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Going To Hell In A Very Stylish Handbasket.

we've had this many folks visit so far:

"El diablo sabes mas por viejo que por diablo" - old Mexican proverb

archives:

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Older Archives 2003-2006

Achtung! Das machine ist nicht fur gerfingerpoken und mittengraben. Ist easy schnappen der pringenwerk, blowenfusen, und poppencorken mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das dumkopfen, das rubbernecken sightseeren keepen hands in der pockets, relaxen und watchen der blinkenlights.

links:
Tom Paine
The Nation
Think Progress
Bush or Chimp?
Landover Baptist Church
The White House
The Onion
Ernie's House of Whoop Ass
Project for the New American Century
Project for the Old American Century
Project for the New American Empire
All Hat, No Cattle
Unfairly Balanced
Buck Fush

Well gollygosh, who'da thunk it!

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U.S. erred in Iraq rebuilding program: auditor

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The U.S. government should have been quicker to employ local firms to help rebuild Iraq instead of relying on U.S. corporations whose contracts gave them no incentive to minimize costs, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

The top U.S. auditor for Iraqi reconstruction also said it was too early to say whether Iraqis would "get value for money" from the $22 billion Washington is investing on rebuilding postwar Iraq. The program has been beset by complaints of waste, fraud and corruption that his office is investigating.

Thirty percent of the projects inspected by his office had not met the required standard and some were outright failures.

"The program is obviously still in full swing, and to make a judgment about its success or failure at this point would be premature," Stuart Bowen, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, told journalists in Baghdad.

Of the 56 sample projects his office had inspected, 70 percent had met "contract expectations," he said. "Admittedly there have been some failures in that other 30 percent, but the overwhelming majority indicate good work."

Fraud and corruption were not common but "waste is an issue," he said, noting that $6 billion, the biggest percentage of the fund, had been swallowed by the cost of protecting sites from insurgents.

"Poor security limits movement, which prevents contractors from getting the job done. It is a cost."

He said the U.S. government should have made less use of expensive U.S. corporations. There has been a big shift in the past year toward giving most contracts to Iraqi firms, he added.

PAYING FOR EVERYTHING

"We used them because we did not know what the conditions would be in postwar Iraq. But we could have moved sooner away from design-build consortia, employing more Iraqi firms. That puts money where it should be, into the Iraqi economy."

He said the U.S. corporations had been given cost-plus contracts, under which the contractors are paid in full even if mistakes are made and the costs of the project go over budget.

"You pay for everything. Mistakes, everything. It is the cost of doing business," Bowen, a former White House lawyer on his 13th visit to Iraq, told Reuters.

Of the $22 billion in the reconstruction fund, $15 billion had now been spent, he said. A total of $21 billion had been "obligated," or put under contract. The remaining money would be obligated by September 30, when all unused funds are due to revert to the U.S. Treasury.

Bowen also said the United States needed to give more help to the Iraqi government in fighting corruption, which Iraqi graft inspectors estimate costs $4 billion a year.

Calif. unveils anti-global warming plan

SACRAMENTO, Calif, Associated Press . - California will impose broad caps on its greenhouse-gas emissions under a landmark plan that marks a clear break with the federal government and which backers hope will become a national model.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who helped assemble the plan, called Wednesday's agreement "an example for other states and nations to follow as the fight against climate change continues."

The plan came after weeks of difficult negotiations and was sent to the state Senate, which approved it late Wednesday with a 23-14 vote. If approved by the Democratically-controlled Assembly, which is expected, the bill would then go to the governor's desk.

"My main objective was getting a bill that the environmental community can champion around the country and say, 'California did this, and you should be too.' And we did that," said Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, a Democrat.

The bill requires the state's major industries — such as utility plants, oil and gas refineries, and cement kilns — to reduce their emissions carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases by an estimated 25 percent by 2020.

One of the key mechanisms designed to drive the reductions is a market program that will allow businesses to buy, sell and trade emission credits with other companies.

"Today it feels as if the whole world is watching, and I hope they are," said Ann Notthoff of the Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the environmental groups involved in the negotiations.

The agreement was announced simultaneously by the governor's office and Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly. It gives the governor a key environmental victory as he seeks re-election this fall.

The bill states that the California Air Resources Board — an 11-member panel appointed by the governor — must identify "market-based compliance mechanisms" that might be used as part of its plan to reach the cap.

The cap was praised by environmentalists as a step toward fighting global climate change. It was criticized by some business leaders, who say it will increase their costs and force them to scale back their California operations.

Republicans blasted the bill, saying the bill would have little effect and make California an expensive place to do business. "This bill is the road to economic ruin for California," said Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth.

The nation's most populous state is the world's 12th largest emitter of greenhouse gases and could suffer dire consequences if global temperatures increase only a few degrees.

In the absence of federal action, much of the effort to combat climate change has been focused in the states. More than 100 climate-related bills have been held up in Congress, including one that calls for a national cap on greenhouse gas emissions.

California has led the country in reducing greenhouse gas emissions through its renewable energy policies and a 2004 law reducing tailpipe emissions from vehicles.

Ten other states are poised to enact California's auto rule, while more than 20 states have required utilities to eventually generate some power from renewable sources such as solar, wind and geothermal.

The bill includes a so-called "safety valve" sought by Schwarzenegger that would allow California's governor to delay the emission-cap mandate if the state is hit with a natural disaster, terrorist attack or some other emergency.

In addition to the emissions cap, California lawmakers voted to approve related global warming legislation. That bill would prohibit the state from entering long-term contracts with any out-of-state utility that fails to reduce its carbon dioxide emissions. The bill passed by a 43-30 vote in the Assembly. It goes to the Senate for final approval.

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On the Net:

The REAL "enemy combatant":

the Great Decider tells it like it is:

Fresh data shows cooling housing market

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Sales of previously owned homes plunged in July to the lowest level in 2 1/2 years and the inventory of unsold homes climbed to a new record high, fresh signs that the housing market has lost steam.

The National Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that sales of existing homes and condominiums dropped by 4.1 percent in July from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.33 million. That was the lowest level since January 2004.

The latest snapshot of housing activity was weaker than analysts anticipated. Economists were forecasting the pace of sales to fall to 6.55 million.

"The housing sector is fragile," said David Lereah, the association's chief economist.

The median price of a home sold last month was $230,000. That was up just 0.9 percent from the same month last year and marked the smallest year-over-year increase since May 1995. The median price is the middle point, where half sell for more and half sell for less.

The inventory of unsold homes in July rose to a record high of 3.86 million. At the current sales pace, it would take 7.3 months to exhaust that overhang. That is the longest period to exhaust the supply of home since the spring of 1993.

On Wall Street, the weak housing report dragged stocks down. The Dow Jones were down 8 points in morning trading.

By region, sales dropped by 5.4 percent in the Northeast. They fell by 5.9 percent in the Midwest and 1.2 percent in the South. Sales declined by 6.4 percent in the West.

Wednesday's report shows that the bloom is off the rose.

For five years running, home sales had hit record highs as low mortgage rates lured buyers. But the housing sector has lost steam this year as mortgage rates have gone up and would-be buyers have grown cautious amid high energy prices and a slowing economy.

Against that backdrop, the

Federal Reserve earlier this month decided to halt a rate-raising campaign that had pushed interest rates steadily higher over the last two-plus years to fend off inflation.

The Fed's goal is to raise rates sufficiently to thwart inflation but not enough to hurt the economy.

One of the things that Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues are watching closely is the housing slowdown. If home prices and sales were to crash, that could spell big trouble for the overall economy. Thus far, Bernanke has said the market's slowdown has been fairly orderly and smooth.

Lereah said he still expects a "soft landing" for the once high-flying housing sector. But he urged the Fed to leave interest rates alone and refrain from bumping them up again — as some analysts have said is a possibility.

The housing sector's transition from a red-hot market to a cool one has important implications for the overall economy.

Consumers who watched their homes rise rapidly in value over the last several years felt wealthy and more inclined to spend. They also borrowed against their homes — treating them like ATMs — to support their spending ways.

But with home values not going up as much now as the double-digit gains seen in the past several years, consumers have tightened their belts. That has contributed to a slowing in overall economic activity.

Recent reports underscore the housing slowdown's impact.

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers on Tuesday reported a sharp drop in third-quarter profits. One day earlier Lowe's Cos., the nation's second-largest home-improvement chain, warned that a slowing housing market will hurt its earnings for the rest of the year.

Last week the National Association of Home Builders reported that confidence among builders sank to a 15-year low.

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On the Net:

Study: Even a few extra pounds risky

Associated Press - Being a little overweight can kill you, according to new research that leaves little room for denial that a few extra pounds is harmful. Baby boomers who were even just a tad pudgy were more likely to die prematurely than those who were at a healthy weight, U.S. researchers reported Tuesday.

While obesity has been known to contribute to early death, the link between being overweight and dying prematurely has been controversial. Some experts have argued that a few extra pounds does no harm.

However, this is one of the first major studies to account for the factors of smoking and chronic illness, which can complicate efforts to figure out how much weight itself is responsible for early death.

"The cumulative evidence is now even stronger," said Dr. Michael Thun, chief epidemiologist of the

American Cancer Society who had no role in the research. "Being overweight does increase health risks. It's not simply a cosmetic or social problem."

A separate large study of Korean patients, also released Tuesday, reached the same conclusion. Both are being published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine.

An estimated two-thirds of Americans adults are overweight or obese, according to federal statistics. Obesity raises the risk of heart disease, diabetes, arthritis and some cancers. Being overweight increases blood pressure and cholesterol levels, which in turn could lead to heart disease.

The latest studies contradict controversial research by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last year that suggested being a little plump isn't so bad. Since then, CDC chief Dr. Julie Gerberding distanced herself from the report and acknowledged potential flaws in the study that included people with health problems who tend to weigh less.

The U.S. study, by scientists at the National Cancer Institute, involved more than half a million people, ages 50 to 71, participating in a research project by the National Institutes of Health and AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.

Researchers analyzed patients' body-mass index and mortality rate over a 10-year period from questionnaires they filled out in 1995 and 1996 detailing their weight and diet.

Under current government standards, a BMI — or weight-to-height measurement — of 25 or higher is overweight; 30 and above is obese.

Generally, you must be 30 pounds overweight be to considered obese. Using the body-mass index, a 5-foot-10 man would be considered overweight if he is between 174 to 208 pounds, and obese at 209 pounds or more.

Overall, baby boomers who were underweight or obese had an increased risk of death compared with normal-weight people. The risk was particularly high for Hispanics, Asians and American Indians than for whites and blacks. However, people who were merely overweight had no substantial increased risk.

But in a separate analysis of 186,000 healthy people — who had never smoked — overweight people were 20 to 40 percent more likely to die prematurely than normal-weight people. The risk increased two- to three-fold for obese people.

CDC spokeswoman Karen Hunter declined to comment on the federal study, saying the public health agency does not comment on research done by other government branches.

In a separate study of 1.2 million Korean patients, ages 30 to 95, researchers from the Yonsei University in

South Korea and Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health reported similar findings.

Among about half a million healthy non-smokers, overweight people had a 10 to 50 percent greater risk of dying from heart disease or cancer than normal-weight people.

The two studies clearly show that being overweight "is not a benign condition," said Dr. Frank Hu, an epidemiologist and obesity researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"The public health message should be loud and clear: Maintaining a healthy weight and preventing weight gain in middle age is important to maintaining longevity," said Hu, who was not connected to the research.

In an accompanying editorial, Dr. Tim Byers of the University of Colorado recommended taking "small steps toward weight control, such as short bursts of activity" and changes to diet.

Several years ago, Byers eliminated powdered doughnuts from his diet and lost 10 pounds. With a current BMI of just over 27, he looks for other ways to shed the weight like climbing stairs instead of taking the elevator to his fourth-floor office.

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On the Net:

Check out this dickweed - guess his mama didn't teach him so good:

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US preacher defends belief women can't teach men

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. Baptist preacher has publicly defended himself for firing a female Sunday School teacher after more than 50 years on the job because he believes the Bible bans women from teaching men.

Watertown First Baptist Church Pastor Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to -- outside the church.

"My belief is that the qualifications for both men and women teaching spiritual matters in a church setting end at the church door, period," LaBouf said in a statement on the church Web site (http://www.nnyinfo.com/firstbaptist).

LaBouf and the church board fired Mary Lambert, 81, earlier this month in a letter that cited the scriptural qualifications for Sunday School teachers, Lambert said.

"They quote First Timothy Two, 11-14: A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man, she must be silent," Lambert said, reading from the letter.

"I was astonished," she said. "I would not go back and teach as long as this is their thinking."

Watertown is 250 miles northwest of New York City.

William Carlsen, executive minister for American Baptist Churches of New York State, said U.S. Baptist Churches are autonomous and that there would not be many other Baptist Churches that share LaBouf's view.

"A considerable number if not a majority of American Baptist Churches have been quite aggressive in affirming the place of women's leadership roles within the church," Carlsen said.

The board of the Watertown First Baptist Church said in a statement on its Web site that the scripture rules concerning women teaching men in a church setting had only played a small part in Lambert's sacking.

This narcissistic sonofabitch is just plain un-fucking-believable.

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At Press Conference, Bush Stays the Course

David Corn, The Nation -- George W. Bush keeps trying to rally popular support for his war in Iraq. But he has little to offer other than stay-the course-ism. He cannot point to progress in Iraq. Nor can he point to a plan that would seem promising. Thus, he is left only with rhetoric--the same rhetoric.

That was on display during a presidential press conference at the White House on Monday. Here's a selective run-down.

One reporter asked,

More than 3,500 Iraqis were killed last month, the highest civilian monthly toll since the war began. Are you disappointed with the lack of progress by Iraq's unity government in bringing together the sectarian and ethnic groups?

Bush replied,

No, I am aware that extremists and terrorists are doing everything they can to prevent Iraq's democracy from growing stronger. That's what I'm aware of.

He could not bring himself to say he is disappointed by the government's inability to curb the sectarian violence? That was an odd way to defend his actions in Iraq. Bush did go on to say,

And, therefore, we have a plan to help them--"them," the Iraqis--achieve their objectives. Part of the plan is political; that is the help the Maliki government work on reconciliation and to work on rehabilitating the community. The other part is, of course, security. And I have given our commanders all the flexibility they need to adjust tactics to be able to help the Iraqi government defeat those who want to thwart the ambitions of the people. And that includes a very robust security plan for Baghdad.

A question: when would it be fair to judge the plan's success? The plan has supposedly already been implemented. Yet the death count is rising in Iraq. A sharp-eyed (or sharp-eared) reporter should have asked, "If the death count goes up next month, will that mean the plan is a failure? And how should Americans (and Iraqis) evaluate whether the plan is working?" Or as Donald Rumsfeld might say, what are the operative metrics?

Bush repeatedly said that it would be disastrous for the United States to disengage from Iraq. He claimed,

It will embolden those who are trying to thwart the ambitions of reformers. In this case, it would give the terrorists and extremists an additional tool besides safe haven, and that is revenues from oil sales.

Regarding the "reformers"--and Bush noted this included reformers throughout the region--the US invasion of Iraq and the recent (and partially still ongoing war between Israel and Hezbollah) has undercut the reformers of the Middle East, or so say many such reformers. These reformers report they are on thinner ice because of US policies. Bush's actions, according to the grunts of Middle East reform, have not emboldened them. As for turning Iraq into a safe haven for terrorists and extremists, Bush has already accomplished that. An American journalist who had recently returned from Baghdad told me a few weeks ago that neighborhoods within a mile or so of the Green Zone in Baghdad are totally under the control of insurgents. Whole swaths of Iraq are beyond the authority of the Iraqi government. These areas can be safe havens for all sorts of miscreants. And it's fear-mongering to suggest that if the United States were to withdraw that anti-American jihadists will control the state and be enriched by oil revenues. Last time I checked, the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds all had an interest in Iraq. These groups are unlikely to turn the nation over to the few jihadist terrorists operating within Iraq.

One exchange did not inspire confidence. A reporter asked,

Mr. President, I'd like to go back to Iraq. You've continually cited the elections, the new government, its progress in Iraq, and yet the violence has gotten worse in certain areas. You've had to go to Baghdad again. Is it not time for a new strategy? And if not, why not?

Bush responded,

You've covered the Pentagon, you know that the Pentagon is constantly adjusting tactics because they have the flexibility from the White House to do so.

The reporter--who was not asking about tactics--interrupted:

I'm talking about strategy.

Bush then said:

The strategy is to help the Iraqi people achieve their objectives and their dreams, which is a democratic society. That's the strategy.

Actually, that's not a strategy. That's a goal. A commander in chief should know the difference. A strategy is how one goes about--in a general way--accomplishing goals. Tactics are how one implements the strategy. After Bush talked about giving military commanders in Iraq the "flexibility" to "change tactics on the ground," this interesting back-and-forth occurred:

Sir, that's not really the question. The strategy --

THE PRESIDENT: Sounded like the question to me.

Q: You keep -- you keep saying that you don't want to leave. But is your strategy to win working? Even if you don't want to leave? You've gone into Baghdad before, these things have happened before.

THE PRESIDENT: If I didn't think it would work, I would change -- our commanders would recommend changing the strategy. They believe it will work.

Seems as if Bush was saying that his commanders are in charge of the strategy. But isn't that his job?

Later on came this exchange:

Q: But are you frustrated, sir?

THE PRESIDENT: Frustrated? Sometimes I'm frustrated. Rarely surprised. Sometimes I'm happy. This is -- but war is not a time of joy. These aren't joyous times. These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country.

To recap: he is not "disappointed" (see above), but he is occasionally "frustrated." Yet hardly "surprised." Wait a moment. Does that mean he invaded Iraq realizing that the war there would turn into an ugly sectarian conflict that would bog down US troops for over three years? If so, why didn't he say something before the invasion about this? Or, better yet, why didn't he and the Pentagon prepare for such an eventuality? Citizens should hope he was damn surprised by what has happened in Iraq--even though that would not make him any less culpable.

Bush repeatedly acknowledged there is a legitimate debate whether the United States should disengage from Iraq. He noted,

I will never question the patriotism of somebody who disagrees with me.

This statement is--how should we put it?--not as accurate as it could be. Campaigning for congressional Republicans in 2002 Bush said that Senate Democrats were "more interested in special interests in Washington and not interested in the security of the American people." That certainly is not how one would describe a patriot. More recently, Bush's own Republican Party accused the Democrats of plotting to weaken the country. After a federal judge ruled that Bush's warrantless wiretapping program was unconstitutional, the GOP sent out an email headlined, "Liberal Judge Backs Dem Agenda To Weaken National Security." Accusing someone of having a gameplan to "weaken national security" is indeed questioning their patriotism. Has Bush decried this

Republican National Committee tactic? Not in public.

The press conference allowed for a brief exploration of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq. One journalist inquired,

A lot of the consequences you mentioned for pulling out [such as chaos in Iraq, terrorist running amok, etc.] seem like maybe they never would have been there if we hadn't gone in. How do you square all of that?

Bush fired back:

I square it because, imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein who had the capacity to make a weapon of mass destruction, who was paying suiciders to kill innocent life, who would -- who had relations with Zarqawi. Imagine what the world would be like with him in power. The idea is to try to help change the Middle East.

Well, as both Charles Duelfer and David Kay--administration-appointed WMD hunters--reported, Saddam did not have any serious capacity to produce WMDs. None. He had no weapons and no serious production capability. So, yes, one would have to "imagine" such a threat. As for Saddam's relations with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (now deceased), there is no evidence that Saddam had anything to do with him before the war. As Colin Powell noted in his disastrous UN speech, Zarqawi at the time was operating out of northern Iraq, which was territory not under Baghdad's control. Once more, a healthy dose of imagination is required to follow Bush's argument.

The president continued:

You know, I've heard this theory about everything was just fine until we arrived, and kind of "we're going to stir up the hornet's nest" theory. It just doesn't hold water, as far as I'm concerned. The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.

That led to this point-counterpoint:

Q: What did Iraq have to do with that?

THE PRESIDENT: What did Iraq have to do with what?

Q: The attack on the World Trade Center?

THE PRESIDENT: Nothing, except for it's part of -- and nobody has ever suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a -- the lesson of September the 11th is, take threats before they fully materialize....Nobody has ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

Not exactly.

Dick Cheney and other hawks in the administration repeatedly said that there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11, citing an unconfirmed, single-source intelligence report that 9/11 ringleader Mohamad Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague five months before the attack. Yet the FBI and the CIA (and later the 9/11 Commission) had concluded that there was no evidence to substantiate this report and that the meeting likely did not happen. True, Bush officials did not claim that Saddam had "ordered" the attack, but they did suggest that Baghdad had participated in the attack--even when there was no evidence to support that assertion.

A few months ago, a company in Spain announced that they had developed a strain of plankton that can be cheaply converted into crude oil, basically giving us an inexhaustible supply of fuel.

Now these guys are saying we can have free energy. Haven't heard a peep from the plankton scientists in a while, like a muzzle was put on the whole thing. How long before this technology is completely blacked out as well?

*sigh* Big Oil sucks donkey dick.

Fight the corporate vampires! You can sign up to examine the technology (or receive the results, if you're not a bonafide scientist) on the Steorn website.

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Irish company challenges scientists to test 'free energy' technology

DUBLIN (AFP) - An Irish company has thrown down the gauntlet to the worldwide scientific community to test a technology it has developed that it claims produces free energy.

The company, Steorn, says its discovery is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy -- a concept that challenges one of the basic rules of physics.

It claims the technology can be used to supply energy for virtually all devices, from mobile phones to cars.

Steorn issued its challenge through an advertisement in the Economist magazine this week quoting Ireland's Nobel prize-winning author George Bernard Shaw who said that "all great truths begin as blasphemies".

Sean McCarthy, Steorn's chief executive officer, said they had issued the challenge for 12 physicists to rigorously test the technology so it can be developed.

"What we have developed is a way to construct magnetic fields so that when you travel round the magnetic fields, starting and stopping at the same position, you have gained energy," McCarthy said.

"The energy isn't being converted from any other source such as the energy within the magnet. It's literally created. Once the technology operates it provides a constant stream of clean energy," he told Ireland's RTE radio.

McCarthy said Steorn had not set out to develop the technology, but "it actually fell out of another project we were working on".

One of the basic principles of physics is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

McCarthy said a big obstacle to overcome was the disbelief that what they had developed was even possible.

"For the first six months that we looked at it we literally didn't believe it ourselves. Over the last three years it had been rigorously tested in our own laboratories, in independent laboratories and so on," he said.

"But we have been unable to get significant scientific interest in it. We have had scientists come in, test it and, off the record, they are quite happy to admit that it works.

"But for us to be able to commercialise this and put this into peoples' lives we need credible, academic validation in the public domain and hence the challenge," McCarthy said.

Drug ads sell a problem, not a solution

Christian Science Monitor - POINT REYES STATION, CALIF. - It is an old saying in the advertising trade that you sell the problem, not the solution. That helps explain why the media today are awash with images of disease. Erectile dysfunction, depression, stress, attention deficit disorder, on and on – you can't escape them and the sense of looming peril that they conjure up.

Politicians sell terror and fear; pharmaceutical companies sell disease. Every state and stage of existence has become a pathology in need of pharmaceutical "intervention," and life itself is a petri dish of biochemical deficiency and need. Shyness is now "social anxiety disorder." A twitchy tendency has become "restless leg syndrome." Three decades ago the head of Merck dreamed aloud of the day when the definition of disease would be so broad that his company could "sell to everyone," like chewing gum.

That day is rapidly approaching, if it's not already here. "We're increasingly turning normal people into patients," said Dr. Lisa M. Schwartz of the Dartmouth Medical School. "The ordinary experiences of life become a diagnosis, which makes healthy people feel like they're sick."

In one sense, the ads have been successful. The Kaiser Family Foundation found that every dollar drug companies spend on ads brings more than four dollars in additional sales. But for most others, the result has been soaring medical insurance costs, toxic side effects, and new tensions between doctors and patients, who increasingly badger doctors for the drugs they've seen on TV.

One study found that 30 percent of Americans have made these demands. A Minnesota doctor complained recently that patients now push him for sleep medications "when maybe they just need to go to bed on a more regular basis."

But perhaps the worst part is that prescription drug ads have immersed us all in a pervasive drug culture that seems to have no boundaries. We are being reduced to helpless "consumers" who have no capacity to deal with challenges other than by taking a pill. Last month Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota, called for a moratorium on prescription drug ads. It's about time.

For most of the past half century, there were tight restrictions on the general advertising of prescription drugs. These require doctors' guidance for a reason; so why should Madison Avenue get involved? But under heavy pressure from the drug and advertising industries, the government backed down in the late 1990s, and that started the tsunami.

Spending on drug ads for the general public more than tripled between 1996 and 2001. It is now some $4 billion a year, which is more than twice what McDonald's spends on ads. In 1994, the typical American had seven prescriptions a year, which is no small number. By 2004, that was up to 12 a year. Homebuilders are touting medicine cabinets that are "triple-wide."

The industry says this is all about "educating" the consumer. But an ad executive was more candid when he said – boasted, really – that the goal is to "drive patients to their doctors." Reuters Business Insight, a publication for investors, explained that the future of the industry depends on its ability to "create new disease markets." "The coming years," it said, "will bear greater witness to the corporate-sponsored creation of disease."

The Kaiser study found that drug ads increase sales for entire categories of drugs, not just the one in question. The ads really are selling the disease more than a cure.

Advertising is just one way the industry has sought to accomplish this goal. It also funds patient advocacy groups such as Children With Attention Deficit Disorder (CHADD), and doctors who push for expanded definitions of disease, among a host of other things. (When the definition of ADD expanded in the 1980s, the number of kids tagged with this problem increased by 50 percent.)

But advertising is the most pervasive and aggressive way of selling sickness. It also is the hardest to justify. Medicine is supposed to be about science, not huckstering; about healing people, not persuading more of them that they are sick. There are far better ways to inform the public about health issues than to spend billions of dollars a year pushing pills.

As a highly addicted heavy smoker for 25 years and now smoke-free for 5, I say stick it to these motherfuckers - they lied to me as a teenager, made me believe smoking was cool and sexy and grown-up, didn't say anything about the shit killing me. Fine the crap out of them and put them out of business before they maim/kill a whole new generation.

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Judge: Tobacco firms deceived smokers

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the nation's top cigarette makers violated racketeering laws, deceiving the public for years about the health hazards of smoking.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler stopped short of ordering the companies to pay for a quit-smoking program.

The judge did order the companies to publish in newspapers and on their Web sites "corrective statements" on the adverse health effects and addictiveness of smoking and nicotine.

Kessler said that adoption of a national smoking cessation program, as sought by the government, "would unquestionably serve the public interest" but that she was barred by an appeals court ruling that said remedies must be forward-looking and not penalties for past actions.

The government had asked the judge to make the companies pay $10 billion for smoking cessation programs, though the Justice Department's own expert said $130 billion was needed.

That reduction in remedies led to accusations that Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum, a Bush administration political appointee, tried to weaken the case. However, an internal Justice Department cleared him of wrongdoing, saying he was supporting a figure he thought could be sustained on appeal.

Tobacco companies denied committing fraud and said changes in how cigarettes are sold now make it impossible for them to act fraudulently in the future.

Civil racketeering laws require a finding that fraud occurred. If a judge does make that finding, action must be taken to prevent it from occurring again.

The suit was first filed in 1999 under the Clinton administration. The Bush administration pursued it after receiving early criticism for openly discussing the case's perceived weaknesses and attempting unsuccessfully to settle it.

A separate court issued an interim ruling in the case last year, finding that civil racketeering laws did not permit the government to seek $280 billion from the companies for money they allegedly earned over many years through fraud.

During the trial, Kessler heard accusations that the companies established a "gentleman's agreement" in which they agreed not to compete over whose products were the least hazardous to smokers. That was to ensure they didn't have to publicly address the harm caused by smoking, government lawyers said. Tobacco lawyers denied the contention.

The government also argued that the tobacco industry has marketed to kids while lying about doing so. Again, tobacco lawyers denied the charge.

Kessler's decision came nearly a decade after the states reached legal settlements with the industry worth $246 billion and aimed at recovering health care costs. Those settlements imposed some restrictions on the industry, such as banning ads on billboards and public transportation.

The defendants in the federal lawsuit are: Philip Morris USA Inc. and its parent, Altria Group Inc.; R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.; Brown & Williamson Tobacco Co.; British American Tobacco Ltd.; Lorillard Tobacco Co.; Liggett Group Inc.; Counsel for Tobacco Research-U.S.A.; and the now-defunct Tobacco Institute.

Judge nixes warrantless surveillance

DETROIT, Associated Press - A federal judge ruled Thursday that the government's warrantless surveillance program is unconstitutional and ordered an immediate halt to it.

U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor in Detroit became the first judge to strike down the National Security Agency's program, which she says violates the rights to free speech and privacy as well as the separation of powers enshrined in the Constitution.

"Plaintiffs have prevailed, and the public interest is clear, in this matter. It is the upholding of our Constitution," Taylor wrote in her 43-page opinion.

The Justice Department appealed the ruling and issued a statement calling the program "an essential tool for the intelligence community in the war on terror."

White House press secretary Tony Snow said the Bush administration "couldn't disagree more with this ruling."

"United States intelligence officials have confirmed that the program has helped stop terrorist attacks and saved American lives," he said. "The program is carefully administered and only targets international phone calls coming into or out of the United States where one of the parties on the call is a suspected al-Qaida or affiliated terrorist."

The ruling won't take immediate effect so Taylor can hear a Justice request for a stay pending its appeal. A hearing on the motion was set for Sept. 7, Snow said.

The

American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit on behalf of journalists, scholars and lawyers who say the program has made it difficult for them to do their jobs. They believe many of their overseas contacts are likely targets of the program, monitoring phone calls and e-mails between people in the U.S. and people in other countries when a link to terrorism is suspected.

The government argued that the program is well within the president's authority, but said proving that would require revealing state secrets.

The ACLU said the state-secrets argument was irrelevant because the Bush administration already had publicly revealed enough information about the program for Taylor to rule.

"At its core, today's ruling addresses the abuse of presidential power and reaffirms the system of checks and balances that's necessary to our democracy," ACLU executive director Anthony Romero told reporters after the ruling.

He called the opinion "another nail in the coffin in the Bush administration's legal strategy in the war on terror."

While siding with the ACLU on the surveillance issue, Taylor dismissed a separate claim by the group over NSA data-mining of phone records. She said not enough had been publicly revealed about that program to support the claim and further litigation would jeopardize state secrets.

The lawsuit alleged that the NSA "uses artificial intelligence aids to search for keywords and analyze patterns in millions of communications at any given time." Multiple lawsuits have been filed related to data-mining against phone companies, accusing them of improperly turning over records to the NSA.

However, the data-mining was only a small part of the Detroit suit, said Ann Beeson, the ACLU's associate legal director and the lead attorney on the case.

...and they looked at me like I had three heads. Who's' sorry now, motherfuckers? Your real estate market is in the shitter, the winds are getting nastier, and I'm nice and cozy on the west coast with the fat profits from the sale of my house sitting snugly in the bank accruing interest. Hurricane Wilma trashed Lauderdale the day after escrow closed on my house, so HAH! Bite me.

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Global warming affects hurricane intensity: study

MIAMI (Reuters) - Global warming is affecting the intensity of Atlantic hurricanes, according to a new study by a university professor in Florida who says his research provides the first direct link between climate change and storm strength.

James Elsner of Florida State University said he set out to perform a statistical analysis of the two theories in a raging debate within the scientific community: Whether recent intense hurricanes are the result of climate change or natural ocean warming and cooling cycles.

"Is the atmosphere forcing the ocean or the ocean forcing the atmosphere?" Elsner asked.

The issue has a wide-ranging impact on insurance companies, municipal planners, some 50 million residents of hurricane-prone U.S. coastal communities and millions of others in Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean islands.

The 2005 hurricane season produced 28 tropical storms and hurricanes, shattering the old record of 21 set in 1933.

Four of the hurricanes were Category 5, the strongest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. One of those, Wilma, was the most intense Atlantic hurricane ever recorded.

The season also produced Katrina, which killed more than 1,300 people and caused about $80 billion in damage when it swamped New Orleans and other parts of the U.S. Gulf coast.

Elsner looked at 135 years of records to examine the statistical connection between Atlantic sea surface temperatures and air temperatures near the sea surface, and then compared them to records of hurricane intensities.

Atlantic hurricanes draw their energy from the warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea.

He found that average air temperatures during hurricane season between June and November were useful in predicting sea surface temperatures, but not the other way around.

"It appears that atmospheric warming comes before sea warming," he said, indicating that hurricane damage will be likely to continue increasing because of greenhouse warming.

The study was scheduled to be published August 23 in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

Many hurricane researchers say the Atlantic basin moved into a period of increased hurricane activity about a decade ago and predicted it could last 25 to 40 years.

Some say it is due to a natural fluctuation in sea surface temperatures called the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation.

But a growing body of research indicates human-induced global warming -- driven by heat-trapping gases in air pollution from cars and factories -- could be heating sea water, which in turn fuels stronger hurricanes.

Elsner described himself as "sympathetic" to the idea of human-induced global warming but said his research merely tried to determine whether there was a link between climate change and intense hurricanes.

I've been predicting this for two years, and planning my land/home buy specifically around these conditions. My friends think I'm a freakin' genius.

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Home sales slow, 28 states see declines

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The slowdown in the once-sizzling housing market is spreading, with 28 states and the District of Columbia reporting spring sales declines, led by big drops in former boom areas of Arizona, Florida and California.

Nationally, sales were down 7 percent in the April-June quarter this year compared with the same period in 2005, the National Association of Realtors said Tuesday in its latest state-by-state look at housing conditions around the country.

The Realtors survey showed that the biggest declines occurred in states that had been enjoying red-hot sales during the five-year housing boom.

The five biggest declines this spring compared to the April-June period of 2005 were Arizona, down 26.9 percent; Florida, down 26.7 percent; California, down 25.3 percent; Virginia, down 23.9 percent, and Nevada, down 23.5 percent.

The Realtors report depicted a tale of two housing markets, with former boom areas experiencing declines and other areas of moderate sales gains during the boom years experiencing strong growth.

In all, 20 states had sales gains in the spring, led by Alaska, which enjoyed a 48.6 percent jump in sales; followed by Arkansas, up 17.9 percent; Texas, up 11.3 percent; North Carolina, up 11 percent, and Vermont, up 9.1 percent compared to the spring of 2005.

"States with moderately priced areas that have experienced healthy job creation are seeing sales gains," said David Lereah, chief economist for the Realtors. "The economic backdrop remains favorable for the housing market, which is helping home sales level out."

In a separate survey of price changes in 151 metropolitan areas, the Realtors reported that 26 metro areas experienced outright price declines while 37 areas were still enjoying double-digit price increases.

The biggest price drops in percentage terms were in Danville, Ill., where home prices fell by 11.2 percent in the spring compared with the spring of 2005, and the Detroit area, where home prices were down 8 percent.

At the other end of the scale, prices rose the most in Baton Rouge, La., reflecting a 27.3 percent increase, followed by Ocala, Fla., where prices rose by 25.3 percent, and the Virginia Beach, Va., area, where prices were up 23.6 percent compared with the spring of 2005.

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On the Net:

National Association of Realtors: http://www.realtor.org

Personally, I find it hard to feel sorry for these greedy hypocrites and their 'prosperity gospel' garbage... oooh, looky, I lost half a million because my pastor said the investment was blessed and I'd quadruple my money in a week!

Could it have been.... Satan?

Religion-related fraud getting worse

Associated Press - Randall W. Harding sang in the choir at Crossroads Christian Church in Corona, Calif., and donated part of his conspicuous wealth to its ministries. In his business dealings, he underscored his faith by naming his investment firm JTL, or "Just the Lord." Pastors and churchgoers alike entrusted their money to him.

By the time Harding was unmasked as a fraud, he and his partners had stolen more than $50 million from their clients, and Crossroads became yet another cautionary tale in what investigators say is a worsening problem plaguing the nation's churches.

Billions of dollars has been stolen in religion-related fraud in recent years, according to the North American Securities Administrators Association, a group of state officials who work to protect investors.

Between 1984 and 1989, about $450 million was stolen in religion-related scams, the association says. In its latest count — from 1998 to 2001 — the toll had risen to $2 billion. Rip-offs have only become more common since.

"The size and the scope of the fraud is getting larger," said Patricia Struck, president of the securities association and administrator of the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions, Division of Securities. "The scammers are getting smarter and the investors don't ask enough questions because of the feeling that they can be safe in church."

Cases in recent years show just how vulnerable religious communities are.

Lambert Vander Tuig, a member of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest Calif., ran a real estate scam that bilked investors out of $50 million, the Securities and Exchange Commission says. His salesmen presented themselves as faithful Christians and distributed copies of "The Purpose Driven Life," by Saddleback pastor Rick Warren, according to the SEC. Warren and his church had no knowledge of Vander Tuig's activities, says the SEC.

At Daystar Assembly of God Church in Prattville, Ala., a congregant persuaded church leaders and others to invest about $3 million in real estate a few years ago, promising some profits would go toward building a megachurch. The Daystar Assembly was swindled and lost its building.

And in a dramatically broader scam, leaders of Greater Ministries International, based in Tampa, Fla., defrauded thousands of people of half a billion dollars by promising to double money on investments that ministry officials said were blessed by God. Several of the con men were sentenced in 2001 to more than a decade each in prison.

"Many of these frauds are, on their face, very credible and legitimate appearing," said Randall Lee, director of the Pacific regional office of the SEC. "You really have to dig below the surface to understand what's going on."

Typically, a con artist will target the pastor first, by making a generous donation and appealing to the minister's desire to expand the church or its programs, according to Joseph Borg, director of the Alabama Securities Commission, who played a key role in breaking up the Greater Ministries scam.

If the pastor invests, churchgoers view it as a tacit endorsement. The con man, often promising double digit returns, will chip away at resistance among church members by suggesting they can donate part of their earnings to the congregation, Borg says.

"Most folks think `I'm going to invest in some overseas deal or real estate deal and part of that money is going to the church and I get part. I don't feel like I'm guilty of greed,'" Borg says.

If a skeptical church member openly questions a deal, that person is often castigated for speaking against a fellow Christian.

Ole Anthony of the Trinity Foundation Inc. in Dallas, which investigates fraud and televangelism, partly blames the churches themselves for the problem. Anthony contends that the "prosperity gospel" — which teaches that the truly faithful are rewarded with wealth in this life — is creeping into mainstream churches.

Chuck Crites, a former member of Crossroads Church, learned firsthand how effective con artists can be.

The businessman was swindled out of $500,000 by Harding in a Ponzi scheme, which uses money from newer investors to pay off older ones.

Crites said Harding, who pleaded guilty last year to wire fraud and money laundering, boasted about helping fund a new Christian high school for Crossroads and hired a music pastor from the megachurch as a sales agent. "At one point he even told me how much money he had given to the church that year," Crites said.

Harding was nabbed with the help of Barry Minkow, who was himself convicted of fraud years ago. Minkow eventually became a pastor in San Diego and started the Fraud Discovery Institute, which is dedicated to investigating scams.

Crites is putting his money toward a new fraud-awareness kit for churches and other groups that Minkow is developing.

"It made me angry at how people are abusing the trust that exists in church communities," Crites said.

Investigators say all denominations are at risk, but the most susceptible communities are ones where members are deeply engaged in church activities, such as service programs and small group prayer, giving con artists plenty of chance to ingratiate themselves with congregants.

Often, perpetrators are so successful building an image as good Christians that churchgoers won't cooperate with law enforcement authorities even after the crime is revealed.

"Money has a way of blinding objectivity, even for we who are believers," Minkow says.

___

On the Net:

Fraud Discovery Institute: http://www.frauddiscovery.net/

Trinity Foundation: http://www.trinityfi.org/

Troops have always been expendable, or as both George H. W. Bush and his son George W. Bush have referred to them in private, "CFU's" - Cannon Fodder Units.

Sickened Iraq vets cite depleted uranium

NEW YORK, Associated Press - It takes at least 10 minutes and a large glass of orange juice to wash down all the pills — morphine, methadone, a muscle relaxant, an antidepressant, a stool softener. Viagra for sexual dysfunction. Valium for his nerves.

Four hours later, Herbert Reed will swallow another 15 mg of morphine to cut the pain clenching every part of his body. He will do it twice more before the day is done.

Since he left a bombed-out train depot in Iraq, his gums bleed. There is more blood in his urine, and still more in his stool. Bright light hurts his eyes. A tumor has been removed from his thyroid. Rashes erupt everywhere, itching so badly they seem to live inside his skin. Migraines cleave his skull. His joints ache, grating like door hinges in need of oil.

There is something massively wrong with Herbert Reed, though no one is sure what it is. He believes he knows the cause, but he cannot convince anyone caring for him that the military's new favorite weapon has made him terrifyingly sick.

In the sprawling bureaucracy of the Department of Veterans Affairs, he has many caretakers. An internist, a neurologist, a pain-management specialist, a psychologist, an orthopedic surgeon and a dermatologist. He cannot function without his stupefying arsenal of medications, but they exact a high price.

"I'm just a zombie walking around," he says.

Reed believes depleted uranium has contaminated him and his life. He now walks point in a vitriolic war over the Pentagon's arsenal of it — thousands of shells and hundreds of tanks coated with the metal that is radioactive, chemically toxic, and nearly twice as dense as lead.

A shell coated with depleted uranium pierces a tank like a hot knife through butter, exploding on impact into a charring inferno. As tank armor, it repels artillery assaults. It also leaves behind a fine radioactive dust with a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

Depleted uranium is the garbage left from producing enriched uranium for nuclear weapons and energy plants. It is 60 percent as radioactive as natural uranium. The U.S. has an estimated 1.5 billion pounds of it, sitting in hazardous waste storage sites across the country. Meaning it is plentiful and cheap as well as highly effective.

Reed says he unknowingly breathed DU dust while living with his unit in Samawah, Iraq. He was med-evaced out in July 2003, nearly unable to walk because of lightning-strike pains from herniated discs in his spine. Then began a strange series of symptoms he'd never experienced in his previously healthy life.

At Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C, he ran into a buddy from his unit. And another, and another, and in the tedium of hospital life between doctor visits and the dispensing of meds, they began to talk.

"We all had migraines. We all felt sick," Reed says. "The doctors said, 'It's all in your head.' "

Then the medic from their unit showed up. He too, was suffering. That made eight sick soldiers from the 442nd Military Police, an Army National Guard unit made up of mostly cops and correctional officers from the New York area.

But the medic knew something the others didn't.

Dutch marines had taken over the abandoned train depot dubbed Camp Smitty, which was surrounded by tank skeletons, unexploded ordnance and shell casings. They'd brought radiation-detection devices. The readings were so hot, the Dutch set up camp in the middle of the desert rather than live in the station ruins.

"We got on the Internet," Reed said, "and we started researching depleted uranium."

Then they contacted The New York Daily News, which paid for sophisticated urine tests available only overseas.

Then they hired a lawyer.

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Reed, Gerard Matthew, Raymond Ramos, Hector Vega, Augustin Matos, Anthony Yonnone, Jerry Ojeda and Anthony Phillip all have depleted uranium in their urine, according to tests done in December 2003, while they bounced for months between Walter Reed and New Jersey's Fort Dix medical center, seeking relief that never came.

The analyses were done in Germany, by a Frankfurt professor who developed a depleted uranium test with Randall Parrish, a professor of isotope geology at the University of Leicester in Britain.

The veterans, using their positive results as evidence, have sued the U.S. Army, claiming officials knew the hazards of depleted uranium, but concealed the risks.

The Department of Defense says depleted uranium is powerful and safe, and not that worrisome.

Four of the highest-registering samples from Frankfurt were sent to the VA. Those results were negative, Reed said. "Their test just isn't as sophisticated," he said. "And when we first asked to be tested, they told us there wasn't one. They've lied to us all along."

The VA's testing methodology is safe and accurate, the agency says. More than 2,100 soldiers from the current war have asked to be tested; only 8 had DU in their urine, the VA said.

The term depleted uranium is linguistically radioactive. Simply uttering the words can prompt a reaction akin to preaching atheism at tent revival. Heads shake, eyes roll, opinions are yelled from all sides.

"The Department of Defense takes the position that you can eat it for breakfast and it poses no threat at all," said Steve Robinson of the National Gulf War Resource Center, which helps veterans with various problems, including navigating the labyrinth of VA health care. "Then you have far-left groups that ... declare it a crime against humanity."

Several countries use it as weaponry, including Britain, which fired it during the 2003 Iraq invasion.

An estimated 286 tons of DU munitions were fired by the U.S. in Iraq and Kuwait in 1991. An estimated 130 tons were shot toppling Saddam Hussein.

Depleted uranium can enter the human body by inhalation, the most dangerous method; by ingesting contaminated food or eating with contaminated hands; by getting dust or debris in an open wound, or by being struck by shrapnel, which often is not removed because doing so would be more dangerous than leaving it.

Inhaled, it can lodge in the lungs. As with imbedded shrapnel, this is doubly dangerous — not only are the particles themselves physically destructive, they emit radiation.

A moderate voice on the divisive DU spectrum belongs to Dan Fahey, a doctoral student at the University of California at Berkeley, who has studied the issue for years and also served in the Gulf War before leaving the military as a conscientious objector.

"I've been working on this since '93 and I've just given up hope," he said. "I've spoken to successive federal committees and elected officials ... who then side with the Pentagon. Nothing changes."

At the other end are a collection of conspiracy-theorists and Internet proselytizers who say using such weapons constitutes genocide. Two of the most vocal opponents recently suggested that a depleted-uranium missile, not a hijacked jetliner, struck the Pentagon in 2001.

"The bottom line is it's more hazardous than the Pentagon admits," Fahey said, "but it's not as hazardous as the hard-line activist groups say it is. And there's a real dearth of information about how DU affects humans."

There are several studies on how it affects animals, though their results are not, of course, directly applicable to humans. Military research on mice shows that depleted uranium can enter the bloodstream and come to rest in bones, the brain, kidneys and lymph nodes. Other research in rats shows that DU can result in cancerous tumors and genetic mutations, and pass from mother to unborn child, resulting in birth defects.

Iraqi doctors reported significant increases in birth defects and childhood cancers after the 1991 invasion.

Iraqi authorities "found that uranium, which affected the blood cells, had a serious impact on health: The number of cases of leukemia had increased considerably, as had the incidence of fetal deformities," the U.N. reported.

Depleted uranium can also contaminate soil and water, and coat buildings with radioactive dust, which can by carried by wind and sandstorms.

In 2005, the U.N. Environmental Program identified 311 polluted sites in Iraq. Cleaning them will take at least $40 million and several years, the agency said. Nothing can start until the fighting stops.

___

Fifteen years after it was first used in battle, there is only one U.S. government study monitoring veterans exposed to depleted uranium.

Number of soldiers in the survey: 32. Number of soldiers in both Iraq wars: more than 900,000.

The study group's size is controversial — far too small, say experts including Fahey — and so are the findings of the voluntary, Baltimore-based study.

It has found "no clinically significant" health effects from depleted uranium exposure in the study subjects, according to its researchers.

Critics say the VA has downplayed participants' health problems, including not reporting one soldier who developed cancer, and another who developed a bone tumor.

So for now, depleted uranium falls into the quagmire of Gulf War Syndrome, from which no treatment has emerged despite the government's spending of at least $300 million.

About 30 percent of the 700,000 men and women who served in the first Gulf War still suffer a baffling array of symptoms very similar to those reported by Reed's unit.

Depleted uranium has long been suspected as a possible contributor to Gulf War Syndrome, and in the mid-90s, veterans helped push the military into tracking soldiers exposed to it.

But for all their efforts, what they got in the end was a questionnaire dispensed to homeward-bound soldiers asking about mental health, nightmares, losing control, exposure to dangerous and radioactive chemicals.

But, the veterans persisted, how would soldiers know they'd been exposed? Radiation is invisible, tasteless, and has no smell. And what exhausted, homesick, war-addled soldier would check a box that would only send him or her to a military medical center to be poked and prodded and questioned and tested?

It will take years to determine how depleted uranium affected soldiers from this war. After Vietnam, veterans, in numbers that grew with the passage of time, complained of joint aches, night sweats, bloody feces, migraine headaches, unexplained rashes and violent behavior; some developed cancers.

It took more than 25 years for the Pentagon to acknowledge that Agent Orange — a corrosive defoliant used to melt the jungles of Vietnam and flush out the enemy — was linked to those sufferings.

It took 40 years for the military to compensate sick World War II vets exposed to massive blasts of radiation during tests of the atomic bomb.

In 2002, Congress voted to not let that happen again.

It established the Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses — comprised of scientists, physicians and veterans advocates. It reports to the secretary of Veterans Affairs.

Its mandate is to judge all research and all efforts to treat Gulf War Syndrome patients against a single standard: Have sick soldiers been made better?

The answer, according to the committee, is no.

"Regrettably, after four years of operation neither the Committee nor (the) VA can report progress toward this goal," stated its December 2005 report. "Research has not produced effective treatments for these conditions nor shown that existing treatments are significantly effective."

And so time marches on, as do soldiers going to, and returning from, the deserts of Iraq.

___

Herbert Reed is an imposing man, broad shouldered and tall. He strides into the VA Medical Center in the Bronx with the presence of a cop or a soldier. Since the Vietnam War, he has been both.

His hair is perfect, his shirt spotless, his jeans sharply creased. But there is something wrong, a niggling imperfection made more noticeable by a bearing so disciplined. It is a limp — more like a hitch in his get-along.

It is the only sign, albeit a tiny one, that he is extremely sick.

Even sleep offers no release. He dreams of gunfire and bombs and soldiers who scream for help. No matter how hard he tries, he never gets there in time.

At 54, he is a veteran of two wars and a 20-year veteran of the New York Police Department, where he last served as an assistant warden at the Riker's Island prison.

He was in perfect health, he says, before being deployed to Iraq.

According to military guidelines, he should have heard the words depleted uranium long before he ended up at Walter Reed. He should have been trained about its dangers, and how to avoid prolonged exposure to its toxicity and radioactivity. He says he didn't get anything of the kind. Neither did other reservists and National Guard soldiers called up for the current war, according to veterans' groups.

Reed and the seven brothers from his unit hate what has happened to them, and they speak of it at public seminars and in politicians' offices. It is something no VA doctor can explain; something that leaves them feeling like so many spent shell rounds, kicked to the side of battle.

But for every outspoken soldier like them, there are silent veterans like Raphael Naboa, an Army artillery scout who served 11 months in the northern Sunni Triangle, only to come home and fall apart.

Some days he feels fine. "Some days I can't get out of bed," he said from his home in Colorado.

Now 29, he's had growths removed from his brain. He has suffered a small stroke — one morning he was shaving, having put down the razor to rinse his face. In that moment, he blacked out and pitched over.

"Just as quickly as I lost consciousness, I regained it," he said. "Except I couldn't move the right side of my body."

After about 15 minutes, the paralysis ebbed.

He has mentioned depleted uranium to his VA doctors, who say he suffers from a series of "non-related conditions." He knows he was exposed to DU.

"A lot of guys went trophy-hunting, grabbing bayonets, helmets, stuff that was in the vehicles that were destroyed by depleted uranium. My guys were rooting around in it. I was trying to get them out of the vehicles."

No one in the military talked to him about depleted uranium, he said. His knowledge, like Reed's, is self-taught from the Internet.

Unlike Reed, he has not gone to war over it. He doesn't feel up to the fight. There is no known cure for what ails him, and so no possible victory in battle.

He'd really just like to feel normal again. And he knows of others who feel the same.

"I was an artillery scout, these are folks who are in pretty good shape. Your Rangers, your Special Forces guys, they're in as good as shape as a professional athlete.

"Then we come back and we're all sick."

Pacific 'dead zone' said to exceed fears

PORTLAND, Ore., Associated Press - Scientists say the oxygen-starved "dead zone" along the Pacific Coast that is causing massive crab and fish die-offs is worse than initially thought.

Scientists say weather, not pollution, appears to be the culprit, and no relief is in sight. However, some say there is no immediate sign yet of long-term damage to the crab fishery.

Oregon State University scientists looking for weather changes that could reverse the situation aren't finding them, and they say levels of dissolved oxygen critical to marine life are the lowest since the first dead zone was identified in 2002. It has returned every year.

Strong upwelling winds pushed a low-oxygen pool of deep water toward shore, suffocating marine life, said Jane Lubchenco, a professor of marine biology at OSU.

She said wind changes could help push that water farther out but current forecasts predict the opposite.

After a recent trip to the dead zone and an inspection via camera on a remote-controlled submarine, she said, "We saw a crab graveyard and no fish the entire day."

"Thousands and thousands of dead crab and molts were littering the ocean floor. Many sea stars were dead, and the fish have either left the area or have died and been washed away," she said. "Seeing so much carnage on the video screens was shocking and depressing."

The effect on the commercial fishery isn't yet known, said Hal Weeks, a marine ecologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

"The last two years have been record-breaking years in Oregon for Dungeness crab" despite dead zones, he said.

"In that fishery there has been no apparent effect. That doesn't mean there won't be," he said.

It is Oregon's most valuable fishery, worth as much as $44 million in recent years.

But Weeks said crab populations fluctuate wildly for reasons not well understood. Whether any harvest decline is a result of normal fluctuation or the effects of the dead zone is hard to say, he said.

He said some reports indicate the loss of fin fish may be due to their movement to areas with more oxygen rather than to mortality.

Al Pazar, chairman of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission and a crab fisherman out of Newport, said this season is shaping up to be the second-best ever, around 28 million pounds, but that most crabs are caught in the six or eight weeks following the season's winter opening, well ahead of the appearance of the dead zones.

Few boats are fishing now, he said, and the season closes at midnight Monday. But he said the affected area is a major crab producer, "right in the thick of it."

He said he saw OSU videos from the zone "that made my knees weak."

The 2002 dead zone was the worst until this year's, he said. After 2002, he returned to the area when the season reopened and had good results.

"They do move back in," he said.

Oregon State scientists working with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife used a remote-control device Aug. 8 to check biological impact and continue oxygen sampling.

Dissolved oxygen readings off of Cape Perpetua north of Florence are between 3 percent and 10 percent of levels needed for survival and near zero in some areas.

"Some of the worst conditions are now approaching what we call anoxia, or the absence of oxygen," said Francis Chan, a marine ecologist with Oregon State and the OSU-based Partnership for Interdisciplinary Studies of Coastal Oceans.

"This can lead to a whole different set of chemical reactions," he said. "It's hard to tell just how much mortality, year after year, these systems are going to be able to take."

A reef near Yachats normally swarms with rockfish, but they are gone. Dead Dungeness crab, sea stars and other marine life carpet the ocean floor.

Scientists say water near the bottom is filled with "marine snow," fragments of dead marine life. As it decays, bacteria move in to feed on it and suck remaining oxygen from the water.

"We can't be sure what happened to all the fish, but it's clear they are gone," Lubchenco said.

Similar but lesser zones have been found elsewhere along the Oregon and Washington coasts. Scientists say they don't yet know how widespread it is.

There are no seafood safety issues, OSU experts say. Only live crabs and other fresh seafood are processed for sale.

Researchers say they don't know why it has become an annual event and can't yet tie it to climate change or global warming. The zone this year was spotted about a month ago.

Sexual lyrics prompt teens to have sex

CHICAGO, Associated Press - Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.

Whether it's hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.

Songs depicting men as "sex-driven studs," women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.

Teens who said they listened to lots of music with degrading sexual messages were almost twice as likely to start having intercourse or other sexual activities within the following two years as were teens who listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Among heavy listeners, 51 percent started having sex within two years, versus 29 percent of those who said they listened to little or no sexually degrading music.

Exposure to lots of sexually degrading music "gives them a specific message about sex," said lead author Steven Martino, a researcher for Rand Corp. in Pittsburgh. Boys learn they should be relentless in pursuit of women and girls learn to view themselves as sex objects, he said.

"We think that really lowers kids' inhibitions and makes them less thoughtful" about sexual decisions and may influence them to make decisions they regret, he said.

The study, based on telephone interviews with 1,461 participants aged 12 to 17, appears in the August issue of Pediatrics, being released Monday.

Most participants were virgins when they were first questioned in 2001. Follow-up interviews were done in 2002 and 2004 to see if music choice had influenced subsequent behavior.

Natasha Ramsey, a 17-year-old from New Brunswick, N.J., said she and other teens sometimes listen to sexually explicit songs because they like the beat.

"I won't really realize that the person is talking about having sex or raping a girl," she said. Even so, the message "is being beaten into the teens' heads," she said. "We don't even really realize how much."

"A lot of teens think that's the way they're supposed to be, they think that's the cool thing to do. Because it's so common, it's accepted," said Ramsey, a teen editor for Sexetc.org, a teen sexual health Web site produced at Rutgers University.

"Teens will try to deny it, they'll say 'No, it's not the music,' but it IS the music. That has one of the biggest impacts on our lives," Ramsey said.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the U.S. recording industry, declined to comment on the findings.

Benjamin Chavis, chief executive officer of the Hip-Hip Summit Action Network, a coalition of hip-hop musicians and recording industry executives, said explicit music lyrics are a cultural expression that reflect "social and economic realities."

"We caution rushing to judgment that music more than any other factor is a causative factor" for teens initiating sex, Chavis said.

Martino said the researchers tried to account for other factors that could affect teens' sexual behavior, including parental permissiveness, and still found explicit lyrics had a strong influence.

However, Yvonne K. Fulbright, a New York-based sex researcher and author, said factors including peer pressure, self-esteem and home environment are probably more influential than the research suggests.

"It's a little dangerous to just pinpoint one thing. You have to look at everything that's going on in a young person's life," she said. "When somebody has a healthy sense of themselves, they don't take these lyrics too seriously."

David Walsh, a psychologist who heads the National Institute on Media and the Family, said the results make sense, and echo research on the influence of videos and other visual media.

The brain's impulse-control center undergoes "major construction" during the teen years at the same time that an interest in sex starts to blossom, he said.

Add sexually arousing lyrics and "it's not that surprising that a kid with a heavier diet of that ... would be at greater risk for sexual behavior," Walsh said.

Martino said parents, educators and teens themselves need to think more critically about messages in music lyrics.

Fulbright agreed.

"A healthy home atmosphere is one that allows a child to investigate what pop culture has to offer and at the same time say 'I know this is a fun song but you know that it's not right to treat women this way or this isn't a good person to have as a role model,'" she said.

___

On the Net:

_Pediatrics: http://www.aap.org/

_National Institute on Media and Family: http://www.mediaandthefamily.org/

Not exactly a headscratcher, eh? Just a matter of finding out who specifically is responsible for the "omission" and fining the companies who benefited to the tune on BILLIONS...

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Congressmen question oil windfall

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - Two congressmen said Thursday someone at the Interior Department may have deliberately removed provisions from offshore drilling contracts, giving oil companies a multibillion-dollar windfall.

They also said the department has refused to provide critical e-mails and documents that could clear up the mystery over the contracts and provisions that dictate how much in royalty payments the companies must pay the government on the leases issued in 1998-99.

"We believe the department may have deliberately withheld crucial information" that could determine if the issue involves a deliberate action, complained Reps. Tom Davis, R-Va., and Darrell Issa, R-Calif.

Davis, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, and Issa, chairman of its investigations subcommittee, demanded in a letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that additional documents and e-mails be provided concerning the 1990s drilling leases.

Issa has held several hearings on the matter, which concerns the failure of the department's Minerals Management Service to include a provision in the 1998-99 leases that would have required payment of royalties on oil or gas taken if the market price reached a certain point.

Because the provision was left out of leases issued those two years, the leaseholders have not had to pay royalties and won't for years to come, although oil and gas prices have soared well above the royalty trigger.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that as a result the government has already lost $2 billion in royalties and stands to lose another $8 billion over the life of the leases, said Issa.

Interior officials have told Issa's committee at two separate hearings that they believe the royalty threshold provision — which had been in earlier leases and was again in leases issued in 2000 and later — apparently was left out by mistake, but that they have not been able to pinpoint the reason.

The Interior Department's inspector general also has been investigating the circumstances surrounding the leases.

In their letter to Kempthorne, released Thursday, the two congressmen said two Interior Department officials had, in interviews with subcommittee staffers, "made reference to people who may have ordered the elimination of price thresholds in the (1998-99) deepwater leases."

"That kind of information is critical to this investigation, especially since Interior officials have testified to the contrary," Davis and Issa wrote.

The two Interior officials, identified as Jane Lyder, DOI legislative counsel, and Lyn Herdt, MMS congressional liaison, have "given us the impression" the department has "withheld critical information" from the subcommittee that might get to the bottom of the mystery, the congressmen continued.

Neither Lyder nor Herdt was available when attempts were made to reach them at their offices.

Interior Department spokeswoman Tina Kreisher said Kempthorne had talked to Davis and "assured him we will fully cooperate" with the congressional investigation. "We have followed all our normal procedures in responding to document requests," she said in a statement. "To the best of our knowledge, we have been fully responsive and have supplied every document previously requested."

Of particular interest to the House subcommittee are thousands of e-mails concerning deepwater leases, said the congressmen. The subcommittee had received only 12 such e-mails from the department, while the IG's office has indicated it was reviewing 5,000 e-mails covering the same period, they complained.

You really have to wonder at this kind of inane corporate protection by the US Gummint:

Mad cow watch goes blind

USA Today - Creekstone Farms, a Kansas beef producer, wants to reassure customers that its cattle are safe to eat by testing them all for mad cow disease. Sounds like a smart business move, but there's one problem: The federal government won't let the company do it.

The U.S.Department of Agriculture - invoking an obscure 1913 law intended to thwart con artists from peddling bogus hog cholera serum to pig farmers - is blocking companies from selling the testing kits to Creekstone.

USDA is doing the bidding of large cattle barons afraid that Creekstone's marketing will force them to do the same tests to stay competitive. It's true that the incidence of mad cow disease is quite low. But there's little logic in stopping a company from exceeding regulations to meet the demands of its customers, or protecting its rivals from legitimate competition.

Not only is USDA blocking Creekstone, the department said last month that it's reducing its mad cow testing program by 90%. The industry and its sympathetic regulators seem to believe that the problem isn't mad cow disease. It's tests that find mad cow.

The department tests only 1% of the roughly 100,000 cattle slaughtered daily. The new plan will test only 110 cows a day.

By cutting back on testing, USDA will save about $35 million a year. That's a pittance compared with the devastation the cattle industry could face if just one human case of mad cow disease is linked to domestic beef.

The brain-wasting disease - known formally as bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE - is extremely rare but extremely deadly. Since 1986, it has killed more than 150 people worldwide, mostly in Britain, who ate infected meat.

Scientists don't know the exact cause of BSE but think it's spread when cows are fed ground-up parts of cattle and other cud-chewing animals. The government has tightened cattle-feed rules, but loopholes still permit cattle blood as a milk substitute and chicken waste as a protein supplement.

Canada has found four cows with BSE this year, and at least one was born after similar cattle feed rules were imposed that should have prevented the animal from being infected. Acting out of an abundance of caution, U.S. plans to increase Canadian beef and cattle imports have been put on hold until the new cases are investigated. That makes sense, but it's hard to justify cutbacks on U.S. testing at the same time we demand other nations provide greater assurances.

Sixty-five nations have full or partial restrictions on importing U.S. beef products because of fears that the testing isn't rigorous enough. As a result, U.S. beef product exports declined from $3.8 billion in 2003, before the first mad cow was detected in the USA, to $1.4 billion last year. Foreign buyers are demanding that USDA do more.

"In a nation dedicated to free market competition," says John Stewart, CEO of Creekstone, which is suing USDA, "a company that wants to do more than is required to ensure the quality of its product and to satisfy customer demand should be allowed to do so."

When I get my little chunk of heaven out here in the California mountains, people will say to me the same thing they said when I bailed Florida at the top of the market and right before the catastrophic 2005 hurricane season: "You're so lucky!"

Lucky, my ass. It took me two years to get my shit together and spruce up my house for sale at top dollar (which I got), as well as move both my family and my business all the way across country. I worked my ass off, figuring everything out to the last detail, learning outrageous amounts about real estate and logistics and accounting and blah blah blah. All while keeping an increasingly frantic eye on the weather and praying I was right in my instinct to sell high and eventually buy again low.

The same kind of luck I'm working right now, as I monitor my local housing market, make sure my deposit money sits in the highest interest-bearing vehicle I can find, get my financing chickens in order and go down my detailed checklist of everything I need to accomplish to make my homesteading dreams come true.

Just lucky that way.

Here's what I'm banking will happen:

My local real estate market, which is obscenely overvalued, will continue to drop. Sellers, currently reluctant to lower prices, will be forced to do so by market realities and growing economic pressures. The weakness in the housing market will continue to negatively impact the economy, which will force the Feds to stop raising interest rates, and even lower them in a year or so.

The cycle will keep going downward until all factors are in place for me: low prices, excess inventory, low mortage rates, and few buyers. All the sheep-like buyers will continue to hold their breath, waiting for that "bottom" before they buy. Then BAM, I pounce.

Things might continue to go downward for a while longer, but will most likely level off for a while, then buyers will start jumping in, driving things up again. It was the same way when I sold - everyone was holding off for the "top" of the market without understanding what that actually might look like, and missed their chance. I'm betting the bottom is the same kind of psychological dynamic.

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Many Homes Are on the Market and Sales Numbers Are Declining

New York Times - WHEN the American economy fell into recession five years ago, it was the strength of the housing market that kept the downturn short and mild. Home sales kept rising throughout the downturn, and then took off when the recession began.

But now home sales are falling and the number of unsold homes is at the highest level ever. Housing starts are starting to fall, but remain at a high level by historical standards. If sales do not pick up this summer, when sales are usually seasonally strong, it could be a sign that prices are going to come under pressure and lead to a much larger decline in housing starts.

The accompanying charts show year-over-year changes in sales of existing single-family homes and apartments, using six-month moving averages to smooth out monthly fluctuations. The latest figures show sales of single-family homes down 4.4 percent, the largest dip since 1995, and apartment sales off 6.6 percent. Statistics on apartment sales are only available back to 1999, but that is the worst showing in that period.

Meanwhile, the number of existing single-family homes on the market is up 33 percent year-over-year, measured the same way. Figures from the National Association of Realtors, going back to 1983, show no comparable increase in homes for sale. The number of condominiums and cooperative apartments for sale is up 61 percent.

The picture is consistent with demand for homes suddenly drying up, while sellers are reluctant to cut prices. Such a standoff could end with buyers returning, but it could also end with prices starting to slip, or with a lot of homes being pulled off the market.

New homes make up a much smaller part of the market, and are not shown in the charts. But those figures show even more rapid increases in inventory and larger declines in sales.

The sales outlook appears to be falling most rapidly in the Western states, where sales of existing single-family homes are running at 13 percent below levels a year ago. A couple of years ago, the West was showing the most rapid gains in sales.

The Realtors do not break down inventory by region, so it is not clear from their data where the unsold homes and apartments are located. But sales of existing apartments are weakest in the South and West, which could be an indication of growing inventories in the largest states in the two regions, Florida and California.

To be sure, over the 12 months through June more than 6 million single-family existing homes and 1.2 million new homes were sold. Only a few years ago, both of those figures would have been records, and the declines are coming from high levels. It is conceivable that the market will stabilize at levels that look weak only when compared to last year’s extraordinary numbers.

There's more than just emissions and pollution causing all the havoc:

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CALIFORNIA - Central Valley housing boom plays role in the big heat, experts say

Larger new homes also increase state's demand for energy

San Francisco Chronicle - California's growth patterns -- the migration to hot inland regions, construction of big new homes and paving of open space -- are contributing both to increasing temperatures and record demand for electricity.

Experts say development choices can play a large role in making hot weather even hotter.

"People usually talk of greenhouse gases. What's forgotten is what we've actually done to the surface of the planet,'' said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.

"I call it extreme makeover warming.''

The housing boom in places like the Central Valley causes growing electricity demand during heat waves, said Arthur H. Rosenfeld, a member of the California Energy Commission.

"The air-conditioning load is going up like mad because of new communities in hot places,'' Rosenfeld said. "If it wasn't for that, our energy efficiency programs are so good that we would be bringing down energy use per capita.''

John Landis, a professor of city and regional planning at UC Berkeley, agreed.

"The big issue on the energy-demand side is that most new homes are in much hotter areas and use a lot of air conditioning,'' he said.

That's likely to worsen, according to estimates that the state will add 11 million new residents by 2030, with at least half locating in hotter areas such as eastern Alameda and Contra Costa counties and the Central Valley. Peak energy demand in California is now about 50,000 megawatts, compared with 37,000 megawatts during the 2001 energy crisis. A megawatt will power about 750 homes.

Mike Hodgson, chair of the California Building Industry Association's energy committee, said new homes are significantly more energy-efficient than in the past.

But energy consumption is on the rise, he acknowledged, because new houses are typically larger, averaging more than 2,500 square feet today versus about 1,800 square feet around 1990. People also need extra power to run more electric gadgets, and growth has been moving away from the coast and cooling ocean breezes, he said.

"We need more power plants. Very efficient and very clean power plants,'' Hodgson said.

Local, state and federal officials are trying to lower energy consumption by combatting the "heat island" effect.

Heat islands are caused when natural vegetation is replaced by roofs, concrete, asphalt and other urban fixtures that more easily absorb and emit solar heat, particularly at night.

According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, urban and suburban heat islands can produce temperatures 2 to 10 degrees hotter than nearby rural areas. The heat islands can also aggravate smog, which worsens in hot weather.

After studying a handful of cities, including Sacramento, the federal EPA is promoting efforts to cool cities through planting trees, lightening the color of road surfaces, installing rooftop gardens and other strategies.

John Shears, research coordinator for the nonprofit Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technologies, said urbanization, particularly in hot regions, exacerbates the effects of global warming.

Rosenfeld said temperatures in the Los Angeles area have increased 7 degrees since 1940.

The California Energy Commission recently started requiring new flat roofs to be white and in 2008 will require new sloped roofs to be colors proven to reflect, at a minimum, half as much heat as white roofs, Rosenfeld said.

A white flat roof on a Fresno home can save a kilowatt hour of electricity every hour on a hot afternoon, he said. A kilowatt hour current costs about 12 cents, but is expected to rise to about 50 cents in the near future.

The California Energy Commission is now funding an 18-month study of heat islands in Sacramento, San Francisco, Fresno and Los Angeles that is scheduled to be completed next July.

Frist links wage hike to estate tax cut

WASHINGTON, Associated Press - The only opportunity this year to increase the minimum wage and renew popular tax breaks will be linked to a reduction in the estate tax, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Tuesday.

The Republican leader said he would schedule a Friday vote to see whether a bill combining the three items, already passed by the House, can win the support of 60 senators. Without that backing, the bill slides off the Senate's agenda.

"It's now or never," Frist said.

Sen. Harry Reid (news, bio, voting record) of Nevada, the Democratic leader, criticized the GOP's "take it or leave it" approach.

"The only road to legislative heaven in this Republican-dominated Congress is to repeal the estate tax," he said.

It's a major political battle for both parties as they head toward an election with control of Congress at stake. Republicans hope to neutralize one of the Democrat's biggest issues, the minimum wage, while scoring a victory on one of their own, the estate tax.

The bill links a $2.10 increase in the $5.15 hourly federal minimum wage, phased in over three years, with a reduction of estate taxes. It would exempt $5 million of an individual's estate and $10 million of a couple's from taxation by 2015. Over the same time, the top estate tax rate would fall from 46 percent this year to 30 percent.

Carried along in the package are a host of popular tax breaks that expired last year. They include a research and development credit for business, along with deductions for college tuition, state sales taxes and classroom supplies purchased by teachers.

Democratic leaders said they plan to fight the bill, criticizing the GOP for helping minimum wage workers only to deliver a tax cut to the wealthiest taxpayers. They also criticized the bill for overriding state laws and forcing all states to count tips toward an employee's minimum wage.

Sen. Richard Durbin (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill., said voters will understand their opposition.

"People know for nine years the Republicans have said 'no' to increases in the minimum wage," he said.

The last time Frist tested the Senate's temperament toward reducing or eliminating the estate tax, he fell three votes short and could not bring the issue up for debate.

Senate Finance Committee Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, told reporters the vote count might not have changed much. "I don't know where to get three more Democratic votes," he said. "Will we get them? I don't know. People say it's very chancy."

Some individual senators whose votes may be pivotal remained undecided.

Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor (news, bio, voting record) said he needed to know more about the bill's effect on Arkansas. "I don't know the answer to that just yet," he said.

Extreme conditions create rare Antarctic clouds

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rare, mother-of-pearl colored clouds caused by extreme weather conditions above Antarctica are a possible indication of global warming, Australian scientists said on Tuesday.

Known as nacreous clouds, the spectacular formations showing delicate wisps of colors were photographed in the sky over an Australian meteorological base at Mawson Station on July 25.

Australian Antarctic Division scientist Andrew Klekociuk said such clouds are occasionally produced by air rising over Arctic and Antarctic mountains in high polar latitudes during winter.

"You have to be in the right part of the world in winter, and have the sun just below your horizon to see them," he said.

Nacreous clouds can only form in temperatures lower than minus 80 degrees Celsius (minus 112 Fahrenheit).

Meteorologist Renae Baker said a weather balloon in the vicinity of the clouds in the stratosphere about 20 km (12 miles) above the Earth's surface measured temperatures as low as minus 87 Centigrade (minus 124.6 F).

"That's about as cold as the lowest temperatures ever recorded on the surface of the Earth," Baker, who photographed the clouds, said in a statement.

Klekociuk said the rarely seen clouds, also known as polar stratospheric clouds, were more than just a curiosity.

"They reveal extreme conditions in the atmosphere, and promote chemical changes that lead to destruction of vital stratospheric ozone," he said.

Klekociuk said temperatures in the stratosphere, between 8 and 50 km (5-31 miles) above Earth, would be expected to drop as global warming increases. Data collected over the past 25 years had reflected this, he told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

"Over that time there has been a small decrease in temperature and that change is actually occurring faster than the warming at the surface of the Earth," he said.

The delicate cloud colors are created at sunset when fading light passes through tiny water-ice crystals blown along on strong jets of stratospheric air.

Hooked on handouts

USA Today - If welfare reform is considered a success, then why not apply the same principles to others who get government money?

Most of what the government does could be called welfare, using a very broad definition of the word. It's not hard to find individuals, corporations, states or communities hooked on one Washington handout or another. The result of this largesse is a society that is unproductively dependent on government support - and politically organized to keep it coming.

Agriculture is a leading example. Supports have become a sad hoax on the U.S. taxpayer. According to a recent report by The Washington Post, the government has handed out $1.3 billion since 2000 to people who don't even farm. It has sent billions of dollars in drought relief to areas where there was no drought. And, oh yes, it has paid out a staggering $144 billion over 10 years, according to the National Taxpayers Union, 72% of which went to the 10% of farmers with the largest holdings. Such spending is an insult to hardworking, unsubsidized, Americans. Wasteful farm programs should be cut.

The federal budget is replete with hundreds of payments to, and tax benefits for, other politically potent industries. This "corporate welfare" ranges from government-funded logging roads to subsidies for electric utilities. Last year, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service, Congress earmarked 15,877 items worth $47.4 billion to specific recipients, many of them companies with well-connected Washington lobbyists.

This not only squanders taxpayers' money, it also clogs decision-making in the private sector. Rather than making a smart business decision promptly, companies wait to see whether they can make more by delaying and doing something that could be less sensible.

Local and state governments suffer from the same disease. The U.S. Conference of Mayors reported last week that nearly five years after 9/11, 80% of communities still don't have a way for their emergency services to communicate effectively with each other. One reason cited: Not enough money from Washington. If they were cut off, would they fix it themselves?

Then there are the federal entitlement programs: Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The parallel to welfare is imperfect. People pay throughout their working lives to get into the first two, and in most cases all three provide vital support. But escalating medical costs and the aging of the population will soon make them unaffordable, ensuring benefit cuts, tax increases or both. Some steps toward greater responsibility could help, such as reducing incentives for early retirement, and increasing premiums and co-payments for wealthy Medicare recipients.