news sources archive 2000 

News Picture of the Year

Exclusive—DURING ELECTION CAMPAIGN US DEFENSE DEPT. AWARDED $7 BILLION CONTRACT TO CORP. IN WHICH CHENEY WAS STOCKHOLDER— Electronic Data Systems Corp. website says he stayed on Board of Directors and still owned 5,743 stock in EDS source which has risen more than 80% since the award of the contract source. EDS had sustained considerable losses prior to the award of the contract source, which was the largest ever awarded by the US. Cheney is former US Secretary of Defense.

US WATCHDOG GROUP SAYS  BUSH & CHENEY ACCEPTED $10 MILLION FROM DONORS WHO DID NOT NAME THEIR EMPLOYER OR OCCUPATION—US election laws require that a donor's occupation and employer be fully disclosed opensecrets.org.

MAJOR MILESTONE IN BIOLOGY—A complete map of the genes of a plant has been achieved. "The sequencing and analysis of the genome of Arabidopsis thaliana, (Thale Cress) the 'model' plant for research... sequences of its remaining three chromosomes, and an overview of the annotation and analysis of the whole genome source." The fruit fly, the nematode worm, 600 viruses and two dozen bacteria as organisms have revealed their entire DNA blueprints. Says Science, "Compiling maps and sequences for the genetic pattern of a variety of organisms might well be the breakthrough of the decade, perhaps even the century, for all its potential to alter our view of the world we live in.''

"AS THEY DEEMED BEST FOR THE PEOPLE" GORE'S WIN OF TOTAL VOTE BY MORE THAN 300,000 REVEALED AMERICA'S SEMI- DEMOCRACY TO MUCH OF WORLD—George 'W'ashington's ghost? Three times in US history a candidate has won the total vote and not the election source. This is due to the system of Electors conceived by Irish-born ex-British soldier Pierce Butler  and set up in Article II of the US Constitution by George Washington and the Federalists in order to retain the power to usurp a national vote. It was slightly revised in Ammendment XII. Electors are not elected. They are chosen by political parties, and many are not legally required to vote for candidate with the majority of votes. "When the Founding Fathers drafted the Constitution, they intended that the Electors had not only the right, but also the duty to vote as they deemed best for the people source." more

US CHARITY ANNOUNCES DETAILS OF  HUNGER IN TEXAS

'ELECTORAL COLLEGE' 'ELECTS' GEORGE 'W'—Says its website, "December 18, 2000 - Meeting of Electors: The electors in each State meet to select the President and Vice President of the United States. The electors record their votes on six 'Certificates of Vote,' which are paired with the six remaining original 'Certificates of Ascertainment.' The electors sign, seal and certify the packages of electoral votes and immediately send them to the President of the Senate [Albert Gore, Jr.], the Archivist of the United States and other designated Federal and State officials. December 27, 2000 - Deadline for Receipt of Electoral Votes: The President of the Senate, the Archivist of the United States, and other designated Federal and State officials must have the electoral votes source."

ALBERT GORE, JR., WINNER OF US ELECTION BY 300,000 VOTES, AUTHOR OF EARTH IN THE BALANCE, CONCEDES US ELECTION TO ELECTORAL SYSTEM BROUGHT ABOUT BY GEORGE 'W'ASHINGTON ET. AL.

QUESTION: WHY DID EXIT POLLS FOR ALL THREE TV NETWORKS GIVE GORE THE WIN IN FLORIDA? ANSWER: GORE GOT MORE VOTES THAN BUSH IN FLORIDA—Exit polls survey how voters say they voted.

DALLAS MORNING NEWS SAYS BUSH DID NOT MENTION '76 DRUNK DRIVING ARREST DURING INTERVIEW OR ON JURY-DUTY QUESTIONNAIRE. CHENEY HAD SIMILAR ARRESTS IN HIS TWENTIES source.

BUSH NAMED PERSON OF THE YEAR BY HUGE CORP TIME—Promises $1.3 trillion tax cut.

NEWSWEEK POLL—"Sixty-five percent of those surveyed say politics or partisanship played a role in the 5-4 decision to reverse the Florida Supreme Court and stop handcounting of the ballots in that state source."

BUSH NOMINATES FORMER MILITARY GENERAL FOR US SECRETARY OF STATE —Colin Powell is an alumnus of City College of New York, the "Poor Man's Harvard," and is trained in military science and business administration source.

CONVICTIONS OF DEMONSTRATORS AT REPUBLICAN CONVENTION IN CITY OF BROTHERLY LOVE LAST AUGUST PERSIST—But the best the Courts can do is disorderly conduct and obstructing a highway source.

US SUPREME COURT TEMPORARILY STOPS RECOUNT ORDERED BY FLORIDA SUPREME COURT—RE GEORGE W. BUSH AND RICHARD CHENEY, Applicants, v. ALBERT GORE, JR., et al., Respondents. EMERGENCY APPLICATION FOR A STAY OF ENFORCEMENT OF THE JUDGMENT BELOW PENDING THE FILING AND DISPOSITION OF A PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE SUPREME COURT OF FLORIDA—Rules Court, "Under these circumstances, the effect of a failure to grant a stay could well be to deny Applicants fully effective relief in this case and to inflict material harm on the electoral process. A stay is further justified by the extraordinary importance of the outcome of this case and the extremely time-sensitive nature of relief."

US SUPREME COURT SENT ELECTION CASES BACK TO FLORIDA COURT AS  "STATES' RIGHTS" TENTH AMMENDMENT LOOMED LARGE—"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."

FLORIDA ELECTION COMMISSIONER KATHERINE HARRIS--NOW WITH VANITY WEBSITE-COURTESY FLORIDA TAXPAYERS- CERTIFIES 537 VOTE WIN FOR BUSH—Says, "American democracy has triumphed once again."

NAACP WANTS U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL TO INVESTIGATE CLAIMS OF "FAILURE TO PICK UP AT LEAST ONE BALLOT BOX" AND THAT BLACKS "WERE PREVENTED FROM VOTING IN SOME FLORIDA PRECINCTS source."

FIRST e-LECTION? Did websites make the ultimate difference in one of the closest elections in US history? The three debates didn't change the dead heat. Our daily polling suggested majority of undecided would use Internet to decide. "This is the first election where the Web can make a vast difference (attorney Paul Cambria)." (2) In the US, women now outnumber men using the Internet source, and the polls showed more women for Gore, more men for Bush.

CONTINUATION OF EARTH DEPT. NEWS—(5) Torrential Texas rains end drought which exceeded famous Dustbowl of 1934 summer in Texas EarthLive. (6) NASA says 30 cubic miles of ice melt off Greenland yearly EarthDept.(7) Researchers say historical documents show increasingly shorter winters since 1840 source. (8) The Russian sub sinking in Sept. revealed the surprising depth of the erosion-caused radiation leakage problem. Kursk joined eight other sunken nuclear subs on the North Atlantic floor. A US h-bomb has been lying on ocean floor off Newfoundland since a 1968 bomber crash. Concern with the bomb lies not with explosion but erosion-caused radiation leakage. (9) Study finds, "population growth alone accounts for 43% of the rise in flood damages from 1932 to 1997, with a much smaller effect from increased precipitation. Most of the other 57% increase is due to burgeoning national wealth source." (10)  The Meyers Corp. makes transformers for power lines. They deal in transformation too. Says their website, "To be 'saved' means that you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, and made Him Lord of your life." They don't mention that Canada may have to pay a $50m fine by refusing to send PCB waste to Meyer's processing plant in the US source. 

HUGE TURNOUT IN KOSOVO ELECTIONS—Ibrahim Rugova, moderate who lead passive resistance to Milosevic defeats militant Hashim Thaci, former KLA Commander source. Serbian Constitution

CHINA & YUGOSLAVIA SIGN ACCORD—People's Daily (See also New China News on PAGE TWO.)

LIGHT DRIVEN MEMS MORE PREVALENT—"Tiny mills the size of a single red blood cell, driven by light beams, are turning the cogs of some of the world's smallest machines. Péter Galajda and Pál Ormos of the Biological Research Centre of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Szeged have used light to create, hold and power little rotors that could have a big future as pumps and switches. The miniaturization of mechanical technology is already producing machines with moving parts too small for the naked eye to see. These 'microelectromechanical' systems (MEMS) are typically just a few millimetres across, and their microscopic components might include strips that bend or resonate to detect pressure or sound, or cogs and gears that manoeuvre little mirrors for guiding light beams source. source2

ICANN, the Internet's 'government', tried to choose for the world new suffixes such as .biz, .health, and .nom, after having rejected .web, .kids, and .xxx. But instead it was forced at its posh convention in Marina del Ray to say, "The applications selected for further negotiation are the following:

• .aero – Societe Internationale de Telecommunications Aeronautiques SC, (SITA)

• .biz – JVTeam, LLC

• .coop – National Cooperative Business Association, (NCBA)

• .info – Afilias, LLC

• .museum – Museum Domain Management Association, (MDMA)

• .name – Global Name Registry, LTD

• .pro – RegistryPro, LTD."

ICANN is registering 75,000 new websites a day.

HACKERS BREAK DEEP INTO MICROSOFT, COPY 'DNA' INSTRUCTIONS UNDERNEATH WINDOWS. HAD ACCESS FOR THREE MONTHS—Software may now be open to 'cloning'. Hackers had been in for three months. It began when an e-mail attachment was opened that contained hidden instructions called QAZ Trojan. The QAZ replaced the NotePad text editor with its own software which enabled it to enter any connected computers, and then sent the Internet addresses of all the connected computers to an outside e-mail address. The hackers were then able to use the 'infected' MSN computers more about QAZ. Why did Microsoft keep such important and secret source code in computers connected to the Internet? more

5 OCTOBER REVOLUTION: YUGOSLAVIA BACK IN HANDS OF ITS PEOPLE, POWER-ADDICTS MILOSEVIC AND PROFESSOR WIFE MIRIANA STILL IN BELGRADE—During take-over, Serb police shook hands with protestors who threw a few objects,  (B92 Photo), set symbolic fires,  (BBC Photo), and took over .gov TV stations. Vojislav Kostunica ("Kosh-too-neetza"), 56, sworn in as president. 

(serbia-info.com photo). He is pro-democracy, anti-NATO. GOTO FreeB92.net or Serbia-info.com.

CLINTONS IN HISTORIC VISIT TO VIETNAM—US national anthem played at ceremony.

US VIOLENT CRIME RATES IN RECORD DECLINE—FBI reports murder rate lowest since the sixties. Possible causes: low unemployment, high imprisonment rates, higher police presence. (2) Last month, the National Crime Victimization Survey said, "A 10% decline in violent crime is the largest single-year percent decrease in NCVS history. Victimization rates in 1999 are the lowest recorded since the survey's creation in 1973 source."

7 OF THIS YEAR'S 13 NOBEL PRIZES GO TO AMERICANS. KOREA PRESIDENT WINS PEACE PRIZE, LITERATURE TO EXILED CHINESE WRITER source.

SUN'S SURFACE & 100TH SHUTTLE CELEBRATE NASA'S GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS—Photo from nearby satellite is first picture of a star's surface.

AUSTRALIA WON IN PER-POPULATION MEDALS, CUBA 2ND—