EPA Looking at Using Tests on People
From the Associated Press
Excerpt: In setting limits on chemicals in food and water, the Environmental Protection Agency may rely on industry tests that expose people to poisons and raise ethical questions.
The new policy, which the EPA is still developing, would allow Bush administration political appointees to referee any ethical disputes. Agency officials are putting the finishing touches on a plan to take a case-by-case approach. ...

... Citing ethical concerns, EPA earlier this month also temporarily suspended a planned government study into how children's bodies absorb pesticides and other chemicals.

EPA scientists and environmentalists said the two-year study, with $2 million in backing from a chemical makers' trade group, might encourage poor families to use more pesticides. Families that participated were to get $970 each plus a camcorder and children's clothes.
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Labels: agency, EPA, health

November Casualties
From Centcom

Labels: casualties

Vote Fraud Watch

Computer Glich gives Bush 11,283 extra votes in NC County
From the New Bern (NC) Sun Journal
Excerpt: A systems software glitch in Craven County's electronic voting equipment is being blamed for a vote miscount that, when corrected, changed the outcome of at least one race in Tuesday's election.
Then, in the rush to make right the miscalculation that swelled the number of votes for president here by 11,283 more votes than the total number cast, a human mistake further delayed accurate totals for the 40,534 who voted. More

Error at Ohio voting machine gives Bush 3,893 extra votes
AP via the Ackron Beacon Journal
Excerpt: A computer error with a voting machine cartridge gave President Bush 3,893 extra votes in a Gahanna precinct. Franklin County's unofficial results gave Bush 4,258 votes to Democratic challenger John Kerry's 260 votes in Precinct 1B. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.

Group records 1,100 Electronic Voting Glitches
From Computer Weekly

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Labels: vote fraud

U.S. troops say they were outnumbered by looters who took explosives
AP via Boston Globe
Excerpt: "Explosives were looted from the Al-Qaqaa ammunitions site in Iraq while outnumbered U.S. soldiers assigned to guard the materials watched helplessly, soldiers told the Los Angeles Times.

About a dozen U.S. troops were guarding the sprawling facility in the weeks after the April 2003 fall of Baghdad when Iraqi looters raided the site, the newspaper quoted a group of unidentified soldiers as saying. U.S. Army reservists and National Guardsmen witnessed the looting and some soldiers sent messages to commanders in Baghdad requesting help, but received no reply, they said. 'It was complete chaos. It was looting like L.A. during the Rodney King riots,' one officer said." more

Labels: iraq, troops