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Friday, March 18, 2005 Two years in Iraq The Center for America Progress sums it up: This weekend marks the two-year anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Two years ago, the White House had waged an aggressive campaign for invading Iraq. Since that time, however, all of the rationales posed by the White House as justification for the war have been thoroughly debunked. There were no weapons of mass destruction. Saddam had no collaborative ties to al Qaeda. Even more egregious, however, is while there was a comprehensive plan for getting into the war, the White House never implemented a real plan for winning the peace and establishing a secure Iraq. Today, more than 1,500 American soldiers have been killed. There still is no exit strategy for U.S. troops. There is no standard for determining when Iraqi security forces will be ready to take over responsibility for their own security. Corruption is rampant, reconstruction is woefully behind, and the American public is becoming increasingly disillusioned with this "war of choice." (According to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, 53 percent of Americans said the war was not worth fighting and 70 percent said the number of U.S. casualties is an unacceptable price.) Much more. posted by chris at 12:29 PM   Wal-Mart settles Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's biggest retailer, has agreed to pay $11 million to settle federal allegations it used illegal immigrants to clean its stores, attorneys in the case said Friday. Of course, with year-end profits of $10 BILLION, this fine won't exactly break them. posted by chris at 11:59 AM   Stop fake news As I pointed out here, the Bush administration has been stone cold busted feeding TV stations across the country with prepackaged, ready-to-serve news reports produced by the federal government. The stations have been running it as "news," but in reality it's taxpayer-subsdized government propaganda. Well, as any good media watchdog group should do, Free Press is jumping on this. They're collecting signatures for a petition to the FCC, Congress and the National Association of Broadcasters demanding them to stop this kind of activity. You can sign the petition here. posted by chris at 10:01 AM   ------------------ Thursday, March 17, 2005 The nuc-u-ler option Senate Democrats threatened Tuesday to block virtually all business in that chamber if the Republican majority carried out a plan to unilaterally impose rule changes that would ensure confirmation of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominations. The threat, issued by Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), sharply escalated a partisan disagreement that could put the brakes on an array of legislative business in the upper chamber, where Democrats used the threat of a filibuster to block votes on 10 appellate court nominees last year. The showdown, which could come as early as next month, looms because Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), reflecting the frustrations among most of his 54 Republican colleagues, has said he might seek to break the logjam over Bush's court appointments by abolishing the use of the filibuster to block nominations. Instead, he would force through a rule that enables a simple majority of 51 to bring nominations to a vote. -clip- The underpinnings of the controversy are mathematical. The Senate has 55 Republicans, 44 Democrats and one independent, James M. Jeffords of Vermont, who usually sides with Democrats. It takes 60 votes to end a filibuster, a time-honored maneuver to prevent a vote. Republicans now are talking about changing the rules so that 51 senators could cut off debate and force a vote. Although the Senate has confirmed most of Bush's judicial nominees, 10 of his most controversial appointments stalled in the chamber last year, even though it was widely acknowledged that they would have commanded a majority vote for confirmation. They have since been renominated. I love this quote from Senator Bill Frist: Republicans reacted heatedly to Reid's letter, issuing a flood of statements denouncing the Democratic threat. "To shut down the Senate would be irresponsible and partisan," Frist said. Riiight...and so is eliminiting the filibuster, pal. Why are Senate Republicans such whiny babies? Things don't go their way and they want to eradicate an entire constitutional system of checks and balances. One day, they won't have control of the White House and both Houses of Congress and you can bet then they'll use the filibuster as many times as possible. This plan of action by Frist is remarkably short-sighted...or supremely arrogant. Take your pick. posted by chris at 2:42 PM   Biodegradable cell phones Discarded cell phones are a growing environmental problem. So British researchers have devised new, biodegradable polymer casings for cell phones that can simply be tossed into a compost heap for fertilizing flowers. Better still, the casing contains a seed that will begin germinating after the phone is recycled, blossoming into the flower of your choice. The research is being conducted by engineers and agricultural specialists at the University of Warwick and PVAXX Research and Development Ltd. More info here. posted by chris at 12:32 PM   ------------------ Wednesday, March 16, 2005 Senate votes to drill in ANWR Amid the backdrop of soaring oil and gasoline prices, a sharply divided Senate on Wednesday voted to open the ecologically rich Alaska wildlife refuge to oil drilling, delivering a major energy policy win for President Bush. The Senate, by a 51-49 vote, rejected an attempt by Democrats and GOP moderates to remove a refuge drilling provision from next year's budget, preventing opponents from using a filibuster - a tactic that has blocked repeated past attempts to open the Alaska refuge to oil companies. The action, assuming Congress agrees on a budget, clears the way for approving drilling in the refuge later this year, drilling supporters said. The House has not included a similar provision in its budget, so the issue is still subject to negotiations later this year to resolve the difference. The claim is that drilling in ANWR will take some of the pressure off US reliance on foreign oil. But the reality is that the companies that so desperately want to suck the resources from Alaska won't even make the committment to sell those products to US consumers. In fact, they'd much rather sell it to Asia where they can get better prices and continue to hit up the West Coast with high gasoline prices. So all the talk about protecting US interests is just bullshit. If the US wants to lessen their reliance on foreign oil, they should invest in renewable resources and not suck Alaska dry. UPDATE: A poster over at DailyKos says that BP and ConocoPhillips have both renounced their claims to drill in ANWR, while ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco are practically foaming at the mouth to get in there. The poster kindly provides the corporate phone numbers for the four companies, so you can thank BP and ConocoPhillips and pledge to buy only their gasoline and tell ExxonMobil and ChevronTexaco that you're boycotting them. This kinda stuff WORKS if enough people participate, so spread the word. posted by chris at 4:42 PM   "When a man comes upon you, he is the enemy and the enemy deserves no mercy"* At least 26 prisoners have died in American custody in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2002 in what Army and Navy investigators have concluded or suspect were acts of criminal homicide, according to military officials. The number of confirmed or suspected cases is much higher than any accounting the military has previously reported. A Pentagon report sent to Congress last week cited only six prisoner deaths caused by abuse, but that partial tally was limited to what the author, Vice Adm. Albert T. Church III of the Navy, called "closed, substantiated abuse cases" as of last September. The new figure of 26 was provided by the Army and Navy this week after repeated inquiries. In 18 cases reviewed by the Army and Navy, investigators have now closed their inquiries and have recommended them for prosecution or referred them to other agencies for action, Army and Navy officials said. Eight cases are still under investigation but are listed by the Army as confirmed or suspected criminal homicides, the officials said. Only one of the deaths occurred at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, officials said, showing how broadly the most violent abuses extended beyond those prison walls and contradicting early impressions that the wrongdoing was confined to a handful of members of the military police on the prison's night shift. Story. *from the Karate Kid..."There is no fear in this dojo, is there?" "No Sensei!" posted by chris at 11:49 AM   Hungry like the wolf President Bush said today he would nominate Paul D. Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of defense who was one of the architects of the administration's campaign to topple Saddam Hussein, as president of the World Bank. Mr. Wolfowitz, 61, would replace John Wolfensohn, who is stepping down as the head of the bank on June 1 upon completion of his second five-year term. What's up with both these guys' names starting with "Wolf"? And does that have anything to do with the World Bank's policies in developing countries? posted by chris at 11:42 AM   Are we citizens or consumers? From an article on fighting the corporate takeover of our country as found in the most recent In These Times. In our hyper-commercialized culture, we spend far more time and energy thinking about what products we want to buy next instead of thinking about how we can change our local communities for the better, or affect the latest debates in Washington, D.C. or the state capitol. And when so much energy is spent on commercial and material pursuits instead of on collective and political pursuits, we begin to think of ourselves as consumers, not citizens, with little understanding of how or why we are so disempowered. The restoration of democracy requires us to address the backstory behind this process of psychological colonization. It requires us to address the public policies and judicial doctrines that treat advertising as a public good—a tax-deductible business expense and a form of speech protected by the First Amendment. It’s been so long since we have seriously addressed such fundamental questions that, as a result, the average American is now exposed to more than 100 commercial messages per waking hour. As of October 2003, there were 46,438 shopping malls in the United States, covering 5.8 billion square feet of space, or about 20.2 square feet for every man, woman and child in the United States. As economist Juliet Schor reports, “Americans spend three to four times as many hours a year shopping as their counterparts in Western European countries. Once a purely utilitarian chore, shopping has been elevated to the status of a national passion.” A consequence of the hyper-commercialization of our culture is that instead of organizing collectively, we often buy into the market-based ideology of individual choice and responsibility and assume that we can change the world by changing our personal habits of consumption. The politics of recycling offers a minor but telling example of how corporations manage to escape blame by utilizing the politics of personal responsibility. Although recycling is a decent habit, the message conveyed is that the onus for environmental sustainability largely rests upon the individual, and that the solutions to pollution are not to be found further upstream in the industrial system. The personal choices we make are important. But we shouldn’t assume that’s the best we can do. We need to understand that it can’t truly be a matter of choice until we get some more say in what our choices are. posted by chris at 9:39 AM   ------------------ Tuesday, March 15, 2005 761,000 accused in Rwanda The secretary general of the Rwandan justice ministry said yesterday that at least 761,000 people should stand trial for their role in the country's 1994 genocide. General Johnston Busingye claimed that nearly a 10th of the 8.2 million population had been identified as having a role in the 100 days of violence in which more than 500,000 minority Tutsis and Hutu moderates died. Story here. If you haven't yet seen the film, Hotel Rwanda, you should. And if you haven't read Philip Gourevich's account of the genocide and its affects on the country, you should do that too. posted by chris at 4:28 PM   Dismissive corporate asshole statement of the day A new report by International Crisis Group was released this week highlighting forced labour and other human rights abuses that are common in the cotton fields of central Asia. Cargill, which sources cotton from middlemen in the region, didn't seem to think such things were that big of a deal. Cargill was quoted as saying that if there is child labour in their supply chain, it is because families in developing countries need help in the fields. The authors of the report argue otherwise: "The cotton industry in these countries contributes to political repression, economic stagnation, widespread poverty and environmental degradation," says the thinktank. Maybe if Cargill participated in a process that paid its workers a living wage, children wouldn't have to "help" in the fields. posted by chris at 4:12 PM   Stocks are up, unemployment is down, taxes are low But what does this really mean? According to this piece, stocks are up, but the dollar is plummeting against foreign currencies. The unemployment rate is a low 5.4%, but it isn't because people are finding work in large numbers, but that more and more people are simply staying out of the workforce. And real wages have remained flat, with no sign of increases any time soon. And this isn't even the end - going down the supposedly good economic numbers, each and every one of them conceals the bad news beneath a number which seems good. So what is the story they do tell? Who is doing well in this economy? It's a good time to be among the very, very rich. Tax rates are low, inflation is almost dead in the water: which means there is no reason to take risks and invest, no competition from up and coming rich people. It is true that gasoline is up in price, but the things that rich people care about - buying companies and paying taxes - haven't been cheaper, relative everything else, in a very long time. That's why merger-mania is gripping Wall Street: there has never been a better time to sell out and cash out than right now. It is no wonder that the percentage of wealth held by the top one percent of America is now higher than it has been since the Crash of 1929. -clip- Because if the numbers are telling the truth, very soon, discontent is going to be busting out all over. Why is this? Because right now the United States isn't creating real economic growth, but using federal borrowing - now leaving the billion dollars a day of deficit in the rear view mirror - and easy monetary policy of the fed to get more to happen now, rather than later. This inefficient approach is generating inflation, inflation in basic commodities, particularly oil, which has reached the $50 a barrel mark, a level that OPEC says it is happy with. This credit boom, and not economic progress, is what is driving the US economy. Because much of what has happened in the world economy over the last few years has been a credit boom, when there is a bit more activity, there is a bit more inflation. The people who have jobs are not getting wage increases, and so they feel the inflation pinch. Every new job in the Bushconomy is paid for by other people working, people who have to pay higher prices, higher prices for gasoline and other necessities that they cannot easily cut back on. posted by chris at 2:37 PM   What am I going to do with all those Free Tibet stickers? Tibet's exiled leader, the Dalai Lama, has abandoned his long-standing position calling for Tibetan autonomy, declaring Tibet to be part of China. -clip- "This is the message I wish to deliver to China. I am not in favour of separation," the Dalai Lama was quoted as saying. "Tibet is a part of the People's Republic of China. It is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. Tibetan culture and Buddhism are part of Chinese culture. Many young Chinese like Tibetan culture as a tradition of China." He said Tibet was underdeveloped and materially backwards. "So for our own interest, we are willing to be part of the People's Republic of China, to have it govern and guarantee to preserve our Tibetan culture, spirituality and our environment," he said. "But we can contribute to the spiritual side of China . . . China will turn to its 5000-year history of tradition, of which Tibet is a part." More. posted by chris at 2:35 PM   Better check that decimal point Iraq needed fuel. Halliburton Co. was ordered to get it there — quick. So the Houston-based contractor charged the Pentagon $27.5 million to ship $82,100 worth of cooking and heating fuel. In the latest revelation about the company's oft-criticized performance in Iraq, a Pentagon audit report disclosed Monday showed Halliburton subsidiary KBR spent $82,100 to buy liquefied petroleum gas, better-known as LPG, in Kuwait and then 335 times that number to transport the fuel into violence-ridden Iraq. Pentagon auditors combing through the company's books were mystified by this charge. "It is illogical that it would cost $27,514,833 to deliver $82,100 in LPG fuel," officials from the Defense Contract Audit Agency noted in the report. Story (via Atrios). posted by chris at 11:13 AM   ------------------ Monday, March 14, 2005 Of course they do The Bush administration, rejecting an opinion from the Government Accountability Office, said last week that it is legal for federal agencies to feed TV stations prepackaged news stories that do not disclose the government's role in producing them. Because this administration is never wrong, didn't you know? posted by chris at 10:14 PM   Farmworkers vs. Taco Bell A three-year boycott of the American fast food chain Taco Bell has ended in victory for the farm labourers behind the protest. In what is seen as an historic settlement, Taco Bell agreed to the demands of the workers, some of whom went on hunger strike outside the company's California headquarters. The deal between the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and Taco Bell's parent company, Yum! Brands, the largest restaurant firm in the world, aims to improve the wages and conditions of the Florida tomato pickers, for years one of the most exploited groups in the US workforce, some of whose conditions have led to prosecutions under slavery laws. The boycott began in 2002 after the mainly immigrant workers failed to persuade Taco Bell to pressure suppliers to pay proper wages. -clip- In a joint statement, they announced a one cent rise per pound of tomatoes, almost doubling the rate paid per 32lb (14kg) bucket. Farmworkers are paid by the pound, not the hour. Taco Bell will also introduce a conduct code to ensure "more humane labour standards". The settlement is likely to have major consequences for farmworkers, as Yum! Brands also owns Pizza Hut and KFC. Story. posted by chris at 8:52 PM   Creationism creep The Washington Post looks at the struggle of the religious right to weaken/eliminate the teaching of evolution in the nation's schools. I've said it before: I just don't see what's so difficult about teaching kids the scientifically-verified theory of evolution in schools (and the "theory of evolution" isn't just a guess, it's damn near proven) and teaching kids about creationism in church and at home, if you want. Then the kids can decide which one makes more sense to them. But these people would inundate kids with every possible scenario in the classroom. That approach appeals to Cindy Duckett, a Wichita mother who believes public school leaves many religious children feeling shut out. Teaching doubts about evolution, she said, is "more inclusive. I think the more options, the better." "If students only have one thing to consider, one option, that's really more brainwashing," said Duckett, who sent her children to Christian schools because of her frustration. Students should be exposed to the Big Bang, evolution, intelligent design "and, beyond that, any other belief that a kid in class has. It should all be okay." So if a kid believes that reality is all a construct of our subconscious or that aliens created the world or that everything sucks and why should we learn about this anyway, all of that should be okay? Hey, why not let kids teach the class? They obviously have a better handle on all this stuff than the teachers. Isn't this just like moral relativism that the Right gets so upset about? The idea that there is no moral code and everything is equal and we just pick and choose what is good and bad? These people drive me nuts. posted by chris at 12:05 PM   Are you watching news or propaganda? NOTE: I've re-posted this cause I didn't want it to get lost under a deluge of posts yesterday. I think it's important enough to repeat. -Chris "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers. To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications. Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. Kinda makes you wonder if things are really going like the news reports say they are. posted by chris at 9:50 AM   ------------------ Sunday, March 13, 2005 On the 2nd anniversary of the invasion of Iraq Where were you two years ago next week? Do you recall our civilian leadership's rationale for a pre-emptive war against Saddam Hussein? President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, yes, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told the world that the United States had no choice but to invade Iraq. They said Saddam was hiding chemical and biological weapons, and that his scientists would be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a few years. Do you remember those who predicted that the operation would be financed in large part by sales of Iraqi oil? It would be cheap, easy and, oh yes, so swift that civilian leaders in the Pentagon ordered the military to plan to begin withdrawing from Iraq no later than the summer of 2003. There was no need for much post-war planning because there wasn't going to be any post-war. America would come, conquer and get out. If Iraq was broken, its new government headed by the neo-conservatives' favorite exile, Ahmad Chalabi, could fix it. There would be no need for American nation-building, just some modest humanitarian aid. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld's office had visions of a replay of the almost effortless destruction of Afghanistan's hated Taliban regime using precision-guided munitions, Special Operations forces with laser pointers and Afghan allies. In Iraq, as in Afghanistan, less would be more, lighter would be better and faster would be best of all. Any Third World regime could be taken down by a few special operators and some airplanes. The Army's heavy divisions were relics of the Cold War. When then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki reluctantly answered a senator's persistent questioning by suggesting that occupying and pacifying Iraq, an unruly nation the size of California with 25 million citizens, might require a force of "hundreds of thousands," he was mugged by Rumsfeld's minions. Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz hastened to the Hill the next day and told the legislators that Shinseki's estimate was "wildly off the mark," and that Iraq wouldn't be nearly as tough as Afghanistan had been because Iraq didn't have the sort of nasty ethnic divisions one found in Afghanistan. -clip- After nearly 18 months, the Pentagon admitted that a team of nearly 1,000 intelligence officials and scientists had combed Iraq for evidence of chemical and biological weapons or any sign of an active nuclear weapons program. They found nothing. This war that was supposed to be a cakewalk has taken the lives of 1,510 American troops and sent thousands more home, maimed by improvised explosive devices that tear off arms and legs. American taxpayers have paid more than $200 billion in two years for a war we were told wouldn't cost much, if anything, and the cost in fiscal 2006 will be at least $70 billion more. posted by chris at 1:59 PM   Bankruptcy bullshit Senators on Thursday passed the bankruptcy reform bill, which political observers said was largely crafted by the credit card industry more than eight years ago, sending it to the House of Representatives. Lawmakers there said they could vote on final passage next month. Every year, some 1.6 million Americans file for personal bankruptcy protection--more than five times as many as in 1980. The process, which in many respects mirrors corporate bankruptcy, allows them to come up with a creditor-reviewed and court-approved plan to write off some of their debts, pay off others, and reorganize their personal finances so they can make a fresh start. Opponents of the first revamp of the nation's personal bankruptcy laws in more than a quarter-century said the legislation would deal a ruinous blow to the overwhelming majority of those forced to declare personal bankruptcy: moderate- and low-income families, many of them black or migrant or with only one parent; and individuals of modest means hit with large divorce losses or medical expense. Our representatives in Congress are voting for this legislation despite the fact that it doesn't address some of the underlying problems with the rampant use of credit cards: The legislation would do nothing to rein in credit card solicitations or put caps on interest rates or late fees, over-the-limit fees and other penalties, she said, yet these were among the reasons people were forced to declare bankruptcy in the first place. And it ignores the fact that most individuals file bankruptcy because of mounting medical bills that they can't handle, not cause they're buying large-screen TVs, DVD players and other high-ticket items and then defaulting on their credit card payments. So maybe we should think about revamping the nation's health care program instead of handing the credit card companies an early Christmas present. posted by chris at 1:51 PM   Buying DeLay's vote An Indian tribe and a gambling services company made donations to a Washington public policy group that covered most of the cost of a $70,000 trip to Britain by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), his wife, two aides and two lobbyists in mid-2000, two months before DeLay helped kill legislation opposed by the tribe and the company. More. posted by chris at 1:48 PM   Are you watching news or propaganda? "Thank you, Bush. Thank you, U.S.A.," a jubilant Iraqi-American told a camera crew in Kansas City for a segment about reaction to the fall of Baghdad. A second report told of "another success" in the Bush administration's "drive to strengthen aviation security"; the reporter called it "one of the most remarkable campaigns in aviation history." A third segment, broadcast in January, described the administration's determination to open markets for American farmers. To a viewer, each report looked like any other 90-second segment on the local news. In fact, the federal government produced all three. The report from Kansas City was made by the State Department. The "reporter" covering airport safety was actually a public relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration. The farming segment was done by the Agriculture Department's office of communications. Under the Bush administration, the federal government has aggressively used a well-established tool of public relations: the prepackaged, ready-to-serve news report that major corporations have long distributed to TV stations to pitch everything from headache remedies to auto insurance. In all, at least 20 federal agencies, including the Defense Department and the Census Bureau, have made and distributed hundreds of television news segments in the past four years, records and interviews show. Many were subsequently broadcast on local stations across the country without any acknowledgement of the government's role in their production. Kinda makes you wonder if things are really going like the news reports say they are. posted by chris at 1:42 PM   ------------------

    

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