OB Rag

Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name as it tries to shake a reputation battered by oft-criticised work in Iraq, renaming its family of two dozen businesses under the name Xe. The parent company’s new name is pronounced like the letter z.

Blackwater Lodge & Training Centre – the subsidiary that conducts much of the company’s overseas operations and domestic training – has been renamed US Training Centre Inc., the company said today.

by Gregg Robinson

These are going to be tough times for the anti-war movement. With a popular Democrat in the White House and depression economics on the front pages, it is going to be hard to turn out people for anti-war demonstrations. Most people’s attention is going to be on their pocket books and their sympathy for Obama is going to mean they are unlikely to demonstrate against a war that he is making attempts to “carefully” end. For these reasons the anti-war movement cannot afford to be easily distracted.

On February 10, 2009 San Diego Unified, located in the middle of one of the largest military complexes in the world, took the uncharacteristic step of banning rifle training conducted under the military’s high school JROTC program. Eleven schools with rifle ranges were affected in the nation’s eighth largest urban district.

Before the board meeting began, speakers representing local high schools and colleges addressed an outside crowd of 200 students, parents, teachers and community supporters. Some high schools sent so many students that two charter buses, courtesy of the AFSC, were used for transportation.

by Michael Steinberg

Though a meltdown at a nuclear plant may be its worst case scenario, the dangers and risks by no means end there. In fact they go on every day.
Radioactive releases into the air and water are routine at nukes. As is the transportation of radioactive wastes offsite by road, rail and water. These activities are the seldom discussed everyday threats to people, other living beings, and the environment as a whole.

This report delves into what goes on at the San Onofre Generating Station in these respects.

There is a new opening right now for US and Iranian relations. Mainstream media reported that on Saturday, Feb. 7th, Vice President Biden, while in Munich, Germany, for an international security conference, offered “an olive branch” to Iran – and Russia. Ali Larijani, Iran’s head of parliament, in his response address, indicated a new willingness to deal.

AFP reported:

On Iran, Biden repeated that the US was ready to talk to Tehran after three decades of frozen relations. “We will be willing to talk to Iran, and to offer a very clear choice: continue down the current course and there will be continued pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear programme and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”

Street artist Shepard Fairey was arrested Friday February 6th for tagging by Boston police. Southern Californians have known of the infamous LA artist’s work for years as his images have mysteriously appeared stenciled along streets – the iconic Andre the Giant and the Obey posters and stencils come to mind immediately. Fairey is also the artist of the now famous red, white, and blue poster of Barack Obama usually with the caption “hope”. (See ‘inside’ for the full story.)

Fairey was arrested after two warrants had been issued for him back on January 24th. He is accused by police for tagging property in two locations with graffiti – based on the Andre the Giant image.

It is now a commonplace — as a lead article in the New York Times’s Week in Review pointed out recently — that Afghanistan is “the graveyard of empires.” Given Barack Obama’s call for a greater focus on the Afghan War (“we took our eye off the ball when we invaded Iraq…”), and given indications that a “surge” of U.S. troops is about to get underway there, Afghanistan’s dangers have been much in the news lately. Some of the writing on this subject, including recent essays by Juan Cole at Salon.com, Robert Dreyfuss at the Nation, and John Robertson at the War in Context website, has been incisive on just how the new administration’s policy initiatives might transform Afghanistan and the increasingly unhinged Pakistani tribal borderlands into “Obama’s War.”

It’s hell being a celebrity, especially if you’re young and find yourself at a party, where marijuana and cameras should never mix. And it’s not exactly heaven being sheriff of a county with escalating drug crimes and pressure to treat all offenders equally.

Thus it is that Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps and Sheriff Leon Lott of South Carolina’s Richland County are being forced to treat seriously a crime that shouldn’t be one.

As everyone knows by now, Phelps was photographed smoking from an Olympic-sized bong during a University of South Carolina party last November.

There will be a small vigil tonight at 6 pm at the site where exactly 6 years ago, a well-known homeless man in Ocean Beach was gunned down and killed by San Diego police officers. Danny “the Walker” Woodyard was filled with bullets on West Point Loma Avenue near the intersection with Voltaire Street, a few yards from the entrance to north beach parking lot.

Danny was a well-known homeless man, who was always seen walking around the community, hence his nickname. The morning of Feb 4, 2003, he had been dumpster diving with his only tool, an old knife.

Explosive anger is spilling out onto the streets of Europe. The meltdown of the global economy is igniting massive social unrest in a region that has long been a symbol of political stability and social cohesion. It’s not a new trend: A wave of upheaval is spreading from the poorer countries on the periphery of the global economy to the prosperous core.

Over the past few years, a series of riots spread across what is patronizingly known as the Third World. Furious mobs have raged against skyrocketing food and energy prices, stagnating wages and unemployment in India, Senegal, Yemen, Indonesia, Morocco, Cameroon, Brazil, Panama, the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico and elsewhere.

Think of San Diego, and your mind probably conjures images of lounging on long sandy beaches and swimming, surfing, or boating in the warm ocean water. You probably don’t think of the 180 million gallons of minimally-treated sewage that are being pumped into the Pacific Ocean, 4 1/2 miles off the coast of Point Loma, every day. That’s more than 65 billion gallons a year. You might also think, isn’t that illegal?

More than 30 years ago, Congress mandated that publicly-owned wastewater treatment plants, like the one in Point Loma, treat its wastewater to a higher standard-“secondary” standards-before discharging their treated wastewater.

On Tuesday, February, 10th, San Diego students need you support. Please come to the School Board meeting, where youth of conscience throughout the school district will be demanding that shooting ranges be eliminated from our school campuses. Several new Board members have been elected and they might listen to reason…or at least, to their students and supporters. The gathering at the Education Center, 4100 Normal Street, San Diego, will begin at 4 p.m.