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Ordered Into Debt: Pentagon Brass Force Credit Debt On Soldiers and Sailors The numbers were staggering: $3,400 for a sumo-wrestling outfit, $16,000 for a corporate golf membership, $38,000 in cash advances for lap dances. All were part of a $101 million shopping spree made with "government purchase cards," the U.S. military's version of corporate credit cards -- another made-for-media scandal of reckless Defense Department spending. But throughout congressional hearings on the topic in July, the real scandal with the military's other piece of plastic, the Government Travel Card (GTC), went ignored by the mainstream press, despite the fact that the...

We received a trade association press release Friday, hailing the defeat of Sen. McCain's "assault on stock options," calling it a "bipartisan effort in support of high-tech workers." A bipartisan assault on investors is more like it. No one on Capitol Hill seems to understand that accounting for stock options has exactly zero economic effect on a company. What they're supporting is not high-tech workers, but corporate greed and a touch of blackmail. Bill Mann's coming out swinging. I hope by the end of this effort, Taryn Lynds, director of public communications with the American Electronics Association (AeA), wishes she...

The Bush Administration aims to recruit millions of United States citizens as domestic informants in a program likely to alarm civil liberties groups. The Terrorism Information and Prevention System, or TIPS, means the US will have a higher percentage of citizen informants than the former East Germany through the infamous Stasi secret police. The program would use a minimum of 4 per cent of Americans to report "suspicious activity". Civil liberties groups have already warned that, with the passage earlier this year of the Patriot Act, there is potential for abusive, large-scale investigations of US citizens. As with the Patriot...

Hoffman & Edelson, LLC Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Halliburton Company DOYLESTOWN, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 2002--Hoffman & Edelson, LLC today announced that it has filed a class action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of purchasers of the securities of Halliburton Company ("Halliburton" or the "Company") (NYSE:HAL - News) during the period from July 22, 1999 through May 28, 2002, inclusive (the "Class Period"). The complaint charges that Halliburton violated Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, by issuing a series of materially false and...

A member of one of the world's wealthiest families let her lawyers do the talking Tuesday as the case of the Saudi Arabian princess and her maid played out its final chapter. Princess Buniah al-Saud was at home in the desert kingdom when her plea of no contest to a misdemeanor battery charge was entered, seven months after she was accused of pushing her maid down a flight of stairs. An Orlando judge ordered the princess to pay a $1,000 fine and $133 in court costs and write the court a letter of regret. The plea is neither an admission...

In The Futurological Congress (1971), Polish writer Stanislaw Lem portrayed a future in which disobedience is controlled with hypothetical mind-altering chemicals dubbed "benignimizers". Lem's fictional work opens with the frightening story of a police and military biochemical attack on protesters outside of an international scientific convention. As the environment becomes saturated with hallucinogenic agents, in Lem's tale the protesters (and bystanders) descend into chaos, overcome by delusions and feelings of complacency, self-doubt, and even love. If the Pentagon’s Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate (JNLWD) has its way, Lem may be remembered as a prophet. (Austin and Hamburg, 1 July 2002) -...

U.S. House of Representatives, June 27, 2002 Most Americans believe we live in dangerous times, and I must agree. Today I want to talk about how I see those dangers and what Congress ought to do about them. Of course, the Monday-morning quarterbacks are now explaining, with political overtones, what we should have done to prevent the 9/11 tragedy. Unfortunately, in doing so, foreign policy changes are never considered. I have, for more than two decades, been severely critical of our post-World War II foreign policy. I have perceived it to be not in our best interest and have believed...

An interview with Gore Vidal by Marc Cooper HE MIGHT BE AMERICA'S LAST small-r republican. Gore Vidal, now 76, has made a lifetime out of critiquing America's imperial impulses and has -- through two dozen novels and hundreds of essays -- argued tempestuously that the U.S. should retreat back to its more Jeffersonian roots, that it should stop meddling in the affairs of other nations and the private affairs of its own citizens. That's the thread that runs through Vidal's latest best-seller -- an oddly packaged collection of essays published in the wake of September 11 titled Perpetual War for...

<p>London, June 21 (Bloomberg) -- In New York, Singapore, Tokyo, Paris and London, fund managers are trimming their U.S. assets and buying in Europe or Asia instead.</p> <p>Henderson Global Investors Ltd., Julius Baer Investment Management Inc. and Axa Investment Managers all have shrunk the U.S. portion of their global equity funds this year. Henderson has tripled Asia's share, Julius Baer has beefed up European holdings and Axa has done a combination of both.</p>

European governments have long suspected it. Environmentalists have long proclaimed it. But now there is clear evidence that President George Bush's environmental policy is indeed a load of crap. For the United States is blocking an international plan to halve the number of people, two-fifths of the population of the planet, who have no sanitation. Some 2.4 billion people lack even a bucket for their wastes, and this is one of the main causes of world disease. European and developing nations, meeting in Bali, Indonesia, want the world's leaders to agree to meet this target by 2015. They are proposing...

<p>Gangway for the self-appointed gatekeepers of the left who are on a crusade to spin, smear, attack, and label as loony anyone who won't accept the official line that the events leading up to and surrounding September 11 are nothing more than a series of coincidences and intelligence failures.</p>

Victims' Remains Found Near Ground Zero By ERIC LIPTON and JAMES GLANZ n the week since a ceremony marked the end of the recovery effort at ground zero, Fire Department and construction crews have found the remains of about a dozen victims in nearby buildings damaged in the Sept. 11 attack. City officials had long suspected they might find additional human remains in these adjacent structures, including 90 West Street and 130 Cedar Street, office buildings that were struck and punctured by plane parts and sections of the twin towers. But they had put off the task of thoroughly sifting...

A family in Pueblo, Colo., is suing the DEA and the Colorado Bureau of Investigations after a no-knock raid resulted in their two sons being arrested and jailed despite the fact no drugs were found on the premises. According to the suit, "black-masked, black-helmeted men brandishing automatic weapons and wearing all-black uniforms with no insignias suddenly burst into the house unannounced, kicked the family's dog across the floor, ordered the entire family to 'get on the [expletive] floor,' held them at gunpoint, searched the house, found no drugs or contraband, but nevertheless carted off the family's two sons, Dave and...

Thanks for serving your country. Now get a job. Across the nation, hundreds of National Guardsmen are making the difficult transition from the mandates of military life back to the mayhem of the job market, where soldiers like Cpl. Moss Waldock have found themselves searching the want ads. Waldock, a two-year employee at BellSouth, was laid off Monday after his two-month stint guarding Palm Beach International Airport. The 31-year-old career military man from Lake Worth was infuriated by his discharge. "Here I am, doing my duty for our country and then BellSouth comes along and says I'm out of work,"...

Stocks Dip on Mistrust of Corporations   NEW YORK (Reuters) - Stocks tumbled on Monday, the broad market hitting an eight-month low as the abrupt departure of the chairman of embattled conglomerate Tyco International Ltd. deepened mistrust about Corporate America's top management and finances. Natural gas pipeline and energy trading company El Paso Corp. deepened Wall Street's anxiety after saying its treasurer died in an apparent suicide. Shares tumbled 14 percent even after a source told Reuters the treasurer had serious health problems and the company said its finances were in good order. "The overall tone is absolutely shoot first...

Russia's Hungry Oil Companies Throw Wrench In OPEC Works When Russia said last month it will defy OPEC and end cuts on oil exports, few were surprised. The only question was whether there were any export cuts to end.Last fall, Russia agreed to shave 150,000 barrels a day from its exports this year. Yet in the first four months, production rose 8.8% over the prior year to almost 7.3 million barrels a day.Granted, the original deal was murky, says Philip Verleger, an independent energy analyst. The cut was based on what output would have been without a deal, which is...

Anti-Capitalism - If you are an "anti-capitalist", what vetter way to protest the economy than withdrawing from it and never using money? Working Sucks - Where does the money you spend come from? You or your folks working long hours at a dehumanizing job, most likely. You don't have to compromise yourself and your humanity to the evil demon of wage-slavery! Working sucks and if a little scavenging can keep you from needing a job than go jump in a dumpster! Even if you do need to work to pay your bills, think about how much less you would have...

June 2, 2002 -- New York/Washington (APJP, 1:30PM) -- The fallout from the Phoenix and Minneapolis memos -- and a few new revelations -- reverberated this Sunday among the Anointed Gasbag Class. Naturally, the press is helping Karl Rove shift the blame away from Condi Rice, DOD, the NSA and CIA and put it squarely on the FBI and Robert Mueller, who had only been FBI Director for a matter of days before Al Qaeda attacked New York and Washington. What amazes us is that there was no talk whatsoever of his predecessor, the politically-motivated Louis Freeh, whose tenure at...

Since March 1, more than 500 companies have dropped Andersen, taking with them more than $1 billion in accounting and other fees Former giant written off as viable player By Andrew Countryman and Delroy Alexander Tribune staff reporters June 2, 2002 As Chicago-based Andersen fights for its corporate life in a Houston courtroom, the accounting giant has been hemorrhaging clients at a breathtaking rate, reinforcing serious questions about what, if anything, will be left to carry on, even if it wins its legal battle. Since the scandal surrounding Enron Corp. exploded and Andersen was indicted on a federal obstruction-of-justice charge,...

Pakistan hosts trilateral summit to kick off huge gas pipeline project Wed May 29,10:57 AM ET ISLAMABAD,Pakistan - The leaders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan (news - web sites) arrived in Pakistan on Wednesday to participate in a landmark summit and sign an agreement to build and maintain a 1,460-kilometer (907-mile) gas pipeline. The pipeline would supply natural gas from Turkmenistan's huge Dauletabad-Donmez field, which holds over 100 trillion cubic feet in gas reserves — about half of the country's total natural gas yield — to Afghanistan and Pakistan and, possibly, India. The draft of a memorandum of understanding was finalized...