The Rooster
Friday, December 16, 2005
Morning Papers - It's Origins
Rooster "Cock-A-Doodle-Do"
"Okeydoke"
History
Today is Friday, Dec. 16, the 350th day of 2005. There are 15 days left in the year.
1770, composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany.
1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea overboard to protest tea taxes.
1809, Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
1870 A Negro Methodist Episcopal Church is founded at Jackson, TN.
1895 Songwriter Andy Razef, who will write the lyrics to "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose", is born in Washington, D.C.
1905, the entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first weekly issue.
1961 Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy lead 250 demonstrators to Albany's City Hall and are arrested for parading without a permit
1976 Andrew Young is nominated by President Jimmy Carter to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
1980, Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, died in Shelbyville, Ky., at age 90.
1985, reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
Ten years ago: President Clinton and congressional Republicans traded accusations as their budget impasse led to a second shutdown of the federal government.
Five years ago: President-elect Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first black secretary of state.
One year ago: Britain's highest court dealt a huge blow to the government's anti-terrorism policy by ruling that it could not detain foreign suspects indefinitely without trial.
Agnes Martin, one of the world's foremost abstract artists, died in Taos, N.M., at age 92.
Missing in Action
1965 WICKHAMM DAVID W. II WHEELING WV
1967 HILL HOWARD J. RANTOUL IL 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 LOW JAMES FREDERICK SAUSILITO CA 08/04/68 RELEASED HANOI
1969 BUCKLEY VICTOR P. FALLS CHURCH VA
December 15
1965 CLARK JERRY P. DAVENPORT IA
1969 SCHUMACHER JAMES K.
1970 DEUSO CARROLL J. RICHFORD VT
1970 MC COY MERIL O JR. NORTH SACRAMENTO CA
1970 OWEN CLYDE C. ELKLAND MO
1970 PIERSANTI ANTHONY J. JR. PENNSAUKEN NJ
December 14
1966 BRIGHAM ALBERT SAVANNAH GA
1966 HOLMAN GERALD A. NORTHVILLE MI ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV REFNO 0548
1966 KOENIG EDWIN LEE SPOKANE WA ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV REFNO 0548
1966 MOWREY RICHARD L. SHAWNEE MISSION KS ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV
1966 NEWELL MICHAEL T. ELLENVILLE NY
1966 WILSON CLAUDE D. JR. STOCKTON CA REMAINS RETURNED 06/89
1967 SEHORN JAMES E. FOREST GROVE OR 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1971 BOYANOWSKI JOHN G. HARRISBURG PA "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 BREMMER DWIGHT A. OAKLAND TN "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 CALDWELL FLOYD D. ST LOUIS MO "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 HOLLINGER GREG N. PAUL ID "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 PERKINS CECIL C. PORTSMOUTH VA "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 PERRY OTHA L. DETROIT MI "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
December 13
1966 WATERS SAMUEL EDWIN JR. MOCKSVILLE NC 03/18/77 SRV RETURNED REMAINS TO PCOM
1967 BENNETT ROBERT E. III SPRINGFIELD NJ PARA IN RIVER SANK
1968 ALBRIGHT JOHN S. II HUNTINGTON WV "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 CLARKE FRED L. TROUTMAN NC "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DAILEY DOUGLAS V. WATERFORD MI "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DONAHUE MORGAN J. ALEXNADRIA VA "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DUGAN THOMAS W. READING PA
1968 FANNING JOSEPH P. LONG ISLAND CITY NY "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 MC GOULDRICK FRANCIS J. JR. NEW HAVEN CT
1968 WALKER SAMUEL F. PHILADELPHIA PA "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
December 12
1963 ANGELL MARSHALL J. ROANOKE VA REMAINS OK RECV-N/SUBJ
1966 FLESHER HUBERT K. CLARKSBURG WV 02/18/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1970 DUCKETT THOMAS A. LA GRANGE GA
1970 SKINNER OWEN G. LIMA OH
December 11
1964 TADIOS LEONARD M. LANAI HI 03/11/66 DIC ON PRG LIST
1965 HORSKY ROBERT MILVOY CEDAR RAPIDS IA AC MISSING 740600 REMAINS RECOVERED MASS GRAVE
1965 MC KNIGHT GEORGE PARKER LAFAYETTE LA AC MISSING REMS REC 06/74
1965 SALINAS MERCEDES PEREZ MISSON TX AC MISSING REMAINS RECOVERED 06/74 MASS GRAVE
1965 STEWART DONALD DAVID COATS NC AC MISSING REMAINS RETURNED 06/74
1966 ALFRED GERALD O. JR. SEATTLE WA POSS EJECTED INTO SEA
1968 GALBRAITH RUSSELL D. TIPPECANOE OH
December 10
1964 SANSONE DOMINICK NEW YORK NY REMAINS POSS MIX W/VMS&BURIED REMAINS RETURNED 07/17/84
1964 VADEN WOODROW W. CLARKSVILLE TN REMAINS POSS MIX W/VMS&BURIED
1967 GRZYB ROBERT H. 09/04/68 DIC ON PRG LIST
1971 MC INTIRE SCOTT W. ALBUQUERQUE NM
New Zealand Herald
Climate, storms hit extremes in 2005
16.12.05 5.20pm
By Robert Evans
GENEVA - Catastrophic storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Stan took weather extremes to new levels in 2005, with flooding and heatwaves touching almost every continent, the United Nations weather body WMO said today.
But in an annual review, WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said that while high temperatures and heavy rains could probably be linked to global warming, this phenomenon could not yet be firmly blamed for the summer's Caribbean hurricanes.
"This year is currently the second warmest on record, and could end up being the warmest once all the figures are in," Jarraud told a news conference. "It has certainly been exceptional in the intensity of its storms."
A long-time weather scientist who has headed the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation for the past two years, he said extreme heat -- often bringing severe drought -- had spread across all continents but Europe.
Europe itself -- mainly in its eastern and south-eastern regions -- had suffered both torrential rains and flooding, which also affected Bangladesh, China, New Zealand and Guyana in South America, among other areas.
And the tropical systems that swept around the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico trailing destruction and human tragedy were -- taken together -- the worst ever, with 26 named storms easily breaking the previous record of 21 in 1933.
Of these, 14 became hurricanes -- two more than the previous record in 1969 -- and seven were classified as "major hurricanes", including Katrina which devastated New Orleans and other US Gulf cities in August and killed some 1300 people.
Hurricane Wilma, which tore around coastlines in Central America in October, was the most intense ever recorded in the region, Jarraud said.
Earlier that month, Hurricane Stan had swept across Guatemala and El Salvador, laying waste to many poor communities, destroying coffee and other crops and killing more than 1000 in mudslides and floods.
Jarraud said it was not yet possible to assert that global warming was responsible for generating the hurricanes.
"The honest answer is: we don't know if it is," he said. "A lot of research is being done, and the IPCC (the UN's advisory Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) will be issuing a new report in 2007, and that could shed more light on the question."
However, the WMO chief said, global warming was clearly tied to the increasing incidence of heat waves, and the spread of deserts in areas short of rain.
"We can be much more confident about saying that," he declared.
Jarraud said Arctic sea-ice was melting -- another phenomenon linked to global warming -- more than ever before, and that the average cover in the key month of September was down 20 per cent on the average for 1979-2004.
Overall, the average temperature at the earth's surface so far for 2005 had been 0.48°C higher than the comparable average for 1961-90 of 14°C, used as a reference period, the WMO said.
The hottest year since governments began sharing data was 1998, when the average surface temperature was 0.54°C above the reference period average.
- REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10360303
Shrinking habitat 'islands' doom hundreds of species
14.12.05
Mexico's volcano rabbit and monkey-faced bats in Fiji are among hundreds of species facing imminent extinction but protecting the remaining scraps of their habitat could save them, according to a new study.
Conducted by scientists working with the 52-member Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), the study identifies 794 species on the brink of oblivion.
"Safeguarding 595 sites around the world would help stave off an imminent global extinction crisis," the organisation said. "The study found that just one-third of the sites are known to have legal protection, and most are surrounded by human population densities that are approximately three times the global average."
The report focuses on highly threatened species that are for the most part now confined to a single piece of habitat. It said large concentrations of such sites were to be found in the Andes of South America, in Brazil's Atlantic Forests, throughout the Caribbean, and in Madagascar.
The United States is also home to many of the pinpointed sites.
Mexico's rare volcano rabbit - restricted to the slopes of four volcanoes in the country's remote interior - is one of the species at greatest risk.
The "imminent extinction" list includes the Bloody Bay poison frog of Trinidad and Tobago, the monkey-faced bat of Fiji, the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States, the cloud rat of the Philippines, and the marvelous spatuletail, a hummingbird limited to one Peruvian valley.
"This is a one-shot deal for the human race," said Mike Parr, Secretary of AZE. "We have a moral obligation to act. The science is in, and we are almost out of time."
The study, published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest to suggest that human activities are causing a new wave of extinctions, which the authors say is 100 to 1000 times greater than natural rates.
"In recent history, most species extinctions have occurred on isolated islands following the introduction of invasive predators such as cats and rats," AZE said.
"This study shows that the extinction crisis has now expanded to become a full-blown assault on Earth's major land masses, with the majority of at-risk sites and species now found on continental mountains and in lowland areas."
Scientists say that extinctions are creeping onshore because continental habitats are being diced up by human activities - a process that is creating what some biologists term "virtual islands", isolated fragments that are cut off from each other by fences, asphalt, farms and cities.
Habitat destruction, overhunting, climate change and pollution are other major factors behind extinctions.
Vanishing species
* According to the World Conservation Union, almost 800 species have become extinct since 1500, when accurate historical and scientific records began.
* Hundreds of species are on the brink of oblivion.
* Human activity leading to destruction of habitats, climate change and pollution are factors killing off species.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359803
Rare snail given ministerial protection
17.12.05
A community of giant snails sitting on 5 million tonnes of valuable coal on the West Coast have ministerial protection following a High Court ruling yesterday.
The rare Powelliphanta "Augustus" snails were first discovered in 1996 and named after the Mt Augustus ridgeline they were found on, within Solid Energy's Stockton opencast mine.
The Crown company wants to mine the snails' 5ha habitat and plans to move up to 100, or 10 per cent of the population, to an adjoining site about 800m away.
The Royal Forest and Bird Society says the snails risk extinction if the mining goes ahead, and it asked the court to protect them under the Wildlife Act.
Yesterday the court issued a declaration requiring Solid Energy to have the consent of both the Conservation Minister and the Energy Minister before it carries out any activity which would kill the snails or put them in the company's possession.
Green Party conservation spokeswoman Metiria Turei said the "commonsense" ruling left the snails one step further away from extinction.
Solid Energy yesterday applied for consent from the ministers via the Department of Conservation to "direct transfer" the snails.
Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder said the snails' habitat was on about 5 million tonnes of high-quality coal not found anywhere else on the mine.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10360416
Dark side to teeth whitening
14.12.05
By Martin Johnston
Gleaming white celebrity smiles and TV makeover shows are encouraging a surge of tooth-whitening, but dentists warn that do-it-yourself kits can cause serious mouth trouble.
Some in the New Zealand tooth whitening industry say increasing numbers of people are having their teeth bleached or doing it themselves in a bid to beam like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kate Beckinsale or Britney Spears, who have helped popularise the treatments.
In the United States the industry has swelled nearly 500 per cent since 2000 to be worth an estimated US$2 billion ($2.83 billion).
The costs can range from $20 for a paint-on home treatment to around $1000 for light-activated gel applied in a dentist's chair. For around $500 to $600 dentists will custom-make thin, close-fitting, plastic trays for use at home with a smear of bleach gel.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359801
Tea lessens ovarian cancer risk, study finds
14.12.05
CHICAGO - Drinking two or more cups of tea a day may dramatically cut the risk of ovarian cancer, a Swedish study of more than 61,000 women has reported.
The findings by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm were based on a look back at the habits and long-term health of the women, the report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine said.
Of the women recruited for the study that began in 1987, two-thirds reported drinking tea. When it concluded at the end of 2004, 301 participants had developed ovarian cancer, a particularly deadly form of the disease.
"We observed a 46 per cent lower risk of ovarian cancer in women who drank two or more cups of tea per day compared with non-drinkers," said study authors Susanna Larsson and Alicja Wolk. "Each additional cup of tea per day was associated with an 18 per cent lower risk of ovarian cancer." Black and green teas are believed to contain antioxidants that help ward off the cell mutation that leads to cancer.
The researchers cautioned that additional studies were needed to confirm their findings.
Ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in about 22,000 US women this year and 80 per cent of cases are not detected until the cancer has spread. More than 16,000 US women are likely to die of ovarian cancer in 2005.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10359804
Western peacekeepers begin pullout from Eritrea
16.12.05
ASMARA - Western peacekeepers began leaving Eritrea yesterday after the United Nations agreed to pull out Americans, Canadians and Europeans from its mission set up to prevent war with Ethiopia.
The UN Security council said in a statement the world body would "temporarily relocate" military and civilian staff from Eritrea to Ethiopia in the interests of safety.
Last week, Eritrea ordered out peacekeepers from the United States, Canada and Europe.
The decision affects some 180 military observers and civilian logistics staff, but the United Nations said roughly 20 extra staff from other nationalities would also be leaving.
"It is confused," said one UN staff member when asked about the mood inside the so-called Green Building of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).
The head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, arrived in Eritrea late on Monday in a last-ditch effort to resolve the crisis. But by Wednesday, he still had not had a meeting with Eritrean officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10360214
Bird-flu virus coming to NZ
17.12.05
By Martin Johnston
The deadly bird-flu virus will be imported into New Zealand early next year.
A ministerial paper obtained by the Weekend Herald under the Official Information Act reveals that Biosecurity NZ wants the virus for diagnosis and staff training.
"Rapid diagnosis could mean the difference between a disease being confined to a small group of individual birds, or spreading widely throughout the country," the paper says.
Fast diagnosis would allow swift culling of affected birds, but is at present hampered by having to send samples to Australia.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360427
Link seen to video games in prostitute's murder
17.12.05
By Jarrod Booker
A man will appear in court today charged with the murder, rape and kidnapping of a prostitute who pleaded for her life as she was repeatedly run over by a car.
The body of the 24-year-old woman was found in Christchurch's Avon River with her hands bound about 14 hours after the attack in a central city carpark early on Thursday.
Witnesses described someone laughing as the woman was repeatedly run over and then propped up against a brick wall and rammed into.
Her body was then dragged into the car.
Similar scenes are depicted in video games such as Carmageddon, where running down people is the goal, and Grand Theft Auto, where prostitutes can be run down by a car in the player's control.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360424
Auckland's next volcanic eruption
17.12.05
By Errol Kiong
When Auckland's volcanic field next erupts it will look something like this. The picture is the creation of scientists and animators for Volcanoes, a new permanent exhibition at Auckland Museum.
Scientists who worked on the exhibition say an eruption is likely to come from a new volcano, rather than a known one such as Rangitoto.
It will be at a random location, as the molten rock finds the easiest route to the surface.
The exhibition, which opens today, may be fictional, but scientists say an eruption in Auckland is a matter of when, not if.
The good news: that is not likely to be any time soon. Auckland has a big volcanic eruption every 5000 years on average and the last one was Rangitoto, about 600 years ago.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360428
Customs officer's eyes pop at billionaire's boat
17.12.05
By Julie Middleton
It's a very good time to be a Customs officer or marine policeman when the world's fifth-largest yacht makes its first visit to NZ waters.
On Thursday night, as Le Grand Bleu sat at sea off Auckland, some of those who had business on board got a tour of what is believed to be the biggest private vessel to visit this country.
There's a 2m x 2m glass bottom in the bowels of the yacht, surrounded by lounge chairs, an awed customs officer told the Herald.
There's a cool-off pool the size of a large spa that abuts an aquarium.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10360421
Businessman admits sex offences against 13 boys
17.12.05
A businessman has admitted sexually abusing schoolboys lured with video games and groomed using alcohol and junk food, according to police.
Brian Edward Avent, 40, yesterday pleaded guilty to 44 representative charges of sexual offending against 13 boys aged between 9 and 16 at the time of the abuse, between March 2000 and March 2005.
Avent pleaded not guilty to five charges and will appear in the High Court at Auckland again next year.
In a summary of facts given to the district court in September, police said Avent was a paedophile who groomed his victims by first offering them access to computer games and supplying them with junk food.
He met his victims at church and through his West Auckland computer business, police said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10360370
Sydney's summer of hate
17.12.05
By Greg Ansley
Today, hot westerlies will sear through the streets of Cronulla, whipping past the white apartment towers on the Pacific's edge, through the Norfolk Pines and palms of the beachside park, and over the tops of waves fanning across Voodoo Reef and Shark Island.
Temperatures will drive into the high 20s or low 30s, broiling already-tanned beachgoers as they head to Northies Hotel or the cafes and outdoor tables lining Bicentennial Plaza. It is iconic Sydney summer.
To the west, tar will be melting in the streets of Lakemba, bouncing off the red brick houses of a suburb dominated for three decades by the city's most important mosque.
In better days, the young Lebanese whose home this is would have thrown their towels in their cars for the 40-minute drive to Cronulla and the white sands of the beaches stretching north towards Botany Bay, the genesis of European settlement.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10360373
China topples US to grab top spot for high-tech exports
14.12.05
By Brian Love
China has trumped the United States to become the world's leading exporter of high-tech goods.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's data, which shows China taking over last year in the export of laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, highlights how fast the country has emerged as an economic power that the US and other long-industrialised countries can no longer ignore.
China exported US$180 billion ($250 billion) worth of ICT (information and communication technology) goods in 2004, compared with US exports of US$149 billion. The OECD said China was likely to have kept the newly conquered top spot this year too but it would take several months to verify.
The US was world leader in 2003 with US$137 billion of exports of ICT goods, which include video equipment and electronic components, followed by China with US$123 billion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359851
Animal transplants into humans given go ahead
13.12.05 5.30pm
By Kent Atkinson
Using pig and other animal parts for human transplants moved a step closer today after the Government's biotech ethics advisor gave the green light.
The Bioethics Council opened the way for transplants of animal tissue into humans to be resumed once the Government is satisfied with the disease risk and other medical issues involved.
But it wants patients receiving animal parts to be registered, to declare their status at the border, and for any subsequent medical treatment to be recorded.
Six New Zealanders would already qualify for such registration -- they were injected with pig islet cells in 1996 as part of a clinical trial of treatment for diabetes.
In recent years the Government has taken steps to stop further such trials in New Zealand and the Cook Islands. This year, it extended to December 31 2006 a law which requires the Health Minister to specifically approve the use of organs, tissues or cells from animals - xenotransplantation - under strict criteria.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359788
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is still warm:
Scott Base
Snow
-4.0°
Updated Saturday 17 Dec 9:59AM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is not frozen. GLACIER BAY IS NOT FROZEN !
39 °F / 4 °C
Clear
Windchill:
37 °F / 3 °C
Humidity:
87%
Dew Point:
36 °F / 2 °C
Wind:
4 mph / 6 km/h from the NNW
Pressure:
29.87 in / 1011 hPa
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Clear -
(Above Ground Level)
continued …
"Okeydoke"
History
Today is Friday, Dec. 16, the 350th day of 2005. There are 15 days left in the year.
1770, composer Ludwig van Beethoven was born in Bonn, Germany.
1773, the Boston Tea Party took place as American colonists boarded a British ship and dumped more than 300 chests of tea overboard to protest tea taxes.
1809, Napoleon Bonaparte was divorced from the Empress Josephine by an act of the French Senate.
1870 A Negro Methodist Episcopal Church is founded at Jackson, TN.
1895 Songwriter Andy Razef, who will write the lyrics to "Ain't Misbehavin'" and "Honeysuckle Rose", is born in Washington, D.C.
1905, the entertainment trade publication Variety came out with its first weekly issue.
1961 Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy lead 250 demonstrators to Albany's City Hall and are arrested for parading without a permit
1976 Andrew Young is nominated by President Jimmy Carter to become U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations
1980, Harland Sanders, founder of the Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant chain, died in Shelbyville, Ky., at age 90.
1985, reputed organized-crime chief Paul Castellano was shot to death outside a New York City restaurant.
Ten years ago: President Clinton and congressional Republicans traded accusations as their budget impasse led to a second shutdown of the federal government.
Five years ago: President-elect Bush selected Colin Powell to become the first black secretary of state.
One year ago: Britain's highest court dealt a huge blow to the government's anti-terrorism policy by ruling that it could not detain foreign suspects indefinitely without trial.
Agnes Martin, one of the world's foremost abstract artists, died in Taos, N.M., at age 92.
Missing in Action
1965 WICKHAMM DAVID W. II WHEELING WV
1967 HILL HOWARD J. RANTOUL IL 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1967 LOW JAMES FREDERICK SAUSILITO CA 08/04/68 RELEASED HANOI
1969 BUCKLEY VICTOR P. FALLS CHURCH VA
December 15
1965 CLARK JERRY P. DAVENPORT IA
1969 SCHUMACHER JAMES K.
1970 DEUSO CARROLL J. RICHFORD VT
1970 MC COY MERIL O JR. NORTH SACRAMENTO CA
1970 OWEN CLYDE C. ELKLAND MO
1970 PIERSANTI ANTHONY J. JR. PENNSAUKEN NJ
December 14
1966 BRIGHAM ALBERT SAVANNAH GA
1966 HOLMAN GERALD A. NORTHVILLE MI ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV REFNO 0548
1966 KOENIG EDWIN LEE SPOKANE WA ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV REFNO 0548
1966 MOWREY RICHARD L. SHAWNEE MISSION KS ACFT DITCHED 2 SURV
1966 NEWELL MICHAEL T. ELLENVILLE NY
1966 WILSON CLAUDE D. JR. STOCKTON CA REMAINS RETURNED 06/89
1967 SEHORN JAMES E. FOREST GROVE OR 03/14/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1971 BOYANOWSKI JOHN G. HARRISBURG PA "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 BREMMER DWIGHT A. OAKLAND TN "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 CALDWELL FLOYD D. ST LOUIS MO "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 HOLLINGER GREG N. PAUL ID "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 PERKINS CECIL C. PORTSMOUTH VA "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
1971 PERRY OTHA L. DETROIT MI "RADIO CONTACT LOST, SEARCH NEG."
December 13
1966 WATERS SAMUEL EDWIN JR. MOCKSVILLE NC 03/18/77 SRV RETURNED REMAINS TO PCOM
1967 BENNETT ROBERT E. III SPRINGFIELD NJ PARA IN RIVER SANK
1968 ALBRIGHT JOHN S. II HUNTINGTON WV "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 CLARKE FRED L. TROUTMAN NC "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DAILEY DOUGLAS V. WATERFORD MI "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DONAHUE MORGAN J. ALEXNADRIA VA "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 DUGAN THOMAS W. READING PA
1968 FANNING JOSEPH P. LONG ISLAND CITY NY "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
1968 MC GOULDRICK FRANCIS J. JR. NEW HAVEN CT
1968 WALKER SAMUEL F. PHILADELPHIA PA "MID AIR COLLISION, PARA OBS"
December 12
1963 ANGELL MARSHALL J. ROANOKE VA REMAINS OK RECV-N/SUBJ
1966 FLESHER HUBERT K. CLARKSBURG WV 02/18/73 RELEASED BY DRV ALIVE IN 98
1970 DUCKETT THOMAS A. LA GRANGE GA
1970 SKINNER OWEN G. LIMA OH
December 11
1964 TADIOS LEONARD M. LANAI HI 03/11/66 DIC ON PRG LIST
1965 HORSKY ROBERT MILVOY CEDAR RAPIDS IA AC MISSING 740600 REMAINS RECOVERED MASS GRAVE
1965 MC KNIGHT GEORGE PARKER LAFAYETTE LA AC MISSING REMS REC 06/74
1965 SALINAS MERCEDES PEREZ MISSON TX AC MISSING REMAINS RECOVERED 06/74 MASS GRAVE
1965 STEWART DONALD DAVID COATS NC AC MISSING REMAINS RETURNED 06/74
1966 ALFRED GERALD O. JR. SEATTLE WA POSS EJECTED INTO SEA
1968 GALBRAITH RUSSELL D. TIPPECANOE OH
December 10
1964 SANSONE DOMINICK NEW YORK NY REMAINS POSS MIX W/VMS&BURIED REMAINS RETURNED 07/17/84
1964 VADEN WOODROW W. CLARKSVILLE TN REMAINS POSS MIX W/VMS&BURIED
1967 GRZYB ROBERT H. 09/04/68 DIC ON PRG LIST
1971 MC INTIRE SCOTT W. ALBUQUERQUE NM
New Zealand Herald
Climate, storms hit extremes in 2005
16.12.05 5.20pm
By Robert Evans
GENEVA - Catastrophic storms like Hurricanes Katrina and Stan took weather extremes to new levels in 2005, with flooding and heatwaves touching almost every continent, the United Nations weather body WMO said today.
But in an annual review, WMO secretary-general Michel Jarraud said that while high temperatures and heavy rains could probably be linked to global warming, this phenomenon could not yet be firmly blamed for the summer's Caribbean hurricanes.
"This year is currently the second warmest on record, and could end up being the warmest once all the figures are in," Jarraud told a news conference. "It has certainly been exceptional in the intensity of its storms."
A long-time weather scientist who has headed the Geneva-based World Meteorological Organisation for the past two years, he said extreme heat -- often bringing severe drought -- had spread across all continents but Europe.
Europe itself -- mainly in its eastern and south-eastern regions -- had suffered both torrential rains and flooding, which also affected Bangladesh, China, New Zealand and Guyana in South America, among other areas.
And the tropical systems that swept around the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico trailing destruction and human tragedy were -- taken together -- the worst ever, with 26 named storms easily breaking the previous record of 21 in 1933.
Of these, 14 became hurricanes -- two more than the previous record in 1969 -- and seven were classified as "major hurricanes", including Katrina which devastated New Orleans and other US Gulf cities in August and killed some 1300 people.
Hurricane Wilma, which tore around coastlines in Central America in October, was the most intense ever recorded in the region, Jarraud said.
Earlier that month, Hurricane Stan had swept across Guatemala and El Salvador, laying waste to many poor communities, destroying coffee and other crops and killing more than 1000 in mudslides and floods.
Jarraud said it was not yet possible to assert that global warming was responsible for generating the hurricanes.
"The honest answer is: we don't know if it is," he said. "A lot of research is being done, and the IPCC (the UN's advisory Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) will be issuing a new report in 2007, and that could shed more light on the question."
However, the WMO chief said, global warming was clearly tied to the increasing incidence of heat waves, and the spread of deserts in areas short of rain.
"We can be much more confident about saying that," he declared.
Jarraud said Arctic sea-ice was melting -- another phenomenon linked to global warming -- more than ever before, and that the average cover in the key month of September was down 20 per cent on the average for 1979-2004.
Overall, the average temperature at the earth's surface so far for 2005 had been 0.48°C higher than the comparable average for 1961-90 of 14°C, used as a reference period, the WMO said.
The hottest year since governments began sharing data was 1998, when the average surface temperature was 0.54°C above the reference period average.
- REUTERS
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10360303
Shrinking habitat 'islands' doom hundreds of species
14.12.05
Mexico's volcano rabbit and monkey-faced bats in Fiji are among hundreds of species facing imminent extinction but protecting the remaining scraps of their habitat could save them, according to a new study.
Conducted by scientists working with the 52-member Alliance for Zero Extinction (AZE), the study identifies 794 species on the brink of oblivion.
"Safeguarding 595 sites around the world would help stave off an imminent global extinction crisis," the organisation said. "The study found that just one-third of the sites are known to have legal protection, and most are surrounded by human population densities that are approximately three times the global average."
The report focuses on highly threatened species that are for the most part now confined to a single piece of habitat. It said large concentrations of such sites were to be found in the Andes of South America, in Brazil's Atlantic Forests, throughout the Caribbean, and in Madagascar.
The United States is also home to many of the pinpointed sites.
Mexico's rare volcano rabbit - restricted to the slopes of four volcanoes in the country's remote interior - is one of the species at greatest risk.
The "imminent extinction" list includes the Bloody Bay poison frog of Trinidad and Tobago, the monkey-faced bat of Fiji, the ivory-billed woodpecker in the United States, the cloud rat of the Philippines, and the marvelous spatuletail, a hummingbird limited to one Peruvian valley.
"This is a one-shot deal for the human race," said Mike Parr, Secretary of AZE. "We have a moral obligation to act. The science is in, and we are almost out of time."
The study, published in the US-based Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest to suggest that human activities are causing a new wave of extinctions, which the authors say is 100 to 1000 times greater than natural rates.
"In recent history, most species extinctions have occurred on isolated islands following the introduction of invasive predators such as cats and rats," AZE said.
"This study shows that the extinction crisis has now expanded to become a full-blown assault on Earth's major land masses, with the majority of at-risk sites and species now found on continental mountains and in lowland areas."
Scientists say that extinctions are creeping onshore because continental habitats are being diced up by human activities - a process that is creating what some biologists term "virtual islands", isolated fragments that are cut off from each other by fences, asphalt, farms and cities.
Habitat destruction, overhunting, climate change and pollution are other major factors behind extinctions.
Vanishing species
* According to the World Conservation Union, almost 800 species have become extinct since 1500, when accurate historical and scientific records began.
* Hundreds of species are on the brink of oblivion.
* Human activity leading to destruction of habitats, climate change and pollution are factors killing off species.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359803
Rare snail given ministerial protection
17.12.05
A community of giant snails sitting on 5 million tonnes of valuable coal on the West Coast have ministerial protection following a High Court ruling yesterday.
The rare Powelliphanta "Augustus" snails were first discovered in 1996 and named after the Mt Augustus ridgeline they were found on, within Solid Energy's Stockton opencast mine.
The Crown company wants to mine the snails' 5ha habitat and plans to move up to 100, or 10 per cent of the population, to an adjoining site about 800m away.
The Royal Forest and Bird Society says the snails risk extinction if the mining goes ahead, and it asked the court to protect them under the Wildlife Act.
Yesterday the court issued a declaration requiring Solid Energy to have the consent of both the Conservation Minister and the Energy Minister before it carries out any activity which would kill the snails or put them in the company's possession.
Green Party conservation spokeswoman Metiria Turei said the "commonsense" ruling left the snails one step further away from extinction.
Solid Energy yesterday applied for consent from the ministers via the Department of Conservation to "direct transfer" the snails.
Solid Energy chief executive Don Elder said the snails' habitat was on about 5 million tonnes of high-quality coal not found anywhere else on the mine.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10360416
Dark side to teeth whitening
14.12.05
By Martin Johnston
Gleaming white celebrity smiles and TV makeover shows are encouraging a surge of tooth-whitening, but dentists warn that do-it-yourself kits can cause serious mouth trouble.
Some in the New Zealand tooth whitening industry say increasing numbers of people are having their teeth bleached or doing it themselves in a bid to beam like Catherine Zeta-Jones, Kate Beckinsale or Britney Spears, who have helped popularise the treatments.
In the United States the industry has swelled nearly 500 per cent since 2000 to be worth an estimated US$2 billion ($2.83 billion).
The costs can range from $20 for a paint-on home treatment to around $1000 for light-activated gel applied in a dentist's chair. For around $500 to $600 dentists will custom-make thin, close-fitting, plastic trays for use at home with a smear of bleach gel.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359801
Tea lessens ovarian cancer risk, study finds
14.12.05
CHICAGO - Drinking two or more cups of tea a day may dramatically cut the risk of ovarian cancer, a Swedish study of more than 61,000 women has reported.
The findings by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm were based on a look back at the habits and long-term health of the women, the report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine said.
Of the women recruited for the study that began in 1987, two-thirds reported drinking tea. When it concluded at the end of 2004, 301 participants had developed ovarian cancer, a particularly deadly form of the disease.
"We observed a 46 per cent lower risk of ovarian cancer in women who drank two or more cups of tea per day compared with non-drinkers," said study authors Susanna Larsson and Alicja Wolk. "Each additional cup of tea per day was associated with an 18 per cent lower risk of ovarian cancer." Black and green teas are believed to contain antioxidants that help ward off the cell mutation that leads to cancer.
The researchers cautioned that additional studies were needed to confirm their findings.
Ovarian cancer will be diagnosed in about 22,000 US women this year and 80 per cent of cases are not detected until the cancer has spread. More than 16,000 US women are likely to die of ovarian cancer in 2005.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&ObjectID=10359804
Western peacekeepers begin pullout from Eritrea
16.12.05
ASMARA - Western peacekeepers began leaving Eritrea yesterday after the United Nations agreed to pull out Americans, Canadians and Europeans from its mission set up to prevent war with Ethiopia.
The UN Security council said in a statement the world body would "temporarily relocate" military and civilian staff from Eritrea to Ethiopia in the interests of safety.
Last week, Eritrea ordered out peacekeepers from the United States, Canada and Europe.
The decision affects some 180 military observers and civilian logistics staff, but the United Nations said roughly 20 extra staff from other nationalities would also be leaving.
"It is confused," said one UN staff member when asked about the mood inside the so-called Green Building of the UN Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE).
The head of UN peacekeeping, Jean-Marie Guehenno, arrived in Eritrea late on Monday in a last-ditch effort to resolve the crisis. But by Wednesday, he still had not had a meeting with Eritrean officials.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10360214
Bird-flu virus coming to NZ
17.12.05
By Martin Johnston
The deadly bird-flu virus will be imported into New Zealand early next year.
A ministerial paper obtained by the Weekend Herald under the Official Information Act reveals that Biosecurity NZ wants the virus for diagnosis and staff training.
"Rapid diagnosis could mean the difference between a disease being confined to a small group of individual birds, or spreading widely throughout the country," the paper says.
Fast diagnosis would allow swift culling of affected birds, but is at present hampered by having to send samples to Australia.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360427
Link seen to video games in prostitute's murder
17.12.05
By Jarrod Booker
A man will appear in court today charged with the murder, rape and kidnapping of a prostitute who pleaded for her life as she was repeatedly run over by a car.
The body of the 24-year-old woman was found in Christchurch's Avon River with her hands bound about 14 hours after the attack in a central city carpark early on Thursday.
Witnesses described someone laughing as the woman was repeatedly run over and then propped up against a brick wall and rammed into.
Her body was then dragged into the car.
Similar scenes are depicted in video games such as Carmageddon, where running down people is the goal, and Grand Theft Auto, where prostitutes can be run down by a car in the player's control.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360424
Auckland's next volcanic eruption
17.12.05
By Errol Kiong
When Auckland's volcanic field next erupts it will look something like this. The picture is the creation of scientists and animators for Volcanoes, a new permanent exhibition at Auckland Museum.
Scientists who worked on the exhibition say an eruption is likely to come from a new volcano, rather than a known one such as Rangitoto.
It will be at a random location, as the molten rock finds the easiest route to the surface.
The exhibition, which opens today, may be fictional, but scientists say an eruption in Auckland is a matter of when, not if.
The good news: that is not likely to be any time soon. Auckland has a big volcanic eruption every 5000 years on average and the last one was Rangitoto, about 600 years ago.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&ObjectID=10360428
Customs officer's eyes pop at billionaire's boat
17.12.05
By Julie Middleton
It's a very good time to be a Customs officer or marine policeman when the world's fifth-largest yacht makes its first visit to NZ waters.
On Thursday night, as Le Grand Bleu sat at sea off Auckland, some of those who had business on board got a tour of what is believed to be the biggest private vessel to visit this country.
There's a 2m x 2m glass bottom in the bowels of the yacht, surrounded by lounge chairs, an awed customs officer told the Herald.
There's a cool-off pool the size of a large spa that abuts an aquarium.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10360421
Businessman admits sex offences against 13 boys
17.12.05
A businessman has admitted sexually abusing schoolboys lured with video games and groomed using alcohol and junk food, according to police.
Brian Edward Avent, 40, yesterday pleaded guilty to 44 representative charges of sexual offending against 13 boys aged between 9 and 16 at the time of the abuse, between March 2000 and March 2005.
Avent pleaded not guilty to five charges and will appear in the High Court at Auckland again next year.
In a summary of facts given to the district court in September, police said Avent was a paedophile who groomed his victims by first offering them access to computer games and supplying them with junk food.
He met his victims at church and through his West Auckland computer business, police said.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10360370
Sydney's summer of hate
17.12.05
By Greg Ansley
Today, hot westerlies will sear through the streets of Cronulla, whipping past the white apartment towers on the Pacific's edge, through the Norfolk Pines and palms of the beachside park, and over the tops of waves fanning across Voodoo Reef and Shark Island.
Temperatures will drive into the high 20s or low 30s, broiling already-tanned beachgoers as they head to Northies Hotel or the cafes and outdoor tables lining Bicentennial Plaza. It is iconic Sydney summer.
To the west, tar will be melting in the streets of Lakemba, bouncing off the red brick houses of a suburb dominated for three decades by the city's most important mosque.
In better days, the young Lebanese whose home this is would have thrown their towels in their cars for the 40-minute drive to Cronulla and the white sands of the beaches stretching north towards Botany Bay, the genesis of European settlement.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10360373
China topples US to grab top spot for high-tech exports
14.12.05
By Brian Love
China has trumped the United States to become the world's leading exporter of high-tech goods.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's data, which shows China taking over last year in the export of laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, highlights how fast the country has emerged as an economic power that the US and other long-industrialised countries can no longer ignore.
China exported US$180 billion ($250 billion) worth of ICT (information and communication technology) goods in 2004, compared with US exports of US$149 billion. The OECD said China was likely to have kept the newly conquered top spot this year too but it would take several months to verify.
The US was world leader in 2003 with US$137 billion of exports of ICT goods, which include video equipment and electronic components, followed by China with US$123 billion.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359851
Animal transplants into humans given go ahead
13.12.05 5.30pm
By Kent Atkinson
Using pig and other animal parts for human transplants moved a step closer today after the Government's biotech ethics advisor gave the green light.
The Bioethics Council opened the way for transplants of animal tissue into humans to be resumed once the Government is satisfied with the disease risk and other medical issues involved.
But it wants patients receiving animal parts to be registered, to declare their status at the border, and for any subsequent medical treatment to be recorded.
Six New Zealanders would already qualify for such registration -- they were injected with pig islet cells in 1996 as part of a clinical trial of treatment for diabetes.
In recent years the Government has taken steps to stop further such trials in New Zealand and the Cook Islands. This year, it extended to December 31 2006 a law which requires the Health Minister to specifically approve the use of organs, tissues or cells from animals - xenotransplantation - under strict criteria.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=5&objectid=10359788
The weather in Antarctica (Crystal Ice Chime) is still warm:
Scott Base
Snow
-4.0°
Updated Saturday 17 Dec 9:59AM
The weather at Glacier Bay National Park (Crystal Wind Chime) is not frozen. GLACIER BAY IS NOT FROZEN !
39 °F / 4 °C
Clear
Windchill:
37 °F / 3 °C
Humidity:
87%
Dew Point:
36 °F / 2 °C
Wind:
4 mph / 6 km/h from the NNW
Pressure:
29.87 in / 1011 hPa
Visibility:
10.0 miles / 16.1 kilometers
UV:
0 out of 16
Clouds:
Clear -
(Above Ground Level)
continued …
The picture below is of a Screech Owl. The bird is very small and it is being held in a gloved hand. (Click On)
Owl Hides Out In Christmas Tree
Morning Papers - continued. It's been a tendious week. I'll finish prolonged edition this afternoon. Thank you for your patience.
Michael Moore Today
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
War is over
Voting Extended in Historic Iraq Elections
FOXNews
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Up to 15 million Iraqis — including large numbers of Sunnis, who boycotted the January elections — voted in historic parliamentary elections Thursday to establish a permanent democratic government amid only scattered violence.
The polls stayed open one hour later, until 6 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EST), because of such high turnout. Long lines were reported in some precincts, said commission official Munthur Abdelamir, some of which wrapped around neighborhood blocks. The commission said results will be announced within two weeks.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5178
Thursday, December 15th, 2005
'TIS THE SEASON
High Owl Hides Out In Christmas Tree
Blood Tests Confirm Bird's State
POSTED: 10:47 am EST December 15, 2005
UPDATED: 11:02 am EST December 15, 2005
SARASOTA, Fla. -- A bird with a buzz found in a Florida family's Christmas tree is getting ready to go back into the wild.
The little screech owl was found in the tree, which the family had kept for five days before deciding to decorate it.
Animal control officers from Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary came to get the owl, and said they smelled a strange odor on it when they did.
"Curiously enough, the owl's feathers smelled very, very potently like marijuana," said Jeff Dering, of the sanctuary. "They examined the owl, looked at its eyes, ... and the owl was, in the vernacular, stoned."
Blood tests confirmed the owl's state.
Sanctuary staff checked the bird out, fed him and named him "Cheech." They said he would be released in a few days.
The buzzing bird also brought an early holiday gift to the sanctuary, which was in need of more than $250,000. The attention the bird has brought has helped ensure the sanctuary's survival.
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.nbc30.com/nbc30/5542246/detail.html
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=564
U.S. Helps Some Iran-Backed Terror
Dahr Jamail and Harb al-Mukhtar / Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD - After the U.S. forces and the bombings, Iraqis are coming to fear those bands of men in masks who seem to operate with the Iraqi police.
Omar Ahmed's family learnt what it can mean to run into the police, their supposed protectors.
Omar was driving with two friends in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad at night Sep. 1 when they were stopped at a police checkpoint.
"The three of them were arrested by the police even though there was nothing in the car," an eyewitness told IPS, speaking on condition of anonymity.
They did not return home for days, and the family began to search the morgues, common practice now when someone is arrested by the Iraqi police and does not return.
"Five days after they were arrested we found Omar's body in the freezer in a morgue, with holes in the side of his head and shoulders," a friend of the family told IPS.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5140
Teacher takes back no-Santa statement
Richardson ISD: Parents angry, but official says remark was 'a mistake'
12:00 AM CST on Thursday, December 15, 2005
By KRISTINE HUGHES / The Dallas Morning News
Yes, Richland Elementary School, there is a Santa Claus.
The music teacher who told a first-grade class at the Richardson school Monday that Santa is a mythological figure recanted her story Tuesday after school officials began getting calls from parents.
"She told the students that in fact she had heard from Santa, and he wanted to reassure them that he is alive and well in the spirit of Christmas," said Jeanne Guerra, Richardson school district spokeswoman.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-santa_15met.ART.North.Edition2.187b2d51.html
Italy to Pull Out 300 Troops From Iraq in January, Martino Says
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Italy's government announced the withdrawal of a further 300 soldiers from Iraq in January, less than four month before Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces elections.
The reduction to 2,600 soldiers in Iraq comes three months after the first withdrawal of 300 troops, Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino said today in a news conference in Rome. Italian troops have been in Iraq since the U.S.-led ousting in March 2003 of dictator Saddam Hussein.
The latest polls show Berlusconi's four-party coalition trailing the opposition. The majority of Italians oppose having soldiers in Iraq and Romano Prodi, Berlusconi's political rival, has said he will start withdrawing Italy's troops straight away if he wins elections slated for April 9.
Italy has the fourth-largest contingent after the U.S., the U.K. and South Korea. Italy's announcement coincides with the start of voting in Iraq to decide the composition of the parliament for the next four years.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5179
Caught on Tape: Bush Admits WMD Were Irrelevant
On day that the United States invaded Iraq, President Bush said that we were doing so “reluctantly” but that “our purpose was clear” — to get rid of Saddam’s “weapons of mass murder.” (Note: Bush did not say “purposes.” According to Bush, there was only one purpose.)
Yesterday on Brit Hume, he said he would have invaded even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. Would have been nice if he’d mentioned this earlier.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/15/wmd-irrelevant/
Bush Accepts McCain's Ban on Torture
By Liz Sidoti / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush reversed course on Thursday and accepted Sen. John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.
Bush said the agreement will "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."
"It's a done deal," said McCain, talking to reporters in a driving rain outside the White House after he met with the president.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5182
Fort Worth native protests in Cuba
By JESSICA DeLEÓN / STAR-TELEGRAM
Over the course of five days, Fort Worth native Scott Langley walked more than 60 miles for a cause he believes in.
Langley is part of the Witness Against Torture march, in which 25 Christian activists left Santiago, Cuba, on Dec. 6 and walked to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to protest the government’s treatment of terror suspects.
The marchers arrived Sunday in Guantanamo, and on Monday they began fasting after officials refused to let them visit the prisoners. They’ll continue the hunger strike until Thursday night when they will hold a vigil and then return to Santiago.
"I march because I want to give myself, and my government, time to think about what life is like as a detainee at Guantanamo," Langley wrote in an e-mail this week from Guantanamo. "I want to offer a sign of hope ... to confront the horror perpetuated by our government on foreign soil."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5183
Abuse Cited In 2nd Jail Operated by Iraqi Ministry
Official Says 12 Prisoners Subjected to 'Severe Torture'
By Ellen Knickmeyer / Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Dec. 11 -- An Iraqi government search of a detention center in Baghdad operated by Interior Ministry special commandos found 13 prisoners who had suffered abuse serious enough to require medical treatment, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday night.
An Iraqi official with firsthand knowledge of the search said that at least 12 of the 13 prisoners had been subjected to "severe torture," including sessions of electric shock and episodes that left them with broken bones.
"Two of them showed me their nails, and they were gone," the official said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
A government spokesman, Laith Kubba, said Sunday night that any findings at the prison would be "subject to an investigation," but he declined to comment on the allegations.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5138
U.S. urging ex-Baathists to join politics
SUNNI INVOLVEMENT MAY HELP REUNITE COUNTRY, OFFICIALS SAY
By Nancy A. Youssef / Knight Ridder
BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a reversal of policy, U.S. officials in Iraq are encouraging some former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to run in Thursday's election, saying it's one way to bring marginalized Sunni Muslims into the new government.
``Those who do not have blood on their hands and were not very serious in the government structure should be integrated into the political process,'' Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said about Baathists in an interview with Knight Ridder on Sunday. ``Ultimately, all wars must come to an end.''
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5137
Sunnis Change Course
By Joshua Hammer and Scott Johnson / Newsweek
Dec. 19, 2005 issue - Ahmed Duraid is ready for a new era. Like almost all of his neighbors in Adhamiya, a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency along the Tigris River in central Baghdad, the 35-year-old clothes vendor boycotted Iraq's National Assembly elections last January on the advice of Sunni fighters and influential political groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars. But the consequences for Adhamiya were severe: shadowy religious militias with ties to the Shiite-dominated government began arresting, kidnapping and sometimes murdering young Sunni men in the neighborhood; Duraid felt unprotected, even abandoned, by the country's new leaders. "We didn't participate, and the others took power alone, and this is the result," Duraid told NEWSWEEK.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5139
Bush Estimates That 30,000 Iraqis Killed
By Nedra Pickler / Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - President Bush offered encouragement to war-weary Iraqis on Monday but acknowledged they have paid a heavy price — 30,000 dead — as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and its bloody aftermath.
As Iraqis began voting in parliamentary elections, Bush said that no country has formed a democracy without "challenges, setbacks and false starts."
"There's still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq," the president said, "but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East and the history of freedom."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5143
Family Gets Soldier's Christmas Card Hours Before Death News
Associated Press
HOCKLEY, Texas -- The Christmas card arrived first, followed a few hours later by the military officers.
"All I have to say is how much I love you and will be glad to see you in January," Army Sgt. Michael C. Taylor wrote to his mother from Iraq. "I wish you a very merry Christmas."
Stephanie Taylor Tompkins got the card on Wednesday, shortly before Army officers brought her family the news that an improvised bomb had exploded in Balad, Iraq, that day, killing her 23-year-old son, a young man whose family once called him "Little Mickey."
Taylor had become a father and was a devout Christian who loved reading mysteries and thrillers and was looking forward to restoring a 1969 Chevelle when he got home, said his brother, Justin Lee Taylor, 24.
Instead, Justin will be restoring the Chevelle alone, as a way to remember his brother.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5147
House Panel Subpoenas Rumsfeld on Katrina
By Lara Jakes Jordan / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A House committee investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina issued a subpoena Wednesday to force Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to turn over documents but stopped short of sending a similar legal demand to the White House.
The subpoena commands Rumsfeld to produce internal records and communications about the Pentagon's response to the Aug. 29 storm, including efforts to send supplies to victims, stabilize public safety and mobilize active duty forces in the Gulf Coast. It requires the Pentagon to deliver the documents, spanning from Aug. 23 to Sept. 15, from Rumsfeld and eight other top military officials by Dec. 30.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5181
Bush Backs Rumsfeld, DeLay in Interview
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has done "a heck of a good job" and there are no plans to replace him.
Bush also spoke up for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, saying he believes DeLay is innocent of money laundering charges and he hopes the Republican congressman will be able to reclaim his leadership post.
Rumors have been swirling about the possibility of Rumsfeld's departure from Bush's Cabinet. But the president said in an interview being aired Wednesday on Fox News Channel that the Pentagon chief wasn't leaving anytime soon.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5186
Time: Rove's Lawyer Told of Conversation
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Months before Karl Rove corrected his statements in the Valerie Plame investigation, his lawyer was told that the president's top political adviser might have disclosed Plame's CIA status to a Time magazine reporter.
Rove says he had forgotten the conversation he had on July 11, 2003, with Time's Matt Cooper. But the magazine reported Sunday that in the first half of 2004, as President Bush's re-election campaign was heating up, Rove's lawyer got the word about a possible Rove-Cooper conversation from a second Time reporter, Viveca Novak.
Novak described her conversation with the lawyer, Robert Luskin, in a first-person account released Sunday on Time's Web site.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5142
What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald
By Viveca Novak / Time
It was in the midst of another Washington scandal, almost a decade ago, that I got to know Bob Luskin. He represented Mark Middleton, a minor figure in the Democratic campaign-finance scandals of 1996. Luskin kept Middleton out of the spotlight and never told me much. Still, there is the occasional source with whom one becomes friendly, and eventually Luskin was in that group.
We'd occasionally meet for a drink--he didn't like having lunch--at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. "Well," he said, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer." I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin's liberal sympathies were no secret, and here he was representing the man known to many Democrats as the other side's Evil Genius.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5141
Supreme Court to review Texas political map
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider the constitutionality of a Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay that helped Republicans gain seats in Congress.
The 2003 boundaries helped Republicans win 21 of the state's 32 seats in Congress in the last election-- up from 15. They were approved amid a nasty battle between Republican leaders and Democrats and minority groups in Texas.
The contentiousness also reached Washington, where the Justice Department approved the plan, although staff lawyers concluded that it diluted minority voting rights. Because of historic discrimination against minority voters, Texas is required to get Justice Department approval for any voting changes to ensure they don't undercut minority voting.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5146
New tests fuel doubts about vote machines
A top election official and computer experts say computer hackers could easily change election results, after they found numerous flaws with a state-approved voting-machine in Tallahassee.
By Marc Caputo and Gary Fineout / Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE - A political operative with hacking skills could alter the results of any election on Diebold-made voting machines -- and possibly other new voting systems in Florida -- according to the state capital's election supervisor, who said Diebold software has failed repeated tests.
Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5185
Family Upset Over Marine's Body Arriving As Freight
10News
SAN DIEGO -- There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.
A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.
Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.
But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.
John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.
"When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made," said John Holley.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5136
Bush Advisor To Reporter: Katrina “Has Fallen So Far Off The Radar Screen, You Can’t Find It”
On September 15, President Bush stood in Jackson Square in New Orleans and made a promise:
And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/11/katrina-off-radar/
A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
As of Monday, Dec. 12, 2005, at least 2,144 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the
Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,682 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The British military has reported 98 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark,
El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia one death each.
Since May 1, 2003, when
President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 2,005 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,573 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_us_deaths
Diebold and Florida Scramble to Cover Their Collective Asses...
As AP Reports on Devasting Leon County, FL Diebold Voting Machine Hack
PLUS: Only One Class Action Fraud Complaint Has Been Filed Against Diebold So Far, Not Two as Mis-Reported Elsewhere...
AP has finally taken note of the Leon County, FL hack test. The extraordinary test election which was entirely flipped last Tuesday as reported here previously.
In the bargain -- in light of that devasting test, after which the Elections Director of Leon County reportedly vowed to never allow Diebold's machine to be used in another election and has requested funds to replace all of Diebold's voting machines -- and along with the Securities Fraud suit that was filed against Diebold on the same day, Diebold's PR machine has kicked into overdrive. Though their normal spokesman, David Bear, normally in charge of lying about things having to do with their Voting Machines has been notably missing in action, Diebold has been issuing press releases and sending letters in an attempt to counter and distract from the devastating news of late. And the State of Florida is similarly scrambling to find someone else to blame as well.
From AP's report today on the Leon County hack, Diebold goes on the offensive and conjures up the gall to send a letter attempting to place blame for the incident on Ion Sancho, the Elections Director in the county who was wise enough to let the test move forward in hopes of determining if the machines were as vulnerable as many of us have been charging forever...
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002163.htm
Fatalities By Month
Select Month
]
Month Summary Charteath - Province
Cause of Death
12-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Baghdad (south of)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
11-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Ramadi (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb
US
Sergeant 1st Class James S. "Shawn" Moudy
Baghdad (western part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
10-Dec-2005
4
US: 4 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Yusufiyah - Babil
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Yusufiyah - Babil
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
Sergeant Clarence L. Floyd Jr.
Taji [NW of Baghdad]
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
Sergeant Julia V. Atkins
Baghdad (N part) [Adhamiyah Dist.]
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
09-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Adrian N. Orosco
Baghdad (Abu Ghuraib)
Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb
08-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Spencer C. Akers
Brooke Army Med Center, TX - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Milton Rivera-Vargas
FOB Kalsu [Iskandariyah] - Babil
Non-hostile - illness - heart attack
US
1st Lieutenant Kevin J. Smith
Baghdad (eastern part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
07-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Michael C. Taylor
Balad - Salah ad-Din
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Corporal Joseph P. Bier
Ramadi - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
06-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Private 1st Class Thomas C. Siekert
Bayji - Salah ad Din
Non-hostile - unspecified injury
US
Specialist Brian A. Wright
Habbaniyah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - mine
04-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Baghdad (eastern part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Daniel M. Cuka
Baghdad (southeast part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Sergeant 1st Class Richard L. Schild
Baghdad (southeast part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
03-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Corporal Jimmy Lee Shelton
Bayji - Salah ad Din
Hostile - hostile fire - mortar attack
02-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Specialist Marcus S. Futrell
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US
Staff Sergeant Philip L. Travis
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US
Sergeant Philip Allan Dodson Jr.
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
01-Dec-2005
11
US: 11 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant 1st Class Brent A. Adams
Ramadi - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Sergeant Andy A. Stevens
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Andrew G. Patten
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Adam Wade Kaiser
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Daniel J. Clay
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal David A. Huhn
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Corporal Anthony T. McElveen
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Scott T. Modeen
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal John M. Holmason
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Robert Alexander Martinez
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Craig N. Watson
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
http://icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=12-2005
Cheney Observer
Bush friend linked to top job in Russian oil industry
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
A former cabinet minister and close personal friend of George Bush may be appointed head of Russia's leading state oil company, it was reported yesterday.
Donald Evans, who was until early this year US commerce secretary, has been offered the position of head of the board of directors of Rosneft by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the respected business daily, Kommersant, reported yesterday.
If the appointment is confirmed, Mr Evans would be the second former senior foreign official to join the Kremlin's expanding energy empire. Last week, the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder accepted a job as chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline, a project to ferry gas between Russia and Germany that he helped broker.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666840,00.html
Council overrides Nagin trailer veto
Members want last word on sites
Friday, December 16, 2005
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
The New Orleans City Council voted 7-0 Thursday to override Mayor Ray Nagin's veto of an ordinance giving district council members the final say-so on where FEMA trailer parks can be placed in their districts.
Council members have objected strongly to the administration's plans to install large groups of trailers for displaced residents in several city parks and playgrounds. They have called for using other tracts of vacant land, such as around now-empty public housing complexes.
Thursday's vote was the first time the council has overridden a mayoral veto since 1995, when the council rejected Mayor Marc Morial's veto of an ordinance awarding a new franchise to Cox Cable.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1134718725205240.xml
BUT CAN AN APPLICANT BE AN ILLEGAL ALIEN?
Council drops residency requirement
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
With up to 75 percent of New Orleans’ police force having been left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, the City Council voted 4-3 Thursday to suspend for three years the city’s long-controversial requirement that police officers and other city employees must live in Orleans Parish to be hired or promoted.
Mayor Ray Nagin has said in the past that he would sign an ordinance repealing the requirement, although he would not take the lead in pushing to overturn it.
The measure’s chief sponsor, Councilman Jay Batt, a longtime opponent of the requirement, wanted to make the suspension permanent but agreed to limit it to three years when it became clear that was the most he could get.
Batt said he wanted to help police officers and other city workers who have been living in cruise ships since Katrina find new housing at a time when large sections of New Orleans are uninhabitable.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2005_12_15.html
Bush doubles commitment to levees
By Mark Schleifstein,
Bob Marshall
and John McQuaid
Staff writers
New pumping stations aimed at keeping storm surge from pouring into New Orleans through drainage canals, vulnerable levees reinforced to resist erosion from waves and fast-track completion of a long-promised area hurricane protection system are the cornerstones of a $1.5 billion request announced Thursday by the Bush administration.
“The levee system will be better and stronger than it ever has been in the history of New Orleans,” said Donald Powell, the top federal official for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. “Better and stronger than it ever has been in the history of New Orleans,” Powell repeated for emphasis, as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stood at his side at the White House.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2005_12_15.html
FIXING THE LEVEES ???
http://www.nola.com/katrina/bush_levee_plan_graphic1.pdf
Sun Myung, Boris and Neil Bush
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
WHAT do the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-described messiah, and Russian billionaire-in-exile Boris Berezovsky have in common?
These exotic magnates have both been keeping company with Houston's First Brother, Neil Bush.
In the past few weeks Bush has been spotted in Asia with the Rev. Moon, who is on a worldwide tour promoting world peace.
You may recall Moon, 86, as the wealthy Korean owner of the Washington Times and conductor of mass weddings.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/3528664.html
Hawaii's lawmakers divided on Patriot Act
Associated Press
Hawaii's two Democratic U.S. representatives were divided in their votes yesterday to renew a modified USA Patriot Act to combat terrorism.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Urban Honolulu) voted against the bill, calling the act "a blank check to trample civil liberties." U.S. Rep. Ed Case, meanwhile, favored the measure, which was approved and sent to the Senate.
http://starbulletin.com/2005/12/15/news/story08.html
Frist expects passage of anti-terror bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Thursday he expected the Senate would overcome opposition and pass this week a renewal of the USA Patriot Act, a centerpiece of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.
"We'll get the votes ... we'll have the votes by tomorrow," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said of efforts to give final passage to the legislation without further revisions. It is a compromise between earlier measures approved by the House of Representatives and Senate.
At the White House Bush urged the Senate to end its delay and promptly give final congressional approval to the legislation.
"Pass this important legislation so that we have the tools necessary to defend the United States of America," Bush said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-15T200245Z_01_SIB572032_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml&archived=False
HOW HAROLD FORD COULD WIN.
Ford Focus
by Clay Risen
Only at TNR Online Post date 12.16.05
Many people have already written off Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his beleaguered 2008 presidential aspirations. But if the Frist campaign is over before it has even begun, the race to fill Frist's Senate seat, which he will vacate next year, remains wide open. That's because, with three GOP candidates locked in a tough primary, Memphis Democratic Congressman Harold Ford suddenly has a real chance of winning--and becoming the first black senator from the South to be elected since 1874. Indeed, a recent poll by the Ford campaign showed him besting each of his three rivals in head-to-head match-ups. There are a lot of "to be sures" here: Tennessee is a red state, Ford is African American, and Republicans are going to throw everything they've got into keeping Frist's seat in the GOP column. But if Ford pulls out a win, it will be a landmark election--for Democrats and for the country...
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=w051212&s=risen121605
Frist: Alternative Minimum Tax Changes Must Wait Until 2006
2005-12-15
Cincinnati Post
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that Congress had run out of time this year to act on legislation that would save millions of taxpayers from the grasp of the alternative minimum tax in 2006.
The tax was created decades ago to prevent the wealthiest citizens from sheltering most of their income from the IRS. But because inflation has driven wages higher over the years, it increasingly threatens more taxpayers considered to be middle class, with incomes of between $50,000 and $75,000.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has said 3.5 million taxpayers will be subject to the alternative minimum tax on their 2005 returns. If there is no change in the law before year's end, the AMT will ensnare about 15 million additional taxpayers in 2006.
The AMT requires many taxpayers to compute what they owe to the IRS: once using the traditional system, with deductions and tax credits, and again using AMT, which exempts a specified amount from taxation ($58,000 for married couples filing jointly, $40,250 for singles), eliminates most deductions but imposes a slightly lower tax rate. Taxpayers pay whichever figure is higher.
http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybng&story_id=86775119&ID=blackenterprise
Sen. Frist sees deal on bill to ban torture by US
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress will reach an agreement with the White House on a defense bill that would ban the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Sunday.
Frist said on Fox News Sunday that negotiators were discussing the issue of "degrading" suspects.
The amendment, pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), had passed the Senate with a 90-9 majority, but the White House fiercely opposed it. Vice President
Dick Cheney led an unsuccessful bid to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, saying it would hinder the war on terrorism.
"I think there will be clarification of what we mean, how aggressive can one be to get information?" said Frist, who did not specify what would be banned.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051211/pl_nm/security_torture_congress_dc
Abramoff Partner Pleads Guilty in Florida
From Staff Reports and News Services
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A07
A former business partner of lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in Miami yesterday to fraud and conspiracy in the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats and agreed to cooperate in a congressional influence-peddling investigation.
Adam Kidan's agreement to provide evidence against Abramoff makes him the second partner of the fallen lobbyist to agree to cooperate in the investigation, which also includes congressional aides and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501716.html
All Is Calm, All Is Bright at Interior
Imagine the joy at the Interior Department Christmas party when guests were greeted by Secretary Gale A. Norton and her former No. 2, J. Steven Griles , who left to work as a lobbyist and is under a bit of a cloud because of his connections to former crack lobbyist Jack Abramoff .
Documents released by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the Senate Finance Committee reportedly reflect more than half a dozen contacts Griles had with Abramoff or with a woman working as the lobbyist's go-between. The contacts concerned gambling-related issues affecting four tribal clients who were paying Abramoff tens of millions of dollars to represent them.
Abramoff, who once owned a positively dreadful kosher deli on Pennsylvania Avenue NW called Stacks, is under a criminal investigation and Michael Scanlon , his partner, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe lawmakers.
But all that was put aside in the spirit of the season as Griles stood next to Norton, warmly greeting his former underlings, and everyone wished everyone a happy holiday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501812.html
A Slick Oil Offer
By Al Kamen
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A33
Gerhard Schroeder, German chancellor just the other day, raised eyebrows last week when he announced he has taken a job with Gazprom, a huge state-controlled Russian energy company.
Now there's chatter that former commerce secretary Donald L. Evans , who headed President Bush 's campaigns going back to Texas gubernatorial races and the 2000 presidential contest, also got a fine job offer when he was in Moscow recently for a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
Seems Evans, a Texas oilman, met with former KGB thug and now Russian President Vladimir Putin , and Putin offered him the job of chairman of the board of Rosneft, the country's third-largest oil company. Rosneft is a state-owned operation run by the guys who destroyed Yukos, which was run by Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky .
A source close to Evans has confirmed there was a meeting with Putin and didn't deny the job was offered, which set off a flurry of speculation. But Evans is said to have told friends he's not interested.
It's not clear what compensation package was dangled. Obviously we're talking a seven-figure salary, lots of fine perks and, of course, in the finest Soviet tradition, the right to steal as much as you can. Tough to turn that down.
The downside, though, is that Putin can always send you to a very, very cold place if you irritate him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501812.html
FEMA finds faith
Storm relief funds earmarked for faith groups
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Tuesday, [November 8] that it will reimburse Harris County [Texas] $1.2 million for costs associated with providing temporary shelter operations for hurricane evacuees.
"The money will reimburse Harris County for payments to faith- based organizations used to shelter evacuees following hurricanes Katrina and Rita." -- Houston Business Journal, November 8, 2005
Nearly a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared that it would use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organizations for the services they rendered in the aftermath of the hurricane.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20068
Novak says Bush must know CIA leak source
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Syndicated columnist Robert Novak says he is sure President Bush knows who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
U.S. Senate reviews spy cover system (July 25, 2005) -- Following the leak of a CIA agent's name, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will have hearings on spy agencies' methods of identity ... >
Novak, who disclosed Plame's identity in a 2003 column, urged the public and media to ask the president about the source rather than pressing journalists who received the information.
Novak also suggested the administration official who gave him the information is the same person who mentioned Plame and her undercover CIA role to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward in the summer of 2003.
"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, N.C., the Post reported. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051215-10223200-bc-us-leak.xml
Manufacturers Group Endorses Alito
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest industrial trade association, announced that it supports the confirmation of Judge Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., to fill the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
"Judge Alito clearly has one of the most distinguished records of any nominee to the Supreme Court in our own time or any other time,” said NAM President John Engler. "He has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 1990, and has compiled an extensive record of distinction. After an exhaustive review of his opinions and decisions, it is clear to us that he will be a Justice committed to interpreting the law as written, not an activist who will try to legislate from the bench. Business depends on a legal system that is fair and predictable.”
The NAM’s endorsement of Alito represents the second time the NAM has weighed in on a Supreme Court nominee, the first being that of Judge John Roberts earlier this year.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/15/171221.shtml
Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to visit secret CIA torture center
Por Wayne Madsen 15/12/2005 às 01:01
Informed sources in Washington report that when Dick Cheney flew to Poland for the 60th anniversary ceremonies marking the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp last January, his three day visit also included a clandestine visit to a secret CIA camp in Poland where suspected "Al Qaeda" prisoners were being subjected to torture.
Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to visit secret CIA torture center
December 13, 2005 -- Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to mark the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp may have had a side trip.
Informed sources in Washington report that when Dick Cheney flew to Poland for the 60th anniversary ceremonies marking the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp last January, his three day visit also included a clandestine visit to a secret CIA camp in Poland where suspected "Al Qaeda" prisoners were being subjected to torture. Cheney was in Poland from January 26 to 28. The Auschwitz solemn ceremonies were on January 27. On January 26, Cheney held talks in Krakow with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Ukraine's President Viktor Yuschenko and he visited the Galicia Jewish Museum.
Poland and Ukraine have been identified by U.S. intelligence sources as the location for secret CIA prisons and airfields. In the case of Ukraine, an intelligence source personally witnessed the defense and intelligence contractor Raytheon providing the logistics for Soviet-era airfields to handle the prisoner flights.
Cheney trip to Auschwitz allegedly took in a side trip to a secret CIA prison camp
http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2005/12/340928.shtml
Halliburton Contractor Arrested for Alleged Bribery Attempt
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2005 — A contractor who works for Halliburton in Iraq was arrested Thursday in Tampa for allegedly attempting to bribe Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at Tampa Seaport in Florida, an ICE official tells ABC News.
The man, who works as a driver of jet fuel trucks in Iraq, was not identified.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=1411121
Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor?
By JUAN FORERO
Published: December 15, 2005
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - The people of this high Andean city were ecstatic when they won the "water war."
Many in Cochabamba cannot depend on wells and get water through deliveries made two or three times a week by freelance water dealers.
After days of protests and martial law, Bechtel - the American multinational that had increased rates when it began running the waterworks - was forced out. As its executives fled the city, protest leaders pledged to improve service and a surging leftist political movement in Latin America celebrated the ouster as a major victory, to be repeated in country after country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/business/15water.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1134734411-so2RtE45kwtO6C9TLw3nMg
continued …
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
War is over
Voting Extended in Historic Iraq Elections
FOXNews
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Up to 15 million Iraqis — including large numbers of Sunnis, who boycotted the January elections — voted in historic parliamentary elections Thursday to establish a permanent democratic government amid only scattered violence.
The polls stayed open one hour later, until 6 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EST), because of such high turnout. Long lines were reported in some precincts, said commission official Munthur Abdelamir, some of which wrapped around neighborhood blocks. The commission said results will be announced within two weeks.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5178
Thursday, December 15th, 2005
'TIS THE SEASON
High Owl Hides Out In Christmas Tree
Blood Tests Confirm Bird's State
POSTED: 10:47 am EST December 15, 2005
UPDATED: 11:02 am EST December 15, 2005
SARASOTA, Fla. -- A bird with a buzz found in a Florida family's Christmas tree is getting ready to go back into the wild.
The little screech owl was found in the tree, which the family had kept for five days before deciding to decorate it.
Animal control officers from Pelican Man's Bird Sanctuary came to get the owl, and said they smelled a strange odor on it when they did.
"Curiously enough, the owl's feathers smelled very, very potently like marijuana," said Jeff Dering, of the sanctuary. "They examined the owl, looked at its eyes, ... and the owl was, in the vernacular, stoned."
Blood tests confirmed the owl's state.
Sanctuary staff checked the bird out, fed him and named him "Cheech." They said he would be released in a few days.
The buzzing bird also brought an early holiday gift to the sanctuary, which was in need of more than $250,000. The attention the bird has brought has helped ensure the sanctuary's survival.
Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
http://www.nbc30.com/nbc30/5542246/detail.html
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=564
U.S. Helps Some Iran-Backed Terror
Dahr Jamail and Harb al-Mukhtar / Inter Press Service
BAGHDAD - After the U.S. forces and the bombings, Iraqis are coming to fear those bands of men in masks who seem to operate with the Iraqi police.
Omar Ahmed's family learnt what it can mean to run into the police, their supposed protectors.
Omar was driving with two friends in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad at night Sep. 1 when they were stopped at a police checkpoint.
"The three of them were arrested by the police even though there was nothing in the car," an eyewitness told IPS, speaking on condition of anonymity.
They did not return home for days, and the family began to search the morgues, common practice now when someone is arrested by the Iraqi police and does not return.
"Five days after they were arrested we found Omar's body in the freezer in a morgue, with holes in the side of his head and shoulders," a friend of the family told IPS.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5140
Teacher takes back no-Santa statement
Richardson ISD: Parents angry, but official says remark was 'a mistake'
12:00 AM CST on Thursday, December 15, 2005
By KRISTINE HUGHES / The Dallas Morning News
Yes, Richland Elementary School, there is a Santa Claus.
The music teacher who told a first-grade class at the Richardson school Monday that Santa is a mythological figure recanted her story Tuesday after school officials began getting calls from parents.
"She told the students that in fact she had heard from Santa, and he wanted to reassure them that he is alive and well in the spirit of Christmas," said Jeanne Guerra, Richardson school district spokeswoman.
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-santa_15met.ART.North.Edition2.187b2d51.html
Italy to Pull Out 300 Troops From Iraq in January, Martino Says
Dec. 15 (Bloomberg) -- Italy's government announced the withdrawal of a further 300 soldiers from Iraq in January, less than four month before Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi faces elections.
The reduction to 2,600 soldiers in Iraq comes three months after the first withdrawal of 300 troops, Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino said today in a news conference in Rome. Italian troops have been in Iraq since the U.S.-led ousting in March 2003 of dictator Saddam Hussein.
The latest polls show Berlusconi's four-party coalition trailing the opposition. The majority of Italians oppose having soldiers in Iraq and Romano Prodi, Berlusconi's political rival, has said he will start withdrawing Italy's troops straight away if he wins elections slated for April 9.
Italy has the fourth-largest contingent after the U.S., the U.K. and South Korea. Italy's announcement coincides with the start of voting in Iraq to decide the composition of the parliament for the next four years.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5179
Caught on Tape: Bush Admits WMD Were Irrelevant
On day that the United States invaded Iraq, President Bush said that we were doing so “reluctantly” but that “our purpose was clear” — to get rid of Saddam’s “weapons of mass murder.” (Note: Bush did not say “purposes.” According to Bush, there was only one purpose.)
Yesterday on Brit Hume, he said he would have invaded even if he knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. Would have been nice if he’d mentioned this earlier.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/15/wmd-irrelevant/
Bush Accepts McCain's Ban on Torture
By Liz Sidoti / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush reversed course on Thursday and accepted Sen. John McCain's call for a law banning cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of foreign suspects in the war on terror.
Bush said the agreement will "make it clear to the world that this government does not torture and that we adhere to the international convention of torture, whether it be here at home or abroad."
"It's a done deal," said McCain, talking to reporters in a driving rain outside the White House after he met with the president.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5182
Fort Worth native protests in Cuba
By JESSICA DeLEÓN / STAR-TELEGRAM
Over the course of five days, Fort Worth native Scott Langley walked more than 60 miles for a cause he believes in.
Langley is part of the Witness Against Torture march, in which 25 Christian activists left Santiago, Cuba, on Dec. 6 and walked to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to protest the government’s treatment of terror suspects.
The marchers arrived Sunday in Guantanamo, and on Monday they began fasting after officials refused to let them visit the prisoners. They’ll continue the hunger strike until Thursday night when they will hold a vigil and then return to Santiago.
"I march because I want to give myself, and my government, time to think about what life is like as a detainee at Guantanamo," Langley wrote in an e-mail this week from Guantanamo. "I want to offer a sign of hope ... to confront the horror perpetuated by our government on foreign soil."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5183
Abuse Cited In 2nd Jail Operated by Iraqi Ministry
Official Says 12 Prisoners Subjected to 'Severe Torture'
By Ellen Knickmeyer / Washington Post
BAGHDAD, Dec. 11 -- An Iraqi government search of a detention center in Baghdad operated by Interior Ministry special commandos found 13 prisoners who had suffered abuse serious enough to require medical treatment, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday night.
An Iraqi official with firsthand knowledge of the search said that at least 12 of the 13 prisoners had been subjected to "severe torture," including sessions of electric shock and episodes that left them with broken bones.
"Two of them showed me their nails, and they were gone," the official said on condition of anonymity because of security concerns.
A government spokesman, Laith Kubba, said Sunday night that any findings at the prison would be "subject to an investigation," but he declined to comment on the allegations.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5138
U.S. urging ex-Baathists to join politics
SUNNI INVOLVEMENT MAY HELP REUNITE COUNTRY, OFFICIALS SAY
By Nancy A. Youssef / Knight Ridder
BAGHDAD, Iraq - In a reversal of policy, U.S. officials in Iraq are encouraging some former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to run in Thursday's election, saying it's one way to bring marginalized Sunni Muslims into the new government.
``Those who do not have blood on their hands and were not very serious in the government structure should be integrated into the political process,'' Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, said about Baathists in an interview with Knight Ridder on Sunday. ``Ultimately, all wars must come to an end.''
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5137
Sunnis Change Course
By Joshua Hammer and Scott Johnson / Newsweek
Dec. 19, 2005 issue - Ahmed Duraid is ready for a new era. Like almost all of his neighbors in Adhamiya, a stronghold of the Sunni insurgency along the Tigris River in central Baghdad, the 35-year-old clothes vendor boycotted Iraq's National Assembly elections last January on the advice of Sunni fighters and influential political groups such as the Association of Muslim Scholars. But the consequences for Adhamiya were severe: shadowy religious militias with ties to the Shiite-dominated government began arresting, kidnapping and sometimes murdering young Sunni men in the neighborhood; Duraid felt unprotected, even abandoned, by the country's new leaders. "We didn't participate, and the others took power alone, and this is the result," Duraid told NEWSWEEK.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5139
Bush Estimates That 30,000 Iraqis Killed
By Nedra Pickler / Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA - President Bush offered encouragement to war-weary Iraqis on Monday but acknowledged they have paid a heavy price — 30,000 dead — as a result of the U.S.-led invasion and its bloody aftermath.
As Iraqis began voting in parliamentary elections, Bush said that no country has formed a democracy without "challenges, setbacks and false starts."
"There's still a lot of difficult work to be done in Iraq," the president said, "but thanks to the courage of the Iraqi people, the year 2005 will be recorded as a turning point in the history of Iraq, the history of the Middle East and the history of freedom."
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5143
Family Gets Soldier's Christmas Card Hours Before Death News
Associated Press
HOCKLEY, Texas -- The Christmas card arrived first, followed a few hours later by the military officers.
"All I have to say is how much I love you and will be glad to see you in January," Army Sgt. Michael C. Taylor wrote to his mother from Iraq. "I wish you a very merry Christmas."
Stephanie Taylor Tompkins got the card on Wednesday, shortly before Army officers brought her family the news that an improvised bomb had exploded in Balad, Iraq, that day, killing her 23-year-old son, a young man whose family once called him "Little Mickey."
Taylor had become a father and was a devout Christian who loved reading mysteries and thrillers and was looking forward to restoring a 1969 Chevelle when he got home, said his brother, Justin Lee Taylor, 24.
Instead, Justin will be restoring the Chevelle alone, as a way to remember his brother.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5147
House Panel Subpoenas Rumsfeld on Katrina
By Lara Jakes Jordan / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A House committee investigating the government's response to Hurricane Katrina issued a subpoena Wednesday to force Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to turn over documents but stopped short of sending a similar legal demand to the White House.
The subpoena commands Rumsfeld to produce internal records and communications about the Pentagon's response to the Aug. 29 storm, including efforts to send supplies to victims, stabilize public safety and mobilize active duty forces in the Gulf Coast. It requires the Pentagon to deliver the documents, spanning from Aug. 23 to Sept. 15, from Rumsfeld and eight other top military officials by Dec. 30.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5181
Bush Backs Rumsfeld, DeLay in Interview
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has done "a heck of a good job" and there are no plans to replace him.
Bush also spoke up for former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, saying he believes DeLay is innocent of money laundering charges and he hopes the Republican congressman will be able to reclaim his leadership post.
Rumors have been swirling about the possibility of Rumsfeld's departure from Bush's Cabinet. But the president said in an interview being aired Wednesday on Fox News Channel that the Pentagon chief wasn't leaving anytime soon.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5186
Time: Rove's Lawyer Told of Conversation
By Pete Yost / Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Months before Karl Rove corrected his statements in the Valerie Plame investigation, his lawyer was told that the president's top political adviser might have disclosed Plame's CIA status to a Time magazine reporter.
Rove says he had forgotten the conversation he had on July 11, 2003, with Time's Matt Cooper. But the magazine reported Sunday that in the first half of 2004, as President Bush's re-election campaign was heating up, Rove's lawyer got the word about a possible Rove-Cooper conversation from a second Time reporter, Viveca Novak.
Novak described her conversation with the lawyer, Robert Luskin, in a first-person account released Sunday on Time's Web site.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5142
What Viveca Novak Told Fitzgerald
By Viveca Novak / Time
It was in the midst of another Washington scandal, almost a decade ago, that I got to know Bob Luskin. He represented Mark Middleton, a minor figure in the Democratic campaign-finance scandals of 1996. Luskin kept Middleton out of the spotlight and never told me much. Still, there is the occasional source with whom one becomes friendly, and eventually Luskin was in that group.
We'd occasionally meet for a drink--he didn't like having lunch--at Café Deluxe on Wisconsin Avenue, near the National Cathedral and on my route home. In October 2003, as we each made our way through a glass of wine, he asked me what I was working on. I told him I was trying to get a handle on the Valerie Plame leak investigation. "Well," he said, "you're sitting next to Karl Rove's lawyer." I was genuinely surprised, since Luskin's liberal sympathies were no secret, and here he was representing the man known to many Democrats as the other side's Evil Genius.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5141
Supreme Court to review Texas political map
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court said Monday it would consider the constitutionality of a Texas congressional map engineered by Rep. Tom DeLay that helped Republicans gain seats in Congress.
The 2003 boundaries helped Republicans win 21 of the state's 32 seats in Congress in the last election-- up from 15. They were approved amid a nasty battle between Republican leaders and Democrats and minority groups in Texas.
The contentiousness also reached Washington, where the Justice Department approved the plan, although staff lawyers concluded that it diluted minority voting rights. Because of historic discrimination against minority voters, Texas is required to get Justice Department approval for any voting changes to ensure they don't undercut minority voting.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5146
New tests fuel doubts about vote machines
A top election official and computer experts say computer hackers could easily change election results, after they found numerous flaws with a state-approved voting-machine in Tallahassee.
By Marc Caputo and Gary Fineout / Miami Herald
TALLAHASSEE - A political operative with hacking skills could alter the results of any election on Diebold-made voting machines -- and possibly other new voting systems in Florida -- according to the state capital's election supervisor, who said Diebold software has failed repeated tests.
Ion Sancho, Leon County's election chief, said tests by two computer experts, completed this week, showed that an insider could surreptitiously change vote results and the number of ballots cast on Diebold's optical-scan machines.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5185
Family Upset Over Marine's Body Arriving As Freight
10News
SAN DIEGO -- There's controversy over how the military is transporting the bodies of service members killed overseas, 10News reported.
A local family said fallen soldiers and Marines deserve better and that one would think our war heroes are being transported with dignity, care and respect. It said one would think upon arrival in their hometowns they are greeted with honor. But unfortunately, the family said that is just not the case.
Dead heroes are supposed to come home with their coffins draped with the American flag -- greeted by a color guard.
But in reality, many are arriving as freight on commercial airliners -- stuffed in the belly of a plane with suitcases and other cargo.
John Holley and his wife, Stacey, were stunned when they found out the body of their only child, Matthew, who died in Iraq last month, would be arriving at Lindbergh Field as freight.
"When someone dies in combat, they need to give them due respect they deserve for (the) sacrifice they made," said John Holley.
http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/index.php?id=5136
Bush Advisor To Reporter: Katrina “Has Fallen So Far Off The Radar Screen, You Can’t Find It”
On September 15, President Bush stood in Jackson Square in New Orleans and made a promise:
And tonight I also offer this pledge of the American people: Throughout the area hit by the hurricane, we will do what it takes, we will stay as long as it takes, to help citizens rebuild their communities and their lives. And all who question the future of the Crescent City need to know there is no way to imagine America without New Orleans, and this great city will rise again.
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/12/11/katrina-off-radar/
A Look at U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
As of Monday, Dec. 12, 2005, at least 2,144 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the
Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,682 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The figures include five military civilians.
The British military has reported 98 deaths; Italy, 27; Ukraine, 18; Poland, 17; Bulgaria, 13; Spain, 11; Slovakia, three; Denmark,
El Salvador, Estonia, Netherlands, Thailand, two each; Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia one death each.
Since May 1, 2003, when
President Bush declared that major combat operations in Iraq had ended, 2,005 U.S. military members have died, according to AP's count. That includes at least 1,573 deaths resulting from hostile action, according to the military's numbers.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iraq_us_deaths
Diebold and Florida Scramble to Cover Their Collective Asses...
As AP Reports on Devasting Leon County, FL Diebold Voting Machine Hack
PLUS: Only One Class Action Fraud Complaint Has Been Filed Against Diebold So Far, Not Two as Mis-Reported Elsewhere...
AP has finally taken note of the Leon County, FL hack test. The extraordinary test election which was entirely flipped last Tuesday as reported here previously.
In the bargain -- in light of that devasting test, after which the Elections Director of Leon County reportedly vowed to never allow Diebold's machine to be used in another election and has requested funds to replace all of Diebold's voting machines -- and along with the Securities Fraud suit that was filed against Diebold on the same day, Diebold's PR machine has kicked into overdrive. Though their normal spokesman, David Bear, normally in charge of lying about things having to do with their Voting Machines has been notably missing in action, Diebold has been issuing press releases and sending letters in an attempt to counter and distract from the devastating news of late. And the State of Florida is similarly scrambling to find someone else to blame as well.
From AP's report today on the Leon County hack, Diebold goes on the offensive and conjures up the gall to send a letter attempting to place blame for the incident on Ion Sancho, the Elections Director in the county who was wise enough to let the test move forward in hopes of determining if the machines were as vulnerable as many of us have been charging forever...
http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002163.htm
Fatalities By Month
Select Month
]
Month Summary Charteath - Province
Cause of Death
12-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Baghdad (south of)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
11-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Ramadi (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb
US
Sergeant 1st Class James S. "Shawn" Moudy
Baghdad (western part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
10-Dec-2005
4
US: 4 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Yusufiyah - Babil
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Yusufiyah - Babil
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
Sergeant Clarence L. Floyd Jr.
Taji [NW of Baghdad]
Hostile - hostile fire - small arms fire
US
Sergeant Julia V. Atkins
Baghdad (N part) [Adhamiyah Dist.]
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
09-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Adrian N. Orosco
Baghdad (Abu Ghuraib)
Hostile - hostile fire - suicide car bomb
08-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Spencer C. Akers
Brooke Army Med Center, TX - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Milton Rivera-Vargas
FOB Kalsu [Iskandariyah] - Babil
Non-hostile - illness - heart attack
US
1st Lieutenant Kevin J. Smith
Baghdad (eastern part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
07-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant Michael C. Taylor
Balad - Salah ad-Din
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Corporal Joseph P. Bier
Ramadi - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
06-Dec-2005
2
US: 2 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Private 1st Class Thomas C. Siekert
Bayji - Salah ad Din
Non-hostile - unspecified injury
US
Specialist Brian A. Wright
Habbaniyah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - mine
04-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
NAME NOT RELEASED YET
Baghdad (eastern part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Daniel M. Cuka
Baghdad (southeast part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Sergeant 1st Class Richard L. Schild
Baghdad (southeast part)
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
03-Dec-2005
1
US: 1 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Corporal Jimmy Lee Shelton
Bayji - Salah ad Din
Hostile - hostile fire - mortar attack
02-Dec-2005
3
US: 3 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Specialist Marcus S. Futrell
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US
Staff Sergeant Philip L. Travis
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
US
Sergeant Philip Allan Dodson Jr.
Tallil Air Base - Dhi Qar
Non-hostile - vehicle accident
01-Dec-2005
11
US: 11 UK: 0 Other: 0
US
Sergeant 1st Class Brent A. Adams
Ramadi - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Sergeant Andy A. Stevens
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Andrew G. Patten
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Adam Wade Kaiser
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Staff Sergeant Daniel J. Clay
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal David A. Huhn
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Corporal Anthony T. McElveen
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Scott T. Modeen
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal John M. Holmason
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Robert Alexander Martinez
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
US
Lance Corporal Craig N. Watson
Fallujah (near) - Anbar
Hostile - hostile fire - IED attack
http://icasualties.org/oif/prdDetails.aspx?hndRef=12-2005
Cheney Observer
Bush friend linked to top job in Russian oil industry
Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow
Wednesday December 14, 2005
The Guardian
A former cabinet minister and close personal friend of George Bush may be appointed head of Russia's leading state oil company, it was reported yesterday.
Donald Evans, who was until early this year US commerce secretary, has been offered the position of head of the board of directors of Rosneft by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, the respected business daily, Kommersant, reported yesterday.
If the appointment is confirmed, Mr Evans would be the second former senior foreign official to join the Kremlin's expanding energy empire. Last week, the former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder accepted a job as chairman of the North European Gas Pipeline, a project to ferry gas between Russia and Germany that he helped broker.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1666840,00.html
Council overrides Nagin trailer veto
Members want last word on sites
Friday, December 16, 2005
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
The New Orleans City Council voted 7-0 Thursday to override Mayor Ray Nagin's veto of an ordinance giving district council members the final say-so on where FEMA trailer parks can be placed in their districts.
Council members have objected strongly to the administration's plans to install large groups of trailers for displaced residents in several city parks and playgrounds. They have called for using other tracts of vacant land, such as around now-empty public housing complexes.
Thursday's vote was the first time the council has overridden a mayoral veto since 1995, when the council rejected Mayor Marc Morial's veto of an ordinance awarding a new franchise to Cox Cable.
http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/metro/index.ssf?/base/news-12/1134718725205240.xml
BUT CAN AN APPLICANT BE AN ILLEGAL ALIEN?
Council drops residency requirement
By Bruce Eggler
Staff writer
With up to 75 percent of New Orleans’ police force having been left homeless by Hurricane Katrina, the City Council voted 4-3 Thursday to suspend for three years the city’s long-controversial requirement that police officers and other city employees must live in Orleans Parish to be hired or promoted.
Mayor Ray Nagin has said in the past that he would sign an ordinance repealing the requirement, although he would not take the lead in pushing to overturn it.
The measure’s chief sponsor, Councilman Jay Batt, a longtime opponent of the requirement, wanted to make the suspension permanent but agreed to limit it to three years when it became clear that was the most he could get.
Batt said he wanted to help police officers and other city workers who have been living in cruise ships since Katrina find new housing at a time when large sections of New Orleans are uninhabitable.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2005_12_15.html
Bush doubles commitment to levees
By Mark Schleifstein,
Bob Marshall
and John McQuaid
Staff writers
New pumping stations aimed at keeping storm surge from pouring into New Orleans through drainage canals, vulnerable levees reinforced to resist erosion from waves and fast-track completion of a long-promised area hurricane protection system are the cornerstones of a $1.5 billion request announced Thursday by the Bush administration.
“The levee system will be better and stronger than it ever has been in the history of New Orleans,” said Donald Powell, the top federal official for Hurricane Katrina reconstruction. “Better and stronger than it ever has been in the history of New Orleans,” Powell repeated for emphasis, as New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin stood at his side at the White House.
http://www.nola.com/newslogs/tpupdates/index.ssf?/mtlogs/nola_tpupdates/archives/2005_12_15.html
FIXING THE LEVEES ???
http://www.nola.com/katrina/bush_levee_plan_graphic1.pdf
Sun Myung, Boris and Neil Bush
By RICK CASEY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle
WHAT do the Rev. Sun Myung Moon, the self-described messiah, and Russian billionaire-in-exile Boris Berezovsky have in common?
These exotic magnates have both been keeping company with Houston's First Brother, Neil Bush.
In the past few weeks Bush has been spotted in Asia with the Rev. Moon, who is on a worldwide tour promoting world peace.
You may recall Moon, 86, as the wealthy Korean owner of the Washington Times and conductor of mass weddings.
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/casey/3528664.html
Hawaii's lawmakers divided on Patriot Act
Associated Press
Hawaii's two Democratic U.S. representatives were divided in their votes yesterday to renew a modified USA Patriot Act to combat terrorism.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Urban Honolulu) voted against the bill, calling the act "a blank check to trample civil liberties." U.S. Rep. Ed Case, meanwhile, favored the measure, which was approved and sent to the Senate.
http://starbulletin.com/2005/12/15/news/story08.html
Frist expects passage of anti-terror bill
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Thursday he expected the Senate would overcome opposition and pass this week a renewal of the USA Patriot Act, a centerpiece of President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.
"We'll get the votes ... we'll have the votes by tomorrow," Frist, a Tennessee Republican, said of efforts to give final passage to the legislation without further revisions. It is a compromise between earlier measures approved by the House of Representatives and Senate.
At the White House Bush urged the Senate to end its delay and promptly give final congressional approval to the legislation.
"Pass this important legislation so that we have the tools necessary to defend the United States of America," Bush said.
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-15T200245Z_01_SIB572032_RTRUKOC_0_US-SECURITY-PATRIOT.xml&archived=False
HOW HAROLD FORD COULD WIN.
Ford Focus
by Clay Risen
Only at TNR Online Post date 12.16.05
Many people have already written off Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and his beleaguered 2008 presidential aspirations. But if the Frist campaign is over before it has even begun, the race to fill Frist's Senate seat, which he will vacate next year, remains wide open. That's because, with three GOP candidates locked in a tough primary, Memphis Democratic Congressman Harold Ford suddenly has a real chance of winning--and becoming the first black senator from the South to be elected since 1874. Indeed, a recent poll by the Ford campaign showed him besting each of his three rivals in head-to-head match-ups. There are a lot of "to be sures" here: Tennessee is a red state, Ford is African American, and Republicans are going to throw everything they've got into keeping Frist's seat in the GOP column. But if Ford pulls out a win, it will be a landmark election--for Democrats and for the country...
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=w051212&s=risen121605
Frist: Alternative Minimum Tax Changes Must Wait Until 2006
2005-12-15
Cincinnati Post
WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday that Congress had run out of time this year to act on legislation that would save millions of taxpayers from the grasp of the alternative minimum tax in 2006.
The tax was created decades ago to prevent the wealthiest citizens from sheltering most of their income from the IRS. But because inflation has driven wages higher over the years, it increasingly threatens more taxpayers considered to be middle class, with incomes of between $50,000 and $75,000.
The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center has said 3.5 million taxpayers will be subject to the alternative minimum tax on their 2005 returns. If there is no change in the law before year's end, the AMT will ensnare about 15 million additional taxpayers in 2006.
The AMT requires many taxpayers to compute what they owe to the IRS: once using the traditional system, with deductions and tax credits, and again using AMT, which exempts a specified amount from taxation ($58,000 for married couples filing jointly, $40,250 for singles), eliminates most deductions but imposes a slightly lower tax rate. Taxpayers pay whichever figure is higher.
http://www.blackenterprise.com/yb/ybopen.asp?section=ybng&story_id=86775119&ID=blackenterprise
Sen. Frist sees deal on bill to ban torture by US
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Congress will reach an agreement with the White House on a defense bill that would ban the torture and inhumane treatment of detainees, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said on Sunday.
Frist said on Fox News Sunday that negotiators were discussing the issue of "degrading" suspects.
The amendment, pushed by Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), had passed the Senate with a 90-9 majority, but the White House fiercely opposed it. Vice President
Dick Cheney led an unsuccessful bid to exempt the CIA from the torture ban, saying it would hinder the war on terrorism.
"I think there will be clarification of what we mean, how aggressive can one be to get information?" said Frist, who did not specify what would be banned.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051211/pl_nm/security_torture_congress_dc
Abramoff Partner Pleads Guilty in Florida
From Staff Reports and News Services
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A07
A former business partner of lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in Miami yesterday to fraud and conspiracy in the purchase of a fleet of gambling boats and agreed to cooperate in a congressional influence-peddling investigation.
Adam Kidan's agreement to provide evidence against Abramoff makes him the second partner of the fallen lobbyist to agree to cooperate in the investigation, which also includes congressional aides and Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501716.html
All Is Calm, All Is Bright at Interior
Imagine the joy at the Interior Department Christmas party when guests were greeted by Secretary Gale A. Norton and her former No. 2, J. Steven Griles , who left to work as a lobbyist and is under a bit of a cloud because of his connections to former crack lobbyist Jack Abramoff .
Documents released by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and the Senate Finance Committee reportedly reflect more than half a dozen contacts Griles had with Abramoff or with a woman working as the lobbyist's go-between. The contacts concerned gambling-related issues affecting four tribal clients who were paying Abramoff tens of millions of dollars to represent them.
Abramoff, who once owned a positively dreadful kosher deli on Pennsylvania Avenue NW called Stacks, is under a criminal investigation and Michael Scanlon , his partner, has pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bribe lawmakers.
But all that was put aside in the spirit of the season as Griles stood next to Norton, warmly greeting his former underlings, and everyone wished everyone a happy holiday.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501812.html
A Slick Oil Offer
By Al Kamen
Friday, December 16, 2005; Page A33
Gerhard Schroeder, German chancellor just the other day, raised eyebrows last week when he announced he has taken a job with Gazprom, a huge state-controlled Russian energy company.
Now there's chatter that former commerce secretary Donald L. Evans , who headed President Bush 's campaigns going back to Texas gubernatorial races and the 2000 presidential contest, also got a fine job offer when he was in Moscow recently for a meeting of the American Chamber of Commerce in Russia.
Seems Evans, a Texas oilman, met with former KGB thug and now Russian President Vladimir Putin , and Putin offered him the job of chairman of the board of Rosneft, the country's third-largest oil company. Rosneft is a state-owned operation run by the guys who destroyed Yukos, which was run by Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky .
A source close to Evans has confirmed there was a meeting with Putin and didn't deny the job was offered, which set off a flurry of speculation. But Evans is said to have told friends he's not interested.
It's not clear what compensation package was dangled. Obviously we're talking a seven-figure salary, lots of fine perks and, of course, in the finest Soviet tradition, the right to steal as much as you can. Tough to turn that down.
The downside, though, is that Putin can always send you to a very, very cold place if you irritate him.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/15/AR2005121501812.html
FEMA finds faith
Storm relief funds earmarked for faith groups
"The Federal Emergency Management Agency announced Tuesday, [November 8] that it will reimburse Harris County [Texas] $1.2 million for costs associated with providing temporary shelter operations for hurricane evacuees.
"The money will reimburse Harris County for payments to faith- based organizations used to shelter evacuees following hurricanes Katrina and Rita." -- Houston Business Journal, November 8, 2005
Nearly a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and New Orleans, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) declared that it would use taxpayer money to reimburse faith-based organizations for the services they rendered in the aftermath of the hurricane.
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20068
Novak says Bush must know CIA leak source
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- Syndicated columnist Robert Novak says he is sure President Bush knows who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
U.S. Senate reviews spy cover system (July 25, 2005) -- Following the leak of a CIA agent's name, the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee will have hearings on spy agencies' methods of identity ... >
Novak, who disclosed Plame's identity in a 2003 column, urged the public and media to ask the president about the source rather than pressing journalists who received the information.
Novak also suggested the administration official who gave him the information is the same person who mentioned Plame and her undercover CIA role to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward in the summer of 2003.
"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, N.C., the Post reported. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20051215-10223200-bc-us-leak.xml
Manufacturers Group Endorses Alito
The National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), the nation’s largest industrial trade association, announced that it supports the confirmation of Judge Samuel Anthony Alito, Jr., to fill the seat on the Supreme Court vacated by the resignation of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.
"Judge Alito clearly has one of the most distinguished records of any nominee to the Supreme Court in our own time or any other time,” said NAM President John Engler. "He has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit since 1990, and has compiled an extensive record of distinction. After an exhaustive review of his opinions and decisions, it is clear to us that he will be a Justice committed to interpreting the law as written, not an activist who will try to legislate from the bench. Business depends on a legal system that is fair and predictable.”
The NAM’s endorsement of Alito represents the second time the NAM has weighed in on a Supreme Court nominee, the first being that of Judge John Roberts earlier this year.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/12/15/171221.shtml
Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to visit secret CIA torture center
Por Wayne Madsen 15/12/2005 às 01:01
Informed sources in Washington report that when Dick Cheney flew to Poland for the 60th anniversary ceremonies marking the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp last January, his three day visit also included a clandestine visit to a secret CIA camp in Poland where suspected "Al Qaeda" prisoners were being subjected to torture.
Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to visit secret CIA torture center
December 13, 2005 -- Cheney's January 2005 trip to Poland to mark the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp may have had a side trip.
Informed sources in Washington report that when Dick Cheney flew to Poland for the 60th anniversary ceremonies marking the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp last January, his three day visit also included a clandestine visit to a secret CIA camp in Poland where suspected "Al Qaeda" prisoners were being subjected to torture. Cheney was in Poland from January 26 to 28. The Auschwitz solemn ceremonies were on January 27. On January 26, Cheney held talks in Krakow with Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Ukraine's President Viktor Yuschenko and he visited the Galicia Jewish Museum.
Poland and Ukraine have been identified by U.S. intelligence sources as the location for secret CIA prisons and airfields. In the case of Ukraine, an intelligence source personally witnessed the defense and intelligence contractor Raytheon providing the logistics for Soviet-era airfields to handle the prisoner flights.
Cheney trip to Auschwitz allegedly took in a side trip to a secret CIA prison camp
http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2005/12/340928.shtml
Halliburton Contractor Arrested for Alleged Bribery Attempt
WASHINGTON, Dec. 15, 2005 — A contractor who works for Halliburton in Iraq was arrested Thursday in Tampa for allegedly attempting to bribe Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at Tampa Seaport in Florida, an ICE official tells ABC News.
The man, who works as a driver of jet fuel trucks in Iraq, was not identified.
http://abcnews.go.com/US/LegalCenter/story?id=1411121
Who Will Bring Water to the Bolivian Poor?
By JUAN FORERO
Published: December 15, 2005
COCHABAMBA, Bolivia - The people of this high Andean city were ecstatic when they won the "water war."
Many in Cochabamba cannot depend on wells and get water through deliveries made two or three times a week by freelance water dealers.
After days of protests and martial law, Bechtel - the American multinational that had increased rates when it began running the waterworks - was forced out. As its executives fled the city, protest leaders pledged to improve service and a surging leftist political movement in Latin America celebrated the ouster as a major victory, to be repeated in country after country.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/15/business/15water.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1134734411-so2RtE45kwtO6C9TLw3nMg
continued …
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)