I HOPE I DIE BEFORE THE NEXT RE-FILL

A July 4th note from Greg Palast's journal

"I was in the drug store today out here in Podunk. Some old guy in front of me was picking up his little paper bag of prescription medicine. The lady behind the counter handed him a credit card slip and said, "I'm sorry."

She was sorry because the bill was over $1,200. The old man stared at the charge card receipt and stared at it some more. Hesitating, he signed, then said, "I hope I die before I have to pay for the next re-fill."

He wasn't joking. The lady behind the counter said, "Oh, don't ever say that." And she said it in such a way that it was clear she'd heard the same thought before, in different words, from too many of the old folk that come by.

And I was thinking, "I wonder if he voted for Bush?"

I mean, did he vote for the man who would stop boys from kissing boys, who would allow big stone icons of the Ten Commandments in the Podunk courthouse, who would get Saddam before he got us? In other words, was he a blind soldier in Karl Rove's army of the angry who would rather vote against themselves, for deadly high drug prices dictated by Big Pharma, for no national health insurance, in return for a promise from George Bush that he will be the malicious defender of their prejudices?

The polls tell us that Americans are in an ugly mood: too many jobs leaving for China, too many body bags returning from Iraq, and a bad feeling about a President grabbing for grandma's social security check.

America is hurting. But what really hurts is that the wounds are self-inflicted.

Happy Fourth of July, compadres. And stay healthy."

Debate over vaccines and autism continues

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/06/28/autism.debate.ap
"Did older vaccines, which contained more thimerosal than the trace amounts in modern ones, raise the risk of autism?"
"Are there risks today? Flu vaccine sold in multidose vials still contains the preservative, and the government urges flu shots for pregnant women and young children even though not enough thimerosal-free ones are available, critics say."

Hostile Fire May Have Downed U.S. Copter
(link)
"If confirmed, Tuesday's attack would apparently be the first time a U.S.-led coalition aircraft here has been downed by hostile fire, representing a major new threat to the coalition. The U.S.-backed mujahedeen war against Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan in the 1980s finally turned when the Afghan fighters acquired the ability to shoot down Soviet aircraft."

wow, I thought that was pretty interesting. - Vox

A path for you to consider

FBI Whistle-Blower to Run for Congress
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/R/ROWLEY_CONGRESS?SITE=APWEB&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
"I'm concerned about the direction of the country,"...

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20050624/pl_afp/unustortureguantanamo
"The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity."

Keep in mind: unconfirmed and from a U.N. source (who I'm sure would like nothing more than for this type of info regarding the U.S. to become public). - Vox

Doctors helped 'break' captives

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/06/24/MNG3JDEECO1.DTL&feed=rss.news
"Washington -- Military doctors at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have aided interrogators in conducting and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice on how to increase stress levels and exploit fears, according to new, detailed accounts given by former interrogators."

The D-Word

Poll Finds Most Oppose Return to Draft
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/draft_ap_ipsos_poll

Gotta love these polls. Last paragraph, 1,000 people. Right on target. - Vox

Tennessee Removes 323,000 from Medicaid

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4717913&sourceCode=RSS
"As Washington debates what to do about Medicaid, Tennessee is in the process of kicking 323,000 people off its program. Democratic Gov. Phil Bredeson says he has no choice, that the state simply can't afford what it's promised. But advocates for the poor say the state will likely pay more in the long run."

MAD COW UPDATE

Tests Confirm Second Mad Cow Case in U.S.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401315_pf.html
"WASHINGTON -- Exhaustive tests have confirmed mad cow disease in an animal apparently born in the United States, officials said Friday. It is the second case of the disease confirmed in this country,..."

Italian judge orders CIA team arrested over kidnap

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/24/AR2005062401060_pf.html
"MILAN/ROME (Reuters) - An Italian judge has ordered the arrest of 13 people linked to the CIA for "kidnapping" an Egyptian terrorism suspect in Milan and flying him to Egypt where he said he was tortured, judicial sources said on Friday."

IRS probing possible data security breaches

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050624/2005-06-24T203656Z_01_N24203433_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-SECURITY-USA-DATA-DC.html

Top Commander Says Insurgency Still Strong

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/06/23/national/w081840D74.DTL
"Abizaid told the panel: "I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago." As to the overall strength of the insurgency, Abizaid said it was "about the same" as six months ago."

Iraq, the new Afghanistan

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF24Ak03.html
"It's virtually impossible for US President George W Bush's Iraq to be "on its way to democracy" when real unemployment reaches a staggering 50% (a scarier prospect for most people than car bombs or snipers), 25% of children under five years old are malnourished, 78% of the households in the country (and 92% in Baghdad) have electricity only a few hours a day, only 37% of urban households (and a mere 4% in the countryside) have sewage-disposal systems, only 61% have access to drinking water, 5% of households have been destroyed by bombing or search-and-destroy missions, only one in 10 households in rural areas can be reached by a paved road, and more youngsters than in any previous generation are illiterate. This is the appalling legacy of the occupation - and the US and UN-imposed regime of sanctions in the 1990s."

Ownership Rights

Supreme Court Rules Cities May Seize Homes
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050623/D8ATEQV80.html
"...local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development..."
"As a result, cities now have wide power to bulldoze residences for projects such as shopping malls and hotel complexes in order to generate tax revenue."
"The city has carefully formulated an economic development plan that it believes will provide appreciable benefits to the community, including - but by no means limited to - new jobs and increased tax revenue," (Justice Paul) Stevens wrote."

ok, let me get this straight: It's now legal to displace homeOWNERS to build a mall, forcing them to move away and uproot their lives. This is ok since there will now be more jobs at the aforementioned mall, and the aforementioned homeowners (now renters) will be able to work part-time at the union-less Wal-Mart for less than minimum wage with little or no health insurance.

That's capitalism wrapped up in a black robe.

- Vox

What is "real news"?

"It's the news we need to keep our freedoms."

- Richard Reeves, author and columnist.

Best answer I've heard yet. - Vox

Depleted Uranium - get familiar with it

Very informative article. If you support our wars in Iraq & Afghanistan or if you do not, please take the time to read this. - Vox
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml
"...the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months."
"Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends..."
"In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects... In some veterans’ families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war."

For more info you can check out: http://www.unknownnews.net/syndrome2.html

Food for thought

"If you're going to go in and try to topple Saddam Hussein,you have to go to Baghdad. Once you've got Baghdad, it's not clear what you do with it. It's not clear what kind of government you would put in place of the one that's currently there now. Is it going to be a Shia regime, a Sunni regime or a Kurdish regime? Or one that tilts toward the Baathists, or one that tilts toward the Islamic fundamentalists? How much credibility is that government going to have if it's set up by the United States military when it's there? How long does the United States military have to stay to protect the people that sign on for that government, and what happens to it once we leave?"

Dick Cheney in April 1991, then Defense Secretary, as quoted in the Slate on October 16, 2002.

Hmm, more than 10 years later and we still don't have any answers. - Vox

Mad Cow update

Bill would shield mad cow outbreak from Freedom of Information Act
http://www.unknownnews.org/0506140603madcowsecrets.html
"As the livestock industry sees it, it is providing information that will help protect the public health. In exchange for proprietary information about their herds, they believe they should receive confidence that their business records will not be shared with the public."

How can knowing if a cow is diseased be considered "proprietary" information? - Vox

Some insight on ways we are all MISLEAD...(please read)

On the "unanimous" congressional anti-lynching apology:

Critics: Frist vetoed roll call
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/0605/15natlynch.html
"America is home of the brave, but I'm afraid there may be a few cowards who have to cower to their very narrow-minded and backward, hateful constituency," Cohen told ABC News. "They're hiding out, and it's reminiscent of a pattern of hiding out under a hood, in the night, riding past, scaring people."

For an even clearer explanation on what happened:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/06/senate-offices-intentionally-lying.html
"The vote last night was a voice vote. That means all you need is one guy in the Senate chamber to have it pass (as I understand it, there were some 6 Senators or so there last night). That one guy says something about asking unanimous consent that SRes39 (the resolution) be agreed to. The presiding chair says "all those in favor say aye, all those opposed say no, the ayes appear to have it, the ayes do have it." And bam, it's done. All you need is one Senator sitting there saying aye and it's "unanimous."A "roll call vote" is when they literally go through each Senator's name and he or she has to vote yes or no. They didn't do that last night, on purpose, so there would be no record of the "no" votes."

FDA panel OKs drug aimed at blacks

http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/conditions/06/17/racial.pill.ap/index.html
WASHINGTON (AP) -- A drug targeted specifically for black Americans with heart problems is on track to become the first drug in the U.S. marketed to a specific racial group.

Very skeptical about this. I don't know much about the clinical trial process for drugs, but this article leaves me with allot of questions (so what else is new!). - Vox

Downing Street "Hearing"

Just watched John Conyer's Downing Street "hearing".
2 words: Ray McGovern.
He was right on.

Get your head out of the sand, people.

- Vox

Fighting in Afghanistan Leaves 14 Dead

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AFGHAN_VIOLENCE?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2005-06-15-06-30-49
"KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AP) -- Fighting between about 90 suspected Taliban rebels and hundreds of Afghan soldiers and U.S.-led coalition troops left seven insurgents dead and 10 wounded,..."

GOP Senators May Make 69 Retirement Age

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/14/AR2005061401257_pf.html
"Under current law, the retirement age for full Social Security benefits is 65 1/2 and is scheduled to reach 67 for those born in 1960 or later.
The possible increase to 69 over two decades or more was among the suggestions that Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee,..."

What's the deal?

The NY Daily News and The NY Post have the exact same headlines ("Boy, Oh Boy!", regarding the MJ verdict) today for the 2nd time in about 2 weeks. Exactly the same. I think that's a little strange.

- Vox

Mad Cow Info

Newsarticle timeline of the recent Mad Cow issues:
http://www.unknownnews.net/madcow.html

Good stuff.
BE INFORMED, NOT AFRAID!! - Vox

It's SOOO easy taking our hard earned $$$

Banned Contractor Soliciting Iraq Deals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5069343,00.html
"The fledgling firms have different names but all are housed in the same office as Custer Battles - Suite 100 on Hammerlund Way in Middletown, R.I., 3,000 square feet on the ground floor of a squat building in an industrial park. "

Video: Hijacking Catastrophe

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article6895.htm
"Documentary featuring Noam Chomsky, Chalmers Johnson, Tariq Ali, and many more experts speaking about the Neo-Con agenda and the cloud of fear which the Neo-Cons have settled over America."

PATRIOT ACT: Don't be misinformed!!

What the president and Attorney General say: "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

What the facts are: "An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people -- not 200, as officials have implied -- were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security."
"Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months."
See for yourself: - Vox
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/11/AR2005061100381_pf.html

The "D"-Word (Part x)

Army Aims to Catch Up on Recruits in Summer
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/10/AR2005061001897.html
"The Army also moved this month to take a harder look at keeping first-term soldiers in the force who might otherwise have been kicked out for problems such as drug abuse, poor conduct, or for failure to meet fitness or body-fat standards."
Nice. - Vox

Military draft back on US agenda
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=3278264
"Joseph Biden, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the prediction after new data released by the Pentagon showed the US Army failing to meet its recruitment targets for four straight months."
"The truth of the matter is, it is going to become a subject, if, in fact, there's a 40 per cent shortfall in recruitment. It's just a reality," he said.""

..."But while admitting that restoring the draft would be politically "very difficult," Senator Patrick Leahy, the ranking Democrat of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said something would have to be done because the situation with recruitment was not likely to improve."

MUST SEE - our gov't (in)action

http://win20ca.audiovideoweb.com/ca20win15004/061005a_300k.wmv
How ironic: in a congressional debate over civil liberty concerns associated with the PATRIOT ACT, the committee Chairperson cuts off everyone's mike and walks out. - Vox

High court rejects enemy combatant appeal

http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/padilla_court_rejects_enemy_combatant_appeal.htm
..."But justices declined to address a separate issue: whether American citizens arrested on U.S. soil can be designated "enemy combatants" and held without trial."...

Can anyone say "Un-Constitutional"? - Vox

Mad Cow update

USDA finds possible 2nd case of mad cow disease
http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050611/2005-06-11T081503Z_01_N11684938_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MADCOW-USA-DC.html

Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq?

By Rep. JOHN CONYERS
http://www.counterpunch.com/conyers06062005.html

MICHAEL FUCKING JACKSON!!!!

Now that I have your attention: - Vox

Senate Gives FBI More Patriot Act Power
http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050608/D8AJ5UB80.html

What is a Police-State? - Vox
"A police state is a political condition where the government maintains strict control over society, particularly through suspension of civil rights and often with the use of a force of secret police. This implies that the control by the government contradicts the will of the people being controlled. Thus, a police state is inherently anti-democratic. It is similar to martial law."
(http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/Police_state)

Get your head out of the sand, people. - Vox

Check out this Site

Excellent site. Check out the video clips. - Vox
http://www.4th25.com/frameset.htm

Well, Well, Well

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/03/AR2005060301417_pf.html
"In other confirmed incidents, a guard's urine came through an air vent and splashed on a detainee and his Quran; water balloons thrown by prison guards caused an unspecified number of Qurans to get wet; and in a confirmed but ambiguous case, a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Quran."

We peed on it, defaced it, but we NEVER FLUSHED IT DOWN A DAMN TOILET!!!
- Vox

Israel troops admit 'eye for eye' killings -report

http://reuters.myway.com/article/20050603/2005-06-03T071554Z_01_N03231854_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-MIDEAST-REVENGE-DC.html
"JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli special forces killed 15 Palestinians, including police, in a 2002 shooting spree ordered to avenge comrades slain in a West Bank ambush, an Israeli newspaper said on Friday, citing testimony by troops."
...""The moment we knew we were going to eliminate them, we no longer saw them as human," the ex-commando, now a student, said."

One heck of a retirement plan

Arsenal found in elderly couple's Ridgefield home
http://www.nydailynews.com/front/breaking_news/story/315310p-269735c.html
"Nearly 500 guns, including AK-47s and high-powered rifles, 500 pounds of gunpowder and 100,000 rounds of ammunition were taken Wednesday from the home of Elizabeth and Sherwin Raymond, both 82."

Haiti

Haiti faces 'explosive' situation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4599369.stm

Don't forget the US' role in the ouster (or coup?) of the democratically elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide. - Vox

Canada Red Cross used HIV blood

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4595039.stm
"More than 1,000 people became infected with HIV and as many as 20,000 others contracted hepatitis C through blood transfusions and blood products."

I'm still surprised that even after Arther Ashe, and in the age of AIDS/HIV awareness, these stories don't get more coverage. I guess it's just to easy to blame gay people.
Also see my March 14, 2005 post, "For all of you non-believers..." - Vox

AA (In case you hadn't heard)

Arthur Andersen conviction overturned
http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/05/31/scotus.arthur.andersen/index.html
"At issue for the court was whether the wording of jury instructions were improperly vague. Maureen Mahoney, attorney for Andersen, told the justices the government used improper legal definitions that made it impossible for the defendants to get a fair verdict."
"The disagreement hinged on whether the term "corruptly persuading," contained in federal criminal statutes, in this case means "having an improper purpose ... to subvert, undermine, or impede" when it relates to obstruction of justice and witness tampering. The various legal standards of "criminal intent" were at the heart of Andersen's appeal."

"Chief Justice William H Rehnquist said the instructions were too vague for the jurors to decide correctly whether Andersen had obstructed justice. (from Andersen's Enron verdict quashed, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/4596949.stm)"

Arthur Andersen and Enron. Remember them? - Vox