# Censored Stories of the Year **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 7, 2004, 8:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461 "2004-09-07T08:19:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [September 9, 2004, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/41 "2004-09-09T21:31:44Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > I know of several cases where Grandpa left his farmland, which had been converted to growing timber, to his heirs. The timber could produce no income for a number of years, and the heirs weren’t in a position to make installment payments on a large tax debt with no additional income coming in. So they had to sell property that had been in their family, in some cases for several generations. Yes, and I know of several cases of alien abductions. Friend of a friend of a friend tells it that once, on a darkened highway in Arizona… If you have specific examples, please point us to them. What’s grandpa’s name? The scenario you describe doesn’t cut it. A simple balloon note would solve that problem. Small payments over ten years or so with a large balloon payment at the end. Given the anticipated income from timber sales, and given that any mortgage for estate tax is going to leave a lot of tempting equity on the table for a prospective lender, bankers (or for that matter, neighboring farmers) would salivate at the opportunity. But enough abstractions, let’s talk specifics. It occurs to me to look at the classifieds in the Atlanta paper to see what large tracts of acreage are for sale in Georgia, and to apply the old estate tax to them (using the $1 million threshold which was scheduled to go into effect). [Here’s my source for estate tax rates used in the following examples.](http://www.savewealth.com/planning/estate/taxes/) Using farms and timberland for sale in the Atlanta paper as examples, here’s what would happen to “Grandpa’s farm”: [ul] [li]Atkinson County. 2711 wooded acres for $1.6 million. First $1 million (1694 acres) is tax-free. Nice chunk. Tax on remainder would be $192,000, which timber sales from this property would easily cover. Alternatively, you could sell off 325 acres and be left with a wooded tract of 2386 acres. (The tragedy!)[/li] [li]Banks County. 137 wooded acres with house built in 1873. 800’ on river. $671,300. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Bartow County. 22 acre horse farm with 2BR house. $659,000. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Ben Hill County. 99.59 acres on Alapaha River, with 18 acres in pasture, 4 acre pond. $185,000. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Bleckley County. 270 acres for $415,530. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Butts County. 38 acres with 1/2 mile frontage on I-75. (Commercial potential.) $1.79 million. First $1 million (21.23 acres) is tax-free. Tax on remainder is $263,900. Eh. Sell off 5.7 acres, and pay it off. You’re left with over 32 of the original 38 acres. (The tragedy!)[/li] [li]Elbert County. 2000 wooded acres near Lake Russell and Arrowhead Point golf course. $4.4 million. First $1 million (454.55 acres) is tax-free. Tax on remainder is roughly $1.45 million. Timber sales would cover at least half of this, or you could take a mortgage on the property and still have $3 million in equity. (Horrors!)[/li] [li]Floyd County. 26 acres near Lake Weiss. $182,000. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Forsyth County. (Fast becoming a wealthy suburb of Atlanta.) 41 acres. $1.44 million. First $1 million is tax free. Tax on balance would be $135,400 (less than 10% of the value of the total property). Sell off 4 acres to pay it, and be left with 37 acres free and clear.[/li] [li]Hancock County. 110 wooded acres near Lake Sinclair. $176,000. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Haralson County. 47.58 acres close to I-20. $204,594. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Johnson County. 104.5 acre farm. $156,300. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Lowndes County. 42 acre plantation. $450,000. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Macon County. 150 wooded acres. $249,755. Tax-free.[/li] [li]Macon County. 644 wooded acres on Buck Creek. $1.77 million. First $1 million (364 acres) is tax-free. Tax on remainder is 256,100, about 15% of the total value of the property. Sell off the timber to cover it, or sell off 98 acres, or just take out a mortgage and still have over 1.5 million in equity.[/ul][/li] I’ll stop there unless you’d like me to continue through the second half of the alphabet. You get the picture, I hope. Not a single family tragedy in the bunch. The whole argument that the government would be taking away Grandpa’s farm was a ridiculous scare tactic used to alarm the public into supporting the repeal of the estate tax. As you can see from the above examples, the estate tax would come into play only in a minority of cases, and would be easily handled even when it kicks in. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/42 "2004-09-10T00:54:03Z")
> [@John Carter of Mars](#): > > I know of several cases where Grandpa left his farmland, which had been converted to growing timber, to his heirs. The timber could produce no income for a number of years, and the heirs weren’t in a position to make installment payments on a large tax debt with no additional income coming in. So they had to sell property that had been in their family, in some cases for several generations. First of all, isn’t it the case that the estate tax laws already have a bunch of language and exceptions build into them specifically to avoid that kind of situation? (Can anyone who actually knows something concrete about this issue comment on it?) Secondly, I know this is going to sound like a vaguely communistic question, but why is there a god-given right to leave obscene amounts of money to your children? Is a country in which some babies are born with $500 million a better country than one in which those babies are born with $100 million, and the other $400 million each is taken by the government and spent on public schooling and medicine for other, poor, children? And as for the question of incentive, well, aren’t there rich capitalists who worked hard for their money _without_ having children? I don’t think “I want to leave every last penny of it to my children” is the only reason that anyone ever works hard, creates capital, and becomes stinking rich. And if I’m filthy rich and getting old, and I know that any money I leave to my children will be heavily taxed, well, gee, that’s a fine reason for me to give more to charity. Aww, damn! (PS: the phrase “death tax” is truly brilliant for its propaganda value… a fine tradition on the right, which also brought you “pro-life”) ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2004, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/43 "2004-09-10T08:12:18Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > **Abe** : I want to respond to your post, although I’ll do so in a general way rather than quoting it as it’s a very long post and I don’t want to just keep copying it over. Let me know if this presents any problems. No problems, I tend to prefer the quoting technique myself in case I wander off topic or inadvertently ignore counterpoints. It also helps because I’m always rushing through my posts. > [@](#): > > Firstly, I would say that even though the articles cited are rather political in nature, I probably was too quick to say they are or should be relegated to politically biased mags. In fact, I can’t actually think of any of those stories that I haven’t read about in my local paper (SJ Mercury News), either on the front page or close to it. So, it would seem that the “problem” here from the Project’s point of view is that these stories aren’t repeatedly reported. From what I know and have read of it, the SJ Mercury News is a pretty good paper, so you may just have been lucky to see most of the Project Censored issues covered diligently. Also, the publisher of the SJMN is Knight Ridder, which, albeit one of the largest US newspaper companies, I would consider one of the more promising media entities in the US (on the Board of Directors is the president and CEO of PBS, the only noncommercial media enterprise in the country). According to the Project, as I quoted earlier, the stories are those to which the public “has had limited access”. This includes under-reporting, or a lack of reasonable longevity or follow-up on the story. So, while most or all of these stories _have_ been reported in some popular media, the argument of the Project is that material of this relevance deserves greater exposure in individual media, across _more_ media, and/or improved follow-up. I don’t have more details than that because I am not intimate with these folks, but I do agree with them that at least several of these stories are of significant importance and the public _ought_ to be rather more aware of them (my number one candidate is the one on Bush manipulating science). > [@](#): > > So what exactly is the source of the “problem” here: > > Do we have\*\* freedom of the press\*\* in this country? If not, I’d like to see the argument that we don’t-- ie, that the government is in any significant way controling the press. There is, undeniably, freedom of the press. There is also a deep and strong suspicion of collusion between large media and government, but that is much harder to substantiate (kind of like big business and Bush, everyone knows the two are in bed together, but it is difficult to establish direct links for a variety of reasons). Freedom of the press does not mean freedom from any form of censorship, which is more properly the topic here. In a somewhat parallel case, in Hong Kong the Basic Law guarantees freedom of the press and freedom of expression, but that hasn’t stopped patterns such as self-censorship or selective reporting or “tip-toeing” around an issue; here in Hong Kong it is more due to a campaign of fear and intimidation rather than monopolistic factors, but the resulting problems are similar. > [@](#): > > Do we have a \*\*monopolistic \*\*situation in the media world? You don’t come out and say it but you hint that this might at least be partially true. However, I haven’t seen a valid argument from that stondpoint. And, in the age of the internet, it becomes virtually impossible to control the flow of news monopolistically. I did say that there is a monopoly problem, though the problem is not so much that there is a monopoly, but that media bias and forms of censorship appear to affect the quality and nature of reporting. These problems are exacerbated by monopolistic competition that sells news by bias. I wouldn’t have a problem if there was a monopoly in the US held by a corporation of the journalistic calibre and general organization of the BBC, with adequate controls in place, but there isn’t and there may never be. The majority of big media in the US is controlled by literally a handful of large corporations, and consolidation _continues_ to take place. Take a look at this page, particularly the graph showing the number of corporations controlling the majority of US media over time: > [@](#): > > from [Media Reform Information Center](http://www.corporations.org/media/) > > In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called “alarmist” for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly. In his 4th edition, published in 1992, he wrote “in the U.S., fewer than two dozen of these extraordinary creatures own and operate 90% of the mass media” – controlling almost all of America’s newspapers, magazines, TV and radio stations, books, records, movies, videos, wire services and photo agencies. He predicted then that eventually this number would fall to about half a dozen companies. This was greeted with skepticism at the time. When the 6th edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 2000, the number had fallen to six. Since then, there have been more mergers and the scope has expanded to include new media like the Internet market. More than 1 in 4 Internet users in the U.S. now log in with AOL Time-Warner, the world’s largest media corporation. > > In 2004, Bagdikian’s revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations – Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch’s News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) – now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric’s NBC is a close sixth. A great list of resources on that page, by the way. The barriers of entry for new media are enormous, to the point that independents don’t really have a chance except over Internet, and even then they’re playing against titans. Aside from regulatory concerns, it is almost impossible to tackle head-on the media giants. How do you make yourself heard? Where do you advertise your medium? Can you attract an audience in an environment already thoroughly saturated with media? Can you compete on subscription prices if you lack the economies of scale of the giants? Will you be able to sell any advertising, and at a decent price? Will you lose out to the corporations that deliver the news the audience _wants_? Why is FOX --one of the worst news channels on the planet-- the most viewed medium in the US? Because they provide the moronically jingoistic news slant that a lot of people crave, the “we are the best” mindset, national validation to individuals via ether. It’s reassuring and mind-numbing. > [@John Mace](#): > > Is it a \*\*demand \*\*problem? This seems most likely the case. The Project is, in a sense, complaining that the media is not offering people what they don’t seem to want in the first place. Yes, but it’s not that straightforward, which is why serious media reform in the US has stalled for decades and even been rolled back a few times (notably, in 1996 and the present year). It’s not that Americans don’t want objective news of improved quality – many of them do – it’s that much of the news available is sloppy and biased, and a lot of people do not consciously know better and respond to communication that caters to tribal tendencies. How do you break the pattern, when an entire nation grows more and more accustomed to bias in the news? Yes, it is in part a demand problem as you point out, and as I said it dates back at least to the yellow journalism the 19th century, where news were manipulated or fabricated for the purpose of attracting greater readership and selling more papers. How to correct this status is a discussion that has taken years so far and may never result in implemted fixes; IMO it must include not only substantial media reform, but also media subsidies (at least initially), improved media controls, a drive at the grassroots level to place greater value on an ideal of objectivity, a general reduction of jingoism and knee-jerk patriotism, a dramatic increase of the average critical thinking skills, etc. And, of course, more initiatives like Project Censored to tell us what is going on behind the flawed picture provided by dominant media. > [@](#): > > However, given that there is freedom of the press, and no monopolistic situation, this seems no different than complaining that the grocery store doesn’t carry your favorite flavor of ice cream. Or, to hit closer to home, that there isn’t a “liberal Rush Limbaugh”. Go out and create one-- no one is stopping you. There **is** a monopolistic environment in the US media landscape, although we are not yet talking about one or two giants (thankfully) but a handful. It has been said that FOX News is a product of its society, and society is increasingly a product of FOX News. How would you go about fixing that? Free market philosophy is not the end-all be-all, it is possible, and often likely, that what _sells_ is simply not the desirable or the accurate item. Subjectivity and bias sell disproportionately and stifle better reporting, this is the very essence of the problem. > [@](#): > > We all might bemoan the situation of the Scott Peterson trial squeezing out more “relavent” news stories, but what is the solution? Force feed people the news stories some think tank believes we should pay attention to? (This, by the way is what I meant by “paternalistic elitism”, which you misquoted as simply “elitism” in your post.) I provided a sketch of what I think is needed a few lines above, but there is no simple solution I can provide, though “paternalistic elitism” seems to work just fine for the BBC. The BBC’s insistence on accuracy, professionalism, and elitism may have earned them monikers such as “Belgrade Broadcasting Corporation” and “Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation” at various times, but given their accomplishments and track record, these nicknames (conferred upon the BBC by petty and dishonest governments) are badges of honour rather than the detractions they were intended as. I see the media situation in the US as a free market gone berserk, increasingly able to win concessions from the government, directly or indirectly raising the entry barrier for new media, and making existence for independent or non-commercial media that much more difficult. So, while Project Censored may by all means have got some of its stories wrong (I note the discussion of the Draft proposal) I think it is unarguably a valuable resource. I didn’t want to see that kind of useful initiative drowned out by a chorus of unfounded dismissals. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/44 "2004-09-11T00:49:34Z")
**Abe** : I didn’t see that you had replied to this thread. I’ll try to address your issues in more detail later (gotta date with a few bottles of beer at the local pub shortly), but I wanted to say something about the your BBC reference. PBS in the US has a number of excellent news shows. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (fomerly McNeil/Leher News Hour) comes to mind particularly. I can get it on the radio at 3PM (NPR) and at 4 different times on TV during every week day. I haven’t seen much of the BBC, although I can also get their News Programing (a few hours a day) on at least 2 different cable channels. I don’t know the details of PBS availability throughout the US, but I can’t imagine that there are many areas where Lehrer is NOT available. The only way, though, that I think you could get more people to watch that show would be to disallow the airing of other shows. ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/45 "2004-09-11T01:16:45Z")
> [@rjung](#): > > **Item #15: US Develops Leathal New Bio-weapon Viruses.** “Scientists funded by the US government have developed a way to make pox viruses incredibly deadly. … The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs along with a vaccine that would normally protect the victim from death.” Isn’t the USA a signatory here [Chemical Weapons Convention | OPCW](http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html) Article 1 of which states > [@](#): > > 1. Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never under any circumstances: > > (a) To develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone; > > (b) To use chemical weapons; > > (c) To engage in any military preparations to use chemical weapons; > > (d) To assist, encourage or induce, in any way, anyone to engage in any activity prohibited to a State Party under this Convention. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/46 "2004-09-11T01:50:30Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > Not reality yet, but a disturbing trend to keep an eye on. I know that my wife and I would both be highly alarmed to see the SSS registration age raised to 34. The nominal age for registration would still be 18, though. (BTW there’s a “window” for late registration if you can show it was in good faith, nowadays up until your 26th birthday, i.e. covering your time of elegibility; if you do not do so by then, you are stuck with an ineligibility for federal student financial aid or job training, or federal employment). What this would do is make it so the list for a particular year’s cohort will not be pulled from the files on their 27th year, but held on to for 7 years more, and that’s how it’s likeliest to be implemented: this year it contains people 18-26, next year it contains 18-27, next year 18-28 and so on until it’s 18-34 (IIRC that’s the max age for entering the US Armed Forces anyway), rather than by one mass lump registration. As of now, the SSS has the draft geared up to feed the lottery first with the people turning 20 in a particular year. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/47 "2004-09-11T17:08:21Z")
> [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](#): > > Isn’t the USA a signatory here [Chemical Weapons Convention | OPCW](http://www.opcw.org/html/db/cwc/eng/cwc_frameset.html) Yes, but what does the chemical weapons ban have to do with that story? ---
**Author:** ![Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/aeb1de/32.png) [@Kel\_Varnsen\_Latex\_Division](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kel_Varnsen_Latex_Division)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/48 "2004-09-11T18:28:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Item #11: The Media Can Legally Lie. “In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.” Looking at the case Fox News was not a part of this case at all. The plaintiff’s brought a case against New World Communications of Tampa, Inc. (subsidiary of Fox Television). Fox Television and Fox News are two seperate parts of News Corp the under the coporate structure of News Corp. Good thing the media can lie or Project: Censored might be in trouble for this lie. New World Communs. of Tampa, Inc. v. Akre, 866 So. 2d 1231 [http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/newscorp.asp](http://www.cjr.org/tools/owners/newscorp.asp) ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/49 "2004-09-11T18:40:10Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Yes, but what does the chemical weapons ban have to do with that story? > [@](#): > > Originally Posted by rjung > Item #15: US Develops Leathal New Bio-weapon Viruses. “Scientists funded by the US government have developed a way to make pox viruses incredibly deadly. … The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs along with a vaccine that would normally protect the victim from death.” I would think it was obvious, since the USA had undertaken there \*\*NEVER \*\* to (a) To **develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone** ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/50 "2004-09-11T18:45:23Z")
> [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](#): > > I would think it was obvious, since the USA had undertaken there \*\*NEVER \*\* to (a) To **develop, produce, otherwise acquire, stockpile or retain chemical weapons, or transfer, directly or indirectly, chemical weapons to anyone** Exactly. _ **Chemical** _ weapons. The story was about the development of biological weapons. These are not the same thing as biological weapons. ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/51 "2004-09-11T18:57:24Z")
> [@Neurotik](#): > > Exactly. _ **Chemical** _ weapons. The story was about the development of biological weapons. These are not the same thing as biological weapons. If you read the preamble, you would see that biological weapons are included also. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/52 "2004-09-11T19:32:28Z")
> [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](#): > > If you read the preamble, you would see that biological weapons are included also. No, it doesn’t. AFAIK, the biological weapons treaty is a seperate, although similar, treaty. When the preamble mentions the biological weapons treaty, it isn’t including biological weapons with chemical weapons, it’s saying that this new treaty is done in the same spirit as the biological weapons convention and the Geneva Conventions. It would also be silly for the chemical weapons treaty to include biological weapons since there already was a biological weapons ban, which the United States is party to. However, the biological weapons treaty has this caveat: > [@](#): > > Each State Party to this Convention undertakes never in any circumstances to develop, produce, stockpile or otherwise acquire or retain: > > (1) Microbial or other biological agents, or toxins whatever their origin or method of production, of types and in quantities that have no justification for prophylactic, protective or other peaceful purposes; > > (2) Weapons, equipment or means of delivery designed to use such agents or toxins for hostile purposes or in armed conflict. Now, if you read the story, you’ll find that the US didn’t develop the technique of making the viruses deadly, the process was discovered on accident by some Australian scientists. The American scientists perfected the process in order to begin making antiviral drugs and vaccines to guard against the possibility of terrorist attack, since the process to create the super-viruses is easy and the materials required aren’t very expensive. This is completely legitimate use under the treaty. ---
**Author:** ![ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b4bc9f/32.png) [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZombiesAteMyBrain)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/53 "2004-09-11T19:44:09Z")
Tjere is some doubt about whether the USA’s intentions fall within the intent of the treaty with bio. weapons. > **[US weapons secrets exposed](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/oct/29/usa.julianborger)** > > Respected scientists on both sides of the Atlantic warned yesterday that the US is developing a new generation of weapons that undermine and possibly violate international treaties on biological and chemical warfare. ---
**Author:** ![Neurotik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/91b2a8/32.png) [@Neurotik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Neurotik)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2004, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/54 "2004-09-11T19:56:58Z")
> [@ZombiesAteMyBrain](#): > > Tjere is some doubt about whether the USA’s intentions fall within the intent of the treaty with bio. weapons. > > [US weapons secrets exposed | World news | The Guardian](http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,821306,00.html) That story from the Guardian is two years old and has nothing to do with this current story that the Center is claiming has been suppressed. There is no evidence that the new pox virus that the scientist is working with has been created in conjunction with dispersion mechanisms, has been stockpiled or that it has been created in quantities that are beyond its purported use of developing vaccines and better drugs. ---
**Author:** ![Abe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f1d935/32.png) [@Abe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Abe)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2004, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461/55 "2004-09-13T07:25:18Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > PBS in the US has a number of excellent news shows. The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (fomerly McNeil/Leher News Hour) comes to mind particularly. I can get it on the radio at 3PM (NPR) and at 4 different times on TV during every week day. I haven’t seen much of the BBC, although I can also get their News Programing (a few hours a day) on at least 2 different cable channels. That’s very good. As far as I know the BBC is unavailable to most US viewers, however PBS carries an hour or two of BBC World News every day. PBS is an excellent channel (it gave the world _Sesame Street_ and deserves accolade just for that), and a TV entity that consistently tries to avoid the “newscast that sells” trend in favour of the higher road. I _think_ it is available in one form or another in all fifty states. And thank goodness for NPR, which is, like PBS, a private non-profit entity. These two media are worth viewing/listening to for the absence of rapid-fire, mind-liquefying advertising drivel, but also for the quality and calibre of their programming. In fact the distinctly above average quality of these two media provides support for the argument that news and didactic materials for consumers should be produced and issued by private non-profit companies, unlikely as that is to happen. (These media pose problems everywhere, not just in the US, although in the US we see a set of extremes. I’m in Hong Kong and Star World --a News Corp channel servicing Asia and the Middle East with American shows and a more or less passable news program-- just broadcast amid much fanfare the unspeakably bad FOX moon landing hoax “documentary”; they have in the past shown various promotional drivel for ESP, ghosts, the supernatural, etc. Rupert Murdoch and his execrable FOX TV channels are criminally irresponsible and among the greatest contributors to global ignorance. I want these kind of people to give me programs like _The X-Files_ and glitzy Oscars coverage, not news and documentaries). Mind you, good as PBS is, its prime-time ratings for 2002-2003 were around a third of FOX and ABC, and less than a quarter of CBS and NBC. I am sure the discrepancy continues, what with FOX News’ recent success and the orgy of reality-TV and related mush. Still, one has to appreciate the good efforts along with the execrable, you are right. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/censored-stories-of-the-year/263461.md?page=2)