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Society
This section will deal primarily with American society. I am posting news stories that enforce my belief that the moral, physical and environmental decay of our society is fully underway. My comments are in yellow, the articles are in grey.
July 2001,
Energy Crisis:
In a flagerant display of hypocracy by the Bush administration, the President cleary states that an energy crisis is unavoidable at current consumption rates. This comes just 3 months after the VP, Dick Cheney, said that there is enough oil and gas to power the world into the forseeable future and there is no need to worry. So, in the light of Cheney's comments, how do they justify Bush's qoute in July stating this?:
``I think anytime there's not an immediate problem that's apparent to people, it's tough to convince people to think long-term,'' Bush told reporters in the Oval Office as he plugged the energy plan. ``But it's clear there are warning signs'' of a crisis, he said.
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Septmeber 2001,
Homicide Insurance:
If there is any more apparent sign that our societies emotional and spiritual health has deteriorated it is school violence. Children as young as 8 are committing homicide, intentionally. What is more dangerous than the physical act is our societies unwillingness to face why this is happening. The causes are obvious and subversive. Children, now virtually unsupervised at home, watch endless hours of television. Wholesome programming for children is scarce. Typically what is on television when kids get home are talk shows that glorify violence, infedelity, causal sex, teen prenancy, homosexuality and the list goes on. Prime time TV is worse, nearly all programing has violence and/or sex of some sort. The internet is another facet in which kids have absolute unrestricted access to any and all, good and bad. Video games, perhaps the most attractive escape for kids is soley sold on violent content. For the past ten or so years rap "music" has become saturated with hardcore violence and sex. Kids who start listening to this at an early age not only begin to incorporate the ugly slang venacular and dress like middle class urbanites. This is the obvious cause enchanced by the surrounding atmosphere in which kids are raised. Most middle-class families now live in some sort of suburbia. Suburbia is nothing more than a scaled down version of everything people leave the city environment for. Our urban environments are depressing enough with nothing to offer but dark asphalt, oil stained parking lots and cartoonish fast food joints. Now, suburbia has begun its own urbanization, Walmart-type retailers are following their cliental, as are fast food joints, chain pharmacies, chain bookstores, chain coffeshopes etc and popping up at every intersection. There is nothing in suburbia (or in cities) that is orginal, inspiring, and certainly does not promote creativity and learning. Kids follow trends guided by MTV, not requiring thought. All of this is leading America into a dark age of moral, phyiscal and environmental decay.
The article below illistrates how we are not prepared to fix this dismal reality, we just adjust ourselves to live within it.
* The 2nd week of January , 2002, saw 3 school shootings, 2 at universities and 1 at a high school. How many more before we reevaluate the foundations of our society and discover the real problem lies within ourselves and everything we have created.
NEA Offers Homicide Insurance
By GREG TOPPO
WASHINGTON (AP) - High-profile killings of teachers in the past several years have prompted the nation's largest teachers' union to offer a $150,000 benefit for the families of members slain on the job at school
It's a sad reality that there is this random violence in the public schools,'' he said. ``I'm glad the NEA is doing it. I hope it won't be used very often, but I'm glad it's there for the families of teachers who will be attacked and killed
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November 2001
What is really disturbing is that not a week after I read this article I witnessed on TV a commericial from Mcdonalds offering happy meals now with double and triple cheeseburgers!!! And Americanism is good ah? Bush qoute" America is the best country to ever exist on the face of the Earth" - Yet the very fabric of this nation, capitalism, seeks to make nothing of us put consumers, at ANY cost. This country is run by corporations and the above article is proof positive, corporations are even changing our body compostion. WAKE UP PEOPLE
American Kids Are Getting Fatter
By LINDSEY TANNER
CHICAGO (AP) - American children are getting fatter at an alarming rate, with the percentage of significantly overweight black and Hispanic youngsters more than doubling over 12 years and climbing 50 percent among whites, a study shows.
By 1998, nearly 22 percent of black children ages 4 to 12 were overweight, as were 22 percent of Hispanic youngsters and 12 percent of whites, according to researchers who analyzed data from a national survey.
In 1986, the same survey showed that about 8 percent of black children, 10 percent of Hispanic youngsters and 8 percent of whites were significantly overweight.
``Prior studies show it took 30 years for the overweight prevalence to double in American children,'' said Dr. Richard Strauss, a pediatrician at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. This study should be ``a call to action,'' said Strauss, who conducted the research with Harold Pollack of the University of Michigan.
Among the reasons given for the increase: Children are spending much more time watching television, using computers and playing video games, and busy parents are relying more on fast food to feed their families.
Also, black and Hispanic youngsters are more likely to live in poor neighborhoods where outdoor exercise may be unsafe and where the quickest, easiest foods may not be the most nutritious, Strauss said.
The study was based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, which followed a nationally representative sample of 8,270 youngsters from 1986 to 1998. The findings appear in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association.
Overweight was defined as having a body-mass index higher than 95 percent of youngsters of the same age and sex, based on growth charts from the 1960s to 1980s. By some criteria, that would be considered obese. Body-mass index is a measurement of weight relative to height.
Disturbing trends also were seen in the number of children who had a body-mass index higher than 85 percent of their peers. In 1986, about 20 percent of blacks, Hispanics and whites alike were in that category. By 1998, those figures had risen to about 38 percent of blacks and Hispanics alike and nearly 29 percent of whites.
``These trends carry enormous public health implications, because of the known effects of excess body weight on the risk for type 2 diabetes, heart disease and other complications,'' said Dr. David Ludwig, director of the obesity program at Children's Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Rebecca Unger, a pediatrician and nutrition specialist at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago, said small changes in children's diets can make a big difference.
``If we can catch a 3-year-old who's still on a bottle, drinks tons and tons of juice, and goes to McDonald's five times a week, we can stop the bottle, cut out the juice, eat at McDonald's only two times a week - and you will see a tremendous difference in growth pattern,'' Unger said.
Ok, need more news on fatkids?
Early Puberty in Girls Tied to Being Overweight
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Young girls who are overweight tend to enter puberty at an earlier age, adding to the debate about whether the trend toward earlier maturation is a cause for concern, researchers said on Monday.
"A lot of people are concerned that early maturing girls might feel isolated and different from their peers," said Paul Kaplowitz, a pediatrician at the Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine who authored the study of 17,000 girls.
Kaplowitz said in extreme cases, they can end up rather short because if they start growing early, they may be mostly grown by the time they are 10.
"My own bias is that the majority of girls who start puberty between ages 6 and 8 are not at risk of serious psychological or physical problems," Kaplowitz said in a statement. "These girls can simply be monitored," he added..
Other studies have suggested that the bodies of heavier-weight girls may reach puberty earlier because they have more of a type of proteins called leptins, which are thought to trigger hormone releases that cause pubic hair to grow and breasts to form.
"Thirty or 40 years ago, the dropping age of puberty was explained by better nutrition and less infectious disease. Now we are beyond that point and have about a quarter of U.S. children who are either overweight or obese, which is definitely unhealthy," said Marcia Herrman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Public Health, the author of the 1997 study.
"The latest ... growth data, which comes from a large national sample, shows that both boys and girls are getting their growth spurts earlier now than they were 30 or 40 years ago," she said.
"If environmental conditions are influencing girls to develop earlier than they used to, we ought to try to find out what they are because they are not likely to be healthy," she said.
I am not a PhD in nutirtion, but I can tell you STOP FEEDING THESE KIDS SO MUCH TRASH!! If you are too much of an incompetent parent to attend to your kid's needs then stop reproducing. If you have to feed your kid to shut them up them give them up to a more qulified parent.Give them a baseball glove for christmas instead of a playstation, give them a microscope and encourage some sort of intellectual stimulation.
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January 2002
UPDATE on the Bush-Cheney energy sham--
President Bush announced recently that he has scraped the fuel effiecency program. In its place he will divert monies into hydrogen fuel cell development. In other words, since hydrogen fuel cells are atleast a decade away from mainstream production in autos, this gives SUV makers another 10 years to produce SUVs that get 8-15 mpg. What a sham. Are we enlightened? No, we are consumers. The moral, ethical choice would have been to establish strict, expensive regulations for consumers who want to continue to make ecologically poor decisions. Actually, putting politics aside, the real moral choice would be to end this phenomenon of consumerism, or atleast demand renewable fuel be used for transportation. We have lit the fuse and I cannot wait until the explosion brings this ecologically criminal period in human history to an end.
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January 2002
Here is an another article below on obesity. The real shocker here is that, after we as a population have eaten ourselves to a 61% obesity rate(yes, 6.1 out of 10 people are obese), we have decided not to take responsibility for our gluttony, instead sue the fast food joints that WE visit regulary. The fast food joints do not come to us, we go to them, and yet in light of this fact we can now sue them? Granted, I think fast food corporations are criminal, but people ,must be forced to take responsibility for their own actions or we will never learn, just pass blame. People are as dumb, lazy and irresponsible as they are fat.
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You're Fat. Now You May Be Able to Sue
By Cathryn Conroy, CompuServe News Editor
You're overweight. Join the crowd. Some 61 percent of adult Americans are fat, thanks to all that super-sizing and whopper-sizing we've done with everything from cinnamon buns to burgers and fries. So whose fault is it? Some legal experts are saying it may not be ALL your fault if you're fat. Some of the blame must be borne by food companies, especially fast food and vending machine companies. "There is a movement afoot to do something about the obesity problem, not just as a visual blight but to see it in terms of costs," John Banzhaf, a George Washington University Law School professor, told ABCNEWS.com. In other words, you may one day be able to sue a fast food company because you ate too many fries and now weigh too much and you could die an early death from cancer or diabetes or a stroke.
"It's not fair. People are confronted with food in every possible way to eat more. The function of the food industry is to get people to eat more, not less," Marion Nestle, a New York University professor and author of the soon-to-be released "Food Politics: How the Food Industry Manipulates What We Eat to the Detriment of Our Health," told ABCNEWS.com. Suing the fast food companies bears the same sort of philosophic and economic logic as suing the tobacco companies. "If there are products the use of which cause large costs, grave costs, it is better that the burden of those costs fall on people who use and make the products rather than third parties or the general public," law professor Banzhaf said.
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February 2002
A senator this week made a remark regarding an animals rights group. He called them "terrorists". They call themselves "showing animals respect and kindness" or SHARK. The group was protesting a rodeo in Utah planned for the upcoming olympics. It is interesting first that the senator is against animal rights groups so much that he will rally support by using the term terrorist to label SHARK in times when the term terrorist conjures up instant hate against all those affiliated with it. Also more interesting on an ethical level is the question of who is really the terrorist here. The definition of the word terrorist is defined as one who inflicts terror . Is it not considered inflicting terror to chase a defenseless farm animal around in a enclosed space surrounded by rowdy drunkards? How do these poor animals feel being chased by a preditor, tackled, tied up, properly injured....is this not terrorism? Another example of human hypocracy, another example of how we are global dictators, robbing other creatures of their dignity and right to exist.
Here is the article:
Animal-Rights Group Sues Legislator
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - A state legislator who called an animal rights group ``terrorists'' is being sued for alleged defamation.
Showing Animals Respect and Kindness, or SHARK, filed the lawsuit Monday against state Rep. Paul Ray in 3rd District Court.
In a letter to Olympics officials, Ray urged the Salt Lake Organizing Committee not to negotiate with animal-rights groups protesting an Olympics-related rodeo. The groups say rodeo animals are treated cruelly.
``The rodeo is a very important piece of our culture here in Utah,'' Ray wrote. ``We cannot allow terrorist groups such as SHARK ... frighten us with threats of violence.''
Illinois-based SHARK, which says it is nonviolent, is suing for unspecified damages.
``If its credibility is harmed, that hurts its ability to get donations,'' said the organization's attorney, Brian Barnard.
Ray said he stands by his statements.
``I called a duck a duck. SHARK is a terrorist organization,'' Ray said.
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February 2002
The last few decades have seen oil sell relatively cheap. In response, with environmental and supply concerns aside, many popular cars and trucks have gotten larger and progressively gotten less fuel effiecient. Examples are Dodge Ram pick ups, Chevy Suburban and GMC Yukon SUVs. SUV's now account for 50% of all car sales. Of course, since oil is a finite resource and much of it comes from areas of the world who see us for what we really are, this consumer behavoir contains no logic. But since we are a culture of image, status, power and money we dont really like logic, it makes us look rather selfish, gluttonous...unsustainable. So, with that said, the most popular trucks on the road are also, by inspection of the good folks are Green Book, the worst polluters. Heres what they said:
Light trucks, a classification that includes minivans, pickups and SUVs, are some of the worst offenders for tailpipe emissions and fuel inefficiency
Topping the "meanest vehicles for the environment for 2002" are the Dodge Ram Pickup 2500, the Chevrolet Suburban K2500 and the GMC Yukon XL K2500.
However they had some good news too:
"Having a tool to see what cars are greener and to be able to compare them is important, especially since this information is not readily available," Kliesch said.
The book also lists the top gasoline-powered cars in each class as "greener choices."
Hybrids in other classes
"These are cars available widely throughout the United States that are the best in their category," said Henry Griggs, media consultant for the ACEEE.
"Half of the people buying vehicles are buying light trucks, so we want to give them choices as well."
More trends for the future include hybrids branching out into other vehicle classes, Kliesch said, adding that Dodge will be coming out with a hybrid-fuel Durango SUV.
Another hybrid vehicle, Honda's Civic, is predicted to get about 50 mpg in city and highway driving. The Civic hybrid will be available in March or April.
"There are 200 million cars on the road now," Kliesch said. "It's important for environmental, national security and economic reasons to wean ourselves off our immense thirst for oil."
By the way what the hell is an SUV? It used to stand for sport utility vehicle, although all I see today is sport, wheres the utility? An appropriate description would be a SLV, sport luxuary vehicle. People are not buying SUVs to take off road, they are buying them to impress the lowly sap in the fuel efficient, economical Honda Civic. SUVs are nothing more than a physical representation of an individual perceived level of status. Nothing more.
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February 2002
The United Nations, perhaps the worlds most impotent organization, again makes a bold statment:
UN: Mammal Disappearance Is Bad Sign
By ANDREW SELSKY
BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - A mammal considered the inspiration for seafarers' tales of mermaids is disappearing from the planet, signaling the despoilment of coastal environments, a U.N. agency told the world's environment ministers Tuesday.
The dugong is apparently gone from many of its habitats in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea, including tropical waters off Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Hong Kong, and the Seychelles, the U.N. Environment Program said. It is on the brink of vanishing from the Indian Ocean off East Africa.
``The situation in East Africa is particularly alarming and it is possible that this will be the next place where the dugong becomes extinct unless urgent action is taken,'' said Helene March, an Australian environmental science professor and the lead author of an agency report.
The dugong is a key indicator species, meaning that if it is declining, ``then the coastal environment which provides protein in the forms of fish and income in terms of tourism is also being degraded,'' the report said.
The mammals, which resemble manatees or sea cows and can grow to about 10 feet in length and weigh as much as 880 pounds, depend on seagrass beds for food. In many areas of the world, seagrass beds are being cleared for development or smothered by silt and mud from runoff from overgrazing and deforestation, said the report.
It was released in Cartagena, Colombia, where environment ministers were gathering for a conference to help set the stage for the U.N. World Summit on Sustainable Development this summer in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Participants at the Cartagena conference, which opens Wednesday and ends Friday, are to consider a plan by the U.N. environment agency to strengthen safeguards against hazardous chemicals. If adopted, the plan will be submitted for approval in Johannesburg.
Governments have so far given mainly lip service to agreements to protect the environment, said Klaus Toepfer, executive director of the U.N. Environment Program.
``The huge growth in environmental agreements ... has not been matched by a political will to make these binding or enforceable,'' Toepfer said.
The U.N. proposal calls for nations to:
Improve the ability of developing countries to deal with hazardous chemicals.
Crack down on illegal trade in banned chemicals and prevent dumping of outlawed substances.
Assess risks of new and existing chemicals uniformly and their effects on humans and animals.
A few major problems here. Yes, overgrazing and large corporate farms lend silt to cover the grass that this mammel feeds upon. But, who creates demand for more cattle and large-scale, unstainable farms? McDonalds and Burger King do. Then again, if there was no demand, then there would be no supply. So, in part the responsibility falls upon the daily decisions we make. Another issue, Chemicals. The Chemical industry is large and powerful. They have the same clout as the oil and gas folks. It is no secret and it is obvisous to those uneffected by corporate brainwashing that nearly all ariticial and snythetic chemicals produced will have some consequence within nearly any organism. The Dugong is just one of those consequences, of which scores more will follow.
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Februrary 2002
Here is another example of overpopulation without responsible adjustments. As our populations spiral out of control, we still demand and expect things on time, every minute of the day. One of those things happens to be ocean life. So, trawlers now scrape thousands of feets, sometimes miles, to provide luxieries for too many mouths. Of course, the responsible thing would be to limit population growth, however, that infringes on human rights(what the hell are human rights?). So, plan
B should mean we grow these items we trawl the oceans for via aquaculture. But, altough aquaculture is growing rapidly, appartently we will just wait until we rape the oceans, proving them void of anything useful for human consumption and then look elsewhere.
Scientists Fear Fate of Deep Sea
By MATT CRENSON
BOSTON (AP) - Fishing vessels that trawl thousands of feet below the surface may be wiping out the exotic creatures of the ocean depths even faster than scientists can discover them, researchers warned Friday.
In recent years, sturdier winches, stronger cable and more powerful engines have allowed fishing trawlers to extend their reach to depths of 3,000 feet and beyond, biologist Callum Roberts said in Boston at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. At those depths, growth is so slow that harvested fish can take decades to be replaced and damaged coral may require centuries or more to grow back.
``The pace of life in the deep sea is virtually glacial,'' said Roberts, a professor of environment at the University of York in Britain. ``What we are destroying now will take centuries to recover.''
In a study published in the journal Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Roberts compared the current situation in the deep oceans to last century's clear-cutting of ancient redwood forests in the western United States.
In the Pacific off New Zealand, trawling has cut orange roughy populations to one-fifth their original levels. Because those fish live to be 150 years old and do not reproduce until they are in their 20s, even under optimal conditions they would take decades to recover.
Sea-bottom coral, sponges and seafans also suffer greatly when trawls scrape across the ocean bottom. A recent study by Australian scientists found that 95 percent of the trawled bottom in deep water off Tasmania are bare rock, compared with 10 percent of untouched areas.
``You can go with ROVs (remotely operated vehicles) and take pictures before and after a trawl's gone through and see the devastation,'' said Cindy Lee Van Dover, an oceanographer at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
Roberts said only a worldwide network of marine reserves can protect orange roughy, Nassau grouper and other deep-dwelling fish from extinction.
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February 2002
Bush Wants Alternate Pollution Pact
By SCOTT LINDLAW
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush is proposing an array of tax incentives to encourage businesses, farmers and individuals to reduce pollution as an alternative to an international global warming accord he said would hurt the U.S. economy.
Bush last year rejected the Kyoto Protocol, which required 40 industrialized nations to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions - the so-called greenhouse gases believed to cause global warming.
He said the treaty - worked out by the Clinton administration but not ratified by the Senate- could cost millions of American jobs. The pact commits industrial nations to roll back greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels.
Instead, Bush seeks to draw more businesses into a ``registry'' of companies that report their greenhouse gas output to the government. They then could trade newly created credits with each other, much as they can under Clean Air Act provisions aimed at curbing acid rain.
Currently, just 222 companies, mostly electric utilities, register and report. The Bush administration does not have a firm goal for how many businesses it seeks to attract to the program.
``This new approach will harness the power of markets, the creativity of entrepreneurs, and draw on the best scientific research,'' Bush said in remarks prepared for delivery Thursday at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
One incentive to join would be a guarantee that businesses could use the credits in any future system. In addition, Bush said the government in 2012 would re-evaluate its success in cutting greenhouse gases and consider a new, possibly tougher system.
Bush believes that maintaining and improving about 80 other programs can also help slow greenhouse gas emissions. Through tax incentives, he would urge farmers to plant carbon dioxide-absorbing trees, consumers to buy hybrid and fuel-cell cars and solar hot water heaters and industry to capture methane, a potent greenhouse gas, from landfills.
He also would use tax breaks to encourage wind and ``biomass'' energy generation, in which burning grass, trees and waste produces electricity.
The president's proposed budget allocates $4.5 billion for global climate change-related activities, a figure the administration said would be a $700 million increase.
Bush would direct his Cabinet secretaries to lean on those they deal with to make ``real commitments'' to cut greenhouse gases.
The administration is setting a goal of cutting by 18 percent a statistic that compares greenhouse gas emissions with gross domestic product. That measure fell by an average of 1.6 percent a year during the past 10 years, according to the government's Energy Information Administration.
The Environmental Defense Fund dismissed the 18 percent goal, saying it guaranteed greenhouse gas emissions would grow as long as the economy did.
In a separate effort, Bush also seeks an ``unprecedented'' reduction in power plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury, which the administration called the worst air pollutants.
This would be a ``cap-and-trade'' program in which the government would set mandatory ceilings on total industry output, and let companies earn and trade credits.
He steered clear of regulating power plants' output of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases. Bush had promised during his presidential campaign to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants, but reversed himself last year.
``By significantly slowing the growth of greenhouse gases, this policy will put America on a path toward stabilizing greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere in the long run, while sustaining the economic growth needed to finance our investments in a new, cleaner energy structure,'' the administration said in a statement.
An economic report to Bush last week warned that the Kyoto requirements could erode the nation's gross domestic product by up to 4 percent in 2010. The report by the Council of Economic Advisers said this is ``a staggering sum when there is no scientific basis for believing this target is preferable to one less costly.''
Dan Becker, a spokesman for the Sierra Club, said linking greenhouse gas output with economic activity would be ``nibbling around the edges'' of the issue.
``This is a series of voluntary steps that are linked to the health of the economy in a way that makes America a fair-weather friend of the global climate,'' Becker said. ``When the economy is booming, we'll do something modest; when it isn't, we'll dump global warming over the side.''
What a joke the Keyoto Protocol has become. Why doesn't Bush just come out and say we have no intentions with complying with a treaty that would threaten my campaign finances if ratified? Its the same old story, Enron and Exxon got dick n' bush into office and they will do nothing to hinder there chances in 2004. On an ethical note however, he mentions that complying would cost American jobs. This would be a short term dilemma, very manageable. What are the long term consequences? How do you manage massive famine from drought and flooding via climate change? How do manage massvie extinctions, sea level rise, etc.? These issues are not within the grasp of human rectification, loss of a few thousand jobs are.
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February 2002
SALT LAKE CITY, Feb. 13 — Olympics organizers’ 11th-hour decision to pull the plug on a facial-recognition system at an ice hockey venue had nothing to do with privacy fears or concerns that it would delay the screening of spectators. The sudden reversal occurred because the system ran afoul of a corporate sponsorship agreement, MSNBC.com has learned.
Is your sercurity for sale? YES, it is. Is your privacy? Yes it is. Sercurity technology used to recognize you based on your face was scraped at the Olympics b/c a corporate sponsership agreement failed. How bizarre is this world we live in where our sercurity is jeopordized b/c a company wouldn't place their corporate logo on it ? Even stranger however, is the fact that we have technology that can recognize you by your face, whereever you are. Only bad things can result form such complexity.
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Bush to OK Nevada Nuke Dump Zone
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush, citing national security concerns and years of scientific studies, will approve Yucca Mountain in Nevada for long-term disposal of thousands of tons of highly radioactive commercial and government nuclear waste, administration officials say.
Once the president acts, possibly as early as Friday, Nevada has said it would file a protest and under a 1987 law Congress then would have to sustain the president's decision by a majority vote of both houses. The process could take four or five months.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham late Thursday formally recommended the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as the place to bury radioactive waste that has been piling up at the nation's commercial nuclear reactors and at U.S. defense facilities, beginning as early as 2010. As much as 77,000 tons of waste could be entombed there.
In a letter to the president, Abraham said a review of 20 years of scientific studies has convinced him that the waste can be kept in volcanic rock 950 feet beneath the Nevada desert without risk to public health or the environment.
``I could not and would not recommend the Yucca Mountain site without having first determined that (it will) ...protect the health and safety of the public,'' Abraham said.
Rejecting critics' claims that the science has not clearly shown the wastes can be contained for thousands of years at the Nevada site, Abraham said his conclusions were ``based on sound scientific principles.''
White House officials, speaking Thursday on condition of anonymity, said Bush intended to accept Abraham's recommendation.
``The president will review it,'' White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said, declining to give a timetable.
The Yucca Mountain site, which also will have to get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission if a decision is made to proceed, is expected to handle thousands of tons of used reactor fuel rods now kept at 103 commercial power reactors in 31 states as well as highly radioactive defense waste now being stored in eight states.
Some of the radioisotopes will remain deadly for more than 10,000 years.
Abraham notified Nevada a month ago that he would recommend the site to the president.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., called Abraham's recommendation ``a hasty, poor and indefensible decision'' at a time when ``the science does not yet exist'' to ensure the wastes can be contained for thousands of years.
Abraham said ``compelling national interests'' - made even more apparent by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks - require development of a remote centralized disposal site.
``More than 161 million people live within 75 miles of one or more of these sites'' now holding the waste, he said.
Nevada Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and members of Nevada's congressional delegation made an appeal at the White House last week asking that Bush not act hastily on Yucca Mountain. Guinn was sharply critical of Abraham's decision because state officials claim the safety of the site has not been assured.
Still, Bush will try to assure Nevada's officials - including Republican office holders fearful of a political fallout from the decision - that the selection of Yucca Mountain is a scientifically sound one.
Opponents of a proposed dump in Nevada rallied Thursday on Capitol Hill, the first of many such protests likely in the weeks ahead. If Bush approves the site, Nevada has 60 days to file a protest. Then Congress has 90 days to override the state objection. If it doesn't, lawmakers will have to find a new location.
``I totally oppose this. I do not want anything that could affect the health of my wife and two kids coming into my state,'' said Nevadan Hugh Jackson as he and several dozen protesters chanted ``Nuclear wastes, no way!'' outside the Capitol.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., told the group that Nevadans weren't the only people who should worry about Yucca Mountain. If it is built, thousands of waste shipments will cross 43 states over both rail and highways.
``The transportation of this is unsafe,'' said Ensign.
The Energy Department and nuclear industry said the shipments can be conducted safely and that leaving the wastes at reactor sites poses security and safety concerns as well.
What a good idea, lets produce a product that generates highly radioactive waste that stays toxic to people and the planet for longer than we have existed as modern humans. In fact, lets cut funding for the DOE's (department of energy) renewable resources development by half. Therefore, we can still produce radio active waste from nuclear power plants for years to come without having to worry about switching to clean, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydo. This is the path your ELECTED leaders have chosen for you.
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February 2002
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is working on a plan to influence public opinion in both hostile and friendly nations to help the war against terrorism - a still-developing effort that critics say could spread false information at home and abroad. The Office of Strategic Influence, set up after the Sept. 11 attacks, has come up with proposals including the placing of news items - false if need be - with foreign news organizations, a defense official said Tuesday on condition of anonymity
What does this all mean? Lets back up a month. Bush calls N. Korea, Iran and Iraq an 'Axis of Evil'. Harsh words. All this at a time when the American economy is heading rapidly down the toliet. What better way to kickstart an economy than a big multi-front war? Ask Herbert Hoover and FDR. Bush is priming the American people for what could be WWIII, or the glorified "war on terrorism" in an exercise to restart the economic machine. Get the American people to believe that these area are worth invading by this disguting propoganda (axis of evil), and you have the most important element in any war, public support.
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February 2002
Alas, some of the truth spills out, today, a report surfaces about a new office designed to spread false information to journalists to further public support for the war on terrorism. This office is intended to make the public believe that the war on terrorism needs to be expanded. All the pieces to this puzzle are falling into place. Here is the article:
Bush Promises Truth From Pentagon
By SUSANNE M. SCHAFER
WASHINGTON (AP) - While his defense secretary considered shutting down a new Pentagon office that reportedly has proposed spreading false information, President Bush pledged Monday: ``We'll tell the American people the truth.''
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has asked a top Pentagon official in charge of the new Office of Strategic Influence ``to take a very, very hard look at it'' and determine ``should it even exist,'' spokeswoman Victoria Clarke told reporters.
Bush, questioned at the White House, said: ``I told Secretary Rumsfeld ... that we'll tell the American people the truth.''
Rumsfeld ``was just as amazed as I was about reading some allegation that somehow our government would never tell the American people the truth,'' Bush said, adding that he's confident the defense secretary will ``handle this in the right way
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February 2002
U.S. to Weigh Computer Chip Implant
By CHRISTOPHER NEWTON
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Florida technology company is poised to ask the government to market a first-ever computer ID chip that could be embedded beneath a person's skin.
For airports, nuclear power plants, and other high security facilities, the immediate benefits would be a closer-to-foolproof security system. But privacy advocates warn the chip could lead to encroachments on civil liberties.
No easy-to-counterfeit ID cards nor dozing security guards. Just a computer chip - about the size of a grain of rice - that would be difficult to remove and tough to mimic.
Other possible uses of the technology, from an added device that would allow satellite tracking of an individual's every movement to the storage of sensitive data like medical records, are already attracting interest across the globe for tasks like foiling kidnappings or assisting paramedics.
Applied Digital Solutions' new ``VeriChip'' is another sign that Sept. 11 has catapulted the science of security into a realm with uncharted possibilities - and also new fears for privacy.
``The problem is that you always have to think about what the device will be used for tomorrow,'' said Lee Tien, a senior attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy advocacy group.
``It's what we call function creep. At first a device is used for applications we all agree are good but then it slowly is used for more than it was intended,'' he said.
Applied Digital, based in Palm Beach, Fla., says it will soon begin the process of getting Food and Drug Administration approval for the device, and intends to limit its marketing to companies that ensure its human use is voluntary.
``The line in the sand that we draw is that the use of the VeriChip would always be voluntarily,'' said Keith Bolton, chief technology officer and a vice president at Applied Digital. ``We would never provide it to a company that intended to coerce people to use it.''
More than a decade ago, Applied bought a competing firm, Destron Fearing, which had been making chips implanted in animals for several years. Those chips were mainly bought by animal owners wanting to provide another way for pound workers to identify a lost pet.
Chips for humans aren't that much different.
But the company was hesitant to market them for people because of ethical questions. The devastation of Sept. 11 solidified the company's resolve to market the human chip and brought about a new sensibility about the possible interest.
``It's a sad time ... when people have to wonder whether it's safe in their own country,'' Bolton said.
The makers of the chip also foresee it being used to help emergency workers diagnose a lost Alzheimer's patient or access an unconscious patient's medical history.
Getting the implant would go something like this:
A person or company buys the chip from Applied Digital for about $200 and the company encodes it with the desired information. The person seeking the implant takes the tiny device - about the size of a grain of rice, to their doctor, who can insert it with a large needle device.
The doctor monitors the device for several weeks to make sure it doesn't move and that no infection develops.
The device has no power supply, rather it contains a millimeter-long magnetic coil that is activated when a scanning device is run across the skin above it. A tiny transmitter on the chip sends out the data.
Without a scanner, the chip cannot be read. Applied Digital plans to give away chip readers to hospitals and ambulance companies, in the hopes they'll become standard equipment.
The chip has drawn attention from several religious groups.
Theologian and author Terry Cook said he worries the identification chip could be the ``mark of the beast,'' an identifying mark that all people will be forced to wear just before the end times, according to the Bible.
Applied Digital has consulted theologians and appeared on the religious television program the ``700 Club'' to assure viewers the chip didn't fit the biblical description of the mark because it is under the skin and hidden from view.
Even with the privacy and religious concerns, some are already eager to use the product.
Jeff Jacobs in Coral Springs, Florida has contacted the company in hopes of becoming the first person to purchase the chip.
Jacobs suffers from a number of serious allergies and wants to make sure medical personnel can diagnose him.
``They would know who to contact, they would know what medications I'm on, and it's quite a few,'' he said. ``They would know what I'm allergic to, what kind of operations I've had and where there might be problems.''
Applied Digital says technology to let the chip to be used for tracking is already well under development.
Eight Latin American companies have contacted Applied Digital and have openly encouraged the company to pursue the internal tracking devices. In some countries, kidnapping has become an epidemic that limits tourism and business.
Does money have no ethical boundaries? The answer is NO. If you had any doubts this story should clear up and misconceptions. This can truly be the end of 'humanity' as we know it. Once you implant a computer chip to aid in non-medical circumstances, you have stepped out of the realm of nature and completely accepted the world corporations want you to live in. Is it so hard to open your wallet and pay with cash or credit card? Are you willing to surrender your 'natural' freedom so you can just swipe your hand at the grocery? Kidnapping seems to be a big selling point, how many people are at rick of being kidnapped? If people want it to diagnose medical problems, just keep a magnetic medical card in your wallet that can be scanned. The last sentence explains it all, it will thwart kidnapping thnus this item can increase tourist business therefore it must be good. NO, do not be fooled by corporate red herrings. This is a tool, that innocent enough in times of peace may seem like a worthwhile convenience ( to those brainwashed masses) but could rapidly be deployed as a control and/or surveillance weapon in times of unrest. This chip, as it states in the article allows your every move to be traced. Think, especially in the world we live in today if the government had to the power to know where everyone registered was at any minute. The government will support this technology albeit carefully and covertly.
The human race is out of control. If we cross this ethical boundary, what is next? We are rapidly becoming economic puppets with corporations pulling our strings. The fact that this topic is even open for discussion tells me that it will happen because if we were enlightened this corporate/government opportunity would never exist.
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March 2002
Faith in your leaders?
COLLEGE PARK, Maryland (AP) -- A few weeks before ordering an escalation of the Vietnam War, President Nixon matter-of-factly raised the idea of using a nuclear bomb. The notion was quickly shot down by national security adviser Henry Kissinger.
Nixon's abrupt suggestion, buried in 500 hours of tapes released Thursday at the National Archives, came after Kissinger laid out a variety of options for stepping up the war effort, such as attacking power plants and docks, in an April 25, 1972, conversation in the Executive Office Building.
"I'd rather use the nuclear bomb," Nixon responded.
"That, I think, would just be too much," Kissinger replied.
"The nuclear bomb. Does that bother you?" Nixon asked. "I just want you to think big."
The following month, Nixon ordered the biggest escalation of the war since 1968.
In a 1985 interview, Nixon acknowledged that he had considered "the nuclear option."
He told Time magazine then: "I rejected the bombing of the dikes, which would have drowned 1 million people, for the same reason that I rejected the nuclear option. Because the targets presented were not military targets."
Nixon showed less regard for the North Vietnamese in his 1972 taped conversations.
In a conversation from June, he told domestic adviser Charles Colson, "We want to decimate that goddamned place."
He added: "North Vietnam is going to get reordered. ... It's about time, it's what should have been done long ago."
Using a nuclear bomb against a bunch of rice farmers. The richest, most powerful nation on earth considered dropping a nuclear bomb on some rice farmers. All because they were embarrassing us by kicking our ass in a limited war. Politics and war should never mix, the above senerio should be a grave lesson why - and yet the president's title is 'commander in chief'. Absolutley Frightening.
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March 2002
Pentagon Lists Nuclear Contingency Targets
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon has informed Congress that it is devising contingency plans for the use of nuclear weapons against a number of countries that pose threats to the United States. The nuclear posture review is a statement of strategy, and neither represents a change in policy on using nuclear weapons nor makes their use more likely, a senior U.S. official said today. It also reflects that ``there are threats out there'' and there long have been contingencies for dealing with those threats, he said. The classified report is not a plan for action, but one of policy, the official said.
Now this
Bush Team Defends U.S. Nuke Plans
By SCOTT LINDLAW
WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush's top foreign-affairs advisers say the United States must be prepared to use nuclear weapons to deter attacks involving weapons of mass destruction. But in an effort to ease alarm overseas, they said there were no plans to do so.
``We all want to make the use of weapons of mass destruction less likely,'' national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday. ``The way that you do that is to send a very strong signal to anyone who might try to use weapons of mass destruction against the United States that they'd be met with a devastating response.''
All we want is to make the use of WMD less likely? So, to reach that end will be nuke the hell of a country that is developing them? Sounds like a double standard to me. But lets look at this from an unbaised perspective - The US has WMD that is will use to defend its way of life. However, another country which incorporates another way of life is prohibited to develop the same technology to defend its way of life. In essence, since the US is the strongest and most influencial nation on earth we determine what is right and what wrong or 'evil'. Since we have the power, we determine ourselves to be right. Others who do not accept our philosophy are then classified as evil or as Bush softly states 'axis of evil'. So, we are good, then we must be just, and therefore can ethically use WMD on those who we determine are not. This is a dangerous stance and there will be a nation or group of people out there that will someday take our aggressive, arrogant rhetoric and show us where we really stand. Is anybody concerned this administration is in control of the global future? These people (Bush) are not ethical and they are making a huge mistake. They are setting the stage for a global showdown. I cannot believe people of this moral caliber are running this country.