November 23, 2006

On the 10th anniversary of RCAP,
NDP demands Conservatives support Indigenous rights


Related Links
NDP MPs support historic Snuneymuxw Protocol »
Time to act on 'Canada's national disgrace' »
Justice for Aboriginal Canadians »
Where is the plan for Kashechewan? »
NDP appalled by Canada's vote against UN declaration on Indigenous peoples' rights »
Jean Crowder's Statement on National Aboriginal Day »

Tue 21 Nov 2006
OTTAWA – On the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, NDP Critic for Aboriginal Affairs Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan) and federal NDP leader Jack Layton are calling on Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to reverse their stance against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to move forward on the solutions identified by the Royal Commission.
"Canada was a driving force behind the drafting of this declaration, " said Crowder. "Dozens of aboriginal organizations in Canada contributed to the wording. It was one of the recommendations of RCAP that Canada support and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2.3.1(e)),” said Crowder.
“The Liberals ignored the Royal Commission report for ten long years while it gathered dust and successive Liberal administrations refused to act on the recommendations. Now the Conservatives are one-upping them by further disgracing Canada by its treatment of aboriginal peoples on the international stage,” said Layton. “The time is long overdue for the government of Canada to treat First Nations, Métis and Inuit with the respect they deserve. A good first step would be to vote in favour of the UN’s Declaration on Indigenous Peoples Rights and then the Conservatives must move forcefully on the Commission’s recommendations.”
“We’ve heard the Prime Minister insist that other countries, like China, must respect human rights. When will he show how his own government respects human rights by supporting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And when will he start implementing the RCAP recommendations?” said Crowder.
Layton and Crowder will be attending an Assembly of First Nations ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission at the Museum of Civilization in Hull Tuesday evening.

On the 10th anniversary of RCAP,
NDP demands Conservatives support Indigenous rights


Related Links
NDP MPs support historic Snuneymuxw Protocol »
Time to act on 'Canada's national disgrace' »
Justice for Aboriginal Canadians »
Where is the plan for Kashechewan? »
NDP appalled by Canada's vote against UN declaration on Indigenous peoples' rights »
Jean Crowder's Statement on National Aboriginal Day »

Tue 21 Nov 2006
OTTAWA – On the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, NDP Critic for Aboriginal Affairs Jean Crowder (Nanaimo-Cowichan) and federal NDP leader Jack Layton are calling on Stephen Harper’s Conservatives to reverse their stance against the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and to move forward on the solutions identified by the Royal Commission.
"Canada was a driving force behind the drafting of this declaration, " said Crowder. "Dozens of aboriginal organizations in Canada contributed to the wording. It was one of the recommendations of RCAP that Canada support and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (2.3.1(e)),” said Crowder.
“The Liberals ignored the Royal Commission report for ten long years while it gathered dust and successive Liberal administrations refused to act on the recommendations. Now the Conservatives are one-upping them by further disgracing Canada by its treatment of aboriginal peoples on the international stage,” said Layton. “The time is long overdue for the government of Canada to treat First Nations, Métis and Inuit with the respect they deserve. A good first step would be to vote in favour of the UN’s Declaration on Indigenous Peoples Rights and then the Conservatives must move forcefully on the Commission’s recommendations.”
“We’ve heard the Prime Minister insist that other countries, like China, must respect human rights. When will he show how his own government respects human rights by supporting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And when will he start implementing the RCAP recommendations?” said Crowder.
Layton and Crowder will be attending an Assembly of First Nations ceremony commemorating the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission at the Museum of Civilization in Hull Tuesday evening.

Posted AT 5:20 AM EST ON 22/11/06


Native group to give Ottawa failing grade for treaties

Royal commission's recommendations still being ignored 10 years later, AFN says

BILL CURRY
From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — Native leaders will mark the 10th anniversary of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples today, with the release of a report card that shows Ottawa has failed to act on the vast majority of its recommendations.

The Assembly of First Nations gives Ottawa an F in all areas dealing with the respect of treaties, which the commission argues are key to giving natives enough power and land to lift most out of poverty.

The federal government signed hundreds of treaties with natives as Canada was settled by Europeans, and they form the basis of continuing negotiations over land rights for traditional hunting and fishing. But treaties can also produce significant financial benefits for native communities that obtain rights to natural-resource revenues in areas such as mining and forestry.

The royal commission was launched in 1991 by prime minister Brian Mulroney's government. By 1996, it produced five volumes of detailed recommendations based on extensive consultations with aboriginals.
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The main recommendations called for a royal proclamation affirming aboriginal and treaty rights, and the regrouping of natives as self-governing nations that would manage a larger land base.
Phil Fontaine, the national chief of the AFN, will play host at a reception this evening marking the anniversary at the Museum of Civilization in Gatineau. According to a draft version of his speech, Mr. Fontaine will argue that building these nations will give natives the critical mass to govern themselves. He will also criticize the current Conservative government, saying, "We are concerned there is no activity to advance the agenda."

After 10 years of federal inaction on the commission's recommendations, Mr. Fontaine will argue that it is now a key moment for the country. "Canada is at a crossroads between the paths of co-operation and conflict," the text of his speech states. "We can move forward or we can move backward."

The AFN report card grades the federal government's response to 62 of the royal commission's recommendations, giving an F to 37 of them. The AFN grants only one A, two Bs, 12 Cs and 13 Ds.
The lone A was for the 1996 decision to designate June 21 of each year as National Aboriginal Day.

Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice seized on the AFN's report card yesterday, answering a planted question from a Tory MP on the subject.

"Frankly I agree with the AFN, the Auditor-General and virtually every other independent commentator who has remarked on the terrible Liberal F for their failure and their disgraceful, shameful abandonment of aboriginal Canadians," he said. "Aboriginal Canadians now know they have a government that delivers. No more ducking, dodging, dithering and delaying."

Liberal MP Anita Neville countered with an attack on the Conservatives' record, criticizing the government's decision not to honour the $5.1-billion Kelowna accord, signed at a first ministers meeting last November, and for opposing a United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples.

"How can the Prime Minister pretend to be a voice for human rights, as he declared over the weekend, while at the same time actively working to destroy the declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples?" she asked.

Mr. Prentice said his government is committed to honouring treaties.
"This government does not support this declaration because that particular declaration jeopardizes those treaties, the enforceability and the meaning of them," he said.

FDA has declared that all drug
companies are NOW immune to lawsuits


Sat Nov 18, 2006 2:50 am (PST)
Read the full, astonishing story at:http://www.newstarg et.com/019497. html

You won't believe today's news unless you actually read it. In an unprecedented power grab, the FDA has declared that all drug companies are now immune to lawsuits on any drug that has been granted FDA approval.

It's the biggest handout to drug companies ever, and the action
further establishes the FDA as a rogue agency acting to protect BigPharma, with no respect for the laws of the land or the safety of health consumers.

November 21, 2006


Money News:-
Protestors Clash With Police at G-20 Summit -

AOL Money & Finance
http://money. aol.com/news/ articles/ _a/protestors- clash-with- police-at- g-20/n2006111803 1409990003

Updated:2006- 11-18 15:51:40
Protestors Clash With Police at G-20 Summit
By MERAIAH FOLEY
AP
MELBOURNE, Australia (Nov 18) -- Police on horseback and wielding batons clashed with rock- and bottle-throwing demonstrators outside a meeting of some the world's top financial officials on Saturday, turning what had been promised as a peaceful rally against poverty into running street skirmishes.

One officer was taken to hospital with a wrist broken by a toppled steel barricade and several other police received scratches and bruises but stayed on duty, police said.

Two demonstrators were arrested, and more arrests were expected, Victoria state Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said.

"They threw missiles and rocks, ... bins - anything they could get their hands on they threw it at police and damaged property," she told reporters. "We have not had anything like this, any kind of violent demonstration in the last six years."

Police on horseback and other uniform and riot officers brandishing shields and batons kept protesters out of the plush hotel where U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and top officials from Europe, Asia and Latin America opened two days of talks on global economic issues.

Protesters ripped apart traffic barricades and sprayed slogans on at least one building, Associated Press reporters and photographers at the scene said.

At one place, about 200 demonstrators rained stones, glass bottles and plastic garbage bins down on about one dozen police standing near a police car and truck parked outside the security perimeter, an AP photographer said.

The police ducked behind the vehicles to avoid the barrage, until a contingent of mounted police charged from behind the security fence and drove the demonstrators off.

About 200 charging demonstrators threw brown smoke grenades at a line of mounted police at a barricade but were beaten back by officers wielding batons. It was unclear whether anyone was injured.

About 3,000 people rallied at a city park around midday Saturday, then marched on the meeting of the Group of 20 finance minister and central bankers. But most of the violence appeared to center around a group of about 200 demonstrators dressed in white coveralls with red bandanas tied around their faces.

The group ran from one location to another near the venue, challenging police before retreating.

The unrest recalled the widespread violence at anti-globalization protests that marred the World Trade Organization' s meeting in Seattle in 1999, and a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the following year.

"There is a hardcore militant and violent element among these protesters," Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, the G-20 meeting's chairman, told a news conference after the day's deliberations.

"These are people who want to trash the streets of Melbourne and trash the reputation of Australia ," he said. "We won't stand for that."

Nixon blamed the violence on fewer than 100 protesters dressed in white whom police knew were coming with the intention of creating violence. She would not name the group they represented, saying she did not want to give them publicity.

Inside the hotel, the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers went about their business, discussing the global energy situation, the need to work to revive stalled world trade talks, rising global interest rates and other factors affecting the world's economy, Costello told reporters.

Finance mandarins from 19 countries and the European Union, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund attended the talks. Formed in 1999, the G-20 includes the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries, the EU as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

Reform of the IMF, rising interest rates, the Chinese and Japanese currency levels and efforts to economically isolate nuclear-armed North Korea are also expected to be discussed, along with China and India's surging demand for oil and minerals, which are fanning concerns about unstable supplies and market distortions

Together, the G-20 represents about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of the worlds' trade and two-thirds of its population.

Activists criticized the G-20 on a wide front, including the Iraq war, the environment and Western capitalist systems.

One speaker, Margarita Windisch, called for the arrest of Paul Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy defense secretary who is attending the Melbourne talks as World Bank chief, for his role in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq .

"He has got no right to walk the streets any more," Windisch told the crowd, waving a pair of handcuffs. "We will ask the police to lock up this war criminal."

A group representing major international mining companies, the Energy and Minerals Business Council, is due to address G-20 delegates Saturday - the first time a business group has had direct access to the forum.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

11/18/06 03:07 EST


Money News:-
Protestors Clash With Police at G-20 Summit -

AOL Money & Finance
http://money. aol.com/news/ articles/ _a/protestors- clash-with- police-at- g-20/n2006111803 1409990003

Updated:2006- 11-18 15:51:40
Protestors Clash With Police at G-20 Summit
By MERAIAH FOLEY
AP
MELBOURNE, Australia (Nov 18) -- Police on horseback and wielding batons clashed with rock- and bottle-throwing demonstrators outside a meeting of some the world's top financial officials on Saturday, turning what had been promised as a peaceful rally against poverty into running street skirmishes.

One officer was taken to hospital with a wrist broken by a toppled steel barricade and several other police received scratches and bruises but stayed on duty, police said.

Two demonstrators were arrested, and more arrests were expected, Victoria state Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said.

"They threw missiles and rocks, ... bins - anything they could get their hands on they threw it at police and damaged property," she told reporters. "We have not had anything like this, any kind of violent demonstration in the last six years."

Police on horseback and other uniform and riot officers brandishing shields and batons kept protesters out of the plush hotel where U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and top officials from Europe, Asia and Latin America opened two days of talks on global economic issues.

Protesters ripped apart traffic barricades and sprayed slogans on at least one building, Associated Press reporters and photographers at the scene said.

At one place, about 200 demonstrators rained stones, glass bottles and plastic garbage bins down on about one dozen police standing near a police car and truck parked outside the security perimeter, an AP photographer said.

The police ducked behind the vehicles to avoid the barrage, until a contingent of mounted police charged from behind the security fence and drove the demonstrators off.

About 200 charging demonstrators threw brown smoke grenades at a line of mounted police at a barricade but were beaten back by officers wielding batons. It was unclear whether anyone was injured.

About 3,000 people rallied at a city park around midday Saturday, then marched on the meeting of the Group of 20 finance minister and central bankers. But most of the violence appeared to center around a group of about 200 demonstrators dressed in white coveralls with red bandanas tied around their faces.

The group ran from one location to another near the venue, challenging police before retreating.

The unrest recalled the widespread violence at anti-globalization protests that marred the World Trade Organization' s meeting in Seattle in 1999, and a meeting of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne the following year.

"There is a hardcore militant and violent element among these protesters," Australian Treasurer Peter Costello, the G-20 meeting's chairman, told a news conference after the day's deliberations.

"These are people who want to trash the streets of Melbourne and trash the reputation of Australia ," he said. "We won't stand for that."

Nixon blamed the violence on fewer than 100 protesters dressed in white whom police knew were coming with the intention of creating violence. She would not name the group they represented, saying she did not want to give them publicity.

Inside the hotel, the G-20 finance ministers and central bankers went about their business, discussing the global energy situation, the need to work to revive stalled world trade talks, rising global interest rates and other factors affecting the world's economy, Costello told reporters.

Finance mandarins from 19 countries and the European Union, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund attended the talks. Formed in 1999, the G-20 includes the Group of Seven advanced industrial countries, the EU as well as China, Brazil, India, Russia, South Korea, Argentina, Australia, Indonesia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Turkey.

Reform of the IMF, rising interest rates, the Chinese and Japanese currency levels and efforts to economically isolate nuclear-armed North Korea are also expected to be discussed, along with China and India's surging demand for oil and minerals, which are fanning concerns about unstable supplies and market distortions

Together, the G-20 represents about 90 percent of the world's gross national product, 80 percent of the worlds' trade and two-thirds of its population.

Activists criticized the G-20 on a wide front, including the Iraq war, the environment and Western capitalist systems.

One speaker, Margarita Windisch, called for the arrest of Paul Wolfowitz, the former U.S. deputy defense secretary who is attending the Melbourne talks as World Bank chief, for his role in the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq .

"He has got no right to walk the streets any more," Windisch told the crowd, waving a pair of handcuffs. "We will ask the police to lock up this war criminal."

A group representing major international mining companies, the Energy and Minerals Business Council, is due to address G-20 delegates Saturday - the first time a business group has had direct access to the forum.


Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.

11/18/06 03:07 EST

http://www.countercurrents.org/zeese211106.htm

Milton Friedman On Liberty And Drugs
By Kevin Zeese
21 November, 2006Countercurrents.org
“Political freedom means the absence of coercion of a man by his fellow men”

Since the death last week of Milton Friedman I’ve been thinking about the times that my life crossed paths with his. I’ve got a photograph on my bookshelf of me with him at the conference of the Drug Policy Foundation in 1991. In that year we gave him our most prestigious award, a lifetime achievement award named in honor of noted philanthropist and Chicago commodities trader, Richard Dennis.
When we gave Dr. Friedman the award it was controversial. Many in the reform movement are liberal Democrats who are offended by Friedman’s view that “the government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.” But, no doubt all in the drug policy reform movement would agree with that statement when it is applied to the government’s never-ending war on drugs. As Friedman correctly said: “Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.”
Indeed, Friedman came to the conclusion about the futility of drug prohibition early. When President Nixon started the modern war on drugs he wrote a column in Newsweek criticizing the policy. He warned that it would not reduce addiction but instead would promote crime and corruption repeating the mistake of alcohol prohibition. He concluded: “So long as large sums of money are involved-and they are bound to be if drugs are illegal-it is literally hopeless to expect to end the traffic or even to reduce seriously its scope. In drugs, as in other areas, persuasion and example are likely to be far more effective than the use of force to shape others in our image.” See “Prohibition and Drugs,” at http://www.druglibrary.org/special/friedman/prohibition_and_drugs.htm.
In 1989 when drug czar Bill Bennet was escalating the drug war on behalf of President George H.W. Bush, Friedman wrote an open letter in the Wall Street Journal reminding him that the problems he was trying to combat were the made worse by prohibition. He warned that crack was a product of prohibition correctly pointing out “it was invented because the high cost of illegal drugs made it profitable to provide a cheaper version.” He concluded the letter:
“Moreover, if even a small fraction of the money we now spend on trying to enforce drug prohibition were devoted to treatment and rehabilitation, in an atmosphere of compassion not punishment, the reduction in drug usage and in the harm done to the users could be dramatic.
“This plea comes from the bottom of my heart. Every friend of freedom, and I know you are one, must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.”
See “An Open Letter to Bill Bennett, April 1990 at http://www.fff.org/freedom/0490e.asp.
Friedman’s view of the harms from drugs was not only the wasted money – now about $1 billion per week – but more so the destruction of inner cities, racially unfair incarceration, corruption of the police, wars in Colombia, Mexico and other countries that cost thousands of lives and the corruption of foreign economies as well as our own. The drug war has spurred the largest prison system in history with more than 2 million behind bars – one in four of the world’s prisoners residing in the land of the free. As Friedman pointed out: “Had drugs been decriminalized, crack would never have been invented and there would today be fewer addicts... The ghettos would not be drug-and-crime-infested no-man's lands... Colombia, Bolivia and Peru would not be suffering from narco-terror, and we would not be distorting our foreign policy because of it.”
When Friedman gave his key note address at the Drug Policy Foundation conference in 1991 he did not limit his talk to drug policy. He put forward a wider ranging analysis that covered a host of issues – schools, housing, medical care and the post office. Of course, this just added to the controversy around his nomination. But it was an opportunity to hear a perspective that no doubt held important truths on the limits and fallibility of government – truths that could lead to more sensible approaches whether you completely agreed with Friedman or not. (You can read a transcript of his speech and the questions and answers at http://www.druglibrary.org/special/friedman/socialist.htm.)
Friedman also appeared on a television show we produced, America’s Drug Forum, and I crossed paths with him at two conferences at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and with Arnold Trebach edited a book on the writings of him and psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. He always put forward a clear vision and persistent attitude. Indeed, his persistence is something all advocates can learn from – he went from being ignored and shunned to winning the nobel prize for economics and being an adviser to presidents. His life should give all of us hope that change is possible, indeed it is inevitable, and if we persist change will move in our direction.

Kevin Zeese is president of Common Sense for Drug Policy.

For more on Milton Friedman you can purchase “On Liberty and Drugs” edited by Arnold Trebach and Kevin Zeese at http://www.amazon.com/Friedman-Szasz-Liberty-Drugs-Prohibition/dp/1879189054.
Many of his writings are included in The Schaeffer Library of Drug Policy at
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Misc/friedm1.htm.

November 20, 2006


Older Antipsychotic Drugs As Effective As Newer Ones

By Jean EganNov 20, 2006, 07:00

Older Antipsychotic Drugs As Effective As Newer Ones Best Buy Drug presents large-scale saving opportunity

(HealthNewsDigest.com).. Washington D.C. – People newly diagnosed with schizophrenia should be prescribed a less-expensive, older antipsychotic drug first before more costly newer drugs are tried, according to the latest report from Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs. The report echoes recent research findings that the older drugs work just as well for many people, and at far lower cost. Most of the newer drugs are five to 10 times more expensive than an older generation of antipsychotics, now available as generics. The newer medicines have been heavily marketed in recent years and their sales have soared to more than $10 billion.

In particular, the report chooses generic perphenazine as a Best Buy and recommends that doctors consider prescribing it for newly diagnosed patients and for patients who are currently taking a newer drug but not doing well on it. Perphenazine proved as effective as several newer drugs in one recent major comparison study of antipsychotic drugs. The choice of perphenazine – if a patient responds well to it – could save $200 to $500 a month ($2,400 to $6,000 a year) compared to the frequently prescribed newer drugs Zyprexa and Risperdal, for example, the report says.

However, the report cautions that (a) not all people with schizophrenia will do well on perphenazine; (b) it poses more risk of certain side effects than other antipsychotic drugs and patients must be monitored closely; and (c) people with schizophrenia whose disease is well-controlled on any antipsychotic drug (an older or newer one) should, in general, not be switched to another drug. The report, available free at www.CRBestBuyDrugs.org, is the 16th in a series helping consumers find effective and safe medicines that give them the most value for their health care dollar.

Other reports compare drugs to treat depression, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, asthma, allergies, migraines, insomnia, and overactive bladder. In general, antipsychotic drugs (old and new) play a significant role in helping people with schizophrenia live more meaningful, stable lives with fewer, and sometimes no, periods of hospitalization. But they are a highly problematic class of medicines, too. A sizeable percentage of people with schizophrenia get little or no benefit from them, others get only a minor reduction in symptoms, and a high rate of side effects (some quite serious) pose a major barrier to continuous use. In studies, for example, three of every four people stopped taking an antipsychotic or switched to a different one within 18 months.

Some 3 million Americans have schizophrenia. Hallmark symptoms are disjointed and illogical thinking, fearfulness, agitation, hallucinations, and delusions. Antipsychotics are also approved to treat people with bipolar depression (also called manic depression), which afflicts about 5 million Americans. While helpful in calming “mania” symptoms such as severe agitation, the report advises doctors and consumers to exercise more caution in the routine use of antipsychotics to treat people with bipolar depression in light of recent studies indicating the risks of these medicines. The report also notes that recent research shows that both older and newer antipsychotic drugs present significant risks when used to reduce some symptoms in people with Alzheimer’s disease.

In many – if not most – of such patients, the risk of the drugs outweigh the benefits. Taking effectiveness, safety, side effects, patient variability, dosing convenience, and cost into account, the following Best Buy Drugs were chosen. Generic perphenazine – as initial treatment for people newly diagnosed with schizophrenia and for people with schizophrenia who have failed on a second-generation drug and whose doctor thinks perphenazine is worth a try. Patients taking perphenazine should be closely monitored for muscle tremors and spasms.

Olanzapine (Zyprexa) – for certain people with schizophrenia who take perphenazine first and get no or minimal benefit and/or experience intolerable side effects. For people who are overweight, have blood sugar abnormalities, diabetes, or heart disease, Zyprexa is not a good option. Risperidone (Risperdal) – for people with schizophrenia who take perphenazine first and get minimal benefit and/or experience intolerable side effects. Generic clozapine – for people with moderate to severe schizophrenia who have not responded at all to two or more other antipsychotics and have had little reduction in symptoms.

Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs combines a review of the scientific evidence on the effectiveness and safety of medicines with pricing information. Every report is peer-reviewed by medical experts. The project is independently administered by Consumers Union and Consumer Reports with support from the Engelberg Foundation, a private philanthropy, and the National Library of Medicine. www.HealthNewsDigest.com

© Copyright
by HealthNewsDigest.com

November 19, 2006

And who do you think should pay for this ...?
<1>
http://www.truthout .org/docs_ 2006/111706R. shtml
Military Needs $127 Billion to Fund Iraq, Afghanistan Wars By Richard Wolf USA Today
Thursday 16 November 2006
Washington - The Bush administration is preparing its largest spending request yet for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, a proposal that could make the conflict the most expensive since World War II.
The Pentagon is considering $127 billion to $160 billion in requests from the armed services for the 2007 fiscal year, which began last month, several lawmakers and congressional staff members said. That's on top of $70 billion already approved for 2007.
Since 2001, Congress has approved $502 billion for the war on terror, roughly two-thirds for Iraq. The latest request, due to reach the incoming Democratic-controll ed Congress next spring, would make the war on terror more expensive than the Vietnam War.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., who will chair the Senate Budget Committee next year, said the amount under consideration is "$127 billion and rising." He said the cost "is going to increasingly become an issue" because it could prevent Congress from addressing domestic priorities, such as expanding Medicare prescription drug coverage.
Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., who put the expected request at $160 billion, said such a sizable increase still "won't solve the problem" in Iraq.
Bill Hoagland, a senior budget adviser to Senate Republicans, said: "At a minimum, they were looking at $130 (billion). If it goes higher than that, I'm not surprised."
The new request being considered for the war on terror would be about one-fourth what the government spends annually on Social Security - and 10 times what it spends on its space program.
The White House called the figures premature. "They don't reflect a decision by the administration, " said budget office spokeswoman Christin Baker. "It is much too early in the process to make that determination. "
Before the Iraq war began in 2003, the Bush administration estimated its cost at $50 billion to $60 billion, though White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey had suggested in 2002 that it could cost as much as $200 billion.
Growing opposition to the war contributed to Democrats' takeover of the House and Senate in this month's elections. Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha, an early critic of the war who lost his bid Thursday to be the House Democratic leader, vowed to use his clout as chairman of the House panel that reviews the Pentagon budget "to get these troops out of Iraq and get back on track and quit spending $8 billion a month."
"The war's been an extraordinarily expensive undertaking, both in lives and in dollars," said Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, R-N.H.
The new request is top-heavy with Army and Air Force costs to replace and repair equipment and redeploy troops, Hoagland said. That's why the 2007 cost is likely to top the war's average annual price tag.
Overall, he said, "we're easily headed toward $600 billion." That would top the $536 billion cost of Vietnam in today's dollars. World War II cost an inflation-adjusted $3.6 trillion.
Leon Panetta, President Clinton's former chief of staff and a member of a bipartisan panel studying recommendations on Iraq for President Bush, said the Pentagon needs $50 billion to $60 billion to "restore the units that are being brought back here, to re-equip them and get them back to a combat-readiness status."

Baker, Baker, Baker

At the present time, i am obsessed with the "man" who is to replace Donald Rumsfield. Finding real FACTS and analysis that truly represent the man hasn't been all that easy.

We all know he is an "Iran" man, but just how did this guy get so FAR in pushing his career? Below are a few good links to REAL info:

http://www.tomdispa tch.com/index. mhtml?emx= x&pid=141003

http://townhall. com/Columnists/ RobertDNovak/ 2006/11/11/ gates_old_ enemy

http://www.fas. org/irp/offdocs/ walsh/chap_ 16.htm

http://www.iht. com/articles/ 1991/10/02/ cia_.php

http://www.consorti umnews.com/ archive/lost2. html

http://www.consorti umnews.com/ 2004/071304. html

http://www.truthdig .com/report/ item/20061108_ robert_scheer_ gates_explaining / (Great comments)

http://welcome- to-pottersville. blogspot. com/2006/ 11/maureen- dowd-pouring- chardonnay. html (one to think about)

Holocaust archive tells many new stories


By ARTHUR MAX, Associated Press Writer Sat Nov 18, 5:28 PM ET

BAD AROLSEN, Germany - The 21-year-old Russian sat before a clerk of the U.S. Army Judge Advocate's office, describing the furnaces at Auschwitz, the Nazi death camp where he had been a prisoner until a few weeks previously.

"I saw with my own eyes how thousands of Jews were gassed daily and thrown by the hundreds into pits where Jews were burning," he said.
"I saw how little children were killed with sticks and thrown into the fire," he continued. Blood flowed in gutters, and "Jews were thrown in and died there"; more were taken off trucks and cast alive into the flames.
Today the Holocaust is known in dense and painful detail. Yet the young Russian's words leap off the faded, onionskin page with a rawness that transports the reader back to April 1945, when World War II was still raging and the world still knew little about gas chambers, genocide and the Final Solution.
The two pages of testimony, in a file randomly plucked off a shelf, are among millions of documents held by the International Tracing Service, or ITS, an arm of the International Committee of the Red Cross.
This vast archive — 16 miles of files in six nondescript buildings in a German spa town — contains the fullest records of Nazi persecutions in existence. But because of concerns about the victims' privacy, the ITS has kept the files closed to the public for half a century, doling out information in minimal amounts to survivors or their descendants on a strict need-to-know basis.
This policy, which has generated much ill-feeling among Holocaust survivors and researchers, is about to change.
In May, after years of pressure from the United States and survivors' groups, the 11 countries overseeing the archive agreed to unseal the files for scholars as well as victims and their families. In recent weeks the ITS' interim director, Jean-Luc Blondel, has been to Washington,
The Hague' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> The Hague and to the Buchenwald memorial with a new message of cooperation with other Holocaust institutions and governments.
ITS has allowed Paul Shapiro, of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, to look at the files and has also given The Associated Press extensive access on condition no names from the files are revealed unless they have been identified in other sources.
"This is powerful stuff," said Shapiro, leafing through the file containing the Russian's statement and some 200 other testimonies that take the reader into the belly of Hitler's death machine — its camps, inmates, commandants, executioners and trusted inmates used as low-level guards and known as kapos.
"If you sat here for a day and read these files, you'd get a picture of what it was really like in the camps, how people were treated. Look — names and names of kapos, guards — the little perpetrators," he said.
Moved to this town in central Germany after the war, the files occupy a former barracks of the Waffen-SS, the Nazi Party's elite force. They are stored in long corridors of drab cabinets and neatly stenciled binders packed into floor-to-ceiling metal shelves. Their index cards alone fill three large rooms.
Mandated to trace missing persons and help families reunite, ITS has allowed few people through its doors, and has responded to requests for information on wartime victims with minimal data, even when its files could have told more.
It may take a year or more for the files to open fully. Until then, access remains tightly restricted. "We will be ready any time. We would open them today, if we had the go-ahead," said Blondel.
When the archive is finally available, researchers will have their first chance to see a unique collection of documents on concentration camps, slave labor camps and displaced persons. From toneless lists and heartrending testimony, a skilled historian may be able to stitch together a new perspective on the 20th century's darkest years from the viewpoint of its millions of victims.
"The overall story is pretty well established, but many details will be filled in," said Yehuda Bauer, professor of Holocaust Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
"There is a great deal of very interesting material on a very large number of concentration camps that we really don't know much about," he said. "It may contain surprises. We don't know. It has material that nobody's ever seen."
A visitor to the archive comes into direct contact with the bureaucracy of mass murder.
In a bound ledger with frayed binding, a copy of a list of names appears of Jews rounded up in Holland and transported to the death camps. Buried among the names is "Frank, Annelise M," her date of birth (June 12, 1929), Amsterdam address before she went into hiding (Merwedeplein 37) and the date she was sent to a concentration camp (Sept. 3, 1944).
Frank, Annelise M. is Anne Frank.
She was on one of the last trains to Germany before the Nazi occupation of Holland crumbled. Six months later, aged 15, she died an anonymous death, one of some 35,000 casualties of typhus that ravaged the Bergen-Belsen camp. After the war, "The Diary of Anne Frank," written during her 25 months hiding in a tiny apartment with seven others, would become the most widely read book ever written on the Holocaust.
But most of the lives recorded in Bad Arolsen are known to none but their families.
They are people like Cornelis Marinus Brouwenstijn, a Dutchman who vanished into the Nazi gulag at age 22 for illegally possessing a radio. In a plain manila envelope are his photo, a wallet, some snapshots, and a naughty typewritten joke about women in the army.
After the war, his family repeatedly wrote to the Red Cross asking about him. In 1949, his parents received a terse form letter saying he died sometime between April 19 and May 3, 1945, in the area of a German labor camp. The personal effects, however, remained in Bad Arolsen, and with the family long deceased, there is no one left to apply for their return.
To critics who accuse them of being tightfisted with their information, the Red Cross and ITS counter that they have to abide by German privacy laws and protect the reputations of victims whether alive or dead. They say the files may contain unsubstantiated allegations against victims, and that opening up to researchers would distract ITS from its main task of providing documentation to survivors or victims' relatives.
One area of study that will benefit from the ITS files is the "Lebensborn" program, in which children deemed to have the "proper genes" were adopted or even kidnapped to propagate the Aryan master race of Hitler's dreams.
Another subject is the sheer scope of the Holocaust system. The files will support new research from other sources showing that the network of concentration camps, ghettos and labor camps was nearly three times more extensive than previously thought.
Postwar historians estimated about 5,000 to 7,000 detention sites. But after the Cold War ended, records began pouring out of the former communist nations of East Europe. More sites were disclosed in the last six years in claims by 1.6 million people for slave labor reparations from a $6.6 billion fund financed by the German government and some 3,000 industries.
"We have identified somewhere in the neighborhood of 20,000 camps and ghettos of various categories," said Geoffrey Megargee of the Holocaust Museum in Washington, who is compiling a seven-volume encyclopedia of these detention centers.
The archive has some 3.4 million files of DPs — Displaced Persons. They include names such as John Demjanjuk and Viorel Trifa, who immigrated to the United States and later became internationally known because their role in the Holocaust came into question.
Between 1933 to 1945, the Nazi persecution grew to assembly-line proportions, slaughtering 6 million Jews and an equal number of Gypsies, homosexuals, mental patients, political prisoners and other "undesirables." Tens of millions were conscripted as forced laborers.
To operate history's greatest slaughter, the Nazis created a bureaucracy that meticulously recorded the arrest, movement and death of each victim. Sometimes even the lice plucked from heads in concentration camps were counted.
But as the pace of genocide stepped up, unknown numbers were marched directly from trains to gas chambers without being registered. In the war's final months, the bookkeeping collapsed, though the extermination continued.
What documents survived Nazi attempts to destroy them were collected by the Allies to help people find missing relatives. The first documents were sent in 1946 to Bad Arolsen, and the administration was handed over to the Red Cross in 1955.
Some 50 million pages — scraps of paper, transport lists, registration books, labor documents, medical and death registers — make reference to 17.5 million individuals caught up in the machinery of persecution, displacement and death.
Over the years, the International Tracing Service has answered 11 million requests to locate family members or provide certificates supporting pension claims or reparations. It says it has a 56 percent rate of success in tracing the requested name.
But the workload has been overwhelming. Two years ago it had a backlog of nearly half a million unanswered queries. Director Blondel says the number was whittled down to 155,000 this summer and will disappear by the spring of 2008. New queries have slowed to just 700 a month.
One of ITS' critics is Sabine Stein, archivist at the Buchenwald concentration camp 150 miles from Bad Arolsen. She says the archive's refusal to share its files has caused heartbreak to countless survivors and their descendants.
For instance, in 1989, Emilia Janikowska asked ITS to trace her father, Ludwig Kaminski, a coal miner from Poland who was never heard from again after his arrest in 1939. It took more than three years to send her a standard form reporting Kaminski had died in Buchenwald Dec. 1, 1939.
But there was more she could have been told.
Documents copied by the U.S. Army before they went to Bad Arolsen, which were seen by AP at Buchenwald, include mention of Kaminski. They say he was prisoner No. 8578, that he had arrived in Buchenwald six weeks earlier with 600 other Poles and had been placed in Camp 2. The known history of Buchenwald says Camp 2 was a wooden barracks and four big tents, jammed with 1,000 Poles and Vienna Jews. Dozens of inmates died from the cold that winter. The cause of Kaminski's death was pneumonia.
No one ever told his daughter any of this.
"We had no news from my father since the moment he was arrested," Janikowska said when contacted at her home in Krakow, Poland. She now wants more information for a compensation request.
Archivist Stein says: "Former inmates and their families want to see some tangible part of their history; they want to tell their stories," she said. "What I find most frustrating is that they have all these documents and they are just sitting on them."
Earlier this month, ITS went some way to make amends, delivering a full inventory of its records on Buchenwald and promising to give priority in searching for 1,000 names Stein had requested.
Compounding the delay in releasing the files is the cumbrous makeup of the governing committee. Any decision on their future requires the assent of all 11 member nations — Belgium, Britain, France, Germany, Greece,
Israel' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Poland and the United States.
Last May's agreement to open the archive stipulates that it will remain off-limits until formal ratification by the 11 governments. After that, each of the 11 countries can have a digital copy of the files and decide who has access to it.
But some delegations are worried the process will take too long, at a time when aged survivors are dying every day.
"What victims of these crimes fear the most is that when they disappear — and it's happening very fast now — no one will remember the names of the families they lost," said Shapiro of the Washington museum, who was a delegate to the talks.
"It's not a diplomatic timetable, and not an archivist's timetable, but the actuarial table. If we don't succeed in having this material public while there are still survivors, then we failed," he said.
___
AP correspondents Melissa Eddy in Buchenwald, Randy Herschaft in Washington D.C., and Monika Scislowska in Warsaw contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
International Tracing Service: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_eu/storytext/the_holocaust_papers/20991966/SIG=10sliirf4/*http://www.its-arolsen.org
U.S. Holocaust Museum: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_eu/storytext/the_holocaust_papers/20991966/SIG=10mihbisi/*http://www.ushmm.org
Yad Vashem: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_re_eu/storytext/the_holocaust_papers/20991966/SIG=10qnubtoc/*http://www.yadvashem.org

November 12, 2006


NeoCon Continuity at the Pentagon:

Robert Gates Involved in Iran-Contra Scandal

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, November 9, 2006
It is unlikely that the appointment of Robert M. Gates will lead to a significant change in direction with regard to the Middle East War. Washington's appointee to replace Rumsfeld at the helm of the DoD is part of the same stable of Iran-Contra officials. The Iran-Contra Affair was a CIA sponsored covert operation during the Reagan administration which consisted in financing the Nicaraguan Contras from the proceeds of illegal covert arms sales to Iran. As a senior CIA official (who was later appointed to head the agency), Robert M. Gates had close personal ties to key figures in the Iran-Contra affair. There is evidence that he lied to Congress. He was, however, never indicted nor was he formally accused of having committed acts of perjury.
"Gates was an early subject of Independent Counsel's investigation, but the investigation of Gates intensified in the spring of 1991 as part of a larger inquiry into the Iran/contra activities of CIA officials.... Gates consistently testified that he first heard on October 1, 1986, from Charles E. Allen, the national intelligence officer who was closest to the Iran initiative, that proceeds from the Iran arms sales may have been diverted to support the Contras. Other evidence proves, however, that Gates received a report on the diversion during the summer of 1986 from DDI Richard Kerr. The issue was whether Independent Counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Gates was deliberately not telling the truth when he later claimed not to have remembered any reference to the diversion before meeting with Allen in October. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Gates )
In 1987, Robert M. Gates' nomination by the Reagan adminstration to head the CIA was withdrawn, amidst controversy on his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Four years later, in October 1991, Gates was appointed to the helm of the CIA by President George H. W. Bush, following lengthy confirmation hearings under the auspices of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. According to previously classified documents made public by the Senate Committee, "Mr. Gates [had] distorted intelligence reports so they would conform to the political beliefs of his superiors." (NYT, 1 October 1991). "Although the Central Intelligence Agency's involvement in the covert world of coups, assassination plots and spy operations has periodically come under public scrutiny, never before in the agency's 44-year history has the bare-knuckles atmosphere of its analytical side been so exposed to view, senior officials of the agency said." (Ibid)
Central Role of the Iraq Study Group in Gates' Nomination
The nomination of Robert M. Gates to head the Department of Defense was not decided by President Bush, on the spare of the moment, in the wake of the November 7 elections.
In March, Robert Gates integrated the Iraq Study Group (ISG) co-chaired by James Baker III and former Congressman Lee Hamilton. The ISG held secretive meetings focussing on the process of political transition after the mid-term elections. Its major objective is to ensure continuity in the US military agenda under a negotiated bipartisan arrangement.
Other members of the ISG are Clinton's adviser Vernon Jordan, former Attorney General Edwin Meese, retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta, former Defense Secretary William Perry, former Senator and Governor of Virginia Charles Robb, and former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson.
In all likelihood, Robert M. Gates' candidacy to replace Donald Rumsfeld had been discussed behind closed doors under the auspices of the ISG.
"Since March, Baker, backed by a team of experienced national-security hands, has been busily at work trying to devise a fresh set of policies... "Baker is primarily motivated by his desire to avoid a war at home--that things will fall apart not on the battlefield but at home. So he wants a ceasefire in American politics," a member of one of the commission's working groups told me. Specifically, he said, if the Democrats win back one or both houses of Congress in November, they would unleash a series of investigative hearings on Iraq, the war on terrorism, and civil liberties that could fatally weaken the administration and remove the last props of political support for the war, setting the stage for a potential Republican electoral disaster in 2008. "I guess there are people in the [Republican] party, on the Hill and in the White House, who see a political train wreck coming, and they've called in Baker to try to reroute the train." (See Robert Dreyfuss, http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2006/0609.dreyfuss.html)
Unfolding Bipartisan Consensus
Former Secretary of State James Baker III played a central role in the Robert M. Gates nomination. Consultations had been initiated and Rumsfeld was in all likelihood informed of what constitutes a carefully planned political transition.
James Baker has a longstanding relationship to the Bush family. As chief legal advisor to George W. Bush in 2000, he was involved in "overseeing the Florida recount." as well as securing the timely support of the Supreme Court. Moreover, he is senior counsel as well as a major shareholder of the Carlyle Group, which has sizeable financial interests in Iraq. Moreover, Baker's law firm Baker & Botts acted on behalf of Enron since 1997.
The Gates nomination ultimately serves the interests of the Texas oil companies and the military-industrial complex including the Carlyle Group. Moreover, James Baker III had no doubt secured the support of key Democrats for Gates nomination to the Pentagon prior to the mid-term elections. In other words, the decision to nominate Gates did not hinge upon the Republicans' defeat on November 7. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner "hopes Defense Secretary-designate Robert Gates can be confirmed [by the outgoing Senate dominated by the Republicans] before the end of the year". Democrats in the Senate have already intimated that "they will probably support Gates". "I'm going to give it a fair and fresh look," said Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee:
"I [Carl Levin] expect, relative to his successor or potential successor, that the Armed Services Committee and the Senate will give very careful consideration to the forthcoming nomination of Robert Gates to be secretary of defense.
I've already talked to Chairman Warner and I assured him that I will do everything I can to facilitate his consideration during the upcoming lame-duck session.
And, of course, Chairman Warner assured me that we would follow the usual processes, and that means that we would be providing questions to him for the record and we'd be having hearings. (CQ Transcription, 8 Nov 2006)
Senator Joe Biden has also signified his acceptance of the Gates nomination.ISG Agenda: The Partition of Iraq, Iran and Syria
The ISG, which has played a key role in securing the Robert M. Gates nomination, favors the partition of Iraq into several "autonomous" proxy States.
The group [ISG] would recommend breaking Iraq up into "three highly autonomous regions." According to "informed sources" cited by the paper, the Iraq group "has grown increasingly interested in the idea of splitting the Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish regions of Iraq ... His [Baker's] group will not advise 'partition,' but is believed to favor a division of the country that will devolve power and security to the regions, leaving a skeletal national government in Baghdad in charge of foreign affairs, border protection and the distribution of oil revenue. The Iraqi government will be encouraged to hold a constitutional conference paving the way for greater devolution. Iran and Syria will be urged to back a regional settlement that could be brokered at an international conference."
(Daily Star, 12 Oct 2006 http://www.iraqupdates.com/p_articles.php/article/11032 )
This strategy of partition along ethnic lines --which was applied in Yugoslavia-- is by no means limited to Iraq. It is also contemplated for Iran and Syria as part of the Pentagon's "New Middle East". (See map below). The proposed borders under the New Middle East Map" are intimately related to oil and oil pipelines. An Arab Sunni State would also encompass part of Iran including its extensive oil fields. A portion of Syrian territory would be annexed to "Greater Lebanon", which would form a "strategic corridor" along the Eastern Mediterranean coastline linking Turkey to Israel.
Oppose the Robert M. Gates Nomination
In a bitter irony, "the defeat of the Republicans" has served to reinforce rather than weaken the Neoconservative grip on US foreign policy. If Robert M. Gates is appointed Secretary of Defense (in a prearranged bipartisan consensus), one can expect the military agenda in Iraq to be directed more forecefully towards the breaking up of Iraq as a nation. The Iran Contra affair in which Robert Gates was implicated was part of the architecture of the "war on terrorism". What is rarely acknowledged is that part of the proceeds of the illegal weapons sales to Iran were also used to finance the CIA sponsored Islamic brigades (i.e. Al Qaeda) involved in the Soviet-Afghan war. These covert operations in support of Al Qaeda paved the way for the "war on terrorism" which constitutes the cornerstone of US National Security doctrine. The Republicans are anxious to finalize the confirmation hearings prior to the instatement of the new Senate and House in January. California Democrat Nancy Pelosi, who is slated to become the next speaker of the House, has not signified her disapproval of the nomination of Robert M. Gates.
It is absolutely essential for US citizens to join hands in opposing the Robert Gates nomination, by pressuring the Senate and House of Representatives, with a view to blocking the appointment of Robert Gates at the upcoming confirmation hearings. Gates' involvement in the Iran-Contra affair should be sufficient to forcefully block his nomination to the position of Secretary of Defense.
New Middle East Map
Note: The following map was prepared by Col. Ralph Peters. It was published in the Armed Forces Journal in June 2006, Peters is a retired colonel of the U.S. National War Academy. Although the map does not reflect official Pentagon doctrine, it has been used in a training program at NATO's Defense College for senior military officers. This map as well as similar maps have most probably been used at the National War Academy as well as in military planning.

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of the international best America’s "War on Terrorism" Second Edition, Global Research, 2005. He is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Center for Research on Globalization.
To order Chossudovsky's book
America's "War on Terrorism", click here Note: Readers are welcome to cross-post this article with a view to spreading the word and warning people of the dangers of a broader Middle East war. Please indicate the source and copyright note.

Okay. The "Russian Oil" update.
Always check what the left hand is doing!!!

http://news.google.com/news?ie=utf8&oe=utf8&persist=1&hl=en&client=google&ncl=http://freeinternetpress.com/story.php%3Fsid%3D9225

Here is a sad story.
What should have been done?

The trial that would never come for Rosie Sims


Schizophrenic ran out of time while delays kept her from court

08:45 PM CST on Friday, November 10, 2006
By JAMES M. O'NEILL / The Dallas Morning News
Seventh in a series
The voices told Rosie someone was trying to steal her money.
So on the morning of Oct. 20, 2003, she took a small knife and headed to the bank up the street. The voices told her to attack the bank manager. She did what the voices told her to do.
After Rosie was subdued, the police took her back to the jail she had left only months before. Her bail was set at $35,000.
Again, she was assigned an isolation cell. Again, she spent her days chanting back at the voices.
At the competency hearing Jan. 15, 2004, Dr. Michael Pittman said Rosie was "hallucinating voices from God, and ... hallucinating voices from her sister." When he had tried to discuss her trial with her, Rosie's response was so off-topic he could "just as well have been talking about the far side of the moon."
When Magistrate Terrie McVea asked if Rosie could be faking incompetence, Dr. Pittman noted that people who fake usually have no prior psychiatric history.
DallasNews.com/Extra
Read previous installments of "Rosie's Journey"
"They'll start putting on an act ... barking like a dog or complaining of seeing little green men. People who fake make good sense. Ms. Sims' ... thought processes go from point A to X to P, and there's no rhyme or reason about how she got to all those places. People with schizophrenia do that. It's very difficult to fake that sort of thing."
The doctor also noted that Rosie was in an isolation cell, similar to those reserved for people charged with capital murder. He said that people who fake mental illness and find themselves in an isolation cell "start getting better ... real fast."
On Feb. 3, when Rosie was sent back to Vernon State Hospital, the cotton harvest was nearly over. As she rode in the sheriff's van, its windows framed a view of the passing fields, punctuated by the bare, spindly, rust-colored cotton stalks. Tufts of cotton, blown off trucks heading to the gins, would have caught in the grass at the edge of the road, like the remnants of a snow squall.
Perhaps it all reminded her of Floydada, on the Texas High Plains, where she raised her children, where she helped neighborhood kids with homework, where she made pecan pies and entertained her friends while doing their hair.
Perhaps. This time when Rosie arrived at Vernon, now as familiar as any other place in her life, she refused medication, and staffers used restraints. They gave her Zyprexa. They added Haldol. They switched to Zydis. They added Lithium. They raised the dose. Then raised it some more.
Eventually, Rosie's mind responded. And she was returned to the Dallas jail.
On Oct. 29, 2004, Dr. Pittman told the judge that Rosie appeared competent for her trial on the bank attack. "Her condition is precarious, though, and it could worsen," he added.
The court system staggered along. Rosie sat in jail. A hearing was scheduled for January, then rescheduled for February. It was passed on to March. Her case was finally set for trial on April 15, tax day. Then it was cancelled and passed to May.
Rosie spent her 60th birthday in her cell. She missed daughter Tosha's April wedding.
On May 8, 2005, Rosie's older daughter, Melissa Lomack, brought her children to visit their grandmother in the jail. Melissa had not brought them to visit before because she did not want them to remember their grandmother in such a setting.
But this was Mother's Day.
Melissa sat in a plastic chair, with 6-year-old Tati on her lap. Michael, 13, stood behind her. They faced a plate-glass window. On the other side was a booth with a door that led to the jail cells.
When the door opened and the guard escorted Rosie into the booth, she was all smiles.
"She was cheesing, looking at the kids," Melissa said. Melissa and her mom spoke by way of phones hanging on the wall on each side of the window. Rosie asked how the grandchildren were doing. It was the last time she would see them.
Into November of 2005, Rosie waited for trial.
On Nov. 8, as she routinely did, Tosha called Rosie at the jail to chat. Then she called the nurse's station, because her mother didn't sound right.
Five days later, on the night of Nov. 13, the nurse's station received an urgent call from Rosie's cell: Inmate down.
E-mail rosie@dallasnews.com

November 10, 2006

Could say ... time to remember as the topic here.
http://www.indianz. com/News/2006/ 016862.asp
Editorial: Another good shot emerges for Cobell
Friday, November 10, 2006 With Congress headed back to Washington next week under a new Democratic majority, Indian Country can get to work on a real settlement to the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.

The case came close to resolution this summer when the Senate Indian Affairs Committee advanced an $8 billion settlement that the plaintiffs and Indian stakeholders were willing to accept. But Sen. John McCain, who spent more time investigating than legislating during his past two years as chairman of the panel, unwisely let the Bush administration delay the bill not just once, but twice.

Then he let the White House kill the settlement altogether by unleashing the October Surprise -- a plan to terminate the trust without paying for past mistakes. Former National Congress of American Indians president Tex Hall rightly called it the "weakest proposal I've ever seen in my 10 years as being a tribal leader."

No one knows for sure why McCain relented, especially after he boasted that he and Congress have never bowed to the wishes of the executive branch, or anyone else for that matter. "Excuse me," he said at a hearing, his code words for "You are wrong, I am right."

As a leader on Indian issues, McCain can definitely play an important role in the 110th Congress as the plaintiffs push for a fair settlement. "We will work closely with the new Congress to resolve the litigation fairly and expeditiously, " Elouise Cobell, the lead plaintiff, said yesterday.

But he gave it his "one good shot" -- those were his words remember? -- and he failed. The Democratic takeover, though, gives everyone a new start that few could have envisioned a couple of weeks ago.

With that in mind, a settlement should do the following:

• Settle the Cobell historical accounting -- and only the Cobell historical accounting -- for billions. Tribal claims should not be touched
.• Establish a commission, panel, board or other entity that will develop fiduciary standards to manage trust funds and assets. The trustee should be held accountable to the standards.
• Eliminate the Office of Special Trustee, a move that will put the Indian back in Bureau of Indian Affairs. Ross Swimmer will be looking for a new job soon anyway.

Resolving fractionated heirships is a lofty goal but not one for inclusion in the bill. After all, didn't Congress just pass yet another round of amendments to the Indian Land Consolidation Act?

"It's not the root cause of the mismanagement we're talking about," Cobell said of fractionation on Native America Calling on Monday. It's obvious that it will take serious study, and resources, before more legislation on this issue.
Finally, Congress must adequately fund the BIA so that it can fix the problems and carry out future solutions. The money to do this can't come from the settlement.

Once the suit is settled, Indian Country can work on other equally pressing issues that the Bush administration cast aside in order to blame inaction on Cobell. The 110th Congress gives everyone another good shot.

Briefing Paper:
(SCIA 10/23)
Press Release:
(SCIA 10/19)
Relevant Documents:
Staff Draft of Cobell Settlement Bill (Posted by ITMA)
Senate Indian Affairs Committee Statement:
INDIAN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE POSTPONES CONSIDERATION OF TRUST REFORM LEGISLATION (August 2, 2006)
Indian Trust Reform Act:S.1439 H.R.4322
Relevant Links:Senate Indian Affairs Committee - http://indian. senate.gov Indian Trust: Cobell v. Kempthorne - http://www.indiantr ust.com
Office of Special Trustee - http://www.ost. doi.gov
Cobell v. Norton, Department of Justice - http://www.usdoj. gov/civil/ cases/cobell/ index.htm
Copyright © 2000-2006 www.Indianz.Com
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"It is also in the interests of a tyrant to keep his people poor, so that they may not be able to afford the cost of protecting themselves by arms and be so occupied with their daily tasks that they have no time for rebellion." - Aristotle
Lucha Sigue! The Struggle Continues! Vote and Register La Raza Unida Party! Que Viva La Raza!

"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." "Service is the rent we pay for the privilege of living on this earth."--Shirley Chisholm

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Peace and Dignity Project/Proyecto Paz y Dignidad,Support the Kumeyaay Children's Shelter of Tecate www.peaceanddignity project.org

http://www.freedomfiles.org/ war/fema.htm U.S. Military killed in action in
Iraq today 11/8/06):3
Current Total: 2,858 Wounded Total (to 10/31/06):
21, 419 Wounded (10/26-10/31) :
153 video on counter-recruitment from Project YANO http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=ZFsaGv6cefw

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