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House leader indicted on conspiracy charges

Rep. Tom DeLay (D-Texas) was indicted by a Texas grand jury, along with two political associates, John Colyandro, and Jim Ellis. They were charged were conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme. Colyandro is a former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Ellis heads DeLay’s national political committee.

DeLay is the first House leader to be indicted while in office in at least a century, according to Congressional historians. With DeLay’s indictment, Republicans —who control the White House, Senate and House-are on the defensive. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) is also on the hot seat, with questions of ethical impropriety being raised about Frist’s sale of stock in HCA Inc., a company founded by his family.

The indictment accused DeLay of a conspiracy to “knowingly make a political contribution” in violation of Texas law outlawing corporate contributions.

www.cnn.com

Siberian meltdown is the 1st since last ice age

Part of western Siberia (an area the size of France and Germany combined) is undergoing an unprecendented thaw that could greatly increase the rate of global warming, according to climate scientists.

Researchers returning from the region found than an area of permafrost covering a million square kilometers has started to melt for the first time since it formed 11,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age.

The area covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, and is the world's largest frozen peat bog. Scientists worry that as it thaws, it will release billions of tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere. Siberia's peat bogs have been producing methane since they formed at the end of the last ice age, but most of the gas had been trapped in the permafrost, scientists say. The permafrost is likely to take many decades to thaw, so the methane locked within it will not be released into the atmosphere in one burst.

www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,12374,1546824,00.html

Study: Journalists face long FOIA delays

Delayed responses or no responses to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests by journalists are becoming commonplace, according to a report released by the Society of Environmental Journalists. The report, which is drawn from 55 interviews with environmental reporters nationwide, shows government compliance with FOIA requests has worsened considerably since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“The most disturbing thing is that information that was once routinely accessible with a FOIA [request], now various agencies are requiring journalists to file a FOIA,” said Elizabeth Bluemink, a reporter with The Juneau Empire in Alaska, and a co-writer of the report. With some exceptions, federal agencies are mandated under the 1966 law to provide responses to public requests for information in a timely manner.

In the report, the Labor and Defense Departments, the Food and Drug Administration and the Mine Safety and Health Administration were most frequently cited as slow in their response times.

www.ap.org

Opinions differ over when the 60s started (or ended)

“The 1960s can be said to have begun on many days, other than January 1, 1960, among them February 9, 1964, the day the Beatles first played the Ed Sullivan show; December 2, 1964, when the first Berkeley campus protesters were arrested; or March 3, 1965, when a former chemistry student began selling large amounts of LSD to young people in San Francisco. Probably as many can be proffered for its death, but one date-Sept. 18-has special claim It marks two events, five years apart, that signaled the end of the era. On Sept. 18, 1970, the rock guitarist Jimi Hendrix died, the result of a drug overdose, and on the same day five years later, the kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst was arrested for collaborating with her captors.” —Christine Gibson, former editor of American Heritage Magazine

www.americanheritage.com

Pentagon shocker: draft plan calls for preemptive use of nukes

In the what-next, you-can't-be-serious department, the Pentagon has drafted a revised plan to allow U.S. military commanders in the field to ask presidential approval to use nuclear weapons “to preempt an attack by a nation or a terrorist group using weapons of mass destruction,” according to the plan, which is available online. The draft says that to deter a potential adversary from using such weapons, that adversary's leadership must “believe the United States has both the ability and will to pre-empt or retaliate promptly with responses that are credible and effective.” The draft also notes that U.S. policy in the past has “repeatedly rejected calls for adoption of ‘no first use’ policy of nuclear weapons.” Writer and peace activist Jonathan Schell discussed the Pentagon news at his address at St. Paul's Fitzgerald Theater over the past weekend, and affirmed that in past administrations such as Presidents Kennedy and Eisenhower, pre-emptive first strike nuclear options were dismissed as “crazy.”

www.cs.monitor.com
GlobalSecurity.org

New Orleans relief expert says toxic wastes in area a huge problem

Relief expert David Langness had this to say about his trip to New Orleans: The city is “under a toxic brew of foul water, sewage, oil, gas, PCBs …This leads me to wonder whether all disasters are man-made … [We} have come to the point where we know where and where not to site and situate human habitation; and how to build it so that it withstands wind, water, fire and earthquake. We know which acts of commerce and agriculture create risk from weather, and increasingly understand how we make our own weather. We know that we can protect peole by doing certain basic things to keep them safe. In other words, we know how to adequately warn and prepare for most ‘natural’ disasters. Natural disasters used to be called Acts of God, didn't they? Now I think we can begin calling them something else entirely.”

http://www.juancole.com/2005/09/david-langness-reports-on-new-orleans.html

Bush administration snubs Cuban hurricane relief offer

The Cuban government of President Fidel Castro offered in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina's devastation to send over 1,000 doctors and 36 tons of medicine and equipment to the disaster zone. As of Sept. 9, the Bush administration had yet to respond to the Cuban proposal-which swelled to more than 1,500 doctors.

“Up to this point there is a clear need for more medical help for Katrina victims,” said Peter Bourne, the former special adviser on heath during the Carter administration, and former assistant secretary general at the United Nations. “The Cuban physicians are accustomed to working in difficult third-world conditions without the resources and supplies that most of us are accustomed to …it is a shame that they have not been allowed to join our committed medical corps already,” Bourne said.

Bourne, the chairman of Medical Education Cooperation With Cuba, was joined by other doctors-including a former U.S. surgeon general-who expressed “deep concern” that the failure to accept the Cuban brigade would only hinder the struggle to prevent “a second wave of sickness and death.”

http://www.wsws.org