jackboots in Jacksonville? it can’t happen here! teacher’s assistant manhandled by Homeland Security

News4Jax, a Jacksonville, FL, television station, reports:

Leander Pickett, a teacher’s assistant at Englewood Elementary, said he was manhandled and handcuffed by two plain clothed Homeland Security officers in front of the school Tuesday for no reason at all….[A]s Pickett was directing bus traffic, he said he was handcuffed and roughed up and humiliated…

“I walked up to him and said, ‘Sir, you need to move.’ That’s when he said ‘I’m a police officer. I’m with Homeland Security … I’ll move it when I want to.’ That’s when he started grabbing me on my arm,” Pickett said….

Several people were outside of the school, watching the incident take place, and those witnesses agree with Pickett’s story.

OK, the graphic is a bit of a stretch, but I couldn’t resist. The only attribution I have for it is hackthissite.org. If you have a better one, please let me know.

video report, News4Jax.com

gay and black history books burned – well, at least scorched – in Chicago

The Chicago Tribune reports on library arson:

Chicago police are investigating a fire in a Chicago Public Library branch on the North Side that damaged about 100 books, most of them in the gay and lesbian collection….[Library spokeswoman Maggie] Killackey said fire damaged about 10 books in the branch’s African-American history collection and 90 books in the gay and lesbian collection.

The Wikipedia article on book burning includes Heinrich Heine’s 1821 observation that “Where they burn books, they will end in burning human beings”, and a photo from the infamous Nazi book burning of May 10, 1933 – which another article reminds us was fueled primarily (and I’m afraid we must say not coincidentally) by the library of Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Research on Sexuality.

World Bank accused of cooking the books, using wrong drugs in fight against malaria

A Lancet paper claims the bank faked figures, boosting the success of its malaria projects, and reneged on a pledge to invest $300-500m in Africa.It also claims the bank funded obsolete treatments – against expert advice.
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The claims against the bank, made by 13 international public health experts headed by Amir Attaran, of Canada’s University of Ottawa, centre on the financial pledges the fund made to fight malaria on the African continent and a programme in India.
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The study also claims: “The bank’s secrecy and technical errors combine dangerously when we look at malaria treatment.”Our investigations suggest that the bank wasted money and lives on ineffective medicines.”

source: BBC News