Former Vice President Al Gore Assails Domestic Wiretapping Program, Calling It Illegal

By LARRY MARGASAK

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Al Gore called Monday for an independent investigation of President Bush's domestic spying program, contending the president "repeatedly and persistently" broke the law by eavesdropping on Americans without court approval.

Speaking on Martin Luther King Jr.'s national holiday, the man who lost the 2000 presidential election to Bush was interrupted repeatedly by applause as he called the anti-terrorism program "a threat to the very structure of our government."

Gore charged that the administration acted without congressional authority and made a "direct assault" on a special federal court that authorizes requests to eavesdrop on Americans. One judge on the court resigned last month, voicing concerns about the National Security Agency's surveillance of e-mails and phone calls.

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, Tracey Schmitt, attacked Gore's comments shortly after address.

"Al Gore's incessant need to insert himself in the headline of the day is almost as glaring as his lack of understanding of the threats facing America," Schmitt said. "While the president works to protect Americans from terrorists, Democrats deliver no solutions of their own, only diatribes laden with inaccuracies and anger. "

Gore's speech was sponsored by the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and The Liberty Coalition, two organizations that have expressed concern about the policy.

The former vice president said that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should name a special counsel to investigate the program, citing the attorney general's "obvious conflict of interest" as a member of the Bush Cabinet as well as the nation's top law enforcement officer.

Gonzales has agreed to testify publicly at a Senate hearing on the program, and he told a news conference recently that the president acted "consistent with his legal authority" to protect Americans from a terrorist threat.

Gore, speaking at DAR Constitution Hall, said the concerns are especially important on the King holiday because the slain civil rights leader was among thousands of Americans whose private communications were intercepted by the U.S. government.

King, as a foremost civil rights activist in the 1950s and 60s, had his telephone conversations wiretapped by the FBI, which kept a file on him and thousands of other civil rights and anti-Vietnam war activists.

Gore said there is still much to learn about the domestic surveillance program, but he already has drawn a conclusion about its legality.

"What we do know about this pervasive wiretapping virtually compels the conclusion that the president of the United States has been breaking the law repeatedly and persistently," the Democrat maintained.

Bush has pointed to a congressional resolution passed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that authorized him to use force in the fight against terrorism as allowing him to order the program.

Gore had a different view, contending that Bush failed to convince Congress to support a domestic spying program, so he "secretly assumed that power anyway, as if congressional authorization was a useless bother."

He said the spying program must be considered along with other administration actions as a constitutional power grab by the president. Gore cited imprisoning American citizens without charges in terrorism cases, mistreatment of prisoners including torture and seizure of individuals in foreign countries and delivering them to autocratic regimes "infamous for the cruelty of their techniques."

Gore didn't only criticize government officials. Referring to news reports that private telecommunications companies have provided the Bush administration with access to private information on Americans, Gore said any company that did so should immediately end its complicity in the program.

Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1511003


Informant: John Calvert

by Holly Sklar, TomPaine.com

Martin Luther King Jr. would tell today's Congress to value American workers by giving them a living wage.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060116/the_wage_ethic.php

A group of religious leaders has sent a complaint to the Internal Revenue Service requesting an investigation of two large churches in Ohio that they say are improperly campaigning on behalf of a conservative Republican running for governor.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606M.shtml

In an e-mail sent by Abramoff to partner Michael Scanlon, Abramoff complains about Ralph Reed's billing practices and expenditure claims: "He is a bad version of us! No more money for him." Scanlon and Abramoff have pleaded guilty to defrauding clients.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606L.shtml

It turns out the eventual cost of the war in Iraq will not be several hundred billion, but according to a new study at least a thousand billion dollars - US$1 trillion, in other words. This figure dwarfs any previous estimate by orders of magnitude.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606K.shtml

Marjorie Cohn writes: During his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito Jr. pledged allegiance to the principle of one man-one vote and denied he was a bigot. It is astonishing that these issues even entered our national discourse in 2006. But it is Alito's record, both as a member of the Reagan administration and as a judge on the Court of Appeals, that raises allegations of racism. And it is that same record that betrays Dr. King's values and threatens the future of civil rights in this country if Alito is confirmed to the high court.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606I.shtml

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/011606_world_stories.shtml#2

America's Days As A Superpower Are Over

PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
Creators Syndicate
Jan 12, 2006

http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060112/NEWS/201120351/1030/news08&template=printpicart

President George W. Bush has destroyed America's economy, along with America's reputation as a truthful, compassionate, peace-loving nation that values civil liberties and human rights.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard University budget expert Linda Bilmes have calculated the cost to Americans of Bush's Iraq war to be between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. This figure is five to 10 times higher than the $200 billion Bush's economic adviser Larry Lindsey estimated.

Lindsey was fired by Bush because his estimate was three times higher than the $70 billion figure that the Bush administration used to mislead Congress and the American voters about the burden of the war. You can't work in the Bush administration unless you are willing to lie for Dub-ya.

Americans need to ask themselves if the White House is in competent hands when a $70 billion war becomes a $2 trillion war. Bush sold his war by understating its cost by a factor of 28.57. Any financial officer anywhere in the world whose project was 2,857 percent over budget would instantly be fired for utter incompetence.

Bush's war cost almost 30 times more than he said it would because the moronic neoconservatives that he stupidly appointed to policy positions told him the invasion would be a cakewalk. Neocons promised minimal U.S. casualties. Iraq already has cost 2,200 dead Americans and 16,000 seriously wounded - and Bush's war is not over yet. The cost of lifetime care and disability payments for the thousands of U.S. troops who have suffered brain and spinal damage was not part of the unrealistic rosy picture that Bush painted.

Stiglitz's $2 trillion estimate is OK as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. My own estimate is a multiple of Stiglitz's.

Stiglitz correctly includes the cost of lifetime care of the wounded, the economic value of destroyed and lost lives, and the opportunity cost of the resources diverted to war destruction. What he leaves out is the war's diversion of the nation's attention away from the ongoing erosion of the U.S. economy. War and the accompanying domestic police state have filled the attention span of Americans and their government. Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has been rapidly deteriorating.

In 2005, for the first time on record, consumer, business and government spending exceeded the total income of the country.

America can consume more than it produces only if foreigners supply the difference. China recently announced that it intends to diversify its foreign exchange holdings away from the U.S. dollar. If this is not merely a threat in order to extort even more concessions from Bush, Americans' ability to consume will be brought up short by a fall in the dollar's value, as China ceases to be a sponge that is absorbing an excessive outpouring of dollars. Oil-producing countries might follow China's lead.

Now that Americans are dependent on imports for their clothing, manufactured goods, and even high technology products, a decline in the dollar's value will make all these products much more expensive. American living standards, which have been treading water, will sink.

A decline in living standards is an enormous cost and will make existing debt burdens unbearable. Stiglitz did not include this cost in his estimate.

Even more serious is the war's diversion of attention from the disappearance of middle-class jobs for university graduates. The ladders of upward mobility are being rapidly dismantled by offshore production for U.S. markets, job outsourcing and importation of foreign professionals on work visas. In almost every U.S. corporation, U.S. employees are being dismissed and replaced by foreigners who work for lower pay. Even American public school teachers and hospital nurses are being replaced by foreigners imported on work visas.

The American Dream has become a nightmare for college graduates who cannot find meaningful work.

This fact is made abundantly clear from the payroll jobs data over the past five years. December's numbers, released on Jan. 6, show the same pattern that I have reported each month for years. Under pressure from offshore outsourcing, the U.S. economy only creates low-productivity jobs in low-pay domestic services.

Only a paltry number of private sector jobs were created - 94,000. Of these 94,000 jobs, 35,800 - or 38 percent - are for waitresses and bartenders. Health care and social assistance account for 28 percent of the new jobs, and temporary workers account for 10 percent. These three categories of low-tech, nontradable domestic services account for 76 percent of the new jobs. This is the jobs pattern of a poor Third World economy that consumes more than it produces.

America's so-called First World superpower economy was only able to create in December a measly 12,000 jobs in goods-producing industries, of which 77 percent are accounted for by wood products and fabricated metal products - the furniture and roofing metal of the housing boom that has now come to an end. U.S. employment declined in machinery, electronic instruments, and motor vehicles and parts.

Two thousand six hundred jobs were created in computer systems design and related services, depressing news for the several hundred thousand unemployed American computer and software engineers.

When manufacturing leaves a country, engineering, R&D and innovation rapidly follow. Now that outsourcing has killed employment opportunities for U.S. citizens and even General Motors and Ford are failing, U.S. economic growth depends on how much longer the rest of the world will absorb our debt and finance our consumption.

How much longer will it be before "the world's only remaining superpower" is universally acknowledged as a debt-ridden, hollowed-out economy desperately in need of IMF bailout?

Paul Craig Roberts, senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, writes for Creators Syndicate.


Informant: Friends

Bundeskriminalamt: BKA-Präsident fordert Geheimdienst-Befugnisse für seine Behörde (16.01.06)

Der Präsident des Bundeskriminalamtes (BKA), Jörg Ziercke, fordert mehr Befugnisse für seine Behörde im sogenannten Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus. Es müsse möglich sein, dass Informationen aus dem Ausland "auch durch das BKA selbst auf ihren Wahrheitsgehalt hin überprüft" und eine "einfache Befragung oder Observation" durchgeführt werden können, sagte Ziercke am Samstag im Interview der Woche des Südwestrundfunks (SWR). Nach den Erfahrungen mit der Geheimen Staatspolizei (Gestapo) der Nazis sieht das Grundgesetz eine Trennung von Polizei- und Geheimdienstaufgaben vor, so dass für Zierckes Wünsche dieses Trennungsgebot aufgehoben werden müsste.

Die ganze Nachricht im Internet:
http://www.ngo-online.de/ganze_nachricht.php?Nr=12684

Former Vice President Albert Gore Jr. delivered a major policy speech today that assailed the President for abusing executive power. Gore argued that "whenever power is unchecked and unaccountable it almost inevitably leads to mistakes and abuses. In the absence of rigorous accountability, incompetence flourishes. Dishonesty is encouraged and rewarded." The former Vice President went on to say, "Republican as well as Democratic members of Congress should support the bipartisan call of the Liberty Coalition for the appointment of a special counsel to pursue the criminal issues raised by warrantless wiretapping of Americans by the President.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606Y.shtml

Info- und Ankündigungsliste der Kampagne .ausgestrahlt

.ausgestrahlt-Newsletter

Montag, der 16. Januar 2005

Gegen die Offensive der Atomlobby gemeinsam aktiv werden!

2006 wird ein Jahr des Ringens um Laufzeitverlängerungen der AKWs. Wir halten gemeinsam dagegen!

.ausgestrahlt bereitet neue Aktivitäten vor.


Mit dem Abschluss der Koalitionsverhandlungen zwischen Union und SPD im November schien es noch so, als wäre der Debatte um die Laufzeiten der Atomkraftwerke erstmal beendet und alle bliebe so, wie zwischen Rot-Grün und der Atomwirtschaft vereinbart. Doch seither tobt eigentlich fast unaufhörlich der Streit zwischen den Koalitionspartnern. Viele prominente CDU/CSU-PolitikerInnen haben sich in den letzten Wochen teilweise mehrfach für die Verlängerung der Laufzeiten ausgesprochen. Ging es im Dezember noch um die angebliche Eindämmung der hohen Strompreise, so wurde jetzt im Januar der russisch-ukrainische Gasstreit zum Aufhänger genommen, um die Werbetrommel für die Atomkraft zu rühren.

Erklärtes Ziel der AKW-FreundInnen aus der Union ist es, bis zur geplanten Abschaltung des nächsten AKW (Biblis A im Jahr 2008) die Laufzeitverlängerung durchgesetzt zu haben. Wie lange die SPD diesem Dauerbeschuss noch standhält, ist schwer zu sagen. Und welchen Einfluss dieses ständige Gerede von der billigen, sicheren und umweltfreundlichen Atomenergie auf die öffentliche Meinung haben wird, ist überhaupt noch nicht absehbar.

Derzeit verläuft die Debatte denkbar einseitig. Tag für Tag sind neue Meldungen in den Medien, wer sich warum für Atomkraft ausspricht. Argumente der GegnerInnen sind kaum zu hören. Vor allem ist die Diskussion mal wieder beschränkt auf die Frage Status Quo oder Verlängerung der Laufzeiten. Von einem wirklichen, d.h. schnellen Atomausstieg redet schon gar keiner.

Es wird höchste Zeit, dass sich die Anti-Atom-Bewegung in diese Debatte wieder einmischt.

Wir gehen davon aus, dass die Atom-Diskussion in den nächsten Monaten munter weiter gehen wird. Anfang Februar findet in Berlin die Wintertagung des Deutschen Atomforums statt. Traditionsgemäß werden die AKW-Lobbyisten in diesen Tagen die Medienöffentlichkeit mit ihren Argumenten dominieren. Und Anfang April plant Angela Merkel ihren Energiegipfel mit den Chefs der großen Stromkonzerne. Früher oder später wird der erste Konzern einen Antrag auf Übertragung von Strommengen von Neu- auf Altreaktoren stellen, damit vor der nächsten Wahl 2009 kein AKW vom Netz muss. Dann wird sich zeigen, was die Ankündigung der Ablehnung solcher Anträge durch Umweltminister Sigmar Gabriel wirklich wert ist.

Bisher regt sich gegen das ständige Lobby-Feuerwerk der Atomiker zu wenig Widerspruch in der Gesellschaft. Dadurch steigt die Gefahr, dass sich die Konzerne früher oder später durchsetzen. Das wollen wir mit Eurer Hilfe ändern.

Wir wollen in den nächsten Wochen eine Argumente-Offensive starten, wollen dafür sorgen, dass an möglichst vielen Stellen in der Gesellschaft über die Gefahren der Atomenergie aufgeklärt und diskutiert wird und die Propaganda der Lobby nicht verfängt. Dazu hier eine Reihe von Vorankündigungen:

1. Gemeinsam mit Robin Wood wird .ausgestrahlt eine kleine handliche Broschüre in großer Auflage herausbringen, in der das Argument widerlegt wird, Atomenergie sei ein geeignetes Mittel zum Klimaschutz. Nur mit Eurer Hilfe können wir dafür sorgen, dass dieses Heft möglichst breit gestreut wird und viele Menschen erreicht.

2. Wir bereiten derzeit für unsere Webseite http://www.ausgestrahlt.de einen LeserInnenbrief-Bereich vor, der zu aktuellen Themen gute Argumente für Briefe liefert, die Ihr an von Euch gelesene Zeitungen schreiben könnt. Darüber hinaus könnt Ihr Eure Briefe auch auf unserer Homepage veröffentlichen, als Anregung für andere BriefschreiberInnen.

3. Schon länger läuft auf der .ausgestrahlt-Internetseite die Sammlung von „Guten Gründen für den Ausstieg“. Bisher haben sich 308 Menschen daran beteiligt. Wir rufen Euch auf, dort – falls noch nicht geschehen – auch Eure guten Gründe aufzuschreiben. Eine Auswahl der überzeugendsten Argumente wollen wir dann schön gestaltet drucken lassen, auf Plakate, Postkarten usw., um sie auch außerhalb des Internets zu verbreiten.

Weitere Aktionen von .ausgestrahlt sind in Vorbereitung. Dazu demnächst mehr.

Darüber hinaus planen viele Organisationen und Initiativen eine große Anzahl von Aktionen, Demonstrationen und Veranstaltungen rund um den 20. Jahrestag der Tschernobyl-Katastrophe am 26. April. Wer dazu mehr wissen möchte, kann unter
http://www.friedenskooperative.de/tscherno.htm nachsehen.

Ich hoffe, viele von Euch, die diese Zeilen lesen, sind auch weiter bereit, auf die eine oder andere Weise aktiv zu werden. Nur wenn jede/r seinen/ihren kleinen Teil dazu beiträgt, kann gesellschaftlicher Druck entstehen.

Mit dem Wunsch, dass 2006 das Jahr wird, in dem sich zeigt, dass die Anti-Atom-Bewegung nicht kleinzukriegen ist

grüße ich für die TrägerInnen von .ausgestrahlt

Jochen Stay

PS: Derzeit laufen auf diversen Internetseiten Umfragen zum Thema Atomenergie. Einige Links haben wir auf http://www.ausgestrahlt.de gesammelt. Nehmt Euch doch kurz Zeit und beteiligt Euch daran. Danke!


.ausgestrahlt ist eine gemeinsame Kampagne von:

Campact ( http://www.campact.de )
BUND ( http://www.bund-gegen-atomkraft.de )
x-tausendmalquer ( http://www.x1000malquer.de )

Informationen:
info@ausgestrahlt.de
http://www.ausgestrahlt.de

Common Dreams
by Ralph Nader

01/15/06

Judge Alito's record is clearly one that has favored in most instances big government and big business against the little guys. His judicial philosophy tends toward downgrading the role of Congress. His belief in a very powerful 'unitary Presidency' should send shivers up the spines of self-described conservatives in the age of King Bush. But then they have their own version of political befuddlement these days. ... Before the Alito hearings were over, some anonymous Democratic Senators and their aides already were telling the reporters that he would be confirmed, that there would be no filibuster and that once again the Republicans would prevail. ... So now the Democrats will be saddled with what Kevin Zeese, who is running as an independent for the U.S. Senate from Maryland, called the 'four horses of the apocalypse' -- four partisan justices who favor executive power, corporate power, expansive law enforcement authority [but not against corporate or governmental violators], co-mingling of religion and government and minimal individual rights'...

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0115-27.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Human Events
by Robert Novak

01/16/06

When John Shadegg announced from his hometown of Phoenix on Friday that he is running for House majority leader, it appeared that the two leading candidates to succeed Tom DeLay had peaked. The reason is that Roy Blunt and John Boehner both are regarded as K Street candidates, whose selection might not be prudent for a Republican Party enmeshed in scandal. Neither Blunt nor Boehner is burdened with DeLay's connection to disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Like DeLay, each is closely associated with K Street (the capital's big and brassy lobbyist community). Unlike DeLay, neither is viewed by ardent ideological conservatives as one of their own. So, until Shadegg announced his candidacy, members of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) were watching a race without a horse to bet on. While starting well behind the front-runners, Shadegg is a non-K Street reformer...

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=11603


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AlterNet
by Emily Biuso

01/16/06

At the close of a regular Democratic Town Committee meeting in Manchester, Conn., in December, 79-year-old Joe Rafala, a World War II veteran and party worker for more than 60 years, decided he had had enough with the state's junior senator, Joe Lieberman. Rafala, like many in Connecticut, had voted for Lieberman in the past but is troubled by Lieberman's continued public support for the Iraq war. Before the meeting adjourned, Rafala presented a surprise motion proposing that the committee reproach the senator by sending him a letter criticizing his stance on Iraq...

http://www.alternet.org/story/30683/


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The American Conservative
by Kara Hopkins

01/16/06

President Bush's approval rating could not have slipped into the 30s were his base not bleeding. The gloss is off democratic crusading, and happy talk about Iraqis standing up is no substitute for an exit strategy. Social Security reform swirled down the drain months ago, leaving no domestic agenda save Katrina spending. Add Libby and Brownie, Miers and Murtha, and Bush probably spends many days missing Crawford. He can't change policy -- even if strategy so dictated, his temperament doesn't run in that gear -- so he is left trying to change the subject. With few options, he landed on immigration reform. But could someone who stumped in Spanish and turned 'jobs Americans won't do' into a national cliche convincingly sell himself to the Right as an immigration reformer? Short answer: no -- but it may not matter...

http://www.amconmag.com/2006/2006_01_16/article2.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rebirth of Reason
by Tibor R. Machan

01/16/06

Yale Law Professor Kenji Yoshino wrote a piece for The New York Times Magazine, 'The Pressure to Cover' [01/15/06], that's a frightening diatribe in favor of a police state. Its ideas pretty much match the worst portions of the Right Wing's Patriot Act -- another piece of evidence that Left and Right are mostly two sides of the same coin. This man proposes that everyone who is dissatisfied with any condition in his or her life has the civil right to seek relief (e.g., be accepted by others on his or her terms.) This idea is to completely abolish the right to free association, so all those whom some do not like will be forced to be embraced by all those who do not wish to be with them...

http://tinyurl.com/cjkss


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Free Market News Network
by Doug Casey

01/13/06

As you know, I think the U.S. is riding for a serious fall; that opinion has historically constrained my ability to capitalize on domestic stock, bond, and property bull markets. At the same time, I like to play to the strong suits in any game. That has led me to the opinion that over time, some foreign countries will do better than the U.S. And that it's only common sense, considering the fate of the dollar, to keep a close eye on commodities in general and precious metals in particular. It's just a question of timing...

http://www.fmnn.com/Analysis/153/3433/2006-01-13.asp?wid=153&nid=3433


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

The Price of Liberty
by Lady Liberty

01/16/06

I said at the beginning of this column that many of us use the New Year as an opportunity to look back at our mistakes, and to make resolutions to do better in the coming year. Our mistakes -- re-electing politicians who don't keep their oath, failing to protest when enough voices might engender change or at least delay -- means that freedom was grievously wounded in 2005. If there's even the slimmest chance it can recover, we're going to have to make -- and keep -- some significant resolutions this year...

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/01/16/ladylib.htm


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

AntiWar.Com
by Justin Raimondo

01/16/06

The neocons have insisted for years that the first shots of what they call 'World War IV' have already been fired, and we are in for a new cold war (the previous one was WWIII) that is bound to turn hot. Now Niall Ferguson, the British exponent of a new American Empire, has come up with a scenario in which he envisions how the heavy fire might begin -- one that reveals, in its fictionalization of entirely plausible events, all the assumptions and arrogance of a superpower infected with a fatal hubris...

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8394


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Press Release: National Election Data Archive January 16, 2006

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/1/prweb333208.php

Specific Type of Statistical Analysis Can Indicate Vote Count Errors in Past and Future Elections

After over a year of research, the National Election Data Archive (NEDA) has developed a new sophisticated statistical method for indicating whether reported vote counts in any particular election race between two candidates have, or have not, been counted correctly. The method is being made publicly available on the Internet - "Vote Miscount or Exit Poll Error? New Mathematical Function for Analyzing Exit Poll Discrepancy" is publicly available at
http://electionarchive.org/ucvAnalysis/US/Exit-Poll-Analysis.pdf and will enable independent analysts to objectively evaluate the validity of any past or future election results.

Given the continuing controversy over the large exit poll/vote count discrepancies in the 2004 presidential election, the number of computer glitches primarily favoring one candidate over the other, and allegations that electronic vote tampering may have been responsible, a scientific method for analyzing exit poll data appears essential for restoring faith in U.S. democracy.

The method presented is compared with several prior analyses of the 2004 exit poll/vote count discrepancy by pollsters Edison-Mitofsky, NEDA, the Election Sciences Institute, and others. Errors in those earlier reports, which led to problematic conclusions, are noted and contrasted with the more correct analysis method presented in this latest report.

Method to be Used on 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Data

NEDA will shortly be releasing a report using this analysis method for Ohio's 2004 presidential election. It will provide striking support for corrupted Ohio vote counts of sufficient magnitude to reverse the outcome of the election.

The National Election Data Archive (NEDA) is a nonprofit organization of statisticians and mathematicians devoted to the accuracy of U.S. vote counts. NEDA is currently seeking support to build a national public election data archive to make detailed precinct-level vote-type election data available for immediate post-election independent analysis of voting patterns.

For further information contact:
Kathy Dopp,
MS, Mathematics, NEDA, President
kathy@uscountvotes.org

National Election Data Archive (NEDA)
http://electionarchive.org

Tennessean

01/15/06

Although it's illegal for legislators to accept campaign money during a regular legislative session, they can -- ironically -- accept contributions during the special session on ethics. Many legislators and good-government groups were unaware of the loophole as the high-profile session began on Tuesday with rhetoric about the need for reform. But some lobbyists and others whose job is to influence public policy were well versed in the fine print of the campaign rules. Only hours into the debate, The Tennessean has learned, special interests began offering campaign contributions to lawmakers. Representatives of several political action committees, or PACs, approached the House and Senate Republican caucus seeking to donate not long after Gov. Phil Bredesen gave his opening speech to the General Assembly, said Thomsen Smith, fundraiser for the caucus...

http://tinyurl.com/d3zsl


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Independent [UK]

01/15/06

Tony Blair is preparing to scrap a 40-year ban on tapping MPs' telephones, despite fierce Cabinet opposition . ... He is expected to formally announce to the Commons within weeks that MPs can no longer be sure that the security services and others will not intercept their communications. Until now, successive administrations have pledged that there should be no tapping 'whatsoever' of MPs' phones, and that they would be told if it was necessary to breach the ban. But that convention -- known as the Wilson Doctrine, after Harold Wilson, the prime minister who introduced it -- is to be abandoned in an expansion of MI5 powers following the London bombings...

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article338691.ece


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Cincinnati Enquirer

01/15/06

Former CBS anchor Walter Cronkite, whose 1968 conclusion that the Vietnam War was unwinnable keenly influenced public opinion then, said Sunday he'd say the same thing today about Iraq. 'It's my belief that we should get out now,' Cronkite said in a meeting with reporters. Now 89, the television journalist once known as 'the most trusted man in America' has been off the 'CBS Evening News' for nearly a quarter-century. He's still a CBS News employee, although he does little for them...

http://tinyurl.com/b5phh


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Indianapolis Star

01/15/06

Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in a lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee. 'Unfortunately it has become clear to me in recent days that the false allegations made against me have become a distraction to the important work of the House Republican Conference and the important work that remains ahead for the House Administration Committee,' Ney said in a written statement...

http://tinyurl.com/dyde2


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Chicago Tribune

01/16/06

The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Sunday reiterated his reservations about President Bush's legal authority to order domestic spying, noting that Congress had not given Bush a 'blank check' for warrantless eavesdropping. But Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said he is prepared to listen to the administration's case during the congressional hearings he intends to convene next month. If the hearings determine that the president broke the law, 'the remedy could be a variety of things,' including impeachment or criminal prosecution, 'but the principal remedy ... under our society is to pay a political price,' Specter told ABC's 'This Week'...

http://tinyurl.com/8879b


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

Rep. Bob Ney, an Ohio Republican implicated in the Abramoff lobbying corruption investigation, said Sunday he will step aside temporarily as chairman of the House Administration Committee.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011606Z.shtml

New plans to install a three-metre high mobile phone antenna in the heart of Bury St Edmunds have met stern opposition.

Vodafone has applied St Edmundsbury Borough Council to set up three antennae on top of the BT building in Whiting Street, even though two similar previous applications have been refused.

Paul Farmer, borough councillor for Abbeygate ward, wants the plans thrown out because of health fears and the impact it would have on the area's conservation area.

Cllr Farmer, who has leafleted 200 homes about the mast, said: "I expect residents to be strongly against this application, just as they were for the previous two submissions.

"There are genuinely held safety concerns, especially with two schools about 250 metres away."

Cllr Farmer said the antennae would draw attention to the BT building, which had a harmful effect on the area's conservation area.

The antennae would be designed to blend in with their surroundings, by being concealed in a chimney stack-like structure and painted the same colour as brickwork.

Stephen Arnold, spokesman for National Grid Wireless, which is submitting the plans on behalf of Vodafone, said: "We believe the design of the antennae is in keeping with the local character."

16 January 2006

http://www.buryfreepress.co.uk/ViewArticle2.aspx?SectionID=843&ArticleID=1312365

Shropshire residents who claim their future is not bright with Orange staged a protest in a bid to have a mobile phone mast removed from near their homes.

Members of the West Felton Mast Protest Group united around the mast on Saturday. More than 40 people attended the protest.

Members of the group say the mast, which is situated near The Avenue, West Felton, could pose a health risk and is a blot on the landscape. It was put up in September by mobile phone company Orange but local people claim they knew nothing of the plans.

The campaigners’ next step will be a public meeting on Wednesday in the village hall at 7.30pm. The guest speaker will be Alan Blood, a leading campaigner for a protest group in Caersws.

The full version of this article appears in the Oswestry edition of tonight’s Shropshire Star

http://www.shropshirestar.com/show_article.php?aID=41345

RFID: Funk-Chips als Modegag

Modetrends aus den USA
Aus der Rubrik: Privacy Watch
Montag, 16. Januar 2006
von Christian Rentrop

Was tut die Jugend nicht alles, um zu missfallen. Immer größere Tatoos, Piercing, Branding, Zungenspalting und Metallhaken-unter-die-Kopfhaut-Schraubing schocken nicht nur Eltern, sondern auch den Rest der Menschheit. Stoff für Talkshows, das Problem: Man gewöhnt sich schnell an den Anblick. Deshalb hat sich die amerikanischen Jugend etwas Neues ausgedacht: Tagging.

Immer rein damit!

Tagging? Das gibt's doch schon. Beliebter Gag in Bussen, an Bahnhöfen, Hauswänden: Es wird eine Unterschrift hinterlassen, wahlweise mit Superfett-Edding oder eben mit Sprühdose. Das allerdings ist nicht gemeint. Vielmehr lässt sich die Jugend der Vereinigten Staaten nach einer Meldung der Nachrichten-Agentur Reuters immer öfter RFID-Funkchips spritzen. Die kurz "Tags" genannten Silizium-Implantate haben der Bewegung ihren Namen gegeben, die RFID-Verrückten bezeichnen ihre Vorgehensweise auch als "Chipping". Und das geht so: Man nehme einen RFID-Chip, spritze ihn unter die Haut und schon zählt man zur neuen, hippen Gruppe der "Getagten". Klingt albern? Ist es auch.

Das Tagging von Lebewesen ist nämlich keinesfalls eine neue Idee. Die Implantation von RFID-Chips beim Menschen war bereits 2004 ein Thema, Haustiere und Nutzvieh sind schon seit langer Zeit "Nutznießer" der Technologie. Das etwa reiskorngroße Implantat besteht aus einem winzigen RFID-Chip, der in ein Glaskügelchen eingelassen ist. Das soll nicht nur verhindern, dass der Chip kurzschließt, auch unangenehme Reaktionen des Körpers auf Silizium können auf diese Weise ausgeschlossen werden.

"Mach mir den Sendemast!"

Doch was für Daten sind auf den RFID-Chips gespeichert? Mit Hilfe der kleinen Funker lassen sich zum Beispiel Türen wie durch Zauberhand öffnen, Autos ohne Schlüssel starten oder Computer sichern. Kein technisches Gerät, bei dem es nicht denkbar ist, dass RFID-Chips den Job erledigen, der bisher durch Passwörter, Schlüssel oder Handarbeit durchgeführt werden musste. Sogar die Speicherung von Ausweisdaten sind denkbar, genormt ist in diesem Zusammenhang allerdings noch nichts, außer der RFID-Technologie an sich.

Das "Chipping" jedenfalls scheint zum Trend zu werden. Und es ist sicherlich eine schöne Vorstellung, dass zum Beispiel der iPod oder das Handy nur in der Hand ihres Besitzers funktionieren, weil dieser den passenden RFID-Chip implantiert hat. Und natürlich sind viele andere Anwendungen machbar. Die Chip-Technologie ist genormt und kann jederzeit mit entsprechenden Lesegeräten ausgelesen werden. Eine datenschutzrechtliche Bedrohung besteht jedoch nicht: Die Reichweite der winzigen Chips ist zu gering, als dass das Risiko bestünde, im Rahmen einer RFID-Messung auf der Straße ausgelesen zu werden. Denn die Chips werden durch einen Sender nur aktiviert und funken zurück. Starke Signale sind aufgrund der geringen Größe der Chips kaum möglich.

Verchipte Hipster und andere Körperschmuck-Fanatiker

Sind die verchipten Hipster nun die ersten Cyborgs? Offensichtlich gibt es Menschen, die nichts dagegen haben, sich mit elektronischen Komponenten "verbessern" zu lassen. Es steht außer Frage, dass die Tagger auch zu anderen technischen Upgrades greifen werden, sobald sie verfügbar sind. Woran ja im Grunde auch nichts Falsches ist. Spätestens beim in der Science-Fiction-Literatur beschriebenen Austausch von Körperteilen sollten aber zumindest normal veranlagte Menschen einen Stopp einlegen. Doch gerade die Körperkünstler, die sich gerne einmal durchstechen oder bemalen lassen, dürften daran ihre Freude haben.

Gut, dass es sich bei den Taggern zur Zeit eher um technisch Interessierte und nicht um verrückte Schönheits-Fanatiker handelt. Zumal deren Liebe zu körperlichen Schmerzen durch die Harmlosigkeit des Chip-Implantierens wohl kaum angesprochen werden dürfte: Das beschränkt sich nämlich auf einen Nadelstich wie bei einer Impfung. Nichts für die Nadel-Fanatiker aus dem Körperschmuck-Lager. Die ersten Freaks zeigen bereits ihre "Operationen" im Internet.

Dienste für den Chip-Träger von Welt

Anbieter der Chipimplantate sind Unternehmen wie VeriSign, die nicht nur das subkutane RFID-Implantat entwickelt haben, sondern auch dessen Verbreitung vorantreiben. Auf den Chips selbst ist übrigens kaum mehr als eine Seriennummer gespeichert, die den Träger mit Hilfe einer Datenbank eindeutig identifiziert. Entsprechende Dienste, zum Beispiel die Speicherung von Ausweis- oder Schlüsseldaten, übernimmt VeriSign. Sinn macht diese Form der Anwendung vor allem bei Patienten in Krankenhäusern oder Sträflingen.

Wird der Chip nicht mehr gebraucht, lässt er sich durch einen kleinen Schnitt mit dem Skalpell jederzeit entfernen. Die Gefahr, dass das Implantat zu sehr mit dem Fleisch verwächst, sodass eine größere Operation vonnöten wäre, ist dank der Glas-Hülle überaus gering. Allerdings besteht auch ein wesentlich größeres Problem als das des eingewachsenen Implantats: Skrupellose Verbrecher könnten Einbrüche und Autodiebstähle demnächst mit den Chips der Besitzer durchführen, natürlich ohne dass der Besitzer noch mit dem Chip zusammenhängt. Es gilt also die Parole "Augen auf beim Autokauf", Fahrzeuge, die einen mumifizierten Arm als Schlüsselanhänger haben, sollten gemieden werden.

http://www.netzwelt.de/news/73410-rfid-funkchips-als-modegag.html


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim

14.01.2006

Kleinsendelbach. Die Interessengemeinschaft vom Mobilfunk betroffener Bürger Kleinsendelbach hat in Zusammenarbeit mit drei Arztpraxen aus der Region ein Messgerät zur Messung hochfrequenter Strahlung angeschafft. Der HF 38 Analyser von Gigahertz ist in der Lage, die zum Messzeitpunkt bestehende Strahlungsbelastung, die zum Beispiel durch den Betrieb von Mobilfunkanlagen (Sendemasten, Handys, DECT-Telefone und WLAN) entsteht, zu bestimmen und Belastungsquellen grob zu beurteilen.

Damit besteht die Möglichkeit für die Mediziner, bei Verdachtsfällen auf „Mobilfunksyndrom“ (das heißt durch Strahleneinwirkung bedingte Erkrankungen) die Strahlenbelastung und Situation vor Ort zu überprüfen. Auch die Bürgerinitiative hat nun die Möglichkeit, bei Bedarf Messungen durchzuführen.

Das neue Gerät wird in der 1. Sitzung der Bürgerinitiative am Dienstag, 17. Januar, um 19.30 Uhr im Gasthof „Zur Rose“ in Kleinsendelbach vorgestellt und eine Einweisung für alle Beteiligten vorgenommen.

Von Mobilfunkauswirkungen Betroffene oder an der Thematik Interessierte sowie Ärzte sind zu dieser öffentlichen Veranstaltung eingeladen.

http://www.fraenkischer-tag.de/nachrichten/index.php?MappeCID=6t1iqp3-v7m$6ws*7hk~2&Hierarchie=0al73o03k$ih$y6vfgog5&Seite=Lokales&SeiteSub=Forchheim


Nachricht von der BI Bad Dürkheim

HLV INFO 7/AT

16-01-2006

Webmaster 13-01-06

In der Ausgabe vom 23.12.05 unseres Newsletters brachten wir ein Hinweis auf Todesfälle in Spanien mit der Bitte um Übersetzung. Die Übersetzung liegt vor. Wir danken Herrn W. Madliger für seine Arbeit.

ÜBERSETZUNG DES ARTIKELS VON 20 MINUTEN

SPANIEN

DER TOD VON 43 EINWOHNERN VON MAJADAHONDA DURCH ELEKTROMAGNETISCHE STRAHLUNG WIRD ZUR ANZEIGE GEBRACHT

Die Staatsanwaltschaft der Umweltschutzbehörde von Madrid hat auf die Anzeige von 2 Einwohnern von Majadahonda bezüglich des Todes von 43 Personen (darunter 26 an Krebs), die in der Nähe einer Transformatorenstation der Gesellschaft Iberdrola und einer Mobilfunkantenne wohnten, auf dem Dienstweg angenommen.

In der Anzeige, zu der Efe (eine Presseagentur) Zugang hatte, wird vorgebracht, dass seit 1984 43 Anwohner der Strassen Travesia de San Joaquin Nr. 2, der Calle San Joaquin Nr. 13, 20 und 22 sowie der Calle Hernan Cortés Nr.10 - alle Strassen sind nahe beieinander - verstorben sind. Gemäß den Anzeigenstellern waren 26 der 43 Verstorbenen an Krebs erkrankt, 17 starben durch Infarkte oder kardiovaskuläre Probleme und zur Zeit hat es 7 Nachbarn mit cancerogenen Krankheiten und 7 andere mit kardiovaskulären Erkrankungen in derselben Zone. Der Hauptteil der 43 Verstorbenen (4 unter ihnen waren weniger als 40 Jahre alt ) wohnte in den Nummern 13, 20 und 22 der Calle San Joaquin von Majadahonda, wo seit 1971 die Elektro-Gesellschaft Iberdrola im Untergeschoss des Hauses Nr.13 eine Transformatorenstation unterhält, welche jedoch auch nach 34 Jahren keinerlei Isolierung oder Abschirmung aufweist.

Es wird hinzugefügt, dass diese Installation wohl eine Baugenehmigung hatte, dass aber Iberdrola nirgendwo im Eigentumsregister als Eigentümer einer Wohnung oder eines Lokals in dem Wohnhaus Nr. 13 auftauche, dass keine Betriebsgenehmigung, noch eine Genehmigung der Umweltbehörde noch irgend einer anderen Behörde existiere. Auch hatte sich die Gesellschaft nirgendwo bemüht, eine Genehmigung zu erhalten.

Eine Mobilfunkantenne in der Zone

Die Anwohner warnen zusätzlich, als Mitverursacher der elektromagnetischen Emissionen, vor einer Mobilfunkantenne von Telefonica auf dem Gebäude der Travesia San Joaquin Nr. 4, welcher ebenfalls eine Betriebsgenehmigung fehlt. In der Anzeige wird auch darauf hingewiesen, dass in den vergangenen 25 Jahren, diejenigen Anwohner, die am nächsten zur Trafostation wohnten, den Tod fanden und dass der Hauptteil von ihnen in diesem Stadtviertel während Jahrzehnten permanent wohnten und dass es keinen Todesfall bei den kürzlich zugezogenen Mietern gegeben hat. Die Anzeigensteller, die vor der Gemeinde Majadahonda und vor dem Staatsanwalt erfolglos geklagt hatten, verlangen die Realisierung einer epidemiologischen Studie, welche den Zusammenhang zwischen den Toten und der elektromagnetischen Kontamination in der Zone herstellen soll. Sie berufen sich auch auf die Verfassung und die internationalen Gesetze, um derartige Aktivitäten der Gesellschaften ab sofort zu untersagen.

Der Staatsanwalt der Umweltbehörde, Emilio Valerio, bekundete gegenüber Efe, dass Angesichts dieser auf dem Dienstweg zugelassenen Anzeige, diese "vernünftig erscheint " und dass die Gemeinschaft Madrid sich um eine epidemiologische Studie bemühen werde und dass in den Berichten der Fachärzte festgestellt werde, ob tatsächlich ein Zusammenhang zwischen den Toten und dem Betrieb der beiden Anlagen bestehe.

Iberdrola sagt, dass alles in Ordnung ist Ein Sprecher von Iberdrola bekräftigte, dass die inkriminierte Anlage aus 2 modernen Transformatoren besteht, die über alle Genehmigungen, welche das Gesetz verlangt, verfügen und dass die Anlage alle Examinationen zufriedenstellend absolviert hat und alle reglementarischen Sicherheitsrevisionen bestanden hat und zudem freiwillige Prüfungen durch die Gesellschaft, die letzte am 20. April 2004, durchgeführt wurden.

Gegenüber Efe wurden diese Informationen durch den Wirtschaftsrat der Gemeinschaft bestätigt, gemäss welchen die Generaldirektion der Industrie am erwähnten Datum die Anlage von Iberdrola überprüfte, welche keinerlei Anomalie aufwies und zudem alle Sicherheitsvorschriften eingehalten worden waren.

Bezüglich der Antenne von Telefonica, gab ein Sprecher der Gemeinde Majadahonda gegenüber Efe an, dass diese Antenne Untersuchungsgegenstand in einer Studie der Schule für Telekommunikations- Ingenieure vergangenen März gewesen war, welche in Anwesenheit der Anwohner realisiert wurde und diese zum Schluss kam, dass die Emissionen der Antenne noch weit unterhalb der vom Gesetz erlaubten Grenzen lägen. Diese Extremdarstellung wurde von einem Sprecher von Telefonica Moviles zusammengestellt und zudem wurde versichert, dass die Anlage von Travesia San Joaquin alle nötigen legalen Genehmigungen besitze.

Es folgt eine Liste mit Kommentaren.

Link zum spanischen Originalartikel:
http://www.dsalud.com/numero75_1.htm http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/43319/0/radiaciones/denuncia/majadahonda

--------

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

16 January 2006 08:29

Thirty years ago, the scientist James Lovelock worked out that the Earth possessed a planetary-scale control system which kept the environment fit for life. He called it Gaia, and the theory has become widely accepted. Now, he believes mankind's abuse of the environment is making that mechanism work against us. His astonishing conclusion - that climate change is already insoluble, and life on Earth will never be the same again.

By Michael McCarthy
Environment Editor
Published: 16 January 2006
http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article338878.ece

The world has already passed the point of no return for climate change, and civilisation as we know it is now unlikely to survive, according to James Lovelock, the scientist and green guru who conceived the idea of Gaia - the Earth which keeps itself fit for life.

In a profoundly pessimistic new assessment, published in today's Independent, Professor Lovelock suggests that efforts to counter global warming cannot succeed, and that, in effect, it is already too late.

The world and human society face disaster to a worse extent, and on a faster timescale, than almost anybody realises, he believes. He writes: " Before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

In making such a statement, far gloomier than any yet made by a scientist of comparable international standing, Professor Lovelock accepts he is going out on a limb. But as the man who conceived the first wholly new way of looking at life on Earth since Charles Darwin, he feels his own analysis of what is happening leaves him no choice. He believes that it is the self-regulating mechanism of Gaia itself - increasingly accepted by other scientists worldwide, although they prefer to term it the Earth System - which, perversely, will ensure that the warming cannot be mastered.

This is because the system contains myriad feedback mechanisms which in the past have acted in concert to keep the Earth much cooler than it otherwise would be. Now, however, they will come together to amplify the warming being caused by human activities such as transport and industry through huge emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2 ).

It means that the harmful consequences of human beings damaging the living planet's ancient regulatory system will be non-linear - in other words, likely to accelerate uncontrollably.

He terms this phenomenon "The Revenge of Gaia" and examines it in detail in a new book with that title, to be published next month.

The uniqueness of the Lovelock viewpoint is that it is holistic, rather than reductionist. Although he is a committed supporter of current research into climate change, especially at Britain's Hadley Centre, he is not looking at individual facets of how the climate behaves, as other scientists inevitably are. Rather, he is looking at how the whole control system of the Earth behaves when put under stress.

Professor Lovelock, who conceived the idea of Gaia in the 1970s while examining the possibility of life on Mars for Nasa in the US, has been warning of the dangers of climate change since major concerns about it first began nearly 20 years ago.

He was one of a select group of scientists who gave an initial briefing on global warming to Margaret Thatcher's Cabinet at 10 Downing Street in April 1989.

His concerns have increased steadily since then, as evidence of a warming climate has mounted. For example, he shared the alarm of many scientists at the news last September that the ice covering the Arctic Ocean is now melting so fast that in 2005 it reached a historic low point.

Two years ago he sparked a major controversy with an article in The Independent calling on environmentalists to drop their long-standing opposition to nuclear power, which does not produce the greenhouses gases of conventional power stations.

Global warming was proceeding so fast that only a major expansion of nuclear power could bring it under control, he said. Most of the Green movement roundly rejected his call, and does so still.

Now his concerns have reached a peak - and have a new emphasis. Rather than calling for further ways of countering climate change, he is calling on governments in Britain and elsewhere to begin large-scale preparations for surviving what he now sees as inevitable - in his own phrase today, "a hell of a climate", likely to be in Europe up to 8C hotter than it is today.

In his book's concluding chapter, he writes: "What should a sensible European government be doing now? I think we have little option but to prepare for the worst, and assume that we have passed the threshold."

And in today's Independent he writes: "We will do our best to survive, but sadly I cannot see the United States or the emerging economies of China and India cutting back in time, and they are the main source of [CO2] emissions. The worst will happen ..."

He goes on: "We have to keep in mind the awesome pace of change and realise how little time is left to act, and then each community and nation must find the best use of the resources they have to sustain civilisation for as long as they can." He believes that the world's governments should plan to secure energy and food supplies in the global hothouse, and defences against the expected rise in sea levels. The scientist's vision of what human society may ultimately be reduced to through climate change is " a broken rabble led by brutal warlords."

Professor Lovelock draws attention to one aspect of the warming threat in particular, which is that the expected temperature rise is currently being held back artificially by a global aerosol - a layer of dust in the atmosphere right around the planet's northern hemisphere - which is the product of the world's industry.

This shields us from some of the sun's radiation in a phenomenon which is known as "global dimming" and is thought to be holding the global temperature down by several degrees. But with a severe industrial downturn, the aerosol could fall out of the atmosphere in a very short time, and the global temperature could take a sudden enormous leap upwards.

One of the most striking ideas in his book is that of "a guidebook for global warming survivors" aimed at the humans who would still be struggling to exist after a total societal collapse.

Written, not in electronic form, but "on durable paper with long-lasting print", it would contain the basic accumulated scientific knowledge of humanity, much of it utterly taken for granted by us now, but originally won only after a hard struggle - such as our place in the solar system, or the fact that bacteria and viruses cause infectious diseases.

Rough guide to a planet in jeopardy

Global warming, caused principally by the large-scale emissions of industrial gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2), is almost certainly the greatest threat that mankind has ever faced, because it puts a question mark over the very habitability of the Earth.

Over the coming decades soaring temperatures will mean agriculture may become unviable over huge areas of the world where people are already poor and hungry; water supplies for millions or even billions may fail. Rising sea levels will destroy substantial coastal areas in low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, at the very moment when their populations are mushrooming. Numberless environmental refugees will overwhelm the capacity of any agency, or indeed any country, to cope, while modern urban infrastructure will face devastation from powerful extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Katrina which hit New Orleans last summer.

The international community accepts the reality of global warming, supported by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In its last report, in 2001, the IPCC said global average temperatures were likely to rise by up to 5.8C by 2100. In high latitudes, such as Britain, the rise is likely to be much higher, perhaps 8C. The warming seems to be proceeding faster than anticipated and in the IPCC's next report, 2007, the timescale may be shortened. Yet there still remains an assumption that climate change is controllable, if CO2 emissions can be curbed. Lovelock is warning: think again.

'The Revenge of Gaia' by James Lovelock is published by Penguin on 2 February, price £16.99


Informant: Teresa Binstock

http://www.spacewar.com/news/BMD_Focus_The_Polarization_Of_The_Pacific.html


Informant: Alice Slater

Der nächste Krieg….

„Der nächste Krieg läuft wahrscheinlich schon recht bald im Iran. Besonders kritisch ist der Umstand, dass die Gefahr einer nuklearen Kriegsführung noch nie so groß war, selbst in den Zeiten des sog. „kalten Krieges“ nicht. Was lässt sich dagegen unternehmen? Wie lässt sich der Ablauf noch stoppen?...“ Kommentar zum Treffen Merkel/Bush in Washington von Armin Kammrad vom 13.01.2006

http://www.labournet.de/krieg/iran/kamrad.html


Aus: LabourNet, 16. Januar 2006

„…Der Runde Tisch der Erwerbslosen- und Sozialhilfeinitiativen ruft Erwerbslose, Einkommenslose und Einkommensschwache, Wohnungslose, Gewerkschafter/innen, Wohlfahrtsverbände, sozial engagierte und couragierte Bürger/innen auf, Tribunale gegen Hartz IV in den Städten und Regionen zum Frühjahr vorzubereiten. Damit können wir die öffentliche Aufmerksamkeit auf die konkrete soziale Situation, auf Schikanen und auf skandalöses Verwaltungshandeln lenken. Verantwortliche dafür sollen benannt und zu den Tribunalen öffentlich eingeladen werden. Damit unsere existenzbedrohende Situation in die öffentliche Wahrnehmung gelangt, schlagen wir vor, am 16. März 2006 Tribunale gegen Hartz IV bundesweit in den Städten und Regionen durchzuführen…“ Aufruf des Runder Tisch der Erwerbslosen- und Sozialhilfeinitiativen vom 06.12.2005 (pdf)

http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/arbeit/aktionen/2006/tribunal160306.pdf


Aus: LabourNet, 16. Januar 2006

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3949/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Open letter & Calls German Doctors
http://www.next-up.org/pdf/Letter%20to%20Edmund%20Stoiber.pdf

--------

German Doctors unite on RF health effects
http://www.powerwatch.org.uk/News/20050722_bamberg.asp



http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=health+effect
http://omega.twoday.net/search?q=Selsam

Paine convinced an America already at war with Britain that it was fighting not merely for lower tariffs or the right to elect representatives to Parliament but for its own inevitable independence.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11566.htm

First lady Laura Bush said Sunday that the U.S. government is right to eavesdrop on Americans with suspected ties to terrorists.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Laura_Bush.html


From Information Clearing House

The leaders of Congress' ethics committees are not committing to any investigation of misconduct despite the growing revelations about the favors that lobbyist Jack Abramoff won for clients and the largesse he arranged for lawmakers.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5547759,00.html


From Information Clearing House

With Friends like these

IN ONE of the stream of speeches in which George W. Bush is now trying to defend his ill-fated invasion of Iraq, this week he let loose a sentence that should light all the red lights. In this sentence he castigated his opponents for asserting that he had attacked Iraq "for the oil"...

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11570.htm

"The strategy in place today respects neither human rights nor the Geneva Conventions," said Dick Marty, the head of a European investigation into alleged CIA prisons in Europe. "The current administration in Washington is trying to combat terrorism outside legal means, the rule of law."

http://tinyurl.com/973xx


From Information Clearing House

By Stephen Soldz

At an observable level, narcissism involves a self-centeredness that makes one oblivious to the emotional existence of others.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11568.htm

By Mike Whitney

The Bush administration does not accept the internationally-recognized treaty rights of Iran because it believes that all law flows from Washington; a fact that is tragically evident in its torturing of prisoners, spying on American citizens, and its vast destruction of Iraq.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11572.htm

http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/3946/


Informant: jensenmk

From ufpj-news

Highly recommend this book...may explain why we may be going to (nuclear) war with Iran in a few months.

Best price at:
http://tinyurl.com/albyw

More Amazon.com reviews:
http://tinyurl.com/a4xbz

Book Description

The invasion of Iraq may well be remembered as the first oil currency war. Far from being a response to 9/11 terrorism or Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, Petrodollar Warfare argues that the invasion was precipitated by two converging phenomena: the imminent peak in global oil production and the ascendance of the euro currency.

Energy analysts agree that world oil supplies are about to peak, after which there will be a steady decline in supplies of oil. Iraq, possessing the world's second-largest oil reserves, was therefore already a target of US geostrategic interests. Together with the fact that Iraq had switched to paying for oil in euros-rather than US dollars-the Bush administration's unreported aim was to prevent further OPEC momentum in favor of the euro as an alternative oil transaction currency standard.

Meticulously researched, Petrodollar Warfare examines US dollar hegemony and the unsustainable macroeconomics of ˜petrodollar recycling,' pointing out that the issues underlying the Iraq war also apply to geostrategic tensions between the United States and other countries, including the member states of the European Union, Iran, Venezuela and Russia. The author warns that without changing course, the American experiment will end the way all empires end-with military overextension and subsequent economic decline. He recommends the multilateral pursuit of both energy and monetary reforms within a UN framework to create a more balanced global energy and monetary system-thereby reducing the possibility of future oil and oil currency-related warfare.

A sober call for an end to aggressive US unilateralism, Petrodollar Warfare is a unique contribution to the debate about the future global political economy. William R. Clark is manager of performance improvement at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research on oil depletion, oil currency issues and US geostrategy received a 2003 Project Censored Award and was published in Censored 2004. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.

About the Author William Clark is Manager of Performance Improvement at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. His research on oil depletion, oil currency issues and U.S. geostrategy received a 2003 Project Censored award, published in Censored 2004. He lives in Columbia, Maryland.


Informant: beee freee

Charley Reese on DC.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/reese/reese254.html

Martin Luther King, Jr., on militarism.
http://www.womensaynotowar.org/article.php?id=719


Informant: Lew Rockwell

Karen Kwiatskowski on US foreign policy.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/karen-kwiatkowski/american-foreign-policy-_b_13852.html


Informant: Lew Rockwell

Bill Bonner on the imperial dollar.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/bonner/bonner184.html

and Alito will make it worse, says Paul Craig Roberts.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts139.html

----- Original Message -----
From: Eileen O'Connor

Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 3:56 PM
Subject: icCoventry - Very Important

This email has been sent to you by Eileen

Check out the following link.

Can this be a coincidence?
http://tinyurl.com/8d4us

Make sure you visit http://iccoventry.icnetwork.co.uk

Templars Infant Junior School Coventry CV4 9DA

Four children attending and live near the school have developed neuroblastoma. Health officials are puzzled. Take a look at the amount of phone masts around them and ask yourself can this be a coincidence?

Name of Operator T-MOBILE Operator Site Ref. 99108 Height of Antenna
16 Metres Frequency Range
1800 MHz Transmitter Power
26 dBW Maximum licensed power
32 dBW GSM Name of Operator Orange Operator Site Ref. WAR0115 Height of Antenna
14 Metres Frequency Range
1800 MHz Transmitter Power
27.9 dBW Maximum licensed power
32 dBW Type of Transmission GSM Name of Operator Orange Operator Site Ref. WAR0115 Height of Antenna
14 Metres Frequency Range
2100 MHz Transmitter Power
29.3 dBW Maximum licensed power
32 dBW Type of Transmission UMTS Name of Operator MMO2 Operator Site Ref. 10985 Height of Antenna
16.5 Metres Frequency Range
900 MHz Transmitter Power
20.8 dBW Maximum licensed power
32 dBW Type of Transmission GSM Name of Operator MMO2 Operator Site Ref. 10985 Height of Antenna
16.5 Metres Frequency Range
2100 MHz Transmitter Power
23.2 dBW Maximum licensed power
32 dBW Type of Transmission UMTS

Can this be a coincidence?

Jan 11 2006

Exclusive By Dean Valler

WORRIED parents are demanding an official investigation after four children in the same area were diagnosed with the same rare form of cancer.

Three of the youngsters with the same life-threatening condition go to the same school - and all live in the south of Coventry.

Three of the children, live within a few streets of each other in Tile Hill and one lives a couple of miles away in Cannon Park.

Two of the children - five-year-olds Bethany Keenan and Jordan Accardi - have captured the hearts of city people, who have raised thousands of pounds for their treatment.

Today, the Evening Telegraph can reveal that another two children, Charlotte Moore, aged seven, and five-year-old Dylan Williams, are also fighting neuroblastoma.

The illness, which affects the nervous system, is so unusual it is diagnosed in just 100 children in the UK every year.

The call for an investigation has been supported by charities Cancer Research UK and the Neuroblastoma Society.

Bethany's mum, Kay Blyth, aged 40, who lives off Broad Lane, in Tile Hill, Coventry, wants an official medical body to look into any possible links between the cases.

In October, Bethany completed a year in remission, having been given just a 30 per cent chance of survival when she was diagnosed in August, 2003.

Miss Blyth said: "I believe there has to be some kind of investigation because it seems very strange to have four cases all within a short distance of each other.

"There could well be a link somewhere, although I could not speculate about what it is. If there is, we need to know what it is, so that we know what we are dealing with."

Dylan Williams, also aged five, attends Templars Primary School, in Templar Avenue, Tile Hill, the same school as Bethany and one of the other children with neuroblastoma.

At the end of January he reaches his third year in remission, having been diagnosed when he was just over a year old.

His parents, Emma Hammond, aged 24, of Ireton Close, Tile Hill, and 25-year-old Kenneth Williams of Maureen Close, Tile Hill, are also backing a call for an official investigation.

Miss Hammond, who previously lived in Gravel Hill, near Torrington Avenue, said: "We have had it drummed into us by doctors and surgeons that this is an extremely rare condition.

"However, if it is so rare, how come it has affected four children who all live so close to each other? I would back an investigation because at the very least we need to be sure there is nothing causing this condition."

A third mum, Christine Moore, 46, of Limbrick Avenue, Tile Hill, said her daughter, Charlotte, also has neuroblastoma and attends Templars Primary School.

She said the family were living in Gretna Road, south Coventry, when Charlotte was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of the cancer, aged just three months.

Charlotte, who attends Sherbourne Fields School, uses a wheelchair, having developed the tumour in her back.

Mrs Moore said: "We obviously have no idea whether there is a particular cause but I think an investigation would be a good idea.

"Is there a link with pesticides, whether from fields or in the food we buy?"

Jordan Accardi, of Cannon Park, Coventry, is back in a New York cancer hospital for further treatment.

He first travelled to America in September after more than £160,000 was raised by Coventry people to pay for his treatment.

Jordan and his family are likely to have to travel to and from the US for up to two years.

The expert's view: Unusual - but may not be linked

ANTONYA Cooper, chairman of The Neuroblastoma Society, described the number of cases in Coventry as "very unusual and very disturbing".

The society, founded in 1982, is a registered charity and support group which is financing £300,000 of research into the condition this year.

Mrs Cooper said: "This is very unusual and also very disturbing and as a parent I would want to know why. The Neuroblastoma Society certainly would back any investigation. We would give verbal support and use our contacts to approach specialists in the field.

"I suspect, as has happened before, that any such investigation will prove no obvious geographical link for the occurrence of neuroblastoma in these children."

Prof John Toy, medical director of Cancer Research UK, said: "If a cluster of people in the same area all have cancer, it does not necessarily mean that all of them are from the same cause.

"Cancer is very common, and affects one in three people in the UK. There are many different causes of cancer and an apparent cluster of cancer cases can occur by chance."


Informant: Iris Atzmon

--------

I am repeating this message to Eileen, having seen it come up on Omega.

It's an important issue, and I don't wish to dampen enthusiasm. From one point of view, the correlation is no better than anywhere else in our UK mast forest. From another, the issue of neuroblastoma should not surprise us, if we note the issues around EMFs, reactive oxygen and nitrogen species, and the role of key enzymes and the immune system.

Andy

----- Original Message -----
From: Andy Davidson
To: Eileen O'Connor
Sent: Sunday, January 15, 2006 4:13 PM
Subject: Re: icCoventry - Very Important

Eileen

reminds me of what Catherine G says in Fife.

But we have a problem here as ever. The concentrations of masts (typically clusters of 5 base stations if I read Sitefinder correctly) are not in closest proximity to the homes. The consistent pairings of GSM with UMTS may be significant, though. But this is so common now that similar clusters should be appearing all over. There may be other factors (eg electrical supply routes) here. My guess is that patterns 5 to 10 years on from the 3G rollout may start to appear. By then the common-ness of the EMF environment will mean it is ignored.


I think it was you who alerted me some while ago to the Liverpool University work on neuroblastoma published in 2004. They found that nuclear factor kappa B (NF kappa B) played a crucial role in cancer cell apoptosis (cell death): its oscillations kept cancer cells alive systemically.

http://www.liv.ac.uk/newsroom/press_releases/2004/10/neuroblastoma.htm

Scientists make breakthrough in understanding rare childhood cancer

The interesting lead here for me is that NF kappa B has part of its function at least involved with nitric oxide (NO), nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and tyrosine kinase (itself in relation with NO). I am increasingly convinced that when NO levels in the body are disturbed, key reactions in which it is involved (stimulation, regulation and reaction) produce the biological reactions of chemical and electrical sensitivity, neurological disorders of many kinds and cancers. For those of us concerned with power lines and the modulated microwave EMF environment, the research studies indicating that EMFs can indeed disturb the stimulation of NO and or its co-reactors superoxide or the enzymes behind them, is profoundly disturbing.

(use as you wish)

Andy

--------

Dear Iris: This is a very serious situation indeed!!!! What concerns me greatly tho is when the issues of proximity to electrical items while sleeping is not included as a potential part of the problem -- "initial area of concern by parents as well as investigators......."

My statements are not intended in any way to criticize the work of others but come from the 15 years of "insight" acquired by first assuming that my two grandsons' rare immune deficiencies were caused by high voltage powerline exposure(s).

You know my story BUT, the "bottom line" is that IF we had continued to believe the high voltage lines were what was causing their chronic infections and the immune deficiencies that were "ageing" their cells and therefor "bodies," they may very well might not be alive today. As you most likely recall, we were told they may develop Leukemia, Lymphoma, stomach or colon cancer.

Both boys "got well" and their IGG's rose dramatically after their beds were moved away from "powerwalls" (walls opposite electric meters in respective homes) in spite of their homes being less than 300 ft. from high voltage powerlines and close to various antennae.

In other words, while I have no doubt telecommunications antennae, etc. are "adding to the mix," unless the families of those who have been diagnosed with Leukemia, Neuroblastoma, Parkinsons, Alzheimers, ADD, ADHD, brain cancer, etc. or even those suffering from "symptoms" who have not yet been diagnosed with "a specific disease," first consider possible electric items close to beds, it is more than possible, those same persons might move from their location of concern re antennae, etc. only to be unable to tolerate treatments for their cancer and/or disease/symptoms, etc. because electrical items are close to the head(s) of their bed(s).

It is possible that such considerations are "the difference" between those who develop actual cancer and those who experience ES/EHS whether concerns are regarding telecommunications' antennae, WiFi, high voltage powerlines, high frequencies on electrical wiring (also a "high priority consideration).

In other words, while there undoubtedly "adverse effects" from all sources of EMF/EMR, if the issue of "what is electrical that is close to one's head" is not first addressed, persons might die because chemotherapy and radiaiton treatments are most likely going to not be effective if electrical items remain close to beds. The "overwhelming tragedy" is obvious when something as simple as moving electrical items might make the difference between survival and death as well as annoying symptoms versus serious disease including cancer AND such action is "cost free" (except the cost of purchasing a battery-operated clock or perhaps an electrical strip to allow for changing location for power supply box for cordless phones, etc.).

My thoughts and prayers go out to all children and families who are suffering the devastating effects of serious illnesses......... 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 [1-15-06]

"No ray of sunshine is ever lost, but the green which it awakens into existence needs time to sprout, and it is not always granted for the sower to see the harvest. All work that is worth anything is done in faith." - Albert Schweitzer

Not only does God definitely play dice, but He sometimes confuses us by throwing them where they can't be seen....the universe does not behave according to our pre-conceived ideas.....it continues to surprise us....the future of the universe is not completely determined by the laws of science, and its present state, as Laplace thought......God still has a few tricks up His sleeve....

Prof. Stephen Hawking

--------

Reply from chair of Neuroblastoma society should anyone wish to contact her.


From: Antonya Cooper
antonya@cooperox.org.uk
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2006 11:21:02 -0000

Subject: RE: Neuroblastoma

Thank you for taking the trouble to write to me about "cancer caused by microwave radiation".

Matters of this magnitude and concern must be put before the Department of Health for further dealing. I note the literature you attached is not recently published. In your capacity as a physicist have you more recent evidence of the matter being taken seriously?

The Neuroblastoma Society could not head any such investigation. All our hard won funding is focussed on medical research towards kinder treatment and an eventual cure for neuroblastoma.

Do keep in touch about any findings you may achieve but please understand that the Society is not the best medium for investigation of this subject.

Yours,

Antonya Cooper.
Chairman - the Neuroblastoma Society
http://www.nsoc.co.uk
antonya@nsoc.co.uk
Beverley House
FRILFORD Abingdon Oxfordshire OX13 5NU
Tel. 00 44 (0)1865 391207

--------

Mobile Phones Break DNA & Scramble Genomes
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/476242/

Mobile Phone Radiation Harms DNA
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/448736/

SERIOUS CONGLOMERATES OF CANCER AND OTHER PATHOLOGIES THAT HAVE BEEN TIE BY THE POPULATION NEXT TO ANTENNAS OF TELEPHONY - Cluster in Spain 2000-2004 http://omega.twoday.net/stories/466717/

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

Cancer Cluster in Spain 2000-2005
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/1319986/

Concerning Samuel Alito, Derrick Jackson's diagnosis for America is a case of amazing amnesia. Right on time for the King holiday, America is elevating yet another man to lifetime power, seemingly ignorant of his association with racism...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506H.shtml

Less than three months after registering as a lobbyist, former Attorney General John Ashcroft has banked at least $269,000 from just four clients and appears to be developing a practice centered on firms that want to capitalize on a government demand for homeland security technology that boomed under sometimes-controversial policies he promoted while in office.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506G.shtml

California's oldest death row inmate - who is 75, legally blind and nearly deaf - is asking the Supreme Court to do something it has never done before: block an execution because of the condemned man's advanced age and infirmity.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506E.shtml

Tom DeLay finds himself without hometown suppport as barely one of every five of the former House Majority Leader's constituents would vote for him if the election were held now.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506D.shtml

A group can sue the federal government over claims that President Bush's faith-based initiative is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506C.shtml

For over 40 years, MIT professor Noam Chomsky has been one of the world's leading intellectual critics of US foreign policy. Today, with America's latest imperial adventure in trouble both politically and militarily, Chomsky - who turned 77 last month - vows in an interview with Geov Parrish not to slow down "as long as I'm ambulatory."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506B.shtml

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is remembered. He would have been 77 on Sunday. As his living memory fades, replaced by a feel-good "I have a dream" whitewash that ignores much of what he stood for and fought against, it's more important than ever to recapture the true history of Dr. King - because much of what he fought against is resurfacing or is still with us today.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011506A.shtml

Letter to the Editor

Following is a very good letter forwarded on by Magda Havas. The author, Greg Borowski makes a very important point about involuntary experimentation, something the Telcos are very adept at.

Don Maisch

***********

Letter to the Editor:

Regarding: A step closer to going wireless
Milwaukee reaches deal for citywide computer network
By GREG J. BOROWSKI
gborowski@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Jan. 12, 2006

Going Wireless

This is very exciting news for Milwaukee residents. Going wireless will be convenient for those wanting internet access and it will provide income to the City of Milwaukee and make a lot of money for the providers of this service. It looks like a win-win-win situation. However, one aspect hasn’t yet been considered and it’s a serious one. What are the immediate and long-term health effects of going wireless?

Scientific studies show that people who live within 400 m (1200 ft) of cell phone antennas report a variety of symptoms that are now classified as electrical hypersensitivity (EHS) and some studies show an increased incidence of cancer. These cell phone antennas use radio frequency radiation similar to the wireless computer network proposed for Milwaukee. Are we not simply introducing an additional form of this energy into our environment by going wireless? How much of a radiation load can the human body be exposed to before it reacts?

While the scientific community is divided about what specifically causes EHS, they do agree on the symptoms which include insomnia, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, poor memory, skin irritations, pain, headaches, mood disorders, ringing in the ears, etc. As many as 2-40% of the population may be affected by EHS and according to the 2000 US Census, Milwaukee has a population of 600,000. If these estimates are correct, then the health and quality of life for between 12,000 and 240,000 people may be affected by this wireless technology. Younger children are likely to be more vulnerable and Milwaukee has a population of 150,000 kids under the age of 14.

Scientists who want to test the effects of radio frequency on human subjects have difficulty getting permission from ethics committees for this research even if participation is voluntary and often they have to use rodents for their studies. Yet the commercial sector of society is freely given permission to exposure a large group of people, not all of whom are willing participants, to radio frequency radiation. It seems that the residents of Milwaukee are going to be the mice in a large experiment. Let’s hope that someone is documenting their reactions and that other cities won’t welcome this technology so readily if indeed it proves to be harmful.

Magda Havas, B.Sc., Ph.D.
Associate Professor Trent University,
Peterborough,
Canada
mhavas@trentu.ca

http://www.emfacts.com/weblog/index.php?p=364

Zogby Poll

(excerpt)

Speaking Truth To Power
A Time to Break Silence

By Rev. Martin Luther King By 1967, King had become the country's most prominent opponent of the Vietnam War, and a staunch critic of overall U.S. foreign policy, which he deemed militaristic. In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- A year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

Time magazine called the speech "demagogic slander that sounded like a script for Radio Hanoi," and the Washington Post declared that King had "diminished his usefulness to his cause, his country, his people." Listen:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article2564.htm


Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?
* 206726 responsesYes,

86% between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.

6% No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching "high crimes and misdemeanors."

4% No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.

8% I don't know.

2% http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/


http://www.livejournal.com/users/mparent7777/5619907.html

Zogby Poll: Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping By Bob Fertik Created 2006-01-13 23:34 For Immediate Release: January 16, 2006

New Zogby Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support Impeaching Bush for Wiretapping By a margin of 52% to 43%, Americans want Congress to impeach President Bush if he wiretapped American citizens without a judge's approval, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003. The poll was conducted by Zogby International, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,216 U.S. adults from January 9-12. The poll found that 52% agreed with the statement: "If President Bush wiretapped American citizens without the approval of a judge, do you agree or disagree that Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment." 43% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a ± 2.9% margin of error.

"The American people are not buying Bush's outrageous claim that he has the power to wiretap American citizens without a warrant. Americans believe terrorism can be fought without turning our own government into Big Brother," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Next weeks' Senate hearings on White House wiretapping could be as dramatic as the Watergate hearings in 1973. A majority of Americans have already decided Bush committed an impeachable offense, yet we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. If Bush ordered warrantless wiretapping long before the terrorist attack on 9/11 - which was first reported in Truthout on Friday - then Americans will realize that George Bush came into office determined to shred the Constitution and take away our rights," Fertik said. Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups Responses to the Zogby poll varied by political party affiliation: 76% of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 50% of Independents and 29% of Republicans. Responses also varied by age, sex, race, and religion. 70% of those 18-29 favored impeachment, 51% of those 31-49, 50% of those 50-64, and 42% of those over 65. 56% of women favored impeachment, compared to
49% of men. Among African Americans, 90% favored impeachment, compared to 67% of Hispanics, and 46% of whites. Majorities of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Others favored impeachment, while 49% of Protestants and 46% of Born Again Christians did so. Majorities favored impeachment in the East (53%), West (56%), and Central states (58%), but not the South (43%). In large cities, 58% support impeachment; in small cities, 56%; in suburbs, 49%; in rural areas, 46%. Support for Impeachment Has Surged Since June The new Zogby poll shows a dramatic transformation in support for Bush's impeachment since late June. (This is only the third poll that has asked Americans about their support for impeaching Bush in 2005, despite his record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted June 27-29 of 905 likely voters found that 42% agreed and 50% disagreed with the identical statement asked about in this recent polling. This question was virtually identical to one used in early October by Ipsos Public Affairs, which found that 50% agreed and 44% disagreed that Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he did not tell the truth about his reasons for war.

After the June poll, pollster John Zogby told the Washington Post that support for impeachment "was much higher than I expected." At the time, impeachment supporters trailed opponents by 8%. Now supporters outnumber opponents by 11%, a remarkable shift of 19%. If impeachment support continues to grow by 3% each month, it will reach 60% in January, 65% in March, and 70% in April. Support for Clinton Impeachment Was Much Lower In August and September of 1998, 16 major polls asked about impeaching President Clinton
(http://democrats.com/clinton-impeachment-polls). Only 36% supported hearings to consider impeachment, and only 26% supported actual impeachment and removal. Even so, the impeachment debate dominated the news for months, and the Republican Congress impeached Clinton despite overwhelming public opposition. Impeachment Support is Closely Related to Belief that Bush Lied about Iraq The Zogby and Ipsos polls asked about support for impeachment if Bush lied about the reasons for war, rather than asking simply about support for impeachment. Pollsters predict that asking simply about impeachment without any context would produce a large number of "I don't know" responses. However, this may understate those who support Bush's impeachment for other reasons, such as his actions before and immediately after Hurricane Katrina, his negligence prior to 9-11, his use of torture, and the CIA outing scandal. Other polls show a majority of U.S. adults believe that Bush did in fact lie about the reasons for war. A June 23-26 ABC/Washington Post poll found 52% of Americans believe the Bush administration "deliberately misled the public before the war," and 57% say the Bush administration "intentionally exaggerated its evidence that pre-war Iraq possessed nuclear, chemical or biological weapons." Support for the war has dropped significantly since June, which suggests that the percentage of Americans who believe Bush lied about the war has increased. Passion for Impeachment is Major Unreported Story The strong support for impeachment found in this poll is especially surprising because the views of impeachment supporters are entirely absent from the broadcast and print media, and can only be found on the Internet and in street protests. The lack of coverage of impeachment support is due in part to the fact that not a single Democrat in Congress has called for impeachment, despite considerable grassroots activism by groups like Democrats.com ( http://democrats.com/impeach ). The passion of impeachment supporters is directly responsible for the new poll commissioned by After Downing Street. After the Zogby poll in June, activists led by Democrats.com urged all of the major polling organizations to include an impeachment question in their upcoming polls. But none of the polling organizations were willing to do so for free, so on September 30, AfterDowningStreet.org posted a request for donations to fund paid polls ( http://afterdowningstreet.org/polling ). People responded with small donations (on average $27) which quickly added up to over $10,000. After Downing Street has spent a portion of that money on the Ipsos Poll and the new Zogby Poll. Footnotes:

1. AfterDowningStreet.org is a rapidly growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups that was created on May 26, 2005, following the publication of the Downing Street Memo in London's Sunday Times on May 1. The coalition is urging Congress to begin a formal investigation into whether President Bush committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war.

2. The Ipsos Public Affairs poll and the new Zogby poll results cited above refer to surveys of U.S. adults. The June Zogby results are from a survey of likely voters. The new Zogby poll produced results for both adults and likely voters (see footnote 3).

3. Here are the complete data tables from all three polls. November Zogby: Adults, and Likely Voters. October Ipsos: Adults, and definitions of regions. June Zogby: Likely Voters.
http://www.democrats.com/bush-impeachment-poll-2


Informant: ranger116



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

New Openings and New Challenges

Revolution #030,
January 15, 2006,
posted at revcom.us

In late December, talk of impeaching Bush suddenly broke into the mainstream media. From the conservative financial paper Barron’s (which said that "willful disregard of a law is potentially an impeachable offense") to Newsweek and beyond, the question flared. Democratic Senator Barbara Boxer asked constitutional scholars to look into it. John Dean, the former lawyer of Richard Nixon (who was the last president forced out of office), wrote that Bush is "the first president to admit to an impeachable offense"--referring to Bush’s admission that he broke the law in order to spy on U.S. citizens.

The clamor around impeachment opens up an important but complex opportunity for those working to drive out the Bush regime--but only if it is aggressively seized upon. How to do that is a huge and consequential question for the movement. Why Now?

Despite Bush’s wholesale violations of the Constitution, which are all grounds for impeachment, the Democrats have basically given Bush a free hand to implement the main parts of his program. So why has impeachment suddenly become a "legitimate" topic of discussion?

To begin with, the war in Iraq has continued to go badly from the imperialist standpoint. Other forces in the ruling class are worried that the war could develop into a major strategic disaster for imperialism, and they are not that impressed with either the Iraq elections in December or Bush’s recent public relations offensive to "re-sell" the war. They aim to pressure Bush--not to end the war, but to fight it "more effectively."

On top of that comes the current spying scandal, in which the Bush regime broke the rules of how the ruling class of imperialists--whom the top Republicans and Democrats both fundamentally represent--settle conflicts among themselves. Things like spying are supposed to be closely regulated-- not to protect the rights of the people, but to make sure that one section of imperialists doesn’t turn the powerful weapons of state repression against another.

But Bush violated this, and some Democrats then raised impeachment in part to warn Bush to back off. Bush shot right back, attacking his critics for "aiding the enemy." Howard Fineman, the Newsweek and MSNBC correspondent, warned that, "We are entering a dark time in which the central argument advanced by each party is going to involve accusing the other party of committing what amounts to treason. Democrats will accuse the Bush administration of destroying the Constitution; Republicans will accuse the Dems of destroying our security."

Fineman is saying something fairly extreme here; but whether you see such a time as "dark" depends on where you stand in the system and what you do about it. Such conflict at the top can create further openings for revolutionary and progressive political forces: more exposures of what goes on behind the scenes come to light and more people awaken to political life and, potentially, struggle. At its most extreme, the legitimacy of the system itself may be brought into question. So it may not be bad when thieves fall out, not bad at all . . . if their victims seize on it to do something good. Masses Demand "Regime Change"

Which leads to the next point. Besides the conflict at the top, there has also been a movement from below forcing the question of "regime change" into the open. This happened in a significant, if still beginning way, with the demonstrations of thousands on November 2. It took a further step with the publication in the New York Times of the Call to drive out the Bush regime, and specifically to demonstrate on January 31 and February 4, on the occasion of the State of the Union speech, to demand that "Bush Step Down." The organized mass upsurge to drive out the regime, along with the still unorganized but widespread and increasingly intense mass anger against Bush and the yearning to see him go, has been another important factor forcing the hand of Democratic Party leaders.

This upsurge "from below" closely interpenetrates with and influences the struggle "at the top." But the two struggles are NOT one and the same. These are two distinct dynamics. The masses want the Bush regime to go; yesterday is not soon enough for millions of people in this country. The Democratic leaders, on the other hand, want to rein in both Bush . . . and the masses who hate Bush.

In "The Pyramid of Power and the Struggle to Turn This Whole Thing Upside Down," Bob Avakian writes that the social base of the Democratic Party are "the people who stand for progressive kinds of things, all the people who are oppressed in this society. For the Democrats, a big part of their role is to keep all those people confined within the bourgeois, the mainstream, electoral process. . . and to get them back into it when they have drifted away from--or broken out of--that framework . . . The last thing in the world [the Democratic leaders] want to do is to call these masses of people into the streets to protest or to battle against this right-wing force that’s being built up." [Bob Avakian, The Coming Civil War and Repolarization for Revolution in the Present Era (Chicago: RCP Publications, 2005), p. 3.]

Once in the streets, so to speak, people may get a sense of their own potential power and come to think more deeply and critically about things they may have taken for granted about society. They may check out and turn to different kinds of leadership, and broaden their horizons--and demands--still further, and in the process attract still greater forces to their banner. They may, if they fight hard enough and conditions come together in the right way, actually win the battle, and in so doing they may change the direction of society and open up the prospect and opportunity for a whole different future.

That may be a very exciting vision for you and me, but it is anathema to the top Democrats, whose interests lie, above all else, in defending the imperialist status quo. So the feelers around impeachment coming from Democratic leaders represent not only "a shot across the bow" to Bush, but also an attempt to rope in the anti-Bush sentiment coming from below and to control and deflect that sentiment.

But again, this is complex. A senator like Boxer who raises the question of impeachment--even though she intends in large part to draw people back into the narrow and killing confines of politics-as-usual--can, despite herself, end up adding to the "legitimacy" of the demand and encouraging people to step into political life. It’s a double-edged sword, one that can ultimately swing against either the ruling class. . . or the people. The question is who grasps it, and from what end. Waiting for November Won’t Do!

One negative tendency in the current mix is an attempt to focus those who want impeachment on "getting out the vote in November" in a way that ignores or downplays the need to act in the streets now. A recent blog entry by a prominent liberal writer surveys the eruption of impeachment controversy into the media, notes the wide range of offenses for which Bush could be impeached, and concludes by . . . calling on people to help "the Democrats regain control of Congress in ’06." Even worse, in an entire essay devoted to the topic of impeachment, the writer does not even mention the November 2 demonstrations; the Times ad and the controversy that resulted from it; other important statements in support of the World Can’t Wait movement from a range of people; or the organizing for the January 31 and February 4 outpourings that is now under way.

Look: there will be no impeachment without mass upsurge. Even if you pin your hopes on the top Democrats for this, you have to recognize that they will not act unless and until they fear that their base is getting beyond their control. By the same token, any strategy that deflects people from taking action NOW in the name of "working (and essentially waiting) for November," will give Bush the time and political space to carry out and consolidate still more outrages, around the world and within the U.S. That would be unconscionable in any circumstance, and all the more so in a time when yesterday’s unprecedented outrages become tomorrow’s new norms.

Part of the danger in this "wait for November" orientation is that the terms on which people have entered the movement will change, imperceptibly but very rapidly: it will go from impeaching Bush, to winning over this or that congressman, to at least electing a Democrat (no matter what their program), and so on. Such an orientation, whatever the intentions of some of those who espouse or take it up, will allow Bush to deflate the opposition to him, both through repression and "spin." On that trajectory, by November Bush would have the apparatus of the right-wing media, the rigged voting districts, his huge Christian fascist "get-out-the-vote" operation, and the whole crooked voting machine thing going for him; people would be playing his game, on his court, with his referees. Far better to be in a position where a mass movement has been raging throughout society demanding that Bush step down, where people from all walks of life are breaking loose in their thinking and actions from the current suffocating atmosphere, or even where the strength of such a movement has already forced Bush out!

And by the way, that can be done--even without a Democratic Congress. After all, who controlled the Congress when the Democrat Lyndon Johnson was forced to essentially step down? The Democrats. And who uttered the famous words "what did the president know and when did he know it"--seen now as the decisive turn in Congress leading to the Republican Richard Nixon’s resignation? A Republican senator, Howard Baker. As these examples illustrate, the imperialists who really rule America do not make critical decisions based on elections, but on whether a particular president has, all in all, become too great a political liability to what they perceive as their overall interests--and that very much includes whether the actions of such a president and their effect on the masses is calling the legitimacy of the whole thing into question.

How the Bush regime gets driven out can't be predicted. But the only way that any of it--impeachment, resignation, whatever-- will happen is if everyone who cannot stand both the terrible outrages the regime has committed and the still more deadly future that it is hammering into place joins together in independent mass action NOW. To those who really want to see Bush impeached, to everyone who wants to see him go: your energy and effort right now needs to go into the push for truly massive actions around the State of the Union.

There is no magic pendulum; there is no savior that will come; there is no check or balance that will, at the eleventh hour, assert itself. There is only the people, and their capacity to act in their own interests and build up their own organizations, with the urgency and determination that this crossroads in history requires. That, and that alone, can change the course of history.

* * * * Polls and Impeachment

Millions of people have wanted the Bush regime to go for some time, and many spontaneously see impeachment as the avenue for that. But the question of impeachment has been stonewalled and suppressed. In an interview with Editor & Publisher, the chief pollster for the Washington Post complained of being constantly bombarded with e-mails and other messages asking why he refused to do a poll on impeachment. The reason, he said, is because no major politician was calling for it. Think about that for a minute: unless a major politician supports some course of action--no matter how great the mass sentiment for it may be--it’s not going to be offered to people broadly as “a serious option or topic of considered discussion,” to quote this pollster.


UNITED FOR PEACE & JUSTICE | 212-868-5545


Informant: C. Clark Kissinger

From ufpj-news



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

12.01.2006

Der US-Ökonom und Nobelpreisträger Joseph E. Stiglitz schätzt, dass der Irakkrieg der USA zwischen ein und zwei Billionen Dollar kosten wird.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4409

14.01.2006

Wer erneuerbare Energien und Energieeffizienz so vernachlässigt wie die US-Regierung unter George W. Bush muss an die letzten Öl-Reserven. Auf Kosten der Umwelt. So hat das US-Innenministerium jetzt ein Biotop in Alaska für Rentiere und Wildgänse für Bohrungen nach Gas und Öl frei gegeben.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=6&news:oid=n4416

Mitte der 80er Jahre findet die Wissenschaft mit der Gentechnologie den Schlüssel, sich die Erde und vor allem ihre Geschöpfe endgültig untertan zu machen. Plötzlich scheint alles möglich! Ein Film von Bertram Verhaag und Gabriele Kröber.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=35&article:oid=a4338

Gefahr Gentechnik - Irrweg und Ausweg

Der Bestseller in Sachen Gentechnik - informativ, fesselnd und schonungslos offen, berichtet über das, was uns alle erwartet: Am
Beginn des 3. Jahrtausends stehen wir, trotz gegenteiliger Prognosen vor immer größer werdenden, gesundheitlichen Problemen.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=34&article:oid=a4337

Der neuen Landwirtschaftsminister Horst Seehofer will die bevorzugte Behandlung der Biolandwirtschaft beenden und die grüne Gentechnik befördern: Ist dies das Ende der Wahlfreiheit für die Bürger? Ist dies das Ende für die Biolandwirtschaft? Mir scheint, es besteht ein großes Informationsdefizit über die tatsächlichen Gefahren durch die Grüne Gentechnik. Gastkommentar von Michael Schick.

http://www.sonnenseite.com/index.php?pageID=17&article:oid=a4336