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Documentary Filmmaker, Christian Poveda sheds light on a subject, that is filled with dark circumstances, and is surrounded by violence.  His newest documentary, La Vida Loca, focuses on the daily life in a cell of one of the biggest cliques of M-18 in San Salvador, El Salvador.
20 years after a revolutionary war that devastated the nation, a new civil war has begun. This social unrest could have been contained within the U.S., but in 1996, the Illegal Immigrant Reform and the Immigrant Responsibility Act was put into affect, and it allowed the U.S.A. to deport more than 100,000 gang members, originally detained on U.S. soil, back to where they came from.Take a look at the trailer here.

Warner Bros is sueing an Indian studio over a film whose title it believes is too close to that of its hugely successful Harry Potter series.Mumbai based Mirchi Movies is set to release its film Hari Puttar - A Comedy of Terrors on September 12 in the subcontinent. But a lawsuit filed last week by Warner could yet see it pulled from the screen.

Besides the blatent name rip, we don’t really see it. Judging from the trailer, it looks like Macaulay Culkin’s more entitled to a royalty check than Warner Brothers.

Via guardian.co.uk 

Via BoingBoing

Although a judge ruled in 2006 that the monthly Critical Mass bicycle rides could proceed without a permit, the NYPD’s stance remains somewhat adversarial. Though the city has not been enforcing the controversial parade permit law when it comes to Critical Mass, police have been ticketing cyclists during the ride for such infractions as not having the required lights.A representative for TIMES UP! tells us that the cyclist in this video was arrested, held for 26 hours, and charged with attempted assault and resisting arrest.

 http://critical-mass.info/

Frank151 would like to congratulate accused crack cocaine dealer Guillermo Alarcon Jr. on his recent acquittal. In a Los Angeles court house, 2 police officers were caught lying about a suspect they accused of selling crack in front of his apartment building. The conviction of Guillermo depended on the police officers testimony. But the police officers were unaware of a nearby surveillance camera that had captured the true story behind the arrest. Click here for the full story

BBC uncovers lost Iraq billions

If we learned anything from The Wire, it’s that the Drug War is totally insane. Which we already sort of knew.

But then we hear stories like this, and we realize that the rest of the country still hasn’t figured it out.

The United States is home to less than five percent of the world’s population – but almost a quarter of the world’s prison population. We have more prisoners than anyplace else in the world, both in terms of percentage and sheer numbers.

We’re talking about 2.3 million Americans behind US bars; China, with four times our population, is a distant second, with 1.6 million prisoners.

Worse, in the 1980s we had about 40,000 people in jail for drug crimes; today, it’s over half a million.

The NY Times‘ national legal correspondant, Adam Liptak, spoke with NPR’s Fresh Air yesterday. Author of the Times’ recent series of legal criticism, “The American Exception,” Liptak tries to make sense of the ridiculously unbalanced political system we’ve got going on – and figure out why we’ve got more people in prison than any other country in the world.

Surprise, surprise — the problem’s our law enforcement, legal and judicial systems… not our people.

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After his March 21 appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, we’ve been wondering if Barney Frank, the Congressman from Massachusetts, would come through with his “Make Room for Serious Criminals” bill… which would decriminalize cannabis posession for personal use.

Well, he came through. And he brought company.

Co-sponsored with Reps. Ron Paul (R-TX), Maurice Hinchey (D-NY), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Sam Farr (D-CA), the bill dropped on April 17, to much NORML rejoicing. And this time, the Representatives are serious; their official press release doesn’t pull any punches. Frank & co. go as far as to call anyone who considers the consumption of marijuana different from alcohol and tobacco irrational. We couldn’t agree more.

You can read the House of Representatives’ official summary of the bill here…  Follow the jump or go here to read the Congressman’s press release.

We especially like his headline:

“FRANK INTRODUCES LEGISLATION TO REMOVE FEDERAL PENALTIES ON PERSONAL MARIJUANA USE”

Right on, Frank. Right on.  Oh, and HAPPY 4-20!

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“In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”
 - Benjamin Franklin

Louisiana attorney Tom Cryer doesn’t pay his income tax.  He hasn’t paid it for years. He doesn’t think you should have to, either.

Back in 2000, while studying US income tax laws, Cryer was surprised to discover what appears to be a loophole in the internal revenue code.  Apparently, every tax law must include 3 things: subject of the tax, amount of the tax, and who’s liable for the tax.  Cryer claims that US income tax laws don’t cover that last part — leaving no one technically liable for payment. 

Therefore, Cryer says, when the IRS taxes your income, they’re essentially coercing you into giving up your cash without legal grounds to do so.

So he just stopped paying.

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According to a new study, America now has 1.6 million people in prison.

That’s the same as 1 out of every 100 adults. The statistics are even scarier when it comes to rates of minorities, with 1 in 36 Hispanics behind bars, and a whopping 1 in 15 black adults. The US imprisons more people than any other country in the world.

Because of this, we spend about $49 billion in taxes annually on corrections. The average amount of money spent in that time to incarcerate an inmate is $23,876. By 2011, the US is expected to spend $74 billion dollars each year on the prison system.

Hopefully, this will be a wake up call to lawmakers. Their current policy of warehousing people is not effective, in terms of cost or in terms of fighting crime.

As the saying goes, all prison does is make better criminals.

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