White House Proposal Would Reclassify Unsafe Water as "Protective of Health";

Dangerous Plan Could Affect More than 50 Million People in Towns Nationwide

WASHINGTON (April 1, 2006) -- With little notice, the Bush Administration is moving to allow three or more times the safe level of contaminants in small-town drinking water supplies than is allowed under current drinking water health standards, a proposal that could endanger more than 50 million rural residents, and eventually may threaten many millions more urban dwellers, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) warned today.

"This proposal could allow thousands of water utilities across the nation to provide drinking water containing dangerous levels of toxic chemicals," said Erik D. Olson, an NRDC senior attorney.

The proposal would allow tap water containing three or more times the contamination allowed under the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) health standards to be considered "protective of health" in communities with fewer than 10,000 people. More than 94 percent of the drinking water systems in the country could qualify for waivers of federal standards for toxic contaminants under the new policy.

The "water affordability" proposal would allow higher contamination levels if cleaning up the toxic contamination of tap water were deemed "unaffordable" -- which the proposal defines as a cost to utilities of as little as $8.33 per household per month (0.25 percent of Median Household Income).

The proposal could rekindle the debate over whether some water systems must remove cancer-causing arsenic. In March 2001, the Bush administration suspended a new, stricter EPA arsenic-in-tap-water standard issued by the Clinton administration, triggering a public outcry and congressional votes to force EPA to reinstate the stricter standard. The agency eventually did reinstate the Clinton standard in late 2001, but its new proposal is expected to trigger demands from some water systems to loosen the requirements, which could allow them to serve water containing three times or more arsenic than allowed by the 2001 standard. The water affordability proposal must be inserted into EPA's rules before it takes effect, but could undercut clean drinking water enforcement until then.

"This sure looks like an effort to quietly end-run Congress and the public's demand for safe drinking water," Olson said.

According to administration sources, this proposal was forced upon the EPA by senior White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) officials, including recently departed OMB regulatory chief John Graham. Both Graham and OMB have a long history of fighting EPA-adopted public health protections.

Quietly issued under the benign heading "drinking water affordability methodology" by the EPA earlier this month, the draft rule also poses a threat to urban residents by making it harder to enforce safety standards for larger systems as well, because some city officials can be expected to argue that what's deemed safe for residents of small towns should also be considered safe for cities.

The proposal also is expected to be used to block cleanup efforts at Superfund sites and other contaminated hazardous waste sites across the country, where cleanup standards are traditionally based on drinking water standards.

In making the recommendation, the administration rejected the advice of its own expert panel. In 2003, an EPA-convened panel of state, tribal, and local officials; water utilities; health experts; economists; and consumer and environmental groups recommended that waivers of federal tap water standards should be allowed in very limited circumstances, and only when the cost of complying with the standard exceeds one percent of Median Household Income (about $33 per month). The panel also recommended that EPA and states help small water systems "restructure" (for example, gain economies of scale by consolidating or pooling resources) and use current or new funding programs to assist needy small systems, rather than weakening health protections. All members of the expert panel, including a water industry trade association expert representing small and large water systems, agreed to the recommendations, with the exception of a single member representing the national rural water association.

"Instead of serving small town America toxic tap water, the administration should follow the advice of its own expert advisors, by offering technical fixes and funding to help clean up contaminated water supplies," said Olson.

"This proposal defies logic, science, and common sense," said Dr. Jennifer Sass, an NRDC senior scientist.. "It's crazy to allow millions of Americans to needlessly drink high levels of toxic chemicals from their taps."

The EPA's proposal was published in the March 2 Federal Register. The public has until May 1 to comment.

Did you know that the polar bear's Arctic habitat is literally melting away beneath them due to global warming?  The only way we can ensure a future for the polar bears is by protecting them under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Please join me in urging the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect polar bears from extinction by listing them under the ESA! Just click the link below.
http://ga3.org/campaign/polar_bears

The best available scientific information shows that polar bears are in growing jeopardy as the thick multi-year ice essential to polar bears has been shrinking 8 to 10 percent per decade, and already, an area of sea ice roughly equal to twice the size of Texas has melted away. Some studies forecast an ice-free Arctic in summer as early as 2050, spelling certain doom for polar bears.

Listing under the United States Endangered Species Act -- America's safety net for plants and animals on the brink of extinction -- will provide broad protection to polar bears.  This listing would require that U.S. agencies not jeopardize their continued existence in any way or harm their critical habitat.  

Please join me in urging officials in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list polar bears under the ESA before it?s too late!

Click the link below to learn more and take action now.
http://ga3.org/campaign/polar_bears

Thanks for your help.
http://www.saveourenvironment.org/

This action alert is part of the UCS Scientific Integrity Program, which works to improve the way in which science informs federal policy making. For more information about the program, visit http://www.ucsusa.org/scientific_integrity.

Fine particulate matter (or PM 2.5) consists of particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter, or about one third the diameter of a human hair. Sources of PM 2.5 pollution include agricultural activity, vehicle exhaust, and emissions from coal-fired power plants.

PM 2.5 has a profound effect on public health. It can easily become trapped in the human body and can have negative consequences for a person's health. Over 2,000 peer-reviewed studies published since the current PM 2.5 standards went into effect in 1997 link fine particle pollution to strokes, heart disease, respiratory ailments, and premature death.

For example, one study showed that for each decrease of 1 microgram of soot per cubic meter of air, death rates from respiratory and cardiovascular diseases decrease by 3 percent. The EPA estimates that PM 2.5 kills 20,000 people and hospitalizes many more each year.

It is important that fine particulate matter standards are low enough to prevent these severe negative health effects.

Last year, the EPA's Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee (CASAC) recommended fine particulate standards with a maximum daily limit between 30 and 35 micrograms and an average annual limit between 13 and 14 micrograms. While the EPA's new proposal lowers the maximum daily standards from 65 to 35 micrograms, the proposal leaves the average annual standard at 15 micrograms. According to the CASAC scientists, the average annual limit has a much more significant effect on public health.

A study funded by the EPA and the National Institutes of Health published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in March concluded that even an exposure level of 13.4 micrograms of PM 2.5 would put 11.5 million elderly Americans at increased risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease. "These findings provide compelling evidence that fine particle concentrations well below the national standard are harmful to the cardiovascular and respiratory health of our elderly citizens," said National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences Director David A. Schwartz.

The proposed standard does little to reduce the burden of death and disease from fine particle pollution. The number of people protected by the proposed standards increases by a mere 15 percent (from 56 million to 65 million). Meanwhile, more than 165 million people live in areas with PM 2.5 levels above levels research shows can adversely affect health.

Scientists Speak Out: EPA Misrepresented Scientific Research
By releasing this proposal the EPA is ignoring the recommendations of CASAC and its own staff scientists. It is highly unusual for the agency to disregard this committee's advice.

In an unprecedented move, CASAC wrote a letter to the EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson to re-explain the science behind their recommendations and to urge him to reconsider the proposed standards. A second scientific advisory committee, the Children's Health Protection Advisory Committee, has also written a letter to the EPA administrator claiming that the proposed standards do not adequately protect public health.

Furthermore, CASAC members alleged that the EPA had "twisted" or "misrepresented" the panel's recommendations on a number of issues related to the proposed standards. According to the Los Angeles Times, committee member and epidemiologist Bart Ostro charged that "the EPA had incorporated 'last-minute opinions and edits' by the White House Office of Management and Budget that 'circumvented the entire peer review process.'" Ostro also said that the White House changes were "very close to some of the letters written by some of the trade associations."

The Philadelphia Inquirer also weighed in on this issue: "reports have surfaced showing that the White House worked to cast doubt on the scientific need for tougher standards, making dozens of changes to the EPA's draft standards before the policy was made public. For instance, the White House removed a sentence from the policy stating that the air-quality standards 'may have a substantial impact on the life expectancy of the U.S. population.'"

The EPA Considered Industry Costs, Not Health Effects
The Clean Air Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency to provide PM 2.5 standards that protect human health based on the best available science, particularly the health of "vulnerable groups" including children and the elderly. When considering safe levels of pollution in the air that we breathe, the EPA is only allowed to consider health effects. Nothing else can be considered, including economic, or even environmental, effects. According to its own scientific advisors, the EPA did not use the best available public health science in proposing the new standards. 

Furthermore, an EPA analysis recently made public by Greenwire-a newsletter that reports on energy and environmental topics-shows that an annual limit of 14 micrograms per cubic meter would result in high costs to industry. According to public health researchers at Harvard, limiting annual PM 2.5 pollution to the recommended average of 14 micrograms would save an estimated 9,000 lives per year. 

Dr. Phillip Hopke and Dr. Bernard Goldstein, both members of CASAC, have warned that the EPA's standards open up the agency to lawsuits by not setting the standard based on the best available science.

Rural Areas and Some Industry Exempted
A second proposed rule would set standards for a larger air pollutant-course particulate matter. But these standard would only apply in urban centers. This effectively exempts smaller towns and rural areas with populations under 100,000 from monitoring. 

In addition, under the rule, the EPA wouldn't monitor particulate matter levels in non-urban areas. In a letter to Stephen Johnson, CASAC again urged the EPA to keep monitoring particulate matter pollution in both rural and urban areas to help inform critical future research in this area.

Furthermore, the standards would not apply to all mining and agricultural operations-major beneficiaries of a relaxed rule.

A Pattern of Political Interference in Science
In this case, the White House Office of Management and Budget stepped in to distort the science behind the health effects of fine particulate matter. This case is yet another example of where political appointees have seemingly misused science for political reasons.

Disregard for and misuse of science has proven to be a problem at the Environmental Protection Agency-on issues like mercury pollution and climate change-and at other federal government agencies that depend on independent scientific information to protect our health, safety, and environment.

We depend on our government to protect public health based on the best available scientific information. The new particulate matter standards should be substantially revised to reflect this.

 

China plans to set up its first reserve for the endangered white dolphin off the coast of the southern city of Zhuhai in the southern Guangdong province, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday. The city has allocated 460 sq km (178 square miles) for the reserve, to be located near Qiao Island in the Pearl River estuary, Xinhua quoted Chen Jialin, director of the reserve, as saying. Construction on the reserve will begin this year and will focus first on establishing an emergency rescue center for the dolphins, Chen said. Xinhua quoted him as saying the dolphins, unique to China, number only 2,000, more than half of which live in the Pearl River estuary. Chen said pollution from paper mills, chemical plants and plating factories along the river had been destroying the dolphins' habitat, leading to the deaths of nearly 20 dolphins in the past three years.

Hello Zaadzsters:

It looks like all my hard work and prayers are paying off! I've been invited to speak at another conference at Oxford in July!

The first conference is the 5th Global Conference: Environmental Justice and Global Citizenship which I mentioned in a blog before.

Today, I learned that I've been invited to the 4th Global Conference: Making Sense of Dying and Death. The project is an exciting opportunity to engage in creative and innovative inter-disciplinary and multi-disciplinary research dialogues which seek to examining the links between living and dying, and some of the contradictions and paradoxes which arise that we appear to accept without question.

This is a HUGE honor that I wanted to share!!! Thanks! ;)

Kriss

In Taiji, Japan fishermen are about to send 7 dolphins to China to live in captivity for the rest of their lives.

The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has just issued a permit for the export of dolphins from Taiji to Dalien, China.  The original permit was for 8 dolphins, but one has already died, so there are only 7 to be crated up and flown to China.
The shipment will be done by the end of April.

The Beijing Aquarium has ordered 10 more dolphins which will be shipped from Taiji in 2006.

BlueVoice has agents filming the conditions of the dolphins in Taiji.  We will document the travel to China, the facilities in which they will be kept and how long they live.

This video documentation is vital in turning world opinion against this detestable trade.

WE NEED YOUR SUPPORT TO MAKE THIS HAPPEN -
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9lh8cubab.0.m8yyqkbab.4ccivebab.11274&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bluevoice.org%2Fdonate.shtml

PLANS TO CAPTURE KILLER WHALES FOR EXPORT TO CHINA

The mayor or Taiji, Japan has announced plans to capture killer whales for export to Dalien and Beijing, China.

PLEASE HELP US STOP THIS!

Click here to see "A Pod of Orca Lost", a video of the last capture of killer whales at Taiji -
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9lh8cubab.0.8vztpubab.4ccivebab.11274&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bluevoice.org%2Fsections%2Fkwhales%2Fcaptivity.shtml

WE CAN WIN THIS FIGHT

We can end dolphin drive hunts by making them economically unfeasible. The captivity business is driving the slaughters.  If we end this we impact the viability of the hunts.

Fuel to run the hunting boats is very expensive. Demand for whale and dolphin meat is plummeting. The fishing agency is pushing schools to serve whale and dolphin meat but the kids don?t like it. THEY ARE EVEN SELLING THE MEAT OF WHALES AND DOLPHINS AS PET FOOD. So one source of funds supporting the hideous dolphins hunts is drying up. We must constrict the demand for dolphins that provides hundreds of
thousands of dollars to the hunters. That means exposing this brutal commerce to the world.

BLUEVOICE SUCCESSES TO DATE

We have stopped the capture of dolphins in all but 2 Japanese villages.

In November of 2004 BlueVoice video of the capture and slaughter of dolphins in Japan was presented to the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA). The video helped produce a resolution stating that the catching of dolphins in drive fisheries (the
method used in Japan) was inherently cruel.  In October 2005, as the dolphin capture/hunting season opened in Japan, WAZA sent a reminder to its members
that they must not accept animals caught in the drive fisheries.

WHAT YOUR DONATIONS MAKE POSSIBLE

BlueVoice executive director, Hardy Jones, will be in Washington, D.C. Thursday, April 13th, presenting a video on the Japanese dolphin trade at the National Press Club and to senators and congressmen.  International exposure is the greatest weapon in halting the dolphin captures and the slaughters that accompany them. We can maintain vigilance in Taiji and Futo where the hunts take place.  When we are there they do not
hunt.

We document the shipment and conditions of confinement of the dolphins exported from Japan to bring pressure to end these deplorable activities. We can continue dolphin education programs in Japanese primary schools in villages where hunting takes place.

Help Save The Dolphins - donate now -
http://rs6.net/tn.jsp?t=9lh8cubab.0.m8yyqkbab.4ccivebab.11274&p=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bluevoice.org%2Fdonate.shtml

By David Ljunggren

Even in one of the remotest, coldest and most inhospitable parts of Canada's High Arctic, you cannot escape the signs of global warming.

Polar bears hang around on land longer than they used to, waiting for ice to freeze. The eternal night which blankets the region for three months is less dark, thanks to warmer air reflecting more sunlight from the south. Animal species that the local Inuit aboriginal population had never heard of are now appearing.

"Last year someone saw a mosquito," said a bemused Paul Attagootak, a hunter living in the hamlet of Resolute Bay some 2,100 miles northwest of Ottawa and 555 miles north of the Arctic Circle.

"Things getting warmer is not good for the animals, which are our food. We still eat them. We worry about them," he told Reuters as temperatures hovered around zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius) well above the seasonal average.

The entire life of the Inuit -- formerly called Eskimos -- is based on the cold. A rapid increase in temperatures could be cataclysmic as prey disappears and ice becomes treacherous.

PERMAFROST CRUMBLES

In recent years there have been drastic signs of climate change in the southern part of Canada's Arctic, where melting ice in Hudson Bay threatens the survival of local polar bears.

Buildings in the port town of Tuktoyaktuk -- on the Arctic Ocean, close to Canada's northern border with Alaska -- are crumbling into the sea as the permafrost dissolves. Remote aboriginal communities are in distress because winter ice roads, needed to truck in supplies, are turning to water.

And now there are signs of change in Resolute Bay, where 250 people live in Canada's second-most northerly town.

"The most striking thing is that the wind doesn't bite any more. It used to take pieces of skin off you," said Wayne Davidson, who runs the local weather monitoring station and has lived in Resolute Bay since 1985.

"The weather here was brutal, probably the coldest, meanest toughest cold weather you could find," he said. But, he said, there have been enormous changes in the temperature. The mean temperature in March was minus 13.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 25.2 degrees Celsius) compared with the average of minus 24.2 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 31.2 degrees Celsius) from 1947 to 1991.

"All months are warmer by between 3 and 6 degrees (Celsius). This is beyond the usual variations," said Davidson. "We're in a total transition ... it's a one-way street right now."

U.S. scientists said in September that the Arctic ice was now the smallest it had been for a century, driven by rising temperatures that many experts believe is linked to emissions of greenhouse gases by humans.

Experts say the Arctic is warming more quickly than the rest of the planet because as the dark ground and seas are exposed by the sun's rays, they absorb heat faster than reflective snow and ice.

POLAR BEARS

For the inhabitants of Resolute Bay, this can have dangerous consequences, since the local polar bears have to bide their time on land before they can walk out onto the ice.

"There is quite a lot of change in the bears' behavior. They hang around a lot longer than they usually have," said Tabitha Mullin, a local conservation officer.

"Once in a while they'll kill the dogs tied up by the beach," she said.

For now, the polar bear population in the High Arctic numbers more than 10,000 and is still relatively healthy.

"A lot of time you see mothers with two cubs (the norm). Very rarely do you see them with just one cub," said Mullin, forced indoors by a blizzard which cut visibility to two yards (meters) and closed down the hamlet.

The warmer temperatures mean there is increased moisture in the air, which results in more frequent storms.

"We're seeing more snowfall, not just blowing snow. In the olden days it might rain just once during the summer. Now it happens all the time. It's awful," said Mullin.

In December the Inuit Circumpolar Conference (ICC), which represents all northern aboriginals, launched a legal petition against the United States, claiming that its greenhouse gas emissions harmed Inuit human rights. Washington pulled out of the Kyoto accord on climate change in 2001.

Some predict the Arctic waterways could be ice free in summer as early as 2015, which would severely curb the ability of the Inuit to hunt.

"We're an adaptable people but adaptation has its limitations," ICC chair Sheila Watt-Clouthier told Reuters, saying the Inuit would continue urging the world to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

"We're not going to be powerless victims over this issue of climate change ... Science is indicating that we still have about a 10- to 15-year window of opportunity," she said.

The U.S. administration has shifted its position and now agrees that human activity worsens climate change.

This still leaves a few experts who say the gradual warming of the Earth is caused mostly by natural cycles and that human activities have a moderate impact at best.

Far from the war of words down south, the inhabitants of the High Arctic ponder another mystery. Many people say the air is noticeably brighter in the sunless winter months.

Davidson says this is because a blanket of warmer air higher up is acting as a conduit for the light from the south.

"If it keeps on being this warm, the world will change completely," he said.

"When I hear people say there is no such thing as global warming, I find them totally appalling."

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said that dust storms that whipped Beijing and northern China in recent days were a sharp reminder of the severity of the country's environmental problems.

Wen told an environmental meeting in Beijing that China needed to intensify efforts to rein in pollution and environmental destruction, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"The succession of dust storms is a warning to us," Wen was quoted as saying on Monday. "Ecological destruction and environmental pollution are creating massive economic losses and gravely threatening people's lives and health."

A sand storm struck the Chinese capital on Monday covering homes, streets and cars in brown dust and leaving the skies murky yellow as northern China suffered the worst pollution in years.

The Chinese Central Meteorological Station estimated that the storms had enveloped one eighth of the country over recent days.

Two workers died several days ago in ferocious storms in the western province of Gansu, Xinhua said.

Strong winds overnight cleared away the dust over Beijing which is trying to clean up its environment as it prepares to host the 2008 Olympics.

But so far this year the city has recorded 56 days with blue skies -- 16 fewer than for the same time last year, Xinhua reported.

Wen said that China has met its economic targets for previous years but fallen short of pollution control goals. In 2005 the country's sulphur dioxide emissions were 27 percent higher than 2000 levels, although the government had set a goal of reducing emissions by 10 percent over that time, he said.

Wen ordered local governments to release information about energy use and pollution output every six months.

An editorial in the People's Daily -- the ruling Communist Party's chief newspaper -- on Wednesday said that despite improvement in some cities, the nation's environmental degradation "remains extremely severe."

"Problems built up over a long time have not been resolved, new ones are emerging, and environmental pollution is dramatically increasing," it said.

Their latest target? Our coastlines. Through proposed legislation, they hope to give state governors the power to allow offshore drilling in coastal states in exchange for royalties.Take action!

But federal safeguards against offshore drilling have protected our coast for 25 years, and for good reason. In the Gulf of Mexico, where offshore oil and gas drilling is allowed, over 3 million gallons of oil spilled into the Gulf from 1980 to 1999. That's over 400 gallons a day for nearly twenty years.

Richard Pombo, California's own state representative infamous for his anti-environmental policies, is now pushing this legislation in the House, while Republicans have introduced nearly identical legislation in the Senate.
Sign the petition now to say no.

This shift in Washington represents a new, more insipid tactic on the part of oil and gas lobbyists. According to the San Diego Tribune, "The oil and gas industries are intensifying their effort to open more U.S. coastal areas to drilling..." (April 9, 2006). Having centralized their efforts in Washington for the last 25 years, these companies are now focusing their lobbying efforts state-by-state.

Help stop this domino effect before it begins.

Drilling should never be the answer to better energy policy, and certainly not if it means polluting our waters and coasts. Take action to tell Congressman Pombo and his right-wing colleagues that we will not sell our coastlines to the oil industry.

Thanks for your help today.

Lauren Alvarez,
Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team

Have you ever realized that your family history can be taken apart and changed at the whim of politics? Today is the day Armenians celebrate as a Memorial Day to those 1.5 million Armenians who died at the hands of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. It was the first genocide of the 20th Century.

Today, rather than celebrating the lives of people who fought to keep their religion, culture, art and language, we are having to fight against politicians who are stating that the genocide never really happened.

The European Union has not accepted Turkey into the Union b/c the Turkish government still denies having any part of the massacres. Europeans don't believe this, but the US, b/c of needing military bases in Turkey, is rather wishy-washy on the subject. In fact, PBS aired a panel debate over my history. It's no wonder that when I was in undergraduate school, the Native American club sponsored an Armenian Memorial Day Educational program. Sadly, Native Americans can certainly relate to having their history rewritten time and time again.

Here's some Armenian history:

World War One gave the Young Turk government the cover and the excuse to carry out their plan. The plan was simple and its goal was clear. On April 24th 1915, commemorated worldwide by Armenians as Genocide Memorial Day, hundreds of Armenian leaders were murdered in Istanbul after being summoned and gathered. The now leaderless Armenian people were to follow. Across the Ottoman Empire (with the exception of Constantinople, presumably due to a large foreign presence), the same events transpired from village to village, from province to province.

The remarkable thing about the following events is the virtually complete cooperation of the Armenians. For a number of reasons they did not know what was planned for them and went along with "their" government's plan to "relocate them for their own good." First, the Armenians were asked to turn in hunting weapons for the war effort. Communities were often given quotas and would have to buy additional weapons from Turks to meet their quota. Later, the government would claim these weapons were proof that Armenians were about to rebel. The able bodied men were then "drafted" to help in the wartime effort. These men were either immediately killed or were worked to death. (My grandfather was able to escape this fate after being "drafted.") Now the villages and towns, with only women, children, and elderly left were systematically emptied. The remaining residents would be told to gather for a temporary relocation and to only bring what they could carry. The Armenians again obediently followed instructions and were "escorted" by Turkish Gendarmes in death marches.

The death marches led across Anatolia, and the purpose was clear. The Armenians were raped, starved, dehydrated, murdered, and kidnapped along the way. The Turkish Gendarmes either led these atrocities or turned a blind eye. Their eventual destination for resettlement was just as telling in revealing the Turkish governments goal: the Syrian Desert, Der Zor. Those who miraculously survived the march would arrive to this bleak desert only to be killed upon arrival or to somehow survive until a way to escape the empire was found. Usually those that survived and escaped received assistance from those who have come to be known as "good Turks," from foreign missionaries who recorded much of these events and from Arabs.

Hitler referred to the massacre of the Armenians when he plotted to kill Jews. He is quoted as saying: "After all, who today speaks of the Armenians."

Armenia was the first nation to adopt Christianity as a national religion. Unfortunately, the US once again didn't recall this history and after 9/11 asked that some of my fellow Armenians "register" as they were insisting of Muslims. I guess someone in office didn't look closely enough at the map to realize that yes, while we are a small country in between larger Muslim nations, we ourselves are not Muslim. And even if we were, I seem to recall historical documents stating that the US offers freedom of religion, or does that only apply to what the President considers religion?

It's very sad to see that after so many years, people can have a memory lapse and begin to believe just what they're told. I wonder in 20-30 years, when we look back on this particular administration if we'll be convinced/marketed into believing that the war in Iraq was worth all the death, pain, and suffering.