Texans are doing just fine governing Texas

"230 years ago, our forefathers fought a war to throw off the yoke of a European monarch and gain the freedom of self-determination. Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas.”

-- Rick Perry, Governor of Texas

Texas carries out 400th execution

HUNTSVILLE, Texas – Convicted killer Johnny Ray Conner was executed Wednesday evening for the slaying of a Houston convenience store clerk during a failed robbery nine years ago.

The execution was the 400th in the nation's most active death penalty state since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed capital punishment to resume in 1976. Texas resumed executions six years later.

Mr. Conner asked for forgiveness repeatedly and expressed love to his family and his victim's family, who watched him through windows in the death chamber.

"This is destiny. This is life. This is something Allah wants me to do," he said. "What is happening to me is unjust and the system is broken."

He was pronounced dead at 6:20 p.m., eight minutes after the lethal drugs began to flow.
Mr. Conner, 32, was the 21st inmate put to death this year in Texas. Three more are scheduled to die next week.

Earlier Wednesday, his lawyers lost an appeal to the Supreme Court to stop the execution. In arguments rejected by the justices, Mr. Conner contended his trial attorneys were deficient for not investigating an old leg injury that left him with a limp, which would have prevented him from running away quickly from the store where Kathyanna Nguyen, 49, was gunned down on a Sunday afternoon in May 1998.

Witnesses who identified Mr. Conner as the gunman told of seeing a man running from the scene. None mentioned a limp.

A federal judge agreed with the argument and granted Mr. Conner a new trial. A federal appeals court disagreed and overturned that ruling this year, clearing the way for his execution.
The prospect of Mr. Conner becoming Texas' 400th executed prisoner prompted an outcry from death penalty opponents.

The European Union, which opposes capital punishment and bans it in its 27 nations, urged Gov. Rick Perry to stop the execution and impose a death penalty moratorium.

Perry spokesman Robert Black said the state would decline the call for a moratorium.

Scheduled to die Tuesday is DaRoyce Mosley, for his part in the slayings of four people in the robbery of a bar in Kilgore in 1994.

Source : Associated Press

Kenneth E. Foster Jr. and John Joe Amador: "a protest of passive non-participation in our executions"

AUGUST 22, 2007 DIRECTIVE

In the name of Human Rights; all religious doctrines of Peace, Love and Forgiveness; and in the vision of reform and atonement, on the above said date myself (Kenneth E. Foster Jr.) and John Joe Amador have committed to a protest of passive non-participation in our executions. Together we have decided to go on a spiritual missin to oppose our systematic executions in the hopes to open the eyes of people that think this horrific process is ok.

Starting on the 22nd we will engage in passive non-participation in this process in the same fashion that civil rights fighters stood down the cruel and inhumane treatments of their time.

We are here to say that we do not condone violence and will not promote it. We recognize that violence will not solve our problems, just like executions do not help our society. We are committed to peace and grassroots activism. We are not doing this for ourselves, but for YOU, the people, to demonstrate to you that we do not agree with this process. We do this for YOU, the people, to show that we are new men today and that we must stand down the death penalty. We seek to harm no person and we will not. We pray to compell this society to look at the death penalty in a new light.

Starting on the 23rd we will begin refusing all food. We will not eat any more meals served to us. Our only nourishment will be liquids.

Bexar County had lined up two San Antonio executions in a row - John Amador's for the 29th and mine for the 30th. While my case is known, Mr. Amador's is not. I will give Mr. Amador the opportunity to write his own words regarding the injustices that he has faced at the hands of Bexar County. Since I have a visual plight I am here to say that the State is wrong in its desire to kill me. If I was as equally guilty as the 2 other men in the car, and these 2 men are not on death row, then I should not be either. This is an obvious injustice and railroad.

As we enter into being 7 days away from our execution we will be placed in cells that have video cameras where we can be observed 24-7. We cannot condone this invasion. We cannot participate in the way our humanity is being stripped. While we are NOT indifferent to the victims, we are also not indifferent to the fact that we are still human beings. But for a country that professes it wants a good society it's hard to acknowledge that when the prison population is 2 million and rising and the conditions are left horrific. So what is really the purpose of the Penal system? We also ask you to think about this - in any other country when people are lined up and slaughtered it's called genocide. They said Sadaam Hussein committed mass Genocide. It has happened in Darfur and Rwanda and Presidents of Cuba and North Korea have been accused of it. But when America does it it is called justice? Texas will surpass 400 murders this year. If we are to be unjustly taken then we do not want to go silently. We will not walk to our executions and we will not eat last meals. We will not give this process a humane face.

We ask all of you to stand for human rights. We are men that are dedicated to change and betterment. We are dedicated to give atonement to the system and society. Who of us will be left to guide the lost? We sacrifice this for society, not for us, because death row is a cancer in the body of this country. Our actions are antibodies to oppose this atrocious disease.

I, as a DRIVE representer, stand in the name of a better day. We will be on a DRIVE and we do it with prayers, love and understand - even for those that hate us. We don't hate them and we don't hate the TDC officers that will usher us to our murders. Reports have said that Governor Perry is doing the will of the people. So, we come to you, the people, to relook at this process.

For those that have read about my case you now see how arbitrary capital punishment can be. AS long as it exists these things WILL continue to happen. Why? Because human beings are fallible. Many people want us to be the men we was 10 years ago. But we're not. We could point fingers and talk about scams and corruption going on. We can talk about the ENRON's and the Scooter Libby's, the Guantanamo Bay's and Abu Ghraib's. But we won't because we know you know that these things exist. We will only point our fingers up.....up.....and say that WE MUST GET UP. We must get up the way the CEDP has gotten up and made a movement. We must get up like these medias, politicians and even friends to the victims have gotten up. Some of us see a new way. It is possible.

And so, on August 22nd we commit ourselves to something that is beyond us. Perhaps we are just tools for a greater purpose.

We will not lift a finger to another person. We will only lift our voices and spirits. We will allow YOU, the people, to be the force that must be reckoned with.

We close this Directive in the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

"Civilization and violence are antithetical concepts. Through violence you may murder a murderer, but you can't murder murder. Through violence you may murder a liar, but you can't establish truth. Through violence you may murder a hater, but you can't murder hate. Darkness cannot put out darkness, only light can do that."

Let's shine to the world.

In struggle,

Kenneth E. Foster Jr. & John Joe Amador

Would you like video with that?

Posted by Lucy Zhang, News Engineering Team

One of our goals at Google News is to offer as many different perspectives on the news as possible. That means bringing content from multiple sources together in a way we hope you find to be organized and relevant. Now we're adding video to the mix: we're showing related news videos along with our news articles to give you a broader spectrum of info available. You'll see the prefix "Video" next to story titles, and clicking on these video links will open a video player directly on the page so you can watch the video right there.




Today, viewing news videos or other content types on the web can be a frustrating experience. You often get videos that don't play, sites that require different video player downloads, or have misleading descriptions of the content. That's why we're working with YouTube so you can easily view online videos without any downloads required and regardless of what browser you're using.

For our initial launch, we have included several top news sources such as CBS, Reuters, and a number of local Hearst TV stations. Over the next few months, we'll continue to add new sources as fast as we can. Right now we're just offering this addition in the U.S., the UK, and Ireland; we hope to make it available in other languages and editions soon.

We're excited to add this to your Google News experience, so give it a try and let us know what you think.

What's on your personalized News page?

Posted by Gina Bonzani, News Support Team

I "grew up" in Google supporting News and communicating directly with publishers and readers. One thought I’ve seen over and over is that people want to be able to see the news that interests them the most. And a great way to do that is to personalize your Google News homepage.

One of the easiest ways to personalize the News homepage is to move the sections that you most like to read to the top of your page and remove the sections you don’t. For me, that means no Sports section. Or, if you’re interested in a particular topic, you can use personalized News to create a custom section using a keyword. Many Google News readers use this feature to track their favorite sport or team. Others use custom sections to track politics, specific politicians or their own hot button issues. You can even get custom sections with articles from certain publishers (check out the search for site:nola.com), or articles written by sources from a certain state or country (like location:CA, for California). News publishers can even use custom sections to track which articles we’re crawling from their site.

I myself will be using a custom section to help me plan for my Jamaican vacation later this summer. It looks like it’s shaping up to be a wild season for hurricanes, so I’ve set up a custom section using the keywords [atlantic hurricane]. This section will help me stay up to date to see whether the season turns out as badly as predicted. (Even if I have to brave gale-force winds and rain for a couple of days, I’ll still have fun!)

Finally, if you use a feed reader (such as Google Reader) to read your news, you can get an RSS or Atom feed from your custom News section. Just click into your custom section and click on either the RSS or Atom link on the lefthand side of the page. For more info about feeds, check out our online help content.

We’d like to hear about how you're using personalized News to get the news that interests you. Visit the Google News group to tell everyone about your most creative or interesting personalized News section.

Cruel and Unusual

Flood calls to Gov. Rick Perry's Office and The Parole Board!

Reminder from: lampofhope Yahoo! Group

Title: Flood calls to Gov. Rick Perry's Office and The Parole Board!

Date: Tuesday August 14, 2007

Time: All Day

Repeats: This event repeats every Tuesday and Thursday until Friday August 31, 2007.

Location: Gov. Rick Perry's Office and The Parole Board Office

Street: Send faxes to 512-463-1849 and 512-463-8120

City State Zip: Austin/TX/78701

Phone: 800-252-9600 (TX callers) or 512-463-1782 (Austin and out of State) and 512-463-1679

Notes: Help Stop The Execution of Kenneth Foster

What you can do?

Make phone/fax calls to Gov. Rick Perry's Office: Call 800-252-9600 (Texas callers) or 512-463-1782 (Austin and out of state), and send faxes to 512-463-1849. Contact the Texas Board of Pardons & Paroles and tell them to grant Kenneth Foster clemency:

Price Daniel, Sr. Building209 West 14th Street, Suite 500Austin, Texas 78701

OR: P.O. Box 13401, Austin, Texas 78711-3401
Phone: (512) 463-1679
Fax: (512) 463-8120

Let Gov. Perry and the Parole Board know thatyou disagree with the Law of Party that includes the Death Sentence. The crime does not fit the punishment to those that did not commit the offense. No one should be responsible for another's action!