~ according to w bush, the publication of notice of a criminal act is ‘shameful’, not the criminal act itself; bush expects us to believe that there has been some revelation of terror fighting techniques which terrorists never would have imagined on their own. well, here’s some news that the nytimes didn’t publish: terrorists are already aware that the united states government is monitoring them. they did not read about the tapping of americans’ phone lines and emails in the newspaper and realize, ‘wtf, the u.s. gov’t is taking steps to prevent us from launching attacks’, nor did a terrorist forward a yahoo link to his buddies with the comment ‘hey, d00ds, it looks like the u.s. gov’t has a problem with what we are doing!’

~ however! maybe we do need the new york times to let us know when we are being watched:

One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a “Vegan Community Project.” Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group’s “semi-communistic ideology.” A third indicates the bureau’s interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. –nytimes

~ anyway! the point of having polar bears in the title was due to the fact that we would like to see those polar bears who are forced to swim 60 miles across open ocean show up on the doorsteps of the folks responsible for global warming and wiretapping with the intent to exact vengeance.

~ from the angry red planet inbox, a new summer project:

ROLL YOUR OWN BLACK OUT THE FIRST DAY OF SUMMER JUNE 21, 2001 THURS EVE,
7-10 pm worldwide, all time zones

   As an alternative to George W. Bush’s energy policies and lack of emphasis on efficiency, conservation and alternative fuels, there will be a voluntary rolling blackout on the first day of summer, June 21 at 7pm – 10pm in any time zone (this will roll it across the planet).

   Its a simple protest and a symbolic act. Turn out your lights from 7pm-10pm on June 21. Unplug whatever you can unplug in your house. Light a candle to the Sungoddess, kiss and tell or not, take a stroll in the dark, invent ghost stories, anything that’s not electronic – have fun in the dark.

   Read the 1999 book “Natural Capitalism” by Hawken and Lovins to learn that conservation/high efficiency technologies already ARE on-the-shelf. If implemented these revolutionary ideas would pay themselves off within five years, after which we’d be pumping far less greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and saving bucks to boot.

   Forward this email as widely as possible, to your government representatives and environmental contacts.

   Let them know we want global education, participation and funding in conservation, efficiency and alternative fuel efforts — and an end to over-exploitation and misuse of the earth’s resources.

   Anyone knows that the Cheney-Bush team is blowing smoke when they tell us that “… conservation can’t help, it’ll just be too expensive to implement those technologies…” While on the other hand, technology to develop and deploy weapons to blow incoming ICBMs out of the sky are easy to come by.