"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." - Thomas Jefferson
(Blog)
Wednesday, July 31, 2002
CNN.com - Military imposes limits on wireless devices - July 31, 2002
The Defense Department, concerned that hackers or spies might eavesdrop on classified meetings or secretly track the locations of top United States officials, is imposing new limits on its' workers use of the latest generation of wireless devices inside military buildings.
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/internet/07/31/pentagon.hackers.ap/index.html
WE spy on you. YOU don't spy on us.
posted by Death Angel on 7/31/2002 07:30:15 PM
Worker Rights Battle Snags Homeland Bill (washingtonpost.com)
The White House threatened yesterday to veto legislation to create a Department of Homeland Security if it does not include language limiting the workplace rights of the proposed agency's 170,000 employees.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64832-2002Jul25.html
posted by - singularity - on 7/31/2002 05:37:21 AM
Tuesday, July 30, 2002
Nevada could become 'nation's marketplace for marijuana
Nevada is shaping up as a national battleground in the war to make possession of small amounts of marijuana legal.
The Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington-based group that advocates the decriminalization of marijuana, collected enough signatures to put an initiative to legalize possession of less than three ounces of pot on the fall ballot.
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"Nevadans are independent and are sick and tired of the federal government stepping in and telling them what to do and how to vote on Nevada laws,"
posted by Blinded , on 7/30/2002 11:51:46 PM
The New Republic Online: Market Price
On July 12 White House spokesman Ari Fleischer scolded the Washington press corps for its ignorance about Wall Street, and he has berated the news networks for featuring market tickers showing falling stock prices during Bush's televised comments on the economy. Bush is the first president to face a bear market in the CNBC-obsessed media environment that grew up around the 1990s boom. And he's finding, to his dismay, that the rules have changed.
http://www.thenewrepublic.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020805&s=lizza080502
posted by - singularity - on 7/30/2002 06:28:56 PM
Harris Online: Paul Harris Radio Show RealAudio!
The former head of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq explains to Paul why he doesn't think the US should attack Iraq until there is proof that they've developed nuclear, biological, or chemical weapons capabilities again. He also explains what kind of power the UN had during his tour and what it could do now, whether Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the 9/11 attacks, and if he thinks it's worth it to go after him.
http://www.harrisonline.com/audio/menu.htm
posted by - singularity - on 7/30/2002 05:04:45 PM
Public Citizen | Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program | Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program - Liquid Assets: Enron's Dip into Water Business Highlights Pitfalls of Privatization
The following report demonstrates how Enron’s brief tenure in the water business highlights many risks of water privatization: poor contract performance, political corruption and influence peddling, environmental violations, prospects of water commodification, and uncertainty about the financial stability of private contractors.
This is a sign of things to come. Monsanto has indicated an interest in this new "commodity" as well. When is enough money enough?
http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/Enron/articles.cfm?ID=7650
posted by - singularity - on 7/30/2002 05:02:32 PM
Bush to Create Formal Office To Shape U.S. Image Abroad (washingtonpost.com)
The Bush White House has decided to transform what was a temporary effort to rebut Taliban disinformation about the Afghan war into a permanent, fully staffed "Office of Global Communications" to coordinate the administration's foreign policy message and supervise America's image abroad, according to senior officials.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A18822-2002Jul29.html
Propaganda by any other name...
posted by Death Angel on 7/30/2002 03:08:10 PM
CorpWatch.org - Campaigns - Corporate-Free UN - Updates - Bayer and the UN Global Compact
When most of us hear the brand name "Bayer" we think of aspirin. But Bayer AG, based in Leverkusen, Germany is a major producer of chemicals, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, and plastics. The company employs 120,000 people worldwide and its annual sales are some $28 billion. The U.S. is its largest market, and the company has facilities in Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, India, Thailand, China, Japan and many European countries. It is also a founding member of the UN's Global Compact, a partnership between the United Nations and big business. Bayer has signed on to nine voluntary, non-binding human rights and environmental principles. In exchange for the use of the UN name and logo, a range of UN programs hope to receive funding from giant corporations.
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Bayer has a long history of giving profits precedence over human rights and environmental concerns. During the First World War the company invented Chemical Warfare ("moisture gas") and built up a "School for Chemical Warfare." Thirty years later Bayer was part of the conglomerate IG Farben, which worked closely with the Third Reich. IG Farben exploited several hundred thousand slave workers at their plant in Auschwitz. It also took over companies throughout Europe and used human guinea pigs for pharmaceutical research. IG Farbens subsidiary Degesch manufactured Zyklon B, the poison gas used in the gas chambers. In the late 1930's organophosphates (sarine, tabun) were introduced, after the war marketed by Bayer as pesticides (E 605, Folidol, Nemacur, Fenthion). IG Farbens managers were convicted as war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials. After the war Farben was broken up into BASF, Bayer and Hoechst (now called Aventis), and the three firms still cooperate closely and exert a large influence on German and European politics.
http://www.corpwatch.org/campaigns/PCD.jsp?articleid=3129
posted by Blinded , on 7/30/2002 12:45:29 PM
US accused of airstrike cover-up
AMERICAN forces may have breached human rights and then removed evidence after the so-called wedding party airstrike that killed more than 50 Afghan civilians this month, according to a draft United Nations report
A preliminary UN investigation has found no corroboration of American claims that its aircraft were fired on from the ground, and says there were discrepancies in US accounts of what happened.
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UN sources said that the findings pointed to an American cover-up, and suggested that American investigators were dragging their feet hoping that the issue would pass.
The attack took place early on July 1 as American forces hunted pockets of Taleban and al-Qaeda resistance. A US helicopter gunship opened fire on targets around the village of Kakarak, and the casualties included 25 members of one family at a wedding party.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-368297,00.html
posted by Blinded , on 7/30/2002 09:54:46 AM
Microsoft man seeks US Net Radio reprieve
bill to protect grassroots Internet radio has been offered before Congress.
The Internet Radio Fairness Act would exempt webcasters with less than $6 million in annual revenues from the additional RIAA royalty and from future royalty requirements.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/26419.html
posted by Blinded , on 7/30/2002 09:28:23 AM
Pick Up Your Swords -- It's Time To Slay the Corporate-Media Beast
PERHAPS IT WAS appropriate for a congressional symposium on corporate control of the media to be held in the basement of the Capitol.
After all, most members of Congress--loyal minions of Big Money that they are--would prefer that the topic never see the light of day. That's because if people became better informed about our media system, they might begin formulating tough questions. Questions such as ones posed at the July 11 symposium by communications scholar Robert McChesney, who wondered aloud: "Why do we let one company [Clear Channel] own 1,400 radio stations? In whose interests is that?"
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In an article written earlier this year for The Nation magazine, McChesney and co-author John Nichols, another symposium participant, dispel the myth of "a natural order" in which media conglomerates "have mastered the marketplace on the basis of their wit and wisdom."
McChesney and Nichols argue that, in addition to the "huge promotional budgets and continual rehashing of tried and true formulas," corporate dominance of the media is made possible "by explicit government policies and subsidies that permit the creation of large and profitable conglomerates." The two media critics contend that when the FCC grants free monopoly rights to a small group of broadcasters, "it is not setting the terms of competition; it is picking the winners of the competition." These giveaways, they continue, amount to an annual sum of corporate welfare worth tens of billions of dollars.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0729-04.htm
posted by Blinded , on 7/30/2002 09:12:45 AM
Monday, July 29, 2002
Yahoo! News - I.R.S. Loophole Allows Wealthy to Avoid Taxes
Through a technique invented by a lawyer in New York and a chemical engineer in California, each dollar spent on this insurance can typically eliminate $9 in taxes.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=68&ncid=68&e=2&u=/nyt/20020728/ts_nyt/i_r_s__loophole_allows_wealthy_to_avoid_taxes
posted by - singularity - on 7/29/2002 11:04:40 PM
Daily Herald: Suburban Chicago's Information Source
It is ironic that Secretary of State Colin Powell, the one who knows war at its worst, is the voice for caution and moderation in the White House. He is vigorously opposed by the chickenhawks
http://www.dailyherald.com/oped/col_mabley.asp?intID=37463187
posted by - singularity - on 7/29/2002 08:58:56 PM
Saturday, July 27, 2002
The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington by James Ridgeway
Are we headed toward martial law? Last week Peter Kirsanow, a Bush appointee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, said in Detroit that he envisions a situation in which the public will demand internment camps for Arab Americans. If terrorists attack the U.S. for a second time and if "they come from the same ethnic group that attacked the World Trade Center, you can forget about civil rights," he said.
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0230/ridgeway.php
posted by Death Angel on 7/27/2002 06:35:25 PM
Trade Bill Passes Bush After Lobbying Blitz (washingtonpost.com)
The House of Representatives voted today to give President Bush broad authority to negotiate trade agreements, approving one of his top legislative priorities following a lobbying blitz that included a rare Bush visit to Capitol Hill."
[...]
Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (D-Fla.) called the bill a "sucker punch" for the American worker and a backroom deal "gone bad in the dead of the night."
[...]
Administration officials targeted several wavering Republicans and a few Democrats yesterday, hoping to muscle through the legislation. The president addressed a closed-door GOP meeting in the Capitol basement yesterday, while White House lobbyists camped near the House floor all day so they could reach undecided lawmakers.
[...]
John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation's largest labor organization, said the agreement gives "big business a blank check to send good jobs overseas."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8671-2002Jul27.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/27/2002 06:21:54 PM
Foundations are in place for martial law in the US - smh.com.au
"Recent pronouncements from the Bush Administration and national security initiatives put in place in the Reagan era could see internment camps and martial law in the United States.
When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad". "
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/07/27/1027497418339.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/27/2002 05:54:00 PM
CNN.com - Suit: Drug dog terrorized young students - July 26, 2002
"The German shepherd got off its leash in a kindergarten classroom at the Wagner Community School and chased students during the May search, the court papers allege. They claim some students started crying and at least one urinated involuntarily."
http://fyi.cnn.com/2002/fyi/teachers.ednews/07/26/school.drug.dog.ap/index.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/27/2002 05:43:16 PM
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Asteroid to hit earth in 17 years
"The chances of a recently discovered mile-wide asteroid, forecast to hurtle towards Earth, actually hitting the planet are "minimal", a Nasa scientist said today.
But if it did, asteroid 2002 NT7 would strike on February 1 2019 unleashing tidal waves, massive fires, global volcanic activity and an electromagnetic pulse that would destroy most of the electronics on Earth."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/spacedocumentary/story/0,2763,762439,00.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/27/2002 04:37:55 PM
Thursday, July 25, 2002
Naval Noise: Whale of a Problem
The U.S. Navy wants to keep tabs on the seas. But it's facing a whale of a problem: The technologies it says it needs to spy on enemy subs are so loud that they can ruin the lives of nearby leviathans, which rely on their ears like we use our eyes.
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,54077,00.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/25/2002 11:08:33 PM
TechNews.com
After her husband was laid off from WorldCom on June 28, Sandra Harms figured they, and their three children, could survive awhile on his $12,000 severance pay until he found another job.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A2463-2002Jul25.html
posted by Death Angel on 7/25/2002 10:57:46 PM
Star Telegram | 07/20/2002 | Why this White House is no surprise
Why are George W. Bush's business dealings relevant? Given that his aides tout his "character," the public deserves to know that he became wealthy entirely through patronage and connections. But more important, those dealings foreshadow many characteristics of his administration, such as its obsession with secrecy and its intermingling of public policy with private interest.
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In Austin, Gov. Bush saw nothing wrong with profiting personally from a deal with Tom Hicks; in Washington, he sees nothing wrong with having the Pentagon sign what look like sweetheart deals with Dick Cheney's former employer Halliburton.
So the style of a future Bush administration was easily predictable, given Bush's career history
posted by Blinded , on 7/25/2002 08:41:02 PM
Tuesday, July 23, 2002
Send the bastards to jail!| Unlike the majority of nonviolent drug cases, corporate wrongdoers rarely do any time behind bars.
The new consensus along that other axis of evil, the one connecting Washington and Wall Street, is that very publicly hauling a few corporate crooks off to jail would be a very good thing for the market, for the economy -- and for our political leaders' reelection prospects.
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The bitter truth is that, unlike the majority of nonviolent drug cases, corporate malfeasance is not a victimless crime. Not with tens of thousands of laid-off workers, $630 billion lost from corporate pension plans and more than $4 trillion in shareholder assets wiped out in the scandal-fueled stock market swoon.
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So when it comes to rooting out corrupt corporate kingpins, will the president's new "financial crimes SWAT team" have the stomach for the fight? Can we expect to see undercover "narc-accountants" infiltrating what's left of the Big Five accounting firms? Middle of the night no-knock raids on companies that restate their earnings by billions of dollars? Confiscation of an executive's entire assets simply on the suspicion of fraud? Will corporate cops get to emulate their drug fighting counterparts and be allowed to keep a percentage of the money they confiscate? I bet that would help change the reluctance to target corporate corruption.
posted by Blinded , on 7/23/2002 05:52:43 PM
Monday, July 22, 2002
It’s Easy To Tell When The Iraqi War Will Start... and Why
It is highly likely that the US launch attacks which start the war with Iraq within the next 75 days, and probably between August 15 and October 5.
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The time range described above is optimal for influencing the November US Congressional elections. With Bush’s popularity plummeting as millions of Americans discover that their life savings and retirement funds have shriveled to a fraction of what they were, the Bush administration has but one trump card left to try to turn the tide-- start the war with Iraq.
posted by Blinded , on 7/22/2002 11:36:57 AM
Thursday, July 18, 2002
AlterNet -- Seeking Refuge from the Drug War
Forty years ago, Americans fled to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. Today, American medical marijuana patients are following in their footsteps, claiming to be political refugees of the U.S. government's war on drugs.
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"Providing sanctuary to some of these people who see Canada as an easy place to escape the long leash of U.S. law enforcement is dangerous," said Robert Maginnis, a White House drug policy advisor, in a recent interview on Canada's Global TV network. "I would hope that the Canadian government would see fit to send them back to the U.S. so they can face charges, because we have, just like you do, a sovereign right over our citizens to enforce the laws of our land."
posted by Blinded , on 7/18/2002 11:08:04 AM
Gummi bears defeat fingerprint sensors
A Japanese cryptographer has demonstrated how fingerprint recognition devices can be fooled using a combination of low cunning, cheap kitchen supplies and a digital camera.
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"The results are enough to scrap the systems completely, and to send the various fingerprint biometric companies packing,"
posted by Blinded , on 7/18/2002 04:11:26 AM
Tuesday, July 16, 2002
UK: Pot Users Relax with New Law
Britain: A Pilot Program That Eased Marijuana Penalties In A London Neighborhood Is Set To Go National.
LONDON -- His eyes narrowed to slits and his mouth widened in a half-moon grin, Michael Anderson is ready to tell anybody who asks that, "Yes, my friend, I been smoking the weed."
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For months, police have been largely ignoring him and others toking in storefronts and back alleys, in the public squares and on private porches. The results, according to Scotland Yard, include an increase in arrests of people using hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine and a decrease in property and violent crime because constables are freed up.
posted by Blinded , on 7/16/2002 04:58:41 PM
Monday, July 15, 2002
Yahoo! News - Bush trying to ride out corporate flap
WASHINGTON -- Questions about President Bush ( news - web sites)'s and Vice President Cheney's past business practices are distracting the White House and threaten to overtake Bush's corporate reform proposals.
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Advisers say privately that Bush is frustrated yet sees no choice but to ride out the flap. He'll try to shift the focus
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Visiting Minneapolis on Thursday, Bush said, ''I believe people have taken a step back and asked, 'What's important in life?' You know, the bottom line and this corporate America stuff, is that important? Or is serving your neighbor, loving your neighbor like you'd like to be loved yourself?''
posted by Blinded , on 7/15/2002 04:39:29 PM
Yahoo! News - Clinton 'wrong' on needle swaps
BARCELONA -- Former president Bill Clinton said Thursday that he should have fought harder while in office to fund needle-exchange programs that help reduce the rising AIDS ( news - web sites) toll among drug addicts.
''I think I was wrong about that,'' Clinton said. ''We were worried about drug use going up again in America.''
posted by Blinded , on 7/15/2002 04:15:31 PM
Sunday, July 14, 2002
Ananova - Internet portals in China agree to restrict 'subversive' information
Internet portals in China have signed a pledge to purge the web of content the communist government deems subversive.
The "Public Pledge on Self-discipline for China Internet Industry" has attracted more than 300 signatories since its launch on March 16.
posted by Blinded , on 7/14/2002 10:59:45 PM
Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices;
Newsweek: Halliburton CEO Says Cheney Knew About Firm's Accounting Practices; 'The Vice President Was Aware of Who Owed Us Money, And He Helped Us Collect It' -- Republicans Want Army Secretary White to Resign to Avoid Controversy Over Enron; 'How is It Going to Look When One of the Guys Leading the War on Terrorism Takes the Fifth?' Says One GOP Source
posted by Blinded , on 7/14/2002 04:23:08 PM
US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies - smh.com.au
The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups.
The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity".
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Historically, informant systems have been the tools of non-democratic states. According to a 1992 report by Harvard University's Project on Justice, the accuracy of informant reports is problematic, with some informants having embellished the truth, and others suspected of having fabricated their reports.
posted by Blinded , on 7/14/2002 04:00:46 PM
Saturday, July 13, 2002
Bush's white-collar crime task force headed by...a white collar criminal
The man President Bush tapped to lead his corporate crime watchdog team was a director of a San Francisco credit-card firm that just two years ago paid more than $400 million to settle charges that it cheated consumers.
Larry Thompson, named to lead the Bush administration's white-collar crime task force, served on the board of directors of Providian Financial Corp. at the same time regulators found that the firm systematically charged excessive fees and used deceptive sales tactics to bolster its bottom line.
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In documents obtained by The Chronicle earlier this year, Providian founder Andrew Kahr wrote that, in lending to the kinds of high-risk customers Providian specialized in, the "problem is to squeeze out enough revenue and get customers to sit still for the squeeze."
posted by Blinded , on 7/13/2002 09:30:41 PM
Friday, July 12, 2002
CorpWatch.org - Issues - Money & Politics - Articles - George and Dick's Amazing Corporate Misadventures
The allegations now facing former executives of Enron, WorldCom, Quest, Xerox, et al, bear more than a passing similarity to the behavior of both George W. Bush and Dick Cheney during their days as corporate executives.
The recent blizzard of corporate revelations has left investor's minds (and guts) churning. What is it exactly that Bush and Cheney did that makes them part of the problem rather than part of a solution? Here's a cheat-sheet you can bring to your next game of Not-So-Trivial Pursuits:
posted by Blinded , on 7/12/2002 09:18:52 PM
USATODAY.com - Internet ID standard to be unveiled
WASHINGTON (AP) — An industry coalition is set to unveil standards for identity authentication on the Internet, the first step toward making the task of remembering long lists of Web site passwords a thing of the past.
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Privacy advocates, however, say the creation of a single identification standard will make it easier for businesses to profile Internet users for marketing purposes.
"They want identification data to find new marketing avenues," said Chris Hoofnagle, legislative counsel for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "What it means for the individual is more spam, more direct mail, more telemarketing."
posted by Blinded , on 7/12/2002 09:10:02 PM
Roll Call: Current News
Byrd, the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said he is concerned Congress is moving too quickly in an effort to approve the new department, a pace he argued puts the legislative branch at risk of ceding more of its power to the White House.
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"It would be my duty to do whatever I could to support and defend the Constitution, and I have no hesitancy in doing it," Byrd said in an interview this week. "I don't like to throw around the word filibuster. I hope we won't come to that."
posted by Blinded , on 7/12/2002 08:47:52 PM
Thursday, July 11, 2002
Yahoo! News - Sesame Street to introduce HIV-positive Muppet
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sesame Street will soon introduce its first HIV ( news - web sites)-positive Muppet character to children of South Africa, where one in nine people have the virus that can lead to AIDS ( news - web sites).
posted by Blinded , on 7/11/2002 11:58:37 PM
Entire space shuttle fleet has fuel line cracks
NASA effectively grounded the entire fleet in June after the cracks were first discovered in the shuttles Discovery and Atlantis. The same cracks were then also found in shuttle Columbia.
Independent materials expert have told New Scientist that the cracks could be caused by stress resulting from sudden, extreme cooling by the liquid hydrogen. If this is true, the fleet could be in for an expensive redesign.
posted by Blinded , on 7/11/2002 10:22:35 AM
seven million year old hominid skull found
The wind-blown Djurab Desert of Chad has opened a new window on early human evolution - a hominid skull six to seven million years old, at least two million years older than any skull previously discovered.
The stunning find was unearthed by Michel Brunet of the University of Poitiers in France and his team. "It's a lot of emotion to have in my hand the beginning of the human lineage. I've been looking for 25 years."
posted by Blinded , on 7/11/2002 10:19:17 AM
Moon a great power source - smh.com.au
Within 15 years people could be mining the moon for a safe and clean nuclear fuel that could phase out fossil-burning power stations, the last man to step onto the lunar surface said yesterday.
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In Sydney yesterday the geologist and only scientist among the 12 Apollo moonwalkers predicted the next lunar explorers would be funded by international investors rather than taxpayers.
Their goal would be an isotope called helium-3, rare on Earth but found in abundance on the moon. It could be used to develop a clean, safe and limitless fuel for nuclear fusion power stations. Unlike atom-splitting fission technology, fusion - the source of the sun's energy - generates power by squeezing atoms together.
posted by Blinded , on 7/11/2002 10:03:57 AM
Wednesday, July 10, 2002
BBC News | AMERICAS | Andersen video puts Cheney on spot
It has emerged in the United States that Vice-President Dick Cheney took part in a promotional video for the disgraced accounting firm Andersen.
The news came just before an anti-corruption pressure group filed a lawsuit against Mr Cheney, alleging fraudulent accounting practices.
In the video Mr Cheney - then Chief Executive of the oil company Halliburton - describes how Andersen gave advice "over and above" what would normally be expected from auditors.
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"I get good advice, if you will, from their people based upon how we're doing business and how we're operating over and above the just sort of normal by-the-book auditing arrangement," Mr Cheney says in a short section of the video.
posted by Blinded , on 7/10/2002 05:07:19 PM
The Corporate Scandals: Coming Clean
When George W. Bush speaks about corporate misbehavior and self-dealing by business insiders, he perches on a platform much weaker than the one from which he launched the war on terrorism. Instead of the sense of resolve and determination he showed after Sept. 11, the president is still struggling to prove that his past business dealings have not made him a product of the very system he now denounces. The president dismisses criticism of his record as political. But if he expects to restore confidence in corporate America, he needs to get his own house in order first.
On Monday the president attempted to explain why the methods he employed as an oil company executive years ago are different from the insider trading and creative accounting now undermining the credibility of corporate America. He made the disastrous mistake of arguing that in his case, accounting rules were "not always black and white." For a president whose foreign policy, and entire political outlook, is based on the idea that the world can indeed be divided into good and bad, black and white, nothing could have sounded worse.
posted by Blinded , on 7/10/2002 03:30:06 PM
Yahoo! News - Suit Claims Fraud by Cheney, Oil Co.
MIAMI (AP) - A watchdog group on Wednesday sued Vice President Dick Cheney ( news - web sites) and Halliburton Co., the oil services company he ran for five years, based on allegations of accounting fraud.
posted by Blinded , on 7/10/2002 02:58:52 PM
Tuesday, July 09, 2002
BBC News | AMERICAS | Argentines protest in 'day of rage'
Tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of Buenos Aires on Tuesday to demonstrate against the government's handling of the country's economic crisis.
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The IMF shut off billions of dollars last December as Argentina plunged into a crisis that saw the presidency change hands five times in two weeks.
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Half of all Argentines have now slipped below the poverty line, and public anger has been fuelled further by a freeze on bank deposits and a collapse in value of the currency.
posted by Blinded , on 7/9/2002 07:34:05 PM
BBC News | UK POLITICS | Softer line for cannabis laws
The home secretary is expected to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous drug on Wednesday
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Ministers said moving cannabis to class C, where possession is no longer an arrestable offence, would give their drug policy greater credibility among young people and help police direct resources towards heroin and cocaine.
posted by Blinded , on 7/9/2002 07:31:35 PM
Monday, July 08, 2002
Video Shows Cop Punching Teenager
LOS ANGELES –– An amateur video shows Inglewood police officers punching a teenager and slamming his head against the hood of a patrol car...
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The video shows an officer lifting a handcuffed teen from behind, then driving the side of the youth's face into the hood of the patrol car. Another officer later punched the suspect once in the face.
posted by Blinded , on 7/8/2002 07:11:52 PM
Thursday, July 04, 2002
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: ajc.com: Big Orange goes red, white, blue
Home Depot has done an about-face on its policy of not doing business with the federal government.
The Atlanta-based home improvement giant announced late Friday that it's now willing to become a federal contractor, paperwork and all. The sudden change of heart comes less than two weeks after Home Depot insisted it couldn't handle federal reporting requirements.
posted by Blinded , on 7/4/2002 01:43:04 AM
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | 'It was like an abattoir - blood all around'
Eighteen-year-old Chinara was sitting with her girlfriends listening to songs on a tape recorder, happy that her sister had about to marry the son of a local tribal chief.
Suddenly she heard a roar of planes, followed by a massive explosion. "I don't know what happened next," she said. "I woke in the hospital."
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Locals said they had buried at least 30 people after the attack, but feared many more were still under the rubble.
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The US military is investigating but has refused to accept blame for what appears to be the biggest such incident in their campaign to track down al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Afghanistan.
posted by Blinded , on 7/4/2002 12:34:38 AM
Lynne Cheney's Primer: G is for Gloss Over
This Fourth of July, many American parents will no doubt be reading Lynne Cheney's alphabet book, America: A Patriotic Primer, to their children.
If kids pay close attention they will learn a lot, but unfortunately it will be a lesson in obfuscation and distortion. Cheney --the wife of the vice president, former chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities and a noted conservative intellectual -- offers a whitewashed version of U.S. history that is morally and intellectually offensive.
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In Cheney's patriotic primer, H is for heroes and I is for ideals. In my assessment of her primer, H is for hypocrisy and I is for ideologue. Our children, deserve better.
posted by Blinded , on 7/4/2002 12:18:02 AM
Dubya Does Nader or, How to Pretend You're a Populist in 10 Easy Steps
In the interest of lending some verisimilitude to this new pose—Dubya Does Nader—let us pass lightly over Bush's own business career, including insider dealing and the time he dumped his Harken Energy stock just before the announcement that the company was going bankrupt. In violation of SEC rules, Bush failed to report that sale to the Securities and Exchange Commission until eight months after the fact. The SEC contented itself with a warning letter but has specifically stated that Bush was "not exonerated."
And let's also pass over his six-year record as governor of Texas, an unbroken stretch of kissing corporate butt, including firing an agency head for enforcing state law against one of Bush's biggest contributors.
Instead, let us concentrate on the repairable. A few things the Pepster can do to bolster his brand-new image as a champion against corporate malfeasance. How to Pretend to Be a Populist in 10 (or so) easy steps:
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posted by Blinded , on 7/4/2002 12:10:12 AM
Wednesday, July 03, 2002
Memo Cited Bush's Late SEC Filings
An internal Securities and Exchange Commission memo from 1991 says President Bush repeatedly failed to file timely reports of his business interests and transactions before his election as Texas governor.
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Bush's brushes with the SEC have new resonance now that he is preparing to respond to the wave of accounting scandals by proposing tough restrictions on corporate officials during an address on Wall Street next week. His economic team has recommended criminal penalties for officers and directors who file intentionally misleading SEC reports.
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The memo said Bush sold 212,140 shares of Harken stock on June 22, 1990, for $848,560, before Harken's announcement on Aug. 20, 1990, that it had lost $23.2 million in the quarter ending June 30.
posted by Blinded , on 7/3/2002 11:55:20 PM
Tuesday, July 02, 2002
Bernard Weiner: Bush 9/11 Scandal for Dummies
Bush and his spinners want us to concentrate on who knew what detail when; it's the old magician's trick of getting you to look elsewhere while he's doing his prestidigitation. We're not talking about a little clue here and another little clue there, or an FBI memo that wasn't shared. We're talking about long-range planning and analysis of what strategic-intelligence agencies and high-level commissions and geopolitical thinkers around the globe -- including those inside the U.S. -- saw for years before 9/11 as likely scenarios in an age of terrorist attacks.
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Not only were there clear warnings from allies abroad, but the U.S., through its ECHELON and other electronic-intercept programs, may well have broken bin Laden's encryption code; for example, the U.S. knew that he told his mother on September 9: "In two days you're going to hear big news, and you're not going to hear from me for a while".
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By early 2001 and into the Summer, warnings were pouring in to U.S. intelligence and military agencies from Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, Israel, and other Middle East and South Asian intelligence sources, along with Russia and Britain and the Phillipines, saying that a major attack on the U.S. mainland was in the works, involving the use of airplanes as weapons of mass destruction.
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San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was warned by "an airport security man" on September 10 to rethink his flight to New York for the next day; Newsweek reported that on September 10, "a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns"; many members of a Bronx mosque were also warned to stay out of lower Manhattan on September 11
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In July, Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial airliners and traveled only by private plane, and Bush, after but a few months in office, announced he was going to ground, spending the month of August on his ranch in Crawford, Texas. Cheney disappeared from view, and our guess is that he was coordinating the overall, post-attack strategy.
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in case you haven't noticed, under the new government in Kabul, the pipeline project is back on track. Oh, by the way, the pipeline will terminate reasonably close to the power plant in India built by Enron that has been lying dormant for years, waiting for cheap energy supplies.
posted by Blinded , on 7/2/2002 05:38:35 PM
Monday, July 01, 2002
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Jonathan Freedland: George W's bloody folly
That was a fantastic speech. Quite literally, fantastic. George Bush's address on the Middle East, delivered outside the White House on Monday evening, consisted, from beginning to end, of fantasy.
It bore so little relation to reality that diplomats around the world spent yesterday shaking their heads in disbelief, before sinking into gloom and despair. Our own Foreign Office tried gamely to spot the odd nugget of sense in the Bush text - but, they admitted, it was an uphill struggle. Israelis committed to a political resolution of the conflict were heartbroken. Even Shimon Peres, foreign minister in Ariel Sharon's coalition, reportedly called the speech "a fatal mistake", warning: "A bloodbath can be expected."
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This is a foreign policy failure for George Bush. If he were a Democrat, both the Washington press corps and Congress would already be racking it up alongside the unextinguished threat from al-Qaida and the continued freedom from captivity of Osama bin Laden. Those failures, and now the guarantee of further slaughter in the Middle East, should be prompting hard questions about Bush and his war on terror. America needs to snap out of its post-9/11 torpor of consensus and realise there is a leadership problem in the US - and his name is George Bush.
posted by Blinded , on 7/1/2002 02:32:19 PM
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