1/20/01
11:13:59 PM
There are too many humans in the world. We now have over 6 billion humans on the planet and it can't support that many. Each day, the world's human population increases by 260,000. That's almost 95 million a year. If the world's human population continues to increase at its current rate, there'll be 10 billion humans on Earth by the year 2040. Because of human overpopulation, we are rapidly running out of natural resources, rainforests are being destroyed, stores, schools and shopping malls are becoming increasingly overcrowded, and poverty,starvation,war and pollution exist. Each human produces 4 1/2 pounds of garbage every day. Each human baby will use about 10,000 diapers between birth and the time he/she is potty trained. If humans don't stop having so many children, the world will soon become entirely overrun with tham and there'll be absolutely no room left for anyone in the world. Humans need to STOP HAVING SO MANY CHILDREN in order for the problems caused by human overpopulation to disappear.
1/20/01
2:43:29 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We Cover the Earth For You" SUN SETS ON PRESIDENT CLINTON'S ENVIRONMENTAL LEGACY
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, January 19, 2001 (ENS) - President Bill Clinton did not complete all the environmental initiatives he had planned - or all that environmentalists would have liked. Yet Clinton's administration is likely to be remembered as one of most supportive of the environment in the nation's history.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19-06.html
POLICY GROUP CALLS FOR EXTENSIVE CHANGES AT EPA
By Brian Hansen
WASHINGTON, DC, January 19, 2001 (ENS) - Sweeping changes are needed at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and now is the time to implement them. That is the underlying conclusion embodied in a new report released today by the Reason Public Policy Institute, a Los Angeles, California based think tank that bills itself as a "leading voice for individual choice, economic freedom, and market based public policy incentives."
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19-02.html
CANADIAN TAP WATER QUALITY FOUND WANTING
OTTAWA, Ontario, Canada, January 19, 2001 (ENS) - A survey into how Canada protects, treats and tests water supplies has found that some jurisidictions fare as bad or as worse than Ontario, where seven people died in an E. coli outbreak last year.
For full text and graphics, visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19-11.html
HINDU PILGRIMS RISK DISEASE BY IMMERSION IN SACRED GANGES
ALLAHABAD, India, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - Seventy million people are expected to immerse themselves in the waters of the Ganges River during Maha Kumbh Mela, or Great Sacred Jug Festival. The 42 day Hindu ritual began January 14 at Allahabad, some 375 miles southeast of New Delhi, and will end with the bathing on February 21.
For full text and graphics, visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19-10.html
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE AMERISCAN: JANUARY 19, 2001
BP Corporation Spends $650 Million for Cleaner Air
Advocacy Groups Launch Transitionwatch.org
Conservation Battle Faces Long Odds in Brazilian Amazon
Airbag Manufacturer to Pay $17.6 Million in Hazwaste Fines
Two New National Wildlife Refuges Approved in the Pacific
4.6 Million Acres Protected for Mexican Spotted Owl
Coloradans Detail Norton Role in Controversial Land Deal
Three Indicted for Reformulated Gasoline Fraud
Nature Conservancy Raises $50 Million for Maine Conservation
Wetter Landfills Work Faster
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19-09.html
HEALING OUR WORLD: WEEKLY COMMENT By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D.
Fish: A Good Neighbor, but a Dangerous Food
At the same time that the "Journal of the American Medical Association" has published a study recommending that women eat fish two to four times a week to cut the risk of stroke, other studies are suggesting that fish may be one of our most dangerous foods.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration released a warning last week that pregnant women should not eat shark, swordfish, king mackerel, and tilefish because they could contain enough mercury to harm an unborn baby's developing brain.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-19g.html
SEND NEWS STORY TIPS TO news@ens-news.com
TO ENVIRONMENTAL, POLITICAL AND NATIONAL EDITORS:
Statement From the National Audubon Society Regarding Inaccurate Reports on Oil Drilling
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- The following statement was released today from Daniel Beard, Senior Vice President and COO of the National Audubon Society:
/CONTACT: John Bianchi, Director of Communications of the National Audubon Society, 212-979-3026, fax: 212-979-3123/
/Web site: http://www.audubon.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0102.html
TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
EPA Releases FY 2000 Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Data
WASHINGTON, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today released data on its major enforcement and compliance assurance activities for FY 2000. Continuing its focus on the most serious health and environmental violations, the Agency placed a high priority on correcting violations among major corporations with multiple facilities throughout the United States.
/CONTACT: Tanya Meekins of the Environmental Protection Agency, 202-564-7819/
/Web site: http://www.epa.gov/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0107.html
TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
EPA Finalizes Agreement with Petroleum Refinery
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized an agreement with BP Amoco, the nation's second largest petroleum refinery, to resolve Clean Air Act violations at eight refineries owned by BP, Amoco and Arco (recently acquired by BP). The settlement is the second in a federal enforcement strategy for achieving across-the-board compliance with U.S. refineries (the government settled with Koch Petroleum Group in December).
/CONTACT: Tanya Meekins of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 202-564-7819/
/Web site: http://www.epa.gov/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0106.html
TO NATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
EPA Proposes Special Ocean Sites
WASHINGTON, DC, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today proposed new protections for "Special Ocean Sites" that have outstanding environmental value, including prohibitions for new and expanded ocean development. Also, for the first time, development activities such as mining, oil and gas exploration, and fish farming in federal ocean waters beyond three miles offshore would have to meet protective new standards under the Clean Water Act. EPA today released a draft report that found the overall condition of the nation's coastal waters to be fair to poor.
/Web site: http://www.epa.gov http://www.epa.gov/ow/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0105.html
TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
AT&T Announces Industrial Ecology Faculty Fellowship Winners
NEW YORK, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- For the seventh year in a row, AT&T (NYSE: T) has selected researchers from six leading universities to be the recipients of AT&T's 2000 Industrial Ecology Faculty Fellowships:
/CONTACT: Cynthia Neale of AT&T, 908-221-7249, or cneale@att.com /
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0104.html
TO INTERNATIONAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
NAFTA Arbitration Panel Makes Precedent Setting Ruling In Favour of Canadian NGO
Decision favours IISD intervention in upcoming Methanex Chapter 11 hearing
WINNIPEG, Manitoba, Canada, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- After more than six months of intense effort by the International Institute for Sustainable Development, a NAFTA Chapter 11 Tribunal has set a precedent by ruling that it has the power to accept amicus curiae ("friends of the court") briefs. The January 16 decision in the controversial case of Methanex vs. the United States clears the way for a decision to accept IISD's petition to submit its legal arguments to what has until now been a process closed to public participation.
/CONTACT: Terry Collins, Tel. (416) 538-8712, Cell. (416) 878-8712/
/Web site: http://www.iisd.org/
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0103.html
TO BUSINESS AND ENVIRONMENTAL EDITORS:
Senge Opens January 29-30 Woodlands Conference
THE WOODLANDS, Texas, Jan. 19 -/E-Wire/-- A new "environmentalism" -- based on innovation rather than regulation -- is emerging, according to business guru Peter Senge.
/CONTACT: Barbara Peyton of Houston Advanced Research Center, 281-363-7908, or bpeyton@harc.edu; or Marilu Hastings of Mitchell Center for Sustainable Development/Houston Advanced Research Center, 281-364-4021, or mhastings@harc.edu/
/Web sites: http://www.harc.edu http://www.harc.edu/woodlandsconference /
For Full Text Visit: http://ens.lycos.com/e-wire/Jan01/19Jan0101.html
SEND YOUR PRESS RELEASE ON E-WIRE -- 1-888-764-NEWS
1/20/01
8:00:26 AM
I have written a rock opera, "The Nihilistic Camel" which is ruthless, cunning, patient, and sweet. Two songs have been recorded at Sea West Studios by Rick Keefer.
I could sure use a hand. Just say yes.
MirroredEclipse@yahoo.com
1/19/01
8:29:54 PM
Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting
Media analysis, critiques and news reports
MEDIA ADVISORY:
ASHCROFT QUIZZED ABOUT SOUTHERN PARTISAN ENDORSEMENT
Attorney general nominee refuses to condemn white supremacist magazine
January 19, 2001
John Ashcroft, George W. Bush's nominee for attorney general, was questioned during his Senate confirmation hearing about his on-the-record endorsement of the white supremacist publication Southern Partisan.
Sen. Joe Biden (D.-Del.) asked Ashcroft to respond to a series of quotes from the magazine, each of which had appeared in FAIR's January 12 media advisory on Ashcroft and Southern Partisan (http://www.fair.org/press-releases/southern-partisan.html). The statements included claims that David Duke represented the "American ideal"; that slave-owners were concerned about the "peace and happiness" of slave families; that ethnic groups from outside of Northern Europe "have no temperament for democracy"; and that only "Italians, Jews and Puerto Ricans" live in New York, not "Americans."
In response to this questioning, Ashcroft responded: "On the magazine, frankly, I can't say that I knew very much at all about the magazine. I've given magazine interviews to lots of people. Mother Jones has interviewed me. I don't know if I've ever read the magazine or seen it. It doesn't mean I endorse the views of magazines. It's a telephone interview. And I regret that speaking to them is being used to imply that I agree with their views."
Of course, it is not his speaking with Southern Partisan that implies that he agrees with its ideas, but his telling the magazine: "Your magazine also helps set the record straight. You've got a heritage of doing that, of defending Southern patriots like [Gen. Robert E.] Lee, [Gen. Stonewall] Jackson and [Confederate president Jefferson] Davis. Traditionalists must do more. I've got to do more. We've all got to stand up and speak in this respect, or else we'll be taught that these people were giving their lives, subscribing their sacred fortunes and their honor to some perverted agenda." Presumably, he did not make a similar statement to Mother Jones.
Given several chances to explicitly distance himself from Southern Partisan, Ashcroft declined, saying carefully, "I condemn those things which are condemnable." When asked directly whether he thought the magazine was racist, he said, "I should probably do more due diligence on it. I know they've been accused of being racist.... I would rather be falsely accused of being a racist than to falsely accuse someone of being a racist."
Biden suggested that Ashcroft must have been briefed on the content of the magazine for the confirmation hearings, given that his association with it was an obvious topic to come up. Ashcroft responded, "I don't want to be disrespectful, but for you to suggest that I was told that all these things that you've alleged are true, I wasn't told that. And, frankly, I have been told that some of them aren't true.... And I don't know the source of your things."
That a nominee for U.S. attorney general would endorse a magazine that he knew celebrated the Confederacy is troubling in itself. That he would make no effort to check whether he had in fact promoted a racist magazine, even after his endorsement became a national issue--or would lie under oath about not having done so--is deeply disturbing.
Columnist Bob Herbert of the New York Times discussed Ashcroft's dodging of the Southern Partisan issue in a column that cited FAIR. See: http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/opinion/18HERB.html (registration required)
1/19/01
6:27:12 PM
Super-road spells death for Amazon forest
By Steve Connor
The most detailed investigation of the fate of the world's greatest tropical rainforest estimates that as little as five percent of the Amazon may remain in its pristine, wild state by 2020.
This pessimistic scenario is painted by a team of Brazilian and American scientists who have analysed how the delicate Amazon ecosystem will respond to a new $40-billion (R312-billion) road development project.
Although the Amazon now accounts for about 40 percent of the Earth's rainforest, the scientists believe that within 20 years this will have dwindled alarmingly as a direct result of an ambitious scheme, known as Avanca Brasil, to "advance Brazil" by building roads, railways and hydroelectric dams.
The scientists accuse the Brazilian government of fast-tracking the project by keeping out environmental agencies - including its own environment ministry - thus accelerating logging and deforestation.
William Laurance, of the Smithsonian tropical research institute in Panama, who led the study, said: "Once a road or highway is built, a Pandora's box is opened which is almost impossible for a government to control.
"Once you build a road into a pristine forest you start an inevitable process of illegal colonisation, logging, land-clearing and forest destruction."
The team, which included scientists from Brazil's National Institute for Amazonian Research, developed computer models to predict the course of forest destruction based on what has happened to the Amazon during the past 20 years of road-building and development.
"We used the past as a guide to the future. We looked at the entire network of roads and highways in the Amazon to see how deforestation occurred in the region of a new road," said Laurance.
"There's really nothing that has been done that approaches the scale of what we've done. Our computer model is very comprehensive." The study, published on Friday in the journal, Science, shows two possible scenarios: "optimistic" and "non-optimistic" futures. Both suggest that the Amazon will be drastically altered by development schemes.
Under the less optimistic scenario, more than 95 percent of the Amazon will lose its untouched status and 42 percent of the forest will be totally denuded or heavily degraded by 2020.
Even under the more optimistic view, well over half of Amazonia will no longer be in a pristine state and about 30 percent will be lost forever.
The Amazon is already experiencing the most rapacious destruction seen in any rainforest in the world, with the loss of about two million hectares a year.
However, the Avanca Brasil plan will increase this rate of loss by between 14 percent and 25 percent each year, according to the study.
"At stake is the fate of the greatest tropical rainforest on Earth," say the scientists.
Deforestation so far has largely occurrred on the southern and eastern fringes of the Amazon, but the building of roads will allow logging deep within the rainforest.
Laurance said the road-building was by far the most potentially destructive aspect of the development programme because of the way it fragmented the rainforest into smaller and increasingly unviable segments.
"To eat a pie efficiently, you chop it into smaller pieces, which is what these development projects have been doing to the Amazon," he said.
Several international and domestic attempts are under way to preserve the Amazon, including a $340-million grant from the G-7 nations, but these efforts "pale in comparison to the scale of the present and planned development activities" - funded to the tune of $40-billion from 2000 to 2007, say the scientists.
"The Amazonian road network is being greatly expanded and upgraded with many unpaved sections being converted to paved, all-weather highways," say the scientists.
"The effects of these massive projects and other development trends on Amazonian forests have not been assessed systematically. Our models suggest that, under status-quo conditions, efforts to promote conservation planning in the Brazilian Amazon will be overwhelmed by prevailing destructive trends.
"Although a combination of threatening factors is responsible, special attention should be focused on Avanca Brasil, because it is a massive new initiative that will open vast areas of the Amazonian frontier to development activities.
"Avanca Brasil typifies the top-down planning process in the Amazon, in which mega-projects are proposed and approved long before the environmental cost and risks can be evaluated," they say.
The study's computer models - partly funded by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) - were made using satellite pictures of rainforest.
"We're trying to map out the implications. We feel it hasn't been looked at yet," he said. "When you view these forests from a distance, they look OK, but when you stand in them, you can see they've been thinned, and that they've changed.
"It's like they have holes punched in them. These holes can make a rainforest dry out and be vulnerable to fire."
Carlos Peres, a Brazilian conservation scientist based at East Anglia University in Norwich, said fires were among the worst side-effects of building new roads in the rainforest.
"Everywhere you get a new road, paved or not, it has increased logging and, wherever you get logging, you increase the risk of fires - far more severe fires that burn the forest canopy.
"In two to three decades, there could be a change from a closed-canopy forest to a scrub, savannah-like landscape," he said.
"If the trends continue, you're going to see a higher increase in the pace of forest conversion and we'll end up with a very fragmented landscape."
The scientists suggest that Brazil should accept "carbon-offset funds" paid by the developed world to save rainforest. Brazil has rejected this, a decision which the scientists call "an appalling mistake".
Dr Peres, who was born in the Amazon, is pessimistic about the Avanca Brasil scheme, but admits many fellow Brazilians would disagree.
"To others, development is a sign of a prosperous future. I'd rather slow down the pace of change, but that's not what a lot of my fellow citizens want."
1/19/01
5:56:42 PM
DAILY GRIST 19 Jan 2001
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE
<http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. AMAZON.GONE As little as 5 percent of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil may remain as pristine forest by 2020, according to a study published today in the journal Science. The researchers say that Brazil's plan to invest $40 billion on development projects in the Amazon Basin will overwhelm conservation efforts. The 1.3 million-square-mile Amazon forest makes up 40 percent of the Earth's remaining tropical rainforest, but the researchers fear that logging, oil exploration, roads, and new homes will devastate the area.
straight to the source: South Africa Independent, Steve Conner, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.iol.co.za/general/newsview.php?click_id=143&art_id=qw97984 9741574I525&set_id=1>
straight to the source: Portland Oregonian, Richard L. Hill, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf?/news/oregonian/01/01/cu_61a mazo19.frame>
2. NORTON, YOUR LIFE In a Senate hearing yesterday that had Democrats lining up on one side, Republicans on the other, President-elect Bush's choice for Interior secretary, Gale Norton, described herself as a both a "compassionate conservative and a passionate conservationist" and sought to soften some of her most controversial stands in the past. Norton disavowed a 1991 speech in which she said property owners in some cases had the "right to pollute," telling members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee that "the idea of a right to pollute is not something I support." She said she no longer believes that the Endangered Species Act and Surface Mining Act are unconstitutional. She also seemed to recant on past statements of hers that there was no scientific consensus on the threat of global warming. Environmentalists were not impressed with Norton's testimony and are campaigning vigorously to derail her nomination.
straight to the source: Washington Post, Eric Pianin, 19 Jan 2001 <http://washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15864-2001Jan18.html>
straight to the source: New York Times, Douglas Jehl, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/19/politics/19NORT.html>
straight to the source: Excerpts from the hearing <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/19/politics/19NTEX.html>
do good: Take action to keep Norton out of the Cabinet <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/politics.stm>
3. GETTING THEIR JUST DESERTS The U.S. Bureau of Land Management and enviros reached an agreement this week to reduce road access and add protections for species in 11.5 million acres of desert in Southern California. The deal, which settles a lawsuit filed last year by the Center for Biological Diversity and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, bans grazing on 1.3 million acres of desert tortoise habitat and generally requires the BLM to boost protections for more than 20 other species in the California Desert Conservation Area. In other species news, the center said the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did an adequate job yesterday in designating critical habitat for Mexican spotted owls in Utah, but threatened to sue over inadequate designations in New Mexico and Arizona.
straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Deborah Sullivan Brennan, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.latimes.com/news/science/environ/20010119/t000005449.html>
straight to the source: Salt Lake Tribune, Judy Fahys, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.sltrib.com/01192001/utah/63861.htm>
straight to the source: Albuquerque Journal, Tania Soussan, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.abqjournal.com/news/228853news01-19-01.htm>
straight to the source: Phoenix Arizona Republic, Judd Slivka, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0119OWL19.html>
4. NOPEC, NO WAY, NO HOW Queensland state leaders in Australia have delighted enviros by pressing the federal government to reject a plan to explore for oil near the Great Barrier Reef. The federal environment minister, Robert Hill, says he will respond within a week to a proposal by the company TGS NOPEC to carry out a seismic survey about 35 miles from the reef. The company says testing for oil will not impact the reef, but enviro groups like the Australian Conservation Foundation vehemently disagree. Queensland Tourism Minister Merri Rose said the reef is worth more than $800 million a year to the state's tourism industry.
straight to the source: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.abc.net.au/news/science/environment/2001/01/item2001011906 3940_1.htm>
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9548>
5. REALITY TV BITES It's eat or be eaten in Hollywood for Zed, last of his species. Eavesdrop on Zed's power lunch with Mike Ovitz as he learns the art of the deal in "Reality TV Bites."
catch it only in Grist Magazine: Zed, the comic adventures of the last of his species <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed011901.stm>
catch it only in Grist magazine: Check out the Zed music video <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/zed/zed-fun.stm>
6. HEAVY SIGH-ANIDE A cyanide spill in northeastern Romania has killed thousands of fish and now poses a health hazard to humans, government officials said yesterday. The spill occurred when the contents of a storage container at a recently closed chemical plant spread from a rain gutter into a tributary of the Siret River, raising cyanide levels in some places to 130 times accepted levels. Locals have been warned not to drink water from wells, and some environmental officials fear that poisoned fish may already have found their way to market.
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Associated Press, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2001/01/ 18/international1505EST0665.DTL>
straight to the source: Central Europe Online, Reuters, 19 Jan 2001 <http://www.centraleurope.com/romaniatoday/news.php3?id=261066>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE today:
Tell a pal to sign up for Daily Grist <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/signup/tell_pal.asp>
Nary a drop to drink -- a review of "Water: The Fate of Our Most Precious Resource" in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books010901.stm>
Bottoms up or tops down? -- should locals be more involved in public lands decisions? -- by Rocky Barker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/imho/imho011701.stm>
1/19/01
5:49:03 PM
EcoNet Headlines: January 19, 2001
FDA Genetic Food Policy Denies Americans the Right to Know What They Are Eating
The rights of American consumers to know what they are eating and feeding their families was today denied them by the Food and Drug Administration. The new FDA policy proposal, posted on the web today, does not require labeling or any pre-market safety testing of genetically engineered foods. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979862845/index_html
Monsanto Undaunted in Bioengineered Wheat Quest
Monsanto is pressing ahead with plans to commercialize genetically modified wheat despite heightened concerns about scientific tinkering with food grains in the wake of the StarLink corn controversy. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979862966/index_html
Gene-Altered Cotton Produces Substandard Fibers
US textile manufacturers are suspicious that the widespread use of genetically modified plants (GMO) in cotton farms may have contributed to the fall in cotton quality, a senior US textile official said Wednesday. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863089/index_html
Turkish Court Bans Cyanide Gold Process Near Ancient Town
Despite an order from the country's Supreme Court backing up environmentalists, the pressure is mounting this week for the reopening of a controversial mine in one of Turkey's most visited tourist areas. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863219/index_html
Widespread and Accelerating Loss of Amazonian Rainforest Predicted
Major new scientific studies published in the journals Nature and Science predict that between a third and 42 percent of Brazil's Amazon Basin will be lost or seriously damaged in the next two to three decades as a result of planned infrastructural development. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863448/index_html
Javan Rhinoceros Remain at High Risk
Efforts to boost the numbers of threatened Javan rhinoceros are being held back by poor habitats that do little for their already small population, say environmentalists here. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863573/index_html
Public to Learn More about NATO Air Raids on Yugoslavia
The public should learn more about the health hazards caused by the depleted uranium (DU) capped weapons used in the bombing of serbia by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) in 1999, experts say. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863684/index_html
Tapping Traditional Systems of Resource Management
Not even the best policies and technologies can help solve the world's problem of diminishing and deteriorating resources, unless people's attitudes and habits change. It is time to re-adopt the ancient value of regarding nature and natural resources as sacred, and to tap the successful, traditional systems of resource management to suit our present-day needs. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979863834/index_html
RACHEL: A Textbook for Whistle-Blowers
As corporate power grows without limit, governments at all levels are abandoning their responsibility to enforce laws. Instead, they are relying on "voluntary compliance" by corporations. Under these circumstances, the role of whistle-blowers assumes increased importance.
Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979864090/index_html
Posted by ecott on Thursday January 18, @04:30PM
President Clinton further embellished his conservation legacy by declaring "more than 1 million acres of federal land in the West" as national monuments. Read More... http://headlines.igc.apc.org:8080/enheadlines/979864248/index_html
1/19/01
4:29:34 PM
On Saturday there will be an inaugural day demonstration with Jesse Jackson and others in Tallahassee. This will focus on the theft of the minority vote in Florida, a potent and heartfelt issue for most of us. If any of you are interested in joining a bus caravan to Tallahassee, here's the info you need:
the Bus will leave at 2:30 AM (that's AM) Saturday morning from 1680 18th Street in Sarasota. Last I heard there were still a dozen seats left. You can call dogfish for more info @ 355-2661.
Please consider making this trip, it will be a wonderful opportunity to show support and solidarity with oppressed floridians.
We wish you all the best.
Sarasota Green Party
1/19/01
4:26:35 PM
Happy 2001!
This message is to inform you that January letters have been posted on Earth Action Network's web site, http://www.eanetwork.org
Earth Action Network has been sending letters since 1989, and some of you have been with us since then! Whether you've been participating for over a decade or just since last month, we appreciate you for your support and for your determination to help make our world a better place. And thanks for continuing to tell family and friends about Earth Action Network.
Sincerely,
Earth Action Network Project. http://www.eanetwork.org
1/19/01
4:20:44 PM
The Nation
There's lots of new material from the pages of The Nation's special Counter-Inaugural issue currently at http:www.thenation.com
GREGORY PALAST: Florida's "Disappeared Voters" "On November 7 tens of thousands of eligible Florida voters were wrongly prevented from casting their ballots. Nearly all were Democrats, nearly half of them African-American." http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=palast
VINCENT BUGLIOSI: None Dare Call It Treason "That an election for an American President can be stolen by the highest court in the land under the delibrate pretext of an inapplicable constitutional provision has got to be one of the most frightening events ever to have occurred in this country." http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=bugliosi
KATHA POLLITT: Subject to Debate "If Ashcroft is not too far out to be confirmed, who is? http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010205&s=pollitt
You can also find exclusive material available only at The Nation's website, including:
JOHN NICHOLS: The Online Beat http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/
DAVID CORN & DAN MOLDEA: Ashcroft's Low Road http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=corn20010115
JOHN LANTIGUA: Passing The Buck In Florida http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=lantigua0115
Finally, with tomorrow heralding the start of the Bush Administration's reign, don't miss your last chance to check out The Nation's Counter-Inauguration Calendar, which details many of the numerous protests, rallies, marches, vigils and other actions taking place tomorrow in Washington, DC and around the country. Available only at:
http://www.thenation.com/special/counterinauguration.mhtml
1/19/01
4:14:16 PM
The Guardian (London, UK)
19 January 2001
Patten urges nuclear cleanup
Russia's 300 dumped reactors linked to Kursk aid
Special report: Russia
Ian Traynor in Moscow Friday January 19, 2001
Around 300 nuclear reactors and thousands of spent nuclear fuel rods dumped in the Russian Arctic are an immediate danger to Russians and Europeans alike, and require urgent action, Chris Patten, the European Union's external relations commissioner, warned yesterday.
Speaking to Russian officials and diplomats in Moscow, Mr Patten called on the western European nuclear engineering industry to start cleaning up the world's biggest nuclear graveyard in Russia's far north. But he also feared that Brussels' bid to persuade Moscow to allow in outside remedial teams had run into opposition, not least because of Russian military secrecy.
Russian admirals, in particular, are against external assistance with problems that involve military resources.
The risk of wide-scale radioactive contamination from the reactors in dozens of abandoned submarines, formerly part of Russia's northern and Baltic fleets, were highlighted by Moscow's laboured response to the Kursk tragedy last summer. But Mr Patten, the EU's foreign policy supremo, pointed to a problem that could dwarf the Kursk disaster in its scale.
"In the seas and the shores surrounding the Kola peninsula, there are some 300 nuclear reactors - about 20% of the world's total - and thousands of spent nuclear fuel elements," he said. "The lack of adequate storage or disposal facilities for spent fuel and radioactive waste from the reactors of nuclear vessels is a sword of Damocles hanging over all our futures."
The fjords of the peninsula are littered with scores of inoperable nuclear submarines, abandoned like beached whales. Their hulks lie as testimony to the disastrous decline of the once mighty Soviet navy. The navy dockyards are crumbling, the sailors go hungry and unpaid.
Mr Patten said the problem of nuclear safety in the far north was the most "dramatic" of all the issues on which Brussels and Moscow should seek enhanced cooperation during Sweden's term in the EU presidency.
EU countries are being asked to make a hefty contribution towards the estimated 47m needed to raise the stricken Kursk and its two nuclear reactors next summer. Mr Patten was expected to discuss the Kursk with Russian officials during his two-day trip.
It appeared that Sweden, in particular, was pushing for more ambitious nuclear safety programmes and cleanup operations in the Arctic in return for agreeing to fund the Kursk salvage operation.
Mr Patten's speech, Sweden's emphasis on nuclear safety in the Arctic, and the incoming Bush administration's declaration that American aid to Russia will be sharply cut back and focused on stabilising Russia's nuclear arsenal, all suggest that areas such as the Kola peninsula are moving up in priority on the international agenda.
1/19/01
4:06:35 PM
STATE LEGISLATIVE ACTION FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A HEMP INDUSTRY IN THE U.S.
Prepared for Representative Cynthia Thielen State of Hawaii
UPDATED: 1/11/01
(AR) Arkansas
SR13 (adopted 1999): Requires the University of Arkansas to conduct studies to determine the feasibility of growing hemp as an alternative and profitable crop. Report due by December 31, 2000.
(CA) California
HR32 (adopted 1999): Finds that industrial hemp has many uses in many products; that it will contribute to the state economy; that the legislature should revise the legal status of industrial hemp; and that the University of California and other agencies should prepare studies in conjunction with private industry on the cultivation, processing, and marketing of industrial hemp.
(HI) Hawaii
HB32 (Act 305 SLH 1999): Authorizes the State to allow privately-funded industrial hemp research in Hawaii when state and federal agencies (DEA) issue controlled substance registrations; authorizes state and federal agencies to monitor all phases of the research; requires status reports.
NOTE: First plot sown in December 1999. It's America's first legal hemp patch in nearly 50 years.
HR109 (adopted 1999): Requests the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture to recommend the use of hemp fiber soil erosion control blankets whenever feasible.
HR110 (adopted 1999): Requests the Hawaii Dept. of Business, Economic Development, and Tourism to examine the feasibility of growing industrial hemp in Hawaii for biomass energy production.
(IL) Illinois
SB1397 (Passed Both Houses 1/9/01): Requires the University of Illinois and Southern Illinois University to study the feasibility and desirability of industrial hemp production; requires report of findings/recommendations by January 1, 2002; excludes industrial hemp from the definition of "cannabis" under the Cannabis Control Act.
SR49 (adopted 1999): Creates the Industrial Hemp Investigative and Advisory Task Force; requires the task force to report on the economic viability of industrial hemp production; requests the University of Illinois to work with the task force.
HR168 (adopted 1999): Companion measure to SR49.
HR553 (adopted 2000): Urges the U.S. Congress to acknowledge the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp, and to clearly authorize the commercial production of industrial hemp.
(MD) Maryland
HB1250 (2000 Maryland Laws Ch. 681): Establishes a pilot program to study the growth and marketing of industrial hemp; requires the Secretary of Agriculture to administer the pilot program in consultation with State and federal agencies; provides for monitoring and access rights; requires an individual to be licensed by the Dept. of Agriculture prior to participation in the pilot program.
(MN) Minnesota
HF1238 (1999 Minnesota Session Laws): Authorizes the commissioner of agriculture to permit experimental and demonstration plots to investigate the potential for industrial hemp as a commercial agricultural crop; requires material from industrial hemp plants grown on the plots to be used only for commercial uses; requires registration of applicants for participation; requires reporting.
(MT) Montana
HR2 (adopted 1999): Requests that the federal government repeal restrictions on the production of industrial hemp as an agricultural and industrial product.
(NCSL) National Conference of State Legislatures
(NCSL adopted Dec 2000): A Resolution strongly urging USDA, DEA and the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) to collaboratively develop and adopt an official definition of industrial hemp. Requests Congress to direct the DEA to revise its policies to allow states to establish regulatory programs. Requests DEA to review the procedures under which their Canadian counterparts are authorized to sanction the commercial development of industrial hemp. Urges Congress to amend US Codes to distinguish between industrial hemp and marijuana.
(NE) Nebraska
LB273: Provides for cultivation of industrial hemp.
(NH) New Hampshire
HB239 (Interim Study Subcommittee Work Session Status 2000): Permits the production of industrial hemp; requires licensing for a person or business entity wishing to grow and produce industrial hemp.
(NM) New Mexico
HB104 (Appropriation incorporated into General Budget Bill 1999): Appropriates $50,000 to New Mexico State University for the purpose of conducting a study of the feasibility of growing industrial hemp as a commercial crop; requires reporting.
(ND) North Dakota
HB1428 (Ch. 4-41-01, 02 NDCC; 4-09-01 NDCC 1999): Authorizes the production of industrial hemp; recognizes industrial hemp as an oilseed; requires any person desiring to grow industrial hemp to apply for a license; allows for the supervision of the industrial hemp during its growth and harvest.
SB2328 (Ch. 4-05.1-05 NDCC 1999): Authorizes the North Dakota State University main research center to conduct baseline research, including production and processing, regarding industrial hemp and other alternative industrial use crops.
HCR3038 (adopted 1999): Urges the U.S. Congress to acknowledge the difference between marijuana and industrial hemp, and to clearly authorize the commercial production of industrial hemp.
(OR) Oregon
SB89 (Introduced 01-08-2001) Authorizes production and processing of industrial hemp.
(VT) Vermont
JRS98 (adopted 2000): Urges the U.S. DEA, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, and the U.S. Congress to reconsider federal policies that restrict the cultivation and marketing of industrial hemp and related products.
(VA) Virginia
HJR94 (adopted 1999): Urges the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, the Director of the DEA, and the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy to permit the controlled, experimental cultivation of industrial hemp in Virginia.
Sources:
1.Westlaw Database Search; October 31, 2000
2.North American Industrial Hemp Council, Inc.; http://www.naihc.org
3.Hemp Industries Association; http://www.thehia.org
4.Legislative Reference Bureau State Legislatures Gateway; http://www.state.hi.us/lrb/card
5.Legislative Websites in all 50 states; various URLs
6. <http://www.gametec.com/hemp/CT.hemp.html>
1/19/01
3:38:41 PM
YOUR CARE2.COM NEWSLETTER - Care2 make the world Greener! http://www.care2.com/ Vol. 24: January 19, 2001
Thank You! By reading this gnusletter, you help Care2 continue to provide fantastic, free services AND help wildlife!
1. CARE2 CUDDLIES ARE IN STOCK NOW! 2. GEAR UP FOR SOME LOVIN' 3. FEATURED SPONSOR: DOT ORG JOBS 4. WELCOME NEW RACE FOR THE RAIN FOREST SPONSOR! 5. THANK YOU CHARTER MEMBERS 6. IN THE SPOTLIGHT
1. CARE2 CUDDLIES ARE IN STOCK NOW!
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3. GEAR UP FOR SOME LOVIN' Care2 Valentine Gift Packages are just in! Buy a cuddly Care2 Beau-Bear today for all your loved ones. Beau-Bear wears a mini-Care2 T-shirt and also comes with a box of sweetheart candies. In addition, you save 250 sq. ft. of rain forest with every purchase. Show you care about your beau and the environment by giving a Care2 Beau-Bear! Just $24.99.
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4. WELCOME NEW RACE FOR THE RAIN FOREST SPONSOR! Since this newsletter was written, over 100 rain forest species have become extinct due to destruction of the world's rain forest. With your help, Care2 is fighting every day to slow this habitat devastation. Today, we are excited to welcome Horizon Organic as our newest Race for the Rain Forest sponsor. Thanks to Horizon Organic, Sportula.com, and Novica.com, you can save 14.9 square feet of rain forest every day you click at the Race for the Rain Forest. Click today to join over 360,000 Care2 racers and stop the destruction!
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5. THANK YOU CHARTER MEMBERS Thanks to all of our Charter Members for helping Care2 and The Nature Conservancy save rain forest land - 410,000 square feet and growing! In addition, Care2 Charter Members support many great new programs on Care2 to save wildlife and protect precious habitat around the world.
On Earth Day 2001, you can win the opportunity to donate $1,000 to your favorite environmental non-profit. For those of you who have not yet signed up, there's still time before a winner is selected! Become a Charter Member today and join the growing Care2 Family!
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6. IN THE SPOTLIGHT
* Send your own photos as e-cards! When you create your own photo album, you can upload your photos and even send them to friends as e-cards!
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* HUGGING DAY! It's coming this Sunday on January 21! Don't forget your friends! They need hugs--lots of hugs. Send your cards FAST!
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THANK YOU BECAUSE YOU CARE2!
-- The Care2 Team
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please share it with your friends, family, and colleagues!
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1/19/01
3:34:30 PM
Scientists Bring Light to Full Stop, Hold It, Then Send It on Its Way
By JAMES GLANZ The New York Times
Researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and then released it as if it were an ordinary material particle.
The achievement is a landmark feat that, by reining in nature's swiftest and most ethereal form of energy for the first time, could help realize what are now theoretical concepts for vastly increasing the speed of computers and the security of communications.
Two independent teams of physicists have achieved the result, one led by Dr. Lene Vestergaard Hau of Harvard University and the Rowland Institute for Science in Cambridge, Mass., and the other by Dr. Ronald L. Walsworth and Dr. Mikhail D. Lukin of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, also in Cambridge.
Light normally moves through space at 186,000 miles a second. Ordinary transparent media like water, glass and crystal slow light slightly, an effect that causes the bending of light rays that allows lenses to focus images and prisms to produce spectra.
Using a distantly related but much more powerful effect, the Walsworth-Lukin team first slowed and then stopped the light in a medium that consisted of specially prepared containers of gas. In this medium, the light became fainter and fainter as it slowed and then stopped. By flashing a second light through the gas, the team could essentially revive the original beam.
The beam then left the chamber carrying nearly the same shape, intensity and other properties it had when it entered. The experiments led by Dr. Hau achieved similar results with closely related techniques.
"Essentially, the light becomes stuck in the medium, and it can't get out until the experimenters say so," said Dr. Seth Lloyd, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is familiar with the work.
Dr. Lloyd added, "Who ever thought that you could make light stand still?"
He said the work's biggest impact could come in futuristic technologies called quantum computing and quantum communication. Both concepts rely heavily on the ability of light to carry so-called quantum information, involving particles that can exist in many places or states at once.
Quantum computers could crank through certain operations vastly faster than existing machines; quantum commmunications could never be eavesdropped upon. For both these systems, light is needed to form large networks of computers. But those connections are difficult without temporary storage of light, a problem that the new work could help solve.
A paper by Dr. Walsworth, Dr. Lukin and three collaborators - Dr. David Phillips, Annet Fleischhauer and Dr. Alois Mair, all at Harvard- Smithsonian - is scheduled to appear in the Jan. 29 issue of Physical Review Letters.
Citing restrictions imposed by the journal Nature, where her report is to appear, Dr. Hau refused to discuss her work in detail.
Two years ago, however, Nature published Dr. Hau's description of work in which she slowed light to about 38 miles an hour in a system involving beams of light shone through a chilled sodium gas.
Dr. Walsworth and Dr. Lukin mentioned Dr. Hau's new work in their paper, saying she achieved her latest results using a similarly chilled gas. Dr. Lukin cited her earlier work, which Dr. Hau produced in collaboration with Dr. Stephen Harris of Stanford University, as the inspiration for the new experiments.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/science/18LIGH.html
1/19/01
3:05:32 PM
Environmental news from GRIST MAGAZINE <http://www.gristmagazine.com>
1. ARE YOU THERE GOD? IT'S ME, BLUBBER Defying an international trade ban, Norway said this week that it would permit whale blubber and meat to be exported from the country. Norway resumed whaling in 1993, despite an international moratorium on the practice, but until now it has refused to allow exports. Currently, some 600 tons of whale blubber and other whale parts are on ice, awaiting export from Norwegian warehouses. Norway and the countries it will be marketing to -- Japan, Iceland, and Peru -- have never ratified the export ban. The World Wildlife Fund said Norway's decision would damage the country's reputation as an environmentally friendly nation and could provoke the collapse of international efforts to protect whales.
straight to the source: Planet Ark, Reuters, Alister Doyle, 17 Jan 2001 <http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=9545>
straight to the source: London Independent, Michael McCarthy, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Europe/2001-01/whale180101.shtml>
catch it only in Grist Magazine: To know a whale -- a cartoon by Suzy Becker <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/ha/ha011601.stm>
2. AS REGULATION TIME EXPIRES ... The U.S. EPA yesterday reduced the amount of arsenic allowable in drinking water by 80 percent, a shift that the agency said would boost health protections for about 13 million Americans. The new rule would reduce the allowed arsenic level to 10 parts per billion, down from the 1942 standard of 50 parts per billion. Last year, the agency proposed a standard of five parts per billion, which won the support of many environmentalists. But water supply companies, as well as the mining and chemical industries, lobbied instead for the 10 parts per billion standard, complaining about the high costs associated with anything tougher. Still, enviros are moderately happy with the outcome. In other regulatory news, the EPA earlier this week said it would develop rules targeting air pollution from oil tankers for the first time, settling a lawsuit filed by enviros.
straight to the source: Concord Monitor, Associated Press, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.concordmonitor.com/stories/news/newengla/nh__arsenic_water _19y28y37.shtml>
straight to the source: San Francisco Chronicle, Jane Kay, 17 Jan 2001 <http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/200 1/01/17/MN90446.DTL>
read it only in Grist Magazine: Another campaign by the group that filed the oil tanker lawsuit -- a week in the life of Kira Schmidt, Bluewater Network <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/schmidt072400.stm>
3. WATER WORLD "Millions have lived without love. No one has lived without water," says a sage Turkish businessman. Yet all the world 'round -- from Africa to Australia, from Europe to the Middle East -- too many people depend on too little water. We've watered deserts and disrupted other ecosystems to store and deliver water where it would not otherwise be available. But demand for water continues to outstrip supply. What's to be done? Read more upbeat coverage about the water problem on the Grist Magazine website.
read it only in Grist Magazine: Nary a drop to drink -- a review in our Books Unbound section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/books/books010901.stm>
4. LABEL'S LOVE LOST The U.S. Food and Drug Administration yesterday proposed rules for companies to voluntarily label foods that aren't genetically engineered -- but it refused requests from environmental and consumer groups to require mandatory labels on all foods that are genetically engineered. The proposed rules, now open for public comment, would also require companies to notify the government before marketing new genetically engineered foods. But critics said the rules would not require that the foods be thoroughly tested to show that they were safe for human consumption and wouldn't harm the environment. Needless to say, big-business food companies are mighty happy with the proposals. Meanwhile, Japan has asked the U.S. to explain why American corn imports have been found to contain the genetically engineered corn StarLink, which is banned in Japan.
straight to the source: New York Times, Andrew Pollack, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/18/health/18REGS.html>
straight to the source: MSNBC, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.msnbc.com/news/517585.asp>
straight to the source: Las Vegas Sun, Associated Press, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/w-asia/2001/jan/18/011800713.html>
do good: Take action and tell the feds to require mandatory labeling <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/dogood/food.stm>
5. 50,000,000 MAINE-IACS The Nature Conservancy said yesterday that it had raised $50 million to conserve land in Maine, the group's most expensive conservation project yet. Thirty million dollars will buy 185,000 acres along the Upper St. John River, the largest free-flowing river east of the Mississippi, with the remaining millions funding some 35 other conservation projects. The conservancy's fundraising effort ended two years ahead of schedule, with big donations coming from the president of L.L. Bean, Rockefeller family members, and Tom's of Maine, among others. Maine Gov. Angus King (I) said the fundraising success showed that citizens do not need to turn to government to solve their problems.
straight to the source: Portland Press Herald, Peter Pochna, 18 Jan 2001 <http://www.portland.com/news/state/010118land.shtml>
read it only in Grist Magazine: Maine is emerging as ground zero in another land conservation experiment -- in our Main Dish section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/maindish/curtis010801.stm>
Also in GRIST MAGAZINE
Pipe dreams -- a day in the life of Marta Echavarria, EcoDecision <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/week/echavarria011701.stm>
This just in -- the latest climate change news -- in our Heat Beat section <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/heatbeat/thisjustin011101.stm>
The man conservatives are afraid of on the Bush enviro team -- in our Muckraker column <http://www.gristmagazine.com/grist/muck/muck011601.stm#hen>
1/19/01
3:02:13 PM
The GW Bush Gang: IG Farben 2001 by Robert Lederman
"What my cabinet shows is that I am not afraid to surround myself with strong and competent people...a good executive is one that understands how to recruit people and how to delegate authority and responsibility."
-GW Bush 1/2/2001
As promised GW Bush has recruited competent and experienced advisors. Despite their seeming diversity however they have a common denominator. The America they reflect is the oil, pharmaceutical, armament, Wall Street and eugenics interests long associated with the Bush family.
Seventy years ago a similar configuration of oil, pharmaceutical, chemical, military supply and eugenics interests were organized by Wall Street into IG Farben/Standard Oil-Hitler's industrial powerhouse. To grasp the real significance of what GW Bush's cabinet has been brought together to accomplish it is essential to understand the history of IG Farben, its relationship with American corporations and how together they applied modern technology to the task of eugenics or scientific racism.
According to former US Justice Dept. Nazi War Crimes prosecutor John Loftus -who is today the director of the Florida Holocaust Museum- "The Bush family fortune came from the Third Reich," -Sarasota Herald-Tribune 11/11/2000 http://www.newscoast.com/headlinesstory2.cfm?ID=35115
Along with the Rockefellers (Standard Oil, Chase Manhattan Bank), Mellons (Gulf Oil, Alcoa Aluminum), DuPonts (DuPont Chemicals), General Motors and Henry Ford, banks and shipping companies operated by the Bush family were crucial players in setting up the industrial power behind the Third Reich. These companies poured hundreds of millions of dollars into IG Farben and provided it with technology for tactically-essential synthetic materials-***while withholding the same materials and patents from the US government.***
The Rockefeller family, long aligned with the Bushes, owned Standard Oil. Through a stock transfer they became half owners of Germany's IG Farben with Farben likewise owning almost half of Standard Oil. According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, IG Farben built and operated more than 40 concentration camps in Nazi-occupied Europe, including Auschwitz.
At their slave labor/factory/death camps chemicals, weapons, drugs, synthetic fuels and other materials vital to the Nazi war effort were manufactured. In addition, eugenicists like Dr. Josef Mengele used the human subjects in the camps for experiments the data from which are today the basis for many drugs marketed by the pharmaceutical industry-not too surprising in light of the fact that more Americans die from prescription drugs than from any other single cause.
At the end of WWII the allies split up IG Farben into companies that are now the top pharmaceutical concerns on earth among them Bayer, Hoescht, BASF, the Agfa-Gevaert Group and Cassella AG. Many of Wall Streets favorite pharmaceutical/chemical companies behind the proliferation of genetically-altered foods, transgenic animals, human cloning, dangerous psychiatric drugs, deadly vaccines and pesticides-such as Aventis-are subsidiaries of these same companies.
War provides the necessary medium in which this witches brew of oil, eugenics, pharmaceuticals, munitions and Wall Street investing can reach maximum growth. Likewise, war is also the essential frame of reference for the newly formed GW Bush administration.
The high-profile minorities who are working as Bush advisors have been hand-picked, funded and carefully cultivated by right wing think tanks and conservative foundations with a white supremacist philosophy in order to provide cover for their anti-poor, anti-minority eugenics agenda.
For those who scoff at the validity of comparing the Bush administration to the Nazis and IG Farben please note the following. I'm not suggesting that GW Bush is a literal Nazi nor am I implying that everyone who is an oil or pharmaceutical company executive automatically deserves to be linked to IG Farben. That the Bush wealth and prominence in American politics is derived from Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker's support of Hitler is a historical fact. If the connection ended in 1945 with the destruction of Nazi Germany that might have been the end of it-it didn't end there however.
Not only has the eugenics agenda continued but many of the top Nazis who were advancing it during WWII were brought to the US after the war and installed in academia, the media, government research institutions and the CIA-by the same American officials who worked with the Bush family to build up Nazi Germany in the first place. Their ideas formed the basis for much of the agenda promoted by this nation's most influential right-wing think tanks-the same think tanks that are the sponsors of GW Bush and virtually every one of his appointees.
Why is it significant that many of Bush's staff and cabinet appointees are former pharmaceutical company executives as was GW's father, former President George Bush? These corporations are voraciously patenting the earth's life forms-its plants, bacteria, viruses, animals and even human genetic lineages. Reproduction of plants, animals and humans may eventually be totally controlled by these corporations, genetically-altered, recombined into chimeric life forms and exploited for profit.
The Human Genome Project, as it admits on the very first page of its website - http://vector.cshl.org/eugenics.html - , is derived from the eugenics movement in the US and Nazi Germany during the first half of the 20th century. The Eugenics Records Office at Cold Springs Harbor NY-where American eugenics started-was built by the Harriman family-the Bushes' Wall Street business partners in funding Hitler. This is the new frontier of colonialism in the 21st century-the total domination and exploitation of the earth and everything on it-the New World Order both former President Bush and Adolf Hitler so frequently called for.
While my writings focus on the Republican aspect of this agenda there is no question that many Democrats are participants and that none of these things could be accomplished without the full "bipartisan support" we hear about each and every day.
Some of the men and women who do the thinking for GW Bush:
- Vice President, Dick Cheney, arguably the real President-elect, was one of papa Bush's top advisors. His company, Haliburton, is one of the nation's largest recipients of government contracts, supplying military equipment, oil services and infrastructure. Cheney epitomizes corporate-welfare and like most of Bush's appointees is a multi-millionaire who will receive huge financial benefits from the administrations' policies and any wars it manages to get the US into.
- Secretary of Labor Linda Chavez (NOTE: she was forced a couple days ago to withdraw her nomination) -who is outspokenly anti-union-was a research fellow at the CIA's Manhattan Institute during 1993 and 1994 and has received almost $200,000 in grants from the John M. Olin Foundation, a notorious right-wing fund derived from a family business in munitions and chemicals with roots in white supremacy. Despite her Hispanic surname she is an outspoken advocate for the English First Movement. Chavez is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, based in Washington, D.C. an organization dedicated to eliminating affirmative action. On their website Chavez quotes Charles Murray, author of The Bell Curve, a classic of modern racial eugenics which has become the "bible" for the anti-welfare anti-affirmative action movement.
- Secretary of Health and Human Services, Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson, is known for his controversial welfare reforms-based in large part on two books by Charles Murray, Losing Ground and The Bell Curve. Murray was a consultant for the Wisconsin welfare reform program. Thompson's protege, Jason Turner, was later brought to NYC where he has run Mayor Giuliani's characteristically brutal welfare elimination program. Turner became notorious for quoting the motto on the gates over Auschwitz- "Arbeit Macht Frei-work shall make you free". He is frequently a guest with Charles Murray in panel discussions at the CIA's Manhattan Institute and other Bush-connected think tanks. Murray wrote the Bell Curve while a fellow at the Manhattan Institute where his pseudo-scientific research on the genetic inferiority of African Americans was primarily financed by the Pioneer Fund. Since 1937 the Pioneer Fund has promoted eugenics and the ideology of white racial superiority.
- Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, who served as Vice President Dan Quale's chief of staff, spent years trying to abolish the very agency he will now head. His legislative positions include being against higher fuel efficiency standards for cars, being against government regulations for industry and support for opening up national parklands to oil drilling. He is a recipient of oil company contributions totaling more than $221,000 according to the NY Times. The American Petroleum Institute has said it looks forward to working with Abraham. Abraham helped found the conservative law group the Federalist Society which specializes in eliminating social programs, affirmative action, welfare and bilingual education. The society is funded by the John M. Olin Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the Lilly Endowment-America's leading far right think tanks. Among its most prominent members are Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Thomas whose questionable election ruling gave Bush his illegitimate Presidency. Spokespersons for the Federalist Society include Bell Curve author Charles Murray, Manhattan Institute fellow Abigail Thernstrom, and Dinesh d'Souza of the American Enterprise Institute.
- Secretary of Education, Rod Paige, the latest African American Bush appointee, is a conservative public schools administrator in Texas and decades-long crony of the Bush family who supports vouchers, tying teacher pay directly to test scores and school privatization-all of which will negatively impact African American students by destroying public education.
- Secretary of Defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld was Secretary of Defense under President Ford. Rumsfeld like Powell, Cheney, Rice and numerous other Bush administration officials is a salesman for the Star Wars Missile Defense Shield. He served four terms in the US Congress where he voted against Medicare, anti-poverty programs like Headstart, food stamps and various healthcare proposals. Rumsfeld, who formerly headed Searle Pharmaceuticals, is part of the drug company axis within the Bush administration. Former President Bush was director of Eli Lilly, OMB head Mitchell E. Daniels was also senior executive of Eli Lilly and AG John Ashcroft is known as a lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Gail R. Wilensky-one of numerous John M. Olin grant recipients attached to Bush-is the principal author of GW's Medicare plan. Wilensky serves on the boards of eight health care companies in which she owns more than $12 million in stock.
- Secretary of State, Colin Powell is a lifelong operative of the CIA/military-industrial complex. While working for the Pentagon he earned his present stature by helping cover up the Mai Lai massacre, the contra/arms-cocaine deal and Gulf War Syndrome. Powell's reputation as a hero derives from presiding over a war in which US troops were used as guinea pigs for drug companies' experimental vaccines so that they could "safely" fight George Bush's friend Sadamn Hussein-who had been supplied with chemical and biological weapons by the Bush administration. Unlike most of GW's appointees of color, Powell proudly admits he owes his career to affirmative action yet willingly joins an administration that considers ending affirmative action a top priority.
- Secretary of the Treasury, Paul H. O'Neill is the chairman of Alcoa Aluminum, one of the world's worst polluters and a leading corporate supporter of Nazi Germany and eugenics. O'Neill owns 1.6 million shares of Alcoa, worth more than $50 million. During WWII Alcoa negotiated a deal with the Nazis and IG Farben to supply Germany's war machine rather than the US military with aluminum. "If America loses this war," said then Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes on June 26, 1941, "it can thank the Aluminum Corporation of America [ALCOA]." Alcoa produces hundreds of millions of tons of fluoride. This highly toxic waste byproduct of aluminum has been linked in thousands of medical studies to cancer and other degenerative diseases. In the 1950's Alcoa arranged to have it added to our nation's drinking water rather than disposed of as toxic waste. During WWII in IG Farben's slave labor camps Nazis scientists discovered that by adding fluoride to the drinking water they could make prisoners more submissive to authority. O'Neill is a fellow at the RAND Corporation and American Enterprise Institute, two more extreme right-wing think tanks.
- Attorney General John Ashcroft (NOTE: His nomination is strongly opposed - see the Confirmation Hearings process at http://dailynews.yahoo.com/fc/US/Bush_Administration/ ) is a self-styled moral crusader as strongly anti-abortion as he is enthusiastic about the death penalty. Last year, Ashcroft received an honorary degree from Bob Jones University. He is closely aligned with the Christian Coalition, Pat Robertson and Southern heritage groups which admire the Confederacy and defend the institution of slavery as practiced in the South. He is known among lobbyists as an advocate for drug companies and the automotive industry and for preventing consumers from suing HMO's. The furor over Ashcroft's anti-abortion views is being played out exactly as planned by Team Bush. Not only will the Bush administration never make abortions illegal, if anything the eugenics agenda that underlies the Bush family history guarantees that abortion, sterilization and other technologies intended to limit population-including war, chemical exposure, pesticide use in urban areas, genetically-altered foods and vaccines-will proceed at an unprecedented level. The Bush gang are delighted to see Democrats, women's rights advocates and the left focusing on Ashcroft while virtually ignoring the other Bush appointees.
- Secretary of Commerce Donald L. Evans is an insider in the Texas "oil mafia" and is GW's closest friend and confidant. He's also friend, confidant and contributor to one of America's biggest recipients of government contacts, Halliburton's Dick Cheney.
- Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr., was senior executive of the Eli Lilly drug company and was previously the president of the arch-conservative Hudson Institute. Daniels, who advocates strict enforcement of laws against casual drug users, was busted for drugs in 1970.
Bush and Eugenics links http://www.padrak.com/alt/BUSHBOOK_INDEX.html http://www.geocities.com/alanjpakula/triplecrown.html http://www.shorejournal.com/elkhorn/ http://www.bartcop.com/nazigop.htm
Past articles by Robert Lederman about West Nile Virus, Bush, Giuliani, Manhattan Institute and Eugenics can be found at: http://Baltech.org/lederman/spray/
Please forward and post widely-Thanks! And don't forget-IMPEACH GW BUSH!
1/19/01
2:56:11 PM
From: http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/may99herman.htm
The Godfather's New World Order
By Edward S. Herman
Perhaps we should take heart in the rationality of the process whereby power affects global moral judgments and policies, even if this results in the institutionalization of truly laughable double standards. Examples abound. The Godfather can get away with supporting tyrants of the most monstrous sort for decades (e.g., the Duvaliers of Haiti, Mobutu of Zaire, Gen. Alfred Stroessner of Paraguay, and Indonesia's Gen. Suharto) while proclaiming a devotion to democracy. He can destroy or support the destruction of entire regions of the world (e.g., Indochina, southern Africa) in order to "save" them. He can run the banners of international law and the UN up his flagpole (e.g., in Iraq, in Somalia, and in Bosnia in this decade), and he can pull the same banners down again when they cease to be useful and the "national interest" is at stake (e.g., in rejecting the World Court's 1986 condemnation of his acts of aggression against Nicaragua, the General Assembly vote castigating his invasion of Panama, last year's cruise missile strikes against the Sudan and Afghanistan, and this year's bombings of Iraq and Yugoslavia).
The Godfather can even pick and choose his bombing targets, all the while relying on the support of the "international community," one of the many angels in the Godfather's pantheon and one that in the end always seems to get in line just long enough to affirm the justness of his actions as self-appointed global judge and enforcer.
The bombables are those who cross the Godfather and his friends (Iraqis, Lebanese), who interfere with their plans to dominate (Serbs; earlier, Vietnamese), or who may be guilty of aiding the established villains (Afghans, Sudanese). Those engaging in similar or worse behavior, but allies or clients of the Godfather and serving his interests, are exempt from bombing and are even given aid and protection (Israelis, Turks, Colombians). It is possible to move quickly from one class to another, as Saddam Hussein did on August 2, 1990-previously given aid and diplomatic protection by the U.S. and its British toady, thereafter "another Hitler" and bombable.
Acceptable & Unacceptable Impunity
For those designated villains, like Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge (KR), war crimes tribunals are "the only way to reconciliation," as Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explained to Thai officials in Bangkok on March 5. Otherwise, the reasoning goes, the Cambodian people will be unable to summon up the courage to face the future and bury the past. Power having spoken, the "international community" agrees, and UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also gets on board, urging that the KR leaders be brought before an international tribunal because "impunity is unacceptable in the face of either genocide or crimes against humanity." Nor is there likely to be any impunity either for Slobodan Milosevic, the current Bad Fellow Number One on the international community's short list of designated criminals. With the Western media focusing intently on the details of his army's ethnic cleansing, and with a Finnish forensic group reportedly declaring the Serb killings at Racak a "crime against humanity," and recommending that the atrocity be referred to the International War Crimes Tribunal in the Hague, it would clearly be unacceptable for this latest "Hitler" to escape accountability.
But it turns out that "impunity" is acceptable for the allies, clients, and friends of the Godfather as well as the Godfather himself. The Godfather having supported Suharto for 33 years, and declaring him "our kind of guy" in 1995, his triple genocide (Indonesia, 1965-1969, East Timor, West Papua) does not cause the international community, Kofi Annan, or Western media and moralists to call for forensic investigations of his killing fields, much less a trial for crimes against humanity. Even with the extensive publicity given Suharto during his downfall in the spring of 1998, nowhere in the mainstream U.S. media was it suggested that he was a war criminal deserving the same treatment as Pol Pot. Madeleine Albright even discussed the need for a war crimes trial of the KR leaders in Jakarta on March 4 without anybody in the western media raising an eyebrow about double standards. Suharto is a "good genocidist" who killed unworthy victims (i.e., he served western interests), and western reporters and editorialists internalize his special impunity status.
Similarly, prior to last October's surprise request by the Spanish Magistrate Balthasar Garzon for Great Britain's arrest and extradition of Chilean Senator for Life Augusto Pinochet, his impunity and continuing anti-democratic power in Chile had hardly aroused the international community. On the contrary, Chile had been treated as a success story. The wee bit of class cleansing that occurred there had a happy ending, with a constrained neoliberal democracy, a battered working class reduced to a political non-factor, and the Chilean economy a model of free market "reform." The Spanish extradition request took the West by surprise, and while some media commentators now say that Pinochet deserves extradition and trial, none of them had previously declared him a war criminal and urged that he be cuffed, packaged, and shipped to The Hague. Like Suharto, he was a good geno- cidist, his impunity unchallenged.
With the KR leaders, national reconciliation requires "accountability for the past" and therefore the convening of an internationally sponsored war crimes tribunal. In the case of good genocidists, however, it is amusing to see how frequently reconciliation and accountability allegedly clash, ruling out
Official apologies for gross misdeeds play a varied role in the Godfather's world. They can serve as a means of exonerating his associates and himself, and this can be contrasted with the outrageous refusal of enemies to do the same. During the long Israeli-Palestinian conflict the Palestinian leadership frequently refused to apologize for violent acts (some of which they denied being responsible for), whereas in a number of gross cases the Israelis would say they were sorry. This was regularly put forward as demonstrating a higher Israeli moral standard. After Sabra-Shatila, where the Christian Phalange in a refugee camp under Israeli control butchered more than 1,000 Palestinian civilians, an Israeli commission investigated the incident, found several Israeli officers guilty of negligence, subjected them to minor penalties, and expressed regrets at the incident. The high morality of this process greatly impressed the U.S. media, and from their curious perspective it more than offset any negative assessments of Israeli virtue stemming from its role in a massacre of Palestinian civilians vastly greater than any inflicted on Israel by the "terrorists."
Similarly, the Soviet Union's failure to apologize for the September 1993 destruction of the Korean Air Lines Flight 007, which they had mistaken to be an encroaching spy plane, helped reinforce the furious media denunciations of Soviet barbarism and cold-blooded murder. On the other hand, when the Missile Cruiser U.S. Vincennes shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in 1988, killing 290 Iranians, the act was defended here as an understandable if regrettable error, and the U.S. graciously expressed regrets and offered reparations. However, Captain William C. Rogers, III, the officer in charge of the Vincennes when this shoot down occurred, was given a hero's welcome on his return to the ship's port of call in San Diego, and was subsequently awarded the Navy's Legion of Merit medal for "exceptionally meritorious conduct" and "outstanding service" in a ceremony presided over by President George Bush, somewhat weakening the force of the apology. At the time (1990), this award for distinguished service was given near-zero publicity by the mainstream media.
Another function of apologies is to confirm the lesser moral standing of rival states, helping keep them in their place, and demonstrating the appropriateness of the U.S. role as leader. The U.S. media regularly and with relish feature demands on the French, Germans, and Japanese for apologies (and reparations) for past crimes -the French and Germans for their mistreatment of the Jews; the Japanese for their crimes in China and Korea. Reporting these demands and apologies subtly elevates the moral status of the U.S., even if based on a chauvinistic ignoring of our own crimes and failure to mention the postwar U.S. protection and use of Nazi and Japanese war criminals.
The Godfather rarely apologizes for his own numerous and very large crimes. This is because of the self-righteous arrogance of power, reinforced by a deeply rooted racism, recorded in the numerous racist-supremacist statements made by a string of U.S. presidents and secretaries of state. In imperial ideology, the leadership of the imperial power always means well, so that any deaths inflicted on distant peoples are a regrettable side-effect of the leader/ policeperson's benevolent intent. As we suffer casualties in these noble endeavors, the people we are trying to save should be thanking us for our generous service rather than expecting apologies.
So the U.S. has felt no obligation to apologize very often-not for slavery, lynching, segregation, the genocidal treatment of Native Americans, the dropping of two atomic bombs on cities of the defeated Japan, the devastation of Indochina, the underwriting of the National Security States, death squads and disappearances of the years 1950-1990, or the putting into place Mobutu, Marcos, Pinochet, and Suharto, among many other crimes.
Clinton has therefore broken new ground on the apologies front. Suddenly, the president is terribly sorry for his Administration's foot dragging on the Rwandan atrocities in 1994. He is sorry for what the government of his country helped do in Guatemala for almost a half-century. In the Guatemala case, of course, Clinton tells us that the exigencies of the Cold War and anti- communism explained but did not justify our behavior. The media response to Clinton's apology on Guatemala has been generally positive. The prevailing view is that the apology is morally cleansing, and as in the case of Israeli apologies displays our high moral quality. The right wing has been less pleased, some cynically noting how "cheap" it is to apologize, others questioning our making any apologies whatsoever, given the evil of communism and the desirable long run effects of its defeat. Clinton, of course, did not explain why we supported the murderous Guatemalan tyrant Jorge Ubico (1931-1944) long before the Cold War. None of the media analysts suggest that maybe the Cold War was a cover for policies desired on other grounds- like protecting United Fruit's investments and meeting the general corporate objective of assuring a favorable climate of investment.
Not a single mainstream media commentator has suggested that Clinton is doing today exactly what he is apologizing for our having done in the past, and that some apology-minded leader a decade or two down the line may well be apologizing for Clinton's "sanctions murder" of over a million Iraqis, his support of very serious state and paramilitary terror in Colombia, and his major role in the dismantlement and destruction of Yugoslavia. Z
Edward S. Herman is professor of finance at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of numerous books and articles, and has been a contributor to Z since 1988.
1/19/01
2:54:52 PM
RED CHINA and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS
Hi, Jean
Your recent compilation again mentions the dreadful corruption evidenced by the recent 5-week dog-and-pony show in Florida.
-That- picture of how the world is being run is so awfully small, we really need to come beyond it as soon as possible.
It's been rumored for years and years that all presidential elections were 'fixed' from the outset, and that "vote fraud" is a major part of how the outcomes were produced. The most important element of the 'fix', of course, is the "two-party system" itself, which allows the possibility -both- candidates will be in service to a same agenda that is never revealed to the people's awareness.
In other words, Florida didn't represent "anything new" -- which means, we were -allowed- to see the process on this occasion, for shadowed reasons we don't yet understand, but, to be sure, those reasons are being served by our continuing to remark on "how terrible it all is!" and the idea, "-Now- we must do something about it!"
One writer in your compilation mentioned that "democracy" is broken. Technically he's wrong about that, and doesn't understand what "democracy" is.
In a Republic, sovereignty is vested in -each- natural person. In a Democracy, sovereignty is vested in -the lump of all- natural persons.
This means that in a Republic, the government is -under- the sovereign people; whereas in a Democracy, each person -owes- his/her participation in, and compliance to, the System. In a Democracy, nothing can be done until the "will of the Lump" is determined, by voting in which everyone participates -- and then, the "will of the lump" is imposed without exception upon all persons who comprise the lump.
There is no provision in Democracy for "rights of minorities"; rather, it's "we'll all be doing what the majority wants" and whatever they happen to feel is preferable on any given day.
Socrates was sentenced to death, -by- a Democracy, in which at least 51% of the persons found it intolerable that Socrates should continue to live -- without regard to the remaining 49% and whatever they may have wanted.
HOWEVER -- It's mistaken to believe that the dog-and-pony show in Florida revealed anything, one way or the other, about the current status of either "our democracy" or "our republic" -- because it was -not- an example of either form of government in action, but "an incredible simulation" provided for our (the world's) attention at this point in the unfoldment of world events.
We need to ask this question:
How -much- do we know a thing to be true?
For example, do we really -know- that "the will of the people" was for Gore to be president? All we do know is that there was some commotion over ballot-counting, ONLY in Florida, offered to us with interpretations by media. Were there no chads or dimples anywhere in California or elsewhere? Could it be our attention was invited to center on Florida solely because it would seem more plausible to us that there could be something amiss there, since Bush's brother is governor there?
AND STILL we don't get it. It isn't about "the process went wrong". It's about "the process was -arrogated- years and years ago, not by Democrats or Republicans, not by Conservatives or Liberals, but by...well, read Sherman Skolnick's recent piece below, to get an enlarged sense of how long this has been going on; then supply your own creative term for what to call the ones who have arrogated the system. :-)
From: American Patriot Friends Network <apfn@apfn.org>
RED CHINA and THE AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS Part One by Sherman H. Skolnick 1/15/01 skolnick@ameritech.net
CLIP - There is no room left to include this article. To review it please go at: http://www.skolnicksreport.com/rchintape.html
IT UNCOVERS LOTS OF CORRUPTION!
And make sure to visit http://www.skolnicksreport.com
1/19/01
2:28:47 PM
Shun Bush
On Saturday January 20, George W. Bush will be sworn in as President. It's time to move on.
But first we should take a moment to mourn the damage done to our constitutional system. This coming Friday will be memorialized around the nation as "Black Friday." Wear black, or a black armband.
On Saturday, many groups are organizing peaceful democracy rallies across the nation. A great list of local events is available at:
http://www.geocities.com/countercoup/alerts.htm
The most prominent rally will take place in Washington D.C., organized by VoterMarch.org. Here is the VoterMarch.org event info for D.C.:
Thousands of us from all over the country will be meeting at Dupont Circle in Wash. DC at 10:00 am on Saturday, January 20th. We will have a professional stage and sound system set up for our demonstration at Dupont Circle where we will have various nationally acclaimed speakers and entertainers performing. We will then have an organized protest march from Dupont Circle to the western side of the Ellipse which will be our second permitted demonstration site.
Go to http://www.votermarch.org for more info. I've also included a text version of the VoterMarch.org local events below.
There's a lot of work to do. Keep the faith, and stay tuned.
Remember -- you are not alone.
Sincerely,
Wes Boyd MoveOn.org
Phoenix State Capitol, Jan. 20th, 10:00am For info, contact iluvut429@aol.com
Chicago Saturday, January 20, 2001 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. DePaul University Schmidt Academic Center Auditorium Room 154 2345 N. Kenmore Paid parking is available at 2350 N. Clifton
Houston Inauguration Day Protest Saturday January 20th at 11am Federal Courthouse Building 515 Rusk @ Smith across from Tranquility Park, Downtown Houston
Honolulu, HI January 20, 2001. 10am. Counter Inaugural demonstration on Ala Moana Blvd in front of the Federal Building. For more information, or to offer to help, please email dameb001@hawaii.rr.com.
Los Angeles January 20, 2001 Pershing Square Rally at 11:00 am March to Downtown Federal Building at 1:30 pm -For more information, please see http://www.actionla.org/J20/
Oregon Anti-Inaugural Rallies All Oregon rallies are Jan. 20th, at 10:00 AM. For more information, contact rill2@efn.org or see http://www.angelfire.com/zine/gopstopper/greensagainstbush.html
Eugene- Wayne Morse Free Speech Plaza Corvallis- Benton County Courthouse Portland- Multnomah Courthouse
Philadelphia Saturday , Januray 20 starting at 10:30 AM. There will be a "Death of Liberty" march and rally starting at the Liberty Bell on Market St., between 5th and 6th Streets. Contact Kathy Black (215-893-3770) or Michael Morrill (610-478-7888) for more information.
Seattle Protest Thousands are expected at Seattle's Inauguration Day Protest. Lots of activities will be taking place throughout the day. See http://www.j20seattle.org to learn more
Hartford, CT Rally January 20, 2001 12:00 to 2:00 Capitol Building, Hartford http://www.iUpTown.com/CTRally/
San Francisco Rally/March 12 PM @ Civic Center Plaza, Grove & Larkin (Civic Center BART station ). Sponsor (with permits, etc.) International Action Center iac@actionsf.org 415-821-6545 Crowd will march to Jefferson Park at 1 PM for speakers, music, etc.
1/19/01
2:25:50 PM
Russians in 20 Cities Protest Nuke Waste Import Plan
MOSCOW, Russia, January 16, 2001 (ENS) - Russian environmental groups organized their first day of actions Monday against a proposal of the Ministry of Atomic Power (Minatom) import nuclear waste on a commercial basis.
Actions took place in 20 cities across western and central Russia, the Ural district and Siberia.
The environmentalists are protesting approval given by the Duma, the lower house of the Russian parliament, for a first reading of three laws that would allow Minatom to store and reprocess foreign spent nuclear fuel in Russia. Current Russian law does not permit the import of nuclear waste.
The laws must now be approved now in second and third readings. Then they will need approval from President Vladimir Putin and the Federation Council. The Duma has scheduled second reading of the waste import bills next Monday, January 22.
Anti-nuclear protest action near the Minatom building in Moscow (Photo courtesy Socio-Ecological Union) On Monday, Yabloko, the only political party which strongly opposed the nuclear waste import in the Duma, called for nationwide resistance to the Minatom plan. In most of Monday's actions, members of the local branches of different political parties from Democrats to Communists joined the protests.
On January 22, environmental activists plan a fax blitz of all political factions in the Duma to demonstrate their opposition to the nuclear waste import bills.
Anti-Nuclear campaign and Press-Service, which both belong to the environmental coalition known as the Socio-Ecological Union, intend to publish action updates on resistance to the waste imports in Moscow every day until January 22.
A new report on the transportion of radioactive materials across Russia will be released next week at the National Press Institute in Moscow. The report, by analysts that the environmental groups refer to as "independent," says nuclear transport is extremely dangerous in Russia with dozens of serious accidents happening every year.
The Socio-Ecological Union and EcoDefense! have been working since 1994 to stop the development and spread of nuclear technology, and replace it with renewable sources of energy and efficiency technologies.
http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-16-03.html
1/19/01
2:18:02 PM
U. Chicago scientists search for what keeps us together
(U-WIRE) CHICAGO -- "Everything should just fall apart," said University of Chicago physicist Henry Frisch. The forces that hold things together should get weaker and weaker, matter should collapse, and the world should end. But it doesn't. That's bothering Frisch and his colleagues. A lot.
Frisch is one of the many University of Chicago and Fermilab scientists working to fix and expand physics' Standard Model, the current basic theory of the universe.
The model, which generally explains how everything in the universe is made out a few basic building blocks called quarks and leptons, has done a good job of explaining almost everything. However, there are inconsistencies deep within it that have many physicists convinced something is wrong.
The first of these is what is called the hierarchy problem, which deals with the fact that, of the four fundamental forces (electromagnetism, gravity, and the strong and weak nuclear forces), gravity is dramatically weaker -- by 38 orders of magnitude. This inconsistency, said Frisch, when fed into the equations of the Standard Model, makes it seem as if the universe should have fallen apart. Because it hasn't, something may be wrong.
The second problem concerns mass. Many of the basic particles are differentiated solely by mass. There's no obvious reason why that should be or, for that matter, why anything should have mass at all. The answer would help scientists understand a phenomenon called symmetry breaking -- essentially why all the particles aren't identical. The Standard Model is of no help here: mass values, and quite a few others, just have to be plugged in -- they aren't predicted. This sort of inelegance suggests to physicists that something is wrong.
The resolution to these basic problems with our understanding of the universe may begin to come at Fermilab, in Batavia, starting this March 1. That's when, after years of improvements, the accelerator will be turned on again. The accelerator has been modified to have a greater luminosity, a quantity that measures the number of particles in the accelerator's beam. More particles mean more collisions at higher energies, and it is at those higher energies that scientists suspect the answer lies. Its name may be Higgs.
"The fundamental masses of everything we see is controlled by the Higgs," said Chris Hill, a scientist at Fermilab.
The Higgs boson, named after Scottish theorist Peter Higgs, is thought to be the particle carrying a mass-creating field that permeates all of space. As other matter moves through it, Higgs may "pull" at them, causing the phenomenon we know as mass. Its presence, physicists believe, would resolve the mass problem, and begin to explain the problems surrounding gravity.
The trick to seeing it has been increasing the energy. The Higgs boson is so massive that it requires a great deal of energy to generate (Einstein's relativity relates mass to energy).
"You give the vacuum a solid kick of energy," said Hill. If it is enough, Higgs may be created. But it has to be spotted.
Frisch and his colleague Mel Shochet, both of the Chicago physics department, have been working on the Collider Detector Fermilab (CDF) project since its inception 24 years ago. Now leaders of the team, they have been rebuilding the detector to look for Higgs. "The focus of the up-coming five years of running is searching for new phenomenon," said Shochet.
The detector, newly modified by adding a device called the Silicon Vertex Trigger (SVT), a ring of very thin lines of silicon that can track pa rticles given off by collisions very precisely, works in two parts.
The first part, of which the SVT is a section, is a series of layers of ionizable materials. As the high-energy particles from collisions pass through the layers, they leave their tracks, from which qualities like mass and charge may be deduced.
Then comes a section called the calorimeter, made of thick layers of iron or lead and plastic, which absorbs the particles and measures their energy. With all that data, Frisch and Shochet's team can figure out what was created at the heart of the detector.
"When we first started out nobody knew what might be seen at the high energies that might be accessible to us," said Shochet. Now, he said, armed with millions of lines of computer programming to aid in identification, they are ready to hunt for Higgs and other strange phenomenon.
They will watch especially for the very few things that the Standard Model doesn't account for. "We are both blessed and cursed with a theory that explains everything -- almost," said Frisch. The way forward to new physics is in the gaps.
Higgs isn't the only thing lurking out there in the high-energy realm. There are other, even odder theories, including that of superstrings, two-dimensional filaments that, by vibrating in many dimensions, create all matter and forces on their own.
Other theories call for extra dimensions that curl around themselves, among other things. That's not to say that Higgs wouldn't matter if it were found, though. "Looking for it is the most important thing at the moment," said Frisch. "But it isn't the God particle; they're all God's particles."
Or, of course, it could not be there at all. Higgs might just be a creation of human theorists. "We are prone to irrational exuberance sometimes. We have to remember that nature is the ultimate arbiter," said Hill.
Either way, when Fermilab swings back into action in March, armed with a refitted accelerator and Shochet and Frisch's team's detector, it will be ready to start looking. Eventually, we may be able to understand why we don't all fall apart and, for that matter, why we exist at all.
"I'd like to understand something very basic," Frisch said. Whether he will is up in the air. "I tend to believe that nature is complex," Hill said.
http://news.excite.com/news/uw/010112/tech-15
1/19/01
1:58:22 PM
Dr. Michio Kaku is on most Wednesday nights with his radio show Explorations http://www.wbai.org 7 - 8 PM Eastern Time via Real Audio.
Dr. Michio Kaku is: http://www.mkaku.org
1/19/01
1:01:02 PM
ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE (ENS) http://ens-news.com
"We Cover the Earth For You"
BIOTECH FOODS RULE FAILS TO PROTECT AMERICAN PUBLIC
By Cat Lazaroff
WASHINGTON, DC, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - Consumers concerned about the potential health and environmental effects of genetically engineered foods will not find much to like in new federal regulations released this week. The regulations, which provide guidance for the release and marketing of food developed through biotechnology, do not require labeling or premarket testing of engineered foods.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-07.html
NATURAL GAS ESCAPING SALT WELLS BLOWS KANSAS TOWN APART
HUTCHISON, Kansas, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - Natural gas and salt both lie beneath the town of Hutchison, a combination that proved explosive Wednesday and again today.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-03.html
NATURAL GAS ESCAPING SALT WELLS BLOWS KANSAS TOWN APART
HUTCHISON, Kansas, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - Natural gas and salt both lie beneath the town of Hutchison, a combination that proved explosive Wednesday and again today.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-03.html
NEVADA NUCLEAR TEST SITE TO HOST HUGE WIND FARM
WASHINGTON, DC, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - Part of a former nuclear weapons testing site in Nevada is being transformed into the nation's second largest wind power facility.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-02.html
U.S. MOVES TO LIMIT ARSENIC IN DRINKING WATER
WASHINGTON, DC, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency moved Wednesday to reduce public health risks from arsenic in the nation's drinking water. The agency is establishing a new arsenic standard for drinking water that is five terms more stringent than current regulations.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-06.html
BUSH ENERGY PICK ROCKS AS CALIFORNIA BLACKOUTS ROLL
By Brian Hansen
WASHINGTON, DC, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - President-elect George W. Bush's nominee for Energy Secretary sailed smoothly through his Senate confirmation hearing today, despite the fact that he once advocated abolishing the very department that he is now poised to lead.
For full text and graphics visit: http://ens-news.com/ens/jan2001/2001L-01-18-15.html
CANADIAN JUDGE GRANTS WATER BUFFALO REPRIEVE
DUNCAN, British Columbia, Canada, January 18, 2001 (ENS) - A Canadian