We shall overcompensate

 

By TBogg

John Hawkins struggles beneath the white man's burden

Calling people like Hawkins a racist is equal to:

I can't wait until conservatives start demanding reparations.

http://tbogg.firedoglake.com/2009/07/28/we-shall-overcompensate/

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CFTC: Speculators caused 2008 oil price crisis

 

By Daniel Tencer

In a major U-turn from its claims during the Bush administration, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission is now set to admit that speculation in oil markets — and not the forces of supply and demand — are behind last year's massive oil price spike.

In the summer of 2008, oil prices on the open market reached an unprecedented $147 per barrel. Many economists argue the spike helped push the US into an economic free-fall last autumn.

At the time, the CFTC — which is tasked with regulating commodity and financial futures — said that the huge price spike was a result of supply and demand. That explanation was met with ridicule from many market-watchers, who said it was impossible that demand for oil increased by such a huge margin even as the North American, European and Japanese economies were slowing down.

Now, according to a scoop in the Wall Street Journal, the CFTC is about to reverse its Bush-era position, and admit that market speculators — investors who bought oil futures on the expectation they would rise in value — "played a significant role" in the oil spike.

Bart Chilton, a CFTC commissioner, told the WSJ that the original assessment was based on "flawed data." He told the newspaper that the CFTC's report, which will be released next month, will acknowledge the role of speculators in oil markets.

http://rawstory.com/08/news/2009/07/28/cftc-speculators-caused-2008-oil-price-crisis/

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Segregation and Friends

by Jeffrey Feldman

Author of Framing The Debate, Founder of Frameshop (frameshopisopen.com)

Recently, Glenn Beck sat on the comfy couch of Fox's morning show Fox & Friends and declared that President Obama is a racist who hates white culture.   Of the three hosts who convened this broadcast gem, the one who disagreed with Beck -- Brian Kilmeade -- had recently declared on air that the white race in America had been weakened through interbreeding with non-whites, a statement for which he apologized after it sparked wide-scale outrage.  So on this particular morning, viewers who tuned into Fox & Friends watched a host who espouses white Aryan eugenics mix it up with a guest inciting white anger at blacks, followed by some tips on summertime grilling. 

The fact that brand management rules broadcast media -- particularly at Fox -- leads me to question whether the segregationist flavor of Fox's morning could possibly be accidental.  Is it possible that nobody at Fox had an inkling about Kilmeade's belief in racial purity prior to his blurting it out on air?  They had to know.  A man who gleefully turns to the camera and bemoans racial mixing is also a guy who spouts off eugenic theories at parties and office meetings.  Fox knew about Kilmeade's views and they kept him on air anyway. 

The same is true of Beck's foolish idea that President Obama hates white culture.  The only way the bookers and marketing folks at Fox & Friends could not know Beck plays to segregationist fears of blacks when talking about the president is if they have all been in a coma for the past year.  And yet they booked him anyway, putting him on set for a chat with a guy who thinks that white blood in America has been contaminated by miscegenation. 

A morning show that positions itself to appeal to whites uncomfortable with the idea of racial integration in America? So long as the numbers are solid, the media brand experts would say, why the heck not?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-feldman/segregation-friends_b_246942.html

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Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

Mexico Builds Border Wall To Keep Out US Assholes

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Limbaugh’s Syndicators Turn Up Their Noses at Sarah Palin

by Lisa Derrick

 

Clear Channel, the folks who paid Rush Limbaugh $400 million, then took an ax to its payroll -- again -- and hacked hundreds of radio pros out the door. Program directors, morning show hosts, production pros, news anchors -- all of them tossed over the side. A "bloodbath," one newspaper called it. (In Albany, New York, the entire on-air staff at a Clear Channel music station was sacked; same with a radio outpost in Exeter, New Hampshire)

has declined to hire Palin even as a fill in, according Broadcasting & Cable's Paige Albiniak who writes:

My own sources say much what they said when asked about a TV show for Palin: Don't think so. While you might assume Palin would be a better fit for conservative radio than the less partisan world of syndicated broadcast TV, my sources say the country's biggest radio conglomerate, Clear Channel, has already passed on her.

The main objection to Palin as radio talk-show host is that she would have to hold forth for three hours a day. While some of her recent remarks may indicate a talent for improvisation, anyone who's listened to Rush Limbaugh or Thom Hartmann or Don Imus or Howard Stern or even Ryan Seacrest knows it's the rare personality who can blab extemporaneously for 15 hours a week.

There's always podcasts...and not hiring Palin could save radio!

http://lafiga.firedoglake.com/2009/07/29/limbaughs-syndicators-turn-up-their-noses-at-sarah-palin/

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Taliban field manual: A kinder, gentler militant?

Manual bans filming executions

By Claude Salhani

The Taliban is mounting a public-relations campaign to try to win the hearts and minds of Afghans with their own version of a field manual that urges efforts to limit civilian casualties.

The little book with a blue cover, Rules for Mujahedeen, directs Taliban militants on how to behave while on deployment and how to deal with enemy combatants, treat prisoners of war and interact with civilians.

The manual, which has been given extensive coverage on Al Jazeera's Arabic service, appears aimed at renewing popular support among Afghans in the face of a U.S.-led offensive against the militants.

The directive also could be an attempt by Mullah Muhammad Omar, the Taliban leader, to reassert himself as the uncontested chief of an entire flock of Taliban subgroups.

"This is part of their strategic thinking," said Yonah Alexander, a specialist on counterterrorism with the Potomac Institute in Washington. "This is an old trick to play both ends of the stick and to gain time."

The booklet was issued in May and is the first of its kind in the history of the Taliban, according to a State Department report on counterterrorism.

The report, which was made available to The Washington Times, said the emphasis is on "improving their image and winning over civilians."

The manual also aims to transform the group into a more disciplined and organized political force by centralizing decision-making and discouraging formation of unauthorized factions.

The Taliban, especially with its recent expansion in Afghanistan, has not been monolithic but an amalgam of splinter groups.

In keeping with its religious teachings, the Taliban stresses that the new rules are based on Islamic law. The manual admonishes fighters to:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jul/30/a-kinder-gentler-taliban/

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Meanwhile, back in Crawford...

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Denial of Reality Comics

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Juan Cole, Empire's Paranoia About the Pashtuns

These days, it seems as though the United States is conducting its wars in places remarkably unfamiliar to most Americans. Its CIA-operated drone aircraft, for instance, have been regularly firing missiles into Waziristan, where, in one strike in June, an estimated 80 tribespeople were killed while at a funeral procession for the dead from a previous drone strike.

Waziristan? If you asked most Americans whether their safety depended on killing people in Waziristan, they might wonder what you were talking about. But not in Washington, where Waziristan, the Swat Valley, the Lower Dir district, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, also known as FATA, and the North-West Frontier Province, among other places you'd previously never heard of, are not only on the collective mind but evidently considered crucial to the well-being, and even existence, of the United States. Perhaps that's simply the new norm. After all, we now live in a thoroughly ramped-up atmosphere in which "American national security" -- defined to include just about anything unsettling that occurs anywhere on Earth -- is the eternal preoccupation of a vast national security bureaucracy whose bread and butter increasingly seems to be worst-case scenarios.

The ongoing hysteria about lightly settled, mountainous Pashtun tribal lands in Pakistan on or near the ill-defined Afghan border might seem unique to our imperial moment. So imagine my surprise when Juan Cole told me it actually has a history more than a century old. And there's nothing like a little history lesson, is there, to put the strange hysterias of our moment into perspective?

Cole has just written a whole book about America's "Islam Anxiety," Engaging the Muslim World, and his invaluable website Informed Comment is one of my first daily on-line stops -- so who better to offer a little history lesson in imperial delusions of grandeur and peril? If you feel like a more extensive lesson in what to make of the gamut of issues where the U.S. and the Muslim world meet, or rather collide, don't miss his book. It's a continual eye-opener. Tom

Armageddon at the Top of the World: Not!

A Century of Frenzy over the North-West Frontier
By Juan Cole

WHAT, what, what,
What's the news from Swat?
Sad news,
Bad news,
Comes by the cable led
Through the Indian Ocean's bed,
Through the Persian Gulf, the Red
Sea and the Med-
Iterranean -- he 's dead;
The Ahkoond is dead!

-- George Thomas Lanigan

Despite being among the poorest people in the world, the inhabitants of the craggy northwest of what is now Pakistan have managed to throw a series of frights into distant Western capitals for more than a century. That's certainly one for the record books.

And it hasn't ended yet. Not by a long shot. Not with the headlines in the U.S. papers about the depredations of the Pakistani Taliban, not with the CIA's drone aircraft striking gatherings in Waziristan and elsewhere near the Afghan border. This spring, for instance, one counter-terrorism analyst stridently (and wholly implausibly) warned that "in one to six months" we could "see the collapse of the Pakistani state," at the hands of the bloodthirsty Taliban, while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called the situation in Pakistan a "mortal danger" to global security.

What most observers don't realize is that the doomsday rhetoric about this region at the top of the world is hardly new. It's at least 100 years old. During their campaigns in the northwest in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, British officers, journalists and editorialists sounded much like American strategists, analysts, and pundits of the present moment. They construed the Pashtun tribesmen who inhabited Waziristan as the new Normans, a dire menace to London that threatened to overturn the British Empire.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175100

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Barbra Streisand talks environmental urgency

By DAVID MARK

With multiple Academy Awards, Grammys, Emmys and a Special Tony Award to her credit, Barbra Streisand is inarguably among the world's most successful and renowned entertainers. Yet Streisand is also a noted environmental activist, having donated $1 million in 2006 to the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation in support of former President Bill Clinton's Climate Change Initiative. She answered questions from POLITICO Senior Editor David Mark about her environmental work.

When did you become convinced global warming was an urgent issue?

I was very frightened after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and I was committed to gaining a deeper understanding about environmental issues. At the time, global warming wasn't on the country's agenda. Outside of the work of some scientists and academics, global warming was a theory, not a mainstream issue. I spent months talking to experts who studied the effects of climate change, and I learned about the work of leading environmental organizations, including the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Environmental Defense Fund, among others.

It was during this time that I was introduced to Dr. Michael Oppenheimer, who was chief scientist and manager of the Climate and Air Program at the Environmental Defense Fund. I connected with Dr. Oppenheimer because he had a unique ability to synthesize his findings on climate change in a manner that was accessible and understandable to the general public. So, in 1989, I decided to create an endowed chair at the Environmental Defense Fund to support his work. This grant was one of the first major gifts of The Streisand Foundation.

From then on, my interest in trying to find workable solutions to help stop climate change only grew. During the '90s, in addition to making grants to support the work of leading environmental organizations, my foundation helped several U.S. scientists, experts and environmental leaders attend the Kyoto meeting on climate change. The meeting produced an international environmental treaty intended to achieve the reduction of greenhouse gases. (Of the 169 signatories, only the United States and Australia have yet to ratify the treaty.)

Most recently, I was one of three lead funders of the Clinton Foundation's Climate Change Initiative. Environmental protection, conservation and climate change will always be a top priority of my foundation.

What do you consider the most important conservation steps for individuals?

The awareness of global warming and the efforts at conservation have come a long way in the past 20 years. But clearly we are not moving at a quick enough pace. The U.S. contains 4 percent of the world's population but produces almost 25 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions. A lot of time was lost over the past eight years to make the necessary drastic and critical changes in our behavior in order to curb climate change. Many Americans feel like the problem can only be solved with significant intervention by the federal government. That is true, but we also need the action of every American to help solve this problem.

It was fantastic that, during the 2008 presidential campaign, President [Barack] Obama highlighted ways in which everyday Americans can help in this fight. ... by filling up the air in their tires, replacing older light bulbs [with] newer, energy-saving ones, driving a hybrid vehicle, carpooling, bringing your own bags to the grocery store, installing low-flow showerheads, unplugging unused appliances and recycling.

These are not just energy-saving tips but cost-saving ones, as well.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0709/24753.html#ixzz0LoHupo9l

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SHOULD CHARITY HOSPITALS BE CHARITABLE?

by Jim Hightower

 

As Lily Tomlin says, "No matter how cynical you get, it's almost impossible to keep up."

The truth of Tomlin's observation struck me when I read that lobbyists for America's charity hospitals are campaigning to kill reform legislation that would require charity-care hospitals to provide – get this – charity care. I sat there blinking for a while, thinking: you mean they don't?

As it turns out, no. Although they're called "charity hospitals," and although they are tax-exempt and they get some six-billon dollars a year worth of special tax breaks on the grounds that they provide free health care for low-income folks – they either don't, or provide very-little. In fact, it's hard today to tell the difference between these non-profit entities and your run-of-the-mill for-profit hospital chains. The charitable outfits often turn away the poor from the hospital doors, and when they do provide treatment, they're likely to use nasty, bullying tactics to try to collect money from the poor.

They've gotten away with this by claiming that they meet the charitable standard by holding some health fairs, offering occasional screening days for cholesterol, and doing medical research. A bipartisan proposal in Congress, however, says that tax-exempt hospitals could no longer refuse service to charity cases, and the bill also would rein in the hospital roughhouse bill collectors. In other words, this reform provision would require the non-profits to put the "charity" back in charity care – or lose their tax exemption.

Hospital lobbyists are squealing like stuck pigs. They recently sent an astonishingly-cynical call for charity hospital executives to "oppose charity care." To help battle this greed, join the email campaign by Community Catalyst. Contact the group by email at charitycarehelp@communitycatalyst.org – or call 617-275-2896.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=116000030317&ref=nf

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Tell the Gang of 6: Give back your dirty insurance money

Have you heard about the six senators who are out to kill health care reform?

Of course, that's not how they'd phrase it. Sens. Baucus, Bingaman, Conrad, Enzi, Grassley and Snowe say they're striving for "bi-partisan compromise." But what they're actually doing is working to make sure reform won't include a public option or mandatory employer-based insurance - two key policies needed for effective reform.

There are 100 members of the Senate, but these six, inexplicably, seem to be holding all the cards when it comes to health care.

So you probably won't be surprised to learn that all six have taken a huge amount of money from the health insurance industry and pharma. Take a look:

Senator	Lifetime contributions from Insurance/Pharma
Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT)	$1,203,205
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM)	$206,297
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-ND)	$442,165
Sen. Mike Enzi (R-NV)	$342,228
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA)	$702,595
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME)	$161,706
TOTAL:	$3,058,256

These six senators -- who, by the way, represent only 2.74% of Americans between them -- are writing bad policy, and they're doing it while they take money from the very companies who stand to benefit the most.

Sign this petition today to tell Sens. Baucus, Bingaman, Conrad, Enzi, Grassley and Snowe: Give back every dime you've ever received from health insurance companies and big pharma.

http://act.credoaction.com/campaign/gang_of_6/?rc=fb_share1

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9 reasons why there wasn’t stress in the good old days

by Mihai Andrei

Nowadays, people seem to be more and more stressed, even average people that at least apparently don't take big gambles. Researchers have put a lot of time and money into the study of this problem, and came up with a whole lot of theories, but really, don't let those fool you. Here's the real deal, here's why it was so easy in those days.

Bayer's Heroin

Yeah baby, between 1890 and 1910, heroin was sold as a 'less addictive form of morphine'. At some point, it was even recommended to treat the usual cough, but only in children.

Diacetylmorphine was first synthesized by Alder Wright, who concluded it was even more addictive than opium, and abandoned research in this direction. However, the Bayer company concluded that it was very effective in treating moderate pains and dealing with diseases such as asthma or tuberculosis, so they branded it as Heroin. What's interesting is that it was branded pretty much at the same time with acetylsalicylic acid, that became later known as aspirin. It's hard to say which one of these had more success…

Boehringer & Soehne

Boehringer & Soehne were located in Mannheim, Germany. Never heard of them?? Well, if they were doing today what they did about a century ago now, you'd definitely know about them, because they proudly advertised their products, claiming the make the best produts from cocaine and chinine. It wasn't only the quality that made them so good, as their ads said: "Prices no higher than for any other brand". You just don't see that anymore, sadly.

Opium for newborns, and not only

Stickney and Poor's are known today mostly for spices, but back in the day, they also sold this syrup that helped babies sleep well; and if the opium inside wasn't enough, then the 46% alcohol would definitely do the trick.

http://www.zmescience.com/9-reasons-why-there-wasnt-stress-in-the-good-old-days-000007

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Toyota's Solar Wi-Fi Flowers Stalk American Cities

by Jacob Gordon

To promote its new 3rd generation Prius, Toyota is planting solar-powered W-Fi flowers in key American cities. These installation-ads give people a place to sit, as well as free wireless internet and a place to plug in a laptop or cellphone. According to Toyota, this falls under the marketing charge of creating "harmony between man, nature and machine," which we can respect. Some of the company's other claims, however, sound like they fell off the stupid wagon.

A press release on the campaign goes on to state that: "This fully integrated marketing effort explains how consumers can get virtually everything they want for themselves in a car – advanced technology, extra power, space, safety and 50 miles per gallon – all while providing what nature craves most: fewer smog-forming emissions."

Forgive us for questioning the notion of finding virtually everything we want for ourselves in a car, hybrid or not. But it is particularly asinine to suggest that fewer smog-forming emissions is "what nature craves most." presumptuous anthromorphism aside, smog is probably not madame nature's most vexing concern.

But ignoring the press release's wording for a moment, the ad campaign earns points for creativity, at least a certain degree of beauty, and genuine utility. Also part of the campaign is a series of solar-ventilated bus shelters. These is meant to reference the optional solar-powered ventilation fan on the newest Prius that cools the car when parked. The solar flowers and bus shelters will creep into half a dozen US cities by the fall of 2009, and Toyota has also announced it will be advertising the Prius along California highways with "floralscapes," first-of-their-kind living billboards made of flowers.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/07/toyotas-solar-wi-fi-flowers-stalk-american-cities.php

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19 arrested over Canary bird fighting ring…yes, Canaries

Connecticut police have arrested 19 people in connection with a canary bird fighting operation.

Over 100 canaries were seized from a home in Shelton as the 19 were preparing to the birds to fight Sunday reports Fox. Apparently Canaries can become aggressive and fight each other, particularly during breeding season

We've tried to do some background on Canary fighting because lets face it, you don't really expect to hear of Canary fighting rings, however there's not a lot of history on it available on Google.

Read more: http://www.inquisitr.com/30708/19-arrested-over-canary-bird-fighting-ring/#ixzz0MZc9eAUd

 

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No reform!

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Climate change to force 75 million Pacific Islanders from their homes

More than 75 million people living on Pacific islands will have to relocate by 2050 because of the effects of climate change, Oxfam has warned.

By Bonnie Malkin

A report by the charity said Pacific Islanders were already feeling the effects of global warming, including food and water shortages, rising cases of malaria and more frequent flooding and storms. Some had already been forced from their homes and the number of displaced people was rising, it warned.

"The Future is Here: Climate Change in the Pacific" predicted that many Pacific Islanders would not be able to relocate within their own countries and would become international refugees.

It urged neighbouring wealthy countries to take urgent action to curb their carbon emissions to prevent a large-scale crisis.

Half of the population of the Pacific live less than 1.5km from the coast and are incredibly vulnerable to sea-level rise and extreme weather. But as well as moving out, the report found that some countries had started adapting to the changing climate.

Fiji is attempting to "climate-proof" its villages by testing salt-resistant varieties of staple foods, planting mangroves and native grasses to halt coastal erosion in order to protect wells from salt water intrusion, and moving homes and community buildings away from vulnerable coastlines.

In the Solomon Islands officials are looking for land to resettle people from low-lying outer atolls, and those living in the outer atolls of the Federated States of Micronesia were also moving to higher ground. The tiny nation of Tuvalu also recently pledged to become carbon neutral by 2020.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/climatechange/5915829/Climate-change-to-force-75-million-Pacific-Islanders-from-their-homes.html

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Oh so fitting to see Sarah Palin quitting: Now what?

Sarah Palin quit on her stool as governor of Alaska Sunday night, talking about leadership as she did. She clearly imagines herself to someday be the next President of the United States, getting to tell guys like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad where to get off, yet leaves whining about a bad joke from David Letterman. You rarely get political farewells this funny outside the state of New Jersey.

Palin doesn't actually leave the stage now, just goes off at intermission to write a book and get herself some kind of television gig on Fox. Once there, the most famous hockey mom in America — another of the cute catch phrases that replace actual ideas with her — will try to find a way to drive Newt Gingrich, another presidential pretender, right through the boards.

Sarah Palin hadn't even served two full years as governor when a desperate candidate, John McCain, picked her out of the chorus. She effectively stopped being Alaska's governor that day. When she finally walked away from the job this weekend, it was just bookkeeping.

The governor as quitter, sharing these deep thoughts with us on Twitter: "Wrapped up Anch (Anchorage) Gov's Picnic, awesome. Now road trip to Fairbanks for farewell speech/changing of the guard. Camper full of kids and coffee."

Compared to most of her other public utterances, this came out sounding like Churchill telling us England was going to fight them on the beaches.

Always with Palin there was this cockeyed idea, usually from the yahoos on the right, the frauds who treat her as being real, that if you attacked her, you were attacking working moms and the "real Americans" she talked about in her speeches, the ones who live far from big cities. Or that you were somehow threatened by this strong woman. From the start, there was as much substance to that as there is to her political thought, which you could fit inside a golf ball.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2009/07/27/2009-07-27_lupica_oh_so_fitting_to_see_sarah_palin_quitting.html#ixzz0MfilhX3s

 

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Why she really resigned...

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Immigrants should be eligible for the presidency

"Birthers" say Obama isn't "natural born" and can't be president. Let's make their whole delusional argument moot

By Michael Lind

July 28, 2009 | The presidential election of 2009 is the first in American history in which questions about the citizenship of both major party candidates were raised. Article II of the Constitution says that "No person except a natural-born citizen ... shall be eligible to the office of president." During the campaign, some argued that this disqualified John McCain, because he was born in the Panama Canal Zone where his father, a naval officer, was stationed. Also during the campaign, some conservatives raised questions about whether Obama was born on U.S. soil. Since Obama's election as president, those critics have spawned an entire movement of "birthers" who have displaced "tea-baggers" on the wingnut right.

But it doesn't really matter where McCain or Obama was born. In the first Naturalization Act of 1790, Congress, which included many leaders who had drafted the federal Constitution in Philadelphia, defined "natural-born" to include the children of American citizens born outside the United States. And Supreme Court interpretations of the 14th Amendment have established that children of foreign nationals born on U.S. soil are citizens of the United States. It is doubtful that the drafters of the 14th Amendment, which was designed to give U.S. citizenship to ex-slaves after the Civil War, intended to bestow citizenship on the children of foreign nationals in the U.S., but mistaken or not this interpretation has become settled law. There are, in short, three ways to become a U.S. citizen -- to be born on U.S. soil, to U.S. citizens or foreign nationals; to be born to one or more U.S. citizen parents abroad; and to be born a foreign national, but to become a citizen of the U.S. by immigration to the U.S. and naturalization according to U.S. law.

The Constitution excludes the third category of American citizens -- naturalized immigrants -- from ever being eligible to become president of the United States (or vice-president, inasmuch as the vice-president, who might inherit the office, must meet all of the qualifications of a president). Absent an amendment to the Constitution, Jennifer Granholm, the Democratic governor of Michigan who was born in Canada, can never become president of the United States, and the Austrian-born governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, can never become terminator in chief.

How did this discriminatory clause get incorporated in the Constitution? During the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787, John Jay, who would go on to co-author the Federalist Papers with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison and to serve as chief justice of the Supreme Court, wrote a note to George Washington, who was presiding over the convention: "Permit me to hint, whether it would not be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of foreigners into the administration of our national government; and to declare especially that the command in chief of the American Army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural-born citizen." Washington agreed, writing: "I thank you for the hints contained in your letter." The convention passed the "natural-born citizen" requirement for presidential eligibility unanimously and without debate.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/07/28/immigrant_president/index.html

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Gerald Goddamned Ford

He Was a Terrible President But He Sure Did Live a Long, Long Time

by Paul Constant

Not long after he became president, Gerald Goddamned Ford took a vacation to Vail, Colorado, for some skiing. According to the book Presidential Anecdotes, while the Ford family ate dinner, one of their dogs took a shit in the lodge. An attendant ran over with a rag to clean up the dog shit. Ford intercepted the attendant, took the rag from him, and reportedly said, "No man should have to clean up after another man's dog." Then Ford cleaned up his own dog's shit from the floor.

It's no Gettysburg Address, of course, and it's ironic, too, considering that Ford spent his whole White House career trying to clean up other people's shit, but it's typical Ford: At first, it makes you think he's a great guy, but then you realize he's just a schlub, running to and fro with a shit-stained rag, unaware or, worse, uncaring of his place in history.

Gerald Ford died on Tuesday, December 26, 2006. He was 93 years old. Gerald Goddamned Ford was a virtual treasure trove of oddball presidential trivia: the only president who never won an election for president or vice president; the only president who survived two assassination attempts made by women (Squeaky Fromme, a Charles Manson acolyte, and Sara Jane Moore, obsessed with Patty Hearst); the only president who was often referred to by the media as a "Boy Scout" and "Mr. Nice Guy."

Born Leslie Lynch King Jr. on July 14, 1913, Gerald Goddamned Ford renamed himself after his stepfather and quickly proved to be the kind of man who rises to the top through no fault of his own. He had his talents—he was a star football player at University of Michigan and fought with the navy in World War II—but even he probably couldn't believe his luck when he was elected to Congress and stayed there for nearly a quarter century, somehow getting elected minority leader on his nice-guy merits. President Lyndon Johnson was befuddled by Ford's rise to power, famously saying that Gerald Goddamned Ford "is so dumb he can't walk and fart at the same time." His congressional career is most notable for his time served on the now infamous Warren Commission.

When Richard Nixon's vice president Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace, Ford was nominated precisely because he seemed innocuous. Compared to the dark and brooding Nixon, Ford seemed like a golden boy.

The first month of Gerald Goddamned Ford's presidency, as detailed in Barry Werth's recent book 31 Days, turned out to be one of the biggest disasters in American history. Ford failed the one mission that mattered: not pardoning Richard Nixon. The only thing he had to do to come out of the presidency with a legacy was not pardon Richard Nixon. It took Ford a month to fuck that up, and he dared to announce, "Our long national nightmare is over."

That's bullshit, and we'll get to precisely why in a moment. First, it has to be said that the stench of Gerald Goddamned Ford, the presidential shitrag, lingers in the White House to this day. Though he opted to not nominate the odious George H. W. Bush as his vice president, choosing instead Nelson Rockefeller, Ford hired men whose names we're still living with today: Dick Cheney replaced Donald Rumsfeld as chief of staff after Ford named Rumsfeld secretary of defense.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=125360

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Lie & Grow Rich

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From the fiery pits of health care hell...

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The Actually Existing Health Care System

Why Doesn't Obama Tell It Like It Is?

By CARL GINSBURG

There is nothing inherently wrong with spending 17 per cent of GDP on health care if the result is a really healthy population. Just like there is nothing wrong with a "big" budget deficit if the money goes to making good jobs for working people, cleaning up their cities and environment and bettering schools instead of making rich financiers richer.  But given the fact that countless pregnant women go without sonograms, diabetes is near epidemic proportions, dialysis patients on average die within five years (in Japan they live 20) and, most significantly, the number of primary care doctors remains very low -- taking preventive care off the agenda for most -- the US health care system is a travesty.

Medicare is the point only if you let private health care off the hook.  We know that President Obama did exactly that when he invited in insurers earlier this spring and announced their voluntary commitment to cost containment (only to have them repudiate his interpretation of their comments within days) and you go before the nation in a news conference, July 22, and devote the presentation to existing government programs. 

American health care is reeling because it is a profit center where gouging is the norm.  For-profit clinics and hospitals print money, paying out hefty dividends and huge salaries to management.  Not-for-profits operate along similar lines.   Ask Michelle Obama, who pulled down a reported $400,000 a year at a Chicago hospital doing non-medical work.  But that's just a small piece of the action. 

There is so much gouging, so much greed and gross profiteering, that you have to wonder why Bernie Madoff didn't go that route and save himself a lifetime in prison.  Among the worst abuses was the conversion of non-profit insurance companies to for-profit institutions over the last decade.  The CEOs of numerous insurers walked away with hundreds of millions of dollars, each.  United Healthcare's boss got close to a billion bucks for handing over the reins... until an outcry by consumer groups led to a reduction-- to $800,000,000.  That's a lot of money not going to underserved children. The sale of one Preferred Provider Network, Multiplan -- nothing more than a sophisticated referral system -- to private equity firm, Carlyle Group, a few years back netted the owner close to a billion bucks.   The top HMO chiefs have pulled down hundreds of millions of dollars year after year -- again, nothing directly to do with getting people medical care.  If you start adding up the fees, options, salaries and other bounty extracted from the health care system by the top one hundred individuals associated with it over the last decade, some good portion of the $1 trillion now cited as needed by President Obama would be tallied.   To add insult to injury, a new Harvard study reports that the majority of people going bankrupt from medical costs are, in fact, insured.  What makes them go bust is that their insurance policies are "an umbrella full of holes". 

http://counterpunch.org/ginsburg07242009.html

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William Shatner Reads Sarah Palin Farewell Speech

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Granny Get Your Gun

Is America on the Verge of a Geriatric Crime Wave?

By Nathan Comp

Crime is generally a young person's game, but that hasn't stopped an ever-growing number of older Americans from breaking the law. Following a decline through most of the '90s, over the past 10 years arrest rates for those over 50 have shot up 85 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Experts predict that these numbers will continue to climb well into the next decade, as 35 million baby boomers expand America's graying population from 16 to nearly 25 percent.

Is America on the precipice of a geriatric crime wave?

"The numbers are definitely going to keep going up, no doubt about it," says Ronald Akers, a criminology professor at the University of Florida. "People are healthier and living longer, which may make crime an attractive option for some older people."

Geriatric crime isn't a new phenomenon, nor is it unique to America. Several countries, including the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong and South Korea, have reported substantial increases in the number of elderly arrests, blaming the rises on rapidly growing—and marginalized—elderly populations. But none have seen problems on the scale of Japan, which saw arrest rates of residents over 70 triple from 9,478 to 28,892 between 2000 and 2006.

Most elderly, in America and abroad, are arrested for petty crimes such as shoplifting and drunk driving. But murder among the over-50 crowd climbed more than 15 percent in the last decade. (Music producer Phil Spector was 64 when he killed Lana Clarkson in 2003.) Drug arrests among the elderly tripled during this same period. In April, two sisters, ages 65 and 70, were busted in Stroudsburg, Penn., for selling heroin.

Akers speculates that many elderly arrestees are career criminals who maintain the stamina and strength that crime typically requires. "Late-onset criminality is very rare, and typically financial in nature," he says.

Author and geriatric expert Michael Brogden says late-onset criminality can flourish under some conditions, namely boredom. "With more able-bodied persons no longer gainfully employed, older people may be less inhibited in erring into crime," Brogden wrote in his book, Crime, Abuse and the Elderly. "Older people, freed from past conventions, are now able to indulge as novitiates in crime."

http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4560/granny_get_your_gun/

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Teen pregnancy and disease rates rose sharply during Bush years, agency finds

• Aids cases in adolescent boys have nearly doubled
• Fall in gonorrhea infection rate reversed

by Chris McGreal

Teenage pregnancies and syphilis have risen sharply among a generation of American school girls who were urged to avoid sex before marriage under George Bush's evangelically-driven education policy, according to a new report by the US's major public health body.

In a report that will surprise few of Bush's critics on the issue, the Centres for Disease Control says years of falling rates of teenage pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease infections under previous administrations were reversed or stalled in the Bush years. According to the CDC, birth rates among teenagers aged 15 or older had been in decline since 1991 but are up sharply in more than half of American states since 2005. The study also revealed that the number of teenage females with syphilis has risen by nearly half after a significant decrease while a two-decade fall in the gonorrhea infection rate is being reversed. The number of Aids cases in adolescent boys has nearly doubled.

The CDC says that southern states, where there is often the greatest emphasis on abstinence and religion, tend to have the highest rates of teenage pregnancy and STDs.

In addition, about 16,000 pregnancies were reported among 10- to 14-year-old girls in 2004 and a similar number of young people in the age group reported having a sexually transmitted disease.

"It is disheartening that after years of improvement with respect to teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, we now see signs that progress is stalling and many of these trends are going in the wrong direction," said Janet Collins, a CDC director.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jul/20/bush-teen-pregnancy-cdc-report

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Addicts may get flu drug first

JUNKIES may get the swine flu vaccine first under plans being studied by the Government.

By GARY O'SHEA

Heroin addicts who have registered for methadone could be among those considered vulnerable, because their immune systems are weak.

The official in charge of the government's response to the looming crisis delivered the shock news to a parliamentary committee.

Professor Linsey Davies - director of Pandemic Influenza Preparedness - was asked about what priority would be given to junkies by the Lords science and technology committee.

He said: "We are encouraging, through the guidance, every local NHS organisation to look carefully at these vulnerable people - and all those with long-term conditions come into that.

"The Cabinet Office has recently produced guidance on vulnerable people in emergencies generally, but we are working on something more specific for people with health issues."

A department of health spokesman insisted the "vulnerable" list had not yet been decided on.

Meanwhile the world's top flu expert has warned against the dangers of fast-tracking vaccines without proper checks.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/swineflu/2555562/Addicts-may-get-flu-drug-first.html

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Vaccine May Be More Dangerous Than Swine Flu

 

By Dr. Russell Blaylock

An outbreak of swine flu occurred in Mexico this spring that eventually affected 4,910 Mexican citizens and resulted in 85 deaths. By the time it spread to the United States, the virus caused only mild cases of flu-like illness.

Thanks to air travel and the failure of public health officials to control travel from Mexico, the virus spread worldwide. Despite predictions of massive numbers of deaths and the arrival of doomsday, the virus has remained a relatively mild disease, something we know happens each year with flu epidemics.

Worldwide, there have only been 311 deaths out of 70,893 cases of swine flu. In the United States, 27,717 cases have resulted in 127 deaths. Every death is a tragedy, but such a low death rate should not be the basis of a draconian government policy.

It is helpful to recall that the Centers for Disease Control with the collusion of the media, constantly tell us that 36,000 people die from the flu each year, a figure that has been shown to be a lie. In this case, we are talking about 300 plus deaths for the entire world.

This virus continues to be an enigma for virologists. In the April 30, 2009 issue of Nature, a virologist was quoted as saying,"Where the hell it got all these genes from we don't know." Extensive analysis of the virus found that it contained the original 1918 H1N1 flu virus, the avian flu virus (bird flu), and two new H3N2 virus genes from Eurasia. Debate continues over the possibility that swine flu is a genetically engineered virus.

Naturally, vaccine manufacturers have been in a competitive battle to produce the first vaccine. The main contenders have been Baxter Pharmaceuticals and Novartis Pharmaceuticals, the latter of which recently acquired the scandal-ridden Chiron vaccine company. Both of these companies have had agreements with the World Health Organization to produce a pandemic vaccine.

The Baxter vaccine, called Celvapan, has had fast track approval. It uses a new vero cell technology, which utilizes cultured cells from the African green monkey. This same animal tissue transmits a number of vaccine-contaminating viruses, including the HIV virus.

The Baxter company has been associated with two deadly scandals. The first event occurred in 2006 when hemophiliac components were contaminated with HIV virus and injected in tens of thousands of people, including thousands of children. Baxter continued to release the HIV contaminated vaccine even after the contamination was known.

The second event occurred recently when it was discovered that Baxter had released a seasonal flu vaccine containing the bird flu virus, which would have produced a real world pandemic, to 18 countries. Fortunately, astute lab workers in the Czech Republic discovered the deadly combination and blew the whistle before a worldwide disaster was unleashed.

Despite these two deadly events, WHO maintains an agreement with Baxter Pharmaceuticals to produce the world's pandemic vaccine.

http://www.newsmax.com/health/vaccine_swine_flu/2009/07/07/232717.html

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Cannabis use avoids hard drug addiction in orphans

New findings hint that the active ingredient of cannabis could have beneficial effects for opiate addicts

By Leila Sattary

Separating rats from their mothers at an early age specifically leads to an addiction to opiate substances like heroin and morphine. A new study by researchers in Paris shows that injections of THC, the active principle of cannabis, eliminate dependence on opiates in rats deprived of their mothers at birth. These findings could lead to therapeutic alternatives for human drug addicts.

The study was carried out by Valérie Daugé and her team at the Laboratory for Physiopathology of Diseases of the Central Nervous System. By depriving baby rats of their mothers for several hours a day they caused early stress and often the rats suffered lasting brain dysfunction.

Previously, Daugé and her team showed that rats deprived of their mothers became quickly dependent on opiates if they were exposed to them. The new study shows that if tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is also introduced then the rats no longer developed typical morphine-dependent behaviour. The stressed rats received increasing high doses of THC (5 or 10mg/kg) during their equivalent adolescence (between 35 and 48 days after birth). In the striatum, a region of the brain involved in drug dependence, the production of endogenous enkephalins was returned to normal under THC, whereas it diminished for deprived rats which had not received THC.

These findings may be used to develop new treatments to suppress drug dependence in humans.

http://www.labnews.co.uk/laboratory_article.php/4625/2/cannabis-use-avoids-hard-drug-addiction-in-orphans

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‘Pirated’ Youtube Clip Boosts Band’s Album Sales

by Ernesto

If the major record labels are to believed, they lose millions of dollars due to YouTube pirates. But is this really the case? While anti-piracy outfits try to have all infringing music taken offline or have the audio on pirated YouTube clips disabled, the band Barcelona responded with a video thanking a video uploader for using their song.

Every day hundreds of thousands of clips are uploaded to YouTube, some of which use copyrighted music. Of course the major record labels argue that these illegal uploads are killing their profits as people buy less music when YouTube users add a track to a home made video.

Not everyone in the music business agrees with this assessment though. When the indie rock band Barcelona saw one of its latest tracks featured in a viral video with nearly a million views, they responded quite differently. They claim that the clip below actually boosted their album sales and concert visits.

Kuroshio Sea featuring the Barcelona track

So, instead of demanding that YouTube pull the video, the band posted a response to the 'Kuroshio Sea' video on the site, thanking their new found fans and the uploader who posted the original video.

"We're so flattered to learn that it features one of our songs called Please Don't Go," Barcelona's lead singer Brian Fennell says in the video response.

"We want to let you know that it's been affirming in the last week to watch in the iTunes store a correlation with the sales of our record 'Absolutes', growing in the rock charts as a result of having the song placed in the video," drummer Rhett Stonelake added.

Barcelona's response

Aside from the boost in record sales, the band says that they've also met some new fans who came to their concerts after seeing the video on YouTube. It is a great way of promoting music online, especially when it's coupled to a great video.

Unfortunately for most artists, anti-piracy outfits such as the RIAA, BPI and IFPI are increasingly policing YouTube to get all copyrighted music taken off the site. One such artist to suffer recently is the unfortunate Calvin Harris, who clashed with the music industry lobby group BPI.

"IT'S MY FUCKING SONG YOU ABSOLUTE BASTARDS," Harris wrote on Twitter when he found out that YouTube had removed a clip he uploaded himself, following a copyright complaint from the BPI.

http://torrentfreak.com/pirated-youtube-clip-boosts-bands-album-sales-090727/

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US Patent Office rejects US company's patent protection for bean commonly grown by Latin American farmers

Controversial Court patent case for simple yellow legume has become rallying point for "biopiracy" concerns

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today rejected all of the patent claims for a common yellow bean that has been a familiar staple in Latin American diets for more than a century.

The bean was erroneously granted patent protection in 1999, as US Patent Number 5,894,079, in a move that raised profound concerns about biopiracy and the potential abuse of intellectual property (IP) claims on plant materials that originate in the developing world and remain as important dietary staples, particularly among the poor.

A research center, the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (known by its Spanish acronym, CIAT), which is supported by the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), led the legal challenge to the patent through the USPTO's reexamination process.

"We are happy that the patent office has reached a final decision in this case but remain concerned that the ex partes patent reexamination procedure meant that these patent claims remained in force for such a long time," said Geoffrey Hawtin, Director General of CIAT, which has been fighting the patent since 2001. "For several years now, farmers in Mexico, the USA and elsewhere have unnecessarily endured legal threats and intimidation for simply planting, selling or exporting a bean that they have been growing for generations."

At issue is a hearty and nutritious yellow bean-similar to the pinto bean-that is known to plant breeders as Phaseolus vulgaris but is commonly called azufrado or Mayocoba bean by Latin American farmers and consumers. In the 1990s, a Colorado man, Larry Proctor, bought some beans in a market in Mexico and after a few years of plantings, claimed he had developed what he called "a new field bean variety that produces distinctly colored yellow seed which remains relatively unchanged by season." He dubbed it the "Enola bean," filed a patent application and obtained a 20-year patent that covered any beans and hybrids derived from crosses with even one of his seeds.

http://www.ciat.cgiar.org/newsroom/release_31.htm

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Jamba Juice accused of stealing "Get Your War On" artist's work - Update: Jamba responds, GYWO calls for boycott

by Xeni Jardin

 

"No Justice, No Juice" is the rallying cry of those joining the fight to support the popular webcomic "Get Your War On," after an aparrent ripoff in an ad campaign for the American juice franchise Jamba Juice.

BB guestblogger Carrie McLaren blogged about the controversy here last week. More about the uh, creative similarities on GYWO artist David Rees' website here.

Jamba Juice has issued a response, but it's pathetic:

Jamba Juice would like to expressly communicate that the Summer Bliss promotion was not intended to imply any affiliation with Mr. Rees, Mr. Rees' endorsement of Jamba Juice and its products, or Jamba Juice's endorsement of Mr. Rees' work."

Jambattorneys, if you're reading, here's why that's pathetic: what's at issue isn't that people think Rees "endorses Jamba Juice and its products" (he says he "prefers wine") but that to my non-lawyer eyes, Jamba Juice appears to have ripped of Rees' well-established body of work.

I don't know if what Jamba did is illegal or not, I just know it seems unfair and uncool.

Snip from Rees' step-by-step analysis of the Jamba campaign (a sample ad is inset, below):

# The clip art is public domain, of course, anyone can do anything with it ... but check out the word balloons! JAMBA JUICE TOTALLY BIT MY GYWO WORD BALLOON STYLE! Rounded-edge text box with single line pointing to mouth? I developed that in 2001 using Quark XPress 4!!! THAT'S MY SHIT!!! Jamba Juice, you're a bunch of BALLOON-BITERS.

# First person to sue Jamba Juice on my behalf CAN KEEP ALL THE MONEY. All I care about is destroying Jamba Juice and their overpriced dumb-ass juices. EAT A PIECE OF FRUIT, you morons, you're missing most of the fiber.

Look, IANAL, but it doesn't take a lawyer to smell something fishy in the wheatgrass. There's even a Get Your War On book, for cryin' out loud. Lazy ad agencies, if you're gonna copy someone's work without credit, at least pick on lesser-known, web-only artists whose work hasn't been online for 8 years. They're easier targets.

 

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/27/jamba-juice-accused.html

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Getting together for a beer at the White House

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Don't Let Google Close the Book on Reader Privacy

Google is poised to radically expand its book service, monitoring the digital books you search, the pages you read, how long you spend on various pages, and even what you write down in the margins. Google could then combine your reading habits with other information it has about you from other Google services, creating a massive "digital dossier" about you, your interests, and your concerns. With numerous reports of government efforts to compel online and offline booksellers to turn over records about readers, the time is now for Google to pledge to protect reader privacy.

You shouldn't be forced to pay for digital books with your privacy. Tell Google it needs to develop a robust privacy policy that gives you at least as much privacy in books online as you have in your neighborhood library or bookstore. Google must:

• Protect your reading records from government and third party fishing expeditions by responding only to properly-issued warrants and court orders, and by letting you know if someone has demanded access to information Google has collected about you.
• Make sure that you can still browse and read anonymously by not forcing you to register or give personal information and by deleting any logging information for all services after a maximum of 30 days.
• Separate data related to Google Book Search from any other information the company collects about you, unless you give it express permission.
• Give you the ability to edit and delete any information collected about you, transfer books from one account to another without tracking, and hide your "bookshelves" or other reading lists from others with access to your computer.
• Keep Google Book Search information private from third parties like credit card processors, book publishers, and advertisers.

Email Google CEO Eric Schmidt today and demand that the new Google Book Search service protect your privacy rights. Tell him that you won't pay for digital books with your privacy and that Google Book Search must include these basic safeguards to protect readers!

More info:

• EFF Page: Privacy and the Google Book Search Settlement

https://secure.eff.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=433

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Washington Post Attacks Ron Paul, Bernie Sanders, and Their Bills to Audit the Fed

This merely confirms that the Post is just another puppet of the foul powers-that-be in D. C. If you squint your eyes, you can see the strings. Just another big reason why the bastards and pirates at the Fed need to be outed. There are too many official secrets in this suffering nation.

Friday, July 24, 2009 Washington Post

Focus on the Fed

Transparency at the central bank is a serious question. It deserves a serious answer.

THE FEDERAL Reserve Board's independence is a bit like the judiciary's independence. Absolutely vital for the institution's proper functioning, it nevertheless depends on Congress and the president to respect decisions with which they disagree. In such cases, the best protection for either the Supreme Court or the Fed is to stay strictly within its legally prescribed authority and to act according to principled criteria: legal ones for the justices, technical economic ones for the central bank.

Which brings us to the proposed Federal Reserve Transparency Act, sponsored by anti-Fed crusader Ron Paul (R-Tex.) in the House and socialist Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.) in the Senate. In the name of open government, it would subject the Fed's decisions to a full-blown audit by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress. Though the bill has attracted 276 co-sponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate, it is wrongheaded in the extreme. By opening up the Fed's most sensitive interest rate and credit policies to public second-guessing, the bill would create a risk — real and perceived — of monetary policy bent to suit congressional overseers. This would destroy financial markets' faith in the Fed and, by extension, the value of the U.S. dollar, just as surely as a political "audit" of the Supreme Court's deliberations would undercut public faith in the justice system.

http://waronyou.com/topics/washington-post-attacks-ron-paul-bernie-sanders-and-their-bills-to-audit-the-fed/

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Sign of the times

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Sgt. Crowley: The Cracker-Jack Policeman

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