Vice President Dick Cheney’s office was involved in removing statements on health risks posed by global warming from a draft of a health official’s Senate testimony last year, a former senior government environmental official said on Tuesday. The former official, Jason K. Burnett, made the assertion and described similar incidents in a three-page letter to Senator Barbara Boxer, a California Democrat who is the chairwoman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He then stood with her at a news conference at which she excoriated the Bush administration. ‘History will judge this Bush administration harshly for recklessly covering up a real threat to the people they are supposed to protect,’ Mrs. Boxer said. Mr. Burnett, a lifelong Democrat, resigned in May from his post as an associate deputy administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency and chief adviser on climate to Stephen L. Johnson, the E.P.A. administrator. Mr. Burnett has previously criticized the administration’s climate policies and endorsed and contributed to Senator Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. In the letter, while declining to name individuals, Mr. Burnett said the offices of Mr. Cheney and the White House Council on Environmental Quality ‘were seeking deletions’ of sections of […]
The United States’ so-called war on drugs brings to mind the old saying that if you find yourself trapped in a deep hole, stop digging. Yet, last week, the Senate approved an aid package to combat drug trafficking in Mexico and Central America, with a record $400 million going to Mexico and $65 million to Central America. The United States has been spending $69 billion a year worldwide for the last 40 years, for a total of $2.5 trillion, on drug prohibition — with little to show for it. Is anyone actually benefiting from this war? Six groups come to mind. The first group are the drug lords in nations such as Colombia, Afghanistan and Mexico, as well as those in the United States. They are making billions of dollars every year — tax free. The second group are the street gangs that infest many of our cities and neighborhoods, whose main source of income is the sale of illegal drugs. Third are those people in government who are paid well to fight the first two groups. Their powers and bureaucratic fiefdoms grow larger with each tax dollar spent to fund this massive program that has […]
WASHINGTON — Large-scale government intervention in the US housing crisis would be counterproductive and prevent a ‘necessary’ correction in home prices, according to a Federal Reserve study released Monday. The study by economist William Emmons of the St. Louis Fed concluded that ‘government interventions directly in housing or mortgage markets are not necessarily the best policy responses.’ ‘By allowing markets to sort themselves out quickly, a foundation for sustainable homeownership and responsible mortgage lending can be re-established,’ the regional branch of the central bank said. The report said home prices in many parts of the country may fall from their peak levels in 2006 or 2007 by the largest amount in several decades, but that ‘from an economic standpoint this decline of overvalued properties is necessary.’ ‘If house prices are allowed to remain artificially high, homebuilders will make the eventual correction even worse by supplying more unneeded houses and driving prices down even further,’ the report said. The economist noted that the phenomenon of home foreclosure is an ‘unpleasant, but essential aspect of the mortgage market.’ ‘In order to ensure the mortgage market functions effectively, the lender must have the ability to seize the […]
CULEY LE PATRY, NORMANDY, France — A slow-motion crisis threatens the French way of life – the great snail shortage of 2008. Shell-shocked French food processors have warned that they can no longer obtain sufficient quantities of snails from eastern Europe, their principal source of supply. Snail collecting for the French market used to be a popular way of making money in eastern European countries, especially in Poland and Hungary. But since they joined the European Union five years ago, better-paid job opportunities have flourished. In a glum statement, the French food processing industry announced that snail-collecting was now the object of ‘growing disaffection’ among eastern Europeans. People were no longer keen to leave home before dawn on wet days, armed with a torch, to search the Polish forests or Hungarian scrubland for the ‘burgundy snail’ or Helix pomatia. As a result, the price of processed snails in France will rise sharply later this year, warned the Fédération des Industries d’Aliments Conservés. The French eat 25,000 tonnes of snails a year – equivalent to 700 million individual snails. Two in every three snails eaten in the world is consumed in France. The attraction remains a mystery […]
WASHINGTON — Congress should repeal the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ law because the presence of gays in the military is unlikely to undermine the ability to fight and win, according to a new study released by a California-based research center. The study was conducted by four retired military officers, including the three-star Air Force lieutenant general who in early 1993 was tasked with implementing President Clinton’s policy that the military stop questioning recruits on their sexual orientation. ‘Evidence shows that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly is unlikely to pose any significant risk to morale, good order, discipline or cohesion,’ the officers states. To support its contention, the panel points to the British and Israeli militaries, where it says gay people serve openly without hurting the effectiveness of combat operations. Undermining unit cohesion was a determining factor when Congress passed the 1993 law, intended to keep the military from asking recruits their sexual orientation. In turn, service members can’t say they are gay or bisexual, engage in homosexual activity or marry a member of the same sex. Supporters of the ban contend there is still no empirical evidence that allowing gays to serve openly […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
