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Good Samaritan pleads not guilty to charges stemming from mowing city park

The man who was arrested after mowing Central Park’s grass isn’t going down without a fight.

John Hamilton, 48, pleaded not guilty Friday in Sandusky Municipal Court to misdemeanor charges of obstructing official business and persistent disorderly conduct.

If found guilty, Hamilton could face up to 90 days in jail and $1,000 in fines.

Hamilton was arrested 8:30 a.m. Thursday as he mowed the foot-high grass at the park. Police arrested him after he continued to mow when they asked him to stop.

He said he’s looking for an attorney for his next court hearing, slated for 1:30 p.m. Aug. 3.

“I could have pled guilty and it all would go away with a fine,” Hamilton said. “But they didn’t even know what to charge me for, so (the charges were) kind of a catch-all.”

The next step will be handled by prosecutors, city prosecutor and assistant law director Lynne Gast-King said.

“This is a very trying time for the city,” she said. “We’re all doing the best we can right now in a very difficult position. We’ll handle it just like any other case with a not guilty and charges pending." Read More

The Citizen Police State

While the threats to our liberties from our own government may be great, many don’t realize that the greatest threats to our freedoms may be soon coming from our own neighbors and friends. While reporting neighbors to city officials for unsightly lawns and shoddy house maintenance has become accepted and common place, the precedent is dangerous.

In the great dystopia novel, 1984, George Orwell describes a police state regime which uses friends, neighbors, and even children to spy and report to “Big Brother” about their neighbor’s movements and ’suspicious’ activities. This citizen spy network terrorizes the populace of 1984 to keep in line with the established order.

It seems that lately the governments of the west have taken a cue from George Orwell and are beginning to encourage more active citizen spying. The reasons for this shift are likely many. One reason may be that it makes government seem less culpable while at the same time greatly increasing their effective spying network. Unfortunately, the resultant loss of freedom will be a lot worse than any illusion of security, especially if citizens come to think that reporting fellow citizens is an admirable thing.

Entire article with references.

9/11 Richard Gage Fox News Interview

Send the Richard Gage - Fox News video to your local news outlets.

National security

The administration can do anything now, above the law or not. Regardless whether or not our rights are infringed or not, regardless of citizens privacy or civil liberties, regardless of respecting law and upholding the Constitution which is the law of the land. All under deceitful guise of "fighting terrorism!" "keeping America safe from big bad evil terrorists who hate our freedom and way of life!" or whatever flavor of the month phantom bogeyman 'enemy' they're currently promoting to scare us cattle into complacency so they can carry out their war fraud profiteering scam and resource grabbing uninterrupted. As the government destroys more of our rights, civil liberties and extinguishes the Bill of Rights and the Constitution in the process.

We have no security or real protection in this country. We are no more "safer" now than we were on 9/11 it's all a total FARCE.

Give us more "patriot act" garbage legislation and spy bills to search our computers without probable cause or consent, but leave Americas borders and ports wide open, completely unsecured right. Sounds like a real serious "terrorist threat" huh. What a joke. Why bother securing the borders when the real terrorists are in Washington wearing Brooks Brothers suits, right ?

It is not the duty of the so called "law enforcement" or police to protect you. Their job is to protect the Corporation of the US, inc. and arrest code breakers.

Any illusion of 'security' is to be used against us instead. The security state is to protect the elite crime syndicate in power, the bought, sold & paid for puppet parade, the fine clothed, makeup coated, script reading, vote seeking, trained and polished mis"leaders" who are very well protected from the common peoples plight. Not us.

The 'WAR ON TERROR" is a giant crock of shit. The war is on us.

No phantom terrorists are destroying this country. The mis-leaders, professional deceivers and organized crime in positions of power are destroying this country.

Wake the FUCK up people. What's it going to take, America?

"Today we are facing despots who are using "national security" and "classification" to push everything under a blanket of secrecy. To gag-order, and to call it a "privilege"..Unless we recognize the attacks for what they are, and stand up, and speak out, no -SHOUT OUT -,against those despots in government, then we are doomed to wake up one sad morning and wonder when and where our freedom DIED."

White House Says Feds Should Have Unfettered Access To Mobile Phone Location Info

The Obama administration says the Fourth Amendment prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures does not apply to cell-site information mobile phone carriers retain on their customers.
At issue is whether the government can require federal judges to order mobile phone companies to release historical cell-tower information of a phone number without probable cause — the standard required for a search warrant. While judges have varied on the issue, the resulting evidence can be used in a criminal prosecution. This certainly seems like the sort of private info that, under the 4th Amendment, would require a warrant, but not according to the administration(s). It feels that mobile phone providers should freely hand over records of what mobile phone tower any phone was connected to, even without the administration bothering to get a warrant (i.e., whenever and for whomever it wants to keep tabs on). This is tremendously problematic if you believe in the basic principles of the 4th Amendment. The EFF and the ACLU have asked a court to stop this practice, and it's rather disappointing that the administration is pushing in the other direction.

Piracy Up - Global Warming Down

Check out these stats from Google Trends...

Bush's Secret Dictatorship

Glenn Greenwald blogs for Salon: "Over the last eight years, we had a system in place where we pretended that our 'laws' were the things enacted out in the open by our Congress and that were set forth by the Constitution. The reality, though, was that our Government secretly vested itself with the power to ignore those public laws, to declare them invalid, and instead, create a whole regimen of secret laws that vested tyrannical, monarchical power in the President. Nobody knew what those secret laws were because even Congress, despite a few lame and meek requests, was denied access to them."

Greenwald also writes, with some vindication: "Yet those who have spent the last several years pointing out how unprecedentedly extremist and radical was our political leadership (and how meek and complicit were our other key institutions) were invariably dismissed as shrill hysterics."

Nine previously undisclosed Office of Legal Counsel documents released by Obama's Justice Department yesterday, most of them making baldly spurious legal arguments to support any number of unprecedented tactics that were either contemplated or employed by the White House.

The Pirate Bay Trial Summations

The trial will soon wrap up, and a verdict will be made. The important thing to learn, for those of us paying attention, isn't the verdict but the trend. The death of Napster brought us Kazaa, the death of Kazaa brought up Limewire.

As long as there is information on the Internet, pirates will share it. The worst part of all this isn't that pirates are stealing from artists, but rather that the record labels are. The simple fact is that very little of the profits from an album trickle down to the actual artists. The vast majority of the money made by musicians comes from live performances and merchandise.

If the pirating of music doesn't damage the artist much, who files all these lawsuits? Who matters more to the public: the musicians we love or the suits who burn their albums and reap the benefits?

It may be wrong to pirate, but it is more wrong to profit from art that is not yours. That is why pirates will continue on - not out of the love of stealing, but from the love of music.

In the world of digital piracy, there are many ways to get what you want. Peer-to-peer sharing, direct download links and torrents are the most popular among the pirating community. Each has endured its share of attack from those who seek to profit from music, movie and book sales, and each has survived and thrived from those attacks.

How To Kill The Music Industry

The “it’s common sense” argument that the music industry is peddling in their attempt to tie the declining revenues to piracy, simply doesn’t hold. It is not as clear-cut as the industry believes; the true reason for the decline is something they are still unwilling to face, but will have to face sooner or later:
The fact is that the music industry’s revenues have been artificially inflated for decades because of limited consumer options. The last 15 years of innovation have lifted those limitations, effectively leaving the music industry with an obsolete, defective business model of monopolized production technology, forced album bundling, and almost nonexistent competition in the realm of home entertainment. What is happening now - the decline of music profits and the piracy witch hunt by the music industry - is merely the panicked struggle of a dying business model, a complacent industry’s refusal to accept its diminishing role in a digital world. The pirates are not the reason, and the decline is the not the disease. It is the cure.

States Sovereignty Movement

The Tenth Amendment, a part of the "Bill of Rights", says flatly: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Some legal experts say that the Supremacy Clause in the US Constitution makes all the efforts of the states moot. The Supremacy Clause is a clause in the United States Constitution, article VI, paragraph 2. The clause establishes the Constitution, Federal Statutes, and U.S. treaties as "the supreme law of the land." The text establishes these as the highest form of law in the American legal system, mandating that state judges uphold them, even if state laws or constitutions conflict. See Also The States Are Not Branches Of The Federal Government!

The coming civil war

With Obama now actually in the Oval Office -- and a financial crisis in full force that is generating the exact type of widespread, intense anxiety that typically inflames these cultural resentments -- their mask is dropping, has dropped, and they've suddenly re-discovered their righteous "principles." The week-long CNBC Revolt of the Traders led by McCain voter Rick Santelli and the fledgling little Tea Party movement promoted by the Michelle Malkins of the world are obvious outgrowths of this 1990s mentality, now fortified by the most powerful fuel: deep economic fear. But as feisty and fire-breathing as those outbursts are, nothing can match -- for pure, illustrative derangement -- the discussion below from Glenn Beck's new Fox show this week, in which he and an array of ex-military and CIA guests ponder (and plot and plan) "war games" for the coming Civil War against Obama-led tyranny. It really has to be seen to be believed.

Researcher hopes to put fuel cells on the fast track

Haile’s research, which initially began several years ago with fuel cell researchers at JPL, has led to breakthroughs in more “consumer-ready” fuel cell technology. She’s developed fuel cell systems that strike a balance between power and manageability –- perfect, she says, for standalone residential generators. Her team has worked hard to reduce the amount of platinum needed for each system.

Haile thinks that the verdict is still out on whether hydrogen “makes sense” as the fuel of the future. “When most people hear ‘fuel cells,’ they think hydrogen,” says Haile. “That’s a common misperception -- fuel cells aren’t necessarily restricted to hydrogen.”

RIAA's Request For Appeal Denied In Thomas Case

The RIAA's request for permission to appeal from the decision setting aside its $222,000 jury verdict has been denied by District Court Judge Michael J. Davis. In a brief, 6-page decision (PDF) the Judge dismissed the RIAA's arguments that there is a 'substantial ground for a difference of opinion' on the question of law presented, whether the Judge had erred in accepting the RIAA's proposed jury instruction that merely 'making files available' could constitute an infringement of the plaintiffs' distribution rights.

He likewise dismissed their argument that granting permission for the appeal would 'materially advance the ultimate termination of the litigation,' since (a) depending on the outcome of the trial, plaintiffs might not wish to appeal from the judgment, and (b) no matter how the appeals court rules on the 'making available' issue, the case will still have to continue in the lower court, since even if the RIAA wins on the 'making available' issue, the Court will still have to address the constitutionality of the large jury verdict, which may result in a new trial.

Sending Text Messages Cheaper Than You Think

TEXT messaging is a wonderful business to be in: about 2.5 trillion messages will have been sent from cellphones worldwide this year. The public assumes that the wireless carriers’ costs are far higher than they actually are, and profit margins are concealed by a heavy curtain.....

Perhaps the costs for the wireless portion at either end are high — spectrum is finite, after all, and carriers pay dearly for the rights to use it. But text messages are not just tiny; they are also free riders, tucked into what’s called a control channel, space reserved for operation of the wireless network.

That’s why a message is so limited in length: it must not exceed the length of the message used for internal communication between tower and handset to set up a call. The channel uses space whether or not a text message is inserted.

Srinivasan Keshav, a professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, said: “Messages are small. Even though a trillion seems like a lot to carry, it isn’t.”

HD DVD cracks - Digg Riot

The Riot on Digg last night was amazing to watch unfold. A submission on Digg which contained the recently uncovered encryption key for HD DVD discs was removed yesterday by the site's admins after the site was served with a DMCA takedown notice, according to Digg CEO Jay Adelson. Such takedown notices are not uncommon. The AACS LA has issued them far and wide in an attempt to give the crack as low a profile as possible—Boing Boing blogger Cory Doctorow was the recent recipient of just such a notice after students of a class on copyright he was teaching at the University of Southern California posted the key and a link to the infamous Doom9 forum where AACS cracks have been openly discussed.

The futility of the AACS' actions was demonstrated last night when Digg was hit with a barrage of submissions containing the forbidden key. For a few hours, Digg's front page consisted of little more than a succession of links to the hexadecimal HD DVD key. After several hours, Digg cofounder Kevin Rose said that the site had received the message loud and clear, pledging that Digg would no longer kill stories and comments containing the key.

While the shenanigans at Digg were fascinating to watch as they unfolded, in the grand scheme of DRM it serves mostly as a reminder that the Internet holds no secrets. Like it or not for the AACS LA, DVD Forum (which backs HD DVD), and the Blu-ray Disc Association, Pandora's Box is opened wide. Not only is the key out in the open, but perhaps more damagingly to the HD lobby, public awareness of DRM and its cracks has been raised. How will HD DVD, Blu-ray, and AACS LA respond? We don't know, and chances are that they don't either. more

Congress Attacks Rural Broadband Program

Members of a House committee charged yesterday that a five-year, $1.2 billion program to expand broadband Internet services to rural communities has missed many unserved areas while channeling hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidized loans to companies in places where service already exists.

The Post reported that since 2001 more than half the money has gone to metropolitan regions or communities within easy commutes of a mid-size city. An Internet provider in Houston got $23 million in loans to wire affluent subdivisions, including one that boasts million-dollar houses and an equestrian center. more

Rapid-fire brings Sandia closer to fusion goal

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — An electrical circuit that should carry enough power to produce the long-sought goal of controlled high-yield nuclear fusion and, equally important, do it every 10 seconds, has undergone extensive preliminary experiments and computer simulations at Sandia National Laboratories’ Z machine facility.

Z, when it fires, is already the largest producer of X-rays on Earth and has been used to produce fusion neutrons. But rapid bursts are necessary for future generating plants to produce electrical power from sea water. This had not been thought achievable till now. more

Fox Canceled Drive

Fox Broadcasting has canceled Drive. The newest hit show that was set to air on Monday Evenings. This is the second time that Fox has screwed actor Nathan Fillion and has had a show thrown away by Fox. The last show was Firefly back in 2002. If I were this guy I would step back and take a serious look about working for Fox again. There is another story over at Variety. And I found this post in the forum of xgoth. The only thing that I can find on Fox's Drive site is a message saying that the Final 2 episodes will air sometime this summer.

Despite decent reviews, "Drive" quickly stalled, averaging just a 2.3 rating and 6 share among adults 18-49, and 5.6 million viewers overall.

Monday night's "Drive" didn't help matters, coming in fifth place for the hour (1.5/5) and driving "24" to record lows, dropping Fox to fourth for the night.

Extreme Tattoos

Need I say more...