Tuesday, July 31

Salon.com News | The rigged missile defense test The rigged missile defense test
The target destroyed in the "successful" defense shield test contained a global positioning satellite beacon that made it easier to detect. Why has the media mostly ignored the story?
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Exactly what I've been wondering all along, not to mention the LACK OF NEED for such an expensive, useless piece of military junk.

Monday, July 30

Salon.com News | Another bone to big business And just how charitable is it, really, when it turns out that Philip Morris actually donates less to worthy causes than it spends patting itself on the back for those donations? Last year, the company spent $142 million on corporate image advertising while doling out a total of $125 million to charity.
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Reprehensible to me, even though I smoke!
theSpleen - Shrub Declares War on Public Information Shrub Declares War on Public Information

Last week, as Megawati Sukarnoputri was installed as the new leader of Indonesia, the Bush administration attempted to recall a State Department book detailing the United States' role in the deaths of thousands of Indonesians in the 1960s in order to topple Sukarno -- Megawati's father.
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Yet another attack on free speech by the folks we elected(?) to protect it!! We've got another Nixon administration here folks. Fasten your seat belts and hold on.

Friday, July 27

M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him M.I.T. Physicist Says Pentagon Is Trying to Silence Him

By JAMES DAO

WASHINGTON, July 26 - A leading critic of the military's missile defense testing program has accused the Pentagon of trying to silence him and intimidate his employer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, by investigating him for disseminating classified documents.
The case has raised questions about whether a document can be considered secret if it is widely available to the public. And it has touched off a dispute between the critic, Theodore A. Postol, and M.I.T. over how to balance academic freedom with the university's obligations to cooperate with Pentagon investigators.
At issue is correspondence between Dr. Postol, a physicist, and the General Accounting Office, an investigative branch of Congress, in which he accused the Pentagon of using doctored data to defend missile defense technology.
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What ever happened to the RHETORIC that Bush was going to bring honesty back to the White House? Looks like a policy of harrassing and pursuing honest scientists in what I hope will ultimately be a failed attempt to resurrect Star Wars while simultaneously pissing off the Russians by breaking YET another treaty!! Is it any wonder that the rest of the world doesn't trust US?
Salon.com People | DWI program coordinator arrested for DWI DWI program coordinator arrested for DWI

July 27, 2001 | LAS CRUCES, N.M. (AP) --
The coordinator of Dona Ana County's drunken-driving prevention program has been arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated at a DWI awareness picnic.
Police arrested Linda M. Harris, 53, on Wednesday in the parking lot of the park where the event was held.
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The irony of it all.

Thursday, July 26

Salon.com Life | Big Brother in Toledo Big Brother in Toledo
A cop in a bus station threatened and harassed my innocent young employee. His crime? Reading Esquire.
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This is the ultimate result of our neo-fascist state. And I wonder why my German Mother-in-Law is so down on Amerika?

Tuesday, July 24

CPSC Choice Provokes Controversy (washingtonpost.com) In a letter sent to Congress yesterday, Consumers Union, the Children's Defense Fund and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said that under Gall's leadership, the CPSC will "abdicate its responsibility to protect children."
Noting that Gall (R) was the lone vote against a new safety standard for baby walkers, bunk beds and crib slats, the letter said, "Gall has repeatedly refused to act when faced with evidence of deaths and injuries to children from dangerous products, often blaming the parents, not the products." Gall also initially voted against regulating baby bath seats but reversed her position after being nominated.
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Why am I not surprised? When will this nonsense end? 2004!!!

Thursday, July 19

Breast Removal Prevents Cancer - Study Breast Removal Prevents Cancer - Study
By Gene Emery
BOSTON (Reuters) - Surgery to remove healthy breasts prevents breast cancer in women whose cells harbor certain tumor-causing genes, Dutch researchers report in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine (news - web sites).
The study, the first to follow women who have chosen to have their healthy breasts removed ``provides useful information for clinicians counseling women with a high risk of breast cancer,'' according to Journal editors. The women have the genes BRCA1 or BRCA2.
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Yeah, and penis removal successfully removes all chance of you getting penis cancer, but I'm not about to invest in an IPO for penis removal clinics any time soon.
Salon.com People | Not enough nuts? Only once did the company have a complaint about his prizes. In the late '40s, some adults thought his plastic sea captain looked like Joseph Stalin. According to Jaramillo, "Rabid anti-Communists ... believed Cracker Jack was being used to propagandize the youth of America." The company withdrew the figure from circulation. Of course Joyce owns a sea captain, worth about $20.
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Rabid anti-communist nuts never die, they just look for a new demon to vilify. I think this example underlines the state of paranoia that existed (and is trying to be recreated with China) at the time.

Monday, July 16

Commentary, July 13, 2001 — Space Ship Sails, AP's ESP, Weakened Water, Sylvia Still Silent, Dilution Delusion, Calling Cleo, Chasing Chandra, Screening Scribbling, and More Matches.... Now witness the remarkable — though imperfect — precognitive powers of the Associated Press News Service: more than six hours before VP Dick Cheney actually arrived at the White House on his first day back at work following his recent medical procedure, AP ran an Internet story that detailed his morning activities, in the past tense. This might be an indication of how the White House — with the co-operation of the media — can conjure up news. Cheney's spokesperson Juleanna Glover Weiss was quoted as having said of his return, at 1:20 a.m. the night before, "It's a typical day."
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Media collusion at it's finest.

Thursday, July 12

Ten Commandments' Sponsor Finds Demons Chasing Him The distance between adultery and the implication of murder is enormous. Condit's spokespersons are right that the media feeding frenzy is fueling expectations of the worst kind. But his alleged simultaneous liaisons with a 25-year-old intern and a flight attendant would suggest that we have yet another dreary example that the most self-righteous of our politicians might have the most to hide.
Clearly Condit was declaiming against his own demons when he co-sponsored legislation calling for displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings. How easy it is to forget the admonishment against adultery when it is not prominently posted at every turn in the Capitol.
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AMEN to that!!

Friday, July 6

Red Tide Rising Whoops. No sooner had Mr. Bush signed that tax cut into law than those same officials began admitting that the budget outlook wasn't that rosy after all. In fact, revenue is dropping like a stone. A suspicious man might wonder about the timing: isn't it strange that the bad news on revenue came to light only after the tax cut had passed?
In any case, get ready for more bad news. When the Budget Office updates its projections next month, it is certain to mark them down, not up — and that will be just the beginning of a dismal trend. Forget about those budget surpluses as far as the eye can see; from now on the prospect is for chronic budget shortfalls.
Two Retailers Recall Corn Chips for StarLink Trace The Food and Drug Administration (news - web sites) tested the product eaten by the man and found it contained tiny amounts of StarLink, a gene-altered yellow corn that is permitted only in livestock feed. Last autumn, StarLink was found in a variety of snack foods and flour containing yellow corn, which prompted widespread recalls.
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So safe that folks have allergic reactions to it that cause the company to get caught using it!! These biotech fools need to be reigned in QUICKLY.