UNDERNEWS Sam Smith July 29, 1999 The Progressive Review 1739 Conn. Ave. NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 Fax: 202-234-6222 E-MAIL: [EMAIL PROTECTED] INDEX: http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS: http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINE NEWS: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.com DONATIONS AND ORDER FORM: http://prorev.com/order3.htm UNSUBSCRIBE: Reply with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line. For a free subscription to our e-mail updates send your postal address with zip code. Copyright 1999, The Progressive Review. Matter not independently copyrighted may be reprinted provided TPR is paid your normal reprint fees, if any, and is given proper credit. Because of its quantity, TPR's mail is not always answered, but it is always read. The editor is cheered or remorseful as appropriate and posts some of the more interesting messages at http://prorev.com/letters.htm ---------------------------------------------------------- IF THIS IS GLOBAL WARMING, WHY ARE WE SHIVERING? ASSOCIATED PRESS: Scientists say that as the glaciers melted at the end of the Ice Age, so much cold fresh water gushed into the North Atlantic 8,200 years ago that it cooled the atmosphere for hundreds of years .... The flood scenario, outlined in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature, demonstrates how global warming can, paradoxically, trigger a global freeze, and do it in a matter of decades .... The Atlantic Gulf Stream normally acts like a conveyor belt to deliver warm tropical water to temperate regions. By adding so much fresh water in such a short time, the flood shut down the Gulf Stream .... Temperatures in Greenland and Europe dropped by 6 to 15 degrees for at least 200 years, according to ice core data. JUST POLITICS A USA Today/CNN Gallup Poll finds that 67% of Americans favor a third party that would run candidates for president, Congress, and state offices against the Republicans and Democrats. "If God is in this, I will be the next president of the United States." -- Dan Quayle "It took a lot of water to get it just right," Cleve Kapala of Pacific Gas & Electric, on the four billion gallons of water released so that Al Gore's canoe would be floating on something during a Connecticut River photo op. Said John Kassel, director of the Vermont Department of Natural Resources, "They won't release the water for the fish when we ask them to, but somehow they find themselves able to release it for a politician." "If you're a business lobbyist and couldn't get into this legislation, you better turn in your six-shooter," -- Democratic lobbyist on tax favors contained in recent congressional legislation. The IRS, which targeted targeted conservative groups for tax audits, has released some documents following a freedom of information request -- but not all. 114 of 1,586 have been lost. The IRS also told the Landmark Legal Foundation that those who put the IRS on the conservative's trail had "an expectation of privacy," including presumably members of the White House staff. There is, in fact, no such provision in the law. NEW INDIAN ALLIANCE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Indian leaders from the United States and Canada [held] an unprecedented meeting to expand cooperation across a border drawn by white men through their homelands. The four-day conference [in Vancouver] attracted more than 4,000 participants - the largest gathering ever of U.S. and Canadian Indian leaders. The last time chiefs from the two countries met to forge common policy was in 1939, at a much smaller meeting in Toronto .... "We are divided by locality, but not by destiny," said Phil Fontaine, grand chief of the Assembly of First Nations. THE MEDIACRACY The July 20 Economist reports that the entire publicly traded American newspaper industry is now worth less than America Online. LOOSE CHANGE Number of US mergers and acquisitions in manufacturing and mining 1979: 2298 Number of US mergers and acquisitions in manufacturing and mining 1996: 5639 Number of world mergers and acquisitions 1990: 11,300 Number of world mergers and acquisitions 1998: 26,200 TIMESIZING http://www.timesizing.com JFK JR BOSTON GLOBE: The Navy played an extraordinary role in the recovery and burial at sea of John F. Kennedy Jr., deploying hundreds of crew members and two of its finest vessels to a mission almost never ordered for veterans or military personnel. About 500 members of the military and their children are buried at sea each year. But they are buried en masse, their ashes scattered during normal naval exercises, without their families on board, a Navy official said yesterday .... Officials were hard-pressed to recall naval participation in a ceremony such as yesterday's, in which none of the deceased had served in the military or held elected office. Analysts also said the Navy's three-day role in the search and recovery far exceeded normal practices, except when the accident involves a military plane. AMONG THE REASONS CITED BY THE PENTAGON FOR THE NAVAL OPERATION: JFK Jr. had made contributions to his country that were "both notable and outstanding," such as heading a nonprofit group that assists work with the disabled and his membership on the President's Commission on Mental Retardation. Thumbs up to the New York Times for some of the most restrained, not even in the lead, coverage of the JFK Jr. death. Said Managing Editor Bill Keller to the Washington Post's Howard Kurtz, "We avoided the end-of-the-world mega-headlines that characterized some newspapers and the kind of overwrought prose that characterized some copy. I'm personally proud we didn't wallow in the 'Curse of the Kennedys' and 'America's Prince,' as if it were the death of a president. To make it the lead of the paper would signify a kind of importance to the event that wasn't really there." On the other hand, the big three networks ran 27 percent more stories on the JFK Jr. crash in the first six days than they did following Princess Di's death. And the network newsmagazines devoted nearly eight hours to coverage. NAFTA LAWSUIT Waiting in the wings is a decision in a anti-NAFTA lawsuit brought by a coalition of domestic manufacturers and labor unions, including the United Steel Workers. The decision on the constitutionality of NAFTA -- among the most important matters before the courts -- is expected within weeks reports the LA Times. At issue is whether the government can skirt the treaty provisions of the Constitution by signing trade agreements and then claiming they have the same legal force as a treaty. Between 1930 and 1992, the United States ratified 891 treaties and 13,178 international agreements. The globalists are a bit perturbed by the suit. Says Yale law professor Bruce Ackerman: "It would destabilize the existing system of international law. It would be difficult to declare NAFTA unconstitutional without calling into question our commitment to the WTO, the World Bank and many, many other economic arrangements." Georgetown University's Robert Stumberg: "This is a Rod Serling plot. We [could enter] the twilight zone, where an agreement that is binding on the U.S. vis-a-vis the rest of the world cannot be enforced internally." Put another way, these lawyers are concerned about the possibility that corporate-controlled politicians might have to obey the Constitution in writing trade policy. THE MEDIACRACY PAUL BROWNFIELD, LA TIMES: In the fall television season, there will be 17 gay characters on the four major networks, about the same as the number of black, Asian and Latino characters combined .... Why the breakthrough for gays? Explanations range from the idealistic (increased tolerance in society toward gays and lesbians) to the more jaded (gay characters make for trendy additions to ensemble shows). Others put it more bluntly: There are gays on television because there are gays in television. Unlike latinos, blacks and Asian Americans, gay people are fully integrated into the Hollywood power structure. They hold jobs from the upper ranks to the lower reaches of the industry, in much the way Jews have traditionally occupied a disproportionate number of positions in the entertainment business. "You couldn't do better than grow up Jewish and gay if you want to be in show business," says Don Roos, a longtime TV and movie writer in Los Angeles. "And you couldn't do worse if you grew up black and Protestant." LA TIMES http://www.latimes.com ECO NOTES ENVIRONMENT NEWS SERVICE: University of Florida engineers are working towards an inexpensive method for making a new breed of exceptionally thin and cheap solar cells expected to make solar power a more widespread source of electricity in the future .... The UF research comes at a time when the market for solar cells is in a strong growth spurt. For the past several years, the industry has an annual growth rate of 15 to 20 percent, similar to that of the booming semiconductor and computer industries. Total sales reached the $1 billion mark in 1998, according to industry publications. ENS http://ens.lycos.com/ens/jul99/1999L-07-23-03.html NEWS FROM THE COLONIES LONDON TIMES: THE Kosovo conflict has turned the province into a magnet for many of the world's notorious drug barons, according to a director of the International Narcotics Enforcement Officers' Association. More than 40 per cent of the heroin reaching Western Europe comes through the Serb province because of a lack of border controls, says Marko Nicovic. "Kosovo is now the Colombia of Europe." IRAQ REUTERS: The International Committee of the Red Cross said Tuesday the UN trade embargo against Iraq was worsening the living conditions of the population, but stopped short of calling for an end to the sanctions. "I have seen surgical gloves being washed and dried for re-use and doctors' greens splattered with blood -- direct consequences of the embargo," Michel Minnig, who led an ICRC delegation to Iraq, told a news conference .... "The civilian population of Iraq is continuing to suffer an alarming deterioration of its living conditions as the country enters its 10th year under UN embargo," the ICRC said in a statement. WACO DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The head of the Texas Department of Public Safety said Tuesday that evidence held by the Texas Rangers since the 1993 Branch Davidian siege calls into question the federal government's claim that its agents used no incendiary devices on the day that a fire consumed the sect's compound. "There's some evidence that is at least problematic or at least questionable with regard to what happened," said James B. Francis Jr. of Dallas, chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety. DALLAS MORNING NEWS http://www.dallasnews.com/texas_southwest/0728tsw100davidians.htm THE PROGRESSIVE REVIEW 1739 Connecticut Ave NW Washington DC 20009 202-232-5544 202-234-6222 Fax [EMAIL PROTECTED] Editor: Sam Smith INDEX : http://prorev.com RECENT UNDERNEWS : http://prorev.com/indexa.htm TODAY'S HEADLINES: http://prorev.com/altnews.htm THE REVIEW FORUM: http://prorev.com/letters.htm For a free trial subscription to both our bi-monthly hard copy edition and our regular e-mail updates send e-mail and terrestrial address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] To order "Sam Smith's Great American Political Repair Manual" (WW Norton) direct from Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0393316270/progressiverevieA/
