Check This Video Out
Mood:  blue
Topic: Support Your Troops
Bush Won, Get Over It

Another Case of Intelligence - I am a Girlie Man apparently...
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Save Democracy
Anti-Schwarzenegger Website Gets Support

Los Angeles Times | November 29 2004

A week after a group set up a website to oppose changing the U.S. Constitution to allow Arnold Schwarzenegger to become president, more than 3 million people have visited the site, and more than $10,000 have been pledged to the campaign.

The money will go toward a campaign by nationally syndicated radio talk-show host Alex Jones and his group Americans Against Arnold to air commercials on radio and cable television to rally opposition to the proposed legislation.

Jones, who lives in Austin, Texas, hopes to put the cable ads on television in California to counter commercials supporting a constitutional change that would allow foreign-born citizens, including Schwarzenegger, to seek the highest office in the country.

"I personally am against a foreign-born person being president," said Jones, a former Republican who is now a Libertarian. "People want their president to be born in this country."

He is also troubled by Schwarzenegger's past, which includes allegations that he groped women, used steroids and schemed about his eventual rise to power. "The guy has all of the classic symptoms of a megalomaniac," Jones said.

A Schwarzenegger spokesman declined to comment.

But Schwarzenegger supporters have sent e-mails to the anti-Arnold site to warn that they are messing with the wrong man.

Said one e-mail: "He will smash you like the girlie men you are."

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Web Won't Let Government Hide
Mood:  mischievious
Topic: Save Democracy
Given the government keeps tabs on the world using armies of agents, algorithms and wiretaps, how can a citizen compete? Try a browser.

Governments at every level these days are providing less information about their inner workings, sometimes using fear of terrorism as an excuse. But it's precisely times like these that mandate citizens' rights to check the efficiency of their government and hold those who fail accountable, open government advocates say.

The government itself won't make it easy, so an increasing number of websites and data crunchers are stepping in to provide information about the inner workings of government.

For starters, there's Google's little-known government specific search engine. Those proficient with crafting search terms can find Attorney General John Ashcroft's office number, gee-whiz nanotechnology movies and NASA's Microgravity Man comic strip. One can even find homeland security alerts about truck bombs (PDF) and the intelligence needs of the FBI.

Another trove of information is George Washington University's National Security Archive, which contains thousands of documents acquired through patient Freedom of Information Act requests. And there's CoolGov, a blog devoted to ferreting out quirky tidbits such as videos of airline crashes.

Those interested in the nitty-gritty of how and why the government hides information can subscribe to Stephen Aftergood's Secrecy News listserv, which is part of his work as the director of Federation of American Scientists' Project on Government Secrecy.

Aftergood, who publishes a couple times a week, has built up an archive of previously unpublished reports created for Congress and information about the CIA's ongoing opposition to the publication of its budget.

Chris Hoofnagle, a lawyer for the Electronic Privacy Information Center (which is known for its prowess with Freedom of Information Act requests), calls Aftergood's work a must-read for anyone interested in a "nuanced interpretation of government information policy."

Aftergood uses FOIA requests only sparingly though, calling them cumbersome, relying instead on contacts and tips.

"Information has gravitational properties," Aftergood said. "Over time, more and more information flows to me."

When asked what motivates him, Aftergood gives both a principled and pragmatic answer.

"Openness is essential to self-government," Aftergood said. "If we mean to be our own rulers, then we need access to information. What keeps me going, though, is that, fortunately, a lot of this work is fun -- it is fun to collect information and to share it with like-minded others and to discover that small groups of interested citizens can be more effective and agile than large government bureaucracies."

Aftergood is not the only one-man information bank on the internet.

Russ Kick keeps information alive at The Memory Hole, where he archives documents pulled from government websites. He is famous for successfully using FOIA to obtain and publish photos of American soldiers' coffins being unloaded at the Dover Air Force Base.

John Young, a New York City architect, has been running the encyclopedic Cryptome since 1996, when he was inspired by the Cypherpunk mailing list to start learning about dual-use government technology.

Since the terrorist attacks on his city in 2001, Young has been striving to post as much information as possible, including lists of intelligence agents and pictures of vulnerable gas mains in New York City, as well as satellite images and maps of government officials' residences.

Though he has been criticized for providing information that could help terrorists, Young said he is helping to debunk the idea that hiding information will keep the country safe.

"We aren't experts, so if we can find it -- these folks are much smarter than we give them credit for, they are almost certain to already have it," Young said. "They use the internet avidly and have a lot more time to do this than I do. If I can find it and not let it be known, it creates a greater hazard."

EPIC's Hoofnagle sees these efforts as part of an "overall system that has a skeptical worldview of government action."

"Our FOIA work has proven it pays to be skeptical," Hoofnagle said. "EPIC is perhaps best known for our FOIA requests into the Carnivore system, which the FBI described as a precise and surgical computer forensic tool that turned out to be more like a vacuum cleaner.

"Unless one can put their hands on the actual agency documents, the public has to rely upon representations that may be jaundiced."

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Federal Plan to Keep Data on Students Worries Some
Mood:  accident prone
Topic: Privacy
November 29, 2004
New York Times
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO

WASHINGTON, Nov. 28 - A proposal by the federal government to create a vast new database of enrollment records on all college and university students is raising concerns that the move will erode the privacy rights of students.

Until now, universities have provided individual student information to the federal government only in connection with federally financed student aid. Otherwise, colleges and universities submit information about overall enrollment, graduation, prices and financial aid without identifying particular students.

For the first time, however, colleges and universities would have to give the government data on all students individually, whether or not they received financial assistance, with their Social Security numbers.

The bid arises from efforts in Congress and elsewhere to extend the growing emphasis on school accountability in elementary and high schools to postsecondary education. Supporters say that government oversight of individual student data will make it easier for taxpayers and policy makers to judge the quality of colleges and universities through more reliable statistics on graduation, transfers and retention.

The change would also allow federal officials to track individual students as they journey through the higher education system. In recent years, increasing numbers of students have been attending more than one university, dropping out or taking longer than the traditional four years to graduate. Current reporting practices cannot capture such trends; a mobile student is recorded as a new student at each institution.

Under the proposal, the National Center for Education Statistics at the Department of Education would receive, analyze and guard the data. In making its case for the change, the center points to a history of working with student information and says it has never been forced to share it with law enforcement or other agencies. The proposal, first reported in the current issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, is supported by the American Council on Education, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, but opposed by other education organizations, like the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

A department overview of the proposal insisted that data would not be shared with other agencies and that outsiders could not gain access. By law, the summary says in capitals, "Information about individuals may NEVER leave N.C.E.S.," the National Center for Education Statistics.

But Jasmine L. Harris, legislative director at the United States Student Association, an advocacy group for students, said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the balance between privacy and the public interest had been shifting. "We're in a different time now, a very different climate," Ms. Harris said. "There's the huge possibility that the database could be misused, and there are no protections for student privacy."

She pointed to the National Directory of New Hires, a register of people who re-enter the workforce, which began as an effort to track job trends. Since its creation, however, the database has also been used to track parents who fail to pay child support or who owe the federal government non-tax debt, she said. "The door is wide open," Ms. Harris said.

Luke Swarthout, higher education associate at the State PIRG for Higher Education, said his civic group, which has always monitored consumer issues and privacy rights, was of two minds about the plan. Improving the available data was important for Congress, policymakers and the public, who finance higher education through government loans and grants, Mr. Swarthout said. "But any time you're compiling a list of millions and millions of students, as they go through college, move and have Social Security numbers, we get concerns from a privacy perspective."

For colleges to hand over information on individual students, Congress would have to create an exemption to existing federal privacy laws, said Sarah Flanagan, vice president for government relations at the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities.

"The concept that you enter a federal registry by the act of enrolling in a college in this country is frightening to us," Ms. Flanagan said.

She said that officials from some states had already announced they would like to match the data against prison records. In states where such data is already collected from public universities, she added, there has been pressure to check the school data on students against housing records, driver's licenses and employment records.

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Freedom Of Speech: Use It or Lose It
Mood:  sharp
Topic: Bill of Rights
Charley Reese | November 29, 2004

Years ago, when I was in the Army, I got stuck in a typing pool. I typed a memo for a captain that contained several erasures. When I gave it to him, he said: "That's pretty (expletive) typing, Private. I hope you don't have to make a living at it."

I said nothing, but I watched him, and when he put another handwritten memo into the box, I grabbed it. I typed it perfectly and then walked over to his desk with the typed copy and his original.

"That's pretty (same expletive) handwriting, sir. I hope your livelihood doesn't depend on anybody being able to read it."

His jaw dropped, but he didn't say anything. Captains are not used to being talked to that way by privates. The beauty of being a private, however, is that there is very little the Army can do to you that it is not already doing.

I recount that anecdote from my checkered past to tell you that free speech is meaningless if you don't use it. If being an American means anything, it means that you don't have to tolerate personal insults from anybody under any circumstances. At least that's the way we are taught in the South.

When Lithuania was still part of the Soviet Union, a little girl came home crying. She told her mother that her teacher had stood her up in front of the class and ridiculed her Christian beliefs. Now, this mother was in a totally powerless position. She lived in a dictatorship. The government could do anything it wanted to do with her, and she would be defenseless.

Nevertheless, this brave lady marched down to the local Communist Party headquarters and gave the people there verbal hell. Many, many men and women who live under tyranny nevertheless demonstrate great courage.

Some Russians believe that Alexander Solzhenitsyn did as much as anyone to bring down the Soviet Union. His books about the gulag ripped the facade off the Soviet Union so that not even American liberals could deny anymore what an evil tyranny it was.

After being released from prison, Solzhenitsyn was ordered not to attend the funeral of another Soviet dissident. The great man not only attended the funeral, but he marched up to the casket and kissed the forehead of the dead man. Even though he lived in the one of the world's worst tyrannies, Solzhenitsyn always acted like a free man.

There are good Americans who show the same kind of courage. In one Central Florida elementary school, the children were told they could bring holiday cards to exchange with their classmates. One little girl affixed stickers to her cards that said "Jesus loves you." When the teacher saw this, she ordered the little girl to take back all of her cards. The child was humiliated.

An attorney friend of mine heard about this, contacted the parents and then informed the school board that it owed the little girl a public apology. The school-board attorney said: "You'll never get it. I can tie you up in court, and it will cost you $30,000."

"Well," my friend said, "I just happen to have $30,000, and if that's what it takes, so be it, but the board is going to give this child a public apology." And that's exactly what happened, because one man decided he would not tolerate an injustice. He didn't charge the girl's family a penny.

The government would like us all to spy on our neighbors to detect terrorists. What we really should do is keep our eyes open for injustices, and when we find them, we should speak out.

Many people in this country are powerless. They don't have much money. They don't have influential friends. And quite often, because they are powerless, they suffer injustice. What a wonderful country this would be if the powerless knew they were not alone, if they knew that there are other Americans willing to use their voices and their resources to protect them from injustice.

Freedom is a wonderful thing if used properly, but wasting freedom on selfish pursuits is probably a sin God will have a hard time forgiving.

Original

The Map Referred to Below
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Save Democracy

Stages of Grief
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Save Democracy
Views > November 22, 2004
Stages of Grief
By Susan J. Douglas

Democrats and progressives need to focus on state legislatures, congressional races, and get some Secretaries of State on our side next time around.

It is on refrigerators throughout the land: the map of California and the West Coast, the upper Midwest and the Northeast annexed to and named ?The United States of Canada,? the red states below labeled ?Jesusland.?

The red-and-blue, them-versus-us iconography so beloved by the press?imposed on us four years ago?makes our divisions seem dramatic indeed. Of course, it visually overstates the strength of evangelicals in our country. Nonetheless, when coupled with Cheney?s immediate claim of a ?mandate? (not to mention Bush?s idiotic ?political capital? boast), the sea of red sent many of us into a deep depression.

But, as the Shirelles reminded us, the darkest hour is just before dawn. So it?s time to review the stages of post-Kerry-defeat grief so we can heal ourselves and, indeed, move on.

Stage 1: Shock Many of us were barely functional on Wednesday, wondering how could it be that a guy so obviously and patently incompetent and deceptive, as documented by so many sources?and a faith-based zealot to boot?got reelected?

Stage 2: Shock and Awe We were sickened, but awestruck, that Cheney had the chutzpah to claim a mandate with only 286 electoral votes and a 130,000-vote margin of victory in Ohio, which various reporters and investigators already find very suspect. We were awed that Bush insisted that what you do with political capital is spend it right away?although we shouldn?t have been, given what this thinking has done for the deficit.

Stage 3: Alienation So maybe we accepted that the nation is not dominated by a bunch of Bible-banging Neanderthals. But depression returned when we kept thinking it was dominated by ignorant dunces. Bob Herbert and Bob McChesney, both citing a University of Maryland poll, reported that nearly 70 percent of Bush supporters believed there was ?clear evidence? that Saddam Hussein was working closely with al Qaeda; a third were convinced WMDs had been found in Iraq. What part of the 9/11 hearings, the bestseller list for the last six months and extensive news coverage did these people miss?

Of course, most of them were probably watching Fox News, whose viewers have been demonstrated to be more ignorant about current affairs than viewers of other news sources.

Stage 4: Wait a Minute By Friday, even Republicans were in on this one. Lyn Nofziger, Former Reagan adviser, David Brooks, Garry Wills and of course, Paul Krugman, Bob Herbert, Mark Crispin Miller, and many others were challenging the ?mandate? claim and debunking the notion that ?moral values??e.g., homophobia, opposition to abortion and belief in the virgin birth and creationism (not to mention ?the rapture,? which, fortunately, always makes me think of the hit song by Blondie)?prompted the majority of Republicans to vote for Bush.

As Gary Langer, director of polling for ABC News noted, ?moral values? can mean a lot of things; 15 percent of non-churchgoers and 12 percent of liberals chose it as the most important issue to them. Exit polls documented that 55 percent of voters said abortions should be legal and a whopping 60 percent supported either gay marriage (25 percent) or civil unions (another 35 percent).

Stage 5: Defiance and Assertion This phase is really building steam, and it is where we need to be, ASAP. Both NPR and ABC news, the day after the election, featured stories about ?moral values,? which included counterpoints from religious leaders and everyday people who asserted that the discussion should focus, centrally, on the dubious morality of war and bombing innocent people, on issues of economic justice, on the environment, on the lack of health insurance for 45 million, and on the staggering rate of child poverty in the United States. These are moral values, and the Democrats must claim them. Now.

Defiance and assertion also mean redefining ?the mandate.? The Republicans are determined to cast the electorate as primarily a group of faith-based anti-government conservatives. The Democrats must produce another representation. This is not to dismiss the disturbing rise of people who are determined to bring fundamentalism into government policy. But it is to assert the truth: Bible bangers are not the new majority.

Stage 6: Mobilize The Democrats and progressives need to do what the Republicans started doing back in the late 1970s: Focus on the state legislatures, congressional races and, hey, let?s get some Secretaries of State on our side next time around. Young women, and women of all ages, are going to need to fight like never before in the face of a guaranteed assault on Roe v. Wade. And the previous four years and this election emphasize how important media reform is, particularly the reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine, which the Reagan Administration abolished in 1987. We see the results of too much Rush and O?Reilly without any balance: voters who don?t have the facts.

This is our country; it is not a revival tent. We must continue to fight to save it.

Arctic Nations Agree to Fight Glacial Melting (Kind of...)
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Environmental Politics
Deferring to US, Group Stops Short of Backing Steps

By Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post | November 25, 2004


WASHINGTON -- Eight nations with Arctic territory agreed yesterday to fight glacial melting and other effects of climate change in the region, though they declined to endorse any new steps to counter global warming out of deference to the Bush administration.

The Arctic Council, which includes the United States, Russia, Canada, and several Nordic countries, issued a seven-page policy report asking countries to adopt ''effective measures" to combat climate change without elaborating on what that would entail.

The group's cautious statement, which did not call for mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions linked to warming but noted ''with concern" that the Arctic is facing historic temperature increases and glacial melting, reflected the difficulties in forging an international consensus on climate change.

Representatives from eight countries and several indigenous tribes worked behind the scenes over the past week at a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, to draft a response to the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment released two weeks ago.

In that document, more than 300 scientists concluded after four years of study that melting sea ice, abrupt weather changes, and rising temperatures in northern latitudes have far outpaced climate change in other regions over the past few decades. Several nations pushed for a more aggressive policy statement backing limits on carbon dioxide emissions, said participants in the talks who asked not to be identified for fear of angering the United States, but Bush administration officials resisted that effort.

One negotiator said the final product ''while not good, could have been much worse," adding that the administration recognizes ''there's a global concern about climate change."

US negotiators agreed to wording stating that climate changes in the Arctic have global implications and that countries should take the assessment's findings into account when drafting climate policy. Both provisions had been sought by European nations.

Paula Dobriansky, the undersecretary of state for global affairs who led the American delegation, said the United States is investing in renewable energy as well as technologies to store carbon dioxide underground to address climate change.

''We base our policies on science and we will take the findings [of the report] into account," she said.

Environmentalists said they were disappointed with the council's policy recommendations.

''Climate change is a fact in the Arctic, it has implications for the globe and it deserves a strong response," said Samantha Smith, who directs the World Wildlife Program's Arctic program and served as a council observer. ''What we got instead was basically no response on cutting emissions."

Some Europeans said they still hoped to use the report and the scientific assessment to push for stricter climate policies in other international negotiations.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Arctic nations had no choice but to act soon. ''We all need to intensify efforts against pollution in the Arctic," he said.

Kevin Knobloch, president of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said it is ''irresponsible in the extreme for the United States not to commit to an aggressive campaign to reduce greenhouse gas emissions" in light of the recent scientific findings and the prospect that American companies could reap profits by selling energy-efficient products in overseas markets.

New Freedom Initiative/Mandatory Mental Health Screening of American Children Passes
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Protect Your Children
Infowars.com | November 23, 2004

On Monday morning, Alex talked to Jeff Diest from Congressman Ron Paul's office.
Diest confirmed that Ron Paul's amendment requiring parental consent prior to government psychological testing/mental screening of all school children was not added to the bill.
The New Freedom Initiative passed sans amendment, as it stood.
Congress Funds Mandatory Psychological Tests for Kids

Newsmax | November 23 2004

One of the nation's leading medical groups, the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS), decried a move by the U.S. Senate to join with the House in funding a federal program AAPS says will lead to mandatory psychological testing of every child in America ? without the consent of parents.

When the Senate considered an omnibus appropriations bill last week that included funding for grants to implement universal mental health screening for almost 60 million children, pregnant women and adults through schools and pre-schools, it approved $20 million of the $44 million sought, Kathryn Serkes, public affairs counsel for AAPS, told NewsMax.

This $20 million matches a like amount already approved by the House, Serkes advised.

While the funding cut of some $24 million was a little good news, suggested Serkes, whose organization has zealously opposed the the measure, she said the organization was most worried about the failure of Congress to include ?parental consent? language sought by the AAPS.

Last September, AAPS lifetime member Rep. Ron Paul, M.D., R-Texas, tried to stop the plan in its tracks by offering an amendment to the Labor, HHS, and Education Appropriations Act for FY 2005. The amendment received 95 ?yes? votes, but it failed to pass.

According to Serkes, Paul is now mulling offering stand-alone legislation in the next session to once again try and get a provision for parental consent.

The federal bill on its face does not require mandatory mental health testing to be imposed upon states or local schools, explained Serkes.

However, the HHS appropriations bill contains block grant money that will likely be used ? as is often the case with block funding ? by the various states to implement mandatory psychological testing programs for all students in the school system.


The spending bill has its roots in the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, created by President Bush in 2002 to propose ways of eliminating waste and improve efficiency and effectiveness of the mental health care delivery system.

Although the report does not specifically recommend screening all students, it does suggest that ?schools are in a key position to identify the mental health problems early and to provide a link to appropriate services.?

The bottom line, explained Serkes, is that a state receiving money under this appropriation will likely make its mental testing of kids mandatory ? and not be out of synch with the federal enactment.

The other telling point, said Serkes, is that although the relatively minimal funding at this point is certainly not enough to fund mandatory mental testing for kids countrywide, it's an ominous start:

?Once it's established and has funding, a program exhibits the nettlesome property of being self-sustaining ? it gets a life of its own. More funding follows.?

Officials of the AAPS decry in the measure what they see as ?a dangerous scheme that will heap even more coercive pressure on parents to medicate children with potentially dangerous side effects.?

One of the most ?dangerous side effects? from antidepressants commonly prescribed to children is suicide, regarding which AAPS added, ?Further, even the government's own task force has concluded that mental health screening does little to prevent suicide.?

Meanwhile, Rep. Paul says the mental testing scheme is a looming feature of "Big Brother" that if unchecked will push parental rights out of the picture:

?At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents, who are sick of relinquishing more and more parental control to government.

?Once created, federal programs are nearly impossible to eliminate. Anyone who understands bureaucracies knows they assume more and more power incrementally. A few scattered state programs over time will be replaced by a federal program implemented in a few select cities. Once the limited federal program is accepted, it will be expanded nationwide. Once in place throughout the country, the screening program will become mandatory.

?Soviet communists attempted to paint all opposition to the state as mental illness. It now seems our own federal government wants to create a therapeutic nanny state, beginning with schoolchildren. It's not hard to imagine a time 20 or 30 years from now when government psychiatrists stigmatize children whose religious, social, or political values do not comport with those of the politically correct, secular state.

?American parents must do everything they can to remain responsible for their children's well-being. If we allow government to become intimately involved with our children's minds and bodies, we will have lost the final vestiges of parental authority. Strong families are the last line of defense against an overreaching bureaucratic state.?

Bush to Screen Population for Mental Illness
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Protect Your Children
WorldNetDaily.com | June 21, 2004

President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration.

The New Freedom Initiative, according to a
progress report, seeks to integrate mentally ill patients fully into the community by providing "services in the community, rather than institutions," the British Medical Journal reported.

Critics say the plan protects the profits of drug companies at the expense of the public.

The initiative began with Bush's launch in April 2002 of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, which conducted a "comprehensive study of the United States mental health service delivery system."

The panel found that "despite their prevalence, mental disorders often go undiagnosed" and recommended comprehensive mental health screening for "consumers of all ages," including preschool children.

The commission said, "Each year, young children are expelled from preschools and childcare facilities for severely disruptive behaviors and emotional disorders."

Schools, the panel concluded, are in a "key position" to screen the 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at the schools.

The commission recommended that the screening be linked with "treatment and supports," including "state-of-the-art treatments" using "specific medications for specific conditions."

The Texas Medication Algorithm Project, or TMAP, was held up by the panel as a "model" medication treatment plan that "illustrates an evidence-based practice that results in better consumer outcomes."

The TMAP -- started in 1995 as an alliance of individuals from the pharmaceutical industry, the University of Texas and the mental health and corrections systems of Texas -- also was praised by the American Psychiatric Association, which called for increased funding to implement the overall plan.

But the Texas project sparked controversy when a Pennsylvania government employee revealed state officials with influence over the plan had received money and perks from drug companies who stand to gain from it.

Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General says in his
whistleblower reportthe "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that developed the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

Jones points out, according to the British Medical Journal, companies that helped start the Texas project are major contributors to Bush's election funds. Also, some members of the New Freedom Commission have served on advisory boards for these same companies, while others have direct ties to TMAP.

Eli Lilly, manufacturer of olanzapine, one of the drugs recommended in the plan, has multiple ties to the Bush administration, BMJ says. The elder President Bush was a member of Lilly's board of directors and President Bush appointed Lilly's chief executive officer, Sidney Taurel, to the Homeland Security Council.

Of Lilly's $1.6 million in political contributions in 2000, 82 percent went to Bush and the Republican Party.

Another critic, Robert Whitaker, journalist and author of "Mad in America," told the British Medical Journal that while increased screening "may seem defensible," it could also be seen as "fishing for customers."

Exorbitant spending on new drugs "robs from other forms of care such as job training and shelter program," he said.

However, a developer of the Texas project, Dr. Graham Emslie, defends screening.

"There are good data showing that if you identify kids at an earlier age who are aggressive, you can intervene ... and change their trajectory."