-Caveat Lector- [radtimes] # 163 An informally produced compendium of vital irregularities. "We're living in rad times!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- How to assist RadTimes--> (See ** at end.) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: --Hospitals Nurse Workforce Shrinking --Barr would restore U.S. license to kill --The Narrow Separation of Press and State --The Largest Spy Agency Falls Behind --Some practical advice on protecting your identity online --Robots predicted to take over on the battlefield --Far from terrorism, ELF engages in selfless acts to protect future =================================================================== Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2001 Hospitals Nurse Workforce Shrinking <http://news.findlaw.com/ap/o/1110/2-14-2001/20010214091223450.html> WASHINGTON (AP) _ Health experts are warning Congress that the nation's pool of registered nurses will shrink in the next 20 years _ leaving a boom of retirees without skilled caregivers. "When you visit your father after a coronary bypass or your mother in an Alzheimer's unit, you expect a competent nurse to be there," Linda Hodges, a nursing college dean from Arkansas, told the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions subcommittee on aging issues at a Tuesday hearing. The hearing on how much the federal government should pay for recruiting or keeping nurses came as the Health and Human Services Department prepared to release new figures Wednesday on the nursing work force. Preliminary data show the nursing work force has risen, but it is also growing older. And fewer nurses are entering the profession below the age of 30 and fewer are earning advanced degrees and training. Figures provided by the Senate on Tuesday shows out of 2.7 million licensed registered nurses, 2.2 million were employed as nurses in 2000. That is compared with the 2.5 million licensed to practice, and 2.1 million employed in the 1996 government survey, conducted by the department's Bureau of Health Professions. From 1996 to 2000, the average age of registered nurses has risen from 44.3 to 45.2, the Health Department figures show. Federal officials and nursing groups agree the nation will experience an acute shortage of registered nurses starting in 2010, when today's nurses start to retire. But age isn't the only factor. Experts said at the Senate hearing: Mid-career departures are cutting into the talent pool. Fewer young people are taking up the profession. And the 94 percent of women in nursing are increasingly finding doors opening in business, law and other male-dominated careers. "Nurses tell me they feel undervalued, overworked, and underpaid," said Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland, the top Democrat on the Senate panel. Sen. Tim Hutchinson, R-Ark., who chairs the subcommittee, said senators would introduce a plan in the next few weeks that would include grants for nursing scholarships and training programs. In the meantime, witnesses said, the need for specialized care is already eating into local and state budgets. Last November, nursing shortages forced Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to leave 10 percent of its surgical beds unfilled, delaying or canceling some surgeries. Health care needs are too unpredictable for hospitals not to be prepared with enough staff, said Brandon Melton, who oversees hiring for the Denver-based Catholic Health Initiatives system of 120 not-for-profit health centers. "We have no control over flu outbreaks, highway accidents, or the scores of other emergencies that erupt on a daily basis," he said. Witnesses called for an increased federal role. ---- On the Net: Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee: <http://www.senate.gov/labor/107Hearings/107hearings.htm> Health Resources and Services Administration: <http://www.hrsa.gov/> =================================================================== Barr would restore U.S. license to kill <http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-200129212114.htm> By Tom Carter THE WASHINGTON TIMES Moammar, Saddam, Fidel: Watch your backs. Rep. Bob Barr, Georgia Republican, has introduced legislation that would restore the president's license to order a hit on a foreign leader, if that individual were deemed a threat to U.S. personnel or national security. "The United States already takes actions clearly designed to remove foreign leaders. In the 1980s, we took actions clearly designed to remove [Libyan President] Moammar Gadhafi," said Mr. Barr, in his office yesterday. "People may pretend that we don't do these things, but these are precisely the type of actions that we sometimes take. It is better policy to be more honest and recognize the president does and should have this authority." Most observers say that Congress is unlikely to do much with Mr. Barr's bill. "The House leadership from both parties will be very reluctant to step into a debate that so clearly involves the separation of powers and what is clearly a matter of presidential decision-making," said a senior Republican staff member who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Called the Terrorist Elimination Act of 2001, the bill would nullify several executive orders that prohibit political assassinations by U.S. employees. So far the bill has no co-sponsors and Mr. Barr said that he had "no idea" if the legislation would win approval. "I've introduced it this year, just like I did last year, because these executive orders arbitrarily limit the options available to the president when dealing with terrorists," he said. President Ford first signed an executive order on Feb. 18, 1976, which contained a clause prohibiting employees of the U.S. government from political assassinations. "No employee of the United States government shall engage in, or conspire to engage in political assassination," reads the "Prohibition of Assassination" section of Executive Order 11905. President Reagan added clauses to tighten the restrictions and to clarify that the restrictions also pertained to the intelligence community. Mr. Barr said he had no specific foreign leader in mind when writing the bill. The measure has been referred to the International Relations Committee. The president has the authority to rescind the executive orders of his predecessors without any act of Congress, Mr. Barr noted. And he said he has written to President Bush urging him to do so. "Executive orders currently prohibit our military from deliberately removing a terrorist leader. . . . I respectfully request that you rescind" the specific sections that "limit the United States from dealing with international terrorist threats," said the Jan. 31 letter. But if he is unwilling to do so, Mr. Barr said, Congress should do it for him as a matter of principle. Neither the White House nor the House International Relations Committee had comment yesterday. Official U.S. attempts to shorten a political leader's career were not unknown in the past. President Kennedy ordered assassination attempts on Cuban President Fidel Castro, employing failed hit squads and poisoned cigars. Since Mr. Ford's order, and the subsequent provisions to tighten the restrictions, presidents have had to resort to less-direct methods, like aerial bombing raids, in hopes the collateral damage might eliminate hostile leaders." =================================================================== The Narrow Separation of Press and State http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=10416 by Norman Solomon January 30, 2001 It was a remarkable comment that passed without notice. After interviewing the new White House chief of staff, a network anchor bade him farewell. "All right, Andy Card," said CNN's Judy Woodruff, "we look forward to working with you, to covering your administration." If major news outlets were committed to independent journalism, Woodruff's statement on national television Jan.19 would have caused quite a media stir -- as a sign of undue coziness with power brokers in Washington. But it was far from conspicuous. Woodruff's remark was matter-of-fact. Warm collaboration is routine. Many reporters work closely with each new crew of top government officials. Leading journalists and spinners in high places are accustomed to mutual reliance. That's good for professional advancement. But the public's right to know is another matter. "The first fact of American journalism is its overwhelming dependence on sources, mostly official, usually powerful," Walter Karp pointed out in Harper's Magazine a dozen years ago. Since then, the problem has grown even more acute. A multitude of journalists advance their careers by (in Woodruff's words) "working with" movers and shakers in government. Reporters with outsized reputations for investigative vigor -- Bob Woodward, for example -- may be the most compromised. Behind the scenes, the tacitly understood tradeoffs amount to quid pro quos. Officials dispense leaks to reporters with track records of proven willingness to stay within bounds. "It is a bitter irony of source journalism," Karp observed, "that the most esteemed journalists are precisely the most servile. For it is by making themselves useful to the powerful that they gain access to the 'best' sources." While some fine journalism, assertive and carefully researched, gets into print and onto airwaves every day, the islands of such reporting are drowned in oceans of glorified leaks and institutional handouts. But democracy is only served when journalists keep searching for information that officials hide. On the surface, concerns about scant separation of press and state might seem to be misplaced. After all, don't we see network correspondents firing tough questions at politicians? Isn't the press filled with criticism of policymakers? Well, kind of. We're encouraged to confuse partisan wrangles with ample debate, or -- in the case of certain TV shows -- high decibels with wide diversity. To a great extent, mainstream media outlets provide big megaphones for those who already have plenty of clout. That suits wealthy owners and large advertisers. But what about democratic discourse? In general, news coverage of political issues is about as varied as the array of views propounded by the hierarchies of the Democratic and Republican parties. When there's bipartisan agreement on particular topics -- such as the wisdom of keeping 2 million Americans behind bars or the value of corporate globalization -- the media space for debate tends to be very limited. Consensus among major-party leaders has a way of circumscribing the mass-media arena. With huge conglomerates more enmeshed in media ownership and advertising than ever, news operations are under heightened pressure to promote corporate outlooks, dovetailing with rightward trends in governance. It's true that business has always dominated government policymaking. But in recent times, mitigating interests -- often known in mediaspeak as "special interests" -- have been increasingly expunged from serious consideration. "What is new about the situation today is that a seemingly irreversible mutation in the American system has occurred," syndicated columnist William Pfaff wrote in mid-January. "At some point, quantitative change does become qualitative change. The point when that change took place was probably 1976, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that money spent in support of a political candidate is a form of constitutionally protected free speech. Moneyed interests now finance not only the winners of national elections but also most of the losers." Pfaff's column appears most prominently in the International Herald Tribune. Based in Paris, he has a clear-eyed view of big money's leverage over U.S. politics: "This is part of the enlarging domination of American life by business corporations and their values, which are those of material aggrandizement, a phenomenon accompanied and promoted by the circuses and gladiatorial contests provided by the most important U.S. industry of all, entertainment, which now showcases elections and even wars as entertainments." We need wide-ranging news media. And that's unlikely as long as most "journalism" resembles stenography for the powerful -- and very few eyebrows get raised when a network anchor tells a key official of an incoming administration that "we look forward to working with you." =================================================================== National Security Nightmare http://cbsnews.com/now/story/0,1597,266857-412,00.shtml The Largest Spy Agency Falls Behind Secret Operation Opens Up About Its Needs To Advance Soviets' Technology Was Easier To Crack Than Bin Laden's (CBS) The National Security Agency is the largest spy agency in the United States, and perhaps the world. Twice as big as the CIA, the NSA eavesdrops on communications all over the world. News cameras have never been allowed inside - until now: Correspondent David Martin provides a look at America's most secret spy agency, which is located on 350 acres, south of Baltimore, studded with giant antennas and protected by barbed wire and guard dogs. A phone call intercepted by the NSA is often the first warning that a terrorist like Osama bin Laden is planning an attack against Americans. To find that threatening phone call, email or radio transmission among the billions made daily, the NSA relies on rooms of supercomputers. But the NSA has fallen on difficult times. In January 2000, General Mike Hayden, the director of the NSA, got a call from the agency's watch officer alerting him that all of its computers had crashed. "He told me that our computers were down," Hayden recalls. "We were dark. Our ability to process information was gone." As much of the East Coast dug out from a surprise snowstorm, Hayden went on closed circuit television to warn his work force what was at stake. "I said, 'This is secret. This can't be the second half of a sentence that begins, 'Honey, you won't believe what happened to me at work today,'" Hayden says. "NSA headquarters was brain dead. We had some residual ability at our locations around the world, but I don't want to trivialize this. This was really bad," Hayden remembers. The computers were back up in three and a half days, but there was no denying the enormity of what had happened. The NSA's problems went beyond overworked computers. But almost none of this was understood outside the highly secretive organization. Does the NSA eavesdrop? "We're involved in signals intelligence," explains Hayden, the NSA director. Signals intelligence means operating listening posts all over the world to intercept billions of radio transmissions, phone calls, emails and faxes and to uncover terrorist plots and other foreign threats to the United States. But the NSA will never reveal what all these antennas are listening to. "If the target didn't think he or she was communicating privately, they wouldn't communicate," Hayden says. "The key to this business is actually doing what your adversary believed to be impossible." At the epicenter of the NSA, intercepted communications are continually funneled through an operations center directed by Richard Beraradino. The NSA hears what some of our adversaries are saying as they say it, or as Beraradino puts it, "intelligence that's flowing from the horse's mouth." Conversations of air defense gunners preparing to take a shot at an American plane over Iraq are monitored and warnings are sent out via a top-secret chat room. The NSA has a gamut of security devices to protect its secrets. There is a finger identification system and scanners that can recognize eyeballs. Office keys are never taken home; they're issued by machine each morning. Some of what goes on here is straight out of a James Bond movie. Dave Murley is working on a computer that can recognize a face. It would only allow access for authorized users. At the NSA even the trash is a government secret. The NSA gets rid of 40,000 pounds of classified documents each day, by recycling them into pulp shipped off to become pizza boxes. Until recently NSA employees were forbidden to tell their neighbors or families their profession. On any given day, the majority of intelligence that shows up in the president's morning briefing comes from NSA, considered by many to be the cornerstone of American intelligence. Some might therefore be alarmed to read a report by a team of NSA insiders concluding that the "NSA is in great peril." "We're behind the curve in keeping up with the global telecommunications revolution," Hayden declares. The NSA is now trying to play catch-up to Silicon Valley and the cell phones and computers that have proliferated all over the world. "In the previous world order, our primary adversary was the Soviet Union," Hayden explains. "Technologically we had to keep pace with an oligarchic, resource-poor, technologically inferior, overbureaucratized, slow-moving nation-state." "Our adversary communications are now based upon the developmental cycle of a global industry that is literally moving at the speed of light,...cell phones, encryption, fiber optic communications, digital communications," he adds. Documents introduced at the trial of the four men accused of blowing up two American embassies in Africa indicate that the NSA was monitoring Osama bin Laden's satellite phone as he allegedly directed preparations for the attack from his hiding place in Afghanistan. Even so the NSA was unable to collect enough intelligence to stop it. "Osama bin Laden has at his disposal the wealth of a $3 trillion-a-year telecommunications industry," Hayden says. The NSA's nightmare is terrorists like Osama bin Laden using technology developed in the United States to hide their plans to attack Americans. One way they can do it is via a software program to make messages unreadable. An independent computer programmer, Phil Zimmermann, developed the program, which he calls Pretty Good Privacy. He distributes it for free on the Internet as a protest against government surveillance. "We don't want to leave behind the privacy that we enjoyed before all this new technology came in," Zimmerman says. This is cryptography for the masses. "I can't think of a way of making it available to the good guys without also making it available to the bad guys," Zimmerman says. So a person who wants to protect their credit card number has the same access to Pretty Good Privacy as a terrorist. "It bothers me a great deal but I don't know how to solve that problem," he says. And that's a big problem for the NSA. "There are a lot of unbreakable (codes), and we keep working on them to change them into the breakable category," says Bob Bogart, who teaches a beginner's code-breaking class at the NSA, but computer-generated codes like Pretty Good Privacy are light-years beyond that. It can be very frustrating to work on a code that is theoretically unbreakable, Bogart says. "I know people that have worked on codes...and ciphers, for decades." Is Zimmermann's Pretty Good Privacy unbreakable? "It may be unbreakable, but we may be able to break it, who knows," he says. "The longer they think that, the more they'll use it, and then...the more of a chance we have to break it," Zimmerman says. The best code breakers tend to be people with musical aptitude, which explains all the bands at the NSA. But it also takes supercomputers - some of them capable of performing more than 1 trillion operations per second - to help decipher unreadable jumbles of letters and numbers. When he became director two years ago, Hayden commissioned two studies of the organization and received a scathing indictment of a stagnant and unwieldy government bureaucracy: There is "confusion and paralysis," the reports said. "We have run out of time." Instead of hiding the problems, Hayden made sure those scathing reports were circulated inside and outside the NSA. Hayden is working to tear down some of the NSA's high walls of secrecy. Those walls kept the NSA's secrets safe but they also kept out the ideas and innovations the agency needs to stay vital, he says. So far, his transformation is still a work in progress: "This is about an agency that's grown up in one world, learned a way to succeed within that world and now finds itself in another world, and it's got to change if it hopes to succeed in that universe," Hayden says. =================================================================== Some practical advice on protecting your identity online <http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/2001/02/15/p18s1.htm> It's possible to conduct personal and business matters on the Internet - and still maintain your privacy. By Tom Regan Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2001 You are being watched. Followed. Tracked. Your every move is monitored. "They" know many things about you - the places you visit, where you shop, what kind of ice cream you like to eat, how much money you make in a year, your Social Security number, your favorite musician. The list goes on. No, this isn't a promo for an episode of "The X-Files." Nor is it something from the realm of makebelieve. If you're on the Internet, and if you're not being vigilant, it is possible for governments and companies to compile all sorts of information about you and your family. Occasionally, you'll hear someone (normally someone defending the questionable habits of a company caught snooping on people) say that trying to keep our personal information safe online is useless, because with a little effort, most of the information can be found through other methods. Perhaps that is true. But if you're interested in making an effort to preserve your privacy online, there are several things you can do. Turn off your cookies Simple and effective, but it can be annoying. Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by Web sites. In some cases, they allow you to come and go from a Web site without having to enter a username or password each time. (The New York Times site works this way.) Other sites use them to track your movements when you visit their Web pages. Whatever the reason, cookies provide companies with information on your Web surfing habits. Newer versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape's Communicator browsers allow easy deletion of cookies. Or you can just turn them off completely, although this means you won't be able to visit some sites. If you want to know how to disable your cookies, use any good search engine and enter the words (without the quotes) "cookies AND disable," and you'll find lots of information on how to do it. Develop an alter-ego Many Internet Service Providers and commercial online companies allow you to create more than one account. For instance, AOL allows you to create up to seven accounts on one main subscription to their service. This allows you to have one account for personal e-mail, and another for commercial purposes. Even better, AOL allows you to turn off the "receive e-mail" function. So you can give companies a legit e-mail address, but not receive any e-mail from them or any of the companies to which they will sell your e-mail address. Surf or buy anonymously If you are really concerned about your privacy, this option may be your best bet. There are now online privacy protection companies that will allow you to surf and shop on the Web anonymously, sometimes for a fee. Two examples of this trend are eCognito.com and Freedom.net. eCognito.com acts as a broker between merchants and online users. When you register for the eCognito service (which is free), you download software that allows you to shop anonymously with participating merchants. The merchant is provided only with an identifier from eCognito that allows you to make your purchase without sharing your creditcard number, e-mail address, etc. The merchant can still personalize services or contact you by e-mail, but only if you have opted for that feature. Plus, eCognito provides a different identifier to each merchant you visit, so they can't get together and 'compare notes' on your shopping habits. Freedom.net is a Canadian company that offers a program that enables you to surf the Web anonymously. Their free software allows you to protect your PC from being hacked, removes ads from your Web browser and manages your cookies so that you can delete them at will. For $49.95 a year, you can purchase their high-end services, which allow you to send and receive untraceable, encrypted e-mail (using your regular e-mail account), and to anonymously browse and chat. Buy a Mac and avoid using Microsoft Outlook for e-mail If you worry about being hacked, buy a Mac. It's not that crackers (bad-guy hackers) couldn't burn Mac users, but the larger number of PC users make them a much more attractive target. So, most crackers spend their time working on ways to crack PCs. Mac is also a more secure platform, primarily because it doesn't have a command shell or allow remote logins (unless you force it to do so). The same is true of Outlook. It's a great program, with great features, but almost every e-mail virus, bug, worm, Web bug, etc., is designed to bring Outlook down. An alternative is Eudora, a good e-mail program that doesn't seem to suffer from as many problems. Pay attention There is a wealth of information about your privacy and how to protect it on the Web. Two great websites to put on your bookmark list are www.privacyfoundation.org and www.epic.org (the Electronic Privacy Information Center). The Privacy Foundation is part of the Privacy Center at the University of Denver. The site's chief technology officer is Richard Smith, the man most responsible for media focus on Internet privacy. You can subscribe to his free e-mail tip sheet, which keeps you up to date on the latest attempts to invade your privacy and what you can do to protect yourself. EPIC is a public interest research center based in Washington. It offers a great collection of online resources about privacy and also provides information on how you can act politically to motivate your government representatives to protect your privacy. As I said earlier, it may be impossible to totally protect privacy online. But there's no need to throw up your hands and give up. If you use the methods listed above, you'll go a long way toward making your online experience a more private, less intrusive one. -- Top 12 Ways to Protect Your Online Privacy <http://www.eff.org/pub/Privacy/eff_privacy_top_12.html> =================================================================== Robots predicted to take over on the battlefield <http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2-80569,00.html> BY MICHAEL EVANS THURSDAY FEBRUARY 08 2001 ROBOTIC power on the battlefield could replace manpower by the year 2030, according to the new Ministry of Defence report. "Unmanned systems might be used for operations deemed too risky for humans," it said. There is no specific reference to America's proposed "Son of Star Wars" national missile defence system, under which ground-based interceptors would be guided by space-based sensors and satellites to knock out any rogue state's ballistic missiles. The report, however, did acknowledge that measures would be needed to counter the whole range of new threats arising in the future. There was no stopping technological advance, and although arms control measures could "significantly reduce risks or make them more predictable" some adversaries would not be party to the international agreements and would not be operating under the same restrictions. The report says that by 2030 machines would be developed with artificial intelligence. They would be able to gather information about the battlefield and, acting autonomously, make "intelligent judgments" about what action to pursue and what kind of risks were involved. These machines could "improve our ability to remove personnel from the front line", the report said. The MoD also envisaged "long-endurance remotely deployed systems" and micro unmanned airborne vehicles over the battlefield. However, the dramatic advances in technology between now and 2030 would also increase the range of military options that were available to potential enemies. Vastly superior computers, using quantum processing, would make a "staggering" difference to weapon power. The report gave a warning that Russia, China, Israel and North Korea were all expected to continue developing their weapon export business, and said that "such sales may lead to a said narrowing of the technological gap between Nato and some potential adversaries". =================================================================== Far from terrorism, ELF engages in selfless acts to protect future Hoosier Times <www.hoosiertimes.com> 02/08/01 Guest Column David Haberman is an associate professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University who teaches on the subject of religion and ecology. On Nov. 8, 1986, members of the Sea Shepherds, a radical environmental group, targeted three ships anchored in the Reykjavik harbor in Iceland that were still used for whaling in clear violation of International Whaling Commission regulations. Before boarding the ships the Sea Shepherds took an oath not to injure a living being in any way (Sea Shepherds also take an oath not to use weapons or explosives). A night watchman was discovered sleeping on one of the ships; this ship was left afloat. Valves on the other two ships were opened and soon the ships rested ruined on the harbor floor, at a cost later estimated at $2.8 million. The Sea Shepherds then left the country; if caught they would have been prosecuted severely by Icelandic law. Why would people risk imprisonment to save whales at no economic gain to themselves? A growing number of individuals are risking their lives in order to defend nonhumans and ecosystems by destroying physical property that threatens these life forms. These groups include the Sea Shepherds, the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), and the Animal Liberation Front. More fruitful public debate would be gained through a better understanding of these groups. A sharp line of distinction must be drawn between the actions of these groups and "violent terrorist" groups that use guns and bombs to promote their agendas. As a professor of religious studies I am committed to the idea that judgment should follow understanding; judgment that precedes understanding is called prejudice. I am interested in neither condoning nor condemning the actions of these groups, but am concerned that an important distinction has been lost in recent public debate. All of the groups mentioned above are committed to nonviolence; many individuals associated with these groups undergo strict training in the discipline of nonviolence. However, ELF, the group that has supposedly claimed responsibility for the destruction of property in our area, has been labeled as a "violent terrorist" group by some of our local leaders. >From an impassioned position of moral outrage, it has even been suggested that they have used guns. This is a dangerous accusation that may lead to unjust prosecution. ELF members may have been known to throw a pie in the face of individuals they believe responsible for actions destructive to the environment, but the distinction between a pie and a gun should not be lost. To be sure, some radical environmentalists have maintained that respect for life takes precedence over respect for property which is used to take lives, and have asked: If a person were coming after you or a helpless being with a weapon, would it be acceptable to destroy the weapon, even if this involved the destruction of property? However one answers, it must be conceded that the destruction of property is not the same as the destruction of life. What, then, motivates such radical environmentalists? The answers surely must be complex and varied, but a general position can be identified from their publications. Some take very seriously what contemporary scientists are telling us: that all life forms are radically interrelated. This means that by protecting a forest one is in effect protecting oneself. Others believe that healthy old-growth forests must be maintained. Harvard University biologist E. O. Wilson argues publicly and persistently that healthy old-growth forests are essential to a healthy human future. Polls indicate that most Americans, including the people of Indiana, want commercial logging on our public lands to stop. Yet it continues. The world's leading scientists have announced repeatedly that we are heading rapidly toward environmental collapse. This adds up to such great frustration for some individuals that they are driven to actions declared illegal. Years ago, tree spiking was an effective means to preserve a forest. A forest was spiked (relatively harmless to the tree) and an obvious sign stating this was posted. Removing the spikes cut too far into the profits of a commercial logging operation, so the forest remained standing. The intention was clearly to protect the forest, not to injure loggers. Today, however, logging companies are willing to risk the lives of their workers by cutting a forest even after it has been spiked. For this reason, recent articles in radical environmental publications, such as Earth First! Journal, have called for a national halt to tree-spiking. It simply is no longer effective in today's economic climate. An act such as theft results in economic gain for the individual who performs the act. But what is the economic gain here? Individuals engaged in such acts, whether misguided or not, are following a commitment to a vision of human responsibility that transcends individual self-interest. They often act out of a deep sense of connectedness to all life. They are not terrorists as the word is commonly defined, but see themselves as protectors of life with a vision beyond economics. =================================================================== "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. 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