If you like loud music here's a chance to take in awesome music and help out your favorite corporate state-eating paper at the same time...Friday night at Gibson's (116 Stewart) come hear punkers August Spies, the Pinkos, and Mea Culpa (and maybe more!) put on a great show, all proceeds to ETS!. Of course, if you don't like loud music, or aren't 21, you can send us a check directly, too. (We need it.) $6 (more is fine) at the door, doors open at 9 PM, and bring cash for an ETS! t-shirt--they make great Labor Day gifts! --Geov Parrish

Wanna help out more directly? ETS! would love to have you, loyal reader, help us staff a table at Hempfest and/or hand out papers at Bumbershoot! If you're interested, give us a call at 206-903-9461 (voice mail), or e-mail ets@scn.org. -- G.P.

The most depressing part of the Bush Administration's appalling withdrawal from negotiations for enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention? The reasons the US gave. There's two: the proposed inspections would compromise military secrets and US national security, and inspections don't work cuz such weapons are too easy to hide. So what about Iraq? The former is exactly the argument Saddam has been using for ten years--correctly, since the US really did illegally put its spies on UN inspection teams. And if the US really doesn't think inspections can work, it means the US has never expected that the conditions of its economic sanctions against Iraq could be met--meaning the US has intentionally murdered one to two million Iraqi civilians, mostly children. Milosevic is in The Hague, awaiting trial for war crimes. Bush and Clinton should be next. G.P. [Eds. note: Henry Kissinger next, Clinton can go after that.]

Crime Pays, take 6 gazillion: There was a lot of violin-playing in Seattle sports "reporting" in late July as Sonic pro basketball player Ruben Patterson, a free agent, was being wooed by the team for a new contract. Ruben, however, was quoted in the papers as saying the Sonics "hadn't been there for him." Y'see, new Sonic owner (and Starbucks mogul) Howard Schultz had once expressed concern about the PR fallout (tho not about the victim) of third-degree rape charges against Po-Boy, accused of forcing oral sex upon a 24-year-old nanny caring for his young kids.

Patterson settled out of court by acknowledging a jury would have convicted him, served a whopping 15 days in house detention, and our sports mogul waxed eloquent about giving the guy a second chance. Problem: nobody bothered to report that Patterson was already on about his fifth chance, after assaulting someone in Cleveland last year, allegations that he beat up his girlfriend while playing college ball in Cincinnati, and losing a half-season after taking illicit money from a booster there. Once again, the media message: male athletes can't abuse their own bodies (drugs'll get ya banned for life), but women's bodies are fair game. And, of course, someone else "was there" for Ruben: Portland signed him to a $34 million contract. He now has to register in Oregon as a sex offender. Must be rough. --G.P.

The most appalling part of Dubya thus far hasn't been his horrid Cabinet appointments--it's been the second and third tier people below them. Take--please--Robert Brame, Bush's likely choice to head the National Labor Relations Board. Along with his predictable hatred of unions, Brame sits on the five-person board of directors of a publication called Biblical Worldview, a rag that makes Southern Partisan sound mainstream. Here's a BW excerpt on the democratic process: "Democracy is often the first step toward fascism, because it is used by tyrannts [sic] to disestablish political freedom in the name of political freedom. According to L. Edgar Hoover [sic], astute director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation: `The Red Fascists have long followed the practice of making full use of democratic liberties: elections, lawful agitation, and propaganda, and free speech, press, assembly. Their basic premise: Reap every advantage possible.' Opponents of freedom love the democratic process. Today's America is a perfect example of the way democracy is being used to subvert the Constitution and turning this once great nation into a burgeoning socialist `paradise.'" From a president who assumed power through a coup d'etat, this, I suppose, is what we should expect. -- G.P.

Does Seafair have an official theme song? How 'bout Bruce Cockburn's "If I Had A Rocket Launcher"? --G.P.

Kudos to the King County Labor Council, who recently passed a resolution calling for an elected civilian review board with subpoena power to handle complaints against the Seattle Police Department. In the resolution, the KCLC asserts: "Whereas the King County Labor Council has had concerns about the use of force against peaceful demonstrators during the WTO, including labor union members, and ... Whereas at intervals throughout its history, labor itself has faced harsh police actions in the midst of union picketing, such as the Charleston, South Carolina Longshore Five; the Los Angeles SEIU Janitor's strike; and the Detroit, Michigan Newspaper Guild Strike; and ... Whereas labor's power has always depended upon its unity across all lines of race, creed, color, and sexual orientation..." and then the resolution goes on to support the People's Coalition for Justice's demands. Thank you, KCLC brothers and sisters! -Maria Tomchick

Another piece of positive news: Newmont Mining Corp. has given up on the Crown Jewel mine project in Okanogan County, WA. Over the past ten years, Newmont has spent about $80 million buying permits, legal help, and the acquiescence of local politicians (including Slade Gorton). But the State put a stop to the project that would blast away most of Buckhorn Mountain to extract an estimated 1.4 million ounces of gold. Utilizing the open pit mining method, the Crown Jewel project would have destroyed a whole mountain, used vast amounts of water, created highly toxic cyanide-laced containment pools, emitted toxic runoff--in short, it would have been an environmental disaster. Thanks to a coalition of local residents, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, and environmentalists who put pressure on the State Department of Ecology, Newmont was denied the go-ahead. Then the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran a series of articles on the ravages of open pit mines. And, finally, a recent drop in the price of gold hammered the last nail in the coffin.--M.T.

Despite the Clinton Administration's signing of the death certificate for Hanford's Fast Flux Test Facility last year, it now appears the reactor's life span may rival that of the radioactive elements it releases into the environment. Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham is currently reviewing a proposal for privatizing the reactor from none other than ANMS (Advanced Nuclear and Medical Systems), the same shady company that floated a similar plan in 1997. The new consortium now includes Duke Energy, Nuclear Fuel Services Inc., and Science Applications International Corp (SAIC)--run by former CIA Deputy Director Ray Cline and involved with National Missile Defense. Using medical isotopes as its poster child, the consortium's real plan is to get paid $150 million dollars to take several hundred highly enriched uranium (HEU) fuel rods off the hands of the European nuclear consortium SBK and then use them as fuel in the FFTF. It's not clear if the FFTF can handle the proposed fuel being offered without major modifications. It's also unclear if that particular fuel composition is ideal for producing medical isotopes. If it's not, the consortium will have to produce "something" at it's new facility (last time around it was tritium for atomic bombs) to recoup its "losses". Finally, transfer of HEU from Germany and Belgium where the fuel resides to the US would be highly controversial politically, as it's at odds with non-proliferation treaties by which 2 of the 3 countries currently abide.--Mike McCormick