http://www.registerguard.com/news/2005/09/15/ed.edit.nukes.0915.p1.php?section=opinion


Informant: kev Hall

Chip Ward tells us that the Bush administration's environmental record is lousy. More than lousy, it is potentially disastrous. But why? At first glance, it's easy enough to understand. Philosophically, Republicans believe in the power of the marketplace to shape behavior. Their animosity toward government regulation is long-standing. They emphasize the rights of private-property owners over any notion of the commons, and so are comfortable letting corporations pursue profit at the expense of air or water quality.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091605N.shtml

Hurricane Katrina struck at the core of Bush's presidency by undermining the central assertion of his reelection campaign, that he was a strong and decisive leader who could keep the country safe in a crisis. Never again will the White House be able to point to his often-praised performance after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, without skeptics recalling the fumbling and slow-off-the-mark response of his administration after the hurricane and the flooding in New Orleans.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091605J.shtml

http://www.guardian.co.uk/katrina/story/0,16441,1571591,00.html


Informant: NHNE

http://www.counterpunch.org/boyle09162005.html



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

Interesting…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/9/15/225456/509

Eine Geschichte von Unterschlagung und Betrug
http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20947/1.html

Pentagon und 9/11-Commission streiten weiter ab, dass die Geheimdiensteinheit "Able Danger" schon Anfang 2000 Mohammed Atta identifiziert hatte, nächste Woche findet im Senat dazu eine Anhörung statt.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20953/1.html Pentagon und

For the past four years, the Republicans have been able to implement their vision without checks or balance. And time and time again, they have led this country with misguided priorities and have failed to put American families first.

House Democrats offer an agenda for the country that puts America's families first. Democrats are focused on increasing access to affordable health care, bringing down the costs of prescription drugs, improving our economy and creating jobs, and keeping our promises to our troops and veterans.

Today, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is launching the Campaign for Change, a joint effort by the DCCC and Americans like you, to bring about a new vision and new direction for our country. The DCCC has already started with hard-hitting campaign ads and accelerated candidate recruitment. But we must build the most crucial resource of any campaign: committed Americans who will stand with us in this national Democratic movement.

Join our Campaign for Change; Pledge Today.
http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=F02894:4092A66

The change our country needs can only happen with the 2006 elections.

That is why I have personally committed to Nancy Pelosi to recruit 50,000 Americans to join our Campaign for Change. With you, we can effect the great change that is needed in America today. The DCCC will provide you with opportunities for you to make a difference, give us your input and ideas, along with the resources to organize Democrats in your community. Together, we will develop the movement to restore balance and accountability to the government of the greatest democracy in the world. We need to build a nationwide network of Americans as the foundation of our campaign.

Take the first step: Join our Campaign for Change; Pledge Today.
http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=F02894:4092A66

Americans don't just want change, they are desperate for it. Republicans continue to dangerously mismanage key issues. Look at the condition of America today - health premiums are up, gas prices are soaring, prescription costs are skyrocketing, the deficit is climbing, and the body count continues to grow in Iraq. We need to mobilize because the Republicans' misguided agenda is not solving any of these problems. The only thing the Republican agenda is doing is robbing people of their dignity and their hope for building a better life for their family.

We all understand the risk of continued Republican leadership and their dangerous policies; we as Democrats must do something about it.

Join our Campaign for Change; Pledge Today.
http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=F02894:4092A66

The DCCC has already started. We have had two initial quarters of record-breaking fundraising numbers, recruited and trained more than 40 top-tier candidates and kept congressional Republicans on the defensive on every issue. We have more open seats in play for 2006, higher approval ratings, and a national campaign to return this country to the American people. The tide is turning in our favor. But we need you to stand with us.

Join our Campaign for Change; Pledge Today.
http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=F02894:4092A66

With active and hardworking Democrats on the ground across the country, we know we can succeed. We can change the direction of our country and make Congress the People's House again. We cannot change the past, but we can change our future. That is why the DCCC launched the Campaign for Change, and why we need you to join us. Thank you in advance for your commitment.

Sincerely,

Rep. Rahm Emanuel
Chairman, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

PS: Putting America back on a path towards progress will be a difficult task, and we all must start now. Join our Campaign for Change; Pledge Today. http://whatcounts.com/t?ctl=F02894:4092A66


Spread the Word -- Send this to 5 friends:

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Message:

On September 24, people around the world will demonstrate against the war in Iraq, with thousands marching on Washington to a rally headlined by Cindy Sheehan.

Our new interviews with Phyllis Bennis, Phil Donahue, Amy Goodman and Danny Schecter explore the media's role in selling and covering the war in Iraq. http://www.iwtnews.com/videoindex

Let us know what you think. And please help us build a better network by forwarding this message to friends, or use our online "tell a friend" page here: http://www.iwtnews.com/invite

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

Paul Jay, Chair
Independent World Television

IWTnews HIGHLIGHTS

NEW INTERVIEWS WITH PHYLLIS BENNIS, PHIL DONAHUE, AMY GOODMAN and DANNY SCHECHTER

Phyllis Bennis: "The polls indicate Iraqis in large numbers are against the US troop presence, even now. But we're not seeing that on television."

http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/phyllis_bennis

Phil Donahue: "I think the idea of creating a television news source that is not beholden to corporate interests is Nirvana."

http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/phil_donahue

Amy Goodman: "Not finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq exposed more than the Bush administration. It exposed a media that acted as a conveyor belt for the lies of the Bush administration."

http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/amy_goodman

Danny Schecter: "This administration has been particularly determined to control information. They have a strategy called information dominance, which drives the Pentagon info war."

http://www.iwtnews.com/videoplayer/danny_schechter

HAS AMERICA "BID FAREWELL TO THE RULE OF LAW?"
India's Siddharth Varadarajan on the U.S. Government's power to indefinitely incarcerate people -- including U.S. citizens -- without charge: "the final levee has given way."

http://www.iwtnews.com/rule_of_law

KATRINA'S REAL POLITICAL AND MEDIA AFTERMATH
A provocative IWTnews interview with Mark Lloyd from the Center for American Progress: "This is not simply incompetence; this is criminal neglect across the board."

http://www.iwtnews.com/Mark_Lloyd_on_Katrina

by Peter Kurth

Did it really take “Katrina” (or “Corina,” as Bush’s clueless wife, Laura, kept calling it until they stopped her) to demonstrate the utter bankruptcy of the Bush enterprise? And if it did -- why? Why did it take something like this, when the evidence was already plain for everyone to see, in every area and every direction of our national life?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Kurth0914.htm

by Bill Berkowitz

Will the Administration's shameful abandonment of New Orleans's African Americans torpedo its carefully calibrated campaign to woo black voters?

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Berkowitz0916.htm

Scratching Deeper than the Smile and the Judicial Veneer

by Zbignew Zingh

For the most part, the Senate Judiciary Committee's inquiry into John Roberts' nomination to the Supreme Court is just window dressing. His nomination was assured in November 2004 -- as were the next three nominations to the Supreme Court -- when the Republicans gained hegemony in the executive and legislative branches of the government. Notwithstanding all our angst about who we believe should and should not be appointed to the Supreme Court, the reality is that George Bush and his Republican majority in the Senate will appoint anyone they like for a lifetime tenure on the federal bench. Unless photographs appear showing Mr. Roberts in bed with a live boy or a dead girl, or unless the Democrats are willing to finally play their filibuster card (and the odds are 10,000 to 1 that they will not), there is simply no way for the minority party to prevent these judicial appoints. If you think that John Roberts is bad, he will soon have more bad company. As the left exhausts itself in vetting and opposing his nomination, it will wear itself out for the time when Mr. Bush gets around to nominating the ultra extreme right-wing ogres to the judiciary. However, this next batch of judicial nominees also will take their cue from John Roberts. They will be ciphers about how they might rule and they will cloak themselves in ambiguous judicial platitudes....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Zingh0916.htm

Hired to Collect Deceased Victims of Hurricane Katrina

by Jason Leopold

A funeral services company which recently learned that one of its subsidiaries is negotiating a lucrative contract with the Federal Emergency Management Agency to remove dead bodies in areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, paid $100 million to settle a class-action lawsuit several years ago alleging the company desecrated thousands of corpses and dumped bodies into mass graves. Moreover, the company paid $200,000 to settle a whistleblower lawsuit that sought to expose that two members of the Texas funeral commission, the agency which regulates the funeral industry, were actually employees of the company they were supposed to monitor -- an obvious conflict-of-interest....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Sept05/Leopold0916.htm

From Catherine

Medcross Group
http://www.cogreslab.co.uk/china.asp

Very important to pass this on.

As Colin worked in China he will know what the problems were. Perhaps the Chinese will have and be able to give a copy of anything he was involved in.

--------

From Karen Barratt

Recent press reports indicate that China has a terrible health and safety at work record. (6000 ? miners killed last year and very low standards on construction sites (no hard hats or protective clothing - resulting in injuries and deaths). Many of these workers at risk are rural migrants flooding into the cities to be part of the economic boom. The fact that life is cheap and there is obviously an acceptance of a certain degree of "expendibility", makes the policy on emission levels even more interesting ie the risk implicit in having less stringent controls is presumably too high even for the Chinese with their generally less precautionary attitude. I believe 99% of the world's mobile phones are made in China so they could hardly risk any health scare connected to the technology.

Originally published by Raw Story on Wednesday September 14, 2005.

The American Conservative Union, the nation's oldest and largest conservative grassroots organization, demanded President Bush and the Republican leadership in Congress take action to rein in federal spending Wednesday, questioning how Bush can afford the large sums Congress was doling out in Hurricane Katrina relief efforts while still maintaining federal spending levels, RAW STORY has learned.

"Clearly the terrible tragedy resulting from the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina will require substantial federal resources to be expended, and all Americans support this relief effort," ACU Chairman David Keene said in a release . "But the idea that Congress should spend tens of billions of dollars on this relief effort in the absence of reprioritizing overall federal spending makes absolutely no sense."

Top Republicans will delay votes on making President Bush's tax cuts permanent. The U.S. already bears huge payments to maintain a continuing presence in Iraq and Afghanistan -- more than $1 billion a week. The federal debt has ballooned to over $2 trillion since 2000 and now stands at $7.9 trillion. [...] Read the rest at Raw Story: http://tinyurl.com/cmy7s


© Virginia Metze

When the corpses of American citizens are floating in toxic floodwaters five days after a hurricane strikes, it is time to hold the leaders of our nation accountable for the failures that have taken place.

By Al Gore
AlterNet

Posted September 13, 2005 .

Ed. note: The following is a transcript of a speech given by former Vice President Al Gore at Sierra Club's National Environmental Convention and Expo in San Francisco on Sept. 9.

I know that you are deeply concerned, as I am, about the direction in which our country has been moving. About the erosion of social capital. About the lack of respect for a very basic principle, and that is that we, as Americans, have to put ourselves and our ability to seek out the truth because we know it will make us free. And then on the basis of truth, as we share it to the best of our abilities with one another, we act to try to form a more perfect union and provide for the general welfare and make this country worthy of the principles upon which it was founded.

[...] Read the rest at: http://www.alternet.org/story/25349/

See http://www.bringthemhomenowtour.org/ for updates about the Bring Them Home Now Tour from Camp Casey, Crawford, Texas to Washington DC.


© Virginia Metze

Investigation finds Red Cross agreed to withhold Orleans aid, operates in tandem with Homeland Security

Jennifer Van Bergen

Originally published on Tuesday September 13, 2005.
RawStory web site

Top Red Cross official Bush appointee, donor

New information surrounding relief efforts by the American Red Cross in New Orleans raises questions about whether the organization provided adequate relief and whether funds are actually being directed to Katrina victims, RAW STORY has found.
Previous investigations have shown that the Red Cross mishandled its 9/11 fund, attempting to divert more than half into a "war fund" before Congress intervened, and moved $10 million from a fund in 1989 for earthquake victims towards other uses. Allegations of similar holdbacks following the Oklahoma City bombing and several later disasters, coupled with the discovery that the Red Cross, mandated by its Code of Conduct to remain independent of government, is officially part of the Bush Administration's national security apparatus, led RAW STORY to dig deeply into the Red Cross and its recent disaster relief efforts.

Why did the Red Cross not enter New Orleans?

While many were outraged that the Red Cross failed to enter New Orleans, unsafe conditions and reports of shootings and lootings may have informed the decision. The Red Cross is not chartered to conduct search and rescue operations.

We "will not put [our] own workers in harm's way," Red Cross spokesperson Renita Hosler told RAW STORY . [...] Read the rest at the Raw Story web site: http://tinyurl.com/aatmv


© Virginia Metze

The Camp Casey Memorial on Prairie Chapel Road was removed by thieves earlier today. Not a single item is left at the memorial site.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091605Z.shtml
http://198.65.14.85/News/2005/37-38/37news10.htm


Informant: NHNE



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

http://links.net-hh.de?lid=22689

(weltwoche) In einem Interview mit der schweizerischen Weltwoche erklärt der bekannte amerikanische "Grossliterat" und Historiker Gore Vidal die Perpektiven der US-Politik nach der Katastrophe von New Orleans, die nach seiner Einschätzung grössere Umwälzungen auslösen wird.

http://www.weltwoche.ch/artikel/?AssetID=11939&CategoryID=66
http://www.hh-online.net?lid=22689

Die Auswirkungen von Handy, Computer und Internet auf das Familienleben seien weitgehend unerforscht, kritisiert der Katholische Familienverband (KFÖ) bei einer Pressekonferenz. Diskussion über Elternbildung sei wichtig, so KFÖ-Präsident Fenz.

Eine breite Debatte über die Auswirkungen von Handy, Computer und Internet auf die Kommunikation in der Familie hat der Katholische Familienverband Österreichs (KFÖ) gefordert. Wie KFÖ-Präsident Johannes Fenz am Donnerstag, 15. September 2005, bei einer Pressekonferenz in Wien sagte, gebe es in Österreich über die Auswirkungen der "Neuen Medien" praktisch keine Forschungsergebnisse.

Fenz: "Benötigen Forschung und Elternbildung".

Der Katholische Familienverband wisse aus Rückmeldungen unter seinen 60.000 Mitgliedsfamilien von einer massiven Verunsicherung in den Familien. Um so mehr bräuchten Eltern Unterstützung, um ihre Rolle als Vorbild besser erfüllen zu können. "Wir brauchen nicht Diskussionen über Handymast-Steuern, sondern Forschung und Elternbildung", so Fenz.

"Neue Medien" haben Auswirkungen auf Beziehungen

Eine vom Katholischen Familienverband Österreichs in Auftrag gegebene Analyse der bisherigen Forschungsdaten über Auswirkungen neuer Medien hat ergeben, dass in Österreich Studien zu diesem Thema fehlen. Es brauche zu allererst Untersuchungen, die zeigen, wie sich die rasante Zunahme von Handy, Computer und Internet auf die Beziehungen zwischen Eltern und Kindern auswirkt, so die Studienleiterin und Kinderpsychologin Brigitte Cizek bei der Pressekonferenz.

"Mögliche Bedrohung des Familienlebens"

"Zunehmende Vermischung von Berufs- und Privatleben."

Fenz sprach sich dagegen aus, die "Neuen Medien" zu "verteufeln". Dennoch bringe das Handy massive Veränderungen für Familien mit sich. Als Beispiel nannte Fenz die zunehmende Vermischung von Berufs- und Privatleben: "Das ist eine Bedrohung für die Familie als Ruhe- und Rückzugsoase." Durch den erheblichen finanziellen Aufwand für Handy und Internet gerieten außerdem viele Familien noch leichter in die "Schuldenfalle".

Internet birgt auch Gefahren

Brigitte Cizek - sie ist auch Geschäftsführerin des Österreichischen Instituts für Familienforschung (ÖIF) - verwies auf viele Vorteile der "Neuen Medien", "aber man darf Kinder bei der Nutzung dieser Medien nicht alleine lassen", erklärte die Kinderpsychologin. Das Internet berge zudem die Gefahr des unkontrollierten Zugriffs durch Kinder und Jugendliche auf Internetseiten, die dem Jugendverbot unterliegen. Ein besonderes Gefahren-Potenzial stellten Chat-Rooms von Kinderportalen dar, da viele pädophil veranlagte Täter gerade über diesen Weg Kontakt zu Kindern herstellten. "Die beliebten SMS via Handy können zwar Entfernungen überbrücken, sie ersetzten aber nicht das Zusammensein", erklärt Cizek. (red)

http://stephanscom.at/news/articles/2005/09/15/a9180/

http://www.gnn.tv/articles/1630/What_the_World_Needs_Now
http://www.iwtnews.com/GNN


Informant: Rory Winter

Controversy is raging in Paraguay , where the U.S. military is conducting secretive operations. 500 U.S. troops arrived in the country on July 1st with planes, weapons and ammunition.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10287.htm

By which measures, precisely, do we lead the world? Caring for our countrymen? You jest. A first-class physical infrastructure? Tell that to New Orleans.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10285.htm

More than 100 tractor-trailers packed with water, ice and other critical hurricane-relief supplies have been sitting at an Air Force base in Montgomery, Ala., for nearly a week while the federal government pays $600 a day for each truck.

http://snipurl.com/hp7q


From Information Clearing House

Bush’s “vision” for New Orleans and the Katrina recovery effort is being slowly revealed, and unsurprisingly, it’s a vision that’s steeped in conservative ideologies of old that promise little help to actual victims Hurricane Katrina.

http://thinkprogress.org/2005/09/14/katrina-excuse/


From Information Clearing House

Reconstruction work after Katrina is going to be costly - and highly lucrative.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10278.htm

The two rival titans of the raging row over Iraq engaged in an intellectual prize fight in New York last night that quickly degenerated into knock-down, drag-out bar-room brawl.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10282.htm



Video: Galloway/Hitchens Debate:

British MP George Galloway v. Christopher Hitchens: A debate on the Iraq war moderated by Amy Goodman. Real Video.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10286.htm

Two days before the invasion of Iraq, four Catholic Workers from Ithaca (NY), in an act of non-violent civil resistance, entered a military recruiting center, read a statement, and carefully poured their own blood around the vestibule. If convicted, they face up to six years in prison and $250,000 in fines.

http://www.stpatricksfour.org/


From Information Clearing House

A media watchdog criticized the U.S. military on Wednesday for consistently failing to investigate the killing of journalists in Iraq by its forces, and said the Pentagon was losing credibility as a result.

http://snipurl.com/hpp0


From Information Clearing House

Senior European experts warned that the Iraq war had stimulated a globalised process of radicalisation and recruitment into Islamist terror groups.

http://snipurl.com/hpot


From Information Clearing House

By Chris Floyd

The Bush Faction seized upon the congressional resolution as an "Enabling Act" justifying a broad range of unconstitutional measures, including torture, kidnappings, mass roundups, secret hearings, secret prisons, arrests without charge, indefinite detention, kangaroo courts, "extrajudicial killings" and, finally, aggressive war.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10288.htm

Karen Armstrong: It is no use hoping for the best or waiting until "they" have discovered a cleaner form of energy. In the ancient world, assiduous religious ritual and ethical practice helped people to cultivate their respect for the holiness of the earth. If we want to save our planet, we must find a modern way to do the same.

http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/091505EA.shtml

Barbara Lee: The devastation wrought by hurricane Katrina has torn down the curtain, and exposed the dirty secret that divides our nation like an open wound. If anyone ever doubted that there were two Americas, hurricane Katrina and our government's shameful response to it have made the division clear for all to see.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505R.shtml

Howard Dean: John Roberts is the wrong man for the job. Despite the fact that the White House has withheld key documents either out of incompetence or a fear that those documents might prove embarrassing, we have learned enough from the files on Roberts at the Reagan Library to make it clear that he should be rejected.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505Q.shtml

September 14, 2005, Standards and Rules Database

http://www.microwavenews.com/fromthefield.html


Informant: Iris Atzmon

Lawmakers, Rights Groups

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0915-02.htm

URGENT - PLEASE SIGN THIS PETITION AND SPREAD THIS MESSAGE FAR AND WIDE !!!!!!

TO SIGN, CLICK HERE:
http://www.powalliance.org/petition/index.html
(or copy & paste this link into your browser)

THE FLUORIDE ACTION NETWORK
http://www.fluorideACTION.net
FAN Bulletin #332: Online petition (Sept 7).

Sept 6, 2005.

Today the total on the Online petition
http://www.powalliance.org/petition/index.html edged slowly towards the 1900 mark. At 10 pm it had reached 1874 votes Here is the current point listing by state:

Sept 7 (1874 counted) Point totals.

1) OREGON 343
2) UTAH 313
3) CALIFORNIA 262
4) ARKANSAS 234
5) WASHINGTON 209
6) NEW YORK 192
7) FLORIDA 143
8) MASSACHUSETTTS 119
9) TEXAS 93
10) NEW HAMPSHIRE 80
11=) PENNSYLVANIA 61
11=) ILLINOIS 61
13) KANSAS 58
14) GEORGIA 50
15) MICHIGAN 46
16) HAWAII 45
17) COLORADO 40
18) WISCONSIN 39
19) MONTANA 38
20) VERMONT 34

Sept 6 (1802 counted) Point totals.

1) OREGON 335
2) UTAH 303
3) CALIFORNIA 261
4) ARKANSAS 232
5) WASHINGTON 202
6) NEW YORK 187
7) FLORIDA 140
8) MASSACHUSETTTS 116
9) TEXAS 81
10) NEW HAMPSHIRE 74
11) PENNSYLVANIA 61
12=) KANSAS 58
12=) ILLINOIS 58
14) GEORGIA 50
15) HAWAII 45
16) MICHIGAN 42
17) MONTANA 38
18) VERMONT 34
19=) IDAHO 32
20=) WISCONSIN 32 .

Notice there has been no change in the top ten - the heavy hitters go marching on. But there has been a lot of jiggling in the next ten positions. Illinois jumps over Kansas to take up tied 11th position with Pennsylvania. Michigan squeezes past Hawaii to go to the 15th spot. Colorado jumps from nowhere to enter the top 20 for the first time at the 17th spot. Wisconsin jumps over Idaho, Montana and Vermont to take up the eighteenth position.

Please urge your friends not to sign anonymously, without a comment it scores no points. With a comment it scores one point. A comment with a name scores two points. I don' think "anonymous" without a comment will cut much ice with legislators.

The voting is definitely slowing down - I am hoping for a bigger day tomorrow.

Paul Connett


Informant: DitziSis

Not until the fifth day of the federal governments inept and inadequate emergency response to the New Orleans disaster did George Bush even acknowledge it was unacceptable. Unacceptable doesnt begin to describe the depth of the neglect, racism and classism shown to the people of New Orleans. The governments actions and inactions were criminal. New Orleans, a city whose population is almost 70% percent black, 40% illiterate, and many are poor, was left day after day to drown, to starve and to die of disease and thirst.

The people of New Orleans will not go quietly into the night, scattering across this country to become homeless in countless other cities while federal relief funds are funneled into rebuilding casinos, hotels, chemical plants and the wealthy white districts of New Orleans like the French Quarter and the Garden District. We will not stand idly by while this disaster is used as an opportunity to replace our homes with newly built mansions and condos in a gentrified New Orleans.

Community Labor United (CLU), a coalition of the progressive organizations throughout New Orleans, has brought community members together for eight years to discuss socio-economic issues. We have been communicating with people from The Quality Education as a Civil Right Campaign, the Algebra Project, the Young Peoples Project and the Louisiana Research Institute for Community Empowerment. We are preparing a press release and framing document that will be out as a draft later today for comments.

Here is what we are calling for:

- We are calling for all New Orleanians remaining in the city to be evacuated immediately.

- We are calling for information about where every evacuee was taken.

- We are calling for black and progressive leadership to come together to meet in Baton Rouge to initiate the formation of a Community Oversight Committee of evacuees from all the sites. This committee will demand to oversee FEMA, the Red Cross and other organizations collecting resources on behalf of our people.

- We are calling for volunteers to enter the shelters where our people are and to assist parents with housing, food, water, health care and access to aid.

- We are calling for teachers and educators to carve out some time to come to evacuation sites and teach our children.

- We are calling for city schools and universities near evacuation sites to open their doors for our children to go to school.

- We are calling for health care workers and mental health workers to come to evacuation sites to volunteer.

- We are calling for lawyers to investigate the wrongful death of those who died, to protect the land of the displaced, to investigate whether the levies broke due to natural and other related matters.

- We are calling for evacuees from our community to actively participate in the rebuilding of New Orleans.

- We are calling for the addresses of all the relevant list serves and press contacts to send our information.

We are in the process of setting up a central command post in Jackson, MS, where we will have phone lines, fax, email and a web page to centralize information. We will need volunteers to staff this office.

We have set up a Peoples Hurricane Fund that will be directed and administered by New Orleanian evacuees. The Young Peoples Project, a 501(c)3 organization formed by graduates of the Algebra Project, has agreed to accept donations on behalf of this fund. Donations can be mailed to:

The Peoples Hurricane Fund
Vanguard Public Foundation
383 Rhode Island St., Ste 301
San Francisco, CA 94103
or visit http://www.qecr.org .

If you have comments of how to proceed or need more information, please email them to

Curtis Muhammad: muhammadcurtis@bellsouth.net

and

Becky Belcore: bbelcore@hotmail.com


http://www.labournet.de/internationales/usa/clu.html

Tell Senators: Roberts Fails to Demonstrate Commitment to Protecting Rights and Freedoms of All Americans

September 15, 2005 - In testimony delivered today to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (LCCR) Executive Director Wade Henderson announced that - after having reviewed John Roberts available record, testimony, and answers provided during the hearings this week - LCCR has no choice but to oppose the confirmation of Roberts to chief justice of the United States. Take action! Call your senators (202-224-3121) and urge them to oppose the confirmation of John Roberts to chief justice of the United States. Tell senators that America can and should do better!

................................

australia and the coalition of the willing?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30274
................................

Galloway strikes again:
http://www.dailyfreepress.com/media/paper87/news/2005/09/14/News/British.Mp.Blasts.Bush.For.Iraq.War-985053.shtml


This message was sent by Care2 Connect member: Caroline W.

http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=149495;article=91399;show_parent=1
http://tinyurl.com/axb89

In a message dated 9/15/05 9:47:14 PM, v.robin writes:

Amidst all the shocking, infuriating, moving emails and news stories since Katrina struck, a few have resonated more deeply with me - and together suggest a place to put our feet as we walk forward from this event.

The first, surprisingly, was at Op-ed by David Brooks on Sept 4 NY Times called The Bursting Point. Brooks is a conservative commentator often dismissive of ideas and actions that make perfect sense to me and mine. He likened this moment to the early 70's when Vietnam, Watergate, and the assassinations of Bobby Kennedy and MLK woke us from the dream of America as the innocent, optimistic, good guy nation. We lost faith in our institutions and those breakdowns opened political and cultural space for breakthroughs... some to our liking, some not. He suggests to those with a new vision for America that 'now is the hour' - strut your very best stuff.

The second was from Deena Metzger. Katrina, she said, isn't an event that happened to a few of us. It's part of an unfolding reality that's been happening for decades to all us. She suggests the best speed is slow, and the best approach is sobriety and community We need to discover, together, better responses to crisis through sitting in "council" - circles of conversations - that go as long and as deep as necessary. I quote:

How do we proceed? We do not know. When wise people are confronted by situations that are beyond them, they admit their incapacity and they call councils. We must call councils. We must call the elders, wise ones, scientists, et al, the experienced ones of the world community to confer with us and each other. Wise cultures call councils especially when they are, as we are, in grave danger of escalating the damage by taking short-term methods that can produce even greater devastation.

We must ask each other to set aside, entirely, our personal hopes for our future, for our security, for our advancement. Let us all be like those who have lost everything. We are those who have lost everything. We have all lost everything. We have. There is no future unless we understand that we have lost everything and we have to begin again. No one and no system in the living world are safe at this moment.

The third article I will insert below in its entirety. It's from Bill McKibben, a journalist in the Cassandra tradition who for decades has given us well researched, deeply human books and articles to show us where our society's preference for money as the measure of meaning and value was taking us. He locked on to the Global Warming issue long ago and earned his right to use Katrina as a portend of the environmental whirlwind that's coming. His other occupation - a Methodist Sunday School teacher - I believe gives his journalism a prophetic yet protective quality that speaks to me.

Before Bill's article, I want to tell of a few recent experiences of my own. They may seems 'beside the point' (as much of our daily lives do in times of crisis), but make a point eventually.

The weekend before Katrina hit I attended the Fifth Annual Simplicity Forum Congress - a group of educators, activists, authors, academics, and organizers committed to "honoring and achieving simple, just and sustainable ways of life." In the middle of this intense, strategic meeting we took a break to enjoy our beautiful setting in the High Rockies. Half the group hiked down to a river and literally chilled together with their feet in the water. Suddenly a large dead tree toppled right into the middle of the group, injuring several and hitting one woman directly on the head. Quickly, people arrayed themselves according level of injury and according to skills and capacities, forming a spontaneous team of nurses, wilderness medics, transporters, runners, counselors, witnesses and such. The badly injured woman was stabilized and carried up and out, then ambulanced to the hospital. The group processed the shock while continuing to work very effectively as a team on building the Forum. Of course, in the background everyone wondered what it meant that a near tragedy literally descended into our midst. By the end, it was clear. Simple living doesn't mean that nothing bad happens anymore in your life. It's the low-ego, high-equanimity and community way you go through what happens. It allows the best to come from even bad situations. A tree falls in the forest, and people who live more simply seem to respond naturally with directness, resourcefulness and skill.

Two weekends later, I spent 4 days in the hospital for a high-tech surgical repair way beyond woodsy simplicity's capacity to deal. It was revelatory, though, in what hospitals no longer do. It sometimes took an hour for overworked nurses to respond to my call button. After the response, I'd often find the call button, pain med button and/or phone left out of reach. Hygiene was a packet of heavy-duty handy wipes given to me on day two for me to use. No teeth brushing or hair brushing. One procedure was stymied because the right tool wasn't available. My discharge doc had done his internship at a Community Hospital in LA. He said that such conditions were so common there that sadder-but-wiser nurses and aides would buy supplies at Costco - at their own expense - so they'd have what they needed to care for patients. "You're a writer," he said, "write about that. Someone has to tell that story." I realized that America is closer than ever to the conditions in less 'developed' countries where family members must accompany you to the hospital to do your nursing care. Will busy Americans, as the tempo of such breakdowns increases, need to take back their time for basic caring duties of family and community?

Katrina showed us many things. One was that the systems we have empowered to care for us have gotten careless to the point of being cruel and inhuman. Real humans want to take care of their sick and dying, but we've come to believe that someone else, somewhere else, is in charge and knows better. So people died in the streets, in the Stadium, in the hospitals, in their homes and were left for days. There are big changes we should have made decades ago that could prevent what McKibben warns is coming. Now these are dead snags just waiting to fall. Worse, though, is that we seem to lack to political and social will to make the sober, mature changes needed to deal the "trees that fall" with competence and good grace.

Simpler living seems tied to the expectation that oneself is the grown-up in one's own life. That if change is to be, it starts at home and is practical as well as philosophical. That big systems must be understood for what they can and can't do - and never be allowed to leave us more vulnerable, less able to respond intelligently. I've always said that the last place to look for financial independence is in having a pile of money. If you don't accumulate critical thinking, clear communication, loving relationships, an understanding of give-and-take, networks of friends and mutual help groups - all parts of 'resilience' - no amount of money will protect you in a destabilized world.

As David Brooks says, now is the time to face up to the dark side of America and make sober changes - and hope the forces of intelligence and good sense will mobilize more vigorously than the forces of fear and manipulation. As Deena says, in times like these wise people know that none of us knows what's going on but all of us, in deep conversation, will learn together a way through. As McKibben's article below indicates, Katrina might be the recognized surfacing of an era of breakdowns of a magnitude we never thought possible. As my small experiences indicate, if we rely less on ego and more on community, human resilience and good sense, we can mobilize ourselves to achieve small greatnesses right where we are. If we ask large systems to do only what they are best at - complex surgery, for example, or complex policy making for global conditions - and give as much resource as possible to the people on the local front lines of care, we may be able to weather the coming "perfect" storm.

Where each of us acts in this shifting landscape of crisis is really up to each of us. I trust us to know our neighbors better, to develop skills that will be truly useful in the years ahead, to open our homes to what needs our care, to stay calm, to contribute what we know and get out of the way of those who actually know better. Where can we turn in crisis? To one another, actually. Not letting large systems off the hook on their responsibilities and failures, but not forgetting that at least here in America, it's still "the consent of the governed."


Y2K. 911. Katrina. Are we listening? Every free, individual for him or herself is now a loser strategy of enormous magnitude. Simplicity, community, common sense, calm, resilience are really the core curriculum for survival. People in other lands have not had the luxury of forgetting these basics. We have. Katrina was a pop-final. We failed. But we are wired for survival through connection, council, community and what my friend Tom Atlee calls co-intelligence. It may be too late to have predictable future, but we can wise up together. For some great ideas from Alan Atkisson on a community revisioning exercise that's now relevant to rebuilding "the Big Difficult" , go to

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/003425.html


Be well, my friends,

Vicki


and now, Bill...

Not Our America?

by Bill McKibben

September 07, 2005

http://www.tompaine.com/

Bill McKibben is the author of many books on the environment and related topics. His first, The End of Nature, was also the first book for a general audience on global warming. His most recent is Wandering Home, A Long Walk Across America's Most Hopeful Landscape.

If the images of skyscrapers collapsed in heaps of ash were the end of one story-the United States safe on its isolated continent from the turmoil of the world-then the picture of the sodden Superdome with its peeling roof marks the beginning of the next story, the one that will dominate our politics in the coming decades of this century: America befuddled about how to cope with a planet suddenly turned unstable and unpredictable.

Over and over last week, people said that the scenes from the convention center, the highway overpasses, and the other suddenly infamous Crescent City venues didn't "look like America," that they seemed instead to be straight from the Third World. That was almost literally accurate, for poor, black New Orleans
(whose life had never previously been of any interest to the larger public) is not so different from other poor and black parts of the world: its infant mortality and life expectancy rates, its educational achievement statistics mirroring scores of African and Latin American enclaves. But it was accurate in another way, too, one full of portent for the future. A decade ago, environmental researcher Norman Myers began trying to add up the number of humans at risk of losing their homes from global warming. He looked at all the obvious places-coastal China, India, Bangladesh, the tiny island states of the Pacific and Indian oceans, the Nile delta, Mozambique, on and on-and predicted that by 2050, it was entirely possible that 150 million people could be "environmental refugees," forced from their homes by rising waters. That's more than the number of political refugees sent scurrying by the bloody century we've just endured. Try to imagine, that is, the chaos that attends busing 15,000 people from one football stadium to another in the richest nation on Earth, and then multiply it by four orders of magnitude and re-situate your thoughts in the poorest nations on earth. And then try to imagine doing it over and over again-probably without the buses.

Because so far, even as blogs and websites all over the Internet fill with accusations about the scandalous lack of planning that led to the collapse of the levees in New Orleans, almost no one is addressing the much larger problems: the scandalous lack of planning that has kept us from even beginning to address climate change, and the sad fact that global warming means the future will be full of just this kind of horror. Consider the first problem for just a minute. No single hurricane is "the result" of global warming. But a month before Katrina hit, MIT hurricane specialist Kerry Emmanuel published a landmark paper in the British science magazine Nature showing that tropical storms were now lasting half again as long and spinning winds 50 percent more powerful than just a few decades before. The only plausible cause: the ever-warmer tropical seas on which these storms thrive. Katrina, a Category 1 storm when it crossed Florida, roared to full life in the abnormally hot water of the Gulf of Mexico. It then punched its way into Louisiana and Mississippi-the latter a state now governed by Haley Barbour, who in an earlier incarnation as a GOP power broker and energy lobbyist helped persuade President Bush to renege on his promise to treat carbon dioxide as a pollutant.

So far, the United States has done exactly nothing even to try to slow the progress of climate change: We're emitting far more carbon than we were in 1988, when scientists issued their first prescient global-warming warnings. Even if, at that moment, we'd started doing all that we could to overhaul our energy economy, we'd probably still be stuck with the one degree Fahrenheit increase in global average temperature that's already driving our current disruptions. Now scientists predict that without truly dramatic change in the very near future, we're likely to see the planet's mercury rise five degrees before this century is out. That is, five times more than we've seen so far. Which leads us to the second problem: For the ten thousand years of human civilization, we've relied on the planet's basic physical stability. Sure, there have been hurricanes and droughts and volcanoes and tsunamis, but averaged out across the Earth, it's been a remarkably stable run. If your grandparents inhabited a particular island, chances were that you could too. If you could grow corn in your field, you could pretty much count on your grandkids being able to do likewise. Those are now sucker's bets-that's what those predictions about environmental refugees really mean.

Here's another way of saying it: In the last century, we've seen change in human societies speed up to an almost unimaginable level, one that has stressed every part of our civilization. In this century, we're going to see the natural world change at the same kind of rate. That's what happens when you increase the amount of heat trapped in the atmosphere. That extra energy expresses itself in every way you can imagine: more wind, more evaporation, more rain, more melt, more... more... more. And there is no reason to think we can cope. Take New Orleans as an example. It is currently pro forma for politicians to announce that it will be rebuilt, and doubtless it will be. Once. But if hurricanes like Katrina go from once-in-a-century storms to once-in-a-decade-or-two storms, how many times are you going to rebuild it? Even in America there's not that kind of money-especially if you're also having to cope with, say, the effects on agriculture of more frequent and severe heat waves, and the effects on human health of the spread of mosquito-borne diseases like dengue fever and malaria, and so on ad infinitum. Not to mention the costs of converting our energy system to something less suicidal than fossil fuel, a task that becomes more expensive with every year that passes. Our rulers have insisted by both word and deed that the laws of physics and chemistry do not apply to us. That delusion will now start to vanish. Katrina marks Year One of our new calendar, the start of an age in which the physical world has flipped from sure and secure to volatile and unhinged. New Orleans doesn't look like the America we've lived in. But it very much resembles the planet we will inhabit the rest of our lives.


Vicki Robin
P.O. Box 1501
Langley, WA 98260
(360) 221-2251


"I am done with great things and big things, great institutions and big success, and I am for those tiny invisible molecular moral forces that work from individual to individual, creeping through the crannies of the world like so many rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, yet which if you give them time, will rend the hardest monuments of man's pride." --- William James


Informant: Hopedance

Sierra Times
by Al Benson Jr.

09/15/05

FEMA Director Michael Brown has departed. At one point George W. told him 'Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job.' What exactly he was doing such a great job at was never clearly explained, and maybe just as well. Whatever it was, helping the people in need didn't really seem to be a major part of it -- perhaps projecting a 'positive image' regarding the state as deity was. According to Congressman Ron Paul, our menagerie of Congress-critters has recently approved a relief package of $52 billion -- most of which will go to FEMA. He noted of FEMA that: '... there is every indication that FEMA is nothing but a bureaucratic black hole that spends money without the slightest accountability'...

http://www.sierratimes.com/05/09/15/64_12_116_12_86581.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Boston Globe
by Andrew J. Bacevich

09/15/05

On three occasions in the past four years the United States has suffered catastrophic failure. Since each of these disasters -- 9/11, the Iraq quagmire, and now Hurricane Katrina -- occurred on George W. Bush's watch, many Americans hold the president personally responsible. But hammering Bush amounts to an exercise in scapegoating that lets others -- starting with ourselves -- off the hook. In fact, the underlying explanation for these calamities lies in the delusions to which Americans in recent years have readily subscribed. The defining 'truths' of the age have turned out to be anything but true...

http://tinyurl.com/b77b2


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Strike the Root
by Joe Plummer

09/15/05

At some point the propaganda we're subjected to becomes so utterly ridiculous, you've just got to ask yourself: 'Is this really being said?' Chris Matthews (MSNBC -- HardBall) nonchalantly informed his viewers today that EVERYONE just LOVES the military occupation in New Orleans. ... Is ANYBODY so ignorant as to not see through this 'in our face' whitewash of yet ANOTHER power grab; this precedent-setting violation of our country's founding principles? Who do they think they're kidding? What will they tell us next? Will they claim people are dancing in the streets because they've been forcibly disarmed? ... Or maybe that they're thrilled to be getting shipped off to the 'safety' of a concentration camp?

http://www.strike-the-root.com/52/plummer/plummer2.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

http://www.counterpunch.org/stclair09152005.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Dreams
by Peter Demott, Clare Grady, Danny Burns and Teresa Grady

09/15/05

On Sept. 19, the four of us will go on trial a second time for trying to prevent the Iraq war. We are charged with conspiracy to impede 'by force, intimidation and threat' an officer of the United States and three lesser charges. If convicted of federal conspiracy, we face up to six years in prison, a period of probation and $275,000 in fines. ... In April 2004 we were tried in state court, where nine of twelve jurors voted, after listening to our defense, that we were not guilty. The judge declared a mistrial after 20 hours of deliberations. ... Now, with an ever worsening situation in Iraq, the United States government wants to retry us for conspiracy. We believe our actions were moral, legal and necessary. As with our first trial, if the jury is allowed to hear about the illegality of the war, our country's history of nonviolent resistance to injustice, and how our faith in God calls us to work for a world unified by love, solidarity and mutual cooperation, we expect our peers will vote to acquit...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0915-34.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Common Wonders
by Bob Koehler

09/15/05

Something far more sinister than incompetence has been at work in post-Katrina New Orleans. While there was plenty of that -- 'racism and incompetence seemed to merge to create a sluggish response,' Christian Parenti wrote in The Nation -- the fumbling cluelessness of FEMA under George Bush is a minor aspect of the vision of America, armed and gated, he and his cohorts have bestowed on us. In this virulent, militarized vision, disaster relief is an afterthought. What this administration does enthusiastically is wage war, or at least take potshots at fear. Thus the commander of the Louisiana National Guard's Joint Task Force told Army Times, as quoted by Rebecca Solnit in Harper's, 'This will be a combat operation to get this city under control.' If it's a combat operation, you need an enemy -- and the poor and destitute of New Orleans got conscripted into this role...

http://www.commonwonders.com/archives/col311.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Slate
by John Dickerson

09/15/05

We've become accustomed to these fraught addresses from President Bush: the cadences of loss and resolve, the biblical echoes, and the strain of a voice trying to whip up hope. We heard them over and over after 9/11 and before the Iraq war. But tonight was different. President Bush has never spoken from a position of such weakness. The country is as uncertain about his leadership as it has ever been. He created the very Department of Homeland Security that failed to prepare itself or citizens for Hurricane Katrina or manage its aftermath. Bush has spoken at length about compassion for the least among us and yet their condition has not improved. Second terms usually start on the steps of the Capitol. George Bush hopes that his starts in Jackson Square...

http://www.slate.com/id/2126384/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Salon
by Kerry Lauerman

09/16/05

Who would have expected the most compelling argument for a smarter, more aggressive news media to come from one of our few true movie stars, a man who could stay secluded from the press -- the world really -- in his Italian villa for as long as he liked, only to reappear for the occasional prestige project or 'Ocean's Eleven' sequel? But George Clooney's 'Good Night, and Good Luck,' a stirring examination of CBS News legend Edward R. Murrow's historic showdown with Sen. Joseph McCarthy, is a passionate argument for a revitalized press, one that's willing to operate in pursuit of larger truths, and not just larger profits... [subscription or ad view required]

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2005/09/16/george_clooney/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rational Review
by Stephen Gordon

09/15/05

According to the Washington Post, Pentagon planners have drafted a revised policy doctrine which allows for pre-emptive nuclear strikes against non-nuclear states or terrorist groups as an integral part of its global military strategy. While clearly opposed to the war in Iraq, I am not a pacifist. I've never supported unilateral nuclear disarmament, as I believe there may be some (albeit unlikely) scenarios when nuclear weapons might be required for valid self-defense measures. However, this policy proposal scares me, and I'll tell you why...

http://www.rationalreview.com/content/1017


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

09/16/05

A lot has been written about the neoconservatives: their storied history starting out as acolytes of Leon Trotsky conferring in Alcove One in the lunchroom at City College in New York City; their rise to literary fame as the so-called 'New York Intellectuals;' their odyssey from the left-liberal Bohemian beret-wearing coffeehouse set to the wood-paneled boardrooms and lecture halls of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute -- and the topic is a fascinating one. But I just want to focus here, for a moment, on Hersh's description of them as a cult. Now, one of the chief characteristics of a classic cult organization is that there are two sets of ideas that hold the cultists in thrall, two entirely separate and often contradictory ideologies that are held simultaneously by members of the group...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7294


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Independent [UK]

09/16/05

A coalition of artists, musicians and writers have joined anti-war campaigners to make a collective appeal to Tony Blair to pull British troops out of Iraq by the end of the year. The diverse group, including the musician Brian Eno, the actor and film director Mark Rylance and the guitar player John Williams, as well as 100 academics, MPs and activists, signed an open letter of protest condemning the continued occupation of Iraq as 'an unmitigated disaster'...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article313057.ece


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Biloxi Sun-Herald

09/10/05

Since Katrina departed, some residents have been faced with confusion and frustration. To compound the confusion, residents were shocked Friday to see a work crew laying out double coil rows of razor wire, also called concertina wire. Lynn Bauer, who is living with her mother after her Mills Avenue home was damaged, said she also was stopped from accessing her home. 'I want to get to work taking out the drywall, insulation and flooring. The longer I wait, the worse it's going to be,' Bauer said. At a briefing of the Emergency Operations Center Saturday, Col. Joe Spraggins, chief of emergency services for Harrison County, said he decided to install the razor wire to secure the stretches of land between checkpoints. 'I can put 1,000 national guardsman there (instead), but that's a waste of assets,' Spraggins said. He said the wire is easy to lay down and remove. 'We are not trying to put you in a concentration camp or make it look like a war zone,' he said. A concentration camp is exactly what Bauer thought of when she first saw the wire...

http://tinyurl.com/8udh2


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Indianapolis Star

09/15/05

Merlene Maten undoubtedly stood out in the prison where she has been held since Hurricane Katrina. The 73-year-old church deaconess, never before in trouble with the law, spent two weeks among hardened criminals. Her bail was a stiff $50,000. Her offense? Police say the grandmother from New Orleans took $63.50 in goods from a looted deli the day after Katrina struck. Family and eyewitnesses insisted Maten was an innocent woman who had gone to her car to get some sausage to eat only to be mistakenly arrested by tired, frustrated white officers who couldn't catch younger looters at a nearby store...

http://tinyurl.com/cypwx


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

CNN

09/15/05

Chicago on Wednesday became the nation's largest city to urge the Bush administration to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq at once. The resolution, approved 29-9, seeks an 'immediate and orderly' withdrawal. The City Council has 50 aldermen. Chicago joins other cities -- including San Francisco, Santa Cruz, California, 50 communities in Vermont and the Chicago suburb of Evanston -- in calling for the withdrawal of troops...

http://tinyurl.com/e3v6g


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Cincinnati Enquirer

09/15/05

A Pentagon employee was ordered to destroy documents that identified Mohamed Atta as a terrorist two years before the 2001 attacks, a congressman said Thursday. The employee is prepared to testify next week before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was expected to identify the person who ordered him to destroy the large volume of documents, said Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa. Weldon declined to identify the employee, citing confidentiality matters. Weldon described the documents as '2.5 terabytes' -- as much as one-fourth of all the printed materials in the Library of Congress, he added...

http://tinyurl.com/9shb5


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

"Trial Date Set By Fed. Judge on Ohio 2004 Recount With INDICTMENTS"

Home » Cobb-LaMarche 2004 - Ballot Recount Address: http://www.votecobb.org/ Changed: 12:44 AM on Friday, September 16, 2005

EXTRA: "Trial Date Set by Federal Judge on Ohio Recount, with INDICTMENTS" muservin Offline Send Email All Press Releases for September 14, 2005

Federal Judge in Toledo Sets Trial Date for 2004 Ohio Election Recount Lawsuit; Stage Set for National Voting Rights Institute vs. Kenneth Blackwell; Cuyahoga County Election Workers Indicted

A federal district judge in Toledo set a trial date for the National Voting Rights Institute's Ohio Recount lawsuit against Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State. Additionally indictments were handed down against two Cuyahoga County elections officials for their roles in the bungled election audit. The timing was coincidental; the two actions are not related though they both stem from charges that the 2004 election recount was conducted in violation of state and federal laws. Judge James Carr set the trial date for August 22, 2006. The lawsuit is a result of one originally initiated by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and his Libertarian counterpart, Michael Badnarik.

(PRWEB) September 14, 2005 -- On Tuesday, August 30, a federal district judge in Toledo set a trial date for the National Voting Rights Institute's Ohio Recount lawsuit against Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's Secretary of State.

Additionally indictments were handed down against two Cuyahoga County elections officials for their roles in the bungled election audit. The timing was coincidental; the two actions are not related although they both stem from charges that the recount was conducted in violation of state and federal laws.

Chief Judge of the US District Court of the Northern District of Ohio, James G. Carr set the trial date for August 22, 2006. The original lawsuit, case 3:04-CV-7724, was initiated by Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb and his Libertarian counterpart, Michael Badnarik.

The Ohio election and recount has been the subject of a number of investigations and reports. A report by the U.S. House Judiciary Committee's Democratic staff states that "there were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the

Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio." The August issue of Harper's magazine featured an article by Mark Crispin Miller on the Ohio election fraud and the lack of "mainstream" media coverage devoted to it, entitled "None Dare Call it Stolen."

"The truth about the fraud, manipulation and voter suppression in Ohio is slowly coming out. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance and we will pursue this as long as necessary to protect the integrity of our democratic process. When Republicans steal elections and Democrats roll over and play dead, the public can rely on the Green Party to protect the right to vote and the right to have all votes counted," said Blair Bobier, spokesman for the party's 2004 presidential campaign.

Additional information about the recount and the entire 102 page report by the House Judiciary Committee's Democratic staff can be found at http://www.votecobb.org .

The website for the national Green Party is http://www.gp.org. Media Contact: Blair Bobier, Media Director
(541)929-5755


Informant: ranger116

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article312997.ece


Informant: NHNE

Derbyshire Evening Telegraph

09:30 - 15 September 2005

Councillors had a rare attack of unanimity last night by approving measures to confront the Government over the proliferation of mobile phone masts in the city.

Tory councillor for Chellaston Paul Willitts claimed that parts of Derby were "almost under siege" by phone masts.

He called for a halt to masts being built until health risks had been "satisfactorily assessed".

Despite proposed amendments from Labour and the Lib Dems, the spirit of Mr Willitt's proposal was carried unanimously.

Labour councillor Mark Tittley, who put forward one amendment, said the current law of allowing masts under 15 metres tall to bypass planning regulations was "ridiculous".

Council leader Chris Williamson said: "By joining together on this, I believe we can have a more effective voice."

By Richard Lyons

Sutton Guardian

A community in Carshalton Beeches has united to fight plans for a 3G mobile phone mast outside a church which runs a children's nursery.

The Rev Christopher Wheaton, of the Good Shepherd Church, Gaynesford Road, turned down an offer of £90,000 over 10 years to have a T-Mobile antennae built on church premises.

But, to the fury of residents, the telecommunications company responded by submitting plans for an 11.7m mast and equipment cabinet immediately outside the building.

In a bid to fight the development, a public meeting attended by 48 locals, Tom Brake MP and councillors Lal Hussein and Derek Yeo was held at the church on Wednesday, September 7.

A petition opposing the scheme signed by more than 600 residents will also be sent to Sutton Council, T-Mobile and the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.

"There are so many children coming to the pre-school on our site five days a week," said Mr Wheaton.

"The church is always seen as a safe place to bring your family and children and there's a perceived danger with mobile phone masts.

"We really feel we should do everything we can to encourage T-Mobile to put their mast in a place where there's less exposure."

Residents had until yesterday to put their objections to Sutton Council and planners have until October 5 to decide whether or not to reject the plans.

One resident, Jay Thanki, 30, of Kings Avenue, said the risks of third generation mobile phone masts were as yet unknown and vowed he would move home if the scheme went ahead.

Mr Thanki who lives with his wife Kinjal, 23, his parents and sister, said: "We are all very concerned. The children at the pre-school are very young and the mast is going to be emitting microwaves.

"My whole family will move if they put the mast up. We are going to get the house valued this week."

A council spokesman said the Government's planning legislation allows mobile phone companies to erect a mast which is under 15 metres without submitting a full planning application.

He said: "This application was for prior approval, which means the council can object to the siting or appearance of the equipment if it does not fit the local character."

10:56am Thursday 15th September 2005

KIRSTY GREEN

Walsall Advertiser

Be the first reader to comment on this story
http://www.walsalladvertiser.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=189100&command=displayContent&sourceNode=185903&contentPK=13186270#commentform

10:30 - 15 September 2005

The landlady of a popular Walsall pub says residents and regulars futures will not be bright if Orange are allowed to go ahead with plans to erect a phone mast next to her pub.

Residents living close to the Longhorn pub in Sutton Road were written to by Orange informing them of the company's plans to apply for planning permission for a phone mast on council owned land adjacent to the Longhorn pub and visible from Sutton Road. Landlady Esther Bennett has already collected signatures from regulars opposed to the plans.

"Within one day of the petition launch a large number of local drinkers and residents have signed to express their opposition to the proposal of the French owned mobile phone company," she said.

A meeting held on Sunday, September 11 and organised by Derek Bennett, pub regular and chairman of the Walsall Wolverhampton UKIP Association also showed the strength of feeling against the pub.

Pheasey Park Farm councillors Adrian Andrew and Chris Towe attended the meeting to reassure residents they would be battling against the phone mast plans.

"We are totally opposed to this mast," said Cllr Towe.

"We have written to Orange asking them to remove the application from their agenda, we have asked them not to proceed with this.

"We have all the normal concerns about such an application, including health worries. It is no good the government saying there is no proof such masts are harmful to health because there is also no evidence that they are not," he added.

Omega there is proof that such masts are harmful to health. See under:
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Cancer+Cluster
http://www.buergerwelle.de/body_science.html

Protestors on the Turnberry estate in Bloxwich are calling on their neighbours to formally object to a proposed phone mast they fear is a health hazard.

Objectors to a T-mobile mast Yields Field in Stafford Road say they believed they had beaten the application when it was rejected by councillors earlier this year, but the company is appealing against this decision.

Resident Simon Horton said people must make their objections know to the council by the Thursday, September 22.

Mr Horton, a freelance broadcaster who has believed on the estate for three years, said it was important people spoke up, especially on an estate with so many children.

BY BEN MURCH

Bath Chronicle

11:00 - 15 September 2005

Protest groups have banded together to protest against plans for mobile phone masts at three sites in Bear Flat. Members of the newly formed Bear Flat and Alexandra Park Alliance claim mobile phone company O2 has tried to drive a wedge between them and force its plans through.

Last year, the company won a planning appeal to put up a mast just metres away from people's homes on the grass verge between Wellsway and Bloomfield Road.

The decision was taken despite massive protests, but the communications giant then agreed to consider alternative sites.

It has since applied for permission to site the mast in Alexandra Park, sparking renewed opposition from a different group of residents.

Wellsway campaigners face the danger of O2 reverting to its original plans if the Alexandra Park campaign is successful.

A spokesperson for the residents claimed the company had tried to use this threat to divide the two groups but has only succeeded in forcing them closer together.

A third group, which is campaigning against Hutchinson 3G's plans to put a mast on top of the Smiles store at Wellsway, has also given the alliance its backing.

Sue Boyle, spokeswoman for the Alexandra Park group, said: "We realised that O2's policy was to divide us from the Bear Flat protesters.

"Our aspiration was to join forces with them instead. We believe it is possible to stop O2 putting masts on either site. We have to believe that, because we all think that each site is as unsuitable as the other.

"At Alexandra Park there are environmental issues and in both cases it would be too close to people.

"We are determined not to look at them as alternatives, although that is the O2 strategy. We will fight tooth and nail to make sure it doesn't go on Alexandra Park and make sure it doesn't go on Wellsway either."

Frank Thynne, acting co-ordinator of the Wellsway O2 protesters, said: "O2 isn't consulting, it's bullying.

"In approaching the Alexandra Park group and reminding them it is an alternative to the Wellsway site, where it already has permission, it is clearly an attempt to divide us.

"If O2 succeeds in dividing us, we are going to be losers."

Mr Thynne added the protesters were not inherently anti-mobile phones or masts, and wanted to reduce antagonism by working more closely with operators to find sites.

Bath and North East Somerset Council officers and members heavily criticised companies for failing to consult residents when they discussed an application from Orange for a mast in Twerton at a public meeting earlier this year.

Peter Sellwood, of the Hutchinson 3G protest group, said only by working together could people in Bear Flat prevent mobile phone companies pushing through applications for masts on unsuitable sites.

Hutchinson 3G's bid for a mast at the Smiles site will be determined by a planning inspector, following the council's failure to reach a decision.

But protesters are still hopeful the company can be convinced to share a mast with O2 at a new site further away from people's homes.

O2 has agreed to hold a public meeting on its plans on Monday, September 26, at a time and venue to be confirmed. Nobody from the company was available to comment.

b.murch@bathchron.co.uk

BBC News online

Councillors ignored their officials on Wednesday to vote against a proposed mobile phone mast.

South Ribble Planning Committee rejected plans for the 14.7m 3G mast on farmland near a school and housing estate in Hoghton, Lancashire.

Planning officials had recommended the T-Mobile mast should be accepted.

However councillors decided against the phone mast on the grounds of siting and appearance. Residents and local MP Nigel Evans had opposed the plan.

'Unbelievable result'

Campaigner Chris Nelson said: "We're delighted, it's unbelievable."

He added that he hoped T-Mobile would not appeal against the decision.

The company was applying for determination, a process which allows masts under 15m to be built without planning permission as long as the local planning authority agrees.

No-one at T-Mobile was available for comment.

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/its_official_hurricanes_are_getting_stronger_8917


Informant: NHNE

http://www.mises.org/story/1909


Informant: Lew Rockwell

http://torontosun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2005/09/11/1211538.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

The Bush administration is continuing to face heavy criticism over the sluggish response of federal agencies, principally the departments of Homeland Security and Defense, to the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505Y.shtml



Katrina: The Response

One hour special town hall meeting "Katrina: The Response" to air on September 16.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505P.shtml

"It was as if all of us were already pronounced dead," said Tony Cash, 25, who endured three nights of hunger, violence and darkness at the convention center. "As if somebody already had the body bags. Wasn't nobody coming to get us."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505M.shtml

Michael Meacher told a public conference on Science, Medicine and the Law in the strongest terms that we need independent science and scientists who take the precautionary principle seriously and sweeping changes are needed in science funding and scientific advice to the government that ensures the protection of independent science

Which scientists?

Nobody disagrees that debate over whether we should go ahead with new technologies should be conducted on the basis of science, but which science? Independent science or industrial science? Let me test out a few examples on you.

Fifteen years ago a lorry driver accidentally tipped 20 tonnes of aluminium sulphate into the public drinking supply in north Cornwall – nearby residents and local doctors are convinced they were poisoned; but two Government enquiries found no evidence. Whom do you believe?

There are childhood leukaemia clusters in villages down the Cumbrian coast – local residents and independent scientists think it is the consequence of chronic exposure to low-level radiation from nearby Sellafield; but the Department of Industry (DTI) and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) think it is nothing to do with local nuclear power stations – their best explanation is that it is caused by high levels of inward and outward migration. Whom do you believe?

Mark Purdey, a Somerset farmer turned epidemiologist, has produced detailed evidence to show that BSE was caused by farmers spreading Phosmetz, an organohosphate (OP), over the backs of cattle as a prophylaxis, but the Government's MRC Toxicology Unit - funded by the pharmaceutical company Zeneca - apparently refuted this theory. Which company held all rights over the production of Phosmetz? Zeneca. Whom do you believe?

Gulf War Syndrome has been a persistent disabling, and sometimes lethal, condition since the first war in Kuwait in 1991. Both UK and US soldiers and their independent scientific advisers are convinced that the soldiers were poisoned by the OP insecticides that they were liberally sprayed with. But the MOD and chemical companies insist there is no evidence for this. Whom do you believe?

Well, if you have any doubts, look at what has actually happened in the past when Government, in the teeth of overwhelming evidence, have often finally been forced to back track from entrenched positions that they always said were supported scientifically.

Science can quite often get things wrong.

Which science?

Government biologists initially refused to accept that power stations in Britain or Germany could kill fish or trees hundreds of miles away in Scandinavia ; later the idea of acidification caused by SO2 was universally accepted.

Government scientists originally did not agree that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were destroying the ozone layer; but during the 1987 negotiations on the Montreal Protocol the industry – ICI and Du Pont – abruptly changed sides, and ministers and scientists soon fell into line alongside them.

The Lawther working party of Government scientists roundly rejected any idea that health-damaging high levels of lead in the blood came overwhelmingly from vehicle exhausts, only to find that after lead-free petrol was introduced, blood-lead levels fell 70%.

The Southwood committee of BSE scientists insisted in 1990 that scrapie in cattle could not cross the species barrier, only to find by 1996 that it did just that. And there are many more examples.

Scientific uncertainty and the precautionary principle

The only way to deal with these problems is by applying the precautionary principle. Perhaps the classic formulation of the precautionary principle was at the Rio Summit in 1992 principle 15: “in order to protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by states according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”

That principle survived renegotiation attempts during the Johannesburg Summit in September 2002, and was reaffirmed in the Plan of Implementation that resulted from the Summit .

Why has this not been adopted by scientists and policy-makers? There can be only one reason: cynicism of not disturbing powerful political and economic interests.

It is highly disturbing to realise how long it takes for poisonous chemicals to be banned after scientific evidence emerged that they were harmful.

* Benzene was demonstrated as powerful bone marrow poison in 1897

* Acute respiratory effects of asbestos was identified 1898

* The ability of PCB to induce chloracne was documented in 1898

But it was not until 1960-70s that significant progress was made in restricting damages caused by these agents.

Independent scientists vilified

Efforts were made to discredit independent critics, as in the case of Richard Lacey and Mark Purdey in BSE, & Arpad Pusztai in GM food, and too many other examples.

Data and reports have been regularly suppressed or publishers intimidated, as in the Great Lakes chemical case.

The Southwood Committee on BSE believed a ban on the use of all cattle brains in human food chain might be justified, but considered that politically unfeasible.

There was also incompetence: the Department of Health was not informed by MAFF (the then Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now disbanded) about the emergence of new disease (BSE) until 17 months after MAFF was first alerted.

Pervasive mistrust of science and scientists

No wonder that there is a pervasive mistrust of science and scientists. But the roots for this go deep.

First, the Rothschild revolution under Thatcher made the funding of science much more subservient to business interests. Over the past two decades, getting finance for scientific inquiry inimical to the commercial and political establishments has become increasingly difficult. The science is owned by a tiny number of very large companies and they only commission research which they believe will further their own commercial interests. And when that turns out not to be the case, as when research turns up results which may be embarrassing to the company, they are most often dubbed “commercially confidential” and never published.

In addition, companies have learned that small investments in endowing chairs, sponsoring research programmes or hiring professors for out-of-hours projects can produce disproportionate payoffs in generating reports, articles, reviews and books, which may not be in the public interest, but certainly benefit corporate bottom lines. The effects of corporate generosity - donating millions for this research laboratory or that scientific programme – can be subtly corrosive. Other universities regard the donor as a pote ntial source of funds and try to ensure nothing is said which might jeopardise big new cash possibilities. And academics raising embarrassing questions (as they should) - such as who is paying for the lab; how independent is the peer review; who profits from the research; is the university's integrity compromised? – would soon learn that keeping their heads down is the best way not to risk their career, let alone future research funding. The message is clear: making money is good, and dissent is stifled. Commerce and the truth don't readily mix.

A second reason why there is such pervasive mistrust of science and scientists is that the scientists staffing the official advisory committees and Government regulatory bodies in a significant number of cases have financial links with the industry they are supposed to be independently advising on and regulating. A recent study found that of the five scientific committees advising ministers on food and safety, 40% of committee members had links with the biotechnology industry, and at least 20% were linked to one of the Big Three – Monsanto, AstraZeneca, or Novartis. Nor is that an accident. The civil servants who select scientists for those bodies tend to look for a preponderant part of the membership, and particularly the chairperson, to be ‘sound', i.e., can be safely relied on not to cause embarrassment to the Government or industry if difficulties arise.

Third, the culture of spin and intimidation is far more pervasive than should ever be allowed. The shocking sacking and vilification of Dr Arpad Pusztai, when he produced GM research results inconvenient to the Government, bio-tech industry and the Americans, was no doubt, deliberately intended as a warning to others if they stepped out of line. And the threats and insinuations made clear to the only two independent scientists on the UK Government's GM Science Panel, Dr Carlo Leifert and Andrew Sterling, demonstrates all too clearly how viciously the Establishment will fight to safeguard its own interests.

And on spin, how many times have we heard the false argument that is still regularly deployed by ACRE , the Government's main GM advisory committee, when it announces that, “there is no evidence that this GM product is any greater risk to human health than its non-GM counterpart”. In fact they have not sought such evidence directly, merely relied on the biotech companies telling them that their GM product was ‘substantially equivalent' to its alleged non-GM analogue.

Fourth, science is not, and never has been, a value-free search for the truth. It is a social construct influenced by a variety of rules, peer group pressures, and personal and cultural expectations. It is developed, like all human thought, from preconceived built-in judgements, assumptions and dogmas, the more powerful because they are often unconsciously held.

So what is to be done?

What all this means is that science can only be fully trusted if it is pursued with the most rigorous procedures that guarantee total independence and freedom from commercial and political bias. That is far too often not the case today. The implications for policy are clear.

One, if the Government truly wants independent research, it has to be prepared to pay for it, not lay down, as it has, that 25% of finance for publicly funded research should come from private sources, thus forcing the universities into the hands of corporate sponsors.

Two, the Government should also require that no member of its advisory committee or regulatory bodies should have any current or recently past financial or commercial link with the industry concerned.

Three, contributors to scientific journals should be required to make full disclosure of current and prior funding sources, so that any conflicts of interest can be exposed and taken into account.

Four, we need above all a Government with the political gumption to stand up to the United States and those demanding calls from the White House, to stand up to the biotech companies, and to stand up to big business, and make clear that there will be no succumbing to dominant political /economic interests, e.g. no growing of GM crops in this country until proper, systematic, independent, peer-reviewed research, which is totally absent at present, has been carried through and made public which demonstrates beyond any reasonable doubt whether GM foods are safe or not.

We should never forget the words of Winston Churchill, who said “Science should be on tap, not on top”.

This is an edited version of Michael Meacher's keynote address to the Green Network Conference, Science, Medicine and the Law, 31 January to 2 February 2005 , Royal Institute of British Architecture, London , UK , which will be published in issue 26 of Science in Society http://www.i-sis.org.uk

Besides France and Germany, several countries, notably Spain, the Netherlands and Turkey, rose up against Washington's desire to obtain an extension of the mandate for the International security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan - taken over by NATO in August 2003 - to mix it in with that of Operation Enduring Freedom. Now, while the former is a stabilization and peacekeeping force, the latter indulges in war missions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505H.shtml

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush's entire presidency and reelection campaign were organized around one master idea: He stood as the protector and savior of the American people under siege. After Katrina, the country no longer believes in Bush the protector. His presidency is ruined. Bush's America is gone with the wind.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505D.shtml

In some ways, Hurricane Katrina seems to have taken a vibrant real estate market and made it hotter. Large sections of the city are underwater, but that's only increasing the demand for dry houses. And in flooded areas, speculators are trying to buy properties on the cheap, hoping that the redevelopment of New Orleans will start a boom. Many of the city's poorest residents could end up being forced out.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505B.shtml

Molly Ivins: Some of you may have heard me observe a time or two that the trouble with George W. is that while he is good at politics, he stinks at governance. It bores him, he thinks government is bad to begin with and everything would be done better if it were contracted out to corporations. We can now safely assert that W. has stacked much of the federal government with people like himself. And what you get when you put people like that in charge of government is ... what happened after Hurricane Katrina.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/091505A.shtml

Infos ASL

ASL vient d’apprendre par le Dauphiné Libéré du 15 Septembre 2005 que le site internet de la Mairie de CREST avait été piraté en juin 2005, qu’une enquête de ?. . . La brigade des recherches de Valence qui dispose d’un spécialiste en nouvelles technologie? Avait? Après plusieurs réquisitions et investigations? abouti à l’interpellation du ? hacker?

http://www.sauvonsleon.fr/di/16092005/dl_15_09_2005.JPG


ASL rappelle que le 13 décembre 2004
http://www.sauvonsleon.fr/di/16092005/doc_di_315092005.htm , son tout premier site internet avait lui aussi été piraté, plainte avait été déposée
http://www.sauvonsleon.fr/di/16092005/di_15092005.htm , les matériels, ordinateur, disque dur, clef USB a été saisie pour l’enquête effectuée par la même brigade spécialisée de recherche de Valence.

Sans être profileur, en fonction des divers paramètres de l’intrusion ASL a bien sûr son idée.

Les investigations ainsi qu’une réquisition ou requête ont été effectuées pour faire progresser l’enquête.

Depuis plusieurs mois le compte rendu provisoire de l’enquête est comme on dit "bouclé".

L’Avocat d’ASL est intervenu sans succès à ce jour auprès de Monsieur le Procureur de la République de Valence afin que soit fait un point sur l’état de l’enquête et que celui-ci soit rendu public.

Les légitimes questions que se pose ASL :

Quels sont les résultats provisoires des investigations et de la réquisition effectuée en un lieu précis par les Gendarmes spécialisés?

Quelles sont leurs constatations en ce lieu précis?

Ces réponses sont-elles très embarrassantes pour l’image de certains?

Ces réponses posent-elles problèmes, au point de ne pas les rendre publique? . . .

Notre République peut-elle tolérer deux poids et deux mesures?