What's New — Posted on July 22, 2002
World Events . . . Say Goodbye To Privacy: British Schools Using Thumb-Scanners to Store Kids' Fingerprints . . . Bush government halts family planning aid to U.N. Population Fund
U.S. News . . . RIDGE: U.S. Should Consider Giving Military Law Enforcement Powers - Is America Moving Towards A Military/Police State Out Of Fear? . . . Gore: Bush administration has lied to Americans about nation's economy
Science & Health . . . U.S. couple try to have first human clone baby
Earth News . . . Is A 'Sixth' Extinction Brought On By People Looming? . . . Calif. Governor Signs Landmark Auto Emissions Law: Automakers Vow To Dismantle It In Federal Court . . . EU Demands Proof States Are Protecting Ozone Layer
War on Drugs . . . Nevada Voters split on marijuana issue
News from Africa . . . Congo and Rwanda Agree on Peace Deal

posted by Lorenzo 10:22 AM

22 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 21, 2002
World Events . . . The Pentagon's effort to create nonlethal weapons that hurt but don't kill has set off its own fire storm . . . Flaws in U.S. Air War Left Hundreds of Civilians Dead
U.S. News . . . GLOBAL ECONOMIC CORREC TION: NYSE IS LEADING INDICATOR - Grasso: "Monday May Be Rough Day"

posted by Lorenzo 2:46 PM

20 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 19, 2002
U.S. News . . . Mock battle in SoCal and Nevada to test battle technology: Largest military experiment in U.S. history . . . LARGEST BANKRUPTCY EVER: WorldCom Expected to Soon File Chapter 11, as Cash Reserves Dwindle Fast
Earth News . . . Study Fuels Worry Over Glacial Melting: Research Shows Alaskan Ice Mass Vanishing at Twice Rate Previously Estimated
War on Drugs . . . Britain may ban kava, U.S. will study . . . Sixteen weeks from today, an historic initiative to end the war on all marijuana users will be on the statewide ballot in Nevada.

posted by Lorenzo 11:32 AM

19 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 18, 2002
U.S. News . . . Libertarians blast new Bush program to create network of citizen informers . . . Ravers Against the Machine
Science & Health . . . New labs to explore alternative fuels
Earth News . . . Envoys Face More Meetings to Salvage Earth Summit

posted by Lorenzo 1:46 PM

18 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 17, 2002
U.S. News . . . White House Watch: Credibility problem
Science & Health . . . Secret U.S. Biopharms Growing Experimental Drugs . . . Scientists identify the spark of life . . . United Press International: An iron Sun: Groundbreaking or cracked?

posted by Lorenzo 8:52 AM

17 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 16, 2002
U.S. News . . . US planning to recruit one in 24 Americans as citizen spies
Science & Health . . . Astronomers Hope to Find E.T. in Next 25 Years
Earth News . . . Green Century Institute (GCI) - Dedicated to the Evolution of Sustainable Communities in the 21st Century

posted by Lorenzo 9:21 AM

16 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 15, 2002
War on Drugs . . . First Federal Medical Marijuana Conviction, patient facing 10 year mandatory minimum sentence
Free Speech . . . Yahoo! Censors Chinese Web Portal

posted by Lorenzo 2:04 PM

13 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 12, 2002
U.S. News . . . Anti-fraud bill is a smokescreen to distract public from fact that corporate crooks aren't being prosecuted. . . . Redistribution of Wealth: Expect change in American culture
Earth News . . . Disagreements about Global Warming
War on Drugs . . . Senate Bill Could Cost You $250,000 and 20 years in prison

posted by Lorenzo 11:26 AM

12 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 11, 2002
World Events . . . A Concise Description of Flanders - Introduction
Science & Health . . . 'Astonishing' skull unearthed in Africa: Oldest Ancestor? . . . Scientists Build Virus from Scratch
Earth News . . . Moon a great power source: Helium 3 Isotope

posted by Lorenzo 8:47 AM

11 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 10, 2002
U.S. News . . . President Admits He Saw the FIRST Plane Hit the World Trade Center - Statement Raises Many Questions . . . Gnutella developer dies in apparent suicide
Science & Health . . . Has the federal government been conducting a vast nutritional experiment on the American people, on very little evidence that it will do them any good?
Earth News . . . Humans Running an Overdraft with the Earth
War on Drugs . . . Britain to relax laws against marijuana use
Free Speech . . . BAD NEWS FOR PRIVACY: PGP GONE BAD

posted by Lorenzo 7:15 AM

10 July 2002

 

The Memory Hole [rescuing knowledge, freeing information]
The Memory Hole exists to preserve and spread material that is in danger of being lost, is hard to find, or is not widely known. This includes:

� Government files
� Corporate memos
� Court documents (incl. lawsuits and transcripts)
� Police reports and eyewitness statements
� Congressional testimony
� Reports (governmental and non-governmental)
� Maps, patents, Web pages
� Photographs, video, and sound recordings
� News articles
� Books (and portions of books)

The emphasis is on material that exposes things that we're not supposed to know (or that we're supposed to forget).

posted by Lorenzo 8:23 PM

 

What's New — Posted on July 9, 2002
World Events . . . Britain to relax laws against marijuana use . . . Schroeder Says US Corporate Scandals 'Iceberg Tip'
U.S. News . . . Senate To Pass Anti-Rave, Club Law . . . AOL BONDS NEAR JUNK . . . S. 2633 RAVE Act - Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 2002 . . . Shackles loosened on U.S. intelligence Limits on agencies, imposed following the post-Watergate discovery of abuses, have been relaxed in the war on terror . . . Texas Boy Nearly Beaten to Death by Pastor- Police For Misbehaving In Bible Class . . . WorldCom considering what would be the largest corporate bankruptcy in US history

posted by Lorenzo 10:29 AM

09 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 8, 2002
World Events . . . Middle Eastern gulf separates EU and US
U.S. News . . . Bush's Army Secretary and Enron . . . HOW MUCH DID THE US GOV'T KNOW? Moussaoui: FBI Planted Tracking Device . . . Bush Defends His Texas Oil Dealings
Science & Health . . . Merged science promises golden age: Is brain-to-brain communication close at hand? . . . Replace your mouse with your eye
Earth News . . . Should We All Be Vegetarians? Would we be healthier? Would the planet? The risks and benefits of a meat-free life.
War on Drugs . . . Unsolicited Prozac in the Mail

posted by Lorenzo 9:43 AM

08 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 7, 2002
World Events . . . Why we should be worried about George W Bush (Euro-Aussebarf Alert!)
U.S. News . . . S. 2633 RAVE Act - Reducing Americans' Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act of 2002 . . . Security bill bars blowing whistle . . . All of Us Are in Danger - the end of freedom in the U.S.A.
Earth News . . . Earth 'will expire by 2050'
War on Drugs . . . Drugs leak sows policy confusion in the UK
Palestine & Israel . . . Video implicates army - Israel uses a tank to murder two children
War on Iraq . . . US 'to attack Iraq via Jordan' within months
Free Speech . . . Guardian Unlimited List of Interesting Weblogs . . . How the search engines sold out . . . Pacifica Radio blows 9-11 coverage . . . Hope Remains ... Shorewood high school students exemplify courage in face of fascist repression of free speech
Links . . . (War on Terror link) Bill of Rights Defense Committee

posted by Lorenzo 8:09 AM

07 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 6, 2002
U.S. News . . . Hacktivists to release covert communications tool called "Camera/Shy" . . . Update: "Atlas Shrugged" Movie Project
Science & Health . . . Staggering AIDS Report From U.N.
Earth News . . . Fireworks: Breathtaking ... and Deadly . . . Earth 'will expire by 2050'
War on Drugs . . . Supreme Court Rules in Student Drug Testing Case
Palestine & Israel . . . Isolated Powell disowns Arafat
Free Speech . . . How One Spam Leads to Another

posted by Lorenzo 12:03 PM

 

The world's ticking timebomb

Marine crisis:
North Atlantic cod stocks have collapsed from an estimated 264,000 tonnes in 1970 to under 60,000 in 1995.

Pollution:
The United States places the greatest pressure on the environment, with its carbon dioxide emissions and over-consumption. It takes 12.2 hectares of land to support each American citizen and 6.29 for each Briton, while the figure for Burundi is just half a hectare.

Shrinking Forests:
Between 1970 and 2002 forest cover has dwindled by 12 per cent.

Endangered wildlife:
African elephant numbers have fallen from 1.2 million in 1980 to half a million now. In the UK the songbird population has fallen dramatically, with the corn bunting declining by 92 per cent in the past 30 years.

posted by Lorenzo 11:56 AM

06 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 5, 2002
War on Iraq . . . U.S. Plan for Iraq Is Said to Include Attack on 3 Sides

posted by Lorenzo 10:04 AM

05 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 4, 2002
World Events . . . USA: THE ROGUE STATE - Legendary foreign correspondent JOHN PILGER on America's bid to control the world . . . Israel has 400 nukes, building naval force
U.S. News . . . Mourn on the Fourth of July: 2002 . . . Terrorists stealing airline uniforms and credentials, pilot group says
News from Africa . . . Africa Needs Green Growth to Fight Pollution-UN

posted by Lorenzo 9:01 AM

 

Collateral Damage Greater Than Combat Casualties
By early March 2002, the total number of U.S. service personnel who were killed in action in Afghanistan stood at nine. Afghan civilian deaths for the same period exceeded 3,700. So much for "smart bombs" and precision strikes by the U.S. This means that for every U.S. combatant who loses her or his life, we "accidently" kill over 418 innocent civilians. Is it any wonder that the Afghan people dislike America? If the U.S. isn't able to do better at sparing civilian populations in our world-wide, never-ending war on terror, we are going to have a lot of innocent blood on our hands. At our current combat loss to civilian death ratio, if we lose as many American lives in the war on terror as we did in Viet Nam, we will have murdered over 24 Million innocent children, women, and men in the process!
THE ROGUE STATE
Out of sight of the television cameras "at least 3,767 civilians were killed by US bombs between October 7 and December 10...an average of 62 innocent deaths a day", according to a study carried out at the University of New Hampshire in the US. This is now estimated to have passed 5,000 civilian deaths: almost double the number killed on September 11.

posted by Lorenzo 8:57 AM

04 July 2002

 

What's New — Posted on July 3, 2002
U.S. News . . . Bush Corporate Record Examined . . . HYPOCRITE: Bush failed to follow US shares law
Science & Health . . . Scientists estimate 30 billion Earths in the Milky Way galaxy . . . Hubble picks over star's demise
War on Drugs . . . Nevada may legalize marijuana . . . Hallucinogens: A Reader ... by Charles S. Grob
News from Africa . . . Faith: Africa grapples with Romans 13 . . . Africa Needs Green Growth to Fight Pollution-UN

posted by Lorenzo 11:15 AM

03 July 2002

 

Hallucinogens: A Reader ... by Charles S. Grob
It's been forty years since Timothy Leary sat beside a swimming pool in Cuernavaca, Mexico, ingested several grams of the genus Stropharia cubensis, and experienced a dazzling display of visions that led him to herald the dawning of a New Age. And yet, from the counterculture movement of the 1960s, through the War on Drugs, to this very day, the world at large has viewed hallucinogens not as a gift but as a threat to society.

In Hallucinogens, Charles Grob surveys recent writings from such important thinkers as Terence McKenna, Huston Smith, and Andrew Weil, illustrating that a reevaluation of the social worth of hallucinogens-used intelligently-is greatly in order.

About the Author
Charles S. Grob, M.D., is a professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine.

posted by Lorenzo 3:37 PM

 

What's New — Posted on July 2, 2002
World Events . . . Congress unites in fear of world 'government' . . . Wild at heart (the negative effect of U.S. 'culture')
U.S. News . . . Pledging Allegiance To Fundamentalism
War on Drugs . . . The cannabis war
Palestine & Israel . . US favourite refuses to stand against Arafat . . . UPDATE FROM PENNY ROSENWASSER . . . Jewish Peace News: Reports from the Front
News from Africa . . . G-8 Summit Sidelines Africa
Free Speech . . . Damage Control at CNN

posted by Lorenzo 7:44 AM

 

The cannabis war
(Richard Glen Boire, SN&R Newsreview.com)
According to the latest Household Survey on Drug Abuse, over 16 million Americans used an illegal drug in the last 30 days. To the extent that the vast majority of these 16 million Americans used an illegal drug without causing harm to others, our criminal justice system ought to leave them alone and instead focus on protecting us from dangerous criminals.

posted by Lorenzo 7:39 AM

02 July 2002

 

The Great Open Source Giveaway
(Graham Lawton, NewScientist/Alternet.org, July 1, 2002)
What sets open source software apart from commercial software is the fact that it's free, in both the political and the economic sense. If you want to use a commercial product such as Windows XP or Mac OS X you have to pay a fee and agree to abide by a licence that stops you from modifying or sharing the software. But if you want to run Linux or another open source package, you can do so without paying a penny -- although several companies will sell you the software bundled with support services. You can also modify the software in any way you choose, copy it and share it without restrictions. This freedom acts as an open invitation -- some say challenge -- to its users to make improvements. As a result, thousands of volunteers are constantly working on Linux, adding new features and winkling out bugs. Their contributions are reviewed by a panel and the best ones are added to Linux. For programmers, the kudos of a successful contribution is its own reward. The result is a stable, powerful system that adapts rapidly to technological change. Linux is so successful that even IBM installs it on the computers it sells. . . . Open source has proved a very successful way of writing software. But it has also come to embody a political stand -- one that values freedom of expression, mistrusts corporate power, and is uncomfortable with private ownership of knowledge. . . . But it's not just software companies that lock knowledge away and release it only to those prepared to pay. Every time you buy a CD, a book, a magazine, even a can of Coca-Cola, you're forking out for access to someone else's intellectual property. Your money buys you the right to listen to, read or consume the contents, but not to rework them, or make copies and redistribute them. No surprise, then, that people within the open source movement have asked whether their methods would work on other products. As yet no one's sure -- but plenty of people are trying it. . . . Another experiment that's proved its worth is the OpenLaw project at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. Berkman lawyers specialise in cyberlaw -- hacking, copyright, encryption and so on -- and the centre has strong ties with the EFF and the open source software community. In 1998 faculty member Lawrence Lessig, now at Stanford Law School, was asked by online publisher Eldritch Press to mount a legal challenge to US copyright law. Eldritch takes books whose copyright has expired and publishes them on the Web, but new legislation to extend copyright from 50 to 70 years after the author's death was cutting off its supply of new material. Lessig invited law students at Harvard and elsewhere to help craft legal arguments challenging the new law on an online forum, which evolved into OpenLaw. . . . OpenLaw crafts its arguments in public and releases them under a copyleft. "We deliberately used free software as a model," says Wendy Selzer, who took over OpenLaw when Lessig moved to Stanford. Around 50 legal scholars now work on Eldritch's case, and OpenLaw has taken other cases, too. . . .

posted by Lorenzo 7:47 PM

 

What's New — Posted on June 1, 2002
World Events . . . World's First Permanent War Crimes Court Opens for Business . . . A page in the history of humankind is being turned

posted by Lorenzo 9:35 AM

01 July 2002

 

The long-term effect of US culture
The long-term effect of US culture as it spreads to every nook and cranny in every desert and every mountain valley will be the end of mankind.
--Wilfred Thesiger

posted by Lorenzo 7:45 AM

 

What's New — Posted on June 30, 2002
Science & Health . . . Nanotech could turn planes into birds
War on Drugs . . . Erowid Library : 'A Brief History of Drugs'
News from Africa . . . Control of South African Internet
Free Speech . . . Russia poised to restrict Net activities

posted by Lorenzo 7:30 AM