Thursday, May 31, 2012

Mr. Adelson

Mr. Adelson, 78, has decided to throw his wealth behind what had once seemed to be the unlikely presidential aspirations of Newt Gingrich. Now, in no small measure because of Mr. Adelson’s deep pockets, Mr. Gingrich is locked in a struggle with Mitt Romney heading into Florida’s Republican primary on Tuesday.

Mr. Adelson, by some estimates worth as much as $22 billion, presides over a global empire of casinos, hotels and convention centers whose centerpiece is the Venetian in Las Vegas, an exuberant monument to excess with canals, singing gondoliers and acres of slot machines. That fortune is a wellspring of financial support for Mr. Gingrich, who has benefited from $17 million in political contributions from Mr. Adelson and his wife, Miriam, in recent years, including $10 million in the last few weeks that went to a “super PAC” supporting him. 

The question of what motivates Mr. Adelson’s singular generosity toward the former House speaker has emerged front and center in the campaign. People who know him say his affinity for Mr. Gingrich stems from a devotion to Israel as well as loyalty to a friend. A fervent Zionist who opposes any territorial compromise to make way for a Palestinian state, Mr. Adelson has long been enamored of Mr. Gingrich’s full-throated defense of Israel. 

In December at an event in Israel for a charity he supports, Mr. Adelson made a point of endorsing Mr. Gingrich’s assertion that the Palestinians have no historic claim to a homeland. 

“Read the history of those who call themselves Palestinians and you will hear why Gingrich said recently that the Palestinians are an invented people,” Mr. Adelson said at the event for Birthright Israel, which takes young Jews on trips there. 

Mr. Adelson is hardly a household name. He avoids the limelight and rarely speaks to the press, remaining something of an enigma. He declined to be interviewed for this article, but he and his wife issued a statement saying friendship and loyalty are “our motivation for helping Newt.” 

Through interviews and a review of Mr. Adelson’s testimony in legal disputes with former associates, a portrait emerges of a formidable and determined striver who lifted himself out of childhood penury in working-class Boston. He has a sentimental streak — on one of his first trips to Israel, he wore the shoes of his late father, a cabdriver from Lithuania who was never able to visit there — and he has given hundreds of millions of dollars to Jewish causes, medical research and injured veterans. 

But his rise has not been without controversy. The Justice Department is investigating accusations by a former casino executive that Mr. Adelson’s operations in Macao may have violated federal laws banning corrupt payments to foreign officials. Also, a Chinese businessman accused Mr. Adelson of reneging on an agreement to share profits from the Macao project.

Primary Connections

NOBEL laureate Brian Schmidt will use $100,000 of his prize money for a primary school science program the federal government has stopped funding. 
 
Professor Schmidt, in Stockholm to receive the Nobel Prize for Physics he and collaborator Adam Riess won jointly with Saul Perlmutter, has told The Australian his plans for his quarter-share of the $1.45 million winnings..

He will sign over $100,000 to the Australian Academy of Sciences to continue the Primary Connections program.

"One key thing I'm trying to promote post-Nobel prize is primary and secondary education," he said.
"Primary Connections has had very good penetration across the country -- 55 per cent of all primary schools have used it in one way or another -- and it is one of the most effective tools I have seen to help in teaching science to this age group."

Schools buy the modules for $25 each. The Department of Education has spent $9.7m on the program since 2004, but has declined further funding.

A department spokesman said the program "was always intended to be a four-stage project" and that the academy could now approach Education Services Australia, recently awarded $41m in federal funding for curriculum development.

Professor Schmidt said the academy wanted to support the science program through philanthropic, state and school-based contributions.

He will give his Nobel lecture tomorrow night (AEDT) and receive the prize on Saturday for discovering, along with US-based Professor Riess, that the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate.

The expansion discovery was established separately by Professor Perlmutter at the same time in 1998.

Florida's election officials are purging voters off the rolls

Dear Friend,
Here we go again. They did it for George W. Bush in 2000, and now the Republicans are working to steal the 2012 Presidential election for Mitt Romney in Florida. It's straight out of Katherine Harris' playbook. Florida Governor Rick Scott is currently deploying a massive and systematic effort to purge up to 182,000 Floridians who are likely Democratic voters from the state's voting rolls.1
In 2000, Republicans purged the Florida voter rolls of people they said might be felons. Fast forward to 2012, and Florida's election officials are purging voters off the rolls that they claim are undocumented immigrants. The problem is that just like in 2000, Florida is poised to kick thousands of eligible voters off the rolls!
Florida has been mailing "ominous and legalistic" letters to thousands of potentially eligible voters as "non-U.S. citizens."2 Unless Governor Scott immediately orders the suspension of these purging efforts targeting "Hispanic, Democratic and independent-minded voters"3 by June 9, thousands of eligible voters in Florida could be disenfranchised before this year's Presidential elections.3 We need Attorney General Eric Holder at the Department of Justice to intervene right away to suspend the ongoing voter purging in Florida and deploy the agency's Civil Rights Division to launch an investigation into Governor Scott's actions.
Changes to rules, policies and practices governing qualifications and eligibility to vote in Florida are subject to preclearance procedures under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Therefore, the Civil Rights Division DOJ has the power to call on Florida to immediately suspend the voter purging efforts and launch an investigation.
As reported by Think Progress:
[I]n Miami-Dade county alone, 1638 people were flagged by the state as "non-citizens." Already, 359 people on the list have provided the county with proof of citizenship and 26 people were identified as U.S. citizens directly by the county. The remaining 1200 have simply not responded to the letter informing them of their purported ineligibility. Similar problems have been identified in Polk County and Broward County.5
It is worth nothing that Gov. Scott's voter purging effort was considered so "flawed" that his Republican Secretary of State Kurt Browning resigned in February rather than participate in the suppression of voters.6
We need as many Americans as possible to protest Gov. Scott's scheme to disenfranchise voters and call into question the integrity of Florida's elections. Voting rights groups have already called on the DOJ to temporarily halt the purge and investigate the state's actions.7 Speaking up in large numbers now will be helpful in building public pressure and moving the DOJ to take action against Scott's voter purging efforts in Florida.
Governor Scott's voter purging tactic is reminiscent of the one deployed by former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. The notorious Republican provided the winning margin for Bush in the 2000 Presidential election, by helping to "wrongfully" remove 7,000 Floridians — the overwhelming majority of whom were African Americans — from the voting rolls prior to the 2000 election.8
We can't let that nightmare play out again. Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama are locked in a tight election race which could very well be decided by Florida's 29 electoral votes. Click below to automatically sign our petition.
Thank you for all you do to protect the integrity of our Democracy.
Murshed Zaheed, Deputy Political Director
CREDO Action from Working Assets
1. Judd Legum, "How Florida Governor Rick Scott Could Steal The Election For Mitt Romney," ThinkProgress.com, May 28, 2012.
2. Id.
3. Mark Caputo and Patricia Mazzei, "Hispanics, Democrats biggest groups on Florida's list of potential noncitizen voters, analysis shows," The Miami Herald, May 13, 2012.
4. Judd Legum and Ian Millhiser, "EXCLUSIVE: Florida Congressman Demands Gov. Rick Scott 'Immediately Suspend' Voter Purge," ThinkProgress.com, May 23, 2012.
5. Legum, How Florida Governor Rick Scott Could Steal The Election For Mitt Romney," May 28, 2012.
6. Judd Legum, "Florida Supervisor of Elections: Gov. Scott's Voter Purge Will Remove Eligible Voters From Rolls," ThinkProgress.com, May 26, 2012.
7. Janell Ross, "Voter Purge, Minority Voting Rights Flashpoints Of New Showdown In Florida," Huffingtonpost.com, May 27, 2012.
8. Legum and Millhiser, "EXCLUSIVE: Florida Congressman Demands Gov. Rick Scott 'Immediately Suspend' Voter Purge," May 23, 2012.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

the spring of 2012


In case, you know, you haven't been outside in the past three months, it's about to become official: unless a freak blizzard blankets the country by Thursday, the spring of 2012 will go down as the warmest for the U.S. in 117 years of record-keeping. The National Climatic Data Center won't release a report on the temperatures in May until sometime in June, but based on their assessment of March and April, University of Maryland professor Steve Scolnik, who blogs at Climate Capital, says that our warm May will smash the 102-year-old record. "The previous record spring in 1910 had a national average temperature of 55.1°. However, the March 2012 temperature exceeded March 1910 by 0.5° to set a new record for the month. April 2012 then exceeded April 1910 by 1°," he wrote today. "At this point, May 2012 would have to be 1.5° cooler than May 1910 to avoid exceeding the record. of May's temperature."

Scolnik estimates that this May will average 3.6° warmer than the historical average, meaning the national average temperature for this spring will be 57.4°, or 2.3° above the average in 1910. For the non-meteorologically inclined, 2.3° is a very big gap. The country would need a "supernatural 'Day After Tomorrow' event," according to Scolnik, in order for this spring to be cooler than 1910's. We weather laypeople had a pretty good idea that this spring was hot after sweating through the hottest March and third-hottest April on record. We may not be scientists, but even we can see that the fourth-hottest winter, directly followed by the hottest spring ever, means one thing: buy an air conditioner because this summer is going to be brutal.

Monday, May 28, 2012

debt-to-credit ratio too high

Fired for having student loans? Latoya Horton says she was fired from her job as an accountant, not because she did anything wrong, but because her employer checked her credit report and decided her debt-to-credit ratio was too high. Latoya was outraged: "How are you supposed to pay off your student loans if you can't get -- or keep -- a job because of your loans?"
It happens more than you think: Latoya found out that 60% of employers now check employees' credit reports. They often buy them from TransUnion, one of the largest credit reporting companies. TransUnion's chair, Penny Pritzker, even sits on President Obama's jobs panel. She's responsible for spurring job creation, but her company is profiting from a practice that makes it harder for people with debt to find work.
You can help: Latoya started a petition on Change.org demanding that TransUnion stop selling credit reports to employers immediately. If thousands of people sign Latoya's petition, it will shine a national spotlight on what Latoya thinks is an ethically dubious practice, and TransUnion's executives will be forced to respond.
Thanks,
- Tim
------
Here's a lot more information about Latoya's campaign in her own words:
Years ago I went to college to study accounting, and like millions of other Americans I took out loans to pay for it. A few years later I got a temporary job in the accounting department at Bain & Co., and after 6 months of reliable work I was thrilled to be offered a full-time position.
However, just a few weeks after starting in my new position the company fired me because my debt-to-credit ratio was too high. I later learned that 60% of employers now check credit reports, which typically include student debts. How are you supposed to pay off your student debts if you can't get (or keep) a job BECAUSE of your debts? And what do my student debts have to do with my ability to do a job well anyway?
25 states have debated bills in the last year to restrict this practice, and in a number of these states one company has fought hardest against these efforts: credit reporting company TransUnion.
What's ironic is that Penny Pritzker, TransUnion's Chair and part owner, sits on President Obama's Jobs and Competitiveness Council, which advises the President on putting Americans back to work. How can someone advise on national job creation when her company sells products that may keep qualified people out of work?
Please join me and 25 national civil rights organizations in calling on TransUnion to stop its sale of credit reports to employers. As the only one of the “Big 3” credit reporting companies that's privately held, TransUnion has the ability to stop this practice overnight.  
It was recently announced that in the coming weeks TransUnion will be sold to two private equity companies, including Goldman Sachs. If Penny Pritzker is serious about job creation, she should do what she can to ensure that her company stops this abusive practice before the company is sold.

friends



Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9/11

A Mossad surveillance team made quite a public spectacle of themselves on 9-11.




The Lavon Affair refers to a failed Israeli covert operation, code named Operation Susannah, conducted in Egypt in the Summer of 1954. As part of the false flag operation,[1] a group of Egyptian Jews were recruited by Israeli military intelligence for plans to plant bombs inside Egyptian, American and British-owned targets. The attacks were to be blamed on the Muslim Brotherhood, Egyptian Communists, "unspecified malcontents" or "local nationalists" with the aim of creating a climate of sufficient violence and instability to induce the British government to retain its occupying troops in Egypt's Suez Canal zone.[2] The operation caused no casualties, except for those members of the cell who committed suicide after being captured.

The operation became known as the Lavon Affair after the Israeli defense minister Pinhas Lavon, who was forced to resign because of the incident, or euphemistically as the Unfortunate Affair or The Bad Business (Hebrew: העסק ביש‎, HaEsek Bish or העסק הביש, HaEsek HaBish). After being denied for 51 years, the surviving agents were in 2005 officially honored with a certificate of appreciation by the Israeli President Moshe Katzav.



During the Six-Day War, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation. For more than 30 years many people have disbelieved the official explanation but have been unable to rebut it convincingly. Now, Dead in the Water uses startling new evidence to reveal the truth behind the seemingly inexplicable attack. The film combines dramatic reconstruction of the events, with new access to former officers in the US and Israeli armed forces and intelligence services who have decided to give their own version of events. Interviews include President Lyndon Johnson's Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, former head of the Israeli navy Admiral Shlomo Errell and members of the USS Liberty crew.



Jonathan Jay Pollard (born August 7, 1954, Galveston, Texas) worked as a civilian intelligence analyst before being convicted of spying for Israel. He received a life sentence in 1987.

Israel granted Pollard citizenship in 1995, but denied until 1998 that they had bought classified information from him.[1] Israeli activist groups, as well as high-profile Israeli politicians, have lobbied for his release.[2] Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has voiced particularly strong support for Pollard, visiting the convicted spy in prison in 2002.[3][4] His case was later linked to that of Ben-ami Kadish, another U.S. national who pleaded guilty to charges of passing classified information to Israel in the same period.[5][6] He renounced his United States citizenship and is now solely an Israeli citizen. He would be deported to Israel if he were released from prison.

Shortly after Pollard began working at NIC/TF-168, he met Aviem Sella, an Israeli Air Force combat veteran who was at the time a graduate student at New York University, on leave from his position as colonel in order to gain a masters degree in computer science. Within a few days, in June 1984, Pollard started passing classified information to Sella and received, in exchange, $10,000 cash and a very expensive diamond and sapphire ring, which Pollard later used to propose marriage to his girlfriend Anne. He also agreed to receive $1,500 per month for further espionage.

Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) investigator Ronald Olive has alleged that Pollard passed classified information to South Africa,[20] and attempted, through a third party, to sell classified information to Pakistan on multiple occasions.[21] Pollard also stole classified documents related to the People's Republic of China on behalf of his wife, who used the information to advance her personal business interests.

Pollard's espionage was discovered in 1985 when a co-worker anonymously reported his removal of classified material from the NIC. The co-worker noted that he did not seem to be taking the material to any known appropriate destination, such as other intelligence agencies in the area. Although Pollard was authorized to transport documents and the coworker did claim the documents were properly wrapped, it appeared out of place that Pollard would be transporting documents on a Friday afternoon when many workers were focused more on the upcoming weekend rather than intelligence work. Pollard's direct superior, having to complete extra work at the office on a Saturday, had walked by Pollard's desk and noticed unsecured classified material. Taking the initiative to secure it, the supervisor glanced over it and saw it was unrelated to antiterrorism matters in the Caribbean, which is what the section focused on. Looking at more unrelated documents, the supervisor believed foreign intelligence may be involved, but was unable to determine which nation would be interested.[30] Supervisors began investigating, and upon finding the enormous amount of material checked out by Pollard, and that it was outside of his area of responsibility, asked the FBI to begin an investigation.

Pollard was stopped and questioned about a week later while removing classified material from his work premises. He explained that he was taking it to another analyst at a different agency for a consultation. During the voluntary interview, his story was checked and found to be false. Pollard requested to make a phone call to his wife telling her where he was. As the interview was voluntary the investigators had no choice but to grant the request. During the call to Anne he used the code word 'cactus', meaning that he was in trouble and that she should remove all classified material from their home, which she attempted to do,[31] enlisting the help of a neighbor.[32]

After some time, Pollard agreed to a search of his home which turned up only a few documents Anne had missed. At this point, the FBI decided to drop the case and leave it as an administrative action for Pollard's supervisors, since there only seemed to be some mishandling of documents and at this point, was no proof that Pollard was passing classified documents. The case broke wide open a few days later when Pollard was asked to take a polygraph. Instead, he admitted to illegally passing on documents, without mentioning Israel.

The FBI again became involved. A short time later Pollard's neighbor began calling around the military intelligence community (he was a naval officer) asking what to do with the 70 lb suitcase full of highly classified material that Pollard's wife, Anne, had given him.[32] After being unable to contact Anne or Jonathan Pollard he became concerned about safeguarding the documents. He cooperated fully with the investigation and was not charged with any crime.

After his partial confession, Pollard was surveilled but not taken into custody. He and his wife then attempted to gain asylum at the Israeli embassy, only to be rebuffed by the Israeli guards and taken into custody by FBI agents who swarmed the perimeter as soon as Pollard set foot off embassy property. Until this point, investigators could not confirm that Pollard had been spying for Israel; their only lead having been the speculation of Pollard's superiors. Pollard was finally arrested on November 21, 1985, at the gates of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.[33]

After Pollard was arrested, Anne lost an agent following her and met Sella at a restaurant, where she informed him of her husband's arrest. Hours after Pollard was arrested, Sella, along with Yossi Yagur and Irit Erb (two other Israelis involved in the operation), caught an El Al flight from New York to Israel before the FBI could stop them.


Justice is the right of the strong

American Names

By Stephen Vincent Benét

I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.

Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy’s horn,
But I will remember where I was born.

I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy’s Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.

I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.

Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman’s Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.

Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?

I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmédy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.



Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by American writer Dee Brown is a history of Native Americans in the American West in the late nineteenth century. He describes the people's displacement through forced relocations and years of warfare waged by the United States federal government. It was first published in 1970 to generally strong reviews, although scholars criticized it on several grounds. Published at a time of increasing American Indian activism, the book was on the bestseller list for more than a year. Translated into 17 languages, the book has never gone out of print.

The title is taken from the final phrase of a 20th-century poem titled "American Names" by Stephen Vincent Benet. The poem is not about the Indian Wars. The full quotation, "I shall not be here/I shall rise and pass/Bury my heart at Wounded Knee," appears at the beginning of Brown's book. Although Benet's poem is not about the plight of native Americans, Wounded Knee, (a village on a reservation in South Dakota) was the location of last major confrontation between the U.S. Army and American Indians. The event is known formally as the Wounded Knee Massacre, as more than 150, largely unarmed, Sioux men, women, and children were killed that day.

Theodore L. Gunderson



Theodore L. Gunderson (November 7, 1928 - July 31, 2011[1]) was a retired American Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent In Charge and head of the Los Angeles FBI. He was most famous for handling the Marilyn Monroe and John F. Kennedy cases.[2][3] He was the author of the best selling book How to Locate Anyone Anywhere.

Ted Gunderson was born in Colorado Springs. He graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1950. Gunderson joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in December 1951 under J. Edgar Hoover. He served in the Mobile, Knoxville, New York City, and Albuquerque offices. He held posts as an Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge in New Haven and Philadelphia. In 1973 he became the head of the Memphis FBI and then the head of the Dallas FBI in 1975.[5] Ted Gunderson was appointed the head of the Los Angeles FBI in 1977.[6] In 1979 he was one of a handful interviewed for the job of FBI director, which ultimately went to William H. Webster.


After retiring from the FBI, Gunderson set up a private investigation firm, Ted L. Gunderson and Associates, in Santa Monica. In 1980, he became a defense investigator for Green Beret Doctor Jeffrey R. MacDonald, who had been convicted of the 1970 murders of his pregnant wife and two daughters. Gunderson obtained affidavits from Helena Stoeckley confessing to her involvement in the murders.[8]
In an interview (see link below), Gunderson discusses incidents U.S. government sponsored terrorism and the reasons behind them. He was a member of the Constitution Party. Ted died on July 31, 2011 from complications from cancer.
The last years of Ted Gunderson's life were spent warning people of what he calls Chemtrails. Gunderson had identified military bases he said were responsible for dumping unidentified poisons around the world from unmarked aircraft which he indicated killed wildlife and perhaps even humans. Gunderson spent years speaking on this and has made a number of videos.



Saturday, May 26, 2012

The Burmese military employs systematic torture

On May 1, soldiers from Burma's military held a woman captive in a church for three days, not far from my hometown. "Ngwa Wi" (not her real name) was beaten, stabbed and raped until she became mentally deranged, while her neighbor was forced to watch.
I know Ngwa Wi's story is not uncommon. The Burmese military employs systematic rape, torture, and murder when big corporations want access to our land for mining, drilling and other natural resources.
Despite this, last week the U.S. government announced it will suspend sanctions on American investment in Burma. That means American companies can join the frenzy for natural resources in my homeland, and Burma's military will step up their atrocities. Ngwa Wi's suffering could be repeated hundreds, if not thousands of times all over my country.
Abuses like rapes, killings and beatings cluster near major projects financed by foreign companies like drilling for natural gas and oil. Though my country is starting to escape a 50-year military dictatorship, there's still no rule of law in Burma. Soldiers like the ones that raped Ngwa Li are never brought to justice -- sometimes, those are even their orders.
But Secretary Clinton can prevent atrocities from happening because of American businesses in Burma. I know Change.org petitions have helped Secretary Clinton to speak out on human rights issues in the past. Last year, Saudi women petitioned Secretary Clinton to call for women's right to drive -- and she did, reversing her initial position because of their petition.
If enough people speak out and tell Secretary Clinton that she can't leave us without any protections against American companies' thirsts for our resources -- and the military's terrifying tactics -- she will listen.
Thank you,
Moon Nay Li

Friday, May 25, 2012

Alan Sabrosky

American population, ca. 1492

Kroeber Rosenblat Steward Sapper Dobyns Denevan
North America 0.90 1.00 1.00 2.00-3.50 9.80-12.25 4.40
Mexico 3.20 4.50 4.50 12.00-15.00 30.00-37.50 21.40
Central America 0.10 0.80 0.74 5.00-6.00 10.80-13.50 5.65
Caribbean 0.20 0.30 0.22 3.00-4.00 0.44-0.55 5.85
Andes 3.00 4.75 6.13 12.00-15.00 30.00-37.50 11.50
South America 1.00 2.03 2.90 3.00-5.00 9.00-11.25 8.50
Hemisphere 8.40 13.38 15.49 37.00-48.50 90.04-112.55 57.30

Estimates of American population, ca. 1492 (in millions)

Henry Louis Gates

On July 16, 2009, Harvard University professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., was arrested at his Cambridge, Massachusetts home by a local police officer responding to a 9-1-1 caller's report of men breaking and entering the residence. The arrest initiated a series of events that unfolded under the spotlight of the international news media.

The arrest occurred just after Gates returned home to Cambridge after a trip to China to research the ancestry of Yo-Yo Ma for Faces of America.[2] Gates found the front door to his home jammed shut and with the help of his driver tried to force it open. A local witness reported their activity to the police as a potential burglary in progress. Accounts regarding the ensuing confrontation differ, but Gates was arrested by the responding officer, Cambridge Police Sgt. James Crowley, and charged with disorderly conduct. On July 21, the charges against Gates were dropped. The arrest generated a national debate about whether or not it represented an example of racial profiling by police.

On July 22, President Barack Obama commented on the incident, criticizing the arrest and the response by the police. Law enforcement organizations and members objected to Obama's comments and criticized his handling of the issue. In the aftermath, Obama stated that he regretted his comments and hoped that the situation could become a "teachable moment".[3]

On July 24, Obama invited both parties to the White House to discuss the issue over beers, and on July 30, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden joined Crowley and Gates in a private, cordial meeting in a courtyard near the White House Rose Garden; this became known colloquially as the "Beer Summit".

An independent panel with experts from across the nation published a report on June 30, 2010, which states that "Sergeant Crowley and Professor Gates each missed opportunities to 'ratchet down' the situation and end it peacefully" and share responsibility for the controversial July 16 arrest. Crowley could have better explained how uncertain and potentially dangerous it is to respond to a serious crime-in-progress call and why this can result in a seemingly rude tone. Gates could have tried to understand Crowley's view of the situation and could have spoken respectfully to Crowley. The report cites research that shows people's feelings about a police encounter depend significantly on whether they feel the officer displays respect and courtesy.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

big bro

Unexceptionalism: A Primer, By E. L. DOCTOROW


NYTimes Published: April 28, 2012

TO achieve unexceptionalism, the political ideal that would render the United States indistinguishable from the impoverished, traditionally undemocratic, brutal or catatonic countries of the world, do the following:

PHASE ONE

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, ignore the first sacrament of a democracy and suspend the counting of ballots in a presidential election. Appoint the candidate of your choice as president.

If you’re the newly anointed president, react to a terrorist attack by invading a nonterrorist country. Despite the loss or disablement of untold numbers of lives, manage your war so that its results will be indeterminate.

Using the state of war as justification, order secret surveillance of American citizens, data mine their phone calls and e-mail, make business, medical and public library records available to government agencies, perform illegal warrantless searches of homes and offices.

Take to torturing terrorism suspects, here or abroad, in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment. Unilaterally abrogate the Convention Against Torture as well as the Geneva Conventions regarding the treatment of prisoners of war. Commit to indeterminate detention without trial those you decide are enemies. For good measure, trust that legislative supporters will eventually apply this policy as well to American citizens.

Suspend progressive taxation so that the wealthiest pay less proportionately than the middle class. See to it that the wealth of the country accumulates to a small fraction of the population so that the gap between rich and poor widens exponentially.

By cutting taxes and raising wartime expenditures, deplete the national treasury so that Congress and state and municipal legislatures cut back on domestic services, ensuring that there will be less money for the education of the young, for government health programs, for the care of veterans, for the maintenance of roads and bridges, for free public libraries, and so forth.

Deregulate the banking industry so as to create a severe recession in which enormous numbers of people lose their homes and jobs.

Before you leave office add to the Supreme Court justices like the ones who awarded you the presidency.

PHASE TWO

If you’re one of the conservative majority of a refurbished Supreme Court, rule that corporations, no less than human beings, have the right under the First Amendment to express their political point of view. To come to this judgment, do not acknowledge that corporations lack the range of feelings or values that define what it is to be human. That humans can act against their own interest, whereas corporations cannot act otherwise than in their own interest. That the corporation’s only purpose is to produce wealth, regardless of social consequences.

This decision of the court will ensure tremendous infusions of corporate money into the political process and lead to the election in national and state legislatures of majorities of de facto corporate lobbyists.

PHASE THREE

Given corporate control of legislative bodies, enact laws to the benefit of corporate interests. For example, those laws sponsored by weapons manufacturers wherein people may carry concealed weapons and shoot and kill anyone by whom they feel threatened.

Give the running of state prisons over to private corporations whose profits increase with the increase in inmate populations. See to it that a majority of prisoners are African-American.

When possible, treat immigrants as criminals.

Deplete and underfinance a viable system of free public schools and give the education of children over to private for-profit corporations.

Make college education unaffordable.

Inject religious precepts into public policy so as to control women’s bodies.

Enact laws prohibiting collective bargaining. Portray trade unions as un-American.

Enact laws restricting the voting rights of possibly unruly constituencies.

Propagandize against scientific facts that would affect corporate profits. Portray global warming as a conspiracy of scientists.

Having subverted the Constitution and enervated the nation with these measures, portray the federal government as unwieldy, bumbling and shot through with elitist liberals. Create mental states of maladaptive populism among the citizenry to support this view.

PHASE FOUR

If you’re a justice of the Supreme Court, decide that the police of any and all cities and towns and villages have the absolute authority to strip-search any person whom they, for whatever reason, put under arrest.

With this ruling, the reduction of America to unexceptionalism is complete.

A Very Pricey Pineapple



By GAIL COLLINS

Published: April 27, 2012

Let’s talk about talking pineapples.
Earl Wilson/The New York Times

Actually (spoiler alert!) I’m going to use the pineapple as a sneaky way to introduce the topic of privatization of public education. I was driven to this. Do you know how difficult it is to get anybody to read about “privatization of education?” It’s hell. A pineapple, on the other hand, is something everybody likes. It’s a symbol of hospitality. Its juice is said to remove warts. And you really cannot beat the talking-fruit angle.

This month, New York eighth graders took a standardized English test that included a story called “The Hare and the Pineapple,” in which you-know-what challenges a hare to a race. The forest animals suspect that since the pineapple can’t move, it must have some clever scheme to ensure victory, and they decide to root against the bunny. But when the race begins, the pineapple just sits there. The hare wins. Then the animals eat the pineapple. The end.

There were many complaints from the eighth graders, who had to answer questions like: “What would have happened if the animals had decided to cheer for the hare?” They were also supposed to decide whether the animals ate the pineapple because they were hungry, excited, annoyed or amused. (That part bothered me a lot. We’ve got a talking pineapple here, people. You don’t just go and devour it for having delusions of grandeur.)

Teachers, parents and education experts all chimed in. Nobody liked the talking pineapple questions. The Daily News, which broke the story, corralled “Jeopardy!” champion Ken Jennings, who concluded that “the plot details are so oddly chosen that the story seems to have been written during a peyote trip.”

The state education commissioner, John King, announced that the questions would not count in the official test scores. There was no comment from the test author. That would be Pearson, the world’s largest for-profit education business, which has a $32 million five-year contract to produce New York standardized tests.

Now — finally — we have tumbled into my central point. We have turned school testing into a huge corporate profit center, led by Pearson, for whom $32 million is actually pretty small potatoes. Pearson has a five-year testing contract with Texas that’s costing the state taxpayers nearly half-a-billion dollars.

This is the part of education reform nobody told you about. You heard about accountability, and choice, and innovation. But when  No Child Left Behind was passed 11 years ago, do you recall anybody mentioning that it would provide monster profits for the private business sector?

Me neither.

It’s not just the tests. No Child Left Behind has created a system of public-funded  charter schools, a growing number of which are run by for-profit companies. Some of them are completely online, with kids getting their lessons at home via computer. The academic results can be abysmal, but on the plus side — definitely no classroom crowding issues.

Pearson is just one part of the picture, albeit a part about the size of Mount Rushmore. Its lobbyists include the guy who served as the top White House liaison with Congress on drafting the No Child law. It has its own nonprofit foundation that sends state education commissioners on free trips overseas to contemplate school reform.

An American child could go to a public school run by Pearson, studying from books produced by Pearson, while his or her progress is evaluated by Pearson standardized tests. The only public participant in the show would be the taxpayer.

If all else fails, the kid could always drop out and try to get a diploma via the good old G.E.D. The General Educational Development test program used to be operated by the nonprofit American Council on Education, but last year the Council and Pearson announced that they were going into a partnership to redevelop the G.E.D. — a nationally used near-monopoly — as a profit-making enterprise.

“We’re a capitalist system, but this is worrisome,” said New York Education Commissioner King.

The Obama administration has been trying to tackle the astronomical costs of 50 different sets of standardized tests by funding efforts by states to develop shared models — a process you will be stunned to hear is being denounced by conservatives like Gov. Rick Perry of Texas as “a federal takeover of public schools.”

Education Secretary Arne Duncan has also begun giving out waivers from the requirement that children in failing public schools be given after-school tutoring. Idea sounded great. Hardly helped the kids at all. But no for-profit tutoring company was left behind.

The push back against privatization isn’t easy. We’re now in a world in which decisions about public education involve not just parents and children and teachers, but also big profits or losses for the private sector. Change the tests, or the textbooks, or the charters, or even the rules for teacher certification, and you change somebody’s bottom line.

It’s a tough world out there. Ask the talking pineapple.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

rising inequality


Plutocracy, Paralysis, Perplexity

By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: May 3, 2012

Before the Great Recession, I would sometimes give public lectures in which I would talk about rising inequality, making the point that the concentration of income at the top had reached levels not seen since 1929. Often, someone in the audience would ask whether this meant that another depression was imminent.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times


Did the rise of the 1 percent (or, better yet, the 0.01 percent) cause the Lesser Depression we’re now living through? It probably contributed. But the more important point is that inequality is a major reason the economy is still so depressed and unemployment so high. For we have responded to crisis with a mix of paralysis and confusion — both of which have a lot to do with the distorting effects of great wealth on our society.

Put it this way: If something like the financial crisis of 2008 had occurred in, say, 1971 — the year Richard Nixon declared that “I am now a Keynesian in economic policy” — Washington would probably have responded fairly effectively. There would have been a broad bipartisan consensus in favor of strong action, and there would also have been wide agreement about what kind of action was needed.

But that was then. Today, Washington is marked by a combination of bitter partisanship and intellectual confusion — and both are, I would argue, largely the result of extreme income inequality.

On partisanship: The Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein have been making waves with a new book acknowledging a truth that, until now, was unmentionable in polite circles. They say our political dysfunction is largely because of the transformation of the Republican Party into an extremist force that is “dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.” You can’t get cooperation to serve the national interest when one side of the divide sees no distinction between the national interest and its own partisan triumph.

So how did that happen? For the past century, political polarization has closely tracked income inequality, and there’s every reason to believe that the relationship is causal. Specifically, money buys power, and the increasing wealth of a tiny minority has effectively bought the allegiance of one of our two major political parties, in the process destroying any prospect for cooperation.

And the takeover of half our political spectrum by the 0.01 percent is, I’d argue, also responsible for the degradation of our economic discourse, which has made any sensible discussion of what we should be doing impossible.

Disputes in economics used to be bounded by a shared understanding of the evidence, creating a broad range of agreement about economic policy. To take the most prominent example, Milton Friedman may have opposed fiscal activism, but he very much supported monetary activism to fight deep economic slumps, to an extent that would have put him well to the left of center in many current debates.

Now, however, the Republican Party is dominated by doctrines formerly on the political fringe. Friedman called for monetary flexibility; today, much of the G.O.P. is fanatically devoted to the gold standard. N. Gregory Mankiw of Harvard University, a Romney economic adviser, once dismissed those claiming that tax cuts pay for themselves as “charlatans and cranks”; today, that notion is very close to being official Republican doctrine.

As it happens, these doctrines have overwhelmingly failed in practice. For example, conservative goldbugs have been predicting vast inflation and soaring interest rates for three years, and have been wrong every step of the way. But this failure has done nothing to dent their influence on a party that, as Mr. Mann and Mr. Ornstein note, is “unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science.”

And why is the G.O.P. so devoted to these doctrines regardless of facts and evidence? It surely has a lot to do with the fact that billionaires have always loved the doctrines in question, which offer a rationale for policies that serve their interests. Indeed, support from billionaires has always been the main thing keeping those charlatans and cranks in business. And now the same people effectively own a whole political party.

Which brings us to the question of what it will take to end this depression we’re in.

Many pundits assert that the U.S. economy has big structural problems that will prevent any quick recovery. All the evidence, however, points to a simple lack of demand, which could and should be cured very quickly through a combination of fiscal and monetary stimulus.

No, the real structural problem is in our political system, which has been warped and paralyzed by the power of a small, wealthy minority. And the key to economic recovery lies in finding a way to get past that minority’s malign influence.

More on the Economy »

150 million Americans

If you're reading this article, chances are good you have a page on Facebook, too. More than 150 million Americans already use the site, and the number grows daily because Facebook makes it so easy to keep up with friends, family, and colleagues, discover great content, connect to causes, share photos, drum up business, and learn about fun events.

To deliver this service, Facebook and other social networks collect enormous amounts of highly sensitive information—and distribute it more quickly and widely than traditional consumer data-gathering firms ever could. That’s great when it helps you find old classmates or see ads for things you actually want to buy. But how much information is really being collected about you? How is it being used? And could it fall into the wrong hands?

military medical training

A new undercover investigation shows in graphic detail how more than 6,000 goats and pigs are intentionally maimed -- while they're still alive and many without adequate anesthesia -- in military medical training exercises every year.
The Department of Defense says trainers slice open live animals and saw off their limbs in order to train medics in how to treat human injuries. But medical professionals, veterans and advocates counter that this kind of cruelty to animals is no longer necessary -- and is, in fact, counterproductive --- when more effective human-patient simulators can be used instead.
Dr. James Santos is a retired Lieutenant Commander in the Navy and a physician. And after working with real patients in the field and at the Naval Medical Center, he knows that operating on live animals did not train him in how to treat real, complex human injuries.
Video footage from the investigation is chilling: goats' legs are cut off with garden shears and the goats moan in pain, showing that they have not been adequately anesthetized.
But worst of all is knowing that not only is this kind of animal cruelty unnecessary -- it could actually make medics less prepared to treat real human injuries. "Compared with humans, goats and pigs are much smaller," Santos says. "Their skin is thicker, and the anatomy of their organs, blood vessels, skeletons are drastically different."
These differences can mean that medics actually have to spend time unlearning what they know about effectively treating animals, or waste time translating from animal to human anatomy in the middle of life and death situations. Whereas human-patient simulators breathe, bleed and even have bones to break -- and allow trainees to practice treatments again and again until they get it right and are as prepared as they can be to save real lives.
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Pulin and the Change.org team
P.S. Tens of thousands of petitions are started on Change.org every month. Here are a few that need your support now:

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

corporate spending into political system

The U.S. Supreme Court's disastrous Citizens United v. FEC ruling has allowed corporate CEOs to unleash a torrent of secret corporate spending into our political system.
Indefensibly, CEOs are able to keep both the public and their own shareholders in the dark about the use of company funds for political ends.
This give CEOs free rein to make political expenditures that they would never be able to justify publicly — including campaigns so toxic they would inevitably tarnish the company's brand were the funding source made public.
And the results have been absolutely corrosive to our democracy.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which is a federal agency, can require publicly traded companies to disclose the money they spend on politics. And they are accepting public comments on the merits of doing so.
To be clear, what we really need is to get all corporate money out of politics, to roll back Citizens United, end corporate personhood and institute public financing of elections. And we are working hard toward those long term goals.
But in the short term, given how corrupt the system is, disclosure of corporate political spending would be a meaningful, though small, step forward. And it's one we can achieve.
While the likes of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial Board are opposed to this idea, it's actually a commonsense idea that is not especially ideological.
In fact, nearly 60% of the S&P 100 companies already voluntarily disclose their political spending to investors. And of the remaining S&P 100 corporations, 50 had shareholder votes about political issues in 2011.1
Already one SEC Commissioner has come out in favor of the idea. We just need two more to agree.
Tell the SEC: Don't let corporations hide their political spending. Click the link below to submit a public comment:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=6883064&id=39360-5154581-gZz4IVx&t=7
Matt Lockshin, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets
1. Committee on Disclosure of Corporate Political Spending's "Petition for Rulemaking" sent to Elizabeth M. Murphy, Secretary, Securities and Exchange Commission, 08-03-11.

the right to travel

One of our basic rights as Americans is the right to travel around our country freely. But Greyhound has made it hard for Americans of color and Americans with accents to enjoy that freedom.

In recent years Greyhound has beefed up their security measures. But instead of making their passengers safer, the company has allowed invasive searches & racial profiling on board their buses. As it stands now, Border Patrol can stop any bus at any time, board and force passengers to go through questioning.

Border Patrol agents even keeps records of the complexions of people arrested on buses. No really. Medium, fair, brown, pale, and yellow (yellow?!) are some of the 10 choices that border patrol agents can tally up after harassing passengers. Border Patrol’s own numbers show that the vast majority of people pulled off of buses had medium/black complexions. This is not a coincidence.

I would know, because I was on a Greyhound bus that was boarded by Border Patrol agents. I am a US Citizen, but as a first generation Latina, I was terrified. I watched as agents asked people what country they were from. Anybody who responded with an accent -- aka the people of color -- were asked additional questions. A third of the bus, including some terrified children, were kicked off for not being able to immediately provide documents that proved they had the right to be on the bus.

People of color make up a large portion of Greyhound’s client base, but they don’t inform any of their passengers that they could be racially profiled, and even arrested, if they don’t produce the right documents.

The thing is, Greyhound doesn’t have to comply with Border Patrol’s requests to board, just like passengers can refuse to answer any questions agents ask them while on board. In fact, Border Patrol even agreed to stop randomly targeting buses on the Northern border, due to the outcry of racial profiling and passenger harassment. But Greyhound doesn’t tell passengers this, instead they make racial profiling possible, and even probable, by allowing agents to board buses at any time.

Tell Greyhound you don’t want to live in a country where traveling means being asked to show your papers -- they should stop allowing border patrol to board buses & harass passengers.

student strapped down and electrocuted for hours



In 2002, a special needs student named Andre McCollins was allegedly strapped down and electrocuted for hours, leaving him with permanent brain damage, all because he refused to take off his jacketThe people torturing Andre were officials at his school. You can watch what happened on video.
The video was shot at a Massachusetts school for special needs kids called the Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC). Gregory Miller used to be a teacher there, and he says electrocuting kids as punishment is extremely common -- even for minor offenses like raising your hand to go to the bathroom.
"A non-verbal, nearly blind girl with cerebral palsy was shocked for attempts to hold a staff member's hand -- her attempts to communicate and to be loved," Gregory says.
Gregory desperately wants to help the kids at the JRC --that's why he started a petition on Change.org demanding that the JRC stop using electroshock to punish kids. Click here to add your name.
Gregory says the JRC's founder created electroshock devices which are even stronger than police stun guns to punish students for bad behavior. An official at the United Nations said that using these devices on children is considered torture.
According to the Boston Globe, the JRC’s founder resigned after being charged with misleading a grand jury by destroying video footage of other students being shocked.
Gregory believes that if thousands of people sign his petition, his former bosses will capitulate in the intense pressure generated by a national spotlight.
Thanks for being a change-maker,
- Jon and the Change.org team

food assistance

Why So Many Ph.D.s Are On Food Stamps



With the economic troubles of the past few years, it's no surprise that the number of people using food stamps is soaring. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that an average of 44 million people were on food assistance last year; that's up from 17 million in 2000.

What might be surprising, though, is one subgroup that's taken a particularly hard hit.

The number of people with graduate degrees — master's degrees and doctorates — who have had to apply for food stamps, unemployment or other assistance more than tripled between 2007 and 2010, according to a report in The Chronicle of Higher Education.

In 2010, the report says, 360,000 of the 22 million Americans with graduate degrees received some kind of public assistance.

Chronicle reporter Stacey Patton spoke with Tell Me More host Michel Martin about why so many highly educated Americans have to rely on this type of aid.

One thing that is happening at universities, Patton says, is the overlap between graduate students and adjunct professors — "contingent" faculty who are working on contracts.

In an effort to cut costs, she says, universities increasingly rely on these instructors because unlike tenured faculty, they work part time, they don't have health benefits, and they can be fired or not have their contracts renewed.

"What we continue to do in graduate schools is encourage people to take master's degrees and Ph.D.s [to fill those positions]," Patton says. "But the economy has taken such a hit, and so has higher education, so they do their work and come out and don't have opportunities for jobs."

Many states have had to cut their higher education budgets, and Patton says universities defend their use of contingent faculty instead of hiring full-time faculty as a necessary way to cope.

Tony Yang received his Ph.D. in history from the University of California, Riverside in 2009. Since then, he's worked on and off as a history lecturer, but has had to depend on unemployment and food stamps to get by.
"One of the bravest things to do is to graduate into [the recession]," Yang tells NPR's Martin. "It's an incredibly difficult job market, and you're constantly hustling to try and get another job."

In his best year since getting his Ph.D., Yang says he made about $32,000; in his worst, about $10,000. He says there's a perception that if you have a doctorate, you automatically walk into a high-paying job.

"I have the prestige of holding a Ph.D., but that [isn't] paying the bills," he says.

While reporting her story, Patton says she heard a number of stories similar to Yang's, but many of those folks didn't want to go on the record for fear of shame.

"You go to graduate school, you get a master's degree [or] you get a Ph.D., it's a hard thing to embrace that you're also now on welfare," she says.

Though only a little more than 1 percent of graduate-degree holders are on government assistance, Patton says what worries her is that the number tripled in just three years.

"One has to wonder, is this trend going to continue to increase?" she says.

gun targets

In the past couple of days, news sources have reported that the Hiller Armament Company of Virginia has been selling gun targets that look like Trayvon Martin, complete with a hoodie, Skittles, and iced tea.
It's not just vile, it's possibly illegal: Virginia law says that no one can profit off of the likeness of any person without his consent -- even if that person has been killed. But as soon as reporters started asking questions, the Hiller Armament Company shut down its website and disconnected its phone.
Tahir Duckett lives in Virginia, and he wants Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, to investigate the Hiller Armament Company and punish them if they have broken the law.
Thanks,
Patrick Schmitt

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

corruption during Calderon's administration




Mexico's former deputy defense minister and a top army general are being questioned for suspected links to organized crime.

Mexican soldiers on Tuesday detained retired general Tomas Angeles Dauahare and general Roberto Dawe Gonzalez and turned them over to the country's organized crime unit, military and government officials said.

This is the highest-level scandal to hit the military in the five-year-old drug war initiated by President Felipe Calderon.

More than 50,000 people have died in drug-related violence since then.

Angeles was assistant defence minister from 2006-2008 and helped lead the government's crackdown on drug cartels after soldiers were deployed to the streets in late 2006.

Gonzalez, still an active duty general, led an elite army unit in the western state of Colima and local media said he previously held posts in the violent states of Sinaloa and Chihuahua.

An official at the attorney general's office, said the generals would be held for several days to give testimony and then could be called in front of a judge.

Prosecutors said the generals had not been charged with any wrongdoing, but were "giving their declarations in connection with the investigation carried out by the organised crime unit".

If the generals were convicted of drug trafficking, it would mark the most serious case of military corruption during Calderon's administration.

Worsening drug-related attacks in major cities are eroding support for Calderon's conservative National Action Party, or PAN, ahead of a July 1 presidential vote.

JP Morgan's Loss Grows in Days

When JP Morgan announced a shocking $2 billion loss, chief executive Jamie Dimon admitted the amount could double to $4 billion by the end of the year. Instead it has increased by 50% in a matter of days. Two billion has become $3 billion, as hedge funds and other investors "have fueled faster deterioration in the underlying credit market positions held by the bank," DealBook reports.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

When shit hits the fan

Whether it be 140 million packets of emergency food, detention centers in all 50 states,750 million rounds of ammo, or numerous bullet resistant checkpoint booths, the Department of Homeland Security is clearly gearing up for something.


Monday, May 14, 2012

Ulises Ruiz in Nueva York

the Airline Brokers Co

CORAL GABLES, Fla. -- A blaze last month that scorched the offices of a Cuba travel agency in Miami was deliberately set, fire investigators say, one of the first acts of violence in years against a company arranging visits to the island.

The Coral Gables Fire Department said in a report that investigators found a disposable lighter, the remains of a green bottle, and a piece of asphalt after the April 27 fire at the Airline Brokers Co.

Those items indicate the "potential use of a projectile to breach the building window, and the use of a liquid accelerant incendiary device in this fire," the report says.

The report was obtained by the Spanish-language newspaper El Nuevo Herald, which published a copy on its website. Coral Gables fire officials referred all inquiries to the state fire marshal's office, which did not return requests for comment by phone or e-mail Sunday.

The blaze severely damaged the offices of the company, which arranged the flights and travel for hundreds of Cuban-Americans and others to the island for Pope Benedict XVI's visit in March. The agency has also recently expanded its operations to include flights from Fort Lauderdale.

In the 1970s and `80s, bombings of businesses and Cuba travel companies considered sympathetic to the Castro regime were commonplace. Another uptick of violence occurred in the summer of 1996, when Marazul Charters, a company that arranges legal flights to the island, had two of its offices bombed. A second travel business, Maira and Family Services, had a bomb thrown inside its offices within the same month.

But in the last decade, such incidents have become unheard of and travel to the island has grown. President Barack Obama removed a cap that limited family visits soon after taking office. Last year, the Cuban government said it was expecting 500,000 U.S. visitors annually, most of them Cuban-Americans, many of whom still have strong ties and family on the island.

"It surprised me," said Maira Gonzalez, whose former business was targeted more than a decade ago. "I thought people had matured a bit."

Gonzalez said her company went out of business about a year after someone threw what she described as a Molotov cocktail inside their offices early one morning. No one was in the building. Police said gas spilled but the device did not go off.