Wait, Isn’t it the President Who Gets Fast-Track Authority?
Senator Max Baucus of Montana said in a public gathering that it was important to address environmental issues or else "business won’t get fast track" authority. Is that a slip? Or are the politicians finally starting to tell the truth?

Basmati Incident
The Seattle Round Agricultural Committee, an agribusiness trade group, has some nerve handing out free boxes of Rice Tec brand Jasmati Rice to the WTO press corp. It may not rank up there with sea turtles as a symbol of WTO evil, but Rice Tec’s basmati rice frequently comes up in discussions of intellectual property rights and the patenting of life. In 1997, the Texas-based company secured a U.S. patent for basmati rice, claiming it had invented a novel variety of basmati. But in fact the basmati varieties used to "invent" Rice Tec’s "basmati 867" are farmers’ varieties bred over centuries in South Asia. "What Rice Tec has done with its patent was to pirate what until then had been communally shared and claimed it as their own private property," according to Vancouver based Basmati Action Group, which called for a boycott of Rice Tec.

The Great Equalizer
Former EPA Administrator and all-around important guy Bill Ruckelshaus was invited to the elite gathering Wednesday night at which environmentalists got to talk with the President. But because he didn’t have WTO credentials, he wasn’t admitted. The ultimate indiginity: he was tear-gassed to boot.

Mike Moore in Brief
Here are a few pithy thoughts on our illustrious Director-General from one of his compatriots:  "Mike Moore is like a pinball machine wired by a color-blind electrician. He is not a victim of orderly thinking, which can corrupt a politician and make them ineffective."