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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1113
(2/16/05 8:54 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
On a GOOD note,at least for most of the world...
Kyoto Global Warming Pact Takes Effect
By JOSEPH COLEMAN, Associated Press Writer
KYOTO, Japan - The Kyoto global warming pact went into force Wednesday, seven years after it was negotiated, imposing limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases scientists blame for rising world temperatures, melting glaciers and rising oceans.
The landmark agreement, negotiated in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations, targets carbon dioxide and five other gases that can trap heat in the atmosphere, and are believed to be behind rising global temperatures that many scientists say are disrupting weather patterns.
The United States, the world's largest emitter of such gases, has refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the economy and is flawed by the lack of restrictions on emissions by emerging economies China and India.
"We have been calling on the United States to join. But the country that is the world's biggest emitter has not joined yet, and that is regrettable," Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, told reporters.
Environmental officials, gathered in the convention hall where the accord was adopted, hailed the protocol as a historic first step in the battle against global warming and urged the world to further strengthen safeguards against greenhouse gases.
"Today is a day of celebration and also a day to renew our resolve ... to combat global warming," said Hiroshi Ohki, former Japanese environment minister and president of the conference that negotiated the protocol.
Australia, the only other developed nation besides the United States not to join, defended that decision, with Environment Minister Ian Campbell saying the country was nonetheless on track to cut emissions by 30 percent.
"Until such time as the major polluters of the world including the United States and China are made part of the Kyoto regime, it is next to useless and indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up," Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in Canberra.
The Kyoto agreement was delayed by the requirement that countries accounting for 55 percent of the world's emissions must ratify it. That goal was reached last year — nearly seven years after the pact was negotiated — with Russia's approval.
In Japan, a tireless supporter of the pact, the enactment was being met with a mixture of pride and worry that the world's second-largest economy is unprepared to meet its emissions reduction targets.
Japan planned to celebrate the enactment Wednesday at the convention hall where the accord was negotiated in December 1997, with speeches and a panel discussion among environmental experts and activists.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) planned to send a message. The Kyoto pact is an adjunct to the 1992 U.N. treaty on climate change.
The Kyoto targets vary by region: The European Union (news - web sites) is committed to cutting emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States agreed to a 7 percent reduction before President Bush (news - web sites) denounced the pact in 2001.
That proposal was opposed by the U.S. Senate so adamantly that the protocol was never submitted for ratification by then-President Bill Clinton (news - web sites). Bush then pulled the United States out of the pact in March 2001, less than three months after taking office, saying the Kyoto pact would have cost far too much and exacerbated an already bothersome energy problem for the world's largest consumer of energy from fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday that "we are still learning" about the science of climate change. In the meantime, McClellan said, "We have made an unprecedented commitment to reduce the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in a way that continues to grow our economy."
The Bush administration's stance has since drawn fire from environmental experts, who say it is ignoring scientific consensus about global warming, and that government reports have been censoring views not in line with its politics.
Japan is struggling to find ways to meet its obligations. A report this month by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that 11 of 30 top Japanese industries — steel and power among them — risked failing to reach targets unless they take drastic steps.
Officials made solemn pledges Tuesday to fulfill Japan's treaty requirement to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.
The Cabinet will draw up concrete plans by May, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said.
Some officials are pondering a "carbon tax" to punish polluters — a move opposed by business — while others favor expansion of nuclear power and promotion of energy-saving technologies.
Japan also has been especially active in carbon trading — a system under which governments have allocated carbon dioxide quotas to industrial facilities. Those which emit less gas can sell the "credit" to other companies who emit too much.
Makoto Katagiri, whose Natsource Japan is acting as a credit broker between Japanese and foreign companies, estimated in a study for the World Bank (news - web sites) that Japan bought 41 percent of the carbon credits on the international market last year.
"From this figure, you can imagine how serious the Japanese companies (are)," Katagiri said.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1114
(2/16/05 9:06 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
I'm still curious as to WHY the American people have put thier heads in the sand about this past election.If this were ANY other country,we would be appalled,and ready to take up arms to defend the truth.Just goes to show,the X-Files was right-The Truth IS Out There.
A Corrupted Election
Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right
By Steve Freeman and Josh Mitteldorf
Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since.
Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags.
The U.S. voting system is more vulnerable to manipulation than most Americans realize. Technologies such as electronic voting machines provide no confirmation that votes are counted as cast, and highly partisan election officials have the power to suppress votes and otherwise distort the count.
Exit polls are highly accurate. They remove most of the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for.
The reliability of exit polls is so generally accepted that the Bush administration helped pay for them during recent elections in Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. Testifying before the House Committee on International Relations Dec. 7, John Tefft, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, explained that the Bush administration funded exit polls because they were one of the "ways that would help to expose large-scale fraud." Tefft pointed to the discrepancy between exit polls and the official vote count to argue that the Nov. 22 Ukraine election was stolen.
Last November in the United States, as in Ukraine, the discrepancy between the presidential exit polls and the tallied count was far beyond the margin for error. At the time, Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, the two companies hired to do the polling for the National Election Pool (a consortium of the nation's five major broadcasters and the Associated Press), didn't provide an explanation for how this happened. They promised, however, that a full explanation would be forthcoming.
On Jan. 19, on the eve of the inauguration, Edison and Mitofsky released their report, "Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004," which generated headlines such as MSNBC's "Exit Polls Prove That Bush Won." But, the report does nothing of the sort. It restates a thesis that the pollsters previously intimated—that the discrepancy was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters." But the body of the report offers no data to substantiate this position. In fact, data presented in the report serve to rebut the thesis, and bolster suspicions that the official vote count was way, way off.
The report states that the difference between exit polls and official tallies was far too great to be explained by chance ("sampling error"), and that a systematic bias is implicated.
With that statement the pollsters confirm the discrepancy we initially documented. The exit polls were based on more than 70,000 confidential questionnaires completed by randomly selected voters as they exited the polling place. The overall margin of error should have been under 1 percent. But the official result deviated from the poll projections by more than 5 percent—a statistical impossibility.
The pollsters report that the precincts were appropriately chosen for sampling, in that the aggregated official results from the sampled precincts accurately reflected the official statewide ballot counts.
In saying this, Mitofsky and Edison vindicate a key piece of their methodology—the representativeness of their samples. If the fault indeed lies with the exit polls, the range of possibilities for error is therefore narrowed.
Finally, they report that the source of error is, in fact, within-precinct error (WPE), the difference between official precinct tallies and the exit poll samples from those same precincts. On average, across the country, the President did 6.5 percent better in the official vote count, relative to Kerry, than the exit polls projected.
This admission further narrows the range of possibilities. If the polling data are accurate, the only remaining possibilities are "non-response bias" (i.e., Bush voters disproportionately did not participate in the exit polls) and/or errors in the official tally.
However, having gotten to this point in their argument, Mitofsky and Edison summarily dismiss the possibility that the official count was wrong. They reject the election fraud hypothesis because, they say, "precincts with touch screen and optical voting have essentially the same error rates as those using punch-card systems."
Indeed, they do. But this fact merely suggests that all three of these systems may have been corrupted. Indeed, there is little question about problems associated with both punch card systems (recall the Florida debacle in 2000) and mechanical voting machines, which are generally unreliable, vulnerable to tinkering and leave no paper trail. That's why both systems have been slated for termination under the Helping America Vote Act of 2002.
Notably, Mitofsky and Edison unsucessfully try to explain away the fact that, according to their data, only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the normal sampling margin of error.
Further, data that are underplayed in the report provide support for the hypothesis that the election was stolen.
First, the report acknowledges that the discrepancy between the exit polls and the official count was considerably greater in the critical swing states. And while that fact is consistent with allegations of fraud (if you are going to steal an election you go after votes most vigorously where they are most needed), Mitofsky and Edison suggest, without providing any data or theory to back up their claim, that this discrepancy is somehow related to media coverage.
Second, in light of the charges that the 2000 election was not legitimate, the Bush/Cheney campaign would have wanted to prevail in the popular vote. If fraud was afoot, it would make sense that the president's men would steal votes in their strongholds, where the likelihood of detection is small. Lo and behold, the report provides data that strongly bolster this theory. In those precincts that went at least 80 percent for Bush, the average within-precinct-error (WPE) was a whopping 10.0—the numerical difference between the exit poll predictions and the official count. That means that in Bush strongholds, Kerry, on average, received only about two-thirds of the votes that exit polls predicted. In contrast, in Kerry strongholds, exit polls matched the official count almost exactly (an average WPE of 0.3).
Other report data undermine the argument that Kerry voters were more likely to complete the exit poll interview than Bush voters. If this were the case, then one would expect that in precincts where Kerry voters predominated, the cooperation rate would be higher than in pro-Bush precincts. But in fact, the data suggest that Bush voters were slightly more likely to complete the survey: 56 percent of voters completed the survey in the Bush strongholds, while 53 percent cooperated in Kerry strongholds.
Corollary evidence
The exit polls themselves are a strong indicator of a corrupted election. Moreover, the exit poll discrepancy must be interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities during Election Day 2004. For many Americans, if not most, mass-scale fraud in a U.S. presidential election is an unthinkable possibility. But taken together, the allegations, the subsequently documented irregularities, systematic vulnerabilities, and implausible numbers suggest a coherent story of fraud and deceit.
What's more, the exit poll disparity doesn't tell the whole story. It doesn't count those voters who were disenfranchised before they even got to the polls. The voting machine shortages in Democratic districts, the fraudulent felony purges of voter rolls, the barriers to registration, and the unmailed, lost, or cavalierly rejected absentee ballots all represent distortions to the vote count above and beyond what is measured by the exit poll disparity. The exit polls, by design, sample only those voters who have already overcome these hurdles.
The thesis of the Mitofsky/Edison exit poll report and the headlines that it generated are curiously detached from the numbers in the report itself. Statisticians who have studied the exit polls find substantial evidence to support the thesis that the vote counts—not the exit polls—were inaccurate.
Apparently, the pollsters at Mitofsky and Edison have found it more expedient to provide an explanation unsupported by theory, data or precedent than to impugn the machinery of American democracy. Unfortunately, their patrons in the media find it correspondingly preferable to latch onto a non-confrontational thesis, however implausible, than to even suggest the possibility of foul play.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1115
(2/17/05 8:41 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Boxer Delivers Major Speech On Social Security
Speech Addresses Real Motivation Behind Privatization
February 11, 2005
San Francisco, CA - U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) delivered a major speech on Social Security today at the San Francisco Senior Center. Boxer’s speech addressed efforts to privatize social security and the real motivation behind privatization.
Following is the text of Boxer’s speech:
Peace of Mind vs. a Gamble: The Social Security Debate
The White House has embarked on a mission to convince the people of our country that Social Security is in dire need of drastic change in order to save it for all workers.
In order to convince the American people of the urgency to privatize Social Security, the president has used words such as “crisis,” “bankruptcy,” and “collapse.”
Let’s look at the definition of these three words, according to the Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary.
Crisis: “a situation that has reached a critical phase.”
Bankruptcy: “utter failure or impoverishment.”
Collapse: “to break down completely.”
Is it true that Social Security is in crisis? Is bankrupt? Is collapsing?
The answer is a resounding NO. According to the most conservative estimates, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits for 38 years. In other words, a 37-year-old worker today will get full benefits until he or she is 75 years old if we do nothing to make adjustments to the Trust Fund. A 47-year old worker today will get full benefits until he or she is 85 years old if nothing is done.
So clearly, Social Security is not in crisis, is not bankrupt, and is not collapsing.
Yes, there is a challenge we should address.
Have we ever faced a similar Social Security challenge before? Yes. During the Reagan presidency in 1983. Working together, Democrats and Republicans, we resolved the challenge then just as we can do now. So why would an otherwise optimistic George Bush turn into a prophet of pessimism on Social Security?
Because, his initiative is not about meeting the challenges of Social Security to keep it sound; it is not about bringing together Democrats and Republicans as Ronald Reagan did to ensure that full benefits will be there for all Americans. It is about one thing and one thing only: destroying Social Security.
How do I know that? Am I being partisan? Am I being unfair by stating in a very clear way that I believe the true goal here is to destroy Social Security? Not at all. I am simply telling the truth as told by this very White House.
On January 6, 2005, the White House wrote a Social Security memo. Although marked “not for attribution,” fortunately, we have it.
The most telling sentence in the entire memo is this: “For the first time in six decades the Social Security battle is one we can win – and in doing so, we can help transform the political and philosophical landscape of the country.”
Imagine: for six decades – that’s 60 years – the right wing has been after Social Security.
The memo also lays out the first priority for the White House and that is to “establish an important premise; the current system is heading for an iceberg” – thus explaining the use of the words “crisis,” “bankruptcy,” and “collapse.” By the way, he has also used the phrase “train wreck.”
So let’s talk about these scare tactics for a moment – the “iceberg” strategy. If someone told you that your family would be in solid shape for the next 38 years, you would probably breathe a sigh of relief because that would mean you had done everything necessary to prepare for the next 38 years to pay for your rent or mortgage, feed your kids, take care of your health care, and send your kids to college.
During those 38 years, keeping your eye on the future, you would have to try to earn more, save more, and prepare for that 38th year. You wouldn’t have to throw up your hands and sell your house. And you certainly wouldn’t call your situation a crisis. Frankly, we all face the fact that expenses go up over the years and our families need to prepare for those challenges.
When it comes to Social Security, President Bush not only wants to sell the house, but the car, the antique grandfather clock, and the wedding band. In essence, he is walking away from the foundation of America’s most successful insurance program using scare tactics.
Of course we should be used to this by now from this administration. They are the ones who told us that tax cuts to the wealthiest among us would bring unparalleled economic growth – which hasn’t happened.
They are the ones who told us that $50 to $100 billion of oil in Iraq would pay for all the reconstruction of that country – which hasn’t happened.
They are the ones who told us “Mission Accomplished,” when tragically it wasn’t.
They are the ones who told us that a booming economy would lower our deficits – and they are now the highest in history.
They are the ones who told us that the Medicare prescription drug bill would cost $400 billion over 10 years – when, in fact, it is now reported to cost $1.2 trillion.
So a message I have for the American people is this: beware of scare tactics and false information.
This isn’t the first time that this president has predicted the end of Social Security. In 1978, as a candidate for Congress, he predicted the end of Social Security by the end of 1988. He was wrong then, and he is wrong now.
But what is worse now, is the use of the full power of the presidency to do the following: scare the American people and hold out privatization as the savior of Social Security.
And if he succeeds, this is what will happen: he will turn Social Security from a guaranteed benefit into a guaranteed gamble.
Benefits will be cut an average of 45 percent. Millions will be thrown into poverty. Survivors, including children, who count on Social Security to protect them after the death of the primary earner will be left high and dry. Disabled workers who are protected by Social Security will be left to fend for themselves. Our budget will have deficits as far as the eye can see due to the interest costs on the trillions and trillions of borrowing that will be needed to make private accounts possible.
I can predict these outcomes because of studies that have been done on various privatization plans.
I was a stock broker once. I think there is an absolute place for market investments. But they should never be the basis of one’s retirement. They should be an additional piece on top of a basic, secure, guaranteed retirement benefit.
And, don’t ever delude yourself into thinking that this private account will make you rich. According to a recent study, a typical American who contributes to a private account for 40 years will get about $300 per month during retirement.
It is true that you can gain with a private account. But, you can also lose – and lose big. And when you have to pay the bills – including such urgent needs as food, shelter, and medicine – you can’t count on the stock market.
You can count on Social Security, and with every fiber of my being, I will make sure it is there not only for my generation, but for my children’s generation and for my grandchild’s generation.
Before Social Security, well over half of our elderly lived in poverty. Now, because of the guaranteed benefit – which averages just over $1000 a month for a man, and just under $800 per month for a woman – 10 percent of our seniors live in poverty. This is too high, but this dramatic reduction represents a monumental achievement, which is now in jeopardy.
Twenty-two years ago, a right-wing think tank created a blue print for the demise of Social Security. That blue print says to get banks and insurance companies who will reap the benefits of private accounts behind the effort.
And President Bush and his allies are doing just that. They are getting the financial interests to pour money into a multi-million dollar media campaign to promote privatization and scare the American people.
Here’s what the blue print said: “Not only does business have a great deal to gain from a reform effort designed to stimulate private savings, but it also has the power to be politically influential and to be instrumental in mounting a public education campaign.”
What exactly does privatization of Social Security mean for Wall Street moguls? According to a study by the University of Chicago, Social Security privatization will put $940 billion into Wall Street’s pockets. And this will come out of the pockets of hard working Americans. The same study said that administrative fees for Wall Street firms will cut the value of your private account by 20 percent.
Let’s compare that to Social Security. Social Security does not have administrative costs of 20 percent. It doesn’t have administrative costs of 10 percent. It doesn’t have administrative costs of 5 percent. It doesn’t have administrative costs of 1 percent. Social Security’s administrative costs are one-half of one percent.
So follow the money. It leads straight to strong special interests. And, it was mapped out over 20 years ago.
What else is in that blue print?
The blue print also says it is necessary to buy off the elderly by telling them their benefits won’t be touched.
And that instruction is being followed. In his State of the Union speech, President Bush said that for those 55 and older, “the Social Security system will not change in any way.”
Another message I have today is to people 55 and older: don’t believe a word the President says about your benefits being safe.
It simply isn’t true. It can’t be. And here’s why: in order to privatize Social Security and continue to pay your current benefits, the federal government will have to go into debt up to $2 trillion in just the next ten years – that’s up to $380,000 of debt every minute for the next 10 years.
When the choice is between the 20 percent of the American people who are retired or nearing retirement and the 80 percent of the people who will shoulder the burden of the extraordinary debt through higher taxes and higher interest rates, will the politicians respond to 80 percent of the people or 20 percent of the people? Even if they want to side with 20 percent of the population against the 80 percent, they simply will not be able to do that and remain in office.
Remember, when this borrowing begins – and if we lose this fight, it will be very soon – you will be getting the gold standard Social Security benefit and the rest of the country – nearly 80 percent – will be facing a benefit that is 45 percent less than yours. And for that hit, they also have to carry the burden of paying for your benefit through massive borrowing.
You don’t have to have a degree in Political Science to sense the outcome. If you’re 55 and older, you can’t count on a thing.
And, how cynical is it, that this White House believes that people over 55 only care about themselves. There are a lot of 75-year old seniors who care very much about what happens to their 45-year old sons and daughters. They care about their kids retirement. But, it’s a lot more than that – because Social Security is a lot more than that.
We should not forget that Social Security is not just a retirement policy. It is an life insurance policy. It is a disability insurance policy.
So in summary, I am making seven points here today.
1. There is no crisis in Social Security. Scare tactics are being used to frighten the American people in an attempt to end Social Security.
2. Privatization is being pushed as a solution, when in fact, private accounts push Social Security over the edge.
3. The White House is following an ideological blue print that has been around for decades as the right-wing has been planning to end Social Security, in their own words, for six decades.
4. If privatization succeeds, the average retirement benefit would be cut by 45 percent.
5. There is a very wealthy coalition working now to end Social Security – because they would make tremendous financial gains with private accounts.
6. The people over 55 should not be lulled into believing that they are safe from this ax, which is being wielded against Social Security.
7. Because Social Security is much more than a retirement plan, widows and orphans and disabled workers will be in an economic free fall.
I am asking every Californian to go to my website – www.boxer.senate.gov – to sign my Social Security petition and stand with me in fighting to protect, preserve, and defend Social Security for all Americans.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1116
(2/18/05 9:17 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Russia and China become part of strategic alliance – Putin now looks at BRICS alliance (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa)
Sudhir Chadda
Feb. 16, 2005
Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese authorities decided to form the strategic alliance for defense, trade and energy. Russia will deliver oil to China and China will collaborate with Russia in Geopolitical strategic defense of Euresia.
Russia's Security Council and the Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party's Politburo will form a forum and will work closely to make sure both countries can create and maintain the necessary military and political infrastructure as well as coordination.
According to some international think tanks, sources close to Russia's Security Council say recommending countermeasures to check the U.S. geopolitical "offensive" in Eurasia will be perhaps the forum's most important job.
China and Russia are planning joint military exercises. The joint naval maneuvers are scheduled to be held in August in China's Liaodong Peninsula.
Distinctly the world is broken into definite alliances. The first is the US led alliance (thirty or so countries providing military in Iraq). The second one is the European Alliance. There is a considerable overlap between NATO, EU and US led alliance.
The third emerging alliance is BRICS - Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The newly formed Russia-China alliance provides Putin the necessary critical mass to move ahead and formally create the BRICS alliance.
Recently Brazil moved ahead and formed a business alliance with Venezuela. China and Russia also formed alliance with Venezuela. In spite of Washington’s opposition, Russia plans to provide defense hardware to Venezuela and nuclear reactors to Iran.
India is watching closely Washington’s decision on providing Pakistan with F16. Delivering F16 to Pakistan will make India take a U-turn from its pro-world posture. The Congress party in India has very close relations with Kremlin for many years.
Putin’s current goal is to create the strategic BRIC alliance that will eventually become the strongest trade and military block in the world.
Bush Administration will not sit idle either. Dr. Rice, the current US Secretary of State will take counter measures specially trying to bring India, Pakistan, South Africa and Brazil into US alliances.
The possibility of another cold war between US led alliance and the BRICS looms in the horizon.
The Europeans will act initially as a keeper of the middle ground. The cold war will not be similar to one between America and old Soviet Union. While Putin is putting together the BRICS alliance, he does shy away from meeting US President George Bush. There will be cordial relations between China and America, India and America as well as Russia and America. The covert war will be in the area of trade, commerce and finance. That is where India and China stand out. Russian oil is a great factor. Russia-Venesuela-Iran forms CRICS mail oil and Gas resource.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1117
(2/18/05 4:41 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
Ecstasy trials for combat stress
David Adam, science correspondent
Thursday February 17, 2005
The Guardian
American soldiers traumatised by fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are to be offered the drug ecstasy to help free them of flashbacks and recurring nightmares.
The US food and drug administration has given the go-ahead for the soldiers to be included in an experiment to see if MDMA, the active ingredient in ecstasy, can treat post-traumatic stress disorder.
Scientists behind the trial in South Carolina think the feelings of emotional closeness reported by those taking the drug could help the soldiers talk about their experiences to therapists. Several victims of rape and sexual abuse with post-traumatic stress disorder, for whom existing treatments are ineffective, have been given MDMA since the research began last year.
Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist leading the trial, said: "It's looking very promising. It's too early to draw any conclusions but in these treatment-resistant people so far the results are encouraging.
"People are able to connect more deeply on an emotional level with the fact they are safe now."
He is about to advertise for war veterans who fought in the last five years to join the study.
According to the US national centre for post-traumatic stress disorder, up to 30% of combat veterans suffer from the condition at some point in their lives.
Known as shell shock during the first world war and combat fatigue in the second, the condition is characterised by intrusive memories, panic attacks and the avoidance of situations which might force sufferers to relive their wartime experiences.
Dr Mithoefer said the MDMA helped people discuss traumatic situations without triggering anxiety.
"It appears to act as a catalyst to help people move through whatever's been blocking their success in therapy."
The existing drug-assisted therapy sessions last up to eight hours, during music is played. The patients swallow a capsule containing a placebo or 125mg of MDMA - about the same or a little more than a typical ecstasy tablet.
Psychologists assess the patients before and after the trial to judge whether the drug has helped.
The study has provoked controversy, because significant doubts remain about the long-term risks of ecstasy.
Animal studies suggest that it lowers levels of the brain chemical serotonin, and some politicians and anti-drug campaigners have argued that research into possible medical benefits of illegal drugs presents a falsely reassuring message.
The South Carolina study marks a resurgence of interest in the use of controlled psychedelic and hallucinogenic drugs. Several studies in the US are planned or are under way to investigate whether MDMA, LSD and psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms, can treat conditions ranging from obsessive compulsive disorder to anxiety in terminal cancer patients.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1118
(2/18/05 5:09 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
WARNING* Do NOT click on this link unless you have a cast-iron stomach.The article,and comments show how America is seen by many middle-easterners.The pictures.which were sent to another website,were taken,and posted by American military personnel,and are of Iraqi dead.If you want to read the comments,but not see the pics,pull up the website,and scroll quickly down to the comments,hopefully before the pictures load.
This site proves nothing but that our military is spawning more and more terrorism in this world,thanks to our political ideals of "We're gonna make a democracy out of you,even if it kills you".
mparent7777.blog-city.com...036870.htm
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1119
(2/18/05 5:24 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
35 Bush White House scandals that individually make Clintons Whitewater AND Lewinski cases look like kissing and playing cards on the elementary school playground.
# Memogate: The Senate Computer Theft
The scandal: From 2001 to 2003, Republican staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee illicitly accessed nearly 5,000 computer files containing confidential Democratic strategy memos about President Bush's judicial nominees. The GOP used the memos to shape their own plans and leaked some to the media.
The problem: The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act states it is illegal to obtain confidential information from a government computer.
The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department has assigned a prosecutor to the case. The staff member at the heart of the matter, Manuel Miranda, has attempted to brazen it out, filing suit in September 2004 against the DOJ to end the investigation. "A grand jury will indict a ham sandwich," Miranda complained. Some jokes just write themselves.
# Doctor Detroit: The DOJ's Bungled Terrorism Case
The scandal: The Department of Justice completely botched the nation's first post-9/11 terrorism trial, as seen when the convictions of three Detroit men allegedly linked to al-Qaida were overturned in September 2004. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft had claimed their June 2003 sentencing sent "a clear message" that the government would "detect, disrupt and dismantle the activities of terrorist cells."
The problem: The DOJ's lead prosecutor in the case, Richard Convertino, withheld key information from the defense and distorted supposed pieces of evidence - like a Las Vegas vacation video purported to be a surveillance tape. But that's not the half of it. Convertino says he was unfairly scapegoated because he testified before the Senate, against DOJ wishes, about terrorist financing. Justice's reconsideration of the case began soon thereafter. Convertino has since sued the DOJ, which has also placed him under investigation.
The outcome: Let's see: Overturned convictions, lawsuits and feuding about a Kafkaesque case. Nobody looks good here.
# Dark Matter: The Energy Task Force
The scandal: A lawsuit has claimed it is illegal for Dick Cheney to keep the composition of his 2001 energy-policy task force secret. What's the big deal? The New Yorker's Jane Mayer has suggested an explosive aspect of the story, citing a National Security Council memo from February 2001, which "directed the N.S.C. staff to cooperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the 'melding' of ... 'operational policies towards rogue states,' such as Iraq, and 'actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.'" In short, the task force's activities could shed light on the administration's pre-9/11 Iraq aims.
The problem: The Federal Advisory Committee Act says the government must disclose the work of groups that include non-federal employees; the suit claims energy industry executives were effectively task force members. Oh, and the Bush administration has portrayed the Iraq war as a response to 9/11, not something it was already considering.
The outcome: Unresolved. In June 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court sent the case back to an appellate court.
# The Indian Gaming Scandal
The scandal: Potential influence peddling to the tune of $82 million, for starters. Jack Abramoff, a GOP lobbyist and major Bush fundraiser, and Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas), received that amount from several Indian tribes, while offering access to lawmakers. For instance, Texas' Tigua tribe, which wanted its closed El Paso casino reopened, gave millions to the pair and $33,000 to Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio) in hopes of favorable legislation (Ney came up empty). And get this: The Tiguas were unaware that Abramoff, Scanlon and conservative activist Ralph Reed had earned millions lobbying to have the same casino shut in 2002.
The problem: Federal officials want to know if Abramoff and Scanlon provided real services for the $82 million, and if they broke laws while backing candidates in numerous Indian tribe elections.
The outcome: Everybody into the cesspool! The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and five federal agencies, including the FBI, IRS, and Justice Department, are investigating.
# Halliburton's No-Bid Bonanza
The scandal: In February 2003, Halliburton received a five-year, $7 billion no-bid contract for services in Iraq.
The problem: The Army Corps of Engineers' top contracting officer, Bunnatine Greenhouse, objected to the deal, saying the contract should be the standard one-year length, and that a Halliburton official should not have been present during the discussions.
The outcome: The FBI is investigating. The $7 billion contract was halved and Halliburton won one of the parts in a public bid. For her troubles, Greenhouse has been forced into whistle-blower protection.
# Halliburton: Pumping Up Prices
The scandal: In 2003, Halliburton overcharged the army for fuel in Iraq. Specifically, Halliburton's subsidiary Kellogg, Brown & Root hired a Kuwaiti company, Altanmia, to supply fuel at about twice the going rate, then added a markup, for an overcharge of at least $61 million, according to a December 2003 Pentagon audit.
The problem: That's not the government's $61 million, it's our $61 million.
The outcome: The FBI is investigating.
# Halliburton's Vanishing Iraq Money
The scandal: In mid-2004, Pentagon auditors determined that $1.8 billion of Halliburton's charges to the government, about 40 percent of the total, had not been adequately documented.
The problem: That's not the government's $1.8 billion, it's our $1.8 billion.
The outcome: The Defense Contract Audit Agency has "strongly" asked the Army to withhold about $60 million a month from its Halliburton payments until the documentation is provided.
# The Halliburton Bribe-Apalooza
The scandal: This may not surprise you, but an international consortium of companies, including Halliburton, is alleged to have paid more than $100 million in bribes to Nigerian officials, from 1995 to 2002, to facilitate a natural-gas-plant deal. (Cheney was Halliburton's CEO from 1995 to 2000.)
The problem: The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act prohibits U.S. companies from bribing foreign officials.
The outcome: A veritable coalition of the willing is investigating the deal, including the Justice Department, the SEC, the Nigerian government and a French magistrate. In June, Halliburton fired two implicated executives.
# Halliburton: One Fine Company
The scandal: In 1998 and 1999, Halliburton counted money recovered from project overruns as revenue, before settling the charges with clients.
The problem: Doing so made the company's income appear larger, but Halliburton did not explain this to investors. The SEC ruled this accounting practice was "materially misleading."
The outcome: In August 2004, Halliburton agreed to pay a $7.5 million fine to settle SEC charges. One Halliburton executive has paid a fine and another is settling civil charges. Now imagine the right-wing rhetoric if, say, Al Gore had once headed a firm fined for fudging income statements.
# Halliburton's Iran End Run
The scandal: Halliburton may have been doing business with Iran while Cheney was CEO.
The problem: Federal sanctions have banned U.S. companies from dealing directly with Iran. To operate in Iran legally, U.S. companies have been required to set up independent subsidiaries registered abroad. Halliburton thus set up a new entity, Halliburton Products and Services Ltd., to do business in Iran, but while the subsidiary was registered in the Cayman Islands, it may not have had operations totally independent of the parent company.
The outcome: Unresolved. The Treasury Department has referred the case to the U.S. attorney in Houston, who convened a grand jury in July 2004.
# Money Order: Afghanistan's Missing $700 Million Turns Up in Iraq
The scandal: According to Bob Woodward's "Plan of Attack," the Bush administration diverted $700 million in funds from the war in Afghanistan, among other places, to prepare for the Iraq invasion.
The problem: Article I, Section 8, Clause 12 of the U.S. Constitution specifically gives Congress the power "to raise and support armies." And the emergency spending bill passed after Sept. 11, 2001, requires the administration to notify Congress before changing war spending plans. That did not happen.
The outcome: Congress declined to investigate. The administration's main justification for its decision has been to claim the funds were still used for, one might say, Middle East anti-tyrant-related program activities.
# Iraq: More Loose Change
The scandal: The inspector general of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq released a series of reports in July 2004 finding that a significant portion of CPA assets had gone missing - 34 percent of the materiel controlled by Kellogg, Brown & Root - and that the CPA's method of disbursing $600 million in Iraq reconstruction funds "did not establish effective controls and left accountability open to fraud, waste and abuse."
The problem: As much as $50 million of that money was disbursed without proper receipts.
The outcome: The CPA has disbanded, but individual government investigations into the handling of Iraq's reconstruction continue.
# The Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
The scandal: A Pentagon official, Larry Franklin, may have passed classified United States documents about Iran to Israel, possibly via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a Washington lobbying group.
The problem: To do so could be espionage or could constitute the mishandling of classified documents.
The outcome: A grand jury is investigating. In December 2004, the FBI searched AIPAC's offices. A Senate committee has also been investigating the apparently unauthorized activities of the Near East and South Asia Affairs group in the Pentagon, where Franklin works.
# Gone to Taiwan
The scandal: Missed this one? A high-ranking State Department official, Donald Keyser, was arrested and charged in September with making a secret trip to Taiwan and was observed by the FBI passing documents to Taiwanese intelligence agents in Washington-area meetings.
The problem: Such unauthorized trips are illegal. And we don't have diplomatic relations with Taiwan.
The outcome: The case is in the courts.
# Wiretapping the United Nations
The scandal: Before the United Nations' vote on the Iraq war, the United States and Great Britain developed an eavesdropping operation targeting diplomats from several countries.
The problem: U.N. officials say the practice is illegal and undermines honest diplomacy, although some observers claim it is business as usual on East 42nd Street.
The outcome: Little fuss here, but a major British scandal erupted after U.K. intelligence translator Katherine Gun leaked a U.S. National Security Agency memo requesting British help in the spying scheme, in early 2003. Initially charged under Britain's Official Secrets Act for leaking classified information, Gun was cleared in 2004 - seemingly to avoid hearings questioning the legality of Britain's war participation.
# The Boeing Boondoggle
The scandal: In 2003, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to lease a fleet of refueling tanker planes at an inflated price: $23 billion.
The problem: The deal was put together by a government procurement official, Darleen Druyun, who promptly joined Boeing. Beats using a headhunter.
The outcome: In November 2003, Boeing fired both Druyun and CFO Michael Sears. In April 2004, Druyun pled guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case. In November 2004, Sears copped to a conflict-of-interest charge, and company CEO Phil Condit resigned. The government is reviewing its need for the tankers.
# The Medicare Bribe Scandal
The scandal: According to former Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.), on Nov. 21, 2003, with the vote on the administration's Medicare bill hanging in the balance, someone offered to contribute $100,000 to his son's forthcoming congressional campaign, if Smith would support the bill.
The problem: Federal law prohibits the bribery of elected officials.
The outcome: In September 2004, the House Ethics Committee concluded an inquiry by fingering House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), saying he deserved "public admonishment" for offering to endorse Smith's son in return for Smith's vote. DeLay has claimed Smith initiated talks about a quid pro quo. The matter of the $100,000 is unresolved; soon after his original allegations, Smith suddenly claimed he had not been offered any money. Smith's son Brad lost his GOP primary in August 2004.
# Tom DeLay's PAC Problems
The scandal: One of DeLay's political action committees, Texans for a Republican Majority, apparently reaped illegal corporate contributions for the campaigns of Republicans running for the Texas Legislature in 2002. Given a Republican majority, the Legislature then re-drew Texas' U.S. congressional districts to help the GOP.
The problem: Texas law bans the use of corporate money for political purposes.
The outcome: Unresolved. Three DeLay aides and associates - Jim Ellis, John Colyandro and Warren RoBold - were charged in September 2004 with crimes including money laundering and unlawful acceptance of corporate contributions.
# Tom DeLay's FAA: Following Americans Anywhere
The scandal: In May 2003, DeLay's office persuaded the Federal Aviation Administration to find the plane carrying a Texas Democratic legislator, who was leaving the state in an attempt to thwart the GOP's nearly unprecedented congressional redistricting plan.
The problem: According to the House Ethics Committee, the "invocation of federal executive branch resources in a partisan dispute before a state legislative body" is wrong.
The outcome: In October 2004, the committee rebuked DeLay for his actions.
# In the Rough: Tom DeLay's Golf Fundraiser
The scandal: DeLay appeared at a golf fundraiser that Westar Energy held for one of his political action committees, Americans for a Republican Majority, while energy legislation was pending in the House.
The problem: It's one of these "appearance of impropriety" situations.
The outcome: The House Ethics Committee tossed the matter into its Oct. 6 rebuke. "Take a lap, Tom."
# Busy, Busy, Busy in New Hampshire
The scandal: In 2002, with a tight Senate race in New Hampshire, Republican Party officials paid a Virginia-based firm, GOP Marketplace, to enact an Election Day scheme meant to depress Democratic turnout by "jamming" the Democratic Party phone bank with continuous calls for 90 minutes.
The problem: Federal law prohibits the use of telephones to "annoy or harass" anyone.
The outcome: Chuck McGee, the former executive director of the New Hampshire GOP, pleaded guilty in July 2004 to a felony charge, while Allen Raymond, former head of GOP Marketplace, pleaded guilty to a similar charge in June. In December, James Tobin, former New England campaign chairman of Bush-Cheney '04, was indicted for conspiracy in the case.
# The Medicare Money Scandal
The scandal: Thomas Scully, Medicare's former administrator, supposedly threatened to fire chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster to prevent him from disclosing the true cost of the 2003 Medicare bill.
The problem: Congress voted on the bill believing it would cost $400 billion over 10 years. The program is more likely to cost $550 billion.
The outcome: Scully denies threatening to fire Foster, as Foster has charged, but admits telling Foster to withhold the higher estimate from Congress. In September 2004, the Government Accountability Office recommended Scully return half his salary from 2003. Inevitably, Scully is now a lobbyist for drug companies helped by the bill.
# The Bogus Medicare "Video News Release"
The scandal: To promote its Medicare bill, the Bush administration produced imitation news-report videos touting the legislation. About 40 television stations aired the videos. More recently, similar videos promoting the administration's education policy have come to light.
The problem: The administration broke two laws: One forbidding the use of federal money for propaganda, and another forbidding the unauthorized use of federal funds.
The outcome: In May 2004, the GAO concluded the administration acted illegally, but the agency lacks enforcement power.
# Pundits on the Payroll: The Armstrong Williams Case
The scandal: The Department of Education paid conservative commentator Armstrong Williams $240,000 to promote its educational law, No Child Left Behind.
The problem: Williams did not disclose that his support was government funded until the deal was exposed in January 2005.
The outcome: The House and FCC are considering inquiries, while Williams' syndicated newspaper column has been terminated.
# Ground Zero's Unsafe Air
The scandal: Government officials publicly minimized the health risks stemming from the World Trade Center attack. In September 2001, for example, Environmental Protection Agency head Christine Todd Whitman said New York's "air is safe to breathe and [the] water is safe to drink."
The problem: Research showed serious dangers or was incomplete. The EPA used outdated techniques that failed to detect tiny asbestos particles. EPA data also showed high levels of lead and benzene, which causes cancer. A Sierra Club report claims the government ignored alarming data. A GAO report says no adequate study of 9/11's health effects has been organized.
The outcome: The long-term health effects of the disaster will likely not be apparent for years or decades and may never be definitively known. Already, hundreds of 9/11 rescue workers have quit their jobs because of acute illnesses.
# John Ashcroft's Illegal Campaign Contributions
The scandal: Ashcroft's exploratory committee for his short-lived 2000 presidential bid transferred $110,000 to his unsuccessful 2000 reelection campaign for the Senate.
The problem: The maximum for such a transfer is $10,000.
The outcome: The Federal Election Commission fined Ashcroft's campaign treasurer, Garrett Lott, $37,000 for the transgression.
# Intel Inside ... The White House
The scandal: In early 2001, chief White House political strategist Karl Rove held meetings with numerous companies while maintaining six-figure holdings of their stock - including Intel, whose executives were seeking government approval of a merger. "Washington hadn't seen a clearer example of a conflict of interest in years," wrote Paul Glastris in the Washington Monthly.
The problem: The Code of Federal Regulations says government employees should not participate in matters in which they have a personal financial interest.
The outcome: Then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, spurning precedent, did not refer the case to the Justice Department.
# Duck! Antonin Scalia's Legal Conflicts
The scandal: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia refused to recuse himself from the Cheney energy task force case, despite taking a duck-hunting trip with the vice president after the court agreed to weigh the matter.
The problem: Federal law requires a justice to "disqualify himself from any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned."
The outcome: Scalia stayed on, arguing no conflict existed because Cheney was party to the case in a professional, not personal, capacity. Nothing new for Scalia, who in 2002 was part of a Mississippi redistricting ruling favorable to GOP Rep. Chip Pickering - son of Judge Charles Pickering, a Scalia turkey-hunting pal. In 2001, Scalia went pheasant hunting with Kansas Gov. Bill Graves when that state had cases pending before the Supreme Court.
# AWOL
The scandal: George W. Bush, self-described "war president," did not fulfill his National Guard duty, and Bush and his aides have made misleading statements about it. Salon's Eric Boehlert wrote the best recent summary of the issue.
The problem: Military absenteeism is a punishable offense, although Bush received an honorable discharge.
The outcome: No longer a campaign issue. But what was Bush doing in 1972?
# Iraq: The Case for War
The scandal: Bush and many officials in his administration made false statements about Iraq's military capabilities, in the months before the United States' March 2003 invasion of the country.
The problem: For one thing, it is a crime to lie to Congress, although Bush backers claim the president did not knowingly make false assertions.
The outcome: A war spun out of control with unknowable long-term consequences. The Iraq Survey Group has stopped looking for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
# Niger Forgeries: Whodunit?
The scandal: In his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The problem: The statement was untrue. By March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency showed the claim, that Iraq sought materials from Niger, was based on easily discernible forgeries.
The outcome: The identity of the forger(s) remains under wraps. Journalist Josh Marshall has implied the FBI is oddly uninterested in interviewing Rocco Martino, the former Italian intelligence agent who apparently first shopped the documents in intelligence and journalistic circles and would presumably be able to shed light on their origin.
# In Plame Sight
The scandal: In July 2003, administration officials disclosed the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative working on counterterrorism efforts, to multiple journalists, and columnist Robert Novak made Plame's identity public. Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had just written a New York Times opinion piece stating he had investigated the Niger uranium-production allegations, at the CIA's behest, and reported them to be untrue, before Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
The problem: Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act it is illegal to disclose, knowingly, the name of an undercover agent.
The outcome: Unresolved. The Justice Department appointed special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to the case in December 2003. While this might seem a simple matter, Fitzgerald could be unable to prove the leakers knew Plame was a covert agent.
# Abu Ghraib
The scandal: American soldiers physically tortured prisoners in Iraq and kept undocumented "ghost detainees" in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
The problem: The United States is party to the Geneva Conventions, which state that "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever."
The outcome: Unresolved. A Pentagon internal inquiry found a lack of oversight at Abu Ghraib, while independent inquiries have linked the events to the administration's desire to use aggressive interrogation methods globally. Notoriously, Gonzales has advocated an approach which "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." More recently, Gonzales issued qualified support for the Geneva Conventions in January 2005 Senate testimony after being nominated for attorney general. Army reservist Charles Graner was convicted in January 2005 for abusing prisoners, while a few other soldiers await trial.
# Guantánamo Bay Torture?
The scandal: The U.S. military is also alleged to have abused prisoners at the U.S. Navy's base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. FBI agents witnessing interrogations there have reported use of growling dogs to frighten prisoners and the chaining of prisoners in the fetal position while depriving them of food or water for extended periods.
The problem: More potential violations of the Geneva Conventions.
The outcome: An internal military investigation was launched in January 2005
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1122
(2/19/05 2:50 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Inuit to Charge U.S. for Climate Change Impacts
Tue Feb 15, 7:21 PM ET
Stephen Leahy, Inter Press Service (IPS)
BROOKLIN, Canada, Feb 15 (Tierramrica) - The Inuit people of the Arctic regions are preparing to charge the United States with human rights violations, saying that country is the leading culprit behind climate change, which threatens their way of life -- and their very survival.
The sharp increase in temperatures in the Arctic has led to dramatic losses of sea ice and melting permafrost (the layer of ground that normally remains frozen year round), which have destroyed buildings and roads and forced relocations of entire native Inuit villages.
A recent four-year international scientific study concluded that polar bears, walrus and some seal species the Inuit depend on for survival could be extinct by the middle of this century due to global warming.
Because of this looming crisis, the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (news - web sites) (ICC), a group representing some 155,000 people in the Arctic regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States, will present a petition to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in the next few months.
Their goal is for the IACHR, an independent agency of the Organisation of American States, to find against the United States, the world's leading producer of greenhouse gases (29 percent), for causing global warming and threatening the Inuit's existence.
''Global warming (news - web sites) is destroying the Inuit sea ice culture. Our traditional wisdom on how to survive and thrive on the land is becoming useless because everything is changing, and changing fast,'' ICC chairwoman Sheila Watt-Cloutier told Tierramrica in an interview last year.
The Inuit support the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites) on climate change, which takes effect Feb. 16, because it is the only global instrument available for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, said Watt-Cloutier.
But ''emission reductions will have to go way beyond Kyoto to be of any help to the Arctic peoples,'' she added.
U.S. President George W. Bush (news - web sites) withdrew his country's signature from the Kyoto Protocol in 2001, shortly after taking office, arguing that compliance with the emissions reduction targets would hurt the national economy.
The 136 countries that ratified the accord are legally bound to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by an average of five percent from 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012.
''It is the responsibility of the United States, as the largest source of greenhouse gases, to take immediate action to protect the rights of the Inuit and others around the world,'' Martin Wagner, an international attorney for Earthjustice, a U.S.-based non-profit law firm representing the Inuit, told Tierramrica.
Impacts from climate change are well documented in the Arctic, and the United States has officially admitted that man-made emissions are, in part, responsible for global warming. The environmental devastation in the Arctic regions is not so different from other international cases where dams, logging or toxic chemical spills in waterways have been interpreted as violations of basic human rights, Wagner said.
But the IACHR is a commission, not a tribunal that can issue binding verdicts, and can do little more than make recommendations.
''If the commission finds that the United States has violated the Inuit's rights, it will recommend that the United States take steps to end the violation,'' says Donald Goldberg, senior attorney from the Centre for International Environmental Law, a Washington-based group that is also helping the Inuit with their petition.
While the IACHR cannot enforce its recommendations, it would make it much easier to file lawsuits against the United States in international court or against U.S. companies in federal court, Goldberg said in a Tierramrica interview.
This will be the first climate change case the IACHR has heard, and likely the first of its kind anywhere else, he said.
Despite the urgency of the issue, Inuit are playing it cautious and will not file their official petition until late in the northern hemisphere spring or in early summer, he said. A ruling could take several years.
''While the Inuit hope to raise public awareness about how they are being hurt by climate change, they also hope other groups will take similar actions,'' added Goldberg.
Millions of people in mountainous areas, low-lying island and coastal regions, and other vulnerable parts of the world will soon face other similar threats created by global warming, he said.
In December a leading climate scientist and British legal expert wrote in the journal Nature: ''Litigation in relation to greenhouse gas emissions is increasingly likely, and has already started.''
Scientific evidence is now strong enough to link climate change to extreme weather events such as the 2003 European heat wave that was implicated in the deaths of more than 14,000 people in France alone, according to the article.
Climate change lawsuits are already popping up within the United States. Eight states and New York City filed a lawsuit against five U.S. power companies for their contribution to climate change.
A coalition of U.S. environmental organisations announced on Dec. 5 that they are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (news - web sites) (EPA) for its continued failure to take action on global warming.
Legal wrangling aside, ICC chief Watt-Cloutier wants the people of the United States to understand that ''what they do on a daily basis is having a direct impact on a people, a culture, and a way of life... The Arctic is melting.''
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1126
(2/21/05 8:05 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
Charles & Camilla Caught As Bush Gay Marriage Attack Spreads To Heteros
by Peter Moore 365Gay.com London Bureau
Posted: February 21, 2005 12:01 am. ET
(London) The Bush Administration's attacks on same-sex marriage have now been expanded to include unmarried heterosexuals and divorced people - resulting on a ban of Camilla Parker Bowles from the White House.
The Administration is pushing its traditional marriage initiative aimed at keeping straight families from breaking up and banning gay marriage.
London's Sunday Mirror and Sun reports that the White House has scuttled plans by Prince Charles to take Camilla on a Royal tour of the US later this year after they marry in a civil ceremony.
The papers report that the Royal household was told that Camilla, who will have the title Her Royal Highness Princess Consort after Charles becomes king, is not welcome at the White House because she is a divorcee.
The reports do no mention that Charles is also a divorcee.
The President, according to sun told palace aides it was "inappropriate" for him to be play host to the newly-weds.
The papers note that the decision was made even though the late President Ronald Reagan was divorced. The Sun quotes a government insider as saying "It was relayed to us from Washington that Mrs Parker Bowles would not be welcome at the White House.
"The Americans are aware that the visit will be subject to a lot of media attention and did not want the President drawn into what they view to be a public relations exercise.
The Administration's new push could result in non traditional straight families supporting gays in fighting a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
"Every family should be respected," Human Rights Campaign spokesperson Steven Fisher told 365Gay.com. "There is diversity in the types of families in America and around the world and every family should be respected."
The Sun quoting a British government source said the Prince's US tour will likely be called off in light of the President's snub. It would have been his first State visit to America since Princess Diana's death seven years ago.
"The potential fall-out from this decision could be massive," the Sun quotes the source as saying.
The trip, which has been planned for three years, was being portrayed as a "trade mission" and Charles and Camilla were expected to dine with Mr Bush and his wife Laura at the White House.
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Sugar Mtn Honeybee
Waiting for a name!!
Posts: 127
(2/22/05 10:32 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Remember the guy who got on a plane with a bomb built into his shoe and tried to light it?
Did you know his trial is over?
Did you know he was sentenced?
Did you see/hear any of the judge's comments on TV/Radio?
Didn't think so.
Everyone should hear what the judge had to say. There is nothing partisan in his ruling, just American.
Ruling by Judge William Young, US District Court:
Prior to sentencing, the Judge asked the defendant if he had anything to say. The defendant's response: After admitting his guilt to the court for the record, Reid also admitted his "allegiance to Osama bin Laden, to Islam, and to the
religion of Allah," defiantly stated "I think I ought not apologize for my actions," and told the court "I am at war with your country."
Judge Young then delivered the statement quoted below, a stinging condemnation of Reid in particular and terrorists in general:
January 30, 2003, United States vs. Reid. Judge Young:
"Mr. Richard C. Reid, hearken now to the sentence the Court imposes upon you. On counts 1, 5 and 6 the Court sentences you to life in prison in the custody of the United States Attorney General. On counts 2, 3, 4 and 7, the Court sentences you to 20 years in prison on each count, the sentence on each count to run consecutive with the other.
That's 80 years. On count 8 the Court sentences you to the mandatory 30 years consecutive to the 80 years just imposed. The Court imposes upon you each of the eight counts a fine of $250,000 for the aggregate fine of $2
million. The Court accepts the government's recommendation with respect to restitution and orders restitution in the amount of $298.17 to Andre Bousquet and $5,784 to American Airlines. The Court imposes upon you the $800 special assessment.
The Court imposes upon you five years supervised release simply because the law requires it. But the life sentences are real life sentences so I need go no further. This is the sentence that is provided for by our statutes. It is a fair and just sentence. It is a righteous sentence. Let me explain this
to you. We are not afraid of you or any of your terrorist coconspirators, Mr. Reid. We are Americans. We have been through the fire before. There is all too much war talk here and I say that to everyone with the utmost respect. Here in this court, where we deal with individuals as individuals
and care for individuals as individuals. As human beings, we reach out for justice.
You are not an enemy combatant. You are a terrorist. You are not a soldier in any war. You are a terrorist. To give you that reference, to call you a soldier, gives you far too much stature. Whether it is the officers of government who do it or your attorney who does it, or that happens to be your view, you are a terrorist...And we do not negotiate with terrorists. We do not treat with terrorists. We do not sign documents with terrorists. We hunt them down one by one and bring them to justice.
So war talk is way out of line in this court. You are a big fellow. But you are not that big. You're no warrior. I know warriors. You are a terrorist, a species of criminal guilty of multiple attempted murders. In a very real sense, State Trooper Santiago had it right when you first were taken off
that plane and into custody and you wondered where the press and where the TV crews were and he said, 'You're no big deal.'
You're no big deal.
What your counsel, what your able counsel and what the equally able United States attorneys have grappled with and what I have as honestly as I know how tried to grapple with, is why you did something so horrific. What was it that led you here to this courtroom today? I have listened respectfully to what you have to say. And I ask you to search your heart and ask yourself what sort of unfathomable hate led you to
do what you are guilty and admit you are guilty of doing. And I have an answer for you. It may not satisfy you, but as I search this entire record, it comes as close to understanding as I know.
It seems to me you hate the one thing that is most precious. You hate our freedom. Our individual freedom. Our individual freedom to live as we choose, to come and go as we choose, to believe or not believe as we individually choose. Here, in this society, the very winds carry freedom. They carry it everywhere from sea to shining sea. It is because we prize
individual freedom so much that you are here in this beautiful courtroom. So that everyone can see, truly see, that justice is administered fairly, individually, and discretely. It is for freedom's sake that your lawyers are striving so vigorously on your behalf and have filed appeals, will go on in their representation of you before other judges.
We are about it. Because we all know that the way we treat you, Mr. Reid, is the measure of our own liberties. Make no mistake though. It is yet true that we will bear any burden; pay any price, to preserve our freedoms. Look around this courtroom. Mark it well The world is not going to long remember what you or I say here. Day after tomorrow, it will be forgotten, but this, however, will long endure. Here in this courtroom and courtrooms all across America, the American people will gather to see that justice, individual justice, justice, not war, individual justice is in fact being done. The
very President of the United States through his officers will have to come into courtrooms and lay out evidence on which specific matters can be judged and juries of citizens will gather to sit and judge that evidence democratically, to mold and shape and refine our sense of justice.
See that flag, Mr. Reid? That's the flag of the United States of America. That flag will fly there long after this is all forgotten. That flag stands for freedom. You know it always will.
Mr. Custody Officer. Stand him down."
So, how much of this Judge's comments did we hear on our TV sets? We need more judges like Judge Young, but that's another subject. Everyone should and needs to hear what this fine judge had to say. Powerful words that strike home.
God bless America.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1128
(2/23/05 10:01 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Shrek character is latest target of anti-gay religious group
Mon Feb 21,12:15 PM ET
JOHN MCKAY
TORONTO (CP) - Uh-oh!
That other jolly green giant could be in trouble.
Shrek 2 is the latest animated film title to be "outed" by Christian fundamentalists in the U.S.
On its website the Traditional Values Coalition (news - web sites) is warning parents about the cross-dressing and transgender themes contained in the hit DreamWorks feature, now on DVD.
"Shrek 2 is billed as harmless entertainment but contains subtle sexual messages," says the coalition, which describes itself as a grassroots inter-denominational lobby with more than 43,000 member churches.
"Parents who are thinking about taking their children to see Shrek 2 may wish to consider the following."
The article then proceeds to describe one of the characters, an "evil" bartender (voiced by Larry King) who is a male-to-female transgender in transition and who expresses a sexual desire for Prince Charming.
In another identified scene, Shrek and Donkey need rescuing from a dungeon by Pinocchio and his nose, which is made to extend as an escape bridge by getting the wooden boy to lie about not wearing women's underwear.
The TVC report, A Gender Identity Disorder Goes Mainstream', raps DreamWorks for helping to promote crossdressing and transgenderism.
But Charles Keil, a film studies professor at the University of Toronto, says transgendered groups might also have reason to complain about being parodied.
"You have an image within a comic context that could be read either way," says Keil, who adds quickly that such humour is designed for parents anyway and goes way above the heads of the children in the audience.
"If the kids don't get it, it doesn't really matter."
Keil says the whole idea behind the Shrek movies is a general message of tolerance - that outward appearances don't matter and that it's what's underneath that counts - and such complaints defeat that larger, more important message.
"Targeting minuscule elements within a much larger work and then trying to extract from that some kind of argument that borders on the paranoid is really misconstruing the general aim of this entertainment."
So far, the Coalition's gaydar doesn't seem to have picked up on DreamWorks' Shark Tale, in which a shark mafioso, voiced by Robert DeNiro, must come to terms with the fact he has a vegetarian son who likes to dress up as a dolphin.
But the Shrek accusation follows hot on the heels of other cases of animated characters being accused of infiltrating the minds of America's children with pro-gay messages, much to the detriment of traditional family values.
Recently, PBS was upbraided by the group Focus on the Family - and supported by the U.S. secretary of education no less - for an episode of the cartoon series Postcards From Buster, in which Buster the rabbit encounters a couple of kids with lesbian parents.
Christian activists have also targeted SpongeBob SquarePants, Barney the dinosaur and Sesame Street's Bert & Ernie as children's characters who are conduits for a soft-on-gays message.
Just last month, the American Family Association took exception to the makers of a new video being distributed to thousands of U.S. elementary schools and which the organization said used characters like SpongeBob and Barney to indoctrinate children into a homosexual lifestyle.
The video is designed to coincide with National We Are Family Day in March. But what upset the AFA in particular is the We Are Family Foundation's website and a tolerance-for-diversity pledge (including sexual orientation) that children and others are asked to sign there.
It seems all of this began back in 1999 when Rev. Jerry Falwell described that purse-toting Teletubby, Tinky Winky, as a gay role model.
One wonders how far back critics could go, though, in seeing pro-homosexual context in cartoons. Remember when shotgun-toting hunter Elmer Fudd realized Bugs Bunny was in drag? He was furious, but only because he saw Bugs's cotton tail and learned he was a rabbit in disguise.
"There's all sorts of things going on in those cartoons that are pretty suggestive," concedes Keil. "But (the kids) are laughing at the pratfalls, the funny voices, the very basic humour.
"Kids at that age don't even have pre-formed notions of sexuality."
In the recent SpongeBob movie, there is a scene in which the oddball undersea character suddenly pops up in his neighbour's shower (and quickly gets the boot). It's also been pointed out that he holds hands with a pink friend and gets boating lessons from a teacher called Mr. Puff. Creator Stephen Hillenburg assured the Wall Street Journal that the sponge-man was not gay but that the show had become a gay community favourite because of the tolerant attitude displayed by the show's characters.
"Everybody is different and the show embraces that," Hillenburg said. "I always think of them as being somewhat asexual."
Keil wonders what these religious groups would accomplish if they managed to get a law passed banning any representation of untoward social behaviour in children's entertainment.
"It would still be there covertly," he argues. "What would these groups see as the ideal state of affairs?
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1130
(2/26/05 2:53 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Rocket Fuel Chemical Found in Breast Milk of Women in 18 States
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 24 February 2005
01:43 pm ET
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18 states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem than thought, scientists said.
Texas Tech University researchers studied 36 samples of breast milk from women in 18 states and 47 samples cow's milk purchased from stores in 11 states. Every sample of breast milk contained perchlorate, as did all but one sample of dairy milk.
The highest levels were found in women from New Jersey, New Mexico, Missouri, Nebraska and California, in that order.
The results are detailed in the online version of Environmental Science & Technology, a journal of the American Chemical Society. The work was led by Texas Tech biochemist Purnendu Dasgupta.
"We've got to come to grips with the perchlorate situation quickly,'' said California Senator Dianne Feinstein in a statement. "And EPA has to move quickly to set a national drinking water standard that protects the health and safety of all Americans.''
The details
Perchlorate occurs naturally and is also a primary ingredient in solid rocket fuel, munitions and fireworks. Perchlorate does not build up in human tissues over time, scientists say, but there has been speculation it could accumulate in breast milk.
In excess, the chemical can interfere with iodide uptake in the thyroid gland, disrupting adult metabolism and childhood development, scientists say.
In fetuses, it can potentially cause mental retardation, loss of hearing and speech, and motor skill deficits.
The average perchlorate concentration in breast milk samples was 10.5 micrograms per liter. The dairy milk average was 2.0 micrograms per liter. No definitive national standard exists, although the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had suggested a limit of 1.0 micrograms per liter in drinking water.
The study also found that high levels of perchlorate in the breast milk samples were indeed related to low levels of iodide. Low iodide levels can inhibit thyroid function in nursing women. Scientists admit there is limited data, but Dasgupta and colleagues said the levels found in the study are "sufficiently low to be of concern."
They suggest that the recommended daily intake of iodine for pregnant and nursing women may need to be revised upward.
The report should not raise undue alarm, said Ed Urbansky, a former Environmental Protection Agency chemist who was not involved in the latest study.
"It's very difficult to determine what the findings might be other than to know it might be in so many milk samples,'' Urbansky said.
In your water
Perchlorate is in the drinking water of at least 11 million U.S. residents, other research has shown. The chemical is present in the Colorado river, which provides water to Los Angeles, Phoenix and Las Vegas and is used to irrigate 70 percent of the nation's lettuce crops, according to the Environmental Working Group, which studied the problem in 2003 in cooperation with scientists at Texas Tech.
An overview study of perchlorate released in January by the National Academies' National Research Council (NRC) tried to assess the risk, but scientists continue to argue about how much of the chemical is too much.
Also in January, a study out of Russia claimed children near Kazakhstan's Baikonur Cosmodrome, where rockets are launched, are twice as likely to require medical attention as other children in the region.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1132
(2/27/05 10:21 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
I've been saying for a long time that America is quickly turning into a third-world country.Now,apparently, it has begun.How can the richest nation on the planet justify having to have "malnutrition clinics"?And how can ANYONE turn a blind eye to this?
Children Going Hungry
By David K. Shipler
Sunday, February 27, 2005;
If you spend a day in a malnutrition clinic, you will see a dismal parade of babies and toddlers who look much younger than they are. Underweight and developmentally delayed, they cannot perform normally for their ages. Some are so weak that when you hold them in a standing position, their knees buckle. When they lie on their stomachs, they cannot push themselves up. Long after they should be able to roll over, they can only flop around listlessly.
Doctors describe these conditions as "failure to thrive." If President Bush's budget is enacted, there will be many more children in America who fail to thrive.
The most direct reason is his proposed cut in food stamps. But there is another cause of hunger, less obvious and no less damaging: his budget's diminished housing subsidies, which will leave more families exposed to escalating rents.
It may seem odd to think of housing causing hunger, but the link becomes clear when you talk with parents who bring their children into a malnutrition clinic. They usually lack government protection against the private market's steeply rising housing costs. They can't get into public housing; they are languishing on a long waiting list for vouchers that would help pay for private apartments. Or they are immigrants ineligible for government programs. As a result, some find that rent alone soaks up 50 to 75 percent of their earnings.
They have no choice. They have to pay the rent. They have to pay the relentless electricity and telephone bills. In most of the country, they need automobiles to get to work, which means car loans and auto insurance. None of these can be squeezed very much. The main part of the budget that can be squeezed is for food. What happens then is documented by a soon-to-be-published study in which nearly 12,000 low-income households in six cities were surveyed. It found an increased incidence of underweight children in families without housing subsidies.
There has been a lot of talk since Sept. 11, 2001, about the need to "connect the dots" to share intelligence and combat terrorism. It's about time that the country did the same to fight poverty. The factors that retard children's futures are interrelated; connecting the dots is the clearest way to see the lines of cause and effect.
Housing costs contribute to malnutrition, and malnutrition affects school performance and cognitive capacity. It weakens immune systems and makes children susceptible to illness, which diminishes appetites and thereby increases vulnerability to the next infection. The downward spiral can lead to frequent absences from school and expensive hospitalization.
Even when hungry children are able to go to school, they don't do well. "Learning is discretionary, after you're well-fed, warm, secure," says Deborah Frank, a pediatrician who heads the Grow Clinic at Boston Medical Center. She treats infants who look like wizened old men, and older children who are bony and listless.
What is not visible may be more serious. Inadequate nutrition is a stealthy threat, because its hidden effects on the brain occur long before the outward symptoms of retarded growth. Several decades of neuroscience have documented the impact of iron deficiency, for example, on the size of the brain and the creation and maturation of neurons and other key components. If the deficiencies occur during the last trimester of pregnancy or the first two or three years of life, the results may last a lifetime.
Long after malnutrition ends, such children have lower IQs. In adolescence, they score worse than their peers on arithmetic, writing, spatial memory and other cognitive tests. Parents and teachers see in them "more anxiety or depression, social problems, and attention problems," according to a volume of studies compiled in 2000 by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.
Practically every factor that contributes to malnutrition is worsened by a lack of cash. A child's food allergies are harder to address if a family can't afford to offer an array of choices, buy high-nutrition baby formula or live in a neighborhood with stores that stock fresh fruits and vegetables. Eating problems are compounded when working mothers have to pass their children among multiple caregivers who don't provide healthy diets. Malnutrition is also exacerbated by welfare caps and time limits, Frank and other pediatricians observe.
Youngsters who cannot succeed in school usually drop out and go on to fail in other ways. So the Bush budget exchanges a short-term gain for a long-term loss, overlooking the simple fact that the less we invest in children now, the more we will have to invest in prisons later. Connect the dots.
David K. Shipler won a Pulitzer Prize in 1987. His most recent book is "The Working Poor: Invisible in America."
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1133
(2/27/05 10:44 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
Number of Homeless in America Has Grown
Sat Feb 26, 3:44
By SHARON COHEN, AP National Writer
The family sleeps in a single room, its walls bare and windowless, its cracked concrete floor crowded with plastic storage bins and three mattresses: one for dad, one for mom and daughter, one for the three young sons. Fluorescent lights will flicker on at 6 a.m., to start their new day. This room in an old red-brick factory-turned-shelter in Chicago is home for the Torres family.
They consider themselves lucky to be here. They have a warm place to stay. They have three meals a day. And they have each other. The family is among an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people who, on any given night in America, lack a real home.
Homelessness exploded as a politically potent issue during the Reagan era of the 1980s, and according to some estimates, the number of those without a permanent place to live has doubled in the last 20 years. But some experts say more people now fall into that category only because billions of dollars have been spent to build shelters.
Americans are troubled by this issue: An Associated Press poll taken Feb. 11-13 found 53 percent consider homelessness a very serious problem, while 36 percent say it's somewhat serious. Some 56 percent see the long-term homeless as victims of circumstances beyond their control, according to the survey. It was conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs among 1,001 adults and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Who are the homeless? Where do they live? How did they come to this?
For a snapshot, AP reporters and photographers spent 24 hours earlier this month meeting with people who live on the streets and in shelters, following them to their jobs, watching them in court and talking with those who try to help them.
Here are their stories:
___
AFTER MIDNIGHT: PORTLAND, MAINE.
Scotty Partridge is restless and pacing outside a blue tent pitched in the muddy soil among the barren spruce trees on the outskirts of Portland.
"Hobo Jungle" has been his home for nearly a year. The months have taken their toll: Partridge's clothes are dirty and frayed. The skin of his windburned cheeks hangs loosely, like someone who has lost weight too quickly.
On this 35-degree night, most of Portland's homeless are two miles away in the Oxford Street Shelter, sleeping on rows of mats four inches apart.
But Partridge prefers a tent he has furnished with plywood, a radio, a battery-operated television and a discarded propane heater. He has a cell phone, too — paid for by panhandling and collecting aluminum cans.
Partridge, 36, swigs a can of Milwaukee's Best and reminisces about the days when he had a good job at a printing company in Chicago, a nice apartment, a woman he was going to marry.
But when the relationship soured in the early 1990s, he returned home to Maine and moved in with a friend who was using heroin. Partridge soon became hooked, too.
On methadone for five years, Partridge survives day to day.
"I can't get up and go to work out of a tent," he says. "I need a stable environment to get up and shave, shower, and clean, feel normal and go. When you're in a tent, every day is so hard. ... Your priorities are so whacked out. ... You think about, OK, how am I going to eat today and how are my boots going to unthaw because they're frozen solid? ...
"I go and crawl into my tent and then it's another day," he says. "... Being homeless is a full-time job."
___
ALMOST DAWN: NEW YORK CITY.
John Mitchell rises for work with a siren blaring inside a homeless shelter in Harlem — a signal for the nearly 200 residents to line up for twice-a-week drug tests.
A 47-year-old former crack addict, Mitchell says he was in and out of prison and homeless for more than 20 years, robbing people for drug money and digging through trash cans for food.
"I was that type of guy that, guess what, you didn't want to see on the streets," Mitchell says. "I came to the conclusion this time around I learned what that word surrender means."
Seven months ago, the father of two teens became sober and entered the city's "Ready Willing & Able" program that provides shelter (10 men to a room), hot meals and a job cleaning the streets that pays up to $7 an hour.
Mitchell's infectious laugh and ready quips make him the unofficial leader of the crew working the West Side this morning. He sweeps the streets and dumps garbage cans, the steady rain dripping off his nose.
His mind is on the future — he's studying at night to be a nurse's aide.
"I gotta keep saying, this is not going to last forever, there's a bigger picture," he says. "It's like riding a bike ... right now I'm using training wheels. Before I know it, I'll be popping a wheelie."
___
8:30 A.M.: CHICAGO.
A 10-degree wind chill whips through the North Side streets of Chicago as 6-year-old Angelina Torres, in her pink wool hat, and her twin, Angel, in his Spiderman gloves, make their way to kindergarten.
Their mom, Eileen Rivera, leads the way on the seven-block walk. Her two older sons, Omar, 9, and JJ, 10, have already left for another school — a bus picked them up at 8 a.m. at the Sylvia Center, the shelter where the family has lived for eight months.
Her arms folded against the cold, Rivera walks briskly, noting her twins have stayed in shelters about half their lives. "They just blend right in." She pauses, then adds: "It's sad."
Her husband, Jesus Torres, recently found work operating a forklift, earning $7 an hour. The husky, outgoing father has been a handyman, pizza delivery man, ice cream cart driver, cashier and drug store clerk — sometimes working in exchange for welfare checks.
The Torreses are on waiting lists for public and subsidized housing.
Rivera tells her children this is just a steppingstone. "Guys," she says, "we have to do this just a little longer. We have to go through this to get to the shining star."
Rivera knows exactly what that will be: "Your own toilet. Your own tissues. Your own bath. Your own window. Things that are yours. Just yours."
___
9 A.M.: MIAMI.
Retha Ann Cain shuffles her shackled feet into a sixth-floor Miami courtroom.
The 19-year-old was homeless before she was jailed for prostitution. And when her latest 180-day sentence is up in March, she will be again.
Cain has been on and off the streets, in and out of foster care since she was 14. She says she was molested as a child by two male relatives. She ran away from Akron, Ohio, at 17 with a boyfriend and moved to sunny Miami.
The two live in a tent. Her world-weary face belies her youth — except when she allows herself a smile.
Cain was already serving time for prostitution when she appeared before Circuit Judge Mary Jo Francis to face two counts of obstructing traffic to pick up tricks. She has agreed to plead guilty in exchange for credit for time served.
Francis orders Cain to take part in an AIDS (news - web sites) education course — Cain says she is HIV (news - web sites)-negative — and tells her she'd be eligible for a county residential treatment program that includes housing and job training.
Cain isn't interested. She enrolled in the program once and backed out.
The judge offers her some free bus tokens.
"Thank you, thank you," Cain says.
"OK, Miss Cain," the judge replies with a smile. "Good luck."
___
LUNCH TIME: CINCINNATI.
Brent Chasteen slings a backpack over his shoulder and heads out on the streets.
An outreach worker, the 42-year-old Chasteen was hired by a business group called Downtown Cincinnati Inc. after the city enacted panhandling laws that require licenses for anyone who verbally begs.
Chasteen, dressed in cargo pants and hooded sweatshirt, works his way through downtown, handing out discount food cards to the needy, offering help to a woman bundled up and sitting in Fountain Square amid tote bags stuffed with clothes.
He later heads west to a desolate place near the railroad tracks where a shopping cart is filled with cans and bottles and covered with ragged green carpet.
"Hey, Wolf!" Chasteen calls into the winter air.
A purple sleeping bag tucked in a cardboard box moves. A man with a dark beard emerges.
Wolf has been homeless for 10 years.
"Trying to do what other people do — it's a losing battle," he says, sipping a can of beer. "I sit and look at everybody out there and I go, 'Nah, I'm OK where I'm at.' "
Chasteen makes no judgments.
"I know that we may seem to be in separate worlds on the surface," he says, "but many of them share the same kinds of problems that affect me and everybody else."
___
3 P.M.: WEST VIRGINIA.
A light snow falls in the mining town of Monongah, W.Va., as nurse's aide Harleigh Marsh does a final check on his patients at St. Barbara's Memorial Nursing Home. Finding a plastic baby doll atop a medical cart, he returns it to the waiting arms of a patient named Dora.
He leaves and by 3:15 p.m. arrives at Scott Place, a hillside shelter for the homeless in nearby Fairmont.
Marsh, a 48-year-old former sailor, is one of nearly 250,000 veterans who are homeless on any given night in America.
He lives in a dimly lit 14-by-14 room. A Zane Grey western and toiletries sit on his dresser top. He lost most of his family photos in his travels.
After leaving the military in 1979, Marsh tried college, but wanderlust returned. He worked as a drywall hanger and painter, renting rooms by the week, living from a suitcase.
In Milwaukee, he met a woman and fell in love. They had a son. Marsh was heartbroken when she found someone else — and almost overnight, he was homeless.
He ended up in Scott Place last year, struggling with depression. "But with the psychological help of the VA ... and a lot of time to think, I just worked it out," he says.
Marsh loves his job but after $300 monthly child support payments, he's left with just $140 a week — not even enough to travel to Milwaukee to see his 13-year-old boy, William Ray.
They talk, but haven't seen each other since August 2003. "It tears both of us apart," he says.
This fall, Marsh plans to apply to nursing programs at two local universities. If accepted, he'll work full time.
For now, he has a room, a pine bed, a comforter and a sense of peace.
"I have a place to go in the morning."
___
MID-AFTERNOON: CHICAGO.
With the school day over, Eileen Rivera's four kids are home; the boys watch cartoons, Angela plays with Barbie dolls.
Rivera, 38, slips off her long-haired dark wig — a stress-related illness has left her bald — and sits on a bed in the vault-like room.
"Sometimes," she says, "I feel like saying to someone, 'Give my kids a home. Just a taste of it. For a bit.' "
After the apartment building they lived in burned down in 1998, they lost their home; Rivera's husband, who was a handyman there, also lost his job. They moved to his mother's home in Puerto Rico but eventually returned to Chicago.
Now, Rivera knows the written rules to shelter life — and the unwritten ones.
"My kids already know we've got to make friends — we can't make enemies," she says.
Though they have little space, the Torreses proudly save every 'student of the month' certificate, every blue ribbon their kids win.
Jesus Torres, 43, also keeps a letter he wrote to social service officials. "I want permanent and stable housing for me and my family," it says. "I want to ... take responsibility as the head of the household. I want to be a productive member of society."
Torres is saving money — the shelter requires residents to set aside 75 percent of their earnings. He pays $43 monthly to store his family's belongings until they find a home.
He's an optimist. His wife tries to be.
"Sometimes I feel like it's not going to come and I'm just fooling myself," she says. "My kids will see me sad and say, 'You said we were going to get a home.' ... They make me feel like there is hope."
___
SUNDOWN: HOLLYWOOD.
Nicole Hudson has a roof over her head — for now.
Sitting in Covenant House, a shelter for homeless and runaway teens, she ticks off the places she has lived in her 20 years: eight foster homes, two group homes, two shelters, one transitional apartment. She's also stayed with her mother three times and her grandparents twice.
This is Hudson's fourth stint at Covenant House — she has been kicked out three times for breaking the rules.
She's been on the streets three times in the past year, living on-and-off with 25 other teens in a narrow alley off Hollywood Boulevard.
"It's just horrible," she says in a husky voice with a hint of a Southern drawl. "We don't even like to walk past older people on the street and see them still sleeping all wrapped up in stinky blankets, dirty mattresses, their hair not combed."
"What happened to the blue skies, you know, and the sun-shining days when you were little? It's like the world just crashes when you get older and your mind comes to reality."
___
LATE EVENING: LAS VEGAS.
A few blocks from downtown Las Vegas' casinos, Clarence Woods is on his way to buy a pack of cigarettes.
A week ago, he lived on the streets. But work as a day laborer has allowed him to move into a $370-a-month hotel. He doesn't know how long his luck will hold.
The 53-year-old Woods is a father of five but says he's too embarrassed to tell his children where he's living. He says he ended up homeless because he was irresponsible.
"It's like hell," he says, his cranberry stocking hat pulled snug over his ears in the desert chill. Woods says there aren't places to help homeless people like him.
He once did well in Las Vegas and owned his own upholstery shop, he says. But he went bankrupt and ended up without a home.
He calls himself a recreational drug user, drinker and gambler.
"It's a real trap," he says, the neon signs flashing behind him, "but it's what Las Vegas is all about."
___
9 P.M.: SEATTLE (MIDNIGHT EST).
The lights are about to go out on another day at Seattle University where about 100 people live in a homeless camp on asphalt tennis courts.
"Tent City" is both a haven and a political statement — the homeless shouldn't be hidden. Volunteers cook meals and students and faculty organize legal and health clinics for residents.
Among them are Russell Mace and Angela Cope. He says he once made a handsome living running his own catering and house-painting business in Texas, where he fell in love with Cope. But she returned to Seattle to try to reconcile with her two kids and their father.
Mace, 45, says he turned to the bottle for a time. Then he and Cope, 49, reunited. They lived in cheap hotels until their money ran out. Now a tent is home.
In recent months, Mace has lobbied city council members and state lawmakers on homeless issues. "I have a sense of pride, a sense of dignity, a sense of community here — and a sense of purpose," he says.
But he hopes his homeless days are numbered. He's trying to resurrect a Web site he had for handmade eye patches; he wears a silver-plated patch over his left eye, which he lost in a hunting accident years ago.
After the camp goes dark, Cope shaves her partner, next to the only bulb still aglow at the front desk.
"We gonna get any coffee or are we going to bed?" Mace asks.
"Go to bed," she replies.
They walk into the darkness, his arm around her back.
On the other coast of America, midnight has just passed and another day for the homeless has just begun.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1134
(2/27/05 10:48 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
And related to the above post;
AP Poll Shows Concern About Homelessness
Sat Feb 26,11:53 AM ET
By The Associated Press
American public opinion on homelessness, from an Associated Press Poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs Feb. 11-13 among 1,001 adults (sampling error plus or minus 3 percentage points):
1. How serious is the problem of homelessness in this country? Is it very serious, somewhat serious, not too serious, or not at all serious?
_ Very serious, 53 percent
_ Somewhat serious, 36 percent
_ Not too serious, 9 percent
_ Not at all serious, 2 percent
Democrats, women, non-whites and people with lower incomes or no college education were particularly likely to say homelessness is a very serious problem.
2. Do you think that Americans who are homeless for long periods of time are victims of circumstances beyond their control, or responsible for their situation? (Results in parentheses for the same question from a Time/CNN/Harris Interactive telephone poll in November 2002):
_ Victims of circumstances beyond their control, 56 percent (47)
_ Responsible for their situation, 38 percent (36)
_ Not sure, 6 percent (17)
Republicans, men and those below age 30 or above age 65 were more inclined to say the long-term homeless are responsible for their situation.
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shadeaux63
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(3/5/05 2:54 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
DAMN!!! Even CHINA is coming down on the US for human rights violations.
Published on Thursday, March 3, 2005 by the Agence France Presse
China Lashes Out at Serious US Human Rights Violations
BEIJING -- China accused the United States of serious human rights violations and told Washington to clean up its own act before "wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries".
In its annual Human Rights Record of the United States, China hit out at the "atrocity" of US troops in Iraq and criticised the Bush administration for failing to deal with poverty, racial discrimination and crime at home.
It was published just days after the US released its own annual human rights report, which accused China of muting dissent, suppressing religious rights and restricting freedom of speech.
"Despite tons of problems in its own human rights, the United States continues to stick to its belligerent stance, wantonly trampling on the sovereignty of other countries," said the report, the sixth China has issued.
"The United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously instead of indulging itself in publishing the 'human rights country report' to censure other countries unreasonably."
The report, which widely cited media and aid group reports and official US statistics, focused on US abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
"In 2004 the atrocity of US troops abusing Iraqi POWs exposed the dark side of human rights performance of the United States," it said, adding that the US "frequently commits wanton slaughters during external invasions and military attacks".
"A survey on Iraqi civilian deaths, based on the natural death rate before the war, estimates that the US-led invasion might have led to 100,000 more deaths in the country, with most victims being women and children."
It also charged that the United States has been "hindering" the work of the United Nation's human rights mechanism.
"And it either took no notice of or used delaying tactics on the requests of relevant UN agencies to visit its Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba."
Domestically, Americans were "threatened by rampant violent crimes and severe infringement of civil rights by law enforcement departments".
"Police violence and infringement of human rights by law enforcement agencies also constitute a serious problem," the report said.
It highlighted the widely publicised case of Chinese citizen Zhao Yan who was handcuffed and beaten last year while in the United States on a business trip.
The report also lashed out at the US being a democracy "manipulated by the rich", saying four billion dollars was spent on the presidential election while "poverty, hunger and homelessness haunt the United States".
China also bemoaned the fact that "racial discrimination has been deeply rooted in the United States, permeating into every aspect of society", saying coloured people were generally poorer than whites.
"Racial prejudice is ubiquitous in judicial fields," it said. "The proportion for persons of colored races being sentenced or being imprisoned is notably higher than whites."
The situation of American women and children was also "disturbing".
"The rates of women and children physically or sexually victimized were high," said the report, claiming that 400,000 children were forced to work as prostitutes in the United States.
"No country should exclude itself from the international human rights development process, or view itself as the incarnation of human rights which can reign over other countries and give orders to the others," it said.
"Even the United States shall be no exception."
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1137
(3/5/05 3:04 am)
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Re: This Just in...again
You HAVE to go to this site,and check out these charts on how our economy is doing,as well as how it stacks up to the economy during other presidential terms.
jec.senate.gov/democrats/ber.htm
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1138
(3/5/05 6:50 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
Maximum pain is aim of new US weapon
* 19:00 02 March 2005
* Exclusive from New Scientist Print Edition
* David Hambling
The US military is funding development of a weapon that delivers a bout of excruciating pain from up to 2 kilometres away. Intended for use against rioters, it is meant to leave victims unharmed. But pain researchers are furious that work aimed at controlling pain has been used to develop a weapon. And they fear that the technology will be used for torture.
"I am deeply concerned about the ethical aspects of this research," says Andrew Rice, a consultant in pain medicine at Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, UK. "Even if the use of temporary severe pain can be justified as a restraining measure, which I do not believe it can, the long-term physical and psychological effects are unknown."
The research came to light in documents unearthed by the Sunshine Project, an organisation based in Texas and in Hamburg, Germany, that exposes biological weapons research. The papers were released under the US's Freedom of Information Act.
One document, a research contract between the Office of Naval Research and the University of Florida in Gainesville, US, is entitled "Sensory consequences of electromagnetic pulses emitted by laser induced plasmas".
It concerns so-called Pulsed Energy Projectiles (PEPs), which fire a laser pulse that generates a burst of expanding plasma when it hits something solid, like a person (New Scientist print edition, 12 October 2002). The weapon, destined for use in 2007, could literally knock rioters off their feet.
Pain trigger
According to a 2003 review of non-lethal weapons by the US Naval Studies Board, which advises the navy and marine corps, PEPs produced "pain and temporary paralysis" in tests on animals. This appears to be the result of an electromagnetic pulse produced by the expanding plasma which triggers impulses in nerve cells.
The new study, which runs until July and will be carried out with researchers at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, aims to optimise this effect. The idea is to work out how to generate a pulse which triggers pain neurons without damaging tissue.
The contract, heavily censored before release, asks researchers to look for "optimal pulse parameters to evoke peak nociceptor activation" - in other words, cause the maximum pain possible. Studies on cells grown in the lab will identify how much pain can be inflicted on someone before causing injury or death.
Long-term risk
New Scientist contacted two researchers working on the project. Martin Richardson, a laser expert at the University of Central Florida, US, refused to comment. Brian Cooper, an expert in dental pain at the University of Florida, distanced himself from the work, saying "I don't have anything interesting to convey. I was just providing some background for the group." His name appears on a public list of the university's research projects next to the $500,000-plus grant.
John Wood of University College London, UK, an expert in how the brain perceives pain, says the researchers involved in the project should face censure. "It could be used for torture," he says, "the [researchers] must be aware of this."
Amanda Williams, a clinical psychologist at University College London, fears that victims risk long-term harm. "Persistent pain can result from a range of supposedly non-destructive stimuli which nevertheless change the functioning of the nervous system," she says. She is concerned that studies of cultured cells will fall short of demonstrating a safe level for a plasma burst. "They cannot tell us about the pain and psychological consequences of such a painful experience."
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1139
(3/6/05 2:21 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
Probe Looks for Sonar, Beached Dolphins Link
Sonar Link Probed
MARATHON, Fla. (March 6) - The U.S. Navy and marine wildlife experts are investigating whether a submarine used sonar before dozens of dolphins beached themselves near Marathon.
More than 20 rough-toothed dolphins have died since Wednesday's mass grounding of about 68 dolphins, Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary spokeswoman Cheva Heck said Saturday. Many of the survivors were being moved Saturday to rehabilitation centers in the Florida Keys.
Four were taken to Summerland Key to be cared for by the Florida Keys Marine Mammal Rescue Team and 25 were sent to the Marine Mammal Conservancy on Key Largo. Two dolphins went to the Marine Animal Rescue Society in Miami late Friday. Some of the dolphins were transported in a refrigerated Publix Super Markets semitrailer.
Experts don't yet know how long they will be in rehabilitation.
"We won't authorize release until we feel they can survive in the wild," Heck said. "We don't want to release them and see them re-strand."
The beachings came a day after the USS Philadelphia conducted exercises off Key West, about 45 miles from Marathon. Navy officials refused to say whether the Groton, Conn.-based submarine used its sonar during a training exercise with Navy SEALs.
But naval ships emitting pulses of sound have been blamed for at least one mass beaching. Scientists surmise that sonar may disorient or scare marine mammals, causing them to surface too quickly and creating the equivalent of what divers know as the bends - when nitrogen is formed in tissue by sudden decompression, leading to hemorrhaging.
"This is absolutely high priority," said Lt. Cdr. Jensin Sommer, spokeswoman for Norfolk, Va.-based Naval Submarine Forces. "We are looking into this. We want to be good stewards of the environment, and any time there are strandings of marine mammals we look into the operations and locations of any ships that might have been operating in that area."
National Marine Fisheries Service experts are conducting necropsies on the dead dolphins, looking for signs of acoustic trauma.
"We certainly will do a thorough exam on as many as possible before we go to the Navy," said Teri Rowles, coordinator of the service's marine mammal health and stranding response program.
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shadeaux63
Keeper of dreams
Posts: 1140
(3/8/05 4:18 pm)
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Re: This Just in...again
Published on Monday, March 7, 2005 by the lndependent/UK
Bush Accused of 'Fiddling While World Burns' by Ignoring Climate Change
by Steve Connor
One of Britain's most eminent scientists has attacked President Bush for acting like a latter-day Nero who fiddles while the world burns because of global warming.
Lord May of Oxford, the president of the Royal Society and former chief scientific adviser to the Government, said the Bush administration must accept the case has been made about the link between man-made pollution and climate change. Continuing to deny the impact of human activities on the environment may ultimately have catastrophic consequences for everyone on the planet, he said.
The Royal Society has calculated that the 13 per cent rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the United States since 1990 will dwarf the cuts resulting from all other countries that will follow the Kyoto protocol. In a speech to policy-makers in Berlin today, Lord May will also castigate elements within the British media who promote "misleading" opinions about the true nature of the scientific uncertainties surrounding climate change.
"If the public are misled into thinking climate change does not pose a serious potential threat, some policy-makers could more easily find an excuse not to act. The United States administration has shown that this is the case," Lord May said. "All countries must accept the case has been made ... We need to ensure our own leaders and opinion-formers in the media are not allowed to act as modern-day Neros over climate change, fiddling while the world burns," Lord May said.
"There is a real problem and the solutions aren't easy but it doesn't help at all to have people, for one motive or another, running around misrepresenting what we do and don't know," he told The Independent.
"One thing we do know for sure is we are changing the composition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and that is going to have effects unless, by some implausible miracle, everything cancels out," he said.
Lord May accused the Bush administration of doing much to undermine the cuts in greenhouse gas emissions the Kyoto treaty aimed to bring about.
"President Clinton signed up to the Kyoto treaty in 1998 and a target of reducing US emissions of greenhouse gases by 8 per cent between 1990 and 2008-2012," Lord May said.
"But President George W Bush indicated in March 2001 that his administration would renege on that commitment and would not ratify the protocol. Although there are inherent problems with the Kyoto treaty it still represents the best way for the world as a whole to stabilize and eventually reduce carbon emissions. It signified a crucial first step in our efforts to avoid dangerous climate change by cutting greenhouse gas emissions.
"Small actions now are disproportionately important. They are more important than bigger actions later because of the non-linearity of the process we are talking about," he said.
"We need a whole suite of actions that, in a sense, have to have an underlying embrace that there is a problem, and it is a big problem," he added.
In addition to urging America to ratify the Kyoto agreement, Lord May accused the Daily Mail of waging an undeclared propaganda war against the science of climate change.
He accused the newspaper of misleading its readers with a misinformed campaign.
"It appears to be conducting an undeclared campaign to deny the potential threat from climate change - in the past 15 months the Daily Mail, which attracts six million readers every day, has published six opinion pieces, including four from its science editor, that have used misleading arguments against the scientific evidence on climate change," Lord May said. "It brings to mind the ill-fated and disreputable campaign by The Sunday Times during the early 1990s to deny that HIV causes Aids. It seems that some parts of the media have not learnt the lessons of that unfortunate campaign."
Lord May, winner of the Crafoord Prize, the equivalent of a mathematics Nobel, said climate change was so potentially dangerous to the world that people needed to be fully informed of its future consequences as well as the genuine uncertainties of the science.
"Like The Sunday Times in the early 1990s, the Daily Mail gives undue prominence and support to the views of an extreme fringe, and misleads its readers about the state of our knowledge," Lord May said. "Nuclear power has to be considered as a viable alternative to fossil fuel that can generate sufficient power without adding to greenhouse gases."
"It has to be part of tomorrow's future. I've every sympathy with the attitude that sees it through the emotional haze of a mushroom cloud, and terrorism makes it even more problematic, but you can't approach the things in emotional ways. There are real problems with nuclear but it's hard to see it's not part of the mid-term solution, ultimately one hopes one can move beyond it. We've got to investigate it now because we're on the verge of losing a generation of competence in the area."
THE RICH WORLD'S TOP 10 POLLUTERS
Emissions of carbon dioxide in 1990 (the base year for the Kyoto protocol). All figures are in millions of tons of carbon
United States 1,348.2
Russia 647
Japan 306.7
Germany 276.6
Ukraine 190.9
UK 159
Poland 130
Canada 125.7
Italy 117.9
France 106.6
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