Archive for August, 2007

Mexico Prepares to Allow U.S. Trucks to Cross Border

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Business/Finance, Foreign, Labor and Newz. 0 Comments

From Bloomberg

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

By Thomas Black and Karen Gullo

Aug. 30 (Bloomberg) — Mexico set rules that would allow U.S. trucks to cross into Mexico under a one-year pilot program, matching a U.S. effort to open its doors to Mexican trucks.

The rules require U.S. transportation companies to obtain a permit from the Mexican Transportation Ministry and limit participation to a maximum of 100 companies, the ministry said in a statement. The agreement would take effect tomorrow and end a year later, according to the statement.

The U.S. and Mexican pilot programs would test cross-border trucking that was supposed to take effect in 1995 under the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1995, then-President Bill Clinton decided to block Mexican trucks from carrying cargo beyond a border commercial zone of about 25 miles (42 kilometers) because of concern that unsafe Mexican trucks would become a hazard on U.S. highways.

Last February, U.S. and Mexican transportation officials reached an agreement to allow U.S. Department of Transportation inspectors to certify the trucks of as many as 100 Mexican companies and allow them to deliver cargo to U.S. cities in a one-year test program. The trucks can pick up cargo at a U.S. city and haul it to Mexico, but can’t deliver goods from one U.S. city to another.

Today, transportation department defended the safety of Mexico trucks it has certified in response to a lawsuit filed by the Teamsters union, the Sierra Club and other public-advocacy groups.

Opposition Lawsuit

“Petitioners have made absolutely no showing they will be irreparably harmed by commencement of the demonstration project,” the department said in a filing today with the federal appeals court in San Francisco. “The critical bilateral relationship between the U.S. and Mexico will be placed under considerable strain by further delay.”

The U.S. government expects 44 trucks from Mexico to participate in the program during the first 30 days, according to the filing. The department said it has published safety-audit data on the Mexican carriers participating in the project. MORE

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Why I Sold My Car, or How I Learned to Stop Driving and Love the Bus-Opinion

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Newz, Opinion and The Environment. 0 Comments

From GreenOptions

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

By Kelli Best-Oliver Aug 30, 2007

I took the plunge and did something unthinkable here in the midwest: I got rid of my car, “Treehugger” bumper sticker and all.

Some of you in urban areas might be thinking, “Well, so what?” I can assure you that this is a radical act where I am from. I grew up in suburban Des Moines, where driving around in cars is what we did for fun on weekends in high school. Even though I live in the city of St Louis proper, it’s still pretty unheard of for middle-class folks to be voluntarily car-free.

(Disclaimer: I am car-free, my husband is not — well, at least, not on purpose). So we do have a car, I just won’t be driving it to work or anywhere else I can walk or take public transportation.)

Why would I do this? Aside from the environmental piece, which is what put the idea in my head in the first place, the easiest answer is because I can. The bus comes right to my corner and goes right to the school where I teach in about ten minutes time. When the heat subsides, I can walk the work. That same bus will also take me to our local market, three farmers markets, a slew of bars and restaurants, a light-rail station (which will take me a plethora of places in and around the city, including the airport), downtown, Busch Stadium, my hairdresser, and several walkable neighborhoods with other businesses I patronize. Within a mile of my house, I can get books from the library, eat Mexican food or organic pasta, get a latte, buy yarn for my latest knitting project, pick up a pizza, drink beer, take my dog to the park, or pick up dry cleaning, and there’s always my bike for a longer jaunt.

In fact, anyone can easily see what goods and services are walkable from their home. Just go to GoogleMaps or Yahoo!Maps, and search for businesses, using your address as the “where” and “all” as the what. You can sort results by distance, and you might find some things you didn’t know were close to your home.

The other big (okay, HUGE) reason I sold my car is finances. I’m tired of a car payment, insurance, gas, maintenance, vehicle testing, personal property taxes, and the like. If I don’t need a car, why pay so much for one? A monthly bus pas costs $60, a fraction of my transportation costs with a car, and I can stow the extra money away for tuition, savings, or vacation (or maybe a sporty little scooter…) My mom would be proud of my financial foresight, and I’m not giving money away to the insurance company, the oil companies, and the State of Missouri.

I know it’s not going to be sunshine and rainbows. I’m used to picking up groceries right after school and being able to run errands on a whim. Now, those errands are going to take a little more planning. I’m sure my friends are thrilled that it’s now never my turn to drive anywhere, but they never liked being covered in dog hair from the backseat anyway. MORE

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U.S. Says Company Bribed Officers for Work in Iraq

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Business/Finance, Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From the NY Times

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

By ERIC SCHMITT and JAMES GLANZ

Published: August 31, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — An American-owned company operating from Kuwait paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to American contracting officers in efforts to win more than $11 million in contracts, the government says in court documents.

The Reach of War

The Army last month suspended the company, Lee Dynamics International, from doing business with the government, and the case now appears to be at the center of a contracting fraud scandal that prompted Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to dispatch the Pentagon inspector general to Iraq to investigate.

Court documents filed in the case say the Army took action because the company was suspected of paying hundreds of thousands in bribes to Army officers to secure contracts to build, operate and maintain warehouses in Iraq that stored weapons, uniforms, vehicles and other matériel for Iraqi forces in 2004 and 2005.

A lawyer for the company denied the accusations.

One of the officers, Maj. Gloria D. Davis, a contracting official in Kuwait, shot and killed herself in Baghdad in December 2006. Government officials say the suicide occurred a day after she admitted to an Army investigator that she had accepted at least $225,000 in bribes from the company. The United States has begun proceedings to seize Major Davis’s assets, a move her heirs are contesting.

The company has been known as American Logistics Services.

Details of the case have come to light because the company contested the Army’s decision, on July 9, to suspend it from obtaining contracts. That forced the government to disclose details in court papers, including a seven-page statement by an Army investigator.

Howell Roger Riggs, a lawyer or the company, denied the accusations and said the company was appealing to have the suspension lifted. Mr. Riggs acknowledged that the company was under a Justice Department investigation but said that no charges had been filed against the company or its officials.

“This is based solely on a declaration that is unsubstantiated and uncorroborated,” Mr. Riggs said in a telephone interview. “If they want to come forward with hard evidence and accusations, we’ll deal with it at that time.” MORE

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Cancer Society Focuses Its Ads on the Uninsured

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Health and Newz. 0 Comments

From the NY Times

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

By KEVIN SACK

Published: August 31, 2007

ATLANTA, Aug. 30 — In a stark departure from past practice, the American Cancer Society plans to devote its entire $15 million advertising budget this year not to smoking cessation or colorectal screening but to the consequences of inadequate health coverage.

The campaign was born of the group’s frustration that cancer rates are not dropping as rapidly as hoped, and of recent research linking a lack of insurance to delays in detecting malignancies.

Though the advertisements are nonpartisan and pointedly avoid specific prescriptions, they are intended to intensify the political focus on an issue that is already receiving considerable attention from presidential candidates in both parties.

The society’s advertisements are unique, say experts in both philanthropy and advertising, in that disease-fighting charities traditionally limit their public appeals to narrower aspects of prevention or education.

But the leaders of several such organizations, including the American Heart Association, the American Diabetes Association and the Alzheimers Association, said they applauded the campaign’s message that progress against chronic disease would be halting until the country fixed its health care system.

As in the past, the heart association is using its advertising dollars these days to promote more rigorous exercise and healthier diets. The most recent cancer society campaign encouraged screening for colon cancer, including a memorable commercial in which a diner plucked — and then ate — a lima bean polyp from the intestinal tract he had carved in his mashed potatoes. MORE

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New documents show that FBI spied on Martin Luther King’s widow

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Government, In Defense of Democracy, Law and Justice and Newz. 0 Comments

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

The Associated Press - HOUSTON
Federal agents spied on the widow of Martin Luther King Jr. for several years after his assassination in 1968, according to newly released documents that reveal the FBI worried about her following in the footsteps of the slain civil rights icon.

Coretta Scott King might try to tie “the anti-Vietnam movement to the civil rights movement” according to some of the nearly 500 pages of intelligence files, which go on to show how the FBI trailed King at public appearances and kept close tabs on her travel.

The documents were obtained by Houston television station KHOU in a story published Thursday. Coretta Scott King died in January 2006. She was 78.

One memo shows that the FBI even read and reviewed King’s 1969 book about her late husband. The entry made a point to say that her “selfless, magnanimous, decorous attitude is belied by … (her) actual shrewd, calculating, businesslike activities.”

The documents also focus on her relationship with Stanley Levison, who was a close adviser to Martin Luther King Jr. and a person the government long suspected was a communist. MORE

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Craig’s quick condemnation shows hypocrisy in Senate GOP, critics say

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Law and Justice, Newz, Opinion and Politics. 0 Comments

From RawStory

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!
Nick Juliano
Published: Thursday August 30, 2007

CREW wants Vitter, Stevens to be demoted as well

Sen. Larry Craig had not even publicly addressed charges he tried to solicit sex in a public men’s room before members of his own party began to vehemently criticize his alleged conduct.

Less that 24 hours after he expressed regret for pleading guilty to disorderly conduct after an undercover cop said the Idaho Republican propositioned him, Craig was ousted from his committee posts in a decision Senate leaders said was “in the best interest” of the chamber. Meanwhile, it has been 52 days since Craig’s GOP colleague David Vitter acknowledged the “serious sin” of soliciting a call girl, yet the Louisiana senator has not budged from his committee posts.

Where Craig faced condemnation, Vitter received words of encouragement from colleagues — or at the very least, silence.

Sen. Ted Stevens’s prominent position in the Senate also seems safe, despite the Alaska Republican’s own taint of scandal. The FBI raided Stevens’s home last month in connection with a political corruption scandal in his home state. Substantial renovations of the home were carried out by contractors hired by oil-services company Veco Corp., whose executives have been accused of bribing state lawmakers.

“A disorderly conduct plea requires a member to give up his committee assignment, but a full-fledged bribery investigation does not,” observed Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Apparently, in the view of the Republican conference there is almost nothing more serious than a member attempting to engage in gay sex.” MORE

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Gonzales Faces Inquiry Into Veracity of His Testimony

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Government, Law and Justice, Newz and Politics. 0 Comments

From the NY Times

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

By PHILIP SHENON

Published: August 30, 2007

WASHINGTON, Aug. 30 — The Justice Department’s internal watchdog disclosed today that he was investigating whether sworn statements to Congress by Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales were “intentionally false, misleading or inappropriate.”

The first official confirmation that Mr. Gonzales is under investigation within the executive branch over the truthfulness of his testimony came in a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee from Glenn A. Fine, the inspector general at the Justice Department. The committee’s chairman, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, had requested the inquiry earlier this month.

For weeks, lawmakers from both parties have questioned whether Mr. Gonzales told the truth in sworn statements to Congress on a number of issues, including his involvement in efforts to preserve the National Security Agency’s policy of wiretapping without warrants, as well as his role in last year’s dismissals of several United States attorneys for what appeared to be political reasons.

It was not clear if the investigation by the inspector general was tied in any way to Mr. Gonzales’s announcement on Monday that he was resigning from the Justice Department, effective next month. He has offered no details for the reasoning behind his resignation or its timing, and his departure caught top aides by surprise.

A spokesman for Mr. Gonzales, Erik Ablin, said today that the attorney general had no immediate comment on the inspector general’s inquiry. Nor would Mr. Ablin address the specific allegations of possible false statements by Mr. Gonzales that have been cited by Senator Leahy and other Democrats.

Mr. Gonzales has insisted that he has always tried to be truthful in his Congressional testimony. After his honesty was repeatedly challenged at a Judiciary Committee hearing last month, Mr. Gonzales declared: “The attorney general of the United States should try to meet the highest standard, and I have tried to meet that standard.” MORE

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I was ordered to execute Haditha women and kids: US Marine

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Foreign, Military, Newz and The War in Iraq. 0 Comments

From the Times Of India

Found for us by the Texas news ninja, Betsy!

CAMP PENDLETON: A US Marine was ordered to execute a room full of terrified Iraqi women and children during an alleged massacre in Haditha that left 24 people dead, a military court heard on Thursday.

The testimony came in the opening of a preliminary hearing for Marine Sergeant Frank Wuterich, who faces 17 counts of murder over the Haditha killings, the most serious war crimes allegations faced by US troops in Iraq.

Wuterich, dressed in desert khakis, spoke confidently to confirm his name as the hearing to decide if he faces a court martial began at the Marines’ Camp Pendleton base in southern California.

The 27-year-old listened intently as Lance Corporal Humberto Mendoza recounted how Marines had responded after a roadside bomb attack on their convoy in Haditha on November 19, 2005 left one comrade dead.

Mendoza said Marines under Wuterich’s command began clearing nearby houses suspected of containing insurgents responsible for the bombing.

At one house Wuterich gave an order to shoot on sight as Marines waited for a response after knocking on the door, said Mendoza.

“He said ‘Just wait till they open the door, then shoot,’” Mendoza said. Mendoza then said he himself shot and killed an adult male who appeared in a doorway.

During a subsequent search of the house, Mendoza said he received an order from another Marine, Lance Corporal Stephen Tatum, to shoot seven women and children he had found in a rear bedroom. MORE

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An Answer From Asheville, North Carolina!

Published by
susan
August 31, 2007 in Government, Newz and Opinion. 0 Comments

This came in as an answer to my email to the police department of Asheville, North Carolina.

It is sad that anything that shows up in print on the blog is immediately given credence of being absolutely true in the minds of many people. There are two sides to this issue and you can rest assured that the police officers had no political motive for taking the action they did. They simply responded to an ongoing complaint from other citizens about someone impeding traffic.

The Asheville Police Department is a professional, well trained, and accredited agency that is committed to protecting individuals’ Constitutional rights. Our Department has assisted with untold rallies and protests to protect citizens’ opportunity for free speech while maintaining the safety of all individuals present. The press release attached below describes the facts surrounding this case. Expressing one’s opinions must be done in a manner that does not infringe upon the rights and safety of others. In this case, the actions of Mr. Phillips was impeding the flow of traffic and endangering motorists by holding a sign over Interstate 240 during rush hour traffic which could have caused a serious traffic crash. It is unfortunate that this event and the motives of the officers have been misconstrued to represent an act by the Asheville Police Department to deprive someone of their Constitutional rights.

Chief Bill Hogan

For Immediate Release

Aug. 20, 2007

Asheville Police Department

Contact: Police Chief Bill Hogan

Phone: 259-5901, or 552-1900

E-mail: whogan@ashevillenc.gov

APD responds to concerns about charges against West Asheville man

ASHEVILLE – The Asheville Police Department has received several inquiries about the Aug. 15 arrest of an Asheville man who was holding a sign on the Haywood Road Bridge over Interstate 240, and was subsequently charged with impeding the flow of traffic.

A review of the incident including interviews with the officers discloses the following:

Shortly before 8 a.m., during rush hour on Aug. 15, a person flagged down APD Officer Russell Crisp, who was in his police car on Haywood Road, to inform him that a man was standing on the I-240 overpass and obstructing traffic.

The department had received multiple complaints over a two-week period last month about individuals holding up signs at that same spot.

Officer Russell Crisp arrived to find Jonas Phillips, 35, was holding his sign over the I-240 overpass. When Officer Crisp arrived at the location, Mr. Phillips walked across three lanes of traffic on the bridge, thereby impeding the flow of traffic on Haywood Road.

After Officer Crisp caught up with Mr. Phillips, he asked Mr. Phillips how long he intended to be there. Mr. Phillips replied that he would be there until he had to go to work.

At this point, Officer Crisp called his superior, Sgt. Randy Riddle, who came to the overpass and informed Mr. Phillips that he was in violation of Sec. 16-2 of the city’s municipal code pertaining to “Obstruction of streets, sidewalks by persons prohibited.”

Sec. 16-2 reads in part:

It shall be unlawful for any person, singly or in a group, to:

(1) Obstruct or cause to be obstructed vehicular or pedestrian traffic on the streets or sidewalks or in parks or other public areas within the corporate limits of the city.

Mr. Phillips was charged and arrested for being in violation of that code, and the department is also examining whether he may also be charged for violating an N.C. Department of Transportation law that prohibits hanging signs on an overpasses, which poses dangers for motorists passing below.

The officers can attest that as Mr. Phillips held his sign over the edge of the bridge, drivers on the interstate were slowing down and honking their horns, which also created a traffic hazard and impeded the flow of traffic. Interstate 240 on the west side of the city is often congested, especially at rush hour, and this congestion heightens the potential for accidents.

“This city and this police department pride ourselves on protecting people’s right to free speech, as long as they don’t infringe on the rights, safety and freedoms of others,” Police Chief Bill Hogan said. “It was not the content of the sign, but the risks posed to drivers that precipitated our actions

—–Original Message—–

To: Internet/Police
Subject: You Need A New Name

It should be Naziville, North Carolina.

Susan Cass

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It was murder in the mines, expert charges

Published by
elophan
August 31, 2007 in Labor, Newz and Opinion. 0 Comments

Many thanks to our good friend Nanette from the Chatroom for sending this in!

People’s Weekly World Newspaper

Mine safety expert Jack Spadaro charges Crandall Canyon, Utah, mine owner Robert Murray with murder and the Bush administration’s Mine Safety and Health Agency (MSHA) with aiding and abetting.

“None of this should have happened,” Spadaro said, anger pushing aside his gentle West Virginia twang. “Murray murdered those miners in the collapse and, then, in the rescue. The rescuers were working in the same conditions that caused the collapse. MSHA is complicit. Murray is a criminal.”

In 2004, Spadaro retired after serving as director of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy, the main training center for federal mine inspectors. Under Spadaro’s leadership, inspector training increased and courses were upgraded. Enrollment increased from 17,000 to 30,000 a year.

Spadaro brought 38 years of coal mining engineering, environmental expertise, mine inspection and legal experience to the next generation of inspectors. He said the growing death in the mines results from Bush administration appointments and policies “to take care of the industry.”

In 2006, 47 miners went to work and never came home, the highest number of fatalities since 1995. As of Aug. 16, 17 miners have died at work, not including the six miners currently trapped in Utah.

On Aug. 6, the Crandall Canyon mine collapsed, trapping the six nearly 2,000 feet beneath a mountain. Despite continued “bumps” from the mountain, mine owner Murray ordered a rescue operation which, in addition to drilling from the top, had miners going into the collapsed entrance.

The coal rescuers removed coal trying to reach the trapped men. That coal is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, which went to the company, Murray Energy. There was no second entrance or escape passage at Crandall Canyon.

Gary Jensen, an inspector Spadaro trained, died in the rescue effort, along with Dale Ray Black, 48, and Brandon Kimber, 29. Their deaths mark the first time in 100 years of coal mining in Utah that rescuers were killed.

“I talked to Gary and he warned Murray Energy that the operation was dangerous,” Spadaro said. Despite warnings and citations issued by MSHA in May, Murray Energy ordered miners to keep digging using the “retreat mining” technique.

“Murray bought this mine in August ‘06,” Spadaro continued. “The previous company had ceased operations because they decided it was too unsafe. They had been mining coal using the responsible longwall method for years, and the only coal left was in the barrier pillars. They are huge, 120 feet high and 80 feet wide. That was the coal, or the profits Murray wanted. It’s mining on the cheap.”

It only took two days for Murray Energy to get permission for retreat mining approved by MSHA’s Western District.

MSHA ordered Murray Energy to halt production at the nearby Tower Mine, at 2,200 feet deep, one of the deepest in the country. Murray laid off 170 miners and offered them jobs at operations in Illinois and Ohio.

Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., who has been at the mining disaster site since Aug. 6, created the first-ever Utah Mine Safety Commission, which includes Dennis O’Dell representing the UMWA. The state commission has begun an investigation into the mine collapse.

In early September, the U.S. Senate will hold hearings on the disaster. More…

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