Profundity of Peace on Earth

Beating the Fare Hike Blues
Transit fares have been ballooning across the country in recent years; if you live in a city that hasn’t raised prices and cut service, consider yourself lucky. It can be upsetting to get socked with an unexpected expense. But as much as it hurts to fork over a little more of your paycheck every time you walk through a turnstile or step on a bus, it still beats the alternative, says Erica C. Barnett at Network blog Publicola. After being subjected to a $9 monthly Fare Hike on Seattle’...

Don Ward: Advocate of the Year Acceptance Speech
I’m honored to be recognized with the Livable Streets award as Advocate of the Year, and I’m especially humbled to be in the company of last year’s winner Mr. Stephen Box as well as this year’s nominees. There are literally so many people working their bike shaped butts off in the advocacy arena that deserve this more than me but I humbly accept and share with the bicycle advocacy community. Everyone knows that I am involved in organizing group bike rides and bringing th...

Facebook used in hunt for killer
Detectives have begun a Facebook campaign in a bit to catch the killer of Jo Yeates. Her body was found on Christmas Day, in Longwood Lane, Failand, eight days after she was reported missing from her home in Clifton, Bristol. The campaign involves an advert that will allow people to contact the incident room via the Social Networking site rather than calling in. Police said Facebook was more effective than posters and leaflet drops. Detectives investigating the Murder of the 25-year-old landscap...

Do We Really Want Better Intelligence?
Tue Jan. 4, 2011 9:29 AM PST Foreign Policy magazine is running a package called "Unconventional Wisdom," and Stephen Sestanovich's contribution is to tell us that conventional wisdom debunking isn't what it used to be. Anne Applebaum then proves his point with a piece about the ongoing idiocy of TSA and the Department of Homeland Security: Terrorists have been stopped since 2001 and plots prevented, but always by other means. After the Nigerian "underwear bomber" of Christm...

Uganda Court Rules Media Cannot 'Out' Gay Ugandans
Source: AP Uganda's High Court has ruled that the media should not publish the names and photos of gay Ugandans following a vitriolic campaign in the east African country which urged citizens to hang those featured. Justice Kibuuka Musoke on Monday ordered Uganda's Rolling Stone magazine to pay $650 in damages and court costs for each of the three Activists who sued the magazine. Musoke also ordered a permanent injunction preventing the magazine from publishing any further names of men or women ...

Reform Castro Style
Here is the real "reform" going on in Cuba that the "Cuba Experts" do not like to talk about. All varieties of individual freedom are against the law in Cuba, like the freedom of Cubans to travel when and where they want, including on the island itself. Which is why nine Activists with the Central Opposition Coalition were arrested Monday morning in the town of Placetas, in Villa Clara province. They were rounded up as they were to gather in the town's main park to display sign that said, for ex...

Uganda court rules media cannot 'out' gay Ugandans...
KAMPALA, Uganda – Uganda's High Court has ruled that the media should not publish the names and photos of gay Ugandans following a vitriolic campaign in the east African country which urged citizens to hang those featured. Justice Kibuuka Musoke on Monday ordered Uganda's Rolling Stone magazine to pay $650 in damages and court costs for each of the three Activists who sued the magazine. Musoke also ordered a permanent injunction preventing the magazine from publishing any further names of ...

Wikileaks: Ahmadinjead Was Slapped in Meeting
The Huffington Post reports: According to a recently released cable obtained by Wikileaks, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was slapped in the face by Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff Mohammed Ali Jafari. According to the cable, Ahmadinejad surprised the Supreme National Security Council by taking a liberal posture on opposition Protests. The president allegedly argued that people felt “suffocated,” and that allowing more social and personal freedoms, as well as more freedom...

Scott Gesslers agenda gets a once-over from Governing magazine
Governing magazine has an interesting piece about the agendas of newly-elected secretaries of state, including Colorado’s Scott Gessler, that asserts they have more Activist agendas than those of their predecessors. The authors cite Gessler’s statements that he plans to seek tougher voter identification laws, including a move toward mandating proof of Citizenship as a prerequisite for voting. “His predecessors’ agendas were primarily administrative — running the office effici

Quote Of The Day - Cindy Sheehan
"Joining the US Military should never be an option for the socially conscious while our Troops are being used as corporate tools for profit, or hired assassins for imperial expansion. Soldiers are called: 'Bullet sponges,' by their superiors and "dumb animals" by Henry Kissinger, the former Secretary of State. "While soldiers are dehumanised and treated like dirt, they are taught to dehumanise 'the other', and treat them as less than dirt. It is a vicious cycle, and the way to stop a vicious ...

Fatah strongman Dahlan denies plot to overthrow Abbas
Dahlan was questioned Sunday along with other Fatah Activists who he allegedly recruited to form an armed Militia....

Activists to Branstad: Keep current voting rights rule
A coalition of about 20 Activist groups asked Gov.-elect Terry Branstad on Monday not to follow through on a pledge to rescind an Executive Order that automatically restores Voting Rights to ex-convicts. The groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and the Iowa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, sent a letter to Branstad expressing support for a statewide policy adopted in 2005. That's when Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack issued a blanket order restoring voting r...

PA security probes Fatah strongman Dahlan for attempted coup
Fatah Activists were recently questioned on suspicion they had been recruited by Dahlan to form an armed Militia to overthrow Abbas. ...

Reform Party of NJ Defends New Jersey Network
Press Release sent to [email protected]: Reform Party of NJ Defends New Jersey Network (Long Branch, NJ, 12/29/2010): Jacob Zychick, the chairman of the recently formed Reform Party of New Jersey, has come to the defense of the New Jersey Network, the statewide news agency whose sustainability has been questioned by Trenton leadership. At a meeting of Reform Party Activists in Long Branch on December 28th, Zychick voiced his support for NJN, touting it as the state’s primary media watch...

5 killed, 10 injured in Guatemala bus fire
GUATEMALA CITY - Five people are dead and 10 others injured from a fire inside a Guatemalan passenger bus that police say may have been caused by an Arson attack. National police spokesman Donald Gonzalez says investigators have not ruled out mechanical causes. But he acknowledges that some witnesses say the bus was attacked. Firefighter Carlos Hernandez told a local Radio Station Monday that someone tossed a fire bomb at the bus in the capital, Guatemala City. Street gangs have demanded p...

India activist wife mulls asylum
Ilina Sen, wife of Dr Binayak Sen, told reporters that she and her family were "not feeling safe in India" after her husband's Incarceration....

Fatah strongman denies plotting to overthrow Abbas
Dahlan was questioned Sunday along with other Fatah Activists who he allegedly recruited to form an armed Militia....

PA security questions Fatah strongman Dahlan for attempted coup
Fatah Activists were recently investigated on suspicion they had been recruited by Dahlan to form an armed Militia to overthrow Abbas. ...

Judge overturns Quincy hit-and-run decision
DEDHAM — The same judge who convicted a retired Quincy fire lieutenant of leaving the scene after striking and killing a Pedestrian has overturned the verdict. Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fishman on Monday granted a defense motion to acquit 62-year-old Paul Daley of leaving the scene of an accident after causing personal injury or death. The Patriot Ledger reports Daley’s lawyer called the decision "courageous." Prosecutors are reviewing it to determine whether they will appeal. Da...

New SAFE Mission Report: Into The Valley Of Death Part Two Of Three
Before they went out, Charlie and JP had access to a picture taken from a camera set up right beneath a low-slung I-8 overpass, an overpass and its immediate environs that they were going to observe for the night. Here it is: Yes, that indeed is a drug mule with a big-ass, burlap-wrapped pack of drugs on his back, almost certainly marijuana, and quite likely with a stash of meth or Cocaine at its center. This is a common packaging technique. And so, it was around this overpass, that Charlie a...

Video: Skiing Down Park Ave At High Speed Behind an SUV
It must have sucked to be a downhill skier stuck in NYC during Blizzageddon, what with all that great powder lying around but no way to get to any ski slopes. But if you had some rope and a friend with a car, you could get your kicks all the same, without paying through the nose for lift tickets. Watch this lunatic get towed on skis behind an SUV barreling down Park Avenue in the snow: We're pretty sure this is illegal, but getting gnarly was never about following the rules. [Via Laughing Squi...

Giants DE Tuck, Wife Unhurt In Teaneck Car Crash
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — New York Giants Defensive End Justin Tuck and his wife weren’t injured when their sport utility vehicle and another car collided in northern New Jersey on New Year’s Eve. Authorities say the accident they described a fender-bender occurred around 8:30 p.m. on Route 4 in Teaneck. The cause of the crash remained under investigation Saturday. The other motorist, driving a Nissan Maxima, also was not injured. Giants spokesman Pat Hanlon said Tuck report...

Ford, GM 2010 Sales Gains Point To Modest Recovery
Ford Motor Co. says its U.S. sales rose 15 percent in 2010 thanks to strong demand for its pickups and sedans. General Motors' U.S. auto sales increased 6.3 percent as a strong lineup of new models helped the company make a comeback from its 2009 Bankruptcy. Ford sold 1.9 million cars and trucks and grabbed Market Share from rivals including General Motors and Toyota. Ford says 2010 was the second year in a row it gained U.S. market share, its first back-to-back increase since 1993. The Ford F-1...

A Bad Moon on the Rise
There's a bad moon on the rise -- in the form of upward creeping gas prices. Unleaded regular is surging toward $4 per gallon again -- the same highs that preceded, and arguably triggered -- the current economic catatonia. If it happens again, though, the effects are probably going to be even worse. A man on his feet can usually take a Sucker Punch, or at least recover from it. But if he's already on the ground and you kick him in the head, he's done-for. Four dollar-per-gallon gas could do exac...

The autos people want and waht Obama wants them to buy
Image via Wikipedia IBD: Sales of those planet-killing SUVs and trucks are rising while sales of "all-electric" vehicles are slower than expected. Saving the planet takes a back seat to safety and comfort. Ever since the first Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards were enacted, Americans have consistently rejected efforts by government and Environmentalists to force them to drive what many deride as "clown cars." They've opted instead for full-size cars, SUVs and trucks that can actu...