the shrewdness of apes

anyone who counts themselves among those who are just exasperated with the current administration of this country and the direction in which it has us pointed should definitely not read this article about Bush & Co.'s continued efforts to avoid acknowledging global warming and/or doing something about it. an excerpt:

U.S. officials pressed negotiators to drop sections of the report that highlight some problems tied to global warming, warn of more frequent droughts and floods, and commit a specific dollar amount to promoting carbon sequestration in developing countries.

Instead, U.S. negotiators substituted a sentence that reads, "Climate change is a serious long term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe."

also not recommended for reading is this expose by Salon and Rolling Stone (who knew they still did anything that mattered?) about the coverup by the government and drug companies concerning the effects of mercury-based additives in vaccinations administered to infants. studies show that thimerosal is the likely culprit behind the epidemic of autism, hyperactivity and other neurological disorders in this country. yet, depsite this evidence, use of these vaccines continued until very recently in this country and are still being widely used in the 3rd world. meanwhile, there have been efforts in Congress (surprise!) to protect the drug companies from prosecution. again with the excerpts:

The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency's massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines -- thimerosal -- appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children. "I was actually stunned by what I saw," Verstraeten told those assembled at Simpsonwood, citing the staggering number of earlier studies that indicate a link between thimerosal and speech delays, attention-deficit disorder, hyperactivity and autism. Since 1991, when the CDC and the FDA had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children.

But instead of taking immediate steps to alert the public and rid the vaccine supply of thimerosal, the officials and executives at Simpsonwood spent most of the next two days discussing how to cover up the damaging data. According to transcripts obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, many at the meeting were concerned about how the damaging revelations about thimerosal would affect the vaccine industry's bottom line.

anyone else feeling a little pessimistic about the world today?