Virginia Metze: Reading List for 15 April 2005 through Sunday, 17 April 2005

[Guest guest]

" Virginia Metze " <vmetze

Mon, 18 Apr 2005 13:54:38 -0500

 

 

Reading List for Friday, 15 April 2005 through Sunday, 17

April 2005

 

 

 

 

 

Income tax day! Lots of musings about how " the rich get richer and

the poor get poorer " ... Are any of you old enough to know that we

used to have to pay our income tax by March 15? Did you know that the

change was made to avoid linkage with the " Ides of March " ?

 

 

April 15th: You're Getting Screwed

 

By Molly Ivins, AlterNet. Posted April 14, 2005.

 

Happy tax day, fellow citizens!

 

My favorite authority on taxes is David Cay Johnston of The New York

Times, who won a Pulitzer for reporting on the terminally unsexy topic

of taxes. His book Perfectly Legal -- The Covert Campaign to Rig Our

Tax System to Benefit the Super-Rich -- and Cheat Everyone Else is the

single best work on public policy of recent years, I think.

 

Johnston reports: " Through explicit policies, as well as tax laws

never reported in the news, Congress now literally takes money from

those making $30,000 to $500,000 per year and funnels it in subtle

ways to the super-rich -- the top one-one hundredth of one percent of

Americans. [...] Read more at:

http://www.alternet.org/columnists/story/21760/

 

Former Northern Waters library head rewarded for taking on the FBI

$25,000 prize slated for library foundation

By RICK OLIVO

The Daily Press

Last Updated: Friday, April 15th, 2005 10:09:21 AM

 

The former head of Ashland's Northern Waters Library System has been

named as winner of a prestigious First Amendment award.

 

Joan Airoldi, a librarian and library director in Whatcom County in

rural Washington State, challenged an FBI effort to search patron

records as an unconstitutional fishing expedition by federal

officials. [...] Read the rest at:

http://www.ashland-wi.com/placed/index.php?sect_rank=1 & story_id=198316

or http://tinyurl.com/dofvd Having trouble finding facts about what

went on in Congressional sessions? Here is the basic URL to start at:

http://thomas.loc.gov

 

 

Bush White House won't report on fake news

Salon War Room

Julia Scott

April 15, 2005

 

The Senate's unanimous decision Thursday to ban federal funding for

" video news releases " broadcast the image of a federal government

deeply concerned about the dangers of manipulating the public with

propaganda. The FCC also announced a crackdown this week, instating

new rules for disclosure.

 

But the Bush White House hasn't been so forthcoming on the issue. On

Wednesday, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., announced that the White

House has not been cooperating with a probe he requested into the

Armstrong Williams payola case. In January, reporters revealed that

the conservative commentator had been awarded $240,000 worth of

Department of Education funding to promote the administration's No

Child Left Behind initiative.

 

At Miller's behest, the Department of

Education's inspector general, Jack Higgins, launched an internal

investigation. According to a press release from Miller's office,

Higgins told Miller that the White House " had refused to allow them to

interview White House officials who may have knowledge of the Williams

contract " -- and that Education Secretary Margaret Spellings is

considering requiring Higgins to delete certain information he had

originally included in his draft report. [...] Read the rest at:

http://tinyurl.com/9efec You should be able to read anything with a

day's pass.

 

 

 

The Rise of Disaster Capitalism

 

LOOKOUT by Naomi Klein

column | Posted April 14, 2005

The Nation

 

Last summer, in the lull of the August media doze, the Bush

Administration's doctrine of preventive war took a major leap forward.

On August 5, 2004, the White House created the Office of the

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, headed by former US

Ambassador to Ukraine Carlos Pascual.

 

Its mandate is to draw up

elaborate " post-conflict " plans for up to twenty-five countries that

are not, as of yet, in conflict. According to Pascual, it will also be

able to coordinate three full-scale reconstruction operations in

different countries " at the same time, " each lasting " five to seven

years. "

 

Fittingly, a government devoted to perpetual pre-emptive

deconstruction now has a standing office of perpetual pre-emptive

reconstruction. [...] Read the rest at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20050502 & s=klein

 

 

Florida Privatizes Child Welfare Programs

Sunday April 17, 2005 2:31 AM Associated Press

 

MIAMI (AP) - Florida has become the first state in the nation to

fully privatize its child welfare programs, after signing a $75

million contract to hand over those responsibilities in its last two

counties.

 

The deal Friday with Our Kids Inc. gives the group the right to handle

all foster care, adoption and child welfare licensing operations in

Miami-Dade and Monroe counties, where about 5,000 children are now

under state care.

 

``The entire state will now benefit from qualified experts that are

equipped to know and meet the needs of their communities,'' Department

of Children and Families Secretary Lucy Hadi said. [...] Read the

rest on the Guardian web site: http://tinyurl.com/aaaoa

 

 

In case you don't already know more than you ever wanted to know about

the new bankruptcy law, the Information Clearing House has printed an

article from The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group which

goes over it in great detail. Read about it here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8567.htm

 

 

Once again, our children are heroes ...

Students end six-day hunger strike

Sunday, April 17, 2005 Posted: 9:43 PM EDT (0143 GMT) (AP)

 

ST. LOUIS, Missouri (AP) -- Students advocating for better pay for

Washington University contract workers have ended a six-day hunger

strike and will meet with Chancellor Mark Wrighton three times this

week to discuss the issue.

 

The agreement was announced late Saturday after Wrighton met with some

of the protesters. However, students said they would continue a sit-in

at the undergraduate admissions office until they meet with Wrighton

on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

 

About 15 students have been camped out in the admissions office since

April 4. Twelve of the protesters began a hunger strike last Monday.

The students said they want the university to negotiate a living wage

for the school's lowest-paid workers, such as groundskeepers and food

service workers. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/bt9sj

 

 

 

Part II: The End Timers thrive in Lake City, but what goes on behind

their walls and fences is not always so pretty

 

TODD LEWAN

 

Associated Press

Posted on Sun, Apr. 17, 2005

 

LAKE CITY, Fla. - Of late, Judy Ayers had been on edge. She'd noticed

some peculiar things around her neighborhood: armed sentinels watching

motorists through binoculars; brown-suited men fixing up homes into

the wee hours.

 

She had tried to shrug these things off as eccentricities,

coincidences. But then, while driving into town one fall afternoon in

1987, she spotted her 21-year-old son, Eric, cornered in an Amoco lot

by two angry men in khaki jumpsuits.

 

Ayers swung her car to a stop. She yelled: " What's going on here? "

 

One of the men snapped back: Eric had been trespassing.

 

Eric, pallid as scraped bone, spoke up. All he'd done, he said, was

take a picture of the house of Charles Meade, the leader of a doomsday

sect whose followers had been moving into Lake City in increasing

numbers. [...] Read the rest at the Tallahassee Democrat:

http://tinyurl.com/8m2ck

 

 

A self-styled prophet, a legion of

followers, and a 'Promised Land' in Florida

By Todd Lewan

The Associated Press

Posted April 16 2005, 10:50 AM EDT

 

LAKE CITY -- In the beginning, there was an elderly widow who owned a

modest brick house in the most heavenly part of town. One year she

decided to put her " home place'' on the market, and along came a

dapper gentleman and his adoring wife, cash in hand.

 

The gentleman, who was 67, must have been a preacher, it was rumored,

for he often could be seen strolling about his new yard in a funereal

suit and necktie, even on the muggiest of summer days, with a

countenance of serenity and beneficence that could belong only to a

servant of the Lord.

But there was something disquieting about this man, too, something

inexplicable that made his neighbors uneasy whenever he greeted them

by politely touching the brim of his fedora. [...] Read the rest in

the Sun-Sentinel: http://tinyurl.com/8k86m Capitol Hillbillies

 

 

 

Republicans reject tougher ethics rules

By DAVID ESPO

Apr 15, 2005, 08:08

 

 

House Republicans brushed aside the Democrats' latest attempt to

rewrite ethics rules on Thursday, one day after a closed-door

discussion that touched on the perils of political arrogance.

 

The vote was 218-195, along party lines, to kill the proposal by Rep.

Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader.

The California Democrat swiftly issued a statement accusing

Republicans of showing " allegiance to the ethics standards of Tom

DeLay. " DeLay, the majority leader, is battling charges of misconduct.

[...] Read it all at the Capitol Hill Blue web site:

http://tinyurl.com/cx5on

 

 

Tainted conservative

Though charity may begin in the House, few have so brazenly blended

the altruistic with the self-serving as Tom DeLay.

By Joe Conason

 

 

April 15, 2005 | " The time has come that the American people know

exactly what their representatives are doing here in Washington. Are

they feeding at the public trough, taking lobbyist-paid vacations,

getting wined and dined by special-interest groups? Or are they

working hard to represent their constituents? The people, the American

people, have a right to know. I say the best disinfectant is full

disclosure. "

 

That populist polemic was delivered on the House floor in November

1995 by well-known reformer Tom DeLay, R-Texas. Now nationally

notorious for his own lobbyist-paid luxury trips to Scotland, Russia

and South Korea, among other places, where he has been wined and dined

by a bewildering variety of special-interest groups, the House

majority leader is no longer quite so strict about full disclosure,

either. Even the trait often described as his most admirable -- his

concern for abused children -- has been tainted by his penchant for

backroom influence peddling. [...] Read the rest at Salon.com:

http://tinyurl.com/adozv

 

 

Remember the people who were rounded up during the GOP Convention?

Videos showing that at least some police lied brought an end to some

of the arrests...

 

City to Pay $150 a Person in G.O.P. Arrest Settlement

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

The New York Times

Published: April 16, 2005

 

A legal dispute over the city's arrest and detainment methods during

the National Republican Convention has been settled, with the city

agreeing to pay $231,200 in legal fees and a small fine, and lawyers

for the protesters dropping their case against the city.

 

The settlement was hammered out over the past five days between

lawyers from the city and legal groups representing the protesters,

including the Legal Aid Society and the National Lawyers Guild. It

gives 108 plaintiffs $16,200, or $150 each, with the remaining

$215,000 going for legal fees. [...] Read more about the settlement

at the New York Times web site: http://tinyurl.com/cunp6

 

 

 

Don't be fooled by the spin on Iraq

The US is failing - and hatred of the occupation greater than ever

 

Jonathan Steele

Wednesday April 13, 2005

The Guardian

 

Saddam Hussein's effigy was pulled down again in Baghdad's Firdos

Square at the weekend. But unlike the made-for-TV event when US troops

first entered the Iraqi capital, the toppling of Saddam on the

occupation's second anniversary was different.

 

Instead of being done by US marines with a few dozen Iraqi bystanders,

300,000 Iraqis were on hand. They threw down effigies of Bush and

Blair as well as the old dictator, at a rally that did not celebrate

liberation but called for the immediate departure of foreign troops.

[...] Read the rest at the Guardian: http://tinyurl.com/a6fzf

 

 

UN Commission to Address Abuses in Guantánamo and 'War on Terrorism'

During the last week of its 61st annual session, the United Nations

Commission on Human Rights will have to deal with two of the touchiest

issues on the international agenda today: the situation of the

prisoners at the U.S. naval base in Guantánamo Bay, and rights

violations committed in the name of fighting terrorism.

Gustavo Capdevila

Inter press service news agency (IPS)

April 15, 2005

 

GENEVA, Apr 15 (IPS) - During the last week of its 61st annual

session, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights will have to

deal with two of the touchiest issues on the international agenda

today: the situation of the prisoners at the U.S. naval base in

Guantánamo Bay, and rights violations committed in the name of

fighting terrorism.

 

In the case of Guantánamo, Cuba is calling on the Commission to demand

that the United States allow for an independent, impartial

investigation into the situation of the prisoners being held at the

military base on the eastern tip of the island.

 

Cuban delegate Rodolfo Reyes Rodríguez said Friday that his country

was not presenting the proposal in retaliation for the U.S.-sponsored

resolution against Cuba adopted by the Commission the day before.

[...] Read the rest at http://ipsnews.net/interna.asp?idnews=28325

or http://tinyurl.com/daw8y

 

 

 

Means, motive, opportunity

Scenario: 2006 mid-term election

 

By Ernest Partridge

Online Journal Guest Writer

 

 

April 15, 2005 (crisispapers.org)—By late summer 2006, the United

States is in a desperate condition. Following the collapse of the

dollar in international currency markets, there has been a cascade of

business failures and mortgage foreclosures, and a precipitous rise in

unemployment, as the US economy slides inexorably into a depression.

 

Meanwhile, the June 2005 American attack on Iran and the continuing

war in Iraq has made the United States an international pariah state;

thus the community of nations shows no inclination whatever to rescue

the United States from its economic collapse.

 

In the run-up to the 2006 election, the mainstream media have once

again fallen in line behind the Republicans, blaming the depression on

the Clinton administration, al Qaeda, and/or betrayal by " the Old

Europe. " The crimes and outrages of the Bush/GOP syndicate have been

unreported by the media, as Democratic war veterans running for office

against GOP draft dodgers have once again been castigated as

" unpatriotic. " [...] Read the rest of this at:

http://onlinejournal.com/evoting/041505Partridge/041505partridge.html

or http://tinyurl.com/c7t79

 

 

Despite ethics troubles, DeLay gets broad, deep financial support

 

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Sunday, April 17, 2005

journalnew.com online partner of Winston-Salem Journal, North Carolina

 

 

WASHINGTON

 

The ethics troubles of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay have not hurt

his re-election fundraising.

 

In the first three months of this year, DeLay's campaign committee

took in $438,235, including $100,000 he borrowed for his campaign,

according to the latest records from the Federal Election Commission.

 

The loan was from Southern National Bank in Sugar Land, Texas,

according to his quarterly campaign-finance report filed late Friday.

DeLay still owed $88,330 on the loan at the end of March. [...]

Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/9p43n

 

 

 

Pentagon's War Spending Hard to Track - Watchdog

 

By REUTERS

New York Times

Published: April 14, 2005

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Defense Department is unable to track how

it spent tens of millions of dollars in Iraq, Afghanistan and

elsewhere in the U.S. war on terrorism, Congress's top investigator

said on Wednesday.

 

The department ``doesn't have a system to be able to determine with

any degree of reliability and specificity how we spent'' tens of

millions in war-related emergency funds set aside by Congress,

Comptroller General David Walker told a Senate Armed Services

subcommittee.

Walker heads the Government Accountability Office, Congress's

nonpartisan audit and investigative arm. He disclosed the accounting

gap as part of a broader indictment of Pentagon business practices.

[...] Read more at the New York Times web site:

http://tinyurl.com/47swo

 

 

 

Court unseals Passaro papers

Tenet, Gonzales on witness list

By ANDREA WEIGL, Staff Writer

The News and Observer

Published: Apr 13, 2005

Modified: Apr 13, 2005 6:36 AM

RALEIGH -- A former CIA contractor accused of beating an Afghan

prisoner plans to call former agency Director George Tenet and

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales as witnesses to aid his defense that

he was acting under government authority. [...] Read more at:

http://tinyurl.com/ayu3k

 

 

Media Matters for America report:

Conservative publisher announces plans to " Swift Boat " Sen. Clinton

Posted to the web on Thursday April 14, 2005 at 2:46 PM EST

 

In recent days, a forthcoming book about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton

(D-NY) titled The Truth About Hillary: What She Knew, When She Knew

It, and How Far She'll Go to Become President has gotten free advance

publicity in major newspapers and on cable television, with several

media outlets and figures already speculating -- some five months

before the book is to be available -- that it will damage Clinton's

much-speculated-about, but undeclared, presidential campaign. [...]

Read the rest at:

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504140004 Nike lists abuses at Asian

factories

 

 

David Teather in New York

Thursday April 14, 2005

The Guardian

 

Nike, long the subject of sweatshop allegations, yesterday produced

the most comprehensive picture yet of the 700 factories that produce

its footwear and clothing, detailing admissions of abuses, including

forced overtime and restricted access to water.

 

The company has published a 108-page report, available on its website,

the first since it paid $1.5m to settle allegations that it had made

false claims about how well its workers were treated.

 

For years activists have been pressing Nike and other companies to

reveal where their factories are in order to allow independent

monitoring. [...] Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/7ofc6 Also

at Truthout: http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/041405LA.shtml

Brought to you by the DCCC -- Tom DeLay's House of Scandal:

http://houseofscandal.org/ Pediatric Vaccine Stockpile at Risk

 

 

 

The Online Beat

Nation

by John Nichols

Wednesday 13 April 2005

 

John Bolton vs Democracy

 

" Im with the Bush-Cheney team, and I'm here to stop the count. "

 

Those were the words John Bolton yelled as he burst into a Tallahassee

library on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2000, where local election workers were

recounting ballots cast in Florida's disputed presidential race

between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

 

Bolton was one of the pack of lawyers for the Republican presidential

ticket who repeatedly sought to shut down recounts of the ballots from

Florida counties before those counts revealed that Gore had actually

won the state's electoral votes and the presidency.

 

The December 9 intervention was Bolton's last and most significant

blow against the democratic process. [...] Read the rest at:

http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/index.mhtml?bid=1 & pid=2320 or

http://tinyurl.com/4j3bq Also at:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/041505D.shtml#1

 

 

Dean: Schiavo case

to be used against GOP elections

 

USA TODAY

Posted 4/16/2005 4:51 PM

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean,

who has accused congressional Republicans of " grandstanding " in the

Terri Schiavo case, said his party will use it against the GOP in

coming elections.

 

" This is going to be an issue in 2006, and its going to be an issue in

2008 because we're going to have an ad with a picture of (House

Majority Leader) Tom DeLay saying, 'Do you want this guy to decide

whether you die or not? Or is that going to be up to your loved

ones?' " Dean said in West Hollywood, Calif. [...] Read the rest at:

http://tinyurl.com/c6te3

 

 

 

Get Tom DeLay to the Church on Time

 

OP-ED COLUMNIST

By FRANK RICH

Published: April 17, 2005

New York Times

 

A scandal is like any other melodrama: It can't be a crowd pleaser

unless the audience can follow the plot. That's why Monica Lewinsky

trumped Whitewater, and that's why of all the story lines ensnaring

Tom DeLay, the one with legs is the one with the craps tables. It's

not just easy to follow, but it also has a combustive cultural element

that makes it as representative of its political era as Monicagate was

of the Clinton years. As the lies and subterfuge of the go-go 1990's

coalesced around sex, so the scandal of our new " moral values " decade

comes cloaked in religion. The hair shirt is the new thong.

 

This time the plot begins with money. Two K Street fixers, a lobbyist

named Jack Abramoff and a flack named Michael Scanlon, managed to

snooker six American Indian tribes into handing over $82 million in

exchange for furthering their casino interests. According to The

Washington Post, some of their tribal takings, cycled through a

nonprofit center for " public policy research, " helped send Mr. DeLay

golfing in Scotland. The pious congressman, a gambling foe, says he

had no idea of his trip's sinful provenance. Never mind that Mr. DeLay

was joined abroad by Mr. Abramoff, whom he has described as one of his

" closest and dearest friends, " or that Mr. Scanlon had once been his

spokesman. Mr. DeLay was as innocent of the goings-on around him as a

piano player in a brothel. [...] Read the rest at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/17/opinion/17rich.html?

 

 

Michael Moore running for pope?

http://www.michaelmoore.com/

 

 

Analysis: GOP Filibuster Plan Poses Risks

Sun Apr 17,10:19 PM ET

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

 

WASHINGTON - A looming power play by Senate Republican leaders to

clamp down on filibusters against judicial nominees is a high-risk

strategy. It could change the balance of power in the Senate, erode

the rights of the minority party and backfire against Republicans in

the long term.

 

The Senate is " not always going to be Republican, " former Senate

Majority Leader Bob Dole, the 1996 GOP presidential candidate, is

reminding fellow Republicans. " Think down the road, " he advises. [...]

Read the rest at: http://tinyurl.com/9s6lw Drudge tried to smear

Kerry with false AP charge that he outed CIA operative

 

 

Media Matters for America

 

Posted to the web on Tuesday April 12, 2005 at 3:17 PM EST

 

Conservative Internet gossip Matt Drudge attempted to smear Sen. John

Kerry (D-MA) by linking to an Associated Press report that falsely

suggested that Kerry and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman

Richard Lugar (R-IN) " may have blown " the cover of CIA officer Fulton

Armstrong.

 

Drudge went further than the AP in implicating Kerry. Omitting Lugar's

name, he titled the link simply " Kerry Blows CIA Agent Cover?... " The

AP article, written by AP diplomatic writer Anne Gearan, reported that

Kerry and Lugar both mentioned Armstrong by name during the April 11

Senate confirmation hearings of John Bolton, President Bush's nominee

to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and falsely suggested

that they " may have blown his cover " by doing so. [...] Read the rest

at: http://mediamatters.org/items/200504120007

 

 

Denny Hastert's Late

Payment

 

NEWS ANALYSIS

By Eamon Javers

Business Week Online

APRIL 15, 2005

A long delay in paying for a fund-raiser at an eatery owned by

scandal-plagued Jack Abramoff could prove embarrassing to a GOP Mr. Clean

 

Signatures restaurant, the expense-account haven owned by

super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, has hosted at least 60 GOP fund-raisers

since it opened on Washington's Pennsylvania Ave. NW in early 2002.

But the June 3, 2003, lunchtime gathering was special: The guest of

honor was House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.), and the event was a

relatively intimate gathering dominated by lobbyists from Greenberg

Traurig, the law and lobbying firm where Abramoff then worked.

 

The problem? Nobody paid for the lunch -- or reported it in disclosure

documents as an in-kind contribution -- as federal election law

requires, BusinessWeek Online has learned. The tab -- which Hastert's

office would not disclose -- was paid only this month, around the time

that BusinessWeek Online began to investigate fund-raisers for

Republican politicos held at Signatures. Hastert's office says his

staffers uncovered the oversight. [...] Read the rest at:

http://businessweek.com/print/bwdaily/dnflash/apr2005/nf20050415_2315.htm

or

http://tinyurl.com/74kan

 

 

Detainees escape from U.S. military camp in Iraq

Associated Press

Salon.com

 

April 16, 2005 | BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Eleven detainees upset about their

treatment by U.S. captors escaped Saturday from the military's largest

detention center in Iraq by climbing through a hole in the fence, and

bombings around the country killed a dozen Iraqis.

 

Ten of the 11 escapees were recaptured after fleeing Camp Bucca, the

largest U.S. detention facility with about 6,000 prisoners, nearly

two-thirds of all those in Iraq. [...] Read the rest at:

http://salon.com/news/wire/2005/04/16/iraq/index.html

 

 

Ex-Lawmakers Accuse House of Protecting DeLay

 

By Thomas Ferraro

Reuters

Fri Apr 15, 3:02 PM ET

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Ten former Republican U.S. lawmakers on Friday

urged a reversal of new House of Representatives ethics rules that

they charged were changed to protect Majority Leader Tom DeLay from

further investigation.

 

In an open letter to Republican House Speaker Dennis Hastert of

Illinois, the former lawmakers said the rule changes early this year,

which make it more difficult to probe an ethics complaint, must be

reversed " to restore public confidence in the people's House. " [...]

Read the rest at the Reuters feed: http://tinyurl.com/bdlsn or to

Truthout site: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/041605Y.shtml

 

 

 

200 groups lobbying to protect family leave act

 

Friday, April 15, 2005

By Karen MacPherson, Post-Gazette National Bureau

 

WASHINGTON -- More than 200 state and national groups yesterday urged

federal officials to reject an effort by business organizations that

they contend would weaken key protections of the Family and Medical

Leave Act.

 

In a letter to U.S. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, the groups --

representing women, minorities, labor and senior citizens -- said the

proposed changes would " roll back " the protections provided by the

12-year-old act by denying millions of American workers the ability to

take time off for their own illness or that of a family member. [...]

Read the rest at: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05105/488565.stm

Also on Truthout site: http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/041505LA.shtml

 

 

US Sends Deadly Flu Virus 'in Error'

Posted: 04/14

Mathaba

 

The World Health Organisation issued a warning today after a US

institute sent to thousands of laboratories samples of a lethal flu

virus that killed around four million people in the late 1950s.

 

Observers have long wondered why such deadly viruses should be stored

in US and labs like the UK military's Porton Down, and not simply

destroyed. [...] Read the rest at mathaba.net:

http://mathaba.net/x.htm?http://mathaba.net/0_index.shtml?x=186680

 

 

Courting Armageddon

How the Bush Administration's Biological Weapons Buildup Affects You

by Heather Wokusch

Published on Thursday, April 14, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

 

 

News that a U.S. company recently sent vials of a 1957 pandemic flu

strain to laboratories across the world by accident is only the latest

outrage from the billion-dollar boondoggle called the federal

biological weapons program.

 

As you might recall, the Bush administration started its " biodefense "

spending spree following the September 2001 deadly anthrax attacks,

and one of its first projects was to genetically engineer a

super-resistant, even more deadly version of the anthrax virus.

 

Our leaders are nuts.

 

Unfortunately, Project Jefferson has good company. A US Army scientist

in Maryland is currently trying to bring back elements of the 1918

Spanish flu, a virus which killed 40 million people. And a virologist

in St. Louis has been working on a more lethal form of mousepox

(related to smallpox) - just to try stopping the virus once it's been

created. [...] Read the rest at Common Dreams:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0414-21.htm or

http://tinyurl.com/62yf7

 

 

The Medical Money Pit

 

By PAUL KRUGMAN

OP-ED COLUMNIST

The New York Times

Published: April 15, 2005

 

A dozen years ago, everyone was talking about a health care crisis.

But then the issue faded from view: a few years of good data led many

people to conclude that H.M.O.'s and other innovations had ended the

historic trend of rising medical costs.

 

But the pause in the growth of health care costs in the 1990's proved

temporary. Medical costs are once again rising rapidly, and our health

care system is once again in crisis. So now is a good time to ask why

other advanced countries manage to spend so much less than we do,

while getting better results. [...] Read the rest at:

http://tinyurl.com/7b9bq

 

 

For those of you not put off by humor with

obscenity, two good articles on the RudePundit blog spot:

 

2. Tom DeLay Sodomizes the Act of Contrition:

 

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2005/04/scalia-delay-and-sodomy-couple-of.html

 

The person sending this pointed out that " item 1 is a report of a rude

point made by a gay questioner at a Scalia speaking event. "

 

There will never be a charge for this reading list and I won't ask for

contributions.

 

It may be freely distributed as long as it is sent out in its entirety

with this statement attached and no charge is made. Of course you are

free to use the URLs in your own posts, etc.

 

© Virginia Metze

 

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