World's First "Climate Change Ad"?: A fierce wind rips the roof off a home. A tornado pulverizes a dwelling. Buildings collapse in gale-force winds. So it goes in a new TV ad for Sommerset Homes, the first commercial enterprise to publicly cash in on the threat of global warming. "All-steel homes protect you in 110-mile-per-hour winds," the ad boasts. Once again, the genius of capitalism at work: Create a problem, then come up with a new product to deal with the consequences.

The Missing Link: "Cancer Treatments," a glossy pamphlet tucked into US magazines and newspapers last fall, devoted just 127 words to ways of reducing cancer risks. The list of things to avoid included cigarettes, alcohol, fatty foods, sunshine and "industrial agents." Missing from the list: the danger of cancer-causing chemicals in the environment. The pamphlet was produced by "America's Pharmaceutical Companies," whose affiliates include DuPont, Hoffman-La Roche, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Ortho, Hoechst and Glaxo Wellcome - firms linked to the release of cancer-causing industrial chemicals.

DOE Plots to Bomb the Ban: The US Department of Energy (DOE) continues to insist "We are not designing new nuclear weapons." Working on new bombs would violate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Peace activists, however, have unearthed documents revealing DOE plans for four brand-new bombs. According to the watchdog group Tri-Valley CAREs [5720 East Ave., No. 116, Livermore, CA 94550, (510) 443-7148], DOE's illegal nukes include the B-61 (to be air-dropped from bombers), the W-87 (for use atop MX missiles), the W-76 and W-88 (both submarine-launched warheads for Trident missiles).

Bio-Pirates in the Ivory Tower: Cultural Survival Canada (CSC) has slammed the University of Victoria for participating in the US-based Human Genome Project (HGP, nicknamed the "Vampire Project"). HGP's goal is to collect tissue samples from 700 "endangered" indigenous societies in hopes of isolating marketable gene-based cures. "Our land, our culture, our subsoil, our ideology and our traditions have all been exploited," declares Leonora Zalabata, a spokesperson for Colombia's indigenous Arhuaco people. CSC reports that Canada's Okanagan Nation has formally declared their lands and people "off-limits to genetic prospectors."

Dump Nukes; Save a Bundle: The Congressional Budget Office reports that the US could save more than $22 billion over the next 13 years by reducing the nuclear stockpile to 1,000 weapons. Another $11 billion could be gained by closing the Nevada Test Site and pulling the plug on building a new tritium accelerator and the National Ignition Facility.

Smells like a Cover-up: Aeron International has just the thing to help drivers "feel more alert [and] relaxed" - the AERON Drive Time™ Automobile Aromatherapy System. Plug the AERON cartridge into a dashboard cigarette lighter and you can "change the scent in your car as easily as you change your music." The twelve "all-natural Essential Oil Aromas" are derived from plants, flowers and herbs. (Personally, the Mole prefers sniffing real flowers in the wild.)

Free-Basing Nicotine: In 1994, the tobacco lords handed over a list of 599 previously secret ingredients in tobacco products. Cocoa, vanilla, dill seeds and figs were obviously intended to impart flavors, but why were cigarettes steeped in ammonia? Researchers at the Oregon Graduate Institute believe they have the answer. According to a report in Science News, "Ammonia helps turn the nicotine in smoke into gas, rendering the drug more available to the lungs" and increasing the nicotine kick "by 100 times." Ammonia also "converts the acid form of nicotine into a free-base ... alkaline form" - the same technique used to transform cocaine into "crack."

Fly-on-the-Wall: MIT's Lincoln Laboratory is part of a $35 million Pentagon project to build a fleet of pocket-sized spy planes. The James Bond-like micro air vehicles (MAVs) would weigh two ounces, fly 30 mph and measure less than six inches long. With a spy-range of 3 miles, the MAVs would provide "reconnaissance data for soldiers serving in small military units, such as those deployed in urban settings," reports MIT's Technology Review. The problem is how to power them. Researchers have already rejected tiny helicopter blades or microjet engines, and plutonium would be too heavy. ("Idiots!" snorts the Mole. "The obvious solution is to mount your spy cameras on mini-blimps.")

The Root Word of Stealth is "Steal": In 1981, Congress handed Grumman aircraft $22 billion to build 132 B-2 Stealth bombers. Ten years later, Grumman delivered a single plane. The Pentagon now admits that the bomber can't be flown in the rain or on hot days without sloughing off its stealth coating. Last October, a Stealth bomber fell apart during an air show near Baltimore. The crash revealed that the bombers' wings had been retrofitted with hidden braces "to correct a flutter problem." CounterPunch reveals yet another Stealth-glitch. At high altitudes, water vapor trapped in the fuselage freezes. After one 1996 test flight, CounterPunch reports, "an enormous block of ice weighing 500 lbs ... formed inside the aircraft." When the plane landed, the ice melted, drenching "hundreds of millions of dollars worth of avionics (electrical systems) ... ." Congress is now debating whether to spend another $27 billion to build and operate nine more B-2 bombers.

Flying Scud-busters: Clinton's Folly: On September 26, the US and Russia agreed to weaken the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty to permit the building of defenses against short-range weapons like Scud missiles. A few days later, the New York Times announced an $11 billion White House plan to fit seven Boeing 747s with laser guns that could blast missiles out of the sky by 2008. Problem is, there's no evidence that the lasers would work. Even if they did, the beams could be deflected simply by coating the attacking missiles in reflective paint. Last November (10 months before the ABM treaty was rewritten), the Pentagon had already handed out $1.1 billion to fund the (then-illegal) project. Who got the money? Boeing, Lockheed Martin and TRW Inc.

Don't Bet the Farm on It: In an essay for the conservative Hudson Institute's Outlook newsletter, former State Department agricultural analyst Dennis T. Avery predicts the collapse of Western Europe's system of state-supported farms. Avery argues that the collapse "will not only benefit farmers and consumers worldwide - it will be a great boon to the world's wildlife." In Avery's World, eurofarmers deprived of subsidies would sell "high-value exports of meat and dairy products to densely populated Asian countries" thereby saving "millions of square miles of Asian wildlands and tropical forests" that would otherwise be "plowed down for low-yield production of meat and foodstuffs."