Right Here

Slots, slots, slots:It costs a lot of money to lobby the Maryland legislature to get slots at the race tracks. According to the Sun at least $1.2 million changed hands to lobby the General Assembly.

But they'll still get a good education, right? More bad news for local colleges in the Maryland's university system. If Governor Erhlich cuts an additional $60 million from the state budget, 500 more jobs will be cut from state colleges. Governor Erhlich vetoed the recently passed and balanced budget. Ehrlich didn't like the tax increases nor did he much appreciate the proposed closing of loopholes on legalized corporate tax evasion.

Rumor Intelligence: A group calling themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity wrote to President Bush saying in part, "never before has such warping [of intelligence] been used in such a systematic way to mislead our elected representatives into voting to authorize launching a war." (Nicholas Kristof, NY Times, May 30)

The Marlboro Man is Still Dead: The Center for Disease Control released a report this week indicating that Marlboro, the leading selling cigarette in the world, has a higher level of nitrosamine, a cancer causing compound, than almost all other cigarettes on the market.

Philadelphia is now 117th: The Philadelphia City Council became the 117th city to condemn the USA Patriots Act. The Council passed a resolution calling for the repeal of the act.

Secret Deportation Hearings Allowed: The Supreme Court this week refused to arbitrate beteen civil liberties and national security and upheld the Shrub administration's right to conduct secret deportation hearings. The government had claimed that right if the defendants were labeled "special interest" cases.

The poor are still getting... Four different groups issued reports criticizing the tax law promoted by President Shrub which he signed into law this week.  Approximately 8 million people in the lowest tax brackets will receive no benefits from the law. (New York Times, June 1)

Just don't get sick... Providing prescription drug benefits to the elderly, price controls on medicines, and other benefits are being opposed by lobbyists for the drug industry. Its major trade association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, have budgeted $150 million to battle citizen access to affordable drugs. (New York Times, June 1)

That which does not kill me...? Watch out, mom and dad, your kid is going to be eating irradiated meat in school. We don't know the long term effect of irradiated meat in our diet, but according to the Agriculture Department, the preventing of food poisoning "outweighs the the risk of any potential side effects." Apparently a school can refuse the product, so get busy, parents if you don't want your children getting a dose of radiation 5 days a week 180 days a year....

Our bodies, our...: Remember the miracle drugs for menapausal women? Well they've turned out to be a profitable business for corporations, but risky business for women. The hormones slightly increase the risk of breast cancer, strokes and heart attacks. Recent testing on women over 65 years of age taking hormone combinations show an increased chance of Alzheimer's disease.

Over There

Special Farces: If you want to know the role that some special forces played in Afghanistan, go to Democracy Now to listen to Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death, produced by Jamie Doran, an Irish filmmaker and former BBC producer. Find out what happened to up to 3,000 Taliban/AlQaeda/others who surrendered with the understanding that they would be safe, then were loaded into closed metal containers and driven across the desert for four hours without air. The surviving human cargo was eventually shot and buried in mass graves allegedly with U.S. special forces watching on...go to this url. Don't go there if you've just eaten.

Powell and Straw Lied? The Guardian reports an uncorroborated transcript of a conversation revealing that Jack Straw and Colin Powell both suspected the falsity of intelligence claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction while they were at the same time making contradictory claims to the UN and their respective countries.

The price of opposition: Ang San Suu Kyi, Nobel prize winner, has again been imprisoned by the ruling military of Myanmar (Burma).  Her crime: being openly critical of the military junta.

This week in history: Harriet Tubman leads a raid which frees 750 slaves (1863); NAACP is founded (1909); Maggie Kuhn founds the Gray Panthers(1970).  Originally called the Fuchsia Panthers, its name was changed when they realized that most people could not spell fuchsia. ;-)