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holiday suggestions from michael moore

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=17446

1. Many families of soldiers are hurting financially, especially those families of reservists and National Guard who are gone from the full-time jobs ("just one weekend a month and we'll pay for your college education!"). You can help them by contacting the Armed Forces Emergency Relief Funds at http://www.afrtrust.org/ ...

2. Thousands of Iraqi civilians have been killed by our bombs and indiscriminate shooting. We must help protect them and their survivors. You can do so by supporting the Quakers' drive to provide infant care kits to Iraqi hospitals – find out more here: http://www.afsc.org/iraq/relief/default.shtm. You can also help the people of Iraq by supporting the Iraqi Red Crescent Society – here's how to contact them: http://www.ifrc.org/address/iq.asp, or you can make an online donation through the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies by going here: http://www.ifrc.org/HELPNOW/donate/donate_iraq.asp.

3. ...The military no longer accepts packages addressed to "Any Soldier," so you'll have to get their names first. Figure out who you can help from your area, and send them books, CDs, games, footballs, gloves, blankets – anything that may make their extended (and extended and extended...) stay in Iraq a little brighter and more comfortable. You can also sponsor care packages to American troops through the USO: http://www.usocares.org/.

4. ...Get involved with your local peace group – you can find one near where you live by visiting United for Peace, at: http://www.unitedforpeace.org and the Vietnam Veterans Against War: http://www.vvaw.org/contact/. A large demonstration is being planned for March 20, check here for more details: http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?id=2136.

... I know it feels hopeless. That's how they want us to feel. Don't give up. We owe it to these kids, the troops we support, to get them the hell outta there and back home so they can help organize the drive to remove the war profiteers from office next November.

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http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=37091&d=27&m=12&y=2003

JEDDAH, 27 December 2003 — Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, now being grilled by American investigators, has reportedly warned US authorities that he will expose Washington’s “political games” and its behind-the-scene role in the occupation of Kuwait. “Saddam threatened that if they continue to pressure him he will reveal startling facts — about America’s political games with his country — that would shock the whole world,” Al-Watan Arabic daily quoted a high-level European source as saying.

...According to the European source close to US investigators, Saddam also said that he would ask the International Court of Justice in The Hague to try the United States for its crimes against the Iraqi people for allegedly using internationally prohibited weapons against the Iraqis during the last two wars against his country. “If the Americans want to try me in a court of law, they should also try high-ranking international officials,” the source quoted the former Iraqi dictator as saying. Saddam has insisted that his statements are recorded verbatim, the paper said.

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http://electroniciraq.net/news/1271.shtml

18 December 2003 - On the evening of December 16th, in the Amiriya suburb of West Baghdad, the residents held a pro-Saddam Hussein demonstration. Many of the kids were throwing stones at a US Humvee Patrol as it passed by. Aside from this, it was a non-violent demonstration... Today, US forces from the First Armored Division returned with two large tanks, helicopters, several Bradley fighting vehicles and at least 10 hummers to seal off the Al Shahid Adnan Kherala secondary school for boys. The school was sealed off completely.

...I asked the first soldier I came upon today at the school, "I'm an American journalist. Can you please fill me in on what is going on here?" He started to talk to me, and then was yelled at by another soldier in a tank behind us... "I can't talk to you," he said.

We walked closer to the school. Two hummers with loudspeakers mounted atop them were parked out front... A US soldier from Wisconsin, who asked to remain nameless, provided me with the following information on what was happening: He told me the aforementioned about the demonstration last night, and that IP (Iraqi Police) were in the school trying to catch the kids who were throwing rocks last night.

I asked him if anyone was injured last night at the demonstration, or if any weapons were fired. "No. Some kids were just throwing rocks." I ask him how they knew which kids to talk with from last night. "We had some IP here last night who took photos. They are going through the school to get the kids in the pictures."

Several Humvees with machine guns surrounded a large canvas covered troop transport truck into which 26 students were loaded, then driven away with tanks both in front and behind.

...Tanks and hummers that were guarding the perimeter of the school now drive down the street next to us, exiting the scene. Several young boys with tears running down their faces pick up stones and throw them at the tanks as they drive by. US soldiers on top of the tanks begin firing M-16's above our heads as we duck inside a taxi. A soldier on another tank, behind the first, passes and is firing randomly above our heads as well. Kids and pedestrians in the shops are running for cover. None of us can believe what we are seeing.

A boy holding a stone is standing just on the side of the street glaring at the tanks. Another soldier riding by atop yet another passing Bradley pulls his pistol out and aims it at the boy's head, keeping him in his sights until the tank rolls out of sight. One of the students, crying, yells to me, "Who are the terrorists here now? You have seen this yourself! We are school kids!"

...Thus far, the public relations officer for the First Armored Division has failed to return our phone calls, or emails.

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http://slate.msn.com/id/2093154/entry/2093160/

Ibrahim Ahmed Hakmet is 16... A few days after Saddam's capture, he was arrested by the Americans. About a hundred soldiers in armored Humvees and tanks surrounded the Amriyeh High School... They were looking for boys who had been at a pro-Saddam demonstration the day before. "It's against the law," explained Lt. Col. Leopoldo Quintas, commander of the 2-70 "Old Ironsides" Armored Battalion, which carried out the operation. "And they were displaying pictures of Saddam." "It's subversive," added his public affairs officer.

Ibrahim said he was the first to be caught because he was on his way out of school to get a doctor's note... "An American officer shouted at me: 'Sit down! Sit down!' and indicated that I should kneel, pointing with his gun. Then he said, 'Get up!' I didn't understand what he wanted me to do, so I put my hands on the wall. He kicked me twice on the leg. He was very big. He checked me roughly, even behind my ears, and threw my English and Arabic books away. He cuffed my hands with wire, roughly. He sprained my wrist. And later, when he was taking the wire off, he cut me when he was cutting it with a knife."

..."We were laughing," he said, all tough and unconcerned, wearing his bandaged wrist like a trophy and using a single crutch to support the leg he said was kicked and beaten with a stick. "We knew we hadn't done anything. One of the Americans said in Arabic, 'Incheb!' Shut up!" Ibrahim was full of himself, laughing at the Americans to their faces, getting beaten for his defiance, and then asking for more. "The more I laughed, the more he hit me. It shows what kind of a weak man he was to hit a boy," he sneered.

..."The soldiers went through my class," said Mr. Karim, the math teacher, " 'What is your name? What is your name?' The children were afraid. They had no right, no right to come!" Mr. Hamza, the Arabic teacher, was indignant. "Is this American democracy?" The headmaster, Mr. Fadhil, said he was angry. The boys in the school were angry with him. He had not protected them against the Americans; he had invited the Americans to arrest them. Spray-painted on the wall of the school were slogans: "Saddam's High School!" "Down Down USA!" and "Down With the Informer Principal Fadhil!" They were quickly painted over.

...When the Americans arrested him and his school friends, they took them to their base nearby (a former Republican Guard barracks) and held them in what Ibrahim described as "a cage," and what the colonel called "a temporary holding facility," although he wouldn't let me see it "for security reasons." ...They were fed chicken and macaroni and chocolate bars for lunch. Ibrahim said it was pretty good. "They are civil in a way," Ibrahim said. "They are afraid of the situation here, and that's why they behave badly." But he is not intimidated by them.

His family has seen plenty of American injustice. His father (something to do with the former government, though exactly what Ibrahim wouldn't say) has been detained three times, his uncle twice. His cousin was shot in the leg at an American checkpoint when he didn't understand what the soldier was shouting. His grandmother had three and a half kilos of gold and an heirloom diamond necklace taken during a nighttime raid on her house. All run-of-the-mill, unverifiable stories of the kind I have heard many times.

"A foreigner will always be the weaker one." observed Ibrahim. "This is my country: They came by force they will leave by force." ..."I would have preferred not to have done it," said Lt. Col. Quintas, while acknowledging that the operation at the school had been undertaken on his initiative, "But they need to understand that they are not allowed to do this and that there are consequences."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32605-2003Dec26.html

U.S. forces are increasingly focusing on new lists of individuals thought to be taking a more active role in the anti-U.S. insurgency, military intelligence sources say.

...The Army's 4th Infantry Division has found its own informants and databases more useful than the CIA's lists of former regime loyalists, said the division's Lt. Col. Steven Russell. "If you're asking whether our operations are being driven topdown, my view, and it's a narrow view from Tikrit, is that our information has been driven bottom-up in cooperation with special operations forces locally," Russell said.

...The Army's 82nd Airborne Division, which occupies the restive Sunni Muslim areas west of Baghdad, has its own database of insurgent suspects.

...As fugitives get captured or killed, the old centralized lists seem to be fading away. The military hasn't added new Iraqis to them, and instead seems to be shifting to more dynamic databases. "We don't update the black list or the gray list or the deck of cards," the senior military official said. "It would just get us confused."

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5431.htm

12/27/03: (ICH) Baghdad: On September 24th, there was a huge demonstration in the Al-Adamiyah sector of Baghdad in support of Saddam Hussein, but even more, the demonstration was in opposition to the US occupation of Iraq. Photos were taken of the demonstrators by the Americans, and that night there were home raids and over 100 people detained, from teenagers to old men. Even some women were detained. The next time there was to be a demonstration here, the US military showed up in force, literally filling the streets with tanks, Humvees, and soldiers as Apaches circled like vultures overhead. Needless to say, there was no demonstration.

...More recently on December 14th, on the eve of the announcement of the capture of Saddam Hussein, there was a passionate demonstration by the people of Al-Adamiyah. American soldiers fired sound bombs and shots in the air to dispel the masses in front of the mosque... When there was no compliance, they began shooting the demonstrators. In the end, a total of 13 were killed, the number comprised not only of demonstrators but people shopping and walking on the sidewalks.

The mosque in Al-Adamiyah was shot by the Americans. This action is the worst possible thing the Americans could do to the people who worship there. At this point people took up arms against the occupiers of their country, and even more bloodshed occurred.

...The residents here also tell me that US soldiers have taken the wounded from the hospital here directly to prison. They report Americans using intimidation and fear tactics on the families, as well as others who were wounded and seeking medical care in the hospital. Home raids have become a near nightly event in Al-Adamiyah, and the number of people detained has become almost impossible to track. On the 24th of December, 35 people were detained, many being young men 17 years old when a coffee shop was raided in broad daylight and every man in it was taken away... Many of the men I’ve spoke with today tell me they have seen soldiers steal money and gold from homes they have raided. This story continues to come up time and time again whenever the subject of home raids is discussed.

...Another man listening to our conversation adds that the Americans shot up the local bank, then went inside and took computers and account documents. I asked him why, for what reason would Americans want bank computers? “Because many, many ex-Iraqi army officers and soldiers have accounts there, and their name and ranks are in those files. They take the computers, then come back with a list and detain the men, simply because they used to be in the military.” I have heard this story before, told by several people in Al-Adamiyah. Two men I spoke with verified this information by telling me that two of their relatives had been detained by Americans with lists comprised of information from the bank.

One of them points to a building nearby and adds, ”The Americans also had a sniper up in that building. He was shooting the demonstrators from there. Many people saw this happen.”

...I’ve heard of so many people being detained from this area, I ask the small group what they estimate the number to be from the beginning of the occupation until now. “500. Yes, at least that many,” says Ali, as the other men somberly nod in agreement. Ali is angered by the subject, and continues to talk about it. “Yesterday I watched and in less than 10 minutes time they detained 15 people on the street who were doing nothing wrong. They came with Humvees to do this, and also brought 2 tanks to support the soldiers.”

...In addition, stories continue to be told by people all over Al-Adamiyah of US troops planting bombs, then coming back later to act as if they are defusing them, as if to protect the people from the resistance fighters. One of the men tells me, “I was sitting in my car in a gas line at 3am the other night. All of us watched a US tank stop in the road, and the soldiers got out and did something near the road. The next day we found a bomb there. All of us saw this.” “We have also watched them placing fake plastic guns on the ground. Then when people pick them up they explode like a small bomb. Why are they doing this?”

...The tactical psychological warfare and intimidation tactics which I’ve seen used in Tikrit, Samarra and Ramadi are in play here. Foot patrols of a dozen soldiers walking the streets during the day, helicopters buzzing overhead, collective punishment tactics of homes raided.

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by Robert Fisk in Baghdad

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5432.htm

28 December 2003 - General Charles de Gaulle gave the French resistance 48 hours to régler les comptes - settle accounts - after the liberation of France. But after the "liberation" of Iraq, the Baath party's enemies have declared it open season to hunt down and murder hundreds of the former regime's officials - with not the slightest attempt by the Anglo-American armies or their newly installed police force to end the bloodshed.

In the Shia city of Najaf, 42 ex-members of the Baath have been murdered and not a single arrest has followed. In Basra, controlled by British troops, almost 50 Baathists have been found with their hands bound behind their backs and a single bullet hole in the neck. Again, there have been no arrests. Hussam Thafer, a doctor at the Baghdad city mortuary, says that every day he receives "five or six" bodies of people who worked for the old regime.

...In Najaf and other southern cities, Baathists have been shot down by men on motorcycles or in taxis. Sunni Muslims suspect the Badr Brigades are responsible, the militia of the Supreme Council for the Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) whose representatives also sit on the Governing Council.

...Save for appeals for "solidarity" in the aftermath of Saddam's capture, the Western authorities in Baghdad have shown no concern about the murders. It is, of course, hard to show pity for satraps of the former regime whose own victims are still being dug up in their thousands from the mass graves of southern Iraq... The local police admit that they have not solved a single crime against ex-Baathists, acknowledging that they will themselves become targets if they attempt to do so. The killers are supposedly receiving $250 for every Baathist they eliminate.

...Only yesterday, in the northern city of Mosul, gunmen in a fast-moving car shot and killed Sheikh Talal al-Khalidi and his 23-year-old son, Saad. Although a member of the new local council that works with US soldiers, al-Khalidi had been a member of the Baathist National Assembly in Baghdad under Saddam. The long arm of revenge - if that is what it truly is - therefore now stretches the length of Iraq.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34702-2003Dec27.html

The number of U.S. service members killed and wounded in Iraq has more than doubled in the past four months compared with the four months preceding them, according to Pentagon statistics... Increases in those wounded in action have been equally dramatic this fall. Since Sept. 1, 1,209 soldiers have received battlefield wounds, more than twice the 574 wounded in action from May 1 through Aug. 30. Nor have casualties tapered off since the capture of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein on Dec. 13. Through Friday, 12 service members were killed in action and 105 were wounded with Hussein in custody.

...Washington Post-ABC News polling data... based on interviews conducted Dec. 18-21 with 1,001 randomly selected adults nationwide, indicate that... only 33 percent [say] the number of casualties is acceptable and 64 percent [say] it is unacceptable.

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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1442

Since the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in the spring, 18 soldiers and two Marines have committed suicide, most of them after major combat was declared over May 1, the military said. The Army is concerned about the deaths. Outside experts have said the rate is alarmingly high.

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http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=1441

DECEMBER 26, 2003 - The Department of the Defense ("DoD") filed a Motion with the United States District Court for the District of Columbia seeking to limit a December 22, 2003, ruling [against mandatory anthrax vaccinations] to only the six unidentified plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The Court had imposed a Preliminary Injunction after concluding the anthrax vaccine "is an investigational drug and a drug being used for an unapproved purpose." As a result, the ruling issued by the Honorable Emett Sullivan now requires DoD to obtain "informed consent or presidential waiver" or otherwise prohibits the continuation of the anthrax vaccination program.

"The DoD's Motion seeks to turn the Court's ruling into a farcical exercise. The vaccination cannot be illegal for one person but legal for another, unless informed consent is obtained," said Mark S. Zaid, Esq., the Managing Partner of the Washington, D.C. law firm of Krieger & Zaid, PLLC, and co-counsel in the litigation. Zaid added that while he understood the legal arguments asserted by the Justice Department to limit the scope of the decision, the effort violates the spirit of the decision, if not the letter of the law.

Since the issuance of the Court's decision, the DoD has provided conflicting public statements about whether it intends to comply with the ruling. Although some reports indicate the vaccination program has stopped, others imply the Court's Order is being violated. The Food & Drug Administration, whose regulations are at issue in the litigation, has remained silent in the wake of the decision.

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http://rockymountainnews.com/drmn/local/article/0,1299,DRMN_15_2533983,00.html

December 27, 2003 - Six people were arrested during an anti-war sit-in at U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard's office on April 14, but only five were charged. The sixth protester, the one who wasn't arrested, was a man who called himself "Chris Taylor." He was in fact an undercover officer planted by the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office. Taylor, whose real name is Darren Christensen, attended a training session in nonviolence with the other protesters the day before the sit-in, as well as the protest itself at Allard's Arapahoe County office. The protesters who were taken in by Christensen say they are angry at the deceit and at being monitored covertly.

...The protest at Allard's office was one of two incidents in which local police are known to have placed undercover agents in protest groups during the heavy- combat phase in Iraq last spring... Testimony in the legal proceedings following the two protests provides a rare glimpse at how law enforcement agencies spy on protest groups. In the Allard case, the sometimes contradictory testimony by sheriff's deputies points to police informants within the peace movement. That case is still entangled in a dispute over what information the sheriff's office must disclose to defense attorneys.

...Local protest leaders say surveillance was particularly unnecessary at the demonstrations last spring because police were told everything in advance - where protesters would march, how many people would commit civil disobedience, even where they would park their cars... But Sgt. Tim O'Brien of the Aurora Police Department's intelligence unit, said he had no way of knowing if the demonstrators were telling the truth. "We wanted to make sure that their real plans weren't to suddenly stage a riot and start throwing bricks and bottles and stuff like that," O'Brien said.

...[Infiltrator] Christensen's supervisor, Sgt. Al Holstein, had an additional goal. Holstein testified that he wanted Christensen to build up rapport that could be useful in monitoring the group in the future. "Yeah, in case, down the road we would do that again, and he could go to other protests, organizational meetings, or whatever, just to gather intelligence in the future," Holstein said.

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http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0352/mondo1.php

December 24 - 30, 2003 - An internal Justice Department probe, based on surveillance videos made by the government inside federal detention facilities, shows that the U.S. harassed, beat, and kept in solitary confinement without access to family or lawyers men it picked up off the streets of New York after 9-11. More likely than not, these men were seized on grounds that some cop or FBI agent thought they looked like Osama followers.

...This doesn't even scratch the surface of what's been going on. Lawyers were not told the numbers of courtrooms to where their clients were being shuttled because the room locations were secret. Members of Congress, government, the press, and the judiciary knew from the very get-go that any FBI agent, acting on his or her own, could make an affidavit asserting that any individual was a suspected terrorist. Every day, Ashcroft and Bush work the country toward something like martial law

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http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/107252988311210.xml

12/27/03 - Professors of international studies are upset about a bill in Congress... which passed the House this fall on voice vote [and] would create an advisory board of political appointees to keep tabs on federally financed international studies programs at colleges and universities. The bill could affect any university... that requests funding under Title VI of the higher education act.

...Stanley Kurtz of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank, proposed the advisory board to a House committee in June. Kurtz testified that the programs, especially those that focus on the Middle East, are biased against U.S. foreign policy... The bill charges the seven-member board with advising the secretary of education and Congress on ways to improve international studies to better meet national security needs and to encourage students to work for the government.

...Title VI, which Congress funded at $95 million in 2003, is among the largest financial supporters of international studies in the nation. The money supports undergraduate courses, graduate student fellowships, training for elementary and high school language teachers, and public forums, among other programs.

...The Senate is expected to take up the bill after Congress reconvenes in January. Opponents say the proposal remains a threat because the board could intimidate or penalize scholars whose work does not align with the views of a given administration. The bill includes an open-ended provision that authorizes the board to obtain information from any federal agency.

...Universities that receive Title VI grants already account to the government for how they spend the money and what they achieve.

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the term "old europe" made german word of the year. google translation of german article.

http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/gesellschaft/0,1518,279198,00.html

"Old Europe" is word of the yearly the American Secretary of Defense gives to the Germans the word of the year: Donald Rumsfeld's utterance of "old Europe" coined/shaped, found the linguistic usage lastingly the society for German language. For the set of the yearly the researchers "Germany kuerten look for the superstar". That originally polarize-mix meant expression of the US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld of "old Europe" in the discussion, led across the participation of European states in the Iraq war a revaluation experienced, and thus to a more positive self value feeling of the Europeans, was called it in the reason of the society for German language (GfdS), which admits the result of its jury collection on Friday in Wiesbaden gave. With the "agenda 2010", which created it to the second place, the language company appreciated the central topic relating to domestic affairs of the past months.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/national/28COW.html?pagewanted=all

During a House debate last summer [note: LAST SUMMER] over a possible ban on using sick and injured cows for meat, Representative Gary L. Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, held up a photo of a crippled cow and cautioned that such "downer animals" carried the highest risk for mad cow disease.

But... "The picture the gentleman is showing, that sick animal, will never find its way into the food chain," [Representative Charles W. Stenholm, a powerful Texas Democrat and a rancher] said. "Period."

..."This is one of these times when unrealistic optimism triumphed over responsibility to the public," said Carol Tucker Foreman, a consumer advocate who ran the Agriculture Department's food-safety programs in the Carter administration.

...Each year at least 200,000 cattle — and perhaps many more — are downers... The industry may have taken a disproportionate risk in continuing to sell meat from the downers.

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http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20031223-103657-3424r

Dec. 23 (UPI) -- The United States Department of Agriculture insisted the U.S. beef supply is safe Tuesday... but for six months the agency repeatedly refused to release its tests for mad cow to United Press International... The USDA claims to have tested approximately 20,000 cows for the disease in 2002 and 2003, but has been unable to provide any documentation in support of this to UPI... UPI initially requested the documents on July 10, and the agency sent a response letter dated July 24, saying it had launched a search for any documents pertaining to mad cow tests from 2002 and 2003. "If any documents exist, they will be forwarded," USDA official Michael Marquis wrote in the letter.

Despite this and a 30-day limit under the Freedom of Information Act on responding to such a request, the USDA never sent any corresponding documents. The agency's FOI office also did not return several calls from UPI placed over a series of months. Finally, UPI threatened legal action in early December if the agency did not respond. In a Dec. 17 letter to UPI from USDA Freedom of Information Act Office Andrea E. Fowler, the agency wrote: "Your request has been forwarded to the (Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) for processing and to search for the record responsive to your earlier request." To date, the USDA has not said if any records exist or if they will be sent to UPI.

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/12/28/wmoo28.xml&sSheet=/portal/2003/12/28/ixportal.html

...Earlier, the White House had sought to calm fears over the threat posed by BSE, telling the public that President Bush was dining on beef at his ranch in Crawford, Texas...The McDonalds chain reported no drop in sales... "Mad cow is really a perception issue," [Eric Ooms, a dairy farmer who runs a herd of 700 at Old Chatham, in the Hudson River Valley of New York] insisted. "If things are done right, it will not get into the food supply anyway."

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http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/front_page/107253027911210.xml

Northwest residents probably have eaten meat from a Holstein with mad cow disease, agriculture officials said Friday... Albertsons, Fred Meyer, Safeway and WinCo Foods all received batches of beef, which could have contained bits of the sick cow... The revelation that chance played a significant role in finding the sick cow opens the question of how many similar cows there might be.

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http://www.ajc.com/health/content/shared/health/ap/ap_story.html/Health/AP.V5958.AP-Mad-Cow.html

Investigators tentatively traced the first U.S. cow with mad cow disease to Canada, which could help determine the scope of the outbreak and might even limit the economic damage to the American beef industry.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/po/20031224/co_po/gayfootagewillstayinlincolnmemorialvideo

Footage of gay rights demonstrations will not be removed from a videotape shown at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C, according to spokespeople from the National Park Service and the Human Rights Campaign. Earlier reports in various news outlets said the gay images would be removed... Bill Line, a spokesperson for the National Park Service... told the Gay.com/PlanetOut.com Network that the pressure to replace gay and pro-choice images with Christian and pro-life scenes comes from conservative Kansas Republican congressman Todd Tiahrt... The National Park Service has [also] been fighting a lengthy legal battle to continue to display an 8-foot cross in California's Mohave National Preserve, and has reinstalled plaques with Biblical verses along the rim of the Grand Canyon. They have also endorsed the sale at Park Service bookstores of a creationist text, "The Grand Canyon: A Different View."

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why even...

http://www.theledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031204/ZNYT01/312040464/1001/BUSINESS

Federal officials have softened a national advertising campaign to promote breastfeeding after complaints from two companies that make infant formula, according to several doctors and nurses who are helping the government with the effort.

...The original campaign focused on "the risks associated with not breastfeeding,'' according to the Ad Council's newsletter, and included statistics from studies that have found that babies fed formula have a higher risk of developing asthma, diabetes, leukemia and other illnesses.

...Peter Paradossi, a spokesman for Mead Johnson, the Bristol-Myers Squibb division that makes Enfamil formulas, said... "We worried it would give an impression that infant formula is unhealthy and potentially dangerous." Tracey Noe, a spokeswoman for Ross Products, the Abbott Laboratories unit that makes Similac, said her company also supported projects promoting breastfeeding. But she said Ross executives were concerned that claims made in the government's campaign were not based on solid science. "The overall approach was like a scare tactic,'' Ms. Noe said.

...Government officials still planned to say in the ads that infants who are not breastfed face a higher risk of developing obesity and ear infections, but they have removed all specific statistics on the estimated level of risk... The campaign has divided physician members of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr. Joe M. Sanders Jr., the academy's executive director, and Dr. Carden Johnston, its president, sent a letter to Tommy G. Thompson, secretary of health and human services, in early November expressing their concerns about the tone of the campaign and the soundness of the science providing the base for some of its claims. That upset the academy's own breastfeeding experts, who had been working with the government on the ads and supported their aggressive message.

...Dr. Lawrence M. Gartner, the former chairman of the pediatrics department at the University of Chicago and current chairman of the academy's executive committee on breastfeeding, said he believed that academy officials might have sent the letter to appease formula manufacturers; some of them are large financial donors to the group. "There is a lot of money involved,'' Dr. Gartner said.

...Dr. Sanders said that some members of the academy were concerned that the advertisements could make mothers who chose not to breastfeed feel guilty if their child later developed leukemia or another medical condition.

...Marsha Walker, who sits on the leadership team of the United States Breastfeeding Committee with Ms. Spangler, said that the information on leukemia and diabetes should be left in the ads. "I'm a registered nurse, and we would never withhold information from our patients because we thought it might make them feel guilty,'' Ms. Walker said. "This is being shot down by an industry that has no business interfering.''

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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2003/12/15/bush_signs_bill_extending_fbi_powers/

12/15/2003 - President Bush has signed... a bill authorizing 2004 intelligence programs [a.k.a. Patriot II]. Most of the details of the bill are secret, including the total cost of the programs, which are estimated to be about $40 billion. That would be slightly more than Bush had requested.

...The bill expands the number of businesses from which the FBI and other US authorities conducting intelligence work can demand financial records without seeking court approval... In other provisions, the bill... Creates a Treasury Department office to work with intelligence agencies on fighting terrorist financing. Creates pilot programs to share raw data between agencies. Authorizes agencies to continue research on computerized terrorism surveillance suspended by the Pentagon.

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http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/bw-wh/2003/dec/26/122604328.html

12/26/2003 - President Bush went around Congress on Friday and installed 12 people to government panels after their nominations stalled in the Senate. The nominations had languished in the Senate for periods ranging from six weeks to 22 months. By approving them during the congressional recess, Bush bypassed the Senate confirmation process. Such appointments are valid until the next Congress takes office, in this case in January 2005.

The appointments [include]: Raymond Simon, the former director of the Arkansas Department of Education, to be assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the Education Department... Gay Hart Gaines of Florida, to be a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting... Hart is a major donor to Republican causes and candidates... Claudia Puig of Florida, to be a member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting... Puig gave the maximum allowable donation to Bush's re-election campaign this year.

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what we talk about when we talk about lying

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A25935-2003Dec23?language=printer

The President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has concluded that the White House made a questionable claim in January's State of the Union address about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain nuclear materials... The White House later said the claim should not have been made, after reports that the intelligence community expressed doubts it was true... The board believes the White House... disregarded warnings from the intelligence community that the claim was questionable... There was no organized system at the White House to vet intelligence, and the informal system that was followed did not work... The administration exaggerated intelligence... One enduring mystery is which White House official was responsible.

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http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/APStories/stories/D7VF1HEG2.html

12/15/2003 - You can forget about getting dining details on last meals for Texas death row inmates. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice recently changed its Web site to drop the feature that included an inmate's final food... Prison spokeswoman Michelle Lyons says the new Web site is organized in a better way -- minus the last meals. [note: mrs. henry ran some of these last year. a surprising number of the condemned asked that their last meals be given to the homeless. the page included prisoners' final statements.]

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http://www.informationweek.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=17000138

Dec. 17, 2003 - According to an urgent advisory issued Wednesday morning by the National Weather Service, the Earth has broken out of its orbit and is careening toward a fiery end. "Unusually hot weather has entered the region for December ... as the Earth has left its orbit and is hurtling towards the sun," read the message, posted on the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration's Web site. "Unusually hot weather will occur for at least the next several days as the Earth draws ever nearer to the sun. Therefore, an excessive heat watch has been posted."

...The release, signed "Heinlein," was only a test message, erroneously posted by during a training session, according to a Weather Service spokesman. By midafternoon, the statement had been removed and a correction issued.