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The Archive
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U.S. Works Up Plan For Using Nuclear Arms
Saturday, March 9, 2002
The report says the Pentagon should be prepared to use nuclear weapons in an Arab-Israeli conflict, in a war between China and Taiwan, or in an attack from North Korea on the south. They might also become necessary in an attack by Iraq on Israel or another neighbor, it said.
Getting nervous? Me too.
Pentagon Lists Nuclear Target Plans
The Pentagon, in a report to Congress in the fall, said it was considering the possibility of developing a low-yield nuclear device that would be able to destroy deeply buried stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. Such a move would require Congress to lift a ban on designing new nuclear warheads.
Will a largely neutered Congress play dead on this issue?
More news to tighten your sphincter:
Data Show World Awash in Stolen Nuclear Material
Liberal Democrats back radical drug reforms
Saturday, March 9, 2002
The Liberal Democrats have voted in favour of the legalisation of cannabis - the first main UK party to support such a radical move.
The party's leadership had recommended decriminalising the drug but delegates went a step further and chose legalisation, at the spring conference in Manchester.
If only we had such bold leadership from either the Democratic or Republican parties here in the U.S.! At least we have the Greens and the Libertarians pressing the issue.
EPA Official Quits, Rips White House
Saturday, March 9, 2002
A wise quote from Schaffer's resignation letter:
Teddy Roosevelt, a Republican and our greatest environmental President, said, "Compliance with the law is demanded as a right, not asked as a favor." By showing that powerful utility interests are not exempt from that principle, you will prove to EPA’s staff that their faith in the Agency’s mission is not in vain. And you will leave the American public with an environmental victory that will be felt for generations to come.
I'm happy that there are some incorruptible people at the EPA. That won't do the environment much good with the toxic twins in the White House, corporate slut Gale Norton running the Interior Department and waffling hypocrites like Christine Whitman calling the shots over at the EPA.
Thanks, American Samizdat :)
EPA chief suggests utilities wait before cleaning up pollution
EPA Administrator Christie Whitman suggested Thursday that power plants sued for pollution violations might want to hold off settling their cases until an appeals court rules on a federal utility's challenge to her agency's orders.
That type of advice, said Eric Schaeffer, the Environmental Protection Agency's former director of civil enforcement, is why he resigned last week, protesting what he said was a White House determination to weaken clean air regulations.
The fox is in the henhouse.
Thanks, Unknown News :)
Extinct woodpecker sighting no flight of fancy
Saturday, March 9, 2002
I think this article is too optimistic, since the extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker looks a lot like the Pileated Woodpecker, a common bird in the South. Hope springs eternal. It would be a wonderful thing if an extinct animal turned up alive and well.
This has happened before.
Here's an excellent page on the search and you can listen to the possible Ivory-billed tree rapping.
You can listen to the call at the bottom of this page.
60% of car buyers would purchase hybrid
Friday, March 8, 2002
As you would expect, cost is the real issue. It's going to be difficult to lower costs without mass production and you can be sure that Detroit will do everything they can to preserve their gas guzzler cash cows.
Thanks, Tidepool :)
Interview with ACCEE Green Book author John DeCicco:
"If the conditions aren't in place to make a business case to say use advanced engine technologies to improve vehicles by one or two miles per gallon, or to use a hybrid technology to improve efficiency by five to 10 miles per gallon," DeCicco said, "then certainly we're not going to see a business case to overcome all the obstacles associated with bringing fuel cells into production."
(Part one - Part two)
It's worth a read despite the annoying pop ups.
Resumption of caspian caviar trade could mean extinction
Friday, March 8, 2002
Yesterday’s announcement by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) that the Caspian Sea states could resume the caviar trade has been met with alarm by scientists and conservation organizations seeking to restore the beluga sturgeon, which is on the brink of extinction.
I'm absolutely baffled by CITES action in this matter. If we can't trust them to do the right thing, who can we trust?
Hurricane floods pose risk to environment, health
Flooding from hurricanes such as Floyd, which dumped up to 20 inches of water on parts of eastern North Carolina, poses a significant threat to both environmental and human health by washing industrial animal operation wastes into areas with vulnerable populations, according to a new study.
You didn't think all that hog shit just magically disappeared after the flood waters receded, did you?
Dozens of human embryos cloned in China
Friday, March 8, 2002
Is the cloning genie out of the bottle?
In other reproduction news:
Saudi surgeons announce first womb transplant
Witness: Drug War Spraying Colombia To Death
Friday, March 8, 2002
Jena Matzen has a carousel of slides from her trip to Colombia, and she’s giving slide shows throughout the Triangle. These are not your standard shots of smiling couples standing in front of national landmarks.
One image shows a farmer at the center of his 12-acre field, a former corn crop now utterly decimated. Another shows a white flag raised over a black pepper crop, as a signal to airplanes that this is a legal crop.
According to Matzen, a Hillsborough resident, the white flag did not have the desired effect; the pepper crop was destroyed nevertheless, by planes dropping enormous quantities of an herbicide called glyphosate -- marketed by Monsanto in this country under the brand name Round-Up -- as part of the U.S. war on drugs.
How would you like it if planes swooped down and sprayed defoliant all over your yard?!? This "destroy the village in order to save it" mentality is destroying the lives of the poor and causing severe ecological damage.
Despite 1.3 billion dollars in military aid and the spraying, coca production in Columbia rose twenty-five percent last year!
As a special added bonus, the dumbasses in the House of Representatives are calling for even more "aid".
This is pure madness. I don't know any other way to describe it.
Ninth Circuit Court Blocks DEA Hemp Rule
Friday, March 8, 2002
Late yesterday the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted the hemp industry's Motion to Stay the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA's) "interpretive" rule, which was issued October 9, 2001 without public notice or opportunity for comment and would have banned the sale of nutritious hemp foods containing harmless trace amounts of naturally-occurring THC under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) of 1970. Just this week the industry had learned that the Ninth Circuit's Motions panel had referred the industry's Motion to Stay to the Merits panel, who had in turn scheduled expedited oral argument for April 8.
The feds will no doubt make sure that this is just a temporary reprive. Meanwhile, hemp looks ready to boom in Europe.
Too Nazi? The Jewish Museum reconsiders
Friday, March 8, 2002
I hope they don't bow to calls for censorship, even though they're already waffling a bit. All of the news headlines covering this story have ignored the art in its context and have merely focused on the sensational aspects of it.
A long article on the Lego Concentration Camp:
Most important is that the art does not sanctify and commit viewers to look only towards the past, but to engage in an active debate about ongoing genocidal events.
I couldn't agree more.
Museum Show Truthfully Probes Society's Fascination With Evil
Konzentrationslager - I've linked to this page before.
Here's an exhibit of Zbigniew Libera's work that includes his Universal Penis Expander and Placebo suppositories.
Stigmata Priest Has Church Buzzing
Friday, March 8, 2002
If this priest is for real, I would love to see serious scientific study of this phenomenon. I doubt that the Catholic Church would allow it. Can belief affect physical reality? The debunkers scream "no" and the religious faithful scream "yes". I don't know.
Interview with Fr. Zlatko Sudac
Bolivia struggles to halt animal trade
Friday, March 8, 2002
Do I need to tell people this day and age that it's a bad idea to keep wild animals as pets? I guess that I do! Bolivia is just one small example of this huge international problem. The worst culprit is demand in the West and in China for these animals or their body parts.
Alarm sounds on animal smuggling in Brazil
Viagra Hasn't Stemmed Trade in Threatened Wildlife
Hitchhiking Vietnam: The Animal Trade
Genetic testing show he's a chimp, not a human hybrid
Friday, March 8, 2002
Oliver the chimp turns about to be a normal chimpanzee after all. Maybe. He's still one highly unusual primate. I would suggest, as this article does, that his behaviour is due to the abuse and stress of captivity and exploitation.
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