Collision Created Rings Around Andromeda
Sara Goudarzi
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Wed Oct 18, 2:30 PM ET
Our giant neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, was involved in a head on collision with the dwarf galaxy, M32, some 210 million years ago, scientists announced today.
Infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently revealed a never seen before ring of dust within Andromeda.
The new ring [image] and the presence of a previously observed outer ring suggest a disturbance that could have only been caused by a collision. Astronomers suspect that the impact was brought about by the dwarf galaxy Messier 32 (M32).
"These dust rings are like ripples in a pond," said lead study author David Block from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. "Plop a stone into water and you get an expanding series of rings or waves. Let a small galaxy collide nearly head-on with a larger one, and you will see waves or rings of gas and dust that propagate outward as a result of the violent gravitational interaction."
To recreate the impacts of the crash, the researchers used computer models. The simulations showed that M32 plunged through the disk of Andromeda along Andromeda's polar axis back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
In the crash, M32 lost more than half of its original mass and the much more massive Andromeda was disrupted.
Astronomers believe that Andromeda--currently 2 million light years away from the Milky Way--will collide with our galaxy in 5 billion to 10 billion years. The two will eventually join to form one large elliptical galaxy.
The study is detailed in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
Collision Created Rings Around Andromeda
Sara Goudarzi
Staff Writer
SPACE.com Wed Oct 18, 2:30 PM ET
Our giant neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, was involved in a head on collision with the dwarf galaxy, M32, some 210 million years ago, scientists announced today.
Infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope recently revealed a never seen before ring of dust within Andromeda.
The new ring [image] and the presence of a previously observed outer ring suggest a disturbance that could have only been caused by a collision. Astronomers suspect that the impact was brought about by the dwarf galaxy Messier 32 (M32).
"These dust rings are like ripples in a pond," said lead study author David Block from University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. "Plop a stone into water and you get an expanding series of rings or waves. Let a small galaxy collide nearly head-on with a larger one, and you will see waves or rings of gas and dust that propagate outward as a result of the violent gravitational interaction."
To recreate the impacts of the crash, the researchers used computer models. The simulations showed that M32 plunged through the disk of Andromeda along Andromeda's polar axis back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
In the crash, M32 lost more than half of its original mass and the much more massive Andromeda was disrupted.
Astronomers believe that Andromeda--currently 2 million light years away from the Milky Way--will collide with our galaxy in 5 billion to 10 billion years. The two will eventually join to form one large elliptical galaxy.
The study is detailed in the Oct. 18 issue of the journal Nature.
Visit SPACE.com and explore our huge collection of Space Pictures, Space Videos, Space Image of the Day, Hot Topics, Top 10s, Multimedia, Trivia, Voting and Amazing Images. Follow the latest developments in the search for life in our universe in our SETI: Search for Life section. Join the community, sign up for our free daily email newsletter, listen to our Podcasts, check out our RSS feeds and other Reader Favorites today!
Ed. If this fish had known it's spawn would lead to Evangelical Christians, it would have drowned itself!
Discovery Points to Our Fishy Heritage
Jeanna Bryner
Live Science Staff Writer
LiveScience.com Wed Oct 18, 3:45 PM ET
A primitive fish that swam in tropical reef systems before life clambered up on land had more advanced features than previously thought, a new study finds.
Scientists led by John Long of the Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, discovered the first complete fossil of a Gogonasus fish last year in a limestone formation in Western Australia. Prior to the new discovery, only parts of Gogonasus, including a snout and part of a skull, had been found.
The newly discovered fossil "has all these remarkable details preserved that none of the other specimens could show," Long said.
The specimen, whose middle ear and limbs resemble those of land vertebrates, could be one of the missing links between fish and four-legged land vertebrates, bringing researchers closer to the point when life reached the water's edge.
The finding, detailed in the Oct. 19 issue of the journal Nature, could provide valuable clues about our fishy heritage, scientists say.
Flawless fossil
Gogonasus [image] was an ambush predator, about 12 inches long, that trolled tropical reefs during the Devonian period or the "Age of Fishes." Once the species died out, the skeletons got buried by layers of shale in what is called the Gogo Formation.
"It's one of the few sites in the world where you can get whole complete fish in limestone," Long told LiveScience.
When the scientists unearthed the Gogo fossil, they could still open and close its mouth. "It's like it died yesterday," Long said.
Water's edge
With a computed tomography (CT) machine, which beams X-rays at hundreds of different angles around an object one slice at a time, the scientists created three-dimensional images of the skeleton [video].
The fish had a big hole in its head. Called a spiracle opening, the cavity leads down into the gill chamber used for breathing and is thought to be the forerunner for the middle ear in modern land animals [image].
The fossil also showed the beginnings of a wrist joint and a complete front fin, consisting of the same arm bones found in humans and four-legged animals--the humerus, radius and ulna. The scientists suspect the fish used the front limb to push off the sea bottom and lunge at prey.
"So it could've rested on those fins and then just pushed off. I think rather than walking on land it was using this to push itself out of the reef to catch prey," Long said. "The fins needed to be strong and muscular, because the thrust was coming from the front of the animal and not from the tail."
Fish tree
The scientists think the findings will lead to a re-shuffling of the evolutionary line-up of fish from the earliest fish to land animals, placing Gogonasus closer to tetrapods than Eusthenopteron, a fish with tetrapod features.
The Gogo fish had less-advanced front limbs than Tiktaalik, the most amphibian-like fish discovered so far.
"Gogonasus is more like an ordinary fish except its hiding very advanced features that you would not otherwise see unless you had a perfect three-dimensional specimen," Long said. "In a way, it's like a wolf in sheep's clothing."
* All About Evolution
* Images: Freaky Fish
* Top 10 Missing Links
* First Four-Legged Animals Inched Along
* Small Prehistoric Whale Was Vicious Hunter
* Original Story: Discovery Points to Our Fishy Heritage
Visit LiveScience.com for more daily news, views and scientific inquiry with an original, provocative point of view. LiveScience reports amazing, real world breakthroughs, made simple and stimulating for people on the go. Check out our collection of Science, Animal and Dinosaur Pictures, Science Videos, Hot Topics, Trivia, Top 10s, Voting, Amazing Images, Reader Favorites, and more. Get cool gadgets at the new LiveScience Store, sign up for our free daily email newsletter and check out our RSS feeds today!
Ed. We Heard tonight Bush has hired Jim Baker to devise a plan for surviving 9/11 and that he is next going to find someone to devise a plan to help Katrina Survivors...!
Suicide note leads to dismembered body
By BECKY BOHRER, Associated Press Writer 1 hour, 57 minutes ago
NEW ORLEANS - A note found on the body of a suicide jumper led police to a French Quarter apartment where they found a woman's charred head in a pot, her arms and legs in the oven and her torso in the refrigerator, police said Wednesday.
Zackery Bowen, 28, leapt from the seventh floor of a luxury hotel in the Quarter on Tuesday night, police said. His note, found in his pocket, identified the woman as his girlfriend but did not mention her name.
The body was found in the second-floor apartment that Bowen and his girlfriend, Adriane Hall, had shared on the edge of the Quarter above a voodoo shop, according to the landlord. Authorities said they were trying to find Hall, but did not speculate on the identity of the dismembered woman.
A woman who identified herself as Priestess Miriam Chamani in the Voodoo Spiritual Temple and Cultural Center below the apartment said Wednesday that the couple had recently moved in.
"You see people and never know what's going on with them," the woman said.
The apartment's owner, Leo Watermeier, said he last saw Hall on Oct. 5, four days after the two put down a deposit on the one-bedroom, $750-a month flat. Later that same day, Watermeier said, Bowen called him, angrily saying the woman was kicking him out.
Watermeier said Hall told him she had caught the boyfriend cheating.
Police spokesman Anthony Cannatella said the motive appeared to be a dispute over rent. Cannatella said the note indicated Bowen strangled the woman following an argument and cut up her body — using a hand saw and knife, according to police.
"He took his life to compensate for the life he had taken," Cannatella said.
The couple was profiled in several news stories following Hurricane Katrina as resilient residents who remained in the city after the devastating hurricane despite evacuation orders and a lack of power and water.
A story published by Newhouse News Service described the couple gathering tree limbs for cooking fires at night and trading beer and alcohol — easy to get because of their jobs as bartenders — for clean water. The couple also figured out a creative way to make sure police continued to patrol their house: Hall would flash her breasts at police vehicles to make sure they kept driving by, according to a profile in The New York Times.
"We've been able to see the stars for the first time," Hall told Newhouse after the storm last year. "Before, this was a 24-hour lit city. Now it's peaceful."
Cannatella said an immediate identification of the body parts wasn't possible. Det. Ronald Ruiz said police hoped to make a positive ID, using DNA or dental records, sometime next week. He said police estimated the dismembered woman was in her mid to late-20s.
The note, Cannatella said, indicated the woman was killed early in the morning of Oct. 5, in apparent conflict with the landlord's account.
Joy Spaulding, who works at the nearby Nawlin's Flava cafe, said she occasionally saw Hall and Bowen. "To be honest, they seemed like a real nice couple. They were good-looking people, young people trying to do something with their lives."
___
Associated Press Writer Mary Foster contributed to this report.
Ed. "Republicans" (as though these despots are Republicans) are in greater disfavor than ever in History!
Approval of Republicans at record low: poll
Wed Oct 18, 11:31 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With congressional elections less than three weeks away, the Republican party's approval ratings are at an all-time low, with approval of the Republican-led Congress at its lowest point in 14 years, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released on Wednesday.
Forty-seven percent of respondents said they were less in favor of keeping Republicans in control of Congress, compared to 14 percent who were more in favor of maintaining the current congressional makeup, according to the poll.
Only 16 percent of respondents approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest level since 1992, NBC said.
In October 1994, when Democrats held congressional majorities, Congress had a 24 percent job approval, NBC said. Democrats lost 52 House and 8 Senate seats in the 1994 midterm elections.
NBC said the poll indicates people have been paying attention to the issues they are hearing about -- from
Iraq and Bob Woodward's new book on the Bush administration's handling of the war to the unfolding scandal over former Florida Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record)'s e-mail messages to teenage congressional aides.
The poll numbers and
President George W. Bush's own job approval ratings, which have been mired in the 30 percent range, are an ominous sign for a party trying to maintain control of Congress, NBC said.
Bush had a job approval rating of 38 percent, down 1 percentage point from a previous NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released earlier this month after the Foley news first broke, NBC said.
Asked who they planned to vote for in the congressional election, 37 percent of those polled said Republicans and 52 percent said Democrats. The 15 percent difference was the highest disparity ever in the poll and up from a 9-point difference a month ago, NBC said.
The poll of 1,006 registered voters was taken from October 13-16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
U.S. says China to warn North Korea against 2nd test
By Sue Pleming 25 minutes ago
SEOUL (Reuters) -
North Korea's strongest backer China has sent a special envoy to Pyongyang to deliver a "very strong" message not to conduct another nuclear test, a senior U.S. official said on Thursday.
The official was traveling with U.S. Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, who arrived in Seoul from Tokyo to seek
South Korea's help in pressuring Pyongyang to end its nuclear weapons ambitions.
"I'm pretty convinced that the Chinese will have a very strong message about future tests," said the official, who asked not to be identified.
China's foreign ministry declined to confirm that Chinese State Councilor Tang Jiaxuan was currently visiting Pyongyang.
A South Korean MP and parliamentary intelligence committee member, Chung Hyung-keun, said the North could be preparing three or four more nuclear tests following its first, which sparked world condemnation, on October 9.
"Checking indications coming from intelligence agencies of different countries, it is certain that the North will conduct three or four additional nuclear tests in the future," he told SBS radio.
Rice was coming from Tokyo where she assured Asian allies of America's commitment to defend them. The United States is worried Japan and South Korea might try to build up their own arms in response to North Korea's nuclear test, which led to a
U.N. Security Council vote to impose financial and weapons sanctions.
GRAVE CONSEQUENCES
President George W. Bush warned North Korea on Wednesday of grave consequences if it tried to sell nuclear arms and said the United States would use whatever means necessary to stop it.
Bush has stressed the need to resolve the standoff through diplomacy but said it was still an open question whether U.N. sanctions would work.
South Korea is planning to tighten its inspection of all cargo heading to North Korea in line with U.N. sanctions, Yonhap news agency reported, citing unidentified government sources.
It also plans to cut funding to a mountain resort in the North which is open to South Koreans to visit and which the United States says serves as a cash cow for Pyongyang leaders.
As Rice headed to Seoul, North Korea warned the South against cosying up to the United States.
"There is no room within the (unified Korean) nation for such flunkeyist traitors selling off the dignity and sovereignty of the nation, root and all, to outsiders while acting as their puppet," the Communist Party daily Rodong Sinmun said.
The Korean peninsula was divided after World War Two and fought a fratricidal war from 1950 to 1953, with the North backed by China and the South by U.S.-led
United Nations forces.
Rice, who is seeking a unified stance on U.N. sanctions, made her trip to North Asia as intelligence experts said satellites had spotted an increase in activity at the North's suspected test site, suggesting a second blast may be imminent.
U.S. and South Korean officials said there was no sign another test was imminent, however.
In Seoul Rice will meet South Korean Foreign Minister Ban Ki-moon, recently named the next secretary-general of the United Nations. They will later be joined Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso.
Japan, a traditional target of Pyongyang's animosity as the former colonial ruler of the Korean peninsula, has seen debate increase over whether to acquire nuclear arms.
Aso reiterated that Tokyo had "absolutely no intentions now of preparing to possess nuclear weapons."
Rice travels to Beijing on Friday to push for strong enforcement of the U.N. sanctions from North Korea's biggest trading partner, particularly the inspection of North Korean cargo to intercept weapons and weapons parts.
China is the closest North Korea has to an ally but backed the U.N. resolution and has said it will carry out cargo inspections but not conduct searches at sea.
A Reuters correspondent in Dandong, at China's border with North Korea, said Chinese customs agents were checking papers and vehicles but otherwise there was no increased scrutiny.
Chinese president
Hu Jintao has been quoted as saying the sanctions should be implemented in such a way that they don't escalate the situation into something uncontrollable.
The U.S. official dismissed reports of a planned meeting of foreign ministers from the United States, Japan, South Korea, Russia and China on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul and Matt Spetalnick in Washington)
Send Joe Lieberman to Nam to fix this! He's really been underfoot a lot lately!
Final Answer: Vietnam
The country's first TV generation is glued to game shows. Fans say they're educational, but others fear emergence of a couch-potato nation.
By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2006
HANOI — The game show contestant is sweating.
The final question will determine whether she will win the round and walk away with the prize. "What animal is the bridge on the Mekong Delta named for?" a female host asks.
Before Trang, the contestant, can react, her rival blurts out the correct answer: monkey.
"I didn't do too well," Trang says glumly, looking forlorn on a set bathed in bright lights and festooned with tinsel and colorful balloons.
Her pain will be broadcast to the nation when the game show episode airs. Talk about jeopardy: Trang is only 9 years old.
Vietnam is awash in television game shows. Its eight major TV stations air more than 50 of them, many in prime time. There are programs geared toward children, or teens, or seniors. Some cater to niche audiences, such as the show that tests soldiers on military life — still revered in this nominally communist nation.
The game shows reflect Vietnam's rapid economic development. In the last decade, a middle class has emerged. Pit toilets are giving way to modern conveniences, cars are replacing motorcycles, and 90% of Vietnamese households have television sets. Game shows are helping to influence Vietnam's first TV generation just as television transformed American culture in the 1950s.
In a society where education is seen as the way to economic freedom, Vietnamese say these TV programs serve as mass education. They are teaching people about world history, healthful living and modern lifestyles.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the eyes of friends Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep and Nguyen Thu Hien were glued to a large flat-panel Sony television in a relative's home here. The two 22-year-old women, who work as receptionists at foreign-based firms, played along as three families battled on "Sunday at Home," which quizzes contestants about health and homemaking.
This week's subject was about bathing. "To help you lose weight, what should you put into the bath water?" the host, wearing a red miniskirt, asked the three teams. "A) green tea leaves; B) ginkgo leaves; or C) Vietnamese mint leaves?"
The Vu family hit the bell first and answered C.
"Whoosh!" came the sound, telling them they were wrong. The Phams were next. Green tea leaves, they said. Drums banged, as the couple and their two sons took home the top prize: an air conditioner valued at $260.
"Oh, I never knew that," said Hien after hearing the correct answer.
Added Diep: "I must try it to have attractive skin and then every man would be attracted to me."
Some Vietnamese see game shows as a chance to get their 15 minutes of fame. Others hope that old friends or long-lost relatives will see them on TV and contact them. Many regard game shows as a kind of public IQ test.
"I want to test my intelligence," said Trang, the 9-year-old "Fairy Garden" contestant, who acknowledged that her parents had pushed her to sign up for the show.
But there is also fear that the idiot box will live up to its name and that Vietnam will turn into a nation of couch potatoes.
"When TV has so many shows like that, it's not good for the youth because they spend most of their time watching TV without doing anything," said Nguyen Chau, a sociologist at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies. "They waste their youth."
As in China, the government controls the TV stations here. Before game shows began taking off in the last few years, programming focused mainly on government announcements and dreary education-oriented fare.
The Communist government has been flexible with game shows because they don't have political content. Private entrepreneurs have been allowed to produce the programs, and networks are buying licensing rights and importing games from the U.S., Japan and Europe.
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Happy Birthday, Steve...!
`Colbert Report' marks first anniversary
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Wed Oct 18, 12:59 AM ET
NEW YORK - "The Colbert Report" celebrated its one-year anniversary Tuesday by offering the show's devoted audience — the "Colbert Nation" — a piece of its leader.
Colbert announced that he will auction the portrait that hangs above the fireplace on the set of his Comedy Central show. The painting depicts a debonair Colbert standing in front of the very same portrait of himself.
The portrait will be auctioned on eBay until Oct. 30, with proceeds to benefit Save the Children.
"I've already saved the world. How hard could saving the children be?" Colbert said in a statement.
The effect of the painting is that of a hall of mirrors — not unlike the strange reflections of Colbert's comedy, which bounces back and forth between reality and truthiness. A spinoff of "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" has built a following of its own since debuting last year, when it famously coined "truthiness" as truth that comes from the gut, not books.
The "Colbert Report," a deadpan parody of combative, conservative talk shows, also recently wrapped up its "Green Screen Challenge," in which viewers were urged to supply new video background to footage of Colbert fighting with a lightsaber.
A video by a viewer identified as Bonnie R. trumped a late entry from — as Colbert introduced — George L. It turned out to be the work of "Star Wars" director
George Lucas, who appeared on the program last week.
"The Colbert Report" airs Mondays through Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
___
On the Net:
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Apparently virgins are made to become not virgins.
Ed. Apparently virgins are made to become not virgins. Like Antarctica, we wanted Space to remain unmilitarized! The vast resources to be mined there by competitive powers probably make that ideal moot! Of course, "Defense" is code for "This is mine and you can't have it!" The ultimate Business model...
Bush space policy puts priority on defense: report
Wed Oct 18, 2:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush has signed a newly revised space policy that sets defense as a priority and rejects future negotiations that might limit U.S. flexibility in space, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The document, released earlier this month with no public announcement, emphasizes security issues, the newspaper reported.
Bush's top goals, as stated in the document, are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered U.S. operation in and through space to defend our interest there," the newspaper reported.
The top goals of the Clinton administration had been more of a balance of science and security, the Post said.
The Bush administration said the first full revision of overall U.S. space policy in 10 years was not a step toward putting weapons systems into Earth orbit, the newspaper reported.
A senior administration official, who asked not to be identified, told the paper: "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period."
The newspaper cited two arms experts who said that the Bush policy goes beyond the previous Clinton policy which opened the door to developing space weapons.
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, was quoted as saying that the Bush policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."
The Bush administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation, The Washington Post said. But the official said the document also made clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race, the report said.
According to the report, the Bush policy accepts current international agreements but states: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."
What can we do to persuade Primitive, Uncivilized nations like the US?
DEATH PENALTY: NGOs, Italy Seek Worldwide Ban
Sabina Zaccaro, Inter Press Service (IPS) Tue Oct 10, 10:00 AM ET
ROME, Oct 10 (IPS) - In the 13 years since its birth in Italy, the global campaign to abolish the death penalty has convinced more than half the countries in the world of its cause.
For them, however, that is not enough. Their goal is a total worldwide ban on the practise.
To that end, they are pushing the
European Union to back an Italian initiative at the
United Nations current sessions for a resolution asking all countries to work towards a full, universal moratorium on executions.
To mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Oct. 10,
European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini and Terry Davis, Council of Europe Secretary General, will hold a joint press conference Tuesday to praise the efforts of civil society for their support. They also are expected to announce their backing of an international conference against the death penalty to be held in February 2007 in Paris.
Furthermore, the European Parliament's Human Rights Commission, composed of 25 experts from each member state, will meet Tuesday to discuss the Italian initiative. A recommendation from the commission could help the EU reach agreement on whether to support Italy's effort.
"The issue is key to the whole EU Parliament," Luisa Morgantini, president of the parliament's development committee, told IPS. Last week Morgantini sent a letter addressed to high-ranking EU officials and to the foreign affairs ministries of all member states, stressing its support for Italy's initiative.
"The European Union could and should play a major role in promoting this initiative at the UN level," she said, quoting the letter signed by all the EU parliamentary committees. "We hope that the Council of Ministers will give due consideration to our views."
Riccardo Mosca, a spokesman for the European Commission's Justice, Freedom and Security issues, said that while the abolition of the death penalty is a priority for Brussels, it is not likely that the EU will support a moratorium resolution this session.
"At the EU level, there is no resolution draft," Mosca told IPS. He added, however, "The commission would like one day to have a resolution for a universal moratorium."
The news disappointed Elisabetta Zamparutti, a lawyer and coordinator of an annual report on the death penalty by Hands Off Cain, an abolition group. For the past nine years, anti-death penalty organisations like HOC have successfully lobbied the UN Commission on Human Rights to pass a moratorium resolution.
The last one, passed April 2005, states, in part: "The abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights."
It further asked countries with capital punishment still on the books "to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty."
Earlier this year, at the request of the leftist party Rosa nel Pugno, Italy's government agreed to present a moratorium resolution proposal to the UN General Assembly. A motion to do so had unanimous support in Italy's parliament, achieving an extraordinary convergence of both the majority and the opposition parties.
"I think it is opportune to resume the Italian initiative to end the death penalty, which is a fixed point of our culture and our civilisation" Premier Roman Prodi told Parliament at the time.
It has been thwarted, however, because the government has not yet obtained approval from the other EU members. "Our aim is to present the moratorium together with the European Union, and then try to actively involve other countries not included in the Union," Gianni Vernetti, Olive Tree senator and foreign affairs undersecretary, told IPS.
"We have many go-aheads from our European partners, some still have a few uncertainties, but I trust we'll be able to keep to our commitment," Vernetti added.
Hands Off Cain, along with 53 groups which form the World Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, believe they have the consensus of parliaments from 92 countries that would co-sponsor such a moratorium resolution at the UN.
Figures released by HOC show that such a resolution would be approved by an overwhelming majority. The group reckons between 95 and 107 countries would vote in favour and between 61 and 68 would oppose it.
The government of Italy was the first to address the issue in 1997 by obtaining UN Commission on Human Rights (now Human Rights Council) approval of a resolution against the death penalty. Since 1999, a statement on the death penalty has been presented jointly with the European Union and has passed the commission every year.
Now, however, unity on the death penalty has begun to fade because some of the oldest EU members do not want to press the issue with influential countries like Saudi Arabia and
Iran. Moreover, Poland's new prime minister has stated publicly that he wants to re-instate the death penalty as a means to deter spiralling crime in his country.
The European Commission's Mosca agreed that achieving consensus is a problem. "There are some politicians who have a political agenda that is veering away from the EU. That is no secret."
Belarus, though not an EU member, carried out two executions in 2005, after it had agreed to a moratorium. Though a halt is in place in Russia, that country still has not eliminated death penalty laws, as required for its membership in the Council of Europe.
Since the driving concept of European Union is unanimity, the unravelling of the unity surrounding the issue has become a challenge.
"Such a key and worldwide problem cannot be entrusted to the sole responsibility of European countries," said Zamparutti. "Since there are many countries joining the international campaign every year, it is necessary to avoid defining the issue as a European and Western one and try instead to create alliances with states representative of all continents," she said.
Mosca agreed that European countries cannot go it alone. "It is not within our competence to ask China or Thailand to stop. We don't have the power to ask the U.S. to stop."
Indeed, the biggest potential opposition within the world body is expected to come from two of the world's most frequent executioners -- prominent UN members China and the United States. Both countries are members of the Security Council. Zamparutti believes it is a hurdle, but not a barrier.
"U.S. and China have always rejected the proposal of a moratorium," Zamparutti told IPS, "but, to be honest, they have never pushed other countries on not voting for the resolution. They simply must vote against it because of their internal system."
Tuesday, 17 October 2006
Final Answer: Vietnam
The country's first TV generation is glued to game shows. Fans say they're educational, but others fear emergence of a couch-potato nation.
By Don Lee, Times Staff Writer
October 17, 2006
HANOI — The game show contestant is sweating.
The final question will determine whether she will win the round and walk away with the prize. "What animal is the bridge on the Mekong Delta named for?" a female host asks.
Before Trang, the contestant, can react, her rival blurts out the correct answer: monkey.
"I didn't do too well," Trang says glumly, looking forlorn on a set bathed in bright lights and festooned with tinsel and colorful balloons.
Her pain will be broadcast to the nation when the game show episode airs. Talk about jeopardy: Trang is only 9 years old.
Vietnam is awash in television game shows. Its eight major TV stations air more than 50 of them, many in prime time. There are programs geared toward children, or teens, or seniors. Some cater to niche audiences, such as the show that tests soldiers on military life — still revered in this nominally communist nation.
The game shows reflect Vietnam's rapid economic development. In the last decade, a middle class has emerged. Pit toilets are giving way to modern conveniences, cars are replacing motorcycles, and 90% of Vietnamese households have television sets. Game shows are helping to influence Vietnam's first TV generation just as television transformed American culture in the 1950s.
In a society where education is seen as the way to economic freedom, Vietnamese say these TV programs serve as mass education. They are teaching people about world history, healthful living and modern lifestyles.
On a recent Sunday afternoon, the eyes of friends Nguyen Thi Ngoc Diep and Nguyen Thu Hien were glued to a large flat-panel Sony television in a relative's home here. The two 22-year-old women, who work as receptionists at foreign-based firms, played along as three families battled on "Sunday at Home," which quizzes contestants about health and homemaking.
This week's subject was about bathing. "To help you lose weight, what should you put into the bath water?" the host, wearing a red miniskirt, asked the three teams. "A) green tea leaves; B) ginkgo leaves; or C) Vietnamese mint leaves?"
The Vu family hit the bell first and answered C.
"Whoosh!" came the sound, telling them they were wrong. The Phams were next. Green tea leaves, they said. Drums banged, as the couple and their two sons took home the top prize: an air conditioner valued at $260.
"Oh, I never knew that," said Hien after hearing the correct answer.
Added Diep: "I must try it to have attractive skin and then every man would be attracted to me."
Some Vietnamese see game shows as a chance to get their 15 minutes of fame. Others hope that old friends or long-lost relatives will see them on TV and contact them. Many regard game shows as a kind of public IQ test.
"I want to test my intelligence," said Trang, the 9-year-old "Fairy Garden" contestant, who acknowledged that her parents had pushed her to sign up for the show.
But there is also fear that the idiot box will live up to its name and that Vietnam will turn into a nation of couch potatoes.
"When TV has so many shows like that, it's not good for the youth because they spend most of their time watching TV without doing anything," said Nguyen Chau, a sociologist at Hanoi University of Foreign Studies. "They waste their youth."
As in China, the government controls the TV stations here. Before game shows began taking off in the last few years, programming focused mainly on government announcements and dreary education-oriented fare.
The Communist government has been flexible with game shows because they don't have political content. Private entrepreneurs have been allowed to produce the programs, and networks are buying licensing rights and importing games from the U.S., Japan and Europe.
Single page
CONTINUED
1 2 next >>
`Colbert Report' marks first anniversary
By JAKE COYLE, AP Entertainment Writer Wed Oct 18, 12:59 AM ET
NEW YORK - "The Colbert Report" celebrated its one-year anniversary Tuesday by offering the show's devoted audience — the "Colbert Nation" — a piece of its leader.
Colbert announced that he will auction the portrait that hangs above the fireplace on the set of his Comedy Central show. The painting depicts a debonair Colbert standing in front of the very same portrait of himself.
The portrait will be auctioned on eBay until Oct. 30, with proceeds to benefit Save the Children.
"I've already saved the world. How hard could saving the children be?" Colbert said in a statement.
The effect of the painting is that of a hall of mirrors — not unlike the strange reflections of Colbert's comedy, which bounces back and forth between reality and truthiness. A spinoff of "The Daily Show," "The Colbert Report" has built a following of its own since debuting last year, when it famously coined "truthiness" as truth that comes from the gut, not books.
The "Colbert Report," a deadpan parody of combative, conservative talk shows, also recently wrapped up its "Green Screen Challenge," in which viewers were urged to supply new video background to footage of Colbert fighting with a lightsaber.
A video by a viewer identified as Bonnie R. trumped a late entry from — as Colbert introduced — George L. It turned out to be the work of "Star Wars" director
George Lucas, who appeared on the program last week.
"The Colbert Report" airs Mondays through Thursdays at 11:30 p.m. ET.
___
On the Net:
http://www.comedycentral.com/shows/the_colbert_report/index.jhtml
http://www.savethechildren.org/
Ed. Apparently virgins are made to become not virgins. Like Antarctica, we wanted Space to remain unmilitarized! The vast resources to be mined there by competitive powers probably make that ideal moot! Of course, "Defense" is code for "This is mine and you can't have it!" The ultimate Business model...
Bush space policy puts priority on defense: report
Wed Oct 18, 2:00 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -
President Bush has signed a newly revised space policy that sets defense as a priority and rejects future negotiations that might limit U.S. flexibility in space, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.
The document, released earlier this month with no public announcement, emphasizes security issues, the newspaper reported.
Bush's top goals, as stated in the document, are to "strengthen the nation's space leadership and ensure that space capabilities are available in time to further U.S. national security, homeland security, and foreign policy objectives" and to "enable unhindered U.S. operation in and through space to defend our interest there," the newspaper reported.
The top goals of the Clinton administration had been more of a balance of science and security, the Post said.
The Bush administration said the first full revision of overall U.S. space policy in 10 years was not a step toward putting weapons systems into Earth orbit, the newspaper reported.
A senior administration official, who asked not to be identified, told the paper: "This policy is not about developing or deploying weapons in space. Period."
The newspaper cited two arms experts who said that the Bush policy goes beyond the previous Clinton policy which opened the door to developing space weapons.
Theresa Hitchens, director of the nonpartisan Center for Defense Information, was quoted as saying that the Bush policy "kicks the door a little more open to a space-war fighting strategy" and has a "very unilateral tone to it."
The Bush administration official strongly disagreed with that characterization, saying the policy encourages international diplomacy and cooperation, The Washington Post said. But the official said the document also made clear the U.S. position: that no new arms-control agreements are needed because there is no space arms race, the report said.
According to the report, the Bush policy accepts current international agreements but states: "The United States will oppose the development of new legal regimes or other restrictions that seek to prohibit or limit U.S. access to or use of space."
DEATH PENALTY: NGOs, Italy Seek Worldwide Ban
Sabina Zaccaro, Inter Press Service (IPS) Tue Oct 10, 10:00 AM ET
ROME, Oct 10 (IPS) - In the 13 years since its birth in Italy, the global campaign to abolish the death penalty has convinced more than half the countries in the world of its cause.
For them, however, that is not enough. Their goal is a total worldwide ban on the practise.
To that end, they are pushing the
European Union to back an Italian initiative at the
United Nations current sessions for a resolution asking all countries to work towards a full, universal moratorium on executions.
To mark the World Day Against the Death Penalty, Oct. 10,
European Commission Vice President Franco Frattini and Terry Davis, Council of Europe Secretary General, will hold a joint press conference Tuesday to praise the efforts of civil society for their support. They also are expected to announce their backing of an international conference against the death penalty to be held in February 2007 in Paris.
Furthermore, the European Parliament's Human Rights Commission, composed of 25 experts from each member state, will meet Tuesday to discuss the Italian initiative. A recommendation from the commission could help the EU reach agreement on whether to support Italy's effort.
"The issue is key to the whole EU Parliament," Luisa Morgantini, president of the parliament's development committee, told IPS. Last week Morgantini sent a letter addressed to high-ranking EU officials and to the foreign affairs ministries of all member states, stressing its support for Italy's initiative.
"The European Union could and should play a major role in promoting this initiative at the UN level," she said, quoting the letter signed by all the EU parliamentary committees. "We hope that the Council of Ministers will give due consideration to our views."
Riccardo Mosca, a spokesman for the European Commission's Justice, Freedom and Security issues, said that while the abolition of the death penalty is a priority for Brussels, it is not likely that the EU will support a moratorium resolution this session.
"At the EU level, there is no resolution draft," Mosca told IPS. He added, however, "The commission would like one day to have a resolution for a universal moratorium."
The news disappointed Elisabetta Zamparutti, a lawyer and coordinator of an annual report on the death penalty by Hands Off Cain, an abolition group. For the past nine years, anti-death penalty organisations like HOC have successfully lobbied the UN Commission on Human Rights to pass a moratorium resolution.
The last one, passed April 2005, states, in part: "The abolition of the death penalty contributes to the enhancement of human dignity and to the progressive development of human rights."
It further asked countries with capital punishment still on the books "to establish a moratorium on executions, with a view to completely abolishing the death penalty."
Earlier this year, at the request of the leftist party Rosa nel Pugno, Italy's government agreed to present a moratorium resolution proposal to the UN General Assembly. A motion to do so had unanimous support in Italy's parliament, achieving an extraordinary convergence of both the majority and the opposition parties.
"I think it is opportune to resume the Italian initiative to end the death penalty, which is a fixed point of our culture and our civilisation" Premier Roman Prodi told Parliament at the time.
It has been thwarted, however, because the government has not yet obtained approval from the other EU members. "Our aim is to present the moratorium together with the European Union, and then try to actively involve other countries not included in the Union," Gianni Vernetti, Olive Tree senator and foreign affairs undersecretary, told IPS.
"We have many go-aheads from our European partners, some still have a few uncertainties, but I trust we'll be able to keep to our commitment," Vernetti added.
Hands Off Cain, along with 53 groups which form the World Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, believe they have the consensus of parliaments from 92 countries that would co-sponsor such a moratorium resolution at the UN.
Figures released by HOC show that such a resolution would be approved by an overwhelming majority. The group reckons between 95 and 107 countries would vote in favour and between 61 and 68 would oppose it.
The government of Italy was the first to address the issue in 1997 by obtaining UN Commission on Human Rights (now Human Rights Council) approval of a resolution against the death penalty. Since 1999, a statement on the death penalty has been presented jointly with the European Union and has passed the commission every year.
Now, however, unity on the death penalty has begun to fade because some of the oldest EU members do not want to press the issue with influential countries like Saudi Arabia and
Iran. Moreover, Poland's new prime minister has stated publicly that he wants to re-instate the death penalty as a means to deter spiralling crime in his country.
The European Commission's Mosca agreed that achieving consensus is a problem. "There are some politicians who have a political agenda that is veering away from the EU. That is no secret."
Belarus, though not an EU member, carried out two executions in 2005, after it had agreed to a moratorium. Though a halt is in place in Russia, that country still has not eliminated death penalty laws, as required for its membership in the Council of Europe.
Since the driving concept of European Union is unanimity, the unravelling of the unity surrounding the issue has become a challenge.
"Such a key and worldwide problem cannot be entrusted to the sole responsibility of European countries," said Zamparutti. "Since there are many countries joining the international campaign every year, it is necessary to avoid defining the issue as a European and Western one and try instead to create alliances with states representative of all continents," she said.
Mosca agreed that European countries cannot go it alone. "It is not within our competence to ask China or Thailand to stop. We don't have the power to ask the U.S. to stop."
Indeed, the biggest potential opposition within the world body is expected to come from two of the world's most frequent executioners -- prominent UN members China and the United States. Both countries are members of the Security Council. Zamparutti believes it is a hurdle, but not a barrier.
"U.S. and China have always rejected the proposal of a moratorium," Zamparutti told IPS, "but, to be honest, they have never pushed other countries on not voting for the resolution. They simply must vote against it because of their internal system."
Gestapo Tactics! Hey, Dumbass! Wake Up! It's a Coup!
Sentimental Education: Academia Signs Up to Track Down Dissent
By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent
t r u t h o u t | Report
Tuesday 17 October 2006
I.
Why is the United States government spending millions of dollars to track down critics of George W. Bush in the press? And why have major American universities agreed to put this technology of tyranny into the state's hands?
At the most basic level, of course, both questions are easily answered: 1) Power. 2) Money. The Bush administration wants to be able to root out - and counteract - any dissenting noises that might put a crimp in its ongoing crusade for "full spectrum dominance" of global affairs, while the august institutions of higher learning involved - the universities of Cornell, Pittsburgh and Utah - crave the federal green that keeps them in clover.
But beyond these grubby realities, there are many other disturbing aspects of this new program - which is itself only part of a much broader penetration of American academia by the Department of Homeland Security.
As with so many of the Bush measures that have quietly stripped away America's liberties, this one too is beginning with a whimper, not a bang: a modest $2.4 Department of Homeland Security million grant to develop "sentiment analysis" software that will allow the government's "security organs" to sift millions of articles for "negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas," as the New York Times reported earlier this month. Such negative opinions must be caught and catalogued because they could pose "potential threats to the nation," security apparatchiks told the Times.
This hydra-headed snooping program is based on "information extraction," which, as a chipper PR piece from Cornell tells us, is a process by which "computers scan text to find meaning in natural language," rather than the rigid literalism ordinarily demanded by silicon cogitators. Under the gentle tutelage of Homeland Security, the universities "will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and teach them to tell the difference," says the Cornell blurb.
At this point, the ancient and ever-pertinent question of Pontius Pilate comes to mind: "What is truth?" Of course, Pilate, being a devotee of what George W. Bush likes to call "the path of action," gave the answer to his philosophical inquiry in brute physical form: truth is whatever the empire says it is - so take this Galilean rabble-rouser out and crucify him already. In like manner, it will certainly be the government "security organs" who ultimately determine the criteria for what is fact and what is opinion - and whether the latter is positive or negative, perhaps even a candidate for the Bush-Pilate "path."
The academics will be trying out the Sentiment Analysis program (let's call it SAP, for short) on four main clusters of articles from 2001-2002, the Times reports. These include: Bush's famous declaration of an "axis of evil" threatening the world; the treatment of his Terror War captives in Guantanamo Bay; global warming; and the failed Bush-backed bid to topple Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in a coup - all of them issues on which the Bush administration was at odds with much of the world, and large swathes of American opinion as well. Obviously, such issues are fertile fields for terrorist thought-crimes to be snagged and tagged by SAP.
For those with concerns about civil liberties, Cornell assures us that SAP will be limited strictly to foreign publications. Oh, really? Hands up out there, everyone who believes that this technology will not be used to ferret out "potential threats to the nation" arising in the Homeland press as well. After all, the Unitary Executive Decider-in-Chief has already decided that the nation's iron-clad laws against warrantless surveillance of American citizens can be swept aside by his "inherent powers" if he decides it's necessary. Why should he bother with any petty restrictions on a press-monitoring program? And wouldn't dissension within the ranks of the volk itself actually be more threatening to government policy than the grumbling of malcontents overseas?
II.
Then again, what is so sinister about the plan, exactly? Surely every government is eager to read its notices in the press, foreign and domestic. Surely the Bush administration already has a myriad of minions in the White House, the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and embassies around the world doing just that. True enough - and there's the rub. For if they are already tracking and sifting media sentiment to a fare-thee-well, why do they need SAP's $2.4 million software?
Here we see the same principle that lies behind Bush's illegal warrantless surveillance program. Long-established law - the FISA court - already provides Bush with the power to spy on anyone even remotely suspected of a connection to terrorism - and to do so immediately, without waiting a single instant or jumping through a single bureaucratic hoop to get the operation going. So who is he actually using his warrantless surveillance program against? It can't be suspected terrorists; they are already covered by existing law. There are only two conclusions to be drawn from this strange state of affairs: 1) The Bush regime is using the program to spy on people other than suspected terrorists. 2) It is using the program to establish the principle that presidential power cannot be restrained by law in any area that the president arbitrarily designates a "matter of national security." These conclusions are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Likewise, we must ask: who is the "Sentiment Analysis" program aimed at? It can't be the major news and opinion drivers in the international and national media; these are already being monitored. And it hardly requires a deus ex machina to determine the political sentiment behind news stories and opinion pieces. Why then would you need multimillion-dollar computer whizbangery to tell you whether a story casts a favorable or critical light on Bush and his policies? And how could critical "sentiment" in the kinds of stories that Cornell, Pitt and Utah are examining in their tests pose any kind of "potential threat" to the nation? Again, there must be something else behind the program because, as with warrantless surveillance, it is clearly redundant on its face.
The key to this conundrum mostly likely lies in the envisioned scope of the program: "millions of articles" to be processed for "sentiment analysis." This denotes a fishing expedition that goes far beyond the "publicly available material, primarily news reports and editorials from English-language newspapers worldwide" that Claire Cardie, Cornell's lead researcher on SAP, says that her team will be using in developing the software. The target of such a scope cannot be simply the English-language foreign press, or the foreign press as a whole, or indeed, every newspaper in the world, from Pyongyang to Peoria. It must also be aimed at other modes of textual communication, in print and online.
In fact, later in the PR blurb, Cardie rather gives the game away when, seeking to allay "fears about invasions of privacy" raised by the research, she notes that "the techniques would have to be changed considerably to work on documents like e-mails." Yes; and an intercontinental ballistic missile is just a big, shiny, harmless rocket - until you load it with a nuclear weapon and fire it at somebody. No doubt Cardie is simply a dedicated scientist, focused on the technical problem at hand, and her naivete on this point is genuine; but once you have built a platform that can churn through millions of pieces of text to uncover criticism and dissent - however the organs deign to define these concepts - then this technology can certainly be adapted to launch all-encompassing "sentiment analysis" against any form of written communication you please.
Nor is this program being developed in isolation. It is part of a larger Homeland Security push "to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and to develop computational technologies that contribute to securing the homeland," as a DHS press release puts it, in announcing the formation of yet another university consortium. This group - led by Rutgers, and including the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois and, once again, Pitt - has pulled down a whopping $10.2 million to "identify common patterns from numerous sources of information" that "may be indicative of" - what else? - "potential threats to the nation."
This research program will draw on such areas as "knowledge representation, uncertainty quantification, high-performance computing architectures" - and our old friends, information extraction and natural language processing. It is in fact closely associated with the "sentiment analysis" work being done by the Cornell group - and note that the Rutgers consortium is designing its info-gobbling software to deal with "numerous sources" of information. Do we sense some synergy going on here?
III.
The Cornell and Rutgers groups are two of four "University Affiliate Centers" thus far established by Homeland Security. All of the consortiums are geared toward the amassing, storing and analysis of unimaginably vast amounts of information, gathered relentlessly from a multitude of sources and formats. They are in turn just part of a still-larger panorama of "data mining" programs being developed - or already in use - by the security organs.
These include the "Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement" (ADVISE) program, which can rip and read mountains of open source data - such as web sites and databases, as analyst Michael Hampton reports. Two Democratic Congressmen, David Obey of Wisconsin and Martin Slabo of Minnesota, have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the program for possible intrusions on privacy rights, Hampton notes.
While Congressional concern for privacy is all well and good, we know that it means nothing to the Unitary Executive. Earlier this month, Bush used his "signing statement" magic wand to wave away a direct Congressional mandate for reports on whether Homeland Security is obeying privacy laws in compiling its secret "watch lists," which increasingly control more and more aspects of American life, including "who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," as Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told AP. Using the by-now ritualistic language of presidential dictatorship, Bush's statement said he would ignore Congress's direct order and delay, alter or simply quash the privacy reports as he saw fit.
You don't need a machine-learning algorithm or $2.4 million worth of Ivy League software to connect the dots here. The Bush administration already has spyware devouring reams of private information in every direction. It is now paying top universities millions of dollars to refine this data into actionable intelligence - including the automated discernment and tracking of dissent against administration policies and criticism of the president. Bush has openly declared that he has no intention of obeying privacy laws - or any other laws safeguarding the Constitutional rights of American citizens - if he doesn't want to.
And if that's not sinister enough for you, consider this: on Tuesday George W. Bush signed the "Military Commissions Act," which states that he can arbitrarily declare anyone - yes, American citizens included - an "unlawful enemy combatant" for any action that he arbitrarily decides constitutes "material support" to terrorists. He can imprison these "UECs" without charge or trial, for the duration of the "War on Terror," which he and Dick Cheney have already assured us will not end "in our lifetime." He can subject these captives to "strenuous interrogation techniques" that by any sane reckoning constitute torture - but this same Act allows Bush himself to determine what is legally torture and what is not, except in the most extreme cases, such as rape and deliberate murder.
A regime openly committed to wielding arbitrary power over the life and liberty of every person on earth is now equipping itself with intrusive technology beyond the wildest dreams of the most totalitarian states in history. And some of the nation's most respected educational institutions - proud bastions of civilization and enlightenment - are helping them do it. It is simply impossible that such a system will not be mightily abused.
And for all you SAP machines out there: that conclusion is a fact, not an opinion.
--------
Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His work has appeared in print and online in venues all over the world, including The Nation, Counterpunch, Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Il Manifesto, the Moscow Times and many others. He is the author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, and is co-founder and editor of the "Empire Burlesque" political blog. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.
Heroic Dog
Dog saves owner, dies trying to save cat
Mon Oct 16, 8:10 PM ET
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying to help the cat still in the house. Jamie Hanson said the 13-year-old dog named Jesse brought the phone so she could call 911 and also brought her artificial leg.
"She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up there to get the cat and she wouldn't come back to me," Hanson, 49, said at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center where she was being treated for her injuries.
She received third-degree burns to an arm in the fire Sunday night at her home in the town of Rhine south of Elkhart Lake, the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said, adding that both pets died in the fire.
Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident three years ago, said she was on the couch watching television when the cat ran over the back of the couch.
"And he jumped onto a table that had a candle on it and tipped it over and lighted the artificial plants on fire," she said.
Hanson said she fell off the couch and was unable to get her artificial leg from the table, "so my dog got my leg for me and went and got the phone and brought the phone to me so I could call 911."
She said she tried to put the prosthetic leg on, but it was too hot, and the dog, a golden retriever-German shepherd mix, came to her aid again before going back inside for the cat.
When rescuers arrived, the house was fully engulfed in flames, the sheriff's department said. Hanson was in the doorway and was assisted by a deputy.
She was no longer being treated at the hospital when The Associated Press called Monday evening for further comment.
Monday, 16 October 2006
Sentimental Education: Academia Signs Up to Track Down Dissent
By Chris Floyd, TO UK Correspondent
t r u t h o u t | Report
Tuesday 17 October 2006
I.
Why is the United States government spending millions of dollars to track down critics of George W. Bush in the press? And why have major American universities agreed to put this technology of tyranny into the state's hands?
At the most basic level, of course, both questions are easily answered: 1) Power. 2) Money. The Bush administration wants to be able to root out - and counteract - any dissenting noises that might put a crimp in its ongoing crusade for "full spectrum dominance" of global affairs, while the august institutions of higher learning involved - the universities of Cornell, Pittsburgh and Utah - crave the federal green that keeps them in clover.
But beyond these grubby realities, there are many other disturbing aspects of this new program - which is itself only part of a much broader penetration of American academia by the Department of Homeland Security.
As with so many of the Bush measures that have quietly stripped away America's liberties, this one too is beginning with a whimper, not a bang: a modest $2.4 Department of Homeland Security million grant to develop "sentiment analysis" software that will allow the government's "security organs" to sift millions of articles for "negative opinions of the United States or its leaders in newspapers and other publications overseas," as the New York Times reported earlier this month. Such negative opinions must be caught and catalogued because they could pose "potential threats to the nation," security apparatchiks told the Times.
This hydra-headed snooping program is based on "information extraction," which, as a chipper PR piece from Cornell tells us, is a process by which "computers scan text to find meaning in natural language," rather than the rigid literalism ordinarily demanded by silicon cogitators. Under the gentle tutelage of Homeland Security, the universities "will use machine-learning algorithms to give computers examples of text expressing both fact and opinion and teach them to tell the difference," says the Cornell blurb.
At this point, the ancient and ever-pertinent question of Pontius Pilate comes to mind: "What is truth?" Of course, Pilate, being a devotee of what George W. Bush likes to call "the path of action," gave the answer to his philosophical inquiry in brute physical form: truth is whatever the empire says it is - so take this Galilean rabble-rouser out and crucify him already. In like manner, it will certainly be the government "security organs" who ultimately determine the criteria for what is fact and what is opinion - and whether the latter is positive or negative, perhaps even a candidate for the Bush-Pilate "path."
The academics will be trying out the Sentiment Analysis program (let's call it SAP, for short) on four main clusters of articles from 2001-2002, the Times reports. These include: Bush's famous declaration of an "axis of evil" threatening the world; the treatment of his Terror War captives in Guantanamo Bay; global warming; and the failed Bush-backed bid to topple Venezuela's Hugo Chavez in a coup - all of them issues on which the Bush administration was at odds with much of the world, and large swathes of American opinion as well. Obviously, such issues are fertile fields for terrorist thought-crimes to be snagged and tagged by SAP.
For those with concerns about civil liberties, Cornell assures us that SAP will be limited strictly to foreign publications. Oh, really? Hands up out there, everyone who believes that this technology will not be used to ferret out "potential threats to the nation" arising in the Homeland press as well. After all, the Unitary Executive Decider-in-Chief has already decided that the nation's iron-clad laws against warrantless surveillance of American citizens can be swept aside by his "inherent powers" if he decides it's necessary. Why should he bother with any petty restrictions on a press-monitoring program? And wouldn't dissension within the ranks of the volk itself actually be more threatening to government policy than the grumbling of malcontents overseas?
II.
Then again, what is so sinister about the plan, exactly? Surely every government is eager to read its notices in the press, foreign and domestic. Surely the Bush administration already has a myriad of minions in the White House, the CIA, the NSA, the DIA and embassies around the world doing just that. True enough - and there's the rub. For if they are already tracking and sifting media sentiment to a fare-thee-well, why do they need SAP's $2.4 million software?
Here we see the same principle that lies behind Bush's illegal warrantless surveillance program. Long-established law - the FISA court - already provides Bush with the power to spy on anyone even remotely suspected of a connection to terrorism - and to do so immediately, without waiting a single instant or jumping through a single bureaucratic hoop to get the operation going. So who is he actually using his warrantless surveillance program against? It can't be suspected terrorists; they are already covered by existing law. There are only two conclusions to be drawn from this strange state of affairs: 1) The Bush regime is using the program to spy on people other than suspected terrorists. 2) It is using the program to establish the principle that presidential power cannot be restrained by law in any area that the president arbitrarily designates a "matter of national security." These conclusions are not mutually exclusive, of course.
Likewise, we must ask: who is the "Sentiment Analysis" program aimed at? It can't be the major news and opinion drivers in the international and national media; these are already being monitored. And it hardly requires a deus ex machina to determine the political sentiment behind news stories and opinion pieces. Why then would you need multimillion-dollar computer whizbangery to tell you whether a story casts a favorable or critical light on Bush and his policies? And how could critical "sentiment" in the kinds of stories that Cornell, Pitt and Utah are examining in their tests pose any kind of "potential threat" to the nation? Again, there must be something else behind the program because, as with warrantless surveillance, it is clearly redundant on its face.
The key to this conundrum mostly likely lies in the envisioned scope of the program: "millions of articles" to be processed for "sentiment analysis." This denotes a fishing expedition that goes far beyond the "publicly available material, primarily news reports and editorials from English-language newspapers worldwide" that Claire Cardie, Cornell's lead researcher on SAP, says that her team will be using in developing the software. The target of such a scope cannot be simply the English-language foreign press, or the foreign press as a whole, or indeed, every newspaper in the world, from Pyongyang to Peoria. It must also be aimed at other modes of textual communication, in print and online.
In fact, later in the PR blurb, Cardie rather gives the game away when, seeking to allay "fears about invasions of privacy" raised by the research, she notes that "the techniques would have to be changed considerably to work on documents like e-mails." Yes; and an intercontinental ballistic missile is just a big, shiny, harmless rocket - until you load it with a nuclear weapon and fire it at somebody. No doubt Cardie is simply a dedicated scientist, focused on the technical problem at hand, and her naivete on this point is genuine; but once you have built a platform that can churn through millions of pieces of text to uncover criticism and dissent - however the organs deign to define these concepts - then this technology can certainly be adapted to launch all-encompassing "sentiment analysis" against any form of written communication you please.
Nor is this program being developed in isolation. It is part of a larger Homeland Security push "to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and to develop computational technologies that contribute to securing the homeland," as a DHS press release puts it, in announcing the formation of yet another university consortium. This group - led by Rutgers, and including the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois and, once again, Pitt - has pulled down a whopping $10.2 million to "identify common patterns from numerous sources of information" that "may be indicative of" - what else? - "potential threats to the nation."
This research program will draw on such areas as "knowledge representation, uncertainty quantification, high-performance computing architectures" - and our old friends, information extraction and natural language processing. It is in fact closely associated with the "sentiment analysis" work being done by the Cornell group - and note that the Rutgers consortium is designing its info-gobbling software to deal with "numerous sources" of information. Do we sense some synergy going on here?
III.
The Cornell and Rutgers groups are two of four "University Affiliate Centers" thus far established by Homeland Security. All of the consortiums are geared toward the amassing, storing and analysis of unimaginably vast amounts of information, gathered relentlessly from a multitude of sources and formats. They are in turn just part of a still-larger panorama of "data mining" programs being developed - or already in use - by the security organs.
These include the "Analysis, Dissemination, Visualization, Insight and Semantic Enhancement" (ADVISE) program, which can rip and read mountains of open source data - such as web sites and databases, as analyst Michael Hampton reports. Two Democratic Congressmen, David Obey of Wisconsin and Martin Slabo of Minnesota, have asked the General Accounting Office to investigate the program for possible intrusions on privacy rights, Hampton notes.
While Congressional concern for privacy is all well and good, we know that it means nothing to the Unitary Executive. Earlier this month, Bush used his "signing statement" magic wand to wave away a direct Congressional mandate for reports on whether Homeland Security is obeying privacy laws in compiling its secret "watch lists," which increasingly control more and more aspects of American life, including "who gets on planes, who gets government jobs, who gets employed," as Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, told AP. Using the by-now ritualistic language of presidential dictatorship, Bush's statement said he would ignore Congress's direct order and delay, alter or simply quash the privacy reports as he saw fit.
You don't need a machine-learning algorithm or $2.4 million worth of Ivy League software to connect the dots here. The Bush administration already has spyware devouring reams of private information in every direction. It is now paying top universities millions of dollars to refine this data into actionable intelligence - including the automated discernment and tracking of dissent against administration policies and criticism of the president. Bush has openly declared that he has no intention of obeying privacy laws - or any other laws safeguarding the Constitutional rights of American citizens - if he doesn't want to.
And if that's not sinister enough for you, consider this: on Tuesday George W. Bush signed the "Military Commissions Act," which states that he can arbitrarily declare anyone - yes, American citizens included - an "unlawful enemy combatant" for any action that he arbitrarily decides constitutes "material support" to terrorists. He can imprison these "UECs" without charge or trial, for the duration of the "War on Terror," which he and Dick Cheney have already assured us will not end "in our lifetime." He can subject these captives to "strenuous interrogation techniques" that by any sane reckoning constitute torture - but this same Act allows Bush himself to determine what is legally torture and what is not, except in the most extreme cases, such as rape and deliberate murder.
A regime openly committed to wielding arbitrary power over the life and liberty of every person on earth is now equipping itself with intrusive technology beyond the wildest dreams of the most totalitarian states in history. And some of the nation's most respected educational institutions - proud bastions of civilization and enlightenment - are helping them do it. It is simply impossible that such a system will not be mightily abused.
And for all you SAP machines out there: that conclusion is a fact, not an opinion.
--------
Chris Floyd is an American journalist. His work has appeared in print and online in venues all over the world, including The Nation, Counterpunch, Columbia Journalism Review, the Christian Science Monitor, Il Manifesto, the Moscow Times and many others. He is the author of Empire Burlesque: High Crimes and Low Comedy in the Bush Imperium, and is co-founder and editor of the "Empire Burlesque" political blog. He can be reached at cfloyd72@gmail.com.
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Updated: Tuesday, 17 October 2006 3:57 PM CDT
Dog saves owner, dies trying to save cat
Mon Oct 16, 8:10 PM ET
ELKHART LAKE, Wis. - After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying to help the cat still in the house. Jamie Hanson said the 13-year-old dog named Jesse brought the phone so she could call 911 and also brought her artificial leg.
"She got me outside and then she heard the cat upstairs and she went up there to get the cat and she wouldn't come back to me," Hanson, 49, said at a news conference Monday at Aurora Sheboygan Memorial Medical Center where she was being treated for her injuries.
She received third-degree burns to an arm in the fire Sunday night at her home in the town of Rhine south of Elkhart Lake, the Sheboygan County Sheriff's Department said, adding that both pets died in the fire.
Hanson, who lost a leg in a car accident three years ago, said she was on the couch watching television when the cat ran over the back of the couch.
"And he jumped onto a table that had a candle on it and tipped it over and lighted the artificial plants on fire," she said.
Hanson said she fell off the couch and was unable to get her artificial leg from the table, "so my dog got my leg for me and went and got the phone and brought the phone to me so I could call 911."
She said she tried to put the prosthetic leg on, but it was too hot, and the dog, a golden retriever-German shepherd mix, came to her aid again before going back inside for the cat.
When rescuers arrived, the house was fully engulfed in flames, the sheriff's department said. Hanson was in the doorway and was assisted by a deputy.
She was no longer being treated at the hospital when The Associated Press called Monday evening for further comment.
Warner is a putz!
Ed. Murdering hundreds of thousands should never be the prerogative of a hand full of appointees and fewer elected extremist partisan psychopaths!
Warner takes issue with McGavick remarks
By DAVID AMMONS, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Mike McGavick, a Republican waging an uphill race for the Senate, called Monday for the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the creation of a bipartisan panel to propose new directions for the
Iraq war.
But the plan drew a quick response from
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., who seemed to take issue with an implication that he supported McGavick's ideas.
McGavick said he had talked about his ideas with Warner and Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., on Monday following their recent criticism of the administration's handling of the war.
"Senators Warner and Hagel have articulated exactly what the American people are thinking — that things are not getting better in Iraq and a course correction is needed," McGavick said in a statement released by his campaign.
But Warner quickly distanced himself from McGavick's proposal.
"In our conversation, I shared with Mr. McGavick my views on the challenges that remain in Iraq," Warner said in a statement released by his Senate office. "I did not expand my views beyond the parameters of my prior public comments on the issue.
"Secretary Rumsfeld did not come up in any way in our conversation."
Later Monday, McGavick told the Associated Press that his decision to speak out on Iraq was inspired by public comments from Warner and Hagel, but "I never implied that they agreed with me."
Asked if he was breaking with the White House, McGavick said, "I am trying to concentrate on what Congress should be doing when confidence (in
President Bush's Iraq policy) is sliding. Congress has been standing by watching this."
Warner and Hagel on Sunday called for a new Iraq strategy. McGavick followed up Monday by saying the war is "worsening by the day" and calling on Bush to listen to critics.
McGavick said in his statement that he had spoken with both senators by phone and that all agreed that new options must be explored.
"When someone like John Warner stands up and says we need a different plan for victory, the president needs to listen," McGavick said. "And this work must begin immediately because we know that the situation is worsening by the day."
Regarding Rumsfeld, McGavick said, "As a show of faith that he is willing to set a new direction, the president should appoint a new secretary of defense, preferably someone who has demonstrated bipartisanship in the past and someone who knows the value of involving Congress in these strategy decisions."
Warner said he told McGavick, as he has told reporters previously, that he will hold a Senate hearing on Iraq in November to get an update from the
Pentagon and to hear from a range of other views.
"Mr. McGavick shared with me his idea for a bicameral, bipartisan select committee on Iraq, which I told him was a suggestion which would be exclusively for the bipartisan leadership of the next Congress to evaluate and decide."
McGavick's opponent, Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., quickly dismissed the idea of a new study commission and said McGavick remains hopelessly tarred by his connection to Republicans who haven't been able to persuade the administration to change course in Iraq.
"With Washingtonians beginning to vote this week, it sounds like McGavick is trying to change his 'stay the course' position without actually changing his 'stay the course' position," Cantwell said in a press release.
McGavick, who retired as president and CEO of Safeco Corp. to enter the race, trails Cantwell by about 10 points in the polls.
___
On the Net:
Sen. Maria Cantwell: http://www.cantwell.com
Mike McGavick: http://www.mikemcgavick.com
We held a shiny offering of hope we might yet come through, but no, we betrayed them again...
Afghan Women Demand Protection in Wake of Official's Death
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US Mon Oct 9, 8:46 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 9 (OneWorld) - Afghan women's groups are calling for major changes from their government after the murder of a well-known female official in the southern province of Kandahar.
Safia Amajan, a 65-year-old grandmother who headed the provincial women's affairs department, was gunned down outside her home on September 25.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but advocates say Amajan's crusade for women's rights may have made her a target for reactionary terrorists. As with most political killings since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, no one has been arrested.
''Our government and the many international actors working in
Afghanistan have made many promises yet we still live in constant fear,'' a coalition of Afghan women's groups said in a statement issued in Kabul. ''Our police, our military, our legal system, and our government offer no protection from our enemies.''
The groups--the Afghan Women's Network, Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief, Afghan Civil Society Forum, and the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society--demanded drivers, bodyguards, and technology for community leaders to keep them safe from terrorists; financial support for the families of terror victims; and international aid to address what they called the root causes of social insecurity.
They also demanded military intelligence training for Afghan police and security officials, better pay for Afghan police, and more effective policing of borders with ''neighboring countries that support, harbor, and encourage terrorism.''
Afghanistan is going through some of the worst violence since the US-led invasion removed the Taliban from power five years ago.
Sonali Kolhatkar, co-chair of the Los Angeles-based Afghan Women's Mission, told OneWorld the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO) are at least partly to blame for the violence.
''No amount of security is going to address the main issue,'' she said. ''Violence in general is increasing because the house-to-house raids, bombings, and other tactics of the U.S. and NATO are deeply unpopular. Most of the people who are fighting and attacking are not even the original Taliban but people who are reacting to harsh U.S. tactics.''
Kolhatkar said she believes that has led to an increase in attacks against women because it is ''always the case that the same forces fighting the U.S. are the ones attacking women. The problem is that the U.S. tactics are giving credibility to certain groups. The attacks on women are a message to the U.S. and NATO that they want them to stop.''
NATO has acknowledged that the Taliban have made a major comeback in the south and east of the country.
On Sunday, General David Richards, the British officer commanding all 32,000-plus NATO troops in Afghanistan, warned of a ''tipping point'' and told the Associated Press that if life does not improve this winter, most Afghans could switch sides.
''They will say 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting','' Richards said.
Kolhatkar agreed but said improvement cannot take place as long as the United States and NATO continue to work with warlords who, while not being Taliban members, retain reactionary religious and political positions.
During the 1980s, the
Ronald Reagan administration backed Islamic fundamentalists to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration turned to many of these same warlords for help in ousting the Taliban.
These warlords--often referred to as the Northern Alliance--had enforced repressive measures in the past and it should come as no surprise that they should do so again now, Kolhatkar said.
''The Taliban did not invent any of these measures, they merely enforced them with more rigor,'' she added.
As an example of resurgent repression, Kolhatkar highlighted Fazl al-Shinwari, chief justice of the country's supreme court. She said he has appointed judges to lower courts who share his fundamentalist beliefs, refused to appoint women to high court positions, banned cable television in Afghanistan, and arrested journalists for alleged blasphemy.
The power of fundamentalists permeates the country, according to a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
''If you go to the rural areas of Afghanistan,'' said Zowa, who, like other RAWA members, cited security considerations in using an assumed name. ''Each fundamentalist leader has power, money, and Kalashnikovs.''
They would crumble, she told OneWorld, if the United States and
United Nations pulled their support from the Taliban's fundamentalist rivals and instead support ''democratic forces.''
''Democratic forces are so weak and nobody knows them, but if they received support from the U.N. and other governments they would be an alternative to choose,'' Zowa added. ''Unfortunately there's no choice for the people now.''
Republicans, can't live with them and can't shoot them!
Second U.S. lawmaker faces misconduct allegations
33 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional board which oversees a Capitol Hill internship program rocked by a sex scandal, discussed allegations on Monday involving a second lawmaker, said Rep. Dale Kildee (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat
Kildee made the comment as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of a House ethics committee, which has been focused on the case of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) of Florida, who resigned last month following disclosure he sent inappropriate electronic messages to male teenage interns, known as pages.
"It's only been allegations made," Kildee told reporters of the House page board's discussion about a second lawmaker, who he declined to identify.
Kildee said he and other board members had a conference call earlier in the day about "other allegations, not about Mr. Foley." Kildee also indicated the page board had talked about the matter with the second lawmaker.
Last week, a law enforcement official confirmed a report by NBC News that the U.S. attorney's office and the
FBI in Arizona were conducting a "preliminary look" into a camping trip Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record) took with two teenage pages and others 10 years ago.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said federal investigators were responding to a "single allegation" about Kolbe of Arizona. The official refused to say who made the allegation or what was being alleged.
Kolbe's office denied any wrongdoing.
"The rafting trip back in 1996 consisted of five current staff, two former pages and his sister," a spokeswoman for Kolbe said. "There is absolutely no basis and no truth to any (allegations of) inappropriate behavior."
As part of the ethics committee's investigation of Foley, it is trying to determine if any other House members demonstrated troubling behavior toward teenage interns.
With reports that some Republican House members or staff were told about Foley's troubling conduct months or even years ago, the panel is also trying to determine if there was a cover-up -- who knew what and when about Foley and what, if anything, they did about it.
I'm Okay! Hands? Anybody think these Quakes were caused by N. Korea?
Electricity fixed in Hawaii after quake
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 10 minutes ago
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii - A favorite pidgin expression in Hawaii — "Lucky you live Hawaii" — gained new meaning Monday as authorities quickly restored electricity and started to clear away boulders after the strongest earthquake to hit the islands in more than two decades.
Twenty-four hours after Sunday's 6.7-magnitude quake, there were no reports of any deaths or serious injuries, and there were few signs of any major damage from the quake or several aftershocks, including one measuring 6.0.
"It lets you know Mother Nature is doing her thing," said Robin Eising, a teacher at Waikoloa Elementary School, which was closed for the day for inspection. "It was a wake-up call."
Still, officials cautioned that they needed to inspect the many bridges, roads, earthen dams, schools and other structures across the Big Island, the isle closest to the epicenter. There were no immediate estimates of the overall damage.
Ray Lovell, state Civil Defense spokesman, said a loss estimate was not immediately available because damage was so scattered. "It's just premature to come up with dollar estimates right now," he said.
The
Federal Emergency Management Agency was flying a 75-member response team to Honolulu on Monday with plans to go to the Big Island on Tuesday.
Utilities restored power to 97 percent of the state's customers by early morning. That figure was expected to reach nearly all by the end of the day. Most of Oahu, the most populous island, with more than 800,000 of Hawaii's 1.2 million residents, had been blacked out on Sunday.
The quake hit at 7:07 a.m., 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona, on the west coast of the Big Island. On Monday, the
U.S. Geological Survey raised its measurement of the magnitude to 6.7 from a preliminary 6.6.
At least one stretch of road leading to a bridge near the epicenter collapsed, Civil Defense Agency spokesman Dave Curtis said. Several other roads on the Big Island were closed by mudslides, debris and boulders, but most were still passable, he said.
At the 94-bed Kona Community Hospital — the only hospital within 100 miles — crews were cleaning up. Thirty long-term care patients were taken to a hotel, and six were airlifted across the island to another hospital.
Donald Lewis, president and chief executive, said the hospital was operating at about 10 percent Monday. No patients or staff were injured.
"God was on our side," Lewis said. "It's not as bad as it could've been."
Many Hawaii residents breathed a similar sigh of relief. On the Big Island, people were already returning to work and their lives, as bicyclists training for Saturday's Ironman World Championship zipped along the highway.
"If you're going to have an earthquake, you couldn't have had it at a better time — early in the morning when people aren't even out of their homes yet," Curtis said. "I think people, under the circumstances, have remained very calm."
John P. Lockwood, a former USGS volcanologist who is now a private consultant, said another blessing was that the quake did not divert lava flows from Hawaii's volcanoes to populated areas. The lava flows safely into the sea.
Even so, "this brings to forefront the need for people to have 72 hours' worth of supplies to keep them going" after a quake, said Kim Walz, a spokeswoman with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On Monday morning, the Honolulu airport was filled with passengers still waiting for a flight out.
Silas Garrett, a 52-year-old truck driver from Memphis, Tenn., had been there since 8 a.m. the previous morning. He said he and his five sisters slept on the floor using beach towels as blankets and handbags as pillows.
"Every pound we gained on the cruise ship, we lost in the airport," Garrett said. "The quake shook it off."
___
Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this report.
...should the slaves indulge the system?
Ed. OoooH, Don't Throw Me Into That Brier Patch! The Generals and Politicians eat there...and those vile Civil Servant Types, that eat only dead flesh...they know nothing about preserving Life, Choice, or the Ideals of Conquest over Tyrants, only how to preserve and maintain a career! "DRO, Bring me more Gravy!" "Eat Me, Officer-Puke! ...should slaves indulge the system just becasue they later get paid to keep their mouths shut?"
VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 10-16-2006 #1
VA Medical Malpractice Lawyer - Malpractice Cases for Veterans Against the VA - The Law Offices of W. Robb Graham, L.L.C. - Former Navy Judge Advocate
THE REPORT THAT WASN'T -- The Veterans' Disability Benefits
Commission should have released their final report last week.
Where is it? Delayed a year to avoid a political catastrophe
on the eve of Mid-Term Elections.
The Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC), commonly known as "The Commission From Hell," was charted to determine "whether a veteran's disability or death should be compensated" and at what level, if any. Commission Charter here... https://www.1888932-2946.ws/vetscommission/
e-documentmanager/gallery/Documents/Reference_Materials/CommissionCharter.pdf
The Commission held its first meeting on May 9 and 10 in 2005. According to the Charter, the Commission was to "complete its work within 17 months of its first meeting." That would have been October 9 or 10 of this year...last week!
So, what happened? Where's the report? Why haven't "the President and Congress" received this monumental work?
Because they don't want the VDBC's report now! Not four weeks away from critical Mid-Term Elections!
The Commission got an extension. That document here... https://www.1888932
-2946.ws/vetscommission/e-documentmanager/gallery/Documents/Reference_
Materials/CommissionExtension_PL109-163.pdf
Now, the Commission has to deliver their report "Not later than October 1, 2007."
The politically-stacked Commission has nine members appointed by Republicans and four members appointed by Democratic Members of Congress. Story here... http://www.
vawatchdog.org/milcom/vdbcstackeddeck.htm
Veterans' groups have long-assumed that the VDBC will have nothing but bad news in their report. And, the areas they have studied indicate that is true. They are looking at every area of VA compensation. The American Legion doesn't like that and stated: “…Chairman Buyer [Rep. Steve Buyer, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs] and other government officials have publicly expressed their desire to use the VDBC as a vehicle to institute radical changes in the VA disability system that would negatively impact and restrict entitlement to benefits for a large number of veterans.”
Now we see why the VDBC asked for and got a one year extension to do their work. The Commission could have finished their work on time if they had ordered their outside research in a timely fashion. They did not do this.
Veterans ask me: "Is the VDBC really the hobgoblin you portray?"
The answer is: "Yes."
Every veterans' service organization has issued warnings about the Commission and its work. At least they can agree on something.
So, how do I know that the VDBC is intent on cutting veterans' benefits?
Some political logic must be used here. If the current administration wanted to enhance veterans' benefits, they wouldn't have appointed a Commission. They would have used the regular Congressional channels to pass legislation, then they would have taken credit for it. And, rightly so.
But, that didn't happen. We have a Commission that is called "bi-partisan" but stacked 9-4.
But, couldn't the Commission enhance benefits? No. Because if that was their plan, the nine Republican members would have kept their original timetable and released their report NOW...just prior to the election. The political gain would have been enormous.
What we have to look forward to from the VDBC is nothing but bad news.
And, we have to wait another year.
So, that's... The Report That Wasn't.
VDBC web site here... http://www.vetscommission.org/index.asp
---------------
Larry Scott
Want more information on this and other veterans' topics?
Try the VA Watchdog dot Org Search Engine.
Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is NOT THE ROUTE TO SALVATION!
Ed. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is NOT THE ROUTE TO SALVATION!-cutting older vets benefits to minimally pay younger veterans is a corruption that goes beyond description! Nam vets who will not stand against this atrocity don't deserve any benefits at all!
Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims
Article Tools Sponsored By
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: October 11, 2006
Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.
“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.
Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.
About 2.6 million veterans were receiving disability compensation as of 2005, according to testimony to Congress by the V.A. The largest group of recipients is from the Vietnam era. Of the 1.1 million who served in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, 291,740 have been granted disability compensation.
The documents on the current conflicts provide no details on the type of disabilities claimed by veterans. Most were found to be 30 percent disabled or less, and one in 10 recipients was found to be 100 percent disabled. Payments run from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 a month depending on the severity of the disability.
A separate V.A. health care report shows that the most common treatments sought by recently discharged troops are for musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, followed by mental disorders, notably post traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought treatment for post traumatic stress, which afflicts soldiers who have been under fire or in prolonged danger of attack.
A V.A. spokesman, Terry Jemison, said “service-related” disabilities could include an amputation as the result of a bomb injury or a case of diabetes or heart disease that was first diagnosed or found to get worse while in uniform. Mr. Jemison said officials had no cost projections for disability payments to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The documents show that 37 percent of active duty veterans have filed for disability compensation, compared with 20 percent of those who served with National Guard or Reserve units. Also, 18 percent of claims filed by Guard and Reserve soldiers are denied, compared with 8 percent of those filed by active duty troops.
The report offered no explanation for the differences, but veterans’ advocates said efforts to explain V.A. procedures might be better for those leaving active duty than those offered to reservists.
“The Guard and reservists may be falling through the cracks at a higher rate,” said Joseph A. Violante, national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. “The V.A. needs to study why there’s a difference.”
Mr. Violante, a Vietnam veteran, said young soldiers returning from war often shrugged off their injuries and did not necessarily seek compensation right away. “But as they get older,” he said, “and their injuries cause them more problems, then they’re more likely to file.”
In recent years, disability compensation programs have seen a number of changes that are likely to increase the filing of claims by veterans.
Congress told the V.A. last year to advertise the availability of compensation to veterans in states where payments had been disproportionately low, a program that the agency has predicted will attract nearly 100,000 new applicants.
First Al Gore, now Stephen Hawking...unlikely stars of the silver screen...
Physicist Hawking to star in movie: report
Sat Oct 14, 6:31 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking will reportedly trade in scientific journals for the big screen by starring in a movie.
The film, "Beyond the Horizon," aims to explain some of the complicated theories backed by Hawking and his fellow physicists, including the idea that space has up to 11 dimensions and the cause of the big bang.
The 64-year-old Hawking, famous for his 1988 international best-seller "A Brief History of Time," will also narrate a soundtrack which explains cosmological concepts.
"Beyond the Horizon" centres around a fictional religious affairs correspondent for The Times newspaper who approaches Hawking, interviewing the physicist for a major feature.
Leonard Mlodinow, a former scriptwriter on the television series "Star Trek," is working with Hawking on the project, which does not yet have a release date, The Sunday Times said.
The academic, who is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge -- a post once held by Isaac Newton -- was diagnosed with the muscle-wasting condition motor neurone disease at the age of 22. He is in a wheelchair and speaks with the aid of a computer and voice synthesiser.
His research has centred on theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity, looking at the nature of such subjects as space-time, the "Big Bang" theory and black holes.
Sunday, 15 October 2006
Ed. Murdering hundreds of thousands should never be the prerogative of a hand full of appointees and fewer elected extremist partisan psychopaths!
Warner takes issue with McGavick remarks
By DAVID AMMONS, Associated Press Writer 40 minutes ago
OLYMPIA, Wash. - Mike McGavick, a Republican waging an uphill race for the Senate, called Monday for the replacement of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the creation of a bipartisan panel to propose new directions for the
Iraq war.
But the plan drew a quick response from
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, R-Va., who seemed to take issue with an implication that he supported McGavick's ideas.
McGavick said he had talked about his ideas with Warner and Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., on Monday following their recent criticism of the administration's handling of the war.
"Senators Warner and Hagel have articulated exactly what the American people are thinking — that things are not getting better in Iraq and a course correction is needed," McGavick said in a statement released by his campaign.
But Warner quickly distanced himself from McGavick's proposal.
"In our conversation, I shared with Mr. McGavick my views on the challenges that remain in Iraq," Warner said in a statement released by his Senate office. "I did not expand my views beyond the parameters of my prior public comments on the issue.
"Secretary Rumsfeld did not come up in any way in our conversation."
Later Monday, McGavick told the Associated Press that his decision to speak out on Iraq was inspired by public comments from Warner and Hagel, but "I never implied that they agreed with me."
Asked if he was breaking with the White House, McGavick said, "I am trying to concentrate on what Congress should be doing when confidence (in
President Bush's Iraq policy) is sliding. Congress has been standing by watching this."
Warner and Hagel on Sunday called for a new Iraq strategy. McGavick followed up Monday by saying the war is "worsening by the day" and calling on Bush to listen to critics.
McGavick said in his statement that he had spoken with both senators by phone and that all agreed that new options must be explored.
"When someone like John Warner stands up and says we need a different plan for victory, the president needs to listen," McGavick said. "And this work must begin immediately because we know that the situation is worsening by the day."
Regarding Rumsfeld, McGavick said, "As a show of faith that he is willing to set a new direction, the president should appoint a new secretary of defense, preferably someone who has demonstrated bipartisanship in the past and someone who knows the value of involving Congress in these strategy decisions."
Warner said he told McGavick, as he has told reporters previously, that he will hold a Senate hearing on Iraq in November to get an update from the
Pentagon and to hear from a range of other views.
"Mr. McGavick shared with me his idea for a bicameral, bipartisan select committee on Iraq, which I told him was a suggestion which would be exclusively for the bipartisan leadership of the next Congress to evaluate and decide."
McGavick's opponent, Sen. Maria Cantwell (news, bio, voting record), D-Wash., quickly dismissed the idea of a new study commission and said McGavick remains hopelessly tarred by his connection to Republicans who haven't been able to persuade the administration to change course in Iraq.
"With Washingtonians beginning to vote this week, it sounds like McGavick is trying to change his 'stay the course' position without actually changing his 'stay the course' position," Cantwell said in a press release.
McGavick, who retired as president and CEO of Safeco Corp. to enter the race, trails Cantwell by about 10 points in the polls.
___
On the Net:
Sen. Maria Cantwell: http://www.cantwell.com
Mike McGavick: http://www.mikemcgavick.com
Afghan Women Demand Protection in Wake of Official's Death
Aaron Glantz, OneWorld US Mon Oct 9, 8:46 PM ET
SAN FRANCISCO, Oct 9 (OneWorld) - Afghan women's groups are calling for major changes from their government after the murder of a well-known female official in the southern province of Kandahar.
Safia Amajan, a 65-year-old grandmother who headed the provincial women's affairs department, was gunned down outside her home on September 25.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack but advocates say Amajan's crusade for women's rights may have made her a target for reactionary terrorists. As with most political killings since the 2001 overthrow of the Taliban, no one has been arrested.
''Our government and the many international actors working in
Afghanistan have made many promises yet we still live in constant fear,'' a coalition of Afghan women's groups said in a statement issued in Kabul. ''Our police, our military, our legal system, and our government offer no protection from our enemies.''
The groups--the Afghan Women's Network, Agency Coordination Body for Afghan Relief, Afghan Civil Society Forum, and the Foundation for Culture and Civil Society--demanded drivers, bodyguards, and technology for community leaders to keep them safe from terrorists; financial support for the families of terror victims; and international aid to address what they called the root causes of social insecurity.
They also demanded military intelligence training for Afghan police and security officials, better pay for Afghan police, and more effective policing of borders with ''neighboring countries that support, harbor, and encourage terrorism.''
Afghanistan is going through some of the worst violence since the US-led invasion removed the Taliban from power five years ago.
Sonali Kolhatkar, co-chair of the Los Angeles-based Afghan Women's Mission, told OneWorld the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (
NATO) are at least partly to blame for the violence.
''No amount of security is going to address the main issue,'' she said. ''Violence in general is increasing because the house-to-house raids, bombings, and other tactics of the U.S. and NATO are deeply unpopular. Most of the people who are fighting and attacking are not even the original Taliban but people who are reacting to harsh U.S. tactics.''
Kolhatkar said she believes that has led to an increase in attacks against women because it is ''always the case that the same forces fighting the U.S. are the ones attacking women. The problem is that the U.S. tactics are giving credibility to certain groups. The attacks on women are a message to the U.S. and NATO that they want them to stop.''
NATO has acknowledged that the Taliban have made a major comeback in the south and east of the country.
On Sunday, General David Richards, the British officer commanding all 32,000-plus NATO troops in Afghanistan, warned of a ''tipping point'' and told the Associated Press that if life does not improve this winter, most Afghans could switch sides.
''They will say 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting','' Richards said.
Kolhatkar agreed but said improvement cannot take place as long as the United States and NATO continue to work with warlords who, while not being Taliban members, retain reactionary religious and political positions.
During the 1980s, the
Ronald Reagan administration backed Islamic fundamentalists to dislodge the Soviets from Afghanistan. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration turned to many of these same warlords for help in ousting the Taliban.
These warlords--often referred to as the Northern Alliance--had enforced repressive measures in the past and it should come as no surprise that they should do so again now, Kolhatkar said.
''The Taliban did not invent any of these measures, they merely enforced them with more rigor,'' she added.
As an example of resurgent repression, Kolhatkar highlighted Fazl al-Shinwari, chief justice of the country's supreme court. She said he has appointed judges to lower courts who share his fundamentalist beliefs, refused to appoint women to high court positions, banned cable television in Afghanistan, and arrested journalists for alleged blasphemy.
The power of fundamentalists permeates the country, according to a member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
''If you go to the rural areas of Afghanistan,'' said Zowa, who, like other RAWA members, cited security considerations in using an assumed name. ''Each fundamentalist leader has power, money, and Kalashnikovs.''
They would crumble, she told OneWorld, if the United States and
United Nations pulled their support from the Taliban's fundamentalist rivals and instead support ''democratic forces.''
''Democratic forces are so weak and nobody knows them, but if they received support from the U.N. and other governments they would be an alternative to choose,'' Zowa added. ''Unfortunately there's no choice for the people now.''
Second U.S. lawmaker faces misconduct allegations
33 minutes ago
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. congressional board which oversees a Capitol Hill internship program rocked by a sex scandal, discussed allegations on Monday involving a second lawmaker, said Rep. Dale Kildee (news, bio, voting record), a Michigan Democrat
Kildee made the comment as he emerged from a closed-door meeting of a House ethics committee, which has been focused on the case of former Republican Rep. Mark Foley (news, bio, voting record) of Florida, who resigned last month following disclosure he sent inappropriate electronic messages to male teenage interns, known as pages.
"It's only been allegations made," Kildee told reporters of the House page board's discussion about a second lawmaker, who he declined to identify.
Kildee said he and other board members had a conference call earlier in the day about "other allegations, not about Mr. Foley." Kildee also indicated the page board had talked about the matter with the second lawmaker.
Last week, a law enforcement official confirmed a report by NBC News that the U.S. attorney's office and the
FBI in Arizona were conducting a "preliminary look" into a camping trip Rep. Jim Kolbe (news, bio, voting record) took with two teenage pages and others 10 years ago.
The official, who asked not to be identified, said federal investigators were responding to a "single allegation" about Kolbe of Arizona. The official refused to say who made the allegation or what was being alleged.
Kolbe's office denied any wrongdoing.
"The rafting trip back in 1996 consisted of five current staff, two former pages and his sister," a spokeswoman for Kolbe said. "There is absolutely no basis and no truth to any (allegations of) inappropriate behavior."
As part of the ethics committee's investigation of Foley, it is trying to determine if any other House members demonstrated troubling behavior toward teenage interns.
With reports that some Republican House members or staff were told about Foley's troubling conduct months or even years ago, the panel is also trying to determine if there was a cover-up -- who knew what and when about Foley and what, if anything, they did about it.
Electricity fixed in Hawaii after quake
By JAYMES SONG, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 10 minutes ago
KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii - A favorite pidgin expression in Hawaii — "Lucky you live Hawaii" — gained new meaning Monday as authorities quickly restored electricity and started to clear away boulders after the strongest earthquake to hit the islands in more than two decades.
Twenty-four hours after Sunday's 6.7-magnitude quake, there were no reports of any deaths or serious injuries, and there were few signs of any major damage from the quake or several aftershocks, including one measuring 6.0.
"It lets you know Mother Nature is doing her thing," said Robin Eising, a teacher at Waikoloa Elementary School, which was closed for the day for inspection. "It was a wake-up call."
Still, officials cautioned that they needed to inspect the many bridges, roads, earthen dams, schools and other structures across the Big Island, the isle closest to the epicenter. There were no immediate estimates of the overall damage.
Ray Lovell, state Civil Defense spokesman, said a loss estimate was not immediately available because damage was so scattered. "It's just premature to come up with dollar estimates right now," he said.
The
Federal Emergency Management Agency was flying a 75-member response team to Honolulu on Monday with plans to go to the Big Island on Tuesday.
Utilities restored power to 97 percent of the state's customers by early morning. That figure was expected to reach nearly all by the end of the day. Most of Oahu, the most populous island, with more than 800,000 of Hawaii's 1.2 million residents, had been blacked out on Sunday.
The quake hit at 7:07 a.m., 10 miles north-northwest of Kailua-Kona, on the west coast of the Big Island. On Monday, the
U.S. Geological Survey raised its measurement of the magnitude to 6.7 from a preliminary 6.6.
At least one stretch of road leading to a bridge near the epicenter collapsed, Civil Defense Agency spokesman Dave Curtis said. Several other roads on the Big Island were closed by mudslides, debris and boulders, but most were still passable, he said.
At the 94-bed Kona Community Hospital — the only hospital within 100 miles — crews were cleaning up. Thirty long-term care patients were taken to a hotel, and six were airlifted across the island to another hospital.
Donald Lewis, president and chief executive, said the hospital was operating at about 10 percent Monday. No patients or staff were injured.
"God was on our side," Lewis said. "It's not as bad as it could've been."
Many Hawaii residents breathed a similar sigh of relief. On the Big Island, people were already returning to work and their lives, as bicyclists training for Saturday's Ironman World Championship zipped along the highway.
"If you're going to have an earthquake, you couldn't have had it at a better time — early in the morning when people aren't even out of their homes yet," Curtis said. "I think people, under the circumstances, have remained very calm."
John P. Lockwood, a former USGS volcanologist who is now a private consultant, said another blessing was that the quake did not divert lava flows from Hawaii's volcanoes to populated areas. The lava flows safely into the sea.
Even so, "this brings to forefront the need for people to have 72 hours' worth of supplies to keep them going" after a quake, said Kim Walz, a spokeswoman with the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
On Monday morning, the Honolulu airport was filled with passengers still waiting for a flight out.
Silas Garrett, a 52-year-old truck driver from Memphis, Tenn., had been there since 8 a.m. the previous morning. He said he and his five sisters slept on the floor using beach towels as blankets and handbags as pillows.
"Every pound we gained on the cruise ship, we lost in the airport," Garrett said. "The quake shook it off."
___
Associated Press writer Scott Lindlaw in San Francisco contributed to this report.
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Updated: Monday, 16 October 2006 8:43 PM CDT
Updated: Monday, 16 October 2006 8:43 PM CDT
Ed. OoooH, Don't Throw Me Into That Brier Patch! The Generals and Politicians eat there...and those vile Civil Servant Types, that eat only dead flesh...they know nothing about preserving Life, Choice, or the Ideals of Conquest over Tyrants, only how to preserve and maintain a career! "DRO, Bring me more Gravy!" "Eat Me, Officer-Puke! ...should slaves indulge the system just becasue they later get paid to keep their mouths shut?"
VA NEWS FLASH from Larry Scott at VA Watchdog dot Org -- 10-16-2006 #1
VA Medical Malpractice Lawyer - Malpractice Cases for Veterans Against the VA - The Law Offices of W. Robb Graham, L.L.C. - Former Navy Judge Advocate
THE REPORT THAT WASN'T -- The Veterans' Disability Benefits
Commission should have released their final report last week.
Where is it? Delayed a year to avoid a political catastrophe
on the eve of Mid-Term Elections.
The Veterans' Disability Benefits Commission (VDBC), commonly known as "The Commission From Hell," was charted to determine "whether a veteran's disability or death should be compensated" and at what level, if any. Commission Charter here... https://www.1888932-2946.ws/vetscommission/
e-documentmanager/gallery/Documents/Reference_Materials/CommissionCharter.pdf
The Commission held its first meeting on May 9 and 10 in 2005. According to the Charter, the Commission was to "complete its work within 17 months of its first meeting." That would have been October 9 or 10 of this year...last week!
So, what happened? Where's the report? Why haven't "the President and Congress" received this monumental work?
Because they don't want the VDBC's report now! Not four weeks away from critical Mid-Term Elections!
The Commission got an extension. That document here... https://www.1888932
-2946.ws/vetscommission/e-documentmanager/gallery/Documents/Reference_
Materials/CommissionExtension_PL109-163.pdf
Now, the Commission has to deliver their report "Not later than October 1, 2007."
The politically-stacked Commission has nine members appointed by Republicans and four members appointed by Democratic Members of Congress. Story here... http://www.
vawatchdog.org/milcom/vdbcstackeddeck.htm
Veterans' groups have long-assumed that the VDBC will have nothing but bad news in their report. And, the areas they have studied indicate that is true. They are looking at every area of VA compensation. The American Legion doesn't like that and stated: “…Chairman Buyer [Rep. Steve Buyer, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs] and other government officials have publicly expressed their desire to use the VDBC as a vehicle to institute radical changes in the VA disability system that would negatively impact and restrict entitlement to benefits for a large number of veterans.”
Now we see why the VDBC asked for and got a one year extension to do their work. The Commission could have finished their work on time if they had ordered their outside research in a timely fashion. They did not do this.
Veterans ask me: "Is the VDBC really the hobgoblin you portray?"
The answer is: "Yes."
Every veterans' service organization has issued warnings about the Commission and its work. At least they can agree on something.
So, how do I know that the VDBC is intent on cutting veterans' benefits?
Some political logic must be used here. If the current administration wanted to enhance veterans' benefits, they wouldn't have appointed a Commission. They would have used the regular Congressional channels to pass legislation, then they would have taken credit for it. And, rightly so.
But, that didn't happen. We have a Commission that is called "bi-partisan" but stacked 9-4.
But, couldn't the Commission enhance benefits? No. Because if that was their plan, the nine Republican members would have kept their original timetable and released their report NOW...just prior to the election. The political gain would have been enormous.
What we have to look forward to from the VDBC is nothing but bad news.
And, we have to wait another year.
So, that's... The Report That Wasn't.
VDBC web site here... http://www.vetscommission.org/index.asp
---------------
Larry Scott
Want more information on this and other veterans' topics?
Try the VA Watchdog dot Org Search Engine.
Ed. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul is NOT THE ROUTE TO SALVATION!-cutting older vets benefits to minimally pay younger veterans is a corruption that goes beyond description! Nam vets who will not stand against this atrocity don't deserve any benefits at all!
Data Suggests Vast Costs Loom in Disability Claims
Article Tools Sponsored By
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: October 11, 2006
Nearly one in five soldiers leaving the military after serving in Iraq and Afghanistan has been at least partly disabled as a result of service, according to documents of the Department of Veterans Affairs obtained by a Washington research group.
The number of veterans granted disability compensation, more than 100,000 to date, suggests that taxpayers have only begun to pay the long-term financial cost of the two conflicts. About 567,000 of the 1.5 million American troops who have served so far have been discharged.
“The trend is ominous,” said Paul Sullivan, director of programs for Veterans for America, an advocacy group, and a former V.A. analyst.
Mr. Sullivan said that if the current proportions held up over time, 400,000 returning service members could eventually apply for disability benefits when they retired.
About 2.6 million veterans were receiving disability compensation as of 2005, according to testimony to Congress by the V.A. The largest group of recipients is from the Vietnam era. Of the 1.1 million who served in the Middle East during the Persian Gulf war in 1991, 291,740 have been granted disability compensation.
The documents on the current conflicts provide no details on the type of disabilities claimed by veterans. Most were found to be 30 percent disabled or less, and one in 10 recipients was found to be 100 percent disabled. Payments run from a few hundred dollars to more than $1,000 a month depending on the severity of the disability.
A separate V.A. health care report shows that the most common treatments sought by recently discharged troops are for musculoskeletal disorders like back pain, followed by mental disorders, notably post traumatic stress disorder. About 30,000 Iraq and Afghanistan veterans have sought treatment for post traumatic stress, which afflicts soldiers who have been under fire or in prolonged danger of attack.
A V.A. spokesman, Terry Jemison, said “service-related” disabilities could include an amputation as the result of a bomb injury or a case of diabetes or heart disease that was first diagnosed or found to get worse while in uniform. Mr. Jemison said officials had no cost projections for disability payments to Iraq and Afghanistan veterans.
The documents were obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University.
The documents show that 37 percent of active duty veterans have filed for disability compensation, compared with 20 percent of those who served with National Guard or Reserve units. Also, 18 percent of claims filed by Guard and Reserve soldiers are denied, compared with 8 percent of those filed by active duty troops.
The report offered no explanation for the differences, but veterans’ advocates said efforts to explain V.A. procedures might be better for those leaving active duty than those offered to reservists.
“The Guard and reservists may be falling through the cracks at a higher rate,” said Joseph A. Violante, national legislative director for Disabled American Veterans. “The V.A. needs to study why there’s a difference.”
Mr. Violante, a Vietnam veteran, said young soldiers returning from war often shrugged off their injuries and did not necessarily seek compensation right away. “But as they get older,” he said, “and their injuries cause them more problems, then they’re more likely to file.”
In recent years, disability compensation programs have seen a number of changes that are likely to increase the filing of claims by veterans.
Congress told the V.A. last year to advertise the availability of compensation to veterans in states where payments had been disproportionately low, a program that the agency has predicted will attract nearly 100,000 new applicants.
Physicist Hawking to star in movie: report
Sat Oct 14, 6:31 PM ET
LONDON (AFP) - Acclaimed British physicist Stephen Hawking will reportedly trade in scientific journals for the big screen by starring in a movie.
The film, "Beyond the Horizon," aims to explain some of the complicated theories backed by Hawking and his fellow physicists, including the idea that space has up to 11 dimensions and the cause of the big bang.
The 64-year-old Hawking, famous for his 1988 international best-seller "A Brief History of Time," will also narrate a soundtrack which explains cosmological concepts.
"Beyond the Horizon" centres around a fictional religious affairs correspondent for The Times newspaper who approaches Hawking, interviewing the physicist for a major feature.
Leonard Mlodinow, a former scriptwriter on the television series "Star Trek," is working with Hawking on the project, which does not yet have a release date, The Sunday Times said.
The academic, who is the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge -- a post once held by Isaac Newton -- was diagnosed with the muscle-wasting condition motor neurone disease at the age of 22. He is in a wheelchair and speaks with the aid of a computer and voice synthesiser.
His research has centred on theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity, looking at the nature of such subjects as space-time, the "Big Bang" theory and black holes.
...Bush has vowed that the US will remain in Iraq, a premature withdrawal would embolden the terrorists.
Bush Vows US Will Remain in Iraq, Dismisses Report on War Deaths
By VOA News
11 October 2006
George W. Bush
President Bush has vowed that the United States will remain in Iraq, saying a premature withdrawal would embolden the terrorists.
At a news conference at the White House Wednesday, Mr. Bush acknowledged recent violence in Iraq, including the killing of the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president, who was shot dead in his home earlier in the week.
The president also dismissed a study published Wednesday that estimated some 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war.
He said he does not consider the report credible, and that the methodology used is "pretty well discredited."
The study in the British journal, The Lancet, says about 600,000 of the 655,000 Iraqis died from violence, mostly gunfire. Researchers also found a small increase in deaths from disease and other causes.
The figure is far higher than other estimates. President Bush estimated in December that about 30,000 people have died as a result of the war.
When asked if he still stood by his estimate, Mr. Bush said he stands by the figure that "a lot" of innocent people have died in the conflict.
Jan Egeland
Wednesday in Geneva, the top United Nations humanitarian aid official, Jan Egeland, said the violence in Iraq is going unchecked, claiming about 100 lives per day.
The study in The Lancet was conducted by Iraqi and U.S. researchers who interviewed residents of more than 1,800 randomly selected households at 47 sites in Iraq. They compared the mortality rates to pre-war estimates.
In 2004, the same group published an estimate of 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the U.S-led invasion of Iraq.
Ed. If the US wasn't there, they'd have no one to fight but each other, Dumbass! And watch who you call terrorists in your continuing endevours to keep The World pulled over the eyes of US voters! Murdering them isn't enough for you, you've got to insult them, too! You, who are playing to the hilt exactly why they hate us in the first place...(Dumbass)! I recognize you from the playground. You were the worthless shit who got others to like you because you had no esteem or confirmation coming from your Father at home, so you dare to become a load on the universe to compensate yourself! Like it's our fault...(Dumbass)! Find a competent therapist who can stomach you for fifteen years, twice a week.
Bush Vows US Will Remain in Iraq, Dismisses Report on War Deaths
By VOA News
11 October 2006
George W. Bush
President Bush has vowed that the United States will remain in Iraq, saying a premature withdrawal would embolden the terrorists.
At a news conference at the White House Wednesday, Mr. Bush acknowledged recent violence in Iraq, including the killing of the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab vice president, who was shot dead in his home earlier in the week.
The president also dismissed a study published Wednesday that estimated some 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the war.
He said he does not consider the report credible, and that the methodology used is "pretty well discredited."
The study in the British journal, The Lancet, says about 600,000 of the 655,000 Iraqis died from violence, mostly gunfire. Researchers also found a small increase in deaths from disease and other causes.
The figure is far higher than other estimates. President Bush estimated in December that about 30,000 people have died as a result of the war.
When asked if he still stood by his estimate, Mr. Bush said he stands by the figure that "a lot" of innocent people have died in the conflict.
Jan Egeland
Wednesday in Geneva, the top United Nations humanitarian aid official, Jan Egeland, said the violence in Iraq is going unchecked, claiming about 100 lives per day.
The study in The Lancet was conducted by Iraqi and U.S. researchers who interviewed residents of more than 1,800 randomly selected households at 47 sites in Iraq. They compared the mortality rates to pre-war estimates.
In 2004, the same group published an estimate of 100,000 deaths in the first 18 months after the U.S-led invasion of Iraq.
Ed. If the US wasn't there, they'd have no one to fight but each other, Dumbass! And watch who you call terrorists in your continuing endevours to keep The World pulled over the eyes of US voters! Murdering them isn't enough for you, you've got to insult them, too! You, who are playing to the hilt exactly why they hate us in the first place...(Dumbass)! I recognize you from the playground. You were the worthless shit who got others to like you because you had no esteem or confirmation coming from your Father at home, so you dare to become a load on the universe to compensate yourself! Like it's our fault...(Dumbass)! Find a competent therapist who can stomach you for fifteen years, twice a week.
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Updated: Monday, 16 October 2006 3:34 AM CDT
Updated: Monday, 16 October 2006 3:34 AM CDT