DEVON POLICE RADIO FEARS TO BE AIRED AT CONFERENCE
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BY ANDREW MOSLEY
HEALTH CORRESPONDENT


12:00 - 13 May 2003

Devon police officers' fears over a new emergency communications system are to be highlighted at a national conference today. Steve Pearce, chairman of the Devon and Cornwall branch of the Police Federation, which represents hundreds of rank and file officers, says more research is
needed before the new Tetra system is introduced.

The police constable, who is in Blackpool for the federation's annual three-day conference starting today, said: "Our roll-out of masts has been delayed until the spring of 2005 because of the anti-mast campaign, so we do have a comfort zone.

"My concern, and that of the federation, is for the health of officers across Devon and Cornwall and that is the stance we are taking."

The Police Federation says some officers elsewhere in the country have reported headaches and nausea after using radios linked to the Tetra system. It believes its members are being used as guinea pigs.

"We are calling for further research and closer monitoring of officers using the system," said Mr Pearce.

"Devon and Cornwall Police Federation has been at the forefront of raising concerns over health risks in Tetra."

Plans to introduce the Tetra radio masts in Devon were last year put on ice until 2005 because of the strength of public opinion.

Airwave, the company responsible for installing the new mobile phone transmitters, confirmed the delay was due to the number of petitions against its planning applications, mainly on health grounds.

Campaigners welcome the delay because it will enable them to gather more objections.

Devon and Cornwall police would have been one of the first forces to use the new Tetra system, but are now likely to be among the last.

The Echo's Shock Waves campaign has highlighted many of the public protests against the Tetra masts, including:

Plans for a mast in Casely Woods, Lustleigh, which the Dartmoor National Park Authority refused on the grounds of visual impact;

An application for a Tetra mast at Moretonhampstead Fire Station, which was withdrawn by communications firm mmO2 (UK) Ltd, after the fire service said it did not want the masts on its land - Devon Fire Authority later banned masts and aerials from its stations;

Firm mm02 being asked to submit new plans for an alternative site for a 45ft-high mast alongside the new A30 at Gittisham, near Honiton;

Residents in Pennsylvania currently fighting an application to install additional equipment on a police mast.

 http://www.thisisnorthdevon.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=103352&command=displayContent&sourceNode=103341&contentPK=5551658

Informant: Reinhard Rueckemann

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Ban on cellphone use by young drivers urged
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By Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters, 6/4/2003

WASHINGTON -- Young drivers should not be allowed to use cellphones when they get behind the wheel, US traffic safety officials said yesterday after reviewing a fatal crash involving a 20-year-old who was on a mobile phone when she lost control of her sport utility vehicle.

The Feb. 1, 2002, accident on the Capital Beltway outside Washington killed five people, including the driver, who had purchased the SUV that day and who made or received 15 calls on her mobile phone in the four hours before the crash.

''The accident-driver's distraction due to the wireless telephone conversation with her friend contributed to her loss of control of the vehicle,'' the National Transportation Safety Board concluded after a hearing.

Gusty winds nudged the car to the right, and the driver steered to the left, sending the car hurtling across a median and into oncoming traffic, where it landed on a minivan, killing four adults near Largo, Md.

The safety board acknowledged other factors in the accident -- the wind and the outdated median barriers among them -- but concluded that inexperience coupled with the use of a mobile phone was enough to merit curbs for young drivers.

Among the fifty states, only New York bars drivers with learner's permits and intermediate licenses from using wireless devices while they drive. The board urged the other states to adopt such laws.

To help track any correlation between mobile phone use and traffic accidents, the board has asked states to add codes to their accident investigation forms that take driver distraction into account. Only 16 states have such codes now.

The board's investigators said 24 countries have bans on mobile phone use by drivers.

The board's project manager, Michele McMurtry, listed various things that could distract drivers, ranging from disciplining children to adjusting the radio to swatting a bug. ''In particular, in the Washington area, we see a lot of people reading newspapers, magazines, books,'' McMurtry said.

She said a mobile phone or other distraction might hold a driver's attention for one to 1 1/2 seconds, enough time for a fast-moving vehicle to travel 200 feet.

There are about 145 million cellphone users in the United States, and about 67 percent of licensed drivers have cellphones.

This story ran on page A2 of the Boston Globe on 6/4/2003.

 http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/155/nation/Ban_on_cellphone_use_by_young_drivers_urged+.shtml

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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Update FEMU database

Hi all, not sure if you got this latest update including FEMU database

 http://toastedbytowers.shorturl.com/ not doing much lately but trying to update the Ouruhia website and setting up a new one specifically for Cellphones and cellsites in NZ to accompany a nationwide advertising campaign that were trying to raise another $40,000 for, have $10,000 so far, but are being sidetracked with NZs power crises that we might insist on powerline corridors and windfarms instead of hydro. Always too many bases to cover with too few and one less now we have lost our champion Neil.

----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2003 6:28 AM

Subject: Canada website - new address
 http://toastedbytowers.shorturl.com/

 http://emf-canada.shorturl.com/

Original address still works too,
 http://members.aol.com/gotemf/emf/

Informant: PW.DM.WARD

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The Enronization Of Public Policy
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By Arianna Huffington

Has there ever been a clearer, more irrefutable example of our political leaders' lack of a moral compass than the clandestine, eleventh-hour elimination of a promised child tax credit for almost 12 million of America's poorest children?

It's a move that is so cold-hearted and so profoundly dishonorable that it could only have been made by people who have lost all moral direction.

A magnetic compass should always point north; a moral compass should always point out what is moral -- and immoral. Heaping billions on the rich while ensuring that one out of six American kids doesn't get a penny is dead wrong.

But that's exactly what Congressional Republicans did -- and what President Bush signed off on.

This is not a right/left issue. It's a right/wrong issue. But the GOP's self-appointed morality czars have been deafeningly silent on this bit of economic indecency. I guess Bill Bennett was too busy shaking the hands of every one-armed bandit in Vegas to notice.

Adding to the obscenity is the fact that while the Congressional hatchet men were hacking up the $3.5 billion child tax credit in the name of keeping the total tax cut under $350 billion, they let stand billions in corporate tax dodges and accounting cons, including the use of offshore tax havens.

The White House labeled this particular piece of supply-side porn the Jobs and Growth Act. I guess the Leave No Corporate Loophole Behind Act didn't focus group as well.

The last few years have shown us what happens when an entire subculture loses its moral compass: Enron, Tyco, Adelphia, WorldCom, et al. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the current administration has embraced the unethical ethos of the corporate oligarchy from which so many of its members came -- and which all of them continue to serve. The same inability to distinguish right from wrong that characterized the corporate scandals is now dominating public policy.

It's the Enronization of Washington.

Want more proof? How about the unprecedented aircraft-leasing deal currently being put together by the Pentagon and Boeing -- a plan that uses the same kind of accounting sleight-of-hand popularized by the gang at Enron. Here's how it works: instead of the Pentagon buying the 100 new
jets it wants to use as aerial refueling tankers directly from Boeing, at an upfront cost of $138 million per plane, a special-purpose entity created on Wall Street will purchase the planes and lease them to the Air Force.

That way the Pentagon gets to acquire the planes without having to dip into the Air Force's limited procurement budget, and Boeing gets to reap billions in new military contracts without having to show the debt associated with the shady deal on its balance sheet. It's an off-the-books win-win deal for them both -- but a losing proposition for taxpayers, who'll end up forking over an additional $8 billion to cover the interest payments on the leases.

The sleazy new deal is being put together by the good bankers at Citigroup -- the same outfit that helped Enron defraud shareholders out of, what do you know, also $8 billion. Who says irony is dead?

Then there is the news that, in an effort to ensure the passage of its cherished tax-cut plan, the Bush administration buried a highly damaging study -- commissioned by its own Treasury department -- that found that it would take either the permanent elimination of all future federal discretionary spending or an immediate and permanent tax hike of 66 percent to cover the upcoming retirement and healthcare needs of aging baby boomers. You think that bombshell might have put a little damper on
Bush's tax cut orgy?

This is exactly the kind of skullduggery corrupt corporations used to conceal potentially disastrous news from investors -- like Adelphia hiding its $3.1 billion loans to the Rigas family in tiny footnotes in an earnings filing.

Like many disgraced companies, the White House has proven adept at playing fast and loose with the numbers in order to mislead its "shareholders" -- the American people. Take the administration's shifty use of "averages" to make it seem like the new tax cut benefits everyone -- claiming that "91 million taxpayers will receive, on average, a tax cut of $1,226," when, in fact, the majority of households will receive a tax cut of $100 or less.

Or the way it used sure-to-be-repealed "sunset clauses" to make it seem as if the president was reasonably settling for a $350 billion tax cut, when the actual price tag on the new bill will be close to $1 trillion.

It's the kind of economic book cooking that would do ol' Kenny Boy Lay proud.

It's time to expand the Right's definition of immorality beyond sex, drugs, and rock and roll to include lying, cheating, and callous indifference to those in need.

CEOs lying to investors to pad their own pockets is bad enough. Political leaders lying to the American people to pad the pockets of their big buck contributors is immoral -- and intolerable.

 http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/files/060403.html

Arianna Huffington is the author of "Pigs at the Trough: How Corporate Greed and Political Corruption are Undermining America." For information on the book, visit www.PigsAtTheTrough.com

If you have questions or comments, contact Arianna at  arianna@ariannaonline.com

Arianna's column is syndicated nationwide by Tribune Media Services

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Pentagon Tool Records User's Every Sense
 http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030602/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/pentagon_super_diary_3

Informant: Harlan Girard

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Ex-weapons inspector and former Marine Scott Ritter is calling for regime change in Washington
 http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3233.htm

 http://www.liberalslant.com/wdj040103.htm


National Press Club Invites Ramsey Clark to be Featured Speaker at Upcoming May 12 Luncheon in Washington, D.C.

As the country prepares to enter the next election cycle, Ramsey Clark will make a national address on how "U.S. Militarism Threatens the Destiny of Humanity," at the National Press Club on May 12. Mr. Clark will also charge George W. Bush and his administration with committing high crimes and misdemeanors warranting impeachment. For those in the D.C. metropolitan area who would like to attend in person, advance reservations can be made by telephoning the Press Club at (202) 662-7501. For additional information on the luncheon event go to:

 http://npc.press.org/calendar/calendarday.cfm?whatday=12&&whatyear=2003&&whatmonth=5



Plutonium Dangers - Who's Watching?
 http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/1993/may93/may93Gofman.html


The Silent Genocide from America
 http://www.rense.com/general37/InvisibleGenocid.html


Informant: Jonathan Mark

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Ex-army chief: Pentagon lied about occupation Telegraph [UK]
 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/06/04/wirq04.xml


Blair faces probe over WMD threat - CNN
 http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/06/03/blair.weapons.probe/


How the big lie about Iraq came to be
 http://www.salon.com/opinion/scheer/2003/06/04/wmd/


Wolfowitz: war was about oil Guardian Unlimited [UK]
 http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,970334,00.html


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp

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US sets new plan of attack for North Korea
 http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/newsArticle.asp?id=756


Views of a Changing World 2003
 http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=185