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Friday, August 22, 2003 I want, I want, I want! The United States, using the bombing of the United Nations' compound in Baghdad on Tuesday as a rallying cry, is trying to build support for a new Security Council resolution to encourage former opponents of the war in Iraq to contribute military and financial aid to the reconstruction effort. But, as Secretary of State Colin L. Powell made clear after meeting here today with the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, the coalition would continue to command all military forces in Iraq. He gave no indication that the coalition would cede any of its political and economic authority, though he added that the United Nations' future role "can be discussed in the course of our negotiations on a resolution." In other words, we still want control of Iraq and it's "resources", but we're tired of our soldiers getting shot. Would you other countries please send over some of your targets, I mean, soldiers? posted by chris at 4:06 PM   You've won this round, industry! After more than two years of internal deliberation and intense pressure from industry, the Bush administration has settled on a regulation that would allow thousands of older power plants, oil refineries and industrial units to make extensive upgrades without having to install new anti-pollution devices, according to those involved in the deliberations. The new rule, a draft of which was made available to The New York Times by the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group, would constitute a sweeping and cost-saving victory for industries, exempting thousands of industrial plants and refineries from part of the Clean Air Act. -clip- The current rule requires plant owners to install pollution-control devices if they undertake anything more than "routine maintenance" on their plants. Industries have long argued that the standard is too vague and hinders substantial investment in cleaner, more efficient equipment. The new rule says that as much as 20 percent of the cost of replacing a plant's essential production equipment — a boiler, generator or turbine — could be spent and the owner would still be exempt from installing any pollution controls, according to people involved in the deliberations. Together, such equipment can cost hundreds of millions of dollars, sometimes more than $1 billion, to replace. A utility or factory could thus make tens of millions of dollars worth of improvements without being required to install pollution controls. I don't understand how it took two years of "internal deliberation" for the Bush administration to STILL do what they wanted to do in the first place - support industry. Although, the administration originally wanted that 20% figure to be closer to 50%, so maybe that's where the deliberations came in. But forget trying to clean up the environment - as long as industry is able to do whatever it wants and not have to spend its precious billions of dollars on things like being environmentally responsible. posted by chris at 12:45 PM   ------------------ Thursday, August 21, 2003 Can it get any simpler? Working for Change has made it ridiculously easy to register to vote. All you have to do is fill in the blanks and then print off the voter registration form that they have already filled out for you. You just mail off the form and - presto - you're registered to vote! It doesn't get much easier than that, kids. And remember, only YOU can help get Bush out of office. posted by chris at 3:48 PM   $752 per person per year Thirty-one cents of every dollar spent on health care in the United States pays administrative costs -- nearly double the rate in Canada, according to a new comparison that sees colossal bureaucratic waste in the American system. Researchers who prepared the comparison said on Wednesday that the United States wastes more money on health bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to the tens of millions of uninsured Americans. Americans spend $752 more per person per year than Canadians on medical administrative costs alone, according to the study by investigators from Harvard University and the Canadian Institute for Health Information that was published in this week's New England Journal of Medicine. The team, led by Steffie Woolhandler of Harvard, said a large sum of money might be saved in the United States if administrative costs could be trimmed by implementing a Canadian-style, single-payer health care system. More here. posted by chris at 3:21 PM   Sperm control Sujoy Guha, a professor of biomedical engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, has spent the last 25 years perfecting an invention - Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance (RISUG). This has the potential to be a breakthrough in the world of contraception, mainly because it's for MEN. RISUG works by an injection into the vas, the vessel that serves as the exit ramp for sperm. The injection coats the vas with a clear polymer gel that has a negative and positive electric charge. Sperm cells also have a charge, so the differential charge from the gel ruptures the cell membrane as it passes through the vas, stopping the sperm in their tracks before they can even start their journey to the egg. RISUG doesn't affect the surrounding tissues because they have no charge. There are several really great advantages to this procedure. First, it's non-surgical, which should stop all you men from squirming in your seats. It lasts for at least 10 YEARS (thought it's reversible with another injection), has almost no side effects (except for a small swelling of the scrotum which quickly goes away) and it works! Of all the men who've had the RISUG injection (and 15 of the 250 had it more than 10 years ago), there has been only one unplanned pregnancy among their partners – and in that instance, the injection wasn't administered properly. It's currently in the clinical testing stages right now, but could be on the market in India by next year. And it may even eventually get to the US market. posted by chris at 2:00 PM   ------------------ Wednesday, August 20, 2003 Oops. An interesting op-ed in today's New York Times. Of course, we should be glad that the Iraq war was swifter than even its proponents had expected, and that a vicious tyrant was removed from power. But the aftermath has been another story. America has created — not through malevolence but through negligence — precisely the situation the Bush administration has described as a breeding ground for terrorists: a state unable to control its borders or provide for its citizens' rudimentary needs. As the administration made clear in its national security strategy released last September, weak states are as threatening to American security as strong ones. Yet its inability to get basic services and legitimate governments up and running in post-war Afghanistan and Iraq — and its pursuant reluctance to see a connection between those failures and escalating anti-American violence — leave one wondering if it read its own report. -clip- The occupation has given disparate groups from various countries a common battlefield on which to fight a common enemy. Hamid Mir, a biographer of Osama bin Laden, has been traveling in Iraq and told me that Hezbollah has greatly stepped up its activities not only in Shiite regions but also in Baghdad. Most ominously, Al Qaeda's influence may be growing. It has been linked to attacks as far apart as Indonesia, Saudi Arabia and Morocco. One suspect in yesterday's [UN bombing] attack is Ansar al-Islam, a Qaeda offshoot whose camps in Northern Iraq were destroyed early in the war. In recent weeks American officials acknowledged that members of the group had slipped into Iraq from Iran, had begun organizing in Baghdad and were suspected of plotting bombings, including the Aug. 7 attack on the Jordanian Embassy. In addition, Mr. Mir reported that Al Qaeda was carving out new training grounds in the border region between Iraq and Syria. Via Tom Tomorrow. posted by chris at 4:53 PM   ------------------ Tuesday, August 19, 2003 Prop-agenda Brian Eno, musical pioneer and producer for such acts as David Bowie, Talking Heads & U2, writes a fascinating essay on propaganda in Sunday's Observer. What occurs to me . . . is that the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name. It isn't just propaganda any more, it's 'prop-agenda '. It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. (emphasis added) When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'. With the ground thus prepared, governments are happy if you then 'use the democratic process' to agree or disagree - for, after all, their intention is to mobilise enough headlines and conversation to make the whole thing seem real and urgent. The more emotional the debate, the better. Emotion creates reality, reality demands action. It's all about framing the debate. Setting the parameters within which a topic can be debated. Anything outside of those established barriers is either dismissed or simply not allowed. That's real control. That's what allows the Bush administration to do what they want to do, because they're setting the trems of the debate. And the media and other groups are allowing them to do it. Any issue or question outside of those boundaries is simply pushed aside. But if we can break open those boundaries, we can set the terms ourselves. And then they'll have to at least address our demands. Update: In his essay, Eno mentions a book Weapons of Mass Deception by Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber. I haven't read it yet, but it comes highly recommended from several sources. You can read an except here and here. Thanks, Jason for the article. posted by chris at 10:50 PM   Email Monsanto Last Thursday, I highlighted a story about the agrichemical corporation Monsanto and its lawsuit against the family-owned Oakhurst Dairy in Maine. Monsanto is upset because the dairy is advertising that their farmers pledge not to use artificial growth hormones on the cows that produce their milk. And Monsanto, of course, sells those artificial growth hormones. Well, Working for Change is running an email campaign to urge Monsanto to call off the lawsuit. You can click here to quickly and easily send Monsanto an email, telling them what you think. And the cows will thank you. posted by chris at 1:20 PM   Pay for it later President Bush and Congress have agreed to spend $400 billion on prescription drugs for the elderly over 10 years. But they rarely address a basic question: Where does the money come from? It will be borrowed from the public, officials say. In practice, economists say, workers of the future — children and grandchildren of today's Medicare beneficiaries — will have to pay much of the cost through higher taxes. The federal government has no budget surplus to pay for the new benefits, which are the biggest expansion of Medicare since its creation in 1965. A law that required Congress to offset the cost of new benefits — either by raising taxes or by cutting other programs — was allowed to expire in September. That's clever . . . pass a popular bill that costs billions of dollars, don't raise taxes (in fact, give all your rich friends tax breaks) and then keep quiet about how the government will pay for the bill. You get the benefits of not raising taxes, the credit for passing the prescription drug bill and by the time the public wises up, you're out of office! Brilliant. posted by chris at 11:43 AM   A social policy of incarceration Black men born in the United States in 2001 will have a one in three chance of going to prison during their lifetime if current trends continue, according to a report by the US justice department. More than 5.6 million Americans are either in prison or have served time there - and that number will continue to rise, the report shows. By the end of 2001 one in every 37 Americans had some experience of prison, compared with one in 53 in 1974. Continuing at that rate, the proportion will increase to one in every 15 of those born in 2001. It seems ridiculous to me that the US Dept. of Justice should release this information and then do nothing at all to help stop this trend. Incarceration will continue to be the only advocated method of crime reduction. The "drug war" will continue to target minority communities. Candidates will still have to be "tough on crime." Yet studies and real-life examples have shown that rehabiliation actually helps reduce crime more than simply locking up criminals. Investment in low-income neighborhoods goes way further towards crime reduction than the threat of jailtime. But that requires a cosmic shift in our thinking of crime and society's response to it. If these numbers are to ever reverse, we need to start thinking about the criminal justice system in a more enlightened manner. posted by chris at 10:54 AM   ------------------ Monday, August 18, 2003 Another reason to ride your bike I'd always heard of lead poisoning from lead paint in old houses, but I never knew about the use of lead in automobiles: The use of lead in cars accounts for the largest remaining source of lead pollution; one component, the lead starter battery, is responsible for the majority of current lead use in the world. Lead use by the auto industry results in the release or transfer each year of more than 300 million pounds (136,508 metric tons) of lead through mining, smelting, manufacturing and recycling of lead-containing of automotive components--primarily batteries. Over its lifetime, a car uses as much lead as a house with lead paint, which has been banned for decades. The amount of lead in cars is particularly significant because of its serious impact on human health, including behavioral problems and learning disabilities. Children are particularly susceptible to lead exposure, which occurs when lead dust contaminates floors, soil, or other areas in which children live or play. This report, co-authored by Ecology Center, Environmental Defense and the Clean Car Campaign, documents the release of lead into the environment resulting from automobile manufacturing, use, and disposal, and calls on the automotive industry to phase out lead use in cars, most notably in the starter battery, and to take responsibility for ensuring the recovery and proper management of lead used in cars. Thanks, Kristin. posted by chris at 3:07 PM   Bowling for Roger Michael Moore's Oscar-winning documentary Bowling for Columbine, about guns and the America that uses them, is being released on DVD tomorrow. If you haven't already seen this film in the theaters, I HIGHLY recommend it. And if you have seen it, I strongly encourage you to buy the DVD. If for no other reason than to show it to your friends. Here's a review of the film, if you're interested. In conjunction with Bowling for Columbine, Moore's first documentarty Roger & Me is being released on DVD for the first time ever. Roger & Me chronicles the effects of a General Motors plant closing on Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan. And available next week, The Simpsons - Complete Third Season, which probably contains just as much social commentary as Bowling for Columbine, if not more. D'oh! posted by chris at 12:53 PM   ------------------ Sunday, August 17, 2003 A little perspective "It's not in Iraqi nature to be happy when someone is suffering, but I thank God for allowing them to see how we live," [Leith] Tamimi said. "I saw Americans on TV and they were enraged. If they were enraged after two days without power, how do they think we feel after four months?" Iraqis, who have endured widespread power outages since the U.S.-led war ended in April, expressed little sympathy for the Americans who got a dose of life without lights or air conditioning - or water, for some - when a major electricity grid shut down Thursday afternoon. Blackout. posted by chris at 11:48 AM   ------------------

    

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