Monday, March 31, 2008

Destroyer of Sodom, Gomorrah ID'd. Hint, Hint: It Wasn't God.


... So much for the "...Angry God of Abraham raining Fire and Brimstone down on the citizens (not "sinners") of Sodom and Gomorrah..." story.

Those poor people were as evil and sinful as those innocents incinerated by the pyroclastic flow from Mount Vesuvius that leveled Herculaneum and nuked Pompeii.

Yeah!... Another Biblical Story Bites The Dust... (No pun intended.)

Peace.
L.

(From: timesonline.co.uk)
March 31, 2008

Photobucket

Clay Tablet Identifies Asteroid That Destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

Lewis Smith, Science Reporter

A clay tablet that has baffled scientists for 150 years has been identified as a witness’s account of the asteroid suspected of being behind the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Researchers who cracked the cuneiform symbols on the Planisphere tablet believe that it recorded an asteroid thought to have been more than half a mile across.

The tablet, found by Henry Layard in the remains of the library in the royal place at Nineveh in the mid-19th century, is thought to be a 700BC copy of notes made by a Sumerian astronomer watching the night sky.

He referred to the asteroid as "white stone bowl approaching" and recorded it as it "vigorously swept along".

Using computers to recreate the night sky thousands of years ago, scientists have pinpointed his sighting to shortly before dawn on June 29 in the year 3123BC.

About half the symbols on the tablet have survived and half of those refer to the asteroid. The other symbols record the positions of clouds and constellations. In the past 150 years scientists have made five unsuccessful attempts to translate the tablet.

Mark Hempsell, one of the researchers from Bristol University who cracked the tablet’s code, said: "It’s a wonderful piece of observation, an absolutely perfect piece of science."

He said the size and route of the asteroid meant that it was likely to have crashed into the Austrian Alps at Köfels. As it travelled close to the ground it would have left a trail of destruction from supersonic shock waves and then slammed into the Earth with a cataclysmic impact.

Debris consisting of up to two thirds of the asteroid would have been hurled back along its route and a flash reaching temperatures of 400C (752F) would have been created, killing anyone in its path. About one million sq km (386,000 sq miles) would have been devastated and the impact would have been equivalent to more than 1,000 tonnes of TNT exploding.

Dr Hempsall said that at least 20 ancient myths record devastation of the type and on the scale of the asteroid’s impact, including the Old Testament tale of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Ancient Greek myth of how Phaeton, son of Helios, fell into the River Eridanus after losing control of his father’s sun chariot.

The findings of Dr Hempsall and Alan Bond, of Reaction Engines Ltd, are published in a book, A Sumerian Observation of the Köfels’ Impact Event.

The researchers say that the asteroid’s impact would explain why at Köfels there is evidence of an ancient landslide 5km wide and 500m thick.

Monday, March 24, 2008

US War Dead Due to Bush/Cheney/et al: 4000 and Counting...

If there was any shred of unreasonable doubt left in the back of your mind that Vice President Dick (and I do mean "Dick") Cheney is a vile, repugnant and unrepentant Troll...

Here’s a recent interview with him:

(From: abcnews.go.com)

Photobucket
VP Dick "Terrible Troll" Cheney.

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Vice President Dick Cheney was asked what effect the grim milestone of at least 4,000 U.S. deaths in the five-year Iraq war might have on the nation.

Noting the burden placed on military families, the vice president said the biggest burden is carried by President George W. Bush, who made the decision to commit US troops to war, and reminded the public that U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan volunteered for duty.

(Watch Martha Raddatz’s interview with Vice President Dick Cheney tonight on ABC’s World News at 6:30pmET)

"I want to start with the milestone today of 4,000 dead in Iraq. Americans. And just what effect do you think it has on the country?" asked ABC News’ White House correspondent, Martha Raddatz, who traveled with the vice president on a nine-day overseas trip to Iraq and other countries in the Middle East.

"It obviously brings home I think for a lot of people the cost that’s involved in the global war on terror in Iraq and Afghanistan," Cheney said in the interview, conducted in Turkey. "It places a special burden obviously on the families, and we recognize, I think — it’s a reminder of the extent to which we are blessed with families who’ve sacrificed as they have."

Cheney: ’The All-Volunteer Force’

"The president carries the biggest burden, obviously," Cheney said. "He’s the one who has to make the decision to commit young Americans, but we are fortunate to have a group of men and women, the all-volunteer force, who voluntarily put on the uniform and go in harm’s way for the rest of us."

Raddatz noted that some soldiers, Air Force members, and Marines have been on multiple deployments and have been sent back to Iraq because of the stop-loss policy — an involuntary extension of a service member’s enlistment contract. The Army alone says 58,000 US soldiers have been redeployed to war because of the stop-loss policy.

"When you talk about an all-volunteer force, some of these soldiers, airmen, Marines have been on two, three, four, some of them more than that, deployments," Raddatz said. "Do you think when they volunteered they had any idea that there would be so many deployments or stop-loss? Some of those who want to get out can’t because of stop-loss?"

"A lot of men and women sign up because sometimes they will see developments," Cheney said. "For example, 9/11 stimulated a lot of folks to volunteer for the military because they wanted to be involved in defending the country."

Referring to his talks with US service members in Iraq, the vice president said the men and women he speaks to are committed to the war.

"The thing that comes through loud and clear is how much they are committed to the cause, to doing what needs to be done to defend the nation," Cheney said.

When asked about the toll multiple deployments have taken on U.S. military members, Cheney fired back with a question.

"Of course it is, Martha," Cheney said. "So what would be the solution to that? I mean how would you deal with that?"

Possible Troop Drawdown

Today the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, recommended to Bush a "pause" in the drawdown of U.S. forces after the last surge combat brigade leaves in July. The pause is expected to be four to eight weeks, after which another decision will made on resuming the drawdown.

There are currently more U.S. military members in Iraq than when the United States led the invasion of the country in March 2003.

Petraeus has spoken on the record about his desire for a pause, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates has publicly endorsed the idea. If the security situation is stable, Petraeus will likely signal that the drawdown can continue in the fall.

When asked about the possibility of resuming a U.S. military drawdown from Iraq in the fall, Cheney said what’s important is that the U.S. succeeds in Iraq.

"That isn’t the way I think about it," Cheney said, referring to the possibility of a drawdown. "It’s important to achieve victory in Iraq. It’s important to win, to succeed in the objective that we’ve established."

"It may be that we can make judgements about reductions down the road and the President will make those when the time arrives, but I don’t think he’s likely to try and say now what the force ought to be at the end of the year," Cheney said. "Conditions on the ground will determine that."

Cheney Slams Democratic Candidates

Cheney dismissed the suggestion that a drawdown would be an important message to the Iraqi government that the United States wasn’t staying indefinitely in the country.

"The idea that we can walk away from Iraq is, I think, terribly damaging on its face, and to say that, ’well that’s the only way we can get the Iraqis to take on responsibility,’ I don’t believe that’s the case," he said.

Without addressing the Democratic candidates specifically, the vice president said those who want to pull out of Iraq are "seriously misguided." He said the presidential candidates would be risking an attack on the homeland if US forces withdrew, arguing that terrorists would find safe havens in other countries.

Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton both have said they’d withdraw US forces from Iraq if elected president. Sen. John McCain has advocated a continued U.S. presence in Iraq until security and political situations improve.

When asked if he was talking about any candidate in particular, Cheney said, "I am talking about any candidate for high office who believes the solution for our problem in that part of the world is to walk away from the commitments that we’ve made in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere."

Tens of thousands of our brave men and women have also suffered serious wounds, both visible and invisible to their bodies their minds and their hearts," Clinton said Monday in Philadelphia. "As president, I intend to honor their extraordinary service and the sacrifice of them and their families by ending this war and bringing them home as quickly and responsibly as possible."

In a released statement, Obama said: "It is past time to end this war that should never have been waged by bringing our troops home, and finally pushing Iraq’s leaders to take responsibility for their future."

The 4,000 U.S. killed in Iraq figure includes seven civilians who worked for the military services while serving in Iraq.

Last week Cheney made headlines when asked about recent polls that show about two-thirds of Americans say the fight in Iraq is not worth it.

"So?" Cheney replied during that interview. "You don’t care what the American people think?" Raddatz asked the vice president at the time.

"You can’t be blown off course by polls," Cheney said during that interview.

Today, Cheney defended that answer.

"Look, there are alot of people out there, Martha, that don’t agree with me about a lot of things, but if I wanted to be loved, I’d ought to be a TV correspondent, not a politician," he said.

... Ahem....
Dick... is it?
No, you’re job isn’t to be loved... Besides, that’s never going to happen...

Your job... and GWB’s job is to do what the majority of the people YOU SERVE want you to do... And to be HONEST with them so that they are correctly informed and thereby equipped to make INFORMED DECISIONS... You Dumb, Smug Asshole!
L.

Sunday, March 23, 2008

TSA Electric Shock Bracelets... Fly the FRIENDLY Skies?

You gotta hear this...

It’s a recent proposal made to the TSA (Transportation Safety Agency) regarding a new air safety measure:
It involves "...situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on each of the passengers..."

That’s right, My Fellow Americans...

I don’t know if the cost is included in the price of your ticket...

I guess, when they ask you what kind of meal you want... they’ll also ask you what size ECT Bracelet you wear.

If you don’t know... I’m sure that they’ll have measuring tapes at hand at the Check-In...

All kidding aside...
Well, at least some of it...
It goes without saying that this isn’t just a Bad Idea... It’s a STUPID Idea...

"... Don’t Taze Me, Man!"

If anyone has been paying attention... In spite of the fact that the company that manufactures Tazer Guns heavily promoted their purchase and use to Police Departments and declared them a safe alternative to guns and "Non-Lethal" weapons...
I believe at least a few hundred people have suddenly died shortly after being "tazered" by the Police.

They must not be considering the fact that many people have diagnosed heart conditions and and many others likely have undiagnosed heart conditions... Among countless other potential health-related contraindications...

Then... there’s the hacker target potential
... and the fact that other devices... like a garage door opener might set one of these bracelets off... Or any number of things...

Luckily, for myself and those (if any) like me... I drain batteries... quickly.

But, for anyone else... Unless you’re into this sort of thing...

Like I said... It’s a STUPID Idea.

"Fly the FRIENDLY Skies"?... Yeah, Right.

(From: boingboing.net)

Air Safety Proposal: Electric Shock Bracelets - Controlled By Flight Attendants

Photobucket
Perhaps Cartier could come up with a First Class Model?

Posted by Cory Doctorow, March 20, 2008 5:14 PM | permalink
Lamperd, a "firearm training system" company, has patented a bracelet that delivers debilitating shocks when remotely triggered.
Their killer app for this is aviation safety: They’re proposing that the TSA could force everyone who flies to wear one of these and then flight-attendants could zap us into a stupor if we turn out to be Al Quaeda.

"A method of providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft comprises situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on each of the passengers in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock when activated; and arming the electric shock devices for subsequent selective activation by a selectively operable remote control disposed within the aircraft. The remotely activatable electric shock devices each have activation circuitry responsive to the activating signal transmitted from the selectively operable remote control means. The activated electric shock device is operable to deliver the disabling electrical shock to that passenger."

Best part? They’re Canadian! Oh, my countrymen, you have a wicked sense of humo(u)r.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Passport Breaches: Condi Does The "I Didn't Know" Dance... Again

So...

It’s only now being disclosed that on (at least) three different occasions... (that’s what they’re owning up to... right now.)

Some Bush Administration dingleberries at the State Department - illegitimately and illegally - stuck their proboscis into Senator and Presidential Candidate Barack Obama’s Passport history file.

... And Condi Rice claims that she was only recently told about it?

Not a big surprise there...

The Bush Administration has not only used the "I did not know that/I was unaware of/I do not recall"... more than Ronald Reagan or any other previous Administration... they’ve raised it to new heights (... or is it, "... taken it to unexplored depths?") of rampant and repetitive ridiculousness.

Also, Hillary Clinton is saying that good ol’ Secretary of State Condi told her that Senator Clinton’s passport history had also been pulled up without permission... in 2007.

Question is: When did Condi tell Hillary this?

Was it only after the news of the unofficial breach of Obama’s file began breaking all over the news shows?

Hmmm...

Not only that...

Now... the putzes that be are also claiming that Senator John McCain’s passport file had been perused...

Yeah, Right! Like I believe that!

John McCain’s passport history?... Who Cares?!

Not the Clinton nor the Obama Campaigns!

But, I’m sure that the McCain Campaign and the Repug Party would LOVE to look for dirt or anything that could be twisted to resemble dirt on whomever becomes the Democratic Candidate for President.

It’s totally up their alley and probably in their ("How To Play Dirty") Playbook.

Suddenly - after the Obama story broke and people were hollering for an federal investigation - It is suggested that it wasn’t a Bush Admin., Ass*ole-approved act.

Gee...

How nice and fair and balanced of the State Department and it’s uninformed/unaware Secretary of State to try to come up with a way to make the breach of Obama’s personal and private passport history - on at least three separate occasions - a little less of a politically-motivated CRIME by the Bush AdmiNi(t-Wit)stration.

These disclosures - of unofficial passport inquiries - hearkens back to 1992, when (whod’ve guessed?) a Republican appointee at State lost rank due to digging up Bill Clinton’s passport history. Why?... Ol’ Bill was running against Daddy Bush at the time.

Apparently... a genetic disposition towards inappropriate and unwarranted Spying has developed in the Bush family...

It probably germinated when G.H.W. Bush was at the helm of the CIA.

Peace.
L.

(From:www.ajc.com.)

Rice Apologizes To Obama For Passport Breach

By DESMOND BUTLER
Associated Press
Published on: 03/21/08

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Friday apologized to Sen. Barack Obama for a security breach in which three State Department contractors inappropriately reviewed the Democratic presidential candidate’s passport file.

The episode raised questions as to whether the actions of the three contractors, two of whom have been fired, were politically motivated.

"I told him that I was sorry, and I told him that I myself would be very disturbed," Rice told reporters.

"None of us wants to have a circumstance where any American’s passport files are looked at in an unauthorized way," she said.

Rice, who spoke with Obama by phone, said she was particularly disappointed that senior officials at the State Department were not immediately notified.

"It was not to my knowledge, and we also want to take every step to make sure that this kind of thing doesn’t happen again," she said.

The State Department’s inspector general is investigating the passport breach, which occurred on three separate occasions — Jan. 9, Feb. 21 and as recently as last week, on March 14. On Friday, the department announced that the Justice Department would be monitoring the probe in case it needs to get involved.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Friday that the State Department would make results of the investigation available to congressional oversight committees and to Obama’s office.

Bill Burton, a spokesman for Obama’s presidential campaign, has called the incident "an outrageous breach of security and privacy."

Two of the employees were fired for the security breach and the third was disciplined but is still working, the department said Thursday. It would not release the names of those who were fired and disciplined or the names of the two companies for which they worked.

It is not clear whether the employees saw anything other than the basic personal data such as name, citizenship, age, Social Security number and place of birth, which is required when a person fills out a passport application.

Aside from the file, the information could allow Obama’s critics to dig deeper into his private life. While the file includes his date and place of birth, address at time of application and the countries he’s traveled to, the most important detail would be his Social Security number, which can be used to pull credit reports and other personal information.

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama’s passport file, for what purpose and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach," Burton said on Thursday.

McCormack said the breaches occurred were detected by internal State Department computer checks. The department’s top management officer, Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy, said certain records, including those of high-profile people, are "flagged" with a computer tag that tips off supervisors when someone tries to view the records without a proper reason.

The firings and unspecified discipline of the third employee already had occurred when senior State Department officials learned of the breaches. Kennedy called that a failing.

"I will fully acknowledge this information should have been passed up the line," Kennedy told reporters in a conference call Thursday night. "It was dealt with at the office level."

In answer to a question, Kennedy said the department doesn’t look into political affiliation in doing background checks on passport workers. "Now that this has arisen, this becomes a germane question, and that will be something for the appropriate investigation to look into," he said.

The department informed Obama’s Senate office of the breach on Thursday. Kennedy said that at the office’s request, he will provide a personal briefing for the senator’s staff on Friday. No one from the State Department spoke to Obama personally on Thursday, the officials said.

Obama was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia for several years as a child before returning to the United States. As a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he has traveled to the Middle East; the former Soviet states with Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind.; and Africa, where in 2006 he and his wife, Michelle, publicly took HIV tests in Kenya to encourage people there to do the same.

Obama’s father was born in Kenya, and the senator still has relatives there.

The disclosure of inappropriate passport inquiries recalled an incident in 1992, when a Republican political appointee at the State Department was demoted over a search of presidential candidate Bill Clinton’s passport records. At the time he was challenging President George H.W. Bush.

The State Department’s inspector general said the official had helped arrange the search in an attempt to find politically damaging information about Clinton, who had been rumored to have considered renouncing his citizenship to avoid the Vietnam War draft.

The State Department said the official, Steven Berry, had shown "serious lapses in judgment."

After a three-year, $2.2 million probe, a federal independent counsel exonerated officials in the incident, saying that while some of the actions investigated were "stupid, dumb and partisan," they were not criminal. The independent counsel also said that Berry and others who were disciplined for their involvement were treated unfairly.

Doug Hattaway, a spokesman for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, the former first lady who is challenging Obama for the Democratic presidential nomination, said of the current breach: "It’s outrageous and the Bush administration has to get to the bottom of it."

Kennedy and McCormack said it was too soon to say whether a crime was committed. The searches may violate the federal Privacy Act, and Kennedy said he is consulting State Department lawyers.

The State Department inspector general’s power is limited because two of the employees are no longer working for the department. McCormack said it was premature to consider whether the FBI or Justice Department should be involved.

McCormack said Rice was informed of the breaches on Thursday.

The Washington Times first reported on the breaches.

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Break a Mirror... 7 Years
Break or Toss Out a CFL... Mercury Poisoning?

I’ve always hated fluorescent lights...

... And, apparently, the feeling is mutual...

The evil, blinking buggers give me wicked migraines.

The widespread push over the last few years for EVERYONE to stop using incandescent (non-migraine inducing) bulbs... and switch to the New, Spiffy and Swirly Compact Fluorescent Lights (CFLs) has been an ordeal.

I Don’t Care that they’re "...Longer Lasting!"... and, for me at least, They Don’t "...Use Less Energy!"... (It takes A Lot of Energy out of a person to dry heave for several hours.)

Now... I stumble upon this little item... Well, it isn’t so "little."

You likely were as unaware as I was that the Squiggly Darling of the (apparently uninformed) chorus that’s been touting this Poster Bulb in their "Go Greener!" advertising contains a highly toxic substance that can cause kidney and brain damage.

The Creepy, Little Coils that will often keep me from ever setting foot in those businesses that bought into the alternate-light hype and that glow with their unnatural and painful pulse contain MERCURY, a NEUROTOXIN.

Remember good ol’ incandescents?...

If you broke one of those... the worst thing that could happen is you might cut yourself picking up the shards... No Big Deal.

And Disposal of Incandescents? Easy... they went in the regular trash.

But those snake-like CFLs?...

Please Take Note of This:

There are Actually a Set of Safety Guidelines for Cleaning Up A Broken CFL (Compact Fluorescent.).

No, I’m not kidding, I’ve included them at the end of the article below.

Not only that...

You should NEVER THROW COMPACT FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS IN THE TRASH.

Like I said... They Contain MERCURY... Just a little in each one...

But, it’s enough to thoroughly contaminate our groundwater if you consider the number of CFLs sold in America (9 MILLION in California alone in 2007!)... and the fact that there’s been no PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT to let the Public Know that they shouldn’t throw them out with the trash.

I don’t know if the package even tells you about the Mercury or Safe Clean-Up or Safe Disposal...

Like I said... I hate the little, terrible twists... I’ve never even picked one up...

Which is a good thing considering... If I’d have dropped and broken one... i probably would’ve just picked up the pieces like we all used to do with incandescents...

And that, my friends, is a Big "No. No."

Brought to You By: "G.E.... We bring Good Things To Life!"...

Gee... Migraines AND Mercury Poisoning?... Thanks!

I’ll just stick with the Mercury Neurotoxin-Free Incandescents.

Peace.
L.

Shining a Light on Hazards of Fluorescent Bulbs
Energy-efficient coils booming, but disposal of Mercury poses problems

By Alex Johnson
Reporter
MSNBC
updated 4:10 p.m. PT, Wed., March. 19, 2008

Compact fluorescent light bulbs, long touted by environmentalists as a more efficient and longer-lasting alternative to the incandescent bulbs that have lighted homes for more than a century, are running into resistance from waste industry officials and some environmental scientists, who warn that the bulbs’ poisonous innards pose a bigger threat to health and the environment than previously thought.

Fluorescents — the squiggly, coiled bulbs that generate light by heating gases in a glass tube — are generally considered to use more than 50 percent less energy and to last several times longer than incandescent bulbs.

When fluorescent bulbs first hit store shelves several years ago, consumers complained about the loud noise they made, their harsh light, their bluish color, their clunky shape and the long time it took for them to warm up.

Since then, the bulbs — known as CFLs — have been revamped, and strict government guidelines have alleviated most of those problems. But while the bulbs are extremely energy-efficient, one problem hasn’t gone away: All CFLs contain mercury, a neurotoxin that can cause kidney and brain damage.

The amount is tiny — about 5 milligrams, or barely enough to cover the tip of a pen — but that is enough to contaminate 6,000 gallons of water beyond safe drinking levels, Stanford University environmental safety researchers found. Even the latest lamps promoted as "low-mercury" can contaminate more than 1,000 gallons of water beyond safe levels.

There is no disputing that overall, fluorescent bulbs save energy and reduce pollution in general. An average incandescent bulb lasts about 800 to 1,500 hours; a spiral fluorescent bulb can last as long as 10,000 hours. In just more than a year — since the beginning of 2007 — 9 million fluorescent bulbs have been purchased in California, preventing the release of 1.5 billion pounds of carbon dioxide compared with traditional bulbs, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"Using them actually reduces overall emissions to the environment, even though they contain minuscule amounts of mercury in themselves," said Mark Kohorst, senior manager for environment, health and safety for the National Electrical Manufacturers Association.

Public, agencies ill-informed of risks
As long as the mercury is contained in the bulb, CFLs are perfectly safe. But eventually, any bulbs — even CFLs — break or burn out, and most consumers simply throw them out in the trash, said Ellen Silbergeld, a professor of environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins University and editor of the journal Environmental Research.

"This is an enormous amount of mercury that’s going to enter the waste stream at present with no preparation for it," she said.

Manufacturers and the EPA say broken CFLs should be handled carefully and recycled to limit dangerous vapors and the spread of mercury dust. But guidelines for how to do that can be difficult to find, as Brandy Bridges of Ellsworth, Maine, discovered.

"It was just a wiggly bulb that I reached up to change," Bridges said. "When the bulb hit the floor, it shattered."

When Bridges began calling around to local government agencies to find out what to do, "I was shocked to see how uninformed literally everyone I spoke to was," she said. "Even our own poison control operator didn’t know what to tell me."

The state eventually referred her to a private cleanup firm, which quoted a $2,000 estimate to contain the mercury. After Bridges complained publicly about her predicament, state officials changed their recommendation: Simply throw it in the trash, they said.

Limited options for safe recycling
The disposal problem doesn’t end there. Ideally, broken bulbs and their remains should be recycled at a facility approved to handle fluorescent lamps, but such facilities are not common.

California is one of only seven states — Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin are the others — that ban disposing of fluorescent bulbs as general waste. And yet, qualified recycling facilities are limited to about one per county. In other states, collection of CFLs is conducted only at certain times of the year — twice annually in the District of Columbia, for example, and only once a year in most of Georgia.

In fact, qualified places to recycle CFLs are so few that the largest recycler of of fluorescent bulbs in America is Ikea, the furniture chain.

"I think there’s going to be hundreds of millions of [CFLs] in landfills all over the country," said Leonard Worth, head of Fluorecycle Inc. of Ingleside, Ill., a certified facility.

Once in a landfill, bulbs are likely to shatter even if they’re packaged properly, said the Solid Waste Association of North America. From there, mercury can leach into soil and groundwater and its vapors can spread through the air, potentially exposing workers to toxic levels of the poison.

Industry working on safer bulbs
Kohorst, of the electrical manufacturers group, acknowledged that disposal was a complex problem. But he said fluorescent bulbs were so energy-efficient that it was worth the time and money needed to make them completely safe.

"These are a great product, and they’re going to continue solving our energy problems, and gradually we’re going to find a solution to their disposal, as well," Kohorst said.

In the meantime, manufacturers of incandescent bulbs are not going down without a fight.

General Electric Corp., the world’s largest maker of traditional bulbs, said that by 2010, it hoped to have on the market a new high-efficiency incandescent bulb that will be four times as efficient as today’s 125-year-old technology. It said that such bulbs would closely rival fluorescent bulbs for efficiency, with no mercury.

(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft Corp. and NBC Universal, which is a division of General Electric.)

However, if the disposal problem is to be solved, speed would appear to be called for. Consumers bought more than 300 million CFLs last year, according to industry figures, but they may be simply trading one problem (low energy-efficiency) for another (hazardous materials by the millions of pounds going right into the earth).

"One lamp, so what? Ten lamps, so what? A million lamps, well that’s something," said Worth of Fluorecycle.

"A hundred million lamps? Now, that’s a whole different ballgame."

NBC affiliates KNTV of San Francisco; KPVI of Pocatello, Idaho; WBAL of Baltimore; WLBZ of Bangor, Maine; WMAQ of Chicago; WRC of Washington; and WTLV of Jacksonville, Fla., contributed to this report.

HOW TO (SAFELY) CLEAN UP A BROKEN FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULB:

*Before cleanup: Vent the room*

1. Open a window and leave the room for 15 minutes or more.
2. Shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system, if you have one.

*Cleanup steps for hard surfaces*

3. Carefully scoop up glass fragments and powder using stiff paper or cardboard and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
5. Wipe the area clean with damp paper towels or disposable wet wipes and place them in the glass jar or plastic bag.
6. Do not use a vacuum or broom to clean up the broken bulb on hard surfaces.

*Cleanup steps for carpeting or rug*

3. Carefully pick up glass fragments and place them in a glass jar with metal lid (such as a canning jar) or in a sealed plastic bag.
4. Use sticky tape, such as duct tape, to pick up any remaining small glass fragments and powder.
5. If vacuuming is needed after all visible materials are removed, vacuum the area where the bulb was broken.
6. Remove the vacuum bag (or empty and wipe the canister), and put the bag or vacuum debris in a sealed plastic bag.

*Disposal of cleanup materials*

7. Immediately place all cleanup materials outside the building in a trash container or outdoor protected area for the next normal trash.
8. Wash your hands after disposing of the jars or plastic bags containing cleanup materials.
9. Check with your local or state government about disposal requirements in your specific area. Some states prohibit such trash disposal and require that broken and unbroken lamps be taken to a recycling center.

*Future cleaning of carpeting or rug*

10. For at least the next few times you vacuum, shut off the central forced-air heating/air conditioning system and open a window prior to vacuuming.
11. Keep the central heating/air conditioning system shut off and the window open for at least 15 minutes after vacuuming is completed.

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Forget Waldo... Where in the World Has Dick Cheney Been?

I’ll admit it...
I’ve never been good at the whole linear, one-way, march of death, time thing...

Sometimes it goes forward...
...And sometimes it starts off going forward... but then, before you know it, it’s leaped backwards and you get to work 15 minutes early...
...Even though you were running at least 25 minutes late (Who says prayer doesn’t work?).

I don’t know about your experience of personal reality...
But, to me... in mine, it seems like everything’s been quiet for months... A good 6-10 months...
(if you don’t count the back-and-forth political camPai(g)n poking or the (as GWB put it:) "challenging" (snicker) economic tumult.)

Now...
...Suddenly...
...Out of No Where...
...They begin to arrive...
...Multiple reports of a Sighting... of... HIM!

You listen - somewhat in shock - to the horrible chorus repeated by all the news anchors...
Their words pepper you...their meaning stings...

...It’s like... Well... a shotgun blast to the face...

Heeeeeeee’s Baaaaack!

In spite of the fact that he’s (allegedly) thousands of miles away... the mere mention of his human name makes your stomach queasy... Your heart starts pounding in your chest and thumping in your ears...

... "No!", you silently scream, in anguish. It can’t be! Not... Him!

It had been so long... No one had seen him... Not one news show or front page headline had mentioned his name...for so long that...

... You thought... Well... Hoped against Hope... No... Wished, yeah, Wished (that’s it!) that he was ... well... Gone!

Didn’t We All? (OK, except maybe for the wife...)

Who am I talking about?

Well, the One and Only Terrible Troll himself... The Ho of Halliburton...

Mr. Dick (and I do mean "Dick") Cheney, of course!

Is it me? Or has this carbon-based carbuncle been M.I.A for the last six to ten months?

In my little Reality, Dick had pretty much stopped existing (... OK, stop snickering, you know what I meant.)

It’s kinda been like it was right after the Sept.11th attacks... You know... The media was reporting every detail of GWB’s whereabouts at all times... But you couldn’t get a bead on Cheney to save your life.

Maybe he’s been holed up in another bunker?

Hey, Dick... Did the ol’ Ticker stop ticking?

You know what... Maybe Dick did die... and Halliburton (or a subsidiary) has spent the better part of the last year cloning him...

Until the other day when...

..."Abracadabra!"... or "Rumplestiltskin!"... or even... "He’s Alive!"...

...And now...

In a sorrowful surprise to us all...

Dick has risen up from the grave and found himself in...

...Iraq... (Hmm... maybe he never left?)...

... He’s slapping backs and saying things to the effect of: "Look at all this Progress we’ve made!" and "Everything’s coming up bases... Uh, I mean roses!"

***A Personal Aside Here: L’Chaim!... Now, What about the Hurricane-and-Flood decimated Gulf Coast, Mr. Vice President... Why don’t you make some Formaldehyde-free Progress THERE?***
(Thanks, I just couldn’t help myself.)

"Success", you say? "It was worth it.", you say?

Of course you would sneer that...

"The goal for the invasion was permanent occupation of Iraq as America’s "police station" in the middle east. By that standard the 14 permanent bases are doing just fine, thanks. (Reference: Project for the New American Century)" (Fromsalon.com)

Hey, Dick! Why don’t you crawl/slither/drip back into that hole you’ve been hiding/being reconstituted in... and don’t come back until... well, at least Halloween or January 2nd.

Peace.
L.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

Risen & Edmonds: Not As Appreciated As Woodward & Bernstein... Yet.

Bless the Beasts and the Children and...

The Whistleblowers!

For Where would we all be without Them?

If it were left up to the current deluded, delusional and deep in denial/"I don’t remember" Administration...

...Well, let’s just say that... if Light represents Truth...
We’d still be stumbling and fumbling in complete and absolute darkness... grasping for some solid semblance of a Fact (... or one of those thousands of White House emails which "went missing"... and somehow didn’t make it into the Presidential Record... It’s Funny how the state-of-the-art systems in place to make sure all Presidential communications are entered into Permanent Record - something instituted after Watergate and the missing 18hrs. of tape - suddenly and without warning or anyone noticing... stopped working exactly at the times that serious communications were going on..
Like when CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity was being intentionally leaked and when Former Incompetent Attorney General Gonzalez became a Bush finger puppet and used his position to facilitate the firing of US Prosecutors who were pursuing cased against Republican officials...

Gee, I hope they got that bug out of the system...

I betcha it’ll be working just fine...
... As soon as GWB and his Cabinet of Corruption are out)

Anyway... The Whistleblowers.

Here are two names of two Americans who honestly deserve to be awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom...

They Love America.
They Believe in what America has always Stood for and Will Stand for Again...
As soon as...

These two Americans... in spite of it creating a real risk to their own freedoms and/or lives (one was fired from her job)... made a choice between being Sheeple and Being People... They saw that our leaders and some of those who had the responsibility to keep us safe were doing us wrong... and they took the initiative to let us know about it.

These two Americans are sooo much more deserving of The Medal of Freedom than ...
those "... bargain-basement Flying Karamazov Brothers of disastrous international politics..." - as Robert J. Elisberg described them - Tommy Franks, L. Paul Bremer and Former CIA Chief George Tenent.

But, considering who’s at the helm... can’t say as I’m surprised he gave it to them...
Maybe George believes that by doing so, he somehow makes the whole Iraq Fiasco - from inception to invasion to the Hundreds of Billions of Your Tax Dollars being poured into the Bottomless and Un-Accounted for Money Pit that Iraq is today...
(While here, in California, Hundreds of School Teachers are getting Pink Slips (firing notices) due to Trickle-Down Budget Cuts of - by comparison - a scant few $ Million)
look like less of a concocted and conspired-for War Crime.

Psst... Georgie?... It doesn’t.

Remember these two names:
James Risen and Sibel Edmonds...
Maybe even nominate them for a Medal...
(Once You-Know-Who is Gone, Baby Gone.)

I, for One, am looking forward to that moment...
More than I ever looked forward to Christmas Morning and the unwrapping of gifts.

Peace.
L.

Photobucket

Photobucket

Photobucket



(From: Bill Moyer’s Journal)

Government Secrecy and The Press

You may not know James Risen’s name, but you probably know his work: He’s one of the NEW YORK TIMES reporters who broke the story of the Bush administration listening in to phone calls and reading email, without search warrants. That story infuriated some conservatives. A popular blog accused Risen and his co-author of treason for revealing sensitive information, and pundit William Bennett said the reporters deserved jail time.

Bennett may get his wish. A federal prosecutor has asked a grand jury to look into a book that Risen wrote. It details not only warrantless wiretapping but also how, when it came to covert operations in the Middle East, the Administration made "mistake piled on mistake" caused an "espionage disaster" and was "operating in the blind" when it came to Iran.

Risen was subpoenaed to tell a grand jury who he talked to about Iran — in other words, to reveal his anonymous sources. So far, the reporter has refused to talk. And recently, his lawyer moved to quash the subpoena. Some veteran investigative journalists wrote letters in support of that motion. One of them told me that if Risen is forced to testify, the public will be the real loser. Here’s why: Anonymous sources have a lot to lose if their identities are revealed because a lot of them are powerful or prominent. So, if the Federal government can force a reporter like Risen to reveal their identities, those sources will clam up. There’d be more corruption and wrongdoing in Washington that the public would never learn about.

Administration officials seem not to mind keeping the public in the dark.

But for muckrakers and whistleblowers, it’s getting harder and harder to expose corruption and wrongdoing.

Take the case of former FBI agent Sibel Edmonds: She blew the whistle on massive incompetence at the Bureau — sloppy translations, missed messages from terror suspects. She even alleged that insiders were leaking secrets to foreign agents. She lost her job for it.

Just after Congress got interested in her story — and a bipartisan group of Senators said they found her claims credible enough to warrant an investigation — the administration retroactively classified everything that she knew, pretty much shutting down any chance of an investigation. U.S. journalists have found it nearly impossible to look into her claims. Over the past year, there’s been only one article on her in a major newspaper, and it simply announced that she’d won a freedom-of-speech award. Meanwhile, the TIMES OF LONDON has published three stories — just this year — digging into her claim that Administration officials sold secrets to foreign governments.

Sometimes the Administration’s efforts to squelch critics seem downright petty: Reporters for the Web site TALKING POINTS MEMO, for example, led the way in showing how the Administration encouraged federal prosecutors to go after Democrats, but go easy on Republicans. So the Department of Justice kicked the web site off of its press list. A small thing, sure, but it rankled one member of the House enough that he asked Attorney General Michael Mukasey about it at a hearing. Mukasey’s response? "I don’t know."

Recently, the Department of Justice reinstated TALKING POINTS MEMO to its press list — right around the same time that the web site won an award for its reporting on the Department of Justice.

So, Administration officials stonewall lawmakers and try to silence critics — or just make their jobs harder. That’s not news. But this time, a reporter could go to jail. The irony in James Risen’s predicament is that he was one of the reporters who revealed that the Administration could never have secretly listened in on phone calls, or read emails, without help from big telecom firms — the conglomerates that supply most Americans with phone or Internet service. After the article appeared, civil-liberties advocates filed lawsuits against the conglomerates trying to hold them accountable for helping the Administration break the law. Just recently, the Senate voted to grant those telecom companies immunity from the lawsuits — to let them off the hook — while the reporter who’d exposed them fought to stay out of jail.

Rick Karr is a correspondent for BILL MOYERS JOURNAL.
Published on February 28, 2008.

****Update****
House Passes FISA Amendments Act
March 14th, 2008 by Jesse Lee

The House has just passed the House amendment to the Senate amendment to H.R. 3773, to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to establish a procedure for authorizing certain acquisitions of foreign intelligence, and for other purposes, by a vote of 213-197-1. The revised House legislation to amend FISA grants new authorities for conducting electronic surveillance against foreign targets while preserving the requirement that the government obtain an individualized FISA court order, based on probable cause, when targeting Americans at home or abroad. The House bill also strongly enhances oversight of the Administration’s surveillance activities. Finally, the House bill does not provide retroactive immunity for telecom companies but allows the courts to determine whether lawsuits should proceed.

And lil ol’ Me says: "Yippee Kai Yay... M.F.!"
Thank You, US House of Representatives!... and Shame on You, US Senate... Get Up, Stand Up and Do The Right Things For the Right Reasons For All of Us... George is outta here in less than a year... No More Going Along to Get Along... Or... You’re Fired!
L.

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Earmarks: $ Millions of Your Dollars for Things That Don't Work and/or Are Dangerous

I was watching Bill Moyer's Journal program on PBS a couple of weeks ago and there was a segment on the show about two Seattle Times newspaper reporters.

What caught my attention was that these two journalists were actually doing INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM, not only that...
The Seattle Times was supporting their work, encouraging them and PRINTING their articles!

I looked up the article that was being discussed: it was on the $ Millions of Dollars spent on earmarks attached to the Military Appropriations Bill of 2007.
These two reporters did their homework. They actually got a hold of the Bill and the Earmarks and then figured out how to translate the Gov-Speak they were written in.
They then found out that a huge amount of taxpayer money - that's YOUR MONEY - is going towards the purchase of items for various branches of the military that either A.) Are Not Wanted by the Military, B.) Can't be used by the Military (Unsafe) or C.) DON'T WORK!

They also tracked down the members of Congress who saw to it that these expensive and useless earmarks were attached to the Appropriations Bill, and what connections they had to the companies in line to make money off of them (like campaign contributions).

Holy Cow!

I found what modern society - at least over the last seven years - had accepted as being virtually EXTINCT...

I'd discovered a genuine piece of current Investigative Journalism!

Many Thanks to David Heath and Hal Bernton and The Seattle Times.
Keep Up The Phenomenal Work!

Check This Out:

(I asked for and received permission from
The Seattle Times
to reprint this article.)

Photobucket
THOMAS JAMES HURST / THE SEATTLE TIMES
$4.5 million | The earmark forced the Navy to buy a boat it didn't ask for and couldn't use. The company that built the boat, Guardian Marine International, got four earmarks totaling $17.65 million over several years.



$4.5 Million For a Boat That Nobody Wanted

By David Heath and Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporters

Tucked away on Seattle's Portage Bay, a sleek, 85-foot speedboat sat idle for years — save for an annual jaunt to maintain its engine.

The Navy paid $4.5 million to build the boat. But months before the hull ever touched water, the Navy gave the boat to the University of Washington. The school never found a use for it, either.

Why would the Navy waste taxpayer dollars on a boat that nobody wanted?

Blame it on Sen. Patty Murray and Congressmen Norm Dicks and Brian Baird. All three exercised their political muscle to slip language into a 2002 spending bill to force the Navy to buy the boat from Edmonds shipbuilder Guardian Marine International.

Year after year, the Washington lawmakers did favors for the tiny company, inserting four "earmarks" into different bills to force the Navy and Coast Guard to buy boats they didn't ask for — $17.65 million in all. None of the boats was used as Congress intended.

The congressional trio say they were helping Guardian Marine because it had a great product. But each has also received generous campaign donations from the company's three executives, its sole employees: $14,277 to Baird, $15,000 to Murray, and $16,750 to Dicks.

Earmarks are federal dollars that members of Congress dole out to favor seekers — often campaign donors. In the process, lawmakers advocate for the companies, helping them bypass the normal system of evaluation and competition.

This can result in earmarks that are wasteful or potentially harmful.

For example, Murray directed $6 million to a Redmond company for high-tech battle gear that the Army had rejected as flawed for its armored-vehicle Stryker Brigade.

Rep. David Wu, D-Ore., directed the Marines to buy $2 million of combat T-shirts from an Oregon company. But they couldn't be used in battle in Iraq due to a subsequent ban on polyester garments that could melt under fire and badly burn the troops.

Until recently, the earmark process was secretive. Congress did not have to publicly reveal the names of companies getting the contracts or those of the sponsoring lawmakers.

The Seattle Times investigated the 2007 defense bill, examining the relationships between who got money in the bill and who gave to lawmakers' campaign funds. Reporters were able to tie nearly half of the bill's 2,700 earmarks to their sponsoring lawmakers.

The Times then built a database of tens of thousands of government records to perform an analysis. It provides an in-depth look at the extent to which these congressional favors and campaign giving go hand in glove.

The Times found:

People who benefit from earmarks generally give money to those who deliver them: Of the nearly 500 companies identified as getting 2007 defense earmarks, 78 percent had employees or political action committees who made campaign contributions to Congress in the past six years.

Though individual contributions are limited by law, people at companies that received defense earmarks gave lawmakers more than $47 million.

The 2,700 earmarks Congress put in the 2007 military spending bill cost $11.8 billion. The Pentagon didn't ask for the money in its budget and, because its budget is capped by law, cuts had to be made to find room for the favors.

Nearly all members of Congress dole out earmarks. Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona, an earmark critic, calls the practice "circular fundraising" because of the perception that tax dollars given out as favors come back as campaign donations. "I think that most taxpayers would say that it doesn't pass the smell test," he said.

Winslow Wheeler, formerly a congressional aide who dealt with defense earmarks for years, said no one in Congress asks for campaign donations in exchange for earmarks because they don't have to; everyone understands the process.

"It's not talked about," but if favors are not followed with donations, Wheeler said, "it's noticed — you may get a little bit less help the next year."

Murray, Dicks and Baird say emphatically that their favors to defense contractors never come with strings attached. The distinction is critical because soliciting a campaign contribution in exchange for an earmark is a crime.

"People, if they want to support me, they support me," Dicks said. "If they don't want to support me, I still might do their earmark — if I thought it was a worthy project."

Earmarking has exploded in the past decade, quintupling from 1996 to 2005, according to the Congressional Research Service.

During "The Season," the first three months each year on Capitol Hill, thousands of favor seekers flood the offices of Congress, asking for earmarks. Appointments stack one on top of the other, tying up staffers for months, as lawmakers winnow through the myriad requests and decide what to buy.

Jack Abramoff, the once-powerful lobbyist convicted of influence peddling, called the process "the favor factory."

Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Seattle, who sponsors some earmarks, says that lawmakers find it easier to raise money from people they know from committee work. "I think it's very hard [for the public] not to have the impression that in some way what you do on the committee is some way related to how much money you get."

Officially, the Pentagon opposes earmarks because they circumvent its own efforts to set spending priorities, thoroughly evaluate products and seek competitive bids.

Some military officials, however, eagerly support earmarks that expand their programs. Gerald Darsch, who heads food research at Natick Soldier Systems Center, backed Murray when she set aside money to develop longer-lasting tomatoes and rations, a move that substantially increased his budget.

A senior Army official who fulfills Congress' earmarks said he first learns of them when the defense bill passes. He spoke only if his name was not used.

Often, he said he can't figure them out from the cryptic descriptions in the bill.

"If there's a new mark out there for something we've never seen before, [we go] back to the subcommittee and say, 'Hey, you put an earmark on this line for this amount of dollars. What the hell is it?' Because some of this stuff — hell, I've been in the Army for 20 years, and I don't know what some of that stuff is."

Boat Gets A Lift

The story of how Guardian Marine landed millions of dollars in public funds begins in Edmonds in the late 1990s. Company founder Richard Martinson had developed a "fast patrol boat," a hybrid of a speedboat and a ship, 85 feet long and capable of up to 40 knots, like crossing a sports car with a recreational vehicle.

The plan was to sell the $4 million patrol boat to foreign governments, but Martinson, a former Coast Guard commander, said sales floundered.

Martinson's fortunes brightened not long after he made his first recorded contribution to a congressional campaign in June 1998. He gave $500 to the re-election fund of Dicks, whom he knew when they lived a few doors apart at UW's Terry Hall in the 1960s.

In fall 1999, Dicks and Baird added a line in the defense bill to have the Navy buy Guardian Marine's $4 million boat.

Dicks urged the Navy to assign the boat to the Navy SEALs or other high-speed missions. But the boat was never deployed on any combat missions. It is now in Carderock, Md., "being used to evaluate new and emergent maritime technology," a Navy spokesman said.

Guardian Marine gained another powerful advocate in 2001 in Sen. Murray, who had just become chair of an appropriations subcommittee.

Murray describes herself as a "huge unabashed supporter of the maritime building industry" and boasts that her earmarks have helped to create jobs. She said she remembers hearing the Coast Guard talk about a need for fast boats to chase down drug runners.

Martinson recalls Murray telling him, "Maybe they should look at your boat."

"Senator, it sounds real good to me," Martinson recounts saying. "But remember one thing: You're going to get pushback from these people. The Coast Guard doesn't like any outside entity telling them what they need."

Martinson's prediction came true. Murray "had to work hard to get the Coast Guard to take the boat," he said. "There was a group that was upset because they felt the vessel was shoved down their throat."

Murray added a $4.65 million earmark to the 2002 defense bill and left the Coast Guard no choice about which boat it would buy, specifying in the bill that it had to be "a currently-developed 85-foot fast patrol craft that is manufactured in the United States."

The Coast Guard's mission shifted after Sept. 11, primarily to homeland security.

Murray said she might not have pursued the earmark "if we had been able to look forward and know that Sept. 11 was going to happen."

But the bill actually passed three months after Sept. 11. Before the final vote, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., attacked Murray's earmark.

"The Coast Guard did not request this vessel, does not need this vessel, nor does this vessel meet the Coast Guard's requirements," he said on the Senate floor. "The Coast Guard's resources are already stretched thin and this will only hamper its ability to meet its new challenges since Sept. 11."

The bill passed with all its pork intact.

After several evaluations, the Coast Guard concluded it couldn't use the Guardian boat. It didn't need it to chase drug smugglers because it uses helicopters to do that more easily and safely.

"It's a fine boat for what it is," said Lt. Cmdr. Bill Brewer, who led some of the testing. "It didn't fit well into what the Coast Guard operates."

The Coast Guard gave it to a sheriff's office that uses it to patrol San Francisco Bay.

At the time of McCain's attack, Murray, Dicks and Baird delivered a third earmark for Guardian Marine, having the Navy buy another boat.

The plan was to have the Navy use the Guardian Marine boat in tandem with another test boat called the Sealion. The lawmakers combined the two boats into an $8.4 million earmark; both would be built by Oregon Iron Works.

By joining forces with Oregon Iron Works, its subcontractor, Guardian Marine gained political muscle. From 2001 to 2002, executives of the two companies would give more than $22,000 in campaign funds to members of their local delegations, including $3,000 to Murray.

But even as the third Guardian Marine boat was being assembled, the Navy decided it didn't want it and transferred it to the UW's Applied Physics Laboratory.

UW researchers concluded it would take $750,000 to make it usable. The university tried to get the Navy to take it back. For years, the boat was docked outside the school.

To maintain the boat, staff ran it at full speed once a year. "We're sort of trapped in doing the routine things that need to be done," Russell McDuff, director of the School of Oceanography, said earlier this year.

The Navy recently assigned the boat to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Seattle.

Although none of the three Guardian Marine boats were used as Congress intended, Murray, Dicks and Baird inserted a $4.5 million earmark for a fourth boat in the 2004 defense bill. This time, they said the speedboat was needed to retrieve torpedoes at the Navy base in Keyport, Kitsap County.

The Navy did buy a fourth Guardian Marine speedboat but assigned it to a base in California for evaluation.

In the past four years, executives of Guardian Marine and Oregon Iron Works have given nearly $125,000 in contributions to Congress members.

Baird stands behind the earmarks. "We didn't just say, 'Oh, a company in our district wants an earmark — let's get it for them.' We looked at the mission, we looked at the history of the boat, and we looked at the alternatives out there," he said. "And I think that's pretty good work, frankly."

Murray remains a staunch defender of earmarks. She pointed to Insitu, a high-tech company in Klickitat County that makes aerial drones the Army uses for surveillance in Iraq. She said she helps local companies with good products that may be overlooked by the sprawling Pentagon and its faraway bureaucrats who might favor their "buddies" who they "were having drinks with ... on Friday night."

"People tend to talk about earmarks as something that is a bad thing," she said. "I see it as a way to make sure that the tax dollars that are spent are spent in a very wise way."

Battle Gear In Boxes

Some defense contractors rely almost completely on earmarks. Redmond's Microvision, a small, publicly traded high-tech company, has gotten $55 million in earmarks, most of it to develop the technology used in a helmet display that was flawed.

In 2001, Microvision, with only $10.8 million in revenues, got $8 million in earmarks with the help of several members of Congress, including Sen. Slade Gorton.

(Two years later, after losing his Senate seat, Gorton took a seat on Microvision's board. It gave him $32,000 in annual director's fees and options to buy 90,000 shares of stock, company filings show.)

Microvision's product was the "Nomad," a tiny computer display that attaches to the helmets of soldiers. It was supposed to allow Stryker commanders to stick their heads out of their vehicles and see computerized maps without having to duck back inside.

In June 2004, Murray announced that she had gotten a $5.5 million earmark for the company and its core product for the Army. A month earlier, five Microvision executives each gave Murray's campaign $1,000 on the same day.

One Stryker Brigade commander — Col. Robert Brown — wrote in a November 2004 memo, approved by higher-ups, that an improved Nomad would be a key asset in combat missions in Iraq.

But a December 2004 report by the Center for Army Lessons gave a different conclusion: It was distracting to wear and had a blind spot, among other flaws. As a result, soldiers weren't using it.

Retired Command Sgt. Major Thomas Adams — one of those who evaluated equipment used by the Stryker Brigade in Iraq in 2005 — called the Nomad "junk." Vehicle commanders face the greatest risk when they have to look out of Strykers as they roll through Iraqi cities. They cannot risk testing a new product on the battlefield, Adams said, especially one that can interfere with their vision.

As a result, most of the Nomads sent to Iraq remained in unopened boxes at a warehouse in Mosul.

In August 2005, the Nomad was put to a competitive trial, battling head-to-head with five competing miniature monitors at a Yakima event dubbed "The Shootout."

Microvision lost the competition to Rockwell Collins. The biggest problem for Microvision was that Stryker maps distinguish friendly troops with colored icons. But the Nomad came only in a monochromatic red, so soldiers had difficulty telling good guys from bad.

Even so, Murray got the Senate four months later to approve a $6 million earmark that directed the Stryker Brigades to obtain 1,599 Nomads.

Microvision then announced it would shut down the Nomad program.

But with the $6 million, Microvision negotiated a deal to create 10 color prototypes of the see-through display.

This year, the troops found a simple and cheap solution for commanders needing to see computerized maps while standing and looking out of the hatch: They moved the computer to the top of the vehicle.

"It works just fine," said Col. Stephen Townsend, whose brigade just returned from Iraq.

Since late 2005, the company has overhauled its management. Its new chief executive officer, Alexander Tokman, said he wants to wean the company from earmarks and develop a real product for consumers.

"You can't bank your future on appropriations every year," Tokman said.

Photobucket
$2 million | The earmark directed the Marines to buy T-shirts that aren't allowed in combat. The shirts had polyester and could melt in explosions.


T-Shirts That Melt

In June 2005, Rep. Wu of Oregon arrived in Iraq and handed out free T-shirts to Marines. He was promoting the wares of InSport, a Portland-area company that makes fast-drying polyester shirts.

Earlier that year, Wu and other Northwest lawmakers got a $2 million earmark in the defense bill to sell T-shirts to the Marines. Wu said the shirts would be far more comfortable than the cotton ones the Marines wore under body armor.

But there was a big problem with these T-shirts, a problem encountered in the deserts of Iraq and in 1982 during the Falklands invasion.

Polyester clothing melts in intense heat, adhering to the skin. "This essentially creates a second skin and can lead to horrific, disfiguring burns," said Capt. Lynn E. Welling, the 1st Marine Logistics Group head surgeon, who conducted research in Iraq in early 2006.

Months after Wu's visit, a Marine wearing a polyester T-shirt was riding in an armored vehicle in Iraq when a bomb hidden on the road exploded. Even though the Marine wore a protective vest, the shirt melted in the explosion, contributing to severe burns over 70 percent of his body. Doctors had to extract the shirt's remains from the Marine's torso.

In April 2006, the Marines banned polyester T-shirts for use in combat or anywhere outside the protected "Green Zone" bases.

But in July, because of Wu's earmark, the Marines announced the purchase of 87,000 of the banned polyester T-shirts, along with 11,000 T-shirts with fire-resistant sleeves. None was allowed in battle, the Marines said.

David Costello, a lobbyist for InSport, said that when InSport and Wu sought the earmark, the company thought the troops' body armor would prevent the shirts from melting. Once the Marines banned these kinds of shirts, they were instead used for training.

Wu's spokeswoman said the Marines were happy to have funds for the shirts, citing a thank-you letter from the Secretary of the Navy that came a month before the ban.

Even after the ban, Wu inserted another $1 million earmark in the next defense bill to make the Marines buy the InSport shirts again, noting that the company was working to develop a heat-resistant shirt for combat use.

The Marines instead used that money to buy flame-resistant fleece garments from InSport.

Executives of InSport and its owner, Vital Apparel, donated $6,100 to Wu's campaign in a single day at the end of the earmark "season."

The day after the bill passed on Sept. 29, 2006, one executive gave another $750 to Wu. Two others followed with identical donations within three weeks.

But by then, the Marine Corps had done months of testing to find the best fire-resistant T-shirts. It selected two shirts, one made by Potomac Field Gear, the other by Danskin, according to the Marines.

InSport's T-shirt — even its new fire-resistant version — still can't be used in combat, said 1st Lt. Geraldine Carey of the Marine Corps Systems Command.

Changes needed

Congress members from both parties want to loosen the grip of money on politics. One solution, proposed earlier this year in a bill by senior Sens. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Arlen Specter, R-Pa., calls for public funding for congressional campaigns.

McDermott supports the idea but says reform won't come soon. "This is a country that worships at the altar of the free enterprise system, and so the Congress is reflective of that culture," he said.

Congress just recently began requiring lawmakers to reveal each earmark they've sponsored, name its beneficiary, and certify that neither they nor their spouse have any financial stake in them.

But such transparency only works if lawmakers feel "some degree of shame" for doling out favors to their backers, Rep. Flake said. "If you're not embarrassed by that, then transparency doesn't help a lot."

Meanwhile, Congress is approving a batch of new earmarks for next year.

Once again, Rep. Wu wants $1.5 million for InSport to sell T-shirts to Marines in Iraq — shirts designed to be worn under body armor but not approved for that use.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, recipient of $15,000 in contributions from Microvision executives since 2005, is seeking $1 million for more work on the company's 10 prototypes.

And Rep. Baird still wants to get patrol boats like Guardian Marine's into Coast Guard hands. During a congressional hearing earlier this year, Baird asked an admiral if they could "chat" about "other alternatives that are available on the marketplace" to the Coast Guard's slower, 87-foot patrol boats.

"Might we do that?" Baird asked.

"Happy to do that, sir," the admiral replied.

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

How Favors End Up As Law

After the president submits budgets prepared by departments and agencies, Congress determines the final budgets with 12 major spending bills.
At the start of each year, thousands of earmark seekers come to Capitol Hill to lobby for dollars.

The House and Senate appropriations committees allow each member of Congress to submit a wish list of earmarks — federal spending for projects the agencies did not request. Committee members have the most influence in getting earmarks.

The defense bill, like most spending bills, has spending limits. To make room for earmarks, Congress must cut items agencies have requested. Figuring out what those cuts are by reading the bill is quite difficult.

Earmarks approved by the committees are appended to the bills. Most earmarks are a few words in small type in a committee report.


David Heath: dheath@seattletimes.com, 206-464-2136

Hal Bernton: hbernton@seattletimes.com, 503-292-1016

Interns Elizabeth Burlingame and Chanel Merritt contributed to this story.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Don't Flush Your Pharmaceuticals... Male Fish are Being Feminized, among other effects.

Cholesteral-lowering cocktails... Synthetic Female Hormones...
...Anabolic Steer Steroids?!...

What's in YOUR Tap Water?

And you thought your only choices were between "Fizzy" and "Still"...
"Bottom's Up?"

I'll call this story: "H2_WHOA!"

Peace.
L.


Photobucket

From: news.yahoo.com

AP PROBE FINDS PHARMACEUTICAL DRUGS IN DRINKING WATER

By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers Sun Mar 9, 5:03 PM ET

A vast array of pharmaceuticals — including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones — have been found in the drinking water supplies of at least 41 million Americans, an Associated Press investigation shows.

To be sure, the concentrations of these pharmaceuticals are tiny, measured in quantities of parts per billion or trillion, far below the levels of a medical dose. Also, utilities insist their water is safe.

But the presence of so many prescription drugs — and over-the-counter medicines like acetaminophen and ibuprofen — in so much of our drinking water is heightening worries among scientists of long-term consequences to human health.

In the course of a five-month inquiry, the AP discovered that drugs have been detected in the drinking water supplies of 24 major metropolitan areas — from Southern California to Northern New Jersey, from Detroit to Louisville, Ky.

Water providers rarely disclose results of pharmaceutical screenings, unless pressed, the AP found. For example, the head of a group representing major California suppliers said the public "doesn't know how to interpret the information" and might be unduly alarmed.

How do the drugs get into the water?

People take pills. Their bodies absorb some of the medication, but the rest of it passes through and is flushed down the toilet. The wastewater is treated before it is discharged into reservoirs, rivers or lakes. Then, some of the water is cleansed again at drinking water treatment plants and piped to consumers. But most treatments do not remove all drug residue.

And while researchers do not yet understand the exact risks from decades of persistent exposure to random combinations of low levels of pharmaceuticals, recent studies — which have gone virtually unnoticed by the general public — have found alarming effects on human cells and wildlife.

"We recognize it is a growing concern and we're taking it very seriously," said Benjamin H. Grumbles, assistant administrator for water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Members of the AP National Investigative Team reviewed hundreds of scientific reports, analyzed federal drinking water databases, visited environmental study sites and treatment plants and interviewed more than 230 officials, academics and scientists. They also surveyed the nation's 50 largest cities and a dozen other major water providers, as well as smaller community water providers in all 50 states.

Here are some of the key test results obtained by the AP:

_Officials in Philadelphia said testing there discovered 56 pharmaceuticals or byproducts in treated drinking water, including medicines for pain, infection, high cholesterol, asthma, epilepsy, mental illness and heart problems. Sixty-three pharmaceuticals or byproducts were found in the city's watersheds.

_Anti-epileptic and anti-anxiety medications were detected in a portion of the treated drinking water for 18.5 million people in Southern California.

_Researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a Passaic Valley Water Commission drinking water treatment plant, which serves 850,000 people in Northern New Jersey, and found a metabolized angina medicine and the mood-stabilizing carbamazepine in drinking water.

_A sex hormone was detected in San Francisco's drinking water.

_The drinking water for Washington, D.C., and surrounding areas tested positive for six pharmaceuticals.

_Three medications, including an antibiotic, were found in drinking water supplied to Tucson, Ariz.

The situation is undoubtedly worse than suggested by the positive test results in the major population centers documented by the AP.

The federal government doesn't require any testing and hasn't set safety limits for drugs in water. Of the 62 major water providers contacted, the drinking water for only 28 was tested. Among the 34 that haven't: Houston, Chicago, Miami, Baltimore, Phoenix, Boston and New York City's Department of Environmental Protection, which delivers water to 9 million people.

Some providers screen only for one or two pharmaceuticals, leaving open the possibility that others are present.

The AP's investigation also indicates that watersheds, the natural sources of most of the nation's water supply, also are contaminated. Tests were conducted in the watersheds of 35 of the 62 major providers surveyed by the AP, and pharmaceuticals were detected in 28.

Yet officials in six of those 28 metropolitan areas said they did not go on to test their drinking water — Fairfax, Va.; Montgomery County in Maryland; Omaha, Neb.; Oklahoma City; Santa Clara, Calif., and New York City.

The New York state health department and the USGS tested the source of the city's water, upstate. They found trace concentrations of heart medicine, infection fighters, estrogen, anti-convulsants, a mood stabilizer and a tranquilizer.

City water officials declined repeated requests for an interview. In a statement, they insisted that "New York City's drinking water continues to meet all federal and state regulations regarding drinking water quality in the watershed and the distribution system" — regulations that do not address trace pharmaceuticals.

In several cases, officials at municipal or regional water providers told the AP that pharmaceuticals had not been detected, but the AP obtained the results of tests conducted by independent researchers that showed otherwise. For example, water department officials in New Orleans said their water had not been tested for pharmaceuticals, but a Tulane University researcher and his students have published a study that found the pain reliever naproxen, the sex hormone estrone and the anti-cholesterol drug byproduct clofibric acid in treated drinking water.

Of the 28 major metropolitan areas where tests were performed on drinking water supplies, only Albuquerque; Austin, Texas; and Virginia Beach, Va.; said tests were negative. The drinking water in Dallas has been tested, but officials are awaiting results. Arlington, Texas, acknowledged that traces of a pharmaceutical were detected in its drinking water but cited post-9/11 security concerns in refusing to identify the drug.

The AP also contacted 52 small water providers — one in each state, and two each in Missouri and Texas — that serve communities with populations around 25,000. All but one said their drinking water had not been screened for pharmaceuticals; officials in Emporia, Kan., refused to answer AP's questions, also citing post-9/11 issues.

Rural consumers who draw water from their own wells aren't in the clear either, experts say.

The Stroud Water Research Center, in Avondale, Pa., has measured water samples from New York City's upstate watershed for caffeine, a common contaminant that scientists often look for as a possible signal for the presence of other pharmaceuticals. Though more caffeine was detected at suburban sites, researcher Anthony Aufdenkampe was struck by the relatively high levels even in less populated areas.

He suspects it escapes from failed septic tanks, maybe with other drugs. "Septic systems are essentially small treatment plants that are essentially unmanaged and therefore tend to fail," Aufdenkampe said.

Even users of bottled water and home filtration systems don't necessarily avoid exposure. Bottlers, some of which simply repackage tap water (Aquafina), do not typically treat or test for pharmaceuticals, according to the industry's main trade group. The same goes for the makers of home filtration systems.

Contamination is not confined to the United States. More than 100 different pharmaceuticals have been detected in lakes, rivers, reservoirs and streams throughout the world. Studies have detected pharmaceuticals in waters throughout Asia, Australia, Canada and Europe — even in Swiss lakes and the North Sea.

For example, in Canada, a study of 20 Ontario drinking water treatment plants by a national research institute found nine different drugs in water samples. Japanese health officials in December called for human health impact studies after detecting prescription drugs in drinking water at seven different sites.

In the United States, the problem isn't confined to surface waters. Pharmaceuticals also permeate aquifers deep underground, source of 40 percent of the nation's water supply. Federal scientists who drew water in 24 states from aquifers near contaminant sources such as landfills and animal feed lots found minuscule levels of hormones, antibiotics and other drugs.

Perhaps it's because Americans have been taking drugs — and flushing them unmetabolized or unused — in growing amounts. Over the past five years, the number of U.S. prescriptions rose 12 percent to a record 3.7 billion, while nonprescription drug purchases held steady around 3.3 billion, according to IMS Health and The Nielsen Co.

"People think that if they take a medication, their body absorbs it and it disappears, but of course that's not the case," said EPA scientist Christian Daughton, one of the first to draw attention to the issue of pharmaceuticals in water in the United States.

Some drugs, including widely used cholesterol fighters, tranquilizers and anti-epileptic medications, resist modern drinking water and wastewater treatment processes. Plus, the EPA says there are no sewage treatment systems specifically engineered to remove pharmaceuticals.

One technology, reverse osmosis, removes virtually all pharmaceutical contaminants but is very expensive for large-scale use and leaves several gallons of polluted water for every one that is made drinkable.

Another issue: There's evidence that adding chlorine, a common process in conventional drinking water treatment plants, makes some pharmaceuticals more toxic.

Human waste isn't the only source of contamination. Cattle, for example, are given ear implants that provide a slow release of trenbolone, an anabolic steroid used by some bodybuilders, which causes cattle to bulk up. But not all the trenbolone circulating in a steer is metabolized. A German study showed 10 percent of the steroid passed right through the animals.

Water sampled downstream of a Nebraska feedlot had steroid levels four times as high as the water taken upstream. Male fathead minnows living in that downstream area had low testosterone levels and small heads.

Other veterinary drugs also play a role. Pets are now treated for arthritis, cancer, heart disease, diabetes, allergies, dementia, and even obesity — sometimes with the same drugs as humans. The inflation-adjusted value of veterinary drugs rose by 8 percent, to $5.2 billion, over the past five years, according to an analysis of data from the Animal Health Institute.

Ask the pharmaceutical industry whether the contamination of water supplies is a problem, and officials will tell you no. "Based on what we now know, I would say we find there's little or no risk from pharmaceuticals in the environment to human health," said microbiologist Thomas White, a consultant for the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.

But at a conference last summer, Mary Buzby — director of environmental technology for drug maker Merck & Co. Inc. — said: "There's no doubt about it, pharmaceuticals are being detected in the environment and there is genuine concern that these compounds, in the small concentrations that they're at, could be causing impacts to human health or to aquatic organisms."

Recent laboratory research has found that small amounts of medication have affected human embryonic kidney cells, human blood cells and human breast cancer cells. The cancer cells proliferated too quickly; the kidney cells grew too slowly; and the blood cells showed biological activity associated with inflammation.

Also, pharmaceuticals in waterways are damaging wildlife across the nation and around the globe, research shows. Notably, male fish are being feminized, creating egg yolk proteins, a process usually restricted to females. Pharmaceuticals also are affecting sentinel species at the foundation of the pyramid of life — such as earth worms in the wild and zooplankton in the laboratory, studies show.

Some scientists stress that the research is extremely limited, and there are too many unknowns. They say, though, that the documented health problems in wildlife are disconcerting.

"It brings a question to people's minds that if the fish were affected ... might there be a potential problem for humans?" EPA research biologist Vickie Wilson told the AP. "It could be that the fish are just exquisitely sensitive because of their physiology or something. We haven't gotten far enough along."

With limited research funds, said Shane Snyder, research and development project manager at the Southern Nevada Water Authority, a greater emphasis should be put on studying the effects of drugs in water.

"I think it's a shame that so much money is going into monitoring to figure out if these things are out there, and so little is being spent on human health," said Snyder. "They need to just accept that these things are everywhere — every chemical and pharmaceutical could be there. It's time for the EPA to step up to the plate and make a statement about the need to study effects, both human and environmental."

To the degree that the EPA is focused on the issue, it appears to be looking at detection. Grumbles acknowledged that just late last year the agency developed three new methods to "detect and quantify pharmaceuticals" in wastewater. "We realize that we have a limited amount of data on the concentrations," he said. "We're going to be able to learn a lot more."

While Grumbles said the EPA had analyzed 287 pharmaceuticals for possible inclusion on a draft list of candidates for regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, he said only one, nitroglycerin, was on the list. Nitroglycerin can be used as a drug for heart problems, but the key reason it's being considered is its widespread use in making explosives.

So much is unknown. Many independent scientists are skeptical that trace concentrations will ultimately prove to be harmful to humans. Confidence about human safety is based largely on studies that poison lab animals with much higher amounts.

There's growing concern in the scientific community, meanwhile, that certain drugs — or combinations of drugs — may harm humans over decades because water, unlike most specific foods, is consumed in sizable amounts every day.

Our bodies may shrug off a relatively big one-time dose, yet suffer from a smaller amount delivered continuously over a half century, perhaps subtly stirring allergies or nerve damage. Pregnant women, the elderly and the very ill might be more sensitive.

Many concerns about chronic low-level exposure focus on certain drug classes: chemotherapy that can act as a powerful poison; hormones that can hamper reproduction or development; medicines for depression and epilepsy that can damage the brain or change behavior; antibiotics that can allow human germs to mutate into more dangerous forms; pain relievers and blood-pressure diuretics.

For several decades, federal environmental officials and nonprofit watchdog environmental groups have focused on regulated contaminants — pesticides, lead, PCBs — which are present in higher concentrations and clearly pose a health risk.

However, some experts say medications may pose a unique danger because, unlike most pollutants, they were crafted to act on the human body.

"These are chemicals that are designed to have very specific effects at very low concentrations. That's what pharmaceuticals do. So when they get out to the environment, it should not be a shock to people that they have effects," says zoologist John Sumpter at Brunel University in London, who has studied trace hormones, heart medicine and other drugs.

And while drugs are tested to be safe for humans, the timeframe is usually over a matter of months, not a lifetime. Pharmaceuticals also can produce side effects and interact with other drugs at normal medical doses. That's why — aside from therapeutic doses of fluoride injected into potable water supplies — pharmaceuticals are prescribed to people who need them, not delivered to everyone in their drinking water.

"We know we are being exposed to other people's drugs through our drinking water, and that can't be good," says Dr. David Carpenter, who directs the Institute for Health and the Environment of the State University of New York at Albany.


*You may find a related story/report (well-documented) at: The Environmental Working Group (ewg.org)*

Executive Summary

Tap water in 42 states is contaminated with more than 140 unregulated chemicals that lack safety standards, according to the Environmental Working Group's (EWG's) two-and-a-half year investigation of water suppliers' tests of the treated tap water served to communities across the country.

In an analysis of more than 22 million tap water quality tests, most of which were required under the federal Safe Drinking Water Act, EWG found that water suppliers across the U.S. detected 260 contaminants in water served to the public. One hundred forty-one (141) of these detected chemicals — more than half — are unregulated; public health officials have not set safety standards for these chemicals, even though millions drink them every day.

Monday, March 10, 2008

Governor Elliot Spitzer: The Emperor of Denial.

Well...

New York Governor Elliot Spitzer has been caught with his 20+years Married Hand in the Classy Call Girl Cookie Jar (a biz called "The Emperor's Club"... hence the title of this Blog.)...

Tsk... tsk... tsk...

I mean... Call me "Crazy"...

(although, the proper term is 'Schizophrenic', according to my psychiatrist.)

But, I don't get how New York Governor and former Wall Street-Steamrolling, "Mr. Clean" NY State Prosecutor, Elliot Spitzer Ever thought it was a good idea to order a high-priced call girl from a telephone or via email.

I mean...
Didn't he know that Everything anyone of us says on our phones or in an email might be (and in the case of Mr. Spitzer, who had made many powerful enemies over the course of his career, Likely Is) being listened in on and/or read.

That whole AT&T, Bush and Friends' Domestic Spying Program, although being sold to the Public as being used only to catch and thwart those faceless Evildoer's, Secret, Evildoing, Terror Plots...

(...By the by...
I must say: Any Terrorist worthy of the Label of "Terrorist" would NEVER discuss their Evildoing Plan on an unsecured telephone line or openly in an unencrypted email....
Duh!)

... potentially is also filtering through (and Filing and Storing) All of Our conversations and emails.

Having been a NY Prosecutor, I'm sure Mr. Spitzer, on numerous occasions, listened in on the recorded conversations and/or read the emails of people he was actively prosecuting or building a case against.

Even Lil' Nobody Me is a bit more careful about what I say in my emails or on the phone...
...But, not too much... like I said... I got a psychiatrist who can vouch for me.

But a High-Profile NY Prosecutor-turned-Governor?

One with a lot of High-Profile Enemies with Deep Pockets and Really Good Connections?

All I can say is:
Duuuude... What were you thinking?!

(Even if Mr. Spitzer got caught as a result of a vast web cast for a sting operation targeting The Emperor's Club... Neither he nor Any Of Us should assume our conversations/emails are "Private"... Just in case you didn't know...)

Peace.
(Disclaimer: The Federal Government, in collusion with AT&T and other Telecoms, might be keeping track of what Blogs you visit... although, considering who's at the helm, they might not care about any porn or other site that has nothing to do with using your Brain.)

L.

From: The Guardian U.K.

Photobucket
Wow! Doesn't his beautiful wife look like Jennifer Anniston?

Sting exposes New York's Mr Clean as Client 9 of the Emperor's call-girl club

· New York state governor apologizes on television
· Alleged prostitution ring link revealed by wire-taps


He was billed as a possible future president, a rising star in the Democratic party who made his name on the back of high-profile prosecutions against organised crime and corruption. But last night Eliot Spitzer, the governor of the state of New York and self-styled Mr Clean, was facing calls to resign after he apologised on camera in the wake of an alleged link to a prostitution ring.

Spitzer delivered a short statement in Albany, the state capital, with his wife of 21 years, Silda Wall Spitzer, by his side. The governor did not refer to the allegations that he had employed the services of a high-class prostitute in Washington last month, but he did admit that in what he called a "private matter" he had acted in a way that "violated my obligations to my family and violates my, or any, sense of right or wrong".

The news that the hard-man of New York politics - once known as the sheriff of Wall Street - had become embroiled in precisely the kind of ring for which he is famous for cracking caused astonishment across the state and beyond. Minutes after the New York Times broke the news on its website, local TV stations were clearing their schedules to focus on the story.

Law enforcement officials told Associated Press that Spitzer had been recorded through wire taps as he communicated with a high-end call-girl service, the Emperor's Club VIP, which also operates in several European cities, including Paris and London. Detectives planted an undercover agent in the prostitution ring, and Spitzer, allegedly identified in court papers filed in a Manhattan court as Client 9, was tracked as he arranged a meeting with at least one woman in a Washington hotel.

The prostitution ring ran a website through which clients could see 50 prostitutes' bodies, with their heads hidden, and check against their hourly rates. The women were ranked using a diamond system: three diamonds cost $1,000 (£496) an hour, seven diamonds $5,500 or more.

Client 9 appeared to pay $2,600 for an appointment on the night of February 13 at the Washington Mayflower hotel. It may not have been a one-off: the court documents refer to him saying to the organisers of the Emperor's Club: "Yup, same as in the past," and paying a deposit against future liaisons.

Spitzer, 48, made his name during eight years as the state's attorney general, challenging the titans of Wall Street. He took on the former chief executive of the New York stock exchange, Dick Grasso, forcing him to resign in 2003 after Grasso accepted a pay package of $140m.

Spitzer also confronted the mob and organised crime, breaking up at least two prostitution rings. After one such case in 2004, he said: "This was a sophisticated and lucrative operation. It was, however, nothing more than a prostitution ring."

By the time he won the election to state governor in 2006 with a landslide 69% of the vote he was being talked about as future president. But within months, his administration started to stumble. He displayed a stubbornness that strayed into excess. He once told a Republican opponent: "Listen, I'm a fucking steamroller and I'll roll over you and anybody else."

His troubles deepened last summer when his aides admitted asking state police to spy on the top Republican in the state senate, Joe Bruno. New York tabloids dubbed the affair "Troopergate".

The attorney general launched an investigation, ultimately chastising the governor for tracking Bruno in an attempt to generate unsavoury media coverage of his rival.

Spitzer has backed Hillary Clinton for the Democratic presidential nomination, but that endorsement was looking less valuable last night. Four people have already been charged in relation to the Emperor's Club ring. Under federal law, it is illegal to move people across states for the purpose of prostitution, a misdemeanour punishable by up to five years in prison.

As details of the scandal reverberated around the country, questions were being asked about Spitzer's political future. The Republican leader in the New York state assembly, James Tedisco, called for his immediate resignation. "He has disgraced his office and the entire state of New York," he said. Spitzer refused to say whether he would stay in post, adding: "I don't believe politics in the long run is about individuals ... But I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself."