US Count Votes has posted a suggested letter that can be modified according to your own state freedom of information act, to obtain the detailed election data that is needed to reveal patterns that indicate vote embezzlement.

http://uscountvotes.net/public/ucv_select_info.php

Both the letter plus links to your state's freedom of information act are available on the above web page. Please use them to compose your own letter to the election offices in your state to obtain the electronic data that is needed to ensure that the correctly elected candidates are sworn into office in Jan. 07.

USCV's suggested letter was written by a volunteer lawyer who successfully obtained the data in his state and thus revealed that the 2/3rds of votes cast on paper ballots in his state had completely different vote count patterns than the pattern of votes cast on paperless DRE electronic ballot voting machines! Vote count embezzlement was strongly suggested on the DRE voting machines, and his work is being used to obtain paper records of ballots in his state.

USCV has organized mail lists for volunteer attorneys in each state who would like to have a discussion list to email each other, or who are willing to be available to answer legal questions that may arise in respect to a particular state's freedom of information act. If there are any lawyers who would be willing to be added to our list for any particular state or to our nationwide email list for attorneys, please email me.

http://uscountvotes.net/public/ucv_select_info.php

Best,

Kathy

If you scroll down to the bottom of this news page, you will find in the lower right corner links under the heading "BBC News: Video and Audio." There you can click on links for either streaming video or audio. You need RealPlayer or Windows Media Player. They will probably change this link soon, perhaps in the next day or two, as the stories (it's in two 4-minute parts) ran on the BBC TV news this last Thursday and Friday. The story you should see is described as "Nasa studies one of the fastest moving glaciers on Earth."

Once the viewer pops up, you should see one other link to your right titled, "New fears for Greenland's ice sheet." Once you view the first segment, click on this link to watch part two. I'll be putting these together on DVD very soon, so you can drop me a note if you are interested in getting one of those.

Andy Caffrey

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/default.stm#


The ice men - The scientists who monitor the changes in Greenland's landscape http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4566123.stm

BBC NEWS: VIDEO AND AUDIO
Nasa studies one of the fastest moving glaciers on Earth
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/default.stm#

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4566123.stm


Informant: Andy Caffrey

A coronal mass ejection has swept past Earth, shaking our planet's magnetic field
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693127/

NOAA ISSUES SPACE WEATHER WARNING
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694325/

China Warns of Danger of Melting Everest Glaciers
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/700312/

Climate Change
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703413/

As The World Burns
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/706387/

Turn the heat up on ExxonMobil
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/706250/

Reduce your Consumption of Petroleum
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/708519/

Millions of Acres of Wild National Forests Immediately at Risk
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693513/

Bush Administration Endangers One-Third of Last Pristine National Forests
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694894/

The Campaign to protect Tasmania's ancient Forests continues
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/698471/

Help Save Peru's Last Mahagonay Forests
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/704298/

Amazon Destruction Accelerating in Brazil
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/701905/

New international law for ancient forest protection
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/698491/

Siskiyou Grandmothers Sustain Campaign for Trees
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703402/

The rape of the rainforest and the man behind it
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/706857/

GERMANS & RUSSIANS USED FLUORIDE TO MAKE PRISONERS 'STUPID & DOCILE'
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694222/

GMO's - MILLIONS AGAINST MONSANTO CAMPAIGN
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693165/

United Nations Promotes Tree Plantations and Genetically Engineered Trees: Threatens Forests and Communities
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/704384/

Nobel winner Maathai urges world leaders to plant more trees
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/708584/

Endangered Species Act Under Attack
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/699034/

Vote USA 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/to

Iraq War
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Irak-Krieg/

Is Iran next?
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Is+Iran+next

Tsunami
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Tsunami/

RFID
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/RFID/

EMF-Omega-News 21. May 2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/708646/

MAJOR STUDY SHOWS PHONE MASTS CAN LEAD TO CANCER: CANCER KILLS 7 IN TOWER OF TERROR
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/692974/

Use of cellular telephones and brain tumour risk
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/696799/

Non-thermal DNA breakage by mobile-phone radiation (1800MHz) in human fibroblasts and in transformed GFSH-R17 rat granulosa cells in vitro
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697594/

A preliminary study on ultra high frequency electromagnetic fields effect on black locust chlorophylls
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697597/

Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones Affect 53BP1 and y-H2AX Foci in Human Lymphocytes from Hypersensitive and Healthy Persons
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/708443/

Mobile phone over-use leads to premature aging - study
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697642/

On the Precautionary Approach and the Stewart & NRPB Reports
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/708325/

Micowaves and the Secret State
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697630/

Everyone of us is part of a vast radiation experiment - result unknown
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697613/

John Manweiler: Vindication for Human Rights Abuses in Mental Health
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/668071/

Constant Use of Mobiles for sometimes trivial Purposes is pushing up the Demand for more and more Base Stations
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/692981/

Children win mobile mast battle
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693975/

Cellular Antennas could have caused Plane Crash
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693116/

Plans are thrown out
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/693555/

Bid to secure cash for masts research
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694732/

Lynne Featherstone is proposing a motion on changing guidelines for mobile phone masts near schools
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/695203/

DECISION ON PHONE MAST IS DELAYED
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697333/

PHONE GIANT WON'T BUDGE
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697734/

Tower concerns in Australia
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/699049/

Controversy Around Cell Phone Antennas
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/699119/

Ecologists denounce the "chaotic" increase of antennas of mobile telephony
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/699559/

We need all mast factions to come together
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697924/

SO WHY SAY THAT MASTS ARE SAFE?
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/702882/

OUR HEALTH LIES IN THE BALANCE
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/702897/

Phone mast fight: Appeal is lodged
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703194/

NHS phone masts spark health fears
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703202/

Anger at bid to put more dishes on mast
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703214/

Banner Protest at club
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703226/

God’s creatures come before revenue deal - Baby owls in mast's way
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703246/

Now Minister is cross as well
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703253/

PROTESTERS TAKE TO THE STREETS
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703271/

So Much for Local Democracy: Sidlesham Public Appeal
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703792/

Council says no to plan for phones mast
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703235/

The guidelines are obsolete
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/705630/

Airwave demonstrates a near total impermeability to community concern and feelings throughout the UK in locating their masts
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/707011/

Protest group wins phone mast battle
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/707041/

DONTINO’S MAST SHOWN RED LIGHT
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/707043/

Star psychic Uri Geller: "I will help mast objectors"
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/707056/

PARENTS IN MAST VICTORY
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/707366/

Mast study focuses on TV signals
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/699312/

Pylons blamed for sickness
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694323/

When Risk Management goes wrong
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/703187/

The fact that government/industry is not informing the public will continue to cause problems for everyone
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/706277/

The emerging scientific consensus on the meaninglessness of the key concept of radiation dose
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/692995/

Stop the 21st century killing you
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/697877/

Magenta News from Mast Network
http://tinyurl.com/4pe6m

http://mitglied.lycos.de/newsomega/news/vindication_for_a_solitary_man.htm

--------

Update on Vindication for Human Rights Abuses in Mental Health and Irish Law Society Conference on this Theme

http://tinyurl.com/7g6bg

--------

The Irish Times columnist, author, and documentary film-maker, Mary Raftery has written a most insightful column in today's THE IRISH TIMES on how the Irish Psychiatric profession opposed even back in the 1980's "the establishment of independent tribunals (with non-medical members) to review their diagnoses and committal orders." And now there appears to be a similar lack of co-operation from this profession with the latest mental health tribunal that is being set up to help "free" victims of the psychiatric profession who have been unlawfully detained by them and misdiagnosed. Her final sentences echo my convinction based on first hand experience that psychiatry is indeed the most dangerous--treacherous indeed--profession to come in contact with and can trammel without (at least up to now) legal consequences on its victim's Human Rights.

Best, Imelda, Cork


THE IRISH TIMES, THURSDAY, May 26, 2005, page 16

"PSYCHIATRIC PROFESSION AT IT AGAIN [by] Mary Raftery

This is the mysterious story of the vanishing Act. Like any other Act, this one started life as a Bill, made its way quite normally through both Dail [lower house of parliament] and Seanad [senate], and was signed into law by the President. Then it disappeared. Without a trace. No one even went looking for it. And today, few people know it even existed.

This is the extraordinary tale of the Health (Mental Services) Act, 1981. It involves the flagrant and deliberate flouting of the democratic will of the people, as expressed through the Oireachtas [parliament]. It is, in short, a scandal.

The 1981 Act provided a range of safeguards and independent appeals for people locked up against their will in psychiatric hospitals. There had been numerous stories of people wrongly committed to psychiatric hospitals, often locked up there for years, with no rights and no way out. Successive governments had promised reform.

You'd be right to think that all of this sounds familiar. We have recently heard much about wrongful committal to psychiatric hospitals, particularly around the case of John Manweiler. Earlier this month he was awarded almost [euro] 3 million by the High Court for having been unlawfully detained and wrongly prescribed with medication.

Back in 1981, three years before John Manweiler's ordeal at the hands of the psychiatric profession began, the Oireachtas had passed the Health (Mental Services) Act precisely in order to prevent what happened to him and many others like him.

That Act had been voted through in the teeth of opposition from psychiatrists, who regarded the establishment of independent tribunals (with non-medical members) to review their diagnoses and committal orders as an unwarranted interference in their professional expertise. This opposition explains much of what became the ultimate fate of a measure designed to protect patients against the abuse of their rights by the psychiatric profession.

All Acts of the Oireachtas contain a provision whereby they must be enacted (or activated) by the relevant government minister. In the case of the 1981 Act, the minister for health at the time, Fianna Fail's Michael Woods, simply never signed the section to enact it, and nor did any of his successors. So, while it existed as an Act, in reality it never became law. It is, apparently, unique in this regard.

Interviewed as part of an RTE documentary I made in 1992 on the issue, Adrian Hardiman (then a barrister, now a Supreme Court judge) said: "It is really unusual for this to happen to an entire Act . . . I'm sure it wasn't particularly welcomed by the mental health professionals at the time, but this Act has never been brought into force by the minister and is there on the statute books, a monument to the consensus of parliamentary opinion in 1981, but which other forces have operated to prevent from being brought into law." Following that 1992 documentary, Fine Fail, again in government, voted against it and it fell. Despite many further accounts from people locked away in gross breach of their fundamental rights, psychiatric patients continued to be unprotected by law.

Throughout all of this, and indeed up to the present, the law governing involuntary committal to psychiatric hospitals has been the Mental Treatment Act of 1945. This confers enormous powers on GPs and psychiatrists to incarcerate people indefinitely, remove their civil rights, and treat them (injection, surgery, ECT) forcibly and without their consent.

During the 1990's a handful of people began taking cases on this issue to the European Court of Human Rights. The government was forced to admit that the absence of independent review and safeguards in the psychiatric committal process was a breach of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Which brings us neatly to the Mental Health act, 2001, trumpeted as the solution to all problems around involuntary committal. But, lo and behold, almost four years later, the critical sections of this Act dealing with patient rights and safeguards have not yet been enacted by the Minister for Health, Mary Harney.

And the reason? Yes, you guessed it - opposition from the psychiatric profession. Twenty-five years after they successfully stymied the 1981 Act, they're at it again. They are refusing to participate in the three-person tribunal system, designed to review each involuntary committal. Under the 2001 Act, these tribunals cannot function without the involvement of psychiatrists.

However, their refusal to co-operate should no longer be allowed to stymie proper protection measures for patients. There are, after all, a number of other mental health specialists who could step into the shoes of psychiatrists perfectly competently on the new mental health tribunals and for the purposes of independent reviews of diagnosis.

The Government now has a simple choice to make. Does it continue, as it has for 25 years, to support at all costs the professional interests of psychiatrists? Or does it choose instead to defend the rights of highly vulnerable people who find themselves in desperate need of protection against those same psychiatrists?


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=John+Manweiler

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/5/18/latest/20050518073252&sec=Latest


Informant: Deane


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Maathai

http://www.phpbbforfree.com/forums/infonature-post-223.html#223


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=GE+Trees

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB00Y18W8E.html


Informant: Martin Greenhut

http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2005/05/message_from_us.html

Informant: Martin Greenhut


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=space+weapons

During the May 19, 2005 hearing on the serious problems facing returning war veterans, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) reported more than 85,000 Iraq War and Afghanistan War veterans have already sought medical care from VA.

Out of the 360,000 discharged veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF), nearly one in four had already visited VA for physical injuries or mental health counseling by February 2005. This number far exceeds the 12,000 wounded reported by the Department of Defense (DoD).

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/casualty.pdf

The count of veterans reporting medical problems was buried on page 10 of the prepared statement submitted today by VA’s John Brown, Director, Seamless Transition Office, before the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. However, Brown didn’t share the statistic during his oral testimony. For a copy of the testimony, please go to:

http://veterans.house.gov/hearings/schedule109/may05/5-19-05/jbrown.html

Citizens, elected officials, and reporters should be asking the tough questions: Now that VA confirms more than 85,000 OIF and OEF veterans have sought VA healthcare, VA should tell the people and Congress how much this costs taxpayers each year. Reporters should also ask how many recent war veterans have filed VA disability claims and how much that will cost taxpayers each year. Reporters should also ask how much VA paid out in life insurance payments to surviving spouses, children, and parents for the more than 1,800 service members who have died in either OEF or OIF.

The bottom line is that the consequences of the current wars appear far larger than DoD reports. More veterans have medical problems, and many of those problems will adversely impact those veterans for the rest of their lives. However, the U.S. Senate voted against providing VA with any additional funding to care for recent war veterans.

http://www.marinetimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-782283.php

Please ask your Congressional representatives to take action today to ensure veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan get the medical care they have earned.

Click here to take action today.
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm?MemberID=0&Page=Campaign&CampaignID=9

Iraq War Update: Have we become our own worst enemy?

Knight-Ridder newspapers reported this week on the recently concluded offensive in Qaim on the Syrian border. On one note, there was a positive development. When the local villages and towns were overtaken by foreign jihadists and insurgents, the Sunni tribesmen in the area fought to evict them. Though not sympathetic with the U.S. occupation or the new Iraqi government, the leaders in this region of Iraq were sick of their homes being used for ongoing violence. Consequently, they approached the Iraqi defense ministry and the U.S. military for help.

The result: Operation Matador, an U.S. marine offensive which netted over one hundred killed insurgents and nine U.S. killed-in-action. The operation also resulted in the destruction of much of the town of Qaim, and an unknown number of civilian casualties.

In short, the leadership of U.S. forces in Iraq, faced with the opportunity to provide security for local villagers who desperately needed help, instead have created yet another pool of rage and despair in Iraq, and yet another recruiting opportunity for the growing Iraqi insurgency.

As long as counter-insurgency operations take priority over protecting civilians, the war in Iraq will continue to get worse.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/index.cfm?Page=Article&ID=3262

(excerpt)

Note I sent to Mr. Galloway - "UK's Galloway blisters US policy on Iraq" (Please do the same!)

Mr Galloway,
gallowayg@parliament.uk
&
politics.editor@guardianunlimited.co.uk

My name is Jack Topel and reside in Miami Florida USA. I'm initiating a grass root effort, called "The EFFECT Network", which aim is to assist in recapturing our Representative Democracy. I should also mention that here is a person who supports and applaud your courageous and combative stand in the Senate hearing. I too, feel great pain for what the Iraqis have had to endure under Saddam and, consequently, as a result of the policies of certain elements of our government who seem to have high jacked our country.

As bad as the lies and deceit have been, they pale by comparison to the very strong possibility that there may be evidence for the complicity of, again, certain elements in our government in carrying out or, at least, allowing 9/11 to happen.

I particularly invite you to listen to the audio clip excerpts from David Gray Griffin on C-Span and the ones on the mysterious deaths of over 40 world leading microbiologists since Nov of 2001.

Jack Topel


David,

I keep thinking that few things could, any longer, shock me about what has, finally, been coming forward about our involvement in Iraq, 9/11, etc. The testimony Galloway presents in this video impressed me but but what is shocking to me is that there is not even a whisper for a hearing to look into the vast information that has been coming forward.

I BLAME THE DEMOCRATS!

If the tables were turned and we had a Democratic President, Republicans would be besides themselves, doing everything possible, EVEN IF THEY WERE IN THE MINORITY in Congress, to get such a Democratic President, not only impeached, not only accused of treason, they would hang him from the nearest tree to the Capitol Bldg.

After all, they wanted to impeach Clinton for getting weird with a cigar and then lying about it...this is child's play by comparison to these disclosures AND evidence.

Things are bad enough that this war was based on lies, greed and power, not to mention a possible unfathomable agenda, as revealed in my last set of audio clips below.

But, to have EVIDENCE to the complicity some in or behind the scenes in our government had with 9/11...!!!!

See the stunning information I provide below which now also has the video clip you provided with your post.

Jack



David Edwards wrote:

May 17, 2005

Video - MSNBC: UK's Galloway blisters US policy on Iraq

You must watch this. Dial-up and MP3 audio versions are also provided.

Video in Real Media format (4 minutes)
dial-up version (4 minutes)
Audio Only in MP3 format (4 minutes)
Full Senate Comittee hearing: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4556113.stm

--------

David, here is my contribution to raising peoples awareness and hopefully, their outrage!

Short audio excerpts C-Span2: EVIDENCE of US complicity on 9/11...STUNNING!

As I will relate at the end, most Americans seem to have been condition not to make time to learn what may really be going on in our country...unless, it has to do with Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, and the like.

Last week there was a stunning program on C-Span2 were David Ray Griffin reported on parts of his book: "The 9/11 Commission Report - Omissions and Distortions" which provide EVIDENCE to the complicity of some aspects of our government in the planning of the 9/11 attack. To my knowledge, this is the first time such evidence is allowed to be presented on our main stream media. This, of course, also begs to question: "How come our press does not report such evidence? What is really going on!?

Below, are audio clip excerpt of the highlights of the 90 minute C-span2 program. they are 28 minutes long (compared to 90). I also included a 7 minute excerpt from John Lear, of Lear Jet fame, with testimony that collaborates with one of the evidence points Griffin presents. Below the excerpts is a link to the audio presentation of the entire C-span2 program.

PLEASE TURN YOUR COMPUTER VOLUME UP AND CLICK ON LINKS TO LISTEN

1. http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172819&f=MDXING&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

2. http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172837&f=ESRJLJ&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

Audio clip excerpt from John Lear
3. http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172840&f=WXWOTJ&ps=13&p=1 ( 7 min)

Balance of Griffin's excerpts
4. http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=172847&f=GWUXUV&ps=13&p=1 ( 8 min)

AUDIO LINK TO COMPLETE C-Span2 PROGRAM
http://www.yourbbsucks.com/davidraygriffin_cspan.mp3

Also:

May 17, 2005

Video - MSNBC: UK's Galloway blisters US policy on Iraq

You must watch this. Dial-up and MP3 audio versions are also provided.

Video in Real Media format (4 minutes)
dial-up version (4 minutes)
Audio Only in MP3 format (4 minutes)

FINALLY,
May 13, 2005
Video - CNN Crossfire: "UK Memo Proves Bush Fixed Intelligence" for War

http://www.edwardsdavid.com/images/cnn_crossfire_uk_memo_intelligence_fixed_050513-01.jpg
http://www.edwardsdavid.com/BushVideos/cnn_crossfire_uk_memo_intelligence_fixed_050513-01.rm> Video in Real Media format (2 minutes)

--------

I will conclude this by relating an incident that occurred with a fellow worker when I shared with her the disclosures presented on C-Span2. She only managed to get out a "Oh Wow!". When I said I would send her the link to the C-span program (before I made these excerpts), I alerted her that the link takes about 3-4 minutes to load, given that it is 90 min.long.

She replied by saying that, in that case, it is going to have to wait until she had nothing else to do before she listened!

I WAS STUNNED!

Here I am providing a US citizen with disturbing evidence about what, perhaps, could be considered a most alarming aspects of our government... which now had to wait until "she had nothing else (better?) to do"!

Does anyone wonder then, how it is that "the powers that be" can get away with something as unbelievable as complicity with 9/11?

You see, what she could not tie up was that, if covert groups in our government were willing to sacrifice the lives of 3,000 people on 9/11, what problems would they have getting rid of half, of not only our population, but that of our planet as well... if they deemed it necessary to hold on to their power?

DON'T BELIEVE IT? listen to the following audio clips:

Excerpt from insider George Green,
http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=151352&f=YJSULC&ps=13&p=1 (6 min)

THE 40TH MICROBIOLOGIST TO HAVE DIED OR BEEN KILLED
http://PlayAudio-123.com/play.asp?m=138251&f=ZAXZBM&ps=13&p=1 (10 min)

Microbiologist Deaths http://www.coasttocoastam.com/shows/2005/01/13.html

Thursday's first hour guest, author Steve Quayle gave an update on the mysterious deaths of microbiologists:
http://www.stevequayle.com/index1.html (Go to "DEAD SCIENTISTS" on the left of page)

The latest case, the murder of Jeong Im , brought the total up to 40 deaths in the last 4 years, said Quayle. He theorized that a group of people plan to unleash "the ultimate epidemic" on the planet and are trying to eliminate scientists who might successfully combat it.

Related Articles:
http://www.stevequayle.com/dead.scientist.news.html#Anchor-49575



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Galloway
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=microbiologist
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeach

How about a more effective boycott?

Reduce your consumption of petroleum.

If you want to boycott Bush, conglomerates and multinational corporate hegemony the best thing we could do is free ourselves of our fossil fuel dependency. Buying Citgo doesn't address our dependency on fossil fuels and our over-consumption. If the people of the world consumed like Americans we would need seven earths to sustain us http://www.chelseagreen.com/2004/items/limitspaper . Also, by consuming more than our share, it means we need to take resources from other nations - which leads to conflict, war and inequity.

Good boycotts:

Drive less (yes, we might as well fill up at Citgo as we wean ourselves from our cars)

Shop at family owned businesses instead of chain stores

Boycott items packaged in throw-away plastic containers - buy bulk items and re-use your containers. Plastic is made from petroleum, and it never decomposes - it just breaks into smaller and smaller pieces and pollutes our land, ourselves and most notably our oceans.

Buy locally produced goods as much as possible

Consume less

Cheers,

Eric Einem
Pasadena Post Carbon Outpost Coordinator
714-926-1916
http://www.lapostcarbon.org
A grassroots response to the coming decline of fossil fuel extraction.


-----Original Message-----
Published on Monday, May 16, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Buy Your Gas at Citgo: Join the BUY-cott!

by Jeff Cohen

Looking for an easy way to protest Bush foreign policy week after week? And an easy way to help alleviate global poverty? Buy your gasoline at Citgo stations. And tell your friends.
[snip]
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0516-25.htm

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/2814/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=impeachment

Press Release

‘An insult to those who gave their lives for their country’

Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has rejected the demand for a full public inquiry into the Iraq war. Sixteen families of British servicemen killed in Iraq haveS called on the Prime Minister to open a full investigation into the background and legality to the war. The families consider that there are serious questions for the government to answer. They believe that their husbands and sons were sent to war on the basis of lies and deception.

Moreover in the rejection of their legitimate request for an inquiry the Prime Minister has added insult to injury.

The Prime Minister’s lawyers have written the following to the families:

‘the decision to take military action in Iraq was in no sense the immediate and direct operative cause of the deaths of the claimants’ relatives. Those servicemen regrettably lost their lives due to a variety of circumstances – a road traffic accident in Kuwait and a US helicopter crash to a gun attack and improvised explosive device attack. The legality of the decision to take military action in Iraq has no bearing on the circumstances which led to their deaths’.

These weasel words drew the following comments from the families today:

Ann Lawrence, whose son Marc was killed when two helicopters collided at sea, said ‘I’m sure that Tom Keys and Marc Lawrence wouldn’t have been in a million miles of Iraq had Mr Blair not sent them there. They had a Queen’s commission and were duty bound to take orders.’

Peter Brierley whose son Shaun was killed in a road traffic accident said:

‘My son often went out on Sunday afternoon drives and Kuwait was one of the destinations he used to go to which is as ridiculous as suggesting the decision to go to war and the accident were not connected. All the wriggling that Tony Blair is doing to try and get out of this has probably been the cause of his slipped disc. We will pursue the case for a public inquiry through all avenues.’

Rose Gentle whose son Gordon was killed by a roadside bomb in Basra said:’ the question of the legality of the war is very important to me and my family. We all need to know whether the army was sent to Iraq on a proper basis. This letter is an insult to those who gave their lives for their country.’

The families are now determined to pursue their demand for a full public inquiry and have launched a national petition and are calling on MPs and others to join with them in a campaign to reverse this dishonourable decision.


Andrew Burgin 07939 242229 / Chris Nineham 07930 536 519

Monday, Jun. 10, 1957

A 42-year-old worker who accidently stood in front of a powerful radar transmitter ten feet away for less than a minute died within a fortnight. Thus, last week, reported California Surgeon John T. McLaughlin, an industrial medical consultant. There were no marks on the victim's body, but "his insides were cooked ... A hole as big as a silver dollar was burned in his small bowel." Dr. McLaughlin has seen other, less severe cases, warns that high-powered radar microwaves (similar to those used in electronic stoves) can do serious damage at short range without proper safeguards by causing "intolerable" rises in tissue temperatures.

http://www.time.com/time/archive/printout/0,23657,937474,00.html


Informant: Iris Atzmon

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7561/abstract.html

Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones Affect 53BP1 and y-H2AX Foci in Human Lymphocytes from Hypersensitive and Healthy Persons ... those effects are presently ignored by International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) safety stands.

HOT Off The Press

DNA damage from Mobile Phones
"... is ignored by the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) safety stands ..."

A quote from the abstract below, "... The 53BP1 and y-H2AX proteins, which have been shown to co-localize in distinct foci with DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), were analyzed by immunofluorescence confocal laser microscopy ..."


Environmental Health Perspectives
EHP - in - Press
(Research Article, Archives ... week of 4/23 to 4/29)
(Online Apr 26, 2005)
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/admin/newest.html#4_23

Abstract ... This abstract is on page 6 ... see PDF links at ... http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7561/7561.pdf

The data on biological effects of non-thermal microwaves (MW's) from mobile phones are diverse and those effects are presently ignored by the International Commission for Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP) safety standards. Here, we investigated effects of MWs of Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) at different carrier frequencies on human lymphocytes from healthy persons and from persons reporting hypersensitivity to electromagnetic fields (EMFs). The changes in chromatin conformation, which are indicative of stress response and gennotoxic effects, were measured by the method of anomalous viscosity time dependencies (AVTD). The 53BP1 and y-H2AX proteins, which have been shown to co-localize in distinct foci with DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), were analyzed by immunofluorescence confocal laser microscopy. We show that MWs from GSM mobile phone affect chromatin conformation and 53BP1/y-H2AX foci similar to heat shock.

For the first time, we report here that MWs from mobile phone affect 53BP1/y-H2AX foci are dependent on carrier frequency. In average, the same response was observed in lymphocytes from hypersensitive and healthy subjects.


Website address is ...
http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7561/abstract.html

Research Article

Microwaves from GSM Mobile Phones Affect 53BP1 and -H2AX Foci in Human Lymphocytes from Hypersensitive and Healthy Persons

Eva Markovà, Lena Hillert, Lars Malmgren, Bertil R. R. Persson, and Igor Y. Belyaev

Abstract

http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/docs/2005/7561/abstract.pdf
Abstract in PDF

This EHP-in-Press article has been peer-reviewed, revised, and accepted for publication. The EHP-in-Press articles are completely citable using the assigned DOI code for the article. This document will be replaced with the copyedited and formatted version as soon as it is available. Through the DOI number used in the citation, you will be able to access this document at each stage of the publication process. Environ Health Perspect doi:10.1289/ehp.7561 available via http://dx.doi.org/ [Online 28 April 2005]

The full version of this article is available for free in http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/members/2005/7561/7561.pdf
PDF format.



Informant: Sepp Hasslberger


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=ICNIRP

http://www.badische-zeitung.de/nachrichten/welt/54,51-2249918.html


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Vatikan

http://www.progressive.org/webex05/wx051705.php


Informant: Charles Bremer

http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/stewart_and_innirp.doc

As we all know, the Stewart Report, April 2000, advocated ‘a precautionary approach’. Since then both the Government and the industry, with the wholehearted backing of the NRPB, have claimed that this need for a ‘precautionary approach’ is fully satisfied by adopting the ICNIRP guidelines. That is the basis of Government policy on masts, enshrined in the assertion in PPG8 that “if a proposed mobile phone base station meets the ICNIRP guidelines for public exposure it should not be necessary … to consider further the health aspects and concerns about them.” This passage in PPG8 has led to numerous court rulings against individuals, local groups and local authorities claiming that ICNIRP guidelines don’t offer sufficient protection, and in many cases to massive costs awards against those making such claims (implying that those claims are unreasonable).

Ok, so let’s look at what the Stewart Report actually had to say about the ‘Precautionary Principle’ – this text is reiterated in the NRPB Report, 2004 (published January 2005):

“The balance of evidence suggests that exposures to radiation below NRPB and ICNIRP guidelines do not cause adverse health effects to the general population.

“There is now scientific evidence, however, which suggests that there may be biological effects occurring at exposures below these guidelines.

"We conclude therefore that it is not possible at present to say that exposure to RF radiation, even at levels below national guidelines, is totally without potential adverse health effects, and that the gaps in knowledge are sufficient to justify a precautionary approach.

"We recommend that a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phone technologies be adopted until much more detailed and scientifically robust information on any health effects becomes available."

Note that the specific reason for advocating a precautionary approach is scientific evidence that exposure at levels “below NRPB and ICNIRP guidelines” may have adverse health effects. How, in the name of all that’s rational, can the ICNIRP guidelines be reckoned to satisfy the need for a ‘precautionary approach’ that is specifically advocated PRECISELY BECAUSE scientific evidence indicates that there may be effects that those guidelines don’t cover???

Consider the following hypothetical situation – you may spot similarities:

School governors’ meeting

“Folks, we have a problem. I’ve been told that old Jake, the school caretaker, may be a child-molester.”

“Oh dear, what can we do about that?”

“I know, we can ask old Jake, the school caretaker, to keep a lookout for any possible child-molesters.”

“Great. That’s sorted then. No-one can accuse use of not taking good care of our kids.”

The section on ‘Public Health Concerns’ in the NRPB Report, 2004, ends with the following statement:

“The Board believes that the main conclusions reached in the Stewart Report in 2000 still apply today and that a precautionary approach to the use of mobile phone technologies should continue to be adopted.”

It could be strongly argued that a precautionary approach advocated specifically as a result of scientific evidence that ICNIRP guidelines may be inadequate for protection of health, but purportedly ‘implemented’ simply by following those same guidelines, is no precaution at all. Rather, it is a very un-subtle attempt to claim to be doing all that’s necessary whilst actually doing nothing – which could be validly construed as gross negligence.

Certainly it would seem to be a very strong argument against any costs ruling (since it shows that lack of confidence in ICNIRP certification is not unreasonable, but supported by scientific evidence as witnessed by the Stewart and NRPB Reports) – I’m not a lawyer, but I’ve been told by one who is that appealing against a costs ruling is not expensive and could save very large amounts of money. More than that, it could be a basis for questioning Government policy in respect of Human Rights.

Views on this from anyone with legal knowledge would be welcome. Meanwhile, irrespective of the legal ‘take’, this shows the total cynicism of the official claim to be adopting ‘a precautionary approach’.

Dr Grahame Blackwell
http://www.starweave.com


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=ICNIRP

„Fordern! Ja! Fördern! Was ist das denn!“, zu dieser einfachen Erkenntnis ist Michaela Lorenz in ihrem Erlebnisbericht von der „Hartz IV-Front“ gekommen und beschreibt, was passiert, wenn eine Optionskommune mal so richtig in „Förderstimmung“ kommt. Ein lesenswerter Bericht aus dem Landkreis Oldenburg, erschienen auch als leicht gekürzte Lesermeinung im Delmenhorster Kreisblatt vom 18.05.2005.

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/realpolitik/hilfe/milo.html


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 25, Eintrag 12

Gar nicht erfreut war der Autor der jungen Welt, als er eine Pressemitteilung des Allgemeinen Deutschen Fahrrad-Clubs vom 18.05.05 las. http://www.adfc.de/2100_1

Der ADFC schlägt darin vor, den Radverkehr in Deutschland auch durch die so genannten „Ein-Euro-Jobs" zu fördern und macht Vorschläge welche Aufgabengebiete dafür in Frage kommen. Der Autor schlägt zurück und schreibt in seinem Artikel in der jungen Welt vom 19.05.2005: http://www.jungewelt.de/2005/05-19/020.php

„…Ein schöneres Beispiel für die Kompatibilität von Ökologie und sozialer Barbarei ist aktuell kaum zu finden. Damit sich der alternative Mittelstand möglichst komfortabel umweltschonend fortbewegen kann, soll der Pöbel die Fahrradwege putzen und die teuren Designerräder vor unbefugtem Zugriff schützen. Bleibt nur zu hoffen, daß der ADFC möglichst bald einen oder mehrere Ein-Euro-Jobber für eine Spezialaufgabe anfordern muß: Die Bearbeitung der vielen Austrittserklärungen…“


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 25, Eintrag 12

"Befristete Arbeitsgelegenheiten können dazu dienen, Langzeitarbeitslose wieder an den ersten Arbeitsmarkt heranzuführen und ihre Verfügbarkeit zu prüfen. Bei breitem Einsatz besteht jedoch die Gefahr der Verdrängung regulärer Beschäftigung. Dies gilt besonders, wenn die Maßnahmen lang und die Stunden-Vergütungen niedrig sind. Hohe Vergütungen könnten aber für die Teilnehmer 'Einsperreffekte' hervorrufen. Bei Maßnahmeteilnehmern aus Mehrpersonenhaushalten könnten die Leistungen so weit über dem sonst erzielbaren Einkommen liegen, dass sie zu einer Hürde für die Rückkehr auf den ersten Arbeitsmarkt werden. Beispielrechnungen zeigen, dass Haushalte mit ALG II plus Mehraufwandsentschädigung je nach Größe ein verfügbares Einkommen von 850 EURO bis gut 2000 EURO erreichen können. Um dieses Nettoeinkommen auf dem regulären Arbeitsmarkt zu erzielen, müssten Bruttostundenlöhne von 6 EURO bis 11 EURO erreicht werden. Damit bewegen sich die äquivalenten Marktlöhne im Großen und Ganzen auf Niedriglohnniveau. Eine Beschäftigung am ersten Arbeitsmarkt würde gegenüber den Arbeitsgelegenheiten deutlich an Attraktivität gewinnen, wenn die Hinzuverdienstregelungen - wie im Jobgipfel-Kompromiss - großzügiger gestaltet würden." (pdf) Anne Cichorek, Susanne Koch und Ulrich Walwei in dem IAB-Kurzbericht Nr. 8 vom 18.05.2005

http://doku.iab.de/kurzber/2005/kb0805.pdf


1-€-Jobs: Grundinfos für PR/BR

Beteiligungsmöglichkeiten der betrieblichen Interessenvertretung bei den sogen. 1-Euro-Jobs Foliensammlung von ver.di-Bundesverwaltung, Bereich Mitbestimmung, Martin Lemcke vom 28.1.05 (pdf)

http://www.verdi.de/0x0ac80f2b_0x01d66392


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 25, Eintrag 12

Alternativen der Wirtschaftspolitik

Kurzfassung des Memorandum 2005 der Arbeitsgruppe Alternative Wirtschaftspolitik (pdf)

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/allg/memo05.pdf


Aus: LabourNet Nachrichtensammlung, Band 25, Eintrag 12

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6102


Informant: Neo Mulder

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=6098


Informant: Neo Mulder

http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050520-042818-9839r.htm


Informant: kevcross5

Aufruf zur Unterstützung des Volksbegehrens

Peiting- Das Volksbegehren "Für mehr Gesundheitsvorsorge beim Mobilfunk" wird auch von der Umweltinitiative Pfaffenwinkel e. V. unterstützt. In der letzten Vorstandssitzung des regionalen Umweltvereins wurde beschlossen, alle Mitglieder aufzurufen, sich beim Volksbegehren der ödp in die Listen einzutragen. Darüber hinaus hofft man, dass sich zahlreiche Mitglieder vor Ort auch aktiv in die Volksbegehrenkampagne einbringen.

Die ÖDP will mit ihrer Initiative, dass alle Sendemasten genehmigungspflichtig werden. Bisher haben Gemeinden nur ein Mitspracherecht, wenn der Mast höher als zehn Meter wird. Vom 5. bis 18. Juli können sich die Bürger in ihren Gemeinden in die Unterschriftenlisten eintragen. Damit sie das zahlreich tun, sind verschiedene Veranstaltungen und Werbeaktionen geplant.

Auch im Landkreis Weilheim-Schongau gibt es zur Unterstützung des Volksbegehrens einen lokalen Aktionskreis, dem zahlreiche Parteien, Vereine und Verbände angehören. Selbstverständlich bringt sich die Umweltinitiative Pfaffenwinkel auch in diesem Forum tatkräftig ein. Mit den beiden Vorstandsmitgliedern Dr. Jürgen Seitz aus Seeshaupt und Hans Schütz aus Peiting verfügt man schließlich über zwei anerkannte Experten aus dem Bereich der Mobilfunkproblematik, die unter anderem maßgeblich bei der Gründung überregionaler Zusammenschlüsse von entsprechenden Bürgerinitiativen beteiligt waren, und seit Jahren in zahlreichen öffentlichen Veranstaltungen für Information und Aufklärung bezüglich der Gefahren des Mobilfunks sorgen.

Die Unterschriftenlisten für das Volksbegehren liegen vom 5. bis 18. Juli in den Rathäusern aus. Für Berufstätige wird an bestimmten Tagen länger geöffnet sein. Zehn Prozent der Wahlberechtigten in Bayern, also etwa 920 000 Menschen, müssen unterschreiben, damit das Volksbegehren erfolgreich sein kann.

Auskunft zum Volksbegehren gibt es im Internet unter der Adresse http://www.gesundheitsvorsorge-mobilfunk.de

http://www.mises.org/story/1822


Informant: Lew Rockwell

The Arrogance of Office
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese193.html

May 21 2005

Daily Record

PEOPLE power triumphed yesterday as plans to build a mobile phone mast near homes were scrapped.

Hutchison 3G wanted to erect the 41ft antenna in Bearsden, near Glasgow, to remove a network blackspot.

But worried parents defeated the move after claiming the mobile giants were gambling with their kids' health.

They were furious that the top of the mast, which emits the highest levels of radiation, would be in line with bedrooms at the back of their homes. East Dunbartonshire councillors refused permission for the mast, despite planning officials recommending that it should get the go-ahead.

Campaigners were backed by MSP Des McNulty, who warned the height of the houses meant the mast was 'poorly sited'.

Local resident Thomas McMahon said: 'We understand these masts have to be erected but some common sense and precautionary measures need to be in place to protect our children and the vulnerable.

she

Suhr AG, Wil SG, Teufen AR, Langenthal BE – landauf, landab regt sich Widerstand gegen geplante Mobilfunkantennen. Als Gründe werden gesundheitliche Schäden durch elektromagnetische Immissionen geltend gemacht, aber auch Verschandelung des Landschaftsbilds. Fast jedes Bauprojekt führt sofort zur Gründung von Arbeits- und Interessen-Gemeinschaften, die die örtlichen Baukommissionen mit Einsprachen eindecken. 53 waren es etwa im solothurnischen Niedererlinsbach, wo die Baukommission letzten Monat eine Antenne im Turm der katholischen Kirche wegen «Zweckentfremdung der Kirchenanlage » ablehnte. Den rund fünf Millionen Schweizer Handy- Besitzern aber, bei denen 8000 Antennen für Empfang sorgen, kann geholfen werden: Camouflage heißt der internationale Trend, Mobilfunk-Antennen als Landschafts- oder Architektur-Elemente zu tarnen. Die amerikanische Ingenieur-Firma Larson aus Tucson im Wüstenstaat Arizona bietet unauffällige Handy-Antennen als Kirchenkreuze, Pinien, Palmen oder Kakteen an. Besonders der Kaktus ist laut Larson als Antenne ideal, weil er durch seine Nebenarme den Handy-Empfang erhöht. Für die Schweiz allerdings müsste die Tarnung auf die regionale Flora zurückgreifen: Arven in den Bergen, Zitterpappeln in den Ebenen und Fahnenmasten in den Schrebergärten.

http://www.facts.ch/dyn/magazin/schweiz/499634.html


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=getarnte+Mobilfunkantennen

http://tinyurl.com/8ac46


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Wissenschaft+zu+Mobilfunk

by Joshua Micah Marshall

May 18, 2005

As we wait on the sidelines for the seemingly inevitable chain reaction to take place on the senate floor, it is worth observing and considering the fact that every Republican senator certainly knows that the proposition they're about to attest to is quite simply a lie. Perhaps they have so twisted their reasoning as to imagine it is a noble lie. But it's a lie nonetheless.

What do I mean?

Whether you call it the 'nuclear option', the 'constitutional option' or whatever other phrase the GOP word-wizards come up with, what "it" actually is is this: the Republican caucus, along with the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, will find that filibustering judicial nominations is in fact in violation of the constitution. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/7935g


© Virginia Metze

Liberal Democrats today are faced with an unhappy paradox. The most significant factor in John Kerry's defeat was that, according to exit polls, 79 percent of voters who said terrorism or national security determined their vote chose the chickenhawk over the war hero. Though they agreed with the Democrats on most issues -- and agreed, by a 49 to 45 percent margin ... that the Iraq War had made us less, not more, secure -- a majority of voters still felt safer with the idea of George W. Bush minding the store. Based on the evidence, it is almost a perfectly irrational reaction to reality. Everything the Bush Administration has done in the security realm has proved not merely wasteful and ineffective but counterproductive...[editor's note: An amazing grasp of the obvious, but at least he's saying it! - SAT] (05/19/05)

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050606&s=alterman

from The Nation, by Eric Alterman


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

05/19/05

Things aren't going well for the Republicans. They control the White House and Congress, yet still appear adrift much of the time. Their longtime reputation as the party of fiscal restraint is in serious jeopardy. President Bush's approval ratings are headed in the wrong direction. His Social Security offensive is on the defensive. Presidential nominees are held up in the Senate. A grim scenario indeed for the GOP. They'd be in even more serious trouble if it weren't for a couple of Democratic leaders who seemingly never weary of demonstrating they're at least one enchilada short of a combination plate...

http://tinyurl.com/86dlo

from Frontiers of Freedom, by Mike Bates


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

05/19/05

This is how it felt 30 years ago: Saigon had fallen and Nixon was out. We weren't so much pleased about the ultimate Viet Cong and North Vietnamese triumph over the South (and our troops), as we were glad to be purged of the whole sordid affair. And it did feel like an affair gone horribly wrong: the fatal attraction of Wilsonian messianism trying to make the world 'safe for democracy' one more time. The weapons-of-mass-destruction issue of the day was 'falling dominoes.' If South Vietnam fell, then Burma, Thailand, the Philippines, Australia -- the whole panoply of the world, piece by piece, must fall to monolithic Communism. Of course, it didn't work out that way. To get us into full-scale crusade-mode, Johnson had lied about the Tonkin Gulf Incident, the same way George W. Bush and Tony Blair would lie about Saddam's ties to Al-Qaeda, 9/11 and imminent threats of nuclear destruction...

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0519-27.htm

from Common Dreams, by Gary Corseri


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

05/19/05

You know things have gone more than a bit around the bend when it takes a British MP with a hard Scottish brogue to throw a little truth against the walls of the U.S. Senate chamber to see what will stick. George Galloway, accused of profiteering in the UN oil-for-food scandal, sat before Senators Coleman and Levin on Tuesday and raked America's Iraq invasion slowly and deliberately over the coals...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/051905X.shtml

from TruthOut, by William Rivers Pitt


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

05/20/05

In wartime, we are asked to join together in supporting the action taking place. In effect, we are expected to eliminate judgment and simply become loyal subjects of our nation. Those who refuse to stop protesting the action itself are often labeled as unpatriotic, even traitors ... by those who DO fall into line. We are encouraged by politicians to fall into line, and they, with very few exceptions, do so too. This falling-into-line has become so prevalent that our President no longer even bothers with the Constitutional requirement of asking Congress to declare war. We are left with the absurd proposition that an American President can send troops anywhere, for any reason (or none) and get away with it...

http://babelogue.citypages.com:8080/bsmith/2005/05/20


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

from No Force, No Fraud, by Bob Smith

05/18/05

Part of George Galloway's remarks to the Senate yesterday ought to be noted. Words like these are tragically unusual in our time, and what is most striking to me is Galloway's absolute, inviolable sense of moral certainty and the rightness of his cause .... Mr. Galloway made the nominal opposition party...

http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=526

from The Light of Reason, by Arthur Silber -- Hat Tip to Early Days of a Better Nation


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

05/19/05

A lot of the resistance to Real ID is stuff that we should be doing anyway. Avoid doing business with people who demand government-issued ID -- including, where possible, banks (you may want to get an offshore account), federalized mass transit services such as Amtrak and the airlines, etc. Use cash, gold or electronic currencies where you can. Buy a pre-loaded debit card that can be reloaded on the Internet or at local kiosks -- and buy it before you're required to present your new internal passport for the privilege of doing so. ... More active resistance? It's certainly called for. The first and most obvious resistance activity is invidual and obvious: Just Say No. If you can figure out how to live without a driver's license -- and many, many people have done so for many years -- then go without one...

http://knappster.blogspot.com/2005/05/what-to-do-about-real-id.html

from Knappster, by Thomas L. Knapp

05/20/05

For decades, freedom-lovers have fought a holding action against the state's ever-greater incursions into Americans' privacy. We may have slowed things down a bit, but we didn't stop them, we didn't reverse them ... and the statists have seemingly finally achieved their end goal: The eradication of privacy as such. It didn't have to be this way -- and the same network and database infrastructure which have been instrumental in the demise of privacy could have been, and might still be, privacy's greatest protector...

http://www.freemarketnews.com/pview/5837/1599/html/index.php

from Free Market News Network, by Thomas L. Knapp

05/19/05

Republicans and Democrats injected racial politics into the struggle over President Bush's judicial nominees and the Senate's filibuster rules on Thursday, underscoring partisan differences while compromise-minded senators from both parties pursued an elusive agreement. 'The attempt to do away with the filibuster is nothing short of clearing the trees for the confirmation of an unacceptable nominee to the Supreme Court,' said Democratic leader Harry Reid. He accused the president of an attempt to 'rewrite the Constitution and reinvent reality' with his demand for a yes-or-no vote on all nominees...

http://tinyurl.com/bja8o

from Las Vegas Review-Journal


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Does the current Administration really support our troops? -- The proposed funding level for veterans medical care is "a cruel pretense and an outrage," according to the Disabled American Veterans (DAV).

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3285

Because more soldiers in Iraq are surviving severe brain injury, doctors are witnessing a potentially long-lasting set of medical and mental problems unique to participants in modern-day war.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3283

Is there any point, now that November's election is behind us, in revisiting the history of the Iraq war? Yes: Any path out of the quagmire will be blocked by people who call their opponents weak on national security, and portray themselves as tough guys who will keep America safe. So it's important to understand how the tough guys made America weak.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3277

It was October 16, 2002, and the United States Congress had just voted to authorize the President to go to war against Iraq. When George W. Bush came before members of his Cabinet and Congress gathered in the East Room of the White House and addressed the American people, he was in a somber mood befitting a leader speaking frankly to free citizens about the gravest decision their country could make.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3276

WORLD famous psychic Uri Geller has stepped in to support campaigners who are trying to stop a mobile phone mast from being built near three Harrogate schools.

Speaking exclusively to the Harrogate Advertiser, the celebrity said he believed everything possible should be done to stop masts being built near homes and schools and he pledged his personal support to Campus members who are fighting plans to build a 3G mast on Claro Road.

"The practice of putting mobile phone masts near schools should be outlawed and I am appalled that the Government is giving permission for such masts to go up in areas like this," he said.

"My knowledge of the danger of masts leads me to believe that anyone living near them is endangering their lives. I believe they can cause many ailments, especially in children whose skulls are so much thinner than those of adults, and there is no doubt in my mind that these masts radiate low frequency waves which sooner or later will damage people's health.

"I'm willing to do anything I can to help the Harrogate campaigners and protect the health and well-being of these children."

Mr Geller, who shot to fame in the 1970s when he demonstrated his ability to bend spoons using the power of his mind, was contacted by Harrogate mast protester Jean Bowman after he appeared on a TV stitch up programme.

Programme makers pretended to build a mobile phone mast close to his home and Mr Geller, unaware that he was the subject of a prank, reacted strongly and immediately called his lawyers.

Campus member Mrs Bowman, who has been a staunch campaigner against the Claro Road mast, saw the programme and wrote to Uri Geller to ask for his help.

"Within a day he was on the phone to me," said Mrs Bowman.

"He told me he was convinced phone masts were a major health risk and he said he would do anything he could to help us."

Mrs Bowman, who moved her five-year-old daughter away from one of the schools affected by the mast at Christmas because of concerns about the risks to her health, said the celebrity's involvement was a welcome boost to the campaign.

"I sometimes feel that because we are just ordinary parents our opinions will be ignored, so having someone high profile behind us is wonderful," she added.

The campaigners expect to hear the outcome of their latest appeal against the mast in mid June.

jenni.moulson@ypn.co.uk
20 May 2005

This is Exeter

12:00 - 20 May 2005

A Devon MP has expressed concern over claims that the third generation phone technology could mean the number of masts in the county could quadruple.

Angela Browning, the Tory MP for Tiverton and Honiton, said it was time for the Government to heed its promise to listen to communities if an invasion of mobile phone masts was to be stopped in its tracks.

She said: "We have seen an explosion in mobile phone masts and there have been a number of highly controversial ones in my constituency.

"It now appears that there will be many more because the Government has refused to take on board the guidelines of the Stewart Report."

Tory local government affairs spokesman Caroline Spelman claimed in a Commons Early Day Motion that the operators of 3G technology had indicated that "as many as four times the present number" of masts will soon be needed.

That would equate to as many as 200 more masts in constituencies such as Exeter and Tiverton and Honiton.

Mrs Browning, the shadow local government minister, said: "This is a key test of the Government. On May 6 outside Number 10, Mr Blair said he would listen. He now needs to listen to people's very real concerns about mobile phone masts."

Ms Spelman said that the 3G operators were making available to MPs maps which pinpoint new base stations. But Mrs Browning said she had yet to see one.

She said: "The nature of the 3G phones, which require video quality, means masts need to be closer together and there will need to be many more of them.

"The Government is refusing to adopt the precautionary approach outlined in the Stewart Report."

Ms Spelman's motion also calls for full planning permission to be introduced for masts under 15 metres as well as over this height.

The Echo's Shock Waves campaign, launched in 2002, has called for more research to be carried out into the health implications of masts.

The campaign recently highlighted the battle by residents and businesses to oppose a proposed 3G mast in Heavitree Road, close to schools, nurseries and the city's maternity hospital.

Hundreds of people signed a petition to Vodafone telling the company that the proposed site was not appropriate for a mast.

Christine Jude, of the Mobile Operators' Association, questioned predictions that the number of masts were set to quadruple.

She said: "There are currently a total of 45,000 base station sites in the UK and the mobile phone operators estimate that this figure is likely to rise to around 50,000 by the end of 2007.

"Imposing full planning on all mobile phone development will do nothing to address community concerns. Rather, it will hold up the development of the next generation of mobile networks, to the detriment of businesses and communities alike."

by Emma Joseph

Daily Echo, Poole

MORE than 200 new mobile phone masts could be put up in Poole, according to the town's re-elected MP, Robert Syms.

Mr Syms is warning that recent comments from industry figures have suggested new "3G" technology will require four times as many masts than the present number.

That means local communities across the country are facing a further 130,000 mobile phone masts - an average of 209 in every parliamentary constituency.

Mr Syms said: "Throughout the election campaign I heard first-hand how the threat of poorly-located masts is causing alarm for many people.

"There is a presumption in favour of development inherent in the current planning system which overrides local, environmental and safety concerns.

"Current planning rules cannot cope with the imposition of 130,000 more masts - with up to 200 more near homes and schools across Poole."

Mr Syms is backing the Conservative party in lobbying the government for full planning permission and a single process for dealing with all masts and asking for councils to be allowed to take health concerns into account.

The party also wants mast operators to be required to demonstrate that any development does not result in unacceptable damage to visual amenity or environmentally sensitive features and councils to draw up their own supplementary planning guidance to ensure consistency.

Mr Syms added: "We all want to be able to use a mobile phone, but this doesn't mean masts should be constructed without any regard for the well-being of local people in Poole.

"I will be calling on the government to address the feelings of powerlessness and frustration experienced by those living under the threat of badly-sited masts," he added.

First published: May 20

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/GRI505A.html


From Our bill of rights

Perceived health risks IS okay by government! Let's quote this!

DONTINO’S MAST SHOWN RED LIGHT

Published on Friday, May 20th 2005

The Hexham

by BRIAN TILLEY

OBJECTORS have won their fight to prevent a mobile phone mast being erected on top of a Hexham nightclub.

Tynedale Council’s development control committee unanimously turned down the application by communications firm 3.

“We are delighted that the councillors saw common sense,” said Phil Roe, spokesman for protest group 3G Concern, which marshalled protests to the scheme.

The plan for an eight metre high mast on top of Dontino’s nightspot attracted four protest petitions, with a total of 541 signatures, as well as 35 individual letters of objection.

Hexham Town Council also objected to the scheme.

However, the council’s chief planning officer, Helen Winter, recommended approval, saying the proposal complied fully with national guidelines on masts.

The decision to refuse the application followed an inspection by the committee’s site investigation working group, after the application had been adjourned at an earlier meeting.

Coun. Mrs Anne Dale, of Stocksfield, said the inspection had revealed the mast would have a significant impact in the conservation area.

She said: “It will be double the height of Dontino’s, and if we allowed something like this right in the middle of Hexham, we will be going downhill.”

Coun. Ross Adamson, also of Stocksfield, added: “It would be very prominent when viewed from the north, and there is also the radiation to take into account. It should be turned down.”

Coun. Paul MacDonald, of Ovingham, added: “As well as the height problem, there is the perceived health risk, which the Government has said is enough to justify refusal.

“Having something like this in the centre of Hexham is one step too far.”

Coun. Dave Shaw, of Prudhoe argued that no telecommunications masts should be permitted in towns; all should be in the middle of farmers’ fields, away from centres of population.

Ward councillor Matty Donnelly congratulated the members of the site investigation group on their common sense.

He said: “Large numbers of people have stopped me in Hexham to tell me they are very concerned about the location of this mast.

“It’s within a very short distance of a nursery and a middle school, and people are worried.”

Coun. Mitch Mitchell, of Haydon Bridge, pointed out that it was still not known what the dangers of radiation from masts were, but it was clear they should not be allowed near schools and nurseries.

“To allow that is criminal,” he said.

Coun. Derek Kennedy, of Hexham, said: “To have this in the centre of Hexham is just not acceptable.

“Even if there is no health risk, people can still become ill with stress because of the public perception that there is a risk.”

Mrs Winter pointed out that it would be difficult to sustain a refusal on visual impact grounds on appeal, as the mast was only the equivalent of a flagpole.

“I don’t think there is flagpole this big on top of Buckingham Palace,” retorted Coun. MacDonald.

Coun. Michael Walton, of Greenhaugh, noted that the applicants had considered and rejected numerous alternative sites in Hexham, and suggested they try the huge poles which have recently appeared at Hexham Golf Club to hold netting to catch stray golf balls.

When the matter was put to the vote, there was not a single vote in favour of the scheme.

by James Webb

HUNDREDS of residents have won their year-long fight to stop a 58ft mobile phone mast being built at Marlow Football Club.

An appeal by telecomm-unications giant Orange was thrown out by the Secretary of State's Planning Inspectorate on Friday sparking celebrations among those who protested against the mast.

Read all about it in this week's Marlow Free Press

11:10am today

Wiltshire Times 20-05-05

PEOPLE power has forced a mobile phone firm to think again on the siting of a 15-metre mast on a Trowbridge estate.

O2 wanted to put the mast on land opposite Wiltshire College Trowbridge, but protestors said it would have been 10ft away from an 89-year-old woman's flat.

Residents on the College estate presented a 369-name petition to O2 but were told the firm did not need planning permission.

Two representatives from O2 met ward councillors and Derek Adams, chairman of the College Road Residents' Association, on Friday.

Mr Adams said the firm agreed to re-think the location of the mast and were in negotiations with Wiltshire College to put an antenna on one of its buildings instead.

He said: "The people who live in the flats are over the moon as they would have been the ones looking at the mast 24-hours a day.

"This solution is the lesser of two evils. We have won the battle, but not the war."

Mr Adams said the residents committee would decide if the solution was acceptable at a meeting tonight.

Energiegewinnung: Ölausbeutung in Sachalin bedroht Grauwale (20.05.05)

Greenpeace fordert den Shell-Konzern auf, seine Pläne für die Ölausbeutung vor der russischen Insel Sachalin im Nordpazifik zu stoppen. Das weltweit teuerste Öl- und Gasförderprojekt "Sachalin II" bedroht das Überleben der letzten hundert Westpazifischen Grauwale, die ihre Nahrung an der flachen Küste Sachalins finden. Am Wochenende berät die Europäische Bank für Wiederaufbau und Entwicklung (EBRD) auf ihrer Jahrestagung in Belgrad über einen Kredit für das umstrittene Projekt. Da sie als erste Bank die Pläne prüft, ist ihre Entscheidung ein wichtiges Signal für weitere Kreditgeber. Greenpeace wirft dem von Shell geführten Konsortium vor, die Folgen der Ölförderung vor Sachalin zu verharmlosen. Die Meeressäuger sind durch den Lärm der Ölbohrungen und Sprengungen bereits stark beeinträchtigt.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11100

Tag des Grundgesetzes: Die Würde des Menschen muss unantastbar bleiben (20.05.05)

Mit einem "Aufruf zur Verteidigung des Folterverbots" beziehen deutsche Verfassungsrechtler Position gegen Tendenzen, das absolute Folterverbot und die Unantastbarkeit der Menschenwürde zu relativieren. Anlass ist der "Tag des Grundgesetzes" am 23. Mai. Die Stellungnahme geht auf eine Initiative von amnesty international (ai) Deutschland zurück. Die Verfassungsrechtler widersprechen darin den "Stimmen, die Folter in bestimmten Ausnahmesituationen zulassen wollen, um menschliches Leben zu retten."

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11103

Europäische Verfassung: Französische Journalisten prangern Propaganda für Verfassungsreferendum an (20.05.05)

Einige Wochen vor dem Referendum über die europäische Verfassung veröffentlichte eine Gruppe französischer Journalisten einen Aufruf, in dem sie sich gegen die ihrer Meinung nach einseitige Propaganda für ein Ja zur EU-Verfassung beim Referendum am 29. Mai wenden. Darin heißt es: "In unserer Eigenschaft als Journalisten können wir nicht länger die einseitige Unterstützung der Kampagne für das Referendum am 29. Mai 2005 auf unseren Sendern ignorieren. Angesichts des Mangels an Objektivität und der Dauerberieselung für das OUI (Ja), welche unter dem Vorwand der Pädagogik auf unseren öffentlichen Sendern genauso wie auf den privaten Sendern dazu beitragen, den Berufsstand der Journalisten zu diskreditieren, erhebt sich mehr und mehr Entrüstung."

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:

http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=11104

I guess......and interesting .."coincindence."

There was gun play at the very (m)otel that Galloway was staying in?

Just something to ponder....or not.

This may be nothing or may have been a botched assasination attempt for Galloway?....You have to admit...He pissed off the neocons but good .....AND....on their own turf....So I sort of "expect" there to be some...."ramifications."

If you see nothing here...please delete it.....I am glad is turned out good for Galloway.

This was one of two articles on this same subject....found on yahoo news.

Annie


Arrarita wrote:

Forgive me, but I seem to be a little lost here. What is this about?

Arrarita

May 20, 2005

Assault at Galloway motel

by LYNDA COHEN Staff Writer, (609) 272-7257

GALLOWAY TOWNSHIP - A call to police about possible gunshots during an altercation at a motel on the White Horse Pike led to a 51/2-hour search and standoff Thursday.

One woman was cut and a second woman eventually arrested and charged with aggravated assault in connection with the fight, which resulted from money the suspect said she was owed, police said.

Officers were called to the Liberty Inn at about 8:30 Thursday morning, and found the victim with a defensive wound to her hand, believed to be from a box cutter recovered at the scene, Chief Keith Spencer said. Police later identified the victim as Jessica Louis, 22, of the Liberty Inn.

Police were initially unsure how many people were involved in the dispute, which began at the Liberty Inn in the Absecon Highlands section of the township. The woman was cut before a gun was discharged, Spencer said.

A car that left the motel before police arrived was stopped about a mile-and-a-half down the road in Absecon. The two men inside were taken in for questioning, but were later released, according to Lt. Joseph Davies.

Later in the day, with the help of surveillance tapes, the investigation determined that the attacker was Crystal Barn, 23, of the nearby Howard Johnson Motel, according to a press release from Galloway police. The release said Barn went to the Liberty Inn and confronted Louis about money that was owed to her. The two got into a fight and Louis was stabbed, police said. Officers searching Barn's room at the Howard Johnson Motel found a .38-caliber automatic handgun, police said.

Barn was charged with aggravated assault, possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose and possession of a firearm without a permit,police said. She was being held at the Atlantic County jail on $25,000 cash bail.

Louis was taken to the AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Mainland Campus, where she was treated and released, police said. Before Barn's arrest, two men were seen fleeing to the Howard Johnson, just two properties away from the Liberty Inn.

After getting a search warrant, members of the SWAT team searched two Howard Johnson's rooms, where the men were believed to have been staying. No one was found, but police did find the loaded handgun, Spencer said. He could not say whether it had been fired or if shell casings had been recovered at the Liberty Inn.

The sight of police cars, a SWAT team in full dress and officers in bulletproof vests with guns drawn proved too exciting for some to pass up in this usually quiet area.

Several people pulled their cars into Delareto's Nightclub, where media was also gathered, to watch the events unfold across the road. "It's extremely out of the ordinary," Spencer admitted.

While no one was arrested in the incident during the standoff, there was still plenty to see.

A woman in a Liberty Inn room came out with her hands up after talking with a police dispatcher. According to reports, a man had fled into the woman's second-floor room and left out the rear window.

The woman was handcuffed while police spoke to her, then released. Two men and a woman, all of whom appeared to be in their 20s, were under police guard outside the office of the Budget Host Inn, which is between Liberty Inn and Howard Johnson's. One of the men was handcuffed behind his back, then put in the back of a police car. The other man and woman stood together, at times hugging or sitting on the grass as the events unfolded. Eventually, they were allowed to return to their rooms, only to be brought out a while later, handcuffed. They were arrested on outstanding warrants, police said.

The first man was cleared and released. After the officer removed the handcuffs, the man - apparently seeing his bus passing by - took off running down the White Horse Pike. The bus stopped and picked him up.

The investigation was continuing Thursday night.

To e-mail Lynda Cohen at The Press:
LCohen@pressofac.com



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Galloway

In February 205, North East Fife Council Environment and Development Committee, Cupar, approved an application by Orange PCS for a 13 metre mobile phone (2G) mast at Peacehill Farm, by Wormit, Newport-on-Tay. There had been local objection and in view of continuing health concern in North Fife over 'Tetra' technology, arising from a previous network and experiences of Airwave in England and Wales, the councillors added a condition that there should be no addition of 'Tetra system' equipment at the Peacehill site.

Orange were happy to get their grant and did not seek to contest this. Their installation work is pending.

However, news of this exclusion affecting Tetra has reached Airwave (O2), owners of the high cost privatised emergency services and military radio network, which employs Tetra protocol.

Airwave O2 have at 5 May 05 lodged a new application to the Council, via the same agent, Pentland Chartered Surveyors, seeking to have the Councillors ' "no Tetra" condition removed from the planning approval, although they include no specific application for a Tetra addition, - yet.

Could this be a case of injured feelings from Airwave? Rather unlikely, since they have demonstrated a near total impermeability to community concern and feelings throughout the UK in locating their masts conspicuously inappropriately in residential areas and near sensitive premises, such as schools and hospitals and dismiss the increasing instances of serious ill-effects.

Perhaps they do have additions in mind. As part of Chancellor Gordon Brown's bumper auction of frequencies for 3G mobile phone licences, the police's current uhf frequencies were included and once freed off, by migration to Airwave, they will be available to Operators for more Tetra sites to support private and commercial operation. Such new cash opportunities will be irresistible, especially where they can be integrated with existing sites.

In more basic terms Airwave O2 do n't want any Council Development Committee acting in the interest of communities and pro-actively blocking them out. They certainly don't want to let Fife Councillors create such a dangerous precedent, which might sensibly be followed
elsewhere.

Local people who have appreciated the effort made by North East Fife Councillors, now require to act swiftly again to object to Airwave O2's application to undo their protection. The new Planning Reference is - 05 / 01461 / full.

Arthur Jarrett

http://barometer.orst.edu/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/05/19/428cc69051f78


Informant: Charles Bremer

Rising interest rates, troubles in the auto industry and a slowing economy are taking a toll on the riskiest parts of the U.S. debt market this year, hitting "distressed debt" investors with double-digit losses.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=reutersEdge&storyID=8505772


From Information Clearing House

American public life is now almost entirely a facade, a deadening -- and deadly -- sideshow: the multibillion-dollar electoral circuses, the increasingly frenzied "culture wars. - All this sound and fury merely obscures the ugly reality: that there are no effective restraints on the arbitrary exercise of power by the imperial court of President George W. Bush.

http://context.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2005/05/20/120.html


From Information Clearing House

It is stark. It is scarcely believable. But the ruthless obliteration of the Amazon rainforest continues at a headlong rate new figures reveal - and today we reveal the man who more than any other represents the forces making it happen.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/story.jsp?story=639814


From Information Clearing House

For over a century, our government has made sure that we are never to be told the truth about anything that we have done to other people in Third World countries, especially in Latin America.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8887.htm

Russia would consider using force if necessary to respond if the US put a combat weapon into space, according to a senior Russian official.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8894.htm

Helen Caldicott is an Australian physician who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 and is the president of the Nuclear Policy Research Institute based in Washington. She spoke with UPI National Security Correspondent Martin Sieff.

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050518-125926-1740r.htm


From Information Clearing House

--------

We spend the entire hour with anti-nuclear warrior Dr. Helen Caldicott. Caldicott has spent a lifetime trying to alert the world to the imminent dangers of nuclear weapons and nuclear war; and we'll also feature excerpts from a new documentary, Arsenal of Hypocrisy, which explains how the space program will be used to fight future wars on Earth from space...

stream [.mp3]:
http://www.kpfa.org/cgi-bin/gen-mpegurl.m3u?server=209.81.10.18&port=80&mount=/data/20050519-Thu1700.mp3
or download [.mp3]:
http://209.81.10.18/data/20050519-Thu1700.mp3


Informant: Neo Mulder

As political change takes hold in several Middle Eastern countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday Iran's leaders "should not consider themselves immune" from such developments.

http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/index.php?page=national&story_id=052005b2_rice


From Information Clearing House

Al-Qaeda are on the verge of scoring a major double blow. Unlike September 11, now their fight not only is being recognized by top Islamic scholars as legitimate, but they have also managed to capitalize on major blunders in the "war on terror" to strengthen the anti-imperialist, anti-US impulse among global, moderate Muslims. How did that happen?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8899.htm

A U.S. Army investigation has uncovered grisly details of the 2002 deaths of two Afghan men in American custody, The New York Times reported Friday, with a confidential report quoting witnesses as saying both men were repeatedly beaten before their deaths six days apart.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2005-05-20-afghanistan-deaths_x.htm?POE=NEWISVA


From Information Clearing House

Army To Suspend Recruiting For Retraining : "An explosive Target 5 investigation. Our hidden cameras catch military recruiters making the Tri-state sound more dangerous than Iraq." :

Video: Watch Dave Wagner's Report
http://www.channelcincinnati.com/news/4508233/detail.html


From Information Clearing House

Ironically, the country used to produce more than enough to meet its needs before the US-led invasion in March 2003, Dathar al-Khashab, manager of the flagship Dura refinery on the southern outskirts of Baghdad, said.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=13556


From Information Clearing House

Indifference toward accountability in spending Iraqi money was common among American officials last year as they rushed to sign contracts in the waning days of U.S. control of Iraq, according to interviews and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8901.htm

Britain's "Sun" Publishes Pictures of Hussein In His Underwear:

Britain's biggest selling newspaper published the pictures of the former Iraqi leader in his underwear, washing clothes by hand, and sleeping.

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/2233177044


Bush says he does not fear violent reaction to Saddam photos:

"I don't think a photo inspires murders. I think they (insurgents) are inspired by an ideology that is so barbaric and backwards that it's hard for many in the western world to comprehend how they think,"

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050520/pl_afp/iraqprisonerssaddamus_050520155932


From Information Clearing House

--------

Tabloid says it paid U.S. official for Saddam Hussein photos

The Sun, a British tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch, said the photos it published Friday and today were provided by a U.S. military official it did not identify who hoped their release would deal a "body blow" to the insurgency.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8910.htm

Thousands of Shiites, many waving Islam's holy book over their heads, protested the U.S.-led occupation in Iraq on Friday, setting off clashes in at least one southern city as they answered a call by a radical cleric...

http://tinyurl.com/7w6yq


From Information Clearing House

Echoing a claim that led to CNN executive Eason Jordan's resignation, the president of the 35,000-member Newspaper Guild asserted U.S. troops deliberately are killing journalists in Iraq.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=44335


From Information Clearing House

Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.

By Tim Golden

Most of the interrogators had believed Dilawar was an innocent man who had simply driven his taxi past the American base at the wrong time.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8898.htm

Not a Pretty Picture

"History," Hegel said, "is a slaughterhouse." And war is how the slaughter is carried out.

by Sydney H. Schanberg

If we believe that the present war in Iraq is just and necessary, why do we shrink from looking at the damage it wreaks? Why does the government that ordered the war and hails it as an instrument of good then ask us to respect those who died in the cause by not describing and depicting how they died?

Warning - This article provides disturbing images

Baghdad E.R. doctors examine a child who was fatally wounded in an aerial bombing attack. photo: David Leeson/The Dallas Morning News.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8895.htm

by Dahr Jamail

I find myself, against my better judgment and everything I swore I wouldn't do, heading back to the Middle East; back to chronicle more of what's happening there. I keep wondering how long it can go on; how long so many people in my home country will continue to ignore it, to be complicit, whether they know it or not, in our brutal occupation -- so long after it was proven beyond a shadow of a shadow of a doubt that this war was illegal and based on nothing but lies.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8889.htm

Der britische Abgeordnete George Galloway gab dem US-Senat eine Lehrstunde in demokratischer Opposition und demontierte drei Jahrzehnte Irak Politik.

http://www.telepolis.de/tp/r4/artikel/20/20133/1.html

http://www.investorshub.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=6402563


Informant: Dan Glover

Iraq War Legacy: U.S. Army Captain Convicted for 'Mock' Execution of Iraqi Civilian Prisoner

A U.S. Army captain forced an Iraqi detainee to dig his own grave and then ordered troops to pretend to shoot the detainee in one of several mock executions described in investigative documents released Tuesday by the Army. Capt. Shawn L. Martin of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was convicted of aggravated assault and battery in a court-martial proceeding for the mock execution episode, an Army spokesman said. He was sentenced to 45 days' confinement and fined $12,000.

http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=3274

Neben unangekündigten Überraschungs-Aktionen am morgigen Aktionstag gegen 1-€-Jobs wird zu folgenden Aktivitäten offen eingeladen:

Berlin
„Wir, die Kampagne gegen Hartz IV, werden zusammen mit AktivistInnen aus anderen Gruppen am bundesweiten Aktionstag am 20.5. in Berlin einen Ein-Euro-Spaziergang machen. Treffpunkt: Freitag, d. 20.5. um 11 Uhr U-/S-Bahn Friedrichstr. vor dem Tränenpalast. Auch die Aktion Agenturschluss ist herzlich eingeladen.“ http://www.hartzkampagne.de

Köln
„Am Freitag, den 20. Mai wird es in mehreren Städten Aktionen gegen die Vermittlungsstellen und Beschäftigungsträger von Ein-Euro-Jobs geben. Unsere deutliche Forderung lautet "Finger weg vom Geschäft mit den Zwangsdiensten!" In Köln wollen wir früh morgens für Überraschung sorgen. Wo es hingeht, wird hier genau deswegen noch nicht verraten! Nur soviel - das ungewohnt frühe Aufstehen und das hoffentlich pünktliche Erscheinen "lohnt" sich! 20. Mai - morgens 6.30 Uhr. Treffpunkt: Friesenplatz (vor dem Strauss-Laden) [von da aus werden wir uns per Straßenbahn und zu Fuß auf die Socken machen.]“ Agenturschluss Köln

Kassel
„Die Firma IWM (Internationale Wirtschafts- und Managementgesellschaft, Sitz in Erfurt, Witzenhausen und Kassel) bietet neben Weiterbildung, Jobvermittlung als ein „zweites Standbein“ auch Vermittlung in 1-Euro-Jobs an (und kassiert vermutlich die entsprechende Vermittlungsgebühr). Vor dieser Firma soll am Freitag ein Infostand stattfinden. Treffpunkt dafür ist um 9.30 Uhr am DGB Haus. Menschen in Overalls (werden besorgt) werden mit Besen bestückt, die Straße kehren und andere werden mit Eimer und Wischer, kostenlos Autoscheiben waschen (natürlich nur von denjenigen, die das auch wollen). Dazu werden entsprechende Flugblätter verteilt und per Megafon auf die Situation der 1-Euro-Jobber hingewiesen. Außerdem soll an Betroffene ein Fragebogen verteilt werden, um die Situation in den jeweiligen Einrichtungen auch von Betroffenen-Seite her zu erfassen. Für diejenigen, die an der Aktion teilnehmen wollen: bitte bringt soweit vorhanden, Eimer und Wischer mit!“

Wuppertal
Treffpunkt für den Ein-Euro-Stadtrundgang ist 20. Mai - 9.00 Uhr Schwebebahnhaltestelle Döppersberg (Hbf Wuppertal)

http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2005/05/world_burns.html


Informant: Bigraccoon

http://www.moveonpac.org/frist-QT.html

Pass It On!

by MoveOn PAC

Use The Force (or your Internet media player) to watch a new TV ad about the nuclear option.

http://www.tompaine.com/pass/

Maryland lawmakers just gave the nation a lesson in the essential role of government as a protector of citizens from the unbridled forces of capitalism. Unfortunately, the forces of capitalism won this time.

http://tompaine.com/uncommonsense/index.php#4962


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Wal-Mart

http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2094/

by Ben Terrall, In These Times

What the Bush administration is and isn't doing to bring its democracy campaign to Haiti.

http://www.tompaine.com/

by Russ Baker, TomPaine.com

Were you inspired by Bill Moyers' recent speech about media reform? Here's your users' guide to making it happen.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050520/winning_the_media_wars.php

by Marc Morial, TomPaine.com

The president of the National Urban League gives a history lesson to those now using the civil rights struggle to attack the filibuster.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050520/the_filibuster_fig_leaf.php

I am forwarding copy of an email I received from a concerned mom which is self-explanatory. I have contacted Nancy and offered my "non-expert opinion" that she not have anyone sleep in the bedroom she describes. Fortunately she and her husband do have a second bedroom in the apartment and now plan to use the room with electric meters as their computer room. She is looking into mitigation possibilities also. I referred her to several websites including http://www.electricalpollution.com and http://www.stetzerelectric.com .

I just want to thank you and to let you know that all of your hard work is "very much appreciated!!!" It is so very nice to communicate with a person before their children get sick from sleeping close to electric meters/clock radios, etc.!!!

Nancy told me the utility person she spoke to informed her that EMF's are not a concern; however, they were sending someone out to take milligauss readings today, May 19. The fact that government/industry is not informing the public will continue to cause problems for everyone "not savvy enough" to research such concerns themselves as Nancy is doing.

The issue of where even adults sleep is very important but infants don't have a chance and may even die before Leukemia develops all because of the corruption and greed that keeps such specific information from the people.

One out of each set of two guinea pigs died within 30 days of their cage being placed on our back bedroom wall opposite the electric meter!!!

Professor Olle Johansson from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden is also working with me to bring more attention to the critical situation of nightime EMR exposures with "a focus" on dangers of electrical appliances/meters/devices in close proximity to particularly the head of a bed. Take care - Joanne

Joanne C. Mueller
Guinea Pigs R Us
731 - 123rd Avenue N.W.
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55448-2127 USA
Phone: 763-755-6114
Email: jcmpelican@aol.com


Email received from Nancy (5-17-05):

Hi Joanne,

I just read your article in Omega news about the guinea pigs. It's a sad story but eye opening. I hope you don't mind me writing but I'm very concerned about where I'm living. My husband and baby and I are moving into an apartment where one of the rooms has a wall of electrical meters on the outside of the house but this wall of eletrical meters almost covers the whole area of one room. We were considering using this as a bedroom. The outside of the house is a very thin stucco. Would you advice against sleeping in this room?

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Nancy

Action Alert

Everyday the consensus within the scientific community gets stronger: global warming poses a serious threat to our health, our future and our planet. Yet ExxonMobil continues to spend millions of dollars to fund "climate skeptic" research and powerful propaganda campaigns to confuse the public and policy makers about this dangerous threat to our environment.

It's time to tell ExxonMobil we've had enough.

Click here to send a free message to ExxonMobil board member Dr. Michael J. Boskin to ask him to lead ExxonMobil towards a cleaner energy future! The ExxonMobil board will hold it's annual meeting on May 25, so it's important that Dr. Boskin receives your letters by then!
http://ga3.org/campaign/exxonmobil/wx3ksgd2a55j7x7?

Despite overwhelming scientific evidence to the contrary, ExxonMobil continues to publish ads that claim "nothing is clear" in global warming science. ExxonMobil also funds multi-million-dollar propaganda campaigns orchestrated by front groups like the Global Climate Coalition. Using tactics perfected by the tobacco companies, these campaigns confuse the public and policymakers about global warming and sap political will to address it.

Despite all of the risks, ExxonMobil is aggressively pushing for more global oil consumption. The company targets developing countries, promising that the way to improve quality of life is to burn more and more oil.

As one of the largest and most powerful oil companies in the world, ExxonMobil could have a huge impact in the development of clean, efficient and reliable energy sources that can meet our needs and protect the planet.

Click here to send a message to ExxonMobil board member Dr. Michael Boskin urging him to change ExxonMobil's course today!
http://ga3.org/campaign/exxonmobil/wx3ksgd2a55j7x7?

Once you've taken action, please help us spread the word about this campaign by forwarding this email to your friends, family and co-workers urging them to take action as well.

Thanks so much for your help!

Katelyn Sabochik
Online Campaign Manager
info@saveourenvironment.org

20.05.2005

HELMBRECHTS – „Mein Gott, Ihr kommt ja mit dem Löschen kaum noch nach.“ Ein unter dem Pseudonym Münchberg-Hofer Auftretender hat dies gestern um 11.08 Uhr ins Gästebuch der Homepage des VfB 98 Helmbrechts eingetragen. Genau drei Minuten später meldete sich Webmaster Manfred Zimmer in dem Forum zu Wort und kündigte an, in Zukunft nur noch Einträge, die den Namen und die E-Mail-Adresse beinhalten, zu veröffentlichen.

Seit der Streit um die Errichtung eines Mobilfunkmastes auf dem Gelände des VfB eskaliert ist und den Verein in Befürworter und Gegner zu spalten droht, nutzen viele Mitglieder und Interessierte die Möglichkeit, ihre Meinung im Gästebuch kundzutun. „Allerdings dulden wir keine Einträge, die unter die Gürtellinie gehen“, sagt Webaster Zimmer. Auf Bitte des Vorsitzenden Manfred Gareiß hat er nun gestern zunächst alle anonymen Beiträge gestrichen. Meist befassten sich diese kritisch bis heftig mit den Umständen der Entscheidungsfindung in Sachen Mobilfunkmast.

Wie Zimmer betont, hätte er auch ohne Gareiß‘ Eingreifen das Forum „bereinigt“. „Mir ist ja der Inhalt egal. Nur dürfen in den Beiträgen keine Beleidigungen enthalten sein und außerdem sollten die Diskutanten mit ihrem Namen zu ihren Äußerungen stehen.“

Schon am Nachmittag äußert sich in dem Forum ein Jugendspieler mit Namen, der fragt: „Was bringt ein Gästebuch, wenn man jeden Eintrag, der nicht der Vorstellung des Webmasters entspricht, löscht ? ... Die Aktion mit dem Sendemast ist als typische VfB-Methode abgestempelt.“

Dass trotz der in der Versammlung eindeutig getroffenen Entscheidung noch Diskussionsbedarf besteht, beweist die Vielzahl der Einträge. Manfred Zimmer: In den vergangenen Tagen hatten wir jeweils immer mehr als hundert Einträge. MATTHIAS BÄUMLER

http://www.frankenpost.de/nachrichten/regional/frankenwald/resyart.phtm?id=797825
http://www.frankenpost.de/nachrichten/regional/resyart.phtm?id=797825


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim


Omega weitere Berichte zum Thema VfB Helmbrechts und Sendemast sind unter http://tinyurl.com/dud79 und http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=HELMBRECHTS zu finden.

Rosenheim/Region - «Wir sind für Mobilfunk, aber gesundheitsverträglich und die Kommunen müssen bei den Standorten der Sender mitreden können.» So fasst Georg Werner als Koordinator die Ziele des neu gegründeten Aktionsbündnisses «Mobilfunk» zusammen. 40 Vertreter unterschiedlicher Gruppierungen aus Stadt und Landkreis Rosenheim haben das Bündnis ins Leben gerufen, um das im Juli stattfindende Volksbegehen zu unterstützen. Neben der ÖDP sind dabei: der Bund Naturschutz, Freie Wähler und ÜWG, die «Wahlalternative WASG», das Baubiologische Institut Neubeuern sowie Vertreter von Bürgerinitiativen wie die «BI für mehr Lebensqualität» aus Prien.

Ziel des Volksbegehrens ist die Einführung von Genehmigungsverfahren für Sendemasten und die Verankerung der Gesundheitsvorsorge im Landesentwicklungsplan. Die Kommunen sollen ein gesetzliches Mitwirkungsrecht bei der Entscheidung über Standorte bekommen. «Wir wollen, dass die Betreiber ihre Sendemasten nicht länger unkontrolliert hinstellen können, wo sie wollen», fordert Georg Werner, der selbst promovierter Mediziner ist. «Eine vernünftige Wahl der Standorte senkt die Strahlenbelastung der Bürger entscheidend.»

Mit Info-Ständen, Plakaten und Handzetteln wollen die Unterstützer Bürgerinnen und Bürger mobilisieren. Zehn Prozent aller Wähler müssen sich zwischen dem 5. und 18. Juli in den Gemeinden eintragen, wenn das Begehren erfolgreich sein soll. Mit Unverständnis reagierten die Teilnehmer der Gründungsversammlung auf die Absage des Kreisverbandes von Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. «Ein recht merkwürdiger Positionswechsel», kommentierte Georg Werner «Wir hoffen trotzdem auf möglichst viele Mitstreiter aus allen demokratischen Parteien und Gruppierungen.»
Ganz allgemein müsse die Stärkung der Rechte der Gemeinden jedem kommunalpolitisch Engagierten ein Anliegen sein.

Das Koordinationsbüro des Aktionsbündnisses «Mobilfunk» ist unter der Telefonnummer 08062/78233 erreichbar.

Redaktion 20.05.2005

http://www.rosenheimer-nachrichten.de/nachrichten/zet_report_1_7982.html

--------

Für Gesundheit beim Mobilfunk - Agnes Edenhofer zum Volksbegehren

VON MONIKA BRANDMAIER

Landkreis - Vom 5. bis 18. Juli läuft in Bayern das von der ÖDP initiierte Volksbegehren "Für Gesundheitsvorsorge beim Mobilfunk". Im Landkreis hat sich dafür bereits ein Unterstützerbündnis gebildet. Über das Volksbegehren und die geplanten Aktionen sprach diese Zeitung mit Agnes Edenhofer (42), ÖDP-Kreisvorsitzende sowie auf Kreisebene Beauftragte und Koordinatorin für das Volksbegehren.

Was will die ÖDP mit ihrem "Mobilfunk"-Volksbegehren erreichen?

Agnes Edenhofer: Unser Ziel ist es, dass Mobilfunkmasten in das Baurecht der Gemeinden mit aufgenommen werden. Das stärkt auch die kommunale Selbstverwaltung. Und damit wächst der Druck auf die Mobilfunkkonzerne, ihre bisherige Standortpolitik zu ändern. Sie werden dann gezwungen, bei ihren Standortüberlegungen von sich aus mehr die Gesundheitsvorsorge zu berücksichtigen.

Wie sieht diese Gesundheitsvorsorge aus?

Edenhofer: Bislang sind Mobilfunkmasten unter zehn Metern Höhe genehmigungsfrei, das wollen wir ändern. Dann könnten Gemeinden Einfluss darauf nehmen, dass Mobilfunkmasten nicht in der Nähe von Schulen, Kindergärten oder Wohngebieten aufgestellt werden. Ein erfolgreiches Volksbegehren wäre auch ein Anstoß für die Bundespolitik, die bisher gültigen Grenzwerte für Mobilfunk deutlich zu senken.

Welche Veranstaltungen sind zum Volksbegehren im Landkreis geplant?

Edenhofer: Am 22. Juni wird Professor Dr. Klaus Buchner, Kernphysiker an der Universität München und ÖDP-Landesvorsitzender, in Seeshaupt und am 4. Juli in Weilheim über das Volksbegehren sprechen. Auch bereiten wir weitere Veranstaltungen vor.

Sie waren wiederholt bei Volksbegehren aktiv, warum dieses Mal?

Edenhofer: Die ganze Problematik ist viel zu wenig bekannt. Wir sind keineswegs gegen Handys, aber viele Menschen nutzen Handys, ohne sich Gedanken über die Gefahren für ihre Gesundheit zu machen. Dabei könnte man Handys mit besserer Technik durchaus gesundheitsverträglicher machen.

Nutzen Sie persönlich ein Mobiltelefon?

Edenhofer: Nein.

Näheres zum Unterstützerbündnis LANDKREIS (S. 14)

mm

20.05.2005

http://www.marktplatz-oberbayern.de/regionen/weilheim/art1616,277847.html?fCMS=9a3c5e1262af07672af45c424b3392e6

--------

LOKALTEIL GRAFENAU vom 20.05.2005

Genehmigung für Sendemasten gefordert

ödp für geringe Strahlenbelastung beim Mobilfunk - Volksbegehren „Gerecht sparen, auch an der Spitze“ gescheitert

Grafenau (ga). Über die Volksbegehren „Für Gesundheitsvorsorge beim Mobilfunk“ und „Gerecht sparen, auch an der Spitze“ sprach ödp-Landesvorsitzender Bernhard Suttner auf Einladung des Kreisverbandes im Gasthaus „Zum Kellermann“. „Wir sind nicht gegen Handys, wir wollen aber erreichen, dass die Sendemasten an Standorten aufgestellt werden, an denen die Strahlenbelastung für die Bevölkerung so gering wie möglich ist“, stellte Suttner fest. Das Volksbegehren der ödp, das von 37 000 Bürgern unterschrieben wurde, ist vom Innenministerium zugelassen worden. Vom 5. bis 18. Juli kann man sich eintragen.

Suttner stellte die geltenden Grenzwerte in Deutschland, Österreichs und des BMW-Konzerns gegenüber. „Während in Deutschland der Grenzwert eine Million Mal höher ist als in Salzburg, hat die BMW-Group einen firmeninternen Grenzwert von gerade einmal 10 nW/qcm. festgesetzt, und in den Fabriken funktionieren die Handys problemlos“, argumentierte Suttner. Er verwies weiter darauf, dass ein einwandfreier Handybetrieb auch deutlich unter dem Salzburger Grenzwert möglich sei.

Ziel müsse es daher sein, sowohl die bundesweit geltenden Grenzwerte schnellstmöglich zu senken, also auch dafür zu sorgen, dass in Bayern Sendeanlagen endlich genehmigungspflichtig werden. Während man für jedes Haus, jede Dachgaube oder Garage eine Baugenehmigung der Gemeinde benötige, seien Sendemasten bis zu zehn Metern Höhe von der Genehmigungspflicht befreit. Dies führe dazu, so Suttner, dass immer wieder an sensiblen Standorten, wie z.B. direkt neben Kindergärten oder Schulen, Masten aufgestellt werden. „Die Gemeinden haben heute also keine Chance mitzureden. Dabei lässt sich längst genau berechnen, an welchen Stellen eine Sendeanlage mit sehr geringer Strahlung trotzdem ein großes Gebiet abdecken kann. Wenn das Volksbegehren Erfolg hat, können die Gemeinden, wenn sie wollen, nur noch in diesen Bereichen Baugenehmigungen erteilen. Das würde zu einer starken Reduzierung der Strahlenbelastung führen“, so der ödp-Landesvorsitzende. Das Volksbegehren „Für Gesundheitsvorsorge beim Mobilfunk“ findet auch im Landkreis zahlreiche Unterstützer, darunter der Saldenburger Bürgermeister Herbert Gebert, Dr. med. Wilhelm Jobst aus Schönberg, Dr. med. Armin Hilla aus Waldkirchen und rund 20 weitere Ärzte, Heilpraktiker und Apotheker. Das zweite Volksbegehren „Gerecht sparen, auch an der Spitze“ wurde vom Bayerischen Verfassungsgerichtshof abgelehnt, eine Entscheidung, die Suttner nicht nachvollziehen kann. Die ödp wollte erreichen, dass die Landtagsabgeordneten keine steuerfreie Aufwandspauschale von 2700 Euro pro Monat mehr bekommen, sondern ihren Aufwand wie jeder Steuerzahler nachweisen müssen.

„Auch wäre es angesichts von Hartz IV, Renten- und Pensionskürzungen und Mehrarbeit ohne Lohnausgleich nur gerecht, wenn die MdLs endlich auch für ihre eigene Altersversorgung aufkommen würden. Nach nur zehn Jahren im Landtag erhalten die Abgeordneten heute mehr als 2000 Euro Pension“, zeigte sich Suttner empört.

Auch wollte die ödp Nebenjobs wie Aufsichtsratsposten verbieten lassen. „Dass dieses von mehreren hundert Einwohnern im Landkreis Freyung-Grafenau unterstützte Volksbegehren nicht zugelassen wurde, ist ein schlimmer Schlag für die Demokratie“, sagte Suttner unter dem Beifall der Zuhörer.

http://www.pnp.de/ngen/such.php?cid=29-8524267&Ressort=fg


Nachrichten von der BI Bad Dürkheim

BUND wirft Umweltministerin vorschnelle Schlussfolgerung vor

MAINZ (arts). Auf Kritik stößt das bundesweite Vorzeigeprojekt „EMF-Wachhund", mit dem das rheinland-pfälzische Umweltministerium und die Universität Mainz möglichen gesundheitsschädlichen Auswirkungen elektromagnetischer Felder (EMF) auf die Spur kommen wollen. Die Aussagekraft der Studie zu der Belastung der Bevölkerung durch Elektrosmog sei gering, glauben die Kritiker.

Die „vorschnelle Schlussfolgerung" von Umweltministerin Margit Conrad (SPD) im Anschluss an die erste Phase des so genannten EMF-Wachhundes, Elektrosmog -Beschwerden seien „kein Massenphänomen", sei „nicht zulässig", heißt es etwa von Seiten des Bundes für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland (BUND). Dies sei eine „politische Aussage zur Beruhigung der Bevölkerung", glaubt Michael Ullrich, Referent für technischen Umweltschutz beim BUND Rheinland-Pfalz.

Schon allein die Anlage des bundesweit einmaligen Modellprojekts lasse derartige Schlüsse nicht zu. So sei die breite Bevölkerung nicht über das laufende Vorhaben informiert, die Teilnahme nur über das Internet möglich gewesen. Teilnehmer seien zudem durch „nur Insidern geläufige Fachbegriffe" verwirrt worden, Gruppen wie die Mobilfunkinitiative Rheinland-Pfalz oder der BUND seien nicht eingebunden worden.

Aus der Tatsache, dass sich nur wenige Betroffene beim EMF-Wachhund gemeldet hätten, könne daher nicht abgeleitet werden, dass es nur wenige Betroffene gebe, so Ullrich. Vielmehr seien Symptome wie Schlafstörungen und Mattigkeit unter der Bevölkerung weit verbreitet und würden nur nicht immer mit elektromagnetischen Feldern in Verbindung gebracht. Weil es indes „eine Reihe von Hinweisen" gebe, dass da „etwas im Körper passiert", fordert Ullrich, die Belastung der Menschen mit Strahlung auf ein Mindestmaß zu begrenzen. Die jetzige Studie sei dagegen nicht geeignet, Aussagen über die Belastung der Bevölkerung zu treffen.

Bereits 2003 war von Medizinern der Universität Mainz mit Unterstützung des Umweltministeriums mit dem EMF-Wachhund eine Online-Anlaufstelle für Menschen geschaffen worden, die gesundheitliche Beeinträchtigungen auf EMF zurückführen (wir berichteten). Die Resonanz sei mit landesweit 101 Rückmeldungen jedoch „überraschend gering" gewesen, so die Mainzer Epidemiologin Maria Blettner. Eine Befragung von 5000 Mainzer Haushalten fand ebenfalls nur wenig Resonanz.

Jetzt sollen über 300 Menschen - Betroffene sowie Kontrollpersonen aus deren Lebensumfeld - an der Uni Mainz umfassend medizinisch untersucht werden. Hiervon versprechen sich die Wissenschaftler Erkenntnisse darüber, ob sich die geäußerten Beschwerden tatsächlich auf EMF zurückführen lassen.

„Der Wachhund war sozusagen die Vorstufe, um gesundheitlich beeinträchtigte Personen zu finden", sagt Blettner, die nach eigenem Bekunden das Phänomen Elektrosmog ernst nimmt: „Ich bin überzeugt, dass es elektrosensible Menschen gibt." Es handle sich aber nicht um ein Massenphänomen, untermauert die Epidemiologin die Folgerungen Conrads. Dass die Ergebnisse der ersten Wachhund-Phase nicht „hundertprozentig" repräsentativ seien, hat die Medizinerin selbst ausdrücklich im Abschlussbericht vermerkt. „Die Studie ist nur einer von mehreren möglichen Ansätzen. Und vor allem nicht teuer."

Quelle: Publikation: DIE RHEINPFALZ, Regionalausgabe: Donnersberger Rundschau, Nr.115, Datum: Freitag, den 20. Mai 2005, Seite: Nr.12


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim


Omega in erster Linie ist die mangelnde Beteiligung an dieser Studie auf das Misstrauen der Mobilfunkopfer in eine solche öffentlich geförderte und von den Mobilfunkbetreibern finanzierte Art der Forschung zurückzuführen. Wie oft mussten die Mobilfunkopfer bei solchen Studien schon erleben, dass ihre Beschwerden nur dazu benutzt wurden, um zu einem für die Mobilfunkindustrie vorteilhaften Ergebnis solcher Studien zu kommen. Den Mobilfunkopfern geht es viel zu schlecht, dass sie sich auf solche nicht ernsthaft gemeinten Studien einlassen, die letztlich nur dazu benutzt werden, ihr Leid in Frage zu stellen und eine Pseudoentschuldigung für den weiteren ungestörten und von der Bevölkerung (weil durch solche pseudowissenschaftlichen Ergebnisse beruhigten) sanktionierten Aufbau der Mobilfunknetze zu leisten. Schon allein die wissenschaftlichen Mitarbeiter (z.B. Herr Schüz, ein ausgemachter Interessenvertreter der Mobilfunkindustrie) beim EMF-Wachhund Projekt, können kein Vertrauen in die Objektivität dieser Studie hervorrufen.

http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=EMF-Wachhund

11:00 - 20 May 2005

The latest phone mast horror story in the national newspapers, about the infamous "Tower of Terror" in Merseyside, again proves the potentially catastrophic consequences of living near a phone mast. Following the siting of three masts on flats in Merseyside, seven cancer deaths and four strokes occurred among residents in the past 18 months.

Yet Mr Dolan, representing the mobile phone operators, still attempts to mask the adverse health effects of living in the vicinity of phone masts (Bath Chronicle May 16/17).

The Government's Stewart and National Radiological Protection Board (NRPB) reports, which he incorrectly claims exonerates the phone industry, in fact prove the opposite eg: "There remain particular concerns in the UK about the impact of base stations on health."

Even Dr Jill Meara, the deputy director of the NRPB which advises the Government on phone safety, said: "There are real symptoms out there".

After irresponsibly siting masts next to schools, hospitals and housing (because it's cheaper) Mr Dolan has the audacity to claim that phone operators have implemented the "precautionary advice" contained in the Government's Stewart Report.

Wrong again Mr Dolan.

Dr Gibson MP, who chairs the Commons Science and Technology Committee, disagrees. He recently mocked claims by Government that it has been following Sir William Stewart's report "precautionary principle". He said: "Bill (Stewart) has said the precautionary principle has not been used when I have questioned him".

The international guidelines, frequently trumpeted by the phone industry, are set 9,000 times too high. They were introduced in the technology's infancy, after subjecting animals to 20 minutes of electro magnetic radiation and then pronouncing it safe to humans.

These guidelines are obsolete.

JOHN ELLIOTT
Badminton Road Mast Action Group
Westons Brake
Emersons Green

http://tinyurl.com/axtfz

Da zwischen den Autoherstellern DaimlerChrysler, Audi und BMW sowie dem sächsische Landtag ein Rahmenvertrag für Dienstwagen bestehe, habe die NPD von allen drei Anbietern ein Leasingangebot eingeholt.
[...]
Besser lief es für die unmotorisierten Rechten bei BMW und bei der Mercedes-Mutter DaimlerChrysler. Beide Firmen unterbreiteten der NPD-Landtagsfraktion ein Angebot. Eine BMW-Limousine wäre laut Szymanski für 297 Euro monatlich zu haben gewesen. Die Modelle von Mercedes-Benz seien der NPD hingegen für knapp 110 Euro im Monat angeboten worden. Deshalb habe man sich für zwei E-Klasse-Modelle (E 220 CDI) entschieden.

http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,356498,00.html (Auszug)

Die Frage ist, wie es der Daimler-Benz-Beteligung an Transparency-International http://www.transparency.de/Korporative_Mitglieder.52.0.html gelingt, dies Thema zu umschiffen.

http://omega.twoday.net/stories/238902/
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=EMF-Wachhund


Natürlich ist Elektrosensibilität (noch) kein Massenphänomen. Wenn das nämlich so wäre, wäre es schon zu spät. Elektrosensible sind m.E. das menschliche Frühwarnsystem, welches uns mitteilt "jetzt ist aber Schluss mit elektromagnetischen Feldern!" Dies wird aber offenbar nicht ernstgenommen und weiter fleißig Elektrosmog produziert. Daher werden wohl auch Elektrosensible wesentlich mehr werden und auch wesentlich lauter. Müssen sie auch, denn sonst wird das nie was.

Wie wäre es eigentlich, wenn Vodafone und Konsorten mal statt mit Sendeleistung zu klotzen mit ausgefeilter Empfangstechnik arbeiten würden? Insofern ist das gern gebrauchte Totschlagargument "Arbeitsplätze" völlig fehl am Platz: zu tun gäb's nämlich genug, wenn die Herren mal was Gescheites erfinden würden.

Und wie sieht’s mit 'ner Handysteuer aus ?

Hat eigentlich die Technikfolgenabschätzung hier völlig versagt oder sind die vorher schon gekauft worden ?

Na ja, kämpfen wir halt weiter.


Eckart Giese


Quelle:
http://de.groups.yahoo.com/group/elektrosmog-liste/message/5314

Kritische Wissenschaftler, die sich gegen die Interessen einer mächtigen Lobby äußern, werden häufig diffamiert, als Scharlatane abqualifiziert oder anderweitig mundtot gemacht. Ein Beispiel können Sie aus nachfolgendem Vorgang ersehen.

Prof. Cherry wurde auch schon auf Infoveranstaltungen von Vertretern der Mobilfunkindustrie abfällig als "Astrologe" abgetan. Um zukünftig solchen unsachlichen Diffamierungen von Mobilfunklobbyisten besser entgegen treten zu können, folgender Text zur Kenntnis:

Email, vom 21.08.2001, 12:49
an Dr.Böttger im Bundesumweltministerium:


Herrn Dr. Axel Böttger, Bundesumweltministerium (BMU), Bonn

26. BImSchV; Prof.Dr. Neil Cherry


Sehr geehrter Herr Dr. Böttger,

vielen Dank für das ausführliche Gespräch am 17.08.2001 über die obigen Themen.

Mich interessieren alle Vorgänge, die von der 26. BImSchV handeln. Prof. Dr. Neil Cherry hat mit seiner Arbeit "ICNIRP GUIDELINE CRITIQUE 10/2/99" die ICNIRP-Richtlinien, die kritiklos in die 26. BImSchV übernommen wurden, heftig angegriffen.

Mich interessiert, wie weit ist diese Kritik berechtigt oder nicht berechtigt und zwar in sachlicher Hinsicht.

Sie selbst bezogen sich in Ihrem persönlichen Urteil über die wissenschaftliche Seriosität von Cherry auf eine Verlautbarung des neuseeländischen Gesundheitsministeriums(?).

Nach der dortigen Einlassung, wäre Cherry nur ein Scharlatan. Bevor Sie eine derartige Diffamierung der wissenschaftlichen Seriosität von Cherry weitergeben, die offensichtlich schon aufgrund der Wortwahl völlig unsachlich ist, gehe ich davon aus, daß Sie sich von deren Wahrheitsgehalt überzeugt haben, denn sonst machen Sie sich der Ehrabschneidung (mit-)-schuldig.

Es ist leider auch in Deutschland nicht unüblich, kritische Wissenschaftler zu diffamieren.

Wie Sie aus der als Datei anhängende offiziellen Drucksache des australischen Parlaments (65th Report Austr. Parliament March 1997) ersehen können, stammt die persönliche Verunglimpfung von Cherry von dem damaligen (1997) Minister für Kommunikation und Kunst, Senator Alston, der zuvor vor dem neuseeländischen Umwelt-Gerichtshof einen Prozeß gegen Cherry verloren hatte. In diesem offiziellen Dokument schildert Cherry u.a. seinen wissenschaftlichen Werdegang.

Zusätzliche Ausbildung

ca. 1970 (1997: nearly three decade) in:
klassische Physik an der Universität in Canterbury - einschließlich Elektrizität und Magnetismus
Strahlenphysik
Auswirkungen von Mikrowellen auf Kristalle
Anwendung von Mikrowellen für Wetterradar

1972: Forschung über Luftverschmutzung an der McGill University,
Montreal
Forschung über Klimatologie
Statistik für epidemiologische Studien über gesundheitliche
Wirkungen von Luftverschmutzung

1974: landwirtschaftliche Meteorologie
Erwerb von Wissen über biologische und human-biologische
Biometeorologie

1978: Erwerb von Wissen über Human-Physiologie und Gehirnfunktionen

Deshalb war Cherry 1994 in der Lage sich wissenschaftlich zu äußern über EMR-Forschung aus dem Blickwinkel der klassischen Physik Bio-Physik
Biologie
Human-Physiologie und Human-Epidemiologie

Es folgen universitäre und wissenschaftliche Anerkennungen und Mitgliedschaften in wissenschaftlichen Vereinigungen von Cherry. Es folgt eine Aufzählung der internationalen Beratertätigkeit von Cherry. Cherry widerspricht der Behauptung von Senator Alston, daß es für die Schädlichkeit der Mobilfunkstrahlung keine Hinweise (no evidence) gäbe. Soweit aus der australischen Parlamentsdrucksache, die wohl einen hohen Stellenwert hat.

Nach dieser nun positiven Kenntnis der Qualifikationen von Cherry, gehe ich davon aus, daß Sie negative Äußerungen über Cherry nur noch dann machen, wenn Sie vorher deren Wahrheitsgehalt sorgfältig überprüft haben, am besten nach Rückfrage bei Cherry.

Die wissenschaftliche Fundierung der ICNIRP Richtlinien (1998) wurde von Neil Cherry einer detaillierten Durchsicht unterzogen.

Er stellte fest, "daß diese schwerwiegende Mängel aufweist. Es ist ein einheitliches Verzerrungsmuster erkennbar, das gravierende Mißverständnisse, Auslassungen und willentliche Falschdarstellungen einschließt."

Dieser wissenschaftliche Anwurf, erfordert auf Seiten der ICNIRP und auch des BMU (zur Verteidigung der 26. BImSchV) eine auf jeden Einzelvorwurf ausräumende Stellungnahme bzw. eine konkrete Widerlegung.

Bitte übersenden Sie mir eine detaillierte Stellungnahme/Widerlegung jedes einzelnen Punktes der Cherry-Kritik, die Sie sicher vorliegen haben, denn Sie verfolgen und prüfen von amtswegen die internationale Literatur und so haben Sie sicher auch die Cherry-Kritik an den Richtlinien geprüft.

Als Stellungnahmen würde nicht genügen, eine pauschale Abqualifizierung von Cherry, wie sie sich in der (mir unbekannten) Stellungnahme des neuseeländischen Gesundheitsministerium erfolgt sein soll.

Selbst wenn es diese Äußerung gäbe, so ist in Rechnung zu stellen, daß auch in der neuseeländischen Regierung die wirtschaftlichen Interessen die schlichte Wahrheit dominieren können und dazu greifen die interessierten Kreise gerne zur persönlichen Diffamierung desjenigen, der die berechtigte Kritik ausspricht.

Cherry gibt in seiner "Kritik" zu 87 Seiten Text 21 Seiten Literatur an. Damit scheint er zumindest vordergründig wissenschaftlich gearbeitet zu haben, es sei denn, ihm wird jeder einzelne Fehler nachgewiesen.

Die Originalarbeit von Cherry hänge ich in zwei Dateien an.

Sie führten weiter aus, daß der Eindruck der Unwissenschaftlichkeit sich bei der Anhörung der EU-Grünen im Jahre 2000 in Brüssel bei Ihnen verfestigt habe, so wären Cherry's Aussagen wissenschaftlich nicht nachprüfbar, die Literatur würde nicht stimmen usw.

Ein anderer Teilnehmer an dieser Veranstaltung berichtete mir von einem gänzlich anderen Eindruck, nämlich daß Dr. Repacholi (bekanntlich von der Industrie stark gesponsert, weil er oft deren Interessen in internationalen Gremien vertritt) in Brüssel in wissenschaftliche Erklärungsnot gekommen sei.

Soweit ich den Cherry-Vortragstext von Brüssel überblicke, hat Cherry bei 40 Seiten Text 9 Seiten Literatur angegeben.

Auch hier ist wissenschaftliches Arbeiten zu vermuten. Jeder von Cherry geäußerte Einzelvorwurf erfordert eine ausräumende Stellungnahme bzw. eine konkrete Widerlegung, um deren Übersendung ich ebenfalls bitte.

Den Text füge ich Ihnen ebenfalls bei.

Wie gesagt, bin ich an jeder (sowohl positiver als auch negativer) Information über Neil Cherry interessiert, um mir ein Urteil auch über das Zustandekommen und die Vollständigkeit der 26. BImSchV bilden zu können.

Ich bin Ihnen verbunden für die Übersendung:

- Äußerung über Cherry von der australischen RegierungGesundheits- bzw. Kommunikationsministerium

- Stellungnahme zu Cherry "ICNIRP GUIDELINE CRIITIQUE 10/2/99"

- Stellungnahme zu Cherry "Evidence that Electromagnetic Radiationis Genotoxic" June 2000

- Unterlagen der anderen Wissenschaftler bei der Grünen-Anhörungin Brüssel und deren Bewertung durch das BMU bzw. BfS bzw. SSK

MfG

(Autor ist bekannt)

ICNIRP-Richtlinienkritik von Prof. Dr. Neil Cherry
http://www.buergerwelle.de/pdf/ICNIRP_richtlinienkritik.pdf

Strafanzeige gegen Grundstücksbesitzer von Senderstandorten
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/694515/
http://tinyurl.com/77ow2

Macht der Wirtschaft - Ohnmacht der BürgerInnen
http://www.lobbycontrol.de/blog/index.php?p=32

Macht der Wirtschaft
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Macht+der+Wirtschaft

Forscher und Forschungsergebnisse von der Industrie bezahlt
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Forscher+und+Forschungsergebnisse+von+der+Industrie+bezahlt
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=EMF-Wachhund

Saludos desde Mayaguez, Puerto Rico:

Sisters and brothers we need your help. There are several congressmen on the Resources Committee from California.

Within the next two weeks starting May 24, the US House Committee on Resources will decide the fate of our brothers and sisters in the Marshall Islands. These are the human beings who had 67 nuclear and atomic bombs tested on their islands and on themselves. The US Congress is trying to brush off its responsiblity to these brothers and sisters by saying that they already paid for the health problems and compensation. Not true. The health problems have gone on for three generations. The area affected by the bombs were many times that acknowledged by the US. Marshallese do not have anyone to represent them in the US Congress because they are in Free Association with the US. We are asking for people all over the US to help enfranchise them by writting to the own congressmen/women especially if they are members of this committee. Please help us out.

Mayaguezanos con Vieques

maria m ramirez

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

18 May 2005

Contact: Simone Lovera, Friends of the Earth International, +31-6-53668298

Anne Petermann, Global Justice Ecology Project, +1-802-578-0477

United Nations Promotes Tree Plantations and Genetically Engineered Trees: Threatens Forests and Communities

UN General Headquarters, New York City (U.S.)—The United Nations Forum on Forests, meeting this and next week in New York, is promoting the conversion of native forests into industrial monoculture tree plantations.

“Over the course of the next century, the greatest threat to native forests is the rampant replacement by monoculture tree plantations which include plantations of genetically engineered trees,” stated Simone Lovera, of Friends of the Earth International. “ This trend is happening all over the world, threatening forest dwelling and indigenous communities and devastating biodiversity,” she continued.

“Monoculture tree plantations have documented negative environmental, social and economic impacts,” agreed Ana Filippini of World Rainforest Movement. “It is astonishing that the UNFF persists in promoting these tree plantations that destroy forests, grasslands and wetlands, deplete water and food for wildlife, cause people to be evicted from their homelands, and deprive them of their livelihoods—and have a particularly profound impact on indigenous peoples and women,” she added. [1]

This trend toward industrial forestry is echoed in other agencies of the UN. Recently exposed was the UN’s role in the widespread development of plantations of genetically engineered poplar trees, modified to kill insects, throughout regions of China.

In 1990 the UN Development Programme (UNDP) and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (UNFAO) began working with China to develop GE tree plantations. While the exact area planted with GE trees is unknown, it is estimated that since 2002, over 2,500 hectares of GE insect-resistant poplars have been planted. Without oversight to control the pollination of these trees, contamination of native forests with engineered traits is inevitable. [2] This will lead to severe ecological disruptions in these forests. [3]

In December 2003, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change agreed that GE trees could be used in forestry plantations developed to offset carbon emissions from the industrialized North. “The PR propaganda emerging from the promoters of GE tree technology that these franken-trees will help stop global warming is absurd,” stated Anne Petermann of the Global Justice Ecology Project, adding “native forests are critically important carbon sinks. If released, GE trees, which can pollinate for hundreds of miles, will contaminate and devastate native forests, exacerbating global warming.” [4]

The preceding release is a joint statement from Friends of the Earth International, World Rainforest Movement, Global Forest Coalition, Global Justice Ecology Project and the STOP GE Trees Campaign.



NOTES TO EDITORS:

The Problems with Monoculture Tree Plantations and Genetically Engineered Trees:

[1] Fast-growing plantations of trees have been documented to rapidly deplete groundwater and cause desertification of soils, devastating nearby forests and communities. In Africa, the conversion of native forests to plantations has led to influxes of workers, prostitution and the increase of incidences of HIV/AIDS.

[2] Researchers at Duke University have found that trees spread pollen for up to 2,000 kilometers. Industry asserts that trees engineered for the above traits will be sterile— preventing contamination. But researchers admit that sterility in trees cannot be guaranteed. Native trees that become contaminated with GE pollen will themselves become contaminants, and will contaminate more trees in an endless and irreversible cycle.

[3] Engineering trees for herbicide resistance will lead to increased applications of toxic chemicals causing water contamination and poisoning of wildlife and humans. Lignin protects trees, giving them rigidity, and is removed to make paper. Engineering trees for reduced lignin makes trees susceptible to disease, insect infestation and animal browsing, as well as environmental stresses like wind. Insect-resistant trees produce the bacterial toxin Bt, which kills beneficial insects and causes the evolution of Bt resistant “super-pests,” leading to applications of more toxic insecticides. Exuded through the roots, Bt kills soil microbes. Additionally, physicians in the Philippines have found indications that Bt pollen leads to immunological reactions in humans who inhale it.

[4] The World Resources Institute and the U.S. EPA found that, in tropical regions, plantations at best store 1/4 the carbon of native forests. Therefore the replacement of native forests by plantations will worsen global warming. Plantations have been found to be at high risk of catching fire, releasing carbon, indicating that plantation carbon sinks will potentially make global warming worse, not better. Wildfires in Indonesia in 1995 released more carbon than the entire European Union that year.

For additional information including documented sources, go to

http://www.globaljusticeecology.org/index.php?name=getrees&ID=158
http://www.wrm.org.uy/plantations.index.html
http://www.wrm.org.uy/subjects/gmtrees/text.html

Global Justice Ecology Project
PO Box 412,
Hinesburg, VT 05461 USA
(802) 482-2689 ph/fax
info@globaljusticeecology.org
http://www.globaljusticeecology.org

Anne Petermann
Co-Director
Global Justice Ecology Project
P.O. Box 412
Hinesburg, VT 05461
+1-802-482-2689 ph/fax
+1-802-578-0477 mobile
globalecology@gmavt.net

http://www.globaljusticeecology.org



Global Justice Ecology Project Mission Statement

Global Justice Ecology Project advances global justice and ecological awareness by identifying issues, creating strategies, organizing campaigns, building alliances and disseminating photographic images that demonstrate the interconnections between the social and the ecological, promoting a crucial holistic analysis to unify and strengthen movements.


http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=GE+Trees

by Mike Whitney

There’s only one way to make sure that the machinery of state-terror is operating at maximum efficiency: flip on the switch and let ‘er rip. That was the thinking behind last month’s massive roundup of 10,000 American citizens in what was aptly christened Operation Falcon....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Whitney0519.htm

by Ken Sanders

On May 16, 2005, rather than lose its press pass, Newsweek fell on its sword and retracted its story about U.S. investigators confirming the desecration of the Koran by U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo. Following the story's publication on May 9, 2005, anti-American riots erupted in Afghanistan and throughout the Muslim world and anti-Newsweek riots erupted throughout the White House and Pentagon. Bush & Co. blame Newsweek for damaging the image of the U.S., as well as for causing the deaths of at least sixteen Muslims outraged by the allegations. The damage to the image of the U.S., however, was accomplished long before the Newsweek story came out and it was done by the very people trying to pin the blame on Newsweek. Those same people caused the deaths of thousands of Muslims by way of smart bombs and and precision strikes. But I digress....

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May05/Sanders0519.htm