May 2008 Archives

While an embryo may die due to a chemical exposure and result in a miscarriage, a developing fetus will survive but can suffer altered DNA that results in malformations, deformities, retardation and birth defects - lifetime serious personal injuries that can and should have been avoided. 

It is not as if scientists haven't known that dangerous chemicals cause birth defects or only learned that fact recently.

Chemical manufacturers for decades did not report all known risks of chemical exposure, relying on the weakest reports assuring safety, to avoid loss of sales.

The same chemical suppliers that find themselves defendants in cancer cases are also defendants in birth defect cases because chemicals that cause mutations upset DNA.  Mutagens are carcinogens and teratogens.  The same chemicals that cause cancer are also responsible for birth defects.

Manufacturers are held responsible for birth defects becaus of failing to warn, but they have successfully provided themselves with a handmaiden in their defense known as the American Conference of Industrial Hygienists.  It is largely a chemical industry dominated organization that has set exposure levels for workers to prevent acute, i.e. immediate adverse physical reactions.  Unfortunately OSHA has adopted these weak standards. The result is that when chemical companies are sued for birth defects their chief defense is "we have done all that we are required to do" and the pregnant mother's exposures were within the levels allowed by law. 

But it doesn't end there. 

Proposition 65 was adopted by California voters demanding a healthy and clean environment.  As a result the State of California sets health-based environmental exposure limits for specific chemicals in air and water. 

The maximum concentrations are not allowed to cause more than one additional cancer per million people exposed to the chemical over their lifetime. 

California has very stringent public health standards. 

OSHA, on the other hand, allows manufacturers and employers to expose workers to levels of chemicals that are thousands of times higher than the health levels set by Cal EPA.

Methylene chloride, benzene, epichlorohydrin, trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene have been used in industry for years. Toxicologists confirm that these chemicals are known carcinogens.

The difference in how these chemicals are regulated by environmental and health laws and OSHA is astounding.

Under environmental regulations, the maximum concentration of methylene chloride that can be discharged to the air, if converted to what is known in industry as an "8 hour time weighted average," is .001 parts per million [ppm].

Under OSHA rules the "allowable" level of exposure for methylene chloride is 25 ppm, which is 25,000 times greater than the health standard.

For benzene, the OSHA level is 1 ppm, even though the health standard is 1 part per billion [ppb]. The OSHA standard is 1,000 times greater.

Health regulations allow exposures to epichlorohydrin of 0.001 ppm, while OSHA allows 2 ppm, which is 2,000 times greater.

The maximum concentration of trichloroethylene under health standards is 0.007 ppm or 7 ppb. But the OSHA level for TCE is 25 ppm. That's 3,571 times higher.

OSHA levels for perchloroethylene are 25 ppm, but under health regulations the allowable limit is 0.003 ppm. The OSHA limit is 8,333 times greater.

On a day-to-day basis, workers have been exposed to high levels of dangerous chemicals, which have been thousands of times stronger than levels allowed by public health laws.  As outrageous as it is, it is legal.

Employers don't worry because they cannot be sued.  Workers are relegated to filing claims with the Workers' Compensation Appeals Board for "benefits" [an oxymoron] that are extremely limited.

Unborn children exposed to chemicals during pregnancy are not forced into the WCAB system because they are not employees.  Children are entitled to full constitutional protections against a parent's employer for the injuries suffered in the womb.  

In most states the time limit on bringing suit does not start to run until a person becomes an adult on their 18th birthday.  Usually two years is allowed or before the 20^th birthday, except for Tennessee that has a one-year time limit.

Most states recognize "delayed discovery." This discovery rule provides that the statute of limitations period starts to run when an injured person has, or should reasonably have, knowledge s/he has suffered injury. 

Not all claims of delayed discovery are successful.  So, filing before an injured person's 20^th birthday stops a chemical company from raising a statute of limitations defense or attacking a delayed discovery claim.

As a practical matter because it is necessary to identify the manufacturers of chemicals causing injury and to prove the level of exposure, mothers who worked with chemicals during pregnancy should promptly take action before valuable co-workers can no longer be found to testify in their support.

Onward,

Richard Alexander

Bisphenol A is a threat to your health. It's all around you - and probably in you.

And BPA is most likely the cause of early puberty in young girls, plus birth defects in newborns.  

Birth defects caused by exposing an unborn child to toxic chemicals was rarely discussed by doctors and hospitals before fetal alcohol syndrome was first identified.  Many women employed in industry do not know all dangers associated with chemicals used at work because of the reluctance of manufacturers to explain in Material Data Safety Sheets all that is known about individual chemicals in chemical mixtures.  What is known is that chemicals that alter DNA do it across the board and life cycle.  Birth defects, early puberty and cancer go hand-in-hand.  BPA is exactly that kind of chemical.

Endocrine disruption leads to carcinogenic, reproductive and developmental effects.  In addition to early puberty, disruption of ovarian function, reduced sperm production, and reduced fertility are the outcomes.  Potential developmental effects include low birth weight and birth defects.

Endocrine disruptors are found in pesticides, insecticides and industrial chemicals, such as bisphenol A found in plastic containers and can liners, which has been receiving all the bad press it deserves.

We know that two common pesticides found in polluted water, atrazine and bifenthrin, function in shellfish as estrogen does.  

 
Environmental and biological scientists have done much to warn us about the hazards in our food supply.

In 1993 Stanford endocrinologist Dr. David Feldman was conducting research on steroid hormones in yeast cultures, such as estrogen, and he found hormones, but not where he expected them. After sterilizing empty flasks with very high heat and pressure, Feldman said he "discovered the molecules must be leaching from the plastic, because they weren't coming from the yeast,"

The plastic flasks were made of polycarbonate, a clear sturdy plastic found in numerous containers and in the epoxies used to paint the interior of cans used for food. . Bisphenol A was contaminating his experiments.  He knew that bisphenol A was a chemical relative of DES, diethylstilbestrol, a chemical known to cause cancer in the offspring of mothers treated with DES to prevent spontaneous abortions.  Dr. Feldman rang the warning bell and presented his results to a major conference in 1994 in a paper entitled "Estrogens in Unexpected Places: Possible Implications for Researchers and Consumers," later published in Environ Health Perspect. 1995 Oct;103 Suppl 7:129-3. 

Nobody listened, until 2007 when Canada banned the use of bisphenol A in plastic baby bottles.

Industry did nothing about BPA for years because there were no penalties and no incentives to use alternatives, and as Professor Feldman notes" scientists can only say so much."

From the first reported synthesis of BPA in 1936 it has been known as an estrogen.  Dodds, E.C., Lawson W.  "Synthetic Oestrogenic Agents Without the Phenanthrene Nucleus," Nature  137:996 (1936).  Today BPA is associated with causing damage in reproduction and is a suspect in a myriad of other problems, including breast cancer, diabetes, testicular cancer and more, as shown in tests on laboratory animals.
 
Bishpenol A can be found in baby bottles, water bottles and the white linings of canned foods. It was thought to be just fine, but we are eating it. BPA has been found in 93 percent of Americans who were tested for it.
 
Industry, as expected, claims that it is safe. But it's not acceptable if it leaches into humans. The Environmental Working Group found that bisphenol A lines the cans of baby formula, including Nestlé, Ross-Abbot (Similac), Mead Johnson (Enfamil), Hain-Celestial (Earth's Best), and PBM (sold under various names at Walmart, Kroger, Target and other stores). 

Researchers say BPA acts like the hormone estrogen and can affect a developing brain and reproductive system.  It is among the chemicals now known as environmental estrogens.

"There is mounting scientific evidence that BPA is toxic, especially to children," Aaron Freeman, Policy Director with Environmental Defense, says in a statement. "Governments should be acting quickly, starting with a ban on BPA in food and beverage containers."

In a recent article in the San Jose Mercury News, Edwin Garcia wrote that lawmakers in Sacramento have recently introduced an increasing number of bills to clamp down on potential toxins in our lives -- bisphenol A and others.  Environmental authorities in our northern neighbor, Canada, were so alarmed about bisphenol A  that retailers yanked from their shelves many children's toys containing the chemical.
 
And the same should be true in the United States. 

Unfortunately, that's not happening.

There will be consequences once the rest of the world knows what industrial already knows about this chemical.

Exposure to chemicals that mimic estrogens in the body is thought to be the reason more girls are entering puberty at younger ages, according to Jeanne Rizzo, executive director of the Breast Cancer Fund. 

Dr. Marcia Herman-Giddens of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill school of public health, in a 1997 study of 17,000 Girls in the US, found that black girls begin puberty shortly before age 9 on average, while white girls begin just before age 10.  

Dr. Herman-Giddens found an astonishing 45 percent of all Afro-American females reach puberty at age 8 and have begun developing breasts, growing pubic and underarm hair or both

Think that through and consider the consequences of early development.

Third grade girls, without the benefit of judgment or maturity, have reached the beginning of their sexual development without the emotional skills to make appropriate decisions.  That's more than a family problem - it's a major social problem.

Bishpenol A mimics hormones and because of its widespread use BPA is among the environmental chemicals suspected to be responsible.

The San Jose Mercury News on April 7, 2008 opined that bisphenol A should be deemed safe until proven guilty and in doing so maligned the research of Dr. Vom Saal and falsely stated that the scientific door on bisphenol A was still open.  http://www.mercurynews.com/ci_8837191

Both claims were false, as was the Mercury's premise that bisphenol A is safe.

On April 10, 2008 the Mercury responsibly admitted that its editorial supporting the safety of bisphenol A mischaracterized the credibility of biologist Frederick vom Saal and the position of the National Academy of Science. The Mercury conceded that the Vom Saal studies of bisphenol A have stood the test of peer review and that recent studies by National Academy of Science scientists have produced results questioning the safety of bisphenol A.

The US should be adopting the principles of precaution and prevention, long advocated by the Environmental Research Foundation in numerous papers.

Bishpenol A is too high on the suspect list to be granted a presumption of innocence until proven guilty.  Our daughters are at risk and that means this chemical must not be used until its has been proven safe.  There's no second chance if it disables your daughter or grandchild.

Chemicals should be deemed dangerous until proven innocent because we can never unring the bell of altered human DNA in this generation and the next.

The Kids Safe Chemicals Act places the burden of proof on the chemical industry, which has produced more than 60,000 new chemicals in the last 30 years without safety testing, to prove that chemicals are safe for children before they are used in consumer products. See "Shouldn't Chemicals be Proven Safe for Kids Before Marketing, May 21, 2008.

Why stop there?  Why not make it "Everyone's Safe Chemical Act"?  

Think about it.  Learn more.  

Onward.

Richard Alexander

May 21, 2008 I shook hands with Mary Tillman, mother of Pat Tillman. a U.S. Ranger who died on April 22, 2004 in Afghanistan, near the Pakistan border. Tillman was slaughtered by American troops for no reason, with gross indifference and in direct violation of the rules of engagement.

"Friendly fire" and "fratricide" are oxymorons to describe this outrage by out-of-control soldiers lusting for blood and raging to kill someone, anyone, even their own, as it turned out.  The whole episode reeks with insanity.

Tillman's death was wrong.  

Worse was the cover-up by the military afterward, first reported by the Washington Post on May 4, 2005.  That was when the lies began to unravel.

There is strong evidence that complicit in the torrent of fabrications, distortions and lies that followed Tillman's death was the whole chain of command, including the Secretary of Defense.  That is what Ms. Tillman's book is about.  

Speaking before a hometown crowd of 400 attending a San Jose Chamber of Commerce evening to honor women, Ms. Tillman read the following except from her book "Boots on the Ground by Dusk: My Tribute to Pat Tillman."

As she spoke, I was struck by power of this mother delivering in quiet, strong tones an eloquent message that pulled no punches.  It struck my heart.  I whispered to Meri Maben, a senior assistant for Congressional Representative Mike Honda, a San Jose Democrat, who was seated next to me, "we stand for this."

When Mary Tillman concluded I stood to applaud and the words "right on" came easily. Meri Maben stood too.  

We were the only people in the room of 400 to stand and applaud a powerful patriotic statement condemning a government that truly deserves to be condemned.  Wish I had asked everyone at our table to stand as well.  

Perhaps all in the room were dumbstruck and immobilized by the truth. 

I cannot believe they disagreed or that many were supporters of this war, since nobody is willing to sacrifice to support this war, unless paying $4.50 a gallon for gasoline is suffering.  

And I cannot believe the whole room was filled with fire-breathing neo-cons.  

Maybe this is the way they act at Chamber of Commerce dinners, shying away from the overt political statement to avoid offending anyone.  

Anyone who supports this war deserves to be offended, when they get up in the morning, when they go to bed at night and several times during the day. 

Maybe they were embarrassed by Ms. Tillman's forthright condemnation of the Bush Administration. 

Maybe they are just afraid to stand up and wrap their arms around this grieving mom.  Not me.  Not Meri Maben.

Maybe I shouldn't attend Chamber of Commerce dinners, even when they are for a good cause.

Below are the words written by Pat Tillman's brother Kevin that brought me to my feet. 

"Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is.

"Something like that.

"Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them.  Somehow that covert policy of torture became the fault of a few "bad apples" in the military.

"Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a kindergartner scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cares, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet.

"It's interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing of a fie year-old, or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him, or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle fifty feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

"Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

"Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue, and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

"Somehow those afraid to fight in an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

"Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

"Somehow profiting from the tragedy and horror is tolerated.

"Somehow the deaths of tens, in not hundreds of thousands of people are tolerated.

"Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

"Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

"Somehow torture is tolerated.

"Somehow lying is tolerated. 

"Somehow American leadership managed to created a more dangerous world.

"Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

"Somehow America has become a country that projects every thing that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

"Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared and distrusted countries in the world.

"Somehow being politically informed, diligent and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

"Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

"Somehow this is tolerated.

"Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

"In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don't be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity.  Most likely, they will come to know that "somehow" was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites."

The sooner a new U.S. Senate ratifies the Treaty for the International Criminal Court of Justice, and a new President signs it, the better.  That will provide The Hague with jurisdiction to conduct a proper and complete investigation of all the atrocities of the Iraq war. 

There's a lot to investigate.  

The morning after Ms. Tillman spoke the New York Times reported on May 22, 2008 the existence of a " painful report by the Justice Department's inspector general, based on the accounts of hundreds of F.B.I. agents who saw American interrogators repeatedly mistreat prisoners in ways that the agents considered violations of American law and the Geneva Conventions. According to the report, some of the agents began keeping a "war crimes file" -- until they were ordered to stop."  

"Hundreds of F.B.I. agents?"  This abuse isn't simply widespread.  It is rampant. 

And know this.  Those agents are patriots.  

No matter what the orders, they are keeping those war crimes files where no one will ever find them until the day of reckoning arrives. 

Mary Tillman, thank you for telling this brutal story, this black page in our history, that has so wounded you, your family and the nation.  Your loss is a  nightmare.  I am grateful for your sharing it with such eloquence.  It rings hard and clear.  It resonates with unmistakable truth.

Onward.

Richard Alexander

Let loose the hounds of legal justice, the class-action attorneys who will take on the corporate cheats, the ones who have been lying to investors depending on their investments for their retirement.

Many Wall Street companies have been trying to bury - to keep out of sight of their investors - their home loan failures. They hide it so their stock prices don't plummet. It's reckless, and it needs to be fixed, punished and we need to make an example of these profiteers to put a stop to it.

But in 1995, Congress made it impossible to go after these crooks to get your money back. 

Do Americans a favor, Congress. Change the rules. Yesterday.

The culprit is the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act, which a Republican, business-friendly Congress passed.

The greed underlying it is appalling and mystifyingly irresponsible. 

President Bush [your president, not mine], in a Texas gubernatorial race, campaigned against class action lawyers who protected investors in security fraud cases -- no doubt feeling the heat from his own questionable transactions and his corporate buddies.

So here's what we're left with: big name firms such as Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch are accused by their shareholders of covering up their home loan problems. It's been all over the news. How could they not know? They did, but didn't like being held responsible. The answer? Return the claws to the civil attorneys, so they can defang the corporations.

The New York Times laid out the prevailing interpretations of the law by the U.S. Supreme Court nicely in a recent article.

"The plaintiffs must show that misconduct was plausible,'' a story by Jonathan D. Glater said, "not just possible, and must include 'enough factual matter' to suggest that a wrongful act occurred."

Former Securities and Exchange Commission chairman Arthur Levitt helped us plunge into this misbegotten abyss. 

Levitt wasn't an investors' advocate. He was a stooge for the cheats. 

Under his guidance, the country has a securities law that will aid profiteering wrongdoers and grant solace only to those who look the other way.

Shame on you Mr. Levitt. 

Examine the facts: Such firms as Xerox, Bristol-Myers, Qwest have ripped off investors because - well, for greed - but also because there's little fear of being sued. They have fabricated revenues. They have disguised expenses as investments and established off-balance sheet partnerships to inflate profits because the chances of being held accountable are almost nil.  

As waves of security frauds swamp our financial beaches, confidence in our stock market has eroded worldwide. 

Lets get some lawyer who will fight like junk yard dogs for the average American.  A strong plaintiffs' bar of attorneys can protect private pensions and investments. Turn them loose. 

Onward.

Richard Alexander

On May 14, 2008, Bayer HealthCare Pharmaceuticals Inc. announced it was recalling Trasylol and confirmed that it was pulling its U.S. stock from hospitals and doctors.  The announcement was made by the FDA.

Last November, in a thoroughly randomized study conduct in Canada, it was found that the drug increased the risk of personal injury and death compared to competing drugs, which are less expensive.

Rather than demand an immediate cessation of use and a recall in response to the November announcement of the Canadian study, the FDA, known for pandering to the drug industry, opted to request Bayer stop marketing the drug, but allowed it to remain on the market and available for use. 

The FDA ruling favored Bayer, rather than making patient protection its top priority. 

The FDA, the official handmaiden of the drug industry, in its  May 14, 2008 announcement provides Bayer with an unbelievable soft landing. 

The FDA says it  "has not yet received full study data from the study's researchers at the Ottawa Health Research Institute but supports Bayer's decision to completely remove Trasylol from regular use in the U.S. market."

Thanks for protecting patients needing heart bypass surgery by being so pro-active and decisive.  If they worked for me, I would fire them.

This announcement is a classic example of a mealy-mouth bureaucracy dominated by pro-industry supplicants protecting drug companies rather than protecting the public with the truth: Trasylol is far more likely to kill patients compared to longstanding comparable and less expensive medications.

The Canadian study will be published on May 21, 2008. That is the reason why Bayer announced the May 14th recall in advance of the expected firestorm of negative publicity when the study is published.

Bayer, which has long marketed "buffered" aspirin, is "buffering" the anticipated adverse press with whitewash.  

The FDA and Bayer report that from now on Trasylol may only be used on patients "who have no acceptable alternative therapy."  Doctors who elect to use Trasylol "must verify that the benefits of the drug clearly outweigh the risks for their patients" requiring antifibrinolytic drugs in coronary bypass graft surgery to stop the breakdown of blood clots and reduce blood loss due to bleeding.  

The claim that doctors may "elect" to still use Trasylol is nonsense written and promoted by Bayer's lawyers and consultants.  

No surgeon in her or his right mind is using Trasylol when dependable generic anti-bleed drugs are much safer and cheaper.  

Trasylol is simply not worth the risk.  

And the FDA official announcement is nothing but a cover-up.

Never forget that it is the FDA's official position in pending cases before the Supreme Court is that no one injured by a drug should be allowed to sue a drug manufacturer for the harm inflicted upon them.  That position is so ludicrous that it prompted immediate hearings in Congress and the drafting of a Patient's Bill of Rights that will be enacted within a year.  

With that in mind, the FDA's whitewash of Trasylol is understandable. 

Understandable and deplorable.

Learn more about Trasylol on alexanderinjury.com.

Onward.

Richard Alexander

 "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.'' That was written by William Shakespeare, and put into the mouth of the character Dick the Butcher in ''Henry VI,'' Part II, act IV, Scene II.

Waltzing into the killing fields of lawyers is an enticing idea to many, but besides the fact that some bad attorneys are predatory, who else will stand up for your rights?

Corporations have the power. And they have their own fleet of lawyers, who are paid out of deep pockets. Who stands up for the rest of us?

Personal injury attorneys:  If you get screwed, they'll stand up for you.

Bad medicine, infected food, what else? Who will protect us? Attorneys, who have been victims of a smear campaign by the corporations and government.

Corporate interests have access to lawmakers because they pay hard cash - campaign money, lavish junkets -- it goes on and on.

But the public has been led, by the media, to believe that personal injury attorneys are somehow to blame.  For what? For protecting the small guy? Instead of telling those tales of victory, the media prefer a diet of stories talking about not-guilty verdicts and appellate reversals.

What they rarely report is that prisons are overcrowded, that Sheriff's deputies are seeking reductions in sentences to clear jail jam.  The departments can't even fill their slots. Look at the billboards seeking recruits.  They're all over.

In any case, when only the exceptional ruling receives coverage, the public can reasonably assume, over time, that the exception is the rule.

It's not.

Nobody is speaking out on behalf of our profession. Not to get preachy, but we are a crucial part of our republic, which was founded on law.

So let's do something. When it comes to dealing with the media, bar leaders and lawyers have done nothing because they assume the issue is too large to address.

Again, it's not.

Take responsibility for speaking out. On the Internet. In letters to the editor. In opinion articles.
 
We are problem solvers. We take adverse interests and come to a reasonable solution.

Our citizens need to know, understand and appreciate their rights. Otherwise, they will end up giving them away. The media need to take note. If ever there was an institution that benefited from lawyers, it's the media. Check out New York Times v. Sullivan, which is taught to every journalism student in the United States.

Lawyers are an engine for our economy. We advise businesses and labor on how to untangle laws and regulations so that commerce and trade can flourish. Working behind the scenes, we have made this country the great financial and industrial success that it is today.

The most important cases are those of the unpopular. That's why lawyers are so vital. What's the point in defending cases that everyone agrees with? How is that protecting our constitutional rights?
 
Again, it's not.
 
Lawyers have a special ability for analysis, an honest regard for facts, and an open-mindedness to examine a problem from all sides.
 
The media need to get it. Stop just reporting on when things fail.  Start reporting on when they work.

Onward.

Richard Alexander

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs has selected recipients from 12 countries to receive the 2008 UN Public Service Awards in New York on June 23rd. The UN's Director of the Division for Public Administration, Mr. Guido Bertucci, announced the award May 12, 2008 in New York.

Judge Eugene Hyman and the Santa Clara County Superior Court have been selected as the recipient for this prestigious honor for having broken new ground in United States jurisprudence. Judge Hyman is the creator and founder of the Santa Clara County Juvenile Domestic and Family Violence Court.

This award marks the first occasion that an American has won the UN's coveted Public Service Award.

With gas prices soaring above $4-a-gallon, and car emissions burning into our ozone layer, we need a better energy answer.

Compressed Natural Gas is a better answer than an all electric plug in.

It is what its name suggests - natural gas that is compressed. And it is far superior to gasoline or other oil-based products. It doesn't pose nearly as much of a threat in case of a spill or to our general environment.

Congress needs make Internet privacy a national priority.

The U.S. Supreme Court has done little to protecting individual privacy and since 1976 it routinely has sided with government over the rights of individuals.

In 1976 The U.S. Supreme Court held in Miller v. United States that the right to privacy does not protect checks written by individuals on their individual checking accounts. In short, every time a check is written in the United States, there is no expectation of privacy in what many believe are their personal bank records.

The Miller decision was startling because the Supreme Court ignored a mew approach to privacy it had recognized in 1965 and the subsequent strong support the concept has received from distinguished jurists who have recognized that respect for individual privacy must keep pace with the perils of new technology.