The inserting of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank is actually part of a global war strategy. The idea is to put Bush loyalists and ideologues wherever they can advance the neocon agenda and undermine international organizations.

http://tinyurl.com/4jjdg


From Information Clearing House

We journalists are students of human folly. Palestine, Iraq, the Gulf, Persia; for more than a hundred years, our Western meddling in the Middle East falls under that label "folly". A "foolish ... and expensive undertaking that ends in disaster" is how one dictionary defines this. I suspect it also contains an unhealthy mix of vanity and hubris.

http://tinyurl.com/6vlsh


From Information Clearing House

John Pilger: They are afraid of you:

All over the world, people like you expressed their defiance and anger at the unprovoked attack on Iraq, a defenseless country, and the killing of more than 100,000 people and the theft of their resources and the poisoning of their land: all of it justified by demonstrable lies.

http://tinyurl.com/6eb53


From Information Clearing House

Combined with the nomination earlier in the month of super-unilateralist John Bolton as Bush's ambassador to the United Nations, as well as the US withdrawal from the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for cases involving the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, the new Strategy strongly suggests that Washington's interest in its traditional alliances, multilateral institutions, and even international law is on a downward trajectory.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GC23Aa01.html


From Information Clearing House

Reg Keys wasn't interested in politics until his son Tom was killed in Iraq in a war he insists was 'illegal and immoral'. Which makes him the ideal candidate to stand against the prime minister in his Sedgefield constituency, he tells Stuart Jeffries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1442950,00.html


From Information Clearing House

History is replete with examples of leadership tests that pit a nation’s military prowess against its economic base. Yale historian Paul Kennedy has long argued that great powers typically fail when military reach outstrips a nation’s economic strength. In that vein, there’s little doubt that America is extending its reach in this post-9/11 world.

http://tinyurl.com/3vabg

The budget deficit has overtaken terrorism as the greatest short-term risk to the U.S. economy, and concern about the current gap is rising, a survey of U.S. businesses shows.

http://tinyurl.com/4nrsl


From Information Clearing House

Last Wednesday at City's job fair about twenty students stood in front of the National Guard table and began chanting anti-war slogans when, within moments, they were outnumbered by security, said Tiffany Paul, a City College student who participated in the protest.

http://tinyurl.com/5zt4f

Two years after the United States launched a war in Iraq with a crushing display of power, a guerrilla conflict is grinding away at the resources of the U.S. military and casting uncertainty over the fitness of the all-volunteer force, according to senior military leaders.

http://tinyurl.com/3nq3g


From Information Clearing House

U.S. Using Anti-Terror War to Gain World Oil Reserves — Soviet Intelligence Chief:

Referring to his meeting with an unnamed al-Qaeda expert at the Rand Corporation, a nonprofit research organization in the U.S., Shebarshin said: “We have agreed that [al-Qaeda] is not a group but a notion.”

http://tinyurl.com/43zc2

International terrorism has been strengthened after three years of war as evidenced by the upsurge in terrorist strikes worldwide.

By Jephraim P Gundzik

Washington's "war on terrorism" is designed to militarily establish United States economic and geopolitical hegemony on a global scale. Rather than subduing Russia, the "war on terrorism" is encouraging Moscow to strengthen its relations with Washington's prominent foes. The war is also supercharging Russia's economy. Over the next four years, Russia will increasingly challenge the foreign policy goals of the Bush administration.

http://tinyurl.com/4thun

Two years on, the occupiers justify the war by embracing the irrelevant and ignoring the inconvenient

Gary Younge

This is a tale of one war, two anniversaries, three different demonstrations - and inconsistencies, contradictions and civilian deaths that are too numerous to count.

http://tinyurl.com/5sf2l

Pollution Killing Asia's River Dolphins - WWF
http://www.planetark.com/dailynewsstory.cfm/newsid/30029/story.htm

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7182113/


Informant: Anna Webb

As we enter the second year of our global campaign to Stop Violence Against Women, we thought March - Women's History Month - was an important time to remind ourselves that women are not always the victims of human rights abuse - often they are the heroes.

This month on our website, we spotlight the all-important work of four extraordinary women who have made a difference. Two of them are among the twelve women who have received the Nobel Peace Prize. One woman, Mexico's Digna Ochoa gave her life for her cause. And another will receive Amnesty International USA's highest award next month. All have sacrificed much for the rights and well-being of others.

READ ABOUT THESE WOMEN:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/ctt.asp?u=677776&l=12394

On every continent, women are rising up to end the abuse, torture and neglect that has long plagued their communities. Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi aroused an entire nation against decades of corruption and abuse. "It is not power that corrupts," she has said, "but fear."

Women are often uniquely able to appeal to everyday people and to engage them in collective struggle. Aung San Suu Kyi has written, "It is the cumulative effect of [ordinary people's] sustained effort and steady endurance which will change a nation where reason and conscience are warped by fear into one where legal rules exist to promote humanity's desire for harmony and justice while restraining less desirable, destructive traits in human nature."

Wangari Maathai has converted the seemingly mundane and domestic act of planting trees into a continent-wide movement aimed at empowering women and reshaping society's relationship with the natural environment. Says Maathai: "When you start working with the environment seriously, the whole arena comes: human rights, women's rights, environmental rights, children's rights, you know, everybody's rights. Once you start making these linkages, you can no longer do just tree-planting."


Bill Schulz
Amnesty International USA

P.S. GOOD NEWS! Last week's release of prisoner of conscience Rebiya Kadeer demonstrates that no government is immune to the persistent pressure applied by dedicated human rights activists worldwide.

READ MORE:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/ctt.asp?u=677776&l=12403

Press release. 22 March 2005

“THE FIGHT GOES ON!” SAY WINCHESTER PHONE MAST CAMPAIGNERS

News that the House of Lords has refused to hear the Byron Avenue phone mast case has left campaigners disappointed but not crushed. “We’ve had so many ups and downs in the four years we’ve been fighting that nothing surprises us any longer,” says Karen Barratt. “ We’re certainly not giving up.”

After the disappointment of December’s Appeal Court judgement, mothers Caroline St. Leger Davey and Diane Harrison applied in January to continue their legal battle in the Lords on behalf of their children; Phoebe St.Leger Davey and James Harrison both attend Western Primary School, which is situated close to the site of the proposed Orange mast. Caroline and Diane will now be discussing the Lords decision with their legal team.

It is too early to say whether the next step might be the European Court but Orange has given an undertaking to MP Mark Oaten not to erect the mast until campaigners have exhausted all their options. In any case the company originally said they would not disturb the birds nesting in the trees on the site, which means waiting until August. The drama of Byron Avenue looks set to continue.

CONTACTS
Karen Barratt: 01962 864388
Caroline St.Leger Davey: 01962 865716

BACKGROUND

Orange originally applied to erect the 11.79 metre monopole in Byron Avenue, Winchester in December 2000 and was given the go-ahead by a local planning officer as full planning permission for masts under 15 metres is not required.

The unprecedented level of protest among outraged residents and parents with children at the school prompted marches, public meetings and a deluge of letters to local and national government departments. Local MP Mark Oaten gave the campaign his wholehearted support and made repeated attempts to persuade Orange to find an alternative site. Eventually local parents took legal action and Winchester City Council (WCC) was forced to reconsider the decision after the High Court gave permission for a judicial review on the grounds that concerns about health had not been considered. At the re-determination in March 2002, this time by the full Planning Committee, Orange’s application was rejected.

Community celebrations were short-lived, however, as two months later Orange lodged an appeal against WCC’s decision. The public inquiry, for which local people raised £20,000 for their own legal representation, started in November 2002, lasted for nine days with three adjournments, eventually finishing in July 2003. A few weeks later, Planning Inspector, Martin Pike issued his decision against the council, in Orange’s favour.

WCC refused to challenge the decision even though costs were awarded against them. Two local mothers, Caroline St.Leger Davey and Diane Harrison took up the challenge and went to the High Court in March this year in an attempt to overturn the Planning Inspector’s decision. Although unsuccessful on that occasion they were given a second chance and returned to court on 11 November in an attempt to overturn the judgment. The decision rejecting the appeal was issued on 1 December 2004. The application to the House of Lords was made in January.

END


From Mast Network

http://www.livescience.com/forcesofnature/050321_crazy_weather.html


Informant: Laurel

Wie deutsche Wissenschaftler herausgefunden haben wollen, fördert Computernutzung in den Schulen und Zuhause nicht die Leistung von Schülern in Mathematik sowie beim Lesen und Schreiben.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/19/19725/1.html

Studie: Drastisch weniger Schmetterlinge und Bienen auf Gen-Raps-Feldern (22.03.05)

Der kommerzielle Anbau von genetisch veränderten Pflanzen hat große Auswirkungen auf die umliegenden Gewächse und damit auch auf Schmetterlinge und Bienen. Zu diesem Schluss kommt eine dreijährige Studie im Auftrag der britischen Regierung, die im Wissenschaftsmagazin Nature veröffentlicht wurde. Nach den Ergebnissen der Forscher, die ein Rapsfeld mit genetisch verändertem Canola-Raps untersuchten, der einem bestimmten Herbizid widersteht, nahm die Zahl der Schmetterlinge und Bienen drastisch ab.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=10732
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Schmetterlinge

"Verträge widerrufen": Verbraucherzentrale geht gegen Haustür-Werbung von "Arcor" vor

22.03.05

Nach Angaben der Verbraucherzentrale Brandenburg beschweren sich schon seit Monaten immer wieder Verbraucher über aggressive Werber der Telekommunikationsfirma Arcor, "die Verbrauchern unvorbereitet an der Haustür Arcor-Preselect-Verträge aufdrängen". Ein solcher Vertrag verpflichtet den Telefonkunden, seine Gespräche mit Vorwahl nicht mehr über den bisherigen Vertragspartner zu realisieren - meist die Deutsche Telekom AG –, sondern ausschließlich über die Einwahl von Arcor. Angesichts der "aggressiv an der Haustür vermittelten Arcor-Verträge" rufen die Verbraucherschützer dazu auf, solche Verträge zu widerrufen.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=10733

Gentechnik: BUND veröffentlicht Standorte von Gen-Feldern (22.03.05)

Trotz Gesetzesänderung will der Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz (BUND) von Nordrhein-Westfalen erneut die genaue Lage aller ihm bekannten Gentech-Anbauflächen in seinem Bundesland ins Internet stellen. "Damit reagiert der BUND auf den Beschluss des Bundestages", schreibt Ralf Bilke, Agrarreferent des BUND NRW in einer Stellungnahme. Ein so genanntes Standortregister, das bundesweit alle Gen-Felder lokalisiert, sei am Freitag für die allgemeine Bevölkerung abgeschafft worden. Das erst seit Februar in Kraft getretene Register ist nur noch einem sehr beschränkten Kreis von Betroffenen wie Landwirten, Imkern und Grundstückseignern - auf Antrag - zugänglich.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=10727

UN-Reform: Entsetzen bei Friedensforschern über Präventivkriege der Vereinten Nationen (22.03.05)

Teile des von UN-Generalsekretär Kofi Annan am 21. März vorgelegten Strategiepapiers "In größerer Freiheit" zur Reformierung der Vereinten Nationen löste beim Bundesausschuss Friedensratschlag "helles Entsetzen" aus. Annan ziehe die Möglichkeit in Betracht, Präventivkriege im Namen der Vereinten Nationen zu führen. In Ziffer 125 heißt es dazu: "Wenn es sich nicht um eine unmittelbar drohende Gefahr, sondern um eine latente Bedrohung handelt, überträgt die Charta dem Sicherheitsrat die volle Autorität für die Anwendung militärischer Gewalt, auch präventiv, um den Weltfrieden und die internationale Sicherheit zu wahren." Sollte sich diese Auffassung durchsetzen, fielen die Vereinten Nationen nach Auffassung des Friedensforschers Peter Strutynski "nicht nur hinter die eigene UN-Charta, sondern auch hinter den Kellogg-Pakt aus dem Jahr 1928 zurück, in dem die Vertragsstaaten erstmals den Krieg geächtet hatten."

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php4?Nr=10734

http://kurtnimmo.com/blog/index.php?p=612


Informant: Shanti Renfrew

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts03212005.html


Informant: Our bill of rights

BY BOB BEALE B.BEALE

11:00 - 21 March 2005

Campaigners in St Werburghs have won their fight to stop a mobile phone mast being built on their doorstep. Brymain Investments Limited, which owns the proposed site at Minto Road Trading Estate, has written to campaign leader Reuben Woods to say it is withdrawing from its proposed agreement with phone operators T-Mobile to allow a 39ft mast to be built on the site.

Property manager John Turner wrote: "Whether or not the concerns of local residents are scientifically justifiable is not material to this decision.

"The objectors are sincere in their concerns and the directors have now decided that they wish to be 'good neighbours' and not the cause of fear and anxiety to people in the nearby community."

The St Werburghs Collective - 20 residents who live close to the proposed site of the mast - wrote to Brymain saying grave concerns about the health risk forced many of them to consider moving house.

The letter also threatened legal action if any of then suffered a drop in the value of their homes or ill health.

The withdrawal is also in response to meetings between the residents and the company.

Mr Woods said: "Our community is delighted with this decision.

"We feel that a blanket of fear has been lifted from St Werburghs and we would like to thank the directors of Brymain Investments for acknowledging our concerns.

"We will continue to fight any further proposals to build a mast in our area and will be keeping an eye open for any public notice of applications to obtain planning permission."

But it seems that the victory may be short-lived.

T Mobile spokesman David Hanney said: "We are naturally disappointed at this turn of events.

"However we still need to acquire a site in this area and will continue with our search for an alternative to upgrade our network."

http://tinyurl.com/49lne

12:00 - 21 March 2005

703 back call for communications giant to abandon controversial mast plan in city

Here are 703 reasons why you should ditch your plan to put a mobile phone mast in Heavitree Road.

In just four weeks, 703 people have signed our petition objecting to your proposed 'third generation' mast which would be close to several schools and nurseries and almost directly outside the city's maternity unit.

Exeter City Council has already written to you asking that you seek an alternative site for this antenna. Devon County Council leaders are considering doing the same.

In Parliament, Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley is backing our campaign and our city MP Ben Bradshaw is also writing to ask you to reconsider.

He is also seeking a high-level meeting with Planning Minister Keith Hill in a bid to tighten up the development controls on new transmitters like yours.

Bumble Bee Nursery, Puffins Nurseries, St Margaret's School and Bramdean School have all expressed concerns on behalf of the hundreds of children in their care.

But we also believe it is time you heard from the ordinary Exonians who will have to live and work near your mast, who take their children to schools near your mast and may even give birth near your mast.

We have received support for our petition from all around the city, the county and further afield - mainly from others involved in similar transmitter battles.

And they all say 'No' to your antenna - not here, not now.

Like all your market rivals, you insist your masts are safe despite many international studies suggesting otherwise.

Many in Exeter do not believe your assurances, but even more, want the question of whether masts are dangerous finally settled before having to live and work near this one.

And many in our city are outraged that while independent research is ongoing, you are pressing ahead and putting up your masts next to schools and health units.

Whatever happened to the precautionary approach recommended in the Stewart Report? If it does not apply in Heavitree Road, then where?

Here are some of the comments the people of Exeter - and elsewhere - wrote on our petition.

Margaret Langdon, of Pamela Road, Polsloe, wrote: "This proposal is wrong. We must consider the vulnerability of the young in this area first."

Toni Holmes, of Charnley Avenue, St Thomas, wrote: "It's absurd even to consider a mast there. I do hope they realise this before more people are put at risk for financial gain."

Janet Parr, of Union Road, Exeter, wrote: "Give us proof it's 100 per cent safe!"

Andrew Buchan, of Exmouth wrote: "I have three children going to school in the immediate area. I do not want companies gambling with the health of my children. To put it next to schools, hospitals, day care units etc is an obscene dereliction of care towards those who need our protection the most."

Jennifer Cook, of Archibald Road, St Leonard's, wrote: "The installation of such a mast, with all the uncertainty that surrounds them, should never be allowed in such a location - how on earth can they be allowed to get away with it?"

Jackie Napper, of Hamlin Lane, Heavitree, wrote: "Don't play with our children's lives! What's more important?"

Perhaps now, after reading the views of the people of Exeter, you might pause to rethink your proposal. You have not yet made a planning application and we sincerely hope you choose not to do so.

Yours etc.

A total of 703 signed our petition objecting to Vodafone's plan to place a mobile phone mast in Heavitree Road.

And 307 filled in slips printed in the Echo or wrote to us, while 79 emailed objections.

Another 317 have signed petitions left at Lavis News in Magdalen Road, Costcutters in Heavitree and Bumble Bees Nursery, in Heavitree Road.

We will be presenting copies of today's edition to Vodafone, all members of Exeter City Council's development control committee and the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mobile Communications.

--------

MP BACKS PETITION - Exeter

12:00 - 21 March 2005
City MP Ben Bradshaw is backing our petition and pressing for a top-level meeting, with the goal of tightening up planning restrictions on masts.

The Labour MP is writing to Vodafone urging them to find an alternative site for their mast and also requesting a meeting with Planning Minister, Keith Hill.

Mr Bradshaw told the Echo: "In the light of the strength of local opinion, and the case made by the Echo, I will be writing to Vodafone to ask them to to reconsider the location for the mast.

"And I will also be requesting from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister permission to take a delegation from Exeter to see Keith Hill, the minister responsible for planning issues.

"I am doing this because the Echo has made a strong case for a change to the planning guidelines which currently determine mast applications."

12:00 - 21 March 2005

Vodafone insists the Heavitree Road site is its only option after admitting that no other landowner in the area wants its mast.

The telecommunications giant says the proposed mast is key to meeting its licence commitment of providing 'third generation' coverage to 80 per cent of the UK population by 2007.

Although the company has confirmed it has still yet put in a planning application, Vodafone believes the site is "our only option in this area".

A Vodafone UK spokeswoman said: "We don't have a range of options in the Exeter area at the moment.

"We have had difficulty finding a site where someone is willing to accommodate us. We have done a large amount of pre-consultation in the area and written to the local councillors as well as the schools and nurseries. We have had 10 letters back so far. If someone can come up with an alternative site, we would consider it but there has been nothing suggested at the moment. We would like to share with other operators as under guidelines we are encouraged to do that and it could cost less, but at the moment we have no other options in the search area."

How Vodafone's planning application is dealt with will depend on the size of the mast.

If higher than 15 metres, it will be subject to the normal planning process. Lower than that height and it will be eligible for the 'prior approval' process.

If the local planning authority - Exeter City Council - does not respond within 56 days of such a 'prior approval' application, it is automatically passed.

Planning authorities can object but they are instructed to "first explore with the operator the possibility of modifying the siting and appearance of the proposed development".

Councils should also "take account of the obligations on code system operators to provide a service, and of technical constraints upon network development" when discussing alternative sites.

If applications are rejected, the operators have six months to issue a notice of an appeal.

Currently, under special planning guidance, Whitehall insists that if the proposed mast will emit at below international guidelines then "it should not be necessary for a local planning authority....to consider further the health aspects and concerns about them."

This applies to all mast applications regardless of height.

Critics, though, say the 15-metre high distinction is arbitrary and the prior approval process favours the applicant too much at the expense of local accountability.

The mobile operators say emissions from their masts are far below current, recognised international guidelines and in most cases they are willing to discuss siting issues with councils and communities.

Recently, city planners blocked a proposed Vodafone mast for Honiton Road - but on the grounds that it would be a visual intrusion.


From Mast Network

(On March 19, 2005, according to United for Peace and Justice, 765 actions to End the Iraq War and Bring the Troops Home took place nationwide. But on March 20, the front page of the New York Times was silent on the nationwide protests. Instead, it [in the national edition] included the lead paragraphs of an article "Protesters at Hospice in Florida Push Showdown over Schiavo" by Abby Goodnough. . . . Robert D. McFadden's article "Hundreds of Rallies Held across U.S. to Protest Iraq War" [so titled in LexisNexis], however, was buried in page 35. Worse yet, the title given to the same article online is "Two Years after Iraq Invasion, Protesters Hold Small Rallies." Why the prominence of the Schiavo case? Is it because the public support conservative protesters, who prayed outside the hospice, with three of them arrested "when they tried to force their way past officers guarding the driveway of Woodside Hospice to take bread and water to Ms. Schiavo as a symbolic gesture" (Goodnough, March 20, 2005)? Not at all. The public "supports the removal of Schiavo's feeding tube" by a wide margin, according to an ABC poll. In contrast, the demands of anti-war demonstrators give voice to the view quietly held by a majority of Americans) -- FULL TEXT:
http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/03/covering-protests-iraq-war-and-terri.html


-- Yoshie

From ufpj-news

by Fernando Suarez del Solar

March 19, 2005


Today marks two years since the Bush administration initiated one of the greatest crimes in recent history--the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Two years have passed without Bush clarifying his motives for going to war.

Two years later and the entire world knows that Bush lied about weapons of mass destruction. And that Bush’s lies have cost more than 1500 young American lives, scores of members of the ill-named coalition, and hundreds of thousands innocent Iraqis. Thousands of children have been killed by the bullets and bombs used by the U.S. military, and thousands of human beings have been killed by terrorists who flocked to Iraq after Bush invited them to "Bring it on."

Two years since the beginning of this disaster, we parents continue to weep for our fallen children, mothers live in daily anguish waiting for news about their children who may have died in combat abroad, thousands of families live with the reality of their children wounded or incapacitated by the war in Iraq, hundreds of Iraqi families live without enough food, medicine, or housing, and all thanks to Bush's endless lies. Two years have passed and the Bush administration has flip flopped constantly regarding the real reasons for the war, "Democracy" and "freedom"?

In elections imposed by the forces of occupation and under threat of terrorist attacks, the Iraqi people voted for an end to the illegal and immoral occupation of their nation. Now there is an assembly that will either support the occupation that is destroying the people or demand the removal of the forces of occupation.

Two years of my family's grief, of spilled blood, of a domestic economy in freefall. Must we wait two more years before Bush understands that the entire world disapproves and condemns his criminal war? Can he sleep at night without remorse knowing that the blood of my son was spilled because of vested interests and lies? Can his daughters be proud of a father who is a liar and a criminal? Only God can pardon his sins because the people of the world condemn him to an unholy moral death.

POR UNA GENERACION LLENA DE PAZ Y AMOR!!
EL GUERRERO AZTECA
Que dios les bendiga.
Atentamente:
Fam. Suarez del Solar.
Padres del "GUERRERO AZTECA"
Jesus Alberto Suarez del Solar Navarro Lance Corporal USMC
1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division
fernando@guerreroazteca.org
Fvsuarez2000@yahoo.com.mx

http://www.guerreroazteca.org
http://www.gsfp.org
http://www.projectyano.org
http://www.activistsandiego.com
http://www.girights.objector.org
http://WWW.mfso.org
http://www.cpeace.com/C/Iraq/fernando.htm
http://www.globalexchange.org
http://www.occupationwatch.org
http://www.soldiersayno.org

March 21, 2005

The Daily Show: Jon Stewart's perspective on Congressional farce (VIDEO)

A video clip on the legislation that Congress and The President enacted into law over the weekend. It's very funny.

Broadband in Real Media format (7 minutes):
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/dailyshow_schiavo_congressional_meddle_050321-01.rm
Or
http://tinyurl.com/4u3ke

Dialup format:
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/dailyshow_schiavo_congressional_meddle_050321-56-01.rm
Or
http://tinyurl.com/5fbdr


Here is a screenshot if you need to post it anywhere:
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/images/dailyshow_schiavo_congressional_meddle_050321-01.jpg
Or
http://tinyurl.com/4uetq

Enjoy!
David

He Overestimated Soviet Power - Now he overestimates American power.

Michael Lind on Paul Wolfowitz
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news4/lind-catastrophic-success.html

http://www.lewrockwell.com/machan/machan55.html

The Great Betrayal: Fraud in Science
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/394532/

by David R. Francis

Christian Science edition

March 21, 2005

It's hard being poor in America. It's not just the stagnant minimum wage, which Congress failed to raise this month, or the lack of unemployment insurance benefits for many, since legislators failed last year to extend them for the long-term jobless.

Future cuts in federal aid for the poor look even worse. President Bush's budget for 2006 would reduce spending on early childhood education and child care, home energy assistance and rental assistance, and nutrition assistance to pregnant women, infants, and young children, Washington experts say. [...] Read it all at: http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0321/p15s01-cogn.html

Please let me know when we next "elect" a dictator. I have decided to run. You can read all about my reasoning at http://www.ginnyfordictator.net .

by David Podvin

March 14, 2005

Make Them Accountable web site

Ann Coulter is not merely eighty pounds of toxic sewage wrapped in six feet of reptile skin - she is the vicious ghoul that remains after conservatism has been scrubbed of its camouflage. Satan’s concubine has been vocal in her belief that torturing anyone identified as the enemy is good, and that torturing them using the most excruciating techniques is better. Coulter is not alone in the desire to feast on human suffering. Although she is considerably less circumspect than other right wingers, it is instructive that not one prominent conservative has repudiated her.

Invoking God and country, the Confederates who currently run the United States are striving to make Andersonville a global phenomenon. Since 9/11, Republicans have dispatched domestic agents and foreign surrogates to torture countless people on various continents. Unsurprisingly, the reprobates have not been content to torment their prey physically. Conservatives are implementing a policy to humiliate other human beings, shaming their victims in the vilest ways imaginable, apparently oblivious that the true shame of this outrage is being inflicted upon the United States. Our own pious moralists have disgraced America in the eyes of everyone who does not view savagery as a virtue.
[...] Read more at:
http://makethemaccountable.com/podvin/more/050314_Savagery.htm

Go down far enough to see Bush cruelty to frogs, etc...


© Virginia Metze

The problem with Paul Wolfowitz isn't that he's an evil genius. It's that he has been consistently, astonishingly, unswervingly wrong about foreign policy for 30 years.

By Michael Lind
Salon

March 17, 2005 | The nomination of Paul Wolfowitz to be president of the World Bank, following his commission of a long and costly series of blunders as deputy secretary of defense in George W. Bush's first term, comes as no surprise to those familiar with his career. Wolfowitz is the Mr. Magoo of American foreign policy. Like the myopic cartoon character, Wolfowitz stumbles onward blindly and serenely, leaving wreckage and confusion behind.

Critics are wrong to portray Wolfowitz as a malevolent genius. In fact, he's friendly, soft-spoken, well meaning and thoughtful. He would be the model of a scholar and a statesman but for one fact: He is completely inept. His three-decade career in U.S. foreign policy can be summed up by the term that President Bush coined to describe the war in Iraq that Wolfowitz promoted and helped to oversee: a "catastrophic success." Read the rest of this at:
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2005/03/17/wolfowitz_nomination/index.html or http://tinyurl.com/3m8cq


© Virginia Metze

Submitted by Oliver Willis on Sat, 03/19/2005 - 1:41am.

What are they thinking? [...]

The Republican party has now made clear that in order to satiate those opposed to abortion and the religious far right, it feels no shame about propping up the broken body of Terry Schiavo in order to score electoral points. Our country is at war on multiple fronts, while our soldiers still do not have the equipment they need to keep them safe or a reasonable strategy to bring them home. Americans are without health care, our educational system needs funding - and this is the issue that keeps the Republicans burning the midnight oil? An essentially unconstitutional attempt to deligitamize the powers of the state courts and their related governments? [...] Read the rest of the "rant" at: http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/2100 You may want to browse this site a bit...


© Virginia Metze

We need your help to cut through the soul-less numbers and the face-less rhetoric that pro-privatization politicians use in the Social Security debate. This week, your member of Congress will be back in your home state, and we're going to make sure that they hear your story about Social Security, loud and clear.

Please share with us how you or people you're close to rely on Social Security. Our plan is to take every story we receive to media outlets throughout your home state, so that your Representative and thousands of Americans hear publicly why we won't accept having our benefits cut or put at risk on Wall Street.

http://action.ourfuture.org/ctt.asp?u=1742757&l=84065

Real stories from real people make news and change opinions. Consider Mrs. Siobhan Kolar, a mother from the Chicago suburbs, who was featured in the news last week after sharing her story at a rally to protect Social Security.

Mrs. Kolar's story is one familiar to many of us. She took several years off from work to raise her child, which didn't leave her with a large personal savings account or pension plan. That's why she's depending on guaranteed Social Security benefits to support herself in her retirement years. She's afraid that the benefit cuts in the president's privatization scheme won't leave her with enough to live on.

The Beacon News reported Mrs. Kolar's story last week to thousands of Chicagoans, driving home the point that privatization is just a bad deal for most Americans. Please help us tell your story in your state!

There is real power in showing the real faces of Social Security -- which pro-privatization politicians conveniently mask with their rhetoric and numbers games. When Congress returns home this week, let's greet them with thousands of stories of what Social Security means for us, and why we won't accept having guaranteed benefits replaced with a guaranteed Wall Street gamble.

http://action.ourfuture.org/ctt.asp?u=1742757&l=84065

How would the benefit cuts and risks posed by the Bush privatization scheme impact you or people close to you? Would you be forced to help pay the bills of a family member? Could you afford to live independently in your golden years? Would you have to work longer hours or continue working after retirement to make ends meet? Would it push you or someone you know into poverty?

Your story can help bring to life the risks posed by privatization. We will share your story with the media while your member of Congress is in town, and make sure that people nationwide know what's at stake.

http://action.ourfuture.org/ctt.asp?u=1742757&l=84065

We are making great progress in the fight for Social Security, but the fight is far from over. The President and his right wing allies are criss-crossing the nation, smearing the opponents of privatization and spending millions of dollars to drum up a false crisis and scare the American people into supporting their Wall Street giveaway.

The time is now to stand up, speak out and make sure that our Representatives hear from the real people they should be fighting for.

http://action.ourfuture.org/ctt.asp?u=1742757&l=84065

Thanks for all your help.

Sincerely,

Adam Luna, Policy Director
Campaign for America's Future

by the Project For Excellence In Journalism

An extensive new report reviews the state of our media system--and highlights five important trends.

http://www.tompaine.com/action/#004181

The U.S. Defense Department is testing a tag that combines RFID, GPS and satellite communication, so that military personnel can know a tag's location at any time.

By Jonathan Collins

Mar. 21, 2005—Exploring ways to extend military supply chain visibility, the U.S. Department of Defense recently tested a new generation of active (battery-powered) RFID tags with satellite-communication capabilities that enabled the tags to give their precise location even when in the most remote and inhospitable areas.

"The prototype tags function just as the current RFID tags that can be pinged at ports, depots and distribution centers by interrogators, but they can also phone home," says Larry Loiacono, an information technology specialist at the Defense Distribution Center, headquartered in New Cumberland, Pa. Part of the DOD's Defense Logistics Agency, the DDC oversees 26 military distribution depots worldwide.

http://www.rfidjournal.com/article/articleview/1458/1/1/


Peace - Anna

by Chris Raphael, Special to CorpWatch

February 10th, 2005

A television pundit gets secret payments to promote a new United States government education policy. Columnists are paid to provide support for a White House marriage stance. Actresses play news reporters to promote drug laws. A system of ranking reporters who criticize official policy. These, and possibly many other public relations stunts, are some examples of publicity contracts paid for by the U.S. government, which has spent more than a quarter billion dollars on public relations in the past four years.

For example Armstrong Williams, a conservative African-American broadcaster, was paid $240,000 to produce advertisements on the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and plug the law in his syndicated television broadcasts. (see Leaving Children Behind)

The deal was brokered by Ketchum public relations, a subsidiary of media giant Omnicom, and approved by the U.S. Department of Education (DoE). In addition to the Williams contract, Ketchum was also paid $700,000 to rate media coverage of NCLB and produce video news releases on the law.

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11836


Peace - Anna

We thank for the shipment of the news appeared in Cinco Días.com, that has arrived to us through Javier Aparicio and has deserved the commentary that we enclosed. A long time ago we observed that most of the warnings that appear in the tobacco small boxes could be perfectly applied to the nonionizing radiations.

AVECORN Association of Neighbors Against Injurious Radiations of L'Escala (Girona)


The Court of Appeals of Richmond, Virginia, has decided these last days to retake different judicial causes, that had like object demands against Motorola, Nokia and twelve companies more of telecommunications. The Court of Appeal has shaped in his resolution an incontestable censorship to the practices of those, before giving back to the corresponding courts the judgments that will have to be transacted. It insists on considering guilty to the companies of "... not warning of the risk of contracting diseases as cancer by the use of these apparatuses ", informed Bloomberg. (Five Days - Madrid 18/03/05). It seems to be that, in clear parallelism which takes control today anywhere in the world of the tobacco, it is not far the day in which in the U.S.A. the mobile telephones, wireless and the Wi-Fi computers will come surrounded with the warnings: "MOBILE TELEPHONE CAN CAUSE to CANCER" "MOBILE TELEPHONE DOES NOT HAVE TO BE USED BY the PREGNANT WOMEN" "MOBILE TELEPHONE CAN SUPPOSE RISK OF OCULAR CANCER" * and as Paul Sagawa, analyst of Stanford C. Bernstein & Co says to us: "The key of this subject is that the industry of the mobile telephony does not want that each cancer of brain that is taken place in the U.S.A. turns a demand that demands ten million dollars to the sector". Two questions assault to us: We will also surround with cellophane all the antennas that watch and threaten us from the next tile roofs? Or will we charge the operators to do it, placing, with mold letters, warning posters, so that nobody says soon, that they had not be warned?

Agustín Garci'a Andrés Licensed in Right and Lawyer in Political Sciences L'Escala, 21 of March of the 2005 *

The Institute of Ophtalmology in the University of Essen (Germany) has demonstrated that the use of the mobile telephone can be a leading factor of ocular cancer, melanoma intraocular of the uveal tract (structure that rainbow includes), ciliary body and coroides.


Version print in “Computer science”

Judicial the mobile telephony undergoes his first crossed legal Light Fernandez/Ines Madrid April (18-03-2005) Published in: Printed edition

Companies First were the tobacco, soon the food sweepings and now it seems that it touches the mobile telephony, that becomes at the end the new target of the collective demands in EE UU. A court has given back at the present time the controversy about the consequences of the exhibition continued to the radiations of the cellular phones, when recovering five demands against Motorola, Nokia and one more dozen of companies of telecommunications. This sector has denied whenever that radiations cause damages to the health, but has not been able to silence the complaints and investigations of those who think that the mobile telephones can cause cancer or other diseases. Thus, the decision of the fourth Court of Appeals of Richmond, Virginia, to retake four of the cases and to send them to the corresponding courts so that they are reviewed, comes to intensify these theories.

The sentence of the cut of appeals maintains that the companies of mobile telephony were at least guilty of not warning of the risk of contracting diseases as cancer by the use of these apparatuses, according to Bloomberg. These are the first demands interposed against the set of the sector of the mobile telephony. In the denunciations it is requested that the companies provide each user with some type of earpiece that it protects of the exhibition to the radiations of low intensity which emit the terminals. But this sanction seems inefficient for many experts since it does not suppose a great payment for the companies. ' The key of this subject is that the industry of the mobile telephony does not want that each cancer of brain that is taken place in the U.S.A. turns a demand about ten million dollars to the sector', comments Paul Sagawa, analyst of Stanford C. Bernstein & Co. The cases splash to the main actors of the sector, as much manufacturers as operators. Motorola, Nokia, VoiceStream Wireless, SBC Communications, Verizon Communications, Nextel Communications, Cingular Wireless, Sprint, Samsung and Ericsson are the accused by these denunciations. Operators and manufacturers insist that scientific study does not exist that demonstrates that the use of the mobile phones causes cancer. In March 2003, the five cases were not admitted to proceeding with the argument the denunciations entered conflict with the attempt of the Senate to define standards of security for the mobile telephony. The denouncers appealed before this decision until the court of appeals yesterday decided to send four of the cases to the courts where they originated and returned fifth to the judge who rejected the denunciations in 2003. The defenders of the denounced companies have insisted that any scientific study does not exist that demonstrates that the use of mobile telephones causes cancer. “The industry will fight with nails and teethes', assured of the lawyers who thinks no of the cases will arrive to be accepted to be put under a jury. The great preoccupation of the affected companies is that this precedent is translated in a new wave of civil demands in the style of the denunciations so common in the U.S.A., where somebody can superficially take to the courts an office companion to him to have thrown a cup of hot coffee. The denouncers are represented by Ken Starr, one of the independent advisors who investigated the bad actions of ex- president Clinton. But no, neither denounced nor denouncers, have wanted to comment out previous the judicial struggle. For those who have more memory, this situation remembers to the first confrontations against the industry of the tobacco. Also one questioned the relation between smoking and the appearance of different diseases in the beginning, whereas today the tobacco companies in the U.S.A. are tired to pay millionaire indemnifications. In fact, this sector faces civil denunciation never interposed by the department of Justice of the U.S.A., that requests fines by a total of 280,000 million dollars. In the field of the mobile telephony it is left much to discover. The World-wide Organization of the Health started a study in 1996 to know the effects the electromagnetic fields. With the present knowledge, it is 'little probable that the exhibition to mobile telephones or stations bases favours the appearance of cancers, although clarifies that the situation can vary as soon as the levels of the radio frequency of these apparatuses rise.

Fronts for the controversy: A report for each combined statement of the El Mobile Spanish extreme forces the controversy by the effect of the mobile phones to the health has been strong in Spain in the last three years and means, until the point of which the unfolding of cellular antennas in the country has paralyzed to a great extent. In order as far as possible to palliate the consequences of the social alarm, the four operators of mobile telephone - Telephone Moving bodies, Vodafone, Pleasant and born Xfera - were not united in March of 2002 to undertake a campaign of measurements and spreading of information. The result has been a luck of annual ITV of antennas, in which the operators have measured each one of the stations bases of the country to see if they fulfilled the norm. The successfully obtained data have been to a large extent positive and they have been used to try to tranquilize the population. Tranquillity: Lack of scientific evidences like there are information that prevent the use of the mobile telephone and the electromagnetic emissions, send reassuring messages for the population. Thus it happened in the Seminary on electromagnetic fields, mobile telephony and health, organized by the Spanish Association Against the Cancer in April of 2004, where the information of the World-wide Organization of the Health and the Committee of Experts of the Ministry of Health were studied. The conclusion arrived is that great parts of the population associates mobile telephony with injurious effects for the health, but that, in spite of it, 'does not exist scientific evidences that demonstrate relation' between this technology ' and cancer'. The seminary also stated that in Spain the levels of emission recommended by Europe in 1999 and gathered in a real decree of 2001 'suitably protect the population of the effects produced by the emissions of the telephony mobil'. Precaution: Taken care for the security of the boy the mobile telephony has been the subject of multitude of information on his effects in the health, as much to favour as in against. One of most recent has reopened the debate on the convenience of leaving young minors of eight years use this technology. The report is from William Stewart, member of the National Council of Radiological safety of the United Kingdom, and it clear requests to the parents that they do not let use mobile phones in any case the minors of eight years. The study insists there are still there no tests that the cellular telephony is injurious, but Stewart has added that several information have bought serious concern on it. For that reason, he alerts on the greater risk than the children run and advises not to put antennas near schools. Credibility: To the search of state organism the Spanish operators of mobile telephone have done all the possible to convince the population that the antennas and the terminals are not dangerous. They have made measurements and they spread all the information on the effects on the health - the positives that arrive at their hands. Nevertheless, they are conscious that their credibility is in jeopardize because they are the part more interested to lower the alarm and the installation of the greater possible number of antennas is allowed. For that reason, Telephone Moving bodies, Vodafone and Amena have begun to demand the creation of a governmental authority that is the one that pronounces when there is an controversial case and whose verdict, given its independence and entailment to the Government, cannot be questioned. It would be something similar to the Agency of Nourishing Security, that guards the conditions of foods and, in necessary case, retires those that are injurious. The operators consider that this new organism would have to depend on the Ministry of Health.

Translation Spanish-English: omega


Informant:

AVECORN
Asociación de Vecinos Contra Radiaciones Nocivas de L'Escala (Girona)


LA FÓRMULA DEL DOLOR: ANTENAS Y CÁNCER
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/formuladolor.doc

Cancer Clusters in Vicinity to Cell-Phone Transmitter Stations
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580224/

Brains and mobile phones
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1888981/

Ein amerikanisches Berufungsgericht hat nun fünf Verfahren gegen Motorola Inc., Nokia und mehr als zwanzig andere Mobiltelefongesellschaften wieder aufgenommen, in denen behauptet wird, dass die Strahlung der Mobiltelefone gesundheitsschädlich sei.

Catherine Blake, Richterin am Bezirksgericht, hatte im März 2003 die fünf Klagen mit der Begründung abgewiesen, die Forderungen widersprächen der Absicht des Kongresses, einheitliche Sicherheitsstandards für Mobiltelefone festzulegen. Blane Michael, Richter am Appellationsgericht, hob Blake's Entscheidung aus verfahrensrechtlichen Gründen auf. Vier Fälle wurden zurück zu den bundesstaatlichen Gerichten verwiesen, von denen sie ursprünglich kamen. Das fünfte Verfahren ging zu Richterin Blake in Baltimore zurück. Das 4. Bezirksgericht (Circuit Court of Appeals) erklärte in der Berufung, dass bei den Prozessen die bundesstaatliche Rechtsprechung nicht vorrangig sei. In den Verfahren heißt es, die Mobiltelefongesellschaften hätten nicht vor den gesundheitlichen Risiken der Geräte gewarnt.

In der Gruppenklage gegen die gesamte Mobilfunkindustrie wurde gefordert, dass die Mobilfunkgesellschaften jedem Nutzer eine Freisprechanlage zur Verfügung stellen, um die Strahlung zu reduzieren.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/
http://www.rcrnews.com/


Aus: FGF-Infoline vom 17.03.2005



Krebshäufung in der Nähe von Mobilfunksendeanlagen
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580235/

MOBILE TELEPHONE CAN CAUSE CANCER
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/590981/

Cell Phone Companies Sued For 'Unsafe Levels Of Radiation'
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/579834/

US federal court decisions involving the Telecommunication Act (TCA) of 1996
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/590946/

Cancer Clusters in Vicinity to Cell-Phone Transmitter Stations
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580224/

Latest Iraq Body Count Number (Based on Verifiable Info):

Minimum: 17085
Maximum: 19457
URL: http://www.iraqbodycount.net
(This number is very conservative, other independent estimates put the Iraqi causalities over 100,000)

Latest US-UK and "Coalition" Forces Causalities (Based on DoD Info):
1600 Killed
11220 Wounded
URL: http://icasualties.org/oif/

The War in Iraq Cost the United States:
$157,667,000,000
URL: http://www.costofwar.com



Artists Make Portraits of U.S. War Dead
By CARL HARTMAN
.c The Associated Press

Faces of the Fallen: http://military.laws.com/

WASHINGTON (AP) - Row after row of photos in a newspaper, each the likeness of a U.S. soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, were the inspiration for an artistic tribute to those who lost their lives in the conflicts.

"Faces of the Fallen,'' 1,327 individual portraits of the dead produced by 200 artists, opens to the public Wednesday at Arlington National Cemetery.

The images, each 6-by-8 inches, are mounted on plain steel rods that reach to near eye level. Each rod includes a label with the soldier's name, hometown and date of death.

Five rows are arranged chronologically by the soldiers' times of death and stretch along a half-circle inside the small museum at the entrance to the Women in Military Service for America Memorial. The number of images does not represent all those killed - that figure now is more than 1,600.

Annette Polan, head of the Corcoran College of Art and Design's painting department, said she was moved to create the memorial after seeing all the photos of dead soldiers displayed in a newspaper. She hopes it can have the same healing effect as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial on the National Mall.

Polan, 60, said she wanted to show that every death is an individual, each with their own hopes and dreams and memories. Artists were encouraged to show their own individuality and that of their subject.

A portrait artist herself who has painted Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Polan did nine of the collection's portraits. She assigned the others to artists she knew, either personally or through their work.

The artists worked mostly from newspaper and Internet photos, and some sent by families of the dead.

One particularly poignant portrait was done by John R. Phelps, a Vietnam veteran chosen to design the World War II memorial in Lander, Wyo. He painted his son, Marine Pfc. Clarence Phelps, who died April 9 from head wounds.

The artists, who donated their time and paid for all the materials, plan to give the portraits to the families when the exhibit is over, Polan said.

A large portion of the portraits were done conventionally, in color on canvas, but in other cases artists experimented with the images.

"As you view the image of your loved one, please bear in mind that each artist's hand and way of seeing is different from another's, just as each of our fingerprints are unique,'' Polan said in a Web site note to families. "All the artists have worked respectfully and from their hearts.''

Jason Zimmerman, a Washington artist, said he took a photo, inserted it in a computer imaging program. manipulated it "to make a ghostly kind of image'' and printed it on a heavy cotton fabric by ink-jet process.

Another artist molded low-relief images in clay. Another did scratch board drawings. Another did not portray faces at all, just flowers. The dead for whom no portraits could be made, for lack of photos or other reasons, are represented by generic black-and-white silhouettes.

The portraits will be on view at the memorial through Sept. 5. Admission is free. A Tuesday evening reception was planned for artists to meet family members of those they memorialized.

03/22/05 02:06 EST


Useful Links:

February 2005 Peace Zine
Special Counter Recruitment Issue
The Monthly Newsletter from Peace No War Network
URL: http://www.peacenowar.net/PeaceZine/Feb05.pdf

Photos of U.S. Military Torture in Abu Ghraib Prison
http://www.peacenowar.net/Iraq/News/April%2004-Photos/Abu%20Ghraib.htm

Los Angeles Times has a complete biographical Information on U.S. Soldiers Killed:
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/external/fmmac2.mm.ap.org/war2/adv_search.php?SITE=CALOS&SECTION=MIDEAST

For more photos and Videos from Iraq, visit:

"Report from Baghdad" July, 2003
http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html



Peace, No War
War is not the answer, for only love can conquer hate
Not in our Name! And another world is possible!

Information for antiwar movements, news across the World, please visit: http://www.PeaceNoWar.net

Please Visit the Website: http://www.actionla.org/Iraq/IraqReport/intro.html


Informant: SIUHIN

Life itself is at stake...

To listen to a talk by Prof. Ulansey on the current mass extinction crisis, click on the link http://www.well.com/user/davidu/greenfestival.html

The talk, which lasts about 45 minutes, was presented on November 6, 2004 to an audience of several hundred people at the San Francisco Green Festival, a large gathering of environmentalists and supporters.

Note: there is a 10-second silence about 3 minutes into the talk when Prof. Ulansey was working on getting the video projection from his computer to function properly.

Also, in his talk Prof. Ulansey mentions the name "Scott Peterson" several times. Some listeners, especially outside the United States, may not know who that is. He is a man who has been the object of a "media frenzy" in the United States for the past year. He was on trial for murdering his wife (like O.J. Simpson), and the story has been given endless coverage by the U.S. media while they have ignored completely the imminent mass extinction.

Listen to Audio at:
http://www.well.com/user/davidu/ulansey11-6-04.m3u


Informant: Friends

by Danny Schechter

Common Dreams

03/21/05

Not surprisingly, the absence of members of the political elite in the streets was mirrored by the paucity of coverage in the elite press which is not particularly partial to covering grass roots activism. The NY Times focused on one small civil disobedience protest at military recruiting office in Times Square, just down the street from the Times office, a protest at the Times itself may have made real news. There were more Antiwar actions in more cities than ever but that proliferation of protest or the presence of military families seemed to not too newsworthy. A media that routinely plays down the size of all protests in this case seemed to be obsessed with nothing more than their size, as in the protests were 'smaller than ever.' What were they saying?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0321-21.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Roger Ream

Foundation for Economic Education

Personal freedom of choice is an important aspect of the case for limited government. To the extent that responsibility for self is surrendered to or usurped by government -- to the extent that one loses freedom of choice -- the individual is thereby diminished. The freedom to choose is part of the very essence of man. An assault on the peaceful exercise of free choice has been the consequence of most government programs. Whether advocated by conservatives, present-day liberals, or doctrinaire Marxists, all government activity rests on the power to coerce. It removes decision-making power from the individual and vests it in the hands of the state. This is an awesome power, best left in the hands of the many, acting voluntarily, than concentrated in the hands of those few who would compel obedience. (1981; reposted on 03/21/05)

http://www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=936

by John Conyers, Jr.

TruthOut

03/21/05

There is only one principle at stake here -- manipulating the court system to achieve pre-determined substantive outcomes. By passing this law, it should be obvious to all that we are no longer a nation of laws, but have been reduced to a nation of men. By passing this law, we will be telling our friends abroad that even though we expect them to live by the rule of law, Congress can ignore it when it doesn't suit our needs. By passing this law we diminish our nation as a democracy and ourselves as legislators...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/032105Z.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Michael Tomasky

The American Prospect

03/21/05

The first wave of protest against President Bush?s nomination of John Bolton to be his ambassador to the United Nations centered, plausibly enough, on Bolton's international track record, and specifically on his long history of bellicose commentary about the world body. But there's a domestic Bolton, too. While the international Bolton gives cause for concern, the real problem is the domestic Bolton, and Democrats and moderate Republicans on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who have reservations about the nomination should be looking at the domestic Bolton's background, because it suggests not mere rhetorical bellicosity but possible sleaze. To cut to the chase: Did Bolton play any role in helping to conceal a foreign campaign contribution channeled to the Republican National Committee that may have helped the RNC prevail in the 1994 congressional elections?

http://www.prospect.org/web/view-web.ww?id=9369


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by John Samples and Chris Edwards

Cato Institute

03/22/05

As the 109th Congress settles into its normal rhythms, Republican leaders face crucial decisions on the policy direction of their party. After 10 years in power, the exact things that Republicans said were wrong with prior Congresses have become worse under their control. The GOP is responsible for record high deficits and their policies have intruded even more into state, local, and private activities. Now many Republicans are saying that even the limited spending restraints in the new Bush budget are dead on arrival. The reformist spirit of 1994 has been lost on many careerist GOP politicians who have burrowed into the Washington power structure and now resist change. The GOP's Contract with America promised the 'end of government that is too big, too intrusive, and too easy with the public's money.' But such sentiments sound quaint after the 31 percent increase in federal spending during the past four years...

http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3714


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Walter E. Williams

LewRockwell.Com

03/22/05

In 1831, long before the War between the States, South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun said, 'Stripped of all its covering, the naked question is, whether ours is a federal or consolidated government; a constitutional or absolute one; a government resting solidly on the basis of the sovereignty of the States, or on the unrestrained will of a majority; a form of government, as in all other unlimited ones, in which injustice, violence, and force must ultimately prevail.' The War between the States answered that question and produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/w-williams1.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Pat Buchanan

The American Conservative

If Bush believes he and we are popular in the Islamic world, why has he not scheduled a grand tour of Rabat, Cairo, Beirut, Amman, Riyadh, and Islamabad to rally the masses to America's side, rather than preaching democracy at them from the White House? If one-man, one-vote democracy came suddenly to the Arab world, every pro-American ruler in the region would be at risk of being swept away. Yet there is a larger issue here than misreading the Arab mind. Whence comes this democracy-worship, this belief by President Bush that 'the voice of the people ought to be determining policy?' Would Bush himself let a poll of Americans decide how long we keep troops in Iraq? Would he submit his immigration policy to popular vote? (for publication 03/28/05)

http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_28/buchanan.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

by Fred Foldvary

The Free Liberal

03/22/05

A non-economist with no experience in economic development, who has not been brainwashed by dysfunctional conventions, may be just what is needed. Of course the best option would be to appoint a geoclassical economist, but that is beyond the bounds of imagination. Second best is a World Bank wolf whose wits are not spoiled by bad doctrines.

Wolfowitz did say that the oil of Iraq is the property of the Iraqi people. Will he generalize that to all natural resources, and will he recognize the corollary, that a worker's labor is not the property of all the people? Wolfowitz also declared that the best policy is freedom. We will see what he means by that. As to bringing a war wolf into economic development, what opponents of war are overlooking is that this appointment gets him out of the Pentagon! What is worse: messing up some third-world economies, or engaging in war?

http://www.freeliberal.com/archives/000899.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

UK: The end for GM crops

Independent [UK]

03/22/05

Yet another nail was hammered into the coffin of the Genetically Modified food industry in Britain yesterday when the final trial of a four-year series of experiments found, once more, that genetically modified crops can be harmful to wildlife. The study was the fourth in a series that has, in effect, sealed the fate of GM in the UK -- at least in the foreseeable future. They showed the ultra-powerful weedkillers that the crops are engineered to tolerate would bring about further damage to a countryside already devastated by intensive farming...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=622479


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Uniontown Herald Standard

03/22/05

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops announced a new campaign against the death penalty Monday, saying they will step up lobbying and educational efforts, and buttressing their arguments with polls they commissioned that find support for executions has weakened among American parishioners. 'We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life,' Cardinal Theodore McCarrick told a Washington news conference. ... The bishops also released surveys from last November and this month showing adult church members, once supportive of the death penalty, are now evenly divided on the issue...

http://tinyurl.com/54scm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Continuation of the medical investigation with Saint-Cyr military school the School Administrator, 22/03/2005 - 00:22:08 Date of publication 21/03/2005

Town hall Author of Saint-Cyr military school the School Description Antenna-relay Continuation of the medical investigation with Saint-Cyr-l' School

Joined together on last 16 February, the Town council unanimously requires the continuation of the medical investigation of the Institute main road of Medical Day before (InVS), carried out following the business of the antenna-relays.

January 27, 2005, were presented in Prefecture of Yvelines, the results of the survey into the medical signal carried out since December 2002 by the Departmental Management of the Medical and Social Businesses of Yvelines (DDASS78), with the assistance of the Interregional Cell of Epidemiology (WAX) of Island-of-France. This study was carried out following the description, by the Mayor of Saint-Cyr military school, of the complaints of associations of parents of pupils and defenders of the framework of life of the district of Gold Ear, about the abnormally high and worrying number of pathologies having been concerned near the installations mobile radiotelefony being then on the roof the primary school Ernest Bizet. This investigation drew aside upon the departure, the assumption of a possible relation between the exposure to the mobile antenna-relay of telephony and pathologies raised.

It has in particular noted: - the existence of a number of cancers of all types assigning the children from 0 to 14 years in the commune of Saint-Cyr military school over the period of January 1, 1990 to 31 December 2002 twice higher compared to the number of awaited cases (11 cases observed instead of 5 to 6 awaited) and of four times higher for the tumours of the central nervous system (5 cases 1 to 2 awaited against), - the absence of an environmental exposure on the commune being able to be at the origin of these paediatric cancers. The analysis of the data thus noted leads to conclude that these pathologies result from the only chance or are "compatible with the usual fluctuations of sampling". On the basis of this report, the recommendation suggested at the end of this investigation is not to continue the investigations.

Joined together during the meeting on last 16 February, the Town council of Saint-Cyr-l' School considered not easily acceptable the conclusions of this study and by an unanimously adopted deliberation, asked expressly the Authorities and in particular the Directorate-General of Health and InVS: - continuation of the investigations, engaged by the DDASS78 in collaboration with WAX of Island-of-France, to determine the causes of the existence of a number of case of cancers of all types assigning the children from 0 to 14 years in the commune of Saint-Cyr military school over the period of January 1, 1990 to December 31, 2002, - that the assumption of a relation between the exposure to the antenna-relays of mobile telephony and the pathologies raised on the children from 0 to 14 years with Saint-Cyr military school lasting the period referred to above, and beyond this one, if necessary, is actually taken into account and is studied in an objective way to determine the proven existence or not of that within the framework of the continuation of the investigations referred to above, a pilot case study is carried out starting from an exhaustive and anonymous census carried out near the population, with the assistance logistic of the town hall, in order to determine the causes of excesses of cases mentioned above.

Contact: 01 30 14 82 51.

http://www.mayeticvillage.fr/QuickPlace/antennes-relais/Main.nsf/8A6555B4311F2976C1256C7F008280FB/F0385349DC01D153C1256FCB00804434/?OpenDocument


Informant: Sylvie


Cancer Clusters in Vicinity to Cell-Phone Transmitter Stations
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/580224/

As the Senate prepares to consider a Bush administration energy bill that would increase America’s reliance on foreign oil by 85 percent, veterans from Pennsylvania will join with environmental advocates and security experts to call on Senator Specter to champion a secure energy future by reducing America’s reliance on oil.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3019

Kassette, SMS, E-Mail, Digicam: Die Kölner Tagung "Camcorder Revolution" erkundet den Nutzen digitaler Medien für die politische Gegenöffentlichkeit. Artikel von Silvia Hallensleben im Tagesspiegel vom 08.03.2005
http://archiv.tagesspiegel.de/archiv/08.03.2005/1688095.asp

Aus dem Text: "…So holen sich mittlerweile viele, die offiziellen Kanälen nicht mehr trauen, ihre Informationen selbst von alternativen Medienportalen wie labournet.de oder indymedia.org, deren Öffentlichkeitsmodelle auf unmittelbare Partizipation zielen. In den Gremien der globalen Ordnungsinstanzen wird allerdings mittlerweile hochtourig an Regulatorien gearbeitet, um auch diesen unkontrollierten Sektor zu kanalisieren…."


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

Artikel von Winfried Wolf (pdf)

http://www.labournet.de/krieg/zgk_20.pdf


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

Treffen der bundesweiten Koordinierungsgruppe der Montagsdemonstrationsbewegung in Bad Emstal. Pressemitteilung zum Arbeitstreffen am 05/06.03.2005 vom 16.03.2005:

http://www.bundesweite-montagsdemo.com/00000095b60c90e01/1f023d961b1233a02/index.html


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

"Für 10 €-Jobs, 10 € Mindestlohn und ebenso ein entsprechendes Grundeinkommen! Zusätzlich als Sofortmaßnahme: 300 €-Alg II-Aufstockung"

Rahmenpapier der Arbeitsgruppe I des 5. bundesweiten Treffens der Sozialbündnisse, Organisatoren der Montagsdemonstrationen, Organisationen der sozialen Bewegung und von Vertretern der Gewerkschaften (pdf)
http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/nsb_bt5rp.pdf

Aus dem Text: "Das Programm und die Aktionen in Kürze: 10-€-Jobs ohne Zwangscharakter, Grundeinkommen und Mindestlohn in gleicher Höhe sowie eine sofortige Alg II-Aufstockung um 230 € sind die Positivziele unserer Protestbewegung. Wir wollen sie durch 1-€-Job-Kampagne, Boykottaktionen bei "Lidl" für menschenrechtliche Arbeitsbedingungen und Demonstrationen unter dem Motto "Sich selbst eine Arbeit geben" flankieren."


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

Protokoll des 5. bundesweiten Treffens von Vertretern der Sozialbündnisse, Organisatoren der Montagsdemonstrationen, Organisationen der sozialen Bewegung und der Gewerkschaften am 12. März 2005 in Göttingen.

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/nsb_bt5.pdf


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

Sozialpolitische Aktionen und Proteste 2005 > Euromayday 2005

euromayday call from the networkers of europe united for a eurowide mayday
http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/euromayday05e.html

Euromayday 2005 - ein Sonntag für globale Rechte. Der deutschsprachige Aufruf
http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/euromayday05d.html

1. Euromayday in Hamburg - Ein Sonntag für globale Rechte. 1. Mai-Parade: 13 Uhr ab Michel
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/kampagnen/euromayday-hh/de/2005/02/3.shtml

sowie der Hamburger Aufruf als wunderschöne pdf-Datei
http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/euromayday05hh.pdf

"Freedom of Movement - Right to stay!" Europäischer Aktionstag für Bewegungsfreiheit und Bleiberecht am 1./2. April

Für Bewegungsfreiheit und Bleiberecht. Der europaweite Aufruf bei The Caravan
http://carava.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20050305210946955

Aufrufe in anderen Sprachen bei NoLager.org
http://www.nolager.org/more/display.php?id=10

Das Aktionsposter (pdf)
http://carava.net/download/actionday.april2.poster.pdf

Weitere Informationen bei The Caravan
http://thecaravan.org/node/view/249


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13

Sozialpolitische Proteste

Sozialpolitische Aktionen und Proteste 2005 > Aktionstag am 19. März

Zwischen 60.000 und 100.000 Menschen aus ganz Europa beteiligten sich heute allein in Brüssel am europäischen Aktionstag gegen Neoliberalismus, Rassismus und Krieg.

Siehe Bilder von unserem Leser Heribert Hansen (danke!) - dort auch Links zu weiteren Berichten

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/19maerz05_photo.html

siehe dazu auch:

"Gegenwehr die einzige Antwort"

Bei der Mobilisierung zum Aktionstag in Brüssel hat der DGB den Kampf gegen Krieg und Besatzung im Irak unter den Tisch gekehrt. Ein Gespräch mit Bernd Riexinger, Geschäftsführer des ver.di-Bezirks Stuttgart und aktiv im Netzwerk der Gewerkschaftslinken sowie beim bundesweiten Bündnis gegen Sozialkahlschlag, jenem Zusammenschluß von Initiativen und Verbänden, der im November 2003 die erste große Demonstration gegen Sozialabbau organisiert hatte. Interview von Wolfgang Pomrehn in junge Welt vom 18.03.2005
http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/03-18/019.php


LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 23, Eintrag 13