How Bush Stole the Election

Inside A U.S. Election Vote Counting Program

By Bev Harris*
* Bev Harris is the Author of the soon to be published book " Black Box Voting: Ballot Tampering In The 21st Century "
http://www.blackboxvoting.com

*** NEW *** FOLLOW UP STORY
Bald-Faced Lies About Black Box Voting Machines
and
The Truth About the Rob-Georgia File

IMPORTANT NOTE: Publication of this story marks a watershed in American political history. It is offered freely for publication in full or part on any and all internet forums, blogs and noticeboards. All other media are also encouraged to utilise material. Readers are encouraged to forward this to friends and acquaintances in the United States and elsewhere.

CONTENTS
Introduction
Part 1 - CAN THE VOTES BE CHANGED?
Part 2 - CAN THE PASSWORD BE BYPASSED?
Part 3 – CAN THE AUDIT TRAIL BE ALTERED?

See Also Companion Article For Wider Background…
Sludge Report #154 – Bigger Than Watergate!

*************

Introduction
For both optical scans and touch screens operating using Diebold election systems, the voting system works like this:

Voters vote at the precinct, running their ballot through an optical scan, or entering their vote on a touch screen.

After the polls close, poll workers transmit the votes that have been accumulated to the county office. They do this by modem.

At the county office, there is a "host computer" with a program on it called GEMS.

GEMS receives the incoming votes and stores them in a vote ledger. But then, we found, it makes another set of books with a copy of what is in vote ledger 1. And at the same time, it makes yet a third vote ledger with another copy.

The Elections Supervisor never sees these three sets of books. All she sees is the reports she can run: Election summary (totals, county wide) or a detail report (totals for each precinct). She has no way of knowing that her GEMS program is using multiple sets of books, because the GEMS interface draws its data from an Access database, which is hidden.

And here is what is quite odd: On the programs we tested, the Election summary (totals, county wide) come from the vote ledger 2 instead of vote ledger 1.

Now, think of it like this: You want the report to add up ONLY the ACTUAL votes. But, unbeknownst to the election supervisor, votes can be added and subtracted from vote ledger 2, so that it may or may not match vote ledger 1. Her official report comes from vote ledger 2, which has been disengaged from vote ledger 1.

If she asks for a detailed report for some precincts, though, her report comes from vote ledger 1. Therefore, if you keep the correct votes in vote ledger 1, a spot check of detailed precincts (even if you compare voter-verified paper ballots) will always be correct.

And what is vote ledger 3 for? For now, we are calling it the "Lord Only Knows" vote ledger.

From a programming standpoint, there might be reasons to have a special vote ledger that disengages from the real one. From an accounting standpoint, using multiple sets of books is NOT OKAY. From an accounting standpoint, the ONLY thing the totals report should add up is the original votes in vote ledger 1. Proper bookkeeping NEVER allows an extra ledger that can be used to just erase the original information and add your own. And certainly, it is improper to have the official reports come from the second ledger, the one which may or may not have information erased or added.

Comment: "You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on." -- George W. Bush, Washington, DC March 31, 2001

A look at the inner workings of the software used in voting boxes in many US states. Did we mention that the company that makes the software and boxes are cronies of the Bush Reich? whatreallyhappened has local copies of the files if you can't get the ones off the server in New Zealand.

Shadow of extinction

It is old news, 251-million years old, but the story of what happened then, now told for the first time, demands our urgent attention.

Its implications are more profound than anything taking place in Washington or Iraq. Prehistory may soon repeat itself, not as tragedy, but as catastrophe, unless we understand what happened and act upon that intelligence.

The events that brought the Permian period between 286-million and 251-million years ago to an end could not be clearly determined until the mapping of key geological sequences had been completed.

Until recently palaeontologists had assumed that the changes that took place then were gradual and piecemeal. But three years ago a precise date for the end of the period was established, which enabled geologists to draw direct comparisons between the rocks laid down at that time in different parts of the world...

The Permian was one of the most biologically diverse periods in Earth's history. Herbivorous reptiles the size of rhinos were hunted through forests of tree ferns and flowering trees by sabre-toothed predators. At sea massive coral reefs accumulated, among which lived great sharks, fish of all kinds and hundreds of species of shelly creatures.

Then, suddenly, there is almost nothing.

The fossil record nearly stops dead...

Comment: Is it just us, or is there more and more of this type of article in the mainstream press? Seems we are being prepared for something...and it isn't likely to be pleasant.

Although this article offers an alternative explanation for this catastrophe being caused by a meteorite, the volcanic activity described can be caused by a near-pass of a comet.

There is no need for a comet to actually hit the earth for there to be catastrophic effects. Because of the nickel in the comet core, there can be electrical currents that pass betwen the two bodies. Laura's article, Independence Day, takes a look at the cometary threat.

US nabs wanted Baathists but Iraq still lacks power, water and government

AFP, Thursday July 10, 2:27 AM

Three months to the day after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, US forces announced the arrest of two top Baathists, although rebuilding efforts foundered with large parts of Baghdad still lacking power and water.

The US boss for Iraq, Paul Bremer, barnstormed the country's Shiite heartland, touting Washington's project of transforming Iraq into a democracy, but skipped meeting community leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a moderate considered receptive to US forces. [...]

With an eye on reconstruction, Bremer visited the holy city of Najaf Wednesday but met neither Sistani nor any other figures from the powerful Hawza, the highest Shiite religious body in Iraq, as Washington treads cautiously with the community making up 60 percent of the country. [...]

In an alarming twist, unknown assailants have started to terrorise those Iraqis sympathetic to the US reconstruction efforts.[...]

On a brighter note, the oil industry showed a glimmer of life as British giant BP and Anglo-Dutch rival Royal Dutch/Shell each took two million barrels of Iraqi oil, from the eight million barrels on sale this week.

Iraq will also start loading crude on Friday from the Gulf terminal of Mina al-Bakr, an Iraqi oil ministry official said.

U.S. Army Under Mortar, Grenade Attacks in Iraq

Thu July 10, 2003 02:00 AM ET

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Guerrillas in Iraq fired mortars or rocket-propelled grenades at U.S. occupation forces overnight in four towns, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

A U.S. military spokesman said on Thursday three mortar attacks took place in Ramadi.

Rocket-propelled grenades were fired at the U.S. 4th Infantry Division in Tikrit, the home town of former president Saddam Hussein.

A mortar was launched at a U.S. logistics base near Balad, the spokesman said.

Gunmen have recently resorted to heavier weapons in attacks against U.S. troops, which along with British forces launched the war against Saddam in March and have occupied Iraq since they ended his rule in April. [...]

Two US soldiers killed in Iraq

10/07/2003 - 10:13:44

Two American troops have been killed and a third injured in separate attacks on their convoys in Iraq, the US military said today. The first soldier was shot dead last night near Mahmudiyah, 15 miles south of Baghdad, spokeswoman Nicci Trent said.

Another soldier was killed and one wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack last night near Tikrit, 120 miles north of the capital. The soldiers were evacuated to a nearby medical facility, but one of them later died, she said.

Another US soldier died yesterday in what the military described as a non-hostile gunshot incident.

An American soldier also died on Monday in another non-hostile gunshot incident near Balad, 55 miles north of Baghdad. Soldiers in the area said the soldier had taken his own life.

UK Quietly Presses U.S. Over Guantanamo Bay Trials

By Andrew Cawthorne
Wed July 9, 2003 09:50 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Tony Blair said on Wednesday his government was pressing Washington behind the scenes to ensure the planned trials of terrorism suspects jailed at Guantanamo Bay do not violate international law.

Challenged by UK legislators to "put your foot down" against President Bush's administration over the controversial trial proposals, the prime minister told parliament that "representations" were being made.

Under repeated questioning, Blair declined to condemn the trials or call for the extradition of Britons there, leaving their relatives and lawyers frustrated.

"Purely private representations have not worked. The British government has to review its strategy and make formal diplomatic protests like Pakistan did," Louise Christian, a lawyer for UK Guantanamo Bay suspect Feroz Abbasi's family, told Reuters.

"If we were the closest ally to the U.S. in the war on terrorism and we are not able to do anything for our own citizens held by them, then it's a disgrace," Christian added.

The U.S. plans for military trials of a first batch of six foreigners -- including two Britons, Abbasi, 23, and Moazzam Begg, 35 -- at the naval base in Cuba, have provoked worldwide criticism and strained the close U.S.-UK political alliance. [...]

Blair may let US try UK terror suspects

By Jimmy Burns and Jean Eaglesham in London
July 9 2003 21:46

Tony Blair, the British prime minister, may allow the US military trials of two UK detainees in Guantanamo Bay to proceed because he fears it will be almost impossible to mount a successful prosecution in the UK, the Financial Times has learnt.

Mr Blair has yet to decide whether to press the US to allow Moazzam Begg and Feroz Abbasi, the two suspected al-Qaeda terrorists, to face trial in the UK.

He is under mounting political pressure to do so - 163 members of parliament, most of them from his own party, have signed a motion calling on him to push for repatriation.

But the UK government is concerned it could not get a British court to convict the men, according to Whitehall insiders. The evidence that will be used in the US military tribunals would not be permitted under English law because of the way it has been obtained.

Mr Abbasi, for example, was refused access to a lawyer during his interrogations, according to Louise Christian, his English legal adviser. [...]

Comment: The evidence would not be permitted in the U.S., except that the Bush Reich decided to create their own fascist laws. It is a sad commentary on the state of The Land of the Free when other countries want to prosecute their "terrorists" in America because they know it will result in a conviction and most probably a death sentence.

Defense, Justice departments not fully cooperating, inquiry leaders say

LAURENCE ARNOLD

(07-08) 16:15 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- Short on time and patience, leaders of the independent commission studying the Sept. 11 attacks released a status report Tuesday that singled out government departments, including Defense and Justice, that they said were not cooperating fully. [...]

Kean said he has been particularly troubled by the Bush administration's insistence on having a Justice Department official present when commission representatives interview federal officials.

"The commission feels unanimous that it's some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who works for your agency," he said. [...]

Comment: It is rather obvious that the government does not want a successful inquiry. Impeaching Bush for lying is not enough. Concentration on the Bush Reich's involvement in 9/11 should be the focus. The Bush Reich is playing for the American mind: dismantling the country, breaking their will, and removing freedom.

Free will is a threat to the puppet masters. The masses have more power than they think, and that cannot be discovered since their game would be up. Our timeline documents this continual push for their agenda, and their steady erosion of all that most of us hold sacred: the right for self determination.

Creativity is a threat, since the very concept of an open universe with unlimited possibilities sends them screaming under the bed, crying for their mommy. Fear being their primary motivation, they seek to contol, to stop source, god, or whatever you want to call it, since they must kill what they cannot control. The mind is unlimited. Where does it begin and where does it end? They have systematically sought to destroy the American mind and all that it could create.

Will they be successful, or will people start waking up and begin the quest to see objective reality?

Iraq war not about banned weapons: Rumsfeld

07/09/03: (CBC News) WASHINGTON -- The United States didn't declare war on Iraq because of evidence of banned weapons, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday.

Rumsfeld said the U.S. declared war because it saw existing evidence of Iraqi arms programs in "a dramatic new light," through the prism of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Rumsfeld made the comments in an appearance before the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee. [...]

Comment:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
- Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002

"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it."
- Ari Fleischer, December 6, 2002

"We know for a fact that there are weapons there."
- Ari Fleischer, January 9, 2003

"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."
- Donald Rumsfeld, March 30, 2003

Iraq weapons 'unlikely to be found'

BBC
Thursday, 10 July, 2003, 05:25 GMT

Senior figures inside Whitehall no longer believe weapons of mass destruction are likely to turn up in Iraq, the BBC has learned.

BBC political editor Andrew Marr says "very senior sources" have virtually ruled out the possibility of finding weapons in Iraq. [...]

Mr Marr said on Wednesday: "We are not saying that weapons of mass destruction never existed or that the government invented them or made them up.

"Indeed, a very senior source I have spoken to on this was absolutely sure when British troops went into action in Iraq they would face chemical and possibly, biological weapons.

"But as time has gone on, those weapons don't seem to be there and the best explanation going around at the moment is that some time shortly before the war Saddam Hussein destroyed them or hid them beyond discovery." [...]

Row over weapons allegations threatens to turn the Iraq conflict into liability for Bush

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
10 July 2003

The row over Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction has been slow to reach America, but it is starting to become as much of a headache for President George Bush as it is for Tony Blair.

The catalyst was the White House's acknowledgement, slipped out late on Monday as the President was leaving for Africa, that Mr Bush should not have included the discredited intelligence claims about uranium from Niger in his State of the Union address.

That admission came after confirmation that the CIA itself had reported to the White House in March 2002 that the documents purporting to chronicle Iraq's deal with Niger were almost certainly fakes.

The long-cowed Democrats are finally pitching in. "The whole world knew this was a fraud," Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said of the documents. He demanded a full investigation into how the allegations found their way into the State of the Union speech on 28 January 2003. [...]

Comment: Oh please - spare us, Jay. While it seems that many politicians around the world did know that the war on Iraq was based on fraudulent evidence, how many of them actually stood up against the Bush Reich, especially within the US? And of those frighteningly few that did, how many are still alive? Rockybux and the other government puppets are only opening their mouths now because it serves their purpose.

212 US soldiers killed in Iraq since war began: Pentagon

WASHINGTON (AFP) Jul 09, 2003

A total of 212 US soldiers have been killed in Iraq, including 143 who died in combat since the outset of the war, the Defense Department said Wednesday.

The total includes 74 soldiers who have died since May 1, when US President George W. Bush declared the end of major hostilities in Iraq, Lieutenant-Colonel Cynthia Colin said.

Since May 1, 29 soldiers have been killed in combat, and 45 others died in non-hostile situations, she said.

During the first Gulf War, 147 soldiers died in combat and 235 were killed in non-hostile situations.

The Pentagon did not say how many of the dead were victims of "friendly fire" incidents.

Our gift to Iraq

Al Kennedy
Thursday July 10, 2003
The Guardian

[...] Why, I'll bet you're allowing phrases like "playing Russian roulette with other people's lives" and "blood-soaked, greedy, Westminster scum" to creep into otherwise respectable conversations. You may even worry that Tony Blair has misplaced his soul. But worries cause disease. So to keep us all happy and healthy, let's focus on the one real feelgood factor left in Iraq - depleted uranium.

That it is left all over Iraq just shows how much we care, because DU is gorgeous stuff - gorgeous uranium-238 with a dash of gorgeous uranium-235. It's cheap, if you're subsidising nuclear power to the hilt, and frankly we have whole slag heaps of it to dump. It's almost twice as heavy as lead, so it's great for armour plating, radiation shielding, ballast in missiles and aircraft counterweights...

If you find DU to be present, hold your breath, eat nothing, shut your eyes and wash immediately in sterile water for not less than one hour. Then fill in another form.

By employing these simple procedures, British personnel can keep themselves almost healthy, at least until they get home. Iraqis exposed to DU will already be home, so that's one weight off their minds. But for those who are still troubled, here are Tony Blair's three DU safety rules: 1) Minimise exposure - get troops and innocent civilians to deal with the shit for you. 2) Maximise distance - stay far away from combat zones. 3) Use shielding - place maximum spin between you and any contamination source. Follow these rules and you too can be happy, healthy and worry-free.

Only 23 Embedded Reporters Left in Iraq

As U.S. Considers Similar Program in Liberia
JULY 09, 2003
By Joe Strupp

NEW YORK -- Once numbering over 700, the cadre of reporters embedded with U.S. troops in and near Iraq is now down to only 23, with only five coming from newspapers. Meanwhile, American officials said they would likely embed the media with any soldiers that might be deployed in Liberia, a war-torn West African nation.

"It is very likely that we will want to embed if there are troops that actually go into Liberia," said Lt. Col. John Robinson, who oversees the embedding program from U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla. "It has been proven to be successful. We have been able to provide our perspective to the story."

Stressing that no final decision about U.S. military involvement in Liberia had been made, Robinson said any embedding program would be based on the assessment of unit commanders. "It will have to be considered," he said of an embedding option in Liberia. "The assessment would be based on the situation on the ground." [...]

Army Details Ambush That Injured Lynch

By PAULINE JELINEK
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 9, 2003; 10:17 AM

WASHINGTON - An Army report on the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq says fatigue, bad communications and other difficulties arising in "the fog of war" all factored into the deaths of 11 and capture of six, including still hospitalized Pfc. Jessica Lynch.

The 15-page report answers some questions but leaves still under investigation parts of an incident that is perhaps the most publicized of the war - though shrouded in secrecy and the subject of numerous conflicting reports.

[..] In the investigation, "it was very important to keep in mind the factors of fatigue, the intense pace of operations and the confusion," the Army said. Its report noted that there was a "lack of information, and misinformation, that occurs in the fog of war."

Comment: It is also important to factor in that the Bush administration lies about just about everything. See below.

Injured Private Jessica 'saved by her Iraqi captors' says official report

(Filed: 10/07/2003)

Jessica Lynch, the teenage US soldier injured and captured during the Iraq war, survived principally because of Iraqi medical attention, a Pentagon source has claimed.

The heroic tale of Jessica Lynch, the teenage US soldier rescued from Iraqi captivity in a televised commando raid, has been largely debunked by an official military investigation, it emerged yesterday.

Crash caused Lynch's 'horrific injuries'

By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES     

The Army will release a report tomorrow on the ambush of the 507th Maintenance Company in Iraq that will show Pfc. Jessica Lynch and another female soldier suffered extensive injuries in a vehicle accident, but not from Iraqi fighters.

The deadly March 23 battle in Nasiriyah, in central Iraq, has emerged as perhaps the most famous incident in the war — both for what happened and for what was reported to have happened, but did not. [...]

Dixie Chicks star in Senate radio consolidation hearing

Recent Radio Ban Cited as Example of Excessive Media Power
July 08, 2003
By Ira Teinowitz

[...] The committee's chairman, John McCain, R-Ariz., sharply questioned Cumulus Media CEO Lewis W. Dickey Jr. if he felt his decision ban the Dixie Chicks from all of Cumulus' country music stations demonstrated the political danger present in having too few owners of the nation's media.

The country trio's lead singer, Natalie Maines, in a concert in England just prior to the start of the war in Iraq, told the crowd: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas." The group is also from Texas. Her comments caused a furor among some country music fans, and radio stations organized boycotts. Ms. Maine's later issued an apology.

Mr. Dickey defended his decision, saying Cumulus had pulled the songs only on its country music stations, and that the decision had come as a result of a "hue and cry" from local listeners and requests for local programmers for direction.

'Total contradiction'
Sen. McCain said that while individual stations have the right to pull songs, the decision by Cumulus (as well as by all stations of another media company, Cox Radio) to pull songs was a "total contradiction" of statements made by media executives that they were serving local markets. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., suggested Mr. Dickey's decision smacked of Nazism and McCarthyism rather than of free speech.

In a statement issued after the hearings, Gerry McCracken, format coordinator for Cox County Stations, said, "In the case of Cox, the decision [to cease playing Dixie Chicks music] was not a corporate directive." He said all seven of Cox's country stations made their own "local, research-based decision" to cease playing the group's music...

Hispanic media
In other testimony today, U.S. Rep. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., warned about media consolidation in the Hispanic market. He specifically pointed to the proposed merger between Univision and the Hispanic Broadcast Corp., warning that if the merger goes through "virtually all Latinos would see and hear their news and entertainment from a single source."

Comment: How strange... Unheard of even!

Defending the war against Iraq, the Bush administration...

WASHINGTON (AP)
By Associated Press, 7/9/2003 19:11

WASHINGTON (AP) Defending the war against Iraq, the Bush administration said Wednesday that information on Saddam Hussein's alleged illicit weapons programs was solid even though one of President Bush's claims was based on a forgery.

Comment: There's logic for ya - Bush style! The trajedy of September 11 happened so that the Bush Reich could change the way people think, so people won't object too much to the Bush Reich invading and imposing their ideals on any country that has a petty tyrannt on its hands. Bush is lying about Africa of course. Iraq was supposed to be a "quicky." But now the Bush Reich says Americans might be in Iraq from two to ten years.

US gave inaccurate Iraq picture, ex-intel official

By Tabassum Zakaria

WASHINGTON, July 9 — The Bush administration gave an inaccurate picture of Iraq's military threat before the war, a recently retired State Department intelligence official said on Wednesday, saying intelligence reports showed that Baghdad posed no imminent threat.

''I believe the Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture to the American people of the military threat posed by Iraq,'' said Greg Thielmann, who retired in September from his post of director of the strategic, proliferation and military affairs office in the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research.

''Some of the fault lies with the performance of the intelligence community, but most of it lies with the way senior officials misused the information they were provided,'' he said at a press conference held by the Arms Control Association [...]

Web site reveals Iraq war stats, so far

Iraqometer tracks the war

By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 09 July 2003, 08:17

DETAILS OF Gulf War II are being tracked on a web site dubbed the "Iraqometer".

The web site claims to provide stats of bombs dropped so far, civilian and coalition casualties, the number of sites where weapons of mass destruction have been discovered, and the cost to each (US) taxpayer of the war so far ($1,300).

The Iraqometer gathers data from a number of news sources and says it is updated three to four times each day.

At the time of writing, according to the site, 37,575 bombs were dropped; civilian casualties amount to 6,055; and coalition fatalities amount to 259. Dead Iraqi soldiers amount to 10,200.

You can find the Iraqometer here

Rumsfeld: U.S. Spends $3.9B A Month In Iraq

Defense Chief Assures Senate Panel Longest-Serving Troops Going Home

UPDATED: 8:01 p.m. EDT July 9, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Combined U.S. military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are costing more than $4.5 billion a month, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Senate panel Wednesday.

Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee that operations in Iraq are running about $3.9 billion a month. He said the Pentagon is spending about $700 million a month in Afghanistan.

During four hours of testimony, Rumsfeld assured senators that some of the longest-serving troops in Iraq will soon be home. The Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which played a central role in capturing Baghdad in April, is beginning a phased pullout from Iraq. The entire unit will be back in the United States in late September.

Rumsfeld also said more countries will provide soldiers to help take the burden off U.S. forces that are increasingly under attack.

But some Democrats questioned whether the Bush administration has a clear strategy for rotating troops in and out of Iraq. They also wondered whether the administration has done enough to win troop commitments from the NATO military alliance.

Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the committee's top Democrat, asked if any request has been made since the war.

"I have no idea," Rumsfeld said, adding that he would find out.

Comment: "more countries will provide soldiers to help take the burden off U.S. forces" -- in other words, they're trying to spread the rising body count of dead soliders and reporters to other countries. I wonder if Rummy knows if any of that money is being siphoned off into black budgets and "underground" projects?

Bush defends going to war against Iraq

Web posted at: 7/10/2003 3:10:14
REUTERS

PRETORIA: US President George W Bush said yesterday he remained confident the Iraq war was right, even though the White House acknowledged it had been a mistake to accuse Saddam Hussein of trying to buy uranium from Niger.

“I am absolutely confident in the decision I made,” said Bush, who ordered US-led forces to invade Iraq on the basis of intelligence that Saddam had arms of mass destruction programmes.

Comment: Get it straight Bush, did you make the decision or did God tell you to invade? And just for the record, did you tie your own shoelaces this morning before you ate your banana?

“There’s no doubt in my mind that when it’s all said and done the facts will show the world the truth,” Bush told a joint news conference with South African President Thabo Mbeki.

Comment: If the FACTS (not the lies peddled by Bush as fact) are believed by a majority of Americans then there will be an historic treason trial soon thereafter for Bush and his entire entourage!

Asked for the first time about the uranium issue, Bush said: “There’s going to be a lot of attempts to rewrite history.”

Comment: Of course! Bush is in the process of trying to do it right now by telling so many lies!

The White House has acknowledged Bush relied on now discredited information when he said in a State of the Union speech in January the Iraqi leader tried to buy uranium from the West African state of Niger for arms of mass destruction.

"We now know that documents alleging a transaction between Iraq and Niger had been forged," White House national security spokesman Michael Anton said, stressing that the White House did not learn the documents were fraudulent before including the charge in Bush's speech.

Comment: When enough people start to home in the lies, psychopaths will protect the bigger lies by admitting to a little lie, if that's what it takes, and if they're smart enough.

"The other reporting that suggested that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Africa is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that such attempts were in fact made," he said.

"Because of this lack of specificity, this reporting alone did not rise to the level of inclusion in a presidential speech," the spokesman said.

Comment: Maybe it's just a coincidence that Bush is now going to move American military into Africa under the pretense of a peace mission?

But White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said yesterday it was “one single sentence” in a larger case against Iraq that remained valid.

Comment: One single lie in a larger case of even bigger lies...like who is REALLY responsible for September 11.

The United States and its close ally Britain have found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction since toppling Saddam on April 9.

But Bush said he was confident Saddam had had a weapons of mass destruction programme and that Washington had underestimated Iraq’s nuclear progress before the 1991 Gulf War.

“Saddam Hussein was a threat to world peace. And there’s no doubt in my mind that the United States...did the right thing in removing him from power,” Bush said.

Comment: But his daddy didn't agree back in 1998. His daddy thought it was best to follow the UN: "We did not wish to see the breakup of the Iraqi state. We would have been forced to occupy Baghdad and, in effect, rule Iraq. Unilaterally exceeding the U.N.'s mandate would have destroyed the precedent of international response to aggression we hoped to establish. Had we gone the invasion route, the U.S. could still be an occupying power in a bitterly hostile land." -- from "Why We Didn't Remove Saddam" by George Bush Sr. and Brent Scowcroft, Time Magazine (2 March 1998). Sort of makes Junior look like an idiot, doesn't it?

Meanwhile "Bush, Like Iraq, Save Zimbabwe," declared one poster held by the group, which delivered a letter of thanks to embassy officials.

The annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress is one of the most visible and important speeches that a US president can make, with each line reflecting a careful assessment of White House priorities.

Comment: And this administration's priorities having nothing to do with Liberty and Freedom, except to strip them away from everybody on the entire planet.

Fleischer said the uranium charge, based on documents purporting to show Iraqi officials were seeking to buy the material from Niger, should not have been in the speech.

Comment: Of course, you got caught lying! The Bush Reich using that false statement without verifying it first is no different than the Bush Reich invading Iraq only to find that there are no WMDs! What do you expect from a psychopathic liar?

The documents, obtained by European intelligence agencies, are now accepted as a forgeries.

“With the advantage of hindsight ... this information should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech,” Fleischer said.

Comment: Blinded by psychopathy, no doubt.

A former US ambassador, asked to investigate an intelligence report alleging the uranium purchase bid, said in a New York Times article on Sunday he had told Washington months before the speech that such a transaction was “highly doubtful”.

Comment: But they used it anyway, because it fit their fascist agenda and they know their brainwashing of the public is working to some extent. After all, it was reported that 41% of Americans believe Bush found WMDs in Iraq...

Democrats seized on the White House admission to demand a full review of how Bush’s Republican administration used intelligence to make the case for war in Iraq.

Comment: Democrats demanding an investigation of Republicans is like asking Bonnie to investigate Clyde. They're all in bed together!

Fresh BBC claims reignite Iraq row

10 Jul 2003 01:59 BST
By Michelle Green

LONDON (Reuters) - The BBC says senior figures "right at the top" of government no longer believe weapons of mass destruction will be uncovered in Iraq.

The claim looks set to deepen divisions over whether the war was justified, as well as reignite a row between the government and the broadcaster over Iraq coverage.

"They (senior ministers) do think there were weapons there...but the actual weapons, the tubs of evil stuff, the rusting missiles...belief that they will actually be available, that is trickling away very fast," BBC political editor Andrew Marr said on television news.

"The best explanation going around at the moment is that some time shortly before the war Saddam Hussein destroyed them or hid them beyond discovery."...

Opinion polls suggest the public is no longer convinced of the case for war and members of parliament from all parties want proof of weapons to justify the campaign. [...]

Jordan confiscates more than 200 Iraqi artifacts from travelers in last 10 days

Wednesday July 09, 2003
By SHAFIKA MATTAR Associated Press Writer

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) Jordanian customs officials have confiscated more than 200 Iraqi artifacts from foreign and Iraqi travelers in the last 10 days, many apparently stolen from museums and archaeological sites, the director-general of the Customs Department said Wednesday.

Mahmoud Qteishat said the smuggling attempts included the use of a humanitarian aid plane returning from Iraq. Customs officials at Marka airport found 24 artifacts on the plane, including bronze statues, clay pots and stamps in different sizes dating back to the ancient Sumerian era. [...]

Kill Looters, Urges Archaeologist

Published on Wednesday, July 9, 2003 by the Guardian/UK
by Maev Kennedy

An American archaeologist yesterday urged her compatriots to kill the looters who are pillaging archaeological sites in Iraq.

"I would like to see some helicopters flying over these sites, and some bullets fired at the looters," Elizabeth Stone, head of archaeology at Stony Brook University in New York, said in London yesterday. "I think you have got to kill some people to stop this."

Comment: Quick! Give her a post in the US cabinet.

Saddam agent arrested in Chicago

Wednesday, July 9, 2003
CHICAGO (AP)

A suburban Chicago man was arrested Wednesday on charges of serving as an unregistered agent of Saddam Hussein's government, including spying on opposition leaders for Iraqi intelligence, federal officials said.

Khaled Abdel-Latif Dumeisi, 60, of Oak Lawn was arrested based on a dossier found in Baghdad in April and turned over to the FBI.

U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said in a statement that Dumeisi had furnished information to Iraqi intelligence without registering as a foreign agent.

"Those who gather information in the United States about people living in America for the purpose of providing the information to hostile governments should understand that the FBI will pursue them vigorously," Fitzgerald said.

Comment: Using this logic the FBI should investigate the Bush administration. The evidence suggests that they are complicit in providing information and funding to Israeli terrorists to attack US citizens on 9/11

RETRIBUTION AND JUSTICE: How to punish Iraqis who informed for Saddam Hussein

By PAUL HAVEN
Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) — Mahdi Saleh has been looking over his shoulder for weeks, ever since his name began popping up in red graffiti threatening death for the tens of thousands of informants Saddam Hussein and his Baath party relied on to enforce a maniacal control over Iraq's population.

"With the blessing of God, we will start the campaign to execute the Baathist monkeys," reads the Arabic scrawled on a wall in Baghdad's Aden Square. A short distance away, the warning continues with a list of several names, including Saleh's.[...]

U.S., not U.N., is global sheriff, ex-general says

FROM CANADIAN PRESS
Jul. 9, 2003. 03:04 PM

Canada's refusal to join the American-led invasion of Iraq shows a failure to grasp the reality of a new world order in which the United States — not the United Nations — is the global peacekeeping sheriff, retired Maj.-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie said today.

Ottawa has also failed to understand that the credibility of the U.N. as an instrument of world peace and security is in tatters, he said.

Speaking to a new group that advocates the creation of a North American security zone, the former general said a series of disastrous peace missions during the 1990s destroyed the U.N.'s credibility. The situation was aggravated, he said, by disagreements over Iraq that paralyzed the U.N. Security Council.

Ottawa knew there would be no Security Council decision on the invasion of Iraq, MacKenzie said.

"The lowest moment of the U.N.'s credibility . . . is the very lowest moment in its history from 1945, was the moment that Canada decided to abdicate its responsibility as a sovereign nation (to) make its own decisions and said, 'We'll do what the U.N. does,' " MacKenzie said.

That decision failed to recognize that the U.S., which is "no longer reluctant to accept casualties," has taken on the role of global peacekeeper, he said.

Marine Gets 7 Months In Jail For Refusing Anthrax Vacine

CAMP LEJEUNE -- A Marine Desert Storm veteran who refused on religious grounds to receive an anthrax vaccination in December was dismissed from the Corps on Tuesday and ordered to serve seven months in prison.

During a general court-martial at New River Air Station, CH-46 Sea Knight pilot 1st Lt. Erick Enz pleaded guilty to disobeying the order of a senior commissioned officer.

Enz, a father of five and described by his superiors as a "natural leader," faced a maximum punishment of five years' confinement, forfeiture of all pay and allowances and dismissal from service. [...]

For more information on Gulf War Illness visit www.ngwrc.org and for more information on reactions from the anthrax vaccination visit www.anthraxvaccine.org.

Comment: More proof that the U.S. government sees the military as either guinee pigs or as tools in it's ongoing PR campaign for the public's mind.

US GENERAL SEEKS TO EASE TENSION WITH TURKEY

A top US general yesterday made an unexpected visit to Turkey in a bid to ease tensions between Washington and Ankara following the detention of 11 Turkish soldiers in the northern Iraq city of Sulaymaniyah.[...]Both sides agreed that a Turkish and US military committee would meet in Ankara today to investigate the detentions. The committee was scheduled to begin its work yesterday, but the meeting was rescheduled at Washington's request.

Hamas Warns Truce Doomed Unless Prisoners Freed

By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Wed July 9, 2003 07:47 PM ET

GAZA (Reuters) - A U.S.-backed Middle East peace plan was under new strain on Thursday after the main Palestinian militant group Hamas warned that a cease-fire would unravel unless Israel freed thousands of prisoners.

Adding to tensions over the prisoner issue, Palestinian witnesses said Israeli soldiers had detained three Palestinian boys playing outside a flashpoint Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

The truce was declared by Palestinian militant groups at the end of June, but many Palestinians think Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas has failed to win enough back from Israel in return.

Up to 8,000 Palestinians, including minors, have been arrested since an uprising for independence began in September 2000.

Israel has said it will release hundreds of prisoners, but will not free anyone accused of being behind suicide bombings and ambush attacks.

However, Hamas founder and spiritual leader, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, warned on Wednesday militants could not stick to the truce unless jailed comrades were freed.

"Our patience has its limits. Israeli practices (including) the issue of the prisoners, are a red line that can never be bypassed in any way or form," Yassin said. [...]

In a move aimed at strengthening Abbas's hand, the United States announced $20 million in direct aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA). [...]

Congo Settling into Peaceful Routine, Hope Beginning to Rise

Thursday, July 10, 2003 @ 00:00:23 CDT

TORONTO (NFTF.org) -- So far all is well in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). After a civil war lasting nearly five years, involving seven foreign armies and producing up to 4.7 million deaths, it appears a lasting peace might be on the horizon. There have been several peace treaties since war broke out in 1998 and several limited truces, but this time may be different.

The government of President Joseph Kabila, with assistance from several foreign governments, finally obtained agreement from all the warring parties to cease hostilities and form a caretaker government to guide the country through to 2005 and its first democratic elections in over 40 years. This represented a tremendous victory for all sides. There were several sticking points, with the most serious being the make-up of a new army, but that has been settled in a power-sharing arrangement where all sides got something. The final piece of the picture was put in place July 3 when all of the rebel leaders, who will form part of the transitional government, arrived in Kinshasa to take up their posts.

The new government has begun the task of plotting a path from the bloody past to the future. DRC is one of the most resource-rich plots of land on earth yet its economy is a shambles. The first task for the government will likely be to establish an economic plan that can tap into those resources without giving them all away to foreign nations. [...]

Schroeder cancels Italian holiday amid diplomatic row

AFP, Thursday July 10, 1:48 AM

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called off his summer vacation to Italy after a senior official insulted German tourists as arrogant louts amid a bruising bilateral row.

An unseemly exchange of barbs by leading politicians from the two European Union heavyweights over the past week came to a head with a terse government statement in Berlin. [...]

Hong Kong Bus Plunges Off Bridge Killing 22

Thu July 10, 2003 01:01 AM ET

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A double-decker bus packed with schoolchildren and commuters collided with a truck and plunged off a Hong Kong expressway bridge on Thursday, killing at least 22 and injuring 20, police said. [...]

Mother drowns son, 4, in bath

Ananova.com
22:03 Wednesday 9th July 2003

A woman diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic has been found guilty of murdering her four-year-old son by drowning him in the bath.

She also tried to kill his five-year-old brother in the same way. [...]

N.C. Child Dies After Being Left in Car

By JAY COHEN, Associated Press Writer
June 10, 2003

FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. - One child died and two others were hospitalized after they were left in a hot car Wednesday — one of three incidents in two days in which a child died after being left in a vehicle.

Two-year-old Kenneth Pratt died after being taken to a hospital. Jaquon Pratt, 1 year old, and Nataliya Pratt, 4 months old, were in critical condition Wednesday evening.

Police said they weren't sure who put the children in the car or who called 911. The children had been in the care of their mother, also named Nataliya Pratt, police said.

Midday temperatures in Fayetteville reached the 90s. [...]

Comment: There have been a rash of these types of incidents in the US in the last few days. Looks like HAARP is getting particularly nasty in the programs they are sending out..

Father and daughter found dead

Ananova.com
16:33 Tuesday 8th July 2003

A shop worker is believed to have killed his six-year-old stepdaughter before driving a few miles away where his body was discovered on scrubland.

Little Paige Jones was found with fatal injuries at her home in Hucknall, Notts, after her mother made a desperate 999 call for help in the early hours of this morning.

Police immediately launched a major operation to find her stepfather Mark Jones until his car was spotted by an off-duty police officer. The 29-year-old shop worker was found dead.

Our greatest quest

NewScientist.com news service
19:00 09 July 03

Martin Rees, England's Astronomer Royal, says the search for alien life is now more urgent than any other task in astronomy. Why? Because we need to uncover the truth about the significance of life on Earth. More features on the hunt for life beyond Earth appear in a special issue of New Scientist print edition, on sale from July 10.

If anyone, or anything, is watching the human activity on Earth from a distance they must notice that we are trying to return the compliment. Using many novel techniques, we are combing through the cosmos for signs of life. [...]

UCI study finds dark matter is for superWIMPs

New class of superweak particles may reveal secrets of hidden mass in universe

Irvine, Calif, July 8, 2003

A UC Irvine study has revealed a new class of cosmic particles that may shed light on the composition of dark matter in the universe.

These particles, called superweakly interacting massive particles, or superWIMPs, may constitute the invisible matter that makes up as much as one-quarter of the universe’s mass.

UCI physicists Jonathan Feng, Arvind Rajaraman and Fumihiro Takayama report that these new superWIMPs have radically different properties from weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which many researchers have long looked to as the leading dark matter candidate. The study was posted July 3 on the online version of Physical Review Letters. [...]

Like their progenitors, they emit no light and have both mass and gravitational force. But they are incapable of the type of weak-force interactions that WIMPs have; they can only interact gravitationally. Since the gravitational force is not as strong as the weak force, these interactions are, as Feng calls them, “superweak.” In turn, these particles will rarely, if ever, collide with other particles. [...]

Alien link to SARS debunked

By JUDY SKATSSOON in Melbourne

SUGGESTIONS that SARS came from outer space were unbelievably implausible, one of the world's leading authorities on the virus said yesterday.

A letter published in The Lancet medical journal earlier this year captured the public imagination by suggesting it may have hitchhiked a ride to Earth on a comet or meteor. [...]

Researchers Use Lab Cultures To Create Robotic 'Semi-living Artist'

Georgia Institute Of Technology
July 9, 2003

Working from their university labs in two different corners of the world, U.S. and Australian researchers have created what they call a new class of creative beings, "the semi-living artist" – a picture-drawing robot in Perth, Australia whose movements are controlled by the brain signals of cultured rat cells in Atlanta.

Gripping three colored markers positioned above a white canvas, the robotic drawing arm operates based on the neural activity of a few thousand rat neurons placed in a special petri dish that keeps the cells alive. [...]

Congress Shifts Into High Gear on Spending

Wed July 9, 2003 06:03 PM ET
By Andrew Clark

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - House of Representatives and Senate panels on Wednesday cleared bills to fund U.S. homeland security efforts, public lands and the departments of Commerce, Justice and State in 2004, as Congress began in earnest its annual summer scramble to meet its budget responsibilities.

The measures are among the 13 lawmakers must pass each year to fund the government. They are supposed to be completed by the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1, but rarely are.

This year, Republican leaders want to bring the bills in on time and under budget to underline their control of Congress.

Democrats, however, see the tight budget constraints Congress is operating under as a chance to press their case that many government programs are being starved of funds as a direct result of President Bush's big tax cuts. [...]

Colombian Pena takes yellow

Pena helped the US Postal team to a stage win

Lance Armstrong's US Postal team won the team time trial on stage four of the Tour de France, clocking a time of one hour 18 minutes and 27 seconds.

The American team finished 30 seconds ahead of last year's winners ONCE, with Jan Ullrich's Team Bianchi a further 13 seconds adrift in third.

The victory meant US Postal's Victor Hugo Pena took the overall lead and became the first Colombian ever to wear the yellow jersey in the race's 100-year history.

Tour de France | Stage 5

Thursday 10th July | 196km
Troyes - Nevers

Stage 5
One of the Tour's longer stages, a host of breaks will be expected by the peloton as the race leaders battle to keep everyone together before the mountains.

Inch of rain brings minor flooding to sections of city

By Lisa Marie Gómez
Express-News Staff Writer

Moisture coming in from the Gulf of Mexico dumped more than an inch of rain in parts of San Antonio this morning, causing minor flooding in some areas of the city.

Chuck Fehlis captured this image on his digital camera shortly before 11 a.m. today. It shows a black ring that National Weather Service officials first believed was a halo effect produced by the sun. The weather service later determined that an 'explosion caused by lightning' produced the ring...

Several people reported seeing the ring this morning shortly after a lightning bolt struck an area near North New Braunfels Avenue and Nacogdoches Road.

“I saw the lightning strike out the side of my eye, and when I turned to look, there was a plume of black smoke rising up … with the circle of smoke on the top of it,” Chris Yanas said in an e-mail to the San Antonio Express-News.

Earthquake rocks Lombok

09/07/2003 20:23:31
ABC Radio Australia News

An earthquake measuring 5.2 on the Richter scale has rocked parts of the Indonesian island of Lombok but caused no casualties or damage.

The earthquake was centred 61 kilometres southwest of Praya in Central Lombok and 68 kilometres under the seabed.

The quake was also felt moderately in the neighbouring islands of Bali and Sumbawa.

Baked Alaska: Record Heat Hits Anchorage

Wed Jul 9

ANCHORAGE - Hot summer weather is setting records in Anchorage.

The high of 84 degrees Tuesday set a new mark for July 8, breaking an 84-year-old record. It also turned out to be the warmest day ever recorded in Anchorage for the month of July, topping the 83 degrees reached July 11, 1953, said Dave Vonderheide, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

Tuesday was the fourth warmest day in Anchorage's recorded weather history, although it shares that distinction with three other days, all in one June or another, Vonderheide said.

The hottest day ever recorded in Anchorage was June 25, 1953, when it hit 86 degrees.

Tropical Storm Claudette Aims for Yucatan

Wed Jul 9, 5:47 PM ET

Claudette's top winds were about 65 mph and forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was likely to hit the Yucatan at just under hurricane strength of 74 mph before crossing into the Gulf of Mexico on Friday. [...]

Hundreds to get free weather radios to brace for Rainier mudflows

The Associated Press
7/9/03 6:45 PM

ASHFORD, Wash. (AP) -- The Elbe-Ashford Fire District plans to distribute free weather radios to about 900 households in the upper Nisqually River area this summer to help residents better prepare for volcanic mudflows off Mount Rainier.

"Considering that they don't have an emergency warning system, this is a big tool in their tool box," said Ted Buehner, warning coordinator meteorologist for the National Weather Service. [...]

Comment:

July 4, 1998

Q: (L) Anything else other than a tsunami in Puget Sound and a big subduction quake... 10.4 on the Richter scale is almost inconceivable.
A: Rainier... caldera.
Q: (L) What about the caldera?
A: Expect one.

Rare weather pattern not expected to leave anytime soon

By Cindy Larson of The News-Sentinel
Posted on Wed, Jul. 09, 2003

The rare weather pattern [in Indiana] that is producing torrential rains resulting in record flooding isn't going anywhere soon, weather experts said.

And that means more rain in the forecast, likely until Friday. Thunderstorms again were expected to hit the area this afternoon and Thursday, tapering off Thursday night.[...]

"This is pretty unusual for any time," Sabones said. The St. Marys River breaking a crest record set in 1913 is "pretty significant," he said. [...] For the latest updates online, go here

Weather calms Arizona wildfire - Residents allowed to return

TUCSON, Arizona (AP) -- Evacuated residents were allowed to return to their homes after humid conditions dampened a wildfire burning about a half mile from an exclusive desert enclave...

Summer wildfire danger shifts northwest

By JUDITH KOHLER
The Associated Press
7/9/2003

DENVER (AP) — Even as the fire danger eases across the Southwest, wildfires are breaking out in other Western states that until now had enjoyed the benefits of a cool, wet spring.

Scorching heat is sucking the moisture out of shrubs and trees, providing fuel for new fires in Oregon, Washington and Colorado. In all, 20 large fires were burning across the West on Wednesday...

The fire danger ranged from high to extreme in parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, according to the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, Idaho.

Bacteria Start Underground Fires in Mali

By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

July 9, 2003 — Patches of mysterious shoe-melting, foot-roasting hot ground in parts of West Africa may have nothing to do with volcanic activity, as has been thought for decades.

Researchers have dug down and found evidence that the ground itself is burning and generating baked patches of ground in parts of the nation of Mali. What's burning, specifically, are buried layers of peat — the combustible buried remains of vegetation — which are apparently igniting spontaneously and may have been doing so for eons...

The team located the hottest area on the edge of a wide patch of seared ground — exceeding 1,400° Fahrenheit (760° Celsius) — near Haribibi in the Lac Faguibine area west of Timbuktu, Mali. They then dug an exploratory trench through the hottest area. What they found was a flaming 1,526°F (830°C) layer of peat just a yard down. [...]

Crunch-time on fluoride this week

Parliament to consider F-ing whole of UK - and Wales will be high on hit-list

08/07/03

As parliament prepares to debate a proposal intended to lead to the fluoridation of the whole of Wales (1), the UK Green Party's Health Speaker, Swansea-based Martyn Shrewsbury today urged the Assembly to oppose the government's mass-medication agenda.

Martyn Shrewsbury has asked for a meeting with Health Minister Jane Hutt "to counteract one-sided propaganda from the pro-fluoride lobby, and bad science such as the York Report, which has been presented to the Assembly." Mr Shrewsbury said today:

"Water fluoridation contravenes the European Convention on Human Rights and Medicine, which says people must not be medicated without their consent.

"There are mass studies from Canada, New Zealand and the USA that indicate fluoridation doesn't reduce tooth decay. In Europe, Ireland is the most fluoridated country, but it doesn't have Europe's best teeth. In England, fluoridated Gateshead has the same level of tooth decay as non-fluoridated and demographically comparable Liverpool. Even the government's own review found 'little evidence' that fluoridation would reduce dental health inequalities."

He added: "We all know that tooth decay is caused by too much sugar and too little care of our teeth. Fluoridation doesn't address either of those problems."

Does fluoride cause cancer and premature puberty?

The Green Party will this week publish a new, updated edition of its report Truth Decay: Challenging New Labour's propaganda on water fluoridation. Dr Chris Simpson, a Ceredigion-based pathologist commented today:

"New information in our report includes evidence that in the fluoridated Republic of Ireland you're 40% more likely to get bone cancer than in non-fluoridated Northern Ireland; and that in the USA, the home of fluoridation, there are concerns that fluoride is causing girls to reach puberty earlier.

"The jury's still out on absolute proof, but there is genuine cause for concern.

The government isn't taking into account that people who drink a lot of tea or eat a lot of fish can ingest lots of fluoride naturally, even without fluoridated water. A study in the fluoridated West Midlands found that 60% of people sampled had more fluoride already in their bodies than the government says is safe, and some of them had four times as much."

Toxic waste added to drinking water

Dr Simpson continued: "In any case, fluoride is classed as more toxic than lead - yet fluoridation involves allowing TWENTY TIMES as much fluoride in drinking water as the permitted level of lead.

"And what most people don't know is that the 'fluoride' added to drinking water is hexafluorosilicic acid - a hazardous toxic waste product from the phosphate fertiliser industry. It's the pollution scrubber liquor from the factory chimneys, and it's simply re-labelled a 'recovered product'. It has never been safety tested on humans, it's illegal to dump it at sea, it's registered under the Poisons Act 1972 (3) but the government wants it added to everyone's drinking water."

Martyn Shrewsbury concluded: "Fluoridation is an attack on medical ethics and civil liberties, with potentially severe health impacts, and it's not even proven to stop tooth decay. It's been rejected by most other European countries, and we shouldn't allow it here."

Notes:

1. Fluorosilicates are Part 2 Poisons under the Poisons Act 1972, and have no medicinal use, as the Medicines Control Agency has repeatedly stated. Their addition to the public water supply therefore arguably constitutes a criminal action, existing legislation on fluoridation notwithstanding. Reference to a poison in the Poisons Act includes substances containing that poison. Fluoridation, the Green Party believes, is consequently in violation of ss 23 and 24 of the Offences Against the Persons Act 1861, which forbids the administration of any poisonous or noxious substance.

Comment: See our report on Flouride.

India Asks U.S. To Extradite Former Union Carbide Chairman

WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2003 (ENS)

The International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal (ICJB) and survivors organizations have prompted the Indian government to serve a longstanding notice to the U.S. government to extradite former Union Carbide Chairman Warren Anderson.

Anderson is wanted in the Bhopal Court for his primary role in the 1984 gas disaster in Bhopal that has claimed more than 20,000 lives to date.

[...] During the early hours of December 3, 1984, methyl isocyanate gas leaked from a storage tank at a Union Carbide pesticide manufacturing facility in Bhopal. As it escaped, the gas moved across adjacent communities killing thousands of people and injuring many thousands more. According to the Indian government, some 3,800 people died, but others estimate that as many as 8,000 people were killed by the gas.

Billed as the world's worst industrial disaster, the Bhopal tragedy injured 500,000 people...

Critics Warn of Mercury in Clear Skies

WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2003 (ENS)

Some 138 members of Congress and more than 100 physician, health, environmental and consumer groups have formally asked President George W. Bush to tighten mercury restrictions within his air pollution plan, known as "Clear Skies."...

The primary health risk from mercury emerges when airborne mercury falls into surface waters where it can accumulate in streams and oceans. Bacteria in the water transform mercury into methylmercury, which fish absorb when they eat aquatic organisms and humans absorb when they eat fish.

Scientists have shown that methylmercury can cause brain and nerve damage and studies indicate children and women of childbearing age are at a disproportionate risk. [...]

Energy Department's Reclassification of Nuclear Waste Illegal

WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2003 (ENS)

A federal district court judge ruled last week that the Department of Energy violated the law when it granted itself the authority to reclassify high-level nuclear waste so that it could abandon it at three nuclear weapons facilities...

"It is stunning that the Energy Department was trying to cut corners when dealing with a substance as dangerous as high-level nuclear waste," Fettus said. "It was prepared to create 'national sacrifice zones' at three sites, which would have posed a long term threat to public health." [...]

Comment: Your government loves you and would NEVER do anything to harm you, really. Don't go here

Court Rejects Cheney Request to Throw Out Energy Lawsuit

WASHINGTON, DC, July 8, 2003 (ENS)

Vice President Dick Cheney must respond to discovery requests by plaintiffs in a lawsuit that aims to determine the role and influence of the energy industry in a Bush administration energy task force, according to a ruling today by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit...

In affirming the lower court's ruling, the Appeals Court ruled that the Bush administration was asking it to transform "executive privilege from a doctrine designed to protect presidential communications into virtual immunity from suit."

"The court has affirmed that the vice president is not above the law," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "This ruling is a legal blow to the Bush administration's arrogant view of executive branch power. We look forward to finally gaining access to the inner workings of the energy task force.".

[...] Today's ruling stated that "focused" discovery can proceed into whether non-federal employees participated in the energy task force, as alleged by Judicial Watch.

Cheney Task Force Loses Place To Hide

Published on Wednesday, July 9, 2003 by Forbes Magazine
by Dan Ackman

NEW YORK - In the battle over the records of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, the Bush Administration has been trying every defense except one: executive privilege. But it has been dancing around it. Yesterday, the administration lost a preliminary battle to keep task force records secret, though the court invited the vice president to test the one privilege he has refused to invoke...

GM crops a waste of time, No 10 study will tell Blair

By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent

The Prime Minister will be told tomorrow that there is no economic argument to support commercial growing of genetically modified crops in Britain.

The conclusion of a Downing Street study, one of three government investigations into GM crops and food, is a serious blow to Tony Blair and Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary. [...]

Growing divide on GM food

Stathi Paxinos
July 10 2003

Jim Peacock has spent years trying to defeat the spectre of genetically modified products as "Frankenstein food"...

"This year there was 53 million hectares of transgenic crops around the world. Now if you work out how many meals that leads to that people ate with transgenic food - it's billions and it didn't hurt anybody," Dr Peacock said.

He said the potential improvements to people's health far exceeded the risks, which he insisted were minimal, although Dr Peacock conceded there had been examples where assurances that any product was safe proved incorrect. "You can always make a mistake in anything. (But) everything that we know about this science and technology suggests that that's not the case."...

Bob Phelps, director of the GeneEthics Network, said science should focus on overcoming contemporary environmental problems devastating many farming regions.

He said GM technology was "just a waste of research and development resources".

"They can talk about more productive, drought tolerant, salt resistant, better nutrition, healthier (crops) blah, blah, blah . . ." Mr Phelps said. "Show us the evidence." [...]

" What are GM Crops?" offers a graphics-based explanation of what GM food is basically about ...

A savaging for MSNBC & fired host

July 9, 2003

Ooh, it is so hard to decide who wins this week's Heinous Hypocrite Award!

Should it go to talk show host Michael Savage, the grandson of immigrants who now wants to close America's borders, lest "turd world" newcomers start "defecating" on our country? Or to the MSNBC honchos who had hired Savage, pretending to believe he wasn't the immigrant-baiting, gay-bashing, women-hating, racist nut they knew him to be? [...]

Body of Disabled N.Y. Girl Found in Trash

Posted on Wed, Jul. 09, 2003
Associated Press

NEW YORK - The body of a severely disabled 9-year-old girl was found dumped in the garbage Wednesday after her foster mother told police the child died in her care.

An autopsy was being conducted to determine the cause of death for Stephanie Ramos. Police said she was physically underdeveloped, weighed only 28 pounds, and could not see, speak or walk.

Her foster mother originally reported Stephanie missing on Tuesday, but changed her account after being questioned, police spokesman Sgt. Michael Wysokowski said.

The woman said she panicked after Stephanie died, then put the body in a black plastic bag and dumped it, investigators said. Police found the body at a collection site after tracking trucks that had removed the neighborhood's garbage. [...]

Harry Potter fan's magic attempt sets house ablaze

Reuters
Posted July 9 2003, 1:53 PM EDT

MADRID - A woman set her Madrid home on fire Wednesday as she cooked up a potion in an attempt to imitate the fictional wizard Harry Potter, emergency services said.

The 21-year-old was rescued by firemen and treated for minor injuries, but half her home was destroyed...

For want of more magical ingredients, the woman cooked up a potion of water, oil, alcohol and toothpaste, local media reported. It was unclear what spell she was trying to weave.

Magnitude 2.9 tremor hits central Missouri; no damage reported

HERMANN (AP)--An earthquake with an estimated magnitude of 2.9 shook parts of central Missouri early Tuesday, but no damage was reported.

The earthquake occurred at 12:55 a.m. and was centered 20 miles northeast of Rolla, said John Minch of the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo.

Minch said the quake could be felt in Franklin, Crawford and Gasconade counties, but sheriff's deputies reported no damage.
Minch said damage is unlikely from an earthquake of less than 4.0 magnitude.

Much of Missouri is in the New Madrid Seismic Zone, where earthquake scientists say some of the largest quakes ever in North America struck during 1811 and 1812

Pictionary led to convict's rage and hostage-taking: report
 
Chad Skelton
Vancouver Sun

After an prisoner took a therapist hostage last year at a corrections psychiatric centre in Abbotsford, investigators tried to determine what could have set him off on such a violent rage.

Their conclusion: Pictionary.

"Prior to the incident ... prisoners were playing Pictionary," says the internal report, obtained by The Vancouver Sun. "[The prisoner] was one of the first persons to draw a picture; it was 'toilet paper.' The other participants laughed at his picture leading him to withdraw and become less communicative within the group."

Comment: Psychopaths hate to be laughed at, even from such a small slight. Which is why we often make fun of George Bush on the Signs Page. It's not particularly difficult to do, really. All that is needed is to allow the man to speak for himself:

It's been raining, so she needs to sweep the porch, because the President of China is coming tomorrow.
-- explaining Laura Bush's absence to an audience in Charlotte, NC, October 24, 2002. Asked the next day if she appreciated the remark, Mrs. Bush shook her head and mouthed, "No."

We need an energy bill that encourages consumption.
-- Trenton, NJ, September 23, 2002

You see, the President is -- can still learn.
-- First African Methodist Episcopal Renaissance Center, Los Angeles, California, April 29, 2002

I want to go back to Washington. There is strong advice that I not, primarily from the vice president.
-- reported in Newsweek (International edition) December 3, 2001

A vampire is a -- a -- cell deal you can plug in the wall to charge your cell phone.
-- Denver, CO, August 14, 2001

Family Of Dead Teen Says Police Didn't Listen

DENVER -- The fatal shooting of a mentally disabled teen over the weekend has stirred many questions, both from his family and the Denver police chief.

Childs, a 15-year-old student with a mental disability, was shot and killed while standing in the doorway of his family home because he had refused to drop the kitchen knife he was holding. [...]

This is not the first time Turney has been under review for his actions. Turney and another officer shot and killed a black, hearing-impaired, 18-year-old in that same neighborhood last January. [...]

Sun's Output Increasing in Possible Trend Fueling Global Warming

By Robert Roy Britt
Senior Science Writer

20 March 2003 In what could be the simplest explanation for one component of global warming, a new study shows the Sun's radiation has increased by .05 percent per decade since the late 1970s.

The increase would only be significant to Earth's climate if it has been going on for a century or more, said study leader Richard Willson, a Columbia University researcher also affiliated with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The Sun's increasing output has only been monitored with precision since satellite technology allowed necessary observations. Willson is not sure if the trend extends further back in time, but other studies suggest it does. [...]

Rocket Telescope Gets Closest Look at the Sun

Scientists got their closest-ever ultraviolet look at the Sun from space, thanks to a telescope and camera launched aboard a sounding rocket. The images revealed an unexpectedly high level of activity in a lower layer of the Sun's atmosphere (chromosphere).

The pictures will help researchers answer one of their most burning questions about how the Sun works: how its outer atmosphere (corona) heats up to over one million degrees Celsius (1.8 million Fahrenheit), 100 times hotter than the chromosphere. [...]

Child Prodigy May Become Economist at 15

Couple Says Cruise Line Held Them Captive

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A married couple sued Norwegian Cruise Lines alleging they were held captive on one of its luxury ships in Hawaii because the wife was doing work for a law firm suing the company. [...]

Lawyer Charged with Mailing Deadly Snake

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) - An Arkansas lawyer and his son have been charged with using the U.S. Postal Service to send a man "nonmailable matter" in the form of a deadly poisonous copperhead snake, federal prosecutors say.

A Traveler's Nightmare

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - It's every air traveler's secret fear: minutes from landing, you suddenly realize you're on the wrong plane and are about to end up thousands of miles from your intended destination.

Beyond Stonehenge: British sites hold mysteries

By DON MELVIN
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[...]When most people consider prehistoric sites in Britain, their thoughts turn to Stonehenge, the circle of stone megaliths so massive it boggles the mind to imagine how ancient people could have moved them into place, let alone calculated how to align them with the summer solstice.

But there is more here than just Stonehenge. Scientists know of hundreds of henges --- circular enclosures surrounded by banks and ditches --- in Britain. [...]

On sky patrol with the ying saucer squad

The evidence for extraterrestrial life continues to pile up

Toby Manhire
The Guardian

If you need convincing the truth is out there, what better authority than the British constabulary? In UFO Magazine (July), Gary Heseltine, detective constable No 1877 of the British transport police, presented the results of a year's work compiling police officers' observations of unidentified flying objects.

"The last 12 months have literally flown by," recounted DC Heseltine. But his feet were firmly on the ground as he presented a database bulging with encounters of the first, second and third kind - a total of 84 incidents, spanning the period from 1950 to 2002, involving more than 200 police officers. [...]

FIRST MOBILE UFO MUSEUM COMES TO IZMIR

The first mobile UFO museum of the world has come to Izmir as part of a tour including 55 provinces and districts throughout Turkey. The museum was established by the Sirius UFO Space Sciences Research Center.

Cropping up everywhere

By Tiffany Sakato

Thanks to the eyes of a local pilot, Vacaville can now claim its own crop circle phenomenon.

Unlike the smoother finish of two wheat field circle designs discovered last week in Fairfield, the circles discovered in a Vacaville corn field on Sunday look more like bald patches on a mangy dog. [...]

Wounded dog limps into hospital to wait for help

The Associated Press

(7/09/03 - BECKLEY, WV) —It was canine intuition when an injured black Labrador retriever did a doggone good job of getting medical attention.

The dog, apparently struck by a car on July 4, found his way to Beckley Appalachian Regional Hospital, hobbled through the sliding glass doors and waited for assistance in the hallway.

"It's the darndest thing," said Ted Weigel, marketing director at Beckley. "The dog limped in and laid down where people could see it. It seemed to know exactly where to go for help."

Hospital workers gave the dog water, called a veterinarian and offered to pay the bill. [...]

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