-Caveat Lector-
RadTimes # 76 - October, 2000
An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities.
"We're living in rad times!"
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QUOTE:
"Who is calling the non-voting public irresponsible and apathetic? Not
surprisingly, it is the politicians - the same politicians who spin fairy
tales at election time and who then get upset when few people care which
king of nonsense gets elected, be he an elephant or a donkey.
Your local grocer would be laughed out of business if he whined that his
customers were 'apathetic' because they refused to buy his rotten bananas.
But the politician whines in the same way when he charges people with
apathy because they won't buy his rotten promises."
-- Sy Leon, None of the Above
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Contents:
---------------
--Thousands of protestors slam Asia-Europe summit
--IMF, World Bank are failures
--Children in chains [slavery]
--Why are they so angry?
--Selfish silence enables justice abuses
--Bringing the Military and the Law together
--Arrests restore image of Israel's snatch squad
--Anarchist Question And Answer
Linked stories:
*The RISS Files [gov't surveillance]
*Cry Hackerdom! [DefCon]
*CIA Turns to VC for R&D
*Digital Music's Battle Royal(ty)
*Bare-breasted poet takes on Calif. loggers
*Oakland vehicle seizure law stands
*Rural Residents More Likely to Commit Suicide
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Begin stories:
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Thousands of protestors slam Asia-Europe summit
SEOUL, Oct 19, 2000
Thousands of protestors staged a boisterous anti-globalization rally
Thursday as Asian and European leaders gathered in Seoul for a
cross-continent summit.
"No globalization," chanted some 4,000 students, labor leaders and civil
rights activists at Soongsil University campus in southern Seoul on the eve
of the third Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM).
The evening rally drew some 100 foreign activists taking part in a forum of
nongovernment organizations (NGOs) held to coincide with the summit on
Friday and Saturday.
Tens of thousands of police, backed by helicopters and armoured riot
vehicles, have been deployed throughout Seoul to stop protests. But no
violence was reported.
The protestors punched the air, surrounding a podium decorated with a
banner reading "We Oppose Neo-liberalization and Globalization!" and a
large picture depicting an angry slogan-chanting worker.
Students and union activists held up placards blasting ASEM for promoting a
US-led globalization movement and vowed to lead a protest march on Friday,
which will be kept several kilometers from the ASEM convention center.
The march will be headed by the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions
(KCTU), a militant union group which has opposed sweeping economic reforms
since an economic crisis forced South Korea to accept a 58-billion-dollar
bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in late 1997.
The protestors blasted the lending policies of international institutions
such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the IMF for increasing the
suffering of poor nations by imposing harsh repayment obligations.
"Globalization is a main cause of worsening labor conditions." read a
statement distributed at the rally.
"Disband the international organizations soliciting neo-liberalism. Stop
negotiations about free trade measures and block the WTO New Round."
South Korean pressure groups have pledged there will be no repeat of the
violence that dogged the WTO conference last year in Seattle, and the World
Bank/IMF meetings in Prague last month.
But organizers of ASEM, South Korea's biggest international event since the
1988 Olympics, are desperate to avoid violent clashes with protestors and
are taking no chances with security.
From Thursday, riot police sealed off all public access to within two
kilometers (1.2 miles) of the sprawling ASEM site.
A South Korean photographer reported seeing around 20 local student
activists detained by police after trying to break through police lines.
However police denied any arrests had been made.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
IMF, World Bank are failures
Published Tuesday, October 3, 2000, in the Miami Herald
by Mark Weisbrot
PRAGUE -- When thousands of people converged from throughout
Europe to demonstrate against the International Monetary Fund
and World Bank at their annual meetings last week, many in
Prague wondered what all the fuss was about. Security was
tight, and residents told to stay off the streets.
Czech police were on every corner, an unusual sight in a city
where the streets are safe and people generally aren't arrested
for minor drug offenses. Many Europeans who traveled here to
participate were turned away at the border, and permits for
peaceful marches denied.
The threat of violence was grossly exaggerated by the authorities
for their own purposes; as in the Washington, D.C., demonstrations
last April, the organizers and protesters were committed to
nonviolence. The real danger was that of embarrassment for the
IMF and the Bank. They are fighting to preserve their legitimacy,
which has been badly damaged over the last three years.
For half a century hardly anyone knew these institutions existed,
and they operated in the shadows. Those days are over, although
many of their most important documents and deliberations remain
secret. The IMF and the Bank operate a cartel for credit, much
like the OPEC runs an oil cartel. Neither one is leak-proof, but
they both confer considerable power on the men who control them.
While OPEC uses its monopoly power simply to raise oil prices,
these financial giants use theirs to influence and often dictate
the economic policies of dozens of countries. The IMF is the
leader, and a country that falls out of its favor will not be
eligible for most credit from the larger World Bank, other
multilateral lending institutions, governments and often private
sources of credit as well.
This arrangement gives the IMF and Bank powers vastly greater
than they could ever have from their own resources. Power is
even more concentrated in that the IMF is basically controlled
by the U.S. Treasury. This fact illustrates what dinosaurs these
institutions really are. If the IMF did not exist, nothing like
it could be created today.
At the very least the Europeans and Japanese would demand to have
their say, as they do in the World Trade Organization; and the
underdeveloped countries would demand a voice in shaping the
policies that now victimize them. To illustrate IMF policies with
an example close to home: The United States is now running a
record current-account deficit. (The current account measures
foreign trade plus other noninvestment international transactions).
At 4.5 percent of our economy, this deficit is as big as the one
that Brazil was running three years ago when the IMF proposed an
austerity policy as a loan condition.
If we were an IMF client, we would get rid of our trade deficit
in the following manner: The Fed would raise interest rates as
high as necessary in order to throw the economy into a recession.
Our economy would shrink as borrowing for housing and other large
purchases dropped, people were thrown out of work and businesses
cut back on their investment. As spending plummeted, so would the
purchase of imports and our trade balance would improve.
Joseph Stiglitz, former chief economist at the World Bank and a
likely candidate for a future Nobel Prize, has called this a
``beggar thyself'' -- as opposed to ``beggar thy neighbor'' --
policy for getting rid of a trade deficit. He resigned under
pressure last year after criticizing these and other policies
that have caused enormous economic damage in countries such as
Indonesia, Russia and Brazil.
Because IMF and World Bank policies have failed so miserably and
so often, and because these organizations are so completely
unaccountable and anti-democratic, they have few defenders
outside of a narrow foreign-policy elite. And their opposition
is growing by leaps and bounds. Organized labor has increasingly
come to see these institutions as major adversaries, since they
use their creditors' cartel to enforce the global ``race to the
bottom'' in wages and working conditions that has hurt American
workers as well.
Recently, the Communications Workers of America took the
unprecedented step of pledging to not buy World Bank bonds,
joining a worldwide movement to use the pension funds of unions,
churches, local governments and universities to bring pressure
on the Bank. The street heat is working.
As the protesters like to chant, ``This is what democracy looks
like.''
----
Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research in Washington, D.C.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Children in chains
<http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0%2C4273%2C4069079%2C00.html>
There are more slaves in the world today than at any time in history.
A shocking new documentary reveals the sheer scale of the horror.
Mark Morris talked to the film-makers about their fight to reveal the truth.
by Mark Morris
Guardian
Thursday September 28, 2000
Brian Woods has a single statistic to explain why people should watch
Slavery. "I don't think that anyone who is told that there is more slavery
on earth today than there has been in human history can fail to be
astonished and appalled by the fact." Sure, there is a flip response
available to the terminally cynical: since there are many more people alive
now than there have been, there are more people than ever in most
categories. But that kind of answer crumbles when you see the film.
Anti-Slavery, one of the oldest pressure groups in the world, estimates
that there are over 20 million slaves in the world today. Those statistics
are very rough, of course, because slavery is illegal everywhere, and no
one is volunteering their ownership figures. But we are talking about
slaves . Not your average woefully underpaid, intimidated, overworked
Filipino or Guatemalan teenager in a sweatshop. These are people held
against their will, coerced to work with the threat of violence, and paid
nothing at all.
Brian Woods and Kate Blewett are a talkative pair who have made a string of
high profile documentaries (The Dying Rooms, Innocents Lost) mainly
concerning the abuse and exploitation of children. Their new programme
explores three uses of slavery today: Indian children kidnapped and forced
to work on carpet looms; Malian migrant workers on cocoa plantations in Cte
d'Ivoire, and domestic servants in Washington and London. Woods says they
chose these groups because "We wanted a way of bringing it home to people
in the West and not letting it be something people could watch and go
'isn't it terrible what people in far off lands do to other people in far
off lands'."
The story that holds the film together is that of Huro, a missing boy from
a small village in Bihar. Blewett and Woods accompanied his father on the
search to try to find him working the carpet looms. It is a heart-tugging
story, without any doubt. Which makes this a kind of journalism that not
everyone is comfortable with, with emotional story lines and the open
participation of pressure groups. But Blewett is explicit about what they
are trying to do. "This is a campaigning film, not a current affairs
programme", she says. "If we can spread the awareness, that can be the
beginning of changes."
Woods elaborates, "The public get angry about individual stories that are
representative of the whole. If you tell the broad story in a current
affairs style, people can go 'yes, that's a great shame' and get on with
the next programme. The only way to get a strong emotional response from
people is to give them the human story and to give them an individual they
can care about. Obviously, just that is not sufficient. You also need to
give people the facts, and let them know what they can do."
And as Blewett explains, this also means abandoning some of the conventions
of investigative journalism. "We don't want to get the government responses
in, or the big companies. We don't want to go to a chocolate company and
say 'we found slavery on the plantations where there's a huge chance that
your cocoa is emerging from'. We know what they are going to say. We don't
want to waste a portion of our film giving people the right to reply, so
it's much better if we keep all the named people out and leave it as a
subject like 'chocolate' or 'the carpet industry' and leave the people who
watch it to bring it round to the people involved."
Likewise, Woods makes no apologies about the well-crafted narrative
structure of a film whose highlights include a police raid, and a trip to a
cocoa plantation in Cte d'Ivoire that Blewett describes as the scariest
incident in her life. "What we are trying to do is to set the viewers to
respond emotionally. The most successful way to do that is really to use
the dramatic techniques of feature films, where a story is unfolding, and
you're pulling people in, and you're making it difficult to switch off."
And it does work, partly because it exposes a level of degradation that
even the most globally aware members of the audience will be shocked by.
And what brings it home are the products involved: those Indian rugs
everyone comes back with, touted as something that suggests they understand
the Third World. And cocoa, basis for the chocolate that this country seems
to run on. The film's strongest point, the one that sticks in your mind, is
the deeply scarred Malian asked about his thoughts about people who eat
chocolate. "They enjoyed something I suffered to make; I worked hard for
them, but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh." But the film isn't
just meant to make you feel guilty, implicated. It's meant to make you want
to do something. And you can do something, as the one (comparatively)
positive story shows. Brazilian charcoal workers used to be slaves, until
international pressure brought a change. Today, they don't earn much, and
they are overworked in unhealthy conditions. But at least they've got their
freedom, and they've got a chance.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why are they so angry?
Published Tuesday, October 3, 2000, in the Miami Herald
by MAX J. CASTRO <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
We have seen them, and we will see them again -- jarring
images of black-masked, weirdly attired demonstrators
battling police, creating havoc in Davos, Seattle, Prague
and other pleasant venues where guardians of the world's
money gather. Misleading images, too, as the camera captures
only the most violent or outrageous of what are mostly
peaceful manifestations of dissent. But dissent from what?
Why are these people on the streets? Why are they so angry?
They say they are mad about globalization. They are angry
because millions of people in poor countries are starving,
and they believe the rich countries are doing very little
about it except to make darned sure they pay back every dime
they ever borrowed to keep alive in the first place.
Globalization is a word that moves easily on the lips of
taxi drivers in Latin America and students in Africa. But
you are not likely to hear it in tonight's presidential debate
because it's a word that still means nothing to most Americans.
But don't feel bad, scholars don't agree on what it means,
either, or whether it is really new, or even if it's cause for
celebration or despair.
The English poet John Donne (1572-1631) wrote: ``No man is an
island, entire of itself.'' Today, globalization means, among
other things, that these words are literally true, even for
nations. Worldwide markets, fast transportation, instant
communications, the Internet and institutions that span the
planet -- from the World Bank to Firestone to Amnesty
International -- make it so.
Globalization also means we know instantly, live and in color,
``for whom the bell tolls.'' It tolls for three billion people,
almost half of humanity, who attempt to survive on $2 or less a
day, often without success. It tolls for the 19,000 people for
whom a mass funeral procession was held in Prague, where the
World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) met recently.
The symbolic funeral was organized by Jubilee 2000
<http://www.j2000usa.org/>, a group that advocates debt
forgiveness for poor nations. Nineteen-thousand is the number of
lives Jubilee 2000 says are lost every day because international
lending institutions controlled by rich countries squeeze huge
debt payments from desperately poor countries. They then have
nothing left for health care and other basic human needs. Do the
math: It amounts to a staggering yearly toll, about seven million,
most of them children.
But are these claims true, and can anything be done about it? The
claims of anti-globalization protestors are hardly the fantasy of
romantic revolutionaries or nostalgic leftists. Jeffrey Sachs, a
Harvard economist famous for advising Poland and other Eastern
European countries to employ hard-nosed free-market policies
to replace socialist economics, recently wrote in The Financial
Times that the international financial institutions ``are the
instruments of a few rich governments, which hold a majority of
the dollar-based votes and would rather pretend that all is
well in the world than ask taxpayers to address the urgent
problems of the poor.'' Moreover, ``they ignore the needless
deaths of millions of people for want of access to basic
medicines and nutrition. Money that could be directed toward
public health is instead siphoned off to pay debts owed to
western governments and the IMF and World Bank.'' Sachs adds
that among those avid to collect, ``The United States is the
most egregious.''
The rich countries can afford to do a lot to decrease death
and suffering among the world's poor, beginning with canceling
the debt of poor countries that commit to spending the savings
on health, education and other human needs. That won't happen
unless citizens are better informed about how little we are
doing, and our leaders are willing to tell us that unpopular
truth. We think our country spends a fortune on foreign aid;
actually we spend less per capita than any other rich nation.
The average American pays less than 9 cents a day in taxes
spent on foreign assistance, down from 11.5 cents in 1993. Is
that the best we can do to save the first generation of the
new millennium?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Selfish silence enables justice abuses
<http://news.excite.com/news/uw/001018/university-80>
October 18, 2000
By Kelly Sarabyn
Cavalier Daily, U. Virginia
(U-WIRE) CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.
Your new name is 73645. Your new room is Cell Block 386. And your new
roommate is a convicted rapist. You can have all this, and more, courtesy
of the Los Angeles Police Department.
But wait, you say, don't I need to commit a crime to receive this wonderful
prize package?
The answer, of course, should be yes. But in the case of the LAPD, and a
growing number of police departments across the nation, the answer is a
surprising no.
Four officers in the Los Angeles Police Department stand accused of lying,
fabricating evidence, and falsifying police records in order to "send
innocent men to jail." ("In L.A. police scandal, 4 go on trial for faking
cases," The Washington Post, Oct. 13).
This incident epitomizes the corruption that has flooded through the pearly
gates of our criminal justice system. Racial profiling, police beatings and
sleepy public defenders have all become regular facets of American justice.
The majority of Americans would agree this is a problem. A huge problem.
Yet the incident in California, and many other recent ones, have provoked
no public indignation. No protest rallies. No overflow of letters in the
Congressional mailbox.
This silence is unacceptable.
Society needs to stop making excuses, and realize the criminal justice
system is not going to fix itself. Citizens often think the justice system
is not under their control, and consequentially they cannot change its
operations. There are no public elections for police officers. Judges
usually are appointed. Police departments are sprawling bureaucracies with
lives of their own.
These facts are true, but it does not mean the public does not have power
over the justice system. Ultimately, all governmental appointments can be
traced back to an elected official.
People can write their representative or governor and let elected officials
know corruption is an issue. Representatives can enact legislation that
provides for checks on police abuse. Governors can appoint judges who are
strong advocates of procedural rights.
Elected officials can enforce responsibility. Elected officials only will
do this, however, if they know the issue is important to their
constituents. It is the responsibility of the people to make their
interests known.
Another excuse people use to justify their inaction is the claim that
police abuses are unfortunate, but inevitable accompaniments to any justice
system. Officers are, after all, humans. We cannot expect humans to be
perfect.
This is also true. We should not expect our officers to be perfect. Errors
made in good faith and judgment are tolerable. We should not, however,
stand for intentional procedural abuses. Police who toss aside the truth
in order to bolster their conviction rate have not erred. They have
deliberately broken the law.
The main reason for the public's inaction, however, is not a consideration
for the moral fallibility of police officers. It is pure selfishness. The
abuses of the criminal justice system are directed at one demographic, poor
minorities. The LAPD incident occurred within their Rampart Division, a
unit that operates in a neighborhood of lower class immigrants.
Middle- and upper-class citizens generally do not have to worry about
police officers planting drugs in their cars. Nor do they have to worry
about inept public defenders botching their cases.
Most people, in fact, can rest assured that they will not be wrongly
imprisoned. The problem of police corruption is therefore neither a
pressing concern, nor an issue for public outrage. There are numerous
reasons, however, why it should be a pressing concern for all citizens, and
not just the citizens who are targeted.
Justice should be blind. Innocent men should be free. Police are supposed
to protect and serve. Poor minorities have few political or economic
resources in which to respond to the abuses.
Americans pride themselves on living in the land of the free. Yet, citizens
sit idly by, watching as the government robs citizens of their freedom.
Corrupt police officers are imprisoning innocent people. You are paying
their salaries. You are involved. Stop deflecting responsibility. Speak out
on behalf of those who do not have the resources to be heard.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bringing the Military and the Law together
> 4th Non-Lethal Weapons 2000
> 'Operational and practical challenges'
> Bringing the Military and the Law together
>
> Caledonian Hilton Hotel, Edinburgh, UK
> 5-6 December 2000
>
> Ensure that you are equipped with the latest assessment of the key
> practical, legal, ethical and technological issues facing operational
> units. This unique conference ensures you can develop your
> understanding of NLW's through expert speakers with first hand
> experience and in-depth knowledge of Non-Lethal Weapons.
>
> For more information on NLW 2000 visit:
> <http://www.janes.com/defence/conference/nlw/nlw.shtml>
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Arrests restore image of Israel's snatch squad
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=003100565149417&rtmo=aqd9qBhJ&atmo=99999999&pg=/et/00/10/20/wmid220.html>
By Alan Philps
THE dramatic arrest of suspects in last week's lynching of two Israeli
soldiers has revived the battered reputation of Israel's undercover units,
proving that they can strike right across Palestinian territory.
Information about the snatch operation was being kept secret by court order
last night, though a senior Israeli army officer confirmed that a number of
suspects were being held. The operation was led by the under-cover unit
called Duvdevan - meaning cherry - famed for training its recruits to pass
as Arabs so that it can operate in secret in the West Bank.
Until 1992, existence of the unit was kept secret. It is believed to be no
bigger than one battalion and competition among recruits to join is intense.
Television footage showed the recruits applying moustaches and make-up, and
learning to walk like Arab peasants, rather than soldiers. They must learn
enough Arabic to pass as Palestinian for a few minutes.
The unit's existence was hardly a secret as it was known that undercover
agents were entering the Occupied Territories and shooting Palestinian
activists and leaders of the Intifada, the six-year uprising, which was then
raging. It was Ehud Barak, now prime minister but then chief of staff, who
authorised the unit to come into the open, a move which was widely criticised.
Mr Barak's interest in the unit comes from his own experience as a commando.
In 1974 he led a seaborne raid into the heart of Beirut to kill three
leading members of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The hit-team
disguised itself as two couples out on the town, and as Mr Barak was the
shortest, he had to go into battle as a woman.
More recently, the Duvdevan unit has suffered from bad publicity. Amid an
inquiry into bullying of recruits, it mounted what should have been a
routine raid in August to capture the notorious Hamas militant, Mahmoud Abu
Hanoud. But the raid went disastrously wrong. Abu Hanoud escaped, three
soldiers were killed by their own fire and a fourth was injured.
No such problems arose in the raid to capture the lynch mob suspects. While
details are still secret, it appears that the Palestinians were seized in
two villages, Beit Liqiya and Kfar Bitin, where Israel has security control
and which are regularly patrolled by the army.
Yossi Melman, an intelligence expert who writes for Ha'aretz newspaper,
said: "I think the operation was quite straightforward. The real question
was why the suspects were hiding in villages where they could so easily be
captured. They must be rather simple folk - after all, we are dealing with a
mob here."
Palestinian sources say that other suspects, presumably better connected
with the security forces, are being hidden by the Tanzim militia. To get
these men would be a far harder task, involving an undercover raid deep
inside Palestinian territory. Palestinian police are understood to have
stepped up their patrols on the edge of Ramallah, scene of the lynching, to
prevent infiltration by Israeli units.
Apart from the Duvdevan, there are other units belonging to the police who
disguise themselves as Arabs with the task of snatching agitators from
within crowds in Jerusalem. One of them was caught on video recently holding
a Palestinian in a neck-lock. When he saw the camera, he hurriedly put on a
black mask.
A former Duvdevan soldier, identified in the Israeli press only as "A",
described the thrill of the operation. "It's like a motorcyclist doing 150
miles an hour on the motorway. A computer game with your life. You are
scared to death, but enjoy every minute. There is no half way."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Anarchist Question And Answer
From: Anarchist Age Weekly Review
Q. Do people really want to manage their own affairs?
A. One of the central tenets of anarchism is self-management. As activists
we work under the assumption that people would prefer to manage their own
affairs. I personally don't think that most people want to manage their own
affairs. As long as things are OK most people are happy not to be involved
in the day to day effort that's required to manage their own affairs.
If this assumption is correct are we banging our heads against a brick wall?
Even if we accept the premise that people don't want to manage their own
lives, it doesn't negate our idea that self-management is the gateway to
freedom and equality. The people who are happy with other people managing
their affairs face the problem that those who make the decisions want to be
rewarded for their efforts. More importantly, the same people can and do
manipulate the system to benefit them, not the people they are making
decisions for.
Self-management gives people the best returns because it allows them to
decide what they want and it also allows them to get rid of the middle men
and women who normally take the cream off the top for their troubles. Both
the people who are happy to let others manage their affairs and those who
are unhappy with other people managing their affairs benefit by taking
control of their lives and making the decisions which effect them. Next
time you hear somebody grumbling about being sold out or ripped off gently
let them know that the only way to overcome this problem is by removing the
managers and managing their own lives. The time needed to do this is a
worthwhile investment in their future and the future of the communities they
live in.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Linked stories:
********************
The RISS Files
<http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=folder&title=The+RISS+Files>
Does Big Brother know your name?
********************
Cry Hackerdom!
<http://www.feedmag.com/essay/es405_master.html>
Is it possible that hackers, long derided as antisocial geeks bent on causing
havoc, are actually the last of the true, democratic optimists?
********************
CIA Turns to VC for R&D
<http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39468,00.html?tw=wn20001019>
Congress gives the venture capital arm of the United States' espionage
agency millions of dollars to invest in 'defensive' technologies ...
********************
Digital Music's Battle Royal(ty)
<http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,39526,00.html?tw=wn20001019>
Everyone wants to lend a hand in collecting money in the digital music
space -- the RIAA, Music Reports, and now, ASCAP. Everyone wants a
piece of the elusive electronic music dollar.
********************
Bare-breasted poet takes on Calif. loggers
<http://www.envirolink.org/environews/reuters/articles/Environment/10_18_2000.reulb-story-bcenvironmentgoddess.html>
A California performance artist has launched what she hopes
will be a new women's movement against logging ancient
redwoods -- baring her breasts and reciting poetry to stunned
timber crews.
********************
Oakland vehicle seizure law stands
<http://www.jsonline.com/news/nat/ap/oct00/ap-brf-vehicle-sei101900.asp>
California's state Supreme Court has declined to review a ruling
allowing police in Oakland to seize vehicles simply suspected of
use in criminal activity, even if their owners haven't so much
as been been charged with a crime. (10/19/00)
********************
Rural Residents More Likely to Commit Suicide
<http://www.jointogether.org/jtodirect.jtml?U=83952&O=264785>
Data from the National Center for Health Statistics shows
that rural residents kill themselves at a higher rate than
those living in urban areas.
********************
======================================================
"Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of 'their' control."
-Jim Dodge
======================================================
"Communications without intelligence is noise;
intelligence without communications is irrelevant."
-Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
======================================================
"It is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society."
-J. Krishnamurti
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