BACK TO THE BUNKER
By William M. Arkin
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page B01
On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington.
But for all the BlackBerry culture, the outcome is still old-fashioned black and white: We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternate facilities, data warehouses and communications, yet no one can really foretell what would happen to the leadership and functioning of the federal government in a catastrophe.
After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington.
Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible.
Moreover, since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the definition of what constitutes an "essential" government function has been expanded so ridiculously beyond core national security functions -- do we really need patent and trademark processing in the middle of a nuclear holocaust? -- that the term has become meaningless. The intent of the government effort may be laudable, even necessary, but a hyper-centralized approach based on the Cold War model of evacuations and bunkering makes it practically worthless.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201410.html
N Korea threatens to ‘wipe out’ US
Agencies
Sunday, June 18, 2006 22:33 IST
SEOUL: North Korea on Sunday threatened to “mercilessly wipe out” US forces in case of war during a national meeting to mark leader Kim Jong-Il’s 42 years’ work at the ruling party. The threat, in a ruling party report carried by the Korean Central News Agency, came as North Korea was reportedly preparing to test-fire a long-range missile despite strong protests from the United States and its allies.
A missile launch by North Korea would inflame a region already tense over the North’s continuing nuclear weapons development. The North is believed to be planning a test of its most advanced missile yet, the Taepodong 2, which could reach parts of the United States with a light payload.
The US expects North Korea to renew its moratorium on long-range missile tests and return to six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions, the White House said on Sunday. Reports of an imminent North Korean missile test has drawn warnings from the US, Japan and South Korea, but Japanese officials were quoted as saying Sunday that a test was unlikely.
Japan warned North Korea of “a harsh response” from Tokyo and Washington if it went ahead with the launch of a long-range missile.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1036367
Iran: U.S. Making Nuke Talks Difficult
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 18, 2006; 2:10 PM
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran accused the United States on Sunday of steering Europe away from a possible compromise on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the U.S. insistence on conditional negotiations over a Western package of incentives has narrowed the scope of possible talks and made it tougher for all parties to reach a solution.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, speaks with media in his weekly press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 18, 2006. Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday accused the U.S. of pushing Europe away from a compromise on Tehran's disputed nuclear program. "We feel that the Americans are trying to take Europe to a point that the case could not be easily solvable," Asefi told reporters, referring to a Western package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to stop enriching uranium. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) (Vahid Salemi - AP)
PH
The incentives are meant to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium, a process that can make nuclear fuel for a power plant or fissile material for an atomic bomb.
"We feel that the Americans are trying to take Europe to a point that the case could not be easily solvable," Asefi said. "The U.S. said it gave a deadline to Iran to respond to the package, but that is not correct. Again, they mix different issues and that is not appropriate."
Asefi reiterated that enriching uranium was his country's unalienable right, and that talks must be unconditional. He said Iranian officials were reviewing the package, and Iran would propose amendments to the deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800174.html
Hundreds of tribesmen protest reporter's death
Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:24 AM BST
By Anwarullah Khan
KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of Pakistani tribesmen staged a protest on Sunday against the killing of a journalist, abducted last year after reporting that an al Qaeda leader had been killed by a U.S. missile.
The handcuffed body of the journalist, Hayatullah Khan, was found dumped in mountains outside the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border on Friday. He was shot in the back of the head, probably on Thursday.
More than 800 tribesmen marched in the main market of Khar, the main town of the Bajaur tribal region, chanting slogans of "We want press freedom" "We want protection" and "Arrest killers of Hayatullah".
Speakers at the rally criticised the government for its failure to protect journalists working in the lawless tribal region where security forces are battling al Qaeda militants and their allies.
"The government is responsible for the killing of Hayatullah," said Maulana Muhammad Sadiq, a local cleric and lawmaker from the region.
At least four journalists have been killed and many have fled to other parts of Pakistan since government forces intensified its war against terrorism in tribal regions, particularly in Waziristan, in early 2004.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-18T102426Z_01_ISL202280_RTRUKOC_0_UK-PAKISTAN-JOURNALIST.xml&archived=False
Kazakhstan puts satellite in space
Jun 18, 2006
The former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan launched its first communications satellite into orbit on Sunday, joining the club of world space powers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to witness the launch of the unmanned, Russian-built KazSat 1 as the sun rose over the barren steppe surrounding the Baikonur Cosmodrome in western Kazakhstan.
The $US65 million satellite is part of Nazarbayev's wider plan to raise the profile of his country, one of the world's top 20 oil producers, as a key player in the Central Asian region while maintaining good ties with neighbouring Russia.
Putin watched the launch through binoculars while Nazarbayev pointed at the Russian-built Proton booster rocket that carried the satellite into space. The two leaders left shortly afterwards without speaking to reporters.
Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989, first as communist boss, then as president. The former Soviet republic of 15 million people is the world's ninth-largest country.
The satellite will be used for television broadcasting and other communication services in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Its originally planned launch in December 2005 was delayed due to unspecified technical problems.
"I congratulate you all on our victory. Kazakhstan has become a new space power," said Igor Panarin, spokesman for Russia's state space authority.
"Both presidents were quite nervous before the launch but they showed a lot of satisfaction with its success."
The Baikonur cosmodrome was used by the Soviet Union to launch its first Sputnik satellite in 1957.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/752971
Al-Qaida's plot to gas subways
AP
19jun06
NEW YORK -- Terrorists plotted to unleash poisonous gas on New York's subways before being ordered to abort the plan, an award-winning author says.
Time magazine reported yesterday that in 2003, al-Qaida terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps.
According to Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ron Suskind, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, cancelled the plan in January 2003, despite the likelihood that the strike would have killed as many people as the September 11 attacks.
An informant close to al-Qaida management told US officials that operatives had planned to use a small, easily concealed delivery system to release hydrogen cyanide into multiple subway cars.
US officials had already discovered plans for the device in the computer of a Bahraini jihadist arrested in February 2003, and they had been able to construct a working model from the plans.
The easy-to-make device, called "the mubtakkar" -- meaning "invention" or "initiative" -- represented a breakthrough in weapons technology that "was the equivalent of splitting the atom", Mr Suskind wrote. All previous efforts to mount mass attacks with the deadly gas, similar to that used in Holocaust-era gas chambers, had failed.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19510001%255E663,00.html
Rockford board member falls at Yellowstone, dies
Updated: June 18, 2006 02:31 PM
ROCKFORD - Deb Chamberlain, the vice president of the Rockford school board, fell to her death during a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park.
According to reports, Chamberlain, 52, stepped over a low rock-retaining wall to take a picture. She lost her footing and fell 500 feet toward the Yellowstone River.
Her husband, Gary, flagged down a passing motorist who called 911. When rescuers reached her by rapelling down the cliff, she had already died.
In her biography on the Rockford Public Schools website, she described herself as "a stay-at-home mom and volunteer." Chamberlain spent 17 years with Haworth and with the American Marketing Association.
24 Hour News 8 will have more details as they become available.
http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5045716&nav=menu44_2
National Guard Deployed At Mexican Border
by UPI Wire
Jun 18, 2006
SAN LUIS, Ariz. - June 18, 2006 (UPI) -- Some 800 U.S. National Guard troops began working along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border Sunday as part of a federal plan to slow illegal immigration.
Mario Martinez, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, told the New York Times the mission called Operation Jump Start will see Guard troops monitoring surveillance cameras and sensors, building roads and building fencing to free up regular Border Patrol agents for patrols.
"The National Guard is not going to be involved in any law enforcement mission," Martinez said. "Actual arrests, seizures, custodial -- none of that stuff."
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21223758.shtml
Fentanyl-laced Heroin Kills Hundreds Of Addicts In USA
Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 16 Jun 2006 - 16:00pm (PDT)
Fentanyl-laced herion has killed hundreds of addicts from Chicago to Philadelphia. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic drug, a prescription painkiller. It is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and can kill humans in small doses. Most likely, the fentanyl is not pharmaceutical grade - it is probably made in illicit labs. Just 125 micrograms is enough to kill an adult - the equivalent of a few grains of salt.
According to Chicago police, a West Side gang member has been arrested. The police say the arrest will hopefully lead them to the main supplier of the deadly heroin cocktail.
More than 100 alleged drug dealers have been arrested over the last two months in an attempt to get the main dealer. None of the arrests helped the investigators get any nearer to their objective. Hopefully, this West Side arrest will. The gang member was selling fentanyl-laced heroin, lab tests showed.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=45391
Revealed: UK set for first face transplants
· Ethics experts prepare to give approval
· Doctors seek four suitable patients
Jo Revill, health editor
Sunday June 18, 2006
The Observer
French surgeons perform the world's first partial face transplant on a 38-year-old woman in Amiens. Photograph: AP
A British hospital is set to give the go-ahead for four British patients to undergo face transplants in what will prove a major landmark in surgery.
The ethical committee of the Royal Free Hospital in north London is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will approve the first operations for a full-face transplant. The recipients have not yet been selected but several potential candidates have already been seen by doctors.
The move marks the final hurdle for the team of plastic surgeons and specialists at the hospital who have spent the past 12 years investigating the possibility of face transplants. They have carried out studies that they say show a transplant is not only physically possible but would have huge psychological benefits for people left disfigured by accidents or burns.
Simon Weston, a veteran who suffered terrible burns in the Falklands war, will accompany a team of doctors to the committee meeting this week to explain why he feels the medical community must allow face transplants in Britain. He was initially against the move but has looked at their work and come down in favour of it.
The world's first face transplant took place last November when a French factory worker, 38-year-old Isabelle Dinoire, underwent surgery after being mauled by her labrador. She now has feeling back in her face and has talked about how the operation has transformed her life.
The Royal College of Surgeons, however, has been reticent about the prospect of such transplants in Britain. It produced a report last year that concluded more research was needed to show that a new donor face transplanted on to a recipient would not be rejected by the body's immune system. New animal studies have shown that problems over how immuno-suppressant drugs work may not be as serious as anticipated.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1800266,00.html
WHO: 25% deaths a year due to killer environment
Kounteya Sinha
[ Saturday, June 17, 2006 12:18:33 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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NEW DELHI: The world now has a hitlist for problems it needs to tackle most urgently, in terms of health and the environment. World Health Organisation (WHO) has for the first time ever shown how specific diseases and injuries are influenced by environmental risks and by how much.
Diseases with the largest total annual health burden from environmental factors, in terms of death, illness and disability per year have been identified as: diarrhoea (58 million), largely from unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene; lower respiratory infections (37 million) due to air pollution; road traffic injuries (15 million) due to poor urban design; malaria (19 million) because of poor water resource, housing and land use management; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (12 million) due to exposure to workplace dusts and fumes; and perinatal conditions (11 million).
World Health Organisation's report, "Preventing disease through healthy environments รข€” towards an estimate of the environmental burden of disease", the most comprehensive and systematic study undertaken on how preventable environmental hazards contribute to diseases and injuries, has revealed that almost a quarter of all deaths are caused by environmental risks which can be averted.
It estimates that more than 13 million lives are lost every year due to avoidable causes and says 33% of diseases in children under the age of five are caused by environmental exposures.
Tackling environmental risks could save up to four million lives a year, according to the report. Over 40% of deaths from malaria and an estimated 94% of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases, two of the world's biggest childhood killers, can be prevented through better environment.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1655660.cms
Sources Leak Info about Microsoft-Branded iPod Killer
By Christopher Hogg
Digital Journal — With thousands of stories surfacing about software sultan Bill Gates’ departure, Digital Journal would like to award Microsoft a medal for earning the most publicity in a single week for something other than a software flaw.
Think about it: In the same week the death toll of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq topped 2,500 and Canadians began a country-wide crackdown on terrorism, more than 6,500 stories were filed about Bill Gates on Google News.
But in the midst of all the headlines about Gates, you might not have seen a story filed by Reuters that says Microsoft is currently planning to develop a music and video device to compete with Apple’s iPod, and a music service to rival Apple’s iTunes.
If it was any other company making this announcement, I would say, “Best of luck, don’t let Apple kill you before you get a chance to register a domain name.” But since the competitor is Microsoft, the story is a little bit different.
Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has fiercely opposed rumours it was partnering with consumer electronics companies in Japan to launch an iPod killer. The only real clue came at a conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal where Gates said “There is such a rumour” when asked if the company is going to roll out a music player.
The news comes at a time when Microsoft is also working to change its image and modus operandi to focus more on software as a service — the company is set to launch its new OS, Windows Vista, in January 2007.
According to Reuters, sources close to Microsoft say Robbie Bach — the budding business star who headed the Xbox video game business — will oversee the project to take a bite out of Apple. The Redmond-based company has even held licensing talks with the recording industry and has begun to showcase entertainment devices.
Microsoft has already dabbled in digital music, most recently by providing copyright protection framework for MTV’s Urge download service. But a Microsoft-branded mPod and mTunes service is a total reversal of the company’s prior plan to simply partner with tech companies and open up services for a various devices. With its own branded service, the company could achieve instant recognition far beyond the tweens and twenty-somethings that stay glued to MTV.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/?articleID=4772
New American Century" Project Ends With A Whimper by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which did so much to promote the invasion of Iraq and an Israel-centred "global war on terror", closing down?
In the absence of an official announcement and the failure since late last year of a live person to answer its telephone number, a Washington Post obituary would seem to be definitive. And, sure enough, the Post quoted one unidentified source presumably linked to PNAC that the group was "heading toward closing" with the feeling of "goal accomplished".
In fact, the nine-year-old group, whose 27 founders included Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, among at least half a dozen of the most powerful hawks in the George W. Bush administration's first term, has been inactive since January 2005, when it issued the last of its "statements", an appeal to significantly increase the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to cope with the growing demands of the kind of "Pax Americana" it had done so much to promote.
As a platform for the three-part coalition that was most enthusiastic about war in Iraq -- aggressive nationalists like Cheney, Christian Zionists of the religious Right, and Israel-centred neo-conservatives -- PNAC actually began breaking down shortly after the Iraq invasion.
More here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0613-05.htm
Posted by: Link at June 18, 2006 03:58 PM
NOBODYS BLOG
for links got to www.thealphaliberal.blogspot.com
Sunday, June 18, 2006
News and Articles 6-18-06
Fraud Alert Protection Removed by House Bill
In the last two months I have been notified about the following threats on my personal identity data:
1. The Veterans Administration admited losing data on over 26 million veterans.
2. Metropolitan State College of Denver informed me that it had lost personal identification data on a large portion of its students, including me.
3. The Denver Election Commission said that it had "misplaced" or lost my personal data - including my signature.
In this morning's Washington Post Brian Krebs writes an article that lists ways you can protect your identity and what to do if you suspect it has been stolen or compromised. The first thing that Mr. Krebs suggests is to file a fraud alert with the three major credit bureaus. The alert lasts 90 days and can be renewed.
Unfortunately, at the end of the article Mr. Krebs writes the following:
" the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog group in Washington, said a bill recently passed by the House Financial Services Committee and supported by the major financial institutions would exempt companies from alerting consumers about data thefts or losses if the company does not know whether that loss places the consumer at a direct risk of identity theft. The bill also would reserve credit freezes for ID theft victims only."
A Chronology of Data Breaches Reported Since the ChoicePoint Incident
Estimated grand total of # of people affected: 85,149,786
Government Increasingly Turning to Data Mining
Peek Into Private Lives May Help in Hunt for Terrorists
The Pentagon pays a private company to compile data on teenagers it can recruit to the military. The Homeland Security Department buys consumer information to help screen people at borders and detect immigration fraud.
As federal agencies delve into the vast commercial market for consumer information, such as buying habits and financial records, they are tapping into data that would be difficult for the government to accumulate but that has become a booming business for private companies.
FBI, DoD, NSA: All Spying on You
Over the last several months, it has been revealed that the FBI, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have each set up apparently independent covert operations to monitor the constitutionally protected political activities of citizens opposed to the Bush administration’s war in Iraq.
Docs Show F.B.I. Spying On Groups Advocating For Environment, Animal Cruelty, Poverty Relief...
FCC Releases Orders for Internet Backdoor Wiretap Access
Congress Expands FBI Spying Power
F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies
U.S. airstrikes rise in Afghanistan
Fighting intensifies as Taliban grows more aggressive
As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.
West has been helping itself, not Afghanistan:
The aid flowing to Afghanistan is only a fraction, per capita, of what Kosovo and even East Timor received, and much of it has entirely bypassed the Afghan Government, leading to the emergence of what the World Bank has called a "second civil service" of UN agencies and private commercial contractors, receiving rewards that are astronomical by Afghan standards, but doing little to foster local capacity. Not enough is trickling down to ordinary Afghans.
1.4 billion will be living in slums by 2020: UN report
By 2020, if nothing is done, 1.4 billion people - the equivalent of the population of China - will be living in slums and shanty towns, a specialist United Nations agency reported Friday.
The UN human settlements programme (UN-Habitat) says in a report that governments should not try to stem the flow of people to the cities but manage it instead.
At the moment around one billion people live in slums, or almost one urban resident in three, the agency says in its 2006/7 report on the world’s cities. Their population is growing by 2.2 percent a year, with a rate of 4.5 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report, published every two years.
But the pace of growth is increasing, and by 2020 slum populations will swell by 27 million a year, compared with 18 million between 1990 and 2001.
"So about this opposition to birth control thing that the major religions are into?" - Nobody
Blanco signs law that would ban abortions
Louisiana Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a ban on most abortions that would be triggered if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling legalizing the procedure, a spokesman said on Saturday. The ban would apply to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, except when the mother's life is threatened
"Sigh..." - Nobody
Time running out to curb effects of deep sea pollution, warns UN
Pace of change outstrips conservation efforts
Water temperature rises as alkalinity falls
Damage to the once pristine habitats of the deep oceans by pollution, litter and overfishing is running out of control, the United Nations warned yesterday. In a report that indicates that time is running out to save them, the UN said humankind's exploitation of the the deep seas and oceans was "rapidly passing the point of no return".
Last year some 85 million tonnes of wild fish were pulled from the global oceans, 100 million sharks and related species were butchered for their fins, some 250,000 turtles became tangled in fishing gear, and 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, were killed by illegal longline fishing.
Into the water in their place went three billion individual pieces of litter - about eight million a day - joining the 46,000 pieces of discarded plastic that currently float on every square mile of ocean and kill another million seabirds each year. The water temperature rose and its alkalinity fell - both the result of climate change. Coral barriers off Australia and Belize are dying and newly discovered reefs in the Atlantic have already been destroyed by bottom trawling.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN's environment programme, said: "Humankind's ability to exploit the deep oceans and high seas has accelerated rapidly over recent years. It is a pace of change that has outstripped our institutions and conservation efforts."
"And now how about this ultimately deadly feeding frenzy of consumerism driven by capitalism and the very few that truly profit from it and those few that will just depopulate the rest of us if they actually ever feel threatened by the rest of us "useless eaters"? So why don't we just get on a boat and start our own country somewhere where we can live in a secular society based on reason?...Oh yeah, we did that already...n/m...Ok how about planet then? Ya ya...I know...sigh..." - Nobody
World health: A lethal dose of US politics
When World Health Organization (WHO) director general Lee Jong-wook died of a cerebral hemorrhage last month before the start of the United Nations agency's annual World Health Assembly, the world's most prominent public-health official was arguably of a conflicted mind.
The WHO veteran was caught in the middle of an intensifying global debate over how to reconcile intellectual-property protection with the pressing public-health need to expand access to expensive life-saving medicines, a hot-button issue that has sharply divided WHO member states along developed- and developing-country lines.
Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure
A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.
Venezuela says it plans to offer help to Milwaukeeans
Martin Sanchez, Venezuela's consul general in Chicago, said Thursday that Milwaukee and Chicago would be the first U.S. cities to benefit from the eye care program, which now flies patients from 24 Latin American and Caribbean nations to his oil-rich nation for cataract operations performed by Cuban doctors.
Bush Denies Iowa Tornado Relief
President Bush has denied Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack's request for federal disaster aid to parts of the state that were hit by severe tornadoes in April.
Bush signs bill with $30.4M for flood work
The president signed the bill Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The $94.5 billion measure was intended to provide emergency spending for the war in Iraq and hurricane relief, but the final version also included a total of $30.4 million for flood protection and levee repairs in the Central Valley.
"94.2 billion for Iraq?...Priorities?...Is this making any sense?" - Nobody
HUD to New Orleans Poor: "Go F(ind) Yourself (Housing)!"
Patience is in short supply in New Orleans as over 200,000 people remain displaced. "I just need somewhere to stay," Patricia Thomas told the Times-Picayune. Ms. Thomas has lived in public housing for years. "We're losing our older people. They're dropping like flies when they hear they can't come home."
Texas ranchers add ladders to border fences
Some are frustrated over damage done by illegal immigrants
A few Texas ranchers tired of costly repairs to cattle fences damaged by illegal immigrants have installed an easier route over the U.S.-Mexican border — ladders.
Mexico Hopeful Takes Hard Line Vs. NAFTA
Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said for the first time Saturday he would not honor Mexico's commitment under NAFTA to eliminate tariffs on U.S. corn and beans if he is elected.
Tariffs on all agricultural products must be removed in 2008 under the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement. But Lopez Obrador said he opposed eliminating tariffs on U.S. white corn and beans, showing no allegiance to a deal he sees as harmful to Mexican farmers."We are not going to accept this clause that they signed," Lopez Obrador toldsupporters in Chiapas, an extremely poor farming state.
Mexican farmers say hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give Americanwhite corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which dependsin large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers. As Mexico's staple crops,corn and beans also carry immense symbolic importance.
"Let's see...poor farmers...ladders...get the picture?" - Nobody
Leftist Party Wins Slovak Elections
Slovakia's opposition leftist party won parliamentary elections, tapping into widespread public discontent over eight years of austere economic reforms, authorities said Sunday.
Robert Fico's Smer-Socialist Democratic Party won 29 percent of the votes, compared to 18 percent for Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Movement, the state-run Statistical Office announced after counting all the ballots.
Fico's victory was not enough to give his party a parliamentary majority, forcing him to form a coalition government.
But the outcome was a stinging rebuke to Dzurinda's center-right government, which brought the ex-communist nation into the European Union and NATO but slashed health care and social benefits to millions. The result also threw into doubt Slovakia's quest to adopt the euro currency in 2009.
"The fundemental problem with the right wing any where in the world is their inability to treat people right" - Nobody
Fear of plant closings, layoffs shaping autoworker vote
On stage is Ohio's Democratic candidate for governor. Watching and listening in the back of the auditorium is a union leader representing workers worried about their jobs.
Plant closings and layoffs in the auto industry have created similar concerns in Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama and other states electing governors this year, among union members who have traditionally supported Democrats.
"They're worried about their health care. They're worried about their pensions. They're worried about their jobs," said Wes Wells, executive director of the Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO, which represents about 75,000 workers.
"Just look at it this way...If you're not working you're not paying taxes...That's what you wanted when you voted republican isn't it?" - Nobody
Horror show reveals Iraq’s descent
A morgue’s grim scenes testify to a disintegrating nation, says Hala Jaber in Baghdad
THE morning rush had begun at the health ministry’s morgue in Baghdad, and by 9.30am last Thursday 36 coffins already lined the street outside. A muffled wailing came from the minibuses parked nearby where women shrouded in black waited to go inside and search for loved ones, knowing too well what they would find.
The single-storey Al-Tub al-Adli morgue, whose nondescript appearance belies the horrors within, has become synonymous with the seemingly unstoppable violence that has turned Baghdad into the most frightening city on earth.
It is here that bodies from the nightly slaughter are dumped each morning. The stench of decaying flesh, mingled with disinfectant, hits you at the checkpoint 100 yards away.
Each corpse tells a different story about the terrors of Iraq. Some bodies are pocked with holes inflicted by torturers with power drills. Some show signs of strangulation; others, with hands tied behind the back, bear bullet wounds. Many are charred and dismembered.
AWOL soldier says he's had enough of war
He claims post-tramatic stress diagnosis was ignored by Army
A Vancouver soldier who saw more violence and bloodshed in Iraq than he could stand sat on his front porch in Rose Village on Thursday and said he won't go back to the war zone.
Instead, Army Pvt. Ryan Patrick Meeks, 22, has remained absent without leave since April 28.
"I tried to turn myself in," he said. "I went the right route, I thought. I showed the Army I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but they didn't even look at it. They just wanted to send me back to Iraq."
Meeks grew up in Vancouver and attended Heritage High School before earning his general education diploma and joining the Army in 2004. He said he learned last month from a psychologist that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from seeing soldiers and Iraqis killed, and from coming close to being blown up himself by mortars and roadside bombs.
RESTORING THE DRAFT: THE UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT OF 2006
The article republished below entitled "Warning: The Impending Draft," February 25, 2004, was written two years ago as a warning regarding the impending restoration of the draft. It is now more important than ever since the legislation that article predicted and warned about is now in committee and waiting to be acted upon.
"If you could actually insure that the children of the rich and powerful would serve the same as a poor mans kids then perhaps they'd think twice about initiating "preemptive" wars...I'm sick and tired of hearing "So what? They volunteered", coming from the right wing in this country whenever the deaths and hardships that our military is having to endure is pointed out to them, while they sit smugly in their $500 suits thinking that they are the real heros for being the bright shiny example of capitalism while they kick poor soldiers and their families in the teeth" - Nobody
Iraq mother condemns army 'blood money'
The mother of a soldier killed in the Iraq war has condemned the army's decision to offer a lucrative bounty to troops who persuade their friends to join the forces. Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon was killed in Basra a month after completing his training, called it 'blood money'.
How US hid the suicide secrets of Guantanamo
After three inmates killed themselves, the Pentagon declared the suicides an act of 'asymmetric warfare', banned the media and went on a PR offensive. But as despair grows within the camp, so too does outrage mount at its brutal and secretive regime
Pentagon details U.S. abuse of detainees
Murky procedures, lack of oversight and inadequate resources led to mistakes in the way U.S. troops treated Iraq and Afghanistan detainees. But two Pentagon reports, made public Friday, found no widespread mistreatment or illegal actions by the military.
The Peace Race
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
A CBS poll finds that 80 percent of Democrats believe the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, and more than 60 percent want US troops home as soon as possible. A Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 70 percent of Independents feel the war was not worth it, and 33 percent of Republicans agree. Even 72 percent of our troops believe US forces should leave Iraq in the next year.
Experts: U.S. using wrong tactics
Despite the recent killing of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, some former military officials and experts worry that the U.S. has not learned the lessons of counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and that, as a result, a significant improvement in the fighting may not be around the corner.
From the Embassy, a Grim Report
From the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, a stark compendium of its local employees' daily hardships and pressing fears
Hours before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees. This cable, marked "sensitive" and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.
Amid Iraq Debate, a Document Mystery
Talking Points, From Pentagon Office, May Have Been Illegal
Going into Thursday's Iraq debate in Congress, both sides had news points to bolster their arguments — for war supporters, it was recent the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the completion of the Iraqi cabinet; for war critics, the fact that U.S. deaths in Iraq today hit 2,500.
Both also went into the debate armed with political talking points. The most unusual came via a document sent out by Office of the Secretary of Defense to an assortment of congressional aides, as well as to the Iraqi Embassy and the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. The 74-page document is an exhaustive rebuttal of criticisms of the war and a defense of the administration's conduct of the war.
The document, labeled "Iraq floor debate prep book," was emailed on Wednesday afternoon to a handful of Democrats as well as Republicans — and was then abruptly recalled. Thursday afternoon, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Rumsfeld complaining that his office had spent "taxpayer dollars to produce partisan political documents." Lautenberg also suggested that the document may have violated laws prohibiting the Executive Branch from using taxpayer dollars for lobbying and propaganda activities.
The Pentagon later said the document was produced by the National Security Council — but did not offer an explanation as to why it was sent out by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Republicans on the Hill were not happy that the document was sent to Democrats — or that it was produced at all. "I've never seen anything like it," said one Republican aide, noting that the document went well beyond a Statement of Administration Policy. "I mean, a 74-page document — are you kidding me?" The aide added: "It did more harm than good for the Republican cause."
"Ever get the feeling that there is a third party at work comprised of republicans and democrats but aren't really either?...Naw...couldn't be" - Nobody
Summit forges military ties in Central Asia
The prospect that China, Russia, India, and Iran would form a quasi-military alliance that includes most of oil-rich Central Asia advanced last week at a regional security summit, heightening concerns of an emerging anti-US bloc.
Congresswoman 'Apologizes' for Not Taking Allegations of Stolen 2004 Election Seriously!
Was the 2004 election stolen?
Colo. Voter Records Disappear During Move
A file cabinet containing the personal information of thousands of voters disappeared since the Denver Election Commission moved to a new building, officials said, dashing hopes the records were misplaced.
"We still don't have any reason to believe that it was, quote unquote, stolen,"commission spokesman Alton Dillard said Friday. But the commission will let voters who registered between 1989 and 1995 know that they could be susceptible to identity theft, he said.
Earlier this month, the commission acknowledged that about 150,000 voter records hadbeen missing at least since February, when it moved to a new office. Last week,the commission found about 87,000 of the records.The rest are still missing.
More E-voting Concerns Surface with State Primaries Underway
With another election season around the corner, activists are concerned that electronic voting machines supplied by a handful of American corporations are bug-ridden and easily tampered with, but the road to redress is rough and windy.
Either the Democrats take the truth to power, as Jack Murtha has on national security, or the November elections will be lost. It's that simple.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid just released a Democratic Party agenda for America. Most of its social and economic goals were commendable.
But they won't win either branch of Congess on these issues.
Fight to replace DeLay on ballot hits federal court
Democrats want to force the GOP to mount a write-in effort in November
A fight between the state Democratic and Republican parties over replacing Tom DeLay on the November ballot has moved to federal court.
State Republicans filed papers Thursday to move from state to federal court a lawsuit filed last week by the Texas Democratic Party. The Democrats sued to block Republicans from picking a replacement for former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the ballot for the 22nd Congressional District.
The Democrats are hoping to keep DeLay's name on the ballot against their nominee, Nick Lampson. Since DeLay is no longer eligible because he has moved out of the district, Republicans would be forced to write in a candidate.
Republicans are trying to replace DeLay, who resigned from Congress last week amid legal and ethical problems, as quickly as possible so their candidate has enough time to campaign in hopes of keeping the seat for the GOP.
Can Republicans Name a Replacement for Tom DeLay?
"Can the republicans just learn to follow the law and stop kicking and squirming so much?" - Nobody
Lobby Firm Disbands Because of Investigation
The Washington lobbying firm enmeshed in a federal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is breaking up because of publicity surrounding the probe, the company said yesterday.
The firm, Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, has been a major player on K Street, particularly in winning narrow appropriations, known as earmarks, for military contractors, municipalities and others. Federal investigators last month subpoenaed many of the firm's clients to learn more about the relationship between Lewis and former representative Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), a partner in the firm since 1993 who is a friend and financial supporter of his.
Copeland Lowery is the second lobbying firm this year to become a casualty of congressional scandals. In January, Alexander Strategy Group, which was closely tied to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, went out of business because of publicity about its involvement in the Abramoff investigations. The firm was owned by Edwin A. Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff.
"Given the current media focus on the firm, Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White has made a strategic and mutually-agreed upon decision to separate its partnership into two groups," the company said in a written statement. "Partners Bill Lowery, Jean Denton, and Letitia White will continue to lead the existing full service consulting firm, while partners James M. Copeland and Lynn Jacquez will form a separate partnership."
Private Jobs and Big Pay Draw U.S. Ex-Terror Officials
Dozens of members of the Bush administration's domestic security team, assembled after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now collecting bigger paychecks in different roles: working on behalf of companies that sell domestic security products, many directly to the federal agencies the officials once helped run.
At least 90 officials at the Department of Homeland Security or the White House Office of Homeland Security — including the department's former secretary, Tom Ridge; the former deputy secretary, Adm. James M. Loy; and the former under secretary, Asa Hutchinson — are executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.
More than two-thirds of the department's most senior executives in its first years have moved through the revolving door. That pattern raises questions for some former officials.
"People have a right to make a living," said Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the department, who now works at the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research center. "But working virtually immediately for a company that is bidding for work in an area where you were just setting the policy — that is too close. It is almost incestuous."
HEAD OF AIPAC BOASTED OVER HIS CONTROL OF THE WHITE HOUSE IN 1992
In 1992, AIPAC Harry Katz phoned the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, to offer contributions. Steiner proceeded to make several claims, including negotiating with then-candidate Bill Clinton over who would be Secretary of State, and had already "cut a deal" with Baker for more aid to Israel.
Unknown to Steiner, Katz taped the phone call and gave the recording to the media, worried that AIPAC's influence had grown to dangerous levels.
The Power of the Israel Lobby
Which is the tail? Which is the dog? asked Uri Avnery in our newsletter, a few issues back, apropos the respective roles of the Israel Lobby and the US in the exercise of US policy in the Middle East. Here's an answer that will be tough to challenge.
Pardon talk for Libby begins
Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation.
Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove.
"I think ultimately, of course, there are going to be pardons," said Joseph diGenova, a former prosecutor and an old Washington hand who shares that view with many pundits.
"These are the kinds of cases in which historically presidents have given pardons," said the veteran Republican attorney.The White House remains mum on the president's intentions. Spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment Friday.
"The presidential power to absolve anyone of any crime...Can W resist the temptation?" - Nobody
Secrecy in court shuts out defense
Witnesses testified under assumed names, the public was barred from the courtroom, and part of the hearing was held in the judge's chambers, with defense lawyers shut out
Historians say Bush is sinking fast
A summary of the results are as follows: Eighty percent considered Bush's first term a failure, half of all respondents considered it the worst since the Great Depression, more than a third said it was the worst in 100 years and 11 percent ranked his first term the "worst ever."
The criteria used by these historians by which to grade the performance of each president were: Fiscal management, economic stewardship, success in handling change and crises and how our international interests were promoted.
Massive blast postponed until at least September
A non-nuclear explosion expected to cast the first mushroom cloud over the Nevada desert in decades won't happen at least until September, a government lawyer told a federal judge Friday.
The "Divine Strake" defense experiment "will not occur due to weather reasons during July or August," Justice Department lawyer Carolyn Blanco in Washington told U.S. District Judge Lloyd George in Las Vegas during a hearing by telephone. "We have agreed at this hearing to provide notice to the court and plaintiff if this test is authorized to proceed."
Officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration and the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency have cited concerns that summer lightning could detonate 700 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate and fuel oil slurry the government plans to pour into a huge pit for the blast.
Robert Hager, a lawyer representing the Winnemucca Indian Colony and Utah and Nevada "downwinders" who earlier persuaded the judge to temporarily postpone the experiment, worried the government might reschedule the blast and provide short notice before going ahead.
White House Ordered EPA to Lie About 9/11 Pollution Danger
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.
Stephen Colbert and Congressman
Stephen Colbert asks Congressman, the one who sponsored the bill to display the 10 commandments in Congress, to name the 10 commandments.
Custodians of chaos
By Kurt Vonnegut
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Abuse case called 'one of worst'
"She came by the church and she was crying 'My daughter, she's sick,' " said Zoraida Colon, a member of the church.
Hernandez at first kept a jacket over the child's face as the congregation prayed. Eventually, a churchgoer removed the jacket. The congregation members were horrified by what they saw.
Edit in progress - Nobody
By William M. Arkin
Sunday, June 4, 2006; Page B01
On Monday, June 19, about 4,000 government workers representing more than 50 federal agencies from the State Department to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission will say goodbye to their families and set off for dozens of classified emergency facilities stretching from the Maryland and Virginia suburbs to the foothills of the Alleghenies. They will take to the bunkers in an "evacuation" that my sources describe as the largest "continuity of government" exercise ever conducted, a drill intended to prepare the U.S. government for an event even more catastrophic than the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The exercise is the latest manifestation of an obsession with government survival that has been a hallmark of the Bush administration since 9/11, a focus of enormous and often absurd time, money and effort that has come to echo the worst follies of the Cold War. The vast secret operation has updated the duck-and-cover scenarios of the 1950s with state-of-the-art technology -- alerts and updates delivered by pager and PDA, wireless priority service, video teleconferencing, remote backups -- to ensure that "essential" government functions continue undisrupted should a terrorist's nuclear bomb go off in downtown Washington.
But for all the BlackBerry culture, the outcome is still old-fashioned black and white: We've spent hundreds of millions of dollars on alternate facilities, data warehouses and communications, yet no one can really foretell what would happen to the leadership and functioning of the federal government in a catastrophe.
After 9/11, The Washington Post reported that President Bush had set up a shadow government of about 100 senior civilian managers to live and work outside Washington on a rotating basis to ensure the continuity of national security. Since then, a program once focused on presidential succession and civilian control of U.S. nuclear weapons has been expanded to encompass the entire government. From the Department of Education to the Small Business Administration to the National Archives, every department and agency is now required to plan for continuity outside Washington.
Yet according to scores of documents I've obtained and interviews with half a dozen sources, there's no greater confidence today that essential services would be maintained in a disaster. And no one really knows how an evacuation would even be physically possible.
Moreover, since 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina, the definition of what constitutes an "essential" government function has been expanded so ridiculously beyond core national security functions -- do we really need patent and trademark processing in the middle of a nuclear holocaust? -- that the term has become meaningless. The intent of the government effort may be laudable, even necessary, but a hyper-centralized approach based on the Cold War model of evacuations and bunkering makes it practically worthless.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/02/AR2006060201410.html
N Korea threatens to ‘wipe out’ US
Agencies
Sunday, June 18, 2006 22:33 IST
SEOUL: North Korea on Sunday threatened to “mercilessly wipe out” US forces in case of war during a national meeting to mark leader Kim Jong-Il’s 42 years’ work at the ruling party. The threat, in a ruling party report carried by the Korean Central News Agency, came as North Korea was reportedly preparing to test-fire a long-range missile despite strong protests from the United States and its allies.
A missile launch by North Korea would inflame a region already tense over the North’s continuing nuclear weapons development. The North is believed to be planning a test of its most advanced missile yet, the Taepodong 2, which could reach parts of the United States with a light payload.
The US expects North Korea to renew its moratorium on long-range missile tests and return to six-party talks aimed at ending its nuclear ambitions, the White House said on Sunday. Reports of an imminent North Korean missile test has drawn warnings from the US, Japan and South Korea, but Japanese officials were quoted as saying Sunday that a test was unlikely.
Japan warned North Korea of “a harsh response” from Tokyo and Washington if it went ahead with the launch of a long-range missile.
http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1036367
Iran: U.S. Making Nuke Talks Difficult
By NASSER KARIMI
The Associated Press
Sunday, June 18, 2006; 2:10 PM
TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran accused the United States on Sunday of steering Europe away from a possible compromise on Tehran's disputed nuclear program.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said the U.S. insistence on conditional negotiations over a Western package of incentives has narrowed the scope of possible talks and made it tougher for all parties to reach a solution.
Iran's foreign ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi, speaks with media in his weekly press conference in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, June 18, 2006. Iran's foreign ministry on Sunday accused the U.S. of pushing Europe away from a compromise on Tehran's disputed nuclear program. "We feel that the Americans are trying to take Europe to a point that the case could not be easily solvable," Asefi told reporters, referring to a Western package of incentives aimed at persuading Iran to stop enriching uranium. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi) (Vahid Salemi - AP)
PH
The incentives are meant to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium, a process that can make nuclear fuel for a power plant or fissile material for an atomic bomb.
"We feel that the Americans are trying to take Europe to a point that the case could not be easily solvable," Asefi said. "The U.S. said it gave a deadline to Iran to respond to the package, but that is not correct. Again, they mix different issues and that is not appropriate."
Asefi reiterated that enriching uranium was his country's unalienable right, and that talks must be unconditional. He said Iranian officials were reviewing the package, and Iran would propose amendments to the deal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/18/AR2006061800174.html
Hundreds of tribesmen protest reporter's death
Sun Jun 18, 2006 11:24 AM BST
By Anwarullah Khan
KHAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Hundreds of Pakistani tribesmen staged a protest on Sunday against the killing of a journalist, abducted last year after reporting that an al Qaeda leader had been killed by a U.S. missile.
The handcuffed body of the journalist, Hayatullah Khan, was found dumped in mountains outside the town of Mir Ali in the North Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border on Friday. He was shot in the back of the head, probably on Thursday.
More than 800 tribesmen marched in the main market of Khar, the main town of the Bajaur tribal region, chanting slogans of "We want press freedom" "We want protection" and "Arrest killers of Hayatullah".
Speakers at the rally criticised the government for its failure to protect journalists working in the lawless tribal region where security forces are battling al Qaeda militants and their allies.
"The government is responsible for the killing of Hayatullah," said Maulana Muhammad Sadiq, a local cleric and lawmaker from the region.
At least four journalists have been killed and many have fled to other parts of Pakistan since government forces intensified its war against terrorism in tribal regions, particularly in Waziristan, in early 2004.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-06-18T102426Z_01_ISL202280_RTRUKOC_0_UK-PAKISTAN-JOURNALIST.xml&archived=False
Kazakhstan puts satellite in space
Jun 18, 2006
The former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan launched its first communications satellite into orbit on Sunday, joining the club of world space powers.
Russian President Vladimir Putin joined Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to witness the launch of the unmanned, Russian-built KazSat 1 as the sun rose over the barren steppe surrounding the Baikonur Cosmodrome in western Kazakhstan.
The $US65 million satellite is part of Nazarbayev's wider plan to raise the profile of his country, one of the world's top 20 oil producers, as a key player in the Central Asian region while maintaining good ties with neighbouring Russia.
Putin watched the launch through binoculars while Nazarbayev pointed at the Russian-built Proton booster rocket that carried the satellite into space. The two leaders left shortly afterwards without speaking to reporters.
Nazarbayev has ruled Kazakhstan since 1989, first as communist boss, then as president. The former Soviet republic of 15 million people is the world's ninth-largest country.
The satellite will be used for television broadcasting and other communication services in Kazakhstan and elsewhere in Central Asia. Its originally planned launch in December 2005 was delayed due to unspecified technical problems.
"I congratulate you all on our victory. Kazakhstan has become a new space power," said Igor Panarin, spokesman for Russia's state space authority.
"Both presidents were quite nervous before the launch but they showed a lot of satisfaction with its success."
The Baikonur cosmodrome was used by the Soviet Union to launch its first Sputnik satellite in 1957.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/page/411366/752971
Al-Qaida's plot to gas subways
AP
19jun06
NEW YORK -- Terrorists plotted to unleash poisonous gas on New York's subways before being ordered to abort the plan, an award-winning author says.
Time magazine reported yesterday that in 2003, al-Qaida terrorists came within 45 days of attacking the subway system with a lethal gas similar to that used in Nazi death camps.
According to Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ron Suskind, Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's deputy, cancelled the plan in January 2003, despite the likelihood that the strike would have killed as many people as the September 11 attacks.
An informant close to al-Qaida management told US officials that operatives had planned to use a small, easily concealed delivery system to release hydrogen cyanide into multiple subway cars.
US officials had already discovered plans for the device in the computer of a Bahraini jihadist arrested in February 2003, and they had been able to construct a working model from the plans.
The easy-to-make device, called "the mubtakkar" -- meaning "invention" or "initiative" -- represented a breakthrough in weapons technology that "was the equivalent of splitting the atom", Mr Suskind wrote. All previous efforts to mount mass attacks with the deadly gas, similar to that used in Holocaust-era gas chambers, had failed.
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,19510001%255E663,00.html
Rockford board member falls at Yellowstone, dies
Updated: June 18, 2006 02:31 PM
ROCKFORD - Deb Chamberlain, the vice president of the Rockford school board, fell to her death during a family vacation in Yellowstone National Park.
According to reports, Chamberlain, 52, stepped over a low rock-retaining wall to take a picture. She lost her footing and fell 500 feet toward the Yellowstone River.
Her husband, Gary, flagged down a passing motorist who called 911. When rescuers reached her by rapelling down the cliff, she had already died.
In her biography on the Rockford Public Schools website, she described herself as "a stay-at-home mom and volunteer." Chamberlain spent 17 years with Haworth and with the American Marketing Association.
24 Hour News 8 will have more details as they become available.
http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=5045716&nav=menu44_2
National Guard Deployed At Mexican Border
by UPI Wire
Jun 18, 2006
SAN LUIS, Ariz. - June 18, 2006 (UPI) -- Some 800 U.S. National Guard troops began working along the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border Sunday as part of a federal plan to slow illegal immigration.
Mario Martinez, a Border Patrol spokesman in Washington, told the New York Times the mission called Operation Jump Start will see Guard troops monitoring surveillance cameras and sensors, building roads and building fencing to free up regular Border Patrol agents for patrols.
"The National Guard is not going to be involved in any law enforcement mission," Martinez said. "Actual arrests, seizures, custodial -- none of that stuff."
http://www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_21223758.shtml
Fentanyl-laced Heroin Kills Hundreds Of Addicts In USA
Main Category: Alcohol / Addiction / Illegal Drugs News
Article Date: 16 Jun 2006 - 16:00pm (PDT)
Fentanyl-laced herion has killed hundreds of addicts from Chicago to Philadelphia. Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic drug, a prescription painkiller. It is 80 to 100 times more powerful than morphine and can kill humans in small doses. Most likely, the fentanyl is not pharmaceutical grade - it is probably made in illicit labs. Just 125 micrograms is enough to kill an adult - the equivalent of a few grains of salt.
According to Chicago police, a West Side gang member has been arrested. The police say the arrest will hopefully lead them to the main supplier of the deadly heroin cocktail.
More than 100 alleged drug dealers have been arrested over the last two months in an attempt to get the main dealer. None of the arrests helped the investigators get any nearer to their objective. Hopefully, this West Side arrest will. The gang member was selling fentanyl-laced heroin, lab tests showed.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/healthnews.php?newsid=45391
Revealed: UK set for first face transplants
· Ethics experts prepare to give approval
· Doctors seek four suitable patients
Jo Revill, health editor
Sunday June 18, 2006
The Observer
French surgeons perform the world's first partial face transplant on a 38-year-old woman in Amiens. Photograph: AP
A British hospital is set to give the go-ahead for four British patients to undergo face transplants in what will prove a major landmark in surgery.
The ethical committee of the Royal Free Hospital in north London is expected to announce on Wednesday that it will approve the first operations for a full-face transplant. The recipients have not yet been selected but several potential candidates have already been seen by doctors.
The move marks the final hurdle for the team of plastic surgeons and specialists at the hospital who have spent the past 12 years investigating the possibility of face transplants. They have carried out studies that they say show a transplant is not only physically possible but would have huge psychological benefits for people left disfigured by accidents or burns.
Simon Weston, a veteran who suffered terrible burns in the Falklands war, will accompany a team of doctors to the committee meeting this week to explain why he feels the medical community must allow face transplants in Britain. He was initially against the move but has looked at their work and come down in favour of it.
The world's first face transplant took place last November when a French factory worker, 38-year-old Isabelle Dinoire, underwent surgery after being mauled by her labrador. She now has feeling back in her face and has talked about how the operation has transformed her life.
The Royal College of Surgeons, however, has been reticent about the prospect of such transplants in Britain. It produced a report last year that concluded more research was needed to show that a new donor face transplanted on to a recipient would not be rejected by the body's immune system. New animal studies have shown that problems over how immuno-suppressant drugs work may not be as serious as anticipated.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1800266,00.html
WHO: 25% deaths a year due to killer environment
Kounteya Sinha
[ Saturday, June 17, 2006 12:18:33 amTIMES NEWS NETWORK ]
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NEW DELHI: The world now has a hitlist for problems it needs to tackle most urgently, in terms of health and the environment. World Health Organisation (WHO) has for the first time ever shown how specific diseases and injuries are influenced by environmental risks and by how much.
Diseases with the largest total annual health burden from environmental factors, in terms of death, illness and disability per year have been identified as: diarrhoea (58 million), largely from unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene; lower respiratory infections (37 million) due to air pollution; road traffic injuries (15 million) due to poor urban design; malaria (19 million) because of poor water resource, housing and land use management; chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (12 million) due to exposure to workplace dusts and fumes; and perinatal conditions (11 million).
World Health Organisation's report, "Preventing disease through healthy environments รข€” towards an estimate of the environmental burden of disease", the most comprehensive and systematic study undertaken on how preventable environmental hazards contribute to diseases and injuries, has revealed that almost a quarter of all deaths are caused by environmental risks which can be averted.
It estimates that more than 13 million lives are lost every year due to avoidable causes and says 33% of diseases in children under the age of five are caused by environmental exposures.
Tackling environmental risks could save up to four million lives a year, according to the report. Over 40% of deaths from malaria and an estimated 94% of deaths from diarrhoeal diseases, two of the world's biggest childhood killers, can be prevented through better environment.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1655660.cms
Sources Leak Info about Microsoft-Branded iPod Killer
By Christopher Hogg
Digital Journal — With thousands of stories surfacing about software sultan Bill Gates’ departure, Digital Journal would like to award Microsoft a medal for earning the most publicity in a single week for something other than a software flaw.
Think about it: In the same week the death toll of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq topped 2,500 and Canadians began a country-wide crackdown on terrorism, more than 6,500 stories were filed about Bill Gates on Google News.
But in the midst of all the headlines about Gates, you might not have seen a story filed by Reuters that says Microsoft is currently planning to develop a music and video device to compete with Apple’s iPod, and a music service to rival Apple’s iTunes.
If it was any other company making this announcement, I would say, “Best of luck, don’t let Apple kill you before you get a chance to register a domain name.” But since the competitor is Microsoft, the story is a little bit different.
Over the past few weeks, Microsoft has fiercely opposed rumours it was partnering with consumer electronics companies in Japan to launch an iPod killer. The only real clue came at a conference hosted by The Wall Street Journal where Gates said “There is such a rumour” when asked if the company is going to roll out a music player.
The news comes at a time when Microsoft is also working to change its image and modus operandi to focus more on software as a service — the company is set to launch its new OS, Windows Vista, in January 2007.
According to Reuters, sources close to Microsoft say Robbie Bach — the budding business star who headed the Xbox video game business — will oversee the project to take a bite out of Apple. The Redmond-based company has even held licensing talks with the recording industry and has begun to showcase entertainment devices.
Microsoft has already dabbled in digital music, most recently by providing copyright protection framework for MTV’s Urge download service. But a Microsoft-branded mPod and mTunes service is a total reversal of the company’s prior plan to simply partner with tech companies and open up services for a various devices. With its own branded service, the company could achieve instant recognition far beyond the tweens and twenty-somethings that stay glued to MTV.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/?articleID=4772
New American Century" Project Ends With A Whimper by Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - Is the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which did so much to promote the invasion of Iraq and an Israel-centred "global war on terror", closing down?
In the absence of an official announcement and the failure since late last year of a live person to answer its telephone number, a Washington Post obituary would seem to be definitive. And, sure enough, the Post quoted one unidentified source presumably linked to PNAC that the group was "heading toward closing" with the feeling of "goal accomplished".
In fact, the nine-year-old group, whose 27 founders included Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, among at least half a dozen of the most powerful hawks in the George W. Bush administration's first term, has been inactive since January 2005, when it issued the last of its "statements", an appeal to significantly increase the size of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps to cope with the growing demands of the kind of "Pax Americana" it had done so much to promote.
As a platform for the three-part coalition that was most enthusiastic about war in Iraq -- aggressive nationalists like Cheney, Christian Zionists of the religious Right, and Israel-centred neo-conservatives -- PNAC actually began breaking down shortly after the Iraq invasion.
More here: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0613-05.htm
Posted by: Link at June 18, 2006 03:58 PM
NOBODYS BLOG
for links got to www.thealphaliberal.blogspot.com
Sunday, June 18, 2006
News and Articles 6-18-06
Fraud Alert Protection Removed by House Bill
In the last two months I have been notified about the following threats on my personal identity data:
1. The Veterans Administration admited losing data on over 26 million veterans.
2. Metropolitan State College of Denver informed me that it had lost personal identification data on a large portion of its students, including me.
3. The Denver Election Commission said that it had "misplaced" or lost my personal data - including my signature.
In this morning's Washington Post Brian Krebs writes an article that lists ways you can protect your identity and what to do if you suspect it has been stolen or compromised. The first thing that Mr. Krebs suggests is to file a fraud alert with the three major credit bureaus. The alert lasts 90 days and can be renewed.
Unfortunately, at the end of the article Mr. Krebs writes the following:
" the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, a consumer watchdog group in Washington, said a bill recently passed by the House Financial Services Committee and supported by the major financial institutions would exempt companies from alerting consumers about data thefts or losses if the company does not know whether that loss places the consumer at a direct risk of identity theft. The bill also would reserve credit freezes for ID theft victims only."
A Chronology of Data Breaches Reported Since the ChoicePoint Incident
Estimated grand total of # of people affected: 85,149,786
Government Increasingly Turning to Data Mining
Peek Into Private Lives May Help in Hunt for Terrorists
The Pentagon pays a private company to compile data on teenagers it can recruit to the military. The Homeland Security Department buys consumer information to help screen people at borders and detect immigration fraud.
As federal agencies delve into the vast commercial market for consumer information, such as buying habits and financial records, they are tapping into data that would be difficult for the government to accumulate but that has become a booming business for private companies.
FBI, DoD, NSA: All Spying on You
Over the last several months, it has been revealed that the FBI, the Pentagon and the National Security Agency have each set up apparently independent covert operations to monitor the constitutionally protected political activities of citizens opposed to the Bush administration’s war in Iraq.
Docs Show F.B.I. Spying On Groups Advocating For Environment, Animal Cruelty, Poverty Relief...
FCC Releases Orders for Internet Backdoor Wiretap Access
Congress Expands FBI Spying Power
F.B.I. Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies
U.S. airstrikes rise in Afghanistan
Fighting intensifies as Taliban grows more aggressive
As fighting in Afghanistan has intensified over the past three months, the U.S. military has conducted 340 airstrikes there, more than twice the 160 carried out in the much higher-profile war in Iraq, according to data from the Central Command, the U.S. military headquarters for the Middle East.
West has been helping itself, not Afghanistan:
The aid flowing to Afghanistan is only a fraction, per capita, of what Kosovo and even East Timor received, and much of it has entirely bypassed the Afghan Government, leading to the emergence of what the World Bank has called a "second civil service" of UN agencies and private commercial contractors, receiving rewards that are astronomical by Afghan standards, but doing little to foster local capacity. Not enough is trickling down to ordinary Afghans.
1.4 billion will be living in slums by 2020: UN report
By 2020, if nothing is done, 1.4 billion people - the equivalent of the population of China - will be living in slums and shanty towns, a specialist United Nations agency reported Friday.
The UN human settlements programme (UN-Habitat) says in a report that governments should not try to stem the flow of people to the cities but manage it instead.
At the moment around one billion people live in slums, or almost one urban resident in three, the agency says in its 2006/7 report on the world’s cities. Their population is growing by 2.2 percent a year, with a rate of 4.5 percent in sub-Saharan Africa, says the report, published every two years.
But the pace of growth is increasing, and by 2020 slum populations will swell by 27 million a year, compared with 18 million between 1990 and 2001.
"So about this opposition to birth control thing that the major religions are into?" - Nobody
Blanco signs law that would ban abortions
Louisiana Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco signed into law a ban on most abortions that would be triggered if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1973 ruling legalizing the procedure, a spokesman said on Saturday. The ban would apply to all abortions, even in cases of rape or incest, except when the mother's life is threatened
"Sigh..." - Nobody
Time running out to curb effects of deep sea pollution, warns UN
Pace of change outstrips conservation efforts
Water temperature rises as alkalinity falls
Damage to the once pristine habitats of the deep oceans by pollution, litter and overfishing is running out of control, the United Nations warned yesterday. In a report that indicates that time is running out to save them, the UN said humankind's exploitation of the the deep seas and oceans was "rapidly passing the point of no return".
Last year some 85 million tonnes of wild fish were pulled from the global oceans, 100 million sharks and related species were butchered for their fins, some 250,000 turtles became tangled in fishing gear, and 300,000 seabirds, including 100,000 albatrosses, were killed by illegal longline fishing.
Into the water in their place went three billion individual pieces of litter - about eight million a day - joining the 46,000 pieces of discarded plastic that currently float on every square mile of ocean and kill another million seabirds each year. The water temperature rose and its alkalinity fell - both the result of climate change. Coral barriers off Australia and Belize are dying and newly discovered reefs in the Atlantic have already been destroyed by bottom trawling.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN's environment programme, said: "Humankind's ability to exploit the deep oceans and high seas has accelerated rapidly over recent years. It is a pace of change that has outstripped our institutions and conservation efforts."
"And now how about this ultimately deadly feeding frenzy of consumerism driven by capitalism and the very few that truly profit from it and those few that will just depopulate the rest of us if they actually ever feel threatened by the rest of us "useless eaters"? So why don't we just get on a boat and start our own country somewhere where we can live in a secular society based on reason?...Oh yeah, we did that already...n/m...Ok how about planet then? Ya ya...I know...sigh..." - Nobody
World health: A lethal dose of US politics
When World Health Organization (WHO) director general Lee Jong-wook died of a cerebral hemorrhage last month before the start of the United Nations agency's annual World Health Assembly, the world's most prominent public-health official was arguably of a conflicted mind.
The WHO veteran was caught in the middle of an intensifying global debate over how to reconcile intellectual-property protection with the pressing public-health need to expand access to expensive life-saving medicines, a hot-button issue that has sharply divided WHO member states along developed- and developing-country lines.
Drugs firm blocks cheap blindness cure
A major drug company is blocking access to a medicine that is cheaply and effectively saving thousands of people from going blind because it wants to launch a more expensive product on the market.
Venezuela says it plans to offer help to Milwaukeeans
Martin Sanchez, Venezuela's consul general in Chicago, said Thursday that Milwaukee and Chicago would be the first U.S. cities to benefit from the eye care program, which now flies patients from 24 Latin American and Caribbean nations to his oil-rich nation for cataract operations performed by Cuban doctors.
Bush Denies Iowa Tornado Relief
President Bush has denied Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack's request for federal disaster aid to parts of the state that were hit by severe tornadoes in April.
Bush signs bill with $30.4M for flood work
The president signed the bill Thursday, the Associated Press reported. The $94.5 billion measure was intended to provide emergency spending for the war in Iraq and hurricane relief, but the final version also included a total of $30.4 million for flood protection and levee repairs in the Central Valley.
"94.2 billion for Iraq?...Priorities?...Is this making any sense?" - Nobody
HUD to New Orleans Poor: "Go F(ind) Yourself (Housing)!"
Patience is in short supply in New Orleans as over 200,000 people remain displaced. "I just need somewhere to stay," Patricia Thomas told the Times-Picayune. Ms. Thomas has lived in public housing for years. "We're losing our older people. They're dropping like flies when they hear they can't come home."
Texas ranchers add ladders to border fences
Some are frustrated over damage done by illegal immigrants
A few Texas ranchers tired of costly repairs to cattle fences damaged by illegal immigrants have installed an easier route over the U.S.-Mexican border — ladders.
Mexico Hopeful Takes Hard Line Vs. NAFTA
Leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said for the first time Saturday he would not honor Mexico's commitment under NAFTA to eliminate tariffs on U.S. corn and beans if he is elected.
Tariffs on all agricultural products must be removed in 2008 under the NorthAmerican Free Trade Agreement. But Lopez Obrador said he opposed eliminating tariffs on U.S. white corn and beans, showing no allegiance to a deal he sees as harmful to Mexican farmers."We are not going to accept this clause that they signed," Lopez Obrador toldsupporters in Chiapas, an extremely poor farming state.
Mexican farmers say hefty agricultural subsidies in the United States give Americanwhite corn and beans an unfair advantage over the Mexican market, which dependsin large part on small-scale and mostly subsistence farmers. As Mexico's staple crops,corn and beans also carry immense symbolic importance.
"Let's see...poor farmers...ladders...get the picture?" - Nobody
Leftist Party Wins Slovak Elections
Slovakia's opposition leftist party won parliamentary elections, tapping into widespread public discontent over eight years of austere economic reforms, authorities said Sunday.
Robert Fico's Smer-Socialist Democratic Party won 29 percent of the votes, compared to 18 percent for Prime Minister Mikulas Dzurinda's Slovak Democratic and Christian Movement, the state-run Statistical Office announced after counting all the ballots.
Fico's victory was not enough to give his party a parliamentary majority, forcing him to form a coalition government.
But the outcome was a stinging rebuke to Dzurinda's center-right government, which brought the ex-communist nation into the European Union and NATO but slashed health care and social benefits to millions. The result also threw into doubt Slovakia's quest to adopt the euro currency in 2009.
"The fundemental problem with the right wing any where in the world is their inability to treat people right" - Nobody
Fear of plant closings, layoffs shaping autoworker vote
On stage is Ohio's Democratic candidate for governor. Watching and listening in the back of the auditorium is a union leader representing workers worried about their jobs.
Plant closings and layoffs in the auto industry have created similar concerns in Michigan, Oklahoma, Alabama and other states electing governors this year, among union members who have traditionally supported Democrats.
"They're worried about their health care. They're worried about their pensions. They're worried about their jobs," said Wes Wells, executive director of the Dayton-Miami Valley AFL-CIO, which represents about 75,000 workers.
"Just look at it this way...If you're not working you're not paying taxes...That's what you wanted when you voted republican isn't it?" - Nobody
Horror show reveals Iraq’s descent
A morgue’s grim scenes testify to a disintegrating nation, says Hala Jaber in Baghdad
THE morning rush had begun at the health ministry’s morgue in Baghdad, and by 9.30am last Thursday 36 coffins already lined the street outside. A muffled wailing came from the minibuses parked nearby where women shrouded in black waited to go inside and search for loved ones, knowing too well what they would find.
The single-storey Al-Tub al-Adli morgue, whose nondescript appearance belies the horrors within, has become synonymous with the seemingly unstoppable violence that has turned Baghdad into the most frightening city on earth.
It is here that bodies from the nightly slaughter are dumped each morning. The stench of decaying flesh, mingled with disinfectant, hits you at the checkpoint 100 yards away.
Each corpse tells a different story about the terrors of Iraq. Some bodies are pocked with holes inflicted by torturers with power drills. Some show signs of strangulation; others, with hands tied behind the back, bear bullet wounds. Many are charred and dismembered.
AWOL soldier says he's had enough of war
He claims post-tramatic stress diagnosis was ignored by Army
A Vancouver soldier who saw more violence and bloodshed in Iraq than he could stand sat on his front porch in Rose Village on Thursday and said he won't go back to the war zone.
Instead, Army Pvt. Ryan Patrick Meeks, 22, has remained absent without leave since April 28.
"I tried to turn myself in," he said. "I went the right route, I thought. I showed the Army I was diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder), but they didn't even look at it. They just wanted to send me back to Iraq."
Meeks grew up in Vancouver and attended Heritage High School before earning his general education diploma and joining the Army in 2004. He said he learned last month from a psychologist that he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from seeing soldiers and Iraqis killed, and from coming close to being blown up himself by mortars and roadside bombs.
RESTORING THE DRAFT: THE UNIVERSAL NATIONAL SERVICE ACT OF 2006
The article republished below entitled "Warning: The Impending Draft," February 25, 2004, was written two years ago as a warning regarding the impending restoration of the draft. It is now more important than ever since the legislation that article predicted and warned about is now in committee and waiting to be acted upon.
"If you could actually insure that the children of the rich and powerful would serve the same as a poor mans kids then perhaps they'd think twice about initiating "preemptive" wars...I'm sick and tired of hearing "So what? They volunteered", coming from the right wing in this country whenever the deaths and hardships that our military is having to endure is pointed out to them, while they sit smugly in their $500 suits thinking that they are the real heros for being the bright shiny example of capitalism while they kick poor soldiers and their families in the teeth" - Nobody
Iraq mother condemns army 'blood money'
The mother of a soldier killed in the Iraq war has condemned the army's decision to offer a lucrative bounty to troops who persuade their friends to join the forces. Rose Gentle, whose 19-year-old son Gordon was killed in Basra a month after completing his training, called it 'blood money'.
How US hid the suicide secrets of Guantanamo
After three inmates killed themselves, the Pentagon declared the suicides an act of 'asymmetric warfare', banned the media and went on a PR offensive. But as despair grows within the camp, so too does outrage mount at its brutal and secretive regime
Pentagon details U.S. abuse of detainees
Murky procedures, lack of oversight and inadequate resources led to mistakes in the way U.S. troops treated Iraq and Afghanistan detainees. But two Pentagon reports, made public Friday, found no widespread mistreatment or illegal actions by the military.
The Peace Race
By Katrina vanden Heuvel
A CBS poll finds that 80 percent of Democrats believe the United States should have stayed out of Iraq, and more than 60 percent want US troops home as soon as possible. A Washington Post/ABC poll finds that 70 percent of Independents feel the war was not worth it, and 33 percent of Republicans agree. Even 72 percent of our troops believe US forces should leave Iraq in the next year.
Experts: U.S. using wrong tactics
Despite the recent killing of insurgent leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, some former military officials and experts worry that the U.S. has not learned the lessons of counterinsurgency warfare in Iraq and that, as a result, a significant improvement in the fighting may not be around the corner.
From the Embassy, a Grim Report
From the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, a stark compendium of its local employees' daily hardships and pressing fears
Hours before President Bush left on a surprise trip last Monday to the Green Zone in Baghdad for an upbeat assessment of the situation there, the U.S. Embassy in Iraq painted a starkly different portrait of increasing danger and hardship faced by its Iraqi employees. This cable, marked "sensitive" and obtained by The Washington Post, outlines in spare prose the daily-worsening conditions for those who live outside the heavily guarded international zone: harassment, threats and the employees' constant fears that their neighbors will discover they work for the U.S. government.
Amid Iraq Debate, a Document Mystery
Talking Points, From Pentagon Office, May Have Been Illegal
Going into Thursday's Iraq debate in Congress, both sides had news points to bolster their arguments — for war supporters, it was recent the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the completion of the Iraqi cabinet; for war critics, the fact that U.S. deaths in Iraq today hit 2,500.
Both also went into the debate armed with political talking points. The most unusual came via a document sent out by Office of the Secretary of Defense to an assortment of congressional aides, as well as to the Iraqi Embassy and the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium. The 74-page document is an exhaustive rebuttal of criticisms of the war and a defense of the administration's conduct of the war.
The document, labeled "Iraq floor debate prep book," was emailed on Wednesday afternoon to a handful of Democrats as well as Republicans — and was then abruptly recalled. Thursday afternoon, Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) sent a letter to Rumsfeld complaining that his office had spent "taxpayer dollars to produce partisan political documents." Lautenberg also suggested that the document may have violated laws prohibiting the Executive Branch from using taxpayer dollars for lobbying and propaganda activities.
The Pentagon later said the document was produced by the National Security Council — but did not offer an explanation as to why it was sent out by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.
Republicans on the Hill were not happy that the document was sent to Democrats — or that it was produced at all. "I've never seen anything like it," said one Republican aide, noting that the document went well beyond a Statement of Administration Policy. "I mean, a 74-page document — are you kidding me?" The aide added: "It did more harm than good for the Republican cause."
"Ever get the feeling that there is a third party at work comprised of republicans and democrats but aren't really either?...Naw...couldn't be" - Nobody
Summit forges military ties in Central Asia
The prospect that China, Russia, India, and Iran would form a quasi-military alliance that includes most of oil-rich Central Asia advanced last week at a regional security summit, heightening concerns of an emerging anti-US bloc.
Congresswoman 'Apologizes' for Not Taking Allegations of Stolen 2004 Election Seriously!
Was the 2004 election stolen?
Colo. Voter Records Disappear During Move
A file cabinet containing the personal information of thousands of voters disappeared since the Denver Election Commission moved to a new building, officials said, dashing hopes the records were misplaced.
"We still don't have any reason to believe that it was, quote unquote, stolen,"commission spokesman Alton Dillard said Friday. But the commission will let voters who registered between 1989 and 1995 know that they could be susceptible to identity theft, he said.
Earlier this month, the commission acknowledged that about 150,000 voter records hadbeen missing at least since February, when it moved to a new office. Last week,the commission found about 87,000 of the records.The rest are still missing.
More E-voting Concerns Surface with State Primaries Underway
With another election season around the corner, activists are concerned that electronic voting machines supplied by a handful of American corporations are bug-ridden and easily tampered with, but the road to redress is rough and windy.
Either the Democrats take the truth to power, as Jack Murtha has on national security, or the November elections will be lost. It's that simple.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid just released a Democratic Party agenda for America. Most of its social and economic goals were commendable.
But they won't win either branch of Congess on these issues.
Fight to replace DeLay on ballot hits federal court
Democrats want to force the GOP to mount a write-in effort in November
A fight between the state Democratic and Republican parties over replacing Tom DeLay on the November ballot has moved to federal court.
State Republicans filed papers Thursday to move from state to federal court a lawsuit filed last week by the Texas Democratic Party. The Democrats sued to block Republicans from picking a replacement for former U.S. Rep. Tom DeLay on the ballot for the 22nd Congressional District.
The Democrats are hoping to keep DeLay's name on the ballot against their nominee, Nick Lampson. Since DeLay is no longer eligible because he has moved out of the district, Republicans would be forced to write in a candidate.
Republicans are trying to replace DeLay, who resigned from Congress last week amid legal and ethical problems, as quickly as possible so their candidate has enough time to campaign in hopes of keeping the seat for the GOP.
Can Republicans Name a Replacement for Tom DeLay?
"Can the republicans just learn to follow the law and stop kicking and squirming so much?" - Nobody
Lobby Firm Disbands Because of Investigation
The Washington lobbying firm enmeshed in a federal investigation of Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.), chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is breaking up because of publicity surrounding the probe, the company said yesterday.
The firm, Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White, has been a major player on K Street, particularly in winning narrow appropriations, known as earmarks, for military contractors, municipalities and others. Federal investigators last month subpoenaed many of the firm's clients to learn more about the relationship between Lewis and former representative Bill Lowery (R-Calif.), a partner in the firm since 1993 who is a friend and financial supporter of his.
Copeland Lowery is the second lobbying firm this year to become a casualty of congressional scandals. In January, Alexander Strategy Group, which was closely tied to former House majority leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) and former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, went out of business because of publicity about its involvement in the Abramoff investigations. The firm was owned by Edwin A. Buckham, DeLay's former chief of staff.
"Given the current media focus on the firm, Copeland Lowery Jacquez Denton & White has made a strategic and mutually-agreed upon decision to separate its partnership into two groups," the company said in a written statement. "Partners Bill Lowery, Jean Denton, and Letitia White will continue to lead the existing full service consulting firm, while partners James M. Copeland and Lynn Jacquez will form a separate partnership."
Private Jobs and Big Pay Draw U.S. Ex-Terror Officials
Dozens of members of the Bush administration's domestic security team, assembled after the 2001 terrorist attacks, are now collecting bigger paychecks in different roles: working on behalf of companies that sell domestic security products, many directly to the federal agencies the officials once helped run.
At least 90 officials at the Department of Homeland Security or the White House Office of Homeland Security — including the department's former secretary, Tom Ridge; the former deputy secretary, Adm. James M. Loy; and the former under secretary, Asa Hutchinson — are executives, consultants or lobbyists for companies that collectively do billions of dollars' worth of domestic security business.
More than two-thirds of the department's most senior executives in its first years have moved through the revolving door. That pattern raises questions for some former officials.
"People have a right to make a living," said Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general of the department, who now works at the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan public policy research center. "But working virtually immediately for a company that is bidding for work in an area where you were just setting the policy — that is too close. It is almost incestuous."
HEAD OF AIPAC BOASTED OVER HIS CONTROL OF THE WHITE HOUSE IN 1992
In 1992, AIPAC Harry Katz phoned the President of AIPAC, David Steiner, to offer contributions. Steiner proceeded to make several claims, including negotiating with then-candidate Bill Clinton over who would be Secretary of State, and had already "cut a deal" with Baker for more aid to Israel.
Unknown to Steiner, Katz taped the phone call and gave the recording to the media, worried that AIPAC's influence had grown to dangerous levels.
The Power of the Israel Lobby
Which is the tail? Which is the dog? asked Uri Avnery in our newsletter, a few issues back, apropos the respective roles of the Israel Lobby and the US in the exercise of US policy in the Middle East. Here's an answer that will be tough to challenge.
Pardon talk for Libby begins
Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation.
Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove.
"I think ultimately, of course, there are going to be pardons," said Joseph diGenova, a former prosecutor and an old Washington hand who shares that view with many pundits.
"These are the kinds of cases in which historically presidents have given pardons," said the veteran Republican attorney.The White House remains mum on the president's intentions. Spokeswoman Dana Perino declined to comment Friday.
"The presidential power to absolve anyone of any crime...Can W resist the temptation?" - Nobody
Secrecy in court shuts out defense
Witnesses testified under assumed names, the public was barred from the courtroom, and part of the hearing was held in the judge's chambers, with defense lawyers shut out
Historians say Bush is sinking fast
A summary of the results are as follows: Eighty percent considered Bush's first term a failure, half of all respondents considered it the worst since the Great Depression, more than a third said it was the worst in 100 years and 11 percent ranked his first term the "worst ever."
The criteria used by these historians by which to grade the performance of each president were: Fiscal management, economic stewardship, success in handling change and crises and how our international interests were promoted.
Massive blast postponed until at least September
A non-nuclear explosion expected to cast the first mushroom cloud over the Nevada desert in decades won't happen at least until September, a government lawyer told a federal judge Friday.
The "Divine Strake" defense experiment "will not occur due to weather reasons during July or August," Justice Department lawyer Carolyn Blanco in Washington told U.S. District Judge Lloyd George in Las Vegas during a hearing by telephone. "We have agreed at this hearing to provide notice to the court and plaintiff if this test is authorized to proceed."
Officials at the National Nuclear Security Administration and the federal Defense Threat Reduction Agency have cited concerns that summer lightning could detonate 700 tons of explosive ammonium nitrate and fuel oil slurry the government plans to pour into a huge pit for the blast.
Robert Hager, a lawyer representing the Winnemucca Indian Colony and Utah and Nevada "downwinders" who earlier persuaded the judge to temporarily postpone the experiment, worried the government might reschedule the blast and provide short notice before going ahead.
White House Ordered EPA to Lie About 9/11 Pollution Danger
In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available.
Stephen Colbert and Congressman
Stephen Colbert asks Congressman, the one who sponsored the bill to display the 10 commandments in Congress, to name the 10 commandments.
Custodians of chaos
By Kurt Vonnegut
For some reason, the most vocal Christians among us never mention the Beatitudes. But, often with tears in their eyes, they demand that the Ten Commandments be posted in public buildings. And of course that's Moses, not Jesus. I haven't heard one of them demand that the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes, be posted anywhere.
"Blessed are the merciful" in a courtroom? "Blessed are the peacemakers" in the Pentagon? Give me a break!
Abuse case called 'one of worst'
"She came by the church and she was crying 'My daughter, she's sick,' " said Zoraida Colon, a member of the church.
Hernandez at first kept a jacket over the child's face as the congregation prayed. Eventually, a churchgoer removed the jacket. The congregation members were horrified by what they saw.
Edit in progress - Nobody
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