afford it.

lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace

Rupert Murdoch Firm Goes on Trial for Alleged Tech Sabotage

Did a Rupert Murdoch company go too far and hire hackers to sabotage rivals and gain the top spot in the global pay-TV war?

This is the question a jury will be facing in a spectacular five-year-old civil lawsuit that is finally being tried this month in California but which has, oddly, received little notice from U.S. media.

The case involves a colorful cast of characters that includes former intelligence agents, Canadian TV pirates, Bulgarian and German hackers, stolen e-mails and the mysterious suicide of a Berlin hacker who had been courted by the Murdoch company not long before his death.

On the hot spot is NDS Group, a UK-Israeli firm that makes smartcards for pay-TV systems like DirecTV. The company is a majority-owned subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corporation. The charges stem from 1997 when NDS is accused of cracking the encryption of rival NagraStar, which makes access cards and systems for EchoStar's Dish Network and other pay-TV services. Further, it's alleged NDS then hired hackers to manufacture and distribute counterfeit NagraStar cards to pirates to steal Dish Network's programming for free.

NagraStar and one of its parent companies, EchoStar, are seeking about $101 million for damages for piracy, copyright infringement, misconduct and unfair competition. The list of witnesses in the case includes EchoStar's founder and CEO Charlie Ergen; several hackers and pirates; and Reuven Hazak, an Israeli who heads security for NDS and is a former deputy head of Shabak, or Shin Bet, Israel's domestic security agency (the equivalent of Britain's MI5).
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According to court documents, the scheme began to unravel in 2000 when law-enforcement agents in Texas seized suspicious packages containing CD and DVD players stuffed with more than $40,000 in cash. Parcels similar to this were being sent almost daily from Canada, via Texas, to a hacker in California...

wired.com

this is the first time l've heard of this...it sure didn't come up when rupert was busy buying up the wsj, television stations, etc.

fcc?...what fcc.

lTMF'sA...the revolution will not be televised...Peace