Hi everybody,
Nonconformist formerly known as Caucasian salutes you..

How are you Katso?

He got bored of the abuse, chorney

IGOR:

there was once a gang of 'holy warrior' types
here, but that was over a year ago.
the only miscreant who comes to mind is the
[expletive] a/k/a ADDER21, long banished from
here.
===
your J.D. went in the mail yesterday, mum!
lololol i dont mean 'Jack Daniels'; i'd never get
out of bed, but for strategic application of the
...um...'hangover cure'.

but, [grin] now that i mention it...

===
{+3sk}

No I am talking about the rational one Saladin I think was his name.

Hi, Kim. Weekend?;o) Another Purim.

Monday, Mar. 12, 2001 TIME.com: On the one hand Israel has Ramallah in a stranglehold; on the other hand it's lifting the blockade on a number of West Bank cities and talking of allowing Palestinian workers back into Israel. What's Ariel Sharon's game?
Jamil Hamad: What Sharon is doing is repeating what he did in Gaza many years ago when he was the Israeli commander there. He adopted the policy of making life for ordinary Palestinians easier, but at the same time giving the hard-liners and militants a hell of a time, trying to isolate them in the Palestinian population.
So now we see that Sharon has instructed the army to lift the closure of Tulkarm, Hebron, Bethlehem and Qalqilya, and they're saying they're going to open the borders and allow Palestinians to go back to work in Israel.
They're saying they're keeping Ramallah under siege because they have information that a terrorist cell is trying to send a car full of explosives to Israel, and that they'll maintain the siege until they capture this cell. Sharon doesn't believe in collective punishment, but he wants to send a message that he'll take a tough line against armed people. He wants to turn Palestinian public opinion against those who are shooting at Israel.
Is he succeeding?
Let's wait and see. If he opens the gates for the workers and allows people to work in Israel freely, I believe he's going to succeed. Ordinary Palestinians are not talking about a state now, or about freedom and independence. They're talking about how to find a side road to get to work by avoiding Israeli roadblocks.
You have to understand that this is no longer about an intifada. Where are the marches and demonstrations, or the civil disobedience? It's gone; it's history now. Nobody is talking intifada. Bullets are talking; M-16s and Kalashnikovs are talking. But this is not an intifada. If you want to win world public opinion, you don't shoot at Gilo. All that achieves is the destruction of 200 Palestinian houses, so it's a losing battle. If you want to fight, you have to have a strategy, and part of that program is that you can't allow your own people to suffer without end. That's not happening. People are starving, and unemployment is near 50 percent. You can't feed people with slogans.
So what is Arafat's strategy?
As far as I can tell, Arafat has no strategy, he has only tactics. He's hoping that Sharon will make a stupid mistake, kill 200 Palestinians and attract world condemnation. But Sharon is aware of that, and he's not going to give Arafat the pleasure. But having gotten the wider Arab and Muslim world involved in the conflict since late last year, Arafat has left himself very little room to maneuver on the key issues. He's stuck.
So the Palestinian leadership has no answer to the strategy of Sharon. If Israel allows Palestinians to return to work, Sharon's plan will succeed. Arafat can't keep saying the intifada will continue when the main concern of his people is to feed themselves and earn some income. If the Palestinian leadership keeps operating in this way, I predict that Sharon will easily survive his three-year term. His best assets may be his enemies, both on the Israeli and the Palestinian side.

Kim are you working in a laboratory in Switzerland?

Konbanwa, Kisako!
2335

thanks for that post just now;
goodness knows you'll threaten your reputation
w/BACON...

but really.
==
{+3sk}

(ctd.)
but why, you ask?
because, k-san...
sometimes i read the newspaper, then i come to
this happy place,
and i feel much tension for you.
{wink/eyeroll/sigh}

good night.

Not exactly Chorny, I'm working over the biggest particle excellerator in the world, until the Americans catch us up next year.
http://lhc.web.cern.ch/lhc/

also: http://WWW (home of the web)

BTW Salladin left about the time the so-called "committee' was at the height of its antics.

Morning, Mum!
0748
===
Salladin?
"committee"?

ummm....no, wait--ummm...
lolololol i'm not sure of where/what we speak, so
i'll just sit here quietly.

best of...
=====
{+3sk}

US u-turn on emissions fuels anger

Special report: global warming
Special report: George Bush's America

Julian Borger in Washington and Ian Black in Brussels
Thursday March 15, 2001
The Guardian

President George Bush has withdrawn a campaign pledge to limit carbon dioxide emissions, causing a split in his cabinet and an angry response from Europe.

The sudden about turn on carbon dioxide removes the gas from a list of emissions the Bush camp had promised would be subject to controls.

The White House declaration that the pledge was "a mistake" represented a particular humiliation for the head of the environmental protection agency, Christine Todd Whitman, who had restated the pledge only
days earlier.

The switch is also a rebuke for the treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, who has said that the threat of global warming was equal to the prospect of a nuclear holocaust.

Moderate Republicans and even some power companies who had urged that environmental measures be taken sooner rather than later were also disappointed.

The decision allies Mr Bush with the big energy corporations which were big contributors to his campaign fund, and with party hardliners such as Senators Jesse Helms and Chuck Hagel, who view constraints on
carbon dioxide emissions as covert capitulation to the 1997 Kyoto treaty on global warming, which has not been ratified by Congress.

In a policy speech in Michigan last September, Mr Bush said: "We will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon
dioxide within a reasonable period of time."

At the height of the campaign, the promise won plaudits from environmentalists and blunted the challenges from Al Gore and Ralph Nader on green issues.

In fact Mr Bush ridiculed Mr Gore for promising only voluntary reductions.

But Scott McClellan, a White House spokesman, said on Tuesday: "CO2 should not have been included as a pollutant during the campaign. It was a mistake."

In a letter to Senator Hagel, Mr Bush said that controls on carbon dioxide emissions would raise energy prices, adding that "we must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers".

"This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change," the letter said, in an apparent retreat from his recognition during the campaign that
carbon dioxide exacerbated global warming.

In a sharply worded riposte, the European environment commissioner, Margot Wallstrom, said yesterday: "I am concerned about President Bush's remarks that more research is needed into the causes of climate
change before we know what the solutions are."

"The inter-governmental panel on climate change has once again confirmed the evidence on the causes of climate change and the solution," Ms Wallstrom said. "Nobody should ignore these warnings."

A new British study published in today's edition of the journal Nature confirmed the build-up of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in the earth's atmosphere, allowing less of the sun's heat to escape into
space after being reflected off the earth's surface.

John Harries, who led the Imperial College study, said: "We're absolutely sure, there's no ambiguity. This shows the greenhouse effect is operating and what we are seeing can only be due to the increase in the
gases."

This transatlantic clash over carbon dioxide is the latest in a series since Mr Bush took office in January: rows over defence, trade and the withdrawal of US aid to family planning groups have all underlined the
potential for trouble between Washington and Brussels.

The withdrawal of Mr Bush's campaign pledge has triggered an uproar among US environmentalists, many of whom had welcomed his apparently friendly posture during the campaign. The main environmental
groups held a joint press conference outside the White House yesterday to protest against the decision.

Fred Krupp, head of Environmental Defence, said: "Not only has the administration reneged on a campaign commitment, but in opposing the Kyoto protocol and power plant pollution controls, it has effectively
blocked the only two proposed vehicles for fighting global warming - the key environmental threat of this century - while offering no alternative path to protect the planet."

Annan pleads with west as environment is pushed up UN agenda

Special report: global warming

Ewen MacAskill in Dhaka
Thursday March 15, 2001
The Guardian

Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations, yesterday used a visit to Bangladesh, the country that stands to suffer most from global warming, to urge the worst offenders - the US, Europe and Japan - to
cut carbon emissions.

Mr Annan, who until now has concentrated on the UN's peacekeeping and humanitarian roles, made a rare speech devoted to the environment, throwing the moral authority of the organisation behind the green
movement.

After flying over the huge, flood-prone Bangladesh delta, home to millions, Mr Annan urged world leaders to adopt a "new ethic of world stewardship".

He pleaded for promises on the environment made at summits in Rio and Kyoto to be met and for developing countries not to follow the same "wasteful, short-sighted and hazardous" pattern of industrialisation as
the developed nations.

Mr Annan's decision to push the environment up the UN's agenda was taken when senior officials at the organisation's headquarters in New York met to discuss future priorities.

Mr Annan said a UN investigation into climate change predicted the monsoons and cyclones that hit Bangladesh will become more frequent and intense.

"In the past, we could afford a long gestation period before undertaking major environmental policy initiatives," he said. "Today, the time for a well- planned transition to a sustainable system is running out. We may
be moving in the right direction but we are moving much too slowly. We are failing in our responsibility to future generations and even to the present one.

"Our biggest challenge in this new century is to take an idea that seems abstract - sustainable development - and turn it, too, into a daily reality for all the world's people."

A summit on sustainable development is planned for Johannesburg next year.

"The burden of leadership at this juncture falls on the industrialised countries and, in particular, the United States, the European Union and Japan," Mr Annan said. "To abandon this process now would set back the
global climate strategy for many years."