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| Tuesday, December 31, 2002: "U.S. intelligence officials have identified approximately 15 cargo freighters around the world that they believe are controlled by al Qaeda or could be used by the terrorist network to ferry operatives, bombs, money or commodities over the high seas, government officials said." Washington Post |
| "A Canada-based peace and disarmament group plans to launch 'weapons inspections' in the United States to draw attention to its claim that the country is a dangerous rogue state." IPS-Inter Press Service |
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Reading Habits
The Gender Gap: Worry About Medical Costs
The Racial Divide: Worry About Losing Your Job?
Americans' Lifestyles: How Much Do You Use the Internet?
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Most Recent Poll: Dec 19-22, 2002 61% Approve 32% Disapprove Gallup Poll |
| "The federal government has begun evaluating whether medical X-rays should be declared a carcinogen — a move experts say could reduce unnecessary exposures to radiation and force doctors to pay closer attention to the risks." USA Today |
| Monday, December 30, 2002: An Explanation of Mercury Retrograde by Eloise Helm |
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| In India, 690 million people have no access to proper sanitation. The result: 150,000 die from water related diseases every year. The overwhelming majority are children aged three or under. UK Guardian |
| "Even as the Bush administration moves militarily and diplomatically
toward war with Iraq, a conflict pitting the world's superpower against
the Middle East's most notorious despot is not yet inevitable. But the
scenarios for avoiding war in the first months of 2003 are shrinking ...
Many observers now see an apt comparison to the weeks preceding World War I, when European leaders spoke of avoiding war but set in motion a process that led to a point of no return. 'In 1914, the thinking was that nothing could stop the coming war, and similarly we're getting to a point where there's such a commitment to this and so much at stake that it will be very hard to stop the train,' says Judith Yaphe, a senior Middle East analyst at the National Defense University in Washington." From the Christian Science Monitor |
| "High on the Bush administration's list of justifications for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally ... Declassified documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when Iraq was using chemical weapons on an 'almost daily' basis in defiance of international conventions." Washington Post |
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| Sunday, December 29, 2002: Mark
Fiore - Mister
Buffo - Doonesbury
- Calvin&Hobbes
- Assorted Comics
More Assorted Comics |
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| "The man who will lead the war against Iraq is every inch a soldier's soldier, a straight talker who prefers the company of his peers to public scrutiny." UK Guardian |
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Herald Sun |
| Saturday, December 28, 2002: Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has
signed a classified deployment order to send "significant" ground forces,
combat aircraft and logistics support to the Persian Gulf. The move marks
the beginning of a final buildup for a possible war against Iraq, senior
defense officials said yesterday.
The 20-plus-page document identifies an array of forces and capabilities - such as mechanized infantry units, midair refuelers and medical facilities - that will be shipped and airlifted to Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and other Gulf nations in the coming weeks. Washington Post |
| Scientists are beginning to take stock of West Nile virus's North American invasion, and they are taken aback by the scale and sweep of its ecological impact. While the human toll dominated the nation's attention this year -- the virus killed at least 241 people and infected many thousands more -- the effects on wildlife were far worse. Washington Post |
| Friday, December 27, 2002: "Attitudes toward the nation's estimated 3 million homeless have hardened, advocates say. Downtown merchants think street people hurt business. Tourists recoil at panhandling. The homeless are blamed for petty crime and create resentment by sleeping in public parks and under freeway overpasses and bridges. In a sample of 49 cities, the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty found a 22% increase in the past three years in prohibitions on loitering and a 14% increase in laws against sleeping in public." USA Today |
| "Almost 2 million welfare recipients across the country would have to spend more time working to be eligible for their benefits under legislation Congress is expected to approve next year." USA Today |
| "The Jesus pictured on the cover of this month's Popular Mechanics has a broad peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair and a prominent nose. He would have stood 5-foot-1-inch tall and weighed 110 pounds, if the magazine is to be believed." CNN.COM |
| "A group that contends that space travelers created the human race by cloning said today that the first cloned human had been born." NYT (reg/req) |
| "From mid-June through the end of September is a period in which we are well advised not to initiate attacks or make aggressive moves against another person, corporate body, or country. The defendant, not the aggressor, will win any conflict during this period, no matter how big or how "right" the assailant may be." |
| "A major factor will be precision weapons, and they are far superior today to the ones in Desert Storm. It's unbelievable," said retired Rear Adm. Phillip Smith. The Washington Times |
| Thursday, December 26, 2002: "Despite a common vow after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks not to sweat the small stuff, petty annoyance seems to be back in style. National satisfaction levels have dropped over the last year, according to the Gallup Poll. In January, 65% of Americans were happy with the way things were going in the USA. In the latest national survey taken earlier this month, those saying they were satisfied shrank to 46%." USA Today |
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| Deep inside the forbidden zone at the U.S.-occupied Bagram air base
in Afghanistan, around the corner from the detention center and beyond
the segregated clandestine military units, sits a cluster of metal shipping
containers protected by a triple layer of concertina wire. The containers
hold the most valuable prizes in the war on terrorism -- captured al Qaeda
operatives and Taliban commanders.
Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights -- subject to what are known as "stress and duress" techniques. Those who cooperate are rewarded with creature comforts, interrogators whose methods include feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money. Some who do not cooperate are turned over -- "rendered," in official parlance -- to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations. From the Washington Post |
| "The congressional Class of 2002, which has more than two-dozen millionaires, will face votes on issues that could affect their financial holdings. Eleven of the 63 Senate and House freshmen have investments in banking or credit card companies, including bank directorships, as they prepare to consider industry-backed legislation making it harder for consumers to declare bankruptcy, according to an Associated Press review of financial disclosure forms filed during the campaign. Several incoming freshmen also have significant financial holdings in the pharmaceutical and oil industries, both of which could be the subject of congressional action next year." AP |
| "Europe is considering sending humans to the Moon, Mars and beyond within the next few decades ... The European Space Agency (ESA) believes that by 2025, the technology will exist to send humans to Mars." BBC |
| Wednesday, December 25, 2002: FBI warms of more shoe bomb attacks ... North Korea nuke crisis escalates ... Iraq ready for holy war . USA Today |
| "The IDF is predicting a wave of Palestinian terror attacks against Israeli targets prior to the expected U.S.-led military action against Iraq, in a show of solidarity with the Iraqis." Ha'aretz |
| Tuesday, December 24, 2002: According to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll conducted Dec. 9-10, 51% of Americans believe that religion as a whole is losing its influence on life in the US, while 43% say its influence is increasing. A Gallup poll taken after the 9/11 attacks found a record 71% of Americans saying religion's influence was increasing, while just 24% said it was declining. Gallup Poll |
| Catholics are attending church less often this year compared with the previous two years, and are also slightly less likely to say that religion is very important in their lives. Gallup Poll |
| "The Arabic-language news network, notorious for broadcasting the statements of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda colleagues, plans to open an English-language website in early 2003 and begin distributing English-language news programming by satellite and cable late next year." Christian Science Monitor |
| American men are more likely than women to favor invading Iraq with ground troops. Among men, 67% like the idea, while 49% of women say they favor it. Gallup Poll |
| "North Korea warned today of an `uncontrollable catastrophe' unless the United States agrees to a negotiated solution to a standoff over its nuclear energy and weapons programs." NYT (reg/req) |
| Monday, December 23, 2002: President Bush pardoned seven Americans
today:
* Kenneth Franklin Copley of Lyles, Tenn. Sentenced to two years probation in 1962 for manufacturing untaxed whiskey. * Harlan Paul Dobas of Portland, Ore. Sentenced to three months in jail in 1966 for conspiracy involving the sale of grain stolen from his employer. * Stephen James Jackson of Picayune, Miss. Sentenced to three years probation and fined $500 in 1993 for altering an odometer. * Douglas Harley Rogers of Brookfield, Wis. A Jehovah's Witnesses minister sentenced to two years in jail in 1957 for failing to report for military induction. * Walter F. Schuerer of Amana, Iowa. Fined $15,000 in 1989 for making a false statement to the Social Security Administration regarding his employment. * Paul Herman Wieser of Tacoma, Wash. Sentenced to 18 months probation in 1972 for stealing $38,000 worth of copper wire. * Olgen Williams of Indianapolis. A postal worker sentenced to one year in jail in 1971 for stealing $10.90 from the mail. |
| Jerome Schneider, the author of “Hiding Your Money," was indicted for helping wealthy Americans, well, hide their money. AP |
| Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that the U.S. military could simultaneously take on both Iraq and North Korea. USA Today |
| Sunday, December 22, 2002: "Nearly two dozen cities around the country have passed resolutions urging federal authorities to respect the civil rights of local citizens when fighting terrorism ... While the resolutions are largely symbolic, many of them provide some legal justification for local authorities to resist cooperating in the federal war on terrorism when they deem civil liberties and Constitutional rights are being compromised ... Most of the resolutions have passed in liberal bastions like Boulder, Colo.; Santa Fe, N.M.; Cambridge, Mass.; and Berkeley, Calif., where opposition to government policy is a tradition. But less ideological places have also acted, with more localities considering it, from big cities like Chicago and Tampa, Fla., to smaller ones like Fairbanks, Alaska, and Grants Pass, Ore." NYT (reg/req) |
| Published 12/20 but worth repeating: "The Bush administration is planning to propose requiring Internet service providers to help build a centralized system to enable broad monitoring of the Internet and, potentially, surveillance of its users." NYT (reg/req) |
| Saturday, December 21, 2002: "As American forces prepare to take on Iraq in a possible Gulf War II, analysts agree that the bad publicity and popular fears about depleted uranium (DU) use in the first Gulf War, and later in Kosovo and Afghanistan, have not dented Pentagon enthusiasm for its "silver bullet." US forces in Iraq will again deploy DU as their most effective - and most controversial - tank-busting bullet." Christian Science Monitor |
| "The United States has blocked an international agreement to allow poor countries to buy cheap drugs. This means millions of poor people will still not have access to medicines for diseases such as HIV/Aids, malaria and tuberculosis. US negotiators say the deal would allow too many drugs patents to be ignored." BBC |
| Friday, December 20, 2002: "Scientists studying the DNA of 52 human groups from around the world have concluded that people belong to five principal groups corresponding to the major geographical regions of the world: Africa, Europe, Asia, Melanesia and the Americas." NYT(reg/req) |
| "The Bush administration's declaration that Baghdad is in material breach of United Nations disarmament resolutions sets in motion the countdown for a war with Iraq -- but that does not mean that war is inevitable ... many observers feel there is still wiggle room left for Iraq ... One widely discussed possibility is a coup that removes Hussein from office before the start of military action. Another is a "deathbed conversion" in which Hussein acknowledges that he does indeed have weapons of mass destruction, and cooperates in giving them up." Washington Post |
| "Tony Blair today delivered a direct message to British forces to be prepared for action against Iraq if Saddam Hussein fails to comply with demands to disarm." UK Guardian |
| Thursday, December 19, 2002: Move has been made, though we'll be surrounded by boxes for weeks. Thankfully, we're back on line, because we've been underwhelmed by the news we've been able to gleam from domestic broadcast and broadsheets the past few days. Lott's remarks: Not surprising. Bush inching ever closer to war: Not surprising. Saddam's scorched earth plan: Not surprising. The shallow, self indulgent crap that often passes for intelligent programing on NPR: Not surprising ... And don't even get us started on NPR's "I'd Rather Eat Pants." |
| Saturday, December 7, 2002 - Sunday, December 22, 2002: Editor's Note -- Due to an upcoming relocation, we won't be posting on a daily basis during this time. While we hope to be back online by Dec. 22, we might not be back up until the 29th. Until then, for a good overview of world events, you may want to check out the country-by-country directory of news and government websites assembled by the UK Guardian. |
| Friday, December 6, 2002: "Nearly 120 people have been sickened with symptoms consistent with a Norwalk-like virus on a fourth cruise ship to report an outbreak of a stomach ailment in recent weeks." AP |
| President Bush, asked if the United States was headed toward war, said: “That's a question you should ask to Saddam Hussein.” AP |
| "President Saddam Hussein said today that his government will continue to tolerate intrusive U.N. arms inspections with the hope they will disprove U.S. allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction..." Washington Post |
| Thursday, December 5, 2002: "Suspicion about U.S. motives in Iraq and the broadly held perception that America ignores the interests of other nations in foreign policy disputes has tarnished the image of the United States around the world, according to a survey of public attitudes in 44 countries by The Pew Research Center for The People & The Press." Washington Post |
| ``In many ways, we are viewed as the rich guy living on the hill," Madeleine Albright said. ``We have seen this coming since the end of the Cold War." AP |
| "If the United States wants to gauge the extent of anti-American sentiment in Lebanon, it needs look no further than its embassy's efforts in the past few weeks to host iftars, the evening fast-breaking meal during the Muslim month of Ramadan. Just nine of 80 invitees attended a Monday-night iftar. Most observed a boycott of the event in protest of US Middle East policies." Christian Science Monitor |
| "With the cold war over, more global conflicts are being spurred by a scramble for natural resources rather than by geopolitics, and poor countries rich in mineral deposits are the new focal point." Christian Science Monitor |
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| Wednesday, December 4, 2002: A culture of fear has led to the disappearance of an American folk icon, the hitchhiker, writes Duncan Campbell in the UK Guardian |
| "One of five New York mobsters believed to have smuggled their sperm out of a Pennsylvania prison to impregnate their wives has been indicted, along with his wife, on a charge of criminal conspiracy." AP |
| "Some passengers still haven't gotten the word about what they can and can't take on planes. Seized at airports during the Thanksgiving crush: 15,982 pocket knives, 98 boxcutters, six guns and a brick." AP |
| Chinese internet surfers have almost unfettered access to pornography, but news, health and education sites are routinely blocked, Harvard researchers have found. BBC |
| Congressional investigators have found repeated deception in ads for prescription drugs. NYT (reg/req) | By the way, if you've been prescribed Prilosec by your doctor (which costs about $200 a month) for acid reflex disease, ask him/her if you can raise the head of your bed by 6-8 inches instead. The end result is the same. While the costly drug reduces the production of acid in your stomach, raising the angle of your bed will keep what you produce in your stomach where it belongs. It's a proven treatment option the medical establishment doesn't promote, we suspect, because they don't make a dime from it. |
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| Tuesday, December 3, 2002: "US and British officials have said they believe Saddam Hussein will be lying if he declares by December 8 that Iraq possesses no weapons of mass destruction..." UK Guardian |
| "A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll finds nearly all Americans believing that Iraq does in fact have weapons of mass destruction or a program to produce them. Most Americans also believe that Saddam Hussein would use such weapons against the United States. But Americans are not ready to support an immediate U.S.-led invasion of Iraq at the first sign that Iraq has failed to comply with U.N. Resolution 1441. Instead, by almost a two-to-one majority, Americans say the United States should first go back to the United Nations and get specific authorization for military action." Gallup Poll |
| Things we learned en route to looking up other things: About 85 percent of Saudi women are wearing the wrong size bras. NYT(reg/req) |
| "It's long been known that having a potbelly and high blood pressure increases your risk of heart attack or stroke, but a medical study out Tuesday has estimated that people with those risks and others are two to three times more likely to die prematurely." USA Today |
| Try and keep that potbelly and salt-induced high blood pressure in mind when Burger King starts selling 99-cent Whoppers early next year in its on-going burger war with McD's. USA Today |
| "The Israeli army yesterday pasted notices ordering property seizures and house demolitions the length of a street in Hebron that Ariel Sharon wants to use to link two belligerent Jewish settlements." UK Guardian |
| "Should Uncle Sam know as much about you as MasterCard does? In essence, that may be the key question posed by the Pentagon's new Total Information Awareness project." Christian Science Monitor |
| "In Colombia, which has had fits coping with decades of guerrilla war, the Army has called off a psychological campaign aimed at luring impressionable rebels into defecting. The plan was to air drop thousands of pamphlets featuring photos of bikini-clad models and the words, "Desert and obtain benefits," into the zones where the leftists hide." Christian Science Monitor |
| Monday, December 2, 2002: New designs for our paper money are set to debut next spring. They're going to add color. No word about any new haircuts however. AP |
| Jane's World Armies, an annual publication which tracks international arms supplies estimates that 27 militia groups and terrorist organizations own portable anti-aircraft missiles. You can get one for about 5 grand. Equipping airliners with defenses against such ground-to-air missiles is expensive, about $3 million per plane. USA Today |
| Documents obtained by the Guardian under the US Freedom of Information Act disclose how officials in Washington went to extraordinary lengths to compile secret reports on the distinguished novelist, Graham Greene, over 40 years as he traveled the world in support of anti-US causes. UK Guardian |
| "...drivers talking on their phones are responsible for about 6% of U.S. auto accidents each year, killing an estimated 2,600 people and injuring 330,000 others." AP |
| "Informal estimates by congressional staff and Washington think tanks of the costs of an invasion of Iraq and a postwar occupation of the country have been in the range of $100 billion to $200 billion (In contrast, the Persian Gulf War cost us about $7 billion). If the fighting is protracted, and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein blows up his country's oil fields, most economists believe the indirect costs of the war could be much greater, reverberating through the U.S. economy for many years." Washington Post |
| Sunday, December 1, 2002: Mark
Fiore - Mister
Buffo - Doonesbury
- Calvin&Hobbes
- Assorted Comics
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| Pope John Paul II lamented on Friday the terrorism and violence across the world, referring to a "clash of civilizations that at times seems inevitable." AP |
| Garment workers from Indonesia are appealing to consumers in the United States to boycott Gap products to protest labor conditions at factories in Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America. AP |
| "McDonald's served its last hamburgers in Bolivia Saturday at midnight, after announcing a global restructuring plan in which it would close its doors in seven countries with poor profit margins." AP |
| "As the Pentagon girds for possible military action against Iraq, it is having problems providing U.S. troops with state-of-the-art protective gear against chemical and biological attacks..." Washington Post |
| On this day in 1953, the first issue of Playboy magazine went on sale.
It featured photos of a nude Marilyn Monroe that no one had ever dared
to publish them, or had ever dared to test the U.S. Postal Service's regulations
against sending nude photographs through the mail.
On this day in 1913, the first gas station in the United States opened at the corner of Baum Boulevard and St. Clair Street in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It sold just thirty gallons of gas the first day it was open, at twenty-seven cents a gallon. It was a brick building with a little pagoda on top, and it offered free air for tires, restrooms, and twenty-four hour service. On this day in 1860, the first installment of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations was published in the journal All the Year Round. On this day in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first story about Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet, appeared in Beeton's Christmas Annual. It's the birthday of Woody Allen, born Allen Stewart Konigsberg in Brooklyn in 1935. As a child he was very shy, he hated school and spent most of his free time alone in his room practicing magic tricks and his clarinet. He went to NYU where he failed his Motion Picture Production class, but in 1978, Allen's film Annie Hall won the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Director and Best Actress. He said, "I don't want to achieve immortality through my work, I want to achieve it through not dying." |
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