Witness Intimidation and Witness Termination

Witness Intimidation and Witness Termination
By Pete Bennett 

Walnut Creek CA -- A clear reality of my situation is how cases are handled around Contra Costa County. My 2004 arson was witnessed by Danville Police Officer and the Mechanic at Gregg's Muffler in Lafayette CA.

It's been ten years since the 680 arson yet in 2014 while walking between Walnut Creek Police Department and my campsite I'm dodging SL 550 Mercedes while several Walnut Creek Police Officers are positioned to watch me get creamed where Mt. Diablo Blvd meets Broadway.  The timing is relevant as on June 26th 2014 numerous claims were filed against with the City Of Walnut Creek but within a week a car tried to run me over again.
Nearly all Contra Costa County Cities use the same risk management services provided by the Municipal Pooling Authority (MPA) under CSAC using the Joint Powers Authority (JPA).  I've filed many claims on my own because the Contra Costa Bar Association controls the intake referrals and I was summarily told I can't get a referral through them.
Many thanks while the Walnut Creek City Attorney lofts around town persons unknown have been trying to kill me and they tried to killing my sons in 2005. 

Please take your time. 

Witness Intimidation
It's happened to me in Pittsburg, Walnut Creek and Danville where I've attempted to litigate.  I sued Danville Building Inspector Gary Vinson Collins in 2006 but my Attorney Sage Sehapi has the shit kicked out of him a during a Walnut Creek Basketball game on Oak Road. 

To Protect and Serve - Please read Color of Law Abuses as per FBI.GOV
The WCPD true to form refused to arrest the suspect sending Mr. Sehapi in circles who being an attorney wanted to sue.   The officers probably obstructed justice by hiding this case from the District Attorney just like Danville Police did with the Bennett/Collins assault but now ten years later we've got murders, arson coupled with the fact that the PG&E Indictment now contains obstruction of justice charges. 


Witness Termination

After the Lafayette Police refused to investigate this blogger's July 20th 2011 Hit & Run/Attempted Murder I turned to State Senator Mark Desaulnier who called the Legislative Security Services Threat Assessment Unit (TAU) who interviewed me in Aug 2011 but sadly since then many have died with no end in site. 
I told this unit that I suspect Councilman MIke Shimansky Spinal Meningitis death was not natural.  This information was passed on in Sept 2011 but since then Councilman Bell and Tax Collector Pollacek each succumbed to meningitis but consider the argument of violations of the Geneva Convention. 

On Nov 9th 2004 a Kinder Morgan Gas Pipeline Explodes but few noticed that several persons near this pipeline disaster died. 


The Who Gives A Shit County  

For several decades I've been a lock step battle with the rich and powerful.  I didn't realize how much was being put into trying to take me out until the car zoomed by me on September 28th 2013 but the response from the Walnut Creek Police was pathetic.
I've made numerous attempts to get an investigation started over at least five Hit and Run Incidents since 2004 and the Unionized Agencies have a clear and powerful agenda.
The persons who witnessed my near miss were also recorded by Safeway Cameras where they used their personalized Safeway Stalking Card managed in the Philippines where your personal data is splayed out around the globe.

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#Symantec The Secret Story of the NIMDA Virus

Hello, NIMDA!

Nimba Virus 

Severely Impacting National Infrastructure where critical systems supporting the markets worldwide.  Often referred to as the 9/11 Virus that arrived late.  In 2001, this former SBC programmer attached the internal network who on the morning of September 18th, 2001 returned to SBC San Ramon CA.

A near simultaneous network failure occurred.  It took reading up on 9/11 by this former US Programmer that fateful virus payload was delivered by his laptop.  It took over a decade for a critical link between Accenture, SBC, Symantec where the #deadbankers story collided with Bennett's failed project that events that matched events at PG&E with their San Bruno Explosion. 
 

W32.Nimda.A@mm | Symantec


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A Grisoft: I-Worm/Nimda Kaspersky: Net-Worm.Win32.Nimda or I-Worm.Nimda McAfee: Exploit-MIME.gen.ex. Sophos: W32/Nimda-A Symantec: W32.Nimda.A@ ...
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Anthrax: Molecular epidemiologic investigation of an anthrax outbreak among heroin users, Europe.

Price EP¹, Seymour ML, Sarovich DS, Latham J, Wolken SR, Mason J, Vincent G, Drees KP, Beckstrom-Sternberg SM, Phillippy AM, Koren S, Okinaka RT, Chung WK, Schupp JM, Wagner DM, Vipond R, Foster JT, Bergman NH, Burans J, Pearson T, Brooks T, Keim P.

Author information

Abstract

In December 2009, two unusual cases of anthrax were diagnosed in heroin users in Scotland. A subsequent anthrax outbreak in heroin users emerged throughout Scotland and expanded into England and Germany, sparking concern of nefarious introduction of anthrax spores into the heroin supply. To better understand the outbreak origin, we used established genetic signatures that provided insights about strain origin. Next, we sequenced the whole genome of a representative Bacillus anthracis strain from a heroin user (Ba4599), developed Ba4599-specific single-nucleotide polymorphism assays, and genotyped all available material from other heroin users with anthrax. Of 34 case-patients with B. anthracis-positive PCR results, all shared the Ba4599 single-nucleotide polymorphism genotype. Phylogeographic analysis demonstrated that Ba4599 was closely related to strains from Turkey and not to previously identified isolates from Scotland or Afghanistan, the presumed origin of the heroin. Our results suggest accidental contamination along the drug trafficking route through a cutting agent or animal hides used to smuggle heroin into Europe.

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Friends of the Beazely Group, The Department of Insurance and the Profits of Utah

They're all dead Fred

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Neutron Bomb - sort of

Hello, Spock!

Lock Lasers, Break Phaser's and run

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Landowners form a pipeline rebellion in the Deep South

   Landowners form a pipeline rebellion in the Deep South

When the letter arrived from a Texas pipeline company asking permission to enter his land, Alan Zipperer refused to allow surveyors onto his property.

But they came anyway, he said, traipsing through his corn fields and pine forests and sticking wooden stakes in the low-country land his family has owned since the 1700s.

"I don't want a private company to build a gasoline pipeline in my front yard — or anywhere on my property," he said. "They told me the same thing they told others: 'We're a big company, we're coming, and the state of Georgia can't stop us.'"

Zipperer, 60, is one of many Southern landowners challenging the nation's largest energy infrastructure company, Kinder Morgan, as it plans to run a petroleum pipeline through 360 miles of bottom land, river forests and freshwater coastal wetlands across South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

Keystone pipeline firm files for eminent domain against Nebraska landowners

 

The pipeline's opponents argue it represents an unconstitutional use of eminent domain and an environmental threat.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, entered the fray May 7, announcing that the state would fight the $1-billion project in court. The Georgia Department of Transportation rejected the pipeline plan May 19, declaring it would not serve a public need.

The dispute is one of a growing number of skirmishes over pipelines nationwide. With the U.S. producing more oil and gas than it has in decades, private companies are clamoring to build new transportation infrastructure, said Alexandra Klass, a professor who specializes in energy law at the University of Minnesota.
One of two pipelines being proposed in Georgia, the Palmetto pipeline is particularly contentious because it would cross land owned by the state's House majority leader, Jon Burns, and a local media tycoon, William S. Morris III, who owns newspapers in Augusta, Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla.

 

"What's different about this project — unprecedented — is that a landowner controls three major newspapers along the pipeline route," said Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for Kinder Morgan. It was also highly unusual, he added, for a leading oil company, Colonial Oil, to work with local river keepers to oppose a pipeline.

"Certainly, we have seen strange bedfellows line up in opposition," Fore said.
The Palmetto pipeline would carry up to 167,000 barrels of refined petroleum a day from Belton, S.C., to Jacksonville. It would cross the Savannah River and work its way down the Georgia coast, crossing four more major rivers.

Many here question the wisdom of running a pipeline through wetlands and parallel to a river — particularly one that supplies drinking water to more than 1.5 million people. In December, one of Kinder Morgan's pipelines spilled 370,000 gallons of gasoline in Belton.

What's different about this project -- unprecedented -- is that a landowner controls three major newspapers along the pipeline route. - Allen Fore, vice president of public affairs for Kinder Morgan

As Debo Boddiford, whose family owns 2,000 acres of timberland along the Savannah River, put it: "Oil and water don't mix."

Yet much of the opposition to the project has focused on property rights. The pipeline would cut a 50-foot swath through the property of more than 1,000 landowners across 20 Georgia, South Carolina and Florida counties.

Families in this stretch of the rural South have long passed on land from generation to generation. Traditionally, they planted cotton, peanuts and corn, but in recent decades most have switched to timber, which is less labor-intensive.

Aside from economic value, the forests and creeks have a sentimental hold as places where families have, for generations, dipped into swimming holes, hunted deer and squirrels and fished for catfish and bream.

"I'm trying to protect something that was passed on to me," said Jimmy Helmly, 59, a retired teacher, as he steered his ATV through a forest of longleaf yellow pines and black gum trees toward Ebenezer Creek. "People from away from here, with no ties, just want to make a dollar. I understand. I believe in American capitalism. But why should I sacrifice so you can make billions?"

If the pipeline is built, landowners would no longer be able to grow timber along its 50-foot-wide path. Though the pipeline corridor represents just a fraction of land for wealthy landowners here, they insist a private company should not seize any amount of their property.

"Eminent domain should never be used by a private company that is going to make a high profit," Boddiford said. "A road, a bridge, perhaps a school in a growing neighborhood.… It should be something that is good for the majority of residents."

At the heart of the dispute is whether the pipeline serves a public need.

Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy takes on the U.S. government again

A relatively new Georgia statute requires companies to demonstrate that "public necessity" for a pipeline "justifies the use of the power of eminent domain." When the state Department of Transportation denied Kinder Morgan's application, it rejected the public need argument. The company has 30 days to appeal the decision in court.

The pipeline's supporters say it will meet future demand for fuel. Kinder Morgan says the pipeline will create 28 permanent full-time jobs, increase competition and lower prices at the pump.
Opponents scoff at the idea that consumers will reap benefits. Colonial, the local oil company, has said the pipeline could displace more than 200 truckers, port workers and U.S. merchant marine workers in Georgia.

Still, not everyone in the low country resists the pipeline.

"I won't have any heartbreak over it, one way or the other, as long as I can get in and out of my property," said Steve McDaniel, 62, a retired structural mechanic who lives in a new subdivision in Rincon near the proposed pipeline.

McDaniel isn't particularly worried about gas prices — just up the road, a gas station was charging $2.42 a gallon — yet he said he couldn't understand the fuss. "We have pipelines all over the county. What's the big deal?"

Yet landowners up and down the Savannah River say Kinder Morgan's brazenness has made them unwilling to negotiate. This month, the Savannah Morning News published mug shots of three company surveyors who were arrested on suspicion of trespassing on Morris' 24,000-acre plantation without permission.

"Hell, they ran over my pine saplings with their damn ATV," said Eddie Reddick, who gave the company permission to survey his 845-acre tract of timberland near the Morris estate.

The company, which says its policy is to not enter private property if survey permission is denied, is conducting a review of trespassing complaints. For many locals, the surveyors' behavior — mixed with a perceived lack of transparency about the pipeline route — has increased suspicion.

"The winners in this situation are all going to be out of state," Boddiford said. "They want to come in and take Georgia land, yet the profit is going back to Texas."
nation@latimes.com

 

 

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The Arson Adjustment Committee - Move over Piedmont, Lowe's sells matches

Lowe's Center

2001 Arnold Industrial Way, Concord, CA 94520

$566,280 - $9,626,760

0.52 - 13 AC | Land

| Get Financing

Land For Sale

Price:

$566,280 - $9,626,760

Lot Size:

0.52 - 13 AC

Property Type:

Land

Property Sub-type:

Commercial/Other (land)

Listing ID

16982909

Last Updated

3 days ago

Find Out More...

3 Lots Available

Lot 1

• Price:
  $566,280
• Lot Size:
  0.52 AC
• Price/AC:
  $1,089,000.04
• Lot Type:
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Lot 1

• Price:
  $1,208,790
• Lot Size:
  1.11 AC
• Price/AC:
  $1,088,999.99
• Lot Type:
  Commercial/Other (land)

Lot 1

• Price:
  $9,626,760
• Lot Size:
  13 AC
• Price/AC:
  $740,520
• Lot Type:
  Commercial/Other (land)

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Ashley Turton and Pete Bennett arson victims not accidental self-immolation stunts

Ashley Turton and Pete Bennett arson victims not accidental self immolation stunts



National Hate Crimes Network

Story Links
2004 Bennett Arson - Pathetic Fire Department Top Shelf Records
1988 IRS Agent Car Bombed
2009 Eiko Sugihara
1979 Black Man Burned Alive Pleasant Hill CA Ellenwood Farms
2014 FedEx Truck Explosion Orland CA
2014 Mike Sevenau Alamo CA Burned Alive
2010 PG&E San Bruno CA 8 dead
2004 Kinder-Morgan Fuel Line Walnut Creek CA 5 dead
2010 Hair By Jim - Firebombed Clayton CA
2010 Piedmont Lumber dubious
2013 Deadly Limo Fire - 5 Dead
2013 Limo Fire Walnut Creek 7 near victims
Immokoloee FL - Molotov Cocktails 5 dead
Happy Nails Pleasant Hill CA - beer bottle belonged to Bennett - arson investigators trolling Bennett for weeks.
PG&E Pipeline documents stolen
Bennett unpaid and now homeless
 

Turton Car Fire Caused by Low-Speed Crash, Police Say



By Rachael Bade and Jessica Brady and Anna Palmer
Roll Call Staff
Jan. 10, 2011, 10:57 a.m.


Bill Clark/Roll Call

A D.C. fire investigator takes photos of a burned-out BMW in a garage on the 800 block of A Street Southeast on Monday morning. Ashley Turton, former chief of staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and wife of White House liaison to the House of Representatives Dan Turton, was found dead in the car, according to a source.


Updated: 4:36 p.m.

The car fire that led to the sudden death of Ashley Turton was caused by the impact after a low-speed crash, according to the major crash investigation unit of the Metropolitan Police Department.

"It’s quite possible that the victim was maneuvering the car and came in contact with some kind of flammable chemical materials," D.C. Fire spokesman Pete Piringer said.

Turton, 37, was the former chief of staff to Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and wife of White House liaison to the House of Representatives Dan Turton. She worked as a lobbyist for the Raleigh, N.C.-based utility giant Progress Energy.

Turton was found dead in her car Monday morning, which was discovered ablaze in a row house garage, presumably the Turton home, in the 800 block of A Street Southeast near Eastern Market.

Police said there was a heavy fire in the garage at 4:45 a.m. that caused significant damage to the 2008 BMW X5, which was partially backed out into the driveway and looked singed. Fire damage could also be seen on a corner of the brick home Monday.

When the fire was extinguished, firefighters discovered Turton’s body inside the car.

At 9 a.m. Monday, two fire trucks were at the scene in addition to nearly a half-dozen police cars. Neighbors and passers-by stood outside as police continued to survey the wreckage in the garage attached to Turton’s home.

Turton’s neighbors were in mourning following her unexpected death. Julie Domenick, a lobbyist who lives on the Turton’s block, said the entire neighborhood would mourn her death.

"I, of course, was aware of Ashley’s impressive professional legacy, but I also knew Ashley as a charming, spectacular, neighborhood mom who herded her three adorable, curious young children ... with great skill and even more love," Domenick said. "This neighborhood is going to miss Ashley terribly. It leaves a hole in our hearts and a sadness on our block. Our prayers are with Dan, their children and their families."

Turton’s co-worker and friend Caroline Choi, executive director of environmental services and strategy, was too choked up to comment on her death Monday afternoon.

Brian Wolff, a lobbyist at Edison Electric Institute and close friend of Turton’s, called her death devastating.

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Hastert donates Abramoff Hush Money - The scandalous links to the H-1b Visas

Former Speaker of the house indicted
Meet his friends

Jack Abramoff - NNDB.com

www.nndb.com/people/646/000094364/

• NNDB

  "When one of my closest and dearest friends, Jack Abramoff, your most able representative in Washington, D.C., invited me to the islands, I wanted to see ...

• Abramoff Scandal - NNDB.com

  www.nndb.com/group/483/000138069/
• NNDB

  10+ items - Abramoff Scandal. GROUP. Name, Occupation, Birth, Death ...
  

  Name

  Occupation

  Birth

  Known for.

  Jack Abramoff

  Government.

  28-Feb-1958

  Casino Jack.

  Tom DeLay

  Politician.

  8-Apr-1947

  Former House Majority Leader ...

• Rick Santorum - NNDB

  www.nndb.com/people/035/000025957/
• NNDB

  When the arrangement was first reported in 2006, Santorum denied it was true and claimed to not even know Abramoff. When it was proven that Abramoff had ...

• Maps by azwildcat - NNDB Mapper

  mapper.nndb.com/authors/426/000004414/
• ... Grover Norquist, Club for Growth, Institute for Justice, National Taxpayers Union, Abramoff, Howard Rich & Americans For Limited Government (Brenda Burns, ...

• Ken Mehlman - NNDB

  www.nndb.com/people/238/000073019/
• NNDB

  When scandals began swirling around lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Mehlman said he did not know Abramoff well. Abramoff, though, said Mehlman had been a guest ...

• Casino Jack - NNDB

  www.nndb.com/films/625/000262836/
• NNDB

  Biographical political film satirizes real-life lobbyist Jack Abramoff's rise and fall in the Washington Beltway. ABSTRACT Inspired by a real-life political scandal ...

• Dennis Hastert - NNDB.com

  www.nndb.com/people/150/000026072/
  NNDB
  Hastert was intertwined in the Jack Abramoff scandals of 2006, having signed an impassioned letter ghost-written by an Abramoff co-conspirator in 2003, ...

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2004 Media: Companies say too few in U.S. have the needed math and science skills. Critics claim the H-1B program is misused.

The Titan's Feel Good Story

• 1995 TWA-800
• 2000 Wells Fargo Suicide
• 2001 9/11 WTC Bombings
• 2001 Anthrax 9/11
• 2003 B of A Suicide
• 2004 Bennett Arson
• 2005 Bennett Poison
• 2007 Supervisor Glover Bacteria
• 2008 Candidate Nunn Fatal Flight
• 2009 Councilman Shimansky Bacteria
• 2010 Gas Line Explosion
• 2014 FedEx Bus Crash
• Asiana SFO
• 2014 FedEx Bus Crash

U.S. Firms Lament Cutback in Visas for Foreign Talent

Companies say too few in U.S. have the needed math and science skills. Critics claim the H-1B program is misused.

February 16, 2004|Evelyn Iritani | Times Staff Writer

For Rockwell Scientific Co., hiring the best talent is a matter of corporate survival.

Authors Note: During Summer 2004, my F-250 was rigged to explode. My suspects are Larry Ellison, CEO of Accenture, Fremont Group, Symantec, B of A and their outsourcing partners.

Chief Executive Derek Cheung says he simply can't find enough professionals in the United States with the highly specialized skills to produce the sophisticated sensors and other high-technology products the Thousand Oaks company makes. And he says changes to a foreign worker visa program threaten the ability of Rockwell Scientific and other U.S. technology firms, schools and hospitals to bring in employees from abroad -- just when they are needed most.

The H-1B visa program, designed to allow U.S. companies to hire foreign professionals on a temporary basis, was scaled back last year because of the sluggish U.S. technology job market and a political backlash in Washington over the importing of foreign labor. Now, with the economy healing, companies are scrambling to get foreign hires approved before this year's allocation of H-1B visas is exhausted.

Pulling up the welcome mat to foreign talent when corporate America is gearing up for a turnaround poses a threat to America's global competitiveness, Cheung and other executives said recently. They predicted that a shortage of H-1B visas would force them to pass over promising foreign-born scientists, leave crucial jobs unfilled or delay projects that require special talents that can't be found in this country.

"These are the best minds in the world," said Cheung, an American citizen who grew up in Hong Kong and received two of his degrees from Purdue and Stanford universities. "They are really helping this country."

Immigration attorneys predict the cap on H-1Bs -- set at 65,000 this year, down from 195,000 in 2003 -- could be reached within the next few weeks. U.S. immigration authorities had approved 43,000 of the visas as of the end of December. Once the ceiling is reached, no new visas will be given out until Oct. 1, the start of the next fiscal year.

"Come March, you're going to have companies feeling it very urgently," said Judith Golub, a senior director with the American Immigration Lawyers Assn. in Washington.

Rockwell Scientific has applications pending for 10 visas, including one for a 30-year-old specialist in high-speed electronics who Cheung persuaded to leave his government job in Asia and move to the United States.

Russ Knocke, a spokesman for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, confirmed last week that his agency was "on pace to reach the cap in the near future."

It isn't just Japanese electronics experts, Chinese physicists or Indian computer programmers who could get caught in the H-1B crunch but also African fashion models, European game designers, Pakistani doctors and Filipino occupational therapists. Even accounting firms use the visa program to beef up their staffs during their peak season, noted Bernard Wolfsdorf, a Los Angeles immigration attorney.

"This is going to provide enormous disruption for certain crucial industries," he said.

Finding a sympathetic ear on Capitol Hill isn't easy these days. Signs of improvement in the overall economy are overshadowed by worries about the lack of job growth. The threat posed by the outsourcing of increasingly higher-skilled jobs to India and China has become a presidential campaign issue, with Democrats accusing the Bush administration of doing too little to protect American workers.

"The anti-immigrant mood and the anti-globalization mood inside Washington is as negative as I've seen it in my 25 years working in this field," said Harris Miller, president of the Information Technology Assn. of America, which is lobbying for less-restrictive immigration measures.

The H-1B program, established in 1952, has ebbed and flowed with the economy. Initially there was no cap on visas. In 1990, Congress imposed a yearly ceiling of 65,000 visas, though some occupations such as university employees were exempt. Under pressure from high-tech employers, the ceiling was raised in 1999 and again in 2001, staying at 195,000 for three years. Applications plummeted, however, after the tech-sector bust. Last year, under pressure from anti-immigration forces, Congress reduced the cap to its original level.

To apply for an H-1B visa, a U.S. firm must demonstrate that it is unable to find a qualified American citizen for the job and agree to pay the foreign worker a wage comparable to what a U.S. worker would earn, in addition to benefits. The visa is good for a maximum of six years.

Critics argue that firms are using the program to replace U.S. citizens with lower-cost foreign workers. Pete Bennett, who launched the website www.no

moreh1b.com, said he didn't oppose bringing in foreign workers with special talents when there was a genuine shortage. But, he said, the program is being abused. He pointed to the thousands of attorneys, accountants and teachers brought into the United States each year under the program.

"There are plenty of qualified Americans who are dying to take these jobs," said Bennett, who opened a cabinetry shop in Danville, Calif., last fall after working more than 15 years as a computer programmer and website designer.

Employers say they try to fill jobs with U.S. citizens but can't always find qualified candidates, particularly in math and science. In engineering, for example, 43% of the master's degrees and 54% of the doctoral degrees awarded by U.S. universities go to foreign-born students.

Nearly half of the people hired on H-1B visas have graduate degrees, while only 5% of the U.S. population has the same level of education, said Thom Stohler, vice president for workforce policy for the American Electronics Assn.

Hospitals, especially in rural areas, face a shortage of physicians and specialized healthcare workers such as occupational and physical therapists. And school officials can't find enough teachers in math, science and foreign languages.

Stohler warned that a restriction on foreign workers could backfire, resulting in companies setting up research operations overseas where they don't face restrictions on hiring.

"Companies might decide if they can't get this visa, they'll hire them there and keep them there," he said. "Now this person is creating intellectual property in another country."

Belkis Muldoon, director of global immigration services for Schaumberg, Ill.-based Motorola Inc., said the cap on H-1B visas could create an "extremely difficult" situation for her firm, which employs about 90,000 people around the world. She said some foreign-born graduates of U.S. universities initially hired while on student visas needed to shift to H-1B status to stay in the country.

"Many of the students hired by Motorola -- or other companies -- would face being sent home or terminated if unable to have their legal immigration status changed," she said.

Groups such as the American Electronics Assn. and the Information Technology Assn. of America are asking Congress for relief. One proposed remedy would remove from the cap foreign graduates of U.S. universities holding master's degrees or doctorates. Presently, H-1B visa holders working for institutions of higher education or nonprofit groups are not counted against the ceiling.

For Rockwell Scientific, keeping the door open to foreign talent is just part of the answer to staying ahead of competitors. Cheung said the United States must improve its K-12 educational system and find ways to encourage more young Americans to study math and science, or risk losing the competitive edge to countries such as China and India that are investing heavily in these areas. In 1999, the U.S. granted only 61,000 bachelor-level engineering degrees compared with more than 103,000 in Japan, 134,000 in Europe and 195,000 in China, according to a study by the Computer Systems Policy Project, a Washington-based group of high-tech chief executives. They have urged the Bush administration to approve new tax credits on research and development spending, allocate more funds for university research and improve education, particularly in math and science.

The education gap is of particular concern to Rockwell Scientific, which depends on defense-related contracts for 70% of its revenue. With few exceptions, only U.S. citizens are allowed to work on those jobs.

"In military defense, we have a clear superiority," Cheung said. "But can we maintain it with the number of graduates we are turning out?"

 

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Piedmont Lumber and San Bruno Fire - Linking the serial arsonist - when you've been touched by arson you notice

Linking Fire: Piedmont Lumber, San Bruno Fire, La Virage, FedEx, Limo's

All it took in late 2011 was for San Ramon Fire Protection District was to say no while Lafayette Police said no.

They no investigations, no reports.  I said screw you.

When they blamed the owners now in their 80's they were blaming the person who opened my first credit line in 1978, I knew right away it was arson by others. 

Finish the Job!

Burning Piedmont Lumber to the ground shifts over 30 Million in business to others.  The obvious beneficiary is Lowe's new Concord Location.  There is only so much business in Contra Costa County.

The land deal under Lowe's is 

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Anthrax: Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist

Quick Facts

• FBI
• Anthrax
• Bacteria

FBI Sued by former Agent

WASHINGTON — When Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist, took a fatal overdose of Tylenol in 2008, the government declared that he had been responsible for the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, which killed five people and set off a nationwide panic, and closed the case.

Now, a former senior F.B.I. agent who ran the anthrax investigation for four years says that the bureau gathered “a staggering amount of exculpatory evidence” regarding Dr. Ivins that remains secret. The former agent, Richard L. Lambert, who spent 24 years at the F.B.I., says he believes it is possible that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax mailer, but he does not think prosecutors could have convicted him had he lived to face criminal charges.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court in Tennessee last Thursday, Mr. Lambert accused the bureau of trying “to railroad the prosecution of Ivins” and, after his suicide, creating “an elaborate perception management campaign” to bolster its claim that he was guilty. Mr. Lambert’s lawsuit accuses the bureau and the Justice Department of forcing his dismissal from a job as senior counterintelligence officer at the Energy Department’s lab in Oak Ridge, Tenn., in retaliation for his dissent on the anthrax case.

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The late Bruce Ivins in 2003, when he was a microbiologist at Fort Detrick, Md.CreditSam Yu/Frederick News Post, via Assocaited Press

The anthrax letters were mailed to United States senators and news organizations in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, causing a huge and costly disruption in the postal system and the federal government. Members of Congress and Supreme Court justices were forced from their offices while technicians in biohazard suits cleaned up the lethal anthrax powder. Decontamination costs nationwide exceeded $1 billion. At least 17 people were sickened, in addition to the five who died.

The bureau’s investigation, one of the longest-running and most technically complex inquiries in its history, has long been seen as troubled. Investigators initially lacked the forensic skills to analyze bioterrorist attacks. For several years, agents focused on a former Army scientist and physician, Dr. Steven J. Hatfill, who was subsequently cleared and given a $4.6 million settlement to resolve a lawsuit. Reviews by the National Academy of Sciences and the Government Accountability Office faulted aspects of the F.B.I.’s scientific work on the case.

Mr. Lambert, who was himself criticized for pursuing Dr. Hatfill for so long, has now offered, in his lawsuit and in an interview, an insider’s view of what hampered the investigation.

“This case was hailed at the time as the most important case in the history of the F.B.I.,” Mr. Lambert said. “But it was difficult for me to get experienced investigators assigned to it.”

He said that the effort was understaffed and plagued by turnover, and that 12 of 20 agents assigned to the case had no prior investigative experience. Senior bureau microbiologists were not made available, and two Ph.D. microbiologists who were put on the case were then removed for an 18-month Arabic language program in Israel. Fear of leaks led top officials to order the extreme compartmentalization of information, with investigators often unable to compare notes and share findings with colleagues, he said.

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Mr. Lambert said he outlined the problems in a formal complaint in 2006 to the F.B.I.’s deputy director. Some of his accusations were later included in a report on the anthrax case by the CBS News program “60 Minutes,” infuriating bureau leaders.

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The police in Frederick, Md., spoke with a woman they identified as Diane Ivins, the wife of Bruce E. Ivins, 62, at the couple's home in Frederick, Md., in 2008. CreditRob Carr/Associated Press

The F.B.I., which rarely comments on pending litigation, did not respond to requests for comment on Mr. Lambert’s claims.

Although the lethal letters contained notes expressing jihadist views, investigators came to believe the mailer was an insider in the government’s biodefense labs. They eventually matched the anthrax powder to a flask in Dr. Ivins’s lab at Fort Detrick in Maryland and began intense scrutiny of his life and work.

They discovered electronic records that showed he had spent an unusual amount of time at night in his high-security lab in the periods before the two mailings of the anthrax letters. They found that he had a pattern of sending letters and packages from remote locations under assumed names. They uncovered emails in which he described serious mental problems.

The investigators documented Dr. Ivins’s obsession with a national sorority that had an office near the Princeton, N.J., mailbox where the letters were mailed. They detected what they believed to be coded messages directed at colleagues, hidden in the notes in the letters.

As prosecutors prepared to charge him with the five murders in July 2008, Dr. Ivins, 62, took his own life at home in Frederick, Md. Days later, at a news conference, Jeffrey A. Taylor, then the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the authorities believed “that based on the evidence we had collected, we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”

But Mr. Lambert says the bureau also gathered a large amount of evidence pointing away from Dr. Ivins’s guilt that was never shared with the public or the news media. Had the case come to trial, he said, “I absolutely do not think they could have proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.” He declined to be specific, saying that most of the information was protected by the Privacy Act and was unlikely to become public unless Congress carried out its own inquiry.

After retiring from the F.B.I. in 2012, Mr. Lambert joined the Energy Department. But an F.B.I. ethics lawyer ruled that because Mr. Lambert had to work with F.B.I. agents in his new job, he was violating a conflict-of-interest law that forbade former federal employees from contacting previous colleagues for a year after they had left their government jobs.

That ruling led to his dismissal, Mr. Lambert said, and he has not been able to find work despite applying for more than 70 jobs. His lawsuit asserts that several other former F.B.I. agents were able to take identical intelligence jobs with the Energy Department and that he was singled out for mistreatment.

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