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DRUG BUSTS

REUTERS - The worldwide illegal drugs trade has stopped growing for the first time since the mid-Nineteenth Century, although use and production of some drugs is rising fast in pockets, a senior U.N. official said. Methamphetamine abuse in East Asia and production of opium in Afghanistan are both growing at an alarming rate, but poppy cultivation in the Golden Triangle area of Indochina has fallen, said Akira Fujino, the East Asia representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. "This is the first time in history that we're observing this trend," Fujino told a news conference in Manila on Wednesday. "There has been a steady rise in the drug problem since the Opium Wars in the 1800s. But, it doesn't mean that the problem is being licked." The production area for opium in the Golden Triangle has fallen from more than 160,000 hectares (395,400 acres) in 1996 to about 32,000 hectares in 2005, Fujino said, adding latest figure from Myanmar, Laos and Thailand could show further reduction. In contrast, opium production in violence-torn Afghanistan was "skyrocketing to record levels", alarming countries in Western Europe, where the opium and heroin made from it are distributed and sold, Fujino added. He did not give a figure on the level of production.

ECOLOGY & NATURE

TREE HUGGER - Prisons probably aren't the first buildings that spring to mind when you think about green design and architecture. Yet one small island in Norway is set to change that perception with the recent introduction of the "world's first ecological prison" - a facility powered by solar energy that will put its inmates to work coordinating daily operations, such as recycling and food production, and learning their part to protect the environment. Norwegian authorities hope to thus instill a sense of responsibility in their inmates and to better prepare them for an eco-conscious life once they leave the prison. The facility, which is located on Bastoey Island (about 46 mi south of Oslo), houses 115 inmates. Justice Minister Knut Storberget explained that "from a social and economic perspective, this is cheapest for society," adding that it only made sense for a prison already renowned for its pleasant living conditions - resembling a summer camp more than a conventional prison with activities like tennis, horse riding and swimming - to go that extra step to rehabilitate its inmates.

JUSTICE

UPI - A law school professor in Chicago is suing for $1 million over what he calls an improper punishment over comments he made comparing black and Jewish students. John Gorby, who is neither Jewish nor African-American, opined to a Jewish student after a class at John Marshall Law School that religious training may help explain why Jews pass the bar exam at higher rates than blacks, who tend to come from religions that "emphasize an emotional and spiritual religious experience rather than discussion and debate about the meaning of scriptural language," the Chicago Sun-Times reported. Gorby successfully appealed to the school's appellate board to have an official reprimand stricken from his record but he failed to regain a five percent raise that was canceled by the dean. He also complains that the incident cost him $25,000 in attorney's fees. Gorby, who argues that his statements were an exercise in academic freedom and that professors should be allowed to spark provocative discussions about raising the bar graduation rates, is seeking $1 million in the suit.

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

ABC - Former President Jimmy Carter welcomed Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards to South Georgia, embracing the fellow Southerner as a kindred spirit on poverty and the environment. Carter and Edwards shared the stage at Carter's alma mater, Georgia Southwestern State University. Carter stopped short of endorsing the former U.S. senator from North Carolina but called him "a candidate whom I really admire." "I can say without equivocation that no one who is running for president has presented anywhere near as comprehensive and accurate a prediction of what our country ought to do in the field of environmental quality, in the field of healthcare for those who are not presently insured, for those who struggle with poverty," Carter said. He predicted that Edwards "has a very good chance to do well" in the presidential race.

FURTHERMORE. . .

FARK HEADLINE OF THE DAY - Millions of condoms recalled. Fondly, for the most part

EVERYTHING YOU WANTED TO KNOW ABOUT SENATORIAL SEX IN A BATHROOM

HOW TO TOILET TRAIN YOUR CAT

NEW EVIDENCE OF HAND HELD MISSILE IN TWA 800 CRASH AREA

JACK CASHILL, WORLDNET DAILY - More than six years after retired United Airline captain Ray Lahr launched his Freedom of Information Act petition into the fate of TWA Flight 800, the FBI has shown him - likely by accident - one seriously smoking gun. The Boeing 747 blew up off the coast of Long Island on July 17, 1996. One of the FBI documents received recently by Lahr and his attorney, John Clarke of Washington DC, details a communication that took place six days after the crash:

"On Tuesday, July 23, 1996, a representative from the Defense Intelligence Agency advised [the FBI] that after a visual analysis of both the videotape as well as a number of still photographs taken from various portions of the tape, the phenomenon captured by [name redacted] appeared to be consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD [Man-portable air-defense] missile."

"The FBI guy who looked at this must not have read it, or not have realized what it would reveal," says Lahr. "Otherwise he would have redacted most of it as before.". . .

The earlier, unedited FBI document reports that a fellow and his friend on Long Island were attempting to videotape the sunrise when they saw and recorded "a grey trail of smoke ascending from the horizon at an angle of approximately 75 [degrees]." So compelling was the visual that the fellow made a comment to his friend, heard on the tape, "They must be testing a rocket." The fellow calculated that object was heading towards the Atlantic Ocean.

On the document Lahr first received, the story of the video ends right there. The next two paragraphs had been fully redacted.

This current unedited version shows that the FBI took the video seriously enough to bring in the DIA for further analysis. As mentioned above, the DIA found the video image to be "consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD."

What is shocking is that the authorities not only removed all reference to this video from the official record, but they also removed just about all reference to the DIA. . .

An important component of the DIA is the Missile and Space Intelligence Center (MSIC), which is located in Huntsville, Alabama, and is charged with gathering intelligence on enemy surface-to-air missiles and short-range ballistic missiles.

During a Senate inquiry in May 1999, the FBI's number two man on the investigation, Lewis Schiliro, conceded that MSIC analysts had arrived on the scene in Long Island just two days after the July 17, 1996 crash of TWA Flight 800 and interviewed eyewitnesses. "They reported to us," Schiliro told the senators of the MSIC analysts, "that many of the descriptions given by eyewitnesses were very consistent with the characteristics of the flight of [surface-to-air] missiles.". . .

When FBI officials shut down the criminal investigation in November 1997, they publicly discredited the eyewitnesses and fully ignored the work done by the MSIC analysts. At the final press conference, The FBI's James Kallstrom discussed only two images of a possible missile captured in flight. Both were photographic stills, and he cavalierly dismissed these as well.

There was no reference at all to the video analyzed by the DIA. In fact, there was no public mention of the DIA. The MSIC analysis was relegated to a footnote.

Nor, of course, was there any mention of the video shot on the night of July 17. From the beginning, there has been ample evidence that an amateur video had been taken of TWA Flight 800's destruction.

THE CITY AS A HEAT PUMP

FAYE BOWERS, CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR - While news of global warming becomes as common as the wheeze of air conditioners, Phoenix is fighting a different, if related, problem. In part because of heavy growth – particularly in the Phoenix metro area – heat is being reflected, trapped, and absorbed in concrete, rooftops, and a maze of buildings that blocks wind. At the same time, there's little vegetation to absorb the heat, and high energy usage generates more.

It's called the "urban heat-island effect," and whatever the impact of global warming here, this phenomenon is sending the mercury rising. On Tuesday, Phoenix tied the all-time record of 28 days at 110 degrees or greater in one summer, reached in 1979 and again in 2002. If the temperature rises to 110 degrees one more day this year, Phoenix will set a record. . .

Experts say the main reason the number of 110-degree-or-higher days has risen so steadily – and steeply – is rapid growth. In the 1950s, for example, the temperature rose to 110 or higher an average of 6.7 days per year. In the 1960s it was 10.3 days per year; in the 1980s it was 19 days per year, and in the 2000s (through Aug. 21, 2007), 21.9 per year, according to the National Weather Service. . .

"Every time you use that mechanical air conditioner, you're throwing hot air back into the environment," says Jay Golden, an expert on urban climate and energy at Arizona State University in Tempe. "It's not only the sun and the pavement, but we're generating more heat because of human adaptation." . . .

The lows at night are rising, too. Three decades ago, the nighttime low here was about 30 degrees cooler than the days. Today, it is on average only 20 degrees cooler. That's because cities are slower to cool off at night, retaining their heat in roads and buildings.

NEW CONCERNS RAISED OVER CELLPHONE USE

NIC FLEMING, TELEGRAPH, UK - Fresh fears over the health hazards linked to using mobile phones have been raised after scientists found that handset radiation could trigger cell division. A study found that exposure to mobile phone signals for just five minutes stimulated human cells to split in two - a process that occurs naturally when tissue grows or rejuvenates, but that is also central to the development of cancer.

Previous research on the safety of mobile use has led to conflicting conclusions, with some suggesting links with tumors in the nervous system and others finding no risks.

The new research, reported in this week's New Scientist, supports the position of those researchers who argue that handsets can trigger potentially harmful changes to cells irrespective of temperature changes.

Prof Rony Seger, a cancer researcher at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel, and colleagues exposed rat and human cells to electromagnetic radiation at a similar frequency to that emitted by mobiles but at only about one tenth of the power. . .

LEONA HELMSLEY'S WILL LEAVE MORE TO DOG THAN TO GRANDCHILDREN

BBC - The lucky pooch New York hotelier and real estate billionaire Leona Helmsley has left $12m to her pet dog, Trouble. The pampered pooch received the largest bequest from Mrs Helmsley's will. The will also says that when Trouble dies, she is to be buried alongside Mrs Helmsley, who died last week, and her late husband in their mausoleum.

But some human members of Mrs Helmsley's family fared less well, with two of her four grandchildren cut out of the will entirely. Mrs Helmsley, who died last week, was dubbed the "Queen of Mean" by the US media, and was known for her tough approach to business. She and her late husband, Harry, built a company which managed some of New York's most prestigious addresses, including the Empire State Building, as well as hotels across the country.

The money for Trouble's upkeep was left in the hands of her brother, Alvin Rosenthal, who himself inherited $10m.

Two grandchildren, David and Walter Panzirer, were left $5m each on condition that they visit their father's grave at least once a year.

Their father, Mrs Helmsley's son Jay Panzirer, died in 1982.

But grandchildren Craig and Meegan Panzirer received nothing - "for reasons which are known to them", according to Mrs Helmsley's will.

Mrs Helmsley left her chauffeur $100,000.

BRITISH DNA DATABASE HAS A HALF MILLION ERRORS

TELEGRAPH, UK - Civil liberties campaigners and MPs have raised doubts about the national DNA database after the Home Office confirmed it contained more than 500,000 false or wrongly recorded names. Suspects arrested over any imprisonable offence, including rape and murder, can have their DNA held even if they are not charged or are acquitted. But it has been dogged by problems. Statistics released by the Home Office show it contains around 550,000 files with wrong or misspelled names. . . It is understood that some of the errors have been caused by people deliberately giving someone else's name - or names of people who do not exist. The database, which police are determined to expand, also contains spelling errors and other inaccuracies.

CONGRESSIONAL STUDY FINDS WHITE HOUSE HAS FAILED IN IRAQ PROGRESS

WASHINGTON POST - Iraq has failed to meet all but three of 18 congressionally mandated benchmarks for political and military progress, according to a draft of a Government Accountability Office report. . . The strikingly negative GAO draft, which will be delivered to Congress in final form, comes as the White House prepares to deliver its own new benchmark report in the second week of September, along with congressional testimony from Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, and Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker. They are expected to describe significant security improvements and offer at least some promise for political reconciliation in Iraq.

EIGHT STATES AND DC SEND TROUBLED CHILDREN TO TORTURE CENTER

BOING BOING - Mother Jones has a long, chilling feature on The Judge Rotenberg Education Center, a private radical behavior-modification school based in Canton, Mass. The school is run by a rogue behaviorist who uses discredited "punishment" techniques -- electroshock -- on children as young as nine to change their personalities. Matthew Israel, the school's $400,000/year executive director, straps homemade, overpowered shock apparatus to children (including severely autistic and retarded kids) and has his staff administer strong shocks for even minor infractions. Some children have been shocked thousands of times a day, and several children have died at the school.

Eight states send troubled children to the school, where "high functioning" kids are "educated" by being sat in front of computers all day, running through automated tutorial programs. Talking, fidgeting, or acting out during this "school" time is punished with shocks. Some kids' shock apparatus misfires, shocking them without any provocation. The staff are instructed to activate the shock apparatus out of sight of the children, so that they can't mentally or physically prepare for it.

The Rotenberg process lacks any kind of scientific basis, and the school uses a 20-year-old film of its "successes" to convince parents to send their children to the program -- however, some of the success stories in the film are still institutionalized at Rotenberg 20 years after their "cure," wheelchair bound and in terrible shape.

ARTICLE

WEB IS FIRST NEW COMMUNICATIONS TECHNOLOGY NOT WELL PROTECTED BY THE FOURTH AMENDMENT

ACLU - The Freedom to Read Online together with the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression have asked the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its decision that the government does not need a warrant to monitor the Web sites people read. The brief, submitted in United States v. Forrester, points out that people reasonably expect to be able to read the Web without the fear that the government is looking over their shoulder.

In 1877, the Supreme Court concluded that the Fourth Amendment protects postal mail. Ninety years later, in United States v. Katz, the Supreme Court considered the novel question whether the Fourth Amendment's protection extends beyond postal mail to telephone conversations. It held that it does, and set out the general principle that the Fourth Amendment protects individuals whenever they have a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Thirty years after that, in 1997, the Court first addressed the application of the Constitution to Internet communications. That year the Supreme Court extended full First Amendment protection to the Internet in ACLU v. Reno, recognizing that "the content on the Internet is as diverse as human thought." In Forrester, we are asking the Court to grant Internet speech full Fourth Amendment protection as well. One of the reasons the Internet is such a powerful means of communication is that individuals are free to explore their ideas and interests free from the fear of social stigma or government observation. Privacy and free speech go hand-in-hand.

TEAMSTER FIGHT TO BLOCK MEXICAN TRUCKS ON US HIGHWAYS

AP - The Teamsters Union said it will ask a federal appeals court to block the Bush administration's plan to allow Mexican trucks to carry cargo anywhere in the United States. The union said it has been told by officials in the Transportation Department's Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration that the first Mexican trucks will be coming across the border Saturday. . .

"What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to dangerous trucks on Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest driving weekends of the year," said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa.

Joining the Teamsters in seeking the emergency stay were the Sierra Club and Public Citizen. . .

The Bush administration said last week it would start the cross-border program once the Transportation Department's inspector general certifies safety and inspection plans.

INDICATORS: PEW RESEARCH POLL ON MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN

Younger adults attach far less moral stigma than do their elders to out-of-wedlock births and cohabitation without marriage. They engage in these behaviors at rates unprecedented in U.S. history. Nearly four-in-ten (36.8%) births in this country are to an unmarried woman. Nearly half (47%) of adults in their 30s and 40s have spent a portion of their lives in a cohabiting relationship.

Adults of all ages consider unwed parenting to be a big problem for society. At the same time, however, just four-in-ten (41%) say that children are very important to a successful marriage, compared with 65% of the public who felt this way as recently as 1990.

Even though a decreasing percentage of the adult population is married, most unmarried adults say they want to marry. Married adults are more satisfied with their lives than are unmarried adults.

Children may be perceived as less central to marriage, but they are as important as ever to their parents. As a source of adult happiness and fulfillment, children occupy a pedestal matched only by spouses and situated well above that of jobs, career, friends, hobbies and other relatives.

Cohabiters are ambivalent about marriage – just under half (44%) say they to want marry; a nearly equal portion (41%) say they aren't sure.

Americans by lopsided margins endorse the mom-and-dad home as the best setting in which to raise children. But by equally lopsided margins, they believe that if married parents are very unhappy with one another, divorce is the best option, both for them and for their children.

RETIRED JUDGES, ADMIRALS, GENERAL AND EUROPEAN PARLIAMENTARIANS JOIN IN CRITICISM OF GITMO

PETE YOST, ASSOCIATED PRESS - Twenty retired federal judges, two rear admirals and a Marine general joined 383 current or former members of the European and British parliaments in urging the Supreme Court to grant detainees at Guantanamo Bay full access to the U.S. court system. Lower court rulings supporting the Bush administration's opposition to full court access "were seized upon by repressive governments as a license to incarcerate their own citizens and others with impunity," 25 retired American diplomats wrote in one court filing. . .

The 383 European politicians of divergent political views said it is important that even when faced with the threat of international terrorism, all states, including the United States, comply with the standards set by international humanitarian law and human rights law by granting full court access. . .

The 20 retired federal judges, both Republicans and Democrats, said the stringent review procedure "corrupts the judicial function" because it does not provide for fact-finding into whether statements were obtained by torture.

"The English common law and our nation's fundamental traditions condemn judicial reliance upon statements extracted by torture or other impermissible coercion," the retired judges' brief stated. "There are substantial allegations, however, that Combatant Status Review Tribunal panels have relied on such statements."

GREAT MOMENTS WITH CONDOLEEZZA RICE

THINK PROGRESS - In his upcoming biography of Condoleezza Rice, Washington Post correspondent Glenn Kessler shows how the Secretary of State "has lost none of her bluntness" while working "hard to soften her edges." In one anecdote revealed by Kessler, Rice dressed down a jewelry store clerk who gave her less than satisfactory service:

|||| Coit Blacker, a Stanford professor who is one of the secretary of state's closest friends, recalls going into a shop where Rice asked to see earrings. The clerk showed her costume jewelry. Rice asked to see something nicer, prompting the clerk to whisper some sass under her breath.

Blacker remembers Rice tearing the woman to shreds.

"Let's get one thing straight," he recalls her saying. "You are behind the counter because you have to work for minimum wage. I'm on this side asking to see the good jewelry because I make considerably more."

A manager quickly brought Rice better baubles. ||||

SPRINT HELPING FBI WIRETAP JUST ABOUT ANYTHING. . . INCLUDING YOUR TIVO SELECTIONS

RYAN SINGEL, WIRED - The FBI has quietly built a sophisticated, point-and-click surveillance system that performs instant wiretaps on almost any communications device, according to nearly a thousand pages of restricted documents newly released under the Freedom of Information Act. The surveillance system, called DCSNet, for Digital Collection System Network, connects FBI wiretapping rooms to switches controlled by traditional land-line operators, internet-telephony providers and cellular companies. It is far more intricately woven into the nation's telecom infrastructure than observers suspected.

It's a "comprehensive wiretap system that intercepts wire-line phones, cellular phones, SMS and push-to-talk systems," says Steven Bellovin, a Columbia University computer science professor and longtime surveillance expert. Slideshow

DCSNet is a suite of software that collects, sifts and stores phone numbers, phone calls and text messages. The system directly connects FBI wiretapping outposts around the country to a far-reaching private communications network. . .

Together, the surveillance systems let FBI agents play back recordings even as they are being captured (like TiVo), create master wiretap files, send digital recordings to translators, track the rough location of targets in real time using cell-tower information, and even stream intercepts outward to mobile surveillance vans.

FBI wiretapping rooms in field offices and undercover locations around the country are connected through a private, encrypted backbone that is separated from the internet. Sprint runs it on the government's behalf.

The network allows an FBI agent in New York, for example, to remotely set up a wiretap on a cell phone based in Sacramento, California, and immediately learn the phone's location, then begin receiving conversations, text messages and voicemail pass codes in New York. With a few keystrokes, the agent can route the recordings to language specialists for translation.

GENERAL CLARK'S VISIT TO THE PENTAGON

GENERAL WESLEY CLARK ON DEMOCRACY NOW - About ten days after 9/11, I went through the Pentagon and I saw Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz.  I went downstairs just to say hello to some of the people on the Joint Staff who used to work for me, and one of the generals called me in.  He said, 'Sir, you've got to come in and talk to me a second.' I said, 'Well, you're too busy.' He said, 'No, no.' He says, 'We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq.' This was on or about the 20th of September. 
 
I said, 'We're going to war with Iraq? Why?' He said, 'I don't know.' He said, 'I guess they don't know what else to do.' So I said, 'Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al Qaeda?' He said, 'No, no.' He says, 'There's nothing new that way.  They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq.' He said, 'I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments.' And he said, 'I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.'
 
So I came back to see him a few weeks later, and by that time we were bombing in Afghanistan. I said, 'Are we still going to war with Iraq?' And he said, 'Oh, it's worse than that.' He reached over on his desk.  He picked up a piece of paper.  And he said, 'I just got this from upstairs'--meaning the Secretary of Defense's office--"today." And he said, 'This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.' I said, 'Is it classified?' He said, 'Yes, sir.' I said, 'Well, don't show it to me.' And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, 'You remember that?' He said, 'Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!'"
 

HSU IS NOT THE FIRST FUGITIVE TO BACK THE CLINTONS

NY POST, MARCH 2007 - A Pakistani immigrant is wanted by federal authorities on charges he channeled $30,000 in illegal contributions to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential war chest. The FBI is hunting Los Angeles businessman Abdul Rehman Jinnah, who vanished soon after his grand-jury indictment for violating federal election laws last May. Clinton's camp has denied any knowledge of Jinnah's scheme, which is also alleged to have funneled more than $50,000 in illegal donations to the political action committees of Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), the Los Angeles Times reported yesterday.
 
Jinnah, 56, a cellphone and frozen-yogurt businessman, allegedly collected campaign donations from family members, friends and employees at fake fund-raising events - then reimbursed them. The scam allowed him to evade the $2,000 limit on individual contributions to candidates, the feds say.
 
He is believed to have fled to his native Pakistan after his indictment on charges of conspiracy and making illegal campaign contributions.
 
The FBI has posted Jinnah's mug shot on its featured fugitive list.
 
Clinton's campaign said Jinnah's allegedly illegal contributions would be donated to charity. A representative said the campaign had no knowledge of Jinnah's activities and had not been contacted by federal investigators.
 
BEN WINOGRAD, ASSOCIATED PRESS, 2007 - In 1983, [Marc] Rich left the U.S. for Switzerland after he was charged with tax evasion and illegal oil trading with Iran. Clinton pardoned Rich of all criminal charges on his last day in office in 2001, drawing accusations he granted clemency as a favor to Rich's ex-wife, Denise, a prominent Democratic party donor.
 
REUTERS, 2003 - Federal authorities in New York said they have completed the extradition of Peter Paul, the co-founder of defunct online entertainment company Stan Lee Media, from Brazil to the United States to face conspiracy and securities fraud charges. Paul left the United States in late 2000 or early 2001 and was arrested in Brazil in August 2001. He has been held in a Brazilian prison. In July the Brazilian Supreme Court ordered his return to the United States to face charges. . . He is represented by Judicial Watch, an organization well known for pursuing claims of government corruption. . . They have claimed Paul has detailed information about donations made to the 2000 U.S. Senate campaign of former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton (news - web sites), who was eventually elected to represent the state of New York.

 
MORE GREAT MOMENTS IN CLINTON FUNDRAISING
 
SARAH BAXTER, TIMES, UK, 2007 - The frontrunner for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election, Hillary Clinton, has been hit by a legal dispute in which one of her fundraisers is accused of trying to "ingratiate" himself with powerful friends at the expense of his company. The row has revived accusations of the influence peddling and favors for donors that marred Bill Clinton's presidency in the 1990s.
 
For years the Clintons flew on Vinod Gupta's corporate plane, introduced him to world leaders - including Tony Blair - and received donations for their political campaigns and charitable foundations. They relaxed at his holiday home in Hawaii - next door to Pierce Brosnan, the former James Bond star - and jetted to Acapulco, the Mexican resort, while Gupta once spent the night as a favored guest in the Lincoln bedroom at the White House.
 
"If we're negotiating with a company, it helps if Bill Clinton says, 'Oh Vin, he's a good guy'," said Gupta in a frank interview with The Sunday Times.
 
The lawsuit, by company shareholders, accuses Gupta of squandering millions of dollars on his high-profile friends, including $900,000 worth of travel on the Clintons.
 
Bill Clinton has a $3.3m consulting deal with the company, which the shareholders allege is a "waste of corporate assets". He has already received $2.1m, with another $1.2m to come.
 
Interviewed at his office, not far from the White House, Gupta said Bill Clinton's name and contacts were worth "over $40m" for the company. "We've met chief executives, billionaires, government people - it helps us to make connections and do deals. It's a very competitive world and who you know and which circles you belong to is a big thing.". . .
 
Hillary Clinton used to use Gupta's private plane - leased through NetJets, which sells shares in private business aircraft - to fly to campaign stops as a senator. Her office would frequently ring to borrow it, he said.
 
"If we got five requests, maybe we'd say yes once, and the other four times we'd say no," Gupta said. The company would be reimbursed with the cost of a first-class ticket, far less than the cost of chartering the plane
 
FOX NEWS, 2000 - Hillary Rodham Clinton denied allegations that she or her fund-raisers offered overnight stays in the Lincoln Bedroom and Camp David to supporters of her Senate campaign. "We have friends and supporters come and spend time with us and spend the night with us that we are getting to know and who like spending time with us," Clinton said when questioned at a campaign stop at a western New York diner. "I don't see what's news about that." . . . White House staffers said that since the summer of 1999 there have been at least 26 instances in which people, mainly couples, were overnight guests after donating to the first lady's campaign or promising to do so. . . "The Lincoln Bedroom was never sold," Clinton said in 1997, when the White House released a list of 938 guests who had spent the night at the executive mansion up to that point in the Clinton presidency. The list included the names of political supporters, as well as entertainment luminaries and old Clinton friends.
 
IN AUGUST 2000 Hillary Clinton held a huge Hollywood fundraiser for her Senate campaign. It was very successful. The only problem was that, by a long shot, she didn't report all the money contributed: $800K by the US government's ultimate count in a settlement and $2 million according to the key contributor and convicted con Peter Paul. This is, in election law, the moral equivalent of not reporting a similar amount on your income tax. It is a form of fraud. Hillary Clinton's defense is that she didn't know about it. To some it is what some lawyers call the ostrich defense: I had my head in the sand while everything was going on or, yes, I signed the letter but I never actually read it.
 
The initial reaction was reported by Lloyd Grove of the Washington Post on August 15 2000: "Is Hillary Clinton soft on crime? We certainly hope not, even though convicted felon Peter Paul--who served three years in prison two decades ago after pleading guilty to cocaine possession and trying to swindle $8.7 million out of the Cuban government-- helped organize Saturday's star-glutted $1 million fundraising gala for Clinton's Senate race at businessman Ken Roberts's Brentwood estate. . . [Paul] added that he only produced the gala and hasn't given or raised money for the first lady's New York campaign. "And we will not be accepting any contributions from him," Clinton campaign spokesman Howard Wolfson vowed.
 
Later, Paul would change his story claiming that his involvement stemmed from his desire to hire ex-president Bill Clinton, a deal he claimed became contingent on his not only producing but funding the HRC gala, costing him $2 million in kind and in cash. The Clinton campaign would also have to change its story: by September, Paul's Stan Lee Media had contributed $100,000 to HRC's campaign despite Wolfson's protest. According to Salon, "Bill Clinton was reportedly promised an additional $15 million in Stan Lee stock to join the board. . . Paul also says then-DNC Chairman Ed Rendell said it would be 'nice' if Paul gave $150,000 to the DNC after Paul sought a presidential pardon for his two prior convictions."
 
RAYMOND HERNANDEZ and ROBERT PEAR, NY TIMES, 2006 - As she runs for re-election to the Senate from New York this year and lays the groundwork for a possible presidential bid in 2008, Mrs. Clinton is receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from doctors, hospitals, drug manufacturers and insurers. Nationwide, she is the No. 2 recipient of donations from the industry, trailing only Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a member of the Republican leadership.
 
CNN, MARCH 1998 - Democratic fund-raiser Johnny Chung has agreed to plead guilty to election law violations and cooperate in the ongoing Justice Department investigation into illegal campaign fund-raising in the 1996 elections. . . Chung became a major figure in the Democratic fund-raising scandal when it was learned he made almost 50 visits to the White House. During one visit, Chung gave first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's then-chief of staff, Maggie Williams, a $50,000 check for the Democratic National Committee. The check was delivered inside the White House. Two days later Chung was able to bring a group of Chinese businessmen to watch President Bill Clinton deliver a radio address in the Oval Office. They then had their picture taken with the president. The DNC returned more than $300,000 that Chung raised because of questions about the source of the money.
 
THERE'S BEEN a lot of talk about photos of Jack Abramoff and George Bush, but Hillary Clinton has her own photo problems. For example, there's the photo of Bill and her standing next to illegal fundraiser Johnny Chung signed by HRC, "To Johnny Chung with best wishes and appreciation." Chung reportedly funneled several hundred thousand dollars from Chinese military intelligence to Bill Clinton's 1996 campaign. As Chung put it once, "I see the White House is like a subway -- you have to put in coins to open the gates."
 
DON VAN NATTA JR, NY TIMES, 1997 - Jose Cabrera, a drug smuggler who has emerged as one of the most notorious supporters of President Clinton's re-election campaign, was asked for a campaign contribution in the unlikely locale of a hotel in Havana by a prominent Democratic fund-raiser, congressional investigators have learned. . . On his return to the United States several days after that meeting, in November 1995, Cabrera wrote a check for $20,000 to the Democratic National Committee from an account that included the proceeds from smuggling cocaine from Colombia to the United States, said the investigators, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
 
Within two weeks of the contribution, Cabrera met Gore at the dinner in Miami. Ten days later, Cabrera attended a Christmas reception at the White House hosted by Hillary Rodham Clinton. At the events, Gore and Mrs. Clinton posed for photographs with Cabrera, who has two felony convictions dating from the 1980s and is now in a prison here on a drug-smuggling conviction. . .
 
A Cuban-born American, Cabrera was arrested two times on serious drug charges in the 1980s. Both times he pleaded guilty to non-drug felony charges. In 1983, he pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for conspiring to bribe a grand jury witness and served 42 months in prison. In 1988, he pleaded guilty to filing a false income-tax return and served one year in prison. After his brief brush with presidential politics, Cabrera was arrested in January 1996 inside a cigar warehouse near here in Dade County, where more than 500 pounds of cocaine had been hidden. He and several accomplices were charged with having smuggled 3,000 pounds of cocaine into the United States through the Keys. . . In January, Cabrera received an invitation to Clinton's inauguration.
 
IN 1993 HILLARY CLINTON and David Watkins move to oust the White House travel office in favor of World Wide Travel, Clinton's source of $1 million in fly-now-pay-later campaign trips that essentially financed the last stages of the campaign without the bother of reporting a de facto contribution. The White House fires seven long-term employees for alleged mismanagement and kickbacks. The director, Billy Dale, charged with embezzlement, will be acquitted in less than two hours by the jury. An FBI agent involved in the case, IC Smith, will write later, "The White House Travel Office matter sent a clear message to the Congress as well as independent counsels that this White House would be different. Lying, withholding evidence, and considering - even expecting - underlings to be expendable so the Clintons could avoid accountability for their actins would become the norm."

 
WHO'S HSU?
 
WALL STREET JOURNAL - Norman Hsu is one of the leading political fund-raisers in the country this year. In fact, many fund-raisers say he is one of a small handful of people capable of raising more than $1 million -- a major feat considering the maximum donation allowed by an individual for 2008 races is $4,600 per candidate. . .
 
Until three years ago, Mr. Hsu never made a campaign contribution to a presidential candidate, according to federal election records. Now, though, several people involved in raising money for White House candidates say Mr. Hsu is a major player.
 
Many "HillRaisers" -- people who rustle up at least $100,000 for Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign -- are dwarfed beside Mr. Hsu (pronounced "Shu"). Several people involved in Democratic presidential fund-raising say Mr. Hsu, an apparel executive, has raised well over $1 million for the New York senator's presidential campaign, making him one of the top 20 Democratic fund-raisers in the country. The Clinton campaign doesn't disclose such details and declined to comment for this story.
 
"Forget the politics -- Norman is widely regarded as decent, and enormously generous," says Orin Kramer, a hedge-fund manager who is a chief fund-raiser for Barack Obama, the Illinois senator who is Mrs. Clinton's strongest rival for the party's presidential nomination. . .
 
People who have met him at events describe Mr. Hsu as warm, giving, charming and well-dressed. But unlike most big fund-raisers this cycle -- such as hedge-fund magnate Paul Tudor Jones for Mr. Obama and buyout pioneer Henry Kravis for Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain -- Mr. Hsu remains remarkably low-profile. Even some other Clinton fund-raisers say they don't know him at all and have been surprised to see him emerge as a top fund-raiser.
 
AP - Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton will give to charity the $23,000 in donations she has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge. The decision came Wednesday as other Democrats began distancing themselves from Norman Hsu, whose legal encounters and links to other Democratic donors have drawn public scrutiny in the past two days. Al Franken, a Senate candidate in Minnesota, Reps. Michael Honda and Doris Matsui of California and Rep. Joe Sestak of Pennsylvania said they would divest their campaigns of Hsu's donations.
 

ARKANSAS CONNECTIONS

[Since the Democrats seem determined to nominate Hillary Clinton, we thought we would offer a little historical context from our time line of Arkansas and the Clintons, with particular emphasis on those things the mainstream media forgot to tell you]
 
2000
 
According to John Harris' book on Clinton, Tipper Gore was so disgusted in 2000 with Bill and Hillary that she stayed cloistered in a holding room instead of going to a New York reception with major Democratic fund-raisers where the Clintons would be. "No, I'm not doing it," she snapped to an aide. "I'm not going out there with that man."
 
President Clinton declares "National Character Counts Week," issuing a proclamation that reads in part: "The character of our citizens has enriched every aspect of our national life and has set an example of civic responsibility for people around the world."
 
Juanita Broaddrick, who accused Bill Clinton of having raped her, is being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. Among others involved with the president who have been audited: Elizabeth Ward Gracen; Billy Dale (fired in travel office affair); Fox News critic Bill O'Reilly; Kent Masterson Brown (brought lawsuit compelling Hillary's health care task force to reveal its members); and Paula Jones. Also: National Review, American Spectator, Christian Coalition, Citizens for a Sound Economy,Freedom Alliance, Heritage Foundation, National Rifle Association, Western Journalism Center, National Center for Public Policy Research, Fortress America and Citizens Against Government Waste.
 
A former Justice Department prosecutor testifies to Congress that he recommended an investigation into President Clinton's connection to a top Democratic fund-raiser involved in the sale of missile-related expertise to China. Attorney General Janet Reno rejected the proposal and one of Reno's top executives, Lee Radek, head of the department's public integrity section, called the recommendation "silly."
 
The Association of Trial Lawyers invites Clinton to speak. So does the American Association of Newspaper Editors
 
Former White House counsel Charles Ruff uses variants of "I don't know, I don't remember, I don't' recall or I have no specific recollection..." 12 times within the first 30 minutes of questioning before a congressional committee investigating missing White House e-mails. This technique may have been foreshadowed in a 1997 interview Bob Woodward had with Ruff. Ruff told Woodward how Watergate may all look different to future congressional investigators, and if called to testify someday at such an inquiry, Ruff said he knows just what to do. "I'd say, 'Gee, I just don't remember what happened back then', and they won't be able to indict me for perjury and that, maybe, that's the principal thing that I've learned in four years....I just intend to rely on that failure of memory."
 
In FBI interviews, Vice President Al Gore changes his answers when confronted with documents in a fund-raising investigation, and suggests he may have missed a key discussion during a meeting because he drank too much iced tea. In one FBI interview, Gore says 23 times that he is unable to recall aspects of the Nov. 21, 1995 meeting and other fund-raising issues brought up by the FBI.
 
Arthur A. Coia, the former president of a labor union who has raised millions of dollars for Bill Clinton, Al Gore and the Democratic Party, pleads guilty to defrauding taxpayers in Rhode Island of nearly $100,000 in taxes that were due on three Ferrari sports cars worth more than $1.7 million. Coia gets two years probation and a $10,000 fine.
 
Independent Counsel Robert Ray's final report on the White House travel office case finds first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton's testimony in the matter was "factually false," but concluded there were no grounds to prosecute her. The special prosecutor determined the first lady did play a role in the 1993 dismissal of the travel office's staff, contrary to her testimony in the matter. But Ray said he would not prosecute Clinton for those false statements because "the evidence was insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt" that she knew her statements were false or understood that they may have prompted the firings. . . The final report concludes that "despite that falsity, no prosecution of Mrs. Clinton is warranted."
 
Special prosecutor Ray says there is insufficient evidence to bring criminal charges against the Clintons. Ray criticizes the White House for what he called "substantial resistance" to providing "relevant evidence" to his investigators.
"The White House asserted unfounded privileges that were later rejected in court," Ray said. "White House officials also conducted inadequate searches for documents and failed to make timely production of documents, including relevant e-mails."
 
2001
 
President Clinton makes a deal with special prosecutor Robert Ray under which he admits that he made false statements in the Monica Lewinsky case and surrenders his law license for five years.
 
A few hours before leaving office, President Clinton issues 140 pardons including to friends including Susan McDougal.
 
2002
 
Special prosecutor Ray issues his final report in which he claims he had enough evidence to indict Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice and obtain a conviction in the Lewinsky case. but he declines to do so. FBI agent IC Smith summarizes in his memoir, "He concluded Clinton had been punished in other ways, citing the $850,000 paid to settle the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, his contempt of court citation, the fines of $25,000 and $90,000 in attorney fees he had to reimburse in that case. Further, he cited the final fine of $25,000 and suspension of Clinton's law license in Arkansas. He may have cited those as examples of how Clinton had been punished, but if there was any punishment, it wasn't thanks to the independent counsel. It's interesting the the most significant punishment in the whole saga was meted out by two female natives of Arkansas."

FLOTSAM & JETSAM: MY YEARS WITH ADA

[50 years ago this summer, your editor covered his first story in Washington. Throughout the year, the Review will offer excerpts from "Multitudes: The Unauthorized Memoirs of Sam Smith," the full version of which is available on our site]

LEON SHULL, Mr. Liberal, has passed at 93. The director of Americans for Democratic Action when it was still a productive organization and the leader of a Philadelphia reform movement that ended 69 yeas of local GOP rule, Shull was of a character one rarely finds in politics anymore. For your editor it all began wonderfully, thanks to Leon Shull, ended badly as far as ADA was concerned as it early endorsed Bill Clinton for president, the man who would damage American liberalism more than any other. Below are pieces on my best and worst of times with Shull and his organization.

SAM SMITH, MULTITUDES - Back in Philadelphia, my father was helping to found Americans for Democratic Action. At the national level, in the late 1940s he joined such people as Hubert Humphrey, Eleanor Roosevelt and Eugene McCarthy to create what would be, for many years, a loud and controversial voice of cold war liberalism. Although the message was clear enough, the practice sometimes became muddled as when my father and some others agitated to make Dwight Eisenhower the Democratic candidate for president. At the local level, however, ADA was at the center of one of the nation's most remarkable reform movements.

Philadelphia had lived for 69 years under Republican rule and the city was known as "corrupt and contented." ADA - which brought under one tent genteel white liberals, union leaders, and Jewish and black activists - proposed to end both the corruption and the contentment about it with a new city charter and new government.

Leon Shull, who would become one of the nation's most productive and long-lived lobbyists for liberal causes, was the director of the Philadelphia chapter and, with my father as chair, I soon found myself an enthusiastic envelope-stuffer. I had already entered politics having performed competently in a 6th grade debate on the 1948 presidential election, fortified for this task by having actually shaken hands with the Democratic candidate at a political dinner to which my father had taken me. And I was further armed with a comic book from the Democratic National Committee that featured a bespectacled Harry Truman in the trenches of World War I, a bespectacled Harry Truman running his haberdashery and a bespectacled Harry Truman speaking great thoughts about the future of America. I stood up against the reactionary cant of my opponent Owen Tabor with a skill that only I remember.

I found the liberal cause noble and exciting, but I was also fascinated by the different sort of people who hung around political offices. I had met hardly any blacks or labor union officials in Germantown and Chestnut Hill, they certainly didn't attend St. Martins in the Fields, but most of all I hadn't met many people with the sort of tough-talking enthusiasm one found in politics. These were people totally engaged not only with their campaigns but with life and it was this quality, rather than their ethnicity or even their politics, that truly attracted me - so different as it was from the restrained, diffident manner of the upper class Philadelphian, members of a subspecies that has been described as God's frozen people.

That these were people to be reckoned with was confirmed ten years later when my parents held a fundraiser for Hubert Humphrey. It was, of course, a son's delight to accompany his father on the 45-minute drive (and monologue) back to the airport with an actual United States senator who wanted to be President. But the most impressive moment of that evening came when Joseph Rauh, the civil rights lawyer and liberal leader for decade after decade, actually stood on one my parents' best antique chairs to make his pitch. I looked apprehensively at my mother but she only seemed proud -- "pleased as punch" Humphrey would have said and probably did -- to be there. I stared at Rauh and realized I was looking at the face of real power.

The stars of the Philadelphia ADA were Joseph Sill Clark and Richardson Dilworth. Though both were patrician in name and bearing, in Clark the quality went through to his soul. With Dilworth it stopped with his tailored suits. He was an ex-Marine with a quick temper and a towny accent, who never ducked combat or favored equivocation. After the pair had shaken the GOP regime by winning the offices of comptroller and district attorney, Dilworth got the first chance to run for mayor, with Clark succeeding him and then moving to the Senate.

Dilworth's mayoral race remains a classic. His most notable campaign technique was the street corner rally, which he developed to a degree probably unequalled since in American politics. Using the city's only Democratic string band as a warm-up act, Dilworth would mount a sound truck and tick off the sins of the Republican administration. On one occasion he parked next to the mayor's home and told his listeners: "Over there across the street is a house of prostitution and a numbers bank. And just a few doors further down this side of the street is the district police station. . . The only reason the GOP district czars permit Bernard Samuel to stay on as mayor is that he lets them do just as they please."

At first the crowds were small. But before long he was attracting hundreds at a shot with four or five appearances a night. One evening some 12,000 people jammed the streets to catch the man who would eventually become mayor.

Dilworth on another occasion got into a fist fight with a member of his audience. His wife once knocked an aggressive heckler off the platform with her handbag and, in a later campaign, his daughter picketed the office of the GOP candidate with a sign reading, "Why won't you debate the issues with my father on TV?"

The Republicans responded with sneers, rumors and allegations about Dilworth's liberalism and, in particular, his association with ADA. The GOP city chairman, William Meade, called ADA communist-infiltrated and `inside pink' where "Philadelphia members of that radical and destructive [Democratic] party have gone underground and joined the Dilworth ranks."

Dilworth's initial reaction was to call Meade a "liar" and to challenge him to a debate. Said Dilworth: "The ADA acted and struck hard against communism while Mr. Meade and his gang created by their corruption the very conditions that breed communism."

But that wasn't enough for Dilworth. To make his point, he marched into the offices of the Republican City Committee and, with press in tow, brushed past the receptionist, and barged into Meade's private office where the chairman was conversing with two city officials. Dilworth challenged Meade to name one Communist in ADA. When Meade demurred, Dilworth said Meade had accused him of treason: "If you want to debate publicly, I'll go before any organization you name. I'll go before your ward leaders. I challenge you to produce evidence of a single Communist or Communist sympathizer in ADA. I say this as one who fought for his country in the Marine Corps. That's more than you did, Mr. Meade."

"Maybe I wasn't physically fit," replied Meade.

Dilworth continued the confrontation a few minutes longer and then stormed out. The red-baiting subsided and the central issue once more became corruption. Dilworth won and as I read the big black headlines, I thought it was my victory too.

SAM SMITH, 1993 - I have recently been officially fired as a liberal, ignominiously stripped of my rank as an executive vice president of Americans for Democratic Action, keeper of the holy grail of liberalism.

When I first heard that this was going to happen -- shortly before entering the hospital for surgery -- I was stunned. For all other executive vice presidents the only apparent grounds for termination had been death. Did the leadership of ADA know something that I didn't?

No, it was just that ADA had decided to end years of populist insurgency in its ranks, simulating the Democratic Leadership Council's successful efforts at quashing dissent within the Democratic Party. I and a number of other board members who had failed to hew to the party line were to be purged. Liberalism would once again be safe from the winds of change. Included in our number was a former national treasurer, the present chair of the Chicago chapter, and the former chair of Youth for Democratic Action.

About a year and a half ago we had formed a progressive caucus within ADA. The paleoliberals in the leadership took kindly to neither the idea nor the irony of the name. To be sure, we were not openly accused of political incorrectitude. At first we weren't accused of anything. Later -- and only after the fact, when Washington's City Paper got wind of the purge -- we were charged with being "disruptive troublemakers." I was personally accused of acting like both John the Baptist and Svengali, a truly remarkable blend of virtues and vices. In fact, our troublemaking had consisted largely of writing letters and introducing resolutions the ADA leadership didn't like. Apparently in ADA, dissent is considered a political dirty trick.

I was initially quite aggravated at the development but then it occurred to me that being a certified ex-liberal had a certain appeal. I fantasized about being called before the House UnMainstream Activities Committee to testify on how cells of heavily armed liberals had undermined the first six months of the Clinton administration, how gays were planning a mass assault on the Morman Tabernacle, or about next season's secret line up of TV series aimed at perverting family values. I could only fantasize, however, because the truth is that liberals these days don't do much at all. Contrary to Rush Limbaugh's allegations, liberalism in the past decade or so has been marked by its ineffectiveness. Certainly this had been true of ADA, -the leading multi-issue liberal organization in the country. ADA's most notable achievements had been its annual rating of Congress and its Christmastide toy safety survey. Now even the toy survey is gone.

To some of us in the organization, ADA's ineffectiveness seemed unfortunate and unnecessary. We naively assumed that the group would be open to new ideas and strategic approaches. Nothing proved further than the truth. Even when an alternative drug policy was twice approved by a national convention over the almost apoplectic opposition of ADA's leadership, the matter was simply filed away so that no one outside the organization would ever hear about it. As the Texas politician said, I don't mind losing when I lose, but I hate losing when I win.

The ADA establishment - some which goes back to the organization's founding in the late 1940s -- is as adept at internal judo as it is lethargic in political action. Thus an extraordinary amount of effort is spent on maintaining political correctness within the group while the nation drifts undisputed towards the right. Some of the organization's leaders bring to mind Charles Hodge, who taught at Princeton Seminary in the early 19th century. Hodge boasted that in his fifty years of teaching he had never broached a new or original idea.
To be sure, as in a bad movie, occasional cameo scenes bring things back to life. For example, ADA helped to sink the Bork nomination and has been working hard on single-payer health insurance. Many of ADA's other positions are admirable, although one often admires them somewhat in the sense that one admires a restored Studebaker.

ADA seems largely unaware of the depth of the growing revulsion against an overexpensive, overauthoritarian and overcentralized government. It ignores such major new ideological influences as the Green movement It feels threatened whenever anyone suggests a modification of the standard liberal canon. Most of all, it no longer fulfills its former role as a political catalyst. Not only is no one afraid of ADA today; many haven't even heard of it, or will tell you that "I thought that died years ago."

But the organization has other priorities. What it seems to want, above all, is to retain its status as the official voice of liberals in Washington, even if this status has some of the limited elan, say, of being an alleged Russian count in Manhattan. To challenge liberal orthodoxy would risk losing caste with its orthodox liberal allies in Congress and losing funding from its orthodox labor backers. In fact, ADA is even afraid of challenging the Clinton administration. It implicitly perceives that it can not regain its former political stature without risking its social position. It is better to leave things alone. Thus this once vibrant organization rests on the political landscape, as Disraeli once said of the opposition bench, like a range of exhausted volcanoes.

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/obituaries/20070828_Leon_Shull__93__liberal_Democratic_activist.html

BREVITAS

WORD

An American editor worries his hair gray to see that no typographical mistakes appear on the pages of his magazine. The Chinese editor is wiser than that. He wants to leave his readers the supreme satisfaction of discovering a few typographical mistakes for themselves -- Lin Yutang

ECOLOGY & NATURE

GUARDIAN - The North-West Passage - the sea route running along the Arctic coastline of North America, normally perilously clogged with thick ice - is nearly ice-free for the first time since records began. "Since August 21 the North-West Passage is open to navigation. This is the first time that it happens," Nalan Koc, head of the Norwegian Polar Institute's climate change program, told reporters in Longyearbyen, a town in the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.

HEALTH & SCIENCE

REUTERS - New vaccines have sharply reduced the number of children paralyzed by polio and raised hopes that a $5 billion campaign to wipe it out may be close to success, a top public health official said in an interview. About 404 people worldwide -- mainly young children -- have suffered paralysis from polio since the start of 2007, less than half the 1,017 new cases reported at the same point in 2006, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. Bruce Aylward, director of the nearly 20-year-old campaign, said new and more effective vaccines had helped combat polio in some of its most stubborn strongholds, including parts of India and Nigeria. . . "It's a pretty exciting time," the Canadian epidemiologist told Reuters in his office in Geneva. "I'm kind of afraid to talk about it," he said with a nervous laugh. "Everybody is surprised by the degree of progress."

CYBER NOTES

DAILY MAIL, UK - Pensioners surfing the internet are spending more time online than their younger counterparts. So-called "silver surfers" dedicate an average of 42 hours a month to the World Wide Web, compared with 37.9 hours among 18 to 24-year-olds. A greater interest in hobbies, news and local issues among the elderly is believed to be driving the trend, which sees over-65s account for nine per cent of all time spent online in the UK. . . Although only 16 per cent of over-65s said they had used the internet at home in the 30-day period covered by the report, those that did use it stayed online for longer than any other age group.

OUTLYING PRECINCTS

GOVERNING Wisconsin state Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, a Republican, is upset at a political button that was on sale at the Dodge County (Wisc.) Fair last week. He's called on Democratic Party representatives at the county and state level to apologize for selling the button, which he called "crude" and "offensive." So what'd the buttons say? "F Scott Fitzgerald." The Dems say the F is just Fitzgerald's grade as a state official. . .

FURTHERMORE. . .

BBC - According to the Renew Our Music Fund - one of a number of charities helping musicians get back on their feet - of the 5,000 full-time, professional musicians who lived in the city before Katrina, about 3,000 are still displaced. . . As the tourists have begun trickling back to the French Quarter - but at half pre-Katrina level - so have the gigs.

REUTERS - Former Sen. John Edwards said at a Hurricane Katrina conference he would propose what he called "Brownie's Law" requiring that qualified people, not political hacks, lead key federal agencies. . . "It's an absolute travesty to have people who are essentially political hacks in a very responsible position," he told the audience at the University of New Orleans. "Brownie" refers to Michael Brown, who was head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency when Katrina struck the United States on August 29, 2005. He was criticized as being a political appointee unprepared to lead FEMA when a floundering government effort stranded thousands for days in flooded New Orleans.

EAVESDROP DC - Professor: "I have three children--15, 13, and 7.". . . Female Student: "Oh, I don't think I could have three.". . . Male Student: "Yeah, with two you can do person-on-person defense, but with three you need zone.". . .
Professor: "You have a point."

REUTERS - If behavior therapists, designer outfits and gourmet food aren't enough to keep pampered pooches happy, owners can now try swimming lessons. The class for puppies is one of the latest ways New Yorkers are pleasing their pets in a city famed for owners indulging their dogs.

CAN'T CATCH REAL TERRORISTS? GIVE POT GROWERS THE NAME

WHO'S TO BLAME FOR KATRINA'S TRAGEDIES

MYTHS ABOUT GIRLS AND SCIENCE

KOREAN CARGO CYCLES

A&P THREATENS EX EMPLOYEES WITH MILLION DOLLAR SUIT

NEWS JOURNAL, DE - It has already cost them their jobs. Now, the fictitious music video "Produce Paradise," created by two Hunterdon County brothers as a way to parody the outlandishness of gangster rap by using veggies as props, could cost them $1 million. The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., parent company of the supermarket chain A&P, recently filed a defamation lawsuit in state Superior Court in Flemington against college students Mark and Matthew D'Avella, who until recently stocked shelves at the Califon A&P.

In its Aug. 24 suit, the company claims the fictitious video has prompted at least one complaint by a "disgusted and distressed" customer who said she will no longer shop at A&P thanks to the "repulsive acts" in the video, which is currently posted on YouTube and the brothers' own Web site, www.fakelaugh.com.

In the 4-minute, 16-second video, Mark D'Avella, 22, and Matthew D'Avella, 19, are shown in the Califon supermarket smacking each other in the crotch with beets, standing with bananas sticking out of their jeans and pretending to urinate on produce in a stock room. . .

As of Monday night, the video had been viewed 2,522 times since it was first posted Aug. 6.

Fearing damaged customer relations and the possibility of lost profits due to the "disparaging and false statements" in the video, Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea demands at least $1 million in damages and asks for a judge to require the brothers to remove their video from the Web.

Prior to filing the suit, A&P suspended the D'Avellas on Aug. 16 before firing them Aug. 23, claiming the brothers violated various company policies.

In response, the brothers maintain a blog on FakeLaugh that chronicles their trouble and provides a link for supporters to complain to A&P headquarters in Montvale. The duo also plan to sell Fresh Beets T-shirts that may help support their impending legal fight.

WEBSITE

DOCTORS IN DENIAL OVER DRUG SIDE EFFECTS

ISHANI GANGULI, WASHINGTON POST - On many online message boards and Internet chat rooms, anxious patients share details about the muscle pain and memory loss they have noticed since they started taking statins to lower their cholesterol. A new study suggests these people may be seeking validation for good reason: Some of their complaints might otherwise be going unheard. According to a survey of 650 patients published last week in Drug Safety, a peer-reviewed journal, doctors frequently ignored or dismissed patients' concerns about such side effects. The study suggests this pattern of reaction goes beyond statins to other drugs.

When doctors fail to recognize a patient's symptoms as drug side effects, more than that patient's care is put at risk. Because the doctor makes no "adverse event report" to the Food and Drug Administration, the regulatory agency may underestimate the problem, and other doctors and patients may assume the drug is safer than it is. . .

Tens of millions of people worldwide take statins such as Lipitor and Zocor. Many experts view them as something of a panacea for everything from stroke and cancer to arthritis, although they do pose a risk of side effects in some patients, ranging from muscle injury to liver and kidney dysfunction.

Survey respondents, recruited via Web solicitations and other advertisements, were in their early 60s on average and mostly from the United States. Some of the solicitations were placed on Web sites where patients had posted complaints, raising the possibility that respondents were more apt to have had side effects than the average patient. Most said they'd complained to their doctors about such possible side effects as problems with memory or attention, or tingling or numbness in their hands and feet.

According to experts, muscle pain and other side effects occur in up to 30 percent of statin patients, by some estimates, and often lead doctors to stop or change a prescription. But patients surveyed said their doctors rarely linked their symptoms to statins -- even when the symptoms were well-documented as side effects.

"Overwhelmingly, it was the patient that initiated that conversation" making the connection between the statin and their symptoms, Golomb said.

FIRST GRADERS ADVICE TO NEWCOMERS

[From the Salt Lake Tribune]

Jacob Neihart, 6 "I was not afraid. My friends were not afraid."

Danielle Lerdahl, 6 "Put antibacterial on your hands so you don't get germs on your snack."

Lenny Villegas, 5 "The best thing is that you get to play. The hardest part is that you have to do your work."

Timber Wolfe, 6: "Here's how to make friends: Say, 'Do you want to be my friend?' "

Natalie Estrada, 6: "Don't be afraid of your teacher. The teacher is always nice. If you don't know how to go to the bathroom, ask your teacher or kids. They can really teach you."

Isaac Orullian, 6: "Work on getting friends on the first day of school. It doesn't matter how you dress."

Toni Bustamante, 6: "Don't be nervous because in school we have fun. Your parents will come back and pick you up after school."

MAJOR CLINTON II CONTRIBUTOR ON THE LAM FROM THE LAW

LA TIMES - For the last 15 years, California authorities have been trying to figure out what happened to a businessman named Norman Hsu, who pleaded no contest to grand theft, agreed to serve up to three years in prison and then seemed to vanish. "He is a fugitive," Ronald Smetana, who handled the case for the state attorney general, said in an interview. "Do you know where he is?"

Hsu, it seems, has been hiding in plain sight, at least for the last three years. Since 2004, one Norman Hsu has been carving out a prominent place of honor among Democratic fundraisers. He has funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions into party coffers, much of it earmarked for presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

In addition to making his own contributions, Hsu has honed the practice of assembling packets of checks from contributors who bear little resemblance to the usual Democratic deep pockets: A self-described apparel executive with a variety of business interests, Hsu has focused on delivering hefty contributions from citizens who live modest lives and are neophytes in the world of campaign giving.

On Tuesday, E. Lawrence Barcella Jr. -- a Washington lawyer who represents the Democratic fundraiser -- confirmed that Hsu was the same man who was involved in the California case. Barcella said his client did not remember pleading to a criminal charge and facing the prospect of jail time. . .

Beginning in 1989, court records show, he began raising what added up to more than $1 million from investors, purportedly to buy latex gloves; investors were told Hsu had a contract to resell the gloves to a major American business.

In 1991, Hsu was charged with grand theft. Prosecutors said there were no latex gloves and no contract to sell them. Hsu pleaded no contest to one grand theft charge and agreed to accept up to three years in prison. He disappeared, Smetana said, after failing to show up for a sentencing hearing. Bench warrants were issued for his arrest but he was never found, Smetana said.

NEW TRENDS IN PROTEST: SURFERS HOLD OFF SUPERFERRY

HONOLULU ADVERTISER - Hundreds of protesters on surfboards, swimming in the harbor and lining the docks held the Hawaii Superferry at bay for nearly two hours yesterday at Nawiliwili Harbor on Kaua'i, setting the stage for a legal showdown in a Maui courtroom this morning. The U.S. Coast Guard used force to secure waters around the harbor where swimmers and surfers created a human blockade that had prevented the Superferry's 350-foot-long vessel, the Alakai, from entering the harbor. . . Kaua'i swimmers and surfers, cheered on by nearly 300 protesters on shore, occupied the middle of the harbor channel and turned back the Superferry.

At least 34 people swam out into the path of the ferry during the late afternoon. They stayed until three Coast Guard rigid-hulled inflatables, with a Coast Guard cutter standing by, began powering between the swimmers and surfers, appearing to charge at individual swimmers, taking one surfer's board and apparently trying to haul some of the group out of the water.

"They had a hook," said one female surfer. "I splashed them, and they told me that was illegal. They tried to hook me, but I paddled away as fast as I could."

Some of the protesters were arrested, but it was not known how many.

Earlier, the ferry backed out of the harbor about 6 p.m. after a half-hour standoff with 16 swimmers and surfers during which only a single Coast Guard vessel was present. As people on shore cheered and chanted slogans, the ferry remained on station a half-mile outside the harbor. . .

Surfer Dennis Chun said he tried to tell Coast Guard officers that the group was acting in defense of the Hawai'i Supreme Court, which ruled last week that the Superferry needed an environmental assessment. . .

"It's not too common for federal forces to go against the citizenry," said psychiatrist Gary Blaich, who was watching the event. "It's been a while."

BOYCOTT SUPERFERRY

ADVERTISERS ASSAULT AIR PASSENGERS

ERIC PFANNER NEW YORK TIMES "Please return your seatbacks and tray tables to their upright and locked position — and start reading the advertisement that is staring you in the face." O.K., you won't actually hear that last part as the flight attendants prepare an aircraft for landing. But as airlines look for new sources of revenue to offset rising fuel costs, more carriers are turning planes into marketing vehicles, installing advertising in hard-to-miss places.

Several American carriers, including US Airways and AirTran, recently started selling advertisements on napkins or stickers that appear on open tray tables. Over the summer, Ryanair, the European low-cost carrier, has gone further, installing advertising panels on the covers of the overhead luggage compartments and on the backs of closed tray tables. . .

InviseoMedia, which sold the seatback advertisements to Ryanair and to another European low-cost carrier, Germanwings, says the system provides an average of 40 minutes of "dwell time" during a typical flight. In other words, the only ways for passengers to avoid the advertisements, which are placed behind tamper-proof plastic shields, is to open the tray or get up and stretch their legs. And when they do that, they are confronted with the advertisements on the overhead bins, which are being sold by a separate company, Fourth Edition.

SOME FOIA VICTORIES BUT GOVERNMENT INFORMATION STILL ISN'T ALL THAT FREE

DOUGLAS LEE, FIRST AMENDMENT CENTER - Open-government advocates who see the glass as half-full likely are rejoicing over their string of victories during the last few weeks. Those who see the glass as half-empty, however, probably are just shaking their heads. This month, freedom of information fighters have:

- Loosened rules on press access to California prisons.

- Used four states' open-records laws to obtain court-settlement documents

- Invoked a federal law to compel the Bush administration to issue global-warming reports.

- Persuaded a Connecticut state commission to void a policy that made it difficult for prison inmates to use the state's freedom of information act.

Those who are more restrained, of course, also welcome these victories. At the same time, however, they rue the seductive secrecy that has crept into every level of government and now rationalizes denials of even the most basic requests for information.

Take, for example, the case of the Maricopa County, Ariz., sheriff's office, which removed the West Valley View from its news-release distribution list because the newspaper hadn't covered story ideas suggested by the sheriff. When the newspaper's lawyer complained, the sheriff refused to respond, apparently taking the view that he would provide the news releases only if the paper filed a state FOIA request for each one.

Given the pettiness of the issue, one would have expected the dispute to end when the trial judge ruled the sheriff must honor the paper's blanket request for all future news releases. Instead, however, the sheriff appealed to the Arizona Court of Appeals, which unanimously affirmed the trial court. Still unhappy, the sheriff said he would appeal to the Arizona Supreme Court.

TAGS AREN'T WHAT KIDS NEED

PATRICK WELSH, WASHINGTON POST - The debate over designating students "gifted and talented" has been bedeviling school districts in the Washington area and throughout the country for years. Middle-class parents have come to see the label not just as a guarantee that their children will be challenged, but also as a status symbol, and they complain when their kids aren't included in the programs.

But of all the labels that we so-called educators give students, none seems more absurd -- and few more destructive. When we apply this tag to a tiny group of children in third, fourth or fifth grade, we are in effect saying that the rest are ungifted and untalented. We're denigrating hard work and perseverance, telling children that no matter how much effort they put forth, they just can't measure up to their special peers.

Just as bad, we're telling those on whom we deign to bestow the coveted label that they have it made; we're giving them an overblown sense of their intellectual abilities and setting them up to fall short when they face real challenges later. What schools need to do is not to single out a small group as special, but push all kids to work to their fullest potential. . .

What most parents don't realize is that the gifted label can harm not only those who don't receive it, but also those who do. Labeling can create what Stanford University psychology professor Carol Dweck calls a "fixed" mindset of intelligence -- the belief that your intelligence is set in stone -- as opposed to a "growth" mindset, which views intelligence as a muscle, something that can be developed throughout your life. In 1998, Dweck conducted an experiment in which she gave two evenly matched groups of elementary school kids the same nonverbal IQ test. When one group of children did well, they were told that they must have worked very hard to get their results. The students in the other group, meanwhile, were told that they must be very smart to have done so well.

Dweck found that as time went on, the kids who were told that they were smart "fell apart when they hit a challenge. They lost confidence in their abilities. Their motivation dwindled and their performance on the next IQ test dropped." By contrast, the children in the group praised for working hard tended to seek out challenges and persist at difficult tasks and ultimately learned more.

I've seen Dweck's theory proved time and again in my AP English classes. When an Asian student who has spoken English for only four or five years gets an A on a test and an American kid labeled gifted gets a D, the American will often do one of two things: denigrate the Asian's grade because it was achieved through hard work, or bring in his mother to argue that the test was unfair and that I should change his grade because I "know how smart he is."

OFFBEAT POLITICAL REPORT OF THE WEEK

JIM HICKEY, MARTHA'S VINEYARD GAZETTE - Police this week are continuing their investigation into a Florida man believed to be the former chief of staff for a U.S. senator who crashed the fundraiser of Presidential candidate John Edwards in Chilmark on Friday by passing himself off as a campaign official. Police say 31-year-old Michael Duga used a credential identifying himself as the chief of staff to former Sen. Maxwell Cleland of Georgia to gain access to the event.
 
Once inside, he purported to be a top official for the Edwards campaign to some while representing himself as a paying guests to others. According to Mr. MacDonald, the host of the event, Mr. Duga was neither. "Let me say that Mr. Duga is not - nor has he ever - been affiliated with the Edwards campaign . . . as far as I know he knew nobody at the event, and nobody there knew him," Mr. MacDonald said.
 
During the party, Mr. Duga slipped into a back room at the MacDonald home and stole a package of Edwards campaign material as well as a bundle of the former U.S. senator's personal stationery. According to one guest who asked not to be identified, Mr. Duga approached several people during the fundraiser and asked if they could help him arrange a private meeting with Mr. Edwards and his wife Elizabeth. . .
 
Mr. Duga spent the night on the Island, and was next spotted Saturday around 8 a.m. when the Menemsha Coast Guard Station ca