Historical Timeline

Calendar Months

     "Most newspaper article events happen anywhere from days, to months, to years before they reach publication. Consequently, most newspaper articles on this timeline are preceded by the date of the newspaper in which they appear." [E.M.]      *Color Code

January 2003

2003 - Astronomic Configuration - January 1st, 2003: "Sun [10 Capricorn], Moon [19 Sagittarius], Mercury [28 Capricorn], Venus, [23 Scorpio], Mars [19 Scorpio], Jupiter [16 Leo R], Saturn [24 Gemini R], Uranus [26 Aquarius], Neptune [9 Aquarius], Pluto [18 Sagittarius], Chiron [10 Capricorn]." [Link: 1]

2003 - Earth Being Watched by Aliens? - January 12th, 2003: " 'It's possible Earth is being watched by aliens, the astronomer, James E. McDonald, told a congressional subcommittee in 1968. He also charged that 'the scientific community has been seriously misinformed for 20 years.' " [Link: 1]

2003 - HAARP Poses Global Threat? - January 15th, 2003: "A lot of specialists and scientists believe that unpredictable natural disasters and several man-caused catastrophes that struck Europe and Asia in the summer of the year 2002 say that there might be certain global reasons that caused them all. First and foremost, it goes about a possibility of secret geophysical weapon tests. [....]" [Pravada, 01-15-03] [Link: 1]

2003 - Big Brother Society? / United States - January 16th, 2003: "Warning that a technology explosion is transforming the United States into 'a surveillance society' where every detail of Americans' daily lives can be tracked, the American Civil Liberties Union issued a report Wednesday urging national debate on new laws to reclaim citizens' right to privacy." [Link 1]

2003 - Empty Nuclear Warhead Shells? / Iraq - January 17th, 2003: "The United States announced the discovery of empty nuclear warhead shells found in Iraq and publicly insinuated a justification for war. Meanwhile the United States maintains the largest and most deadly military arsenal in recorded history." [E.M.]

2003 - Whirl-Making Weapon? - January 20th, 2003: "It is known that for many years the USSR and the USA have been working secretly on development of a so-called 'climate weapon.' It was believed that artificial cyclones, squall typhoons and tornado could be created over hostile territories, at that nature would be considered the author of these disasters. It is not clear whether military men were a success with such developments, but the public community still suspects that some climate disasters are of unnatural origin. Recently, Russian politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky blamed Americans for a hurricane that raged in Moscow. [....]" [Pravada, 01-20-03]

2003 - U.S. Cold Snap - January 22nd, 2003: "Portions of the United States entered a severe pattern of cold temperatures. Some regions in the United States reported 60 below zero wind chill factors."

2003 - Earthquake / Colima, Mexico - January 22nd, 2003: "Earthquake location: Colima, Mexico. Earthquake magnitude: 7.6. Number of recorded fatalities: 29."  [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 208]

2003 - Foreign Relations / U.S.A. & Iraq - January 27th, 2003: "American sources made it clear that the United States fully intended taking over Iraq’s oil fields, administering them in the long term and using Iraqi oil revenues to partly defray the costs of conducting war and maintaining a long-term military occupation of Iraq. According to DEBKAfile’s Washington sources, the war bill which, unlike Gulf War I, America will carry more or less single-handed, is estimated at $130 billion, while maintaining app. 70,000 US troops in the country to protect the oil fields and maintain Iraq’s post-war stability could run to another $10-12 billion a year. To raise this cash, the United States plans to increase Iraq’s oil output from 1.6 million to 6.5 million barrels per day, necessitating further heavy outlay for renovating the badly run down Iraqi oil production equipment. At the same time, the long-term, military-backed control over Iraq’s oil resources – on the spot rather than from outside the region – will make America the leading strategic-political-military force in the Middle East and Persian Gulf as well giving Washington a controlling interest in the global oil market." [Based on article by Henry L. Marconi, PRAVDA.Ru, Sydney]

2003 - What Did Happen To Flight 93? - January 28th, 2003: "According to a January 28th report, eye witness accounts on that fatal day of September 11th, 2001 saw what looked like a white military style aircraft in the immediate vicinity just prior to the crash of flight 93." [Link: 1]

2003 - Refers to Iraq's Quest for Niger Uranium / President George W.Bush - January 28th, 2003: "President Bush refers to Iraq's quest for Niger uranium in State of Union address but does not say U.S. questioned intelligence." [Based on: News Reports, p. A5 S.L.P.D., 10/28/05]

*Trivia: "Italy's spymaster identified an Italian occasional spy named Rocco Martino on Thursday [11/03/05] as the disseminator of forged documents that described efforts by Iraq to buy hundreds of tons of uranium ore from Niger for a nuclear weapons program, three Italian lawmakers said Thursday. The spymaster, Gen. Nicolo Pollari, director of the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI, disclosed that Martino was the source of the forged documents in closed-door testimony to a parliamentary committee that oversees secret services, the lawmakers said. Sen. Massimo Brutti, a member of the committee, told reporters that Pollari had identified Martino as a former intelligence agency informer who had been 'kicked out of the agency.' The revelation came on a day when the Federal Bureau of Investigation confirmed that it had shut down its two-year investigation into the origin of the forged documents from Italy. The information about Iraq's desire to acquire the uranium ore, known as yellowcake, was used by the Bush administration to help justify the invasion of Iraq, notably by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address in January 2003. But the information was later revealed to have been based on forgeries. [....] Martino has long been suspected of being the person responsible for peddling the false documents on the Iraq-Niger connection. But this was the first time that his role was formally disclosed by Italian intelligence. Neither Martino nor his lawyer was available for comment. Brutti also told reporters that the Italian intelligence agency had warned the United States in early 2003 that the Niger-Iraq documents were false. 'At about the same time as the State of the Union address, they said that the dossier doesn't correspond to the truth,' Brutti said. He made the claim more than once, but gave no supporting evidence. Amid confusing statements by various lawmakers, he later appeared to backtrack in conversations with both The Associated Press and Reuters, saying that because SISMI never had the documents, it could not comment on their merit." [Based on: New York Times article by Elaine Sciolino & Elisabetta Povoledo (Italy alleges ex-spy spread bogus Iraq uranium report), p. A11, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 11/04/05]

*Trivia: "[....] Four U.S. officials said the Italian military intelligence agency known as SISMI passed three reports to the CIA station in Rome between October 2001 and March 2002 outlining an illegal deal for Iraq to buy uranium ore, known as yellowcake, from Niger. [....] One of the reports passed by SISMI contained language that turned out to have been lifted verbatim from crudely forged documents that outlined the purported uranium-ore deal, the U.S. officials said. 'SISMI was involved in this; there is no doubt,' said a U.S. intelligence official who has closely followed the matter. The United States obtained complete copies of the forgeries in October 2002. Five months later, the International Atomic Energy Agency determined that the documents were fakes, shortly before the invasion of Iraq, and the White House later conceded that Bush shouldn't have made the allegations. The Italian government has denied that SISMI was involved in concocting or passing the forged documents. A July 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee report said three reports on the alleged deal were passed to the CIA in that period, but it didn't disclose the name of the foreign intelligence service that had provided them. Two of the U.S. officials said SISMI had passed similar reports about the alleged deal, based on the forgeries, to the intelligence services in Britain, France and Germany. Britain has continued to stand by a 2002 'white paper' report that charged that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake in Africa. Bush cited the British assertion in his 2003 State of the Union address rather than the U.S. intelligence reports, which had been disputed by some CIA experts and by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. The U.S. oficials were reacting to the reported testimony by SISMI Director Nicolo Pollari on Thursday [11/03/05] in a closed-door Italian parliamentary committee hearing. After the hearing, Italian lawmakers said Pollari had pinned the passing of the forgeries on a former SISMI informer named Rocco Martino. Pollari denied that any Italian intelligence agency was involved in concocting the fakes or disseminating them. News reports have quoted Martino as saying he had obtained the documents from a contact at the Niger Embassy in Rome, but this was the first time he was officially identified. Key questions remain about how the Niger claim made it into the Bush administration's case for war, including who concocted the forged documents and why the claim was in Bush's State of the Union after being cut from a draft of a presidential speeech some two months earlier." [Based on: Knight Ridder Newspapers article by Jonathan S. Landay (U.S. again blames Italy for bogus Iraq reports) , p. A3, S.L.P.D., 11/06/05]

*Trivia: "The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush Administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the Iraq war. Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so. According to the Germans, President George W. Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. [....] At the Central Intelligence Agency, senior officials embraced Curveball's claims even though they could not verify them or interview him until a year after the invasion. They ignored multiple warnings about his reliability, punished in-house critics who provided proof that he had lied and refused to admit error until May 2004, 14 months after invasion. After the CIA vouched for Curveball's information, Bush warned in his State of the Union Speech in January 2003 that Iraq had 'mobile biological weapons labs' designed to produce 'germ warfare agents.' The next month, Bush said in a radio address and in a statement that Iraq 'has at least seven mobile factories' for germ warfare. [....] The BND supervisor said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball's information as a justification for war. 'We had always told them it was not proven. ... It was not hard intelligence.' " [Based on: Los Angeles Times article (U.S. exaggerated Iraqi informant's weapons claims, Germans say) by Bob Drogin and John Goetz [paragraph indents removed], p. A9, S.L.P.D., 11/20/05]

February 2003

2003 - Chinese Black Ram [Sheep] Year - February 1st, 2003: "The Chinese lunar calendar marks this as the new year, 4700, the Year of the Ram." [Link: 1]

2003 - Fatality / Space Shuttle Columbia - February 1st, 2003: "At about 9:00 am E.S.T. NASA lost contact with space shuttle Columbia returning from a sixteen-day science mission. While traveling at a speed of nearly 12,000 mph and descending over the borders of Texas and New Mexico, space shuttle Columbia at an altitude of nearly 200,000 ft. [about 40 miles] subsequently began to break apart. On its way down to earth Columbia rained a trail of debris over the states of Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. All seven crew members were believed dead, including the first Israeli Citizen in space, Israeli Air Force Colonel and Payload Specialist, Ilan Ramon. First launced in April and November of 1981, Columbia was the first shuttle in space." [Links: 1]  

2003 - Trivia / Dollar vs. Euro? - February 3rd, 2003: "[....] Ever since 1971, when US president Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard [at $35 per ounce] that had been agreed to at the Bretton Woods Conference at the end of World War II, the dollar has been a global monetary instrument that the United States, and only the United States, can produce by fiat. The dollar, now [2003?] a fiat currency, is at a 16-year trade-weighted high despite record US current-account deficits and the status of the US as the leading debtor nation. The US national debt as of April 4 was $6.021 trillion against a gross domestic product [GDP] of $9 trillion. [....]" [Link 1: about 1/3 down page] [Other Links: 1]

*Trivia: "[....] Around 2005, from an economic and monetary perspectivem, it will be logical for OPEC to switch to the euro for oil pricing. Of course that will devalue the dollar, and hurt the US economy unless it begins making some structual changes - or use its massive military power to force events upon the OPEC states. [....] Facing these potentialities, I hypothesize that President Bush intends to topple Saddam in 2003 in a pre-emptive attempt to initiate massive Iraqi oil production in far excess of OPEC quotas, to reduce global oil prices, and thereby dismantle OPEC's price controls. The end-goal of the neo-conservatives is incredibly bold yet simple in purpose, to use the 'war on terror' as the premise to finally dissolve OPEC's decision-making process, thus ultimately preventing the cartel's inevitable switch to pricing oil in euros. [....]" [Link: 1 past middle page]

*Trivia: "[....] One of the dirty little secrets of today's international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America's preeminent, inescapable Achilles Heel for now and the foreseeable future. [....]" [Link: 1 3/4 down page]

*Trivia: "[....] Despite President Bush's attempt to use the threat of applying military force to OPEC producers who may wish to switch to the euro for their oil payments, it appears their belligerent neo conservative policies may paradoxically bring about the dire outcome they hope to prevent - an OPEC currency switch to euros.
   "The American people are not aware of such information due to the U.S. mass media, which has been reduced to a handful of consumption/entertainment and profit-oriented conglomerates that filter the flow of information in the U.S. Indeed, the Internet provides the only source of unfiltered 'real news.' [....]" [Link: 1 4/5 down page]

*Trivia: "[....] It would appear that any attempt by OPEC member states in the Middle East or Latin America to transition to the euro as their oil transaction currency standard shall be met with either overt U.S. military actions or covert U.S. intelligence agency interventions. Under the guise of the perpetual 'war on terror' the Bush administration is manipulating the American people about the unspoken but very real macroeconomic reasons for this upcoming war with Iraq. This war in Iraq will have nothing to do with any threat from Saddam's old WMD program. This war will be over the global currency of oil.
   "Sadly, the U.S. has become largely ignorant and complacent. Too many of us are willing to be ruled by fear and lies, rather than by persuasion and truth. Will we allow our government to initiate the dangerous 'pre-emptive doctrine' by waging an unpopular war in Iraq, while we refuse to acknowledge that Saddam does not pose an imminent threat to the United States? We seem unable to address the structural weakness of our economy due to massive debt manipulation, unaffordable 2001 tax cuts, massive current account deficits, trade deficits, corporate accounting abuses, unsustainable credit expansion, near zero personal savings, record personal indebtedness, and our dependence and over consumption of cheap Middle Eastern oil. How much longer can we reliably import our oil from middle eastern states that dislike or despise us because of our biased foreign policy towards Israel?
   "Lastly, we must bear in mind Jefferson's insistence that a free press is our best, and perhaps only mechanism to protect democracy, and part of today's dilemma lies within the U.S. media conglomerates that have failed to inform the People. [....]" [Link: 1 4/5 down page]

*Trivia: "[....] If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. [....] The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State. [....]" [Joseph Goebbels, German Minister of Propaganda, 1933-1945] [Link: 1 near bottom page]

*Trivia: "[....] Since the mid-late 1990s the Caspian Sea region of Central Asia was thought to hold approx. 200 billion barrels of untapped oil [the latter would be comparable to Saudi Arabia's reserve base](16). Based on an early feasibility study by Enron, the easiest and cheapest way to bring this oil to market would be a pipeline from Kazakhstan, through Afghanistan to the Pakistan border at Malta. In 1998 then CEO of Halliburton, Dick Cheney, expressed much interest in building that pipeline.
   "In fact, these oil reserves were a *central* component of Vice President Cheney's energy plan released in May 2001. According to his report, the U.S. will import 90% of its oil by 2020, and thus tapping into the reserves in the Caspian Sea region was viewed as a strategic goal that would help meet our growing energy demand, and also reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East (17). According to the French book, The Forbidden Truth (18), the Bush administration ignored the U.N. sanctions that had been imposed upon the Taliban and entered into negotiations with the supposedly 'rogue regime' from February 2, 2001 to August 6, 2001. According to this book, the Taliban were apparently not very cooperative based on the statements of Pakistan's former ambassador, Mr. Naik. He reports that the U.S. threatened a 'military option' in the summer of 2001 if the Taliban did not acquiesce to our demands. Fortuitous for the Bush administration and Cheney's energy plan, Bin Laden delivered to us 9/11. The pre-positioned U.S. military; along with the CIA providing cash to the Northern Alliance leaders, led the invasion of Afghanistan and the Taliban were routed. The pro-western Karzai government was ushered in. The pipeline project was now back on track in early 2002, well, sort. [....]
   "After three exploratory wells were built and analyzed, it was reported that the Caspian region holds only approximately 10 to 20 billion barrels of oil [although it does have a lot of natural gas] (16). The oil is also of poor quality, with high sulfur content. Subsequently, several major companies have now dropped their plans for the pipeline citing the massive project was no longer profitable. Unfortunately, this recent realization about the Caspian Sea region has serious implications for the U.S., India, China, Asia and Europe, as the amount of available hydrocarbons for industrialized and developing nations has been decreased downward by 20%. [Global estimates reduced from 1.2 trillion to approx. 1 trillion] (18, 19). The Bush administration quickly turned its attention to a known quantity, Iraq, with it proven reserves totaling 11% of the world's oil reserves. Our greatest nemesis, Bin Laden, was quickly replaced with our new public enemy #1, Saddam Hussein. [....]
   "For those who would like to review the impact of depleting hydrocarbon reserves from the geo-political perspective, and the potential ramifications to how this may ultimately create an erosion of our civil liberties and democratic processes, retired U.S. Special Forces officer Stan Goff offers a sobering analysis in his essay: 'The Infinite War and Its Roots' (20). Likewise, for those who wish to review the unspeakable evidence surrounding the September 11th tragedy, the controversial essay 'The Enemy Within' by the famous American writer Gore Vidal offers a thorough introduction. Although published in Italy and a major UK newspaper, The Observer, you will not read Gore Vidal's controversial essay in the U.S. media. Note: Gore Vidal's latest book, 'Dreaming War' features this as the opening essay (21). Finally, 'The War on Freedom' by British political scientist Nafeez Ahmed asks disconcerting questions about the 9/11 tragedy (22)." [Link: 1 near bottom page]

[Based on: http://www.rense.com/general34/realre.htm]

*Trivia: "The dollar declined on Monday [12/27/04] to weaker than $1.36 a euro for the first time, touching its seventh record low this month [December 2004], on speculation the United States and Europe will allow the currency to drop. Record U.S. budget and trade deficits have deterred foreign investors, pushing the dollar to its third straight annual loss against the euro and yen. The U.S. currency has fallen 7.5 percent this year [2004] against the euro and 3.8 percent against the yen. A weaker dollar may spur U.S. exports and crimp imports. [....] The dollar reached an all-time low of $1.3640 a euro, and traded at $1.3616 at 4 p.m. in New York, from $1.3540 late on Friday [12/24/04]. [....]" [Bloomberg News, 12/28/04]

2003 - Not Hard Intelligence? / Biological Weapons Arsenal, Iraq - February 5th, 2003: "The German intelligence officials responsible for one of the most important informants on Saddam Hussein's suspected weapons of mass destruction say that the Bush Administration and the CIA repeatedly exaggerated his claims during the run-up to the Iraq war. Five senior officials from Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, or BND, said in interviews with the Los Angeles Times that they warned U.S. intelligence authorities that the source, an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, never claimed to produce germ weapons and never saw anyone else do so. According to the Germans, President George W. Bush mischaracterized Curveball's information when he warned before the war that Iraq had at least seven mobile factories brewing biological poisons. Then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell also misstated Curveball's claims in his pre-war presentation to the United Nations on Feb. 5, 2003, the Germans said. [....] 'This was not substantial evidence,' said a senior German intelligence official. 'We made clear we could not verify the things he said.' The German authorities, speaking about the case for the first time [2005], also said that their informant suffered from emotional and mental problems. 'He is not a stable, psychologically stable guy,' said a BND official who supervised the case. Curveball was the chief source of inaccurate pre-war U.S. claims that Baghdad had a biological weapons arsenal, a commission appointed by Bush reported earlier this year [2005]. [....] After the CIA vouched for Curveball's information, Bush warned in his State of the Union Speech in January 2003 that Iraq had 'mobile biological weapons labs' designed to produce 'germ warfare agents.' The next month [February 2003], Bush said in a radio address and in a statement that Iraq 'has at least seven mobile factories' for germ warfare. [....] The BND supervisor said he was aghast when he watched Powell misstate Curveball's information as a justification for war. 'We had always told them it was not proven. ... It was not hard intelligence.' " [Based on: Los Angeles Times article (U.S. exaggerated Iraqi informant's weapons claims, Germans say) by Bob Drogin and John Goetz [paragraph indents removed], p. A9, S.L.P.D., 11/20/05]

2003 - Audiotape / Osama Bin Laden? - February 11th, 2003: "A voice purported to be bin Laden's calls on Iraqi's to carry out suicide attacks against Americans and defend themselves against a U.S. attack in a tape broadcast on Al-Jazeera. The voice urges Muslims to rise up against several U.S.-allied governments in the region. U.S. counterterrorism officials say the audio message was probably authentic." [A.P., 10/30/04]

2003 - Audiotape / Osama Bin Laden? - February 13th, 2003: "An audiotape purported to be of bin Laden reads a poetic last will and testament in a recording first obtained by the British-based Islamic Al-Ansaar news agency. Bin Laden says he wants to die a martyr in a new attack against the United States. It wasn't possible to verify the recording's authenticity." [A.P., 10/30/04]

2003 - World Peace Demonstrations - February 15th, 2003: "In 600 cities around the world, in 50 countries, millions of people gave up their free time this Saturday to turn out in demonstrations for peace. In question is not the character of Saddam Hussein, but rather the notion that war cannot be waged without a valid pretext.
   "Governments and organisers will refute the exact figures but today, Saturday 15th February 2003, something special happened. The citizens of the world, whatever their colour or creed, came together in Europe, Asia, Oceania, Africa, North and South America to show to those who wish to wage war against Iraq that they are isolated and wrong.
   "The citizens of the world came together today to lay the foundations of a new world order, based on a multi-lateralist, democratic approach. The citizens of the world today claimed their stake in the way major events are managed, because today it was proved that every individual counts. [....]" [By Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, PRAVADA.Ru]

2003 - Blizzard / Eastern Seaboard, U.S.A. - "Blizzard date(s): February 16th-17th, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 59." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 206]

2003 - U.S. Propositions / Turkey - February 19th, 2003: "The United States reportedly offered Turkey 26 Billion dollars of grants and loans for the use of their military bases to launch a war on Iraq. Turkey has yet to respond." 

2003 - Nuclear Weapons / Israel? - February 20th, 2003: "Peres [Shimon Peres] admitted in a Feb. 20, 2003 speech in Jerusalem that Israel did indeed have nuclear weapons. The Israeli leader made the admission to a delegation from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
   "(Despite all of this, most mainstream reports about Israel’s nuclear programs continue to state that Israel officially denies having nuclear weapons, Peres’ statement notwithstanding.)
   "This admission by Peres was particularly interesting because in 1999, many American Jewish organizations reacted with alarm when then-President Bill Clinton dared to mention Israel’s nuclear program." [Based on: article by Michael Collins Piper, A.F.P., March 2004]

2003 - Earthquake / China - February 24th, 2003: "The Xinjiang region in China's far west was hit by a powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.8 that killed 268 people." [News Services]

2003 - Comet C / 2002 VI NEAT - February 24th, 2003: "A huge comet is rounding the sun, a comet twice the size of Jupiter [about 22 times the size of earth].  Some have seen it at sunrise and sunset; otherwise, it is not visible because it is occluded by solar glare.  Essentially, it is coming from behind the sun and was first observed by NASA less than two months ago." [Links: 1, 2]

2003 - Snow Storm / Middle East  - February 25th, 2003: "Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon received their heaviest snow in 50 years."

2003 - Astronomic Configuration - February 26th, 2003: "Sun [7 Pisces], Moon [9 Capricorn], Mercury [18 Aquarius], Venus, [24 Capricorn], Mars [25 Sagittarius], Jupiter [10 Leo R], Saturn [22 Gemini], Uranus [29 Aquarius], Neptune [11 Aquarius], Pluto [19 Sagittarius], Chiron [15 Capricorn]. February 26th, 2003 shows the strongest opposition between Saturn to Pluto since May 26th, 2002." [Link :1]

*Trivia: "This date [02/26/03] will see not only an opposition between Saturn and Pluto, but also an opposition between Saturn and Mars. By February 27th, 2003, Saturn will again have moved to direct motion." [E.M.]

2003 - Missing? / U.S.-Iraq  History - February 27th, 2003: "George W. Bush also has some questions he should answer before missiles start crashing into Baghdad. When he took office in 2001, one of his first acts as president was to block the legally required release of documents from the Reagan-Bush administration.
   "Then, after the September 11 terrorist attacks as a stunned nation rallied around him, Bush issued an even more sweeping secrecy order. He granted former presidents and vice presidents or their surviving family members the right to stop release of historical records, including those related to 'military, diplomatic or national security secrets.' Bush’s order stripped the Archivist of the United States of the power to overrule claims of privilege from former presidents and their representatives. [For details on Bush’s secrecy policies, see the New York Times, January 3, 2003]
   "By a twist of history, Bush’s order eventually could give him control of both his and his father’s records covering 12 years of the Reagan-Bush era and however long Bush’s own presidential term lasts, potentially a 20-year swath of documentary evidence.
   "As the junior Bush now takes the nation to war in the name of freedom and democracy, he might at least be challenged to reverse that secrecy and release all relevant documents on the history of the Reagan-Bush policies in the Middle East. That way, the American people can decide for themselves whether Saddam Hussein is an aggressive leader whose behavior is so depraved that a preemptive war is the only reasonable course of action.
   "Or they might conclude that Saddam, like many other dictators through history, operates within a framework of self-preservation, which means he could be controlled by a combination of tough arms inspections and the threat of military retaliation.
   "Without the full history – as embarrassing as that record might be to the last five U.S. presidents – the American people cannot judge whether the nation’s security will be enhanced or endangered by Bush’s decision to put the United States on its own aggressive course of action." [ Link: 1, Bottom of Page]

2003 - Hazardous Train Derailment / Illinois - "More than 1,000 people were evacuated in a 3-mile radius ... after hazardous chemicals spilled from 16 tank cars. Federal investigators blamed a defective joint in the railroad tracks." [Based on: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 07/10/04]

2003 - Passed Iraqi Intelligence to U.S.A. / Germany? - "Germany denied a report Monday [02/27/06] that its intelligence service passed information about Saddam Hussein's plans for defending Baghdad to the United States a month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The New York Times said German agents in Baghdad obtained a copy of the Iraqi plan and a German intelligence officer supplied it to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency in February 2003. 'This account is wrong,' German government spokesman Ulrich Wilhelm said at a news conference. 'The Federal Intelligence Service and, therefore, also the government, had until now no knowledge of such a plan.' " [Based on: News Services article (Germany denies passing Iraq intelligence to U.S.), p. A5, S.L.P.D., 02/28/06]

March 2003

2003 - Iraq-Invasion Warning / Britain - March 7th, 2003: "In an embarrassing about-face ahead of elections, Prime Minister Tony Blair on Thursday [04/28/05] released a secret memo warning of the legal consequences of invading Iraq without a second U.N. resolution. Blair had long refused to publish the March 7, 2003, document from Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, saying it was confidential. Instead the prime minister had consistently pointed to the written statement Goldsmith gave to parliament 10 days later, which said the war would be legal without another resolution. [....] Opponents insist there is a clear diffrence between Goldsmith's views in the March 7 and March 17 documents, and question whether the attorney general came under political pressure. [....]" [Based on: A.P., 04/29/05]

2003 - London Concert / The Dixie Chicks - Entertainment highlights during the week of March 9th-15th, 2003: Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines told an audience in London, "Just so you know, we're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas." They endured a firestorm of criticism. [Based on: A.P. article (THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS), p. E2, S.L.P.D., 03/11/08]

2003 - Geomagnetic Disturbance? - March 13th-24th, 2003: "Max solar wind speed (km/sec) for this date in history: 834." [Based on: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/coronal_holes.html]

2003 - SARS Epidemic - March 17th, 2003: "Reported cases of  a 'mysterious illness' showing characteristics of 'severe pnemonia' started showing up in a number of Asian countries. This, on the day that President George W. Bush attended a so-called illegal summit meeting with representatives from Britian and Spain." [E.M.]

2003 - Bush Threatens Iraq - March 17th, 2003: "President Bush threatens Saddam Hussein and his sons with military force unless they leave the country within 48 hours." 

*Trivia: "[....] A lengthy Time magazine story published in March 2003, barely a week after the war's start, opened with this salty Bush quote from one year earlier: 'F---- Saddam. We're taking him out.' The remark, made in a White House meeting, was the president's dismissive response to talk about coalition-building and possible U.N. actions. [....]" [Based on: article by Eric Mink, S.L.P.D., p. B7, 06/22/05]

2003 - U.S. Launches War on Iraq - March 20th, 2003: "U.S. President George W. Bush launches war on Iraq. The Srikes begin at dawn." [Trivia: 1]

*Trivia: "Of the 580,000 troops who served in the 6-week 1991 Gulf War, 11,000 are now dead, and by the year 2000, 325,000 were on permanent medical disability frome multiple causes.
   "Of 251 Mississippi veterans in a study group who had normal babies before, 67 percent have now had babies born with birth defects. Some researchers, both here and abroad, believe that the 320 tons of depleted uranium weapons (DU) that were dropped on Iraq and a huge saran depot that we destroyed with fallout on 100,000 of our troops, could be responsible for their horrendous statistics. Over 1500 tons of DU have been used in our latest Iraq [2003] invasion. [....] Much of Iraq's air, soil, and water is saturated with tiny cancer-causing uranium particles that when inhaled, can lead to an early death. One recent study reported that 8 out of a 20-person unit that returned from Iraq in 2003 showed classic symptoms of DU exposure.
   "The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that before the Gulf War, Iraq had one of the best health systems in the entire Middle East Region. They now report that in the year 2000, Iraq had a total of 195,374 new cases of cancer and 126,677 deaths."

*Links: http://www.veteransforpeace.org
              http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MOR407A.html
              http://www.life.com/Life/essay/gulfwar/gulf02.html

2003 - Depleted Uranium Trivia / Iraq - "The amount of DU used in Iraq in 2003 is equivalent in atomicity to nearly 250,000 Nagasaki bombs."

[Based on: http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-ICT13dec03.htm]

*Trivia: "[....] Britain and America not only used DU in this year's Iraq war, they dramatically increased its use-from a minimum of 320 tons in the previous war to at minimum of 1500 tons in this one. And this time the use of DU wasn't limited to anti-tank weapons-as it had largely been in the previous Gulf war-but was extended to the guided missiles, large bunker busters and big 2000-pound bombs used in Iraq's cities. This means that Iraq's cities have been blanketed in lethal particles-any one of which can cause cancer or deform a child. In addition, the use of DU in huge bombs which throw the deadly particles higher and wider in huge plumes of smoke means that billions of deadly particles have been carried high into the air-again and again and again as the bombs rained down-ready to be swept worldwide by the winds. [....]"

[Based on: http://www.rense.com/general64/du.htm]

*Commentary: "Consider the number of earthquakes during the months [and years] before and after this war began: In 2003 [following the war], at least 17 notable earthquakes [a total of 19 for the year]. The previous year, 2002, recorded 18 notable earthquakes. In 2004, the world  will see 30 notable earthquakes [not to mention at least 9 notable volcanic events, 8 notable floods, 4 cyclones, 4 major hurricanes, and one epic tsunami!]. In 2005, the United States will witness a record number of named storms [Tropical Storms & Hurricanes]. Also in 2005, the world will witness more than 100 earthquakes [6.0 or above]." [E.M.]

2003 - War Costs / Iraq - "On March 24th, the administration justified its request for more than $70 billion to cover the costs of the war for the next six months with the prediction of 'a period of stabilization in Iraq, and the phased withdrawl of a large number of American forces within that six month window.' Oops." [By E.J. Dionne, September 2003]

2003 - Executive Order 13292 / U.S.A. - March 25th, 2003: "[....] President Bush signed  Executive Order 13292 on March 25, 2003, amending a Clinton-era order, to grant the vice president the same power as the president on top-secret material. W. must have been concerned that Vice didn't have enough power to abuse. [....]" [Based on: Article (The Bush Administration / Cheney and Rumsfeld don't get it) by Maureen Dowd (Copyright - The New York Times), p. B9, S.L.P.D., 02/21/06]

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [March 2003] amounts to 65." [A.P., 05/01/04]

2003 - U.S. Military Women / Iraq War - 2003: "Women serve as convoy gunners and checkpoint sentries, 39 women have died [as of July 2005?]." [Based on: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A10, 07/10/05]

2003 - Chapter 11 / Hawaiian Airlines - "[....] Hawaiian filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2003. [....]" [Based on: S.L.P.D., p. C2, 05/11/05]

2003 - Republicans and the Environment - "In a March 2003 memo to party leadership, Republican pollster Frank Luntz noted: 'The environment is probably the single issue on which Republicans in general and President Bush in particular are most vulnerable.' He cautioned that the public is inclined to view Republicans as being 'in the pockets of corporate fat cats who rub their hands together and chuckle maniacally as they plot to pollute America for fun and profit." [Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Crimes Against Nature, p. 3]

April 2003

2003 - Trivia / Planet X? - "APRIL 6, 2003 - Guest NANCY LIEDER - Author Of Zeta Talk. "SPECIAL PLANET X SHOW" Program 85"

"This is the incredible updated show you've been waiting for. With Planet X's expected arrival in mid May, Nancy will be telling us the precise coordinates of Niburu, and what effect it will have on planet earth as related to her by the Zeta Reticulans. Nancy Lieder is now 100% certain of Planet X's passage this year! Are you prepared? [....]

[Based on: http://www.crosswynd.com/pastguests2003.htm]

2003 - Audiotape / Osama Bin Laden? - April 7th, 2003: "In an audiotape obtained by The Associated Press in Pakistan, bin Laden exhorts Muslims to rise up against Kuwait, Saudia Arabia and other governments it claims are 'agents of America,' and calls for suicide attacks against U.S. and British interests. The CIA determines the 27-minute tape is likely authentic." [A.P., 10/30/04]

2003 - U.S. Occupation / Iraq - April 14th, 2003: "American forces occupy Saddam Hussein's hometown."

*Trivia: "According to the ministry [Iraqi Health Ministry], the interim Iraqi government recorded 3,487 Iraqi deaths in 15 of the country's 18 provinces from April 5 [2004] - when the ministry began compiling the data - until Sept. 19 [2004]. Of those, 328 were women and children. Another 13,726 Iraqis were injured, the ministry said. [....] Many Iraqi deaths, especially of insurgents, are never reported, so the actual number of Iraqis killed in fighting could be significantly higher. During the same period, 432 American soldiers were killed. [....] Nearly a third of the Iraqi dead - 1,122 - were killed in August [2004], according to the statistics. May [2004] was the second deadliest month, with 749 Iraqis killed. Most of those killed lived in Baghdad; the ministry found that 1,068 had died in the capital." [Based on: Nancy A. Youssef, Knight Ridder Newspapers, 09/26/04]

*Trivia: "In April 2003, the Defense Department approved a list of interrogation techniques for use at the Guantanamo Bay prison that permits making a detainee disrobe entirely for questioning, reversing normal sleep patterns and exposing detainees to heat, cold and 'sensory assault,' including loud music and bright lights, according to defense officials. The classified list of roughly 20 techniques was approved at the highest levels of the Pentagon and Justice Department and represents the first known documentation of an official policy permitting interrogators to use physically and psychologically stressful methods during questioning. [....] The United States has stated publicly that it does not engage in torture or cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners. Defense officials said Saturday [05/08/04] that the techniques on the list were consistent with international law and contained appropriate safeguards such as legal and medical monitoring." [Based on: Washington Post, May 2004]

2003 - Status / Human Genome Project - April 15th, 2003: "Scientists claim to have mapped 99.9 percent of the Human Genome."

2003 - Foreign Relations / U.S.A. & Syria - April 15th, 2003: "U.S. allegations claim that Syria might possess [the same as Iraq] chemical weapons and/or weapons of mass destruction. So far the United States has failed to provide credible evidence to support either claim. Meanwhile, American military forces continue to infiltrate the Middle East at will." [E.M.]

2003 - U.S. Denial / Venezuela Coup  - April 16th, 2003: "The U.S. Embassy denied Venezuelan claims that the United States supported last year's short-lived coup against Hugo Chavez." [News Services]

2003 - Earthquake / China - April 17th, 2003: "A 6.6 earthquake struck China's northwestern region of Qinghai."

2003 - Agent Orange Study - April 17th, 2003: "A new study increases the estimate of how much Agent Orange and other dioxin-tainted defoliants the U.S. military sprayed during the Vietnam War. Whether the increased amount raises the illness risk of those who were exposed remains unclear, scientists say. After re-examining military records, researchers at the Columbia University School of Public Health determined that about 21 million gallons of the herbicides had been sprayed - ten percent more than previously believed. About 55 percent was Agent Orange. Scientists said the other herbicides were closely related but even more potent. Two-thirds of the herbicides were contaminated with the most dangerous form of dioxin - TCDD, which is associated with cancer, neurological disorders, miscarriages and birth defects. The Columibia researchers suggest that 2.1 million to 4.8 million people were living in 3,181 villiages that were directly sprayed." [A.P.]

2003 - Trivia / U.S. War Cost, Iraq - April 17th, 2003: "Pentagon puts war cost at 20 billion so far."

2003 - Status / U.S. Human Rights & Civil Liberties - April 17th, 2003: "New anti-terrorism measures are curtailing human rights and civil liberties in much of the world, a watchdog group says." [A.P.]

2003 - Earthquake / Western Brazil - April 27th, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 6.0 occured in Brazil."

2003 - Earthquake / Vanuatu Islands - April 27th, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 6.3 occured in the Vanuatu Islands."

2003 - Oil Spill / Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts - April 27th, 2003: "A tugboat pilot [Franklin Robert Hill] was charged Tuesday [04/26/05] with allowing a barge to drift off coarse and spill 98,000 gallons of fuel oil into a bay off the Massachusetts coast two years ago [04/27/03]. [....] The spill in Buzzards Bay killed hundreds of birds and shut down shellfish beds, affecting nearly 90 miles of coastline in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Hill is alleged to have left the helm unattended to work at the stern of the boat. [Based on: News Services, 04/27/05]

2003 - Earthquake / Arkansas - April 30th, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 4.0 occured in Arkansas."

2003 - U.S. Empire-Building? / Iraq - "In late April of last year [2003], Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld held a press conference at the U.S. Central Command base in Doha, Qatar. A reporter from the Arab satellite news service Al Jazeera asked him why the U.S. was empire-building in Iraq. 'We don't seek empires,' the famously short-fused Rumsfeld shot back. 'We're not imperialistic. We never have been. I can't imagine why you'd even ask the question.' Three days later, his boss, President George W. Bush, made his Top Gun landing on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln and reiterated: 'Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home.' [....] In 1947, Churchill was urged to reconsider his views on British rule in India in light of Gandhi's quiet revolution. His reply: 'I am quite satisfied with my views on India, and I don't want them disturbed by any bloody Indians.' " [Kevin Horrigan, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

2003 - Settlement Trivia / MasterCard & Visa - "Target Corp., the No. 2 U.S. discount retailer, said [2005] it will collect at least $27 million from a settlement U.S. merchants reached in 2003 with Visa International Inc. and MasterCard International Inc. [....] Visa and MasterCard settled the case for $3 billion in April 2003, just before it was to go to trial in federal court in Brooklyn, N.Y." [Based on: Business Page article, p. B2, S.L.P.D., 11/04/05]

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [April 2003] amounts to 73." [A.P., 05/01/04]

May 2003

2003 - End? / War in Iraq - May 1st, 2003: "President Bush formally announces an 'end' to the war in Iraq."

*Trivia: "[....] President George W. Bush announced the end of major fighting on May 1, 2003. In the following 12 months, 598 service members died. The death toll was 852 Americans in the year that ended April 30th, 2005. The figures are from Department of Defense information compiled by CNN.com. The number of Americans wounded in the war increased from 3,732 between May 2003 and April 2004 to 7,748 in the following year, according to the New York Times News Service. [....]" [Based on: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A1, 06/06/05]

2003 - Earthquake / Greece - May 1st, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 4.1 occured in Greece."

2003 - Earthquake / E. Turkey - May 1st, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 6.4 occured in Turkey and killed an estimated 167 people [177, according to the 2005 World Almanac]."

2003 - Earthquake / Iran - May 2nd, 2003: "An earthquake reportedly measuring 4.6 occured in Northeastern Iran."

2003 - Earthquake / Southeast U.S.A. - May 2nd, 2003: "The U.S. Geological Survey now says an earthquake that rattled the Southeast this morning registered 4.9 on the Richter scale, much stronger than the 4.5 first reported.  In fact, it could be the most powerful earthquake in the region in over 100 years. [....] The epicenter was along Interstate 59 near where Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia meet." [WorldNow]

2003 - Tornadoes / Midwest U.S.A. - May 4th, 2003: "A series of violent tornadoes began to sweep through the states of Kansas, Missouri, and Tennessee."

2003 - Planetary Alignement / Mercury, Sun & Earth - May 7th, 2003: "Mercury aligned with the Earth and the sun on May 7, 2003, as it does 12 or 13 times a century." [N.G.M., July 2004]

2003 - Tornadoes / Midwest U.S.A. - May 10th, 2003: "In dollars and lives, Missouri suffered the greatest losses in the nation's most violent week ever for tornadoes, state and insurance officials said Monday. The National Weather Service counted an estimated 395 tornadoes nationwide from May 4 through last Saturday [May 10th], destroying whole towns and killing at least 44 people in five states, including 18 in Missouri. The tornado total is more than twice the old record of 173 tornadoes, set in 1995 during the week of May 12-18. The Missouri Department of Insurance estimated Monday that insured damage alone would exceed $400 million for 60,000 policies covering homes or vehicles. 'We don't know of any state that was hit harder,' said spokesman Randy McConnel." [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 05/13/03]

2003 - Terrorist Attacks / Saudi Arabia - May 12th, 2003: "Attackers shot their way into three compounds housing Westerners and Saudis and set off car bombs Monday [05/13/03], officials said. At least one person was killed and 60 people were injured, a hospital official said. The attackers struck just hours before secretary of state Colin Powell was scheduled to start a visit to Saudi Arabia." [A.P.]

2003 - De-Baathification? / Iraq - May 16th, 2003: "BAGHDAD, Iraq - Easing the ban on top members of Saddam Hussein's former Baath party [May, 2004] is an overdue correction of a U.S. mistake, experts and many Iraqis said, blaming the policy for converting thousands of potential allies into anti-U.S. guerrillas. [....] The much debated 'de-Baathification' policy emerged in a May 16 [2003?] decree from newly arrived U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer. It fired tens of thousands of Baathists from government jobs. A week later, a flourish of Bremer's pen disbanded Iraq's 350,000-member military and barred high-ranking officers from receiving pensions, saying they were too tainted by ties to Saddam's party to have a place in Iraq's future." [A.P., 4/24/04]

2003 - Flooding / Sri Lanka - "Flood date(s): May 17th-27th, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 250." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 207]

2003 - Earthquake / N. Algeria - May 21st, 2003: "An earthquake measuring 6.7 was reported in Algeria today. Over 2,000 people were killed and 8,626 injured as a result."

*Trivia: "Earthquake location: N. Algeria. Earthquake magnitude: 6.8. Number of recorded fatalities: 2,200+."  [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 208]

2003 - Ground Breaking / Eckankar Spiritual Center, MN - May 27th, 2003: "Ground breaking for the new Eckankar Spiritual Center took place at 10:25 a.m. on May 27. Construction workers began moving earth on May 29 at 9:00 a.m. Several days later, work began on paving the trail from the Temple of ECK to the ECK Celebrations of Life Chapel. [....]"

[Based on: http://www.eckankar.org/Campus/index06-02-03.html]

2003 - Found? / WMD, Iraq - May 30th, 2003: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories … And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." [Based on: — Washington, D.C., May 30, 2003 - George W. Bush]

2003 - Marathon Meeting / U.S. Pilots - "In May 2003, a journalist in Portugal reported on a sensational, marathon meeting of a group of U.S. pilots that issued a report concluding that the story told by the U.S. government about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 is improbable and unlikely. [....] That 72-hour non-stop symposium by a group of military and civilian pilots concluded the flight crews of the four passenger airliners involved in the 9-11 tragedy had no control over their aircraft." [By John Kaminski, A.F.P., March 2004]

2003 - 1st Case / Mad Cow Disease, Canada - May 2003: "Canada's first case of mad cow surfaced in May 2003." [From News Services, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. A11, 01/12/05]

2003 - Released [Saudi] Terrorist Suspects / Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - May 2003: "LONDON - U.S. officials agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudia Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year [May 2003] as part of a secret three-way deal intended to satisfy important allies in the invasion of Iraq, according to senior U.S. and British officials. Under the arrangements, Saudi officials later released five Britons and two others who had been convicted of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, the officials said. British diplomats said they believed that the men had been tortured by Saudi security police officers into confessing falsely. Officials involved in the deliberations said the transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo initially met with objections from officials at the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department. The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed three months later, in August. The releases were public relations coups for the Saudi and British governments." [New York Times, 07/04/04]

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [May 2003] amounts to 37." [A.P., 05/01/04]

June 2003

2003 - U.S. Credibility Gap? - June 1st, 2003: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. This regime has already used weapons of mass destruction against Iraq's neighbors and against Iraq's people . [....] The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological, or one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of innocent people, in our country or any other."
   "With those words March 17th, President George W. Bush justified his decision to give Iraqi President Saddam Hussein 48 hours to leave his country or face military action by the United States. The deadline had no sooner passed than Mr. Bush, operating on what was said to be solid intelligence, ordered a 'decapitation' strike on a bunker where Saddam and his sons were supposed to be hiding. Now, it turns out there was no bunker. Now, it turns out that the basic premise for the war - the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction - was selected 'for bureaucratic reasons.' " [Based on: article, St. Louis Post- Dispatch, 06/01/03]

*Trivia: "Over the past month, a growing number of credibility issues began to surface in the United States. Examples include: a deceptive New York Times reporter; a different Jessica Lynch story; incredible U.S. Military Intelligence concerning Iraq; Sammy Sosa's cork bat; multiple trips by Vice President Dick Cheney and his senior aide to the CIA over the past year; Martha Stewart indicted in connection with a stock-trading scandal; the first Catholic Nun [from Missouri] accused of improper sexual conduct, etc." [E.M.]

2003 - Geomagnetic Disturbance? - June 1st-11th, 2003: "Max solar wind speed (km/sec) for this date in history: 881." [Based on: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/coronal_holes.html]

2003 - Launch / Mars Express & Beagle 2 - June 2nd, 2003: "Mars Express, so called because of the rapid and streamlined development time, represents ESA's [European Space Agency's] first visit to another planet in the Solar System. Borrowing technology from the failed Mars 96 mission and ESA's Rosetta mission, Mars Express will help answer fundamental questions about the geology, atmosphere, surface environment, history of water and potential for life on Mars." [Link: 1]

Trivia: "Surface water on Mars existed across a significant span of time, not just for years but eons, suggest new findings made by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity." [Newscientist.com, 07/19/04]

2003 - CIA Leak Case Trivia / Bob Woodward? - Mid June, 2003: "Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday [11/14/05] in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed. Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald that the official casually told him in mid June 2003 that Plame worked as a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction, and that he did not believe the information to be classified or sensitive, according to a statement Woodward released Tuesday [11/15/05]. Citing a confidentiality agreement in which the source freed Woodward to testify but would not allow him to discuss their conversations publicly, Woodward and Post editors refused to disclose the official's name or give details about the testimony." [Based on: Staff Reports & News Services article (Bob Woodward testifies in CIA leak case), p. A4, S.L.P.D., 11/16/05]

*Trivia: "Vanity Fair is reporting that former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee says it is reasonable to assume the former State Department official Richard Armitage is likely the source who revealed the CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. In an article to be published in the magazine today, Bradlee is quoted as saying: 'That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption.' Armitage was deputy secretary of state in President George W. Bush's first term. In an interview Monday [03/13/06], Bradlee said he does know the identity of Woodward's source but does not recall making that precise statement to a Vanity Fair reporter. He said he has no interest in unmasking the official who first told Woodward about Plame in June 2003. [....] Bradlee, currently Post vice president at large, said he learned the source's name from someone other than Woodward. Woodward said he did not reveal the source of his friend and former boss. Woodward and Bradlee refused to disclose the source's name. Armitage did not return phone calls requesting comment." [Based on: Washington Post article (Article names 'likely' Woodward source), p. A3, S.L.P.D., 03/14/06]

2003 - CIA Leak Case  Trivia / I Lewis Libby Jr. & Dick Cheney - June 12th, 2003: "I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the CIA officer at the heart of a leak investigation from Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday [10/24/05]. Libby's notes of a conversation with Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Libby's testimony [2005] to a federal grand jury, the lawyers said. [....] Libby's notes indicate that Cheney got his information about Plame from George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to the vice president's questions about her husband. [....] The notes do not show that Cheney knew Plame's name. But they show that Cheney did know and told Libby that she was employed by the Central Intelligence Agency and that she may have helped arrange her husband's trip. [....] [Based on: New York Times article p. A1 & A5, S.L.P.D., 10/25/05]

*Trivia: [....] Cheney told NBC on Sept. 14, 2003, that he didn't know who sent Wilson on a mission to Niger to explore claims that Iraq was seeking nuclear material. 'He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back,' Cheney said at the time. 'I don't know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him.' He made those remarks months after the reported conversations with Tenet and Libby, in which he would have learned about Wilson and his wife. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article by Ron Fournier (Cheney's credibility becomes issue as CIA leak investigation proceeds), p. A6, S.L.P.D., 10/26/05]

2003 - Married / Adam Sandler & Jackie Titone - June 2003: "Entertainment highlights during the week of June 18th-24th, 2003: Actor Adam Sandler married longtime girlfriend Jackie Titone. [Based on: A.P.]

2003 - CIA Leak Case  Trivia / Judith Miller & I Lewis Libby Jr. - June 23rd: 2003 "[....] An Associated Press story Friday [10/21/05] reported that Judy [Judith Miller] had coughed up the details of an earlier meeting with Libby only after prosecutors confronted her with a visitor log showing that she had met with him on June 23rd, 2003. This cagey confusion is what makes people wonder whether her stint in the Alexandria jail was in part a career rehabilitation project. Judy is refusing to answer a lot of questions put to her by Times reporters, showing them the notes that she shared with the grand jury. I admire Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Bill Keller for aggressively backing reporters in the cross hairs of a prosecutor. But before turning Judy's case into a First Amendment battle, they should have nailed her to a chair and extracted the entire story of her escapade. Judy told The Times that she plans to write a book and intends to return to the newsroom, hoping to cover 'the same thing I've always covered - threats to our country.' If that were to happen, the institution most in danger would be The New York Times."  [Based on: Other Views page article (Judy Miller's account raised many troubling questions) by Maureen Dowd, p. B9, S.L.P.D., 10/25/05]

2003 - Saturn in Cancer - June 4th, 2003 "On this date in history, the planet Saturn entered the sign of Cancer." [Based on: http://www2.bitstream.net/~bunlion/bpi/ephm/E200306.html]

2003 - Ocean Crisis? - June 5th, 2003: "There is not one place I can go back to and say it has improved. We have also pretty much destroyed our coastal habitats - the mangroves, marshes, estuaries, and coral reefs of the world - making it extremely difficult for nature to produce at a normal pace. It's an ocean crisis that affects evey one of us on the planet." [Jean-Michel Cousteau]

2003 - Nitrate Runoff / U.S.A. - June 5th, 2003: "Annual United States nitrate runoff was reported today. The states of Iowa, Illinois, and Missouri showed the highest concentrations, roughly 1,440 kilograms per square kilometer! The states of Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee showed the second highest concentrations, 615 kilograms per square kilometer!"

2003 - Troubled Waters / U.S.A. - June 5th, 2003: "WASHINGTON - The oceans bordering the United States are overfished, polluted, infested with invasive species and dotted with 'dead zones,' but they still can be saved, an independent commission reported Wednesday. [....] Urban and rural runoff pollution contributed to closed beaches or swimming advisories 13,000 times in 2001, said commission member Kathy Sullivan, the former chief scientist for the national Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. [....]"

2003 - Launch / "Spirit" Lander - June 10th, 2003: "Mars Spirit spacecraft launched." [Link: 1]

2003 - Foreign Relations: U.S.A. & Iran - June 18th, 2003: "WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush said Wednesday that he and other world leaders would not tolerate nuclear weapons in Iran. Meanwhile, administration officials expressed concern to the U.N. nuclear agency about Iran's atomic program. Bush also asked Iranian leaders to treat protestors with 'the utmost of respect' as they seek the ouster of the Islamic government. [....] 'The international community must come together to make it very clear to Iran that we will not tolerate construction of a nuclear weapon,' Bush told reporters at the end of a meeting in the White House Cabinet Room. 'Iran would be dangerous if it had a nuclear weapon.' " [A.P.]

2003 - Foreign Relations: U.S.A. & North Korea - June 18th, 2003: "North Korea threatened to streghten its 'nuclear deterrent force' and dismissed American calls for international negotiations over its nuclear program Wednesday. Secretary of State Colin Powell sought diplomatic support against North Korea at a meeting in Cambodia. The timing of the announcement - with Powell in Cambodia for a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian nations - reinforced the view that North Korea will not readily give in to American demands that it negotiate away its nuclear ambitions. 'We will step up the strengthening of our nuclear deterrent force as a justified self-defense measure to counter the threat increasing daily from the U.S. strategy to isolate and stifle North Korea,' Nort Korea's Foreign Ministry said." [News Services]

2003 - Mosque Explosion / Iraq - "An explosion at a Fallujah mosque killed nine Iraqis, including an imam."

2003 - Died / Katharine Hepburn - June 29th, 2003: Entertainment highlights during the week of June 24-30, 2003: Katharine Hepburn [b. 05/12/1907] died [d. 06/29/2003] of natural causes in Old Saybrook, Conn. She was 96. [Based on: A.P. article (THAT WAS THE WEEK THAT WAS), p. E2, S.L.P.D., 06/26/07]

2003 - Change of Guard / Plum Island, New York - "The Department of Homeland Security took over operations on the Plum Island Animal Disease Center from the Department of Agriculture in June 2003." [Based on: News Services, 07/08/04]

*Trivia: "Plum Island is an isolated island off the eastern tip of Long Island, New York, and is home to a laboratory that studies contagious animal diseases." [Based on: News Services, 07/08/04]

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [June 2003] amounts to 30." [A.P., 05/01/04]

July 2003

2003 - Astronomic Configuration - July 4th, 2003: "Chiron [15 Capricorn], Pluto [17 Sagittarius], Neptune [12 Aquarius], Uranus [2 Pisces], Saturn [3 Cancer], Jupiter [18 Leo], Mars [6 Pisces], Venus, [29 Gemini], Mercury [10 Cancer], Moon [5 Virgo], Sun [11 Cancer]." [Link: 1]

2003 - Explosion / Iraq - "A blast killed seven Iraqi police recruits at their graduation ceremony in Ramadi."

2003 - Trivia / "Urban Surveilance System" - July 3rd, 2003: "WASHINGTON - The Pentagon (news - web sites) is developing an urban surveillance system that would use computers and thousands of cameras to track, record and analyze the movement of every vehicle in a foreign city. Dubbed 'Combat Zones That See,' the project is designed to help the U.S. military protect troops and fight in cities overseas. Police, scientists and privacy experts say the unclassified technology could easily be adapted to spy on Americans. The project's centerpiece is groundbreaking computer software that is capable of automatically identifying vehicles by size, color, shape and license tag, or drivers and passengers by face. According to interviews and contracting documents, the software may also provide instant alerts after detecting a vehicle with a license plate on a watchlist, or search months of records to locate and compare vehicles spotted near terrorist activities. The project is being overseen by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is helping the Pentagon develop new technologies for combatting terrorism and fighting wars in the 21st century. [....]"

[Based on: http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=18193]

2003 - Unverified? / Niger Uranium Sold to Iraq - July 6th, 2003: "In N.Y. Times op-ed, Wilson [Joseph Wilson] says he could not verify Niger sold uranium to Iraq." [Based on: News Reports, p. A5 S.L.P.D., 10/28/05]

2003 - Launch / "Opportunity" Lander - July 7th, 2003: "Mars Opportunity spacecraft launched." [Link: 1]

2003 - Conversation / Ari Fleischer & I. Lewis Libby - July 7th, 2003: "Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer testified Monday [01/29/07] that I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby divulged Valerie Plame's identity to him in July 2003, three days before Libby has told investigators he first learned of the undercover CIA officer. [....] Fleischer  ... also made clear that Libby had told him that Wilson's wife held a position in a division of the CIA where most employees work undercover. [NP] Fleischer said he believed Libby had mentioned Plame's name, although he told the jury he could not be sure. Libby 'added that this was something hush-hush or on the QT; that not many people knew this information,' Fleischer testified. [....] Fleischer testified that his lunch at the White House with Libby - the first he ever had with Cheney's top aide - took place July 7, 2003, before Libby spoke with Russert [Tim Russert]. [....] Under cross-examination by defense attorney William Jeffress Jr., Fleischer said that his conversation with Libby about Wilson's wife had been short and that Fleischer had not relayed that information to reporters until he heard a similar account from another White House aide. [....]" [Based on: Washington Post article (Fleischer's testimony could be damaging to defense) by Amy Goldstein & Carol D. Leonnig, p. A2, S.L.P.D., 01/30/07]

2003 - CIA Leak Case Trivia / Karl Rove & Matthew Cooper - July 11th, 2003: "White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago [2003], but Rove's lawyer said Sunday [07/10/05] that his client did not identify her by name. Rove had a short conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. [....] Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak's column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a 'big warning' that Wilson's claims might not be entirely accurate and that it wasn't the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was 'Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD (weapons of mass destruction) issues who authorized the trip,' according to a story in Newsweek's July 18 issue. [....] Although the information is revelatory, it still is unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said he is not a target of the inquiry. Luskin said Sunday [07/10/05] that Rove didn't know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm. [....] 'Rove did not mention her name to Cooper,' Luskin said." [Based on: Washington Post article by Josh White, S.L.P.D., p. A3, 07/11/05]

2003 - Lava Dome Collapse / Montserrat's Volcano - July 12th, 2003: "A major lava dome collapse occured at Montserrat's Volcano in the Caribbean. No one was reported injured. Montserrat's volcano came to life in 1995, eventually causing more than half the Caribbean island's population to leave. An eruption in 1997 killed 19 people and buried the capital, Plymouth."  

2003 - Earthquake Temblor / Alaska - "A 6.1 magnitude temblor shook the town of Craig, Alaska." [Based on: News Services, 06/28/04]

2003 - "Confessions of a God Seeker" - July 14th, 2003: "Author Ford Johnson questions the 'bedrock' of religious history with his new book, Confessions of a God Seeker, A Journey to Higher Consciousness [shipped in U.S.A., July 14th, 2003]."

2003 - Identified as CIA Agent by Robert Novak / Valerie Plame - July 14th, 2003: "Columnist Robert Novak identifies Wilson's [Joseph Wilson's] wife as a CIA agent; says two Bush officials were sources, who said she suggested sending him to Niger." [Based on: News Reports, p. A5 S.L.P.D., 10/28/05]

2003 - Fire / St. Louis Arch - July 17th, 2003: "Approximately 8000 people were evacuated from the St. Louis Gateway Arch and the Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on Thursday. The fire evidently started near an electrical transformer. Fortunately people were quickly evacuated and nobody was hurt." [CNN.com]

2003 - Mentions "Valerie Plame" as CIA Agent / Matthew Cooper - July 17th, 2003: "Matthew Cooper writes on Time.com that Bush officials told him Wilson's wife was CIA agent monitoring weapons of mass destruction." [Based on: News Reports, p. A5 S.L.P.D., 10/28/05]

2003 - Fire / Eiffel Tower - July 23, 2003 - "Smoke rises Tuesday from the Eiffel Tower in Paris after a fire broke out on the upper level of the  1,069-foot historic landmark. As many as 4,000 people were evacvuated after the fire broke out in a knot of cables in a telecommunications room just below the tower's broadcast antenna." [A.P.]

2003 - Fatalities / Saddam Hussein's Sons - July 23, 2003: "MOSUL, Iraq - Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's two sons were killed Tuesday during a long gunbattle with U.S. soldiers who raided a mansion after receiving a tip from an informer, the top U.S. military commander in Iraq said." [The Washington Post]

2003 - Earthquakes / Japan  - "YAMOTO, Japan - Japanese soldiers brought water and blankets to weary people huddled in school gymnasiums Saturday [7/26/03] after three powerful earthquakes  rocked northern Japan, toppling homes and injuring more than 400 people."

2003 - Geomagnetic Disturbance? - July 26th-August 1st, 2003: "Max solar wind speed (km/sec) for this date in history: 980." [Based on: http://www.dxlc.com/solar/coronal_holes.html]

2003 - Flood Plain Development / St. Louis Missouri - July 27th, 2003: "More than 2.2 billion worth of new development in the St. Louis area stands on land that was under water in the 1993 flood."

2003 - Denied Release / 9-11 Report  - July 29th, 2003: "Bush rejects Saudi request to release classified 9-11 report."

2003 - Trivia / Social Security Cuts?, U.S.A. - July 30th, 2003: "WASHINGTON - Social Security benefits promised to retirees would have to be cut by nearly a third by 2039 if no changes are made to the system to keep it afloat, congressional investigators said Tuesday [8/29/03]." [A.P.]

2003 - Heat Wave / Europe - "A record heat wave visits continental Europe during the months of July and August 2003."

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [July 2003] amounts to 47." [A.P., 05/01/04]

August 2003

2003 - Flooding / E India - "Flood date(s): August - mid-September, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 200+." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 207]

2003 - Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller / Iraq - August, 2003: "Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, led a 30-member team to Iraq in August and September [2003] that focused on ways of sharpening interrogation proceedures. In a report on the Abu Ghraib scandal, Maj. Gen. Anthony Taguba wrote that the team recommended 'that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees.' On Saturday [05/08/04], Miller said, 'There was no recommendation ever by this group... that recommended that the military police become actively involved in the interrogation.' " [A.P., 05/09/04]

2003 - Released / British Terrorist Suspects, Saudi Arabia - "LONDON - U.S. officials agreed to return five terrorism suspects to Saudia Arabia from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, last year [May 2003] as part of a secret three-way deal intended to satisfy important allies in the invasion of Iraq, according to senior U.S. and British officials. Under the arrangements, Saudi officials later released five Britons and two others who had been convicted of terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia, the officials said. British diplomats said they believed that the men had been tortured by Saudi security police officers into confessing falsely. Officials involved in the deliberations said the transfer of the Saudis from Guantanamo initially met with objections from officials at the Pentagon, the CIA and the Justice Department. The Saudi prisoners were transferred to Riyadh, the capital, in May 2003. The five Britons and two others were freed three months later, in August. The releases were public relations coups for the Saudi and British governments." [New York Times, 07/04/04]

2003 - Truck Bomb / Jordanian Embassy, Iraq - August 7th, 2003: "A car bomb killed 19 people and wounded more than 60 at the Jordanian Embassy in Iraq."

2003 - NATO Deployment  / Afghanistan - August 10th, 2003: "In the alliance's first deployment on the ground outside Europe, NATO took command of the multinational peacekeeping force in Afghanistan."

2003 - Project for the New American Century? - August 10th, 2003: "Sunday [8/10/03] The Washington Post published the results of a lengthy investigation into the Bush administration's claims about an Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The story also described the creation within the White House last August [2002] of a special group charged with winning support from Congress, from the United Nations if necessary and from the American people for a war against Iraq. [....]
   "September 11th left me emotionally battered, struggling and scared, and it was precisely that fear that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Condoleezza Rice tapped into - in me and everyone else - with their calculated, misleading conjurings of mushroom clouds, poisons and diseases.
   "Only later did I realize that the real campaign for this war began in the spring of 1997, with the creation of the Project for the New American Century, a group of conservative acedemics, ideologues and once-and-future government functionaries. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush and many senior officials in the current administration signed its founding statement of principles.
   "On January 26, 1998, the Project issued a public letter to then-President Bill Clinton. It called for regime change in Iraq, by force if necessary.
   "Not quite four years later, the attacks of September 11th supplied an aching touchstone through which the Project, whose backers had returned to positions of power throughout government, could build support for its new-world-order objectives. Facts can be debated and the meaning of intelligence estimates can be argued, but the emotional, psycological and political power of September 11th is enduring and unassailable." [Source: Eric Mink, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 08/13/03] [Link: 1]

2003 - Trivia / Ethics Rules - August 12th, 2003: "SAN FRANCISCO - Lawyers who learn that a client is cooking the books or looting a company's till could alert authorities with a clear conscience under changes to ethical rules approved Monday [8/11/03] by the American Bar Association's policymaking board. [....]" [By Anne Gearan, A.P.]

2003 - Agent Orange Contamination / Vietnam - August 12th, 2003: "HANOI, Vietnam - Decades after the wartime defolient Agent Orange was sprayed over Vietnam to kill trees and plants, toxic chemicals continue to contaminate Vietnamese people and the food they eat, according to a new study released Monday [8/11/03]. [....] During the Vietnam War, the U.S. military sprayed an estimated 21 million gallons of herbicides over central and southern Vietnam to destroy jungles where communist forces hid. About 55 percent of that was Agent Orange. Bien Hou was the site of a 5,000-gallon underground spill of Agent Orange about three decades ago." [A.P.]

2003 - Power Plant Failure - August 14th, 2003: "Around 1:35 p.m. [E.S.T.], a generator at FirstEnergy Corp.'s Eastlake Power plant failed."

2003 - Blackout / Northeast United States - August 14th, 2003: "The largest power outage in U.S. history occured shortly after 4pm E.S.T. and affected several locations in the Northeast & Midwest United states, and Canada.  Some authorities believed the outage was caused by a large 'surge' that originated somewhere near Niagra Falls N.Y. Days later the official cause of the blackout was still unknown, however authorities were quick to rule out terrorism."

2003 - Trivia / U.S. Blackout Status - August 16th, 2003: "Apparently still looking for a cause to the largest blackout in U.S. history, authorities began to focus on a powerline in Clevland Ohio."

2003 - Blackout / Georgia - August 18th, 2003: "All of Geroria was without power for the entire day on Monday [8/18/03], and officials in the former Soviet republic were struggling to determine the cause of the blackout. Electricity went off at 7a.m. in the entire country of 4.4 million people and was not fully restored until about 10 p.m. It was the first time in two years that the whole country was affected at once." [News Services, 8/19/03]

2003 - Trivia / Smallpox Vaccine - August 18th, 2003: "WASHINGTON - Millions of Americans already vaccinated against smallpox may retain at least some protection many years later, a study indicates. [....] A report scheduled for the September edition of the journal Nature Medicine indicates that lab tests can detect immune response in 90 percent of vaccinated people for many years, some for as long as 75 years. [....] There has not been a natural case of smallpox in the world since 1977." [A.P., 8/18/03]

2003 - Suicide Attempts? / Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - "Twenty-three terrorism suspects tried to hang or strangle themselves at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay during a mass protest in 2003, the military confirmed Monday [01/24/05]. The incidents took place the same year the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command of the prison with a mandate to get more information from prisoners. [....] From Aug. 18 to Aug. 26, 2003, the 23 detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves with pieces of clothing and other items in their cells, demonstrating 'self-injurious behavior,' the U.S. Southern Command in Miami said in a statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt on Aug. 22. [....] In 2003, there were 350 'self-harm' incidents, including 120 'hanging gestures,' according to Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission. Last year [2004], there were 110 self-harm incidents, he said. [....]" [A.P., 01/25/05]

2003 - Personal Bankruptcies / U.S.A. - August 19th, 2003: "NEW YORK - Personal bankruptcies continued at a record pace in the 12 months ended June 30 as Americans struggled with the debt they took on in the 1990's. The American Bankruptcy Institute said Monday [8/18/03] that personal bankruptcy filings totaled more than 1.6 million - an all time high for any 12-month period. That figure was up 10 percent from the 1.47 million cases filed in the 12 months that ended June 30, 2002." [A.P., 8/19/03]

2003 - Bombing / U.N. Headquarters, Iraq - August 19th, 2003: "BAGHDAD, Iraq - A suicide bomber rammed a cement truck loaded with explosives into the U.N. headquarters, toppling a wing of the building in a thunderous roar and killing the mission's leader and at least 16 other people. Scores more foreigners and Iraqis - were injured." [Los Angeles Times]

2003 - PCB Suits / U.S.A. - "BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - A nearly $700 million settlement reached here Wednesday [8/20/03] dispatched the claims of more than 20,000 residents of Anniston, Ala., against three once-related companies: Solutia Inc. , Monsanto Co. and Pharmacia, a division of Pfizer Inc." [By Rachel Melcer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

2003 - Plutonium Removal / Colorado - August 20th, 2003: "Crews have finished removing the last of more than 12 tons of weapons-grade plutonium left at Rocky Flats, marking a milestone in a $7 billion cleanup in the former nuclear weapons site that closed in 1989. The 6,000 acre site 15 miles northwest of Denver is slated to become a national wildlife refuge after the cleanup ends in 2006." [News Services]

2003 - "The Wall" / Iraq - August 21st, 2003: "There is now a huge cement wall being built around part of the U.S. compound in central Baghdad that is a carbon copy of the wall Israel is building in the West Bank." [Thomas Friedman, 8/21/03]

2003 - U.S. Clean Air Rule - "WASHINGTON - A group of 13 states, including Illinois, asked a federal court Wednesday to block the Bush administration's new Clean Air Act rule that would allow coal-fired power plants to expand operations without installing modern pollution control equiptment." [Chicago Tribune, 8/21/2003]

2003 - "Church vs. State" / U.S.A. - August 21st, 2003: "As the midnight deadline approached Wednesday [8/20/03] for Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore to remove the 5,280-pound monument of the Ten Commandments he secretly installed one night in the lobby of the state Supreme Court - a monument now known as Roy's Rock - the judge was not budging. The rock was not rolling. And hundreds of protestors vowed to form a human chain on their knees to protect it. On Wednesday afternoon, Moore lost a last-ditch appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, hurdling him head-on into a conflict with a federal judge who has threatened to make him pay $5,000 for every day that the Ten Commandments remain in public view." [By Jeffrey Gettleman, The New York Times]

2003 - Life on Mars? - August 22nd, 2003: "WASHINGTON - Researchers say there is virtually no evidence of limestone formation on Mars, a finding that suggests the Red Planet never had oceans or seas. But that conclusion does not alter the possibility of life on Mars, experts say." [By Paul Recer, A.P.]

Trivia: "Surface water on Mars existed across a significant span of time, not just for years but eons, suggest new findings made by NASA's Mars rover Opportunity." [Newscientist.com, 07/19/04]

2003 - Blackout Investigation / U.S.A. - August 22nd, 2003: "CARMEL, Ind. - Two federal regulators were in the control room of a Midwest power grid manager as the nation's biggest blackout spread, giving U.S. officials an eyewitness account that could prove crucial to an investigation, authorities disclosed Thursday [08/21/03]. Even before the cascading blackout, the Federal Energy Regulatory Comission had been closely watching the Midwest Independent Transmission Operator, now a focus of the broad inquiry into the failure to isolate the Aug, 14 crash. Power lines owned by FirstEnergy Corp. of Akron, Ohio, which is at the center of the inquiry, were among several lines in the Midwest that failed last week in the hours before the outage multiplied, the Midwest Independent Transmission Operator's chief executive said Thursday." [By Mark Jewell, A.P.]

2003 - Mars Watch - August 26th, 2003: "The planet Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years."

2003 - Bombing / Najaf, Iraq - August 29th, 2003: "NAJAF, Iraq - A car bomb ripped through a crowd of worshippers leaving Iraq's holiest Shiite shrine after prayers Friday [08/29/03], killing a top cleric and at least 84 other people. The blast also wounded more than 140. The bombing was the deadliest attack since U.S. troops captured Baghdad in early April and the third massive vehicle bombing in less than a month. It followed attacks in Baghdad on the U.N. headquarters and the Jordanian Embassy." [By D'Arcy Doran, A.P., 08/31/03]

2003 - Pluto 17 / 14 Sagittarius - August 29th, 2003: Pluto at 17 / 14 degrees Sagittarius, D. ...

*Link: http://www.astro.com/swisseph/ae/2000/ae_2003.pdf

2003 - Status / 911 Claims - August 31st, 2003: "NEW YORK - Federal and local officials are growing increasingly concerned that almost 60 percent of families who lost relatives in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have not filed claims with the victim compensation fund established by Congress." [New York Times]

2003 - Assassination / Najaf, Iraq - "NAJAF, Iraq - Vowing revenge and beating their chests, more than 300,000 Shiites marched Sunday [08/31/03] behind the rose-strewn coffin of a beloved cleric who was assassiniated in a car bombing in the holy city of Najaf. The FBI said it would join the investigation into the bombing, which killed 125 people." [By Tarek Al-Issawi, A.P.]

2003 - Heat Wave Status / France - August 31st, 2003: "PARIS - France's first comprehensive tally of its searing heat wave stirred new outrage Friday [08/29/03] when the government disclosed that 11,435 people had died - far beyond its initial estimates." [A.P., 08/31/03]

2003 - Budget Deficit / United States - August 31st, 2003: "Tax cuts: Three hundred and fifty billion. War on Iraq: Forty-eight billion. Reconstructing Iraq: Twenty billion. Perscription drugs for the elderly: Forty billion. Missle defense system: Ten billion. Farm subsidies: Nineteen billion. A new shuttle system for NASA: Chicken feed, $2 billion, tops. Paying for it all: Pricey. The Congressional Budget Office last week estimated that the U.S. budget will run $401 billion in the red in the fiscal year that ends Sept. 30, and that next year's deficit will reach $480 billion. Over the next decade, the CBO estimated, the United States will come up 1.4 trillion short of making ends meet. This is what $1.4 trillion looks like: $1,400,000,000,000. It's $5,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It's a tricked out Cadillac SUV for everyone in Missouri, Illinois, Kansas and Iowa. It's tuition, room, board and fees for all 6,509 undergraduates at Washington University... for the next 5,527 years. It's a stack of $100 bills, squished really tight, 95,000 miles high. [....]" [St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 09/01/03]

2003 - Trivia / U.S. Automobile Owners - August 31st, 2003: "WASHINGTON - For the first time, the typical American family has more vehicles in the garage than licensed drivers in the house, the latest survey by the Transportation Department shows." [By Leslie Miller, A.P.] 

2003 - Chemical Weapons Incineration? / U.S.A. - "The Army on Sunday [08/31/03] began buring about 800 gallons of deadly sarin drained from rockets, marking the most dangerous phase of its weapons incinerator use since the process began August 8th." [News Services - Anniston, Ala.]

2003 - Perscription Marijuana / Netherlands - "AMSTERDAM, Netherlands - The Netherlands this week will become the world's first country to make marijuana available as a perscription drug in pharmacies to treat chronically ill patients, a top Dutch health official said Sunday [08/31/03]." [Reuters News Service]

2003 - U.S. War Dead / Iraq - "Total amount of identified hostile and non-hostile U.S. troops killed in Iraq this month [August 2003] amounts to 35." [A.P., 05/01/04]

September 2003

2003 - Union Membership  / U.S.A. - "As recently as the 1960s, union membership stood at just over 30 percent of all workers, according to the National Bureau of Economic Research. But for the last decade, union membership has hovered at around 14 percent." [By Allyce Bess, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

2003 - Trivia / EPA Officials, U.S.A. - September, 2003: "WASHINGTON - Two top Environmental Protection Agency officials [John Pemberton & Ed Krenik] who were involved in easing an air pollution rule for old power plants have just taken private-sector jobs with companies that benefit from the changes." [By Seth Borenstein, Knight Ridder Newspapers]

2003 - Labor Statistics / United States - "Critcisms leveled by the AFL-CIO and other labor activists against the Bush Administration include:
   * More jobs have been lost than under any other president since the Great Depression.
   * Bush has stripped 170,000 federal employees of civil service and union protections.
   * The Labor Department created a new ergonomics program based on voluntary guidelines.
   * The president is proposing regulations that might exempt millions of workers from overtime pay.
                                                                                                                    [Allyce Bess, St. Louis Post-Dispatch]

2003 - Troop Strength Reductions / China - September 2, 2003: "China's People's Liberation Army has undertaken nine rounds of reductions since the Communist party took power in 1949, falling from a high of about 6.2 million during the Korean War in 1951."

2003 - Status / Sarin Incineration, U.S.A. - "ANNISTON, Ala. - The Army destroyed about 530 gallons of sarin nerve agent in the first bulk burn of the lethal chemical at the Army's newest weapons incinerator. The remaining 270 or so gallons are to be destroyed later this month, An Army spokesman said Monday. The Army had expected the 15 1/2-hour burn, which began Sunday and ended early Monday, to consume the entire 800 gallons of sarin drained from rockets. Because it did not, workers will be 'fine-tuning' the incinerator during the next burn in about three weeks to make it more efficient, Army spokesman Mike Abrams said." [A.P.]

2003 - Chemical Weapons Incinerator / U.S.A. - "The Army is testing another incinerator at Pine Bluff Arsenal near Pine Bluff, Ark., a city of about 55,000, and is expected to begin burning chemical weapons there late next year." [A.P.]

2003 - Typhoon Dujuan / S China - "Typhoon date(s): -September 2nd, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 32." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 206]

2003 - Poverty Rate / United States - September 3rd, 2003: "WASHINGTON - Almost 1.4 million more people in the United States fell into poverty last year - almost half of them children - even as the country emerged from recession, according to a Census Bureau survey. About 12.4 percent of the population, or almost 34.8 million people, lived in poverty last year, according to the Bureau's American Community Survey, to be released today. That was up from 12.1 percent, or 33.4 million in 2001." [By Genaro C. Armas, A.P.]

2003 - PCB-Tainted Properties / U.S.A. - "WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's administration has quietly allowed the sale of properties contaminated with PCBs, reversing a 25-year-old policy aimed at protecting people from exposure to the highly toxic chemical." [By Elizabeth Shogren, Los Angeles Times]

2003 - Earthquake / California - September 4th, 2003: "A medium-size earthquake sent a sharp, short jolt through the San Francisco bay area Thursday evening." [News Services]

2003 - Status / U.S. Casualties, Iraq - September 4th, 2003: "WASHINGTON - U.S. battlefield casualties in Iraq are increasing dramatically in the face of continued attacks by remnants of Saddam Hussein's military and other forces, with almost ten American soldiers a day now being officially declared 'wounded in action.' The number of those wounded in action totals 1,124 since the war began in March." [By Vernon Loeb, Washington Post]

2003 - Deficit? / U.S. Pension Agency - "WASHINGTON - The deficit at the government's pension insurance program grew by 300 million from April through July, reaching 5.7 billion as the number of bankrupt retirement plans it must take over kept climbing. The cash-strapped Pension Guaranty Corp. will be responsible for paying a record $2.5 billion in benefits to nearly 1 million people in the budget year that ends Sept. 30, the agency's executive director told Congress on Thursday. That compares with a payout of $1.5 billion last year." [A.P.]

2003 - Status / Substance Abuse, U.S.A. - "WASHINGTON - About 22 million people in the United States abused or were dependent on alcohol, drugs or both last year, but only a fraction received treatment, the government said Friday [09/05/03]. Other survey findings:
   * The percentage of youths who said they ever had used marijuana declined slightly, from 21.9 percent in 2001 to 20.6 percent.
   * Young adults who ever had used marijuana increased slightly, from 53 percent in 2001 to 53.8 percent last year.
                                                                                                                                         [Darlene Superville, A.P.]

2003 - Crumbling Infrastructure? / United States - "WASHINGTON - America's infrastructure is coming apart at the seams, according to an analysis released Thursday [09/04/03] by civil engineers. The analysis warned about congested roadways, crumbling bridges and schools and outdated drinking water systems.
   "In its report, the American society of Civil Engineers said the condition of 12 key categories of infrastructure had shown little or no improvement - and in many cases had worsened - in the past two years.
   "The organization's president, Thomas Jackson, said it found myriad examples of the problems, including last month's massive blackout in the Northeast and Midwest.
  "In assessing trends since its 2001 report card, the group said the nation was 'failing to maintain even the substandard conditions we currently have' for roads and bridges.
   "The report said 75 percent of the nation's school buildings were inadequate. With population growth outpacing investment in schools, the engineers estimated that more than $127 billion would be needed to build new classrooms and renovate old schools." [A.P.]

2003 - Resignation / Mahmoud Abbas - September 6th, 2003: "Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas tendered his resignation to Arafat after fewer than four months in office."

2003 - Hurricane Fabian / Bermuda - "HAMILTON, Bermuda - The dark clouds of fabian lifted Saturday [09/06/03], revealing the devestation wrought by the most powerful hurricane to hit Bermuda in 50 years: pulverized trees, shorn rooftops and tens of thousands of homes without power." [Based on:   Matthew Taylor, A.P.]

2003 - Hurricane Isabel / NC, VA, MD, E Seaboard, U.S.A. - "Hurricane date(s): September 7th-19th, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 40+." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 206]

2003 - Postwar Request  / President Bush - "WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's $87 billion request for postwar costs is heavily weighted to maintaining military operations, with $65.5 billion to go to the armed forces, $15 billion toward rebuilding Iraq and $5 billion toward building its security forces, and $800 million to new spending for civilian programs in Afghanistan, administration officials said Monday [09/08/03]." [News Services]

*Trivia: "On March 24th, the administration justified its request for more than $70 billion to cover the costs of the war for the next six months with the prediction of 'a period of stabilization in Iraq, and the phased withdrawl of a large number of American forces within that six month window.' Oops." [Based on: E.J. Dionne, September 2003]

2003 - U.S. Troop Deployment Status / Iraq - "WASHINGTON - The Army has ordered thousands of National Guard and reserve forces in Iraq to extend their tours in the country to a year, months longer than any of the troops had anticipated, Army officials said Monday [09/08/03]. [....] Now 122,000 Army forces are in Iraq, including 3,000 National Guard soldiers and 5,000 reservists, Army officials said. An additional 5,000 guard soldiers and 7,000 reservists are serving in Kuwait, they said. Overall, 350,000 troops are in the Army National Guard and 205,000 in the Army Reserves. As of last week, a total of 128,919 Army Guard and reserve forces were mobilized in support of operations overseas and in the United States. Although the total is lower than during the peak of the Iraq war, it is more than ten times greater than the average annual Guard and Reserve call-up during the 1990s, which typically was less than 10,000 a year." [Washington Post]

2003 - Trivia / U.S. Patriot Act - "Section 215 of the Patriot Act allows the FBI access to private details of the lives of law-abiding Americans: which books we have checked out from the library, what our medical histories say and what charges we have rung up on our credit cards. [....] For example, under section 215, the FBI could subpoena Amazon.com or eBay for all the purchasing records of their customers - or a library for all the borrowing records of its patrons - simply by asserting that it wants the information for a terrorism investigation." [Based on article by Russ Feingold, 09/09/03]

2003 - New Prime Minister / Palestine - "JERUSALEM - Palestinian Parliament speaker Ahmed Qureia agreed Monday to become his people's new prime minister while insisting that he could not move forward on the U.S-backed peace plan unless he gets more support from Washington than it gave his predecessor." [Knight Ridder Newspapers]

2003 - Conviction / Enron Treasurer - "HOUSTON - Enron Corp's former treasurer on Wednesday [09/10/03] pleaded guilty to conspiracy and was led away in handcuffs and ankle chains to begin serving five years behind bars." [By Kristen Hays, A.P.]

2003 - Video Image / Osama Bin Laden - September 10th, 2003: "In the first video image of bin Laden in nearly two years, he is shown walking through rocky terrain with al-Zawahri. Two taped messages accompanied the video - all aired on Al-Jazeera on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. In one, a voice purporting to be bin Laden's praises the 'great damage to the enemy' on Sept. 11 and mentions five hijackers by name. In the other tape, a voice said to be that of al-Zawahri threatens more attacks on Americans." [A.P., 10/30/04]

2003 - Typhoon Maemi / South Korea - "Typhoon date(s): September 12th, 2003. Number of recorded deaths: 130." [Based on: The World Almanac and Book of Facts, 2005, p. 207]

2003 - Fatality / Swedish Foriegn Minister - September 12th, 2003: "STOCKHOLM, Sweden - Police searched Thursday [09/11/03] for a tall stocky Swede with acne-scarred shin who fatally stabbed Foreign Minister Anna Lindh in a Stockholm store." [A.P.]

2003 - WTO Failure - "CANCUN, Mexico - Talks designed to change the face of farming around the world collapsed Sunday [09/14/03] amid differences between rich and poor nations, the second failure for the World Trade Organization in four years. Some poor nations celebrated what they called a victory against the West. [....]" [A.P.]

2003 - E.M.U. Rejection / Sweden - "On Sunday, the Swedish people decisively rejected membership in the European Monetary Union and, in doing so, also rejected adoption of the single European currency known as the euro. The results are no anomaly, but a warning that the EMU and Europe's 50-year progress toward a closer union may be in jeopardy. [....] In Sweden, only Anna Lindh, the foriegn minister who was savegly murdered last week, could have rescued the floundering EMU cause. Despite the backing of Prime Minister Goran Persson, the country's establishment powers and a slick 'Ja' campaign that had outspent the 'Nye' side by at least five to one, the public was not on board, and by June the campaign was a shambles. [....]" [John R. Gillingham III]

2003 - CIA Leak Case Trivia / Dick Cheney - September 14th, 2003: "[....] The New York Times reported Tuesday [10/25/05] that notes taken by Cheney chief of staff I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby suggest that the vice president learned about CIA officer Valerie Plame from then-CIA Director George Tenet, then passed the information to Libby in a conversation on June 12, 2003. [....] Cheney told NBC on Sept. 14, 2003, that he didn't know who sent Wilson on a mission to Niger to explore claims that Iraq was seeking nuclear material. 'He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back,' Cheney said at the time. 'I don't know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him.' He made those remarks months after the reported conversations with Tenet and Libby, in which he would have learned about Wilson and his wife. [....] It was Cheney who all but made a direct link between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, then denied that he had ever done so. He also insisted there was a link between al-Qaida and Iraq. Cheney said in May [2005] that the Iraqi insurgency was in its 'last throes,' an assertion rejected by military leaders. [....]" [Based on: A.P. article by Ron Fournier (Cheney's credibility becomes issue as CIA leak investigation proceeds), p. A6, S.L.P.D., 10/26/05]

2003 - Power Plant Failure / Pennsylvania - September 16th, 2003: "An electrical disturbance cut off power to a nuclear plant early Monday [09/15/03] and caused both of the facility's reactors to shut down automatically, officials said. [....] No radiation was released and no workers were injured, Simon said. Plant officials declared an 'unusual event' just after 2:30 a.m. An unusual event is the lowest of four emergency classifications." [News Services]

2003 - Foreign Relations / China & N. Korean - September 16th, 2003: "BEIJING - China said Monday [09/15/03] that its military has taken over patrolling its frontier with North Korea but wouldn't disclose why it made the change." [A.P.]

2003 - Changing Story? / 911 - "WASHINGTON -  President George W. Bush said Wednesday [09/17/03] there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His remarks dispute an impression that critics say the administration tried to foster to justify the war against Iraq. 'There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties,' the president said. But he also said, 'We had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.' " [Based on: article by Terence Hunt, A.P.]

2003 - Resignation / Richard Grasso - September 18th, 2003: "NEW YORK - "The chairman and chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange resigned Wednesday [09/17/03] after the board called an emergency meeting to quell three weeks of blistering criticism of his pay package." [New York Times]

2003 - Hurricane Isabel / U.S. East Coast - September 19th, 2003: "One of the largest hurricanes in five years reached the U.S. East Coast."

2003 - Israeli Policy Protests - "... In Tel Aviv, several thousand Israelis marched to the Defense Ministry, protesting their government's tough policies in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and calling for an end to the occupation. In the past three years of fighting against Palestinian militants, Israeli troops have reoccupied most West Bank towns, enforced travel bans on civilians and carried out frequent arrest raids. [....] About 2,000 people also marched in the West Bank town of Hebron on Saturday [09/20/03], carrying Palestinian flags and banners that read "Arafat is our hero.' " [A.P.]

*Trivia: "[....] ... a year and a half ago [2003], Shapira [Israeli Air Force Reserve Captain, Yonatan Shapira] lost his wings as a helicopter pilot. The reason: Shapira joined a few dozen other pilots in refusing to fly missions that they view as immoral and illegal. [....] 'Almost all of those missions do not serve Israel and are neither legal nor moral,' Shapira said [2005] at a session with Post-Dispatch editorial writers. [....] A year and a half ago, 27 pilots and 800 reservists signed a letter refusing to carry out missions they deemed illegal and immoral. Most such missions take place in the occupied territories. [....] Shapira insisted that his group was following the first law of the Israeli Defense Forces: 'A soldier must not follow illegal or immoral commands.' He said, 'We told them we're unwilling to participate in missions where we'd harm innocents. It's not only immoral. It also harms Israel by spreading hatred.' [....] Meanwhile [March 2005], Shapira is on a month-and-a-half speaking trip across the United States. He recently met with congressional staff aides and think-tank analysts in Washington. His take: 'They think the Jewish lobby in Washington represents the Jewish voice - and it's not true.' Shapira singled out the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. But AIPAC's Josh Block called his group the mainstream voice of U.S. public opinion on relations with Israel - 'the only democracy, and our only ally, in the Middle East. And because Israel is a free country, the gentlemen in question is free to make such statements.' [....]" [Based on article by Harry Levins, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, p. 26, 03/12/05]

2003 - Economic Status / Iraq - "BAGHDAD, Iraq - The U.S.-led occupation authority has ordered the overhaul of fundamental elements of Iraq's socialist economy and instituted wide-ranging free-market reforms that will allow full owernship in all sectors except oil, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Sunday. [....] The new economic policy, enacted Saturday [09/20/03] by U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer, allows foriegn companies to enter and potentially dominate key elements of the economy, from banking to manufacturing, that had been off-limits to outside owernship. [....]" [Washington Post]

2003 - Assassination Attempt / Akila Hashimi - "Akila Hashimi, one of three womwn on the 25-member Governing Council and a leading candidate to Iraq's representative at the United Nations, was shot in the abdomen by gunmen Saturday