The Mowing War... The town’s parks have been mowed. But like the grass that covers them the issue of who should really do it and who should really pay for it are sure to come up again soon.
Earlier this month tempers flared when Highway Superintendent Richard Merwin, a Democrat, announced he would not maintain the lawns at the town’s five parks. Although town crews have historically taken on the responsibility, Merwin claims he could not do it this year because the town board denied his request to budget an additional $42,000 in the highway department budget for the work. Merwin also came under fire after a request came in from the Shandaken Little League for help cleaning up the ball field at the town’s Glenbrook Park after games. Merwin refused, saying, “It’s not my job to go pick up their beer cans.”
Theresa Grant, the President of the Shandaken Little League, took issue with Merwin’s suggestion that there is drinking at Little League games and said “There are no open containers on the little league field and Dick Merwin is not picking up our beer cans.”
Meanwhile, town Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. has hired Ted Byron, a fellow Republican and a former town councilman, to maintain town parks for $12,500 for the season. Cross said he got a bid from another company, which was higher than Byron’s. And Cross took issue with Merwin's notion that the trouble was due to the town board denying the highway department the extra money for the work, noting that until the year 2000 the parks were mowed by two buildings and grounds employees that worked for the town board and were paid out of the town’s general budget. In 2000 those two workers and their park responsibilities were shifted over to the highway department, along with funds for their salaries and benefits.
"There is a fund for the mowing of the parks" says Supervisor Cross' secretary Patty Hines, probably the person most familiar with the town's balance sheets. It's the Trust Agency Fund for the Recreation Department, sort of a "rainy day" account which can be used for any recreation-related purpose. There's about $20,000 now in this town pocket, which has accrued over many years from subdivision fees paid to the town planning department.
So according to Hines...the money for the mowing of town parks this year..."is not coming out of the General Fund"
Stay tuned...

Money Meeting
The Shandaken town board met last week, with no public announcement, in order to grab some cash being dangled by the United States Department of Agriculture. Supervisor Robert Cross Jr. said Tuesday that the meeting was a necessity because the USDA requires notification of the acceptance of funds within ten of the funds being offered. USDA offered about $150,000 in the form of a grant to repair a major mudslide that undermined the Pantherkill Road in Phoenicia during last months flooding.
“We’ll take it where we can get it,” Cross said.” We’re running out of money.”

Vols Honored
About fifty people came to a free, invitation only barbeque at Pine Hill lake Saturday May 21 to honor the work of the town’s fire companies, ambulance, and police departments, along with select staff from state-run Belleayre Mountain during the flood in early April.
“I guess the sponsor’s the town board,” Supervisor Cross said when extending a phone invite to the event the day before. The public, however, was neither informed nor invited, and signs at the event marked the area as a “Private Party.” Area restaurants provided “incredible amounts” of food, according to town board member Edna Hoyt.
Phoenicia Rotary Club president Marc Wilsey hosted the event and presented awards, including numerous plaques, during a recognition ceremony. Funding for the event was provided by anonymous donors.
The reason for the event, according to organizers, “was to say thank you for all the blood, sweat and tears and hours of damn hard and dangerous work, and for all you do for our community and all our citizens.”
Of the volunteers, Cross said “You gotta take your hat off to them.”
In related news, a $50 a plate dinner was held at the Catamount Café Monday night to raise money for the local fire companies. The Catamount is owned by Dean Gitter, who also owns the Emerson.

Flood Aid?
Art Snyder, Director of the Ulster County Emergency Communications and Emergency Management Department, has announced that the Disaster Recovery Center (DRC), which has been set up at the Town of Ulster Town Hall, will no longer have Sunday hours. In addition, those individuals seeking to file a FEMA claim for lost or damaged property must do so by June 18. “Governor Pataki declared Ulster County a disaster area on April 18th and, by law, those victims have 60 days to file claims with FEMA. This does not mean claims will be settled by that date, but those people who fail to register by the 18th will not be able to participate in the program,” stated Director Snyder.
A new bill in Albany was also signed by the Governor this past week to help homeowners with their tax bills by dropping assessment amounts. The County Legislarure must now adopt it for the bill to take effect.
Any questions regarding this information should be directed to (845) 331-7000.

New Bank
Kingston-based Ulster Savings Bank is readying plans to open a branch in Phoenicia. According to John O’Reilly, Assistant Vice President of Marketing for Ulster Savings, they see the area as one “that is quite an opportunity for us.” They have applied to the New York State Banking Department for permission to open the branch, which would occupy the building that housed the former Phoenicia Auto and Hardware Store, right across the street from the Key Bank, Phoenicia’s long time solo banking facility. O’Reilly said a vault would need to be installed.
As for when it would open, O’Reilly said it was still more “if than when.” That remains uncertain until they get word from the Banking Department, but the brass at Ulster Savings are hoping for opening the doors this fall.
A few years ago several business owners invited area banks to come to Phoenicia and meet with the community, which said they’d welcome the possibility of a more competitive banking climate.

Overspent...
According to the county Treasurer’s Office 2004 annual financial report, Ulster County spent $270.2 million, $19.5 million more than the $250.7 million took in through taxes and other revenue sources last year, and ended the year with just $1.2 million in reserve, a fund balance decrease of $12.4 million from the previous year. Ulster’s situation is in sharp contrast to neighbors Dutchess and Greene Counties, both of which ended 2004 with surpluses. It has been determined that the county may have to take out short-term loans to meet its financial obligations throughout the year, the first time it has had to do so since the early 1990s, because of the lack of a fund balance to act as a financial stabilizer.
Several factors contributed to that operating loss including the loss of $3.9 million in Intergovernmental Transfer Program payments to the Golden Hill Health Care Center, larger-than-expected retirement costs, an increase in medical and hospital premiums and principal payments on county debt, plus the fact that sales tax was about $1.5 million less than expected.
About 65 percent of county spending is mandated, leaving spending in areas such as the Golden Hill Health Care Center, the sheriff’s road patrol and the Office for the Aging as discretionary… all of which are now looking at possible cuts. New revenue sources, including a possible home heating tax, property transfer tax, mortgage tax, and higher motor vehicle registration fees, are currently under consideration.

Casino Watch
According to state Senator John Bonacic, when Governor George Pataki releases his much anticipated legislation in the coming weeks to settle land claims with five Indian tribes, including the Seneca-Cayugas, in return for casinos, it will stipulate that a casino can only be built with the approval of the local county legislature. If the governor’s legislation does not include such a condition, Bonacic said he would insist on an amendment to ensure local control. According to Bonacic, a service agreement between the Ulster County Legislature and the tribe would be required before the process could proceed further.
If the Oklahoma-based Seneca-Cayuga Indian tribe is successful in gaining approval to operate its casino in Saugerties, it would mark the first time in U.S. history that a tribe is permitted to do so outside of the state where its reservation is located.
The Seneca-Cayuga tribe is proposing to build just under four million square feet of resort/casino/retail space, a 900-room hotel, a 750,000-square-foot convention center, a 20,000-seat sports and entertainment arena, a PGA-level golf course, and five parking garages to accommodate approximately 23,000 parking spaces at the Winston Fawm site of the 1994 Woodstock reunion concert..
In April, 2003, Pataki and Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, through their attorneys, wrote a letter to the federal government which stated that awarding jurisdiction to out-of-state tribes would “open a Pandora’s box.”
“The governor flip-flopped; that’s exactly what he did,” said Bonacic, who believes Pataki has since come to view casino revenues as a means of funding a court-ordered increase in aid to New York City schools of some $26 billion over the next six years.
Pataki withdrew legislation in mid-April authorizing five casinos in the Catskills to settle land claims with the Seneca-Cayugas; the Wisconsin Oneidas; the Stockbridge-Munsees of Wisconsin (whose claim reportedly involves less than an acre of land); the landless Cayuga Nation of New York; and the Akwesasne Mohawks, whose land borders the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec as well as New York State. Pataki spokesperson Todd Alhart has said that the state needed to revise the agreements in light of a March 29 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, which held that the New York Oneidas could not purchase property and operate it as tax-exempt holdings without going through the federal land-to-trust process. Federally approved Indian trust lands are considered sovereign, the reason Native Americans are able to operate casinos on them in states where gambling is otherwise illegal.
Sullivan County legislators have already voted by a margin of two to one in favor of casinos there, according to Bonacic, who believes the Seneca-Cayugas are “fishing” to “test the pulse” in Ulster County. “I’m not so sure the political climate is as receptive to casinos in Ulster County,” he said.
The state is under a court order to settle its land claim with the Cayuga Nation. The Seneca-Cayugas are a party to that lawsuit and they have agreed to drop their claims in return for a casino. Following an appeals process, the Federal District Court awarded the Cayugas a $250 million judgment and 64,000 acres of land. The state will have to pay interest on that amount until the settlement is concluded.
Meanwhile, the New York Oneidas reportedly have an option on the former IBM recreation facility in Lake Katrine.
Last week, Ulster County Legislators Peter Kraft, Robert Parete, Michael Berardi and Legislative Candidate Brian Cahill sent out a call for the immediate formation of a special county committee to discuss and prepare for casino development proposals in the Towns of Saugerties and Ulster.

Map Adjustments
Materials available at town hall in advance of a scheduled May 26 public hearing to address "corrections and or adjustments" in the town's zoning map show two instances in which districts are slated for "correction" to higher intensity use. The Phoenicia Plaza on Route 28 is located on what the current map shows as a residential parcel, but is operated as a pre-existing Highway Business use under a determination from the Zoning Board of Appeals last year. The new map proposes to redesignate it Commercial-Light Industrial which would allow uses including a gas station or an expansion of existing propane storage facilities. The second proposed change would increase the density from R5 to R1.5 for residential parcels along Route 28, east of Pine Hill.

Crash Records
According to the 2004 annual report issued by the Ulster County Traffic Safety Board, more than 4,000 people were injured and 31 people died in traffic accidents in Ulster County last year. Speed and driver inattention were listed as the leading causes of accidents locally, factors compounded by the general lack of wide shoulders along the roads, which provides some buffer for out-of-control vehicles.
Officials said in cases where a vehicle goes slightly off the road, high speed and the lack of a proper shoulder on most local roads can cause drivers to overreact and lose control of the vehicle, rather than slowing down and gradually steering back onto the roadway.
Another pattern that has led to numerous accidents in the area, which was a contributing factor in many fatalities, is drivers crossing the center line of the roadway into oncoming traffic.
Fifty percent of the fatalities did not have a seat belt on, and half of those were back-seat riders not wearing a seat belt, and half of those were ejected from the vehicle.
Motorcycle, and pedestrian and bicycle crashes were up over the previous year, and in most cases, the accident was the fault of the walker or rider and not the driver.

Charter Chatter
The 11-member bipartisan Ulster Constitutional Charter commission backed the 2003 public referendum that calls for shrinking the Legislature from 33 to 23 members, who will run in single-member districts, rather than the multi-member districts currently in place, beginning with the 2011 election.
A substantial change recommended by the Charter Commission is shifting the responsibility for drawing new Legislature districts every 10 years from the Legislature to an independent body of at least seven members, a move several commissioners said would add more integrity and transparency to that process. The commission also recommended that legislators’ salaries should be determined by an external body rather than by the Legislature. Another change the panel favored was shifting from two-year to staggered four-year terms for legislators, a move many felt would give lawmakers greater independence in the move away from having legislators spend more time trying to get re-elected than doing the county’s business.
The commission was split on the issue of term limits. Some said term limits would allow for a greater level of participation in the Legislature by the public, while others said they thought that term limits would result in some of the most qualified members of the Legislature being tossed out of office despite being effective lawmakers.
The commission hopes to finalize its recommendations in the late summer or early fall. The recommendations then will be put before the public for input and adjustments will be made as deemed necessary to reflect public input. Then a final charter document will be given to the Legislature at the end of 2005. The Legislature’s approval of the charter is required before it can go to the public for a vote. Ulster County currently operates under provisions of the New York State Home Municipal Law. A county charter allows a more individualized form of county government in which the structure, duties and balance of power can be tailor-made to the county’s needs.

Dog's Day
The Friends of the Shandaken Dog Kennel, along with the Supervisor and town board, are inviting the public to a dedication ceremony May 28 at 1PM at the town's new dog kennel located behind town hall on Rt.28. The new facility was constructed recently using some $23,781 in donations raised, including from a fundraising event at Parish Hall last October, along with volunteer labor. The kennel is being dedicated to Mary Gormley's dog Snuffy, recently deceased.

Cost Of War?
Fighting in Iraq has been prolonged and remains intense enough that it has pushed the total cost of US military operations since Sept. 11, 2001, close to that of the Korean War. And despite the yawning federal deficit, Congress hasn’t blinked at this price even though the costs for Pentagon operations are likely to pile up in years ahead. By 2010, war expenses might total $600 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Much depends on when - and how many - US military personnel can be withdrawn from the Iraqi theater of operations.
The demands and unpredictability of war have, in essence, turned the defense budget into a two-part allocation. First is the regular budget request, which contains acquisition and research and development funds as well as personnel and operations costs, and which Congress considers in its normal appropriations process. Second is the supplemental appropriations - the add-on emergency spending requested by the administration later in the year. Congress gave final passage to a 2005 supplemental defense bill just this past month.
The cost of the US military in Iraq is running about $5 billion a month. Overall, Congress has approved about $192 billion for the Iraq war itself, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service. Another $58 billion has been allocated for Afghanistan, and some $20 billion has gone for enhanced air security and other Pentagon preparedness measures in the US. That has far exceeded the $85 billion inflation-adjusted price tag of the 1991 Gulf War, which was largely paid for by contributions from US allies.
As for all military operations combined, add in the $50 billion in war spending the Senate Armed Services Committee last week added to the fiscal 2006 defense budget bill, and the total will surpass $320 billion in US funds… close to the Korean war level of $350 billion [in today’s dollars]. The Congressional Research Service pegs the cost of US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan at an additional $458 billion through 2014.
Late news further revealed that the $82 billion in wartime supplemental funding that was approved May 10 by Congress still won’t be enough to pay for military operations through the rest of this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, since congressional aides have reported that the services have indicated they will need even more money by August — possibly even earlier —to cover rising operational and maintenance costs of the protracted war in Iraq. The exact amount is unknown because defense and service officials have just started their review, but lawmakers expect a request for about another $50 billion before summer’s end.

No Answer
Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress recently sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said “intelligence and facts were being fixed” to support the Iraq war in mid-2002. The timing of the memo, published by the Times of London was well before the president brought the issue to Congress for approval. British officials did not dispute the document’s authenticity, and Michael Boyce, then Britain’s Chief of Defense Staff, told the paper that Britain had not then made a decision to follow the United States to war, but it would have been “irresponsible” not to prepare for the possibility.
The White House has not yet responded to queries about the congressional letter, which was released on May 6 and “raises troubling new questions regarding the legal justifications for the war as well as the integrity of your own administration...”
“It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided,” the memo released in London said. “But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.” Britain’s attorney general advised that “the desire for regime change was not a legal base for military action” and two of three possible legal bases — self-defense and humanitarian intervention — could not be used. It further charged that inadequate plans were being made for the aftermath of an anticipated invasion.
The Bush Administration has called the memo, and the letter from Democrat congressmen, “nothing new” even though denying such matters in the past two years.

Ah, Intelligence
State Assemblyman Daniel L. Hooker, R-Saugerties, introduced two bills on May 3 requiring the teaching of “intelligent design” in New York state public schools and allowing the posting of the Ten Commandments on government property. Hooker is the sole sponsor of both bills which have been referred to committee. The Institute for Humanist Studies (IHS), a nonprofit think tank in Albany that promotes secularism in government and education, opposes both bills, noting how Ten Commandments and “intelligent design” controversies have arisen in Kansas, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Tennessee and Texas.
“I am shocked that a legislator in a progressive state like New York would propose such backward and unconstitutional legislation,” said Tim Gordinier, IHS director of public policy and education. “Both bills would violate the First Amendment protections against government establishment of a religion. The government has no business promoting religion, yet that is precisely what Assemblyman Hooker is proposing.”
Assembly bill A08036 requires that all students in New York state public schools, from Kindergarten through Grade 12, receive instruction in both “theories” of intelligent design and evolution. The bill also requires the board of education or the trustees of every school district to provide appropriate training and curriculum materials for the teachers.
“Intelligent design” promotes the idea that life is simply too complex to have been created without an “intelligent designer.”
Assembly bill A08073 would allow for the Ten Commandments to be displayed as a historical document in public buildings and on public grounds in New York state.
The Institute for Humanist Studies offers an online course on “Evolution, Creationism and the Nature of Science” at www.HumanistEducation.com.

Patriotism?
The Bush administration and Senate Republican leaders are pushing a plan that would significantly expand the FBI’s power to demand business records in terror investigations without obtaining approval from a judge. The proposal, which is likely to be considered in a closed session of the Senate intelligence committee in the coming weeks, would allow federal investigators to subpoena records from businesses and other institutions without a judge’s sign-off if they declared that the material was needed as part of a foreign intelligence investigation. Furthermore, the proposal, part of a broader plan to extend antiterrorism powers under the law known as the USA Patriot Act, was concluded by Republican leaders on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in consultation with the Bush administration, Congressional officials said.
Administration and Congressional officials who support the idea said the proposal would give the FBI a much-needed tool to track leads in terrorism and espionage investigations that would be quicker and less cumbersome than existing methods. They pointed out that the administrative subpoena power being sought for the FBI in terror cases was already in use in more than 300 other types of crimes, including health care fraud, child exploitation, racketeering and drug trafficking.
But word of the proposal has generated immediate protests from civil rights advocates, who said that it would give the FBI virtually unchecked authority in terror investigations, and the plan is likely to intensify the growing debate in Congress over the balance between fighting terrorism and protecting privacy rights.
Support for the idea among many Democrats and some Republicans in Congress is uncertain, and the Senate intelligence committee’s plan to push the proposal could set off a struggle with the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Judiciary Committee has joint authority for oversight of foreign intelligence surveillance law - which would be expanded under the current proposal - but its members have shown some reluctance to expand the FBI’s counterterrorism powers.

Anti-Poverty…
Up to 20 million Britons are expected to protest against world poverty as part of the biggest mobilisation against global inequality ever seen this summer. In addition, 250,000 campaigners are planning to attend a rally in Edinburgh to coincide with July’s G8 summit where key talks among world leaders could witness British Prime Minister Tony Blair securing a historic deal to help Africa’s poor. Meanwhile, the BBC is understood to have cleared its schedules on the same day as the Edinburgh march in anticipation of a huge global event. Although the show of public support is expected to help bolster Blair’s efforts to secure a breakthrough on debt, aid and trade, concern is rising in Whitehall that the key measures are failing to win US support. Although officials maintain that plans to double international aid to around $100 billion a year and eradicate much of the debt of poor countries remain intact, privately they warn that agreement may not be reached during the talks.
A series of protest marches in Paris, New York and Berlin among others will culminate in the Edinburgh rally when tens of thousands will encircle Edinburgh to create a ‘human wristband’.

No Recruits
The U.S. Army ordered a one-day suspension this month of its recruiting efforts, already made difficult by the Iraq war, to confront incidents of misconduct by its recruiters. The incidents included a Texas recruiter threatening a man with arrest if he did not show up at a recruiting station for an interview and Colorado recruiters telling a high school student how to get a phony diploma from a nonexistent school, Army officials said. On May 20, all 7,545 recruiters at 1,700 recruiting stations nationwide were counseled by Army officials about what is permitted and what is not in the effort to coax people to enlist, officials said.
The Army is already struggling to meet recruiting goals, with potential recruits and their families wary about volunteering to serve during wartime. Aiming to sign 80,000 recruits in fiscal 2005, the Army has missed its goals in three straight months, including falling 42 percent short in April, and is 16 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army has announced that it will allow recruits to sign up for just 15 months of active-duty service, rather than the typical four-year enlistment.
America abolished the draft in 1973 during the tumult of the Vietnam War era and has since relied on a military made up exclusively of volunteers. This is the first time the new all-volunteer army has faced a serious, long-term war.
Under the new plan, new recruits will be offered the option of serving 15 months on active duty after completing their training, and then two years in the part-time Army Reserve or National Guard. The soldier then would spend nearly seven years in the Individual Ready Reserve, which requires no training and until recently was rarely mobilized, or serve in a program like the Peace Corps.

Diabetics Beware
A dismal two-thirds of the nation’s 18 million Type 2 diabetics don’t have their blood sugar under control, putting them at high risk of the disease’s nastiest complications, even death. Yet most are unaware they’re doing so poorly, frustrated diabetes specialists have said. Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the illness, and experts estimate a third of the people who have it don’t know. An additional 41 million have ‘’pre-diabetes,’’ an impaired sugar tolerance that can lead to the full-blown disease.
Type 2 diabetes sneaks up on you, as the body gradually loses its ability to use insulin, a hormone crucial to converting blood sugar into energy. High glucose levels damage blood vessels and nerves - eventually leading to blindness, kidney failure, amputations of feet and legs and heart disease. Diabetes is the nation’s sixth-leading killer.
Tight control of blood sugar, either through diet and exercise alone or with a variety of medications, can prevent that damage. The best measure of control: the A1C test, a way of tracking average blood-sugar levels over two or three months.


‘’The American public largely doesn’t understand’’ this disease, said Surgeon General Richard Carmona, who urged patients ‘’to take their treatment seriously.’’

Muslim Hatred…
A new report finds that the number of reported bias crimes and civil rights violations against Muslims in the United States soared to its highest level last year since the period immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Washington-based Council on American-Islamic Relations, which did the study, attributed the increase to lingering animosity toward Muslims and a growing use of anti-Muslim rhetoric by some political, religious and media figures.
Notable bias or discrimination cases cited in the report include the barring of singer Cat Stevens and Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan from entering the United States and the arrest of a Muslim lawyer from Oregon jailed as a “material witness” in the terrorist bombing of Madrid trains based on a fingerprint that turned out to belong to someone else.
“We believe the disturbing rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes and in the total number of civil rights cases, both of which will be outlined in our news conference, can be attributed at least in part to rising Islamophobic rhetoric in American society,” said Arsalan Iftikhar, the council’s legal director.
The council counted 1,522 incidents in which Muslims reported their civil rights had been violated in 2004, a 49 percent increase over 2003. Another 141 incidents of confirmed or suspected bias crimes were committed against Muslims, a 52 percent rise.
The report did contain some good news. Workplace discrimination complaints - 23 percent of all 2003 complaints - fell to less than 18 percent last year. Complaints involving government agencies fell from 29 percent in 2003 to 19 percent last year.

Bigger Atlantic
The European Union and United States edged closer to a World Trade Organization showdown recently as airplane maker Airbus said it hoped to win controversial funding from Britain for a new jet intended to compete with Boeing Co.’s latest offering, the 787 Dreamliner. Airbus, owned 80 percent by top European aerospace company EADS and 20 percent by Britain’s BAE Systems Plc, has also asked France for new loans, a spokeswoman for France’s transport ministry told Reuters.
Washington warned it could resume a World Trade Organization case aimed at getting the government loans declared illegal under world trade rules.
The United States and the EU suspended competing WTO cases over government aid for Airbus and Boeing in January in the hopes of reaching a negotiated settlement. However, they failed to achieve that by an April deadline. EU officials said negotiations with the United States to avert a trade war were still underway. The bilateral clash reflects the corporate battle between Airbus and Boeing. The U.S. company, which dominated the market for decades, is fighting back after losing the lead in deliveries in 2003. The EU says that the United States showers it own aid on Boeing through government contracts and state tax breaks.

Bad Wasps
The discovery of a pernicious wasp in New York, the first time it’s been found in the wild in this country, has scientists worried about a scourge that has devastated pine forests in other parts of the world. E. Richard Hoebeke, a Cornell University entomologist, collected the Old World woodwasp on Sept. 7 in Fulton County northwest of Albany as he sifted for bark beetles caught in screening traps. He identified the adult female bug on Feb. 19. The invasive insect species, Sirex noctilio Fabricius, has ruined up to 80 percent of pine trees in areas of New Zealand, Australia, South America and South Africa, Hoebeke said. If established in the United States, it would threaten pines coast-to-coast, particularly in the pine-dense Southeast.
The woodwasp, which is native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, kills pines and sometimes other conifers by introducing a toxic mucus and spores of a toxic fungus when the female lays her eggs through the bark and into the sapwood. The only other woodwasp in the United States was found in 2002 in Indiana but that was in a warehouse, not the wild, Hoebeke said.
Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will test areas around where Hoebeke found the woodwasp. If one of those, or another species of interest, is found, the researchers will set traps in greater density to determine the scope of infestation. Because the bug likes stressed wood, scientists will also examine facilities such as mills that make packaging materials out of wood that is unfit for uses like construction. They’ll also use aerial photography to identify stands of pine that look unhealthy.
The wasp is about an inch long and has a broad waist and distinct antennas. Since 1985 U.S. Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service inspectors have intercepted seven male woodwasps at border points; all had come with tile and marble imports from Spain and Italy.

Hypocrisy 101
Heated criticism has been growing over ‘double standards’ by Washington over human rights, democracy and ‘freedom’ as fresh evidence emerged of just how brutally Uzbekistan, a US ally in the ‘war on terror’, put down recent unrest in their country. Outrage among human rights groups followed claims by the White House that appeared designed to justify the violence of the regime of President Islam Karimov, claiming - as Karimov has - that ‘terrorist groups’ may have been involved in the uprising. Critics said the US was prepared to support pro-democracy unrest in some states, but condemn it in others where such policies were inconvenient. Witnesses and analysts familiar with the region said most protesters were complaining about government corruption and poverty, not espousing Islamic extremism.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, tried to deflect accusations of the contradictory stance when he said it was clear the ‘people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means, not through violence.’
Uzbekistan is believed to be one of the destination countries for the highly secretive ‘renditions program’, whereby the CIA ships terrorist suspects to third-party countries where torture is used that cannot be employed in the US. Dozens of suspects have reportedly been transferred to Uzbek jails.
The CIA has never officially commented on the program, but flight logs obtained by the New York Times show CIA-linked planes landing in Tashkent with the same serial numbers as jets used to transfer prisoners around the world. The logs show at least seven flights from 2002 to late 2003, originating from destinations in the Middle East and Europe.
Critics say the US double standards are evident on the State Department website, which accuses Uzbek police and security services of using ‘torture as a routine investigation technique’ while giving the same law enforcement services $79 million in aid in 2002. The department says officers who receive training are vetted to ensure they have not tortured anyone.

Wine Freedom!
Wine lovers may buy directly from out-of-state vineyards, the Supreme Court ruled recently, striking down laws banning a practice that has flourished because of the Internet and growing popularity of winery tours. The 5-4 decision overturns laws in New York and Michigan that made it a crime to buy wine directly from vineyards in another state. In all, 24 states have laws that bar interstate shipments. The state bans are discriminatory and anti-competitive, the court said.
‘’States have broad power to regulate liquor,’’ Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority. ‘’This power, however, does not allow states to ban, or severely limit, the direct shipment of out-of-state wine while simultaneously authorizing direct shipment by in-state producers... If a state chooses to allow direct shipments of wine, it must do so on evenhanded terms.’’
While the ruling only involves wine sales, industry groups expect that it will soon apply to beer and other alcoholic beverages currently regulated through state-licensed wholesalers and retailers.
The Washington-based Institute for Justice says the 24 states that ban direct shipments from out-of-state wineries are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Montana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Vermont.

No Challenge
Ending one of the last fights from the contentious 2004 presidential campaign, the Ohio Supreme Court has declined to punish four attorneys who had challenged the results in court, ruling against Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro’s attempt to have the lawyers sanctioned for filing “a meritless claim” against the vote that gave President Bush a win in Ohio and, as a result, enough electoral votes to win a second term in the White House. In legal documents filed with the state Supreme Court, the lawyers had said the challenge they filed on behalf of 37 voters included enough evidence of voting irregularities to back up their allegations of widespread fraud. They later withdrew the claim. Petro, a Republican, asked for sanctions against the lawyers. If the court had sanctioned the lawyers, they could have been forced to repay attorney’s fees and court costs. President Bush beat Democratic Sen. John Kerry by about 118,000 votes in Ohio, which turned out to be the pivotal state in the Nov. 2 election. The lawyers’ election challenge was withdrawn in early January, with those contesting the results saying it was clear their argument would be dismissed as moot with Bush set to be inaugurated.