Friday, September 05, 2003
Still spinning
The Bush administration tries yet another justification for the attack on Iraq:
The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was justified in part because Saddam Hussein retained scientists capable of building nuclear weapons, Washington's top arms control official said Thursday.
In an interview with The Associated Press, John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms control, said that whether Saddam's regime actually possessed weapons of mass destruction "isn't really the issue."
"The issue I think has been the capability that Iraq sought to have ... WMD programs," Bolton said at the U.S. Embassy in Paris.
Except that:
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." -- Cheney
"There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest." -- Fleischer
"After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." -- Bush
Via Kos.
posted by chris at 4:46 PM
Boise Cascade does the right thing
In a move that environmentalists hope will lead industry toward greater forest stewardship and heightened environmental standards, a major U.S. wood and paper products company committed Wednesday to protecting endangered forests and preventing illegal logging.
The Idaho-based company, Boise Cascade, agreed to completely eliminate the purchase of wood products from endangered areas, to end the practice of harvesting timber from old-growth forests in the United States, and to "responsibly source" wood from key tree species in endangered areas around the world.
Boise also pledged to give preference to suppliers who provide wood products from certified, well-managed forests "whenever feasible," and to reinforce efforts to thwart illegal logging, including cutting in parks, reserves, or other areas where logging is prohibited by law.
Story here.
posted by chris at 1:03 PM
The back-door tax
Farmers blocked the streets of New Zealand's capital, Wellington, yesterday in protest at plans to impose the world's first "fart tax" on livestock flatulence.
Nicknamed the "back-door tax", the levy is intended to fund research into reducing the 37m tonnes of methane blown off each year by New Zealand's sheep, cattle and deer. Four hundred farmers with 20 tractors rallied outside parliament. An opposition MP led a cow named Energy up the steps of the building.
Doesn't "livestock flatulence" sound like a great band name?
posted by chris at 11:13 AM
Mix-n-match some more
President Bush, hailing signs of recovery in the American heartland, said today that the U.S. economy is "looking up" and renewed his call for further tax cuts that would cost about $1.1 trillion over 10 years.
Combine that with this:
The civilian unemployment rate improved marginally last month - sliding to 6.1 percent - as companies slashed payrolls by 93,000. Friday's report sent mixed signals about the nation's overall economic health.
August was the seventh consecutive month of cuts in payrolls, a survey released by the Labor Department showed, indicating continuing weakness in the job market. But the overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell from 6.2 percent to 6.1 percent of the labor force, as reflected by a survey of U.S. households.
I guess you could call 0.1 percent "looking up."
posted by chris at 11:02 AM
Fattening up Italy
In a newspaper interview published this week, the health minister in Italy's right-of-centre administration, Girolamo Sirchia, announced that he would be doing what he could to reinstate Friday as a day of fasting throughout Italy.
"Apart from being an ancient religious tradition, the weekly fast is a useful health measure," Mr Sirchia told the daily La Stampa. "It has a scientific basis. It helps to purify the system of the effects of an unhealthy diet."
At all events, the argument for doing something is persuasive - and nowhere more so than in Italy where, as in Spain and Portugal, people have been abandoning their traditional, healthy Mediterranean diet in droves. Despite the dependence of Italians on such high-calories delights as pasta, salami and ice cream, portions used to be generally small and the consumption of animal fats low.
In recent years, the spread of fast food outlets and the growing popularity of skipped breakfasts, snatched lunches and overly generous dinners have nudged the country's obesity statistics into the red.
Does that last paragraph sound like any other country you know? As American culture spreads, so do the waistlines.
posted by chris at 10:25 AM
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Thursday, September 04, 2003
Cheap CDs
Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, on Wednesday said it will cut list prices on compact discs by as much as 30 percent in an effort to boost sales that have been stymied by free online music-sharing services such as Kazaa.
Starting in October, Universal, the home to such artists as Mary J. Blige, U2 and Elton John, will trim its prices on most of its CDs to $12.98 from its current $16.98-$18.98 range of prices.
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"We expect this will invigorate the music market in North America," said Doug Morris, the label's chief executive. "This will allow retailers (to sell) for $10 or less if they so choose."
Finally, the big music labels are approaching this file-sharing thing with some common sense. When new CDs are $18 a pop, of course people are going to find cheaper ways to get the music. But if you lower that price to a reasonable level, you just might increase sales.
posted by chris at 10:23 PM
One small victory
A federal appeals court issued a surprise order today blocking the Federal Communications Commission from imposing new rules that would make it easier for the nation's largest media conglomerates to add new markets and areas of business.
The decision came a day before the new rules, considered among the most significant efforts at deregulation adopted during the Bush administration, were scheduled to take effect. It followed two hours of oral arguments at an emergency hearing this morning by a three-judge panel in Philadelphia and was a sharp setback for the largest media companies and for the commission's chairman, Michael K. Powell.
The court order blocks all the rules from coming into effect til the outcome of litigation, which is at least several months away. So that's time enough to mobilize and get this thing overturned in Congress.
posted by chris at 7:09 PM
Mix-n-match
Let's take a couple of stories that were in the news today and put them together just to see what happens:
The White House has informed congressional leaders that it is preparing a new budget request for between $60 billion and $70 billion to help cover the mounting costs of the reconstruction and military occupation of Iraq, sources on Capitol Hill said last night.
The planned request -- which congressional budget analysts said will be nearly double what Congress expected -- reflects the deepening cost of the five-month-old U.S. occupation and serves as an acknowledgement by the administration that it vastly underestimated the price tag of restoring order in Iraq and rebuilding its infrastructure. (emphasis added)
Wow. Nearly DOUBLE what Congress expected. Sounds like the Bush administration needs a lot of money to pay for this whole Iraq mess. Now what would be the most fiscally prudent way to pay for something like that?
Undaunted by predictions that federal deficits might balloon in the next decade, President Bush said today that permanent tax cuts were the best way to reinvigorate the economy and keep it going. . .
The president has previously called for the "temporary" tax cuts to be made permanent. His reiteration of that stance today made it abundantly clear that he and his advisers were not discouraged by a recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that deficits over the next 10 years could soar to several trillion dollars, depending on what happened in Iraq and whether prescription-drug benefits under Medicare were enacted. (emphasis added again)
Kinda makes you think, don't it?
posted by chris at 7:03 PM
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Wednesday, September 03, 2003
US military goes green?
At the request of the U.S. military, Alliant's ATK ammunition division is embarked on the somewhat oxymoronic quest to design a new "green" bullet that is every bit as lethal to people but doesn't pose the same threat to the environment as lead-based ones. If Alliant is successful, the U.S. military hopes to eliminate lead from most of its bullets over the next decade.
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With lead bullets "there is a cost in terms of health, human safety and cleanup . . . This is not a fire-and-forget kind of thing. Eventually we have to pay somebody to go out there and clean up that lead."
"The whole intent of green bullets is not to just have them used in some environmentally sensitive site like the Massachusetts Military Reservation or an Alaska tundra, but to produce bullets of all sizes for the whole Army that are more environmentally safe and good in combat," DiMichele said.
Green bullets are just as deadly as lead ones.
posted by chris at 5:51 PM
Rushing into war
A secret report for the Joint Chiefs of Staff lays the blame for setbacks in Iraq on a flawed and rushed war-planning process that "limited the focus" for preparing for post-Saddam Hussein operations.
The report, prepared last month, said the search for weapons of mass destruction was planned so late in the game that it was impossible for U.S. Central Command to carry out the mission effectively. "Insufficient U.S. government assets existed to accomplish the mission," the classified briefing said.
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The report also shows that President Bush approved the overall war strategy for Iraq in August last year. That was eight months before the first bomb was dropped and six months before he asked the U.N. Security Council for a war mandate that he never received.
Storyhere.
posted by chris at 5:08 PM
Friends in high places
An American law firm with ties to the Bush administration has been hired to help set up a legal system in Iraq.
The firm, Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, has been drafted in by USAID to advise on privatising former government-held industries, structuring government economic and regulatory agencies, and developing a tax structure.
The legal deal is part of a larger package worth up to $79.6 million taken on by Bearingpoint, formerly called KPMG consultants, to advise on the restructuring of Iraq. The deal is expected to lead to several million dollars of work for Squire, Sanders, effectively as sub-contractor.
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The firm donated $41,350 to George W Bush's election campaign in 2000, and earlier this year a Sanders partner, Ronald James, was made personnel chief of the new Department of Homeland Security.
It's all about who you know. Thanks, Jason.
posted by chris at 12:51 PM
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Tuesday, September 02, 2003
A novel interpretation
The Bush administration has ended a 25-year-old ban on the sale of land polluted with PCBs. The ban was intended to prevent hundreds of polluted sites from being redeveloped in ways that spread the toxin or raise public health risks.
The Environmental Protection Agency decided the ban was "an unnecessary barrier to redevelopment (and) may actually delay the clean-up of contaminated properties," according to an internal memo issued last month to advise agency staff of the change.
The decision, already in effect, has not been made public. It is being treated as a "new interpretation" of existing law, according to the memo, which was obtained by USA TODAY. As such, no public comment was required.
PCBs are an oily compound that Congress banned in 1978 becuase they were considered a probable cause of cancer. They accumulate in fish and animals that feed in contaminated areas and are passed on to people by eating the animals.
The Bush administration has used their "new interpretations" a number of times in the past to get around laws or regulations they don't like. By not actually creating a new law, they don't have to solicit public comments or even notify Congress. They just reinterpret the law, send a memo through the agency and then they get their way. Sneaky, underhanded stuff.
posted by chris at 2:46 PM
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Monday, September 01, 2003
Labor Day History
From Jim Hightower, Texas writer, activist and rabble-rouser:
From the start, Labor Day was a bottom-up holiday, our only national celebration to be put on the calendar by the working class. It started when feisty Matt McGuire of the Carpenters Union and dauntless William McCabe of the Typographers called for a massive march in New York City to show the strength of laboring people.
Defying bosses and risking their jobs and personal safety, thousands of workers of every trade left work on September 5, 1882, and marched with banners, bands and bravado right up Fifth Avenue, right past the mansions of the Astors, Vanderbilts, and other Robber Barons.
It was not a parade, but a call to arms, the beginning of labor's fight for an eight-hour day at fair pay. The demonstration was so successful that it spread to other cities, and the idea of setting aside a specific day to affirm that laboring people have rights and are creators of wealth took hold. It was a demand for respect, finally achieved in 1894 when President Grover Cleveland signed the law creating Labor Day. What a nice gesture... except that Ol' Grover had unleashed 12,000 federal troops just days earlier to crush a strike by Pullman rail car workers, killing dozens of union members.
But that's been the story every step of the way in our under-appreciated struggle to establish what's become taken for granted as "The American Way of Life". The 40-hour work week, the wage floor, collective bargaining, retirement security, Medicare, job-safety protections, and so much more that sustains the middle-class possibility for a majority of our people were not provided by the founders in 1776 – and they certainly were not given to us by generous corporate chieftains. Rather, the middle-class framework was built by us – We The People.
posted by chris at 5:35 PM
Just in time for Labor Day
The U.S. worker is the most productive in the world, boosted by the use of new information and communication technologies, according to a study released Monday by the U.N. labor agency.
However, American employees also work longer hours, and three European countries -- Norway, France and Belgium -- beat the Americans in productivity per hour, the International Labor Organization said in its new issue of Key Indicators of the Labor Market.
And those three countries also have shorter work weeks and more vacation time. Could it be that a happier, relaxed employee is a more productive employee?
posted by chris at 5:21 PM
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