"Okeydoke"
History
1711, Jupiter Hammon, a New York slave who will write the first published poem by a Black man, is born in Long Island. His poem will be called “An Evening Thought: Salvation by Christ with Penitential Cries.”
1817, Samuel R. Ward, author, abolitionist, clergyman, is born a slave in Maryland.
1888, The Capital Savings Bank of Washington, DC, the first bank for Blacks, is organized.
1909, William R. Cole, a jazz drummer who will be known for his hit recording "Topsy," is born in East Orange, NJ.
1919, the Radio Corporation of America was created.
1931, mobster Al Capone was convicted of income tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison. (He was released in 1939.)
1933, Albert Einstein arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Germany.
1941, the U.S. destroyer Kearney was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Iceland; 11 people died.
1945, Col. Juan Peron staged a coup, becoming absolute ruler of Argentina.
1956, Astronaut Dr. Mae C. Jemison is born in Decatur, AL. She will graduate from Stanford University with a degree in Chemical Engineering and a Medical degree from Cornell. Jemison will also become the first Black woman astronaut.
1965, the musical "On A Clear Day You Can See Forever," with a score by Burton Lane and book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, opened on Broadway.
1973, Arab oil-producing nations announced they would begin cutting back on oil exports to Western nations and Japan; the result was a total embargo that lasted until March 1974.
1977, West German commandos stormed a hijacked Lufthansa jetliner on the ground in Mogadishu, Somalia, freeing all 86 hostages and killing three of the four hijackers.
1979, Mother Teresa of India was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
1989, an earthquake measuring 7.1 on the Richter scale struck Northern California, killing 67 people and causing $7 billion worth of damage.
Missing in Action
1965 GAITHER RALPH E. MIAMI FL 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1965 HALYBURTON PORTER A. DAVIDSON NC 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1965 KNUTSON RODNEY A. BILLINGS MT 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV INJURED ALIVE AND WELL 98
1965 MAYER RODERICK L. LEWISTON ID PROB DEAD
1965 OLMSTEAD STANLEY E. MARSHALL OK PROB DEAD IN A/C WRECKAGE
1965 WHEAT DAVID R. DULUTH MN 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 ANDREWS ANTHONY C. CHICO CA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 CADWELL ANTHONY B. MISSOULA MT
1967 FITZGERALD PAUL L. JR. FORT VALLEY GA
1967 FORTNER FREDERICK J. POMONA CA REMAINS RETURNED 03/23/89
1967 HARGROVE OLIN JR. BIRMINGHAM AL
1967 ODELL DONALD E. MT. CLEMENS MI 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 SULLIVAN DWIGHT E. CORYDON IA 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1968 MASON JAMES P. DE KALB IL
1972 WANGCHOM NOPHADON THAILAND? RELEASED 09/01/74
1972 GRAHAM ALAN U. MOBILE AL 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
1972 HOCKRIDGE JAMES A. ROCHESTER NY 09/30/77 REMAINS RETURNED BY SRV
October 16
1965 BELL JAMES F. CUMBERLAND MD 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1965 HUTTON JAMES L. WASHINGTON DC 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE AND WELL 98
1967 APPELHANS RICHARD D. DODSON MT NEG SAR CONTACT
1967 CLARKE GEORGE W. HAMPTON VA NEG SAR CONTACT
1969 BOOTH LAWRENCE R. STONEY CREEK VA
1969 RATTIN DENNIS M. BRADLEY IL
1970 MARTIN JOHN B. II UPPER MONTCLAIR NJ
October 15
1965 SCHULER ROBERT H. JR. WELLSBURG NY
1965 SIMA THOMAS W. HANNASTOWN PA 02/12/73 RELEASED BY DRV
San Francisco Chronicle
SINGLE-MINDED
In 'Lipstick Jungle,' Bushnell celebrates life just getting better
Jane Ganahl
Sunday, October 16, 2005
When told that her new novel, "Lipstick Jungle," which features women in their 40s struggling to get ahead in the man's world of New York business, is featured in a More magazine article about "hen lit," Candace Bushnell looks startled. "Hen lit? What on earth ..." she wonders.
The mature woman's chick lit, I explain. A phrase as dismissive as "chick lit" -- perhaps more so.
"Oh, these labels!" she fumes. "I do think my books are just me. They're my voice. So maybe I'm a hen, I don't know."
She lets loose a sexy-hoarse coquette's laugh.
The rail-thin author and producer of "Sex and the City" is now 46 and married, but every bit as glamorous as when she was unmarried and dating a cadre of rich and powerful Manhattan men that included New York's former Republican Sen. Alfonse D'Amato and GQ Publisher Ron Galotti -- the presumed inspiration for "Sex and the City's" Mr. Big.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/16/LVGUNF4FRC1.DTL
THE NORTH COAST: A Kayak Adventure
400-mile reflection on respect for coast
Good to be home after memorable 41 days
Paul McHugh, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, October 17, 2005
My Swiss Army knife handle was clogged with old peanut butter -- one of many signs it was time to put into port for repairs and resupply. So, on Friday evening, I was happy to see our kayaks perched on a beach just seaward of a major port: San Francisco.
We watched huge tankers, container ships, fishing vessels and even tour ferries, all splendidly lighted, drag wakes below the Golden Gate bridge while foghorns boomed and hooted.
Our 400-mile sea kayak voyage from the Winchuck River in Oregon to San Francisco Bay -- begun by myself, Bo Barnes and John Weed on Sept. 6 -- was nearly at an end.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/17/MNGRHF9FJR1.DTL
Pakistan Predicts Sharp Jump in Quake Toll
By TINI TRAN, Associated Press Writer
Sunday, October 16, 2005
(10-16) 22:46 PDT BALAKOT, Pakistan (AP) --
Pakistani officials predicted Sunday that many more thousands of dead would be found in earthquake-ravaged Kashmir as heavy rains in the Himalayan region drenched homeless survivors in mud and misery.
The latest estimate would raise the death toll from the magnitude-7.6 quake in the mountains of northern Pakistan and India to at least 54,000 — a jump of more than 13,000 from the official count of known dead.
A spokesman for the prime minister of the region warned that the cold and wet could cause further deaths among the 2 million or so people believed to be homeless, although the rains receded early Monday, bringing hope that efforts could resume in force to bring aid to the stricken region.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2005/10/16/international/i160814D68.DTL
My four hours testifying before a federal grand jury
Judith Miller, New York Times
Sunday, October 16, 2005
In July 2003, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, created a firestorm by publishing an essay in The New York Times that accused the Bush administration of using faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq. The administration, he charged, ignored findings of a secret mission he had undertaken for the CIA - findings, he said, that undermined claims that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear bomb.
It was the first time Wilson had gone public with his criticisms of the White House. Yet he had already become a focus of significant scrutiny at the highest levels of the Bush administration.
Almost two weeks earlier, in an interview with me on June 23, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, discussed Wilson's activities and placed blame for intelligence failures on the CIA. In later conversations with me, on July 8 and July 12, Libby, who is Cheney's top aide, played down the importance of Wilson's mission and questioned his performance.
My notes indicate that well before Wilson published his critique, Libby told me that Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA.
My notes do not show that Libby identified Wilson's wife by name. Nor do they show that he described Valerie Wilson as a covert agent or "operative," as the conservative columnist Robert D. Novak first described her in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003. (Novak used her maiden name, Valerie Plame.)
This is what I told a federal grand jury and the special counsel investigating whether administration officials committed a crime by leaking Plame's identity and the nature of her job to reporters.
During my testimony on Sept. 30 and Oct. 12, the special counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, asked me whether Libby had shared classified information with me during our several encounters before Novak's article. He also asked whether I thought Libby had tried to shape my testimony through a letter he sent to me in jail last month. And Fitzgerald asked whether Cheney had known what his chief aide was doing and saying.
My interview notes show that Libby sought from the beginning, before Joseph Wilson's name became public, to insulate his boss from Wilson's charges. According to my notes, he told me at our June meeting that Cheney did not know of Wilson, much less know that Wilson had traveled to Niger, in West Africa, to verify reports that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium for a weapons program.
As I told the grand jury, I recalled Libby's frustration and anger about what he called "selective leaking" by the CIA and other agencies to distance themselves from what he recalled as their unequivocal prewar intelligence assessments. The selective leaks trying to shift blame to the White House, he told me, were part of a "perverted war" over the war in Iraq. I testified about these conversations after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with the grand jury inquiry. Having been summoned to testify before the grand jury, I went to jail instead, to protect my source - Libby - because he had not communicated to me his personal and voluntary permission to speak.
At the behest of President Bush and Fitzgerald, Libby had signed a blanket form waiver, which his lawyer signaled to my counsel was not really voluntary, even though Libby's lawyer also said it had enabled other reporters to cooperate with the grand jury. But I believed that nothing short of a personal letter and a telephone call would allow me to assess whether Libby truly wished to free me from the pledge of confidentiality I had given him. The letter and the telephone call came last month.
Equally central to my decision was Fitzgerald, the prosecutor. He had declined to confine his questioning to the subject of Libby. This meant I would have been unable to protect other confidential sources who had provided information - unrelated to Wilson or his wife - for articles published in The Times. Last month, Fitzgerald agreed to limit his questioning.
Without both agreements, I would not have testified and would still be in jail.
I testified in Washington twice - most recently last Wednesday after finding a notebook in my office at The Times that contained my first interview with Libby. Fitzgerald told the grand jury that I was testifying as a witness and not as a subject or target of his inquiry.
This account is based on what I remember of my meetings with Fitzgerald and my testimony before the grand jury. I testified for almost four hours, much of that time taken by Fitzgerald asking me to decipher and explain my notes of my interviews with Libby, which I had provided to him.
I was not permitted to take notes of what I told the grand jury, and my interview notes on Libby are sketchy in places. It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled.
I testified that I did not believe the name came from Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
THE FIRST LIBBY MEETING
Early in my grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald asked me to describe my history with Libby and explain how I came to interview him in 2003.
I said I had known Libby indirectly through my work as a co-author of "Germs," a book on biological weapons published in September 2001. Libby had assisted one of my co-authors, and the first time I met Libby he asked for an inscribed copy of "Germs."
In June 2003 I had just returned from Iraq, where I had been embedded with a special military unit charged with finding Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons. Now I was assigned to a team of reporters at The Times examining why no such weapons had been found.
On the afternoon of June 23, 2003, I arrived at the Old Executive Office Building to interview Libby, who was known to be an avid consumer of prewar intelligence assessments, which were already coming under fierce criticism. The first entry in my reporter's notebook from this interview neatly captured the question foremost in my mind.
"Was the intell slanted?" I wrote, referring to the intelligence assessments of Iraq and underlining the word "slanted."
I recall that Libby was displeased with what he described as "selective leaking" by the CIA. He told me that the agency was engaged in a "hedging strategy" to protect itself in case no weapons were found in Iraq. "If we find it, fine, if not, we hedged," is how he described the strategy, my notes show.
I recall that Libby was angry about reports suggesting that senior administration officials, including Cheney, had embraced skimpy intelligence about Iraq's alleged efforts to buy uranium in Africa while ignoring evidence to the contrary. Such reports, he said, according to my notes, were "highly distorted."
Libby said the vice president's office had indeed pressed the Pentagon and the State Department for more information about reports that Iraq had renewed efforts to buy uranium. And Cheney, he said, had asked about the potential ramifications of such a purchase. But he added that the CIA "took it upon itself to try and figure out more" by sending a "clandestine guy" to Niger to investigate. I told Fitzgerald that I thought "clandestine guy" was a reference to Wilson - Libby's first reference to him in my notes.
In May and in early June, Nicholas D. Kristof, a columnist at The Times, wrote of Wilson's trip to Niger without naming him. Kristof wrote that Wilson had been sent to Niger "at the behest" of Cheney's office.
My notes indicate that Libby took issue with the suggestion that his boss had had anything to do with Wilson's trip. "Veep didn't know of Joe Wilson," I wrote, referring to the vice president. "Veep never knew what he did or what was said. Agency did not report to us."
Soon afterward Libby raised the subject of Wilson's wife for the first time. I wrote in my notes, inside parentheses, "Wife works in bureau?" I told Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Wilson's wife might work for the CIA. The prosecutor asked me whether the word "bureau" might not mean the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, I told him, normally. But Libby had been discussing the CIA, and therefore my impression was that he had been speaking about a particular bureau within the agency that dealt with the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. As to the question mark, I said I wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe it meant I found the statement interesting. Maybe Libby was not certain whether Wilson's wife actually worked there.
What was evident, I told the grand jury, was Libby's anger that Bush might have made inaccurate statements because the CIA failed to share doubts about the Iraq intelligence.
"No briefer came in and said, 'You got it wrong, Mr. President,"' he said, according to my notes.
THE SECOND LIBBY MEETING
I interviewed Libby for a second time on July 8, two days after Wilson published his essay attacking the administration on the op-ed page of The Times.
Our meeting, which lasted about two hours, took place over breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington. I told Fitzgerald that I almost certainly began this interview by asking about Wilson's essay, which appeared to have agitated Libby. As I recall, Libby asserted that the essay was inaccurate.
Fitzgerald asked about a notation I made on the first page of my notes about this July 8 meeting, "Former Hill staffer."
My recollection, I told him, was that Libby wanted to modify our prior understanding that I would attribute information from him to a "senior administration official." When the subject turned to Wilson, Libby requested that he be identified only as a "former Hill staffer." I agreed to the new ground rules because I knew that Libby had once worked on Capitol Hill.
Did Libby explain this request? Fitzgerald asked. No, I don't recall, I replied. But I said I assumed Libby did not want the White House to be seen as attacking Wilson.
Libby then proceeded through a lengthy and sharp critique of Wilson and what Libby viewed as the CIA's backpedaling on the intelligence leading to war. According to my notes, he began with a chronology of what he described as credible evidence of Iraq's efforts to procure uranium. As I told Fitzgerald and the grand jury, Libby alluded to the existence of two intelligence reports about Iraq's uranium procurement efforts. One report dated from February 2002. The other indicated that Iraq was seeking a broad trade relationship with Niger in 1999, a relationship that he said Niger officials had interpreted as an effort by Iraq to obtain uranium.
My notes indicate that Libby told me the report on the 1999 delegation had been attributed to Joe Wilson.
Libby also told me that on the basis of these two reports and other intelligence, his office had asked the CIA for more analysis and investigation of Iraq's dealings with Niger. According to my interview notes, Libby told me that the resulting cable - based on Wilson's fact-finding mission, as it turned out - barely made it out of the bowels of the CIA. He asserted that George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, had never even heard of Wilson.
As I told Fitzgerald, Libby also cited a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, produced by American intelligence agencies in October 2002, which he said had firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking uranium.
An unclassified version of that estimate had been made public before my interviews with Libby. I told Fitzgerald that I had pressed Libby to discuss additional information that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate. I said I had told Libby that if The Times was going to do an article, the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration's weapons arguments. According to my interview notes, though, it appears that Libby said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version.
Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise - chemical and biological weapons - my notes show that Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration's nuclear claims. His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Wilson's criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on the regime's history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons and fresh intelligence reports.
At that breakfast meeting, our conversation also turned to Wilson's wife. My notes contain a phrase inside parentheses: "Wife works at Winpac." Fitzgerald asked what that meant. Winpac stood for Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control, the name of a unit within the CIA that, among other things, analyzes the spread of unconventional weapons.
I said I couldn't be certain whether I had known Plame's identity before this meeting, and I had no clear memory of the context of our conversation that resulted in this notation. But I told the grand jury that I believed that this was the first time I had heard that Wilson's wife worked for Winpac. In fact, I told the grand jury that when Libby indicated that Plame worked for Winpac, I assumed that she worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative.
Fitzgerald asked me whether Libby had mentioned nepotism. I said no. And as I told the grand jury, I did not recall - and my interview notes do not show - that Libby suggested that Plame had helped arrange her husband's trip to Niger. My notes do suggest that our conversation about Plame was brief.
Fitzgerald asked me about another entry in my notebook, where I had written the words "Valerie Flame," clearly a reference to Plame. Fitzgerald wanted to know whether the entry was based on my conversations with Libby. I said I didn't think so. I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall.
Fitzgerald asked if I could recall discussing the Wilson-Plame connection with other sources. I said I had, though I could not recall any by name or when those conversations occurred.
Before the grand jury, Fitzgerald asked me questions about Cheney. He asked, for example, if Libby ever indicated whether Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no.
In my grand jury testimony, Fitzgerald repeatedly turned to the subject of how Libby handled classified information with me. He asked, for example, whether I had discussed my security status with Libby. During the Iraq war, the Pentagon had given me clearance to see secret information as part of my assignment "embedded" with a special military unit hunting for unconventional weapons.
Fitzgerald asked if I had discussed classified information with Libby. I said I believed so, but could not be sure. He asked how Libby treated classified information. I said, Very carefully.
Fitzgerald asked me to examine a series of documents. Though I could not identify them with certainty, I said that some seemed familiar, and that they might be excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's weapons. Fitzgerald asked whether Libby had shown any of the documents to me. I said no, I didn't think so. I thought I remembered him at one point reading from a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket.
I told Fitzgerald that Libby might have thought I still had security clearance, given my special embedded status in Iraq. At the same time, I told the grand jury I thought that at our July 8 meeting I might have expressed frustration to Libby that I was not permitted to discuss with editors some of the more sensitive information about Iraq.
Fitzgerald asked me if I knew whether I was cleared to discuss classified information at the time of my meetings with Libby. I said I did not know.
THE THIRD LIBBY CONVERSATION
My third interview with Libby occurred on July 12, two days before Robert D. Novak's column identified Plame for the first time as a CIA operative. I believe I spoke to Libby by telephone from my home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.
I told Fitzgerald I believed that before this call, I might have called others about Wilson's wife. In my notebook I had written the words "Victoria Wilson" with a box around it, another apparent reference to Plame, who is also known as Valerie Wilson.
I told Fitzgerald that I was not sure whether Libby had used this name or whether I just made a mistake in writing it on my own. Another possibility, I said, is that I gave Libby the wrong name on purpose to see whether he would correct me and confirm her identity.
I also told the grand jury I thought it was odd that I had written "Wilson" because my memory is that I had heard her referred to only as Plame. Fitzgerald asked whether this suggested that Libby had given me the name Wilson. I told him I didn't know and didn't want to guess.
My notes of this phone call show that Libby quickly turned to criticizing Wilson's report on his mission to Niger. He said it was unclear whether Wilson had spoken with any Niger officials who had dealt with Iraq's trade representatives.
With the understanding that I would attribute the information to an administration official, Libby also sought to explain why Bush included the disputed uranium allegation in his 2003 State of the Union address, a sentence of 16 words that his administration would later retract. Libby described it as the product of a simple miscommunication between the White House and the CIA.
Fitzgerald asked whether I ever pursued an article about Wilson and his wife. I told him I had not, though I considered her connection to the CIA potentially newsworthy. I testified that I recalled recommending to editors that we pursue a story.
Fitzgerald asked my reaction to Novak's column. I told the grand jury I was annoyed at having been beaten on a story. I said I felt that since The Times had run Wilson's original essay, it had an obligation to explore any allegation that undercut his credibility. At the same time, I added, I also believed that the newspaper needed to pursue the possibility that the White House was unfairly attacking a critic of the administration.
LIBBY'S LETTER
When I was last before the grand jury, Fitzgerald posed a series of questions about a letter I received in jail last month from Libby. The letter, two pages long, encouraged me to testify. "Your reporting, and you, are missed," it begins.
Fitzgerald asked me to read the final three paragraphs aloud to the grand jury. "The public report of every other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss Ms. Plame's name or identity with me," Libby wrote.
The prosecutor asked my reaction to those words. I replied that this portion of the letter had surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Libby to suggest that I, too, would say we had not discussed Plame's identity. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job.
Fitzgerald also focused on the letter's closing lines. "Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning," Libby wrote. "They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
How did I interpret that? Fitzgerald asked.
In answer, I told the grand jury about my last encounter with Libby. It came in August 2003, shortly after I attended a conference on national security issues held in Aspen, Colo. After the conference, I traveled to Jackson Hole, Wyo. At a rodeo one afternoon, a man in jeans, a cowboy hat and sunglasses approached me. He asked me how the Aspen conference had gone. I had no idea who he was.
"Judy," he said. "It's Scooter Libby."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/16/MNmillerfirst16.DTL
Stem cell strides may help resolve ethical dilemmas
New methods preserve viable embryos, but some opponents skeptical of tactics New processes don't kill viable embryos -- opponents say moral issue s
Scientists are reporting two new ways of creating embryonic stem cells without killing viable embryos, potentially reshaping the biggest bioethical debate of the Bush administration.
In one case, embryonic stem cells were made from a genetically abnormal embryo designed to be incapable of developing. The other method was an attempt to fashion stem cells from an embryo without damaging it.
The new methods, detailed in separate research reports released online Sunday by the British journal Nature, are intended as laboratory answers to the moral questions raised by the destruction of human embryos. If the strategies work, one result could be the availability of more federal grants for one of the most promising fields of biomedical research.
A White House spokesman said it was premature to speculate on any potential change in administration policy. But William Hurlbut of Stanford University, a member of a White House bioethics advisory council, called it "a starting point for an important new dialogue" on possible "technological solutions for the moral problems surrounding human embryonic stem cell research."
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/17/MNGRHF9FK31.DTL
ANALYSIS
As Republicans stumble, Democrats bumble
Strategists say Dems having trouble finding identity, offering compelling alternative
Washington -- Listen to Democrats and it is easy to say what they are not.
They are not the party that led America to war in Iraq. They are not the party trying to privatize Social Security, cut taxes to the rich or add to the deficit. They are not the party responsible for the slow federal response to Hurricane Katrina, whose top leaders in the House and Senate are under investigation, whose White House is being scrutinized by a special prosecutor, or whose members are up in arms over their president's latest Supreme Court selection.
Democrats, some barely able to contain their glee, seem to have embraced the strategy of Napoleon Bonaparte, who famously advised: "Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake."
It is far more difficult to say what Democrats are for.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/10/16/MNG7EF96GL1.DTL
The Australian
BUSH GETS AN 'MDS' GROUND SATELLITE IN EXCHANGE FOR THE SHIP BUILDING DEAL. This way the ship doesn't have far to go when completed to protect the MDS Ground Satellite.
US Navy contract hull of a deal for Austalia
Vanda Carson, Shipping
October 17, 2005
SHIPMAKER Austal is set to announce that it has won a lucrative US Navy contract to build a hi-tech $US220 million ($292 million) combat ship, a move the company hopes will boost its expansion into the world's biggest defence market.
It is only the second Austal ship to be built for the US Navy, with a smaller vessel sold to it in Japan four years ago.
The Fremantle-based shipmaker said its 70-per-cent-owned US subsidiary had been told Austal had won the contract, and had asked the stock exchange to halt trading in its shares from this morning while it finalised some details of the contract.
Russians accused of helping Iran develop missiles to hit Europe
October 17, 2005
LONDON: Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran obtain the technology needed to make missiles capable of hitting European capitals, a British newspaper claimed on Sunday.
Citing anonymous "Western intelligence officials", The Sunday Telegraph said the Russians were go-betweens as part of a multi-million-dollar deal they negotiated between Iran and North Korea in 2003.
"It has enabled Tehran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top-secret missile technology, believed to be channelled through Russia," the newspaper reported in a front-page story.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940060%255E31477,00.html
Militant attacks by Russian enemies within
October 17, 2005
MOSCOW: The diehard gang of Muslim extremists responsible for last week's attack on the southern Russian city of Nalchik consisted mainly of local militants intent on creating a strict Islamic state independent of Moscow, according to security sources in the region.
The disclosure that the gunmen were not sent from the war-torn republic of Chechnya but belonged to a group from Kabardino-Balkaria, the Russian republic of which Nalchik is the capital, will be of great concern to the Kremlin.
It provides alarming evidence that far from dying down -- as claimed by President Vladimir Putin -- the bloody Chechen conflict is spreading.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16939989%255E31477,00.html
Chance of jail for refusing Iraq tour
David Leppard, London
October 17, 2005
AN Australian-born RAF officer could be jailed for refusing to serve in Iraq because he believes the war there is illegal.
Flight-Lieutenant Malcolm Kendall-Smith is to be court-martialled for "refusing to obey a lawful command" after he told his commanding officer he would not return to Iraq.
He is the first British officer to face criminal charges for challenging the legality of the war.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940056%255E31477,00.html
Backlash forces watering down of tough anti-terror laws
John Kerin, David King
October 17, 2005
THE Government's tough new anti-terror laws will be watered down following a community backlash and backbench concerns some elements are too extreme.
Attorney-General Philip Ruddock is under pressure from members of the Government's own backbench security committee to soften aspects of the new laws, particularly drawing a line between freedom of speech and inciting hatred or sedition.
Under new offences, anyone inciting violence or racial hatred faces up to seven years in jail. But backbenchers are concerned the legislation has been drawn too broadly and, despite a defence of "good faith", could affect legitimate criticism.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940124%255E601,00.html
Shoot-to-kill backlash
John Kerin
October 17, 2005
THE so-called shoot-to-kill provision included in new anti-terror laws is already causing a backlash.
John Howard claimed yesterday that it simply lifted an existing police power from the Crimes Act and applied it to terrorism.
TACKLING TERROR
Draft anti-terror legislation on Jon Stanhope's website
SHOOTING POWERS
Shoot-to-kill provisions for federal police if the officer believes such action is "necessary to protect life or to prevent serious injury to another person"; if a suspect tries to escape; if the suspect refuses to surrender.
CONTROL AND DETENTION ORDERS
Control orders can prohibit a person from entering a specific area, communicating with certain people and working in a certain job for up to 12 months.
A suspect can be forced to wear an electronic tracking device.
A person believed to be involved in terrorist activity can be held in preventative detention for up to 14 days.
Five-year jail term for anyone who reveals a person is being held in preventative detention.
Contact between lawyers and suspects can be monitored by police.
SEDITION OFFENCES
Encouraging the overthrow of the government by violence or by force carries a seven-year jail term, as does encouraging someone to fight for the enemy, whether or not a state of war has been declared.
FINANCE
Life imprisonment for those knowingly financing terrorist activity
A copy of the draft legislation can be found at: www.chiefminister.act.gov.au
This is true -- the wording of the two provisions is identical. But the difference is the circumstances under which the powers would be applied.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940049%255E601,00.html
US offers 'Libya deal' to Syrians
Correspondents in Beirut
October 17, 2005
THE Bush administration has offered Syria's beleaguered President a "Gaddafi deal" to end his regime's isolation if Damascus agrees to a long list of painful concessions.
According to senior US and Arab officials, an offer has been relayed to President Bashar Assad that could enable him to avoid the looming threat of international sanctions against his country.
The matter could come to a head next week when Detlev Mehlis, the head of the UN team investigating the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, is due to submit his report to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940061%255E2703,00.html
Old Europe votes for its decline
With Germany, France and Italy politically paralysed, European voters appear to have expressed their disapproval of the reform agenda, writes Anatole Kaletsky
October 17, 2005
AFTER last week's creation of a German government in which Angela Merkel will not even control the finance and foreign ministries, all three of the great European nations that have dominated the continent's history for 2000 years - Germany, France and Italy - are effectively leaderless.
They will almost certainly remain politically paralysed at least until the French presidential election of 2007. The power vacuum now covering the whole of continental Europe is almost unprecedented, at least since the disastrous period between the two world wars.
But is the inability of German, French and Italian voters to choose effective political leaders and then to decide on clear programs of social and economic reform -- or more precisely the unwillingness to do so -- a cause for worry?
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,16940089%255E2703,00.html
Cheney Observer
Argentine Oil Workers Strike for Second Day, Factories Shut
Oct. 17 (Bloomberg) -- About 28,000 Argentine oil workers demanding higher wages extended a nationwide strike into a second day after failing to reach agreement with companies including Repsol YPF SA and Petroleo Brasileiro SA.
Workers at Argentine units of Madrid-based Repsol, Rio de Janeiro-based Petrobras and other oil and natural gas producers walked off the job yesterday because the companies refused to make an offer to raise salaries, said Alberto Roberti, head of the Federation of Oil and Gas Workers in a telephone interview. The union is demanding an increase of 260 pesos ($88) a month.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aLTvGjG3jgQM&refer=latin_america
UPDATE 2-Oil leaps 2 pct as new storm menaces Gulf of Mexico
Monday 17 October 2005, 3:41am EST
By Jonathan Leff
SINGAPORE, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Oil prices leapt more than 2 percent on Monday as a new storm forming in the Caribbean took aim at the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to damage oil platforms for a third time this year.
Rising tensions in Iran, the world's fourth-biggest oil producer, also buoyed prices after twin bombings in the southwest oil city of Ahvaz, which Tehran blamed on Britain.
U.S. crude soared $1.37 a barrel, or 2.2 percent, to $64.00 in electronic trading. London Brent crude was up $1.47 to $60.95 a barrel.
Oil gained 79 cents last week when prices hit a 10-week low of $60.35 on signs high prices were cutting into consumption.
http://today.reuters.com/business/newsArticle.aspx?type=naturalResources&storyID=nSP6120
Kazakh oil deal unfair, says Aiyar
rediff Business Bureau October 17, 2005 10:49 IST
In August, when China outbid India to acquire PetroKazakhstan Inc, Kazakhstan's third largest oil producer, after its flagship company CNCP raised its offer higher than the Indian price, question were raised about the transparency of the deal.
China National Petroleum Corp, which trailed the Oil and Natural Gas-Mittal Group combine when price bids were made on August 15, raised its bid to $4.18 billion to acquire PetroKazakhstan, a Canadian oil firm operating in Central Asia.
ONGC-Mittal combine was not given a chance to match or rebid, ONGC sources had pointed out.
http://inhome.rediff.com/money/2005/oct/17aiyar.htm
Oil price a threat world growth, says G20
DAVID BLACK
DEPUTY BUSINESS EDITOR
HIGH oil prices and a rising tide of protectionism are threatening to stoke inflation and hurt global economic growth, the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations said in a statement yesterday at the close of two days of talks at a resort near Beijing.
The world's largest oil consumer, the United States, and the biggest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, were among the signatories to the statement, which vowed to promote energy saving and alternative sources of energy as well as to reduce oil subsidies.
"We are concerned that long-lasting high and volatile oil prices could increase inflationary pressures, slow down growth and cause instability in the global economy," the G20 said.
The statement comes as oil prices appear to have reached a plateau - and delegates were obviously relieved that the world economy had shown remarkable resilience so far to the surge in oil prices. Benchmark US light crude futures hit a record $70.85 per barrel in August, up more than 60 per cent from the end of 2004. They closed on Friday at $62.63.
http://business.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=2097782005
Imposing green taxes on oil fuel
Aziz, Munich
Vice President Jusuf Kalla once told reporters that imposing taxes on oil products, to follow what other countries were doing, was not feasible in Indonesia because the government considered oil products "strategic", not commercial.
The Vice President perhaps must have been joking. Those countries that impose taxes on oil fuel consumption were doing it precisely because oil fuel to them is a strategic product. In fact, they did it to avoid energy crises in the long term and to reap the benefit of "double dividends" in shorter term. Indonesia must seriously ponder this option (taxing oil fuel consumption) as early as now, in part to solve the potential problem of energy crises in the future, but also to enjoy the revenue benefits in the meantime.
In industrialized countries, notably the European Union (EU), environmental objectives of taxes on oil fuel are important priorities, hence earn the name environmental, or ecological, taxes. The primary goal is to reduce CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions from the burning of fossil fuels that pollutes the air, water and other natural resources, and causes the greenhouse effect and global climate change. Since the growth of population and economy dictates growing consumption of oil fuel (the main source of CO2 emissions), one of the instruments to control this is to make the price as expensive as possible.
http://www.thejakartapost.com/detaileditorial.asp?fileid=20051017.E03&irec=2
SC lawmaker wants new petroleum refinery studied
(Columbia-AP) October 16, 2005 - A South Carolina lawmaker wants to help ease some worries about the nation's fuel supply by seeing if a petroleum refinery could be built on the coast.
Representative Michael Thompson of Anderson plans to file a bill next month that would form a study commission to determine the feasibility of a refinery.
US Senator Jim DeMint sponsored a bill nationally to encourage new refinery construction after two Hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico this year slowed or threatened fuel supplies.
DeMint spokesman Wesley Denton said the senator had not seen Thompson's plan but predicted the senator would support it.
The bill would create a nine-member commission, appointed by the House, Senate and governor, to study the idea.
http://www.wistv.com/Global/story.asp?S=3986043&nav=0RaP
MUMBAI: Even as the government has called for more imports of cooking gas (liquefied petroleum gas) to tide over the current crisis, state-owned oil marketing companies (OMCs) Hindustan Petroleum (HPCL), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) are monitoring their supplies.
For long, all the OMCs have seen their distributors divert supplies of LPG cylinders from the domestic to the commercial sector. The domestic sector accounts for 95% of the total 8.5 million tonne LPG sales in India.
While a 14.2-kg domestic LPG cylinder retails for around Rs 300, a 19-kg cylinder for the commercial sector costs Rs 770.
The all-India average usage for a consumer household is 120 kg, or around 10 cylinders per annum.
http://dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=5974&CatID=4
Govt mulls takeover of ONGC Videsh
New Delhi, Oct. 16 (PTI): The government is considering taking over Oil and Natural Gas Corporation’s international arm, ONGC Videsh Ltd, and converting it into a national exploration and production flagship for investments overseas.
OVL, which has committed over $4.5 billion (about Rs 19,800 crore) in 14 countries on the strength of its parent firm, is 100 per cent owned by ONGC.
Sources said petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar feels OVL under ONGC was “suffocating” as the parent firm had “kept it inadequately staffed and failed to provide the technical support” needed to pursue E&P projects.
With just one managing director and a director (finance), OVL has not been able to follow up on the opportunities arising from Aiyar’s much-acclaimed ‘oil diplomacy’.
He now wants to make OVL a 100 per cent government-owned firm after snapping it from ONGC with a view to better co-ordinate diplomacy and commercial deals, they said.
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051017/asp/business/story_5362980.asp
Oil prices jump $1 a barrel
By GILLIAN WONG, Associated Press
Last updated: 1:21 a.m., Monday, October 17, 2005
SINGAPORE -- Crude oil futures jumped more than $1 a barrel Monday, driven up by concerns that a tropical depression brewing in the Caribbean could grow into a hurricane and threaten oil facilities in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico.
Light, sweet crude for November delivery rose $1.10 to $63.73 a barrel in Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Friday, the contract slipped 45 cents to $62.63 a barrel.
Heating oil gained 4.54 cents to $1.9954 a gallon while gasoline climbed 5.44 cents to $1.8030. Natural gas rose $0.601 to $13.820 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Tropical Depression 24, a slow-moving system formed Saturday, was expected to become Tropical Storm Wilma, which would make it the 21st named storm of the season, tying the 1933 record for the most storms in an Atlantic season, the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Sunday.
http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=409544&category=&BCCode=&newsdate=10/16/2005
DeLay hustles to replenish his voter pool
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff October 17, 2005
RICHMOND, Texas -- At a two-story community college across the street from a Wal-Mart, US Representative Tom DeLay jumped out of the back seat of his town car Wednesday morning, grinning wide and eager to shake some hands.
He greeted trustees and shared a joke with maintenance workers. He introduced himself to a group of students who were sharing cigarettes, drinking Red Bull, and listening to a friend strum a guitar.
''Hi -- Tom DeLay," he said, smile fixed and hand outstretched. ''Thanks for letting us interrupt you."
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/10/17/delay_hustles_to_replenish_his_voter_pool/
Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney's first skywalkers
By Jano Gibson
October 17, 2005 - 3:08PM
Sydney's highest attraction - Skywalk at Sydney Tower was officially opened today.
Photo: Peter Morris
Vertigo sufferers be warned: Sydney's latest tourist attraction is an overhanging, glass-bottomed platform perched a dizzying 260 metres above the city's streets.
Skywalk, a $6 million outdoor structure featuring a series of "daredevil walkways" on Sydney Tower's golden turret, was unveiled today.
Among the first to don the mandatory colourful jump-suits and to sample the "on-the edge outdoor adventure" were journalists - including some with a fear of heights.
But despite the high-altitude and gusty southerly winds, stunning views across the city helped distract any fears and all were able to step onto the glass-panelled deck that hangs over the edge of the tower.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sydneys-first-skywalkers/2005/10/17/1129401184315.html
After 30 years, Lotto pays off
October 17, 2005 - 2:30PM
Three decades of playing Tattslotto has finally paid off for two sisters and their brother.
The siblings, from different Melbourne suburbs, won more than $547,000 in Saturday's draw, after playing in a syndicate together for 30 years.
"It is so long ago that we started playing with our parents that I can't remember how we actually picked the numbers that won," one of the winning sisters said.
"I think some of the numbers were family birthdays and others we drew out of a hat.
"We all have special things we can do with this money, including pay off a car, clearing up credit cards, increasing superannuation payments, helping one of us move home, taking an overseas holiday and organising a 25th birthday for one of our sons, as we couldn't afford a 21st for him."
The trio's entry was submitted at Mount Waverley Lotto and shared the division one prize pool with an entry submitted at Melbourne's Vermont South Newsagency, as well as three entries from Queensland and one from Western Australia.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/after-30-years-lotto-pays-off/2005/10/17/1129401182277.html
IRA know-how may have killed troops
October 17, 2005
London: Sophisticated bomb technology employed by the Irish Republican Army has been used to kill British soldiers in southern Iraq, a London newspaper reported yesterday.
The Independent on Sunday said that eight soldiers died in five roadside blasts after being attacked with bombs triggered by infra-red beams.
The bombs and the firing devices used to kill the soldiers, as well as two private security guards, were initially created by British security services as part of a counter-terrorism strategy at the height of the Troubles in the early 1990s, the paper said. But the technology fell into IRA hands during a botched "sting" operation about 15 years ago.
A military intelligence officer with experience in Northern Ireland said that one trigger used in a recent Iraqi bombing was a three-way device, combining a command wire, a radio signal and an infra-red beam - a technique perfected by the IRA.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/ira-knowhow-may-have-killed-troops/2005/10/16/1129401148019.html
Tackle bird flu at its source, vet urges
October 17, 2005
Building up South-East Asia's defences against bird flu could take 10 years, but fighting the virus at its source would be cheaper and a more effective way to stop a human pandemic, a top animal health official says.
Alejandro Thiermann, of the World Organisation for Animal Health, said too much attention was being paid to stockpiling scarce antiviral drugs and developing a vaccine, and "not enough on birds".
Dr Thiermann, part of a US-led mission to South-East Asia last week, urged rich nations to tackle the H5N1 virus in Asia's backyard farms and markets, where the pandemic threat is most likely to emerge.
"It's like watching a volcano getting ready to erupt," Dr Thiermann said. "If indeed the virus is going to mutate into a pandemic form and we want to prevent it at source, we have to help these countries make drastic improvements in public health and animal health."
With H5N1 now in Europe and triggering a scramble there for flu drugs and face masks, Dr Thiermann worries that attention will drift away from Asia, where the virus is endemic in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Vietnam.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/tackle-bird-flu-at-its-source-vet-urges/2005/10/16/1129401145763.html
Rise of deadly disease is a cultural thing
October 17, 2005
Illustration: Michael Mucci
Modern life has brought humans and microbes closer than ever before, writes Tony McMichael.
Avian influenza is the latest of several infectious diseases, including SARS, to emerge in Asia since 1997. A particular dread, however, attaches to this current H5N1 influenza virus because of the three major influenza pandemics that occurred last century.
The main concern is whether the H5N1 strain will become transmissible from human to human. That concern has been reinforced by two scientific findings in the past few weeks.
First, the genome of the 1918-19 (Spanish flu) H1N1 virus, which killed 30-40 million people, has been reconstructed. It appears that this particular pandemic strain may have arisen directly, via spontaneous mutation, from an avian influenza virus.
Unlike the 1957 H2N2 and 1968 H3N2 strains, the H1N1 strain did not require recombination of genetic material from bird and human strains. Could H5N1 do likewise?
Second, in New York, a long-established horse-infecting strain of influenza has spread into dogs, and has achieved dog-to-dog transmission. If it can happen in dogs then presumably it could happen in humans.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/rise-of-deadly-disease-is-a-cultural-thing/2005/10/16/1129401141539.html
Chicago Tribune
"Soxtober"
Sox-sational!!!
Reversed call, Crede's big bat clinch trip to World Series
By Mark Gonzales
Tribune staff reporter
Published October 17, 2005
ANAHEIM -- A little controversy didn't hurt, but the ending was as convincing as their dominant starting pitching.
The White Sox earned their first World Series berth since 1959 Sunday night in their typical crazy style with a 6-3 comeback victory over the Los Angeles Angels for the American League pennant.
The Sox eliminated the Angels 4-1 in their best-of-seven AL Championship Series as Jose Contreras allowed only five hits in pitching the Sox's fourth consecutive complete game.
The Sox will open the World Series on Saturday night at U.S. Cellular Field against either Houston or St. Louis.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/sports/baseball/whitesox/cs-051016soxgamer,1,5743311.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Sen. Edward Kennedy Helps Rescue Fishermen
By Associated Press
Published October 17, 2005, 1:24 AM CDT
HYANNIS, Mass. -- U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy attempted to rescue six men who had become trapped by high tide on a jetty off Hyannisport on Sunday.
The Massachusetts Democrat eventually left the rescue to Hyannis firefighters, The Cape Cod Times reported Monday.
Kennedy was walking his two dogs on the shore at 11:15 a.m. when he spotted the men cut off from shore by the rising waters. They had been fishing on a jetty that begins at the tip of the Kennedy compound.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-ap-kennedy-rescue,1,302886.story?coll=chi-news-hed
Turning a blind eye to bias against women in workplace
Derrick Z. Jackson, New York Times News Service
Published October 17, 2005
First Lady Laura Bush praised U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers by saying: "I know Harriet well. I know how accomplished she is. I know how many times she's broken the glass ceiling herself."
Bush made that comment in the context of being asked on NBC whether she detected sexism in the criticism of Miers' qualifications. "That's possible. I think that's possible," Bush said. "I think she is so accomplished. I think people are not looking at her accomplishments."
But it is ironic that she invoked the glass ceiling while her husband's administration has quietly stopped collecting detailed information on women in the workforce.
In August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics discontinued its women worker employment series in the current employment statistics payroll survey. The series ensured the most detailed monthly snapshots and long-term trends on the number of women workers in individual industries.
The bureau said it discontinued the series because it "imposed a significant reporting burden" to ask 160,000 businesses representing about 400,000 individual work sites to note gender in their monthly reporting of their workers' employment, hours and earnings. The bureau also claimed the women workers series was "little used," adding that "extensive" data on women in the workplace will still be available in the Current Population Study, a monthly survey of 60,000 households.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0510170152oct17,1,4459714.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed
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