... it can destroy an entire ecosystem and food web/chain. This is huge. Without time to adapt major shifts in ecosystems can abruptly occur demising biological systems that have sustained Earth and human existence for millenia. I'm sorry, but, this is no minor issue that will simply go away and accepted as "Gee, whiz, the ice fields are all gone now." That is a huge misconception of anyone who believes the quality of their lives will be sustained due to manmade environments. No one wishes all these problems would go away more than me, but, they won't. 
The Independent
Climate Change vs Mother Nature: Scientists reveal that bears have stopped hibernating
Published: 21 December 2006
Bears have stopped hibernating in the mountains of northern Spain, scientists revealed yesterday, in what may be one of the strongest signals yet of how much climate change is affecting the natural world.
In a December in which bumblebees, butterflies and even swallows have been on the wing in Britain, European brown bears have been lumbering through the forests of Spain's Cantabrian mountains, when normally they would already be in their long, annual sleep.
Bears are supposed to slumber throughout the winter, slowing their body rhythms to a minimum and drawing on stored resources, because frozen weather makes food too scarce to find. The barely breathing creatures can lose up to 40 per cent of their body weight before warmer springtime weather rouses them back to life.
But many of the 130 bears in Spain's northern cordillera - which have a slightly different genetic identity from bear populations elsewhere in the world - have remained active throughout recent winters, naturalists from Spain's Brown Bear Foundation (La Fundación Oso Pardo - FOP) said yesterday.
The change is affecting female bears with young cubs, which now find there are enough nuts, acorns, chestnuts and berries on thebleak mountainsides to make winter food-gathering sorties "energetically worthwhile", scientists at the foundation, based in Santander, the Cantabrian capital, told El Pais newspaper.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2091875.ece
Michael McCarthy: A shock to the ancient rhythms of the natural world
Published: 21 December 2006
Animals that hibernate in winter abandoning hibernation: yet another signal that something momentous is happening to the rhythms of the natural world, in the way in which we have always understood them.
Consider what a significant disruption of a life pattern this is. Hibernation has evolved for the same reason most animal behaviour has evolved: as a strategy to maximise survival. Some creatures that need a lot of energy to get around have learnt to shut themselves down in the winter months, when the food to provide that energy is simply not available (or too much energy would be expended in searching for it). Zoologists have realised in recent decades that many species have an instinctive and finely tuned way of weighing up the balance between how much effort needs to be expended to acquire a certain food item, and how much energy is available, in return, in the item acquired. The general law is: if the second is less than the first, don't do it. This has been christened "optimal foraging".
Hibernation could be seen as a version of this: if the food search is going to be hopeless, it makes sense to stop foraging altogether. Instead, fatten yourself up before the hopeless time, then sleep it out. This is a strategy that has evolved - in bears, hedgehogs, bats and other species - over millions of years and it has persisted as a piece of behaviour because it has been successful.
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2091876.ece
Christmas misery as heavy fog brings chaos to airports
By Geneviève Roberts
Published: 21 December 2006
The Christmas plans of hundreds of thousands of people are in jeopardy because of the severe fog which has grounded flights from British airports.
British Airways has cancelled 180 flights out of Heathrow today, including all domestic services. Many European flights will also be affected as only 220 of its usual 400 flights will take off. Passengers travelling long-haul were also warned to expect severe delays. The airline, the worst affected by the weather, is urging customers booked on domestic flights not to travel to the airport today, as Heathrow will only be able to handle 50 per cent of its usual traffic.
Yesterday, Heathrow was in chaos as more than 200 BA flights were cancelled. All flights that departed from Heathrow suffered severe delays, as the spacing between planes in the air was increased from three to six miles.
The airline bmi, formerly British Midland Airways, and the European carriers Lufthansa and Alitalia, also cancelled flights, while BA cancelled 18 short-haul flights out of Gatwick yesterday and warned of continuing delays during today.
The Met Office said the fog is set to continue until the weekend. More than two million people are planning to travel abroad from UK airports over the Christmas period.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/transport/article2091930.ece
Fishermen angered by new EU quotas deal
PA
Published: 21 December 2006
Fishing industry leaders have hit out at a deal agreed in Brussels today that will cut the number of days they are allowed at sea.
European fisheries minister had thrashed out an agreement on next year's EU quotas after twelve hours of talks.
UK fisheries minister Ben Bradshaw then emerged to hail an accord he said was good for conservation but even better for the pockets of the UK fleet - for the third year running.
But the deal has been criticised by Scottish fishermen, who are angry that they will lose between one and two days fishing every month as a result.
Bertie Armstrong, chief executive of the Scottish Fishermen's Federation, said they would not be allowed out for long enough to catch their quotas.
He told the Scottish Press Association from Brussels: "There is huge disappointment within the industry, and there will be some anger in elements of the fishing fleet that are affected by the decision to reduce days at sea.
"Undeniably, the opportunity to catch fish with regard to quotas was broadly satisfactory.
"However, for the white fish and prawn section, the crucial element is days at sea.
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2092354.ece
Teenagers convicted of christening party killing
PA
Published: 21 December 2006
Four teenagers were convicted at the Old Bailey today of killing a woman as she cradled a baby at the child's christening party.
One, aged 17, was convicted of murder and the other three, aged 15,16 and 17 were cleared of murder but convicted of manslaughter.
They will be sentenced in February after pre-sentence reports.
Two of them were in Britain illegally and now face deportation. All face lengthy jail terms.
The four were members of an armed masked gang of raiders who burst into a christening party at Wood Dene Estate in Peckham, south London on August 27 last year to rob guests.
Mrs Zainab Kalokoh was shot dead. She had fled to Britain from her native war-torn Sierra Leone.
As Mrs Kalokoh, 33, lay dying, the raiders stripped cowering guests of valuables as part of an "audacious" robbery plot, prosecutor Brian Altman had told jurors.
Mrs Kalokoh had come to the UK "in the reasonable expectation that this country would provide her with a peaceful, violence-free life", he said.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article2092690.ece
Mothers and babies infected in hospital outbreak of PVL
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor
Published: 21 December 2006
An outbreak of a PVL superbug struck the maternity unit of a hospital in Plymouth leaving 10 mothers and their babies with severe infections, The Independent has learnt. Emma Lynch, one of the mothers, developed an abscess almost eight inches long, which required emergency surgery, and her daughter, Daisy, had a boil on her breast which required lancing when she was two weeks old. Daisy has since had 14 courses of antibiotics in an attempt to clear her of the bug, which is resistant to treatment.
Details of the outbreak emerged yesterday after the Health Protection Agency put out a warning to the NHS last weekend following the deaths of nurse and a patient from the Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) form of the MRSA bacteria at the University Hospital of North Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, earlier this year. It was the first time the PVL form had been transmitted and caused deaths within a hospital.
Mrs Lynch said she and her daughter, now aged three, made repeated attempts to eradicate the PVL infection without success, after Daisy was born at Derriford Hospital in October 2003. "I was extremely shocked and concerned for my daughter's health. More should be known about this bug," she said.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article2091880.ece
Last stronghold of Somali government under attack
By Sahal Abdulle in Mogadishu
Published: 21 December 2006
Fighting between Islamists and the embattled interim government continued yesterday, with rockets and machine guns fired at the government's last stronghold in the country.
A deadline set by the Somalia Islamic Courts Council (SICC), which controls much of the country, for troops from neighbouring Ethiopia to pull out passed unheeded, but a top Islamist leader, Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, denied the fighting marked the start of all-out war.
"The war has not started. This is a small incident," Sheikh Aweys told reporters after meeting the European Union's commissioner for development aid, Louis Michel.
Mr Michel is on a diplomatic visit to persuade the Islamists and the interim government to return to negotiations. He said the SICC had agreed to resume peace talks in Khartoum without conditions. "They have accepted our proposal," he said, with both men calling it a "breakthrough".
Interim government officials were not immediately available for comment.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/africa/article2091870.eceIt seems very, very obvious to me who is stirring the pot in the Middle East. For every advance the leaders of countries such as Palestine make, it is countered by al Qaeda. More and more proof that leaving the legitimate fight in Afghanistan for an oil war in Iraq has simply fueled the instability in the Middle East. With NATO and the Brits strugglling to maintain a neutrality in Afghanistan it is time for the USA to return to it's moral war. To lose in Iraq has no consequences to the National Security of our country. To lose Afghanistan and allow these al Qaeda murderers to continue to destabilize Islam is simply the worst thing that can happen to civilization and any hope for a lasting peace. Al Qaeda has to be destroyed and that has to be the first priority of the USA.
Al-Qa'ida chief in jihad plea to Hamas
By Andrew Buncombe
Published: 21 December 2006
The man considered to be al-Qa'ida's number two has criticised Hamas for entering the political process.
In a video messagebroadcast by the Arabic language channel Al Jazeera, Ayman al-Zawahiri said that voting would lead to the Palestinians' land being taken by Israel. "Any road other than jihad will only lead to loss," he said. "Those trying to liberate the land of Islam through elections based on secular constitutions or on decisions to surrender Palestine to the Jews will not liberate a grain of sand of Palestine."
His message referred to several recent developments, including the stalled talks on forming a national unity government between the ruling Islamist movement, Hamas, and the Fatah faction of the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2091869.ece
Fire-fight breaks fragile Gaza truce
By Donald Macintyre in Gaza City
Published: 21 December 2006
An uneasy truce between Hamas and Fatah appeared to be mainly holding in Gaza last night despite being breached by a fire-fight which killed two men in the early hours of yesterday.
But it was far from certain that efforts to reach the deeper political agreement most local politicians believe is necessary to embed the ceasefire will succeed.
Both factions withdrew most of their armed men from the city centre though a armed guard remained around the residence of the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. There was a gun battle 75 minutes after the ceasefire came into effect on Tuesday after members of Hamas went to eastern Gaza City to detain a Fatah member accused of shooting a leader of Hamas's military wing. Two members of the Dogmush clan were killed in the exchanges.
There were exchanges of fire during the two men's funeral later when mourners spotted Hamas gunmen in a nearby government building. In a separate incident about 1.30am, six police officers were wounded by unknown gunmen.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2091868.ece
Suicide bomber kills at least 14 in Iraq
AP
Published: 21 December 2006
A suicide bomber blew up among a group of police volunteers today, killing at least 14 people and wounded 21 others, police said.
The attack occurred at 7.15am at a police academy in eastern Baghdad, authorities said. The attacker was wearing a belt laden with explosives, and at least two of the dead were policemen.
The area around the facility remained cordoned off hours after the attack. Outside a nearby hospital, at least five bodies lay on beds and on the ground, covered in blue blankets as onlookers passed by.
Yesterday, two suicide car bombings killed at least 19 people in the capital.
'Out of touch' Bush wants to boost size of Army
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published: 21 December 2006
George Bush says he wants to increase the size of the US military - currently the second largest in the world - to allow America to take on a "long struggle against radicals and extremists".
Speaking at an end-of-year press conference, Mr Bush said he was "inclined to believe" a permanent increase in the size of US forces was necessary. Previously he indicated he wished to boost the Army and Marine Corps.
On the option of sending more troops to Iraq in the short term, he said: "I haven't made up my mind yet about more troops. We're looking at all options, and one of those options, of course, is increasing more troops, but in order to do so there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished."
His comments came as the new US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, met US commanders in Iraq and discussed the possibility of extra troops.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2091866.ece
Soldier accused of leaking secrets to Iran
By Neville Dean
Published: 21 December 2006
A British soldier has been accused of divulging secret information to Iran about the military campaign in Afghanistan.
Daniel James, 44, was charged under the Official Secrets Act at the City of Westminster magistrates court of giving information "calculated to be directly or indirectly useful to the enemy". Mr James, who was dressed smartly in a quilted jacket, spoke to confirm his name and date of birth before the charge was read to him.
The charge relates to an incident on 2 November this year, and is under section one (1) (C), of the Official Secrets Act 1911. No further details about the allegations were released and reporters were asked to leave the court as the hearing was continued in camera.
After allowing reporters back into court, Judge Timothy Workman said: "I have been given certain information which leads me to the conclusion that it will be necessary to hear certain facts in camera as there is a possible prejudice to national security."
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/legal/article2091925.ece
Retail relief as festive spending surges
Mortgage lending at record levels * Sterling tests highs * CBI survey points to new year rate rise
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 21 December 2006
A rebound in consumer spending and a record surge in borrowing in the run-up to Christmas put the markets on red alert for a new year rise in interest rates yesterday.
Festive spending has begun in earnest, while house buyers took on record levels of mortgage debt last month, according to two surveys that showed the consumer economy was in rude health.
The pound was close to its highest in six weeks against the euro and rose above $1.97 against the dollar as traders bet on a February rate rise. Retail sales soared over the past four weeks to their highest level for two years, according to a snapshot survey by the CBI of 86 retailers. It showed that 47 per cent said sales were higher than a year ago, while 22 per cent reported a drop.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2091900.ece
Hamish Mcrae: 'BRIC' economies hold the key to building global growth in 2007
Published: 21 December 2006
This is the last of these columns for 2006, hence the seasonal temptation to try to think through the principal economic influences during the coming year. It is an exercise that is useful not because global economic changes follow an annual calendar - they don't - but rather because it is worth standing back from time to time from the daily news flow and thinking about long-term changes in the world economy. A year-end is as good a time as any to do so.
At least three important things happened during 2006: the start of the long-expected decline in the dollar; a return to "normal" interest rates; and India and Russia joining China as fast-growing "BRIC" economies. A word about each, for they form the baseline for the things to look for in 2007.
The fall of the dollar has yet to have any impact on the scale of the US current account deficit, stuck at some 7 per cent of GDP, but it is a necessary precondition for the correction that we all know sooner or later has to happen. As US growth slows during the coming year we may catch sight of the turning point in the current account. Meanwhile the dollar remains vulnerable.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/comment/article2091909.ece
King: IMF must reform or face prospect of irreparable damage
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 21 December 2006
Mervyn King, the Governor of the Bank of England, yesterday warned that the International Monetary Fund faced "irreparable" damage if its members failed to agree to wholesale reform at a key meeting of its board next spring.
Mr King said its 184 members must agree on a new regime of surveillance to deal with economic shocks such as the 1997 Asian financial crisis. He said a deal on voting rights to reflect the economic and political weights of the members was also vital for long-term credibility.
His comments came as the IMF criticised Thailand's short-lived decision to impose capital controls on foreign investors as "too strong and far-reaching".
Mr King used a keynote address in Australia, which is about to relinquish the presidency of the G20 group of emerging economies, to lay out his stall ahead of the IMF's spring meetings in April. He has long made IMF reform a key part of his agenda, to the extent that he has been tipped as a future managing director.
He is credited with helped Rodrigo de Rato, the current managing director, get a reform package on the table that reforms the voting structure and establishes a new surveillance system focused on the dangers that economies' policies posed globally.
http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article2091902.ece
Sugar-sweet and selling like hot cakes, the unlikeliest hit of the year
By Louise Jury, Arts Correspondent
Published: 21 December 2006
It is the best-selling phenomenon you may never have heard of. But if you haven't, it's a sure bet you're not a parent.
For High School Musical, a sugar-sweet tale of classroom rivalries, is the buzz of British playgrounds. It has topped the DVD charts with sales of more than 400,000 so far and is likely to be in a quarter of all households with the target audience of six to 11-year-olds by Christmas.
Although it has not been released in cinemas and will only get its terrestrial television premiere in Britain on BBC1 next week, its first week DVD sales were bigger than television hits such as The Office.
It has become the fastest-selling television film on DVD in the UK with Official Charts Company figures showing that only big screen blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean are doing better. The accompanying soundtrack sold 650,000 copies in its first 10 days on release.
http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2091877.ece
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/Take This Job and Shove ItTop Army general cuts and runs
Top general in Mideast to retire
Abizaid opposed calls for more troops in Iraq. His departure could clear way for a more aggressive strategy.
By Peter Spiegel / Los Angeles TimesWASHINGTON — Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, has submitted plans to retire and will leave his post in March, a step likely to make way for a change in military strategy at a time the Bush administration is seeking a new plan for Iraq.Abizaid has been the primary architect of U.S. military strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan since becoming head of the U.S. Central Command more than three years ago. He has strenuously resisted calls to increase troop levels to quell rising violence in Baghdad, arguing it would increase Iraqi dependence on Americans.But a growing number of current and former officers have embraced the idea, some of whom have briefed President Bush as part of his monthlong review of Iraq policy, and the White House is believed to be considering the move."If you're going to change the strategy, in fairness to [Abizaid], let him go," said a former senior Pentagon official who has worked closely with the general. "He's given it all he's got, in terms of personal sacrifice."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8712
Gates Holds Intense Talks on War Efforts
By Thomas E. Ricks / Washington PostBAGHDAD -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates spent his third day as Pentagon chief in an intense series of discussions with top U.S. military commanders about the way forward here, but said that he won't move toward any conclusions until he has talked with senior Iraqi officials.
"We discussed the obvious things," Gates said after meeting with Gen. John Abizaid, Gen. George Casey and other top Army generals here. "We discussed the possibility of a surge and the potential for what it might accomplish." In recent days the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the White House have debated whether to conduct such a "surge," or short-term escalation of U.S. troops in Iraq, in an effort to bring more security to the country's turbulent capital, Baghdad.
Appearing relaxed but looking funereal in a black suit, white shirt and dark tie, Gates said he had received "candid, honest, first-hand assessments" from senior officers he met with here Wednesday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8713
Bush: 'We do need to increase our troops'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush asked his new secretary of defense to draw up plans to increase the overall size of the Army and the Marines, according to an interview with the president published Tuesday in the Washington Post.
"I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops -- the Army, the Marines," Bush said.
"And I talked about this to Secretary Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea."
Senior administration officials said the timing of the president's comments is connected with Washington's oncoming budget season, and that the president intends for such plans to be part of the fiscal 2008 budget.
But the comments also come amid increasing warnings from officials and experts that the U.S. military is stretched too thin to cope with the stresses of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8711
Iraq troop buildup idea worries generals
By Robert Burns / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A White House laboring to find a new approach in Iraq said Tuesday it is considering sending more U.S. troops, an option that worries top generals because of its questionable payoff and potential backlash. President Bush said he is ready to boost the overall size of an American military overstretched by its efforts against worldwide terrorism.
The military's caution on shipping thousands of additional troops temporarily to Iraq is based on a fear that the move could be ineffective without bold new political and economic steps.
Commanders also worry that the already stretched Army and Marine Corps would be even thinner once the short-term surge ended. Bush's newly expressed interest in making the military larger would have little impact on that worry because it will take much longer to add substantially to the size of the military.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8710
U.S. plans naval buildup in Gulf to counter Iran
CENTCOM plans to use 'gunboat diplomacy,' officials tell NBC News
NBC News and news services
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Central Command is aggressively planning a naval buildup in the Persian Gulf, including the addition of a second aircraft carrier, in response to a series of aggressive actions by Iran, U.S. military officials told NBC News on Tuesday.
The officials pointed to Iran's interference in Iraq — including its support for Shiite militants and shipments of improvised explosive devices into the country — recent military naval exercises in the Gulf, and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
The attempt at "gunboat diplomacy" is in its final planning stages. Although it has not been approved yet, it appears likely the increase in U.S. warships into the Gulf could come as early as January, the officials said.
U.S.: Iran making headway on weaponsOn Monday, the Bush administration said Iran was making headway in building nuclear weapons as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice tried to iron out differences with Russia over a U.N. resolution designed to stop the program with economic sanctions.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8709
The “Yes Man”
Secretary of Defence Robert Gates (R) and Iraqi Defence Minister Abdel Qader al-Obeidi arrive at the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in Baghdad, December 21, 2006. (Sabah Arar/Pool/Reuters)
http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=%22Robert+Gates%22&c=news_photos
Tales of the Freeway Blogger
http://freewayblogger.blogspot.com/2006/12/marin-county.html
Rhetoric shift
Conyers backs off impeachment talk
… Just a year ago, in December 2005, Conyers introduced legislation calling for the creation of a special committee "to investigate the administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of prewar intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment."
As Conyers explained at Friday's event — the first in what he said will be a series of gatherings for public input on the agenda for Democrats who now have a majority in both houses of Congress — impeachment is being taken off the table for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that such an effort has little chance of succeeding. That's not because there's an obvious absence of any culpability on the part of the president, but rather the political realities of the situation.
First off, said Conyers, with Democrats holding just a 51-49 edge in the Senate, bipartisan support would be needed to remove Bush from office, and that support simply isn't there. Even his own party isn't united.
"I know there are some Democratic senators who would never vote to convict," Conyers said.
Of course, impeaching Bush was even more unlikely a year ago when Conyers introduced his resolution.
With Bush now a lame duck, and with Democrats in control of Congress, Conyers — while offering no direct explanation for his impeachment backslide — provided insight into his thinking when he told the audience that the priority now is getting a Democrat into the White House in 2008.
Conventional wisdom holds that a significant majority of the public wants progress in addressing the issues confronting us, not a bare-knuckled partisan brawl. And impeachment proceedings, Conyers now says, would tie up the new Congress for at least four to eight months, maybe even longer, taking attention from issues that need to be addressed immediately. Chief among those, of course, is the war in Iraq….
http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=9988FROM WHAT I am reading regarding the Iraqi Court and prison system, these people could easily be picked up in raids by USA military, brought to Iraqi Civil/Criminal Courts rather than American POW detainee stockaids and executed without 'Due Process.' These people might very easily be used for the purpose of scaring the Iraqi people to subdue the violence. That won't stop it. If the people of that country, whom have already suffered much feel these executions are unjust they will revolt. Won't think twice about it. The televised executions are simply another form of hangings in the public square. It is barbaric. I am not condoning killing what I am also not condoning are executions without DUE PROCESS. This is NOT to be the Holocaust of the Iraqis or the Shi'ites. This type of execution goes against all laws of the Geneva Conventions and needs to be stopped. These people are prisoners of war and not common criminals. They are not to have their pictures plastered all over the media in any country. They are supposed to be in a POW installation under USA guard. This is wrong and internationally illegal. Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney are misleading the USA military in an illegal venue of abuse of international laws. I can understand why the USA generals want OUT !
Iraq executes 13 men convicted of crimes
By Christopher Torchia / Associated Press
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi authorities executed 13 men by hanging Tuesday after they were convicted of murder and kidnapping, lining them up in hoods and green jumpsuits with their hands bound behind their backs.
Television images showed two men standing together on a gallows with nooses around their necks. Several of them stooped, and one had his arm around the shoulder of another as the hooded men stood in a row shortly before they were hanged.
The footage also showed a bearded man without a hood as he listened to an official tell him his appeal had been rejected and the sentence was death. "OK," the prisoner said impassively.
The government executed the men after an appeals court and the presidency approved the verdict, said Busho Ibrahim, undersecretary of the Justice Ministry.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8708
'Ask Me About Guantánamo' ...by H. Candace Gorman
I guess you can call me a flip flopper. First I thought Congress had dealt my client, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi, the final blow in September with the passage of the Military Commissions Act. This insidious law does away with habeas corpus rights for Guantánamo detainees, (not to mention non U.S. Citizens and any U.S. citizen that the president determines is an “enemy combatant”). Then I thought the final blow was that I could not get Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's medical records for an independent review of his medical treatment (or lack thereof) at Guantánamo. But then last week the first lawsuit was thrown out of court because of the Military Commissions Act and I know the real death knell for Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is losing habeas corpus. You see, I wouldn't need Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's medical records if I could have a quick and fair habeas hearing, because my client would be set free and could get medical attention on his own.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=795
Former Iraqi electricity minister escapes from jail
By Borzou Daragahi / Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq — A once-prominent Iraqi American, jailed on corruption charges, was sprung from a Green Zone prison this weekend by U.S. security contractors he had hired, several Iraqi officials said.
Ayham al-Samaraie, a Chicago-area businessman, returned to Iraq after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to become electricity minister in the interim government of former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
A Sunni Arab who claimed ties to the insurgency, al-Samaraie was arrested and charged two months ago with a dozen counts of misallocating $1.5 billion of Iraqi government money. Security contractors took him to the U.S. Embassy before he could be jailed, but U.S. officials handed him over to Iraqi authorities.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman confirmed Monday that al-Samaraie was no longer in prison. He said U.S. officials scrambled into the evening to locate him.
Neither the security contractors nor their company were identified by Iraqi officials.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8704
Iraq war spending to approach record
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- U.S. costs for the Iraq war are likely to exceed $110 billion in the 12-month period that ends in September, approaching the record reached in the 2006 fiscal year, a top White House official said on Tuesday.
That amounts to more than $2 billion a week spent on the war.
White House Budget Director Rob Portman, speaking at a round table with reporters, also predicted that strong revenue growth would help bring down the overall U.S. budget deficit, offsetting some of the spending on Iraq.
Asked if he thought the deficit for fiscal year 2007 would come in below the forecast of $339 billion the White House gave in its mid-year budget snapshot in July, Portman replied, "Yes, I do."
Iraq war spending hit an all-time high of $120 billion in fiscal year 2006, which ended on Sept. 30.
The White House is scheduled to unveil its 2008 spending blueprint in early February. Along with the spending proposal, the administration will offer a fresh request for money for the war and will provide updated forecasts for the budget deficit.
Expenditures on the war are escalating, even as public support for the conflict falls.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8702
Bush 'brainwashed' Blair on Iraq pullout - Iraq VP
By Michelle Nichols / Reuters
NEW YORK - British Prime Minister Tony Blair was in favor of announcing a timetable to pull troops out of Iraq, but was "brainwashed" out of it by President George W. Bush, Iraq's vice president said on Tuesday.
Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi told New York's Council on Foreign Relations that when he spoke with Blair about three months ago, the British leader was supportive of his appeal for the United States and Britain to say when they would withdraw.
"I had just convinced him," Hashemi said. "He promised he was going to discuss the subject with President Bush, but at the end of the day, it's quite unfortunate, that your president (made) some sort of brainwashing of Mr. Blair."
But Hashemi also said any withdrawal of troops should be conditional on U.S. training of Iraq's security forces.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8700
Blair has Failed to Influence U.S.: Report
LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Tony Blair's foreign policy has failed because of his inability to influence Washington and his successor must carve out a leading role for Britain within Europe instead, a report said on Tuesday.
The Chatham House think-tank said in a wide-ranging analysis of Blair's foreign policy that he was the first to recognize how the United States would react to the September 11 attacks, but made a huge mistake in backing its war on Iraq.
The influential London-based institute said the prime minister had erred in failing to coordinate a European response that might have tempered Washington's actions.
Chatham House concluded that the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was a "terrible mistake" leading to a "debacle" that will have repercussions on policy for years.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8701
Gunmen in Military Uniforms Rob Baghdad Bank
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Gunmen in military uniforms robbed government accountants as they left a Baghdad bank with bags of cash on Tuesday in the second bank heist in a week, and roadside bombs killed at least two civilians in the Iraqi capital.
The U.S. military announced the death of a Marine in the insurgent stronghold of Anbar province, bringing to 61 the number of American military personnel killed in December. Some 2,950 U.S. troops have been killed since the U.S.-led 2003 invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein.
There was no word on the whereabouts of Ayham al-Samaraie, a former electricity minister who escaped from a police station inside the heavily fortified Green Zone where the dual U.S.-Iraqi citizen was being held on corruption charges. Al-Samaraie walked out of the station on the weekend with the help of private guards who arrived at the station in sport utility vehicles, officials said Monday.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8705
White House, Joint Chiefs At Odds on Adding Troops
By Robin Wright and Peter Baker / Washington PostThe Bush administration is split over the idea of a surge in troops to Iraq, with White House officials aggressively promoting the concept over the unanimous disagreement of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to U.S. officials familiar with the intense debate.
Sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops for a mission of possibly six to eight months is one of the central proposals on the table of the White House policy review to reverse the steady deterioration in Iraq. The option is being discussed as an element in a range of bigger packages, the officials said.
But the Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the White House review is not public.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8698
Iraq Insurgents Starve Capital of Electricity
By James Glanz / New York TimesBAGHDAD, Dec. 18 — Over the past six months, Baghdad has been all but isolated electrically, Iraqi officials say, as insurgents have effectively won their battle to bring down critical high-voltage lines and cut off the capital from the major power plants to the north, south and west.
The battle has been waged in the remotest parts of the open desert, where the great towers that support thousands of miles of exposed lines are frequently felled with explosive charges in increasingly determined and sophisticated attacks, generally at night. Crews that arrive to repair the damage are often attacked and sometimes killed, ensuring that the government falls further and further behind as it attempts to repair the lines.
And in a measure of the deep disunity and dysfunction of this nation, when the repair crews and security forces are slow to respond, skilled looters often arrive with heavy trucks that pull down more of the towers to steal as much of the valuable aluminum conducting material in the lines as possible. The aluminum is melted into ingots and sold.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8697
December 18th, 2006 8:02 pmPoll: Approval for Iraq handling drops to new low
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Support for President Bush's management of the Iraq war has dropped to an all-time low even as his overall approval remains tepid but steady, according to a CNN poll released Monday.
The survey, conducted Friday through Sunday by Opinion Research Corp., found support for Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict has decreased to 28 percent from 34 percent in a poll taken October 13-15.
And a record 70 percent of respondents said they disapproved of Bush's war management, up from 64 percent in the October poll.
Meanwhile, Bush's overall job approval was 36 percent -- down only 1 percentage point from the last CNN poll asking that question December 5-7.
Sixty-two percent said they disapproved of his performance in office, up from 57 percent in the previous poll.
The poll, which surveyed 1,019 adults, had a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=8695THIS PAGE REPRESENTS 26,200 OF THE 655,000 'EXCESS' IRAQI DEATHS SINCE WAR BEGAN
http://www.michaelmoore.com/takeaction/iraqi_deaths.php?page=25
The New York Times
Outsize Profits, and Questions, in Effort to Cut Warming Gases
QUZHOU, China — Foreign businesses have embraced an obscure United Nations-backed program as a favored approach to limiting global warming. But the early efforts have revealed some hidden problems.Skip to next paragraphThe Energy ChallengeGlobal Trades
Articles in this series are examining the ways in which the world is, and is not, moving toward a more energy efficient, environmentally benign future.
Under the program, businesses in wealthier nations of Europe and in Japan help pay to reduce pollution in poorer ones as a way of staying within government limits for emitting climate-changing gases like carbon dioxide, as part of the Kyoto Protocol.
Among their targets is a large rusting chemical factory here in southeastern China. Its emissions of just one waste gas contribute as much to global warming each year as the emissions from a million American cars, each driven 12,000 miles.
Cleaning up this factory will require an incinerator that costs $5 million — far less than the cost of cleaning up so many cars, or other sources of pollution in Europe and Japan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/business/21pollute.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=7fc0948e4baa5965&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Colorado Blizzard Strands Thousands
DENVER (AP) -- Government offices and schools were closed and mail delivery suspended for a second day Thursday after a powerful blizzard dumped more than 2 feet of snow along Colorado's most populous region and stranded travelers.
Denver, Colorado Springs and other cities along the Rocky Mountain Front Range were virtually ghost towns, with cars and SUVs slipping, sliding and crawling through thick snow toward the suburbs Wednesday.
Some 4,700 people hunkered down overnight at Denver International Airport, where flights in and out were canceled, spokesman Steve Snyder said.
''It feels like I'm a refugee,'' said Lisa Maurer, a graduate student at the University of Wyoming who was stuck at the airport while on her way home to Germany.
Bus and light rail service in a six-county region was suspended. The State Patrol reported a rash of collisions, some involving several vehicles, but no fatalities.
More than 30 inches of snow fell in the mountains and up to 2 feet fell in the Denver metro area, with snow expected to let up by noon Thursday. Winds cut visibility and whipped up drifts several feet high on the plains.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Snowstorm.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=dcdd4d5a16862d9d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Bolivian Reforms Raise Anxiety on Mennonite Frontier
MANITOBA, Bolivia, Dec. 19 — With its horse-drawn buggies, farmhouses with manicured lawns and fields planted to the horizon with soybeans and sorghum, this Mennonite settlement in Bolivia’s eastern lowlands feels like a tropical version of rural Ohio or Pennsylvania.Skip to next paragraph
That placid impression lasts until farmers here start talking about their fears of President Evo Morales’s plans for land reform.
One year into an administration that intends to reverse centuries of subjugation of Bolivia’s indigenous majority, Mr. Morales has plans to redistribute as many as 48 million acres of land, considered idle or ill gotten through opaque purchase agreements, to hundreds of thousands of peasants.
The project won approval last month in Congress, and thousands of Mr. Morales’s supporters marched in La Paz, the capital, in celebration. But it has shaken Manitoba and Bolivia’s 41 other Mennonite farming communities.
“I read El Deber — I know what’s taking place in this country,” said Gerardo Martens, 22, referring to the leading newspaper in Santa Cruz, the provincial capital 100 miles southwest of here, a long trip on dirt and asphalt roads for adherents to a faith that prohibits driving automobiles. “We simply want to know what will happen to us and our land.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/world/americas/21bolivia.html
Europe Acts to Penalize Jet Pollution
PARIS, Dec. 20 — In the face of stiff opposition from the airline industry, the European Union moved forward Wednesday with plans to impose extra charges on foreign and domestic carriers that pollute too much.
“We are showing our determination to fight climate change,” said Europe’s environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, who announced the proposal Wednesday in Brussels. “This is one way to persuade other countries to come along with us.”
The rules, which would be legally binding, would apply to all flights within the bloc starting in 2011. Foreign carriers landing and taking off from busy airports like those in Frankfurt, London and Paris would be obliged to join the system the following year. If enacted, the measure could drive up costs for airlines, potentially leading to higher airfares for travelers.
The proposal draws from the principles of an established system that Europe now uses to help combat global warming and meet emissions goals set forth under the Kyoto Protocol.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/business/worldbusiness/21air.html
A Struggle to Preserve a Hawaiian Archipelago and Its Varied Wildlife
MIDWAY ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine National Monument — As the pilot of the Coast Guard C-130 transport plane banks and circles over atoll after deserted atoll on a five-hour, 1,400-mile flight from Honolulu, the sheer emptiness of the world’s largest nature reserve becomes starkly apparent.Skip to next paragraph
Yet two of the most powerful men in the world — first President Bill Clinton and then President Bush — struggled for eight years to upgrade the area into a true reserve, in a process that involved more than 100 public meetings and 52,000 public comments, most of them supportive. The main obstacle was a tiny, marginally profitable fishing fleet composed of eight boats and employing fewer than 20 people, most of them part-time, but vigorously defended by a powerful senator and an entrenched federal bureaucracy.
“Rarely have so many fought so hard for so long for so few,” said Jay Nelson, the Northwest Hawaiian Islands project director of the Pew Charitable Trusts and one of many environmentalists who worked to support the presidents’ efforts.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/science/earth/19hawa.html
With Warmer Weather, Different Decisions to Make
IT’S not that I don’t like 60-degree days and eating fresh spinach right out of my garden in December. But the extended growing season is one of the signs of global warming. It goes hand in hand with polar bears dying in the Arctic as the sea ice shrinks.
For the gardener, there are benefits and there are drawbacks.
In central Maryland, warmer winters allow me to grow Southern magnolias and apricot trees, but more insects are wintering over, and weeds, like poison ivy and ragweed, seem far more aggressive. It didn’t surprise me to see that my garden has jumped a zone, from 7 to 8, according to a hardiness zone map based on lowest winter temperatures in the past 15 years, just published by the National Arbor Day Foundation (arborday.org/media/zones.cfm).
The Agriculture Department’s Research Service is also revising its hardiness zone map, based on temperatures over the past 30 years, so stay tuned.
Cameron P. Wake, a research associate professor at the Climate Change Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said that winter temperatures in the Northeast have increased an average of 4.3 degrees over the last 30 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/garden/21garden.html
Ecotourism: Traveling the World to Help Save It
AS a Peace Corps volunteer in the 1960’s, Lynn Franco, now a 62-year-old psychoanalyst who lives in Berkeley, Calif., had always been interested in the underdeveloped regions she had traveled through. She said that longtime interest was what led her to join a March trip to Borneo with Seacology, a Berkeley-based nonprofit organization that seeks to preserve island environments and cultures by providing services in exchange for local conservation efforts.
Skip to next paragraph “The project we visited was a micro-hydroelectric generator,” Ms. Franco said, “which was funded by Seacology and built by the community, in exchange for the community’s preservation of some of the surrounding lands.” She and her husband, Nathan Kaufman, met residents, participated in a traditional dance, hiked through the rain forests and explored the nearby coral reefs on scuba-diving expeditions.
“We were able to enter a society more quickly and deeply than would otherwise have been available to us,” Ms. Franco said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/travel/17journeys.html
Please Let It Be Whale Vomit, Not Just Sea Junk
MONTAUK, N.Y. — In this season of strange presents from relatives, Dorothy Ferreira got a doozy the other day from her 82-year-old sister in Waterloo, Iowa. It was ugly. It weighed four pounds. There was no receipt in the box.
Inside she found what looked like a gnarled, funky candle but could actually be a huge hunk of petrified whale vomit worth as much as $18,000.
“I called my sister and asked her, ‘What the heck did you send me?’ ” recalled Ms. Ferreira, 67, who has lived here on the eastern tip of Long Island since 1982. “She said: ‘I don’t know, but I found it on the beach in Montauk 50 years ago and just kept it around. You’re the one who lives by the ocean; ask someone out there what it is.’ ”
So Ms. Ferreira called the Town of East Hampton’s department of natural resources, which dispatched an old salt from Montauk named Walter Galcik.
Mr. Galcik, 80, concluded that the mysterious gift might be ambergris, the storied substance created in the intestines of a sperm whale and spewed into the ocean. Also called “whale’s pearl” or “floating gold,” ambergris is a rare and often valuable ingredient in fine perfumes.
“He told me, ‘Don’t let this out of your sight,’ ” Ms. Ferreira said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/nyregion/18whale.html?ex=1167195600&en=b9233ed3b25d8f9a&ei=5070&emc=eta1The people of the USA spoke loudly to the world this November elections. The world is responding. Don't turn back now !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Iran President Facing Revival of Students’ Ire
TEHRAN, Dec. 20 — As protests broke out last week at a prestigious university here, cutting short a speech by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Babak Zamanian could only watch from afar. He was on crutches, having been clubbed by supporters of the president and had his foot run over by a motorcycle during a less publicized student demonstration a few days earlier.Skip to next paragraph
But the significance of the confrontation was easy to grasp, even from a distance, said Mr. Zamanian, a leader of a student political group.
The student movement, which planned the 1979 seizure of the American Embassy from the same university, Amir Kabir, is reawakening from its recent slumber and may even be spearheading a widespread resistance against Mr. Ahmadinejad. This time the catalysts were academic and personal freedom.
“It is not that simple to break up a president’s speech,” said Alireza Siassirad, a former student political organizer, explaining that an event of that magnitude takes meticulous planning. “I think what happened at Amir Kabir is a very important and a dangerous sign. Students are definitely becoming active again.”
The protest, punctuated by shouts of “Death to the dictator,” was the first widely publicized outcry against Mr. Ahmadinejad, one that was reflected Friday in local elections, where voters turned out in droves to vote for his opponents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/world/middleeast/21iran.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=5f6808b103164c1c&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Ahmadinejad Opponents Win Elections
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's opponents won local council elections in Iran, final results showed Thursday, in an embarrassing blow to the hard-line leader that could force him to change his staunch anti-Western stance and focus more on domestic issues.
Last week's elections for local councils in towns and cities across Iran were widely seen as a referendum on Ahmadinejad's 18 months in office.
Since taking power, Ahmadinejad has escalated Iran's confrontation with the United States and the West, drawing the threat of U.N. sanctions for pushing ahead with uranium enrichment in Iran's nuclear program. He has also provoked international outrage for his comments against Israel and casting doubt on the Nazi Holocaust.
His hard-line stances are believed to have divided the conservatives who voted him into power last year, with some feeling Ahmadinejad has spent too much time confronting the West and has failed to deal with Iran's struggling economy.
Moderate conservatives opposed to Ahmadinejad won a majority of the seats in Friday's elections followed by reformists who were suppressed by hard-liners in 2004, according to final results announced by the Interior Ministry.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Elections.html
In Overhaul, New York City Seeks to Expand Lower-Cost Units
The City Council yesterday approved the first major overhaul of the most popular tax break for apartment building developers, adopting a plan intended to induce them to build tens of thousands of apartments for people other than the well-heeled.Skip to next paragraph
The changes, which Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg supported and which would go into effect in 2008, significantly increase the areas of the city in which developers who want the tax break must make one out of every five apartments they build affordable to lower-income people. The boundaries of those areas would be reconsidered every two years in light of trends in the housing market.
In addition, and for the first time in the 35-year history of the program, those lower-priced apartments would have to be included in each building and could not be built elsewhere in the city. There would be a cap on the size of the tax break given for market-rate apartments, to limit the degree to which the program might be said to subsidize gentrification.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/nyregion/21housing.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=83222395799b0316&ei=5094&partner=homepage
U.S. to Declassify Secrets at Age 25
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.
At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many F.B.I. cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government’s first automatic declassification of records.
Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.
Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/washington/21declassify.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=280ee006d9c2e17d&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Judges for Sale
It was bound to happen sooner or later. Special interests have long targeted candidates for executive offices, like president and governor, and legislative offices, like Congress and state legislatures. It was just a matter of time before well-heeled business and other interests would expand their influence-peddling efforts, and begin pouring large amounts of money into previously sleepy judicial campaigns.
Several years ago, it started happening — first in just a few states, then spreading to a lot more. The unwholesome result is the dawn of a new era of raucous million dollar-plus campaigns for key state judgeships that is forcing more and more would-be jurists to bond with special interest backers, and invest in cheesy 15- and 30-second TV spots, if they want to get on the bench, and stay there.
As spending by special interests in state judicial elections soars into the stratosphere, something very precious to Americans is being grievously compromised. And in certain pockets of the country, it seems well on the way to being lost altogether. That precious something is the integrity and impartiality of the nation's courts.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/12/opinion/13talkingpoints.html?ex=1166590800&en=97ec19bbfd1aaefb&ei=5121&emc=eta1
Federal Inquiry Focuses on 2 Bruno Firms
Federal investigators have issued subpoenas to at least two firms linked to the State Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, as part of their investigation into his business dealings, one of Mr. Bruno’s former business partners and a legislative aide said yesterday.
One of the companies was a partnership involving Mr. Bruno and an influential Albany lobbyist that bought and sold lakeside property in Rensselaer County, including a parcel that was purchased by the wife of Jared E. Abbruzzese. Mr. Abbruzzese is an investor in a group seeking control of the state’s thoroughbred racing franchise — a decision in which Mr. Bruno will play a key role.
The other company is a consulting firm that Mr. Bruno operated out of his home that he said had “a client relationship with lawyers and businesspeople.” The senator has not identified the clients, but said his work involved providing advice on marketing and business development.
It was unclear whether any of Mr. Bruno’s other business dealings have been drawn into the investigation, which Mr. Bruno has said is examining his “relationships and business interests” over the last six years. The two companies that received subpoenas are just a small part of Mr. Bruno’s broad array of personal financial interests, several of which have intersected with his activities as the most powerful Republican in the State Legislature.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/nyregion/21bruno.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=bc7bd1557bd872c1&ei=5094&partner=homepage
For Divided Family, Border Is Sorrowful Barrier
MONTERREY, Mexico — She tells her story from a windowless bedroom in a cinderblock house carved into four apartments that share two showers and two toilet stalls outside. Her kitchen has no refrigerator or sink. To cook, she buys perishables on the same day. To wash dishes, she fills buckets from a faucet in the front yard.Skip to next paragraph
“Look how I live,” Irma tells a visitor. “I was used to something else.”
Not so long ago, Irma, 44, had achieved her own modest version of the American dream about 300 miles from here in San Antonio, where she lived illegally for more than six years. She had left Mexico with three of her four daughters, escaping financial turmoil and marriage to a man so violent that she considered suicide, twice slipping a rope over a beam to hang herself.
In Texas, she had learned how to drive and owned not one but two cars. She held two jobs and, after years of sharing homes with her older sister, Raquel Rodríguez, the family’s only legal resident, and other relatives and friends, moved with her daughters into a small rented house furnished from flea markets.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/us/21irma.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=8389042afb4edcb6&ei=5094&partner=homepage
In Quest for a Killer, an Inmate Finds Vindication
AUBURN, N.Y., Dec. 20 — The day before Christmas three years ago, Inmate No. 92B-0448 sat in front of a computer at the Elmira Correctional Facility and typed a harsh letter to the man he thought should have been in prison in his place.
“Witnesses can commit perjury, judges can be fooled and juries can make mistakes,” the letter read. “When it comes to DNA testing, there’s no mistakes. DNA is GOD’s creation and GOD makes no mistakes.”
The inmate, Roy Brown, was serving 25 years to life for the 1991 murder of a social worker, Sabina Kulakowski, who was found naked, beaten, bitten and strangled outside the farmhouse where she lived in Aurelius, a town of 3,000 on the northern tip of Cayuga Lake.
Mr. Brown, a self-professed hard drinker who made a living at the time selling magazine subscriptions in Syracuse, 30 miles to the east, did not know Ms. Kulakowski. Just six days before her killing, though, he had been released from jail, where he spent eight months for making threatening phone calls to another social worker at the agency where she worked.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/nyregion/21brown.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=6fa05d6100838c21&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Italian in Euthanasia Debate Dies
ROME (AP) -- A paralyzed man who touched off an intense debate on euthanasia in Italy has died just days after a court refused his request to let doctors remove his respirator, an official said Thursday.
It was not immediately clear how he died or whether an autopsy would be performed.
The leader of the small Radical Party, which had championed Welby's cause, announced his death over the party's radio station.
''Piergiorgio Welby died last night,'' said Marco Pannella, the party's leader. ''He achieved what he desired, what he fought for.''
Welby, 60, had been diagnosed with muscular dystrophy as a teenager. He was confined to a bed, attached to a respirator and communicated through a voice synthesizer. He was receiving nourishment through a feeding tube.
The case divided doctors and politicians, and gripped the public's attention in a country where the Catholic Church wields considerable influence.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Italy-Right-to-Die.html?hp&ex=1166763600&en=4ad495846f5a04a4&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat to the nation’s traditional values.
Mr. Goode was referring to Keith Ellison, the Minnesota Democrat and criminal defense lawyer who converted to Islam as a college student and was elected to the House in November. Mr. Ellison’s plan to use the Koran during his private swearing-in ceremony in January had outraged some Virginia voters, prompting Mr. Goode to issue a written response to them, a spokesman for Mr. Goode said.
In his letter, which was dated Dec. 5, Mr. Goode said that Americans needed to “wake up” or else there would “likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran.”
“I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped,” said Mr. Goode, who vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/us/21koran.html
A New Phrase Enters Washington’s War of Words Over Iraq
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — First there was the “mission accomplished” banner. Then, last year, there was a “plan for victory” and, just this past October, the presidential assertion, “Absolutely, we’re winning.” Now that President Bush is seeking “a new way forward” in Iraq, he is embracing a new verbal construction to describe progress there: “We’re not winning. We’re not losing.”
The latest shift in the official language of the war is begging the question: Well, which is it? A tie? A draw? Something else?
Mr. Bush essentially endorsed the not-winning-not-losing assessment in an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday by way of attributing it to Gen. Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. When asked if the United States was winning in Iraq, Mr. Bush said, “An interesting construct that General Pace uses is, ‘We’re not winning; we’re not losing.’ ” To those who closely follow the president’s rhetoric on the war, the answer was something of a dodge.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/washington/21memo.html
Attacks in Iraq at Record High, Pentagon Says
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 — A Pentagon assessment of security conditions in Iraq concluded Monday that attacks against American and Iraqi targets had surged this summer and autumn to their highest level, and called violence by Shiite militants the most significant threat in Baghdad.
The report, which covers the period from early August to early November, found an average of almost 960 attacks against Americans and Iraqis every week, the highest level recorded since the Pentagon began issuing the quarterly reports in 2005, with the biggest surge in attacks against American-led forces. That was an increase of 22 percent from the level for early May to early August, the report said. [Full Text: The Report (pdf)]
While most attacks were directed at American forces, most deaths and injuries were suffered by the Iraqi military and civilians.
The report is the most comprehensive public assessment of the American-led operation to secure Baghdad, which began in early August. About 17,000 American combat troops are currently involved in the beefed-up security operation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/world/middleeast/19military.html?ex=1167109200&en=540211b1ec4fcd77&ei=5070&emc=eta1
2005
Widespread Violence Kills Dozens Across Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 20 - The Marine Corps said today that 15 Iraqi civilians and a United States marine were killed on Saturday when a roadside bomb exploded in the town of Haditha, 140 miles northwest of Baghdad. At least 11 other Iraqis were killed or discovered dead today in various incidents, and military officials reported the deaths of two more Americans and a British soldier.
Skip to next paragraph
Forum: The Transition in Iraq
The deaths capped one of the deadliest three-day periods since the American invasion. In all, at least 155 Iraqis and 7 foreign soldiers have been killed in a spate of bombings and assaults that began Friday morning, when jihadists tried using two trucks packed with explosives to demolish a Baghdad hotel full of Western journalists.
That attack was followed by a pair of suicide bombings in two mosques in the northern Kurdish town of Khanaqin that left at least 80 dead and more than 100 wounded.
It is unclear what exactly provoked this series of attacks, but several factors could be stirring the anger of the Sunni-led insurgency. Last week, the American military announced that soldiers had discovered 169 malnourished, mostly Sunni Arab detainees in a secret police prison in Baghdad run by the Shiite-led Interior Ministry. The interior minister, Bayan Jabr, tried to play down the discovery, but admitted that seven of the detainees had been tortured.
In the northern city of Mosul, a senior police officer said a house raided on Saturday by the Iraqi police and American soldiers may have been a base for Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the militant group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The officer, Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Wagaa, said the Iraqi police surrounded the house after interrogating an insurgent captured on Friday. A fierce gun battle erupted, he said, and the police called for assistance from the American military.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/international/middleeast/20cnd-iraq.html?ex=1166850000&en=795efeac9ca14cc4&ei=5070]
Iraq’s Legal System Staggers Beneath the Weight of War
BAGHDAD — In a cavernous room that once displayed gifts given to Saddam Hussein, eight men in yellow prison garb sat on the floor facing the wall, guarded by two American soldiers.
Among them was Abdulla Sultan Khalaf, a Ministry of Industry employee seized by American troops who said they found 10 blasting caps and 100 sticks of TNT. When his name was called, he stood, walked into a cagelike defendant’s box and peered over the wooden slats at a panel of three Iraqi judges of the central court.
The judges reviewed evidence prepared by an American military lawyer — testimony from two soldiers, photographs and a sketch of the scene.
The evidence went largely unchallenged, because Mr. Khalaf had no lawyer. The judges appointed one, but Mr. Khalaf had no chance to speak with him. Mr. Khalaf told the judges that the soldiers were probably chasing a rogue nephew and denied that the explosives were his or ever in his house. “Let me examine the pictures,” he insisted. The judges ignored him. His lawyer said nothing, beyond declaring Mr. Khalaf’s innocence. The trial lasted 15 minutes.
The judges conducted six trials of similar length and depth before lunch, then deliberated for four minutes. Five defendants were found guilty; one was acquitted. “The evidence is enough,” Judge Saeb Khorsheed Ahmed said in convicting Mr. Khalaf. “Thirty years.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/world/middleeast/17justice.html?ex=1167022800&en=0af76211c4bc2b93&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Former U.S. Detainee in Iraq Recalls Torment
One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.Skip to next paragraph
American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.
The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.
Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/world/middleeast/18justice.html?ex=1167022800&en=5cf267c2e6c7398f&ei=5070&emc=eta1
U.S. and Britain to Add Ships to Persian Gulf in Signal to Iran
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — The United States and Britain will begin moving additional warships and strike aircraft into the Persian Gulf region in a display of military resolve toward Iran that will come as the United Nations continues to debate possible sanctions against the country, Pentagon and military officials said Wednesday.
The officials said that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was expected this week to approve a request by commanders for a second aircraft carrier and its supporting ships to be stationed within quick sailing distance of Iran by early next year.
Senior American officers said the increase in naval power should not be viewed as preparations for any offensive strike against Iran. But they acknowledged that the ability to hit Iran would be increased and that Iranian leaders might well call the growing presence provocative. One purpose of the deployment, they said, is to make clear that the focus on ground troops in Iraq has not made it impossible for the United States and its allies to maintain a military watch on Iran. That would also reassure Washington’s allies in the region who are concerned about Iran’s intentions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/world/middleeast/21navy.html
Refrain of ‘Guilty’ Ends Trial in Murder of 2 Detectives
A street gang member who boasted of bloodshed and invincibility in his amateur rap lyrics was found guilty yesterday of capital murder for shooting two undercover detectives in the back of the head during a weapons sting on Staten Island.
The convicted man, Ronell Wilson, 24, known by the street name Rated R, cocked his head to watch sidelong and deadpan as the jury foreman announced the verdict, which could lead to his death by lethal injection. The same anonymous panel will reconvene next month in Federal District Court in Brooklyn to decide whether to impose a death sentence.
The verdict, after three and a half years of legal machinations, concluded an agonizing chapter for the Police Department. The two detectives, James V. Nemorin and Rodney J. Andrews, were killed on March 10, 2003, the first two officers killed by gunfire in a single day since 1988.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/nyregion/21trial.html
Disparity Emerges in Lilly Data on Schizophrenia Drug
For at least a year, Eli Lilly provided information to doctors about the blood-sugar risks of its drug Zyprexa that did not match data that the company circulated internally when it first reviewed its clinical trial results, according to company documents.
The original results showed that patients on Zyprexa, Lilly’s pill for schizophrenia, were 3.5 times as likely to experience high blood sugar levels as those taking a placebo, according to a February 2000 memo sent to top Lilly scientists. The memo is one of hundreds of internal Lilly documents provided to The New York Times by a lawyer in Alaska who represents mentally ill patients.
But the results that Lilly eventually provided to doctors until at least late 2001 were very different. Those results indicated that patients taking Zyprexa were only slightly more likely to suffer high blood sugar as those taking a placebo, or an inactive pill.
Another Lilly report, from November 1999, shows that Lilly found after examining 70 clinical trials that 16 percent of patients taking Zyprexa for a year gained more than 66 pounds.
The company did not publicly disclose that figure, instead focusing on data from a smaller group of clinical trials that showed about 30 percent of patients gained 22 pounds.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/business/21drug.html
Public Universities Chase Excellence, at a Price
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — If there is any goal that the University of Florida has pursued as fervently as a national football championship for the Gators, it is a place among the nation’s highest-ranked public universities.
“We need a top-10 university, so our kids can get the same education they would get at Harvard or Yale,” said J. Bernard Machen, the university president.
To upgrade the university, Dr. Machen is seeking a $1,000 tuition surcharge that would be used mostly to hire more professors and lower the student-faculty ratio, not coincidentally one of the factors in the much-watched college rankings published annually by U.S. News & World Report. This year, that list ranked Florida 13th among public universities in the United States.
Like Florida, more leading public universities are striving for national status and drawing increasingly impressive and increasingly affluent students, sometimes using financial aid to lure them. In the process, critics say, many are losing force as engines of social mobility, shortchanging low-income and minority students, who are seriously underrepresented on their campuses.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/education/20colleges.html
Seeking Affordability in Israel
JERUSALEM — When Neta Gabbay got married two years ago, she assumed that she and her husband, Omer, would buy an apartment in Jerusalem, the city where she was born and raised.
But high property prices, partly a result of wealthy American, British and French Jews buying apartments as investments and for vacations in the holy city, have stalled the Gabbays and a lot of other young couples and families.
“The foreigners have money and they push up the prices in every neighborhood in which they buy,” said Motti Zelkovitch, managing director of Ambassador Israel, a local real estate agency. “The locals don’t have the same kind of money and they get pushed out to the peripheral communities.”
Home ownership is widespread in Israel, where some 70 percent of the country’s 5 million citizens own their own homes. But when the Gabbays began looking for a fairly standard three-bedroom apartment in the city, it quickly became clear that they could not afford the roughly $250,000 that such a place would cost.http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/20/realestate/greathomes/20gh-jerusalem.html
Out of Sight
There are hundreds of children in the trailer camp that is run by FEMA and known as Renaissance Village, but they won’t be having much of a Christmas. They’re trapped here in a demoralizing, overcrowded environment with adults who are mostly broke, jobless and at the end of their emotional tethers. Many of the kids aren’t even going to school.
“This is a terrible environment for children,” said Anita Gentris, who lost everything in the flood that followed Hurricane Katrina and is living in one of the 200-square-foot travel trailers with her 10-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. “My daughter is having bad dreams. And my son, he’s a very angry child right now. He cries. He throws things.
“I’m desperately trying to find permanent housing.”
The television cameras are mostly gone now, and the many thousands of people from the Gulf Coast whose lives were wrecked by Katrina in the summer of 2005 have slipped from the national consciousness. But like the city of New Orleans itself, most of them have yet to recover.
The enormity of the continuing tragedy is breathtaking. Thousands upon thousands of people are still suffering. And yet the way the poorest and most vulnerable victims have been treated so far by government officials at every level has been disgraceful.
More than a third of the 1,200 people in this sprawling camp are children. Only about half of the school-age youngsters are even registered for school; of those, roughly half actually go to school on any given day. The authorities can’t account for the rest.
A number of officials who asked not to be identified told me they are concerned that large numbers of children are remaining isolated at Renaissance Village, holed up in the trailers day in and day out, falling further and further behind educationally, and deteriorating emotionally.
Leah Baptiste, a caseworker from a local affiliate of Catholic Charities, said: “These trailers are small. They were only meant for traveling. And you’ve got families with three and four children cooped up in there seven days a week, 24 hours a day, with no privacy, no babysitter, no job, no money — there’s a lot of help they need. Some people have learned to adapt, but a lot are depressed.”
The most critical needs for the trailer camp population are housing and employment. Many of the adults at Renaissance Village were working before the storm but have been unable to find work since. Even the lowest-wage jobs in the Baton Rouge area are scarce, and without cars (in some cases, without money even for bus fare) it’s extremely difficult for Renaissance Village residents to get to them.
Beyond that, many of the residents have severe personal problems. “They are afraid,” said a woman who works closely with the population and asked not to be identified. “They’re embarrassed by their situation, humiliated. They don’t know what to do. Some cannot read or write, so when the government drops off these bureaucratic forms for them to fill out, it’s a waste of time.”
Nearly all of the residents are carrying scars from their initial ordeal. Many lost close relatives, and many came frighteningly close to dying themselves.
Candice Victor was about to give birth immediately after the storm and needed a Caesarean section. A stranger with a butcher knife offered to do it. “She was going to sterilize the knife by pouring lighter fluid on it and setting it on fire,” Ms. Victor said. Wiser heads prevailed, and the baby, a girl, was later successfully delivered.
The big story in the immediate aftermath of Katrina was the way the government failed to rush to the aid of people who were obviously in desperate trouble. What we’re witnessing now is an extended slow-motion replay of that initial failed response. Thousands of people remain in trouble, but instead of clinging to roofs and waving signs at TV cameras in helicopters flying overhead, they are suffering in silence, out of the sight of most Americans.
The government could have come up with a crash program to build housing and find or create jobs for the victims of Katrina. It could have ensured that all those hurt by the storm received whatever social services they needed, including mental health counseling and treatment. It could have begun to address the long-festering problems of race and poverty in this country.
The government could have done so much. But it didn’t.
http://select.nytimes.com/2006/12/18/opinion/18herbert.html?ex=1166590800&en=ca42fa7ba9224739&ei=5121&emc=eta1
A Modernist Beacon in the Post-Katrina Night
AT noon on a Saturday the cafe at the Martin Wine Cellar in Metairie, a New Orleans suburb, is so crowded that it’s as if Katrina had never happened. But when Albert Ledner, an 82-year-old architect, and his wife, Judy, 81, bump into acquaintances there, the conversation is a familiar post-traumatic checklist: Are you O.K.? Where are you living? How’s the house?
The couple chat with a cousin’s mother-in-law, who describes how she discovered pieces of her crystal collection unbroken in the muck inside her house, gently set down by the receding floodwaters. Mrs. Ledner counters with a small miracle of her own, about the watercolor she was working on when she and her husband of 55 years fled their house in the nearby Lakewood South subdivision ahead of the storm. The table where she painted was buoyed by five feet of water, then set back in place so gently that the paintings and paints were unharmed and exactly as she left them. “It was so strange,” Mrs. Ledner says.
The Ledners’ entire house, in fact, appears to be one of these post-Katrina miracles. Designed and built by Mr. Ledner in the mid-1950s, the house, which has the jaunty silhouette of a World’s Fair pavilion, looks as fragile as a piece of cut crystal. It was flooded for weeks, and the elegant built-in furniture was left warped and moldy, the fine-grained Arkansas pine paneling was stained and a lifetime’s worth of possessions were ruined. Mr. Ledner considered tearing much of it down. But there it stands, denuded of most of its landscaping but largely rebuilt, the comfortable, unconventional homestead the Ledners have known for 50 years.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/garden/21nola.html
San Francisco's Mission District: Eclectic, Eccentric, Electric
FROM the rooftop patio of Medjool, a new restaurant in the Mission district of San Francisco, the entire neighborhood is laid out like a flamboyant mosaic. Ranks of painted ladies - San Francisco's ornate wooden Victorians - rise to Twin Peaks in the west, the hills that block the city's infamous fog and make the Mission one of the city's warmest and sunniest neighborhoods. This terrace is the perfect spot for watching the cottony wave of evening fog roll into downtown, for the sky in the Mission remains crystalline.
At the intersection below, an animated scene of daily life unfolds: sidewalk vendors sell yucca flowers and avocados, blue-haired anarchist daddies push strollers, young men loiter at the corner, Central American housewives and vegan lesbian tattoo artists shop for fresh handmade tortillas.
"I try to get anybody coming to San Francisco to come to the Mission," said Dave Eggers, the best-selling author who set up the first of his community writing schools here. "Not to misuse the word 'authentic' - I think that's such a troubling word - but the Mission really does have all the best parts of San Francisco intersecting here."
Three years ago, Mr. Eggers and his crew turned the storefront at 826 Valencia into the Pirate Supply Store, (415) 642-5905. "When we were renovating, we found strange old beams and wooden floors, and it really had the look of the hull of a ship," he said. "It made us laugh so we thought we'd go for it."
http://travel.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/travel/20next.html?ex=1166850000&en=bdf9ba945bc104bd&ei=5070
Women in Science: The Battle Moves to the Trenches
HOUSTON — Since the 1970s, women have surged into science and engineering classes in larger and larger numbers, even at top-tier institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where half the undergraduate science majors and more than a third of the engineering students are women. Half of the nation’s medical students are women, and for decades the numbers have been rising similarly in disciplines like biology and mathematics.
Yet studies show that women in science still routinely receive less research support than their male colleagues, and they have not reached the top academic ranks in numbers anything like their growing presence would suggest.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/19/science/19women.html?ex=1167195600&en=889fc5363875cee0&ei=5070&emc=eta1
How Suite It Isn’t: A Dearth of Female Bosses
LIKE so many other women who entered corporate America in the 1970s, Carol Bartz simply wanted to make a little money. She did not harbor secret desires to run her own company or become chief executive of a large corporation. She just wanted to do a good job.
After working her way through college at the University of Wisconsin in Madison as a cocktail waitress (required uniform: red miniskirt, black fishnets and red feather in hair), Ms. Bartz graduated with a computer science degree in 1971. Tall, blonde, boisterous and ambitious, she entered the work force at a time when the promise of new professional opportunities for women was in the air.
What Ms. Bartz says she discovered, however, was that male counterparts and supervisors shook the corporate ladder ever more fiercely with each rung that she and other pioneering women of her generation ascended. But by combining a first-rate mind with hard work and decisive career moves, she managed to duck, bob and weave her way through Silicon Valley’s male-dominated technology industry in the 1980s.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/business/yourmoney/17csuite.html?ex=1167022800&en=15a561c093a483bd&ei=5070&emc=eta1
Episcopalians Are Reaching Point of Revolt
For about 30 years, the Episcopal Church has been one big unhappy family. Under one roof there were female bishops and male bishops who would not ordain women. There were parishes that celebrated gay weddings and parishes that denounced them; theologians sure that Jesus was the only route to salvation, and theologians who disagreed.
Now, after years of threats, the family is breaking up.
As many as eight conservative Episcopal churches in Virginia are expected to announce today that their parishioners have voted to cut their ties with the Episcopal Church. Two are large, historic congregations that minister to the Washington elite and occupy real estate worth a combined $27 million, which could result in a legal battle over who keeps the property.
In a twist, these wealthy American congregations are essentially putting themselves up for adoption by Anglican archbishops in poorer dioceses in Africa, Asia and Latin America who share conservative theological views about homosexuality and the interpretation of Scripture with the breakaway Americans.
“The Episcopalian ship is in trouble,” said the Rev. John Yates, rector of The Falls Church, one of the two large Virginia congregations, where George Washington served on the vestry. “So we’re climbing over the rails down to various little lifeboats. There’s a lifeboat from Bolivia, one from Rwanda, another from Nigeria. Their desire is to help us build a new ship in North America, and design it and get it sailing.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/17/us/17episcopal.html?ex=1167022800&en=fb1775e85bcfe0ea&ei=5070&emc=eta1
At Ground Zero, Clear Skies Echo a Day of Terror
Dawn in Lower Manhattan today began much as it did on the day five years ago that left an indelible scar on the nation. The sun rose over a clear sky. The drone of street cleaners filled the still morning air.
But today, survivors, friends and relatives of the 2,749 people killed when terrorists felled the World Trade Center gathered at the lip of the crater where the twin towers used to stand.
The ceremonies honoring the dead began at 8:40 a.m. — six minutes before the time when the first jet struck the north tower — but many people arrived much earlier.
There were parents with their children, dressed in their Sunday best; police officers and firefighters clad in crisp blue, freshly pressed uniforms; volunteer workers from the Red Cross huddled in prayer.
People wore photographs, on T-shirts or around their necks, of those who died in the attacks. Some clutched flowers. The mood was subdued and quiet.
The Schertzer family arrived at ground zero at 6:30 am. They lost their son Scott, who was 28 and worked on the 104th floor of the north tower. The pain of losing a son and a brother is still there, as strong as it was five years ago, they said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/nyregion/nyregionspecial3/12terrorcnd.html?ex=1166850000&en=6e66fa2007fd4686&ei=5070continued …
