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Skip to comments.Boat owners say they were fearful during Coast Guard search
Posted on 09/22/2005 2:42:37 PM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Two of the Moss Landing Harbor residents who were the subjects of random boat searches during Labor Day Weekend say their experiences were closer to armed invasions than the friendly "safety inspections" characterized by U.S. Coast Guard officials.
Both residents said search crews entered the harbor in inflatable boats with machine guns mounted on their bows. Then, carrying M-16 rifles, they approached residents and boarded and searched their boats in the name of safety and "homeland security."
One resident, who asked not to be identified for fear or retribution, said his experience was "very intimidating, very frightening."
"To me it reeks of Nazi Germany and the death squads in Argentina," he said. "I don't want my name on their list."
Scott Jones, a live-aboard resident who was searched, said there has been talk in the harbor about contacting the American Civil Liberties Union, but he first wants to hear further from the Coast Guard about its future intentions.
Lt. Mark Warren of the Monterey Coast Guard Station said he has heard mostly positive response to the operation, but may rethink future actions given current criticisms.
"We take lessons and learn from these types of operations. If the public is genuinely distasteful of it, we might not do it," he said. "I'm not saying we won't, but I'm not saying we will."
In addition to trying to ensure the safety of boats on the bay during the holiday weekend, Warren said, the operation was part of an effort to increase the public's awareness of the Coast Guard's role as a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security. He said the public might have been surprised to see weaponry that is now standard issue to all Homeland Security forces.
"I, as a U.S. citizen, am highly offended by that," said Jones, who is accustomed to Coast Guard boardings when he sails. "When a sheriff's deputy drives down the road or a CHP officer drives down the road and I see them, I'm aware of his job, and not because he's pulled me over and put a gun to my head.
"The Coast Guard's needs would be better served by an advertising campaign," he said, "rather than bullying people in their bedrooms at 10:30 at night."
Jones said he and his wife were sleeping when they were awakened by knocking on the side of the boat.
He went to the deck and was confronted by two armed officers asking if they could come aboard. Thinking something had happened in the harbor that the officers needed to talk to him about, Jones acquiesced.
"It seemed a little unreasonable at 10:30 at night," he said, "but it was the middle of the night and I was half asleep, so I said 'OK.' At this point, I looked out and saw six to eight officers (on the dock) and all appeared armed."
The officers boarded his boat and quickly spread out beyond the immediate deck without invitation, saying they were conducting a safety inspection.
"I can say with all certainly that what they did was not a safety inspection or in any way related to a safety inspection," he said. The officers demanded access to the bilge, saying they wanted to make sure the boat wasn't taking on water.
"This was highly suspect," Jones said. "If you're on board, you'd know if you were taking on water."
When Jones showed them the bilge, the officers repeatedly, and with increasing forcefulness, demanded to know if there were other accesses to the bilge. They also "demanded" the driver's licenses of everyone on board.
Increasingly upset by the nature of the search, Jones asked for the officers' authority and justification. One officer read to him from a federal code authorizing the search.
"It was either the Patriot Act or homeland security,"Jones said.
Warren said the officers would not have cited the Patriot Act because it affords the Coast Guard no additional authority.
Jones conceded he may have heard "homeland security" and registered "Patriot Act," but still feels the search was unwarranted and in a gray area of the law at best.
"I wouldn't question their professionalism, but I do question their motive and their authority," he said. "To me, it sounds like something that an ACLU lawyer would just tear apart."
Coast Guard officials say they are authorized by maritime law to board and search vessels on U.S. waters, including waters that lead to U.S. waters, to enforce federal laws.
Warren said the officers were attempting to ensure the safety and compliance of docked boats by checking for oily water in their bilges and that their sanitation devices were in locked position. Some searches were conducted at night in an effort to catch boats before they went onto the bay for the weekend.
The second boat owner who spoke to The Herald said his boat was searched after he challenged officers who were searching other boats, at 10:30 p.m. Sept. 2, and during the morning on following days. Told they were acting as Homeland Security officers, he asked what they were protecting the harbor from.
"Terrorists," he said he was told by the officers, who exhorted him to "remember the Cole," referring to the October 2000 attack by terrorists on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors.
"The only terrorists down here are you guys," he told them. "You're scaring the hell out of me with that machine gun."
While Warren was noncommittal about future searches, he said it is important for the public to know the Coast Guard's presence will be increased.
"The Coast Guard's focus on homeland security has increased our presence on the water and will continue to increase our presence simply because that's what Congress is wanting us to do right now," he said. "The concern at the congressional level about the security of ports is pretty high."
I think you just made that up. How dishonest of you.
The reason that you feel the Coast Guard are not bound by the Constituion is????
Freedom is scary?
You claim is that Admiralty Law trumps the Constitution, eh? Where did you come by this belief?
I wonder how well this flew in NOLA
Uh... maybe you mean to argue with someone else? I just copied some text out of your #121. If it wasn't yours, fine... I see no reason to extend this quibble?
People are judging the Coast Guard without knowing the circumstances of the boardings. And some don't even have knowledge of what the Coast Guards training and responsibilities are. Some people on this thread are ready to trash the Coast Guard over two boat owners, who made comments to a newspaper and we don't know of the true circumstances.Sheesh.
I'm not dismissing what these punks did, but there definately are facilities worthy of concern on Monterey Bay. Let's start with the PG&E generating plant, which is quite vulnerable.
A live-aboard boat is a man's home; when docked it should be treated by all LEOs the same as any residence.
I don't believe constitutional protections foresaw such behavior as this.
An official explanation should be forthcoming if this report is correct in its details.
I beginning to think we are about to go over the edge.
A Coast Guard member's job is to obey orders of the CO, not to delve into philosophy.
Drug smugglers are citizens too. Is it the CGs job to serve them also?
Maybe. It's more worthy of consideration than having JBTs with AR's trolling through party boats in the harbor to see what they can find at 10:30pm on a weekend.
Fishing Expeditions
By Mick Kronman
There was a time not long ago when, to most commercial fishermen, the mention of the name "Coast Guard" evoked the image of a sleek, white cutter knifing its way through towering seas toward a rescue. The Guard was the fisherman's friend, ready and willing to save his life. But times have changed dramatically. Last May 19, California salmon fisherman Jim Blaes drew a line in the waters of Santa Cruz Harbor, at the northern reach of Monterey Bay, and dared the Coast Guard to cross it. Blaes claimed he'd "had a gutful" of the Coast Guard's surprise safety boardings, and refused to allow officers from the 100-foot cutter Chico aboard his 36-foot Helja unless they left their guns behind.
The Coasties refused his demand, resulting in a tense two-day standoff. During the impasse, the Chico, accompanied by a 40-foot patrol boat and a helicopter, shadowed Blaes as he negotiated via cellular phone, granted press interviews, and caught some salmon. At one point he told his pursuers, "I think enough of the U.S. Constitution to give up my life for it. If you think enough of it to violate it, then come ahead." Finally the Guard backed off, turning the matter over to the Department of Justice for legal action.
"I was sick of the Coast Guard harassing me," says Blaes, a lifelong fisherman who was armed during the incident with a gun he reportedly uses to protect himself from sharks. "I've been boarded 40 times in the past nine years, and I've repeatedly told them the boardings violate my Fourth Amendment rights against unwarranted searches undertaken without suspicion that a crime has been committed. We've hassled plenty over the issue, and frankly, I thought this time things might turn violent."
Blaes is not alone in his exasperation. Many fishermen say the Guard, once their ally, now exerts itself as much to disrupt lives as to save them. What happened to make the Guard go from heroism to harassment? The war on drugs. In the 1980s, every fishing vessel became a suspect (or "target," in Coast Guard parlance), and heavily armed young Coasties added a new dimension to fishermen's timeless concern about the dangers at sea. Within the decade, that same zealotry helped mold the Guard's belligerent at-sea enforcement of new vessel-safety regulations. Now fishermen who have always trusted the Coast Guard have also learned to fear it.
The Coast Guard's heritage--one still honored by most of its 36,000 members--is saving lives. Its creed remains, "We have to go out, but we don't have to come back." Consider, for instance, Coast Guard Station Cape Disappointment, a sentry post at the mouth of the serpentine Columbia River dividing Washington and Oregon. A tiny "Cape D." crew tends the Columbia River Bar, where west-running river and east-running Pacific Ocean roil together over a shallow sandpit, pushing waves to 30 feet. There, the Coasties crash to sea in 41-foot "rollover" rescue boats designed to right themselves after capsizing, snatching disabled mariners from the deep. Assignment to the Cape D. rescue squad remains the most sought-after job in the entire Coast Guard--a testament to the valor of the smallest of the nation's armed forces. Fishermen in many regions applaud the Guard's search-and-rescue efforts. "Nobody's better at it; I feel as safe as I ever did knowing they're around," says Florida shrimper Eric Schmidt. "Recently, lightning struck a friend of mine's boat. Everything was fried--batteries, pumps, even the engine's starter motor. He was sinking, but the Coast Guard arrived in 20 minutes. Saved him and the boat. They were awesome."
On Labor Day, skilled Guardsmen rescued several fishermen whose boats capsized 100 miles west of Eureka, California, when a surprise storm swept through the region's tuna fleet. "We save lives, plain and simple--that's our job," says Cmdr. Bryant Weaver of Coast Guard Group Humboldt Bay, whose helicopters yanked the terrified fishermen from open seas.
Search and Bust
During the past 20 years, however, the Coast Guard has undertaken a slew of law enforcement duties--enough, in fact, to consume nearly half its projected $3.9 billion budget for 1997. "There are just a lot more laws to enforce these days, including drug interdiction and alien smuggling, plus regulations that state and federal agencies impose to conserve fish stocks," notes Lt. Fred Myer, a staff officer in the Guard's Washington, D.C., law enforcement division.
The first big shift in Coast Guard policy and dollars, from search-and-rescue to search-and- bust, came in the early 1980s, when the Reagan administration implemented a draconian "Zero Tolerance" program aimed at interdicting ocean-going drug runners. Under the Z.T. plan, a vessel owner could have his boat and fish seized if anyone aboard possessed so much as a joint--with or without the captain's knowledge. The result: Skippers became cops too, forced to interrogate the crew and, at times, search their personal belongings. This further stressed an industry that, between difficult weather, increased regulation, uncertain markets, and depressed fish stocks, could ill afford it.
It also cost suspect fishermen a pile of money, even in cases where boats and gear were seized but later returned when the feds couldn't make a case. Fueling the cops-and-robbers Z.T. fiasco, fishermen who failed to pay a fine if found guilty of a violation had their vessels and/or equipment turned over to the Customs Service, if guilty of a drug violation, or to the National Marine Fisheries Service, in the case of a fishing violation, to be auctioned off. Big drug busts made big news, especially in Coast Guard District 7. That's a watery highway of 1.8 million square miles, stretching from the southeast U.S. coast to Puerto Rico, transited by shrimp boats and small freighters smuggling pot or cocaine from Latin America. It was not uncommon during the early 1980s for deep-bellied shrimpers to be caught with up to 20 tons of grass. The same held true for coke; even in 1995, the Coast Guard seized over 18,000 kilograms of it in District 7.
At some point in the hunt, an authoritarian Z.T. mentality came to permeate the Coast Guard's ranks. Boarding crews seemed to live for the bust, often losing sight of personal rights in their effort to catch drug runners. Cutters displayed marijuana- and coca-leaf decals on the sides of their cabins, like notches in a pistol butt, as their hunt for drug smugglers became competitive. Meanwhile, fishing vessels everywhere--especially off Florida and California--became suspects, as well as slow-moving targets.
A Recipe for Abuse
Predictably, problems arose. "Zero Tolerance, combined with the Coast Guard's attitude, created a recipe for abuse and harassment," notes David Paul Horan, a maritime lawyer in Key West, Florida. "One particular case comes to mind. In 1988, an 80-foot shrimper belonging to a man named David Phelps was boarded off the Florida coast, supposedly to look for drugs or stowaways. But within minutes, the Coasties were going through every compartment on board. Finally, at the bottom a one-foot-by-two-foot trash can, beneath a gooey pile of spit tobacco, they found four marijuana seeds. Bam, busted, boat seized--just like that. The whole thing was so outrageous that we had to take up the matter with officials in Washington, D.C., to get it dropped." California fisherman Steve Kelly offers this bizarre Z.T. tale: "I was fishing for rock cod near Point Conception (near Santa Barbara), driving in circles, zig-zags and figure-eights, staring at my depth sounder, looking for fish. Meanwhile, I could hear a conversation on my marine radio between a Coast Guard patrol boat and a Coast Guard helicopter. They were discussing the suspicious activities of a certain boat--my boat. Finally, they called me and told me to prepare for a boarding. Then, suddenly, the patrol boat radioed for a medical airlift for one of its own crewmen. Apparently, he accidentally shot himself in the ear while readying his weapon for the boarding." Undaunted, Kelly says, the Coasties persevered. "They radioed for a 90-foot cutter from Marina Del Rey to come search my boat once I anchored. The cutter ran 150 miles to the area, accosted us in the middle of the night and made us huddle on the back deck in our skivvies while they searched my boat. All they found was fish."
Often, even fish couldn't stop a good drug search. "One time, a boarding crew took a long, skinny aluminum pole and poked it repeatedly into bins of shrimp aboard my boat," says one Texas shrimper. "When they began, I had a boatload of $7-a-pound whole shrimp. When they finished, I had $1-a-pound shrimp pieces. There was no need to do it, since I was at the dock, waiting to unload. All they had to do was wait a few minutes and watch the shrimp come out of the hold on a conveyor."
Adds Florida fisherman Eric Schmidt, "The Coast Guard pulled 600 pounds of grouper out of my fish hold and laid them on deck in the blazing sun while they looked for dope. When they were through, the fish were cooked. Who pays for that? I do."
Dennis Henderson, a fisherman who revered the Coast Guard all his life, remembers the day in 1991 when his opinion changed. "I was piloting one of several shrimpers I own, heading from Fort Myers, Florida, to Key West, a 120-mile run," he recalls. "The Coast Guard spotted me through the fog off Fort Myers and sent officers aboard, to check compliance with federal safety regulations." That's when his nightmare began.
"They herded us to the back deck and held us at gunpoint like criminals--me, my wife, and my crew," Henderson recalls. "They wouldn't even let us go to the bathroom. Then they ripped the boat apart, stem to stern. They were obviously looking for drugs, and the 'safety inspection' claim was just an excuse to get aboard. Finally, they simply let us go. No citation. No apology. No cleanup. No nothing."
Shrimper Julius Collins tells a similar tale, about the time he and his crew stood, terrified, while nervous, teenaged Coast Guardsmen held shotguns on them amid steep, rolling seas. Meanwhile, fellow Coasties gruffly rummaged through his boat, looking for whatever contraband they could find. "It's humiliating and damned dangerous," Collins says. "It's a miracle nobody's been killed during at-sea inspections, either accidentally or on purpose." One Louisiana fisherman even remembers the time a Coastie who had yet to find his sea legs stumbled and dropped his shotgun on the deck. The fisherman picked up the weapon and handed it back to the young man, saying, "This is yours; I believe you were holding it on me."
Safety Catch
Under fire for its zealous pursuit of personal-use drug cases, the Coast Guard unofficially mellowed its Z.T. program in the late 1980s, choosing to focus instead on nabbing large-scale traffickers. Meanwhile, vessel safety was coming into the spotlight, following the death of a U.S. ambassador's son during a fishing boat disaster in Alaska's Bering Sea.
"At the time, the fishing industry was seeking relief from high insurance costs by limiting boat owners' liability," recalls Rod Moore, a former House Merchant Marine Fisheries Committee staffer and a man who helped write the complex, much-debated Commercial Fishing Industry Vessel Safety Act of 1988. "Congress, however, chose to implement tough safety regs instead, a move that consumer groups and the American Trial Lawyers Association, neither of which favored liability limits, lobbied heavily for."
The Safety Act required fishermen to buy life rafts, emergency radio beacons, fire extinguishers, flares, and "survival suits"--insulated garments worn as a protection against the chill of the sea. Some fishermen praised the new law, but others, especially small-boat fishermen who work near shore, said the safety gear was too expensive ($10,000, plus $1,500 annually for upkeep and recertification) and took up too much space. The high cost, they claimed, forced them to forgo other important safety measures, such as yearly drydocking. Some even claimed that the bulky, 100-pound life rafts rendered their small boats unstable.
One particularly harsh critic was Alan Dujenski, who served 20 years with the Coast Guard (the last five in marine safety) and who now works for a marine insurance brokerage in Seattle. He says the whole safety program was hastily crafted, is rudely enforced, and generally misses the mark.
"Most casualties are caused by a lack of vessel stability, a lack of [a hull's] watertight integrity, insufficient bilge-pumping systems, fatigue, and a lack of seamanship education," Dujenski says. "It's as if the Coast Guard is saying, 'We know your vessel is going to sink, but at least you can save yourself when it does.' The regulations perpetuate the idea that safety equipment is a St. Christopher medal that will protect you from harm. Nothing could be further from the truth."
Though admitting flaws in the safety program, Coast Guard officials note that the number of lives lost after notification of an emergency has dropped significantly since passage of the Safety Act, from over 1,000 per year to fewer than 500. This, they claim, is significant for fishermen, who have the riskiest job in the United States (155 fatalities per 100,000 workers annually, according to the latest available government figures).
Gregory Sharp, crewman aboard a 53-foot fishing boat that capsized in frigid seas off the Washington coast in July 1990, was one of the first ones saved. "She went down in 20 seconds," he recalls. "I barely had time to get scared, let alone grab a survival suit." Sharp hung on to floating debris. "I noticed our [emergency beacon] had floated free," he says. "Its strobe light was blinking, so I figured its radio signal was working, too."
A Russian satellite picked up the emergency signal and relayed it to a station in Illinois. It was then relayed to Seattle and finally to a Coast Guard unit in Astoria, Oregon, across the Columbia River from the famous Cape D. rescue squad. An hour later, Sharp was safe. He offers this message for fishermen reluctant to install the $2,000 radio beacons: "If you can't justify the expense, just ask my wife and children if it's worth it. Better yet, ask your own."
Bellicose Boardings
But the real problem with the Safety Act is the manner in which the Coast Guard enforces it, especially the boardings. Ostensibly intended to check compliance with the law, "most boardings are courteous affairs, undertaken by highly educated, well-trained, respectful officers," says Cmdr. Steve Austin, a New England Coast Guard law enforcement officer. Some fishermen agree. One even recalls the time he was boarded, inspected, then invited to the Coast Guard cutter to eat T-bone steak, drink wine, and swap sea stories.
Many fishermen, however, say Coasties packing guns and leftover Z.T. attitudes bully their way aboard boats, checking everything from rafts to the size of ship's bell (rarely used for signaling in modern times) or the height of letters on a required placard noting that the discharge of oil is prohibited. These sometimes belligerent searches, which a single boat might endure several times per year, can result in fines approaching $1,000 for a minute violation.
"For the most part, boarding crews have been arrogant, treated us like dirt, hazed us, and responded callously to our inquiries and objections regarding their behavior," noted Mary Wergeland, spokeswoman for a group of 40 Washington, Oregon, and California fishermen, in a September 1993 letter to the executive secretary of the Coast Guard's Marine Safety Council. "Unfortunately, it's human nature," notes Rod Moore, head of the West Coast Seafood Processors Association. "For years, the Coast Guard was virtually on a wartime footing, engaged primarily in drug and alien interdiction. They faced considerable danger when stopping vessels, since there were cases where innocent-appearing boats were loaded with drugs and high-caliber weapons. That experience, however, bled over into more mundane activity, like safety and fisheries inspections."
"In addition, boarding crews are all different," confides a Coast Guard training officer who asked to remain anonymous. "Some check big-ticket items like life rafts. Others check for charts that are rarely, if ever, used. Attitudes vary, too, as does knowledge about fishermen and their operations. And if fishermen give boarding officers any crap, things just get worse, like a motorist jawing at a traffic cop."
Complicating matters, Coast Guard crews rotate around the country, so a young officer who has, say, been on white-knuckle duty off the Florida coast may not carry the right knowledge or attitude when boarding a trawler in Alaska's Bering Sea.
"I've seen the Coast Guard detain the entire 80-man crew of a 200-foot factory ship (which harvests and processes fish at sea) in the Bering Sea for six hours while they searched the vessel like Gestapo, looking for safety or fisheries violations," says Joe Easley, head of the Oregon Trawl Commission, a seafood promotion and lobbying group. "Can you imagine how much that costs, in terms of lost production? And then there's the humiliation of being herded around the deck like a bunch of cattle."
A Fed-up Fleet
That's why, when California salmon fisherman Jim Blaes held off a Coast Guard boarding party for two days last May, few fishermen were surprised. In July, Blaes pleaded "not guilty" to a charge that he "knowingly and forcibly resisted, opposed, impeded, intimidated and interfered with Coast Guard officers engaged in their official duties." At press time, the trial was set for late October.
Following the Blaes incident, fishermen rushed to defend the man they consider a lightning rod for a fed-up fleet of harvesters. "Jim Blaes is no wacko or anti-government kook," says Pietro Parravano, president of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a lobbying group for several California fishermen's organizations. "He did what a lot of other fishermen would like to do."
An angry Zeke Grader, PCFFA's executive director, likens the Coast Guard's at-sea safety boardings to "firemen, brandishing weapons, knocking on your door at 2 a.m., demanding to inspect your fire alarms and, in the course of inspections, sifting through the rest of your house, even your bedroom drawers. It really doesn't matter whether they're courteous or whether fire prevention is a laudable goal. Fact is, you've been awakened, there are intruders in your home, and your privacy has been violated, all for the sake of, perhaps, citing you for a weak battery in your smoke detector. It's time the government established new procedures for boarding fishing boats."
Federal law grants the Coast Guard authority to board any vessel operating in U.S. waters or any U.S. boat operating anywhere in the world to review documents, conduct safety inspections, or search for drugs, illegal aliens, fisheries violations, or whatever else they choose. The applicable statute dates to June 1878. But its antecedents date to 1790, when the Coast Guard's predecessor--the Revenue Cutter Service--was granted equally broad authority to board vessels at sea.
"Back then, the idea was to ensure that cargo ships landing at East Coast ports paid import taxes and tariffs levied by our new country," explains Lt. Fred Myer. Intercepting gun runners who might arm a counterrevolution was also a high priority. "Certainly, our mission has broadened considerably since then, to include search-and-rescue, maintenance of aids to navigation, environmental protection, and enforcement of fisheries and safety laws," Myer says. "But our authority to conduct searches remains the same."
Despite Jim Blaes's and other fishermen's respect for the Constitution, they may have trouble defending themselves with it. The courts have repeatedly upheld the Coast Guard's right to search vessels at sea, dancing gingerly around seamen's legal expectation of a "reasonable right of privacy" and general Fourth Amendment protections. Justices typically lean toward the side of government, citing the dangerous, near-overwhelming task of keeping drug runners, illegal aliens, fisheries violators, and unsafe vessels off U.S. waterways.
Stilling the Waters?
Remarkably, no fishermen or Coasties have been killed or seriously injured during boardings in recent memory (25,000 are conducted per year on all types of vessels). Coast Guard officials also report that in the past two years, only 13 fishermen have had to be subdued, handcuffed, or arrested, either for verbal or physical assaults on boarding officers ("mostly when they flex beer muscles," says one boarding officer).
Still, there is potential for disaster. "Somebody's going to get killed unless boarding policies change; it's inevitable," predicts one Florida shrimper. "It'll probably happen at night, when these guys storm onto a boat unannounced with pistols, automatic weapons and mace, startling a fisherman from a sound sleep. And believe me, plenty of fishermen sleep with guns beneath their pillows. Coast Guardsmen know it, too, and that makes them edgy and fearful as well. The whole thing is a formula for disaster and will only get better when boarding policies are changed." To reduce the chances of a disaster, the Coast Guard has established training schools for its officers, as well as industry/agency working groups in several districts. It has also developed a program by which fishermen can volunteer for dockside safety inspections, with no fear of citations, just a "fix it" list of items to purchase or repair. Once a fisherman has fully complied, he receives a decal, which he affixes to the boat's cabin window.
Despite its good intentions, the dockside program has created confusion and helped aggravate ill-will over at-sea boardings. Bob Jones of the Southeast Fisheries Association argues that "the safety decal should indicate that a fisherman has demonstrated compliance and should tell the Coast Guard 'hands off.' A lot of fishermen believe that's the case, and are alarmed and angered when they're subsequently boarded at sea for safety inspections."
But "regardless of what fishermen believe, the safety decal doesn't guarantee they won't be boarded," cautions Cmdr. Steve Austin, who works with a Coast Guard/Commercial Fishing Law Enforcement Group in New England, a forum through which the two sides exchange ideas. "[Fishing boats] may look fine at the dock, but if they're not up to par at sea, people die." Most fishermen agree that continued training programs, workshops, and friendly dockside inspections that exempt them from repeated at-sea boardings would promote safety and help ease relations with the Guard. Given the Guard's broad authority, Congress should ban inspections of vessels with dockside safety decals. Although Coast Guard Commandant Robert Kramek has mandated that such boardings be "cursory," fishermen complain that the directive is not being followed.
At least one Coast Guard officer who works in Bob Jones's region believes friendly, dockside boardings promote safety better than tense, adversarial encounters at sea. "We've seen fewer emergency cases since full implementation of the dockside safety program," notes Lt. Rich Gonzales, fishing vessel safety coordinator for the infamous 7th District. "When fishermen are tied to the pier for an inspection, they don't lose money, weather isn't a factor, and we have the time to relax, talk, and educate," says Gonzales. "As a result, we get compliance without having to intrude on their fishing operations. This is how the program is supposed to work and how it should be implemented."
Mick Kronman a former commercial fisherman, is a Santa Barbara-based writer who specializes in maritime issues.
This is evident in the statment from the article: addition to trying to ensure the safety of boats on the bay during the holiday weekend, Warren said,the operation was part of an effort to increase the public's awareness of the Coast Guard's role as a law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security.
I'd say they got their message across.
Perhaps you missed the fact that they were not 'coming in' but sleeping. This is Bull $hit; we need some profiling here, big time; not more searches of grannies and little girls with wodden legs.
All the time - but I have never seen them be anything but the utmost professionals they are.
Operating a boat has no real equivalent for most people. Every time you head out, especially in the ocean, there is a real chance you might not make it back. We boaters know there is one thing that stands between us and death and that's the USCG. Most boaters have nothing but the utmost respect for them. They risk their lives almost every day to rescue us no matter what the conditions. If you are overdue, there is only one organization that will move heaven and earth to find you and that's the USCG.
We boaters know the rules. We know we can be boarded at any time and for any reasons. Not only do we accept it, but most of us think they don't do it often enough. The only thing often keeping us safe from drunken fools operating a boat (where nearly every mishap is lethal) is the USCG.
Go to Google and search the news for boating accident stories. What you'll find is they are nearly always lethal. They very often involve drugs or alcohol and at times shear stupidity.
I'd be shocked if the USCG was a disrespectful as described in the article. If they were searching at night they may have had good reason not described in the article such as a terror tip or really rowdy drunken behavior which puts innocent peoples lives at risk.
You are really annoying. Did you screw up post #121 by forgetting to put (The Coast Guard is here to serve the citizenry, not the other way round.) in quotes or italics?
Yep.....sure can be....8^)
Its not that any law trumps the Constitution, or that the CG operates in any way outside of it. It is merely that the Coast Guard has not just federal law enforcement power, but Customs power as well.
Customs officers do not need a warrant to search or inspect someone on the border. Nor should they. Coast Guard boarding parties, however, are specifically trained NOT to abuse this power and for the overwhelming number of cases this is true.
For somebody to get a visit from a boarding party at night in a harbor is a very unusual circumstance already. They've got plenty to keep them busy and they don't go around rousting sleepy boaters just for fun. Something else was going on for them to do that.
There is no duty to obey unlawful orders, which assigns them just a bit more responsibility than your putative law-enforcement automatons. There is some debate over whether such orders should be unlawful, but I merely suggest that if the Coast Guard abuses its current ability to execute warrantless searches, it will find that power no longer available to it. In the end, the Coast Guard answers to the people, like any other public servants.
Drug smugglers are citizens too. Is it the CGs job to serve them also?
Laws are created for all the people, and are intended to apply equally to all the people, not merely the ones you happen to like. In any case, last I checked, the land-based law enforcement agencies of the country were able to enforce the laws and abide by the Fourth Amendment's requirements for warrants. Surely you're not suggesting that the CG, with its vast resources, is of such a lesser caliber that they are incapable of doing what my county sheriff does every day, right?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

subset: commoncrawl


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Left Over Brick In Antique Brick Kiln by Kathy Clark - 6.000" x 8.000"
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These are old antique bricks sitting inside a historical brick kiln in Morgan County Alabama USA. They used this kiln from the 1800s to the early 1900s. It is now on dis-repair but is supposed to be restored in the future.
My name is Kathy Clark and I live in Hartselle, Alabama with my husband Tom, and my daughters, Michelle & Jessica, and granddaughter Tasha living close by. However I spent most of my life in Alaska where I learned to appreciate the world around me. I love God's creation and find photography a great way to capture some of that beauty. Digital photography made it even easier to do so. I use a Canon 7D and a Canon Rebel XTi, and Canon lenses, 18mm to 55mm, 75mm to 300mm, and my favorite a 100mm macro lens. I enjoying photographing flowers, especially wildflowers, insects, and birds, the most. I use occasionally some textures and brushes from French Kiss Textures, and Brusheezy, Michael Sebastian textures, 2 Lil Owls Textures, Paree Erica...
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POCONO SUMMIT — Brad Pensyl had plenty of concerns coming into this season, but his Pocono Mountain West boys basketball team has eased his mind a bit.
POCONO SUMMIT — Brad Pensyl had plenty of concerns coming into this season, but his Pocono Mountain West boys basketball team has eased his mind a bit.
Eric Vick scored a career-high 25 points, and Sean Cooper and Joe Wiggins both hit big free throws in the final 11 seconds as the Panthers earned a 76-71 victory over Allen in non-conference action Tuesday.
The Panthers (2-1), the two-time defending Mountain Valley Conference champions, may be coming off their first District 11 Class AAAA championship, but this is not the same team.
Only two players — Vick and Wiggins — return with any substantial experience, but so far so good through the season's first three games. Pocono West fell in overtime to Easton in its season opener Friday, but bounced back with victories over Scranton on Saturday and the Canaries (1-1).
"I was more concerned coming into this season more so than any other season I've been here," said Pensyl, now in his 11th year at West after spending the first 13 seasons of his coaching career at Pocono Mountain. "But right now, we'll see. We've played three very good teams and very easily could be 3-0."
They might not be unbeaten, but the Panthers have won two of their first three games thanks in large part to the contributions of players with little varsity experience.
Cooper was big Tuesday, scoring 10 points to go along with a game-high 11 rebounds. His free throws with 11.3 seconds left stretched West's lead to 74-71.
"They (the free throws) were real big," Cooper said. "I just wanted to step up, hit them and make sure we got this win."
While players like Cooper, Darren Dixon, who had nine points, five rebounds, two steals and the Panthers' lone block, Jordan Hardy and Leon Baptiste might not have logged many varsity minutes until now, they got to practice all last season against their teammates who won Monroe County's first district title since Stroudsburg won in 1999. Those experiences have been vital as West tries to find its way this year.
"They practiced against us before so they practiced against the district champions," said Vick, who now has 68 points through three games after scoring 156 in 26 games last season. "They know what it's like and they know how hard it's going to be every night."
The Canaries were plenty tough.
Pocono West led 20-17 after one quarter, but Allen answered with 26 points in the second to take a 43-41 lead into halftime. Omar Harrington scored 15 of his game high 29 points in the opening half as the Panthers struggled at times defensively.
That changed in the second half when West held Allen to just 28 points, including a third quarter when the Panthers outscored the Canaries 20-13 to seize control of the game.
"We knuckled down more on our man-to-man and I thought the kids did a little bit better job containing out front," Pensyl said. "They didn't get as much penetration as they did in the first half."
Wiggins' layup with 6:52 left gave West a 65-58 lead — the biggest edge of the night for either team — before Allen battled back to tie the score at 69-69 on Jomar Perez's bucket with 3:07 to go.
Vick's 3 on West's next possession gave the Panthers the lead for good, but Allen stayed within reach. Richard Fletcher made a layup and was fouled with 39 seconds left, but missed what would have been the game-tying free throw.
From there Cooper and Wiggins knocked down a pair of free throws and gave West its second victory in four days.
"I feel a little bit better about some of the things we're doing," Pensyl said. "It's hard to teach what we do with the kind of system that we play, but I'll play however (the opponent) wants to play. If they want to play fast we'll play fast and if they want to play slow I'll play slow.
"That was a good high school basketball game. It was entertaining, the kind of game I'd buy a ticket to."
PM West 76, Allen 71
Rockmore 0 0-0 0, Harrington 12 1-3 29, Palmer 4 2-4 10, Davis 5 0-2 11, Jackson 1 0-1 3, Smith 0 0-0 0, Clay 0 0-0 0, Jennings 2 0-0 5, Perez 2 2-2 7, Fletcher 1 2-3 4, Gray 0 0-0 0. Totals — 27 7-15 71.
Dixon 4 1-3 9, Wiggins 8 2-2 20, Baptiste 1 2-2 4, Hardy 2 0-0 4, Vick 9 5-6 25, Cooper 3 4-4 10, Howard 1 0-0 2, Diaz 0 0-0 0, Miles 0 0-0 0. Totals — 28 14-17 76.
Allen 17 2613 15 — 71
PM West 20 21 20 15 — 76
3-point goals — A 8 (Harrington 4, Davis, Jackson, Jennings, Perez); PMW 4 (Wiggins 2, Vick 2). Rebounds — A 31 (Palmer 7); PMW 35 (Cooper 11). Assists — A 14 (Rockmore 4); PMW 13 (Vick 9). Steals — A 5 (Perez 4); PMW 9 (Dixon, Vick, Baptiste 2). Blocks — A 3 (Palmer 2); PMW 1 (Dixon). Turnovers — A 10; PMW 7.
Records — Allen 1-1; PM West 2-1.
JV score — Allen, 48-47.


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I teach all Kindergarten, one Second Grade Class, all of the Third Grade, and Mr. Kittleson's Fifth Grade for General Music. They meet every third day for forty minutes. In these classes, I implement the Wisconsin State Standards of Music Education: Singing, Playing, Improvising, Creating, Reading/Notating, Analyzing, and Evaluating, keeping in mind what is appropriate for each grade level. I use the Kodaly method to teach children to match pitch and sing. I spend a lot of time working with students on matching pitch and identifying basic rhythmic patterns. My main goal is to instill a life-long love of music. These students perform a Holiday Concert or a Spring Concert on alternating years. This year, the K,1,2 students will perform at the Holiday Concert on December 16, and the 3,4,5 students will perform at the Spring Concert in May .
Hour 4
7/8 Choir (A Day)
6th Choir (B Day)
General Music 7 or 8
3,5 Music
Hour 9


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No one should die because they needed first aid and didn't get it. St John Ambulance teaches people first aid so they can be the difference between life and death, and you can help us do this.
As a volunteer working with young people you will help the SJA youth mission by providing children and young people with developmental opportunities to help them achieve their full potential. This is done with an emphasis on being led by the views and aspirations of our young volunteers and with a commitment to equality of opportunity for every young person who wishes to get involved.
Specifically the role is to assist the unit manager in the organisation and running of a youth unit; to design and deliver an inclusive and accessible Youth programme, within SJA youth policies, procedures and guidelines, which meet the aspirations and needs of young people and requirements of the programme.
This role is exempt from the provisions of the Rehabilitations Offenders Act.
Caterham Cadets meets every Wednesday in Caterham at 19:00 - 20:45
For more information on this role please contact Sally Richardson at email@example.com
The deadline for application is the 16 November 2017.
If you are a current St John Ambulance Volunteer please apply here: Current Volunteer
For all other candidates, or SJA employees wishing to apply, please click here:
Youth roles
Caterham, Surrey


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As crises undermine development, opportunities for transformation often coexist, says UNDP reportOct 22, 2013
Despite progress in preventing conflicts and disasters last year, many countries still face chronic crises and often remain mired in poverty.
"In many places around the world where conflicts and disasters escalated in 2012, we saw how crises can undermine development investment and cause terrible human suffering, especially in communities that are fragile and lack resilience," says Jordan Ryan, director of the Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, in a new UNDP report.
"Even when crises do occur, major opportunities for transformation often coexist alongside all the terrible disruptions that conflicts and disasters bring."
The report, released this week, highlights UNDP's achievements in preventing and responding to conflict and disasters in 2012."
[…]From Latin America and Caribbean nations, where high levels of crime and violence often exacerbate poverty; to Syria, where a deadly conflict and ensuing humanitarian crisis continues to extract a deadly toll; and to the Philippines, where Typhoon Bopha killed more than a thousand people and displaced hundreds of thousands more. All of these crises impede development, reinforce inequality and blunt efforts to lift people out of poverty," UNDP Administrator Helen Clark says in the report.
She pointed out that there was much tragedy in the course of the year – from the Arab States region to the Horn of Africa, the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Sahel, and to the Caribbean and the Americas, where Hurricane Sandy caused much damage and destruction.
But the report highlighted successes as well. From helping to bring justice to victims of human rights abuses in Guatemala, to analysing the impact of climate change on potential disasters in Kyrgyzstan, 2012 has yielded promising results for UNDP.
"As this report shows, 2012 was an extraordinary year for UNDP to advance its commitment to bring the benefit of development to countries beset by crises," Ryan says. "Given the indisputable challenges that confront our times, crisis prevention and recovery must remain a vital and core part of the world development agenda."
In 72 countries across the world, UNDP has been working to help countries respond to and recover from disasters and conflict. UNDP focuses on long-term development goals by helping affected populations access livelihoods, justice and the rule of law, while helping stabilize governments and prevent countries from relapsing into conflict as they prepare for future catastrophes.
Some of the highlights of the report include:
- With millions of refugees pouring out of Syria, UNDP provided urgent assistance to people displaced by the conflict.
- In El Salvador, a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, UNDP has been working to improve security, address gang violence and easy access to guns as well as address organized crime. In 2012, El Salvador experienced its first day without a single murder since 2009.
- In Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Togo and Uganda, UNDP supported conflict prevention and mediation activities to ensure smooth and peaceful transitions of power.
- Worldwide, UNDP-supported programmes have confiscated, destroyed or registered thousands of illegal weapons.


text:
Larian CEO Sven Vinke wasn't happy with how the company's previous game, Divinity II: Ego Draconis, turned out.
Speaking to Strategy Informer, Vinke commented that whenever he looks at Divinity II, all he sees are the compromises that he had to make:
"When I look at Divinity II I see Butt Compromises. I know what it could have been... I think with Dragon Knight Sage we managed to rectify it a bit, it was an ok game, but it's not what I had in mind when I wrote it. You should see the original document, the ideas that I wanted to do with this."


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Replay of this webinar is now available. To receive a link and password to watch a streaming version of the webinar please email "info [at] sagecircle [dot] com". Please include your job title and company name. Agenda:
- Basics of the deal
- SageCircle Analysis of AMR's and Gartner's Motivation
- Highlights from Gartner AR Community Call
- Commentary on Points from Gartner AR Community Call
- Recommendations for Research Clients
- Enterprise
- Vendors
- Recommendations for Vendor AR Teams
Gartner's acquisition of AMR Research is very interesting for a number of reasons, but it also raises a number of critical questions. To complement our blog post (click here) on the acquisition, SageCircle is offering a free webinar to expand our analysis as well as suggestions for how clients of either firm as well as vendor AR teams should respond. Following our short presentation we will have ample time for questions.
Our webinar is at 10 am US PT on Thursday, December 3rd (click here to register). Please feel free to forward this invitation to your colleagues.
Not by coincidence, we scheduled our webinar after Gartner's AR Community Call, which is this Thursday, the 3rd, at 7:30 am US PT. You can register here, which we recommend you do.
This means during our webinar we will also discuss what Gartner said in its AR Community Call and how it might differ from our analysis.
SageCircle Advisory clients are encouraged to Continue reading
Filed under: Analyst industry, SageCircle news | Tagged: acquistion, AMR Research, analyst relations, AR, Gartner | 3 Comments »


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1. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?hbergmeyer Sep 9, 2011 4:34 AM (in response to hbergmeyer)
One additional word of motivation: It is more important to be able to lock the relative positions of clips among eachother than to lock positions to a timeline position. The letter could be generalized as relative locking to some virtual full-length master clip.
2. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?ThatJohnGuyy Sep 9, 2011 11:26 AM (in response to hbergmeyer)
AMEN.... VERY usefull tool..... I'd like to see THAT... as well as SHORTCUT BAR and CLIP STRETCHING and the HYBRID TOOL
I bought CS5 and used it for a day before deciding 3.0 was much easier to use....
3. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?BrandedChannels Sep 22, 2011 6:53 AM (in response to hbergmeyer)1 person found this helpful
I totally agree. Group Clips is a must-have feature when doing custom mixes. Continuously re-selecting multiple clips whenever you need to move them around is tedious.
4. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?thismeanswar! Oct 4, 2011 11:20 AM (in response to hbergmeyer)
I couldn't agree more. To tell you the truth, I came here for one single reason: to see if this embarrasing blunder on the devteams part had been corrected. I use 3.0 every single day and was fantastically excited about trying out 5.5. I spent several hours just cruising the new features, even laughing out loud (lol!) when I found ingenious features - both the ones I had been hoping for as well as several I didn't know I wanted until that moment. That's probably music in the developers ears, but then the whole joyride came to a sudden stop as I couldn't figure out how to group clips, a feature I use all the time. I went on trying for a long time, until I gave up and headed for the available supportmaterial and manuals. But I couldn't find out how to group clips for the bare life of me, so after I while a bad feeling came creeping over me. Did they really omit this feature? It couldn't be true. Then I started thinking there might be a bug with keyboard shortcuts, so I went in and tried to map the feature to a new key. No luck. So I started googling elsewhere, and found this board where my suspicions were confirmed. What can I say. I feel like a kid who's been playing with the worlds most awesome toy car, only to find out that the wheels don't spin. Fix it. I want to say "please", but then again I'm kind of pissed off right now. But I'm not impolite, so: pleeeeeease correct this mistake. The moment you do, I'll fork over my dollars and pay for the upgrade. Until then, the awesome toy car the developers have been working on for years simply sits in the driveway collecting dust from passing cars.
5. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?Anthony Artmann Feb 7, 2012 2:34 AM (in response to hbergmeyer)
I want grouping!
6. Re: When will Clip Groups be re-implemented?_colin_ Apr 4, 2012 11:48 PM (in response to hbergmeyer)
Check out our early Audition CS6 sneak peek...to answer the original request here, clip grouping is coming back and will include much more than Audition 3 had for grouping and related behaviors (e.g. we'll now have a way to "suspend" the group and resume the group to allow working with one clip w/o disturbing the others). The video has a quick look at it:
worth noting, you will now be able to change group color, perform many clip functions on the group (e.g. mute, trim, fades, lock, etc) as well as remove one clip from a group without doing an ungroup/regroup, add a clip (or clips) to the group and a few more actions I can't get in to yet.


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Since the late 1980s, Vanguard High School has produced its share of standout pass catchers. This season, Natrell Jamerson and Kano Dillon are looking to make their marks as Vanguard standouts.
Since the late 1980s, Vanguard High School has produced its share of standout pass catchers.
Twelve Knight receivers earned first-team all-state honors and two others earned all-America recognition, while the school has also produced three Division I tight ends starting with Florida signee Shawn Nunn in 1992.
This season, Natrell Jamerson and Kano Dillon are looking to make their marks as Vanguard targets.
Jamerson, who also starts in the secondary, has offers from Florida International, UAB, Old Dominion, Weber State, Middle Tennessee State and Jacksonville.
Meanwhile, Dillon has received an offer from FIU and has made a name for himself quickly despite being in just his third year of organized football.
Both Jamerson and Dillon will get plenty of opportunities to catch the ball in coach Alex Castaneda's offense.
Since 1987 when he came to VHS as an offensive coordinator, Castaneda-coached quarterbacks have thrown for 47,574 yards and 426 touchdowns while completing 50.6 percent of their passes.
Four quarterbacks coached by Castaneda ended their prep careers with more than 4,000 yards passing and with reigning Star-Banner offensive player of the year Adam Robles back for his senior year, passes will surely be flying around Booster Stadium this fall.
Entering his third year as a starter for the Knights, Jamerson is taking a laid-back approach to the recruiting process.
"I just want to have fun with it," Jamerson said. "I'm not looking to put too much stress on the college stuff. I just want to wait and see how the season goes. I am not going to make any decisions until I take all of my visits."
His brother Najee, a standout defender during his prep days at Vanguard and now a linebacker at Tennessee State, has helped Natrell stay focused on what he needs to do.
"We always push each other, and even though he's up there and I am down here we still talk every day and push each other," Jamerson said. "He's a big influence."
Jamerson caught 33 passes for 643 yards and seven touchdowns a year ago and carried that over to 2013 by having a standout spring and offseason.
"Right now, his focus and concentration is great and he's making some big catches," Castaneda said. "It's just a carry over from last year going into this one. It's unreal how much better he's gotten. If you put him with all of the receivers we've had here, he's up there and we've had some real good ones."
During Super Knights testing, Jamerson was clocked in the 40-yard dash in 4.24 seconds.
"I dropped it major," Jamerson said. "I've usually ran around a 4.3 or 4.4, and when I ran it the first time I got a 4.3 and I knew that if I raced somebody that I'd get a faster time and I'd push myself and that's what happened."
Jamerson (5-11, 180) also can deliver a major pop when he plays in the secondary, a spot he said he would prefer to play at the next level.
He has bench pressed 325 pounds and worked with former Knight standout Cameron Livingston — now at Weber State — to get stronger.
"He was the first to get to 300 and then Cam got it the next week," Castaneda said. "They really pushed each other to get better."
Dillon is another player who gets better seemingly every week.
He didn't play football growing up or as a freshman, but with some coaxing from his friends, he decided to give it a shot in his sophomore year.
The game grew on the 6-foot-4, 221-pound senior and gave him the confidence he needed.
"When I noticed how good I was, I thought I had a chance to play college football," Dillon said. "I just did it for fun and then I got good at it."
Dillon, who entered high school at 6-foot-1, has all of the tools to make an impact, as evidenced by a 275-pound bench press and a 4.5-second time in the 40.
"I catch well and I am an athlete," Dillon said. "I like the receiving aspect of playing tight end a lot better (than blocking)."
To help Dillon get the blocking part of the position down, Jeff Hawkins, a former VHS standout who played at South Florida, is on the team's staff as tight ends coach.
"He's working on his blocking and that will come with him gaining some more size," Castaneda said. "He's got a ton of potential.
"He's got good speed and he gets better because he's learning all of the time. He's got good hands and he's very versatile. He's an ideal H-Back to me."


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Photo via Dumpstaphunk's Facebook page
During the first weekend of Jazz Fest, five-piece funk collective Dumpstaphunk kept busy with three performances in New Orleans on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday night at 11:30 pm, the group—who are in the midst of celebrating their 10th anniversary—performed a Parliament Funkadelic cover show at the Howlin' Wolf ("Dphunk Does Pfunk") with the "New Orleans Horns" sitting in. The funk-heavy performance had an extra fun feel as most of the crowd was dressed in Funkadelic costumes, with even band member Ian Neville joining the party on stage clothed in a diaper with a cape.
The same group of horns joined Dumpstaphunk the next afternoon during their show on the Jazz Fest Fair Grounds on the Gentilly Stage. The set was recorded for AXS TV and will air next week during the channel's live coverage. The band's busy Saturday continued with a late night show starting at 11 pm at the Maison, which featured a solid mix of classic Dumpstaphunk and new songs including "Take Time" and "Dancing to the Truth" from their new album. After the show, Ian and Ivan Neville went next door and sat in with Katdelic at the Blue Nile.
The group's new album, Dirty Word, is on sale at the Fair Grounds and will also be available at the Louisiana Music Factory on May 1 during their in-store performance that will begin at 6 pm. Dirty Word will also be available on Sunday, May 5 during their show at Tipitina's. The Sunday show is billed as the band's "10th Anniversary Celebration" and will feature Trey Anastasio Band's Natalie Cressman and Jennifer Hartswick on horns with The Pimps of Joytime and DJ Quickie Mart supporting. The album goes on sale to the general public this June.
Tonight, Dumpstaphunk will be performing at Tipitina's as part of the "Instruments A Comin' Benefit," which will also feature Galactic, Anders Osborne, New Orleans Suspects, Big Sam's Funky Nation and others during the all-day event.


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BEIRUT Combat raged near a historic mosque in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Tuesday while anti-government activists reported fresh clashes near a police academy west of the city.
The fighting near the Umayyad Mosque in the walled Old City of Aleppo threatened to further damage the 12th century structure, part of which was burned during clashes last year.
Since July 2012, government forces and rebels seeking to topple President Bashar Assad have been fighting over Aleppo, the country's largest city and a major prize in the civil war. While rebels have gradually expanded the turf under their control, fighting has left much of the city, considered one of Syria's most beautiful, in ruins.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday that rebels clashed with government forces near the Umayyad Mosque amid intense gunfire and explosions.
Syria's state news agency said "terrorists" had detonated explosives near the mosque's south wall, causing "material damages" to the wall and the nearby area. Assad's regime refers to the opposition as "terrorists."
- Syrian missiles kill more than 140 in week in Aleppo, human rights group says
- Syrian rebels target key infrastructure
- Assad's Aleppo backers abandon him, some shift support cash to rebels in risky gamble
The mosque, also known as the Great Mosque of Aleppo, dates to the 12th century and sits near a medieval covered market in Aleppo's walled city, which is a UNESCO World Heritage site. The mosque was heavily damaged in October, 2012, and a fire torched the market the month before.
Also Tuesday, activists reported fresh fighting near the police academy that has become a key government military installation west of the city.
The Observatory said the two sides were shelling each other's positions while the government carried out airstrikes in the area.
Video posted online in recent days shows rebel groups firing homemade rockets and mortars at the academy and blasting it with captured tanks. The videos appeared genuine and corresponded with other Associated Press reporting.
The Observatory said the dead in the last two days of fighting in the area included 26 rebel fighters, 40 soldiers and five pro-government militiamen.
The police academy, which activists say the government has turned into a military base, has recently emerged as a new front in the battle for Aleppo. Losing the police academy would make it more difficult for the regime to shell opposition areas and support its troops inside the city.
An Aleppo activist who goes by the name Abu al-Hassan said via Skype that rebels coming from Idlib province to the west are now trying to clear the army from residential areas near the academy before they attack it.
"Yesterday and today they have been trying to go forward but there are lots of shelling and airstrikes," he said.
The fighting has largely destroyed Aleppo and caused humanitarian conditions for the city's remaining civilians to plummet.
On Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said more than 141 people had been killed in at least four missile strikes by the Syrian government in and near the city of Aleppo last week. About half of the dead were children, it said.
The New York-based group said the strikes hit residential areas and called them an "escalation of unlawful attacks against Syria's civilian population."
A Human Rights Watch researcher who visited the sites said up to 20 buildings were destroyed in each area hit by a missile. There were no signs of any military targets in the residential districts, located in rebel-held parts of Aleppo and its northern countryside, said Ole Solvang, the researcher.
Syria has never acknowledged the strikes, and portrays the conflict as a foreign conspiracy carried out by "terrorists" to weaken the country.
Also Tuesday, the Observatory said the death toll in a car bomb attack in Damascus had risen to eight. All were regime security officers, it said.
The blast late Monday struck a security checkpoint in the neighborhood of Qaboun, less than a mile from Abbasid Square, northeast of downtown. It was followed by several other smaller blasts thought to be mortar shells landing in various districts of the capital.
The explosions and subsequent gunfire caused panic among residents who hid in their apartments.
Syria's state news agency said the blast was caused by a suicide car bomber and caused an unspecified number of casualties.
The U.N. says some 70,000 have been killed since Syria's conflict began in March 2011.


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Interested in Language
Dear dr.
I want to send my qualifications to you and if it is okay, then I can come to the interview and even if I wouldnt pass, I could join English course at the UTIM or other institute in Malaysia and take IELTS.
I mean I want to make sure that the only thing I still need to be accepted is English certificate.
Best regard


text: Our pediatrician told us to start or baby on a multi vitamin after her 1 month check-up. I have started giving these but was told by a friend that breast milk should supply her with all the vitamins she needs. I am also still taking my prenatal vitamins. She really doesn't like them and spits them out like crazy. I have to blow in her face to get her to swallow them. Do I need to continue them?


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Jehovah's Witnesses
This sect grew out of the International Bible Students Association, founded in 1872 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, by Charles Taze Russell (1852–1916). After intensive study of the Bible, he concluded that the invisible return of Christ had occurred in 1874, that the Gentile period would cease in 1914, and that, following a war, the kingdom of God would be established on earth. Jehovah's Witnesses no longer set such specific dates but believe that God's kingdom, the Theocracy, will follow Armageddon, the great war described in prophetic books of the Bible. They believe that biblical prophecies are being fulfilled in world events and that Jesus was created by God and acts as his agent. Jehovah's Witnesses worship at meeting places called Kingdom Halls. Because they believe that secular governments are unknowingly entangled with Satan, they do not salute flags or join the military. Jehovah's Witnesses actively seek converts; members are expected to spread the message. Their publishing efforts include the magazines Watchtower and Awake!
See also Encyclopedia: Jehovah's Witnesses.


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New tents have been constructed in Jalozai Camp to accommodate the new arrivals from Khyber Agency. Credit: UNHCR/ T. Irwin
UN agencies offer support to massive influx of displaced people from Khyber Agency.
UN agencies and humanitarian partners are providing aid to a sudden influx of some 123,000 displaced people who have arrived at Jalozai Camp and the surrounding area in Nowshera, north-west Pakistan, since 17 March. Many of these people urgently need food, water, shelter and basic aid.
Those displaced have fled violence in Khyber Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). There has been significant population movement in the area since July 2008, and further displacements are anticipated.
The UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, has registered over 21,000 families who have arrived since mid-January, many of whom are opting to stay off-camp. The agency has asked local authorities to establish additional humanitarian centres to relieve congestion for displaced people outside the camp. Nearly 11,000 families remain in the camp.
In recent weeks, the World Food Programme and partners have distributed more than 8,500 metric tons of food to over 811,000 displaced people throughout the north-west region. The World Health Organization and health partners are providing emergency services and monitoring for disease outbreaks among those displaced. So far, more than 16,000 women and children have been immunized against measles, tetanus and other diseases.
But despite the significant response, many humanitarian needs remain unmet. Humanitarian agencies have appealed for US$424 million to help displaced communities in Nowshera and FATA, but so far only 28 per cent of the funds have been received.
To jump start emergency operations, the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF)recently allocated $26.7 million to provide life-saving aid. The funding will help people in the region who have been displaced since 2008.
"Donor contributions are greatly appreciated, especially the CERF funding which has enabled UN agencies and partners to rapidly respond to the needs of the current influx of displaced people," said the Humanitarian Coordinator in Pakistan, Timo Pakkala, who visited Jalozai Camp on 30 March.
"However, this funding is only sufficient for aid programmes until June, so we need more funding to meet the immediate needs of displaced families," he added.
More>> Pakistan Humanitarian Update (Source: Reliefweb)


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JOLIET, Ill. – Tony Schumacher raced to the Top Fuel victory in spectacular fashion Sunday as his U.S. Army dragster's 8,000-horsepower engine exploded in a huge fireball when he crossed the finish line in the final round of the O'Reilly Auto Parts Route 66 NHRA Nationals.
Matt Hagan (Funny Car), Jeg Coughlin (Pro Stock) and Michael Ray (Pro Stock Motorcycle) also were winners of the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series event.
Schumacher's fiery finish stopped the clocks in 3.930 seconds at 269.29 mph, but it was quick enough to hold off a determined Clay Millican, whose Parts Plus dragster trailed and the veteran driver remained winless in six career final round appearances. It was the third win of the season and the 72nd overall for local favorite Schumacher, a longtime Chicagoland area resident.
Schumacher powered past David Grubnic, Khalid alBalooshi and defending world champ Antron Brown to advance to the final round. In the final, Millican was actually ahead of Schumacher near mid-track, but Schumacher's machine surged forward, the engine eventually expiring just as he crossed the finish line first.
"It's always great to have a hometown win here in Chicago," said Schumacher of his fourth victory at Route 66 Raceway, located just south of Chicago. "It was a great day for Don Schumacher Racing with another double-up [Matt Hagan's Funny Car win]. This is 37 times that we've done that, and it was personally gratifying with all the family and friends I had here this weekend."
Going into the final with Millican, he was very aware of his record against drivers who are seeking their first wins.
"When you look back in Top Fuel history, whenever anybody gets their first win, it's against me," said Schumacher, who regained the series lead with the victory. "Between Shawn Langdon, J.R. Todd, and everybody else, that is what has happened. But I told myself today that this is not going to be an ongoing trait. We're going to stop it right here and now. I don't care when or if Clay wins a race, but just not today. Not here at my home track where we have a chance to extend our points lead, which is going to be very valuable when we get down to Indy [the last race of the regular season]."
In Funny Car, Hagan extended his series lead with his third win of the season as he edged final round opponent John Force at the finish line. Hagan's Magneti Marelli/Rocky Boots Dodge Charger posted a 4.605 at 315.34, while Force's Castrol GTX Ford Mustang finished just behind in 4.113 at 304.80.
"It's so hard to get these wins, so I feel great to be here," said Hagan, who had to knock of championship title contender Johnny Gray, defending world champ Jack Beckman and Bob Tasca III in earlier rounds.
"I don't think you could put together a tougher line-up," Hagan continued. "We're doing good things right now and we want to keep it up, but I want to stay humble. This is such a humbling sport. Things can change fast, so we're just gonna keep doing what we've been doing."
It was Force's third consecutive final round appearance and the 15-time world champ has surged from 10th to third place in the last three races. Hagan said his adrenaline was overflowing for that final round with the NHRA icon.
"John [Force] is tough so we knew we had to run well and that 4.06 in the final was stout," said Hagan, who leads second place Cruz Pedregon by 106 points. "[Crew chief] Dickie [Venebles] and the crew have done a great job with this car. I just had to hang on and get it to the finish line."
In Pro Stock, Coughlin raced to his second win of the season and fifth at Route 66 Raceway when he drove his JEGS.com/Mopar Dodge Avenger away from final round opponent Greg Anderson. Coughlin covered the distance in 6.603 at 209.85 while Anderson's Summit Racing Equipment Chevy Camaro lost traction near mid-track and slowed.
"When I let out the clutch, the car didn't feel the best that it had all day, and by the time I got into second and third gear I was just cracking the whip on the thing as hard as I could," said Coughlin, who moved into second place in the standings with the win. "I didn't know that Greg was struggling next to me, but to see that win light come on in my lane and to have such a huge win here feels amazing."
Coughlin outran Bristol winner Rodger Brogdon, Jason Line and teammate and Epping winner Allen Johnson to get to the final. He says getting the victory here put a big yellow and black bow on an outstanding weekend for the entire JEGS operation.
"It certainly didn't hurt taking out one of the Summit cars [Anderson] in the final," said Coughlin of his 54th career victory. "But I think that the big exclamation point is that this was the weekend of the JEGS Allstars, which is a huge, huge deal for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series and all the Sportsman racers. We put a lot of effort into this weekend, and I think that's been a little bit of the ingredient that has contributed to our success at this track."
Ray earned his second win of the season and third of his career in Pro Stock Motorcycle by defeating former teammate Matt Smith in the final round. Ray used a near-perfect reaction time and powered his Soeverign-Star Racing Buell to a 6.986 at 191.29 to hold off Smith's charging Viper Motorcycle Company Buell, which finished in 6.992 at 190.22.
"Most people know that I rode for Matt last year and we do have a little bit of a rivalry," Ray said. "When I moved to Star I think it was the best decision I've ever made. I've won two races so far and it was especially nice to beat my old crew chief. This was definitely a bit of redemption."
Ray used a string of mid-6.9 second runs to defeat Epping winner John Hall, teammate Scotty Pollacheck and Hector Arana Sr. to advance to the final round.
"After I won in Englishtown we wanted to keep the momentum going," said Ray, who moved to second in the series standings with the victory. "Then we went to Epping and I got beat on a holeshot. I told myself coming in here that I'd either be red or perfect and I was solid on the tree all weekend."
The NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series continues July 4-7 with the Summit Racing Equipment NHRA Nationals at Norwalk, Ohio.
For more exciting superstar drag racing action, check out our Nitto NMRA/NMCA Super Bowl of Drag Racing July 11-14! Click here to learn more!
Related Features
- Jeg Coughlin Jr., Robert Hight, Clay Millican, Matt Smith bring home wins at JEGS Route 66 Nationals
- A Wild Saturday of Racing at Route 66 Raceway
- Steve Torrence Breaks Both Ends Of The Top Fuel Track Record at Friday Night On Fire
- Route 66 Raceway Announces Even More Awesomeness at the JEGS Route 66 NHRA Nationals


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BRIDGEVIEW, Ill. – Finally, Bakary Soumare feels like himself again.
The swelling and soreness in his knee that were consequences of an ill-fated attempt to play through a torn meniscus in January of 2012 have gone away. His recovery time after games and difficult practices has improved after he played just one game in the year after he left his career in Europe behind.
After playing in 21 of 23 games since coming to the Fire in May, Soumare thinks his form and sharpness have taken a turn for the better.
"I recover faster after games," Soumare told MLSsoccer.com. "My power is back, the strength in my legs is back. When you haven't played in a year, it takes awhile to get the strengths in your legs back. My knee doesn't swell after games, which is much, much better."
When Chicago brought in the 27-year-old this season, plenty of unknowns came along him.
After leaving Chicago in 2009, the Malian played one full season with French club Boulogne before struggling with injuries. His 16 games in 2010-11 were the most he played over the next three years, and a game against Chicago last August with the Philadelphia Union was his only appearance of the 2012 MLS season before he had follow-up surgery to his original repair from that April.
But Fire coach Frank Klopas knew there was plenty of upside in acquiring the former MLS Best XI center back.
"He's still at his prime," Klopas said. "He's young and he's an experienced player. I just think that he needed to get games and get his form back, which is sometimes difficult when you miss playing for awhile. All that takes a lot of time. I knew the quality of player that we had, it was just a matter of time with him, getting back to his form. And I know there's a lot more for him to give."
Things weren't always perfect when he arrived in Chicago, where he's always kept a home. The defense notched just one shutout in his first 13 regular-season games with the club, and he created controversy by running after a New England trainer following a game and criticizing a team employee on Twitter.
- WATCH: Segares, Nyarko preview NYRB
But the Fire have notched two shutouts in their last three games, all wins, and Soumare showed what he can bring offensively when he unleashed a 50-yard long ball in the 32nd minute last week against Toronto that found the feet of Patrick Nyarko to create a scoring opportunity.
"It's all about continuity in the back," Soumare's center back partner Austin Berry told MLSsoccer.com. "This late in the season, we've played so many games with each other, we're used to each other's tendencies now, so it's a lot easier to play out there."
With one crucial game left before the playoffs, Sunday at the New York Red Bulls (5 pm ET; UniMas), Soumare is becoming his old self. It'll take an offseason for him to completely get his strength back, but for now, Chicago hope his improved form is enough to make a run to the playoffs.
"I feel like I'm getting close to my level," Soumare said. "Now, I'm back to normal [health-wise]. This past month, I've been feeling a lot, lot better. It's going to be a good offseason to tighten things up and really get all of my strength back. But it's good, I'm feeling good."


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My younger daughter rebelled against her upbringing in oh-so-Blue Maryland by living and voting in swing states — first New Hampshire and now Florida. On Thursday, she told me that the Romney-Obama debate had seemingly transformed the political landscape in her little corner of South Florida. The non-political types who watched the debate were buzzing about Romney's trouncing of Obama. And her fellow Romney supporters suddenly felt energized.
Sure enough, polling confirms that the debate changed minds in Florida. A post-debate Rasmussen poll gives Romney a 2 point lead in Florida. Last month, Rasmussen had Romney trailing by 2 points. And WeAskAmerica shows Romney ahead by 3 points in Florida (note, however, that in this poll the D/R/I split was 33/38/29). Last month, Romney trailed by 3 points in WeAskAmerica's Florida poll.
In fact, a look at the Real Clear Politics compilation of Florida polls shows that Obama led Romney in 9 consecutive Florida polls taken before the debate (and this doesn't include the September Rasmussen and WeAskAmerica polls). But Romney leads in the two polls taken since the debate.
The momentum in Florida could swing back to Obama, of course, especially if he's able to reverse the impression left by the first debate in his next two encounters with Romney. But right now, Romney supporters in Florida have good reason to feel energized.


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It turned out just to be a bag of someone's clothes, but left unattended on an airport sidewalk that was enough to cause traffic chaos and bring out the bomb-sniffing dogs at LAX on Saturday.
The bag triggered suspicions when it was spotted on the upper deck between Terminals 2 and 3. At 7:15 a.m., Los Angeles Airport Police brought its dogs in and set up a perimeter. Departure level traffic snarled, and a ticket counter area was cleared of employees and passengers, said Los Angeles Airport police Sgt. Belinda Nettles.
At about 8 a.m., the suspicious item was cleared by the bomb squad and traffic diversions were lifted, Nettles said.
— City News Service


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As symptoms of menopause sneak up on her, Sue Cunningham turns to her older sister for advice on what to expect next. "Now, it's night sweats at 3:15 a.m. Exactly. Every night," said the 45-year-old Pilates instructor from Chicago.
Like many women, though, she finds it harder to get advice about menopause and its symptoms from medical experts. "Different studies say different things. I'm reading about it and trying to stick to nondrug alternatives for now and trying to stay healthy," Cunningham said.
But now a new tool is available to women in their 40s and 50s from the Endocrine Society: the interactive Menopause Map (hormone.org/menopausemap). The website helps women explore menopause treatments and make lists of questions to ask their doctors. It is Cunningham's next stop, she said.
"When we get to the doctor's office, we don't know what to ask or are too embarrassed to ask about symptoms like vaginal dryness," said Dr. Cynthia Stuenkel, endocrinologist at the University of California San Diego and spokeswoman for the Endocrine Society, an international organization consisting of scientists and health care professionals. "The map can help." It is not a diagnostic tool, she said.
Officially, a woman is menopausal when she has not had a menstrual period for a year. But the interval before that, perimenopause, triggers different symptoms for different women. They range from mild to severe.
Creation of the Menopause Map followed a national study by the society that said 62 percent of women ages 45 to 60 have not talked with their primary care physicians or gynecologists about hormone therapy for menopausal symptoms and 61 percent have not asked them about nonhormone options. Half of them have not talked to their doctors about lifestyle changes that would affect their symptoms.
Caucasian women in the study were more likely to talk to their doctors about menopause than were women of color. Women with college degrees were only slightly more likely to talk to them than women with less education.
The Menopause Map asks a visitor questions about her family medical history, menopausal symptoms and treatment. It tells her options — medical and nonmedical — to consider. It suggests specific questions to ask her doctor, such as, "If I take this medicine, what's the lowest dose that will work for me?" It does not recommend brands.
The goal of the map, Stuenkel said, is not to promote drugs but to "validate that women are having menopausal symptoms and they do want to have conversations with their doctors about them."
"I haven't been to the doctor for a while and am going in June, so I will use this to decide what questions to ask," said Cathy Schwanebeck, 48, an administrative assistant from St. Charles. "It's too easy to go to the doctor and just say, 'Oh, fine,' when she asks how you're doing."
Artist and art curator Caren Helene Rudman, 47, of Highland Park, said the map is helpful, but she urges women to tell their doctors about their cancer risks before considering hormone treatment.
"Women in my family have died from breast and ovarian cancer," Rudman said. "So I couldn't do HRT (hormone replacement therapy) for my symptoms. I was able to use an antidepressant for two years for mood swings, though, then wean myself off of it. And, I ate well and exercised."
The Menopause Map was created 10 years after the well-publicized 2002 Women's HealthInitiative study, Stuenkel noted. The study linked hormone therapy with increased chances of cancer, strokes and heart attacks among some women.
"Many women are still wary of treatment because of the study," said Stuenkel. "It had a seismic effect on doctors and patients, causing many to just throw up their hands in frustration. But 10 years later, we've learned a lot. We know now that if you're in your 50s and generally healthy, some sort of hormone therapy can probably help you. Also, the menu is broader now. There are more products, options, more ways of using products such as patches and gels."


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Meet the newest member of our family! We were leaving my in-laws house last night and this little girl ran out in the road in front of our car. With no houses nearby and no owner in sight we figured she was abandoned and most likely going to get hit by a car if she stayed near the road. Josh scooped her up and we brought her home.
I'm not really sure how old she is, and she's definitely not litter box trained, so this is going to be an adventure. Despite the mess I had to clean up this morning, I'm totally in love with this little sweetie!
Update - After a more thorough test and many readers clued me in, I realized that she is in fact HE and is now renamed Kitchen! I'm guessing he's about 6 weeks old, and already proving to be a handy escape artist. Kitchen is going to keep me on my toes, that's for sure.
Off for another cuddle,


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The attacking nominations for the Fifa Fifpro World XI 2012 have been announced, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi leading the way.
The likes of Sergio Aguero, Edison Cavani, Radamel Falcao and Robin Van Persie have all been named amongst the 15 candidates for a place in this year's ultimate side.
Manchester City forward Mario Balotelli, Real Madrid's Karim Benzema, Brazil international Neymar and Manchester United's Wayne Rooney have also been nominated, along with Zlatan Ibrahimovic and ex-Chelsea forward Didier Drogba. Bayern Munich's Mario Gomez is also in with a chance despite missing part of the year with an injury, with Liverpool's Luis Suarez and Anzhi Makhachkala player Samuel Eto'o completing the list.
The 50,000 players who are part of the professional footballers' union Fifpro were each invited to vote in a secret ballot to nominate their peers for the World XI, choosing the best goalkeeper, four defenders, three midfielders and three forwards from 2012.
The final World XI selection will be announced at the Ballon d'Or award ceremony on January 7, 2013.
Shortlist in full:
Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal, Real Madrid), Lionel Messi (Argentina, Barcelona), Sergio Aguero (Argentina, Manchester City), Mario Balotelli (Italy, Manchester City), Karim Benzema (France, Real Madrid) Edison Cavani Uruguay, Napoli), Dider Drogba (Cote d'Ivoire, Shanghai Shenhua) , Samuel Eto'o (Cameroon, Anzhi Makhachkala), Radamel Falcao (Colombia, Atletico Madrid), Mario Gomez (Germany, Bayern Munich), Zlatan Ibrahimvic (Sweden, Paris Saint-Germain), Neymar (Brazil, Santos), Robin Van Persie (Netherlands, Manchester United), Wayne Rooney (England, Manchester United), Luis Suarez (Uruguay, Liverpool)