In the News>
JayDee
we all have
welcome to how-it-is, Jack
Elisabeth Perrin
U.S. Sending 4,000 Troops to Kuwait
WASHINGTON (Reuter) - Iraq has now massed 64,000 troops near its southern
border with Kuwait, and the United States is immediately sending 4,000 troops
and Patriot anti-aircraft missiles to Kuwait, the Defence Department said
Saturday.
Senior defence officials said the Iraqi force showed no signs that it
would attack Kuwait but was in a position to do so in ``a very short period
of time" and that the U.S. military was taking precautionary steps.
President Clinton warned again Saturday that Iraq's President Saddam
Hussein should not underestimate the resolve of the United States, which led
a coalition that drove Iraq's invasion forces from Kuwait in the 1991 Gulf
War.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. John Sheehan told a news conference that 4,000
troops of the 24th Mechanized Infantry Division would begin flying to Kuwait
from Fort Stewart, Ga., Saturday night. They will join up with U.S. tanks and
armored fighting vehicles already in the small emirate.
Sheehand said that U.S. attack aircraft had also been put on alert in
Europe, and additional Army and Marine units were on alert in California for
possible rapid movement to Kuwait.
Two U.S. Patriot anti-aircraft missile batteries are also being moved
from Saudi Arabia to Kuwait, he said.
Sheehan said that about 64,000 Iraqi troops were now stationed in
southern Iraq on Kuwait's border, including 14,000 from two elite Republican
Guard divisions which have been moved there recently. Iraq normally maintains
about 50,000 troops in the area.
He said the Republican Guard units were heavily armed with tanks and
long-range 130mm field artillery.
Defence officials said that some advance elements of the Iraqi force were
within 20 miles of Kuwait.
The United States is already moving the aircraft carrier George
Washington to the Red Sea from the Adriatic and is shifting a four-ship task
force with 2,000 U.S. Marines northward in the Persian Gulf to a position off
Kuwait.
``We are clearly in a position now that if (Iraqi President) Saddam
Hussein does something, we can punish them," Sheehan said of U.S. attack jets
already stationed in the region and U.S. warships being moved close to Iraq.
Transmitted: 94-10-08 23:14:10 EDT
Elisabeth Perrin
Gulf Foes Deploy Troops; U.N. Warns Iraq
KUWAIT (Reuter) - Dozens of Kuwaiti tanks rumbled to the border with Iraq
Saturday as U.S. and British warships steamed toward the Persian Gulf and the
U.N. Security Council expressed ``grave concern" over an Iraqi troop buildup
near the frontier.
In Baghdad, the Iraqi government said Saturday it did not want war or
military confrontation with the United States but threatened to end
cooperation with a U.N. mission monitoring Iraq's arms program if a crippling
economic embargo -- including a ban on its oil exports -- is not lifted.
``We are not seeking war or military confrontation at all. But we need to
put an end to the suffering of our people by lifting the sanctions through
any means," the government newspaper al-Jumhouriya said in a front-page
editorial.
U.S. military officials said Saturday that 64,000 Iraqi troops have moved
into southern Iraq near the border with Kuwait, marking the biggest massing
of Iraqi troops on the frontier in more than three years.
Witnesses also have reported seeing about 50 Kuwaiti tanks moving towards
the demilitarized zone on the border in a move described as a normal measure
at a time of heightened tension with Iraq.
Both the United States and Britain were beefing up their naval forces in
the gulf region, and the Pentagon announced Saturday it was sending 4,000
troops and two batteries of anti-aircraft missiles to Kuwait this weekend.
In Kuwait, the emirate's leaders sought to reassure the population that
any repeat invasion attempt by their former occupiers would fail.
There were few signs of anxiety in Kuwait City. Parents took children to
school, civil servants showed up for work, and supermarkets reported very few
outbreaks of panic buying.
The U.N. Security Council, after a rare weekend meeting, called for extra
vigilance by the 1,140 U.N. observers patrolling the demilitarized zone along
the border and asked them to report immediately any violations of the zone.
The Security Council also warned Iraq against any temptation to stop
cooperating with a U.N. special mission monitoring Baghdad's arms program.
Transmitted: 94-10-08 23:14:30 EDT
Elisabeth Perrin
10/7/94 TIME DAILY NEWS SUMMARY
IRAQ . . . GULF WAR REDUX? Iraq, apparently fed up with U.N. sanctions since
the 1991 Gulf War, sent two military divisions toward Kuwait's border. The
U.S. estimates as many as 40,000 Iraqi troops are as close as 12 miles to the
border. Western powers moved into action to stave off a possible second
invasion of the tiny, oil-rich emirate. This afternoon President Clinton
ordered the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington from the Mediterranean
Sea toward the Red Sea, then sent 2,000 Marines already in the Persian Gulf
toward Kuwait. He also sent three Army ships loaded with heavy weaponry from
the Indian Ocean to the gulf to help deter Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein,
weakened but still entrenched after his three-year-old defeat by Western and
Middle Eastern allies. Why is Saddam getting ornery again? Government
officials in Baghdad report that food stocks are running out, largely because
of the international sanctions against the regime.
WHAT CAN THE U.S. DO? Pentagon officials dismissed Iraqi movements early
this morning as possible bluster or regular troop rotations, but a sterner
Defense Secretary William Perry later warned the U.S. had "very substantial
capability" in the area and would let loose its full arsenal if necessary.
TIME Pentagon correspondent Mark Thompson says the U.S. could strike
effortlessly with 50 Tomahawk missiles aimed at Iraq. "It's like a cocked
gun, and they can pull the trigger in five minutes," says Thompson. BTW:
Ironically, Thompson says, the nearest U.S. aircraft carrier was ordered out
of the region only two weeks ago -- because of military budget cuts.
Search Past Issues "Iraq"; post to World Affairs "Iraq vs The World."
CHINA . . . DROPPING A BOMBSHELL: China detonated a nuclear device in its
second underground test this year. The timing was curious. Just three days
ago the Chinese Foreign Minister wrapped up two promising accords with the
U.S., further easing long-running tensions over China's human-rights abuses.
The northern China explosion, planned for weeks and detected in Australia at
11:25 p.m. EST Thursday, underscored the country's refusal to join the other
major nuclear powers (the U.S., Britain, France and Russia) in a moratorium
on nuclear weapons testing. Just Tuesday, Foreign Minister Qian Qichen
acceded to U.S. wishes that China stop exporting nuclear materials and resume
international talks on human rights. The White House expected the detonation
would occur but didn't raise the issue with Qian because, as a senior
Administration official put it, "We knew the decision was irreversible."
Search Past Issues "China Nuclear"; post to World Affairs "Russia and China
Friends."
HAITI . . . CEDRAS & CO. "FORGIVEN": Haitian Senators quickly approved an
amnesty agreement for the still ruling military junta, fulfilling a basic
part of a U.S. agreement under which the two remaining capos would step down
Oct. 15. The move allows exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to pardon
Lieut. General Raoul Cedras and General Philippe Biamby, the 1991 coup
leaders who remain in power, not only for political crimes but for "blood
crimes" against thousands of pro-democracy Haitians during their tenure.
(Several of the 12 Senators said the junta could nonetheless face suits for
human-rights violations.) Elsewhere in Port-au-Prince, about 5,000
pro-Aristide demonstrators ringed army headquarters, shouting "Down with
Cedras! We hate Cedras!" -- increasing pressure on him to leave the country
after he leaves office.
"MISSION CREEP" AVERTED? Pentagon officials said the U.S. will shrink its
forces in Haiti from 20,000 to 6,000 within four to six months, allowing
United Nations peacekeepers to take over. That prospect should sit fine in
the U.S. House and Senate, both of which passed nonbinding resolutions last
night demanding that President Clinton report on national security objectives
in Haiti within seven days.
Search Past Issues "Haiti"; post to Haiti "Haiti."
SWISS DEATHS . . . ON THE HUNT FOR THE CULT LEADERS: Investigators have
issued warrants for the arrests of the cult leaders in connection with 48
deaths in two villages in Switzerland. Swiss authorities claim that the
bodies, found Wednesday morning, were staged to look as if a mass suicide had
taken place. Swiss detectives maintain Luc Jouret and Joseph di Mambro,
leaders of the Order of the Solar Temple cult, murdered some of the victims.
Swiss television is rife with reports speculating that Jouret and Di Mambro
went on a killing spree to quash a simmering revolt.
Search Past Issues "Cults"; post to Society "Apocalyptic Cults"; Look in TIME
Daily archives for cult photos.
CONGRESS . . . BILL'S SCORECARD IN THE 103rd: As the 103rd session of
Congress headed for adjournment, Capitol Hill resembled "a Civil War
battlefield," according to TIME congressional correspondent Julie Johnson.
Killed in this session were significant pieces of President Clinton's agenda,
such as legislation addressing health care, campaign finance and lobbying
reforms, and Superfund. At a press conference today, a seething President
slammed the G.O.P.'s stance to "stop it, slow it, kill it or just talk it to
death" when it came to any kind of reform. Hard as it may seem to believe,
Clinton did have some victories: he managed, for example, to get laws passed
on family leave, NAFTA, crime and gun control.
. . . AND WHAT HE INTENDS TO DO IN THE 104th: A frustrated President Clinton
took to the airwaves to campaign for fellow Dems; the party is expected to
lose several seats in the midterm elections. Clinton defended his own record,
vowing to resurrect the ill-fated health-care reform bill next year. He also
reaffirmed his support for HUD Secretary Henry Cisneros, who has been
embarrassed recently by the publicizing of payments he made to a former
mistress.
Search Past Issues "Clinton, Congress Relations"; post to Washington, "How is
Clinton Doing?"
BOSNIA . . . PUNISHING MUSLIM FORCES: U.N. troops drove out 500 Bosnian
Muslim soldiers from a demilitarized zone near Sarajevo to punish them for
the murders of 20 Serbs yesterday. The U.N. response is a ploy to mollify
Serbs, who have threatened to strike back and thus fire up the on-again,
off-again bloody war in the former Yugoslavia. U.N. officials also backed off
from their statement yesterday accusing the Muslims of mutilating the Serbs'
bodies. Until yesterday, the past week had been relatively quiet: Serbs had
agreed to open Sarajevo airport and swap prisoners with the Muslims.
Search Past Issues "Bosnia Cease Fire"; post to World Affairs "Serbia."
NETWATCH . . . CLAIM THAT NAME: An arbitration panel in New York decided this
week that Princeton Review, a test preparation company, had to give up the
Internet name it had registered, "kaplan.com." That name, the panel ruled,
should by all rights belong to the company doing business as Kaplan -- a
competitor. But the issue of who owns names on the Net is far from being
settled. Even though a names repository called InterNIC exists, many
companies haven't bothered to register what's arguably one of their most
prized assets. A few savvy Net-surfers have raced ahead to grab some famous
names for their own use in cyberspace. For instance, "mcdonalds.com" isn't
owned by the Illinois burger-flipping company, but by a writer from Long
Island, New York. And "coke.com" isn't owned by the Atlanta fizz bottler; it
belongs to a dude in California. How did this happen? This much you can count
on: one of these days companies are going to want their names back -- and
they might be willing to pay big bucks for them, says Pamela Samuelson, a law
professor at the University of Pittsburgh.
. . . FEEL LIKE GRABBING A NAME? Check to see if it's taken. Telnet over to
"internic.net"; type "whois" at the prompt and type the name you want. BTW:
unlike Coke, the folks at Pepsi have locked up their trademark on the
Internet (as has the parent corporation of this magazine).
Search Past Issues "Internet"; post to New Media "Internet."
MONEYWATCH from MONEY MAGAZINE by Jordan E. Goodman
MARKETWATCH: Stocks rose and bonds stayed unchanged
GB
Jeez.... Kuwait, let the bloody Iraqis have it...
Elisabeth Perrin
IRAQ
SUDDENLY, SADDAM AGAIN
As internal dissent increases, Baghdad rattles its sabers, forsaking a charm
offensive to end sanctions
BY RICHARD CORLISS
In Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur finds his path blocked by
the Black Knight, a belligerent fellow who happens to be no good at fighting.
The Knight loses an arm, then another, then both legs to Arthur's superior
swordsmanship. He is left in pieces on the ground, screaming to the departing
King, ''You yellow bastard, come back here and take what's coming to you!''
That was the image of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, bloodied but unbowed
-- and unenlightened -- after his humiliation in the 1991 Gulf War, when a
U.N. mission led by the U.S. drove his troops out of Kuwait and kindled a
holocaust of as many as 100,000 Iraqis. Last week Saddam gave hints he wanted
a rematch, massing 64,000 troops, including two Republican Guard units, on
the Kuwaiti border. ''It's pretty much the same scenario that unfolded two
weeks before he invaded Kuwait,'' noted a senior Clinton Administration
official. ''It's unlikely they could reach Kuwait City, but they could
certainly get across the border.''
The U.S. is determined to keep that from happening. The Pentagon, in its
sternest tones, announced that 4,000 U.S. troops would immediately be
dispatched to Kuwait to beef up forces already in the area. The carrier
U.S.S. George Washington and a clutch of cruise missile-carrying warships
were moved into the Persian Gulf. Secretary of State Warren Christopher added
a Kuwait stop to his Middle East tour this week to reaffirm U.S. support for
the beleaguered emirate. And to avoid the sort of misunderstandings that may
have led to the Gulf War, Bill Clinton issued a clear warning to Saddam: ''It
would be a grave error for Iraq to repeat the mistakes of the past or to
misjudge either American will or American power.''
Saddam, alas, is a slow learner who rarely gets the point of any lesson.
Apparently his main intent in moving the troops was to pressure the U.N. into
lifting its draconian sanctions on Iraq in a forthcoming vote. And he might
have achieved this if he had just kept quiet. The U.S. and Britain were the
only two permanent members of the Security Council bound to vote to sustain
the sanctions. Russia wants Iraq to repay $6 billion in prewar military
debts; France seeks to resume lucrative commercial ties with Baghdad; China
has weapons to sell to Iraq. ''You think they'd be on their best behavior
when the U.N. has their fate in their hands,'' a Navy officer said, ''but no,
the Iraqis do just the opposite.'' The feisty speech given at the U.N. by
Saddam's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz seemed to cinch the vote against
the Iraqis. A U.N. official commented, ''The Americans could not have had a
better stroke of luck than Tariq Aziz's speech.''
If the U.S. luck and the U.N. embargo hold, the pain in Iraq will continue,
as will the internal pressure on Saddam. The country is crippled. Such basic
goods as medicine and farm supplies cannot come in, and an annual $15 billion
worth of oil cannot go out. Malnutrition is rampant; last month the
government cut food rations in half. ''The people of Iraq are being destroyed
by the sanctions,'' says an Iraqi now living in the U.S. ''The social fabric
is being torn apart. Iraq has been wounded for four years, and nobody
cares.''
To stifle the discontent, Saddam has become more brutal. In June his secular
regime applied Islamic punishments to lawbreakers: amputating a thief's right
hand for a first offense, a foot for a second offense. In August it was
decreed that an army deserter or anyone sheltering him would lose an ear.
A desperate citizenry might rebel; a demoralized army could conceivably
fold. ''Nobody wants to fight for Saddam anymore,'' says the expatriate
Iraqi. ''Four thousand Americans could march in and take Baghdad.'' But the
deprivations may also have sapped any stirrings of revolt. ''There is no
energy to fight the regime,'' says Soli Ozel, an assistant professor of
Middle East studies at Johns Hopkins. ''People are just scrambling to find
food. Saddam is more powerful than ever.''
And as the U.S. tries to stare down Saddam, Saddam keeps an eye on U.S.
foreign policy and draws encouraging conclusions. ''He saw what the North
Koreans got after creating a crisis,'' says a high-ranking Israeli military
official. ''He saw what the dictator in Haiti managed to get from Clinton.
All Saddam wants to do is repeat the recipe.'' And to stay in power, unlike
those who defeated him. As the Israeli notes, ''The fact that Bush, Thatcher,
Shamir and Gorbachev are all gone, while Saddam is in office, is evidence to
him that he was right and they were wrong.''
The U.S. hopes that tough talk and troop deployment will be enough. ''Saddam
needs to know he's going to get himself bloodied if he does something
stupid,'' a top Central Command officer said. ''And what he's doing now is
looking increasingly stupid.'' But the man's stubbornness has been
underestimated before. During the Gulf War, Colin Powell said of the Iraqi
army: ''First we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.''
But like the Black Knight, Saddam keeps on fighting. You can cut him up but
you can't shut him up.
Reported by Nina Burleigh and Mark Thompson/Washington, with other bureaus
Copyright 1994 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Transmitted: 94-10-09 12:45:15 EDT
Elisabeth Perrin
ESSAY
DOWN WITH ''FAMILY VALUES''
BY CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER
Election time, and the ''family values'' season is upon us again, kicked off
right after football with speeches by that unlikely duo of Bill Clinton and
Dan Quayle. Both praised family values and, sportingly, each other -- for
praising family values.
''Bill Clinton is right to talk about family values,'' Quayle told the
Commonwealth Club of California, tipping his hat. Clinton's gesture, in his
address to the National Baptist Convention, was more oblique, but he firmly
agreed with the proposition that politicians should use the bully pulpit to
uplift the morals and improve the behavior of the citizenry.
When a liberal Democratic President and a favorite of the Republican right
concur, the First Law of Politics kicks in: If everyone agrees on something,
it must be wrong (see the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, the nuclear freeze). I am
all for values, family and otherwise, but the last people who should be
offering us moral guidance are the polticians.
It was obnoxious last year to hear Hillary Clinton preaching that Americans
lack meaning in their lives. It is equally obnoxious this year to hear Dan
Quayle saying in almost identical language that ''with all this wealth...the
average American felt that their ((sic)) life, their future and their family
was somehow empty.''
To hear politicians of any stripe talk about the state of our souls is enough
to make one cringe. First of all, who are they? What moral qualifications do
they bring to the work of the spirit? Upon hearing he had been named Prime
Minister, Disraeli exclaimed, ''I have climbed to the top of the greasy
pole!'' -- perhaps the most apt description ever of the politician's
vocation. Climbing greasy poles is dirty business. It requires a willingness
to step on other pole huggers and a certain insouciance about the various
moral stains thus acquired. It is hardly a school for spirituality.
And politicians are as suspect regarding family as they are regarding values.
The blatant public manipulation of one's own family -- displaying spouse and
kids in gauzy campaign commercials, on convention stages, in tearful speeches
-- is by now a common practice among politicians. An even more common
practice is the neglect of one's family. Ambitious politicians almost by
definition find more fulfillment in coffee klatches and subcommittee meetings
than at Little League and the PTA. Quayle's quite valid critique of Murphy
Brown and single parenthood is especially poignant coming from a man who
spent so much time away from home during his two House terms that his wife
confessed she often felt like a ''single parent.''
But the problem with moral lectures by politicians is not just the clang
effect. Once politicians cross the threshold and begin to preach, it becomes
natural for the flock to demand of the preachers an accounting of their
private lives, if only to see how the pulpit pounders live up to their own
proclaimed standards. And that in turn legitimates our current obsession with
what is euphemistically called character but is really a prurient interest in
the private lives -- actually, the private vices -- of our leaders. Campaigns
turn into spectacles of dueling peccadilloes and mutual muckraking. The end
result of this orgy of accusation and intimate revelation is a debased
political discourse and a disgusted public.
No use blaming this on adversarial media or a general distrust of governmnet.
With their preening about fmaily values and spiritual emptiness, the
politicians have brought this on themselves.
Does that mean we should have no more family-value speeches? Yes. Cut out the
preaching about how individuals are to reform themselves, and tell us instead
how government is to be reformed. Gvoernment has profound effect on the
American family, from a tax code that penalizes marriage to a welfare system
that subsidizes illegitimacy. Enough about family values; let's hear about
family policy.
Bill Clinton showed courage in telling his audience that illegitimacy ''is a
disaster. It is wrong... you shouldn't have a baby when you're not married.
You just have to stop it.'' But when he continues with, ''I'll try to do my
part, but this is not a government deal,'' he is evading the obvious. A huge
part of this is a government deal, and that part is precisely what Presidents
are charged with addressing. It is in this transition form family values to
famly policy that the politicians stumble. ''Now I want to make it clear we
shouldn't stigmatize these babies,'' added Clinton. ''We ought to love the
babies. We ought to love the parents. We ought to give them the best future
we can.'' Nice sentiments, and obviously sincere. But when government gives
''the best future'' -- welfare and health care, then training and guaranteed
jobs -- to those doing things Clinton calls disastrous and wrong, it is
clearly (if unintentionally) encouraging more of the disastrous and the
wrong.
Want to change values? Change government, the 800-lb. gorilla whose sheer
bulk and reach powerfully influence private conduct. Government, after all,
is the business of politicians. Preaching is best left to the clergy. They
have the practice and the standing.
Copyright 1994 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Transmitted: 94-10-09 11:47:01 EDT
GB
I take it back. I've been thinking. Don't let the Iraqi's have it.
Virus
Why Not?¨
Mary Stark
It's strange, GB, that after _one_ opinionated news article, you have changed your opinion from not caring about Kuwait to a much more complicated scenario.
A more effective weapon, it seems to me, would be to take Baghdad , if its true that 4,000 Americans is all that we need. But then we'd have to calculate citezen casualties and all that crap. Kuwait's in the same sort of situation as El Salvador or Nigeragua. Surpression and genocide. But then again, Iraq is very desperate too. The citezens, not Saddam Hussein, are who are paying the cost.
LA REINE
and then we'd be stuck policing baghdad. and we'd end up with a lebanon-like situation where we have one little city and the fundamentalist muslims do their stuff.
John
Why does something have to be wrong with him?
Elisabeth Perrin
NASA Loses Contact With Probe Spiraling Toward Venus
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuter) - U.S. scientists lost radio contact with the
Magellan spacecraft Wednesday as the unammed space probe drifted closer to
its planned destruction in the harsh atmosphere of Venus, officials said.
Project administrator Phil Allin said at the National Aeronautics and
Space Administration's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena that tracking
stations would make further efforts to pick up Magellan's signal again, but
the loss of contact appeared to be final.
The last indications were that the voltage in the electrical systems
aboard the craft, which has sent back a remarkable stream of data about the
previously little-known planet, had dropped to critical levels, he said.
Scientists believed Magellan was still orbiting Venus, but in the next
two days it would move into the planet's dense, superheated atmosphere and
disintegrate, marking the end of a five-year, $900 million mission.
Magellan uncovered some of the secrets of Venus, often called Earth's
twin because the two planets are similar in size, age and composition. Little
was previously known about the planet because of the sulphuric mist
enveloping the planet.
With the space probe almost worn out and running low on power, scientists
commanded it to move to an orbit some 90 miles above Venus on Tuesday for one
final experiment testing the effects of Venus's upper atmosphere on the
spacecraft.
The final experiment consisted of putting Magellan's solar panels at
opposing angles like a windmill and seeing what thruster force was needed to
counter the force of Venus's atmosphere which was turning the probe.
Before it lost contact, the spacecraft sent back some important data from
this experiment, Allin said, adding that it could be helpful in designing
future spacecraft.
The Magellan mission surpassed its objectives, using radar scanning
technology to map 98 per cent of Venus's surface.
The mapping revealed towering volcanoes and lava flows longer and wider
than the Mississippi River. Canyons stretch for thousands of kilometres and
there are valleys similar to the Rift valley in Africa.
Allin said that scientists, who previously had only fuzzy images of
Venus, now had relatively high-resolution images of virtually the entire
planet.
Transmitted: 94-10-12 20:37:27 EDT
Elisabeth Perrin
Cursing Outlawed By Small New Jersey Town
RARITAN, N.J. (Reuter) - Cursing in the small New Jersey town of Raritan
could now cost a resident a hefty fine and a spell in the local jail.
The borough council of the town of 5,000, determined to purge bad
language and behavior, has banned cursing, rudeness and other disorderly
conduct by passing a new ordinance.
But not everyone is happy about the effort to keep the town squeaky
clean, including Raritan Police Chief Joseph Sferra who said, ``I will not
use my officers to enforce such a silly law. It is a waste of time."
The American Civil Liberties Union is threatening a legal challenge
against the ordinance, claiming that it violates constitutional rights of
people to swear if they want to.
The newly passed law, which amends a 1964 ``peace and good order",
ordinance, outlaws engaging in ``noisy, rude or indecent behavior" or using
``profane, vulgar or indecent language." It was approved Tuesday night. A
violation carries a penalty of up to $500 and 90 days in jail.
Transmitted: 94-10-12 20:37:33 EDT
Helix Quark
"meat's meat" ? HAHAHAHA
Diakonos
I hate reading the newspaper on the screen
Stone
Yassar Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize. Gee, if after a lifetime of condoning terrorism and violence, I decide to become a real human being, can I get one too?
And the lesser of two evils is back in power in Haiti. Now how long are we expected to keep him there?
LA REINE
funny how not too long ago we were all up in arms about aristide.
Bookworm
Then exclude the room Diakonos.
Whippersnapper
THE BIG BOOM: IS ANVIL FIRING A NEW ART FORM?
by Doug Clark
The Spokesman-Review, Sunday, Oct 9 1994
It figures a highly technical computer manufacturer like Hewlett-Packard would be teetering on the very cutting edge of modern science.
Which is why I rushed to the giant Liberty Lake firm the other day and spent my lunch hour watching some of the company's highly technical employees blow a 50-pound anvil into the air with gunpowder.
An experience guaranteed to short-circuit your microchips. Before we go further, however, let me try to explain this thing called anvil firing:
First, find a blacksmith's anvil. Pour a 600-grain charge of gunpowder into the cavity on the flat surface. Stick a fuse into the gunpowder.
Place another anvil carefully on top of the first one. Underline the word carefully. You definitely wouldn't want to create a spark at a delicate time like this.
Light the fuse. Run like hell.
Kids, don't try this at home unless you have a high -- Kur-BLOOMMMMMMY!!! --ceiling.
The climax is a thunderous, chest-collapsing explosion after which the top anvil somersaults 20 feet into the air amid an eruption of billowing white smoke.
Eventually this incoming chunk lands with a thunk, hopefully not on the heads of any spectators.
"There's nothing more exciting than a good explosion and large flying steel objects," says Mike Jewell, a mechanical engineer who took up firing anvils two years ago.
WARNING: To my knowledge, none of Hewlett-Packard's highly-paid, suit-wearing supervisors condoned, authorized or knew about these dangerous dabblings, which took place in a gravel pit a few blocks west of the corporation.
But if company big shots were smart, they would retire the bowling league and make Hewlett-Packard the nation's first company with an anvil firing team. Contests for biggest boom could be held against competing organizations such as the Kaiser Trentwood plant or the Peace and Justice Action League.
I'm convinced this offbeat, albeit ear-shattering, endeavor would be very good for office morale. Our excursion to the gravel pit, for example, drew a dozen enthusiastic employees.
Some of them, like Scott Carpenter, were brave enough to divulge their actual names. Other chickens shunned the rare privilege of seeing themselves identified in one of my columns. "Er, just call me Brian Anonymous," says one.
Anvil firing, believe it or not, is no flash in the pants. Such explosions were used to celebrate Civil War victories and the Fourth of July.
Thank God people like Dynamite Deke Sonnichsen of Menlo Park, Calif., still carry on this grand tradition. Dynamite is a 63-year-old retired rocket scientist who now launches anvils every Sept. 9 to commemorate the anniversary of California's statehood.
"Isn't that wonderful when the compression hits your chest?" muses Dynamite, who claims to be president of the International Society of Anvil Firers.
Dynamite taught Mike Jewell the secrets of anvil mayhem during a telephone conversation two years ago. Jewell saw Dynamite's name in an article on the sport and gave the man a call.
"I figured he wasn't some nerd who was going to blow his thumbs off," explains Dynamite.
Jewell bought an anvil from a Spokane pawn shop for $125.
But as we've seen it takes two anvils to bango. Luckily Jeff Knight, one of Jewell's Hewlett-Packard co-workers, just so happened to have one gathering dust around the house.
Soon the two and their looney-toon buddies were disturbing the peace whenever they felt the urge. Which brings us to another subject: Is anvil firing legal?
Dynamite Deke swears "there's no law against it." That seems to concur with what Knight says he was told when he telephoned the sheriff's office.
"Well, it's not exactly a bomb," says a deputy, "and it's not exactly a weapon."
Of course, now that the word is out it's only a matter of time before teen trouble makers tire of packing potato launchers and Uzis to school and arm themselves with anvils.
TEACHER: "All right, Billy, what's that lumpy thing in your backpack?"
BILLY: "Nothing."
TEACHER: "Come on, Mr. Smart Guy. Let's get that off and just see what ..."
Claaaank!
TEACHER: "Arghhhh, my foot."
John
At work I used to put dry ice chunks in plastic talking rain bottles. *Boom*
Elisabeth Perrin
I'm gonna have to try this anvil firing.
Elisabeth Perrin
Many terrorists have shared in the Nobel Peace Prize in the past. This is not new.
Virus
But Terrorist In Who's View, The American Media? I Think So, Resist The Brainwash.....Even.
Freejack
i think i'll just leave the planet now...
Freejack
maybe i'll go look for Magellan...
Elisabeth Perrin
He's either a terrorist or a freedom fighter from any view, Virus. Either way he's violent and to many people that means he shouldn't be getting a peace prize.
John
I heard a biography about him once. He made millions in his youth doing something-or-other. Another curious thing: He hasn't actually been in Palestine for something like twenty years.
Diakonos
Bookworm, No, I just <space bar> past those posts, because I do like to see the reactions of the people to what is in the news.
Bookworm
Diakonos- <n> works faster.
Diakonos
Bookworm - Yes it does, but then I miss the rest of the messages. I just want to bypass the news articles, and read people's own thoughts.
Megamol
What about Toys 'R Us no longer selling look alike toy guns!!!! I think that's pretty right on. To bad the kids can't get cowboy type guns anymore though.....
Bookworm
Just hit n when it is scrolling the article and it will drop you to the next message. You don't miss any that way except the article Diakonos.
Bookworm
Yeah I think it is a good thing that Toys 'R Us has stopped doing that. I have heard of to many kids being killed because of look-a-likes. I have seen some of them and unless you were actually holding it you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. There are some out there that professional gunsmiths can't tell apart by sight if they can't take time to really study them. Imagine what that does on the street.
Saint Bob
I'm so sickeningly out of touch with the news... haven't had cable for two months, haven't read a newspaper in at least one month. All I hear is the watered-down realities that float through my office. I don't even listen to the radio.
Diakonos
Ahhh, thanks Bookworm. That one I did not realize. I'll give it a shot.
Bookworm
No problem Diakonos.
chester cheetah
somebody explode big bomb in Lebanon or someplace.
John
And there's a lake or a river in Texas.
GB
It wasn't after the article that I changed my mind. The media has very little effect on my mind/.
I just remembered that I had said, "Let the Iraqis have it." without really thinking about it. After giving it some thought, in the current state of the world, a man like Saddam Hussein have billions of extra dollars at his disposal could do some really horrible things. A man that used chemical weapons to kill 30,000 Kurds and basically swore that Kurds should be exterminated.
If this is in fact truth, I don't tend to be a credulous person. I think ultimately (and this is waht lead to my previous "let him have it" comment) we should just switch to ethanol and not have to depend on these guys.
Freejack
why would you miss the rest of the msgs? n only skips the currently displayed one... ???
Whippersnapper
I'll be in Seattle next week, on a rather interesting errand.
I'll be attending a meeting of the Interagency Regulatory Analysis Committee on the subject of NATIONAL STANDARDS FOR SOLVENT DISTILLATION EQUIPMENT.
It would all be rather dry and technical, and of no particular interest to anyone not working in the field; but there's a bit of behind-the scenes scheming going on that I think worthy of comment.
First a bit of history.
Practically any rational person has an interest in our environment, right? Well, the "solvent distillation" mentioned above is the basic method of recovering a huge variety of solvents for re-use, which would (and do) otherwise serve as some particularly nasty pollutants. The solvents are "cooked" off and re-condensed to separate them from contaminants.
Amazing quantities of solvents are in use practically *everywhere*, for applications ranging from auto parts cleaning to painting, electronics, fiberglass, various manufacturing processes -- ad infinitum. Paint thinner, acetone, mineral spirits and a very long list of other petroleum-based and CFC type solvents are in widespread use and are, in sum total, a very serious environmental problem.
EPA standards have continually tightened for decades now, and handling and disposal of solvents is becoming a major problem for many businesses, right down to the local auto repair garage. Improper disposal of solvents now usually carries huge EPA fines, and *proper* disposal is more and more costly.
A result of all this has been a growing industry which supplies solvent ditillation equipment to businesses, enabling them to reclaim their own used solvents. They wind up saving huge amounts on purchase of the stuff, and virtually eliminating their disposal costs.
One of my customers is such an enterprise. I designed the electronics for their distillation device, which is probably the most successful machine of its kind. Hence my attendance of the aforementioned meeting.
OK, you say: So what?
Ah, but here's the interesting part: what is actually going on here is an attempt by a huge corporation to PREVENT such machines from succeeding on the market.
There's this company by the name of Saf-T-Kleen. Practically anyone is likely to have seen one of their parts cleaners in any ordinary auto-service garage. Saf-T-Kleen is a nationwide operation with a near-total monopoly on the solvent disposal business. They charge tidy sums for the pick-up and disposal of vast quantities of solvents, which they then reclaim and sell.
This company is traded on the stock exchange. Last year, I'm told, they suffered minor losses of about 200 million, but which left their stock price virtually unaffected. Just to give you some idea of their magnitude.
And they have a gigantic vested interest in seeing to it that on-site solvent reclamation is prevented utterly.
They have already funded the establishment of safety standards which will in effect completely outlaw the use of all the on-site equipment now in existence by 1997. These are the standards used by Underwriters Laboratories and other similar operations, as well as by fire authorities and inspection agencies all over the country.
As I'm told, it is only because the EPA desires to see on-site reclamation actually occur, that this "interagency" meeting is even happening. The idea is supposedly to attempt to reach some compromise which doesn't make it impossible or prohibitively expensive to produce or use such machines. The new standards set requirements which do just that. Yet existing standards and equipment had an excellent safety record.
There are legitimate concerns about safety, which Saf-T-Kleen has capitalized upon to urge the more stringent safety measures. When you start vaporizing, say, five or ten gallons of flammable solvent, you have some pretty serious potential for fire and explosions. There are a lot of very reasonable precautions which must be observed.
But what they and their paid consultants are actually trying to do is to eliminate a growing threat to their total dominance of the market.
On the grounds that they do not produce any product or equipment which has anything to do with the standards in question, Saf-T-Kleen was asked to bow out of the process some time back. They agreed to do so, but in fact have continued to participate intensely.
Two of their high-powered consultants are expected to attend this meeting.
I'm going to pay close attention to the proceedings and the "players" in the game.
Depending in some measure upon what I learn, I'm considering writing the thing up to every newspaper and environmental group I can find, to see if I can stir up some embarrassing publicity for the bad guys...
Megamol
go sic 'em......
John Gardner
Good for you, Whip.
Cerphe
is that a suggestion?
GB
Is there someone we can write too to sway the vote towards allowing localized petro/CFC waste recycling?
Whippersnapper
GB, it's not a voting type thing.
It's rather like a committee of experts. What they decide is law. What they often adopt is simply the work someone else did and wrote up as proposed standards. Which I think is approximately the case here.
What they accept becomes accepted everywhere more or less as a matter of course.
I'm told it's not unusual for the "standards" to occasionally be set up in such a way that someone winds up with a monopoly on some particular type product.
It can, in other words, sometimes be a money/power game where you can "buy" the means to make the rules.
Some things just suck. ( <--- deep philosophical observation of the day )
GB
Well, legally, a vote can change anything, unless not creating that law will harm the people. Such an instance would be environmental legislation. Pass it and you end up hurting corporations and the people you work for, don't pass it and you end up hurting the environment, destroying species, pissing off leftists. Whatever.
This sounds like something that can be influenced by a vote, if it is unjustly passed. Writing senators is actually really powerful.
Me and my school, and a bunch of Amnesty International types, wrote lots of letters to Patty Murray, urging her to vote against supplying arms to Indonesia. She did vote against it, changing her previous vote to supply Indonesia with arms. So perhaps it works? If only one would put the effort into it.
Whippersnapper
You're essentially right, GB, but I suspect that you (like practically everyone) don't know much about the "system" in such matters.
The "standards" at issue here are not exactly LAWS. More like "rules" which are given their force by law, but brought into existence without quite the same sort of procedure as legislation or litigation.
It gets complex. For instance, fire authorities exist for just about every city, county and state in the country. What they do is to certify public, commercial and residential structures and spaces as "occupiable" or "safe." If they find, say, that your house contains unsafe wiring: they can demand you correct it, issue citations (rather like a traffic ticket) and even condemn the property or prohibit its use until the problem is corrected. How they DETERMINE your wiring is unsafe is BY WAY OF the accepted technical standards. Most of which make perfectly good sense -- which might relate to the fact politicians didn't write them...
There are so many agencies and local/regional/state/federal/et cetera authorities, so many TYPES of standards (electrical, structural, hazardous materials, environmental, fire, et cetera) and so many SOURCES of standards (Underwriters' Laboratories, National Electric Code, building codes, OSHA, et cetera) that it gets quite confusing. Any one agency is likely to adopt a standard (rule or set of rules) which fits its needs or interests, and other agencies are likely to accept THAT standard for THEIR use, and so on.
Anyway, these authorities can prevent a business from operating if their equipment is hazardous, or working conditions unsafe. They deny certification (which amounts to "permission to occupy/use the premises/equipment") and so on.
The rules they go by are, I think, generally adopted in "chunks" either by votes of city and county councils and such, or may receive a sort of "blanket" approval: such as a determination to always apply the "National Electric Code" in whatever is its current form.
In this type of case, it's common practice for an agency to accept a standard which is researched and submitted by private industry - who, after all, are often those who know the most about specific subjects. If you want to figure out how to make sure electric heaters are safe, for instance, you wouldn't ask a motorboat manufacturer. But General Electric might know plenty. It's already in their vital interest to figure out such things and they have experience. So industry is allowed to fund or conduct studies which produce safety standards - which are then generally accepted and used to good effect. Usually.
In our particular case, though, an industry leader - Saf-T-Kleen - has taken advantage of the process to establish highly restrictive standards which apply to products its COMPETITORS make, and they DON'T (and never will, since it would undermine their livelihood). They were kind enough to fund the whole affair, and contribute all their wealth of expertise in the solvent reclamation field. Wasn't that nice of them?
Among the rules they cooked up, for example, is one that firmly requires an electronic device which could easily cost $1,000 on each machine, when the problem it's supposed to solve a) is almost nonexistent and b) could be utterly solved by at least one method I know of that costs almost nothing. And that's the tip of the iceberg.
The good news is, the supposed purpose of this whole meeting is to resolve such matters and make on-site reclamation viable. But the perpetrators will be there to help nudge things their way, and there are others (such as UL) who also have a vested interest in making things difficult and expensive and will be there to complicate matters further. A decent resolution of it is by no means certain.
Ultimately, if things go badly, perhaps senators and such are a means of recourse.
I'd sure hate to see the bad guys win this one. No two ways about it: the bastards are undermining ALL our interests for the sake of their petty little monopoly.
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