The New American articles from March 2007

The New American archives from March 2007

Assigning blame.(Letter to the editor)
March 5, 2007... I am responding to the letter to the editor printed in the November 27, 2006 issue of THE NEW AMERICAN from Dr. Pat Flanagan, in which he asserts that Hezbollah was not responsible for the destruction that took place in Lebanon in the recent...

Healthcare plus nutrition.(Letter to the editor)
March 5, 2007... The article "Providing Affordable Healthcare" (December 25, 2006 issue), about primary-care clinics where patients pay for the required service at the time of service, is a great article. I have been telling many physician and nurse...

What's ours?(Letter to the editor)
March 5, 2007... I am writing to ask all your readers to send "public comment" to the U.S. Mint regarding their "interim" rule (Inside Track, January 8 issue) banning the melting of pennies and nickels, and also banning exportation of more than a certain amount...

Global-warming skeptics and holocaust deniers.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... On September 19, 2006, in a now-infamous post on the blog run by Grist, an ultra-left radical environmentalist magazine, armchair autocrat David Roberts wrote of global warming "deniers": "When we've finally gotten serious about global warming,...

Alternative climate-change theory.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... For the last decade, scientist Henrik Svensmark of the Danish Space Research Institute and his collaborators have been piecing together evidence supporting a novel theory that may spark a paradigm shift in how climate change is understood....

Editing and the IPCC.(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... The release of the latest report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has, predictably, been the occasion for a great deal of hand wringing by the major media, by every variety of liberal, and even by some conservatives....

North American union by "stealth".(Inside Track)
March 5, 2007... In response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by the public interest group Judicial Watch, the U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) has released documents detailing the participation of NORTHCOM officials in the North American...

Utah state house passes anti-North American union resolution.(INSIDE TRACK)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... The Utah House of Representatives on February 6 passed by a vote of 47 to 24 a resolution (H.J. Res. 7) urging the United States "to withdraw from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other activity which seeks to...

Cheney runs the White House, Libby v. Plame case suggests.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... Testimony in the perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, goes far toward confirming the position of political analysts who've held that Mr. Cheney is the real power behind the throne in the...

President Newt? Gingrich running full-tilt, "above the fray".(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... While former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Arizona Senator John McCain, and an increasingly crowded field of GOP hopefuls jockey for position in the 2008 presidential primaries, former House Speaker Newt...

Territories will vote in the house of representatives.(Inside Track)
March 5, 2007... By a near party-line vote, the House on January 24 adopted H. Res. 78, a rules change that granted limited voting rights to delegates from the District of Columbia and the territories of American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and Puerto...

Germany paroles "most evil woman".(Inside Track)(Brigitte Mohnhaupt)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... A German court in Stuttgart ruled on February 12 to release 57-year-old terrorist Brigitte Mohnhaupt on parole, despite the fact that she has shown little indication of renouncing her terrorist past. Mohnhaupt has served 24 years of a life...

Planned parenthood misleads on how abortion harms women.(Inside Track)(Planned Parenthood Federation of America)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... In a statement released January 30, Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) medical director Vanessa Cullins claimed there are no emotional or psychological dangers for women to fear from abortion. "Most women feel relief after an...

Pushing anti-cervical cancer vaccine for schoolgirls.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... Bypassing the state legislature, Texas Governor Rick Perry issued an executive order on February 2 making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls as young as 11 get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes...

What happened to 363 tons of cash?(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), on February 6 grilled ex-Ambassador to Iraq Paul Bremer about the fate of 363 tons of Federal Reserve Notes that were shipped from New York City to...

Former CIA officer pessimistic about Iraq war.(Paul Pillar)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "This is a civil war on top of an insurgency on top of conflicts. There is no one simple split between side A and side B. There are numerous sub-groups and splinter groups that make it difficult to say any one leader is in charge." After...

Candidate Clinton draws a huge laugh.(Hillary Clinton)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "What, in my background, equips me to deal with evil and bad men?" Asked at a political gathering in Iowa how she would deal with the likes of Osama bin Laden, Hillary Clinton repeated the question and the audience, thinking about her husband's...

As New York City sues, Virginia gun dealer responds.(Dennis Alverson)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "Once the gun leaves our store, we have no control over it. We can't control where guns go any more than Bloomberg can control all the drug trade in New York that seems to make its way down into our cities." After New York City sued 27...

Vice President urges continued struggle in Iraq.(Dick Cheney)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "The pressure from some quarters is to get out. If we were to dc that, we would simply validate the terrorists' strategy that says Americans will not stay to complete the task, that we don't have the stomach to fight." During a January 24...

President receives a sharp response.(QUICK QUOTES)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "Free trade drove 1,600 good-paving Maytag jobs to Mexico." While President Bush was promoting free trade during a visit to one part of Illinois, freshman Democrat Representative Phil Hare issued a press release indicating what had happened in...

Inflation is destroying Zimbabwe.(QUICK QUOTES)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "There's been a huge collapse in living standards, and also deterioration in the infrastructure--in standards of health care, in education. There's a sort of a sense that things are plunging." With inflation soaring to 1,281 percent last month,...

New Orleans mayor angry because of broken promises.(Ray Nagin)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "I look at what we're doing in Iraq and how we spend money at an unprecedented level there [and I wonder] how can we set up temporary hospitals and designate money to rebuild their economy and we have this dance going on in New Orleans." ...

Cutting off energy: with a democrat-controlled Congress, measures punishing "Big Oil" and fighting global warming are taking center stage, but it is middle-class America that will lose in the end.(ENERGY)(Cover story)
March 5, 2007... The super luxury Kingsmill Resort, owned by Anheuser-Busch, sprawls over 2,900 lush, rolling acres along the James River in Virginia. It's an incongruous place for a meeting of liberal Democrats who never tire of attempting to ingratiate...

The cost of cap and trade.
March 5, 2007... How expensive would the cap-and-trade measures (which limit each industry's C[O.sub.2] emissions and allow them to sell any emission allowances that they don't use) of the Climate Stewardship Act be if that measure becomes law? One way to tell...

Going bananas over ethanol.(alternative fuels)
March 5, 2007... There hasn't been as much excitement about alcohol in this country since Prohibition was repealed in 1933. Then, federal revenuers were busy chopping holes in stills and dynamiting vats holding hundreds of gallons of mash--a fermenting mixture...

Biofuel's unintended consequences.
March 5, 2007... In a world hungry for fuel, biofuels have caught on as a promising and environmentally friendly alternative to petroleum fuels. Biofuels have powered Brazil since the 1980s and the Bush administration is counting on them to replace the gasoline...

Playing with fire: if it can be recovered economically, a mysterious ice that burns may prove to be the source of much of the energy needed to primer the future.
March 5, 2007... According to some scientists, fishing trawler captain Brian Dickens is lucky to be alive. Dickens was fishing in almost 3,000 feet of water off the southwest coast of Vancouver Island in July of 2001 when he and his crew started to retrieve...

Deadly vapors.(ENERGY)
March 5, 2007... Off the northeast coast of Scotland, 100 miles or so out from Aberdeen, is a mysterious portion of the North Sea known as the Witch Ground. Like the more infamous Bermuda Triangle, legends speak of ships disappearing into the area, never to be...

A study in North American Union.(THE RIGHT PERSPECTIVE)
March 5, 2007... Just when you thought you had a grip on the NAU (North American Union) and its scope, more disturbing news arrives indicating that this horrendous project isn't half-baked, but ready to be forked. The NAU first began gaining the attention...

Homeland security deceived Congress: a Department of Homeland Security official admits his agency deceived Congress; congressman says DHS "lied" about Border Patrol agents.(Department of Homeland Security on Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos )
March 5, 2007... Former Border Patrol agents Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos and their families and supporters had hoped for a presidential pardon. They had hoped that these two law enforcement officers with distinguished records and young families would not be...

"Secret Santa," R.I.P.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(Larry Stewart's acts of goodness)
March 5, 2007... This past Christmas season was the last for a generous man who remained anonymous for years, known to the world only as "Secret Santa." He revealed his name, Larry Stewart, last November, only because he learned that he was dying from...

Artist brightens twins' world.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)
March 5, 2007... Twin brothers Mateo and McHale Shaw of Sheboygan, Wisconsin, were born last May with spina bifida and conjoined at the spinal cord. In September, their parents, Ryan Shaw and Angie Benzschawel, brought the boys to the Children's National...

Weather forecast: doom: in the 1970s, both the media and climatologists sounded the alarm about catastrophic climate change. But they imagined a very different scenario from today's forecasts.
March 5, 2007... "There are ominous signs that the earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production--with serious political implications for just about every nation on earth. The...

Timing your exit.(store robbery)
March 5, 2007... To echo an old cliche, customers in the American Mini Mart in North Las Vegas got more than they bargained for if they were present in the store on the afternoon of January 5. Two men entered the store and at gunpoint herded the workers and...

Daytona duo.(Miles Dellavecchia's intervention in robbery)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... "We're from Tennessee. When we see someone we don't know, we get the shotgun," Miles Dellavecchia told WFTV.com about his intervention in a scuffle resulting from an aborted armed robbery near his apartment in Daytona Beach, Florida. This...

Just in Time.(David Espino and robbery)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... WKRN.com reported that David Espino, a part owner of a Madison, Tennessee, discount tobacco store, "bought himself a gun. Monday he bought a holster. Tuesday night, he used them both when police said 19-year-old Joshua Whitworth and two others...

Hurt heinie.(Coleman Moody)(Brief article)
March 5, 2007... On the night of January 5, Coleman Moody of Prattville, Alabama, answered a knock at his front door, only to have two men push their way inside his house, brandishing a weapon. They took his money and his car keys. Moody acquiesced, but as soon...

Finger-pointing and other fiscal follies.
March 5, 2007... ITEM: The president previewed his budget message in remarks in Peoria, Illinois. As reported by Reuters on January 30: "President George W. Bush said on Tuesday he plans to submit a budget proposal for fiscal 2008 that would pave the way for...

Pardon groundswell: pour it on!(THE LAST WORD)
March 5, 2007... The odds in favor of a presidential pardon for Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have greatly increased in the past few weeks. Public and congressional pressure have been rapidly and steadily building for the pardon in spite...

Libertarianism vs. common sense.(Letter to the editor)
March 19, 2007... Dave Seely in his letter to the editor ("Libertarianism," November 13, 2006) makes the case that just as the free market self-corrects, so would vice (self-inflicted harm) self-correct if left unchecked, and so vice laws aren't necessary. ...

Border patrol nightmare.(Letter to the editor)
March 19, 2007... I don't soften easily, but I had tears in my eyes as I read your cover story in the February 19 issue about Border Patrol agents Compean and Ramos, and as I understand it, at least one of them has already been beaten up in prison. If anyone...

Corrections.(Correction notice)
March 19, 2007... In "Weather Forecast: Doom" in our March 5 issue, Dr. William Gray was misidentified as being at the University of Colorado. He is at Colorado State University. Also, in "Living Conservatively" in our February 5 issue, the book Focus was...

CFR admits "Lara Croft".(Inside Track)(Angelina Jolie joins the Council on Foreign Relations)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... The New York City-based Council on Foreign Relations has long been the leading internationalist "think tank" in the United States. Its members populate the upper echelons of business, academe, and the media. Its presence has long been felt most...

Smuggler in Ramos & Compean case caught in second drug run.(Inside Track)(Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila drug smuggling activities continue)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... As reported last year by THE NEW AMERICAN ("Betrayed in the Line of Duty," September 18), the drug smuggler who was shot by two Border Patrol agents near El Paso, Texas, in February 2005, brought another van load of drugs across the border...

Abu Omar says he was tortured.(Inside Track)
March 19, 2007... Egyptian cleric Osama Nasr, better known as Abu Omar, disappeared off a Milan street in 2003 when he was abducted by CIA agents and sent to prison in Egypt. Nasr, who had been given political asylum in Italy prior to his abduction according to...

Was OKC bomber Timothy McVeigh working for the FBI?(Inside Track)(investigating the Oklahoma City Bombings of 1995)
March 19, 2007... In a 19-page affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City, convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols alleges that the bombing plot was actually under the supervision of top FBI officials. According to a February 21...

Merck stops lobbying for Gardasil vaccine.(Inside Track)(Merck & Company Inc.)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... Pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., responding to pressure from parents, pro-family organizations, and medical groups, announced on February 20 that it was immediately suspending its lobbying campaign to persuade state legislatures to mandate...

"Secondary virginity" advocated for GOP politicos.(Inside Track)(Grand Old Party candidates for the upcoming presidential elections)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... The New York Times reported on February 25 that the conservative Council on National Policy (CNP) met on Amelia Island, Florida, earlier in the month to determine if there would be any Republican candidate for president of the United States...

The inconvenient truth about Al Gore's "carbon footprint".(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... Former Vice President Al Gore's high-octane PowerPoint presentation on the dangers of global warming, recast as the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth, took home an Oscar for best documentary at the 79th annual Academy Awards presentation...

Glaciers expand--and contract.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... Glaciers expand and contract all the time, and while some glaciers are shrinking at present, others are growing. In New Zealand, for instance, the Franz Josef and Fox glaciers are advancing. According to a January 21 report in The Press (New...

Variability in Greenland's glaciers.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... One of the central claims made by those worried about global warming is that Greenland's glaciers are melting rapidly. The influx of fresh melt water into the ocean, they say, will catastrophically raise sea levels and shut down the Gulf...

The Soviet smear of Pius XII.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... For decades Eugenio Pacelli, Pope Pius the XII, has come under intense fire for his purported Nazi sympathies and his alleged inaction in the face of the horrors of the Holocaust. The truth is that Pius XII, who demonstrated his greatness by...

Putin plays both sides in Hamas-PLO conflict over Palestine.(Vladimir Putin)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... During a visit to Moscow on February 26, Hamas political chief Khaled Meshal praised Russia's efforts to help Hamas win support for a new "unity government" for Palestine with rival PLO-Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. Russia is the only member of...

Gangs and the rule of law.(Inside Track)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has reiterated repeatedly that fighting gangs is one of his priorities. As part of his anti-gang efforts, he invited police officials from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Belize to the United States...

Pentagon group criticizes pre-Iraq war intelligence.(Senate Armed Services Committee)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "I think they sought this kind of intelligence. They made it clear they wanted any kind of possible connection, no matter how skimpy, and they got it." Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.), who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, reacted to the...

He's no fan of Hillary.(Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton )(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "I don't think she has the fortitude. Actually, she's really a panderer and a flatterer. As she goes around the country, you'll see more of that. She would be a step down from Bill, who is not very high to begin with." Interviewed by CNN,...

House speaker quick to criticize record trade deficits.(Nancy Pelosi )(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "The consequences of these persistent and massive trade deficits include not only failed businesses, displaced workers, lower real wages, and rising inequality, but also permanent devastation of our communities" In a letter to President...

Economic conditions in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela far from Rosy.(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "It is surreal that we've arrived at a point where we are in danger of squandering a major oil boom. If the government insists on sticking to policies that are clearly failing, we may be headed down the road of Zimbabwe." The former chief...

Iraqi Prime Minister praises new plan to halt bombings.(Nuri al-Maliki)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "The security plan has been a dazzling success during its first days." Placing more troops in Baghdad led to fewer bombings for a while, causing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to send President Bush his enthusiastic assessment. But the...

He and his financier are no longer Clinton bashers.(Christopher Ruddy, Bill Clinton)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "Clinton wasn't such a bad president. In fact, he was a pretty good president in a lot of ways, and Dick feels that way today." Referring to his wealthy patron, Richard Mellon Scaife, Christopher Ruddy, who targeted Clinton in his 1997...

Terrorists look to Africa for training and recruiting.(Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, Algeria)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... "Al Qaeda's aim is for the G.S.P.C. to become a regional force, not solely an Algerian one. [Its leaders will] recruit people in Morocco and Tunisia, train them, and send them back to their countries of origin or Europe to mount attacks." ...

Protecting your identity: in response to an epidemic of identity theft, let's not complicate and worsen the situation when some simple fixes will alleviate the bulk of the problem.(Cover story)
March 19, 2007... In Hans Christian Andersen's children's story "The Emperor's New Clothes," townsfolk refused to remark about the obvious nudity of the emperor for fear of appearing foolish. It took an innocent child to speak up and proclaim that the emperor...

North Korea's nuclear shakedown: North Korea agrees to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for massive foreign aid, proving that bad behavior is the ticket to U.S. taxpayer dollars.(KOREA)
March 19, 2007... In his 2002 State of the Union Address, President Bush warned of the dangers presented by an "axis of evil." He identified three regimes: Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Of the latter the president warned: "North Korea is a regime arming with...

A constitutionalist speaks out: Congressman Ron Paul shares his thoughts on the proposed North American Union, the Iraq War, illegal immigration, and his potential run for the White House in 2008.(Interview)
March 19, 2007... Dr. Ron Paul, a physician specializing in obstetrics/gynecology, first served in Congress during the late 1970s and early 1980s before voluntarily relinquishing his House seat to return to his medical practice. He returned to Congress in 1997,...

Utah Citizens win in house: thanks in part to the efforts of John Birch Society members, the Utah House of Representatives passed a resolution against efforts to create a North American Union.(Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America )
March 19, 2007... The Utah House of Representatives on February 6 passed a resolution urging U.S. withdrawal from the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America by a lopsided vote of 47 to 24. The resolution became bottled up on the Senate side,...

Torture, Inc.: in Ghost Plane, investigative reporter Stephen Grey uncovers the ugly details of the CIA's post-9/11 torture programs.(Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program)(Book review)
March 19, 2007... Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, by Stephen Grey, New York: St. Martin's Press, 2006, 372 pages, hardcover. (To order, please see the ad on the inside front cover.) It was a plot worthy of Ian Fleming. In the days...

Many happy returns, Part I.(taxi driver Vinod Mago returns found money)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... A man who identified himself only as "Peter" arrived by taxi at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on February 1, only to discover his wallet was missing. He desperately phoned Seattle-Tacoma International Taxi Association's coordinator,...

Many happy returns, Part II.(THE GOODNESS OF AMERICA)(taxi driver returns woman's lost luggage)
March 19, 2007... On February 5, just a few days after the above incident, but on the opposite coast, New York cab driver Osman Chowdhury, who is a native of Bangladesh, picked up a woman at a hotel in midtown Manhattan and drove her to an apartment building...

Many happy returns, Part III.(Stephen Breitenstein finds owner of the billfold after 62 years to return it)(Brief article)
March 19, 2007... Ray Heilwagen served with the U.S. Army's 79th Infantry Division during World War II. He served in France from July through November 1944, when he was injured in combat and hospitalized with a leg injury. Heilwagen received a Purple Heart for...

The lost crusade: in the 13th century, Christian crusaders who took up the cross to liberate the Holy Land from Islam were misdirected into serving very different ends.
March 19, 2007... On the morning of June 24, 1204 A.D., the walls of Constantinople were thronged with curious spectators. Over the blue waters of the Bosporus, their sails full-bellied in the early summer wind, a vast and colorful armada was passing before the...

Violence in two countries.(EXERCISING THE RIGHT)(gun violence in United Kingdom and United States)
March 19, 2007... In August 2005, Roberto Malasi, an illegal immigrant from Angola residing in Peckham, England, and three other illegal immigrants entered a hall where a baby christening was being held. They were armed with pistols (in one of the strictest...

Ethanol's concealed costs.(biofuels)
March 19, 2007... ITEM: The Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette reported on February 11, "Not so long ago, operating cars, trucks and tractors on the byproducts of corn, soybeans and sugar beets seemed like science fiction. Today it's so mainstream that President Bush has...

Counting spoons & the dogs of war.(whether United States planning war on Iran)
March 19, 2007... The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons. --Ralph Waldo Emerson The louder the Bush administration declares that it is not planning to launch a war against Iran, the more certain it appears that it is planning...