Section A · Page 8
The University Daily Kansan
Thursday, April 8, 1999
Lawyer relates Starr's tactics to Third Reich
The Associated Press
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — The trial of President Clinton's former business partner, Susan McDougal, neared its close yesterday with her lawyer comparing Kenneth Starr's tactics to the Third Reich and a prosecutor bristling at inflammatory allegations.
In closing arguments, defense attorney Mark Geragos mocked
testimony f r o m Whitewater pro-
secutors who said they on l y wanted the truth from McDougal and were not out to get the president.
so offensive for them to say with a straight face they wanted to look to see if they could clear the president. How dumb do they think we are?" he asked.
something
McDoughal: Ontrial for refusing to answer a grand jury.
Throughout the five-week trial, McDougal's defense has been based on attacking the independent counsel's office. McDougal, charged with twice refusing to answer questions before a federal grand jury, testified that she feared prosecutors would charge her with perjury if she told the truth and did not implicate the Clintons.
Prosecutor Julei Myers tolse jurors that they had to weigh McDougal's credibility against that of two of Starr's prosecutors.
"She craved the spotlight. She enjoyed the attention. And that was probably her real reason for not testifying, not those lame excuses," Myers told jurors.
McDougal, who was convicted of four Whitewater-related felonies in 1996, testified that her former husband, James McDougal, later urged her to say she had sex with the president to mollify prosecutors eager to get Clinton for something and thereby escape further prosecution herself.
"Who is more credible? Two career federal prosecutors versus the defendant who is convicted of four felonies?" Myers asked, referring to her own co-workers on Starr's staff, Ed Jahn and Hickman Ewing, who testified in the trial.
She portrayed McDougal, who was convicted of fraud for her role in the Whitewater case, as a chronic liar and publicity-seeker who revealed in telling a phony story of persecution in TV interviews.
"If she was the con artist, the liar, that Myers made her out to be, wouldn't it have been easier to say I slept with President Clinton?" Geragos asked. "She could have gotten on any talk show she wanted."
"This is something you expect to see in the Third Reich," Geragos told the jury. McDougal has denied any intimate relationship with Clinton.
McDougal is charged with obstruction of justice and two counts of criminal contempt. The judge has limited what the jury can consider as her defense.
Except that its proprietor is a 23-year-old American who won the pub in a contest.
Pub winner adapting to Irish lifestyle
LISTOWEL, Ireland — The new owner hung some Philadelphia sports pennants behind the bar and brought in a big-screen TV. But except for those two touches, the pub hasn't changed much since the Finucane family handed over the keys last summer.
The Associated Press
Trevor O'Driscoll, a native Philadelphia, was handed the deed to the pub, the adjoining liquor store and the four-bedroom apartment upstairs after topping 65,000 entrants in a St. Patrick's Day contest.
All the recent Brown University graduate had to do was write a 50-word essay describing the perfect
A typical Irish public house — picture your grandmother's Victorian sitting room with a Guinness tap — Finucane (pronounced Fuh-NOOkens) isn't much different from the
other bars scattered liberally along the narrow streets of Listowel.
pint of Guinness, waxing poetic on the stout's "swirl of black and white" in which "each particle of white desperately seeks its companion." Then, with nine other finalists, he threw some darts, drew a pint of stout and recited his essay for the judges.
The pub — worth more than
$200,000 — was his.
O'Driscoll quit his paralegal job in New York City and moved to Lis-towel in July with two friends.
nine months later, his pals are gone—they had to go home when
their visas expired. He works along side the three employees retained when he took charge, helping behind the bar on weekends and handling the business end at his kitchen table upstairs.
O'Drissell, who can trace his family's roots to nearby Cork, has made lots of friends, done a bit of traveling and joined the town's rugby club. But he admits to homesickness, which hit its peak when he was away from his family last Thanksgiving.
"But in the overall picture, it's been amazing," he said.
Hot-air balloon lands national museum spot
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The Smithsonian Institution's newest exhibit is as tall as the Tower of Pisa, as heavy as a fighter plane and inflates to the volume of seven Olympic swimming pools. It's the silvery hot air balloon that carried two adventurers around the world in 20 days.
The balloonists, Brian Jones and Bertrand Piccard, received a hero's welcome yesterday at the National Air and Space Museum where their historic vehicle soon will be displayed alongside Charles Lindbergh's Spirit of St. Louis airplane, Orville and Wilbur Wright's 1903 flyer and the Apollo 11 command module from man's first mission to the moon.
The balloon, known as the Breitling Orbiter 3, will arrive at the museum after exhibits in Switzerland and London. The skin of the balloon, made of a thin, reflective synthetic material, will be displayed, but the main attraction will be the gondola.
The balloon, minus the hot air that makes it soar 181 feet, will be on display beginning in September.
The high-tech gondola — about the size of two minivans — has a bunk, toilet, kitchen area, control panel, oxygen and nitrogen tanks, solar
Since 1984, eight ballooning teams, including five from United States, have attempted the feat, Engen said. Jones and Piccard, 41, a doctor who specializes in psychiatry, were the first to succeed — in 19 days, 21 hours and 47 minutes.
The balloon landed March 21 in a desert in Egypt. Piccard opened the gondola hatch, put his feet in the sand and thought about Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon.
Armstrong was happy to be so far away, Piccard said.
They launched the balloon March 1 in the Swiss Alps. They spent six days above the Pacific Ocean. High above the Gulf of Mexico, the weary flyers became poisoned by carbon dioxide, a gas from their exhaled breath that built up inside the cabin.
"We were so happy to put our foot print back on the Earth," he said.
panels, satellite phones and a fax machine.
"We just had to put our capsule into a position where Mother Nature could just take us in her arms. It was a wonderful feeling," he said.
Jones, 52, a British pilot and balloon instructor said the balloon didn't overcome nature during the 26,500-mile ride, instead, it harmonized with the wind.
New study reveals Amazon forest's alarming depletion
The Associated Press
Brazil's Amazon rain forest is being destroyed or badly damaged more than twice as fast as normally believed, according to a study that relied on airplane surveys and on-the-ground interviews instead of satellite images.
Nepstad put the loss at 17,000
The researchers said their method more accurately measured the effects of logging and burning in the rain forest.
"It's perhaps even more frightening," said Bill Mankin, director of the Global Forest Policy Project of two major environmental groups. The study was carried out largely by ecologist Daniel C. Nepstad of the Woods Hole Research Center in Massachusetts, and colleagues at the Institute of Environmental Research in Belem, Brazil.
They concluded that analysts who study satellite images — the main tool for gauging deforestation — are missing much of the damage from logging and fires.
Burning the Rain Forest
Richard Bachman/ KANSAN
square miles last year, or three times the official Brazilian estimate of 5,700. But 1998 was an especially bad year because of the El Niño drought. He estimated that in an average year, actual damage is at least twice the official. satellite-based estimate.
Nepstad estimated that 217,000 square miles, or 16 percent, of the original rain forest has been spoiled throughout the years. The official Brazilian estimate is 13 percent.