"The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, working with two private partners, would have set up an Internet futures trading market on events in the Middle East. Traders could buy and sell futures contracts based on their predictions about what would happen in the region. Examples given on the market's Web site included the assassination of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat and a biological weapons attack on Israel." -- Associated press "First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're wiling to kill." -- El Presidente Bush, May 19, 2003 "The Pentagon's bid to resume biological weapons research hinges on misleading language: Developing deadly biological weapons is illegal, so the grenade and other potential biowar devices are labeled 'nonlethal.' Similarly misleading language is being used to beef up the nation's nuclear weapons program. The House and Senate recently ditched the ban on researching low-yield nuclear devices, and approved funding for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, a bunker-busting weapon said to be 10 times more destructive than the Hiroshima bomb. The justification? Nuclear weapons will only be researched, not tested or deployed. " -- baltimore sun "According to official military records, the number of U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq since May 2 is actually 85. This includes a staggering number of non-combat deaths. Even if killed in a non-hostile action, these soldiers are no less dead, their families no less aggrieved. And it's safe to say that nearly all of these people would still be alive if they were still back in the States. Nevertheless, the media continues to report the much lower figure of 33 as if those are the only deaths that count." -- Editor & Publisher