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CHERTOFF: PREPAREDNESS DEPENDS ON PEOPLE
By Lara Jakes Jordan
Associated Press
October 31, 2005

http://tinyurl.com/dqooq

WASHINGTON - Stockpiling supplies and developing family response plans in
case disaster strikes not only might save lives -- it's also a civic duty,
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday in an interview
with The Associated Press.

Two months of hurricanes ravaging the Gulf Coast should prove that people
need to make preparations so emergency officials can focus on those who are
poor, elderly or otherwise can't help themselves, Chertoff said.

"For those people who say, 'Well, I can take care of myself no matter what,
I don't have to prepare,' there is an altruistic element -- that to the
extent that they are a burden on government services, that takes away from
what's available to help those who can't help themselves," Chertoff said.
"That is a matter of civic virtue."

Chertoff's comments mark a new stage in Homeland Security's "Ready" campaign
-- which was widely ridiculed two years ago for urging homeowners to stock
up on duct tape and plastic sheeting to safeguard their homes against a
chemical or biological attack.

Now, Chertoff said, the department plans to reach out to school students to
carry the preparedness messages home to their parents. Additionally,
Homeland Security and the Ad Council launched a newspaper and radio campaign
Monday pitched at small businesses to develop disaster plans for workplaces.

Whether the public will listen, however, is another matter.

Even with a week's notice of Hurricane Wilma, many Floridians failed to
evacuate areas the storm flooded or to stock up on food, water and other
essentials. The cavalier attitude prompted Republican Gov. Jeb Bush to scold
constituents, noting that people who sought relief from Wilma "had ample
time to prepare."

"It isn't that hard to get 72 hours' worth of food and water," Bush said
last week.

Michael A. Wermuth, homeland security director at the RAND Corp. in
Arlington, Va., said getting the public to participate will be a struggle
lasting years.

"Even something like Katrina -- where everybody watched that unfold and
understood what those poor folks were going through -- as compelling as that
was, we're all busy people. And how long does it stick if you don't get
reminded again and again and again?" Wermuth said.

Pitching the preparedness campaign to school children could be successful,
he said, noting the fire prevention and anti-smoking programs that targeted
students.

But Dr. Vincent Ferrandino, executive director of the National Association
of Elementary School Principals, cautioned against using the schools as
messenger except "when it's absolutely necessary, and we consider it an
issue of national importance."

"Schools need to be a place where important issues are discussed,"
Ferrandino said. "But we need to be careful that we don't use the schools
constantly for everybody's latest and greatest new idea."

Chertoff's plans are an optimistic and pragmatic mix.

If gas stations keep power generators on hand, Chertoff argues, they can
pump fuel for commuters to drive to work. If utility company employees can
get to work, they can provide power to grocery stores. Once grocery stores
are open, households can restock food, water and first aid needs while
emergency responders focus on people who can't get their own.

"The great lesson of all of these events is interdependence," Chertoff said.
"We're all dependent on everybody else. Everybody has their role to play,
and if people fail in their role, it's going to have a cascading effect."

...........

On the Net:

Homeland Security Department:
http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/

DHS "Ready" campaign:
http://www.ready.gov/

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MANY SECURITY DEADLINES MISSED SINCE 9/11
By Leslie Miller
Associated Press
October 30, 2005

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/30/homeland_se
curity_misses_many_deadlines/

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has missed dozens of deadlines set by
Congress after the Sept. 11 attacks for developing ways to protect
airplanes, ships and railways from terrorists.

A plan to defend ships and ports from attack is six months overdue. Rules to
protect air cargo from infiltration by terrorists are two months late. A
study on the cost of giving anti-terrorism training to federal law
enforcement officers who fly commercially was supposed to be done more than
three years ago.

"The incompetence that we recently saw with FEMA's leadership appears to
exist throughout the Homeland Security Department," said Mississippi Rep.
Bennie G. Thompson, top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee.
"Our nation is still vulnerable."

Congress must share the blame for the department's sluggishness in
protecting commerce and travel from terrorists, according to other
observers.

Lawmakers piled on deadline after deadline for reports, plans and
regulations while the department, created after the 2001 attacks, had to
integrate 22 agencies with 170,000 workers and cope with terrorist threats
and hurricanes.

Those deadlines, sometimes for minor projects, distract the department from
putting in place the most important security measures, experts say. The
Transportation Security Administration, for example, scrambled to try to
meet a Feb. 15 deadline to ban butane lighters from airplanes, a precaution
that does little to protect airliners, they said.

"You have no ability to prioritize against something like that, and it's
going to take up all your time," said Dan Prieto, homeland security expert
with Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "The urgent becomes the enemy
of the important."

Thompson said the government has yet to develop a comprehensive plan to
protect roads, bridges, tunnels, power plants, pipelines and dams. He said a
broad plan to protect levies and dams might have helped prevent the New
Orleans levies from being breached.

Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said the department goes to great
lengths to work with Congress. But, he said, "there is an extraordinarily
high number of reporting requirements."

The department has to submit 256 reports to Congress every year, while the
TSA alone has 62 reporting requirements.

"There's a lack of adult leadership on both sides," said James Carafano, a
senior fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The department just
doesn't have its act together," he said. "Some of these deadlines are
unrealistic."

The first response to the Sept. 11 hijackings was to prevent terrorists from
taking over airliners with weapons and crashing them into buildings.

It became clear that more needed to be done after suicide bombings of
railways in Madrid, Spain, and London, on a tanker near Yemen and on
airplanes in Russia.

So Congress set more deadlines for more security measures.

Some were met. Many were not.

A law signed by President Bush on Nov. 25, 2002, set a July 1, 2004,
deadline for ships and ports to tighten security amid fears that terrorists
might smuggle nuclear weapons in a cargo container.

The Coast Guard largely accomplished the undertaking. But much still remains
undone: A report on how a grant program for shippers and ports would work is
more than a year late; a report on cargo container security is eight months
overdue; a national security plan for marine transportation is well past its
April 1 due date.

Rep. Harold Rogers, chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees
Homeland Security spending, was unhappy because the TSA missed a March 17
deadline for a plan to deploy bomb-detection machines at airports.

Rogers, R-Ky., put a provision in the Homeland Security spending bill,
signed into law Oct. 18, that withholds $5 million from the department until
it submits such a plan.

Some security deadlines have been met, especially those set soon after the
Sept. 11 attacks.

Within nine weeks of the hijackings, lawmakers ordered a federal work force
to take over airport security, many more air marshals and the creation of
the TSA.

Congress set 33 deadlines; a press release went out each time one was met.

One of the biggest deadlines was met with great fanfare when the TSA
announced on Nov. 19, 2002, that it had replaced private airport screeners
with a government work force.

The next year, then-TSA chief James Loy told Congress they had met "100
percent of the aviation screening mandates."

The TSA does not make those kind of announcements any more.

............

On the Net:

Transportation Security Administration:
http://www.tsa.gov

Coast Guard:
http://www.uscg.mil

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ELEPHANTS SHOW SPECIAL INTEREST IN THEIR DEAD
By John Pickrell
National Geographic News
October 31, 2005

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1031_051031_elephantbones.ht
ml

Most animals display little regard for their dead. Lions, for example, may
simply sniff or lick a dead relative before eating or ignoring them.

Elephants, on the other hand, have been reported to "become excited and
agitated if they come across a dead elephant," said Karen McComb, an expert
on animal communication and cognition at the University of Sussex in
Brighton, England.

The mammals investigate remains with their feet and trunks, paying special
attention to the skulls and tusks of even long-dead elephants. But the
behavior has never been studied systematically.

Some experts have argued that elephants' interest in remains of their own
kind could simply be a response to novel and unusual objects.

To test the idea, McComb and colleagues with the Amboseli Elephant Research
Project in Nairobi, Kenya, presented skulls and other objects to 19 groups
of wild elephants.

The team found that the animals prefer to investigate elephant bones and
tusks and can even distinguish elephant skulls from those of other species.

"This is a very important field study on questions that previously had only
been answered using anecdotes and chance observations," said Marc Bekoff, a
behavioral ecologist and expert on animal emotions at the University of
Colorado at Boulder, who was not involved in the study.

Bone Jones

One experiment tested whether the plant-eaters showed more interest in
elephant skulls than other objects, such as ivory or pieces of wood.

A second tested the animals' response to an elephant skull, compared to a
buffalo and a rhino skull.

A third experiment tested elephant groups that had lost their matriarch in
the recent past, comparing their response to her skull and those of two
unrelated matriarchs.

McComb and her co-workers drove out to groups of elephants in the park and
placed the objects a hundred feet (30 meters) away from the animals.

The naturally inquisitive elephants approached and examined the items,
smelling and touching them with their trunks and turning and manipulating
them with their trunks and feet.

In the experiment, the pachyderms paid little attention to the wood.
Instead, they preferred to investigate the elephant remains, especially the
ivory. On average each elephant spent six times as much time examining tusks
as wood.

Researchers also found that the wild elephants spent twice as much time
examining the elephant skull than the buffalo and rhino skulls.

However, few animals showed a strong preference for any particular elephant
skull over another. This suggests that they were unable to discern the bones
of their own relatives.

McComb argues that the elephants' keen interest in ivory may derive from
their experience with living elephants, which use their tusks to forage and
fight.

McComb is unable to explain how elephants are able to recognize the skulls
of their own species with the tusks removed.

"It's possible that they learn these skulls belong to elephants from
encountering them in the context of a decaying carcass," McComb said. "But
we just don't know."

Close Bonds

Bekoff, the University of Colorado behavioral ecologist, said, "We knew that
elephants paid a lot of attention to carcasses. But we didn't know they were
able to discriminate between the bones of different species. Š "

"Elephants are very social animals, which form extremely close bonds with
group members. And it's not surprising that they would show keen interests
in all elephant remains, not only kin," he added.

McComb, of the University of Sussex, argues that her study is consistent
with many others that have hinted at altruism and empathy in elephants --
for example, documented cases of the animals assisting other injured
elephants.

She says that elephants might show strong interest in the bones of their
dead, because they are most likely to chance upon and investigate the
remains of relatives who have died within a group's home range.

As for the erroneous suggestion that elephants congregate to die in
so-called "elephants graveyards," McComb said, "collections of bones can
easily be explained away by mass die-offs, due to drought or hunting."

Elephants' interest in their dead may be related to their strong social
bonds. McCombs says the only other nonhuman animal known to show keen
interest in their dead are chimpanzees. Both chimps and elephants are
long-lived, social animals with big brains, she notes.

"Animals that are intensely social in life may be most likely to display an
interest in their dead," she said. "But what goes on in their minds while
they are doing this is a total mystery."

Earlier this month, the Kenyan government announced plans to delist
Amboseli National Park, raising questions about the future of the elephants
in the study and other wildlife protected in the 151-square-mile
(392-square-kilometer) park.

Under the controversial plan, the park will be decommissioned to a game
reserve run by the Maasai local authority, rather than the federal Kenya
Wildlife Service.

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MYSTERY OF "BLINDSIGHT" LETS SOME BLIND PEOPLE "SEE," STUDY SHOWS
By John Roach
National Geographic News
November 1, 2005

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/11/1101_051101_blindsight.html

An innovative research technique is providing insight into why some blind
people are able to sense and describe objects they cannot see.

The phenomenon of "blindsight" occurs in some people who suffer injuries to
the primary visual cortex, the region of the brain considered essential for
sight.

Blindsight allows people to use visual information they get through their
eyes even though they have no consciousness of the visual experience, said
Christopher Mole, a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at Washington
University in St. Louis, Missouri.

"But that of course is quite hard to show in the lab," he said.

A team of psychologists at Rice University in Houston, Texas, may have found
a way to directly study blindsight in the lab.

They are using electromagnetic stimulation on the brains of people who can
see to render them partially and temporarily blind.

"The way it works is an electric current inducts into the brain via a
magnetic pulse, and that causes a disruption of underlying neurons in the
brain," said Tony Ro, a member of the Rice team.

"What this technique allows us to do essentially is in a safe and
noninvasive way shut down a portion of the brain temporarily," he added.

Ro and colleagues report their technique and findings in the current issue
of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Mole said the Rice team reports "compelling proof" for blindsight.

Unconscious Pathway

Blindsight is most prevalent among people who suffer damage to the primary
visual cortex, such as in some stroke victims, Mole explained.

However this is never "clean" or specific damage -- other parts of the brain
are also impaired. Studies with these patients are therefore difficult, he
said.

To study blindsight directly, researchers often purposefully and permanently
disrupt the primary visual cortex in monkeys and other mammals, a method
that would be unethical to use on humans, Mole said.

"What [Ro's team] has done is cleverly manage to interfere with the brain in
a totally temporary way Š It doesn't have any long-term lasting effects at
all," he said.

The technique devised by the Rice researchers induced blindness for a
fraction of a second in people who ordinarily have good vision.

During the state of temporary blindness, an object was flashed on a screen
in front of the test subjects' eyes.

In one experiment the object was either a vertical or horizontal bar, and
the subjects were asked to guess the bar's orientation. In the second
experiment the researchers flashed a colored disc, and subjects were asked
to guess the color.

In both experiments the blinded volunteers correctly guessed the
characteristics of the objects at much higher levels than chance alone.

This fits the definition of blindsight and raises the question of how it is
possible.

"What we believe is happening is people are able to discriminate orientation
and color -- as our experiments showed -- by processing routes into the
brain that aren't consciously accessible," Ro said.

"We believe there are pathways that go from the eyes into the brain that
bypass the normal routes tied to conscious processing of information."

Ro added that the study supports the theory that these pathways go to a
visual center in the brain that is more sophisticated than the visual
centers common to all mammals. This suggests the pathways may be unique to
higher-order species.

The test results also show that volunteers were more accurate when they were
more confident in their guesses.

"It's unclear what that reflects, but what we think it reflects is that this
unconscious processing system can contribute to feelings of certainty," Ro
said.

In follow-up experiments the team will test why people feel varying levels
of confidence in their guesses. Perhaps the unconscious processing routes
are stronger in some people than others, Ro said.

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FUNDS FADE, DEATHS RISE AS IRAQ REBUILDING LAGS
By James Glanz
New York Times
October 31, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/31/international/middleeast/31reconstruct.htm
l?pagewanted=print

As the money runs out on the $30 billion American-financed reconstruction of
Iraq, the officials in charge cannot say how many planned projects they will
complete, and there is no clear source for hundreds of millions of dollars a
year needed to operate the projects that have been finished, according to a
report to Congress released yesterday.

The report, by the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction,
describes some progress but also an array of projects that have gone awry,
sometimes astonishingly, like electrical substations that were built at
great cost but never connected to the country's electrical grid.

With more than 93 percent of the American money now committed to specific
projects, it could become increasingly difficult to solve those problems.

Issues like those "should have been considered before," said Jim Mitchell, a
spokesman for the inspector general's office. "It's very critical right now,
with so little of the U.S. money left to be committed, that they're going to
have to make these determinations very quickly."

New statistics compiled in the report also reveal a jump in deaths and
injuries of contract workers in Iraq, many of whom worked on reconstruction
projects. At least 412 contractors and other civilian workers have died
since the American-led invasion, 147 of them Americans. In June those
numbers, based on insurance claims, were 330 and 113, respectively.

Over all, the report says, since the war began there have been 4,208 death
and injury claims filed through the insurance coverage that United States
law requires for contractors of any nationality who work on American bases
abroad. That number includes claims from bases around the world, and while
the government does not report where the incidents occurred, a majority are
believed to originate from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those death and injury tolls, which in the chaos of Iraq are probably
underreported to begin with, especially among Iraqi contractors, have come
about even though more than a quarter of the reconstruction money has
actually "been spent on security costs related to the insurgency," the
report says.

The security costs have "proportionately reduced funds for other
reconstruction projects," the report continues, leading to countless
initiatives being scaled down or canceled. Rick Barton, a senior adviser and
co-director of the post-conflict reconstruction project at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said the fear among
workers has had as much impact on the rebuilding program as the money woes
have.

"What you have to keep in mind is the chilling effect of that many deaths
and that many injuries," Mr. Barton said. "I think the numbers are huge."

The report also outlines what it calls "steady progress" in parts of the
American-financed rebuilding program, despite what is described as "the
hazardous security environment, the fluid political situation, and the harsh
realities of working in a war zone."

Some 1,887 of 2,784 rebuilding projects have been completed, by the American
government's own count, and progress has been made in coming up with
estimates for how much it will cost to complete the remaining work. Those
estimates are needed to determine how many of the projects will have to be
cut.

The projects include water treatment plants, oil pump stations, electricity
generators and power lines, police stations, border posts, schools, clinics,
roads and post offices. Aside from the security bills, rising materials
costs, delays and repeated changes in the priorities in rebuilding have
contributed to the financial challenges.

"I think that the report confirms what we have been saying for some time --
that we continue to make progress in rebuilding Iraq," said Lt. Col. Barry
Venable, a Pentagon spokesman.

Regarding the shortcomings detailed by the report on the ability of the
United States government to gauge that progress, Colonel Venable said,
"There's a war going on, so not everything can be known, but there's
certainly a desire to discover" more complete information.

A spokeswoman for the State Department, which now largely oversees the
rebuilding effort, , "We welcome and value the independent oversight." She
spoke under department ground rules that require anonymity. "Their objective
findings have helped improve transparency, accountability and efficiency as
we work with the Iraqi people to establish an independent, stable and
prosperous Iraq," she said.

The five electrical substations examined by the inspector general's office,
which is led by Stuart W. Bowen Jr., were built in southern Iraq at a cost
of $28.8 million. "The completed substations were found to be well planned,
well designed and well constructed," the report says. Unfortunately, the
system for distributing power from the completed substations was largely
nonexistent.

"No date for installing the distribution system was given," the report says.

Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who
travels extensively in Iraq, said problems like that illustrated why the
official American government statistics on competed projects could seldom be
taken at face value.

"All too often," Mr. Rubin said of the numbers, "the goal in the bureaucracy
is to cover their own backside rather than to actually make sure the money
does good."

Among the troubled projects described in the report was an $8.2 million
pipeline that would have severely restricted the flow of crude oil across a
river, simply because the pipe chosen by the contractor was far too narrow
along a critical 200-yard span.

That problem was fixed after the inspection, but in an array of other
projects, scrutiny came too late.

The inspector general found that $7.3 million was mismanaged and $1.3
million entirely wasted through duplicate work and buying overpriced
equipment in the construction of a police academy in the city of Babylon,
south of Baghdad. Similarly, $1.8 million was paid in advance for work that
was not performed during the rehabilitation of a library in the city of
Karbala, which is holy to Shiites.

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DEMOCRATS FORCE SENATE INTO IRAQ MEETING
By Liz Sidoti
Associated Press
November 1, 2005

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/01/D8DJT7B80.html

WASHINGTON - Democrats forced the Republican-controlled Senate into an
unusual closed session Tuesday, questioning intelligence that President Bush
used in the run-up to the war in Iraq and accusing Republicans of ignoring
the issue.

"They have repeatedly chosen to protect the Republican administration rather
than get to the bottom of what happened and why," Democratic leader Harry
Reid said.

Taken by surprise, Republicans derided the move as a political stunt.

"The United States Senate has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership,"
said Majority Leader Bill Frist. "They have no convictions, they have no
principles, they have no ideas," the Republican leader said.

In a speech on the Senate floor, Reid demanded the Senate go into closed
session. The public was ordered out of the chamber, the lights were dimmed,
and the doors were closed. No vote is required in such circumstances.

Reid's move shone a spotlight on the continuing controversy over
intelligence that President Bush cited in the run-up to the war in Iraq.
Despite prewar claims, no weapons of mass destruction have been found in
Iraq, and some Democrats have accused the administration of manipulating the
information that was in their possession.

Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was
indicted last Friday in an investigation that touched on the war, the leak
of the identity of a CIA official married to a critic of the
administration's Iraq policy.

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about,
how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order
to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to
challenge its actions," Reid said before invoking Senate rules that led to
the closed session.

Libby resigned from his White House post after being indicted on charges of
obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury.

Democrats contend that the unmasking of Valerie Plame was retribution for
her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly challenging the Bush administration's
contention that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Africa. That claim
was part of the White House's justification for going to war.

Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., said Reid was making "some sort of stink about
Scooter Libby and the CIA leak."

A former majority leader, Lott said a closed session was appropriate for
such overarching matters as impeachment and chemical weapons -- the two
topics that last sent the senators into such sessions.

In addition, Lott said, Reid's move violated the Senate's tradition of
courtesy and consent. But there was nothing in Senate rules enabling
Republicans to thwart Reid's effort.

As Reid spoke, Frist met in the back of the chamber with a half-dozen senior
GOP senators, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts of
Kansas, who bore the brunt of Reid's criticism. Reid said Roberts reneged on
a promise to fully investigate whether the administration exaggerated and
manipulated intelligence leading up to the war.

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NEW STUDY WARNS OF TOTAL LOSS OF ARCTIC TUNDRA
By Andrew C. Revkin
New York Times
November 1, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/science/earth/01cnd-climate.html

If emissions of heat-trapping gases continue to accumulate in the atmosphere
at the current rate, there may be many centuries of warming and a near-total
loss of Arctic tundra, according to a new climate study.

Over all, the world would experience profound transformations, some
potentially beneficial but many disruptive, and all at a pace rarely seen in
nature, said the authors of the study, being published today in The Journal
of Climate.

"The question is no longer whether we will need to address this problem, but
when we will need to address the problem," said Kenneth Caldeira, an author
of the study and a climate expert at the Carnegie Institution's Department
of Global Ecology, based at Stanford University.

"We can either address it now, before we severely and irreversibly damage
our climate, or we can wait until irreversible damage manifests itself
strongly," Dr. Caldeira said. "If all we do is try to adapt, things will get
worse and worse."

The paper's lead author, Bala Govindasamy of the Energy Department's
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said it might take 20 or 30 years
before the scope of the human-caused changes becomes evident, but from then
on there is likely to be no debate.

The researchers ran a computer model that simulates both the climate system
and the flow of heat-trapping carbon into the air in the form of carbon
dioxide, then back into soils and the ocean.

Most simulations of the potential human impact on climate have been confined
to studying the next 100 years or so, but in this case the scientists
started the calculations in 1870 and let the computers churn away through
2300.

The authors stressed that the uncertainties were high over such a time span,
and said the study was intended to illustrate broad consequences rather than
project specific ones.

They programmed the model to run as if the atmospheric concentration of
carbon dioxide rose about 0.45 percent a year through 2300. That is slightly
less than the current rate, about 0.5 percent.

In the simulation, the concentration of carbon dioxide doubles from
pre-industrial levels in 2070, triples in 2120, and quadruples in 2160.

The results are sobering, Dr. Caldeira and other climate experts said,
because the computer model used in this study tends to produce less warming
from a greenhouse-gas buildup than many of the other climate simulations
being run by other research teams.

It also presumes that plants and the ocean will continue to sop up carbon
dioxide in the future, limiting the amount retained in the atmosphere. Many
other independently developed models calculate that at some point, chemical
and biological shifts caused by warming would reverse that flow and cause
even more greenhouse gases to flood into the atmosphere.

Consistent with many other studies, the model showed that the Arctic would
see the most warming, with average annual temperatures in many parts of
Arctic Russia and northern North America rising more than 25 degrees
Fahrenheit around 2100.

Antarctica would follow suit later, with temperatures there rising sharply
around 2200.

The impact on vegetation and landscapes would transform large areas of the
earth.

In the simulation, at least one ecosystem, the scrubby Arctic tundra largely
vanishes as climate zones shift hundreds of miles north. Tundra would
decline from about 8 percent of the world's land area to 1.8 percent.

Alaska, in the model, loses almost all of its evergreen boreal forests and
becomes a largely temperate state.

But vast stretches of land that were once locked beneath permanent ice cover
would open up. The area locked beneath ice would diminish to 4.8 percent of
the planet's total land area, from 13.3 percent.

Several climate scientists not associated with the study said its main
benefit was akin to the murky visions of possible futures experienced by
Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol."

"It's a cautionary tale," said Gerald A. Meehl, a climate modeler at the
National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who has
conducted similar studies.

"The message is not to give up because the changes appear overwhelming, but
instead the message should be the longer we wait to do something, the worse
the consequences."

------------

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HOW A MAP CHANGED THE WORLD
190-YEAR-OLD VIEW OF BRITAIN GAVE BIRTH TO MODERN GEOLOGY
By Robin Lloyd
LiveScience
October 31, 2005

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9880229/

Just two centuries ago, the world lacked a single geologic map. The
chronology of the planet's history was unknown and effectively invisible to
people, despite the evidence of rock layers at cliffs and canyons.

Theological maps of the world then depicted such biblical concepts as the
Garden of Eden. Some people believed that mountains grew organically like
trees.

The study of nature and rocks was a novelty. Thinkers in the early 1800s
disagreed over the age of the earth, with some standing by Bible-based
estimates of 6,000 years old. Then along came the map that changed the
world:

http://tinyurl.com/a3wgk

Created in 1815, the world's first geologic map measures 10 by 16 feet (3 by
5 meters) and illustrates the individual rock layers that underlie Great
Britain. One of only two U.S. copies is now on public display for the first
time at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library in New York State.

Only 43 copies of the map still exist. The other U.S. copy is at the Library
of Congress, and it is not on public display.

In addition to the map, canal surveyor William Smith created a series of
sketches and descriptions of the fossils found within each specific layer of
rock. There are only 11 surviving copies of these pamphlets in the world.

"If geology were a religion, this map would be its bible," said University
of Buffalo geologist Robert Jacobi.

The birth of geology

Explorers back then had sketched estimates of increasingly accurate
land-mass outlines for navigation, but Smith was the first to create a map
that showed how surface rocks tell what lies beneath.

The map opened up the field of geology, and later biology and natural
history. And today, scientists know that Earth is about 4.5 billion years
old.

Scholars 200 years ago fell into two camps: uniformitarians, who thought
rocks were laid down by water in layers over time; and catastrophists who
thought the Earth and its rocks were deposited by floods or volcanoes.  The
former group was closer to the truth.

Jacobi's University of Buffalo colleague Tracy Gregg says she wouldn't be
surprised if hundreds of geologists make the trip to chilly Buffalo to see
this rare document.

Gregg says that Smith could "read" the rocks on the surface. He realized
that Earth's processes are cyclical, not random.

Painstaking production

Smith traveled by foot and on horseback throughout Great Britain to make
observations that led to his map, which he hand-drew and colored in,
eventually producing 400 original copies. The printing took two years.

"The black lines on the map could be mass-produced, yes," Gregg told
LiveScience, "but all the individual rock layers were assigned their own
colors Š and every map had to be hand-colored ‹ a time-consuming,
painstaking process.

"The map is a tool, a mechanism for communicating how you can peel back the
layers of dirt, gravel and grass and see what's underneath," Gregg said. "So
you can tell somebody, go to this spot on this street corner and this is
what you will find."

The map will be on view through December. More information on the exhibit is
available here:

http://www.lfbuffalo.org/exhibitions/map

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------------

U.S. MILITARY WANTS TO OWN THE WEATHER
By Leonard David
Space.Com
October 31, 2005

http://space.com/scienceastronomy/051031_mystery_monday.html

The one-two hurricane punch from Katrina and Wilma along with predictions of
more severe weather in the future has scientists pondering ways to save
lives, protect property and possibly even control the weather.

While efforts to tame storms have so far been clouded by failure, some
researchers aren¹t willing to give up the fight. And even if changing the
weather proves overly challenging, residents and disaster officials can do a
better job planning and reacting.

In fact, military officials and weather modification experts could be on the
verge of joining forces to better gauge, react to, and possibly nullify
future hostile forces churned out by Mother Nature.

While some consider the idea farfetched, some military tacticians have
already pondered ways to turn weather into a weapon.

Harbinger of things to come?

The U.S. military reaction in the wake of Hurricane Katrina that slammed the
U.S. Gulf coast might be viewed as a harbinger of things to come. While in
this case it was joint air and space operations to deal with after-the-fact
problems, perhaps the foundation for how to fend off disastrous weather may
also be forming.

Numbers of spaceborne assets were tapped, among them:

- Navigation and timing signals from the Global Positioning System (GPS) of
satellites;

- The Global Broadcast Service, a one-way, space-based, high-capacity
broadcast communication system;

- The Army¹s Spectral Operations Resource Center to exploit commercial
remote sensing satellite imagery and prepare high-resolution images to
civilian and military responders to permit a better understanding of the
devastated terrain;

- U.S. Air Force Space Command¹s Space and Missile Systems Center Defense
Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) satellites that compared "lights at
night" images before and after the disaster to provide data on human
activity.

Is it far-fetched to see in this response the embryonic stages of an
integrated military/civilian weather reaction and control system?

Mandate to continually improve

The use of space-based equipment to assist in clean-up operations -- with a
look toward future prospects -- was recently noted by General Lance Lord,
Commander, Air Force Space Command at an October 20th Pacific Space
Leadership Forum in Hawaii.

"We saw first hand the common need for space after the December 2004 tsunami
in the Indian Ocean," Lord said. "Natural disasters don¹t respect
international boundaries. Space capabilities were leveraged immediately
after the tsunami to help in the search and rescue effortŠbut what about
before the disaster?"

Lord said that an even better situation is to have predicted the coming
disaster and warned those in harm¹s way. "No matter what your flag or where
you waive it from...the possibility of saving hundreds of thousands of
people is a mandate to continually improve," he advised.

The U.S. Air Force is also looking at ways to make satellites and satellite
launches cheaper and also reduce the amount of time it takes to launch into
space from months to weeks to days and hours, Lord said. Having that
capability will increase responsiveness to international needs, he said,
such as the ability to send up a satellite to help collect information and
enhance communications when dealing with international disasters.

Thunderbolts on demand

What would a military strategist gain in having an "on-switch" to the
weather?

Clearly, it offers the ability to degrade the effectiveness of enemy forces.
That could come from flooding an opponent¹s encampment or airfield to
generating downright downpours that disrupt enemy troop comfort levels. On
the flipside, sparking a drought that cuts off fresh water can stir up
morale problems for warfighting foes.

Even fooling around with fog and clouds can deny or create concealment ­
whichever weather manipulation does the needed job.

In this regard, nanotechnology could be utilized to create clouds of tiny
smart particles. Atmospherically buoyant, these ultra-small computer
particles could navigate themselves to block optical sensors. Alternatively,
they might be used to provide an atmospheric electrical potential difference
-- a way to precisely aim and time lightning strikes over the enemy¹s head ­
thereby concoct thunderbolts on demand.

Perhaps that¹s too far out for some. But some blue sky thinkers have already
looked into these and other scenarios in "Weather as a Force Multiplier:
Owning the Weather in 2025" ­ a research paper written by a seven person
team of military officers and presented in 1996 as part of a larger study
dubbed Air Force 2025.

Global stresses

That report came with requisite disclaimers, such as the views expressed
were those of the authors and didn¹t reflect the official policy or position
of the United States Air Force, Department of Defense, or the United States
government. Furthermore, the report was flagged as containing fictional
representations of future situations and scenarios.

On the other hand, Air Force 2025 was a study that complied with a directive
from the chief of staff of the Air Force "to examine the concepts,
capabilities, and technologies the United States will require to remain the
dominant air and space force in the future."

"Current technologies that will mature over the next 30 years will offer
anyone who has the necessary resources the ability to modify weather
patterns and their corresponding effects, at least on the local scale," the
authors of the report explained. "Current demographic, economic, and
environmental trends will create global stresses that provide the impetus
necessary for many countries or groups to turn this weather-modification
ability into a capability."

Pulling it all together

The report on weather-altering ideas underscored the capacity to harness
such power in the not too distant future.

"Assuming that in 2025 our national security strategy includes
weather-modification, its use in our national military strategy will
naturally follow. Besides the significant benefits an operational capability
would provide, another motivation to pursue weather-modification is to deter
and counter potential adversaries," the report stated. "The technology is
there, waiting for us to pull it all together," the authors noted.

In 2025, the report summarized, U.S. aerospace forces can "own the weather"
by capitalizing on emerging technologies and focusing development of those
technologies to war-fighting applications.

"Such a capability offers the war fighter tools to shape the battlespace in
ways never before possible. It provides opportunities to impact operations
across the full spectrum of conflict and is pertinent to all possible
futures," the report concluded.

But if whipping up weather can be part of a warfighter¹s tool kit, couldn¹t
those talents be utilized to retarget or neutralize life, limb and
property-destroying storms?

All-weather worries

"It is time to provide funds for application of the scientific method to
weather modification and control," said Bernard Eastlund, chief technical
officer and founder of Eastlund Scientific Enterprises Corporation in San
Diego, California.

Eastlund¹s background is in plasma physics and commercial applications of
microwave plasmas. At a lecture early this month at Penn State Lehigh Campus
in Fogelsville, Pennsylvania, he outlined new concepts for electromagnetic
wave interactions with the atmosphere that, among a range of jobs, could be
applied to weather modification research.

"The technology of artificial ionospheric heating could be as important for
weather modification research as accelerators have been for particle
physics," Eastlund explained.

In September, Eastland filed a patent on a way to create artificial ionized
plasma patterns with megawatts of power using inexpensive microwave power
sources. This all-weather technique, he noted, can be used to heat specific
regions of the atmosphere.

Eastlund¹s research is tuned to artificial generation of acoustic and
gravitational waves in the atmosphere. The heating of steering winds to help
shove around mesocyclones and hurricanes, as well as controlling electrical
conductivity of the atmosphere is also on his investigative agenda.

Carefully tailored program plan

Eastlund said that the reduction in severity or impact of severe weather
could be demonstrated as part of a carefully tailored program plan.

"In my opinion, the new technology for use of artificial plasma layers in
the atmosphere: as heater elements to modify steering winds, as a modifier
of electrostatic potential to influence lightning distribution, and for
generation of acoustic and gravitational waves, could ultimately provide a
core technology for a science of severe weather modification," Eastlund told
SPACE.com.

The first experiments of a program, Eastlund emphasized, would be very
small, and designed for safety. For example, a sample of air in a jet stream
could be heated with a pilot experimental installation. Such experiments
would utilize relatively small amounts of power, between one and ten
megawatts, he pointed out.

Both ground-based and space weather diagnostic instruments could measure the
effect. Computer simulations could compare these results with predicted
effects. This process can be iterated until reliable information is obtained
on the effects of modifying the wind.

Computer simulations of hurricanes, Eastlund continued, are designed to
determine the most important wind fields in hurricane formation. Computer
simulations of mesocyclones use steering wind input data to predict severe
storm development.

After about 5 years of such research, and further development of weather
codes, a pilot experiment to modify the steering winds of a mesocylone might
be safely attempted. Such an experiment would probably require 50 to 100
megawatts, Eastlund speculated.

"I estimate this new science of weather modification will take 10 to 20
years to mature to the point where it is useful for controlling the severity
and impact of severe weather systems as large as hurricanes," Eastlund
explained.

Inadvertent effects?

Another reason for embarking on this new science could be to make sure
inadvertent effects of existing projects, such as the heating of the
ionosphere and modifications of the polar electrojet, are not having effects
on weather, Eastlund stated.

As example, Eastlund pointed to the High frequency Active Auroral Research
Program (HAARP) <http://tinyurl.com/7k7rk>. This is a major Arctic facility
for upper atmospheric and solar-terrestrial research, being built on a
Department of Defense-owned site near Gakona, Alaska.

Eastlund wonders if HAARP does, in fact, generate gravity waves. If so, can
those waves in turn influence severe weather systems?

Started in 1990, the unclassified HAARP program is jointly managed by the
U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory and the Office of Naval Research.
Researchers at the site make use of a high-power ionospheric research
instrument to temporarily excite a limited area of the ionosphere for
scientific study, observing and measuring the excited region using a suite
of devices.

The fundamental goal of research conducted at the facility is to study and
understand natural phenomena occurring in the Earth¹s ionosphere and
near-space environment. According to the HAARP website
<http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/>, those scientific investigations will have
major value in the design of future communication and navigation systems for
both military and civilian use.

Messing with Mother Nature

Who best to have their hands on the weather control switches?

The last large hurricane modification experiments -- under Project Stormfury
<http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/051003_weather_control.html> --
were carried out by the U.S. Air Force, Eastlund said. "It is likely the
Department of Defense would be the lead agency in any new efforts in severe
storm modification."

Additionally, federal laboratories with their extensive computational
modeling skills would also play a lead role in the development of a science
of weather modification. NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA) would find their respective niches too. The satellite
diagnostic capabilities in those agencies would play a strong role, Eastlund
suggested.

It appears that only modest amounts of government dollars have been spent on
weather modification over the last five years.

"Hurricane Katrina could cost $300 billion by itself," Eastlund said. "In my
opinion, it is time for a serious scientific effort in weather
modification."

"Global warming appears to be a reality, and records could continue to fall
in the hurricane severity sweepstakes," Eastlund said. "When I first
suggested the use of space-based assets for the prevention of tornadoes,
many people expressed their displeasure with Œmessing with Mother Nature¹. I
still remember hiding in the closet of our house in Houston as a tornado
passed overhead. It is time for serious, controlled research, with the
emphasis on safety, for the good of mankind," he concluded.

------------

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SUPER-SOLDIERS MAY GET BRAIN-CHIP
Daily Telegraph
October 24, 2005

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17013218-13762,00.html

US military experts are attempting to create an army of super-human soldiers
who will be more intelligent and deadly thanks to a microchip implanted in
their brains.

Scientists believe the implant will vastly improve the memory of troops so
that they can recall every detail of their training and become more
effective fighters.

Researchers at the University of Southern California's bio-engineering
department have created the chip, which acts in exactly the same way as the
hippocampus - the part of the brain that deals with memory.

In experiments, the team removed that section of the brain of dead rats and
inserted the chip in its place. The implant sent exactly the same electronic
signals as the real thing.

The next stage of the project is to test the implant on live animals. If
this work proves to be as successful, experiments could one day be carried
out on soldiers.

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------------

BIG HAPPENINGS WITH THE WAL-MART MOVIE
Robert Greenwald <info@...>
November 1, 2005

http://www.walmartmovie.com/

Dear activists, colleagues, and friends,

It has been a wild couple of weeks as the release of our Wal-Mart film gets
closer, and Wal-Mart gets angrier.

We really touched a nerve in Bentonville when we released an extended video
of former Wal-Mart manager Weldon Nicholson, just one of the stories we tell
in the film. A manager for 17 years, he confesses deeply personal stories
about his crisis of conscience, how it was to see workers who couldn't
afford to eat, marking family businesses for destruction, and bribing local
officals. Watch extended scenes from our interview with Weldon here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/confessions/

The response -- as you might expect from a multi-billion dollar company --
has been swift, ruthless, mean and vitriolic. Six weeks after we announced
the film in June, Wal-Mart hired Ronald Reagan's image guru, and one of Bill
Clinton's media consultants to set up the best campaign-style war room money
can buy, who last week, released to the press both a video and 12 pages of
attacks on me and the trailer (not the film, the trailer). The most
incredible part was the three pages of bad reviews
<http://www.walmartmovie.com/wm_bad_reviews.php> from my older films --
dating back to 1980!

Big mistake. Now that Wal-Mart has made this a war, it's brought the
campaign to the Today Show
<http://www.walmartmovie.com/wmtv/2005/11/nothing_but_greed_for_them.php> ,
and landed us on the front page of the New York Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/business/01walmart.ready.html> , hours
before the sold-out premiere tonight in Union Square benefiting Wal-Mart
Free NYC.

This is it. With the movie and the incendiary secret memo
<http://walmartwatch.com/blog/archives/the_wal_mart_mythology_is_shattered1>
leaked to Wal-Mart Watch, we can really go on the offensive, and we need
your help.

Call your local newspaper or tv/radio station to cover this story. Get a
copy of the film and show it at every possible place. Give copies away. Make
sure churches, schools, libraries and workplaces all have copies and play
them loud and regularly. Call the office of your elected official and ask
what they are doing to fight Wal-Mart.

Tomorrow is the San Francisco premiere benefiting Alternet and Equal Rights
Advocates, and then back to Los Angeles on Thursday for the premiere with
LAANE benefiting their incredible work. On Friday we open for our theatrical
run in New York and LA (more coming
<http://www.walmartmovie.com/theaters.php> !), and then on to the massive
premiere week mobilization starting Sunday Nov. 13th with screenings,
discussions and events all week engaging people in the critical fight around
the issues of corporate greed, economic justice, and the kind of country we
want to have. Find and RSVP for screenings here:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/find.php

They can out spend us, they can make fancier flyers and brochures and hire
more consultants and press agents, but it will all be a vain attempt to
smokescreen what Wal-Mart can no longer hide.

See you at a screening!

Robert Greenwald producer/director, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

P.S. Screening kits are shipping now, and DVDs start shipping next week, so
if you haven't already, get your copy for $12.95, or get a box of 30 for
$240 ($8/each) to hand out to all your neighbors. Why not give early holiday
presents that just might change the way people buy their holiday presents?

http://www.walmartmovie.com/buy.php

P.P.S. We decided to have some fun with the attack video (actually, it's
more like a power point presentation) and well, adjust it to tell our story.
Have a look, and a laugh:

http://www.walmartmovie.com/fear_and_smear.php

------------

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

BILLIONAIRES R US (10/31/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10239

WAL-MART'S SWEEPING, SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS (10/26/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10213

WAL-MART HEIR RETURNS DEGREE AMID CHEATING CLAIMS (10/23/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10193

WAL-MART GOING GREEN & PEOPLE FRIENDLY (10/22/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10183

GREENWALD'S WAL-MART DOCUMENTARY (7/21/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9604

WAL-MART TURNS GREEN, TESTS RENEWABLE ENERGY (7/21/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9600

WAL-MART PLANS TO PUSH ORGANIC FOOD (6/28/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9466

WAL-MART CRUSHES UNION BY CLOSING STORE (5/12/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9167

WAL-MART JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER (10/13/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8056

PERSPECTIVE: WAL-MARS INVADES EARTH (7/25/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7608

WHY WAL-MART S.U.C.K.S.
(SENSELESS UNEDUCATED CONSUMERISM KILLING SOCIETY)
(6/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7348

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST & MOST POWERFUL COMPANIES (6/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7344

INGLEWOOD VOTERS REJECT WAL-MART (4/8/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7048

ANNUAL LIST OF RICHEST AMERICANS (9/19/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5967

IS WAL-MART GOOD FOR AMERICA? (12/12/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6414

THE GREAT WAL-MART WARS (7/1/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5628

WAL-MART'S AUDACIOUS EXPANSION (1/5/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4196

THE TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2001 (1/3/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2457

WHEN WAL-MART COMES TO TOWN (5/31/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1529


------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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------------

A NEW WEAPON FOR WAL-MART: A WAR ROOM
By Michael Barbaro
New York Times
November 1, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/business/01walmart.ready.html

BENTONVILLE, Ark. - Inside a stuffy, windowless room here, veterans of the
2004 Bush and Kerry presidential campaigns sit, stand and pace around six
plastic folding tables. Open containers of pistachio nuts and tropical trail
mix compete for space with laptops and BlackBerries. CNN flickers on a
television in the corner.

The phone rings, and a 20-something woman answers. "Turn on Fox," she yells,
running up to the TV with a notepad. "This could be important."

A scene from a campaign war room? Well, sort of. It is a war room inside the
headquarters of Wal-Mart, the giant discount retailer that hopes to sell a
new, improved image to reluctant consumers.

Wal-Mart is taking a page from the modern political playbook. Under fire
from well-organized opponents who have hammered the retailer with criticisms
of its wages, health insurance and treatment of workers, Wal-Mart has
quietly recruited former presidential advisers, including Michael K. Deaver,
who was Ronald Reagan's image-meister, and Leslie Dach, one of Bill
Clinton's media consultants, to set up a rapid-response public relations
team in Arkansas.

When small-business owners or union officials - also employing political
operatives from past campaigns - criticize the company, the war room swings
into action with press releases, phone calls to reporters and instant Web
postings.

One target of the effort are "swing voters," or consumers who have not
soured on Wal-Mart. The new approach appears to reflect a fear that
Wal-Mart's critics are alienating the very consumers it needs to keep
growing, especially middle-income Americans motivated not just by price, but
by image.

The first big challenge of the strategy will come Nov. 1 with the premiere
of an unflattering documentary. "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price"
<http://www.walmartmovie.com/> was made on a shoestring budget of $1.8
million and will be released in about two dozen theaters. But its director,
Robert Greenwald, hopes to show the movie in thousands of homes and churches
in the next month. The possibility that it might become a cult hit like
Michael Moore's 1989 unsympathetic portrait of General Motors, "Roger & Me,"
has Wal-Mart worried.

So, Wal-Mart has embarked on a counteroffensive that would have been
unthinkable even a year ago. Relying on a preview posted online, Wal-Mart
investigated the events described in the film and produced a short video
contending the film has factual errors. (Mr. Greenwald denies there are
errors and says that Wal-Mart has not seen the final cut.)

Wal-Mart has also begun to promote a second film, "Why Wal-Mart Works & Why
That Makes Some People Crazy," which casts the company in a rosier light.
Wal-Mart declined to make its executives available for the Greenwald film,
but it participated with the second film's director, Ron Galloway. The war
room team helped distribute a letter, written by Mr. Galloway, that
challenges Mr. Greenwald to show the two movies side-by-side.

To keep up with its critics, Wal-Mart "has to run a campaign," said Robert
McAdam, a former political strategist at the Tobacco Institute who now
oversees Wal-Mart's corporate communications. "It's simply nonsense for us
to let some of these attacks go without a response."

Wal-Mart's aggressive new posture is a departure from its tradition of
relying on an internal staff to manage the company's image. The war room,
which is part of a larger Wal-Mart effort to portray itself as more
worker-friendly and environmentally conscious, runs counter to the
philosophy of the chain's founder, Sam Walton. Believing that public
relations was a waste of time and money, the penny-pinching Mr. Walton would
not likely have hired a public relations firm like Edelman, Wal-Mart's
choice to operate its war room.

So what has changed? For one thing, Wal-Mart's critics have become more
sophisticated.

For years, unions hurled little more than insults at the chain. But over the
last year, two small groups - Wal-Mart Watch <http://walmartwatch.com/> and
Wake Up Wal-Mart <http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/> - set up shop in Washington
with the goal of waging the public relations equivalent of guerilla warfare
against the company. Wal-Mart Watch received start-up cash from the Service
Employees International Union; Wake Up Wal-Mart is a project of the United
Food and Commercial Workers International Union. Unions have tried,
unsuccessfully, to organize Wal-Mart's employees.

At the suggestion of Wake Up Wal-Mart, members of the nation's largest
teachers' unions staged a boycott of Wal-Mart for back-to-school supplies
this fall. Wal-Mart Watch, meanwhile, set up an automated phone system that
called 10,000 people in Arkansas in June seeking potential whistle-blowers
willing to share secrets about the retailer.

Wal-Mart did not rebut such attacks, even when Wal-Mart Watch released a
24-page report blasting the company's wages and benefits. Wal-Mart Watch
said the report had been downloaded from its Web site 55,000 times.

Once a darling of Wall Street, Wal-Mart's stock price has fallen 27 percent
since 2000, when H. Lee Scott Jr. became chief executive, a drop that
executives have said reflects, in part, investors' anxieties about the
company's image. Sales growth at stores open for more than a year has slowed
to an average of 3.5 percent a month this year, compared with 6.3 percent at
Target. And Wal-Mart is facing growing resistance to new urban stores, with
high- profile defeats in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.

There is some evidence that criticism is influencing consumers. A
confidential 2004 report prepared by McKinsey & Company for Wal-Mart, and
made public by Wal-Mart Watch, found that 2 percent to 8 percent of Wal-Mart
consumers surveyed have ceased shopping at the chain because of "negative
press they have heard."

The Greenwald movie threatens to make matters worse. It features
whistle-blowers who describe Wal-Mart managers cheating workers out of
overtime pay and encouraging them to seek state-sponsored health care when
they cannot afford the company's insurance. And it travels across small-town
America to assess the effects on independent businesses and downtowns after
a Wal-Mart opens.

The film is a particular concern now that Wal-Mart is trying to move
upscale, a strategy it hopes will appeal to higher-income consumers. In the
last year, Wal-Mart has introduced a line of urban fashions called Metro 7,
hired hundreds of fashion specialists to monitor how clothing is displayed
in stores, and produced more polished advertising.

But for the fashion strategy to pay off, Wal-Mart must win over a group of
shoppers who are sensitive to criticism of the chain's record - consumers,
in the words of Wal-Mart's chief executive, "who are not worried about their
next paycheck."

Hence the war room in Bentonville. Wal-Mart executives realized they were
unprepared to react to what Mr. Scott began to call the most expensive
campaign ever waged against a corporation. So the company quietly mailed a
letter to the country's biggest public relations firms several months ago
seeking their help in developing a response.

The contract went to Edelman, which assigned its top two Washington
operatives to the account. Wal-Mart would not say what it is paying Edelman,
nor would it allow interviews with the war room staff. Mr. Dach, who is
active in environmental and Democratic causes, was an outside adviser to
President Clinton during the impeachment battle. Mr. Deaver was President
Reagan's communications director and the creative force behind Mr. Reagan's
so-called Teflon image.

Edelman also dispatched at least six former political operatives to
Bentonville, including Jonathan Adashek, director of national delegate
strategy for John Kerry, and David White, who helped manage the 1998
re-election of Representative Nancy Johnson, a Connecticut Republican. Terry
Nelson, who was the national political director of the 2004 Bush campaign,
advises the group.

In turn, Wakeup Wal-Mart is led by, among others, Paul Blank, former
political director for the Howard Dean presidential campaign, and Chris
Kofinis, who helped create the DraftWesleyClark.com campaign.

Wal-Mart Watch's media team includes Jim Jordan, former director of the
Kerry campaign, and Tracy Sefl, a former Democratic National Committee aide
responsible for distributing negative press reports about President Bush
during the 2004 campaign.

The war room staff arrives at Wal-Mart's headquarters, a short drive from a
nearby corporate apartment where they live, by 7 every morning. The group
works out of an old conference room on the second floor, christened Action
Alley, the same name Wal-Mart gives to the wide, circular aisle that runs
around its stores.

Three display boards are covered with to-do lists. One says: "Promote Week
of 10/24/05: MLK Memorial Donation. Urban/blighted community plan." Two
large maps show the location of Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores across the
United States.

The team starts the day by scanning newspaper articles and television
transcripts that mention Wal-Mart. Next come conference calls with Wal-Mart
employees around the country to plan for events. Whenever possible, Mr.
McAdam said, the war room will try to neutralize criticism before it is
leveled.

That was the strategy behind what Action Alley considers its first coup. In
late September, after several unions broke off from the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the
splinter groups announced they would hold a convention in St. Louis on a
Tuesday.

Action Alley members, assuming Wal-Mart would be a target of criticism
during the union gathering, arranged for Wal-Mart to hold its own news
conference the day before. It invited three local suppliers, a sympathetic
local official and a cashier to say that Wal-Mart had a positive effect on
the community.

"If you look at many of the stories that were written about that overall
convention, they've got our messages in them," Mr. McAdam said. "In the
past, when we've just responded to something somebody else is doing, it's
sort of 'you know, by the way, Wal-Mart says ...' We got ahead of this one."

A campaign atmosphere pervades Action Alley. A small bus with the words
"Clinton-Gore" on the side sits on the table. When discussing Wakeup
Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart Watch and the Greenwald movie, Mr. McAdam slips into
political-speak.

"The people who show up at Mr. Greenwald's film are probably not swing
voters," he said. "They are probably the true believers of their point of
view and I doubt there is a heck of a lot we can do to change their minds."

Mr. McAdam continued: "They've got their base. We've got ours. But there is
a group in the middle that really we all need to be talking to."

------------

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

BIG HAPPENINGS WITH THE WAL-MART MOVIE (11/2/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10252

BILLIONAIRES R US (10/31/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10239

WAL-MART'S SWEEPING, SPECIFIC ENVIRONMENTAL GOALS (10/26/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10213

WAL-MART HEIR RETURNS DEGREE AMID CHEATING CLAIMS (10/23/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10193

WAL-MART GOING GREEN & PEOPLE FRIENDLY (10/22/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10183

GREENWALD'S WAL-MART DOCUMENTARY (7/21/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9604

WAL-MART TURNS GREEN, TESTS RENEWABLE ENERGY (7/21/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9600

WAL-MART PLANS TO PUSH ORGANIC FOOD (6/28/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9466

WAL-MART CRUSHES UNION BY CLOSING STORE (5/12/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9167

WAL-MART JUST KEEPS GETTING BIGGER (10/13/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8056

PERSPECTIVE: WAL-MARS INVADES EARTH (7/25/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7608

WHY WAL-MART S.U.C.K.S.
(SENSELESS UNEDUCATED CONSUMERISM KILLING SOCIETY)
(6/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7348

THE WORLD'S BIGGEST & MOST POWERFUL COMPANIES (6/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7344

INGLEWOOD VOTERS REJECT WAL-MART (4/8/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7048

ANNUAL LIST OF RICHEST AMERICANS (9/19/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5967

IS WAL-MART GOOD FOR AMERICA? (12/12/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6414

THE GREAT WAL-MART WARS (7/1/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5628

WAL-MART'S AUDACIOUS EXPANSION (1/5/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4196

THE TEN WORST CORPORATIONS OF 2001 (1/3/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2457

WHEN WAL-MART COMES TO TOWN (5/31/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1529

------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
eMail: nhne@...
NHNE Website: http://www.nhne.com/
Phone: (928) 282-6120
Fax: (815) 642-0117

Appreciate what we are doing?
You can say so with a tax-deductible donation:
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Say Hello To Your NHNE Brothers & Sisters:
http://www.frappr.com/nhnearoundtheworld
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------------

CARTER: WHITE HOUSE MISLED U.S. ON IRAQ
Associated Press
November 2, 2005

http://www.breitbart.com/news/2005/11/02/D8DKFLGG1.html

NEW YORK - The Bush Administration's prewar claims that Saddam Hussein had
weapons of mass destruction were "manipulated, at least" to mislead the
American people, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday.

The decision to go to war was the culmination of a long-term plan to attack
Iraq that resulted from the first President Bush not taking out Saddam,
Carter said on NBC's "Today" show.

Carter also said he supports the move by Senate Democrats to force an update
on the investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, and says Republicans
have been dragging their feet on the investigation.

Democrats Tuesday used a rarely invoked Senate rule to force a secret
session as a way to dramatize their assertions that the Bush administration
misused intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

A bipartisan committee has been appointed to review the investigation.

............

President Jimmy Carter on NBC's Today Show this morning:

Video in Windows Media format:
http://tinyurl.com/7p755

Video QuickTime format:
http://tinyurl.com/dvfac


------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
eMail: nhne@...
NHNE Website: http://www.nhne.com/
Phone: (928) 282-6120
Fax: (815) 642-0117

Appreciate what we are doing?
You can say so with a tax-deductible donation:
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------------

CIA HOLDS TERROR SUSPECTS IN SECRET PRISONS
DEBATE IS GROWING WITHIN AGENCY ABOUT LEGALITY AND MORALITY
OF OVERSEAS SYSTEM SET UP AFTER 9/11
By Dana Priest
Washington Post
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101
644_pf.html

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al
Qaeda captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S.
and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement.

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA
nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight
countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in
Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in
Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats
from three continents.

The hidden global internment network is a central element in the CIA's
unconventional war on terrorism. It depends on the cooperation of foreign
intelligence services, and on keeping even basic information about the
system secret from the public, foreign officials and nearly all members of
Congress charged with overseeing the CIA's covert actions.

The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black
sites" in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional
documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States
and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in
each host country.

The CIA and the White House, citing national security concerns and the value
of the program, have dissuaded Congress from demanding that the agency
answer questions in open testimony about the conditions under which captives
are held. Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities,
what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made
about whether they should be detained or for how long.

While the Defense Department has produced volumes of public reports and
testimony about its detention practices and rules after the abuse scandals
at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and at Guantanamo Bay, the CIA has not even
acknowledged the existence of its black sites. To do so, say officials
familiar with the program, could open the U.S. government to legal
challenges, particularly in foreign courts, and increase the risk of
political condemnation at home and abroad.

But the revelations of widespread prisoner abuse in Afghanistan and Iraq by
the U.S. military -- which operates under published rules and transparent
oversight of Congress -- have increased concern among lawmakers, foreign
governments and human rights groups about the opaque CIA system. Those
concerns escalated last month, when Vice President Cheney and CIA Director
Porter J. Goss asked Congress to exempt CIA employees from legislation
already endorsed by 90 senators that would bar cruel and degrading treatment
of any prisoner in U.S. custody.

Although the CIA will not acknowledge details of its system, intelligence
officials defend the agency's approach, arguing that the successful defense
of the country requires that the agency be empowered to hold and interrogate
suspected terrorists for as long as necessary and without restrictions
imposed by the U.S. legal system or even by the military tribunals
established for prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Washington Post is not publishing the names of the Eastern European
countries involved in the covert program, at the request of senior U.S.
officials. They argued that the disclosure might disrupt counterterrorism
efforts in those countries and elsewhere and could make them targets of
possible terrorist retaliation.

The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first
months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was
that a second strike was imminent.

Since then, the arrangement has been increasingly debated within the CIA,
where considerable concern lingers about the legality, morality and
practicality of holding even unrepentant terrorists in such isolation and
secrecy, perhaps for the duration of their lives. Mid-level and senior CIA
officers began arguing two years ago that the system was unsustainable and
diverted the agency from its unique espionage mission.

"We never sat down, as far as I know, and came up with a grand strategy,"
said one former senior intelligence officer who is familiar with the program
but not the location of the prisons. "Everything was very reactive. That's
how you get to a situation where you pick people up, send them into a
netherworld and don't say, 'What are we going to do with them afterwards?' "

It is illegal for the government to hold prisoners in such isolation in
secret prisons in the United States, which is why the CIA placed them
overseas, according to several former and current intelligence officials and
other U.S. government officials. Legal experts and intelligence officials
said that the CIA's internment practices also would be considered illegal
under the laws of several host countries, where detainees have rights to
have a lawyer or to mount a defense against allegations of wrongdoing.

Host countries have signed the U.N. Convention Against Torture and Other
Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, as has the United
States. Yet CIA interrogators in the overseas sites are permitted to use the
CIA's approved "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques," some of which are
prohibited by the U.N. convention and by U.S. military law. They include
tactics such as "waterboarding," in which a prisoner is made to believe he
or she is drowning.

Some detainees apprehended by the CIA and transferred to foreign
intelligence agencies have alleged after their release that they were
tortured, although it is unclear whether CIA personnel played a role in the
alleged abuse. Given the secrecy surrounding CIA detentions, such
accusations have heightened concerns among foreign governments and human
rights groups about CIA detention and interrogation practices.

The contours of the CIA's detention program have emerged in bits and pieces
over the past two years. Parliaments in Canada, Italy, France, Sweden and
the Netherlands have opened inquiries into alleged CIA operations that
secretly captured their citizens or legal residents and transferred them to
the agency's prisons.

More than 100 suspected terrorists have been sent by the CIA into the covert
system, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials and
foreign sources. This figure, a rough estimate based on information from
sources who said their knowledge of the numbers was incomplete, does not
include prisoners picked up in Iraq.

The detainees break down roughly into two classes, the sources said.

About 30 are considered major terrorism suspects and have been held under
the highest level of secrecy at black sites financed by the CIA and managed
by agency personnel, including those in Eastern Europe and elsewhere,
according to current and former intelligence officers and two other U.S.
government officials. Two locations in this category -- in Thailand and on
the grounds of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay -- were closed in 2003
and 2004, respectively.

A second tier -- which these sources believe includes more than 70 detainees
-- is a group considered less important, with less direct involvement in
terrorism and having limited intelligence value. These prisoners, some of
whom were originally taken to black sites, are delivered to intelligence
services in Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Afghanistan and other countries, a
process sometimes known as "rendition." While the first-tier black sites are
run by CIA officers, the jails in these countries are operated by the host
nations, with CIA financial assistance and, sometimes, direction.

Morocco, Egypt and Jordan have said that they do not torture detainees,
although years of State Department human rights reports accuse all three of
chronic prisoner abuse.

The top 30 al Qaeda prisoners exist in complete isolation from the outside
world. Kept in dark, sometimes underground cells, they have no recognized
legal rights, and no one outside the CIA is allowed to talk with or even see
them, or to otherwise verify their well-being, said current and former and
U.S. and foreign government and intelligence officials.

Most of the facilities were built and are maintained with congressionally
appropriated funds, but the White House has refused to allow the CIA to
brief anyone except the House and Senate intelligence committees' chairmen
and vice chairmen on the program's generalities.

The Eastern European countries that the CIA has persuaded to hide al Qaeda
captives are democracies that have embraced the rule of law and individual
rights after decades of Soviet domination. Each has been trying to cleanse
its intelligence services of operatives who have worked on behalf of others
-- mainly Russia and organized crime.

Origins of the Black Sites

The idea of holding terrorists outside the U.S. legal system was not under
consideration before Sept. 11, 2001, not even for Osama bin Laden, according
to former government officials. The plan was to bring bin Laden and his top
associates into the U.S. justice system for trial or to send them to foreign
countries where they would be tried.

"The issue of detaining and interrogating people was never, ever discussed,"
said a former senior intelligence officer who worked in the CIA's
Counterterrorist Center, or CTC, during that period. "It was against the
culture and they believed information was best gleaned by other means."

On the day of the attacks, the CIA already had a list of what it called
High-Value Targets from the al Qaeda structure, and as the World Trade
Center and Pentagon attack plots were unraveled, more names were added to
the list. The question of what to do with these people surfaced quickly.

The CTC's chief of operations argued for creating hit teams of case officers
and CIA paramilitaries that would covertly infiltrate countries in the
Middle East, Africa and even Europe to assassinate people on the list, one
by one.

But many CIA officers believed that the al Qaeda leaders would be worth
keeping alive to interrogate about their network and other plots. Some
officers worried that the CIA would not be very adept at assassination.

"We'd probably shoot ourselves," another former senior CIA official said.

The agency set up prisons under its covert action authority. Under U.S. law,
only the president can authorize a covert action, by signing a document
called a presidential finding. Findings must not break U.S. law and are
reviewed and approved by CIA, Justice Department and White House legal
advisers.

Six days after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush signed a sweeping
finding that gave the CIA broad authorization to disrupt terrorist activity,
including permission to kill, capture and detain members of al Qaeda
anywhere in the world.

It could not be determined whether Bush approved a separate finding for the
black-sites program, but the consensus among current and former intelligence
and other government officials interviewed for this article is that he did
not have to.

Rather, they believe that the CIA general counsel's office acted within the
parameters of the Sept. 17 finding. The black-site program was approved by a
small circle of White House and Justice Department lawyers and officials,
according to several former and current U.S. government and intelligence
officials.

Deals With 2 Countries

Among the first steps was to figure out where the CIA could secretly hold
the captives. One early idea was to keep them on ships in international
waters, but that was discarded for security and logistics reasons.

CIA officers also searched for a setting like Alcatraz Island. They
considered the virtually unvisited islands in Lake Kariba in Zambia, which
were edged with craggy cliffs and covered in woods. But poor sanitary
conditions could easily lead to fatal diseases, they decided, and besides,
they wondered, could the Zambians be trusted with such a secret?

Still without a long-term solution, the CIA began sending suspects it
captured in the first month or so after Sept. 11 to its longtime partners,
the intelligence services of Egypt and Jordan.

A month later, the CIA found itself with hundreds of prisoners who were
captured on battlefields in Afghanistan. A short-term solution was
improvised. The agency shoved its highest-value prisoners into metal
shipping containers set up on a corner of the Bagram Air Base, which was
surrounded with a triple perimeter of concertina-wire fencing. Most
prisoners were left in the hands of the Northern Alliance, U.S.-supported
opposition forces who were fighting the Taliban.

"I remember asking: What are we going to do with these people?" said a
senior CIA officer. "I kept saying, where's the help? We've got to bring in
some help. We can't be jailers -- our job is to find Osama."

Then came grisly reports, in the winter of 2001, that prisoners kept by
allied Afghan generals in cargo containers had died of asphyxiation. The CIA
asked Congress for, and was quickly granted, tens of millions of dollars to
establish a larger, long-term system in Afghanistan, parts of which would be
used for CIA prisoners.

The largest CIA prison in Afghanistan was code-named the Salt Pit. It was
also the CIA's substation and was first housed in an old brick factory
outside Kabul. In November 2002, an inexperienced CIA case officer allegedly
ordered guards to strip naked an uncooperative young detainee, chain him to
the concrete floor and leave him there overnight without blankets. He froze
to death, according to four U.S. government officials. The CIA officer has
not been charged in the death.

The Salt Pit was protected by surveillance cameras and tough Afghan guards,
but the road leading to it was not safe to travel and the jail was
eventually moved inside Bagram Air Base. It has since been relocated off the
base.

By mid-2002, the CIA had worked out secret black-site deals with two
countries, including Thailand and one Eastern European nation, current and
former officials said. An estimated $100 million was tucked inside the
classified annex of the first supplemental Afghanistan appropriation.

Then the CIA captured its first big detainee, in March 28, 2002. Pakistani
forces took Abu Zubaida, al Qaeda's operations chief, into custody and the
CIA whisked him to the new black site in Thailand, which included
underground interrogation cells, said several former and current
intelligence officials. Six months later, Sept. 11 planner Ramzi Binalshibh
was also captured in Pakistan and flown to Thailand.

But after published reports revealed the existence of the site in June 2003,
Thai officials insisted the CIA shut it down, and the two terrorists were
moved elsewhere, according to former government officials involved in the
matter. Work between the two countries on counterterrorism has been lukewarm
ever since.

In late 2002 or early 2003, the CIA brokered deals with other countries to
establish black-site prisons. One of these sites -- which sources said they
believed to be the CIA's biggest facility now -- became particularly
important when the agency realized it would have a growing number of
prisoners and a shrinking number of prisons.

Thailand was closed, and sometime in 2004 the CIA decided it had to give up
its small site at Guantanamo Bay. The CIA had planned to convert that into a
state-of-the-art facility, operated independently of the military. The CIA
pulled out when U.S. courts began to exercise greater control over the
military detainees, and agency officials feared judges would soon extend the
same type of supervision over their detainees.

In hindsight, say some former and current intelligence officials, the CIA's
problems were exacerbated by another decision made within the
Counterterrorist Center at Langley.

The CIA program's original scope was to hide and interrogate the two dozen
or so al Qaeda leaders believed to be directly responsible for the Sept. 11
attacks, or who posed an imminent threat, or had knowledge of the larger al
Qaeda network. But as the volume of leads pouring into the CTC from abroad
increased, and the capacity of its paramilitary group to seize suspects
grew, the CIA began apprehending more people whose intelligence value and
links to terrorism were less certain, according to four current and former
officials.

The original standard for consigning suspects to the invisible universe was
lowered or ignored, they said. "They've got many, many more who don't reach
any threshold," one intelligence official said.

Several former and current intelligence officials, as well as several other
U.S. government officials with knowledge of the program, express frustration
that the White House and the leaders of the intelligence community have not
made it a priority to decide whether the secret internment program should
continue in its current form, or be replaced by some other approach.

Meanwhile, the debate over the wisdom of the program continues among CIA
officers, some of whom also argue that the secrecy surrounding the program
is not sustainable.

"It's just a horrible burden," said the intelligence official.

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WIKIPEDIA MAY GO TO PRINT
Reuters
Wednesday, November 2, 2005

http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/internet/11/01/wikipedia.reut/index.html

NEW YORK, New York - Entries from Wikipedia, the popular free online
encyclopedia written and edited by Internet users, may soon be available in
print for readers in the developing world, founder Jimmy Wales said on
Monday.

He said content from the Web site may also be burned onto CDs and DVDs so
computer users in places like Africa, who lack access to high-speed
Internet, could consult parts of the reference work offline.

Wales also described as incorrect reports, one of them from Reuters, that
certain pages of the Wikipedia could be subject to tightened controls or
"frozen" for good to prevent vandals and pranksters from tampering with
them.

"We are talking to several agents and publishers about what they would be
interested in," Wales said of the book project.

He cited health, football and histories of World War Two or rock 'n' roll as
examples of how entries could be grouped into subjects.

"I have always liked the idea of going to print because a big part of what
we are about is to disseminate knowledge throughout the world and not just
to people who have broadband," Wales said by telephone from St. Petersburg,
Florida.

Issues like funding, distribution and topics were still being discussed but
a first printed work could be ready from mid-2006, he added.

Wales, a 39-year-old former options trader, set up Wikipedia in 2001. The
site operates through the Wikimedia Foundation, a nonprofit organization
that relies on donations to pursue its goal of spreading knowledge for free.

The reference work uses "Wiki" software, which gives anyone with access to
the Internet the opportunity to edit any page.

Some 350,000 people have contributed terms, background, context or simply
corrected spellings for more than 2 million Wikipedia entries in more than
25 active languages. About 800,000 entries are in English.

Wales, an American, said a core group of around 2,000 contributors did the
bulk of the work and formed the backbone of the Wikipedia "community."

In August, Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper quoted Wales as saying
that "controls" could be tightened to protect potentially sensitive pages of
Wikipedia. Reuters picked up the report and, in translating sections of it,
said some pages could be "frozen" in perpetuity.

"The idea that we are going to tighten our editorial 'rules' is completely
not correct (and) the articles would not be frozen in perpetuity," Wales
said. He said he had been misinterpreted and mistranslated.

Wales said new software would be deployed from the end of the year that
would allow changes to very active pages which might be prone to vandalism
to appear on the site with a time delay, so members of the community could
review them.

Enthusiasts had also been discussing whether to create "stable" versions of
certain pages that would stand as the most recent reliable entry on a given
topic.

These would be available behind the latest contributed version and would
also be updated as necessary, Wales said.

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INTERRACIAL RELATIONSHIPS AND MARRIAGES ARE BECOMING MORE COMMON
Cornell University / Science Blog
November 2, 2005

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/interracial_relationships_and_marriages_are_b
ecoming_more_common_9211

Interracial relationships and marriages are becoming more common in the
United States, according to a new Cornell University study.

The number of interracial marriages involving whites, blacks and Hispanics
each year in the United States has jumped tenfold since the 1960s, but the
older individuals are, the less likely they are to partner with someone of a
different race, finds the new study.

Pat Cassano, assistant professor of nutritional sciences, and Ron Booker,
associate professor of neurobiology and behavior, are an interracial couple
who have been together since she was 19 and he was 20 years old, about 31
years ago.

"We think that's because relationships are more likely to be interracial the
more recently they were formed, so younger people are more likely to have
interracial relationships. This trend reflects the increasing acceptance of
interracial relationships in today's society," said Kara Joyner, assistant
professor of policy analysis and management at Cornell and co-author of a
study on interracial relationships in a recent issue of the American
Sociological Review (Vol. 70:4).

Although more young adults are dating and cohabiting with someone of a
different race, the study found that interracial relationships are
considerably less likely than same-race relationships to lead to marriage,
though this trend has weakened in recent years.

To explore the changing patterns of interracial sexual relationships during
the transition to adulthood, Joyner and her co-author, Grace Kao, associate
professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, analyzed data from
the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health and the National Health
and Social Life Survey, some of the first nationally representative surveys
to collect information on sexual relationships.

"Studying trends in interracial sexual relationships is important because
intimate relationships between different racial groups are viewed as an
indicator of the social and geographic distance between racial groups, and a
barometer of race relations," said Joyner. Unlike other studies, which
typically look at marriage or cohabitation and sometimes at current dating
relationships, this study looked at trends in these relationships over a
10-year period.

The researchers found that among 18- to 25-year-olds in 1990 and in 2000,
interracial sexual involvement became increasingly common, with the greatest
increase seen in cohabitating relationships, followed by dating
relationships and then marriages.

Yet, interracial relationships declined with age within these two periods.
In 1990, for example, about 14 percent of 18- to 19-year-olds, 12 percent of
20- to 21-year-olds and 7 percent of 34- to 35-year-olds were involved in
interracial relationships. Roughly 10 years later, 20 percent of 18- to
19-year-olds and 16 percent of 24- to 25-year-olds were in an interracial
relationship. (Information on 34- to 35-year-olds was not available for this
period.)

While Hispanic is an ethnic group composed of both racial and ethnic groups,
Joyner, like many demographers, uses the categories -- non-Hispanic white,
non-Hispanic black (or African-American) and Hispanic (or Latino) -- to
measure race.

In Joyner's study, Hispanics had the highest rate of interracial
relationships: 45 percent of 18- to 19-year-olds and 33 percent of 24- to
25-year-olds were in interracial relationships in the early 2000s, compared
with blacks (20 and 14 percent, respectively) and whites (16 and 12 percent,
respectively). While Asians appear to be comparable to Hispanics in terms of
rates of interracial involvement, age patterns for Asians were not presented
in the study, Joyner said, because there were so few within some of the age
groups in the surveys.

"In the analyses we did run, however, it looks like involvement in
interracial relationships increases with age for Asians," said Joyner.

"Although interracial relationships were far more common in the early part
of this decade than in the mid-1990s -- about five percentage points higher
-- they still decline with age," said Joyner, noting that the fact that many
young adults' transition to marriage is also a factor in the age decline.
The rate of interracial marriage, however, is still relatively uncommon: in
2002, only 2.9 percent of all marriages were interracial, according to the
U.S. Bureau of the Census.

In a 2003 study, Joyner had reported that adolescents in interracial
romances were significantly less willing to reveal their relationship to
family and close friends than those in same-race relationships, suggesting
that such relationships still do not receive whole-hearted approval by
society.

The study was supported, in part, by grants from McGill University, Cornell,
the University of Pennsylvania and the National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development.

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WHY DOWD DOESN'T KNOW WHAT MEN REALLY WANT
By Rivers and Barnett
Women's eNews
November 2, 2005

http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2512

Today's commentators say it's a shame that Maureen Dowd should depend on
such flaky research and flimsy evidence when writing about feminism. Dowd's
article, based on weak research, was the most e-mailed story from The New
York Times yesterday.

Editor's Note: The following is a commentary. The opinions expressed are
those of the author and not necessarily the views of Women's eNews.

............

A growing media narrative over the past year says men do not like
high-achieving women.

It's been fueled by stories in, among others, The New York Times, the
Chicago Sun Times, Toronto Star, "60 Minutes" and the Atlantic magazine.

This drumbeat reached its zenith Sunday in Maureen Dowd's New York Times
Magazine piece, "What's A Modern Girl to Do?"

The article has become the most e-mailed article from the Times' Web site
and has left Dowd fielding readers' mail on "the past and future of
feminism."

What a waste of such a powerful platform. If only Dowd -- capable of such
wit, charm and political insight -- had bothered to check her social science
data.

"Decades after the feminist movement promised equality with men," Dowd
laments, "it was becoming increasingly apparent that many women would have
to brush up on the venerable tricks of the trade: an absurdly charming
little laugh, a pert toss of the head, an air of saucy triumph, dewy eyes
and a full knowledge of music, drawing, elegant note writing and geography.
It would once more be considered captivating to lie on a chaise lounge, pass
a lacy handkerchief across the eyelids and complain of a case of springtime
giddiness."

For this surreal description of contemporary men and women, Dowd draws on
"data" that shows her running with the media pack, yes, but sadly out of
touch with serious social science.

An Alleged Trend

In particular, Dowd hypes an alleged trend of men rejecting ambitious women
based on a 2004 study by psychology researchers. Those findings, by
psychologists Stephanie Brown of the University of Michigan and Brian Lewis
of University of California, Los Angeles, were wildly overblown.

The study was done on a small sample of 120 male and 208 female
undergraduates, mainly freshmen.

The males rated the desirability as a dating or marriage partner of a
fictitious female, described as either an immediate supervisor, a peer or an
assistant.

Surprise, surprise! The freshman males preferred the subordinate over the
peer and over the supervisor when it came to dating and mating.

The study, however, was no barometer of adult male preferences. Rather, it
reflected teen boys' ambivalence about strong women.

Men, by contrast, do not reject achieving women. Quite the opposite.
Sociologist Valerie Oppenheimer of University of California, Berkeley
reports that today men are choosing as mates women who have completed their
education. The more education a woman has, the more likely she is to marry.
Unlike the single University of California, Los Angeles study, this finding
comes from an analysis of 80 peer-reviewed studies.

Evolutionary Theory

Another major problem with the college students study was that investigators
claimed an evolutionary basis, namely, that men's drive to reproduce their
genes leads them to prefer relatively subordinate, docile females.

By the same evolutionary token, then, women should be "hardwired" to seek as
mates men who are older, dominant and in control of financial resources. But
that same college study found nothing of the sort. Instead, the young women
showed no preference for dominant males over other males for either dating
or mating.

The notion that women are driven by their genes to seek older, rich men has
been skewered by recent research.

Alice Eagly of Northwestern University and Wendy Wood of Duke University
provided a major review of mate-selection data with findings from 10,000
people in 37 countries.

It found that in societies where women have access to resources, they do not
choose older "provider" males to marry. Instead, they go for men who are
kind, intelligent and can bond with children.

Yes, when women can't pay their own way, rich older men look pretty good,
even if they don't change diapers or listen to what a woman has to say. But
when women bring home the bacon themselves, they start looking for something
quite different in a guy.

Dredging Up the IQ Study

Dowd dredges up another study about men not liking smart women. This one was
conducted by investigators at four British universities (Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Bristol and Aberdeen) and found that for every 15-point increase in IQ score
above the average, women's likelihood of marrying fell by almost 60 percent.
The Atlantic published this research in 2005 under the title "Too Smart To
Marry?"

Really bad news for bright women, right?

Not. Neither Dowd nor the Atlantic bothered to mention -- apparently they
did not know -- that the data were gathered from men and women born in 1921;
the women are all now in their 80s.

Should a study of octogenarian women be taken as a guide for today's young
people? No.

Dowd also recycles Sylvia Ann Hewlett's argument, from her book "Creating a
Life," that high-achieving women tend to be miserable and often childless.
For a challenge to that data, read Heather Boushey of the Center for
Economic Policy Research. In a 2002 published study based on several large
government data sets, Boushey found high achievers little different from
other working women.

From 36 to 40, high achievers are more likely to be married and have kids
than other female workers, but they marry later than other women. Boushey
found that women between the ages of 28 and 35 who work full time and earn
more than $55,000 a year or have a graduate or professional degree are just
as likely to be successfully married as other working women.

Dowd writes that many women today "want to be Mrs. Anonymous Biological
Robot in a Docile Mass. They dream of being rescued; to flirt, to shop, to
stay home and be taken care of." And so forth.

Irritating Fluff

Dowd's writing is fun, but is basically a bunch of irritating fluff.

As a piece of institutionally self-serving evidence, for instance, she
refers to a recent front-page story in The New York Times about young women
attending an Ivy League college who were planning to reject careers in favor
of staying home and raising children. The article claimed that 60 percent of
women in two Yale dorms wanted to jettison careers and be stay-at-home moms.

The story was not written by a Times reporter. It was written by a
journalism student doing her graduate thesis who based her story on an
e-mail survey. Slate media writer Jack Shafer found the "facts" in the story
so flimsy that the reporter "deserves a week in the stockades. And her
editor deserves a month." He pointed out that the writer used the word
"many" 12 times in place of statistics.

Writing in The Nation, columnist Katha Pollitt said she had contacted a
number of people at Yale, including professors and students who were
interviewed. She said not one felt the story fairly represented women at
Yale. Many students said they'd thrown away the reporter's questionnaire in
disgust.

Physics professor Megan Urry polled the 45 female students in her class and
only two said they planned to stay at home as the primary parent.

When Dowd bases her views of men and women on such poor research, it's no
wonder that Dowd looks into the crystal ball of feminism and finds the
picture so disconcerting.

............

Caryl Rivers is a professor of journalism at Boston University and Rosalind
C. Barnett is a senior scientist at the Women's Studies Research Center at
Brandeis University. They are co-authors of "Same Difference; How Gender
Myths Are Hurting Our Relationships, Our Children and Our Jobs."

------------

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KILLER HEATWAVES PREDICTED IN FACE OF GLOBAL WARMING
By Brendan O'Malley
The Courier Mail
November 3, 2005

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,17117547%255E
953,00.html

More Australians will die in heatwaves than from all other natural disasters
put together in the coming decades because of global warming, an
international report warns.

About 500 Queenslanders alone would die in a single two-week heatwave, based
on data contained in a study released yesterday by Harvard Medical School in
the US.

Australia also faced a surge in catastrophic bushfires, cyclones, asthma
cases and the death of large sections of the Great Barrier Reef, the study
concluded.

It said the 2003 French heatwave resulted in a 55 per cent jump in the
average numbers of deaths, compared with the 10 to 20 per cent jump usually
experienced in heatwaves in countries similar to Australia.

However, the report said that could rise sharply in future because of
Australia's ageing population and an increase in air pollution, which was
known to exacerbate the health impacts of heatwaves.

"Australia is also experiencing more hot days, with predictions that the
number of summer days over 35C in Sydney will increase from the current two
days to 11 days by 2070," it reported.

The report said the world's coral reefs, currently worth $40 billion a year
in tourism, fisheries and protection of coastlines from storms, were
expected to start collapsing if sea temperatures rose only 1C.

The news was bad for farmers as well, with a global warming of only 1C
likely to slash wheat yields by 10 per cent and to encourage wheat, cotton
and sugarcane pests.

Swiss Reinsurance, which funded the study along with the United Nations
Development Program, said some of the impacts could be reduced if people
took preventative measures.

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CONGRESS SET TO PASS LAW ELIMINATING LIABILITY FOR VACCINE INJURIES
National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
Wednesday, October 19, 2005

http://www.nvic.org/PressReleases/101905Burrbill.htm

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
<http://www.nvic.org/> is calling the "Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and
Drug Development Act of 2005"(S. 1873), which passed out of the U.S. Senate
HELP Committee one day after it was introduced "a drug company stockholder's
dream and a consumer's worst nightmare." The proposed legislation will strip
Americans of the right to a trial by jury if harmed by an experimental or
licensed drug or vaccine that they are forced by government to take,
whenever federal health officials declare a public health emergency.

The legislation's architect, Senator Richard Burr (R-NC), Chairman of the
HELP Subcommittee on Bioterrorism and Public Health Preparedness, told the
full HELP Committee yesterday that the legislation" creates a true
partnership" between the federal government, the pharmaceutical industry and
academia to walk the drug companies "through the Valley of Death" in
bringing a new vaccine or drug to market. Burr said it will give the
Department of Health and Human Services "additional authority and resources
to partner with the private sector to rapidly develop drugs and vaccines."
The Burr bill gives the Secretary of DHHS the sole authority to decide
whether a manufacturer violated laws mandating drug safety and bans citizens
from challenging his decision in the civil court system.

The bill establishes the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Agency
(BARDA), as the single point of authority within the government for the
advanced research and development of drugs and vaccines in response to
bioterrorism and natural disease outbreaks such as the flu. BARDA will
operate in secret, exempt from the Freedom of Information Act and the
Federal Advisory Committee Act, insuring that no evidence of injuries or
deaths caused by drugs and vaccines labeled as "countermeasures" will become
public.

Nicknamed "Bioshield Two," the legislation is being pushed rapidly through
Congress without time for voters to make their voices heard by their elected
representatives. Co-sponsored by Republican Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist (R-TN), Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee
Chairman Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg
(R-NH), the legislation will eliminate both regulatory and legal safeguards
applied to vaccines as well as take away the right of children and adults
harmed by vaccines and drugs to present their case in front of a jury in a
civil court of law.

"It is a sad day for this nation when Congress is frightened and bullied
into allowing one profit making industry to destroy the seventh Amendment to
the Constitution guaranteeing citizens their day in court in front of a jury
of their peers," said Barbara Loe Fisher, president of NVIC. "This proposed
legislation, like the power and money grab by federal health officials and
industry in the Homeland Security Act of 2002 and the Project Bioshield Act
of 2004, is an unconstitutional attempt by some in Congress to give a
taxpayer-funded handout to pharmaceutical companies for drugs and vaccines
the government can force all citizens to use while absolving everyone
connected from any responsibility for injuries and deaths which occur. It
means that, if an American is injured by an experimental flu or anthrax
vaccine he or she is mandated to take, that citizen will be banned from
exercising the Constitutional right to a jury trial even if it is revealed
that the vaccine maker engaged in criminal fraud and negligence in the
manufacture of the vaccine."

The federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is legally responsible for
regulating the pharmaceutical industry and ensuring that drugs and vaccines
released to the public are safe and effective. Drug companies marketing
painkillers, like Vioxx, and anti-depressants, which have resulted in the
deaths and injuries of thousands of children and adults, are being held
accountable in civil court while the FDA has come under intense criticism
for withholding information about the drugs' dangers from the public. Since
1986, vaccine makers have been protected from most liability in civil court
through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in which Congress created
a federal vaccine injury compensation program (VICP) that offers vaccine
victims an alternative to the court system. Even though the the program has
awarded nearly $2 billion to victims of mandated vaccines, two out of three
plaintiffs are turned away.

"The drug companies and doctors got all the liability protection they needed
in 1986 but they are greedy and want more," said Fisher. "And the federal
health agencies want more power to force citizens to use vaccines without
having to worry about properly regulating them. If the Burr bill passes, all
economic incentives to insure mandated vaccines are safe will be removed and
the American people are facing a future where government can force them to
take poorly regulated experimental drugs and vaccines labeled as
"countermeasures" or go to jail. The only recourse for citizens will be to
strike down mandatory vaccination laws so vaccines will be subject to the
law of supply and demand in the marketplace. The health care consumer's cry
will be: No liability? No mandates."

The National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) was founded by parents of
vaccine injured children in 1982 and co-founders worked with Congress on the
National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 1986. 

------------

SEARCH FOR BILLS:
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/thomas.html

1 . Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005
(Introduced in Senate)[S.1873.IS]
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:1:./temp/~c109iw7TuJ::

2 . Biodefense and Pandemic Vaccine and Drug Development Act of 2005
(Reported in Senate)[S.1873.RS]
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c109:2:./temp/~c109iw7TuJ::


CAPITAL SWITCH BOARD:
202-224-3121

------------

RELATED ARTICLE:

SENATE BILL 1873: PRESCRIPTION FOR TYRANNY
By NWV Staff Writer
October 26, 2005
NewsWithViews.com

http://www.newswithviews.com/BreakingNews/breaking37.htm

------------

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

MAN CHARGED IN FLU SHOT SCAM (10/30/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10232

AVIAN FLU: PERSPECTIVES & RESOURCES (10/24/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10199

THE FLU SCARE GAME (10/21/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8121

HELPFUL INFORMATION FROM LAST YEAR'S FLU SEASON (10/21/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8120

FOLLOWUP: WHAT TO DO IF YOU COME DOWN WITH THE FLU (12/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6407

FLU SHOTS (12/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6386

------------

VITAMIN C ARTICLES & RESOURCES:

INTRAVENOUS VITAMIN C KILLS CANCER CELLS (9/14/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9962

VITAMIN C MAY BE A LIFE-SAVER (4/23/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9061

RELATED LINKS:

Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C
The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, M.D.,
abbreviated, sumarized and annotated by
Lendon H. Smith, M.D.
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C
By Fred R. Klenner, M.D., Reidsville, North Carolina
July, 1949
http://www.orthomed.com/polio.htm

------------

VACCINATION-RELATED ARTICLES & REOURCES:

KENNEDY: LOOK TO AMISH FOR AUTISM/THIMEROSAL CONNECTION (8/10/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9709

DEBATE OVER VACCINES, AUTISM WON'T DIE (7/6/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9516

ON AUTISM'S CAUSE, IT'S PARENTS VS. RESEARCH (6/25/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9446

ABC FLIP-FLOP ON KENNEDY THIMEROSAL INTERVIEW (6/20/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9393

THE VERY DARK SIDE OF IMMUNIZATIONS (6/17/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9376

'91 MEMO WARNED OF MERCURY IN SHOTS (2/15/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8859

FEDS WON'T WARN PARENTS ABOUT MERCURY-LACED VACCINE (4/5/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7030

AUTISM LINKED TO PRESERVATIVE IN CHILDHOOD VACCINES (2/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6715

JUDGE: PENTAGON CANNOT FORCE ANTHRAX SHOTS (12/24/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6479

PENTAGON: VACCINES MAY BE LINKED TO SOLDIER'S DEATH (11/20/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6288

U.S. SMALLPOX VACCINATION PLAN 'CEASED' (10/16/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6107

POSSIBLE VACCINATION-INDUCED BLOOD CLOTS FELLING U.S. TROOPS (10/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6063

U.S. MILITARY FAILS TO CREATE BASELINE MEDICAL RECORDS (10/3/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6041

MYSTERY DEATHS FUEL VACCINE ANXIETIES (9/21/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5978

NO NEED FOR GENERAL U.S. SMALLPOX SHOTS (8/13/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5796

VACCINES MAY BE INVOLVED IN SOLDIER'S DEATHS (8/9/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5774

SOLDIER GUILTY FOR REFUSING ANTHRAX SHOT (5/28/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5429

U.K. SOLDIERS: 'WAR VACCINES POISONED US' (5/27/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5416

OFFICIALS SEEK SMALLPOX VACCINE COMPENSATION FUND (3/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4677

MORE ON LOW SMALLPOX VACCINATION TURNOUT (2/7/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4398

MILLIONS OF COMPUTERS JOIN FORCES TO FIND SMALLPOX CURE (2/6/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4384

BUSH'S SMALLPOX BOONDOGGLE (2/4/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4370

PANEL URGES SMALLPOX VACCINE WARNINGS (1/20/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4263

BUSH RECEIVES SMALLPOX VACCINATION (12/21/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4152

RUMSFELD SAYS HE'LL TAKE SMALLPOX VACCINE (12/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4139

SMALLPOX SHOTS MADE STUDENTS SICK (12/14/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4101

BUSH'S SMALLPOX VACCINE SPEECH (SUMMARY & TEXT) (12/14/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4100

WHEN PARENTS SAY NO TO CHILD VACCINATIONS (12/1/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4011

BUSH TO ANNOUNCE PLAN FOR SMALLPOX VACCINATIONS (11/26/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3996

PROPOSAL TO TEST SMALLPOX VACCINE IN YOUNG CHILDREN (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3933

PENTAGON HAS SMALLPOX PLAN FOR TROOPS (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3932

FORCED VACCINES HAUNT GULF VETS (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3931

FEDS PUSHING TOXIC ANTHRAX DRUG? (10/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3888

GI GUINEA PIGS (10/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3885

AN EPIDEMIC OF AUTISM (10/19/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3827

VACCINATED PEOPLE CAN TRANSMIT VACCINIA VIRUS (10/17/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3824

ANCIENT & ALTERNATIVE REMEDIES FOR BIOTERRORISM (10/12/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3808

PENTAGON PLANS SMALLPOX SHOTS FOR UP TO 500,000 (10/12/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3807

SMALLPOX VACCINE GUIDELINES READIED (9/23/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3714

SMALLPOX OUTBREAK: WHAT TO DO (8/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3592

DOUBTS OVER SMALLPOX VACCINES EMERGE (7/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3497

TWO ARTICLES: MMR VACCINATIONS CONNECTED TO AUTISM (8/10/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3559

CONGRESSMAN CALLS FOR CRIMINAL PENALTIES AT VACCINE MERCURY HEARINGS
  (7/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3443

U.S. TO VACCINATE 500,000 WORKERS AGAINST SMALLPOX (7/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3371

LIVING WITHOUT VACCINATIONS (12/8/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2371

LEADING DOCTORS' GROUP OPPOSE MANDATORY VACCINATIONS (11/4/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/793

-----------

RELATED WEBSITES:

NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER (NVIC):
http://www.909shot.com/

VACCINATION LIBERATION:
http://www.vaclib.org/

100+ GREAT ANTI-VAX INFO LINKS:
http://www.vaclib.org/links/vaxlinks.htm

VACCINATION NEWS:
http://www.vaccinationnews.com

AUTISM LINKS:
http://momsonamissionforautism.org/Links.shtml

MERCURY AND THIMEROSAL LINKS:
http://www.vaclib.org/basic/mercuryindex.htm

ANTHRAX VACCINE INFORMATION:
http://www.anthraxvaccine.org

CDC SMALLPOX INFORMATION:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION:
http://www.cdc.gov/



------------

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INTELLIGENCE FALSIFIED TO JUSTIFY VIETNAM ACTION, REPORT SAYS
A NATIONAL SECURITY AGENCY HISTORIAN WROTE IN 2001
THAT TONKIN CLAIMS WERE UNTRUE
By SCOTT SHANE
New York Times
October 30, 2005

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3426826

WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency has kept secret since 2001 a
finding by an agency historian that NSA officers deliberately distorted
critical intelligence during the Tonkin Gulf episode that helped precipitate
the Vietnam War, according to two people familiar with the historian's work.

The historian's conclusion represents the first serious accusation that the
agency's communications intercepts were falsified to support the belief that
North Vietnamese ships attacked U.S. destroyers on Aug. 4, 1964, two days
after a previous clash.

Most historians have concluded that there was no second attack, but they
have assumed the NSA intercepts were unintentionally misread, not purposely
altered.

The research by Robert Hanyok, an NSA historian, was detailed four years ago
in an in-house article that remains classified, in part because agency
officials feared its release might prompt comparisons with the flawed
intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq.

Matthew Aid, an independent historian who has discussed Hanyok's Tonkin Gulf
research with current and former NSA and CIA officials who have read it,
said, "This material is relevant to debates we as Americans are having about
the war in Iraq and intelligence reform."

Aid, who is writing a history of the NSA, said, "To keep it classified
simply because it might embarrass the agency is wrong."

Aid's description of Hanyok's findings was confirmed by the intelligence
official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the research remains
classified.

Both men said Hanyok thought the initial misinterpretation of North
Vietnamese intercepts was probably an honest mistake. But after months of
detective work in NSA's archives, he concluded midlevel agency officials
discovered the error almost immediately but covered it up and doctored
documents so that they appeared to provide evidence of an attack.

"Rather than come clean about their mistake, they helped launch the United
States into a bloody war that would last for 10 years," Aid said.

President Johnson cited the Aug. 4 episode to persuade Congress in 1964 to
authorize broad military action in Vietnam, despite the fact that doubts
about the attack arose almost immediately.

Asked about Hanyok's research, NSA spokesman Don Weber said that the agency
intends to release the material late next month.

The release has been "delayed," Weber said, "in an effort to be consistent
with our preferred practice of providing the public a more contextual
perspective."

He said the agency was working to declassify not only Hanyok's article, but
also the original intercepts and intelligence reports that form the raw
material for his work.

------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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Phone: (928) 282-6120
Fax: (815) 642-0117

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ARMY SECRET SURFACES: DEADLY CHEMICALS AT SEA
By John Bull
The Morning Call
October 30, 2005

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpoct30,0,5117767,print.story?coll
=all-news-hed

Millions of pounds of unused weapons of mass destruction were dumped in
oceans before Congress banned the practice in 1972. The threat is still out
there, and may be growing.

............

A clam dredging operation off the coast of Atlantic City, N.J., in 2004
pulled up an old artillery shell.

The long-submerged, World War I-era explosive was filled with a black,
tar-like substance.

Bomb disposal technicians from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware were brought
in to dismantle it. Three of them were injured, one hospitalized with large,
pus-filled blisters on his arm and hand.

The shell was filled with mustard gas in solid form.

What was long-feared by the few military officials in the know had come to
pass: Chemical weapons that the Army dumped at sea decades ago had finally
ended up on shore in the United States.

While it has long been known that some chemical weapons went into the ocean,
records obtained by the Daily Press of Newport News, Va., show that the
previously classified weapons-dumping program was far more extensive than
has ever been suspected.

The Army now admits in reports never before released that it secretly dumped
64 million pounds of nerve and mustard gas agent into the sea, along with
400,000 chemical-filled bombs, land mines and rockets and more than 500 tons
of radioactive waste either tossed overboard or packed into the holds of
scuttled vessels.

A Daily Press investigation also found:

These weapons of mass destruction virtually ring the country, concealed off
the coasts of at least 11 states: six on the East Coast, including New
Jersey and Maryland, two on the Gulf Coast, and in California, Hawaii and
Alaska. Few, if any, state officials have been informed of their existence.

The chemical agents could pose a hazard for generations. The Army has
examined only a few of its 26 dump zones, and none in 30 years.

The Army can't say exactly where all the weapons were dumped from World War
II to 1970. Army records are sketchy, missing or were destroyed.

More dump sites probably exist. The Army hasn't reviewed records from the
World War I era, when ocean dumping of chemical weapons was common.

''We do not claim to know where they all are,'' said William Brankowitz, a
deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials Agency and a
leading authority on the Army's chemical weapons dumping. ''We don't want to
be cavalier at all and say this stuff was exposed to water and is OK. It can
last for a very, very long time.''

A drop of nerve agent can kill within a minute. When released in the ocean
it lasts up to six weeks, killing every organism it touches before breaking
down into its nonlethal chemical components.

Mustard gas can be fatal. When exposed to seawater it forms a concentrated,
encrusted gel that lasts for at least five years, rolling around on the
ocean floor, killing or contaminating sea life.

Sea-dumped chemical weapons may be slowly leaking from decades of saltwater
corrosion, resulting in a time-delayed release of deadly chemicals over the
next 100 years and an unforeseeable environmental impact. Steel corrodes at
different rates depending on the water depth, ocean temperature and
thickness of the shells.

That was the conclusion of Norwegian scientists who in 2002 examined
chemical weapons dumped off Norway's coast after World War II by the U.S.
and British military.

Overseas, more than 200 fishermen over the years have been burned by mustard
gas pulled on deck. A fisherman in Hawaii was burned in 1976 when he brought
up an Army-dumped mortar round full of mustard gas.

Although it seems unlikely the weapons will begin to wash up on shore, last
year's discovery that a mustard gas-filled artillery shell was dumped off
the coast of New Jersey was ominous for several reasons.

It was the first ocean-dumped chemical weapon to make its way to shore in
the United States.

It was pulled up with clams in relatively shallow water only 20 miles off
the coast of Atlantic City. The Army had no idea chemical weapons were
dumped in the area.

Most alarming: It was found intact in a residential driveway in Delaware.

It had survived being dredged up and put through a crusher to create cheap
clamshell driveway fill sold throughout the Delmarva Peninsula in Delaware
and Maryland.

Decades of dumping

The United States never used chemical weapons in war but amassed a huge
stockpile to be unleashed if enemy forces used them first. Their existence
was a known, ultimately successful, deterrent.

The Army's secret ocean-dumping program spanned at least three decades, from
1944 to 1970.

The dumped weapons were deemed to be unneeded surplus. They were hazardous
to transport, expensive to store, too dangerous to bury and difficult to
destroy.

In the early 1970s, the Army publicly admitted it had dumped some chemical
weapons off the U.S. coast. Congress banned the practice in 1972. Three
years later, the United States signed an international treaty prohibiting
ocean disposal of chemical weapons.

Only now have Army reports come to light that show how much was dumped, what
kind of chemical weapons they were, when they were thrown overboard, and
rough nautical coordinates of where some are located.

The reports contain bits and pieces of information on the Army's
long-running ocean dumping program. The reports were released to the Daily
Press, which cross-indexed them to obtain the most comprehensive, detailed
picture yet compiled of what was dumped, where and when.

To put the information in context, the newspaper also examined nautical
charts, National Archive records and scientific studies and interviewed many
experts on unexploded ordnance and chemical warfare, both in the country and
overseas.

The Army's Brankowitz created the seminal report on ocean dumping. He
examined classified Army records and in 1987 wrote a lengthy report on
chemical weapons movements over the decades. It included the revelation that
more than a dozen shipments ended in the ocean. The report was not widely
disseminated.

His follow-up report in 1989 revealed, through review of other previously
classified documents, the rough nautical coordinates of some dump sites and
the existence of more dump zones. In 2001, a computer database was created
to include additional dump zones the Army discovered and more details of
some of the dumping operations.

The database summary and the 1989 report had never before been released
publicly.

''I know I didn't find everything,'' said Brankowitz, who has worked for
more than 30 years on chemical weapons issues for the Army. ''I'm very much
convinced there are records at the National Archives that have been
misfiled. Short of a major research effort that would cost a lot of money,
we've done the best we can.''

The reports reveal that the Army created at least 26 chemical weapons dump
sites off the coastlines of at least 11 states, but knows the rough nautical
coordinates of only half the sites.

At least 64 million pounds of liquid mustard gas and nerve agent in one-ton
steel canisters were dumped into the sea, along with at least 400,000
chemical-filled bombs, grenades, land mines and rockets as well as
radioactive waste, according to the reports.

The Army's documents are incomplete or vague. Years of records are missing
or were destroyed to clear office space at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in
Maryland, a longtime chemical weapon research and testing base.

And the Army has not reviewed its records of chemical weapons dumping before
World War II, when it was common to just throw the weapons into the ocean in
relatively shallow water, Brankowitz said.

As a result, more dump sites probably exist, he conceded.

Possible environmental disaster

The environmental impact of chemical weapons dump sites is unknown, but
potentially disastrous.

The ocean depth varies widely off the East Coast, as a rule gradually
deepening to 600 feet before hitting the outer continental shelf, which
drops off into very deep water. The shelf's location can be as close as 60
miles or as far as 200 miles from shore.

''The perception at the time was the ocean is vast, it would absorb it,''
said Craig Williams, director of the Chemical Weapons Working Group in
Kentucky, a grass-roots citizen group. ''Certainly, it is insane in
retrospect they would do it.''

''It would be inevitable, I assume, all of this will be released into the
ocean at some point or another,'' said Williams, who has fought Army plans
to incinerate some of the 44 million pounds of chemical weapons the country
now has stockpiled. ''I don't think anyone knows for sure the true danger.
It's just a matter of opinion. You can say, 'It's going to kill everyone,'
or you can say, 'It's not a problem.' The truth is somewhere in between.''

Based on the information available, the Army presumes most of the weapons
are in very deep water and are unlikely to jeopardize divers or commercial
fishing operations that dredge the ocean bottom.

John Chatterton doesn't believe that.

''I don't think it all is where they say it is,'' said Chatterton, a 25-year
veteran diver who searches for undiscovered shipwrecks as host of the
History Channel's ''Deep Sea Detectives.'' ''I've found a lot of stuff where
it's not supposed to be. Absolutely, positively, it is not a guarantee it is
there [in deep water].''

Chemical weapons were dumped long before electronic navigation systems were
invented. Their nautical locations are based on the word of ship captains,
who surely wanted to ditch their cargo quickly and, Chatterton suspects,
probably cut corners.

''The guys who were doing this were scared of this stuff. They were
well-motivated to get rid of this stuff as fast as they could,'' Chatterton
said. ''So they could take it all the way out there or else they could say,
'This is good enough,' and be back in port in three hours. I know what they
did. It's mariner nature.''

State officials in the dark

One of the first of the now-identified dump zones created at the end of
World War II was also one of the largest.

The Army dubbed it Disposal Site Baker.

The Army has only the vaguest idea where it is on the ocean floor somewhere
off Charleston, S.C., according to the most specific of surviving records.

''I have never had any information to suggest this was done,'' said Charles
Farmer, a marine biologist who has worked for South Carolina's Department of
Natural Resources for almost 40 years. ''I would say this is not well-known
to us at all. This is something that is new, at least to me. It's incredible
some of the things we've managed to do.''

The first documented dump off that state took place in March 1946 when four
railroad cars full of mustard gas bombs and mines were tossed over the side
of the USS Diamond Head, an ammunition ship.

Several months later, an estimated 23 barges full of German-produced nerve
gas bombs and U.S.-made Lewisite bombs were dumped in the same location.
Lewisite is a blister agent chemically akin to mustard agent. A single barge
carried up to 350 tons.

''If we don't have any idea of depths of water or location, hell, they could
be anywhere,'' Farmer said. ''As we have more and more activity and more and
more development off the coast, I hope this was buried in 6,000 feet of
water or a lot of this stuff is going to come back to haunt us.''

There is one indication those weapons were dumped in relatively shallow
water: Army records show that many of those 23 slow-moving barges were
unloaded in one-day, out-and-back operations.

The records leave no doubt that other chemical weapons were dumped close to
shore:

In 1944, at least 16,000 mustard-filled 100-pound bombs were unloaded off
the coast of Hawaii in deep water only five miles from shore.

Several mustard gas bombs fell into the Mississippi River near Braithwaite,
La., in 1945 and have never been found.

A reported 124 leaking German mustard gas bombs were tossed in the Gulf of
Mexico off Horn Island in Mississippi in 1946 from a barge that returned to
port a few hours later. The island is part of Gulf Islands National
Seashore, a popular vacation and fishing destination.

A 1947 dump site in the Aleutian Islands, part of Alaska, is only 12 miles
from a harbor.

Dump sites moved north

By the 1950s, the Army shifted much of its chemical dump operations north to
the Virginia-Maryland border and into deeper water.

In 1957 the Army dumped 48 tons of Lewisite off the coast of Virginia Beach
in 12,600 feet of water.

Three more dump zones were created more than 100 miles off the coastline
between Chincoteague, Va., and Assateague, Md., tourist spots known for
their unsullied beaches and populations of wild horses.

Dumped there in roughly 2,000 feet of water were at least 77,000
mustard-filled mortar shells, 5,000 white phosphorous munitions, 1,500
one-ton canisters of Lewisite and 800 55-gallon barrels of military
radioactive waste.

It could not be determined what kind of radioactive waste was dumped. But
there is one indication it could be highly dangerous nuclear waste with a
half-life of thousands of years.

National Archive records of the Army's secretive chemical weapons escort
unit, reviewed by the Daily Press, show numerous shipments in the 1950s
between a laboratory in Oak Ridge, Tenn., other Army bases with chemical
weapons slated for sea disposal, and the Yuma Testing Station in Arizona.

Oak Ridge was where thermonuclear weapons were being developed at the time.
Yuma was a military test ground for weapons in development. Records show a
shipment on March 7, 1953, was of 35,000 pounds of unidentified ''classified
materials.'' The Army apparently stopped dumping radioactive waste in the
late 1960s, the records show, when chemical weapons disposal operations
again headed north in the Atlantic.

Dumping off Jersey coast

Two ships full of the most potent of all nerve gases, known as VX, were
scuttled in 6,000 feet of water many miles off Atlantic City as part of
Operation CHASE.

CHASE was Pentagon shorthand for Cut Holes And Sink 'Em.

The nerve gas was in rockets that were encased in concrete before the ships
were scuttled.

The Army desperately wanted to get rid of these particular weapons. They
also contained jet fuel to propel the rockets. The fuel had a tendency to
''auto-ignite,'' or spontaneously explode.

The ships ‹ the SS Corporal Eric G. Gibson and SS Mormactern ‹ remain a
potential danger. Although the rockets were encased in concrete, scientists
don't know how quickly concrete breaks down from water pressure at such
depths.

A third ship that was scuttled nearby is no longer a hazard: It blew up on
its way to the ocean floor on Aug. 7, 1968.

That ship, the SS Richardson, was filled with conventional, high-explosive
weapons and 3,500 one-ton containers of mustard agent mixed with water. It
was on its way to the bottom in 7,800 feet of water when a chain-reaction
explosion went off, presumably caused by water pressure on one of the
weapons that set off the rest.

''This is really quite disturbing,'' said U.S. Rep. Robert Andrews, D-N.J.,
who has been fighting Army plans to dump chemically neutralized nerve gas in
the Delaware River. ''I did not know of any of this. It's a very serious
problem that state officials haven't been told.''

Not on any maps

Boaters, divers, fishermen and commercial seafood trawlers have no way to
steer clear of the dump sites.

That's because the Army has put only one of its 26 known chemical weapons
dumps on nautical charts, according to records kept by the National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal agency in charge of undersea cable-laying operations, as well as
gas and oil ventures, has only a vague idea of where chemical weapons were
thrown into the ocean, said spokesman Gary Strasburg.

That agency, Minerals Management Service, knows only what the Army has
revealed to the agency: that chemical weapons were dumped at sea and that
some are somewhere in the Gulf of Mexico and at a location somewhere off the
coast of South Carolina, agency records show.

The impact of dumping operations has never been studied. Few scientists knew
it was done, so studies of the decline in sea life over the years has never
focused on the possibility of leaking chemical weapons.

Commercial fishing operations, as well as scallop and clam trawlers, have
been forced to go farther and farther from shore over the last 25 years
because sea life has thinned for unknown reasons. Some scallopers now dredge
in up to 400 feet of water, which is more than 100 miles from the shore in
some East Coast locations.

The bottom-dwelling cod population in the Northern Atlantic has been
decimated.

Another cause of deaths?

Hundreds of bottlenose dolphins mysteriously washed up on Virginia and New
Jersey shores in 1987. They died with massive, never-explained skin blisters
that resembled mustard gas burns on humans.

Federal marine scientists ultimately attributed the unprecedented number of
dolphin deaths to a combination of morbillivirus related to distemper in
dogs and potent vibrio bacteria from industrial pollutants.

That combination has killed other marine mammals over the years. But none of
them has ever been found with their skin partially peeling off.

One marine mammal specialist who suspects leaking chemical weapons killed
the dolphins met with Army officials and was told dumping had been done but
was assured the weapons were unloaded in water too deep to harm the
coastal-living creatures.

''You'd see the photos and you'd say, 'Man, this animal was burned by
something,' '' said Bob Schoelkopf, director of the Marine Mammal Stranding
Center in Brigantine, N.J. He said ''it is a very good possibility'' leaking
chemical weapons killed the dolphins.

''It'd be nice to see the Army go down there and investigate, but nobody
wants to open that book, it seems,'' Schoelkopf said. ''You'd think they'd
want to go look at those sites and say once and for all this isn't a
problem. The amazing thing is they are not being monitored.''

The Army also wondered if its chemical weapons were responsible for the
dolphin deaths and was preparing to investigate some dump zones. The project
was scrapped when the deaths were attributed to the virus and bacteria, said
the Army's Brankowitz.

Little or no monitoring

Over the decades, the Army has conducted environmental tests on only four of
its dump sites, and none since 1975.

Some of the last tests the Army conducted were on the nerve gas-filled ships
off the coast of New Jersey, and they found no evidence the weapons had
leaked, Brankowitz said.

He said that leads the Army to presume the pressure on the weapons as they
sank to the bottom crushed the shells and squirted their deadly contents
onto the seabed, where they long ago broke down into their non-lethal
chemical components.

That may be wishful thinking, according to some scientists.

Shells filled with chemical weapons are more likely to slowly leak over time
than to be crushed while sinking, said Peter Brewer, a marine scientist at
the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California.

Regardless, he said, he considers the dangers of leaking chemical weapons in
deep-water sites to be low.

He noted that the only Army chemical weapons dump site on nautical charts ‹
the wreck of the SS William Ralston, which was scuttled 117 miles off the
coast of San Francisco in the 1950s ‹ has not been found to be leaking,
although he said scientists have monitored it only ''from a distance.''

Not far from that wreck, scientists have determined that drums of
radioactive waste dumped by industry in the 1950s have so corroded they now
are paper-thin with holes in some of them, said Richard Charter, a
California environmentalist with Environmental Defense.

He said he fears recent congressional approval of offshore gas and oil
exploration off the East and West coasts permitted through last year's
lifting of a 22-year-old moratorium could release the chemical agents from
their containers.

''It certainly is within the realm of possibility,'' he said. ''This is an
invasive activity.''

Seismic exploration is conducted by setting off massive air guns on the
ocean surface and measuring the blasts when they bounce off the ocean floor.
Such exploration, and drilling operations, have been conducted for decades
in the Gulf of Mexico without releasing chemical warfare agents dumped by
the Army in that body of water.

Leaking shells

Overseas, scientists who monitor chemical weapons dump sites off the coasts
of other countries have identified an unmistakable problem in the Skagerrak
Straits, a narrow but deep body of water that separates Norway and Denmark.

In 2002, Norwegian scientists sent a deep-diving, remote-operated vehicle to
investigate four ships full of captured German chemical weapons. The U.S.
and British military scuttled them after World War II in roughly 2,000 feet
of water.

The Norwegians discovered the sunken ships remain intact. Some of the shells
had leaked. Others were slowly corroding. That revealed a problem that could
last hundreds of years, the scientists concluded.

Soil sediment showed high levels of arsenic, a component of some of the
chemical weapons. Arsenic is bioaccumulative. This means bottom-feeding
shellfish are likely to be contaminated and pass arsenic up the food chain
to accumulate in humans who eat them, the scientists discovered.

Also worrisome: Nets from fishing trawlers were found tangled on some of the
weapons-filled wrecks.

''It might be possible to get chemical ammunition in the nets, which could
then be brought up to the surface and poison fishermen,'' the scientists
wrote in a report on the expedition. ''It is also a possibility that fishing
equipment could damage the wrecks and expose the chemical ammunition to the
water, increasing the release of the agents to the environment.''

While the Army may not have known better at the time, it is obligated to at
least assess the danger the dump sites pose today, said Lenny Siegel,
executive director of the Center for Public Environmental Oversight, who has
specialized in chemical weapons issues.

''If no one does a study looking for three-legged fish, how do they know
it's not a problem?'' he asked. ''My guess is the risks are remote in most
cases, but I think you have to at least evaluate the risk. They have to take
continuing responsibility.

''They need to see if there is an impact on the food chain. If there is, you
have to warn people. If so, they have to do something with them.''

-----------

U.S. NOT LEGALLY BOUND TO REVEAL DUMP SITES
By John Bull
The Morning Call
October 31, 2005

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a1_5dumpday2oct31,0,6790761,print.story

Editor's note: For decades, the U.S. Army secretly dumped millions of pounds
of chemical weapons off the coasts of America and other nations throughout
the world. Today, in the second day of a two-part series, we examine the
extent ‹ and the potential environmental disaster ‹ of the dumping that
occurred worldwide.

..........

As World War II drew to a close, the U.S. Army was faced with scant storage
space in ordnance depots at home and massive chemical weapons stockpiles
overseas.

The solution: Dump the weapons off the coast of whatever country they were
in.

The result: U.S.-made weapons of mass destruction litter the coasts of more
than 10 countries including Italy, France, India, Australia, the
Philippines, Pakistan, Japan, Denmark and Norway, and the French territory
of New Caledonia, according to a 2001 Army report recently released to the
Daily Press of Newport News, Va.

The chemical weapons remain there to this day. They are extremely dangerous.

Some of them have washed up on shore or have been dredged up by fishermen.
At least 200 people have been seriously injured over the years.

The Army now admits it secretly dumped at least 64 million pounds of
chemical warfare agents as well as more than 400,000 mustard gas-filled
bombs and rockets off the U.S. coastline, and much more than that off the
coasts of other countries, a Daily Press investigation has found.

The Army can't say where all the dump sites are. There may be more.

The Army is missing years of records on where it secretly dumped surplus
chemical weapons from the close of World War II until 1970, when the
practice was halted. It has not reviewed records of post-World War I at-sea
chemical weapons dumping, but knows the practice was commonplace at the
time.

In addition to at least 26 dump sites off the American coast, more than 30
U.S.-created chemical weapons dump sites are scattered throughout the
world's oceans off the coasts of other countries, according to the newly
released Army report. The report was created by the chemical weapon
historical research and response team at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in
Maryland.

''It's a disaster looming, a time bomb, say,'' said Gert Harigel, a
physicist in Geneva, Switzerland, who has been active in international
chemical weapons issues. ''The scientific community knows very little about
it. It scares me a lot.''

The United States is not legally bound to do anything about the dangers it
created in the world's oceans, whether from its own weapons it dumped or
those of captured enemy stockpiles.

A 1975 treaty signed by the United States prohibits ocean dumping of
chemical munitions. But it does not address dump zones created before the
treaty was signed.

And the overseas chemical dump sites are presumed to be in international
waters, inoculating the U.S. government from legal responsibility, said
Peter Kaiser, spokesman for the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical
Weapons at The Hague in the Netherlands.

''Legally, nothing can be done,'' said Harigel, a member of the Geneva
International Peace Research Institute. ''But from a humanitarian point of
view, they need to be pressured to do something.''

At the least, Harigel said, the U.S. government should monitor the chemical
dump sites it created and spread warnings if environmental evidence shows
they are leaking.

Other nations with dump sites

In recent years, the Army quietly has gone through decades-old classified
records and identified five other countries where U.S. chemical-laden bombs,
rockets and grenades were thrown into the sea. The names of those countries
remain classified, but records at the National Archives provide hints.

The Daily Press uncovered an Aug. 24, 1944, memo classified at the time as
''restricted'' that revealed in which other allied countries the United
States kept stockpiles of chemical weapons during World War II.

Those countries include New Zealand, China, the former Soviet Union and
unidentified ''Latin American countries.'' The United States used parts of
Panama as chemical weapons bombing ranges for years. Other National Archives
records detail two shipments of unidentified chemical weapons, totaling
20,000 pounds, in 1953 and 1954 from the United States to Fort Amador in
Panama.

The Army says it informed the governments of those five unidentified
countries in recent years of the dangers lurking off their coasts, but was
asked by those governments not to release the information to the public.

Two summers ago, researchers for the New Zealand government searched U.S.
government records at the National Archives, seeking information on chemical
weapons ocean dump sites, said archivist Tim Nenninger.

Harigel said residents of those unidentified countries should be told by
someone, either their governments or the U.S. Army, of the potential
dangers.

''Whether or not anything can be done at this point, the people there
deserve to know,'' he said. ''The danger increases with time. The shells are
more and more corroding. The fishermen can easily get this stuff into their
nets and get seriously hurt.''

Scientists have determined the mustard agent damages DNA, causes cancer and
survives for at least five years on the ocean floor in a concentrated gel.
Nerve gas lasts at least six weeks when it is released into seawater,
killing every organism it touches before breaking down into nonlethal
component chemicals.

Chemical-filled munitions now on sea beds are slowly leaking, and more
surely will as years pass, depending on the depth of the water, the
thickness of the containers and water temperature, according to a 2004 study
by Jiri Matousek, a Czech scientist.

The hazard of leaking shells probably will last for ''another tens to
hundreds of years,'' he concluded. ''It is also without doubt that long-term
monitoring at areas of concern is needed as a categorical imperative.''

The problem is so bad in the Baltic Sea that Denmark has covered portions of
some shallow-water dump sites with concrete to contain leakage.

Other nations not told

The Army has known for decades of its overseas chemical weapons dumps, yet
left other governments to discover and deal with the problem on their own.

Japan's problems from U.S. chemical weapons dumping didn't come to light
until a government inquiry in 1973, after more than 85 fishermen were
injured by chemical warfare agents dumped by either U.S. occupation forces
or the Japanese military at the close of World War II.

It wasn't until 2003 that Australia discovered on its own that the U.S. Army
had dumped more than 60 million pounds of chemical weapons off Brisbane, and
pinpointed precise quantities and nautical coordinates. The Australian
government posted the area off-limits to mariners and released a
well-publicized report on its findings.

The Canadian Department of National Defence has worked for three years to
identify offshore chemical weapons dump sites created by either the U.S. or
Canadian military. Three have been found, and the Canadians believe the
United States may have created one of them.

The well-publicized Warfare Agent Disposal project began after a Halifax
area antiques dealer named Myles Kehoe discovered that the Canadian military
had moved some of its post-World War II chemical munitions through Nova
Scotia for disposal. When his fisherman father remembered hearing that the
ordnance was loaded onto ships and dumped somewhere at sea, alarm bells went
off in Kehoe's head.

''He laughed about it,'' Kehoe said. ''They did it all the time, he said.''
At Kehoe's insistent prodding, the Canadians have identified three chemical
weapons dump sites in Canadian waters and are researching roughly 1,200
other underwater locations that their records show may be ordnance dumps.

Stockpile unaccounted for

The Canadian government believes the United States may have jettisoned
chemical weapons roughly 100 miles off the coast of Vancouver Island in
British Columbia, north of Washington state. The U.S. Army says it has no
record that was done, but won't rule it out.

''I won't say there's nothing there that belongs to us,'' said William
Brankowitz, a deputy project manager in the U.S. Army Chemical Materials
Agency and a leading authority on the Army's chemical weapons dumping.

The United States had an 18-ton stockpile of chemical weapons in Alaska
after World War II, National Archives records reveal. The Army doesn't know
where it all went.

The two other chemical weapons dump sites in Canadian waters are off the
coast of Sable Island and Nova Scotia, near the Grand Banks, one of the
world's best fisheries, with one site spread out over at least 30 nautical
miles. It is presumed to have been created by the Canadian government after
World War II.

''Fisheries are dying. The sea bottom is going bare. It's terrible,'' Kehoe
said. ''We are finding crab mutations that no one can explain. Cod are dying
at their larval stage. Most of that stuff is starting to leach now'' from
their steel containers into the sea.

Kehoe's campaign for information and action has spanned 13 years and is
becoming increasingly frantic.

A few years ago, the U.S.-based Hunt Oil Co. was granted a license by the
Canadian government to conduct seismic testing for potential petroleum
products off the coast of Nova Scotia.

''There is absolutely no scientific documentation on what effect oil
exploration has on these dump sites,'' Kehoe noted. ''There is absolutely no
research on it. The National Defence Department went public, on air, saying
we don't know the impact of seismic testing on these sites.

''This nightmare is going to be happening to you over there. It's
horrifying.''

170,000 tons to sea bottom

In the most publicized of all chemical weapons dumps, British and U.S.
forces loaded dozens of German ships with captured nerve and mustard gas
from 1945 to 1947 and sank them in the Skagerrak strait. The wrecks are off
the coasts of Sweden, Norway and Denmark, and near the Danish island of
Bornholm in the relatively shallow Baltic Sea.

It was called Operation Davy Jones Locker. An estimated 170,000 tons of
German chemical weapons went to the bottom. Most, but not all, went into
deep water.

Russia also dumped some if its chemical weapons stockpile in the ocean. So
did Australia, not far from the Great Barrier Reef. And England dumped much
of its stockpile so close to land in the North Sea that chemical ordnance
routinely washes up on its shore to this day.

The United States' ocean dumping of chemical weapons stockpiles both at home
and overseas made logistical sense at the end of World War II, and no one in
those days had much environmental awareness.

At the time, U.S. ordnance depots across the country were packed with war
supplies, including a stockpile of 60 million gas masks, National Archive
records show.

Room had to be made for chemical weapons still in production but not yet
delivered, and there was little space to put overseas stockpiles if they
were brought back to the United States.

By early 1945, a blizzard of memos out of the War Department demanded that
ordnance depots reduce unnecessary stock by emptying and burying drums of
chemical warfare agents and selling nonhazardous material to the public as
war surplus, National Archives records show.

War surplus sales were so frenzied that in October 1945 a colonel in the
Chemical Weapon Service issued a memo warning that bomb-packing crates must
be better inspected before being sold. Buyers, it turned out, had discovered
some of the crates still had bombs in them.

Sailors jeopardized en route

Besides having nowhere to put them, chemical weapons were dangerous to
transport by ship and jeopardized sailors, the Army discovered. Several
shipments back to the United States resulted in leaks.

Leak detection was unsophisticated at the time.

If nerve gas was shipped, crates of rabbits were placed on deck. If the
rabbits died, the crew knew there was a serious problem.

Edward Aho, of Astoria, Ore., was on the SS Isaac Wise as it was loaded in
spring 1946 with captured German mustard and phosgene gas bombs. During the
trip from Antwerp, Belgium, to the former San Jacinto Ordnance Depot in
Houston, 16 of the bombs leaked and at least five people were burned,
declassified Army records show.

Aho said the only precaution taken before the ship sailed was to build
wooden bulkheads against the steel skin of the ship, in the hope the wood
would cushion the blow if the ship's movement dislodged the bombs.

Aho, 78, said he was sent into the ship's hold once to look for a leak,
protected only by a gas mask and armed only with a primitive gas detection
device that looked like a ''battery with a gauge on it.'' ''I'll never know
if what [nervous system] problems I have [are] related. I'll never know,''
he said in a phone interview, declining to specify his health problems.

Those leaking bombs were destroyed in Texas. The rest of the bombs were
taken by railcar to Pine Bluff Arsenal in Arkansas. During the trip, more of
them leaked. What happened to them after that is unclear from the sketchy
Army records that still exist.

Hundreds injured

Over the decades, many fishermen overseas have been seriously injured after
being exposed to U.S. chemical weapons dumps created after World War II.

''Around the world, accidents have happened,'' said the Army's Brankowitz.
''Fortunately, there has been nothing I would call colossal or catastrophic
accidents.''

Denmark's government estimates that chemical warfare agents dumped in the
sea by either the United States or Britain have hurt 150 mariners and have
been discovered washed up on shore. In 1984 alone, 11 Danish fishermen were
burned by mustard gas while fishing in the Baltic Sea.

Crews of fishing boats off the Danish island of Bornholm routinely wear
chemical protection suits when at sea near a known chemical weapons dump
site. Vessels working other areas of the Baltic are required to keep gas
masks and special medical kits on board.

The problem is so bad in the relatively shallow Baltic Sea that the seabed
is surveyed every summer by Latvia, Russia and Finland to determine whether
long-dumped chemical shells are leaking.

At least 52 Japanese were injured in 11 accidents at one of eight known U.S.
chemical ocean dumps, mostly of Japan's captured chemical weapons
stockpiles. When the Japanese government publicized the locations of those
dump areas in the 1970s, the number of injuries dropped.

Disclosure by Australia

In 1983, an Australian fishing trawler snagged a one-ton steel container of
mustard agent dumped off the coast of Cape Moreton in Australia by the
United States and pulled it to shore, according to a 2003 Australian
government report. No one was injured.

The partially filled container was snared in relatively shallow water not
far from where the U.S. Army now admits it dumped an estimated 32,000 tons
of mustard agent and toxic Lewisite in drums, and in hundreds of thousands
of chemical-filled artillery shells.

It was the second time a trawler in that area pulled up a one-ton mustard
gas container dumped by the United States. The first was on Jan. 17, 1970. A
few years later, a similar, partially filled container washed up on shore.
No one was injured in those two incidents.

In 2003, the Australian government created an in-depth report on what it
calls chemical warfare agent dumps, identifying exact latitudes and
longitudes of U.S.- and Australian-created chemical weapons dumps. The
information was released to the public and widely publicized in the news
media there.

''The publication of this paper will, hopefully, prevent accidents occurring
at the CWA dump sites where coordinates have been revealed,'' the report
concludes. ''It will also, hopefully, encourage other governments to reveal
locations of their CWA sea dump sites for the same purpose.''

That's something the United States has not fully done, and should do out of
simple decency to its citizens and residents of other countries where the
Army created chemical weapons hazards, said Harigel, of Switzerland.

''The government is not open to the public in the United States,'' he said.
''There should be pressure put on them.''

------------

CHEMICAL WEAPONS IN THE SEA

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a4_5dumpinfooct30,0,7872510.story?coll=a
ll-newsopinion-utl

Here are some of the chemical weapons the Army dumped into the sea. The
shells and steel containers are likely to be corroding and unstable, the
contents still deadly.


MUSTARD GAS

First used during World War I, mustard gas is a colorless, odorless liquid
at room temperature and causes extreme blistering of the skin. The name
stems from its color and smell in its impure state. It is not related to
mustard in any way.

It is commonly referred to as a gas because the military designed it for use
as an aerosol, spread through the air for maximum impact.

Even slight exposure leads to deep, agonizing blisters that appear within
four to 24 hours of contact. If it gets into the eyes, they swell shut and
blindness can result. If inhaled at high doses, the respiratory system
bleeds internally and death is likely.

It was the most common type of chemical weapon dumped into the ocean. It was
dumped in one-ton canisters and shells for decades. Mustard gas is heavier
than seawater, so it sinks and rolls around on the ocean floor with the
prevailing current.

It lasts at least five years in seawater in a concentrated gel before it
begins to break down.


NERVE GAS

The most deadly of chemical warfare agents, one drop of nerve gas can kill a
person within a minute. Death comes through seizure.

It is colorless and odorless, with the texture of high-grade motor oil. It
is easily spread through the air. It attacks the human nervous system,
causing almost instant spasms before preventing involuntary muscle actions,
such as the pumping of the heart.

The Germans developed nerve gas during World War II, and only a few
countries now are known to possess any of it.

The United States produced VX, the most lethal version of nerve gas, in
large quantities by 1961, and much of it remains in the Army's stockpile,
awaiting destruction required under international treaty.

In the late 1960s, the U.S. dumped more than 20,000 nerve gas-filled M55
rockets into the ocean after encasing them in concrete. The rockets were
found to be loaded with a propellant prone to spontaneous ignition. Those
rockets are in the holds of three ships, two sunk off the coast of New
Jersey, the third off the coast of Florida.


LEWISITE

Developed too late for use in World War I, Lewisite is a blister agent akin
to mustard gas. It is oily in its pure form and can appear amber or black in
its impure state. It smells a bit like geraniums.

It can easily penetrate clothing and rubber masks. Exposure results in
painful blisters and lesions that begin within seconds and last for two to
three days. Lewisite was meant to incapacitate ‹ not necessarily kill ‹
enemy forces, clogging hospitals and causing terror.

Intense nausea, diarrhea and vomiting are common, and shock from low blood
pressure is likely. Eye exposure can cause blindness. Extensive exposure can
cause systemic arsenic-like poisoning, leading to liver damage or death.

After an antidote was discovered during World War II, the Army decided it
wasn't as useful as other chemical weapons and dumped much its stockpile in
the ocean, mostly in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of South Carolina.
Scientists know little about what happens to Lewisite in seawater.


PHOSGENE

Used during World War I, it is a highly toxic gas that has no color but
smells vaguely like moldy hay. It is a particularly insidious poison in that
exposure doesn't result in symptoms until 24 to 72 hours later.

...........

DO NOT TOUCH

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a5_5dumpbox2oct30,0,5587904.story?coll=a
ll-newsopinion-utl

Bomb disposal experts give these safety tips if you encounter ordnance:

Don't pick it up. Don't poke it, prod it or dig around it.

Back up. Don't let anyone near it.

Call the police, or the Coast Guard if at sea, and report exactly where it
is.

If it is pulled up in a fishing net, don't bring it on board. Note the
nautical coordinates.

Assume it is live.

Just because it looks old and harmless doesn't make it so. Ordnance from the
Civil War could still go off.

Remember these weapons are designed to injure and kill.

The ordnance could be full of gas, often colorless and odorless and
extremely deadly.

...........

RELATED ARTICLE:

MUSTARD GAS ORDNANCE FROM OFF NEW JERSEY SHORE IS A MYSTERY
http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-a3_5dumpsideoct30,0,5251062.story?coll=a
ll-newsopinion-utl


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RUMSFELD'S GROWING STAKE IN TAMIFLU
DEFENSE SECRETARY, EX-CHAIRMAN OF FLU TREATMENT RIGHTS HOLDER, SEES
PORTFOLIO VALUE GROWING.
By Nelson D. Schwartz
Fortune
October 31, 2005

http://money.cnn.com/2005/10/31/news/newsmakers/fortune_rumsfeld/index.htm

NEW YORK - The prospect of a bird flu outbreak may be panicking people
around the globe, but it's proving to be very good news for Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other politically connected investors in
Gilead Sciences, the California biotech company that owns the rights to
Tamiflu, the influenza remedy that's now the most-sought after drug in the
world.

Rumsfeld served as Gilead (Research)'s chairman from 1997 until he joined
the Bush administration in 2001, and he still holds a Gilead stake valued at
between $5 million and $25 million, according to federal financial
disclosures filed by Rumsfeld.

The forms don't reveal the exact number of shares Rumsfeld owns, but in the
past six months fears of a pandemic and the ensuing scramble for Tamiflu
have sent Gilead's stock from $35 to $47. That's made the Pentagon chief,
already one of the wealthiest members of the Bush cabinet, at least $1
million richer.

Rumsfeld isn't the only political heavyweight benefiting from demand for
Tamiflu, which is manufactured and marketed by Swiss pharma giant Roche.
(Gilead receives a royalty from Roche equaling about 10% of sales.) Former
Secretary of State George Shultz, who is on Gilead's board, has sold more
than $7 million worth of Gilead since the beginning of 2005.

Another board member is the wife of former California Gov. Pete Wilson.

"I don't know of any biotech company that's so politically well-connected,"
says analyst Andrew McDonald of Think Equity Partners in San Francisco.

What's more, the federal government is emerging as one of the world's
biggest customers for Tamiflu. In July, the Pentagon ordered $58 million
worth of the treatment for U.S. troops around the world, and Congress is
considering a multi-billion dollar purchase. Roche expects 2005 sales for
Tamiflu to be about $1 billion, compared with $258 million in 2004.

Rumsfeld recused himself from any decisions involving Gilead when he left
Gilead and became Secretary of Defense in early 2001. And late last month,
notes a senior Pentagon official, Rumsfeld went even further and had the
Pentagon's general counsel issue additional instructions outlining what he
could and could not be involved in if there were an avian flu pandemic and
the Pentagon had to respond.

As the flu issue heated up early this year, according to the Pentagon
official, Rumsfeld considered unloading his entire Gilead stake and sought
the advice of the Department of Justice, the SEC and the federal Office of
Government Ethics.

Those agencies didn't offer an opinion so Rumsfeld consulted a private
securities lawyer, who advised him that it was safer to hold on to the stock
and be quite public about his recusal rather than sell and run the risk of
being accused of trading on insider information, something Rumsfeld doesn't
believe he possesses. So he's keeping his shares for the time being.

------------

NHNE NEWS LIST FLU-RELATED ARTICLES:

LAW SEEKS TO ELIMINATE LIABILITY FOR VACCINE INJURIES (11/3/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10260

MAN CHARGED IN FLU SHOT SCAM (10/30/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10232

AVIAN FLU: PERSPECTIVES & RESOURCES (10/24/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/10199

THE FLU SCARE GAME (10/21/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8121

HELPFUL INFORMATION FROM LAST YEAR'S FLU SEASON (10/21/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8120

FOLLOWUP: WHAT TO DO IF YOU COME DOWN WITH THE FLU (12/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6407

FLU SHOTS (12/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6386

------------

VITAMIN C ARTICLES & RESOURCES:

INTRAVENOUS VITAMIN C KILLS CANCER CELLS (9/14/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9962

VITAMIN C MAY BE A LIFE-SAVER (4/23/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9061

RELATED LINKS:

Clinical Guide to the Use of Vitamin C
The Clinical Experiences of Frederick R. Klenner, M.D.,
abbreviated, sumarized and annotated by
Lendon H. Smith, M.D.
http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/198x/smith-lh-clinical_guide_1988.htm

The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C
By Fred R. Klenner, M.D., Reidsville, North Carolina
July, 1949
http://www.orthomed.com/polio.htm

------------

VACCINATION-RELATED ARTICLES & RESOURCES:

KENNEDY: LOOK TO AMISH FOR AUTISM/THIMEROSAL CONNECTION (8/10/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9709

DEBATE OVER VACCINES, AUTISM WON'T DIE (7/6/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9516

ON AUTISM'S CAUSE, IT'S PARENTS VS. RESEARCH (6/25/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9446

ABC FLIP-FLOP ON KENNEDY THIMEROSAL INTERVIEW (6/20/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9393

THE VERY DARK SIDE OF IMMUNIZATIONS (6/17/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/9376

'91 MEMO WARNED OF MERCURY IN SHOTS (2/15/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8859

FEDS WON'T WARN PARENTS ABOUT MERCURY-LACED VACCINE (4/5/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7030

AUTISM LINKED TO PRESERVATIVE IN CHILDHOOD VACCINES (2/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6715

JUDGE: PENTAGON CANNOT FORCE ANTHRAX SHOTS (12/24/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6479

PENTAGON: VACCINES MAY BE LINKED TO SOLDIER'S DEATH (11/20/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6288

U.S. SMALLPOX VACCINATION PLAN 'CEASED' (10/16/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6107

POSSIBLE VACCINATION-INDUCED BLOOD CLOTS FELLING U.S. TROOPS (10/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6063

U.S. MILITARY FAILS TO CREATE BASELINE MEDICAL RECORDS (10/3/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6041

MYSTERY DEATHS FUEL VACCINE ANXIETIES (9/21/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5978

NO NEED FOR GENERAL U.S. SMALLPOX SHOTS (8/13/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5796

VACCINES MAY BE INVOLVED IN SOLDIER'S DEATHS (8/9/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5774

SOLDIER GUILTY FOR REFUSING ANTHRAX SHOT (5/28/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5429

U.K. SOLDIERS: 'WAR VACCINES POISONED US' (5/27/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5416

OFFICIALS SEEK SMALLPOX VACCINE COMPENSATION FUND (3/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4677

MORE ON LOW SMALLPOX VACCINATION TURNOUT (2/7/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4398

MILLIONS OF COMPUTERS JOIN FORCES TO FIND SMALLPOX CURE (2/6/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4384

BUSH'S SMALLPOX BOONDOGGLE (2/4/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4370

PANEL URGES SMALLPOX VACCINE WARNINGS (1/20/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4263

BUSH RECEIVES SMALLPOX VACCINATION (12/21/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4152

RUMSFELD SAYS HE'LL TAKE SMALLPOX VACCINE (12/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4139

SMALLPOX SHOTS MADE STUDENTS SICK (12/14/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4101

BUSH'S SMALLPOX VACCINE SPEECH (SUMMARY & TEXT) (12/14/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4100

WHEN PARENTS SAY NO TO CHILD VACCINATIONS (12/1/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4011

BUSH TO ANNOUNCE PLAN FOR SMALLPOX VACCINATIONS (11/26/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3996

PROPOSAL TO TEST SMALLPOX VACCINE IN YOUNG CHILDREN (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3933

PENTAGON HAS SMALLPOX PLAN FOR TROOPS (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3932

FORCED VACCINES HAUNT GULF VETS (11/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3931

FEDS PUSHING TOXIC ANTHRAX DRUG? (10/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3888

GI GUINEA PIGS (10/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3885

AN EPIDEMIC OF AUTISM (10/19/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3827

VACCINATED PEOPLE CAN TRANSMIT VACCINIA VIRUS (10/17/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3824

ANCIENT & ALTERNATIVE REMEDIES FOR BIOTERRORISM (10/12/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3808

PENTAGON PLANS SMALLPOX SHOTS FOR UP TO 500,000 (10/12/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3807

SMALLPOX VACCINE GUIDELINES READIED (9/23/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3714

SMALLPOX OUTBREAK: WHAT TO DO (8/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3592

DOUBTS OVER SMALLPOX VACCINES EMERGE (7/30/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3497

TWO ARTICLES: MMR VACCINATIONS CONNECTED TO AUTISM (8/10/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3559

CONGRESSMAN CALLS FOR CRIMINAL PENALTIES AT VACCINE MERCURY HEARINGS
  (7/20/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3443

U.S. TO VACCINATE 500,000 WORKERS AGAINST SMALLPOX (7/7/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3371

LIVING WITHOUT VACCINATIONS (12/8/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2371

LEADING DOCTORS' GROUP OPPOSE MANDATORY VACCINATIONS (11/4/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/793

-----------

RELATED WEBSITES:

NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER (NVIC):
http://www.909shot.com/

VACCINATION LIBERATION:
http://www.vaclib.org/

100+ GREAT ANTI-VAX INFO LINKS:
http://www.vaclib.org/links/vaxlinks.htm

VACCINATION NEWS:
http://www.vaccinationnews.com

AUTISM LINKS:
http://momsonamissionforautism.org/Links.shtml

MERCURY AND THIMEROSAL LINKS:
http://www.vaclib.org/basic/mercuryindex.htm

ANTHRAX VACCINE INFORMATION:
http://www.anthraxvaccine.org

CDC SMALLPOX INFORMATION:
http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/smallpox/index.asp

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION:
http://www.cdc.gov/

------------

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------------

GOP ANGERED BY CLOSED SENATE SESSION
Meeting Reopened After Two Hours
By Charles Babington and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post
Wednesday, November 2, 2005; Page A01

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101
037.html

Democrats forced the Senate into a rare closed-door session yesterday,
infuriating Republicans but extracting from them a promise to speed up an
inquiry into the Bush administration's handling of intelligence about Iraq's
weapons in the run-up to the war.

With no warning in the mid-afternoon, the Senate's top Democrat invoked the
little-used Rule 21, which forced aides to turn off the chamber's cameras
and close its massive doors after evicting all visitors, reporters and most
staffers. Plans to bring in electronic-bug-sniffing dogs were dropped when
it became clear that senators would trade barbs but discuss no classified
information.

Republicans condemned the Democrats' maneuver, which marked the first time
in more than 25 years that one party had insisted on a closed session
without consulting the other party. But within two hours, Republicans
appointed a bipartisan panel to report on the progress of a Senate
intelligence committee report on prewar intelligence, which Democrats say
has been delayed for nearly a year.

"Finally, after months and months and months of begging, cajoling, writing
letters, we're finally going to be able to have phase two of the
investigation regarding how the intelligence was used to lead us into the
intractable war in Iraq," Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) told
reporters, claiming a rare victory for Democrats in the GOP-controlled
Congress.

Beneath the political pyrotechnics was an issue that has infuriated liberals
but flummoxed many of the Democratic lawmakers who voted three years ago to
approve the war: allegations that administration officials exaggerated
Iraq's weapons capabilities and terrorism ties and then resisted inquiries
into the intelligence failures. Friday's indictment of top White House aide
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on perjury and obstruction charges gave Democrats a
new opening to demand that more light be shed on these issues, including
administration efforts to discredit a key critic of the prewar claims of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

Democrats were dismayed that President Bush made no apologies after the
indictment and that his naming of a new Supreme Court nominee Monday knocked
the Libby story off many front pages. As he stood on the Senate floor to
demand the closed session -- a motion not subject to a vote under the rule
-- Reid said Libby's grand jury indictment "asserts this administration
engaged in actions that both harmed our national security and are morally
repugnant."

The usually unflappable majority leader, Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), was searching
for words to express his outrage to reporters a few minutes later. The
Senate "has been hijacked by the Democratic leadership," he said. "They have
no convictions, they have no principles, they have no ideas." Never before
had he been "slapped in the face with such an affront," he said, adding:
"For the next year and a half, I can't trust Senator Reid."

Frist seemed much calmer when the closed session ended. He agreed to a
six-senator bipartisan task force that will report by Nov. 14 on "the
intelligence committee's progress of the phase two review of the prewar
intelligence and its schedule for completion."

Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) said the report was nearing
completion anyway, but Democrats disputed that. Committee Vice Chairman John
D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) began inquiring about the evidence against Iraq
one week before U.S. troops invaded in March 2003. His interest was sparked
by revelations that the Bush administration gave forged documents to U.N.
weapons inspectors to support allegations that Iraq had sought to buy a key
ingredient for nuclear weapons from the West African nation of Niger.

Roberts resisted a full investigation for three months. But in June 2003,
when it became increasingly apparent that no weapons of mass destruction
were being found in Iraq, the committee agreed to look into the intelligence
cited in the administration's case for war. In February 2004, senators
agreed to a second phase that would investigate the Bush administration's
use of intelligence and examine public statements made by key policymakers
about the threat posed by Iraq.

In July 2004, the committee issued the first phase of its bipartisan report,
which found the U.S. intelligence community had assembled a deeply flawed
and exaggerated assessment of Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. The
second phase was to focus on the administration's deliberations over the
intelligence or how it was used. Sources familiar with the committee's work
said there has been little examination of these topics to date.

The Defense Department's Office of Special Plans stopped cooperating with
the Senate panel in July of this year. Roberts said key officials hired
lawyers and stopped talking when Rockefeller suggested laws may have been
broken. But Democrats dismissed that as an excuse.

Authority to hold secret Senate sessions is provided in Article 1, Section 5
of the Constitution, and the Continental Congress met behind closed doors.
But the practice has ebbed in recent years. The most recent closed Senate
session was in February 1999 to deliberate President Bill Clinton's
impeachment trial, according to the Congressional Research Service, and that
was done through a bipartisan agreement.

Reid said he was forced to seek the closed session to spur action on the
investigation. "The only way we've been able to get their attention is to
spend 3 1/2 hours in a closed session," he said. "It's a slap in the face to
the American people that this investigation has been stymied."

Rockefeller said Democratic requests for information related to the
investigation are routinely denied or ignored, and he suggested that the
Senate Republican leadership was under orders from the Bush administration
not to cooperate.

"Any time the intelligence committee pursued a line of inquiry that brought
us close to the role of the White House in all of this in the use of
intelligence prior to the war, our efforts have been thwarted time and time
again," Rockefeller said. "The very independence of the United States
Congress as a separate and coequal branch of the government has been called
into question."

------------

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------------

GLOBAL EYE
PHILOSOPHER'S STONE
By Chris Floyd
The Moscow Times
November 3, 2005

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/story/157310/

Last week, a legal thunderbolt struck at the heart of the grubby conspiracy
that led the United States and Britain into an illegal war of aggression
against Iraq. But this searing blow didn't fall in Washington, where a media
frenzy raged over a White House indictment, but in southern England, in a
military courtroom, where a lone soldier stood against the full force of the
great war-crime enterprise, armed only with a single, rusty, obsolete
weapon: the law.

While Potomac courtiers were reading the entrails of the cooked goose of
Scooter Libby -- the first Bushist honcho caught in the slow-grinding gears
of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation -- in Wiltshire,
Flight Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith faced a court martial after
declaring that the Iraq war was illegal and refusing to return for his third
tour of duty there, The Guardian reports.

He has been charged with four counts of "disobeying a lawful command." But
Kendall-Smith, a decorated medical officer in the Royal Air Force, says that
his study of the recently revealed evidence about the lies, distortions and
manipulations used to justify the invasion has convinced him that both the
war and the occupation are "manifestly illegal." Thus any order arising from
this criminal action is itself an "unlawful command," The Sunday Times
reports. In fact, the RAF's own manual of law compels him to refuse such
illegal orders, Kendall-Smith insists.

The flight lieutenant is no ordinary war protester, and no shirker of combat
-- unlike, say, the pair of prissy cowards at the head of the U.S.-British
"coalition." Kendall-Smith, who has dual New Zealand-British citizenship --
and a pair of university degrees in medicine and Kantian moral philosophy --
has served three tours at the front in Afghanistan and Iraq. He is not
claiming any conscientious objections against war in general, nor do
religious scruples play any part in his stance. It is based solely on the
law.

Central to his case are the sinister backroom legal dealings between London
and Washington in the days before the invasion. Less than two weeks before
the initial "shock and awe" bombings began slaughtering civilians across
Iraq, Lord Goldsmith, the British attorney general, gave Prime Minister Tony
Blair a detailed briefing full of doubts and equivocations about the
legality of the coming war, adding that Britain's participation in an attack
unsanctioned by the United Nations would "likely" lead to "close scrutiny"
by the International Criminal Court for potential war crimes charges, The
Observer reports.

But Blair and Goldsmith withheld this report from Parliament, the Cabinet
and British military brass, who were demanding a clear-cut legal sanction
for the impending action. Then, just three days before the bloodletting
began, Goldsmith suddenly produced another paper, this time for public
consumption: a brief, clear, unequivocal statement that the invasion would
be legal. This statement was almost certainly crafted in Washington, where
Goldsmith had recently been "tutored" by the Bush gang's consiglieres,
including the legal advisers to Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld and
Condoleezza Rice.

Leading this pack of war-baying legal beagles was George W. Bush's top
counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who had overseen the White House's own efforts to
weasel out of potential war crimes charges by declaring -- without any basis
in Anglo-American jurisprudence or the U.S. Constitution -- that Bush was
not bound by any law whatsoever in any military action he undertook: a blank
check for aggression, murder and torture that Bush has gleefully cashed over
and over. Alberto and the boys leaned hard on Goldsmith, who finally caved
in and replicated the Americans' contorted and specious legal arguments for
launching the attack.

Of course, Kendall-Smith knew none of this during his first two tours in
Iraq: Goldsmith's Bush-induced backflip was only divulged in April 2005. Nor
did he know then of the "Downing Street Memos," the "smoking gun" minutes
that record Blair's inner circle dutifully lining up behind Bush's hell-bent
drive for war -- as far back as 2002 -- and their conspiracy with the Bush
gang to manipulate their countries into war. The memos, which emerged in May
2005 and have never been denied or repudiated by the British government,
show Blair's slavish acquiescence in Bush's criminal scheme to "fix the
facts and the intelligence around the policy" of unprovoked military
aggression. Confronted with this new evidence -- and revelations about the
mountain of doubts expressed by U.S. intelligence before the invasion but
deliberately ignored by the Bushist war party -- Kendall-Smith took the only
honorable course for a soldier who has been duped into serving an evil
cause.

The moral rigor of his defiance has sent tremors through the British
military establishment, already shaken by the strange, unexplained shooting
deaths of two military inspectors investigating atrocity allegations in
Iraq, The Guardian reports. British brass are panicky about the Goldsmith
revelations; indeed, the leader of the British invasion force, Admiral
Michael Boyce, said that he now believed his country's military did not have
"the legal cover necessary to avoid prosecution for war crimes," The
Observer reports. Boyce added that if he and his officers were eventually
put on trial for waging aggressive war, he'd make sure that Blair and
Goldsmith were in the dock beside them.

Bush, Blair and their minions have committed a monstrous crime, and they
know it -- hence all the convolutions, before the war and after, to
inoculate themselves from prosecution. But with Kendall-Smith and
Fitzgerald, the long-moribund figure of the law is re-awakening. It's weak,
it's bleary, it certainly might fail. But now the conspirators will have to
live cowering in its shadow for the rest of their days.

------------

RAF OFFICER FACES JAIL OVER ŒILLEGAL WAR¹
By David Leppard
Times Online
October 17, 2005

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1828054,00.html

An RAF officer could be jailed for refusing to serve in Iraq because he
believes that the war there was illegal.

Flight-Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith is to be court-martialled for
³refusing to obey a lawful command² after he told his commanding officer
that he would not go to Basra.

He is the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the
legality of war.

Kendall-Smith, 37, unit medical officer for RAF Kinloss in Morayshire, has
been decorated for his role in support of military operations in Afghanistan
and for two previous tours in support of the RAF in Iraq.

However, after studying the legal position, including the advice of Lord
Goldsmith, the attorney-general, he decided this year that the war was
unlawful and it would therefore be wrong for him to return.

Justin Hugheston-Roberts, his solicitor, said preliminary court martial
proceedings were expected to begin this year. He said that Kendall-Smith did
not object in principle to serving in any war, provided it was legal.

³This is the first case of its kind involving Iraq. My client has considered
this very carefully and in great depth. He is not arguing that he is a
conscientious objector. He is arguing that the war is manifestly unlawful,²
he said.

Kendall-Smith, as a serving officer, is barred by military regulations from
talking to the media. A colleague said: ³Malcolm joined the RAF out of a
spirit of idealism. He felt he wanted to do something good, to make a
difference. It was good old battle of Britain stuff, helping the good guys
fight the fascists.

³When he first went to the Gulf in 2003, his awareness of the legal position
was far less than it is now. He is now in no doubt that the war was illegal
and that the government has spun its position on the evidence. He takes the
view that this is something which is worth going to prison for.

³When he explained to his commanding officer that he thought the war was
unlawful, he was told that the attorney-general had declared it legal.
Malcolm simply replied that the attorney-general had said one thing, then
later said more or less completely the opposite.²

A central part of Kendall-Smith¹s legal case will be the manual of RAF law
which states that a serving officer is justified in refusing to obey a
command if it is illegal. His lawyers will also argue that his commission,
granted by the Queen, requires him to act according to ³the rules and
discipline of war².

International lawyers have argued that there was no legal justification for
invading Iraq because Britain and America failed to wait for the United
Nations to pass a second resolution specifically sanctioning military force.

Kendall-Smith was born in Australia but brought up in New Zealand where he
studied to become a doctor. He has dual British-New Zealand citizenship and
was commissioned as an officer in 2000. He earns about £40,000 a year.

He is posted with a staff of four at the regional medical centre at Kinloss,
which employs more than 3,000 military personnel and is home to the Nimrod
Maritime Reconnaissance Aircraft fleet.

He was suspended on full pay after being interviewed by the Royal Military
Police in June. On October 5 he was charged after being served with court
martial papers by the RAF prosecuting authority in Innsworth,
Gloucestershire.

The Ministry of Defence said: ³An RAF officer is due to appear before a
general court martial on a date and location yet to be confirmed. The
officer will be charged with four counts of disobeying a lawful command. It
would be inappropriate to give further details.²

Hugheston-Roberts said: ³We will be seeking a judge¹s ruling on a huge
volume of jurisprudence as to the legality of the armed conflict.²

The court martial will be heard at a military base by a senior judge and a
board of at least five high-ranking officers, with an air commodore as
president. There will be no jury and the case will be heard on a military
base. The RAF will pay his defence costs but the reserves the right to
reclaim the money if he is convicted.

Two years ago Leading Aircraftsman Mohisin Khan, a Muslim reservist from
Ipswich, was disciplined after he refused to serve in Iraq because of his
religious beliefs.


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VATICAN: FAITHFUL SHOULD LISTEN TO SCIENCE
By Nicole Winfield
Associated Press
November 3, 2005

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051103/ap_on_sc/vatican_science

VATICAN CITY - A Vatican cardinal said Thursday the faithful should listen
to what secular modern science has to offer, warning that religion risks
turning into "fundamentalism" if it ignores scientific reason.

Cardinal Paul Poupard, who heads the Pontifical Council for Culture, made
the comments at a news conference on a Vatican project to help end the
"mutual prejudice" between religion and science that has long bedeviled the
Roman Catholic Church and is part of the evolution debate in the United
States.

The Vatican project was inspired by Pope John Paul II's 1992 declaration
that the church's 17th-century denunciation of Galileo was an error
resulting from "tragic mutual incomprehension." Galileo was condemned for
supporting Nicolaus Copernicus' discovery that the Earth revolved around the
sun; church teaching at the time placed Earth at the center of the universe.

"The permanent lesson that the Galileo case represents pushes us to keep
alive the dialogue between the various disciplines, and in particular
between theology and the natural sciences, if we want to prevent similar
episodes from repeating themselves in the future," Poupard said.

But he said science, too, should listen to religion.

"We know where scientific reason can end up by itself: the atomic bomb and
the possibility of cloning human beings are fruit of a reason that wants to
free itself from every ethical or religious link," he said.

"But we also know the dangers of a religion that severs its links with
reason and becomes prey to fundamentalism," he said.

"The faithful have the obligation to listen to that which secular modern
science has to offer, just as we ask that knowledge of the faith be taken in
consideration as an expert voice in humanity."

Poupard and others at the news conference were asked about the
religion-science debate raging in the United States over evolution and
"intelligent design."

Intelligent design's supporters argue that natural selection, an element of
evolutionary theory, cannot fully explain the origin of life or the
emergence of highly complex life forms.

Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or
Science, Theology and Ontological Quest, reaffirmed John Paul's 1996
statement that evolution was "more than just a hypothesis."

"A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false," he said.
"(Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof."

He was asked about comments made in July by Austrian Cardinal Christoph
Schoenborn, who dismissed in a New York Times article the 1996 statement by
John Paul as "rather vague and unimportant" and seemed to back intelligent
design.

Basti concurred that John Paul's 1996 letter "is not a very clear expression
from a definition point of view," but he said evolution was assuming ever
more authority as scientific proof develops.

Poupard, for his part, stressed that what was important was that "the
universe wasn't made by itself, but has a creator." But he added, "It's
important for the faithful to know how science views things to understand
better."

The Vatican project STOQ has organized academic courses and conferences on
the relationship between science and religion and is hosting its first
international conference on "the infinity in science, philosophy and
theology," next week.

...........

On the Net:

Vatican project STOQ:
http://www.stoqnet.org

------------

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COPERNICUS' GRAVE FOUND IN POLISH CHURCH
Reuters
November 3, 2005

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051103/ap_on_re_eu/poland_copernicus

WARSAW, Poland - Polish archeologists believe they have located the grave of
16th-century astronomer and solar-system proponent Nicolaus Copernicus in a
Polish church, one of the scientists announced Thursday.

Copernicus, who died in 1543 at 70 after challenging the ancient belief that
the sun revolved around the earth, was buried at the Roman Catholic
cathedral in the city of Frombork, 180 miles north of the capital, Warsaw.

Jerzy Gassowski, head of an archaeology and anthropology institute in
Pultusk, central Poland, said his four-member team found what appears to be
the skull of the Polish astronomer and clergyman in August, after a one-year
search of tombs under the church floor.

"We can be almost 100 percent sure this is Copernicus," Gassowski told The
Associated Press by phone after making the announcement during a meeting of
scientists.

Gassowski said police forensic experts used the skull to reconstruct a face
that closely resembled the features -- including a broken nose and scar
above the left eye -- on a Copernicus self-portrait. The experts also
determined the skull belonged to a man who died at about age 70.

The grave was in bad condition and not all remains were found, Gassowski
said, adding that his team will try to find relatives of Copernicus to do
more accurate DNA identification.

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------------

RIOTING SPREADS TO 20 TOWNS AROUND PARIS
RIOTERS SHOOT AT POLICE, TORCH CAR DEALERSHIPS, BUSES IN EIGHTH DAY OF
VIOLENCE IN PARIS SUBURBS
By Jamey Keaten
Cecile Brisson contributed to this report from Bobigny, France.
Associated Press
November 3, 2005

http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=1277921

AULNAY-SOUS-BOIS, France - Rampaging youths shot at police and firefighters
Thursday after burning car dealerships and public buses and hurling rocks at
commuter trains, as eight days of riots over poor conditions in Paris-area
housing projects spread to 20 towns.

Youths ignored an appeal for calm from President Jacques Chirac, whose
government worked feverishly to fend off a political crisis amid criticism
that it has ignored problems in neighborhoods heavily populated by first-
and second-generation North African and Muslim immigrants.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called a string of emergency meetings
with Cabinet ministers throughout the day. He told the Senate the government
"will not give in" to violence in the troubled suburbs.

"Order and justice will be the final word in our country," Villepin said.
"The return to calm and the restoration of public order are the priority our
absolute priority."

The riots started last Thursday after the electrocution deaths of two
teenagers who ran from a soccer game and hid in a power station in the
northeastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois after they saw police enter the
area. Youths in the neighborhood said police chased the boys to their death.

French authorities have said that officers were investigating a suspected
burglary and not pursuing the boys, a view backed up by an interim report by
the national police inspectors office released Thursday.

Investigators said the boys Mauritania-born Traore Bouna, 15, and Zyed
Benna, 17, of Tunisia knew of the dangers of hiding in an electric
substation as they sought to evade police. The report also cites two
witnesses saying they did not see the boys being chased. A third boy, Muttin
Altun, 17, was badly burned.

Separate administrative and judicial investigations into the accidental
deaths also were under way.

By Wednesday night, violence triggered by the deaths had spread to at least
20 Paris-region towns, said Jean-Francois Cordet, the top government
official for the Seine-Saint-Denis region north of Paris where the violence
has been concentrated. He said youths in the region fired four shots at riot
police and firefighters but caused no injuries.

Nine people were injured in Seine-Saint-Denis and 315 cars burned across the
Paris area, officials said. In the tough northeastern suburb of
Aulnay-sous-Bois, youth gangs set fire to a Renault car dealership and
burned at least a dozen cars, a supermarket and a local gymnasium.

Traffic was halted Thursday morning on a suburban commuter line linking
Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport after stone-throwing rioters attacked two
trains overnight at the Le Blanc-Mesnil station. They forced a conductor
from one train and broke windows, the SNCF rail authority said. A passenger
was lightly injured by broken glass.

The unrest has highlighted the division between France's big cities and
their poor suburbs, with frustration simmering in the housing projects in
areas marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.

The violence also cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to
integrate its large immigrant community its Muslim population, at an
estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest by playing down differences
between ethnic groups. Rather than feeling embraced as full and equal
citizens, immigrants and their French-born children complain of police
harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities.

Opposition groups accused the government of letting the situation spiral out
of control, either by failing to act quickly enough or letting in too many
immigrants over the years.

"We see that the situation in certain neighborhoods is not getting better at
all but degenerating," Socialist Party President Jean-Marc Ayrault told LCI
television, who said Chirac's conservatives "did not know how to take
control."

Right-wing French lawmaker Philippe de Villiers, who has said he wants to
"stop the Islamization of France," told RTL radio that the problem stemmed
from the "failure of a policy of massive and uncontrolled immigration."

Minister of Social Cohesion Jean-Louis Borloo said the government had to
react "firmly" but added that France must also acknowledge its failure to
have dealt with anger simmering in poor suburbs for decades.

"We cannot hide the truth: that for 30 years we have not done enough," he
told France-2 television.

------------

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------------

MOONIES LEADER IN BRITAIN TODAY AFTER BAN ENDS
By Jonathan Petre
The Telegraph
November 4, 2005

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/04/nmoon04.xml&
amp;sSheet=/portal/2005/11/04/ixportal.html

The head of the Moonies, one of the world's most controversial religious
movements, has had a long-standing ban on entering Britain lifted by Charles
Clarke, the Home Secretary.

The Rev Sun Myung Moon, the 86-year-old founder of Unification Church, who
was barred almost 10 years ago amid accusations that his church used dubious
methods to gain recruits, will fly into London today.

The Korean-born businessman, who portrays himself as a messiah, was accused
of breaking up thousands of families. He was also involved in one of the
country's longest running libel cases in the 1980s after the Daily Mail
accused him of "brainwashing" young people.

In 1995, the then Home Secretary, Michael Howard, said that he was excluding
Mr Moon from Britain on the grounds that his presence would not be
"conducive to the common good for reasons of public order".

The Home Office reiterated the position in a letter to Mr Moon, who has also
been barred from a number of other countries, in a letter in May 2003. But
he was granted a 24-hour visa 10 days ago and will be delivering a lecture
in London tomorrow as part of a world tour.

Mr Clarke said last night: "I considered excluding him but I decided that at
his age there was not a good enough reason." His decision was criticised
last night by several organisations.

Ian Haworth, the general secretary of the Cult Information Centre, said that
he was "saddened" by the news. "Mr Moon hasn't changed, nor has his
organisation. It makes no sense."

He added: "In my opinion the Home Office is being naive. We will be left to
continue to help any families whose loved ones become enmeshed in this
organisation."

Dr Anne Richards, a member of the Church of England's Board of Mission and
the Home Office-funded organisation Inform, which monitors fringe religions,
said she was "surprised" he had been admitted.

Mr Moon is flying into London in his private Lear jet with his wife, Hak Ja
Han Moon, for what is likely to be his last international trip.

A 1,000-strong audience, including a number of theologians and academics, is
expected to hear his lecture on the topic of world peace, which will be
peppered with references to Adam and Eve and Satan.

When Sun Myung Moon was a 16-year-old in Korea, he claims to have met Jesus
on a hillside.

Jesus told him that he had not been able to complete his mission on bringing
peace on earth, and asked Moon to take on his mantle.

His teachings, based on revelations he received from God, are known as the
Divine Principle and at the heart of his teaching is a belief in
establishing True Families.

He often says he is on Earth to complete the mission of Jesus. At one point,
he was thought to have more than 500,000 followers but today those numbers
have dwindled.

He owns the Right-wing Washington Times and among those who have spoken at
Moonie rallies are the late Sir Edward Heath, Mikail Gorbachev and Gen
Alexander Haig, the former US secretary of state.

In 1982, he was jailed for 18 months in New York for failing to pay tax on a
private bank account worth nearly £1 million.

He claims to have two wives and is in Guinness World Records for presiding
over the world's biggest mass wedding.

Robin Marsh, a senior figure in the Unification movement in Britain, said
that Mr Moon now concentrated on inter-faith issues rather than recuiting
new members.

He added that an immigration appeal tribunal had concluded in March that
there were no good grounds for continuing to exclude him.

The tribunal said that the risk that his visit would result in his church
returning to its "undesirable methods of recruitment and retention were very
thin indeed".

------------

OTHER NHNE SPECIAL REPORTS & ARTICLES ABOUT SUN MYUNG MOON:

NHNE PUBLICATIONS:

SUN MYUNG MOON ON THE MOVE AGAIN IN AMERICA (12/5/2001):
http://www.nhne.com/misc/sunmyungmoon.html

MORE ABOUT REVEREND MOON
Smorgasbord 4
Friday, December 5, 1997
http://www.nhne.com/smorgasbord/smorgasbord0004.html

MOONIES SEEK EDEN IN BRAZILIAN SWAMP
Smorgasbord 12
Tuesday, October 26, 1999
http://www.nhne.com/smorgasbord/smorgasbord0012.html

FALSE PROPHETS & "SCUM BAG GURUS"
By David Sunfellow
Tuesday, July 27, 1999
http://www.nhne.com/misc/food0002.html

NHNE NEWS LIST STORIES:

REV. MOON 'FUNNELS' $250,000 FOR BUSH INAUGURAL BASH (1/18/2005):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8729

SUN MYUNG MOON: THROW DOWN YOUR CROSS (12/29/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/8620

MOON CROWNS HIMSELF MESSIAH IN U.S. SENATE OFFICE BUILDING (6/28/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7478

A REVIVIFIED SUN MYUNG MOON (3/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4689

CONTROVERSIAL RELIGIOUS GROUPS TO TEST BUSH INITIATIVE (2/19/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/1173

MILLION MOON MARCH (10/8/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/713

MOON IN CHINA (9/13/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/674

FRANCE AIMS AT BANNING 'DANGEROUS' SECTS (6/23/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/422

MOON'S UNIFICATION CHURCH ACQUIRES UPI (5/17/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/288

MOON'S SON'S DEATH RULED A SUICIDE (2/17/2000)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/124

RECRUITS SOUGHT FOR MOON'S NEXT MASS WEDDING (12/26/1999)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/42

SUSPICION FOLLOWS REV. MOON TO SOUTH AMERICA (12/1/1999) :
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4

------------

RELATED LINKS:

SUN MYUNG MOON POLITICAL FRONT ORGANIZATIONS:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/political_front
.htm

ALL ABOUT SUN MYUNG MOON:
http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/

THE UNIFICATION CHURCH:
http://unification.org/

------------

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------------

EMBATTLED EXEC RESIGNS FROM CPB BOARD
By Michael J. Sniffen
Associated Press
November 3, 2005

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/entertainment/13076794.htm

WASHINGTON - The former chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
under fire for promoting conservative programming, resigned Thursday from
the corporation's board after the panel reviewed an investigative report on
his activities.

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, whose term as board chairman ended two months ago,
left the board after the third day of closed-door meetings by the board of
directors to review the findings of the agency's inspector general about his
tenure.

In a statement e-mailed to reporters and interest groups, the board said
"both the board and Mr. Tomlinson believe it is in the best interests of the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting that he no longer remain on the board."

The move did not quiet critics of Tomlinson's nearly two-year tenure, who
called for public release of the investigative findings and for the board to
repudiate his policies.

The board's statement did not detail the inspector general's findings, which
are expected to be released later this month but said "Tomlinson strongly
disputes the findings."

Tomlinson did not respond to a voice mail message left on his home telephone
Thursday night seeking his comments.

The investigation was begun after Reps. David Obey, D-Wis., and John Dingel,
D-Mich., called in May for CPB Inspector General Kenneth A. Konz to look
into reports that Tomlinson used questionable tactics and corporation funds
to exert political influence over public broadcasting.

The board said it "does not believe that Mr. Tomlinson acted maliciously or
with any intent to harm CPB or public broadcasting" but it "expresses its
disappointment in the performance of former key staff whose responsibility
it was to advise the board and its members." Corporation spokesman Michael
Levy could not be reached Thursday night for elaboration.

Finally, the board commended Tomlinson "for his legitimate efforts to
achieve balance and objectivity in public broadcasting."

Obey and Dingell asked the inspector general to investigate a consulting
contract that, according to The New York Times, was initiated by Tomlinson
to review the "Now With Bill Moyers" public television show for political
content. They also asked for an inquiry into CPB's decision to hire two
ombudsmen to review public programming.

"Tomlinson's resignation should be used to bring people together, not divide
them as he and the administration have done," Obey said.

Dingell called the resignation "long overdue."

"We will need to determine how to stop this kind of misbehavior in the
future," Dingell added. "We hope today's action is the first step by the
board to operate in a more professional, nonpartisan manner."

Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he expected to see the inspector general
report shortly. He said a conservative political consultant that Tomlinson,
a Republican, hired to conduct an analysis of political bias in programming
had no professional standing as a media analyst. He said there were
complaints that Tomlinson had acted without board approval and outside CPB
bylaws.

The Times reported that the consultant kept track of "anti-Bush,"
"anti-business" and "anti-Tom DeLay" guests on Moyers' show. Moyers, who
served in the Johnson administration, has left the show.

Tomlinson has said public broadcasting shows were too liberal and didn't
give equal treatment to conservative views.

"Tomlinson's legacy at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a negative
one," Dorgan said. "He has done far more harm to the CPB than good."

On its Web site, Common Cause, a private watchdog group, called it
"distressing" that "the board's statement ... fails to reflect any regret
that Tomlinson's methods were unacceptable and unethical."

-----------

RELATED ARTICLE:

CPB'S INSPECTOR GENERAL TO PURSUE PROBE OF CHAIRMAN
By Lisa de Moraes
Washington Post
Friday, May 13, 2005; Page C07
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/12/AR2005051201
754.html

------------

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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