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To: faqsnlojiks who wrote (8824)	6/28/2006 12:30:26 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 14758

Berkeley council passes balanced budget {and votes for impeachment} Contra Costa Times ^ \| 6/28/6 \| Martin Snapp contracostatimes.com After cutting more than $20 million from the budget and trimming the city's workforce by 10 percent over the last four years, the Berkeley City Council unanimously approved a balanced budget Tuesday night without further reductions in city services or personnel. . . . Finally, the council voted unanimously to place an advisory measure on the November ballot calling for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Arguing for the measure was Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers, who answered the inevitable only-in-Berkeley arguments by asking, "If not here, where?" The council also proclaimed Tuesday "Cindy Sheehan Day in the city of Berkeley," in honor of the anti-war activist who moved here last spring. Said Councilwoman Betty Olds, who sponsored the proclamation, "Berkeley is a better place to live now that Cindy Sheehan lives here."

To: faqsnlojiks who wrote (8824)	6/28/2006 12:40:29 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 14758

This is ridiculous beyond belief. Amish Farmer Says Milk Law Opposes Beliefs ap wire ^ \| July 28, 2006 Amish Farmer Says Milk Law Opposes Beliefs By JOE MILICIA (Associated Press Writer) From Associated Press June 28, 2006 8:25 AM EDT MOUNT HOPE, Ohio - Arlie Stutzman was busted in a rare sting when an undercover agent bought raw milk from the Amish dairy farmer in an unlabeled container. Now, Stutzman is fighting the law that forbids the sale of raw milk, saying he believes it violates his religious beliefs because it prohibits him from sharing the milk he produces with others. "While I can and I have food, I'll share it," said Stutzman, who is due in Holmes County Common Pleas Court on Friday to tell a judge his views. "Do unto others what you would have others do unto you." Last September, a man came to Stutzman's weathered, two-story farmhouse, located in a pastoral region in northeast Ohio that has the world's largest Amish settlement. The man asked for milk. Stutzman was leery, but agreed to fill up the man's plastic container from a 250-gallon stainless steel tank in the milkhouse. After the creamy white, unpasteurized milk flowed into the container, the man, an undercover agent from the Ohio Department of Agriculture, gave Stutzman two dollars and left. The department revoked Stutzman's license in February. In April, he got a new license, which allows him to sell to cheese houses and dairies, but received a warning not to sell raw milk to consumers again. "You can't just give milk away to someone other then yourself. It's a violation of the law," said LeeAnne Mizer, spokeswoman for the department. Organizations from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to the American Dairy Association have said that raw milk contains health risks because it has not been heated to kill bacteria, such as E. coli. Regulators want Judge Thomas D. White to formally order Stutzman to comply with dairy laws. Stutzman said he is fighting the request on principle, saying he should be able to share his milk. Stutzman's Amish faith places an emphasis on the community. To preserve their lifestyle, the Amish avoid the use of electricity and automobile ownership, which would allow the outside world to enter unabated into their culture. The Amish typically do not get involved in politics, unless laws impede their ability to make a living or follow their religious beliefs. Stutzman said he is getting some community support. "It shows he's not going to be intimidated and he's going to do what he thinks is the right thing," said his attorney, Gary Cox. State officials said they sent the agent to his farm because they received a tip from an anonymous neighbor about raw milk sales. Stutzman, however, said he believes he was targeted because his cows are partly owned by a group of 150 families in what is known as a herd share agreement. Members pay him a fee for the cows and are entitled to a portion of the milk. Sales of raw milk are illegal in Ohio and 24 other states. But herd share agreements take advantage of a loophole because the group is buying the cows, not the milk. Groups such as the Weston A. Price Foundation, which is dedicated to restoring nutrient-dense foods to people's diets, advocate the consumption of raw milk, saying pasteurization diminishes vitamin content and kills beneficial bacteria. For Stutzman, the herd share agreement gives him an outlet for his extra milk. He also enjoys sharing his product with others who would otherwise not have access to it. "We know people are deprived of this real food," he said.

To: faqsnlojiks who wrote (8824)	6/28/2006 1:44:51 PM
From: Proud_Infidel	Respond to of 14758

Crude blogger is lowering the bar San Antonio Express-News ^ \| Web Posted: 06/28/2006 12:00 AM CDT \| Jonathan Gurwitz: School's out for summer, and all the wayward children who received detention for shooting spit wads and carving naughty words into their desks are evidently attending the Kos Camp for Splenetic Activism. The camp's proprietor is Markos "Kos" Moulitsas, founder of the influential DailyKos blog and a nominal leader of the Angry Left. "Crashing the Gate," a book Moulitsas co-authored with political consultant and penny stock touter Jerome Armstrong, is the playbook for progressive political activism and the "Net roots," a synthesis of traditional, progressive politics and the power of the Internet. And there's no doubting the contribution Moulitsas has made to advance what he calls people-powered politics. Unfortunately for the people who take their politics seriously, Moulitsas himself and many of his paste-eating charges at Camp Kos seem more committed to acts of adolescent political vandalism, as the title of his book implies, than to the intellectual maturity of political leadership. The Kos kids and their counselor got all worked up recently about a column in which I criticized their penchant for savaging Democrats who stray from their ideological agenda, their intolerance for dissent and their bullying tactics. But what really set Moulitsas' marshmallow aflame, I suspect, was an affront to his vanity. I quoted his risible comment following the Texas primaries in March that his Net-roots effort had given Rep. Henry Cuellar "an ass whooping" — in an election that Cuellar comfortably won. "Another idiot columnist tries to peddle the 'scary Daily Kos is trying to liquidate moderate Democrats' bull----," Moulitsas wrote on his blog. And his little band of Net hooligans set out to demonstrate just how tolerant and non-bullying they really aren't. "I would love to purge this party of these DLC Centrist type Dems who think they can ride the middle to get votes from both sides of the fence," wrote one Kossack. "Basically, you are full of ----. As a nurse, I can say that word, it is a medical term when someone spews idiotic statements and shows their stupidity," wrote another. Other Kos campers evidently drank from the same batch of Kool-Aid. Their topic headlines read, "Gurwitz tries to peddle BS" and "Bull---- article." One generously expressed his hope that someday I "gain at least some self-respect back. You, as all humans, deserve it." Another burnished his progressive merit badge by simply writing, "The test came back positive. Start AZT as soon as you can." Back at Camp Kos, there was even a plea for civility of sorts. "E-mail the idiot columnist," wrote one reader at DailyKos. But, he suggested, "be nice and don't give him a chance to write the 'angry lefties sent me nasty e-mail' column." Sorry to disappoint, but no one should expect followers of a profanity-spewing pied piper not to be nasty. Moulitsas, who is currently venting his rage at liberal journalists who refuse to keep silent about pay-for-play political allegations against him and Armstrong, makes Ann Coulter seem downright charming by comparison. In 2004, when four Americans working for a military contractor were murdered and their bodies mutilated in Fallujah, Moulitsas commented: "I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them." One of Moulitsas' colleagues in the Net-roots community wrote to me apologetically, the Kos reputation for vulgarity being well-known. "You are probably getting more than your share of uncivil responses from frustrated activists who believe their voices don't count as much as others. This will not be one of them." And, indeed, what followed was strong yet sensible and civil criticism. That's an art Moulitsas and his followers haven't even attempted to master, preferring instead the rhetorical equivalent of gang graffiti. Moulitsas has been instrumental in helping thousands of frustrated activists make their voices heard. Being heard, however, is not the same as being taken seriously.