2/19/02
9:47:43 AM
The Roy Process
New web site: http://members.cox.net/theroyprocess
Dear Concerned Citizens, Safe and secure burial of high level nuclear waste for 486,000 years, 20 half-lives of plutonium 239, is a scientific impossibility. There is a viable alternative to geologic isolation. High level nuclear waste can be transmuted into non-radioactive elements using existing infrastructure, commercially available machinery and current supporting technology. In addition, as the treated isotope rapidly decays into a non-radioactive element, heat is produced which can power the existing electric generators at each nuclear power plant where nuclear waste is stored in cooling ponds. The late Dr. Roy estimated cost in 1979 at $80 million dollars to construct the Roy Process pilot facility and should take three years to build. There remains about a years work calculating engineering parameters for the pilot plant. Transmuting high level waste would also guarantee international security by eliminating bomb grade elements.
Sincerely Yours, Dennis F. Nester
2/10/02
8:02:05 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Radiation mutations passed to children-study - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14464/story.htm
UPDATE - US says no evidence to support China GMO import rules - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14473/story.htm
US agrees to chop back huge Montana logging plan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14455/story.htm
US says 3M to pay $15.5 mln for dump site cleanup - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14456/story.htm
US business says patient on China WTO commitments - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14467/story.htm
Nevada leaders press Bush on nuclear waste site - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14460/story.htm
UPDATE - US agencies mull physical upgrades to nuclear plants - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14461/story.htm
UPDATE - US Senate panel planning vote on energy tax breaks - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14462/story.htm
Tanker sails wrong way down Channel - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14476/story.htm
London Electricity buys wind farms from N.Electric - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14465/story.htm
Tropical air thins European ozone layer by 30 pct - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14453/story.htm
Siemens to build 300 MW windpower plant in South Korea - SOUTH KOREA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14459/story.htm
South Africa seeks end to ban on rhino horn trade - SOUTH AFRICA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14468/story.htm
Seahorses help usher in Year of Horse in Singapore - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14471/story.htm
Portugal bids to fill Europe's biggest reservoir - PORTUGAL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14469/story.htm
EU energy chief says supply system unsustainable - NORWAY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14457/story.htm
Japan gradually lifting ban on imported rice - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14475/story.htm
German swine fever case prompts slaughter of pigs - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14470/story.htm
Ally of France's Bove gets jail for GM crop attack - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14466/story.htm
France defends its corner on energy liberalisation - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14463/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Denmark to scrap subsidies for wind power by 2004 - DENMARK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14458/story.htm
Chile forest fires not seen under control for week - CHILE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14454/story.htm
Austria calls for talks on mega hydro power merger - AUSTRIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14474/story.htm
BHP says completes Ok Tedi mine withdrawal - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14472/story.htm
2/10/02
7:59:04 PM
t r u t h o u t | 02.10
ERNEST F. HOLLINGS | Time for a Special Counsel
http://www.truthout.com/02.10A.EFH.Special.htm
Former Enron Chief Expected to Testify at Senate Panel
http://www.truthout.com/02.10B.Enron.2.Testify.htm
Senator Kent Conrad Delivers the Weekly Democratic Radio Address (Response to Mr. Bush)
http://www.truthout.com/02.10C.Democratic.Response.htm
Byrd vs. O'Neill: Budget Battle Turns Personal
http://www.truthout.com/02.10D.Budget.Battle.htm
Scott Galindez | Yucca Mountain Repository is Not a Gamble Nevadans Wish to Take
http://www.truthout.com/02.10E.SG.Yucca.Mountain.htm
Enron, Preaching Deregulation, Worked the Statehouse Circuit
http://www.truthout.com/02.10F.Enron.Preaching.htm
NY Firefighters Still Burying Their Own
http://www.truthout.com/02.10G.NY.Firefighters.htm
2/10/02
7:53:03 PM
t r u t h o u t
William Rivers Pitt | The Enron Lies are Piling Up
http://www.truthout.com/02.09A.WRP.Enron.htm
Schakowsky: Republicans Practice Enron Economics -- Give to The Rich And Take From the Rest
http://www.truthout.com/02.09B.Schakowsky.Enron.htm
Bob Herbert | A Judge's Past
http://www.truthout.com/02.09C.BH.Judge.htm
Comptroller Seeks Papers From Cheney
http://www.truthout.com/02.09D.Cheney.Papers.htm
Cheney's Ex - Company Settles Fraud Suit
http://www.truthout.com/02.09E.Cheney.Fraud.htm
McCain Seeks to Clarify Guidelines Governing Searches at Airports
http://www.truthout.com/02.09F.Mccain.Searches.htm
32 Women Complain of Groping, Fondling During Airport Body Searches
http://www.truthout.com/02.09G.32.Searches.htm
2/10/02
7:49:52 PM
Multi-Trillion Dollar Financial Scandal - 'This Thing Involves Everybody'
by David Podvin
"Immediately after business slave George W. Bush took power, Corporate America went on a lying spree. Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings appear loath to report that such high profile companies as Viacom, General Electric, and Disney are also engaging in the accounting scheme."
Missing The Overall
A multi-trillion dollar financial scandal is occurring in the United States right now. It threatens to inflict unprecedented carnage upon Corporate America and horrific damage to our national economy. The mainstream media is aware of it, but most Americans are not, because the corporate news outlets refuse to report on it. It is not conspiracy. It is complicity.
The coverage of the Enron situation has primarily focused on the disintegration of a powerful corporation due to the deceit and criminality of those who ran the company. The few reporters who have looked below the surface have proven linkage between Enron's corruption and its political connections to the Bush administration. While the crimes of former Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and the collusion of former Texas governor George W. Bush are significant, the corporate media is selfishly choosing not to focus on the big story.
In February of 2001, Enron stock was trading above $80 per share, which placed a market value of more than $60 billion on the company. Today, the stock no longer trades, rendering Enron virtually worthless. It is crucial to remember that, despite the harrowing decline in its fortunes, the company never reported a bad earnings quarter.
Enron's duplicity is an extreme symptom of a financial cancer that threatens the health of the economy. The disease is a malignant accounting method that has received legal protection from conservative politicians on behalf of their corporate benefactors. It is called 'pro forma'. Originally intended to allow companies to compensate for extraordinary events that distorted their financial reports, the pro forma accounting method has led to the greatest fraud ever perpetrated.
Previously, publicly owned companies had been legally required to provide shareholders with an honest accounting of their earnings. The standard used was GAAP, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles. Under this method, a company would state its earnings based on the old fashioned equation of income minus expenses. Using pro forma, companies decide which expenses are irrelevant, thereby providing great latitude for creativity.
Freed from concerns about regulatory oversight, this country's biggest companies became dramatically more 'creative' with their earnings reports. Current estimates for S&P 500 corporations are that they have collectively earned about $410 billion in 2001 when using the pro forma accounting method. However, when using GAAP, they have collectively earned about $240 billion.
Those who claim that Enron was an exceptional case are technically correct. While Enron overestimated its earnings by 100%, the average large publicly held American corporation is overestimating its earnings by only 42%.
IBM reports pro forma earnings. So does Intel. And Cisco Systems. And Dell. And Sun Micro. And Motorola. And Microsoft. And... By engaging in such manipulation, with the assent of accountants and governmental oversight agencies, Corporate America has conned the public into investing trillions of dollars based on phony earnings. Cisco, for example, has used its artificially inflated stock price as capital to acquire other companies. Many corporate empires have been built on such accounting legerdemain, including General Electric (NBC), Viacom (CBS), Disney (ABC), AOL/Time Warner (CNN, Time Magazine), News Corporation (Fox), The Washington Post Company (Washington Post, Newsweek), the Tribune Corporation (Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times), and the New York Times Company (New York Times, Boston Globe).
Enron is the tip of an iceberg on which sits the entire mainstream media. A national association of accounting firms has called on the Securities and Exchange Commission to require all publicly held corporations to report real GAAP earnings. The return to ethical accounting standards would mean that, in order to reflect the current valuation of the Dow Industrials, the average would fall to 5825. In order to reach the historical norm based on GAAP, the Dow would decline to 3300.
A major decline in stock prices would erase trillions of dollars of investors' wealth. With the uninformed public currently heavily invested in the market, this would have a crushing impact on the finances of the average American.
In 1995, Senate Republicans and almost half of their Democratic colleagues joined to override President Clinton's veto of legislation providing corporations with protection from shareholder lawsuits. The leader of the effort to dramatically reduce civil liability for companies that report phony earnings was Wall Street lobbyist Harvey Pitt, who has made a career of defending the shady dealings of stock market thieves like Ivan Boesky.
Just as his father hid the magnitude of the savings and loan scandal until after the 1988 election, Bush is desperately trying to obscure the truth about Corporate America's financial sleight of hand in order to defer the tumbling of the house of cards until after the 2004 campaign. He expects to be helped in this effort by the man he appointed to be Chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the one who is most responsible for seeing that corporations accurately report their earnings. Harvey Pitt.
The powers that be are pulling out all the stops. What they are fighting is the law of gravity. As the high powered executives at Enron learned, all the political machinations in the world can't prevent a stock from falling when the word gets out that the books have been cooked.
After investors discover they've been scammed, they sell, and the mightiest of companies can be crushed. Less than a year ago, Enron was the seventh largest corporation in America. Today, it is no longer functioning as a business entity. It is, for all intents and purposes, dead.
The greatest legacy of the Enron debacle will be increased public pressure on companies to report their real earnings. If corporations are forced to be honest, then there will be shocking revisions in the financial statements of America's most prominent businesses.
The current situation is a scandal of almost incomprehensible magnitude, but it is not a conspiracy. For years, the disgrace of earnings manipulation has been an open, dirty little secret. Dissidents like the highly respected money managers at Comstock Partners
(http://www.comstockfunds.com/)
and brokerage analyst Alan Newman
(http://www.cross-currents.net/charts.htm)
have been screaming bloody murder about how Corporate America is cheating the public.
Their voices have not been amplified. Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings appear loath to report that such high profile companies as Viacom, General Electric, and Disney are also engaging in the accounting scheme.
The current reported level of corporate earnings is a mirage. The investing public has been taken for a magic carpet ride. The deceit of management, now so evident in the case of Enron, is endemic in corporate boardrooms across America. It is the massive impending economic fallout from that bitter reality which is the looming tragedy in this story.
While the media continues to focus on the microcosm of corruption at Enron, the public at large has yet to be informed of the epidemic of the earnings lies. As Deep Throat told Bob Woodward during the Watergate scandal, when the reporter was focusing on the criminal behavior of Nixon functionary Donald Segretti, "You're missing the big picture. You're missing the overall." "This thing involves everybody."
Sources:
Accounting For Options (item 3), Chetan J. Parikh, Capital Ideas Online, May 31 - June 13, 1999 Issue S&P P/E 37, Carl Swenlin, AegeanCapital Inc., August 3, 2001 Earnings Report Parodies, Comstock Partners, Inc., October 11, 2001 Smoke and Mirrors, Comstock Partners, Inc., August 22, 2001 How we got into this corporate mess, Dan Gillmor, TheDailyCamera.com, December 24, 2001 Spin on tech financial results comes under more scrutiny, Scott Herhold and Mary Anne Ostrom, SiliconValley.com, January 31, 2002 Disney Profit Beats Forecasts, Clouds Remain, Bob Tourtellotte, Reuters, January 31, 2002 Enron: Could your stock be next?, Paul R. La Monica, CNNMoney, November 30, 2001
"William Fleckenstein, president of Fleckenstein Capital, a money-management firm in Seattle that engages in short selling, says that General Electric is a company that fits this description. Although Fleckenstein is not shorting GE (GE: down $1.23 to $38.50, Research, Estimates), he says that investors would be wise to stay away from the stock because of all its moving parts -- a mish-mash of different businesses in several countries reporting in a variety of currencies. It's literally impossible to know what's going on there," he says. "In response to this criticism, General Electric spokesman David Frail says, 'GE is no more difficult to understand than AOL Time Warner (the parent of CNN/Money.com) or any other multi-business company." [So true.]
Viacom beats Street, CNNMoney, October 25, 2000
News Corporation Reports Double Digit Film Operating Income Growth in First Quarter, Business Wire, November 7, 2001
Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements, The Washington Post Company, 2000 Annual Report As predicted, second-quarter results grim for newspapers, Tara McMeekin, Newspapers & Technology, September 2001
Wider loss for AOL Time Warner, Tribune News Services, January 31, 2002
Source: http://www.MakeThemAccountable.com
2/10/02
1:10:59 PM
The Great Deception
by Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
For the good times come and go, but at least there’s rain; So this won’t be barren ground when September rolls around. So watch the field behind the plow turn to straight dark rows Put another season’s promise in the ground. -- Stan Rogers (American singer and songwriter; 1949–1983. From his song, “The Field Behind the Plow")
Each day, millions of people around the world work hard to make a living. Some work long hours at jobs that require back breaking physical exertion, leaving them little time and energy for personal or family activities. They are trying to earn a living wage as best they can to feed and clothe themselves and their families.
Most of these folks do not get up in the morning with the intention of harming the Earth, making people and animals sick, or taking the future away from our children. Yet that often ends up being the result of their activities as employers and politicians try their best to convince people that their work is helping the economy, providing jobs, or keeping their countries strong. This rhetoric has resulted in making the workers of the world accomplices in what may be the greatest deception of our time.
The reality is that most work being done today by the majority of people involves extracting precious resources from the Earth to make goods that we could easily live without. That work is also generating millions of tons of toxic substances every day that are pouring into our lakes, rivers, oceans, soil, and bodies.
The average woman and man is often well aware of some of the consequences of their actions. But how can they be expected to make informed choices when their bosses tell them everything is fine, their government tells them that regulations keep businesses honest, and doctors keep recommending drugs to solve problems that lifestyle changes could cure?
The plight of the people of New York City is the most recent, pathetic example of this phenomena. In the days following the September 11th tragedies, EPA spokesperson Bonnie Bellows told ABC news that EPA officials "really don't detect any real danger" in air and dust tests and that there were "very low" levels of asbestos.
Non-government scientists knew that this was nonsense and that the air around the ruin of the World Trade Center was filled with millions of pounds of pulverized, toxic materials that were now airborne.
In a "Healing Our World" commentary published in the days after the attacks, I reported that, “Gases and smoke from the fire and explosions are also highly toxic, containing dioxins, PCBs, volatile organic compounds, jet fuel, and many other toxic compounds from the building materials and offices. These irritants can trigger breathing spasms, asthma attacks, and untold future problems for those who inhale them."
"The 2,000 degree fire that resulted when the jets that hit the World Trade Center towers exploded may also have created many combinations of toxic materials of unknown effect.”
All this has been denied by the Bush administration.
Once again, science and technology fail us and common sense is ignored. Rather than issue advisories that people not be outside in the area of the disaster without breathing protection, yet more studies are being undertaken. In the meantime, rescue workers, residents of the area, and folks on the street are at risk.
The “New York Times” summed it up well in their January 11, 2002 article, “Studies Will Take Sept. 11's Measure in Health Effects.” The newspaper said, “The blast of dust and smoke — and the toxic substances, fibers and ash that blew through New York in the days afterward — is without precedent in medical literature, which means that there are no studies to fall back on for guidance on whether to be alarmed or reassured.”
The Associated Press reported a few weeks ago that, “As many as 500 firefighters who worked at the World Trade Center site are on leave for respiratory problems and other rescue-related injuries," and a union leader warned Friday that the ailments could force many of them into retirement.
An independent laboratory found 555 times the safe level of asbestos in the air of one man’s apartment near the area. Samples from his bathroom vent showed dangerous levels of fiberglass.
Many folks who work downtown are reporting very similar symptoms -nosebleeds, a continuous hacking cough, bronchial infections, and sore throats.
Four New York Port Authority police officers were reassigned when elevated levels of mercury were found in their blood. And the list goes on and on.
Even before September 11th, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) estimated that more than 32 million workers are exposed to harmful substances from more than 3.5 million workplaces every year.
Each day, our jobs wreak havoc throughout our planet. Regular readers of this column will have seen this list before, but it bears repeating.
Each day on this Earth:
180 sq. miles of tropical forests are cleared
73 tons of topsoil are eroded
78 million tons of heat trapping carbon dioxide are added to the atmosphere
1,800 tons of ozone depleting chlorofluorocarbons are added to the atmosphere.
And in the United States alone, we:
use 313 million gallons of fuel - enough to drain 26 tractor-trailer trucks every minute
take 18 million tons of raw materials from the Earth
use 6.8 billion gallons of drinking water to flush toilets
throw one million bushels of litter out of car windows
saw up 100 million board feet of wood
use 250,000 tons of steel use 187,000 tons of paper
So, we have to ask ourselves the question, “What are we working for?” The answer must be more than “just for tomorrow.” Given that most of our bosses and political leaders work only to increase their wealth for today, we must conclude that we have to take back our health and our future.
If our work is damaging to our souls and to our planet, then something must change. If you are working in an industry or in a job that is unhealthy for your spirit as well as your Earth, then begin looking for a new job now. If you don’t feel that is possible and you need or want to stay, then organize with other co-workers and decide to make a difference.
It is vitally important that we do our best to align our hearts with our jobs. The old idea that from 9 to 5 you belong to someone else never was workable and is too damaging to even consider. We have all felt the pain and personal damage that comes from working at something we hate or that we know is wrong.
And you know what? When you align your work with what is truly in your heart, you will find that your new choice will benefit the Earth and our children’s future. I don’t fear that any mentally sound person will intentionally choose the accumulation of wealth or to inflict pain as a profession. Those goals cannot truly rest in one’s heart but are distractions and denials that shield us from our true spirit.
As our world fills with toxic pollutants that are being found in the bloodstream of even indigenous people far from civilization and in nearly every woman’s breastmilk, we can no longer wait. We must ignore the rationalizations of our industrial and political leaders whose hearts are blinded by their quest for personal wealth and power at any cost. Let’s take back our world.
The Great Deception that has worked to render us powerless for so long must end. With a shifting of priorities and an unblocked heart and spirit, you and I can end it. Let’s dust off those resumes, fire our bosses, and take back the workplace. The Earth is our home, not a commodity, and our health is not for sale.
RESOURCES
1. See the full “New York Times” article about the pending health studies at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/11/nyregion/11LAB.html
2. A “Washington Post” article detailed some of the health effects of September 11th.
3. Get help looking for a profession that feeds your soul with the help of the book, “Mindfulness and Meaningful Work,” by Matthew Fox. See an excerpt at:
http://www.universalmind.com/matfox.htm
4. Learn about ways to craft a new dream from Island Press. Their website, “Redefining the American Dream,” is at:
http://www.islandpress.com/ecocompass/dream.html
5. Visit the Center for a New American Dream for help at:
6. It may seem strange to consider, but the ancient Chinese art of Feng Shui can help. Through techniques that show you how to make your home a representation of your life, you will get help bringing your dreams and aspirations into focus. Feng Shui has methods that can help you bring your dreams to life. For a pretty good explanation, visit:
7. Business and political leaders have banded together to rob the Earth more effectively and to bring the Great Deception to small towns. Read about their efforts and learn how to combat them at:
http://www.publiceye.org/magazine/v07n2/wiseuse.html
8. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Tell them that they had better start thinking about our global future – or they are out! If you know your Zip code, you can find them at:
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ziptoit.html
Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found watching his son learn to crawl and thinking about what the boy will do for a living. Please send your thoughts, comments, and visions to him at:
mailto:Jackie@HealingOurWorld.com
http://www.HealingOurWorld.com
2/10/02
12:58:54 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS)
BUSH HEARS ARGUMENTS AGAINST NEVADA NUCLEAR WASTE DUMP
WASHINGTON, DC, February 8, 2002 (ENS) - A bipartisan group of top elected Nevada officials made their case against the Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear waste repository to President George W. Bush in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-08-02.html
FEATHERED CLUES CLEAR UP MIGRATION MYSTERY
WASHINGTON, DC, February 8, 2002 (ENS) - Using chemical clues extracted from feathers, biologists have tracked down the wintering grounds of tiny songbirds that migrate throughout the Western Hemisphere. The findings will help conservationists identify and protect areas crucial to the survival of migrating warblers, now threatened by deforestation and other habitat changes.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-08-06.html
EUROPEAN AIRCRAFT NOISE FIGHT REVS UP AGAIN
STRASBOURG, France, February 8, 2002 (ENS) - The European Parliament Environment Committee's rapporteur on airport noise has called for European Union legislative proposals on limiting noise nuisance around airports to be tightened.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-08-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 8, 2002
Senate Passes Limits on Farm Subsidies
$30 Million Supports Arctic Climate Research
School Bus Pollution Ranked State by State
Energy Exploration Threatens Utah Desert
Michigan Protects 6,275 Acres with Energy Royalties
Timber Association Vows to End Illegal Logging
Missouri Gets $6 Million for Weatherization
Angelina Jolie Speaks Out at Olympics
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-08-09.html
HEALING OUR WORLD: WEEKLY COMMENT
By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
The Great Deception
Each day, millions of people around the world work hard to make a living. Some work long hours at jobs that require back breaking physical exertion, leaving them little time and energy for personal or family activities. They are trying to earn a living wage as best they can to feed and clothe themselves and their families. Most of these folks do not get up in the morning with the intention of harming the Earth, making people and animals sick, or taking the future away from our children. Yet that often ends up being the result of their activities as employers and politicians try their best to convince people that their work is helping the economy, providing jobs, or keeping their countries strong. This rhetoric has resulted in making the workers of the world accomplices in what may be the greatest deception of our time.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-08g.html
2/8/02
6:12:06 PM
Public Citizen issued the following two press releases today: Feb. 8, 2002
Citing Extensive Conflicts of Interest, Public Citizen Calls on Florida Governor to Recuse Himself from Pension Fund Investigations
In Letter to Gov. Jeb Bush, Public Citizen Urges Recusal
WASHINGTON, D.C. - Citing Florida Gov. Jeb Bush's strong ties to Enron and his extensive entanglements with the company, Public Citizen today called on Bush to recuse himself from all actions relating to investigations into the state pension fund's losses in Enron stocks and bonds. The organization also called on Bush to refrain from taking an active role in any lawsuits against Enron, Arthur Andersen or other entities related to Enron.
In a letter sent to Bush, the consumer advocacy organization urged Bush to disclose all his contacts with Enron executives since he was elected governor and to tell the public whether he knew anything about Enron's shaky financial condition when the pension fund was buying Enron shares last fall that were plummeting in value. Public Citizen also asked Bush to outline what steps he plans to take to shield the pension fund from a similar loss in the future.
"Your longstanding relationship with the company and its executives requires that you step down from any potential involvement in bringing Enron to justice," Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook wrote. "It is a state and national imperative that any wrongdoing be fully investigated and that these investigations avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest."
In the letter, Claybrook noted that other prominent officials have recused themselves from involvement in any investigation or litigation involving Enron. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft did so, as did John Cornyn, attorney general for Texas. Three federal judges have done so, as has the entire U.S. Attorney's office in Houston.
Among the reasons Bush should recuse himself :
§ He has been a business partner with Enron. In 1995, he invested nearly $92,000 in an Enron affiliate, Enron Liquids Pipeline, and sold his interest 10 months later for a $7,100 profit;
§ He appointed Walter Revell, a longtime friend of former Enron CEO Key Lay, to serve as chairman of the Florida 2020 Energy Study Commission. Bush also appointed James Garner III, lobbyist for Enron subsidiary Azurix, to the Governor's Commission for the Everglades. Azurix wanted to obtain water rights in Florida;
§ Enron, its subsidiaries and its employees contributed $420,000 to Florida political campaigns between 1995 and 2001, more than 80 percent of that going to Republicans, according to the St. Petersburg Times. Additionally, Bush accepted nearly $20,000 from Enron, its subsidiaries, and the company's accounting and law firms during his 1998 campaign, including $6,500 directly from Enron executives, according to Florida Department of State records;
§ Enron and its employees contributed $312,500 to President Bush's 1994 and 1998 Texas gubernatorial campaigns, and another $113,800 to his presidential campaign. Enron also gave $10,500 to the Bush-Cheney Recount Fund and $300,000 to the Bush-Cheney 2001 Inaugural Fund, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
§ Former Enron CEO Ken Lay reportedly gave money to the Foundation for Florida's Future, a think tank the governor founded.
§ The deputy executive director of the Board of Administration, which oversees the pension fund, is Coleman Stipanovich, brother of J.M. "Mac" Stipanovich, a Republican political consultant and lobbyist who ran Bush's gubernatorial campaign in 1994;
§ In January, Richard Kinder, former Enron president and large donor to Jeb Bush's brother, President Bush, and the Republican Party, held a fundraising event for Jeb Bush at Kinder's Houston home, which Jeb Bush attended.
"Clearly, Jeb Bush has strong ties to Enron and extensive entanglements that create a number of conflicts," Claybrook said. "For the sake of the people of Florida, he ought to step out of this and let the independent investigators figure out what happened. Any actions he takes will be suspect, given the taint of these ties."
A copy of Public Citizen's letter is available at
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/Enron/articles.cfm?ID=7115 .
xox
Feb. 8, 2002
Court Should Order National Archives to Open Presidential Records to the Public
President Bush's Executive Order Violates Law, Should Not Be Implemented, Public Citizen Says in Court Filing
WASHINGTON, D.C. - A federal court should order the National Archives to allow public access to presidential records and disregard President Bush's executive order restricting access because the order plainly violates federal law, Public Citizen said in a motion for summary judgment filed in court today. The motion was filed in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia as part of a lawsuit initiated last November on behalf of several organizations and individuals seeking to overturn the executive order.
Public Citizen's motion explains that because Bush's order, issued early last November, violates the 1978 Presidential Records Act and has no constitutional basis, the court should declare that the Archivist of the United States and his agency, the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), may not implement the order. Public Citizen's motion also seeks a permanent injunction against the implementation of the order and requiring the prompt release of the Reagan and Bush presidential and vice presidential records.
The 1978 law opens most presidential records to the public 12 years after the president leaves office, but Bush's order jeopardizes public access by providing that whenever a former president asserts a claim of "executive privilege," the Archivist may not open the records, even if the claim is legally invalid. Today's filing argues that because there are no disputed material facts as to the illegality of the order, the Archivist should not be implementing it at all.
Over a year ago, the 12-year restriction period for 68,000 pages of documents from the Reagan administration expired. The current Bush administration delayed their release, then promulgated the executive order, which has further delayed the release of the documents and may permanently bar access to some of them. To date, only 8,000 pages of the documents have been released to the public. The order has also blocked release of vice presidential records of George H.W. Bush at the Bush Presidential Library.
"The administration has stubbornly refused to recognize that the order violates not only the Presidential Records Act, but also clear judicial precedents," said Scott Nelson, the Public Citizen attorney who filed the lawsuit. "The Archivist is obligated to follow the law, not this unauthorized and unlawful executive order."
After the 12-year restriction period under the Presidential Records Act expires, Bush's order grants both the sitting and former president an unlimited amount of time to review documents that the law requires to be released. If the former president objects to the release of any documents, the Archivist must keep those records secret, even if the incumbent president finds "compelling circumstances" that favor disclosure. This gives broad new powers to former presidents to cover up inconvenient documents.
A particularly troubling part of the order is that it creates a new vice presidential privilege that the Archivist is required to honor. This vice presidential power has no basis in constitutional law or practice, and George H.W. Bush will be the first to receive this vice presidential privilege. The order also unlawfully permits "representatives" of the families of former presidents to assert executive privilege long after the former president dies or becomes disabled.
The Presidential Records Act, which was passed in the wake of controversy over control of President Nixon's records, makes records of presidents and vice presidents public property and broadly opens them to the public, making exceptions for classified materials that could damage national security if released. Because presidents have the ability to restrict access to some records for 12 years after they leave office, the act does not threaten the constitutional executive privilege.
"The role of the Archives is to provide citizens with information about their government, not to assist presidents in withholding inconvenient or embarrassing documents," said Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook. "The right of the public to information about their own government is too important to be compromised."
A copy of today's filing is available on the Web at:
http://www.citizen.org/litigation/briefs/FOIAGovtSec/articles.cfm?ID=7116.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit: http://www.Citizen.org
2/8/02
6:07:04 PM
Everybody Must Get Stoned: A Kinder, Gentler Afghanistan
by Ted Rall
NEW YORK-"In four short months," George W. Bush told us in his State of the Union address, "our nation has comforted the victims; begun to rebuild New York and the Pentagon; rallied a great coalition; captured, arrested, and rid the world of thousands of terrorists; destroyed Afghanistan's terrorist training camps; saved a people from starvation; and freed a country from brutal oppression."
Not quite.
The victims will be mourning and litigating for years to come. Not only is New York not rebuilding, it's watching its corporate tax base scurry off to suburbia as the Bush Administration brazenly welshes on its pledge to help the city with $20 billion. The coalition is a gathering of real evil-doers, like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, that fund and arm anti-American Islamic extremists. The U.S. is no closer to apprehending Osama bin Laden, Mullah Mohammad Omar or their henchmen than we were or it was back in September. ("[Bin Laden] has gone silent," an anonymous Bushie told The New York Times Feb. 4.) And Afghanistan's new interim government isn't even slightly better than the Taliban it replaced.
"The last time we met in this chamber," Bush crowed, "the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school."
In all the ways that matter, they still are. Afghan women continue to wear the all-encompassing burqa, infamous symbol of Taliban oppression, out of fear of reprisals and terror of being raped by Northern Alliance soldiers. For the same reasons, they rarely go outdoors. Few schools have money to hire teachers. Women may be legally allowed to work, but Afghanistan's male unemployment rate exceeds 95 percent. If and when economic activity resumes, male-run Afghanistan will take care of the guys first.
Nothing has changed in Afghanistan, simply because there has been no meaningful attempt to de-Talibanize. Well-known figures like Mullah Omar may be in hiding, but today's Northern Alliance-dominated regime is almost entirely comprised of Taliban defectors. So while prime minister Hamid Karzai cuts a dashing figure with his green Tajik robe and impeccable English, the heavily-armed men ordinary Afghans come into contact with on the streets are merely gussied-up Talibs. Some liberation.
Nothing symbolized the excesses of Taliban rule more than that government's orgy of Friday-afternoon stonings and amputations. "Our Islam is different," Justice Minister Abdul Rahim Karimi, who took office on Dec. 24, told Agence France Press. Yet the Taliban's Sharia law-a pastiche of Pashtun tribal traditions and fundamentalist interpretations of the Koran that served in place of a modern legal system-remains in full force. "People would not understand if we got rid of it," he said.
Judge Ahamat Ullha Zarif, a leading Northern Alliance jurist, described justice in the kinder, gentler Afghanistan bought and paid for by you, the American taxpayer:
"There will be some changes from the time of the Taliban," Zarif announced. "For example, the Taliban used to hang the victim's body in public for four days. We will only hang the body for a short time, say 15 minutes."
People who have sex outside marriage-this includes unmarried couples-will continue to be stoned. "But we will use only small stones," he noted. Smaller stones offer the condemned, or at least the hardier among them, the chance to escape. "If they are able to run away, they are free."
As in America, this new soft-on-crime approach is contingent on cooperation and remorse. "Those who refuse to confess their wrongdoing and are condemned by a judge will have their hands and feet bound so that they cannot run away," Zarif explained. "They will certainly be stoned to death."
The good news, such as it is, is that Sharia may assume a mellower form in some provinces. As law and order has vanished, a new civil war has fragmented the country into separate fiefdoms controlled by vicious U.S.-armed warlords. At the checkpoint separating the Abdul Hai Neamati and Ismail Khan sectors of Farah province in western Afghanistan, for example, each side flies a different Afghan flag. But both are equally committed to the identical core value-the joy of robbing and raping ordinary people.
Ted Rall's new book, a graphic travelogue about his recent coverage of the Afghan war titled "To Afghanistan and Back," will be published in April.
Source: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/020207/7/12qqs.html
2/8/02
5:56:08 PM
DAILY GRIST <http://www.gristmagazine.com>
WAR AND PEAS
War is hell -- and not just for human beings. A team of researchers from the U.N. Environment Programme is headed to Afghanistan to measure the ecological damage of decades of war, drought, famine, and more war. The study, which is part of a relatively new trend of analyzing the effects of human conflict on the natural world, will be the first environmental assessment of any sort to take place in Afghanistan in 25 years. The UNEP team will tally the damage done to everything from forests to water supplies to endangered species. However, its work will be complicated by the remoteness of the landscape, the country's varying topography (from towering mountains to arid sand dunes), and ongoing safety threats. Environmental scientists anticipate depressing findings: "The groundwork has been laid for an environmental disaster," said wildlife biologist Peter Zahler.
straight to the source: Seattle Times, Associated Press, Joseph B. Verrengia, 07 Feb 2002 <http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134401110_ecoafghan07.html>
only in Grist: Afghanistan's environmental crisis -- and other gems from assorted magazines in our Best of the Rest section http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/best/best012202.asp?source=daily#afghan
RHODE ISLAND LEAD
A Superior Court judge in Rhode Island paved the way for a landmark lawsuit earlier this week when he gave state Attorney Gen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D) permission to sue manufacturers of lead-based paint. The paint industry had attempted to derail the trial by calling for every one of an estimated 300,000 owners of lead-painted homes to be codefendants. In a triumph that was hailed by anti-lead activists around the country, the judge disagreed, and Whitehouse is expected to go to court within six months. Paint companies maintain that they will win the case by showing that childhood lead poisoning is caused not by paint itself but by poor maintenance. Whitehouse responds that if the companies knew that deteriorating pain was a problem, consumers should have been warned. Rhode Island was the first state to sue paint companies for their role in lead poisoning, which causes neurological problems and learning disorders in children.
straight to the source: Providence Journal, Peter B. Lord, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.projo.com/report/html/06995051.htm>
BIG. YELLOW. DIFFERENT. WORSE.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, and the diesel fumes from the bus go far and wide. That's the bad news from a study released yesterday by the Union of Concerned Scientists analyzing emissions from the nation's 454,000 school buses. Nine out of 10 of those buses are powered by diesel fuel, which can increase risk of cancer and exacerbate or cause asthma. The study also ranked every state by school bus emissions; California and Washington tied for worst, each receiving a "D." On average, every bus in the Golden State emits the same amount of particulates in a year as 170 cars. The report recommended converting buses to run on natural gas in order to reduce emissions and related health threats.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Jane Kay, 08 Feb 2002 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/08/MN88887.DTL>
only in Grist: Lovey-dovey scientists -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha092099.stm?source=daily>
KENYA OPENER
Even though Kenya is a major food exporter, it hasn't reaped much benefit from the $20 billion-per-year global market in organic foods. Now some farmers and nonprofits in the African nation are trying to change that. Many Kenyans already grow their crops without chemical inputs, but up till now, not a single one has been certified as an organic farmer -- and without such certification, farmers can't benefit from the lucrative natural foods market. Advocates of organic farming say that although the practice can be labor intensive, it is more sustainable, yields more healthful food, and reduces reliance on expensive imported chemicals. The biotechnology industry, however, dismisses organic food as spoils for the spoiled, and says the future of agriculture in Africa lies with genetically modified crops.
straight to the source: Christian Science Monitor, Mike Crawley, 07 Feb 2002 <http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0207/p08s01-woaf.html>
BITTER SWEET
Two years of wrangling and two days of intensive, closed-door negotiations ended in compromise yesterday when the U.S. Forest Service and environmentalists agreed to allow limited logging of burned timber in Montana's Bitterroot National Forest. Under the terms of the agreement, the USFS will begin logging about 14,770 burned acres; in exchange, it will not immediately pursue logging on another 29,000 acres and will drop its appeal of a federal court ruling preventing the agency from any logging in the Bitterroot. (That ruling came down after environmentalists sued Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey for bypassing Forest Service procedure and unilaterally approving a logging plan.) In all, the USFS will be able to harvest about 60 million board-feet, or roughly one-third of what it had hoped for. "It's kind of a mixed bag," said Larry Campbell, executive director of the Friends of Bitterroot, "but overall I do feel pretty good."
straight to the source: Billings Gazette, Associated Press, 08 Feb 2002 <http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?section=local&display=content/local/22-logging.inc>
2/8/02
5:44:23 PM
TomPaine.com
BUSH-SPEAK FROM CHURCHILL TO GOLDILOCKS
Using Simplicity As A Smokescreen
by David Kusnet
Behind Bush's simple State of the Union language, there are carefully crafted misrepresentations of his proposals -- populist arguments for elitist economics.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5087
Dispatch: Detroit
WHY WE'RE SUING JOHN ASHCROFT
Detroit's Media Fight Back On The Public's Behalf
by Jeremy Voas
"We don't know whether the government's suspicions about Haddad are justified. But we -- and you -- have a right to find out. And he has a right to a fair and open trial."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5088
THE HIGH PRICE OF CHEAP MEAT
Bargins At The Supermarket Cooler Will Cost Us Dearly Down The Line
by Ken Midkiff
At a slaughterhouse in Milan, Missouri, a sanitation worker fell into a huge sausage blender and was killed. OSHA fined the company $9,450. All the widow received was her husband's mangled body.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5085
LOOKING TO AID IN ALL THE WRONG PLACES
New War, Same Bad Old Strategy
by David Roodman
Propping up Pakistani despots during the Cold War failed miserably. So why is the administration trying it again?
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5054
THE PETER PAN SYNDROME
Infantilized by Instant Gratification
by M. W. Guzy
People no longer "save up" for future purchases but rather have to "cut back" to pay off yesterday. In effect, an entire generation has taken the Peter Pan pledge by refusing to grow up.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5089
Book Excerpt
THE NEXT BIG INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITY
How To Make The Economy Work For Mother Earth
by Lester Brown
"Those who anticipate the emerging eco-economy and plan for it will be the winners. Those who cling to the past risk becoming part of it."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5026
HEY, BIG SPENDER
Presidential Candidate George W. Bush: "When you total up all the federal spending he [Al Gore] wants to do, it's the largest increase in federal spending in years. And there's just not going to be enough money.... This is a big spender, he is. And he ought to be proud of it. It's part of his record. We just have a different philosophy."
President George W. Bush: "My budget includes the largest increase in defense spending in two decades ... Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay ... our budget will run a deficit."
http://www.tompaine.com/check_it_out/
2/8/02
5:40:42 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
PRISON COFFEE
by Erica C. Barnett, Seattle Weekly
-- A company comes under fire for using inmate labor in Washington state to package Starbucks and Nintendo products for minimum wage.
KREMLIN BAILIFFS PULL THE PLUGS ON LAST INDEPENDENT TELEVISION NETWORK
by Fred Weir, The Independent
-- In an attempt to curb governmental criticism, a Moscow court orders Russia's last independent television network to be shut down.
APPLYING TO COLLEGE: WHO BENEFITS?
by Elizabeth Milne Kahn, WireTap
-- The process of applying to college is nerve-wracking for students, but for standardized testing companies, it is a giant industry.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
2/8/02
5:36:59 PM
Global Warming Poses Severe Threat To The 'Richest' Natural Areas
WWF Calls on U.S. Congress to Take Responsible Action on Global Warming
WASHINGTON - Global warming threatens even the world's most biologically diverse natural areas, according to a new report, Habitats at Risk: Global Warming and Species Loss in Globally Significant Terrestrial Ecosystems, from WWF. This report is the first to look specifically at how global warming in the coming decades could impact our most treasured natural habitats -outstanding areas still rich in species and biological distinctiveness. It examines 113 land-based regions of significant size and vegetative surface and finds that huge parts of the world, from the tropics to the poles are at risk.
The report also finds that as global warming changes their habitat, many species will be unable to move to new areas fast enough to survive, raising the possibility of a 'catastrophic' loss of species in one-fifth of the world's most vulnerable nature areas.
To address this global threat, WWF today calls on all nations to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol emission targets. Human-induced emissions of CO2 and other gases blanket the earth, trap in heat and cause global warming.
"It is shocking to see that many of our most biologically valuable ecosystems are at special risk from global warming. If we don't do something to reverse this frightening trend, it would mean extinction for thousands of species," said Dr. Jay R. Malcolm, author of the report and a professor at the University of Toronto.
Among the U.S. ecosystems at risk, areas in California, the Pacific Northwest and the Northern Prairie may be hardest hit. Dramatic changes may devastate the shrub and woodland areas that stretch from Southern California to San Francisco, prairies in the northern heart of the United States, Sierra Nevada mountains, Klamath-Siskiyou forest near the California-Oregon border, and the Sonoran-Baja deserts across the southwestern United States.
Worldwide, the areas most vulnerable to devastation from global warming include the Canadian Low Arctic Tundra, the Central Andean Dry Puna of Chile, Argentina and Bolivia, the Ural Mountains and the Daurian Steppe of Mongolia and Russia, the Terai-Duar savannah of northeastern India, southwestern Australia and the Fynbos of South Africa.
The release of this report coincides with the start of an international WWF campaign to ensure that countries around the world protect these distinctive ecosystems from global warming by ratifying the Kyoto Protocol this year so it becomes legally binding. WWF also calls on the U.S. Congress and Bush Administration to immediately put in place strong domestic plans to meet or beat the Kyoto Protocol targets.
"The solutions to global warming are at hand and the risks are high. Responsible leaders must act now to help protect America's richest natural treasures for future generations," said Jennifer Morgan, Director of WWF's Climate Change Campaign. "As this new report clearly shows, to delay action on reducing our carbon dioxide emissions puts the survival of many species - plants, animals and people worldwide - at unnecessary risk."
Members of the U.S. Congress can put in place a strong domestic plan by passing legislation to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions from power plants; increase the percentage of the nation's power that comes from clean, renewable energy resources; and increase the fuel economy of motor vehicles to 40 miles per gallon. By passing current legislative initiatives such as a Renewable Portfolio Standard and higher Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards, the U.S. Congress can help protect America's richest natural treasures for future generations. These same measures will reduce our dependence on foreign oil thereby increasing our national security, and reduce the air pollution that causes acid rain, smog, and respiratory illness.
Contact: Kathleen Sullivan
mailto:kathleen.sullivan@wwfus.org phone: 202 778.9576
Source: http://www.worldwildlife.org/news
2/8/02
5:31:17 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
CLIMATE CHANGE THREATENS GLOBAL BIODIVERSITY
WASHINGTON, DC, February 7, 2002 (ENS) - Two new reports by U.S. and international conservation groups detail the extensive threats to wildlife and biodiversity hotspots posed by global warming. Saying the studies provide further evidence that quick action is needed to combat climate change, the groups are calling on U.S. lawmakers to help cut greenhouse gas emissions by enacting higher fuel efficiency standards for cars and light trucks.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-07-06.html
BITTERROOT SETTLEMENT SAVES THOUSANDS OF FOREST ACRES
MISSOULA, Montana, February 7, 2002 (ENS) - The U.S. Forest Service agreed today to remove 27,000 acres of roadless old growth forest and sensitive fish habitat from a planned logging project in the Bitterroot National Forest in Montana. The settlement with several conservation groups ends months of contentious dispute over a massive, 46,000 acre timber sale that environmentalists warned could set a dangerous precedent for Western logging.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-07-07.html
THE LONG, COLD RECYCLE
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, February 7, 2002 (ENS) - A unique independent project to help clear Antarctica of junk has overcome a final hurdle, with the unloading here of a shipment of 1,000 metric tons of scrap metal.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-07-03.html
WORST FLOODING IN DECADES INUNDATES INDONESIA
JAKARTA, Indonesia, February 7, 2002 (ENS) - A week of incessant rain and the worst flooding in decades have claimed at least 57 lives in Greater Jakarta, and another 27 people have been killed in other parts of the Indonesian archipelago, according to government officials.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-07-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 7, 2002
Nitrate Pollution Plagues U.S., China Groundwater
EPA's Sewage Sludge Research Challenged
El Niño Predicted for Tropical Pacific
Religious, Senate Leaders Oppose ANWR Drilling
Ocean Vent Creatures Studied in Surface Tanks
International Team Targets Arsenic in Bangladesh
Kraft Targeted by Genetic Engineering Critics
New Photosynthetic Bacteria Found in Oceans
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-07-09.html
2/8/02
5:14:10 PM
EMS Update
GOP Senators Speak Out Against Arctic Drilling
At an EMS press conference today, three Republican Senators spoke out against drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The Senators were joined by other prominent Republicans from the Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Rockefeller families.
http://www.ems.org/arctic_nat_wildlife_refuge/zz.ems.02.02.07.html
Arsenic in Wood
Prompted by reports that EPA may give in to industry and soften its stance on arsenic in pressure-treated wood, Beyond Pesticides sent a letter urging EPA to fully protect the public.
http://www.beyondpesticides.org/WOOD/MEDIA/petition_PR_2_7_02.htm
2/8/02
5:11:22 PM
AlterNet Headlines
San Francisco Bay Area Readers -- Save the Date!
You're invited to come meet fiery columnist Jim Hightower and the AlterNet staff to talk about fighting for real democracy in troubled times, and to celebrate our new book, "After 9/11: Solutions for a Saner World." --> Wednesday, Feb. 13, 7 p.m. at San Francisco's New College.
For more info: http://www.newcollege.edu/cesa/caldicott.htm
SLAVERY FREE CHOCOLATE?
Brooke Shelby Biggs, AlterNet
With Valentine's Day coming up, the chocolate industry has agreed to fight child slavery on African cocoa farms. Does it mean business, or is Big Chocolate just sweetening its image?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12373
THE DOMESTICITY WARS
Vivian Dent and Lakshmi Chaudhry, AlterNet
Some say the boredom of domestic life will wreck any good relationship. Others think shacking up is the best way to bliss. Two AlterNet writers go head-to-head in the Domesticity Wars.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12371
ENRON PAID OFF TOP JOURNALISTS IN RETURN FOR ... WHAT?
Richard Blow, TomPaine.com
Enron gave at least four prominent journalists -- all of whom were either writing about Enron or editing magazines that were -- payouts of at least $50,000 each.
* In EnronGate: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
HACKTIVISTS STAGE VIRTUAL SIT-IN AT WEF WEB SITE
Noah Shachtman, AlterNet
When the World Economic Forum site collapsed just as its recent meeting began, it seemed a major win for online activists. But organizers of the "virtual sit-in" refuse to take credit.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12374
WHEN THE ARMY OWNS THE WEATHER
Bob Fitrakis, Columbus Alive
Evidence of the Pentagon's interest in manipulating mother nature abounds. How come the public knows nothing about it?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12342
OLYMPICS: GOLD, SILVER, BRONZE -- BUT NOT GREEN
Martin A. Lee, AlterNet
The upcoming Winter Games will wreak ecological havoc in Utah, as pristine wilderness is overwhelmed by development, traffic, waste and energy consumption.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12344
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Michelle Goldberg's "When the Babes Beat Up the Boys" elicits vocal response from both men and women.
http://www.alternet.org/letters_ed.html?BulletinID=10
Robert McChesney, FAIR respond to Don Hazen's "Retro Chomsky?"
http://www.alternet.org/letters_ed.html?BulletinID=9
FUSION BIOPOLITICS
Jeremy Rifkin, The Nation
Conservatives and progressives have found common ground in the movement to ban all forms of cloning -- an alliance that signals the new age of biopolitics.
* In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18
HUTCHINSON: BLACKS STILL LOSING RACE TO CORPORATE TOP
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, AlterNet
Black employees at many corporations still say they are given the worst assignments, paid less and have fewer chances for promotions than their white counterparts.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12364
BUSH TO FUND COLOMBIA WAR EFFORT
Adam Isacson, AlterNet
Recent Bush administration "policy review" is seriously considering transforming Colombia's war against drugs into a war against terrorism.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12361
JUSTICE AFTER THE SCHIZOID WAR
Tamara Straus, AlterNet
A new documentary film, "Justice and the Generals," looks at the future of international human rights law through the prism of El Salvador's bloody civil war.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12362
2/8/02
5:06:59 PM
t r u t h o u t | 02.08
Ex-Enron CEO: I Knew Nothing
http://www.truthout.com/02.08A.Enron.CEO.htm
Tom Daschle a Letter to George W. Bush on Unemployment Benefits
http://www.truthout.com/02.08B.TD.Letter.htm
Waxman a Letter to the White House | Who Worked for Enron
http://www.truthout.com/02.08C.Waxman.Letter.htm
Hastert Pledges to Fight Campaign Finance Bill
http://www.truthout.com/02.08D.Hassert.Fight.htm
Palestinian Gunman Kills 3 Israelis, Shooting a Mother and Child
http://www.truthout.com/02.08E.Gunman.Kills.htm
NRDC Asks Court To Force Immediate Release Of Secret Cheney Energy Task Force Details
http://www.truthout.com/02.08F.Task.Details.htm
For Enron and the Other Energy Privateers, the Arrival of the Bush Team was Timely Indeed.
http://www.truthout.com/02.08G.Energy.Timely.htm
Buffalo Feild Campaign Update | 02.07.2002
http://www.truthout.com/02.08H.Buffalo.htm
2/8/02
5:05:18 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Biotech firms mull action against China over GMOs - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14441/story.htm
Bush likely to announce Kyoto alternative next week - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14448/story.htm
Soybean group sees China clarifying GMO rules soon - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14443/story.htm
Kraft targeted in anti-biotech food campaign - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14439/story.htm
US agencies warn against PG&E hydropower plan - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14437/story.htm
UPDATE - UN sees Chernobyl area as eco-tourism hot-spot - UNITED NATIONS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14435/story.htm
Salvage planned for gas ship drifting in Thai Gulf - THAILAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14436/story.htm
UPDATE - Two killed by freak Peruvian floods - PERU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14447/story.htm
UPDATE - Jail for France's Bove over McDonald's attack - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14444/story.htm
European Parliament urges quick passage of Kyoto - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14449/story.htm
Carmakers say EU may push up prices - EU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14445/story.htm
Ecuador oil pipeline seen finished in early 2003 - ECUADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14438/story.htm
Fires threaten Chile's native forests, reserves - CHILE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14440/story.htm
Russia says has ended chemical arms fight with US - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14450/story.htm
UPDATE - Canada wants US greenhouse gas goals to be vigorous - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14442/story.htm
Australia generator signs Vestas wind deal - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14434/story.htm
Australian scientists see likely El Nino in 2002 - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14446/story.htm
2/8/02
5:04:01 PM
Greenpeace True Food Network Newsletter February 2002
2/8/02
5:00:42 PM
Dear WildAlert Subscriber:
It just doesn't end. National Forest Roadless Areas are *again* under attack by the Bush Administration and the U.S. Forest Service. This time, the Forest Service has proposed two new administrative "directives" that eliminate safeguards for roadless areas, allowing more destructive road construction on our national forests. Tell the Forest Service by February 19th that you oppose these directives:
http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=1048
BACKGROUND On December 20, 2001, the Forest Service proposed two new "Interim Directives" covering transportation and roadless area management on our national forests. The Transportation Directive completely removes the roadless area section from the Forest Service Transportation Policy. The Roadless Area Directive consolidates all interim management direction for inventoried roadless areas into the forest planning section of the Forest Service manual.
These directives are the latest in a series of administrative maneuvers that have weakened or removed important roadless area safeguards provided by the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and the Transportation Policy.
ELIMINATING PUBLIC REVIEW OF SOME ROAD PROJECTS The proposed Transportation System Analysis Directive effectively would give Forest Service managers added power to decide if certain road-building projects should undergo environmental and public review.
Currently, any new road construction or reconstruction in inventoried roadless areas and contiguous unroaded areas can only occur if the Regional Forester determines a "compelling need." This directive would eliminate that requirement.
As a result, small-scale road projects could be approved *without* an Environmental Impact Statement, (EIS). Further, by removing protection for uninventoried roadless areas, the ecological values of these unroaded areas, including their value as important wildlife corridors, are also threatened.
SECOND DIRECTIVE DOES LITTLE TO PROTECT ROADLESS AREAS The proposed Inventoried Roadless Area Management Directive would do anything but protect roadless areas. It doesn't stop logging or roadbuilding; it simply gives the Chief of the Forest Service responsibility to approve such actions. And it totally exempts the Tongass National Forest in Alaska from *any* protection of its 9.4 million acres of roadless areas!
In fact, this interim directive provides no precautions to ensure that the Regional Foresters and the Chief won't simply rubber-stamp all logging and road-building projects that come across their desks.
In contrast, the Roadless Area Conservation Rule provides permanent protection of all inventoried roadless areas in our National Forests from logging and roadbuilding. However, this rule remains unimplemented due to stalling tactics and lack of defense in court by the Bush Administration.
TAKE ACTION The Forest Service is soliciting comments on these directives, but only through February 19th. We must make the Forest Service and the Bush Administration aware of the American people's absolute abhorrence of their refusal to implement the Roadless Area Conservation Rule nor to defend it in court. Send your comments from
http://www.wilderness.org/takeaction/?step=2&item=1048
(When you send your comments from our website, a copy of your email automatically will be forwarded to your congressional representative.)
Or contact the Forest Service directly. Tell them:
- The Forest Service should withdraw the proposed interim directives for roadless areas, and fully implement the Roadless Area Conservation Rule and other policies that protect national forest roadless areas.
- The Forest Service and the Bush Administration should begin to vigorously defend the Roadless Area Conservation Rule against lawsuits challenging the legality of the rule.
- The Forest Service apparently considers hurried logging, drilling and mining in roadless areas to be more important than hearing from the millions of Americans who are resolute in their desire for protection of our last pristine wild forests.
- Until the courts remove the injunction currently barring implementation of the Roadless Rule, administrative direction to protect roadless areas is needed. At a minimum, any interim directive on roadless area management should not allow activities that would be inconsistent with the Roadless Rule.
Send your comments to: USFS CAT, Attention: Road Policy P.O. Box 221150 Salt Lake City, UT 84122 E-mail: roads_id@fs.fed.us Fax: 801-517-1021
2/8/02
4:57:07 PM
The Nation
On January 24, US Special Operations troops attacked two small compounds in Haraz Qadam, a town 100 miles north of Kandahar, Afghanistan. At least eighteen people were killed. Twenty-seven were captured, and the Pentagon announced its prisoners were Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. The daring operation was front-page news. But days later, media reports, based on interviews with local residents, undermined the official account. The townspeople said one of the compounds was being used as a weapons depot for a disarmament drive and that the Afghans killed and snatched were actually troops loyal to the interim government of Kabul. According to local Afghans, the bodies of two individuals were found with their hands tied behind their backs. About a week later, CIA officers were in the field working with tribal leaders to pay $1,000 to the family of each Afghan wrongfully killed.
For the full story, read the latest installment of David Corn's Capital Games, exclusively available at:
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=15
And check out the Capital Games archive for questions that the Senate should ask disgraced Enron CEO Ken Lay when he's finally forced to testify before Congress:
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=11
You can also find a collection of material on the Enron scandal by Corn, Robert Scheer, William Greider, Robert Borosage, Russ Baker and Matt Bivens currently available at:
http://www.thenation.com/special/2002enron.mhtml
And be sure to read John Nichols' related story on Ralph Nader from the February 25, 2002 issue of The Nation, in which Nader calls Enron "the supermarket of corporate crime for our time." This profile/interview/essay is available now at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020225&s=nichols
2/8/02
4:52:59 PM
"CIA" New terror attack on US 'within a year'
by Pamela Hess
WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The director of the CIA warned a Senate panel Wednesday that the al Qaida network would strike again at the United States and that the war on terror is far from over.
"We assess that al Qaida and other terrorist groups will continue to plan to attack this country and interests abroad," CIA Director George Tenet told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. "Al Qaida leaders are still at large and are working to reconstitute the organization and resume its terrorist operations...al Qaida has not yet been destroyed."
Defense Intelligence Agency chief Vice Adm. Thomas Wilson provided more details in written testimony, stating that he is worried a new massive attack against the United States or its interests abroad could occur during the next 12 months and singled out Colombia, the Philippines, or Indonesia as potential centers for planning violence against U.S. citizens or interests.
"We must continue to be vigilant and never assume that we have 'won the war'. We will be most vulnerable when the threat appears to have diminished, security measures are relaxed, and we return to 'normal,'" Wilson wrote.
"Terrorists work on their own timeline and are patient. They are content to wait for the right opportunity -- even if it takes years -- to increase their chances of success."
Tenet defended the CIA against stiff questioning from senators about the agency's performance against terrorism and specifically its failure to prevent the Sept. 11 attacks, when 3,000 people were killed by a series of coordinated suicide hijackings.
The agency, he said, had thwarted several possible attacks on U.S. interests overseas last summer, but had no inkling that al Qaida was plotting the terror attacks on New York and Washington.
"We never had the texture that said this is the date, the time and the place" of the attack, Tenet told the committee. "We welcome the committee's review of our record on terrorism ... We're proud of that record. It is a record of discipline strategy focus and action," Tenet said.
"I have to tell you that when you do this every day the shock was where the attack occurred but not that the attack occurred," he said. "Where did the secret for the planning reside? Probably in the head of three or four people. At the end of the day all you can do is try to steal that secret..."
"Intelligence will never give you 100 percent predictive capability on terrorist threats and terrorist events," Tenet said. "We know that they will hurt us again. We have to minimize their ability to do so, because there is no such thing as perfect security in this business."
Tenet said intelligence alone could not protect the country; security procedures must be in place at airports, embassies and other places to minimize risk.
"When the information isn't available we need to make sure our backside is protected," he said.
"We know they will hurt us again, we have to minimize" their ability to do so, he said, adding that nearly 1,000 members of the al Qaida terrorist organization have been arrested worldwide since Sept. 11.
But despite this, and the additional disruption caused by the four-month war in Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden's terror organization remains the major threat to the United States, Wilson said.
"The al Qaida network has not been eliminated and it retains the potential for reconstitution," he said. "Many key officials and operatives remain and new personalities have already begun to emerge. Some operations that were already planned could be easily completed."
But Wilson said the intense attacks on al Qaida training camps had a devastating effect on the organization.
"What was removed in Afghanistan for al Qaida was in essence their Fort Bragg, their Fort Irwin. ... It was truly military-style training that was ongoing ... It is difficult to establish the scale and the complexity of that kind of operation," he said.
"We knew about the training centers for years. The difference now is we did something about it," added Carl Ford, assistant secretary of state for intelligence, who also testified to the committee. "If somebody some place else tries to build a training center, my expectation is they won't be there very long."
Dale Watson, FBI assistant director for counter-terrorism and counterintelligence, told the committee that 13 of the 19 hijackers came into the United States only a few months before the attacks, and none had contacts with anyone on terrorism watch lists.
"We had no information about them, intelligence-wise, through no one's fault, that's how they did it," Watson said.
Tenet would not specify in open session whether he believes Osama bin Laden is dead, but readily offered that he believes Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar is alive.
Bin Laden has no identified successor that could rally his forces as effectively if he is killed or captured, Wilson said, but warned that could cause the organization to splinter into different groups with different agendas.
Wilson said for the near-term terrorists will likely favor easily fashioned or bought conventional weapons but said the psychological and economic impact of last fall's anthrax attack has not gone unnoticed.
"More than two dozen states or non-state groups either have or have an interest in acquiring chemical weapons, and there are a dozen countries believed to have biological warfare programs," he said.
Tenet agreed.
"The (biological warfare) piece of this seems to be more advanced than anything else," he said.
Wilson also warned that within a decade U.S. citizens or military personnel may be attacked with "volumetric weapons," a massive, fuel-rich slow burning weapon that creates so much overpressure it does more damage to structures and even dug-in personnel. Less than a year ago, Wilson told the committee in testimony that it would be 15 years before that weapon fell into enemy hands.
"Several countries (are) openly advertising it for sale," he said.
Ford, assistant secretary of state for intelligence, complained that budget cuts have decimated the State Department's ability to collect unclassified intelligence from overseas.
More than money, however, is keeping experienced people to analyze intelligence and spot trends and suspicious activities.
"What I couldn't have gotten by without were my people, my experts people who have been on the job 25, 30 years ... You can't replace them with 10 rookies ... Over the next five to seven years we're losing a good portion of our expertise."
Tenet said within three years 30 percent to 40 percent of the men and women of CIA will have been there five years or less.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=06022002-044613-4784r
The section that says the IRC is not law. - Bill Thornton
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=18012
Clinton Gets Nailed By Croatian Military Intelligence - NY POST
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=18011
Utah Senate Moves to Silence Dissent
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17979
Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project - Ana Simo
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17974
House Energy & Commerce Subcmte. on Oversight & Investigations - Hearing on the Findings of Enron's Special Investigative Cmte. Former CEO Jeffrey Skilling and former CFO Andrew Fastow testify. LIVE on C-SPAN 3, Thursday February 7 at 10am ET
http://www.cspan.ORG/enron/index.asp
`In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'
http://www.apfn.org/old/apfncont.htm
2/8/02
4:48:53 PM
Understanding Of Nitrogen Cycle Called Into Question
by David Suzuki
In my writing I have discussed the importance of the nitrogen cycle and the relationship between plant growth and organic and inorganic nitrogen. As it happens, I may have been mistaken — and so might more than a century of biological science.
Nitrogen is an extremely abundant element, and it is essential for all life forms to survive. In fact, it is the primary nutrient for plant life. For the past 150 years, the dominant view in plant nutrition has been that most plants do not readily absorb organic nitrogen, that is, nitrogen which is chemically combined with carbon. Instead, it has been thought that plants need access to inorganic nitrogen, which is bound to oxygen, hydrogen, or a metal.
Certainly in agriculture, over the past decades, the extensive use of inorganic fertilizer has greatly increased crop yields. The invention of the Haber-Bosch process in the early 20th century — which transformed atmospheric nitrogen into inorganic nitrogen (ammonia) that plants can readily absorb — changed agriculture forever. We are now largely dependent on this type of nitrogen to fertilize most of our commercial crops. Worldwide, the Haber-Bosch process produces about 2 million tons of ammonia (the primary ingredient of inorganic fertilizers) every week.
Scientists have long assumed that forests work the same way as agricultural crops — that they were dependent on inorganic nitrogen for growth and that its availability was the primary factor that restricted growth in a forest. And in fact, studies of forests in the Northern Hemisphere have found that most of the dissolved nitrogen in the soil is indeed inorganic.
However, a new study published recently in the journal Nature exposes a big flaw in this conventional thinking. The problem is that our scientific understanding of forests in the Northern Hemisphere is based on studies conducted after industrialization. However, since the industrial revolution, human activities have dramatically altered both the carbon cycle, by adding vast amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, and the nitrogen cycle, by adding vast quantities of nitrogen fertilizers to the soil and nitrogen oxides to the air (by burning fossil fuels). In 200 years we have actually doubled the amount of available nitrogen in the biosphere. Has all this excess inorganic nitrogen skewed our perspective of natural systems?
It has — and perhaps profoundly. The study reported in Nature compared the type of nitrogen found in woodland streams and rivers in North America and Europe with the nitrogen found in 100 relatively pristine South American streams in 26 different regions. Researchers were surprised to find that a whopping 70 percent of the dissolved nitrogen in the South American streams is organic. That's the opposite to what is found in the Northern Hemisphere, where more than 70 percent is inorganic. The researchers surmise that all that inorganic nitrogen may not be critical to forest ecosystems at all but is merely a byproduct of industrial pollution — especially atmospheric pollution from burning fossil fuels.
This finding calls into question our entire understanding of the nitrogen cycle in forests. It also questions our assumptions about how nonagricultural plants in general take up nitrogen. And because the nitrogen cycle is closely linked to the carbon cycle, these new observations have implications for computer models of changing global conditions, like those that predict a forest's ability to absorb increased carbon from the atmosphere.
It may be that inorganic nitrogen did dominate nitrogen cycling in Northern Hemisphere forests even before industrialization. However, examining that possibility could be a difficult and lengthy task. In the meantime we are left with the disturbing possibility that we have altered our world so dramatically that our most basic assumptions of what constitutes "natural" processes are tainted by human influence.
Source: http://www.enn.com/news/enn-stories/2002/02/02072002/s_46269.asp
2/8/02
4:37:13 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
CHANGE THE CHANNEL
Here's how erosion works: A trickle of water carves a tiny channel in, say, a grassless slope. The channel, now a low spot, attracts more water and becomes a deeper groove. Soon enough, water that could run uniformly across an entire hillside becomes funneled into one narrow, destructive gully. Sound familiar? To columnist Elizabeth Sawin, it sounds like Enron -- and, more broadly, like our entire political system, where money and power that could be spread across society become channeled in fewer and fewer hands. We know how to deal with environmental erosion; now, Sawin says, we should apply the same principles to politics. Read about how you can be your own blade of grass, only on the Grist Magazine website.
only in Grist: Taking on the erosive cycle of contemporary politics -- by Elizabeth Sawin <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/citizen/citizen020702.asp?source=daily>
IF IT WEREN'T FOR THOSE MEDAL-ING KIDS
The 2002 Winter Olympics open tomorrow in Salt Lake City, and not everybody's thrilled about it. Environmentalists say developers took advantage of the games to permanently damage the pristine Rocky Mountain environment, even though protecting the natural world is now the third precept -- after sports and culture -- of the Olympics. The Salt Lake Olympic Committee set goals of zero waste, zero emissions, and the planting of 18 million trees, but Tom Price, chair of the Olympics environmental advisory committee, thinks the SLOC fell short: Forests have been clear-cut to make way for ski runs, and when it came to eco-friendly transportation to accommodate 70,000 spectators a day, the committee dropped the ball. "Not just dropped it, but kicked it out the window, then burned and buried it," Price said. At least one person, though, has walked away with the gold: Utah oil man R. Earl Holding, who bought tiny Snowbasin Ski Resort in 1984 and, just prior to the Olympics, made a highly controversial land swap with the U.S. Forest Service that will net a pretty penny in the future.
straight to the source: MSNBC.com, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/694500.asp>
straight to the source: New York Times, Guy Boulton, 05 Feb 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/05/business/05SNOW.html>
only in Grist: A week in the life of Jacqui Hellyer, Sydney Olympics <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/hellyer040300.stm?source=daily>
only in Grist: Flashback to the Sydney Worm Olympics -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha091400.stm?source=daily>
BADA BING!
In a potentially significant breakthrough for the environmental justice movement, New Jersey has become the first state to propose environmental-equity regulations for companies looking to move into minority or low-income communities. The rules, which were drafted by the state Department of Environmental Protection, would feed companies' plans into a computer model comparing census information and pollution data. If the modeling predicted an environmental justice problem, the move could only proceed if the DEP concluded that the company had made a "good faith effort" to include community members in the planning process. Opponents fear a chilling effect on economic development, while some environmental justice advocates are concerned that the rules would not go far enough toward actually preventing polluters from setting up shop in poor or minority communities.
straight to the source: Philadelphia Inquirer, Will Van Sant, 07 Feb 2002 <http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/2622069.htm>
READERS' RARE BITS
Yup, it's that time again: Grist readers, ever a feisty bunch, air their views in our letters section. Grist gets taken to task for denouncing massive corporations while selling books through megastore Amazon.com (never fear, we've mended our way, mostly), and our readers clean up their own caffeinated acts after reading about the virtues of shade-grown organic coffee. Other folks denounce Bjorn Lomborg (again) and defend U.S. EPA Ombudsman Robert Martin and rainforest satire. Check out what your fellow readers have to say, only on the Grist Magazine website.
only in Grist: That's some good coffee -- and more comments from readers -- in our letters section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/letters/letters020402.asp?source=daily>
CANO WORMS
The Bush administration has asked for $98 million to help protect Colombia's Cano Limon oil pipeline from attacks by leftist guerrillas. The pipeline, which is owned by Occidental Petroleum, supplies crude oil to the U.S. and has the capacity to pump 240,000 barrels a day. But constant attacks -- 13 so far this year -- have reduced its flow to a trickle. More than 2.5 million barrels of Cano Limon crude (roughly 10 times the amount spilled by the ExxonValdez) have leaked into Colombia's rivers and onto rangelands in the last 15 years, sickening people and poisoning water sources and animals. If approved by Congress, the pipeline protection would ratchet up U.S. involvement in Colombia's power struggle between Marxist rebels, ultra-right paramilitary groups, and the government. U.S. officials called the request a part of a broad effort to foster democracy nd order in the troubled nation.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Ruth Morris, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-020602colomb.story>
2/7/02
2:51:31 PM
MOJOURNAL
* Davos on the Hudson: Day Five * - The World Economic Forum came to New York as a show of solidarity with an injured US -- only to have European delegates bristle at their hosts' displays of unilateralism.
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/wef_day_five.html
* Suing Bin Laden * - Winning civil suits against Osama bin Laden should be easy for the families of Sept. 11 victims. Getting paid is another story.
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/suing_osama.html
* Up Close and Personal * - From the Magazine: High-tech identification devices could produce reams of data on law-abiding citizens -- but may be useless in fighting terrorists.
http://www.motherjones.com/magazine/JF02/up_close.html
* News Beat * - Attack of Superweed; Enron at the Plate; Coho in the Crosshairs; more …
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/news_beat.html
* Capitol Beat * - Pentagon Priorities; Social Insecurity; Bush Keeps Score; more ...
http://www.motherjones.com/web_exclusives/features/news/capitol_beat.html
2/7/02
2:01:50 PM
Anxieties over toxins rise at Ground Zero Respiratory ailments persist in residents, workers, students since collapse of twin towers
By Charisse Jones USA TODAY
NEW YORK -- In the neighborhoods closest to the site of the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history, a new fear has taken hold. Despite assertions by local and federal officials that the air downtown is safe to breathe, many who live and work there remain concerned about toxins such as lead, PCBs and asbestos that the terrorist attacks may have left behind.
Since the attacks Sept. 11, many recovery workers, residents and students downtown have complained of tightness in their chests, bloody noses, sinus infections and other respiratory ailments.
Roughly one in four firefighters who have been working at Ground Zero have what some are calling ''World Trade Center cough'' or another respiratory complaint, fire department officials say. About 750 have had to take medical leave, according to the firefighters' union.
Tests of eight Port Authority employees working at Ground Zero showed elevated levels of mercury in their blood. Though no one is certain that working at the site caused the problem, subsequent tests found that the mercury levels of six workers returned to normal after they were reassigned.
Now, the Environmental Protection Agency and local health officials are under fire from politicians and others who accuse them of failing to adequately inform the public about potential long-term health risks from asbestos, heavy metals and various chemicals. They say officials downplayed negative test results of such substances as benzene, dioxins and PCBs and have been slow in releasing test findings to the public.
The EPA disputes those criticisms and says the outdoor air downtown poses no long-term health risks.
The interiors of at least a few buildings, however, were coated with enough asbestos to be subject to EPA rules for asbestos cleanup. A private scientific firm hired by elected officials, for example, found high asbestos levels in dust at two apartment buildings near Ground Zero. EPA rules require that any dust or debris containing more than 1% asbestos be handled according to special rules, not just swept up by homeowners.
Though several scientists say it appears that the levels of chemicals were not present in high enough amounts and that exposure was too minimal to cause long-range concerns, many of the toxins can have serious effects.
Long-term exposure to many of these substances can cause major health problems. Asbestos can cause cancer. PCBs from electronic components and benzene from burning jet fuel are also carcinogens. Dioxins, particulates released in a fire, can be carcinogenic and cause reproductive problems. Long-term exposure to lead can cause neurological damage. And PBDEs -- a flame retardant often found in computers, foam padding and plastics -- are likened to PCBs and could also be present.
Critics also say officials have not done sufficient testing inside buildings and have failed to oversee proper cleaning of apartments and businesses. Several community organizations have conducted their own indoor tests and say their findings suggest that the potential health risks are greater than officials have indicated.
Parents and teachers at P.S. 89 went to court to delay last Monday's scheduled reopening of the elementary school in nearby Battery Park City. They were concerned about the air quality and questioned whether the children are ready to return to the area near the Trade Center. School officials are trying to work out a timetable agreeable to the parents.
The EPA's ombudsman is investigating whether the agency has been slow releasing test results and whether it knew its asbestos testing might be flawed. Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., has accused the EPA of maintaining a double standard by cleaning its offices six blocks from Ground Zero more thoroughly than it advised others to clean their buildings.
On Monday, Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., chairman of the Senate clean air subcommittee, will hold a hearing in New York on downtown air quality at the request of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.
''Because there was absolutely no oversight on the city's part, we don't know what lurks in people's apartments or businesses,'' says Madelyn Wils, chairwoman of the community's advisory committee.
Wils lives six blocks from the World Trade Center and suffered a sore throat, laryngitis and a sinus infection for a few months after the attacks. ''If you washed your walls and didn't clean your drapes, could you have asbestos on your drapes?'' she asks. ''If you didn't get rid of your children's toys, and they have stuffed animals, could they have asbestos? Probably.''
In a survey of Lower Manhattan by the city health department and other agencies in October, 34% of the 414 respondents said they did not feel that their homes were safe to live in. In each of three neighborhoods profiled, roughly 80% of those with safety concerns were worried about air quality, and 35% of those surveyed wanted more information about proper cleaning.
Testing outdoors
The EPA says it has been vigilant in sharing information, meeting with various agencies, regularly updating its Web site and even maintaining a lab near Ground Zero. The lab performs daily tests for toxins and gives the results immediately to workers at the site.
''Based on our findings, and now really more than 10,000 samples of a wide range of substances, we have found no significant long-term risk posed by the outdoor air,'' EPA spokeswoman Bonnie Bellow said last week.
Many ailments are likely to clear up and can be attributed to the pulverized concrete and fiberglass that filled the air after the twin towers collapsed, as well as the fires that burned at Ground Zero until late December, medical experts say. Though some of the substances unleashed by the disaster are known to be long-term health hazards, ''for the most part, people didn't get a high enough or long enough exposure for long-term concerns,'' says Paul Lioy, associate director of the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute in Piscataway, N.J.
''But,'' he adds, ''there's enough anecdotal information out there that some good solid studies need to be done to confirm or deny the effects being observed.''
Several studies are underway. Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City is examining how substances such as heavy metals, PCBs, dioxins and other pollutants might affect pregnant women. City health officials plan to start a registry of those near Ground Zero during the disaster. The Fire Department is monitoring roughly 11,000 firefighters and emergency technicians who spent time at the site for exposure to substances such as heavy metals and mercury. The EPA also is conducting several studies on exposure and toxicity at and near the site.
Ultimately, any potential risk might depend on the level of exposure and for how long. For example, a worker caught in the first toxic plume on Sept. 11 might develop different health problems than a resident who was away but returned days later to an apartment coated with dust. Scientists are trying to figure out these different health risks.
Part of what makes long-term health predictions so difficult is that several calamities occurred at once on Sept. 11. Jet fuel exploded, office equipment melted in the searing fire and two skyscrapers collapsed, releasing an array of substances that might have combined in unusual ways. ''So you have all sorts of things that people never (before) breathed all at the same time, and in quantities that we're just not used to,'' Lioy says.
The EPA has been checking the air, drinking water and river sediments for asbestos, lead, metals, benzene, dioxin and other substances. Both federal and city officials say there were sporadic spikes in asbestos, particularly right after the attacks, but the levels have decreased over time. City health officials say lead levels have not been higher than what is normally seen in New York City dust. The EPA has taken 283 air samples since September for lead and found only five above the federal acceptable standards for adults and children.
Unhealthful levels of dioxins and PCBs measured by the EPA have been concentrated only over Ground Zero, where workers must wear protective equipment while removing debris from the site
Even so, some residents in the area say they believe that officials were premature in declaring it safe to return to Lower Manhattan shortly after the attacks.
''I don't know if they intentionally misled us, but they seem to have given conflicting statements,'' resident Dennis Gault says about the EPA. ''My concern is for the children in the neighborhood. . . . The asbestos, over 20 or 30 years, God knows what will be the effects. And then the PCBs and the heavy metals are also quite frightening.''
Testing indoors
On Sept. 11, Gault's wife called him at work. He rushed to their apartment in Gateway Plaza, about 300 yards from the World Trade Center. He shut the windows, then ''we put the baby in the stroller, and we ran for our lives.''
When Gault returned home a week later, he noticed a dark powder coated the apartment, he recalls. Gault, 36, had to toss away most of the furniture and his 3-year-old daughter's toys. The apartment has been cleaned twice, but a residue remains, he says. ''There was no testing of the air in my apartment that I know of, so I don't know what the levels of asbestos were or the other toxins,'' says Gault, a teacher.
He went back home in December to be closer to his job, while his wife and daughter continue to stay with his in-laws. But he says his family may have to rent another apartment.
''Before they come back, I'd like to have my apartment tested,'' says Gault, who does not have renter's insurance to cover the costs. ''After all the cleaning I've done myself and the cleaning by others, if there's still levels of toxins in here, I'm going to relocate. Because for a 3-year-old, there is no safe level of toxins.''
''I think the problem has moved inside to a lot of buildings,'' says Joel Kupferman, executive director of the New York Environmental Law and Justice Project. ''What we have is many time bombs that are ticking, that only after full testing, monitoring (and) proper cleanup . . . will we know if the situation is safe.''
One independent industrial hygienist retained by Kupferman's organization took samples at a 52-story apartment complex downtown after the building cleanup began and came up with a reading of 550,000 asbestos fibers per square centimeter. The acceptable limit is 500-1,000 fibers per square centimeter. ''It's definitely an indication that there's a high level of asbestos in the building,'' Kupferman says.
EPA officials say city agencies were in charge of indoor testing in Lower Manhattan. But the EPA still advised that homes and businesses be professionally cleaned.
''We have from the start been clear that what we found on the outside was likely to have gotten inside people's apartments,'' Bellow says. ''And if people were returning to dusty offices and homes, they could assume that that material was asbestos-containing and that they needed to get that material cleaned up using professional contractors.''
Some people say they want the EPA to step in and oversee the indoor cleanup. Others say the city has failed to look out for those in Lower Manhattan. ''Overall, the responsibility for coordinating environmental response belonged to the city of New York,'' says Eric Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council.
City health officials say that before any building was reoccupied, landlords were required to properly assess the building's safety. The health department issued an advisory on how to adequately clean building interiors, and the city's Department of Environmental Protection handles any specific concerns about a building.
Then, there are the schools
Another rift has emerged over whether schools remain unsafe.
Seven downtown schools were relocated after Sept. 11, and students have been returning on a staggered schedule after their schools are cleaned and declared safe. Two reopened Monday.
Students at Stuyvesant High School, one of the city's premier high schools, located a few blocks from Ground Zero, went back in October. Some parents say their children have suffered from rashes, nosebleeds and other health problems since returning.
The barge where debris from Ground Zero is being toted each day sits in the Hudson River next to the school, and that continually exposes the students to toxins, parents and environmental activists say.
Fernando Pacifico noticed that his 17-year-old daughter has not been well since returning to Stuyvesant. Since she was a freshman, she had missed about three school days a year. But since October, she has been out six days, sick with a sore throat or headache.
''Basically, they moved the World Trade Center debris right behind the school,'' says Pacifico, who is a physician.
School board officials say the downtown schools now have thicker ventilation filters. The indoor and outdoor air quality is tested daily.
Nevertheless, school board spokeswoman Catie Marshall concedes that such precautions may not be enough.
''It's easy to test air and find the air contains nothing hazardous,'' she says. ''It's harder to convey that message to people who are nervous.''
Lisa Phillips owns an apartment in Tribeca, near the Trade Center site, and lives there with her 2-year-old twins. They moved away briefly after Sept. 11.
Now, she says, the air has largely cleared, though questions remain.
''It's home,'' Phillips says. ''And in such unsettling times, there's comfort in being home, even if home is close to Ground Zero.''
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020207/3835447s.htm
2/7/02
12:40:27 PM
U.S. Plans Air Traveler Database
Proposed security system aimed at weighing risks
By Robert O'Harrow Jr., THE WASHINGTON POST
Feb. 1 - Federal aviation authorities and technology companies will soon begin testing a vast air security screening system designed to instantly pull together every passenger's travel history, living arrangements and a wealth of other personal and demographic information.
'This is not fantasy stuff. This technology, based on transaction analysis, behavior analysis, gives us a pretty good idea of what's going on in a person's mind.'
- JOSEPH DEL BALZO (Security consultant)
THE GOVERNMENT'S plan is to establish a computer network linking every reservation system in the United States to private and government databases. The network would use data-mining and predictive software to profile passenger activity and intuit obscure clues about potential threats, even before the scheduled day of flight.
PRIVACY WORRIES
It might find, for instance, that one man used a debit card to buy tickets for four other men who sit in separate parts of the same plane - four men who have shared addresses in the past. Or it might discern that someone who is unemployed or a low-wage worker is buying a one-way first-class ticket to a destination he has never visited.
Those sorts of details - along with many other far more subtle patterns identified by computer programs - would contribute to a threat index or score for every passenger.
Passengers with higher scores would be singled out for additional screening by authorities.
As described by developers, the system will be an unobtrusive network enabling authorities to target potential threats far more effectively while reducing lines at security checkpoints for most passengers. Critics say it would be one of the largest monitoring systems ever created by the government and a huge intrusion on privacy.
At least one airline, Delta, has been working with several companies on a prototype. Northwest Airlines has acknowledged that it is talking with other airlines about a similar screening system. Federal authorities hope to test at least two different prototypes in coming months or possibly sooner, according to government and industry sources familiar with the effort.
"This is not fantasy stuff," said Joseph Del Balzo, a former acting administrator of the Federal Aviation Administration and a security consultant working on one of the profiling projects. "This technology, based on transaction analysis, behavior analysis, gives us a pretty good idea of what's going on in a person's mind."
The screening plans reflect a growing faith among aviation and government leaders that information technology can solve some of the nation's most vexing security problems by rooting out and snaring people who intend to commit terrorist acts.
But a range of policy and technical questions still need to be answered before the system can become a reality. The Transportation Security Administration, for example, must decide on a set of standards so technology companies and airlines can begin building a system. They must also figure out how to pay for the system and its operation. Industry officials have said they hope the system will cost, on average, less than $2 per ticket.
Officials at the TSA declined to comment, saying they did not want to disclose any details that might undermine aviation security.
Government officials and companies also face questions about privacy. In interviews, more than a dozen people working on two parallel projects said they are taking pains to protect individual privacy. They intend to limit the personal information shared with airlines and security officials. Instead, passengers' records are likely to be color-coded based on the level of threat computers determine they pose.
But developers face restrictions on how much information they can use. Industry officials have already discussed with lawmakers the possibility of rolling back some privacy protections in the Fair Credit Reporting Act and Driver's Privacy Protection Act to enable them to use more of the credit and driver data.
Civil liberties activists said they fear the system could be the beginnings of a surveillance infrastructure that will erode existing privacy protections. When told about the system, Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the ACLU, said it would be "a massive complex system of surveillance."
'PROFOUND STEP'
'We can quickly build a system that is much more effective than anything in place today. There is a night-and-day difference.'
- JOSEPH SIROSH
HNC Software
"It really is a profound step for the government to be conducting background checks on a large percentage of Americans. We've never done that before," he said. "It's frightening."
Some critics also worry that law enforcement authorities will be tempted to use it for broader aims, such as snaring deadbeat parents or profiling for drug couriers.
"If you can profile for terrorists, you can profile for other things," said Richard M. Smith, an independent computer security and privacy specialist. "The computer technology is so cheap and getting so much cheaper, you just have to be careful: Turn up the volume a little bit, and we just use the air transportation system to catch everybody."
Airlines rely on a couple dozen variables to screen passengers, such as how they bought tickets, whether they're flying one way and travel history, people familiar with the system said. The details of that system, known as Computer Assisted Passenger Screening, or CAPS, are closely guarded. But security specialists regard that system - expanded after Sept. 11 - as limited.
The systems under development would include a thousand or more minute details and computer-derived conclusions about a person's travel, daily activity over time and whether he or she has coordinated activity with other passengers, possibly on other flights, according to the groups developing the systems.
Two leading prototypes are being developed. One group is led by HNC Software, a risk-detection specialist that works for credit card issuers, telephone companies, insurers and others. HNC is working with several companies, including PROS Revenue Management, which has access to seating records of virtually every U.S. passenger, and Acxiom Corp., one of the world's largest data-marketing companies, which collects such information as land records, car ownership, projected income, magazine subscriptions and telephone numbers.
"We can quickly build a system that is much more effective than anything in place today," said Joseph Sirosh, executive director of advanced technology solutions at HNC Software. "There is a night-and-day difference."
A second group is being led by Accenture. It has worked for months on a prototype with a variety of companies, including Delta. Data-giant Equifax, Sabre Inc., which is responsible for about half of U.S. airline reservations, IBM and other companies have also been working on profiling efforts.
NORMAL VS. RISKY
Both systems are designed to use travel information and other data to create models of "normal" activity. Then they will look for variations in individual behavior that might suggest risk. Both may eventually make use of some sort of biometic system that uses iris scans, fingerprints or other immutable characteristics.
Officials at both HNC and Accenture said they take care with the personal information their systems collect and parse. The HNC prototype, for instance, does not link a passenger's personal information to a passenger's threat index. Officials also pledged that there will be no racial profiling, in part because ethnicity often has no bearing on potential risk.
The HNC prototype uses software known as neural networks, which can "learn" subtle patterns and relationships by processing millions of records, to predict when a particular transaction is likely to be fraudulent. The company already uses neural networks software to accurately profile the activity of millions of credit card owners, telephone callers and people receiving insurance benefits to crack down on fraud.
The HNC prototype would allow authorities, based in control rooms, to examine potential threats across the aviation system. One computer screen, for instance, includes a "prioritized passenger list" with passengers ranked from the highest risk to the lowest. The same screen also includes a box called "passenger coordination" with the names of other travelers that the computer has somehow linked to the high-risk passenger. Other screens show an aggregate threat for planes, airports and the entire system.
The Accenture system also creates a threat index, using massive computing power and relational database software. It examines travel data to look for things such as routes involving odd destinations or flying patterns. To search for threads linking individuals, the system will sift huge amounts of travel records, real estate histories and "seven layers" of passenger associates, according to Accenture partner Brett Ogilvie.
For instance, it would note if an individual lived at the former address of someone considered high risk. Theoretically, the system could be calibrated to watch for people with links to certain restaurants, hotels or parts of the country thought to be favored by terrorist cells. The system also would match individuals against government watch lists. Any potential link to a threatening character or region could boost a passenger's score.
COLOR-CODED SIGNALS
A limited model report, generated by Accenture on one individual, looked like any number of publicly available dossiers provided by information services. It included all his addresses for the past two decades; the telephone numbers and former addresses of people who now occupy those residences; the names, ages, addresses, telephone numbers and partial Social Security numbers of possible relatives. Some of the information was incomplete or, apparently, unrelated to the passenger.
The company said it would eventually like to have more data in the analysis, including embassy warnings, passport information, foreign watch lists. Eventually, with government approval, they would link the system to a national ID or some sort of biometric or both.
The index would send color-coded signals to airlines. Green would indicate no problem. Yellow would indicate the need for more questioning. Red means apprehend. Ogilvie said the company would try to offer the same sort of service to cruise ships, theme parks and other facilities that want to bolster security.
"The data is there and the technology is there," Ogilvie said. "There's a lot of value. There's a lot of data."
Paul Werbos, a senior National Science Foundation official and a neural networks specialist, said such systems need to be used carefully. While there is no doubt that profiling can improve security, Werbos said, "We have to be very careful not to create punishments, disincentives, for being different from average."
2/7/02
12:35:53 PM
Government Gangsterism At Work
by Ted Rall
Unbridled legal hypocrisy is a recurring theme of the ideologically impoverished Bush imperium. When it suits their immediate aims, the Bushies wield the law like a club. As soon as the law proves inconvenient, however, they chuck it out the window like a gum wrapper.
We've seen this schizy lurching between law-and-order conservatism and anarchic retro-Tricky Dicky Nixonism ever since November 2000, when the same campaign that sued under Florida's election laws to stop that state's ballot recount resorted to hired thugs and back-room deals when it became obvious that they were going to lose.
Born illegitimately of intimidation, this administration is waging its New War on Terror with the same graceless style. Before September 11, it used international organizations and legal strictures to impose economic sanctions on Afghanistan. As the Trade Center towers burned and Bush's polls soared, the last vestige of respect for law disappeared. Bush dropped bombs without declaring war, without bothering to formally request that the Taliban extradite Osama bin Laden, and without presenting a smidgen of proof that either the Afghan government or bin Laden had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "You're either with us or against us," Bush said, but "us" meant "me."
During the last few months, at least 6,000 people have vanished off the streets of the United States. Kidnapped by government agents, they have no idea when -- or if -- they will be released from prison. The Bushies say these people overstayed their visas, that they have links to Al Qaeda, that they don't wash their hands after using the toilet, that America is safer because they're behind bars.
Is any of this true? Who knows? Since they haven't been granted access to lawyers or allowed to call their families, no one can talk to them. Bush says they have no rights because they're not American citizens. Keep that in mind the next time you travel abroad.
The Bush police state doesn't coddle our own citizens, either. John Walker Lindh, an American with the bad taste to join the Taliban and the bad luck to get caught, was held for weeks without even being told that his parents had hired him an attorney. You may or may not give a damn about Walker, but he's an American citizen accused of serious federal crimes. The fact that he's been denied legal counsel, that Attorney General John Ashcroft's outrageous statements have made it impossible for him to get a fair trial, and that Bush was seriously considering subjecting him to one of his kangaroo-court military tribunals, tells you everything Americans need to know about our leaders' respect for the law.
Don't deign to look down on Burma or North Korea; when it comes to human rights, you live in a rogue state. Exhibit A: The Taliban and accused Al Qaeda prisoners of war now being held in pens in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Despite European criticism of the conditions under which they are being held, Dick Cheney insists that "nobody should feel defensive or unhappy about the quality of treatment they've received." Maybe so. But if our government has nothing to be ashamed of, why can't reporters, lawyers or family members get inside to visit them?
Even more troubling is the administration's assertion that these men are "unlawful combatants" not entitled to the decent living conditions and other protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. When Nazi Germany executed captured soldiers of the French Resistance, using the argument Bush now cites, the world was appalled. The Taliban prisoners' status is far more clear than the maquis -- the Afghans were fighting to defend their own nation's government from an invasion force. The Taliban, who controlled 95 percent of Afghanistan, were recognized as its government by three U.S.-aligned nations. If the Talibs aren't prisoners of war, who are?
Fortunately, the Geneva Conventions addresses the current situation. In the event of a dispute over the status of prisoners, the agreement stipulates that "such prisoners shall enjoy the protection of the present convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal." But, protests Cheney: "These are the worst of a very bad lot. They are very dangerous...These are bad people...They may well have information about future terrorist attacks against the United States. We need that information. We need to be able to interrogate them and extract from them whatever information they have."
In other words, our Vice President wants to torture our prisoners, which justifies our making an end-run around one of the most important international agreements ever made.
"The debate is not actually whether these people are prisoners of war," an anonymous State Department official told The New York Times January 28. "They are not. The debate is why they are not prisoners of war." Cheney summed up the Bush position the next day: "They are not P.O.W.s. They will not be determined to be P.O.W.s."
To hear these guys tell it, the Geneva Conventions exist solely to protect the safety and dignity of American servicemen when they fall into enemy hands. When we capture foreigners in combat, on the other hand, we simply claim that they're "unlawful combatants." Unfortunately for future American P.O.W.s -- er, detainees -- the rest of the world is listening closely.
After September 11, many Americans wondered aloud why other citizens of the world hate us so much. What kind of things could we, or our government, have done that would explain such fury?
Source: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12318
2/7/02
12:27:29 PM
Enron a $300-million sweetheart deal on the pipeline project
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17974
GAO V. Cheney Is Big-Time Stalling The Vice President Can Win Only If We Have Another Bush v. Gore -- like Ruling
http://www.truthout.com/02.02C.Dean.GAO.htm
Another Enron-White House Connection
http://www.truthout.com/02.02E.Enron.WH.htm
Is This a Democracy, or What?
http://www.truthout.com/02.02B.jvb.Democracy.htm
Pentagon Official From Enron in Hot Seat Questions Raised About Army Secretary White and Possible Conflicts of Interest
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17528
AlterNet has launched a special "EnronGate" page:
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
Featuring:
TOP TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ENRON Enron's meltdown is more than a lone business scandal, it's an indictment of our entire financial and political system. This smart, simple Enron primer explains why.
TAKE ACTION! Urge the immediate release all records of Cheney's Energy Task Force, and tell Bush to donate his $550,000 share of Enron's funds to the Enron Employee Transition Fund.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION * The Collapse of Enron: A Timeline of Events * "Enronomics" at a Glance * What Has Enron Gotten for Its Campaign Contributions?
Plus, a roster of incisive and controversial articles, to be continually updated as the scandal unfolds, starting with:
ENRON IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
The Bush crowd was not simply duped by Enron and its partners-in-fraud. In fact, the White House deliberately created a friendly climate for such scoundrels.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
ENRON WILL FORCE DUBYA'S RESIGNATION - Michael Moore
Because he allowed Enron to rip a huge hole in our political system and in so many people's lives, it is time for George W. Bush to resign.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
Remnants of al-Qaida fight on (Jan 26)
Hundreds of Osama bin Laden's fighters are lying low near Afghanistan's second city, trimming their beards and gaining local support through their shared Muslim faith, an Afghan intelligence source said yesterday.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,639724,00.html
Afghanistan after the Taliban
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gall/0,8542,596125,00.html
War on terror loses its way (Jan 17)
As George Bush's anti-terrorism campaign expands its aims, it is in danger of obscuring the original quest for justice. (...) The US air force has continued a heavy, daily bombardment in the area around Zawar, despite growing protests from villagers and expressions of concern from ministers belonging to Hamid Karzai's interim government in Kabul.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,634957,00.html
Afghanistan, the Taliban and the Bush Oil Team (23 Jan)
There is simply too much evidence that the War in Afghanistan was primarily about building UNOCAL's pipeline, not about fighting terrorism.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAD201A.html
2/7/02
12:11:53 PM
New Threat To Indigenous People
by Peter Montague, Rachel.org
The survival of indigenous people, within the U.S. and across the globe, is being directly threatened by genetic engineering (GE) of food crops.
In September, 2001, scientists discovered genetically engineered (GE) corn at 15 locations in the state of Oaxaca, deep in southern Mexico, a country that has outlawed the commercial use of all genetically engineered crops.[1] No one knows how it got there.
In the U.S., genetically engineered corn has been grown commercially since 1996 and 26 percent of all U.S. corn acreage is now genetically engineered. The remote region of Oaxaca where the illegal GE corn was discovered is considered the heartland of corn diversity in the world. Scientists had hoped to keep Oaxaca's rich diversity of corn uncontaminated by GE strains because Oaxaca retains the wealth of genetic varieties developed during 5500 years of indigenous corn cultivation. Scientists now say that aggressive forms of GE corn, let loose in Oaxaca, may drive native species to extinction, causing the loss of irreplaceable cultivars.
It is unclear whether the GE corn was carried deep into Mexico by birds, or was intentionally spread there by corporations or governments promoting GE crops.
All genetically engineered varieties of corn are owned and patented by transnational corporations. The only legal way to acquire such seeds is to purchase them from the corporation holding the patent. Such patents are called "intellectual property" and their enforcement under international law has been a major goal of "free trade" agreements in recent years. The World Trade Organization (WTO) contains strict protections for Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs), and patented forms of life, such as GE crops, are explicitly covered by TRIPs.
Under WTO rules, national governments are required to protect the intellectual property rights of corporations. In the U.S. and Canada, farmers have complained that they have become victims of gene drift, or genetic pollution, as GE crops have drifted across property lines, contaminating non-GE crops with patented GE varieties. Genetic drift of GE crops to non-GE fields has, in fact, been well documented and even the GE corporations and their regulators in government acknowledge that it is a serious problem. Now, however, Monsanto, a leading supplier of GE seeds, has cleverly turned the tables on the alleged victims of genetic pollution by suing them for stealing Monsanto's patented genes. In the first case that came to trial, in Canada in 2001, Monsanto sued Percy Schmeiser, an organic farmer who complained of genetic pollution. Monsanto said that after 40 years of growing crops organically, Mr. Schmeiser had a change of heart and decided to raise a genetically-engineered crop by stealing Monsanto's patented genes. Monsanto won and Schmeiser must pay. With this important victory in the bank, Monsanto now has similar lawsuits pending against farmers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Indiana, and Louisiana.[2] Thus farmers that fall victim to genetic pollution may find themselves sued for violating the intellectual property rights of a corporation and be forced to compensate the genetic polluter. [This is an outrage!]
The purpose of patenting seeds is to prevent seed saving -- the ancient indigenous practice of keeping seeds from this year's crop to grow next year's crop. Farmers who purchase GE seeds sign contracts requiring -- under penalty of law -- that they not save seed from one crop to the next. Thus farmers who employ GE seeds must purchase new seed year after year, making them dependent upon whatever transnational corporation owns the patent. Farmers who can't afford to buy seed each year will simply not be allowed to grow a crop. In free-market societies, such displaced farmers are free to move to a city where they are free to be unemployed.
Today's GE crops can't guarantee that farmers won't save seeds. Corporations intent on preventing seed-saving must hire agents to travel from farm to farm, reporting any unlicensed crops. Such monitoring is expensive.
To avoid the need for monitoring, and to gain 100 percent control over farmers, the GE corporations have developed a new technology -- terminator genes. Terminator genes prevent a crop from reproducing itself unless certain "protector" chemicals are applied to the crop. Any farmer using terminator seeds must buy the "protector" chemicals each year. As terminator technology spreads around the world, it will end indigenous agriculture, and much biodiversity as well. An estimated 1.4 billion indigenous people currently grow their own crops for subsistence, worldwide.[3] In many instances, their land is being eyed for corporate "development" and GE crop technology offers a legal way to separate indigenous people from their land.
The ETC Group (www.etcgroup.org) of Winnipeg, Canada, revealed last week that two of the world's largest genetic engineering firms -- DuPont and Syngenta (formerly Astrazeneca) -- during 2001 were awarded new patents on "terminator" seeds, engineered for sterility. In 1999, Syngenta's (then Astrazeneca's) Research and Development Director claimed that all work on terminator technology had ceased in 1992, but the ETC Group found that the Director was either mistaken or dissembling: Syngenta's latest terminator patent was applied for March 22, 1997 and awarded May 8, 2001.
"Terminator [technology] is a real and present danger for global food security and biodiversity -- governments and civil society cannot afford to let 'suicide seeds' slip beneath their radar," said Hope Shand, Research Director of the ETC Group.[4]
Despite the grim social consequences that seem likely to follow the widespread adoption of genetically engineered crops, few scientists have questioned the safety of the technology itself. The major GE corporations have insisted for 15 years that their technology is thoroughly understood, reliable, and safe, and government regulators have agreed (or at least remained silent).
Now a new report, released this month, asserts that the scientific theory underpinning the genetic engineering industry is dangerously outdated and wrong.[5] The new report, by Dr. Barry Commoner of Queens College, City University of New York, says, "The genetically engineered crops now being grown represent a massive uncontrolled experiment whose outcome is inherently unpredictable. The results could be catastrophic," the report says.
At present, 68 percent of U.S. soybean acreage, 26 percent of our corn acreage, and more than 69 percent of our cotton acreage have been genetically engineered. "[A]ny artificially altered genetic system, given the magnitude of our ignorance, must sooner or later give rise to unintended, potentially disastrous, consequences," says the new report.
The safety assurances of the genetic engineering industry are based on the scientific premise that one gene controls one characteristic. If this is true, then removing a gene from one species and inserting it into a new species will give the new species one new characteristic, no more and no less.
Unfortunately the theory that a single gene controls a single characteristic, while it may have seemed true 40 years ago, is known to be wrong today:
1) Genes are composed of segments of DNA, a long molecule coiled up within each cell's nucleus.
2) The 40-year old theory (developed by Francis Crick, who, with James Watson, discovered DNA in 1953), says that DNA strictly controls the production of RNA which in turn strictly controls the creation of proteins which give rise to specific inherited characteristics. Because DNA is the same in all creatures, this theory says that a gene will produce a particular protein (and a particular characteristic) no matter what species it finds itself in -- thus making it possible for the genetic engineering corporations to claim that inserting genes from one species to another will not lead to any surprises or dangerous side effects.
3) It was -- of all things -- the Human Genome Project that revealed most starkly that Crick's theory was wrong. There are about 100,000 different proteins in a human and, if Crick were right, there should be 100,000 genes to produce these proteins. However, the Human Genome Project announced last February that humans have only about 30,000 genes. (See many articles in SCIENCE Feb. 16, 2001.) Thus there must be something more than mere genes controlling the development of proteins and the resulting characteristics.
4) Actually, scientists had known for many years (since 1981 in the case of human genes) that after DNA creates RNA, the RNA can split into several parts, giving rise to several different proteins and several different characteristics. This is called "alternative splicing." By 1989 more than 200 scientific papers had been published describing alternative splicing.
5) As cells split and reproduce themselves, their DNA molecule also reproduces itself, but sometimes errors occur in in DNA reproduction. Special proteins repair these errors of reproduction, so genetic inheritance is not simply a matter of genes -- it's a matter of interaction between genes and repair proteins. Will these complex interactions always work reliably and identically when a gene is placed into the entirely new environment of a different species?
6) Proteins function as they do because of two characteristics: they have a specific chemical (molecular) make-up, and they are physically folded into a particular shape. The Crick theory assumes that a particular gene always gives rise to a single protein that is chemically identical and is identically folded. However, scientists now know that proteins get folded in a particular way by the presence of additional "chaperone" proteins. More protein-gene interactions.
7) Furthermore, during the 1980s, in searching for the causes of fatal "mad cow" disease, scientists made the startling discovery that some proteins can reproduce themselves without involving any DNA whatever -- an impossibility according to the Crick theory. These proteins are now called "prions" and, as Dr. Commoner points out, they reveal that processes far removed from the Crick theory are at work in molecular genetics and can give rise to fatal disease.
Thus the basic theory underlying genetic engineering of crops is quite wrong. Single genes are important, but they do not invariably give rise to a single characteristic in an organism. A gene's action is modified by alternative splicing, by proteins that repair errors in reproduction, and by the chaperones that fold the final protein into its active shape. In nature, such a system works reliably within a species because it has been tested and refined for thousands of years. But when a single gene is removed from its familiar surroundings and transplanted into an alien species, the new host's system is likely to be "disrupted in unspecified, imprecise, and inherently unpredictable ways," the Commoner report concludes. In practice these disruptions are revealed by the vast number of failures that occur whenever a gene transplant is attempted.
Most ominously, the report points out, Monsanto Corporation acknowledged in 2000 that its genetically modified soybeans contained some extra fragments of a transferred gene. Despite this, the company announced that it expected "no new proteins" to appear in the GE soybeans. Then during 2001, Belgian researchers announced that the soybean's own DNA had been scrambled during the insertion of the new gene. "The abnormal DNA was large enough to produce a new protein, a potentially harmful protein," Dr. Commoner concludes.
Thus genetically engineered crops threaten not only the agricultural systems and the cultural survival of all indigenous people, but also the food security and safety of all people everywhere.
xox
[1] Carol Kaesuk Yoon, "Genetic Modification Taints Corn in Mexico," NEW YORK TIMES October 2, 2001, pg. unknown. Available at www.nytimes.com for a fee.
[2] David R. Moeller, GMO LIABILITY THREATS FOR FARMERS (St. Paul, Minn.: Farmers' Legal Action Group, Inc., November 2001). Available in PDF format at www.iatp.org.
[3] Pat Roy Mooney, THE ETC CENTURY; EROSION, TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATION, AND CORPORATE CONCENTRATION IN THE 21ST CENTURY (Winnipeg, Canada: The ETC Group, 2001); available in PDF: http://-www.rafi.org/documents/other_etccentury.pdf. The ETC Group (formerly RAFI, the Rural Advancement Foundation International) can be reached at 478 River Avenue, Suite 200, Winnipeg, MB R3L 0C8 Canada; Tel: (204) 453-5259, Fax: (204) 284-7871. This report is "MUST READ " for all activists.
[4] News Release: "Sterile Harvest:New Crop of Terminator Patents Threatens Food Sovereignty," January 31, 2002. Available in PDF: http://www.etcgroup.org/documents/new_termpatent_jan2002.pdf
[5] Barry Commoner, "Unraveling the DNA Myth," HARPER'S MAGAZINE (February 2002), pgs. 39-47.
Peter Montague, Editor
Source: http://www.Rachel.org
2/7/02
12:03:24 PM
California High Court Allows Suits Against Water Companies
By Cat Lazaroff
LOS ANGELES, California, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - In a precedent setting victory for clean water rights, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that people harmed by drinking contaminated water can legally sue their water utility for failing to provide clean drinking water.
The ruling came in the case of about 2,500 San Gabriel Valley residents who sued industrial polluters and water companies over the alleged contamination of their water supplies. Many of the plaintiffs claim they contracted cancer or other diseases after drinking water polluted by industrial solvents, solid rocket fuel and other chemicals.
Most previous such lawsuits have targeted only the polluters responsible for contaminating groundwater supplies, not the utilities that pump the water to consumers. This case, the first to test the legal basis for holding utilities responsible for delivering clean water, could provide an example for similar litigation across the state and nationwide.
The ruling was hailed as "a victory for water users in the San Gabriel area and for water consumers all over the state," said David Rosen, a partner at Rose, Klein & Marias, the law firm which represented the plaintiffs in the case, Hartwell Corporation vs. Superior Court (Santamaria).
"Other populations of people have been waiting to see whether they could go to court, whether their right to go to court would be taken from them, and it wasn't," Rosen added.
The San Gabriel Basin supplies drinking water to 1.4 million people in eastern Los Angeles County. Parts of the San Gabriel Basin were designated as a federal Superfund site in 1984, due to decades of unsafe chemical dumping and the discovery, in 1979, of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as trichloroethylene and tetrachloroethylene in the groundwater.
In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discovered that the contamination includes perchlorate, derived largely from solid rocket fuel waste. Because perchlorate requires different cleanup methods from VOCs, cleanup efforts in the basin slowed and nearly halted, with some wells needing to be closed entirely.
A $200 million cleanup is now underway, with funds from the EPA and several area companies.
More than one quarter of the 366 water supply wells in the San Gabriel Valley have been contaminated, surveys show. The pollutants are also making their way underground into the Central Basin, which supplies the greater part of Los Angeles County with groundwater.
Valley residents sued more than two dozen industrial companies that allegedly dumped contaminants into the groundwater, along with nine utilities, municipal and private water agencies, for allowing the pollution to reach household taps.
Previous court decisions, including a 1999 appeals court ruling that blocked lawsuits against water companies regulated by the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC), suggested that the plaintiffs could not legally sue the utilities. The defendants argued that the PUC, not individual companies, has jurisdiction in such cases.
But the plaintiffs argued that the PUC is not responsible for enforcing water safety, and the judge seems to have agreed.
Justice Ming Chin wrote that the San Gabriel Valley plaintiffs can sue all of the defendants, polluters and utilities alike, allowing a jury to determine whether the water companies failed to meet federal and state standards for drinking water safety.
"A court has jurisdiction to enforce a water utility's legal obligation to comply with PUC standards and policies and to award damages for violations," Chin wrote. "We conclude the PUC's regulation of water quality and safety does not preempt damage claims alleging violations of federal and state drinking water standards against the providers subject to PUC regulation."
Noting that a 2000 PUC investigation determined that the utilities, for the last 25 years, "had provided water that was in no way harmful or dangerous to health," Chin added that lawsuits must be limited to cases where utilities violated existing government standards.
Lawyers for the water companies warned that the ruling opens the door to dozens of lawsuits, the costs of which could substantially raise the price of drinking water. They said they would not seek to settle the lawsuits, but would attempt to prove in court that their water deliveries met all applicable government standards.
Source: http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-06-06.html
2/7/02
11:59:45 AM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
CALIFORNIA HIGH COURT ALLOWS SUITS AGAINST WATER COMPANIES
LOS ANGELES, California, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - In a precedent setting victory for clean water rights, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that people harmed by drinking contaminated water can legally sue their water utility for failing to provide clean drinking water.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-06-06.html
EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT VOTES TO RATIFY KYOTO PROTOCOL
STRASBOURG, France, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) voted today by a huge majority of 540 to four with 10 abstentions to support European Union ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, as proposed by the European Commission late last year.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-04.html
SATELLITES HELP TRACK DISEASE EPIDEMICS
WASHINGTON, DC, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - Satellite images of droughts, floods and heat waves are now helping scientists track and predict the spread of disease in the U.S. and around the globe. Using climate and vegetation data, biologists are now gathering information that could aid health workers in preparing for and combating outbreaks of a host of deadly viruses.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-06-07.html
BACTERIA ON THE GREAT BARRIER REEF HOLD HEALTH SECRETS
TOWNSVILLE, Queensland, Australia, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - Out on the world's largest reef, tropical marine bacteria can adapt to ultraviolet light in a way that may help scientists decode a vital process of aging. The man who discovered this phenomenon, Dr. Walt Dunlap, is a marine specialist who also found that tropical corals produce their own sunscreen.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-03.html
GATEWAY TO YUCATAN BIOSPHERE RESERVE PROTECTED
CANCUN, Mexico, February 6, 2002 (ENS) - Working together, Mexican and U.S. conservationists have taken the first step to acquire a coastal area south of Cancun called Pez Maya, the Nature Conservancy said today. The purchase on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula will help protect millions of acres within the Sian Ka'an Biosphere Reserve from increasing development pressure.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-02.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 6, 2002
Lawsuit Challenges Pacific Salmon Protections - Again
Lake Erie Threatened by Energy Exploration
Tyson Foods Charged With Superfund Violations
Bioremediation Cleans Up Groundwater
Tracking Satellites Save Lives
Olympics' Coyote Mascot Unappreciated in Utah
California Computer Waste Could be Recycled
Ocelot Habitat Replanted in Texas
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-06-09.html
2/7/02
11:55:19 AM
John Walker Lindh's Lawyer Will Put Bu$h On Trial
James Brosnahan, a former member of Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh's team investigating Iran-Contra, plans to defend "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh by demonstrating official U.S. support of the Taliban, and thus, that the U.S. is guilty of the same crimes for which Lindh is charged.
Larry Chin writes,
"Brosnahan has vowed to fight the current Bush administration every step of the way. Brosnahan has many points to raise. For example, Walker Lindh joined the Taliban during a period in which the Bush (and Clinton) administration considered the Taliban to be an ally.
"And that the Bush administration handed over $100 million to the Taliban, including a $43 million check in May 2001." Thus, Chin says, George W. Bush is guilty of the same charges Lindh faces, including "providing material support" and "willfully and knowingly contributing goods and services to, and for the benefit of, the Taliban...." Walsh and Brosnahan fought the Bush Administration's obstruction of justice, when Walsh discovered notes written by then-Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger that disproved then-President George Bush, Sr.'s claim that he was "out of the loop" on Iran-Contra.
It was Brosnahan who denounced former President Bush's attacks against Walsh as blatant obstruction of justice. Chin concludes: "It's time for all of us to sit back ... and witness the spectacle of Bush vs. Brosnahan: The Sequel. And look out for dirty tricks."
http://www.democrats.com/search.cfm
[at that site, you need to do a search for "James Brosnahan"]
2/7/02
11:49:50 AM
Heritage Forests Campaign
We need your help. Thanks to pressure from people like you, the Bush Administration promised to uphold the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, and protect 58.5 million acres of undeveloped national forest land from logging, mining, and drilling. In recent months, however, the Administration, at the behest of special interests, has broken its promise by quietly rolling back core protections for our national forests. Please act now and help protect our last wild forests.
You can take action on this alert either via email (please see directions below) or via the web at:
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/roadless_directives/ww3k734a78xx7i
Visit the web address below and tell your friends to take action on this important campaign!
http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/roadless_directives/forward/ww3k734a78xx7i
We encourage you to take action by February 20, 2002
Tell the Administration to Keep its Promise and Protect America's Last Wild Forests
2/7/02
11:47:25 AM
t r u t h o u t | 02.07
Bush Brushes Off Demand for Enron Prosecutor "This is a business problem. And my Justice Department is going to investigate"
http://www.truthout.com/02.07A.Bush.Brushes.htm
Hastert: Campaign Finance Could Doom the GOP's Grip on Power in the House
http://www.truthout.com/02.07B.GOP.Grip.htm
Enron Testimony Infuriates Lawmakers
http://www.truthout.com/02.07C.Enron.Testimony.htm
Daschle, Wellstone, Reed | The Stimulus "Murder"
http://www.truthout.com/02.07D.DWR.Murder.htm
European Leaders Warn Bush Over 'Axis of Evil'
http://www.truthout.com/02.07E.Europe.Warn.htm
Sen. Grassley: The Justice Department is Engaging in a "Shell Game"
http://www.truthout.com/02.07F.Shell.Game.htm
Norton Request Invites Judge's Wrath
http://www.truthout.com/02.07G.Norton.Wrath.htm
2/6/02
8:48:19 PM
Report: U.S. Enabled Al Qaeda Fighters to Flee Kunduz
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S.-approved evacuation of Pakistani military officers and intelligence advisers during the siege of Kunduz last November ``slipped out of control'' and a number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters joined the exodus, according to a report in The New Yorker magazine.
Citing unnamed U.S. intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers, New Yorker writer Seymour Hersh reported that the Pakistanis were flown to safety in nighttime airlifts approved by the Bush Administration to help Pakistan leader General Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally, avoid political disaster.
``What was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control and as an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters managed to join the exodus,'' wrote Hersh.
``Dirt got through the screen,'' an unnamed senior intelligence official was quoted as saying.
The Pakistanis, the staunchest supporters of the Taliban in the long-running war against the Northern Alliance that preceded the U.S.-led action in Afghanistan (news - web sites), were trapped in Kunduz, the Taliban's last northern stronghold in Afghanistan.
The article quoted an unnamed senior American defense adviser as saying the airlift got out of hand.
``Everyone brought their friends with them,'' he was quoted as saying, referring to Afghans who had been trained or used to run intelligence operations for the Pakistanis. ``You're not going to leave them behind to get their throats cut.''
Rescue flights from Kunduz to the northwest corner of Pakistan, some 200 miles away, were made through a special air corridor ordered by the U.S. Central Command, according to an unnamed Central Intelligence Agency (news - web sites) official.
Indian intelligence officials told Hersh that as many as five thousand people may have been evacuated to Pakistan, but U.S. intelligence put the figure much lower, the story said.
American and Pakistani officials have refused to confirm the reports and on Sunday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied it.
``I do not believe it happened,'' Rumsfeld told NBC's ``Meet the Press'' program. ``No one that I know, in -- connected with the United States in any way, saw any such thing as a major air exodus out of Afghanistan into Pakistan.
``I have read these stories, I've heard these stories. I've never able to run them down. No one has ever been able to run them down and prove them. And I doubt them; I think they're not true,'' Rumsfeld said.
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020120/ts/attack_kunduz_pakistan_dc_1.html
2/6/02
8:31:47 PM
** TOP_VIEW ** The Big Picture
12.20.01 ASK BUSH: WHY was air defense shut down on 9.11 AFTER receiving ATC alerts ** DOZENS of air bases within MINUTES of BOTH 9.11 targets!
There is irrefutable evidence which proves total complicity on the part of traitors at the highest level of the executive branch -- along with numerous accomplices and co-conspirators in the military, intelligence and administrative sectors -- in the September 11 atrocities perpetrated against the American people
Here's the deal.
It is a FACT that DOZENS of Air Force and Air National Guard bases are located within TEN to THIRTY minutes intercept time of BOTH 9.11 target locations.
It is a FACT that most of these installations have at the ready fighter jets such as F-16s to be scrambled on a MOMENT's NOTICE, for intercepting troubled or problem aircraft.
It is a FACT that air defense units DID receive alerts from Air Traffic Controllers and non-corrupt FAA officials on a number of aircraft across the East Coast which had broken communications and deviated radically from established flight paths on the morning of September 11.
It is a FACT that standard intercept procedures for dealing with these kinds of situations ARE TOTALLY ESTABLISHED, IN FORCE and ON- LINE in these United States 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
<< Regarding rules governing IFR requirements, see FAA Order 7400.2E 'Procedures for Handling Airspace Matters,' Effective Date: December 7, 2000 (Includes Change 1, effective July 7, 2001), Chapter 14-1-2. Full text posted at:
http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/AIR/air1401.html#14-1-2FAA
<<Guide to Basic Flight Information and Air Traffic Control (ATC) Procedures,' (Includes Change 3 Effective: July 12, 2001) Chapter 5-6-4 “Interception Signals” Full text posted at:
http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/AIM/Chap5/aim0506.html#5-6-4
<<FAA Order 7110.65M 'Air Traffic Control' (Includes Change 3 Effective: July 12, 2001), Chapter 10-2-5 “Emergency Situations” Full text posted at:
http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1002.html#10-2-5
<<FAA Order 7110.65M 'Air Traffic Control' (Includes Change 3 Effective: July 12, 2001), Chapter 10-1-1 “Emergency Determinations” Full text posted
at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1001.html#10-1-1
<<FAA Order 7610.4J 'Special Military Operations' (Effective Date: November 3, 1998; Includes: Change 1, effective July 3, 2000; Change 2, effective July 12, 2001), Chapter 4, Section 5, “Air Defense Liaison Officers (ADLO's)” Full text posted at:
http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch4/mil0405.html#Section%205
<<FAA Order 7610.4J 'Special Military Operations' (Effective Date: November 3, 1998; Includes: Change 1, effective July 3, 2000; Change 2, effective July 12, 2001), Chapter 7, Section 1-2, “Escort of Hijacked Aircraft: Requests for Service” Full text posted at:
http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch7/mil0701.html#7-1-2
<<'Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A,' 1 June 2001, “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects,” 4. Policy (page 1) PDF available at:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf
Backup at: http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/3610_01a.pdf
<<For a clear and detailed description of flight plans, fixes, and Air Traffic Control, see: 'Direct-To Requirements' by Gregory Dennis and Emina Torlak at:
http://sdg.lcs.mit.edu/atc/D2Requirements.htm
It is a FACT that Air National Guard and Air Force air defense units of the United States WERE PROHIBITED from carrying out their STANDARD INTERCEPT PROCEDURES as detailed above on the morning of 9.11; AFTER they had received the alerts from ATC and FAA.
Absolutely NO executive-level input of ANY KIND is required for standard intercepts to be scrambled.
There was NO indication in any alerts received by air defense units that “SHOOT-DOWNS” may be required as opposed to intercepts -- i.e.; that the planes were definitely under control of “hostile” forces -- because ATC/FAA could NOT have KNOWN that.
When the first alerts were received from Air Traffic Control, ALL that air defense units were required to do was scramble STANDARD interceptors to make contact with the incommunicado and off-course jets. F-16s and other fighter planes WOULD HAVE overtaken EVERY SINGLE HIJACKED PLANE on September 11, BEFORE they had reached their targets!
IF, at the time of interception, it was determined the aircraft were under hostile control and likely to impact targets, high-level air defense commanders at the Pentagon's National Military Command Center (NMCC) are FULLY AUTHORIZED under existing and established regulations and procedures to authorize a shoot-down,. in order to PROTECT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA FROM ATTACK.
Yet air defense units that were READY AND WAITING on 9.11 at DOZENS of nearby installations were ordered NOT to scramble interceptors: they were ordered to stand down from carrying out even the FIRST STAGE of STANDARD INTERCEPT PROCEDURES.
These orders came from the executive office of then president as well as from complicit traitors in the aforementioned NMCC.
There is NO QUESTION that if these interceptors had been scrambled AT THE TIME alerts were received, they would have intercepted the hijacked planes before targets were approached IN EVERY INSTANCE.
And there is NO WAY that the office of the President or the NMCC could have KNOWN through any standard means that these incommunicado flights required anything OTHER than standard interceptions, because ATC and FAA alerts DID NOT relay any such information. The alerts simply requested that STANDARD INTERCEPT PROCEDURES be implemented and that interceptors be scrambled forthwith.
Some disingenuous excuse-makers say things like: “Well, there was no air defense response because the U.S. had NO PROCEDURES for dealing with such 'attacks,' because the U.S. had never BEEN 'attacked' this way before.'
This sheer, complete nonsense: fully established procedures for dealing with intercepts of ALL KINDS, including of hostile aircraft, existed on September 11, as detailed above.
Furthermore: when those first alerts were received from ATC/FAA, there was no MENTION of any “attack” and no NEED for “unusual” procedures. There was only a need for STANDARD, FIRST-STAGE INTERCEPTIONS to be scrambled, and higher authorities PREVENTED that.
Other disingenuous excuse-makers THEN say: “Well, of COURSE higher authorities stepped in, because they had to see what was going on with the whole situation, as 'America was under attack.' “
AGAIN: America was NOT “under attack” when those first alerts were received; certainly ATC and FAA had NO WAy of knowing so early in the proceedings that the jets which had broken communications and gone off-course were part of any “attack.”
So WHY did the executive branch and high-level military authorities DELIBERATELY order the air defense interceptors to STAND DOWN? NOBODY could have known that early in the proceedings that 'America was under attack”... or COULD they have known?
OBVIOUSLY, those who ordered the stand-down DID know that early in the proceedings that “America was under attack” because they were WHOLLY COMPLICIT in the attack, and took ALL POSSIBLE STEPS to ENSURE that the attack WOULD TAKE PLACE, unimpeded by the air defense of the United States.
TRAITORS, TRAITORS, TRAITORS, each and every one of them. They deserve the most severe punishment imaginable for their horrendous, merciless horrific treachery and butchery of American citizens on that day. TRUE patriots in this land who have SWORN to protect and defend our Republic MUST BRING THESE ARCH-TRAITORS TO JUSTICE NOW!!!!! = = = = PILOT: bush's intercept stand-down orders on 9.11 were HIGH TREASON
From: AC Subject: USAF ON 9/11/01 Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 02:19:23 -0600
As i may have told you long ago, i am a tyro at questioning the state. and such a task is not my principal activity. i am a small, specialty manufacturer who has gotten caught up in being disgusted by my government's lies. and that has caused me to look at certain events more closely than those who are thought to be responsible for that scrutiny.
as you know by now, i have also been outraged by the monstrous lies that the government has foisted on the public, with the cooperation of the press, concerning the failure of the us military to interdict and prevent the murderously damaging conclusion of 3 or 4 commercial airliners on 9/11/01.
just by searching NYT archives, i found the policy and the methodology for intercepting a runaway Lear 35 [Payne Stewart's charter]. the story clearly establishes that F16's were scrambled to intercept this bizjet within 25 minutes of its failure to report to controllers upon its reaching its cleared alttitude of 39,000 ft. These F16's were scrambled just upon the loss of a radio communication: the transponder never ceased to function.
the way i view the intercept, the F16 out of Eglin, 500 miles behind the lear 35, travelling at its posted max speed, mach 2+, caught the lear 35 in 30 minutes.
for all of us who care about relating how the coup was facilitated, and care to reveal 9/11/01 as a coup for posterity, then it seems to me essential that this technical record be established...a F16 can catch a 767 within 30 minutes[if it is ordered to do so].
with that understanding, since no one else has done it, i thought it would be of interest to see how many air force[including air national guard, air force reserve] facilities might have been within 500 miles of the “terror” airliners on 9/11/01.
here are the facilities that i found on the USAF website[s].
1. Andrews AFB[11 miles SE of DC] 2. Bolling AFB[3 miles south of US CAPITOL]. 3. Dover AFB[3 miles southeast of Dover, Delaware] 4. Hanscom AFB[17 miles northwest of Boston] 5. Langley AFB[3 miles north of Hampton, VA] 6. McGuire AFB[18 miles southeast of Trenton,NJ] these are the major, active AIR FORCE facilities that could have launched intercepts with the commandeered airliners. all of them, if ordered in a timely fashion, could have intercepted and prevented the collisions with the WTC and the Pentagon.
then there are these minor, active AIR FORCE facilities. i don't know how they function, but for the sake of history, let us note their existence within the umbrella of intercept before any collision with civilans could occur. 7. Cape Cod, MA AFS 8. New Boston, NH AFS
and then there are the AIR NATIONAL GUARD and AIR FORCE RESERVE BASES.
9. Atlantic City Airport, NJ[10 miles west of Atlantic City] 10. Barnes Municipal Airport, MA[3 miles northwest of Westfield] 11. Bradley International Airport, Conn[Windsor Locks] 12. Byrd Field, VA[4 miles southeast of Richmond] 13. Eastern West Virginia Regional Airport[4 miles south of Martinsburg] 14. Frances S. Gabreski Airport, NY[Westhampton Beach] 15. Greater Pittsburgh International Airport, PA[15 miles nw of Pittsburgh] 16. Harrisburg International Airport, PA[10 miles east of Harrisburg] 17. Martin State Airport, MD[8 miles east of Baltimore] 18. New Castle County Airport, DE[5 miles south of Wilmington] 19. Otis ANGB, MA[7 miles northeast of Falmouth] 20. Pease ANGS, NH[Portsmouth] 21. Quonset State Airport, RI[Providence] 22. Rickenbacker ANGB, OH[Columbus, Oh] 23. Stewart International Airport, NY[Newburgh, NY] 24. Westover ARB, MA[5 miles northeast of Chicopee] 25. Willow Grove Naval Air Station, PA[14 miles north of Philadelphia] 26 Yeager Airport, WVA[4 miles northeast of Charleston] 27. Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport ARS, OH[16 miles north of Youngstown]
i am not so naive as to think that all of these installations were prepared to put up intercept, take-down aircraft that morning. but some number of them may have been able to do that.
and the question has to be, why didn't they? because all that were prepared to intercept and terminate could have done so. what prevented them from even launching intercept aircraft?
that is the question. have we just watched a 7 DAYS IN MAY? wouldn't you like to see the orders that caused all of these aircraft to stand down?
i sure would. because based on the Payne Stewart story, such orders had to have been given. as has been admitted, the automatic response would ordinarily be to intercept and to shoot down.
and based on the Payne Stewart story, we can only conclude that the resident of the USA, GEORGE WALKER BUSH, prevented the intercept and shootdown of the terrorist-commandeered airliners.
can that be viewed as anything other than treason? there, i have said it. anyone care to contest that appraisal? i invite the argument. i regret that i gave you some reason to doubt the thoroughness of my thinking.
wishing you a peaceful holiday season, ace
Member & Info Coordinator, Citizens for Legitimate Government (CLG)
2/6/02
8:22:37 PM
UTNE WEB WATCH
The Best of the Alternative Web
PAYING THE RENT
by Silja J.A. Talvi, LiP magazine
-- In the depths of our current recession, more Americans are finding themselves unable to make rent. It doesn't help that a full-time, minimum-wage worker cannot afford "fair market" rental housing anywhere in the U.S.
MEMO TO MEDIA MOGULS: GIVE US OUR "LEFTWING BLONDES"
by Dennis Hans, Common Dreams
-- Lamenting the absence of fair-haired liberals in television, humorist Dennis Hans comes up with a pitch for a hard-hitting, roundtable talkathon called "Leftwing Blondes."
OUTSIDE VIEW: PUT MEDICAL POT IN HIGH GEAR
by Paul Armentano, UPI
-- The U.S. government approves state-sponsored medical trials for marijuana use in treatment of terminal illnesses, while a pharmaceutical company in England is approved for clinical trials of its cannabis-based medicines.
Links to the above articles: http://www.utne.com/webwatch
2/6/02
8:19:35 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
US gas guzzlers top "Meanest Vehicles" list - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14408/story.htm
Foot-and-mouth attack a major US fear - scientist - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14423/story.htm
UPDATE - US anti-biotech group targets Kraft Foods - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14420/story.htm
UPDATE - White House gives glimpse of greenhouse gas goal - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14424/story.htm
US forecasters see more evidence of coming El Nino - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14426/story.htm
Sithe sees adding 2,400 MW in Massachusetts by mid-2002 - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14413/story.htm
EPA memo said White House energy plan 'misleading' - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14411/story.htm
US utility pollution bill delayed until Easter - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14410/story.htm
New Hampshire seeks radiation sickness pills - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14409/story.htm
UK coal power stations must go greener - minister - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14412/story.htm
Biotech firms in UK pledge more openness on crops - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14422/story.htm
FEATURE - Hope for Africa's last mountain gorillas - RWANDA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14419/story.htm
Rains, mudslides and flooding hit Peru - PERU http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14425/story.htm
Dutch Petten research nuke plant to shut - NETHERLANDS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14427/story.htm
UPDATE - War of words worsens between Israel and Iran - ISRAEL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14414/story.htm
Indonesian crops hit by floods, heavy rains - INDONESIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14417/story.htm
Mont Blanc tunnel reopening delayed by three weeks - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14415/story.htm
UPDATE - US says more talks needed on China's GMO rules - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14416/story.htm
Brazil may fine farmers for illegal GM soy - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14421/story.htm
FEATURE - Rio's seawater pool mirrors city problems - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14418/story.htm
2/6/02
8:18:00 PM
BioDemocracy News #38 February/March 2002
Market Pressure: Busting BGH and Biotech
By Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association
http://www.organicconsumers.org
2/6/02
8:12:56 PM
TomPaine.com
MUCKRAKERS AND BUCKRAKERS
Enron Payments To Journalists Sign Of An Ongoing Trend
by Richard Blow
Politicians weren't the only recipients of Enron's largesse. Influential journalists also got tens of thousands of dollars.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5070
Dispatch: San Francisco
CALIFORNIA ENERGY CRISIS FALLOUT CONTINUES
PG&E Isn't Insolvent, Just Greedy
by Nettie Hoge
Enron wasn't the first energy giant to use shadowy accounting. PG&E, one of California's biggest utilities, played the fiscal shell game before filing for bankruptcy during last year's state energy crisis.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5061
PATRIOTISM AS A NATIONAL DECOY
What Good Is Freedom Of Speech If You're Afraid To Speak Your Mind?
by Derrick Ashong
"It seems we who cry freedom are now too afraid to stand up for it within our own borders."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5077
LIMITS? WHAT LIMITS?
An Interview With Campaign Finance Expert Michael Pinto-Duschinsky
by Jennifer Bauduy
Enron wasn't unique when it tried to use money to gain influence. In one country, a crook bought up the entire government.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5009
DO STOP THINKING ABOUT TOMORROW
Banking Our Budget On Tomorrow Just Doesn't Make Sense
by M. W. Guzy
"Relying on the future is a somewhat contradictory notion for a bunch of mortals. One's personal future is finite and, once realized, rarely so rosy as advertised."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5082
Poetry
CAMORRA
A Lawyer's Reflection On Recent Wheelings And Dealings
by Silvia Pérez
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5067
Poetry
MILITARY TRIBUNAL
by Peter Kastner
"Enron guys/Oh so wise/Swiped the cash/Missed the crash..."
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5068
Book Excerpt
THE AMERICAN SYNDROME
What Would Happen If Chinese Citizens Lived Like Americans?
by Lester Brown
The Middle Kingdom could easily consume the world's entire output of oil, seafood and other commodities.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5024
THE BUBBLE THAT WASN'T
SEC Probe Exposes Investment Banks' Dirty Dealings During Boom Times
by Gregg Wirth
Think Enron was the only one to engage in shady dealings and market manipulation? Hate to burst your Internet bubble, but...
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/5074
2/6/02
8:09:35 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
A BUNCH OF HOT AIR?
In an apparent effort to patch its shabby environmental reputation at home and abroad, the Bush administration is preparing a plan to limit greenhouse gas emissions. The final version won't be available until next week, but proposals include scrapping fixed emissions targets in favor of "emission intensity" targets, which would fluctuate in tandem with economic growth. The administration has been under national and international pressure to develop a policy on global warming since its decision to pull out of the Kyoto Protocol. However, environmentalists are skeptical about the Bush alternative. Eileen Claussen of the middle-of-the-road Pew Center on Global Climate Change said, "I don't think it's going to be nothing, but I don't think it's going to be a great deal, either."
straight to the source: Washington Post, Dana Milbank and Eric Pianin, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A29471-2002Feb5.html>
only in Grist: A week at the climate change conference in Bonn, Germany -- Elliot Diringer, Pew Center on Global Climate Change <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/diringer071701.asp?source=daily>
do good: Take action to tell Bush to tackle global warming <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#kyoto>
WHAT SUMATRA YOU?
The Tesso Nilo forest on Sumatra, Indonesia, contains more biological diversity than the Amazon. It is home to elephants, tigers, gibbons, and tapirs, and a recent survey conducted by scientists from the World Wildlife Fund found as many as 218 vascular plant species in just 0.05 acres. But the entire forest could disappear in less than eight years, according to the WWF (or within four years, according to the World Bank's more dire prediction) if clearcutting and illegal logging continues apace. The Swiss-based WWF urged Indonesia to set aside Tesso Nilo as a protected area and called on foreign countries, especially the G-8, to stop the international trade in illegally logged timber.
straight to the source: CNN.com, Nick Easen, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/asiapcf/southeast/02/05/indonesia.forest/index.html>
MEMOLITION DERBY
A draft report of the Bush administration's energy policy was heavily criticized last year by a senior U.S. EPA official for blaming energy shortages on environmental regulations, according to a confidential memo released today by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.). In a note to the Energy Task Force, which was chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney, EPA Associate Administrator Thomas Gibson said, "We are very concerned that this [report's] language is inaccurate and inappropriately implicates environmental programs as a major cause of supply constraints in the United States' refining capacity. Such a conclusion, in our opinion, is overly simplistic and not supported by the facts." Waxman released the memo as part of his ongoing effort to force Cheney to release the names of executives who advised the energy task force in the spring. In suspiciously similar wording, both a White House representative and an EPA spokesperson dismissed the memo, calling the energy plan "balanced and comprehensive."
straight to the source: New York Times, Don Van Natta, Jr., 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/06/business/06ENER.html>
only in Grist: Confessions of an Energy Task Force member -- diary of Dick Cheney's secretive group discovered! -- satire in our opinions section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho062901.asp?source=daily>
do good: Take action to support a cleaner energy plan <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/climate.asp?source=daily#energybill>
WHEN METHANOL'S SAID AND DONE
In the first-ever legal challenge to a U.S. environmental measure mounted under the North American Free Trade Agreement, a Canadian company is contesting California's ban on the gasoline additive MTBE. The state began phasing out the chemical compound because of its apparent threat to water quality and human health, but the Methanex Corp., the world's largest producer of methanol (one of the key ingredients in MTBE) claims the ban is protectionist, hurts foreign manufacturers, and benefits Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. ADM, a U.S. company, produces a competing additive, ethanol, that makes gasoline burn more cleanly -- and, as it happens, the company donated a chunk of money to the gubernatorial campaign of California Gov. Gray Davis (D). Methanex is seeking almost $970 million in compensation. Environmentalists and other activists call the case a classic example of globalization gone awry, and fear that if the company is successful, other governments will be reluctant to restrict MTBE use.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Evelyn Iritani, 06 Feb 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/business/la-000009237feb06.story?coll=la-headlines-business>
MANTA REY
Following the blueprint for charter schools, which seek to bypass the bureaucracy of public schools and enhance local control, the Bush administration will ask Congress to approve a new system of "charter forests." The forests would be federally owned, but managed by a local trust. In other words, certain parts of existing national forests would no longer be administered by the U.S. Forest Service. Mark Rey, the Department of Agriculture undersecretary in charge of the Forest Service, says the plan wouldn't favor any particular activity -- like, say, logging -- but environmentalists are wary. Some point to Rey's past as a timber industry lobbyist, some to the Bush administration's attempts to dismantle the Clinton-era "roadless rule," and some say the whole plan is just a way to dodge thorny environmental problems rather than solve them.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, Katherine Pfleger, 05 Feb 2002 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/02/05/national1556EST0692.DTL>
do good: Take action to stand up for roadless areas <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/forests.asp?source=daily#roadless>
do good: Take action to stop logging in national forests <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/forests.asp?source=daily#national>
2/6/02
8:05:45 PM
EMS Update - Feb. 6, 2002
Green Groups Decry Bush Budget Cuts
Citing "dishonest accounting," experts on America's environmental programs sharply criticized the new Bush administration budget at an EMS press conference Tuesday. According to one speaker at the event, the five-year impact of the proposed budget will amount to a cut of $14 billion, or nine percent, for environmental protection.
Press release: http://www.ems.org/bush_cheney/zz.ems.02.02.05.html
Senators to Oppose Arctic Refuge Drilling
Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lincoln Chafee (R-R.I.) will appear with representatives of Americans for Alaska this Thursday morning in Washington, D.C., to oppose drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
http://www.ems.org/arctic_nat_wildlife_refuge/americans_for_alaska.html
2/6/02
8:03:30 PM
THE MULTILINGUAL NET
Contrary to common belief, cyberspace IS multilingual. But what's needed is more content that reflects local languages and cultures.
REBROADCASTING THE BALKANS
The nations of southeastern Europe have been trying to transform the old state-run media into BBC-style public-service broadcasters. Why is press freedom so difficult to establish?
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#balkans
NEWS DISSECTOR: PRESSING THE PRESS AT THE WEF The World Economic Forum is not yet a World Media Forum - but it should be, says Danny Schechter.
http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/wef2002.shtml
GUNS FOR RADIOS In Niger, a new project encourages people to exchange weapons for solar-powered radios, trains young people to repair them and supports the country's expanding community radio network.
http://www.mediachannel.org/front.shtml#radio
2/6/02
7:59:36 PM
Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook made the following statement at a press conference this morning in Washington, D.C.:
Feb. 6, 2002
De-Enron America Now; Pass Campaign Finance Reform
Statement of Public Citizen President Joan Claybrook
The Enron scandal is a galling tale of deliberate misconduct in a climate of vanishing corporate accountability. While congressional investigators still have a lot to uncover, it is clear that both Enron and Arthur Andersen successfully used campaign cash as legalized bribery to limit government regulation and public scrutiny of their self-serving activities and shield themselves from accountability for bilking investors and employees.
I can't say that I am surprised by these revelations of special access and influence. They are part and parcel of an undemocratic campaign finance system that helps the business elite - multimillionaires like Ken Lay - amass unfathomable fortunes and rub elbows with world leaders while leaving the working people of America to fend for themselves in a marketplace devoid of compassion, economic justice or even transparency for investors and employees.
In recent years, unlimited soft money has become a central feature of this malignant system. During the 2000 election cycle, Enron gave 70 percent of its contributions in soft money. This was by no means unusual. Ten major industries - from airlines to tobacco - gave more than half of their contributions in soft money in 2000, up from just under a quarter in 1992. In another decade, most companies will probably be giving three-quarters or more of their contributions in soft money. Why? Because they can write unlimited checks. And because soft money supercharges their engines of influence, concentrating and strengthening their sway over party leaders swept up in an ever-escalating political arms race.
Because so many members have themselves taken Enron's and Andersen's dirty money (Enron gave $3.4 million in soft money from 1995 to 2001; Andersen gave more than half a million dollars), Congress now struggles to convince a rightfully skeptical public that it can conduct a credible investigation of the scandal. This dilemma lends further credence to the widespread belief that our political parties have essentially become wholly owned subsidiaries of corporate America and that their professed concern about their constituents is simply a carefully crafted mask.
Congress now has an historic opportunity to reinvigorate American democracy and restore public confidence in the integrity of lawmakers. Passage of the Shays-Meehan campaign finance reform bill will begin the process of dismantling the destructive corporate government that rules America.
Public Citizen is a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.
For more information, please visit http://www.citizen.org
2/6/02
7:57:49 PM
GRAPHIC 9/11 VIDEO TO AIR NEXT MONTH
By DON KAPLAN
February 6, 2002 -- The most sought-after video of the World Trade Center attack - shot by two French filmmakers who exclusively captured the first hijacked plane crashing into the north tower - will be broadcast next month on CBS.
The footage - including more than 45 minutes of tape shot inside the lobby as the building was evacuated - will be seen in a two-hour special set to air 9 p.m. Sunday, March 10.
Two brothers, Gedeon and Jules Naudet, were making a documentary about the FDNY just a few blocks from the WTC on the morning of Sept. 11.
Their footage of the attack and its aftermath - which may be too raw for some people in a city still recovering - has been sought by news organizations all over the world because they were closer to the scene than any other film crew.
CBS paid an undisclosed sum for the Naudets' video, but sources said it was less than $1 million. A network spokesman said that the filmmakers plan to donate most of the money to the Uniformed Firefighters Association scholarship fund.
The footage shows people streaming out of the north tower by the hundreds, with audio of the chilling sound of bodies of people who jumped from the highest floors landing on the pavement, according to the March edition of Vanity Fair magazine.
Firefighters are seen leading survivors out of the building -when suddenly the roar of the south tower collapsing is heard.
Source: http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/40789.htm
2/6/02
7:53:40 PM
The ICC is close to reality as the 50th country ratifies. However, the US continues to oppose its creation. This article is an excellent summary of the current state of the ICC, with a focus on the American policies that have so far barred US participation.
http://www.9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=93
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE ICC
A one-page introduction to the ICC and its relation to Sept. 11 which features details about how it will work. Also includes a link to a letter-writing campaign focused on lobbying US Senators to support ratification.
http://www.globalexchange.org/september11/icc.html
An alphabetical listing that provides the signing and ratification status of every country, including a detailed but concise explanation of the United States' current status on this issue. You can easily locate and read about your own country. Links to related resources and groups for each country are also included.
http://www.igc.org/icc/html/country.html
A short ICC timeline that places the move to create an international court in the context of the World Wars.
http://www.icc.gc.ca/english/02_history_e/02_history_e.htm
Frequently asked questions about the ICC.
http://www.icc.gc.ca/english/04_qa_e/04_qa_e.htm
9-11 AND THE ICC
According to the UN, the WTC attacks demonstrate that the ICC is needed.
http://www.endgenocide.org/ceg-icc/prepcommfall2001.html
A Harvard law professor argues that the ICC would be an ideal way to try the perpetrators of the WTC attacks. However, since it is not yet fully functional, she describes an alternative way to try those involved that would include the international community.
http://www.9-11peace.org/r.php3?redir=94
2/6/02
7:44:11 PM
Global Village or Global Pillage
Today's global economy lets corporations pit workers and communities against each other to see who will provide the lowest wages, most abusable workers, cheapest environmental costs, and biggest subsidies for corporations.
The result: a "RACE TO THE BOTTOM" in which conditions for all tend to fall toward the poorest and most desperate. But that gives people around the world a common interest in opposing the race to the bottom. This movie shows how they are doing so. The Global Village or Global Pillage Grassroots Education Project encourages grassroots actions and transnational linking to reverse the race the bottom.
Quotes from the Movie
http://www.villageorpillage.org/moviequote.html
The companies roam the world with no checks and balances in search of misery and poverty and unemployment, because they will tell you in their own testimonies that naturally in those areas you will find the lowest wages."
-- Charles Kernaghan
"Third world countries are being forced to race to the bottom. they have to compete with each other, outbid each other, in offering cheaper labor than their competitors and also offering more stringent legislation to control labor. So you get both repression and increased poverty. You depress the economy, but you also repress the freedom of the people."
-- Dennis Brutus
"If our only choice is to have globalization that means drastic cuts in social security and lower wages and lower benefits, we don't want that kind of globalization. But we can define a different kind of globalization, with ground rules that protected both social services and basic labor and human rights."
-- Thea Lee
"The inherent power of the people is more than enough to turn the tide if people realize what's at stake and that they've got the power, with trade unions and environmental groups and consumer groups, to prevail and win. So that we have global cooperation with the maximum of democracy, a respect for local institutions and community initiatives, instead of these mega-corporations that are strategizing and lobbying to control our world."
-- Ralph Nader
"You have to care because they affect the jobs in your community, they affect your standard of living, your quality of life. Whether if you have an accident and you get laid off, will there be any kind of social safety net there for you? This is why you need to care about human rights and issues of globalization. Workers in Mexico and their well-being is important to your well-being. Because if they can maltreat them, they can maltreat us."
-- Loretta Ross
You can download this movie from
http://www.villageorpillage.org/DownloadMovie.html
2/6/02
7:42:27 PM
HAARP FULLY OPERATIONAL
http://www.guerrillanews.com/government/doc288.html
While there is no concrete evidence of HAARP having been used, scientific findings suggest that it is at present fully operational. What this means is that HAARP could potentially be applied by the US military to selectively modify the climate of an "unfriendly nation" or "rogue state" with a view to destabilizing its national economy.
Agricultural systems in both developed and developing countries are already in crisis as a result of New World Order policies including market deregulation, commodity dumping, etc. Amply documented, IMF and World Bank "economic medicine" imposed on the Third World and the countries of the former Soviet block has largely contributed to the destabilization of domestic agriculture. In turn, the provisions of the World Trade Organization (WTO) have supported the interests of a handful of Western agri-biotech conglomerates in their quest to impose genetically modified (GMO) seeds on farmers throughout the World.
It is important to understand the linkage between the economic, strategic and military processes of the New World Order. In the above context, climatic manipulations under the HAARP program (whether accidental or deliberate) would inevitably exacerbate these changes by weakening national economies, destroying infrastructure and potentially triggering the bankruptcy of farmers over vast areas. Surely national governments and the United Nations should address the possible consequences of HAARP and other "non-lethal weapons" on climate change.
http://www.guerrillanews.com/government/doc288.html
2/6/02
7:34:28 PM
USA TO ATTACK IRAQ IN MAY
http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/02/05/26214.html
ENRON IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG
The Bush crowd was not simply duped by Enron and its partners-in-fraud. In fact, the White House deliberately created a friendly climate for such scoundrels.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
ENRON WILL FORCE DUBYA'S RESIGNATION - Michael Moore
Because he allowed Enron to rip a huge hole in our political system and in so many people's lives, it is time for George W. Bush to resign.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
Another Enron-White House Connection
http://www.truthout.com/02.02E.Enron.WH.htm
War on terror loses its way
As George Bush's anti-terrorism campaign expands its aims, it is in danger of obscuring the original quest for justice. (...) The US air force has continued a heavy, daily bombardment in the area around Zawar, despite growing protests from villagers and expressions of concern from ministers belonging to Hamid Karzai's interim government in Kabul.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,634957,00.html
Bush to Propose $379B Defense Budget
The proposal, part of the $2.13 trillion federal budget for next year that the president will release Monday, provides the first detailed glimpse of Bush's vision for defense spending. He and other administration officials already have said defense, domestic security and the economy will be the three top priorities of his spending plan. (...) The papers show that Bush envisions the Pentagon's budget growing gradually to $451.4 billion in 2007.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&u=/ap/20020202/ap_on_go_
The Ten Worst Corporations of 2001
Looks at corporate responsibility and moral behavior in the context of the corporation as a legal 'person,' with full constitutional rights. From the Multinational Monitor.
http://63.111.165.25/01december/dec01corp1.html
2/6/02
7:30:26 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS)
BUSH BUDGET GIVES CONSERVATION SHORT SHRIFT
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, February 5, 2002 (ENS) - The budget released Monday by the Bush administration - the nation's first deficit budget in four years - is meeting criticism from all corners, particularly from the environmental community. At a press conference this morning, representatives from several conservation groups denounced the financial "shell game" employed by the administration to fund its priorities.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-06.html
CREE APPROVE NEW AGREEMENT WITH QUEBEC
NEMASKA, Quebec, Canada, February 5, 2002 (ENS) - In secret ballot referendums held among the Cree which ended Sunday, close to 70 percent voted to approve an Agreement in Principle establishing a new relationship between the government of Québec and the James Bay Crees.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-03.html
FORESTS, MOUNTAINS BAKE IN CLIMBING TEMPERATURES DOWN UNDER
SYDNEY, Australia, February 5, 2002 (ENS) - Three of Australia's World Heritage Areas are showing signs of significant damage due to low levels of climate change - Kakadu National Park, the Wet Tropics of Queensland, and the Great Barrier Reef according to a report released today by Climate Action Network Australia.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-02.html
10,000 Endangered Turtles Killed On Indian Coast
By Jatindra Dash
BHUBANESWAR, India, February 5, 2002 (ENS) - At least 10,000 endangered Olive Ridley turtles have been killed in the waters of the Bay of Bengal, a conservation group reported Monday. Turtle carcasses have been washing up on the shores of the Indian state of Orissa since early December.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-04.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 5, 2002
Rising CO2 Hampers Fertilizers
Air Pollution Plagues Winter Olympics Site
EPA Claims Record Enforcement Numbers
Indian Point Nuke Plant Could be Terrorist Target
BLM Manager Reassigned After Enviro Friendly Settlement
New Power Plant Could Threaten Kentucky Park
Acadia National Park Facing $7.3 Million Shortfall
Scientists Decoding Tree Genome
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-05-09.html
2/6/02
7:26:51 PM
t r u t h o u t | 02.06
Waxman Letter Cheney | EPA Memo
http://www.truthout.com/02.06A.Waxman.VP.htm
Daschle Says Senate Is Unlikely to Pass Economic Stimulus Bill
http://www.truthout.com/02.06B.Daschle.Stimulus.htm
Clinton Says Bush Has Reneged on Pledge of Financial Aid to NY
http://www.truthout.com/02.06C.Bush.Math.htm
Sen. Hollings Calls for Special Procuter, Calls Bush/Enron "cash 'n' carry" (Full Statement)
http://www.truthout.com/02.06D.Enron.PC.htm
Judge Blocks Bush Civil Rights Appointee
http://www.truthout.com/02.06E.Bush.Civil.htm
David E. Rosenbaum | When Government Doesn't Tell
http://www.truthout.com/02.06F.Government.htm
Congressman Bob Filner | National Security Also Means Environmental Protection
http://www.truthout.com/02.06G.Security.htm
2/6/02
7:25:26 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
UPDATE - Endangered US fish may not need more water - panel - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14397/story.htm
UPDATE - Bush pushes renewable energy in new budget - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14389/story.htm
Bush budget pushes tax credits for hybrid vehicles - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14390/story.htm
FORUM - For former protester, what a difference a year makes - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14401/story.htm
Olympics - Salt Lake's "Green Games" image comes under attack - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14393/story.htm
Bush eyes charter school approach for US forests - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14399/story.htm
UPDATE - Bush would cut EPA budget to $7.7 bln in 2003 - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14398/story.htm
8,000 police to guard UN summit in South Africa - UNITED NATIONS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14403/story.htm
Better testing needed for GM foods - UK scientists - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14402/story.htm
UK sets utilities new targets on saving energy - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14400/story.htm
UK report says gene crops could create superweed - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14396/story.htm
Iran warns Israel against attacking nuclear plant - UAE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14391/story.htm
Iran says will not seek nuclear weapons - paper - UAE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14387/story.htm
WWF says logging will wipe out Indonesian forest - SWITZERLAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14406/story.htm
Ireland approves 400 mln euro green energy plan - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14392/story.htm
UPDATE - Jakarta floods ease but criticism gets louder - INDONESIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14395/story.htm
Actor caged for animal rights - INDIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14407/story.htm
Germany plans more cash for renewables - Greens - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14386/story.htm
French report sees little risk from GM sugar beet - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14405/story.htm
China starts building controversial gas pipeline - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14394/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Brazil coffee more eco-friendly - grower - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14404/story.htm
Renewable Energy flags loss, focus on US - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14388/story.htm
2/6/02
7:24:21 PM
Dear All,
I realise that many will already know of the launch of a great new network. The Campaign for Truth in Medicine (CTM) is a large, rapidly-expanding international movement, started by Steve Ransom and Phillip Day, who are based here in England. Do click on the following link to get the latest bulletins - just published.
http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/010202/index.htm -
The top item this month is on fluoridation, with contributions from Dr Paul Connett (US), Glen Walker (Australia), author of "Fluoridation: Poison on Tap" - and me.
The NPWA's illustrated article, "Dental Fluorosis: Smile, please - but don't say 'Cheese!' ", is by far the hottest page on our web site and attracts big numbers from international universities (particularly psychology departments), dental schools, insurers, pharmaceutical companies - particularly Procter and Gamble, Lilly, Smith- Kline-Beecham, etc - gov. departments and lawyers. (Each from their own perspectives, no doubt!).
The interest in Attorney John Remington Graham's recent great letter to the St Petersburg Times is further evidence of international concern about the LEGAL aspects of fluoridation.
I am delighted to report that over the last 24 hours, these two items are generating even more interest from a wider global audience. Great job, Steve and Phillip - Thank you!
DO subscribe to Campaign for Truth in Medicine - we are all part of it! - and pass the word to others to do so, too.
2/6/02
7:18:20 PM
A Recent UN Survey
Recently a survey was conducted by the U.N. worldwide. The question asked was, "Would you please give your opinion about the food shortage in the rest of the world?"
The survey was a huge failure.
In Africa they did not know what 'food' meant. In Western Europe, they did not know what 'shortage' meant. In Eastern Europe they did not know what 'opinion' meant.
And in the US, they did not know what 'the rest of the World' meant.
2/6/02
7:16:45 PM
FAIR
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
ACTIVISM UPDATE: NPR Continues Distortion on Mideast "Calm"
On January 10, FAIR put out an Action Alert asking people to write to National Public Radio about an apparent blind spot in its Middle East reporting. NPR had been referring to the situation in Israel and Palestine around the New Year as a time of "relative calm" or "comparative quiet," explaining at one point that "only one Israeli has been killed in those three weeks." What NPR didn't explain was that during this "quiet" period, an average of one Palestinian per day was being killed by Israeli occupation forces.
See: http://www.fair.org/activism/npr-israel-quiet.html
In answer to our alert, at least several hundred people wrote to NPR, calling for Middle East reporting that paid attention to the victims of violence on all sides. Yet even as these letters were pouring in, NPR continued to present the same distorted view of the conflict.
All Things Considered anchor Noah Adams opened a January 14 report on the assassination of a Palestinian militia leader, and the militia's revenge murder of an Israeli civilian, by declaring that "deadly violence returned to the Middle East today"--as if deadly violence hadn't been happening to Palestinians on an almost daily basis all along. On the January 17 All Things Considered, anchor Melissa Block prefaced a question by asserting, "Until early this week there'd been almost a month of relatively reduced violence there"-- a premise that was not corrected by correspondent Linda Gradstein. And on January 18, correspondent Peter Kenyon referred on Morning Edition to "the recent lull in violence."
NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin, to whom the activists' letters were addressed, does seem to recognize the problem. Appearing on January 17 with media critic Ali Abunimah on WJHU, a Baltimore NPR affiliate, Dvorkin agreed with the criticism and said that NPR's foreign desk had told hosts and correspondents to reflect the reality of the situation. But this intervention does not seem to have resulted in changed coverage-- in fact, two of the repetitions of the distortion noted above occurred within the next 24 hours. Even as late as January 30, Linda Gradstein was referring to the "period of relative calm," as if no one had ever pointed out to NPR that this characterization ignored the deaths of dozens of Palestinians.
Despite the hundreds of individual letters he has received, Dvorkin has yet to issue a formal comment on the issue. But in a brief January 25 response to a FAIR activist, Dvorkin wrote, "After FAIR pointed out the phrase 'relative calm,' NPR corrected that inaccuracy in future reports." In fact, the inaccuracy was repeated, and keeps being repeated. Something seems to be amiss in the way NPR handles legitimate complaints from the public.
ACTION: Please write to NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin and ask him to respond substantively to the hundreds of letters he has received about NPR's Mideast coverage, including an explanation of how NPR can repeat the same distortion after it has been "corrected."
CONTACT: Jeffrey Dvorkin NPR Ombudsman mailto:ombudsman@npr.org
2/6/02
7:12:25 PM
DAILY GRIST
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
CIVIC VIRTUE
For the first time ever, consumers will be able to buy a hybrid version of a popular car model -- the much-beloved Honda Civic. Environmentalists, industry analysts, and even other automakers say that consumer response to the 2003 Honda Civic gas-electric hybrid, which gets about 51 miles to the gallon at highway speeds and recharges its battery while braking, could determine the future of hybrids in the U.S. It could also shift the high-efficiency auto market toward Asian companies, because the Bush administration has turned its attention away from increasing fuel efficiency in the short term and toward developing cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, a technology that won't be available any time soon. The hybrid Honda Civic, by contrast, will be on the lots this spring. In the meantime, Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) is drafting a bill this week to mandate an increase in the average fuel efficiency of cars and light trucks to 37 miles per gallon by 2014, up 13 mpg from the standards established 26 years ago.
straight to the source: Boston Globe, Royal Ford, 03 Feb 2002 <http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/034/nation/Honda_steers_hybrid_to_mass_market+.shtml>
straight to the source: Wall Street Journal, Jeffrey Ball, 05 Feb 2002 (access ain't free) <http://online.wsj.com/article/0,4286,SB1012878403856693600,00.html>
do good: Take action to demand fuel-efficient cars <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/autos.asp?source=daily#cafe>
SOMETHING WILD
Say "New York City" and wildlife is not the first thing that comes to mind. Yet despite nearly 400 years of fast and furious city life, the Big Apple is home to a world of flora and fauna that far transcends sidewalk planters and miniature schnauzers. As the grass pushing up through cracked cement sidewalks reminds us, nature has a tenacious way of claiming the interstices of the urban landscape. Anne Matthews explores this unruly, abundant, and often overlooked universe in her new book, "Wild Nights"; reviewer Elizabeth Grossman delivers the verdict, only on the Grist Magazine website.
only in Grist: Cats on Broadway and Crickets in Times Square -- a review of "Wild Nights" -- in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books020502.asp?source=daily>
MAH-AGONY
No, it's not an anti-abortion campaign: This Operation Rescue is an attempt to save Brazil's mahogany trees from the chainsaw. The nation has launched a "war" to recover an estimated $16 million worth of the valuable wood before it is shipped abroad, and to set up road and river patrols to block smuggling routes. The effort is being coordinated by the Brazilian environmental agency Ibama with the cooperation of the police and the army. Brazil banned mahogany logging in October, and only a handful of companies can now legally cut the wood, which fetches up to $1,500 for about 10 square feet. Still, illegal logging continues, and environmentalists fear that at the current rate, the country's Amazon mahogany reserves could disappear within eight years.
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Axel Bugge, 05 Feb 2002 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14366/story.htm>
do good: Take action to save rainforests in Brazil <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/forests.asp?source=daily#brazil>
WOLFING IT UP
Maybe it's Manifest Destiny -- or maybe it's just the instinct of all creatures to return to their home. Whatever the reason, the gray wolf, once exterminated from Northern California and southern Oregon, is slowly making its way westward from the Rockies. As its arrival becomes ever more imminent, battle lines are being drawn. Defenders of Wildlife has petitioned the federal government to set aside 16 millions acres of national forests and parks in the region as wolf habitat. But sheep and cattle ranchers, who already claim to be burdened by federal efforts to protect species, are worried about their livestock. Defenders estimates that about 500 gray wolves could make their home in the 16 million acres within a couple of years.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Michael McCabe, 05 Feb 2002 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/05/MN100667.DTL>
do good: Take action to save gray wolves <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/species.asp?source=daily#wolves>
H-2-OH-BOY!
Utility companies can be sued for violating safe drinking water standards, the California Supreme Court unanimously decided on Monday. The decision is significant because it allows thousands of victims of polluted water to seek financial compensation from the private and public utilities that pipe tap water into homes; in the past, victims mostly targeted the industries responsible for contaminating the water. In the case heard by the court, some 2,500 people living near a Superfund site in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley argued that they became sick -- in some cases with cancer -- after drinking water containing toxic chemicals. In addition to suing industrial polluters, the residents went after utilities, a first for the state of California. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said he hoped the decision would force utilities to be more concerned with the quality of the water they sell.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Maura Dolan, 05 Feb 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000009026feb05.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience>
2/6/02
7:08:24 PM
RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH NEWS # 743
2/6/02
6:33:07 PM
Morris Fishbein - AMA Enemy Of American Health
And The Destruction Of Royal Raymond Rife
by Bob Wallace
Dr. Morris Fishbein (1889-1976) originally studied to be a clown. Realizing he could make more money as a doctor, he entered medical school (where he failed anatomy), then barely graduated. He never treated a patient in his life.
Why is he so important? Because he became head of the AMA, a position that he used to enrich himself and crush legitimate therapies out of existence. He appeared to be motivated solely by money and power.
As head of the AMA (and editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association from 1924-1949), he decided which drugs could be sold to the public based only how much advertising money he could extort from drug manufacturers, whom he required to place expensive ads in the JAMA. There were no drug-testing agencies, only Fishbein. It was irrelevant if the drugs worked.
Fishbein was a shakedown artist. Yet, today, there is a Morris Fishbein Center for the History of Science and Medicine at the University of Chicago.
The AMA, a State-backed guild which today has a near-stranglehold on the medical profession, was founded in 1847 merely as a social and scientific organization. Its original purpose was totally appropriate. It was in their private (and the public's) interest for practitioners to get together to trade knowledge, and, for all the outward seriousness of the organization, to have some fun. The original purpose always seems to get lost, though. Some members always want to use the State to reduce the supply of practitioners (which increases income) and eliminate competition (which also increases income, and, much more seriously, reduces innovation). This happened with he AMA, which is why it is now a danger to the health of the American people.
In 1900, while attending the annual AMA convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, three doctors came up with the always-destructive but all-too-human idea of using the AMA as a front, in order to form a closed corporation for their financial benefit. A constitution, bylaws and a charter were created which appeared to give the members of the AMA a say in the activities of the corporation, whereas in reality the three directors had complete control. These three formed smaller political machines in every state, which they controlled through the main corporation.
In 1924, not surprisingly (perhaps inevitably) one of the directors became involved in a scandal and had to resign. He appointed Fishbein to take his place. Fishbein ultimately took control of the AMA, and by 1934 owned all of the stock. In his new position he was able to assume dictatorial control of the state licensing boards and made it as difficult as he could for any doctor who did not join. He, and the three doctors who formed the corporation, were little more than extortionists, ones who made millions by using the power of the State.
The AMA, which started out as a legitimate organization, rapidly became crooked. And Fishbein was the main cause.
The worst of Fishbein's sins was his destruction of Royal Rife. Royal Raymond Rife
I don't know if Royal Raymond Rife was legitimate or not. I believe the evidence leans towards his being a once-in-a-century genius.
He was born in 1888 in Elkhorn, Nebraska, and died in 1971, at age 83. He grew up with a passion for microscopes, microbiology, and electronics.
He was brilliant. There can be no doubt about that. He invented technology still used today in optics, electronics, radiochemistry, biochemistry, ballistics, and aviation. Some of his many inventions included a heterodyning ultraviolet microscope, a microdissector, and a micromanipulator. He studied at John Hopkins, received 14 major awards, and was honored with an honorary doctorate from the University of Heidelberg. He worked for Zeiss Optics, the US government, and several private employers, the most notable of them being Henry Timkin, who made millions manufacturing roller bearings.
Most people have never heard of Rife.
By 1920, Rife had built the world's first microscope that was strong enough for the him to see a virus (he sometimes had to painfully adjust his microscope for up to 24 hours to get the specimen into focus). By 1932, after 12 years and five microscopes, he perfected his technology and had constructed the largest and most powerful of them, which he called his "Universal Microscope." It had almost 6,000 different parts and could magnify objects 61,000 times their normal size. With this two-foot-tall, 200-pound microscope, Rife became the first to see a live virus, and until recently, his microscope was the only one which could do this.
Modern electron microscopes, although more powerful than Rife's invention, instantly kill the viruses they are focused upon. Rife's microscope left the viruses alive, so they could be studied.
Rife's genius was first introduced to the public in the San Diego Union newspaper in 1929, and was followed by an article in Popular Science in 1931. Articles describing his great scientific breakthroughs appeared in the established scientific press in for the first time in late 1931 in Science magazine, as well as California and Western Medicine.
In 1944, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, DC, published a detailed article about Rife in their national journal, with his microscope the focus of it. But what was revealed to their readers was not only Rife's microscope, but how he was able to destroy disease-causing pathogens.
As far back as 1920, Rife had identified a virus that he believed caused cancer. He called it the "BX virus." He made over 20,000 unsuccessful attempts to transform normal cells into tumor cells. He failed until he irradiated the virus, caught it in a porcelain filter, and injected in into lab animals. Using this technique, he created 400 tumors in a row.
He began subjecting this virus to different radio frequencies to see if it was affected by them. He discovered what he called the "Mortal Oscillatory Rate" (MOR) of the virus. He successfully cured cancer in his 400 experimental animals before he decided to run tests on humans.
What Rife was doing was using resonance to kill the virus. Everything vibrates at different frequencies. If the resonance is correct, it can be used to shatter, just as a singer can use it to break a wineglass. By finding the proper resonance, Rife was able to shatter the virus. This is why he called it the Mortal Oscillatory Rate.
Rife claims he also discovered the frequencies which destroyed herpes, polio, spinal meningitis, tetanus, influenza, and many other dangerous, disease-causing organisms. All told, there were over 50 infectious diseases that he apparently discovered cures for.
How did Rife do this? He painstakingly obtained the MORS by tuning the dial of the frequency generator while observing the sample pathogen under his microscope. When a frequency was discovered that destroyed a particular microorganism, its dial position was marked. The actual frequencies were determined later after his experiments. What he did, he apparently did intuitively and unwittingly, and it is doubtful he completely understood the theoretical method he utilized. For one thing, there was at that time no theory to explain what he was doing. (In doing research for this article, I have come to the conclusion that Rife was so far advanced over currently available theories that he could not explain what he was doing.)
In the summer of 1934, one of Rife's close friends, Dr. Milbank Johnson, along with the University of Southern California, appointed a Special Medical Research Committee to bring 16 terminally cancer patients from Pasadena County Hospital to Rife's San Diego Laboratory and clinic for treatment. The team included doctors and pathologists assigned to examine the patients - if they were still alive -after 90 days.
Some of the other scientists and doctors Rife worked with were: E.C. Rosenow, Sr. (longtime Chief of Bacteriology, Mayo Clinic); Arthur Kendall (Director, Northwestern Medical School); Dr. George Dock; Alvin Foord (pathologist); Rufus Klein-Schmidt (President of USC); R.T. Hamer (Superintendent, Paradise Valley Sanitarium); Whalen Morrison (Chief Surgeon, Santa Fe Railway); George Fischer (Childrens Hospital, N.Y.); Edward Kopps (Metabolic Clinic, La Jolla); Karl Meyer (Hooper Foundation, S.F.); and M. Zite (Chicago University).
At first, the patients were given three minutes of the appropriate frequency every day. The treatment consisted of the patients standing next to one of Rife's generators, which irradiated them. It was much the same as standing in front of a large fluorescent light. The researchers soon learned this was too much of the treatment. Suspecting the human body needed more time to dispose of the dead toxins, they reduced the time to three minutes every third day.
After the 90 days of treatment, the committee concluded that 14 of the patients had been completely cured. After the treatment was adjusted, the remaining two of the patients responded within the next four weeks. The total recovery rate using Rife's technology was 100%. The treatment was painless, and the side effects, minimal, if any. Except for building the generators, the total cost was a little electricity (today, the cost of treating a cancer patient averages $300,000 were person. That's a lot of money, and the cancer industry is big business.)
Rife wrote in 1953, "Sixteen cases were treated at the clinic for many types of malignancy. After three months, 14 of these so-called hopeless cases were signed off as clinically cured by the staff of five medical doctors and Dr. Alvin G. Foord, M.D., pathologist for the group."
In 1937 Rife and some colleagues established a company called Beam Ray. They manufactured fourteen of Rife's "frequency instruments." Dr. James Couche, who was present at the clinic, used one of Rife's machines with great success for 22 years, long after the AMA had banned it.
Then, to Rife's, and the nation's great misfortune, Fishbein heard about Rife's frequency machine.
Fishbein sent an attorney to make a token attempt to buy out Rife. Rife refused. Although no one knows the exact terms of the offer, it was probably similar to the one Fishbein made to Harry Hoxsey for his herbal cancer remedy (which Fishbein, in court, had to admit worked on skin cancer):
Fishbein and his associates would receive all profits for nine years and Hoxey would receive nothing. Then, if they were satisfied that it worked, Hoxsey would begin to receive 10% of the profits. When Hoxsey refused, Fishbein used his political connections to have Hoxsey arrested 125 times in a period of 16 months. The charges (based on practicing without a license) were always thrown out of court, but Fishbein harassed Hoxsey for 25 years. The only good thing that came out of it is that the scandal forced Fishbein to resign.
Fishbein then offered Phil Hoyland, an investor in Beam Ray and an electrical engineer who had helped build the frequency instruments, legal assistance in an attempt to steal the company from Rife and the other investors. A lawsuit ensued.
The trial of 1939 put an end to the proper scientific investigation of Rife's frequency machine. Rife, who was not as resilient as Hoxsey, became unglued. Unable to cope with the savage and unfair attacks in court, he crumbled, turned to alcohol, and became an alcoholic. This, even though he won the case. Unfortunately, the legal bills bankrupted Beam Ray, and it closed down. Fishbein used his power within the AMA to halt any further investigation of Rife's work.
In 1950 Rife joined up with John Crane, who was an electrical engineer. They worked together for ten years, building more advanced frequency machines. But in 1960 the AMA closed them down. Crane was imprisoned for three years and one month, even though fourteen patients testified as to the effectiveness of the machine (the forewoman of the jury was an AMA doctor). Rife died in 1971, from a combination of alcohol and Valium. He had spend the last one-third of his life as an alcoholic.
What happened to all of those who had supported Rife? By 1939 most of them were denying they ever knew him, even though 44 of them had honored Rife on November 20, 1939 with a banquet billed as "The End to All Diseases" at Dr. Milbank's Pasadena estate.
Arthur Kendall, who worked with Rife on the cancer virus, accepted almost a quarter of a million dollars to suddenly "retire" in Mexico. This was a huge amount of money during the Depression. Dr. George Dock was silenced with an enormous grant, along with the highest honors the AMA could bestow. Everyone except Dr. Couche and Dr. Milbank Johnson gave up Rife's work and went back to prescribing drugs. Johnson died in 1944.
The medical journals, supported almost entirely by drug company advertising revenues and controlled by the AMA, refused to publish any paper by anyone on Rife's therapy. Generations of medical students graduated without hearing of Rife's breakthroughs in medicine.
And what happened to Rife's decades of meticulous evidence of his work, including film and stop-motion photographs? Parts of his instruments, photographs, film, and written records were stolen from his lab. No one knows who was behind it. No one was never caught.
Rife's documentation for the cancer clinic was lost when he lent them to Dr. Arthur Yale a few years later. Barry Lynes, who reintroduced Rife's work to the public in 1986, in his book The Cancer Cure that Worked, wrote, "Documents show the clinic existed and succeeded in curing cancer. And doctors who continued treating seriously ill people with success because of what the frequency instrument accomplished in 1934 tell the real story, as do signed reports from cured cancer patients in later years."
While Rife attempted to reproduce his missing data, his virus microscopes were vandalized. Pieces of his Universal Microscope were stolen. Earlier, arson had destroyed the multi-million dollar Burnett Lab in New Jersey, just as the scientists there were preparing to announce confirmation of Rife's work. But the last blow came later, when police illegally confiscated the remainder of Rife's 50 years of research.
Fortunately, his death was not the end of his electronic therapy. A few humanitarian doctors and engineers attempted to reconstruct his frequency machines and keep his work alive.
But do these modern machines work? I don't know. Modern reseachers are trying to replicate the life's work of what may been one of the greatest geniuses in history.
If you'll look at the reviews of Lynes' book at Amazon.com., there are people who swear by Rife's machines. A doctor I know (who lives outside the US and wishes to remain anonymous) told me, "I have a feeling the Rife machines that are now available to us do not have the correct frequencies...the machines I've experienced have limited settings and transmit a general range of frequencies." But she uses something similar, specifically the LISTEN and the much more advanced BEST machines, invented by James Clark.
She told me several of her case histories, one of which I will reproduce here: "[I was treating] a nine-weeks-old baby that was blue and dying...doctors couldn't find anything wrong with her. I found Ross River fever (mosquito transmitted) and the baby began to respond within two hours of giving her the frequencies, and went on to make a full recovery, just after one treatment. The parents did demand a blood test for the baby to confirm the Ross River virus - which it was! There was nothing the doctors could have done about it. I used to think that somehow the electromagnetic frequency gave the body the right information to deal with the virus. We now know how this works - due to Sharry Edwards, (another practitioner in the States I've studied with, who uses low-frequency sound for healing). She has access to great lab equipment, and last year applied the frequencies representing various parasite, bacteria and viruses to blood containing these pathogens. Under a special high-powered microscope, she observed that the frequency shattered the "mask" - the protein DNA that the pathogen would cloak itself with - and expose the invader to the immune system, would would immediately attack and destroy."
This is essentially what Rife discovered over 80 years ago. We are 80 years behind where we should be, because of one despicable man, Morris Fishbein, who used the State to halt the advance of medicine, and to line his own pockets.
The LISTEN and BEST machines are legal in the US...but not totally. Said this doctor:
"Practitioners in the States do not use the 'imprinting' facility of the machines - that is, broadcasting the frequency. Since this broadcasting is not permitted by your laws, the device is added to the machine when we buy them."
In other words, it is illegal in the US to use the machines to attempt to cure disease. The proper parts aren't even on the machine. It's illegal for a doctor to even suggest such a cure is possible.
There are other instruments (and other inventors) who, past and present, have discovered the same thing Rife did. Gaston Naessons, Hulda Clark and Antoine Priore have invented similar instruments. All suffered persecution at the hands of the State. Are they legitimate? All I can say is that they had an enormous amount of support from their patients.
What would have happened if Rife had suceeded, and Fishbein had failed? If what Rife was doing actually worked, there would be a lot of people who would have not died of cancer. A lot of the medical profession would have ceased to exist. It certainly didn't take a doctor to operate Rife's machines.
Scientists and researches could have devoted more time and money to things we are far behind on, like growing organs and limbs. The hundreds of billions of dollars that has flowed to the unholy alliance of the AMA, FDA, drug industry and the State, would have never been.
The cure for these problems? Remove the State backing from the AMA and FDA, and unleash the power and creatively of the free market. Many people have been brainwashed into thinking the State protects them. The truth is the exact opposite.
Source: http://www.LewRockwell.com
2/6/02
5:47:01 PM
George W Bush's First Year In Office
In George W. Bush's First Year In Office He:
1. Significantly eased field-testing controls of genetically engineered crops.
2. Cut federal spending on libraries by $39 million.
3. Cut $35 million in funding for doctors to get advanced pediatric training.
4. Cut by 50% funding for research into renewable energy sources.
5. Revoked rules that reduced the acceptable levels of arsenic in drinking water.
6. Blocked rules that would require federal agencies to offer bilingual assistance to non-English speaking persons. This, from a candidate who would readily fire-up his Spanish-speaking skills in front of would-be Hispanic voters.
7. Proposed to eliminate new marine protections for the Channel Islands and the coral reefs of northwest Hawaii.
8. Cut funding by 28% for research into cleaner, more efficient cars and trucks.
9. Suspended rules that would have strengthened the government's ability to deny contracts to companies that violated workplace safety, environmental and other federal laws.
10. OK'd Interior Department appointee Gale Norton to send out letters to state officials soliciting suggestions for opening up national monuments for oil and gas drilling, coal mining, and foresting.
11. Appointed John Negroponte - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure to the post of United Nations Ambassador.
12. Abandoned a campaign pledge to invest $100 million for rain forest conservation.
13. Reduced by 86% the Community Access Program for public hospitals, clinics and providers of care for people without insurance.
14. Rescinded a proposal to increase public access to information about the potential consequences resulting from chemical plant accidents.
15. Suspended rules that would require hardrock miners to clean up sites on Western public lands.
16. Cut $60 million from a Boy's and Girl's Clubs of America program for public housing.
17. Proposed to eliminate a federal program, designed and successfully used in Seattle, to help communities prepare for natural disasters.
18. Pulled out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty global warming agreement.
19. Cut $200 million of work force training for dislocated workers.
20. Eliminated funding for the Wetlands Reserve Program, which encourages farmers to maintain wetlands habitat on their property.
21. Cut program to provide childcare to low-income families as they move from welfare to work.
22. Cut a program that provided prescription contraceptive coverage to federal employees (though it still pays for Viagra).
23. Cut $700 million in capital funds for repairs in public housing.
24. Appointed Otto Reich - an un-indicted high-level Iran Contra figure -to Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs.
25. Cut Environmental Protection Agency budget by $500 million.
26. Proposed to curtail the ability of groups to sue in order to get an animal placed on the Endangered Species List.
27. Rescinded the rule that mandated increased energy-saving efficiency regulations for central air conditioners and heat pumps.
28. Repealed workplace ergonomic rules designed to improve worker health and safety.
29. Abandoned campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide, the waste gas that contributes to global warming.
30. Banned federal aid to international family planning programs that offer abortion counseling with other independent funds.
31. Closed White House Office for Women's Health Initiatives and Outreach.
32. Nominated David Lauriski - ex-mining company executive - to post of Assistant Secretary of Labor for Mine Safety and Health.
33. OK'd Interior Secretary Gale Norton to go forth with a controversial plan to auction oil and gas development tracts off the coast of eastern Florida.
34. Announced intention to open up Montana's Lewis and Clark National Forest to oil and drilling.
35. Proposes to re-draw boundaries of nation's monuments, which would technically allow oil and gas drilling "outside" of national monuments.
36. Gutted White House AIDS Office.
37. Renegotiating free trade agreement with Jordan to eliminate workers's rights and safeguards for the environment.
38. Will no longer seek guidance from The American Bar Association in recommendations for the federal judiciary appointments.
39. Appointed recycling foe Lynn Scarlett as Undersecretary of the Interior.
40. Took steps to abolish the White House Council on Environmental Quality.
41. Cut the Community Oriented Policing Services program.
42. Allowed Interior Secretary Gale Norton to shelve citizen-led grizzly bear re-introduction plan scheduled for Idaho and Montana wilderness.
43. Continues to hold up federal funding for stem cell research projects.
44. Makes sure convicted misdemeanor drug users cannot get financial aid for college, though convicted murderers can.
45. Refused to fund continued cleanup of uranium-slag heap in Utah.
46. Refused to fund continued litigation of the government's tobacco company lawsuit.
47. Proposed a $2 trillion tax cut, of which 43% will go to the wealthiest 1% of Americans.
48. Signed a bill making it harder for poor and middle-class Americans to file for bankruptcy, even in the case of daunting medical bills.
49. Appointed a Vice President quoted as saying "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions, then you ought to build nuclear power plants."
50. Appointed Diana "There is no gender gap in pay" Roth to the Council of Economic Advisers.
51. Appointed Kay Cole James - an opponent of affirmative action - to direct the Office of Personnel Management.
52. Cut $15.7 million earmarked for states to investigate cases of child abuse and neglect.
53. Helped kill a law designed to make it tougher for teenagers to get credit cards.
54. Proposed elimination of the "Reading is Fundamental" program that gives free books to poor children.
55. Is pushing for development of small nuclear arm to attack deeply buried targets and weapons, which would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
56. Proposes to nominate Jeffrey Sutton - attorney responsible for the recent case weakening the Americans with Disabilities Act - to federal appeals court judgeship.
57. Proposes to reverse regulation protecting 60 million acres of national forest from logging and road building.
58. Eliminated funding for the "We the People" education program which taught School children about the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and citizenship.
59. Appointed John Bolton - who opposes nonproliferation treaties and the U.N. - to Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.
60. Nominated Linda Fisher - an executive with Monsanto - for the number-two job at the Environmental Protection Agency.
61. Nominated Michael McConnell - leading critic of the separation of church and state - to a federal judgeship.
62. Nominated Terrence Boyle - ardent opponent of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
63. Canceled 2004 deadline for automakers to develop prototype high mileage cars.
64. Nominated Harvey Pitts - lawyer for teen sex video distributor - to head SEC.
65. Nominated John Walters - strong opponent of prison drug treatment programs - for Drug Czar.
66. Nominated J. Steven Giles - an oil and coal lobbyist - for Deputy Secretary of the Interior.
67. Nominated Bennett Raley - who advocates repealing the Endangered Species Act - for Assistant Secretary for Water and Science 68. Is seeking the dismissal of class-action lawsuit filed in the U.S. against Japan by Asian women forced to work as sex slaves during WWII.
69. Earmarked $4 million in new federal grant money for HIV and drug abuse prevention programs to go only to religious groups and not secular equivalents.
70. Reduced by 40% the Low Income Home Assistance Program for low-income individuals who need assistance paying energy bills.
71. Nominated Ted Olson - who has repeatedly lied about his involvement with the Scaiffe-funded "Arkansas Project" to bring down Bill Clinton - for Solicitor General.
72. Nominated Terrance Boyle - foe of civil rights - to a federal judgeship.
73. Proposes to ease permit process - including environmental considerations - for refinery, nuclear and hydroelectric dam construction.
74. Proposes to give government the authority to take private property through eminent domain for power lines.
75. Proposes that $1.2 billion in funding for alternative renewable energy come from selling oil and gas lease tracts in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve.
76. Plans on serving genetically engineered foods at all official government functions.
77. Forced out Forest Service chief Mike Dombeck and appointed a timber industry lobbyist.
AND WOULD YOU BELIEVE ALL THIS IS MERELY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF ALL THE WRONGDOINGS OF BUSHVADER & Co...
2/6/02
5:43:21 PM
Murder By Injection: The Medical Conspiracy Against America
by Eustace Mullins
Book review
This book is a truly thorough account of the machinations underlying America's steadily deteriorating health, and is the result of some forty years of investigative research by the author Eustace Mullins.
MURDER BY INJECTION reinforces and adds further light to the devastating exposes, WORLD WITHOUT CANCER by G. Edward Griffin, THE DRUG STORY by Morris Bealle and Hans Ruesch's NAKED EMPRESS OR THE GREAT MEDICAL FRAUD.
MURDER BY INJECTION explains how the ruthless Rockefeller Syndicate - under the control of the world financial structure, chiefly the Rothschilds - plays the major political, health and educational roles in America. The book describes the various arms of the Rockefeller Syndicate and their functions: the Rockefeller Oil Trust, which incorporates much of the American military-industrial complex, has political control of the nation; the Rockefeller Medical Monopoly attains control of health care of America; and the Rockefeller Foundation, a web of affiliated tax exempt creations, effectively controls education.
Mullins specifies names throughout the book, many of them belonging to familiar public figures in America. Companies and their board of directors are listed with all their connections. Eustace Mullins says that in 1987 the United States still maintains an overwhelming lead in the production and sale of drugs. Eleven of the eighteen leading firms are located in the United States and the Drug Trust in the United States is controlled by the Rockefeller group. Mullins adds: The major banks, defense firms, and prominent political figures interlock with the CIA and the drug firms. He further states that the Rockefeller interests, having established the American Drug Trust, had long been active not only in pharmaceutical drugs but in illegal drugs as well. Mullins writes: No chronical of the world's important drug firms would be complete without relating the connection between drug firms and the world drug operation known as 'Dope, Inc.'.
Mullins describes how the Rockefellers with the help of the American Medical Association and government officials gained control of America's health care industry in the early part of this century. Educating medical students was instrumental in their plan, Mullins writes: Rockefeller's Education Board has spent more than $100 million to gain control of the nation's medical schools and turn our physicians to physicians of the allopathic school, dedicated to surgery and the heavy use of drugs.
MURDER BY INJECTION describes in detail the many other dangerous and lucrative rackets that the Rockefeller Syndicate has foistered onto the unsuspecting public and which are responsible for the contamination of our land, oceans and rivers, our water and food supplies, and our bodies. For example Mullins writes: While conducting wars of attrition against the leading exponents of better nutrition, the Food and Drug Administration and the American Medical Association have valiantly defended the use of chemical fertilizers... (which, according to Dr Alexis Carrel) 'without replacing all the exhausted elements of the soil, have indirectly contributed to change the nutritive value of cereal grains and vegetables.'
On vaccinations: After the use of cowpox vaccine became widespread in England, a smallpox epidemic broke out which killed 22,081 people. The smallpox epidemics became worse each year that the vaccine was used. In 1872, 44,480 people were killed by it. England finally banned the vaccine in 1948, despite the fact that it was one of the most widely heralded 'contributions' which that country had made to modern medicine. This action came after many years of compulsory vaccination, during which period those who refused to submit to its dangers were hurried off to jail.
On fluoridation: What he [Oscar Ewing] wanted, and what he had been paid to bring about, was the national fluoridation of our drinking water... At the same time, Congressmen and other politicians in Washington were privately alerted by Ewing's minions that they should be careful about ingesting the fluoridated water. Supplies of bottled water from mountain springs then appeared in every office on Capitol Hill; these have been maintained continuously ever since, at the taxpayers' expense.
On the consequences of the Rockefellers' control: The criminal syndicalists are now looting the American nation of one trillion dollars each year, of which about one-third, more than three hundred billion dollars per year, represents the profitable depredations of the Drug Trust and its medical subsidiaries...
America became the greatest and most productive nation in the world. When the Rockefeller Syndicate began its takeover of our medical profession in 1910, our citizens went into a sharp decline. Today, we suffer from a host of debilitating ailments, both mental and physical, nearly all of which can be traced directly to the operations of the chemical and drug monopoly, and which pose the greatest threat to our continued existence as a nation.
Although the book mainly deals with America, the situations described by Mullins in many respects equally applies to Australia, as in most other countries. The immense damning evidence that he presents makes MURDER BY INJECTION essential reading for those who are serious about understanding the true reasons behind our ailing health. Published by the National Council for Medical Research in 1988. Hard-cover, 348 pages.
"Is there any greater fear today than that of thinking?"
- Martin Heidegger
2/6/02
5:40:58 PM
Earth's Inter-Stellar Quarantine is Being Lifted, says Vancouver Futurist
EXOPOLITICS Links Earth to Universal Politics
by Graham Simms
VANCOUVER, BC - America's military will suffer "ignominious defeat" by extraterrestrials if it continues to pursue its agenda of weapons proliferation into space because it is contrary to the laws of the universe to militarize space, says Alfred Lambremont Webre, a Vancouver based futurist; author; Yale educated eco-lawyer and White House liason. Webre's new book, entitled Exopolitics, describes a new branch of human knowledge - exopolitics, which is the politics of the universe. "Exopolitics provides the institutional framework for earth's integration into Universe society. That process is now ongoing and will accelerate as exopolitical realities are awakened in humankind. Exopolitics is the study of law, government and politics that will liberate human society." Webre explained in an interview this week.
Webre believes that the proposed "Star Wars" missile defence system is actually an offensive weapon to be used against extraterrestrial UFO's in an attempt by earths ruling elite to stall man-kind's merger with the rest of the universe. He explains: "Star Wars and the militarization of space is part of the information war against the integration with Universe society. Star Wars is an "inside code word" for this war among the military planners. The issue is whether our space technology will be in accord with Universal principles, or controlled by a military empire. The USA will ultimately suffer ignominious defeat by Universe society should it persist as a space military power."
In 1977 President Carter attempted to discern and disclose the reality of the UFO phenomenon to the public and Webre, then a futurist with the Center for the Study of Social Policy at Stanford Research Institute SRI, was tasked with formulating and developing the proposed study with the Carter White House on extraterrestrial communication. According to Webre, if that study had not been "brutally terminated" by the intervention of the SRI-Pentagon liason in September 1977, "We would most probably be now acting under 25 years of open disclosure. The differences could be incalculable, with the degree of power and authority to open up interaction and get beyond the zero-sum game of the death forces that now enforce the embargo against disclosure."
Open contact with advanced non-terrestrials could quickly advance human society says Webre, through the resolution of our ecological crises, by allowing world peace, and by releasing mankind from the inter-stellar and information quarantines imposed by earths secretive rulers. "New energy non-polluting energy sources of human design and application could at last be made available without their inventors fearing assassination by petroleum and nuclear interests. Our petroleum civilization would be stalemated and obsolete. Universe society's laws and institutions prohibit war as a conflict resolution mechanism. The ruling terrestrial elites and their lower non-terrestrial allies have historically used war as a key means of production and power."
With between 25% and 50% of adults in North America believing in the reality of extraterrestrial presence on earth Gallup and Zogby polls, Webre does not think that humanity will have trouble absorbing the new post-reality shock. However the disinformation war being waged against extraterrestrials and disclosure is slowing things down.
He expects an eventual grassroots exopolitical movement like the Peace movement of the 1960's-80's that will bypass the usual power channels. "The difficulty is not the human population, it is the networks of human governments and ownership of petroleum and nuclear that are in the hands of retrogressive forces. The ruling terrestrial elites...are actively carrying out a fifty year information war against our integration with Universe society... The task of our generation is to make exopolitics at the grassroots level.
"Where are the concerts on behalf of integration with the Universe? Where are the artists, the activists, the students, the writers, the militants? Answer: they are coping with the effects of the information war and the embargo against even thinking that non-terrestrial civilizations exist. "The only way out is through" the saying goes. Well, we didn't get through under Carter, so now we must get through at the grassroots."
You can read EXOPOLITICS at http://www.exopolitics.com.
Also check out http://www.extraterrestrial.ca and http://www.ecologynews.com
2/6/02
5:38:10 PM
GROUND ZERO AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Pitted against the now wildly popular NYPD, this weekend's anti-WEF protesters were more subdued than their predecessors in Seattle or Davos. Was their message still heard?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12331
TWO WORLD FORUMS: IDEOLOGY VS. PRAGMATISM?
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=21
BUSH'S SICKENING SUPER BOWL PROPAGANDA
During America's most jingoistic sporting event, Bush spent $3.2 million to convince us that drug use equals terrorism. It would be laughable nonsense if it wasn't so horribly misleading.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12335
2/6/02
5:36:19 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE
BUSH ADMINISTRATION UNVEILS 2003 BUDGET
WASHINGTON, DC, February 4, 2002 (ENS) - President George W. Bush has released his fiscal year 2003 budget, dramatically boosting military spending and slashing domestic programs. The $2.13 trillion spending plan represents 3.7 percent increase over the current year, but includes cuts in numerous programs, including conservation spending.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-04-06.html
COSTA RICA COURT RULES FOR SEA TURTLES, AGAINST ILLEGAL FISHING
SAN JOSE, Costa Rica, February 4, 2002 (ENS) - In a benchmark ruling, the Trial Board of Puntarenas has convicted the captain and owners of a longline vessel of fishing illegally in the marine protected waters of Cocos Island National Park, located 300 miles off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-04-01.html
RISE IN ANGLO-GERMAN CO2 EMISSIONS ACCELERATES
LONDON, UK, February 4, 2002 (ENS) - German and British carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions rose in 2001 for the second year running, and in both countries by more than in 2000, according to independent forecasters.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-04-02.html
MAKING WHALE WASTE COUNT
HOBART, Australia, February 4, 2002 (ENS) - Japan's long disputed claim that it has to kill whales in order to study them is about to be further contested with a breakthrough by Australian scientists.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-04-03.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 4, 2002
Slaughter Of Diseased Livestock for Human Food Challenged
25 Groups Object to Appeals Court Nominee
Hemp Food Taste Test on Capitol Hill
Klamath Basin Water Enough for Fish Last Summer
Hudson River Will be Dredged to Remove PCBs
Study of Airborne Particles May Yield Benefits for Human Health
California Communities Awarded $7.2 Million for Conservation
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-04-09.html
2/6/02
5:27:41 PM
Crime In The Suites
There Are More Enrons Out There; The Rot Is Systemic
by William Greider
"...the scandal has reached a ripeness that now calls for a...radical solution, the creation of public auditors, hired by government, paid by insurance fees levied on industry and completely insulated from private interests or politics."
The collapse of Enron has swiftly morphed into a go-to-jail financial scandal, laden with the heavy breathing of political fixers, but Enron makes visible a more profound scandal, the failure of market orthodoxy itself. Enron, accompanied by a supporting cast from banking, accounting and Washington politics, is a virtual piÒata of corrupt practices and betrayed obligations to investors, taxpayers and voters. But these matters ought not to surprise anyone, because they have been familiar, recurring outrages during the recent reign of high-flying Wall Street. This time, the distinctive scale may make it harder to brush them aside. "There are many more Enrons out there," a well-placed Washington lawyer confided. He knows because he has represented a couple of them.
The rot in America's financial system is structural and systemic. It consists of lying, cheating and stealing on a grand scale, but most offenses seem depersonalized because the transactions are so complex and remote from ordinary human criminality. The various cops-and-robbers investigations now under way will provide the story line for coming months, but the heart of the matter lies deeper than individual venality. In this era of deregulation and laissez-faire ideology, the essential premise has been that market forces discipline and punish the errant players more effectively than government does. To produce greater efficiency and innovation, government was told to back off, and it largely has. "Transparency" became the exalted buzzword. The market discipline would be exercised by investors acting on honest information supplied by the banks and brokerages holding their money, "independent" corporate directors and outside auditors, and regular disclosure reports required by the Securities and Exchange Commission and other regulatory agencies. The Enron story makes a sick joke of all these safeguards.
But the rot consists of more than greed and ignorance. The evolving new forms of finance and banking, joined with the permissive culture in Washington, produced an exotic structural nightmare in which some firms are regulated and supervised while others are not. They converge, however, with kereitzu-style back-scratching in the business of lending and investing other people's money. The results are profoundly conflicted loyalties in banks and financial firms, who have fiduciary obligations to the citizens who give them money to invest. Banks and brokerages often cannot tell the truth to retail customers, depositors or investors without potentially injuring the corporate clients that provide huge commissions and profits from investment deals. Sometimes bankers cannot even tell the truth to themselves because they have put their own capital (or government-insured deposits) at risk in the deals.
These and other deformities will not be cleaned up overnight (if at all, given the
bipartisan political subservience to Wall Street interests). But Enron ought to be seen as the casebook for fundamental reform. The people bilked in Enron's sudden implosion were not only the 12,000 employees whose 401(k) savings disappeared while Enron insiders were smartly cashing out more than $1 billion of their own shares. The other losers are working people across America. Enron was effectively owned by them. On June 30, before the CEO abruptly resigned and the stock price began its terminal decline, 64 percent of Enron's 744 million shares were owned by institutional investors, mainly pension funds but also mutual funds in which families have individual accounts. At midyear, the company was valued at $36.5 billion, having fallen from $70 billion in less than six months. The share price is now close to zero. Either way you figure it, ordinary Americans, the beneficial owners of pension funds, lost $25-$50 billion because they were told lies by the people and firms they trusted to protect their interests.
This is a shocking but not a new development. Global Crossing went from $60 a share to pennies (as with Enron, the market had said it was worth more than General Motors). CEO Gary Winnick cashed out early for $600 million, but the insiders did not share the bad news with other shareholders. Workers at telephone companies bought by Global Crossing had been compelled to accept its stock in their retirement plans. (Winnick bought a $60 million home in Bel Air, said to be the highest-priced single-family dwelling in America.) Lucent's stock price tanked with similar consequences for employees and shareholders, while executives sold $12 million in shares back to the failing company. (After running Lucent into the ground, CEO Richard McGinn left with an $11.3 million severance package.) There are many Enrons, as the lawyer said.
The disorder writ large by the Enron story is this regular plundering of ordinary Americans, who are saving on their own or who have accepted deferred wages in the form of future retirement benefits. Major pension funds can and do sue for damages when they are defrauded, but this is obviously an impotent form of discipline. Labor Department officials have known the vulnerable spots in pension-fund protection for many years and regularly sent corrective amendments to Congress, ignored under both parties. In the financial world, the larceny is effectively decriminalized, culprits typically settle in cash with fines or settlements, without admitting guilt but promising not to do it again! . If jailtime deters garden-variety crime, maybe it would be useful therapy for corporate and financial behavior.
The most important reform that could flow from these disasters is legislation that gives employees, union and nonunion, a voice and role in supervising their own pension funds as well as the growing 401(k) plans. In Enron's case, the employees who were not wiped out were sheet-metal workers at subsidiaries acquired by Enron whose union locals insisted on keeping their own separately managed pension funds. Labor-managed pension funds, with holdings of about $400 billion, are dwarfed by corporate-controlled funds, in which the future beneficiaries are frequently manipulated to enhance the company's bottom line. Yet pension funds supervised jointly by unions and management give better average benefits and broader coverage (despite a few scandals of their own). If pension boards included people whose own money is at stake, it could be a powerful enforcer of responsible behavior.
The corporate transgressions could not have occurred if the supposedly independent watchdogs in the system had not failed to execute their obligations. Wendy Gramm, wife of Senator Phil, the leading Congressional patron of banking's privileges, is an "independent" director of Enron and supposedly speaks for the broader interests of other stakeholders, from the employees to outside shareholders. Instead, she sold early too. With notable exceptions, the "independent" directors on most corporate boards are a well-known shamt, ypically handpicked by the CEO and loyal to him, even while serving on the executive compensation committees that ratify bloated CEO pay packages. The poster boy for this charade is Michael Eisner of Disney. As CEO, he must answer to a board of directors that includes the principal of his kids' elementary school, actor Sidney Poitier, the architect who designed Eisner's Aspen home and a universi! ty president whose school got a $1 million donation from Eisner. As Robert A.G. Monks and Nell Minow, leading critics of corporate governance, asked in one of their books: "Who is watching the watchers?"
Do not count on "independent" auditors, as Arthur Andersen vividly demonstrated at Enron. While previous scandals did not involve massive document-shredding, Andersen's behavior is actually typical among the Big Five accounting firms that monopolize commercial/financial auditing worldwide. Andersen already faces SEC investigation for its role in "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap's butchery of Sunbeam and has paid $110 million to settle Sunbeam investors' damage suits. A decade ago Andersen fronted for Charles Keating's notorious Lincoln Savings & Loan, which bilked the elderly and then collapsed at taxpayer expense, despite a prestigious seal of approval from Alan Greenspan (Keating went to prison; Greenspan became Federal Reserve Chairman). But why pick on Arthur Andersen? Ernst & Young paid out even more for "recklessly misrepresenting" the profit claims of Cendant Corporation--$335 million to the New York and California public-employee pension funds. Cendant itself has paid out $2.8 billion to injured investors, but hopes to recover some money by suing Ernst & Young. PriceWaterhouseCoopers handled the books at Lucent, accused of inflating profits by $679 million in 2000 and prompting yet another SEC investigation.
The corruption of customary auditing, and the fact that an industry-sponsored board sets the arcane accounting tricks for determining whether profits are real or fictitious, is driven partly by the Big Five's dual role as consultants and auditors. First they help a company set its business strategy, then they examine the books to see if management is telling the truth. This egregious conflict of interest should have been prohibited long ago, but the scandal has reached a ripeness that now calls for a more radical solution, the creation of public auditors, hired by government, paid by insurance fees levied on industry and completely insulated from private interests or politics. Actually, this isn't a very radical idea, since the government already exercises the same close scrutiny and supervision over commercial banks. Because that banking sector lost its primary role in lending during the past two decades, the same public auditing and supervisory protections should be extended to cover the unregulated money-market firms and funds that have displaced the bankers.
Enron is unregulated, though it functioned like a giant financial house. So is GE Capital, a money pool much larger than all but a few commercial banks. Mutual funds and hedge funds are essentially free of government scrutiny. So are the exotic financial derivatives that Enron sold and that led to shocking breakdowns like the bankruptcy of Orange County, California. The government failed too, mainly by going limp in its due diligence but also by withdrawing responsibility through legislative deregulation. The one brave exception was Arthur Levitt, Clinton's SEC commissioner, who gamely raised some of these questions, but without much effect because he was hammered by the industry and its Congressional cheerleaders. Corrupt accountants and investment bankers now have a friendlier commissioner at the SEClawyer Harvey Pitt, whose firm has represented Arthur Andersen, each of the Big Five and Ivan Boesky, whose fraud case was settled for $100 million. Pitt blames Arthur Levitt's inquiries for upsetting the accounting industry's self-regulation. Given his connections, Pitt should not just recuse himself from the Enron case, a crisis of legitimacy for the SEC, he should be compelled to resign. Similarly sympathetic cops are scattered throughout the regulatory agencies. At the Federal Reserve, a new governor, Mark Olson, headed "regulatory consulting" in Ernst & Young's Washington office. Another new Fed governor, Memphis banker Susan Bies, has been an active opponent of strengthening derivatives regulation.
But the heart of the scandal resides in New York, not Washington. The major houses of Wall Street play a double game with their customers, doing investment deals with companies in their private offices while their stock analysts are out front whipping up enthusiasm for the same companies' stocks. Think of Goldman Sachs still advising a "buy" on Enron shares last fall, even as the company abruptly revealed a $1.2 billion erasure in shareholder equity. Goldman earned $69 million from Enron underwriting in recent years, the leader among the $323 million Enron paid Wall Street firms. Think of the young Henry Blodget, now famous as Merrill Lynch's never-say-sell tout for the same Nasdaq clients whose fees helped fuel Blodget's $5-million-a-year income (Merrill has begun settling investor lawsuits in cash). Think of Mary Meeker at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, dubbed the "Queen of the Net" for pumping up Internet firms while Morgan Stanley was taking in $480 million in fees on Internet IPOs.
The conflict is not exactly new but has reached staggering dimensions. The brokers whose stock tips you can trust are the ones who don't offer any.
The larger and far more dangerous conflict of interest lies in the convergence of government-insured commercial banks and the investment banks, because this marriage has the potential not only to burn investors but to shake the financial system and entire economy. If the newly created and top-heavy mega-banks get in trouble, their friends in power may arrange another cozy government bailout for those it deems "too big to fail." The banking convergence, slyly under way for years, was formally legalized in the 1999 repeal of Glass-Steagall, the New Deal law that separated the two sectors to eliminate the very kind of self-dealing that the Enron case suggests may be threatening again. We don't yet know how much damage has been done to the banking system, but its losses seem to grow with each new revelation. JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup provided billions to Enron while also stage-managing its huge investment deals around the world and arranging a fire-sale buyout by Dynegy that failed (Morgan also played financial backstop for Enron's various kinds of trading transactions). Instead of backing off and demanding more prudent management, these two banks lent additional billions during Enron's final days, perhaps trying to save their own positions (we don't yet know). Instead of warning other banks of the rising dangers, Chase and Citi led the happy talk. Both have syndicated many billions in bank loans to other commercial banks, a rich fee-generating business that allows them to pass the risks on to others (federal regulators report that the volume of "adversely classified" syndicated loans has risen to 8 percent, tripling the problem loans since 1998).
These facts may help explain why former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, now of Citigroup, called an old friend at Treasury and suggested federal intervention. Rubin's bank has a large and growing hole in its own loan portfolio. Could Treasury please pressure the credit-rating agencies, Rubin asked, not to downgrade Enron? Though he styles himself as a high-minded public servant, Rubin was trying to save his own ass. Indeed, he called the very Treasury official who, as an officer of the New York Federal Reserve back in 1998, had engineered the cozy bailout of Long Term Capital Management, the failing hedge fund that Citigroup, Merrill and other major financial houses had financed. Gentlemanly solicitude for big boys who get in trouble connects Washington with Wall Street and spans both political parties.
In this new world of laissez-faire,when things go blooey, the government itself is exposed to risk alongside hapless investors, if the commercial banks are lending federally insured deposits along with their own investment plays or are exercising what amounts to an equity position in the failed management. This is allegedly forbidden by "firewalls" within the mega-banks, but when a banker gets in deep enough trouble, he may be tempted to use the creative accounting needed to slip around firewalls. "A bank that has equity shares in a company that goes south can no longer make neutral, objective judgments about when to cut off credit," said Tom Schlesinger, executive director of the Financial Markets Center. "The rationale for repealing Glass-Steagall was that it would create more diversified banks and therefore more stability. What I see in these mega-banks is not diversification but more concentration of risk, which puts the taxpayers on the hook. It also creates a financial sector much less responsive to the real needs of the economy."
The fallacies of our era are on the table now, visible for all to see, but the follies are unlikely to be challenged promptly, not without great political agitation. The other obvious deformity exposed by Enron is the insidious corruption of democracy by political money. The routine buying of politicians, federal regulators and laws does not constitute a go-to-jail scandal since it all appears to be legal. But we do have a strong new brief for enacting campaign finance reform that is real. The market ideology has produced the best government that money can buy. The looting is unlikely to end so long as democracy is for sale.
Source: http://www.TheNation.com
2/5/02
6:00:07 PM
AlterNet Headlines
GROUND ZERO AT THE WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM
Dara Colwell, AlterNet
Pitted against the now wildly popular NYPD, this weekend's anti-WEF protesters were more subdued than their predecessors in Seattle or Davos. Was their message still heard?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12331
BUSH'S SICKENING SUPER BOWL PROPAGANDA
Geov Parrish, WorkingForChange.com
During America's most jingoistic sporting event, Bush spent $3.2 million to convince us that drug use equals terrorism. It would be laughable nonsense if it wasn't so horribly misleading.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12335
ENRON KITSCH RAKES IN BIG BUCKS ON EBAY
Michelle Chihara, AlterNet
>From paperweights to "Lay'd Off" t-shirts to a bound volume of its "Code of Ethics," Enron memorabilia is selling like hot cakes on the Web.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12339
A NO-QUESTIONS-ASKED WAR
David Corn, AlterNet
Did U.S. troops wrongly slay two dozen anti-Taliban Afghans? Should we pay damages to killed and maimed Afghan civilians? And why does asking these question make you a traitor?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12325
TWO WORLD FORUMS: IDEOLOGY VS. PRAGMATISM?
Mark Weisbrot, AlterNet
Of the two world forums that happened this weekend, the Economic one was deemed "practical" and the Social one "idealogical." But a closer look shows the economic elites to be ideologues, and the social entreprenuers to be realistic pragmatists.
* In Globalization: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=21
MOUNTAINS, ELK AND SPRAWL
Richard Manning, AlterNet
In a visit to the quickly changing countryside, this environmentally conscious hunter finds himself gunning for a new pact with nature.
* In EnviroHealth: http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=18
LETTERS: OFFENDED BY "ANTI-CHILD RANT"
AlterNet readers respond passionately to Christina Waters' article, "Screaming Me Me's."
http://www.alternet.org/letters_ed.html?BulletinID=8
HUFFINGTON: WEF WAS MORE INCLUSIVE THAN PROTESTERS, MEDIA ASSUMED
Arianna Huffington, AlterNet
If the WEF meeting was supposed to be a venue for the "rich and powerful elite," why did I meet so many activists, social entrepreneurs and consumer advocates there?
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12333
TECHSPLOITATION: HUMAN GENOME HACKERS
Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
Bioinformaticians, people decoding the human genome, are to genetic engineering as a peacenik named Einstein was to the atomic bomb -- they seem to not understand the social ramifications of their pure research.
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12338
2/5/02
5:58:17 PM
t r u t h o u t | 02.05
Enron | Talk of Crime Grows Louder, Spurred by Report
http://www.truthout.com/02.05A.Enron.Crime.htm
At 11th Hour, Lay Says He Won't Testify
http://www.truthout.com/02.05B.Lay.No.htm
Radio Address by House Democratic Whip Nancy Pelosi
http://www.truthout.com/02.05C.Pelosi.Radio.htm
Al Gore "Reenters the Public Debate" Sharply Critical of Administration (Video)
http://www.truthout.com/02.05D.Gore.Tennessee.htm
BOB HERBERT | Sneak Attack (on Roe v. Wade)
http://www.truthout.com/02.05E.Sneak.Attack.htm
Court Monitor Finds Many Questions Unanswered About Future of Indian Monies Trust Reform Under Norton
http://www.truthout.com/02.05F.Noton.Corbell.htm
White House Superbowl Ad's Blame Victims for Terrorism and Drug Violence
http://www.truthout.com/02.05G.SG.Ads.htm
2/5/02
5:56:56 PM
Free Energy Issue
As many of you will have noted, our February issue on "Free Energy and Alternative Energy" has been posted to our website. This subject is so important that we felt we needed to make it available to everyone, so that both subscribers and nonsubscribers may read it free of charge.
To access this issue directly, you may go to:
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/index.html
Note to subscribers: Your subscription will be extended a month to make up for this free issue.
2. Run Your Car on Water
In the February webzine, we call for a grassroots energy revolution. You can help get this going by downloading and using the plans we provide for converting your car to run using water as fuel instead of gasoline.
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/archive/feb2/carplans.htm
Please tell the world!
3. Six Live Prayer Broadcasts in February
In conjunction with WorldPuja, Tom Kenyon will open a 3-day live prayer Internet broadcast series this Friday, February 8, at 9 p.m. New York time. Gregg Braden will do the honors at 3 p.m. NY on Saturday, and Drunvalo will guide our prayers at 3 p.m. NY on Sunday, February 10. We hope you will "meet us in the field."
For a complete schedule of February live-prayer broadcasts, please visit:
http://www.spiritofmaat.com/announce/ann_wpuja.htm
To log on to the live broadcast, go to our website about 5-10 minutes before broadcast time and click on the broadcast link, which will be prominently displayed.
2/5/02
5:52:44 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
UPDATE - Wisconsin Energy seeks to build five power plants - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14365/story.htm
UN to help Georgia tighten atom safety after event - UNITED NATIONS http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14372/story.htm
UK appoints former oil boss to push emissions trade - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14376/story.htm
UK unlikely to meet targets on cutting CO2 - report - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14373/story.htm
Activists block US soybean shipment in Philippines - PHILIPPINES http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14374/story.htm
Mexico's Fox pardons two fishermen in rights case - MEXICO http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14367/story.htm
Mont Blanc tunnel reopening may be delayed - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14375/story.htm
Fires blaze in southwest France - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14380/story.htm
Chinese park ready to send Kabul another lion - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14370/story.htm
Chinese turn to law to right pollution wrongs - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14368/story.htm
China farm minister raises alarm on rural incomes - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14377/story.htm
UPDATE - China, US officials hold GMO talks in Beijing - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14378/story.htm
HK culls chickens at market after 29 found dead - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14379/story.htm
Experts want to reunite lost whale with its family - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14371/story.htm
ANALYSIS - Brazil GMO ban seen in place till at least 2003 - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14369/story.htm
Brazil launches 'war operation' on mahogany loggers - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14366/story.htm
IAEA says Georgia nuclear devices now safely stored - AUSTRIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14382/story.htm
Kangaroo skipped from menu at Commonwealth summit - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14381/story.htm
2/5/02
10:09:48 AM
DAILY GRIST <http://www.gristmagazine.com>
AREA 51
Fair-to-middling was the U.S. ranking in a new study, presented at the World Economic Forum last week in New York, that rated the environmental health of 142 countries. In the study, conducted by the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy and the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University, the U.S. came in at number 51, behind Botswana (15) and Cuba (47) but ahead of Japan (62) and Great Britain (98). The top-ranking countries were (can you guess?) Finland, Norway, Sweden, Canada, and Switzerland, while the worst were Haiti, Iraq, North Korea, and the United Arab Emirates. Interestingly, the study found no clear correlation between economic wealth or degree of industrialization and environmental health.
straight to the source: New York Times, Katharine Q. Seelye, 02 Feb 2002 <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/02/science/02ENVI.html>
ALL WET
For almost a decade, developers have been required by federal law to create 1.78 acres of wetlands for every acre they destroy. Sounds great, but a new study by Washington State's Department of Ecology found that only about 13 percent of 24 replacement wetlands in the state are successful. Wetlands-protection rules were established to protect watershed health, provide critical habitat, and reduce danger from flooding, but most of Washington's artificial wetlands failed to provide the benefits of natural ones, either due to poor design or poor maintenance. Conservationists say the findings support the case for protecting wetlands from destruction in the first place.
straight to the source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Associated Press, 03 Feb 2002 <http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/56888_wetlands03ww.shtml>
straight to the source: Everett Herald, Jennifer Langston, 02 Feb 2002 <http://www.heraldnet.com/Stories/02/2/2/15040324.cfm>
SLASH-AND-BURN BUDGET
Okay, it's predictable, but it's still a bummer: President Bush announced today that he will seek sharp budget cuts in environmental initiatives and dozens of other domestic programs for the upcoming fiscal year. After all, the president's proposed $379 billion funding bonanza for the Pentagon has to come from somewhere. Bush is calling for reduced funding for the U.S. EPA, a hiring freeze in the agency's enforcement division, and a miniscule increase in the Interior Department's national parks budget, which environmentalists say will be woefully inadequate to address the $4.9 billion backlog in park maintenance projects that Bush has vowed to erase. Is there a light at the end of the tunnel? Maybe. Former Vice President and once (and future?) presidential hopeful Al Gore emerged from the political shadows on Saturday to criticize Bush for his economic and environmental policies and "rejoin the national debate."
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 03 Feb 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13200-2002Feb2.html>
straight to the source: CNN.com, 04 Feb 2002 <http://www.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/02/04/bush.budget/index.html>
straight to the source: Washington Post, Edward Walsh, 03 Feb 2002 <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15312-2002Feb2.html>
A PATAGONIA ON THE BACK
Gearheads have reason to feel smug about their Patagonia fleeces these days. Once again, the company appears among Fortune Magazine's top 100 places to work in the U.S. -- and this time it moved up 17 places in the rankings, to number 41. The company sold $223 million worth of outdoor gear last year, but it's not just the money that's green: Patagonia offers its workers everything from financial rewards for buying eco-friendly cars to two months paid leave for working for an environmental nonprofit to organic food in its cafeterias. Plus the company pledges 1 percent of sales or 10 percent of pretax profits -- whichever is higher -- to conservation efforts. To top it all off, the California-based company offers on-site childcare, flexible work schedules, and yoga and surfing classes. Heck, maybe Grist employees will defect.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Fred Alvarez, 04 Feb 2002 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la-000008837feb04.story?coll=la%2Dnews%2Dscience>
2/4/02
8:57:53 PM
TomPaine.com
LAY: HAVE A NICE CRUISE...
...But I'm Getting Off This Ship
by Murray Waas
Even as he was urging his employees to buy, buy, buy, Kenneth Lay quietly sold his Enron stock for millions. He saw the iceberg coming, kept it to himself, and took the only lifeboat.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=5071
Loyal Opposition:
THE CONVENTIONAL RAH-RAH
A No-Questions-Asked War
by David Corn
In our public discourse there appears no space for considering the excesses of the war on terrorism. For many folks, any talk not completely in sync with the conventional rah-rah sounds like treason.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=5072
ONE SPEECH FITS ALL PUNDITS
Language That Soothes In The State Of The Union
by Doug Ireland
The sitting ovations delivered by TV's chatterers in their post-speech "analysis" matched the huzzahs in the House chamber.
http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm?ID=5073
HYPE DESPITE GRIPE
The Nuclear Energy Institute recently launched an ad campaign boasting, "Nuclear power plant security -- we've got what it takes." But Scott Denman of the Safe Energy Communications Council reports that commercial reactors, when tested in mock attacks, fail 47 percent of the time.
http://www.tompaine.com/check_it_out/
2/4/02
8:55:37 PM
EMS Update - Feb. 4, 2002
Groups to Offer Analysis of Bush Budget Policy experts from the nation's leading environmental organizations will hold a press briefing on Tuesday, Feb. 5, in Washington, D.C., to discuss President Bush's 2003 budget and its impact on key agencies.
Media advisory: http://ems.org/bush_cheney/budget_advisory.html
Moyers PBS Show on NAFTA's Chapter 11 In a new documentary airing Feb. 5 on PBS, Bill Moyers and Sherry Jones uncover how corporations use NAFTA's Chapter 11 to undermine environmental and health laws and even attack our system of justice.
Video clip & additional information:
http://tools.ems.org/calendar/item.tcl?scope=group&group_id=79&calendar_id=545
2/4/02
8:49:38 PM
Antarctica becomes too hot for the penguins
Decline of 'dinner jacket' species is a warning to the world
Geoffrey Lean
03 February 2002
Penguins are starting to desert parts of Antarctica because the icy wastes are getting too hot.
The numbers of adelie penguins on the Antarctic peninsula – the most northerly part of the frozen continent – are falling as global warming takes hold. And experts predict that, as the climate change continues, they may abandon much of the 900-mile-long promontory altogether.
The archetypal "tuxedoed" species like the cold even more than other penguins. And the peninsula has been warming up faster than almost anywhere else on earth, with temperatures increasing at least five times faster than the world average. Scientists believe this is disrupting their food supplies.
Global warming is also causing them grief in another of their strongholds, the Ross Sea. Two giant icebergs have broken off the Antarctic ice sheet and are blocking the way from their breeding colonies to their feeding areas. As a result they have to walk 30 miles further to get food – no small matter when they can manage only one mile per hour. And, on the other side of the continent, thousands of emperor penguin chicks drowned near Britain's Halley base after the ice broke up early, before they had learned to swim.
Like miners' canaries, the dinner-jacketed penguins of Antarctica are providing an early warning of danger to come. For global warming is heating up the frozen continent faster than the rest of the world, and the penguins are among the first to feel the effects.
Flightless, and so unable to escape like other birds, they are affected by what happens both on land and sea. And, because they are easy to spot and count, they provide an early indication of what may be happening to other species.
They are feeling the heat most strongly on the Antarctic peninsula, which juts out from the polar land mass towards South America. Studies of air temperatures around the world over the past half-century suggest that this is one of the three areas on the planet – along with north-western North America and part of Siberia – warming up fastest. The British Antarctic Survey says flowering plants have spread rapidly in the area, glaciers are retreating, and seven huge ice sheets have melted away.
As the peninsula has warmed up, the numbers of adelie penguins have been dropping. Scientists suspect that the rising temperatures affect the small fish and other marine animals on which they feed, though they are not yet sure how.
Professor Steven Emslie, of the University of North Carolina, believes that if the warming goes on the penguins "would continue to decline in the peninsula, and may completely abandon much of it". Studies of fossilised remains that he has carried out near Britain's Rothera base show that the numbers of the penguins have sharply declined during warmer periods in prehistory.
On at least one occasion, the decline in the peninsula was marked by a rapid increase in the penguins in the Ross Sea more than 2,000 miles away. But in recent months global warming has been causing them trouble there too. Researchers for the US National Science Foundation said that one colony of adelies at Cape Royds will "fail totally" this year. And scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography add that a colony of emperor penguins at Cape Crozier has also failed to raise any chicks.
Global warming also threatens the food supplies of emperor penguins. When there is less ice in the sea, populations of krill – a staple in their diet – fall.
Despite all this, penguins are not in danger of extinction; there are millions of them still in Antarctica and one species – the chinstrap penguin – seems to be thriving in the warmer weather. But they still provide a warning. In the words of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the world's leading conservation body: "Things happening to penguins are a foretaste of things to come."
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=117890
2/4/02
8:46:58 PM
Planet Ark World Environment News
Vietnam rescues foreign sailors, fears oil spill - VIETNAM http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14363/story.htm
UPDATE - US agency warns of possible plot on nuclear plants - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14346/story.htm
USTR Zoellick questions China's food import intent - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14360/story.htm
US to seek delay in China's new GMO rules - USDA - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14353/story.htm
Time running out for US soybean exports to China - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14361/story.htm
FERC drops Calif group's case against BPA, BC Hydro - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14359/story.htm
Olympics-Organisers step into "hornets' nest" over rodeo - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14348/story.htm
Ecoterrorists set fire at Minnesota school lab - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14362/story.htm
US nuclear plants said well protected from attack - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14343/story.htm
UPDATE - Court tells Cheney to explain task force case - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14342/story.htm
EPA says more fines collected under Bush than Clinton - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14339/story.htm
UPDATE - Chemical leak contained at Chevron S.F. refinery - USA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14338/story.htm
Freak winds drive ferry onto British shore - UK http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14364/story.htm
INTERVIEW - EU needs venture capital market for biotechs - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14351/story.htm
INTERVIEW - Greenpeace keeps pressure on EU president Spain - SPAIN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14341/story.htm
China tightens diesel specs, limited crude impact - SINGAPORE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14336/story.htm
Severe weather wreaks havoc in Ireland - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14357/story.htm
Japan spent nuclear fuel pool leaked water-company - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14344/story.htm
Japan CO2 emissions up 1.1 pct yr/yr in 2000/01 - JAPAN http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14337/story.htm
Italian, French farmers spurn US gene crops - ITALY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14356/story.htm
German CO2 emissions up 1.5 pct in 2001-Germanwatch - GERMANY http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14355/story.htm
Renewable energy to drive French power investments - FRANCE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14347/story.htm
More than 100,000 face hunger risk in El Salvador - EL SALVADOR http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14352/story.htm
HK to cull 110,000 chickens to halt disease spread - CHINA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14350/story.htm
Chile OKs study on $1.43 bln gold and copper project - CHILE http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14340/story.htm
Fish farm fight set for Canada's Pacific coast - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14358/story.htm
UPDATE - Warm weather and rain hit Ottawa's winter festival - CANADA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14354/story.htm
Activists swoon for leftist heroes at Brazil forum - BRAZIL http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14349/story.htm
Renewable Energy shares feel investor wrath - AUSTRALIA http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/14345/story.htm
2/4/02
8:45:37 PM
Bush Seeks To Restrict Hill 9-11 Probes Intelligence Panels' Secrecy Is Favored
By Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 30, 2002; Page A04
President Bush asked House and Senate leaders yesterday to allow only two congressional committees to investigate the government's response to the events of Sept. 11, officials said.
The president said the inquiry should be limited to the House and Senate intelligence committees, whose proceedings are generally secret. Senate Democratic leaders want a broader investigation, involving some committees that would be free to air their findings. The focus of the committee probes is likely to center on intelligence failures preceding the terrorist attacks that killed about 3,100 people.
A senior administration official said Congress "is already well set up through the intelligence committees to review intelligence matters, and those committees have a history of working with secret and classified documents that other committees lack. . . . The president thinks it's important for Congress to review events in a way that does not unduly burden the defense and intelligence communities as they are still charged with fighting a war."
Capitol Hill sources said Bush made the request of Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) during a breakfast meeting with congressional leaders. The White House would not confirm that. The congressional sources said Vice President Cheney called Daschle last week with the same request.
Daschle told reporters that Cheney had "expressed the concern that a review of what happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from the effort in the war on terrorism." Daschle said the probe will start with the Intelligence Committee in an effort "to limit the scope and the overall review of what happened."
"But clearly I think the American people are entitled to know what happened and why at some point, just as they were desirous of knowing what happened after the Pearl Harbor attack," Daschle said. "We did that right during the early stages of World War II. So we haven't made any conclusions yet."
A Senate Democratic aide said one objection to limiting the investigation is that "most of what the Intelligence Committee does is behind closed doors and never sees the light of day. If there is an issue, the public deserves to know about it."
The two intelligence committees are planning a joint, bipartisan investigation. The Democratic aide said lawmakers are expected to look into what was known before Sept. 11 about the possibility of a major attack, "why our intelligence wasn't better -- why we didn't know," how different parts of the government responded, and perhaps whether the government is prepared for a future attack.
2/4/02
8:41:45 PM
t r u t h o u t
Bush Seeks To Restrict Hill 9-11 Probes
http://www.truthout.com/02.04A.Bush.Limit.911.htm
Enron Executives May Seek Immunity
http://www.truthout.com/02.04B.Enron.Immunity.htm
Court Tells Cheney to Explain Task Force Secrecy
http://www.truthout.com/02.04C.Court.Cheney.htm
Bush Budget Medicare, Child Care Slashed -- Drilling a Priority
http://www.truthout.com/02.04D.Bush.Budget.htm
Study Puts Finland First, and U.S. 51st, in Environmental Health
http://www.truthout.com/02.04E.Env.Study.htm
Boy's Death Shows Wider Afghan Woes
http://www.truthout.com/02.04F.Afg.Child.Death.htm
White House Buys Anti-Terror Super Bowl Spots
http://www.truthout.com/02.04G.WH.Ads.Bowl.htm
2/4/02
8:38:55 PM
Truth Is Stranger Than Fact
Arthur C. Clarke Offers His Vision of the Future
By Raymond Kurzweil & Arthur C. Clarke
On Friday, November 30, 2001, Arthur C. Clarke, author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, and inventor of the geosynchronous communications satellite, joined myself and two other panelists by video and phone connection from Sri Lanka to offer his vision of the future. The event took place at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, Massachusetts in front of an audience of approximately 500 college and high school students and teachers.
The other panelists included Alison Taunton-Rigby, president of Forester Biotech and David Cyganski, WPI professor of electrical and computer engineering and an expert in machine vision.
The legendary science fiction author offered the predictions below. My own view is that Clarke's near term predictions involving energy are at least a decade premature. However, many of his predictions involving intelligent machines and nanotechnology are insightful and reflect a keen understanding of the acceleration of technological progress.
Arthur C. Clarke's predictions for the next century:
2002 - Clean low-power fuel involving a new energy source, possibly based on cold fusion.
2003 - The automobile industry is given five years to replace fossil fuels.
2004 - First publicly admitted human clone.
2006 - Last coal mine closed.
2009 - A city in a third world country is devastated by an atomic bomb explosion.
2009 - All nuclear weapons are destroyed.
2010 - A new form of space-based energy is adopted.
2010 - Despite protests against "big brother," ubiquitous monitoring eliminates many forms of criminal activity.
2011 - Space flights become available for the public.
2013 - Prince Harry flies in space.
2015 - Complete control of matter at the atomic level is achieved.
2016 - All existing currencies are abolished. A universal currency is adopted based on the "megawatt hour."
2017 - Arthur C. Clarke, on his one hundredth birthday, is a guest on the space orbiter.
2019 - There is a meteorite impact on Earth.
2020 - Artificial Intelligence reaches human levels. There are now two intelligent species on Earth, one biological, and one nonbiological.
2021 - The first human landing on Mars is achieved. There is an unpleasant surprise.
2023 - Dinosaurs are cloned from fragments of DNA. A dinosaur zoo opens in Florida.
2025 - Brain research leads to an understanding of all human senses. Full immersion virtual reality becomes available. The user puts on a metal helmet and is then able to enter "new universes."
2040 - A universal replicator based on nanotechnology is now able to create any object from gourmet meals to diamonds. The only thing that has value is information.
2040 - The concept of human "work" is phased out.
2061 - Hunter gatherer societies are recreated.
2061 - The return of Haley's comet is visited by humans.
2090 - Large scale burning of fossil fuels is resumed to replace carbon dioxide.
2095 - A true "space drive" is developed. The first humans are sent out to nearby star systems already visited by robots.
2100 - History begins.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0361.html?
2/4/02
8:32:22 PM
The Giant Sucking Sound Of The Other Chapter 11
By Arianna Huffington
Chapter 11 is all the rage right now. And many of the biggest, the best and the brightest corporations are doing it. But while the multibillion-dollar bankruptcies of Enron and Global Crossing are grabbing all the headlines, there is another Chapter 11, one you most likely haven't heard of, that poses an equally great danger to our democracy.
The "other" Chapter 11 is an obscure clause buried within the 555-page NAFTA document. It's being used by multinational corporations "to challenge the powers of government to protect its citizens, to undermine environmental and health laws, even to attack our system of justice."
So reports Bill Moyers in a disturbing new documentary, "Trading Democracy," airing Tuesday, Feb. 5 on PBS. According to Moyers, the fourth estate's preeminent defender of democracy, this outrageous end-run around the Constitution could end up costing us billions of dollars. But, as they say, at least we've got our health, right? Not with this Chapter 11 that jeopardizes both our health and the safety of the communities we live in.
"This story," Moyers told me, "reflects what Enron is all about -- that corporations have the power to trump the public interest at will these days. It's not just one corruption in a small corner of the picture. It represents the systemic corruption that money has brought to American politics."
In theory, Chapter 11 is designed to compensate companies if foreign governments seize their property. But the lawyers who helped draft NAFTA inserted language making it possible for companies to also seek compensation when government regulations cause a dip in their future bottom line. Many of these same lawyers are now selling their services to the very corporations using their legal handiwork to sue for millions.
Just how business-friendly is the provision? "They could be putting liquid plutonium in children's food," says Moyers, quoting a trade lawyer's advice to the Canadian government. "If you ban it and the company making it is an American company, you have to pay compensation."
About two dozen companies have cashed in, or are in the process of trying to cash in, on Chapter 11. Among the outrages Moyers exposes is the case of Methanex, a Canadian corporation that is suing the U.S. government for $970 million because California decided to phase out a cancer-causing gasoline additive the company produced.
But even more egregious than the notion that taxpayers should have to pay off polluters is the fact that the cases are ruled on behind closed doors, by a secret NAFTA tribunal whose decisions are not subject to appeal in U.S. courts. That's right, if Methanex wins, we'll have to foot the bill, but we'll never know exactly why because we don't have the right to hear the facts.
That giant sucking sound you hear is the public good being slurped up by voracious corporate interests.
But it's not just foreign companies suing Uncle Sam. Moyers shows us what happened in Mexico when a U.S. firm's efforts to reopen a toxic waste dump south of the border were thwarted by local citizens convinced that the noxious landfill had led to a boom in cancer cases in the region. The company, Metalclad, invoked Chapter 11 and was awarded $16 million in compensation.
The mere threat of these mega-buck claims is now being used to intimidate government officials considering new regulations. In "Trading Democracy," Moyers reveals how big tobacco used their high-powered lobbyists and the threat of a massive Chapter 11 lawsuit to bully the Canadian government into backing off on its plans to regulate cigarette packaging.
As William Greider, author of "Who Will Tell The People," puts it to Moyers: "If you're a civil servant, or even a political leader, you've gotta think twice when a corporate lawyer comes to you and says, quite forcefully, we're gonna hit you for half a billion dollars if you do this."
In an interesting wrinkle, the tobacco companies' arm-twister-in- chief was Carla Hills, who, before starting her own consulting firm, led --surprise, surprise -- the U.S. negotiation of NAFTA, and whose firm was among 29 corporate heavyweights that signed a letter last year to U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick demanding that the Chapter 11 provision be included as the administration seeks to expand NAFTA to 31 additional countries.
And round and round it goes. Where it stops, we don't know exactly --what with the tribunals being secret, and all. But we have a pretty good idea: more carcinogens in your water, more toxic chemicals in your air, and more misbegotten profits for unscrupulous corporations with deep pockets and teams of well- connected lawyers.
arianna@ariannaonline.com
2/4/02
8:29:47 PM
Drugs found in tap water
Teen finds antibiotics in public supplies
By Kathleen Fackelmann, USA TODAY
High school student Ashley Mulroy was reading a science magazine two years ago when she learned that European scientists had made a disturbing discovery: Drugs of all kinds, including antibiotics, were flowing in rivers, streams, groundwater and even in tap water.
That began a science project in which the 17-year-old searched for and found antibiotics in the Ohio River. She also found those drugs in the drinking water in her hometown of Wheeling, W.Va. She is one of the first in the USA to look for such drugs in the nation's drinking water supply.
Mulroy's work recently won the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, an international science competition sponsored by ITT Industries. More important, her study highlights an emerging scientific issue with alarming implications.
Some experts fear that even low levels of antibiotics fouling the nation's water supply may help create superbugs: microorganisms that have evolved to survive an antibiotic's lethal assault.
Public health experts already have noted the rise of infection after infection that cannot be stopped with the usual arsenal of antibiotics.
And the superbugs may be causing "tens of thousands" of deaths in the USA each year, says Abigail Salyers, an expert on antibiotic resistance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Consider these reports:
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency researchers have found antibiotics in North Carolina's Neuse River, a source of drinking water.
Another EPA chemist reports finding several drugs, including a common antibiotic, in river water outside a southern U.S. city.
Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have found antibiotics in many water samples taken from streams across the nation.
These findings "raise a big red flag," says Stuart Levy at Tufts University in Boston. The antibiotics aren't harmful on their own. Rather, Levy and others worry that waters laced with these drugs could breed bugs that can shrug off the killing effects of the wonder drugs, such as penicillin.
Mulroy's science project got started after she read "Drugged Waters," a 1998 article in Science News that gave a chilling account of the drugs, including antibiotics, floating in European waters.
"I remember thinking the story had really bad implications," Mulroy says. So she decided to test for antibiotics in the Ohio River near her home.
Over a 10-week period, Mulroy and her mom got into the family car and drove for miles to test sites along the Ohio River.
In the end, she got her river water samples back to the Linsly School, a private school that she attended in Wheeling . She looked for three common antibiotics: penicillin, tetracycline and vancomycin. She found all three drugs in low concentrations (parts per trillion) in the Ohio River. Water samples taken from sites near livestock or dairy farms had the highest concentrations of antibiotics, Mulroy says.
Large farming operations in the USA often keep hogs, chickens and other animals in crowded, dirty pens and rely on low doses of antibiotics to keep diseases at bay. Antibiotics also are given to healthy animals to fatten them for market.
Scientists know that antibiotics given to animals (or to humans) don't get fully metabolized in the digestive system and end up being excreted. In a farming operation, that waste can make it into the runoff or groundwater, which eventually makes it into a nearby stream, and in this case, the Ohio River.
River samples taken near local hospitals also revealed antibiotics, albeit at slightly lower concentrations, Mulroy says. Antibiotics may leach into the groundwater around hospitals if cases or bottles of expired drugs are dumped into a landfill, she says.
Do such drugs get into water flowing out of the kitchen tap? Mulroy's study suggests that they do.
Mulroy also took samples of water from three taps in Wheeling, Moundsville and Procter. All three, including water from the drinking fountain at her school, were contaminated with the antibiotics in question. The concentrations were less than those found in the river water, she says.
Water flowing from the Wheeling tap comes from a municipal water-treatment facility that relies on sand filtration to clean the water. That method, the primary method of water treatment in the USA, doesn't remove antibiotics or other drugs from the water.
The other two samples of public water came from wells. The fact that they also had antibiotics suggests that groundwater is contaminated, Mulroy says.
However, Mulroy's study also suggests a potential fix for waters laced with drugs such as antibiotics. She says that an activated charcoal filtration system removed most of the antibiotics in the tap water.
Agricultural effect
The USA produces more than 50 million pounds of antibiotics each year. Experts estimate that 60% are used to treat humans. The other 40% go to farming operations.
New research suggests that the latter doesn't stay on the farm.
Joseph Bumgarner at the EPA, Michael Meyer at the U.S. Geological Survey and their colleagues have identified antibiotic contamination of surface water near two North Carolina hog farms. Such farms, which often keep 50,000 animals in close quarters, create huge pools of manure called "lagoons."
These hogs routinely receive doses of antibiotics, including chlortetracycline, lincomycin and sulfamethiazine. Sure enough, the team found those three antibiotics in the lagoons and in samples from nearby streams, which empty into the Neuse River.
The river water samples also contained the antibiotics, Bumgarner says. The Neuse River supplies the Raleigh-Durham area with its public water. The researchers have yet to test the tap water there.
The team did find an antibiotic flowing from a tap on one of the hog farms. That tap drew its water from a well, a finding that suggests groundwater is laced with the drugs, Meyer says.
Preliminary results from this study also suggest that bacteria in the streams have acquired resistance to common antibiotics, Bumgarner says.
Studies on a hog farm in Iowa and a chicken farm in Ohio produced similar results, Meyer says. Some experts, including Karen Florini of the Environmental Defense in Washington, D.C., are urging the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of antibiotics to speed the growth of farm animals.
Recently, the FDA took a step in that direction by announcing its intent to ban two antibiotics used by poultry farmers. Florini's group and others also are calling on EPA to control the pollution in runoff from factory-farming operations. But EPA's Bumgarner says the agency doesn't have enough information to take such a step.
Worrisome findings
Human waste also contains antibiotics, and instead of going into a lagoon, it gets flushed down the toilet. EPA chemist Tammy Jones-Lepp wanted to find out whether the antibiotics in sewage would survive a wastewater-treatment facility.
Jones-Lepp collected water downstream from two such facilities in an unnamed southern city. She found that the treated river water contained low levels of azithromycin, an antibiotic often prescribed to children for ear infections.
The results suggest that treatment plants, although they filter out some contaminants, don't remove all traces of drugs such as antibiotics.
Effects still unknown
"It's clear antibiotics get into the environment," says Tamar Barlam, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Project at the Center for Science in the Public Interest in Washington, D.C. But scientists have yet to determine the impact of such contamination on human health, especially when the antibiotics, and other drugs, are present at minute levels, she says.
David Bell at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta says there's not enough scientific data to say that environmental contamination plays a big role in generating antibiotic resistance.
Far more important, he says, is the fact that humans have abused antibiotics by taking them unnecessarily.
The overuse of antibiotics by the agricultural industry also plays a big role in creating superbugs, Bell says.
Farmers who feed healthy animals a steady stream of antibiotics can set the stage for human illness in this way: Bacteria in the digestive system of the animal can develop resistance to antibiotics. Humans who then eat undercooked meat from the infected animal can suffer an infection < one that can't be treated with that antibiotic, Bell says.
Levy and others would argue that environmental contamination might pose a more serious problem than previously recognized. Levy says those relatively harmless bugs, like the E. coli in Mulroy's study, can develop genetic traits to repel antibiotics. Once they have that genetic ammunition, they can trade the information to other bugs relatively easily, he says.
That means that a bug that doesn't cause human disease could pass along its genetic trick to a bug that does. The result, Levy worries, would be a bacterium that has evolved the capability to do an end-run around the most powerful drugs of the modern century.
The USA lags about a decade behind researchers in Europe who have found antibiotics and many other drugs in the waters there. Indeed, Mulroy's study is one of the first to look at the public water supply in the USA.
Although other scientists must confirm her study, Mulroy has contributed something important to the field.
"This really is a testimony to our kids," Levy says.
For information on the Stockholm Junior Water Prize, see the Web site of the Water Environment Federation:
http://www.wef.org/publicinfo/stockholm/index.jhtml
Source: http://www.usatoday.com/life/health/general/lhgen115.htm
2/4/02
8:27:59 PM
This article is published in The Nation
February 11, 2002
The Others
by Howard Zinn
Every day for several months, the New York Times did what should always be done when a tragedy is summed up in a statistic: It gave us miniature portraits of the human beings who died on September 11--their names, photos, glimmers of their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, how friends and loved ones remember them.
As the director of the New-York Historical Society said: "The peculiar genius of it was to put a human face on numbers that are unimaginable to most of us.... It's so obvious that every one of them was a person who deserved to live a full and successful and happy life. You see what was lost."
I was deeply moved, reading those intimate sketches--"A Poet of Bensonhurst...A Friend, A Sister...Someone to Lean On...Laughter, Win or Lose..." I thought: Those who celebrated the grisly deaths of the people in the twin towers and the Pentagon as a blow to symbols of American dominance in the world--what if, instead of symbols, they could see, up close, the faces of those who lost their lives? I wonder if they would have second thoughts, second feelings.
Then it occurred to me: What if all those Americans who declare their support for Bush's "war on terrorism" could see, instead of those elusive symbols--Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda--the real human beings who have died under our bombs? I do believe they would have second thoughts.
There are those on the left, normally compassionate people whose instincts go against war, who were, surprisingly, seduced by early Administration assurances and consoled themselves with words like "limited" military action and "measured" response. I think they, too, if confronted with the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the war in Afghanistan, would have second thoughts.
True, there are those in Washington and around the country who would not be moved, who are eager--like their counterparts elsewhere in the world--to kill for some cause. But most Americans would begin to understand that we have been waging a war on ordinary men, women and children. And that these human beings have died because they happened to live in Afghan villages in the vicinity of vaguely defined "military targets," and that the bombing that destroyed their lives is in no way a war on terrorism, because it has no chance of ending terrorism and is itself a form of terrorism.
But how can this be done--this turning of ciphers into human beings? In contrast with the vignettes about the victims featured in the New York Times, there are few available details about the dead men, women and children in Afghanistan.
We would need to study the scattered news reports, usually in the inside sections of the Times and the Washington Post, but also in the international press--Reuters; the London Times, Guardian and Independent; and Agence France-Presse.
These reports have been mostly out of sight of the general public (indeed, virtually never reported on national television, where most Americans get their news), and so dispersed as to reinforce the idea that the bombing of civilians has been an infrequent event, a freak accident, an unfortunate mistake.
Listen to the language of the Pentagon: "We cannot confirm the report...civilian casualties are inevitable...we don't know if they were our weapons...it was an accident...incorrect coordinates had been entered...they are deliberately putting civilians in our bombing targets...the village was a legitimate military target...it just didn't happen...we regret any loss of civilian life."
"Collateral damage," Timothy McVeigh said, using a Pentagon statement, when asked about the children who died when he bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. After reports of the bombing of one village, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said, "We take extraordinary care.... There is unintended damage. There is collateral damage. Thus far, it has been extremely limited." The Agence France-Presse reporter quoting her said: "Refugees arriving in Pakistan suggested otherwise. Several recounted how twenty people, including nine children, had been killed as they tried to flee an attack on the southern Afghan town of Tirin Kot."
Listening to the repeated excuses given by Bush, Rumsfeld and others, one recalls Colin Powell's reply at the end of the Gulf War, when questioned about Iraqi casualties: "That is really not a matter I am terribly interested in." If, indeed, a strict definition of the word "deliberate" does not apply to the bombs dropped on the civilians of Afghanistan, then we can offer, thinking back to Powell's statement, an alternate characterization: "a reckless disregard for human life."
The denials of the Pentagon are uttered confidently half a world away in Washington. But there are on-the-spot press reports from the villages, from hospitals where the wounded lie and from the Pakistan border, where refugees have fled the bombs. If we put these reports together, we get brief glimpses of the human tragedies in Afghanistan--the names of the dead, the villages that were bombed, the words of a father who lost his children, the ages of the children. We would then have to multiply these stories by the hundreds, think of the unreported incidents and know that the numbers go into the thousands. A professor of economics at the University of New Hampshire, Marc Herold, has done a far more thorough survey of the press than I have. He lists location, type of weapon used and sources of information. He finds the civilian death toll in Afghanistan up to December 10 exceeding 3,500 (he has since raised the figure to 4,000), a sad and startling parallel to the number of victims in the twin towers.
The New York Times was able to interrogate friends and family of the New York dead, but for the Afghans, we will have to imagine the hopes and dreams of those who died, especially the children, for whom forty or fifty years of mornings, love, friendship, sunsets and the sheer exhilaration of being alive were extinguished by monstrous machines sent over their land by men far away.
My intention is not at all to diminish our compassion for the victims of the terrorism of September 11, but to enlarge that compassion to include the victims of all terrorism, in any place, at any time, whether perpetrated by Middle East fanatics or American politicians.
In that spirit, I present the following news items (only a fraction of those in my files), hoping that there is the patience to go through them, like the patience required to read the portraits of the September 11 dead, like the patience required to read the 58,000 names on the Vietnam Memorial:
For the complete article and links on related issues, see:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020211&s=zinn
2/4/02
8:22:56 PM
ENRON = U.S. Trade and Development Agency = Oil via Afghanistan = 911
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17711
Natural Gas - The United States has supported trans-Caspian routes for Central Asian oil and gas as an alternative to pipelines passing though Iran. The U.S. Trade and Development Agency funded a $750,000 feasibility study conducted by Enron for a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Azerbaijan, and another feasibility study was also completed by Unocal. On May 21, 1999 Turkey and Turkmenistan signed a 30-year agreement to ship 700 bcf/year of Turkmen gas to Turkey, with the rest exported to Europe. Georgia has proposed that trans-Caspian pipeline could also be linked to the Russian natural gas pipeline system.
To Pakistan via Afghanistan Oil - Turkmenistan has signed a memorandum of understanding with Afghanistan and Pakistan to build a 1 million bbl/d pipeline to carry petroleum to Pakistan and world markets via Afghanistan. This eastward route, along with one to China, is one of the few alternatives to the Iranian route for exporting Central Asian oil to Asian markets. In October 1997, a tripartite commission comprising the Islamic State of Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, and Pakistan was formed to start work on building this pipeline. Two competing groups, led by Bridas of Argentina and Unocal of the United States, offered to build the pipelines.
Caspian Sea Oil and Natural Gas Export Routes (Watch this site get pulled)
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/casproute.html
U.S. Trade and Development Agency - (have pulled sites in ref to Enron)
Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Enron Development Corp. - Prof. James Lee
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17706
CHENEY LIED ABOUT HALLIBURTON MULTIBILLION$$ IRAQ DEALS
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17676
EXCELLENT! ENRON STUFF-FindLaw Legal News
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17702
2/4/02
8:20:15 PM
ON A SPOT SMALLER THAN A DIME, UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO CHEMISTS PRINT SENSORS THAT MAY DETECT HUNDREDS OF CHEMICALS
By borrowing a page from the genomics revolution, University at Buffalo chemists have taken a major step toward placing hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of reusable chemical sensors in an area smaller than a dime.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080213.htm
NANOENCAPSULATION: CHEMISTS AT TSRI DISCOVER A NEW AND SIMPLE WAY OF CONTROLLING REACTIONS
A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) were able to demonstrate complex system behavior among small, reacting organic molecules by putting them in and out of a nanocapsule.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080716.htm
NASA UNVEILS NEW "NATURAL HAZARDS" WEB SITE
NASA has unveiled a new Web site in which it publishes satellite images in near real time over natural hazards around the world. A new addition to NASA's Earth Observatory, the Natural Hazards section contains images and information about major environmental events that are potentially hazardous to human populations.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128081112.htm
JAGUAR CONSERVATION SPOTTY
New research shows that the jaguar is in trouble in two-thirds of its historic range. Part of the problem is that jaguars live in 18 countries and there is no coordinated plan for conserving them -- such wide-ranging species need conservation plans that transcend political boundaries.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080643.htm
WHAT KILLED KING HEROD? SCHOLARS AT VA HEALTH CARE SYSTEM/ UM SCHOOL OF MEDICINE CONFERENCE UNRAVEL THE 2,000 YEAR-OLD MYSTERY
Historians remember him as a brutal, unpredictable, paranoid and cruel leader. During his 36-year bloody reign as king of ancient Judea, Herod the Great ordered the executions of one wife and three sons, and, in a vain attempt to destroy the infant Jesus, directed the infamous Slaughter of the Innocents. Its been more than 2,000 years since his death in 4 B.C., yet clinicians and scholars will unravel the mystery of what killed 69 year-old Herod the Great (or King Herod, as he is called in the Bibles New Testament) during this years historical Clinical Pathologic Conference (CPC) sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080555.htm
MEN WITH HIGHER LEVELS OF PCBS MORE LIKELY TO FATHER BOYS
A Michigan State University study indicating that men with higher levels of PCBs in their bodies are more likely to father boys than girls is more evidence of the effects environmental contaminants can have on the human body.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129073314.htm
NEW SATELLITE MAPS REVEAL WHERE IN THE WORLD LIGHTNING STRIKES
Lightning. It avoids the ocean, but likes Florida. It's likely to strike in the Himalayas and even more so in central Africa. And lightning almost never strikes the North or South Poles. These are just a few of the things NASA scientists at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) in Huntsville, Ala., have learned using satellites to monitor worldwide lightning.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129072912.htm
COAL FLYASH TESTED AS BUILDING BLOCK MATERIAL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are testing a new wall system utilizing an extremely lightweight concrete building material that could be used in wall systems of future construction of homes and businesses.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129073011.htm
FRAGMENTATION CAN MAKE SEEDLINGS WIMPY
New research shows that fragmentation of tropical forests can make trees wimpy. Seeds from isolated trees had less genetic diversity and were less likely to germinate, and the seedlings that did grow had smaller leaves. This is the first study of how forest fragmentation affects seedling quality.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129074347.htm
NEW THEORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF BIRD FLIGHT LINKED TO PARENTAL CARE
Modern birds evolved from ground-dwelling reptiles as their increasingly refined parenting skills led them into the trees, where they could better protect their young, proposes a researcher at the University of California, Davis.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130073659.htm
RESEARCH SHOWS WHY MORE SPECIES ARE BETTER FOR ECOSYSTEMS
A common water insect has helped University of Maryland researchers show that the health of an ecosystem depends on the variety of species that inhabit it, a discovery that could revolutionize how scientists look at the effects of species extinction.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130074549.htm
JOSEPHSON SYNTHESIZER CIRCUIT DEMONSTRATED
NIST researchers recently demonstrated sine-wave synthesis on three superconducting integrated circuit chips using palladium-gold barrier junctions. This is a major step toward the goal of developing a waveform synthesizerusing Josephson junctionswhich would provide precisely defined output voltages (up to one volt), frequencies (up to one gigahertz) and waveforms of any arbitrary shape.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130073759.htm
QUEEN'S RESEARCHERS DISCOVER PARADOX OF PAIN CONTROL; MORPHINE EFFECTIVENESS RESTORED TO BETWEEN 80 AND 90% OF ORIGINAL AMOUNT
A surprising discovery by researchers at Queen's University could lead to the development of more effective pain-killing drugs, with fewer side effects, for terminally ill patients or people suffering from chronic diseases such as cancer or severe pain due to nerve damage.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131074444.htm
WATER LILY MAY PROVIDE A "MISSING LINK" IN THE EVOLUTION OF FLOWERING PLANTS
One of the great mysteries of evolutionary biology is how, 150 or more million years ago, modern-day angiosperms (flowering plants) diverged from their closest relatives, the gymnosperms (seed-bearing plants without flowers, such as pine trees with pine cones). A developmental study of the water lily, Nuphar polysepalum, may provide an important clue.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131074924.htm
EARTH SCIENTISTS USE FRACTALS TO MEASURE AND PREDICT NATURAL DISASTERS
Predicting the size, location, and timing of natural hazards is virtually impossible, but now, earth scientists are able to forecast hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, and landslides using fractals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131073853.htm
HOW TO UNCLOG THE INTERNET? PUT IT IN REVERSE
A new computation technique, developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, could lead to more effective Internet traffic management and congestion control.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130074348.htm
2/4/02
8:20:13 PM
ON A SPOT SMALLER THAN A DIME, UNIVERSITY AT BUFFALO CHEMISTS PRINT SENSORS THAT MAY DETECT HUNDREDS OF CHEMICALS
By borrowing a page from the genomics revolution, University at Buffalo chemists have taken a major step toward placing hundreds, and possibly even thousands, of reusable chemical sensors in an area smaller than a dime.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080213.htm
NANOENCAPSULATION: CHEMISTS AT TSRI DISCOVER A NEW AND SIMPLE WAY OF CONTROLLING REACTIONS
A group of scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) were able to demonstrate complex system behavior among small, reacting organic molecules by putting them in and out of a nanocapsule.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080716.htm
NASA UNVEILS NEW "NATURAL HAZARDS" WEB SITE
NASA has unveiled a new Web site in which it publishes satellite images in near real time over natural hazards around the world. A new addition to NASA's Earth Observatory, the Natural Hazards section contains images and information about major environmental events that are potentially hazardous to human populations.
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128081112.htm
JAGUAR CONSERVATION SPOTTY
New research shows that the jaguar is in trouble in two-thirds of its historic range. Part of the problem is that jaguars live in 18 countries and there is no coordinated plan for conserving them -- such wide-ranging species need conservation plans that transcend political boundaries.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080643.htm
WHAT KILLED KING HEROD? SCHOLARS AT VA HEALTH CARE SYSTEM/ UM SCHOOL OF MEDICINE CONFERENCE UNRAVEL THE 2,000 YEAR-OLD MYSTERY
Historians remember him as a brutal, unpredictable, paranoid and cruel leader. During his 36-year bloody reign as king of ancient Judea, Herod the Great ordered the executions of one wife and three sons, and, in a vain attempt to destroy the infant Jesus, directed the infamous Slaughter of the Innocents. Its been more than 2,000 years since his death in 4 B.C., yet clinicians and scholars will unravel the mystery of what killed 69 year-old Herod the Great (or King Herod, as he is called in the Bibles New Testament) during this years historical Clinical Pathologic Conference (CPC) sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Maryland Health Care System and the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020128080555.htm
MEN WITH HIGHER LEVELS OF PCBS MORE LIKELY TO FATHER BOYS
A Michigan State University study indicating that men with higher levels of PCBs in their bodies are more likely to father boys than girls is more evidence of the effects environmental contaminants can have on the human body.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129073314.htm
NEW SATELLITE MAPS REVEAL WHERE IN THE WORLD LIGHTNING STRIKES
Lightning. It avoids the ocean, but likes Florida. It's likely to strike in the Himalayas and even more so in central Africa. And lightning almost never strikes the North or South Poles. These are just a few of the things NASA scientists at the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) in Huntsville, Ala., have learned using satellites to monitor worldwide lightning.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129072912.htm
COAL FLYASH TESTED AS BUILDING BLOCK MATERIAL
Oak Ridge National Laboratory researchers are testing a new wall system utilizing an extremely lightweight concrete building material that could be used in wall systems of future construction of homes and businesses.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129073011.htm
FRAGMENTATION CAN MAKE SEEDLINGS WIMPY
New research shows that fragmentation of tropical forests can make trees wimpy. Seeds from isolated trees had less genetic diversity and were less likely to germinate, and the seedlings that did grow had smaller leaves. This is the first study of how forest fragmentation affects seedling quality.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020129074347.htm
NEW THEORY OF THE EVOLUTION OF BIRD FLIGHT LINKED TO PARENTAL CARE
Modern birds evolved from ground-dwelling reptiles as their increasingly refined parenting skills led them into the trees, where they could better protect their young, proposes a researcher at the University of California, Davis.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130073659.htm
RESEARCH SHOWS WHY MORE SPECIES ARE BETTER FOR ECOSYSTEMS
A common water insect has helped University of Maryland researchers show that the health of an ecosystem depends on the variety of species that inhabit it, a discovery that could revolutionize how scientists look at the effects of species extinction.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130074549.htm
JOSEPHSON SYNTHESIZER CIRCUIT DEMONSTRATED
NIST researchers recently demonstrated sine-wave synthesis on three superconducting integrated circuit chips using palladium-gold barrier junctions. This is a major step toward the goal of developing a waveform synthesizerusing Josephson junctionswhich would provide precisely defined output voltages (up to one volt), frequencies (up to one gigahertz) and waveforms of any arbitrary shape.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130073759.htm
QUEEN'S RESEARCHERS DISCOVER PARADOX OF PAIN CONTROL; MORPHINE EFFECTIVENESS RESTORED TO BETWEEN 80 AND 90% OF ORIGINAL AMOUNT
A surprising discovery by researchers at Queen's University could lead to the development of more effective pain-killing drugs, with fewer side effects, for terminally ill patients or people suffering from chronic diseases such as cancer or severe pain due to nerve damage.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131074444.htm
WATER LILY MAY PROVIDE A "MISSING LINK" IN THE EVOLUTION OF FLOWERING PLANTS
One of the great mysteries of evolutionary biology is how, 150 or more million years ago, modern-day angiosperms (flowering plants) diverged from their closest relatives, the gymnosperms (seed-bearing plants without flowers, such as pine trees with pine cones). A developmental study of the water lily, Nuphar polysepalum, may provide an important clue.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131074924.htm
EARTH SCIENTISTS USE FRACTALS TO MEASURE AND PREDICT NATURAL DISASTERS
Predicting the size, location, and timing of natural hazards is virtually impossible, but now, earth scientists are able to forecast hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, wildfires, and landslides using fractals.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020131073853.htm
HOW TO UNCLOG THE INTERNET? PUT IT IN REVERSE
A new computation technique, developed by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, could lead to more effective Internet traffic management and congestion control.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020130074348.htm
2/4/02
7:55:07 PM
Davos For Beginners
by Michael Kinsley
The "Newcomers' Guide to the Annual Meeting 2002" kindly supplied by the World Economic Forum—aka "Davos"—is written in Globolog, the international language of self-regard, which is similar to English as translated from the original Japanese (perhaps by a European Union functionary in Brussels). "Please note: Sign-up cancellation is not possible. This can only be done at Sign-up Desks." It is impossible, but it can be done—at the appropriate desk. That's the spirit! If we all just put on gray suits and wander the hallways of the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York trying to look like the finance minister of Peru … why, there's nothing we cannot achieve. We can even "define, discuss and advance key issues on the global agenda."
When an organization parades under a slogan as magnificently banal as "Committed to Improving the State of the World," it is only natural to suspect that something less wholesome is going on. And when important-looking people from around the world gather on a mountaintop in Switzerland—or, this year, in the landscape of police barriers and checkpoints that ordinarily is Midtown Manhattan—to indulge in "plenary sessions" and other mystic rituals, it is easy enough to believe that this is indeed where the "rich and powerful" come to plot the fate of civilization.
Both the promoters and the critics of Davos are heavily invested in the idea that it is the Central Committee of the Universe. The promoters face the tricky challenge of pooh-poohing this myth without actually undermining it. Fortunately, Globolog is the perfect language for those special moments when you want to be earnest but unconvincing. Elitist? Nonsense: "The World Economic Forum has a long-standing policy of inclusion when it comes to non-government organizations and representatives of civil society, and is working to increase participation within these constituencies."
Yet the Newcomers' Guide is about as frank as Globolog can get about the real purpose of Davos: "Members contribute to the Forum's mission of improving the state of the world while benefiting from unique networking opportunities with other world leaders." One brilliant word transforms this sentence from mundane sales pitch to … really great sales pitch. That word, of course, is "other." There are some actual world leaders at Davos, but for most participants it is world leader fantasy camp (like the ones where baseball fanatics pay to attend a mock spring training with actual baseball has-beens). Bring plenty of business cards, the Guide advises, "as people often find that they lack sufficient supply." But do real world leaders hand out business cards? ("John Paul II. Pope. Jp2@vatican.org.")
"There are many possibilities to make yourself available to the media," breathes the Newcomers' Guide, pornographically. And for something a bit kinkier, there's the Garbo option: "Participants may inform the Forum's Media Team that they do not want to have contact with the media. Accordingly, no press conferences, interview requests or personal contact details will be given to journalists."
Journalists are like a drug. Davos invites more of us each year and gets more big-deal treatment as a result. But there's a media equivalent of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (which holds that the process of observing a scientific experiment can affect the result—or something like that): The more journalists you have hanging around and reporting that Davos is a secret confab of terribly important people, the less true it is. When the media reach a certain critical mass, they start mostly covering themselves.
Allow me to demonstrate.
The Newcomers' Guide is at its most Globologic in the section about the media. The anguish of needing while fearing journalists seeks relief in a comic frenzy of status distinctions. There are "two different types of journalists," the Guide explains. Print and broadcast? Good and evil? No, "Media Fellows and Reporting Press." Except for a Scarlet M, Media Fellows get treated as if they were real people. "They wear white badges on which 'media' is written and have full participant status."
But longtime white badges shouldn't feel too smug. The Guide continues mysteriously, "This year a revised and greatly improved group of Media Fellows and opinion-makers will be present at the Annual Meeting." It is not clear from this whether the individual Media Fellows have greatly improved or whether the selection process has improved to produce a better class of Fellows, but either interpretation is a pretty brutal insult to anyone who has been a Media Fellow before this year. Some of these folks have plenaried their little hearts out year after year to improve the state of the world, and this is the thanks they get?
Still, it could be worse. At least they're not Reporting Press. The Guide is witheringly dismissive. "Familiarly called 'Orange Badges' because of the colour of their badges"—thanks for that explanation, buddy—"are reporters who have limited access to the Meeting." Limited access, the Guide explains, means "they will not have access to … the Meeting venue." In other words they can't enter the building, but they're welcome to hang out with their own caste in a "Media Centre" across the street.
As a fellow journalist, I wish to express solidarity with these downtrodden members of my profession. Under our badges, are we not all the same? Has not an Orange Badge eyes? Ears, business cards, sources, a laptop computer? If you cut his piece, does he not whine?
Of course I have a white badge. The canons of journalistic ethics compel me to make this information available to you, the reader. Otherwise I wouldn't mention it since I don't care about such distinctions myself.
Source: http://www.Slate.com
2/4/02
7:50:49 PM
HHS Unveils 24/7 Plan to Track Patients
St. Paul, Minnesota-The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today released $1.1 billion and a plan to build government health surveillance systems in every state. The stated goal: to enhance public health infrastructure for bioterrorism preparedness. The plan: government access to 'everyone's' medical record through their hospitals and doctor's offices.
"The public was never consulted about this plan. The very idea that government officials plan to get a direct line into the medical records of patients should outrage citizens. Private medical records are not public data," said Twila Brase, R.N., president of Citizens' Council on Health Care (CCHC), a health care policy organization in St. Paul, Minnesota.
State must draw up a plan to present to HHS by no later than April 15, 2002. Sixteen criteria must be part of each state plan, including:
* Timeline for development of a state-wide plan for response to a bioterrorist event, infectious disease outbreak, or other public health emergency.
* Ability to receive and evaluate urgent disease reports from all parts of the jurisdiction on a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week basis.
* Communication systems that provide a 24/7 flow of critical health information between hospital emergency departments, State and local health officials, and law enforcement.
"The HHS plan represents a greater danger to patients than bioterrorism," said Brase. "Just knowing government officials and police officers will receive patient data without patient consent will change the way patients interact with the health care system. They may not tell their doctors the whole story. They may come for care too late. They may receive the wrong diagnoses, the wrong treatment, the wrong advice."
Legislative requirements for meeting HHS criteria were built into the Model Emergency State 'Health Powers Act' released in October by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Act, now under consideration in 'all' 50 State legislatures, requires ongoing 'reporting' by health care 'providers' and 'pharmacists to the state public health department'. It also permits epidemiological research 'without' patient consent, at 'both' the state and federal level.
"This plan is 'not just about bioterrorism'. HHS officials plan to use patients for medical research 'without' their consent," said Brase. "Public health officials have long expressed a desire to 'track and tag the entire population'. They hope September 11th will make their dreams come true."
CCHC is an independent non-profit health care policy organization located in St. Paul, Minnesota
Citizens' Council on Health Care
1954 University Ave. W., Suite 8
St. Paul, MN 55104
CONTACT:Twila Brase, R.N., President
PHONE: 651-646-8935
2/4/02
7:46:12 PM
The Colder War
by John Pilger
LAST week, the US government announced that it was building the biggest-ever war machine. Military spending will rise to $379billion, of which $50billion will pay for its "war on terrorism".
There will be special funding for new, refined weapons of mass slaughter and for "military operations" - invasions of other countries.
Of all the extraordinary news since September 11, this is the most alarming. It is time to break our silence.
That is to say, it is time for other governments to break their silence, especially the Blair government, whose complicity in the American rampage in Afghanistan has not denied its understanding of the Bush administration's true plans and ambitions.
The recent statements of British Ministers about the "vindication" of the "outstanding success" in Afghanistan would be comical if the price of their "success" had not been paid with the lives of more than 5,000 innocent Afghani civilians and the failure to catch Osama bin Laden and anyone else of importance in the al-Qaeda network.
The Pentagon's release of deliberately provocative pictures of prisoners at Camp X-Ray on Cuba was meant to conceal this failure from the American public, who are being conditioned, along with the rest of us, to accept a permanent war footing similar to the paranoia that sustained and prolonged the Cold War.
The threat of "terrorism", some of it real, most of it invented, is the new Red Scare.
The parallels are striking.
IN AMERICA in the 1950s, the Red Scare was used to justify the growth of war industries, the suspension of democratic rights and the silencing of dissenters.
That is happening now.
Above all, the American industrial-complex has a new enemy with which to justify its gargantuan appetite for public resources - the new military budget is enough to end all primary causes of poverty in the world.
Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, says he has told the Pentagon to "think the unthinkable".
Vice President Dick Cheney, the voice of Bush, has said the US is considering military or other action against "40 to 50 countries" and warns that the new war may last 50 years or more.
A Bush adviser, Richard Perle, explained. "(There will be) no stages," he said.
"This is total war. We are fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them out there ... If we just let our vision of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war, our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Their words evoke George Orwell's great prophetic work, Nineteen Eighty-Four.
In the novel, three slogans dominate society: war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignorance is strength.
Today's slogan, war on terrorism, also reverses meaning. The war is terrorism.
The next American attack is likely to be against Somalia, a deeply impoverished country in the Horn of Africa.
Washington claims there are al-Qaeda terrorist cells there.
This is almost certainly a fiction spread by Somalia's overbearing neighbour, Ethiopia, in order to ingratiate itself with Washington. Certainly, there are vast oil fields off the coast of Somalia.
For the Americans, there is the added attraction of "settling a score".
In 1993, in the last days of George Bush Senior's presidency, 18 American soldiers were killed in Somalia after the US Marines had invaded to "restore hope", as they put it.
A current Hollywood movie, Black Hawk Down, glamorises and lies about this episode.
It leaves out the fact that the invading Americans left behind between 7,000 and 10,000 Somalis killed.
Like the victims of American bombing in Afghanistan, and Iraq, and Cambodia, and Vietnam and many other stricken countries, the Somalis are unpeople, whose deaths have no political and media value in the West.
WHEN Bush Junior's heroic marines return in their Black Hawk gunships, loaded with technology, looking for "terrorists", their victims will once again be nameless. We can then expect the release of Black Hawk Down II.
Breaking our silence means not allowing the history of our lifetimes to be written this way, with lies and the blood of innocent people. To understand the lie of what Blair/Straw/Hoon call the "outstanding success" in Afghanistan, read the work of the original author of "Total War", a man called Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was President Carter's National Security Adviser and is still a powerful force in Washington.
Brzezinski not long ago revealed that on July 3, 1979, unknown to the American public and Congress, President Jimmy Carter secretly authorised $500million to create an international terrorist movement that would spread Islamic fundamentalism in Central Asia and "destabilise" the Soviet Union.
The CIA called this Operation Cyclone and in the following years poured $4billion into setting up Islamic training schools in Pakistan (Taliban means "student").
Young zealots were sent to the CIA's spy training camp in Virginia, where future members of al-Qaeda were taught "sabotage skills" - terrorism.
Others were recruited at an Islamic school in Brooklyn, New York, within sight of the fated Twin Towers.
In Pakistan, they were directed by British MI6 officers and trained by the SAS.
The result, quipped Brzezinski, was "a few stirred up Muslims" - meaning the Taliban.
At that time, the late 1970s, the American goal was to overthrow Afghanistan's first progressive, secular government, which had granted equal rights to women, established health care and literacy programmes and set out to break feudalism.
When the Taliban seized power in 1996, they hanged the former president from a lamp-post in Kabul.
His body was still a public spectacle when Clinton administration officials and oil company executives were entertaining Taliban leaders in Washington and Houston, Texas.
The Wall Street Journal declared: "The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace. Moreover, they were crucial to secure the country as a prime trans-shipment route for the export of Central Asia's vast oil, gas and other natural resources."
NO AMERICAN newspaper dares suggest that the prisoners in Camp X-Ray are the product of this policy, nor that it was one of the factors that led to the attacks of September 11.
Nor do they ask: who were the real winners of September 11?
The day the Wall Street stockmarket opened after the destruction of the Twin Towers, the few companies showing increased value were the giant military contractors Alliant Tech Systems, Northrop Gruman, Raytheon (a contributor to New Labour) and Lockheed Martin.
As the US military's biggest supplier, Lockheed Martin's share value rose by a staggering 30 per cent.
Within six weeks of September 11, the company (with its main plant in Texas, George Bush's home state) had secured the biggest military order in history: a $200billion contract to develop a new fighter aircraft. The greatest taboo of all, which Orwell would surely recognise, is the record of the United States as a terrorist state and haven for terrorists.
This truth is virtually unknown by the American public and makes a mockery of Bush's (and Blair's) statements about "tracking down terrorists wherever they are".
They don't have to look far.
Florida, currently governed by the President's brother, Jeb Bush, has given refuge to terrorists who, like the September 11 gang, have hi-jacked aircraft and boats with guns and knives.
Most have never had criminal charges brought against them.
Why? All of them are anti-Castro Cubans. Former Guatemalan Defence Minister Gramajo Morales, who was accused of "devising and directing an indiscriminate campaign of terror against civilians", including the torture of an American nun and the massacre of eight people from one family, studied at Harvard University on a US government scholarship.
During the 1980s, thousands of people were murdered by death squads connected to the army of El Salvador, whose former chief now lives comfortably in Florida.
The former Haitian dictator, General Prosper Avril, liked to display the bloodied victims of his torture on television.
When he was overthrown, he was flown to Florida by the US government, and granted political asylum.
A leading member of the Chilean military during the reign of General Pinochet, whose special responsibility was executions and torture, lives in Miami.
THE Iranian general who ran Iran's notorious prisons, is a wealthy exile in the US.
One of Pol Pot's senior henchmen, who enticed Cambodian exiles back to their certain death, lives in Mount Vernon, New York.
What all these people have in common, apart from their history of terrorism, is that they either worked directly for the US government or carried out the dirty work of US policies.
The al-Qaeda training camps are kindergartens compared with the world's leading university of terrorism at Fort Benning in Georgia. Known until recently as the School of the Americas, its graduates include almost half the cabinet ministers of the genocidal regimes in Guatemala, two thirds of the El Salvadorean army officers who committed, according to the United Nations, the worst atrocities of that country's civil war, and the head of Pinochet's secret police, who ran Chile's concentration camps.
There is terrible irony at work here. The humane response of people all over the world to the terrorism of September 11 has long been hijacked by those running a rapacious great power with a history of terrorism second to none. Global supremacy, not the defeat of terrorism, is the goal; only the politically blind believe otherwise.
The "widening gap between the world's "haves" and "have nots", says a remarkably candid document of the US Space Command, presents "new challenges" to the world's superpower and which can only be met by "Full Spectrum Dominance" - dominance of land, sea, air and space.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/page.cfm?objectid=11574035&method=full
2/4/02
7:45:42 PM
John Ashcroft's Perilous Nipples - In Which the Desperately Dour Attorney General Covers up Justice and Law, Appropriately
by Mark Morford
Sometimes it's the small stabs of meaty, ugly irony that provide the strongest jolts of pleasure, the most potent whiffs of toe-curling perspective and soul-curdling karmic vinegar.
Sometimes it's stories as tiny and seemingly insignificant as Attorney General and noted McCarthy sycophant John Ashcroft, a ferociously religious and wildly troubled, apparently sexless, desperately conservative ball of walking disgust with no discernable pulse but that's just an opinion, ordering his very own Justice Department to spend $8,000 to purchase heavy blue drapes to cover the two large, noble, partially naked statues that have adorned the department's Great Hall since the 1930s.
Because he doesn't like to be photographed in front of them, is why. Because they're partially naked. Because the female statue, the Spirit of Justice, has a single, full, apparently very lawless breast exposed, unashamed and openly nipply and dwarfing our dear militant anti-everything Power Ranger when he's trying to look all serious and asexual and tough.
Because part of the male statue, the Majesty of Law, is also partially exposed and probably very buff and assumedly poor John just can't concentrate on the more pressing matters of the nation like how to best illegally detain immigrants and wiretap your phone and set up illegal war tribunals and openly hate all you gay people and women when those pesky pornographic icons are looming over him like scary naked sinful beasts of scary naked sin.
Not when photographers are always gleefully vying for the best angle from which to snap pictures of John's famously depressing and leathery scowl with a large well-shaped bronze female nipple in the background.
You may think it unfair to pull a broader message from this tiny and relatively sweet incident. You may think Ashcroft's gesture does not necessarily bespeak some sort of larger truth about the current administration, its value system, the direction of the country, the overall misogynistic, monastic, dangerously unprogressive, hypocritical attitude of our leaders as a whole, or how we are enjoying at this very moment what is easily the most conservative, sexually terrified, ill-humored, anti-choice regime in 50 years.
You would be wrong.
Because it's exactly the tiny and seemingly irrelevant details that reveal the true nature of a person, an administration, a viewpoint, a dogma. Sometimes. Like this time.
Sure it's easy to condemn, say, the shockingly insulting USA Patriot Act, with its appalling arsenal of civil liberties-bashing provisions and outright displays of unconstitutional, jingoistic paranoia, the hugely increased authority of the FBI and CIA, expanded police powers, reduced rights of the accused to discuss their cases with their lawyers, in private.
Sure it's easy to poke at Shrub for trumpeting the new National Sanctity of Life Day for the benefit of the antichoice movement when only China executes more people than his own home state and he goes to sleep every night dreaming of Tomahawk missiles raining down on Afghanistan, killing innocents in decrepit villages and making the world safe again for puppet governments and oil pipelines.
These are large and obvious targets. Lynne Cheney creating a blacklist of American academics who don't openly support the war and believe her husband is sort of creepy and ashen and probably not fully alive? Easy. Powell looking soul-sucked and lifeless, drained of all intellectual balance and moderation? Done.
Ken Lay stuffing Enron documents down the shredder as fast as his hoofed appendages can muster while breathlessly dialing Cheney's bunker with his nose as his wife goes on "Today" to lament the loss of the Range Rover to personal bankruptcy while claiming that her husband had no idea about all the siphoned billions and the gutted retirement accounts he himself orchestrated? Big as a house.
But life is in the details, honeychile, and while the larger atrocities can sometimes be explained away as blatantly vicious power-grabs or necessary evils in this time of unnecessary war -- or even as openly hypocritical political maneuverings given how the Demos ain't exactly unsoiled humanitarian angels either -- we must sometimes look to the small intellectual bludgeonings for our proofs.
And here you have it. Eight grand to cover some statues that have stood for upwards of 70 years, representing the ideals of justice and law. Erected before Ashcroft was even born. Endured through some 13 presidents and countless polishings. And now, all covered up. Your tax dollars at work.
Ashcroft's gesture is merely a painful reminder, really, a very clear signal that you are absolutely correct to be suffering that deep unsettling feeling that absolutely no open-minded or otherwise constructive trails are being blazed by this administration.
No progressive ideas are being forwarded, no improved status for women or gays or minorities, no sense that the nation is in good hands or that we as a country can at last quit being so Janus-faced and hypocritical about sex and art and justice as a whole. Let's just cover that right up, shall we?
And as for Ashcroft himself, well, clearly it's entirely appropriate that the statues symbolizing Justice and Law be hidden in his presence.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. He also writes the Morning Fix, a deeply skewed daily email column and newsletter. Subscribe at sfgate.com/newsletters/
Source: http://www.sfgate.com
2/4/02
7:16:34 PM
George W. In The Garden Of Gethsemane
An Open Letter to George W. Bush From Michael Moore
Dear George,
When it's all over in a couple months, and you're packing up your pretzels and Spot and heading back to Texas, what will be your biggest regret? Not getting out more often and seeing the sights around Rock Creek Park? Never once visiting the newly-renovated IKEA in Woodbridge, Virginia? Or buying your way to the White House with money from a company that committed the biggest corporate swindle in American history? I got a feeling you didn't miss much by not spending an entire Saturday afternoon assembling a Swedish bookcase -- but you should have known that there was no way you would ever finish your term by hopping into bed with Kenneth Lay.
It's kind of sad when you think about it. Here you were -- the most popular president ever! -- the recipient of so much good will from your fellow Americans after September 11, and then you had to go and blow it. You just couldn't stay away from your old cowpoke friend from Texas, Kenneth Lay.
Kenny has always been there for you. You needed a way to fly around to all the primaries and campaign stops in the 2000 election -- so Kenny gave you his corporate jet. Did you tell the voters when you arrived in each city that the bird you flew in on was from a billionaire who was secretly conspiring to give the bird to all his employees and investors? He flew you around America on the Enron company jet, and for that favor you touched down on tarmac after tarmac to tell your fellow citizens that you were "going to restore dignity to the White House, the people's house." You said this standing in front of an Enron jet!
Man, you loved Lay so much, you not only affectionately referred to him as "Kenny Boy," you interrupted an important campaign trip in April, 2000, to fly back to Houston for the Astro's opening day at the new Enron Field -- just so you could watch Kenny Boy Lay throw out the first pitch. How sentimental!
I mean, you loved this man so intensely that, when you were awarded a set of keys the Supreme Court had made for you so you could live in the White House, you invited Kenny Boy to set up shop -- at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue! He interviewed those who would hold high-level Energy Department positions in your administration.
You not only let Kenny Boy decide who would head the regulatory agency that oversaw Enron, you let him hand-pick the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt -- a former lawyer for his accountant, Arthur Andersen! Kenny and the boys at Andersen also worked to make sure that accounting firms would be exempt from numerous regulations and would not be held liable for any "funny bookkeeping" (don't you wish you were this forward-thinking?).
The rest of Kenny Boy's time was spent next door with his old buddy, Dick Cheney (Enron and Halliburton, as you'll recall, got the big contracts from your dad to "rebuild" Kuwait after the Gulf War). Lay and Dick formed an "energy task force" (Operation Enduring Graft) which put together the county's new "energy policy." This policy then went on to shut down every light bulb and juicer in the state of California. And guess who made out like bandits while "trading" the energy California was in desperate need of? Kenny Boy and Enron! No wonder Big Dick doesn't want to turn over the files about those special meetings with Lay!
The only thing that surprises me more than all the Enron henchmen who ended up in your cabinet and administration is how our lazy media just rolled over and didn't report it. The list of Enron people on your payroll is impressive. Lawrence Lindsey, your chief economic advisor? A former advisor at Enron! Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill? Former CEO of Alcoa, whose lobbying firm, Vinson and Elkins, was the #3 contributor to the your campaign! Who is Vinson and Elkins? The law firm representing Enron! Who is Alcoa? The top polluter in Texas. Timothy White, the Secretary of the Army? A former vice-chair of Enron Energy! Robert Zoellick, your Federal Trade Representative? A former advisor at Enron! Karl Rove, your main man at the White House? He owned a quarter-million dollars of Enron stock.
Then there's the Enron lawyer you have nominated to be a federal judge in Texas, the Enron lobbyist who is your chair of the Republican Party, the two Enron officials who now work for House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, and the wife of Texas Senator Phil Gramm who sits on Enron's board. And there's the aforementioned Mr. Pitt, the former Arthur Andersen attorney whose job it is now as SEC head to oversee the stock markets. George, it never stops!
My fingers are getting tired typing all this up -- and there's lots more.
Don't get me wrong, George -- I do not think you're an evil man. You don't need any crap from people like me -- heck, you got mother-in-law problems! Now, I have a very good relationship with my mother-in-law, but then, I never told her to put $8,000 of her money into a company my administration knew was going belly-up.
You say you didn't know? Your bag man -- Don Evans, the man who squeezed all that money for you from Enron as your campaign finance chairman (and is now collecting his reward as your Commerce Secretary) -- has admitted that he got calls from Enron begging for help last year because they were going under. Didn't he tell you this?
Then Paul O'Neill, your Treasury Secretary, admitted that Enron and Kenny Boy called him, too, for some special favors to save Enron. Didn't he mention this to you? They claim to have called your chief of staff, Andrew Card, and he said he didn't bother to inform you. What does your mother-in-law think about these boys her daughter's husband consorts with?
I love watching the O'Neill and Evans show. What a couple of cut-ups! They're, like, all proud of themselves for "not doing Enron any favors." Actually, I think it's more like they didn't do your MOTHER-IN-LAW any favors. Enron got LOTS of favors. And why not? Kenny Boy has been your number one financial backer since you ran for governor. No other American or Saudi has given you more money than Kenny Boy and his gang at Enron. O'Neill, Evans, Cheney, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham -- ALL of them gave Lay and Enron special favors from day one. The New York Times last May was so concerned about how Kenny had the run of the place (1600 Pennsylvania Ave.), they referred to Lay as the "shadow advisor to the president."
And what advice! Who was it that wanted you to deregulate the energy industry further? Kenny Boy! Who was it that convinced you to explore the sick idea of PRIVATIZING our water supply and then allow private corporations to "trade" it in the future? Kenny Boy! Who was it that wanted Social Security to be tied to the stock market? Yup, Kenny Boy! (Imagine, if you will, what would have happened to our precious Social Security funds had they been invested in Enron stocks as you, George, suggested be done during your campaign as yuppies everywhere clucked along in agreement over that genius idea.)
O'Neill's and Evans's admission that they "did nothing" when Enron told them of the company's shell game and impending collapse is reason enough for you and yours to hit the Beltway and never return to that sacred trust we call Our American Government. They are proud of "doing nothing?" By doing nothing, millions of Americans have been swindled. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs. Thousands more have lost their savings and their retirement. Yet your cabinet secretaries gloat over what a "good job" you and they did by "doing nothing."
Let me ask you this: If someone was setting a house on fire, and they called you to help them set it on fire, and you said no you wouldn't help them -- BUT then you also DIDN'T call 911 and inform the police that someone was going to burn down a house, do you think you would have committed a crime?
Of course you would have! You had prior knowledge and then you knowingly and purposefully HID this information from the authorities and the people living in the house! You only admitted that you knew a house was going to be torched when you were confronted by the police. Are you complicit? Yes! Are you an accessory? Yes! Who would even think of going around boasting, "Hey, look what a great guy I am -- a friend of mine told me he was going to commit an act of arson, and then I decided NOT to tell ANYONE about it!!
WHOO-HOO!!"
Enron and Kenny Boy bought your silence and the silence of your cabinet members. You yourself didn't have to actually raid the 401(k) accounts of those poor people in Houston (many of whom probably voted for you every time your name was on a ballot). All you had to do was remain silent, change the government regulations that let them get away with it, and install their hand-picked cronies to sit on the "oversight" boards which were supposed to be keeping an eye on them.
While doing all this, you told the American people that these rich friends of yours were not getting any special breaks -- when, in fact, Enron had already scammed their way out of paying NO taxes in four out of the last five years. Your economic "stimulus" bill that you got the House to pass after 9-11 had a section that would give Enron a gift of $250 million of our tax money. You were pushing this bill in November and December, long after your administration knew that Enron was raiding the vault and screwing its workers and investors.
You and your Republican friends are quick to point out that Enron had their claws into the Democrats as well. Yes, they did, and thank you for making the case why we not only need an alternative to the current make-up of the Democratic Party, we need private money removed from our electoral process ASAP.
But, George, let's be real -- the Democrats only got a pittance from Enron compared to the millions you and the Republicans received. Democrats just don't have the killer instinct to do anything right, and they certainly don't know much about making money the old-fashioned way, one off-shore tax shelter at a time. I would expect nothing less from a Party that couldn't even put their candidate in the White House after he had already won the election.
The Democrats are like a Yugo -- you know it won't last long or work well, but it will occasionally get the job done. Fat cats know they can buy the Democrats at discount prices, and so they do. Anyone who tries to deflect this scandal away from you, George, or away from the Republicans, or away from the whole dirty way we elect our leaders, is someone who is desperately trying to cling to what's left of a very crooked system that has to go and go now.
The saddest part of this whole affair was the day the scandal was revealed -- and you denied that you even knew your good friend, Kenneth Lay. "Ken who?" you said. Oh, he's just some businessman from Texas. "Heck, he backed my opponent for governor, Ann Richards!" was your way of trying to deflect the truth that was hitting you like a Mack truck. You knew that he, in fact, endorsed YOU and gave you THREE times the money Ann Richards ever saw from him.
I hardly ever talk to the guy, you said. You were like Peter outside the walls of Herod after they grabbed J.C. from the Garden of Gethsemane. Three times he denied he knew Jesus, and three times the cock crowed. But Peter, unlike you, felt shame and wept, and then ran away.
What shame do you feel tonight, George, for the lies you have told? What shame do you feel using the dead of 9-11 as a cover for your actions, hoping that our sorrow for those lost souls and our fear of being killed by terrorists would distract us from what your boys and Kenny Boy were up to during those horrific weeks in September and October?
It was during those very days, while the rest of us were in shock and sadness, that the executives at Enron were selling off their stock and shifting assets to their 900 phony partnerships overseas. Did they notice the remains of the dead being pulled from the rubble while they were downloading their millions, or were their eyes glued only to the bottom third of the TV screen as the stock ticker with the rigged Enron price crawled across the images of firemen desperate, in tears, to find their fallen brothers?
The country was behind you when you said you were fighting the evildoers who did this. In fact, all the while, the real fight your friends at Enron were conducting was the fight against the clock, to see how fast they could transfer all the loot to their personal accounts and run away. Those were the evildoers, George, and you knew it. And because you, by design or negligence, allowed this to happen, it is time for you to resign. The cock has crowed for the last time.
At the very least, your mother-in-law deserves better.
Yours,
Michael Moore
American
Son-in-Law
Owner of 7th LARGEST COMPANY IN AMERICA! (revised ranking)
2/4/02
7:13:04 PM
Did 'Rogue' US Agent Vreeland Warn CSIS Of September 11?
by Frank Editor
The admission that the death of a Canadian diplomat in Moscow was murder may lend credence to the fantastic story arising from an extradition case in Toronto, in which a man claiming to be a US Naval intelligence officer says he warned the RCMP and CSIS of the September 11 attacks months in advance.
Delmart Edward Vreeland claims he travelled to Moscow in the Fall of 2000 to obtain military documents regarding Russian counter-measures to US anti-missile defence. His purpose was to see they got into the hands of CSIS, and to fool Ottawa into believing it was a Canadian discovery, so Canada and other allies might be inclined to drop their objections to "Star Wars."
His contact was a "systems analyst," Marc Bastien, said to be a CSIS agent working out of the embassy. Vreeland says he sensed something fishy with a Russian go-between, and handed over a dummy bag before travelling to Toronto, where he was arrested on December 6 on an immigration warrant.
Only days after Vreeland's arrest by Toronto police, Bastien was found dead in Moscow. Though he was only 35, the death was attributed to "natural causes." The body was returned to Canada for autopsy. Sources with the Mounties have since confirmed that Bastien indeed was murdered.
Among the Russian documents Vreeland says he retrieved was one describing impending terrorist attacks in the United States, naming Osama bin Laden as an agent and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as likely targets.
Vreeland, with his lawyer, Paul Slansky, took the information to both CSIS and the RCMP last summer, but he was blown off as a crank.
The US Navy claim that Vreeland was discharged in the mid-80s, having failed boot camp, but there is evidence to suggest the military is altering his service record. For example, in a phone conversation recorded from jail in August-before, Vreeland contends, his entire record could be wiped from the system - he is clearly told by a petty officer at a US naval base that computer files confirm his rank as Lieutenant. An impossibility if he'd dropped out of boot camp.
If his claim is true, then why is the US hounding this man, and why does he fear for his life if he is extradited? Perhaps because Russian foreknowledge of September 11th is a can of worms best left unopened.
http://www.frankmag.net/storydetails.asp?storyid=93
From Eyes On America editor@eyesonamerica.org
2/4/02
7:11:03 PM
Did Jailed 'Spy' In Canada Predict The 911 Attacks On America?
by Nick Pron Staff Reporter The Toronto Star Page B-3 10-23-1
While jet fighters drop bombs on Afghanistan in the wake of the World Trade Center tragedy and FBI agents search for the source of anthrax letters, an incredible tale has been unfolding in a Toronto courtroom.
It draws together the threads of a narrative some describe as "stunning and fantastic," while others wonder if it isn't just the ravings of a lunatic.
The man telling the tale in sworn court affidavits is Delmart Edward Vreeland, who faces credit fraud charges in Canada and in the United States, where officials are attempting to extradite him.
The 35-year-old American claims to be a lieutenant in a U.S. Navy intelligence unit - a spy who says he knew in advance about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In his affidavit, he says he tried to warn Canadian intelligence about possible terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, along with targets in Ottawa and Toronto, but was written off as a petty criminal.
So he wrote the warning on a piece of paper, sealed it in an envelope, and handed it to jail guards a month before the attacks. They opened the letter Sept. 14 and immediately forwarded the information to Ottawa.
His lawyers, Rocco Galati and Paul Slansky, are fighting extradition, telling the court he could face treason charges and the death penalty in the U.S.
In the first stage of hearings, federal prosecutor Kevin Wilson yesterday told Mr. Justice Archie Campbell of the Superior Court of Justice that he was skeptical of Vreeland's claims.
"Is his story possible? I can't go so far as to say it's not possible, but it's not plausible," Wilson said.
The prosecutor said he has seen no evidence to back Vreeland's claim that Canadian embassy official Marc Bastien was murdered in Moscow in December. Canadian officials said the 35-year-old computer specialist died of natural causes.
So, who is Delmart Edward Joseph Michael Vreeland II?
According to court documents, Vreeland was 18 when he enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1984.
Two years later, Vreeland says in his affidavit, he joined a special unit investigating drug smuggling into the U.S. by naval personnel. But the navy says Vreeland was "unsatisfactorily discharged" in 1986.
Vreeland also claims he gathered information on a crime family in Detroit and testified against them in 1998.
Late last year, he says, he came to Canada to help smuggle Russian military secrets out of Moscow, including Russia's plan to counter the American 'Star Wars' missile defence system. While in Moscow, Vreeland says, he met Bastien.
Vreeland was arrested by a police fugitive squad nine months ago. While in Toronto (Don) Jail, he met Nestor Fonseca, who was facing drug smuggling charges and extradition to the U.S. The court documents say Fonseca allegedly told Vreeland of his plans to kill a Toronto judge and others. Fonseca was charged with counselling to commit murder.
Galati and Slansky said in the documents that Vreeland should be put into the witness protection program in Canada because he is the main witness against Fonseca.
Galati writes in one document: "Neither myself, nor Mr. Slansky ... have seen anything as incomprehensibly frustrating, inexplicable and irresponsibly absurd. as the RCMP's position that they are not interested in reviewing Mr. Vreeland's information."
It would appear, Galati says in the brief, that the Canadian and American governments have written Vreeland off as a "nut case," which he says is a "patently absurd conclusion."
With files from Donovan Vincent
2/4/02
7:01:11 PM
Canada Court Case Reveals UN Naval Officer Had Advance Knowledge Of 911 Attacks A White Knight Talking Backwards
by Michael C. Ruppert
TOROTNO (FTW) - Delmart Edward "Mike" Vreeland, an American citizen whose claims to being a US Naval Lieutenant assigned to the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) are being increasingly corroborated in open court, has been in a Canadian jail since December 6, 2000. On August 11 or 12 of 2001, the date is uncertain, after trying to verbally alert his Canadian jailers to the coming World Trade Center attacks, he wrote down key information and sealed it in an envelope which he then had placed in jailers' custody. This event is not disputed by Canadian authorities. The letter specifically listed a number of targets including The Sears Towers, The World Trade Center, The White House, The Pentagon, The World Bank, The Canadian parliament building in Ottawa and the Royal Bank in Toronto.
A chilling sentence follows the list of targets, "Let one happen. Stop the rest!!!"
When the envelope was opened on September 14th it set off alarms in the US and Canada.
The US wants Vreeland back in the States on a Michigan warrant for credit card fraud - using his own credit card. Vreeland, convinced that a return to the US means certain death, wants to stay in Canada in a witness protection program. His lawyers Rocco Galati and Paul Slansky, two former Canadian prosecutors, agree with Vreeland's assessment. They should. Both have been the victims of harassment and threats including dead cats hung on porches and car windows smashed out in car burglaries.
The position of the United States government, as represented by Crown Solicitors in Toronto, is that all of this is nonsense. Vreeland, says the Navy, was discharged as a Seaman after a few months of service for unsatisfactory performance in 1986. He has never had anything to do with intelligence according to 1200 pages of Navy records filed in Toronto Superior Court.
"How is it," says Galati, "that the Navy says that he was only in the service a few months and then send us a 1200 page personnel file? Some of the entries are obvious forgeries or alterations and the sanitizing of his records was done so hurriedly that some dates of medical exams in the 1990s were left intact."
In a January 10, 2002 tactic worthy of Perry Mason, with the greatest possible risk to his client if it failed, attorney Slansky got the judge to agree to let him call the Pentagon from open court. Using a speaker phone, in front of at least six witnesses, Slansky first dialed directory information and got a number for the Pentagon switchboard. Then, calling that number he asked the Department of Defense operator to locate the office of Lt. Delmart Vreeland. Within moments the operator had confirmed Vreeland's posting, his rank as a Lieutenant O-3, his room number and given Slansky his direct-dial number.
All of this is a part of the court record.
On January 17, as this writer sat in the courtroom, another mind-numbing event occurred.
As Vreeland sat shackled in a corner, closely flanked by two guards, the Crown Solicitor sought to debunk Vreeland's assertions that he had been assigned to travel to Moscow to review and retrieve highly technical and classified documents pertaining to Russian and Chinese efforts to counter the proposed US "Star Wars" missile defense system. [Ed note: FTW believes this to be a cover story.] "Why," said the Crown Solicitor, "would the US choose, in a case involving some of the most highly technical intelligence, a random seaman with training in the tool and die field." The point that someone discharged in 1986 with no special training and rank would be sent to review technical documents sounded reasonable - assuming that Vreeland's background was as the Solicitor argued.
The reasonableness vanished a few moments later as the Crown Solicitor argued that Vreeland, who has been in jail and without access to a computer for thirteen months, had somehow cracked the Pentagon's personnel records and inserted his name, an office number, and telephone extension into the Pentagon database.
No one except for Vreeland and attorney Galati seemed to notice the contradiction.
The Crown Solicitor ventured further through the looking glass by then arguing that Vreeland, having certain papers in his possession at the time of his arrest, had memorized Russian and Albanian documents and then had translated them from memory. Vreeland doesn't speak Russian or Albanian. The judge, noticing this stretch of credibility, asked the Solicitor to restate the point. The argument then became that Vreeland had an unnamed colleague go to an unspecified web site, print Russian and Albanian documents for him, and then used foreign language dictionaries to translate them.
Vreeland's extradition process could take years and his time in jail has not been easy. There have been threats, illnesses and his every move is watched. Galati and Slansky wonder how long his psyche will hold up. The history of jailhouse deaths of key witnesses leans heavily in favor of Vreeland's belief that he could be killed at any moment. His apparent strategy is to not reveal any accurate Top Secret material to either his lawyers or the press, hoping that his silence will provide him with some support from US clandestine services. This a standard approach taken in dozens of similar cases researched by FTW in the past They include the cases - well known in research circles - of William Tyree and Michael Riconosciuto. Tyree has been jailed on a questionable murder conviction since 1979 and Riconosciuto on a variety or drug-related charges since the early 1990s. Both men have been directly connected to CIA and other intelligence operations by official documents.
"We don't need to know and we don't want to know the secret details, "says Galati. "They're not necessary for us to do the job of keeping our client alive and in Canada. He faces a special danger in the US because he has also been an informant against an organized crime family in Michigan where the criminal charges originate. The most he is facing there is two years but we believe he might not live for two days in that system."
Additional press reports indicate that Vreeland's intelligence work was connected to drug smuggling - a much more likely reason for his trip to Moscow. And the history of the relations between Naval Intelligence and the mafia is documented as far back as the Second World War when ONI officers made deals with convicted mafia don Lucky Luciano and his lieutenant Vito Genovese to protect New York docks and assist with the subsequent Allied invasion and occupation of Italy.
Mike Vreeland is one man who, in a rational world, could totally expose the complicity of the US government in the attacks of September 11th. No one has disputed what he wrote and stuffed into that envelope. In a rational world that would be the most pressing and public inquiry of all. The two questions remaining are whether Vreeland will live and whether or not he will ever tell what he knows. That may be a mutually exclusive proposition.
FTW has retained the services of freelance journalist Greta Knutsen in Toronto to report on developments in this critical case for our subscribers. Important updates will be posted and sent out via subscriber bulletin to our readers as they become available.
The Warning Written by Mike Vreeland Before 9-11:
http://www.copvcia.com/free/ww3/01_28_02_vreeland.jpg
2/4/02
6:57:12 PM
Is human evolution finally over?
Scientists are split over the theory that natural selection has come to a standstill in the West. Robin McKie reports
Sunday February 3, 2002 The Observer
For those who dream of a better life, science has bad news: this is the best it is going to get. Our species has reached its biological pinnacle and is no longer capable of changing.
That is the stark, controversial view of a group of biologists who believe a Western lifestyle now protects humanity from the forces that used to shape Homo sapiens.
'If you want to know what Utopia is like, just look around - this is it,' said Professor Steve Jones, of University College London, who is to present his argument at a Royal Society Edinburgh debate, 'Is Evolution Over?', next week. 'Things have simply stopped getting better, or worse, for our species.'
This view is controversial, however. Other scientists argue that mankind is still being influenced by the evolutionary forces that created the myriad species which have inhabited Earth over the past three billion years.
'If you had looked at Stone Age people in Europe a mere 50,000 years ago, you would assume the trend was for people to get bigger and stronger all the time,' said Prof Chris Stringer, of the Natural History Museum, London. 'Then, quite abruptly, these people were replaced by light, tall, highly intelligent people who arrived from Africa and took over the world. You simply cannot predict evolutionary events like this. Who knows where we are headed?'
Some scientists believe humans are becoming less brainy and more neurotic; others see signs of growing intelligence and decreasing robustness, while some, like Jones, see evidence of us having reached a standstill. All base their arguments on the same tenets of natural selection.
According to Darwin's theory, individual animals best suited to their environments live longer and have more children, and so spread their genes through populations. This produces evolutionary changes. For example, hoofed animals with longer necks could reach the juiciest leaves on tall trees and therefore tended to eat well, live longer, and have more offspring. Eventually, they evolved into giraffes. Those with shorter necks died out.
Similar processes led to the evolution of mankind, but this has now stopped because virtually everybody's genes are making it to the next generation, not only those who are best adapted to their environments.
'Until recently, there were massive differences between individuals' lifespans and fecundity,' said Jones. 'In London, the death rate outstripped the birth rate for most of the city's history. If you look at graveyards from ancient to Victorian times, you can see that a half of all children died before adolescence, probably because they lacked genetic protection against disease. Now, children's chances of reaching the age of 25 have reached 98 per cent. Nothing is changing. We have reached stagnation.'
In addition, human populations are now being constantly mixed, again producing a blending that blocks evolutionary change. This increased mixing can be gauged by calculating the number of miles between a person's birthplace and his or her partner's, then between their parents' birthplaces, and finally, between their grandparents'.
In virtually every case, you will find that the number of miles drops dramatically the more that you head back into the past. Now people are going to universities and colleges where they meet and marry people from other continents. A generation ago, men and women rarely mated with anyone from a different town or city. Hence, the blending of our genes which will soon produce a uniformly brown-skinned population. Apart from that, there will be little change in the species.
However, such arguments affect only the Western world - where food, hygiene and medical advances are keeping virtually every member of society alive and able to pass on their genes. In the developing world, no such protection exists.
'Just consider Aids, and then look at chimpanzees,' says Jones. 'You find they all carry a version of HIV but are unaffected by it.
'But a few thousand years ago, when the first chimps became infected, things would have been very different. Millions of chimps probably died as the virus spread through them, and only a small number, which possessed genes that conferred immunity, survived to become the ancestors of all chimps today.
'Something very similar could soon happen to humans. In a thousand years, Africa will be populated only by the descendants of those few individuals who are currently immune to the Aids virus. They will carry the virus but will be unaffected by it. So yes, there will be change there all right - but only where the forces of evolution are not being suppressed.'
However, other scientists believe evolutionary pressures are still taking their toll on humanity, despite the protection afforded by Western life. For example, the biologist Christopher Wills, of the University of California, San Diego, argues that ideas are now driving our evolution. 'There is a premium on sharpness of mind and the ability to accumulate money. Such people tend to have more children and have a better chance of survival,' he says. In other words, intellect - the defining characteristic of our species - is still driving our evolution.
This view is countered by Peter Ward, of the University of Washington in Seattle. In his book, Future Evolution, recently published in the US by Henry Holt, Ward also argues that modern Western life protects people from the effects of evolution. 'I don't think we are going to see any changes - apart from ones we deliberately introduce ourselves, when we start to bio-engineer people, by introducing genes into their bodies, so they live longer or are stronger and healthier.'
If people start to live to 150, and are capable of producing children for more than 100 of those years, the effects could be dramatic, he says. 'People will start to produce dozens of children in their lifetimes, and that will certainly start to skew our evolution. These people will also have more chance to accumulate wealth as well. So we will have created a new race of fecund, productive individuals and that could have dramatic consequences.
'However, that will only come about when we directly intervene in our own evolution, using cloning and gene therapy. Without that, nothing will happen.'
Stringer disagrees, however. 'Evolution goes on all the time. You don't have to intervene. It is just that it is highly unpredictable. For example, brain size has decreased over the past 10,000 years. A similar reduction has also affected our physiques. We are punier and smaller-brained compared with our ancestors only a few millennia ago. So even though we might be influenced by evolution, that does not automatically mean an improvement in our lot.'
mailto:robin.mckie@observer.co.uk
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,644002,00.html
2/4/02
6:50:15 PM
Ultimate agent of the American empire
Part I: "Money to get power, power to protect money." - Motto of the Medici family
By Larry Chin
Online Journal Contributing Editor
February 1, 2002 – In portraying Enron as a "scandal," and as an isolated case of overheated capitalism and "unusual political influence," the American corporate media and congressional investigators are studiously avoiding the truth: Enron, like many multinational corporations, has functioned as an operational arm of the US government, and as a weapon of economic, political, and territorial hegemony. The case exposes an almost unspeakable and terminal malignancy at the heart of world politics, and global capitalism itself.
Cold Warriors in Suits
In a "free market world" in which (1) the goals of the state, corporations, and the national security apparatus (intelligence agencies and military) are indistinguishable, (2) these three groups plan and conduct operations cooperatively, and (3) government and business elites (linked by longtime social ties) move seamlessly between public and private sectors, the hydra that is Enron is nightmarishly uncontroversial--and quintessentially American.
The rest is at
http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/Chin020102/chin020102.html
xox
Reaching For Heaven On Earth
[ snip from http://dieoff.com/page235.htm ]
Yet there was a great irony because the "pure fiction" maintained in the United States that large business was private was in fact essential to the success of the little recognized and de facto form of socialism that was practiced in the United States. The fiction of privateness gave business the great advantage that it was free to make full use of expert skills and thus to pursue its goals efficiently. By contrast, interest-group pressures, ideological demands, and other irrational elements of American political culture frequently immobilized American government, holding it far short of its productive potential. Arnold thus wrote that the United States had "developed two coordinate governing classes: the one, called 'business,' building cities, manufacturing and distributing goods, and holding complete and autocratic power over the livelihood of millions; the other, called 'government,' concerned with the preaching and exemplification of spiritual ideals, so caught in a mass of theory that when it wished to move in a practical world it had to do so by means of a sub rosa political machine." Government was confronted by "a desperate spiritual need to impose impossible standards." On the other hand, American mythology gave business -- in truth a public enterprise, even though regarded as private -- a freedom from such burdens, allowing it to achieve with great success the productive aims of the nation.
The members of the American economics profession, as Arnold contended, performed a vital practical role in maintaining this unique system of corporate socialism American style. It was their role to prevent the American public from achieving a correct understanding of the actual workings of the American economic system. Economists instead were assigned the task to dispense priestly blessings that would allow business to operate independent of damaging political manipulation. They accomplished this task by means of their message of "laissez faire religion, based on a conception of a society composed of competing individuals." However false as a description of the actual U.S. economy, this vision in the mind of the American public was in practice "transferred automatically to industrial organizations with nation-wide power and dictatorial forms of government." Even though the arguments of economists were misleading and largely fictional, the practical -- and beneficial -- result of their deception was to throw a "mantle of protection . over corporate government" from various forms of outside interference. Admittedly, as the economic "symbolism got farther and farther from reality, it required more and more ceremony to keep it up." But as long as this arrangement worked and there could be maintained "the little pictures in the back of the head of the ordinary man," the effect was salutary -- "the great [corporate] organization was secure in its freedom and independence. " It was this very freedom and independence of business professionals to pursue the correct scientific answer -- the efficient answer -- on which the economic progress of the United States depended.
The progressives had earlier made the famous argument that there should be a strict dichotomy in government between politics and administration. Arnold was now arguing, in effect, that this progressive scheme had already been substantially realized in American society. However, it had been realized under false pretenses and in a deeply misleading way. Contrary to public belief, American business was in truth part of government. It was here that the scientific, expert, and efficient side of American government -- the part of government divorced from politics -- was actually to be found. If the United States had already adopted socialism without saying so, the business world was the vanguard of the de facto American system of corporate socialism.
If American socialism was in fact corporate socialism, it was in the world of U.S. business that the religion of humanity of Saint-Simon, the social gospel of Ely, and the Soviet of Technicians of Veblen were being realized. If the salvation of mankind was to be achieved on earth, following along a path of expanding productivity and growth of economic output, it was the managers and professional experts of the American corporate world who were leading the way to heaven on earth.
[ More at http://dieoff.com/page235.htm ]
2/4/02
6:43:49 PM
t r u t h o u t
TO Interviews | Greg Palast
http://www.truthout.com/02.03A.Intv.Palast.htm
White House Told Not to Destroy Enron Papers
http://www.truthout.com/02.03B.DOJ.No.Shread.htm
David Walker's Letter to Henry Waxmen on Cheney Suit
http://www.truthout.com/02.03C.Walker.2.Waxman.htm
Lay gave List of Favored Names to White House for Energy Panel
http://www.truthout.com/02.03D.Lay.List.htm
Halliburton's Iraq Deals Greater Than Cheney Has Said
http://www.truthout.com/02.03E.Hallib.Iraq.htm
Robert Scheer | A Walk in the Valley of Greed
http://www.truthout.com/02.03F.Valley.Greed.htm
Buffalo Feild Campaign | News from the Field 01.31.2002
http://www.truthout.com/02.03G.Buffalo.htm
2/4/02
6:42:37 PM
Enron: not the only bad apple
by Greg Palast - greg@gregpalast.com
I guess I'm not a nice guy. But when I heard that Enron's former vice-chairman Cliff Baxter had shunted his mortal coil, I shed no tears.
One tabloid even called Baxter a "hero" who courageously raised the alarm about his company's fantasy financials.
Maybe I'm missing something here, but this is the Baxter who last year quietly crawled out of Enron like a cockroach from a rotting log - then dumped his stock on unsuspecting buyers, thereby pocketing a reported $35m (£25m). You can just imagine Baxter chuckling to himself in January last year as Enron's office staff gathered their pennies for his retirement gift while he's thinking, "So long, suckers!" - knowing they are about to lose their jobs and life savings.
There have been a lot of misplaced tears in the Affair Enron. The employees were shafted, no doubt about it. But the shareholders?
I didn't hear any of them moan when Enron stock shot up through the roof when the company, joined by a half dozen other power pirates, manipulated, monopolised and muscled the California electricity market a year ago.
All together, Enron and half a dozen others skinned purchasers for more than $12bn in excess charges. That's the calculation of Calfornia's utility watchdog as presented to federal regulators in a damning petition for refunds.
Here's an example of how Enron's po' widdle stockholders, hero Baxter and chairman Ken Lay made their loot.
Soon after California dumbly deregulated its power markets, Enron sold 500 megawatts of power to the state for delivery over a 15-megawatt line. Very cute, that: the company knew darn well the juice couldn't make it over the line, causing panic in the state -customers would then pay 10 times the normal cost to keep the lights on and traders could cash in.
The federal regulator caught that one. Within weeks of taking office, George Bush demoted the troublesome official. Lay boasted to one candidate expected to replace the sacked regulator that President Bush had given Enron veto over the government appointment.
Nor did Enron's stockholders object to their profitable business of trading politicians like bags of sugar. From Texas to Argentina to Britain, Enron used legal but sick-making use of political donations, consultancies and lobbying to twist contracts, rules and regulations to their liking.
You want to cry for a power industry exec who came to an early, violent, end? Then let me suggest to you Jake Horton, late senior vice-president of Gulf power, a subsidiary of Southern Company. (Southern is one of Enron's cohort in that fixed casino called the US electricity market.)
Horton apparently knew about some of his company's less-than-kosher accounting practices; and he had no doubt about its illegal campaign contributions to Florida politicans - he'd made the payments himself.
But unlike Baxter, who took the money and ran, in April 1989, Horton decided to blow the whistle, confront his bosses and go to state officials.
He demanded and received use of the company's jet to go and confront Southern's board of directors. Ten minutes after take-off, the jet exploded.
While the investigation into the plane crash was inconclusive, the company's CEO believed his death was suicide. He told the BBC: "I guess poor Jake saw no other way out."
Ultimately, Southern pleaded guilty to the charges related to the illegal payments.
Jake and Baxter are the beginning and end of the story of deregulation. I was part of a team investigating Southern's finances after Jake's plane went down, just after a grand jury voted to charge his company with criminal racketeering for manipulating its accounts.
Millions of dollars were charged to customers of Southern's subsidiary, Georgia Power, for spare parts that were not used.
The internal revenue service recommended indictment, but George Bush Sr's justice department put the kibosh on the prosecution (their legal prerogative) - in great part because the fancy financials had been blessed by the company's auditor: Arthur Andersen.
The company denied any wrongdoing.
But while Southern Company didn't face criminal charges, regulators ordered it to pay back millions to its customers.
And that's the big connection to Enron. Because it was in those years of investigation that Southern Company led the fight to "deregulate" the power industry. Rather than conform to the rules, they lobbied to get rid of the rules.
Southern and its buddies in the power industry were successful beyond imagination. Industry lobbyists and lawyers eviscerated America's Public Utilities Holding Company's Act, and made mincemeat of the rules which once barred power companies from making donations to political campaigns.
Crucially, in the newly deregulated power markets, the companies were relieved of the requirement to follow the strict government-designed Uniform System of Accounts.
Enron, founded in 1986, was the Rosemary's Baby of this satanic coupling of free-market ideological hoodoo and electricity industry greed.
Enron played it faster and looser than the others, but it is wrong and dangerous to say Enron was one bad apple.
It's the whole wormy tree of public services deregulation mania which is rotten, root and branch.
More information on this topic can be found in Greg's latest books, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy and Democracy and Regulation, both of which will be published in April
Greg Palast is an investigative journalist who writes a column called "Inside Corporate America" for the Observer, Britain's most respected Sunday newspaper. View all of Greg's columns at http://www.gregpalast.com
http://www.guardian.co.uk/enron/story/0,11337,643422,00.html/
ENRON INVESTIGATION RESOURCES
http://www.c-span.org/enron/index.asp
RESEARCH ON ENRON BOARD OF DIRECTORS IN PROGRESS
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/E-board.jpg
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/enron_bush.htm
FBI/DOJ EMAIL MANAGED BY ENRON'S "PUG" WINOKUR'S DYNCORP
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17582
"The Jig Is Up!"
http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495&article=17611
`In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.'
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
2/4/02
6:38:40 PM
The Nation
In its first full day of formal sessions yesterday, the World Social Forum unfolded as an intellectually bewitching kaleidoscope of panels, speeches and workshops. Seven major plenary sessions ran simultaneously, several drawing more than 1,500 participants each.
The conference ran on strictly professional lines. Logistics ticked like clockwork and more than 300 translators fanned out across the city to provide simultaneous interpretation of most major events in three, four and sometimes five languages.
For the full story of the WSF's first official day, read the most recent of Marc Cooper's "Letters from Porto Alegre," currently available at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=cooper20020130
And, from our archives, see Naomi Klein's seminal essay on last year's first-ever meeting of the WSF, from the March 19, 2001 issue of The Nation. Currently available at:
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010319&s=klein
You can also check out new related essays from The Nation's February 18, 2002 issue now:
SUSAN GEORGE: Another World Is Possible
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020218&s=george
ARUNDHATI ROY: Shall We Leave It To The Experts?
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020218&s=roy
DAVID CORTRIGHT: The Power of Nonviolence
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020218&s=cortright
And, for links and info re World Economic Forum related activities this weekend, see The Nation's special WEF/WSF resource page at:
http://www.thenation.com/special/2002wef.mhtml
2/4/02
6:37:03 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS)
SAFEGUARD AMERICA'S NUCLEAR PLANTS, SENATORS URGE
ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico, February 1, 2002 (ENS) - "Nuclear reactors in the United States are poorly protected against a coordinated assault from suicidal terrorists, warned Nevada Senator Harry Reid on Friday after receiving briefings on the status of America's nuclear stockpile and on terrorist attempts to create nuclear devices. "This must change. We must ensure that a nuclear reactor on our soil is never turned against Americans as a weapon of terror," he vowed.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-01-04.html
STAKEHOLDERS WRITE WISH LISTS FOR SUSTAINABILITY SUMMIT
NEW YORK, New York, February 1, 2002 (ENS) - To draw up a political statement and plan of action that will move the world towards sustainable development, delegates from around the world and across a wide range of social sectors are meeting at the United Nations clarifying their hopes and dreams for the upcoming World Summit on Sustainable Development.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-01-03.html
CALIFORNIA PLANS CUTS IN VEHICLE CO2 EMISSIONS
SACRAMENTO, California, February 1, 2002 (ENS) - By the narrowest of margins, the California State Assembly has approved a bill that could create the nation's first restrictions on carbon dioxide emissions from automobile tailpipes. The bill directs the California Air Resources Board to adopt regulations that reduce the greenhouse gas pollution emitted by passenger vehicles.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-01-06.html
DEAD MARINE CREATURES APPEAR ON KENYA-SOMALI SHORE
By Jennifer Wanjiru
NAIROBI, Kenya, February 1, 2002 (ENS) - Large numbers of dead fish, including manta rays, sharks and tuna have been washing up from the Indian Ocean onto the Kenya-Somali coast since Wednesday.
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-01-01.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: FEBRUARY 1, 2002
Ozone Causes Asthma in Athletic Kids
Some Millennium Celebrations Included Fake Caviar
Warming Tropics Show Reduced Cloud Cover
EPA Must Review Ballast Water Regulations
Transco Must Test, Clean Up 10,500 Mile Pipeline
DOE Plans Acceleration of Cleanup Efforts
Inspection Team Sent to Callaway Nuke Plant
G-8 Energy Meeting Headed for Detroit
For full text and graphics visit:
http://ens-news.com/ens/feb2002/2002L-02-01-09.html
2/4/02
6:33:53 PM
t r u t h o u t
Waxman Letter | Secretary of the Army
http://www.truthout.com/02.02A.Wax.White.htm
Jennifer Van Bergen | Is This a Democracy, or What?
http://www.truthout.com/02.02B.jvb.Democracy.htm
John W. Dean | GAO V. Cheney Is Big-Time Stalling The Vice President Can Win Only If We Have Another Bush v. Gore -like Ruling
http://www.truthout.com/02.02C.Dean.GAO.htm
Gephardt Statement on the President's Proposals for Pension Reform
http://www.truthout.com/02.02D.Gephardt.Pensions.htm
Another Enron-White House Connection
http://www.truthout.com/02.02E.Enron.WH.htm
U.S. Economy Sheds More Jobs, but Jobless Rate Falls to 5.6%
http://www.truthout.com/02.02F.Jobless.Rate.htm
Harvard Watch's "Trading Truth: A Report on Harvard's Enron Entanglements"
http://www.truthout.com/02.02G.Harvard.Watch.htm
2/4/02
6:32:29 PM
AlterNet.org
To help our readers get to the bottom of the deepening Enron scandal -- and to help you do something about it -- AlterNet has launched a special "EnronGate" page:
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
Featuring:
TOP TEN THINGS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ENRON Enron's meltdown is more than a lone business scandal, it's an indictment of our entire financial and political system. This smart, simple Enron primer explains why.
TAKE ACTION! Urge the immediate release all records of Cheney's Energy Task Force, and tell Bush to donate his $550,000 share of Enron's funds to the Enron Employee Transition Fund.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION * The Collapse of Enron: A Timeline of Events * "Enronomics" at a Glance * What Has Enron Gotten for Its Campaign Contributions?
Plus, a roster of incisive and controversial articles, to be continually updated as the scandal unfolds, starting with:
ENRON WILL FORCE DUBYA'S RESIGNATION Michael Moore, AlterNet Because he allowed Enron to rip a huge hole in our political system and in so many people's lives, it is time for George W. Bush to resign.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
CRIME IN THE SUITES William Greider, The Nation The collapse of Enron has swiftly morphed into a go-to-jail financial scandal, but Enron makes visible a more profound scandal -- the failure of market orthodoxy itself.
http://www.alternet.org/?IssueAreaID=30
ENRON IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG