Screw you John Roberts!

07/07/12
Once again the media is all abuzz about something and almost everybody is totally missing the most important point.

Last week the U.S. Supreme Court, via John Roberts, ruled that The Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) was indeed constitutional under the 16^th Amendment, the Income Tax Amendment.
Now, everyone, is all worried about how this is going to impact their...fill in the blank: insurance, healthcare, taxes, candidate’s chances of winning in November…whatever. What everyone seems to be missing is the fact that this ruling has unleashed two completely new animals upon the land… the "tax-mandate" and the “tax-fine.”
 
This is nothing like a regular tax-penalty, you only incur a tax-penalty by doing something wrong that involves the reporting, filing, or paying of your income taxes regardless of how those taxes are incurred.

This new “tax-fine,” that Justice Roberts has created, on the other hand, is a penalty for violating some "tax-mandate" that does not need to be related to the reporting or collection of taxes at all. It could be anything. And, apparently, it doesn't need to comply with anything else in the constitution other than the 16^th Amendment.  As long as it is enforced by the Internal Revenue Service it is, by definition, constitutional.

In the good old days, if you didn’t make any money, or just a little money, then you didn’t have to pay the government anything. Those days are over. Now, every year, even before you’ve earned your first penny, you owe the federal government money and it’s up to you to do, or not do, what the federal government tells you to do, or not do, in order to avoid that tax-fine. Right now that just means that you have to buy a health insurance policy that meets the government’s standards. Well, ok, you also have to prove that you purchased that policy and that it meets all of those ever-changing government standards…, but that’s all…for now.

I say, “for now”, because anybody that thinks that the government is NOT going to use these brand new tools for a whole slew of initiatives, programs, enhancements, controls, and intrusions just as fast as they can get them down on paper and onto the legislative floor just doesn’t understand how our legislative system works. I’m sure lobbyists are already lining up at our legislators’ doors with all kinds of requests and huge campaign donations. Just think, the government can now tell you what to do and what to buy under the 16th Amendment without all those pesky constitutionality questions getting in the way! John Roberts and the Supreme Court have cleared the way, let the 21st Century Gold-Rush begin!

It will start with things we all agree on: Did you replace the batteries in your smoke detectors? Prove it or pay up! Did you recycle your recyclables? Prove it or pay up!  ...But it will eventually move into grayer areas like: Did you get your recommended health checkups? Prove it or pay up! Did you you get your regular dental cleanings & checkups? Prove it or pay up!  Did your children get their required vaccinations? Prove it or pay up! Did your pets get theirs? Prove it or pay up! Did you get the recommended maintenance on your vehicle? Prove it or pay up! Did you drive the speed limit? (thanks Progressive Insurance) Prove it or pay up! Did you change your furnace filter regularly? Prove it or pay up! Did you get to work on time? Prove it or pay up!

Some might say that we already have that. Their usual example is auto insurance: We are already required to provide proof of insurance to register our vehicles each year.  There is a difference, however: The IRS doesn’t come after you if you fail to buy auto insurance. You don’t automatically owe the government money if you choose not to buy auto insurance. If you are caught out on the roadways without insurance, then you are charged with a crime and provided with due process as detailed under the 5^th Amendment to the Constitution. (Look for an “auto insurance mandate” to be one of the first “tax-mandates” issued to remove this flaw from their example.)

And that brings up the 2^nd big change that the “Robert’s Ruling” has wrought in U.S. law: Forget about “innocent until proven guilty” or “the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury” or any other pesky “due process” rights. Now it’s, “guilty until you prove yourself innocent to some government bureaucrat”.

Since a tax-fine is a legal penalty for failing to comply with the law, will failure to pay this fine result in jail time like with all other fines? If you are late paying your tax bill and that bill includes a tax-fine, will they haul you off to jail rather than just send you a bill or, at worst, garnish your wages. like they do now? And, does a tax-mandate violation go on your permanent record? (You did break the law after all, even if you did pay the fine on time.) And, will you have to disclose all your past tax-mandate violations on employment and license applications? Will outstanding tax-fines come up on your credit report or on the computer screen of the police officer who just pulled you over?   And, can the IRS search your records to see if you are guilty of a tax-mandate violation without a warrant? I mean, they don’t need a warrant to conduct an audit, do they? So, if they suspect that you might be guilty of a tax-mandate violation, couldn’t they just demand to see all of your records at any time without showing any kind of probable cause? I know that they can do that now and get you for tax evasion but with tax-fines, if each “proof of compliance” doesn’t hold water, like a health insurance policy that doesn’t cover abortions for example, will that result in additional charges, fines and jail time or will they all just be prosecuted as tax evasion? …

So many questions!

Some would say that, as a practical matter, constitutional rights are a thing of the past anyway, that the 16th Amendment already took away most of those rights and that whatever rights we had left have long since been destroyed by the convoluted ”logic” of the judicial elite that have controlled our government since its early days (Google "Wickard v Filburn").

I don’t completely disagree, but still, I find the Roberts' Ruling remarkable. It is sad and tragic beyond words. This may be nothing less than the final nail in the coffin of what was a brief brilliant flash of human dignity and goodness in an otherwise relentless human saga of brutish oppression, slavery and suffering. That brief flash being a constitutional government that, for the first time in history, enshrined the ideals of individual liberty, equal human rights, and a free market; a country that made great and unprecedented strides towards achieving a better way of life for mankind; a time that spawned a truly miraculous, almost magical, explosion of innovation and wondrous technology.
Our Constitution now lies bleeding on the floor after a cowardly betrayal by utter fools who destroyed that which they swore to protect.

All the conservative pundits on TV and radio say that all we have to do to correct this injustice is to repeal Obamacare. Repealing Obamacare won’t do a thing to undo this new precedent, this brand new “tax-fine” that guts our Constitution and marks the end of the most glorious era in human history.

Re.: Act of Valor (the movie)

Scene where the SEALS caught the arms dealer on his yacht and then got him to spill his guts by simply appealing to his better nature could have come right out of a Saturday Night Live skit.  Really unexpected dose of satire in the middle of an otherwise serious movie that effectively highlighted the absurdity of the ban on water-boarding.

How times have changed since this story took place, back then we were  fighting against FARC (the Colombia based Marxist-Leninist revolutionary guerilla organization).  Under Obama, in 2009, we supported a FARC-backed attempt to set up a Hugo Chavez-style dictatorship in Honduras.

(Yeah, I know, you never heard about that.  Long story short, Hugo Chavez buddy and FARC endorsed President Manuel Zelaya tried to declare himself perpetual dictator of Honduras in clear violation of the Honduran constitution.  That didn't go over so well with the Honduran legislature, court system or military who immediately united to remove this wannabe dictator from the country.  Well, constitutions don't carry too much weight with the Obama administration apparently and they immediately branded this a "coup" and took all available actions short of military intervention to compel the Honduran government to accept this Chavez puppet as their new dictator.  I know it's unbelievable.  I'll try and find my other post on this and re-post.)

College students are rioting in the streets; throwing rocks at police and overturning vehicles!

And I'm not talking abut the “Occupy Wall Street” protestors. No, there's actually something going on that makes the Occupy Wall Street “movement” look almost noble. You are not going to believe this but they are rioting at Penn State University because the head football coach got fired for failing to report an alleged homo-sexual rape of a 10 year old child that occurred in the showers of the Penn State football facilities.

For nine years Joe Paterno sat idly by with the knowledge that an alleged homosexual rape had never been reported to authorities, much less investigated. In Joe Paterno's mind he had effectively covered his ass by reporting this hideous offense to one of his co-workers who he considered to be a school authority. Sorry Joe, that does not cut it. You are fired!

Not only was Joe Paterno aware that a homosexual rape had probably occurred, he continued to allow access by that very same alleged homosexual rapist to those very same showers right up until this despicable cover-up was exposed by a grand jury investigation last week! That's nine years from the time Paterno found out about this rape until something was finally done about this!

I don't care if it turns out the accused rapist is innocent (though, with 8 victims & 40 counts against him...), Joe Paterno showed a complete lack of maturity, character, and morality by choosing to protect his friend and former employee and to avoid any personal inconvenience over protecting potential victims of a homosexual rapist; a reckless and irresponsible disregard for the safety and well-being of others.  A choice that, for me, completely defines this man's core character.  How can it not?

What I find more disturbing is the willingness of so many to run to the defense of this jerk. How can somebody be more worried about anything over and above the obvious problem here?  How can anybody put any consideration above the issue that is at the heart of this story: All those innocent children who were brutalized in the most unspeakable of ways?

Paterno was the one who Mike McQueary, who was a student at the time, went to with his eye-witness account of the homosexual rape of a 10 year old child in the shower-room of those above-mentioned football facilities. He was the first and only school authority to whom this was directly reported. I don't care how many people say he fulfilled his legal responsibility in this matter, he clearly did not.

Some are going so far as to praise Joe Paterno for being so honest to the grand jury that was finally investigating this. OK, so now the standard for praiseworthy behavior is NOT lying to a grand jury about something that should have been volunarily reported to police nine years earlier? If that's the case, we're in trouble gang.

As far as I'm concerned, Paterno should be arrested and charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy after the fact. Getting fired immediately should go without saying.  How many kids were raped while he waited for someone else to go to the police?  But, apparently in today's world, a lot of people think Joe Paterno didn't do anything wrong.

Makes me want to vomit!

"The only thing necessary for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing." (Edmund Burke)

 

CenturyLink Sucks! ...So I wrote my congressman about it.

11/10/11

Dear Representative Platts,

I hate to bother you about something so trivial when you are faced with so many serious problems in Washington today, but this has really become a bur under my saddle.
Back in July of 2010 I tried to “port” my home phone number from our local phone service provider, CenturyLink, to Vonage. Although I followed all instructions from both companies my original phone number was never “ported”.
Vonage informed me that they had done everything they could to get CenturyLink to release my phone number but that CenturyLink refused to do so. After getting nowhere with CenturyLink myself, despite several attempts, I became frustrated and threatened to file a complaint with the FCC. CenturyLink's response to that threat could best be described as taunting. They encouraged/dared me to file a complaint as they referred to the person I would be dealing with at the FCC by her first name, “Sharon”.
Sure enough, “Sharon” was less than sympathetic to my plight and took CenturyLink's side without any clear explanation of why CenturyLink should be exempt from the Phone Portability Act or why the provisions of said Act would not apply to me & my phone number.
I was provided with the option of taking this all to the next level which, Sharon informed me, would involve a filing fee. Well, I wish I had taken it to the next level but I didn't and now the time limit has expired on that option.
Now, to add insult to injury, I recently called CenturyLink to see about changing my phone service back to them because of problems with Vonage and they wanted $90 from me to “port” my current phone number back to them!
I've included letters I got from CenturyLink and the FCC for reference. They seem to assert that I didn't have a phone number with CenturyLink to be “ported”. That, of course, is absurd and can be quickly refuted by my own records (see included documentation).
Anyway, I just think that any money that we, the taxpayers, are spending on the enforcement of the Phone Portability Act is being wasted. The most disturbing element of this experience was the obviously cozy relationship between the people at CenturyLink and Sharon Bowers at the FCC. So, if you could possibly have her fired, that would be great and I will vote for you forever.

BTW: THE STREETS ARE FILLED WITH COMMUNIST PROTESTORS!!

I don't know if you've heard, but there is a communist uprising in the streets of America:

New York, Washington DC, Miami, Boston, Providence, Chicago, Denver, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, “...the movement has spread to at least 147 cities in the U.S. and 28 overseas.”¹ They are called “Anti-Wall Street Protests” but they are nothing less than a communist uprising in the streets of America. All you have to do is look at their signs or listen to their rhetoric calling for an “End to Capitalism” and a “New Economic System.” They are now putting less effort than ever into disguising their true nature. In other words, the masks are coming off!

Personally, I live in a small town far removed from the city lights and I bet 9 out of 10  people around here haven't even heard about this. I watch FOX News, so I at least get the watered down version of the story.

Everybody thinks FOX News is some kind of front organization for the Tea Party or something. Truth is, FOX News is closer to the other end of the spectrum than they'd like you to believe. Listening to the bemused commentary on these “Anti-Wall Street Protests” you'd think they're no more sinister than a Cub Scout Jamboree.

The response is a little different overseas: From the publication In Defense of Marxism in London: USA: Wall Street rocked by anti-capitalist protests – time to build a labor party!:
“At least 39 unions and community organizations joined Wednesday's march in New York, including groups like MoveOn.org and the Coalition of the Homeless. But by far and away the most powerful were the unions: the United Federation of Teachers, the Communication Workers of America, the United Auto Workers, the United Healthcare Workers, the Public Employees Union DC37, and many others.”³ You can throw in: the Obama administration, George Soros, Michael Moore, Susan Sarandon, Jessie Jackson, Acorn, SEIU, and the Teamsters...kind of like a Who's Who of the far left.  Like Andy Stern, the head of the SEIU, said in June of 2007 during a television interview, "'Workers of the world unite' isn't just a slogan anymore, it's a way we're going to have to do our work."

Predators and disease always attack the weakest first. Communism infects our children, our poor, the mentally ill, the politicians and the artists in our society like a disease. Communism intends to leverage that influence into an authoritarian and oppressive “new economic system” where bureaucrats replace free-market forces as the final arbiters of success and failure. They infect and cripple the capitalist system with progressive programs and regulations and then claim that capitalism has failed because it is a flawed system. They complain about the corruption of capitalism and in the next breath propose a system that has corruption as its foundation. Just ask anybody who has ever had a business in a communist country, you cannot do one thing without paying off some public official. They are partners in every aspect of your business forever, contributing nothing but protection from the destructive power of the state.

Like Satan himself, Communism cloaks itself in harmless looking disguises so as to trick its way into the hearts and minds of the weakest and most gullible among us. Make no mistake, Communism desires nothing more than to completely separate us from God and send us all to straight to Hell. We ignore these "protests" at our peril.

“Marx's call to eliminate the next world by establishing a utopia on this one was taken up with a vengeance by Lenin and a host of communist leaders who followed him. These despots established atheism as state doctrine in the Soviet Union and other Marxist regimes around the world. In the last hundred years these regimes, led by people like Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Nicolae Ceausescu, Enver Hoxha, Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-11, and others, have murdered more than 100 million people. Even Bin Laden, in his wildest dreams, doesn't come close.”²

More than 100 million people! More than the Civil War, both World Wars, the Korean War and Vietnam combined! Try to get your head around that!

Communism has robbed many more of the hope, dignity and freedom that true capitalism, not only affords, but requires. Instead of delivering on its promise to deliver Social Justice and enrich the poor, every time communism is tried, it leaves everybody, except a few of the ruling elite, worse off than before. 

The nature of communism is the nature of evil.  It seeks to trick us into believing that we are like gods and that we can control everything that affects us, that we can create a godless utopia on earth.  As with the abandonment of faith for atheism, only disaster and despair await those fools who abandon capitalism for the false promise of communism..

But, hey, it's just a bunch of innocent kids expressing themselves.  Isn't that cute.  (sarcasm)

"A man who rides on the back of a tiger will find it very difficult when he tries to dismount.”³ 

1) Esmé E. Deprez and Alison Vekshin "Anti-Wall Street Protesters March From NYC to San Francisco" October 06, 2011 Bloomberg Businessweek

2) Dinesh D'Souza. Life After Death: The Evidence (pp. 188-189). Kindle Edition.

3) Alan Woods Thursday, 06 October 2011 In Defense of Marxism, marxism.com

TSA Saves Us Again (sarcasm):

Police Question Saudi Man Accused of Attempt to Break Into Plane's Cockpit

Abdulaziz Mubarak Alshammari,  a 20 year old Saudi citizen who had just arrived in this country, attempted to enter the cockpit of an American Airlines flight en route from New York to Indianapolis yesterday.  Even though Abdulaziz's story about being a student at the University of Indianapolis turned out to be false, no charges were filed and he was almost immediately released.  Apparently a check of watch-lists failed to turn up his name.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/10/06/police-question-saudi-man-accused-attempt-to-break-into-planes-cockpit/#ixzz1a6TiVj63

Remember these two incidents from May 8th of this year that TSA also failed to prevent?  

2 unruly passengers held on Chicago-related flights - 1 tried to open plane's door in midair, other rushed cockpit

What do all three of these incidents have in common?  No, they weren't all Saudi citizens.  One was from Yemen and one was "from" Burbank.  I put "from" in quotes because the Yemen citizen was listed as being "from" Vallejo, Ca.  So, I can't say for sure that all three weren't foreign born. In all three incidents though, it was not some TSA agent or even an air marshal that subdued the potential terrorist. No, it was freshly groped U.S. citizens who saved the day in each and every instance.

Read more: http://www.fox43.com/news/nationworld/chibrknews-flight-passenger-tries-to-open-door-plane-diverted-20110508,0,1099302.story

Amanda Knox: Cat Killer

I've been asking people around here what they thought of this story. The response was unanimous, Amanda Knox was innocent! But, I wasn't so sure.  So, I decided to take a closer look at the Amanda Knox story.

In the first article that I pulled up, I found out a cat got killed too!!  "There was blood on a wall in the downstairs apartment, determined to be that of a black cat.”  Wow, never heard that in the mainstream news reports. I found that on a pro-Knox site,  by the way.

That same article points out that there are 24 Masonic Lodges in Perugia Italy, the town where this murder took place.  It is a well known fact in Italy that some Satanic-Masonic rituals include removing one shoe and leaving feces behind (sorry) and are generally performed on Thursdays.  The crime scene had bloody left shoe prints and one bloody bare right foot print, and “there were un-flushed feces in the toilet (sorry again), and there was blood on a wall in the downstairs apartment, determined to be that of a black cat.” 1  Also, this crime was committed, not just on a Thursday, but on the Thursday immediately following Halloween, a day of special significance to Satanic-Masonics.

All of that is interesting and gross, but it doesn't really speak to the guilt or innocence of Amanda Knox.  What it does do is explain why the press in this country was so quick to run to the defense of Knox and how she was able to effectively discredit the prosecution and police.

Apparently, Italy has something in its history similar to the Salem witch trials about which Italians are still very sensitive and defensive.  The chief prosecutor, therefore, was advised not to mention anything about the Masonic witchcraft thing, however, he talked about the possibility of a ritualistic “game” anyway.  This played right into the hands of the defense by incurring the self-righteous disdain of the all-seeing press.  There is nothing the press loves more than the opportunity to oppose a “witch-hunt,” all the better if the defendant really is a witch.

After the cat blood, the next thing to catch my attention was the absence of any sympathy for the victim or the victim's family in any of Knox's comments.  Yes, she mentioned the victim, but only incidentally as she cried about how traumatic the whole thing was to her, “She was killed in our house, and if I was there that night I could have been killed,” and "I've lost a friend in the worst, most brutal, most inexplicable way possible, I'm paying with my life for things that I didn't do."  She talked about her and the victim being friends in a carefully worded way so as to remove questions about motive.  Everything was about how Knox suffered and worded to imply that Knox didn't do it.  I did not see any comments by Amanda Knox that were pure expressions of concern or sympathy for the victim or the victim's family.

Speaking of the victim's family, THEY think that Knox is GUILTY:   “The victim' family had pressed for the court to uphold the guilty verdicts passed two years ago, and resisted theories that a third man convicted in the case.., had acted alone”2 ...and so do a lot of the residents of Perugia, Italy:  “At 5pm , armed with a new passport, Knox and her family walked out of the jailhouse and into the street -- to a mob chanting, 'Murderers!' and 'Shame!"3

Also, the way she went about claiming that she was innocent didn't sound quite right to me.   “I am not what they say I am. I am not perverse, violent, disrespectful toward life (or) people -- these things do not apply to me, and I have not done the things that have been suggested,’’ said Knox  What about, "I didn't do it! ?"  Maybe it was in there somewhere but, you know what, if I had been falsely accused of slashing someone's throat, I'd be saying “I didn't do it!” every other sentence.  I wouldn't be going on about how I was a good person.  Who cares if I'm a good person or not?   And what about the other accusations  that, even if she didn't slash the victim's throat herself, she was involved in the murder or, at least, knew more than she was saying?  So, what about, “I didn't have anything to do with it and I don't know anything about it?”  That's what an innocent person who hadn't even been in her apartment on the night of the murder would have said.   I sure didn't hear anything like that.

Now, about the facts of the case: Following is a quote from Amanda Knox to police about the night of the crime:

"...I  went into another room and then I heard screams. ... Patrick and Meredith (the victim) were in Meredith's bedroom while I think I stayed in the kitchen. ... I can't remember how long they were together in the bedroom, but the only thing I can say is that at a certain point I remember hearing Meredith's screams and I covered my ears. ... I can't remember if Meredith was screaming and if I heard thuds but I could imagine what was going on."

Based on Amanda Knox's statement, "Patrick Lumumba, 38,  ...spent two weeks in prison before being able to prove that he spent the night of the murder talking to a customer in his pub...."4  Amanda Knox remained silent while Lumuba sat in jail for two weeks.

So, Amanda Knox initially said that she was in the apartment and that Patrick did it.  It later turned out that Patrick had an airtight alibi.  Again, she remained silent for two weeks while Patrick sat in jail.

Amanda Knox eventually settled on the story that she was never in her apartment that night and that she spent the night with her boyfriend, getting up around 10:30am. She says that they downloaded and watched cartoons and a movie. “But computer experts told the court that there was no activity on his laptop between 9.10pm on Nov 1, and 5.32am the next morning — the time frame in which the murder took place.”4  Anyway, “Records on her cellphone indicated she was elsewhere, and she was caught on a closed-circuit security camera entering her own apartment that night.”6

What I find even more suspicious is the fact that Amanda Knox and her boyfriend both turned their cell phones off right before the time of the murder: “Knox and her boyfriend turned off their mobile phones on the night of the murder, from around 8.40pm, and turned them back on at around 6am. The victim left a friend's home after eating pizza and watching The Notebook on DVD...She arrived home shortly before 9pm. At 8:56, she called her mother but her call was never completed.”5

Then there was the staged break-in: Knox & her boyfriend called police to report a burglary the morning after the murder. When police arrived they found a broken window and a room that appeared to have been burglarized with clothes and personal belongings dumped all over the floor consistent with a burglary. Problem was, the broken glass was on top of the items that were on the floor indicating that the window was broken after the items were dumped onto the floor. The bigger problem was that most of the glass was outside rather than inside, consistent with the window being broken from the inside. Also, no hair, no fibers, no blood, no DNA on the jagged alleged entry point.

“It is especially telling that when Knox's boyfriend called the police to report the "burglary" in two separate, recorded phone calls, he said nothing had been stolen -- despite the fact that (the other roommate who's room it was) had not yet come home. The only way (the boyfriend) would know nothing was stolen was if he had helped stage the burglary himself.”7

There were also inconsistencies and suspicious behavior associated with how Knox and her boyfriend behaved when the police came to investigate the staged break-in.  Knox's boyfriend tried to break through the victim's door prior to the arrival of the police but then, once the police arrived, he & Knox played down the issue of the locked door saying that the victim always kept her door locked.  Then the third roommate showed up and told police that the victim never locked her door.  Not, “didn't always lock her door” but  “never locked her door,”  whereupon the police immediately broke the door down and discovered the body.

But, here's what finally made me conclude that Amanda Knox is guilty:

“The owner of a supermarket, said Miss Knox had been in his (store) at 7.45 the morning (that Knox's roommate's) body was found. (The store owner) told the court he had seen her in the cleaning section of his...store just hours before (the body) was discovered...Police who searched (Knox's boyfriend's) house...days after the murder found a receipt for (bleach) from the shop where Miss Knox was allegedly seen. “8

This tells me two things: Amanda Knox was lying about the details of the night in question (but we already knew that) and she was cleaning something.

I found it telling,  not to mention deliciously ironic,  that Knox actually remarked about how naturally sloppy she was during her acquittal remarks.   A 20 year old who is naturally sloppy doesn't usually show up at a grocery store at 7:45am to buy cleaning products.   And, what are the odds, that, if she did,  it would just happen to be on the very morning that her roommate is found dead?  And then “Police found Amanda’s prints in one place only,  on a water glass in the kitchen.” 1

That means that somebody must have recently scrubbed every inch of that apartment!

The victim's mother said, after the trial, “...we do not understand how the decision of the first trial could be so radically overturned,” “Radically” because the DNA evidence, on which the acqittal was based, was just one part of the evidence against Amanda Knox. There remains a very clear picture of an obviously guilty individual getting away with murder

1. Nina Burleigh, New York Post 2 Oct 2011
2. Amanda Knox thanks supporters, heads for home CBS/AP 4 Oct 2011
3. Jury’s verdict unlocks Knox, BOB GRAHAM in Perugia, Italy, and JEANE MACINTOSH in New York, New York Post 
4. Nick Squires in Rome 12:52PM GMT 06 Mar 2009 The Telegraph - UK
5. Rik Merchant http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2728107 amanda_knox_convicted_in_murder_of.html?cat=9
6. A DREAM ENDS IN NIGHTMARE, ANDY SOLTIS New York Post 16 Nov 2007
7. Ann Coulter, Amanda Knox: The New Mumia 7 Sep 2011
8. Nick Pisa, The Telegraph, Perugia, Italy 21 Mar 2009