NEWS BITS & BITES

THREE STATES SUE FEDS OVER MEDICARE DRUG MESS

ASSOCIATED PRESS - Texas, Maine and three other states sued the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services on Friday, alleging they are
being forced to help fund the new Medicare prescription drug program in
violation of the Constitution. In the lawsuit filed in the U.S. Supreme
Court, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott argues states shouldn't have
to relinquish control over how they budget taxpayer dollars to pay for
an entirely federal program. "The federal government has placed what
amounts to a direct tax upon Texas and other states in violation of the
U.S. Constitution," Abbott said in a statement. . . 10 other states
filed a friend-of-the-court brief supporting their argument.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/maine/articles/2006/03/03/
texas_four_other_states_sue_government_over_medicare/
?rss_id=Boston.com+--+Maine+news


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BRITISH SCIENTIST: CHANCES OF GETTING BIRD FLU
LESS THAN CHANCES OF WINNING THE LOTTERY

ELIZABETH HOPKIRK, THIS IS LONDON - The Government's chief scientist
said today Britons were more likely to win the Lottery than contract
bird flu. Professor Sir David King was speaking after a further 11 cases
of the disease were confirmed in wild birds in France bringing the
country's total to 29. While the spread of the virus to Europe was a
serious issue for farming and wildlife, it presented a negligible threat
to human health that should not worry the public, he said. . .

"It is very important to keep things in proportion, and to make a
distinction between the virus in birds and the virus in humans," he
said. "Your chances of winning the lottery are about one in 14 million.
Your chances of catching bird flu are more like one in 100 million, even
if we had H5N1 among the chicken population in Britain."

"That's a back-of-the-envelope calculation based on China, but the real
figure will not be much lower than one in 100 million, because we don't
live cheek-by-jowl with chickens in the same way. Simply put, this is
not an issue we should worry about in terms of public health."

In China, where the disease is endemic among birds, there have been just
14 infections and eight deaths confirmed by the World Health
Organization. China has a population of 1.3 billion people, making the
rate of infection one in 93 million, with one death in 163 million.

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HECK OF A JOB, RICEY!

SECRECY NEWS - "I don't know anyone who wasn't caught off guard by
Hamas' strong showing," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
referring to the landslide victory of the Islamic Hamas party in the
January 25 Palestinian elections. . .It sounded like a confession of
another failure of U.S. intelligence, having been stymied once again by
the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics. But despite Secretary Rice's
odd protestations, no one did a better job of tracking the growing
popularity of Hamas than the State Department's own intelligence
analysts.

"When the parties [Hamas and Fatah] are directly compared, likely voters
tend to see Hamas as more qualified to clean up corruption, resist
occupation, and uphold societal values," the analysts reported in a
January 19 pre-election assessment obtained by Secrecy News.

"A lack of hope in the peace process may also contribute to support for
Hamas. Likely voters who have little or no hope that there will be a
peaceful resolution to the conflict clearly prefer Hamas (30%) to Fateh
(12%)."

Though they did not explicitly predict a Hamas victory, the State
Department intelligence bureau reported on the steady rise in popular
support for the Islamic party, which they said made it newly competitive
with Fatah.

http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/inr/hamas.pdf

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BOYCOTT OF SOUTH DAKOTA PLANNED

MS MAGAZINE - Following the passage of a disastrous abortion ban in
South Dakota, the Women's Medical Fund and other abortion-rights
activists are calling for pro-choice Americans to boycott all tourism in
the state. . . A similar boycott produced results in 1990, when the
National Organization for Women and other women's rights organizations
chose to boycott Idaho potatoes to protest restrictive abortion laws.
Idaho's then-governor vetoed the bill rather than face the economic
consequences.

http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=9547

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POSSIBLE BOYCOTT TARGETS

- Tourism: South Dakota has a billion dollar a year tourism business
- South Dakota is the second-largest producer of flaxseed and sunflower
seed in the nation.
- Citigroup has 3,200 employees in South Dakota

- John Morrell has 3,000 employees in South Dakota

- Tyson Foods has 900 employees in South Dakota

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PHILADELPHIA MOVES AHEAD ON WIFI

CNET - The city of Philadelphia detailed its plan to blanket the city
with Wi-Fi after signing its final contract with Earthlink, which will
build and operate the network on behalf of the city. The city said
Wednesday that pricing of the broadband service will be kept below $20
per month. Economically disadvantaged users will be charged $9.95 a
month, while other Internet service providers will be charged a
wholesale rate that allows them to sell access for $20 a month or less
to retail customers, the city said. . .

Comcast, which offers cable modem service in Philadelphia, offers a
three-month special on its broadband service for $19.99. After that, the
price shoots up to $42.95 per month for customers who also subscribe to
its cable TV service and $57.95 for those who don't subscribe to its
cable TV service. But Verizon Communications, which sells DSL (digital
subscriber line) service in Philadelphia, offers a comparable broadband
service for $14.95.

Still, city officials say that the new Wi-Fi network will offer
consumers more choices without risking taxpayer money. As part of the
deal with the city, Earthlink will build, manage and maintain the
wireless network. . . [using] wireless transmitters and receivers on
city streetlights.

http://news.com.com/2100-7351_3-6045261.html?part
=rss&tag=6045261&subj=news

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RAILROADS COMING BACK

RONALD D. WHITE, LOS ANGELES TIMES - After years of retrenchment,
railroads across North America are reporting record profit and rolling
forward with huge expansion projects of the kind that haven't been seen
in decades. The growth has been fueled by a continuing flood of cargo
containers filled with Asian products, which ended the coal industry's
102-year streak as rail's biggest revenue generator in 2003 and has
pulled farther ahead since then. Railroads are gaining ground on the
rival trucking industry, which has been suffering from sharply higher
diesel fuel costs and a shortage of long-haul drivers. But companies
that move their goods by train are complaining about increasing rates
and delays. . .

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/02/28/
BUG2PHFK7Q1.DTL&hw=railroad+renaissance&sn=001&sc=1000


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INTERNET SIGHTINGS

Interesting Year 1981

1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes tournament
4. Pope died

Interesting Year 2005

1. Prince Charles got married
2. Liverpool crowned soccer Champions of Europe
3. Australia lost the Ashes tournament
4. Pope died

Lesson to be learned:
The next time Charles gets married, someone should definitely warn the
Pope.

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INDICATORS
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BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL - Well over half of people with a progressive
illness want to die at home and several countries, including the UK, are
making substantial reforms to enhance home care. But despite these
efforts, most people in the UK, the US, Germany, Switzerland, and France
die in hospitals. In the UK, the proportion of home deaths for patients
with cancer is falling, from 27% in 1994 to 22% in 2003.
________________________________________________________

AS OF LAST MONTH, 167 candidates lined up to run as Greens this year
across the nation as compared with 78 in 2004.

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FURTHERMORE. . .
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ACCORDING TO AL KAMEN in the Washington Post, our ambassador to
Switzerland and third shooter at the Richard Cheney lawyer hunt - Pamela
P. Willeford - has spent about five months of her little over two yeas
on the job on vacation.

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