Putin: U.S. Pursuing "Imperialist" Policy

Perhaps a tour down the perceptual "illusions, delusions, deceptions and reality" lane may spark interest and action to retrieve and/or redevelop the long past due and suppressed energy systems that are INDISPENSABLE to survival for growing and increasingly complex civilizations: Illusions Delusions Deceptions & reality - The Joker There is an added bonus by-product, that comes with new energy science theory integration, called Wisdom and Approach to Understanding. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Putin: U.S. Pursuing "Imperialist" Policy
(AP) MOSCOW, May 31, 2007
(AP) President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia's test-firing of new missiles this week was a response to U.S. plans to build missile defense sites across Europe, and suggested Washington is pursuing an imperialist policy that has triggered a new arms race. In a clear reference to the United States, Putin harshly criticized "diktat and imperialism" in global affairs and warned that Russia will keep strengthening its military potential to maintain a global strategic balance. "It wasn't us who initiated a new round of arms race," Putin said when asked about Russia's missile tests this week at a news conference in Moscow. In Washington, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe indicated that Moscow's tests only underscore the U.S. contention that the missile defense system would not be a threat to Russia. "Russia's strong missile capabilities are no match for our European missile defense plans and will not upset the strategic balance in the region," Johndroe said. Putin described the tests of a new ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads and a new cruise missile as part of the Russian response to the planned deployment of new U.S. military bases and missile defense sites in ex-Soviet satellites in eastern Europe. He assailed the United States and other NATO members for failing to ratify an amended version of the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which limits the deployment of heavy non-nuclear weapons around the continent. "We have signed and ratified the CFE and are fully implementing it. We have pulled out all our heavy weapons from the European part of Russia to (locations) behind the Ural Mountains and cut our military by 300,000 men," Putin said. "And what about our partners? They are filling Eastern Europe with new weapons. A new base in Bulgaria, another one in Romania, a (missile defense) site in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic," he said. "What we are supposed to do? We can't just sit back and look at that." Putin and other Russian officials have repeatedly rejected U.S. assurances that the planned missile defense installations are meant to counter a potential threat from nations such as Iran and pose no danger to Russia. He reaffirmed his warning that Russia would opt out of the CFE treaty altogether if NATO nations fail to ratify its amended version. "Either you ratify the treaty and start observing it, or we will opt out of it," Putin said. In remarks directed at Washington, Putin blasted those "who want to dictate their will to all others regardless of international norms and law." "It's dangerous and harmful," ...full text

NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming

Perhaps a tour down the perceptual "illusions, delusions, deceptions and reality" lane may spark interest and action to retrieve and/or redevelop the long past due and suppressed energy systems that are INDISPENSABLE to survival for growing and increasingly complex civilizations: Illusions Delusions Deceptions & reality - The Joker There is an added bonus by-product, that comes with new energy science theory integration, called Wisdom and Approach to Understanding.

NASA: Danger Point Closer Than Thought From Warming
'Disastrous Effects' of Global Warming Tipping Points Near, According to New Study
By BILL BLAKEMORE
May 29, 2007 —
Even "moderate additional" greenhouse emissions are likely to push Earth past "critical tipping points" with "dangerous consequences for the planet," according to research conducted by NASA and the Columbia University Earth Institute.
With just 10 more years of "business as usual" emissions from the burning of coal, oil and gas, says the NASA/Columbia paper, "it becomes impractical" to avoid "disastrous effects."
The study appears in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics. Its lead author is James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.
The forecast effects include "increasingly rapid sea-level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," according to the NASA announcement.
Recent Climate Reports Underestimated How Soon
By heralding the new research paper, NASA is endorsing science that places considerably more urgency on the need to reduce emissions to avoid "disastrous effects" of global warming than was evident in the recent reports from the world's scientists coordinated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
The new NASA release emphasizes the danger of "strong amplifying feedbacks" pushing Earth past "dangerous tipping points."
Scientists have been warning for several years that such tipping points are the greatest threat from manmade global warming  and what makes it potentially catastrophic for civilization.
'Potentially Uncontrollable' Feedback Loops
As the tipping points pass, "there is an acceleration, potentially uncontrollable, of emissions of vast natural stores of greenhouse gas," according to Hansen, who reviewed the study for ABC News today.
Hansen explains that dangerous feedback loops are being tracked in various regions of the planet.
Many studies have reported feedback loops already observed in thawing tundra, seabeds and drying forests.
Hansen also points out that dark  and therefore heat-absorbing  forests are now expanding toward the Arctic ..full text

Russia: New Missiles Are Unstoppable

Perhaps a tour down the perceptual "illusions, delusions, deceptions and reality" lane may spark interest and action to retrieve and/or redevelop the long past due and suppressed energy systems that are INDISPENSABLE to survival for growing and increasingly complex civilizations: Illusions Delusions Deceptions & reality - The Joker
There is an added bonus by-product, that comes with new energy science theory integration, called Wisdom and Approach to Understanding. The new scientific comprehension eliminates the caveman 'club/stick' conflict resolution methods still used in the 21st century. Besides, caveman club/stick methods do not work well with nuclear toys, as they threaten all of humanity

Russia: New Missiles Are Unstoppable
MOSCOW, May 29, 2007
(CBS/AP) A senior Russian official said strategic and tactical missiles tested Tuesday can penetrate any missile defense system, Russian news agencies reported. "As of today Russia has new (missiles) that are capable of overcoming any existing or future missile defense systems," ITAR-Tass quoted First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov as saying. "So in terms of defense and security Russian can look calmly to the country's future." Ivanov spoke after the Russian Strategic Missile Forces announced the test of a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying multiple independent warheads. He said Russia had also successfully tested a tactical cruise missile. "Reminiscent of the Cold War arm's race, the Russian missile launch appears to have been intended to send a message opposing the U.S. deployment of missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk from the United Nations. President Vladimir Putin and Ivanov, a former defense minister seen as a potential candidate to succeed Putin in elections next year, have repeatedly said Russia would continue to improve its nuclear weapons systems and respond to U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe. The ICBM, called the RS-24, was fired from a mobile launcher ...full text

US 'opposes' G8 climate proposals

US 'isolated' - Greenpeace Director John Sauven described the US position as "criminal"

Perhaps a tour down the perceptual "illusions, delusions, deceptions and reality" lane may spark interest and action to retrieve and/or redevelop the long past due and suppressed energy systems that are INDISPENSABLE to survival for growing and increasingly complex civilizations Illusions Delusions Deceptions & reality - The Joker

US 'opposes' G8 climate proposals
The US appears to have rejected draft proposals by Germany for G8 members to agree tough measures in greenhouse gas emissions, leaked documents have shown.

Developing economies are at major risk from climate change

Wide-ranging US amendments to a draft communique prepared ahead of June's G8 in Germany summit cite a "fundamental opposition" to the proposals.
Germany wants all G8 members to agree timetables and targets for major cuts.
Greenpeace, who leaked the document, said it showed UK PM Tony Blair failed to persuade the US to alter its stance.
In the document, US officials make major changes to the communique.
In comments printed in red ink, the US negotiators express disappointment that earlier concerns have not been taken on board.

We have tried to 'tread lightly' but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position US comments on leaked communique
The changes strike out entire sentences and significantly reduce the certainty with which the statement addresses climate change.
"The US still has serious, fundamental concerns about this draft statement," a red-inked note reads.
"The treatment of climate change runs counter to our overall position and crosses 'multiple red lines' in terms of what we simply cannot agree to," it continues.
"We have tried to 'tread lightly' but there is only so far we can go given our fundamental opposition to the German position."
However, in Washington, senior US lawmakers have written to President Bush expressing their dismay at the administration's position, the AFP news agency reports.
US 'isolated'
Correspondents say the document hints at a looming struggle over the issue of climate change at the G8 summit, to be held on 6-8 June in Heiligendamm, Germany.
Chancellor Angela Merkel wants to use Germany's presidency of the G8 to secure a major climate change deal, including:
Agreement to slow the rise in average temperatures this century to 2C
A cut in global emissions by 50% below 1990 levels by 2050
A rise in energy efficiency in power and transport by 20 percent by 2020.
Greenpeace Director John Sauven described the US position as "criminal".
"The US administration is clearly ignoring the global scientific consensus as well the groundswell of concern about climate change in the United States," he said.
Mrs Merkel should make it clear the US was isolated on the issue among G8 members ...full text

US fears grow over China military

The U.S. defense budget will top $606 billion this year. Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

US fears grow over China military
BBC: The US has expressed concern over China's growing military might.
A Pentagon report given to Congress says Beijing is spending far more on its military budget than admitted and calls for greater transparency.
The report highlights China's greater ability to mount pre-emptive strikes, citing new submarines, unmanned combat aircraft and sophisticated missiles.
China said in March it was increasing its military spending by 17.8% in 2007 but it still lags far behind the US.
The BBC's James Coomarasamy in Washington says the Pentagon paints a picture of a country whose growing economic and political power is being mirrored in "a comprehensive military transformation".
The annual report says Beijing is moving towards a more pre-emptive defence strategy with the focus on its border areas.

It would be nice to hear first-hand from the Chinese... we wish there were greater transparency, that they would talk more about what their intentions are Robert Gates US Defence Secretary
It suggests that the possibility of US intervention in any crisis in the Taiwan Strait is an important factor in China's military planning.
The report also describes a successful anti-satellite weapon test conducted by the Chinese in January as posing a threat to "all space-faring nations".
As in previous reports, there was strong complaint about a lack of transparency in both China's military spending and its military aims.
"It would be nice to hear first-hand from the Chinese... we wish there were greater transparency, that they would talk more about what their intentions are," US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Thursday, prior to the report's release.
Its publication comes at the end of a week when a high level Chinese delegation has been in Washington discussing areas of economic tension - and is a further sign that the levels of trust between Washington and Beijing are currently not very high, our correspondent says.
'Nuclear forces'
The Pentagon report highlights concerns about China's preparations to deploy a mobile, land-based ballistic missile, with a range that reportedly covers the entire United States.
The development of a new fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, equipped with ballistic missiles with a ...full text

'Pattern of Deception'

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

Al Gore: 'I'm Not a Candidate'
New Book Accuses Bush Administration of 'Pattern of Deception'
By TERRY MORAN and MATT STUART
May 21, 2007 —
Former Vice President Al Gore is harshly critical of President Bush in his new book, "The Assault on Reason," in which he claims that "the current White House has engaged in an unprecedented and sustained campaign of mass deception."
In an interview with ABC News, Gore goes one step further on the war in Iraq, calling it "the worst strategic mistake in the whole history of the United States."
However, Gore refuses to place the blame squarely on Bush. "When our country made a decision to invade Iraq, it's too partisan to simply blame that on the current president," he said.
Despite his chapters focusing on "the politics of fear" and "democracy in the balance," Gore insists that "this is not a political book." Rather, he claims, the focus of the book is "the structural problems in the way we make decisions in our country."
'It's Not Like It Used to Be'
Gore also dismisses the notion that this is an "angry" book. But when asked if he agreed with President Carter's assertion that the current administration is "the worst in history," Gore refused to answer. "I've recently begun to fear that I've been losing my objectivity on Bush and Cheney. &You would rather have someone else do that."
Later in the interview, Gore acknowledges that he did feel he would have been a better president than Bush. "Anybody who runs for president, as I did twice, has the impression that they could do the job better than anyone else," he said.
Gore also said that the events in the period following the 2000 election were what led him to "examine what it is about the conversation of democracy that is not working well," and was the point at which he felt "it's not like it used to be here. Facts don't seem to matter as much."
Will He Run?
The book also covers other perceived problems in the United States, criticizing the Bush administration's decision "to lead by inciting fear" rather than courage, ...full text

Did FDA Know Of Avandia Dangers In 2002?

The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole - Carroll Quigley, President Clinton's history professor at Georgetown University, quoted from his book, Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. Trust our lives to the ill defined corporate greedy guts model. Profit over Life? Contempt for life? Science suppression spells disaster in countless arenas of our lives - Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

Did FDA Know Of Avandia Dangers In 2002?

Years Ago, Agency Was Warned of a Drug’s Risks
WASHINGTON, May 22, 2007
(CBS/AP) The consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen claims that the Food and Drug Administration knew about problems associated with the diabetes drug Avandia for nearly five years. Avandia is linked to a greater risk of heart attack and possibly death, reported a new scientific analysis published online Monday. Pooled results of dozens of studies revealed a 43 percent higher risk of heart attack and a 64 percent greater risk of cardiovascular death, according to the review published by the New England Journal. Public Citizen sent a letter to the FDA complaining that an internal FDA memo from 2002 indicates that FDA scientists recommended labels for Avandia and Actos, another common diabetes drug, be changed to include a warning that there had been reports of heart failure for patients using the drugs. The group claims that despite the memo, the labels have not been changed. “The failure of the FDA to act on the recommendations made almost five years ago by its Division of Drug Risk Evaluation is yet another case in which the conclusions of scientists who are engaged in post-market drug safety review are not taken seriously enough or addressed soon enough,” said Dr. Sidney Wolfe, director of the Health Research Group at Public Citizen in a news release. “As a result, millions of people — to the detriment of their health — are prescribed drugs whose risks are dangerously understated, instead of being prescribed safer, equally or more effective alternative drugs.” The group has called on the FDA to either ban the drugs or include black-box warnings on their labels. Meanwhile, across the country, people who are taking Avandia are trying to figure out what to do. The American Diabetes Association has fielded 70 calls from patients since Monday's report in the New England Journal of Medicine that Avandia is linked to a significantly higher risk of heart attack and possibly death. Pat Russo is one of them. She has been taking Avandia for three years, but on Tuesday phoned her doctor when she read news reports that it might raise the risk of heart attack. “We're taking a wait-and-see approach,” said the 60-year-old business manager from Pennsylvania. For now, Russo's doctor has advised her to stay on the medicine. And she has a checkup scheduled in a few weeks. Avandia’s maker, British-based GlaxoSmithKline PLC, contends the drug is safe and that more rigorous studies did not confirm a higher heart attack risk. Most experts say the actual risk to any single patient does appear to be small but that more studies are needed. The suggestion of a greater heart risk is especially troubling, though, because two-thirds of diabetics die of heart problems. More than 6 million people worldwide have taken Avandia since it came on the market in 1999 ...full text

Polar ocean 'soaking up less CO2'

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

Polar ocean 'soaking up less CO2'
By Paul Rincon Science reporter, BBC News
One of Earth's most important absorbers of carbon dioxide (CO2) is failing to soak up as much of the greenhouse gas as it was expected to, scientists say.
The decline of Antarctica's Southern Ocean carbon "sink" - or reservoir - means that atmospheric CO2 levels may be higher in future than predicted.
These carbon sinks are vital as they mop up excess CO2 from the atmosphere, slowing down global warming.
The study, by an international team, is published in the journal Science.
This effect had been predicted by climate scientists, and is taken into account - to some extent - by climate models. But it appears to be happening 40 years ahead of schedule.
The data will help refine models of the Earth's climate, including those upon which the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are based.

Of all the CO2 emitted into the atmosphere, only half of it stays there; the rest goes into carbon sinks.
There are two major natural carbon sinks: the oceans and the land "biosphere". They are equivalent in size, each absorbing a quarter of all CO2 emissions.
The Southern Ocean is thought to account for about 15% of all carbon sinks.
Sink efficiency
It was assumed that, as human activities released more CO2 into the atmosphere, ocean sinks would keep pace, absorbing a comparable percentage of this greenhouse gas.
The breakdown in efficiency of these sinks was an expected outcome, but not until the second half of the 21st Century.
Lead researcher Corinne Le Quere and colleagues collected atmospheric CO2 data from 11 stations in the Southern Ocean and 40 stations across the globe.
Measurements of atmospheric CO2 allowed them to infer how much carbon dioxide was taken up by sinks. The team was then able to see how efficient they were in comparison to one another at absorbing CO2.
"Ever since observations started in 1981, we see that the sinks have not increased [in their absorption of CO2]," Corinne LeQuere told the BBC's Science in Action programme.
"They have remained the same as they were 24 years ago even though the emissions have risen by 40%."
The cause of the decline in the Southern Ocean sink ... full text

THE ATOMIC BAZAAR - The Rise of the Nuclear Poor

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

NYT May 20, 2007 The Nuclear Threat By JONATHAN RABAN

THE ATOMIC BAZAAR
The Rise of the Nuclear Poor.
By William Langewiesche.
179 pp. Farrar, Straus & Giroux. $22.
One need read only the first three pages of “The Atomic Bazaar” to be reminded of William Langewiesche’s formidable talent as a journalist whose cool, precise and economical reporting is harnessed to an invigorating moral and intellectual perspective on the world he describes. In a single paragraph, he lucidly explains the basic physics of the uranium-based atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Once a professional pilot, and the author of “Inside the Sky,” Langewiesche then leads the reader inside the “pressurized, well-heated” cockpit of the Enola Gay, flying at 31,000 feet in “smooth air,” piloted by the young Colonel Paul Tibbets, and vividly reconstructs the evasive maneuver taken by the B-29 as it banks steeply to minimize the coming shockwaves, while the bomb, named Little Boy, falls for 43 seconds before igniting several miles below, lighting the sky with “the prettiest blues and pinks that Tibbets had ever seen.” Tibbets’s subsequent career, from Air Force general to Internet purveyor of autographed souvenirs of that momentous flight, is adroitly sketched. The bombing of Nagasaki three days after Hiroshima, with a plutonium device, is handled in brisk but sufficient detail. Langewiesche counts the total killed in the two attacks (around 220,000), then delivers his own one-sentence bomb: “The intent was to terrorize a nation to the maximum extent, and there is nothing like nuking civilians to achieve that effect.”
There’s no missing the incendiary effect of the word “terrorize,” slyly linking the American attacks on Japanese cities in 1945 and Al Qaeda’s attacks on Manhattan and the Pentagon in 2001. Terrorism as a means of warfare is not confined to so-called nonstate actors like Mohamed Atta and his colleagues, but is habitually employed by nation states, including the United States. In 1958, Albert Wohlstetter, the cold war strategist (and guru to many current players on the scene, including Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle), published an influential article whose title, “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” succinctly characterized the cold war itself. The chief purpose of nuclear weapons is to terrorize: “mutual deterrence” is simply a euphemism for mutual terror.
On our comprehensively terrorized globe, almost everybody, from covert, stateless bands of jihadists to accredited members of the United Nations, believes himself in need of either ready-made atomic bombs or the technology and expertise with which to manufacture them. “The nuclearization of the world,” Langewiesche writes, “has become the human condition, and it cannot be changed.” It is with that grim but realistic assumption ...full text

TAMING THE GIANT CORPORATION

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

TAMING THE GIANT CORPORATION:
A National Conference on Corporate Accountability

Presented by Ralph Nader and The Center for Study of Responsive Law
June 8, 9 and 10, 2007 1530 P Street, NW Washington, DC 20005
The multinational corporation is the dominant institution in the global political economy. The toll it inflicts on people and the planet -- high drug prices, sweatshops, global warming, and on and on -- is well documented. But too little attention has been focused on the corporation itself, and the evolving forms of corporate power. "Taming the Giant Corporation" aims to identify, examine and classify the changing manifestations of corporate power. The conference's central, pioneering task is to facilitate discussion, debate and strategic thinking about how to subordinate corporate power to the will and interests of the people. How do we replace the excessive corporate privileges and immunities entrenched in law and the economy? Corporations were originally chartered by the states in the early nineteenth century to be our servants not our masters. How can we displace corporations (e.g., with national health insurance, by keeping information and knowledge in the public domain, or by expanding and strengthening the commons)? What tools and approaches can empower communities to set parameters on corporate activity? What countervailing institutions should be nurtured to offset concentrated corporate power? "Taming the Giant Corporation" will be an opportunity to learn, debate, meet leading advocates and activists, and grapple with the questions that must be answered if we are to strive for a just and livable world.

Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

NYT May 20, 2007
Bilking the Elderly, With a Corporate Assist
By CHARLES DUHIGG
The thieves operated from small offices in Toronto and hangar-size rooms in India. Every night, working from lists of names and phone numbers, they called World War II veterans, retired schoolteachers and thousands of other elderly Americans and posed as government and insurance workers updating their files.
Then, the criminals emptied their victims’ bank accounts.
Richard Guthrie, a 92-year-old Army veteran, was one of those victims. He ended up on scam artists’ lists because his name, like millions of others, was sold by large companies to telemarketing criminals, who then turned to major banks to steal his life’s savings.
Mr. Guthrie, who lives in Iowa, had entered a few sweepstakes that caused his name to appear in a database advertised by infoUSA, one of the largest compilers of consumer information. InfoUSA sold his name, and data on scores of other elderly Americans, to known lawbreakers, regulators say.
InfoUSA advertised lists of “Elderly Opportunity Seekers,” 3.3 million older people “looking for ways to make money,” and “Suffering Seniors,” 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. “Oldies but Goodies” contained 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old, for 8.5 cents apiece. One list said: “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”
As Mr. Guthrie sat home alone — surrounded by his Purple Heart medal, photos of eight children and mementos of a wife who was buried nine years earlier — the telephone rang day and night. After criminals tricked him into revealing his banking information, they went to Wachovia, the nation’s fourth-largest bank, and raided his account, according to banking records.
“I loved getting those calls,” Mr. Guthrie said in an interview. “Since my wife passed away, I don’t have many people to talk with. I didn’t even know they were stealing from me until everything was gone.”
Telemarketing fraud, once limited to small-time thieves, has become a global criminal enterprise preying upon millions of elderly and other Americans every year, authorities say. Vast databases of names and personal information, sold to thieves by large publicly traded companies, have put almost anyone within reach of fraudulent telemarketers. And major banks have made it possible for criminals to dip into victims’ accounts without their authorization, according to court records.
The banks and companies that sell such services often confront evidence that they are used for fraud, according to thousands of banking documents, court filings and e-mail messages reviewed by The New York Times. ...full text

"Sicko"

"We are the richest country in the world. We spend more on health care than any other country. Yet we have the worst health care in the Western world. Come on. We can do better than this."Filmmaker Michael Moore

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

"Sicko", Michael Moore's Latest Target: Your HMO
LOS ANGELES, May 19, 2007
Filmmaker Michael Moore talks during a press conference for his documentary "Sicko," at the 60th International film festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 19, 2007. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

CBS (AP) It could have been a college reunion: hugs, tears, laughter, photos, and a big friendly guy in shorts and sneakers organizing it all. But the guy in shorts was Michael Moore, whose new documentary, "Sicko," takes aim at the U.S. health care industry with the same fury — laced with humor, of course, and plenty of statistics — that he directed at the Bush administration in his hit "Fahrenheit 9/11." And the people who'd flown in for this intimate first screening, a day after the film had been shipped to the Cannes Film Festival, included grateful Sept. 11 "first responders," suffering lung problems or other ailments from their days at ground zero. In the film, Moore takes them to Cuba and tries to get them treated at the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay — where, he contends, terror suspects were getting better medical care than the heroes of 9/11 ...full text

Carter: Bush Admin. Is "Worst In History"

Time will tell the Gifts we bring to ourselves and our children in the next few years - the major forces at play accelerating and foretelling our destination are in the headlines - science suppression causing the Trouble With Physics and creating the stagnant energy science is an extremely unwise and lethal choice as it also deprives us of the evolutionary wisdom and understanding that accompanies new energy revelations - all requirements for survival Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

President Jimmy Carter speaking at the University of California, Irvine campus in Irvine, Calif., May 3, 2007. In a newspaper interview Mr. Carter rated the Bush administration "the worst in history" for its "overt reversal of America's basic values." (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes)"This is the most forceful denunciation President Carter has ever made about an American president. When you call somebody the worst president, that's volatile. Those are fighting words."
Douglas Brinkley Presidential historian
Carter: Bush Admin. Is "Worst In History"
CBS LITTLE ROCK, Ark., May 19, 2007
(AP) Former President Carter says President Bush's administration is "the worst in history" in international relations, taking aim at the White House's policy of pre-emptive war and its Middle East diplomacy. The criticism from Carter, which a biographer says is unprecedented for the 39th president, also took aim at Bush's environmental policies and the administration's "quite disturbing" faith-based initiative funding. "I think as far as the adverse impact on the nation around the world, this administration has been the worst in history," Carter told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in a story that appeared in the newspaper's Saturday editions. "The overt reversal of America's basic values as expressed by previous administrations, including those of George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon and others, has been the most disturbing to me." Carter spokeswoman Deanna Congileo confirmed his comments to The Associated Press on Saturday and declined to elaborate. He spoke while promoting his new audiobook series, "Sunday Mornings in Plains," a collection of weekly Bible lessons from his hometown of Plains, Ga. "Apparently, Sunday mornings in Plains for former President Carter includes hurling reckless accusations at your fellow man," said Amber Wilkerson, Republican National Committee spokeswoman. She said it was hard to take Carter seriously because he also "challenged Ronald Reagan's strategy for the Cold War." Carter came down hard on the Iraq war. "We now have endorsed the concept of pre-emptive war where we go to war with another nation militarily, even though our own security is not directly threatened, if we want to change the regime there or if we fear that some time in the future our security might be endangered," he said. "But that's been a radical departure from all previous administration policies." Carter, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2002, criticized Bush for having "zero peace talks" in Israel. Carter also said the administration "abandoned or directly refuted" every negotiated nuclear arms agreement, as well as environmental efforts by other presidents. Carter also offered a harsh assessment for the White House's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives, which helped religious charities receive $2.15 billion in federal grants in fiscal year 2005 alone. "The policy from the White House has been to allocate funds to religious institutions, even those that channel those funds exclusively to their own particular group of believers in a particular religion," Carter said. "As a traditional Baptist, I've always believed in separation of church and state and honored that premise when I was president, and so have all other presidents, I might say, except this one." ...full text

Civilian Deaths Undermine Allies’ War on Taliban

“We ran with bare feet, we left our shoes,” said Sara, a relative and the mother of seven, whose house was also bombed. “I was running and they were shooting at us from the plane,” she said.Two uncles and two cousins were killed when the house was bombed, she said. “We have nothing, it’s all finished,” she said.The river was chest-high at the time, and a number of women and children were swept away. Fifty-seven people died over all, including 17 children under 10, 10 women and 14 old men, Hajji Daulat Khan said. Eight people are still missing, including a 21-year-old man, and Husi’s three children.

But the villagers denied that any Taliban were in the area. Instead, they said, they rose up and fought the Americans themselves, after the soldiers raided several houses, arrested two men and shot dead two old men on a village road.After burying the dead, the tribe’s elders met with their chief, Hajji Arbab Daulat Khan, and resolved to fight American forces if they returned. “If they come again, we will stand against them, and we will raise the whole area against them,” he warned. Or in the words of one foreign official in Afghanistan, the Americans went after one guerrilla commander and created a hundred more.

NYT May 13, 2007
Civilian Deaths Undermine Allies’ War on Taliban
By CARLOTTA GALL and DAVID E. SANGER
ZERKOH, Afghanistan, May 9 — Scores of civilian deaths over the past months from heavy American and allied reliance on airstrikes to battle Taliban insurgents are threatening popular support for the Afghan government and creating severe strains within the NATO alliance.
Afghan, American and other foreign officials say they worry about the political toll the civilian deaths are exacting on President Hamid Karzai, who last week issued another harsh condemnation of the American and NATO tactics, and even of the entire international effort here.
What angers Afghans are not just the bombings, but also the raids of homes, the shootings of civilians in the streets and at checkpoints, and the failure to address those issues over the five years of war. Afghan patience is wearing dangerously thin, officials warn.
The civilian deaths are also exposing tensions between American commanders and commanders from other NATO countries, who have never fully agreed on the strategy to fight the war here, in a country where there are no clear battle lines between civilians and Taliban insurgents.
At NATO headquarters in Brussels, military commanders and diplomats alike fear that divisions within the coalition and the loss of support among Afghans could undermine what until now was considered a successful spring, one in which NATO launched a broad offensive but the Taliban did not.
“There is absolutely no question that the will and support of the Afghan people is vitally important to what we do here,” Gen. Dan K. McNeill, the American commander of the International Security Assistance Force, said in an interview. “We are their guests, they are the hosts. We have to be mindful of their culture, we have to operate in the context of their culture, and we have to take every possible precaution to not cause undue risk to those around us, and to their property.”
But American officials say that they have been forced to use air power more intensively as they have spread their reach throughout Afghanistan, raiding Taliban strongholds that had gone untouched for six years. One senior NATO official said that “without air, we’d need hundreds of thousands of troops” in the country. They also contend that the key to reducing casualties is training more Afghan Army soldiers and police officers.
The anger is visible here in this farming village in the largely peaceful western province of Herat, where American airstrikes left 57 villagers dead, nearly half of them women and children, on April 27 and 29 ... full text

In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker to Pay $600 Million

Trust our lives to the ill defined corporate greedy guts model. Contempt for life? Science suppression spells disaster in countless arenas of our lives - Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

NYT May 10, 2007
In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker to Pay $600 Million
By BARRY MEIER
ABINGDON, Va., May 10 — The company that makes the narcotic painkiller OxyContin and three current and former executives pleaded guilty today in federal court here to criminal charges that they misled regulators, doctors and patients about the drug’s risk of addiction and its potential to be abused.
To resolve criminal and civil charges related to the drug’s “misbranding,” the parent of Purdue Pharma, the company that markets OxyContin, agreed to pay some $600 million in fines and other payments, one of the largest amounts ever paid by a drug company in such a case.
Also, in a rare move, three executives of Purdue Pharma, including its president and its top lawyer, pleaded guilty today as individuals to misbranding, a criminal violation. They agreed to pay a total of $34.5 million in fines.
OxyContin is a powerful, long-acting narcotic that provides relief of serious pain for up to 12 hours. Initially, Purdue Pharma contended that OxyContin, because of its time-release formulation, posed a lower threat of abuse and addiction to patients than do traditional, shorter-acting painkillers like Percocet or Vicodin.
That claim became the linchpin of the most aggressive marketing campaign ever undertaken by a pharmaceutical company for a narcotic painkiller. Just a few years after the drug’s introduction in 1996, annual sales reached $1 billion. Purdue Pharma heavily promoted OxyContin to doctors like general practitioners, who had often had little training in the treatment of serious pain or in recognizing signs of drug abuse in patients.
But both experienced drug abusers and novices, including teenagers, soon discovered that chewing an OxyContin tablet or crushing one and then snorting the powder or injecting it with a needle produced a high as powerful as heroin. By 2000, parts of the United States, particularly rural areas, began to see skyrocketing rates of addiction and crime related to use of the drug.
More details about the plea agreements were expected ...full text

Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs

Which Regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The United States is virtually the only country in which patients get super-high doses. Contempt for life? Science suppression spells disaster in countless arenas of our lives - Evolution Freedom Survival The Promise of New Energy

NYT May 9, 2007
Doctors Reap Millions for Anemia Drugs
By ALEX BERENSON and ANDREW POLLACK
Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses.
The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes.
Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other big users of the drugs, kidney dialysis centers — total hundreds of millions of dollars a year and are an important source of profit for doctors and the centers. The payments have risen over the last several years, as the makers of the drugs, Amgen and Johnson & Johnson, compete for market share and try to expand the overall business.
Neither Amgen nor Johnson & Johnson has disclosed the total amount of the payments. But documents given to The New York Times show that at just one practice in the Pacific Northwest, a group of six cancer doctors received $2.7 million from Amgen for prescribing $9 million worth of its drugs last year.
Yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration added to concerns about the drugs, releasing a report that suggested that their use might need to be curtailed in cancer patients. The report, prepared by F.D.A. staff scientists, said no evidence indicated that the medicines either improved quality of life in patients or extended their survival, while several studies suggested that the drugs can shorten patients’ lives when used at high doses. Yesterday’s report followed the F.D.A.’s decision in March to strengthen warnings on the drugs’ labels.
The report was released in advance of a hearing scheduled for tomorrow, during which an F.D.A. advisory panel will consider whether the drugs are overused.
The medicines — Aranesp and Epogen, from Amgen; and Procrit, from Johnson & Johnson — are among the world’s top-selling drugs, with combined sales of $10 billion last year. In this country, they represent the single biggest drug expense for Medicare and are given to about a million patients each year to treat anemia caused by kidney disease or cancer chemotherapy.
Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, the deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, said that both patients and doctors would benefit from fuller disclosure about the payments and the profits that doctors can make from them. “I suspect that Medicare is going to take a very careful look at what is going on here .. full text

Putin Cites Nazis in Veiled Criticism of U.S.

“We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” Mr. Putin said.
“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.”

MSN 5/10/07: Did Putin speech link U.S., Nazi policies? (article at end)
NYT May 10, 2007
Putin Cites Nazis in Veiled Criticism of U.S.
Putin Is Said to Compare U.S. Policies to Third Reich
By ANDREW E. KRAMER
MOSCOW, May 9 — President Vladimir V. Putin obliquely compared the foreign policy of the United States to the Third Reich in a speech on Wednesday commemorating the 62nd anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany, apparently in an escalation of anti-American talk within the Russian government.
The comments were the latest in a series of sharply worded Russian criticisms of the foreign policy of the United States — on Iraq, missile defense, NATO expansion and, more broadly, United States unilateralism in foreign affairs.
Many Russians say the sharper edge reflects a frustration that Russia’s views, in particular opposition to NATO expansion, have been ignored in the West. Outside of Russia, however, many detected in the new tone a return to cold-war-style antagonism, emboldened by petroleum wealth.
Mr. Putin’s analogy was a small part of a larger speech, otherwise unambiguously congratulating Russian veterans of World War II, known here as the Great Patriotic War. Mr. Putin spoke from a podium in front of Lenin’s mausoleum on Red Square before troops mustered for a military parade.
Mr. Putin called Victory Day a holiday of “huge moral importance and unifying power” for Russia, and went on to enumerate the lessons of that conflict for the world today.
“We do not have the right to forget the causes of any war, which must be sought in the mistakes and errors of peacetime,” Mr. Putin said.
“Moreover, in our time, these threats are not diminishing,” he said. “They are only transforming, changing their appearance. In these new threats, as during the time of the Third Reich, are the same contempt for human life and the same claims of exceptionality and diktat in the world.” ...full text

Second wave of tornadoes rakes Plains - More than 75 touchdowns

More energy, more weather - Hydrogen Today told us three decades ago. What part of systems theory, energy interactions, and stagnant energy science is still not understood? What part of freedom inextricably interwoven with evolution, survival, wisdom, understanding and quality of life is still NOT understood on the energy front? Another physicist responds - Evolution Freedom Survival

Second wave of tornadoes rakes Plains
CNN 5/5/2007 Story Highlights
• President Bush declares major disaster in southwest Kansas• More than 75 touchdowns reported Saturday• Tornado strikes high school in Sweetwater, Oklahoma• Most of Greensburg, Kansas, heavily damaged or destroyed
(CNN) -- Tornadoes tore across the nation's midsection for a second night Saturday, 24 hours after a storm leveled Greensburg, Kansas.
A tornado struck Sweetwater, Oklahoma, about 8:15 p.m. Saturday, causing major damage to a high school and other buildings.
"The tornado came through and just dead-center punched Sweetwater," Roger Mills County Sheriff Joe Hay told KOCO-TV in Oklahoma City. He said there was extensive damage but just one minor injury in the small town.
Video of the high school in Sweetwater showed a collapsed wall of the gymnasium. An all purpose building at the school was severely damaged.
The storm continued to grind north through northwestern Oklahoma toward Kansas for more than 45 minutes.
More than 75 tornado touchdowns were reported on Saturday -- 40 of them between 6 and 9 p.m., the National Weather Service's Storm Prediction Center said.
KOCO's Matt Leinbauer reported seeing damage from another confirmed tornado just east of Arnett, Oklahoma.
A massive tornado killed at least nine people in southwestern Kansas on Friday night and destroyed nearly everything in its path.
Rescue crews pulled some people alive from the rubble, and more ...full text

9 Die as Tornadoes Tear Apart Kansas Town

Storm chaser Lance Ferguson followed the system which begun in the Oklahoma panhandle. "What was just amazing is that the storm system just kept regenerating, it just kept recycling and kept doing its thing … Mother Nature's fury at its best," he told KWCH. "To see a tornado down on the ground for that long and to become that massive and that big, I haven’t seen anything like it before," he said. "It just kept getting wider and wider and wider."

What part of systems theory, energy interactions, and stagnant energy science is still not understood? What part of freedom inextricably interwoven with evolution, survival, wisdom, understanding and quality of life is still NOT understood on the energy front? Another physicist responds - Evolution Freedom Survival

Powerful Tornadoes Devastate SW Kansas (CBS/AP)
9 Die as Tornadoes Tear Apart Kansas Town (NYT/AP)
NYT May 5, 2007 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
GREENSBURG, Kan. (AP) -- Tornadoes killed at least nine people and leveled most of this southwest Kansas town, a state official said Saturday. Rescuers with dogs searched door to door for survivors.
The dead include six in Kiowa County, where Greensburg is located, and one in nearby Stafford County, said Sharon Watson, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General's Department.
The tornado that struck Greensburg late Friday damaged about 90 percent of the town about 110 miles west of Wichita, City Administrator Steve Hewitt said Saturday.
Dazed residents walked the streets, looking for loved ones and taking in the sight of crumbled buildings and smashed cars in the town of some 1,600 people.
Much of downtown was destroyed, along with City Hall, the high school and the junior high school, Hewitt said.
''I don't think we have a business left downtown,'' he said. A mandatory evacuation was ordered, he said.
Emergency personnel and search and rescue teams raced to Greensburg ... full text

Climate Panel Reaches Consensus on the Need to Reduce Harmful Emissions

"have to be a century-long transition to energy sources that have no impact on the climate" A century long???

What part of systems theory, energy interactions, and stagnant energy science is still not understood? What part of freedom inextricably interwoven with evolution, survival, wisdom, understanding and quality of life is still NOT understood on the energy front? Another physicist responds - Evolution Freedom Survival

With Speed and Violence: Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change (Hardcover)

NYT May 4, 2007
Climate Panel Reaches Consensus on the Need to Reduce Harmful Emissions
By ANDREW C. REVKIN and SETH MYDANS
BANGKOK, May 4 — The world’s established and emerging powers will need to divert substantially from today’s main energy sources within a few decades, to limit centuries of rising temperatures and seas driven by the buildup of heat-trapping emissions in the air, the top body studying climate change has concluded.
In an all-night session capping four days of talks, economists, scientists, and government officials from more than 100 countries agreed in Bangkok early today on the last sections of a report outlining ways to limit such emissions, led by carbon dioxide, an unavoidable byproduct of burning coal and oil.
The final report, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said prompt slowing of emissions could set the stage later in the century for stabilization of the concentration of carbon dioxide. Now at about 380 parts per million, the concentration has risen by more than one-third since the start of the industrial revolution, and could easily double from pre-industrial level within decades.
The report concluded that significant progress could be made toward halting the increase in the next 25 years using known technologies and policy changes, setting the stage for what would have to be a century-long transition to energy sources that have no impact on the climate.
Several authors said its message was clear.
“We can no longer make the excuse that we need to wait for more science, or the excuse that we need to wait for more technologies ...full text

Afghans Say U.S. Bombing Killed 42 Civilians

Wisdom and Understanding (necessary ingredients to be capable to use survival required & more powerful new energy applications) marches forward

President Hamid Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul that the Afghan people could no longer tolerate such casualties. “Five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue accepting civilian casualties,” he said. “It is becoming heavy for us; it is not understandable anymore.” “We are very sorry when the international coalition force and NATO soldiers lose their lives or are injured,” he said. “It pains us. But Afghans are human beings, too.”

NYT May 3, 2007
Afghans Say U.S. Bombing Killed 42 Civilians
By ABDUL WAHEED WAFA and CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 2 — Aerial bombing of a valley in western Afghanistan several days ago by the American military killed at least 42 civilians, including women and children, and wounded 50 more, an Afghan government investigation found Wednesday. A provincial council member who visited the site independently put the figure at 50 civilians killed.
President Hamid Karzai said at a news conference in Kabul that the Afghan people could no longer tolerate such casualties. “Five years on, it is very difficult for us to continue accepting civilian casualties,” he said. “It is becoming heavy for us; it is not understandable anymore.”
There have been several episodes recently in which civilians have been killed and foreign forces have been accused of indiscriminate or excessive force. That has prompted Afghan officials to warn that the good will of the Afghan people toward the government and the foreign military presence is wearing thin.
The government delegation reported that three villages were bombed last week in the Zerkoh Valley, 30 miles south of the western city of Herat, and 100 houses were destroyed and 1,600 people were now homeless, Farzana Ahmadi, a spokeswoman for the governor of Herat Province, said by telephone.
“The report says that some women and children were drowned in the river, and it was maybe in the heat of the moment that the children and people wanted to escape and jumped into the water,” she said. “This all happened just because of a lack of coordination between international forces and our forces.”
A provincial council member from Herat, Naik Muhammad Eshaq, who went to the area independently, said he had visited the three bombing sites and produced a list of 50 people who had died, including infants and other children under age 10. People were still digging bodies out of the rubble ..full text

Arctic melt faster than forecast

What part of systems theory, energy interactions, and stagnant energy science is still not understood? What part of freedom inextricably interwoven with evolution, survival, wisdom, understanding and quality of life is still NOT understood on the energy front? Another physicist responds - Evolution Freedom Survival

Arctic melt faster than forecast
By Richard Black Environment correspondent, BBC News website
Arctic ice is melting faster than computer models of climate calculate, according to a group of US researchers.
Since 1979, the Arctic has been losing summer ice at about 9% per decade, but models on average produce a melting rate less than half that figure.
The scientists suggest forecasts from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) may be too cautious.
The latest observations indicate that Arctic summers could be ice-free by the middle of the century.
"Somewhere in the second half of the century, it would happen," said Ted Scambos of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) at the University of Colorado.

The fact that all models show ice loss over the observed period and all project large ice losses into the future is a very strong message Marika Holland
"Some computer models show periods of great sensitivity ..full text