Month: July 2013

By Glenn Greenwald / theguardian.com / July 31, 2013

A top secret National Security Agency program allows analysts to search with no prior authorization through vast databases containing emails, online chats and the browsing histories of millions of individuals, according to documents provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The NSA boasts in training materials that the program, called XKeyscore, is its “widest-reaching” system for developing intelligence from the internet.

The latest revelations will add to the intense public and congressional debate around the extent of NSA surveillance programs. They come as senior intelligence officials testify to the Senate judiciary committee on Wednesday, releasing classified documents in response to the Guardian’s earlier stories on bulk collection of phone records and Fisa surveillance court oversight.

The files shed light on one of Snowden’s most controversial statements, made in his first video interview published by the Guardian on June 10.

“I, sitting at my desk,” said Snowden, could “wiretap anyone, from you or your accountant, to a federal judge or even the president, if I had a personal email”.

The documentary Black Fish reminds one that “intelligence” and the human species do not necessarily equate. And it shows just how humanity’s bloodthirsty ignorance knows no bounds even in its dealings with a peaceful, incredibly intelligent and social species like the Orca’s (Killer Whales). They have not once killed a human being on the high seas, but have done so at Sea World Entertainment, Inc., after the abuse and torture that they have suffered over the years. Some of their human counterparts are captives in Guantanamo Bay.

They are both damaged goods with no options but a slow death.

A building in the 4900 block of Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach has just been sold for $800,000. The retail building at 4932 Newport – which currently holds the young women’s store, Miss Match – includes approximately 2400 square foot of space.

The approximately 2,400-square-foot retail building in Ocean Beach at 4932 Newport Ave., San Diego 92107, has been sold for $800,000.

I must admit, when I first read about Henry Ford’s automobile made solely from hemp products the first image that popped into my head was of Cheech & Chong’s van made of marijuana (complete with Thai sticks for bumpers) from the 1978 movie titled “Up in Smoke.”

Strangely, my life was never quite the same after that movie came out. But that’s a whole ‘nuther story. lol (more about Henry Ford’s hemp car later)

A new theory has been posited about the origin of the prohibition of hemp in America. Like many other people, I had always subscribed to the conventional theory that it was the dirty deeds of turn of the [20th] century oligarchs like William Randolf Hearst and the DuPont family who were mainly (or at least financially) responsible for the demise of the hemp industry — due to the threat hemp posed to their respective commodity empires — i.e., lumber and paper, and textiles and chemicals. (link to DuPont company history here)

Turns out, that accepted theory may no longer be acceptable.

By Sherly U. Jehest

Not accustomed to nightmares – as I am usually a good sleeper – I had a horrible one last night and just have to share it with you – my San Diego nightmare.

I had gone to sleep at my usual time, falling into slumber some time between Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show with John Oliver and its first commercial – a truly deadly time for me. I was dreaming of rolling sheets of ocean waves, so pretty … when I noticed a pale figure emerge out of the surf and begin to walk towards me.

The figure got closer and I noticed it was a tall woman wearing long, thin robes. She approached me and got closer – when all of a sudden she was sitting at the foot of my bed.

“What the …” I started to say, partially sitting up, when she shushed me with a long bony finger to her pale lips, glancing over at my sleeping mate.

“Who are you?” I managed to squeak out.

“I’m the Ghost of Scandals Past,” she said softly. She looked sad.

By Julie Tate / Washington Post

An Army judge on Tuesday acquitted Pfc. Bradley Manning of aiding the enemy by disclosing a trove of secret U.S. government documents, a striking rebuke to military prosecutors who argued that the largest leak in U.S. history had assisted al-Qaeda.

The judge, Col. Denise Lind, found Manning guilty of most of the more than 20 crimes he was charged with. She also acquitted him of one count of the espionage act that stemmed from his leak of a video that depicted a fatal U.S. military airstrike in Farah, Afghanistan.

Bradley Manning arrived at court to hear the verdict in his military espionage and aiding the enemy trial at Fort Meade Tuesday. Manning was found not guilty of aiding the enemy.

Think & Drink Trivia
1921 Bacon St.,
Ocean Beach, CA 92107 •
PH: (619) 222-6822
Tuesdays 6:00pm

By Byron Morton / Special to the OB Rag

Can you name the famous lion from the MGM movie trailers?

This is an example of a typical question from Winston’s weekly trivia game.

A couple of years back some friends of mine invited me to a good old fashioned fun evening in Ocean Beach. For some time my eclectic friends Vonn and Nedra of Santee had been encouraging me to participate in this organized trivia event at Winston’s Beach Bar on Bacon Street in the heart of beautiful Ocean Beach.

As I was recently single and wasn’t engaged in any social activity on Tuesday evenings I decided to try something new. Well, I was immediately captivated and turned on by the fun.

Agave or Yucca Cordage

By Jill Richardson / La Vida Locovore / July 29, 2013

Remember in the old days before rope was made out of plastic? Back then (and sometimes even now), it was made from sisal. Sisal, Agave sisalana, is a type of agave. I saw it growing in Kenya during my visit. It’s still used there to make rope.

Here in San Diego, we don’t have sisal – but we do have plenty of agave. We’ve also got a few species of yucca, which are also in the Agave family (Agavaceae). So it’s no surprise that the Native Americans here use both yucca and agave to make their cordage.

Editor: The hunger strike by hundreds – at first thousands – of California prison inmates is entering its third week. One inmate has died. The strike is getting some media attention. There was a front page article on the LA Times today – Monday, July 29.

By Paige St. John / LA Times

PELICAN BAY STATE PRISON — Inside the concrete labyrinth of California’s highest-security prison, an inmate covered in neo-Nazi tattoos and locked in solitary confinement has spearheaded the largest prison protest in California history.

Convicted killer Todd Ashker and three other inmates — representing the Mexican Mafia, Nuestra Familia and the Black Guerrilla Family — called for a mass hunger strike July 8, largely to protest indefinite incarceration in solitary confinement.

More than 30,000 prisoners answered.

An unidentified man survived driving his car off the cliffs at Sunset Cliffs early Monday morning, July 29. The vehicle landed 50 feet below in a cove at Osprey Street about 5:20 a.m. local media report.

At first, witnesses said, the guy got out of his car and walked around and also into the ocean. He then sat down on the beach. First responders reached him by water and air. He was the only occupant of the vehicle – which still had its lights on after the fall and appeared to have rear end damage.

Only part time, temp and minimum wage jobs are being created

By John Lawrence

“Four years after the [Great Recession of 2008] median family income has fallen by 10 percent in real terms. …[T]he number of full-time breadwinner jobs in the US economy is still down by 5 million; that is, it is more than 8 percent below its late 2007 level.

In short, the Main Street economy has been failing for years, and now the massive debt deflation [the paying down of debt rather than consuming] under way will aggravate that condition enormously [since GDP is 70% consumption], leaving millions of citizens to depend on intermittent employment in low-paying part-time jobs or to fall back on family, friends, charity, or nothing at all.” – David Stockman, The Great Deformation.

A breadwinner job is a job that is sufficient to support a family, including rent or mortgage, car payment, adequate food and nutrition, health care, education and savings for retirement. That meant a job paying $50,000 a year in 2007 when the US economy peaked. At that time there were 71.8 million “breadwinner” jobs in construction, manufacturing, white-collar professions, government and the like. These jobs accounted for more than half of the nation’s 138 million total payroll.

Editor: The OB Rag has been following a rift within the local Democratic Party about the District 2 City Council race – District 2 includes Ocean Beach and Point Loma. Here, former District 2 candidate and lifeguard Ed Harris – he has recently dropped out – is publishing the email he sent to Francine Busby, the head of the San Diego County Democratic Party.

By Ed Harris

Email I sent to Busby:

Francine,

To say I’m disappointed by your attached email is an understatement. As a member of the Democratic party and a Democratic candidate for District 2, I expected support and equal treatment from those elected to head the party. Since announcing my intentions to run, you have strategically used your position to push another candidate forward. Rumors of allegations have been used to poison others in the Democratic party prior to my meeting them. Those rumors are traced back to you and others from Run Women Run. The fact that Run Women Run supports you financially makes this more troublesome.