IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 11, 2000

TED TURNER IS
LARGEST PRIVATE
LANDOWNER IN U.S.

Associated Press reported that Ted Turner has bought a staggering 1.7 million acres in Montana, New Mexico, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Kansas -- becoming the largest private landowner in the United States. He's using his fortune to restore the buffalo and other native animals and plants and tearing away the barbed wire, bringing back the wide-open vistas that existed before the west was won. His largesse is not limited to conservation issues. In 2000, he pledged one billion dollars to United Nations humanitarian programs. And in December 2000, he gave an additional $34 million to the United Nations to help make up for a reduction of the United States' contribution. Ted Turner is one terrific role model for billionaires.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 10, 2000

NEW ECONOMY NASDAQ
BLOWS PAST 5,000
ON BORROWED MONEY!

The Washington Post reported that the NASDAQ composite index closed at a new high, 5,048.62, sweeping past another milestone in a blur of buying, often by individual investors pouring borrowed money into technology stocks. On March 10, 2001, a year later, The New York Times reported that the NASDAQ plummeted 115.95 points, to close at 2,052.78--down nearly 60% from its March 2000 high. Once sought after stocks took heavy hits during the yearlong decline--e-Toys.com -99%; Priceline.com -99%; Yahoo -91%; RealNetworks -90%; Amazon.com -83%. Seeing high-flying stocks, bought with borrowed money, nearly disappear, can inspire a sense of sheer fear. Or, at the least, embarrassment.

March 9, 2000

PRESIDENT CLINTON
ASKS CONGRESS FOR
MINIMUM WAGE HIKE

Charging Congress with "nickle and diming the American people," President Clinton urged Congress to increase the minimum wage of $5.15 an hour to $6.15 over two years instead of three. The next day the House of Representatives passed two companion bills; one would increase the federal minimum wage by $1 to $6.15 and the other would provide substantial tax cuts for businesses and upper income individuals. Good thing they thought of helping out the wealthy. On March 10, 2000, USA Today reported that some commuters had been forced to commute by helicopter to avoid traffic gridlock and save time. And you know how expensive helicopter fuel is.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 8, 2000

PRIMARY SUCCESS
NAMES NOMINEES
BUSH AND GORE

Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore crushed their major rivals, Senator John McCain and former Senator Bill Bradley, from ocean to ocean on Tuesday in a powerful display that assured them their parties' nominations. From there on it was all downhill until it ended up in a flurry of chads and a partisan U.S. Supreme Court.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 7, 2000

NEW FORMULA
MAKES BABY SMARTER

A new study reveals that enriching bottle formula with two essential fatty acids (DBA and AA) can cause a significant improvement in the mental development of babies. The key point here is that those two fatty acids are found naturally in mother's breast milk. The enriched formula only outperforms the unenriched formula, not mother's milk. A top censored story of 1977 revealed that infant formula manufacturers (like Nestle and Bristol-Myers) were using exploitative and deceptive tactics to sell the product to Third World mothers. Malnutrition and denial of natural immunities, found in mother's milk, caused by infant formula feeding, account for 35,000 deaths and untold brain damage in babies of predominantly Third World countries. As a result of the worldwide outrage over this issue, the United Nations passed a rigid code for marketing breast-milk substitutes in 1981. The final vote was 118 to 1. The United States cast the sole negative vote.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 6, 2000

WORLD'S POPULATION
GETTING FATTER!

New research revealed that, for the first time in history, there are as many overweight people in the world as underweight people. Overweight people outnumber underweight people by more than ten to one in North America. There are also more overweight people in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Meanwhile there are more underweight people in Africa, Asia, and South Asia where the underweight people outnumber the overweight people by five to one. The moral to this story is that Americans should eat less and share more.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 5, 2000

U.S. GAVE NERVE GAS
SECRETS TO SOVIETS

An American double agent working for the FBI gave the Soviet Union critical nerve gas data in the 1960s ... with the encouragement of the U.S. government. It seems the U.S. thought this reportedly invalid data would stall the Soviet's research on chemical weapons. Instead, it prompted the Soviets to conduct more intensive research and development on their own program. I thought that was one of the stupidest spy intrigues I'd ever heard until March 4, 2001, when the U.S. admitted it had built a secret tunnel under the Soviet Union's embassy in Washington in the 1980s. The purpose was to eavesdrop on the Soviets, a goal that was never achieved. It takes a spy to know one.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 4, 2000

PENTAGON BUDGET
IN TOTAL DISARRAY;
CAN'T FACE AUDIT

The Pentagon's accountants made $7 trillion in adjustments to their financial ledgers in 1999 in hopes of balancing the books but still couldn't make them add up. They finally just quit after being unable to show receipts for $2.3 trillion of those changes. The inspector general said the military budget was not in good enough shape to face an audit, let alone pass one. In early 2001, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, some generals, right-wing conservatives, and Congress are all interested in increasing the Pentagon's budget from $296 to $319 billion. The General Accounting Office says that the Pentagon's inadequate financial record-keeping puts public money at "high risk" for waste, fraud and abuse. Damned right it does. We think the military should be able to show us what happened to that $2.3 trillion before giving them another $319 billion to lose.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 3, 2000

GENERAL MOTORS RECALLS
ALL OF ITS EARLY ELECTRIC
CARS -- PERMANENTLY!

General Motors Corp. told owners of its original EV1 electric cars to leave them in the garage until tow trucks could pick them up to haul away for good. It probably was the most embarrassing recall in automotive history. The EV1 cars were a potential fire hazard. GM had promoted the car as a symbol of its commitment to the environment. Yeah. Right. About a year later, GM filed suit to invalidate a new California rule that would require automobile manufacturers to sell thousands of electric cars in the state each year starting in 2003. So. How about your commitment to the environment, GM?

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 2, 2000

BALLOT MEASURE REQUIRES
LOTTERY FUNDS FOR BOOKS

In 1996, when Tony Cardenas visited schools in California's northeast San Fernando Valley, he was appalled to find them using books up to 30 years old. As a California Assemblyman, he had an opportunity to do something about. He persuaded his colleagues in Sacramento to put a proposition on the March 7, 2000, primary ballot that would commit some of the lottery funds to purchasing new textbooks. Fortunately, for California school children, the public agreed with him and passed the proposition by a vote of 53% to 47%.

IT HAPPENED A YEAR AGO TODAY!

March 1, 2000

SIX-YEAR OLD BOY
FATALLY SHOOTS
SIX-YEAR OLD GIRL

Kayla Renee Rolland, a six-year-old girl in Mount Morris Township, Michigan, was shot to death in front of her first-grade classmates by a six-year-old boy armed with a stolen .32 caliber handgun. Once again there was a national outcry over violence in the schools. A year later, to the day, California reported that violent crime rates at its public schools rose 17 percent--the fourth year of increase in a row.