excerpted from 17 August 2004 | New York Times by DANNY HAKIM DETROIT, Aug. 16 – The gap in safety between sport utility vehicles and passenger cars last year was the widest yet recorded, according to new federal traffic data. People driving or riding in a sport utility vehicle in 2003 were nearly 11 percent more likely to die in an accident than people in cars, the figures show. The government began keeping detailed statistics on the safety of vehicle categories in 1994. S.U.V.’s continue to gain in popularity, despite safety concerns and the vehicles’ lagging fuel economy at a […]
Daily Archives: August 17, 2004
7 posts
[ From the article: Today, mountaintop removal is booming again, and the practice of dumping mining debris into streambeds is explicitly protected, thanks to a small wording change to federal environmental regulations. U.S. officials simply reclassified the debris from objectionable “waste” to legally acceptable “fill.” –BL ] Appalachia Is Paying Price for White House Rule Change August 17, 2004 | Washington Post by Joby Warrick BECKLEY, W.Va. — The coal industry chafes at the name — “mountaintop removal” — but it aptly describes the novel mining method that became popular in this part of Appalachia in the late 1980s. Miners target […]
August 17, 2004 | Washington Post [page A01] by Mary Beth Sheridan CARACAS, Venezuela, Aug. 16 — President Hugo Chávez was declared the winner of a national recall referendum by a substantial margin on Monday, and said he had won a fresh mandate for the highly centralized, populist style of government that has stirred fierce opposition at home and irritated the Bush administration. About 58 percent of the voters in the Sunday ballot said “no” to a recall of Chavez, while 42 percent said “yes,” according to nearly complete returns from the national elections council. Officials said that at least […]
Dick Cheney, Hugo Chávez and Bill Clinton’s Band August 16, 2004 | GregPalast.com There’s so much BS and baloney thrown around about Venezuela that I may be violating some rule of US journalism by providing some facts. Let’s begin with this: 77% of Venezuela’s farmland is owned by 3% of the population, the ‘hacendados.’ I met one of these farmlords in Caracas at an anti-Chavez protest march. Oddest demonstration I’ve ever seen: frosted blondes in high heels clutching designer bags, screeching, “Chavez – dic-ta-dor!” The plantation owner griped about the “socialismo” of Chavez, then jumped into his Jaguar convertible. That […]
[ Vests? Why not armored humvees? Oh, that’s right: Rumsfeld insisted on a minimalist, sleek fighting force. –BL ] 14 August 2004 | Gainesville Sun As a veteran who has seen combat, I’m disgusted that any military vehicles in Iraq are not ?up-armored,? meaning they can’t stop bullets, let alone roadside bombs. Marion County Sheriff Ed Dean got a request for bulletproof vests to line the Humvees’ sides and floor panels from deputy Fred Chisholm, a reservist in Iraq serving in the 351st Military Police Company. By May 2004, Dean collected more than 850 vests and asked the military to ship […]
excerpted from 15 August 2004 | Slate The Post‘s story on the “business-friendly” agenda OSHA has adopted under President Bush is the first in a three-part series examining the administration’s approach to regulation. The article reveals that the administration has trimmed OSHA’s budget and staff, killed dozens of rules under consideration held over from the Clinton years, and built new alliances with industry groups that exclude union representatives. The piece moves quickly despite its unglamorous topic; the authors explain policy detail without getting tangled in bureaucratic minutiae. [ In the 15 August installment, the Post reports the Bush Administration’s cancellation […]
The end of the world is here 5 August 2004 | Salon.com Disasters spawned by global warming are no longer science fiction, Ross Gelbspan argues in “Boiling Point” — they’re already here. by Katharine Mieszkowski In Scotland, hundreds of thousands of arctic terns, kittiwakes, guillemots and great skuas suddenly aren’t having any babies. The culprit? Global warming has disrupted their food supply, according to the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. The seabirds feed primarily on sandeels, a small silvery fish that once teemed along the northern Scotland seashore. But changes in sea temperature and currents caused by the […]