Maine Liberty Journal

This guy was on track at one time to run DHS?

Via NY Daily News (10/21/2009):

Bernard Kerik – former NYPD police commissioner, one-time Homeland Security Secretary nominee, national Sept. 11 hero – has a new label. Inmate No. 210-717.

Kerik got his assigned number at the Westchester County jail after becoming the first NYPD commissioner to wind up behind bars when a judge revoked his bail Tuesday for trying to taint the jury pool in his upcoming corruption trial.

Officials at the Westchester County Jail in Valhalla refused to say if Kerik was put in isolation.

Kerik declined requests for media interviews while his lawyers vowed a prompt appeal to try to get him out.

A furious Judge Stephen Robinson threw Kerik in the clink after prosecutors said the former top cop and the head of his legal defense fund engaged in a subversive campaign to sway potential jurors.

Tags: News-national by Editor
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Via Tehran Times (10/27/2009):

The Iranian Oil Bourse was inaugurated on Monday in the Persian Gulf island of Kish as a venue to export oil and petrochemical products.

National Petrochemical Company’s Managing Director Adel Nejad-Salim said in the opening ceremony that all petrochemical products will be gradually offered on the market, IRNA news agency reported.

The oil bourse is intended as an exchange market for petroleum, gas, and petrochemicals in various currencies, primarily the euro and Iranian rial, and a basket of other major currencies.

On February 4, 2008 the Iranian Cabinet approved the creation of the oil bourse in two stages – first for crude and second for oil byproducts transactions.

Iran, having the world’s second largest gas reserves and third largest oil reserves, is trying to play a more active role in oil and petrochemical transactions in international markets .

Tags: Energy, Finance by Editor
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Atlas appears to be shrugging.

Via New York Post (10/27/2009):

New Yorkers are fleeing the state and city in alarming numbers — and costing a fortune in lost tax dollars, a new study shows.

More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.

The vast majority of the migrants, 1.1 million, were former residents of New York City — meaning one out of seven city taxpayers moved out.

Tags: Economics by Editor
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Via WMTW (10/27/2009):

A former Marine who fought in Iraq, joined the State Department after leaving the military and was a diplomat in a Taliban stronghold in Afghanistan has become the first U.S. official to resign in protest of the Afghan war, the Washington Post reported early Tuesday.

Matthew Hoh said he believes the war is simply fueling the insurgency.

“I have lost understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” Hoh wrote in his resignation letter, dated Sept. 10 but published early Tuesday. “I have doubts and reservations about our current strategy and planned future strategy, but my resignation is based not upon how we are pursuing this war, but why and to what end.”

Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, told the Post he disagreed that the war “wasn’t worth the fight,” but did agree with much of Hoh’s analysis.

Tags: Terrorism by Editor
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This article seems to be describing a place more accurately called a prison than a school. Prisoners locked in rooms for 30 minutes while cops carry out one gigantic warrantless search and seizure operation based on the whim of a superintendent? Disgusting. Why isn’t this called kidnapping?

Via WCSH 6 (1026/2009):

Several local and state law enforcement agencies were at Hermon High School Monday morning with drug sniffing dogs for a scheduled drug sweep.

Units from the Bangor and Brewer Police Departments, Maine Wardens Service, Maine State Police, the Aroostook County Sheriff’s Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office participated.

Authorities say the entire operation lasted about two hours, but students were only told to stay in their classrooms for about 30 minutes during the actual sweep.

Sergeant Michael Burgess of the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office says one student was cited for possession of marijauna, and another student was cited for possession of alcohol, which are both civil violations. He says the drugs and alcohol were found in the students’ vehicles in the parking lot and not in the school.

Authorities say they periodically do these sort of sweeps when they get a request from a school superintendent.

Tags: War on Drugs by Editor
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WMTW article here.

Tags: Health by Editor
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Via WMTW (10/26/2009):

The Food and Drug Administration has allowed drugs for cancer and other diseases to stay on the market even when follow-up studies showed they didn’t extend patients’ lives, say congressional investigators.

A report due out Monday from the Government Accountability Office also shows that the FDA has never pulled a drug off the market due to a lack of required follow-up about its actual benefits — even when such information is more than a decade overdue.

Tags: Health, War on Drugs by Editor
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Via WMTW (10/22/2009):

A new report from Environment Maine shows the Androscoggin River is one of the most toxic in the country.

The report ranks the river among the top 20 waterways for the most cancer causing toxic discharge for 2007.

The report said 25,502 pounds of toxic discharge, including lead and mercury, were released into the river in 2007.

The report said nationally, toxic chemical were discharged into 1,900 waterways.

The Environment Maine report used data from the U.S. EPAs toxic release inventory.

Tags: Environment, News-state by Editor
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Maine.gov press release (10/22/2009):

The Maine Emergency Management Agency hosted the fall 2009 International Emergency Management Group’s (IEMG) conference and functional exercise. The group meets regularly to discuss cross border emergency management issues.

The functional exercise was designed to test a new computer system the group has developed to make resource requests easier and to save time by not calling every state or province. The exercise also required practicing on the proper forms to fill out when requesting resources. Maine Emergency Management Agency planned the exercise with the assistance of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

As a result of the hurricane functional exercise, issues still need to be worked on with the new computer system. The forms for requesting resources are also going to be explored in hopes to find an easier way to fill them out.

The states that participated in this exercise were Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. The provinces that participated were New Brunswick, Quebec, Newfoundland, Labrador, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Many of the emergency operations centers also played in the states or provinces. Also participating were FEMA, the National Weather Service, and the Maine Army National Guard. Quebec brought their new communications van to practice communicating with the Maine Army National Guard.

Tags: Uncategorized by Editor
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Via WCSH (10/21/2009):

Kaile Warren was depressed and homeless when, through “divine intervention,” he got the concept – and brand name – that would make him something of a national celebrity.

Warren says God presented him with the idea for a home-repair franchise and this slogan: “Rent-A-Husband: For those jobs that never get done.” At the time, the former home builder was lying surrounded by rats in an abandoned warehouse – or in a homeless shelter or on a friend’s couch, depending on the version he’s pitching to the media.

The state of Warren’s homelessness in the mid-1990s is only one of the questions swirling around the 10-year CBS Early Show home-repair contributor, author, three-time Oprah Winfrey Show guest and founder of the Rent-A-Husband chain, a USA TODAY investigation has found. Even the number of active franchises and their locations is hard to pin down, and Warren (his first name is pronounced “kale”) won’t comment.

Tags: News-state by Editor
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Via WMTW (10/21/2009):

A record 106 million infants were vaccinated last year against life-threatening diseases, but nearly 1 in 5 babies still aren’t fully protected, global health authorities reported Wednesday.

To get the full round of first-year vaccinations to children in the poorest countries will take another $1 billion a year, said the report from the World Health Organization, UNICEF and World Bank.

Most of the unprotected babies are in Asia and Africa, particularly in rural or strife-torn areas that are difficult for aid workers to reach.

It’s a good investment, the report argued. Vaccination is preventing 2.5 million child deaths a year. But if 90 percent of the world’s children under age 5 got the vaccinations that are routine in wealthy countries, another 2 million deaths a year could be prevented by 2015.

“We must overcome the divide that separates rich from poor, between those who get lifesaving vaccines and those who don’t,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general of the WHO.

The report suggests that overcoming that gap may be a bigger challenge in coming years: In 2000, the world was spending, on average, $6 per live birth on vaccinations in developing countries. That’s expected to be $18 by next year and could rise above $30 as newer, more expensive vaccines become available.

Tags: Health, Vaccines by Editor
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I lived in Florida during those two years when there were several major storms (Charley, Rita, Katrina, etc.).

Category 3 storms don’t cause “catastrophic damage”. Plans for power outages and power failures are nothing new up here in blizzard country.

Via WCSH (10/21/2009):

A mock hurricane hitting the northeastern United States and eastern Canadian provinces will be staged to test the response of emergency agencies from both sides of the international border.

The exercise will be run Wednesday from Freeport, Maine. The exercise scenario is built around a Category 3 hurricane which has a catastrophic impact on the northeastern states and eastern Canada.

Participants will address problems such as a widespread loss of power and communications in both countries and moving emergency response resources across the border.

This exercise will test plans and procedures developed by the International Emergency Management Group, a consortium of emergency managers from northeastern states and eastern Canadian provinces.

Tags: Police state by Editor
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Tags: Health by Editor
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Via WCSH (10/20/2009):

Maine’s Senate president is introducing legislation to make sure that people who get swine flu or some other illness get time off from work to recover, or to take care of family members who get sick.

Sen. Elizabeth Mitchell is announcing introduction of her bill on Tuesday. The Vassalboro Democrat says the idea of the legislation is to prevent the spread of H1N1.

Mitchell’s bill would give employees of larger businesses six paid sick days a year, and employees of smaller businesses three paid days. It would apply to those receiving preventive care or to use in relation to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking.

Legislative leaders voted last week to allow Mitchell’s bill to be introduced during the 2010 session.

Tags: News-state by Editor
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Isn’t the FDA supposed to, you know, check the food for toxins and stuff like that?

Via WMTW (10/20/2009):

Organic food has risen to become a major market over the past quarter century.

According to industry-standard surveys completed by the Organic Trade Association, 2008 organic food sales in the U.S. totaled nearly $23 billion. Although this accounts for only 3.5 percent of all U.S. food sales, it was a 15.8 percent increase from 2007, while the entire U.S. food sales averaged only a 4.9 percent increase.

Supporters say there are two major benefits to eating organic food. First, it’s a socially and environmentally-conscious choice: Organic food supports sustainable agriculture rather than destroying the land and contaminating the environment, and it often better supports smaller local growers. Second, it’s healthier to eat products that do not have toxins in them than to eat those that do.

Tags: Health by Editor
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