FURTHERMORE. . .

DEAN BAKER - Washington Post columnist Allan Sloan gets the prize for
being the first reporter-columnist to discover the effect that President
Bush's health care proposal would have on Social Security. The basic
story is that workers would have much of their income exempted from
Social Security taxes if they bought a health insurance policy. This
means that lower income workers, who have no income tax liability, would
still have tax savings from buying a health insurance policy. But they
would receive much lower benefits when they retire as a result. In the
extreme case that I presented (a worker earning $20,000 with a family
policy), the Social Security benefit would fall by 60 percent. Give
Sloan credit for picking up on this. . . Give the rest of the media a
big "F." As I wrote before, I don't think that President Bush's health
care plan is intended as a serious proposal, but insofar as it is taken
seriously, the impact on SS benefits is a huge part of the story.

http://www.prospect.org/deanbaker/2007/01/alan_sloan_uncovers_bush_steal.html


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CARLOS CAMPOS, ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION - Some key components of one
of Georgia's most sacred institutions - that had been discovered in
discarded office furniture - were recently auctioned on Ebay. About 40
voter access cards and three electronic ballot encoders belonging to
DeKalb County were purchased earlier this month on the auction Web site,
according to Secretary of State Karen Handel. Another seven supervisor's
cards, used to activate the encoders, also were up for bid. All of the
cards and encoders have been recovered, Handel said. The cards
apparently had been used only for training in mock elections, and the
encoders are obsolete; Georgia now uses electronic poll books to load
voter access cards with the proper ballots. But the discovery exposed a
flaw in the security of electronic voting, which is already under fire
over fears of hacking.

http://www.ajc.com/metro/content/metro/stories/2007/01/29/0130metvoter.html


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BBC - Secret emails reveal that the UK's biggest drug company distorted
trial results of an anti-depressant, covering up a link with suicide in
teenagers. Panorama reveals that Glaxo Smith Kline attempted to show
that Seroxat worked for depressed children despite failed clinical
trials. And that GSK-employed ghostwriters influenced 'independent'
academics. GSK told Panorama: "GSK utterly rejects any suggestion that
it has improperly withheld drug trial information."
GSK faces action in the US where bereaved families have joined together
to sue the company. As a result, GSK has been forced to open its
confidential internal archive. . .

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/panorama/6291773.stm

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BEST & WORST METRO AREAS TO RAISE KIDS (BY ETHNICITY)
http://diversitydata.sph.harvard.edu/

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BOYCOTTS
http://www.fuw.edu.pl/~pmh/boycott.html

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AP - The Rev. Robert F. Drinan, a Jesuit who served in Congress for 10
years until stepping down in response to a papal order, died Sunday. He
was 86 . . . An internationally known human rights advocate, Father
Drinan represented Massachusetts in the House of Representatives for 10
years in the 1970s, stepping down only after a worldwide directive from
Pope John Paul II barring priests from holding public office. . . Father
Drinan ran for Congress on a platform of opposition to the Vietnam War.
During his Congressional tenure, he continued to dress in the robes of
his clerical order and lived in a simple room in the Jesuit community at
Georgetown. . . And he became the first member of Congress to call for
the impeachment of President Richard M. Nixon - although the call was
not related to the Watergate scandal, but to what Father Drinan viewed
as the administration's undeclared war against Cambodia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/29/us/29drinan.html?ex=
1327726800&en=bcac65d5b519d88b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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COLMAN MCCARTHY, WASHINGTON POST - If you've ever wondered whether God
laughs, think back to 1980, when the Rev. Robert Drinan was ordered by
Pope John Paul II to get out of politics and leave Congress. The Jesuit
priest, who died on Sunday, was finishing his fifth term representing a
suburban Boston district that included Cambridge and Brookline. The pope
had been hearing from rankled conservative American Catholics--the Pat
Buchanan, William F. Buckley Jr., William Bennett wing of the church --
that Father Drinan, a purebred Democrat, was a dangerous liberal. His
voting record on abortion was seen as too pro-choice. Father Drinan's
presence in the House of Representatives had been sanctioned by the
previous pope, Paul VI, as well as by the U.S. episcopate, the cardinal
of Boston, his own Jesuit superiors and emphatically by the voters in
his district. John Paul, knowing that Jesuits take a vow of loyalty to
popes, had his way. And who replaced the dangerously liberal Father
Drinan? The more dangerously liberal Barney Frank--as ardent an advocate
for abortion rights and as he was for gay rights. If there is a God, the
Frank-for-Drinan trade surely had Him laughing at the Vatican's expense.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/29/
AR2007012902015.html?nav=rss_print/style

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GERARD BAKER, TIMES, UK - One January evening in 1982, Lenny Skutnik, a
government employee, dived into the freezing waters of the Potomac River
to rescue a victim of a plane crash. Two weeks later, during his second
State of the Union address, with the US mired in recession, Ronald
Reagan had Mr Skutnik sit in the gallery and paid a moving tribute to
his heroics. This week, for his penultimate State of the Union, Mr Bush
had a veritable galaxy of skutniks — soldiers, military people, a
firefighter. Whatever you might feel about the wisdom of Mr Bush's Iraq
policy or the feasibility of his plans to wean Americans off petrol, you
can't help but stand and cheer the good works of a decent person.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19269-2566485,00.html

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FARK HEADLINE - Senators can't decide whether to make non-binding
resolution mean and impotent or bipartisan and impotent

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POPULAR VOTE MOVEMENT COMES TO OREGON
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003545454_
webelectoral28.html?syndication=rss

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AP - Russian emergency workers have flown to a Siberian region where
smelly and multicolored snow fell earlier this week covering about 100
square kilometers, officials said Friday. The snow, which fell Wednesday
afternoon, was yellow, green and orange and had an oily texture and
unpleasant smell, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. . . "At the
present moment, we cannot give explanations to the snow which is oily to
the touch and has a pronounced rotten smell, and we are waiting for the
results of a thorough test on samples," Omsk environmental prosecutor
Anton German was quoted by ITAR-Tass as saying.

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JEFF TIETZ, ROLLING STONE - The 500,000 pigs at a single Smithfield
subsidiary in Utah generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5
million inhabitants of Manhattan. The best estimates put Smithfield's
total waste discharge at 26 million tons a year. That would fill four
Yankee Stadiums. Even when divided among the many small pig production
units that surround the company's slaughterhouses, that is not a
containable amount.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/12840743/porks_dirty_secret
_the_nations_top_hog_producer_is_also_one_of_americas_worst_polluters/1


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ELIOT BROWN, NY SUN - In Brooklyn's child-filled neighborhood of Park
Slope, Barnes & Noble has sought to put the brakes on a rolling problem
— stroller overcrowding. The bookstore chain's Park Slope location set
up something of a speed bump for the parental set when it posted a sign
recently that said strollers were prohibited on its lower level. "Due to
overcrowding, strollers are NOT allowed downstairs," the sign read,
according to a photo posted on the Internet. "Please park your stroller
in the designated area on the first floor." Web logs and Web sites
picked up on the move, including the message group Park Slope Parents,
which has more than 5,000 subscribers. The bookstore has since removed
the sign and replaced it with an employee who politely points out the
availability of spaces to park the mini-vehicles. A Barnes & Noble
spokeswoman, Carolyn Brown, insisted that the company had not received
any complaints, but rather decided its new strategy would be a better
approach than a sign.

http://www.nysun.com/pf.php?id=48052

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MIKE GRAVEL'S SPEECH TO THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP
http://www.gravel2008.us/?q=node/332

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REMEMBERING MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/
opinion/2003/09/22/do2206.xml

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PODCAST WITH A PSYCHIATRIST WHO TREATS IRAQ VETS
http://www.electricpolitics.com/podcast/2007/02/achilles_in_vietnam.html

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CRITIC OF SCIENTOLOGISTS ARRESTED
http://www.10zenmonkeys.com/2007/02/04/scientology-fugitive-arrested/

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