There are two similar treaties relating to Biological Weapons. The first one is the 1925 Geneva Protocol, which bans the use of Biological Weapons. The second one was passed by the UN in 1975. The second treaty was called the Biological Weapons Convention, a link to the UN webpage for the BWC is here. The US ratified the BWC as soon as it was passed (amazing as these things go) in 1975.

As far as I know, we have been working to destroy all of our chemical and biological weapons stockpiles.

An interesting history of the BWC is provided on the US State Department Website.

A article written by The Guardian, a British newspaper, critises the Bush administration's policies towards the BWC. I don't really agree with their points totally, but just for arguements sake it is available here.

--- ./politics/goingtowar.txt ---

It's a sad occasion when you know that the country is poised to go to war. I'm a pacifist, I always have been. I grew up with hippy parents. I can't help it. It seemed like out of the blue, several months ago, Bush started talking about going to war with Iraq. Now, I didn't agree with it. I mean why now, why should we go to war with them now? At first he had this really unilateral stance, that didn't allow for any opposition, but then with much international and domestic pressure, he gave in and approached the United Nations. Quite honestly, I'm not sure this wasn't the plan all along. There appears to be a pattern emerging from the Bush presidency where they make some really hard-line statement, and then back off. I think they come off as hard-line because they want to show that they are serious, but they ultimately want to get things done by whatever way necessary. It's not such a bad strategy, and it appears to be working so far.

Following the original rhetoric, Bush was able to get a unanimous decision from the UN. They passed resolution 1441. The fact that it was unanimous was significant. Let me say that again, it was unanimous, nobody voted against it, and furthermore, nobody abstained. There is a reality here. Bush made it clear that he didn't care about the vote, if they voted against him, he was going to do what he wanted anyway. Obviously, even for the countries that didn't agree totally with him, they had to make a choice between two evils: on one hand you were setting in motion a war with Iraq, on the other hand there was the possibility of making the UN irrelevant, and threatening world stability. In the end, for the permanent members of the Security Council there wasn't really a choice. For the other members, it made more sense to make the vote unanimous. This created at least the possibility of averting a war by showing Saddam that they were serious.

Let's fast-forward to now. Germany has softened its stance, during its internal elections it vigorously opposed any war in Iraq, now it has changed that subtly it now says it won't risk any German troops. France is opposed, but it appears that that may only be to save face domestically. I think their strategy is to oppose, oppose, oppose, and then when the evidence becomes overwhelming or when there is an actual vote, then they will support. This is for two reasons, the first is domestic, most of the French people oppose the war, so the politicians have to, but I think there is a second less obvious reason: if nobody vocally opposes the US then Bush can't make his case domestically. I think it gives him an air of legitimacy that he wouldn't otherwise have. I think eventually France will give in. It doesn't have much of a choice. The situation is similar to what happened with resolution 1441. Someday soon, there is going to be a vote on a new UN resolution specifically authorizing the use of force against Iraq. I think this resolution will come in the next couple of weeks. All five permanent members of the Security Council will vote in favor of the resolution, and seeing this, all of the other nations will follow suit.

Barring a last minute capitulation by Iraq, we're going to war.

I think it's interesting for me to look at my own reactions to this. If you asked me six months ago if I supported the presidents plan, I would have said "defiantly not," but now, I can't say that I wholly support it, but I'm beginning to see his (the President's) point. Do I think he has ulterior motives? Yes. Do I think that he's going to make a lot of the people who put him into office rich because of this? Yes, but I'm not willing to say that that makes going to war a bad idea. I think it's just something we have to keep in mind while evaluating his statements.

It's almost the, "there comes a time when all great men must act," situation. I guess I'm part of the 77% of Americans that say they support going to war with Iraq, given UN backing. I think we can look at past examples to prove that we'll get that UN backing eventually, even if only to stop the UN from becoming irrelevant or to stop there from being total chaos domestically in the middle east.

The last thing I want to say is that war is a messy business. We'll certainly lose American lives. We'll certainly lose Iraqi lives, but eventually you have to look at it as an ends/means equation. Do the ends justify the means? I'm not going to answer that one for you, but I'll say this: what is worse another decade of repression, even if you claim that this repression is partially the fault of the United States, of Iraqi people, or a war in which American and Iraqi lives are traded for the freedom of all the Iraqi people?

--- ./politics/peace-rice.txt ---

There is a grassroots campaign underway to protest war in Iraq in a simple, but potentially powerful way.

Place 1/2 cup uncooked rice in a small plastic bag (a snack-size bag or sandwich bag work fine). Squeeze out excess air and seal the bag. Wrap it in a piece of paper on which you have written, "If your enemies are hungry, feed them. Please send this rice to the people of Iraq; do not attack them."

Place the paper and bag of rice in an envelope (either a letter-sized or padded mailing envelope--both are the same cost to mail) and address them to:

President George Bush White House,

1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW

Washington, DC 20500

Attach $1.06 in postage. (Three 37-cent stamps equal $1.11.) Drop this in the mail. It is important to act NOW so that President Bush gets the letters ASAP.

In order for this protest to be effective, there must be hundreds of thousands of such rice deliveries to the White House. We can do this if you each forward this message to your friends and family.

There is a positive history of this protest! In the 1950s, Fellowship of Reconciliation began a similar protest, which is credited with influencing President Eisenhower against attacking China. Read on:

"In the mid-1950s, the pacifist Fellowship of Reconciliation, learning of famine in the Chinese mainland, launched a 'Feed Thine Enemy' campaign. Members and friends mailed thousands of little bags of rice to the White House with a tag quoting the Bible, "If thine enemy hunger, feed him." As far as anyone knew for more than ten years, the campaign was an abject failure. The President did not acknowledge receipt of the bags publicly; certainly, no rice was ever sent to China.

What nonviolent activists only learned a decade later was that the campaign played a significant, perhaps even determining role in preventing nuclear war. Twice while the campaign was on, President Eisenhower met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff to consider U.S. options in the conflict with China over two islands, Quemoy and Matsu.

The generals twice recommended the use of nuclear weapons. President Eisenhower each time turned to his aide and asked how many little bags of rice had come in. When told they numbered in the tens of thousands, Eisenhower told the generals that as long as so many Americans were expressing active interest in having the U.S. feed the Chinese, he certainly wasn't going to consider using nuclear weapons against them."

--- ./politics/inspections.txt ---

Wake up people, we can't disarm him through inspections.

--- ./politics/europe.txt ---

--- ./politics/readthis.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-02-20.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-02-20a.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-03-01.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-03-03.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-03-11.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-04-14.txt ---

I've been troubled recently by the assertion that there is a significant gender pay gap between men and women. The frequently cited statistic is that women only make 76 cents on the dollar when compared to men. While I will agree there may be some difference between the pay levels for both women and men, I can't believe that it is this large. I think that if it really was this large there would be riots in the streets. I think that the absence of these riots would indicate that most women, when they look at their male counterparts in their workplace, they find that they are paid roughly the same. If a significant portion of the women in our society found a large pay gap we would see the aforementioned riots.

Where does this statistic come from? The statistic comes from a 1998 study by the Council of Economic Advisors (CEA). According to their website, (http://www.whitehouse.gov/cea) the CEA was established by the Employment Act of 1946 to provide the president with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues. The statistic was brought to light in a radio address by president Clinton in 1999. The full text of their report can be found at http://clinton3.nara.gov/WH/EOP/CEA/html/gendergap.html.

So, if this is true, how do we explain this horrifying statistic? Well there are several reasons, but the main reason is that the statistic comes from overly broad data. Basically this statistic compares the median income of year round full time men and women. Basically they took all the full time, year round women's salaries and compared them directly to all the year round full time men's salaries. This is overly broad. This isn't an argument for equal work/equal pay, this is to say all work/equal pay. This statistic does not take into account several factors. These include experience, industry, occupation, and union status. The same 1998 CEA report stated that when these factors are taken into account the gap can be narrowed to a much more realistic 12 percent. This gap can be further narrowed by considering other factors like the fact that full time women work an average of 41.3 hours a week compared with full time men working an average of 45 hours a week. Just using that fact you could argue for another 8.3 percent. Even so the 76% number is highly contestable as coming from an overly broad comparison of median incomes of the respective groups.

I'd like to thank the following source: http://www.epf.org/media/newsreleases/1999/pr990211.asp for providing me with several insights.

--- ./politics/2003-04-17.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-04-27.txt ---

--- ./politics/2003-04-30.txt ---

3. Why hasn't the U.S. caught Osama Bin Laden yet?"



Just then the bell sounds and all the kids run out to the playground.

Fifteen minutes later, the kids come back in class and again.  Ashcroft

says, "I'm sorry we were interrupted by the bell.  Now, you can all
ask me

questions."



A young girl raises her hand and says, "I have five questions:

1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore?



2. Why are you using the USA Patriot Act to limit Americans' civil

liberties?



3. Why hasn't the U.S. caught Osama Bin Laden yet?



4. Why did the bell go off 20 minutes early?



5. Where's Bobby?