Grannies with guns. Why was this "trigger-happy" 92-year-old grandmother in possession of a dangerous hand gun? could her assault against the police have been averted by making guns illegal?

    Additionally, why don't we have no-knock warrants for cigarette smokers, too? It is not a far-fetched idea at all if we project the legal trend regarding cigarettes to its logical conclusion.

ATLANTA, Mar. 1, 2007
By GREG BLUESTEIN Associated Press Writer

     "(AP) A group of lawmakers wants to make it harder for police to use "no-knock" warrants in the wake of a shootout that left an elderly woman dead after plainclothes officers stormed her home unannounced in a search for drugs.

     The measure would allow judges to grant the warrants only if officers can prove a "significant and imminent danger to human life."

     The measure was prompted by the Nov. 21 shootout between Kathryn Johnston and three police officers during a no-knock search of her Atlanta home. When the officers entered without warning, police say that Johnston, 92, fired a handgun at them and that the officers returned fire, killing her. An autopsy concluded she was shot five or six times.

     Narcotics officers said an informant had claimed there was cocaine in the home, but none was found.

     Democratic Sen. Vincent Fort, a sponsor of the bill, said the case was a warning that it has become too easy to obtain "no-knock" warrants.

    "Every citizen ought to be safe and secure in their homes," Fort said. "A no-knock warrant should be a special warrant, not a standard. And that's what it's evolved into."

     An Associated Press review of all no-knock warrants filed in Atlanta's Fulton County last year found that the authorities involved often give scant detail when applying for the warrants.

     No-knock warrants are intended to prevent suspects from getting rid of evidence and to protect officers from violent suspects. They typically are used to search for drugs and weapons."

"Albert Einstein made the statement "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years left to live." He was speaking in regard to the symbiotic relationship of all life on the planet. All part of a huge interconnected ecosystem, each element playing a role dependant on many other elements all working in concert creating the symphony of life. Should any part of the global body suffer, so does the whole body." Richard Thomas Gerber

     What follows is the rest of Richard Thomas Gerber's letter to the ATCA:

"Many people would be surprised to know that 90% of the feral (wild) bee population in the United States has died out. Recent studies in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have shown that bee diversity is down 80 percent in the sites researched, and that "bee species are declining or have become extinct in Britain." The studies also revealed that the numbers of wildflowers that depend on pollination have dropped by 70 percent. Which came first, the decline in wildflowers or the decline in pollinators, has yet to be determined. If bees continue to die off so would the crops they support and with that would ensue major economic disruption and possibly famine.

In the US, bee keepers are experiencing unprecedented die offs of bees some losing as much as 80% of their colonies. Commercial beekeepers in 22 states have reported deaths of tens of thousands of honeybee colonies. So far the cause remains unexplained and somewhat mysterious. It is being called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) and is causing agricultural honeybees nationwide to abandon their hives and disappear and raising worries about crops that need bees for pollination. It's a kind of mass suicide in the bee world. "There have been cases where there have been these die-offs of bees before, but we have never seen it to this level," said Maryann Frazier, a Pennsylvania State University entomologist. "One operation after another is collapsing."

Bees have done quite well for millions of years, in the last 60 years that began to change. In recent years, beekeepers have been losing 25 percent of their hives each winter. Thirty years ago, the rate was 5 percent to 10 percent, said Keith Tignor, the state apiarist for Virginia.

The unusual phenomenon was first noticed by eastern beekeepers starting last fall. Researchers, including some connected with the Penn State University College of Agricultural Sciences, have identified some of the possible contributors, but have not yet found a single cause. Initial studies on bee colonies experiencing the die-offs have revealed a large number of disease organisms, with most being "stress-related" diseases but without any one agent as the culprit. Climate chaos and extreme weather seem to be a major factor.

It is hard to tell if wild honey bee populations have been affected by the CCD disorder because Varroa mites have "pretty much decimated the wild honey bee population over the past years," said Maryann Frazier of The Pennsylvania State University Department of Entomology. "This has become a highly significant, yet poorly understood problem that threatens the pollination industry and the production of commercial honey in the United States... Because the number of managed honeybee colonies is less than half of what it was 25 years ago, states such as Pennsylvania can ill afford these heavy losses."

Dennis van Engelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said "Every day, you hear of another operator, It's just causing so much death so quickly that it's startling."

Lee Miller, director of the Beaver County extension office, said the deaths appear to be stress-related, but that stress could come from several sources. Dennis van Engelsdorp of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture said that initial studies found a large number of disease organisms present, with no one disease being identified as the culprit. And while studies and surveys have found a few common management factors among beekeepers with affected hives, no common environmental agents or chemicals have been identified.

University of California Davis entomologist Eric Mussen specializes in bees. He thinks the answer lies in last summer's lack of wild flowers, nationwide. Janet Katz, a beekeeper in Chester, NJ, says the weather is having a major impact, "The weather last season was not cooperative," she said. "Over the course of the season it was too wet, too dry, too hot and too cold, all at the wrong times." Bees store honey every autumn -- a hive needs 60 pounds to survive the winter -- but with this year's warm weather, they ate a lot, and beekeepers had to supplement with sugar syrup.

Florida apiarists say citrus growers are compounding the problem by spraying pesticides to kill off a dangerous pest that menaces fruit trees, wiping out bees at the same time. While a combination of problems is putting the bee population in peril, it's the phenomenon of the animals suddenly deserting their hives, never to return, that has observers most baffled.

"There have been cases where there have been these die-offs of bees before, but we have never seen it to this level," said Maryann Frazier, a Pennsylvania State University entomologist. "One operation after another is collapsing."

At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than USD 15 billion worth of US crops, including Pennsylvania's apple harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth USD 45 million, and New Jersey's cranberries and blueberries.

While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, bees help pollinate more than 90 commercially grown field crops, citrus and other fruit crops, vegetables and nut crops. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically and some tangerines and pecans would cease to exist. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees."

All of the following are dependant on bees, apples, pears, tangerines, peaches, soybeans, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers, cherries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, carrots, broccoli and avocados. And do we realise bees pollinate almonds? California has the biggest almond groves in the world, supplying 80 percent of the nuts on the market; they currently have to import millions of bees to pollinate the groves.

There are several unusual things about the phenomena and one common factor that cannot be attributed to be the direct cause but may be an "aggravating other conditions" factor and that is temperature fluctuations.

- No single cause drought chemicals/pesticides, mites, bacteria, a fungus or virus seems to be common to all the events or even indicated as a cause in any single event. Extreme weather and temperature fluctuations seem to play a major role stressing the bees and weakening their immune systems.

- There are no bee bodies; they simply all disappear, all adult bees are simply gone, sometimes leaving a queen and a few young hatched workers. This is unheard of, since normally a bee colony will do almost anything to protect its queen.

- The hive is left intact, with capped cells of honey and bee bread.

- Another unusual factor is that bees sensing a dying colony nearby aren't going in right away and killing the other bees and robbing the hive of honey, like they usually do for example when the bees have died of parasites or disease.

- Researchers have also noted few signs of damage from wax moths and small hive beetles taking advantage of dead colonies.

According to David Tarpy, a bee specialist at NC State, "Bees die all the time, although this year seems to be worse than normal." The difference now is that none of the "usual suspects" are to blame, Tarpy said. "That's what makes it problematic." Also, unlike when bees are killed by some other causes (disease, mites), there are no dead bees littering the bottom of a hive. The bees are simply gone, he said, or perhaps a queen and a few younger bees remain, but the adults have disappeared.

Reports of the situation began to come in over the fall and winter, but scientists don't yet have an answer. It might be a disease, a pest or an environmental factor or even a combination of effects making bees vulnerable to an existing problem. Now, the bees have sealed themselves inside the hives to stay warm, and the keepers can't open the structures until spring. Neither entomologists nor growers can say what will happen when the 2007 growing season for most of the country's crops starts. As a result, some people are really worried.

Diana Cox-Foster, a professor of entomology at Penn State University, has been working on the problem for months now. She says the die-off is unprecedented, and she's made some dramatic discoveries. For example, the normally resilient bees she dissected showed traces of not one or two diseases, but nearly every disease known to affect them over the past century. They had all the diseases at once, a sign their immune systems have been compromised. "The bees are immuno-compromised, being stressed somehow," she said. Some could be related to the severe weather swings we've seen over the past few years. But many questions remain unanswered.

She and the other scientists working on the CSI-style case don't think this is just a cyclical thing. It's uncommon, unusual, and frightening to everyone associated with the often-overlooked industry. No one is sure just how bad it will be when the hives are opened in late march.

Where does milk come from? "The bees pollinate the alfalfa, which feeds the cows, which give the milk. Honeybees are one of the main links in our world. They really need to be nurtured." Jerry Hayes of the Florida Department of Agriculture worries the bee is the canary in the mine shaft, "telling us something is happening that will have ramifications for us down the road. "I think the bees are so stressed, they are saying, 'I give up,'" said Hayes, Since the mid-1980s, parasitic mites have been devastating the honey bee population across the country, including the South-eastern US. In North Carolina, the number of kept beehives in the state has dropped by 44 percent, and about 95 percent of wild bees have been wiped out, according to North Carolina State entomologist David Tarpy.

A series of hurricanes in 2004, including Katrina in 2005, destroyed thousands of honey bee colonies, decimating the vital Gulf Coast bee industry. Many of the pollinators for other parts of the country traditionally came from these beekeepers. The economic impact of these storms, especially Katrina is yet to be determined.

"Replacing the Gulf Coast bee colonies, although highly important, is not enough. It is obvious that the huge losses suffered during the past 16 years must be dealt with to provide security for our future honey bee-dependent food supplies. It will take a well-defined series of coordinated efforts by all components of the beekeeping industry and the involvement of local, state and federal governmental entities to solve this potentially disastrous situation," says John Roberts, a beekeeper and President of Nature Technics Corporation.

There has been a sixty-year decline in pollinators. The honeybees and native bees may live in far more harmony than cats and dogs, but the modern world has not been in harmony with them. The last 60 years have been rough on all pollinators. In the 1940s there were over five million managed colonies of honeybees in the United States. Today there are just over two million, and their numbers are declining, both in North America and worldwide.

The entire world now faces a decline of native pollinators. Over 100 species of birds and more than 80 mammals that pollinate are considered threatened or extinct by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN), a network that includes scientists, experts, government agencies and non-governmental organizations from around the world. Each country has its own tale to tell. In southern India, nearly all of the native bees died in the 1990s when they became infected with an imported virus. In Iraq, smoke from the burning oil wells during the Gulf War decimated most of the country's bee colonies.

In summary plants and animals remote in the scale of nature are bound together by a web of complex relations resulting from dependencies we have yet to fully understand. Every creature seems to play a role even, parasites serve a purpose. We are just beginning to understand the beneficial symbiotic relationship between the human body and certain bacteria. We are dependant on many other species and any failure of one part of the ecosystem can create a domino effect causing disruption throughout the entire chain of life. All plants and animals are vulnerable to climate chaos which seem to be having a major impact. Whether or not we are responsible for climate chaos is not as important an issue as to how humanity will adapt. It could also be that our methods centred on mass production and factory farming are in conflict with nature, as we can see in the case of avian flu, we may be creating a world of pestilence having forgotten that we are part of nature and there is a natural order, balance and harmony that needs to be maintained in the dance of life. Like any species in nature that gets out of hand, nature has a way to keep it in check, and humankind may be the next species in line for severe adjustment or even step-by-step eradication.

All the best


Richard Thomas Gerber"

     I don't know if anyone else has been following the fate of the birds and the bees lately but there is something woefully wrong.

     Tens of thousands of birds have literally fallen dead out of the skies in Australia and Texas in recent months and bees are vanishing by the tens of millions, too.

     Here are some troubling parts of an article posted by CBS News.

     "(CBS) In spite of all the advances in agriculture, honeybees remain indispensable. By moving pollen from flower to flower, bees are the only efficient way for many crops to pollinate, CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports... 

     'Colonies are going down. The bees aren't dead in the box or aren't out front,' says Jerry Bromenshenk, a bee researcher at the University of Montana. 'They've just disappeared. Just vanished.'

     Bromenshenk is leading a team of bee researchers looking for a cause. He's even listening to hives for signs of distress. Beekeepers in 22 states have reported bees dying in huge numbers.

     Jeff Pettis of the U.S. Department of Agriculture says parasites and disease have killed bees in the past, but never anything like this."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stor...

     Could this be disease, pollution, or even terrorism?

     At the lowest level of gang life are the young people who find gang life to provide their family and social need for approval and purpose.  These are the ones we read about and fill our prisons. These front line troops are also the ones who are culled by the leadership to fill the higher ranks when need arises. This group is highly motivated but it is the most intelligently violent or shrewd who progress to the higher ranks.

     As part of a psychological internship, a friend of mine was sent into the Los Angeles Jail system to interview gang members who were arrested for murder and such. His conclusion was they had no conscience but my response to his belief was that he was dead wrong, they are warriors who believe themselves to be in war. They are patriots to their cause meaning my friend was the enemy in every sense of that word.

     Secondly, the gangs that proliferate throughout our nation are highly intelligent corporate style operations run by people with thorough knowledge of principles of capitalization, market share, and know-how to keep and maintain discipline in the ranks.

     The corporate aspect is not a mere corollary, it is based in raw and brute capitalism  operating with legal counsel, political assistance, and banking resources (The bank I used to work for, Chase Manhattan, was a well known launderer, and no doubt still is). In this sense, the "gang leader" is no different than a president of a Fortune 100 company with a full range of employee concerns and public relations necessities.

     The third aspect is command and control. There are generals, captains, sergeants, and privates (we only hear about the privates for the most part). This organizational enforcement branch is charged with management of physical distribution and all related physical systems for handling cash flow although the systems themselves are designed by economists.

     The men who head up these far flung drug empires influence and control governments and entire countries and they are not small minded. The worst thing for them would be to have to go "legitimate" because legalized drugs would mean rationalized markets and such markets are dull. It is the glory of life and death struggle that truly merits their interest.

     One way to understand such a mindset is to read Al Capone's interview with Alexander Cockburn. I came away from the article with admiration for Capone's bold, brash intelligence articulated in a spellbinding philosophy of capitalism  indistinguishable from the texts and justifications of modern day captains of industry.

     It is one of my beliefs that until we start using accurate language to describe what is really going on, then all is for naught because we are as blind men; each feeling a small part of an elephant: a ruthlessly styled international corporate military complex.

     Whew! Thank goodness Valentine's Day is behind us but that reminds me how this special day used to mean buying flowers for your favorite girl to show her how much she was adored. Alas, though, Valentine's Day is getting weed whacked by environmentalists determined to end flowercide and Global Warming.

     According to environmentalists, buying Valentine's flowers is committing flowercide because most of the "death merchants" (retailers) cut the stems and put them in vases for their customers. Later, in a couple days, the flowers die an ignoble death. Further, the greenhouses where flowers are enslaved are compared to Nazi concentration camps.

     Environmentalists also warn that transporting flowers via trucks, airplanes, and cars is damaging the environment through carbon emissions, a cause of Global Warming.

     Fortunately, environmentalists are also educating people to grow their own flowers in earth friendly pots instead of buying them. This way, the proponents say, the flowers are nurtured with dignity.

     While thinking about an earth friendly Valentine's Day, a recent survey gave me pause about all this romance stuff. It seems many Englanders are mighty ignorant about the mechanics of preventative procreation.

     One out of three Englanders believe a woman can prevent pregnancy by jumping up and down while taking a pee pee. The survey suggests there is "widespread confusion and misunderstanding" about preventative procreation and educators are calling  for schools to take over educating children about sex.

     I would like to add that maybe a license to engage in procreational recreations could help, too. We have driver's licenses don't we? Why shouldn't sex be licensed? It used to be!

     Consider it, some 30 million mixed up Englanders will engage in Valentine's Day related entertainments and at least a third of them likely believe something like jumping up and down will keep Olivia Ovum from meeting Sparky Sperm.

     Well, I guess it is time to give some sage day-after type advice to our Valentiners and for this purpose I have consulted my good friend Saki who says, "In baiting a mouse-trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse." 

     Ah, so that's what those flowers are really all about!

     The officially sanctioned version of events transpiring on 9/11 is that Osama Bin Laden orchestrated a terrorist attack using airliners as missiles resulting in horrific loss of life. Some five years later, conspiracy theorists are questioning the official version with hard questions that many believe are not easily answered.

     While some Americans will dismiss 9/11 conspiracy theorists as cranks and malcontents, there is growing and disturbing worldwide suspicion that 9/11 was fabricated at the highest levels of our government.

     Remember President Kennedy's Northwoods Project? He was going to create terrorist incidents in the United States and then blame them on Fidel Castro to provide pretext for invasion and removal of the Cuban government.

     Although Northwoods was scrapped, the Gulf of Tonkin deception was brought to fruition with an American president knowingly citing it as justification to expand the war in Vietnam resulting in the loss of over 50,000 American lives.

      In what is now correctly billed as the first Internet blockbuster, a 90-minute movie  entitled Loose Change has reaped a harvest of over 100 million Internet viewers and over 50-million television viewers; additionally, over 100,000 DVD's have been sold and over 50,000 given away. Also, 12 countries showcased the documentary on the 5th anniversary of 9/11.

     A discredited White House is loudly denouncing the disturbing questions and allegations raised in the film, along with other scholarly books, while at the same time ducking the painful fact that a majority of Americans no longer believe them. This is no joke, especially in light of a recent New York Times poll showing that over 75% of  Americans now believe our government lied about 9/11.

     Even in England's House of Commons we hear, "Never in modern history has an event of such cataclysmic significance been shrouded in such mystery. Some of the key facts remain unexplained on any plausible basis."    

     We are now close to 100,000 dead and wounded Americans resulting from the events of 9/11 and yet we are no nearer the truth because secrecy and/or fraud  continues to triumph over truth.

     Meanwhile, CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, and NBC have discovered Anna Nicole Smith's cleavage to be more important news than...

     Well, you can fill in the what.

     Sitting at the counter in the National Cigar Store is always an adventure worthy of a Rudyard Kipling. While drinking coffee and chewing grounds just like any other red blooded American, my seat at the carnival becomes a window into the amazing lives of the multitudes.

       Today, my friend Augie has been explaining a variety of belief systems leading up to the ancient Romans. He says, the inherited gods vied for the affection and worship of the mobs because the rule of Rome- is the rule of mobs.

     In addition to Augie's wondrous stories and insights, we were in for a treat today  because a "Soap Opera's Anonymous" meeting was commencing. Most of the members of this group are women but some males also attend.

     Meetings open with a recital of Daily Recaps, Breaking News, and Headline News. This is all very business like though sometimes interrupted by an outburst of suppressed emotion.

     What follows is some of what Augie and I learned today:

     On All My Children, some hottie named Babe lip-smacked a hooligan named Josh and it was, like, forever- as in never again, dude.

     Then came As The World Turns, and in a "you go, girl" moment, Dusty says to Emily who is lusting over loot from a steamy session with Steve, "You conquer, girl!"

     The Bold and the Beautiful was a dud but Days of Our Lives livened things up because someone told Steve that EJ was released by the coppers due to insufficient evidence. One of the males at the meeting fainted away at this recap but his boyfriend slapped him once or twice and he was fine for the rest of the hour.

     But, it was One Life to Live that touched me the most because Vangie said to Cris that she would trade in her job any old day since he was a hot piece of ass. I found her way of saying this more than commodious to proper manners and although bordering on prim and proper, I found it titillating of her to say it so coyly.

     The Breaking News didn't roll 'em out of their chairs in fits of laughter but I was interested to find out NBC was pulling the plug on Passions and I can also report that only two women got the vapors. Fortunately, they held and supported each other while sharing feelings of loss, betrayal, and grief for a soon to be dead soap.

     There was hardly a dry eye in the house.

     As far as the Headline News went, it was a bust. I only learned that General Hospital's Carly operated on Robin and how that was extremely ironic. 

     Before Augie left, he reminded me of what Abraham Heschel said, "When I was young, I used to admire intelligent people; as I grow older, I admire kind people."

      I am not sure what Augie meant by that but as for the Soaps: the god's of Rome, they live.

     As most Americans, I like to take walks. Walks along babbling brooks or streets bustling with activity. One recent morning, I was on my way to the National Cigar Store to enjoy some industrial strength coffee and a cigarette, check the newspaper, and peruse a new book.

     While walking along the sidewalk toward my cafe, three police vehicles came roaring up from different directions to surround a lone parked car.

     When they got close to it they slammed on the brakes squealing their tires and then throwing open their doors they crouched behind them brandishing what appeared to be weapons

     In unison, the officers were screaming at the car, "Stay still and don't make a move!"

     Being a calm and serene person, I immediately cartwheeled into the bushes alongside the parked car, certain there was a horrible and violent felon, a murderer, or a terrorist inside fleeing from or planning some unthinkable crime. 

     I needed protection fast from an imminent shoot-out.

     While keeping an eye on the swat team taking down a major criminal, it slowly began to dawn something was askew here. Those weren't pistols! What the hell do they have in their hands? Why, those are, those are... black leather ticket books!

     Say what?

     They were local meter maids doing swat team maneuvers upon this lone parked car.

     By now, they were high-fiving one another and having an otherwise gay old time. One meter maid wrote out a ticket and placed it under the windshield wiper of the offending car and then they were off to their metering routes.

     Meanwhile, I discovered that besides missing a shoot-out, I was now entangled in a nasty old bush and getting disentangled proved a chore.

     Afterward, I asked myself some questions about what I had witnessed. Were they bored? Were they fantasizing themselves a real swat team? Or, in some most curious way, were they predicting the future?

     My guess? All three questions have yes for an answer, especially the latter. 

     Thinking me especially supine that day he said, "Easier to be mad among madmen than to be lonesome and sane." Now that's a thought upon which to hang a tale of blameworthy indifference.

     The National Cigar Store has seating accommodations serving some mighty peculiar groups. One group calls itself  "An Alien Abduction Support Group," and as with most  support groups they use traditional openings, parliamentary procedures, and closing incantations. 

     On this particular morning, they were having animated discussion about an alien abduction that took place on a local lake. Apparently, a flying saucer hovered above the lake and then beamed up a fisherman and his boat along with a haul of fish.

     The fisherman's wife called the police to report him missing and the initial search turned up only his truck and boat trailer but later on the police found the fisherman disoriented and hungry with curious red smudges on his cheeks.

     They also recovered his boat, fishing pole, and tackle box.

     The abductee told police that space aliens beamed him and everything else aboard their spaceship but didn't think much of him or his boat. They did seem very interested in his two fish.

     The aliens returned him and kept the fish.

     Although he was highly insulted at this, he accepted the ascension of the fish. One woman said grieving and accepting the loss of the fish is better than living in denial.  Everyone seemed to agree her advice was important and useful.

     The chairwoman, having listened patiently to the basic facts of the abduction case, then turned the issue over to general discussion. 

     Things got a little hot because some no-accounts were skeptical suggesting the fisherman was a known character and was most likely tangled up in a bramble with the boat atop his head.

     Still others said they knew the wife and had it on good authority he was most assuredly and most truly abducted and would shortly join their group to share the awful details.

     Needless to say, Diderot and I are highly entertained by this support group and eagerly anticipate listening to this poor soul of a fisherman tell his story.

     They always close meetings with the Serenity Prayer and it goes like this: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.