The Dubai-Al Qaeda Connection: Smoking Gun?

Lots of stuff has been going back and forth over the whole Dubai Ports scandal, but one thing that has been neglected has been the phrase in the media:

"There are connections between the United Arab Emirates and Al Qaeda" but it's been vague and hasn't really said much, other than some people from the Emirates participated in 9/11. Considering that any independent person from there could have been involved, that's not much of an indictable offense.

Well, I decided to start googling and this is what I came up with.

The Emir of Dubai, and the head of the family that owns Dubai Ports is an associate and hunting companion of Osama Bin Laden.

I kept having this niggling feeling that I had heard this a while back and I had, because MSNBC had reported it on 9/5/03. No one has talked about this yet in the news, though Peter King, has said:

"By having a company right out of the heartland of al-Qaida managing those ports without being properly cleared or investigated, to me is madness," Rep. King told ABC News.

King cited "a number of reports about the port of Dubai itself, about weapons going through that port, to Iran, about corruption, and again about an al-Qaida presence. And I know there was no real investigation done on this matter."

This bothered me. Surely there must be more. And with a little bit of effort, I found it at cooperativeresearch.org.

Between 1995-2001 the Arab Elite went hunting with Bin Laden:

After the Taliban takes control of the area around Kandahar, Afghanistan, in September 1994, prominent Persian Gulf state officials and businessmen, including high-ranking United Arab Emirates and Saudi government ministers, such as Saudi intelligence minister Prince Turki al-Faisal, frequently secretly fly into Kandahar on state and private jets for hunting expeditions. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01] General Wayne Downing, Bush's former national director for combating terrorism, says: "They would go out and see Osama, spend some time with him, talk with him, you know, live out in the tents, eat the simple food, engage in falconing, some other pursuits, ride horses. One noted visitor is Sheik Mohammed ibn Rashid al Maktum, United Arab Emirates Defense Minister and Crown Prince for the emirate of Dubai." [MSNBC, 9/5/03] While there, some develop ties to the Taliban and al-Qaeda and give them money. Both bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar sometimes participate in these hunting trips. Former US and Afghan officials suspect that the dignitaries' outbound jets may also have smuggled out al-Qaeda and Taliban personnel. [Los Angeles Times, 11/18/01] On one occasion, the US will decide not to attack bin Laden with a missile because he's falconing with important members of the United Arab Emirates' royal family (see February 1999).

According to Wikipedia, Sheik Mohammed ibn Rashid al Maktum is the Prime Minister of the Entirety of the UAE, and recently become the Emir of Dubai after the former Emir, Maktoum bin Rashid Al Maktoum, died of a heart attack this month in Queensland, Australia.

George Tenet actually confirmed this in his testimony in front of the 9/11 commission. Hollywood Reporter pointed this out today on the tjf1977's diary:

FIELDING: Well, yesterday we talked about the three events in '98 and '99 where there were occasions that it looked like there might be an opportunity which then, in each instance, was deemed not to be operational. And the one that I find the most intriguing and the one that's been labeled as perhaps the lost opportunity more than any was the February '99 hunting camp -- I guess it's been described -- the desert camp.

And yesterday in the staff statement that was read, we're told about that and we were told that the intelligence seemed pretty strong and that the preparations were made and then the strike was called off. And the lead CIA agent in the field felt that it was very reliable intelligence.

I guess, was there anything unique about the intelligence or the circumstances that necessitated that decision?

FIELDING: And who made that decision?

TENET: I don't have a recollection of the uniqueness of the intelligence in question at the time. I can go back and provide that for you. In fact, I'd like to go back and try and package up all the data at my disposal when we were thinking about these issues.

I believe this was a collective decision. I also believe this target went away because the camp was ultimately dismantled. So in reading through your staff inquiry -- your staff notes on this, I can't recall who made the call, but I know we were all in the same place about it, Mr. Fielding.

FIELDING: I would appreciate that on behalf of the commission, if you could do that because it seemed that this -- when the intelligence was so good and that by the time the camp was dismantled, days and days had passed. So I would appreciate that.

TENET: It's also a question, I believe, as to whether bin Laden was inside or outside the camp...

FIELDING: Of course.

TENET: ... the complicating issue in this whole thing and whether he was there or not. So there's a second complicating factor here.

The third complicating factor here is you might have wiped out half the royal family in the UAE in the process, which I'm sure entered into everybody's calculation in all this.

Wow, looks like between all of us, we can come up with a real connection between this Dubai and bin laden, and this is heavily indicting on Bush considering his insistence that he will VETO any attempt to stop this deal.

My New Dog...Not Everything is Politics!

Hi, Ya'll

I probably shouldn't be up at 1:55 am typing this, but ... oh well here I am.

We got a new dog this week, and if we can keep him from running away, then we should have a new member of the family. He's a gorgeous dog, an 18 month old husky, whom we retrieved from the Central Coast Northern Dog Rescue. The rescuers have named him "Zeki" which means "smart" in Turkish, and since it is a nice two syllable name, we've kept it for now, and since we've been calling him that for about 3 days, I am loathe to change it, and actually, I kinda like it.

Here he is:
This is him hoping against hope that someone will open the gate and let him run. :) He doesn't go out without a leash.

Anyway, I'm hoping that we will have a long and exciting relationship.

Puppy hugs,
Joy

To Kore

This is a poem To Kore, from Hades... In honor of Samhain. To those who don't understand this, look up the story of Persephone and Hades (Greek Mythology).

Oh, Kore,

Hear one who deep within the cavern’d world doth long,
To touch the flower’d light, to dance with lilted song,
Whose heart is not of stone, though stone became his fate,
When lots were cast ‘mongst brothers, he won the nether gate.

The one received the trident and doth rule the perfumed foam,
The other on the heights of proud Olympus sits his throne.
They rule their realms as kings but all must homage show,
To Her from whom the holy stream of life doth ebb and flow.

These rulers are but stewards all of one great secret deep,
The one the sky, the one the sea, the one the caverns keep,
And I alone thought least of all among the brothers three,
I guard the utmost mystery and this I’ll teach to thee.

I sit not on the radiant mount nor rule the scented sea,
But lonely in my cloistered halls I call the dead to me.
They come with fear and deep despair and cry unto the sky,
“Oh why live we and suffer so if only now to die?”

My countenance is hard as stone, implacable the law,
But oh, my heart would comfort give and stay the bloody maw.
Yet all must pass beneath the gate to see again the light,
And in the darkness meet their souls and seek their paths aright.

And lonely in my somber toil I yearn for loving eyes,
A soothing touch, a heart that knows how I am moved by cries.
Oh, maiden whom the flowers love, who wears the verdant green,
Come with your laughter to my halls and rule my realm as Queen.

Let amethyst and azurite and radiant tourmaline,
Ignite before the light bestowed by Erebos’ new Queen.
Let souls who journey through the night find comfort in your gaze,
Let those who craven’d in despair now find a voice for praise.

To all who walk the spiral path, the key of life to gain,
Bestow the token of a glance that says all’s not in vain,
Unto my realm I beckon you, fear not the Stygian gates,
With fullsome heart and outstreached hand -- thy Dark Lord waits.

--by Tom Williams

Phytoplankton is the basis of the ocean's life

Back on September 13, 1996 my husband and I took a whale watching trip out of San Francisco beyond the Farallon Islands. It was a beautiful day and we were very fortunate in that we saw 7 great blue whales, 2 or 3 humback whales and thousands of seabirds. Here are a couple of pictures

The Farallon Islands are actually mountains that jut out of the sea and lay about 25 miles southwest of the Golden Gate. They have an interesting history.

Beyond the Islands the Pacific shelf drops off dramatically, and hundreds of whales feed here on the upwell of krill and other phytoplankton and zooplankton. These are the basis for life in the oceans because they are at the bottom of the food chain.

Here are a couple of more pictures.

Great Blue Whale We saw 7 of them. They were AMAZING. (smelly breathe though!)












One of the three humpbacks we saw showing off it's tale.

More pictures here.










Well something disturbing is happening.

"Oceanic plankton have largely disappeared from the waters off Northern California, Oregon and Washington, mystifying scientists, stressing fisheries and causing widespread seabird mortality.

The phenomenon could have long-term implications if it continues: a general decline in near-shore oceanic life, with far fewer fish, birds and marine mammals. No one is certain how long the condition will last. But even a short duration could severely affect seabird populations because of drastically reduced nesting success, scientists say.

The plankton disappearance is caused by a slackening of what is known as "upwelling:" the seasonal movement of cold, nutrient-rich offshore water into areas near shore.

This cold water sustains vast quantities of phytoplankton and zooplankton, which are the basis of the marine food web. During periods of vigorous upwelling and consequent plankton "blooms," everything from salmon to blue whales fattens and thrives on the continental shelf of the West Coast. "

The rest of the article is very disturbing. With this current administration's denial of basic scientific evidence that global warming is actually happening, we may end up losing the world's ocean life as one of first casualties of a blighted and short-sighted energy policy.

Thanks, George.

Re: The Left Gets a Memo? by Michael Kinsley

Michael,

Well, I read your article, Michael and wow, that was a great adolescent whine. We aren't "paranoid extremists", most of us knew we were lied to, we are justified now with this memo (which are actually minutes.)

You really should check with the London Times before you submit such a ridiculous editorial, they posted new memos the same morning of your editorial.

Including Downing Street Memo II, which is MUCH more incriminating than the first one.

In case you haven't been there, all new documents are on Raw Story and on the following:

• Ministers were told of need for Gulf War 'excuse'
• Cabinet Office Paper: Conditions for military action
• Washington confronts memogate
• Have US media been too cautious reporting Iraq?

Just in case you are unaware of the news, the ministers were told of a need for them to creat an excuse for war. Hello? This is KILLING people!

Back to your "whine". Just to let you know.... C is the head of MI6 - Sir Richard Dearlove, which you would have known if you did a little bit of research. That's what the Brits call that office. We knew that, why didn't you?

You said: "But even on its face, the memo is not proof that Bush had decided on war. It states that war is “now seen as inevitable” by “Washington.” That is, people other than Bush had concluded, based on observation, that he was determined to go to war. There is no claim of even fourth-hand knowledge that he had actually declared this intention. Even if “Washington” meant administration decision-makers, rather than the usual freelance chatterboxes, C was only saying that these people believed that war was how events would play out."

Usual freelance chatterboxes? Um, the memo said: "“The NSC had no patience with the UN route.” in the very same paragraph. Are you calling Condoleeza Rice a "Chatterbox"?

And you obviously didn't read the second page of the memo.

“The Foreign Secretary [Jack Straw] said he would discuss this with Colin Powell this week. It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided.”

Now you say that "everyone knew" we were intending to go to war with Iraq (well some of us "paranoid extremists" (how dare you!) did know he was planning on it actually, like Amy Goodman) but Bush said ""I've not made up our mind on military action." Grammatical mistakes aside, (because he never speaks right), he said this over and over as he was PLANNING the war with BLAIR and this was two weeks before we decided to go to war, and at that very time we were BOMBING Iraq, illegally, to try and goad Saddam into war, and had been for 1 and a 1/2 months before then!

Point of fact, Bush and Blair discussed going to war with Iraq 9 days after 9/11. Where was the LA Times coverage on THAT?

In fact, Bush dreamed about invading Iraq before he was even president. If you check Raw Story you will see the time line and what happened WHEN. He said he wanted to invade Iraq in 1999.

I'm getting so sick and tired of lazy and sycophantic journalism. That my friends and I now have to turn to foreign sources to find out what is REALLY going on, what the TRUTH is, is a testimony to the lack of journalistic integrity in the corporate controlled media now. You and your fellow press corp that indulge in such shenanigans should be ashamed of yourself. You have abandoned your duty to be the 4th estate, your journalistic reputation, and your dedication to the TRUTH.

Benito Mussolini said that Fascism: "should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power.

Who holds the purse strings of the LA Times?

Goebells said:
"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State."

Do you really want to help in the facilitation of Fascism??? Because you ARE. Look into your soul, Mr. Kinsley, and stop lying. Or at least stop buying the lies. Our Democracy depends on the integrity of journalism, it's our first amendment, and I expect the truth from our media, and shouldn't expect anything less... (and yes I wrote to Time as well.)

Retract and Recant!

Joy Williams

CPB's Tomlinson may have pushed too much!

The Smirking Chimp has reprinted a Philedelphia Inquirer article regarding the blatant politicization of National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting Service. Evidently, some of the senior staff of both organizations are getting fed up with the attempts by Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, to eliminate any legitimate balance to their programming by stocking the companies, with right wing ideologues like Carl Tuckerson and Paul Gigot, editor of the Wall Street Journal's Editorial page, and by harassing and "monitoring" one of the flagships of PBS: NOW with Bill Moyers. Bill Moyers ended up resigning in disgust, though it still retains a fairly objective perspective under directorship of DavidBrancaccio, even though it doesn't have the brilliance of Moyers anymore.

"Now Tomlinson's makeover attempts have made their own news: Angry chiefs at PBS and NPR; an investigation of whether his actions amounted to illegal political interference; and questions about whether he may have overreached."

For a number of reasons, and this is just one example, I think we are looking at the beginning of a shift in the media, and it may be that they are starting to grow a spine. Either that or they have just fed up with the right wing agenda stomping on real news.

Let's hope that it's not too late.

What Did I Do?

This is just one image of a series that are highly disturbing and GRAPHIC images (warning -- they are even disturbing for adults). I link here because we need to see what is being done in our name. But I warn you again these are very disturbing, and some are so bad you can't even tell what you are seeing except carnage.

But we need to know what is being done in our name. And it's hideous.

If you can't handle images like this then I suggest you do not look at them. THIS MUST STOP!

Downing Street Memo: Kerry Joins in Asking for Inquiry

Even though I think Kerry wimped out in terms of the election, now that he is functioning as a Senator and not trying to win a campaign, his actions on Capital Hill have been pretty good lately. He objected to Gonzales, he is objecting to Bolton, and he has joined Boxer on issues regarding election fraud, and he refused to vote for the cloture motion that would have shut down the filibuster option and cleared the way for Owen's confirmation.

Lately he has joined a number of representives in the house in wanting an Resolution of Inquiry into the Downing Street Memo:

"When I go back [to Washington] on Monday, I am going to raise the issue. I think it's a stunning, unbelievably simple and understandable statement of the truth and a profoundly important document that raises stunning issues here at home. And it's amazing to me the way it escaped major media discussion. It's not being missed on the Internet, I can tell you that."

He questioned Americans' understanding of the war and the idea that criticism equals disloyalty, saying,

"Do you think that Americans if they really understood it would feel that way knowing that on Election Day, 77 percent of Americans who voted for Bush believed that weapons of mass destruction had been found and 77 percent believe Saddam did 9/11? Is there a way for this to break through, ever?"

He joins Congressman John Conyers and 89 other Representatives in the house in their desire for answers to questions the Memo raises.

I suggest we call him, and thank him for his willingness to take on this issue, and encourage our Senators to join him. I'm calling Barbara Boxer's office on Monday.

I think he is doing better as a Senator now than before the election.

And he does understand how wrong it is to send our soldiers to die in a foreign land based on lies.

Optical Scanning Machines Hacked

Fresh from Black Box Voting...

OPTICAL SCAN MACHINES HACKED IN FLORIDA: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/1954/5921.html

Tallahassee, FL: "Are we having fun yet?"

This is the message that appeared in the window of a county optical scan machine, startling Leon County Information Systems Officer Thomas James. Visibly shaken, he immediately turned the machine off.

Diebold's opti-scan (paper ballot) voting system uses a curious memory card design, offering penetration by a lone programmer such that standard canvassing procedures cannot detect election manipulation.

The Diebold optical scan system was used in about 800 jurisdictions in 2004. Among them were several hotbeds of controversy: Volusia County (FL); King County (WA); and the New Hampshire primary election, where machine results differed markedly from hand-counted localities.

New regs: Counting paper ballots forbidden

Some states prohibit elections officials from checking on optical scan tallies by examining the paper ballots. In Washington, according to former supervisor of elections Julie Anne Kempf, Secretary of State Sam Reed declared such spontaneous checkups to be "unauthorized recounts." New Florida regulations will forbid counting paper ballots, even in recounts, except in highly unusual circumstances. Without paper ballot hand-counts, the hacks demonstrated below show that optical-scan elections can be destroyed in seconds.

A little man living in every ballot box

The Diebold optical scan system uses a dangerous programming methodology, with an executable program living inside the electronic ballot box. This method is the equivalent of having a little man living in the ballot box, holding an eraser and a pencil. With an executable program in the memory card, no Diebold opti-scan ballot box can be considered "empty" at the start of the election.

The Black Box Voting team proved that the Diebold optical scan program, housed on a chip inside the voting machine, places a call to a program living in the removable memory card during the election. The demonstration also showed that the executable program on the memory card (ballot box) can easily be changed, and that checks and balances, required by FEC standards to catch unauthorized changes, were not implemented by Diebold -- yet the system was certified anyway.

The Diebold system in Leon County, Florida succumbed to multiple attacks.

Ion Sancho: Truth and Excellence in Elections

Leon County Elections Supervisor Ion Sancho and Information Systems Officer Thomas James had already implemented security procedures in Leon County far exceeding the norm in elections management. This testing, done by a team of researchers including Black Box Voting, independent filmmakers, security expert Dr. Herbert Thompson, and special consultant Harri Hursti, was authorized by Mr. Sancho, in an unusual act of openness and courage, to identify any remaining holes in Leon County's election security.

The results of the memory card hack demonstration will assist elections supervisors throughout the U.S., by emphasizing the critical importance of accounting for each and every memory card and protecting access.

Findings:

Computer expert Harri Hursti gained control over Leon County memory cards, which handle the vote-reporting from the precincts. Dr. Herbert Thompson, a security expert, took control of the Leon County central tabulator by implanting a trojan horse-like script.

Two programmers can become a lone programmer, says Hursti, who has figured out a way to control the entire central tabulator by way of a single memory card swap, and also how to make tampered polling place tapes match tampered central tabulator results. This more complex approach is untested, but based on testing performed May 26, Hursti says he has absolutely no reason to believe it wouldn't work.

Three memory card tests demonstrated successful manipulation of election results, and showed that 1990 and 2002 FEC-required safeguards are being violated in the Diebold version 1.94 opti-scan system.

Three memory card hacks

1. An altered memory card (electronic ballot box) was substituted for a real one. The optical scan machine performed seamlessly, issuing a report that looked like the real thing. No checksum captured the change in the executable program Diebold designed into the memory card.

2. A second altered memory card was demonstrated, using a program that was shorter than the original. It still worked, showing that there is also no check for the number of bytes in the program.

3. A third altered memory card was demonstrated with the votes themselves changed, showing that the data block (votes) can be altered without triggering any error message.

How to "Roll over the odometer" in Diebold optical scan machines

Integer overflow checks do not seem to exist in this system, making it possible to stuff the ballot box without triggering any error message. This would be like pre-loading minus 100 votes for Tom and plus 100 votes for Rick (-100+100=ZERO) -- changing the candidate totals without changing the overall number of votes.

A more precise comparison would be this: The odometer on a car rolls over to zero after 999,999. In the Diebold system tested, the rollover to zero happens at 65,536 votes. By pre-loading 65,511 votes for a candidate, after 25 real votes appear (65,511 plus 25 = 65,536) the report "rolls over" so that the candidate's total is ZERO.

This manipulation can be balanced out by preloading votes for candidate "A" at 65,511 and candidate "B" at 25 votes -- producing an articifial 50-vote spread between the candidates, which will not be obvious after the first 25 votes for candidate "A" roll over to zero. The "negative 25" votes from the odometer rollover counterbalance the "plus 25" votes for the other candidates, making the total number of votes cast at the end of the day exactly equal to the number of voters.

While testing the hack on the Leon County optical scan machine, Hursti was stunned to find that pre-stuffing the ballot box to "roll over the odometer" produced no error message whatsoever.*

*We did not have the opportunity to scan ballots after stuffing the ballot box. Therefore, the rollover to zero was not tested in Leon County. This integer overflow capability is discernable in the program itself. We did have the opportunity to test a pre-stuffed ballot box, which showed that pre-loaded ballot boxes do not trigger any error message.

Simple tweaks to pass L&A test and survive zero tape

Though the additional tweaks were not demonstrated at the Leon County elections office, Hursti believes that the integer overflow hack can be covered up on the "zero tape" produced at the beginning of the election. The programming to cover up manipulations during the "logic & accuracy test" is even simpler, since the program allows you to specify on which reports (and, if you like, date and time of day) the manipulation will affect.

The testing demonstrated, using the actual voting system used in a real elections office, that Diebold programmers developed a system that sacrifices security in favor of dangerously flexible programming, violating FEC standards and calling the actions of ITA testing labs and certifiers into question.

In the case of Leon County, inside access was used to achieve the hacks, but there are numerous ways to introduce the hacks without inside access. Outside access methods will be described in the technical report to be released in mid-June.

Security concerns

Putting an executable program into removable memory card "ballot boxes" -- and then programming the opti-scan chip to call and invoke whatever program is in the live ballot box during the middle of an election -- is a mind-boggling design from a security standpoint. Combining this idiotic design with a program that doesn't even check to see whether someone has tampered with it constitutes negligence and should result in a product recall.

Counties that purchased the Diebold 1.94 optical scan machines should not pay for any upgraded program; instead, Diebold should be required to recall the faulty program and correct the problem at its own expense.

None of the attacks left any telltale marks, rendering all audits and logs useless, except for hand-counting all the paper ballots.

Is it real? Or is it Memorex?

For example, Election Supervisor Ion Sancho was unable to tell, at first, whether the poll tape printed with manipulated results was the real thing. Only the message at the end of the tape, which read "Is this real? Or is it Memorex?" identified the tape as a tampered version of results.

In another test, Congresswoman Corrine Brown (FL-Dem) was shocked to see the impact of a trojan implanted by Dr. Herbert Thompson. She asked if the program could be manipulated in such a way as to flip every fifth vote.

"No problem," Dr. Thompson replied.

"It IS a problem. It's a PROBLEM!" exclaimed Brown, whose district includes the troubled Volusia County, along with Duval County -- both currently using the Diebold opti-scan system.

This system is also used in Congressman John Conyers' home district, in contentious King County, Washington, and in Lucas County, Ohio (where six election officials resigned or were suspended after many irregularities were found.)

Diebold optical scans were used in San Diego for its ill-fated mayoral election in Nov. 2004.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Optical scan systems have paper ballots, but election officials are crippled in their ability to hand count these ballots due to restrictive state regulations and budget limitations.

The canvassing (audit) procedure used to certify results from optical scan systems involves comparing the "poll tapes" (cash register-like results receipts) with the printout from the central tabulator. These tests demonstrate that both results can be manipulated easily and quickly.

Minimum requirements to perform this hack:

1. A single specimen memory card from any county using the Diebold 1.94 optical scan series. (These cards were seen scattered on tables in King County, piled in baskets accessible to the public in Georgia, and jumbled on desktops in Volusia county.)

2. A copy of the compiler for the AccuBasic program. (These compilers have been fairly widely distributed by Diebold and its predecessor company, and there are workarounds if no compiler is available.)

3. Modest working language of any one of the higher level computer languages (Pascal, C, Cobol, Basic, Fortran...) along with introductory-level knowledge of assembler or machine language. (Machine language knowledge needed is less than an advanced refrigerator or TV repairmen needs. The optical scan system is much simpler than modern appliances).

The existence of the executable program in the memory card was discernable from a review of the Diebold memos. The test hacks took just a few hours for Black Box Voting consultants to develop.

Nearly 800 jurisdictions conducted a presidential election on this system. This system is so profoundly hackable that an advanced-level TV repairman can manipulate votes on it.

Black Box Voting asked Dr. Thompson and Hursti to examine the central tabulator and the optical scan system after becoming concerned that not enough attention had been paid to optical scans, tabulators and remote access.

Thompson and Hursti each found the vulnerabilities for their respective hacks in less than 24 hours.

"Open for Business"

When it comes to this optical-scan system, as Hursti says, "It's not that they left the door open. There is no door. This system is 'open for business.'"

The question now is: How brisk has business been? Based on this new evidence, it is time to sequester and examine the memory cards used with Diebold optical scans in Nov. 2004.

The popularity of tamper-friendly machines that are "open for business" in heavily Democratic areas may explain the lethargy with which Democratic leaders have been approaching voting machine security concerns.

The enthusiasm with which Republicans have endorsed machines with no paper ballots at all indicates that neither party really wants to have intact auditing of elections.

The ease with which a system -- which clearly violates dozens of FEC standards going back to 1990 -- was certified calls into question the honesty, competence, and personal financial transactions of both testing labs and NASED certifiers.

Revamp and update hand-counted paper ballot technology?

Perhaps it is time to revisit the idea of hand-counted paper ballots, printed by machines for legibility, with color-coded choices for quick, easy, accurate sorting and counting. We should also take another look at bringing counting teams in when the polls close, to relieve tired poll workers.

This report is the "non-techie" version of a longer report, to be made available around mid-June, with more technical information.

Discuss this article here: http://www.bbvforums.org/forums/messages/72/5936.html

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Can Bush be Impeached?

Apparently, all this blogging we've been doing about the "Downing Street Memo" is starting to have an effect in major newspapers. Today, in the Media Beat Section of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, Norman Solomon has written an article entitled, "Can Bush be Impeached?"

Well it's not the front page, and it is an oped, but that's the first time I've seen this speculation in the semi-MSM. This may actually end up being a lot more like Watergate, but this time it is we, the bloggers, who are going to end up as Woodward and Bernstein, since there are no more journalists anymore. Anyway it's an interesting read:

Can Bush Be Impeached?
By Norman Solomon
A few Democrats are starting to raise the question.

IF YOU THINK President Bush should be impeached, it's time to get serious.

We're facing huge obstacles – and they have nothing to do with legal standards for impeachment. This is all about media and politics.

Five months into 2005, the movement to impeach Bush is very small. And three enormous factors weigh against it: (1) Republicans control Congress; (2) most congressional Democrats are routinely gutless; (3) big media outlets shun the idea that the president might really be a war criminal.

For now, we can't end the GOP's majority. But we could proceed to light a fire under congressional Democrats. And during the next several weeks, it's possible to have a major impact on news media by launching a massive educational and "agitational" campaign – spotlighting the newly leaked Downing Street Memo and explaining why its significance must be pursued as a grave constitutional issue....

Link

Mississippi: Too stupid for words!

Netscape's former CEO, Jim Barksdale, decided after reading that Mississippi's literacy rating was abominable, that he was going to try and do something about it. He decided to fund an incredibly generous reading program for Mississippi school children, if the state did three things:

1. Fully fund public education starting July 1
2. Give the teachers' raises
3. Approve an annual audit of federal child care

All reasonable requests for Mississippi school kids, who have the lowest literacy ratings in the country.

Jim Barksdale, of Jackson, and his wife had donated $100 million in January 2000 to create the Barksdale Reading Institute, which offers books and other teaching materials to improve literacy among children in low-performing public schools in Mississippi.

He made the surprise offer to set up scholarships using another $50 million of his own money during a March visit to the Capitol, where his family's charitable work was being honored.

If children who went through this program, and successfully finished high school, then they would have received $5000 and if they completed college at one of the Mississippi public universities, they would receive another $5000.

Par for the course, the Mississippi lawmakers fell short $87.7 million of the Department of Education annual budget request.

And we wonder what is wrong with the south??? Maybe the lawmakers were too illiterate to understand the offer.

This story comes from Wired.

This is my latest letter to the Network News channels, the main ones, CBS, ABC, NBC and PBS. I will probably send this also to the cable news channels, and a modification of this to the major radio programs, but this took long enough to write that this is all I'm doing TODAY. :)


From: Joy
Date: 05/31/05 12:12:06
To: nightly@nbc.com
Subject: Campaign Launched to Demand a Presidential Inquiry




To the staff of NBC News,

The lack of coverage by the major networks of the Downing Street Memo has been appalling. I'm not sure if it's because you are all afraid of the administration, or your corporate owners are sitting on the news, but either way, because the media is not COVERING the NEWS, our soldiers are dying. Your complicity with the lies of the current administration of Neoconservatives make you equally guilty of this travesty. I write to remind you of your responsibility as "journalists" though that title you wear very loosely now.

I long for the days of journalistic integrity when Woodward and Bernstein remembered their duty to be the fourth estate, as a check and balance to curb the tyranny of governmental power, during the Watergate era. Or the days when an unjust war was primarily ended due to the courageous coverage of the Vietnam War by journalists such as the now scape-goated Dan Rather. Where are "journalists" now? Covering stupid, non-stories like Michael Jackson, the "Run-Away Bride" and other infotainment that does not constitute news! Or they are busy making apologies for covering a story that was true (Bush's service record), even if the documents that Rather relied on were probably forged by Karl Rove to release information that they could later discredit. (This btw, is what Karl Rove does, he is a master at Machiavellian techniques, and ABC owes Dan Rather an apology).

The truth is, because of stuff like this, people don't WATCH the NEWS anymore. Because the news has failed in its duty to inform the electorate so they can make informed decisions about issues that effect their lives, from health care, to the environment, to the war, the ratings for news has fallen dramatically. We now get less real news in 24 hours than we used to get in 15 minutes. This is the fault of the consolidated media itself, being owned, essentially by 5 major corporations, who all agree to cover the same non-news stories. Those of us who care about our country now get our news from alternative sources, from liberal radio (which there is very little of) to foreign newspapers like the Guardian or the Sunday London Times, to on-line blogs that frequently cover news stories better than the media does. If you all would do your jobs, your ratings would go up.

Like many Americans and the rest of the world, especially the Iraqis, I knew the administration was deceiving us, but during the build up to war, I only had my instinct to rely on, and then after we started the war, books by people such as Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neil, who were pilloried for speaking truth to power, revealed that Bush had planned this war immediately after 9/11, months before Congressional approval or the UN Resolution. In fact, the Ex British Ambassador to the U.S., Sir Christopher Meyer, revealed over a year ago to the Guardian that Bush and Blair were planning the invasion of Iraq 9 days after 9/11, and he will be coming out with a book soon which will reveal that. I have written about this at my own blog.

Now we have proof of this conspiracy. The latest issue which you have apparently willfully ignored is the Sunday London Times release of the Downing Street Memo, which shows that Bush and Blair conspired to contrive evidence to justify the war in Iraq. But there was no WMD, there was no connection between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and Iraq was not an imminent threat. Colin Powell lied to the UN, Bush lied to Congress and the American people and to the world in his state of the Union address, and Blair lied to his people. Contriving evidence to justify a war is an international war crime, punishable by trial at the Hague. It is also a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution, and is thus an impeachable offense. We are now guilty of the killing of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians, 90% of which were women and children (this is now approaching genocide at OUR hands - and now we will see many more deaths as we are now attacking Baghdad), war-profiteering, torture, abuse, rape and murder of defenseless and often innocent Iraqi and Afghanistani prisoners, and the illegal occupation of a sovereign nation. We as a nation have participated in a great evil which we may never be able to atone for. As the media, it is your responsibility to investigate this. I implore you to do your job. Help us to trust you again. The Downing Street Memo is the "smoking gun" of proof that the world was lied to, and the "smoking bullet" is the fact that:

"The RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

"The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive. "
- Sunday London Times

We were at war before most of us even realized it and before our Congress approved military action in Iraq.

Because of this, I am joining with a growing coalition of veterans' groups, peace groups, and political activist groups who have announced a campaign today to urge that the U.S. Congress launch a formal investigation into whether President Bush has committed impeachable offenses in connection with the Iraq war. The campaign focuses on evidence that recently emerged in a British memo containing minutes of a secret July 2002 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top national security officials.

John Bonifaz, a Boston attorney specializing in constitutional litigation, sent a memo to Congressman John Conyers of Michigan , the Ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, urging him to introduce a Resolution of Inquiry directing the House Judiciary Committee to launch a formal investigation into whether sufficient grounds exist for the House to impeach President Bush.

Bonifaz's memo, made available today at www.AfterDowningStreet.org , begins: "The recent release of the Downing Street Memo provides new and compelling evidence that the President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true, such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution."

In February and March 2003, John Bonifaz served as lead counsel for a coalition of United States soldiers, parents of U.S. soldiers, and Members of Congress (led by Representatives John Conyers, Jr. and Dennis Kucinich) in a federal lawsuit challenging President George W. Bush's authority to wage war against Iraq absent a congressional declaration of war or equivalent action. Bonifaz is the author of Warrior-King: The Case for Impeaching George W. Bush (NationBooks-NY, 2004, foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr.), which chronicles that case and its meaning for the United States Constitution.

The organizations forming the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition include: Global Exchange, Gold Star Families for Peace, Democrats.com, Veterans for Peace, Code Pink, Progressive Democrats of America, and Democracy Rising. These organizations, beginning today, will be urging their members to contact their Representatives to urge support of a Resolution of Inquiry.

Americans need to be aware of this so that there is never again a Memorial Day where we pay tribute to soldiers who have died because our government, just as in Vietnam, has lied them into war. 1600+ soldiers have now died, and that's only the official count of those that died on the battlefield, not those who later died off the battlefield from wounds sustained IN battle - they don't "count". Thousands of our troops have been injured, many of them losing arms and legs. Many of them will be psychologically shattered when they return, if not all of them. They are going to need special care when they return. But the Republican Congress keeps cutting their benefits! Where is that in the news?

The story of the Downing Street Memo should get CONSTANT coverage until our government is forced to investigate this. This is a much bigger story than Michael Jackson ever dreamed of being. This is actually bigger than Watergate. This story should be covered at the top of every news story every day. And should be above the fold on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post, etc. Not buried in the Op-Ed section or on A18.

This war was unjust, unprovoked, and unnecessary. The Iraqi people did NOTHING to us. We are engaged in a war of aggression against an unarmed nation, because of lies by the criminals in the Bush administration. According to the International Criminal Court, such actions constitute war crimes. Just this weekend, Vice President Dick Cheney on the Larry King Show denied that ANYTHING happened at Guantanimo...that the claims of abuse were just made up by some disgruntled prisoners who were released. This in direct contradiction to the admission that the FBI and Pentagon has made! Apparently, Cheney agrees with Goebbels, tell a lie often enough, and eventually it will be the truth. It's frightening that our Vice President would indulge in such Orwellian and Fascist tactics, and disgusting that Larry let him slide on that.

President Bush has dishonored our troops by never having attended a funeral for a fallen soldier, for not allowing the American people see the coffins of the dead, for not allowing families to meet their dead family members at Dover AFB. The administration is very unpatriotic by cutting hazard pay and benefits, by not giving our troops enough protective armor- so that they have to salvage for it garbage dumps in Iraq - to protect their lives, by shorting them on bullets, by cutting down on medical benefits and eliminating VA benefits and the number of hospitals when the ones that are taking care of the wounded are over-taxed. Bush is NOT a Patriot. He does NOT support the troops or their families who are making considerable sacrifice (many families have lost their homes!) and neither does his party. A Patriot would take care of his soldiers and their families, but Bush and the NeoCon wing of the Congress is doing everything to undermine our soldiers and their families. Check out operationtruth.com to see how our troops are being undermined by the very administration they are taking orders from. This is to say nothing of the amount of money that they are indebting us into for a crime, that is essentially just a way to help war-profiteering companies like Haliburton steal from Iraq and from the people of the US. Close to $9 billion taxpayers dollars have gone "missing" in Iraq... and our soldiers don't have enough armor for their humvees. Where is the story of the missing billions in the media??? There is so much more I could say, but I will close for now.

Do your job, NBC. The lives of our soldiers, of the Iraqi people and our own lives and well-being depend on it. Besides, I know you want to cover real news, it's in your blood. Covering this correctly and completely might help us to regain our status in the world again, and will help us bring our troops home and help to end the bloodshed.

For more information, see www.AfterDowningStreet.org , or contact:

Democrats.com, President Bob Fertik, 718-424-7772, and Washington Director David Swanson, 202-329-7847 (contact Swanson to set up an interview with Bonifaz.)


Joy Williams
1669 Nelson Road, #2
Scotts Valley, CA 95066
831-335-5555

Bush and Blair Planned Iraq Nine days after 9/11




I was looking for more documentation about the Bush/Blair conspiracy, and was surprised to find a remarkable article.

I typed in "Christopher Meyer", the former British Ambassador to Washington in 2001, and "Iraq war".

Apparently according to an over year old article in the Guardian:

President George Bush first asked Tony Blair to support the removal of Saddam Hussein from power at a private White House dinner nine days after the terror attacks of 11 September, 2001.

According to Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British Ambassador to Washington, who was at the dinner, Blair told Bush he should not get distracted from the war on terror's initial goal - dealing with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Bush, claims Meyer, replied by saying: 'I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.' Regime change was already US policy.

The Guardian Story is here

I wouldn't normally post about an article this old, but considering the Downing Street Memo stuff, and the Panorama video put out by the BBC two months ago, (which prompted my search), it's important in terms of historical context. We should know that our American press has been ignoring, or more likely, suppressing this info for a long time, and we need to bring information to John Conyers' attention considering he is making efforts to investigate and document this conspiracy.

It was clear, Meyer says, 'that when we did come back to Iraq it wouldn't be to discuss smarter sanctions'. Elsewhere in his interview, Meyer says Blair always believed it was unlikely that Saddam would be removed from power or give up his weapons of mass destruction without a war.

Faced with this prospect of a further war, he adds, Blair 'said nothing to demur'.

Details of this extraordinary conversation will be published this week in a 25,000-word article on the path to war with Iraq in the May issue of the American magazine Vanity Fair. It provides new corroboration of the claims made last month in a book by Bush's former counter-terrorism chief, Richard Clarke, that Bush was 'obsessed' with Iraq as his principal target after 9/11.

But the implications for Blair may be still more explosive. The discussion implies that, even before the bombing of Afghanistan, Blair already knew that the US intended to attack Saddam next, although he continued to insist in public that 'no decisions had been taken' until almost the moment that the invasion began in March 2003. His critics are likely to seize on the report of the two leaders' exchange and demand to know when Blair resolved to provide the backing that Bush sought. "

Honestly, it comes as no surprise to me really, because I knew instinctively that the PNAC was planning things, for a long time (they tried to convince Clinton to go to war in Iraq 1998 and Clinton told them to get lost), I think what surprised me is Blair's willingness to go along with Bush no matter how he had to lie to his own people, and how early he was on board with this.

Meyers will be coming out with a book soon, and he is probably going to reveal all. In light of all this I think we should add this to the growing body of evidence in RE: that pesky Downing Street Memo....

Hi, I'm sure the Congressman will not mind this being posted far and wide. This came from his Diary on the Daily KOS...

100,000 Signatures Needed on Downing Street Letterby Congressman John Conyers

Fri May 27th, 2005 at 13:43:17 PDT

I have written to you in this space on a number of occasions about my profound concern about the implications of the "Downing Street Memo," which actually consists of the minutes of a July 2002 meeting between British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. During this meeting, Blair and his advisers reveal details about conversations with their American counterparts. These details cast substantial doubt on the honesty of contemporaneous claims made by the Administration to Congress and to the American people about the Iraq war.

First, the memo appears to directly contradict the Administration's assertions to Congress and the American people that it would exhaust all options before going to war. According to the minutes, in July 2002, the Administration had already decided to go to war against Iraq.

Second, a debate has raged in the United States over the last year and one half about whether the obviously flawed intelligence that falsely stated that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction was a mere "failure" or the result of intentional manipulation to reach foreordained conclusions supporting the case for war. The memo appears to close the case on that issue stating that in the United States the intelligence and facts were being "fixed" around the decision to go to war.

These are not routine questions within a partisan give and take. Under the United States Constitution (Article I, Section 8), the Congress has the sole power to declare war. If the Executive Branch deceives the Congress in this duty, it represents an attack of our democracy of the most serious nature. These Constitutional questions are not going away and must be answered forthrightly and completely by this Administration.

I and 88 of my colleagues (that number is growing - more on that soon) asked the Administration to come clean about these troubling allegations. Our inquiries have been met with silence.

The press has also been negligent in giving this matter the attention it deserves.

I am committed to seeing this through until we get the answers we deserve. But I need your help.

The conventional wisdom, which unfortunately governs Washington's political discourse, hold that the American people have long ago made peace with the mistakes or deceptions which led us into war. Help me prove them all wrong. I want to show the White House, the Press and my congressional colleagues that nothing could be further from the truth.

That is why today I am giving you the opportunity to sign on to a letter asking the same questions of the President that now nearly 100 Members of Congress have asked. If I get at least 100,000 signatures on this, I will personally deliver the letter to the White House.

If you want to sign on to this letter, go to my website (www.johnconyers.com).

I also want you to know that I am exploring many, many avenues to get to the truth about this matter.

Thank you in advance for your help and assistance.

The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling


Picked this up from Daily Kos today and like her I have the same sense of irate rage. And like her, I have very little else to say, as it's so infuriating, it needs no embellishment.

The doubling of child malnutrition in Iraq is baffling

Terry Jones
Tuesday April 12, 2005
The Guardian

A report to the UN human rights commission in Geneva has concluded that Iraqi children were actually better off under Saddam Hussein than they are now.

This, of course, comes as a bitter blow for all those of us who, like George Bush and Tony Blair, honestly believe that children thrive best when we drop bombs on them from a great height, destroy their cities and blow up hospitals, schools and power stations.

It now appears that, far from improving the quality of life for Iraqi youngsters, the US-led military assault on Iraq has inexplicably doubled the number of children under five suffering from malnutrition. Under Saddam, about 4% of children under five were going hungry, whereas by the end of last year almost 8% were suffering.

These results are even more disheartening for those of us in the Department of Making Things Better for Children in the Middle East By Military Force, since the previous attempts by Britain and America to improve the lot of Iraqi children also proved disappointing. For example, the policy of applying the most draconian sanctions in living memory totally failed to improve conditions. After they were imposed in 1990, the number of children under five who died increased by a factor of six. By 1995 something like half a million Iraqi children were dead as a result of our efforts to help them.

A year later, Madeleine Albright, then the US ambassador to the United Nations, tried to put a brave face on it. When a TV interviewer remarked that more children had died in Iraq through sanctions than were killed in Hiroshima, Mrs Albright famously replied: "We think the price is worth it."

But clearly George Bush didn't. So he hit on the idea of bombing them instead. And not just bombing, but capturing and torturing their fathers, humiliating their mothers, shooting at them from road blocks - but none of it seems to do any good. Iraqi children simply refuse to be better nourished, healthier and less inclined to die. It is truly baffling.

And this is why we at the department are appealing to you - the general public - for ideas. If you can think of any other military techniques that we have so far failed to apply to the children of Iraq, please let us know as a matter of urgency. We assure you that, under our present leadership, there is no limit to the amount of money we are prepared to invest in a military solution to the problems of Iraqi children.

In the UK there may now be 3.6 million children living below the poverty line, and 12.9 million in the US, with no prospect of either government finding any cash to change that. But surely this is a price worth paying, if it means that George Bush and Tony Blair can make any amount of money available for bombs, shells and bullets to improve the lives of Iraqi kids.

You know it makes sense.

www.terry-jones.net

Terry Jones is a film director, actor and Python. He is the author of Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror

Comments anyone?

Frank Morales of the Centre for Research on Globalisation writes a disturbing article that the CIA and Donald Rumsfeld may be purposely trying to provoke acts of terrorism against Americans and others.

The Provocateur State:
Is the CIA Behind the Iraqi "Insurgents"--and Global Terrorism?
by Frank Morales

The requirement of an ever-escalating level of social violence to meet the political and economic needs of the insatiable "anti-terrorist complex" is the essence of the new US militarism.

What is now openly billed as "permanent war" ultimately serves the geo-political ends of social control in the interests of US corporate domination, much as the anti-communist crusade of the now-exhausted Cold War did.

Back in 2002, following the trauma of 9-11, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld predicted there would be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. How could he be so sure of that? Perhaps because these attacks would be instigated on the order of the Honorable Mr. Rumsfeld. According to Los Angeles Times military analyst William Arkin, writing Oct. 27, 2002, Rumsfeld set out to create a secret army, "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" network that would "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception," to stir the pot of spiraling global violence.

more

It's what I've suspected for awhile, it's just terrible...

Of course this article also doesn't mention that John Negroponte, now in charge of all our intelligence, was ambassador to Honduras, where he played a key role in coordinating US covert aid to the Contra death squads in Nicaragua and shoring up a CIA-backed death squad in Honduras.... And he was made ambassador to Iraq right before the insurgency really got going. Shortly after he arrived in Bhagdad, the Hondurans pulled out of Iraq, they remember what happened to their families. So is Iran-Contra now Iraq? I did read about the Pentagon considering the "Salvador Option". It gave me the chills. In fact found it here...

"Now, Newsweek has learned, the Pentagon is intensively debating an option that dates back to a still-secret strategy in the Reagan administration's battle against the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s. Then, faced with a losing war against Salvadoran rebels, the U.S. government funded or supported "nationalist" forces that allegedly included so-called death squads directed to hunt down and kill rebel leaders and sympathizers. Eventually the insurgency was quelled, and many U.S. conservatives consider the policy to have been a success-despite the deaths of innocent civilians and the subsequent Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal. (Among the current administration officials who dealt with Central America back then is John Negroponte, who is today the U.S. ambassador to Iraq. Under Reagan, he was ambassador to Honduras.)

A little further into the article:

"Also being debated is which agency within the U.S. government-the Defense department or CIA-would take responsibility for such an operation. Rumsfeld's Pentagon has aggressively sought to build up its own intelligence-gathering and clandestine capability with an operation run by Defense Undersecretary Stephen Cambone. But since the Abu Ghraib interrogations scandal, some military officials are ultra-wary of any operations that could run afoul of the ethics codified in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. That, they argue, is the reason why such covert operations have always been run by the CIA and authorized by a special presidential finding. (In "covert" activity, U.S. personnel operate under cover and the U.S. government will not confirm that it instigated or ordered them into action if they are captured or killed.)"

From Newsweek Saturday 08 January 2005

Tinfoil hat time? I think not.

With Negroponte in charge of all our intelligence -- and yesterday a news story came out that he is requiring all station chiefs around the world to report directly to him, circumventing CIA head, Porter J. Goss (made him mad too), and if we end up with Bolton as ambassador to the UN (gulp) they could manipulate the intelligence ridiculously. These people are all as corrupt as they get.

Bright Blessings!

Bolton Forced Ex-wife into Group Sex

Rawstory today has revealed that Larry Flint is pursuing a story that John Bolton, the Bush nominee forced his ex-wife to participate in group sex.

Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton's first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department despite inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato's Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Sounds like something worth investigating. Raw story will continue to follow this story.

Hi! I'm proud to call myself a fancy pants elitist. I'm just wondering why.. isn't it bad to be elitist? Am I giving a fine American expression a nasty English spin? Is there some irony going on; am I missing a reference?

Anyway, I do think that it's about time that people started thinking for themselves.

I look forwards to reading lots of interesting ideas.

You Too can be a Fancy Pants Elitist!

I would love to have a few more intelligent bloggers on my list. Either show me your blog entry or let me know who you are, and I'll invite you to join me on this blog. This is not only just for me, I want all "fancy pants elitists" everywhere to join my blog with news of the day or thoughts about current events, or shoot just thoughts! Especially intelligent liberals are encouraged to put on those fancy pants as you look so good in them. :)

How Low Will these Vipers Go?

Typical! One more way to screw the American consumer -- in this case children. The EPA is now inviting Industry to Mimic Practices of Discontinued CHEERS Study.

You may remember CHEERS (Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study), the EPA program that would have paid primarily poor black families $900 plus giving them a video camera to document the effects of pesticides on young children. This was done at the behest of the chemical companies and drew the wrath of Barbara Boxer and other Democrats. She threatened to block the appointment of Stephen Johnson to head the EPA, unless they canceled CHEERS.

"It flies in the face of everything we know about pesticides and kids," Boxer said. Later, she added, "Unless this project is cancelled, I will have a hard time moving forward this nomination."
More about this story is here.

Now the EPA is encouraging companies to do what they canceled.

"The Bush Administration is setting the ethical bar so low that only the most sleazy cannot limbo under it," stated PEER Program Director Rebecca Roose. "The basic problem is this: the safeguards that apply to experiments involving development of drugs to help people are far more stringent than EPA's standards for experiments to determine how much commercial poisons harm people."

Some of the tests include:

• Paying "young male volunteers" to inhale methanol vapors at levels described as "a worst case scenario"
  
• Having asthma sufferers inhale potentially harmful ultrafine carbon particles.
• Exposing children (ages 3 to 12) to a powerful agricultural insecticide (chlorpyrifos) to test absorption in their systems through "urinary biomarker measurements"

LIMBO! How low will they go???