Friday, August 30, 2002
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Wednesday, August 28, 2002
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
West Nile Watch
453 cases
21 deaths
Centers for Disease Control
Check your
state and local governments' websites for information specific to your area.
Saturday, August 24, 2002
Thursday, August 22, 2002
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Monday, August 19, 2002
Sunday, August 18, 2002
Army's malaria drug tied to Ft. Bragg killings
From the Sacremento Bee
Excerpt: Friends of the three Fort Bragg soldiers suspected of killing their wives this summer say the men exhibited unusual anger and incoherence after returning from Afghanistan where they were given an anti-malaria drug associated with aggression and mental problems. One of the soldiers was "almost incoherent" and visibly shaking while describing marital problems to a neighbor. Another became unable to control his anger at his wife in public, startling those who knew him. A third puzzled his new neighbors with his strange behavior.
Soldiers at Fort Bragg said they are well aware of mental problems linked to the anti-malaria drug Lariam, which include aggression, depression, paranoia, hallucinations and suicidal thinking, even as official military spokesmen dismiss a connection between the drug and the events around Fayetteville this summer which have drawn national attention. Spokesmen for the Army, which invented the drug and says it is safe, told UPI the Army will review scientific literature on Lariam, also called mefloquine, but believe it played no role in any of the deaths because there is evidence of domestic problems in each one.
Over the years, Lariam's label, written by manufacturer Hoffmann-La Roche and approved by the Food and Drug Administration, has included increasingly troublesome side effects, and warns about aggression, paranoia, psychosis, hallucinations and suicidal thinking. Some patients complain of severe side effects lasting years after they stopped taking the drug...
Sunday, August 11, 2002
Executive jet was tracking Flight 93
From the Minneapolis Star Tribune
Excerpts: Jurors in the trial of accused Sept. 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui will be drawn back to the day of the attacks through videos of the burning and collapsing World Trade Center and family pictures of victims...Additional recordings would be played from the cockpit of an executive jet that tracked Flight 93 on Sept. 11, according to written proposals subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema...An official for NetJets, a company that sells shares in private business aircraft, confirmed that the plane tracking Flight 93 belonged to the company. The official, who asked not to be identified by name, said the company was asked not to comment on the Sept. 11 flight but would not say who made the request.
End excerpt. This is the first I've heard of this. Why was a corporate jet "tracking" Flight 93 instead of a military jet intercepting it?
NetJets is owned by multi-billionaire Warren Buffet, who Bloomberg reports this weekend has gone on a
$20 billion spending spree that may have just begun, buying up pipelines from companies like Dynegy. He's the chairman of
Berkshire Hathaway, an
Omaha based investment firm.
Labels: September 11
Friday, August 09, 2002
Rumsfeld and Cheney in 1975 Cover-up
Scientist's death Haunts Family
From the San Jose Mercury-News
Excerpt: The death in 1953 of a government scientist, Frank Olson, in a fall from a New York hotel window, is one of the most notorious cases in CIA history. Only in 1975 did Olson's family learn that the CIA had slipped LSD into his drink, days before his death. President Ford apologized for an experiment gone awry, and promised that the government would reveal everything about the case. But newly obtained documents show that the Ford administration continued to conceal information about Olson -- particularly his role in some of the CIA's most controversial research of the Cold War, on anthrax and other biological weapons.
The documents show that two of the key officials involved in the decision to withhold that information were White House aides Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, today the nation's vice president and secretary of defense. ``These documents show the lengths to which the government was trying to cover up the truth,'' said the scientist's son, Eric Olson, who gave them to the Mercury News. ``For 22 years there was a coverup. And then, under the guise of revealing everything, there was a new coverup.''...
Labels: rumsfeld
Sunday, August 04, 2002
Double warning against attacking Iraq
From the The Times of London
Excerpts: AMERICA’S National Security Adviser during the Gulf War warned President Bush yesterday that invading Iraq would cause an “explosion” in the Middle East and consign the United States to defeat in its War on Terror. Brent Scowcroft, who remains close to the Bush family, urged the President to concentrate on trying to broker peace between the Israelis and Palestinians while separately pursuing terrorist threats to the United States. But he said that by going to war with Iraq without linking President Saddam Hussein and September 11, Washington was risking a conflagration in the Middle East that would also engulf its efforts to defeat global terror groups.
His warning came as a former British Chief of Defence Staff said that Britain risked being dragged into a “very, very messy” and lengthy war if it supported a US military assault on Iraq. Field Marshal Lord Bramall called on Tony Blair to exercise caution, saying that an invasion to topple Saddam may not be morally or legally justified. “You don’t have licence to attack someone else’s country just because you don’t like the leadership,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World This Weekend. “We are supposed to be taking a lead on the moral issues of the world.”
Friday, August 02, 2002
Lawmakers refuse lie detector tests
From AP via Yahoo
Excerpt: Lawmakers have been refusing requests by the FBI that they take lie detector tests as part of an investigation into leaks from a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks, a leader of the inquiry said Friday. Sen. Richard Shelby, the top Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he refused to take the test and he believes all other lawmakers did so as well.
"I don't know who among us would take a lie-detector test," said the Alabama senator. "First of all, they're not even admissible in court and second of all, the leadership (of both parties) have told us not to do that." Shelby said he believes all 37 members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, which are conducting the joint inquiry, have been questioned by the FBI. In an interview with Associated Press reporters, Shelby said leaders of the inquiry realize they made a mistake in asking the FBI to investigate the leaks.
"Here we are investigating the FBI for huge failures and now we're asking them to investigate us," he said.
Thursday, August 01, 2002
Katherine Harris resigns...too lateFrom the From the Nando Times
Excerpt: Katherine Harris resigned Thursday as Florida secretary of state and made the move retroactive to July 15, saying she had misunderstood the rules about when she had to quit to run for Congress. Harris, a Republican who as the state's chief election official was thrust into the international spotlight during the 2000 White House recount, said she had intended to quit later this month to focus on the congressional race. But the state's resign-to-run law required her to file a letter on the day she qualified to run for Congress stating her intent to resign. Otherwise, the law says, the candidate must resign immediately.
"I made a mistake in not filing the letter," Harris said. Harris said she thought the law did not apply to her office.
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