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To: Investor-ex! who wrote (33544)	5/9/1999 7:33:00 PM
From: David R. Schaller	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 116764

Investor-ex! I have been wondering if the true reason for the British gold sales isn't related to the huge NATO bill being rung up in this ill fated, misguided campaign. The US has apparently spent $15 billion & we haven't even started to rebuild Kosovo or Belgrade yet. The British share for this fiasco must also be substantial. Where is the money to come from? Why not from under performing gold reserves? Just thinking, Dave

To: Investor-ex! who wrote (33544)	5/10/1999 8:08:00 AM
From: long-gone	Respond to of 116764

o/t, except in that groups pro-ecology are often anti-mining(and can be wrong): OUR VIEW: Ribbit-ing research New findings remind us not to blame humans for all environmental woes So maybe all those deformed frogs we keep hearing about aren't the result of pollution, a hole in the ozone layer, pesticides, retinoic acid or some other cause that can be attributed to human activity or industrialism. It turns out - at least for now - that the most likely explanation for frog deformities is a simple parasitic flatworm called a trematode whose complex life cycle includes infecting the developing legs of tadpoles. In other words, those deformities are most likely part of a natural biological cycle - that it's benign Mother Nature rather than evil Capitalist Man causing those frog deformities. To be sure, one researcher does say that it's too early to rule out the possibility that fertilizer runoff has contributed to an increase in numbers of a water snail that also hosts the parasitic trematodes. And other factors yet to be discovered may also contribute to decline in certain species of frogs. But new studies, published recently in the journal "Science,"suggest explanations that are a long way from the common wisdom of recent years - that the decline in certain frog species is a key indicator of the overall health of the environment (the handy but overworked canary-in-the-mineshaft metaphor) and that frog troubles are a warning of ecological degradation caused by humans. It's unlikely, of course, that these recent studies are the last word, even though scientist Norman Blaustein - who had tried to determine if ultraviolet radiation related to global warming or thinning of the ozone layer caused the deformities - calls them "the best experimental evidence showing a cause for limb deformation in amphibians." Scientists, performing real science as distinguished from junk science, will continue to test hypotheses and refine knowledge. But the new frog studies should serve as a reminder that science can be and often is "spun" by people with a political or social agenda as readily as is politics. The studies should make citizens a bit more wary of early scientific hypotheses that fit all too nicely into an essentially political theory. The best scientists acknowledge that there's more in nature that we don't understand than we do understand. Jumping to conclusions - and especially to policy proposals based on partial knowledge - is the obverse of the scientific method. gazette.com