Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Hot/Green House Effects
Morning Edition, November 29, 2006 · Twelve states and a coalition of environmental groups sued the Bush administration in 2003 for refusing to issue regulations limiting carbon emissions from cars and power plants. On Wednesday, the case reaches the Supreme Court, where justices will hear the arguments on both sides.
Soon after President Bush took office, his EPA administrator, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, traveled to Europe to meet with the top eight European industrial powers and came to an agreement to cap carbon emissions. But when she returned to the U.S., she says, the president -- under pressure from Republican senators from energy-producing states -- reversed a campaign pledge to cap carbon emissions. Whitman says the decision was driven by political considerations.
The basic question before the court: What are the requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act? The law mandates that the EPA shall regulate any pollutant from motor vehicles or power plants that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. That includes pollutants that affect weather and climate.
In 1999, a group of environmental scientists pointed to this legal standard when they petitioned the EPA to issue regulations that would confront the issue of global warming. Four years later, a dozen states went to court, claiming they were being harmed by the EPA's refusal to act.
The first question facing the justices is whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant at all. The administration claims it isn't, and is backed by the auto and energy industries in that claim.
"We're talking about carbon dioxide," says former Solicitor General Ted Olsen, who is representing the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "It's necessary for life. A pollutant is something that fouls the air, a contaminant. No EPA administrator in history has ever considered carbon dioxide a pollutant."
But Russell Train, who served as EPA administrator in the Nixon and Ford administrations, counters that carbon dioxide is no different than other natural substances in the air that have been deemed pollutants and regulated in the past.
Train, who was the EPA administrator when the Clean Air Act went into effect, overrode objections from industry in order to regulate lead emissions from automobiles in the 1970s. The controversy back then, he says, was very similar to today's. "There was substantial evidence of adverse health effects from these air pollutants," he says, "but it was very hard to show a direct correlation, and industry argued that there were other sources of lead in the atmosphere."
In a friend-of-the-court brief, Train and other past Republican and Democratic EPA administrators note that once the EPA ordered a phase-out of lead additives in gasoline, change resulted: Lead levels in peoples' blood -- and the attendant harms -- dropped precipitously. As a result, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to adopt Train's approach to evaluating pollutants.
In this case, however, the Bush administration contends that the science is not clear on global warming or on the effects of regulating carbon emissions. Former Solicitor General Ted Olsen agrees with that position.
"In this instance, the EPA is saying carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and even if it was, we don't know enough yet to deal with it," Olsen says.
But Train and other environmentalists counter that the science of predicting environmental harm before it's too late is seldom absolute. They say the case for limiting carbon emissions is every bit as strong as it was for lead, or for ozone-depleting chemicals, or other substances that have been regulated by the EPA over the last three decades. David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council says the connection is as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer.
The government replies that the Clean Air Act requires deference to the EPA administrator's judgment on these matters, and that the current administrator has concluded it would be inadvisable to enact rules and regulations at this time.
"What our opponents are urging here is a practice of 'ready, fire, aim, '" says Olsen, the former solicitor general. "It would be foolhardy to enact a regulation imposing requirements on motor vehicles when it is not clear whether that would sufficiently address the problem. You may do some damage to the economy, you may cause ripple effects in other industries that could conceivably cause a greater increase of emissions of carbon dioxide from other sources. You really need to know what you're doing before you start writing laws."
The NRDC's Doniger is insistent: "The Clean Air Act says put on the pollution controls that are technically feasible and economically achievable, and do that with the lead time the auto industry needs."
Former EPA administrator Russell Train adds that industry needs regulations in place to plan for the next generation of cars and plants. Indeed, some energy companies have sided with environmental groups in this case for precisely that reason. Entergy, one of the nation's largest producers of electric power, says in a legal brief that it needs to plan now to build plants that will deal with an expected doubling in consumer demand for power over the next 50 years. And Entergy says it can't plan to build environmentally sound plants if competitors are free to build cheaper, but more polluting plants.
The Bush administration argues that no national solution will solve the problem of carbon emissions -- that a global agreement must be reached.
But environmentalists counter that the Bush administration has repeatedly walked away from such international agreements, despite the fact that the U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.
At Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing, the Bush administration is expected to focus much of its argument not on the merits of the case, but on the question of whether the courts can examine this issue at all. The administration contends that none of the parties challenging the EPA's inaction on carbon emissions have the right to sue -- not even the 12 states, led by Massachusetts.
The states contend that they are suffering significant damage because of the EPA's failure to act. They claim they are losing shoreline because of melting ice and rising oceans, that floods and storms are more severe, causing greater damage, and that controlling smog is getting more difficult. And the Western states say their snow pack is melting, jeopardizing their water supply.
Olsen says that sort of generalized damage is not adequate to make the legal case: "If it does exist, it is damage to humanity in general, not to Massachusetts," he says. "Courts need concrete particularized cases before they can constitutionally render a decision. Otherwise, anybody with a grievance can say 'Gee, the ocean's too high this year. I think we should have a lawsuit against the EPA.'"
Doniger's response: "The administration is very muscular on some issues. They say they're Superman -- they can do anything they want to, regardless of Congress." But on other issues, he notes, the administration takes a different tack: "When it comes to global warming, they're a 97-pound weakling and they say they can't do anything."
If the administration prevails Wednesday, it won't be the end of the road. With Democrats now controlling Congress, there would likely be a push to legislate some sort of controls on carbon emissions. The incoming chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has already indicated she plans to do just that, though she has acknowledged that getting such a bill past a filibuster could be difficult.
Soon after President Bush took office, his EPA administrator, former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, traveled to Europe to meet with the top eight European industrial powers and came to an agreement to cap carbon emissions. But when she returned to the U.S., she says, the president -- under pressure from Republican senators from energy-producing states -- reversed a campaign pledge to cap carbon emissions. Whitman says the decision was driven by political considerations.
The basic question before the court: What are the requirements of the Federal Clean Air Act? The law mandates that the EPA shall regulate any pollutant from motor vehicles or power plants that may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. That includes pollutants that affect weather and climate.
In 1999, a group of environmental scientists pointed to this legal standard when they petitioned the EPA to issue regulations that would confront the issue of global warming. Four years later, a dozen states went to court, claiming they were being harmed by the EPA's refusal to act.
The first question facing the justices is whether carbon dioxide is a pollutant at all. The administration claims it isn't, and is backed by the auto and energy industries in that claim.
"We're talking about carbon dioxide," says former Solicitor General Ted Olsen, who is representing the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers. "It's necessary for life. A pollutant is something that fouls the air, a contaminant. No EPA administrator in history has ever considered carbon dioxide a pollutant."
But Russell Train, who served as EPA administrator in the Nixon and Ford administrations, counters that carbon dioxide is no different than other natural substances in the air that have been deemed pollutants and regulated in the past.
Train, who was the EPA administrator when the Clean Air Act went into effect, overrode objections from industry in order to regulate lead emissions from automobiles in the 1970s. The controversy back then, he says, was very similar to today's. "There was substantial evidence of adverse health effects from these air pollutants," he says, "but it was very hard to show a direct correlation, and industry argued that there were other sources of lead in the atmosphere."
In a friend-of-the-court brief, Train and other past Republican and Democratic EPA administrators note that once the EPA ordered a phase-out of lead additives in gasoline, change resulted: Lead levels in peoples' blood -- and the attendant harms -- dropped precipitously. As a result, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to adopt Train's approach to evaluating pollutants.
In this case, however, the Bush administration contends that the science is not clear on global warming or on the effects of regulating carbon emissions. Former Solicitor General Ted Olsen agrees with that position.
"In this instance, the EPA is saying carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, and even if it was, we don't know enough yet to deal with it," Olsen says.
But Train and other environmentalists counter that the science of predicting environmental harm before it's too late is seldom absolute. They say the case for limiting carbon emissions is every bit as strong as it was for lead, or for ozone-depleting chemicals, or other substances that have been regulated by the EPA over the last three decades. David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council says the connection is as strong as the link between smoking and lung cancer.
The government replies that the Clean Air Act requires deference to the EPA administrator's judgment on these matters, and that the current administrator has concluded it would be inadvisable to enact rules and regulations at this time.
"What our opponents are urging here is a practice of 'ready, fire, aim, '" says Olsen, the former solicitor general. "It would be foolhardy to enact a regulation imposing requirements on motor vehicles when it is not clear whether that would sufficiently address the problem. You may do some damage to the economy, you may cause ripple effects in other industries that could conceivably cause a greater increase of emissions of carbon dioxide from other sources. You really need to know what you're doing before you start writing laws."
The NRDC's Doniger is insistent: "The Clean Air Act says put on the pollution controls that are technically feasible and economically achievable, and do that with the lead time the auto industry needs."
Former EPA administrator Russell Train adds that industry needs regulations in place to plan for the next generation of cars and plants. Indeed, some energy companies have sided with environmental groups in this case for precisely that reason. Entergy, one of the nation's largest producers of electric power, says in a legal brief that it needs to plan now to build plants that will deal with an expected doubling in consumer demand for power over the next 50 years. And Entergy says it can't plan to build environmentally sound plants if competitors are free to build cheaper, but more polluting plants.
The Bush administration argues that no national solution will solve the problem of carbon emissions -- that a global agreement must be reached.
But environmentalists counter that the Bush administration has repeatedly walked away from such international agreements, despite the fact that the U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions.
At Wednesday's Supreme Court hearing, the Bush administration is expected to focus much of its argument not on the merits of the case, but on the question of whether the courts can examine this issue at all. The administration contends that none of the parties challenging the EPA's inaction on carbon emissions have the right to sue -- not even the 12 states, led by Massachusetts.
The states contend that they are suffering significant damage because of the EPA's failure to act. They claim they are losing shoreline because of melting ice and rising oceans, that floods and storms are more severe, causing greater damage, and that controlling smog is getting more difficult. And the Western states say their snow pack is melting, jeopardizing their water supply.
Olsen says that sort of generalized damage is not adequate to make the legal case: "If it does exist, it is damage to humanity in general, not to Massachusetts," he says. "Courts need concrete particularized cases before they can constitutionally render a decision. Otherwise, anybody with a grievance can say 'Gee, the ocean's too high this year. I think we should have a lawsuit against the EPA.'"
Doniger's response: "The administration is very muscular on some issues. They say they're Superman -- they can do anything they want to, regardless of Congress." But on other issues, he notes, the administration takes a different tack: "When it comes to global warming, they're a 97-pound weakling and they say they can't do anything."
If the administration prevails Wednesday, it won't be the end of the road. With Democrats now controlling Congress, there would likely be a push to legislate some sort of controls on carbon emissions. The incoming chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), has already indicated she plans to do just that, though she has acknowledged that getting such a bill past a filibuster could be difficult.
No Seinfeld For You!!!
Jerry, Elaine and George could end up paying for Michael Richards' rant.
The Reverend Jesse Jackson called for a boycott Monday of the latest Seinfeld DVD, a way of exacting economic punishment for Richards' racist meltdown.
In a bit of bad timing for Jerry Seinfeld, et al., the seventh season of Seinfeld was released as a four-disc set last week, just as Richards' caught-on-video, Nov. 17 Los Angeles comedy club raving was made public.
The new Seinfeld package, featuring much quoted episodes such as "The Soup Nazi" ("No soup for you!"), was Amazon.com's 11th-biggest-selling DVD on Monday and was expected to be a big stocking-stuffer for Christmas.
Richards, 57, won three Emmys for playing the wired Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, which ran from 1990-98 on NBC.
In the last week, Richards has become better known for hurling the N-word at black hecklers after attempting a lynching joke during the same riff and, later, for apologizing—or trying to, anyway.
"My best friends were African-Americans," Richards said Sunday on Jackson's Premiere Radio Network show.
The Jackson gig was the latest in Richards' reaching-out effort to African-American men who have run for president. Before the radio appearance, the actor was said to have placed contrite phone calls to Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton. There was no word if Alan Keyes, a 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential candidate, was sought out.
On his show, Jackson said he hoped the Richards "crisis" would create an opportunity.
On Monday, the civil-rights leader joined others in calling on everyone—blacks, whites, Seinfeld players, presumably included—to refrain from using the N-word, on stage and off."Its roots are rooted in hatred and pain and degradation," Jackson told a Los Angeles press conference. "And whether it's hatred toward African-Americans or whether it's self-hatred, a concession toward it is still wrong."
At the Laugh Factory, the Sunset Boulevard scene of Richards' off-the-rails routine, owner Jamie Masada announced Monday that the N-word would be banned at the club.
Masada called on Richards to donate millions to charities serving black neighborhoods and reiterated that the actor would remain barred from the Laugh Factory until he personally apologized to the patrons who bore the brunt of his racial epithets.
Last week, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, the two men whose observations of Richards' act sent the performer into a racist rage, teamed up with camera-ready attorney Gloria Allred to seek out their own formal apology—and perhaps some judge-ordered financial compensation.
"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry' on Letterman," Allred said.
Richards appeared on Letterman's Late Show on Nov. 20 to offer his first public apology. The mea culpa, which drew laughs from a confused studio audience, was criticized as not being enough.
In the Los Angeles Daily News, Najee Ali of Los Angeles' Project Islamic H.O.P.E. slammed the Letterman apology, which came on the same night as an appearance by scheduled guest Jerry Seinfeld, as "damage control in light of the DVD of the seventh season of Seinfeld."
Even Kenny Kramer, Seinfeld cocreator Larry David's former neighbor and inspiration for Cosmo Kramer, moved to distance himself from the actor who made his surname famous.
"In no way do I condone or endorse what Michael Richards said or did," Kramer said on his official Website. "It is really annoying, and sad, that people are saying that Kramer is a racist."
"Michael Richards ceased being Kramer eight years ago."
Richards has appeared infrequently on camera since Seinfeld ended. Per his new PR guru, the actor is now appearing regularly in a psychiatrist's office for counseling.
"I have been trying to get to the source of where that anger comes from," Richards said on Jackson's radio show.
According to Richards, he grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and never attempted to find the fun in lynching until the infamous Laugh Factory routine.
"That's not an image I carry around every day, [that] every time I look at an African-American I think he should be upside down and hung from a tree," Richards told Jackson. "I have too much love for the African-American."
Richards also denied previously dropping the N-bomb.
"I haven't spoken like this to an African-American before," Richards said. "It's a first time for me to talk to an African-American like this."
In an entry on the Huffington Post, blogger Trey Ellis, who is black, advised Richards to stop apologizing, especially to the likes of Jackson and Sharpton.
"Calling up Jesse and Al as if they were the co-Popes of black folks is almost as dumb as your lame, racist onstage repartee," wrote Ellis.
According to Ellis, Richards should just wait for another celebrity to star in an embarrassing videotape.
"There is nothing you can do to win back black fans," Ellis wrote. "That ship has sailed."
The Reverend Jesse Jackson called for a boycott Monday of the latest Seinfeld DVD, a way of exacting economic punishment for Richards' racist meltdown.
In a bit of bad timing for Jerry Seinfeld, et al., the seventh season of Seinfeld was released as a four-disc set last week, just as Richards' caught-on-video, Nov. 17 Los Angeles comedy club raving was made public.
The new Seinfeld package, featuring much quoted episodes such as "The Soup Nazi" ("No soup for you!"), was Amazon.com's 11th-biggest-selling DVD on Monday and was expected to be a big stocking-stuffer for Christmas.
Richards, 57, won three Emmys for playing the wired Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld, which ran from 1990-98 on NBC.
In the last week, Richards has become better known for hurling the N-word at black hecklers after attempting a lynching joke during the same riff and, later, for apologizing—or trying to, anyway.
"My best friends were African-Americans," Richards said Sunday on Jackson's Premiere Radio Network show.
The Jackson gig was the latest in Richards' reaching-out effort to African-American men who have run for president. Before the radio appearance, the actor was said to have placed contrite phone calls to Jackson and the Reverend Al Sharpton. There was no word if Alan Keyes, a 1996 and 2000 Republican presidential candidate, was sought out.
On his show, Jackson said he hoped the Richards "crisis" would create an opportunity.
On Monday, the civil-rights leader joined others in calling on everyone—blacks, whites, Seinfeld players, presumably included—to refrain from using the N-word, on stage and off."Its roots are rooted in hatred and pain and degradation," Jackson told a Los Angeles press conference. "And whether it's hatred toward African-Americans or whether it's self-hatred, a concession toward it is still wrong."
At the Laugh Factory, the Sunset Boulevard scene of Richards' off-the-rails routine, owner Jamie Masada announced Monday that the N-word would be banned at the club.
Masada called on Richards to donate millions to charities serving black neighborhoods and reiterated that the actor would remain barred from the Laugh Factory until he personally apologized to the patrons who bore the brunt of his racial epithets.
Last week, Frank McBride and Kyle Doss, the two men whose observations of Richards' act sent the performer into a racist rage, teamed up with camera-ready attorney Gloria Allred to seek out their own formal apology—and perhaps some judge-ordered financial compensation.
"It's not enough to say 'I'm sorry' on Letterman," Allred said.
Richards appeared on Letterman's Late Show on Nov. 20 to offer his first public apology. The mea culpa, which drew laughs from a confused studio audience, was criticized as not being enough.
In the Los Angeles Daily News, Najee Ali of Los Angeles' Project Islamic H.O.P.E. slammed the Letterman apology, which came on the same night as an appearance by scheduled guest Jerry Seinfeld, as "damage control in light of the DVD of the seventh season of Seinfeld."
Even Kenny Kramer, Seinfeld cocreator Larry David's former neighbor and inspiration for Cosmo Kramer, moved to distance himself from the actor who made his surname famous.
"In no way do I condone or endorse what Michael Richards said or did," Kramer said on his official Website. "It is really annoying, and sad, that people are saying that Kramer is a racist."
"Michael Richards ceased being Kramer eight years ago."
Richards has appeared infrequently on camera since Seinfeld ended. Per his new PR guru, the actor is now appearing regularly in a psychiatrist's office for counseling.
"I have been trying to get to the source of where that anger comes from," Richards said on Jackson's radio show.
According to Richards, he grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood and never attempted to find the fun in lynching until the infamous Laugh Factory routine.
"That's not an image I carry around every day, [that] every time I look at an African-American I think he should be upside down and hung from a tree," Richards told Jackson. "I have too much love for the African-American."
Richards also denied previously dropping the N-bomb.
"I haven't spoken like this to an African-American before," Richards said. "It's a first time for me to talk to an African-American like this."
In an entry on the Huffington Post, blogger Trey Ellis, who is black, advised Richards to stop apologizing, especially to the likes of Jackson and Sharpton.
"Calling up Jesse and Al as if they were the co-Popes of black folks is almost as dumb as your lame, racist onstage repartee," wrote Ellis.
According to Ellis, Richards should just wait for another celebrity to star in an embarrassing videotape.
"There is nothing you can do to win back black fans," Ellis wrote. "That ship has sailed."
S Korea Kills Animals to Stop Bird Flu
IKSAN, South Korea — A 2-year-old dachshund barked chained to its dingy, wooden house Tuesday, unaware of its fate as South Korea began slaughtering hundreds of dogs, cats and pigs in an effort to stem the spread of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.
The dog's owner Im Soon-duck _ like many villagers _ was more concerned about losing her three pigs than the dog, which was a present from her daughter.
"Dogs are good for keeping us amused. But pigs _ it costs us a lot to buy those pigs," said the 66-year-old Im, who lives next to a chicken farm where a second outbreak of bird flu was confirmed Tuesday, near the site of an outbreak last week in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul.
"We people in rural areas depend on pigs and cows for our living," Im said.
The government is to compensate farmers for their lost livestock, but the exact amounts are not yet known.
Quarantine officials began the slaughter Tuesday even though international health experts have questioned killing non-poultry species to curtail bird flu's spread, saying there is no scientific evidence to suggest dogs, cats or pigs can pass the virus to humans.
Since ravaging Asia's poultry in late 2003, the H5N1 virus has killed at least 153 people worldwide. Infections among people have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans, leading to a human pandemic.
South Korean officials insist the decision to slaughter dogs, cats and pigs was not unusual and that the step has been taken in other countries without public knowledge.
Park Kyung-hee, an official at Iksan City Hall, said 677 dogs _ bred on farms for their meat _ along with 300 pigs were to be slaughtered Tuesday, and said stray cats and mice also would be killed. Another city official said pet "dogs raised individually in houses will also be subject to slaughter." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
A total of 236,000 poultry and some 6 million eggs will be destroyed by Thursday, the Agriculture Ministry has said.
The ministry plans to kill additional poultry within a 1,640-foot radius of the new outbreak site, about two miles from the initial outbreak location, but the numbers of affected animals was not yet known.
Animal rights activists criticized the government move, saying it had no scientific basis.
"The claim by the South Korean government that killing cats and dogs will prevent further spread of bird flu is unfounded and is a dangerous diversion of resources," said Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for The Humane Society of the United States and author of a book on bird flu.
"Indeed, no evidence exists to show cats or dogs play any role in the spread of this virus," Greger said.
Kum Sun-lan, spokesman for the Korea Animal Protection Society, agreed. "The government should know better about their course of action," he said. "It is unacceptable how they just move on with the extermination procedure without any reliable evidence for it."
Many villagers like Im _ mostly elderly farmers _ appeared nonchalant about the slaughtering of their dogs, who are usually kept outside in cages or chained.
Most of the dogs don't have names; Im couldn't remember the name her daughter in Seoul gave the dachshund.
Dogs bred for food are regularly slaughtered in South Korea, where dog meat is widely consumed, especially among middle-aged men who believe bosintang, or dog soup, is good for stamina and virility.
"I do feel bad that my dogs would have to be killed when they are not even sick," said Noh Jung-dae, a 63-year-old farmer who also lives next to the chicken farm that saw the latest outbreak. "But, if the government has to do it to prevent the disease, what can I do?"
Noh said he had planned to eat some of the six dogs he was raising.
The scene in the rural area is a far cry from posh neighborhoods of the capital, Seoul, where an increasing number of people keep cats and dogs as pets, often pampering them with fancy haircuts and expensive accessories. Pet shops are easy to spot in the city, where there are even coffee shops specially designed for pets and their owners.
In Iksan, some younger villagers raised concerns about the slaughter.
"It's just too cruel to indiscriminately kill other livestock when there is obviously no proof these animals can transmit the bird flu virus to humans," said 29-year-old Kim Sung-tae. "I have little puppies that are as small as my palm. How can they have the heart to kill those small things?"
The dog's owner Im Soon-duck _ like many villagers _ was more concerned about losing her three pigs than the dog, which was a present from her daughter.
"Dogs are good for keeping us amused. But pigs _ it costs us a lot to buy those pigs," said the 66-year-old Im, who lives next to a chicken farm where a second outbreak of bird flu was confirmed Tuesday, near the site of an outbreak last week in Iksan, about 155 miles south of Seoul.
"We people in rural areas depend on pigs and cows for our living," Im said.
The government is to compensate farmers for their lost livestock, but the exact amounts are not yet known.
Quarantine officials began the slaughter Tuesday even though international health experts have questioned killing non-poultry species to curtail bird flu's spread, saying there is no scientific evidence to suggest dogs, cats or pigs can pass the virus to humans.
Since ravaging Asia's poultry in late 2003, the H5N1 virus has killed at least 153 people worldwide. Infections among people have been traced to contact with infected birds, but experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans, leading to a human pandemic.
South Korean officials insist the decision to slaughter dogs, cats and pigs was not unusual and that the step has been taken in other countries without public knowledge.
Park Kyung-hee, an official at Iksan City Hall, said 677 dogs _ bred on farms for their meat _ along with 300 pigs were to be slaughtered Tuesday, and said stray cats and mice also would be killed. Another city official said pet "dogs raised individually in houses will also be subject to slaughter." He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
A total of 236,000 poultry and some 6 million eggs will be destroyed by Thursday, the Agriculture Ministry has said.
The ministry plans to kill additional poultry within a 1,640-foot radius of the new outbreak site, about two miles from the initial outbreak location, but the numbers of affected animals was not yet known.
Animal rights activists criticized the government move, saying it had no scientific basis.
"The claim by the South Korean government that killing cats and dogs will prevent further spread of bird flu is unfounded and is a dangerous diversion of resources," said Dr. Michael Greger, director of public health and animal agriculture for The Humane Society of the United States and author of a book on bird flu.
"Indeed, no evidence exists to show cats or dogs play any role in the spread of this virus," Greger said.
Kum Sun-lan, spokesman for the Korea Animal Protection Society, agreed. "The government should know better about their course of action," he said. "It is unacceptable how they just move on with the extermination procedure without any reliable evidence for it."
Many villagers like Im _ mostly elderly farmers _ appeared nonchalant about the slaughtering of their dogs, who are usually kept outside in cages or chained.
Most of the dogs don't have names; Im couldn't remember the name her daughter in Seoul gave the dachshund.
Dogs bred for food are regularly slaughtered in South Korea, where dog meat is widely consumed, especially among middle-aged men who believe bosintang, or dog soup, is good for stamina and virility.
"I do feel bad that my dogs would have to be killed when they are not even sick," said Noh Jung-dae, a 63-year-old farmer who also lives next to the chicken farm that saw the latest outbreak. "But, if the government has to do it to prevent the disease, what can I do?"
Noh said he had planned to eat some of the six dogs he was raising.
The scene in the rural area is a far cry from posh neighborhoods of the capital, Seoul, where an increasing number of people keep cats and dogs as pets, often pampering them with fancy haircuts and expensive accessories. Pet shops are easy to spot in the city, where there are even coffee shops specially designed for pets and their owners.
In Iksan, some younger villagers raised concerns about the slaughter.
"It's just too cruel to indiscriminately kill other livestock when there is obviously no proof these animals can transmit the bird flu virus to humans," said 29-year-old Kim Sung-tae. "I have little puppies that are as small as my palm. How can they have the heart to kill those small things?"
Civil war or insurgency? A fight over what to call Iraq
NBC's done it. The New York Times says it's doing it, sparingly. Even The Miami Herald's parent company, McClatchy, has joined the fray:
News organizations have suddenly began challenging a Bush administration taboo and are now terming the bloodshed in Iraq as a ''civil war'' -- a development, analysts say, that could change the way Americans both think about and wage that conflict.
White House spokesman Tony Snow rejects the label, calling the conflict ``sectarian violence that seems to be less aimed at gaining full control over an area than expressing differences.''
But NBC Today show host Matt Lauer illustrated the move against using Bush administration terminology on Monday in a brief post-Thanksgiving weekend announcement to viewers:
``After careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.''
The Los Angeles Times, for its part, claimed the title of ''first,'' however, noting in an article Tuesday that it ``began to refer to the hostilities as a civil war in October, without public fanfare.''
Editors at The Miami Herald, as of today, were still debating which term to use -- despite the Washington bureau of its parent company, McClatchy Newspapers, adopting the label.
''Neighborhood by neighborhood, Baghdad descends into civil war,'' said a weekend dispatch from Iraq posted on the McClatchy website.
For his part, President Bush Tuesday avoided the debate in remarks from the road in Estonia, when a reporter asked directly: ``What is the difference between what we're seeing now in Iraq and civil war?''
Bush: ``What you're seeing on TV has started last February. It was an attempt by people to foment sectarian violence, and no -- no question it's dangerous there, and violent.''
For the record, Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition -- the authoritative source at The Miami Herald -- defines a civil war this way:
War between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation. It cites as an example the war between the North and the South in the United States, 1861-65, which at the time was known as The War Between the States.
Several years of escalating bloodshed in Iraq have been largely ethnically based, with a geographic component. Shiite Muslims live in Iraq's south, closer to Iran, and Sunnis live in the central part of the nation, with both sects sharing the capital Baghdad. Kurds form the third Iraqi ethnic group.
But, experts say, the media is now taking issue with the Bush administration, which has for months used its Beltway pulpit from the Pentagon to the White House to dispute the characterization.
''I don't see this as something that was the government's prerogative to call. It's semantics, for heaven's sake,'' said Steve Hess, professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
He called the consequences ''profound,'' especially in terms of television's use of the term civil war: ``Are you asking Americans to die for something between Sunnis and Shiites?''
Part of the issue is perception. For months, if not years, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration alternately cast the violence as the last gasp of insurgents loyal to the toppled Saddam Hussein -- or the work of outside anti-American radicals loosely aligned with al Qaeda.
U.S. casualty reports still characterize American military dead in Iraq as killed in combat or by car bombs, called improvised explosive devices.
But the focus of news coverage of late has been the widespread violence that kills Iraqis -- not U.S. forces.
''This is unquestionably a civil war and it's been a civil war for at least a year,'' said Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``By any definition that political scientists use, this is an easy call.''
The classic definition of a civil war requires three elements, he said: Warfare between contestants internal to a state; a conflict that has killed more than 1,000 people; at least 100 dead on each side among those 1,000 dead.
But, he said, the Bush administration cannot accept the term because ``it's a lot more than semantics -- it's tantamount to an admission of failure, because of the way it was cast at the beginning: Success as democracy and defeat as civil war.''
Conceding that Iraqis are engaging in a civil war, he said, would require a different kind of strategy than has been fought so far.
Hess, who has written widely about the topic, defended the right of ''serious mainstream media'' to define it that way ``after serious internal discussion.''
''The media have their people on the ground, too, and are presumably qualified or perhaps more qualified to make that judgment,'' he said. ``They're not inside the Green Zone, or at least not all the time.
McClatchy Washington Editor David Westphal said the bureau used the term in a headline on its website Monday even before NBC's shift.
McClatchy news reports had earlier quoted a range of opinions -- from U.S. troops inside Iraq this summer to foreign affairs analysts abroad -- as characterizing the bloodshed as ``civil war.''
So the expression seemed a logical outgrowth of spiraling internal violence, which spiked over the weekend, he said.
''The White House has obviously made a big deal about saying it's not a civil war. But in our discussions here there was not a whole lot of argument that this thing did not constitute a civil war,'' said Westphal.
``It emerged from the reporting in Baghdad and in Iraq. And in our discussions here about it we didn't feel like we would have a prohibition on it.''
But, he added, it was neither a McClatchy policy to use the term, nor a ''company-wide edict'' that its newspapers follow.
Besides The Miami Herald, McClatchy also owns the Sacramento and Fresno Bees, The Kansas City Star, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Raleigh News & Observer, among 32 newspapers.
'What's going on in Iraq is so awful that a dispute over whether the term is `civil war' is innocuous to me,'' Westphal said. ``The facts of the carnage, of the strife there are so profound that civil war doesn't quite even cover it.''
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said his newspaper decided to use the term when ''appropriate'' after consulting ``our reporters in the field and the editors who directly oversee this coverage.''
''We expect to use the phrase sparingly and carefully, not to the exclusion of other formulations, not for dramatic effect,'' he said.
He cast the conflict in Iraq as complex: a civil war, an occupation, a Baathist insurgency, a sectarian conflict, a front in a war against terrorists, among others.
'We believe `civil war' should not become reductionist shorthand for a war that is colossally complicated,'' Keller said.
The emerging trend this week toward terming it a civil war follows months of back and forth between the Bush administration and reporters.
In March, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon news briefing that ''terrorists'' in Iraq were trying ''to foment civil strife'' by targeting religious shrines.
``But the Iraqis are meeting that test thus far successfully, I would say, and defying the seeming rush to -- by some here and abroad -- to proclaim exactly what the terrorists seek, namely a civil war.''
News organizations have suddenly began challenging a Bush administration taboo and are now terming the bloodshed in Iraq as a ''civil war'' -- a development, analysts say, that could change the way Americans both think about and wage that conflict.
White House spokesman Tony Snow rejects the label, calling the conflict ``sectarian violence that seems to be less aimed at gaining full control over an area than expressing differences.''
But NBC Today show host Matt Lauer illustrated the move against using Bush administration terminology on Monday in a brief post-Thanksgiving weekend announcement to viewers:
``After careful consideration, NBC News has decided that a change in terminology is warranted, that the situation in Iraq with armed militarized factions fighting for their own political agendas can now be characterized as civil war.''
The Los Angeles Times, for its part, claimed the title of ''first,'' however, noting in an article Tuesday that it ``began to refer to the hostilities as a civil war in October, without public fanfare.''
Editors at The Miami Herald, as of today, were still debating which term to use -- despite the Washington bureau of its parent company, McClatchy Newspapers, adopting the label.
''Neighborhood by neighborhood, Baghdad descends into civil war,'' said a weekend dispatch from Iraq posted on the McClatchy website.
For his part, President Bush Tuesday avoided the debate in remarks from the road in Estonia, when a reporter asked directly: ``What is the difference between what we're seeing now in Iraq and civil war?''
Bush: ``What you're seeing on TV has started last February. It was an attempt by people to foment sectarian violence, and no -- no question it's dangerous there, and violent.''
For the record, Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition -- the authoritative source at The Miami Herald -- defines a civil war this way:
War between geographical sections or political factions of the same nation. It cites as an example the war between the North and the South in the United States, 1861-65, which at the time was known as The War Between the States.
Several years of escalating bloodshed in Iraq have been largely ethnically based, with a geographic component. Shiite Muslims live in Iraq's south, closer to Iran, and Sunnis live in the central part of the nation, with both sects sharing the capital Baghdad. Kurds form the third Iraqi ethnic group.
But, experts say, the media is now taking issue with the Bush administration, which has for months used its Beltway pulpit from the Pentagon to the White House to dispute the characterization.
''I don't see this as something that was the government's prerogative to call. It's semantics, for heaven's sake,'' said Steve Hess, professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University.
He called the consequences ''profound,'' especially in terms of television's use of the term civil war: ``Are you asking Americans to die for something between Sunnis and Shiites?''
Part of the issue is perception. For months, if not years, of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration alternately cast the violence as the last gasp of insurgents loyal to the toppled Saddam Hussein -- or the work of outside anti-American radicals loosely aligned with al Qaeda.
U.S. casualty reports still characterize American military dead in Iraq as killed in combat or by car bombs, called improvised explosive devices.
But the focus of news coverage of late has been the widespread violence that kills Iraqis -- not U.S. forces.
''This is unquestionably a civil war and it's been a civil war for at least a year,'' said Stephen Biddle, senior fellow for defense policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``By any definition that political scientists use, this is an easy call.''
The classic definition of a civil war requires three elements, he said: Warfare between contestants internal to a state; a conflict that has killed more than 1,000 people; at least 100 dead on each side among those 1,000 dead.
But, he said, the Bush administration cannot accept the term because ``it's a lot more than semantics -- it's tantamount to an admission of failure, because of the way it was cast at the beginning: Success as democracy and defeat as civil war.''
Conceding that Iraqis are engaging in a civil war, he said, would require a different kind of strategy than has been fought so far.
Hess, who has written widely about the topic, defended the right of ''serious mainstream media'' to define it that way ``after serious internal discussion.''
''The media have their people on the ground, too, and are presumably qualified or perhaps more qualified to make that judgment,'' he said. ``They're not inside the Green Zone, or at least not all the time.
McClatchy Washington Editor David Westphal said the bureau used the term in a headline on its website Monday even before NBC's shift.
McClatchy news reports had earlier quoted a range of opinions -- from U.S. troops inside Iraq this summer to foreign affairs analysts abroad -- as characterizing the bloodshed as ``civil war.''
So the expression seemed a logical outgrowth of spiraling internal violence, which spiked over the weekend, he said.
''The White House has obviously made a big deal about saying it's not a civil war. But in our discussions here there was not a whole lot of argument that this thing did not constitute a civil war,'' said Westphal.
``It emerged from the reporting in Baghdad and in Iraq. And in our discussions here about it we didn't feel like we would have a prohibition on it.''
But, he added, it was neither a McClatchy policy to use the term, nor a ''company-wide edict'' that its newspapers follow.
Besides The Miami Herald, McClatchy also owns the Sacramento and Fresno Bees, The Kansas City Star, The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, The Raleigh News & Observer, among 32 newspapers.
'What's going on in Iraq is so awful that a dispute over whether the term is `civil war' is innocuous to me,'' Westphal said. ``The facts of the carnage, of the strife there are so profound that civil war doesn't quite even cover it.''
New York Times Executive Editor Bill Keller said his newspaper decided to use the term when ''appropriate'' after consulting ``our reporters in the field and the editors who directly oversee this coverage.''
''We expect to use the phrase sparingly and carefully, not to the exclusion of other formulations, not for dramatic effect,'' he said.
He cast the conflict in Iraq as complex: a civil war, an occupation, a Baathist insurgency, a sectarian conflict, a front in a war against terrorists, among others.
'We believe `civil war' should not become reductionist shorthand for a war that is colossally complicated,'' Keller said.
The emerging trend this week toward terming it a civil war follows months of back and forth between the Bush administration and reporters.
In March, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in a Pentagon news briefing that ''terrorists'' in Iraq were trying ''to foment civil strife'' by targeting religious shrines.
``But the Iraqis are meeting that test thus far successfully, I would say, and defying the seeming rush to -- by some here and abroad -- to proclaim exactly what the terrorists seek, namely a civil war.''
Secret CIA Prisons in Europe
BRUSSELS, Belgium - Eleven European Union governments - including Britain, Poland and Germany - knew about secret CIA prisons operating in Europe, a draft European Parliament report concluded Tuesday.
The report presented to the EU assembly's special committee investigating allegations about the detention centers and CIA kidnappings in Europe called on governments to launch their own inquiries to determine whether human rights laws were violated. It criticized top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries of "omissions and denials" during testimony to the committee.
No EU governments have admitted that the claimed anti-terror operations were carried out on their territory. Governments have been warned by EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini that if they knew about the CIA renditions and secret flights they could be found in violation of EU law.
While thin on proof to back up the allegations, the committee report claimed it got information from secret documents and information from several sources in the United States and from national authorities in the 25-nation bloc.
"At least 1,245 flights operated by the CIA have flown into the European airspace or stopped over at European airports," the draft said.
The report said 11 EU nations - Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus - had knowledge of the alleged U.S. secret anti-terrorism measures taking place on European soil.
It said the committee had obtained "serious circumstantial evidence" showing that Poland may have hosted a temporary secret detention center for the CIA.
The British government denies knowing about secret CIA prisons or colluding in a secret program to transfer CIA prisoners.
A Foreign Office spokesman said there was nothing unusual about CIA flights using British airports.
"The U.K. is an international hub for refueling to and from the United States," he said on the government's customary condition of anonymity. "Under the Chicago Convention, we can't investigate the aircraft unless we think that a crime is being committed at that time."
Polish officials in Warsaw also rejected the allegations made by the report.
"The committee's report, from what we know so far, is not based on any strong proof, but only commonly repeated assumptions, suspicions and probabilities," said Krzysztof Lapinski, spokesman for Poland's minister for special services. "We stand by our earlier stated stance that there were no secret CIA prisons in Poland."
The report also criticized most of the 25 EU governments for lack of cooperation in their probe, which was launched in January and is expected to last until January.
The draft report will be voted upon by the special committee after the EU assembly's Christmas break, officials said.
Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers, including compounds in Eastern Europe, were first reported in November 2005. Human Rights Watch later identified Poland and Romania as possible locations of the alleged secret prisons. Both countries have repeatedly denied involvement.
An investigator for the Council of Europe, a leading human rights group, said evidence pointed to the likelihood that planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there.
In September, President Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not specify where.
The report presented to the EU assembly's special committee investigating allegations about the detention centers and CIA kidnappings in Europe called on governments to launch their own inquiries to determine whether human rights laws were violated. It criticized top EU officials, including foreign policy chief Javier Solana and anti-terror coordinator Gijs de Vries of "omissions and denials" during testimony to the committee.
No EU governments have admitted that the claimed anti-terror operations were carried out on their territory. Governments have been warned by EU Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattini that if they knew about the CIA renditions and secret flights they could be found in violation of EU law.
While thin on proof to back up the allegations, the committee report claimed it got information from secret documents and information from several sources in the United States and from national authorities in the 25-nation bloc.
"At least 1,245 flights operated by the CIA have flown into the European airspace or stopped over at European airports," the draft said.
The report said 11 EU nations - Britain, Poland, Italy, Germany, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus - had knowledge of the alleged U.S. secret anti-terrorism measures taking place on European soil.
It said the committee had obtained "serious circumstantial evidence" showing that Poland may have hosted a temporary secret detention center for the CIA.
The British government denies knowing about secret CIA prisons or colluding in a secret program to transfer CIA prisoners.
A Foreign Office spokesman said there was nothing unusual about CIA flights using British airports.
"The U.K. is an international hub for refueling to and from the United States," he said on the government's customary condition of anonymity. "Under the Chicago Convention, we can't investigate the aircraft unless we think that a crime is being committed at that time."
Polish officials in Warsaw also rejected the allegations made by the report.
"The committee's report, from what we know so far, is not based on any strong proof, but only commonly repeated assumptions, suspicions and probabilities," said Krzysztof Lapinski, spokesman for Poland's minister for special services. "We stand by our earlier stated stance that there were no secret CIA prisons in Poland."
The report also criticized most of the 25 EU governments for lack of cooperation in their probe, which was launched in January and is expected to last until January.
The draft report will be voted upon by the special committee after the EU assembly's Christmas break, officials said.
Allegations that CIA agents shipped prisoners through European airports to secret detention centers, including compounds in Eastern Europe, were first reported in November 2005. Human Rights Watch later identified Poland and Romania as possible locations of the alleged secret prisons. Both countries have repeatedly denied involvement.
An investigator for the Council of Europe, a leading human rights group, said evidence pointed to the likelihood that planes linked to the CIA carrying terror suspects stopped in Romania and Poland and likely dropped off detainees there.
In September, President Bush acknowledged for the first time that terrorism suspects have been held in CIA-run prisons overseas, but did not specify where.
Friday, November 24, 2006
U.S. helicopters fire into Baghdad's Sadr City
BAGHDAD, Nov. 24 (Xinhua) -- Two U.S. helicopters opened fire on a funeral in Sadr City in eastern Baghdad on Friday, wounding two people, an Interior Ministry official told Xinhua.
Residents in Sadr City attended a funeral for victims who were killed in Thursday's deadliest bombings and some people fired into the air when two U.S. Apache helicopters flow over, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The choppers fired into the crowd, wounding two people, the official said, adding it seemed to be an accident, not clash.
Earlier in the day, Doha-based al-Jazeera English channel reported that armed clashes erupted on Friday evening between U.S. forces and Shiite militiamen in Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad.
On Thursday afternoon, at least 200 people were killed and more than 250 others were injured in four coordinated bombings in Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
It was the deadliest bombing attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Residents in Sadr City attended a funeral for victims who were killed in Thursday's deadliest bombings and some people fired into the air when two U.S. Apache helicopters flow over, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The choppers fired into the crowd, wounding two people, the official said, adding it seemed to be an accident, not clash.
Earlier in the day, Doha-based al-Jazeera English channel reported that armed clashes erupted on Friday evening between U.S. forces and Shiite militiamen in Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in eastern Baghdad.
On Thursday afternoon, at least 200 people were killed and more than 250 others were injured in four coordinated bombings in Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
It was the deadliest bombing attacks since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
THE HOBBIT Stalled Indefinitely
Much to the distress of his fans, Peter Jackson has announced that he is no longer planning to direct The Hobbit, a prequel to his mega-successful Lord of the Rings trilogy, because of an ongoing accounting and legal dispute with New Line Cinema. In a highly unusual move, revealing some of the behind-the-scenes moves in a high-stakes negotiation, Jackson spoke directly to his fan base during the weekend, posting his explanation of recent events on TheOneRing.net. The statement from both Jackson and his wife and fellow producer, Fran Walsh, concluded: "This outcome is not what we anticipated or wanted, but neither do we see any positive value in bitterness or rancor. We now have no choice but to let the idea of a film of 'The Hobbit' go and move forward with other projects."The lawsuit that resulted in the current impasse originally was filed by Jackson's production company, Wingnut Films, in early 2005. It alleged that the studio gave affiliates favorable licensing deals and failed to properly calculate revenue from the DVD sales of 2001's "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring."As Jackson explained it to his fans, he did not want to discuss directing Hobbit with New Line until the legal/accounting issues were settled. New Line produced the three Rings movies, which have grossed $2.9 billion worldwide and won 17 Oscars, including best picture for 2003's The Return of the King.In recent weeks, talk of the Hobbit project has reignited. While New Line holds an option on the film rights to the 1937 novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, MGM holds distribution rights. Only last week, MGM chairman and CEO Harry Sloan, speaking at the European Media Leaders Summit in London, said that he was talking with Jackson about making Hobbit and another prequel to Rings. According to Jackson, New Line co-chairman Michael Lynne had told Ken Kamins, Jackson's manager, that New Line would settle the lawsuit if Jackson would commit to directing Hobbit.But, Jackson explained, "We have also said that we do not want to tie settlement of the lawsuit to making a film of 'The Hobbit.' " He added, "In our minds, this is not the right reason to make a film, and if a film of 'The Hobbit' went ahead on that basis, it would be doomed." Visit HollywoodReporter.com for more ...
In-car Sobriety Tests Coming
I'm not against having this be mandatory on all cars for absolutely everyone. Imagine the number of lives it would save. And since driving is a privilege and not an American right, I think it would OK to legislate such a test as follows, whether or not someone has already been convicted of drunk-drivers:
Drink-drivers may be tested by carsTim Baldwin, Washington
Next step is skin test for alcohol
1,000 deaths from drink every month
Convicted drink-drivers in America may soon have to fit a device that requires them to pass an in-car breath test before the engine will start and disables the ignition if it detects alcohol.
The scheme has been in force in New Mexico for first-time and repeat offenders over the past year, during which time there has been an 11.3 per cent decrease in alcohol-linked road deaths.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) called this week for similar changes in traffic laws in America’s other 49 states, some of which already use the so-called ignition interlocks, but only for drivers with multiple convictions. But these devices can be easily circumvented by the driver getting a sober friend to blow into the tube instead.
So car manufacturers and the federal government are reported to be backing research into a new generation of technology for detecting alcohol in a driver’s body. Saab is already testing a device that attaches to a key chain, while other transdermal sensors may be able to read alcohol content when a driver’s palm touches the steering wheel or the gear stick.
Even more advanced versions can detect when a car is weaving down the road while being driven by an impaired driver.
Such technology could be used initially in hire cars or by fleet owners and taxi companies, but eventually it could be expanded to all vehicles.
Glynn Birch, the president of MADD, whose 21-month-old son was killed by a drunken driver in 1988, said: “The real possibility of eliminating drunk driving in this country [the US] is a powerful, even audacious, idea. Yet the tools are now at hand.”
He cited figures showing that the average offender can drive drunk 88 times before being caught for the first time, adding that the US needs to “focus on that problem of separating the drunk driver from the vehicle”.
Although deaths caused by drink-driving have fallen by about 40 per cent since the 1980s, they are still running at more than 1,000 a month in America, prompting some road safety groups to claim that the threat of punishment is no longer working.
Each year there are about 1.5 million arrests for drink- driving but millions of motorists still take to the roads with suspended or revoked licences.
“We’ve seen no progress in ten years. We’re completely stalled,” said Susan Ferguson, of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
Drink-drivers may be tested by carsTim Baldwin, Washington
Next step is skin test for alcohol
1,000 deaths from drink every month
Convicted drink-drivers in America may soon have to fit a device that requires them to pass an in-car breath test before the engine will start and disables the ignition if it detects alcohol.
The scheme has been in force in New Mexico for first-time and repeat offenders over the past year, during which time there has been an 11.3 per cent decrease in alcohol-linked road deaths.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) called this week for similar changes in traffic laws in America’s other 49 states, some of which already use the so-called ignition interlocks, but only for drivers with multiple convictions. But these devices can be easily circumvented by the driver getting a sober friend to blow into the tube instead.
So car manufacturers and the federal government are reported to be backing research into a new generation of technology for detecting alcohol in a driver’s body. Saab is already testing a device that attaches to a key chain, while other transdermal sensors may be able to read alcohol content when a driver’s palm touches the steering wheel or the gear stick.
Even more advanced versions can detect when a car is weaving down the road while being driven by an impaired driver.
Such technology could be used initially in hire cars or by fleet owners and taxi companies, but eventually it could be expanded to all vehicles.
Glynn Birch, the president of MADD, whose 21-month-old son was killed by a drunken driver in 1988, said: “The real possibility of eliminating drunk driving in this country [the US] is a powerful, even audacious, idea. Yet the tools are now at hand.”
He cited figures showing that the average offender can drive drunk 88 times before being caught for the first time, adding that the US needs to “focus on that problem of separating the drunk driver from the vehicle”.
Although deaths caused by drink-driving have fallen by about 40 per cent since the 1980s, they are still running at more than 1,000 a month in America, prompting some road safety groups to claim that the threat of punishment is no longer working.
Each year there are about 1.5 million arrests for drink- driving but millions of motorists still take to the roads with suspended or revoked licences.
“We’ve seen no progress in ten years. We’re completely stalled,” said Susan Ferguson, of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.
DEAD: ROBERT ALTMAN
Altman: A TributeHow Hollywood finally embraced American cinema's greatest maverick
By Richard T. Jameson Special to MSN Movies Gallery: Altman and his films
When Robert Altman received an honorary Academy Award this year for his going-on-four-decades of creating inimitable, adventurous, groundbreaking cinema, it was his first Oscar trophy, despite a critically acclaimed body of work that helped define the art form.
The gentleman from Kansas City has said that he was "happy, very happy" to have been accorded the honor, and to be recognized, moreover, for the body of his work rather than any single film. He has a point. No other modern American director can claim more masterpieces, or so prolific and multifarious a resume. But part of the wondrousness of Altman's career stems from the fact that he headlong threw himself into conceiving, mounting and completing one film after another, turning out a dozen (or more) pictures in the time it took a Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick to clear his throat.
Altman, 81, died Monday at a Los Angeles hospital.
His films were sometimes excruciatingly wrongheaded, dead-ended, or seemingly not worth doing in the first place ("Quintet"? "H.E.A.L.T.H."? "O.C. and Stiggs"? "Buffalo Bill and the Indians"? "Prét-á-Porter"? "Fool for Love"?). But they have never been bereft of amazing apercus, behavioral grace notes or moments of virtually metaphysical resonance.
Starting in 1970 with "M*A*S*H" -- his fourth feature film, a project on which, famously, Altman's was the 14th name on a list of possible directors -- he established himself as a major American filmmaker with an all-but-unbroken stream of triumphs through 1975, the like of which one finds in few directorial filmographies (John Ford, say, in 1939-41 or 1945-50, or Hitchcock from 1954-60). Consider this run:
"M*A*S*H" -- which he "rewrote" so thoroughly with a quicksilver cast of improvisers that the man who collected an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Ring Lardner Jr.) could barely recognize his own work -- became one of Altman's few hits.
It also played exhilarating havoc with polite film convention, overlapping its dialogue and fostering a style of closeup-avoiding visual coverage that framed layer upon layer of activity on screen without deigning to cut or zoom-in in a way that would cue audiences, "This is what you should look at it. Here is how you should feel about it." And in all but explicitly invoking the current war in Vietnam while ostensibly treating the Korean police action of two decades earlier, it addressed -- and helped radicalize -- the zeitgeist of the '70s.
The same year brought "Brewster McCloud," a bleak, whackadoodle comic fantasia of multiple murder and betrayal that cheerfully trashed pop-cultural icons as classic as "The Wizard of Oz" and as recent (two years) as "Bullitt." Few found, or find, the film satisfying, but its originality remains astonishing.
"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" came out the following summer, a Western more deeply revisionist than any of its contemporaries. It was also a film of such revolutionary splendor -- especially, but not only, in the rain-bleared textures and available-light ecstasies of Vilmos Zsigmond's camerawork -- that the drones of the film press and the blinkered cinematography branch of the Academy looked at Altman and Zsigmond's droplets of sun made molten gold and pronounced incandescence "dim." A scruffy vision of America reinventing itself from the mossy ground up and becoming a motley, vital community, "McCabe" is now generally regarded as the director's finest film. But Altman was only getting started.
By Richard T. Jameson Special to MSN Movies Gallery: Altman and his films
When Robert Altman received an honorary Academy Award this year for his going-on-four-decades of creating inimitable, adventurous, groundbreaking cinema, it was his first Oscar trophy, despite a critically acclaimed body of work that helped define the art form.
The gentleman from Kansas City has said that he was "happy, very happy" to have been accorded the honor, and to be recognized, moreover, for the body of his work rather than any single film. He has a point. No other modern American director can claim more masterpieces, or so prolific and multifarious a resume. But part of the wondrousness of Altman's career stems from the fact that he headlong threw himself into conceiving, mounting and completing one film after another, turning out a dozen (or more) pictures in the time it took a Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick to clear his throat.
Altman, 81, died Monday at a Los Angeles hospital.
His films were sometimes excruciatingly wrongheaded, dead-ended, or seemingly not worth doing in the first place ("Quintet"? "H.E.A.L.T.H."? "O.C. and Stiggs"? "Buffalo Bill and the Indians"? "Prét-á-Porter"? "Fool for Love"?). But they have never been bereft of amazing apercus, behavioral grace notes or moments of virtually metaphysical resonance.
Starting in 1970 with "M*A*S*H" -- his fourth feature film, a project on which, famously, Altman's was the 14th name on a list of possible directors -- he established himself as a major American filmmaker with an all-but-unbroken stream of triumphs through 1975, the like of which one finds in few directorial filmographies (John Ford, say, in 1939-41 or 1945-50, or Hitchcock from 1954-60). Consider this run:
"M*A*S*H" -- which he "rewrote" so thoroughly with a quicksilver cast of improvisers that the man who collected an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay (Ring Lardner Jr.) could barely recognize his own work -- became one of Altman's few hits.
It also played exhilarating havoc with polite film convention, overlapping its dialogue and fostering a style of closeup-avoiding visual coverage that framed layer upon layer of activity on screen without deigning to cut or zoom-in in a way that would cue audiences, "This is what you should look at it. Here is how you should feel about it." And in all but explicitly invoking the current war in Vietnam while ostensibly treating the Korean police action of two decades earlier, it addressed -- and helped radicalize -- the zeitgeist of the '70s.
The same year brought "Brewster McCloud," a bleak, whackadoodle comic fantasia of multiple murder and betrayal that cheerfully trashed pop-cultural icons as classic as "The Wizard of Oz" and as recent (two years) as "Bullitt." Few found, or find, the film satisfying, but its originality remains astonishing.
"McCabe & Mrs. Miller" came out the following summer, a Western more deeply revisionist than any of its contemporaries. It was also a film of such revolutionary splendor -- especially, but not only, in the rain-bleared textures and available-light ecstasies of Vilmos Zsigmond's camerawork -- that the drones of the film press and the blinkered cinematography branch of the Academy looked at Altman and Zsigmond's droplets of sun made molten gold and pronounced incandescence "dim." A scruffy vision of America reinventing itself from the mossy ground up and becoming a motley, vital community, "McCabe" is now generally regarded as the director's finest film. But Altman was only getting started.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Hubble sheds light on dark energy
Scientists working with NASA's Hubble space telescope are getting a clearer picture of dark energy, the mysterious force behind the expansion of the universe.
"Our latest clue is that the stuff we call dark energy was relatively weak, but starting to make its presence felt nine billion years ago," researcher Adam Riess said on Thursday.
"Although dark energy accounts for more than 70 per cent of the energy of the universe, we know very little about it, so each clue is precious," he said in a NASA release.
The finding that dark energy has existed for most of the universe's history will help scientists by ruling out a competing explanation that held that the force changed over time.
Astrophysicists are particularly interested in two of dark energy's fundamental properties: its strength and its permanence.
The new observations show it was present and countering the force of gravity long before dark energy began to force the universe apart.
Previous Hubble observations show that gravity was slowing the expansion of the universe. But the expansion rate began to speed up about five to six billion years ago, when dark energy's repulsive force overcame gravity's attraction, astronomers believe.
Hubble studied dark energy by looking at the behavior of the 24 most distant supernovae, most found in the past two years. The supernovae, stars that exploded eons ago, are too far away to be studied by ground-based telescopes. The change in supernovae can be used to trace the universe's expansion, NASA said, likening them to the marks parents make on a door frame to measure a child's growth.
The Hubble observations are consistent with a prediction made nearly a century ago by Albert Einstein. He thought there must be energy coming from empty space forcing the universe apart, or else gravity would cause the universe to collapse on itself.
Einstein's "cosmological constant" was only a hypothesis until 1998, when Riess and others figured out that space was expanding at an increasing rate, based on supernovae observations.
"Our latest clue is that the stuff we call dark energy was relatively weak, but starting to make its presence felt nine billion years ago," researcher Adam Riess said on Thursday.
"Although dark energy accounts for more than 70 per cent of the energy of the universe, we know very little about it, so each clue is precious," he said in a NASA release.
The finding that dark energy has existed for most of the universe's history will help scientists by ruling out a competing explanation that held that the force changed over time.
Astrophysicists are particularly interested in two of dark energy's fundamental properties: its strength and its permanence.
The new observations show it was present and countering the force of gravity long before dark energy began to force the universe apart.
Previous Hubble observations show that gravity was slowing the expansion of the universe. But the expansion rate began to speed up about five to six billion years ago, when dark energy's repulsive force overcame gravity's attraction, astronomers believe.
Hubble studied dark energy by looking at the behavior of the 24 most distant supernovae, most found in the past two years. The supernovae, stars that exploded eons ago, are too far away to be studied by ground-based telescopes. The change in supernovae can be used to trace the universe's expansion, NASA said, likening them to the marks parents make on a door frame to measure a child's growth.
The Hubble observations are consistent with a prediction made nearly a century ago by Albert Einstein. He thought there must be energy coming from empty space forcing the universe apart, or else gravity would cause the universe to collapse on itself.
Einstein's "cosmological constant" was only a hypothesis until 1998, when Riess and others figured out that space was expanding at an increasing rate, based on supernovae observations.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
James Bond Begins
Daniel Craig has a licence to thrillDaniel Craig brings a toughness to his Bond which puts him in the same league as Sean Connery as one of the great interpreters of the role
By Eleanor Ringel GillespieoNY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, ATLANTA
Imagine, if you can, you've never heard of someone named James Bond. That martinis shaken or stirred meant nothing to you. That the number 007 made no particular sense and M was just a letter in the alphabet.
Imagine you've never experienced the Wow Factor. The stunts, the exotic locales, the gorgeous women, the despicable bad guys.
And then, at a multiplex near you, there appears a galvanizing new action hero — though you're not quite sure he should be counted as entirely heroic. And he's played by sexy Daniel Craig, an English actor whose name you may not know but whose charisma and extraordinary acting chops have drifted stateside in movies including Layer Cake, Road to Perdition, Munich and Infamous (as killer Perry Smith).
Welcome to Casino Royale.
Based on Ian Fleming's first Bond novel — an earlier version in 1967 was made as a spoof starring David Niven and Woody Allen — the new 007 movie could be considered a re-imagining of the most famous spy in movie history. Or perhaps simply a kind of "Bond Begins."
Gone are the puerile double-entendres — funny when Sean Connery first uttered them more than 40 years ago, but a little tired now. Also MIA are the gyrating girls over the opening credits and, for that matter, the traditionally spectacular special-effects-in-the-extreme pre-credit prologue.
This Bond means business, and to make sure you know it, the picture opens with a black-and-white sequence in which Bond earns his double-0 status — that's two kills, if you please. First is a bloody bashing in a white-tiled public lavatory that's as unglamorous as a Martin Scorsese gang hit. The next one is, as our blond (get used to it) Bond notes, easier. Considerably.
Let the iconography begin. The familiar iris shot encircles him, the classic chords ring out, the movie bursts into color — and we're off and running with a Bond film worthy of, well, Sean Connery.
As always, the plot doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. A no-good named Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) makes a living financing terrorists. Certain bad bets on the stock market bring him to a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro. The inimitable M (inimitable Judi Dench) — who so far has dismissed her newest double-0 as nothing more than "a blunt instrument" — dispatches Bond to beat Le Chiffre at his own game, on and off the gaming table.
Director Martin Campbell, who gave us the very respectable GoldenEye in 1995, and writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, whose script has been sweetened by Crash's Oscar-winning Paul Haggis, approach the essential Bond tropes much as Peter Jackson did the special effects in his The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That is, in service of plot and character. We learn how Bond acquired that spiffy Aston Martin (in a card game). How he came by his first tailored tux, thanks to M-dispatched chaperone/love interest Vesper Lynd (gorgeous and talented Eva Green). And, in the crowd-pleasing moment of a crowd-pleasing movie, what he said the first time he was asked if he liked his martini shaken or stirred. To wit: "Do I look like I give a damn?"
Casino Royale does just about everything right. A breathtaking chase over, under, around and through a construction site includes some fancy stuff on a gigantic crane worthy of Jackie Chan at his most agile and death-defying. (Another plus: The movie relies more on stunt men than special effects.) The extravagantly beautiful Green makes for an expert sparring partner. Told she's not his type, she flippantly asks, "Smart?"
No, he replies. "Single."
Die-hard fans may miss Q and Miss Money-penny or the boys-and-their-toys gadgets or even the smirky tone. But in their stead is a riveting picture that, for all its globe-trotting glamour and eye-popping action, demands we take this new Bond seriously.
And why not? Craig is definitely the Real Thing — dangerous, seductive, with a wired intensity that, along with his irradiated blue eyes, calls to mind Connery's sex-symbol contemporary, Steve McQueen. Roger Moore was — let's face it — a charming buffoon. Timothy Dalton brought back the menace, but was never comfortable in the role. Pierce Brosnan brought back the humor, but was ultimately too comfortable in the role.
They all — with the possible exception of Moore, who sauntered through his films as if he were hosting a James Bond Film Festival, not playing the title role — worked in Connery's shadow. Craig doesn't replace the first, once-and-forever 007, but he brings a ferocity and sinewy sexiness to the part (he's naked more than Green is, most memorably in an already much talked about torture scene) that's totally new, totally right and yet takes nothing away from Bond No. 1.
OK, the movie is about 20 minutes too long. And we're not always sure who is doing what to whom or why. (Luckily, M explains all.)
Still, Craig and company have aired out 007, buffed him up and taught an old horndog some new tricks. As Vesper says to Bond, "Just because you've done something doesn't mean you have to keep on doing it."
Daniel Craig does Bond differently. He does him better. And I hope he does him for a good long time. This story has been viewed 3 times.
By Eleanor Ringel GillespieoNY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, ATLANTA
Imagine, if you can, you've never heard of someone named James Bond. That martinis shaken or stirred meant nothing to you. That the number 007 made no particular sense and M was just a letter in the alphabet.
Imagine you've never experienced the Wow Factor. The stunts, the exotic locales, the gorgeous women, the despicable bad guys.
And then, at a multiplex near you, there appears a galvanizing new action hero — though you're not quite sure he should be counted as entirely heroic. And he's played by sexy Daniel Craig, an English actor whose name you may not know but whose charisma and extraordinary acting chops have drifted stateside in movies including Layer Cake, Road to Perdition, Munich and Infamous (as killer Perry Smith).
Welcome to Casino Royale.
Based on Ian Fleming's first Bond novel — an earlier version in 1967 was made as a spoof starring David Niven and Woody Allen — the new 007 movie could be considered a re-imagining of the most famous spy in movie history. Or perhaps simply a kind of "Bond Begins."
Gone are the puerile double-entendres — funny when Sean Connery first uttered them more than 40 years ago, but a little tired now. Also MIA are the gyrating girls over the opening credits and, for that matter, the traditionally spectacular special-effects-in-the-extreme pre-credit prologue.
This Bond means business, and to make sure you know it, the picture opens with a black-and-white sequence in which Bond earns his double-0 status — that's two kills, if you please. First is a bloody bashing in a white-tiled public lavatory that's as unglamorous as a Martin Scorsese gang hit. The next one is, as our blond (get used to it) Bond notes, easier. Considerably.
Let the iconography begin. The familiar iris shot encircles him, the classic chords ring out, the movie bursts into color — and we're off and running with a Bond film worthy of, well, Sean Connery.
As always, the plot doesn't stand up to much scrutiny. A no-good named Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) makes a living financing terrorists. Certain bad bets on the stock market bring him to a high-stakes poker game in Montenegro. The inimitable M (inimitable Judi Dench) — who so far has dismissed her newest double-0 as nothing more than "a blunt instrument" — dispatches Bond to beat Le Chiffre at his own game, on and off the gaming table.
Director Martin Campbell, who gave us the very respectable GoldenEye in 1995, and writers Neal Purvis and Robert Wade, whose script has been sweetened by Crash's Oscar-winning Paul Haggis, approach the essential Bond tropes much as Peter Jackson did the special effects in his The Lord of the Rings trilogy. That is, in service of plot and character. We learn how Bond acquired that spiffy Aston Martin (in a card game). How he came by his first tailored tux, thanks to M-dispatched chaperone/love interest Vesper Lynd (gorgeous and talented Eva Green). And, in the crowd-pleasing moment of a crowd-pleasing movie, what he said the first time he was asked if he liked his martini shaken or stirred. To wit: "Do I look like I give a damn?"
Casino Royale does just about everything right. A breathtaking chase over, under, around and through a construction site includes some fancy stuff on a gigantic crane worthy of Jackie Chan at his most agile and death-defying. (Another plus: The movie relies more on stunt men than special effects.) The extravagantly beautiful Green makes for an expert sparring partner. Told she's not his type, she flippantly asks, "Smart?"
No, he replies. "Single."
Die-hard fans may miss Q and Miss Money-penny or the boys-and-their-toys gadgets or even the smirky tone. But in their stead is a riveting picture that, for all its globe-trotting glamour and eye-popping action, demands we take this new Bond seriously.
And why not? Craig is definitely the Real Thing — dangerous, seductive, with a wired intensity that, along with his irradiated blue eyes, calls to mind Connery's sex-symbol contemporary, Steve McQueen. Roger Moore was — let's face it — a charming buffoon. Timothy Dalton brought back the menace, but was never comfortable in the role. Pierce Brosnan brought back the humor, but was ultimately too comfortable in the role.
They all — with the possible exception of Moore, who sauntered through his films as if he were hosting a James Bond Film Festival, not playing the title role — worked in Connery's shadow. Craig doesn't replace the first, once-and-forever 007, but he brings a ferocity and sinewy sexiness to the part (he's naked more than Green is, most memorably in an already much talked about torture scene) that's totally new, totally right and yet takes nothing away from Bond No. 1.
OK, the movie is about 20 minutes too long. And we're not always sure who is doing what to whom or why. (Luckily, M explains all.)
Still, Craig and company have aired out 007, buffed him up and taught an old horndog some new tricks. As Vesper says to Bond, "Just because you've done something doesn't mean you have to keep on doing it."
Daniel Craig does Bond differently. He does him better. And I hope he does him for a good long time. This story has been viewed 3 times.
9/11: Conspiracy Theory vs Popular Mechanics
http://www.loosechange911.com/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3214024953129565561
http://www.lolloosechange.co.nr/
http://www.myspace.com/screwloosechange
Dylan Avery has a theory that he says casts doubts on Mark Bingham's actions on Sept. 11, 2001. According to Avery, the San Francisco public relations executive never called his mom on a cell phone from the cabin of Flight 93, and never told her that "some of us here are going to try to do something." Instead, says Avery, someone using a voice synthesizer -- possibly a government official -- called Alice Hoglan on the morning that Flight 93 -- and Bingham -- became part of Sept. 11 lore.
"The cell phone calls were fake -- no ifs, ands or buts," Avery says in "Loose Change," a film he wrote and directed that's one of the most-watched movies on the Internet, with 10 million viewers in the past year. "Until the government can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that al Qaeda was behind Sept. 11, the American people have every reason to believe otherwise."
Avery is one of perhaps millions of Americans who believe the U.S. government -- or rogue elements within it -- either orchestrated the attacks or tacitly supported them for nefarious reasons.
As the five-year anniversary of the attacks approaches, the clamor of Avery and other conspiracy theorists has gotten stronger -- and more widely accepted. According to a poll by Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service, 36 percent of Americans believe that government officials "either assisted in the 9/ 11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." Twelve percent of Americans believe a cruise missile fired by the U.S. military -- not an American Airlines jet hijacked by Arab terrorists -- slammed into the Pentagon. Sixteen percent of Americans, the survey indicates, believe that "secret explosives" -- not two planes and the resulting damage -- brought down the World Trade Center towers.
Conspiracy fans are viewed by most people as gullible, opportunistic, disgruntled or simply suspicious. It's widely believed that conspiracy theorists emanate from the margins of society, that they're a combination of paranoid, powerless, undereducated and desperate (at least desperate to assign blame). But Avery and other prominent Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists claim to represent society's mainstream, which is skeptical of the Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq war and Washington's version of what really happened that day.
Some of them reject the term "conspiracy theorist," instead calling themselves "truth activists" -- people who want to expose hidden facts that the major media ignore or downplay because of their corporate ties. While many conspiracy theorists are politically liberal, they also include people on the right, including members of the John Birch Society, who imply that the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a continuing plan by U.S. elites to create a "New World Order" and impose greater control over Americans.
Some conspiracy theories are fantastical (CIA agents orchestrated the attacks; Israel planned them.) -- the epitome of preposterous beliefs that start with a conclusion and work backward to find evidence. Each new month brings a deluge of crackpot theories, but a growing number of people say there are too many improbabilities -- too many illogical holes -- in the government's version of what happened.
Robert Bowman, who directed the "Star Wars" defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, reached his own conclusion after questioning (among other things) why the American military hadn't intercepted the hijacked planes before they hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, why the FBI had ignored repeated pre-Sept. 11 warnings that Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, why the Pentagon didn't release surveillance tapes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the military complex, and how, within hours after the attack, the government could so quickly produce the names and photos of the 19 hijackers.
A former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology, Bowman says Vice President Dick Cheney and other top government officials may have had advance knowledge of the attacks. Bowman theorizes that Cheney and other officials stood to benefit financially (in Cheney's case, through Halliburton). Labeling these officials "neo-cons," Bowman says they had a long-standing desire to control Iraq's oil and to use the country as a strategic hub for controlling the entire Middle East. The Sept. 11 commission, he says, neglected to investigate these possible connections, leaving a huge gap in the official account.
"It's hard to believe that somebody at some (government) level wasn't complicit in this thing," Bowman said in a phone interview from his home in Florida. Bowman, who publicly turned against the "Star Wars" system because he believed the Reagan administration secretly considered it a first-strike option and not merely a defensive weapon, says, "How could someone in the FBI turn down requests 70 times from somebody (FBI agent Harry Samit) who said he thought Moussaoui was going to fly a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center? ... I'm calling for a (new) independent investigation that will clear up everything. If the investigation shows that there were people in the United States who were involved in some way, that's the story of the century, and the American people need to know it."
Like many on the left and the right, Bowman points to pre-Sept. 11 documents he says foreshadowed the attacks, including a paper published in 2000 by the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank whose members have included Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The paper, titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," talked about the fact that a "catastrophic and catalyzing event -- a new Pearl Harbor," would strengthen the American military because lawmakers would, given the urgency, green-light funds to continue the military's dominance over U.S. adversaries. For conspiracy theorists, the Project for a New American Century document is a smoking gun. Its reference to Pearl Harbor is both scary and damning, they say, because some historians believe President Franklin Roosevelt knew that an attack on U.S. soil was imminent but let it happen to rally American public opinion behind going to war.
If that isn't enough evidence to convince you that Sept. 11 was an inside job, conspiracy theorists say, there's more. What about the fact that NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) quickly intercepted golfer Payne Stewart's wayward Learjet in 1999 but didn't intercept the hijacked planes that crashed in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa.? What about the fact that witnesses at the World Trade Center reported hearing multiple explosions before the buildings' collapse, indicating to some that the towers were brought down by planted explosives? What about the fact that Building 7 of the World Trade Center -- the 47-floor structure housing offices of the CIA, the Secret Service and the Department of Defense -- collapsed even though it wasn't hit by planes?
Rebuttals have emerged to explain some of the biggest question marks. Last month, Popular Mechanics magazine published a full-length book, "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts," which refuted 20 claims widely held by conspiracy theorists. For example, the belief that a missile hit the Pentagon was based partly on the visible damage to the building: at the point of impact, a relatively small portion of the wall was knocked over -- it wasn't the horizontal damage to be expected from a large-winged Boeing 757.
Popular Mechanics, which interviewed more than 300 sources for its book, quotes witnesses who said at least one wing of Flight 77 smashed into an on-ground generator before the plane struck the Pentagon. An engineering expert says the plane's outer wings likely sheared off before impact. "A jet doesn't punch a cartoonlike outline into a concrete building upon impact," the book says, citing an engineering professor.
What about a witness who supposedly told CNN that he saw a missile hit the Pentagon? Popular Mechanics interviews the witness, Mike Walter, who says his original words ("I looked out my window and saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. ... I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings") were truncated and distorted by conspiracy theorists. One of those theorists was French author Thierry Meyssan, whose 2002 best-seller, "The Horrifying Fraud," claimed the U.S. military instigated Sept. 11 as part of its plan to start new wars around the world.
In his film "Loose Change," Avery says Bingham and other passengers on Flight 93 could not have called from the doomed jetliner because cell phones rarely work at high altitudes. He cites a research paper by A.K. Dewdney, an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Western Ontario. But in "Debunking 9/11 Myths," Popular Mechanics interviews experts who explain why Bingham's cell phone would have worked that day (the plane's low altitude helped, as did the fact it flew over rural areas, which often have cell-phone towers with powerful signal capacities).
Not surprisingly, conspiracy theorists have attacked "Debunking 9/11 Myths," saying that Popular Mechanics is a front for the CIA. They that one of its researchers, Benjanim Chertoff, is related to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, which they say is an indication of the magazine's co-mingling with a government that was behind the attacks. (The magazine says the two Chertoffs might be distant cousins, but that they've never spoken.)
Conspiracy theorists might even look at this article as part of the conspiracy, because Hearst Corp., which owns Popular Mechanics, also publishes The Chronicle.
What sets "Loose Change" apart from other Sept. 11 works is that it's visually appealing, slickly edited (with hip music) and free to watch on the internet video site YouTube. It has an anti-authoritarian edge (Avery is 22 years old) that might appeal to someone who admires Michael Moore or Jon Stewart. The film has inspired a critical response, "Screw Loose Change," which repackages Avery's film with rebuttals interspersed.
Conspiracy theorists often cite "facts" that really are facts, but whether they really add up to anything is another question.
In his new book, "The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty," author Jim Marrs points out that former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the United States began funding Afghan rebels in July 1979. Why is this important? Because, for many years, the official American version was that funding started after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Brzezinski now says the United States hoped the 1979 funding would draw in the Soviets and lead to a wider war, contributing to the demise of the Soviet Union. If the U.S. government would lie in 1979, why wouldn't it lie again in 2001? In 1979, says Marrs, it was about gaining access to oil and gas in Central Asia. Twenty-two years later, he says, it was about Iraq's oil.
Agreeing with Marrs is Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization that believes the U.S. government "permitted 9/11 to occur." Among the group's members are Paul W. Rea, a humanities lecturer at St. Mary's College in Moraga; Tracy Belvins, a research scientist in bioengineering at Rice University; Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose Sept. 11 views caused national controversy in July and prompted some lawmakers to insist he shouldn't be teaching at the university; and Stephen LeRoy, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara who has been a visiting economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
"Conspiracists (come) from all parts of the population, they (come) from all racial and religious groups," says Bob Goldberg, a history professor at the University of Utah and the author of "Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America." "The fact that people who have advanced degrees believe in conspiracy theories does not surprise me because it's not an issue of whether you're smart or dumb. In fact, when you look at conspiracy theories, what distinguishes them is how rigorously logical they seem to be, that they are so intensely structured and that there's a belief that every single fact is important and connects to another fact. There's a rigor to (their) logic."
"But," says Goldberg, "there's (an inflexibility to) the logic that denies things you can't deny -- whether it's accidents, whether it's bureaucratic process, whether it's miscalculations, whether it's simply mistakes. In these theories, there are no mistakes, no accidents, no bureaucracy -- everything is crystal clear."
"Debunking 9/11 Myths" makes the case that mistakes, miscommunication and bureaucratic bungling contributed to the U.S. government's lack of immediate response to the Sept. 11 hijackings. Barrett and other conspiracy theorists will have none of it. They say the U.S. government's version of the events is itself a conspiracy theory -- a collection of assumptions bolstered by evidence, but nevertheless assumptions that are open to debate.
"After studying this fairly intensively over the past 2 1/2 years," says Barrett in a phone interview, "I'm convinced that 9/11 was orchestrated by top U.S. officials and presumably perpetrated by members of what could be called the American allied intelligence community."
Goldberg says conspiracy theorists -- especially those fearful and distrustful of a powerful, centralized government -- have existed in the United States since its founding. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Goldberg says, created a perfect storm for conspiracy theorists of every political and religious persuasion.
Five years afterward, the storm isn't abating.
E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7866929448192753501
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=-3214024953129565561
http://www.lolloosechange.co.nr/
http://www.myspace.com/screwloosechange
Dylan Avery has a theory that he says casts doubts on Mark Bingham's actions on Sept. 11, 2001. According to Avery, the San Francisco public relations executive never called his mom on a cell phone from the cabin of Flight 93, and never told her that "some of us here are going to try to do something." Instead, says Avery, someone using a voice synthesizer -- possibly a government official -- called Alice Hoglan on the morning that Flight 93 -- and Bingham -- became part of Sept. 11 lore.
"The cell phone calls were fake -- no ifs, ands or buts," Avery says in "Loose Change," a film he wrote and directed that's one of the most-watched movies on the Internet, with 10 million viewers in the past year. "Until the government can prove beyond a shadow of doubt that al Qaeda was behind Sept. 11, the American people have every reason to believe otherwise."
Avery is one of perhaps millions of Americans who believe the U.S. government -- or rogue elements within it -- either orchestrated the attacks or tacitly supported them for nefarious reasons.
As the five-year anniversary of the attacks approaches, the clamor of Avery and other conspiracy theorists has gotten stronger -- and more widely accepted. According to a poll by Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service, 36 percent of Americans believe that government officials "either assisted in the 9/ 11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." Twelve percent of Americans believe a cruise missile fired by the U.S. military -- not an American Airlines jet hijacked by Arab terrorists -- slammed into the Pentagon. Sixteen percent of Americans, the survey indicates, believe that "secret explosives" -- not two planes and the resulting damage -- brought down the World Trade Center towers.
Conspiracy fans are viewed by most people as gullible, opportunistic, disgruntled or simply suspicious. It's widely believed that conspiracy theorists emanate from the margins of society, that they're a combination of paranoid, powerless, undereducated and desperate (at least desperate to assign blame). But Avery and other prominent Sept. 11 conspiracy theorists claim to represent society's mainstream, which is skeptical of the Bush administration's rationale for the Iraq war and Washington's version of what really happened that day.
Some of them reject the term "conspiracy theorist," instead calling themselves "truth activists" -- people who want to expose hidden facts that the major media ignore or downplay because of their corporate ties. While many conspiracy theorists are politically liberal, they also include people on the right, including members of the John Birch Society, who imply that the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a continuing plan by U.S. elites to create a "New World Order" and impose greater control over Americans.
Some conspiracy theories are fantastical (CIA agents orchestrated the attacks; Israel planned them.) -- the epitome of preposterous beliefs that start with a conclusion and work backward to find evidence. Each new month brings a deluge of crackpot theories, but a growing number of people say there are too many improbabilities -- too many illogical holes -- in the government's version of what happened.
Robert Bowman, who directed the "Star Wars" defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, reached his own conclusion after questioning (among other things) why the American military hadn't intercepted the hijacked planes before they hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, why the FBI had ignored repeated pre-Sept. 11 warnings that Zacarias Moussaoui wanted to fly a plane into the World Trade Center, why the Pentagon didn't release surveillance tapes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the military complex, and how, within hours after the attack, the government could so quickly produce the names and photos of the 19 hijackers.
A former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology, Bowman says Vice President Dick Cheney and other top government officials may have had advance knowledge of the attacks. Bowman theorizes that Cheney and other officials stood to benefit financially (in Cheney's case, through Halliburton). Labeling these officials "neo-cons," Bowman says they had a long-standing desire to control Iraq's oil and to use the country as a strategic hub for controlling the entire Middle East. The Sept. 11 commission, he says, neglected to investigate these possible connections, leaving a huge gap in the official account.
"It's hard to believe that somebody at some (government) level wasn't complicit in this thing," Bowman said in a phone interview from his home in Florida. Bowman, who publicly turned against the "Star Wars" system because he believed the Reagan administration secretly considered it a first-strike option and not merely a defensive weapon, says, "How could someone in the FBI turn down requests 70 times from somebody (FBI agent Harry Samit) who said he thought Moussaoui was going to fly a hijacked plane into the World Trade Center? ... I'm calling for a (new) independent investigation that will clear up everything. If the investigation shows that there were people in the United States who were involved in some way, that's the story of the century, and the American people need to know it."
Like many on the left and the right, Bowman points to pre-Sept. 11 documents he says foreshadowed the attacks, including a paper published in 2000 by the Project for a New American Century, a conservative think tank whose members have included Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz. The paper, titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses," talked about the fact that a "catastrophic and catalyzing event -- a new Pearl Harbor," would strengthen the American military because lawmakers would, given the urgency, green-light funds to continue the military's dominance over U.S. adversaries. For conspiracy theorists, the Project for a New American Century document is a smoking gun. Its reference to Pearl Harbor is both scary and damning, they say, because some historians believe President Franklin Roosevelt knew that an attack on U.S. soil was imminent but let it happen to rally American public opinion behind going to war.
If that isn't enough evidence to convince you that Sept. 11 was an inside job, conspiracy theorists say, there's more. What about the fact that NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) quickly intercepted golfer Payne Stewart's wayward Learjet in 1999 but didn't intercept the hijacked planes that crashed in New York, Washington and Shanksville, Pa.? What about the fact that witnesses at the World Trade Center reported hearing multiple explosions before the buildings' collapse, indicating to some that the towers were brought down by planted explosives? What about the fact that Building 7 of the World Trade Center -- the 47-floor structure housing offices of the CIA, the Secret Service and the Department of Defense -- collapsed even though it wasn't hit by planes?
Rebuttals have emerged to explain some of the biggest question marks. Last month, Popular Mechanics magazine published a full-length book, "Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts," which refuted 20 claims widely held by conspiracy theorists. For example, the belief that a missile hit the Pentagon was based partly on the visible damage to the building: at the point of impact, a relatively small portion of the wall was knocked over -- it wasn't the horizontal damage to be expected from a large-winged Boeing 757.
Popular Mechanics, which interviewed more than 300 sources for its book, quotes witnesses who said at least one wing of Flight 77 smashed into an on-ground generator before the plane struck the Pentagon. An engineering expert says the plane's outer wings likely sheared off before impact. "A jet doesn't punch a cartoonlike outline into a concrete building upon impact," the book says, citing an engineering professor.
What about a witness who supposedly told CNN that he saw a missile hit the Pentagon? Popular Mechanics interviews the witness, Mike Walter, who says his original words ("I looked out my window and saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. ... I mean, it was like a cruise missile with wings") were truncated and distorted by conspiracy theorists. One of those theorists was French author Thierry Meyssan, whose 2002 best-seller, "The Horrifying Fraud," claimed the U.S. military instigated Sept. 11 as part of its plan to start new wars around the world.
In his film "Loose Change," Avery says Bingham and other passengers on Flight 93 could not have called from the doomed jetliner because cell phones rarely work at high altitudes. He cites a research paper by A.K. Dewdney, an emeritus professor of computer science at the University of Western Ontario. But in "Debunking 9/11 Myths," Popular Mechanics interviews experts who explain why Bingham's cell phone would have worked that day (the plane's low altitude helped, as did the fact it flew over rural areas, which often have cell-phone towers with powerful signal capacities).
Not surprisingly, conspiracy theorists have attacked "Debunking 9/11 Myths," saying that Popular Mechanics is a front for the CIA. They that one of its researchers, Benjanim Chertoff, is related to Homeland Security Director Michael Chertoff, which they say is an indication of the magazine's co-mingling with a government that was behind the attacks. (The magazine says the two Chertoffs might be distant cousins, but that they've never spoken.)
Conspiracy theorists might even look at this article as part of the conspiracy, because Hearst Corp., which owns Popular Mechanics, also publishes The Chronicle.
What sets "Loose Change" apart from other Sept. 11 works is that it's visually appealing, slickly edited (with hip music) and free to watch on the internet video site YouTube. It has an anti-authoritarian edge (Avery is 22 years old) that might appeal to someone who admires Michael Moore or Jon Stewart. The film has inspired a critical response, "Screw Loose Change," which repackages Avery's film with rebuttals interspersed.
Conspiracy theorists often cite "facts" that really are facts, but whether they really add up to anything is another question.
In his new book, "The Terror Conspiracy: Deception, 9/11, and the Loss of Liberty," author Jim Marrs points out that former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted that the United States began funding Afghan rebels in July 1979. Why is this important? Because, for many years, the official American version was that funding started after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. Brzezinski now says the United States hoped the 1979 funding would draw in the Soviets and lead to a wider war, contributing to the demise of the Soviet Union. If the U.S. government would lie in 1979, why wouldn't it lie again in 2001? In 1979, says Marrs, it was about gaining access to oil and gas in Central Asia. Twenty-two years later, he says, it was about Iraq's oil.
Agreeing with Marrs is Scholars for 9/11 Truth, an organization that believes the U.S. government "permitted 9/11 to occur." Among the group's members are Paul W. Rea, a humanities lecturer at St. Mary's College in Moraga; Tracy Belvins, a research scientist in bioengineering at Rice University; Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose Sept. 11 views caused national controversy in July and prompted some lawmakers to insist he shouldn't be teaching at the university; and Stephen LeRoy, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara who has been a visiting economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
"Conspiracists (come) from all parts of the population, they (come) from all racial and religious groups," says Bob Goldberg, a history professor at the University of Utah and the author of "Enemies Within: The Culture of Conspiracy in Modern America." "The fact that people who have advanced degrees believe in conspiracy theories does not surprise me because it's not an issue of whether you're smart or dumb. In fact, when you look at conspiracy theories, what distinguishes them is how rigorously logical they seem to be, that they are so intensely structured and that there's a belief that every single fact is important and connects to another fact. There's a rigor to (their) logic."
"But," says Goldberg, "there's (an inflexibility to) the logic that denies things you can't deny -- whether it's accidents, whether it's bureaucratic process, whether it's miscalculations, whether it's simply mistakes. In these theories, there are no mistakes, no accidents, no bureaucracy -- everything is crystal clear."
"Debunking 9/11 Myths" makes the case that mistakes, miscommunication and bureaucratic bungling contributed to the U.S. government's lack of immediate response to the Sept. 11 hijackings. Barrett and other conspiracy theorists will have none of it. They say the U.S. government's version of the events is itself a conspiracy theory -- a collection of assumptions bolstered by evidence, but nevertheless assumptions that are open to debate.
"After studying this fairly intensively over the past 2 1/2 years," says Barrett in a phone interview, "I'm convinced that 9/11 was orchestrated by top U.S. officials and presumably perpetrated by members of what could be called the American allied intelligence community."
Goldberg says conspiracy theorists -- especially those fearful and distrustful of a powerful, centralized government -- have existed in the United States since its founding. The attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Goldberg says, created a perfect storm for conspiracy theorists of every political and religious persuasion.
Five years afterward, the storm isn't abating.
E-mail Jonathan Curiel at jcuriel@sfchronicle.com.
OJ Simpson: If I Did It
Oakland attorney John Burris was a part of the "dream team" defense that earned O.J. Simpson an acquittal in 1995 in the lurid double-murder trial that captivated the nation. So when he heard that Simpson had written a book called, "If I Did It,'' Burris' response was simple and direct.
"Has O.J. lost his mind? I can't imagine anything more ridiculous.''
That seems to be the consensus. It could be said that the national reaction was split 50-50. Half the country thought it was the dumbest idea they'd ever heard, and the other half thought Simpson was out of his mind.
Oh, and that's not to mention the two one-hour television interviews with Simpson to be conducted on Fox television by Judith Regan, the book's publisher, on Nov. 27 and 29. Regan's company, ReganBooks, is a subsidiary of News Corp., which also owns Fox.
"This makes Fox's 'Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?' look like 'Masterpiece Theatre,' " said Bob Thompson, director for of the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University.
Frankly, it is even worse than that. This is a sleazy reach for ratings -- the interviews will air in the last week of ratings sweeps -- and book-buying buzz. There's money to be made for Fox and for the publisher.
But everyone is asking: Why is Simpson doing this?
The obvious guess is that Simpson needs money, but Burris says that's a misconception. He says -- and a 1997 court hearing in Santa Monica confirms -- that Simpson is pulling in roughly $25,000 a month from a "profit-sharing pension account.''
Simpson was ordered to pay $33.5 million to the heirs of his slain ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, but much of the judgment has not been paid because most of Simpson's assets were tied up in his pension account -- which is shielded from creditors by state law. It is unclear whether any money he may make from the book could be used to pay part of the judgment.
So why would Simpson expose himself to more doubts, accusations and anger with the book and TV interviews? Burris thinks the key is a conversation he had over dinner with the late Johnnie Cochran, head of Simpson's defense team.
Cochran said he thought Simpson had never recovered from the loss of his celebrity status as a Heisman Trophy-winning, NFL-record-setting superstar.
"O.J. wants back what he had,'' Cochran told Burris. "He wants to be the O.J. that he was.''
This will certainly put Simpson back in the spotlight. It can be argued that this is the best "get'' in the news business. To have an interview with Simpson in which he appears to confess to the most famous murders in recent American history is a surefire ratings and bookselling bonanza.
"I guess the only thing bigger would be to bring Princess Diana back from the dead,'' says Robert Calo, a senior lecturer at UC Berkeley and former network news producer at ABC and NBC. "In terms of American stories, O.J. Simpson is a special case.''
The question -- and get ready for weeks of speculation -- is this: What is Simpson really saying? A magazine called Life & Style Weekly says in an upcoming issue that Simpson is asked to read a chapter from the book during his Fox interview and bursts into tears. The magazine quotes an unnamed source as saying, "It sounds like he's confessing.''
But is he? He could, of course. He's already been acquitted. He can't be tried again. But with a title like "If I Did It,'' he and Regan are building in plenty of wiggle room.
"If the word 'if' weren't in the title,'' says Thompson, "it would be newsworthy. But if, as I suspect, it is just a typical O.J. tirade, and the title is simply a way to get attention, it is absolutely sick and downright creepy.''
And by the way, where's the journalism in this? Simpson is being interviewed by his publisher, not a hard-hitting journalist or attorney. Even Fox admits this isn't a news show. It is appearing as programming on the Fox network, which is the entertainment arm.
"If you ever wanted to know what media critics are afraid of, here it is,'' says Cal's Calo. "It doesn't smell like news, or not anymore. You can't tell.''
And finally, what does that say about us? It is easy to say that Simpson should pipe down and move on, but will you be able to resist watching the interviews or buying the book? Thompson is hoping for the best.
"I wouldn't want to bet my retirement fund that this is going to be No. 1 (ratings winner) for the week,'' he says. "There's a chance people will collectively ignore it.''
And wouldn't that be encouraging? Unfortunately, history suggests otherwise. It's simple. Did O.J. Simpson get away with murder? Everyone still wants to know.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
GAY MARRIAGE: Massachusetts Ban Nixed
Massachusetts Derails Effort to Ban Same-Sex Marriages in State
By Michael McDonald
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Massachusetts lawmakers today derailed an effort to send a proposal to voters that would ban same-sex marriages in the state.
The state Legislature voted to end a special session before debating the proposed state constitutional amendment that would appear on the 2008 statewide ballot.
``This amendment is about the past,'' said State Senator Edward Augustine, a Democrat who opposed the measure. ``It's about fear and intolerance.''
Massachusetts is the only state in the U.S. that recognizes marriages between people of the same sex. The state inspired activists to seek similar treatment in other states and led opponents, including President George W. Bush, to advocate a U.S. constitutional amendment banning it.
The same-sex marriage ban was one measure the state House of Representatives and Senate in Massachusetts debated today at a joint session on constitutional amendments.
State lawmakers voted in 2004 to amend the constitution to ban the marriages but rejected the measure the next year. It had to be passed by lawmakers this year and next to get it on a ballot in 2008. Instead, they voted to recess until Jan. 2.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state constitution guarantees equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. There have been as many as 9,000 such unions in the state since town clerks started issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples more than two year ago, according to the legislators who spoke today.
Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who is considering a run for U.S. President in 2008, supports the state proposal to ban the marriages.
Voters in Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin voted this week in favor of restricting marriage to a man and woman. Arizona voters rejected such a proposal.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 25 that gay couples are entitled to the same rights under the state constitution as married couples of opposite sexes, leaving to the Legislature the decision on whether to call it marriage or civil unions.
By Michael McDonald
Nov. 9 (Bloomberg) -- Massachusetts lawmakers today derailed an effort to send a proposal to voters that would ban same-sex marriages in the state.
The state Legislature voted to end a special session before debating the proposed state constitutional amendment that would appear on the 2008 statewide ballot.
``This amendment is about the past,'' said State Senator Edward Augustine, a Democrat who opposed the measure. ``It's about fear and intolerance.''
Massachusetts is the only state in the U.S. that recognizes marriages between people of the same sex. The state inspired activists to seek similar treatment in other states and led opponents, including President George W. Bush, to advocate a U.S. constitutional amendment banning it.
The same-sex marriage ban was one measure the state House of Representatives and Senate in Massachusetts debated today at a joint session on constitutional amendments.
State lawmakers voted in 2004 to amend the constitution to ban the marriages but rejected the measure the next year. It had to be passed by lawmakers this year and next to get it on a ballot in 2008. Instead, they voted to recess until Jan. 2.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in 2003 that the state constitution guarantees equal marriage rights for same-sex couples. There have been as many as 9,000 such unions in the state since town clerks started issuing licenses to gay and lesbian couples more than two year ago, according to the legislators who spoke today.
Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who is considering a run for U.S. President in 2008, supports the state proposal to ban the marriages.
Voters in Idaho, Colorado, South Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee and Wisconsin voted this week in favor of restricting marriage to a man and woman. Arizona voters rejected such a proposal.
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled on Oct. 25 that gay couples are entitled to the same rights under the state constitution as married couples of opposite sexes, leaving to the Legislature the decision on whether to call it marriage or civil unions.
Tuesday, November 07, 2006
HIV Gene Therapy Stabilised Blood Of Infected Patients
Five HIV patients who had not responded to drugs, were given disabled HIV which carried genes that halted HIV reproduction, and experienced either lower or stabilized levels of HIV in their blood, say researchers from the University of Pennsylvania.You can read about this trial in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.The results of this research could eventually lead the way to effective gene therapy for treating HIV, and replacing antiretroviral drugs. Existing treatments with antiretroviral drugs face the ever-growing problem of drug resistance.Even though this trial was just looking at the safety and feasibility aspects, the researchers reported some other benefits.All five patients, who had not responded to two courses of antiretroviral drugs, were given their own T cells, about 10 billion of them. The T cells had been taken from their blood, purified and altered genetically so that they could carry an altered version of HIV. The altered HIV carried an antisense RNA molecule. This molecule stops the HIV from reproducing inside infected cells.After nine months, one of the patients experienced a huge fall in viral load, the other four either experienced some drop, or no increase. 4 of the volunteers experienced either raised or sustained T-cell levels. The modified cells were still inside the patients a long time after they were infused into them, say the researchers.The scientists told people not to raise their hopes, as the trial was very small and monitoring must be done over a longer period. Just because a handful of patients had good results does not mean it works equally well for everyone.As gene therapy is expensive, it is not expected to help the majority of people with HIV/AIDS, most of whom are poor and come from countries unable to offer costly treatments to their populations.http://www.med.upenn.edu
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Saddam sentenced to DEATH BY HANGING
Clashes, celebratory gunfire greet guilty verdict; Talabani says trial was fair
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's High Tribunal on Sunday found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail. The visibly shaken former leader shouted "God is great!"
Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of the former Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to join Saddam on the gallows for the Dujail killings after an unsuccessful assassination attempt during a Saddam visit to the city 35 miles north of Baghdad.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told reporters that the Anfal trial now in progress for Saddam and others alleged role in gassing and killing Kurds would continue while the appeals process is underway. But if the appellate judges uphold the death sentence, the Anfal proceedings and other cases would be halted and Saddam hanged.
Al-Moussawi said Saddam would be hanged if the sentence were upheld, despite his demand that he be shot by a firing squad.
A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
Clashes, celebrationsClashes immediately broke out in north Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district where police were battling men with machine guns. At least seven mortar shells slammed to earth around the Abu Hanifa mosque, the holiest Sunni shrine in the capital. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Celebratory gunfire rang out elsewhere in Baghdad, and the people in Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum, celebrated in the streets, calling out "Where are you Saddam? We want to fight you."
Breathing heavily as he ran along the streets, 35-year-old Abu Sinan said, "This is an unprecedented feeling of happiness...nothing matches it, no festival nor marriage nor birth matches it. The verdict says Saddam must pay the price for murdering tens of thousands of Iraqis."
A jubilant crowd of young men carried pictures of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and handed out candy to children.
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favorite son through the streets.
Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and decried the verdict.
"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam, your name shakes America."
People were celebrating in the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, as the verdict was read. They burned pictures of their former tormentor.
Celebratory gunfire also rang out in Kurdish neighborhoods across the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where taxi driver Khatab Ahmed sat on a mattress in his living room to watch trial coverage with his wife and six children.
"Thank God I lived to see the day when the criminals received their punishment," the 40-year-old exclaimed on hearing of Saddam's death sentence.
His brother and uncle were arrested by Saddam's security forces in the 1980s and disappeared forever. Two cousins died in a 1991 Kurdish uprising.
‘Trial was fair,’ Talabani says in ParisIraq’s president said Sunday that the trial against the ousted Iraqi leader was fair. But Jalal Talabani would not comment on the guilty verdict or death sentence for fear it could inflame tensions in his volatile nation.
“I think the trial was fair,” the president told The Associated Press at his Paris hotel, where he watched the proceedings live on television. “Those people had the full right to say what they intended.”
Talabani has opposed the death penalty in the past, but found a way around it by deputizing a vice president to sign an execution order on his behalf — a substitute that has been legally accepted.
Talabani, a Sunni Kurd who once took up arms against Saddam and was elected president in April 2005, would not comment Sunday about the use of the death penalty, saying he would make his position known after all the legal proceedings were exhausted.
“I must respect the independence of the Iraqi judiciary,” Talabani said. “Until the end I must be silent ... because my comments could affect the situation.”
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was more outspoken about the verdict.
“This was the only reasonable outcome,” he told AP, calling Sunday “a historic day” that would bring closure to Iraq’s relations with its former leader.
“It’s a victory for the victims of Saddam,” he said.
'An opportunity to unite'The United States Embassy immediately issued a statement under the name of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who said the verdicts "demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable."
"Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future," Khalilzad said.
Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaim told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject the sectarian violence ripping the country apart and to "not take revenge" on U.S. invaders.
"The message from President Saddam to his people came during a meeting in Baghdad this morning, just before the so-called Iraqi court issued its verdict in his trial," al-Dulaimi said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett praised the verdict by an Iraqi court. “The evidence against him has been heard in full court, it has been tested in full court, and their verdict has been given in a court of the people against whom his crimes were committed,” she said.
After the verdict was read, a trembling Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people, and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"
Other verdicts followHe initially refused Chief Judge Raouf Adbul-Rahman's order to rise to hear the verdict and sentence. Two bailiffs lifted Saddam to his feet, and he remained standing but turned to one guard, telling him to stop twisting his arm.
Former Vice President and Saddam deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison.
Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests.
Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Baath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately freed.
Before the trial began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the Saddam trial a "travesty."
Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."
'A lot of incriminating evidence'The trial proceedings were shown on Iraqi and pan-Arab satellite television channels with a 20-minute delay. Ahead of the verdicts, several channels aired documentaries about Saddam's crackdowns on Kurds and Shiites. They also aired videotape of mass graves being uncovered after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in
Al-Masai television, run by the prominent Shiite Dawa party, played solemn music as it scrolled through snapshots of Iraqis who went missing under Saddam's 23-year rule.
Another Shiite channel, al-Furat, aired archive footage of Saddam from the 1980s proclaiming, "Everyone stands against the revolution, whether they are 100 or 2,000 or 10,000, I will chop their heads off and this doesn't shake a hair of me at all."
U.S. officials associated with the tribunal said Saddam's repeated courtroom outbursts during the nine-month trial may have played a key part in his conviction.
They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in an assassination attempt against him.
"Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" he asked, standing before the panel of five judges.
Damning decreeLater in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approving death sentences for the 148 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him.
About 50 of those sentenced by "The Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were juveniles.
"Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence," said one of the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "Saddam thought he had all the right answers, when in fact he was helping the court establish "command responsibility."
Under Saddam, Iraq's large bureaucracy showed consistent tendency to document government orders, policies and minutes of meetings. That, according to the U.S. officials, helped the prosecution produce more than 30 documents that clearly established the chain of command under Saddam.
One document gave the names of every one from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq. Another, prepared by a close Saddam aide, gave the president a blow-by-blow account of the punitive measures taken against the people of Dujail following the failed attempt on Saddam's life.
Trial mirrored turmoil of IraqSaddam's trial had from the outset appeared to reflect the turmoil and violence prevailing in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled the former president.
One of Saddam's lawyers was assassinated the day after the trial's opening session on Oct. 19, last year. Two more were later assassinated and a fourth one fled the country.
In January, chief judge Rizgar Amin, a Kurd, resigned after complaints by Shiite politicians that he had failed to keep control of court proceedings. He, in turn, complained of political interference in the trial. Another Kurd, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, replaced Amin.
Hearings were frequently disrupted by outbursts from Saddam and Ibrahim, with the two raging against what they said was the illegitimacy of the court, their bad treatment in the U.S.-run facility where they are being held and the lack of protection of their defense attorneys.
The defense lawyers contributed to the chaos in the courtroom by staging several boycotts.
© 2006 The Associated Press.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq's High Tribunal on Sunday found Saddam Hussein guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced him to hang for the 1982 killing of 148 Shiites in the city of Dujail. The visibly shaken former leader shouted "God is great!"
Saddam's half brother and former intelligence chief Barzan Ibrahim, and Awad Hamed al-Bandar, head of the former Revolutionary Court, were sentenced to join Saddam on the gallows for the Dujail killings after an unsuccessful assassination attempt during a Saddam visit to the city 35 miles north of Baghdad.
The death sentences automatically go to a nine-judge appeals panel which has unlimited time to review the case. If the verdicts and sentences are upheld, the executions must be carried out within 30 days.
Chief prosecutor Jaafar al-Moussawi told reporters that the Anfal trial now in progress for Saddam and others alleged role in gassing and killing Kurds would continue while the appeals process is underway. But if the appellate judges uphold the death sentence, the Anfal proceedings and other cases would be halted and Saddam hanged.
Al-Moussawi said Saddam would be hanged if the sentence were upheld, despite his demand that he be shot by a firing squad.
A court official told The Associated Press that the appeals process was likely to take three to four weeks once the formal paperwork was submitted.
Clashes, celebrationsClashes immediately broke out in north Baghdad's heavily Sunni Azamiyah district where police were battling men with machine guns. At least seven mortar shells slammed to earth around the Abu Hanifa mosque, the holiest Sunni shrine in the capital. There was no immediate word on casualties.
Celebratory gunfire rang out elsewhere in Baghdad, and the people in Sadr City, the capital's Shiite slum, celebrated in the streets, calling out "Where are you Saddam? We want to fight you."
Breathing heavily as he ran along the streets, 35-year-old Abu Sinan said, "This is an unprecedented feeling of happiness...nothing matches it, no festival nor marriage nor birth matches it. The verdict says Saddam must pay the price for murdering tens of thousands of Iraqis."
A jubilant crowd of young men carried pictures of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and handed out candy to children.
In Tikrit, Saddam's hometown, 1,000 people defied the curfew and carried pictures of the city's favorite son through the streets.
Some declared the court a product of the U.S. "occupation forces" and decried the verdict.
"By our souls, by our blood we sacrifice for you Saddam" and "Saddam, your name shakes America."
People were celebrating in the streets of Dujail, a Tigris River city of 84,000, as the verdict was read. They burned pictures of their former tormentor.
Celebratory gunfire also rang out in Kurdish neighborhoods across the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, where taxi driver Khatab Ahmed sat on a mattress in his living room to watch trial coverage with his wife and six children.
"Thank God I lived to see the day when the criminals received their punishment," the 40-year-old exclaimed on hearing of Saddam's death sentence.
His brother and uncle were arrested by Saddam's security forces in the 1980s and disappeared forever. Two cousins died in a 1991 Kurdish uprising.
‘Trial was fair,’ Talabani says in ParisIraq’s president said Sunday that the trial against the ousted Iraqi leader was fair. But Jalal Talabani would not comment on the guilty verdict or death sentence for fear it could inflame tensions in his volatile nation.
“I think the trial was fair,” the president told The Associated Press at his Paris hotel, where he watched the proceedings live on television. “Those people had the full right to say what they intended.”
Talabani has opposed the death penalty in the past, but found a way around it by deputizing a vice president to sign an execution order on his behalf — a substitute that has been legally accepted.
Talabani, a Sunni Kurd who once took up arms against Saddam and was elected president in April 2005, would not comment Sunday about the use of the death penalty, saying he would make his position known after all the legal proceedings were exhausted.
“I must respect the independence of the Iraqi judiciary,” Talabani said. “Until the end I must be silent ... because my comments could affect the situation.”
Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari was more outspoken about the verdict.
“This was the only reasonable outcome,” he told AP, calling Sunday “a historic day” that would bring closure to Iraq’s relations with its former leader.
“It’s a victory for the victims of Saddam,” he said.
'An opportunity to unite'The United States Embassy immediately issued a statement under the name of Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who said the verdicts "demonstrate the commitment of the Iraqi people to hold them (Saddam and his co-defendants) accountable."
"Although the Iraqis may face difficult days in the coming weeks, closing the book on Saddam and his regime is an opportunity to unite and build a better future," Khalilzad said.
Saddam's chief lawyer Khalil al-Dulaim told AP his client called on Iraqis to reject the sectarian violence ripping the country apart and to "not take revenge" on U.S. invaders.
"The message from President Saddam to his people came during a meeting in Baghdad this morning, just before the so-called Iraqi court issued its verdict in his trial," al-Dulaimi said.
British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett praised the verdict by an Iraqi court. “The evidence against him has been heard in full court, it has been tested in full court, and their verdict has been given in a court of the people against whom his crimes were committed,” she said.
After the verdict was read, a trembling Saddam yelled out, "Long live the people, and death to their enemies. Long live the glorious nation, and death to its enemies!"
Other verdicts followHe initially refused Chief Judge Raouf Adbul-Rahman's order to rise to hear the verdict and sentence. Two bailiffs lifted Saddam to his feet, and he remained standing but turned to one guard, telling him to stop twisting his arm.
Former Vice President and Saddam deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan was sentenced to life in prison.
Three defendants were sentenced to 15 years in prison for torture and premeditated murder. Abdullah Kazim Ruwayyid and his son Mizhar Abdullah Ruwayyid were party officials Dujail, along with Ali Dayih Ali. They were believed responsible for the Dujail arrests.
Mohammed Azawi Ali, a former Dujail Baath Party official, was acquitted for lack of evidence and immediately freed.
Before the trial began, one of Saddam's lawyers, former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, was ejected from the courtroom after handing the judge a memorandum in which he called the Saddam trial a "travesty."
Abdul-Rahman pointed to Clark and said in English, "Get out."
'A lot of incriminating evidence'The trial proceedings were shown on Iraqi and pan-Arab satellite television channels with a 20-minute delay. Ahead of the verdicts, several channels aired documentaries about Saddam's crackdowns on Kurds and Shiites. They also aired videotape of mass graves being uncovered after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in
Al-Masai television, run by the prominent Shiite Dawa party, played solemn music as it scrolled through snapshots of Iraqis who went missing under Saddam's 23-year rule.
Another Shiite channel, al-Furat, aired archive footage of Saddam from the 1980s proclaiming, "Everyone stands against the revolution, whether they are 100 or 2,000 or 10,000, I will chop their heads off and this doesn't shake a hair of me at all."
U.S. officials associated with the tribunal said Saddam's repeated courtroom outbursts during the nine-month trial may have played a key part in his conviction.
They cited his admission in a March 1 hearing that he had ordered the trial of 148 Shiites who were eventually executed, insisting that doing so was legal because they were suspected in an assassination attempt against him.
"Where is the crime? Where is the crime?" he asked, standing before the panel of five judges.
Damning decreeLater in the same session, he argued that his co-defendants must be released and that because he was in charge, he alone must be tried. His outburst came a day after the prosecution presented a presidential decree with a signature they said was Saddam's approving death sentences for the 148 Shiites, their most direct evidence against him.
About 50 of those sentenced by "The Revolutionary Court" died during interrogation before they could go to the gallows. Some of those hanged were juveniles.
"Every time they (defendants) rose and spoke, they provided a lot of incriminating evidence," said one of the U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "Saddam thought he had all the right answers, when in fact he was helping the court establish "command responsibility."
Under Saddam, Iraq's large bureaucracy showed consistent tendency to document government orders, policies and minutes of meetings. That, according to the U.S. officials, helped the prosecution produce more than 30 documents that clearly established the chain of command under Saddam.
One document gave the names of every one from Dujail banished to a desert detention camp in southern Iraq. Another, prepared by a close Saddam aide, gave the president a blow-by-blow account of the punitive measures taken against the people of Dujail following the failed attempt on Saddam's life.
Trial mirrored turmoil of IraqSaddam's trial had from the outset appeared to reflect the turmoil and violence prevailing in Iraq since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppled the former president.
One of Saddam's lawyers was assassinated the day after the trial's opening session on Oct. 19, last year. Two more were later assassinated and a fourth one fled the country.
In January, chief judge Rizgar Amin, a Kurd, resigned after complaints by Shiite politicians that he had failed to keep control of court proceedings. He, in turn, complained of political interference in the trial. Another Kurd, Raouf Abdul-Rahman, replaced Amin.
Hearings were frequently disrupted by outbursts from Saddam and Ibrahim, with the two raging against what they said was the illegitimacy of the court, their bad treatment in the U.S.-run facility where they are being held and the lack of protection of their defense attorneys.
The defense lawyers contributed to the chaos in the courtroom by staging several boycotts.
© 2006 The Associated Press.
Wednesday, November 01, 2006
7-9 Shot In Castro's Hallowe'en - 2006
Good thing, I guess, that I didn't take Jonah to to this annual event:
Violence marred the annual Halloween celebration in San Francisco's Castro district Tuesday when seven people were shot in the 2200 block of Market Street just as the event was drawing to an end, police said.
The shooting occurred near Sullivan's Funeral Chapel about a block away from the main stage of the party that drew thousands of revelers, police said.
Police heard the shots and ran toward 2255 Market to find two women and five men on the ground, two with life-threatening injuries. One suffered a gunshot to the head. The victims were transported to San Francisco General Hospital. The other five suffered nonlife-threatening injuries. Police also said they received reports of at least one stabbing and one report of a possible sexual assault.
The gunfire erupted at 10:40 p.m., about 10 minutes after the techno music ended and police began making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave. Fearing violence and unruly crowds, this year city leaders for the first time imposed an 11 p.m. curfew on the event.
"We believe the shooting happened in an area that was cordoned off so someone might have snuck a gun inside," said Sgt. Neville Gittens.
Police detained two people for questioning, who could be witnesses or suspects.
San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the city's gay mecca and surrounding neighborhoods, had said earlier in the day that he and other leaders hoped to phase out the annual gathering, which drew nearly 300,000 people last year -- too big, he said, for the merchants and residents to bear.
Before the violence broke, people were enjoying the festivities, standing shoulder to shoulder in a big throng that included mermaids, monsters and many men sans their shirts at Market and Castro streets.
"This is tragic," Dufty said. "I'm disappointed. All along we've been concerned about an increase in the climate of violence, especially among juveniles." He said his information was that all the victims were young.
Dufty had said the objective of Castro leaders was to encourage people to visit the district, but to end their nights at bars or clubs in their hometowns or in other San Francisco neighborhoods. By his own estimation, only 10 percent of those at the Halloween party are from the neighborhood.
"There's not a lot of support for this annual even in the community," Dufty said. "And now this really begs the question, who are we doing this for?"
This year the police presence in the Castro was increased by 25 percent, the performance stages were reduced from three to one, and officials announced an increased effort to cite public drunks and illegal parkers.
Seven people had been arrested for public drunkenness -- and that had been the only trouble up until the shootings. Police successfully used an air raid siren to disperse the crowd, and the city's Department of Public Works followed with street sweepers.
"I just think this is a transitional year for Halloween in the Castro," Dufty said Tuesday evening before the violence and after taking his daughter in a pumpkin costume to 24th Street in Noe Valley for the city's kid version of Castro Street.
The annual event has had violence in the past -- but nothing as serious as the shootings of seven people.
Some residents avoided the night altogether and came out in costume on "secret" Saturday night instead.
"I've come the last few years and the crowds are overwhelming," said Jon Ivan Weaver, who affixed crows and fake blood to his clothes and showed up both Saturday and Tuesday dressed as Tippi Hedren in the movie "The Birds." "Something has to be done."
The gathering, which began in the 1960s, took a negative turn in 2002 when four people were stabbed, 30 people were arrested and police were pelted with bottles. Ever since, city officials have been trying to make it safer, adding security gates and screening for dangerous items, a ban on public alcohol consumption and a lane reserved for emergency vehicles.
The rumor in Karen Santos' Butte County hometown of Oroville was that this was the last year for the Castro Halloween party. She hadn't attended in more than a decade, after she moved away from the neighborhood, but she rallied her boyfriend and showed up at 5:30 p.m. dressed as the late "queen of Tejano music," singer Selena.
"I'm staying until the party is over," said Santos, 40. "If the party is still going after 11, I'm sticking around."
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who endorses the quieter, gentler Halloween plan, walked the street with his aides and police escorts around 6 p.m., moving briskly through the crowd.
If Angel Pasillas of San Leandro, dressed as Al Pacino's Scarface, could have gotten some face time with Newsom, he would have told him that watering down Halloween is like taking the Mardi Gras out of New Orleans. Usually, Pasillas drives his car to the Castro on Halloween and stays out until 4 a.m. This time, he took BART, and planned to leave once the crowds thin out.
"We should be happy to hold events like this," he said. "I don't appreciate the changes."
Halloween in the Castro has become a central issue in Dufty's Nov. 7 re-election campaign. His main challenger, Alix Rosenthal, has said Dufty is slowly draining the fun out of the neighborhood.
She said the shootings were a result of poor planning on the part of the city.
"This event was planned way too late in the game," she said. "The police have done a great job, but they can't do it alone. The city needed to have dedicated more resources. It's really sad what happened tonight."
She added that it's silly and unrealistic to assume a spontaneous gathering can be shut down by city officials at their desired hour.
Paul Ellis, 49, isn't so sure. As a 22-year resident of the Castro and a manager at Cliff's Variety store, he understands the power of tradition but feels the strain of the Halloween invasion.
"I don't want to lose this thing that so many people enjoy so much," said Ellis, who dressed in colorful silks as an Arabian sultan. "But this is a residential neighborhood. It's not meant to hold this many people."
E-mail the writers at mmay@sfchronicle.com,
11-01) 15:35 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- As police today pieced together what led to a shooting that injured nine people at the Castro Halloween celebration, city officials were talking about whether the party should be over for good.
"When you have a historic event, you can't just stop them, because people will still show up," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today.
Still, he said that is an option city officials are considering.
As Newsom, talking to reporters, laid out options -- collecting an entry fee, setting an age requirement, using metal detectors -- he echoed the sentiments of many San Franciscans
"Thank God no one was killed," he said. "That probably would have ended the event immediately, and that does not mean we will not consider shutting this even down in the future."
Police say that the Tuesday night shooting was sparked by a bottle being thrown at someone.
They questioned one person in connection with the 10:40 p.m. incident, but that person has since been released. No arrests have been made.
The altercation involved two groups of young people, ages 15 to 25, officials said. At least one of the groups was from San Francisco, police said.
After someone threw a bottle, hitting someone in the other group, a person in the second group opened fire, shooting as many as nine times, police said.
San Francisco police believe at least one gang was involved in the shooting, which is being investigated by the department's gang task force.
Nine people were shot, but police said only two were taken by ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital: a woman whose head was grazed by a bullet and a second victim who was hit in the knee.
Several others were treated at the scene, including a woman who was not shot but injured when she was trampled by the crowd.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose district includes the Castro neighborhood, said two additional shooting victims took themselves to Kaiser Hospital in South San Francisco and another brought himself to General Hospital for treatment.
He described the victims, including the one who was trampled, as eight men and two women, all in their teens or early 20s. All are expected to recover, he said.
City officials and residents today were talking about how to handle the raucous event next year.
Said Dufty: "Everything is on the table right now.
"The sad part of this is that the city really stepped it up and rose to the occasion and did everything we could do make it safe," he said.
Dufty and Newsom are meeting this afternoon to discuss the matter, and the mayor said he also has been speaking with Police Chief Heather Fong.
The gunfire erupted about 10 minutes after the techno music had ended and police had begun making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave the party, which this year was given an 11 p.m. curfew.
The gathering, which has been going on for decades, attracted the city's attention in 2002, when four people were stabbed. Since then, alcohol has been banned and there has been talk of canceling the party altogether.
This year, officials reined in the event even further, increasing police presence by 25 percent, setting an 11 p.m. curfew and limiting entertainment from three stages to one.
More than 500 police officers and 100 sheriff's deputies staffed the entry gates with instructions to search people's bags for alcohol and weapons before allowing them into the cordoned-off blocks. But today, many attendees said the searches were intermittent at best.
"Somehow, someone slipped in with a weapon," Newsom said. "The question is what we could have done differently. We're going to analyze that."
Dufty said this morning that police and city departments involved in the event did "an incredible job.
"Can you imagine if this was an event we weren't curtailing, what violence could have been if people were still out at midnight or 1 a.m.?" he said. "People who stopped me on the streets this morning said, 'This is what I have been fearful for.' ... It was a very young crowd ... with some menacing elements."
Castro residents had mixed reactions about the event this morning: Several said it should be canceled, while others said it didn't appear the police had done a good enough job checking attendees for weapons.
Neighborhood resident Stephen Chien said he exited the Castro Muni Station at 8:30 p.m. on his way home from work and saw "absolutely no weapons check." Nob Hill resident Monica Green said she entered the area around 9 p.m. at 18th and Castro streets and also did not see police checking anyone.
"I was standing in line, in the crush to get through the barricades, and a young guy was standing next to me with his girlfriend and a couple of friends," she said. "He pulled out a (box cutter) and I thought, 'Oh my God.' He asked his girlfriend to hide it, and she stuck it down her shirt."
Green said she told a policeman about the knife and he "simply shrugged," then asked a fellow officer to search Green's bag.
Alix Rosenthal, an Oakland attorney who is looking to unseat Dufty in next week's election, today used the shooting as an opportunity to criticize her opponent.
In a press release, she said she planned to call for a public hearing "regarding mismanagement of (the) Halloween event and the resulting violence."
Rosenthal said Dufty "botched" his handling of the event and criticized the city's plan to shut down the party early. She accused Dufty of planning the event single-handedly and said she never supported the effort to "eradicate" it.
"This plan was a recipe for disaster," she said.
Earlier, Dufty said he had worked with police, fire and other city departments to plan the event, and indicated he expected Rosenthal to criticize him.
"I have stood up and taken responsibility for this event for four years," he said.
E-mail the writers at mlagos@sfchronicle.com,
Violence marred the annual Halloween celebration in San Francisco's Castro district Tuesday when seven people were shot in the 2200 block of Market Street just as the event was drawing to an end, police said.
The shooting occurred near Sullivan's Funeral Chapel about a block away from the main stage of the party that drew thousands of revelers, police said.
Police heard the shots and ran toward 2255 Market to find two women and five men on the ground, two with life-threatening injuries. One suffered a gunshot to the head. The victims were transported to San Francisco General Hospital. The other five suffered nonlife-threatening injuries. Police also said they received reports of at least one stabbing and one report of a possible sexual assault.
The gunfire erupted at 10:40 p.m., about 10 minutes after the techno music ended and police began making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave. Fearing violence and unruly crowds, this year city leaders for the first time imposed an 11 p.m. curfew on the event.
"We believe the shooting happened in an area that was cordoned off so someone might have snuck a gun inside," said Sgt. Neville Gittens.
Police detained two people for questioning, who could be witnesses or suspects.
San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty, who represents the city's gay mecca and surrounding neighborhoods, had said earlier in the day that he and other leaders hoped to phase out the annual gathering, which drew nearly 300,000 people last year -- too big, he said, for the merchants and residents to bear.
Before the violence broke, people were enjoying the festivities, standing shoulder to shoulder in a big throng that included mermaids, monsters and many men sans their shirts at Market and Castro streets.
"This is tragic," Dufty said. "I'm disappointed. All along we've been concerned about an increase in the climate of violence, especially among juveniles." He said his information was that all the victims were young.
Dufty had said the objective of Castro leaders was to encourage people to visit the district, but to end their nights at bars or clubs in their hometowns or in other San Francisco neighborhoods. By his own estimation, only 10 percent of those at the Halloween party are from the neighborhood.
"There's not a lot of support for this annual even in the community," Dufty said. "And now this really begs the question, who are we doing this for?"
This year the police presence in the Castro was increased by 25 percent, the performance stages were reduced from three to one, and officials announced an increased effort to cite public drunks and illegal parkers.
Seven people had been arrested for public drunkenness -- and that had been the only trouble up until the shootings. Police successfully used an air raid siren to disperse the crowd, and the city's Department of Public Works followed with street sweepers.
"I just think this is a transitional year for Halloween in the Castro," Dufty said Tuesday evening before the violence and after taking his daughter in a pumpkin costume to 24th Street in Noe Valley for the city's kid version of Castro Street.
The annual event has had violence in the past -- but nothing as serious as the shootings of seven people.
Some residents avoided the night altogether and came out in costume on "secret" Saturday night instead.
"I've come the last few years and the crowds are overwhelming," said Jon Ivan Weaver, who affixed crows and fake blood to his clothes and showed up both Saturday and Tuesday dressed as Tippi Hedren in the movie "The Birds." "Something has to be done."
The gathering, which began in the 1960s, took a negative turn in 2002 when four people were stabbed, 30 people were arrested and police were pelted with bottles. Ever since, city officials have been trying to make it safer, adding security gates and screening for dangerous items, a ban on public alcohol consumption and a lane reserved for emergency vehicles.
The rumor in Karen Santos' Butte County hometown of Oroville was that this was the last year for the Castro Halloween party. She hadn't attended in more than a decade, after she moved away from the neighborhood, but she rallied her boyfriend and showed up at 5:30 p.m. dressed as the late "queen of Tejano music," singer Selena.
"I'm staying until the party is over," said Santos, 40. "If the party is still going after 11, I'm sticking around."
Mayor Gavin Newsom, who endorses the quieter, gentler Halloween plan, walked the street with his aides and police escorts around 6 p.m., moving briskly through the crowd.
If Angel Pasillas of San Leandro, dressed as Al Pacino's Scarface, could have gotten some face time with Newsom, he would have told him that watering down Halloween is like taking the Mardi Gras out of New Orleans. Usually, Pasillas drives his car to the Castro on Halloween and stays out until 4 a.m. This time, he took BART, and planned to leave once the crowds thin out.
"We should be happy to hold events like this," he said. "I don't appreciate the changes."
Halloween in the Castro has become a central issue in Dufty's Nov. 7 re-election campaign. His main challenger, Alix Rosenthal, has said Dufty is slowly draining the fun out of the neighborhood.
She said the shootings were a result of poor planning on the part of the city.
"This event was planned way too late in the game," she said. "The police have done a great job, but they can't do it alone. The city needed to have dedicated more resources. It's really sad what happened tonight."
She added that it's silly and unrealistic to assume a spontaneous gathering can be shut down by city officials at their desired hour.
Paul Ellis, 49, isn't so sure. As a 22-year resident of the Castro and a manager at Cliff's Variety store, he understands the power of tradition but feels the strain of the Halloween invasion.
"I don't want to lose this thing that so many people enjoy so much," said Ellis, who dressed in colorful silks as an Arabian sultan. "But this is a residential neighborhood. It's not meant to hold this many people."
E-mail the writers at mmay@sfchronicle.com,
11-01) 15:35 PST SAN FRANCISCO -- As police today pieced together what led to a shooting that injured nine people at the Castro Halloween celebration, city officials were talking about whether the party should be over for good.
"When you have a historic event, you can't just stop them, because people will still show up," San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said today.
Still, he said that is an option city officials are considering.
As Newsom, talking to reporters, laid out options -- collecting an entry fee, setting an age requirement, using metal detectors -- he echoed the sentiments of many San Franciscans
"Thank God no one was killed," he said. "That probably would have ended the event immediately, and that does not mean we will not consider shutting this even down in the future."
Police say that the Tuesday night shooting was sparked by a bottle being thrown at someone.
They questioned one person in connection with the 10:40 p.m. incident, but that person has since been released. No arrests have been made.
The altercation involved two groups of young people, ages 15 to 25, officials said. At least one of the groups was from San Francisco, police said.
After someone threw a bottle, hitting someone in the other group, a person in the second group opened fire, shooting as many as nine times, police said.
San Francisco police believe at least one gang was involved in the shooting, which is being investigated by the department's gang task force.
Nine people were shot, but police said only two were taken by ambulance to San Francisco General Hospital: a woman whose head was grazed by a bullet and a second victim who was hit in the knee.
Several others were treated at the scene, including a woman who was not shot but injured when she was trampled by the crowd.
Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose district includes the Castro neighborhood, said two additional shooting victims took themselves to Kaiser Hospital in South San Francisco and another brought himself to General Hospital for treatment.
He described the victims, including the one who was trampled, as eight men and two women, all in their teens or early 20s. All are expected to recover, he said.
City officials and residents today were talking about how to handle the raucous event next year.
Said Dufty: "Everything is on the table right now.
"The sad part of this is that the city really stepped it up and rose to the occasion and did everything we could do make it safe," he said.
Dufty and Newsom are meeting this afternoon to discuss the matter, and the mayor said he also has been speaking with Police Chief Heather Fong.
The gunfire erupted about 10 minutes after the techno music had ended and police had begun making announcements over a loudspeaker that it was time to leave the party, which this year was given an 11 p.m. curfew.
The gathering, which has been going on for decades, attracted the city's attention in 2002, when four people were stabbed. Since then, alcohol has been banned and there has been talk of canceling the party altogether.
This year, officials reined in the event even further, increasing police presence by 25 percent, setting an 11 p.m. curfew and limiting entertainment from three stages to one.
More than 500 police officers and 100 sheriff's deputies staffed the entry gates with instructions to search people's bags for alcohol and weapons before allowing them into the cordoned-off blocks. But today, many attendees said the searches were intermittent at best.
"Somehow, someone slipped in with a weapon," Newsom said. "The question is what we could have done differently. We're going to analyze that."
Dufty said this morning that police and city departments involved in the event did "an incredible job.
"Can you imagine if this was an event we weren't curtailing, what violence could have been if people were still out at midnight or 1 a.m.?" he said. "People who stopped me on the streets this morning said, 'This is what I have been fearful for.' ... It was a very young crowd ... with some menacing elements."
Castro residents had mixed reactions about the event this morning: Several said it should be canceled, while others said it didn't appear the police had done a good enough job checking attendees for weapons.
Neighborhood resident Stephen Chien said he exited the Castro Muni Station at 8:30 p.m. on his way home from work and saw "absolutely no weapons check." Nob Hill resident Monica Green said she entered the area around 9 p.m. at 18th and Castro streets and also did not see police checking anyone.
"I was standing in line, in the crush to get through the barricades, and a young guy was standing next to me with his girlfriend and a couple of friends," she said. "He pulled out a (box cutter) and I thought, 'Oh my God.' He asked his girlfriend to hide it, and she stuck it down her shirt."
Green said she told a policeman about the knife and he "simply shrugged," then asked a fellow officer to search Green's bag.
Alix Rosenthal, an Oakland attorney who is looking to unseat Dufty in next week's election, today used the shooting as an opportunity to criticize her opponent.
In a press release, she said she planned to call for a public hearing "regarding mismanagement of (the) Halloween event and the resulting violence."
Rosenthal said Dufty "botched" his handling of the event and criticized the city's plan to shut down the party early. She accused Dufty of planning the event single-handedly and said she never supported the effort to "eradicate" it.
"This plan was a recipe for disaster," she said.
Earlier, Dufty said he had worked with police, fire and other city departments to plan the event, and indicated he expected Rosenthal to criticize him.
"I have stood up and taken responsibility for this event for four years," he said.
E-mail the writers at mlagos@sfchronicle.com,
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)