-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It Takes a Parking Lot to Raise a Cub Black Bears Prefer Hondas & Toyotas BEARS in Yosemite National Park in California know exactly where to go foraging for food - they choose either Honda or Toyota cars. Forest rangers are convinced that the animals have learned to select specific models. Last year was a record for what rangers call "car clouting". Yosemite black bears clawed into 1,103 vehicles, causing £400,000 of damage, according to the Wall Street Journal. In only two months, bears broke into 28 Hondas and 21 Toyotas. By contrast they tampered with only two Buicks and one Lexus. Steven Thompson, the park's biologist, said mother bears were teaching their cubs how to "clout". A favourite technique was to insert claws just above the rear side door, then pull the door frame down to knee level. This creates a handy stepladder for bears to claw their way through the back seat and into the boot. Mr Thompson said "clouting" resulted from campers keeping food in cars rather than storing it in steel bear safes now installed at most camp sites. One camper, Richard Walther, told rangers he watched as a bear peeled two doors off his Honda, then carefully folded down the back seat to get into the boot, where he pushed a button to open a cooler full of food. "This bear clearly knew what he was doing," said Mr Walther. Park officials are considering how to keep Yosemite's population of up to 500 black bears out of the car parks. Rangers said one solution might be to drive them away with packs of trained dogs. The London Telegraph, Jan. 16, 1999 Crisis in Brazil Brazil Allows Real to Float Stock Market is happy Brazil was finally forced to float its currency yesterday, abandoning its attempt to engineer an orderly devaluation against the dollar after Latin America's largest economy suffered a week of mounting capital flight. The Real quickly fell to R$1.58 against the dollar, but later settled at R$1.43, representing a devaluation of 16 per cent since the start of the week. On Wednesday, the central bank had attempted to stem the crisis by an effective devaluation of about 8 per cent. Brazilian financial markets rebounded strongly in the afternoon as investors in São Paulo, the country's financial centre, greeted the news with a mixture of relief and euphoria. Shares on the São Paulo stock exchange soared 33.4 per cent, its second highest ever rise, while the price of the most liquid Brazilian international bond, the C-Bond, jumped 15.3 per cent. The positive response led some economists to predict the devaluation could be controlled. In an attempt to win international support for the new exchange rate policy, Pedro Malan, finance minister, and Francisco Lopes, the new president of the central bank, travelled to Washington last night to meet senior officials at the US treasury and the International Monetary Fund, which in November agreed a $41.5bn (£25.1bn) rescue package for Brazil. The Brazilian central bank said it would announce a new foreign exchange policy on Monday. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, president, broke off his holiday for the second time in a week to return to Brasília. In a televised address, he said stability depended on Congress approving the government's fiscal austerity plans. Economists said the government was most likely to confirm a floating exchange rate regime on Monday, although they said that the sort of currency board system that neighbouring Argentina uses was also a possibility. Mr Lopes did not rule out a revised system of trading bands. Investors were pleased that the government had not used up more reserves to defend the currency. Opinion was divided, however, over the likely impact on economic activity. "Everyone was expecting the currency to overshoot, but the fact that it did not leaves room for sharp rate cuts," said Dany Rappaport, chief economist at Santander Investment in São Paulo. However, Francis Freis-inger at Merrill Lynch in New York said uncertainty surrounding the currency would keep rates high. "Lower rates will ultimately depend on progress on the fiscal side," he added. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which weakened on Wednesday and Thursday, rose 219.62 points to close at 9,340.55 in New York. European markets finished strongly with the FTSE 100 index in London closing 120.8 higher at 5,941 while the Paris and Frankfurt markets were both around 1.4-1.5 per cent higher. The Financial Times, Jan. 16, 1999 Crisis in Brazil Brazil Faces Up to Harsh Reality Defending the indefensible in international finance is a quick route to bankruptcy. So one cheer to Brazil for allowing its currency to float. As a result, it has kept a hard-currency warchest of over $30bn - even more, if one adds in money coming from the International Monetary Fund. This is not South Korea or Mexico, still less Russia, countries which wasted virtually all their reserves vainly trying to prop up overvalued currencies. Hence yesterday's relief rally both in Brazil and further afield. Brazil does not get a second cheer because it should not have embarked on this policy in the first place. Much of its own money and credibility have been wasted on the fruitless defence of the Real. The same goes for the IMF, which has been severely embarrassed by the explosion of yet another of its badly-designed programmes. The third cheer has to be withheld because Brazil is still in a mess. Floating the Real could prove the decisive act that allows interest rates to fall, revives the economy and turns around the current account deficit. Optimists will compare it with the fast turn-arounds following Britain's exit from Europe's fixed exchange rate system in 1992 or Mexico's float of the peso in 1994. Certainly, Brazil's banks and companies have not engaged in the same foreign currency borrowing binge that has whiplashed east Asia with such violence. A devaluation could be good news. But each to his own misery. Brazil has avoided private-sector profligacy but has public-sector profligacy in spades. Without the anchor of a fixed exchange rate, it now has to convince investors it will run responsible macro-economic policies. Hyperinflation is not, after all, such a distant memory; meanwhile the fiscal deficit, 9 per cent of gross domestic product last year, is unsustainable. The virtuous circle is easy enough to imagine: fiscal policy is tightened, interest rates fall, cutting the cost of servicing the government's debt and so reducing the deficit still further. But things could all too easily flip into a vicious circle. If investors suspect the Cardoso government lacks the will or authority to implement sufficient budget cuts, interest rates will stay high. In that case, the fiscal arithmetic would still look ghastly, increasing the temptation to fill the hole by going back to the bad old days of printing money. Even under the virtuous scenario, Brazil is in for a tough year. Rising import prices and higher interest costs for those companies with hard currency debts will cause both consumers and corporations to pull in their horns. Tight fiscal policy will not be good for the economy either. But the boost to exporters from the devaluation and the prospect of local interest rates eventually coming down sharply mean the economy could bounce back in 2000. So does that mean the rest of the world can rest in peace? Not quite. Brazil's devaluation will still have a deflationary impact on the rest of its region, potentially sparking competitive devaluations. All that will put an extra burden on the US economy, which is already acting as the importer of last resort for Asia - another reason to worry about Wall Street's overvaluation. The Financial Times, Jan. 16, 1999 Impeached POTUS Senate May Ask President to Take Witness Stand Just a few questions, Mr. President . . . PROSECUTORS are considering a demand that President Clinton should be called to the witness stand in the Senate to give evidence in his own defence. They are preparing to make a move which could cause a constitutional explosion and would have incalculable consequences on public opinion. Asa Hutchinson, the most effective prosecutor so far, said yesterday: "It is a very serious question and it is being seriously considered by the House managers as to whether the request should be made. The President is becoming more entrenched in his denials and that makes the case that he should give a more full explanation." Under mounting pressure for Mr Clinton to stop hiding behind "hair-splitting legalisms", the White House finally managed to recruit George Mitchell, a former senator and broker of the Northern Ireland talks to speak out against those pressing the case to the end. After weeks of White House pressure, Mr Mitchell overcame his reservations about Mr Clinton's sexual misconduct, and said: "Enough with the investigation. This is the most investigated sexual relationship in history." The President has wanted Mr Mitchell on his side, for his is a voice which could steel the resolve of Senate Democrats to vote against conviction, come what may. Republicans hit back at Mr Mitchell's intervention, saying that the trial was not about sex, but perjury and obstruction of justice. They and Washington commentators from both ends of the political spectrum pressed for Mr Clinton to speak for himself. James Rogan, one of the prosecutors, echoed Mr Hutchinson and the lead manager of the prosecution team Henry Hyde's hope that the President would come voluntarily to the trial, saying: "If he really is innocent, he should come down to the Senate, he should testify, he should present his case." Senators are petrified of sullying their reputation, and timid about issuing a summons, but the latest polls show that 63 per cent of the public thinks that Mr Clinton should testify. If the President were invited or subpoenaed, it could prove politically difficult for him to resist. The White House has angrily dismissed the suggestion, claiming that Mr Clinton has already testified to the grand jury. It is unlikely that he could be forced to appear because the doctrine of separation of powers limits congressional authority over the executive. But Mr Hutchinson sought to foreclose constitutional argument, saying: "I don't think we should be posturing on the issue. As long as it is a request [not a subpoena] the question of separation of powers does not arise." Television pictures of Mr Clinton answering or evading questions in the highest tribunal in the land, could have a deep impact on polls which continue to show that more than 60 per cent of the population wants him to stay in office. Conservative pundits suggest that he might be given immunity from prosecution in a criminal court in exchange for personal testimony, and even some Left-wing commentators say Mr Clinton must appear if he is to repair a presidency now "in shatters". As a presidential testimony loomed as a serious prospect, the chances that Kathleen Willey and the other women in Mr Clinton's sexual past would be called, faded. Prosecutors who interviewed Mrs Willey this week say that her tale of being groped in the Oval Office probably has no bearing on the charges Mr Clinton faces. Prosecutors must be careful in naming witnesses because the Senate will vote on the list as a whole, which means one frivolous, provocative, or apparently unnecessary name could lead to all of them being rejected. Nevertheless, the House prosecutors are peppering their case with arguments that the Senate cannot do its job properly without listening to witnesses. Whenever the President's sworn testimony contradicts that of Monica Lewinsky and others in the sex-and-cover-up scandal, House prosecutors ask the 100-strong jury to take the simplest way out. "Who is telling the truth?" asked Mr Rogan, a former California judge. "The only way to really know is to bring forth the witnesses, put them all under oath." Mr Hutchinson told senators that they should hear Miss Lewinsky before deciding she is a liar. He said: "I have pointed out the corroborating evidence, the circumstantial evidence, as well as common sense supporting the testimony of Miss Lewinsky. "But let me ask you two questions: can you convict the President of the United States without hearing personally the testimony of one of the key witnesses? The second question is: can you dismiss the charges under this strong set of facts and circumstances without hearing and evaluating the credibility of key witnesses." The compelling case built by Republicans in the first day two days of arguments has changed some minds. One senator said the case was sufficiently strong that he now wanted to hear witnesses. Another, though, said it was so strong that it had already been proved. The London Telegraph, Jan. 16, 1999 Impeached POTUS Time to Roast Bill Clinton's Chestnuts IMPEACHMENT weather in Washington, with the temperature plummeting faster than Republican poll numbers and an icy glaze chillier than a Congressman's wife after his mistress has sold her story to Larry Flynt. On Friday morning a quarter of a million people in the city were out of power. Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of "the vast Right-wing conspiracy", Bill Clinton wasn't one of them. Nonetheless, inside the Senate there's the warm, comforting glow of House managers roasting the President's chestnuts on an open fire: "Paula Jones . . . Federal judge . . . Enumerated body parts . . ." A trial like this comes along only once every 130 years, although you can't help feeling James Carville, Mr Flynt and the other hardcore Clintonites are already pencilling in George W Bush's impeachment for early 2001. Still, for the moment, it's "historic"; all the gravitas groupies in the Senate keep telling us so. The watchword here is that of Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain: "Dignity, dignity, always dignity." So, with his first "Hear ye, hear ye", the Senate clerk began Ringin' in the Sane - Senator Robert Byrd, the octogenarian "constitutional solon", and the other 99 jurors whose stately mien would stand in stark contrast to the House of hysterical Representatives. Hello, solon. So long, foaming partisan crazies. According to lead manager Henry Hyde, these proceedings illustrate "the unique brilliance of America's constitutional system". Well, it's unique. Imagine Ron Davies being tried in the House of Lords by Harvey Proctor, Cecil Parkinson, Lord Lambton and one of his relatives. Not many of these senators would withstand traditional American jury selection: here's Barbara Boxer, who's one of Bill Clinton's in-laws; there's Ted Kennedy, whose appetites have got him into deeper water, in every sense, even than the President; over on the other side sits 96-year-old Strom Thurmond, one of the millennium's champion skirt-chasers, who's been putting the moves on chicks pretty much since the last impeachment trial ended; and don't forget Chuck Robb, a Virginia Democrat and oral sex fiend who in 1994 pioneered a protean form of the Clinton defence. When hordes of aggrieved women came tumbling out of his closet, he indignantly denied that he'd slept with any of them: this was technically true, but only because the sexual activity to which be was prone didn't involve him being prone. Senator Robb seems unlikely to do anything to Bill Clinton except compare favourite zipper manufacturers. Late in the day, at the Senate entrance, I find myself caught between a rock and a hard place - wedged between Senator Boxer, who's been rock-solid in her support of Mr Clinton, and Senator Thurmond, who, pushing 100, is supposedly the only guy in Washington hornier than the President. Strom looks appreciatively at the petite brunette liberal extremist. Ms Boxer shivers. "When old Strom kicks off," one of his colleagues told me, "they're gonna have to put a couple hundred extra nails in the lid just to hold his pecker down." I think this is what Beltway insiders mean by the "dignity" and "majesty" of "the world's greatest deliberative body". Still, the old boy pays attention. Throughout the proceedings he sits behind presidential lawyer and world-renowned sex-definition expert David Kendall and looks almost too alert. Across the aisle, meanwhile, the Democrats are already showing signs of partisan ennui. Almost 25 per cent of them missed the first part of Jim Rogan's presentation late on Thursday. "The truth . . ." Ted Kennedy gives an enormous yawn ". . . the whole truth . . ." he signals to a lady usher ". . . and nothing but . . ." he makes strange guppy-like mouth movements, as if in cruel imitation of Monica's technique ". . . the truth." She brings him some water. ". . . Ms Lewinsky had sexual relations with him . . ." Ted yawns ever more extravagantly and starts scratching his ear ". . . but he didn't have sexual relations with her." He pulls some wax out. By the second day, the Democrats' lack of interest is so polished they're in the corridors doing stage yawns for the media. "Two more exciting days (yawn, stretch, wipe sleep from eyes, etc) to go," says New Jersey's Frank Lautenberg. In British Columbia recently, a juror was prosecuted for winking, pouting and coming on to the defendant. Senate Democrats can do more or less the same with impunity. Amazingly, the dignity fetishists refuse to let up. Henry Hyde makes so many references to this "august body" you'd think Monica had stopped by. "I did not feel the need," said Jim Rogan, bowdlerising some testimony lest he offend the solemnity junkies, "to relate to this body what the enumerated body parts were." But, after two days of testimony, it's possible to begin to enumerate at least the parts of this august body. There's little sign of Democrat defectors - certainly not enough to convict - but Congressman Hyde's team is managing to keep the squishier GOP senators, like Maine's Susan Collins, on side. The votes are there for witnesses, and once Monica, Betty and Vernon are testifying in the well of the chamber, things get more unpredictable, especially on the Republicans' preferred theme of obstruction of justice. So far the House managers have made a compelling case, albeit on a subject Democrats and the American people steadfastly refuse to be compelled about. From the tone of their presentation, the GOP's presumably given up on the broader audience. The excitement isn't intense: instead, the excitement's in tense - it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is. As Representative George Sensenbrenner put it: "The President gave perjurious testimony about his perjurious testimony." Now the Republicans are calling the Democrats' gravitas bluff: if the Senate's so grave, solemn, etc, then let's get Mr Clinton down here and give him a third chance, after his civil deposition and grand jury testimony, to set it right. But, even if he did show up, the President would no doubt merely give perjurious testimony about his perjurious testimony about his perjurious testimony. Senators, already complaining bitterly about the chamber's butt-numbing chairs and squirming around as if they've all got vampiric interns under the desk, may yet have more exquisite tortures in store. The London Telegraph, Jan. 16, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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