:::::~News from around the World~:::::

[Strange Fruit]

Jacob Zuma (south africa's former vice president) is up on trail for raping a woman ( woman of 31 he is 62) he has known since she was a girl.
this man has 3 wives and has had numerous acknowlededged affairs. one of the Judges could not sit trail because his sister has a child by Zuma (it seems a very common occurance here in South Africa to have a child in your family whose father is Jacob Zuma)

But here comes the scary part: yesterday he admitted they had sex but didn't use a condom althogh he knows she has AIDS. now this man used to sit in cabinet wearing a little red ribbon pin but he goes around sleeping with people with AIDS with no protection yet 3 million South African's stand behind him despite all of this. i live in a country with archaic beliefs and out dated attitudes to women, not to mention infuriatingly hypocritical politicians.

Mr Zuma had seen a witch doctor (traditional healer) a few days before he had sex (or raped depending who you believe) this women, the healer told him he had a cure for AIDS and Zuma took it and thought he was protected by this muti (traditional medication) and therefore immune to AIDS.


AIDS activists have expressed concern about a remark by former South African deputy president Jacob Zuma that he minimised his risk of contracting the AIDS virus during unprotected sex with an HIV-positive woman, by taking a shower afterwards.

Zuma also said he believed the chance of getting HIV from a woman was slim for a healthy man.

Zuma made the remarks while being cross-examined in court for allegedly raping a 31-year-old, HIV-positive AIDS activist in November last year. In South Africa, the adult HIV prevalence rate stands at about 25 percent, according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS).

The fact that he served as chairman of the South African National AIDS Council and as patron of the country's Moral Regeneration Movement has also prompted some to view Zuma's remarks askance. More than five million people in South Africa are living with HIV and AIDS - more than in any other country.

"This is an absurd statement. Scientifically, there is nothing like minimising the risks of HIV infection by simply washing it away. I think the idea (to shower) was to destroy the evidence," Dorothy Odhiambo of the Kenyan branch of the Network of African People Living with HIV and AIDS said in an interview with IPS. "It (Zuma's statement) can set back the campaign to reduce South Africa's HIV infection rate by five years."

Added NAP+ coordinator Jefter Mxotshwa, ''Zuma is a political leader. He commands a lot of respect and influence, especially in rural areas. And his country, South Africa, is regarded as a leader in this region. As a result, people listen carefully to an influential person like Zuma."




"For example, rapists will rape and rush to shower. They will say the (former) deputy president did so. Why not us?" he observed.


The Zuma trial has also stirred debate in South Africa about rape -- always a hot-button issue in a country where, according to People Opposing Woman Abuse, a woman is raped every 26 seconds.

The Johannesburg-based civic group further asserts that only one in nine rapes is reported, with just seven percent of these cases ending in conviction.

Insisting that Zuma is innocent, hundreds of the former deputy president's supporters gather at the court in Johannesburg whenever he makes an appearance. Last week his lawyer received a hero's welcome as he led his team out of court.

But the demonstrators have angered the TAC, which called on Zuma to restrain his supporters from attempting "to intimidate the woman alleging rape by insulting and throwing objects at her."

"To subject a complainant in a rape case to threats and intimidation demonstrates callous contempt for all women and for the constitutionally protected human rights that form the cornerstone of our hard won democracy," the group said, in a statement.

"In South Africa rape and sexual violence against women and girls are significant drivers of the HIV epidemic. Violence against women is a daily attack on the dignity and equality of women, and our social values."

__________________________________________________ ________

Welcome to My World.
Hotep.

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Man linked to Hells Angels raid found dead

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Staff Writer

Tuesday, April 25, 2006




(04-25) 16:30 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- A man sought after last week's federal raids targeting the Hells Angels motorcycle club in San Francisco was found shot to death at Ocean Beach today, a day after telling his girlfriend he was going to turn himself in, authorities said.

Authorities say Michael Demetrescu Sr., 46, was found about 8:15 a.m. in the sand dunes on Ocean Beach near the Great Highway and Kirkham and Lawton streets, a handgun by his side. He had been shot in the head.

Police say they suspect Demetrescu committed suicide, but are awaiting the outcome of tests and a review of other evidence before making any conclusions.

Demetrescu had faced 40 years to life in prison if convicted of federal methamphetamine trafficking charges that had been lodged against him following the raids Thursday. The agents who conducted the raids said they had found a pound of methamphetamine in the garage of his home in the Dogpatch neighborhood.

Inspector Joe Toomey of the homicide detail said Demetrescu was last seen Monday night leaving the Hells Angels' clubhouse on Tennessee Street. After his body was found, his live-in girlfriend, Nancy Deemer, told police that Demetrescu had said he was going to turn himself in today, Toomey said.

"She didn't know where he was going to turn himself in or to whom,'' Toomey said. "She said he was a little depressed.''

Demetrescu lived at 1199 Tennessee St. in a home that abuts the Hells Angels Frisco chapter clubhouse. Authorities who raided his residence allegedly found marijuana in addition to the methamphetamine.

Federal agents suspected that Demetrescu stored drugs for Jason Peterson, 32, who lived in a unit that shares a wall with the Tennessee Street clubhouse.

Peterson, the sergeant at arms for the group, is in federal custody, as is the chapter's president, Joseph "Joey" Wilson, 35, of Visitacion Valley.

Demetrescu was not originally indicted, but was named as a defendant after agents allegedly found the methamphetamine.

Federal authorities used an undercover agent and eight months of wiretaps to build a case against the Hells Angels. They documented several drug deals -- including one for 100 pounds of cocaine -- allegedly orchestrated by Wilson and Peterson, according to a search warrant affidavit.

The two men and 10 associates were arraigned Friday before U.S. Magistrate James Larson. All denied the allegations. They are set to appear for hearings this week.

The defendants were involved in a "well-organized,'' multimillion-dollar criminal enterprise involving methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana, federal authorities said.

In the raids Thursday and in earlier seizures, agents found more than 100 pounds of cocaine, eight pounds of methamphetamine, $145,000 in cash and numerous weapons as well as a grenade, authorities said.

FBI agents and local law enforcement raided 19 locations Thursday, knocking down doors in some cases to gain entry.

E-mail Keay Davidson at [email protected].

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Elusive that article on nukes make me paranoid
all they need to do is start a nuclear war and install martial law

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Lodi man convicted of terror charges
Mistrial for father in separate case

Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 25, 2006



(04-25) 16:48 -- SACRAMENTO -- A 23-year-old Lodi man was convicted today of charges that he trained at a terrorist camp in his family's homeland of Pakistan and returned to the United States last summer to await orders to attack Americans.
Hamid Hayat was also convicted in U.S. District Court of charges that he initially lied to FBI agents about the alleged training when they confronted him last June, after he returned from a two-year trip to Pakistan. He faces up to 39 years in prison.
The jury of six men and six women deliberated nine days before returning the verdicts at 3:45 p.m.
Wazhma Mojaddidi, Hayat's attorney, said she was "clearly devastated and disappointed" by the verdicts.
"I believe they are wrong in their decision," Mojaddidi said of the jurors. "Hamid Hayat never attended a terrorist training camp. This fight is not over, and ultimately Hamid Hayat will be proven innocent."
After hearing the verdicts, Hamid said, "It's OK," recounted Mojaddidi, who said she plans to begin working immediately on a motion for a new trial on a variety of grounds.
Prosecutors scheduled a news conference on the case at 4:45 p.m. today. Sentencing is set July 14.
A separate jury of eight women and four men deliberating the fate of Hayat's father, 48-year-old ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, told Judge Garland Burrell Jr. Monday that they had deadlocked, and he declared a mistrial this morning.
The dual juries deliberated separately after a two-month trial.
Federal prosecutors must decide by a May 5 hearing whether they will retry Umer Hayat, who faces up to 16 years in prison. McGregor Scott, the U.S. Attorney for California's Eastern District, said in a brief written statement that the government "will evaluate its case against Umer Hayat and determine what course of action to pursue."
The judgments were a mixed result for federal authorities, who said they had broken up a budding al Qaeda-linked terror operation after the arrests last year but presented a murky case during trial that revolved around controversial confessions.
U.S. intelligence director John Negroponte said in February that a "network of Islamic extremists" in Lodi represented a "homegrown" jihadist cell.
The cases were the product of an aggressive FBI probe of Muslims in Lodi, a San Joaquin County city with a close-knit community of about 2,500 Pakistani Americans. The FBI began the investigation soon after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The FBI hired an informant to infiltrate the community and get close to a pair of Pakistani clerics who were in this country on religious-worker visas. One was the imam of Lodi's only mosque; the other was spearheading an effort to build a private school for Central Valley Muslim youths.
The informant, 32-year-old Pakistani native Naseem Khan, stumbled upon Hamid Hayat, an aimless young man with a sixth-grade education and some radical views, in the summer of 2002. Khan, who had lived in Lodi before moving to Oregon, became Hayat's best friend while instigating talk of holy war, and while wearing a hidden microphone.
The younger Hayat was born in Stockton; his father came to the United States from Pakistan 30 years ago and is a naturalized citizen.
The main charge against Hamid Hayat was providing "material support" -- in this case, his own body -- to terrorists.
Prosecutors have often relied on the statute in recent years. In 2004, then-Justice Department criminal division chief Chris Wray told the Senate Judiciary Committee that authorities would "much rather catch terrorists with their hands on a check than on a bomb."
Results have been mixed: Prosecutors won convictions in Lackawanna, N.Y., and in the case of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh. But the statute didn't stick in high-profile cases in Detroit, Tampa, Fla., and Idaho.
The dual trials in Sacramento centered on the FBI's lengthy, videotaped interrogations of the Hayats last June 4 and 5 at the agency's office in the capital. The younger man's provocative talks with Khan had made him an investigative target.
The father and son spoke matter-of-factly with agents about paramilitary training and the alleged existence of a terrorist cell in Lodi. Hamid Hayat, who was interrogated for more than eight hours over one afternoon and night, said he went to a camp in late 2003 or early 2004 at which trainees fired guns and exercised.
Prosecutors placed the training camp outside Balakot. They produced a Defense Department analyst who said satellite images showed a "possible camp" in the area and that what he saw on the photos matched Hamid Hayat's description.
Defense attorneys said the men had been manipulated into telling agents whatever they wanted to hear, and had cooperated in a misguided attempt to be helpful. The men often gave answers suggested by agents, who did most of the talking. The confessions also featured conflicting and sometimes bizarre details.
Umer Hayat, for instance, told FBI agents that he had visited his son's camp out of curiosity in late 2004.
And, although the son told agents he had trained with as few as 35 men in a mountaintop field outside the Pakistani city of Balakot, the father described a basement in a different province where 1,000 masked men, including Americans, fired machine guns, swung swords and learned to pole vault across rivers.
During closing arguments in the trial, prosecutors acknowledged that Hamid Hayat had "flat-out lied" during parts of his confession. But they said he did that in an effort to minimize his role in training for terrorism.
What jurors did not hear, because of rules regarding a defendant's right to confront witnesses, was that FBI agents had shown clips of his son's alleged confession to Umer Hayat before the father began to make admissions. Then, after he made those admissions, agents showed clips of the father confessing to Hamid Hayat.
"You're not helping your father here by giving me information that doesn't agree with him," agent Timothy Harrison told the younger Hayat.
The father's jury was not shown the son's confession, and vice versa, and thus neither was aware of the conflicting statements.
The witness rules are intended to protect suspects from being harmed by the words of co-defendants who, because they are on trial, cannot be confronted on the stand. In this case, both defendants exercised their Fifth Amendment right not to testify.
Prosecutors also spent a lot of time painting a dark picture of Hamid Hayat in an attempt to convince jurors that he was the type of person who would have joined a terror plot. The young man pasted together a scrapbook of newspaper clippings about the Taliban and other radical groups, and told Khan in a taped conversation that he was "so pleased" with the 2002 slaying of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl by radicals in Pakistan.
Defense lawyers said the rhetoric was mostly garden-variety for a young man who had spent half his life in Pakistan.
Defense attorneys attacked Khan's credibility as an informant, saying he had lied when he told agents he had seen three of the FBI's most wanted terrorists in Lodi as late as 1999, including al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri.
Those claims helped prompt the FBI to start its Lodi probe in late 2001 but turned out to be false. Prosecutors said Khan had simply been mistaken.
The FBI paid Khan more than $225,000 in salary and expenses for his work in Lodi, and he remains employed by the agency.
Two clerics who were in Lodi on religious-worker visas, Shabbir Ahmed and Muhammad Adil Khan, were detained along with the Hayats last June but were never charged in connection with terrorism. Both agreed to be deported rather than fight immigration charges.
Umer Hayat reacted to his mistrial by telling his lawyers that he should be released from jail, where he and his son have been since their arrests.
A bail hearing is set Friday, and defense attorney Johnny Griffin, who has said that Hayat's son never went to a training camp, urged prosecutors to drop the case.
"The government in my view put its best foot forward -- and slipped and fell," Griffin said.
Jury forewoman Debra Kiriu, a 53-year-old Lodi native and call center manager who now lives in neighboring Woodbridge, indicated that jurors were "evenly split," said James Wedick, a retired FBI agent and lead defense investigator who spoke briefly with Kiriu.
Burrell warned jurors that a public airing of their deliberations could have a "chilling effect" on the nation's jury process.
Outside court, Umer Hayat's family members -- his wife, Oma, his 17-year-old son, Arslan, and his 11-year-old daughter, Raheela, along with nephew Usama Ismael, 20 -- told reporters they wanted to move on from the case.
"He wasn't guilty, like I told you guys," Arslan Hayat said of his father. "The jury didn't find him guilty, and he's gonna be home, and we want him back."
E-mail Demian Bulwa at [email protected].

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Big Oil donates big bucks to Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign

Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Wednesday, April 26, 2006






No sooner did Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger call for a state investigation of price gouging at the pump than his critics jumped in feet first -- noting that the "no special-interest money" governor has taken nearly $2 million in campaign contributions from the very oil companies he wants investigated.
"Arnold's latest slick stunt, pretending to care about soaring costs of gas prices, rings hollower than a Krispy Kreme doughnut,'' said the anti-Arnold labor folks at the Alliance for a Better California.
And indeed, records show that the governor -- who has raised $82.7 million since riding into Sacramento on the promise not to be beholden to special interests -- has accepted nearly two dozen contributions from oil interests since 2002.
In the past year alone, the governor's California Recovery Team collected $500,000 apiece from independent oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens and Vail Drilling Co., plus $250,000 from Chevron Corp. and $50,000 from Shell Oil.
Chevron has also given $44,600 to Schwarzenegger's re-election campaign since November.
So, Arnold's critics ask, how can we expect Gov. Fox to investigate the henhouse thefts?
Team Arnold campaign spokeswoman Julie Soderlund calls such oil contribution complaints "nothing but baseless political attacks to score political points.''
Soderlund insisted the governor hasn't tempered his response to the oil companies as a result of the donations. She pointed in particular to his call Monday for the state Energy Commission to look into rising gas prices and his earlier push for the development of alternative fuel sources.
The oil companies aren't the only ones benefiting from the price spike, says Doug Heller of the Arnold watchdog group Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.
The state has reaped a $100 million-plus sales tax windfall since the start of the year, he said.
"So the pols themselves get addicted to the high gas prices,'' Heller said.
Ultimately, however, there's not much Sacramento can do about rising prices, even if the pols want to, said Severin Borenstein, director of the University of California's Energy Institute.
"Most of this is the world oil market, and the world oil market is telling us the prices are very high because there is a real shortage,'' Borenstein said.
He agrees that refiners are "making a ton of money'' -- about 30 cents a gallon more than they earned at the start of the year -- because of a refining capacity shortage.
But he also added, "Contrary to what many believe, we don't have a God-given right to unlimited quantities of gas at a price we choose.''
Money game: For weeks, both sides in the 12th District state Assembly race between Janet Reilly -- as in wife of former political consultant Clint Reilly -- and San Francisco Supervisor Fiona Ma have been predicting last-minute big money would be coming into the campaign.
Well, this week the tap started opening with an independent group called Leaders for Effective Government -- a political action committee that had been fallow for some time -- taking out $33,000 in TV ads in support of Ma.
The move is interesting in that, a few years back, then-state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton -- a godfather of local politics and a big backer of Ma's -- helped set up that group with a $1.5 million donation.
Burton, however, says he has nothing to do with the PAC now or its decision to help his former aide Ma.
"I gave them the money years ago," Burton said.
Eric Jaye, campaign manager for Reilly, isn't buying it.
"Burton set this committee up, it's been inactive for over four years, then all of a sudden out of the blue they're doing a buy for his former aide?" Jaye said.
But former Rep. Jerome Waldie, the group's president who now lives in Placerville (El Dorado County), backed up Burton's assertion. "I haven't seen or spoken to John in years," he told us.
Waldie said it was the PAC staff that recommended helping Ma. He said the group also plans to give money to East Bay Assemblyman Johan Klehs in his state Senate race and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Phil Angelides -- both of whom also happen to be friends of Burton's.
Ma's campaign denied ever talking to Burton about Leaders for Effective Government.
"This is all just a smoke screen to give them cover for when Clint Reilly starts writing some big checks of his own," said Ma campaign manager Tom Hsieh Jr.
Jaye countered that multimillionaire Clint is barred from cutting a big check. He said Janet Reilly, who has already put $50,000 of her own into the race, would do whatever she could to counter Ma's money.
If that turns out to be the case, this race should get very interesting, very quickly.
Threatening situation: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is concerned about recent "disturbing and hateful death threats" aimed at Mexican American elected officials as the debate over illegal immigration boils.
But for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante -- the officials the governor cited Monday -- such threats are nothing new.
Villaraigosa was getting them regularly when he ran for mayor last year. One was so bad, the cops were called in to investigate.
It turned out to be a pretty easy investigation. The would-be assailant wasn't the brightest -- he used his own Yahoo address when he e-mailed the threat.
As for Bustamante, "we get three or four a year," said spokesman Stephen Green. "It's to be expected."
Brown in the house: With state party Chair Art Torres recovering from colon surgery, the Democrats have asked former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown to run the party's convention this weekend in Sacramento.
We caught up with Brown, who spends his time these days hosting a radio show, making speeches, lobbying and working on a book, just as he was about to board a flight.
"It's costing me to do this. I had to give up two speeches," Brown said. "Apparently, they picked me because I'm not involved with anyone, so there will be a peaceful outcome."
Does that mean there won't be any fights as the delegates make their endorsements for governor and other races?
"Oh, there will be plenty of fights, all right," Brown said. "I just said there would be a peaceful outcome."
Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. They can also be heard on KGO Radio. Phil Matier can be seen regularly on KRON 4 News. Got a tip? Call them at (415) 777-8815, or drop them an e-mail at [email protected].

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Man found shot to death in disabled vehicle is ID'd

Keay Davidson, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006

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(04-26) 11:49 PDT SAN FRANCISCO - The man found shot to death inside a disabled car at Cesar Chavez and Mississippi streets early today has been identified as Peter Perez, 19, of Daly City.
Sgt. Neville Gittens said police believe Perez was shot around 4:15 a.m. at Sixth and Natoma streets, and that someone who was with him at the time was driving him to the hospital when the car got a flat tire.
Gittens said police checked out the parked vehicle after receiving a call of a "suspicious vehicle." They found "a victim in the car, dead of a gunshot wound to the head."
Two men were with the victim in the disabled vehicle, he said.
No one has been arrested, and there are no suspects, Gittens said.
However, "we believe that this homicide was the result of the shooting that occurred at 6th and Natoma," Gittens said.
E-mail Keay Davidson at [email protected].

[MASTER PAI MEI]

Facing facts

Edward Guthmann, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 26, 2006






Claire Roberts had tried plastic surgery: two nose jobs, plus a surgical procedure in which her jawbone was shaved down to create a softer contour.
But nothing really worked. A transsexual who decided late in life to transition to female gender, Roberts went to San Francisco plastic surgeon Douglas Ousterhout last fall and requested a new face. She wanted to "pass," which in her case meant altering a Governator jaw, a large nose and a low, protruding brow line that "made me feel about as feminine as one of the females in 'Planet of the Apes.'
"I felt like I could not shift over to a full-time gender position until my face -- my identity -- was correct," explains Roberts. The 59-year-old Seattle musician and retired business executive is 6 feet tall and has a 25-year-old son. He found out about Ousterhout's innovative facial feminization surgery online and decided to take the leap. The results, five months later, are dramatic: instead of the receding hairline, lantern jaw and (actor) Geoffrey Rush profile, Roberts is a perfectly plausible female.
Ousterhout, who practices at the California Pacific Medical Center's Davies campus on Castro Street, is widely considered the country's foremost facial feminization surgeon. This is because of the cranial and maxillofacial techniques he developed to change the shape of the skull. Unlike most plastic surgeons with their standard menu of tummy tucks, eyelid lifts and rhinoplasties, Ousterhout, 70, brings skills he acquired at the Center for Craniofacial Anomalies at the UCSF Medical Center, where for 25 years he was head surgeon and worked on children born with severe skull deformities. In 1998, when HMOs reduced reimbursements for skull surgery ("I wasn't going to be able to afford my practice"), he switched to female feminization surgery full time.
"Most plastic surgeons aren't bone doctors," Ousterhout says, "and never spend time really analyzing the difference between the female and male skull." None, he claims, delivers the radical results he's achieved with 918 procedures beginning in 1978.
Surgeons who perform the work are rare. Ousterhout declined to estimate the current number, but Chicago plastic surgeon Mark L. Zukowski, who performs 80 to 100 facial feminizations per year, guesses there are "at most 12 (doctors) in the world, with three or four top people." Beverly Hills surgeon Gary Alter, whose practice also includes sexual reassignment and labiaplasty, is one of the more prominent specialists and does about 50 facial feminization operations per year.
For $22,000 to $40,000 -- roughly twice the cost of sexual reassignment surgery -- Ousterhout's patients undergo as much as 10 1/2 hours of surgery. They remain in the hospital two days after surgery, then transfer to the Cocoon House, a bed-and-breakfast facility run by two nurses in Noe Valley, for eight days of convalescence.
Eighty-five to 90 percent of Ousterhout's patients are transgender. Ninety-five percent come from outside the Bay Area. "I have one patient who wants the surgery so badly," he says. "She's in a coal-mining town somewhere in Kentucky and she says, 'I don't dare dress as a female where anybody can see me. Literally, I'll be killed.' And she's probably right."
Most of Ousterhout's patients, like Stacy Windsor of British Columbia, grew up thinking they were accidents of nature. "I figured out that I was supposed to be a girl when I was 5, when I was in kindergarten," she says. "For some reason there'd been this terrible mistake."
At 24, Windsor (not her real name) is one of Ousterhout's youngest surgical patients. Six feet two and lanky, a computer programmer who started taking female hormones and dressing as a woman at 19, Windsor came to San Francisco after researching Ousterhout on the Internet and reading testimonials.
Her mother, Karen, has flown in from southern Ontario to be at her child's side throughout the surgery and recovery. "She's my baby," Karen says. Not supporting her would be unthinkable, she adds, especially when "one of three transsexuals ends her life before the age of 30."
"It's pretty rare, sadly," Windsor says of her parents' support. "I had read all these horror stories on the Internet saying, 'If you're still living with your parents, be packed and ready to go when you come out to them.' And of course they were both totally fine with it."
Windsor, who looks like Hilary Swank in "Boys Don't Cry" -- only much more feminine -- is speaking in a private room at Ousterhout's office, its walls covered in plaques and diplomas from Ousterhout's long career. She's nervous about being exposed, especially at work, where everyone assumes she's a biological female. She asks not to be photographed for this story, or identified by her real name.
The procedure, she hopes, will help her not only to pass but also to feel more "integrated" in her female identity. "I'm having the jaw tapered," she says. "And I'm going to have the chin reduced and brought forward."
The male skull, Ousterhout explains, has more hooding over the eyes, whereas females have a more "open, convex orbit." During facial feminization surgery, Ousterhout pulls the face back from the forehead and removes part of the forehead bone, leaving a more feminine contour. The chin, which in men is wider and 20 percent longer than the female mandible, is reduced to female size and shape through a process called a sliding genioplasty. "It's like taking out the salami between two pieces of bread," he says.
"I also don't like the width of my nose," Windsor adds. In fact, it's as masculine and unavoidable as Adrien Brody's. The surgery will also lift her upper lip closer to her nose, allowing for a more feminine smile. It's a subtle difference, Ousterhout says, but men have a vertically longer upper lip than women. It's not noticeable when they smile, but when a man's lips are parted a few millimeters, the upper teeth are hidden. Ousterhout shortens the upper lip by making an incision immediately beneath the sill of the nose.
Last of all, the most obvious factor and biggest giveaway for transsexuals is the thyroid cartilage, or Adam's apple. While many surgeons make a small transverse incision in the front of the neck, immediately above the cartilage prominence, Ousterhout approaches it through an incision just behind the chin to leave less obvious scarring.
Eight days after her surgery, a few hours after her sutures and bandages are removed, Windsor welcomes me to the Cocoon House, where she's been napping and blunting the post-op edge with a series of gradually less potent pain pills. Her face is a bit pumpkin-like with orange and purple bruises and swelling around her nose, chin and jaw. Her voice is a tad weary.
"It's a horribly painful operation to recover from," Stacy says. "I was under anesthesia 13 hours. Transplants don't take 13 hours!" When the bandages were removed and she saw her new face, "I popped a Valium. It's such a huge change from how I looked before." For the next six weeks, Stacy has to take saline nasal spray six times a day. She can't wear glasses, a bicycle helmet or any kind of protective headgear for six months. Six days after our last visit, she sends an e-mail from British Columbia:
"My scalp incision shed a lot of hair around the edges, making me sensitive about people noticing it. And there's new stubble there, which will be a complete pain in the butt to style in about a month. I can't pluck my eyebrows because of risk of infection. ... I basically look like Stalin, or Bert from 'Sesame Street.'
"It's all stuff that's going to be just fine in the long term," she adds. "It's just gross now."
Stacy sees the facial surgery as being more about identity than vanity. She was homeless and on drugs two years ago, and says the expensive procedure -- $35,000 in her case -- was possible only because a family friend volunteered to front the cash. "Even if I'd found work in a field where I did well financially, it would've taken 10 years to save that much money."
"Ten really difficult years," her mother adds.
"I have a new opportunity here with the new face," Stacy says. "For the majority of Dr. O's patients, it's the difference between a very successful life and a sad and lonely, little life."
Not everyone agrees that FFS is desirable for transitioning transsexuals. San Francisco entertainer Veronica Klaus had genital reassignment surgery and breast augmentation but decided against facial surgery. "While I think it can be an important step in realizing one's potential, it's more important that one's self-esteem come first from the inside."
Lannie Rose, a San Jose author and transgender person. recommends facial feminization surgery only "if you have particularly masculine features and are having a difficult time passing in most circumstances." In her book, "How to Change Your Sex," Rose warns, "Although FFS is startlingly effective in feminizing the face, it only creates confusion if you wind up with a feminine-looking face on top of a linebacker's body; or very feminine features on a face that's still too damn large."
She's got a point: Think of Roberta Muldoon, the professional football player-turned-lady played by John Lithgow in "The World According to Garp." Or Roy "Ruth" Applewood, a Midwestern husband and dad, played by the bearish Tom Wilkinson, who shocks his family by coming out as transgender in the cable drama "Normal."
In fact, Ousterhout says, the size of the face is modified through FFS: "By reducing the forehead length through scalp advancement to a female position, and by reducing the vertical height of the chin in the sliding genioplasty, the face is made smaller in all regards."
For patients like Roberts, who go through life thinking of themselves as women despite a body that claims otherwise and then gradually find the courage to make the transition, Ousterhout's makeovers are life-changers. "The best way to describe this procedure and its impact on my life is that for the first time in 59 years my outside looks something like my inside."
Before FFS, Roberts says, "I thought I was ugly. I finally figured out that I didn't regard myself as ugly, but rather 'wrong.' The image in the picture was not me. Now it is, and that fact is so profound for me that I am still giddy from it!"
When the work was finished and she looked in the mirror, Roberts adds, "I said, 'Oh my God, I look like my mother!' While most women make this statement with chagrin, I made it with real joy. Actually, it's quite an overstatement since my mother was truly beautiful -- but I can now see much of her is in me, which touches me deeply."
E-mail Edward Guthmann at [email protected].

[soul controller]

Flight 93 Shot Down

'"At precisely 0938 hours, an alarm was sounded at Langely Air Force Base, and those whom were on call, drinking coffee, were scrambled. Thus the 119th Fighter Wing was off for an intercept.
They, the Happy Hooligans, a unit of 3 F-16 aircraft, were ordered to head toward Pennsylvania. At 0957 they spotted their target; After confirmation orders were received, A one Major Rick Gibney fired two sidewinder missiles at the aircraft and destroyed it in mid flight at precisely 0958;
He was awarded a medal from the Governor one year later for his heroic actions. As well as Decorated by Congress on 9/13/2001. The Happy Hooligans were previously stationed in North Dakota, and moved to Langley Air Force base some months before 911 occured on a "Temporary assignment."'

http://www.letsroll911.org/articles/...3shotdown.html


172 New Doctors to Offer Microchip ID System to Patients

'VeriChip Corporation, a subsidiary of Applied Digital, announced today that 172 new physicians registered to provide the VeriMed(TM) Patient Identification System to select patients at the recently completed American Medical Directors Association (AMDA) 2006 Annual Symposium held March 16-19 in Dallas. Overall, since the FDA granted clearance of VeriChip for medical applications, 232 doctors have elected to provide the System. 80 hospitals and medical facilities nationwide previously agreed to adopt the VeriMed Patient Identification System for patient identification.
"We believe the strong acceptance that the VeriMed Patient Identification System achieved at this key industry conference represents a significant step in developing widespread acceptance of VeriChip," said VeriChip Corporation Chief Executive Officer Kevin McLaughlin. "It is essential for physicians, who will be implementing the implantation process, to recognize the important role that the VeriChip can play in providing immediate access to medical records in critical care situations.

http://www.verichipcorp.com/news/1142883972

[soul controller]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04...abase_removal/


Getting off the UK DNA database: ACPO explains how

Or not...

By John Lettice
Published Wednesday 26th April 2006 13:42 GMT
Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_opt=0; Ads_wrd='';Ads_sec=0;function Ads_PopUp() {}Get breaking Reg news straight to your desktop - click here to find out how.

Find you perfect job - click here for thousands of tech vacancies.The UK is something of a DNA record kleptocracy, with a national DNA database now well in excess of three million records, and with new sampling opportunities available to the police on remarkably easy terms. These days it's ever so easy to get onto the UK database, but how do you get off?
What's that you say? You don't? Well, up to a point - but it's not strictly true to say that once you're on the database you absolutely can't get off again. It's just very, very hard and it's going to take you a long, long time. Fortunately, would-be escapees now have the benefit of some guidance from the Association of Chief Police Officers.
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on error resume nextFor mp_i=11 To 6 Step -1If Not IsObject(CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFla sh." & mp_i)) ThenElse mp_swver=mp_i Exit ForEnd IfNextExceptional Case Procedures for Removal DNA, Fingerprints and PNC Records, released by ACPO on 24th April, is in part a response to recent decisions made by the Information Tribunal in connection with police retention of criminal records data. Alongside this, "recent widespread media coverage relating to the retention of DNA", ACPO says, is likely to result in a high volume of removal requests over the next 12 months. These requests will in the first instance be made to Chief Officers in their role of data controller, and ACPO feels that it is important that "national consistency" is achieved in their responses.
OK? So how does it work? "Exception cases will by definition be rare," says ACPO, and might well include cases "where the original arrest or sampling was found to be unlawful." Or, if it turns out to be absolutely clear that there wasn't any offence in the first place, that might count. And ACPO gives a specific example:
"For example where a dead body is found in a multi-occupancy dwelling and the cause of death is not immediately obvious. All the occupants are arrested on suspicion of murder pending the outcome of a post mortem. All arrested persons are detained at the local police station and samples taken. It later transpires that the deceased person died of natural causes. No offence therefore exists, and all persons are released from custody."
Find corpse, nick everybody within range just in case? One certainly hopes that's seriously exceptional. Fortunately though, the honest Chief Copper doesn't have to wrestle with these thorny issues alone. Or possibly, at all, considering ACPO's recommended procedure.
First, a request for deletion of a Police National Computer (PNC) record, DNA sample or fingerprints should be viewed as being "a request to remove all items." It is then "essential", says ACPO, that the DNA and fingerprint records are matched correctly to the appropriate arrest summons number on the PNC record. But here comes a gotcha: "Samples taken on other occasions should not be deleted." Which we take to mean that if you're not pursuing a DNA record specific to a PNC arrest record, then you're not going to get off the database. Close the door on your way out.
But what if it is associated with an arrest record? "In the first instance applicants should be sent a letter informing them that the samples and associated PNC record are lawfully held and that their request for deletion / destruction is refused" Oh, right... "unless the applicant believes the application should be regarded as exceptional." In that case, "the applicant should be invited to state the grounds upon which they believe their case to be exceptional."
And then the Chief Officer gets to decide? Well, not exactly. "The Chief Officer is asked to consider any response and either reply to the applicant rejecting the application for the removal of the record(s)" Oh, right... "or refer the case papers to the DNAFRP [DNA & Fingerprint Retention Project], thus ensuring that a consistent approach is adopted nationally."
Then DNAFRP will respond with advice taking into account any relevant precedents, and then the Chief Officer gets to decide. Using a response letter template supplied by DNAFRP. It may be occurring to you that one might easily die of old age while this process was under way. But don't you go thinking dying's going to get you off the database, sunshine, oh no... ®

[MASTER PAI MEI]

A MILLION SAY: LET US ALL STAY
HISTORIC DAY: Across the nation, a rallying call for immigrants

Michael Cabanatuan, Tyche Hendricks, Jason B. Johnson, Chronicle Staff Writers
Tuesday, May 2, 2006

More...

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Immigration Overhaul Across the nation, a rallying call for immigrants (5/2)
A backlash could hamper chances for reform (5/2)
Thousands in Mexico back 'A Day Without Gringos' (5/2)
Big student boycott all across state (5/2)
Johnson: Yesterday's Mexican immigrant (5/2)
Huge crowd marches through L.A. (5/2)
'A day without immigrants': By the numbers (5/2)
Most employers support rallies (5/2)
Thousands march in Bay Area (5/1)
Estimated 300,000 rally in L.A. (5/1)
Workers flex economic muscles (5/1)
Protests could cause political backlash (5/1)
Schools report many absences (5/1)

Editorial: Protests could backfire (5/1)

Rallies over immigration rights scheduled across country today (5/1)

Poll finds Californians back comprehensive immigration policy (4/30)

Debate includes fringe elements (4/30)

Bush pushes citizenship bill (4/24)

Bipartisan worker bill collapses in Senate (4/8)

Demographics fuel GOP's immigration dilemma (4/4)

Thousands march to push for legalizing illegal immigrants (3/28)



Demanding reform of U.S. immigration laws, more than a million people took to the nation's streets Monday in what some observers said could herald a new civil rights movement.
In the nation's largest coordinated demonstration since the war in Vietnam, hundreds of thousands of immigrants, legal and illegal, and their supporters turned out in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Jose and other major cities. They called for justice, dignity and legal residence for illegal immigrants in the United States.
Harry Pachon, a professor of public policy at the University of Southern California, called Monday's demonstrations a national phenomenon that could encourage many participants, especially young Latinos, to stay politically active and inspire many Latino immigrants to become citizens with voting rights.
"For any immigrant group in the country, putting 500,000 people on the streets is significant,'' he said. "It's staggering.''
Participating in the "A Day Without Immigrants," some protesters skipped school and work and many boycotted commercial activity in response to legislation passed by the House of Representatives that would declare illegal immigrants and those who help them felons and build 700 miles of fence along the U.S-Mexico border.
"As more and more of these demonstrations happen," said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a political science professor at UC Riverside, "there are signs that this could be the start of a civil rights movement for immigrants, especially Latino immigrants.''
In San Francisco, protesters marched up Market Street -- the crowd stretching sidewalk to sidewalk -- and converged on Civic Center Plaza at mid-afternoon, then moved to the nearby Federal Building for a rally at 5 p.m. At the Civic Center, they sprawled on the grass to eat brown-bag lunches -- part of an effort to avoid buying anything to illustrate the economic impact of immigrants.
The largely Latino crowd carried American flags as well as flags from Latin American countries. Neither the San Francisco police nor the mayor's office would provide a crowd estimate, but the Associated Press used an estimate of 30,000 from an unnamed city official. Marlon Valle of Hercules, a mechanic who fled the civil war in his native El Salvador 18 years ago and has become a U.S. citizen, attended the San Francisco rally with a dozen children, all wearing red bandanas and carrying a banner of Latin American flags stitched together.
"We brought the children along because we want to show they are the future of the country, and we're here to stay," he said.
Several speakers, including Miguel Molina of KPFA, a Berkeley public radio station, invoked the 1960s.
"Forty-six years ago, Martin Luther King had a dream," Molina said. "Today, we have a dream, a dream to come out from the shadows. ."
At the evening rally at the Federal Building, Joe Luis, 47, a San Francisco dishwasher and Salvadoran immigrant, said the new movement needs leaders.
"We have no leaders. This is a natural expression,'' he said, gesturing toward the rallying crowd as he held up an American flag.
An evening march in San Jose, from the Latino commercial center at Story and King streets to downtown, started an hour early when the crowd grew too large for the gathering area.
San Jose police estimated 100,000 marchers, and among them was Joel Gates, 25, who lives in San Jose but was born in Texas and grew up in El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.
"We have arrived at a moment when the immigrant community has woken up," Gates said. "Immigrants work as much or more than any other people in this country and they are paid the least. It's time they had a voice and vote. I'm a citizen, but thousands of these people work in the field, wash our dishes, clean our toilets and they're paid very little and exploited."
In Oakland, police estimated that up to 17,000 people marched to join a rally at the Oakland federal building at midday.
Jonnie Livings, 46, a registered nurse in Oakland, said she came out because she identifies with the struggle of immigrants because she is African American.
"We are all God's children,'' said Livings, who waved a small American flag. "Divided we fall, and together we stand.''
Marches also were organized in Concord and Santa Rosa. Santa Rosa police estimated about 10,000 people in the crowd. Concord police had no estimates.
Most of the Bay Area demonstrations were peaceful. Oakland police reported three arrests. Police in Santa Rosa and San Jose, however, were investigating violent incidents -- a triple shooting in Santa Rosa and a double stabbing in San Jose, all non-fatal -- they said occurred at or near the demonstrations but were not related to them.
The nationwide protests, boycotts, store closures and scattered student walkouts were intended to show the economic role of immigrants, legal and illegal, and to protest the House bill, which has no parallel yet in the Senate.
Opposition to the House bill began building in March, when large rallies were held in cities across the country, starting in Chicago.
California has more foreign-born residents than any other state, about one-quarter of all the nation's immigrants, and about 2.4 million of them are illegal immigrants, or about 7 percent of the state's population.
Despite divisions among organizers over whether the "A Day Without Immigrants" sent the right message to lawmakers mulling reforms to federal law, the marches drew diverse crowds across the country.
"We are the backbone of what America is, legal or illegal, it doesn't matter," said Melanie Lugo, who with her husband and their third-grade daughter joined an estimated 75,000 people rallying in Denver. "We butter each other's bread. They need us as much as we need them."
Illegal immigrants from Ireland and Poland marched alongside Hispanics in Chicago as office workers on lunch break clapped. In Phoenix, protesters formed a human chain in front of the Wal-Mart and Home Depot stores.
And crossings from Mexico into San Diego County were halted when protesters in Tijuana, Mexico, blocked vehicle traffic at the world's busiest border station.
Tens of thousands rallied in New York, 15,000 in Houston and 30,000 more across Florida, and smaller groups gathered in Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Arizona. In Nebraska and Iowa, Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer, shuttered about a dozen of its more than 100 plants, while Perdue Farms closed eight chicken processing plants for the day, largely due to anticipated absenteeism.
The Port of Long Beach near Los Angeles was eerily quiet because many in the trucking industry, which employs many Latinos and many illegal immigrants, had avoided work for the day. And the number of closed businesses in San Francisco's Mission District led at least two residents to describe it as "quieter than on a Sunday morning" as the protests ramped up.
The Associated Press and Chronicle staff writers Rick DelVecchio, Vanessa Hua and Cicero A. Estrella contributed to this report. E-mail the writers at [email protected], [email protected] and [email protected].

[MASTER PAI MEI]

BERKELEY
Eyes like dragonfly's developed in UC lab
Team builds device that can see in all directions at once

David Perlman, Chronicle Science Editor

Friday, April 28, 2006

Bug Eyes. Chronicle graphic by John Blanchard



A UC Berkeley engineer, entranced by the uncanny ability of insects like dragonflies and bumblebees to peer in all directions at once, has for the first time created microscopic versions of their compound eyes in the laboratory.

Luke Lee, professor of bioengineering and leader of a research team he calls the Bio-Poets, is reporting today that his synthetic devices made of complex plastic materials can "see" in all directions simultaneously, and could well find uses in fields as varied as medicine, 3-D cameras and even espionage.

The bulbous compound eyes of many insects contain thousands of individual lenses, each of which sees in a single direction, but whose images are melded into a single, wide-angle view that allows the insect to survey its entire neighborhood at once.

Lee confesses that he can't figure out how nature could develop the complex devices that function so well in living organisms, but the team's success in creating a synthetic fly's eye, described today in the journal Science, is only the beginning, Lee said in an interview Wednesday.

Lee's team of Bio-Poets -- the term stands for a mouthful of jargon: Biomolecular Polymer Opto-Electronic Technology and Science -- works on many projects at the frontier of bioengineering, and in the near future, he said, the group will be developing miniature diagnostic kits that patients could use under medical supervision to keep watch over obscure illnesses.

The team plans to create microscopic syringes for medical use that mimic the proboscis of mosquitoes and other insects that can stab and suck up blood or inject poisons, and they even hope to create bioengineered retinas so the blind can see.

"I'm always fascinated by how nature makes these complex things; I don't understand it, but I think engineers need to use nature as a model to make such useful devices in the laboratory," Lee said.

The compound eyes he and his colleagues have developed consists of exactly 8,370 individual lenses, each no larger than a pinpoint, and all clustered like a honeycomb in a single hemisphere about the size of a pinhead -- all in all, a true compound eye working on the same principle as the eye of a fly or a bumblebee.

In Lee's tightly controlled and rigidly sanitary lab, each crystalline lens is linked to a "waveguide," a microscopic length of synthesized plastic designed to carry each image from a single lens to a detector that would act the way the eye's retina captures images and transmits them through optic nerves to the brain.

But instead of retinas, Lee and his principal colleagues, Ki-Hun Jeong and Jaeyoun Kim, plan to link their synthetic waveguides to clusters of photodiodes -- light-detecting devices similar to those used in digital cameras and camcorders that can register the images permanently.

Tests have shown that the compound eyes created by the Bio-Poets group can, in fact, detect light signals coming from virtually all directions -- better than the best fish-eye lenses of today's cameras, Lee said. They can also swiftly detect moving lights as they pass from one lens to another across the smallest distances -- an extremely useful ability, he suggested, for covert surveillance devices.

The lenses in the compound eyes of insects are called ommatidia. The common housefly has about 10,000 of those in each eye, while a dragonfly's compound eye holds no fewer than 30,000 ommatidia. Lee said that in his lab, there's no limit to the number of lenses his team could pack into the artificial compound eyes.

"I don't really understand how nature can make such complex eyes," Lee said, "but in the lab we certainly can. There's a lot of bioengineering to it, but a lot of poetry, too."

E-mail David Perlman at [email protected].

[soul controller]

not really news but

I have just been given a Nokia cellphone (model 6230i). When you power it up, the Nokia start up screen showing a full motion color handshake between a male and female hand. Forget this diversion and look at the actual grip of the handshake, yep its a master mason grip.

other phones do similar shit..
keep ur eyes peeled!

[soul controller]

http://www.cloakanddagger.de/shows/w..._ghostapr2.mp3


oh and..
ive been told, bY a good reliable person..
that from now till may 4th
their is going to be a major covert terrorist act.
most likley in chicago..

he#s been very reliable in the past!peace

[Aqueous Moon]

Minuteman trip starts loud
By Peter Prengaman, Associated Press

(Hector Mata, Getty Images) LOS ANGELES — Leaders of the Minuteman Project began a cross-country trek Wednesday amid screaming matches about whether illegal immigrants are taking jobs from blacks or should be embraced as fellow minorities looking for a better life.

The caravan to Capitol Hill departed from a park in a heavily black Los Angeles neighborhood as part of a push by the civilian border patrol group to attract more blacks as members.

"If we are going to be giving preference to anybody … preference should go to the American-African community that has suffered more than anybody," Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist told a crowd of 40 supporters that included about 10 blacks.

Gilchrist had to yell the remarks over a dozen mostly black protesters who chanted "Minutemen go home!" and "KKK go home!"
Gilchrist repeatedly stopped his speech to address the protesters, telling them "Ours is not a racial cause. It's a rule of law cause."

As Gilchrist spoke, supporters and opponents engaged in a heated debate.
"Hispanics are taking away our jobs," said Angela Broussard, 38, a black playwright. "They are moving into our neighborhoods, so now where are we going to go?"

Morris Griffin held a sign rejecting a measure passed by the House that would make it a felony to be in this country illegally and penalize people who aid undocumented immigrants.
"Don't pit the blacks against the browns, like they do in the jails and schools," Griffin told

When the chants and arguments persisted, Gilchrist stepped up his rhetoric toward someone urging the group to go home.

"Minutemen, stand your ground," he said. "Do not fire unless fired upon. And if it's a war he wants, then let it begin here."
Gilchrist then boarded an RV with "Minnie" written across the side in small blue letters that was followed from the park by two other RVs and a few cars.

Organizers hoped the Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., trip will help counter marches staged Monday around the nation by more than 1 million people demanding amnesty for some 11 million illegal immigrants.

The Minuteman Project wants to garner support for its get-tough border stance and pressure federal lawmakers considering immigration reform. Members also intend to mobilize voters and recruit members along the way. The caravan is scheduled to stop in President Bush's vacation haven of Crawford, Texas, as well as Phoenix, Albuquerque, N.M.; Abilene, Texas; Little Rock, Ark.; Memphis and Nashville, Tenn.; Montgomery, Ala.; Atlanta; and Richmond, Va.

^^^ This crap pissed me off - I can't believe some Blacks are falling for this Minute Man bullshit

[TeknicelStylez]

Yea that shit is rediculous, they are trying so hard to drive a wedge between us, they know united as a whole they cannot stop the minority movement and they are scared.