Obama In Canada

Their Excellencies the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean,
Governor General of Canada,
and Jean-Daniel Lafond,

welcomed The Honourable Barack H. Obama, President of the United States of America,
on Thursday, February 19, 2009, at the Ottawa International Airport.
The Governor General then met with President Obama.

President Obama is very popular among Canadians.

Eddie G. Griffin (BASG): Judges Sent Juveniles to Prison Receive $2.6 million in Head Count Kickbacks

Eddie G. Griffin (BASG): Judges Sent Juveniles to Prison Receive $2.6 million in Head Count Kickbacks

I have always thought that private prisons create a serious conflict of interest.
This case simply reenforces my belief that prison, as a business, has to have as a goal, filling as many places as possible. IMO this case will prove to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Please read and pass this story on and keep the discussion alive, asI am sure the railroading of our young people into the prison system has not ceased to occur. We have to get peoples attention and engage them in hammering out a solution to this situation.

While you're at it Eddie Griffin has more info about

"the prison industrial complex on his blog. Eddie G. Griffin (BASG)

I personally believe that this topic is related to and should be considered along with the topic of pretrial detention.

We must get into steering monetary resources away from penalizing our youth and start using these resources for the training and education of our young people. This is one way we can begin to break the cycle of crime and punishment in poor and marginal communities.

I'd like to discuss prison labor as being related to the two previous subjects because it stands to reason that if these young people are not receiving training to work outside, they will be fit only to fill some very low paying albeit profitable (for someone), prison labor positions.

The National Public Service Council To Abolish Private Prisons Blog has more articles related to the above topics. Maybe we can convert these prisons to educational facilities.

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing

The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a racially motivated terrorist attack on September 15, 1963, by members of a Ku Klux Klan group in Birmingham, Alabama in the United States. The bombing of the African-American church resulted in the deaths of four girls. Although city leaders had reached a settlement in May with demonstrators and started to integrate public places, not everyone agreed with ending segregation. Other acts of violence followed the settlement. The bombing increased support for people working for civil rights. It marked a turning point in the U.S. civil-rights movement of the mid-twentieth century and contributed to support for passage of civil rights legislation in 1964.
-from wikipedia