http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3342/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0828-25.htm



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

Mr Bush has never really forgiven secretary general Kofi Annan and other senior UN figures for their failure to support his invasion of Iraq. Although no one disputes that the UN is in need of reform, the American notion of reform looks more like a settling of scores than an attempt to improve its workings.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1557477,00.html


From Information Clearing House

US regime in headlong flight forward towards war with Iran.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10010.htm

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10001.htm



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

President George W. Bush, assailed by sagging poll numbers and criticism from anti-war protesters camped outside his ranch, called on Saturday for Americans to show resolve and brace for additional sacrifice in Iraq.

http://snipurl.com/h9gj


From Information Clearing House

Most people only see car bombs and explosions and American soldiers running frantically to contain “the situation” on a muted television screen, I see it in real life. I actually hear the booms and bangs of insurgent bombs, and the crackling of machine gun fire, and the hysterical shouting of frightened Iraqi civilians.

http://ftssoldier.blogspot.com/2005/08/finding-closure.html


From Information Clearing House

West's well-tried formula for provoking Islamic revolutions.
http://comment.independent.co.uk/letters/article308189.ece


From Information Clearing House

By Christine Rose

She explained to me how she and her husband voted for Bush. She said they were conservative and watched Fox News regularly; however, something touched her in seeing and hearing everyday people from around the world talk about her beloved country as a bully; a hypocrite. Something touched her when faced with the sobering charge of War Crimes and the images of torture at the hands of Americans under orders from the US Government. Something touched her that day that made her think about what she thought she knew.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10008.htm

Highlighting concerns of civil rights groups, a lawsuit challenging the FBI's use of the USA Patriot Act filed by a member of the American Library Association is largely under wraps, the US public forbidden to know its details.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082705Z.shtml

Jules Siegel Reviews Norman Solomon's New Book

Jules Siegel takes a look Norman Solomon's new book, "War Made Easy." Siegel writes: "Norman Solomon demolishes the myth of an independent American press zealously guarding sacred values of free expression."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082705E.shtml

The New York Times comments on state of corporate lobbying in Washington: "There are now so many legions of lobbyists working the rich federal turf that sponsors can hire a different firm to lobby each key member of the major Congressional committees."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082705D.shtml

John Dean writes: "From the moment I heard Robertson's remark, on the radio, I thought of the federal criminal statutes prohibiting such threats. Do they apply? For me, the answer is yes."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082705C.shtml

Although John Bolton failed to win congressional approval, Mr. Bush's recess appointee to the UN has launched headlong into a confrontation with the member states that threatens to alienate even America's staunchest ally, Great Britain.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082705A.shtml

MWM: Here are a good set of summary arguements for destroying the myth of infinite progress under "freetrade" globalism. Roberts provides a more technocratic way of defining "the giant sucking sound".

Paul Craig Roberts: 'Hegemony lost: The American economy is destroying itself' Date: Friday, August 26 @ 08:04:02 EDT Topic: Economic Policy

By Paul Craig Roberts, CounterPunch

The historian who chronicles America's decline will lay the blame on free market ideology.

I say this as a believer in the market. My books and scholarly articles demonstrate the superiority of market systems over government allocative schemes. The problem arises when market economics ceases to be thoughtful and becomes ideological or a dogma.

A good example of the latter is a recent Heritage Foundation study that argues that global outsourcing is the best way to equip the US military with the best technology at least expense. The study brushes away concerns with the erosion of the American manufacturing, science, and engineering knowledge base by asserting that such concerns imply protectionism and that protectionism means the death of innovation.

Protectionism can be problematical for innovation, and the study is correct to point this out. Where the study fails is in ignoring that innovation does not take place in a vacuum. Innovation requires a material base and depends on a strong manufacturing, science and engineering foundation backed by R&D programs.

In an interview with Manufacturing & Technology News (August 8), the study's project leader, Jack Spencer, sees protectionism as the only threat to American innovation, which he otherwise takes for granted:

"Our belief is that subjected to the free market, the United States is still going to produce most things because our comparative advantages are innovation and new technology. If liberated from protectionism, we can compete and that is where we will always emerge as winners."

This belief is simply untrue. As this belief is the basis for the study, the study has done nothing but confirm a preordained belief.

The US has no God-given comparative advantage in innovation and new technology. We were leaders in these fields, because we were leaders in manufacturing.

We were leaders in manufacturing, because Europe and Japan destroyed themselves in wars, and the rest of the world destroyed themselves in various forms of socialism and cronyism.

America's hegemony in manufacturing, science and engineering was the product of historical circumstances. Moreover, it occurred despite American protectionism.

The historical circumstances have changed. The US gave away its scientific and engineering education and its agriculture. It did this partly for idealistic reasons and partly as cold war strategy.

Once socialism collapsed in Asia, US corporations began outsourcing abroad the manufacture of products for US markets. Success with offshore manufacturing has led to offshore outsourcing of research and development and now innovation itself.

As a recent report from the National Research Council recognizes, "product development and technical support follow manufacturing." One consequence for America is the loss of many manufacturing capabilities and "the increasing availability abroad of unique technologies not found in the United States."

This development is taking a huge toll on America's human resources in manufacturing skills, engineering and science. The first American victims were blue collar workers. Millions of them lost their jobs and experienced sharp declines in the quality of their lives. But as research, engineering, design, and innovation followed manufacturing abroad, now it is white collar workers in information technology and university graduates in engineering and physics who are being displaced.

American university enrollments in science and engineering are declining because there are no jobs for graduates. It is pointless to invest money, sweat and toil in an education that has no payoff. Markets do work. Markets are working to shrink the demand for, and supply of, American engineers and scientists.

The next impact is going to be on project manager jobs, practically the sole remaining source of career related employment for many engineers and technical people. Project management jobs require people experienced with the technology of the job. The loss of technical and engineering jobs empties the pipeline of people who have the experience to assume management positions. Far from being able to innovate, the US will even lack the human resources to manage technical and scientific projects.

Many uninformed people believe the problem is that America doesn't produce enough scientists and engineers. Manufacturing & Technology News reports that "a group of 15 US business organizations has launched a national campaign aimed at doubling within 10 years the number of bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics."

What is the point of this when there is a huge supply of unemployed engineers and technical people who have been displaced by offshore outsourcing and by H-1b and L-1 work visas for foreigners? I know an American software engineer in his thirties whose job was outsourced. After searching fruitlessly for a job for four years, he took a job in Thailand writing software programs for $850 per month.

The anecdotal stories are legion. Yesterday, a friend reported to me that the service technician who repaired his garage door opener said his company was flooded with resumes from college graduates and engineers who cannot find work and are willing to take jobs installing garage doors.

US executives, with an eye to quarterly earnings and their bonuses, continue to spend considerable resources lobbying for increases in work visas that enable them to replace their American engineers, scientists, and technical people with lower cost foreigners. These executives lie through their teeth when they assert the lack of qualified Americans for the jobs. The fact of the matter is, the executives force their American employees to train their foreign replacements and then fire their American workers.

In a word, American capitalism is destroying itself by dismantling the ladders of upward mobility that have made large income inequalities acceptable. By rewarding themselves for destroying American jobs and manufacturing, engineering and scientific capabilities, US executives are sowing a whirlwind. American political stability will not survive the turning of an American university degree into a worthless sheet of paper. Libertarians and free market ideologues who rejoice in freedom should open their eyes to freedom's destruction.

Paul Craig Roberts has held a number of academic appointments and has contributed to numerous scholarly publications. He served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. His graduate economics education was at the University of Virginia, the University of California at Berkeley, and Oxford University. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

Reprinted from CounterPunch: http://counterpunch.org/roberts08252005.html


Informant: Michael Mandeville

IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT IF EVERYONE IN THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA DID NOT PURCHASE A DROP OF GASOLINE FOR ONE DAY AND ALL AT THE SAME TIME, THE OIL COMPANIES WOULD CHOKE ON THEIR STOCKPILES.

AT THE SAME TIME IT WOULD HIT THE ENTIRE INDUSTRY WITH A NET LOSS OF OVER 4.6 BILLION DOLLARS WHICH AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINES OF THE OIL COMPANIES.

THEREFORE SEPTEMBER 1st HAS BEEN FORMALLY DECLARED "STICK IT UP THEIR BEHIND " DAY AND THE PEOPLE OF THESE TWO NATIONS SHOULD NOT BUY A SINGLE DROP OF GASOLINE THAT DAY.

THE ONLY WAY THIS CAN BE DONE IS IF YOU FORWARD THIS E-MAIL TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN AND AS QUICKLY AS YOU CAN TO GET THE WORD OUT.

WAITING ON THE GOVERNMENT TO STEP IN AND CONTROL THE PRICES IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. WHAT HAPPENED TO THE REDUCTION AND CONTROL IN PRICES THAT THE ARAB NATIONS PROMISED TWO WEEKS AGO?

REMEMBER ONE THING, NOT ONLY IS THE PRICE OF GASOLINE GOING UP BUT AT THE SAME TIME AIRLINES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES, TRUCKING COMPANIES ARE FORCED TO RAISE THEIR PRICES WHICH EFFECTS PRICES ON EVERYTHING THAT IS SHIPPED. THINGS LIKE FOOD, CLOTHING, BUILDING MATERIALS, MEDICAL SUPPLIES ETC. WHO PAYS IN THE END? WE DO!

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE. IF THEY DON'T GET THE MESSAGE AFTER ONE DAY, WE WILL DO IT AGAIN AND AGAIN.

SO DO YOUR PART AND SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW. MARK YOUR CALENDARS AND MAKE SEPTEMBER 1ST A DAY THAT THE CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA SAY "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH".


Informant: Be Kind Whenever Possible

Disagreement over America's bid to derail UN reform

Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor

Saturday August 27, 2005

The Guardian

Britain will join an international alliance to confront George Bush and salvage as much as possible of an ambitious plan to reshape the United Nations and tackle world poverty next week.

The head-to-head in New York on Monday comes after the revelation that the US administration is proposing wholesale changes to crucial parts of the biggest overhaul of the UN since it was founded more than 50 years ago.

A draft of that plan had included a review of progress on the UN's millennium development goals - poverty eradication targets set in 2000 for completion by 2015 - and the introduction of reforms aimed at repairing the damage done to the UN's reputation by Iraq, Rwanda and the Balkans.

But it was revealed this week that Mr Bush's new ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, was seeking 750 changes to the 36-page draft plan to be presented to a special summit in New York on September 14 to 16. Mr Bolton's amendments, if successful, would leave the plan in tatters.

The Foreign Office confirmed yesterday that Britain was standing behind the original plan, putting it at odds with Mr Bush.

The concern in British and other international circles is that the American objections, if adopted, would severely undermine the UN summit, the biggest-ever gathering of world leaders.

At least 175 world leaders have accepted an invitation to attend. The UN said yesterday that Mr Bush had confirmed that he would be there.

A wide range of organisations, from aid groups to the anti-arms lobby, voiced dismay about Mr Bolton's objections yesterday and expressed concern that the summit may end in failure.

The Make Poverty History campaign said there was a danger that the millennium development goals, the original reason for holding the summit, would be reduced to a footnote.

A source close to the UN secretary-general, Kofi Annan said it was too early to declare the UN plan dead. "Bolton wants to knock down the plan and start from scratch," the source said. "He will find that his opinions are not shared by most of the rest of the world."

The president of the UN general assembly, Jean Ping from the Gambia, has been working on the draft, covering issues of poverty, climate change, genocide, small arms, the creation of a permanent UN peacekeeping capability and reform of the UN management structure, for the past year.

A Foreign Office spokesman said yesterday that the UK and the European Union, of which Britain holds the presidency, "are broadly content with the summit draft. It reflects the ambitious agenda thrown up by Kofi Annan".

The spokesman said it was "important that we do not row back from previous high-level summits", such as the G8 meeting at Gleneagles in July and the UN millennium summit in 2000.

He stressed that a lot of negotiation on the draft still lay ahead. "There is a long way to go before leaders meet in September."

As well as divisions about the agenda, the summit is in danger of being overshadowed by the publication of an internal UN report into the running of the organisation's oil-for-food programme in Iraq from 1996 to 2003, which was beset by scandal and corruption, by Paul Volcker.

UN officials are worried that Mr Volcker's final report, tentatively scheduled for September 6, could severely damage Mr Annan's reputation and raise questions over whether he could continue as secretary-general.

Mr Bolton's comments provoked a negative reaction from many agencies involved in development work.

Martin Kirk, the public affairs adviser of Save the Children, said this year had promised so much for the world's poor, but, "instead of a breakthrough we are now looking at a possible retreat from the millennium development goals by the UN".

Nicola Reindorp, the head of Oxfam International's New York office, said: "We are less than three weeks away from the UN world summit and the next two weeks are crucial in determining the outcome ... If the US and other governments substantially weaken the outcome document, the summit will result in failure."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1557553,00.html

Phil Geiger UBRON


Informant: Martin Greenhut

by Mark Drolette

From Tom Baldwin of Times Online in his August 12, 2005, story on Cindy Sheehan: “In the local [Texas] paper, the McGregor Mirror, there is an open letter to ‘the woman complaining about her son’s death in Iraq’ from Ann Lehman, a Crawford resident. “‘You dishonour the President, yourself and God when you deny your son the freedom in death that he had in life to choose. He knew the risk when he joined the military, just as President Bush knows the risk for his life every day!’ she said.” Well, now. Lehman sounds an awful lot like one of those folks who I fancy like to consider themselves “real Americans”; you know, those plain-talkin’ sumguns and gun-ettes who take pride in telling it like it is, consistently expressing sentiments amazingly similar to those aired by other salt-of-the-earth patriots like, for example, would-be war heroes Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly (who absolutely would have been war heroes had they only served in the military, gone to war, and then done something heroic). Lemming-like, check it, Lehman-like views are currently being voiced by other real Americans, too, who, though the cost of their “Support Our Troops” bumper stickers may fall just a crosshair shy of the price Sheehan has paid, still sure as shootin’ know a war when they hear about one on Fox, by jingo....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Drolette0824-2.htm

by Mark Drolette

Polls show a majority of Americans have had it with George W. Bush and the war. While I’m usually wary of such reports (especially since in the last two American presidential “elections”, exit polls, which for decades were unfailingly accurate, have been so strangely incorrect), I nonetheless think these numbers reflect some truth. If so, there has (finally) been some consciousness-raisin’ goin’ on in our beleaguered, buggered nation, which means, in turn, that as people horrifyingly begin seeing the blood on their hands, America’s collective stress level will continually elevate ever higher....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Drolette0824.htm

by Ted Glick

There is no cause, no issue, no crisis more significant and more immediate than the crisis of global warming. There is a very real prospect that, absent a deep and broad clean energy revolution, we will see within our lifetimes a massive disruption of human society throughout the world -- above and beyond the widespread structural injustice and poverty that already exists -- via floods, major storms, rising sea levels, large-scale refugee movements, droughts, deforestation and a major decline in food production. More and more people in the United States are coming to realize this. Why, then, are the many different actions being taken in the U.S. about this crisis, important as they are, so minimal when compared to the urgency?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Glick0824.htm

by Ken Sanders

It was Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States and a Republican, who famously said in 1918, "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." Put differently, and in modern context, blind, unquestioning faith in President Bush is not only foolish and obsequious, but it is also contrary to the fundamental principles of this country, as set forth in the Constitution. Indeed, those who would merely sit by, without protest or question, while our President sends our armed forces off to kill and die in a nation which did not and could not do us any harm, are more than simply slavish sycophants. Those who refuse to acknowledge, much less criticize, the wrongs committed by this President in the name of the United States, while simultaneously denigrating those who do dare protest, betray this country and the promise it stands for. In short, they are positively un-American. They are traitors....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Sanders0824.htm



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Downing+Street+Memo

by Sheila Samples

Now, it would not be unreasonable for the president of the United States to come out and answer one question from a grief-stricken mother whose child was sacrificed in what Bush so giddily proclaims a "noble" cause. But that's not how this president does things. No one calls the shots for Bush; he does not make mistakes, and he says the great thing about being president is that he doesn't owe anybody an explanation. About anything. Especially about his war, a noble cause which has settled gloriously around his shoulders like a Cicerian ruff. Bush steadfastly refuses to hear the voice of "the people" or to even acknowledge they have a voice at all. The only call Bush hears comes directly from God -- not from the street rabble comprising the cannon fodder required for his legacy, nor from their keening mothers who are beginning to buzz around his head like pesky mosquitoes at a Texas all day singing and dinner on the grounds. Parents shouldn't have to bury their children. Ever. It disrupts the "natural order" of things. Unfortunately, most of the world is in agreement that nobody is better at disrupting order than George W. Bush. Thanks to his callousness and cruelty, the "one-question" meeting with Sheehan that Bush could have resolved in less than an hour while racking up some badly needed positive PR evolved instead into a movement that is gaining both attention and velocity. It is assuming a life of its own, and is sweeping non-stop across the nation. Cindy Sheehan is emboldening Americans awakening to a nightmare of murder, genocide, torture, abuse, assassination, rendition -- lies piled upon grisly lies -- to break through the yellow ribbons encircling the patriotic detention camp their nation has become....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Samples0824.htm



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

by Mike Whitney

Pat Robertson doesn’t have a monopoly on ignorance, he’s just heavily invested in it. Like his ideological twin in the White House, Robertson’s tongue simply outpaces his wit and gets him in trouble from time to time. It’s no big deal. When did it become a crime to be an old man in the grip of senility? Actually we should be grateful to the prattling preacher for summarizing American foreign policy so succinctly. “I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination,” Robertson sheepishly admitted, “but, if he really thinks we are trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it.” Who could argue with that logic? Certainly, no one in the White House where such policies are part of a long tradition.....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Whitney0824-2.htm

by Bill Berkowitz

With the president's poll numbers dropping and anti-Iraq war sentiment rising, the Heritage Foundation is sponsoring an event built around the premise that the anti-war movement is anti-American....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Berkowitz0827.htm

by Ahmed Amr

Thirty years from now, we will get a full account of the White House strategy for dealing with Cindy Sheehan. In the meantime, we are obliged to depend on available fragments of information and our past experience with Karl Rove’s smear machine. So far, we know that the president has altered his vacation plans to cope with a sudden and unexpected outbreak of anti-war fever. As he interrupts his five-week summer siesta to resell the Iraq war, a full-scale smear campaign has been set in motion to discredit the lady from Vacaville. The Rove squads are out in force to change the subject and cast doubt on whether Cindy has the qualifications to argue with the president on the merits of this war of choice. Artful Texan dodgers have been commissioned to paint a canvas portraying a compassionate commander in chief who feels Cindy’s pain but disagrees with her position and her policy recommendations. The desired effect is to convince the public that Sheehan is a distraught uninformed mother of a fallen soldier who needs compassion -- not answers. If things go according to plan, Cindy will be perceived as a weak and vulnerable woman who is being victimized and manipulated by the sinister forces on the extreme left -- a fringe movement that apparently includes every other American. On the other half of Rove’s canvas, the spinmeisters will project a resolute president who wants to ‘stay the course’ and ‘complete the mission’ to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice to “fight the terrorists over there before we are forced to fight them over here.” Bush will throw in a couple of obligatory references to 9/11 insinuating that the invasion of Iraq was a legitimate part of the ‘war on terror’ -- and wrap it up with a bit of fiction about spreading democracy in the Middle East....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Aug05/Amr0827.htm



Cindy Sheehan
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Sheehan

Since everything in our bodies has electrical charges, including the chemical or hormone reactions, would help explain why it can affect us.

Here's a little piece I found the other day from:

Secret Report On Cell Phone Dangers And Tetra
http://www.rense.com/general60/tetra.htm

We being water based animals act like aerials to these waves. As the waves go into our bodies an electric current is generated inside our bodies which is how aerials work; waves come in and electricity is generated. The electricity generated in our bodies like all electric currents goes to ground through our bodies and like all electric currents it takes the path of least resistance. Unfortunately the path of least resistance through our bodies, although only representing 10% of our pathways, carries 90% of our traffic rather like the M1 motorway. The traffic in our bodies, namely hormones, antibodies, neurotransmitters know where they are going because they also carry an electric charge. The hormones, antibodies and neurotransmitters know where to "get off" because there is a corresponding opposite charge at the site of delivery rather like the positive and negative ends of a battery. The problem is if you have an electric current passing through the body it can change this charge, either on the hormones, antibodies or neurotransmitters or the site of delivery.

I can't say entirely for certain on that Dr. Mercola page was it? about what he says on the progesterone getting overloaded in your fat cells. I rather wonder if he is confusing the synthetic progestins with the botanical progesterones. If you use too much, it doesn't take long to figure out, because you get feeling lethargic or sluggish, alhtough not in an ill way. Just lay off it for 2-3 days and the excess is excreted. Been using it for many years, as it is necessary to keep cancer away from me, although it looks like it may be catching up with me now. The synthetic "progesterone" -progestin on the other hand can also cause cancer, liver damage etc.

If I can find the bit about the progesterone and static shocks I'll post it. I know it works from doing it myself and others I've spoken with. Other than the occasional before mentioned symptoms of using too much, I've not in over a decade come across a single person, or read of a single incident of harm from the botanical variety.

~Snoshoe



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Barry+Trower

Dr Grahame Blackwell, an independent consultant on mast health issues, says mobile phone masts pose a serious risk to our health.

Cambridge Evening News 26.08 05

"I am a serious opponent of phone masts on health grounds. There have been six research studies into the potential ill health effects of masts. Every one of those studies has produced evidence of ill health effects.

"Radiation from masts reduces the production of melatonin.

"The significance of that is that melatonin regulates sleep patterns and also scavenges away pre-cancerous cells.

"If melatonin production is reduced the consequences are a disruption of sleep patterns and increased incidents of cancer.

"People living around phone masts are experiencing exactly those symptoms.

"Radiation also weakens the blood-brain barrier. Toxins from the blood system can get into brain cells. In the short term, this causes headaches, dizziness and disorientation. In the long-term, we would expect to see an increase in degenerative diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinsons and Motor Neurone Disease (MND).

"MND is a classic example. We are beginning to see clusters of MND around masts.

"All of those effects happen at levels of radiation that our Government says are safe. There is a big problem here."Dr Grahame Blackwell, an independent consultant on mast health issues, says mobile phone masts pose a serious risk to our health.


From Mast Sanity

Kirkintilloc Today

PHONE company T-Mobile has done a u-turn after residents unanimously rejected plans to install a mast in their street. People in Moodiesburn reacted furiously when they heard that the company was seeking permission to erect a phone mast at the corner of Penzance Way and Stoneyetts Road. However, after discussions with North Lanarkshire Council and representations from MP Tom Clarke and councillor Joe Shaw, the company has withdrawn its application. One relieved resident in Penzance Way said: "This result is a perfect example of how a community can force these large companies to rethink their plans. "Not one person in the area was happy with the proposal and we all voiced our disapproval. "No-one is completely sure about the health issues surrounding these masts, or whether they are responsible for causing ill health among those who live near them. "For once it seems like the voice of the local people has been heard. A spokesperson for T-Mobile said: "Following lengthy discussions, and taking into account the views of the local residents, we feel the proposed site is not the ideal location for a mobile phone mast. "We have withdrawn our application and will be looking for an alternative site."

27 August 2005

The cambridge Evening news 26.08 .05

Inigo Wilson, a spokesman on health and safety for phone giant Orange, says there is no strong evidence masts are harmful.

"The most important point to make is every single phone call made on a mobile phone is relayed via a mast.

"Unless the mast is close to the person making the call they don't work. There isn't a halfway house or an alternative means of making mobile phones work, that is how a phone call is connected to the network and people have to understand that if they want mobile phones then they have to have these masts.

"There is no convincing evidence phone masts cause any harm to human health - that is the consensus among scientists. People have written books and done academic studies on this subject.

"This story has a lot in common with a number of modern health issues. It is a subject that affects so many people and the media tends to flag up research into it before that research has been finished and reached any concrete conclusions. But they don't go back later and look at the actual results of the research.

"This is a relatively unfamiliar type of technology. I imagine public concerns will abate when this technology has been around for a while and people have found it is not dangerous."

--------

Very telling that Orange does not say, "there is no evidence that masts harm health". It seems like a veiled admission that there is evidence against masts - BUT in their limited opinion "no strong evidence" - interesting turn of phrase - very "spin".

In the Orange mast fight here in Otterton, over a period of at least 4 years, I have sent Orange shed loads of evidence including the Wolfe report and I will be writing again sending the Naila Report when I get time later this week. Obviously, I have never had a sensible response to my letters or any communication that shows they have read any of the information sent them. Orange are still "parroting" what they said 5 years ago which shows just how -out-of-date and out-of-touch they are!

Regards

Jane

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff08272005.html


Informant: Steven L. Robinson

From ufpj-news

Arianna Huffington
08.26.2005
The Huffington Post

So the verdict seems to be in: John Bolton’s charm offensive is proving every bit as effective at the U.N. as it was with the Senate, which President Bush had to bypass to install him as ambassador.

As the London Independent put it: Any hopes that John Bolton, the new US ambassador to the United Nations, would have been chastened by the way he was elevated to his position have been dashed by the emergence of a leaked document detailing his negotiating demands for next month's UN summit.

No wonder that the leaked 38-page document gutting so many proposed reforms has been causing great turmoil at the State Department. As Steve Clemons asked: Condi -- When does the "supervision" promised to Senators Voinovich, Hagel, and Chafee begin?

Virtually every change made in the reform document seemed designed to undermine important goals. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/bymcc


© Virginia Metze

by Mark Green
The Huffington Post
08.26.2005

We owe Pat Robertson and Ann Coulter a big thank you. These two American mullahs of the far (f)right are helping to expose how The Bush Team is in the extreme and we who question this war – most prominently Cindy Sheehan – are in the mainstream.

By now Ann Coulter should have reached a tipping point where serious journalists would stop treating her antics and comments seriously. [...] Read the rest at The Huffington Post: http://tinyurl.com/9ycgk


© Virginia Metze

By: Jack Dalton 8-26-05
Jack's Straight-Speak web site

No longer should there be any doubt as to the direction the Bush/Cheney cabal is leading this nation, or the methodologies they are employing to push their neo-con (actually neo-liberal) agenda upon us the unwilling to mindlessly follow and who stand in opposition to what they are doing. Coercion, intimidation, character assassination, extortion—all of the methodologies of a good upstanding crime family.

While preaching about spreading “freedom and democracy” they have turned our own on its head. There are people within the Bush/Cheney cabal who have articulated the need for a limited dictatorship to preserve our “freedoms” and to make us “safe and secure” from all those dirty “terrorists.” That was stated recently by none other than Michael Ledeen as well as Charles Krauthammer both of whom subscribe to the prevailing Leo Strauss ideology: only the “elite” can rule and that to maintain their power over people they must at times lie their a... off. [...] I wonder what my grandmother would have said about that? Sometimes I wonder if about a third or more of the population believes that a lie is the same as the truth ... "it made the point, didn't it?" Read the rest of his article at http://tinyurl.com/9lw3p


© Virginia Metze

Current 40% approval is lowest of administration to date
http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/default.aspx?ci=18148

Results of AP-Ipsos poll on attitudes about Iraq
Associated Press
August 26, 2005

The Associated Press-Ipsos poll on public attitudes about the war in Iraq is based on telephone interviews with 1,001 adults from all states except Alaska and Hawaii. The interviews were conducted Aug. 22-24 by Ipsos, an international polling firm.

Results were weighted to represent the population by demographic factors such as age, sex, region, race and income. [...] Check out the results that Bush won't want to see at the Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/stories/587/5580679.html


© Virginia Metze

Iran-Contra Among Topics of Reagan-Era Papers

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 25, 2005; Page A03

After the release of about 60,000 documents detailing the work of Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr., Democratic senators are setting their sights on what was not in the huge cache of papers: more than 2,100 memos and letters that have been withheld by government archivists working in concert with the Bush White House.

The subjects of the Reagan-era documents have been released, but their contents for now have been withheld. Those topics are, Democrats say, at a minimum intriguing: Roberts commenting on presidential pardons, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and aspects of what would become known as the Iran-contra scandal. One of the still-secret memos is from the young White House lawyer to then-Reagan aide Patrick J. Buchanan in March 1986. The topic: aid to Nicaraguans fighting the leftist Sandinista government. [...] Read the rest at the Washington Post: http://tinyurl.com/7ujao It is also reprinted on TruthOut web site: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082505Z.shtml


© Virginia Metze

David Frum's Diary, National Review

I've added a new selection of reader mail below. Just to give some feeling for the overall tide of NRO reader opinion: Since my post on the president's VFW address went up early Tuesday morning, I've been flooded with almost 200 emails - all but five of them sharing my concerns.

I know well how beleaguered a White House can feel in tough times. I know that they look to their friends in places like NRO for support, not criticism - and I know that the people who bear the responsibility must contend with a wide range of difficulties often unimagined by those who do not bear the responsibility.

But all that acknowledged: This war and this war president are in real political trouble - and the administration is responding with deadly dangerous passivity. It's not the administration's critics who are delivering this warning. It's the administration's strongest supporters. Don't believe me. Believe the emails below. [...] Read it at: http://tinyurl.com/98oqn

Scroll down a bit to get to the Lost Opportunity column. Very well done. I read that this man was a speech writer for Bush! Maybe more of the "old time Republicans" will stand straight.


© Virginia Metze

Indonesien ist mit einem Marktanteil von 23 Prozent neben Brasilien das wichtigste Herkunftsland für Direktimporte von Tropenhölzern nach Deutschland. Zusätzlich gelangen größere Mengen indonesischen Holzes über Transitländer wie China, Malaysia oder Italien auf den deutschen Markt. Dabei kommen drei Viertel der in den indonesischen Export gehenden Hölzer und Holzprodukte aus illegalen Quellen. Dies ist das Ergebnis der heute vom WWF vorgestellten Studie "Heiße Ware Tropenholz".

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/6764.php

Britische und russische Forscher sind sich sicher: die gesamte subarktische Region Westsibiriens taut. Wo früher Eis war, bilden sich neue Seen.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/6795.php

Die Flutkatastrophe in Süddeutschland entspricht genau den Szenarien des Klimawandels, die Wissenschaftler voraussagen. Greenpeace sieht darin einen weiteren Beleg dafür, dass der Klimawandel schon begonnen hat. Hitzewellen in Südeuropa und sintflutartige, tagelange Regenfälle im Alpenraum sind die Wetterextreme, die bei steigendem Ausstoß von Kohlendioxid drohen.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/6794.php

Der Flugverkehr als klimaschädlichster Massenverkehrsträger weist hohe Wachstumsraten auf und ist, was die internationalen Flüge angeht, von jeglicher Emissionsbeschränkung entbunden. Für wirksame Maßnahmen auf europäischer Ebene erhält die EU-Kommission nun Rückendeckung aus der Zivilgesellschaft.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Akt-News/6796.php

Der deutschen Wirtschaft geht es so gut wie seit Jahren nicht mehr (!), titelt das weltweit bedeutendste Wirtschaftsblatt Economist – trotz oder gerade wegen der großen Schritte auf dem Weg zu einer Energiewende? Warum lassen wir uns einreden, dass in Deutschland weitere tiefe Einschnitte in das soziale Netz und die ökologische Sicherheit erfolgen müssen? Wieso setzen wir uns nicht mehrheitlich dafür ein, dass der Weg ausgewogener sozialer und ökologischer Reformen weiter gehen kann? Gastkommentar von Fabio Longo.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/fp/archiv/Art-Zukunft/6785.php