biochemwomd terror again, today
SENATE APPROPRIATIONS COMMITTEE Chemical Weapons Defense Subcommittee hearing on Chemical Demilitarization. Witnesses: Joseph Westphal, acting secretary of the Army; James Bacon, program manager, Chemical Demilitarization; Michael Parker, program manager, Assembled Chemical Weapons Assessment; Russell Salter, director, Chemical and Radiological Preparedness Division, FEMA; Craig Williams, director, Chemical Weapons Working Group; Rufus Kinney, spokesperson, Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration; Brenda Lindell, Families Concerned About Nerve Gas Incineration Location: 192 Dirksen Senate Office Building. 10 a.m. Contact: 202-224-3471 http://www.senate.gov/~appropriations
even more biochemwomdterror
Experts Highlight Shortcomings Of National Terrorism Preparedness Response Capabilities 7 Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 18:01:41 -0400 7 Subject: 4/24/01 Experts Highlight Shortcomings Of National Terrorism Preparedness Response Capabilities 7 From: Hansen, Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] NEWS U.S. House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure U.S. Rep. Don Young, Chairman Contact: Steve Hansen (Communications Director) (202) 225-7749 Justin Harclerode (Communications Assistant) (202) 226-8767 To: National Desk Date: April 24, 2001 Experts Highlight Shortcomings Of National Terrorism Preparedness Response Capabilities Washington, D.C. - Members of Congress and experts in counterterrorism testified today at a Congressional hearing about the federal government's uncoordinated and wasteful organization to combat domestic terrorism. Three legislative proposals to address the nation's fragmented terrorism preparedness and response programs were examined at today's joint hearing conducted by two U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittees: 1) the Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, and 2) the Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations. Government Needs To Better Coordinate Domestic Terrorism Efforts The question isn't whether the many programs we have to combat domestic terrorism are working, but rather if they are working in a coordinated and effective way rather than independently of each other, said U.S. Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-OH), the Chairman of the Public Buildings, Economic Development and Emergency Management Subcommittee. It is troubling that we don't have one person within the federal government who can tell us who is doing what to combat domestic terrorism, or if we're duplicating efforts left and right. I hope that by examining this issue closely at this hearing we will be able to zero in on what the federal government's role should be and focus on a plan that will guarantee the safety of our citizens while also ensuring that taxpayers' dollars are wisely spent, LaTourette said. As A Government, We Are Not Prepared Almost a decade after the dawn of a harsh new strategic reality - international terrorism aimed at our military and civilian personnel, abroad and here at home - these bills address today's equally stark realities: As a nation, we are not ready. As a government, we are not prepared, said U.S. Rep. Chris Shays (R-CT), the Chairman of the National Security, Veterans Affairs and International Relations Subcommittee. Speaking on behalf of legislation that each of them introduced this year in the House, U.S. Reps. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), Mac Thornberry (R-TX), and Ike Skelton (D-MO) agreed that Congressional action is needed to focus the efforts of the more than 40 federal agencies and departments that operate separate terrorism preparedness programs. Witnesses representing national security and terrorism preparedness panels concurred, citing different problems that plague preparedness efforts, including a lack of overall strategy, a lack of a high ranking coordinating authority or office, a means of evaluating program effectiveness, and an overlapping of services that leads to inefficiency and waste. Witnesses also agreed none of the three bills examined at the hearing was a complete solution to the problem, but that each makes a significant contribution to a final solution. The bills would do the following: Preparedness Against Domestic Terrorism Act of 2001 (H.R. 525) Introduced by Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, this bill would create a Presidential Council within the Executive Office of the President to oversee and coordinate the preparedness efforts of more than 40 departments and agencies. The bill provides the Council with oversight of federal programs and the authority to make recommendations to OMB regarding budget allocations for each federal terrorism preparedness program, based on a comprehensive national strategy. A similar measure (H.R. 4210 introduced by former Rep. Tillie Fowler) received bi-partisan support last year and passed the House unanimously under suspension of the rules. National Homeland Security Agency Act (H.R. 1158) Introduced by Rep. Mac Thornberry, this bill would create the National Homeland Security Agency (NHSA) by renaming the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and merging the Coast Guard, the Customs Service, and the Border Patrol into the new agency. This new agency would be responsible for defending the homeland, and would continue to be the principal response agency for natural disasters. This bill would give FEMA, as the NHSA, the primary responsibility for coordination, response, and prevention for terrorist attacks and other manmade disasters. FEMA would also serve as the principal point of contact for state and local governments. Homeland Security Strategy
Re: Gibberish was Re: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
On Wednesday, April 25, 2001, at 06:41 AM, Steve Mynott wrote: Is John Young actually a Nym for Robert Hettinga? Or is there meaning hidden via some advanced steganographical technique? John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: That'd plonk the whole discoursing shebang, I mean lockbox all golden tongues everywhere. Then journalisming kaput, and professorialing, and congressionaling, and getting inside the barflied nobodies's indifference to yarping of yarpingists, the tube-hating and baiting of sports, windfall, millionaires. Dejoyceizing his scribblings, it all boils down to the Shalmaneserian Christ, what an imagination I've got! --Tim May (who can't parse or understand John Young's writings either. When I see he's writing in a lucid state, I read his posts. When I see he's in an opium dream, I delete the fucker.)
Gibberish was Re: Right to anon. speech online upheld in US district court
Is John Young actually a Nym for Robert Hettinga? Or is there meaning hidden via some advanced steganographical technique? John Young [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: That'd plonk the whole discoursing shebang, I mean lockbox all golden tongues everywhere. Then journalisming kaput, and professorialing, and congressionaling, and getting inside the barflied nobodies's indifference to yarping of yarpingists, the tube-hating and baiting of sports, windfall, millionaires. Christ, Declan, you trying to unplug Gore's invention of the shark baiting gizmo. What you gonna do with the rest of your worthlessing wasting a mindless on bad grass distributed by NORML to cheapskate short-attention-spanning purveyists. Bamford tree-cuts 400 pages to explain NSA's billion-megawatt baiting of the dimbulb galaxy of shark attackers. -- 1024/D9C69DF9 steve mynott [EMAIL PROTECTED] the basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. it is not so much a war as an endless standing in line. -- h. l. mencken
Re: The Crypto State
Hey Tim. I've got a great idea. Let's ignore each other. Bear
RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs
On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Trei, Peter wrote: Just how dangerous an extra 25+% dioxin is I don't know. Only it's a lot more harm than you'd think, if that 25% is concentrated somewhere along the human food chain. Which it seems to be. Sampo Syreeni, aka decoy, mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED], gsm: +358-50-5756111 student/math+cs/helsinki university, http://www.iki.fi/~decoy/front
RE: Airlines IDs [was RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs]
Peter wrote: My understanding is this: 1. It is not a regulatory requirement for an airline passenger in the US to produce identification. 2. In fact, it's a violation of the airline's common carrier status for them to do so - they must admit anyone who shows up with a valid ticket. The ticket is a bearer instrument. ... How about a citation? S a n d y
The Crews Proposal vs. Intentional Communities
At 8:13 PM +0300 4/25/01, Sampo Syreeni wrote: On Wed, 25 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: I think this may be one idea for which you don't want credit. Actually it's one that's been implemented. The problem is, those perverters made their Net such a fun place *everybody* wanted part of it. And the proposal brings up (again) the interesting issue of just what the Net is: -- is it a physical thing, like a piece of property? -- is it a public accommodation, like a public highway? -- is it a collection of mostly privately-owned fibers, cables, and switches, with users contracting to carry packets over parts of it? -- is it a set of protocols, e.g., TCP/IP and suchlike? -- is it some cyberspace, evocative yet nebulous? In my case, I pay for my telephone line (no DSL yet, and I don't have cable) and I pay a company in Santa Cruz, my ISP. They have arrangements they made with upstream providers. So when I send packets, they travel in contractual ways. Maybe to lne.com, maybe to yahoo.com, maybe to foreign sites. In what sense would it be meaningful to talk about creating alternative nets? I would still telephone my ISP, he would still use his T1s and T3s and the like to communicate with other machines, etc. Is the proposal that I would use _other_ physical cables, fibers, etc.? Obviously not. That is too bizarre to even consider. Is it then that I would somehow be told I could not use TCP/IP protocols, that I must use alternate protocols? Or is, as the only thing I could see that could even remotely be implementable, that certain users might have their packets tagged in some way, or that they be forced to use encryption in certain ways. So instead of Cypherpunks choosing to encrypt all of their communications to each other (major problems here, but that's another issue), some sort of Authority would require, say, the perverts and seditionists to encrypt everything to some encryption protocol that only other members of the mandated PervertNet and SeditionNet could view. Nothing else makes sense, as the phone lines and T1s and fibers owned by Sprint and WorldCom and Cable Wireless are already there and essentially must be used. (And there are property issues, of course.) (By must I am _not_ saying that Alice gets to claim some right to use a T1 between Santa Cruz and San Jose simply because it's _there_ and she cannot afford to string her own T1 over the mountain passes. More the point that someone built and paid for that line, and that if they wish to sell packet space to Alice, through contractual/ISP arrangements, it is no business of anyone to tell her that she must build her own separate infrastructure.) Crews has not thought very deeply about the issues. He acknowledged in the article that he is not a technical person. And he admitted: Even Crews admits that he hasn't worked out the logistics or a clear-cut definition for what he envisions. But like a true visionary, that hasn't stopped him from pushing the idea. Well, it doesn't require someone to be knowledgeable about the guts of Linux or TCP/IP or whatever to see that the idea of a PervertNet or a SeditionNet, mandated by the state, is unworkable for several very good reasons. Which is not to say that PervertNets are not possible, or not already in operation. In fact, porn-trading networks are already out there. Even child porn rings...many news stories about these things. And mailing lists, Web chat rooms, IRCs, etc. are quite clearly examples of virtual communities. Another name is intentional communties, as in gate communities, private clubs, etc. (Crews needs to get up to speed on this stuff before he starts recommending policy for Cato! He might want to read my own Crypto Anarchy and Virtual Communities paper, done for the Imagina conference in Monte Carlo in 1995, and since reprinted in several places and (still) available on the Web via search engines.) Crews is taking the Good Idea of self-protection and self-selection and perverting it into a mandated (one assumes, else the idea is just rehashing existing things) ghettoization. I expect that he will probably come around and will say that intentional communties was all he was ever suggesting in the first place. Well, we've had them since the start of the Net, back in the late 60s, early 70s. And before. The more things change --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: [Fwd: YOU ARE INVITED: Will Encryption Protect Privacy and Make Government Obsolete? -- Next Independent Policy Forum (4/24/01)]
interesting to me that out of my four years working for the IMF, I've never once seen any of these textbooks on an economist's bookshelf. perhaps post-PhDs working in the real world have a vastly different view of academic economics. phillip btw everyone does, however, read the latest papers in economics so perhaps not having these books on a bookshelf reveals the idea that the concept of economic theory changes far more frequently than, say, physics or the other natural sciences. (and no, i'm not saying that the imf [being the premier macro economic institution for economists] is necessary the only source of economic 'good sense', either. this isn't intended as chub.) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Faustine Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2001 2:05 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Fwd: YOU ARE INVITED: Will Encryption Protect Privacy and Make Government Obsolete? -- Next Independent Policy Forum (4/24/01)] Quoting James A. Donald [EMAIL PROTECTED]: -- At 04:50 PM 4/24/2001 -0400, Faustine wrote: http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law. html. I read these essays: is this really representative of his best work? It seemed awfully rudimentary. In fact, I did a search on the NBER website for any real academic journal articles by (or even mentioning) him: nada. Then you cannot have read very carefully, for a number of articles on his website are real academic journal articles. Nothing good enough to get mentioned at NBER, the veritable gold standard (if you'll allow) of academic research in economics. I think Friedman's popularity must have something to do with having a ready- made audience for his works--people who care more about the fact that he's a libertarian theorist than whether he's a responsible economist. To say nothing of the idea of free riding on the reputation capital accumulated by his father. None of Larry Summers' academic works were prefaced by the fact that Samuelson and Arrow were his uncles--why isn't this true of Friedman and his dad? Cult of personality issues in play here? I havent seen any reason to rule it out just yet. OH well. And if anybody cares to point me to the paper that best shows his analytic prowess, please do. And how did the presentation go last night, any reports? Interesting! ~Faustine. 'We live in a century in which obscurity protects better than the law--and reassures more than innocence can.' Antoine Rivarol (1753-1801).
Re: The Well-Read Cypherpunk
Tim May wrote: On Tuesday, April 24, 2001, at 09:21 AM, Bill Stewart wrote: Perhaps the field has changed since I was in college, but back then, academic econometrics had the reputation of being dominated by Marxists - . . . I'll provide a data point about what corporations want: they hire a _lot_ of MBAs, but not a lot of economists. Sure, MBAs have to complete a series of econ courses, probably based on Samuelson and the various micro- and macro-econ courses, but mostly corporations are seeking those with tools to manage businesses, markets, product lines, etc. Classical economics is not a focus. And as Bill said in another post, Samuelson generated a very big book mainly (it seems) to sell more copies. Sort of like similar big books in molecular biology and organic chemistry. --Tim May Much of Microsoft's and Intel's profits of last year were from investment income, not from selling product. You really think a startup MBA and an Intel MBA get together, believe each other's line of bullshit and do a deal? Fucken grow up. A trillion dollars a day sloshes around in currency market transactions, every day. MBAs again, I'm sure. Best of all, corporate planning is not central planning. What a fucken laugh!
RE: Airlines IDs [was RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs]
At Wed, 25 Apr 2001 14:29:29 -0400, Trei, Peter [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Sandy Sandfort[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote Peter wrote: My understanding is this: 1. It is not a regulatory requirement for an airline passenger in the US to produce identification. 2. In fact, it's a violation of the airline's common carrier status for them to do so - they must admit anyone who shows up with a valid ticket. The ticket is a bearer instrument. ... How about a citation? S a n d y That's a fair request. It looks like I can confirm assertion 1, but am (now at least) probably wrong on assertion 2. See: http://cas.faa.gov/faq.html -start quote--- Q. Do I have to have a photo ID to fly? A. The FAA does not prohibit the airline from transporting any passenger who does not present a photo ID. Airlines have available to them alternate procedures that allow them to transport passengers without ID. However, some airlines choose not to use such procedures, which is their prerogative. Q. Why didn't the airline ask for my ID? A. The FAA does not require all passengers to present ID. The FAA requires that airlines apply additional security measures to passengers who are unable to produce ID upon request. -end quote--- I know that in the pre-TWA800 days, it was common to travel on tickets issued to another name than one's own. I did so on numerous occasions. Of course, the airlines hated people saving money in this manner. It's just as easy today- at least for one-ways. Just have the individual with the ID check in and hand the ticket to you. I've done it a million times. Free, encrypted, secure Web-based email at www.hushmail.com
RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs
At 09:59 AM 4/25/01 -0400, Trei, Peter wrote: The figure I heard was that up to this date, the amount of dioxin released in the cow-pyres was equal to 25% of the total annual British industrial output. Presumably more will be released as the cull goes on (they really should be using napalm). Right, a major fraction of the entire output of industrial Britain, being concentrated around the pyres. As they say in rural Utah, best to stay upwind.
Re: [Fwd: YOU ARE INVITED: Will Encryption Protect Privacy and Make Government Obsolete? -- Next Independent Policy Forum (4/24/01)]
-- At 04:50 PM 4/24/2001 -0400, Faustine wrote: http://www.best.com/~ddfr/Academic/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law/Anarchy_and_Eff_Law. html. I read these essays: is this really representative of his best work? It seemed awfully rudimentary. In fact, I did a search on the NBER website for any real academic journal articles by (or even mentioning) him: nada. Then you cannot have read very carefully, for a number of articles on his website are real academic journal articles. --digsig James A. Donald 6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG Jo6J3cCJgU0zOGeXD89QozE5F49ZEALLyk5AdB8L 42oSk9MprLItXwNTUBiY4X4Whu/OoLhvzqoYzr5Y3 - We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state. http://www.jim.com/jamesd/ James A. Donald
Airlines IDs [was RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs]
Ralph Wallis[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Tuesday, 24 Apr 2001 at 16:13, Tim May [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: However, it used to be SOP to buy train tickets at the ticket window--for cash and with no I.D. or phone numbers or SS numbers or forehead marks. It looks like the temporary measures to combat the TWA 800 bombing sorts of events, even though TWA 800 almost certainly wasn't a bombing, are now spreading to the trains. I just read Database Nation, which notes that this was an immediate result of TWA 800 and the Atlanta Olympic bombing. (Along with similar policies for air travel.) So it's not a sign of spreading. Since Atlanta was 5 years ago, it's not a temporary measure either. I think you've both been blindsided as to the true reason why airlines ask for ID. While the FAA did for a while (after the TWA 800 crash) suggest that airlines ask for ID, it's my understanding that at no time was it actually a regulatory requirement (I'd welcome actual cites to the contrary.) My understanding is this: 1. It is not a regulatory requirement for an airline passenger in the US to produce identification. 2. In fact, it's a violation of the airline's common carrier status for them to do so - they must admit anyone who shows up with a valid ticket. The ticket is a bearer instrument. 3. Regardless of the legalities, US airlines will usually request ID. If you refuse, and stand your ground, and can cite the appropriate common carrier regs, and show that they can't cite any regulatory requirement, they in fact WILL let you fly without ID. However, doing so involves moving far up beyond the counter-droids to superdupervisors, calls to corporate legal counsel, and unfriendly attention from airport security. While you would win in the end, you will almost certainly have missed your plane. 4. The reason airlines do this has nothing to do with security, and everything to do with extracting the max from your wallet Before these regs existed, and citizen units rightfully refused to let themselves be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered to the extent they do today, the bearer instrument status of the tickets allowed people who traveled often to save money. It worked like this: In the US, unscheduled, immediate travel ticket prices are extremely expensive. On American Airlines, an unrestricted Boston to San Francisco coach return ticket is over $2400 if I leave today and return tommorrow. If I book a month ahead and stay over the weekend, it's a tad over $400, a $2000 dollar savings. Companies with lots of predictable travel (for example, one with offices near Boston and San Francisco) would buy 'John Doe' tickets a month ahead, scheduled for over-weekend stays. A traveller would go to the travel office, and pick up an outbound and return ticket (from different original trips) with dates and times which suited him, and execute his business trip at a fraction of the cost of it would have if he'd bought his ticket in the naive manner. By hassling travellers who try to use tickets with someone elses name, and lying that it is illegal to do so, airlines have greatly cut down on this cost saving strategy. If you're going to make more than one business trip between the same cities on predictable dates in the next year, you can still execute this strategy on a personal level, but it requires planning. So don't believe the lies of the airline spinmeisters. The only security they are enhancing is that of their bottom line. Peter Trei
RE: Airlines IDs [was RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs]
Sandy Sandfort[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] wrote Peter wrote: My understanding is this: 1. It is not a regulatory requirement for an airline passenger in the US to produce identification. 2. In fact, it's a violation of the airline's common carrier status for them to do so - they must admit anyone who shows up with a valid ticket. The ticket is a bearer instrument. ... How about a citation? S a n d y That's a fair request. It looks like I can confirm assertion 1, but am (now at least) probably wrong on assertion 2. See: http://cas.faa.gov/faq.html -start quote--- Q. Do I have to have a photo ID to fly? A. The FAA does not prohibit the airline from transporting any passenger who does not present a photo ID. Airlines have available to them alternate procedures that allow them to transport passengers without ID. However, some airlines choose not to use such procedures, which is their prerogative. Q. Why didn't the airline ask for my ID? A. The FAA does not require all passengers to present ID. The FAA requires that airlines apply additional security measures to passengers who are unable to produce ID upon request. -end quote--- I know that in the pre-TWA800 days, it was common to travel on tickets issued to another name than one's own. I did so on numerous occasions. Of course, the airlines hated people saving money in this manner. Peter
Re: The Crews Proposal vs. Intentional Communities
[Got a bounce first time due to list management software command] What would be sensible is third party ratings. If a given country wants to censor things (Germans and French certain writings, other governments other writings), just let them create their rating service and allow their citizens to use it. Then let all the fights hapen amongst owners of rating services about what gets to go on their lists. The rest of us can just ignore the rating services (or perhaps even choose to use a useful, non government run one). This Crews fellow probably doesn't understand that virtual community standards (views of data filtered by user selected third party ratings) are not exclusive, and don't require segregated networks. Adam On Wed, Apr 25, 2001 at 10:45:15AM -0700, Tim May wrote: [...] Crews is taking the Good Idea of self-protection and self-selection and perverting it into a mandated (one assumes, else the idea is just rehashing existing things) ghettoization. I expect that he will probably come around and will say that intentional communties was all he was ever suggesting in the first place. Well, we've had them since the start of the Net, back in the late 60s, early 70s. And before.
Free market solutions to foot and mouth disease outbreaks
At 6:33 PM -0500 4/25/01, Jim Choate wrote: On Tue, 24 Apr 2001, Declan McCullagh wrote: On Tue, Apr 24, 2001 at 06:43:20PM -0700, Tim May wrote: From our perspective, it will show the foolishness of government overreaction (ordering a million animals to be slaughtered and burned with tires and old pressure-treated lumber railroad ties). Yes, top-down government regulation is clearly the best way to handle environmental crises, as the Brits showed so very well. What and why would the Anarcho-Capitalist responce be? 1. Each farm and each farmer is primarily responsible for protecting his farm against contact exposure. He can, and should, disinfect the feet and clothes who come from outside his property. He can also incur the additional expense of vaccinating his animals. (Yes, vaccines exist.) As with government flood insurance, the subsidies of unprotected behavior do much harm. Farmers are not incentivized to protect their own flocks if they think government will do it for them...and if they think a mass kill of even their protected animals will be ordered by some simpleton. 2. Foot and mouth is survivable. It's expensive to nurse animals through the process, hence the common practice of killing the herds. 3. If burning the animals is picked as the option, at least apply the same standards which would be applied to private actors. A business which proposed to dump 25-40% of the total annual dioxin burden into the air would be told to find other options. (Especially when concentrated in a specific region.) However, governments usually exempt themselves from their own laws, for natural and obvious reasons. (Because they _can_, for starters. And because bureaucrats planning tire pyres don't have anyone they have to go to for permission, unlike a business planning something similar. And because they think they are above the law.) For good ways to think about the tort issues, David Friedman's new book, Law's Order, is very good. Also, Richard Posner. Faustine can tell us where in Samuelson these kinds of issues are discussed. (Presumably the flawed analysis of externalities.) --Tim May -- Timothy C. May [EMAIL PROTECTED]Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns
RE: Amtrak The War On Drugs (gray travel)
I wrote, and to curb offlist replies, flames and comparisons to John Young, I write again: BTW, I need a gray travel consultant. Lemme know if anybody knows of one. Will accept salt-and-pepper gray. = low-key/anonymous travel, increasingly critical to execs in certain parts of the world, as they are often the recipients of 'involuntary invitations to parties they do not wish to attend.' (Kidnapping) ~Aimee
