New military mortuary to accommodate bugeoning body-bag business
A new $20 million dollar mortuary will open today at US's Dover Air Force Base.
The base has the largest military mortuary in the country, and the new facility will be twice as big as the old one. It will offer a state-of-the-art first stop for the remains of casualties of war and civilian incidents abroad.
[The Bush Reich has not released an official tally of US casualties in Iraq (for non-official lists read this and this.) and they just opened a huge, new military mortuary ... do the math.]
Wednesday, October 29, 2003
OIL WAR
The axis of oil: how a plan for the world's biggest pipeline threatens to wreak havoc
The United States - with the help of the oil giant BP and British taxpayers - plans to establish a hegemony across an area stretching from the Russian borders to the Mediterranean Sea.
Inevitably, the need for oil is at the heart of the story. Two former Soviet states, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, between them have oil reserves three times the size of America's.
The US has been pushing for a new pipeline since Bill Clinton was in office. At first, companies were reluctant, but the rising price of oil, allied to threats in the Persian Gulf and the likelihood of huge reserves of oil and gas worth as much as $4 trillion under the Caspian, has made them increasingly bullish. The US Environment Department estimates that by 2010, the Caspian region could produce 3.7 million barrels per day. This could fill a large hole in world supplies as world oil demand is expected to grow from 76 million a day, in 2000, to 118.9 million by 2020.
The United States - with the help of the oil giant BP and British taxpayers - plans to establish a hegemony across an area stretching from the Russian borders to the Mediterranean Sea.
Inevitably, the need for oil is at the heart of the story. Two former Soviet states, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, between them have oil reserves three times the size of America's.
The US has been pushing for a new pipeline since Bill Clinton was in office. At first, companies were reluctant, but the rising price of oil, allied to threats in the Persian Gulf and the likelihood of huge reserves of oil and gas worth as much as $4 trillion under the Caspian, has made them increasingly bullish. The US Environment Department estimates that by 2010, the Caspian region could produce 3.7 million barrels per day. This could fill a large hole in world supplies as world oil demand is expected to grow from 76 million a day, in 2000, to 118.9 million by 2020.
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
Ex-POWs fight for right to torture payments
The Bush administration is quietly piling up victories in a legal battle to block payments to 17 U.S. combat veterans who were captured and tortured in the first Persian Gulf War and won a lawsuit against Iraq for nearly a billion dollars.
The former POWs — whipped, beaten, burned, electrically shocked and starved by their Iraqi captors in 1991 — say they are baffled by the administration's refusal to let them collect any of the Iraqi assets now under U.S. control, and by the Justice Department's efforts to overturn a federal-court decision upholding their claims to compensation.
"I don't understand why they want to see this case go away," said Lt. Col. Dale Storr of Spokane, who today is an airline pilot and serves in the Air National Guard.
"My country can be mistaken," Storr said, "but I'll still serve it and love it. I'm proud to wear the uniform, no matter what comes."
The Bush administration is quietly piling up victories in a legal battle to block payments to 17 U.S. combat veterans who were captured and tortured in the first Persian Gulf War and won a lawsuit against Iraq for nearly a billion dollars.
The former POWs — whipped, beaten, burned, electrically shocked and starved by their Iraqi captors in 1991 — say they are baffled by the administration's refusal to let them collect any of the Iraqi assets now under U.S. control, and by the Justice Department's efforts to overturn a federal-court decision upholding their claims to compensation.
"I don't understand why they want to see this case go away," said Lt. Col. Dale Storr of Spokane, who today is an airline pilot and serves in the Air National Guard.
"My country can be mistaken," Storr said, "but I'll still serve it and love it. I'm proud to wear the uniform, no matter what comes."
UNCLEAN, UNCLEAN
Rabbis look to 'unclean' pigs to sniff out enemy, weapons
Rabbis in Israel have been asked to approve plans to train pigs to guard West Bank settlements in a bid to thwart would-be Palestinian attackers from gaining 'martyrdom', the Ma'ariv daily said.
Directors of the Gdud Haivri, an organisation which supplies guard dogs to settlements in the West Bank, believe that pigs' more developed sense of smell would enable them to sniff out militants who hide before launching attacks.
According to the Muslim faith, a terrorist martyr who had touched a pig is not eligible for the reward of 70 virgins in heaven," he said.
Rabbi Daniel Shilo, chairman of the rabbinical committee of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) said that, while the raising of pigs - banned under Jewish dietary laws - had traditionally been forbidden, the move should be approved in exceptional circumstances.
Rabbis in Israel have been asked to approve plans to train pigs to guard West Bank settlements in a bid to thwart would-be Palestinian attackers from gaining 'martyrdom', the Ma'ariv daily said.
Directors of the Gdud Haivri, an organisation which supplies guard dogs to settlements in the West Bank, believe that pigs' more developed sense of smell would enable them to sniff out militants who hide before launching attacks.
According to the Muslim faith, a terrorist martyr who had touched a pig is not eligible for the reward of 70 virgins in heaven," he said.
Rabbi Daniel Shilo, chairman of the rabbinical committee of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) said that, while the raising of pigs - banned under Jewish dietary laws - had traditionally been forbidden, the move should be approved in exceptional circumstances.
OUR SOLAR SYSTEM
Coronal Mass Ejection of 10 billion tons of matter creates a "snowstorm" on SOHO satellite images. The vast cloud of gas -- which with a temperature of 1.8 million degrees fahrenheit is more powerful than a billion hydrogen bombs -- will hit our planet's atmosphere today. The giant fireball hurtling towards Earth threatens to bring chaos to mobile phone networks, power grids and aircraft communications.
Massive solar flare may wreak havoc here
An X 17.2 flare, the second largest flare observed by SOHO, was setting off a strong high energy proton event and a fast-moving Coronal Mass Ejection.
The "snow" in EIT and LASCO images is not just making it difficult to spot new CMEs, it is also making the satellite's on-board compression algorithm less efficient, their observations lag behind the schedule because images take longer to downlink, and their buffer fills up.
A solar flare is an explosion on the Sun that happens when energy stored in twisted magnetic fields (usually above sunspots) is suddenly released. Flares produce a burst of radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio waves to x-rays and gamma-rays. Scientists classify solar flares according to their x-ray brightness in the wavelength range 1 to 8 Angstroms. There are 3 categories: X-class flares are the biggest; major events that can trigger planet-wide radio blackouts and long-lasting radiation storms. Read about the classification of X-ray Solar Flares here. Also read: Seeing double: astronomers amazed at two huge sunspots. And Sun fireball causing mobile chaos.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
FILTHY LUCRE
Protests as Australia ships nuclear waste to France
Amid protests and under cover of darkness, Australia dispatched a load of used nuclear fuel to France in the first overseas shipment of Australian radioactive waste in two years.
A convoy of five trucks carrying 344 spent nuclear fuel rods crossed suburban Sydney under heavy police guard before dawn and loaded the waste aboard the French ship Fret Moselle, which quickly departed, officials said.
The convoy was protected by police and emergency vehicles, motorcycles and helicopters in a major security operation "probably bigger than anything Sydney's ever seen," Greenpeace spokesman Danny Kennedy said.
French firm Cogema's contract is to extract and retain enriched uranium and send intermediate-level radioactive waste back to Australia for long-term storage at a site yet to be determined -- likely to be Aboriginal homelands in South Australia.
Amid protests and under cover of darkness, Australia dispatched a load of used nuclear fuel to France in the first overseas shipment of Australian radioactive waste in two years.
A convoy of five trucks carrying 344 spent nuclear fuel rods crossed suburban Sydney under heavy police guard before dawn and loaded the waste aboard the French ship Fret Moselle, which quickly departed, officials said.
The convoy was protected by police and emergency vehicles, motorcycles and helicopters in a major security operation "probably bigger than anything Sydney's ever seen," Greenpeace spokesman Danny Kennedy said.
French firm Cogema's contract is to extract and retain enriched uranium and send intermediate-level radioactive waste back to Australia for long-term storage at a site yet to be determined -- likely to be Aboriginal homelands in South Australia.
BIG BROTHER
Boy's Internet research snags him in FBI web
A 12-year-old kid at Boys' Latin researches a paper on the Bay Bridge, and suddenly the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force shows up in the headmaster's office.
You could laugh if you didn't know the jangled nerves that set off such a reaction.
This fall, Dorsey Boyle, a middle-school teacher at Boys' Latin, the venerable Lake Avenue private school, assigned his classes a series of research papers. Seventh-grader John McLean picked a famous structure. McLean picked the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
The Boys' Latin middle school headmaster, Rick Brocato, had an unexpected visitor: Jim Drotar of the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force. "We're very sensitive about bridges and tunnels," he said.
A 12-year-old kid at Boys' Latin researches a paper on the Bay Bridge, and suddenly the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force shows up in the headmaster's office.
You could laugh if you didn't know the jangled nerves that set off such a reaction.
This fall, Dorsey Boyle, a middle-school teacher at Boys' Latin, the venerable Lake Avenue private school, assigned his classes a series of research papers. Seventh-grader John McLean picked a famous structure. McLean picked the Chesapeake Bay Bridge.
The Boys' Latin middle school headmaster, Rick Brocato, had an unexpected visitor: Jim Drotar of the FBI's Joint Terrorist Task Force. "We're very sensitive about bridges and tunnels," he said.
MILITARY INTELLIGENCE
[Slight, hazel-eyed, with high cheekbones and dirty blond hair pulled back in a ponytail, Rachel Corrie carried a megaphone in one hand and an orange fluorescent jacket in the other.]
The death of Rachel Corrie
Placing herself in the path of an Israeli bulldozer that she believed was about to flatten Nasrallah's house, Rachel Corrie was crushed to death -- her skull fractured, her ribs shattered, her lungs punctured. But the bitter accusations and violent recriminations that followed obscured almost everything else about the incident. Palestinians hailed her as a martyr of the Intifada. Several eyewitnesses charged that the bulldozer operator ran her down deliberately and called her killing 'a war crime.' The Israeli government, which rarely acknowledges the deaths of Palestinian civilians killed during its military operations, went into damage-control mode.
[Alienation News log of an originating story here. And a recent story about another peace activist shot by Israelis.]
TRUST IN GOD
Bigots like Boykin aid the enemy
Is this how the Bush White House hopes to win hearts and minds in the Islamic world? By supporting a small-minded general with a schoolboy's view that his God can beat up their God?
Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, a high-ranking Pentagon official has ridiculed Islam as "Satan" and dismissed Muslims as idol worshippers.
"Well, you know what?" Boykin continued. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
On other occasions, Boykin has described the war on terror as a "spiritual battle. Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Boykin told the church, "this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. ... It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."
Is this how the Bush White House hopes to win hearts and minds in the Islamic world? By supporting a small-minded general with a schoolboy's view that his God can beat up their God?
Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, a high-ranking Pentagon official has ridiculed Islam as "Satan" and dismissed Muslims as idol worshippers.
"Well, you know what?" Boykin continued. "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol."
On other occasions, Boykin has described the war on terror as a "spiritual battle. Satan wants to destroy this nation, he wants to destroy us as a nation, and he wants to destroy us as a Christian army.
"Ladies and gentlemen," Boykin told the church, "this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. ... It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."
Monday, October 27, 2003
WAR IS PEACE
Fake terrorism: the road to dictatorship
It's the oldest trick in the book, dating back to Roman times; creating the enemies you need.
An illuminating article from the UK. Also read about an alleged meeting between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, April Glaspie. Alleged to have taken place on July 25, 1990 (eight days before the August 2, 1990 Iraqi Invasion of Kuwait).
OUR ALIEN MASTERS
Mahathir denies Bush rebuke
"If you can tell a lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction and go to war because of it I'm not surprised if he is prepared to lie about what he said to me.
"It was the biggest lie. If he'd rebuked me I'm quite sure I would have rebuked him also."
Dr Mahathir Mohamad accused US President George W Bush of lying when Bush said he told reporters he had rebuked the Malaysian leader for remarks concerning Jews.
With just six days until he retires, the Malaysian leader insists president Bush had apologised for speaking out against him, after which they were "walking practically hand in hand".
"If you can tell a lie about the existence of weapons of mass destruction and go to war because of it I'm not surprised if he is prepared to lie about what he said to me.
"It was the biggest lie. If he'd rebuked me I'm quite sure I would have rebuked him also."
Dr Mahathir Mohamad accused US President George W Bush of lying when Bush said he told reporters he had rebuked the Malaysian leader for remarks concerning Jews.
With just six days until he retires, the Malaysian leader insists president Bush had apologised for speaking out against him, after which they were "walking practically hand in hand".
Thursday, October 23, 2003
LIFE AND DEATH
Russian roulette stunt has player 'terrified'
Derren Brown has told how his televised game of Russian roulette could go horribly wrong, and admits he feels terrified.
Brown - who will be seen pointing a gun at his head on Channel 4 on Sunday - said his mother had pleaded with him to call off the stunt. The station says it is going ahead with the show despite a warning by a senior policeman that it could encourage people to copy the stunt.
"There's a limit to what I can do. There's no 100 per cent guarantee," said Brown. Around 12,000 people volunteered to load a single bullet in one of the six numbered chambers of the Smith and Wesson handgun. Brown will then use his skills to predict which chamber by simply getting his assistant to count from one to six.
Derren Brown has told how his televised game of Russian roulette could go horribly wrong, and admits he feels terrified.
Brown - who will be seen pointing a gun at his head on Channel 4 on Sunday - said his mother had pleaded with him to call off the stunt. The station says it is going ahead with the show despite a warning by a senior policeman that it could encourage people to copy the stunt.
"There's a limit to what I can do. There's no 100 per cent guarantee," said Brown. Around 12,000 people volunteered to load a single bullet in one of the six numbered chambers of the Smith and Wesson handgun. Brown will then use his skills to predict which chamber by simply getting his assistant to count from one to six.
DUMB AND DUMBER
Man 'tried to use murderer's passport to flee Russia'
A man who bought a false passport to flee Russia got more than he bargained for after finding the paperwork belonged to a wanted murderer.
The 36-year-old man, named only as Arkadiy V for legal reasons, was arrested on suspicion of murder as he tried to cross the border into Latvia.
[A good rule of thumb for an identity thief is not to steal the name of someone whose reputation is worse than yours -- such as a sex offender.]
A man who bought a false passport to flee Russia got more than he bargained for after finding the paperwork belonged to a wanted murderer.
The 36-year-old man, named only as Arkadiy V for legal reasons, was arrested on suspicion of murder as he tried to cross the border into Latvia.
[A good rule of thumb for an identity thief is not to steal the name of someone whose reputation is worse than yours -- such as a sex offender.]
LAW IS AN ASS
Boy, 10, facing court over water pistol incident
A 10-year-old boy has been summonsed to appear in court over an allegation of assault with a water pistol. The boy has received the summons in relation to an allegation that he fired a water pistol at a passer-by in Westbury, Sherborne, Dorset, on April 13.
The boy, who is at the youngest age that a person can be prosecuted, is due to appear at Weymouth Youth Court on Friday, according to a spokeswoman for Weymouth Magistrates' Court.
A 10-year-old boy has been summonsed to appear in court over an allegation of assault with a water pistol. The boy has received the summons in relation to an allegation that he fired a water pistol at a passer-by in Westbury, Sherborne, Dorset, on April 13.
The boy, who is at the youngest age that a person can be prosecuted, is due to appear at Weymouth Youth Court on Friday, according to a spokeswoman for Weymouth Magistrates' Court.
OIL WAR
Ecuadoreans sue US oil firm over Amazon pollution
Ecuadorean Indians wearing feathered headdresses and red face-paint marched outside a jungle courthouse on Tuesday at the start of a case accusing U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco of polluting the Amazon.
'Before Texaco, we were free. We drank from the river, bathed in the river and everything was peaceful because it wasn't polluted,' 67-year-old Secoya Indian Esteban Lusitande said in broken Spanish.
'Now there's nothing. We can't even swim.'
Ecuadorean Indians wearing feathered headdresses and red face-paint marched outside a jungle courthouse on Tuesday at the start of a case accusing U.S. oil giant ChevronTexaco of polluting the Amazon.
'Before Texaco, we were free. We drank from the river, bathed in the river and everything was peaceful because it wasn't polluted,' 67-year-old Secoya Indian Esteban Lusitande said in broken Spanish.
'Now there's nothing. We can't even swim.'
SKY IS FALLING
Mystery among asteroid scientists, Hermes, thought to have a partner
Astronomers have apparently discovered an interesting twist to one of the greatest asteroid mysteries of all time. Hermes -- discovered in 1937 by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth and lost to science for 66 years -- could actually be a pair of orbiting asteroids. And a strange pair, indeed.
The latest look at Hermes, also named 1937 UB, comes from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Initial radar observations show a "strongly bifurcated" appearance with two separate components of roughly equal sizes, consistent with an orbiting binary pair.
"We certainly did not expect to find a binary with roughly equal-sized components," Jean-Luc Margot, a University of California, Los Angeles researcher who led the work, said.
Astronomers have apparently discovered an interesting twist to one of the greatest asteroid mysteries of all time. Hermes -- discovered in 1937 by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth and lost to science for 66 years -- could actually be a pair of orbiting asteroids. And a strange pair, indeed.
The latest look at Hermes, also named 1937 UB, comes from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Initial radar observations show a "strongly bifurcated" appearance with two separate components of roughly equal sizes, consistent with an orbiting binary pair.
"We certainly did not expect to find a binary with roughly equal-sized components," Jean-Luc Margot, a University of California, Los Angeles researcher who led the work, said.
SKY IS FALLING
Six report UFO in Florida skies
It flashed across the sky like a shooting star, trailing a tail of green streaks.
But what Durham police Lt. Morris Taylor saw Monday night on Erwin Road was different from any shooting star he had ever seen before.
'It was pretty wild looking,' Taylor said of the unidentified flying object. 'It looked comparable to the size of the moon in the sky.'
Durham police dispatchers began receiving calls about an unidentified flying object at around 8:45 p.m. Monday, and one resident even flagged down a passing police cruiser to report the object. According to a dispatcher, about six reports were received in all.
It flashed across the sky like a shooting star, trailing a tail of green streaks.
But what Durham police Lt. Morris Taylor saw Monday night on Erwin Road was different from any shooting star he had ever seen before.
'It was pretty wild looking,' Taylor said of the unidentified flying object. 'It looked comparable to the size of the moon in the sky.'
Durham police dispatchers began receiving calls about an unidentified flying object at around 8:45 p.m. Monday, and one resident even flagged down a passing police cruiser to report the object. According to a dispatcher, about six reports were received in all.
NEW WORLD ORDER
Liberty groups attack plan for EU health ID card
The European Union took its first step yesterday towards the creation of an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008.
But civil liberties groups say the European Health Insurance Card was the start of a scheme for a harmonised data chip that would quickly evolve into an EU 'identity card' containing intrusive information off all kinds that could be read by a computer.
The European Union took its first step yesterday towards the creation of an EU-wide health identity card able to store a range of biometric and personal data on a microchip by 2008.
But civil liberties groups say the European Health Insurance Card was the start of a scheme for a harmonised data chip that would quickly evolve into an EU 'identity card' containing intrusive information off all kinds that could be read by a computer.
RIGHTS TRASHED
Students fight electronic voteing machine maker Diebold
A group of students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has launched an 'electronic civil disobedience' campaign against voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems.
The students are protesting efforts by Diebold to prevent them and other website owners from linking to some 15,000 internal company memos that reveal the company was aware of security flaws in its e-voting software for years but sold the faulty systems to states anyway. The memos were leaked to voting activists and journalists by a hacker who broke into an insecure Diebold FTP server in March.
[Flash animation.]
A group of students at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania has launched an 'electronic civil disobedience' campaign against voting machine maker Diebold Election Systems.
The students are protesting efforts by Diebold to prevent them and other website owners from linking to some 15,000 internal company memos that reveal the company was aware of security flaws in its e-voting software for years but sold the faulty systems to states anyway. The memos were leaked to voting activists and journalists by a hacker who broke into an insecure Diebold FTP server in March.
[Flash animation.]
NEW WORLD ORDER
Sleeping with the enemy
Why don't President Bush and Osama bin Laden just get a room? Judging from events over the weekend, they need each other as much as they despise each other. The latest crackly tape issued by bin Laden (if it's him) confirms that al-Qaeda has no independent programme or war aims, but merely feeds off Western fears. And Bush's response - 'the bin Laden tape [shows] this is still a dangerous world' - suggests that his administration will leap on any squeak from the man on the mountain to justify the war on terror. B&B are more and more like a parasitical double act.
Why don't President Bush and Osama bin Laden just get a room? Judging from events over the weekend, they need each other as much as they despise each other. The latest crackly tape issued by bin Laden (if it's him) confirms that al-Qaeda has no independent programme or war aims, but merely feeds off Western fears. And Bush's response - 'the bin Laden tape [shows] this is still a dangerous world' - suggests that his administration will leap on any squeak from the man on the mountain to justify the war on terror. B&B are more and more like a parasitical double act.
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