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Northwestern Memorial Tests 'Pacemaker' For Stomach
Manufactured by Transneuronix, this system consists of an electrical pulse generator, about the size of a pocket watch, which is placed under the skin in the abdomen and connected to the wall of the stomach with two wires. The pulse generator delivers electrical stimulation to the stomach, causing the feeling of fullness. Implanting it takes less than an hour and is done as an outpatient laparoscopic procedure.

 
Teamster investigators resign
The former federal prosecutor who heads the Teamsters' internal anti-corruption program as well as 20 other investigators and lawyers involved in that effort resigned yesterday, saying the union's president was not fully committed to fighting corruption.

In a sharply worded resignation letter, Edwin Stier, the former prosecutor, accused James P. Hoffa, the Teamsters president, of blocking a broad investigation into possible union corruption in Chicago and of dragging his feet in a case of alleged embezzlement by a Teamsters leader in Houston.

In addition to the investigators and lawyers, a 10-member anti-corruption advisory panel also resigned.

 
Daily Illini | Senate president: UI funding or Chief
Illinois Senate president Emil Jones Jr. (D-Chicago) suggested Tuesday that unless Chief Illiniwek is retired, he would consider blocking all state funding to the University.

At a news conference, Jones said the Board of Trustees should get rid of the mascot before the state legislature adjourns in late May and hinted at cutting state funding if the board doesn't comply.

'If our tax dollars are going to that university, and that university is using those tax dollars to permit stereotyping, then I think we should deal with it accordingly,' Jones said.

 
Salon.com News | Pentagon's No. 2 flubs Iraq casualties
Asked how many American troops have died in Iraq, the Pentagon's No. 2 civilian estimated Thursday the total was about 500 -- more than 200 soldiers short.

 
Power lines set to carry high-speed Internet | Christian Science Monitor
BPL will also encourage innovative technology, proponents say. 'If every power plug in your house becomes a broadband connection, that means that almost anything you plug into the wall can connect to the Internet,' says Thomas of the FCC. 'That means that your refrigerator can have a meaningful conversation with the supermarket and say, 'Hi, I need milk.' Or you could call your house and say, 'I'm coming home in two hours, turn the air conditioner on.' It's only restricted by imagination.'

 
Southwest Flies Into Labor Turbulence
The flight attendants have held rallies to publicize their frustration, arguing that Southwest's latest offer would leave their wages 20% to 30% below the industry average. There has even been talk of a possible strike against Dallas-based Southwest if the talks deteriorate further.

 
Muncie Star Press | Americans put bodies on line for lawns
Though it's not well publicized, he said, thousands of Americans are maimed every year in mowing accidents.

 
Brattleboro Reformer | VY search continues
Neal Sheehan, NRC spokesman for region I, said the fuel was most likely in one of three places: lying at the bottom of the 40-feet-deep spent fuel pool; sitting in some testing lab, where it may have been shipped off to without being properly recorded; or buried deep in the low-level waste dump in Snelling, S.C., where it may have been inadvertently sent.

   
StrategyPage.com EPA Approved ICBMs
In order to comply with EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) regulations, and at a cost of about $5.2 million per ICBM, the rocket motors on 500 Minuteman III missiles will be replaced with new ones. These rockets will emit less toxic chemicals when used.

(via Tom Tomorrow)

 
State Is Urged to Ban Vote Machine
Four California counties should be prohibited from using an electronic voting machine sold by Diebold Election Systems for the November election, a state advisory panel said Thursday. If Secretary of State Kevin Shelley follows the panel's recommendation, election officials in San Diego, Kern, Solano and San Joaquin counties will be forced to find a potentially costly replacement system for the 15,000 affected machines before the election. The panel also urged the state attorney general to launch an investigation of the manufacturer.

   
Guardian Unlimited | US elections 2004 | Worlds collide on the web
The seven young organisers who run the Counter Convention website are the kind of people you would happily take home to mother. But behind the designer specs and sideburns lurks a passion to subvert a party gathering they say is nothing more than a cynical attempt to exploit the city's tragedy, and provoke violence for political ends.

 
Indian Country Today [2004/04/22] Cigarette companies target American Indians
Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death among American Indians and Alaska Natives and tobacco use is an important risk factor for this disease.

'To build its image and credibility in the community, the tobacco industry targets American Indians and Alaska Natives by funding cultural events such as pow wows and rodeos,' the Center said.

The tobacco industry uses cultural symbols and designs to target American Indians, including Native people smoking pipes or images of warriors. Research shows that among the five major racial and ethnic populations, adult smoking prevalence was highest among American Indians and Alaska Natives in 1997. It was 34.1 percent, followed by African Americans (26.7), Caucasians (25.3) Hispanics (20.4) and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (16.9).

 
Brattleboro Reformer - VY fuel rod pieces missing
The two missing segments had been placed in a special stainless steel five-gallon bucket in 1979 because of a deficiency in the fuel cladding surrounding them. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission's on-site inspector requested the container be opened for routine inspection and, although the bucket was found with the lid still on, the segments were not inside. It was not clear when the discovery was made.

   
LA Times | Welcome to the Slammer
Although some people might feel uneasy spending their downtime in something reminiscent of a state correctional facility, Jillette's made-to-measure manse is a perfect fit for his outsize personality and towering 6-foot, 6-inch frame. The kitchen counters are six inches higher than those found in most homes, and the steps of the spiral staircase are an inch and a half longer and three-fourths of an inch higher to accommodate his longer stride.

 
Ethics Of Boosting Brainpower Debated By Researchers
Illes said the key difference between physical enhancements such as plastic surgery and neural enhancement through drugs or brain implants comes down to personhood. A nose job doesn’t change who you are. Drugs might, she said. “Am I the same person on Ritalin as off?” Farah asked.

 
AP Wire | 04/21/2004 | Reporters, Editors From Journal Picket
Reporters from The Wall Street Journal, escalating an increasingly hostile standoff with management, picketed in front of Dow Jones & Co.'s annual meeting Wednesday to demand better wage and health care benefits.

About 50 journalists carried placards criticizing the company's contract proposal and chanted 'Zero percent, what will pay the rent' and 'Peter, Peter, benefits eater' in reference to chairman and CEO Peter Kann.

 
Amazon destruction rising fast | Christian Science Monitor
Earlier this month, the government announced that annual Amazon deforestation had grown 2 percent last year, to 9,169 square miles - an area the size of New Hampshire and the second-highest year since officials started tracking it in 1988.

 
Associated Press | Chemist May Have Destroyed Evidence
The police memorandum details alleged wrongdoing by Gilchrist in 11 cases from the 1980s. The most significant misconduct alleged was in the McCarty case, and those findings are the crux of McCarty's latest appeal of his conviction in the 1982 murder of a young woman, sources familiar with the case told the AP on condition of anonymity.

 
The Woonsocket Call | Judge delays vote on day-care union
A Superior Court judge on Monday granted a request by Gov. Don Carcieri to put on hold home day-care providers’ efforts to unionize and be treated as state employees. Judge Daniel Procaccini’s decision means the estimated 1,300 home day-care providers can’t vote on whether to unionize until Carcieri’s appeal to the court of the state labor board’s decision granting them status as state employees is decided.

 
AP Wire | 04/19/2004 | UW-Madison teaching assistants approve walkout
University of Wisconsin-Madison teaching assistants have authorized taking strike action if they don't reach a contract with the state, their union said Monday. The Teaching Assistants' Association said it had easily reached the two-thirds majority of member support needed to stage a two-day walkout and withhold grades as a protest over their lack of a contract. Paper ballots went out last week to 1,208 teaching and program assistants who are members of Teaching Assistants' Association Local 3220. Two-thirds, or 805, had to vote yes by Monday for the job actions to begin. The union has been negotiating for a 2003-05 contract for nearly 10 months. The state's last offer provided no wage increase for 2003-04 and a 1.7 percent increase for 2004-05.

 
NY Metro | Condoleeza Rice's Embarrassing Mistake
A pressing issue of dinner-party etiquette is vexing Washington, according to a story now making the D.C. rounds: How should you react when your guest, in this case national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice, makes a poignant faux pas? At a recent dinner party hosted by New York Times D.C. bureau chief Philip Taubman and his wife, Times reporter Felicity Barringer, and attended by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., Maureen Dowd, Steven Weisman, and Elisabeth Bumiller, Rice was reportedly overheard saying, "As I was telling my husb—" and then stopping herself abruptly, before saying, "As I was telling President Bush." Jaws dropped, but a guest says the slip by the unmarried politician, who spends weekends with the president and his wife, seemed more psychologically telling than incriminating. Nobody thinks Bush and Rice are actually an item. A National Security Council spokesman laughed and said, "No comment."

(via Spelunker's World)
 
Aljazeera | Bowel cure that relies on impurities
Western countries have experienced a sharp rise in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) in the past 50 years. That increase has coincided with a sharp fall in infections by classic intestinal parasites such as roundworm and human whipworms. In developing countries, on the other hand, these parasites are common, but IBD is very rare.

 
Deseret News | Utah family has 5 on active duty
The Johnsons have not one, not two, but three sons serving as combat engineers with the Utah National Guard in Iraq. A fourth son is now headed for a tour of duty in Afghanistan. And their son-in-law, married to the Johnsons' oldest child and only daughter, is also fighting in Iraq.

 
The New York Times | Wal-Mart, a Nation Unto Itself
But the more than 250 sociologists, anthropologists, historians and other scholars who gathered at the University of California here on Monday for a conference on Wal-Mart came looking for more than the company's vital statistics. Like archaeologists who pick over artifacts to understand an ancient society, the scholars here were examining Wal-Mart for insights into the very nature of American capitalist culture. As Susan Strasser, a history professor at the University of Delaware, said, 'Wal-Mart has come to represent something that's even bigger than it is.'

 
Chicago Tribune | Illiniwek skirmish will shift to Capitol
Opponents of the University of Illinois' controversial Native American mascot will take their cause to the Illinois State House later this month, where they will appeal to black and Latino lawmakers to put pressure on the state school to get rid of Chief Illiniwek. Meetings with the lawmakers come as part of an agreement to end a sit-in at the Swanlund Administrative Building, where 40 protesters camped for two days last week.

 
Empire Notes | Reporting from Baghdad (April 17, 11:40 a.m.)
I haven't found an Iraqi with a good word for the attack on Fallujah -- and, of course, the Governing Council, U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, and even British military commanders in Basra have condemned it. Saleh is no exception. And, although he is not a follower of anyone, including Moqtada al-Sadr, he says clearly, 'If they try to take Moqtada, they will open the gates of hell.' When I spoke to him later about the standoff in Najaf, he was very apprehensive, believing that the continuing American military buildup signalled a likely assault. I asked if at that point al-Sistani would call for jihad, and he said, 'If he doesn't, nobody will listen to him anymore. He has already said that Najaf is a red line the Americans must not cross.'

 
Baltimore Sun | Manufacturers make more without hiring
Changes such as these - from reconfiguring assembly lines to cross-training workers, to installing expensive new technology - are pumping up productivity at manufacturing plants across the country. That means companies have been able to ratchet up output with the same number of, or fewer, workers. Extraordinary growth in productivity might prove to be a hidden contributor to America's current economic dilemma - soaring corporate profits accompanied by weak job growth.

 
Yakima Herald-Republic | Asparagus: Laid-Off Workers Paying Price for Shut-Down Line
TOPPENISH — About this time last year, Gloria Vargas was ready for the asparagus canning line to fire up at Del Monte. She'd been sorting and packing at the Toppenish plant for 20 years. This year, however, she and about 350 other workers won't be returning to the line. It was shut down at the end of last year's harvest.

   
American Prospect Online | Neal Gabler | Liberalism's Lost Script
The war planners never really thought there was any downside to going in, or that anything could go wrong in the aftermath. They assumed that the troops would sweep across Iraq without resistance, that Iraqis would greet them as liberators and stick flowers in the barrels of their rifles, and that an Iraqi government would be installed in relatively short order. They made these assumptions, we now know, not on the basis of any intelligence or understanding of the Iraqi situation. They made them because it seems they were in thrall to an idea that has become a fundamental component of modern American conservatism generally. It is the idea that, in the end, everything turns out well.

 
IUF News and Urgent Actions Database | IUF affiliate and Colombian Coca-Cola bottler sign agreement - union rights clauses maintained in full
The final agreement reached saw the company withdraw all its demands that these protective clauses be withdrawn. In addition the agreement included the reinstatement of one of two union representatives who had been dismissed two years earlier (the second for whom additional compensation was negotiated had found alternative employment and preferred not to return to work at the plant). In economic terms improvements included a wage increase of 12% and additional financial benefits.

 
Peoria Journal Star | Cat gives 'final offer' to UAW

Caterpillar Inc.'s 'final offer' to the United Auto Workers will be put before union members on April 25, with a possible vote whether to accept it as their new contract.

 
The New York Times | Pushing for Union, Columbia Grad Students Are Set to Strike
Graduate teaching assistants at Columbia University said yesterday that they would go on strike Monday morning and remain out until Columbia recognized their right to unionize, which could shut down hundreds of classes through the end of the school year.

'This is an indefinite strike; we're not going to do anything until they recognize our union,' said Dermot Ryan, a fifth-year graduate student in English and comparative literature who teaches 'Introduction to Contemporary Civilization,' one of Columbia's core courses. 'We will stay out as long as it takes.'

Graduate students represent a significant portion of the teaching force at Columbia. Not only do they run small discussion sessions of large lecture courses, but they also teach more than half of the core courses that all Columbia students must take, like 'Contemporary Civilization,' 'Literature and Humanities' and writing.

 
Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Protesters End Sit-In at U. of Illinois
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. (AP) - Protesters demanding that the University of Illinois eliminate its Chief Illiniwek mascot ended a 32-hour campus sit-in Friday after lawmakers agreed to discuss the controversial symbol. A group of roughly 40 protesters calling itself the Multicultural Coalition Against the Chief took over the school's main administrative building early Thursday, demanding that the university eliminate the much-debated Indian mascot and a related Indian-head logo.

In return for ending the protest, coalition members were expected to meet April 27 in Springfield with several state legislators, including Senate President Emil Jones.

 
DallasNews.com | Dallas jails flunk state inspection
Among the problems was overcrowding in the intake area, which on the day inspectors visited held 107 inmates instead of the allowed 43. Sheriff’s commanders said the area was temporarily flooded with prisoners after the Dallas Police Department conducted a sting operation and quickly arrested 30 or 40 people

 
The Globe and Mail
Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius vetoed a bill Friday to allow residents to carry concealed handguns, saying the measure would have made law-enforcement officers' jobs more difficult.

 
LaborWire - The Joe Hill Dispatch
Minneapolis Star Tribune reports: But the tentative two-year contract, which was scheduled to be voted on Thursday night and today by the 2,200-member Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005, would actually lower monthly family health-care premiums for the short term and give full-time employees a $1,100 signing bonus. The bonus was not part of the earlier contract offer. Part-time employees would receive $600. Health care has been a major sticking point in the 44-day-old strike. The tentative contract covers the period from Aug. 1, 2003, to July 31, 2005.

 
Pork Magazine - Industry News | Turning Manure Into Crude Oil
A University of Illinois research team is working on turning pig manure into a form of crude oil that could be refined to heat homes or generate electricity.

Years of research and fine-tuning are ahead before the idea could be commercially viable, but results so far indicate there might be big benefits for farmers and consumers, according to lead researcher Yanhui Zhang.

 
ABC7Chicago.com: Protesters occupy administration building to protest Chief Illiniwek
Tulsi Dharmarajan, a spokeswoman for the group of about 40 protesters, said they planned to stay in the building until they heard from the board of trustees. The protesters chose Thursday because it would have been the date of the board's April meeting, which was canceled after student trustee Nate Allen said he would ask for a vote on the issue.

 
Reuters | Iraq Cleric Offers Peace Talks, U.S. Forces Poised
The U.S. military announced eight more American soldiers had been killed in combat, bringing to 93 the number killed in action in April -- four more than in the three-week war that toppled Saddam last year.

   
Reuters | Vacationing Bush Not Told of 9/11 'Clue'
Tenet said he had not spoken to the president that month, when Bush was staying at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, nor did he bring it to the attention of other senior officials, saying simply it did not fit the agenda.

'He's in Texas and I'm either here or on leave for some of that time,' he said. 'In this time period, I'm not talking to him, no.'

 
Yuma Sun | Colorado River ranked most endangered
Rocket fuel, human waste and uranium tailings make the Colorado River the nation’s most threatened river, the conservation group American Rivers said Tuesday.

 
Ultrasound Treatment For Hurt Muscles May Feel Good, But Doesn't Promote Healing, Study Suggests
Although ultrasound is one of the most frequently prescribed treatments for one of the most common sport and athletic injuries – skeletal muscle contusions – there's really no good scientific evidence showing that it treats injured muscles effectively, said Steven Devor, the study's lead author and an assistant professor of sport and exercise sciences at Ohio State University.

 
Deaths of scores of mercenaries not reported
At least 80 foreign mercenaries - security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies - have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq...At least 18 000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1 000 (about R6 300) a day...The presence of such large numbers of mercenaries, first publicised in The Independent two weeks ago, was bound to lead to further casualties. But although many of the heavily armed Western security men are working for the US Department of Defence - and most of them are former Special Forces soldiers - they are not listed as serving military personnel. Their losses can therefore be hidden from public view. The US authorities in Iraq, however, are aware that more Western mercenaries lost their lives in the past week than occupation soldiers over the past 14 days.
(via Kathryn Cramer)
 
Gambling on tribal ancestry | csmonitor.com
The threat of disenrollment is a grave insult, contend the aggrieved: It's an insult to old family traditions, to ancient heritage, and to Pechanga pride. It's also a major hit to the pocketbook. The members in question stand to lose more than $120,000 each a year in casino profits and bonuses, as well as health insurance and other benefits.

 
The New York Times > Arts > Television > Negotiations Stalled for Voice Actors in 'The Simpsons'
The fall season for 'The Simpsons,' normally 22 episodes, will be cut short because of the contract impasse, the Fox executive said. 'We can't saddle the show with costs that make it uneconomical to produce,' he added.

   
Work in Progress—April 12, 2004 - H&M, Sterling Workers are UNITE
Two hundred workers at H&M’s distribution centers in Secaucus, N.J., and Cheshire, Conn., won union representation April 7 with UNITE through a majority-verification or card-check process, in which an employer agrees to honor the workers’ choice after a majority indi­cates the desire to form a union by signing authorizations. Workers began to organize in July 2003, but H&M refused to accept the card-check results. After large protests at U.S. and European H&M stores, the company signed an agreement March 2 to honor card-checks and a majority of the workers again signed authorization cards. But H&M refused to recognize the results and forced the issue to an arbitrator, who ruled in favor of the workers.

 
Despite high gas prices, Americans keep on driving | Christian Science Monitor
Experts say it will take a crystal ball to determine just where that threshold is. Last week, gas prices hit a new average high of $1.80 a gallon. Some analysts believe the magic number will be $2 a gallon. Others don't think Americans will change their habits until it hits $3 a gallon - which could come as soon as the Memorial Day weekend.

   
Teacher Quality, Teacher Pay by Frederick M. Hess - Policy Review, No. 124
The problem is not the total amount paid to teachers but the fact that basing teacher pay on experience and credentials rather than performance means that pay isn’t necessarily going to those teachers who deserve it. Highly paid teachers earn their salaries not because they are exceptional educators or have tackled tough assignments but because they have accumulated seniority in wealthy school systems where pay is based on longevity. Providing raises in such a system is enormously expensive because so much of the spending is soaked up by the undeserving.

 
Asahi Shimbun | CRISIS FOR KOIZUMI: It's a worst case scenario and Koizumi's hands are tied
It's not as if Japan can send in a "hit team'' of SDF members to kill the terrorists and free the captives. GSDF members in Iraq must operate under strict rules about how they fire their weapons. In a nutshell, Japanese forces are not equipped to be in a war zone. As the hours ticked by, experts offered various scenarios of the crisis, unquestionably the toughest since Koizumi, 62, took office in 2001.

 
Dissent Magazine | God, Taxes, and "Public Reason"
It might be thought that liberals would look kindly on Riley's ill-fated Campaign for Tax Justice; however, there is an influential trend in contemporary liberal political theory that requires us to regard Riley's biblically inspired case for tax reform with suspicion. Following the late Harvard philosopher John Rawls, many liberal thinkers argue that political discourse generally, or at least the language of politics spoken by public officials in their official capacity, must not invoke reasons for state action derived from what Rawls called "more or less comprehensive" religious or moral doctrines.

 
Transit union asks former senator to assist negotiations
Meanwhile at the Capitol, in debate about the omnibus transportation funding bill, House Republicans voted in favor of an amendment that would turn the transit system over to private business. The bill is scheduled to be voted on Wednesday.

 
British commanders condemn US military tactics - The Age
Speaking from his base in southern Iraq, the officer said: 'My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They don't see the Iraqi people the way we see them. They view them as untermenschen. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are.'

 
TCS: Tech Central Station - Searching for Bobby Fischer's Platonic Form
Did the Ruy Lopez exist before its 16th-century namesake started playing it? A Platonist might say it did, as part of an abstract set of all possible chess openings. But chess itself has a finite history. The game originated around the seventh century A.D., and its modern rules became standard in the 15th century, not long before Ruy Lopez de Segura was playing. Platonic ideals are normally defined as timeless, yet in this case they seem also to be historically grounded. The world of abstractions seems to depend on our world.

 
CorpWatch.org | Mercenary Boom in Iraq Creates Tension at Home and Abroad
Like the South Africans, thousands of ex-military men from around the world are flocking to Iraq to find jobs that they cannot get in their home countries. Derek William Adgey, a Royal Marine from Belfast, who was jailed for four years for helping the Ulster Freedom Fighters, was hired by Armor Group, a British company, to guard Bechtel employees. (He was subsequently suspended when the Belfast Telegraph published details of his past.)

 
Union played role in race relations - Hattiesburg American
"From the beginnings of the labor movement in the South, there was the question of whether you could organize black and white workers and whether the work force could become truly integrated," said Peter Applebome, author of the book 'Dixie Rising' and deputy metropolitan editor for The New York Times.

 
Federal Times | Why weaker unions worry managers
But while some managers interviewed by Federal Times say they welcome seeing some union powers rolled back, many warn that the effort could backfire. Workers could be left feeling they have no voice, they say, and relationships between labor and management could sour and undermine productivity. Managers say that despite some disagreements, they largely work well with unions and do not want to see those partnerships spoiled.

 
Associated Press | Fallujah death toll for week more than 600:
More than 600 Iraqis have been killed in Fallujah since Marines began a siege against Sunni insurgents in the city a week ago, most of them women, children and the elderly, the head of the city's hospital said Sunday.

 
U.S. Targeted Fiery Cleric In Risky Move (washingtonpost.com)
Several American and Iraqi officials now regard Bremer's move to close the newspaper as a profound miscalculation based on poor intelligence and inaccurate assumptions. Foremost among the errors, the officials said, was the lack of a military strategy to deal with Sadr if he chose to fight back, as he did.

 
The New York Times | Op-Ed Contributor: Bob Kerrey | Fighting the Wrong War
Two things about that failure are clear to me at this point in our investigation. The first is that 9/11 could have been prevented, and the second is that our current strategy against terrorism is deeply flawed. In particular, our military and political tactics in Iraq are creating the conditions for civil war there and giving Al Qaeda a powerful rationale to recruit young people to declare jihad on the United States.

 
LA Times | Tribes' Casino Money Flowing to Academia
The tribal money is 'filling a gap or a vacuum' by fostering new courses in areas such as tribal law and projects in such areas as native language renewal, Goldberg said. 'It's not as if those topics are taught now and the tribes want them taught differently. It's more like they are not taught at all.' To ensure scholarly integrity, academic studies undertaken by the San Manuel-funded program will be peer-reviewed within UCLA, Goldberg said, and other elements of the program also will be reviewed regularly by UCLA scholars.

   
LA Times | Brief Raises Credibility Questions
Among the key observations in the report:

•  'After U.S. missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington.'

•  'A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Laden cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.'

•  Al Qaeda had members inside the United States 'and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks.'

•  The FBI was conducting 'approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the U.S. that it considers' related to Bin Laden.

•  The FBI and CIA were investigating a call to the U.S. Embassy in the United Arab Emirates in May 2001 'saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives.'

Most dramatic was the sentence saying the FBI saw 'patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.'

   
AP Wire | 04/09/2004 | Nuke Site Workers Fear Health Problems
More than 90 workers have sought medical care for exposure at Hanford nuclear site tank farms in the past two years, according to data gathered by the Government Accountability Project, a nonprofit watchdog group. Few workers will speak publicly. Symptoms of exposure to chemical vapors include headaches, nosebleeds and a metallic taste.

 
Lecturers at U-M stage a 1-day strike
Lecturers and other nontenure-track faculty at the University of Michigan held a one-day strike and picketed across campus Thursday, canceling scores of classes and stopping construction at two work sites.

 
Boston Globe / Op-ed / How to settle Boston's labor struggles
Simply put, last best offer arbitration calls for an appointed impartial party to make a final economic determination in those instances in which management and labor reach a bargaining impasse. The arbitrator's sole charge is to choose either side's last best offer. Because the arbitrator lacks discretion to make an independent determination or reach a compromise, common sense suggests that the sides will avoid outrageous positions, and offer reasonable settlement figures.

 
KSTP | Progress reportedly made in ending bus strike
Earlier this week, Gov. Tim Pawlenty met secretly with members of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1005 and Metropolitan Council members. The talks lasted for seven hours.

   
LA Times | Testimony Paints Image of Passive Inner Circle
But the portrait of Bush and his closest aides that emerged from her testimony, while acquitting them of ignoring the warnings, left an image of leaders detached from the practical challenges of mounting a defense. In a sense, it came down to two concepts of how a president should operate: the Bush team's view that the chief executive should delegate authority, and the view espoused by Clarke and others that the White House should actively work to ensure that effective action is taken — including "shaking the trees" to move sometimes-hidebound government agencies.

     
City Journal Spring 2004 | What Does the War on Wal-Mart Mean? by Steven Malanga
This new war on Wal-Mart is more than just a skirmish over store sites or union-organizing efforts. It is an attack on a company that embodies the dynamic, productivity-driven, customer-oriented U.S. economy that emerged in the 1990s by opponents who advocate a different economics.

 
Portsmouth Herald Local News: Shipyard unions fight for existence
PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD - The National Security Personnel System must be modified, or else all 4,597 workers at the shipyard will be forced to silence their voices and surrender their rights, because the unions who protect employees will no longer exist, says Paul O’Connor, president of the Metal Trades Council.

   
Muslim Rivals Unite In Baghdad Uprising (washingtonpost.com)
On the streets of Baghdad neighborhoods long defined by differences of faith and politics, signs are emerging that resistance to the U.S. occupation may be growing from a sporadic, underground effort to a broader insurrection by militiamen who claim to be fighting in the name of their common faith, Islam.

 
Detroit Free Press | Ford CEO: government help needed to encourage more fuel-efficient purchases
Ford Motor Co. chairman and chief executive Bill Ford Jr. reiterated his support Wednesday for government incentives and a larger tax on fuel to spur consumer interest in gas-electric hybrid vehicles, in which his company is investing heavily.

   
In Study, Most Companies Reported No Taxes
Among American corporations, an average of 6 in 10 reported no tax liabilities on their United States income tax returns filed for the five years from 1996 through 2000, the study found. The percentage of American companies saying they owed nothing increased steadily but slightly in the period, to 63 percent in 2000 from 60.3 percent in 1996.

 
The New Yorker | The Other War | Seymour Hersh
The Bush Administration has consistently invoked Afghanistan as a success story—an example of the President’s determination. However, it is making this claim in the face of renewed warnings, from international organizations, from allies, and from within its own military—notably a Pentagon-commissioned report that was left in bureaucratic limbo when its conclusions proved negative—that the situation there is deteriorating rapidly.

   
The Asahi Shinbun | SUBTERFUGE: Defense Agency says sorry for deception
The Defense Agency has apologized for scheduling a fake news conference to provide cover for a secret visit to Iraq by the chief of staff of the Ground Self-Defense Force. Newspaper and television reporters stationed at the agency's press club were sharply critical of the ruse, prompting the apology.

 
Midland Reporter-Telegram | State tries to stop WIPP waste reclassification
New Mexico's environment secretary is threatening to block permission for a key expansion of operations at the federal government's nuclear waste dump in Carlsbad. That's if the Department of Energy continues its campaign to try to send new types of radioactive sludge there. The expansion would allow highly radioactive remote-handled waste at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant for the first time. But it requires a state permit.

 
Wal-Mart vs. Inglewood a Warm-Up for L.A. Fight
With Inglewood voters set to decide Tuesday whether Wal-Mart can build a Supercenter in town, the battle over the chain's expansion throughout California may soon shift to Los Angeles, where officials are laying plans to effectively ban the megastores in much of the nation's second-largest city.
[more articles]
 
The Michigan Daily - Lecturer vote authorizes strike
Nearly 90 percent of the Lecturers’ Employee Organization voted yesterday in favor of authorizing a walkout on Thursday. The walkout would also include members of the Graduate Employees’ Organization and students and professors who support the LEO platform.

 
AFP - Fallujah horror points to rising anti-American rage
Contrary to most reports, the Sunni town of Fallujah has never been a stronghold of Saddam Hussein despite the fact that his iron-fisted regime relied mainly on a close circle of Sunni followers. The town was deprived under the ousted regime. Fallujah and the rest of Al-Anbar province are ruled by Sunni conservative tribes who have traditionally resisted submission to foreign occupiers or government forces seeking to control the area by force. Under Saddam, imams across the town refused to abide by his orders to praise him personally during daily prayers.
(via Empire Notes)
 
Federal Times Online | Employees are protected from bias for sexual orientation, White House says
The White House position, made in a March 31 statement to Federal Times, appears to contradict recent statements by President Bush’s appointee to the office that handles such discrimination claims...The government has advised employees since 1980 that discrimination based on sexual orientation is covered as a prohibited personnel practice under the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act and should be appealed to the Office of Special Counsel. ...Special Counsel Scott Bloch, whose office is responsible for ensuring employees are not discriminated against based on matters unrelated to their work, has questioned publicly whether the law actually protects federal employees from discrimination based solely on their sexual orientation. He removed all materials referencing sexual orientation discrimination from OSC’s Web site shortly after beginning a 5-year term in January and said he is reviewing his agency’s obligation to enforce such cases.

 
Foreign Affairs - Trouble in Taiwan - Michael D. Swaine:
Critics make three faulty assumptions: that Beijing would ultimately permit Taiwanese independence rather than confront the United States; that an expression of democratic self-determination is sufficient to establish territorial sovereignty and that democracy is incompatible with any political arrangement short of formal independence; and that it is immoral, as well as fundamentally contrary to U.S. interests, to oppose any manifestation of democracy in Taiwan. Once these assumptions are debunked, the prudence of maintaining the status quo becomes apparent.

 
Wyandotte casino shut down | Topeka Capital Journal | 04/03/04
KANSAS CITY, Kan. -- Authorities shut down a tribal-owned casino in the city's downtown Friday morning and started to remove more than 150 gambling machines...On March 24, the National Indian Gaming Commission said the casino, which opened last fall in narrow trailers attached to a renovated Masonic Lodge building across the street from city hall, was operating illegally.