Pam Rotella home page VeggieCooking.com Vegan Cookbook Vegan Recipes Vegetarian Recipes Donate! Featured Articles: My Vegetarian Cookbook Index Healthy Eating The Genetic Fad - A Medical Myth Joel Wallach - Copper Deficiencies Lawrence Broxmeyer - Mad Cow Organophosphates - Mad Cow Multiple Sclerosis and Mercury Alternative Medicine Used for Flus Good Fats (Omega-3 Fatty Acids) Dr. Hulda Clark - Cancer and AIDs Alternative Cancer Treatments Vegans and Vitamin B-12 Aspartame, MSG - Excitotoxins Sickle Cell Anemia Jake Beason - Raising Children Election Fraud 2004 9-11: A Government Operation Pam Remembers Ronald Reagan Family Values Giving Thanks Travel Page Photo Gallery Main Page The Peace (Flower) Gallery Glacier National Park Gallery Autumn Foliage Gallery 2004 New York City Protests Yellowstone National Park Gallery The Badlands Photo Gallery The Main Caverns Gallery Luray Caverns in Virginia Shenandoah Caverns in Virginia Skyline Caverns in Virginia Endless Caverns in Virginia Dixie Caverns in Virginia Natural Bridge in Virginia Crystal Caverns at Hupp Hill in Virginia Cave of the Mounds in Wisconsin Kickapoo Indian Caverns in Wisconsin Crystal Cave in Wisconsin Niagara Cave in Minnesota Mena Airport Photo Gallery Skyline Drive Photo Gallery The House on the Rock Gallery Wisconsin Windmill Farm Copyright Notice & Limited Use Other Health Web Sites: Mercury Poisoned .com Cancer Tutor .com Dorway.com - Aspartame Breast Implant Dangers Dr. Hulda Clark - products Dr. Clark Information Center Dr. Joel Wallach Dr. Lawrence Broxmeyer Mark Purdey Dr. Joseph Mercola Dr. Hal Huggins Dr. Lorainne Day Dr. Andrew Weil Dr. Ralph Moss - Cancer Decisions Dr. Patrick Flanagan - Neurophone NUCCA-Certified Chiropractors Pranic Healing Alternative News Sites: Rense.com What Really Happened .com Buzz Flash .com Information Clearing House Prison Planet.com Alternative Radio: WBAI - New York City KPFK - Los Angeles KPFA - Berkeley WPFW - Washington, DC Air America Radio
	Pam Rotella’s Vegetarian FUN page -- your source for nutrition, health, environmental, political, and other news! Fun link of the month: Africam, a selection of wild animal cams in Africa, some with night vision! Often the animals are far away from the camera, but the sounds are always incredible. (Sorry for all of the ads, but that's how they can fund such a reliable site. I've looked at many other animal cams that don't have anything online most of the time, but this one does. Observe the time zone difference, too -- for a good part of the day in the US, it's nighttime viewing in Africa.) Note that the blue heron nest cam in Washington state is still going (intermittently, it seems) at the beginning of August, and so I'm leaving it up. Aren't they pretty! And don't forget past fun links of the month -- just as fun as this month's! More recent news links, August 2010 During July and August 2010, my schedule temporarily became too busy to post news links to the front page. However, I will post some of them later in August. Along with my usual demanding schedule, I also had a photography show to do, and I am setting up a new web site related to my photography which I'll reveal to my readers soon. (Another part of it, of course, is that this site is entirely unfunded, and so my readers are limited to the scraps of time and funding that I can give from my own charitable nature. If you'd like to see more, then get folks to buy from VeggieCooking.com or donate!) Until then, enjoy earlier links and the rest of this site's unique articles. - PR News from the Week of 11th to 17th of July 2010 Note to readers: This site went down for a few hours on Tuesday, 6 July 2010, due to web hosting service changes. I am currently in the process of verifying that all files transferred successfully, and on Monday I restored 3 news articles and an Eagle, WI tornado damage photo that were missing. This process of verification and restoration will probably continue until the end of this week. If you can't find a file or picture listed here, please check again on Wednesday or Thursday. Sorry for any inconvenience. - PR Widespread oyster deaths found on Louisiana reefs (17 July 2010) Surveys of coastal oyster grounds have discovered extensive deaths of the shellfish, further threatening an industry already in free-fall because of BP's oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The deaths are blamed on the opening of release valves on the Mississippi River in an attempt to use fresh water to flush oil out to sea. Giant diversion structures at Caernarvon and Davis Pond have been running since April 25 on the orders of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and local officials with the consent of the Army Corps of Engineers. For the past 82 days, about 30,000 cubic feet of water per second has flowed into coastal Louisiana, enough to fill the Louisiana Superdome, home to the New Orleans Saints football team, nearly once an hour. "What I saw does not look good," Patrick Banks, oyster manager for the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, said in an e-mail. He said he found no evidence of oil on the reefs east of the Mississippi River, but he said they "looked to be fallow reef." Feds Ignore Due Process, First Amendment, Shut Down Thousands of Blogs (17 July 2010) Once again, the Obama administration has violated the Bill of Rights. Earlier this month, the feds took down a free WordPress blogging platform and disabled more than 73,000 blogs. The action was completely ignored by the corporate media. The site, Blogetery.com, was told by its hosting service that the government had issued orders to shut down the site due to a “a history of abuse” related to copyrighted material. In late June, Joe Biden and Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Victoria Espinel said the government would move to take down sites offering unauthorized movies and music. “Criminal copyright infringement occurs on a massive scale over the Internet, reportedly resulting in billions of dollars in losses to the U.S. economy,” said Preet Bharara, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Bharara’s office and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched “Operation In Our Sites” and executed seizure warrants against nine domain names. Blogetery.com claimed the shut down of 73,000 blogs “was not a typical case, in which suspension and notification would be the norm. This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.” “That seems odd,” notes Techdirt, a website that covers government policy, technology and legal issues. “If there was problematic content from some users, why not just take down that content or suspend those users. Taking down all 73,000 blogs seems… excessive.” PAM COMMENTARY: Is it coincidence that both the US and China took down popular blogs around the same time? I still recommend that those with good web design skills create their very own web sites, like mine. Problems with hosting companies are bad enough, but if you use corporate sites, you're totally at their mercy, and the "content police" will get you every time. Seaport, the engine of Haiti's recovery, is sputtering (17 July 2010) PORT-AU-PRINCE -- The day the ground buckled, a $3.2 million crane crashed into the water off this country's main seaport, the pier crumbled and cracked containers spilled into the sea. Six months later, the crane and containers remain in the water and two floating barges have temporarily replaced the pier. The Port-au-Prince seaport, a main economic driver of Haiti's economy, is critical to the country's recovery from the worst natural disaster in the Western Hemisphere. But six months since the Jan. 12 catastrophic earthquake, the facility remains crippled. The international community and aid groups complain bitterly that Haiti's government has failed to present a master plan to revive the port sector -- criticized as a pocket of government neglect, cronyism and fierce rivalries even before the disaster. Scientists prove that women are better at multitasking than men (17 July 2010) Researchers decided to test the truth of the commonly held belief after discovering that no scientific research had ever been done into it. They found that when women and men work on a number of simple tasks - such as searching for a key or doing easy maths problems - at the same time, the women significantly outperformed the men. Scientists believe that the results show that females are better able to reflect upon a problem, while continuing to juggle their other commitments, than men. Professor Keith Laws, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire, who led the research, said: "We have all heard stories that either men can't multitask or that women are exceptionally good at multitasking. Face painting, dancing, bubbles … at G20 protest (17 July 2010) Some 300 protesters attended a peaceful companion march in Montreal, to add to the pressure on governments for a full public inquiry into police actions at the G20. “Politicians like (Dalton) McGuinty, (Stephen) Harper, (David) Miller are refusing a real independent civil inquiry,” said march organizer Mathieu Francoeur. “For us, that would be a minimum. We want it to go further: Who gave the orders? Why so much oppression? Why did the police react that way? Why $1 billion in costs?” A march was also held in Quebec City. At Toronto’s gathering a street theatre act kept people amused as it threaded through the crowd. It featured a cop on stilts harassing another actor playing a granny who was carrying knitting needles — dangerous weapons according to the police officer. San Francisco considers nets under Golden Gate Bridge for suicide prevention (17 July 2010) A suicide barrier - a net, dangling beneath the Golden Gate Bridge sidewalks, actually - could move a step closer to reality at the end of this month. The Metropolitan Transportation Commission, the Bay Area's regional transportation planning and financing agency, will consider allotting $5 million to the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District to complete the final design for the barrier. The agency's Programming and Allocations Committee recommended approval last week after hearing emotional testimony from barrier backers, including suicide experts and parents of people who have jumped to their deaths from the landmark bridge. Rise in African children accused of witchcraft (17 July 2010) Most of those accused of witchcraft are boys aged between eight to 14 - who often end up being attacked, tortured and sometimes killed. Also, children have had petrol poured into their eyes or ears as a way of trying to exorcise "evil spirits" that healers believe have possessed them. It is reported that some evangelical preachers have added to the problem by charging large sums for exorcisms. One was recently arrested in Nigeria after charging more than $250 for each procedure. There has been no comprehensive study to suggest how widespread child witchcraft allegations are. However Unicef's Regional Child Protection officer for West and Central Africa told the BBC more than 20,000 streetchildren had been accused of witchcraft in the DR Congo capital Kinshasa. Insurers Push Plans That Limit Choice of Doctor (17 July 2010) As the Obama administration begins to enact the new national health care law, the country’s biggest insurers are promoting affordable plans with reduced premiums that require participants to use a narrower selection of doctors or hospitals. The plans, being tested in places like San Diego, New York and Chicago, are likely to appeal especially to small businesses that already provide insurance to their employees, but are concerned about the ever-spiraling cost of coverage. But large employers, as well, are starting to show some interest, and insurers and consultants expect that, over time, businesses of all sizes will gravitate toward these plans in an effort to cut costs. The tradeoff, they say, is that more Americans will be asked to pay higher prices for the privilege of choosing or keeping their own doctors if they are outside the new networks. That could come as a surprise to many who remember the repeated assurances from President Obama and other officials that consumers would retain a variety of health-care choices. PAM COMMENTARY: Very few of my past employers provided health insurance where the employee really had a choice of doctors. They'd give you a book listing doctors covered by their plan, and you had to choose a doctor from that book. Although the lists appeared to offer at least some choice, usually calls to their offices would reveal that only one or two doctors were taking new patients. NASA appears to no longer be shooting for the stars (17 July 2010) President Obama in January proposed cancelling the troubled moon program, and a key Senate committee voted this week to kill Constellation. Despite the apparent kiss of death, construction continues at Plum Brook Station and other NASA centers and at private aerospace companies across the nation, where more than 14,000 people are still working on Constellation. Under pressure from Congress, NASA has been spending an average of about $9 million a day on the project. After accomplishing so much in space for half a century, the nation now appears to lack not only the resources to mount a major human space program, but also the political will to eliminate the thousands of jobs connected with it. "It is a sad spectacle," said Loren Thompson, a longtime aerospace policy expert in Washington, referring to the dual-edged political sword that has constrained the once ambitious U.S. space program. "It is devolving into everybody trying to protect their home turf." Idaho leads nation in business spam (17 July 2010) THE SPAM ASSAULT Symantec Hosted Services, a computer security company, says 95 percent of e-mails directed to Idaho business are spam. You probably don't see most of it because it's diverted by software or other security programs. THE TREND PERSISTS Idaho is the leader for the second year in a row. Meth supply links Mexico to Alaska; Mat-Su labs down (17 July 2010) The once severe problem of methamphetamine manufacturing labs in Alaska has diminished greatly because of a 2006 state law targeting them, but that doesn't mean addicts can't get meth, state officials told legislators recently. Meth now is being supplied mainly by Mexican drug traffickers, and it's a much higher grade than that made by Alaskans, most of whom operated out of homes and apartments in the Mat-Su Borough, officials said last week in giving a status report on methamphetamine to the House Judiciary Committee. About 45 pounds of meth were seized in Alaska last year by the Alaska Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Enforcement, a part of Alaska State Troopers, and other agencies that it works with, including the federal Drug Enforcement Administration, according to the bureau. That was a record amount, more than five times the nearly 8 pounds seized in 2007 and again in 2008, bureau statistics show. It's also more than what authorities were finding in raids before 2006, when in-state meth makers faced lighter sentences and had an easier time acquiring ingredients, according to bureau statistics. Hospitals beef up equipment for obese (17 July 2010) From hamburgers to houses, it seems everything is getting supersized. Hospitals are no exception. Around the country, medical facilities are buying equipment to accommodate the increase in obese patients. In Milwaukee, several local hospitals have beefed up their beds, rooms and medical devices to accommodate larger patients. The shift to the XXL-equipped hospital is eating into capital budgets and driving growth in the plus-sized medical equipment market. From 1990 to 2006, the proportion of obese Wisconsin residents ballooned from 11.3% to 26.7%, according to a study from the Centers for Disease Control's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. That compares with 25.1% for the U.S. population as a whole. In Milwaukee, 28.6% of people were obese in 2004 to 2006, according to the report. Midway ride crash probe could take up to two months; Girl, 13, 'in rough shape' in hospital (17 July 2010) While victims recover from their various injuries, witnesses who saw the pod break apart from the base, sending its passengers crashing to the ground, are still in shock. One said the car "broke apart and spun out like a bike tire." Ensconced in the car behind one that was flung from its hinges, Alex Bilton, 16, witnessed the event. "I'm still shaking," he said. After the car broke off, the ride continued, slamming his car into the broken pod at least twice. On the second impact, Bilton said he saw "a kid face down with blood coming out of his head. We knocked him over." Meanwhile, the show went on at the Stampede grounds, with the company that operates the rides -- North American Midway Entertainment -- and other officials calling the catastrophe "unprecedented." Eugenics Alert: UN’s Agenda of Population Control Accelerating (17 July 2010) Although the UN in the west have learned to speak of “sustainable development” when speaking of population control, their puppets in developing countries have been less successful: they continue to speak in the original eugenic tongue: the language used of old to describe how best to keep the population in check, by whatever means necessary. In the context of the UN’s World Population Day (last July 11), several developing nations were quick to pledge allegiance to the eugenic deity. In the east-Indian state of Bihar, officials put out the announcement that: “The Bihar government will soon formulate a new population control policy. The policy will be framed in collaboration with the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF).” Another Indian state, Karnataka, had President Gladys Almeida “observe World Population Day” at which event she told local government employees: “There is a need to create an awareness on the need for population control.” Mexican drug cartels' newest weapon: Cold War-era grenades made in U.S. (17 July 2010) MEXICO CITY -- Grenades made in the United States and sent to Central America during the Cold War have resurfaced as terrifying new weapons in almost weekly attacks by Mexican drug cartels. Sent a generation ago to battle communist revolutionaries in the jungles of Central America, U.S. grenades are being diverted from dusty old armories and sold to criminal mafias, who are using them to destabilize the Mexican government and terrorize civilians, according to U.S. and Mexican law enforcement officials. The redeployment of U.S.-made grenades by Mexican drug lords underscores the increasingly intertwined nature of the conflict, as President Felipe Calderón sends his soldiers out to confront gangs armed with a deadly combination of brand-new military-style assault rifles purchased in the United States and munitions left over from the Cold War. Grenades have killed a relatively small number of the 25,000 people who have died since Calderón launched his U.S.-backed offensive against the cartels. But the grenades pack a far greater psychological punch than the ubiquitous AK-47s and AR-15 rifles -- they can overwhelm and intimidate outgunned soldiers and police while reminding ordinary Mexicans that the country is literally at war. GE asks Congress for engine that Obama opposes (17 July 2010) The Fairfield, Conn.-based company, which makes everything from refrigerators to water heaters to X-ray machines and jet engines, says the loss of federal funding would effectively end the alternate engine's development - and throw the money that has already gone into the program down the drain. The joint venture between GE and Rolls Royce has received at least $2 billion to date from the federal government to develop the alternate engine. Manufacturer Pratt & Whitney has received at least $6 billion to develop the main engine for the joint strike fighter, which is expected to be used by the Air Force, the Navy and the Marine Corps as well as eight international allies. The strike fighter program means big money for the company or companies that eventually manufacture the engines. The federal government alone is expected to procure more than 2,400 joint strike fighter aircraft over the next 25 years. Citing budgetary constraints, President Barack Obama and the military say they want to stop funding the alternate engine, arguing that the project has become too costly and that any savings from the competition that an alternate engine would bring isn't worth the initial federal investment. Obama is threatening to veto any congressional spending bills that include funding for the program. But GE executives are hoping their ad and lobbying campaign will help persuade Congress to continue funding the project over the administration's objections, as lawmakers have done for the past several years. A defense authorization bill in the House now includes $485 million to continue developing the alternate engine; the Senate version does not include funding for the program. Court clears Guantanamo captives for return to Algeria (17 July 2010) The U.S. Supreme Court late Friday cleared the way for the repatriations from Guantanamo of two Algerian men who argued they'd be in danger if they were sent home. Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed, 49, ordered freed by a federal judge in November, and Abdul Aziz Naji, 35, could be sent home at any time after the high court refused to block their transfers. Both have been held at Guantánamo since 2002 and neither were ever charged with a crime. Each had argued that, because of the stigma of having done time at Guantánamo, even cleared, they could face repression if not death in their homeland. In Naji's case, his Boston lawyer, Ellen Lubell, said by email Saturday that ``he fears extremists will try to recruit him -- associating him with Guantánamo -- and will torture or kill him if he resists.'' Guantanamo Inmate Database (17 July 2010) An eight-month McClatchy investigation of the detention system created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has found that the U.S. imprisoned innocent men, subjected them to abuse, stripped them of their legal rights and allowed Islamic militants to turn the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba into a school for jihad. Darkness In America - Lynne Stewart's Re-Sentencing (16 July 2010) On July 16, New York Law Journal's Mark Hamblett headlined, "Lynne Stewart Gets a New 10-Year Prison Sentence," saying: Koeltl imposed a longer sentence, saying "comments by Stewart in 2006, including a statement in a television interview that she would do 'it' again and would not 'do anything differently' influenced his decision....indicat(ing) the original sentence 'was not sufficient' to reflect the goals of sentencing guidelines." Forgotten were Koeltl's October 2006 comment, calling Lynne's character "extraordinary," saying she was "a credit to her profession," and that a long imprisonment would be "an unreasonable result," citing "the somewhat atypical nature of her case (and) lack of evidence that any victim was harmed...." Calling terrorism enhancement "dramatically unreasonable (because it grossly) overstate(d) the seriousness of (her) conduct (and would equate her with) repeat felony offenders for the most serious offenses including murder and drug trafficking." He did consider Stewart's age (70), her health (poor), her distinguished career representing society's disadvantaged and unwanted, and the unlikelihood she'd commit another "crime." "But (he) clearly got the message from the 2nd Circuit," and complied, his own career perhaps on the line otherwise. "Macaca Man" threatens to return (16 July 2010) He may not be formally running for office at the moment, but former Sen. George Allen (R) posted impressive fundraising totals for the reporting period ending June 30. According to records filed with the Federal Election Commission, Allen's political action committee Good Government for America collected $314,595 from April 1 to June 30. After spending $86,458 during the period, the committee ended the period with $252,074 in the bank. The number is especially striking since donors to federal committees face a $5,000 limit on the size of their donations. Donors to state committees, which also faced reporting deadlines this week, give as much as they'd like. Allen's political future is the focus of intense speculation in Virginia. Asked whether he might challenge Sen. Jim Webb (D) to regain the Senate seat Webb won from him in 2006, Alllen has repeatedly said "perhaps." He gave that answer as recently as Wednesday. Be Aware of Former FEMA Trailers (FLASHBACK) (16 July 2010) To support the need for immediate housing after Hurricane Katrina hit in 2005, FEMA purchased upwards around 100,000 travel trailers, park models, and mobile homes. Most were rented for a short period of time by displaced evacuees and then returned to FEMA. Many thousand were not ever deployed and were left at the airport in Hope, Arkansas. Whereas many of these trailers are in acceptable 2nd hand condition, many are not. Some units may be in esthetically pleasing condition but due to harsh storage conditions could contain damage not readily noticed. Many of these units are being auctioned by FEMA and resold without advising the consumer. In addition, due to the time crunch to manufacture the units, many were built using non-standard methods by subcontractors to the major RV Manufacturers. Here are some things to be aware of and to watch for when purchasing ANY travel trailer built in 2004-2006... PAM COMMENTARY: A large number of old FEMA trailers are listed on EBay lately, and so I'm flashing back to this old article. A lot of people got sick from staying in FEMA trailers, so buyer beware! Survivor, descendants dancing at Auschwitz: "tasteless" or triumphant? (17 July 2010) WARSAW, Poland — Who has the right to dance at Auschwitz, to make light of the Holocaust, to shoot videos set amid cattle cars and gas chambers? A home video that has gone viral on the Internet showing a Holocaust survivor dancing at Auschwitz and other Holocaust sites to the disco classic "I Will Survive" with his daughter and grandchildren has brought such questions to the fore. To some, images of Adolek Kohn and his family shuffling offbeat at such hallowed places is an insult to those who perished; to others a defiant celebration of survival. The juxtapositions have struck many viewers as funny and chilling at the same time. Whether the comedic effects were intentional or not, they bring a new dimension to questions about how far taboos can be tested in an age when comedians like Larry David and Sacha Baron Cohen find rich fodder for their jokes in the Holocaust. Senate to Probe BP-Libya Deal (16 July 2010) The Senate Foreign Relations Committee says it will probe the role BP played in freeing convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdelbaset al-Megrahi. Megrahi, the only person who has been convicted of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing that killed 270 people in 1988, was released last August from a Scottish prison. It has since come to light that BP may have lobbied for his release in order to secure a $900 million deal to drill in the Gulf of Sidra. BP has admitted that it lobbied the British government in late 2007 on a prisoner transfer agreement. "BP told the UK government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya," the company said in a statement yesterday. "We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan government of BP's exploration agreement." The oil giant says it was not involved in discussions about Megrahi specifically, however. Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (D-Mass.) announced late yesterday that the panel will hold a hearing on the issue on July 29. "I opposed Megrahi’s release on medical grounds last year as a travesty and the details that have emerged in recent days in the press have raised new concerns," said Kerry in a statement. "On behalf of those victims and their families, we must get to the bottom of what led to the mistaken release of the only person ever convicted for that terrible crime." New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez will chair the hearing. Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison in 2001, but was released last August after a Scottish court granted him freedom on compassionate grounds. Doctors told the court that he was facing terminal prostate cancer and only had three months to live; now one of those doctors says he was paid by the Libyan government to make that determination, and he could live another ten years as a free man. PAM COMMENTARY: Oh, please! As if anyone believes the government's story on Lockerbie... Coleman Testimony On CIA's PAN AM 103 Drug Smuggling Corroborated (FLASHBACK) (16 July 2010) Mr. Coleman said: "Individuals involved in drug sting operations would arrive at Larnaca (in Cyprus) on the ferry from Jounich (in Lebanon) and be escorted by officers of the Cypriot national police to the offices of Eurame Trading Company in Nicosia, a DEA proprietory company." Mr. Coleman saw Khaled Jaafar on at least three occasions in the Eurame offices and knew him to be a DEA courier. The DEA has denied it was involved in a drugs sting operation at any time around the Lockerbie incident. But James Shaughnessy, lead counsel for Pan Am, said in his latest affidavit dated May 3 [1991]: "The DEA's denial is incredulous....simply false." Pan Am's affidavit refers to a telephone conversation between a senior officer of British customs' investigations branch and Michael Jones of Pan Am Corporate Security in London in which he asked: "Have you considered a bag switch in Frankfurt due to the large amounts of Turkish workers?" The Beirut end of MC10 had been "blown". There were five key members of the MC10 cell in Cyprus and Beirut, according to Mr. Coleman. Apart from Mr. Coleman there were Werner Tony Asmar, a German Lebanese, Charlie Frezeli, a Lebanese army officer, and two more Lebanese who worked with Asmar. Asmar was killed in a bomb explosion at his office in east Beirut on May 26, 1988. Frezeli was shot dead at his home in east Beirut in November 1989. When Asmar was killed, the DIA ordered Mr. Coleman home. Those, like Mr. Coleman and the Pan Am lawyers who are convinced there is a link between the Lockerbie bomb and "Operation Khourah" were not helped by the so-called Aviv report, which claimed that a rogue CIA unit permitted the bags switch, knowing it contained a bomb. The report, produced by Isaeli investigator Juval Aviv was discredited. Now, however, a judge in a US court has ruled that the US government must produce all relevant documents relating to the practice of drugs sting operations through Frankfurt and elsewhere in Europe. PAM COMMENTARY: Just reminding everyone of only ONE story of hundreds conflicting with the government's version of events on Lockerbie. Pan Am 103 & 9/11 Connection (16 July 2010) "Robert Mueller was nominated by President George W. Bush and became the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 4, 2001". (2) "After spending 1988 and 1989 in private practice, he joined the staff of Attorney-General Richard Thornburgh, and his star rose at the Justice Department as the head of the criminal division under President George Bush's father from 1990 to 1993. And he led the investigations of the 1991 collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International banking and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103." (3) Here is a link about Pan Am 103 ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pan_Am_Flight_103 ) - note the part about the Intelligence Officers on board. I tried to find out more at the George Bush Sr. Presidential Library since Pan Am sued the US government and, "In its suit, Pan Am alleged that the United States Government had prior knowledge of an impending terrorist attack on a Pan Am airliner". But as luck would have it the, ".....court transcripts, affidavits, depositions, motions, objections, reports, and news clippings.....in addition [to] the remaining NSC files deal[ing] specifically with the Lockerbie bombing and the subsequent investigation which led to the indictment of two Libyan nationals..... are closed because of various security classifications". (4) PAM COMMENTARY: I could keep posting these all day, but we'll leave it there... for now... 25,000 new asteroids found by NASA's sky mapping (16 July 2010) LOS ANGELES—Worried about Earth-threatening asteroids? One of NASA's newest space telescopes has spotted 25,000 never-before-seen asteroids in just six months. Ninety-five of those are considered "near Earth," but in the language of astronomy that means within 30 million miles. Luckily for us, none poses any threat to Earth anytime soon. Called WISE for Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, the telescope completes its first full scan of the sky on Saturday and then begins another round of imaging. What's special about WISE is its ability to see through impenetrable veils of dust, picking up the heat glow of objects that are invisible to regular telescopes. Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope discovers 'superheated planet with comet tail' (16 July 2010) The planet, nicknamed Osiris, is 153 light-years from Earth and is only slightly smaller than Jupiter, our solar system’s biggest planet. It was first detected in 1999 when scientists noticed a minute reduction in the brightness of its star, caused by the planet passing in front of it. But astronomers at the space agency have only just found that powerful stellar winds are sweeping the "superheated" planet’s atmosphere out behind it. Experts say this has led to the tail-like effect being captured by the Hubble. The "tail" theory had been hinted at previously but not confirmed until now. FDA says breast cancer drug did not extend lives (16 July 2010) WASHINGTON—Federal health scientists said Friday that follow-up studies of a Roche breast cancer drug showed that it failed extend patient lives, opening the door for it to be potentially withdrawal for use in treating that disease. The Food and Drug Administration approved Roche's blockbuster Avastin in 2008 based on a trial showing it slowed growth of tumors caused by breast cancer. The decision was controversial because drugs for cancer patients who have never been treated before must usually show evidence they extend lives. Avastin's so-called "accelerated approval" was based on the condition that later studies would show a survival benefit. But in briefing documents posted online, FDA reviewers said two follow-up studies recently submitted by Roche failed to show that Avastin significantly extended lives compared to chemotherapy alone. Additionally, the FDA said that in followup studies the drug did not slow tumor growth to the same degree as in earlier studies. Civil Rights Attorney Lynne Stewart Resentenced to 10-Year Term—Nearly Five Times Her Original Sentence (16 July 2010) PETRA BARTOSIEWICZ: I was not in the courtroom, because there were so many people who came out for this day that there was no room. Almost no members of the public, relative to how many who were there, actually made it in, though I think the judge did try to accommodate about fifty people who went in. So, the vast majority, though, about 300 of us, were in a jury assembly room where the proceedings were broadcast on two giant video screens, and we could hear everything that was going. We were sort of looking from above, as it were, on what was happening. And when Lynne came in, there was applause in the courtroom upstairs, where everything was actually happening, and there was—there were cheers and whistles downstairs in the jury assembly room. People were yelling at the screen and saying that they supported her. The proceedings were quite lengthy. Both the defense and prosecution made statements on—about the resentencing, and then the judge read a very lengthy report that he prepared for the resentencing, which sounded incredibly technical. One lawyer I spoke to later said sort of—describes this process as "two plus two plus two equals blue." And blue was ten years. She’s going to serve ten years. And when she heard the sentence, we didn’t see very well, you know, the immediate reaction, but I could see she was wiping away tears, and she was really barely able to speak later when the judge gave her the opportunity. And people downstairs were very emotional. Some were crying. Some shouted things that we probably can’t repeat on the air here. But people seemed stunned and very disappointed, because they thought that this sentence would not be as high. And the judge specifically did point to some of the things that she said after the initial sentencing outside the courthouse, and then later on this program, as evidence that she was not as remorseful as she should be and that he should increase the sentence. There were, of course, other factors, but I think that certainly played a part in it, since he pointed it out. PAM COMMENTARY: At least the audience knew what was going on. A New Senator for West Virginia (16 July 2010) Gov. Joe Manchin of West Virginia named his former general counsel, Carte Goodwin, to temporarily fill the United States Senate seat of the late Robert Byrd. Governor Manchin made the announcement on Friday afternoon in Charleston, the state capital. Mr. Goodwin will hold the seat until November, when a special election for the post will be held. The governor is expected to be a candidate. Mr. Goodwin, who served as Governor Manchin’s general counsel from 2005 to 2009, is now a lawyer at his family’s firm in Charleston. According to a profile on his firm’s Web site, he once clerked for Judge Robert B. King on the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Local news reports say that Mr. Goodwin worked for Mr. Manchin’s 2004 campaign, when the governor won his first term, and that Mr. Goodwin’s wife, Rochelle, currently works as state director for the other West Virginia senator, John D. Rockefeller IV, a Democrat. Should food dyes be banned? (16 July 2010) A new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest argues that synthetic dyes should be banned because they pose "A Rainbow of Risks" without any real benefits. Every year, manufactures pour about 15 million pounds of eight common synthetic dyes into Americans' food. Yet, tests have shown that a number of these compounds have health risks ranging from powerful allergic reactions and hyperactivity in children to cancer. Evidence suggests, but does not prove, that Blue 1, Blue 2, Green 3, Red 40, and Yellow 6 cause cancer in animals. The three most widely used dyes — Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6 — are contaminated with known carcinogens. The granddaddy of them all, Red 3, is recognized by the Food and Drug Administration as a carcinogen. The law requires it to be illegal, but pressure from Ronald Reagan's Secretary of Agriculture, John R. Block, scuttled the required ban. About 200,000 pounds annually of Red 3 go into foods including Betty Crocker's Fruit Roll-Ups and ConAgra's Kid Cuisine frozen meals. Iran accuses US and UK of supporting group behind mosque attacks (16 July 2010) Iran is vowing to hunt down a Sunni separatist group which claimed responsibility for a double suicide bombing that killed 28 people at a mosque in the south-eastern city of Zahedan. Jundullah – Arabic for "the soldiers of God" – said it carried out the twin attacks yesterday at Zahedan's grand mosque in retaliation for the execution of the group's captured leader. Provincial officials said a further 167 people were injured, some of them critically. Three days of mourning were declared. General Hossein Salami, deputy commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, claimed in Tehran today that the victims "were martyred by the hands of mercenaries of the US and UK". Ali Mohammad Azad, governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province, blamed "the intelligence services of arrogant powers." The US and Britain – which are at odds with Iran over its controversial nuclear programme – issued statements condemning the attacks. Shia worshippers were celebrating the birthday of the prophet Muhammad's grandson Hussein when the first bomb detonated, according to reports from the scene. A second explosion took place 15 minutes later as people rushed to help – a technique used by Sunni groups in Iraq to maximise casualties. The dead reportedly included several Revolutionary Guards. USGS: Magnitude 3.6 - POTOMAC-SHENANDOAH REGION (16 July 2010) Magnitude (from Details tab): 3.6 Felt Reports (from Summary tab): Felt (IV) at Cooksville, Maryland; (III) throughout Montgomery County and in much of central Maryland, in northern District of Columbia and in much of Loudoun County, Virginia. Felt (II) from Charlottesville, Virginia to Lancaster, Pennsylvania and Newark, Delaware and from Martinsburg, West Virginia into the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Also felt in parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Ohio with isolated felt reports as far away as Indiana, Massachusetts and South Carolina. 3.6-magnitude earthquake wakes Md. residents; Temblor centered beneath Germantown felt by as many as 3 million people in Mid-Atlantic region (16 July 2010) A 3.6-magnitude earthquake that startled Marylanders from their slumbers early Friday morning might have been the strongest measured tremor on record for the state. With its epicenter near Germantown in Montgomery County, the quake was felt by as many as 3 million people in the Mid-Atlantic region, according to the United States Geological Survey. The 5 a.m. earthquake was felt as far away as south-central New Jersey, as well as in Washington, Northern Virginia, southeastern Pennsylvania and Delaware. People in Columbia, Owings Mills, Carroll County and Odenton reported the quake was enough to rattle household items and send pets into a tizzy. Odenton resident Paul Muirhead said the temblor woke him up about 5:05 a.m. "I was startled from my sleep as if being shaken," he wrote in an e-mail. "Though there was hardly any light by which to see, I could hear items of mine — large and small — rattling on glass shelves." New Zealand inventors reveal bionic legs to help paraplegics (16 July 2010) WELLINGTON - Two New Zealand inventors have produced what they claim are the world's first robotic legs to help paraplegics walk again. The bionic legs were road-tested publicly for the first time Thursday by 23-year-old Hayden Allen who was told five years ago he would never walk again after being paralyzed from the chest down in a motorcycle accident. Allen said the experience of being able to stand up and walk when strapped into his robotic legs was fantastic and he felt like a normal human being again. "It will be a big benefit from a social aspect, being able to talk to someone at the same eye level," he told reporters. Man who ran animal-sex operation sentenced for probation violation (16 July 2010) Had it not been for evidence of the seven large-breed male dogs, the four stallions and the bestiality tapes found at his house, the sentencing of Douglas Spink before a federal court judge on Friday would have likely been a dry affair. After all, it's not that unusual for a convict to go before the judge on a probation violation. But the animal aspects of the case and the plain old "ew" factor, even his own attorney concedes, were hard to ignore. Spink, who was charged with violating the terms of his probation that followed a 2005 drug-trafficking conviction, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Ricardo S. Martinez Friday to three years in federal prison and two years of probation. BP whistleblower: oil clean-up effort is in disarray (16 July 2010) The Climate DeskBut while Dillon says the company is bungling many aspects of the spill response, he notes that it has done a reasonably good job in one area: blocking the media from seeing the worst of the disaster in Grand Isle, a beach on a barrier island off Louisiana's coast. "There was all kinds of stuff they didn't want the media to see," he says, describing areas thick with oil that were off-limits to journalists. "They kept it very strict what they wanted the media not to see, and what they wanted them to see. Where the media was actually given access to really was kind of mundane." While BP has insisted publicly that it has not prevented spill workers from talking to the press, Dillon says company officials made it perfectly clear to contractors that they would lose their jobs if they spoke to reporters. "There are people down on that beach that are begging to talk to reporters, because they're having pay issues, having problems," says Dillon of the workers in Grand Isle. "Any of those laborers that are down there are being told behind closed doors that if they talk to the media, they'll be fired." To enforce its media blockade, Dillon says, the company turned to its security force, largely made up of guys like him, ex-military and law enforcement personnel. "They were given orders to herd the media away," he says, and they followed those instructions just like he did. "They didn't know the reason behind it -- they were just told keep the media away from [the cleanup workers]." He adds, "That's a First Amendment violation ... You can't keep the media away. It's a public beach. We weren't under Martial Law." After working on Grand Isle, Dillon was transferred to the Unified Command Center in Houma, La., the hub of BP and federal response activities, to work on cleanup logistics. He claims he was fired last week "because he was seen as a threat to superiors." (Stephanie Hebert, a spokeswoman at the Unified Command Center, confirms he was a contractor there but declined to comment on his dismissal.) Specifically, he says BP axed him after taking photos of what he described as "equations on dispersants" and calling these pictures to the attention of his bosses. He says he was "confined and interrogated for almost an hour" about what he saw, and within 12 hours was dismissed from the command center. Dillon declined to elaborate on the dispersant issue when we spoke, but pledged to avenge his termination by calling attention to BP's mishandling of the response. Giant oil skimmer 'A Whale' deemed a bust for Gulf of Mexico spill (16 July 2010) The massive "A Whale" oil skimmer has effectively been beached after it proved inefficient in sucking up oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill. The oil is too dispersed to take advantage of the converted Taiwanese supertanker's enormous capacity, said Bob Grantham, a spokesman for shipowner TMT. He said BP's use of chemical dispersants prevented A Whale, billed as the world's largest skimmer, from collecting a "significant amount" of oil during a week of testing that ended Friday. "When dispersants are used in high volume virtually from the point that oil leaves the well, it presents real challenges for high-volume skimming," Grantham said in a written statement that did not include oil-collection figures from the test. BP, scientists try to make sense of well puzzle (16 July 2010) Engineers are keeping watch over the well for a two-day period in a scientific, round-the-clock vigil to see if the well's temporary cap is strong enough to hold back the oil, or if there are leaks either in the well itself or the sea floor. One mysterious development was that the pressure readings were not rising as high as expected, said retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man on the crisis. Allen said two possible reasons were being debated by scientists: The reservoir that is the source of the oil could be running lower three months into the spill. Or there could be an undiscovered leak somewhere down in the well. Allen ordered further study but remained confident. "This is generally good news," he said. But he cautioned, "We need to be careful not to do any harm or create a situation that cannot be reversed." He said the testing would go on into the night, at which point BP may decide whether to reopen the cap and allow some oil to spill into the sea again. Toronto's 'Officer Bubbles,' the new Drama Queen (16 July 2010) He's now known as “Officer Bubbles.” Const. Adam Josephs has gained considerable notoriety after being caught on tape threatening to arrest a G20 protester for blowing bubbles. In a viral Internet video, the 52 Division officer tells protester Courtney Winkels she will be arrested for assault because she is blowing bubbles in front of officers. The video — shown on the website therealnews.com and this week on American network Fox News — shows Winkels, orange bubble wand in hand, interacting with Josephs and a female officer. “You touch me with that bubble you're going into custody,” he tells her in a video entitled “Booked for Bubbles” that was shot June 27 near Queen St. W. and Dufferin St. PAM COMMENTARY: The old 2004 Drama Queen. Obama's Gitmo by the Numbers (16 July 2010) As of July 16, it's been 166 days since the Obama administration missed its self-imposed deadline to close Guantanamo Bay. The first detainees arrived at the notorious prison camp over eight and a half years ago. With little public support for closing the base, and no political will to bring the most infamous detainees to trial, there doesn't seem to be any end in sight. Here's a by-the-numbers look at what has become Obama's Gitmo. PAM COMMENTARY: This is a little statistical slide show -- click on the little pie chart buttons to read each slide. French scientists crack secrets of Mona Lisa (16 July 2010) PARIS—The enigmatic smile remains a mystery, but French scientists say they have cracked a few secrets of the "Mona Lisa." French researchers studied seven of the Louvre Museum's Leonardo da Vinci paintings, including the "Mona Lisa," to analyze the master's use of successive ultrathin layers of paint and glaze - a technique that gave his works their dreamy quality. Specialists from the Center for Research and Restoration of the Museums of France found that da Vinci painted up to 30 layers of paint on his works to meet his standards of subtlety. Added up, all the layers are less than 40 micrometers, or about half the thickness of a human hair, researcher Philippe Walter said Friday. The technique, called "sfumato," allowed da Vinci to give outlines and contours a hazy quality and create an illusion of depth and shadow. His use of the technique is well-known, but scientific study on it has been limited because tests often required samples from the paintings. The French researchers used a noninvasive technique called X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy to study the paint layers and their chemical composition. Wasilla teen dies in ATV rollover (16 July 2010) WASILLA -- A 17-year-old Wasilla girl has died of injuries suffered when the all-terrain vehicle she was driving overturned. Alaska State Troopers say Cheyanne M. Jorge was driving the ATV south on a trail along Lucille Street and was carrying a passenger, 17-year-old Zackery S. Potteiger of Wasilla, late Thursday afternoon. Troopers say the ATV crossed a driveway and turned over, injuring both teens. Neither wore a helmet. Jorge and Potteiger were rushed to Mat-Su Regional Medical Center. Jorge died at the hospital. Potteiger was treated and released. PAM COMMENTARY: I still don't understand why parents allow kids on those things by themselves, often miles away from home. They're so dangerous, and kids are inexperienced drivers. Along the Gulf: Spill puts tribal fisherman out of work (16 July 2010) Whitney Dardar wishes he could be out on his boat, The Golden Eagle, hauling in fish. Dardar is a commercial fisherman, but the oil spill has put him out of work for now – even though the state reopened waters to recreational fishing this week. He says he doesn't understand that decision. So this week Dardar, 74, a member of the United Houma Nation, is working on a landlocked task. He's carefully moving medicinal herbs from his garden near the bayou to higher ground in Raceland, La. "I'm trying to protect them from the oil," he says. "In case it comes here." It's not far away – there's oil from the spill in Little Lake to the east of Golden Meadow and in the complex network of bayous and marshland to the west, says tribe member Kirk Cheramie. The Houma tribe is hurting. Many of its 17,000 members, most of whom live in the Golden Meadow, La., area, work on fishing boats. The fish, shrimp, crab and oysters that flourish here give them their livelihoods and have a deeper connection to the tribe. Engulfed: Spill represents new kind of tragedy for marina's owners (16 July 2010) GRAND ISLE, La.--A day after Hurricane Katrina leveled the Bridge Side Marina, owner Buggie Vegas and his wife, Dodie, were out in the rubble swinging hammers and putting things right. The powerful 2005 hurricane leveled the marina, but Vegas now sounds nostalgic for such a simple kind of disaster. "We knew what we had to do," he said. "There was light at the end of the tunnel. We worked so hard to get this place like it is now." The BP oil spill is a new kind of hardship. Oregon man sues over rodent blasting (16 July 2010) A man filed a $146,000 lawsuit against a pest control company, claiming he suffered hearing loss when a worker used explosives to remove rodents on his neighbor's property. Michael Lester's complaint alleges the unnamed Cynergy Pest Control worker was negligent in failing to warn neighbors and then disregarded Lester's warning to stop the blasts that were rattling his doors and windows. Cynergy spokesman Ben Johnson declined comment when contacted by The Register-Guard newspaper of Eugene, saying he was unaware a suit had been filed. Scott Brown and the DISCLOSE Act (16 July 2010) You can read the rest of the letter here. I don't expect Brown to change his mind without significant public pressure from constituents back home in Massachusetts. Blocking DISCLOSE and other campaign finance laws is a top priority of Brown's party boss, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. (McConnell has a history of filing lawsuits to block campaign finance laws.) Brown's votes so far show that he clearly has an interest in being reelected—he's tried to make some compromises with Dems. In this case, pressure from other Republicans probably outweighs letters from reform groups. Without massive public outcry in Massachusetts, DISCLOSE could be done for. Over at HuffPo, Sam Stein reports that Dems still plan to bring DISCLOSE to the floor of the Senate this month because "it is too important not to." But the same piece also notes earlier comments from Dem aides saying they had put all of their eggs "in the Brown basket," and acknowledges that there's been "little indication" that either Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins of Maine might support the law. The only solace for Brown haters, really, is that he probably won't be in this powerful Ben-Nelson-on-health-care-like position for long. After the November elections, it's almost certain that some other senator (Charlie Crist? Mark Kirk? Linda McMahon?) will represent the 60th person the Dems need to convince if they want to pass any legislation. Brown won't be the center of attention forever. Zephyr solar plane flies 7 days non-stop (16 July 2010) The UK-built Zephyr solar-powered plane has smashed the endurance record for an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). The craft took off from the US Army's Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona at 1440 BST (0640 local time) last Friday and is still in the air. Its non-stop operation, day and night, means it has now gone four times longer than the official mark recognised by the world air sports federation. The plane has been developed by the defence and research company Qinetiq. Its project manager, Jon Saltmarsh, said Zephyr would be brought down once it had flown non-stop for a fortnight. Elevated levels of uranium discovered in Wales water supply (16 July 2010) At the clinic. The Post Office. The washeteria. You'll see these signs posted across the village of Wales this weekend warning that elevated levels of uranium have been found in the city water supply. The problem, discovered by routine testing of the village's 500,000-gallon water tank, was discovered this summer. While some people gather water in buckets from local waterways, the tank is the official public water source for the Bering Strait village of roughly 150 people. Uranium is a weakly radioactive heavy metal that occurs naturally in Alaska. "This is not an immediate risk," says the public notice to Wales residents. "However, some people who drink water containing uranium in excess of the (maximum contaminent level) over many years may have an increased risk of getting cancer and kidney toxicity." The discovery is the talk of the town, said Mayor Frank Crisci. "What are we going to do about it? What can we do about? And is anybody going to help us do this?" Court halts city raids on homeless camps (15 July 2010) The ACLU requested a temporary restraining order because it maintains that the raids violate constitutional property rights of the homeless. The Superior Court granted the request and issued an order to remain effective for at least 10 days. A hearing on the matter will be held Monday. Jeffrey Mittman, executive director of ACLU in Alaska, said there are numerous problems with the municipal ordinance passed in June, including the immediate destruction of property seized in raids. "The way the ordinance is written now everything is thrown out," Mittman said Thursday. But even the homeless have property rights, he said. FDA rejects Vivus' fat pill sending shares down (15 July 2010) Maryland (Reuters) - The first new prescription weight-loss pill in more than a decade failed to win backing from U.S. health advisers, who said safety concerns about the drug outweighed its ability to help obese patients shed pounds. Shares of Vivus Inc's sank 62 percent on Thursday after U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisers expressed concern the once-a-day pill could cause depression, memory-loss and potential birth defects if used among millions of overweight or obese Americans. Their decision stunned investors, who had more than doubled the share price of the California biotech in the last year on hopes that safety woes would not keep the drug from market. Dozens of outspoken, popular blogs shut in China (15 July 2010) BEIJING — Dozens of blogs by some of China's most outspoken users have been abruptly shut down while popular Twitter-like services appear to be the newest target in government efforts to control social networking. More and more Chinese bloggers are using the newer microblogs as their primary publishing tool, using their brief, punchy message format to chat with one another and promote their longer blog posts. But one of the country's top four microblog sites is now down for maintenance, and the other three show a "beta" tag as if they are in testing, though they have been operating for months. The companies that run the websites aren't saying why. "I was writing a new post and suddenly my blog couldn't open," lawyer Pu Zhiqiang told The Associated Press. Legal expert Xu Zhiyong said his blog on the popular Sohu Inc. portal was also shut down Wednesday, a day after his Sohu microblog was closed. Both men are well-known for taking on sensitive issues. Chinese officials fear that public opinion might spiral out of control as social networking — and social unrest — boom among its 420 million Internet users. China maintains the world's most extensive Internet monitoring and filtering system, and it unplugged Twitter and Facebook last year. U.S. man stuck in Egypt on no-fly list allowed to return home (15 July 2010) A call to the FBI seeking comment was not immediately returned Thursday. While Yemen has attracted attention in recent months as a hot spot in the war on terror, Wehelie's family said it was natural for the family to send him there to study. Many Somalis live in Yemen, and educational opportunities there are cheaper than in other parts of the Middle East. Wehelie was studying information technology at the Lebanese International University. While in Yemen, Wehelie married a Somali woman whose family had close ties to his own. Wehelie said he does not consider himself an especially observant Muslim and that he only visited a mosque a handful of times. Wehelie's mother, Shamsa Noor, said in an e-mail that while she is happy, she won't be completely relieved "until I see Yahye with my own eyes." Fairfax, Virginia Man Stuck In Egypt Due To No-Fly List (15 July 2010) Yusuf Wehelie, 19, was released and spoke at a press conference Wednesday. He says he endured a form of Hell when he says he was shackled to the wall for four days with only bread to eat and subjected to sleep deprivation. Wehelie says, "I was put in an Egyptian police car, handcuffed and blindfolded. I would not wish that on anyone. Whenever I tried to sleep, I was kicked by guards." Yusuf and his brother were on their way home, May 4th, and had a layover in Egypt. Yusuf was released May 11th, but his older brother, 26-year-old Yahya, has been in Egypt for the last 6 weeks. The elder Wehelie was told he was put on the no-fly list and not allowed to return home because of people he met with suspected ties to al Qaeda. Clean, Green, Safe and Smart (15 July 2010) If the ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico tells us anything, it is that we need a new national energy policy—a comprehensive plan for escaping our dangerous reliance on fossil fuels and creating a new energy system based on climate-safe alternatives. Without such a plan, the response to the disaster will be a hodgepodge of regulatory reforms and toughened environmental safeguards but not a fundamental shift in behavior. Because our current energy path leads toward greater reliance on fuels acquired from environmentally and politically hazardous locations, no amount of enhanced oversight or stiffened regulations can avert future disasters like that unfolding in the gulf. Only a dramatic change in course—governed by an entirely new policy framework—can reduce the risk of catastrophe and set the nation on a wise energy trajectory. By far the most important part of this strategy must be a change in the overarching philosophy that steers decisions on how much energy the United States should seek to produce, of what sorts and under what conditions. It may not seem as if we operate under such a philosophy today, but we do—one that extols growth over all other considerations, that privileges existing fuels over renewables and that ranks environmental concerns below corporate profit. Until we replace this outlook with one that places innovation and the environment ahead of the status quo, we will face more ecological devastation and slower economic dynamism. Only with a new governing philosophy—one that views the development of climate-friendly energy systems as the engine of economic growth—can we move from our current predicament to a brighter future. One way to appreciate the importance of this shift is to consider the guiding policies of other countries. In March, I had the privilege of attending an international energy conference at Fuenlabrada, just outside Madrid. I sat transfixed as one top official after another of Spain's socialist government spelled out their vision of the future—one in which wind and solar power would provide an ever increasing share of the nation's energy supply and make Spain a leader in renewable energy technology. Other speakers described strategies for "greening" old cities—adding parks, farms, canals and pedestrian plazas in neglected neighborhoods. Around me were a thousand university students—enthralled by the prospect of creative and rewarding jobs in architecture, engineering, technology and the sciences. This, I thought, is what our own young people need to look forward to. Instead, we are governed by an obsolete, nihilistic energy philosophy. To fully comprehend the nature of our dilemma, it is important to recognize that the gulf disaster is a direct result of the last governing blueprint adopted by this country: the National Energy Policy of May 17, 2001, better known as the Cheney plan. This framework, of which the former vice president was the lead author, called for increased drilling in wilderness areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Congress did not permit drilling in ANWR, but it wholeheartedly embraced wider exploitation of the deepwater gulf. To speed these efforts, the Bush administration encouraged the Minerals Management Service to streamline the issuing of permits to giant oil firms like BP to operate in these waters. BP clearly took shortcuts when drilling offshore—thus inviting the blowout on April 20—but it did so in a permissive atmosphere established by the 2001 policy framework. Himalayan Glaciers Melting Faster Than Anywhere Else in World; Impact Could Devastate Over 1 Billion People (15 July 2010) SYED IQBAL HASNAIN: And they have to be very serious about it. Simply with not talk that will do this, but has to come out with a certain cuts, globally and regionally. These countries, the South Asian countries, including China, has to cut down on the black carbon emission, which is coming from the diesel and from the biomass burning. So they have to change that, cooking stoves and things like that, over millions of people, to reduce the black carbon emissions and similarly put up the filters on their trucking, which is the huge problem in the Himalaya because of the army prisons of the China, India and Pakistan. And that somehow have to be reduced, and then we’ll see some changes occurring in the cryosphere of the South Asia. PAM COMMENTARY: Interesting statement near the end -- "...put up the filters on their trucking, which is the huge problem in the Himalaya because of the army prisons of the China, India and Pakistan." There are THAT MANY prison trucks in the area? Plan for British university system -- highest-earning graduates would pay extra taxes to fund degrees (15 July 2010) The government signalled the biggest shakeup of Britain's universities in a generation today, with a blueprint for higher education in which the highest-earning graduates would pay extra taxes to fund degrees, private universities would flourish and struggling institutions would be allowed to fail. Vince Cable, the cabinet minister responsible for higher education, also raised the prospect of quotas to ensure state school pupils were guaranteed places at Britain's best universities, breaking the private school stranglehold on Oxbridge. Comparing the existing system of tuition fees to a "poll tax" that graduates paid regardless of their income, the skills secretary argued it was fairer for people to pay according to their earning power. He said: "It surely can't be right that a teacher or care worker or research scientist is expected to pay the same graduate contribution as a top commercial lawyer or surgeon or City analyst whose graduate premium is so much bigger." PAM COMMENTARY: Aren't Britons with higher salaries already taxed at a greater rate? British officials recommend vaccinating all babies born in London for TB (15 July 2010) All babies born in London should be vaccinated against tuberculosis to protect them against the growing threat from the disease, public health specialists say. Almost 45 per cent of all childhood TB cases in the UK occur in the capital and the rising incidence has now passed the threshold where routine immunisation should be introduced, according to experts from the Health Protection Agency. Tuberculosis is often thought to be a disease of the past. It was a major killer until the early 20th century, but the introduction of powerful drugs in the mid -20th century was thought to have beaten it, and by the late 1980s cases had fallen to an all-time low of 5,000 a year. But since then there has been a resurgence and the incidence has steadily increased. There were 9,153 cases among adults and children recorded in the UK in 2009, the largest annual increase (5.5 per cent) since 2005. Nine out of 10 cases occur in ethnic minorities, and routine BCG vaccination of school age children against TB was abandoned in 2005 in favour of a more focused campaign on children of immigrants. Current policy is to offer vaccination to children born abroad or with parents born abroad. Immunisation is also recommended for all children living in areas where the incidence of TB exceeds 40 cases per 100,000. PAM COMMENTARY: Another vaccine forced on BABIES? Suspected dengue fever case found in Miami-Dade (15 July 2010) The first suspected locally acquired case of dengue fever in Miami-Dade County was reported Thursday by county health officials. A viral disease that afflicts 100 million worldwide every year, it hadn't been seen in Florida since 1934. ``Dengue is a viral disease transmitted by a breed of mosquito common to the southeastern United States and the tropics,'' the Miami-Dade Health Department said in a news release. ``It is not spread from person to person. More than 100 million cases of dengue occur every year worldwide.'' Symptoms include a high fever, severe headache with pain behind the eyes, a rash and pain in bones and joints, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There is no vaccine, and doctors treat mainly symptoms. It is seldom fatal except to the very young and elderly with other health conditions. Health workers urged residents to protect themselves by avoiding the outdoors at dusk and dawn, wearing clothing that protects the body, applying mosquito repellent that contains DEET and draining all open containers of water from porches and patios. The Miami-Dade announcement came as Key West health officials also found a second small outbreak in Key West. PAM COMMENTARY: I wonder if anyone has tried a zapper on that. Deficits of Mass Destruction (15 July 2010) If you've been paying attention this past decade, it won't surprise you to learn that the country's policy elites are in the midst of a destructive, well-nigh unhinged discussion about the future of the nation. But even by the degraded standards of the Washington establishment, the growing panic over government debt is shocking. First, the facts. Nearly the entire deficit for this year and those projected into the near and medium terms are the result of three things: the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush tax cuts and the recession. The solution to our fiscal situation is: end the wars, allow the tax cuts to expire and restore robust growth. Our long-term structural deficits will require us to control healthcare inflation the way countries with single-payer systems do. But right now we face a joblessness crisis that threatens to pitch us into a long, ugly period of low growth, the kind of lost decade that will cause tremendous misery, degrade the nation's human capital, undermine an entire cohort of young workers for years and blow a hole in the government's bank sheet. The best chance we have to stave off this scenario is more government spending to nurse the economy back to health. The economy may be alive, but that doesn't mean it's healthy. There's a reason you keep taking antibiotics even after you start to feel better. And yet: the drumbeat of deficit hysterics thumping in self-righteous panic grows louder by the day. Judging by its schedule and online video, this year's Aspen Ideas Festival was an open-air orgy of anti-deficit moaning. The festival is a good window into elite preoccupations, and that its opening forum featured ominous warnings of future bankruptcy from Niall Ferguson, Mort Zuckerman and David Gergen does not bode well. Nor does the fact that there was a panel called "America's Looming Fiscal Emergency: How to Balance the Books." This attitude isn't confined to pundits. The heads of Obama's fiscal commission have called projected deficits a "cancer." 400% rise in painkiller drug abuse: U.S. officials (15 July 2010) (Reuters) - U.S. officials reported a 400 percent increase over 10 years in the proportion of Americans treated for prescription painkiller abuse and said on Thursday the problem cut across age groups, geography and income. The dramatic jump was higher than treatment admission rates for methamphetamine abuse, which doubled, and marijuana, which increased by almost half, according to figures from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. They said 9.8 percent of hospital admissions for substance abuse in 2008 involved painkillers, up from 2.2 percent in 1998. The percentage of people admitted to treatment for alcohol dropped by 5 percent and for cocaine dropped by 16 percent over the same period. "The spikes in prescription drug abuse rates captured by this study are dramatic, pervasive, and deeply disturbing," said Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. Tobacco giant Philip Morris sold cigarettes made using child labour (15 July 2010) tobacco giant Philip Morris has been forced to admit that child workers as young as 10 have been subjected to long hours working on tobacco farms with which it has contracts in the Central Asian state of Kazakhstan. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, migrant workers at the farms, mostly from neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, were subjected to conditions that often amounted to forced labour, as employers contracted by tobacco farms that sold their produce to Philip Morris International had their passports confiscated and were often made to do additional work for no pay. The company, which sources tobacco from Kazakhstan for cigarette brands sold in Russia and other former Soviet states, said it was taking "immediate action" to stop the abuses. In many cases families were expected to pay back unrealistic debts to intermediaries who had arranged for their journeys to Kazakhstan, in schemes that bear all the hallmarks of people trafficking. The report also documented 72 cases of children working on the farms. Philip Morris produces brands such as Marlboro and Chesterfield in over 150 countries around the world, and purchased 1,500 tonnes of tobacco from Kazakh farms in 2009. The company issued a statement yesterday saying it is "grateful" to Human Rights Watch for raising the issues, and "is firmly opposed to child labour and all other labour abuses". The company says it is implementing a range of measures to ensure the abuses end, such as working with local government and NGOs to ensure school access for children of migrant workers, and implementing a system of third party monitoring to ensure tobacco farms comply with strict guidelines. U.S. homes repossessed by banks set to hit record 1 million this year (15 July 2010) The number of American homes repossessed by banks hit a record high in the second quarter of the year, putting the number of foreclosures on track to hit a record 1 million by the end of 2010. Bank repossessions increased 5 percent from the previous quarter and 38 percent from the second quarter of 2009 to 268,962, according to data released early Thursday by RealtyTrac, an Irvine, Calif., firm that tracks the foreclosure market. But while the number of homes in the final stage of the foreclosure process increased, the number of new filings fell. Both default and auction notices were down on a month-over-month and year-over-year basis. The combination of bad news and good news can be explained by two seemingly contradictory trends that are the result of Obama administration efforts to encourage with lenders to help homeowners in distresss. Hudson Bay polar bears 'could soon be extinct' (15 July 2010) But the ice has been melting earlier in the spring and forming later in the autumn, so that the bears are now spending on average three more weeks on land per year, without food, than they did three decades ago, the researchers say. As a consequence, their body weight in that time has dropped by 60lb, females have lost 10 per cent of their body length, and the west Hudson Bay population has declined from 1,200 animals to 900. If the decline in the sea ice continues – as predictions of global warming suggest it will – it is feared that the bears could die out in 25 to 30 years, or perhaps in as few as 10, if there are a succession of years with very low sea ice cover. The Hudson Bay group of bears is the second-most southerly population and might be expected to feel the effects of climate change early. The Arctic sea ice as a whole reached its lowest-ever recorded extent in September, 2007. In the last two years it has recovered, but it is once again declining rapidly this year. The dependency of the bears on the ice has long been known, and the animals have become an iconic species in terms of being used to promote awareness of global warming. But predictions of how long they may survive have until now been little more than educated guesses. The significance of the new study is that it is based on a mathematical model which matches the weight and energy-storing capacity of the bears, which are known – the west Hudson Bay animals are the most closely observed of all polar bear populations – against the annual ice shrinkage and the time they have to spend on land without food. Are you an ‘influencer’? Employers want to meet you (15 July 2010) And this, Mr. Chapman believes, is what differentiates his mid-sized firm in an industry more often known for its brashness and oversized egos. Employees are far more likely to devise campaigns with intelligence and insight when they work in collaborative environments that respect their contributions. Mr. Chapman said the autonomy with which his employees conduct themselves also frees him to do what he loves best: “I spend 90 per cent of my time practising my craft, not managing.” Industrial psychologist Guy Beaudin, Toronto-based managing director of the Canadian operations of RHR International, said helping people learn how to influence others forms a critical component of his firm’s coaching practice. Flat organizational structures require different managing skills, and “people who enter into these situations thinking that authority is only wielded by making demands and giving orders are not going to succeed,” Dr. Beaudin said. Goldman Sachs admits it misled investors, pays $550M fine (15 July 2010) Goldman Sachs (GS) ended one of the most painfully embarrassing episodes of its 141-year history on Thursday by striking a deal with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve its fraud complaint against the Wall Street power. Goldman agreed to pay a $550 million fine and admitted that it failed to provide vital information to investors in a 2007 deal involving a contract it sold called Abacus 2007-AC1. That was a bet on whether the value of securities based on subprime mortgages would rise or fall, a controversial type of investment known as a collateralized debt obligation. "This settlement is a stark lesson to Wall Street firms that no product is too complex, and no investor too sophisticated, to avoid a heavy price if a firm violates the fundamental principles of honest treatment and fair dealing," Robert Khuzami, who directs the SEC's Division of Enforcement, said in a statement. He called the $550 million fine "the largest penalty ever assessed against a financial services firm in the history of the SEC." Report: BP near selling half of Slope stake to Apache (15 July 2010) Unnamed insiders have told Bloomberg News that BP Plc. will announce as early as next week that it's selling $10 billion to $11 billion in assets to Apache Corp., including half of BP's holdings in the Prudhoe Bay oil field. The sources say BP wants the deal done before its second-quarter earnings are reported in late July. The company needs cash to repair and clean up after its broken wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico, and to compensate Gulf residents for damages. BP owns 26 percent of Prudhoe Bay and nearby fields. BP says oil has stopped leaking into Gulf of Mexico (15 July 2010) The cap, installed on Monday, is a crucial step toward a four-vessel oil capture system that is hurricane-ready and can collect up to 80,000 barrels a day. The first of two relief wells is expected to intercept and plug the leak by mid-August. It represents the best hope yet of stopping the oil from leaking into the sea since the 20 April Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 people. A BP spokeswoman said: "Information gathered during the test will be reviewed with the relevant government agencies, including the federal science team, to determine next steps. "The sealing cap system never before has been deployed at these depths or under these conditions, and its efficiency and ability to contain the oil and gas cannot be assured." PAM COMMENTARY: Notice the quote later in the article from the Obama administration, mentioning the supposed Lockerbie bomber -- as if that case were ever really proven. It's disappointing that Obama is continuing with the same old cover-ups from previous administrations. Americans already know what happened -- can't we finally be honest about that and other obvious government operations -- like 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombing, the JFK/MLK assassinations, and everything else that was really planned by certain government officials? Real BP Gulf oil disaster is still to come (15 July 2010) BP doesn't actually know how big the oil field they drilled into is. They're drilling into lower tertiary (Paleogene) rock that was laid down at the same time mammals and birds were coming into being: 65-23m years ago. It is one of the deepest wells ever drilled by the oil and gas industry, so as you can imagine, they're feeling their way in all this. Appearing before a House subcommittee in Washington, Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP, estimated that there might be a modest 2bn gallons down there, which could mean it could go on belching out oil for another four years. On the other hand, when BP originally announced their discovery of the "giant" find at its Tiber Prospect, experts estimated the size at 42bn gallons. And since they were talking about "recoverable oil" (which could be only 20% of the actual oil in the site) it would mean the site may hold as much as 210bn gallons. In other words, it could go on belching out oil for another hundred years. Could that be enough time for the oil slick to reach the Mediterranean? Or, heaven forbid, Brighton? But we shouldn't blame poor old BP. After all BP didn't know the Deepwater Horizon was going to explode, otherwise there would be 11 oil workers who would still be alive today. And it didn't know (apparently) that it was unsafe to replace the heavy drilling mud in the pipes with lighter seawater, as the rig's chief driller advised them. 12 horses now dead from Nev. roundup; hearing set (15 July 2010) Two more animals died Monday and two others were euthanized "because of complications related to water starvation and water intoxication," the agency said. Horse protection groups have voiced outrage, saying the deaths were predictable, given sweltering summer temperatures and the weakened state of colts and mares that recently gave or were about to give birth. Heather Emmons, a BLM spokeswoman in Reno, said the mustangs otherwise looked healthy and dehydration is difficult to detect. Water intoxication that can cause colic and brain swelling occurs when dehydrated animals drink excessive quantities of water. The BLM blames the fatal outcome on drought conditions that have weakened the animals, and said aerial surveys showed two large bands of mustangs. One group of about 400 horses congregated around a dry reservoir and made no attempt to move to other water sources. Ten grizzly bears die so far this year in Yellowstone ecosystem (15 July 2010) JACKSON, Wyo. - Ten grizzly bear deaths have been documented in the Yellowstone ecosystem so far this year, a rate comparable to past years. One other grizzly death is suspected. Of the 11 deaths, humans caused eight. The count was seven at this time last year and 13 at this point in 2008. Biologists keep close track of grizzly bear deaths because the Yellowstone population is classified as threatened under the Endangered Species Act. Scientists discover prehistoric fish under Great Barrier Reef (15 July 2010) Ancient sharks, giant oil fish, swarms of crustaceans and a primitive shell-dwelling squid species called the Nautilus were among the astonishing life captured by remote controlled cameras at Osprey Reef. Justin Marshall, the lead researcher, said his team had also found several unidentified fish species, including "prehistoric six-gilled sharks" using special lowlight sensitive cameras which were custom designed to trawl the ocean floor, 4,593ft (1,400m) below sea level. "Some of the creatures that we've seen we were sort of expecting, some of them we weren't expecting, and some of them we haven't identified yet," said Mr Marshall, from the University of Queensland, Australia. "There was a shark that I really wasn't expecting, which was a false cat shark, which has a really odd dorsal fin." Ship junked 200 years ago uncovered at WTC site (15 July 2010) The ship was buried as junk two centuries ago — landfill to expand a bustling little island of commerce called Manhattan. When it re-emerged this week, surrounded by skyscrapers, it was an instant treasure that popped up from the mud near ground zero. A 32-foot piece of the vessel was found in soil 20 feet under street level, amid noisy bulldozers excavating a parking garage for the future World Trade Center. Near the site of so many grim finds — Sept. 11 victims' remains, twisted steel — this discovery was as unexpected as it was thrilling. Historians say the ship, believed to date to the 1700s, was defunct by the time it was used around 1810 to extend the shores of lower Manhattan. "A ship is the summit of what you might find under the World Trade Center — it's exciting!" said Molly McDonald, an archaeologist who first spotted two pieces of hewn, curved timber — part of the frame of the ship — peeking out of the muddy soil at dawn on Tuesday. GOP lawmaker: VIP loans given to Senate staff too (15 July 2010) A Republican lawmaker says documents show more senators and staff members than previously known received sweetheart mortgages from the former Countrywide Financial Corp., based on their perceived ability to help the company. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., said after reviewing Countrywide loan documents that the former lender's VIP mortgage program was not limited to the two senators whose discounted loans were well publicized: Chris Dodd, D-Conn. and Kent Conrad, D-N.D. "Several unidentified senators and Senate employees received benefits through Countrywide's VIP program," Issa wrote the Senate ethics committee this week. The lender was looking for officials "positioned to advance Countrywide's business interests," Issa said. The ethics committee a year ago scolded both Dodd and Conrad for not being more careful to avoid the appearance of favoritism from Countrywide. The committee cleared both senators of any rules violations. Dodd is not running for re-election. David Letterman's blackmailer nominated for another Emmy (15 July 2010) There was a notoriously familiar name on the list when the nominations were unveiled today for the news and documentary Emmys: Joe Halderman. On one hand, Halderman won many Emmys in the past. On the other, he was recently in the headlines as David Letterman's blackmailer. Halderman is serving a six-month jail sentence after pleading guilty to attempting to extort money from Letterman. Halderman had threatened to reveal a sexual liaison Letterman had with a staff aide who was also linked romantically to Halderman. Halderman's work for CBS News won seven Emmys. Now he's among the nominees for "American Girl, Italian Nightmare," a CBS "48 Hours Mystery" about the case of Amanda Knox, an American imprisoned in Italy for the murder of a British student. See the full list of Emmy nominees here. Winners will be announced Sept. 27 at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center. PAM COMMENTARY: You can google that special and watch all or part of it online -- music had been added, as well as special screen techniques, to increase the drama. The show was produced too early for its producers to know the full scope of evidence acquired by the police in Italy, and so that may account for its seemed bias toward innocence of Knox. Even so, because it wasn't just straight reporting on the case, and soap opera-like music and camera angles/wiggles were added, I'd consider it to be maybe 25% journalism, 75% entertainment. Cashew extract may treat diabetes: study (15 July 2010) Cashew seed extract may play an important role in preventing and treating diabetes, new research suggests. Scientists at the University of Montreal and the University of Yaoundé in Cameroon studied how cashew products affected the responses of rat liver cells to insulin. They looked at cashew tree leaves, bark, seeds and apples. They found that only the cashew seed extract increased the absorption of blood sugar by the cells. "Extracts of other plant parts had no such effect, indicating that cashew seed extract likely contains active compounds, which can have potential anti-diabetic properties," senior author Pierre Haddad, a pharmacology professor at the University of Montreal's Faculty of Medicine, said in a release. Health Plans Must Provide Some Tests at No Cost (15 July 2010) WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage for dozens of screenings, laboratory tests and other types of preventive care. The new requirements promise significant benefits for consumers — if they take advantage of the services that should now be more readily available and affordable. In general, the government said, Americans use preventive services at about half the rate recommended by doctors and public health experts. The rules will eliminate co-payments, deductibles and other charges for blood pressure, diabetes and cholesterol tests; many cancer screenings; routine vaccinations; prenatal care; and regular wellness visits for infants and children. PAM COMMENTARY: Notice that the tests mentioned are for several of medicine's big money-makers. The Breakdown: What Is The True Cost Of Gas? (Audio) (15 July 2010) Each summer, drivers across the nation seem to suffer a collective anxiety attack about the rising cost of gas. Now imagine that the cost you pay at the pump reflected not only the cost of gas without all of the government tax breaks and subsidies to the oil industry, but also the environmental costs of drilling for oil, and the political costs, and the health costs of all that oil. With these factors in place, what would be the real price of gas? The Nation's Washington, DC Editor Christopher Hayes and energy expert and author Terry Tamminen try to answer this question on this week's edition of The Breakdown. PAM COMMENTARY: This is an audio interview; click the "play" button to start it. So Did Congress Actually Reform Wall Street? (15 July 2010) On Thursday afternoon, the Senate passed the sprawling Dodd-Frank financial reform bill, the culmination of more than year of hearings, debates, negotiations, backroom deals, bickering, and an onslaught of lobbying by everyone from consumer advocates to the world's biggest banks. But despite the bill's 2,300-page length, Dodd-Frank leaves huge questions unanswered in the future of financial markets in the US. Here are five of the biggest unknowns in the bill, which now heads to President Obama's desk for signing next week. 1) Who Will Lead The CFPB? The Dodd-Frank bill will create a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, housed in the Federal Reserve, solely devoted to combating consumer abuses in the marketplace. Think predatory mortgage lending, payday lenders, check cashers, and so on. (But not auto dealers.) The independent bureau will have a budget of around $450 million to $500 million, and more importantly, will be led by a presidential-appointee confirmed by the Senate. The first leader of the CFPB is crucial: It's could mean the difference between a tough, successful agency and a dud. The creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, in the 1930s, offers a telling example. President Franklin D. Roosevelt chose Joseph Kennedy as the SEC's first chairman, and while the two men weren't exactly friends, FDR couldn't have made a better choice. Kennedy quickly established the SEC as a regulatory force to be reckoned with, and set up the SEC for decades of success. (At least until that Madoff guy came along...) If Obama chooses someone like Elizabeth Warren, the Congressionally-appointed bailout watchdog who's a tenacious consumer advocate, then the CFPB will likely emerge as a powerful ally for average Americans. However, should Obama choose to go the easy route, choosing someone less committed to consumer protection and tough regulation, then the new CFPB could very well be dead on arrival. The price of defending terrorists (15 July 2010) Ever since her indictment in 2002, Stewart's case has captured the attention of defense attorneys and the support of groups such as the National Assn. of Criminal Defense Lawyers, which filed amicus briefs on her behalf, and George Soros' Open Society Institute, which donated $20,000 to her defense. Supporters believe the government's dogged pursuit of Stewart — whose legal odyssey has now spanned three presidents and five attorneys general — is meant to have a chilling effect. The Center for Constitutional Rights said the case represents "an attack on attorneys who defend controversial figures and an attempt to deprive these clients of the zealous representation that may be required." But Stewart's plight has larger implications for us all: It is a bellwether of the increasingly stringent secrecy and security measures imposed in federal courts, particularly in terrorism trials — all part of the systemic erosion of due process that reformers expected would end with the election of Barack Obama, but which has been only further institutionalized. Stewart's case has come to symbolize the increasing difficulty attorneys face in zealously advocating for politically unpopular clients — a necessary component of due process in an adversary legal system. Critics say SAMs, which, along with a handful of other secrecy measures, have been commonly invoked since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, can cripple an effective defense and violate a defendant's right to confront the evidence against him. Defendants with no prior criminal record are in some cases kept in prolonged solitary confinement for years before reaching trial. In April, Syed Hashmi, a U.S. citizen charged with aiding a terrorist (who later turned out to be a government informant) pleaded guilty on the eve of trial, in part, his attorney later said, because of his nearly four years of pretrial solitary confinement. Meanwhile attorneys are severely limited in the evidence they can share with outside investigators who are part of the trial team, or even with their own clients. The measures are largely invoked in the name of national security with minimal public scrutiny, and include a near-total ban on information that can be shared with the media, sometimes encompassing material already in the public sphere. PAM COMMENTARY: Attorneys should be able to band together, pool their money, and get rid of BOTH judges who let this unconstitutional case go forward. U.S. senators call for Afghanistan exit plan (14 July 2010) The Obama administration has not done enough to explain its goals for the war in Afghanistan, including what its exit strategy will be, U.S. senators said on Wednesday. Members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee told Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that the American public needs better answers as the nine-year-old U.S.-led war shows few immediate signs of success against the resurgent Taliban. "There are a lot of people in this country who are very confused. ... There's a real need here in my view for clarity in terms of what actually can be accomplished," Democratic Senator Jim Webb said at the committee hearing. F.D.A. Panel Votes to Restrict Avandia (14 July 2010) GAITHERSBURG, Md. — A federal medical advisory panel recommended Wednesday that Avandia, a controversial diabetes drug, should either be withdrawn from the market or have sales severely restricted because it increases the risks of heart attacks. The panel’s votes, taken after two days of intensive scientific discussions, were a blow to GlaxoSmithKline, which makes Avandia. The company argued that Avandia is a safe and needed option in treating diabetes. But panel members voiced great skepticism about the company’s trustworthiness after questions were raised about its clinical trials. And internal company documents showed that the company for years kept crucial safety information about Avandia from the public. The panel took six votes on a variety of issues, but its most important came near the end of the meeting when asked what the Food and Drug Administration should do. Of the panel’s 33 members, 12 voted that Avandia should be withdrawn; 10 voted that its sales should be restricted and the warnings on its label enhanced; 7 voted only to support enhanced warnings on the drug’s label; and 3 voted that the drug should continue to be sold with its present warnings unchanged. One member abstained, and no one voted for a final option, to weaken the label’s present heart warnings. Controversial nasal vaccines approved in Canada (14 July 2010) For the first time in Canada, being vaccinated against the flu won’t necessarily require the prick of a needle. Health Canada has granted approval for a nasal vaccine designed to protect against seasonal flu, the first vaccine administered through the nose that’s been authorized for use in this country. The vaccine, called FluMist and marketed in Canada by AstraZeneca Canada Inc., protects by using a live but severely weakened or attenuated form of the virus to bolster an immune response. Now it will be up to provinces to decide whether they want to purchase the new vaccine for use in the coming flu season. PAM COMMENTARY: From what I've read, health care providers don't want the stuff. The patient is exposed to only one dose, but a provider who has to administer several doses a day, especially those working at "vaccination centers" with high traffic, are exposed to traces of every vaccine they administer. And so all of those controversial ingredients like mercury and aluminum accumulate at higher concentrations in the health care workers' bodies. Webb announces nuclear initiative (14 July 2010) U.S. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., joined Virginia-based Babcock & Wilcox Nuclear Energy Inc. and Bechtel Power Corporation on Wednesday to announce a formal alliance to design, license and deploy the world’s first commercially viable Generation III++ small modular nuclear power plant. Design work for the small modular reactors will take place in Lynchburg, Virginia, where Babcock & Wilcox’s nuclear operations are headquartered. “I cannot be more enthusiastic about the development of these small modular nuclear reactors, and the incredible potential that this technology holds worldwide,” Webb said. “Investing in nuclear technology will move the United States toward clean, carbon-free sources of energy, bolster our energy independence, invigorate our economy, and strengthen our workforce with high-paying jobs on U.S. soil. Small modular reactors offer a solution to our nation’s energy needs with a very small physical footprint. The development of these reactors offers great promise for the United States to reassert its competitiveness and position as a world leader in the field.” Sen. Webb has a long history with nuclear power, dating back to his days in the Naval Academy and as Secretary of the U.S. Navy. In November 2009, Webb introduced the Clean Energy Act of 2009 with Sen. Lamar Alexander. This bipartisan bill would invest $20 billion over 10 years to fund loan guarantees, nuclear education and workforce training, nuclear reactor lifetime-extension, and incentives for the development of solar power, biofuels, and alternative power technologies. Webb’s legislation directs the Department of Energy to conduct five “Mini-Manhattan Projects” to study carbon capture technologies, non-ethanol biofuels, electric vehicles and electricity storage, cost-competitive solar power, and Generation IV reactors and technologies that will ultimately reduce nuclear waste. The initiative is designed to keep the United States competitive in a global marketplace that has accelerated the development of nuclear power. After the Gulf, an oil sands debate looms (14 July 2010) By any measure, TransCanada Corp.’s proposed $7-billion Keystone XL pipeline was never going to arrive quietly. If approved, Keystone XL will become the single largest conveyor of Alberta bitumen to the U.S. — a 2,700-kilometre, metre-thick, 900,000 bbl/day behemoth running all the way to the refineries of Houston with the potential to about double stateside consumption of Canadian crude. But with decision-time overlapping on what is now the worst oil disaster in history, environmentalists in Washington are working overtime to leverage public frustrations into unprecedented scrutiny of America’s increasing dependence on Canadian oil. “The disaster in the Gulf has totally primed the debate over Canadian tar sands,” said Liz Barratt-Brown, senior attorney with the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council. “The public outrage is just beginning to translate to the political side. But with the Keystone pipeline proposal providing a decision-point, the United States is approaching a debate we’ve never before had before — do we really want increase our reliance on the planet’s dirtiest oil?” Companies pile up cash but remain hesitant to add jobs (14 July 2010) Corporate America is hoarding a massive pile of cash. It just doesn't want to spend it hiring anyone. Nonfinancial companies are sitting on $1.8 trillion in cash, roughly one-quarter more than at the beginning of the recession. And as several major firms report impressive earnings this week, the money continues to flow into firms' coffers. Yet all the good news from big business hasn't translated into much promise for jobless Americans, leading many to wonder: If corporations are sitting on so much money, why aren't they hiring more workers? The answer to that question has become a political flash point between the White House and big business groups such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which held a jobs summit Wednesday and accused the Obama administration of dumping onerous regulations on businesses. That has created an environment of "uncertainty," which is causing firms to hold back on hiring as the unemployment rate has hovered near 10 percent, the Chamber said. Oil hits Louisiana's largest pelican-nesting area, on Raccoon Island (14 July 2010) The government counts only oiled birds collected for rehabilitation or found dead, for use as evidence in the spill investigation. Oiled birds in the many nesting areas that dot the Gulf coast typically are left in place and not counted in official tallies. Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology said Wednesday that they had spotted the oiled pelicans on Raccoon Island over the past several days. The spit of land lines the Gulf outside the state's coastal marshes. An estimated 10,000 birds nest on the island in Terrebonne Parish. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Lisa Williams said state and federal observers had documented only 68 oiled pelicans on Raccoon Island. Biologist Marc Dantzker with Cornell -- considered one of the nation's premier institutions for bird research -- said about 30 to 40 of the pelicans spotted by his group were oiled "head-to-tail." Many more had visible blotches of oil. High number of dead animals in Gulf after oil rig explosion are studied (14 July 2010) GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Kemp’s ridley sea turtle lay belly-up on the metal autopsy table, as pallid as split-pea soup but for the bright orange X spray-painted on its shell, proof that it had been counted as part of the Gulf of Mexico’s continuing “unusual mortality event.” Under the practiced knife of Dr. Brian Stacy, a veterinary pathologist who estimates that he has dissected close to 1,000 turtles over the course of his career, the specimen began to reveal its secrets: First, as the breastplate was lifted away, a mass of shriveled organs in the puddle of stinking red liquid that is produced as decomposition advances. Next, the fat reserves indicating good health. Then, as Dr. Stacy sliced open the esophagus, the most revealing clue: a morsel of shrimp, the last thing the turtle ate. “You don’t see shrimp consumed as part of the normal diet” of Kemp’s ridleys, Dr. Stacy said. This turtle, found floating in the Mississippi Sound on June 18, is one of hundreds of dead creatures collected along the Gulf Coast since the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded. Swabbed for oil, tagged and wrapped in plastic “body bags” sealed with evidence tape, the carcasses — many times the number normally found at this time of year — are piling up in freezer trucks stationed along the coast, waiting for scientists like Dr. Stacy, who works for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, to begin the process of determining what killed them. Dick Cheney has heart pump implant (14 July 2010) Former vice president Dick Cheney, 69, announced Wednesday that doctors implanted a small pump in his chest last week to support his failing heart. Cheney, who has suffered five heart attacks since the age of 37, says doctors at Inova Heart and Vascular Institute in Northern Virginia implanted the pump to remedy his "increasing congestive heart failure." "The operation went very well and I am now recuperating," Cheney said in a statement released by his office. He said the pump will allow him to resume an active life. About 5 million people in the U.S. suffer from congestive heart failure, a chronic progressive weakening of the heart muscle that results mainly from heart attacks or infections. Over time, the heart expands and grows so thin that it can no longer pump blood. PAM COMMENTARY: Dick Cheney, America's heart attack magnet. His mass-murderer-of-history karma tracks him down again. US claims it paid Iranian scientist for Iran's nuclear secrets; scientist accuses CIA of kidnapping (14 July 2010) The Iranian nuclear scientist who claimed to have been abducted by the CIA before departing for his homeland Wednesday was paid more than $5 million by the agency to provide intelligence on Iran's nuclear program, U.S. officials said. Shahram Amiri is not obligated to return the money but might be unable to access it after breaking off what U.S. officials described as significant cooperation with the CIA and abruptly returning to Iran. Officials said he might have left out of concern that the Tehran government would harm his family. "Anything he got is now beyond his reach, thanks to the financial sanctions on Iran," a U.S. official said. "He's gone, but his money's not. We have his information, and the Iranians have him." Amiri arrived in Tehran early Thursday to a hero's welcome, including personal greetings from several senior government officials. His 7-year-old son broke down in tears as Amiri held him for the first time since his mysterious disappearance in Saudi Arabia 14 months ago. Robbing New Orleans to Pay for BP's Spill (14 July 2010) Now a supplemental appropriations bill that passed the House earlier this month would take $400 million from post-Katrina recovery programs like Road Home in order to fund other projects, including $304 million for Deepwater Horizon-related remediation and investigation. To some Louisiana residents, using any taxpayer money, much less hurricane-relief money, to clean up BP's oil just adds insult to injury. "Any provisions related to the spill should be paid for by the responsible party," says Monika Gerhart, director of policy and government relations for the Equity and Inclusion Campaign, a nonpartisan advocacy organization. "We're not yet recovered. So don't take our housing money." For anyone who hasn't been to New Orleans lately, here's an update: It still needs so much work that visitors pay to take "disaster tours." In a June 7 letter to the House Committee on Appropriations, Louisiana Recovery Authority Chairman David Voelker pleaded that the rescission of already-dedicated rebuilding funds be stricken from the bill. Without them, Voelker estimates, 19,000 homes statewide will go unrestored, nearly 7,000 of them in Orleans Parish. "If you just drive around, you can see the people need it," says Taylor Henry, communications director for Republican Congressman Anh "Joseph" Cao, whose district includes New Orleans. The appropriations bill does provide $5.1 billion to FEMA, which could theoretically pay for projects such as rebuilding New Orleans' Charity Hospital or go to city schools that are still waiting for their disaster-relief funds. Or the money could go elsewhere. An executive summary from appropriations chairman Rep. David Obey (D-Wisc.) notes that the FEMA funds might go toward efforts to clean up after Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Ike, and Gustav, as well as the Midwest floods of 2008 and California wildfires. "The way the money will be used will be up to FEMA's discretion," says House appropriations committee representative Ellis Brachman. Rep. Cao, like every other member of Congress from Louisiana but one, voted nay on the appropriations bill. (Cao also has the distinction of basically telling the president of BP America that he should have to stab himself to death during a congressional hearing last month.) Democrat Charlie Melancon was the only rep who voted for it. Though he argued against the cutting the rebuilding funds, according to a statement on his website, he supports spending for other provisions in the bill, like funding the Afghanistan surge and assisting those impacted by the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Blumenauer demands that Pentagon explain KBR immunity deal (14 July 2010) U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer is demanding that the Pentagon explain how war contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root may have been granted immunity from harming any soldier or civilian in Iraq. In a sharply worded letter Wednesday, Blumenauer gave the secretary of defense five days to produce details of KBR's claims of indemnification. The details of a secret agreement have emerged in a U.S. District Court case in Portland and were reported Tuesday in The Oregonian. Blumenauer said he plans to take his concerns to colleagues on the House Armed Services Committee. "I find this mind-numbing," Blumenauer said after sending the letter to Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates. Twenty-six Oregon Army National Guard veterans who guarded KBR employees restoring Iraqi oil production in 2003 are suing the contractor, claiming the contractor knowingly or negligently exposed them to a cancer-causing chemical. Another 140 Indiana National Guard veterans have filed a similar suit. Police release G20 photos of ‘most wanted' (14 July 2010) While the bulk of images and video have come from the public, some were taken by undercover officers who were in the G20 crowds. The 22-member G20 investigative team is using facial recognition software supplied by the banking industry in an attempt to identify suspects in poorer quality images. Police say even a face partially hidden by a bandana can be identified by the technology that can match a person's eyes with someone on file. Last week, after police issued a series of images of six men, three were identified the same day with help from the public. Accompanied by a lawyer, another man turned himself in at 7 a.m. Wednesday. PAM COMMENTARY: Everyone suspected that the police had agents provocateur in the crowd; the "undercover officers" admission seems to support that view. Friends say accused serial killer dropped hints (14 July 2010) No one suspected Franklin, despite billboards being put up across the area where the killer struck, advertising a $500,000 reward. In a neighborhood where helping police is often frowned upon, it was easy for people to dismiss his stories as the fantasies of an unhappily married man who could get them cheap used car parts. "This man was an A-1 mechanic," said Kam, who has known Franklin for about a decade. "He didn't make mistakes on how he fixed cars. He was a good man to know." Franklin, 57, was arrested after his son was arrested and swabbed for DNA. Using a controversial technique known as a familial DNA search, the sample came back as similar to evidence in the serial killings, ultimately leading police to Franklin. Rape in the Camps: Lacking Security, Women Organize to Protect Themselves (14 July 2010) AMY GOODMAN: So you’re living in the offices of your lawyers? MALIA VILLARD APPOLON: [translated] Yes, I live in the office of my lawyer, while I wait. AMY GOODMAN: So, tell us how women can protect themselves. MALIA VILLARD APPOLON: [translated] There really is no protection today. What we do only, we can say, so many women we saw being victims, there was only the bureau of international lawyers who took the initiative to put in place a system of whistles, which they gave to KOFAVIV. And the KOFAVIV gave these whistles to the women in the camp in Champ de Mars, and not only in the Champ de Mars, but all the other camps where our community agents are. And there was a little information that had been given even before these little whistles were given. The action call is for when you hear a whistle, everybody knows the sound, and after—and you hear the whistle, everybody comes to their aid, to where it’s whistled. This is even if somebody is armed, they’ll run away. And with the committees we formed with some of the men who were conscious of this problem, they offered to not sleep at night so that they could provide civilian protection for women at night. And we don’t do that just in the Champ de Mars camp, but in other camps, as well. And Sainte Anne’s is one example. They also have a committee formed for that. We have to do that, because we have no government, basically. It doesn’t have any responsibility to anybody. Maybe for the people who voted to put it in power and also the police. Even here in the office of international lawyers, we brought a lot of cases, but until now, they haven’t apprehended any of these people who are in fact escaped convicts. The police are supposed to be there to serve and protect. And when I brought them for a warrant, they said I had to accompany them, for me to go look for this escaped convict who pulled a gun on me in the camp. That means the government has no responsibility. So it means the people have to give themselves security. And this is after a lot of violence. Because if I had partisans who would come there, they would have killed them, too. And this country, this is where human rights are not respected, and that’s why the situation is like that. The criminals know that whatever they do, there’s no justice system which will judge them and pursue them. Yukon-Kuskokwim villages see 9 suicides in two months (14 July 2010) As many as 9 teenagers and young men from Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages have killed themselves over the past two months, Alaska state troopers say. Western Alaska is home to one of the highest suicide rates in the state, but the pace of more than one death per week has some village leaders on alert. "There’s something different going on this year. Here in Scammon Bay we’ve had three suicides. Maybe two or three attempts," said Brandon Aguchak, executive director for the tribal council. The council is offering a free drum of gasoline -- fuel is $5.89 a gallon in the village -- as a door prize tomorrow afternoon at a meeting inviting parents and kids to talk about drugs, alcohol and suicide. Rules Seek to Expand Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s (13 July 2010) For the first time in 25 years, medical experts are proposing a major change in the criteria for Alzheimer’s disease, part of a new movement to diagnose and, eventually, treat the disease earlier. The new diagnostic guidelines, presented Tuesday at an international Alzheimer’s meeting in Hawaii, would mean that new technology like brain scans would be used to detect the disease even before there are evident memory problems or other symptoms. If the guidelines are adopted in the fall, as expected, some experts predict a two- to threefold increase in the number of people with Alzheimer’s disease. Many more people would be told they probably are on their way to getting it. The Alzheimer’s Association says 5.3 million Americans now have the disease. The changes could also help drug companies that are, for the first time, developing new drugs to try to attack the disease earlier. So far, there are no drugs that alter the course of the disease. PAM COMMENTARY: Seems like another ploy to create a new drug market. Big chunk of Greenland glacier breaks off (13 July 2010) Seven-square miles of a Greenland glacier broke up on July 6 and 7, moving the edge of the glacier a mile inland in one day, the furthest inland it has ever been observed. While such calving of glaciers isn't rare, seeing it happen at high resolution by satellite in almost real time is. NASA-funded researchers have been monitoring Greenland's Jakobshavn Isbrae using satellite images from the Landsat, Terra, Aqua and DigitalGlobe's WorldView 2 satellites. The breakup was detected hours after it happened by Ian Howat of the Byrd Polar Research Center at Ohio State University and Paul Morin, director of the Antarctic Geospatial Information Center at the University of Minnesota. "This event is unusual because it occurs on the heels of a warm winter that saw no sea ice form in the surrounding bay," Thomas Wagner, cryospheric program scientist at NASA Headquarters, said in a release. "While the exact relationship between these events is being determined, it lends credence to the theory that warming of the oceans is responsible for the ice loss observed throughout Greenland and Antarctica." Jakobshavn Isbrae is located on the west coast of Greenland. It has retreated more than 27 miles since 1850, six of them in the last decade. Jakobshavn is also believed to be the single largest contributor to sea level rise in the northern hemisphere. Roman Polanski ruling could have ramifications beyond Switzerland (13 July 2010) The Swiss government’s decision not to extradite Roman Polanski to Los Angeles means the famed director can now travel freely in Switzerland as well as France, where he has citizenship protections, and Poland and other countries that don't have extradition agreements with U.S. But some legal experts said the Swiss justice ministry’s legal rationale for rejecting the extradition request could make other countries -- even those with extradition treaties -- think twice before arresting Polanski. The Swiss government cited problems in the way Polanski’s case was handled in 1977 when he pleaded guilty to having sex with a 13-year-old girl. The Swiss argue that Polanski served 42 days -- and that it’s unclear whether that fulfilled his full sentence. Polanski fled the U.S. after the judge in case demanded that the director spend more time in prison. Experts say the Swiss raise a number of issues about how Polanski was treated three decades ago by the U.S. justice system, and those issues could easily be cited if U.S. authorities ask another country to arrest and extradite Polanski. PAM COMMENTARY: The Swiss ignored the issue that he fled the country and chose to become an international fugitive to avoid the anticipated decision. If the original case had been handled improperly, he could have fought it in court decades ago. L.A. District Attorney says Polanski case is not closed (13 July 2010) The victim, who is now a mother of three in her 40s, said: "I am satisfied with this decision and I hope that the district attorney will now close the case and get it over once and for all." However, Los Angeles District Attorney Steve Cooley said the case was not closed and he would continue to pursue Polanski if he is arrested again in another country from where he can be extradited. A U.S. arrest warrant remains active. Mr Cooley said he was "deeply disappointed" with the Swiss decision not to send the director to the U.S. and it was a "disservice to justice and other victims as a whole." Polanski was convicted of having unlawful sex with his then 13-year-old victim in 1977, having plied her with drink and drugs at Jack Nicholson's Hollywood house. He had initially faced even more serious charges. He fled to Europe before being sentenced and has been a fugitive from the U.S. ever since. He was unable to return to accept an Oscar for his 2002 film The Pianist. Emergent set to announce anthrax vaccine contract (13 July 2010) Rockville-based Emergent BioSolutions is set to announce Wednesday that it has received a contract worth up to $107 million to ready its anthrax vaccine for large-scale manufacture. Emergent said the award will help add up to $10 million in additional revenue -- and pretax profit of up to $5 million -- in the second half of 2010. The Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) awarded the contract, which funds two years for a total of nearly $55 million and includes three additional, optional years. According to Emergent, the contract will pay for the company to develop and obtain regulatory approval for large-scale manufacture of the vaccine, called BioThrax. BioThrax is the only vaccine licensed by the Food and Drug Administration to prevent anthrax infection. PAM COMMENTARY: Is that the same anthrax vaccine that many health providers refused to take, because the side effects were so bad? Lessons from Exxon Valdez spill have gone unheeded (13 July 2010) But the full story of the Exxon Valdez wreck is far more complex, and it offers striking parallels to today's events in the Gulf of Mexico -- including a central role played by a consortium led by British Petroleum, now known as BP. A commission that investigated the Alaska spill found that oil companies cut corners to maximize profits. Systems intended to prevent disaster failed, and no backups were in place. Regulators were too close to the oil industry and approved woefully inadequate accident response and cleanup plans. History is repeating, say officials who investigated the Valdez, because the lessons of two decades ago remain unheeded. "It's disappointing," said 84-year-old Walt Parker, chairman of the Alaska Oil Spill Commission, which made dozens of recommendations for preventing a recurrence. "It's almost as though we had never written the report." Birds flying right into oily morass of Gulf (13 July 2010) The piping plovers already are flying toward peril. The endangered birds are among the first of millions that will migrate this fall to the Gulf of Mexico— and the oil leak that could kill them. Some birds, including the common loon and lesser scaup, spend winters along the Gulf Coast. Others, such as the blue winged teal, use the Gulf as a staging area where they stock up on food before flying to Latin America. "There are millions of birds at risk," says Ken Rosenberg, conservation science director at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "It's safe to say thousands will die." He fears the BP oil spill, which began April 20, "could erupt into a much bigger disaster as oil continues to come to the surface." Dog trapped in car honks horn until rescued by his owner (13 July 2010) MACUNGIE, PA.—A veterinarian says a dog trapped in a car on a 90-degree day in eastern Pennsylvania honked the horn until he was rescued. Nancy Soares says the chocolate Labrador was brought to her Macungie Animal Hospital last month after he had been in the car for about an hour. She says Max’s owner had gone shopping and was unloading packages when she returned but forgot that Max was still in the car. She later heard the horn honking and looked outside several times but saw nothing amiss. Finally, she went outside and saw Max sitting in the driver’s seat, honking the horn. Soares says the owner immediately gave Max cold water to drink and wet him down with towels before rushing him to the clinic. PAM COMMENTARY: Locals tell me that the name "Macungie" means "bear swamp." $3 billion gas pipeline from Wyoming to Oregon wins federal OK (13 July 2010) The pipeline will begin in western Wyoming and cross northern Utah and Nevada before ending at Malin in Oregon near Klamath Falls just north of the California border. There, it links up to a major north-south pipeline that feeds California. Up to 5,000 workers will work on the project, which will begin in seven locations along the pipeline route. El Paso expects the pipeline, which will be 42 inches wide, to become operational in March 2011. It would be capable of delivering 1.5 billion cubic feet a day of gas to Malin. That's more than the combined daily demand in Oregon and Washington. Ruby is a project primarily designed to deliver gas into California, though the operators of the main interstate pipeline through Central Oregon could conceivably backhaul gas northward by putting more compression stations on the line. Intel posts biggest profit in a decade (13 July 2010) Intel (INTC-Q20.60-0.43-2.04%) has posted its biggest profit in a decade as the company benefits from a strengthening computer market and more sophisticated factories. The results topped Wall Street's forecasts but may not be enough to quell fears about cracks in the computer industry's recovery amid fresh economic worries. Intel Corp. reported after the market closed Tuesday that net income was $2.89-billion (U.S.), or 51 cents per share, in the quarter ended June 26. That compares with a loss of $398-million, or 7 cents per share, a year ago. Analysts have expected a profit of 43 cents per share. Italian police arrest 300 in raids on Calabrian mafia (13 July 2010) Italian police mounted one of the biggest crackdowns ever on the shadowy 'Ndrangheta mafia today, seizing assets worth millions of euros and arresting 300 people including the organisation's alleged boss of bosses. The raids, in which 3,000 officers took part, were part of an investigation which has allowed a glimpse of the Calabrian mafia's new pyramid power structure and exposed its creeping control over businesses and politicians in northern Italy, where 160 of the arrests were carried out. The Italian senate stood to applaud the arrests, which were described by the interior minister, Roberto Maroni, as "absolutely the most important operation against the 'Ndrangheta in recent years". The arrests of leading members of many of the group's 150 clans, on charges ranging from murder to drugs and arms trafficking to loan sharking, was a blow "to the heart of the 'Ndrangheta's organisational and financial structure," added Maroni. The Debate Is Heated on a Drug for Diabetes (13 July 2010) GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Government experts and a panel of medical advisers repeatedly voiced skepticism on Tuesday about the trustworthiness of GlaxoSmithKline, which makes the controversial diabetes drug Avandia. The committee is to vote Wednesday to advise the Food and Drug Administration on whether the drug, Avandia, which is widely used despite persistent concerns about its safety, should remain on the market. In recent days, internal company documents have shown that Glaxo hid important safety data from the public. A federal medical officer’s review of a major clinical trial, nicknamed Record, found multiple instances of heart attacks that were not included in the study’s final tally. And on Tuesday, the company settled a lawsuit with plaintiffs who claimed that Avandia caused heart attacks and strokes, lawyers for the plaintiffs said. J. Paul Sizemore, a California lawyer for 2,132 people who had filed suit over Avandia, said his cases were settled on Friday for “a substantial portion” of the $460 million company lawyers told him was being paid in total. The company had no comment. Dr. Nancy L. Geller, a committee member who is director of the Office of Biostatistics Research at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, said she was “concerned about data quality over all.” Told that death estimates can usually be trusted in clinical trials, she quickly retorted, “Not if you report the wrong follow-up date and not if you withdraw someone from a trial just before their death.” Iranian nuclear scientist heads homeward in anger (13 July 2010) An Iranian nuclear scientist who had disappeared in Saudi Arabia last summer stepped out of a cab in front of Iran's diplomatic mission in Washington on Monday, asking for a ticket back to his homeland. Shahram Amiri told officials that he had been abducted by U.S. intelligence operatives and had spent much of the past year in Tucson being questioned about Iran's nuclear ambitions. Amiri's reappearance was as mysterious as his disappearance and came just weeks after a series of Internet videos added to the intrigue surrounding the case. In the videos, Amiri claimed alternately to have been kidnapped by the CIA and to have come to this country on his own accord to pursue a PhD. The case has emerged as a source of embarrassment for both governments. The Obama administration faces the departure of someone whose defection had been considered an intelligence coup. Iran described Amiri's desire to the leave the United States as a setback for American efforts, but Amiri may have compromised the secrecy of Iran's nuclear endeavors. According to an official familiar with the account Amiri gave at the mission, his pleas to be released were finally granted when he was brought to Washington and sent to a nondescript storefront on Wisconsin Avenue, where Iranian representatives work in a space officially operated by Pakistan's embassy. FCC indecency rule struck down by appeals court (13 July 2010) Reporting from Washington and Los Angeles — In a sharp rebuke of the Bush-era crackdown on foul language on broadcast television and radio, a federal appeals court on Tuesday struck down the government's near-zero-tolerance indecency policy as a violation of the 1st Amendment protection of free speech. The ruling is a major victory for the broadcast TV networks, which jointly sued the Federal Communications Commission in 2006. The case was triggered by unscripted expletives uttered by Bono, Cher and Nicole Richie on awards shows earlier in the decade, and the court's decision calls into question the FCC's regulation of foul language and other indecent content on the public airwaves. "It does make it much harder for the FCC to regulate this area," said Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor who specializes in 1st Amendment law. He called the ruling "a very important decision" whose ultimate fate could rest with the U.S. Supreme Court. Judge extends ban of Alaska Railroad weed killer (13 July 2010) Environmental groups are fighting the permit, saying regulators failed to consider the herbicide's harmful effects on drinking water and salmon streams. The permit would have allowed spraying to begin last week, but the groups were granted a temporary stay. On Monday, Superior Judge William Morse extended the stay until Friday to allow the state Supreme Court to review the issue. "The railroad is disappointed we can't take any action until Friday," said Phyllis Johnson, representing the railroad. Johnson said the railroad has been seeking permission since 2006 to use herbicides to combat weeds along its tracks. She said weeds can force apart tracks, cause railroad ties to decay more quickly and conceal problems with fasteners during safety inspections. PAM COMMENTARY: I apologize for the pop-up ads that some newspapers use, and the extra work required to close them. PamRotella.com never uses pop-up ads, and the ads from mainstream papers have a very low chance of harmful code. China seeks to reduce Internet users' anonymity (13 July 2010) BEIJING — A leading Chinese Internet regulator has vowed to reduce anonymity in China's portion of cyberspace, calling for new rules to require people to use their real names when buying a mobile phone or going online, according to a human rights group. In an address to the national legislature in April, Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, called for perfecting the extensive system of censorship the government uses to manage the fast-evolving Internet, according to a text of the speech obtained by New York-based Human Rights in China. China's regime has a complicated relationship with the freewheeling Internet, reflected in its recent standoff with Google over censorship of search results. China this week confirmed it had renewed Google's license to operate, after it agreed to stop automatically rerouting users to its Hong Kong site, which is not subject to China's online censorship. Julian Assange: the whistleblower (13 July 2010) Is WikiLeaks the journalistic model for the future? He gives a characteristically lateral answer. "All over the world the barriers between what is inside an organisation and outside an organisation are being smoothed out. In the military, the use of contractors means that what is the military and what is not the military is smoothed out. Newswise, you see the same trend – what is the newspaper and what is not the newspaper? Comments on websites from the general public and supporters . . . " His point trails away, so I press him to make a prediction about the shape of the media in a decade or so from now. "For the financial and specialist press, it'll still look mostly the same – your daily briefing about what you need to know to run your business. But for political and social analysis, that's going to be movements and networks. You can already see this happening." Assange has to be careful about his personal security. Bradley Manning, a 22-year-old US army intelligence analyst, has been arrested and charged with allegedly giving WikiLeaks the footage of the Baghdad attack, and the US authorities believe the organisation has another video of an attack on the Afghan village of Granai in which many civilians were killed. There have also been disputed reports that WikiLeaks may be holding 260,000 classified diplomatic cables, and the US authorities have been quoted as saying they want to interview Assange about all this material, publication of which would they say breach national security. Some sources with links in the intelligence agencies have warned him he is in danger and advised him not to travel to the US. He refuses to confirm that Manning was the source of the Baghdad video, but says whoever did leak it was "a hero". At the talk I heard a man close to me say to his neighbour: "Do you think there'll be spooks here? The US are after him, you know." And of course it's possible. But giving a public talk to 200 students in the centre of London does not suggest someone who is in fear of extraordinary rendition. On the other hand, the organiser of the lecture tells me Assange tends not to stay in the same place two nights in a row. So is he taking the threats seriously? "When you first get them, you must take them quite seriously. Some very senior people advised me that there were significant problems, but there's a clarity now. The public statements from the [US] state department have mostly been reasonable. Some statements made in private have not been reasonable, but the demeanour of those private statements has changed over the past month and have become more positive." Assange, despite his faltering manner, exudes self-confidence, immodesty even. When I ask him whether the rapid growth and increasing significance of WikiLeaks surprises him, he says no. "I was always confident the idea would succeed, otherwise I wouldn't have spent my time on it or asked other people to spend their time on it." He has spent a good deal of that time recently in Iceland, where freedom of information is protected and he has high-level supporters. It was here that the complex work of decrypting the video of the Baghdad attack was done. But he says he has no real base. "It's just like a war correspondent, I'm everywhere," he says. "Or like anyone setting up a multinational corporation, where you go visit all the regional offices. We have supporters in many countries." Standards Issued for Electronic Health Records (13 July 2010) The Department of Health and Human Services said doctors and hospitals could receive as much as $27 billion over the next 10 years to buy equipment to computerize patients’ medical records. A doctor can receive up to $44,000 under Medicare and $63,750 under Medicaid, while a hospital can receive millions of dollars, depending on its size. Starting in 2015, hospitals and doctors will be subject to financial penalties under Medicare if they are not using electronic health records. Dr. Donald M. Berwick, who was sworn in Monday as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said electronic health records would lead to “better, smoother care, more reliable care.” Even though American health care is known for the use of advanced technology in treating patients, doctors and hospitals have been slow to replace paper records with electronic records. “Only 20 percent of doctors and 10 percent of hospitals use even basic electronic health records,” said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services. PAM COMMENTARY: There are pros and cons to this -- obviously computerized records provide a convenience for health corporations and patients, but of course every time anything is computerized, large scale invasion of privacy and theft of data become easier. Security contractor: BP fired me for taking photos of dispersants (13 July 2010) Adam Dillon claims he was fired by the oil company after he took pictures showing how dispersants were being used in the Gulf. WDSU anchor Scott Walker first met Dillon in June while trying to report on cleanup efforts on Grand Isle, Louisiana. "When you met me, and you were straight with me and I saw the way that you were being treated, I told you I wished I could tell you more," Dillon told Walker in an interview Friday. "And after the way BP treated me, I'm telling you now that you deserve an answer, and that's why you're getting an answer." Dillon maintains that he was fired several weeks later. "I took pictures of something and I brought it to the attention of the command structure and whatever I took pictures of, 12 hours later I was gone," he said. Toxic pollutants rise in North America (13 July 2010) North American industrial facilities released or transferred more than 5.7 billion kilograms of toxic pollutants in 2006, the Commission for Environmental Cooperation said in its annual report released Tuesday. That's up from 5.5 billion kilograms reported in 2005. The figures exclude greenhouse gases and criteria air contaminants, such as carbon monoxide and other pollutants that contribute to smog, acid rain and haze. The pollutants were released in the air, water and on land, dumped or taken to recycling sites, the report said. GE offers $200M fund for power projects (13 July 2010) SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — General Electric said Tuesday it will pledge $200 million to fund new projects meant to create a more energy efficient and environmentally friendly power grid. GE and three venture capital funds will solicit ideas from entrepreneurs, researchers and start-ups over the next 10 weeks. Awards will be announced in November. The fund will focus on smart-grid technology designed to improve the nation's energy network from the power plant to the home. That includes using alternative energies like wind power and developing new products that cut down on energy waste in houses. GE has made a big push into the sector, which CEO Jeffrey Immelt estimated is worth up to $20 billion but could grow to $120 billion by 2020. Tiny mushrooms blamed for 400 deaths in SW China (13 July 2010) A public information campaign to warn against eating the mushrooms has dramatically reduced the number of deaths. Only a handful have been reported in the last couple of years, and none so far this year. However, the mystery has not yet been definitively solved. Testing found the mushroom contained some toxins, though not enough to be deadly. Chinese scientists need to isolate the toxin and test whether it triggers cardiac arrests. Researchers have hypothesized that there is a second agent. Many of the victims showed high levels of barium, a heavy metal in the soil that seeps into mushrooms. Libyan ship with Gaza aid arrives in Egyptian port (13 July 2010) A ship loaded with aid supplies for Gaza has docked in an Egyptian port, ending the latest attempt by activists to break Israel's Gaza blockade. The vessel was intercepted by Israeli naval ships off the coast of Gaza and forced to head south, the charity which chartered the ship said. The charity, headed by Col Muammar Gaddafi's son, said it wanted to reach Gaza, but would not risk violence. In May, Israeli forces clashed with another convoy, killing nine on board. PAM COMMENTARY: The writing could be clearer, but the article does provide some good detail. Palestinian homes bulldozed as Israeli freeze on demolitions appears to end (13 July 2010) Israeli bulldozers destroyed at least three Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem yesterday, breaking an unofficial moratorium on such demolitions since the end of 2009. At least one of the homes was occupied by a family of seven, who removed their belongings shortly before it was razed. Jerusalem city authorities said the homes were built without proper planning permission, which Palestinians say is almost impossible to obtain. Basem Isawi, 48, a contractor, said he built his home illegally for about $25,000 because he was convinced the municipality would deny him a permit. He had been notified of the impending demolition. Under pressure from Washington, Israel has largely refrained from demolitions since November, when a temporary, partial freeze on settlement construction was agreed. Rare dark jellyfish showing up in San Diego Bay (13 July 2010) Scientists say a rare species of dark purple jellyfish is showing up in San Diego Bay and washing ashore on beaches. Dr. Nigella Hillgarth of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography said Tuesday that the Birch Aquarium has four of the jellies for display. Hillgarth says the black sea nettle has turned up in coastal waters more frequently in recent years. Oceanographers don't know why but guess that it could be due to warmer oceans or changes in the plankton populations that they eat. The jellyfish can grow up to three feet across with 30 foot long tentacles. Hillgarth says they sting, so boaters and beachgoers should admire them without touching. Hospital infection deaths caused by ignorance and neglect, survey finds (13 July 2010) Deadly yet easily preventable bloodstream infections continue to plague American hospitals because facility administrators fail to commit resources and attention to the problem, according to a survey of medical professionals released Monday. An estimated 80,000 patients per year develop catheter-related bloodstream infections, or CRBSIs -- which can occur when tubes that are inserted into a vein to monitor blood flow or deliver medication and nutrients are improperly prepared or left in longer than necessary. About 30,000 patients die as a result, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, accounting for nearly a third of annual deaths from hospital-acquired infections in the United States. Yet evidence suggests hospital workers could all but eliminate CRBSIs by following a five-step checklist that is stunningly basic: (1) Wash hands with soap; (2) clean patient's skin with an effective antiseptic; (3) put sterile drapes over the entire patient; (4) wear a sterile mask, hat, gown and gloves; (5) put a sterile dressing over the catheter site. The approach also calls for clinicians to continually reconsider whether the benefits of keeping the catheter in for another day outweigh the risks and to use electronic monitoring systems that allow them to spot infections quickly and assemble a rapid response team to treat them. Scientists create cloth that listens (13 July 2010) NEW YORK - This could give a whole new meaning to the phrase power dressing. Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a cloth that can hear and emit noise. The team, led by MIT professor Yoel Fink, has reached "a new milestone on the path to functional fibers: fibers that can detect and produce sound," MIT said in a statement. The development, described in the August issue of Nature Materials, transforms the usual passive nature of textiles into a virtually all-singing, all-dancing version. According to MIT, "applications could include clothes that are themselves sensitive microphones, for capturing speech or monitoring bodily functions, and tiny filaments that could measure blood flow in capillaries or pressure in the brain." The decade-old research project aims to "develop fibers with ever more sophisticated properties, to enable fabrics that can interact with their environment," MIT said. Safety of diabetes drug Avandia remains contentious (13 July 2010) GAITHERSBURG, Md. — Presenters and panelists spent much of Tuesday, the first day of a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee meeting here on the heart safety of Avandia, discussing the value of research conducted since the last such gathering three years ago. At that 2007 meeting, committee members voted overwhelmingly that the diabetes drug raised heart attack risk, but they also voted overwhelmingly to recommend keeping the drug on the market. Although their terms have expired, the panelists have been invited back to vote alongside their successors, making for a 33-member advisory committee. The FDA usually, but not always, follows its advisers' recommendations. Questions about Avandia's safety were first raised in a 2007 study in The New England Journal of Medicine. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine, and co-author Kathy Wolski pooled the results of 42 Avandia studies, an approach called a meta-analysis, and concluded that the drug raised heart attack risk. Only one randomized controlled trial — considered the gold standard for testing medications — has been completed since 2007, and even FDA reviewers were divided on its value. Sean Penn on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake, Recovery Efforts, and Why He Decided to Manage a Tent Camp of 55,000 Displaced Haitians (13 July 2010) AMY GOODMAN: $11 billion promised. Where is it? SEAN PENN: I don’t think about $11 billion. I don’t believe in $11 billion. I think that pledge money is smoke and mirrors that evaporates as the years go on. The way it’s going to happen, is if bold organizations come in here, create manufacturing— I’d like to see them start as co-ops with philanthropic commitment to that for a period of time with a kind of sunset and then they can participate in the profit. But right now, the donor’s conference, I think, was completely misconceived. And the way that it should have been done is somebody should have raised their hand and said, “I’m gonna rebuild every school in Haiti.” Somebody else should have raised their hand and said, “I’m gonna rebuild the hospitals and we’re gonna do it right now.” —And instead, what happened was one after another, in Port-au-Prince — the biggest city in the biggest natural disaster in human history —systematically hospitals closed following the earthquake because money was not available and not coming in to those hospitals. The money exists and existed. I think the culture of aid is so paranoid about the siphoning of aid and the history related to other administrations and other times and places, that while those kinds of concerns are responsible considerations, they have, I think, largely crippled a lot of the motion here. Each year, dozens of children die of heat-related injuries after being left in cars (12 July 2010) Every year, dozens of children die because of heat-related injuries after being left in unattended in vehicles, according to Jan Null, a certified meterologist and adjunct professor at San Francisco State University who has studied child deaths from hyperthermia. Null said media reports put this year's tally at 20 so far and 33 died in 2009. But he warned his statistics may be lower than actual numbers because some deaths are not reported by the news media. In Louisiana children, 16 children have died of hyperthermia from being left in cars since 1989, according to the Louisiana Department of Social Services. And in Louisiana, leaving a child unattended in a vehicle is a crime. It can net a fine of up to $500 or up to six months for a first offense. Future offenses carry penalties of $1,000 to $5,000 in fines and a year in jail. The state is one of 14 with such a law on the books. Null said that vehicles in direct sunlight turn into miniature greenhouses, where temperatures can increase by roughly 45 degrees an hour, said Null, who co-published a study on the phenomenon in Pediatrics magazine in 2005. PAM COMMENTARY: I wonder if the example of a mother visiting a casino was carefully selected to avoid the uncomfortable discussion of "workfare" programs, famous for paying women so little that they can't afford child care or other necessities. Years ago when workfare programs were fashionable (the unfortunate legacy of Tommy Thompson, a former Wisconsin governor and Health and Human Services Secretary under Bush Jr.), the press would report on children left in cars while their mothers were forced to work. Sometimes children were left in the only family residence that their family could afford on such low wages -- a hot storage bin. Wisconsin 'workfare' a total failure, report finds (FLASHBACK) (2005) After consistently gloating about the overturning of Aid to Families with Dependent children (AFDC) former Governor Tommy Thompson and his corporate bosses were nowhere to be seen or heard from when the Wisconsin Legislative Audit Bureau issued its 272-page W-2 or "Wisconsin Works" evaluation April 7, the most comprehensive to date. But many politicians who clamoured to dismantle AFDC and usher in W-2-Democrats and Republicans alike-are now doing an about-face in an effort to either distance themselves from the report's conclusion which calls for a virtual overhaul of this failed social policy, or are lying to the public by saying they actually care for W-2 recipients by supporting the report's conclusions. After the untold human misery and suffering as a result of W-2 detailed in the report, Thompson and his accomplices should be tried by a people’s commission led by current and former W-2 recipients for crimes against humanity among others. Those fighting the attempted privatization of Social Security might want to study this report closely. Letter from the US: welfare to work by Sharon Smith (FLASHBACK) (March 1998) Gloria Jimenez, aged 51, had worked for 22 years in a belt factory, but became unemployed after the factory closed down. Now she suffers from severe arthritis in her hands. After a brief physical examination conducted in English - a language she cannot speak - HS Systems deemed her able to work at a job sweeping streets. 'I had worked all my life, and then I was forced to do something I couldn't do. The doctor never even looked at my hands,' she said. Jiminez missed work one day when her arthritis flared up and lost all of her welfare benefits. Furthermore, as WEP workers in New York have discovered, workfare rarely leads to a permanent job. Most welfare recipients find that, after their six month assignment ends, they are no closer to earning a pay cheque than before. For example, Linda Bailey, a mother of three, was a WEP worker at the Department of Transportation for six months. When her assignment ended, she was turned down for a permanent job there. She ended up back on welfare, still looking for a job. She had to pay her babysitter in milk and eggs while she searched for work. In many states welfare recipients can lose their cash benefits and food stamps for offences as minor as missing a single appointment or refusing a work assignment with late night hours. In Mississippi a recent study showed that the number of families cut off welfare for violating one of the many rules of the workfare programme outnumbered those placed in jobs by a margin of almost two to one. The jobs simply do not exist for welfare recipients to enter the workforce. Even with record low unemployment across the US over the last year, the unemployment rate for black women who have not completed high school is still 21 percent. In the Midwest there are on average 22 workers for every job paying a poverty level wage, and 97 workers for each job paying a livable wage. To add insult to injury, New York City's WEP workers are classified as 'trainees' who are exempt from the basic protections which apply to other workers. They are also denied the right to organise into unions. WEP workers assigned to clerical jobs are often told they must clean toilets. Others have been ordered to handle dangerous chemicals without protective gear, or are denied access to drinking water or toilets. 'It's like a chain gang,' said Wayne Gargrove, a former lab technician who is now a WEP worker picking up garbage. Another scientist urges population reduction, rather than changes in the politics of greed (12 July 2010) Britain's premier scientific organisation has launched a two-year study into global population levels. A growing body of scientists believe the time has come for politicians to confront the problems posed by the future increase in human numbers. The Royal Society has established a working group of leading experts to draw up a comprehensive set of recommendations on human population that could set the agenda for tackling the environmental stress caused by billions of extra people on the planet. Sir John Sulston, the Nobel laureate who took a leading role in decoding the human genome, will lead the study. A failure to be open about the problems caused by the global population explosion would set back human development, he warned. "We really do have to look at where we are going in relation to population. If we don't do it, we may survive but we won't flourish," Sir John said. "We will be examining the extent to which population is a significant factor in the momentous international challenge of securing global sustainable development, considering not just the scientific elements but encompassing the wider issues including culture, gender, economics and law." The working group includes the naturalist Sir David Attenborough, the environmentalist Sir Jonathon Porritt, who co-founded Forum for the Future, the Cambridge economist Sir Partha Dasgupta and the president of the Ethiopian Academy of Sciences, Professor Demissie Habte. PAM COMMENTARY: Another "expert" whose answer to everything is killing off everyone but his own family. People like this will never mention the role of merciless profiteering in earth's problems -- the thwarting of responsible large-scale investments in green technology, the advances in science and medicine banished to the field of "alternative medicine" because they're not big profit makers, the scarcity of equitable land distribution, or the corruption that often thwarts fair public policy. "Leaders" (e.g. Bush and Blair) prefer to squander resources on oil wars rather than technologies to create clean water and energy both here and abroad. And the assumption that a lower population means the human race would "flourish" somehow? I've never seen such advances in technology or creativity as in the current era -- with a large enough population to create a market for the stuff, and available talent to meet the challenge. Swiss refuse extradition, free Polanski (12 July 2010) Reporting from London and Los Angeles — The Swiss government's decision Monday to free Roman Polanski outraged Los Angeles prosecutors and U.S. officials but effectively ended a legal odyssey that has lurched along with periodic eruptions of public furor since 1977, when the famed director was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl. Polanski will not be extradited to the United States to face sentencing for having unlawful sex with the girl , allowing him to live freely in Switzerland and France, where he has resided since he fled the United States 32 years ago. Swiss justice officials said the U.S. failed to turn over documents they had requested. They also said Polanski, who has a vacation home in Switzerland, would not have expected to be arrested and deported because American officials knew of his frequent presence there in recent years but never acted on it. In Los Angeles and Washington, officials vowed to continue their pursuit of Polanski, though their options are now significantly limited. PAM COMMENTARY: Switzerland -- the new haven for sexual predators. Burma's dictator plots his dignified exit (12 July 2010) In the run-up to a long promised but still unscheduled general election, the first for 20 years, Burma's military dictator, Senior-General Than Shwe, has taken a step full of peril: he has ordered his uniformed cabinet ministers to resign from the army. Those faceless generals who adorn the front page of the New Light of Myanmar, the regime's daily paper, inspecting fish-packing factories and barrages, will still be running the country, and anything resembling democratic governance will be as far away as ever. But the look of things will have changed. The ministers will wear longyi, the traditional Burmese sarong-like garment. And crucially for them, they will no longer enjoy the status and respect which, in a country ruled with an iron fist by the military for half a century, is the army's prerogative. Irrawaddy, the expatriate Burmese news website, predicts trouble. "Senior-General Than Shwe is facing a mutiny among his subordinates," it claimed last week. "There are growing signs of discontent among his cabinet ministers... They have been betrayed by their boss. Former Contractor: BP Not Interested In Cleaning Up Oil Spill (12 July 2010) Former high-level BP contractor and Army Special Operations soldier Adam Dillon told a New Orleans television station that British Petroleum is not interested in cleaning up the oil spill because the company is run by “cutthroat individuals” who only care about money. Dillon was fired by BP “after taking photos that he believes were related to the use of dispersants and to the cleanup of the oil.” Before his dismissal, Dillon was “confined and interrogated for almost an hour,” by BP officials. “There are some very great, hardworking individuals in there. But the bottom line is just about money. There are some very cutthroat individuals. They’re not worried about cleaning up that spill as it is,” said Dillon, adding that he has “lost faith” in BP’s response. Dillon was one of BP’s hired goons used to keep reporters from asking questions of cleanup workers on beaches in Houma, but turned whistleblower after he was fired for taking photos of the consequences of chemicals used by BP to clean up the spill. Democracy Now! in Port-Au-Prince: Patrick Elie on Haiti Six Months After the Earthquake (12 July 2010) AMY GOODMAN: It wasn’t long after the Haitian earthquake there was an earthquake in Chile. It was hundreds of times stronger than the Haitian earthquake and yet hundreds of times fewer people died, less than 300 people died. In Haiti it was close to 300,000. Now I want to ask you about the aid. There has been close to $11 billion promised. Haiti hasn’t seen even 10% of that. Why is that? PATRICK ELIE: Well, you might point to the bureaucracy of, you know, the international donors; but also I think that the weakness of the Haitian state also explains that. You see, it is a vicious circle. The powers that be—and I mean by that, the U.S., France, and Canada—but mostly the U.S., have worked over decades to weaken the Haitian state. And then now they are using this weakness as a pretense, not to free the aid or have it go through Haitian authorities. So, that 10% of aid that has been released actually, most of it did not go through the Haitian state. And I can say, even though I am not a specialist, that a lot of it went into things that were not indispensable for reconstruction. As you know, in the beginning we have 82nd Airborne being deployed around Haiti and in Haiti. These cost a lot of money and all this money, if you want to count it, is money that went to help Haiti. So, it gives you a false sense that, you know, already a lot had been done and we are not seeing the result on the ground. AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re saying, less than 10% of the money was released and much of that was actually to the U.S. military? PATRICK ELIE: A lot to the U.S. military and to the NGO’s. And this is not to disparage what the NGO’s have done here. But the lack of coordination explains a lot of the slowness of the process. Mind you, I don’t want to be too severe in my judgment, and especially I have been reading the U.S. press and as always, they’re clobbering the Haitian authorities. I am not at all saying that we have the best government. I have always said we have a state that is not only weak but apart with the nation. But on top of that, the government—or the State was weakened more by the earthquake itself because the earthquake hit not a remote part of Haiti but right smack in the middle of the administrative, political, and economic center of the country. As a result, about 17% of public servants died, ministries collapsed with all of their memory, their archives, their computers, etc. So, we are facing a pharaonic task of rebuilding. Besides, everybody in Haiti seems to agree we cannot actually rebuild Port-au-Prince as it was. So, aside from building, you have to plan again differently. This involves some heart wrenching decisions that have to be made. Beverly Bell: There is No Plan For Permanently Housing the 1.9 Million Haitians Who Lost Their Homes in the Quake (12 July 2010) AMY GOODMAN: We’re here in Haiti, on the six month anniversary of the January 12th earthquake. It’s July 12th and we’ve gone out about 7 miles from Port-au-Prince, between Morne Cabrit and Titanyen. These are two famous dumping grounds, killing grounds, that through the Duvalier years and then again during the first coup against President Aristide, 1991 to 1994, people’s bodies would be dumped, between the mountains and a ways down the road. I am joined by Beverly Bell, she’s taken us here. She’s with "Another World" and she is a fellow with the Institute for Policy Studies. Beverly, tell us about where we are right now. BEVERLY BELL: We are in one of the hottest parts of this whole side of Haiti. I was here today at high noon and the crushed white gravel that is underfoot in this camp is just blinding and the heat is shocking. And this is where about 10,000 people have been relocated after they were sent away from another camp in Port-au-Prince. About one in seven has been left homeless and displaced from the January 12th earthquake, and most of them have created temporary housing. Now, six months later, in the middle of earthquake season, the government’s response, that is, the Haitian government and the U.S. government as well as the United Nations, has been this—has been to move people from one set of temporary housing, plastic tarps that are damaged in the wind and the rains, to another set of temporary housing. And there is absolutely no plan anywhere in the country for permanent housing for the 1.9 million people who are left victims. AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about where the camps are? We just passed, well, the palace that’s crumbling. They haven’t brought it down in six months, the earthquake started the process. But there are thousands of people in the plaza outside the palace. BEVERLY BELL: People are living in almost every nook in a country that is densely populated and that has very little open space. People are living in ravines, they are living on sidewalks jammed up against other houses. They are creating structures out of any temporary material they can find. A lot of them, no more than four sticks and bedsheets. And they have set themselves up in impromptu camps as well, such as the one that you mentioned, down in the National Park, they’re called shomas. They are all over the country looking for any lodging they can find, including out in the countryside, many have gone to the countryside and have been taken in through the kindness of strangers, small farmers. But this is the solution. These people now are two hours away from the center of town, where schools are, where health care is, where jobs are, where their family and communities are. It costs about a quarter for them to go round trip and it takes four hours round-trip. No one is providing transportation. A quarter for these folks is huge. And no one has informed them of any plan of permanent relocation. President Preval has said that a Korean assembly shop is going to come in here as part of the U.S. and U.N. plan to expand the sweatshop industry. But this is all that people have been told about their future. If you ask them where they’re going or what their future will be, they will make the Haitian sign a resignation with their hands and say we have no idea, no one’s told us anything. Displaced Haitians: "We Can’t Continue In This Situation Anymore" (12 July 2010) ROMAIN ARIUS: My name is Romain Arius. This camp, what I think about it, according to the information they gave us— they told us when we were coming here, that we would live well. But what we saw when we got here and the way we lived here, it’s the contrary. The place where we are here when it’s hot, the sun makes the tents hot, very hot. And also the wind comes and blows the tents and wrecks them. The people who were responsible for the last camp where we were, when they brought us here, they said we would be here for three months under these tents. Three months has already passed. We have not yet gotten to the definitive houses that they said they were going to give us. AMY GOODMAN: What do you want to happen now? ROMAIN ARIUS: What do I want to happen now? All the information that they—we would like to benefit from them, to see them. In the situation we’re living here in the tents, we can’t continue like that anymore. We would ask them as soon as possible to give us the real houses that they said they were going to give us so that our situation could improve. Because the tents are torn, when it rains, rain comes in. We have very exemplary or a very indicative block, Block 6. It’s a zone which is completely unpassable when it rains. The people who are in charge of that should take some action to improve the life of us here in Corail. American Idolatry Intensifies as Nation Sinks into Depression (12 July 2010) The sight of American citizens gathering to protest basketball player LeBron James’ decision to join Miami Heat last week, after Ohio Governor Ted Strickland joined celebrities to serenade James in a bizarre appeal video entitled “We are LeBron,” was a shocking reminder of how millions of Americans are more concerned about sports teams than the fact that their country is collapsing around them, and how potent a threat such wanton delusion is to the survival of freedom and prosperity in the United States. In a You Tube clip that went viral after appearing on the Drudge Report website, Alex Jones explained how ominous it was to see Americans transfixed by bread and circuses while at the same time the New York Times reports on how the country is sinking into another depression. But how did we reach the stage where scenes from Idiocracy, a satirical movie set 500 years in the future where humanity has “degenerated into into a dystopia where advertising, commercialism, and cultural anti-intellectualism run rampant and dysgenic pressure has resulted in a uniformly stupid human society devoid of individual responsibility or consequences,” seem eerily contemporary in 2010? Americans are watching more television than ever before, both through conventional TV sets and on the web, as the range of channels continues to expand, the screens get bigger and the quality of the picture increases as new hi-definition and 3D technologies arrest and shorten attention spans to a greater and greater degree. Americans are now a nation of spectators, watching a shocking average of nearly 5 hours of TV a day, up 20% from just 10 years ago. State Police pull over another pretend police officer (12 July 2010) "I would venture to say it was probably an old police vehicle that he bought at auction," she said. At about 9:40 p.m., troopers received a complaint of a car acting as if it were a police vehicle on westbound I-10 in Metairie. The unidentified victim told investigators the Crown Victoria flashed its headlights and continued to follow him despite several lane changes, Matey said. The victim pulled over on I-10 in Kenner after the driver shined a mounted spotlight, which is illegal on any car other than a law enforcement vehicle, according to Matey. The victim waited several minutes, then got out of the car to approach the "patrol unit." But the driver of the Crown Victoria drove around the victim's vehicle on the highway shoulder and took off. The victim got back into his own car, sped after the Crown Victoria and managed to get the license plate number, which he gave to authorities. State Police troopers caught the Crown Victoria at about 10:05 p.m. in St. John the Baptist Parish on Interstate 55 at about milepost 9, according to an arrest report. Chinese Officials Must Report Personal Assets (12 July 2010) The regulations went into effect Sunday and expand on similar guidelines released in April governing senior Communist Party officials. Now mid-level officials and nonparty members must comply, reporting even on changes in marital status and the whereabouts of relatives living abroad. Punishment for failing to do so can range from a public reprimand to dismissal. Ordinary Chinese frequently complain about official corruption and the Communist leadership recognizes it is a major threat to political stability. The regulation appears designed to prevent officials from hiding illicit income under the names of spouses, former spouses or other close family members. Critics say graft is too deeply ingrained in the system and can't be solved with regulations. Some have called for independent bodies to fight graft. Which Infant Formulas Contain Secret Toxic Chemicals? (12 July 2010) Infant formula has come a long way since chemist Justus von Liebig first patented a commercial cocktail of cow's milk, wheat flour, malt flour, and potassium bicarbonate in 1865. Today, Similac, Enfamil, Earth's Best, and other brands are fortified with everything from iron to the omega-3 fatty acid DHA, and most brands attempt to chemically match human milk as closely as possible. But even though artificial human milk is regulated by the FDA, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found last year that a thyroid-affecting chemical used in rocket fuel contaminates 15 brands of powdered infant formula, including two that accounted for 87 percent of market share in 2000. The CDC study omits the names of the top offenders, but a little sleuthing reveals (PDF) that they are referring to Similac and Enfamil, produced by Ross (now Abbott Nutrition) and Mead Johnson Nutrition respectively. (The Environmental Working Group handily includes phone numbers here for those and other infant formula companies if you're interested in questioning the makers of your child's brand.) Not surprisingly, the International Formula Council blames any perchlorate in their formulas on the water used to make them. Unfortunately, pre-mixed liquid formulas come with their own potential toxins, as the chemical BPA can leach out of plastic bottles or cans into the formula they contain. But at least we're not in China, where 76 tons of melamine-tainted milk products were seized on Friday, just two years after melamine-adulterated formula killed 6 infants and hospitalized thousands more in 2008. The FDA assures that levels of melamine in US infant formulas are "extremely low" (PDF). Feel better yet? For all these reasons the American Academy of Pediatrics remains less than sanguine about infant formula, recommending exclusive breastfeeding for six months and continued nursing "until at least the baby's first birthday." Indeed, they credit mother's milk with everything from breast cancer risk reduction to obesity prevention—though not, as attachment parenting guru Dr. Sears does, with higher IQ. [Read Hanna Rosin's excellent Atlantic article here for an overview of the conflicting studies around breast milk's unicorn-like magical properties.] Frankly, if I'd done this research a month ago, I doubt I would ever have handed my (until then) exclusively breastfed six-month-old son a bottle of this to scarf down one night before bed. (He loved it, by the way. It tastes exactly like Ensure, which is made by the same company.) Shopping bags a bacteria hazard (12 July 2010) Those handy woven polypropylene bags that can be squeezed small and tucked into a purse can become a comfy home for coliform bacteria and even e-coli, according to researchers in California and Arizona. Coliform bacteria occur in fecal material and raw meat, toilet bowls, kitchen sinks where raw meat is cleaned and in sink sponges, according to researcher Charles Gerba of the University of Arizona at Tucson. An indicator of unsanitary conditions, coliform bacteria was found in half of the bags tested. E-coli were found in 12 per cent of the bags. “You’re always gambling with germs and the whole idea is to keep the odds in your favour and not in the germs’ favour. If you don’t maintain these bags, you’re giving the germs a chance to get exposure,” says Gerba. A simple wash with soap after use is all that’s needed to maintain the bags, but only three per cent of people reported ever cleaning them, according to the study, which examined 84 bags collected at three locations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tucson. Only 25 per cent of people reported separating vegetables from raw meat when they fill their bags. Thirty per cent used the bags for other purposes, including books, clothes, snacks, biking supplies and books. Israel warns it will stop ship heading for Gaza (12 July 2010) Israel warned yesterday that a ship sponsored by a group headed by the son of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and currently crossing the Mediterranean would not be allowed to reach its stated destination of Gaza. The Moldovan-registered ship – renamed Hope for the voyage – left Greece on Saturday night for a trip intended to take between 70 and 80 hours. The organisers, the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation, say the ship, with a crew of 12 and ten passengers on board, is carrying 2,000 tonnes of food and medicine. Israel's defence minister, Ehud Barak, has described the dispatch of the vessel as a "provocation" and its foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told Army Radio yesterday: "I say very clearly, no ship will arrive in Gaza. We will not permit our sovereignty to be harmed." The Libyan organisers have sought to play down expectations of a repeat of the violent confrontation aboard the Turkish Mavi Marmara last month, which resulted in the loss of nine Turkish lives when Israeli commandos boarded the ship. Surry nuclear reactor shut down for water-leak fix (12 July 2010) One of two nuclear reactors at Dominion Virginia Power’s plant in Surry was shut down Sunday night after a water leak was discovered, the company said. Shortly before 9 p.m. a plant employee spotted a leak in a 96-inch pipe that carries James River water to a condenser that cools steam at the plant, said Jim Norvelle, director of media relations for Dominion. “The condenser cools the steam that has been used to generate electricity,” Norvelle said this morning. “We determined that we could not isolate the water line to do the repair while the reactor is operating.” Employees shut down Surry 2 in order to make the repair, which is under way, Norvelle said. A dam around the pipe was catching the leak, estimated at less than 100 gallons per minute. West Virginia Governor Joe Manchin hopes to name Senator Byrd's replacement by weekend (12 July 2010) Once the succession bill is passed, Manchin said he will act quickly to name a temporary appointee to fill the Senate seat. That appointee would serve in the U.S. Senate for a period of roughly four months, until the winner of the special election is certified. "I'm hopeful that by Sunday, I'll be able to name somebody," said Manchin, who said he has a short-list of fewer than a half-dozen candidates for the appointment. Once the law is clarified and an appointee is named, Manchin said he will announce his plans regarding running in the special election for U.S. Senate. "I will make my intentions known as quickly as possible," he said. Manchin said on Friday that it is "highly likely" he will run for the unexpired term. PAM COMMENTARY: Meanwhile, the unemployed are held hostage because the Senate is one vote short of passing another Unemployment Compensation extension. Good thing he's at least trying to deliver someone within the week. Baby animals caught in Gulf oil spill face uncertain future (12 July 2010) There's no way to know how many chicks have been killed by the oil, or starved because their parents died struggling in a slick or were rescued and taken away. "There are plenty of oiled babies out there," said Rebecca Dmytryk of the International Bird Rescue Research Center, one of the groups working to clean oiled animals. The lucky ones end up in a cleaning center at Fort Jackson, a pre-Civil War historic site on the Mississippi River delta south of New Orleans. Pelican chicks often come in cold because oil has matted down the fluffy down that's meant to keep them warm. They must be warmed quickly just to survive long enough to be cleaned. And the youngest must be taught to eat. For Iraq veteran with post-traumatic stress, help never came (12 July 2010) Ozawa blames the Army for the fact that Daryl, now 26, will probably spend the better portion of a decade in prison. To anyone who will listen, she explains that her son’s story goes more like this: Yes, he was a good boy before Iraq. Yes, he came home someone else. And yes, she recognized the seriousness of his troubles. But when she begged the military to treat him, her son’s superiors dismissed her, leaving Daryl to languish until he became so ill that he was getting drunk every day just to cope, starting fights and failing to show up for formation. Then they deemed his behavior a discipline problem, called him a bad soldier and kicked him out for misconduct. A few weeks after Daryl was told that he would be “other than honorably” discharged, possibly leaving him ineligible for veterans benefits, he committed a crime that he now struggles to remember. Before he went to war, Daryl had never been in any serious trouble – not with the military or with the law. He says armed robbery isn’t something he would do, and yet he admits he did it. He can’t explain the contradiction. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am,” he says, speaking by phone from the jail in Anchorage, Alaska, where he is confined. “It just sort of happened. It wasn’t that I needed the money or anything.” Daryl’s words begin to trail off into mumbling. “I just, it … I don’t …” Hearings set for Massey workers in W.Va. fire (12 July 2010) CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - Guilty plea hearings are set for later this month for four Massey Energy supervisors charged with federal crimes related to a coal mine fire that killed two West Virginians in 2006. Prosecutors say the men are accused of failing to conduct mandatory safety drills at Massey's Aracoma Alma No. 1 mine in 2005 and 2006. Two men died trying to escape a conveyer-belt fire at the Logan County mine on Jan. 19, 2006, after getting lost in thick smoke. According to court filings, guilty plea hearings are scheduled for July 20. A slideshow memorial to the miners (FLASHBACK) (15 April 2010) PAM COMMENTARY: These aren't the same miners killed in the 2006 fire mentioned in the above article, but rather the miners killed in the explosion earlier this year (same company operating the mine, though). Community colleges cash in on foreign students (12 July 2010) Homegrown students may have trouble getting into classes, but community colleges in California are having no problem finding room for foreign students who pay top dollar to come here - and provide millions of dollars for the schools. Take the Peralta Community College District in the East Bay, which recruits an estimated 800 to 1,000 students from Europe, Asia, Africa and Israel each year, according to a new Alameda County civil grand jury report. Foreign students pay $5,332 apiece for 12 units per year - compared with $624 for students who come from in state. The foreign aid translated to more than $4 million this year for Peralta. "It's not just Peralta - the jury found that everybody does it. It's a real moneymaker," said Jeff Stark, the Alameda County prosecutor who advised the investigation into the program's costs. PAM COMMENTARY: University of Wisconsin did the same thing in the 1980s. The middle class state residents whose taxes funded the school suddenly saw their children unable to afford or attend college, as the university implemented new policies in favor of foreign students who paid more. One of the reasons that I never liked President Clinton's Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna Shalala, was that she was an advocate of that policy change while an administrator at UW. (I'm not a fan Bush's Tommy Thompson either, another political wingnut from Wisconsin, but that's another story.) To this day, I remember the one American teaching assistant in the physics department ("Nick") telling me that almost all of the TAs in UW's physics department were from China, and that students had trouble understanding them in class. Some TAs couldn't speak English at all, most spoke it poorly. He said he was tired of every student in physics showing up at his office because they couldn't get their assignments or understand their own TAs in class. The system seemed design to encourage them to fail, and desperate to get through, students tracked him down and asked him for the help promised by the university but not really delivered. That was in the 80s. I have yet to hear what's happening there today. Food Poisoning? Holy Guacamole! And Salsa, Too. (12 July 2010) Salsa and guacamole are chock-full of raw vegetables, such as hot peppers, tomatoes and cilantro, all of which have been implicated in outbreaks over the years. The analysis of 25 years worth of foodborne outbreaks reported to the CDC found 136 linked to salsa or guacamole or both. The researchers dubbed them SGA — short for salsa- and guacamole-associated — outbreaks. Nice. (For more info, search for "Board 12" in this PDF from the meeting.) When big batches of salsa or guac aren't kept cold, contaminating microbes can grow like wild. Most of the outbreaks came from restaurant food, and hygiene, or lack of it for workers, was a big issue. Before 1984, there were no reports of SGA outbreaks. But for the decade ending in 2008, the SGA outbreaks constituted nearly 4 percent of those tied to restaurants. UK Food Standards Agency to be abolished by health secretary (12 July 2010) Andrew Burnham, Labour's health spokesman, said: "Getting rid of the FSA is the latest in a number of worrying steps that show Andrew Lansley caving in to the food industry. It does raise the question whether the health secretary wants to protect the public health or promote food companies." Tam Fry of the National Obesity Forum, said it was "crazy" to dismember the FSA. "It had a hugely important role in improving the quality of foodstuffs in Britain and it was vital to have at the centre of government a body that championed healthy food. This appears just the old Conservative party being the political wing of business," Fry said. Tom MacMillan of the Food Ethics Council, said: "The agency was set up to earn public trust after a succession of food scares. Its wobbles, like the latest row over GM foods, have come when that commitment has wavered. Any departments absorbing the FSA's role should heed that lesson carefully, doing even more to invite scrutiny and banish the slightest whiff of secrecy, or the new government could face another BSE." Patrick Holden, director of the Soil Association, the organic food standard-bearer, which had several run-ins with the first FSA chair Lord Krebs on the issue, said: "Many NGOs campaigning on food thought for a long time the food industry has an unhealthy degree of influence over the Department of Health so the great risk is the corporate vested interests of the food industry will have too strong an influence on future policy." Mark Purdey's Organophosphate Model of Mad Cow Disease (FLASHBACK) (3 January 2003) Somerset farmer Mark Purdey observed that the UK's Mad Cow outbreak immediately followed the government's attempt to eradicate the parasite warble fly from cattle. Most farmers were required to treat their cows' spines and skulls with Phosmet, an organophosphate pesticide. Because Purdey was an organic farmer, he obtained special permission to avoid treating his cattle. He then observed that his neighbors' treated herds went on to contract Mad Cow Disease (BSE), whereas Purdey's untreated herds did not. Purdey also had purchased a non-organic herd which had been treated with Phosmet before he acquired it. That particular herd also went on to develop Mad Cow Disease. The bacterial model of Mad Cow Disease (FLASHBACK) (26 September 2004) Broxmeyer, a doctor who has treated TB in patients and studied it extensively, cites symptoms of TB which match the encephalopathy and neurological damage seen in Mad Cow Disease (BSE), Scrapie in sheep, and CJD in humans. He explains that Tuberculosis often assumes "L-forms," or cell-wall deficient forms, which are hard for researchers to detect using standard methods, and evade the animal's immune system. (This is also related to the bacterium's pleomorphic nature.) Mad Cow tissue was shown to be infectious in experimentation even without "prions" present, which could indicate that an agent like L-forms are at work. Bovine TB can also cause "downer cows" and both meningitis and encephalitis in cattle and humans. "Current mad cow diagnosis lies solely in the detection of late appearing 'prions', an acronym for hypothesized, gene-less, misfolded proteins, somehow claimed to cause the disease. Yet laboratory preparations of prions contain other things, which could include unidentified bacteria or viruses. Furthermore, the rigors of prion purification alone, might, in and of themselves, have killed the causative virus or bacteria. Therefore, even if samples appear to infect animals, it is impossible to prove that prions are causative." - Lawrence Broxmeyer, M.D., Is mad cow disease caused by a bacteria? I asked Dr. Broxmeyer about Mark Purdey's theory of Mad Cow Disease, the organophosphate/manganese poisoning model. Purdey's theory of an organophosphate-Mad Cow link started with the very compelling observation that Purdey's organic herd, untreated with organophosphate pesticides, did not contract Mad Cow Disease, whereas a non-organic herd of his own which had been treated and his neighbors' treated herds all contracted Mad Cow Disease. Also, the Mad Cow epidemic immediately followed the British government's mandatory treatment of cattle with organophosphate pesticides in order to "eradicate" the warble fly parasite. This was a very strong observation, and usually such observations are eventually proven correct by science. Although Broxmeyer doesn't think that the actual cause of Mad Cow goes beyond Bovine tuberculosis, and that blaming disease on agents such as organophosphates was a traditional flaw even in the history of discovering the real cause for tuberculosis, he admitted that there could be an indirect linkage with not only organophosphates but a host of other chemical and physical irritants. According to Broxmeyer, "Mankiewicz and Livingston's colleague Alexander-Jackson (1965) established that bacteriophages (also called phages), the viruses which live inside pathogens such as bovine and human tuberculosis could in and of themselves cause cytopathogenic change, even pre-malignancy in otherwise normal healthy mammalian tissue. Lwoff (1962) and early phage masters showed how the phages inside Mankiewicz's mycobacteria could be activated by a host of chemical and other agents, some pesticide-like, including organophosphates. Organophosphates therefore could be one of many irritants causing Mad Cow clinically in bovine tuberculosis infected cattle by causing them to activate the phage viruses within this disease. And since Nelson and Pickett (1951) showed that it was attack by these very same phage viruses which seemed to cause the majority of Klieneberger's cell-wall-deficient (pleomorphic) forms thru breech of the cell wall, organophosphates would indirectly cause them to propagate and the underlying disease in Mad Cow, central nervous system bovine tuberculosis would become aggravated." Broxmeyer however, because of the intricacies of such an organophosphate relationship and the fact that he felt Bovine TB itself, and not organophosphates, causes Mad Cow, chose not to cover that particular issue in his article. On the other hand, he draws freely from the "concept of Klieneberger and Livingston's viral (pleomorphic) forms of Bovine tuberculosis" to explain why some investigators might interpret that a virus is behind Mad Cow. "Of all the pathogens," he relates, "the preferred form of any tuberculosis or the mycobacteria is the cell-wall-deficient or pleomorphic state, a strategy they [the bacteria] have devised to create dormant forms which both go beneath the body's radar of detection and mean guaranteed survival." Obviously, with pleomorphism a forbidden yet well-known secret in the scientific community, little research would be funded or published to back such claims. Broxmeyer is one of the few researchers brave enough to cite Virginia Livingston as it is. (See my article on the Genetic Fad for a brief explanation of pleomorphism.) PAM COMMENTARY: It seems that everyone who knows about pleomorphism is familiar with the TB and cancer relationship. (A lesser known pleomorphic relationship, for example, is that between polio and streptococcus bacteria, discovered by a prestigious scientist working with Dr. Rife, Dr. Edward Rosenow. Rosenow was fired from Mayo Clinic for his scientific discoveries.) Many believe that the cancer virus discovered by Rife in the 1930s is in fact SV-40, the virus also discovered by Hulda Clark to be involved in her patients’ cancer. Numerous opinions have been published online claiming that AIDS is a mutated form of cancer developed from the SV-40 virus in biowarfare labs. (See Dr. Len Horowitz’ prolific work on this topic .) The TB/cancer organism is apparently very popular among biowarfare labs specifically because of its dormant forms and pleomorphic nature, making the organism hard for a patient to purge completely. BP asset sale would include part of Prudhoe, report says (12 July 2010) London's Sunday Times said Houston-based Apache was discussing the possibility of acquiring BP assets. The newspaper did not cite a source for its report. BP spokesman Robert Wine and Apache spokesman Bob Dye both said their companies would not comment on "speculation." Natalie Loman, an Alaska-based spokeswoman for ConocoPhillips, which owns about 36 percent of the Prudhoe Bay field, also declined to comment on the "market rumors." BP owns 26 percent of the field and ExxonMobil Corp. holds a stake of about 36 percent. Apache's exploration and production interests include the Gulf of Mexico, Western sedimentary basin of Canada, Egypt, western Australia, the North Sea and South America. The Sunday Times separately said that ExxonMobil is considering a bid for BP. Citing oil industry sources, the paper said ExxonMobil had approached the Obama administration for clearance to make a takeover offer. Coca Cola Commercial: A Closer Look (12 July 2010) PAM COMMENTARY: Alex Jones is posting this old news report on Aspartame. Gov Joe Manchin Holds the Fate of the Unemployment Extension Bill (11 July 2010) The West Virginian Governor [sought] legal advice from his Attorney General Darrell McGraw last week as to the legality of holding an early election, ahead of the one scheduled by state law for 2012. The advice he received back from McGraw was that an early election could be held this November. As of early Monday July 12th, with the Democrats still requiring that one vote in the senate, Gov Manchin has not made clear his intentions for the senate seat. It’s thought by many political observers that Manchin will seek the seat himself. If he does so, the political pundits said it would be most unlikely that he would to appoint a “temporary successor” in the interim. This would mean the senate seat would remain vacant until after the November election, leaving the Democrat’s one vote shy of having the numbers to pass the Extenders bill, which includes the unemployment insurance extension. This would be a social disaster for the unemployed Americans already without any source of income. And it’s expected that 200,000 jobless will lose [their] unemployment benefits every week after July 10th. Whales shout to be heard over oceanic noise pollution (11 July 2010) This is also one of the first studies to assess changes in whale calls as a response to increases in ambient noise, rather than increases in single-source noises. The North Atlantic right whale is a type of baleen whale that is listed as an endangered species. Its primary habitat is in the coastal waters of the eastern United States and Canada, an area with high levels of commercial, naval and recreational shipping traffic, said Susan Parks, lead author of the study and assistant professor of acoustics at Pennsylvania State University. Further, the noise generated from the commercial ships has the same pitch as a right whale's call, Parks said. "This is a problem because its noise source overlaps the frequency range of the whales' calls," she added. Said Stephanie Watwood, a visiting biologist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, who was not involved in the study: "Most of the focus previously has been on the effect of noise from intense sounds, like military testing or underwater construction, and this study focuses on the effects of lower, ambient level noises, which can affect a greater number of individuals in the environment for longer periods of time." Sound is an important aspect of the right whales' survival because they rely on it for vital life functions, such as communication, navigation and feeding. "All of these whales live in the world of Stevie Wonder," Gaydos said. "It's all about acoustics for them. Seeing is more difficult, so it's all about sound." FDA nears approval of genetically engineered salmon (11 July 2010) Aquaculture is already an $86 billion-a-year business, with nearly half of all fish consumed globally farm raised. As wild stocks dwindle and the world's population heads toward 9 billion, fish farmers will be looking for fish that will be market-ready quicker. Even so, skeptics abound. Fears persist about possible health risks from genetically modified food in general, but concerns about bioengineered salmon also extend to the environment. Farmed salmon are raised in net pens in coastal waters along Washington state, Maine and British Columbia. Most commonly, the fish being raised are Atlantic salmon, and the fear is they'll escape and compete with endangered native stocks. By some estimates, between 400,000 and 1 million Atlantic salmon have escaped into the wild from the 75 or so net-pen operations in British Columbia. A Purdue University study using a computer model, widely criticized by the biotechnology industry, showed that if 60 transgenic fish bred in a population of 60,000 wild fish, the wild fish would be extinct in 40 generations. Solar energy takes off in U.S. as cost declines (11 June 2010) Indeed, the biggest obstacle to the growth of solar energy—its cost—has started to decline. The price of photovoltaic solar panels dropped more than 40 per cent last year due to a glut in global supply, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association. The drop in price is driving renewed interest in solar energy, said Howard Learner, executive director of the Environmental Law and Policy Center. Last month, Illinois lawmakers passed legislation that will double the state’s solar power supply each year and create an estimated 5,000 “green” jobs by 2014. Meanwhile, at least three solar developers have plans to build solar projects of 10 to 20 megawatts in Illinois, Learner said. To be sure, Illinois is not quite the solar-powered mecca of California or Florida. But the potential is there: The sun in Illinois is more intense than in Japan or Germany, the world’s two largest solar markets. Stimulus money coming in mostly goes elsewhere (11 July 2010) The largest business recipient of federal stimulus dollars in Virginia is located on the 16th floor of a downtown office building where it employs no one. It exists primarily on paper, a shell to act as a conduit for defense contracts for its owners. Atlantic Contingency Constructors LLC was created in April 2006 and registered in Louisiana, a joint venture between The Shaw Group Inc., a large national construction firm based in Baton Rouge, La., and the Los Angeles-based engineering giant AECOM. Shaw Environmental & Infrastructure, a unit of Shaw Group, is Atlantic Contingency's managing partner. Such arrangements are not uncommon in defense contracting. Shaw Environmental Inc. pays the rent and employs the workers in the office on the 16th floor of the BB&T building in Norfolk. Atlantic Contingency became Hampton Roads' largest recipient of stimulus dollars last summer when it was awarded $101.3 million to install solar-energy systems at Navy facilities around the country. The money came from the Defense Department's share of the $787 billion federal stimulus package approved by Congress in early 2009. Secret gold swap has spooked the market (11 July 2010) Concerns hinged on whether the BIS could potentially sell on this vast cache of bullion in the event of a default, flooding the market with liquidity. It appears to have raised $14bn for whoever's been doing the swapping – small fry on the currency markets, but serious liquidity in the gold market. Denominated in euros, gold has fallen 8pc since the beginning of the month and is now trading at a seven-week low of €937 per troy ounce. The big gold exchange traded funds (ETFs) – having peaked at record inflows in May – have also been showing net outflows over the past few days. Meanwhile, economists and gold market-watchers were determined to hunt down which bank is short of cash – curious about who is using their stash of precious metal for what looks suspiciously like a secret bailout. Microscope allows a sharper look at molecules (11 June 2010) The resolution improvement was achieved by ridding existing technology of two errors. First, the team found that light detectors on microscopes are not perfectly consistent in the way they handle light rays that hit them at different points; this results in fuzzy images that make it difficult to distinguish two spots that lie within a few nanometers of each other. The researchers developed software to fix this problem. They also used a laser to stabilize the microscope stage, further sharpening the images. The researchers said they were working toward experiments in an even more realistic environment: a living cell. Previous studies using this and related technologies to study biological molecules in action were done under conditions thought to mimic a cell, but whole cells are much more complex and delicate. Chu said running a lab didn't affect his work as secretary of Energy. He takes care of his research in his leisure time, he said. PAM COMMENTARY: Sounds a little like Royal Rife's microscopes of the 1930s, although Rife solved the resolution problem (80 years earlier) by not allowing light beams to cross and diffract. Health industry workers die, get cancer from chemo drugs (11 July 2010) Crump, who died of pancreatic cancer last September at age 55, was one of thousands of health care workers who were chronically exposed to chemotherapy agents on the job for years before there were any safety guidelines in place. Now, some of those workers, like Crump, are being diagnosed with cancers that occupational health specialists say could be linked to that exposure. Their ranks include Bruce Harrison of St. Louis, Karen Lewis of Baltimore — both pharmacists —and Brett Cordes, a veterinarian from Scottsdale, Ariz. All, like Crump, worked extensively with or around chemotherapy. (See profiles below.) All of them eventually got cancer, or in Lewis’ case a pre-cancerous condition. All believed their disease was linked to workplace exposures and became symbols for increased safety. Cordes, who was diagnosed four years ago at age 35, and Lewis, who was diagnosed in her 50s, are both undergoing treatment. Harrison died at age 59. Tracing an individual’s cancer to a particular exposure is difficult. It’s one of the main reasons safety advocates have been thwarted in their efforts to get stricter regulations. But many who study these agents fear lax safety standards are resulting in ongoing exposures that continue to put current workers at future risk. A just-completed study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, 10 years in the making and the largest to date, confirms that chemo continues to contaminate the workspaces where it’s used, and in some cases is still being found in the urine of those who handle it, despite knowledge of safety precautions. PAM COMMENTARY: This article refers to chemo drugs as "life saving" and makes claims that they have saved lives. I don't endorse or agree with any of those statements -- people in the alternative health field would say that patients survive cancer DESPITE chemo drugs, not because of them. Even doctors know that chemo drugs can and do cause death and cancer in many cases -- it's a "side effect." This is why Lorraine Day, M.D., Chief of Orthopedic Surgery at San Francisco General Hospital at the time of her cancer diagnosis, refused chemo and went on to cure her own cancer using dietary and lifestyle changes. (Note that I prefer to include more than just Dr. Day's protocols in an alternative cancer regimen, for example a zapper and the flaxseed oil portion of the Budwig diet -- see below for links to YouTube videos that I made on cancer protocols. Dietary changes are important though, which is why I included them.) However, this article does have good information on risks to health industry workers who handle chemo drugs, and so I'm including it here. End of Census, and for Many, End of Job (11 July 2010) When the Census Bureau hired upward of 700,000 Americans over the last two years — most in the last six months — it landed more experienced workers with more sophisticated skills than any time in recent memory. This was the unintended upside of the nastiest recession of the last 70 years. Now, its decennial work largely done, the Census Bureau is shedding hundreds of thousands of workers — about 225,000 in just the last few weeks, enough to account for a jot or two in the unemployment rate, say federal economists. Most of those remaining will be gone by August; a few will last into September. In past decades, the bureau faced a challenge just keeping workers around to close up shop, as most dashed for new jobs that might pay better. Not this time around. Jobs remain scarce. In Rhode Island, the unemployment rate stands at 12.3 percent, higher than a year ago. The national rate, too, has not budged. As most census workers have nowhere to go, rushed farewells are rare. Self-reflection, and a touch of anxiety, mark the mood. White House: Republicans could win control of House (11 July 2010) In the run-up to the vote, Obama is trying to convince impatient Americans that his economic policies are working and that improvements will take time. "We understand people are frustrated, everybody is frustrated," Gibbs said. "Look, the president is frustrated that we haven't seen greater recovery efforts, but that doesn't stop us from doing what we know is right, instituting the policies that we know will bring the country back," he added. Obama and his fellow Democrats are grappling with a range of problems and many political analysts see the election as a national referendum on his policies. The economy is struggling and unemployment has hovered at just below 10 percent. The war in Afghanistan is not going well. And the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has prompted criticism that Obama's response was slow, disorganized and too easy on BP Plc. PAM COMMENTARY: Everyone seems to forget the health care "reform" vote. Why did Scott Brown win Massachusetts -- Ted Kennedy's old seat, of all things? People hated that health care legislation, but they voted for it anyway, didn't they? The Wall Street bailouts, the wimpy "reform" now before Congress, stalls in extending Unemployment Compensation during times of severe hardship, among other things -- it's as though they never intended to be reelected. Six months after the quake, Haitians homeless, still live in squalor (11 July 2010) As Haitians commemorate the six-month anniversary on Monday of the 7.0 earthquake that killed up to 300,000 people, the Corail camp has become a symbol of how the nation's once-promising reconstruction effort has gone off the rails. Set on a treeless flood plain 16 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince, the camp is home to about 10,000 Haitians who lost their homes on Jan. 12. The tents here are laid out in a neat grid with ample space between lodgings. Outdoor toilets are set in the middle of wide dirt thoroughfares, well away from the living quarters. United Nations troops and Haiti's national police conduct regular patrols. But the camp is utterly without shade from the relentless Caribbean sun, which pushes daily temperatures near 40 C. The tallest green, living things are the cacti that stand sentry outside the camp's perimeter. The tents themselves rest on a vast bed of gravel, which is necessary for stability and drainage but gives the camp the barren look of base camp at Mount Everest. News from the Week of 4th to 10th of July 2010 The remainder of links for this week will be updated soon, sorry for the delay. - PR Mercury News editorial: Opposition to job creation about politics, not economics (4 July 2010) Last week, for the third time, Senate Republicans blocked an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed. That means as many as 3.3 million Americans will lose their checks by month's end. Their landlords, grocers and phone companies will also stop getting paid. Republicans say the $34 billion cost shouldn't be added to the deficit. It may sound fiscally responsible, but it's not — and it's not how they voted when there was a Republican president. In January 2008, when the unemployment rate was 5 percent — about half what it is today — Republicans overwhelmingly backed a stimulus bill that sent checks of about $1,500 to most U.S. households. That cost $150 billion, every penny of it borrowed. Sen. Mitch McConnell, the leader of the opposition to the current effort, voted yes, along with 31 other Republicans in the Senate and 169 in the House. That's just one example of past GOP support for the mantra, "Deficits don't matter." Multiple Bush-era tax cuts added $1.7 trillion to the national debt just through 2008, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Never mind the cost of two wars and a new prescription drug benefit. Big bucks from cancer: Roche makes billions on Genentech's cancer drugs (4 July 2010) "Success ultimately equates into power, and that's exactly what we are seeing at Roche/Genentech," said Jörg de Vries-Hippen, chief investment officer for European equities at Allianz Global Investors in Frankfurt. "Now that the full integration has taken place, it's the Genentech guys being promoted and getting the key positions." Besides the billions it spent to buy Genentech, Roche has another reason to handle the biotech company carefully: its lucrative cancer drugs. Three of Genentech's cancer therapies - Avastin, Rituxan and Herceptin - together logged sales of $15.36 billion last year, topping the revenue for Roche's 10 best-selling non-Genentech medicines. Genentech generated revenue per employee of $1.2 million in 2008, compared with $527,664 at its Swiss parent. Wall Street analysts tie Roche's future to Genentech's continued success. "Roche's long-term sales growth is better than its peers mainly due to a subsidiary that's been churning out its key blockbusters, while its own research unit hasn't been as productive," said Carri Duncan, an analyst at Macquarie Group in Zurich. "It appears to be a case of, 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.' " - Pam's demonstration of the Hulda Clark zapper (FLASHBACK) (2009) - Pam discusses the Hulda Clark zapper as "Experimental" medicine - Zapper warnings, side effects - Pam's hour-long series on alternative cancer protocols (6 video series) PAM COMMENTARY: For those interested in alternative cancer protocols, I don't charge a cent for information on the Hulda Clark zapper and other protocols that I like. The zapper itself could cost you between $50 and $200+, depending on whether you are able to make your own, or choose to buy one of the better zappers on the market. Squirrel in California campground tests positive for plague (4 July 2010) A Southern California campground has been shut down after a squirrel captured two weeks ago tested positive for plague. Los Angeles County public health director Jonathan Fielding tells the Los Angeles times Sunday that Los Alamos Campground in the Angeles National Forest was shut down Saturday and will remain closed for at least ten days. Plague is a bacterial disease in wild rodents that can be transmitted to humans through the bite of infected fleas. Squirrel burrows in the area near Gorman will be dusted for fleas, and further testing will be conducted before the campground is reopened. Fielding notes that there have been four cases of human plague in LA County since 1984, none of which were fatal. Expert Says Almost Every Cleanup Worker From The 1989 Exxon Valdez Disaster Is Now Dead (4 July 2010) Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead. In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early. Saving the brown pelican (4 July 2010) Oil begins its slow and painful death sentence on birds. Oil robs the birds of their natural waterproofing. A pelican's body temperature is between 103 and 105 degrees. So even in the sweltering heat and humidity of summer in the bayou, a pelican will get cold. It becomes disoriented and weak. Pelicans are constantly preening and cleaning their feathers, so oil gets into their stomachs and they get sick. If they're covered heavily in oil, they become immobile and starve to death. Or they die of hypothermia. It's so tragic and immoral. So unnecessary and criminal. Did you know that pelicans are monogamous? They're not like dogs or cats - or a Tiger - that chases anything with a tail. A pelican covered in oil is taken from its partner and baby chicks. Without this pelican, its unprotected babies probably will die in the wild. If an oil-covered pelican is lucky, someone will find it and call the Wildlife and Fish Service. Staffers will come get the bird and bring it to the warehouse in Fort Jackson. Then a decision will be made - can this bird be saved? If it's too broken and sick, the Bird Rescue staff will euthanize it. They hate to do that. Migrating birds' rest stop could be deathtrap (4 July 2010) Over the 10 weeks crude has been gushing into the Gulf, more than 2,000 pelicans, cormorants, gannets and water birds have been plucked from gooey slicks and blackened shorelines -- about 60 percent of them already dead. Those numbers could soar, starting as early as this weekend. In the coming months, birds begin migrating from as far north as the Arctic into the coastal marshes, estuaries and beaches. For many, the seasonal rest and refueling stop could wind up a deathtrap. Federal wildlife managers and scientists are hatching plans to create new, unfouled havens by flooding idle farm fields and other measures. But they acknowledge there is only so much they can do to distract birds from danger zones in the 120 miles of coastline from Louisiana to Florida already contaminated by oil. ``We won't be able to dramatically affect migration in any way, shape or form,'' said Paul Schmidt, assistant director for migratory birds for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. ``The birds are still going to do what they do in the natural cycle.'' Embattled BP still big fuel supplier to U.S. military (4 July 2010) WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has kept up its immense purchases of aviation fuel and other petroleum products from BP even as the oil giant comes under federal and state scrutiny for potential violations of clean-water and oil-spill laws related to the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, according to U.S. and company officials. President Obama said last month the company had shown "recklessness" in the Gulf of Mexico that contributed to the disaster and promised that BP will "pay for the damage" it caused. Attorney General Eric Holder said June 2 that Justice Department lawyers were looking at potential violations of civil and criminal statutes, adding that "if we find evidence of illegal behavior, we will be forceful in our response." But BP remains a heavy supplier of military fuel under contracts worth at least $980 million in the current fiscal year, according to the Defense Logistics Agency. In fiscal 2009, BP was the department's largest single supplier of fuel, providing 11.7 percent of the total purchased, and in 2010, its contracts amount to roughly the same percentage, according to agency spokeswoman Mimi Schirmacher. The no-fly list — legal limbo for victims of the war on terror (4 July 2010) One is a disabled former Marine, born in Miami and living in Egypt. Another is a 28-year-old student from Corona, Calif., a German citizen and permanent resident of the United States. Another is a refugee from Guinea who works as a caregiver for a family in New York. Another is an Air Force veteran and retired fireman, originally from Las Cruces, N.M. There are 10 of them in all, 10 individuals from 10 walks of life who it turns out do have something in common not only with one another, but also with several toddlers, nuns and the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Namely, they've all been refused permission to board planes bound for, or traveling within, the United States, because their names showed up on a terrorist "no-fly" list. As of last week, the 10 have something else in common. They are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU against Attorney General Eric Holder, FBI Director Robert Mueller and Timothy Healy, director of the FBI's Terrorist Screening Center. The ACLU is seeking an injunction on behalf of individuals who, as the suit puts it, "the government deems too dangerous to fly, but too harmless to arrest." It's more than a clever turn of phrase. It is also an apt description of the legal limbo to which the government has consigned an untold number of innocent people in the name of fighting terror. Kayaker finds dozens of veterans grave markers in Lehigh River (4 July 2010) ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A kayaker from Allentown found in the Lehigh River a cache of 46 grave markers used to commemorate military service. Joe Brozowski said Sunday he was kayaking near Catasauqua's Pine Street bridge on June 25 when he noticed dozens of markers under about two feet of water. "I noticed exactly what they were," he said. "The number of them was a pretty sad sight." Veterans groups and local governments typically place small markers, which come in various shapes and are made of various materials, at the graves of veterans to honor their military service. Woman rushing to meet Queen, sparks scare after church service (4 July 2010) TORONTO — Security for the royal visit was taken aback Sunday when a woman broke free from the crowd and approached the Queen as she and her husband, Prince Philip, were leaving a church service in downtown Toronto. Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh were walking toward a group of little girls presenting the Queen with flowers when an older woman stopped the Queen. Security rushed up to the woman but appeared reluctant to physically stop her. The woman, who was not immediately identified, said a few words to the Queen and gave her something in a black plastic bag. The woman, who was in her 60s, dressed in red and held a cane, also said a few words to Prince Philip before security ushered her away. BP, cops detain reporter for taking pictures of oil refinery (4 July 2010) Rosenfield, an experienced freelance photographer, said he was detained shortly after shooting a photograph of a Texas City sign on a public roadway. Rosenfield said he was followed by a BP employee in a truck after taking the picture and blocked by two police cars when he pulled into a gas station. According to Rosenfield, the officers said they had a right to look at photos taken near secured areas of the refinery, even if they were shot from public property. Rosenfield said he was told he would be "taken in" if he declined to comply. Michael Marr, a BP spokesman, released a statement explaining the company's actions: “BP Security followed the industry practice that is required by federal law. The photographer was released with his photographs after those photos were viewed by a representative of the Joint Terrorism Task Force who determined that the photographer's actions did not pose a threat to public safety.” Paul Steiger, editor-in-chief of ProPublica, said: "We certainly appreciate the need to secure the nation's refineries. But we're deeply troubled by BP's conduct here, especially when they knew we were working on deadline on critical stories about this very facility. And we see no reason why, if law enforcement needed to review the unpublished photographs, that should have included sharing them with a representative of a private company." PAM COMMENTARY: That's it -- I’m throwing in my full support for the BP boycott now, just for this egregious violation of the First Amendment. BP and the cops should have Federal charges filed against them, or at minimum be sued in a civil court for civil rights violations. Notice that the two oil companies known for having famous journalists detained (BP and Exxon) were both responsible for massive spills and other disasters. Perhaps they have something ELSE to hide (other than the explosion that killed employees there in the past)? Read on... BP Refinery Safety Record Industry's Worst: Watchdog (FLASHBACK) (17 May 2010) BP's safety record has come under intense scrutiny ever since the blowout and resulting explosion at its Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig led to the deaths of 11 workers, injuries to others, and the still uncontrolled spewing of tens of thousands of barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico. On Monday, the Center for Public Integrity reported that its analysis of Occupational Safety and Health Administration records for the energy giant revealed that it has racked up far more serious safety violations at its refineries than its competitors. In a report with the unambiguous title "Renegade Refiner: OSHA Says BP Has Systemic Safety Problem" the CPI, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group writes that 97 percent of the worst violations were found at BP refineries. An excerpt from it's report: - BP is battling a massive oil well spill in the Gulf of Mexico after an April 20 platform blast that killed 11 workers. But the firm has been under intense OSHA scrutiny since its refinery in Texas City, Texas, exploded in March 2005, killing 15 workers. While continuing its probe in Texas City, OSHA launched a nationwide refinery inspection program in June 2007 in response to a series of fires, explosions and chemical releases throughout the industry. - Refinery inspection data obtained by the Center under the Freedom of Information Act for OSHA's nationwide program and for the parallel Texas City inspection show that BP received a total of 862 citations between June 2007 and February 2010 for alleged violations at its refineries in Texas City and Toledo, Ohio. - Of those, 760 were classified as "egregious willful" and 69 were classified as "willful." Thirty of the BP citations were deemed "serious" and three were unclassified. Virtually all of the citations were for alleged violations of OSHA's process safety management standard, a sweeping rule governing everything from storage of flammable liquids to emergency shutdown systems. BP accounted for 829 of the 851 willful violations among all refiners cited by OSHA during the period analyzed by the Center. PAM COMMENTARY: Is this why BP is having journalists arrested now? To try to stop more coverage of their horrible safety record? Palast Charged With Journalism in The First Degree (FLASHBACK) 11 September 2006 It's true. It's weird. It's nuts. The Department of Homeland Security, after a five-year hunt for Osama, has finally brought charges against... Greg Palast. I kid you not. Send your cakes with files to the Air America wing at Guantanamo. Though not just yet. Fatherland Security has informed me that television producer Matt Pascarella and I have been charged with unauthorized filming of a "critical national security structure" in Louisiana. Click here to Read the full story. Click here for the first part and here for the second part of the Democracy Now! report. On August 22nd, for LinkTV and DemocracyNow! we videotaped the thousands of Katrina evacuees still held behind barbed wire in a trailer park encampment a hundred miles from New Orleans. It's been a year since the hurricane and 73,000 POW's (Prisoners of W) are still in this aluminum ghetto in the middle of nowhere. One resident Pamela Lewis said, "It is a prison set-up" -- except there are no home furloughs for these inmates because they no longer have homes. To give a sense of the full flavor and smell of the place, we wanted to show that this human parking lot, with kids and elderly, is nearly adjacent to the Exxon Oil refinery, the nation's second largest, a chemical-belching behemoth. So we filmed it. Without Big Brother's authorization. Uh, oh. Apparently, the broadcast of these stinking smokestacks tipped off Osama that, if his assassins pose as poor Black folk, they can get a cramped Airstream right next to a "critical infrastructure" asset. So now Matt and I have a "criminal complaint" lodged against us with the feds. The positive side for me as a journalist is that I get to see our terror-busters in action. I should note that it took the Maxwell Smarts at Homeland Security a full two weeks to hunt us down. Frankly, we were a bit scared that, given the charges, we wouldn't be allowed on a plane into New York last night. But what scared us more is that we were allowed on the plane. Once I was traced, I had a bit of an other-worldly conversation with my would-be captors. Detective Frank Pananepinto of Homeland Security told us, "This is a 'Critical Infrastructure'... and they get nervous about unauthorized filming of their property." Well, me too, Detective. In fact, I'm very nervous that this potential chemical blast-site can be mapped in extreme detail at this Google Map location. What also makes me nervous is that the Bush Terror Terriers have kindly indicated on the Internet that this unprotected critical infrastructure can be targeted -- I mean located -- at 30 29' 11" N Latitude and 91 11' 39" W Longitude. After I assured Detective Pananepinto, "I can swear to you that I'm not part of Al Qaeda," he confirmed that, "Louisiana is still part of the United States," subject to the First Amendment and he was therefore required to divulge my accuser. Not surprisingly, it was Exxon Corporation, one of a handful of companies not in love with my investigations. [See "A Well-Designed Disaster: the Untold Story of the Exxon Valdez."] PAM COMMENTARY: Try to read the whole article., including the links. It gets better (i.e., worse). A Well-Designed Disaster: the Untold Story of the Exxon Valdez (FLASHBACK) (6 November 2003) On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez broke open and covered twelve hundred miles of Alaska’s shoreline with oily sludge. The official story remains "Drunken Skipper Hits Reef." Don’t believe it. In fact, when the ship hit, Captain Joe Hazelwood was nowhere near the wheel, but belowdecks, sleeping off his bender. The man left at the helm, the third mate, would never have hit Bligh Reef had he simply looked at his Raycas radar. But he could not, because the radar was not turned on. The complex Raycas system costs a lot to operate, so frugal Exxon management left it broken and useless for the entire year before the grounding. The land Exxon smeared and destroyed belongs to the Chugach natives of the Prince William Sound. Within days of the spill, the Chugach tribal corporation asked me and my partner Lenora Stewart to investigate allegations of fraud by Exxon and the little-known "Alyeska" consortium. In three years’ digging, we followed a twenty-year train of doctored safety records, illicit deals between oil company chiefs, and programmatic harassment of witnesses. And we documented the oil majors’ brilliant success in that old American sport, cheating the natives. Our summary of evidence ran to four volumes. Virtually none of it was reported: The media had turned off its radar. Here’s a bit of the story you’ve never been told: We discovered an internal memo describing a closed, top-level meeting of oil company executives in Arizona held just ten months before the spill. It was a meeting of the "Alyeska Owners Committee," the six-company combine that owns the Alaska pipeline and most of the state’s oil. In that meeting, say the notes, the chief of their Valdez operations, Theo Polasek, warned executives that containing an oil spill "at the mid-point of Prince William Sound not possible with present equipment" -- exactly where the Exxon Valdez grounded. Polasek needed millions of dollars for spill-containment equipment. The law required it, the companies promised it to regulators, then at the meeting, the proposed spending was voted down. The oil company combine had a cheaper plan to contain any spill -- don’t bother. According to an internal memorandum, they’d just drop some dispersants and walk away. That’s exactly what happened. "At the owners committee meeting in Phoenix, it was decided that Alyeska would provide immediate response to oil spills in Valdez Arm and Valdez Narrows only" -- not the Prince William Sound. PAM COMMENTARY: Sound familiar? (The link in Palast’s article above is broken, and so I’m linking to a saved copy of his article here.) Previous BP Accidents Blamed On Safety Lapses (FLASHBACK) (6 May 2010) The Gulf of Mexico oil rig explosion and fire that killed 11 men and triggered a massive oil leak is not the first time BP has had to contend with a horrible accident or spill. In the past five years, two high-profile accidents have occurred at BP facilities — one at a Texas refinery, another at a pipeline in Alaska's Prudhoe Bay. In 2005, at a refinery in Texas City, Texas, 15 BP employees died and 170 were injured after a unit that manufactured jet fuel exploded. Temporary trailers had been placed as offices next to extremely volatile units. During the subsequent investigations, evidence emerged that BP management was focused on cutting maintenance and capital spending costs at the company's refineries. In fact, BP managers' performance was measured in part by their ability to meet these goals. A blue-ribbon panel headed by James Baker III concluded that BP had a "false sense of confidence" about safety. News from the Week of 27th of June to 3rd of July 2010 I will try to catch up earlier news links sometime in July -- this site suffered during tax season and then never really recovered, as there were more urgent things that also fell behind. Now I'll be backing up and migrating the site to a better hosting plan during the week starting July 4th. It is possible that the site may be down for a few minutes during that week if all doesn't go as planned. If you notice a lapse in coverage, please check back later! Things will be restored eventually. - PR News from the Week of 20th to 26th of June 2010 Again, I will try to catch up the news links soon. - PR Tornado hits Eagle, Wisconsin (22 June 2010) Of course I protested. I was just there, taking pictures. I only wanted to continue photographing the few roads that were still open to the public, I told the officer, who identified himself as Deputy Beckler from the Waukesha County Sheriffs Department. "You can't just drive around town and take pictures!" Beckler told me. I couldn't believe my ears. Had he ever even been to this country? "WHAT?!? Yes you CAN!" spontaneously sprang from my mouth, in a shocked tone that made it clear he should have studied harder. Buy that kid a copy of the First Amendment! News from the Week of 13th to 19th of June 2010 This week's links will be caught up later. - PR Where Gulf Spill Might Place on the Roll of Disasters (18 June 2010) The professors also note the impossibility of ranking such a varied list of catastrophes. Perhaps the worst disaster, they say, is always the one people are living through now. Still, for sheer disruption to human lives, several of them could think of no environmental problem in American history quite equaling the calamity known as the Dust Bowl. “The Dust Bowl is arguably one of the worst ecological blunders in world history,” said Ted Steinberg, a historian at Case Western Reserve University. Across the High Plains, stretching from the Texas Panhandle to the Dakotas, poor farming practices in the early part of the 20th century stripped away the native grasses that held moisture and soil in place. A drought that began in 1930 exposed the folly. Alberta boasts biggest dinosaur graveyard in world; Coastal floods may explain rich fossil beds (18 June 2010) CALGARY - Scientists in Alberta say they've uncovered the largest dinosaur graveyard in the world and unlocked the mystery of why so many fossils are found in the province. A 2.3-square-kilometre bonebed containing thousands of bones belonging to a horned dinosaur called the Centrosaurus was found near Hilda, about 50 kilometres north of Medicine Hat, according to David Eberth, a senior research assistant with the Royal Tyrrell Museum. The site, he said "is really ugly looking. The bone bed is actually exposed, it's very patchy and exposed in outcrops along the beautiful landscapes along the South Saskatchewan River." The dino graveyard was actually discovered in the late '90s. However, publications confirming the discovery will be published this month. Lieberman Introduces Bill Targeting Internet Freedom [Infowars] (18 June 2010) “For all of its ‘user-friendly’ allure, the Internet can also be a dangerous place with electronic pipelines that run directly into everything from our personal bank accounts to key infrastructure to government and industrial secrets,” said senator Joe. “Our economic security, national security and public safety are now all at risk from new kinds of enemies — cyber-warriors, cyber-spies, cyber-terrorists and cyber-criminals.” The “technoignoramus Liarman and his fellow kleptoplutocrats,” as Scott Evans describes them, are attempting to scare the plebs into accepting this First Amendment destroying legislation — not that it matters because, as Jim DeMint has revealed, these corporate and bankster commissars pass legislation in secret without the consent of the plebs they supposedly represent. Cybersecurity is simply another stratagem contrived by the government to shut down the free flow of information. In a non-bizarro world where globalist control freaks would not be allowed to run roughshod over to Constitution and the Bill of Rights, network security would be the responsibility of the owners of those networks. The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act was introduced by Lieberman, Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE). It follows a similar bill introduced by Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) which would allow the federal government to unilaterally “order the disconnection” of targeted websites. Rockefeller opined at the time we would all be better off if the internet was never invented. PAM COMMENTARY: You know, companies pay IT security guys the big bucks to secure their servers. If they don't, then whose fault is that? And for those who wonder why I use Paypal on my sites instead of programming my own shopping cart, it's because Paypal handles the online transaction security in exchange for a small percentage of sales. That's how a small vendor makes sure that financial transactions are secure -- by using software programmed by a company that can afford good security analysts. Sometimes criminals are able to get through, but if security is set up properly it's pretty hard, and to say that the internet is wide open to such attacks is an exaggeration, probably for a political agenda. Microsoft opens center for reports of identity and data theft (18 June 2010) In a major step to slow cybercrime, Microsoft on Thursday launched a coalition that will serve as a clearinghouse for reports about caches of stolen data stashed all across the Internet. Malicious programs crafted to swipe your financial and personal data have come to saturate the Internet — so much so that security researchers routinely ferret out computer servers used by cybercrooks to hoard stolen data. Until now, there was no specific process for reporting such discoveries. The Internet Fraud Alert center — spearheaded by Microsoft and managed by the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance (NCFTA) — will serve as a reporting hub. Stolen payment card numbers and online banking account logons will be routed to the issuing banks. The institutions will then decide whether to alert customers, suspend the accounts or pursue legal remedies. Stolen Social Security numbers, birthdates and other personal data will be archived offline by the NCFTA and made available, as needed, to law enforcement. Coast Guard moving to capture oil closer to shore (18 June 2010) Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen said Friday that about 2,000 private boats will be more closely linked through a tighter command and control structure to direct them to locations less than 50 miles offshore to skim the oil in the Gulf of Mexico, the Associated Press reports. Estimates of the oil being siphoned from the leaking well are growing. More than 1.2 million gallons was sucked up to containment vessels Thursday, Allen said. Who's in charge of BP's Gulf oil spill response? Chairman says CEO on way out, others say no (18 June 2010) BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg told Britain's Sky News television on Friday that CEO Tony Hayward is on his way out as the company's point man on the Gulf oil spill crisis. He said Hayward "is now handing over the operations, the daily operations to (BP Managing Director) Bob Dudley." Other company officials insisted, however, that Hayward was still the man and that the switch had already been announced and isn't immediate. Navy head Ray Mabus navigates Gulf recovery (18 June 2010) Then, upon taking office as the nation’s youngest governor in 1988, Mabus uttered six words that would come to haunt his brief political career: “Mississippi will never be last again.” It was the ambitious slogan of a 39-year-old reformer, swept into office on a change-minded platform, aimed at improving the state’s literacy and employment rates, which have frequently been among the worst in the country. But Mabus struggled to find the funds to pay for his reforms. “With each succeeding year, those national indices would come out, and the state was, indeed, last. After two or three years of that festering, his opponents were reminding him that he couldn’t move the needle fast enough to change things before reelection,” said Sid Salter, a Mississippi political reporter and columnist who has chronicled the state for decades. In the 1991 reelection campaign, Mabus faced an anti-affirmative-action, conservative populist named Kirk Fordice, who hammered on Mabus’s Ivy League bona fides in an effort to portray him as out of touch with the state’s problems. Mabus’s painful lack of ease in retail politics was easily portrayed by Fordice as Harvard-born aloofness. Despite his lineage as the son of a timber farmer in tiny Ackerman in central Mississippi, Mabus got tagged with the image of an elitist who could not connect with ordinary folks. PAM COMMENTARY: I'm still a little spooked by Mabus' last name exactly matching Nostradamus' third and therefore biblical antichrist. And we all thought that Bush was the third antichrist, with the long red-tailed comet coming early in his term, and the starting of the long wars and all... China's stimulus spending created infrastructure projects that may not be needed (18 June 2010) BEIJING -- In late 2008, with the financial crisis rippling through the global economy, China's leaders embarked on a two-year, $586 billion spending program to try to stave off a recession and keep the Chinese economy growing. Unlike in the United States -- where President Obama's large stimulus plan became the subject of protracted congressional wrangling and was shaped to include tax cuts and aid to states -- Chinese leaders followed a simple mandate: Spend and build. Forget the tax cuts; in China, it was infrastructure, infrastructure and more infrastructure. China was already awash in big-ticket construction projects. The stimulus allowed China to speed up some projects, begin digging on others and extend the building boom to less-developed areas in the country's west and north. The result, 18 months after the stimulus was introduced, is an astonishing frenzy of building -- highways, subways, airports, bridges, high-speed rail lines and even new cities constructed, literally, in the middle of nowhere. Tom Engelhardt on "The American Way of War: How Bush’s Wars Became Obama’s" [DN] (18 June 2010) TOM ENGELHARDT: What I mean is that in the Cold War, which we’ve largely forgotten at this point, the Soviet leaders made a kind of a basic miscalculation. They mistook military power for global power. They poured all their money functionally into their military. They got stuck in Afghanistan, very much like us, for ten years. In the meantime, their budget deficits were going up. They were growing—their indebtedness to other countries was growing. Their infrastructure was beginning to crumble. The very society they had built was beginning to crumble. And when the Red Army came out of Afghanistan—it limped out in 1989, after a decade—it basically returned to a country that didn’t exist, because within two years the Soviet Union collapsed. In Washington, this caught everybody by surprise. Everybody expected the Cold War to go on and on. When American leaders saw this happen, they declared victory. The world was without an enemy at this point. And they—in one of the more striking decisions, I think, that’s been made in many, many years, they decided then to follow the Soviet path. And they began—and they put the so-called peace dividend in a ditch, and they began to pour money, successive administrations, as we know, up through the Bush administration into today, into the American military, while budget deficits rose, indebtedness rose, infrastructure crumbled, and the society began to—you know, began to weaken. Now, the United States is not the Soviet Union. It was always by far the more powerful country. And it isn’t today the Soviet Union in 1989 or 1991. But it is striking that our leaders, in declaring victory, decided to go down, in essence, the Soviet path, which was the path to implosion. Minorities hit harder by foreclosure crisis (18 June 2010) Minority homeowners have been disproportionately affected by the foreclosure crisis and stand to lose homes at a faster pace than white borrowers in the future, according to a report released Friday by a nonprofit research group. The study by the Center for Responsible Lending found that whites made up the majority of the 2.5 million foreclosures completed between 2007 and 2009 -- about 56 percent -- but that minority communities had significantly higher foreclosure rates. While about 4.5 percent of white borrowers lost their homes to foreclosure during that period, black and Latino borrowers had 7.9 and 7.7 percent foreclosure rates, respectively. That means that blacks and Latinos were more than 70 percent more likely to lose their homes to foreclosure during that period, the study found. Overall, blacks lost about 240,020 homes to foreclosure, while Latinos lost about 335,950, according to the study, which analyzed government and industry data on millions of loans issued between 2005 and 2008 -- the height of the housing boom. Feds charge 1,200 people in mortgage fraud crackdown (18 June 2010) Reporting from Orange County, Washington and New — Seeking to show victories against the kind of ground-level fraud that contributed to the housing crash, federal authorities said Thursday that they had filed criminal charges in recent months against 1,200 mortgage brokers and others accused of cheating banks and borrowers of $2.3 billion. White-collar crime experts said the size and scope of what the government presented Thursday — dubbed Operation Stolen Dreams — represented an unprecedented crackdown on mortgage fraud. First-time home-buyer credit may vanish soon (18 June 2010) Time is running out to qualify for California's first-time home-buyer tax credit. The state Franchise Tax Board has received applications claiming about 80 percent of the funds allocated for the credit. Although it's hard to predict, tax board spokeswoman Denise Azimi says the credit could be gone within a few weeks. In March, the Legislature approved $100 million in state tax credits for first-time home buyers who purchase a new or existing home in California. To qualify, the buyer must close escrow after May 1 and before the $100 million runs out. The credit is 5 percent of the purchase price or $10,000, whichever is less, spread over three years. To make full use of the credit, the buyer would have to owe at least $3,333 in California income taxes in each of those three years. Wal-Mart's price cuts leave soda makers flat (18 June 2010) It's unclear how long Wal-Mart's soda promotions will last. Industry insiders say it could be months. The cuts could put the retailer in a fundamental conflict with big beverage companies, which worry that ultra-low prices could jeopardize eight or nine years of work to get consumers to accept higher prices. That effort was meant in part to produce gains for the bottlers who make and distribute soft drinks. Analysts say the new low prices could train shoppers to look for deep discounts before parting with their money. "Giving away 24-packs is not in the interest of the industry," Bill Pecoriello, CEO of Consumer Edge Research, said at a Beverage Digest conference in New York this week. PAM COMMENTARY: They should be grateful that people are willing to buy their products at all. I think it's smarter to spend money on something healthier. Anadarko blasts BP for 'reckless actions' (18 June 2010) NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Anadarko Petroleum, a minority partner in the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico, blamed BP for "reckless" behavior, seeking to distance itself from the worst oil spill in US history. "The mounting evidence clearly demonstrates that this tragedy was preventable and the direct result of BP's reckless decisions and actions," Anadarko chief executive Jim Hackett said in a statement issued late Friday. Anadarko, which owns 25% of the Macondo well where the Deepwater Horizon rig was drilling, signed a contract saying that it would pay a quarter of the costs associated with the well, unless BP is found guilty of gross negligence. "BP's behavior and actions likely represent gross negligence or willful misconduct and thus affect the obligations of the parties under the operating agreement," Hackett said. On April 20, an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon killed 11 workers, and the well is now spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico. BP adding piers to marina in which Plaquemines President Billy Nungesser has ownership share (18 June 2010) Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser, who has become a national symbol of frustration by decrying BP's and the federal government's efforts to clean up the oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico, has an interest in a Port Sulphur marina that is being refurbished on the oil company's dime. Myrtle Grove Marina is half-owned by Pointe Celeste Inter Vivos Trust, an entity from which Nungesser made less than $5,000 in 2009, according to his personal financial disclosure forms filed with the state Ethics Administration. The trust includes seven other companies, records show. BP has been using the marina as a staging ground for its cleanup efforts since May 22, marina manager Leona Squarsich said Thursday. To handle the extra 20 to 40 vessels using it daily, BP has begun outfitting it with new piers, she said. BP spokesman Steve Rinehart confirmed that the company had a contract with Myrtle Grove Marina. Shifting winds slow oil drift toward Florida coast (18 June 2010) NAVARRE BEACH -- Tourists watched schools of fish swim not far from BP workers combing mostly tar-free sands at the Navarre Beach Fishing Pier on Friday, a day of reprieve from tides bringing tar patties to some of the most pristine beaches of Florida's Panhandle. ``It's a bit of a rollercoaster watching the news,'' said Alabama visitor Mike Sanborne, 33, as he stared at the fish below. ``One day, it's here -- one day it's not. You just got to come out fishing and get what you can for as long as you can.'' A day earlier pie-size tar patties washed up on Okaloosa County shores Thursday, beaching Panhandle swimmers as cleanup workers turned to nighttime hours to pluck splotches of weathered oil off some of the state's most pristine coast. Federal forecast models, meantime, had been showing the mass of light oil increasingly edging eastward -- away from Louisiana and along the Panhandle shoreline in an ominous omen for the weekend at a time of increasing tar ball landings. Facebook revenue neared $800 million in 2009; Rapid growth may lead investors to press for public share offering (18 June 2010) SAN FRANCISCO —Facebook’s financial performance is stronger than previously believed, as the Internet social network’s explosive growth in users and advertisers boosted 2009 revenue to as much as $800 million, according to two sources familiar with the situation. The company also earned a solid net profit, in the tens of millions of dollars last year, one of the sources said. That growth in profit and revenue underscores how Facebook is increasingly making money off its 6-year-old service, which ranks as the world’s largest Web social network with nearly half a billion users. That sort of performance is likely to whet the appetites of investors keen for a public share float, despite the company’s insistence that an IPO is not a near-term priority. Uh-oh: SpaghettiOs with meatballs recalled (18 June 2010) Recalled are certain lots of three varieties of the pasta product often consumed by children: SpaghettiOs with Meatballs, SpaghettiOs A to Z with Meatballs, and SpaghettiOs Fun Shapes with Meatballs (Cars). The USDA said there are no reports of illnesses associated with the product and Sanzio said the company has received no customer complaints to date. The recalled products have “EST 4K,” as well as a use-by date between June 2010 and December 2011 printed on the bottom of the can. The products were manufactured between December 2008 and June 2010 and distributed to retail establishments nationwide. Farmland protection program turns into penny ante game (18 June 2010) In urban areas, the recent funding cut might sting. In rural counties with vast swaths of farmland, it's a body blow. "It's a very blatant slap in the face," said Colusa County Supervisor Kim Dolbow Vann. "It's the state saying, 'Not only are we not going to support this great conservation program, we're leaving you a penny for a tip.' " Last year, her county north of Sacramento received $870,000 in Williamson Act funds. This year, it will take in $24.38. The cuts have prompted some counties to discuss opting out of the program, a process that can take 10 years. Dropping out means that farmers will assume greater tax burdens and perhaps be under increased pressure to sell their land. U.S. carries out first firing squad execution in 14 years for Utah murderer (18 June 2010) But there was an unmistakably 21st century twist to his final minutes when Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff used micro-blogging site Twitter to announce he had given the final approval for the execution. "I just gave the go-ahead to Corrections Department to proceed with Gardner's execution," Shurtleff tweeted shortly before Gardner was shot. "May God grant him the mercy he denied his victims." Firing squads were outlawed by Utah in 2004 but the ban was not retroactive, allowing Gardner the freedom to opt for the gruesome method instead of lethal injection during a hearing in April. Gardner had spent 25 years on death row for gunning down an attorney in a failed bid to escape from a court room in 1985 during a murder trial. His case had renewed debate about use of the death penalty in the United States and divided family and friends of his victims. Loved ones of lawyer Michael Burdell, shot dead by Gardner in his botched escape attempt, have said they were against his execution because Burdell opposed the death penalty. After more than 30 years, FDA has yet to issue final regulations for sunscreens (18 June 2010) The Bee Gees were topping the charts with "Saturday Night Fever," the first test-tube baby had just been born and gas cost 63 cents a gallon when the Food and Drug Administration began writing regulations for sunscreens. Thirty-two years later, the agency has yet to issue its final regulations. That means sunscreen manufacturers are not legally required to prove that their products meet advertising claims such as "waterproof," "broad-based" or "lasts all day," or that they offer a specific sun-protection factor, or SPF. In fact, several public health and consumer groups have taken issue with the SPF claims made by some sunscreen manufacturers, saying that the products offer less protection than advertised. At least nine class-action lawsuits have been filed against sunscreen makers, alleging false advertising. PAM COMMENTARY: There are controversies over the effectiveness of sunscreens, and their toxicity. I prefer the old-fashioned way of tanning -- gradually building up a tan by slowly increasing the amount of time spent in the sun each day. That also gives the body a chance to make its own Vitamin D. Drugmaker faces uphill fight in plan to market ‘female Viagra’ (18 June 2010) A pink pill that acts on brain chemicals has helped women with low sex drive, its German manufacturer said on Friday, arguing for the first U.S. approval of a drug to boost women’s libido. Officials of privately held drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim aimed to convince an expert panel, over the doubts of government reviewers, that the pill offered meaningful benefits to women who want a medical option to increase their sexual desire. The once-a-day pill called flibanserin is the latest attempt at a female counterpart to Pfizer Inc’s Viagra, the blockbuster blue pill for men. In clinical studies, Viagra and other male impotence pills have failed to help women. Boehringer is seeking Food and Drug Administration approval to sell the pill by prescription for premenopausal women with a persistent, bothersome and unexplained lack of sex drive. FDA panel unanimously backs new 'morning after' pill (18 June 2010) An emergency contraceptive pill that is effective for five days after unprotected sex earned the unanimous endorsement of a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel Thursday. If the FDA follows its outside advisers' recommendation, which it typically does, ulipristal acetate would become the second "morning-after pill" on the U.S. market. The other emergency contraceptive pill, Plan B One-step, which contains the hormone levonorgestrel, is approved for use up to three days after unprotected sex. While only girls younger than 17 need a prescription to buy Plan B One-step, women of all ages would need a prescription for ulipristal. Scientists say both pills work by inhibiting ovulation. US FDA OKs Sanofi-Aventis prostate cancer drug (17 June 2010) The agency approved the intravenous drug despite a small but heightened risk of death from side effects. Like other chemotherapy drugs, Jevtana reduced white blood cell counts and will require careful monitoring of patients to minimize side effects, Sartor told Reuters in an interview on Wednesday. Other side effects include anemia, reduced levels of platelets in the blood, nausea and fatigue. The company study tested 755 men who were randomly assigned to receive the drug plus a steroid, or another chemotherapy drug plus a steroid. The study found that the drug reduced the risk of death by 28 percent overall. PAM COMMENTARY: Notice that the "control group" (if you can call it that) received another cancer drug. I've heard about trials like this -- such methodology is used to eliminate the possibility that people might be more likely to survive if they do nothing at all, or if they use some of the more effective treatments from alternative medicine. F.C.C. Moves to Expand Role in Broadband (17 June 2010) WASHINGTON — The Federal Communications Commission voted 3 to 2 on Thursday to move toward giving itself the authority to regulate the transmission component of broadband Internet service, a power the commission’s majority believes is central to expanding the availability of broadband. The vote formally begins a period of public comment on an F.C.C. proposal to overturn a previous commission ruling that classified broadband transmission as a lightly regulated information service. The proposal would designate broadband transmission as a telecommunications service, which, as with telephone service, would make it subject to stricter regulation. The commission has said it intends to exempt broadband service from most of the regulatory options it has under the stricter designation, keeping only those regulations that are necessary “to implement fundamental universal service, competition and market entry, and consumer protection policies.” Bypassing BP stations won't KO oil giant (17 June 2010) But boycotting BP gas stations does not hurt the oil company's coffers much, at least directly. BP doesn't even own the 11,000 BP-branded stations in the United States. The company started getting out of the retail gas-selling business a couple years ago. In fact, all big oil companies did because it wasn't profitable enough. And because oil is a globally traded commodity, there is no easy way to confirm which exploration company is responsible for that tank of gas you just bought, regardless of what the signage over the pump says. So, whose bottom line are you hurting with your personal BP boycott? BP gets a little from being a franchise owner, although a BP spokesman would not say how much. Largely, it's independent service station owners who suffer. If sales volume drops and BP gets stuck with unpurchased gasoline, it can quickly and easily wholesale the excess to stations that sell gas without a brand name, experts said. PAM COMMENTARY: I have mixed feelings about the boycott, because the company will need money to pay for cleanup costs and claims. Driving them out of business probably only means that another oil company will buy them out down the road, although it is possible that the buyer would be more responsible in its drilling practices. BP Begins 'Flaring' Oil in the Gulf (17 June 2010) BP has been capturing oil on surface ships since June 3, when the company cut the bent riser pipe and lowered a containment dome over the ruptured well. Since then, it has managed to divert around 15,000 barrels of oil a day. But 15,000 barrels is about as much as one ship can handle, said Toby Odone, a BP spokesman. On Wednesday, BP announced that oil and gas was flowing through a second containment system that transports oil, a ship known as the Q4000, which can burn off the material. "We don't have the processing capability so there's no way to store [the oil]," he said. "You need to process it when it comes out of the sea." The oil must be separated from gas and water on the surface, and the gas flared. Odone admitted that burning the oil isn't ideal. "We would prefer to be able to reuse that oil somehow," he said, but offered that it's better than letting the crude flow into the Gulf. Health agencies worldwide call for tough safety rules for window blinds (17 June 2010) OTTAWA — Health Canada and two other safety agencies have come together to demand stronger standards for window coverings which have been blamed for the strangulation deaths of a number of children worldwide, but Canadian consumer groups say the measures are ineffective because they remain voluntary. Health Canada, the U.S. Consumer Product Commission (CPSC) and DG Sanco (the European Commission's health and consumer directorate general), represent 29 countries and announced Thursday they are urging manufacturers to create an international set of safety standards to reduce deaths and injuries caused by window coverings. Health Canada says this is the first time the three agencies have united in a demand for stronger safety standards for a specific product. However, consumer groups say any changes concerning corded window coverings are voluntary in Canada — until the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, which is before Parliament, passes. Canadian Supreme Court: Access to information not a constitutional right; Long-awaited decision leaves Canada behind other countries (17 June 2010) “Canada, in the 1980s . . . was a trailblazer in access to information laws,” he said in an interview. “Now we are behind. We are out of step.” The case pitted privacy commissioners, media and civil liberties organizations against the federal government and seven provinces, which argued access to information was a privilege, not a right. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and Justice Rosalie Abella, who wrote Thursday’s decision, said the ability to obtain government documents might be constitutionally protected in certain cases, if those seeking access can show suppressing the information would prevent “meaningful commentary” on public issues. But countervailing considerations could also work against releasing information, they said. A Conversation with Blago in the Can (17 June 2010) I'm washing my hands, reaching to get the paper towels, look up, and who's standing next to me? Rod Blagojevich. Rod says, "Hi! How are you, Jim?" I tell him I am doing well and I extend my hand to shake his. He has the courtesy to wash his hands first. He asks me about my radio show and I ask about his. He tells me that his radio show is on hiatus. Palin adds oil to the fire (17 June 2010) He pressed the former Alaska governor, considered well-versed in energy issues, to explain what she’d do to plug the gusher several kilometres beneath the surface of the Gulf of Mexico that has defied all human efforts to stop it for the past two months. “The Dutch,” said Palin, who insisted the Obama administration was refusing help from foreign governments. “They are known, and the Norwegian. They are known for ... for dikes and for cleaning up water and for dealing with spills.” In fact, it was noted following her interview, many foreign nations are contributing to the efforts to combat the gusher, including the Norwegians and the Dutch, although in the early days of the spill, when oil giant BP was wildly underestimating the extent of the spill, their offer to help was declined. “There are foreign vessels out there right now,” Ken Wells, president of the Offshore Marine Services Association, said recently. Reports to the contrary, Wells added, are “misleading and misinformed.” Alaska pipeline will close for maintenance (17 June 2010) Alyeska Pipeline Service Co. says it will close the trans-Alaska pipeline for maintenance for 36 hours starting Saturday morning. At Pump Station 1, an incoming Kuparuk pipeline connection will be rerouted to a new line above ground. At Pump Station 4, piping to an unused legacy pump house will be disconnected and two large valves used to receive the cleaning and inspection devices commonly known as "pigs" will be replaced. At Pump Station 9, an electric power substation will undergo annual inspection and maintenance. Projects also are planned for Pump Stations 5 and 7 and at the Valdez Marine Terminal. Alyeska conducts line shutdowns annually. They coincide with producers' routine maintenance on the North Slope. YouTube adds online editing tool (17 June 2010) WASHINGTON - YouTube users can now edit their own videos online. The Google-owned video-sharing site added an online editing tool this week that allows YouTube users to combine multiple videos, shorten a video or add soundtracks from songs in the AudioSwap library. The newly created video can be published to YouTube directly from the editing site. To edit a video, a user drags a thumbnail of the video they want to edit into an empty timeline. The video can then be trimmed or other videos added to make it longer. YouTube users can only edit videos they have uploaded themselves and not the videos of other users. The new video editor is located at youtube.com/testtube. Recipe for Green Tires: Plants, Not Petroleum (17 June 2010) A century later, the research laboratories at several tire makers are making progress toward reversing the trend of increased petroleum content. One of the first to pursue this path was Sumitomo Rubber Industries, which has a global alliance with Goodyear in the Dunlop brand, for the Enasave tire it introduced in Japan in 2006. Among other changes, Sumitomo engineers substantially reduced the amount of petrochemicals by cutting the amount of synthetic rubber in half, to 11 percent of the tire’s composition from about 22 percent. A company spokesman, Masatoshi Hayashi, said that the replacement material was a chemically modified natural rubber, chosen to offset the tendency of tires with a high natural rubber content to have poor traction in braking and cornering. To overcome this problem, the engineers altered the rubber chemically to produce a rubber compound with better grip in hard driving. Sumitomo also cut back the amount of carbon black filler (usually produced from oil, coal or charcoal) in the Enasave’s tread compound while increasing the amount of fuel-saving silica filler, Mr. Hayashi said. Vegetable processing oil was substituted for its petroleum equivalent, and the compounds were reinforced with fibers made from plant cellulose. Sumitomo has continued development. In 2008, the company introduced a prototype Enasave tire using ingredients that were 97 percent nonpetroleum-based, and by 2013 it hopes to market a new tire line that contains no petrochemicals at all. New jobless claims up as layoffs persist (17 June 2010) WASHINGTON — The number of people filing new claims for jobless benefits jumped last week after three straight declines, another sign that the pace of layoffs has not slowed. Initial claims for jobless benefits rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 472,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. It was the highest level in a month and overshadowed a report that showed consumer prices remain essentially flat. On Wall Street, the stock market shook off the disappointing report and managed a slender gain after being in the red for much of the day. The rise in jobless claims highlighted concerns about the economic rebound - especially after a report this week said home construction plunged in May after government tax credits expired. Employment data raises new doubts about state’s recovery; State lost 7,900 private-sector jobs in May despite a surge in government hiring (17 June 2010) Wisconsin's economy continued to struggle in May as the state lost 7,900 private-sector jobs on a seasonally adjusted basis and only managed to offset the declines with a surge of new hires by federal, state and local government agencies, according to state employment data released Thursday. Casting new doubts on the durability of the state's recovery, private-sector hiring fell for the second time in three months after adjustments to smooth out seasonal fluctuations such as the start of school vacations. It also coincides with criticism in Washington and elsewhere over costly government stimulus spending to compensate for the jobs annihilated in the recession. "The drop in private-sector jobs reveals the headwinds still facing the Wisconsin economy," said Marquette University economics professor Abdur Chowdhury. The unemployment situation brightens, however, when the disparity between government payrolls and private-sector activity is ignored. Adjusting for seasonal factors, the state unemployment rate fell to 8.2% in May from 8.5% in April. BP acknowledges it never followed blowout preventer law, blames MMS (17 June 2010) Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, the ranking member on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a letter Thursday that he became concerned when he read in The Times-Picayune that the Minerals Management Service official in charge of reviewing BP's application for the Macondo well was not aware of a regulation requiring oil companies to certify that their blowout preventers can cut drill pipe to shut off a flowing well under specific conditions. Also, in his letter Thursday, Grassley called attention to an internal BP document that estimated that the leak at the bottom of the Gulf could be spewing 60,000 barrels a day in a worst-case scenario. BP publicly estimated the spill was far smaller -- as small as 5,000 barrels a day -- and stuck to lower estimates until government scientists finally got more data and estimated recently that the spill could be 60,000 barrels a day. Grassley said he didn't know the date of BP's private estimate, but demanded to know when it was created and added that "Americans have a right to know that BP made these estimates, the date these estimates were determined and why they were not disclosed at that time." The estimates are critical, not only for understanding how much oil needs to be cleaned up, but also because fines BP would ultimately have to pay under anti-pollution laws are based on how many barrels get spilled. On the issue of the blowout preventer's capabilities, Grassley asked BP to show that it is in compliance with the Code of Federal Regulations Chapter 30, Section 250.416(e), which requires oil companies to provide the Minerals Management Service with proof that the massive safety devices they use to close off wells are "capable of shearing the drill pipe in the hole under maximum anticipated surface pressures." The company responded that it applies for permits to drill oil wells "in accordance with the process prescribed by MMS officials," but goes on to say that it was not "MMS practice" to require anyone to comply with that particular section of the law. Oil-eating microbes a possible solution (17 June 2010) One scientist compares them to the yellow chompers in the Pac-Man video game -- hungry, single-minded little microbes fueled by the same fertilizer that farmers use on soybeans, gobbling hydrocarbons from the oily waters, marshes and shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Can the naturally occurring microbes help clean up the oil spill? Yes, experts say. At least in part, with some risk. Officials are taking note. Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday visited a Sarasota company that sells microbes that eat oil. BP says it's open to using them. And the federal government this week is contacting its pre-approved list of more than a dozen companies to see how quickly they can ramp up production. Children don't come cheap; Report finds cost of raising kids up 22 percent from 1960 (17 June 2010) The grand total for middle-income parents raising one child from birth to age 17 is $222,360, which doesn't include college tuition, according to the recently released U.S. Department of Agriculture's 2009 Expenditures on Children by Families report. That's 22 percent higher than the 1960 inflation-adjusted cost of $182,857. "Annual child-rearing expense estimates ranged between $11,650 and $13,530 for a child in a two-child, married-couple family in the middle-income group," the report's abstract says. "We currently spend more than that on day care alone," said Carlo Hontiveros, an associate director for SNL Financial in Charlottesville, Va. Eight months ago, he and his wife, a physical therapist, welcomed their first child, Mia. "Mia currently attends what we feel is the best day care facility in the region." PAM COMMENTARY: Just an average, can vary depending on the parents' circumstances and decisions. Panel Demands NASA Documents to Support Budget (17 June 2010) The Obama administration has proposed replacing NASA’s current return-to-the-moon plans with research on new space technologies and an initiative to enlist commercial companies for launching people into orbit. In particular, the House committee is looking for information about an expensive lifeboat spacecraft for the International Space Station that President Obama announced in April. The lifeboat is a stripped-down version of the Orion capsule that NASA has been developing to take astronauts to the International Space Station and later the Moon. In February, as part of its budget request for the 2011 fiscal year, the administration announced it wanted to cancel Orion along with the rest of the moon program known as Constellation. Two months later, Mr. Obama shifted course somewhat and said that the Orion would continue, but in a truncated form to evacuate people from the space station in an emergency. Gov. Bobby Jindal chastises Coast Guard over oil spill barge stoppage (17 June 2010) Gov. Bobby Jindal chastised the Coast Guard today for stopping 16 barges equipped with vacuums to siphon oil for an unnecessary inspection Wednesday. "The last 24 hours have been incredibly frustrating," Jindal said at a news conference at Fort Jackson in Buras, following an aerial tour of oil-fighting efforts on the coast. Calling for "more urgency" in the federal government's response to the growing oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, Jindal described how it took calls to the White House to clear the way for the barges to commence with cleaning up surface oil today. "Twenty-four hours were lost unnecessarily," he said. "That's thousands of gallons of oil that could have been sucked up if they had been allowed to do their jobs." Republican Backpedals From Apology to BP (17 June 2010) “I’m ashamed of what happened in the White House yesterday,” Mr. Barton said in his opening statement. “I think it is a tragedy of the first proportion that a private corporation can be subjected to what I would characterize as a shakedown — in this case a $20 billion shakedown.” Democrats, smelling blood in an election year, sought to make Mr. Barton an exemplar for Republican ties to “Big Oil.” House Republican leaders, fearing that trap, rushed to contain the damage. Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the House Republican leader, and Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the Republican whip, summoned Mr. Barton and he “was told to apologize, immediately, or he would lose his spot, immediately,” a senior aide said. “We’ll see what happens going forward.” When Mr. Barton soon did issue a statement of contrition, Mr. Boehner’s office also distributed it, for added effect. Then Mr. Boehner, Mr. Cantor and another party leader, Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, together publicly rebuked their colleague. Great Lakes mayors seek review of disaster plans; Gulf spill prompts letter to U.S., Canadian officials (17 June 2010) In remarks Thursday morning at the Pfister Hotel downtown, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett and Gary Doer, Canadian ambassador to the United States, touched upon similar priorities for preserving the Great Lakes, mentioning efforts to curb invasive species and to prevent the siphoning off of water to other regions. Both also pointed to the oil spill in the Gulf to warn against the dangers of poor planning for a disaster in the lakes. There is no oil drilling in the Great Lakes. Barrett noted his opposition to proposals for gas and oil drilling in the lakes while he served in Congress in the 1990s and said the Gulf disaster shows why the arguments for drilling are "shallow." Doer said the Gulf spill has policy implications, and that the group must re-examine its emergency response plans should a disaster strike the Great Lakes. Fire crews called to Valero refinery for second time (17 June 2010) Fire crews tonight were called to the Valero refinery in Benicia for the second time today for an incident in which steam mixed with a byproduct of the refining process, sending a plume of smoke into the air. "There was a big column of brownish smoke coming up ... probably 200 feet in the air," Benicia Fire Marshal Ray Iverson said. "Smoke and vapor." Iverson said the incident was reported at 8:51 p.m. He said the byproduct, which he identified as petroleum coke, mixed with steam, creating the cloud. A similar incident occurred at the refinery this morning, slightly injuring several employees. None had to be hospitalized and they all returned to work afterward, refinery spokeswoman Susan Fisher-Jones said. With Rumored Manhunt for Wikileaks Founder and Arrest of Alleged Leaker of Video Showing Iraq Killings, Obama Admin Escalates Crackdown on Whistleblowers of Classified Information [DN] (17 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Birgitta Jónsdóttir, can you tell us about Julian Assange, the Wikileaks project, that we played on Democracy Now! the videotape of the attack in New Baghdad several years ago that he acquired? You were a part of that project, which was put together, the video, released from Iceland. BIRGITTA JÓNSDÓTTIR: Mm-hmm. Well, it’s probably one of the most difficult projects I’ve helped with, because of the content of it. What we basically did was that we—I helped bring together the volunteers, and I co-wrote the script. And the most difficult task in that project was actually to go through every second of this video to take out the stills, and particularly when you knew who the people were that were blown apart in this hideous war crime. And we did decide to send out to Baghdad to fact-check everything in that video before we released it, to make sure that they could not say that this was falsified in any fashion. And we sent out some of our best investigative journalists to New Baghdad, despite the fact there was—the voting was going on, and it was incredibly dangerous. Nobody had been in that area since the shooting. And then I saw on Democracy Now! a video that a journalist or a documentary filmmaker had filmed the day after. So I think the most important element about that story is that it showed that the witnesses, the people on the ground, had all along been telling the truth. But the media usually always takes the side of the military reports. And this is, of course, an everyday occurrence in the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. So I think it is important that we bear that in mind. Jeremy Scahill on Blackwater Owner Erik Prince’s Rumored Move to UAE and Obama Admin’s Expansion of Special Forces Operations Abroad [DN] (17 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Jeremy, the expansion of special forces? We just have about a minute. JEREMY SCAHILL: Yeah, yeah. The Obama administration has dramatically expanded the use of special forces across the world, not just in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. US Special Forces are operating in seventy-five countries around the world. And Obama took Bush-era authorizations. There was an al-Qaeda network execute order that was issued in 2003 that was a favorite of the neocons that basically said US special forces can operate anywhere around the world, as long as they say they’re hunting al-Qaeda. Obama now has taken that order and pushed it beyond what the Bush people even did. Many of these missions are small-scale US special forces attaching themselves to foreign militaries or friendly forces in nations around the world. But there’s also a task force that McChrystal used to head that used to be classified as Task Force 714. It recently was renamed, my sources tell me. And they’re the ones carrying out unilateral direct actions, the assassinations for the Joint Special Operations Command. And as Daniel Ellsberg talked about, this administration has allowed JSOC to maintain a hit list that includes US citizens, not just the CIA. What’s happened is here is that McChrystal represents the rise of the dark side, and Obama has taken a man that was used to operating with no accountability on the dark side of the US national security apparatus and made him the commander of the entire war in Afghanistan with carte blanche to do what he wants in that region. The combination of him and David Petraeus, who’s Cheney’s general, means that you have the dark side now essentially running the US military. Helen Thomas: an Appreciation [Infowars] (16 June 2010) The propagandists for the Israel Lobby, who occupy the Wall Street Journal editorial page while pretending to be journalists, are determined to remove Helen Thomas from the annals of journalism. In case you have already forgotten, a few days ago the distinguished career of Helen Thomas, the 89-year-old doyen of the White House Press Corps, was ended by the Israel Lobby, which made an issue about her opinion that immigrant Jews should leave Palestine and go back to their home countries. The White House Correspondents’ Association fell in line with the demands of the Israel Lobby, and the cowardly president of the organization added the association’s disapprobation to that of the neoconservative cabal. Having removed Helen Thomas from the journalism scene, the Israel Lobby is now working with its agents on the Wall Street Journal editorial page to eliminate the Helen Thomas Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Society of Professional Journalists. A nonentity in the world of journalism, James Taranto, apparently is associated with the Wall Street Journal editorial page, although Wikipedia reports that he was incapable of graduating from journalism school at California State University, Northridge. On a Wall Street Journal web site, Taranto writes: “We’ve been calling Thomas ‘American journalism’s crazy old aunt in the attic’ for years,” and he asks who would now accept the Helen Thomas award after Ms. Thomas revealed she really was crazy by criticizing Israel. PAM COMMENTARY: Helen Thomas is an amazing lady, and I was glad to meet her during one of her book signings in August of 2007. I do have a few of her books -- signed, of course, such as "Watchdogs of Democracy," where she was also "crazy" enough to criticize the lapdogs who pose as journalists in DC. WikiLeaks Founder to Release Massacre Video [Rense] (16 June 2010) After several days underground, the founder of the secretive website WikiLeaks has gone public to disclose that he is preparing to release a classified Pentagon video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan last year that left as many as 140 civilians dead, most of them children and teenagers. In an email obtained by The Daily Beast that was sent to WikiLeaks supporters in the United States Tuesday, Julian Assange, the website’s Australian-born founder, also defends a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist who is now under arrest in Kuwait on charges that he leaked classified Pentagon combat videos, as well as 260,000 State Department cables, to WikiLeaks. “Mr. Manning allegedly also sent us 260,000 classified US Department cables, reporting on the actions of US Embassy’s [sic] engaging in abusive actions all over the world,” Assange said in an email. “We have denied the allegation, but the US government is acting as if the allegation is true.” American officials have said they are eager to determine the whereabouts of Assange, who canceled an appearance last Friday in Las Vegas, to discourage him from releasing any more classified information on his website, which is nominally based in Sweden and promotes itself as a global resource for whistleblowers. As recently as two weeks ago, Assange, who first gained global notoriety as a computer hacker, was in his native Australia. In April, his website posted a copy of a classified Pentagon video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Baghdad in which a dozen people were killed; that video is also believed to have been leaked by the Army intelligence analyst, Specialist Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland. PAM COMMENTARY: Another abuse of the secrecy classification system -- classifying a video to hide incriminating evidence. Then, even worse, attacking the messenger. BP starts burning oil from ruptured well (16 June 2010) NEW ORLEANS -- BP began burning oil siphoned from a ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday as part of its plans to more than triple the amount of crude it can stop from reaching the sea, the company said. BP said oil and gas siphoned from the well first reached a semi-submersible drilling rig on the surface of the Gulf around 1 a.m. Once that gas reaches the rig, it will be mixed with compressed air, shot down a specialized boom made by Schlumberger Ltd. and ignited at sea. It's the first time this particular burner has been deployed in the Gulf of Mexico. BP officials previously said they believed the burner system could incinerate anywhere from 210,000 gallons of oil to 420,000 gallons of oil daily once it's fully operational. Work to optimize the new system was still ongoing, and the company did not say how much oil it has burned so far. Schwarzenegger, some unions cut pension deal (16 June 2010) Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut a deal with four public employee unions Wednesday on new labor contracts that will reduce state contributions to employee pensions and scale back worker pay, Capitol Weekly reports. "The proposed agreements include increasing the retirement age for new hires, boosting the workers’ contribution to [the Public Employees' Retirement System) and using three-year top-pay formula instead of one year to calculate pension levels. All the changes -– and others -– had been sought by Gov. Schwarzenegger as part of his pension-reform efforts to help balance the red-ink state budget," Capitol Weekly said. "They contain roughly a 5% pay cut and approximately a 5% increase in the worker’s contribution to the state pension program, said Terry McHale, a lobbyist who represents the firefighters and the Highway Patrol officers. "The four bargaining units are CDF Firefighters Local 2881, the California Association of Highway Patrolmen (CAHP); the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Bargaining Unit 19 representing the health and social services professionals; and the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (CAPT)." Spain: the new crisis in Euroland (16 June 2010) Brussels diplomats have been at pains to send out feel-good signals ahead of a summit in which Europe's leaders are supposed to take the first steps towards more disciplined and co-ordinated, control of national finances. Those reforms are meant to restore confidence in the euro and underpin the €750m EU and IMF safety-net, created last month for euroland countries that lose the confidence of the financial markets. However, it is proving hard to shake off persistent market fears about Spain, which, if it needed a lifeline, would swallow up a large part of the emergency fund. Worryingly for the EU, the doubts about Spain – whether real or driven by speculation – are eerily similar to the gradual seeping away of confidence that sent Greece into a financial death spiral in March and April. The Spanish government's cost of borrowing hit a new record yesterday. The interest rate gap, or spread, between 10-year Spanish bonds and their German equivalents, rose by more than 0.10 of a point to 2.23 percentage points. A senior Spanish banker, Francisco Gonzalez, chairman of the BBVA financial services group, confirmed that foreign private banks were now refusing to provide liquidity to their Spanish counterparts. "Financial markets have withdrawn their confidence in our country," he said. "For most Spanish companies and entities, international capital markets are closed." As a result, the European Central Bank is said to have provided record amounts of liquidity to Spanish banks in recent days. The closure of bank-to-bank credit to Spanish institutions recalls to some market commentators the ripple of crisis through the global financial system after the fall of Lehman Brothers in the Autumn of 2008. Docs trying to find test to predict MS (16 June 2010) At present doctors have no way of picking up MS before symptoms develop and patients are frequently diagnosed quite late. But now a team of Israeli doctors and scientists have found "chemical markers" on blood that will lead to a test for the disease. Professor Anat Achiron, of Tel Aviv University's Faculty of Medicine, has uncovered a way of detecting MS years before the illness hits sufferers. "We are not yet able to treat people with MS to prevent the onset of the disease but knowledge is power," said Professor Achiron. PAM COMMENTARY: Would that "chemical marker" be mercury? Aspartame? Cholesterol? Or any of the other "chemicals" that may be causative agents? Internet 'kill switch' proposed for US [Rense] (16 June 2010) A new US Senate Bill would grant the President far-reaching emergency powers to seize control of, or even shut down, portions of the internet. The legislation says that companies such as broadband providers, search engines or software firms that the US Government selects "shall immediately comply with any emergency measure or action developed" by the Department of Homeland Security. Anyone failing to comply would be fined. That emergency authority would allow the Federal Government to "preserve those networks and assets and our country and protect our people," Joe Lieberman, the primary sponsor of the measure and the chairman of the Homeland Security committee, told reporters on Thursday. Lieberman is an independent senator from Connecticut who meets with the Democrats. Due to there being few limits on the US President's emergency power, which can be renewed indefinitely, the densely worded 197-page Bill (PDF) is likely to encounter stiff opposition. TechAmerica, probably the largest US technology lobby group, said it was concerned about "unintended consequences that would result from the legislation's regulatory approach" and "the potential for absolute power". And the Center for Democracy and Technology publicly worried that the Lieberman Bill's emergency powers "include authority to shut down or limit internet traffic on private systems." PAM COMMENTARY: Legislation with the obvious potential for abuse. Fairfax man returning from Yemen stranded in Cairo after landing on no-fly list (16 June 2010) A Fairfax County man returning home from Yemen has been stranded in Egypt for six weeks after being told he was on a no-fly list. Yahya Wehelie, 26, said Wednesday that after landing at the airport in Cairo in early May, he was told he would not be able to board his connection to New York and would have to go to the U.S. Embassy for an explanation. Embassy officials later told Wehelie and a younger brother with whom he was traveling that they would have to wait for FBI agents to arrive from Washington. Since then, Wehelie said in a phone interview, he has spoken with the FBI 10 times and submitted to a polygraph test. He said his attorney has advised him and his family not to discuss the FBI's questions, but they appear to have centered on suspected American radicals living in Yemen. Civil liberties groups say the case is part of an emerging pattern in which American citizens are barred from flying to the United States so they can be questioned overseas by U.S. agents without counsel. The Council on American-Islamic Relations cited Wehelie's case and that of other Americans stranded abroad in a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. this week. CIA papers: US was caught off-guard in Korean War (16 June 2010) INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — The CIA on Wednesday released a massive amount of documents dealing with the Korean War, some of which point to the young agency's failure in the late 1940s to understand crucial events on the Korean peninsula in the run-up to the conflict. One CIA analysis said "American military and civilian leaders were caught by surprise" when North Korean troops moved south across the 38th Parallel in June 1950. "Only the intercession of poorly trained and equipped US garrison troops from Japan managed to halt the North Korean advance at a high price in American dead and wounded," the report said. That document, "Two Strategic Intelligence Mistakes in Korea, 1950," also describes how U.S. military and civilian leaders were caught off-guard four months later when the Chinese "intervened in massive numbers as American and UN forces pushed the North Koreans back." Reformed Klansman plays leading role in Gulf cleanup (16 June 2010) Klan contacts recruited Malvaney, who was working in construction, to help overthrow the government of Prime Minister Eugenia Charles on the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1981. He was promised $3,000 in pay, according to a book about the failed coup, "Bayou of Pigs." The plot's ringleaders had planned to transform the impoverished island through drugs, gambling and offshore banking, but their plot was exposed and the would-be mercenaries were arrested in New Orleans as they prepared to set sail with, among other things, rifles, handguns, dynamite and a Nazi flag. Malvaney pleaded guilty to a violation of the federal Neutrality Act and received an indeterminate sentence under youth provisions of federal law. He said he was shuttled around the federal prison system but served most of his 1 1/2 years in Englewood, Colo. "You realize quickly it's not the place you want to be," Malvaney said. "Prison was a life-changing event." Malvaney didn't think so much about how he got there as he did about how he would live differently when he left. Bourbon Street music curfew enforcement draws complaints (16 June 2010) Now, eight years later, the To Be Continued band is a fixture near the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets, where they play a few nights a week along the side wall of the Foot Locker store, with the store's massive referee as their backdrop. But band members say that the New Orleans Police Department's sudden enforcement of an 8 p.m. music curfew threatens their longtime gig at Bourbon and Canal streets -- a spot so steady they sometimes refer to the corner as "the club." In a statement issued Wednesday afternoon, Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas noted that 8th District officers were merely being responsive to "numerous complaints from residents of the French Quarter" when they told the band to stop playing or risk a court summons. But band members say that silencing them won't make the already-noisy corner much quieter and could eliminate some of the last live jazz from the city's most famous tourist strip. No one has been ticketed or summoned, said NOPD spokesman Bob Young. But on Tuesday night, band members were asked to sign their names and dates of birth on documents that acknowledge the musicians received a notice that begins "(e)ffective immediately, the New Orleans Police Department will be enforcing the below-listed ordinances." One ordinance prohibits street entertainment between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. on the entertainment district segment of Bourbon Street, from Canal to St. Ann streets. The other bars anyone from playing musical instruments on "public rights of way" between 8 p.m. and 9 a.m. Sea life gathering near shore may be fleeing spill (16 June 2010) GULF SHORES, Ala. -- Dolphins and sharks are showing up in surprisingly shallow water just off the Florida coast. Mullets, crabs, rays and small fish congregate by the thousands off an Alabama pier. Birds covered in oil are crawling deep into marshes, never to be seen again. Marine scientists studying the effects of the BP disaster are seeing some strange -- and troubling -- phenomena. Fish and other wildlife are fleeing the oil out in the Gulf and clustering in cleaner waters along the coast. But that is not the hopeful sign it might appear to be, researchers say. The animals' presence close to shore means their usual habitat is badly polluted, and the crowding could result in mass die-offs as fish run out of oxygen. Also, the animals could easily get devoured by predators. "A parallel would be: Why are the wildlife running to the edge of a forest on fire? There will be a lot of fish, sharks, turtles trying to get out of this water they detect is not suitable," said Larry Crowder, a Duke University marine biologist. Cold and rain kills 600 endangered penguins (16 June 2010) Around 600 African penguins, already an endangered species, have perished in a sudden cold snap on a South African island. The birds died in cold and wet weather over the past two days at Algoa Bay in Eastern Cape province, South Africa National Parks (SanParks) said today. A spokeswoman for South Africa National Parks said the cold was not unusual at this time of year but had combined with rain and windchill to deadly effect for the penguins on Bird Island. "The age of the chicks, between a few weeks and two months, makes them vulnerable," she said. "They are only covered with down feathers." It was common for a third of a penguin population's chicks to die in such weather conditions, she added. The African penguin was only this month declared an endangered species by the The International Union for the Conservation of Nature because of its declining population across South Africa. Fading data could improve privacy (16 June 2010) The research project carried out by Dr van Heerde from the Centre for Telematics and Information Technology (CTIT) at the University of Twente looked into ways to change the way databases manage information about users and customers. The ability of those databases to gather information tempts companies and organisations to hoard information just in case it proves valuable, Dr van Heerde told BBC News. The dangers of having data about us stored more or less permanently in many different places around the web have been proved many times when that information is leaked by accident or design, said Dr van Heerde. "People make mistakes, people can be bribed," he said. "You cannot protect this data, you cannot be sure it's not been disclosed, privacy policies are simply too weak." Instead of simply refusing to use services that gather data, Dr van Heerde believes it would be better for people to surrender data knowing that there was a policy that determined how it degraded over time. Southern Ohio pastor says lightning-struck Jesus statue will rise again (16 June 2010) This Jesus drew crowds, and coverage. Some saw it as a sign from God. Others condemned it as a graven image. More than a few couldn't say much of anything because they were rendered speechless at the sight of it. The statue also was the backdrop for mischievous photographers. One photo on the Web, for example, showed students spelling out Ohio by using Jesus for the "H." Another showed two women high-fiving Jesus. The statue earned numerous nicknames, including Touchdown Jesus and Quicksand Jesus, and inspired a song titled "Big Butter Jesus" after comedian Heywood Banks saw the statue on his way to a gig in Dayton. Banks thought the statue looked like one of those butter sculptures at a county fair. Cleveland students help bring U.S. Brig Niagara into Cleveland for 2010 Cleveland Tall Ships Festival preview (16 June 2010) "I love heights," said Maiya once she was back on deck. "The sails are really heavy, but once they were tied up, we could enjoy the view." The students, part of a 24-person novice crew, were part of Project YESS (Youth Empowered to Succeed Through Sailing), a Rotary Club of Cleveland program geared to students who are judged at risk by school counselors because of financial reasons, learning differences or behavioral difficulties. The Niagara often hosts day trips for students, but this was its first overnight excursion with kids, said Billy Sabatini, the Niagara's chief mate. "I don't think we've ever had 14 students at once who are raring to go. They were phenomenal." Students and crew maneuver canvas sails and hand-stinging hemp ropes just as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's crew did. On the trip from Erie, about 45 people slept below the deck on hammocks so close together that rolling over risked waking someone else. Perry's immortal command, "Don't give up the ship," fluttered on a flag that flew on the Niagara along with a 15-star American flag. FDA: 'Female Viagra' falls short in boosting women's sex drive (16 June 2010) WASHINGTON (AP) — The first pill designed to boost the female sex drive failed to make a significant impact on libido in two studies, federal health regulators said, though some women did report slightly more sexually satisfying experiences. The Food and Drug Administration is considering Boehringer Ingelheim's drug flibanserin for premenopausal women who report a lack of sexual desire, a market that drugmakers have been targeting for more than a decade since the blockbuster success of Viagra in men. The search for so-called "female Viagra," has proved elusive though, with many drugs abandoned after showing lackluster results. On Friday the FDA will ask a panel of experts to weigh in on the safety and effectiveness of Boehringer's drug. The agency is not required to follow the group's advice, though it often does. 'More and more rules' on pregnancy (UK) (16 June 2010) The Changing Parenting Culture conference next week is to explore the emergence of what it sees as new, often contradictory rules shaping pregnancy and pregnancy planning. These include the role of stress in pregnancy, amid conflicting reports on the impact of the way a mother feels on the wellbeing of the growing foetus. Some studies have suggested that stress in pregnancy can cause anything from physical abnormalities to behavioural problems. Elizabeth Mitchell Armstrong, professor of sociology at Princeton University, will argue that maternal emotions are being "medicalised". "To the list of pregnancy prescriptions and proscriptions comes another mandate: be happy, be calm. Pregnant women are exhorted to avoid stress and to moderate their emotions in order to produce a healthy baby. "Yet the evidence behind this recommendation is exceedingly weak." Ultrasounds to be required for abortions (Louisiana) (16 June 2010) BATON ROUGE -- Women seeking abortions in Louisiana will be required to get an ultrasound first, even if they are a victim of rape or incest, under a bill that received final legislative passage today. Senate Bill 528 by Sen. Sharon Broome, D-Baton Rouge, was sent to the governor's desk with a 79-0 vote of the state House. Gov. Bobby Jindal supports the measure. Supporters of the proposal said they hope the ultrasound dissuades some women from getting an abortion at the handful of abortion clinics in Louisiana, by giving them more information about their pregnancies. "This is a bill that empowers women," Broome said in committee testimony, adding that at least 15 other states have a similar requirement. Opponents said requiring a procedure that might not be available at a free clinic nearby will make it more difficult and costly for women to get abortions. No one spoke against the proposal on the House floor Wednesday. PAM COMMENTARY: As if Louisiana doesn't have enough problems. WikiLeaks Founder Has Massacre Video (16 June 2010) After several days underground, the founder of the secretive website WikiLeaks has gone public to disclose that he is preparing to release a classified Pentagon video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan last year that left as many as 140 civilians dead, most of them children and teenagers. In an email obtained by The Daily Beast that was sent to WikiLeaks supporters in the United States Tuesday, Julian Assange, the website’s Australian-born founder, also defends a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist who is now under arrest in Kuwait on charges that he leaked classified Pentagon combat videos, as well as 260,000 State Department cables, to WikiLeaks. American officials have said they are eager to determine the whereabouts of Assange, who canceled an appearance last Friday in Las Vegas, to discourage him from releasing any more classified information on his website, which is nominally based in Sweden and promotes itself as a global resource for whistleblowers. As recently as two weeks ago, Assange, who first gained global notoriety as a computer hacker, was in his native Australia. In April, his website posted a copy of a classified Pentagon video of a 2007 American helicopter attack in Baghdad in which a dozen people were killed; that video is also believed to have been leaked by the Army intelligence analyst, Specialist Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland. Court: Israelis suspected in 'Nigerian scam' can be extradited to U.S. [Rense] (16 June 2010) The seven Israelis suspected of scamming tens of millions of dollars from U.S. pensioners in a so-called "Nigerian scam" can be extradited to the United States to face trial there, the Jerusalem District Court ruled on Wednesday. The seven, arrested by Tel Aviv police in July 2009, have been charged by American prosecutors for a serious of legal violations, including conspiracy to commit fraud. Some of the defendants also face money laundering charges. The defendants are suspected of building a sophisticated crime network to defraud elderly American pensioners. Over four years, the network netted tens of millions of dollars in ill-gotten gains. The defendants, all in their 20s and 30s, allegedly phoned American pensioners, told them they had won the lottery and asked them for a fee of several thousand dollars for the transfer of the prize money, which in fact never existed. The investigation that uncovered the network was conducted in conjunction between Israeli and U.S. law enforcement agencies. 9/11 workers attend NYC forum on health settlement (16 June 2010) "It is a gamble that, in my opinion, is not worth waiting for," he added. "And you have waited long enough." Feinberg had been scheduled to appear in person at the town hall, but he had to change his plans after President Barack Obama announced Wednesday that the 64-year-old would oversee a fund to pay victims of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Asked by audience members how he would balance his responsibilities to the Gulf fund and his role in the settlement, Feinberg promised that he had the time. "If your claim is rejected, or if you believe that you are entitled to a better claim, a more generous payment, than what has been authorized, I will review that claim," he said. "No amount of other work will prevent me from remembering my obligations." Thousands of Sept. 11 first responders, many of them with devastating health problems related to the environmental hazards caused by the terrorist [sic] destruction of the World Trade Center, are weighing whether to accept the $713 million settlement. Sen. Brown pushing for bill that includes extension of unemployment insurance (16 June 2010) WASHINGTON, D.C. - As the Senate prepares to vote on the American Jobs Act, U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) discussed provisions that will help small businesses expand and hire workers. The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act of 2010 (Extenders Bill) would provide critical tax cuts and support for American workers through the end of this year. "We know that small business lending is critical to our economic recovery. Yet, the small business owners I meet all share the common concern that banks are not lending," Brown said. "We need to close loopholes that give tax breaks to corporations that ship jobs overseas. And we need to extend critical tax incentives that help small business expand and hire new workers. Our economy will not fully recover until every Ohioan looking for work can find a job. That's why the American Jobs Act is so important." With more than 98,000 Ohioans unemployment insurance benefits set to expire by the end of June, passage of the American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes is even more critical. Tester proposes end to extra $25 in unemployment benefits (16 June 2010) HELENA - Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., said Wednesday he is trying to end a temporary $25-a-week extra unemployment benefit for jobless Americans that's been in place for 16 months because of growing national concern about the federal deficit and debt. He made the proposal in an amendment this week. "The whole idea is it's really saving $6 billion in taxpayers' money without yanking the carpet out from Americans looking for work," Tester said in a telephone interview. The $25-per-week additional payment to regular unemployment benefits was part of the 2009 federal stimulus act and has been extended four times since then. PAM COMMENTARY: What "growing concern about the federal deficit" is that -- the one manufactured by the Republican Party? It never seems to appear when they're dumping trillions into wars that nobody wanted, or bank "bailouts" for their big contributors. And since when do the unemployed -- never given enough to meet all of their bills -- NOT need the extra $25? You can tell Tester isn't up for reelection this year. Michigan's May jobless rate dipped to 13.6% (16 June 2010) Michigan’s unemployment rate, long the highest in the nation, dropped back to 13.6% during May. That marked a four-tenths of a percentage point improvement from April’s rate, a drop that might mean better days ahead for the state’s battered labor markets. “So far in 2010, Michigan’s labor market has stabilized, and some key economic indicators have displayed modest gains,” said Rick Waclawek, director of the state’s Bureau of Labor Market Information and Strategic Initiatives. “This is in sharp contrast to 2009, a year marked with severe monthly job losses and consistently rising unemployment.” PAM COMMENTARY: These are the same people who the Senate says won't need the unemployment extension any longer, or that cushy $25 a week extra bonus. FCC Votes to Reconsider Broadband Regulations (16 June 2010) Over the objections of the agency's two Republican commissioners, the Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to begin taking public comments on three different paths for regulating broadband. That includes a proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, a Democrat, to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to ''common carrier'' obligations to treat all traffic equally. Genachowski's proposal is a response to a federal appeals court ruling that cast doubt on the agency's authority over broadband under its existing regulatory framework. The chairman's plan has the backing of many big Internet companies, which say it would ensure the FCC can prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over broadband connections to determine what subscribers can do online. ''There is a real urgency to this because right now there are no rules of the road to protect consumers from even the most egregious discriminatory behavior by telephone and cable companies,'' said Markham Erickson, executive director of the Open Internet Coalition. The group's members include Google Inc., eBay Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and online calling service Skype Ltd. Ford: Hybrids will rule electric fleet (16 June 2010) By 2020, Ford expects that between 10% and 25% of its volume will in some way run on advanced batteries compared with about 2% today, Nancy Gioia, Ford's director of global electrification, said at the Automotive News Green Car Conference Wednesday in Novi. Of those vehicles with batteries, 70% will be hybrids, another 20% to 25% will be plug-in hybrids and the rest will be all-electric vehicles. Gioia noted that the range is wide because there remain unanswered questions about the access to, and affordability of, electrified vehicles. Hybrids will dominate, she said, because the infrastructure -- charging stations, technologies to strengthen and customize usage of the electric grid -- are in a nascent stage. Moreover, hybrids -- while more expensive than gas-only powered vehicles -- will be more affordable than plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles, which need larger lithium-ion batteries. The cost of lithium-ion batteries remains high, but will come down, Gioia said. More wild horses make move to Flathead's Wildhorse Island (16 June 2010) Ever since local Indians kept herds here - and out of reach of rival tribes - horses have been a part of Wildhorse's history. Today, all but a handful of the island's 2,164 acres - 99 percent - are owned by the people of Montana, and managed as a primitive state park by Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks. The state's management plan calls for five wild horses to mingle among the large populations of bighorn sheep and mule deer that also call the island home. "Five is somewhat of an arbitrary number," says Jerry Sawyer, who manages all the state parks on Flathead for FWP, "but we wanted enough to maintain the namesake of the island." Canadians don't want Queen, even if she's done great job (16 June 2010) According to the poll and not surprisingly, the strongest voices favouring abolishment of the monarchy in Canada come from Quebec, where eight in 10 people believe ties to the monarchy should be cut when the Queen's reign ends, but 53 per cent think she has done a good job in her role as monarch. On a national level, the Queen's approval rating is at 73 per cent. "Find me a politician who has that approval rating," Rowe quipped. As for what would replace the Queen, a majority of Canadians surveyed in the poll said they would prefer a republic system where the Governor General would become the elected head of state. "Right now, our Governor General can't act as the constitutional referee," said Tom Freda, director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, pointing to the fact the Michaelle Jean approved both of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's requests to prorogue Parliament. "It's not appropriate to have the prime minister appoint our head of state — and she does act as our head of state . . . Some dinosaurs in Ottawa and the Monarchist League are inhibiting the democratic evolution of the country." Widow scammed while trying to fight fraud against elderly (16 June 2010) A short while later, the man called back and told her that a check of her bank accounts showed that someone indeed had tried to access her money. She was shaken by the thought of a criminal taking her savings, and the caller preyed on her vulnerability and kind-heartedness. "He told (my mother) that these people scam women who are widows and asked, 'You're a widow, aren't you?' " the victim's daughter said. "Then he asked her if he could count on her help catching these thieves." The woman's husband had died about two months ago. In fact, the couple would have celebrated their 64th wedding anniversary this week. The caller directed the woman to go to her bank at Mayfair Mall and withdraw $5,800. That money would actually belong to the bank, he promised, and no funds would be withdrawn from her account because the tellers were all in on the sting. Drug firms banished from medical talks (16 June 2010) There's a good way to figure out when a drug company plans to introduce a new product. When pharmaceutical company scientists show up at medical meetings to give talks about diseases that most people never have heard of - disorders such as female sexual dysfunction or cardio metabolic syndrome - it is likely that a new drug is coming, said James Stein, a cardiologist at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health. But such talks, which Stein and others say can be used to create a buzz for new drugs, may be coming to an end. The ongoing controversy over drug industry influence in continuing medical education has taken a sharp twist: Pharmaceutical industry employees will not be allowed to make medical education presentations later this year at the one of the largest medical meetings in the world, the American Heart Association's annual Scientific Sessions. Justice: Blackwater case should have gone forward (16 June 2010) There was more than enough untainted evidence to justify a trial for five Blackwater Worldwide guards involved in a deadly 2007 shooting in Baghdad, the Justice Department told a federal appeals court. In court papers seeking to reinstate criminal charges, the department asserted that some of the evidence tainted by immunized statements in the case was harmless and did not justify scuttling the manslaughter charges against the guards. In December, a federal judge dismissed the case against the security guards, who had opened fire on a crowded Baghdad street. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American sentiment in Iraq. In the filing released Wednesday by the appeals court, the government said the judge who dismissed the charges lost sight of the key question of whether the defendants' testimony given under a grant of immunity from prosecution was actually used against them. FCC set to reconsider broadband rules Thursday (16 June 2010) WASHINGTON—Federal regulators are reconsidering the rules that govern high-speed Internet connections. It's a bitter policy dispute that could be tied up in court for years. The Federal Communications Commission is scheduled to vote Thursday to begin taking public comments on three different paths for regulating broadband. One of them is a proposal by FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski to define broadband access as a telecommunications service subject to "common carrier" obligations to treat all traffic equally. The plan has the backing of big Internet companies that want to be sure the FCC can prevent phone and cable companies from using their control over broadband connections to determine what subscribers can do online. The idea faces stiff resistance from the broadband providers. California man killed by bee attack identified (16 June 2010) Authorities have identified a man killed by hundreds of bee stings in Encinitas north of San Diego. The county coroner's office says the victim of Wednesday's attack was 54-year-old Marco Tulio Lazaro. Encinitas Deputy Fire Chief Scott Henry says the man was operating a backhoe to clear brush when he was attacked by bees. Lazaro ran about 200 yards to an outhouse in an attempt to escape. Henry says firefighters found him in full cardiac arrest. Loss of rain forest leads to malaria spike, UW researchers find (16 June 2010) Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon can lead to malaria epidemics years later, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings are some of the most detailed yet to link environmental changes with the spread of disease. The work, published Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, combined malaria case reports with high-resolution satellite imagery from a remote, sparsely populated region of tropical Brazil about half the size of Rhode Island. For every square kilometer of forest cut down, the number of reported malaria cases spiked by 50%, the study found. Roundtable: NOLA Environmental Attorney Monique Harden, Sierra Club Exec Director Michael Brune and Leading Scientist Amory Lovins on the BP Oil Spill and the Way to a Green Energy Future (16 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Amory Lovins, the reality of what it means to live off the grid or in a different kind of grid, there’s so little discussion in this country, that people don’t know where to begin. Why don’t we begin where you are right now: in your house? And is it Aspen, right in Aspen, Colorado? Tell us how you built your house. AMORY LOVINS: No, actually, it’s that valley. It’s in Old Snowmass, Colorado, valley with more elk than people. And we’re at 7,100 feet up in the Rockies, where it can occasionally go to minus-47 F. You can get frost any day of the year. You can get thirty-nine days of continuous cloud in midwinter, so it’s not a reliably sunny place. And yet, just off to my right is a tropical jungle, where we’re ripening banana crops thirty-three through thirty-five with no heating system, because the house is so well insulated in passive solar design that it didn’t need one. And it was $1,100 cheaper upfront not to put one in. So I then reinvested that money in saving about 99 percent of the water heating energy and 90 percent of the electricity. If I didn’t make electricity with solar, my electric bill for 4,000 square feet would be five bucks a month. And all of the extra cost of that efficiency in 1983 paid for itself in the first ten months. Today’s technologies, which we’ve just retrofitted, are a lot better. And the key is what we call integrative design, so we get any benefits from each expenditure. The arch, for example, that holds up the middle of my house, does twelve different things, but I only pay for it once. And I can tell you, it’s really fun to sit there munching your tropical fruit while a blizzard’s outside and know that you’re not using any fossil fuel, you’re not stealing from your kids, you’re a net exporter of energy to the grid, and it had great economics. AMY GOODMAN: Now, wait a second. When you say a "net exporter of energy to the grid," explain what you mean. AMORY LOVINS: I have solar panels on the roof that make more power than the building uses, so we actually run our meter backwards most of the year, and on average for the whole year. It’s really fun to watch your meter run backwards. And, in fact, we designed the new renovations the last few years specifically to take as much coal-fired power as possible off the grid. Now— Stabenow: Review Great Lakes drilling policies (16 June 2010) WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow of Michigan asked President Barack Obama today to work with the Canadian government to ban any new oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes. In her letter to Obama, Stabenow noted that the U.S. has a permanent ban on oil and gas drilling in the Great Lakes, but Canada has what she called “extensive” oil and gas operations in their section of Lake Erie. “The Canadian oil and gas operations have not had an accident since 1959. However, I believe that the events in the Gulf Coast demonstrate that we must remain vigilant because a catastrophic accident could happen at any time.” She’s asking Obama to work with the Canadian government to review existing operations and ban new ones. Smoked meat recalled over Listeria fears (16 June 2010) OTTAWA — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Quebec-based Lesters Foods Ltd. are warning the public not consume some Lesters brand Montréal Smoked Meat pouches because they may be contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes. Smith's Quality Meats is recalling the meats as a precautionary measure, the food safety agency said in a news release. The products have been distributed in Ontario, Quebec and the Atlantic provinces. There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these products. The affected product is sold in 2 x 100 gram packages bearing UPC 0 57730 01098 4, establishment number 289 and a best before date between July 16 and July 24 inclusive. Some early cancer overtreated; few want to wait (15 June 2010) It is an unthinkable notion for an American generation raised on the message that early cancer detection saves lives, but specialists say more tumors actually are being found too early. That is raising uncomfortable questions about how aggressively to treat early growths — in some cases, even how aggressively to test — along with a push for more of the informed-choice programs such as the one Soviero used. "The message has been, 'Early detection, early detection, early detection.' That's true for some things but not all things," said Dr. Laura Esserman, a breast cancer specialist at UCSF. She helped lead a study, reported last week, that found mammography is increasing diagnoses of tumors deemed genetically very low risk. "It's not just all about finding any cancer. It's about being more discriminating when you do find it," she added. Today's cancer screenings can unearth tumors that scientists say never would have threatened the person's life. The problem is there aren't surefire ways to tell in advance which tumors won't be dangerous — .just some clues that doctors use in prescribing treatment. PAM COMMENTARY: The medical industry pushes early testing because they can make money from treating people who don't really need it. "I Love the US Republic, and I Hate the US Empire": Johan Galtung on the War in Afghanistan and How to Get Out (15 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Johan Galtung, you dedicate this book, your latest book, The Fall of the US Empire–And Then What?, "to a country I love, the United States of America." You write, "You will swim so much better without that imperial albatross around your neck. Drown it before it drowns you, and let a thousand flowers blossom!" How— JOHAN GALTUNG: I mean every word of it. I can even tell you that when I give talks about this, many places in the US, I put hand on heart and say, "I love the US republic, and I hate the US empire." You see, to many people, this doesn’t make sense. It’s called anti-American. No, no, no. I’ve had, I’ll tell you, people coming up to me saying that that remark relieved them of an enormous problem, namely, "I have so much difficulties with our foreign policy, our economic penetration, our cultural arrogance, our political maneuvering and arms twisting, and yet I love my country." And what I try to say is that these are two different things, and the albatross is around your neck. Get rid of it. Give it up. Do the following four things. Very quickly. Economically, trade for mutual benefit, fine, but equal benefit. And that means to examine the impact of your economic deals down to the last bottom, not only in a third world country, but maybe also in your own. Maybe you need some retraining of your economists to do that. Militarily, pull your bases back. Eight hundred in 150 countries is madness. And instead of all that, conflict resolution, conflict resolution, conflict resolution. There are so many places in the US now where the young generation is being trained in it. They’re doing brilliant steps forward. A Department of Peace was suggested by Dennis Kucinich, and I think about sixty-four congressmen and women are behind it, something like that. A brilliant conception. And I’ll tell you one thing. If the US had that one and even permitted it to shine, as the famous castle up on the hill, all the love for the US around the world would return. It would be just fabulous. Now, third thing, politically, no more arms twisting. Negotiation with the cards on the table, no threats, no nothing. No secret call by the US ambassador to UN, or whatever it is, to call in somebody and tell them that "if you do this and that, if you insist on this as your bargaining position, we will do something," and so on. I know so many such stories. Point four, get down from the idea of having a separate mandate from God, even a mandate to kill. The word is dialogue. The word is simply to say we have something that we can contribute—and do you have from this marvelous, generous country. But others also have something. For instance, it seems that the Muslims have some good ideas about banking, like not lending more than 30 percent of your capital. Well, if your upper limit is 2,400 or something like that, then you’re a little bit high. And if that limit is considered too high and is abolished in 2004, and the sky is the limit, down it came. And it’ll come down again. US is today probably heading for a rather important crash and, in all probability, for a major devaluation of its currency. Well, let us leave that aside. Let us just say a new economic relations to other countries; conflict resolution instead of bases and invasions and interventions and Special Forces all around the world; negotiations with open cards, without tricks; and dialogue. Dialogue, dialogue, dialogue. All of the Americans I know very well, and many of them Jewish Americans, have extremely good talents for this. Why couldn’t that be more the tone and the tenor of US policy? Why everything we know about the dark side of the universe may be wrong (15 June 2010) Graduate student Utane Sawangwit and professor Tom Shanks of Durham University in England examined data from a satellite probe that studies heat left over from the Big Bang. In research published by the society this month, they found mistakes in the way the data were read. Scientists have long estimated that 74 per cent of the universe is composed of dark energy and 22 per cent is dark matter, with the rest normal matter – even while admitting there’s no proof, and no one is even sure what dark energy and dark matter are. “That theory makes many scientists uncomfortable because of our lack of understanding of what dark energy and dark matter are,” Sawangwit told the Star. By using new methods to measure the “ripples” in the Cosmic Microwave Background created by the heat, he and Shanks answer that problem by saying that mysterious substances just aren’t there. Federal Judge Cites Voting Rights Act to Rig Election in New York State (15 June 2010) “Voters in Port Chester, 25 miles northeast of New York City, are electing village trustees for the first time since the federal government alleged in 2006 that the existing election system was unfair,” reports the Associated Press. “Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won.” In order to fix the problem created by democracy in action, the federal government has cited the Voting Rights Act to fix the election. “Federal Judge Stephen Robinson said that violated the Voting Rights Act, and he approved a remedy suggested by village officials: a system called cumulative voting, in which residents get six votes each to apportion as they wish among the candidates. He rejected a government proposal to break the village into six districts, including one that took in heavily Hispanic areas.” Judge Stephen C. Robinson was not nominated by a liberal Democrat. It was George W. Bush who picked him on March 5, 2003, thus revealing once again there is little difference between Republicans and Democrats when it comes down to the federal government mandating what the states do. Robinson is not breaking new ground here. As of November 2009, more than fifty communities in the United States use cumulative voting, all resulting from cases brought under the federal Voting Rights Act. This is the second time Port Chester has rigged the vote in order to make the result palatable to a demographic the federal government has declared as special. PAM COMMENTARY: This actually sounds like they're giving people 6 votes each because there are six trustees, rather than allowing people one vote each and choosing the six with the most votes. Although I wouldn't say that this system deserves the title of "rigging" the election, it is something to be debated for the type of legal precedent that it sets, and so I'm including it here. Analysis: Obama's oil spill speech reflects new battle plan (15 June 2010) WASHINGTON — For President Obama, the Oval Office address Tuesday night was about more than the oil spill. His ability to project more command, competency and compassion in response to the crisis in the Gulf of Mexico— and the eventual success of the administration's actions — will have repercussions for his ability to do anything else, from pushing legislation on energy and jobs to holding down Democratic losses in the midterm elections. So his tone was unyielding toward BP and his language almost military, calling the current effort a "battle we're waging against an oil spill that is assaulting our shores and our citizens." In his first address from the Oval Office, a forum presidents reserve for the most consequential of messages, he promised a skeptical nation that he would marshal government resources to guarantee the Gulf coast recovers. Oil estimate raised to 35,000-60,000 barrels a day (15 June 2010) (CNN) -- Government scientists Tuesday increased the estimate of oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico to between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels per day, up to 50 percent more than previously estimated. That translates into 1.5 million gallons to 2.5 million gallons per day. The government's previous estimate, issued last week, was 20,000 to 40,000 barrels per day. The change was "based on updated information and scientific assessments," and was reached by Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, and Chair of the National Incident Command's Flow Rate Technical Group Marcia McNutt, the Deepwater Horizon Incident Joint Information Center said. "The improved estimate is based on more and better data that is now available and that helps increase the scientific confidence in the accuracy of the estimate," it said. PAM COMMENTARY: I doubt that any of the current estimates are high enough. Ad for a Dish Detergent Becomes Part of a Story (15 June 2010) But Dawn does have its fans in the scientific community, including the International Bird Rescue Research Center. The center was founded after two oil tankers collided in San Francisco Bay in 1971 and 7,000 birds were covered in oil. Volunteers tried cleaning them with a combination of mineral oil and corn meal. All but 300 birds died. Over the years, founders of the organization looked for a better solution. They tested nail-polish removers, paint solvents and other compounds before settling on Dawn in 1978 as the best product for the job. While other dish detergents were good, Dawn had the right ratio of “surfactants” — cleaners that cut oil — to be effective yet not irritate the birds and other animals like otters and seals. Organizers also liked that it was readily available at any store and that it did not hurt animals’ ability to whisk away water. PAM COMMENTARY: NOTE: If you click the link above, it might open to an annoying video advertisement from the New York Times that you need to close before reading the article. I normally try to find alternatives to sites with aggressive ads, but this particular article was written by the Times. Afghanistan Mineral Riches Story Is War Propaganda (15 June 2010) In a story the Times ran on Sunday, the newspaper pointed to an “internal Pentagon memo” as its source, noting that U.S. officials now believe Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium”. The article claims that “a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists” has also recently discovered huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt and gold, that could transform Afghanistan into one of the most important mining centers in the world. The idea that this information is new, however, is manifestly ludicrous. In an interview with Politico, a retired senior U.S. official notes that anyone with a memory span longer than a goldfish will realise the supposedly “new discovery” is anything but that: “When I was living in Kabul in the early 1970’s the [U.S. government], the Russians, the World Bank, the UN and others were all highly focused on the wide range of Afghan mineral deposits. Cheap ways of moving the ore to ocean ports has always been the limiting factor,” the official said. Statement by VVA President John Rowan: VVA Supports the Decision by VA Secretary to Declare Various Diseases Presumptive Under Agent Orange/Dioxin Rules and Calls on the President and Congress to Fund AO/D Research Now, and Not Wait for an Army to Die (14 June 2010) This situation, again, highlights the need for federal funding of additional research into the adverse health impacts on Vietnam veterans, on our children, and on our grandchildren, by respected independent scientific entities outside of the VA. This is just as evident today as it was twenty years ago. The clear need for such research is even more pressing today, given the number of Vietnam veterans who have died well before their time in the last twenty years, and the number who are continuing to die early, because of the ravages resulting from exposure to Agent Orange/dioxin in Southeast Asia. Lastly, there have been media reports that the amendment to Emergency Supplemental Appropriation by Senator Webb would delay the process, and thus delay the payment of justly due back compensation to affected veterans, pushing off the time when veterans who are owed back compensation actually will receive their entitled compensation. This simply is not the case. Neither action by Senator Webb nor anyone else has thus far caused any action that will slow down the payment of claims as soon as the VA can work though the public rule-making process to get this accomplished. We urge all affected Vietnam veterans and eligible surviving dependents to file claims for the newly presumptive diseases associated with Agent Orange: Parkinson's disease, B Cell leukemias, and ischemic heart disease. These diseases bring the total to 14 illness categories that entitle Vietnam veterans?and veterans who served along the demilitarized zone in Korea in 1968 and 1969?to health care and disability compensation. VVA also contends that many Vietnam-era veterans were also exposed in their service elsewhere in Southeast Asia during the war, including in Thailand and Laos, and aboard Navy vessels off the coast of Vietnam, as well as certain military bases located in the continental U.S. and its territories. There are numerous diseases recognized by the VA as presumptive to exposure to Agent Orange. Additional information about these and other presumptive diseases and long-term health care risks for veterans can be found at the Veterans Health Council web site, www.veteranshealth.org, and in the VVA Self-help Guide to Service-Connected Disability Compensation For Exposure to Agent Orange at www.vva.org/Guides/AgentOrangeGuide.pdf Does Milwaukee have enough college graduates to thrive? (14 June 2010) And the benefits don't go just to the well-educated. When the percentage of college-educated workers in an area rises, so do the wages of workers generally - even high school dropouts, researchers have found. At a time when knowledge is the critical force driving economic prosperity, Milwaukee faces an increasing disadvantage. Person for person, the city's pool of college-educated adults ranks among the very lowest of the country's 50 biggest cities, a Journal Sentinel analysis shows. Milwaukee County fares only a little better. Not only that, but cities that had the best-educated populations 20 years ago have increased their stock much more than have less-educated places. The result: a self-reinforcing loop that is widening the gap between the leaders and less-favored cities such as Milwaukee. High levels of education in the suburbs lift the Milwaukee metropolitan area as a whole to average status. But for greater Milwaukee to rise and thrive, some observers say, the city's low level of education must be addressed. PAM COMMENTARY: I'd question a couple of points made by this article -- namely that the educated need to live within city limits for an urban area to thrive, and that education has anything to do with a city "thriving" in the economy we have now, with many well-educated people just as unemployed as the poorly-educated. However I do agree that it's good to give better opportunities to those deprived of a solid education. Unfortunately, the UW system decided to start raising tuition radically in the late '80s and early '90s, just after I graduated. They also wanted to place enrollment caps on campuses. This was an effort to solicit more money from wealthy foreign students and out-of-state students who paid higher tuition, rather than subsidize state residents' tuition, even though tax money from state residents' parents were what funded a substantial portion of the UW system. Now the UW system does appear to be loosening some of its restrictions slightly -- although I haven't followed whether this is due to the bad economy luring fewer of the wealthy foreign students they had wanted. Is Blackwater's Erik Prince Moving to the United Arab Emirates? (15 June 2010) Sources close to Blackwater and its secretive owner Erik Prince claim that the embattled head of the world's most infamous mercenary firm is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Middle Eastern nation, a major hub for the US war industry, has no extradition treaty with the United States. In April, five of Prince's top deputies were hit with a fifteen-count indictment by a federal grand jury on conspiracy, weapons and obstruction of justice charges. Among those indicted were Prince's longtime number-two man, former Blackwater president Gary Jackson, former vice presidents William Matthews and Ana Bundy and Prince's former legal counsel Andrew Howell. The Blackwater/Erik Prince saga took yet another dramatic turn last week, when Prince abruptly announced that he was putting his company up for sale. While Prince has not personally been charged with any crimes, federal investigators and several Congressional committees clearly have his company and inner circle in their sights. The Nation learned of Prince's alleged plans to move to the UAE from three separate sources. One Blackwater source told The Nation that Prince intends to sell his company quickly, saying the "sale is going to be a fast move within a couple of months." Mark Corallo, a trusted Prince advisor and Blackwater spokesperson would neither confirm nor deny the allegation that Prince is planning to move to the United Arab Emirates. "I have a policy on not discussing my client’s personal lives—especially when that client is a private citizen," Corallo, who runs his own crisis management and PR firm, said in an e-mail to The Nation. "It is nobody’s business where Mr. Prince (or anyone else) chooses to live. So I’m afraid I will not be able to confirm any rumors." Drinking coffee may help prevent diabetes (15 June 2010) Drinking coffee, a lots of it, may help prevent type 2 diabetes, a disease affecting millions and on the rise across the globe, according to a new study published in the American Chemical Society's Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. It's the caffeine, say scientists from Nagoya University in Japan. The scientists fed either water or coffee to a group of lab mice, a common stand-in for people in such studies. The coffee consumption prevented development of high-blood sugar and improved insulin sensitivity in the mice. That means lower risk of diabetes. There were also other benefits from drinking coffee, including improvements in fatty liver, which is a disorder where fat builds up in liver cells, primarily in obese people. That further reduces the risk of diabetes, the scientists said. Other studies in the lab showed that caffeine may be "one of the most effective anti-diabetic compounds in coffee," according to the scientists. Finding fake urine a real challenge for drug-testing labs (15 June 2010) When Kirt Haneberg started running a new kind of drug screening test on construction workers he deals with, he got a big surprise. The lab wasn’t finding drugs in the urine. It wasn’t finding urine in the samples, either. Scores of prospective workers were filling collection cups with synthetic urine they bought to slip past employer drug screens. In the first six months of testing — from January through June 2009 — 100 tests showed fake urine out of roughly 1,900 total samples. “Of the people who were retested within 24 hours, 98 to 99 percent of them came back positive” for drugs, said Haneberg, who manages the Construction Industry Drug-Free Workplace Program. That program gives pre-employment, random and post-accident drug tests to carpenters, bricklayers and masons in Oregon and southwest Washington, offering education and treatment to those who fail a test. Supreme Court: Torture and Rendition Victim Maher Arar Cannot Sue in US Courts [DN] (15 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Maria LaHood, you’re Maher Arar’s attorney. Tell us what the Supreme Court said. MARIA LAHOOD: Well, unfortunately, the Supreme Court didn’t say anything. It just completely rejected Maher’s petition for them to hear the dismissal of his case. So, all Maher is asking is—you know, he brought a complaint, the lower courts have rejected that without even letting it go any farther, and we have asked the Supreme Court to hear the case. And they just denied the petition. AMY GOODMAN: But they’re saying it should be done legislatively? MARIA LAHOOD: The Second Circuit Court of Appeals decision, which is now the decision that stands, said basically that, you know, it interpreted the statute that allows damages for conspiracy to torture with a foreign country—it interpreted that to not apply in this case. So it says Congress needs to fix that. It also refused to imply a remedy for a constitutional violation here. Maher was sent to torture in Syria and also was prevented from going to court to stop it, which Congress specifically legislated people have a right to do. And it basically said that because of reasons of national security, there is no remedy here. So, that’s something that Congress needs to fix. Documents: BP cut corners in days before blowout (14 June 2010) In an e-mail on April 16, a BP official involved in the decision explained: "It will take 10 hours to install them. I do not like this." Later that day, another official recognized the risks of proceeding with insufficient centralizers but commented: "Who cares, it's done, end of story, will probably be fine." The lawmakers also said BP also decided against a nine- to 12-hour procedure known as a "cement bond log" that would have tested the integrity of the cement. A team from Schlumberger ( SLB - news - people ), an oil services firm, was on board the rig, but BP sent the team home on a regularly scheduled helicopter flight the morning of April 20. (my emphasis) Less than 12 hours later, the rig exploded. BP also failed to fully circulate drilling mud, a 12-hour procedure that could have helped detect gas pockets that later shot up the well and exploded on the drilling rig. PAM COMMENTARY: The paragraph claiming that Schlumberger's flight was "regularly scheduled" appeared in a Seattle Times version of the same article, but was apparently removed later when the article was revised. Why? Did Schlumberger call and complain? See the flashback below -- so, who's telling the truth? Jay Weidner on the Jeff Rense Show - The Implications of the Obama/BP Oil Crisis. (Audio with video splash screen) (FLASHBACK) [Rense] (12 June 2010) PAM COMMENTARY: This particular video site seems to be a space hog -- you probably won't be able to listen to the whole thing unless you have a gigabyte or two free on your computer. I think this is the June 10th interview where Weidner claims that Schlumberger contractors demanded to be flown off of the BP rig after seeing pressure readings before the blast, but BP refused. Weidner claimed that the Schlumberger contractors then called the home office and had private helicopters fly them off of the rig before it exploded hours later. Synthetic marijuana ban is on its way to Gov. Bobby Jindal (14 June 2010) BATON ROUGE -- A bill to outlaw herbal incense products that produce a marijuana-like high when smoked is on its way to Gov. Bobby Jindal's desk for a signature after the Senate approved it unanimously on Monday. House Bill 173 by Rep. Ricky Templet Jr., R-Gretna, would ban synthetic cannabinoids that are sold over-the-counter in convenience stores and head shops under brand names like "K2," "Spice" and "Mojo." Law enforcement officers told legislators that use of the products has been spreading rapidly in recent months, particularly among teens. Senators voted 32-0 to approve the bill, which bans the production, use, manufacture or possession of the synthetic substance, and provides penalties similar to those for marijuana. Will the Cruise Ship Industry Do BP's Dirty Work? (14 June 2010) After a BP refinery in Texas exploded in 2005, killing 15 workers and injuring scores more, the oil giant paid $1.6 billion in settlements to employees and their families. But the families of the workers killed on BP's Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico probably won't receive a similar windfall. That’s because the Deepwater rig is legally considered an ocean-going vessel, and was more three nautical miles offshore at the time of the accident. As a result, the families of the dead workers can only sue BP and its contractors under a 90-year-old maritime law, the Death on the High Seas Act, which severely limits liability. In some cases, BP could get away with shelling out sums as paltry as $1,000. Gordon Jones, a mud engineer killed on the Deepwater rig, left behind a pregnant wife who had quit her job to stay home with their two-year-old son. But thanks to DOHSA, the most BP could owe them is the equivalent of Gordon’s salary over his working life, minus what he would have paid out in taxes and personal expenses. So if Gordon made $60,000 a year for the next 30 years, BP could owe the family less than a million dollars. The math works out even worse for workers without dependents. Jones’ brother Chris testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee that one of the other Deepwater workers who was killed was single and childless. That means his family would only be entitled to recover funeral expenses under DOHSA. But because his body was never recovered after the explosion, the funeral costs will be lower. BP could end up paying his family as little as $1,000 for their loss. Chris and his father Keith have pleaded with Congress to fix the law so that any employer can be held accountable for negligence—regardless of whether an employee dies on land or at sea. Last week, Senate Judiciary chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) introduced legislation that would do just that. Americans get most radiation from medical scans (14 June 2010) We fret about airport scanners, power lines, cell phones and even microwaves. It's true that we get too much radiation. But it's not from those sources — it's from too many medical tests. Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, even more than folks in other rich countries. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation, and the average American's dose has grown sixfold over the last couple of decades. Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he'd already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, "I was horrified" at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said. After his own daughter, Molly, was given too many scans following a car accident, Birnbaum took action: He asked the two hospitals where he works to watch for any patients who had had 10 or more CT scans, or patients under 40 who had had five — clearly dangerous amounts. They found 50 people over a three-year period, including a young woman with 31 abdominal scans. When other radiologists tell him they've never found such a case, Birnbaum replies: "That tells me you haven't looked." Barataria estuary now ground zero in oil spill (14 June 2010) Barataria teems with wildlife, including alligators, bullfrogs, bald eagles and migratory birds from the Caribbean and South America. There are even Louisiana black bears in the upper basin's hardwood forests. Before the Deepwater Horizon explosion on April 20, oyster and shrimp boats plowed through these productive bays as fishermen snapped up speckled trout and redfish within minutes of casting their lines. Now it resembles an environmental war zone. Many of the bay's nesting islands for birds are girded by oil containment boom, and crews in white disposable protective suits change out coils of absorbents to soak up the sticky mess. "The whole place is full of oil," said fishing guide Dave Marino. "This is some of the best fishing in the whole region, and the oil's coming in just wave after wave. It's hard to stomach, it really is." Israel approves Gaza flotilla inquiry, includes Canadian (14 June 2010) EU members met in Luxembourg to discuss ways Europe could renew its role in helping supervise Gaza's volatile border crossings. Mideast mediator Tony Blair said he hopes Israel will soon ease the three-year-old blockade by allowing commercial goods and reconstruction materials to flow into the Palestinian territory. Israel has been under heavy pressure to carry out an impartial inquiry into the events of May 31, when naval commandos clashed with activists on board a Turkish ship headed to Gaza. Nine Turkish activists were killed, and dozens of people, including seven soldiers, were wounded. Israel has rejected calls for an international investigation, saying the United Nations and other global bodies have a long history of bias against the Jewish state. But in consultation with its key ally, the United States, Israel agreed to add two high-ranking foreign observers to bolster the credibility of the probe: David Trimble, a Nobel peace laureate from Northern Ireland, and Canada's former chief military prosecutor, retired Brig. Gen. Ken Watkin. Gas tank fire closes two N.C. highways (14 June 2010) GREENSBORO, N.C. — Two interstate highways were temporarily closed after lightning struck a large gasoline tank early yesterday in North Carolina, officials said. The closed sections of interstates 40 and 73 through Greensboro were reopened within hours, the North Carolina Department of Transportation said. The tank’s owner, Colonial Pipeline Co., said the burning gasoline was extinguished by firefighters using special foam, and crews remained on the scene to put out any flare-ups. Authorities said lightning struck the tank at the Colonial Pipeline tank farm near I-40 shortly after midnight. Aiming at Rivals, Starbucks Will Offer Free Wi-Fi (14 June 2010) Starbucks has been squeezed lately by competition from both independent specialty coffee shops, which have long offered free Wi-Fi, and big chains like McDonald’s, which added it this year. “Starbucks hit back,” said Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs, a social media marketing agency, who blogs about working on the go. “They said, ‘Not only do we have free Wi-Fi, but we’re going to offer this huge raft of digital products you can get while you’re here, and you like our coffee better anyway.’ ” Howard Schultz, chief executive of Starbucks, who made the announcement at a conference in New York, described it as a way to bridge the online world and real-world coffee outlets. Of course, people have been bridging those worlds for years, using coffee shops as pseudo-offices by bringing their laptops and borrowing free Internet connections. But Starbucks has never offered unlimited free Internet access. Trains with brains: MRL's cleaner engines should cut emissions 90 percent (14 June 2010) Diesel fumes around the railyard have sickened and irritated some neighbors over the years, but engines should puff much less smoke this coming fall. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency awarded the Missoula Metropolitan Planning Organization the grant to do the job, and the funds will outfit 34 locomotives with Auxiliary Power Units, or APUs. "This (device) allows us to shut the engine down ... and lets this little engine run and keep the oil and water circulating and warm," VanWinkle said. The APUs produce some 90 percent fewer emissions than the main engine, according to a news release from the Missoula Office of Planning and Grants. The machine is cleaner and greener. On Monday at the North Depot, VanWinkle opened the door of a locomotive already installed with an APU. It's roughly 4 feet by 5 feet, a motor with small tanks and hoses. He said the APU runs on half a gallon of diesel an hour, compared with four or five gallons an hour. Sex addiction may be caused by neurological damage: study (14 June 2010) Sex addiction is more than the latest celebrity disorder du jour, but a dysfunction in a critical brain region that controls decision-making, new research suggests. Dr. Lique Coolen, Canada Research Chair in the Neurobiology of Motivation and Reward, and colleagues have found that rats with a damaged prefrontal cortex become compulsive sex seekers. Coolen says the prefrontal cortex, located in the front part of the brain, normally acts as a break on self-destructive behaviour. "We're always very cautious to draw parallels between studies in rodents with human behaviours," she says. But Coolen believes hyper-sexuality doesn't deserve the bad press it has recently attracted. PAM COMMENTARY: That's if "sex addiction" is a real disorder, rather than the usual marketing invention to sell another type of treatment and drugs. In Pa., inn’s historic streak might end 14 June 2010 BRISTOL, Pa. — Local lore has it that Continental Army soldiers shot down the sign on the King George II Inn amid the Revolutionary War, prompting its owners to quickly change the name to the Fountain House. The inn survived the War of Independence but the beleaguered US economy has done what time and antimonarch fervor could not: threatened its status as one of the oldest continuously operating inns in the country. Opened in 1681 as the Ferry House by Samuel Clift, who founded the town, the 16-unit inn is up for sale with an asking price of nearly $1.4 million. “If they were to close and never open, we’d be losing a great spot of history there,’’ said Bristol historian Harold Mitchener. The inn, according to historians, provided a warm supper and comfortable bed for several icons of American history, including George Washington and John Adams. Owners John and Geri Caparrelli, who bought the property in 2004, said late last month that the restaurant was closing and the 329-year-old inn was on the block, victims of a business downturn during the past three years. “For almost two years, we have been trying to refinance the Inn,’’ the Caparrellis said in a statement. “We have approached several local banks as well as financial institutions outside the area with no success.’’ At Least 117 People Killed in Kyrgyzstan; An Estimated 80,000 Uzbeks Have Fled [DN] (14 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to the map. Describe where Kyrgyzstan is. SCOTT HORTON: I usually describe it as being slightly to the left of China. So we’re talking about the roof of the world and some of the highest mountain ranges, the Tian Shan region. So it is on the eastern periphery of the Soviet Central Asian region, but facing Chinese Central Asia, about as a remote spot in the world as you can get. AMY GOODMAN: Right next to the very repressive Uzbekistan. SCOTT HORTON: All the other Central Asian states are authoritarian states, and Uzbekistan, in particular, is extremely authoritarian. Kyrgyzstan has historically been the strong standout in that regard. Although the Kyrgyz leaders have always been wannabe authoritarians, it’s the Kyrgyz population that hasn’t tolerated that, and they’ve overthrown two presidents now. And political scientist Eugene Huskey describes them, for instance, as natural-born anarchists, because they really resent the idea of strong and repressive central government. AMY GOODMAN: The US has a base there? SCOTT HORTON: That’s correct. Labor protests on the rise in China (14 June 2010) The recent Beijing performance is just one example of the rising labor activism now evident in China, activism that asserted itself in recent weeks at the factories of Foxconn and Honda Motor. It includes groups like New Labor, yet it also encompasses legal aid and other support networks at scores of universities, law firms focused on promoting worker rights, and countless migrant worker aid associations. "Civil society organizations are growing more powerful. They will push China to change," says Li Fan, director of the nongovernmental organization World and China Institute in Beijing. Li has worked closely with labor groups as well as those pushing grassroots democracy. The question is whether these groups can spawn a workers' movement that has the organization and mass to challenge factory owners across the country. Until a few years ago, the Chinese authorities broke up sporadic workers' protests with relative ease: Local officials arrested a few ringleaders, then quickly offered concessions to the rest of the strikers to stop the unrest. Today's young workers may be harder to corral. China now has 787 million mobile phone users and 348 million Internet users - and migrant workers in their twenties are far more aware of world developments than their parents. The younger generation can follow labor actions as they unfold, whether in China's northeastern Rust Belt or southern Pearl River Delta. The Unemployed Held Hostage (Editorial) (14 June 2010) Since June 1, when federal unemployment benefits began to expire, an estimated 325,000 jobless workers have been cut off. That number will swell to 1.25 million by the end of the month unless Congress extends the benefits. The Senate, so far, has failed to act. Some senators, including Democrats, have balked at an unrelated provision that would begin to close a tax loophole enjoyed by some of the richest Americans. You heard right. Desperately needed unemployment benefits have been held hostage to a tax break for the rich, and the Senate’s Democratic leadership has had to delay and finagle to get its own caucus in line. State-provided unemployment benefits generally last for 26 weeks, and the federal government picks up the tab after that, provided Congress approves the extensions. There is no disagreement over the need: 46 percent of the nation’s 15 million jobless workers have been unemployed for more than six months — a higher level than at any time since the government began keeping track in 1948. There is not even any genuine debate about how to pay for extended benefits. An extension through November would cost about $40 billion. But unemployment benefits are correctly considered emergency spending — they are a vital safety net, and the money is crucial to supporting consumer demand in a weak economy — and exempt from pay-as-you-go budget rules. Stephen Kinzer on the History of BP/British Petroleum and Its Role in the 1953 Iran Coup (14 June 2010) AMY GOODMAN: And that involved both Dulles brothers—people often fly into Dulles Airport—John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and also Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson. STEPHEN KINZER: Yeah, history is kind of winking at us from that episode. It’s quite an interesting quirk that Theodore Roosevelt, who essentially brought the United States into the regime change era around the very beginning of the twentieth century, wound up having a grandson who began the modern age of intervention. Bear in mind that Iran was the first country where the CIA went in to overthrow a government. When Teddy Roosevelt was overthrowing governments, there was no CIA. So each of them opened a chapter in the history of American interventionism. AMY GOODMAN: And why—before we move forward now, why did the US intervene on behalf of a British company, what later became British Petroleum, or BP? STEPHEN KINZER: There were several reasons for it. Part of it had to do with the desire for transatlantic solidarity. But I really think there were two key reasons. One was that the Americans persuaded themselves that they had to fight communism somewhere in the world. That was the idea with which Dulles and Eisenhower came into power in 1953, that they would no longer stick with the strategy of containment of communism, but they were going to a new strategy of rollback. But once they got into power, they were thinking, "How are we going to roll back communism? We can’t invade the Soviet Union. We’re not going to bomb China." And here is where the other piece came in. The British were very eager to overthrow Mosaddegh in order to get back their oil company. But when they presented the plan to Dulles and Eisenhower, the agent who they sent to Washington, who has later written his memoirs, did something very clever. He decided it’s not going to work if I tell the Americans, "Please overthrow Mosaddegh so we can have our oil company back." The Americans won’t respond to that. They won’t care enough. They’ll be afraid of the precedent of a government taking over a corporation that produces a resource in a poor country. That’s a bad precedent for John Foster Dulles and Americans, just as much as it is for the British. But what the Americans are really concerned about at this moment in the early '50s is communism, so let's tell them that Mosaddegh is leading Iran toward communism. Now, Mosaddegh was an elderly aristocrat who despised all socialist and Marxist ideas, but that was just a detail. He was able to be portrayed as a person who was weak enough so that later on his fall might produce an attempt by communists to take over in Iran. So it was this combination of wanting to make sure that the example was not given in the world that nationalist governments could just nationalize companies owned by rich countries, and secondly, anybody who could come into the American scope as being possibly not even sympathetic to communism, but creating a situation in which, after he was gone, there might be instability that could lead to a communist government, would wind up being a target of the US. Mexico cracks down on self-prescribed antibiotics (14 June 2010) Reporting from Mexico City — The instructions aren't on any box of medicine, but Mexicans know them all the same: At the first sign of sore throat or fever, race to the pharmacy for antibiotics. Take as you see fit. Even though the law requires a prescription for antibiotics, pharmacists in Mexico seldom ask for one before handing them over. And they hand them over by the boatload: nearly 2 billion doses of antibiotics a year, enough for two full courses of treatment for almost each of the nation's 110 million people. Such handy access is easier than schlepping to the doctor or a crowded public clinic. But Mexican health officials fear so much self-medication poses a threat to public health by discouraging real medical care and promoting the development of bacteria that resist treatment by antibiotics. So, in a big shift, authorities here have announced a crackdown on all the self-prescribed penicillin-popping. Under rules that take effect in August, pharmacies will face tighter oversight and stricter disclosure requirements to make sure they sell antibiotics only to patients with prescriptions. Violators face fines of up to $15,000 and possible closure. Feds' isotope plans too short-sighted, critics say (Canada) (14 June 2010) OTTAWA — The global medical isotope shortage, prompted by the shutdown of Canada’s main nuclear reactor, has dragged on for more than a year now but, rather than dwelling on the difficulties, some nuclear-medicine experts are concerned about the future, and the direction the federal government is taking Canada on the isotope file. The National Research Universal reactor in Chalk River, Ont., which produces 30 to 40 per cent of the global supply of the most commonly used isotope, was shut down in May 2009 because of a leak. The complex repairs to the 50-year-old reactor are expected to be complete by midsummer — and it can’t come back online soon enough for health-care professionals. For the past year, they’ve been using alternative medical procedures and juggling appointments for patients, trying to keep waiting lists short. Isotopes, which are used in diagnostic imaging and in cancer treatments, must be used within hours of arriving at a facility because of the radioactive material they contain. Canada has been relying on imports from the handful of other countries that have reactors, and that’s meant an unsteady supply chain that can easily be disrupted, say by a volcanic ash cloud that wreaks havoc on air transportation. Calif. bill would target spouses who hire hit men (14 June 2010) The story behind the legislation reads like a movie pitch. The wife of a Southern California police detective, distraught because she had lost custody of her children, tries to hire a hit man from the Vagos motorcycle gang to kill him. Instead, gang members alert police, who disguise themselves as biker thugs and secretly tape a conversation with her, leading to the wife's arrest and ultimate conviction for solicitation of murder. But later on, in divorce court, she is awarded half the couple's property, even though she tried to have her husband whacked. He then calls Sacramento, determined to change the divorce law. A bill scheduled to be heard Tuesday in a state legislative committee seeks to close what its author says is a loophole in the state's no-fault divorce code. In part, the legislation will specify that spouses who solicit the murder of their husband or wife are not entitled to collect financial rewards in divorce proceedings. In China, Unlikely Labor Leader Just Wanted a Middle-Class Life (13 June 2010) SHANGHAI — Tan Guocheng is hardly a self-styled labor leader. Age 23 and introverted, he grew up among rice paddies and orange groves far from China’s big factory towns. But last month, an hour into his shift at a Honda factory in the southern city of Foshan, Mr. Tan pressed an emergency button that shut down his production line. “Let’s go out on strike!” he shouted. Within minutes, hundreds of workers were abandoning their posts. Colleagues described Mr. Tan’s leadership as an uncharacteristic act of courage; Mr. Tan said he simply wanted a pay raise. Regardless, he has helped touch off a wave of strikes at Honda plants and other workplaces in China that are still playing out in surprising and significant ways. Though Mr. Tan has since been fired by Honda for “sabotage” and moved back to his village, striking workers at another Honda plant less than 100 miles away in Zhongshan marched in the streets on Friday and made a new demand: the right to form an independent labor union. Egyptian forces beat protesters at demonstration against police brutality (13 June 2010) CAIRO - Egyptian security forces hit protesters and knocked some to the ground before rounding dozens up at a demonstration Sunday against a police beating that killed a young man a week ago. The protesters were venting Egyptian anger over the death of 28-year-old Khaled Said in the port city of Alexandria on June 6. Relatives, at least one witness and human rights groups say police beat him to death and pictures of his bloody, disfigured face have been circulating on the Internet. The Egyptian government claims he choked to death on a joint as police were trying to arrest him. Human rights groups say police torture — including sexual abuse — is routine in Egypt though the government denies it is systematic. Reformers say a three-decade-old emergency law they describe as a central tool of repression by President Hosni Mubarak's regime is to blame. Cases of police brutality rarely result in punishment. A couple hundred protesters gathered near the Ministry of Justice in the capital Cairo Sunday afternoon, some chanting "Down with Hosni Mubarak" and others holding up signs calling for an end to military rule and the prosecution of the interior minister for Said's death. Minnesota wildlife managers ask drivers to brake for turtles as they try to cross roads (13 June 2010) ST. PAUL, Minn. - Why did the turtle cross the road? Minnesota wildlife managers say it's because turtles are trying to get from their winter homes to their warm-weather nesting areas. And the state Department of Natural Resources is urging drivers in Minnesota to give turtles a brake. Carol Hall, an agency specialist in amphibians, says many turtles are killed on roads each year, especially during the nesting season. The agency says drivers who see a turtle on the road should slow down and go around it. The department also says it's best to let turtles cross unassisted. If it's necessary to help, the department says to move them in as direct a line as safely possible. PAM COMMENTARY: I remember finding a painted turtle at the side of a highway in Minnesota during June of '03. The turtle had apparently been run over, but every time I touched its feet, the turtle would move its rear legs. I didn't know if it could be saved, but I was going to find out. I drove the turtle to a Minnesota DNR office to ask what I should do (this was wildlife, after all, and I didn't know Minnesota's laws on handling wild animals). Employees there referred me to a local veterinarian. The vet examined the turtle and said that it was too far gone to save -- had lost its eyes and had a lot of other serious head damage, would basically never function on its own again. So he recommended putting the turtle down, and I didn't protest -- there wasn't really any good option. At least that was a more humane death than suffering and dehydration at the side of the road. Obama steps up pressure on BP for oil spill fund (13 June 2010) U.S. President Barack Obama is turning up the heat on BP PLC, demanding that London-based company set aside billions of dollars in a reserve account and speed up its compensation plan for Gulf residents. Mr. Obama, who is under pressure himself for his handling of the Gulf crisis, is travelling to the region Monday and Tuesday before addressing the country from the Oval Office, a prime-time television event aimed at portraying the embattled President as a leader who is taking all actions possible to deal with the crisis. He will meet Wednesday with BP executives – including BP chairman Carl Henric Svanberg and much-maligned chief executive Tony Hayward – where he will urge them to set aside billions of dollars into an escrow account to cover the economic costs from the blowout, and to establish an independent claims procedure. At the same time, executives from the top international oil companies – Exxon Mobil Corp., Chevron Corp., Royal Dutch Shell PLC and ConocoPhillips Co. – are due to appear at a congressional committee examining the offshore industry, where they will stress their own safety records in the Gulf of Mexico. Huge disparity in NHS death rates revealed (13 June 2010) • Death rates in planned vascular surgery for abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA – to prevent a burst artery) vary from under 2% in some hospitals to at least 10% in 10 of them. More than 5,000 of the operations are carried out each year – most of them planned admissions in which the patient decides where to go for surgery. • Patients are less likely to die in the bigger, busier hospital units where surgical teams are more skilled because they do more of the operations. The results strongly suggest that smaller units should close. This presents a major challenge to the health secretary, Andrew Lansley, who has stopped all hospital reorganisation. The most worrying death rates were at Scarborough hospital in Yorkshire, where 29% of patients scheduled in advance for AAA surgery died in the three-year period from 2006 to 2008. The national average was just over 4%. Scarborough says it has now stopped offering the operation. Results for planned surgery at several other hospitals also gave cause for concern, including Gateshead on 12.9%, Hull on 9%, Pennine Acute Trust on 8.4% and Leeds on 7.1%. Gateshead and Hull blamed a high number of difficult cases, Pennine argued there had been an issue around the way transferred cases were recorded, which is now resolved. Leeds pointed out that it takes difficult cases and has brought its death rates steadily down. Obama Warns Of 'Massive Layoffs Of Teachers, Police, And Firefighters' (13 June 2010) On Saturday night, the White House released a letter Obama sent to congressional leaders of both parties asking for nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments to fend off "massive layoffs of teachers, police and firefighters" and to prevent a possible double-dip recession. "We are at a critical juncture on our nation's path to economic recovery," the president warned. "It is essential that we continue to explore additional measures to spur job creation and build momentum toward recovery, even as we establish a path to long-term fiscal discipline. At this critical moment, we cannot afford to slide backwards just as our recovery is taking hold." Oregon is already sending workers on furlough to save money (13 June 2010) Forget about visiting the DMV or most other state offices Friday -- they'll be closed. Oregon state government has scheduled the fifth of 10 furlough Fridays this week. About 26,500 state employees will take an unpaid day off as part of a plan to save money in these lean economic times. The closures were part of labor agreements negotiated last year. The idea was to save about $2 million each furlough day. Local Driver and Motor Vehicle Services, Employment, and Human Services offices will be closed, though some of their services will be available online. Cancer delays leave patients in agony (13 June 2010) The situation in Edmonton, where some critical patients are being turned away from chemotherapy treatments, is particularly dire. In Calgary, roughly 10 per cent of patients, particularly those with the worst cases of cancer, have had to wait up to six weeks to be treated. "We do not ever have a situation where we do not provide an appointment," noted Dr. Peter Craighead, medical director of the Tom Baker. "But sometimes the appointment (wait time) is longer. Obviously sometimes people are frustrated." The majority of patients are seen within five weeks, although a national target aims for a two-week period. In the chronically overcrowded Calgary cancer centre, the staffing situation, at least, is expected to ease in August, with more medical oncologists coming on board. PAM COMMENTARY: All the more reason to learn about alternative cancer treatments. Teen says train stunt charge unfair (13 June 2010) The amateur filmmaker and stuntman charged with mischief for jumping on top of a moving train says he is being treated unfairly by police seeking to make an example of him. Cochrane man Chris Ball, 19, posted a video on YouTube that appears to show him jumping from a highway overpass onto a slow-moving freight train below. The May 17 incident ended with Cochrane RCMP writing him a ticket for trespassing, which resulted in a $300 fine. But on Friday, the Canadian Pacific Police Service upped the ante and charged Ball with mischief in relation to the incident, and executed a search warrant at the family home where a computer, digital storage devices and a video camera were seized. Ball thinks it's unfair -- and possibly illegal -- that one police service opted not to charge him criminally while another one did. U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan (13 June 2010) WASHINGTON — The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials. The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe. An internal Pentagon memo, for example, states that Afghanistan could become the “Saudi Arabia of lithium,” a key raw material in the manufacture of batteries for laptops and BlackBerrys. The vast scale of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth was discovered by a small team of Pentagon officials and American geologists. The Afghan government and President Hamid Karzai were recently briefed, American officials said. PAM COMMENTARY: Hmmm... I have to wonder if this discovery really was "previously unknown," or known to certain people before 9/11 (IF ya know what I mean). I'm sure those Pentagon officials and American geologists wandered off in Afghanistan for their own enjoyment, and magically tripped over a big pile of lithium that nobody had dreamed would be located at that exact spot... Either way, the natives will be lucky to see any benefits -- with the US army there, multinational corporations will expect our tax-funded military to protect their new "investment opportunity." Ceremony to be held for opening of 497th facility at Langley (13 June 2010) The Air Force will celebrate the opening of a new facility for 497th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Group on Wednesday. After more than seven years of preparation, the group is operating in two new buildings at the north end of Joint Base Langley, according to a news release. The group's mission is to analyze images and signals from unmanned aerial vehicles such as the Predator and Global Hawk. The move, which cost approximately $75 million, consolidated more than 700 personnel who previously operated out of six different facilities around the base. The new complex boasts an operations center four times larger than the previous setup with twice as many work stations. The group expects to gain more than 400 airmen in the future. Norfolk Naval Station building gets 'green' roof (13 June 2010) One of the Navy's first "green" roofs is being built atop the regional legal services office at Norfolk Naval Station, the service announced. The building was due for a new roof, and the green roof was chosen as part of the Navy's effort to conserve energy. The roof's waterproofing membrane will be covered with vegetation, which better insulates the building and reduces runoff. The $613,000 project was awarded by Naval Facilities Engineering Command Mid-Atlantic and is scheduled to be done in December. S.F.'s buried streams may see the light of day (13 June 2010) Carved between ocean and bay, the city of San Francisco owes its contours to saltwater in a way few other cities do. But a new wave of thinking about the city's water future would resurrect some of the long-buried freshwater streams and rivers that once cut through its valleys and burbled along hillsides. This summer, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission will consider long-range plans to unearth hidden creeks within several neighborhood watersheds - most likely in the southeastern sections of the city. If the projects gain public support, clear environmental regulations and find funding - and those are large "ifs" - San Franciscans could eventually enjoy biking or strolling along streams not visible above ground since the mid-1800s. Similar "daylighting" projects have already uncovered stretches of urban creeks in Berkeley, Portland, Ore., and Seattle, not to mention Frieburg, Germany, Seoul and Zurich. Wis. business owners mull choices under smoke ban (13 June 2010) MADISON, Wis. - As Wisconsin's smoking ban approaches, restaurant and bar owners are having to decide if they want to make the investment in their properties that would allow them to continue serving smokers. The state's indoor smoking ban takes effect July 5, but will continue to allow smoking at bars and restaurants that establish special patio or seating areas outdoors. A few business owners are making the investment. In Watertown, the city clerk tells the Wisconsin State Journal that he estimates six of the city's 50 bars and restaurants will pay $500 for a special permit to set up a smoking area. Some other owners say they don't have the space or money and are worried about losing business. Anti-smoking activists say customers will reward businesses with no smoking whatsoever. Australian oil well blowout foreshadowed Gulf disaster (13 June 2010) Ever since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, resulting in the massive oil spill in the Gulf, many have said that it was an unforeseeable event, the result of a complex chain of equipment failures and human errors that could not be anticipated. Yet last August, an oil well blew out off the coast of Australia, dumping oil into the Timor Sea for 10 weeks and becoming Australia's largest oil spill. The blowout of Australia's Montara well just eight months before BP's Macondo well began spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico would seem to suggest that a catastrophic rig failure and oil gusher are not nearly so implausible. John Amos, president of SkyTruth, a nonprofit group that uses remote sensing and digital tracking to follow oil spills around the globe, said that Montara and Macondo confirm the worst fears of those who have been concerned about offshore drilling, but the back-to-back nature of the events meant that there wasn't time for any lessons of Montara to have headed off disaster at Macondo. Singer, sausage businessman Jimmy Dean dies at 81 (13 June 2010) Jimmy Dean, a country music legend for his smash hit about a workingman hero, "Big Bad John," and an entrepreneur known for his sausage brand, died on Sunday. He was 81. His wife, Donna Meade Dean, said her husband died at their Henrico County, Va., home. She told The Associated Press that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m. "He was amazing," she said. "He had a lot of talents." Cancer link to common heart drugs (13 June 2010) A class of drugs commonly used to treat heart problems has been linked with a "modestly" increased risk of cancer. Analysis of published data from all trials of angiotensin-receptor blockers (ARBs) found one extra case of cancer for every 105 patients treated. The US researchers said the evidence from nine trials should prompt drug regulators to investigate. But they advised people not to stop taking the drugs, but to see their doctors if concerned. The results are published in The Lancet Oncology. ARBs are mainly prescribed for conditions such as high blood pressure and heart failure. They are used by millions of people worldwide. Dominion gives eels a lift on river trip (13 June 2010) Before the dam and two others were built at neighboring Lake Gaston and Kerr Lake, eels could swim freely all the way to the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, near Salem and Roanoke. Along the way, they were fodder for game fish, including striped bass and shad, and were caught by fishermen who sold them for sushi or smoked the eels themselves. Now, energy giant Dominion Virginia Power has installed two eel ladders at its hydroelectric dam in Roanoke Rapids. It is the first phase in what wildlife experts and conservationists hope will be a fully restored eel highway from the Atlantic Ocean to the Blue Ridge. Bob Graham, a Dominion biologist, calls the project the "first and biggest eelway passage in the Southeast" - an attempt to retain dams and all they do for humans while also letting nature run its course. Oil spill disaster: The guilty parties (13 June 2010) It seems unlikely that no other company than BP was responsible for these failures. Professor Bea does not specify any other company than BP, but he does have harsh words to say about one other organisation, the US regulator in this area. In the summary of his paper, he says: "The information available to me so far indicates that BP plc and the Department of Interior's Minerals Management Service failed to properly assess and manage the natural hazards in a prudent manner. Consequently, the public, resources and environment were, and are, being severely punished." Even now, 54 days into the disaster, no one has any precise figure for the amount of oil leeched into the ocean. Scientists, not normally given to inexactitude, say it could be anywhere between 40m and 109m gallons. The total siphoned off the fractured well is about four million gallons, with the latest cap snaring about 650,000 gallons a day. We have learnt in the past painful months that there exists nowhere on Earth the technology to immediately sort out such a deep-sea blowout. BP, the US government and the best minds of the energy industry have a problem where they have no alternative but to make up techniques as they go along. The only known solution – a relief well – will not be operational until mid-August. Risk assessment as an activity gets a pretty bad press these days, but if ever a situation needed one doing it was drilling for oil a mile down on the ocean floor. For what we have learnt the hard way is that, whatever adherence or non-adherence to the present regulations, an enterprise was undertaken for which, if it went wrong, there was no immediate remedy. This is a failure of BP's planning and a failure of regulation. Vast ocean once covered Mars, say scientists (13 June 2010) Scientists have revived arguments over whether there was once an ocean on the surface of Mars by claiming that their analysis of existing data supports the hypothesis that water covered much of the red planet's northern hemisphere 3.5bn years ago. They believe their study of apparent marine deltas and valley networks in the journal Nature Geoscience bolsters the possibility that up to a third of Mars was under about 30 cubic miles of water. Previous spacecraft investigations have pointed to the possible presence of an ancient ocean, with supporters for the idea that there is still a substantial amount of water under the surface as liquid or ice. Climate change over millions of years might have led to the disappearance of the atmosphere, which would mean that any water on the surface would boil away. Volcanic activity is among other explanations for apparent gullies, river valleys, flood plains, lakes, seas and other signs of water that have vanished. Japanese space probe returns to Earth, possibly with asteroid clues into solar system creation (13 June 2010) ADELAIDE, Australia - A team of scientists flew to the Australian Outback on Monday to recover a Japanese space capsule they hope contains the first-ever asteroid samples that could provide clues into the creation of the solar system. The Hayabusa explorer returned to Earth overnight after a seven-year, 4-billion mile (6-billion kilometer) journey, burning apart on re-entry in a spectacular fireball just after jettisoning the capsule. It was the first time a spacecraft successfully landed on an asteroid and returned to Earth. NASA scientist Scott Sandford said it was a relief to watch the re-entry and see the capsule had successfully detached and parachuted to Earth. Calif. teen sailor thought rescue might take weeks (13 June 2010) Writing on her blog, Abby Sunderland said she had only hoped for a ship to pass her by within a few weeks. Instead, a coordinated international response was launched to find the 16-year-old. A French fishing vessel rescued her more than 2,000 miles west of Australia on Saturday, three days after she set off her emergency beacons. "Everyone on board has been really friendly," she wrote. "They have come a long way out of their way to help me and I am so thankful that they did." Sunderland's boat, Wild Eyes, was disabled when a wave smashed down its mast and knocked out her satellite communications. Gulf Oil Spill ‘Could Go Years’ If Not Dealt With [AJ] (10 June 2010) The Obama Administration and senior BP officials are frantically working not to stop the world’s worst oil disaster, but to hide the true extent of the actual ecological catastrophe. Senior researchers tell us that the BP drilling hit one of the oil migration channels and that the leakage could continue for years unless decisive steps are undertaken, something that seems far from the present strategy. In a recent discussion, Vladimir Kutcherov, Professor at the Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden and the Russian State University of Oil and Gas, predicted that the present oil spill flooding the Gulf Coast shores of the United States “could go on for years and years … many years.” 1 According to Kutcherov, a leading specialist in the theory of abiogenic deep origin of petroleum, “What BP drilled into was what we call a ‘migration channel,’ a deep fault on which hydrocarbons generated in the depth of our planet migrate to the crust and are accumulated in rocks, something like Ghawar in Saudi Arabia.”3 Ghawar, the world’s most prolific oilfield has been producing millions of barrels daily for almost 70 years with no end in sight. According to the abiotic science, Ghawar like all elephant and giant oil and gas deposits all over the world, is located on a migration channel similar to that in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico. As I wrote at the time of the January 2010 Haiti earthquake disaster,3 Haiti had been identified as having potentially huge hydrocasrbon reserves, as has neighboring Cuba. Kutcherov estimates that the entire Gulf of Mexico is one of the planet’s most abundant accessible locations to extract oil and gas, at least before the Deepwater Horizon event this April. EU biofuels 'need to be certified for sustainability' (13 June 2010) EU nations are being encouraged to set up certification schemes to ensure biofuels help cut emissions and do not threaten biodiversity. The plans, outlined by the European Commission, would apply to all types of biofuels, including imported fuel. The commission said the schemes would deliver substantial CO2 reductions and help protect forests and wetlands. Environmental groups said the voluntary measures were too weak to halt a "dramatic increase in deforestation". In Louisiana, it's one damned thing after another: James Carville (13 June 2010) For decades, massive engineering projects across the country have made us more vulnerable. We lose a football field of land every 38 minutes. Since World War II, we've lost wetlands the size of the state of Delaware. I bet Joe Biden would be screaming on national television too if it was happening on his turf. Or if the Hamptons lost 16,000 acres a year, you bet there'd be a Million Hedge Fund Managers march on Washington to demand action. We feel ourselves ever more vulnerable due to the nonstop degradation of our wetlands, which serve as our first line of defense against hurricanes and powerful storm surge. Their loss has everything to do with activities across the rest of the country, starting with the deprivation of natural sediment that the Mississippi River should carry to its mouth and dump at the Gulf of Mexico to nourish our barrier islands. Then the oil companies dredged canals in the marshlands in an attempt to grow an industry that now provides the country with more than 30 percent of its domestic oil and natural gas. Salt-water intrusion killed the marsh. These marshlands provide jobs for tens of thousands of fisherman in an industry that provides over 30 percent of this country's domestic seafood supply. Add that to the fact that we have not seen a single penny of royalties for oil produced more than six miles off our coast. We assume all of the risk, produce seafood and oil and gas, with none of the reward. Yes, $165 billion of royalties have gone to the federal treasury that could go to help repair this pressing issue. But there's more. Many in fishing communities accepting handouts for the first time (13 June 2010) ``The culture is not to ask for help, it's very much about taking care of your own. Many are not used to asking for help or accepting help easily,'' says Natalie Jayroe, president and CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank in New Orleans. ``But we also know that this oil spill has been traumatic. You are talking about fishermen who have just spent money getting their boats in order for the season, then all of a sudden their livelihoods are taken away.'' Almost 48,000 households in the 14 parishes most affected by the spill rely on income from the seafood industry and related businesses. So far, 1,591 residents have applied for emergency food stamps -- known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program -- at 14 mobile sites set up after the spill, according to the Louisiana Department of Social Services. Second Harvest reports at least a 15 percent jump in new families requesting services. And more than 7,800 individuals have received emergency services from Catholic Charities Archdiocese of New Orleans since May 1, including $140,000 in gift cards and food vouchers, 177 cans of baby formula and 186 packs of diapers. In part, the strong community response is linked to BP's uneven distribution of monthly claim checks -- criticized as covering only a fraction of fishermen's salaries or expenses -- and its limited hiring of local workers to help manage the cleanup. News from the Week of 6th to 12th of June 2010 I've decided to update the current weeks' links first, and previous weeks' as I have time. My apologies for spotty coverage during tax season. Things probably won't be caught up until sometime in June. - PR A Decade Later, Genetic Map Yields Few New Cures (12 June 2010) Ten years after President Bill Clinton announced that the first draft of the human genome was complete, medicine has yet to see any large part of the promised benefits. For biologists, the genome has yielded one insightful surprise after another. But the primary goal of the $3 billion Human Genome Project — to ferret out the genetic roots of common diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s and then generate treatments — remains largely elusive. Indeed, after 10 years of effort, geneticists are almost back to square one in knowing where to look for the roots of common disease. One sign of the genome’s limited use for medicine so far was a recent test of genetic predictions for heart disease. A medical team led by Nina P. Paynter of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston collected 101 genetic variants that had been statistically linked to heart disease in various genome-scanning studies. But the variants turned out to have no value in forecasting disease among 19,000 women who had been followed for 12 years. The old-fashioned method of taking a family history was a better guide, Dr. Paynter reported this February in The Journal of the American Medical Association. PAM COMMENTARY: What are passed down from parents to children that are NOT genetic? Eating habits! That's why genes don't predict heart disease as well as family history does. Vegetarians and vegans have a much lower risk of heart disease and other health problems. New video shows Israeli attack in stunning clarity; Boarding of the Mavi Marmara captured by New York-based filmmaker (12 June 2010) “Israel attempted to confiscate all footage recorded by participants in the Gaza Freedom flotilla — including taking away mobile phones — but Lee managed to smuggle one hour of video out of the country by hiding it in his underwear,” the Guardian reports. The newspaper adds: “At one stage, the captain of the boat can be heard over the public address system saying ‘Do not show resistance . . . they are using live ammunition . . . be calm, be very calm.’” Echoing in the background is the sound of gunshots. Israel claims that the Turkish activists who battled Israeli naval commandos in the deadly clash on the open seas had prepared for the fight ahead of time — boarding the ship separately from other passengers after they had organized and equipped themselves. The comments from Benjamin Netanyahu were the latest in an Israeli campaign to defend its May 31 crackdown, in which nine activists were killed on a flotilla headed to the blockaded Gaza Strip with hundreds of activists and humanitarian supplies on board. The operation has drawn international condemnation, seriously damaged Israeli ties with Turkey, and brought heavy pressure to lift the three-year-old closure of Gaza. Israeli Attack on the Mavi Marmara, May 31st 2010 // 15 min. (Video) (9 June 2010) To DOWNLOAD THIS VIDEO : tc.indymedia.org/files/flotilla-footage/index.html On the night of Sunday, May 30, showing a terrifying disregard for human life, Israeli naval forces surrounded and boarded ships sailing to bring humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip. On the largest ship, the Mavi Marmara, Israeli commandos opened fire on civilian passengers, killing at least 9 passengers and wounding dozens more. Others are still missing. The final death toll is yet to be determined. Cultures of Resistance director Iara Lee was aboard the besieged ship and has since returned home safely. Despite the Israeli government’s thorough efforts to confiscate all footage taken during the attack, Iara Lee was able to retain some of her recordings. Above is 15 minutes of footage from the moments leading up to and during the Israeli commandos’ assault on the Mavi Marmara. To download, sign up for a Vimeo account (it is free) then download is available on the bottom right. Please download, share, embed, and distribute. Sea turtles' breeding tradition threatened (12 June 2010) More than 350 turtles have been found dead or foundering along the Gulf Coast since the April 20 well blowout, a number wildlife biologists find alarming. At least 62 turtles have been found covered in oil. Rescuers in Gulfport, Miss., on Thursday were called to collect 20 turtle carcasses, the highest daily number they have ever recorded. Researchers say there is no way of knowing how many more turtles have perished at sea. "Before, we didn't deal much with dead turtles. The calls we'd get were few and far between," said Tim Hoffland, director of animal care at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Gulfport. "But since this oil spill, it's just gone berserk," Hoffland said. "I'm getting calls from my people saying they can't even walk a quarter-mile on the beach without running into dead turtles. It's crazy." The turtle deaths pose a complex forensics mystery for scientists, many of whom say they are not ready to blame it all on the oil spill. Many of the stranded turtles, for example — five times the number seen in recent years — have been caught by fishing hooks. Toxicology tests will try to determine whether a toxic algae bloom may have killed some of the animals. Missoula shaken baby conviction relied on science, expert (12 June 2010) "It makes me angry that my son is dead," he testified. "It makes me angry that I'm the one accused of his death. I don't know who did it. But I had no reason to get mad at my son. He was 3 months old." Multiple doctors pointed to bleeding in the brain and eyes visible by medical imaging. Their diagnosis: abusive head trauma, more commonly known as shaken baby syndrome. This conclusion and his own testimony led authorities to charge Wilkes - and not another suspect - as the child's killer. Wilkes' story of what happened Oct. 4, 2008, never changed. He spent the day moving between apartments in the same complex, leaving Gabriel with a neighbor. He chatted with her when he returned and fed his son a bottle of formula. At home, he laid Gabriel on the floor to rest, grabbed a drink from the kitchen and turned on the television. Wilkes said when he checked back a few minutes later, he found Gabriel vomiting from his nose and mouth. Unable to find his cell phone, he rushed next door and cried for the sitter to call 9-1-1. PAM COMMENTARY: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" is often a bad vaccine reaction or "side effect." Some conditions are said to increase that sort of side effect, like a Vitamin C deficiency in the child before getting shots, or a failure of the doctor to give a Vitamin K shot after the vaccine. How can you tell the difference between a lethal vaccine reaction and physical abuse? A good way to start is to find out whether the baby had any vaccines recently. The vaccine side effect doesn't even seem to have been investigated in this case, as they don't mention any sort of medical history. Is this another cover-up to protect vaccine manufacturers? I'm posting this one case of many because it seems charging the father was a little premature. Not only did they fail to investigate the baby's vaccination history, but there were other people who had access to the child when the alleged abuse occurred. From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidence (11 June 2010) A few days later, the jig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle. With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!" The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up--a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions. Lindsey Williams Talks with Alex Jones About Deadly Gases Leaking from BP Spill (Audio/Video) [AJ] (11 June 2010) Appearing on the Alex Jones Show on June 10, 2010, paster Lindsey Williams reveals the real threat posed by the leak. PAM COMMENTARY: Williams has past experience in the oil industry, and also claims to have an inside source with good expertise who occasionally provides him with leaks. U.S. girl's failed trip around the world 'was insane' (11 June 2010) Miss Sunderland's attempt to become the youngest person to sail solo around the world will end when a fishing boat completes a 40-hour journey to rescue her. While her parents expressed relief that she had been found, there has been a barrage of criticism that she was allowed to go to sea at all. Last year a court acted against the wishes of the parents of a 13 year-old Dutch girl by preventing her from setting off on a solo voyage around the world. Ian Kiernan, an Australian sailor who has circumnavigated the globe, said it was "foolhardy" to enter the Indian Ocean during winter when weather conditions could deteriorate swiftly and present a mortal danger. Marty Still, an Australian who built the boat used by the teenage sailor Jessica Watson to successfully sail round the world earlier this year, said that Abby's team had chosen the wrong type of craft for the perilous crossing. He said her boat had been built for speed, not safety, and would be extremely difficult for one person to sail. But the harshest criticism came from America. A columnist in the Los Angeles Times accused Abby's parents of "child abuse" for allowing their daughter to go ahead with her voyage and described the mission as "outrageous, ridiculous, incomprehensible insanity". Viagra may lead to divorce (10 June 2010) Experts say the biggest problem is that men take the drug without talking with their partners, making them instant Don Juans—which their partner may not be prepared for. And sometimes, their improved self esteem sends them looking for new, more willing partners. A report published by the Harvard School of Medicine entitled “Sexuality in Midlife and Beyond” suggests the drug may help resolve relationship pressure caused by erectile dysfunction, but can cause other issues. “When intercourse is suddenly a possibility again, relationship issues can emerge or resurface, as can dramatic differences in libido. The bottom line is that couples should try to regard these drugs as an opportunity to renew their sexual relationship, while realizing that ED drugs are neither a mandate to have intercourse nor a panacea for every problem in the bedroom.” The 48-page report was edited by Dr. Alan Altman, assistant professor at Harvard Medical School, and Suki Hanfling, a licensed clinical social worker and certified sex therapist. The report helps readers understand how to deal with the emotional issues concerning sex, including taking Viagra. While there are millions of success stories about Viagra use, the study notes, “The medication works only if the man is feeling sexual desire for his partner.” PAM COMMENTARY: See flashback below on "Viagra's good side effect." Viagara's good side effect (FLASHBACK) (15 November 2005) OK, here's a bizarre story, and I have to warn you that the article cited below does contain "coarse language." You'd never expect a vegetarian with a good knowledge of alternative medicine to be praising Viagara and its pharmaceutical replicas. Aside from the drugs' nasty side effects like heart attacks and blindness, alternatives for overcoming impotence are often as simple as avoiding cholesterol and fried foods, and eating healthy foods like Omega-3 fatty acids and fresh produce. Or for those who are too far advanced for simple dietary cleanup, the same chelation therapy used for heart patients with arteriosclerosis tends to help with other organs as well, if you know what I mean. At best, Viagara is a perfect example of America's band-aid approach to medicine, where as usual, traditional MDs give patients a quick fix that provides temporary relief... and a need for the patient to keep coming back for more. It certainly doesn't solve anything permanently, other than cash flow for the doctor and big drug companies, making their Mercedes payments much easier to handle. So it's hard to believe that Viagara has any sort of positive impact, other than the occasional ability to have sex, blindness, and heart attacks. But I try to keep an open mind about these things, and it turns out that Viagara has demonstrated a good side effect of global proportions. Seattle's paper The Stranger recently reported a decline in the trade of animal body parts used as folk medicine for impotence. Good news for the Big-Mac-eating species who thought that other animal body parts would reverse a lifetime of greasy fries and milkshakes. Thanks Pfizer, for saving wildlife from the worst dietary habits in the world. Seattle's newspaper The Stranger reports: "MONDAY, OCTOBER 10 Our week of kooky correspondence, poisoned police procedures, and ridiculously random death kicks off today with the multiplying miracle of Viagra. After resuscitating two previously endangered species -- the erectile-functional over-50 husband and the sexually satisfied, non-adulterous wife -- Viagra and its wonder-siblings Cialis and Levitra have been credited with benefiting three other legally traded species. Specifically, the hooded seal, the harp seal, and the Alaskan reindeer, each of whose death rates have significantly declined thanks to Viagra and co., which have drastically reduced the demand for wild-animal body parts used in traditional cures for impotence, including the genitals of both the harp and hooded seal and the antler velvet of the Alaskan reindeer. Details come from New Scientist, which reports the findings of a new survey conducted by researchers in Canada and Australia. Since Viagra's introduction in 1998, researchers have watched worldwide trade in antlers fall from $700,000 in 1997 to $200,000 in 1998, and the number of traded seal penises fall from 40,000 in 1996 to 20,000 in 1998. In addition, seal penises suffered a precipitous drop in price, with the price-per-wang falling from $100 to $15 by 1999. Thanks to Pfizer for continuing to improve the lives of both animal and man, and congrats to the seals and reindeer, who get to keep their wangs and velvet, respectively." Rare photo of slave children found in North Carolina attic (10 June 2010) The photo, which may have been taken in the early 1860s, was a testament to a dark part of American history, said Will Stapp, a photographic historian and founding curator of the National Portrait Gallery's photographs department at the Smithsonian Institution. "It's a very difficult and poignant piece of American history," he said. "What you are looking at when you look at this photo are two boys who were victims of that history." In April, the photo was found at a moving sale in Charlotte, accompanied by a document detailing the sale of John for $1,150, not a small sum in 1854. New York collector Keya Morgan said he paid $30,000 for the photo album including the photo of the young boys and several family pictures and $20,000 for the sale document. Morgan said the deceased owner of the home where the photo was found was thought to be a descendant of John. Need earlier news? Visit Pam's NEWS ARCHIVES Sources (if found on major alternative news boards) -- you may want to look at these boards yourself, as they're much more extensive than my site: [AJ] - InfoWars.com, PrisonPlanet.com, or other Alex Jones-affiliated sites [BF] - BuzzFlash.com [DN] - DemocracyNow.org [R] - Rense.com [WRH] - WhatReallyHappened.com ...and a few other news sources (a work in progress) ---------------------------
	Click here to send Pam an e-mail (no attachments please -- they will be deleted without notice) SPECIAL NOTE 7/31/10: Due to hosting company changes, this e-mail address probably is down. Even so, this particular e-mail address was spammed so badly from being on the web for almost 10 years that it's no longer possible to separate the genuine e-mails from the hundreds of e-mails offering male enhancement drugs and banking scams. I'll post a new e-mail address soon. Please check back again on a later date. NOTICE: Recently this e-mail address has been used by spammers, who often fake any e-mail address they can find on web pages to send their spam. Checking the full header of your e-mail or tracing the e-mail will reveal that it did not come from pamrotella.com. Both comments@pamrotella.com and pam@veggiecooking.com have always been forwarded mail accounts only, i.e. you will never receive legitimate mail from either one of these addresses. When you send an e-mail to either of these addresses, your response will come from a different address. If you are receiving spam from either of these addresses, use your spam blocker software to block them. [Page created July 1998; last modified August 2009] All original content including photographs © 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010 by Pam Rotella. (News excerpts copyright by their corresponding authors, news organizations, or other copyright holders, and quoted here typically as "fair use" or "teaser" paragraphs to generate interest in the full articles.) Opening banner's photographs, left to right: 1.) Small building on my publisher's property in Wever, Iowa; 2.) Deer grazing along Skyline Drive, Virginia; 3.) Centralia, Pennsylvania's burning underground coal mine; 4.) Rainbow west of Houston, Texas; 5.) Prickly pears at alleged 1897 alien crash site in Aurora, Texas; and 6.) Hummingbird at feeder, Ozark Mountains, Arkansas. Left navigation bar's photographs, top to bottom: 1.) Tulips at Mitchell Park Horticultural Conservatory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; 2.) Glacier National Park, Montana; 3.) The Badlands, South Dakota; 4.) Bison crossing stream at Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming; 5.) Skyline Drive, Virginia; 6.) Weeping Wall, Glacier National Park, Montana; 7.) Purple passion fruit flower, Paradise, Texas; 8.) Pathway near Kickapoo Indian Caverns, Wisconsin; 9.) Glacier National Park, Montana; 10.) Bison herd, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming; 11.) Bull in Paradise, Texas; 12.) Tulip at Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Madison, Wisconsin; 13.) Ladybug, Milwaukee, Wisconsin; 14.) Shenandoah Cavern, Virginia; 15.) Stained glass at House on the Rock, Spring Green, Wisconsin; 16.) Lighthouse in Minnesota; 17.) Birch trees & autumn foliage in Minnesota; 18.) Red dragon stained glass backlit table at House on the Rock, Spring Green, Wisconsin; 19) Yellow flower at Boerner Botanical Gardens, Hales Corners, Wisconsin; 20.) Luray Caverns, Virginia; 21.) Hay bales on farm, Shoemakersville, Pennsylvania; 22.) Mississippi River at Fort Madison, Iowa; 23.) Walkway along the Mississippi River, New Orleans, Louisiana