American Buddhist Net

Thursday August 7th, 2008

YANGON, Myanmar - A rare bird's-eye look at Myanmar's Irrawaddy delta shows the devastation still left from Cyclone Nargis - broken levies, flooded farm roads, the shattered remains of bamboo huts and trees strewn like matchsticks along the coast.

Conditions are far starker than reflected in the assessments from Myanmar's government and even in the recent optimism of some UN officials, The Associated Press has concluded from a review of data, a private flight over the delta and interviews with victims and aid workers.

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7 August 2008
BY ALISON KLAYMAN

Gold medalists won’t be the only ones climbing podiums in Beijing once the 2008 Olympic Games are under way. Isaac Shapiro will be stepping up to celebrate his bar mitzvah.

Isaac, of Highland Park, Ill., will be called to the Torah at the Chabad House in Beijing on Aug. 16. and his family are among the hundreds of Jewish tourists, athletes, dignitaries and media expected to converge on the Chinese capital for the 2008 Olympic Games, which begin Aug. 8.

While most visitors probably don’t even realize there is a local Jewish community in Beijing, the resident Jews of China’s capital are getting ready to welcome anyone who seeks them out.

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08/07/2008

A Buddhist tattoo artist from Boulder expelled from China with three others after unfurling pro-Tibet banners from atop light poles near China's showpiece Olympic stadium said authorities questioned them for 10 hours, threatened them with jail and refused calls to the U.S. Embassy.

Rotating teams of interrogators at a makeshift police station on a gated technical college campus quizzed them about Chinese who aided activists on their mission, Phillip Bartell said in an interview today after arriving in San Francisco.

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A fundamentalist church group from the U.S. has announced it plans to picket the funeral of Tim McLean Jr. in Winnipeg, declaring, "God is punishing Canada."

"People are absolutely outraged about it," said Doug Mitchell, a friend of McLean's for about seven years.

Led by pastor Fred Phelps, the Westboro Baptist Church from Kansas issued a release saying they would picket McLean's funeral this weekend.

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For me, these are the really great athletes. ABN
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Cuban hurdler and US runner among signatories about to take part in games

# Jonathan Watts in Beijing and Peter Walker
# guardian.co.uk,
# Thursday August 07 2008

More than 40 athletes taking part in the Beijing Olympics have today signed an open letter addressed to China's government urging it to respect human rights and freedom of religion, particularly in Tibet.

Coming on the eve of the opening ceremony, it marks fresh embarrassment for the host nation, which also faced criticism from George Bush and renewed protests in Tiananmen Square.

Signatories to the letter include the men's 110m hurdles world record holder, Dayron Robles of Cuba, well known to Chinese fans as the main rival to their most famous track athlete, Liu Xiang, the reigning Olympic champion. Others involved included the US 400m runner DeeDee Trotter and the Croatian women's world high jump champion, Blanka Vlasic.

The letter calls on China's president, Hu Jintao, "to protect freedom of expression, freedom of religion and freedom of opinion in your country, including Tibet".

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It's reached the point now where almost anyone can see that the case against Ivins is not strong. It does not come near proving that he acted alone, let alone acted at all. It also does not in any way prove that he stole the anthrax--to which some 100 people had access--or that he had the means or the skills to convert it to the very sophisticated weapon it was when mailed. Furthermore, the FBI has not established a credible motive. So, opportunity has been established, but the means and the motive are far from having been proved. Beyond that, the evidence shows that Ivins, like so many humans, could be a bit weird and that he was sensitive, a trait that likely drove him to kill himself. So the question now becomes why the rush to close the investigation? Is it because Bush's term is nearing an end and this is yet one more thing they need to cover up? ABN
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Handwriting analysis also failed to tie Ivins to letters
August 07, 2008
© 2008 WorldNetDaily

Bruce Ivins
Casting further doubt on the FBI's anthrax case, accused government scientist Bruce Ivins passed two polygraph tests and a handwriting analysis comparing samples of his handwriting to writing contained in the anthrax letters, U.S. officials familiar with the investigation say.

The Justice Department yesterday closed the case, announcing the late "Dr. Ivins was the only person responsible for these attacks."

Ivins passed the first polygraph to satisfy a security requirement prior to working with the FBI as part of a team of scientists at the Fort Detrick, Md., lab who originally helped analyze the anthrax letters. He passed a second exam after he became a suspect.

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People like Hamdan are usually not even tried for war crimes. This sentence seems appropriate, if he is let go on time, and more fitting to the image of the USA as a great nation than the life sentence proposed by the prosecution. It's not much but it is the first glimmer of sanity we have seen in some time over these detainees. ABN
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By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: August 7, 2008

GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba — Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the convicted former driver for Osama bin Laden, was sentenced Thursday to 66 months in prison by the military panel that convicted him of a war crime Wednesday.

The unexpectedly short sentence was far less than military prosecutors had sought. Through more than five years of legal proceedings against Mr. Hamdan, prosecutors had pursued a life sentence, and earlier in the day, faced with Mr. Hamdan's acquittal on the most serious charge against him, prosecutors recommended a sentence of at least 30 years and said life may be appropriate.

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Bruce Ivins wrote in a September 26, 2001 email that he "heard tonight" that Bin Laden has anthrax and sarin gas.

Major report from that day:

Bin Laden terror group tries to acquire chemical arms
By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
September 26, 2001

"Intelligence officials say classified analysis of the types of chemicals and toxins sought by al Qaeda indicate the group probably is trying to produce the nerve agent Sarin, or biological weapons made up of anthrax spores"

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BERLIN (AFP) — Critics of China's human rights record made sure they were not forgotten on Thursday, a day before the grand opening of the Beijing Olympics, with protest actions the world over and in China itself.

A day after cheering crowds welcomed the Olympic torch to Beijing's Tiananmen Square -- scene of a 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protesters -- activists from Canada to Kathmandu sought to get their voices heard.

Already detained once for protesting on the square, three US Christians were forcefully dragged from the site as they prayed publicly, a statement on their behalf said.

"We were in Tiananmen Square publicly praying for the people of China when police forcefully dragged us across the street," Reverend Patrick J. Mahoney, one of the three, was quoted as saying while in custody.

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By Robin Laurence

Zhang Huan: Altered States

At the Vancouver Art Gallery until October 5

Through much of Zhang Huan’s impressive career, his body has been his most eloquent and abused medium.

During his early years as a performance artist in Beijing, he subjected himself to extremes of endurance and self-abasement. He bled from self-inflicted wounds while hanging from the ceiling bound in chains; sat all day in a public toilet, his bare body covered with flies (attracted by the fish oil and honey he’d smeared on himself); wrapped himself in the rib cages of newly slaughtered pigs; and lay naked on a concrete floor for an hour while being showered with white-hot sparks from a metal screw cutter.

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By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 7, 2008; 11:07 AM

BEIJING, Aug. 7 -- China's intense efforts to block any protest that would mar the Olympic Games were challenged Wednesday by foreign activists equally bent on diverting attention to issues as varied as Tibetan independence, the crisis in Darfur and religious freedom.

Two American and two British protesters slipped through a smothering Olympic security net, climbed a pair of lampposts and unfurled banners demanding freedom for Tibet near the new stadium where the Beijing Games are to open Friday night. In Tiananmen Square, three American Christian activists spoke out against China's rights record and protested its population control policies. The four pro-Tibet protesters have been deported, while a second demonstration by Christian activists on Thursday was disrupted when plainclothes police removed the protesters from Tiananmen Square.

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She makes a good point. ABN
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by Robin Abrahams August 7, 2008 07:32 AM

According to Buddhism, desire is the root of suffering. I desire many things, which is a spiritual struggle for me at times. Thanks to the miracle of spam, however, I have come to realize that there are also many things I do not want. Here are some:

A job from home ... starting this month!
A time share in Costa Rica
A safe and secure Canadian pharmacy
Discount printer ink
A Rich Beautiful Lawn
To Meet Christian Singles
To satisfy her all night long

Thank you, spam, for helping to liberate me from the tyranny of desire.

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Last night we received the message below in an email from a very reliable source. Today, we found confirmation here. Since this is all coming from Mike Whitney, it is surely very reliable information. ABN
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My friend Tom Feeley is in Big trouble. He runs the web site informationclearinghouse.info which updates "news you won't find in the corporate media" every day. The site is strongly anti-war. Tom has gotten his share of death threats over the years, but what happened this week is a lot more serious. Two days ago, Tom's wife found three well dressed men in their kitchen. The man who did all the talking, told Tom's wife (I won't give her name) that Tom must "Stop what he is doing on the Internet, NOW!" As crazy as it sounds, he pulled back his lapel and showed her a gun of some kind which she could not identify.

The present track of talks between the Communist Party’s United Front Work Department and the Dalai Lama’s representatives will never get anywhere. The only hope is for Beijing to pluck Tibetan affairs from the United Front officials and hold direct talks between the Dalai Lama and either President Hu Jintao or Prime Minister Wen Jiabao, negotiating until a deal is reached.

It’s possible to devise an agreement that leaves both China and the Tibetans much better off — if they hurry. Once the Dalai Lama dies — he is 73 — then a deal could be impossible for another generation because no one would be able to unify the Tibetan people behind a new plan.

Nicholas D. Kristof gives a plausible outline of what a settlement might look like.

The New York Times | An Olive Branch From the Dalai Lama

SEP 04, 2001
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
by Judith Miller, Stephen Engelberg and William J. Broad.

Over the past several years, the United States has embarked on a program of secret research on biological weapons that, some officials say, tests the limits of the global treaty banning such weapons.

The 1972 treaty forbids nations from developing or acquiring weapons that spread disease, but it allows work on vaccines and other protective measures. Government officials said the secret research, which mimicked the major steps a state or terrorist would take to create a biological arsenal, was aimed at better understanding the threat.

The projects, which have not been previously disclosed, were begun under President Clinton and have been embraced by the Bush administration, which intends to expand them.

...Earlier this year, administration officials said, the Pentagon drew up plans to engineer genetically a potentially more potent variant of the bacterium that causes anthrax, a deadly disease ideal for germ warfare.

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Facilities in Los Angeles and Tustin allegedly churned thousands of indigents through their sites and billed Medicare and Medi-Cal for costly and unjustified medical procedures.

By Cara Mia DiMassa, Richard Winton and Rich Connell, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
August 7, 2008

On a Sunday afternoon two years ago, five homeless people being dropped off on Los Angeles' skid row by an ambulance caught the attention of police officers.

The officers videotaped what they thought was a case of hospitals dumping patients in a section of the city where few would notice or care.

But as investigators began to unravel the incident, they say they found something far different: a massive scheme to defraud taxpayer-funded healthcare programs of millions of dollars by recruiting homeless patients for unnecessary medical services.

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Thursday, August 07, 2008

NEW YORK — Guantanamo waterboarding as a Coney Island sideshow — that's what one political-minded artist has created on the Brooklyn seashore.

The "Waterboard Thrill Ride," by Steve Powers, is a stone's throw from Coney Island's famed Cyclone roller coaster and Nathan's hot dog stand.

For a dollar, visitors get to look through a barred window on a Guantanamo-like interrogation, enacted by animated robots. The hooded figure leans over a man in an orange jumpsuit, his face covered with a towel and his body tethered to a tilted plane.

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Nass has written some good stuff on this case and her blog is worth following. About the evidence presented, Ivins' lawyer also puts it well: “It was an explanation of why Bruce Ivins was a suspect,” said Paul F. Kemp, who represented the scientist for more than a year before his death on July 29 at age 62. “But there’s a total absence of proof that he committed this crime.”

Which brings us back to the even bigger question of why the rush to close this case now? It hardly seems to have been "solved" as the FBI claims. In the spirit of their rush to condemn Ivins, are we not permitted the same leeway in our speculation about their timing? To wit, is this case being closed now because Bush's term is coming to an end and someone does not want the matter pursued further under the next administration? Does anyone else see a pattern here with other things like telecoms, domestic spying, torture, attorney hirings and firings, executive privilege, fake WMDs, GITMO trials, and so on? ABN
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August 6, 2008
Meryl Nass

U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Taylor said at a Justice Department news conference, "We regret that we will not have the opportunity to present evidence to the jury."

Everybody else regrets it too--since what came out today was another pastiche of innuendo and circumstantial evidence, with an awful lot of holes. Time for the FBI to present all of what it has to the court of public opinion, don't you think? A major benefit for the FBI of sharing its case would be restoration of confidence in the US' system of justice, the Justice Department and its FBI.

I worked all day at the hospital, but want to get something out tonight, in a hurry, regarding the strength of some of the evidence presented today. I'll no doubt have more to say once I have read the rest of the "evidence".

Here goes:

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Thursday, 07 August 2008

Smiling and friendly, Beijing's shop assistants, taxi drivers, doormen, restaurant staff and even the police are falling over themselves to be polite and make a good impression on foreign visitors -- on official orders.

The government issued booklets in the lead-up to the Games, which open on Friday, drilling people on how to improve customer service, smarten their appearance, and learn some English to ensure foreign visitors leave Beijing with a good impression.

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“If only there were evil people somewhere, insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line between good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” --Aleksander Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago
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August 7, 2008

Author Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who exposed the horrors of Soviet slave-labor camps, was buried yesterday in a cemetery filled with evocations of Communist cruelty and the fight against it that defined his life.

Solzhenitsyn's death Sunday at 89 silenced one of Russia's most influential figures, a man regarded by mourners as critical in destroying the Soviet Union. His funeral and burial at Moscow's Donskoi Monastery offered evidence of his renown -- the Russian president was there as military honor guards fired rifles in salute and white-robed priests sang dirges.

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One of the biggest questions in this case is why the rush to close it? Some say the FBI is trying to clean up its reputation and put the anthrax business and the embarrassment of having aggressively pursued Hatfill behind it, but "solving" a case on purely circumstantial evidence--and in the same week that the Hamdan trial ended with such a dubious verdict--is not going to accomplish that. Far from it. So why the rush? Is it not possible--and this speculation is no less far-out than the FBI's speculation about Ivins--that the agency is rushing to close this case because Bush's term is nearly over and they do not want the investigation to be continued under the next president not because there is nothing more to be found but because there is? ABN
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By SCOTT SHANE and ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: August 6, 2008

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation on Wednesday outlined a pattern of bizarre and deceptive conduct by Bruce E. Ivins, an Army microbiologist who killed himself last week, presenting a sweeping but circumstantial case that he was solely responsible for mailing the deadly anthrax letters that killed five people in 2001.

After nearly seven years of a troubled investigation, officials of the F.B.I. and the Justice Department declared that the case had been solved. Jeffrey A. Taylor, the United States attorney for the District of Columbia, said the authorities believed “that based on the evidence we had collected, we could prove his guilt to a jury beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Some survivors of the attacks and members of Congress said they were persuaded by the evidence against Dr. Ivins, laid out in hundreds of pages of applications for search warrants unsealed for the first time. But some independent scientists, friends and colleagues of Dr. Ivins remained skeptical, noting that officials admitted that more than 100 people had access to the supply of anthrax that matched the powder in the letters.

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FBI'S ALLEGATION THAT IVINS WAS "SOLE CUSTODIAN" IS FALSE

August 7, 2008

HANOI - VIETNAM has legalised some types of sex change surgery but will let government physicians have the final say on what gender a patient is, a health official in the communist country said on Thursday.

The decree published this week allows corrective surgery for hermaphrodites and people born with certain genital deformities, but not for people who are physically of one sex and request gender reassignment surgery.

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2008-08-08

The streets of Okinawa will be filled during a four-day period starting Wednesday, but most stores won’t be closed.

It is Obon, one of the three primary holidays on the Okinawa calendar.

Obon is a time for celebrating life, and welcoming ancestor spirits home for a family reunion. It’s a Buddhist event, where ancestor spirits are believed to return to the human world in order to visit relatives. It is also called the Urabon, the Feast of Lanterns.

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