Omega-News: 08 Juni 2004

Gestern Abend wurde über SWR sensationell und äußerst kritisch über die Mobilfunk HF berichtet.

Unter dem Link sind unter „Bei Anruf Smog“ 45 Minuten der Sendung abgelegt.

Z. B auch die Aussage des Vorsitzenden des Umweltausschusses des Deutschen Bundestages, Winfried Hermann, daß das Bundeskanzleramt die Herabsetzung der Grenzwerte blockiert hatte. Hermann wurde kurze Zeit später von seinen Aufgaben in Sachen Mobilfunk abgelöst…… REFLEX-Studie usw. bitte geben Sie den Link unbedingt weiter!

Auch seien Industrie-Studien von Design so angelegt, daß man nichts findet….

Wer diese Sendung gesehen hat, hat keine Fragen mehr!

http://www.swr.de/ratgeber/multimedia/elektrosmog/index1.html

Beste Grüße

Gerd Zesar

Starmail - 8. Jun, 22:27

ChemTrails - 80% population reduction of earth

http://www.detailshere.com/chemtrails.htm

Informant: civl ecco

Starmail - 8. Jun, 21:55

Verdummen Chemikalien unsere Kinder?

WWF-Studie

08.06.04

Eine Studie des WWF belegt, dass synthetische chemische Substanzen die Intelligenz von Kindern beeinträchtigen. Die Erkenntnisse offenbaren, dass bestimmte Chemikalien die Gehirnentwicklung und Motorik von Kindern schädigen können, und zwar schon in Konzentrationen, die bereits im menschlichen Blut nachgewiesen wurden. Solche Chemikalien befinden sich in Fernsehern, Computern aber auch in Polsterbezügen und Möbeln. Aus der Studie geht auch hervor, dass 70 Prozent der meistgenutzten Chemikalien bisher nicht oder nur unzureichend auf ihre Effekte auf Gehirn und Nervensystem getestet wurden. Sie bergen daher ein unbekanntes Risiko für die kindliche Entwicklung. Die Studie fasst neue wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zusammen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=8615

Starmail - 8. Jun, 18:51

Eagles Are Keeping Out Condos, for Now

Pressure to build in the Big Bear area is strong, despite a water shortage and wildlife worries.

By Louis Sahagun
LATimes Staff Writer

June 6, 2004

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-eagles6jun06,1,6515673.story

An enclave of bald eagles has thwarted construction of a massive condominium complex for now in the rustic Big Bear Lake hamlet of Fawnskin.

As many as 14 of the majestic birds have made a seasonal home in the branches of the forested glen overlooking the site where developer Irving Okovita wants to build a 133-unit condominium complex and 175-slip marina.

But bald eagles may come off the federally endangered species list by year's end, a move that could allow construction to proceed. That concerns some residents, who fear that the Okovita development and others could imperil overtaxed aquifers that supply water to tinder-dry mountain communities, like this one, that barely escaped last fall's raging forest fires.

Underlying the controversy is a building boom fueled by low interest
rates and pent-up demand for vacation homes, say developers and water officials. Yet, at a time when there are more building permits being issued than there are available water connections, some officials are worried about the impact on the drought-stricken region.

Big Bear Valley Community Services, which serves a portion of the region, is limiting water connections to 96 per year.

"If the water shortage gets more severe, we'll ratchet down even further," said water manager Gary Keller.

"I'm not happy about the building boom," he said. "But [in accord with a central tenet of western civilization's enforced ideology] people have private property rights [that override aquifers and wildlife]. Besides that, as water purveyors, it's not our job to control building. It's our job to provide water."

That kind of talk disturbs high-country residents like 93-year-old Tom Core, a Big Bear Valley historian.

"What we need to do is stop construction right now," he said. "Springs that flowed all my life have recently gone bone dry. What's happening here is a disaster, and it shouldn't be allowed."

Todd Murphy, who serves on several Big Bear Valley volunteer boards, agreed.

"What we're seeing is a lack of understanding that you just can't build out like this without serious consequences," he said.

Murphy is leading a petition drive aimed at creating a new formula for growth in the region. The petition calls for a moratorium on growth any time there are water restrictions.

Current restrictions forbid outdoor watering from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., and require immediate repair of all leaking waterlines and faucets. Water from landscape irrigation is not allowed to run into the street, and new landscaping is limited to 1,000 square feet of turf.

It makes little sense to many residents that they are forced to conserve while the three regional water districts continue to allow developers to build homes and condominiums.

"People are fed up," Murphy said. "We're going to bring reason into this valley."

Last month, a federal judge blocked construction of the 133-unit condominium complex on grounds it could harm the eagles that spend winter months in surrounding forests.

When fully developed, Marina Point on Big Bear Lake's north shore would feature a tennis court, a clubhouse and the marina.

The eagles flock to the area between November and April to perch in the pine trees and forage in what remains a quiet, rural forested area along the Pacific Flyway -- a transcontinental migration route for millions of birds. They start migrating out of the San Bernardino Mountains in late March, heading back to summer habitat in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and Alberta, Canada.

The judge's order will stand until the case is resolved -- a process that could drag on for years, or until bald eagles are taken off the federal endangered species list, a move that wildlife authorities say could occur by year's end.

In court documents, attorney Arthur Wellman, who represents the Marina Point developers, contends that the project would actually enhance the environment and improve conditions for eagles by taking down dead trees and planting new ones.

That argument was disputed in a lawsuit filed by the Center for
Biological Diversity and Friends of Fawnskin. The suit accused
developers of operating without permits required by the Endangered
Species Act and the Clean Water Act.

The lawsuit also pointed out that explosive growth over the last two
decades on the lake's southern shores has forced the region's shrinking bald eagle population to congregate on the opposite side near Fawnskin.

In the last quarter-century, the average number of bald eagles seen in the San Bernardino Mountains has fallen to 14 from 27, according to annual bird counts conducted by San Bernardino National Forest biologists.

Now, with four large-scale projects proposed for the Fawnskin area, "the cumulative impact of development ... could very well lead to the complete disappearance of the bald eagle from the area," said the plaintiffs' attorney, Kassie Siegel.

Lawyer Wellman, however, was more concerned about how bald eagles were faring nationwide.

"The bald eagle has made a great resurgence and will probably be
delisted by the end of this year. That's a good thing for everybody," he said. "If and when they are delisted ... the plaintiffs should dismiss their claim."

In the meantime, Big Bear Valley's water districts are stepping up
conservation measures even as new upscale housing developments with names such as Castle Glen, Meadowbrook Estates and Maple Ridge are changing the character of this former workingman's retreat.

Castle Glen is a collection of multistory homes on landscaped hills overlooking wetlands on the eastern end of Big Bear Lake, where bald eagles used to hunt for ducks and trout. Today, the area is dry and the eagles have all but disappeared.

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

Informant: Informant: Teresa Binstock

Starmail - 8. Jun, 16:49

Omega-News Collection 8. June 2004

STAY ALERT EVERYONE
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235342/

World Meetings, World Navies Gather
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235331/

TIA (Total Information Awareness) IS STILL ALIVE AND WELL
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235347/

US Citizens Revolting Against Paperless Voting
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235421/

NO to the Death Penalty
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235412/

Chemtrail Connection
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234990/

"Salvage Logging" Threatens Ancient Forest Renewal
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235851/

UN: Aggressive Fishing Threatens Oceans
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234993/

UN Warns on State of World's Oceans
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235982/

Environmentalists Seek Ban on Bottom Trawl Fishing
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235977/

Britain fights for giant squid
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234999/

Proposed Rule Fails to Protect Migratory Birds from Military Actions
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235403/

End old-growth logging in Tasmania
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234996/

TOUGHER WILDLIFE PROTECTION LAW UNDER WAY BODY
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235007/

If MSG isn't harmful, why is it hidden?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234966/

Biotech Will Make You Skinny
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235838/

End water fluoridation
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236005/

Food Additive Excitotoxins and Degenerative Brain Disorders
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236006/

--------

The American Way of Life
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235832/

STOP THE SECRET EXPANSION OF THE PATRIOT ACT
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235702/

1 OF EVERY 75 U.S. MEN IN PRISON
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235017/

The same old failed policies in Iraq
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235028/

Occupation of Iraq damaging US military
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235036/

Meet the new boss, same as the old
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235040/

Sugarcoating Iraq war won't vindicate Bush
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235068/

British waiter told FBI of 9/11-style plot
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235058/

Cheney faces grilling over leak as Bush election hopes slump
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235059/

Pentagon accused of ignoring CIA evidence of Chalabi's link to Iran
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235062/

Jobs, Jobs Everywhere and Not a Job to Find
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235065/

Iraq: The Case for Immediate US Withdrawal
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235387/

The Four Freedoms
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235390/

Circle of self-interest hides the truth
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235669/

Beating Specialist Baker
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235605/

Dying in squalor, the children betrayed by broken promises
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235650/

Iraq jail abuses tied to Aussie
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235656/

Senate committee still missing key documents in prisoner abuse case
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235658/

Anti-terror ploys
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235659/

US 'not bound by torture laws'
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235653/

Under the Banner of the 'War' on Terror
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/235664/

Superpower or superdebtor?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236177/

Where Big Brother snoops on Americans 24/7
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236180/

CITIES SAY NO TO THE PATRIOT ACT
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236190/

Is Another Watergate Beckoning?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236195/

Bush Administration Uses Terror Warnings to Influence Election
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236208/

A WORLD WITHOUT OIL - When the last oil well runs dry
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/236211/

Omega-News Collection 6. June 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/234759/

--------

Blair: Labour 'to decide my future'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3781513.stm

From Information Clearing House

Starmail - 8. Jun, 16:26

A WORLD WITHOUT OIL - When the last oil well runs dry

Starmail - 8. Jun, 16:12

Bush Administration Uses Terror Warnings to Influence Election

by Richard Clarke

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/060804D.shtml

Informant: Jacy

Starmail - 8. Jun, 16:04

Is Another Watergate Beckoning?

by William Hare

The widely discussed decision of George W. Bush last week to hire private counsel James E. Sharp prompts one to wonder if another Watergate is beckoning, and much sooner than later. As John Dean mentioned in his column at FindLaw.com, the idea of Bush taking this step as a purely precautionary measure is highly unlikely. It appears far more plausible that the old maxim of “where there’s smoke there’s fire” instead applies.

Dean, who was in the besieged building also known as the White House when it began rapidly disintegrating under President Richard M. Nixon following the Watergate burglary, also revealed the significance behind the decision to hire a private attorney. The zealous Kenneth Starr during his tenure pursuing Bill and Hillary Clinton successfully challenged in the federal courts the attorney-client privilege pertaining to government lawyers. This shredding of this area of the attorney-client privilege would render it mandatory for Bush to seek protection from private counsel, where Sharp would not be bound by the same constraints.

In the administration of George W. Bush, to paraphrase Shakespeare, “the campaign is the thing.” With politics assuming the highest of all priorities and Karl Rove operating in close concert with Bush, who does perhaps his only serious reading in analyzing poll data, it is anything but a tenuous stretch to conclude that the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame was discussed. An action of such potentially serious consequences was probably discussed with Bush at one juncture or another, given the closeness of the Bush-Rove relationship. Rove as political spinmeister operates at the top of the pecking order. Joseph Wilson’s assertion that the shameful, not to mention illegal, outing of his wife began with a “workup” done on him at the behest of grand strategist Rove contains a solid ring of plausibility.

Is Bush Unraveling?

Dean’s observations correlated with disturbing reports in Capitol Hill Blue prompt observers to wonder if a Nixon-style Watergate implosion is already commencing. It has been reported by witnesses testifying to the federal grand jury about the Plame leak that Bush was aware of the decision to leak Valerie Plame’s name in the media. This appears in concert with another report that Bush’s erratic behavior is causing consternation among White House aides. They note his propensity to initially quote scriptural passages and speak with reverent familiarity about God, then engage in paranoiac eruptions in which he curses his enemies, indicating that they are out to get him. This pattern contains an eerie kinship to Nixon unraveling in a post-Watergate informational hailstorm. It will be recalled that Nixon had his religious side as well, as evidenced by his Oval Office session with Henry Kissinger, in which he beseeched his startled secretary of state to get on his knees with him to pray. The scene, hilariously enacted on Saturday Night Live with Dan Ackroyd as Nixon and the late John Belushi portraying Henry Kissinger, is probably the most famous comedy sketch in television history.

Another Nixon Watergate similarity appears to be in play, that of one incident resulting in an implosion. When Watergate began to be investigated in the context of White House criminal involvement a sea of activities came to light as Nixon’s administration toppled like a house of cards. Bush needs to fear implosion from other directions such as Cheney’s secret meetings with oil executives, the Iraqi conman Chalabi and his relations with Bush insiders, not to mention how we went to war in Iraq through false claims about weapons of mass destruction that never materialized. Cheney again figures in events through his visits to the CIA to lean hard on analysts to support the hawkish attack mode he embraced.

Key Sign of Bush Implosion

The key sign to look for in determining just how much difficulty the Bush-Cheney-Rove White House perceives itself to be in is a parallel to Nixon’s Watergate travails, the aggressive pursuit of the media as operating against the interest of the American people. This strategy has a twofold purpose: 1) Seeking to convince Americans that they are reading information put out by jaundiced propagandists. A Watergate parallel was White House Press Secretary Ron Zeigler blasting the Washington Post, where information breaking reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein worked, by stating that their boss, Managing Editor Ben Bradlee, was hostile to Richard Nixon’s politics; 2) An intimidation factor. Reporters who cross the line and pursue developing stories about Bush White House implosion will be attacked as partisans. Also, they would realize the clear and present possibility of having access routes to White House information closed. The Bush White House has explored this route with gusto even without the fears of a Watergate style implosion, as evidenced by Bush’s abandonment of presidential press conference tradition by not only failing to allow its senior member, Helen Thomas, to ask the first question, but also banishing her to the back of the room.

Rallying Around The Flag

Another point to be observed if the Bush White House perceives itself in increasingly deep difficulty is resorting to a favored right wing Republican strategy of seeking to rally the citizenry around the flag. In Nixon’s case it was argued that opportunists seeking to pursue a radical agenda were attempting to highjack the “people’s business” and destroy a mandate of the electorate’s making.

Since Bush lost the popular vote to Al Gore in 2000 while Nixon generated better than 60 percent of those who voted in 1972, when he was reelected, the Cheney-Rove strategy will shift to another venue. Rather than discussing an electoral mandate the sharp focus will be on how partisan political attack dogs from the left are jeopardizing America while it is at war against terrorism throughout the globe, and while they are seeking to achieve democracy in Iraq.

The Bush political strategy since 9-11 has been 9-11, preferably in the largest doses possible. Those who seek to hold the Bush regime accountable for its conduct will be attacked as operating against the national interest. Ann Coulter and the rightist minions will proclaim that treason is in the air. Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly will indignantly demand that such attacks cease and that the public interest be served.

Should the aforementioned events conjoin, posed not as a strategy but represented as spontaneous declarations from incensed patriotic Americans, the Nixon analogy will be complete. The major battle will have commenced, that of seeking to preserve the Constitution and U.S. democracy. Those were the stakes thirty-one years ago as Watergate’s impact abounded and Nixonians adopted a bunker mentality. Since Dick Cheney prefers to govern from a bunker, he will be on home ground.

http://www.politicalstrategy.org/

Informant: littlebrit1961

Starmail - 8. Jun, 16:00

CITIES SAY NO TO THE PATRIOT ACT

by Kim Zetter

Wired

June 7, 2004

http://www.wired.com/news/privacy/0,1848,63702,00.html

Forget drug-free and nuclear-free zones. A growing grassroots movement seeks to make the United States a Patriot Act-free zone, one city at a time.

Or, at the very least, the people behind the movement hope to make their cities constitutional safe zones.

In the past two years, more than 300 cities and four states have passed resolutions calling on Congress to repeal or change parts of the USA Patriot Act that, activists say, violate constitutional rights such as free speech and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Barring that, the resolutions declare that their communities will uphold the constitutional rights of their residents should federal law enforcement agents come knocking on the door of local authorities for assistance in tracking residents. This means local authorities will insist on complying with federal orders only in ways that do not violate constitutional rights. The resolutions are not binding, however, and do not affect the federal government's actions.

The national movement was launched in 2001 by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee http://www.bordc.org/ , an organization led by activist Nancy Talanian. Talanian first lobbied her community -- Northhampton, Massachusetts, a town of 30,000 people -- to stand against the act in November 2001, when few people had heard about the legislation.

Talanian and fellow activists urged newspaper editors to write about the legislation and hosted a public forum attended by 400 people, including Northampton's mayor and chief of police. Word spread quickly to other communities, four of which passed their own resolutions before Northampton passed its declaration the following May.

Two years later, 322 municipalities
http://www.bordc.org/OtherLocalEfforts.htm and four states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Maine and Vermont -- have Patriot Act resolutions.

Congress passed the USA Patriot Act
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d107:h.r.03162: swiftly in October 2001, 45 days after the Sept. 11 attacks, easing restrictions on the government's ability to dig up personal information about citizens and non-citizens, and obtain wiretaps and search warrants. Only one senator, Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), and 61 House of Representative members voted against the legislation.

Under the act, federal investigators can obtain individuals' library, financial, health and education records from cities while barring municipal workers from letting anyone know authorities have seized the documents. Officials can also monitor the activities of people who have not been identified as suspects and search a home or office without prior notice.

The municipal resolutions, crafted individually by each community, vary in language. They affirm, for the most part, that city employees aiding federal authorities in national security investigations will not violate the rights of people under investigation, such as monitoring political and religious gatherings where people are engaging in activities protected by the First Amendment.

Hawaii was the first to pass a statewide resolution, citing the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a motivating factor.

Talanian said fewer than five municipalities rejected resolutions brought before them. These included Boston and Petaluma, California, a small town north of San Francisco.

Fred Hemmings, a Republican state senator in Hawaii who voted against a resolution passed in his state, called the resolution a political play by leftists bent on criticizing the government.

"There are constitutional zealots that somehow believe, especially in times of war, that some of our adversaries should be protected by rights given to us by the Constitution," he said. "But the people on the left are forgetting that we're fighting a war against a nationless enemy. It has to be fought on completely new terms."

He said although he has not read the Patriot Act in detail, he believes "it does provide for adequate judicial oversight of any intrusion into a person's personal life."

But Councilwoman Kathy Lantry from St. Paul, Minnesota, where a resolution passed 6-to-1, took issue with the interpretation that only liberals are behind the movement.

"There are many conservative councilors around the country who have stated emphatically that there are many portions of the Patriot Act that are in direct violation to the way that many of us thought we do things in America," she said. "It's an easy out to say it's just a liberal issue."

Talanian said the community movements, which act independently of her national group and draft their own resolutions, consist of coalitions of disparate groups, from conservative libertarians to liberal civil rights activists.

"It's been very nonpartisan," she said. "There have been mixtures of political parties, as well as peace and veterans groups and student and faculty groups, working together."

Although the resolutions don't carry official weight, the communities say they hope to send a message to Congress to change or repeal parts of the act.

"Resolutions are powerful in that a city council can tell employees in their jurisdiction how they will behave," said Talanian. "They can say we don't want law enforcement to engage in certain activities even if authorized by certain legislation."

Although the resolutions don't prevent federal agents from monitoring or arresting citizens on their own, Talanian said federal authorities would be less likely to pursue surveillance without probable cause, since they don't have the resources to pursue every person who interests them without the cooperation of local law enforcement.

"It might create some checks and balance by reason of logistics or budget priorities for the FBI," she said.

Councilwoman Lantry said no one should underestimate the power local communities can have over how the federal government does its work.

"Maybe one tiny little city council in St. Paul, Minnesota, isn't going to change the way this country does business, but as others join in that cause, it will give pause to those passing policy that perhaps they didn't think about, and need to think about, the negative impact (of the legislation)," she said. "That idea -- that because we can't have a direct impact we shouldn't say anything -- is not the way our country works."

Talanian said the community groups don't oppose all of the Patriot Act's provisions. "We're not saying the entire Patriot Act should be repealed but that certain sections need to be debated to make sure people's rights are being protected."

She pointed to the recent case involving Oregon lawyer Brandon Mayfield, who was arrested by the FBI after it mistakenly matched Mayfield's fingerprint to one found on a bag related to the train bombing in Madrid.

"Brandon Mayfield illustrates what can happen if there are laws that are so elastic that they allow people to be picked up and detained and have their houses searched and their careers harmed using ways that are not effective for catching terrorists," Talanian said.

Some provisions of the Patriot Act will expire in December 2005. But the Bush administration and congressional allies have been pushing aggressively to get Congress to null the expiration clause. In January, President Bush called on Congress to renew the Patriot Act in his State of the Union address. He has been urging the same in stump speeches on his campaign trail.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has said repealing or changing the Patriot Act would hamper the government's ability to catch terrorists and protect the public.

But the government may be getting the message that citizens are unhappy with the legislation. In March, Chuck Rosenberg, chief of staff to James Comey, the second-highest official in the Justice Department, told a reporter in St. Louis, Missouri, "We're losing this fight."

Talanian said it's important for people to understand that they, not just Congress, can and should participate in debates about national security and legislation that will likely be around a long time.

"Hopefully, the more communities pass resolutions, (the more it) will help change the laws and make people more aware of what their rights are and the importance of protecting them in the future, so that a Patriot Act in a few years couldn't be passed quietly without being read," she said.

Informant: NHNE

PREVIOUS NHNE NEWS LIST ARTICLES:

AMERICANS WOULD TRADE RIGHTS FOR SECURITY (6/7/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7345

ACLU SUIT UNCOVERS THE SECRETS OF SECRET SURVEILLANCE (6/6/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/7340

N.Y. CITY COUNCIL PASSES ANTI-PATRIOT ACT MEASURE (2/13/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6752

PART OF PATRIOT ACT RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL (1/26/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6664

RESISTANCE TO PATRIOT ACT GAINING GROUND (1/20/2004):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6635

BUSH STEALTHILY SIGNS PARTS OF PATRIOT ACT II INTO LAW (12/29/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6506

AL GORE: FREEDOM & SECURITY (11/15/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6262

COALITION FORMS TO ROLL BACK PARTS OF PATRIOT ACT (10/18/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/6119

ACLU: JUSTICE DEPT.'S PATRIOT ACT WEBSITE CREATES NEW MYTHS (9/10/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5925

PERSPECTIVE: HOW AN EARLIER 'PATRIOT ACT' LAW BROUGHT DOWN A PRESIDENT
(6/26/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5588

PATRIOT ACT BEING USED TO PURSUE CASES NOT RELATED TO TERRORISM (5/22/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5364

PATRIOT RAID (5/3/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5224

LOCAL OFFICIALS RISE UP TO DEFY THE PATRIOT ACT (4/21/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5163

FIRST ANTI-PATRIOT ORDINANCE PASSED IN CALIFORNIA (4/5/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5037

HAWAII MAY BECOME FIRST STATE TO PUBLICLY OPPOSE PATRIOT ACT (4/4/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/5015

LIBRARIES POSTS WARNING: FBI MAY SPY ON YOU (3/11/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4692

JUSTICE DEPT. DRAFTS SWEEPING EXPANSION OF ANTI-TERRORISM ACT (2/8/2003):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/4403

US PLANNING TO RECRUIT ONE IN 24 AMERICANS AS CITIZEN SPIES (7/16/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3419

FBI MONITORING READING HABITS (6/26/2002):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/3322

BEHIND THE USA PATRIOT ACT (11/9/2001):
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/nhnenews/message/2239

Starmail - 8. Jun, 15:55

Where Big Brother snoops on Americans 24/7

by Teresa Hampton & Doug Thompson

Capitol Hill Blue

06/07/04

"The nondescript office building at 3701 Fairfax Drive in Arlington, Virginia, still houses the Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Project Agency's Total Information Awareness Program, the 'big brother' program Congress thought it killed."...

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_4648.shtml

Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Starmail - 8. Jun, 15:38

Superpower or superdebtor?

by Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX)

LewRockwell.Com

06/08/04

"Round and round we go, and we never seem to learn. Regime change plans, whether by CIA operations or by preemptive war, almost always go badly. American intervention abroad -- installing the Shah of Iran in the fifties, killing Diem in South Vietnam in the sixties, helping Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the eighties, and propping up dictators in many Arab countries -- has had serious repercussions for American interests including the loss of American life. It is clear that interventionism leads to the perceived need for more interventionism, which leads to more conflict and to increased resentment and anti-Americanism. It is an endless cycle and the American taxpayer is always left holding the bill."...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul184.html

Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Starmail - 8. Jun, 15:36

Food Additive Excitotoxins

http://www.haciendapub.com/article27.html
http://members.aol.com/budzowski/budzowski/excitoto.htm

Informant: Sylviane

Starmail - 8. Jun, 13:07

End water fluoridation

http://www.fluoridealert.org/

Informant: Pier Bover

Starmail - 8. Jun, 13:04

EU: Daten/filter und Zwangsspeicherung

In AT wehren sich Wirtschaftskammer und Internet-Provider gegen Zwangsdatenspeicherung. Im UK wird der erste Megafilter über alle Internetzugänge von British Telekom gelegt.

Provider gegen Datensammlung

ISPA und Wirtschaftskammer-Fachverband UBIT gegen verpflichtende Speicherung von Verkehrsdaten
Verteuerungen von 200 Prozent in Aussicht

Einige EU-Staaten fordern in einem Richtlinienentwurf von Providern die verpflichtende Speicherung sogenannter Verkehrsdaten.

"Unter dem Titel der Verbrechensbekämpfung wird gefordert, dass Internet-Provider alle Daten, die zwischen Kunden und Provider transportiert werden, mindestens 12, höchstens 36 Monate speichern müssen", so Johann Steszgal vom IT-Fachverband UBIT der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich.

Speicherung aller Verbindungsdaten

"Unter die Pflicht der Speicherung würden dann etwa die Adressen von allen von einem User besuchten Websites, alle Downloads von Software, Musik- oder Videodaten sowie sämtliche E-Mails fallen".

"Der Fachverband UBIT unterstützt eine Initiative der Internet Service Providers Association (ISPA), die den betreffenden Entwurf vollständig ablehnt", ergänzt Obmann Friedrich Bock.

Mehr davon
http://futurezone.orf.at/futurezone.orf?read=detail&id=232886

Quelle: quintessenz-list Digest, Vol 15, Issue 3

Starmail - 8. Jun, 13:01

Sachverständige warnen vor Überwachung der Bevölkerung durch RFID-Chips

Nach Einschätzung der Gesellschaft für Informatik (GI) birgt die Technik der RFID-Chips erhebliche Risiken in Bezug auf den Datenschutz. Transponder seien zur Verfolgung eines Menschen einsetzbar. Deshalb fordern Sachverständige die Bundesregierung auf, eine Expertenkommission einzusetzen. Die rot-grüne Bundesregeirung hatte gestern erklärt, dass man keinen Handlungsbedarf sehe...

Mehr dazu unter...
http://de.internet.com/index.php?id=2028909

Quelle: quintessenz-list Digest, Vol 15, Issue 3

Starmail - 8. Jun, 12:55

UN Warns on State of World's Oceans

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25436/story.htm

Starmail - 8. Jun, 12:52

Environmentalists Seek Ban on Bottom Trawl Fishing

http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/25432/story.htm

Starmail - 8. Jun, 12:50

"Salvage Logging" Threatens Ancient Forest Renewal

Oregon "Salvage Logging" Threatens Ancient Forest Renewal

Forest Networking a Project of Forests.org, Inc.

June 7, 2004

OVERVIEW & COMMENTARY by Glen Barry, Ph.D., Forests.org

The Bush administration has announced final plans for one of the largest commercial timber sales in modern history in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southern Oregon, one of America’s wildest, most pristine places. The site of the 2002 Biscuit wildfire is to be mercilessly "salvage" logged. Some 74,000 logging trucks worth of timber are to be removed - mostly from old-growth, roadless and previously unlogged ancient forests - an amount equal of one quarter of the entire annual U.S. national forest timber harvest. The sale would occur at significant cost to tax-payers.

This crass timber industry pay-off is being justified as a means to ensure forest health and reduce the threat of forest fires. It will achieve neither. Salvage logging is known to increase erosion, impair streams and other wildlife habitat, further damage forests made more fragile by fires, and can actually increase fire risk due to the buildup of hazardous fuel and slash left by logging operations.

A fire-adapted forest that burns naturally (most are on varying periodicities) and is left to recover is not a disaster - it is how many forests regenerate. Trees downed by forest fires provide habitat for wildlife and nutrients needed for their renewal and to help keep forests healthy. Rarely are whole forests destroyed - as clumps of live trees and surrounding intact forests provide materials to seed a new, healthier forest.

There exists no environmental justification to heavily log burned trees in the Klamath-Siskiyou region - one of Western America's most important intact ancient forest landscapes. The region is ecologically unique and home to remarkable biological diversity. As one of America's last large ancient forest wildlands and many important watersheds, it deserves national park status, not destructive first time industrial logging under false pretenses.

Will you buy the lie that heavily logging ancient forests protects them?

Indeed, in most cases it is first time industrial logging and not forest fires that irreparably diminish large and natural forests. Your vigilance provides the last best hope that the Klamath-Siskiyou and the world's other forest cathedrals - evolutionary and ecological treasure troves - will remain able to continue giving us life.

Even ancient forests deserve a fresh start.
g.b.

RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:

ITEM #1

Title: Wildfire Logging Plan Rolls Forward

The Forest Service wants to salvage trees scorched in 2002 Oregon blaze. But environmentalists and the governor object.

Source: Copyright 2003, LA Times

Date: June 2, 2004

Byline: Bettina Boxall, Times Staff Writer

Almost two years after President Bush stood in the ashes of one of the largest wildfires in Oregon history, the U.S. Forest Service is moving ahead with an ambitious plan to log fire-killed trees on the burned-over land.

In documents released Tuesday, federal forest officials outlined a proposal to cut enough dead trees to fill more than 74,000 logging trucks. Much of the wood would come from road-less backcountry areas and stands of old growth.

The extent of post-fire logging has been scaled back from an earlier proposal much criticized by environmentalists. But it still calls for a timber harvest that will equal nearly a quarter of the entire national logging volume on Forest Service land last year.

The timber cutting will occur on a fraction of the 500,000 acres in
southwestern Oregon that burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire, which Bush used as a backdrop to launch his campaign for logging legislation.

Flying to the blaze on Air Force One, Bush called the destruction "a
crying shame" and said it was the result of poor forest management. More timber cutting was needed in the West, he said, to thin out dense growth that fuels wildfires. Congress responded by approving legislation that restricted public appeals of logging projects and made it easier for federal managers to approve timber cutting in the name of fire-hazard reduction.

But the fight over Western forest management has continued, as reflected in the controversy accompanying the Biscuit timber salvage plans.

Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski faulted the plan's "intrusion" into road-less areas.

"The final success of this project cannot be measured just in board feet," the governor said in a statement. "We must also balance the need for economic growth with the need to protect Oregon's natural resources — and I believe this proposal does not go far enough to achieve that balance."

Citing the many conflicting pressures the Forest Service is under, Michael Goergen, executive vice president of the Society of American Foresters, applauded the proposal.

"Practically and realistically, this is the best decision they could make recognizing all the constraints they were under," Goergen said. "There were a variety of different constituents they have to please on all sides, and they have a variety of legal barriers."

However, Chris West of the American Forest Resources Council in Portland predicted the project would get tied up in court. "What a waste," he said. "If we don't utilize some of this wood we're going to have to cut green trees someplace."

Despite the volume of logging in the plan, most of the fire area will be left alone. "We're proposing to salvage on only 4% of the overall
landscape," said Scott Conroy, supervisor of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest. "We're leaving 96% to recover naturally."

That failed to appease environmental groups.

"It's still one of the largest timber sales the West has ever seen in an area that deserves national park consideration. It's the wrong thing to do in a very special place," said Doug Heiken, a field representative for the Oregon National Resources Council.

In a draft released late last year, the Forest Service said it wanted to log 518 million board feet of commercial timber on the burned area. Its final environmental impact statement, released Tuesday, drops that figure to 370 million board feet.

Conroy said several factors contributed to the reduction in projected timber volume. Field checks revealed that there was more stream-side acreage that could not be logged, and also that there were more live trees than originally estimated in old growth areas.

Only dead trees without any green growth will be logged. The project, Conroy added, would provide jobs, directly and indirectly. But environmentalists say the logging will damage environmentally fragile burned areas while removing the biggest, most commercially valuable — but least flammable — trees.

They also complain that much of the timber cutting will occur in remote country that provides valuable habitat for wildlife dependent on old growth trees even when they are dead.

"It's not so much a question of volume as where it's coming from," said Dominick DellaSala, director of the World Wildlife Fund's Klamath-Siskiyou Regional Program in Ashland, Ore.

"They're proposing to get most of it from road-less areas and ancient forest reserves. For the Forest Service to say logging in those reserves is consistent with recovery of the [spotted] owl is scientifically false. It will do a lot more harm than good," he said.

ITEM #2

Title: Bush Administration Finalizes Plans for Destructive Logging in Oregon

One of the Largest Timber Sales in Modern History Slated for Spectacular Wild Forests

Source: Sierra Club

Date: June 1, 2004

CONTACT:
Annie Strickler (202) 675-2384
Ivan Maluski (503) 243-6656

Medford, OR – The Bush administration today announced its final plan to implement one of the largest commercial timber sales in modern history in the Klamath-Siskiyou region of southern Oregon, one of America’s wildest, most pristine places. The Final Environmental Impact Statement for the Biscuit Fire Recovery Project calls for logging 370 million board feet of trees while largely ignoring the immense values of recreation, wildlife habitat and clean water and the need to help protect communities from future fires.

“Instead of focusing resources near Oregon communities that are threatened by wildfire, the Bush Administration is pushing a divisive and harmful policy that drastically increases logging in the backcountry far from people’s homes and businesses,” said Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director. “There is a better way. We can responsibly manage Oregon and America’s National Forests and protect communities and our nation’s wild heritage.” The Bush administration plan would:

• Log 370 million board feet making this the largest timber sale in modern U.S. history.

• Log 150 million board feet in more than 8,000 acres of inventoried roadless areas.

• Log 170 million board feet out of old growth reserves (this does not count the old growth reserves found in roadless areas)

Planning a massive logging project in the Klamath-Siskiyou region to date has cost the US Treasury at least $5.8 million. According to a recent study by the non-partisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense, logging in the Siskiyou Wild Rivers Area will cost taxpayers anywhere from $3 million to $100 million depending on how many trees are actually cut. As an example, a logging plan that cuts 300 million board feet of timber, less than what the Bush administration originally proposed, will cost taxpayers $36 million.

Despite spending millions of dollars of taxpayer money on planning and implementing a destructive and controversial timber sale that will reap benefits for the timber industry, the Bush administration’s plan fails to provide funds and resources for communities threatened by fire,” said Pope. “That money would be better spent helping people protect their homes and businesses.”

Out of 22,856 public comments received on the Forest Service’s Preferred Alternative, 95 percent opposed an extreme amount of commercial logging. However, their final plan released today represents one of the largest timber sales in modern history and will mean more than 90,000 logging trucks leaving this spectacular area. The Forest Service also largely ignored suggestions by conservation groups and concerned citizens that would begin important restoration work, create jobs and help protect communities from future wildfires.

“The Bush Administration’s vision for Oregon’s National Forests is one where we log across the landscape before, during and after wildfires no matter the costs and impacts,” said Pope. The Klamath-Siskiyou region is home to remarkable biological diversity, making it one of the most unique regions in North America, and richest temperate regions in the world. A high concentration of wild and scenic rivers – including the renown Illinois and Rogue Rivers – and their tributaries contain some of the most valuable salmon and steelhead runs in the contiguous United States, providing a critical refuge for wild fish populations at risk of extinction. The area is part of the larger Klamath-Siskiyou Region and the proposed Siskiyou Wild Rivers National Monument.

There is considerable scientific evidence that “salvage logging” increases erosion, impairs streams and other wildlife habitat, causes additional damage to forests made more fragile by fires, and can actually increase fire risk due to the buildup of hazardous fuel and slash left by logging operations. In fact, trees downed by forest fires provide habitat for wildlife and nutrients needed to help keep forests healthy.

ITEM #3
Title: Proposed wilderness expansion covers hard-fought ground

Source: Associated Press

Date: June 3, 2004

GRANTS PASS -- The 64,000 acres of new wilderness that the U.S. Forest Service wants to create within the area burned by the massive 2002 Biscuit Fire covers ground that has been fought over for more than 20 years by environmentalists trying to put old growth forests off-limits to logging.

Earth First! protesters laid down in front of bulldozers in 1983 to stop construction of the Bald Mountain Road through the North Kalmiopsis Roadless Area. Others climbed charred trees to stop salvage logging after the Silver Creek drainage burned in 1987.

Environmentalists, however, are far from supportive of the Forest Service's current wilderness proposal, saying it amounts to a trade-off for support to log other parts of the Siskiyou National Forest that should also be protected.

"The proposal on the table is simply an effort to give the lightest patina of greenness to a very ecologically damaging fiscally irresponsible logging proposal," said Andy Kerr, a consultant working with the Oregon Natural Resources Council's effort to add 343,000 acres to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness -- five times the Forest Service proposal.

Environmentalists and members of Congress were taken by surprise this week when Rogue-Siskiyou National Forest Supervisor Scott Conroy proposed adding to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, which covers 180,000 acres in the middle of the 500,000 acres that burned in the 2002 Biscuit fire. The proposal is not part of the environmental impact statement in support of logging 370 million board feet of timber killed by the fire.

Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., whose district includes the Kalmiopsis, said he had been in regular talks with Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey over the Biscuit salvage plan, but never heard "a whisper" about wilderness.

"It would be a very rare day in this Republican Congress," for a wilderness proposal to become law, DeFazio said. "But election years sometimes bring interesting opportunities."

The idea came from Lance Clark on Gov. Ted Kulongoski's natural resources staff after touring the Biscuit burn with federal officials, including Rey, the point man on President Bush's forest policy.

Clark noticed no logging was planned in areas close to the Kalmiopsis, and suggested enlarging the wilderness, said Jim Brown, natural resources adviser to the governor. That began a conversation with Rey, who ultimately supported the idea.

Kulongoski would like to see even more added to the Kalmiopsis Wilderness, because he disagrees with the Forest Service plan to log roadless areas that provide valuable fish and wildlife habitat, Brown said.

Plans to log 8,000 acres of roadless area would make 50,000 acres ineligible for future wilderness, noted Mike Anderson of The Wilderness Society.

"That's clearly an unacceptable trade off," Anderson said.

The timber industry was not particularly opposed to the wilderness addition, said Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resource Council, "because a lot of that is unsuitable for timber anyway."

The wilderness is named for Kalmiopsis leacheana, a red flowering bush that depends on fire to stop the encroachment of trees and brush. The region is known for rugged, inaccessible canyons, rare plants and serpentine soils that have a hard time growing trees.

Starmail - 8. Jun, 10:29

Biotech Will Make You Skinny

by Kathleen McAfee, AlterNet

June 3, 2004

What is crop genetic engineering good for? Anything that ails consumers, farmers, or the environment, if we believe biotechnology publicists. The opening media event at BIO 2004, the industry’s promotional show in San Francisco, features a celebrity-chef brunch with a panel on “Biotech Solutions for Obesity.”

The notion that genetic engineering will make us healthy and slim is the latest in a series of tantalizing promises by biotechnology advocates. As the industry faces consumer skepticism and deepening scientific doubts about the environmental safety of gene-altered crops, its predictions have grown ever more wondrous. Very few of them have come true.

When commercial biotech crops were introduced in 1996, the U.S. Department of Agriculture told Congress that biotech’s boon would come in the form of increased farm productivity. Congress was also told that gene-altered crops would boost sales of U.S. farm inputs.

Indeed, giant biotech/agrochemical firms profited immensely from sales of Roundup and other herbicides, seeds engineered to go with them, and licenses to use Monsanto’s herbicide-tolerance technology. Herbicide-tolerant crops survive when Roundup or one of its chemical cousins is sprayed to kill weeds in the same field, so that farmers can use these pesticides more freely.

However, this dubious benefit is only temporary. Shortsighted, kill-‘em-all pest-control systems, whether biotech or not, speed the development of resistant weeds and insects, so that still more toxic chemicals are soon needed. Resistant weeds have already appeared.

But biotech crops have not increased food production. Yields of genetically engineered soy average slightly below those of conventional soy. Nor have yields been increased by bio-engineered canola, another main transgenic food crop on the market. Gene-altered Bt corn produces insecticide in every plant cell. It kills some corn pests but overall, the costlier Bt seeds have cost farmers more then they have earned.

None of this should surprise us. These crops were designed to sell patented seeds and pesticides, not to increase food production.

But the problem is not food production. We have a food glut already. The subsidized production and export of U.S. food surpluses to developing countries is a major cause of hunger. U.S. grains, sold abroad for less than their cost of production, drive local farmers out of business and make countries more dependent on imported food.

Aware that the poor have seen no biotech-crop benefits, industry publicists champion future varieties they hope will be more nutritious, such as “golden” rice containing pro-vitamin A, potatoes with more protein, or grains with healthier fats. However, none of these predicted crops has yet to be developed for distribution. Research on them is burdened by patent barriers. More importantly, the firms that control most crop-engineering technologies have little incentive to invest in crops for the poor, as the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization complained in its recent report.

The biotechnology industry has accrued losses in excess of $40 billion since 1980, when gene-transfer technology was first patented. As past industry forecasts fade, its spokespeople resort to ever more marvelous prophesies. Having failed to address hunger, biotech boosters highlight obesity, offering yet another molecular quick fix for a serious social problem.

The doubtful future of miracle cures and miracle crops should not discourage those of us who want an end to hunger. There are many better ways to increase food production, drawing on the wealth of unique natural crop traits, such as drought tolerance, that farmers have already developed, and using less costly and more ecologically sound farming methods. Given secure land tenure, adequate credit, marketing support, and the right to save and share seeds, farmers in most regions can produce more than enough to feed their own communities and cities.

Dr. Kathleen McAfee is the executive director of Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy. She is a former faculty member of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where she specialized in biotechnology, agriculture, and sustainable development.

Source: Home »EnviroHealth»
ECOTERRA Intl.

Starmail - 8. Jun, 10:13

The American Way of Life

George W. Bush demonizes his enemies. He thinks in terms of an "axis of evil" and "Armageddon," an apocalyptic, faith-based "end of times" scenario and some would say that kind of delusionary thinking is pathological. He labels everyone who he perceives as the enemy, i.e. the Taliban and Osama bin Laden "evil" and they are thusly considered something less than human and because they are his demons, he can use that justification to order the "CRUSADE" against them, and there no remorse about the wholesale slaughter of anyone who gets in the way of our bombs. The so-called "war on terrorism" and the pre-war sanctions against Iraq cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis and American lives wasted fighting his wars of aggressive. There is no remorse, no apologies for the barbaric murder of entire families attending a wedding party in Afghanistan (and other mistakes) and calling them the enemy. We are not safer. His killing hasn't eliminated terrorism but it has created of many times more terrorists.

http://pnews.org/portal/modules.php?name=Sections&op=viewarticle&artid=12

see further under:

Arms are for Hugging
http://pnews.org/art/5art/armsHUGGING.shtml

Informant: Aristotle

Starmail - 8. Jun, 10:05

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