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Thursday, June 30, 2005

 

bush said we are hunting down terrorists and i thought

the speach the other night... a comment was made by bush that 'we are hunting down terrorists' and all i could think of was that elmer fudd and the wiley rabbit we all love.... but wait, we sided with the rabbit for his tennacity against the moronic hunter mr fudd.... so, now i am confused... do i cheer the rabbit or the hunter?
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well in this case, the hunter is dumber then a bush, wait, he is a bush, and he just seems to not get it. not get the parallels to nixon, to arrogance, to the tide of people shaking their heads... oh yeah, we are a democracy and we voted this guy back...
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so who is dumber?

 

got rid of terrorists this i did bush said



this doodle is a reaction to a piece i heard on the news during a 'speech'

Wednesday, June 29, 2005

 

Bioterror paper gets online

from WWW.NATURE.COM .... commentary on bottom...
:: News ::
Published online: 29 June 2005; doi:10.1038/news050627-10
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Bioterror paper gets online Erika Check
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Analysis of poisoned milk supply makes it past government protests.
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Botulinum toxin poured into a milk tanker could poison more than 500,000 people. A paper that analyses a hypothetical poison attack on the United States has been published despite the government's objections. The paper's authors modelled the health and economic losses that would result if a terrorist poisoned the US milk supply with the botulinum toxin. The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) originally said it would publish the paper on 25 May, but it delayed publication to address concerns from the US health department.
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After consideration, the journal has decided to publish the paper without any substantive changes.
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Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, which publishes PNAS, explained the journal's decision in an editorial, which was posted with the paper online. "It is important to recognize that publishing terrorism-related analysis in the open scientific literature can make the nation safer," Alberts wrote.
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But Stewart Simonson, assistant secretary for public health emergency preparedness at the health department, was critical. "The assistant secretary respects the decision, but he doesn't agree with it," said Marc Wolfson, a spokesman for Simonson.
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Dual-use research
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The episode raises thorny issues about the proper handling of 'dual use' scientific research. This is research that aims to bolster defence but that could be used maliciously. Scientists and security experts have been wrestling over what to do with dual-use research and information since the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001.
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The PNAS paper, by Lawrence Wein and graduate student Yifan Liu from Stanford University, California, considers what might happen if botulinum toxin were poured into a milk tanker on its way to a holding tank. The toxin is a potent nerve poison that is sometimes used in very low doses in plastic surgery to smooth the skin. Wein and Lu calculate that, when diluted, this would deliver potentially lethal doses to about 568,000 people. They then estimate the number who would fall ill, with symptoms ranging from cramps to paralysis, depending on factors such as when the poison is detected and whether the milk is pasteurised. In some scenarios, the great majority of these people could fall ill or die.
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Health officials contend that the paper amounts to a blueprint for terrorists. But Alberts and the paper's authors say that much of the information is readily available on the Internet, so it does not provide any new ideas. Instead, they said, it will inform the nation's defences. Wein notes that publications on vulnerabilities can help the government to strengthen the nation against attacks, and can help the public put pressure on policy-makers when they drag their feet.
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"There has been no perceptible move in the food industry or in the government to shift from a food safety to a food security mentality," says Wein. "In a free society, the notion that we become more secure through transparency is important," said biophysicist Steven Block of Stanford University. "The government needs to be reminded of that from time to time."Critical timing
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The PNAS episode raises the profile of these issues at a crucial time, occurring just before the first meeting of a US government group that has been set up to tackle difficult issues in science and security. The National Science Advisory Board on Biosecurity, based in Bethesda, Maryland, was created in March 2004 and is scheduled to hold its first meeting on 30 June. In his editorial, Alberts suggested that the board use the botulism paper as a case study for further analysis.
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In 2003, many journals, including PNAS, said they would specially review dual-use research papers for security concerns, and PNAS did follow this procedure for the botulism paper. But Elisa Harris, an analyst at the Center for International and Security Studies at the University of Maryland in College Park, says the dispute over this paper shows that the scientific community needs more guidance."I think this whole exercise demonstrates that the publishers' statement from 2003 is not sufficient," Harris said. "We need real guidelines for PNAS, other scientific journals and scientists to use in assessing the biosecurity risks of a given manuscript."
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References
Lawrence M., Liu Y. & Liu W. PNAS, 10.1073/pnas.0408526102 (2005). Article ChemPort
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:: WHAT DO YOU THINK READERS?::
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Transparency yes? A lot of people I have known in local government are just not considerate of what can be an issue. Not through malevolance but through the reality of lack of vision. It is important that oversight happens and at times that oversight is by bringing to the attention of the people in power to make changes.... what a thread or consideration needs to be.
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It is like the gun control argument.... weapons will be had by those who intend to do harm. No matter what you do. However, when there is a reality of a thinking acting and alert populace, that populace is the best input to the system of checks and balances.
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Example, I have a close friend in the airline industry, in the pre 9/11 days when irate or illogically temporarily deranged people are loosing it on a plane, in the past no one would stand up and help the crew. At times even the other crew would not help. Now... when a person is getting psychotic from fevor or fear or what ever, passengers step up and help keep everyone safe.
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Most people are not strong enough emotionaly or spiritually to stand up in the face of oppression. So, if transparency on what could be issues is made known, then a person who can effect change is more likely to stand up and help make the rest of us safer.
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what do you think? .... sound off please.

Saturday, June 25, 2005

 

Supreme Court and 5th amendment





you have to be kidding me?! ... a city can bulldoze a house to make way for a shopping center for the public good? the 5th amendment... was not the idea to protect the person's right to property? i understand the economics of taking out a neighborhood for a business center... but to me, it seems like this is a slippery slope where we the people keep loosing more to the government growing more powerfull and less transparent..


Does anyone remeber Rachel Corrie? she died trying to stop unreasonable bulldozing of family homes.... the ISM maybe needs to get involved in the common man here in America too!


I mean.... WTF people! if the governement is allowed to decide it wants YOUR house... for a business park... how will YOU feel about it? Do you think they will give you fair market and what about the hassel and issues around moving relocation, being able to buy a comperable house, what about the 87 year old lady who just wants to stay in the home she has known for GENERATIONS!

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I mean look at this ladies house.... does that look like a place to condemn? There is a guys waterfront (Bill Von Winkle) business that is being condemend too. I think that was a bad call on the Supreme Courts rule... The City is wanting to bring in more gambeling casino places and other higher tax base type business's to the waterfront then the residential and business that are there now. This is not a case of a greator social good like as in a war is going on and we need a place to get boats into the water, (issues facing our founding fathers when they wrote the Amendment) this is a town that is high end when you compare to places in the heartland that have been ghosted by a highway's relocation or farming dieing and folks move away abandoning property. New London is not fading away, it is just not going to be a rich town like it was with the military bases pouring cash into the area. So the mayor will have to drive a Volkswagon in stead of a Mercedes Benz.... get a grip and look at the reality of allowing local people in government to make these kinds of decisions over a glass of whiskey with a developer at the local club and that is not good. Decisions like this need the oversight and guidence of esteemed people who are removed from the local politics and can look at the big picture. For the supreme court to say let's be Republican about it and let the local people decide.....

What do you think? .... read more....

http://www.ij.org/private_property/connecticut/12_6_04pr.html
http://emdo.blogspot.com/2005/02/familiar-fight-new-london-ct-day-21305.html
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2005/03/kelo_eminent_domain.html

why is it that when i google
http://www.google.com/search?q=5th+amendment+new+london+ct&hl=en&lr=&safe=off&start=10&sa=N

I get blogs and where is the mainstream media on this?

unless I go direct to http://go.reuters.com/newsSearchResultsHome.jhtml?query=new%20london&qtype=a

i mean... this is an old town... http://www.newlondongazette.com/map.html

anyway...... who reads this anyway...




 

Kerry and the Downing Street Memo and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Kerry, Dems demand Downing Street inquiryA few weeks ago, John Kerry vowed to make an issue of the Downing Street memo in the U.S. Senate. And then nothing happened -- or so it seemed.
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In fact, Kerry has been working behind the scenes to get some of his Democratic colleagues to join him in calling for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to look into Downing Street, and now it's finally happening. Kerry -- joined by Sens. Jon Corzine, Tim Johnson, Ted Kennnedy, Frank Lautenberg, Barbara Boxer, Tom Harkin, Jack Reed, Jeff Bingaman and, yes, Dick Durbin -- has just written a letter to the committee's chairman and vice chairman, arguing that the revelations contained in the Downing Street memo "raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence" in the run up to the Iraq war and provide "renewed urgency" for the committee to complete an investigation that Republicans have said is no longer necessary.
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Here's the text of the letter:
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"We write concerning your committee's vital examination of pre-war Iraq intelligence failures. In particular, we urge you to accelerate to completion the work of the so-called 'Phase II' effort to assess how policy makers used the intelligence they received.
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"Last year your committee completed the first phase of a two-phased effort to review the pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Phase I -- begun in the summer of 2003 and completed in the summer of 2004 -- examined the performance of the American intelligence community in the collection and analysis of intelligence prior to the war, including an examination of the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence on ties between Saddam Hussein's regime and terrorist groups. At the conclusion of Phase I, your committee issued an unclassified report that made an important contribution to the American public's understanding of the issues involved.
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"In February 2004 -- well over a year ago -- the committee agreed to expand the scope of inquiry to include a second phase which would examine the use of intelligence by policy makers, the comparison of pre-war assessments and post-war findings, the activities of the Policy Counterterrorism Evaluation Group (PCTEG) and the Office of Special Plans in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, and the use of information provided by the Iraqi National Congress.
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"The committee's efforts have taken on renewed urgency given recent revelations in the United Kingdom regarding the apparent minutes of a July 23, 2002, meeting between Prime Minister Tony Blair and his senior national security advisors. These minutes-known as the 'Downing Street Memo' -- raise troubling questions about the use of intelligence by American policy makers-questions that your committee is uniquely situated to address.
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"The memo indicates that in the summer of 2002, at a time the White House was promising Congress and the American people that war would be their last resort, that they believed military action against Iraq was 'inevitable.' The minutes reveal that President 'Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.'
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"The American people took the warnings that the administration sounded seriously-warnings that were echoed at the United Nations and here in Congress as we voted to give the president the authority to go to war. For the sake of our democracy and our future national security, the public must know whether such warnings were driven by facts and responsible intelligence, or by political calculation.
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"These issues need to be addressed with urgency. This remains a dangerous world, with American forces engaged in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other challenges looming in Iran and North Korea. In this environment, the American public should have the highest confidence that policy makers are using intelligence objectively- never manipulating it to justify war, but always to protect the United States. The contents of the Downing Street Memo undermine this faith and only rigorous Congressional oversight can determine the truth.
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"We urge the committee to complete the second phase of its investigation with the maximum speed and transparency possible, producing, as it did at the end of Phase I, a comprehensive, unclassified report from which the American people can benefit directly."
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-- Tim Grieve
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[16:01 EDT, June 24, 2005]
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.: TRANSPARENCY is the key people :.

Friday, June 03, 2005

 

Levellers

This is from a Yahoo Group thing for Meads... we have been doing DNA testing and exchanging of research on the family. Apparently we have always been a bit odd in the sense of non conformists. Some non-conformists have been the outlaw ish types (early Euro Americans were booted from Europe aka not part of any group think phenom)
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this following is a post I thought was funny in the idea of sheds light...
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Greetings Lance and Maryanna and all you other levelers...
Dictionary.com has a similar def. with a somewhat broader connation:
One who advocates the abolition of social inequities.
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Leveller: A member of an English radical political movement arising
in the Parliamentarian forces of the 1640s and advocating universal
male suffrage, equality before the law, parliamentary democracy, and
religious tolerance
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The traits I most admired in my father, Ralph Mead, were intelligence
and principle and taking care of his family. These are traits I see
in all Lance's wonderful Mead stories from their defense of Martha
Mead to their courage in telling the Bitish, "I am not hiding any
deserters, and if I were I wouldn't tell you!!"
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I feel as though I have come home. I realize these attributes are not
only common to Meads, but I think we have been given genes that allow
this emergence. Such fun! Wish I could be with all of you in July! I
will be there for the next one!
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Thanks, too, Wanda, for the suggestions on the DNA test, I will offer
to pay for my brother's or his son's. Unfortunately, my father is
deceased. I know he would do it in a heartbeat.
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One of the interesting ironies of genealogy is we can sometimes heal
what we had hoped for in more immediate generations by communicating
with our extended families we had not previously had the privilege of
knowing.
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I think it is great that you, Maryanna, realize the value of your
children's heritage in spite of the fact that you are no longer
married to a Mead. In fact, you may be more "Mead" than your ex.. the
DNA shuffle is interesting.I think we are all more "related" than we
realize. A fact confirmned by my recent participation in the world
genome project sponsored by National Geographic.
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Love to all you wonderful free-spirited Meads,
Virginia
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Hi Lance:Yeah, gotta have the dictionary and several other books of archaiclanguage if you're gonna do genealogy.Glad I fianlly found a group that talks to one another. No one in myfamily is much interested in genealogy. I don't have many people whoget excited when I find a juicy tid-bit to share.My ex-mother-in-law is a great old gal. She's eighty eight and still drives down to Orange County, CA from central Calif. all by herself. I speak to her at least once a week. I always joke that I got rid of him (my ex) and kept his mother. My mom died when I was twenty four and I was married to him for twenty three years, so it's almost like she's my mom.When I read that bit about Levellers, I couldn't help but think of myex and his two brothers. They're always ready for a fight and, if theycan't find anyone else to fight, they'll fight each other. Real Meadsto the bitter end. And don't look for them in the same place twice,they like to move around. Probably a genetic hold-over from when theirancestors were one step ahead of the law.Have a great day, all.
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Har har har I see a trait thar I do!
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Yankee Doodle went to town
Riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his hat
and called it Maccaroni!
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