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Saturday, July 7, 2007 |
NewScientist: "Deadly germs may be more likely to be spread due to a biodefence lab accident than a biological attack by terrorists.
Plague, anthrax, Rocky Mountain spotted fever - these are among the bioweapons some experts fear could be used in a germ warfare attack against the US. But the public has had near-misses with those diseases and others over the past five years, ironically because of accidents in labs that were working to defend against bioterrorists. Even worse, they may be only the tip of an iceberg.
The fears have been borne out by publicised infections of lab workers with tularemia, brucellosis and Q fever.
The Q fever incident took place at Texas A&M University, which has now been ordered to stop research into potential bioweapons while an investigation takes place.
However, Hammond's minutes contain further, previously unreported, slip-ups:
- At the University of New Mexico, one worker was jabbed with an anthrax-laden needle, and another with a syringe containing an undisclosed, genetically engineered microbe.
- At the Medical University of Ohio, workers were exposed to and infected with Valley Fever.
- At the University of Chicago, there was another puncture with an undisclosed agent normally requiring heavy containment, probably anthrax or plague.
- At the University of California at Berkeley, workers handled deadly Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which spreads in the air, without containment when it was mislabelled as harmless.
- At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, workers were exposed to TB when containment equipment failed."
11:50:41 AM 
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LATimes: "Deborah Jeane Palfrey ran her high-end sexual fantasy business in a way she carefully designed to keep the feds at bay. (She didn't take a year of law school for nothing.)
In quintessential Washington style, the woman dubbed 'the D.C. Madam' solicited male clients who paid up to $300 an hour and hired some 130 subcontractors - women as young as 23 and as old as 55 - under detailed employment agreements that required them to perform only lawful acts.
That worked for 13 years, then she was indicted on charges of running a high-class prostitution ring.
Now, rather than keep her clients secret, she has decided to unmask them - in the name of her legal defense. And she has elicited the help of ABC News to do it, turning over 46 pounds of phone records, a stack about a foot high, with the names of 'thousands and thousands' of clients that, Palfrey promises, reach 'high into the echelons of power in the United States'."
Shock and awe in Washington.
LegitGov: "Judge Kessler has lifted the injunction on the phone records."
BradBlog: "Long-standing rumors - as-yet unconfirmed - have held that Vice President Dick Cheney used Palfrey's escort service, Pamela Martin and Associates, in the 1990s, while he was still the CEO of Haliburton."
We'll soon know if Cheney was on the list. I'll keep you posted.
LATimes: "Wearied by the lack of progress in Iraq and by the steady stream of military funerals back home, a growing number of Republican lawmakers who had stood loyally with President Bush are insisting his strategy has failed and are calling on him to bring the war to an end."
WashingtonPost: "A military judge has refused a Pentagon request to reconsider his dismissal of charges against a Guantanamo Bay detainee accused of killing an American soldier in Afghanistan."
Firedoglake: "Today, my homeboy G2 points us to the latest Worldwide Pew Research Poll, which indicates that America's standing in the world has sunk to its lowest level in recorded history."
RawStory: "A new video released Friday morning makes a three-part case for the impeachment of Vice President Dick Cheney. Robert Greenwald and Brave New Films released the short film at their website ImpeachCheney.org.
The video comes the same day that a polling firm found a majority of Americans supporting impeachment of the Vice President. American Research Group, in a poll of 1,100 respondents taken from July 3-5, found that 54% of Americans favored impeachment. Only 17% of Republicans in the poll favored the impeachment of Cheney, while 76% of Democrats supported the move in the House of Representatives. However, of independents polled, a slight majority of 51%, also supported impeaching the Vice President."
11:44:17 AM
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© Copyright 2008.
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