the Sugar Conspiracy 

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Thursday, May 22, 2003 Bush blames Europe for starvation in Africa This is such a cheap political maneuver. A whole bunch of things about this bother me. GM foods have not been determined safe for consumption and too many questions exist as to their effect on the environment, yet the Bush administration seems to think they're man's gift to nature. Plus, Americans and Europeans are generally against consuming GM foods, yet it's perfectly okay to ship GM foods to Africa?? And guess who are some of the major contributors to the Republican party - that's right, GM companies. It's such a short-sighted, dangerous path along the genetically modified highway. A highway that plows right through the developing nations. Thankfully Europe has some sense on this issue, as do some of the African nations themselves. posted by chris at 4:04 PM   ------------------ Wednesday, May 21, 2003 FedEx goes green! The FedEx Corporation announced today that it planned to replace 30,000 of its delivery trucks with energy-saving, environmentally friendly hybrid-powered vehicles. The company said that it had already purchased 20 such trucks to begin building what would be one of the first big commercial fleets of hybrid vehicles. The new trucks — powered by both diesel engines and electric motors in a mix controlled by onboard computers — will be introduced over the next several months in four American cities. Story via New York Times. Thanks Lindsey. posted by chris at 2:28 PM   A rose by any other name . . . The Pentagon assured Congress that its planned anti-terror surveillance system will only analyze legally acquired information and changed the name of the project to help allay privacy concerns that prompted congressional restrictions. The Total Information Awareness program now under development by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, will henceforth be named the Terrorism Information Awareness program. Didn't Philip Morris, excuse me, I mean Altria Group, Inc. try the same thing? It doesn't mean they've stopped selling cigarettes. Change your name here. posted by chris at 9:31 AM   But I thought the attack on Iraq was supposed to lessen terrorism The U.S.-led war on Iraq gave Al Qaeda the opportunity to reinvigorate its weakened terrorist network with new recruits and more funding, say experts on terrorism. The Iraq war "clearly increased the terrorist impulse," said Jonathan Stevenson, senior fellow for counter-terrorism at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. -clip- Stevenson believes U.S. President George W. Bush's administration knew full well the war would initially increase support for Al Qaeda. But U.S. officials estimated the long-term impact of setting up a democratic government in Iraq would outweigh the short-term pain of more terror attacks, he said. "The political masters in the U.S. and Europe underestimated the extent to which bin Laden would use the war in Iraq as a propaganda weapon to rejuvenate the movement and attract more funds," said Paul Wilkinson, head of the Center for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at St. Andrew's University in Scotland. Story here. posted by chris at 9:20 AM   ------------------ Tuesday, May 20, 2003 Quote of the day From Mark Greyson, spokesman for PhRMA, an umbrella lobbying group for the pharmeutical industry, explaining why Washington remains the sole opposition to a December agreement in the World Trade Organization giving developing nations the right to ignore patents and import generic drugs: "It's not about the poor countries; if it were about the poor countries everything will be over." posted by chris at 12:40 PM   It's still not about the oil. The U.S. executive selected by the Pentagon to advise Iraq's Ministry of Oil suggested today that the country might best be served by exporting as much oil as it can and disregarding quotas set by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. His comments offered the strongest indication to date that the future Iraqi government may break ranks with the international petroleum cartel. -clip- "There will have to be an evaluation by the ministry of those contracts and a determination of whether they were made in the best interests of the Iraqi people," Carroll said. "Certainly, where contracts are, shall we say, excessively beneficial to one party, and that party is not the Iraqi people, and there is a legal basis for not going forward, then I would expect that the ministry would want to have another look." -clip- Iraq's resumption of oil exports under a new government would expose OPEC to considerable uncertainty. Iraq has the world's second-largest proven oil reserves. Flows of Iraqi oil to the world market unconstrained by OPEC quotas could further erode the cartel's already limited ability to set prices and might even trigger a price war, eating into the profits of its member countries. Such an outcome would surely delight the Bush administration as well as buyers of gasoline in the United States, the world's largest oil consumer. With that in mind, commentators -- particularly in Europe -- have contended that the real purpose of Bush's war in Iraq was to put in place a government that would break OPEC. Such an outcome would dismay the world's largest oil producer, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iran. More cheap oil here. posted by chris at 12:18 PM   ------------------ Monday, May 19, 2003 Walk this way Watch your step! The Pentagon is developing a radar-based device that can identify people by the way they walk, for use in a new antiterrorist surveillance system. Operating on the theory that an individual's walk is as unique as a signature, the Pentagon has financed a research project at the Georgia Institute of Technology that has been 80 to 95 percent successful in identifying people. If the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, orders a prototype, the individual "gait signatures" of people could become part of the data to be linked together in a vast surveillance system the Pentagon agency calls Total Information Awareness. That system already has raised privacy alarms on both ends of the political spectrum, and Congress in February barred its use against American citizens without further congressional review. Now our gait isn't even safe?? More here. posted by chris at 11:40 PM   ------------------

    

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