Clarence Ray Allen gets to set a milestone today in Fornicalia history. First, he’ll be celebrating his 76th birthday. Congratulations Clarence, and many more! I should be so lucky to live to 76!

Except, well, Mr. Allen is on Fornicalia’s Death Row and, at one minute after midnight tonight, he will be given a lethal injection and his once well-outfitted cell will be open for new occupancy.

Before I get into the objections regarding the taking of this outstanding citizen’s life, let me provide you with an official summary of his exemplary career and how he managed to get where he is today:

In 1974, Clarence Ray Allen planned a burglary of Fran’s Market in Fresno, California and solicited the involvement of two men who worked for him at his security guard business. Allen also arranged the help of a young woman to get the keys to the store and its burglar alarm from Bryon Schletewitz, son of the market owner.

Following the burglary and after stolen money orders were cashed, the young woman told Schletewitz it was Allen who had robbed the market. Schletewitz confronted Allen’s son, who denied it, and Allen himself also denied it. Allen said that something would have to be done to the young woman and he arranged her death. Allen was arrested. He was convicted of burglary, first-degree murder and conspiracy and sent to prison to serve a life sentence on March 16, 1978.

He was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison and knew Billie Ray Hamilton in prison. While in prison, Allen plotted to kill the people who had informed on him and gotten him prison time. Three days after Hamilton was paroled, he was picked up by Allen’s son at the bus station where he also asked for weapons to carry out the crimes.

On Sept. 4, 1980, Hamilton and his girlfriend, Connie Barbow, went to Fran’s Market and purchased some meat from Joe Rias. Rias went into the storeroom with Douglas White. Since it was after the market’s closing time, the front door was locked. Bryon Schletewitz and Josephine Rocha came into the storeroom followed by Hamilton who was holding a sawed-off shotgun. Barbow followed behind. Hamilton ordered them to lie down. They all sat down. He asked Schletewitz for the keys to the safe, ordered him out, and told Barbow to watch the others. She pulled out a handgun. They went to the safe. Schletewitz told Hamilton he would give him all the money. Rias later testified that when Schletewitz and Hamilton went to the safe area, he heard shuffling and a bang. It was later learned that Hamilton shot Schletewitz at close range with the shotgun.

Hamilton went back to the room and asked Douglas White where the safes were kept; White did not know and Hamilton shot him at close range in the chest and stomach.

Another shot was heard and it was later learned that a shotgun blast at close range killed Josephine Rocha.

Hamilton attempted to kill Rias, but Rias covered his face with his left arm. The blast hit his arm, blowing off most of the tissue and shattering his elbow. Hamilton and Barbow checked on the other three victims to make sure they were dead.

Hamilton was later arrested as a suspect in a Modesto robbery and assault with a deadly weapon. Among his possessions was an address book with the name of Clarence Ray Allen. Because of the listing of Fran’s Market and the names of some of the victims, investigators believed there was a connection with the murders and the Fran’s Market burglary for which Allen had been convicted. The investigation of this matter led to the arrest of inmate Clarence Ray Allen.

Allen was convicted of three counts of first-degree murder with special circumstances and was received onto California’s death row at San Quentin State Prison on December 2, 1982.

As of yesterday, the US 9th Circuit Court turned down Allen’s appeal. Governor Schwarzenegger likewise turned down Allen’s appeal. The only potential savior is now the US Supreme Court. The San Jose Mercury News reports:

Clarence Ray Allen, who turned 76 on Monday, claims that because of his age and numerous health problems, a lethal injection would amount to unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment.

Allen uses a wheelchair, and is legally blind and nearly deaf. His heart stopped in September, but doctors revived him to be returned to San Quentin State Prison’s death row.

He is also asking the novel question of whether longevity on death row — in Allen’s case 23 years — also amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.

A novel approach for an appeal I must admit — though ultimately without merit or a whit of common sense.

So, to Clarence Ray Allen: Happy Birthday!

And goodbye.

It snowed last night for the first time this season. I could tell it was snowing because the rain stopped and, as I lay on the couch watching a movie, it became very still and very quiet outside. I sat up and turned on the porch light. Huge flakes drifted down past the window in the light. As it is every time in a heavy snowfall, the massive flakes moving diagonally across the deck outside became almost surreal and obscured the railing a mere 15 feet away. I fell asleep on the couch with a blanket tucked over me, watching the slanting flakes dancing in the light.

In the morning, the sun appeared and everything became diamond sharp. Only about an inch of snow had fallen and, with the sun, exposed patches of snow began to melt. I watched steam waft from my trees and fence as the sun warmed their surfaces.

In keeping with my continued resolution to lose more weight, I put on a sweatshirt, hat, fleece gloves and hooked up the iPod Nano. The day was a miracle in bright colored contrasts, the snow melting on the side of the road, pines steaming in the sun. Running (more like a slow chug) back up the hill, my mind wandered.

What was the chance? Why me, why here, why now? What massive, more than massive, combination of elemental and bizarre chemical and biological circumstances placed my living, breathing sack of tissue here on this ball of rock, so that I could breath air, be carbon based, have a fiery star warming my back and positioned so perfectly that, in this season, though cold, it wasn’t sufficiently cold to freeze me in place once outside?

How was it that I could intake a gas that sustained my life, turned the skies blue, chased clouds overhead? How was it that these mountains were formed, as in the ridgeside I was now climbing? How was it that I could see such beauty in the surrounding fir trees, the patches of snow in adjacent fields, how was it that I had eyes to appreciate this at all?

I heard a sound and looked above in time to see the contrail from a jet cross through a slot in the tree canopy. What was beyond the blue? Black? The airless depths of space? Of course. The depths of infinity.

Infinity, I then thought; what was that? Could I conceive of infinity? My arms pumping and my breathing regular, listening to Three Man Army. What was infinity? I let my mind try to take me to the infinite.

It tried.

And failed.

It kept going and going and I traveled through star systems, galaxies and then wearied of the thought. Had I come across a wall? If there was such a wall in space, what was beyond that? Was it like the falling tree in the forest? Did the universe end at a wall and only go beyond when I thought of going there? No, of course not. How arrogant of me.

So then where was I placed? Was I the center of the universe? The earth? Where was I in relationship to infinity? Where was my place in the scheme of the infinite?

My mind clanked back to the reality of my labored breathing; my run was coming to its end. I crossed the tracks in front of a stalled train some 100 yards west of me. Its diesels thrummed at idle and I could feel the vibration in my lungs. Not far to go.

What about my end, I wondered? What would my end be like? Will I fear it or will my life be such that I welcome it, or will I simply be indifferent? I can’t imagine indifference. I certainly fear the end now. I still have things I want to do, places I want to see.

I watched the pines drip water from their branches onto the ground and the road before me. Water ran quickly in little rivers on either side of the road.

I came to my gate and stopped the timer. My time was a little longer than normal. My mind had wandered and evidently so had my time.

I looked once again up to the sky as clouds began to skirt about the exposed, snow-decked ridge to the north. How wonderful that I should see this. I could almost smell the clouds.

Here I was, living, breathing. Seeing wondrous sights. Pines and mountains and snow and clouds and the most vivid color blue you can imagine.

What was the chance of my being here, able to have this experience?

How miraculous.

Rebecca of Revka’s Take, aren’t you absolutely horrified and reviled that Lawrence, Kansas, should take second place in the top twenty meanest cities in the United States?

America’s harsh streets may be tougher for the homeless than they’ve ever been, according to two homeless-advocacy groups that on Wednesday released their survey of the nation’s 20 “meanest” cities for the poor.

Some of the report’s findings:
Criminalization of the homeless increasingly occurs in ways like making it illegal to sit, sleep or place personal belongings in a public space. Some police departments make more aggressive sweeps of areas known to be populated by the homeless.

Twenty-seven percent of the cities surveyed prohibit sitting or lying in certain public places, a 14 percent increase over the number of cities surveyed in the groups’ last report, in 2002.

Forty-three percent of the cities surveyed bar begging in certain public places, a 12 percent increase over 2002.

The Top 20 were:

1. Sarasota, Fla.;
2. Lawrence, Kans.;
3. Little Rock, Ark.;
4. Atlanta, Ga.;
5. Las Vegas, Nev.;
6. Dallas, Texas;
7. Houston, Texas;
8. San Juan, P.R.;
9. Santa Monica, Calif.;
10. Flagstaff, Ariz.;
11. San Francisco, Calif.;
12. Chicago, Ill.;
13. San Antonio, Texas;
14. New York City, N.Y.;
15. Austin, Texas;
16. Anchorage, Alaska;
17. Phoenix, Ariz.;
18. Los Angeles, Calif.;
19. St. Louis, Mo.;
20. Pittsburgh, Pa.

Michael Stoops, acting director of the Washington, DC-based National Homeless Coalition slapped Lawrence in the face by saying: “My challenge to Lawrence is that if it wants to continue to be known as a progressive city — which it is — it needs to quit criminalizing homelessness and arresting someone for camping, for sleeping, for sitting in the doorway,” said Michael Stoops, acting director of the Washington, D.C.-based coalition.

Lawrence, Kansas has, boys and girls, according to a 2002 study, a whole 134 persons who are bums — er, I mean, eh, homeless in that town. For Christ’s sake, I can find 134 animals within 1,000 feet of my own little cabin who are homeless. I can find 134 persons within a quarter mile radius in Sacratomato, Fornicalia who have ingrown toenails, bad flatulence, hernias and hemorrhoids, all in one package.

Big deal!

San Francisco, naturally, is bleeding all over its 11th place ranking. And here’s the best part: Mayor Gavin Newsom, who abrogated Fornicalian law and began allowing gay marriages in the city last year (only to have them all essentially annulled), created a 32-officer police homelessness outreach team that “tries to help homeless people into services rather than jail them.” Only now, the local Homeless Poverty Pimps don’t like that idea because “They (police) may be wonderfully sensitive people, but they should have social workers only doing that job. The uniform alone is intimidating.”

The uniform alone is intimidating. Gestapo? Jackboots? Iron Crosses? Let me give you a little teeny, weeny clue about San Francisco. Not too terribly long ago SFPD was driving powder-puff-blue colored cars marked with “Police Services” because it was determined by a former socialist regime that black and white cars with the Nazi-linked word POLICE was too oppressive to be viewed by the common citizen.

Let me give you another clue: when gays rioted under Mayor Diane Feinstein on May 21, 1979, about 5,000 demonstrators ransacked and rioted in the Civic Center around City Hall in response to the verdict of the Dan White murder trial. Those “White Night” riots resulted in more than 150 people injured and over $1 million in property damage. Close to 40 police cars were overturned and burned. Then-Mayor Feinstein told the police directly to let the riots go.

One final clue about San Francisco: it is a beautiful city scarred by the overwhelming presence of urine puddles and fecal material distributed flawlessly by its cultivated and nurtured genetically-deficient pool of “homeless” tweakers, crankers, psychotics, mumbling idiots and out-and-out thugs. How do I know? I not only visit San Francisco from time to time, but I do occasional business there. And in merely the last five years, for example, it has become a burgeoning haven for the bum element.

San Francisco “mean” and “oppressive” for the homeless?

Sorry. Not nearly mean enough.

HEINOUS, MONSTROUS ACCUSATIONS HURLED FROM THE DEMS AND DEM: ALITO TYPIFIED AS “PLACID” AND “MONOCHROMATIC.”

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I am sorry, but I am sad to report that, because the ultimate stops were pulled out by the DEM and Dems, the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito is all but over. Mr. Alito will likely remove himself from the confirmation process and further, I predict will step down from the bench and begin selling shoes at Kinneys. His legal career is, for all intents and purposes, now ended.

As well it should be!

My first note: the DEM (Defeatist Elitist Media) calls Mr. Alito “placid” and “monochromatic.” The nerve of him, to retain some clearly conspiratorial amount of composure in front of those who are his betters! Likely he was thinking, whilst daring to quote ridiculously Jurassic “case law” back at his questioners, of the rapidly escalating value of his Halliburton stock, all the while knowing the company was appropriately conducting the rapine and pillaging of defenseless third world nations populated only by persons with a melanin content higher than his own!

In addition, on Wednesday, in response to the softball questions thrown at him by Dems who need to step up and acquire a spine, Alito said: “In interpreting the Constitution, I think we should look to the text of the Constitution, and we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.”

Once again, A-“lie”-to declines to just answer questions directly and refers to our ancient and flawed parchment called the Constitution, refusing to believe that it truly is and should be interpreted as a Living Document, whose meaning and intent should be rapidly changing in order to expand the boundaries of sociologically progressive behavior, to better match our more sophisticated European brethren and sistren. He would have us believe that something scratched out by wrinkled, pathetic, slave-owning white men in the lull between bouts of monetary debauchery and oppression is worthy, some 200+ years later, of reverence and respect.

That is what is to be taken from these hearings!

“You can infer from the areas in which he is willing to talk and not willing to talk,” said Mr. Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University, who (rightly!) opposes Judge Alito’s confirmation. “The only inference you can draw is that he doesn’t agree with the abortion decisions.” It is a clear extrapolation, then, that our northern and southern borders will be clogged with the female traffic of poor women seeking abortions who cannot do so in their very own country of origin, once A-“lie”-to places his groomed and elitist posterior on the dyed leather bottom of a Supreme Court chair.

And finally, we must remember that the Republicans and Mr. Alito are much more clever and conspiratorial than even the Dems had conjured, stooping to heretofore shameless depths by daring to bring his wife into the hearings, conspicuously placing her at perfect camera angles and then, on obvious cue, having her leave the hearing room yesterday in a shower of crocodile tears, acquired after likely sticking a concealed pin into her leg as her arm slipped, unseen, to the side of her chair. Unwarranted histrionics carried out in theatrical fashion for the unwashed, NASCAR-watching, easily-duped electorate!

Luckily, it seemed clear that Judge Alito, in contrast to John G. Roberts Jr., will draw few if any Democratic votes in the committee when his nomination goes to the full Senate.

Democratic Senator Schumer hit the nail on the head when he said: “As your testimony in these hearings come to a close, I just have to tell you that I remain very troubled, not by anything in your personal history, so much as by your judicial views. Unfortunately, by refusing to confront our questions directly and by giving us responses that really don’t illuminate how you really think, as opposed to real answers, many of us have no choice but to conclude that you still embrace those views completely or in large part.”

Once again, the Democrats have done all the right things at the right time in order to save the very foundations of our progressive American society! There will be no need for a filibuster; everyone present could see Alito is nothing more than another Bush boot-licking, craven, sniveling jackanape.

I will occasionally frequent left wing blogs, internet publications and institutions because I, well, I can’t say I “enjoy” reading how the other half lives, but at least I consider myself more well informed.

That said, I’ve noticed a number of these blogs tend to believe the H5N1 avian flu is simply an overblown myth perpetuated by right wingers and their concomitant media sycophants in an attempt to announce a falling sky. I have yet to nail down why this appears to be a thread on the left. Literally, on the other hand, the media I value, blogs and all, appear to be taking H5N1 very seriously — as I would recommend you do.

I would recommend we all start paying very close attention.

What started out as merely rumor a year or so ago is now close to paralyzing the country of Turkey. The news on avian bird flu is becoming geometric. Let’s examine some of the more recent stories.

From Van, Turkey, January 10th:

Sumeyya Mamuk considered the chickens in her backyard to be beloved pets. The 8-year-old girl fed them, petted them and took care of them. When they started to get sick and die, she hugged them and tenderly kissed them goodbye. The next morning, her face and eyes were swollen and she had a high fever. Her father took her to a hospital, and five days later she was confirmed to have the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Following a few tense days when her family worried if she would recover, Summeya’s condition has improved due to quick treatment with the antiviral drug Tamiflu, said Dr. Huseyin Avni Sahin, chief physician at the Van 100th Year Hospital.

But at least two other children have died of the same virus in Turkey, and as of Tuesday, 15 people had tested positive for infection in preliminary tests. Many are children.
The disease also appears to be spreading.

From Ankara, Turkey, January 9th:

Turkey’s bird flu crisis deepened on Monday after the health ministry announced that five more people had been infected with the deadliest strain of the virus and the government faced intense criticism of its handling of the worsening outbreak.

Fourteen people have now contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus in Turkey, according to Recep Akdag, the health minister. Three of them – children from the same family – died last week. The children’s six-year-old brother was released from hospital in the eastern city of Van on Monday after apparently not contracting the virus.

The WHO have confirmed on Monday evening that all the 14 cases are H5N1, which scientists believe could cause a global pandemic of bird flu if it can be transmitted from person to person. WHO officials said there was no evidence that such mutation was occurring in the Turkish cases and that infections were most likely to be caused by close contact with infected poultry.

From Greece, January 10th:

Greece on alert for bird flu contamination from Turkey: Greece’s health services were on alert Tuesday to resist possible bird flu contamination from neighbouring Turkey, where two people have died from the H5N1 strain of the virus.

The Greek government stressed that both the relevant health authorities and poultry farmers were fully aware of the situation, the semi-official Athens News Agency (ANA) reported. Officials on the northeastern border with Turkey were spraying incoming vehicles with disinfectant as a precaution, “We’re not particularly worried, just cautious,” Michalis Kougioumtzis, deputy prefect of the local Evros region, told the agency. He added that prefecture officials were also monitoring local poultry units, and inspecting migratory bird samples obtained from hunters.

All samples have proved negative so far, Kougioumtzis said. In Turkey, an official in the western province of Aydin said that the virus had been identified in birds in Kusadasi, a popular resort on the western Aegean coast that faces the Greek island of Samos.”The European Union and Greece, a country that neighbours Turkey, are fully aware and fully informed of the situation prevalent in Turkey,” Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis told reporters on Tuesday.

“All necessary measures have already been taken, and any additional measures deemed necessary will also be taken,” he said.

On Monday night, Greek Health Minister Nikitas Kaklamanis told parliament that there were plans to supply embassy and consular staff in Turkey with Tamiflu, an inhibitor thought to ease flu symptoms, AFP reports.

From Turkey, January 9th:

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (Reuters) – There are no signs that the bird flu virus spreading in Turkey is being passed among humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. The WHO has confirmed four human bird flu cases in Turkey, including the deaths of two siblings last week from Dogubayazit in the eastern part of the country.

“At the moment there is no element in this village indicating human-to-human transmission. It’s typically similar to what we have seen so far (in Asia),” Guenael Roider, head of the WHO’s Turkey mission, told Reuters Television. He was part of a team investigating the bird flu in the east of Turkey.

Turkish authorities say 14 people have tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus including three siblings from Dogubayazit who have died. The WHO said other cases had not so far been verified by laboratory tests.

Two points I guarantee you’ve not read; first:

Next week, a major vaccine manufacturer plans to start producing a shot that is designed to protect people against bird flu — even though it’s far from clear that a human vaccine developed now will be effective if the virus shifts into a more virulent form.

The disease has so far killed fewer than 80 people worldwide. But if the virus mutates and starts a global pandemic, it will take four to six months to design and start producing a vaccine based on that new virus. So the U.S. government is spending more than $160 million this year to build a small stockpile of vaccine based on the version of the flu virus that’s killing birds today.

People simply don’t know how long flu vaccines last. They are tailor-made for each season, and whatever isn’t used is thrown away. That’s one reason some other nations are not planning to stockpile this bird flu vaccine. Robertson says the other big reason is that the next flu pandemic may have nothing whatsoever to do with the H5N1 bird flu. And even if it does, that virus could change so much between now and a pandemic that a vaccine against today’s virus would be useless. The virus has already started to mutate, so it doesn’t look exactly like the one that’s being used in the vaccine.

Perhaps the overarching question at this point: Is Tamiflu actually a viable combatant against the H5N1 avian flu?

If a flu pandemic strikes the U.S., the government plans to hand out millions of doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to reduce the death toll. Scientists say that’s a reasonable approach, since there’s no vaccine for bird flu, and Tamiflu appears to do some good. But the drug is no panacea, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In testimony before the House Commitee on International Relations, Fauci said, “I want to caution the committee that we cannot equate stockpiling and availability of Tamiflu with preparedness. We have no hard scientific data of how well this antiviral will perform under the conditions of a pandemic.”

Fauci told the committee that Tamiflu doesn’t cure even everyday flu.

“What this antiviral does is diminish the duration of symptoms by approximately a day and a half,” he said. That’s because Tamiflu doesn’t kill the flu virus. It just slows it down so the body’s immune system can catch up.

WHAT YOU REALLY WON’T READ:

Has there been any documented transmission of H5N1 from human to human?

This article tends to indicate a yes:

MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2005 (HealthDayNews) — In what may be the first documented case that the dangerous avian flu can be transmitted between humans, a new study concludes an 11-year-old girl in Thailand likely transmitted avian flu to her mother and aunt last summer.

These would be the first documented cases of person-to-person transmission of the H5N1 avian flu, which has wreaked havoc across Asia in the past year, according to an article in the Jan. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine . The article was released early to coincide with the University of Michigan Bioterrorism Preparedness Initiative conference.

With this new evidence, an editorial and perspective article in the same issue of the journal call for preventive measures that would avoid a worldwide pandemic of the disease.

The avian flu in Asia has been particularly bad, with more than 120 million poultry dying or destroyed between January and March 2004, stated an editorial in the journal. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 52 people in Thailand and Vietnam have been infected and 39 have died over the past year.

The girl lived with her aunt in a province of Thailand and slept and played in an area under the elevated house where the family’s chickens often wandered. The flock of free-ranging chickens had been sick, with the last ones dying on the last two days of August 2004. The girl’s aunt buried the last five chickens on August 29 or 30, using plastic bags to protect her hands.

The girl fell ill on Sept. 2 and was admitted to a local hospital on Sept. 7. She was transferred to the provincial hospital the next day, but died three hours after admission.

The girl’s mother traveled four hours from Bangkok on Sept. 7, stopping at the girl’s house only for 10 minutes before heading for the hospital. Both mother and aunt provided unprotected nursing care for the girl.

The mother developed symptoms three days after her daughter died, and it appeared unlikely that her 10-minute stop at the house would be enough to allow bird-to-human transmission. She later died. The aunt fell ill on Sept. 16, 17 days after her last exposure to the chickens. The accepted incubation period is two to 10 days.

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A final word: I have found a local supplier and purchased some large boxes of medical masks, “just in case” and whilst stocks are still available. I have also stocked extra water, energy and food at the house, “just in case.”

If you get my drift.