Canada pushes back, Venezuela pushes back, Iran pushes back, Russia pushes back, etc.

[“Moral depravity” is a phrase that doesn’t get enough use I think.]
Animal rights activists are disgusted by a new candy from Kraft Foods Inc.that's shaped like critters run over by cars - complete with tire treads.
 
The fruity-flavored Trolli Road Kill Gummi Candy in shapes of partly flattened snakes, chickens and squirrels fosters cruelty toward animals, according to the New Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
http://www.rense.com/general63/rad.htm

Former energy minister Gonen Segev admitted Sunday morning to charges of attempting to smuggle some 32,000 ecstasy pills from the Netherlands and forging his diplomatic passport.
 
Segev, who had long refuted the accusations, admitted to the charges as part of a plea bargain under which he will get five years imprisonment and a $27,500 fine which will be transferred to the Israel Anti-Drug Authority.
http://www.rense.com/general63/smsug.htm

"This is our airspace, we're a sovereign nation and you don't intrude on a sovereign nation's airspace without seeking permission," Martin said.
 
He was responding to comments by departing U.S. Ambassador Paul Cellucci, who warned on Thursday that by not signing on to the continental missile shield, Canada was in effect giving up its sovereignty and would be "outside the room" when the United States faced shooting down an incoming missile.
http://www.rense.com/general63/can.htm

A Community Land Trust (CLT) is a form of common land ownership with a charter based on the principles of sustainable and ecologically-sound stewardship and use. The land in a CLT is held in trust by a democratically-governed group, while individuals own the buildings and the improvements created by their own labor and investment. Through an inheritable and renewable 99-year lease, the trust removes land from the speculative market and facilitates multiple uses such as affordable housing, agriculture, and open space preservation.
http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/frameset_land.html

During the past year Jenning's producers interviewed me a number of times, and because I sensed what they had in mind, I made, as a preemptive strike, a number of careful, highly specific observations about the UFO abduction phenomenon.
 
All of these crucial points - recorded by ABC on videotape - were designed to underline the physical reality of UFO abductions and to demonstrate the implausibility of current skeptical explanations. To its shame, ABC suppressed ALL of these observations.
http://www.rense.com/general63/bfd.htm

When George W. Bush confronted Vladimir Putin last week about the freedom of the press in Russia, Senior White House Correspondent Richard Wolffe reports, Putin shot back with an attack of his own: "We didn't criticize you when you fired those reporters at CBS." Details of the meeting, which included just the two presidents and their translators inside the historic castle that overlooks the Slovak capital of Bratislava, are reported in the March 7 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, February 28).
http://www.rense.com/general63/putt.htm

[I guess this is good, but shouldn’t someone have checked to se if the Canadians were onboard a few billion dollars ago?]
A US navy missile over the Pacific intercepted a target missile, which the military on Thursday said was the fifth successful test of a system to shield North America.

The navy said the Standard Missile 3 interceptor is designed to destroy medium- to long-range missiles on the fly.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/bmdo-05j.html

[Laser clear communications with Mars.]
Don Boroson of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory will present an overview of the Mars Laser Communications Demonstration, designed to be the first laser-based interplanetary communications link.

Slated to transmit information at up to 30 million bits per second (much faster than a cable modem; in fact, as fast as some optical-fiber connections), the system is designed to be almost ten times quicker than the speeds of the fastest interplanetary radio links in existence.

The $300 million NASA experiment will be launched on the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter (MTO), scheduled for liftoff in 2009. Once the requisite equipment goes into orbit at the Red Planet, transmissions between Earth and the laser communications terminal on the MTO will undergo about a year of testing.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/internet-05t.html

Moreover, Mars is not the only place where spacecraft have found evidence for liquid water. The Galileo probe - which orbited the Jovian system for eight years before plunging into Jupiter's cloudtops in 2003 - collected data indicating three of the planet's largest moons - Callisto, Ganymede and especially Europa - appear to harbor a deep subterranean ocean.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/lunar-05i.html

Iridium Satellite LLC, the global supplier of mobile satellite communication services, today said that it had more than 114,000 subscribers as of December 31, 2004, a 22.5% increase over its total number of subscribers at the end of 2003.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/iridium-05b.html

The commission said it has asked Microsofts rivals to give their views on Microsoft's proposed ways of implementing the court ruling -- notably including what the stripped down version of Windows would be called.

The spokesman said Brussels was against a proposal for it to be called "Reduced Media Edition," saying Microsoft should "refrain from using terms that would have the effect of making the unbunbled version less attractive."
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/050225135302.35gfcqii.html

Tan said the plan would develop Singapore's capabilities to protect the country's infrastructure from such threats and respond swiftly to recover after a strike takes place.

It involves raising awareness within government, the private sector and general community about the threats and implementing appropriate security measures, he said.

It also aims to develop a pool of "capable and qualified security professionals" to combat cyber-attacks.
http://www.spacedaily.com/2005/050222104638.7okv2obb.html

For the first time, scientists have regenerated a damaged optic nerve - from the eye to the brain. This achievement, which occurred in laboratory mice and is described in the March 1, 2005 issue of the Journal of Cell Science, holds great promise for victims of diseases that destroy the optic nerve, and for sufferers of central nervous system injuries.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/spacemedicine-05n.html

"But we do know that there are enough emissions to worry about." In a study to be published in Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Fearnside estimates that in 1990 the greenhouse effect of emissions from the Curua-Una dam in Pará, Brazil, was more than three-and-a-half times what would have been produced by generating the same amount of electricity from oil.

This is because large amounts of carbon tied up in trees and other plants are released when the reservoir is initially flooded and the plants rot. Then after this first pulse of decay, plant matter settling on the reservoir's bottom decomposes without oxygen, resulting in a build-up of dissolved methane.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/energy-tech-05o.html

[Supposedly this broadband over powerlines interferes with shortwave radio communication I think. It might have other issues as well.]
The once-futuristic idea of electricity lines serving as a gateway to the Internet has become a reality, although the technology has yet to demonstrate the kind of breakthrough advantages over telephone and cable television services that will grab the attention of demanding consumers.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/internet-05s.html

It's now clear how the Bush administration sees things: Canadian sovereignty exists only at its pleasure. If we do what Washington wants, we retain our sovereignty. If we don't, all bets are off.

This is what U.S. ambassador Paul Cellucci clarified last week in his angered response to Paul Martin's announcement that Canada won't join the U.S. missile defence scheme. Cellucci noted that Washington would simply deploy its anti-missile system over Canadian airspace anyway, and expressed puzzlement over Canada's decision to "in effect, give up its sovereignty."

No doubt the Soviets felt similar puzzlement as they rolled into Czechoslovakia in 1968. What's with these crazy Czechs? Don't they get it? All they have to do is co-operate with Moscow and they can retain their "sovereignty."
...
The prospect of the arms race moving into space may thrill Washington strategic planners, but it's long been dreaded by most of the world. In 1967, ninety-seven nations signed the Outer Space Treaty banning weapons from space.

Since then, there's been pressure for a tougher ban. In fact, Canada has played a key role pushing for that tougher line at disarmament talks in Geneva. Virtually all nations now support a proposed new ban.

But the U.S. does not. Instead it wants to take control of space to achieve lasting military dominance. And it wanted Canada — and our good name as a strong arms control proponent — to be linked to the missile defence scheme, softening its aggressive image.

So Canada's gutsy refusal to go along was the right move — and one that, incidentally, will win us higher standing in the world
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1109373907994&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795

[Good luck unloading this guy. They’ll probably have to send him to the uS if they really want to get him back overseas.]
RECALLED Israeli diplomat Amir Laty will be posted to another embassy within weeks after an internal investigation in Jerusalem cleared him of espionage during his time in Australia.

Mr Laty's new posting, barely two months after he was recalled from his consular post in Canberra amid widespread claims he was a spy, is a public demonstration of support for the diplomat by Israeli officials who claim they still do not know why the Australian Government asked him to leave.
http://www.theadvertiser.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5936,12392125%255E421,00.html

[Notice how thesupposedly independent media outlets all decided to switch from “torture” to “abuse” simultaneously? All those thousands of news outlets, all independently reaching the same conclusion at the same time.

Just like how everyone all of a suddent decided that Saddam Hussein was found in a “spider hole” instead of a “rat hole”. After the media had been using “rat hole” for a while all of a sudden every single media outlet independently and coincidentally decided to switch to “spider hole”, even though no one even knows what a “spider hole” is. It’s like something from Ripley’s Believe it or Not.]
Relatives of Iraqis tortured by British soldiers revealed last night how they were also arrested and brutally beaten simply for asking questions.

The Independent on Sunday can reveal that the Iraqi civilians were punched and kicked after arriving at Camp Breadbasket to find out why friends and relatives had been detained.

The disclosures came as the Attorney General called for reforms of the military justice system, and shortly after three Royal Regiment of Fusiliers soldiers were jailed for abusing detainees.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=615205


[Chew on this statement for a while.]
Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.
http://www.lex18.com/Global/story.asp?S=2989614&nav=EQlpWjof

[Good mars photos. They have ice in them.]
http://www.esa.int/export/esaCP/SEMX67D3M5E_index_1.html

[New dictionary ruling: “Arab” and “dyspeptic” now interchangeable.]
Writing in her February 23 column for Universal Press Syndicate, Coulter observed, among other things, that Guckert/Gannon was a better reporter than The New York Times' Maureen Dowd and his "only offense is that he may be gay." Nothing unexpected there, but Coulter also wrote: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that old Arab Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."

But when the column got posted by by Universal on its Web site, that line was changed to: "Press passes can't be that hard to come by if the White House allows that dyspeptic, old Helen Thomas to sit within yards of the president."
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000818305

[When this country was founded, our forefathers looked forward to a day when no-account political hacks would sit around in a room and decide who could have guns and who couldn’t and what kind they would have.]
Anti-gun lawmakers are seeking a ban on .50-caliber "sniper rifles," saying they're favored by terrorists and can shoot down aircraft from a range of more than 2,000 yards -- though they don't appear to be tied to any crimes here in the last decade, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.

A spokesman for the National Rifle Association, which is pushing dozens of its own bills in the General Assembly, vowed to fight the sniper-rifle legislation backed by Representatives Elaine Nekritz (D-Northbrook) and Beth Coulson (R-Glenview).

"There isn't a single person in the United States that I know of who has been killed by one of these firearms," said Todd Vandermyde, an NRA lobbyist in Springfield.

Vandermyde pointed out that the 1968 federal Gun Control Act allowed civilians to own guns in which the diameter of the barrel's bore -- its caliber -- is up to .50 of an inch. Most .50-caliber weapons in the United States are single-bolt action rifles used for recreational target shooting, he said.
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-rifle25.html

[Good point.]
Haaretz reports:

"In a videotape made prior to the Friday suicide bombing that killed four people in Tel Aviv, bomber Abdullah Badran declared that the attack was intended to do harm to the Palestinian Authority, which he said served the interests of the United States.

The Damascus-based leadership of the militant Palestinian Islamic Jihad Saturday claimed responsibility for the attack at the entrance to a beachfront nightclub, saying that it was in retaliation for what a Jihad official called Israel's violation of the Israeli-Palestinian truce concluded at the Sharm el-Sheikh summit on February 8.

The aim of the bombing was 'to attack the self-rule Authority, which acts according to American interests,' Badran, 21, said on the tape. Badran was a resident of a Tul Karm-area West Bank village located adjacent to the separation fence."

Makes sense, except for one minor detail. If your goal is to kill yourself in a suicide bombing in order to frame the Palestinian Authority, why would you leave behind a videotape which admits your plan and thus completely undermines the frame-up?
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2005/02/incriminating-videotape.html
http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/545147.html

[I don’t expect the Iranians to be push-overs like the Iraqis were intially. I’d be a bit surprised if they just sat there and let the US drive to the capital before they started fighting.]
Still, Iran could create troubles for Washington and the world if war were to break out.

Iran's intelligence agencies have extensive overseas experience, experts say, and its highly classified Quds forces, which answer directly to Iranian leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, are believed to have operations in Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and North Africa, as well as Europe and North America, according to a December 2004 report prepared by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Within minutes of attack, Iran's air and sea forces could threaten oil shipments in the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. Iran controls the northern coast of the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway through which oil tankers must navigate to get out of the Persian Gulf, and it could sink ships, mine sea routes or bomb oil platforms to block it.

Iran also could activate Hezbollah militia in Lebanon to launch attacks on Israel. Operatives could attack U.S. interests in Azerbaijan, Central Asia or Turkey.

"Iran can escalate the war," said Hadian. "It's not going to be all that hard to target U.S. forces in these countries."

But most analysts agree that the biggest trump card Iranians could play would be to unleash havoc in neighboring Iraq, where Iraqis who spent years in Iran as exiles are about to assume control of the government.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05058/462990.stm

Fresh evidence has come to light suggesting that Tony Blair committed himself to war in Iraq nearly a year before the American and British assault in March 2003.

The news will heighten the pressure on the Prime Minister to reveal how Britain was drawn into the conflict, in a week when a leading QC has called into question the legal advice on which the Government went to war. Such anxiety is felt in official circles that Special Branch detectives had questioned MPs over leaks, it emerged this weekend.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=615232

[According to the Nuremburg Tribunal and the Geneva Conventions, just because the government tells you it’s ok to do something, that doesn’t mean it actually is. So if they have been violating the fundamental rights of human beings and breaking the law too bad for them, they should be prosecuted.]
CIA officers are increasingly concerned they might be prosecuted or punished for their conduct during interrogations and detention of terrorism suspects, the New York Times reported in Sunday editions.

Citing current and former government officials, the newspaper said the spy agency's inspector general was now reviewing at least half a dozen cases in connection with the treatment of prisoners.

This is in addition to at least two other CIA cases being investigated by the Justice Department -- one stemming from a death in Afghanistan in 2003 and the other from Iraq.

"There's a lot more out there than has generally been recognized, and people at the agency are worried," one government official told the Times.

According to the newspaper, the CIA was especially worried that officers using interrogation techniques the government ruled as acceptable after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks might now be punishable.
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=7748242

Strategically, Venezuela is very important. We believe it has the potential to provide 35 percent of U.S. energy, in oil and natural gas," Moshiri said after Rodriguez's speech, adding, "Venezuela has been treating the private sector very well."

Chavez survived a recall vote in August with 59 percent of the vote, and his treasury receives $30 billion annually in oil revenues.

"The United States hasn't faced anything like Chavez for a very long time, " said Riordan Roett, director of the Western Hemisphere program at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies in Washington.

Roett described the divisions between Washington and Caracas as the Bush administration's "ideological distaste" for Chavez and the Venezuelan's "grandiose ideas" of uniting Latin America under a nationalist, semi- revolutionary banner.

"We thought populist leftist leaders were buried in history," Roett said, "but the United States and the hemisphere are faced with the most truculent and ambitious leader in decades, and he is likely to grow more powerful."

After a visit to Moscow in December, Chavez angered the Bush administration by announcing that he was purchasing guns and warplanes. The White House protested to the Kremlin, and U.S. officials warned that the arms could be sent to the leftist guerrillas in neighboring Colombia.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0226-01.htm

On this 35-degree night, most of Portland's homeless are two miles away in the Oxford Street Shelter, sleeping on rows of mats four inches apart.

    But Partridge prefers a tent he has furnished with plywood, a radio, a battery-operated television and a discarded propane heater. He has a cell phone, too - paid for by panhandling and collecting aluminum cans.

    Partridge, 36, swigs a can of Milwaukee's Best and reminisces about the days when he had a good job at a printing company in Chicago, a nice apartment, a woman he was going to marry.

    But when the relationship soured in the early 1990s, he returned home to Maine and moved in with a friend who was using heroin. Partridge soon became hooked, too.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022705Y.shtml

[Not only did he get dumped, not only is he homeless, not only does he not get to see his child, on top of all that he is paying child support. I wonder in general how they enforce that on guys who have no address. Do they just go out and drive around looking for them?]
In Milwaukee, he met a woman and fell in love. They had a son. Marsh was heartbroken when she found someone else - and almost overnight, he was homeless.

    He ended up in Scott Place last year, struggling with depression. "But with the psychological help of the VA ... and a lot of time to think, I just worked it out," he says.

    Marsh loves his job but after $300 monthly child support payments, he's left with just $140 a week - not even enough to travel to Milwaukee to see his 13-year-old boy, William Ray.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/022705Y.shtml

Squalene

I wa just watching this cartoon on Fox. It is called “The Winx Club”. It is about some kind of boarding school for teenage girls with magical powers or some such thing. In the show there is the school for the good magical girls, and another for the bad magical girls, and also a boys school. I am not sure if they have good and bad boys schools or not.

So all the girls dress like Las Vegas show girls basically, whether they be good or bad. And of course the “good” girls are always getting into some kind of conflict with the “bad” girls. usually this involves some kind of girl on girl violence, even if it is cartoonish and unrealistic.

Well, so I just caught about half an episode of this show and they were having some kind of beauty pageant, which apparently the bad girls were plotting to win by cheating.

So they hah a kind of montage of all these girls coming on to do their talent show routine and it seems the bad girls were using their evil magical powers to trip up the contestants other than their preferred contestant.

Well, so in the background they were playing this song. The chorus was something like “Mean girls rule” about how mean girls will put you down on account of the appearance of your hair or your clothes and how they will gang up up on you and make your life miserable and so on. And of course the chorus was “mean girls rule” as already mentioned. Part of the lyrics I managed to jot down were

“humiliating, eviscerating, that’s why they lead the pack”.

Although it is nice to see someone able to use the word “eviscerating” correctly, the song in general basically sounded like a celebration of being a bitch really when you come right down to it.

Someone might object that “hey the bad girl’s contestant was disqualified, so the program is really showing how mean girls don’t actually win”. But if you actually watch the cartoon you can see in the background all the other contestants are still dishevelled and even injured and yet the girls who used their evil magical powers to make that happen suffer no ill consequences from their actions. Their only “punishment” is that they don’t win the beauty pageant.

Then when the “good” girl wins, they give her the crown and the flowers and tell her she has also won a modelling contract with something like Merlin Cosmetics or some such thing.

This is part of the much vaunted Fox “family values” and “conservative morality”- encouraging girls to dress like Las vegas show girls, encouraging them to bitches, encouraging them to fight each other over ridiculously stupid things. Every time I have sen this show their fight is over something even mre foolish and more trivial than the in the last episode I saw.

Other examples of the Fox crusade for family values
1. “Who wants to marry a millionaire?”- degarding to the concept of marriage
2. Something like “Who wants to marry a dwarf?” I can’t remember the actual name- degrading to both marriage and to people of congenitally small stature.
3. “Temptation Island” I think. The one where married, or at least serious committed, couples were supposed to see whether they could hold out in the face of come one’s and sexual provocations from other people.
4. I tihnk Fox also has one of the wife swapping shows, but I can’t remember which one. This is again degrading to women. Whatever happens in the actual show, the notion in general is to promote the idea that women are basically like interchangeable parts in a machine. Sure this one is a Harvard grad and this one is a hillbilly, but we can switch them around and stil make their families work. Also both the shows on this subject kind of normalize the “wife swapping” notion.

[The page this refers apparently tries to explain why somethign called “jewwatch.org” comes up as the first hit. I suppose people have been comlaining to google, and most likely telling themt o change their anking algorithms or some such thing.]
It's heading is "Offensive Search Results," and under the heading is, "We're disturbed about these results as well. Please read our note here." So, I went to their note, where google explains that "'Jew' is often used in an anti-Semitic context."
http://www.rense.com/general63/goog.htm

[This weblink is not suitable for office/children viewing.]
Scientists have yet to agree when exactly the bird flu outbreak and subsequent end of the world will take place, but most agree it will happen soon after the second coming of Jesus in 2015 and shortly before the Robot Holocaust of 2017.
http://www.pointlesswasteoftime.com/

Forty-five years ago, doctors successfully implanted a cardiac pacemaker for the first time in the U.S., providing long-term hope for millions of people with heart disease and creating what has become a hugely profitable -- and still fast-growing -- $10 billion-a-year business. Now, electrical therapy may be approaching an historic transition. Using advances in pacemaker technology, researchers and doctors are finding that rapid-fire bursts of low-voltage electricity can alleviate symptoms in an astonishing number of illnesses in many other parts of the human body. Scourges such as depression, post-stroke paralysis, migraines, sleep apnea, angina, obesity, tinnitus, and digestive tract disorders all may be treated with neurostimulators by the end of the decade. If early-stage experiments pan out, Alzheimer's disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette's syndrome, bulimia, and other brain ailments could be next.
...
The use of implantable mini-generators is more widespread than you probably think. Already, 190,000 patients are wearing electrodes in their heads to control Parkinson's disease tremors or spinal-cord stimulators to relieve pain or prevent urinary incontinence. Some 30,000 have wires threaded to the vagus nerve in the neck to treat epilepsy, while 60,000 have microtransmitters in the inner ear enabling them to hear. These numbers are likely to grow -- and quickly.
http://www.rense.com/general63/hope.htm

[This sounds bad, but I tink it is actually progress. I seemt or ecall back around 1990, they were projecting the global population would be 12 billion by 2050. So we’ve already shaved off 3 billion.]
The world's population is expected to rise from the current 6.5 billion to 9.1 billion by 2050, the UN says.
 
Virtually all the growth will be in the developing world, according to a report by the UN Population Division.
http://www.rense.com/general63/wwp.htm

The HIV infection rate has doubled among blacks in the United States over a decade while holding steady among whites - stark evidence of a widening racial gap in the epidemic, government scientists said Friday.
 
Other troubling statistics indicate that almost half of all infected people in the United States who should be receiving HIV drugs are not getting them.
http://www.rense.com/general63/blks.htm

[By baggage handlers.]
Bank of America said Friday it lost computer tapes containing account information on 1.2 million federal employee credit cards, among them those of U.S. senators, potentially exposing them to theft or hacking.

The bank told CNN/Money that federal government's General Services Administration (GSA) cardholders' account information may have been on the tapes.

The tapes were lost in December, but a bank spokeswoman told Reuters that bank officials were not allowed to notify cardholders until they received permission from federal law enforcement authorities.
...
Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, told Reuters that he had been informed by the Senate Rules Committee that the data tapes were likely stolen off a commercial plane by baggage handlers.
http://money.cnn.com/2005/02/25/news/fortune500/bank_america/index.htm

[This is bizarre. This is the epitome of psychotic detachment from reality. An actual child that is physically in the actual real world is not “real”, but an entry in a computer program or a government ledger IS “real”. This insane.]
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu called Tuesday for the registration of every child in the world at birth, calling the measure a matter of life or death.

http://WriteMeDown.com/
http://www.rense.com/general63/regi.htm

[Coincidence?]
9NEWS reporter Paul Johnson says some people are concerned about the location of a Fort Collins research facility. The research facility is located right next to a water treatment facility in Fort Collins. Research suggests the prions that cause CWD can live in the soil at the facility for up to 2 years...
 
 
FORT COLLINS - The location of one of the best Chronic Wasting Disease research facilities in the country has some citizens concerned that it could contaminate a nearby water source.
 
The state-run Foothills Research Facility is located in Fort Collins, right next to the city's water treatment plant.
 
The open-air facility studies the brain disease found in some deer and elk. CWD is caused by protein called a prion. It is similar to the causes of Mad Cow Disease and Creutzfeldt Jacob Disease, which is fatal in humans.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ftcol.htm

The HIV infection rate has doubled among blacks in the United States over a decade while holding steady among whites - stark evidence of a widening racial gap in the epidemic, government scientists said Friday.
 
Other troubling statistics indicate that almost half of all infected people in the United States who should be receiving HIV drugs are not getting them.
http://www.rense.com/general63/blks.htm

The use of implantable mini-generators is more widespread than you probably think. Already, 190,000 patients are wearing electrodes in their heads to control Parkinson's disease tremors or spinal-cord stimulators to relieve pain or prevent urinary incontinence. Some 30,000 have wires threaded to the vagus nerve in the neck to treat epilepsy, while 60,000 have microtransmitters in the inner ear enabling them to hear. These numbers are likely to grow -- and quickly.
http://www.rense.com/general63/hope.htm

Australian intelligence officials knew the man at the centre of the Kiwi Israeli spy scandal was a long-time Mossad agent well before he began the New Zealand passport operation.

Since serving three months in prison in New Zealand, Elisha Cara has returned to Israel. He resigned from Mossad and recently got a job as a manager in credit card company Visa Israel.
...
The passport operation employed full-time Mossad staff and local Jewish citizens (called sayanim) who help Mossad within foreign countries. In New Zealand, one sayanim participant was apparently former Auckland Jewish Council member Tony Resnick.
...
The man with cerebral palsy belonged to St John Ambulance, where Resnick worked as an ambulance officer. Resnick's suspected role was finding identities for false passports. He fled to Israel after Cara and Kelman were arrested.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3200929a10,00.html

Across the rest of Ohio, the Capra theme was not so noticeable. Reporters and eyewitnesses told of voters who had given up after humiliating or frustrating waits, and who often cited the unwillingness of their employers to accept voting as an excuse for lateness or absence. In some way or another, these bottlenecks had a tendency to occur in working-class and, shall we just say, nonwhite precincts. So did many disputes about "provisional" ballots, the sort that are handed out when a voter can prove his or her identity but not his or her registration at that polling place. These glitches might all be attributable to inefficiency or incompetence (though Gambier had higher turnouts and much shorter lines in 1992 and 1996). Inefficiency and incompetence could also explain the other oddities of the Ohio process—from machines that redirected votes from one column to the other to machines that recorded amazing tallies for unknown fringe candidates, to machines that apparently showed that voters who waited for a long time still somehow failed to register a vote at the top of the ticket for any candidate for the presidency of these United States.
http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050214roco05?page=1

Recall the Election Day exit polls that suggested John Kerry had won a convincing victory? The media readily dismissed those polls and little has been heard about them since.

Many Americans, however, were suspicious. Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags.

The U.S. voting system is more vulnerable to manipulation than most Americans realize. Technologies such as electronic voting machines provide no confirmation that votes are counted as cast, and highly partisan election officials have the power to suppress votes and otherwise distort the count.

Exit polls are highly accurate. They remove most of the sources of potential polling error by identifying actual voters and asking them immediately afterward who they had voted for.

The reliability of exit polls is so generally accepted that the Bush administration helped pay for them during recent elections in Georgia, Belarus and Ukraine. Testifying before the House Committee on International Relations Dec. 7, John Tefft, deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, explained that the Bush administration funded exit polls because they were one of the "ways that would help to expose large-scale fraud." Tefft pointed to the discrepancy between exit polls and the official vote count to argue that the Nov. 22 Ukraine election was stolen.
...
Whichever way you shake it, or hold it to the light, there is something about the Ohio election that refuses to add up. The sheer number of irregularities compelled a formal recount, which was completed in late December and which came out much the same as the original one, with 176 fewer votes for George Bush. But this was a meaningless exercise in reassurance, since there is simply no means of checking, for example, how many "vote hops" the computerized machines might have performed unnoticed.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/

Republican majorities on the House and Senate veterans' affairs committees have voted to impose an enrollment fee of at least $230 a year on 2.4 million veterans - one of every three now eligible for Veterans Affairs Administration health care.

Those targeted are in priority categories 7 and 8, meaning they are neither poor nor suffering from service-connected disabilities. Half of the 2.4 million used the VA health system last year.
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_fee_022605,00.html

A good time to make the switch would be in June when Iran opens their oil exchange, which we understand will trade oil in dollars and euros.


• At that point, we believe it would be too late for the US-Colombia to invade either Iran or Venezuela. They could well bring on nuclear war with China and Russia.

Mr. Bush is playing chicken with both countries, and we can assure you China and Russia will call Mr. Bush’s bluff. Then again, there is nothing normal about George Bush and he may just take the game all the way. If he does, half of the American population will end up as crispy critters.
http://mparent7777.blog-city.com/read/1098039.htm

that market quotations fluctuate up and down at times when there is no corresponding change in the supply and natural demand; and that the Wall Street financiers have suddenly found time to leave their speculative schemes long enough to direct the work of educating the people in the mystery of finance. Are these financiers working in the interests of the people or in their own interests? They were content to deal only with the boss politicians until the people themselves began taking an interest in legislation, but now that the people have admonished the bosses, Wall Street is trying to mould public opinion in order to make it favorable to some disguised Wall Street plan.
http://www.truthofthematter.org/lindbergh/general_observations.htm

Being a former OSI agent and convicted child molester – the girl he raped was between the ages of 9 and 13 – Palmosina is going to spend the next 20 years “looking over his shoulder,” especially in the shower. Not an encouraging thought for the DB’s latest inmate to have.

At his court-martial, Palmosina admitted that in addition to the sex charges, he also mishandled classified information. One can only wonder what kind of a “job” he did – before he was exposed as corrupt – back when he was part of the “system” at OSI, putting both guilty and innocent behind bars without regard to justice.
http://www.militarycorruption.com/palmosina.htm

It was a long, hard-fought battle, with plenty of disappointments and heartache along the way, but at last we have won the fight against forced anthrax shots in the U.S. military.

Barring unlikely intervention and a presidential “waiver” by George W. Bush, this cruel scam, which lined the pockets of profiteers like slimy retired Navy Admiral William Crowe, part-owner of Bioport in Lansing, Mich., the only facility licensed in the U.S. to produce the so-called “vaccine,” has at last run its evil course.

Thanks to a ruling by a federal judge that stopped the Pentagon’s mandatory anthrax inoculations, calling them “illegal” without the “informed consent” of service members, this draconian program – which resulted in deaths from adverse reactions, crippling illnesses for others, and court-martial and loss of career to hundreds of courageous service-members who chose not to be “guinea-pigs” – should finally be over.
http://www.militarycorruption.com/anthrax7.htm

This is a story of betrayal of hundreds of thousands of U.S. military personnel who became subjects of an experimental vaccine that has caused many of them to suffer debilitating chronic diseases. Every soldier who served in the 1991 Gulf War was vaccinated against anthrax; an unknown number of them received a fast-acting experimental vaccine that has been linked to medical complications. In 1998, military doctors commenced a mandatory anthrax vaccination program for all active military and civilian defense employees, 2.4 million people in all. All of them received the new vaccine, with its booster that can cause autoimmune disease. Author Gary Matsumoto is the journalist who first broke the story of the connection between the anthrax and Gulf War syndrome.
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?isbn=046504400X

Bottom line – what’s the research say about sucralose?  Well, the studies proving the safety concerns are out there, but they are hard to find and technical.  Nonetheless, they prove the claims of concern are valid and I have spent the past 10 months uncovering the research thanks to my contacts around the world.
http://www.splendaexposed.com/

BELIEVE

Afraid Microsoft's anti-spyware will muck up your hard drive, erasing your digital photos, music collection and work files?

Don't worry, you've got a $5 rebate coming your way in this worst-case scenario
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5590042.html

[How about a raise?]
Corporate America is generating cash at near record levels, but the lessons of past investments turned sour are prompting companies to adopt a more conservative approach with spending.

Some economists are even calling the cash buildup a "cash bubble" and, while share buybacks and dividends are returning some of the cash back to shareholders, many companies just don't know what to spend their money on.

"Nobody has a really good idea on how to deploy capital," Gail Fosler, the Conference Board's chief economist, said at the Business Council meeting in Boca Raton, Florida.

"At the end of the 1990s, we had excess investment and now we've got excess cash flow."
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=7743119

THE US is heading for a surge in bankruptcies and a dramatic increase in corporate debt default as the number of companies with bonds rated at the lowest end of the junk bond scale reaches record levels.

More than 45 per cent of newly issued junk bonds are rated CCC, according to bond market analysts at Standard & Poor’s (S&P), a dramatic increase since 2003 when 30 per cent of the junk bond market was made up of companies that were a notch away from default.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,16849-1497723,00.html

[I have never actually read an explanation of HOW this is a threat to the international community of nations.]
Jewish activists Friday hailed a court ruling that allows Canada to deport German Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel to face prosecution at home.

Zundel, author of ``The Hitler We Loved and Why,'' has been held in a Toronto jail for two years while authorities determined whether he posed a security risk to Canadian society.

Federal Court Justice Pierre Blais said Zundel's activities were not only a threat to national security, ``but also a threat to the international community of nations.''

Zundel, a leading proponent of white supremacy, claims the Holocaust never happened.
http://cbs4.com/worldnews/Canada-HolocaustDenie-ai/resources_news_html

[I notice politicans and otehr people trying to get you to do things that are questinable spend a lot of time working over this word “believe”. They “believe” they’re doing the right thing, we “believe” they have weapons of mass destruction, you should “believe” in the fairness and accuracy of the voting process. We don’t “believe” these industrial chemicals in your blood are harmful.

How about some hard evidence for something? Anything at this point.]
Mr Kunhardt apologised this week. "It was never my intention to demean or insult anyone. I never meant for the words of my students to hurt any of our troops," he said.

Pte Jacobs's father accepted the apology on his son's behalf.

Michael Bloomberg, New York's mayor, said: "We have freedom of speech and you certainly cannot go around censoring what people want to write. I think most of [the soldiers overseas] believe that the freedoms we have ... are protected by them putting their lives at risk."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1424024,00.html

[Funny how the Palestinians foolishly decided to shatter that informal truce just when the Israeli government looked like it was getting serious about pulling back some of the illegal settlements.

Also notice the “Fox talk” here- “homicide bomber” instead of “suicide bomber”.]
 A Palestinian homicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of young Israelis waiting outside a nightclub near Tel Aviv's beachfront promenade just before midnight Friday, killing at least four other people, wounding dozens and shattering an informal Mideast truce.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,148782,00.html


Coming in the wake of the shocking allegations of torture by recently released Australian Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib, who detailed how he was interrogated in the presence an Australian official, Barton’s “Four Corners” interview is a body blow to the Howard government. To buy time for Hill to concoct a story to counter Barton’s claims, Howard last week point-blank refused to answer questions in parliament on the issues raised, declaring that they should be directed to Hill in the Senate. The Senate was not in session at the time.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/feb2005/bart-f25.shtml

[They’re not just checking for terrorists. They’re also looking for subversives, pinkos, attractive women, Democrats, and foreigners.]
Halsey said that the passenger names would, as at present, be checked by the directorate's National Targeting Center against the United States' consolidated terrorist watchlist -- which contains the names and aliases of thousands individuals thought linked to terrorism -- and against several other law-enforcement databases.

"We're not just looking for terrorists," she said.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20050224-105943-7064r

[Sounds like someone is getting cold feet. Watch for this prime minister to be thrown out in favor of someone more compliant.]
Prime Minister Paul Martin said Canada must be consulted before the U.S. decides to fire on missiles that enter Canadian airspace, despite Ottawa's refusal to participate in America's missile defence program.
...
Martin also rejected claims by U.S. ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci that Canada has given up its sovereignty by saying no to the missile plan.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/02/25/martin-missile.html


[This sounds like a threat to me. “We will control decisions to fire. We will deploy.” If you don’t like it too bad for you.

This is like something out of 1984. You have to do what we say our else you will not be “sovereign”, but to be sovereign is to be free from the necessity to follow other people’s orders.

I would like to think this is just Paul Celucci not knowing what the words he uses mean, but I think it is more than that.]
From now on, the U.S. government will control any decision to fire at incoming missiles over Canadian territory, declared the top U.S. envoy to Canada.

"We will deploy. We will defend North America," said Paul Cellucci, the U.S. ambassador to Canada.

"We simply cannot understand why Canada would in effect give up its sovereignty - its seat at the table - to decide what to do about a missile that might be coming towards Canada."
...
The warning was no slip of the tongue: Cellucci repeated several times that Canada's decision had in effect handed over some of its sovereignty to the United States.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cpress/20050224/ca_pr_on_na/missile_defence_4

[Forklift+plastic wrap does not equal “seal in biohazards”]
In the case of a natural disaster or terrorist attack, some emergency officials in Western Washington plan to be prepared with a large, shrink wrap machine.

The Thurston County Coroner's Office recently won approval to purchase a machine able to shrink-wrap human remains. The process would make it easier to transport a large number of bodies.
...
The shrink-wrapped bodies could be moved with forklifts, and the extra plastic covering would seal in biohazards such as anthrax in the case of bioterrorism.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=514058

The share of the working-age population working or actively seeking a job -- known as the participation rate -- fell to 65.8 percent in January, the lowest reading in 17 years, according to numbers collected by the Labor Department.


[I didn’t see this, but I saw promo clips for it. It showed the reporter guy asking this guy something like do you agree with the Muslim Brotherhood or something like that. Now there has been a “Muslim Bortherhood” of one kind or another for almost 100 years. It means different things in different countries, and even today there is not just one organization “The Muslim Brotherhood”.]
Yousef Abou-Allaban, chairman of the Islamic Society of Boston filed a defamation lawsuit Wednesday against WFXT-TV (local Channel 25), in which he describes an investigative report identifying him as a member of a terrorist group as part of a pattern of anti-Muslim bias in the media.
http://www.baou.com/newswire/main.php?action=recent&rid=20074

[insert your own comments here.]
A prominent Jewish spokesman who defrauded an Edmonton non-profit organization says she was depressed because her parents were Holocaust survivors.
...
That's pretty hard to eat for me," said Davies yesterday. "That to me is a real cop-out," he said.

"I find it hard to believe that she would blame her crime on being the child of Holocaust survivors."
...
The cheques were made out to cash and the money went into her personal bank account, said Blaine.

As well, Szlachter made numerous long-distance calls on the office phone, bought furniture from Office Depot which she used in her home, and billed the council for a water cooler in her home as well as delivered water.
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/EdmontonSun/News/2005/02/25/942033-sun.html

[I’m sure this will get the negotiations right back on track.

Also get this part “believed still in North Korean hands.” This is how bad our so-called “intelligence” community is. I saw a travelogue about some guy who went to North Korea, this boat is a little museum commemorating the NK victory of the American imperialist pigs. For 50 cents you could go see the boat for yourself. Or you can just “believe” it is in North Korean without knowing for sure one way or the other.]
As diplomatic efforts to end a nuclear standoff between Washington and Pyongyang make little headway, a resolution has been introduced in the US Senate demanding North Korea (news - web sites) return an American intelligence ship seized by the hardline communist state 37 years ago.
...
The Senate resolution demands the return of the vessel, believed still in North Korean hands.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1521&ncid=1278&e=1&u=/afp/20050224/pl_afp/usnkoreanavy

[Imagine the jow people must feel when they learn that Washington DC political hacks are intent on altering their religion. All their other efforts have been so moral and so successful.]
Pipes is also working with Stephen Schwartz on a new Center for Islamic Pluralism (CIP) whose aims are to "promote moderate Islam in the U.S. and globally" and "to oppose the influence of militant Islam, and, in particular, the Saudi-funded Wahhabi sect of Islam, among American Muslims, in the America media, in American education … and with U.S. governmental bodies.
...
Schwartz, a former Trotskyite militant who became a Sufi Muslim in 1997, has received seed money from MEF, which is also accepting contributions on CIP's behalf until the government gives it tax-exempt legal status, according to another grant proposal obtained by IPS.
http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=4963

[If you criticized Zimbabwe would this be reason to prohibit you from being part of a teacher training program?

What about Colombia? Or Bolivia? Or Kazakhstan? Or China? Or Tunisia? Or France? Or Belgium? Or East Timor? Or Mongolia?

Which other country would it be equally inappropriate to criticize?]
The New York City Department of Education will prohibit a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University from appearing in an occasional training program for secondary-school teachers, citing the professor's criticism of Israel.
http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1667

A woman who had suffered a massive heart attack died after hospital personnel moved her out of a trauma room to accommodate a flu-stricken Michael Jackson, the patient's family said.

Jury selection in Jackson's child molestation child had to be temporarily postponed Feb. 15 when the pop star was taken to Marian Medical Center in Santa Maria, Calif., complaining of flu-like symptoms. Manuela Gomez Ruiz, a 74-year-old grandmother, was moved from the primary trauma room and taken off the machine ventilator, with her breathing instead assisted manually by hand pump, until she was relocated to a smaller room nearby, her family told ABC News.
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/MichaelJackson/story?id=529513

An Italian prosecutor investigating the apparent kidnapping of a suspected Islamic militant in the streets of Milan served military authorities this week with a demand for records of flights into and out of a joint U.S.-Italian air base in northern Italy.

Italian newspapers have reported that the prosecutor, Armando Spataro, is investigating the possible role of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the disappearance of Osama Nasr Mostafa Hassan, better known as Abu Omar, a popular figure in Milan's Islamic community who vanished Feb. 17, 2003.
http://www.sanluisobispo.com/mld/sanluisobispo/news/politics/10984603.htm

Unemployed since 2001, Diane Ziebarth doesn't pay much money in taxes but she wants to make sure the little she does contribute doesn't help push more Americans out of work.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2005-02-23-colo-outsource-bill_x.htm

In its drive to stop Iran gaining any ability to make nuclear weapons, the United States is ready to give European allies only until June to cajole Tehran before Washington seeks U.N. sanctions, U.S. diplomatic documents show.
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2005/02/25/us_may_give_eu_till_june_to_coax_iran_on_nukes/

[Note that this article appeared 4 days before the above article.]
Scott Ritter Says US Attack
On Iran Set For June
By Mark Jensen
United for Peace of Pierce County (WA)
2-21-5

 

On Friday evening in Olympia, former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter appeared with journalist Dahr Jamail. -- Ritter made two shocking claims: George W. Bush has "signed off" on plans to bomb Iran in June 2005
http://www.rense.com/general63/IRAN.HTM

The UN has protested against a series of IAF flights over parts of Lebanon in the past few days that it said were a violation of Lebanese airspace.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1109215386403

To head off this threat of a Shi'ite clergy-driven religious movement, the US has, according to Asia Times Online investigations, resolved to arm small militias backed by US troops and entrenched in the population to "nip the evil in the bud".
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GB15Ak02.html

As noted above, the sequences are being independently confirmed. Confirmation
will eliminate the lab error story. However, the route of the sequences from lab
to swine remains open, as does the possibility of bioterrorism. The inability to
resolve the existence of the sequence after being in the public domain for
almost 3 months also raises serious bioterrorism preparedness issues.
http://www.re
nse.com/general63/swine.htm

Slobodan Milosevic has taken the offensive against his Hague prosecutors who
have accused him of masterminding atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo in
the 1990s. He denounced his trial as political and condemned the 78-day bombing
of Yugoslavia by NATO in 1999.
http://www.ren
se.com/general63/miol.htm

[A lot of those "suicide bombers" have backpack type things on.]
Researchers at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn N.Y., have developed
technology that allows them to control a rat's actions from up to 600 yards away
with implants placed in its brain.
Rats can be made to run, jump or climb, following instructions they receive by
radio from a laptop computer. Clacking keys on a computer send these
"ratbots" climbing trees, winding through mazes, or searching through
building rubble.
The remote control rats look like school children, wearing small backpacks that
house microprocessor-based remote-controlled stimulators. Wires connect the
backpack to tiny probes that have been placed into areas of the rat's brain that
are responsible for reward and areas that process signals from their whiskers.
The rats are controlled by manipulating these two areas of the brain.
Remote-control rats are weird enough. But even stranger is the possibility that
the technology could eventually find its way into humans.
...
"What if some future implant, billed as a medical miracle, was also
secretly encoded to direct thought, getting a person to think like Big Brother,
or to work harder for managers at corporate control, or to follow the orders of
Mephistopheles?" asked The Boston Globe in a recent editorial. "What
if Madison Avenue got a piece of the supposed beneficial chip to direct the
consumer to buy the expensive spread or the new cereal?"
http://www.r
ense.com/general63/ratbot.htm




[I read this whole article and I don't know what the hell they are talking
about.]
A man who portrayed the Vulcan King for this year's Winter Carnival is charged
with sexual assault.
http://www
.kstp.com/article/stories/S6160.html?cat=64

[I read one time some kind of Islamic jurisprudence faced a slightly similar
issue. Some guy had sex with his wife, and then the wife turned around and had
sex with her female servant and the servant got pregnant from the husband
indirectly. They ruled the guy was still liable for the child even though he had
not really had anything to do with it's conception.]
A woman accused of using her lover's sperm to impregnate herself without his
knowledge can be held liable for the unwitting father's emotional pain, the
Illinois Appellate Court has ruled.
...
Phillips alleges that he and Irons, who practices internal medicine, never had
intercourse during their four-month affair, although they did have oral sex
three times.
http://cbs2chicago.com/cooler/local_story_055110537.html

Online payroll service provider PayMaxx shuttered its automated W-2 site on
Wednesday after a researcher claimed that two security holes had exposed data on
more than 25,000 people.
A description of the problem posted on Think Computer's Web site by Aaron
Greenspan, president of the software start-up, said the security issues could
allow anyone to view the W-2 forms generated for employees of PayMaxx's clients
for the last five years.
,ahref="http://news.com.com/Payroll+site+closes+on+security+worries/2100-10
29_3-5587859.html?tag=cd.hed">http://news.com.com/Payroll+site+closes+on
+security+worries/2100-1029_3-5587859.html?tag=cd.hed

[So Visa claims to be able to make a secure RFID card just for a credit card,
and yet the State Department can't even be bothered to try to make up a secure
RFID system for your __passport__, a document substantially more sensitive and
important.]
Visa and its rivals have some obstacles to overcome before the technology
becomes more mainstream, Gillespie said. Not only must they convince merchants
to buy new readers, they must assure consumers that the new-fangled cards are
every bit as secure as the old ones in an age of identity theft and high-tech
hacking.
"Security is a question," Gillespie said. "How easy is it for
someone to interact with a wireless communication and pick up a number?"
Visa designed its system to be highly secure, with multiple layers of encryption
and fraud detection, Gauthier said. Each transmission between card and reader
has a unique code that cannot be reused even if it is intercepted, a key
security feature, he said. In addition, consumers have no liability for
fraudulent charges with the new cards as with the old ones, Gauthier added.
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5589512.html?tag=zdfd.newsfeed

The unemployment rate is 30 percent higher than it was in 2000. About one out of
six Americans has no health insurance, and half of all bankruptcies are
illness-related. One out of eight Americans lives below the meager official
poverty line -- and many more can't make ends meet above it.
...
Total federal tax revenues, says the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities,
"are a smaller share of the economy than in any year since 1959, a time
when Medicare, Medicaid, most federal aid to education, most child care and
environmental programs, and anti-poverty programs such as food stamps did not
exist."
http:/
/www.commondreams.org/views05/0225-28.htm

The World Bank, an international development institution that says it has no
political agenda, may be preparing to fund Israeli security checkpoints around a
controversial separation wall under construction on occupied Palestinian
territories
ht
tp://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0225-08.htm

The Kansas attorney general, as part of a criminal investigation into child rape
and late-term abortions, is demanding that two health centers hand over the
medical records of about 90 female patients, including minors.
The investigation was disclosed in a filing to the Kansas Supreme Court by two
unidentified clinics, which had been ordered by a district court judge to
disclose the patients' names, as well as their medical histories, birth control,
sexual practices and other personal details.
...
The clinics, which described the attorney general's subpoena as a "fishing
expedition," said that they would be willing to release the records as long
as specific identifying information ó such as names ó was blocked out.
Otherwise, Kline would "learn the names and other identifying information
of these women, and many intimate details of their lives Ö none of which are
likely relevant to the inquisition."
ht
tp://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0225-07.htm

Why am I not surprised that ChoicePoint, the consumer data-mining company that
was recently conned into sharing 145,000 consumer credit profiles with identity
thieves, is the same company that helped Florida "purge" its voter
rolls of felons and other undesirable voters during the 2000 election?
When you're on such an undemocratic roll, why stop at helping to hijack an
election in plain sight when you can earn millions selling the identities of
every person gullible enough to have a credit history to shadowy front
companies, organized crime syndicates and enterprising con artists?
http:/
/www.commondreams.org/views05/0225-24.htm

Ten of the 32 government drug advisers who last week endorsed continued
marketing of the huge-selling pain pills Celebrex, Bextra and Vioxx have
consulted in recent years for the drugs' makers, according to disclosures in
medical journals and other public records.
ht
tp://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0225-03.htm

Global policymakers scheduled to hold special U.N. talks starting next week must
boost women's share of resources and political standing in the developing world
if they hope to make a significant dent in world poverty, researchers say.
The Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
on Wednesday urged policy makers ''to take action in three critical areas to
advance women's status in developing countries: increase resources in the hands
of women; reduce discrimination against women; and place women's issues at the
forefront of policy action.''
ht
tp://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0225-04.htm

Yesterday's News

In Syria, when Faisal proclaimed himself king, he was quickly dethroned by
French General Henri Gouraud and driven into exile in Europe. France set about
carving up Syria into even smaller pieces. Lebanon was created out of the former
Ottoman vilayet (an administrative division) of Beirut together with Mt.
Lebanon. The reason the French did all this carving and hacking of the former
Ottoman Empire was to divide and rule the Arabs.
"The French policy of setting Syrian political groups off against one another
was seen as the chief factor in Syria’s turbulent history of frequent coups and
political instability following independence in 1946," writes Ted Thornton. C.H.
Jansen points out how the French created a "minority psychosis" in Syria and
Lebanon as a form of "divide and rule," a legacy operational in Lebanon to the
present day (see Jansen’s Militant Islam, Harper and Row, 1979, 104-105).
Between 1925 and 1927, the French killed 6,000 Syrians in their various attempts
to snuff out Syrian nationalism
http://www.pressaction.com/news/weblog/full_article/nimmo02252005/

Tyler Police have confirmed two people outside the Smith County Courthouse have
been killed after dozens of shots were fired starting just before 1:30p.m.
The two killed at the courthouse have now been identified: Maribel Estrada, the
estranged wife of the alleged shooter, David Hernandez Arroyo, and citizen Mark
Wilson. Wilson is licensed to carry a concealed weapon and fired several shots
at Arroyo. Arroyo, however, was wearing a bulletproof vest.
http://www.14wfie.com/Global/story.asp?S=2995937&nav=3w6oWnJQ

Oil Prices Rise Toward $52 on OPEC Fears
Thu Feb 24, 4:13 PM ET
Business - AP
By BRAD FOSS, AP Business Writer
Crude oil futures rose Thursday amid wintry weather in the U.S. Northeast and as
OPEC (news - web sites) leaders signaled their increasing comfort with high
prices.
The latest petroleum supply report from the U.S. government showed rising
inventories of crude oil and gasoline, while stocks of distillate fuel shrank.
...
"If there's any kind of disturbance in the Middle East, you're easily going
to see $60 a barrel," said Carl Larry, an analyst at Barclays Capital in
New York.
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050224/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_prices_60

[Released without charge.]
Moazzam Begg, 37, who was released by the Metropolitan Police without charge and
reunited with his wife and four children after three years' imprisonment, also
accuses his American captors of beating two detainees to death at the Bagram air
base near Kabul in Afghanistan. In his first interview since his release, he
told Channel 4 News he "witnessed two people get beaten so badly I believe
it caused their deaths".
...
He visited a second camp in 1998 near Jalalabad, he said, for a day and a half.
Mr Begg claimed it was run by Kurds fighting Saddam Hussein, not by al-Qa'ida.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/story.jsp?story=614556

An Auckland company refused an export licence to send military-style laser
harnesses to Israel's Ministry of Defence may be asked to explain if it has sent
the technical knowledge to make the training equipment.
Customs officials have confirmed to the Herald that they are studying leaked
documents which question whether the company, Oscmar International, has complied
with laws restricting the export of military goods and technology.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/index.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10112576

Astronomers have discovered an object that appears to be an invisible galaxy
made almost entirely of dark matter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/south_east/4288633.stm

The characteristic corkscrew trail of lightning is seen to brighten as it joins
the ionized trail of Columbia. Experts who checked the San Francisco photo of
amateur astronomer Peter Goldie concluded the time-lapse image of lightning was
caused by a camera wobble! But there is no sign of wobble in the Columbia trail
or in other similar photographs taken by Goldie.
Credit: David Monaghan Productions/HTV West, from the TV program:
ìMegalightning.î*
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=cc6y424y

A U.S. scientist claims to have thawed out a new life form, which he said raises
questions about possible contemporary life on Mars.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/02/23/bacterium.defrost.reut/index.html
If you've ever had the feeling that some big corporations don't care if you live
or die, you're right -- and there's plenty of evidence to prove it. With federal
enforcement of health and safety laws in a downward spiral, the courts have been
one of the few places people could defend themselves or seek restitution. Yet
the Bush administration is out to change that by limiting lawsuits intended to
punish corporate endangerment of workers and the public in the name of halting
"junk lawsuits."
...
The Ford Pinto scandal of the 1970s demonstrates why weakening corporate
liability is downright dangerous. Ford executives possessed pre-production crash
test results demonstrating the car's gas tank could explode in relatively minor
rear-end collisions. Internal memos revealed that Ford's managers decided
settling civil lawsuits brought by victims' families would be cheaper than
spending $11 per car to fix the problem. They began selling Pintos in 1971 and
allowed dozens of people to die each year.
...
One shouldn't assume that if Bush's agenda prevails, judges and prosecutors
would be drumming their fingers in empty courtrooms. . According to a Public
Citizen study, corporations are 160 times as likely to sue as an average person,
and 69 percent more likely than individual tort plaintiffs to be sanctioned for
filing frivolous claims. Of course Bush's tort reform proposals don't address
"runaway lawsuits" by corporations.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0224-31.htm

[The tenth Ammendment to the Consitution says powers not specifically granted
to the federal government belong either to the States or to the people. I do not
see anything in the Constitution about a Department of Education.]
A bipartisan group representing 50 state legislatures called Wednesday for major
changes in President Bush's landmark education initiative, No Child Left Behind,
which it lambasted as unconstitutional and impractical.
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-09.htm

During his trip to Germany on Wednesday, the main highlight of George W. Bush's
trip was meant to be a "town hall"-style meeting with average Germans.
But with the German government unwilling to permit a scripted event with
questions approved in advance, the White House has quietly put the event on ice.
Was Bush afraid the event might focus on prickly questions about Iraq and Iran
rather than the rosy future he's been touting in Europe this week?
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0224-08.htm

PETER Costello's closest adviser fears the US is heading for a devastating
financial crash that could ravage Australia's economic growth.
As the Reserve Bank considers raising interest rates at its board meeting next
Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Ken Henry likened the flood of money pouring into
the US to support its budget and current account deficits to the stockmarket's
dotcom bubble of the late 1990s.
Were it suddenly to stop, there would be shockwaves felt throughout the world's
economies.
...
The main cause of concern is the fact the US is running a trade deficit of about
$US600 billion ($760 billion) and a budget deficit of about $US430 billion for
2005.
US imports are almost 50per cent greater than the country's exports, with the
deficit being financed by international central banks and funds managers.
http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,12364649-462,00.html

Mr Grimmer's Peruvian-born wife, Silvia, believed Cuban authorities suspected
them of spying because Australians "are a friend of the US", regularly
denounced by Cuba's dictator of more than 40 years, Fidel Castro.
"The reason (we were jailed) is they wanted to bother people who are not
friends of Cuba," she said.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12353335%255E2702,00.html

Victor F. Ganzi is a member of B.E.N.S. - "Business Executives for National
Security" wherein we learn that "When it came time to evaluate
In-Q-Tel, the CIA's innovative technology development enterprise, Congress
turned to BENS"
In October 2002, B.E.N.S. received a "CIA Agency Seal Medallion" for
its work on the In-Q-Tel program.
In-Q-Tel? It is described as "A new partnership between the CIA and the
‘private sector’(my apostrophes)," making it a classic front for traditional
fascism and other American-style old-fashioned family values
http://www.in-q-tel.org/

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread119094/pg1

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Europe's No. 2 airline, may seek redress for
cancellations and delays from German authorities who temporarily brought the
Frankfurt area to a standstill yesterday for a visit by U.S. President George W.
Bush, damaging business for local companies.
Lufthansa had to cancel 92 flights, affecting 5,730 passengers, as a consequence
of air traffic restrictions, said spokesman Thomas Jachnow in a telephone
interview. Delays to another 330 flights totaled around 300 hours. Jachnow said
losses went ``well into the millions,'' though he declined to elaborate.
...
Bush's eight-hour trip to Mainz, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) west of
Frankfurt, for talks with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, led the
authorities to halt river traffic on the Rhine, Europe's busiest waterway,
suspend takeoffs and landings at Frankfurt airport, Europe's second biggest, and
close four motorways for periods of up to four hours. Much of Mainz city center
was cordoned off, damaging business in local stores.
...
Axel Raabe, a spokesman for DFS Deutsche Flugsicherung GmbH, which operates
Germany's air traffic control system, said each minute of delay to a flight
increases costs by around 50 euros ($66).
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100&sid=a5r.jATeAKnQ

MSN Search Viral Campaign with Fake Blogs
Mediapost has details of the new viral campaign, MSN hopes will help its newly
launched MSN Search gain street cred.
The viral’s main site, www.msnfound.com, collects all the blogs together, along
with pictures of the authors. Each of the authors has a unique shtick.
It's laughable that MSN has to create its own buzz by developing fake blogs and
hoping the word will spread. Even Microsoft evangelist, Robert Scoble, thinks
the campaign stinks.
This site, which probably cost $100,000 (ahh, that's where our towel money went)
has great graphic design. Lots of streaming video.
But it's fake. All of it is actors. No real people. No real point.

Aaaaaaaggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhh.
We agree!
http://www.searchenginelowdown.com/2005/02/msn-search-viral-campaign-with-fake.html

The ad features six fictional characters, each with their own Web log. They are
Reggie, a DJ from London; Tad, a surfer from Venice Beach; Karen, a dog breeder
from Sandusky, Ohio; Swing, a hotel concierge from Tokyo; Cy a security guard
and conspiracy theorist from Chicago; and Denise, the owner of the new True
dating service.
http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticleHomePage&art_aid=27542

Warning from the markets
The New York Times
Friday, February 25, 2005
When a seemingly innocuous remark from the central bank of South Korea makes the
dollar tank, as happened on Tuesday, all is not well with the United States'
position in the world economy.
The dollar has been on a downward trajectory for three years, thanks in part to
the Bush administration's decision to try to use a cheap dollar to shrink the
nation's enormous trade deficit. To be truly effective, however, a weak dollar
must be combined with a lower federal budget deficit - or even a budget surplus,
something the administration clearly hasn't delivered. So predictably, the
weak-dollar ploy hasn't worked. The United States' trade deficit has mushroomed
to record levels, as has the United States' need to borrow from abroad - some $2
billion a day - just to balance its books.

http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/02/24/opinion/eddollar.html

Laurie, 42, the CSO of boutique security firm the Bunker, isn't going to mess
with anyone's phone, although he could: With just a few tweaks to the scanning
program his computer is running, Laurie could be crashing cell phones all around
him, cutting a little swath of telecommunications destruction down the deli
aisle. But today Laurie is just gathering data. We are counting how many phones
he can hack using Bluetooth, a wireless protocol for syncing cell phones with
headsets, computers, and other devices.
We review the results of the expedition in a nearby pub. In the 17 minutes we
wandered around, Laurie's computer picked up signals from 39 phones. He peers at
his monitor for a while. "It takes only 15 seconds to suck down somebody's
address book, so we could have had a lot of those," he says at last.
"And at least five of these phones were vulnerable to an attack."
...
Laurie, whose laptop is now packed with information from vulnerable cell phones
in the Shepherd's Bush, has become infamous in Britain for conducting a similar
experiment in the House of Parliament, where he had the opportunity (which he
didn't take) to copy the address books and calendars of several prominent
politicians. That excursion resulted in a mandate that all Bluetooth devices be
turned off in the House of Parliament.
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers.html

A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country
Updated 3:38 p.m. ET
A toxic component of rocket fuel has been found in breast milk of women in 18
states and store-bought milk from various locations around the country.
The chemical, perchlorate, can impede adult metabolism and cause retardation in
fetuses, among other things. It leaches into groundwater from various military
facilities.
Previous studies have found perchlorate in drinking water, on lettuce, and in
cows milk.
The new research, announced this week, suggests perchlorate is a bigger problem
than thought, scientists said.
http://www.livescience.com/humanbiology/050224_rocket_fuel.html

http://www.livescience.com/php/multimedia/imagedisplay/img_display.php?pic=050224_perchlorate_map_02.jpg&cap=States+with+perchlorate+contamination+in+drinking+water.+Credit%3A+Environmental+Working+Group

[What is life without the freedom to live it the way you want to? People in
persistent vegetatives states are still alive.]
Tony Blair faced down a rebellion over new anti-terror laws today and said lives
were more important than civil liberties.
The Prime Minister declared: "There is no greater civil liberty than to
live free from terrorist attack. It would be the gravest dereliction of duty to
wait until we suffered a terrorist outrage here, and only then act."
...
Control orders range from banning a suspect from using a telephone to curbing
their travel. The most controversial powers, being kept in reserve, could see
suspects held without trial in their homes or in Government accommodation.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/articles/16847543?version=1

Federal agencies have been put on notice that National Institute of Standards
and Technology officials plan to phase out a widely used cryptographic hash
function known as SHA-1 in favor of larger and stronger hash functions such as
SHA-256 and SHA-512

http://www.fcw.com/fcw/articles/2005/0207/web-hash-02-07-05.asp

The separatist Republic of Texas group, which largely dissolved after an
abortive uprising in the Davis Mountains left several of its leaders dead or in
prison in 1997, has reformed, and is again pushing its message that Texas should
be a free and independent nation, 1200 WOAI news reported today.
From a newly established 'capitol' in the east Texas town of Overton, Daniel
Miller, President of the Republic of Texas Interim Government, says a desire to
be free, combined with ballooning concerns over rising taxes and property
rights, will convince more Texans to support a 'referendum' on whether Texas
should become an independent nation.
...
"Texas independence is not some fringe movement, nor is it
reactionary," Miller says. "We are simply living out trends that are
happening around the world. If you look at the past twenty years there have been
in excess of thirty nations which have been formed. There is a trend worldwide
toward independence and decontrol, and we think it's high time that the trend
came to Texas.
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=64188ADC-5D4B-417E-A31B-9BB84D2E8B43

[Read this. The US gave 100 surface to air missiles to nicaraguan rebels and has
never got them back. All they have to do is get them across mexico and they
could walk into the US with the missiles slung over their shoulders.
Also note we are building a $60M embassy in Nicaragua. Why? Nicaragua is a tiny
backwater country in Cnetral America.]
One of the men convicted of selling a SAM-7 surface-to-air missile in Nicaragua,
Jorge Ivan Pineda, said he was paid $1,000 by the CIA to buy the weapon and that
the whole thing was planned at a meeting in the US embassy in the presence of
the US ambassador Barbara Moore on Dec. 23 2004. The head of the Nicaragua Army,
Gen. Javier Carrion, said he believes there could be an international campaign
to discredit his institution.
...
These two men went by the names of "Cascabel" and "Arandu"
and were the ones who obtained the weapon, which had never been in possession of
the Nicaragua Army but was one of 100 SAM-7 missiles that the US government had
given to the contras to fight against the Sandinista government in the 1980s.
These weapons have never been recovered and apparently are still in the
possession of ex-contra fighters in the northern mountains of Nicaragua.
...
It is assumed that Washington is discontented with Moore for failing to unite
the anti-Sandinista forces in Nicaragua and is concerned that she would be
unable to avoid a Sandinista victory in the 2006 general elections. Meanwhile on
Feb. 17, President Enrique Bolaños made a speech outside the site where a new
$59.2 million mega US embassy is under construction.
http://www.nicanet.org/hotline.php#topic1

I've been thinking about the problem, and the associated problem of being
constantly surveilled by corporate America and the fascist Bush Regime.
http://www.unknownnews.org/050301a-gm.html

Students are beginning to take the looming threat seriously as they consider
ways of making themselves "draft resistant" as they gear up for conscientious
objector status, establishing advance proof that they will qualify.
http://www.iconoclast-texas.com/News/08news05.htm

O'Connor Kelly joined DoubleClick in February 2000, when the company was being
threatened with legal action by the Federal Trade Commission and 10 state
attorneys general over its practices related to obtaining, using and selling
information about computer users.
DoubleClick eventually satisfied the FTC and the attorneys general by agreeing,
in part, to create a privacy-compliance division, which O'Connor Kelly ran for
two years.
"It's impossible to tell whether she genuinely wanted to improve
DoubleClick's practices, or if she was simply providing the PR makeover that the
company's officers so obviously wanted," said Jason Catlett, president of
Junkbusters, a consumer privacy information service.
Privacy advocates who previously worked with O'Connor Kelly at DoubleClick say
they are cautiously optimistic about her appointment.
http://www.wired.com/news/print/0,1294,58586,00.html

[Yet another good idea.]
The Department of Homeland Security has named Claria, an adware maker that
online publishers once dubbed a "parasite," to a federal privacy
advisory board.
An executive from Claria, formerly called Gator, will be one of 20 members of
the committee, the department said Wednesday.
http://www.newstarget.com/003641.html

The World Council of Churches has asked its 342-member denominations to consider
divesting from companies that profit from Israeli occupation of the Palestinian
territories.
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-27.htm

Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil
servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of
law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case where he has ordered an
investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch says that 100 disclosures are
still pending;
http://www.peer.org/news/news_id.php?row_id=483

Reusable spaceplanes that propel ticket-holding passengers to the edge of space
are slowly becoming reality.
Among several firms literally hammering away at this prospect is Rocketplane
Limited, Inc., an Oklahoma corporation. The company is eager to make space
travel as safe, convenient, and routine as air transportation, with work ramping
up on their Rocketplane XP design.
...
The fuselage of the Rocketplane XP is a modified Lear 25 series using the same
General Electric CJ-610 turbojet engines found on the standard business jet
configuration. Those powerful engines are used for takeoff and then shut down
after rocket engine ignition
http://www.rense.com/general63/ssps.htm

[This obviously deliberate. They stubbornly refuse to take even minimal security
steps to pretect the people who will actually have these passports even though
even their own people are saying they shoudl it. This is 100% deliberate and
intended to screw you over.]
Despite widespread criticism from security experts that a proposed high-tech
upgrade to Americans' passports actually introduces new security risks, the
government is declining to encrypt data on new high-tech e-passports, according
to proposed new rules published last week.
In response to this outside criticism and some public questioning by one of its
own contractors, the State Department delayed its rollout of the chip-equipped
passports and hired additional companies to provide prototypes.
Other countries are also wrangling with the issue, as the United States is
requiring all 27 countries whose citizens do not need visas to visit America to
begin issuing e-passports by October.
So far only Belgium has started production, and it is likely the deadline, which
was originally October 2004, will be pushed back another year.
The new passports will include a radio frequency identification tag, a chip that
will store all the information on the data page of the passport, including name,
date and place of birth, and a digitized version of the photo passport,
according to the proposal in the Federal Register.
...
Schneier, who just renewed his passport to make sure he will not have an
unencrypted passport for another 10 years, says he has yet to hear a good
argument as to why the government is requiring remotely readable chips instead
of a contact chip -- which could hold the same information but would not be
skimmable.
"A contact chip would be so much safer," Schneier said. "The only
reason I can think of is the government wants surreptitious access. I'm running
out of other explanations. I'd love to hear one."
http://www.rense.com/general63/noen.htm

The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the
purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge
alternative energy project isn't driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high
thermal power station called the Solar Tower.
http://www.rense.com/general63/sspsd.htm

Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its
Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the
issue.
Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong
public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate
members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming
budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills
are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)
http://www.rense.com/general63/drill.htm

A team of Canadian researchers believes it has unravelled the mystery of how
hepatitis C evades the human immune system to cause chronic disease in about
three-quarters of the people who become infected.
Their discovery provides a bright ending to the personal tragedy of the
hepatitis C patient whose blood they studied, a man who became infected through
a medical error in a hospital clinic.
http://www.rense.com/general63/ccna.htm

When undercover investigators made their way onto Chinese fur farms recently,
they found that many animals are still alive and struggling desperately when
workers flip them onto their backs or hang them up by their legs or tails to
skin them. When workers on these farms begin to cut the skin and fur from an
animal's leg, the free limbs kick and writhe. Workers stomp on the necks and
heads of animals who struggle too hard to allow a clean cut. When the fur is
finally peeled off over the animals' heads, their naked, bloody bodies are
thrown onto a pile of those who have gone before them. Some are still alive,
breathing in ragged gasps and blinking slowly. Some of the animals' hearts are
still beating five to 10 minutes after they are skinned. One investigator
recorded a skinned raccoon dog on the heap of carcasses who had enough strength
to lift his bloodied head and stare into the camera.
...
Mother animals, who are driven crazy from rough handling and intense confinement
and have nowhere to hide while giving birth, often kill their babies after
delivering litters. Disease and injuries are widespread, and animals suffering
from anxiety-induced psychosis chew on their own limbs and throw themselves
repeatedly against the cage bars.
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm
http://www.furisdead.com/feat/ChineseFurFarms/

Nearly 1 million baby seals will be clubbed or shot to death in Canada in just
three years. Shockingly, the hunt is subsidized by the Canadian government!
Every winter, Northwest Atlantic harp seals migrate to Eastern Canada to give
birth and mate. Following their birth in late winter, mothers leave in search of
mates, while the pups remain helpless and vulnerable on the ice until they can
swim and catch their own food. It's during this time when they are most
vulnerable that they are mercilessly slaughtered for their pelts!
http://www.rense.com/general63/baby.htm

Both chambers of the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly yesterday
approved a measure that would deny illegal aliens access to state and local
public benefits, including Medicaid.
http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20050222-104341-3112r.htm

As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with Israel,
there's a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel connection even
when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union Address, two Interpol fugitives attended
the "National Prayer Breakfast" held in Washington DC. The day before
that, these fugitives from the law were the guests of honor at an hour-long
meeting of the International Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by
ranking Democrat Tom Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when wanted men being hunted by European
police suddenly pop up in the US particularly on Capitol Hill and at events
attended by the US president.
...
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz explains: "In recent years Russian
authorities began investigating [Yukos], its managers and major stockholders,
many of whom are of Jewish origin. The probes caused several of the managers to
flee to Israel, and resulted in Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin
attack on Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking
power struggle now going on in Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this
connection. For example, a few months ago in a typical AP story on this power
struggle, "Report: Russia again charges Berezovsky," [4] Moscow AP
Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an
Israeli citizen, or of his many connections to Israel.
...
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in Chechnya," Avnery
reports, "in which tens of thousands have been killed and a whole country
devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources and a prospective
pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end to the peace agreement
that gave the country some kind of independence. The oligarchs dismissed and
destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general who engineered the agreement, and
the war has been going on since then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a reaction: Vladimir
Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed power, took control of
the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the
others to flee (Berezovsky is in England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel,
another, Mikhail Chernoy, is assumed to be hiding here.)
http://www.counterpunch.org/weir02172005.html