Subject: Lakers

By the way�

I can�t believe we�ve not even discussed Kobe�s little �problem�.

And what do you think of Gary Payton coming to LA? Frankly, I�m a bit nauseated. I don�t like him. And I don�t especially want Karl Malone, either. Yes, they�re both good players, obviously, but A) Karl has maybe two good years left in him�MAYBE. And TWO), I don�t have a lot of respect for these people who come to a team knowing full well they�ll only be there for a couple of years and only so that they can get a ring. I like creating an actual team who will fight it out together for the long haul, ya know?

-----Original Message-----

From: Barbara

Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 1:46 PM

To: karen

Subject: Re: Lakers

The powers that be at the Lakers know Gary and Karl would only play another year or two. I don't know if I agree with getting two old guys, but?? Who knows? I like Gary Payton for the Lakers more than Karl. I think he will help out more. I'm not in love with either one of them.

I'm trying to give Kobe the benefit of a doubt and not talk about him too much until we get some more info. I'm hoping all this is not true, but I'm afraid it is. My only councillation is that it's not Shaq!!!!!!! Small, but some councillation. I realize that work is probably not spelled correctly, but I don't care at this point. Again, my patience is thin.

Gotta go

B

-----Original Message-----

From: Karen

Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2003 2:58 PM

To: Barbara

Subject: Re: Lakers

I thought you hated Gary Payton�boy, I sure do.

Anyway, I seriously doubt Kobe actually assaulted the girl. I don�t know him of course, but he just doesn�t seem to be that kind of person. At the very least, I think he�s smarter than to put his career in jeopardy like that. What I honestly think probably happened is they had sex and now for some reason she�s trying to make it seem like he assaulted her.

I am pissed at the media, though. I mean, quit talking about the fucking thing until charges have actually been filed against the man! What if he didn�t do anything? Fucking media does this shit all the time and it pisses me off.

~~~

July 9, 2003

Wrestling for the Truth of 9/11

The Bush administration, long allergic to the idea of investigating the government's failure to prevent the Sept. 11 terror attacks, is now doing its best to bury the national commission that was created to review Washington's conduct. That was made plain yesterday in a muted way by Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor, and Lee Hamilton, the former congressman, who are directing the inquiry. When these seasoned, mild-mannered men start complaining that the administration is trying to intimidate the commission, the country had better take notice.

In a status report on its work, the commission said various agencies � particularly the Pentagon and the Justice Department � were blocking requests for vital information and resources. Acting more like the Soviet Kremlin than the American government, the administration has insisted that monitors from various agencies attend debriefings of key officials by investigators. Mr. Kean is quite correct in objecting to this as a thinly veiled attempt at intimidation. Meanwhile, the clock is running for the commission to complete a full report to the nation by next May.

Too polite to use the word "stonewalling," the bipartisan commission nevertheless warned the nation that thus far the administration had "underestimated the scale of the commission's work and the full breadth of support required."

The White House has repeatedly pledged cooperation while stressing the delicacy of protecting classified secrets. There are techniques and precedents for the commission to be extended access to critical information without compromising security. Two serious areas of dispute that should be quickly settled in the commission's favor are access to the minutes of National Security Council meetings and to the daily briefing memorandums prepared by the Central Intelligence Agency for President Bush.

Mr. Kean assumed the chairmanship after questions were raised about potential conflicts of interest for the White House's initial choice, Henry Kissinger. "The coming weeks will determine whether we will be able to do our job," the commission warned in prodding the administration to protect the nation's future security as passionately as it clings to its past secrets.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

~~~

WASHINGTON, July 10 -- Indian Country has delivered a united message to Congress: don't attempt to legislate an end to a lawsuit that soon could give Indians a full accounting of their trust accounts.

That was the message a wide array of Indian leaders gave members of the House Resources Committee Wednesday.

Committee Chairman Richard Pombo, R-Calif., responded with a promise that his committee will challenge an effort by members of the House Appropriations Committee to legislate an end to the lawsuit brought seven years ago by Elouise Cobell of Montana and four other Indians.

"If there is a legislative resolution of this problem, then it will be done in this committee and not in the appropriations committee," he promised the Indian leaders.

"I'm sorry that in the past Congress has not stepped up to the plate," he said, adding: "We're entering a different era."

Pombo's comments came as his committee delved into whether the litigation can be settled out of court. Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Nation and the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, expressed a willingness to reopen talks with government lawyers.

A just-concluded 44-day trial of how to reform the long-troubled trust will give a better foundation for new talks, she told the committee.

Tex G. Hall, president of the National Congress of American Indians, joined Cobell and others in denouncing the appropriations committee's measure. "It was a bad idea a year ago [when the House rejected a similar measure] and it's a bad idea today," said Hall.

David Lester, executive director of the Denver-based Council of Energy Resource Tribes, reminded the committee that Indians had no choice when the trust was created by Congress in 1887. "The Cobell litigation is not the problem," he said. "Cobell is symptomatic of the problem."

The bigger problem, Pombo and the Indian leaders seemed to agree, is that Congress has failed to resolve the many, long-standing problems with the trust including the government's inability to give trust beneficiaries the full accounting of their funds that every trust in the country is required to provide as a matter of law.

The tribal leaders and Pombo also agreed that any resolution of the Cobell litigation must be developed in concert with trust beneficiaries, tribal leaders and government officials.

James Cason, deputy associate Interior secretary, also agreed that his department cannot resolve the trust problems on its own. But he also said that the parties appear far apart on what constitutes a full and fair accounting and hinted that one solution might be to force trust beneficiaries to pay the cost of the accounting.

Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., the ranking Democrat on the committee, said he would once again battle to remove the appropriations committee restrictions from the Interior Appropriations bill when it come to the floor later this month. Rahall express reservations about one provision that would allow the secretary of Interior to dictate the terms of any settlement.

"The alleged solution which would have the wolf guarding the hen house is not the answer," Rahall said.

For additional information:

Bill McAllister

202-257-5835 (cell)

703-385-6996

hey, he put the numebrs in his e-mail, so...

~~~

And in lighter news (at least to me, a woman):

July 9, 2003

Incredible Shrinking Y

By MAUREEN DOWD

Why, oh Y, are men so insecure?

The darlings have been fretting for some years now that they may be rendered unnecessary if women get financial and biological independence, learning how to reproduce and refinance without them. What if nature played a cruel trick and demoted men, so they had to be judged merely by their appearance, pliability and talent for gazing raptly at the opposite sex, no matter how bored?

New research on the Y chromosome shows that my jittery male friends are not paranoid; they are in an evolutionary shame spiral.

As Nicholas Wade wrote in The Times: "Although most men are unaware of the peril, the Y chromosome has been shedding genes furiously over the course of evolutionary time, and it is now a fraction of the size of its partner, the X chromosome. . . . The decay of the Y stems from the fact that it is forbidden to enjoy the principal advantage of sex, which is, of course, for each member of a pair of chromosomes to swap matching pieces of DNA with its partner."

Mr. Wade said that biologists in Cambridge, Mass., had made a remarkable discovery: "Denied the benefits of recombining with the X, the Y recombines with itself."

The ultimate guys' night out. Simply put, the Y chromosome figured out a Herculean way to save itself from extinction by making an incredibly difficult hairpin turn and swapping molecular material with itself.

Self-love as a survival mechanism: the unflinching narcissism of men may send women into despair at times, but it has saved their sex for the next 5 million or 10 million years.

But, according to Olivia Judson, science's answer to the sensual British cook Nigella Lawson, men may need more than narcissism to survive.

Dr. Judson, a 33-year-old evolutionary biologist at Imperial College in London who has written a book about animals in a Dear Abby style, or Deer Abby, under the pen name Dr. Tatiana, says the worm has turned. "For a long time, it was assumed that promiscuity was good for males and bad for females in terms of the number of kids they could have," she explains. "But it wasn't until 1988 that it really started to become evident that females were benefiting from having sex with lots of males, with more promiscuous females having more and healthier offspring."

In her book, Dr. Judson writes about powerful babes, noting that females in more than 80 species, like praying mantises, have been caught devouring their lovers before, during or after mating. "I'm particularly fond," she told me, "of the green spoon worm. . . . The male is 200,000 times smaller, effectively a little parasite who lives in her reproductive tract, fertilizing her eggs and regurgitating sperm through his mouth."

And then there's the tiny female midge, who plunges her proboscis into the male midge's head during procreation. As Dr. Judson told the journalist Ken Ringle, "Her spittle turns his innards to soup, which she slurps up, drinking until she's sucked him dry."

The Economist recently reported on a variation of the creepy-crawly girl-eats-boy love stories. The male orb-weaving spider kills himself before the female has a chance to. Biologists now believe that the male orb-weaver dies when he turns himself into a plug to prevent other males from copulating, thus ensuring his genes are more likely to live on.

In a new book called "Y: The Descent of Men," Steve Jones, a professor of genetics at University College in London, says males, always a genetic "parasite," have devolved to become the "second sex."

The news that Dolly the sheep had been cloned without masculine aid sent a frisson through the Y populace, he writes, because men began to fear that science would cause nature to return to its original, feminine state and men would fade from view.

The Y chromosome, "a mere remnant of its once mighty structure," is worried about size. "Men are wilting away," Dr. Jones writes. "From sperm count to social status and from fertilization to death, as civilization advances, those who bear Y chromosomes are in relative decline."

Perhaps that's why men are adapting, becoming more passive and turning into "metrosexuals," the new term for straight men who are feminized, with a taste for facials, grooming products and home design.

Better to be an X chromosome than an ex-chromosome.

Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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