Forward by [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Akira Kawasaki) > [Original Message] > From: What's New <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: 5/26/2006 10:59:57 AM Subject: [BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New Friday May 26, 2006
WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 26 May 06 Washington, DC 1. CHIEF DOMESTIC ADVISOR: MARVEL COMICS AND THE WAR IN IRAQ. President Bush on Wednesday named Karl Zinsmeister as his chief domestic policy advisor. The position had been vacant since February when Claude Allen resigned the position "to spend more time with his family." During visiting hours? Allen was caught stealing from Target department stores in a fake return scheme. It's hardly Ken Lay stuff, but it's still criminal. Allen's replacement, Karl Zinsmeister, was editor of The American Enterprise, the magazine of the American Enterprise Institute. In 2003, he was embedded as a military reporter with the 82nd Airborne in Iraq. His Iraq experience is chronicled in Combat Zone: True Tales of GI's in Iraq, which Zinsmeister wrote for Marvel Comics - a perfect background for the Bush White House. 2. FDA COMMISSIONER: PLAN B AND THE GOING-AWAY PARTY AT NCI. President Bush in March nominated the director of the National Cancer Institute, Andrew von Eschenbach, a Bush family friend, to head the Food and Drug Administration. His qualifications? Like the last two FDA commissioners picked by Bush, von Eschenbach opposes Plan B, the emergency contraceptive or "morning-after" pill http://bobpark.physics.umd.edu/WN05/wn090205.html , and for that matter, anything else that might reduce the incentive for abstinence, such as human papilloma virus vaccine. His move to FDA was cause for a celebration at NCI. A Washington newsletter, The Cancer Letter, ran a copy of the invitation: "$25 per person. Gift contributions also welcome." The party has been postponed (something about the law), but people at NCI seemed willing to pay just about anything to see the last of von Eschenbach. 3. IMAGINARY WEAPONS: WHY THE PENTAGON KEEPS THIS STUFF SECRET. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (CSBA), one of the countless independent, nonprofit, public policy research institutes in Washington, reported last week that the Pentagon will spend $30 billion on classified programs in FY 2007. Why? In a new book, Imaginary Weapon: A Journey Through the Pentagon's Scientific Underworld, Sharon Weinberger peeks behind the curtain at hafnium bombs, "remote viewing," telepathy and all the rest and concludes secrecy is mostly to avoid rational oversight. 4. GLOBAL WARMING: SPREADING THE GOOD NEWS ABOUT CARBON DIOXIDE. The libertarian Competitive Enterprise Institute, another of the nonprofit public policy organizations based in Washington, has been airing two 60-second television spots in 14 cities across the nation this week. "Nonprofit" does not mean they don't keep cash in the freezer. Most of CEI's $3 million budget comes from oil companies, particularly ExxonMobil. CEI argues that we all have a responsibility to make as much CO2 as possible. THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND. Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the University of Maryland, but they should be. --- Archives of What's New can be found at http://www.bobpark.org What's New is moving to a different listserver and our subscription process has changed. To change your subscription status please visit this link: http://listserv.umd.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=bobparks-whatsnew&A=1
