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"You get America out of Iraq and
Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism."
- Cindy Sheehan
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P I C T U R E
O F T H E D A Y
Copyright 2005 Pierre-Paul Feyte
Oil
dips as Rita shifts path
Prices fall amid signs storm may avoid Houston refining
hub; 30% of Gulf refining capacity off-line. |
CNN
September 23, 2005: 6:18 AM EDT |
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Oil fell below $66 a barrel and
gasoline prices slid Friday as Hurricane Rita lost
some intensity, while its direction may avert a direct
hit on the heart of the Texas refining hub near Houston.
But with almost 30 percent of U.S. refining capacity
shut down across the Gulf Coast and gasoline inventories
already running low, many dealers took a cautious
approach, waiting to see whether Rita wreaks as
much havoc as last month's Katrina.
U.S. light crude was down 86 cents to $65.64 a
barrel, extending overnight losses of 30 cents.
London Brent crude fell 89 cents to $63.71 a barrel.
The storm, still a Category 4 and equivalent
in ferocity to Hurricane Katrina, is expected
to hit by Saturday the upper Texas and southwest
Louisiana coast, just to the east of main production
and population centers in Galveston, Houston and
Corpus Christi.
Estimated windspeeds have eased to 140 miles
per hour from 175 mph over the past day.
"The market is now taking a pause to assess
just what Rita will do," said Jarrod Kerr,
economist at JP Morgan in Sydney. "It won't
fully digest Rita until Monday, although the forecasts
are looking a little better than yesterday at present.
"There's plenty of oil out
there drums-wise, the problem remains converting
that into product, with more damage no doubt translating
into a negative for the global consumer," he
added.
Gasoline futures which surged Thursday, led the
early retreat, falling 6.93 cents to $2.0701 a
gallon. Heating oil was off 4.72cents to $1.9986
a gallon.
Oil traders said the upside for prices was limited
by the possibility that members of the International
Energy Agency (IEA) could extend their post-Katrina
emergency oil reserve release, which includes refined
fuels such as gasoline and diesel.
The Department of Energy is ready
to loan oil from its Strategic Petroleum
Reserve (SPR) as it did after Katrina, but it
has little resource to deal with a shortfall
in refined products.
"If there is a supply disruption, which there
is a good chance there will be, they may not hesitate
to release the SPR and we already have crude oil
and products coming from Europe after Katrina," said
John Brady, broker at ABN Amro in New York.
Production halt
In addition to four refineries still out of action
after Katrina, 13 Texan and two Louisiana plants
have been closed
as a precaution against Rita. Four others have
reduced operations.
Exxon Mobil Corp. announced the closure of the
country's largest refinery at Baytown, Texas and
its Beaumont facility, the two disabling more than
900,000 barrels per day (bpd) alone.
Rita's onslaught has brought to a halt recovery
efforts after Katrina churned through the Gulf
of Mexico in late August, damaging oil and gas
platforms, flooding the Louisiana refining center
and sending crude prices to a record $70.85 a barrel.
Almost 92 percent of offshore
oil output, or 1.379 million bpd, is out of action
in the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. Minerals Management
Service said. Almost 66 percent of gas output,
or 6.594 billion cubic feet is also down.
But with U.S. crude supplies almost 12 percent
above last year's levels, most concern is focused
on sky-high gasoline prices and heating oil as
the U.S. winter approaches.
Analysts warned that any damage to natural gas
facilities could boost prices because reduced supplies
would be far more difficult to replace than lost
crude and could spur additional demand for heating
oil and utility fuel oil.
The threat of further supply
outages also hung over Nigeria, where more than
100 armed militants stormed an oil platform on
Thursday, shutting down only a small volume of
output but raising the specter of further disruptions
from local groups. |
The number of severe hurricanes
has doubled worldwide even though the total number
of hurricanes has dropped over the last 35 years,
a new study finds.
The increase in major storms like Katrina coincides
with a global increase of sea surface temperatures,
which scientists say is an effect of global warming.
The possible relationship between global warming
and hurricane strength has been a topic of controversy
for years.
The new study supports another one released in
July, in which climatologist Kerry Emanuel of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology showed
for the first time that major storms in both
the Atlantic and the Pacific since the 1970s have
increased in duration and intensity by about 50
percent.
The new reearch finds that total number of hurricanes
worldwide – except for in the North Atlantic – decreased
during during the period from 1970 to 2004 compared
to years prior.
Yet in the same period, the global number of intense Category
4 and 5 hurricanes has nearly doubled in
number, jumping from 50 per five years during
the 1970's to 90 per five years in the last decade.
This increase is most evident in the North Atlantic
basin, where from 1975 to 1989 there were 16 such
hurricanes, but from 1990-2004 there were 25, a
56 percent increase.
Warmer seas
Using satellite data, the
scientists link the increase in major storms
to rising sea surface temperatures, which they
believe have been influenced by global warming. [...] |
Hurricanes can
trigger swarms of weak earthquakes and even set
the Earth vibrating, according to the first study
of such effects.
When Hurricane Charley slammed
into Florida in August 2004, physicist Randall
Peters of Mercer University in Macon, Georgia,
had a seismometer ready to monitor any vibrations
in the Earth's crust. He did so for over 36 hours
as Charley travelled briefly over Florida, then
slid back out into the Atlantic.
As the hurricane reached land, the
seismometer recorded a series of "micro-tremors" from
the Earth's crust. This happened again as the storm
moved back out to sea. Then, as Charley grazed
the continental shelf on its way out, it caused
a sharp seismic spike. "I suspect the storm
triggered a subterranean landslide," says
Peters.
More surprisingly,
the storm also caused the Earth to vibrate. The planet's surface
in the vicinity of the hurricane started moving
up and down at several frequencies ranging from
0.9 to 3 millihertz. Such
low-frequency vibrations have been detected following
large earthquakes,
but this is the first time a storm has been found
to be the cause. |
HOUSTON, Texas (AP) -- Wilma Skinner would like
to scream at the officials of this city. If only
they would pick up their phones.
"I done called for a shelter, I done called
for help. There ain't none. No one answers," she
said, standing in blistering heat outside a check-cashing
store that had just run out of its main commodity. "Everyone
just says, 'Get out, get out.' I've got no way
of getting out. And now I've got no money."
With Hurricane Rita breathing down Houston's neck,
those with cars were stuck in gridlock trying to
get out. Those like Skinner -- poor, and with a
broken-down car -- were simply stuck and fuming
at being abandoned, they say.
"All the banks are closed, and I just got
off work," said Thomas Visor, holding his
sweaty paycheck as he, too, tried to get inside
the store, where more than 100 people, all
of them black or Hispanic, fretted in line. "This
is crazy. How are you supposed to evacuate a hurricane
if you don't have money? Answer me that?"
Some of those who did have money, and did try
to get out, didn't get very far.
Judie Anderson of La Porte, Texas, covered just
45 miles in 12 hours. She had been on the road
since 10 p.m. Wednesday, headed toward Oklahoma,
which by Thursday was still very far away.
"This is the worst
planning I've ever seen," she said. "They
say, 'We've learned a lot from Hurricane Katrina.'
Well, you couldn't prove it by me." [...] |
HOUSTON, Texas -- A bus caught
fire and exploded early Friday on a crowded Texas
interstate, killing as many as 24 people who were
fleeing ahead of Hurricane Rita.
The bus, carrying about 45 elderly evacuees,
burst into flames on Interstate 45 south of Dallas.
It pulled over and people were getting off when
a series of explosions ripped through the bus.
Dallas County Sheriff's Sgt. Don Peritz said 14
or 15 people got off the bus and said as many as
24 people may have died.
Peritz said the fire was believed to have started
in the bus's brake system and may have caused oxygen
canisters on the bus to explode.
Authorities blocked all
lanes of the interstate, complicating the already
grueling exodus from the Texas coast. [...] |
A 64-year-old Alabamian frets
about frayed race relations. A Utah software programmer
ponders the slow government response to Hurricane
Katrina and decides he'll turn to his church first
in a disaster created by nature or terrorists.
A woman scraping by on disability pay in northern
Virginia puts her house on the market because
of surging post-storm gas and food prices. Cheaper
to live in Pennsylvania, she figures.
As the Gulf Coast braces for another monster storm,
a new Associated Press-Ipsos poll shows Katrina
prompted a rethinking of some signature issues
in American life - changing the way we view race
and our safety, how we spend our money, even where
we live.
The poll shows that issues swirling around Katrina
trump other national concerns.
Asked to rank eight topics
that should be priorities for President Bush
and Congress, respondents placed the economy,
gas prices and Iraq high.
But when Katrina recovery was added to the list,
it swamped everything else.
Like bands of the storm itself, Katrina's reach
in American life is vast: 1 in 3 Americans believes
the slow response will harm race relations. Two-thirds
say surging gas prices will cause hardship for
their families. Half say the same of higher food
prices.
In Las Cruces, N.M., Ariana Darley relies on carpools
to get to parenting classes, or to make doctor's
appointments with her 1-year-old son, Jesse. Before,
she chipped in $5 for gas. Now, she pays $10 to
$15.
"I didn't think it would affect me," she
says by telephone, with Jesse crying in the background. "But
it costs a lot of money now. I have to go places,
and now it adds up."
After a crisis with indisputable elements of race
and class - searing images of mostly poor, mostly
black New Orleans residents huddled on rooftops
or waiting in lines for buses - some Americans
worry about strains in the nation's social fabric.
[...]
The poll underscores the literal reach of Katrina
as well: 55 percent of Americans say evacuees from
Katrina have turned up in their cities or communities,
raising concerns about living conditions for the
refugees, vanishing jobs for locals and - among
1 in 4 respondents - increased crime.
Among respondents with incomes under $25,000 per
year, 56 percent were concerned about living conditions
for refugees in shelters; that was higher than
among those who make more money. And the poll indicates
people in the South, which has absorbed huge masses
of evacuees, are most concerned about the costs
to their local governments.
Ann McMullen, 52, of Killeen, Texas, who works
as a school administrator at Fort Hood, says she
worries about gang violence, simply because of
the prodigious numbers of people flowing into Texas
communities.
"They can't even locate the sex offenders," she
says. "And every population has gang members.
It's theft, it's murder, it's more chaotic crimes
in the community. Hopefully we'll be able to put
these people back to work."
The poll also exposes a divide among Americans
in how the government should respond when disasters
strike areas particularly prone to catastrophe
- landslides, earthquakes, hurricanes. Half
say the government should give people in those
zones money for recovery, but almost as many say
those people should live there at their own risk.
About 4 in 10 say the government should prohibit
people from building new homes in those endangered
areas in the first place. As McMullen puts it: "You're
asking for another disaster to happen."
Katrina has also raised grave doubts among Americans
about just who will protect them in the aftermath
of a natural disaster or a terrorist attack.
Only about a quarter of Americans believe the
federal government was as prepared as it should
have been to cope with a disaster of Katrina's
magnitude. Only slightly more than half, 54 percent,
are confident in the federal government's ability
to handle a future major disaster. [...]
For Pam Koren, the storm's impact has been more
immediate - and more drastic.
Suffering from low blood sugar, spasms of the
esophagus and nerve damage, she exists now on disability
pay and contributions from her daughter, who attends
college and works as an assistant youth minister.
With gas and food prices rising after the storm,
she says, she was forced to put her house in Burke,
Va., on the market. She is considering east-central
Pennsylvania, and a less expensive home.
"I'm a wreck because I'm not sure I'm making
the right decision," she says. "I didn't
want to have to do this, but things have become
so tight I have not had a choice. I did not expect
things were going to get this bad."
The poll of 1,000 adults conducted by Ipsos, an
international polling company, had a margin of
potential sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage
points. |
Police have used a Taser gun
to arrest a man under the Terrorism Act and carried
out a controlled explosion on a suspect package
at Manchester Airport.
Officers were called at about 0830 BST and
arrested the man after a struggle on the apron,
where planes are parked.
The BBC understands a man had been seen with
a package underneath a plane.
Parts of terminals one and two were evacuated
and closed, but the airport later reopened and
advised passengers to report as normal.
Car recovered
The arrested man, who
is of Asian appearance and is understood
to speak little English, was taken to a police
station in Greater Manchester.
Army bomb disposal units carried out a controlled
explosion on the package, reportedly a briefcase
or suitcase, with a 600 metre police cordon set
up around the area.
BBC correspondent Kevin Bocquet watched the controlled
explosion from the 11th floor of the airport's
car park.
He said: "I could see the suspect suitcase
- it was on the middle of a taxi-way surrounded
by red cones, on a very, very large area of tarmac.
The nearest plane was probably a good 60 or 70
yards away.
"They moved one of those
remote-controlled devices on top of this suspect
suitcase, and then there was a very minor explosion
- it was bit like a damp firework going off.
"Then the remote-controlled device was moved
to one side.
"I saw a man in army uniform
- he went out to the suspect suitcase, he bent
down, he examined it and then he came back into
the terminal building. He didn't appear to be in
any particular hurry," he said.
"It looked to me as though
it was not something they were particularly concerned
about at that stage." |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
Republican chairman of the Senate judiciary committee
accused the Pentagon on Wednesday of stonewalling
an inquiry into claims that the U.S. military
identified four September 11 hijackers more than
a year before the 2001 attacks.
The Defense Department barred
several witnesses from testifying at a judiciary
committee hearing and instead sent a top-level
official who could provide little information
on al Qaeda-related intelligence uncovered by
a secret military team code-named Able Danger.
"That looks to me like it may be obstruction
of the committee's activities, something we will
have to determine," said the panel's chairman,
Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
Specter also complained that
the Pentagon delivered hundreds of pages of documents
related to Able Danger late on the eve of the hearing,
giving his committee staff no time to review the
material.
"The American people
are entitled to some answers," Specter
said. "It is not a matter of attaching blame.
It is a matter of correcting errors so that we
don't have a repetition of 9/11."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
said the Pentagon considered Able Danger to be
a classified matter and declined to participate
when the judiciary committee chose to hold an open
hearing.
"We have to obey the laws with respect to
security classifications," Rumsfeld told reporters.
Witnesses barred from testifying included military
intelligence officers and analysts involved in
Able Danger, a now defunct operation that used
powerful computers to sift through public data
in search of intelligence clues.
People involved with the operation have said that
Able Danger identified September 11 ringleader
Mohamed Atta and three other hijackers as being
members of an al Qaeda cell in the early months
of 2000.
A Pentagon review of
the operation turned up no documents to support
the assertion that Able Danger had been able to
identify Atta as an al Qaeda member.
But one official, Army Lt. Col.
Anthony Shaffer, has also said publicly that Able
Danger members tried to pass the information along
to the FBI three times in September 2000 but were
forced by Pentagon lawyers to cancel the meetings. |
U.S. immigration officials
refused Tuesday to allow Robert Fisk, longtime
Middle East correspondent for the London newspaper,
The Independent, to board a plane from Toronto
to Denver. Fisk was on his way to Santa Fe for
a sold-out appearance in the Lannan Foundation’s
readings-and-conversations series Wednesday night.
According to Christie Mazuera Davis, a Lannan program
officer, Fisk was told that his papers were not in
order.
Davis made last-minute arrangements Wednesday for
Amy Goodman, host of Pacifica Radio’s daily
news show, Democracy Now!, to interview Fisk via
satellite from a television station in Toronto. He
appeared on a large screen onstage at the Lensic
Performing Arts Center.
The controversial British journalist, who is based
in Beirut, filed many eyewitness reports on the U.S.
invasion of Iraq and criticized Western reporters
for “hotel journalism ,” a phrase he
coined to describe correspondents who covered the
war from heavily fortified hotel suites and offices. |
Facing criticism both inside
his agency and from Capitol Hill for a lack of
vision and leadership, CIA Director Porter J. Goss
yesterday outlined his plans for expanding CIA's
spying and analytical operations overseas while
cutting back on the bureaucracy at headquarters.
In an unusual town hall meeting for his staff,
Goss said he is going to send more case officers
and analysts abroad and put "a refreshed
emphasis on the CIA as a global agency," according
to a prepared text of his remarks. That would
mean, he said, locating agency personnel not
only "in places that [policymakers] need
us to be today but where they may need us to
be tomorrow." [...] |
A recent trip to the United States – after
a three-year absence – showed
me how far the country and its people have deteriorated
in a short period of time. Americans are bankrupt.
They are bankrupt at every possible level: spiritually,
morally, educationally. The country's economy
has deteriorated to the level of a Philippines
or a Thailand (and I mean no disrespect to the
Philippines or Thailand – I
love those places).
Human-to-human communication in the
United States has also faltered greatly. People
who would rank as the vilest of trolls on any Internet
chat room are now on the air as TV and radio hosts,
spewing forth hatred and even barefaced lies. These
talking heads do this, of course, to make money,
but the effect it has on the average listener is
nothing short of devastating. It is devastating
to a population not educated to think analytically;
it is devastating to a people who – above
all – need to open up communication with
each other, not close it.
Intelligent discussion on American
TV and radio has now taken a back seat to a sort
of childish one-upmanship. It's
no longer a question of who can thrust and parry
their opponent into a corner through the use of
beautiful English phrasing and logic; it's now
a question of who can belittle the other with snappy
(but rude) one-liners. This has affected
the mainstream population in its daily affairs,
in that the ordinary people come to believe that
this is the way to win an argument. Substance
and logic all take a back seat to name-calling.
The worst culprits
are the talk radio show hosts. Average
America doesn't know what is involved in becoming
a talk show host, but trust me, just about all
of these people are no more or less intelligent
than you or I. Of course, they keep up on current
events better than you or I could: It's their
job. While we are putting in a good eight or
ten hours of work each day, these guys are brushing
up on current affairs. As a result, it is very
difficult to challenge and defeat them in an
on-air discussion – especially when they
have control of what goes on air. So to call
up a talk show host and try to argue a point
and win is akin to pushing water up a hill: It
can't be done. I know. I worked as a talk show
host for many years. [...]
Thus, in modern America, talk show
radio and TV is not about debating the issues of
the day. It is a forum for a megalomaniac to make
himself or herself look better to an audience that
doesn't know any better, and to belittle opponents
in front of other people. This never happens in
Japan. It doesn't happen because the structure
of the Japanese language does not lend itself well
to interruption when someone is speaking, and also
because the Japanese are polite. But I suspect
that it never happens in any other country excepting
the United States.
This childish behavior is especially
damaging to the psyche of the American male – although
women seem to be affected by it also (witness so-called "soccer
moms"). It seems that winning is everything.
Whatever happened to the saying, "It's not
whether you win or lose, but how you play the game"?
I know that this phrase does not apply to today's
American male. The verbal one-upmanship is insidious
as it begins to creep into other areas of the American
psyche. It becomes contagious and is damaging to
civil discourse and civil behavior all around.
Infantile machismo is a definitive
trait of today's American. During my recent visit
I witnessed a TV commercial for some sports car.
The sales point of the commercial boiled down to
this: If you buy this car, then that tells your
friends, 'I'm just a little better than you are.'
How childish American men have become. What kind
of man needs to show off his car, and to feel superior
to his friends?
Imagine a guy with an average vocabulary
and no gift for repartee. What does he do when
he has been belittled in public for no real reason?
He probably holds it in, until one day when he
raises his fists.
In Japan, I have never seen a sports
game – especially so-called "pick-up
games" – break down into fisticuffs.
Have I seen this in America? Have you folks in
America seen this? Yes, far too many times (do
I even need to ask?). The last time I witnessed
it was in California, when a so-called friendly
basketball game turned into a hockey game and a
bunch of guys started punching it out over some
foul. You would have thought their lives depended
on the outcome of that game. It was embarrassing.
I was out on the court to get some exercise. I
didn't care if we won or lost. I certainly wasn't
interested in getting hurt, or injured, or hit.
I walked off.
Americans today have become some
of the most childish, self-centered adults I have
ever seen.
A recent trip to Crawford, to visit
Camp Casey before it really got into full swing,
allowed me to see for myself another slice of American
life. I had brought my video camera and eight hours
of tape. I was going to make a documentary to try
to explain to the Japanese public what was going
on there in Texas. (Japanese
news will rarely show anything critical of a foreign
government – especially the government of
the United States). I wanted to capture
the sights and sounds; the atmosphere of a real
American-style anti-war demonstration. I had really
hoped that I could make a documentary that would
show the Japanese just what the average American
is thinking.
When I came back to Japan, I transferred
the video tapes to the editing machine and I watched
in increasing despair. I'm sure I can get the average
Japanese to understand what Americans are all about
and what they are thinking. I'm sure that if I
ever do finish this documentary (and I'm wondering
now if I want to), the Japanese will understand
more than they want to understand about America.
They will watch it and think: "Americans have
gone completely nuts." I would
have to agree.
Cindy Sheehan and her movement are
quite understandable. Cindy seems like a level-headed
woman with plenty of common sense. It's the others
who have jumped on the bandwagon who seem crazy.
Not all of them, of course, but it did seem a bit
like a circus full of freaks. And those freaks
were fully represented on both sides of the fence.
Even worse
than (some of) the anti-war group were the pro-war
people – they seemed like
they were really crazy. (I
only saw six at most – even
though the next day's newspaper reported 250.) I
talked to one woman who claimed to have "just
arrived from Baghdad." She was lying. I
could pick that out in a second of talking to
her. Her English level was that of someone who
had been in the United States for ten years.
Yet there she was, claiming to have "just
arrived." (Well, okay, I
suppose everything is relative, especially in
a country where it is now acceptable to out-and-out
lie to get what you want.) [...]
The entire scene, from the anti-war
group to the pro-war group to George W. Bush taking
a helicopter to avoid those groups to visit a little
league game, seemed like a Lewis
Carroll story. And I was standing there watching
Alice, the Mad Hatter, the Red Queen (played by
George) and the rest of them scurrying about their
business but actually going nowhere.
On top of all that, throw in the
local TV news reporters with their perfect teeth,
slicked-back blonde hair and make-up caked on thick
to cover their wrinkles, who think they are all
hot stuff because they report for some local in-the-sticks
TV station, and you have a real life horror-show
on the Comedy Channel.
But the real-life horrors in today's
America don't end there. Today's American is poor,
both monetarily and in common sense. In many ways,
these two are related. The Japanese save money.
Americans don't. Of course it is common sense to
save money. The Japanese save for all the right
reasons, but they also save money for special reasons.
It's those special, just-in-case reasons for which
the Japanese would always have a nest egg saved.
When I went to the United States
this time, I visited a good friend. I'd consider
him one of my best friends. I am glad I could visit
his place because then I could truly see for myself
just how far America has gone downhill. Even though
he had little, he was gracious enough to let me
stay with him. I was thankful for this as, without
his help, I had no way to get around and knew no
one else who could help me to do so. But within
two minutes of entering his abode, I could see
just how poor Middle America has become.
My friend had no money – none.
He asked me for twenty dollars for gas. I gave
him a hundred. [...]
In Japan, a guest is a guest. A guest
in your home – especially one from far away – is
to be treated with reverence. It would be completely
unthinkable to ask a guest for money (although
it is also common sense, in Japan, for the guest
to offer to pay – an offer which will certainly
be refused).
I know it used to be this way in
America. In Japan, honor and respect are much more
valuable than money. If you had a guest come to
stay in your house in Japan and you had no money,
you would borrow money – you
would do something – in order to treat your
guest with the utmost respect. It is absolutely
unheard of to ask a guest for money.
It reminds me of that Chevy Chase
movie Vegas
Vacation where he and his family visit his
wife's broke family and the brother-in-law says
to Chevy, "Would you like a cold one?"
Chevy answers, "Sure!"
To which the brother-in-law replies, "Me
too. Got any money?"
That was a joke
in a movie released in 1997. It's not a joke any
more in today's America.
From what I've seen, the average
30-year-old college-educated guy in America today
is getting paid less than I was paid in 1975 as
a part-time commission salesman at Sears Roebuck
department store. I have friends who tell me that
they are getting six or eight dollars an hour right
now. At 40 hours a week, that works out to about
$320, less taxes. In 1975 I was getting paid over
$1,000 per month after taxes – and those
were 1975 dollars. I'm no economist, but it sure
comes as no surprise that today's young American
has no money left to save after receiving this
paltry income.
When my friend took me around, driving
through the city and out to Camp Casey, we stopped
at a gasoline stand. Of course I volunteered to
pay. He was complaining about the sudden rise in
the price of gasoline. Here was where I witnessed
just another small item that made me sure that
America is headed for third world status, if it
is not already there. He was complaining about
gasoline at $3 a gallon. I hear that in Atlanta,
after Hurricane Katrina, it hit $6 a gallon.
I shook my
head and thought, When are these crazy people
going to wake up? Apparently it's good that the
USA invaded Iraq to secure oil. Japan
has no natural resources. America does. America
even has its own oil. Guess what? About seven
years ago, the price for a liter of gasoline
in Japan was 100 yen (3.78 liters per gallon).
The price today is about 125 yen per liter. That
means today's price for a gallon of gasoline
in Japan, a nation that produces no oil, is about
$4.58 – an increase of 25% over the last
seven years. Now, it doesn't take much of a math
whiz to figure out that if the prices at the
pumps in America – a nation that produces
oil – have doubled in the last few years,
there's something strange going on. How is it
possible that Japan's gasoline prices have just
barely inched up over these past few years, at
about 3% per year, while USA prices have doubled
or more?
Is it just the Iraq
war? Or is it the decline of the dollar? Probably
a bit of both, but you can definitely be sure of
one thing, it is the US government taking advantage
of you – regardless of whether you are a
Democrat or Republican. And the average American
still cheers on the federal monster.
After filling up, we headed back
onto the freeway. I looked at the scenery and had
a feeling of déjà vu. I thought to
myself, Hey! I've seen this before. Now where did
I see it? Then it came back to me: The road leading
to Crawford looked an awful lot like the road leading
from Phuket International Airport towards Patong
Beach – a nice place, but definitely not
a road leading through a world power.
Every once in a while we would pass
through some small town – the buildings decayed
and shuttered, a shadow of what it once was. And
besides the rundown buildings and the empty streets,
there was the filth. It was everywhere – everything
seemed broken down. Public restrooms reeked as
if they'd never been cleaned. Every once in a while
I would see a solitary homeless figure – dazed
and disheveled – walking by the side of the
road. It looked just like some third world nation.
You'd never see such poverty in Japan. But that's
today's United States.
Americans are always
boasting about how they are the richest and the
freest, etc., etc. But from the eyes of this American
son, America's twilight has fallen. It is getting
dark. I cannot see any way out of the disaster
you folks are headed for. The problems are too
numerous, the needed debate unheard, and the psyche
already destroyed.
Mike (in Tokyo) Rogers [send
him mail] was born and raised in the USA
and moved to Japan in 1984. He has the distinction
of being fired from every FM radio station
in Tokyo – one of them three times. His
first book, Schizophrenic
in Japan, is now on sale. |
No man is above the law and no man is below
it; nor do we ask any man's permission when
we ask him to obey it. - Theodore Roosevelt
THE BRAVADO
Once again, a massive failure of leaderships has
been displayed in Washington. And, once again,
George Bush has escaped an independent inquiry
into his irresponsible actions. For the fourth
time in less than five years, the President of
the United States and his cohorts been placed above
the law. That, in itself, is a major American disaster.
When, if ever, could this have happened before?
When else could one administration have pulled
off four major scandals; four devastating, potentially
impeachable screw-ups, and never have to answer
for them? When else, in the United States of America,
could so many crimes of an elected president and
his cadre remain unexplained, unchallenged, and
unpunished? When? Probably never. When in history
have the media sat silent through criminal scandal
at highest levels of government?
We're not talking mistakes, here.
We're not talking poor judgment or failed policies.
We're not talking politics as usual, with its underhanded
array of pork and perks. But we are talking about
very serious violations of the public trust, and
very possibly the law, perpetrated by the elected
leader of this nation and his handlers.
Even more amazingly, we are talking about the
shameful reality that not a single one of these
offenses has been investigated by a truly independent,
non-political, neutral commission, armed with subpoena
powers and adequate funding, and answerable ONLY
to the people of the United States of America.
Not a single one.
In every one of the scandals in
question, calls for a nonpartisan, independent
commission were thwarted by the very people accused
of misdeeds and crimes. Something is really wrong
when an American president who is accused of misconduct
can determine who will delve into the facts behind
his own actions? Something also is really wrong
when incriminating evidence can be redacted and
withheld from the public by the very people incriminated
by that evidence.
Something is even more seriously wrong when cover
up after cover up goes unreported and unchallenged
by the same corporate media that spent eight years
in relentless pursuit of scandals related to Whitewater,
Travelgate, Filegate, Paula Jones and that awful
threat to national security, Monica Lewinsky.
Of course, the targets of the media, and ultimately
a Special Prosecutor, were Bill and Hillary Clinton,
not George W. Bush, and accountability was not
yet a dirty word. And of
course, in that far more innocent time, challenging
the president was not considered to be an act of
treason. Tragically, today, it is. [...]
The Karl Rove strategy to cover up the crimes
of this administration has been put into play with
the skill that only years of practice can hone.
And yet, the plan was so simple that even George
Bush has had no difficulty in carrying it out.
To this day, these two men and their cabal have
been able to avert a single authentic investigation
into their nefarious activities. They have managed
to put themselves above the law by following a
game plan that goes something like this:
First, claim to be concerned with uncovering the
truth. Repeat that claim over and over whenever
anyone asks, but do nothing at all for as long
as possible. Arrange for the media to corroborate
your abject dedication to a full and open investigation
of the facts. Make certain there is no independent
inquiry by any overambitious journalist.
Next, attack the integrity and character of anyone
who raises legitimate questions about anyone in
the White House. Have the media echo widely distributed
talking points that discredit anyone and everyone
who attempt to uncover the truth about the events
in question. Subtly suggest that the real responsibility
for any of the scandals belongs to Bill Clinton.
Third, agree to an inquiry by a committee or commission
whose members are appointed by the President, and
then limit its ability to investigate. Refuse to
surrender revealing documents to any investigation
and discredit any members of who ask pertinent
questions. Stonewall the investigation by refusing
adequate funding or any extension of time to continue
a probe. Refuse to allow WH aides to testify before
any group of inquiry. Have key members of the administration
refuse to testify under oath and insist that Dick
Cheney accompany the President to all hearings.
Fourth, delay the disclosure of any damaging findings
until after any important election. In addition,
declare all incriminating results in a final report
to be classified and have all harmful information
blackened out.
And finally, when all else fails, pass the buck.
Find someone willing to fall on his sword and take
the full blame for whatever went wrong so that
George Bush and his cabal appears to be totally
innocent of any wrongdoing. Rest
assured that many Americans will be comforted to
hear that the President of the United States did
not know, was not told, or had no possible knowledge
of anything that was going on around him. He is,
after all, above the law. [...]
The Attacks of 9/11:
- George Bush refused for FOURTEEN MONTHS
to allow any inquiry into the events leading
up to 9/11, the worst attack on American soil
in history.
- More than a year later, in November of 2002,
under pressure from victims' families, he relented
and allowed the formation of a 9/11 Commission,
naming Pentagon advisor Henry Kissinger as co-chair.
After one month, Kissinger resigned after strong
objections from the families of 9/11 victims.
- The Bush Administration granted the 9/11 Commission
only 3 million dollars to do its work. In contrast,
$50 million had been given to the commission
that investigated the Columbia space shuttle
crash.
- George Bush stonewalled the investigation
at every turn. For a detailed summary of the
obstacles the Commission was forced to overcome,
check out the information here.
In the end, the Kean Commission left a wide range
of vital questions unexplored and unanswered.
Requests to reopen the hearings to address the
many discrepancies and fallacies in the report
have gone unheeded.
- At the end of the day, none of the outstanding
questions about what the President knew and when
he knew it has been answered. To this day, George
Bush openly blames the FBI for the failures that
led to 9/11. He continues to deny the evidence
that has been uncovered and insists that no one
in the WH had any prior knowledge of warnings
about possible attacks. He is above the law.
The WMD claims against Iraq:
In January of 2004, former chief weapons inspector
David Kay called for an independent inquiry into
Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. In
response, the White House immediately turned aside
the calls from Kay and many Democrats, and refused
to allow an immediate outside investigation. In
February of that year, President Bush relented
and personally appointed people to serve on the
Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of
the US Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction. The
Commission was to issue two reports: the first
would reveal the role of the intelligence community
in the WMD claims. The second, to be issued AFTER
THE 2004 ELECTION, would look into whether Bush
and his aides overstated and misrepresented the
flawed intelligence they received from the intelligence
agencies. The second part of the investigation
was never even attempted. After the 2004 elections,
Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts
concluded that such an inquiry would be pointless.
The matter was dropped and no one in the Bush administration
has had to explain the repeated claims that Iraq's
WMD's were a sure thing, and that they posed a
serious threat to both Iraq's neighbors and to
the US. They are all above the law.
The Plame leak:
Bob Novak's article identifying Valerie Plame
as a CIA operative appeared in July of 2003. Novak
claimed that his sources for this information were
two senior Bush administration officials. Despite
knowing that a serious crime had originated from
inside the White House, George Bush did NOTHING
at all to investigate the leak. At the end of September,
2003, CIA Director George J. Tenet called on the
Justice Department to investigate the leak of one
of his operatives. Days later, the Justice Department,
led by John Ashcroft, a man close to the WH, opened
an investigation into the leak. At that time, President
Bush made the following statement to reporters:
"If there is a leak out of my administration,
I want to know who it is. And if the person has
violated the law, the person will be taken care
of..."
On December 30, 2003, five months after the Novak
article appeared, Attorney General John Ashcroft
recused himself from the leak investigation and
U.S. Attorney Patrick J. Fitzgerald took over the
probe. As honorable as Fitzgerald may be, he is
NOT an independent prosecutor. Rather, he is an
employee who reports only to the Justice Department
of this administration. In July of 2005, TWO YEARS
after the original leak, Karl Rove was named as
a source of Valerie Plame's identity by Time reporter
Matthew Cooper. To date, George Bush has done absolutely
nothing at about removing the criminals in his
own WH. The Fitzgerald investigation is winding
down, and in a few weeks we will see what we will
see. Don't hold your breath that justice will be
done. George Bush, Karl Rove, and all the rest
are above the law. On the other hand, without word
one from the media, Bush as continued to appoint
criminals to sensitive government positions. Do
a web search for the felons that Bush has appointed
to his government. Criminals are welcomed in the
Bush White House.
The Aftermath of Katrina:
- Everyone knows what happened, so it is unnecessary
to recap the events of the hurricane and its
aftermath. Suffice it to say that the Katrina
fiasco was a disastrous failure by people who
were entrusted with the job of planning and
carrying out major emergency relief efforts
wherever they occur.
- It was a disastrous failure by a president
who talked incessantly about security, but who
appointed totally inadequate and unqualified
cronies to head the agencies that failed the
nation in crucial emergency.
- Almost immediately, George Bush said that
he wanted to get to the bottom of what went wrong
with the response to Hurricane Katrina. Therefore,
he planned to personally oversee an investigation.
Did you get that? He planned to investigate himself!
- So, in case that didn't go over too well,
on September 17th the Republican leadership in
the Senate stepped to protect George Bush from
anyone who would question his shameful response
to the hurricane. Only days after the storm,
and in true lemming style, the GOP killed a proposal
for an independent investigation of what had
happened in New Orleans.
- Instead, GOP members of Congress organized
an inquiry committee without consulting a single
Democrat. This "impartial group" is
composed of senior members of Congress, with
Republicans in the majority. How comforting to
know that GOP loyalists plan to conduct a full
and unbiased investigation of George Bush, Michael
Brown and Michael Chertoff and their collective
failures after Katrina.. How comforting, indeed,
to know that - once again – there are those
who remain above the law.
THE LAST WORD
What's left to be said? Not very
much. George Bush has had a free pass to do as
he pleased for nearly five years now. He and his
henchmen have not been held accountable for any
crime against the people of this country or the
world. He is above the law.
George Bush and his entire
band of brigands have perfected their sting.
They use it because it works. They use it because
they can. They use it because we allow them to. George
Bush walks freely while so many of his victims
no longer can. After all he has done, George
Bush still can laugh up his sleeve at a nation
that is utterly powerless to stop him.
And that's because George W. Bush is a man above
the law.
EDITOR'S NOTE: While
criminals have occupied many a public office in
our nation, our media, in the past, have at least
tried to inform the public and expose the criminals.
The severity of the crimes being conducted by our
current administration combined with the level
of blatant deception by our media has created a
surreal disconnect between reality and publicly
perceived reality. While I have deep concerns about
the seemingly endless list of anti-American, anti-life,
anti-peace and anti-humanity acts by the Bush administration,
my focus remains on the people who are perpetuating
the false cover that distracts the people from
seeing the truth; thus permitting the crimes to
continue. These people are the members of the corporate
media and we can not forgive them for what they
have permitted and we must not permit them to continue
to provide cover for the criminals in charge of
our nation. |
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate
Judiciary Committee on Thursday approved John Roberts'
nomination as the next Supreme Court chief justice, virtually
assuring the conservative judge confirmation by
the Senate next week.
Three Democrats joined the committee's 10 majority
Republicans in a 13-5 vote to advance the nomination
to the full Senate.
Five Democrats -- Sens. Dianne Feinstein of California,
Joseph Biden of Delaware, Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts,
Charles Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin of
Illinois -- opposed Roberts.
At times, the arguments over whether Roberts is
an appropriate successor to the late William H.
Rehnquist merged with senators' worries about whom
President Bush will choose to be his next nominee
to the court, as the replacement for the retiring
Sandra Day O'Connor.
The Senate's 44 Democrats seem to be split on
whether they can, or should, mount even symbolic
opposition to Roberts.
Confirmation assured
His confirmation as the 109th
Supreme Court justice is assured because most
of the Senate's 55 Republicans are supporting
him and Democrats have decided not to filibuster
his nomination.
But Democrats who oppose his nomination said they
can't take the risk that Roberts will prove a conservative
ideologue on the court.
Feinstein told a packed Judiciary Committee hearing
room that her vote was decided after Roberts refused
to fully answer questions from her and other Democrats
in his confirmation hearing last week.
"I knew as little about what Judge Roberts
really thought about issues after the hearings
as I did before the hearing. This makes it very
hard for me," said Feinstein, an abortion
rights supporter.
"I cannot in good conscience cast a 'yea'
vote," she said. "I will cast a 'no'
vote."
Biden 'a close call'
Biden said his vote was a close call, but Roberts "does
not appear to share the same expansive view of
fundamental rights of previous nominees I have
supported. I'm unwilling to take the constitutional
risk at this moment in the court's history."
Sen. Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold, both Wisconsin
Democrats, and the committee's top Democrat, Patrick
Leahy of Vermont, decided to support making the
conservative judge the nation's 17th chief justice.
"I will vote my hopes today and not my fears," Kohl
said.
Kohl said Roberts made it clear to him that he
will be a modest judge, not an activist, and will
approach arguments with an open mind.
"I take him at his
word that he will steer the court to serve as
an appropriate check on potential abuses of presidential
power," Leahy told the committee
and former Sen. Fred Thompson -- Roberts' escort
through the confirmation process -- who watched
from the crowd.
Message to Bush
Those statements likely are directed at the
president, who is expected to soon make public
his choice to replace O'Connor, who has been
a swing vote on issues including affirmative
action, abortion, discrimination and death penalty
cases.
Replacing her could give the president a chance
to swing the court to the right on many issues.
Widely mentioned candidates include federal appellate
judges Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Brown Clement,
Edith Hollan Jones, Emilio Garza, Alice Batchelder,
Karen Williams, J. Michael Luttig, J. Harvie Wilkinson,
Michael McConnell and Samuel Alito.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, former deputy
attorney general Larry Thompson, lawyer Miguel
Estrada and Maura Corrigan, a member of the Michigan
Supreme Court, are also considered possibilities.
[...] |
The U.S. military is bracing
for future attacks in space, and the Air Force
has deployed an electronic-warfare unit capable
of jamming enemy satellites, the general in charge
of space defenses says.
"You can't go to war and win without space," said
Gen. Lance Lord, the four-star general in charge
of the Colorado-based Air Force Space Command.
Gen. Lord said in an interview with The Washington
Times that his command plays a key role in monitoring
space, protecting satellites from attack or disruption
and preparing to carry out strikes on enemy spacecraft.
Gen. Lord said the United States has a major strategic
advantage over other nations' militaries because
of its satellite communications and intelligence
capabilities. "So we've got to protect that
advantage," he said.
"We're not talking about weaponizing space.
We're not talking about massive satellite attacks
coming over the horizon or anything like that.
This is really a way to understand space situational
awareness, who's out there, who's operating. We
understand that," Gen. Lord said.
The top priorities of the space
command are monitoring space and knowing the threats.
Two other missions are defending satellites and
conducting offensive operations against enemy spacecraft
or ground signals that threaten U.S. satellites.
"We understand that jamming has gone on
and other things have occurred, and we watch that
very closely," Gen. Lord said.
He declined to identify specific nations that
are working on anti-satellite weapons.
Other defense officials said China is a key worry
as far as space warfare, partly because it has
tested electronic signal jamming against satellites.
"We watch China," one official said. "They've
had 45 successful launches since 1996. They will
be a very robust and potent competitor in the future,
and we want to make sure we understand who they
are and how they're emerging in this business.
They look at us; we look at them."
Russia also in the past has deployed anti-satellite
weapons and is developing anti-satellite jamming
weapons.
Gen. Lord dismissed assertions by critics that
the Air Force's plans to use small spacecraft for
maintenance could include using the craft as anti-satellite
ramming devices.
"Anytime you have a satellite out there,
if you run it into something else, you've got that
kind of capability. That is not what we're doing," he
said.
Instead, offensive anti-satellite weapons currently
are limited to "countercommunications" operations
-- interrupting the signals sent from the ground
to satellites that try to disrupt U.S. military
or civilian spacecraft, Gen. Lord said.
The 76th Space Control Squadron, based at Peterson
Air Force Base, Colo., last year deployed the first
offensive countercommunications system that uses
mobile teams that can fire electronic jamming gear
capable of knocking out enemy satellite communications.
"If somebody is trying to use space against
us, we could interrupt, in a reversible kind of
way, those kind of capabilities as needed and as
directed by U.S. policy," Gen. Lord said. |
GAZA, Sept. 23 (Xinhuanet)
-- Israeli forces shot dead three Palestinian militants
of the radical Islamic Jihad (Holy War) were killed
in a village north of the West Bank city of Tulkarm
at dawn Friday, Palestinian medical sources said.
They said that the three men wer
e identified as Ra'id Ajaj, 30,Nazeeh Abu Saadah,
25, and Saeed al-Ashkar, 22.
Two of them were militants of the radical Islamic
Jihad (Holy War) movement while the third was an
element of the Palestinian preventive security
forces, they added.
According to the sources, the Israeli forces with
scores of military vehicles forced their way into
Alar village and besieged a house in which two
of the men had taken refuge.
The troops also stormed the area between Alar
and Sidon, north of Tulkarm,A Israeli army spokeswoman
confirmed that the three Palestinian militants
were killed during clashes which erupted during
a routine arrest operation in a village near the
northern city of Tulkarem.
"During an exchange of fire, the two terrorists
were killed. Next to their bodies, the force found
two bullet proof vests, two AK-47 machineguns and
several rifle clips," she said, adding the
third Jihad militant came out towards the troops
slightly later and during another exchange of fire
he was also killed.
It was the first deadly army raid since Israel
completed its withdrawal of settlers and soldiers
from all 21 settlements in the Gaza Strip and four
in northern West Bank in recent weeks. |
MANILA - Typhoon Damrey swept
away from the northern Philippines on Friday after
killing at least 16 people across the main island
of Luzon, the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) said.
Damage to property and agriculture appeared
to be low after the typhoon hit the east coast
of Luzon on Tuesday but most areas in the northern
provinces of Ilocos Norte, Cagayan and Isabela
were under knee-deep water, said Anthony Golez,
an OCD spokesman.
"Most of the casualties were drowning victims," he
said, adding about 20,000 people were still in
temporary shelters in the northern provinces.
Damrey had moved into the South China Sea and
was heading toward southern China and Hong Kong
with wind speeds up to 120 kph (75 mph).
"All public storm warning signals are now
lowered but occasional rains with moderate to strong
winds may still be expected over western Luzon," Golez
said, citing a report from the weather bureau.
Local agriculture officials had reported very
minimal impact to rice and corn farms, he said,
estimating crop damage would reach about 60 million
pesos.
Soldiers and civilian engineers had started repairing
roads, bridges and power lines in the affected
areas.
Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the
Philippines, an archipelago of some 7,000 islands.
In the worst disaster in recent years, more than
5,000 people died in floods triggered by a typhoon
in southern Leyte island in 1991.
Last year, a series of storms left about 1,800
people dead or missing, including 480 who were
killed when heavy rains triggered mudslides that
buried three towns in Quezon, an eastern province
on Luzon. |
HYDERABAD,
India (AP) -- Heavy downpours sent rivers over their
embankments, killing at least 56 people and forcing
the evacuation of thousands in southern India, officials
said Wednesday.
Helicopters plucked people from danger in the
worst hit areas of Andhra Pradesh state and delivered
thousands of tons of food, medicine and blankets
to camps for the displaced. Boats rescued hundreds
of others.
The rains flooded railroad tracks and major highways
along the coast, marooning hundreds of trucks,
buses and cars, said disaster relief official Shashank
Goel in Hyderabad, capital of Andhra Pradesh.
Relief workers evacuated more than 140,000 residents
of low-lying villages to 465 relief camps set up
in government buildings and schools located on
higher ground, Goel said.
Officials said at least 50 people were killed
by rain and strong winds, which flattened homes,
knocked down power lines and uprooted trees. Six
people were killed when their homes in coastal
districts collapsed.
The Godavari and Krishna rivers breached their
banks at several places, flooding farms. Floods
demolished more than 77,000 homes and damaged another
7,800 homes, Goel said.
The surging waters washed away or damaged 254,000
acres of tobacco, rice and vegetable fields, said
Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, the state's top elected
official.
In Bangladesh, a tropical depression churned through
the Bay of Bengal and pushed walls of water onto
the country's coast, forcing thousands to flee.
At least 16 fishermen were killed when three boats
capsized, the Janakantha newspaper said, quoting
fishermen who returned to shore.
Anxious relatives of fishermen gathered at beaches
waiting for loved ones, local reporters said. ATN
Bangla TV said that 200 fishing boats were missing. |
METTLER, Calif. - A series
of earthquakes ranging up to magnitude 4.9 shook
an area north of Los Angeles on Thursday. There
were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.
The temblors in the San Joaquin Valley about
70 miles northwest of Los Angeles began with
a magnitude-4.0 jolt that was quickly followed
by the 4.9 at 1:24 p.m., according to the U.S.
Geological Survey in Pasadena.
Seismologists recorded at least five aftershocks
ranging between magnitudes 3 and 3.7.
"The only things we're getting reported is
that some items toppled over on shelves, but we've
gotten no reports of damages or injuries," said
Kern County fire Capt. Doug Johnston.
Johnston said the area contains mostly dairies
and farmlands. |
An earthquake measuring 3.9 degrees
on Richter scale jolted Firoozabad town in southern
province of Fars, on Friday afternoon.
According to the report of seismographic center
affiliated to Tehran University Geophysics Institute,
the tremor occurred at 13:30 local time (10:00
GMT) and its epicenter was at 28:83 altitude and
52:44 longitude.
There was another earthquake on Friday in Dehdasht
town on southwestern province of Kohkilooyeh and
Boyer Ahmad measuring 4 degrees on Richter scale.
There is no immediate report on possible damage
of the tremors. |
A state of emergency has
been declared in Brazil's western state of Acre
as fires continue to rage across the country's
vast Amazon region.
Thousands of hectares of the world's largest
rainforest have already been destroyed by the
blazes.
Acre's Governor Jorge Viana urged the federal
government in Brasilia to act swiftly, expressing
particular concerns about pollution caused by the
smoke.
Hundreds of soldiers, rescuers and also local
residents are battling the fires.
Correspondents say it is not
known what caused the blazes, some of which broke
out nearly two weeks ago.
Some 500 people have been evacuated from the
area, officials said earlier this week.
In the past, authorities have blamed farmers
who burned forested areas in the dry season to
make space for their crops.
The blazes have often raged out of control in
recent years.
|
Three Chicago-area children
have died of a toxic shock syndrome-like illness
caused by a superbug they caught in the community
and not in the hospital, where the germ is usually
found.
The cases show that this already worrisome staph
germ has become even more dangerous by acquiring
the ability to cause this shock-like condition.
"There's a new kid on the block," said
Dr. John Bartlett of Johns Hopkins University School
of Medicine, referring to the added strength of
the superbug known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus
aureus, or MRSA.
"The fact that there are three community-acquired
staph aureus cases is really scary," continued
Bartlett, an infectious disease specialist.
The Chicago deaths were described in Thursday's
New England Journal of Medicine.
Health officials do not yet know how the drug-resistant
staph causes this new syndrome, but it appears
to be rare, said Dr. Clifford McDonald, an epidemiologist
with the federal Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
However, doctors should be on the lookout for
shock-like cases caused by MRSA, said Dr. Robert
Daum, a pediatrician at the University of Chicago
who co-authored the study.
In 1999, drug-resistant staph infections killed
four healthy children ranging in age from 1 to
13 years old in Minnesota and North Dakota. Since
then, doctors have actively looked for such infections
in their community.
In the cases reported in Thursday's medical journal,
the baby and two toddlers who died were otherwise
healthy before they were separately admitted to
a Chicago hospital with pneumonia-like symptoms
between 2000 and 2004. Doctors believe the children
probably inhaled the germ.
The children died within a week of being hospitalized
and autopsies showed they suffered from shock and
bleeding in the adrenal gland. The
infections were caused by MRSA, which is usually
not associated with the syndrome.
Until recently, drug-resistant staph infections
were limited to hospitals and other health care
settings where they can spread to patients with
open wounds and cause serious complications.
But infectious disease specialists say a growing
number of community-acquired resistant staph infections
have struck healthy people outside of hospitals
in recent years.
Doctors in Los Angeles treated
14 people with necrotizing fasciitis, informally
known as flesh-eating bacteria, caused by the resistant
germ.
And in Corpus Christi, Texas,
doctors have seen community-acquired resistant
staph cases jump from 10 cases a year in the 1990s
to more than 400 in 2003.
The first Chicago death occurred in 2000 when
a 15-month-old girl was diagnosed with severe pneumonia.
She died eight hours later. In 2003, a 9-month-old
girl was hospitalized with fever and breathing
problems. Her condition deteriorated and she died
six days later. A year later, a 17-month-old boy
was admitted with respiratory problems and died
the next day.
In all three cases, the victims' conditions progressed
from pneumonia to shock. |
Experts
warn there are too few NHS critical care beds in
England to cope with an outbreak of avian flu.
Scientists say it is only a matter of time
before bird flu becomes readily transmissible
between humans, which could cause a pandemic.
For their work in Anaesthesia, the Intensive
Care Society team created a model to estimate the
impact of an outbreak on critical care services.
The government said it was aware of the threat
and was working to address it.
Overwhelmed
The study authors estimate a doubling to tripling
of current capacity is needed.
Their work assumes that an epidemic
would last eight weeks and would affect one in
four people in England.
With this level of infection, they estimate there
would be 37,548 people hospitalised for avian flu,
occupying a third of all available acute hospital
beds in the country.
These patients would be very
sick and need access to expert care and ventilators
to help their breathing.
This demand would represent
208% of the current bed capacity, they say, which
would completely overwhelm hospitals.
Dr Bruce Taylor, one of the
study's authors and consultant in intensive care
and anaesthesia at Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust,
said: "It would overwhelm the system." [...] |
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia
said on Wednesday an outbreak of bird flu in
its teeming capital could become an epidemic
as health and agricultural experts from around
the world converged on Jakarta to help control
the virus.
Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said the
emergence of sporadic human cases of bird flu
in recent months in and around different parts
of Jakarta, home to 12 million people, might
become an epidemic if the number of cases continued
to increase.
She was speaking after announcing that an initial
local test on a five-year-old girl who died on
Wednesday after suffering from bird flu symptoms
was negative for the virus.
"It's not an epidemic yet, but sporadic cases
in parts of Jakarta ... if (cases) are increasing
it is possible that an epidemic may occur," the
minister told Reuters when contacted by telephone.
She had earlier told reporters the situation had
reached the epidemic stage, but later retracted
the comments in phone calls to some news agencies.
Four Indonesians are already confirmed to have
died since July from the highly pathogenic H5N1
strain of bird flu, which has killed 64 people
in four Asian countries since late 2003 and has
been found in birds in Russia and Europe.
Six other patients are still in a government-designated
hospital in Jakarta suspected of having avian flu.
The U.N. World Health Organization last week warned
bird flu was moving toward a form that could be
passed between humans and the world had no time
to waste to prevent a pandemic. [...] |
Rockville, MD -- Ever since the genomics revolution
took off, scientists have been busily deciphering
vast numbers of genomes. Cataloging. Analyzing.
Comparing. Public databases hold 239 complete
bacterial genomes alone.
But scientists at The Institute for Genomic
Research (TIGR)
have come to a startling conclusion. Armed with
the powerful tools of comparative genomics and
mathematics, TIGR scientists
have concluded that researchers might never fully
describe some bacteria and viruses--because their
genomes are infinite. Sequence one strain
of the species, and scientists will find significant
new genes. Sequence another strain, and they
will find more. And so on, infinitely.
"Many scientists study multiple strains of
an organism," says TIGR President Claire Fraser. "But
at TIGR, we're now going a step further, to actually
quantify how many genes are associated with a given
species. How many genomes do you need to fully
describe a bacterial species?"
In pursuit of that question, TIGR scientist Hervé Tettelin
and colleagues published a study in this week's
(September 19-23) early online edition of the Proceedings
of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). In
the study, TIGR scientists, with collaborators
at Chiron Corporation, Harvard Medical School and
Seattle Children's Hospital, compared the genomic
sequence of eight isolates of the same bacterial
species: Streptococcus agalactiae, also known as
Group B Strep (GBS), which can cause infection
in newborns and immuno-compromised individuals.
Analyzing the eight GBS genomes, the researchers
discovered a surprisingly continual stream of diversity.
Each GBS strain contained an average of 1806 genes
present in every strain (thus constituting the
GBS core genome) plus 439 genes absent in one or
more strains. Moreover, mathematical modeling showed
that unique genes will continue to emerge, even
after thousands of genomes are sequenced. The GBS
pan-genome is expected to grow by an average of
33 new genes every time a new strain is sequenced.
"We were surprised to find that we haven't
cornered this species yet," says Tettelin,
lead author of the PNAS paper. "We
still don't know--and apparently, we'll never know--the
extent of its diversity." [...] |
A kangaroo, a big rat, a large rabbit or a South
American cavy.
The Clark County Sheriff's Office searched for
what was reported to them as a kangaroo near Fletcher-Chapel
and Newlove roads Wednesday evening.
"It looks like it's part rabbit on the bottom
and part deer on top," said Pat Wal, of 2061
Newlove Road, who spotted the animal twice near
her home. "It hopped just like a rabbit. I
didn't know what it was."
She described the animal she saw hop across the
road and drink from the creek as having big feet,
no tail, a long face and big ears.
Wal and neighbors spent hours outside with binoculars
speculating what the creature could be.
Deputy Scott Elliott said the animal now is thought
to be a cavy, a South American animal that hops
like a rabbit and can run at least 20 miles per
hour.
A witness called the Sheriff's Office at about
6 p.m. and sent Elliott on a search of field in
the area for about two hours. Elliott said the
animal was reported to be about 3 feet tall and
weigh about 30 pounds.
Wal said a farm farther north on New Love Road
has peacocks and llamas, but she had not seen anything
similar to the animal she saw jump across the road
living at the farm.
A few day's ago a resident reported
a missing cavy to the Sheriff's Office, but Elliott
said no one in the area will claim ownership of
a cavy or any animals that match the witness descriptions.
Deputies were told cavies can have bad tempers
and be violent but have no way of capturing the
animal until it is seen again.
"We've chased llamas, peacocks - Clark County
has a lot of exotic animals," Elliott said.
No information was available Wednesday night about
specifications or laws for owning cavies in Ohio.
Wal is the only witness who made a statement to
deputies. Anyone with information about this animal
is asked to call the Sheriff's Office at 328-2560. |
After more than an hour of
solemn ceremony naming Rep. Marco Rubio, R-West
Miami, as the 2007-08 House speaker, Gov. Jeb Bush
stepped to the podium in the House chamber last
week and told a short story about "unleashing
Chang," his "mystical warrior" friend.
Here are Bush's words, spoken before hundreds of
lawmakers and politicians:
''Chang is a mystical warrior. Chang is somebody
who believes in conservative principles, believes
in entrepreneurial capitalism, believes in moral
values that underpin a free society.
''I rely on Chang with great regularity in my
public life. He has been by my side and sometimes
I let him down. But Chang, this mystical warrior,
has never let me down.''
Bush then unsheathed a golden sword and gave
it to Rubio as a gift.
''I'm going to bestow to you the sword of a great
conservative warrior,'' he said, as the crowd
roared.
The crowd, however, could be excused for not
understanding Bush's enigmatic foray into the
realm of Eastern mysticism.
We're here to help.
In a 1989 Washington Post article on the politics
of tennis, former President George Bush was quoted
as threatening to ''unleash Chang'' as a means
of intimidating other players.
The saying was apparently quite popular with
Gov. Bush's father, and referred to a legendary
warrior named Chang who was called upon to settle
political disputes in Chinese dynasties of yore.
The phrase has evolved, under Gov. Jeb Bush's
use, to mean the need to fix conflicts or disagreements
over an issue. Faced with a stalemate, the governor
apparently "unleashes Chang" as a rhetorical
device, signaling it's time to stop arguing and
start agreeing.
No word on if Rubio will unleash Chang, or the
sword, as he faces squabbles in the future. [...] |
On the fourth
anniversary of the September 11th attacks, Laura Knight-Jadczyk
announces the availability of her latest book:
In the years since the 9/11 attacks, dozens of books
have sought to explore the truth behind the official
version of events that day - yet to date, none of
these publications has provided a satisfactory answer
as to WHY the attacks occurred and who was ultimately
responsible for carrying them out.
Taking a broad, millennia-long perspective, Laura
Knight-Jadczyk's 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth uncovers the true nature of
the ruling elite on our planet and presents new and
ground-breaking insights into just how the 9/11 attacks
played out.
9/11: The Ultimate
Truth makes a strong case for the idea that September
11, 2001 marked the moment when our planet entered
the final phase of a diabolical plan that has been
many, many years in the making. It is a plan developed
and nurtured by successive generations of ruthless
individuals who relentlessly exploit the negative
aspects of basic human nature to entrap humanity as
a whole in endless wars and suffering in order to
keep us confused and distracted to the reality of
the man behind the curtain.
Drawing on historical and genealogical sources, Knight-Jadczyk
eloquently links the 9/11 event to the modern-day
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She also cites the clear
evidence that our planet undergoes periodic natural
cataclysms, a cycle that has arguably brought humanity
to the brink of destruction in the present day.
For its no nonsense style in cutting to the core
of the issue and its sheer audacity in refusing to
be swayed or distracted by the morass of disinformation
that has been employed by the Powers that Be to cover
their tracks, 9/11:
The Ultimate Truth can rightly claim to be THE
definitive book on 9/11 - and what that fateful day's
true implications are for the future of mankind.
Published by Red Pill Press
Scheduled for release on October 1,
2005, readers can pre-order the book today at our bookstore. |
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