Dead Peasants

by Andrew Tobias

 

"CAPITALISM"

 

I finally saw Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story," and you should too.  There is much in it that's simplistic or manipulative, but it is at the very least three things: rivetingly interesting, moving, and thought-provoking.*  And as you watch you can do the same two things I did: try to find the flaws in his argument; try to figure out how things should be (unless you think they're perfect now).

 

*Note to Michael Moore: please don't quote the last part of that sentence without also including the first part.

 

An example of a flaw, it seems to me, is the section on Dead Peasants Insurance.  The section is introduced with a tearful family in financial crisis because the husband has died young.  They have discovered that his employer had taken out a policy on his life naming itself as the beneficiary.  So the guy dies, the company gets a fat check, shares none of it with the family, and you are meant to feel outrage. 

 

Indeed, a great many big-name companies have done the same thing, taking out policies on tens of thousands of their employees.  The younger and faster the employees die, the more money the companies make.  A memo is shown expressing concern that death rates are below projection.

 

This is offered as an example of how greedy and heartless capitalism is. 

 

Yet it's actually an example of how nutty our tax system is and of how many of our brightest minds are wasted finding ways to outwit it.  If you insure tens of thousands of employees, the insurance company can take a little bit for its trouble and still, after the tax advantages, you, the employer, can expect to come out ahead.

 

Which is an example of our system at its least productive – absolutely no productive benefit comes from this – but that's not the point the movie makes.  The movie makes it seem as though the companies hope you'll die young.  That they've done all this not as a reprehensible tax dodge, but as a way to make money from your death.  Yet that's nonsense.  Insurers are not in business to lose money.  So unless employers are actually finding ways to speed the death of its employees (committing murder in order to defraud the insurance companies) – which Michael Moore nowhere alleges – this is just a tax avoidance ploy.

 

Dead Peasants Insurance has nothing to do with the point Moore uses it to make.

 

So that's a flaw.

 

And it's not the only section of the movie you will find simplistic or misleading or manipulative.

 

Then again, you can't possibly watch "Capitalism" without empathy for its victims.  The suffering across the land is real, and brutal, and takes on an extra dimension when you see some of it, not just read about it.

 

You can't possibly watch "Capitalism" without being concerned for the viability of our system.  How do we get out of the hole that years of over-borrowing, over-consumption, over-extension (e.g., Iraq) and under-taxation have dug us into?

 

Michael Moore is talking revolution.  He shows 1944 footage of FDR calling for a second bill of rights – the right to a job at a living wage, to health care, and more – and saying that we need to set to work attaining these rights as soon as we win the war.  Well, we won the war and, as Moore points out, Japan, Germany, and Italy, all now enjoy the rights FDR was talking about (we sent folks over to write their constitutions) but we don't.  He thinks we should.

 

How much longer will people feel the financial vise tighten before they greet the news of $140 billion in Wall Street pay and bonuses with real anger?

 

The left wants to channel anger at the corporations and the banks.  The right wants to channel anger at illegal aliens, welfare moms, unions, elitists, and "government."  Both sets of targets are wrong.  (Not to say any of those targets are perfect actors.)   But the anger is real and the problems are real and this movie will surely get you thinking about both.

 

http://www.andrewtobias.com/newcolumns/091019.html

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Pranksters stage Chamber of Commerce climate change event

By David A. Fahrenthold

Will the real U.S. Chamber of Commerce please stand up?

Environmental activists held a hoax press conference Monday morning, pretending to be the business group -- and pretending to announce that the chamber was dropping its opposition to climate-change legislation now in Congress.

The event, complete with fake handouts on chamber letterhead, at least a couple of fake reporters, and a podium adorned with the chamber logo, broke up when a spokesman from the real chamber burst in.

What followed was a spectacle not usually seen in the John Peter Zenger Room at the National Press Club: two men in business suits shouting at one another, each calling the other an impostor and demanding to see business cards.

"This guy is a fake! He's lying! This is a stunt that I've never seen before," said Eric Wohlschlegel, an official at the actual Chamber of Commerce, who said he'd heard about the hoax event from a reporter who'd mistakenly shown up at the chamber's headquarters.

The fake Chamber of Commerce official, who called himself "Hingo Sembra," did not give his real name to reporters, saying only that he represented a coalition of climate activists.

He appeared, by comparing photos on the Internet, to be a member of the activist-prankster group called The Yes Men. They have staged several hoaxes to draw attention to what they believe is slow progress in fighting climate change. The group's last big stunt was to print fake copies of the New York Post last month during a U.N. climate conference, bearing the headline "We're Screwed." Asked if he was one of The Yes Men, he merely said, "Who?"

Before the real chamber official burst in, he told reporters that the chamber had decided to give up its aggressive opposition to climate legislation -- which has included a not-a-hoax call for a new "Scopes Monkey Trial" to prove the science of climate change.

He said the chamber would prefer a carbon tax, but would support Senate legislation drafted by  Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and  John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) as a starting point. He said he was responding to the concerns of member companies who have quit the chamber over its previous stance.

"This isn't the cause, of course, of our change of heart. It is simply the cue," he said. When a reporter asked what he would say to chamber members who continued to oppose climate legislation, he replied, "There will always be people behind the times."

A few minutes later, Wohlschlegel -- from the real chamber of commerce -- burst in, and it was all over but the shouting. Afterward, he said the chamber's position had actually not changed: they have called for "strong" legislation on climate change, but they do not support the bill passed by the U.S. House this summer.

"It is a very sad day," Wohlschlegel said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/19/AR2009101901651.html

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Who's Next?

Lessons from the Long War and a Blowback World
By Tom Engelhardt

Is it too early -- or already too late -- to begin drawing lessons from "the Long War"? That phrase, coined in 2002 and, by 2005, being championed by Centcom Commander General John Abizaid, was meant to be a catchier name for George W. Bush's "Global War on Terror." That was back in the days when inside-the-Beltway types were still dreaming about a global Pax Americana and its domestic partner, a Pax Republicana, and imagining that both, once firmly established, might last forever.

"The Long War" merely exchanged the shock-'n'-awe geographical breadth of the President Bush's chosen moniker ("global") for a shock-'n'-awe time span. Our all-out, no-holds-barred struggle against evil-doers would be nothing short of generational as well as planetary. From Abizaid's point of view, perhaps a little in-office surgical operation on the nomenclature of Bush's war was, in any case, in order at a time when the Iraq War was going disastrously badly and the Afghan one was starting to look more than a little peaked as well. It was like saying: Forget that "mission accomplished" sprint to victory in 2003 and keep your eyes on the prize. We're in it for the long slog.

When Bush officials and Pentagon brass used "the long war" -- a phrase that never gained much traction outside administration circles and admiring think tanks -- they were (being Americans) predicting the future, not commenting on the past. In their view, the fight against the Islamist terrorists and assorted bad guys who wanted to get their hands on weapons of mass destruction and truly bloody the American nose would be decades long.

And of that past? In the American tradition, they were Fordian (as in Henry) in their contempt for most history. If it didn't involve Winston Churchill, or the U.S. occupying Germany or Japan successfully after World War II, or thrashing the Soviet Union in the Cold War, it was largely discardable bunk. And who cared, since we had arrived at a moment of destiny when the greatest country in the world had at its beck and call the greatest, most technologically advanced military of all time. That was what mattered, and the future -- momentary pratfalls aside -- would surely be ours, as long as we Americans were willing to buckle down and fund an eternal fight for it.

Arm and Regret

With the arrival of the Obama administration, "the Long War," like "the Global War on Terror," has largely fallen into disuse (even as the wars that went with it continue). Like all administrations, Obama's, too, prefers to think of itself as beginning at Year Zero and, as the new president emphasized more than once, looking forward, not backwards, at least when it came to the CIA, the Bush Justice Department, and torture practices.

Perhaps, however, the Long War shouldn't be consigned to the dust bin of history just yet. It might still have its uses, if we were to do the un-American thing and look backward, not forward.

As we call a contentious era in European history the Hundred Years' War, so our war in "the Greater Middle East" has already gone on for 30 years, give or take a few. If you wanted to date its exact beginning you might consider choosing President Ronald Reagan's brief, disastrous invasion of Lebanon in 1983, the occasion for the first suicide truck bombings of the modern American era. (As Mike Davis has written, "Indeed, the suicide truck bombs that devastated the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 prevailed -- at least in a geopolitical sense -- over the combined firepower of the fighter-bombers and battleships of the U.S. Sixth Fleet and forced the Reagan administration to retreat from Lebanon.")

An even more reasonable date, however, might be July 3, 1979, when, at the behest of national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter signed "the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul." In other words, six months before the actual Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began, the U.S. threw its support to the mujahideen, the Afghan anti-Soviet fundamentalist jihadists.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175128

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A fascination with Polaroid photographs

By Francis Hodgson

Marc Quinn's 'Untitled' (2008)

When the great Hungarian photographer André Kertész lost his wife Elizabeth to cancer in 1977, he suffered a period of intense withdrawal close to a breakdown. For some time he remained in his apartment, just north of Washington Square Park, in New York, and repeatedly photographed many of the objects that he associated with her. By chance (and by the agency of Graham Nash, the great collector of photographs) the Polaroid Corporation gave him one of their SX-70 cameras, and that is the instrument that Kertész used to help him through his pain.

The lyrical close-ups of little artefacts that resulted are among the most evocative photographs there are. Photographed against the very same window through which Kertész had timidly peered 20 and more years before to make his famous views of Washington Square from above, the Polaroids are dense with compression. One little glass figure, photographed again and again, clearly stands for Elizabeth herself, its head angled in a tender bow, its translucency enriched by complicated reflections which seem to inhabit it as memories of her inhabited the photographer.

André Kertész's 'Self-portrait, May 6 1979'

Some of Kertész's Polaroids of the late 1970s and early 1980s are among the unchallenged masterpieces of photography. In spite of their small size, these are very big photographs. Focused as if seen through tear-filled eyes, they are in lovely weak colours – jewels of gentle melancholy.

Polaroid is obsolete technology now (the use-by date on the last batch of Polaroid film was October 9 of this year) but it was once all the rage. The selling point was that it was film which could be developed instantly, in the days before digital imaging. Polaroid was a direct positive process, the most successful one by far since the daguerreotype. Everything in between had been a variant of the negative-positive process deriving from William Fox Talbot. The corollary of Polaroid's immediacy was that each print was unique – no negative meant no reprinting. (Sophisticated users were able to get into various Polaroid transfer processes, but the heart of the process was the single, unrepeatable immediate image.) So those lovely Kertész studies are not in any edition – they are like sketches or oil paintings as opposed to bronzes or lithographs.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/de6e3564-b9e3-11de-a747-00144feab49a.html

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Obama vs Insurance: Pillow fights

by Fight2Win

Obama and the health insurance companies are pillow fighting. Ready to concede, the Democrats are already saying the ya-hoo attended townhalls have stopped them from passing through legislation, what about the townhalls against the war(s)? This fight is stopping because it never really was meant to win. Just another pillow fight with big business. The media wants us to believe that there is some sort of mass movement out there that is opposed to any sort of health care that is not run by the private sector.

The media wants us to believe that there is some sort of mass movement out there that is opposed to any sort of health care that is not run by the private sector. All sorts of horror stories are being circulated to convince working people that any infringement by the public sector in to the health care business will mean the end of the world as we know it. A mish-mash of right wing elements, hired thugs, provocateurs and some genuinely confused people have been dragged in to the limelight to show how unpopular any sort of government type health care program is among the masses.

It seems that the American people love insurance companies so much that the hapless Democrats will be forced to drop their idea of a government run insurance alternative to the big private concerns in order to "keep them honest". "Some members of the public", writes today's Wall Street Journal, "interpret" this effort as "a push to drive private insurers from the market place." But insurance companies are hated by the American people and by workers in particular. What members of the public are they talking about?

What the debate is really about is state intervention in the very lucrative and profitable health care business. It is most importantly a squabble between sections of the capitalist class over private vs public. When the economic crisis hit, the severity of it shook them up real bad. Certain unpopular measures were taken; capitalism was saved from itself by massive infusions of public money. The US has allotted some $11 trillion to bail out their system. Their government now owns or is part owner of major sectors of the economy from Insurance companies to housing, banks and Auto. The battle over this health care issue and particularly the idea of a rival public insurance company is a line in the sand for some of them.

When the Wall Street Journal talks of "some people" being concerned about private insurance companies being driven from the market place it is talking about their colleagues who profit handsomely from the health industry.

The Democrats are giving the impression that the opposition against them is too great, that the town hall opposition too contentious. Are we supposed to believe these few town hall meetings and a Republican Party whose future was uncertain not many months ago are standing in the way of the Democrat's efforts to create a public insurer?

One woman I spoke to this morning said that the Democrats have "no backbone.". But that is not the issue. The Capitalist class has two parties in this country, the Republicans and the Democrats. The people that are concerned are members of their own class and it is to them they are responding when and if they make any concessions on issues that might benefit working people.

We should remember at the Democratic National Convention, all the thieves and parasites that Obama claimed he was opposed to were there. "Donors Still Paying For Access." was the headline in the Financial Times article covering the event. Private donations of more than $112 million paid for 80% of the convention costs and all the big shots were in attendance and at the parties. JP Morgan threw a big party in honor of women governors, Billy Tauzin, a former congressman and head of the pharmaceutical lobbying group PhRMA was there as were others from AT&T, the recording industry and more. The big corporate donors even had special access to Obama's speech.

The Democrats are not weak; its not a matter of backbone and it is not a matter of them betraying workers, they were never on our side.

 

http://la.indymedia.org/news/2009/08/229773.php

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Rebranding America

 

By BONO

 

A FEW years ago, I accepted a Golden Globe award by barking out an expletive.

 

One imagines President Obama did the same when he heard about his Nobel, and not out of excitement.

When Mr. Obama takes the stage at Oslo City Hall this December, he won't be the first sitting president to receive the peace prize, but he might be the most controversial. There's a sense in some quarters of these not-so-United States that Norway, Europe and the World haven't a clue about the real President Obama; instead, they fixate on a fantasy version of the president, a projection of what they hope and wish he is, and what they wish America to be.

Well, I happen to be European, and I can project with the best of them. So here's why I think the virtual Obama is the real Obama, and why I think the man might deserve the hype. It starts with a quotation from a speech he gave at the United Nations last month:

"We will support the Millennium Development Goals, and approach next year's summit with a global plan to make them a reality. And we will set our sights on the eradication of extreme poverty in our time."

They're not my words, they're your president's. If they're not familiar, it's because they didn't make many headlines. But for me, these 36 words are why I believe Mr. Obama could well be a force for peace and prosperity — if the words signal action.

The millennium goals, for those of you who don't know, are a persistent nag of a noble, global compact. They're a set of commitments we all made nine years ago whose goal is to halve extreme poverty by 2015. Barack Obama wasn't there in 2000, but he's there now. Indeed he's gone further — all the way, in fact. Halve it, he says, then end it.

Many have spoken about the need for a rebranding of America. Rebrand, restart, reboot. In my view these 36 words, alongside the administration's approach to fighting nuclear proliferation and climate change, improving relations in the Middle East and, by the way, creating jobs and providing health care at home, are rebranding in action.

These new steps — and those 36 words — remind the world that America is not just a country but an idea, a great idea about opportunity for all and responsibility to your fellow man.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18bono.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th

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The Race Card, Football and Me

My critics would have you believe no conservative meets NFL 'standards.'

By RUSH LIMBAUGH

David Checketts, an investor and owner of sports teams, approached me in late May about investing in the St. Louis Rams football franchise. As a football fan, I was intrigued. I invited him to my home where we discussed it further. Even after informing him that some people might try to make an issue of my participation, Mr. Checketts said he didn't much care. I accepted his offer.

It didn't take long before my name was selectively leaked to the media as part of the Checketts investment group. Shortly thereafter, the media elicited comments from the likes of Al Sharpton. In 1998 Mr. Sharpton was found guilty of defamation and ordered to pay $65,000 for falsely accusing a New York prosecutor of rape in the 1987 Tawana Brawley case. He also played a leading role in the 1991 Crown Heights riot (he called neighborhood Jews "diamond merchants") and 1995 Freddie's Fashion Mart riot.

Not to be outdone, Jesse Jackson, whose history includes anti-Semitic speech (in 1984 he referred to Jews as "Hymies" and to New York City as "Hymietown" in a Washington Post interview) chimed in. He found me unfit to be associated with the NFL. I was too divisive and worse. I was accused of once supporting slavery and having praised Martin Luther King Jr.'s murderer, James Earl Ray.

Next came writers in the sports world, like the Washington Post's Michael Wilbon. He wrote this gem earlier this week: "I'm not going to try and give specific examples of things Limbaugh has said over the years because I screwed up already doing that, repeating a quote attributed to Limbaugh (about slavery) which he has told me he simply did not say and does not reflect his feelings. I take him at his word. . . . "

Mr. Wilbon wasn't alone. Numerous sportswriters, CNN, MSNBC, among others, falsely attributed to me statements I had never made. Their sources, as best I can tell, were Wikipedia and each other. But the Wikipedia post was based on a fabrication printed in a book that also lacked any citation to an actual source.

I never said I supported slavery and I never praised James Earl Ray. How sick would that be? Just as sick as those who would use such outrageous slanders against me or anyone else who never even thought such things. Mr. Wilbon refuses to take responsibility for his poison pen, writing instead that he will take my word that I did not make these statements; others, like Rick Sanchez of CNN, essentially used the same sleight-of-hand.

The sports media elicited comments from a handful of players, none of whom I can recall ever meeting. Among other things, at least one said he would never play for a team I was involved in given my racial views. My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704322004574477021697942920.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_RIGHTTopCarousel

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Monty Python and the cardboard cut-out: all six members reunited in New York

Michael Palin, cardboard cutout of Graham Chapman, Terry Gilliam,

John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Carol Cleveland

Their waistlines have expanded along with the alimony payments, but 40 years after their television debut, the surviving members of the Monty Python crew were reunited on stage.

John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin exchanged cheerful insults at the New York event, during which they were honoured with a Bafta Special Award.

Graham Chapman did not allow a small thing such as being dead stop him from taking part. A cardboard cut-out of the comedian, who died in 1989, took a seat alongside his fellow Pythons.

He even took a question or two from the audience at the Ziegfield Theatre. That was until Cleese abruptly ejected him from the stage in favour of Carol Cleveland, Python's regular female contributor.

Cleese, 69, has launched a new tour titled How To Finance Your Divorce, after the split from his wife, Alyce Faye Eichelberger, which has cost him £12 million.

But the Fawlty Towers star demonstrated that he is not afraid to mention the war. During a lull in the audience question-and-answer session, Cleese reminisced: "What about that very, very funny thing that happened at Auschwitz?"

This prompted an anecdote about a Python tour of Germany. They arrived at a concentration camp for a private tour only to find it was closed, prompting Chapman to suggest: "Tell them we're Jewish."

http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/tv_and_radio/article6877706.ece

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The Jack Herer Initiative

by J. Craig Canada

I don't want to f___ing give the United States govern-
ment one f___ing dollar of taxes. I think that they should
go to f___ing jail for getting you and me and 20 million
people getting arrested for pot. It is the safest thing you
can do in the universe. And that is what we are going to
do in California. Okay? Come over to my booth,
over there, and I will see you next time.


The Emperor of Hemp: The Jack Herer Story  - Hulu

Jack Herer, also known as The Emperor of Hemp, suffered a stroke shortly after speaking at Hempstalk in Portland, Oregon on 12 Sep 09. 

Paul Stanford wrote on Facebook that he collapsed of a heart attack three minutes after giving the speech in the video on the right.  Mr. Herer previously suffered a heart attack in 2000, also in Oregon, which left him partially paralyzed and from which he had continued to recover.

Various sources report it took twenty to twenty-five minutes for an ambulance to arrive and that he was without oxygen for that period of time.

There were at least three reports that Mr. Herer died 18 Sep 09, but these have been found to be false.  The reports were issued by CelebStoner, The Drug Policy Alliance (StopTheDrugWar.com), and Examiner.com (John English, Michael Stone).  These articles have now disappeared from the internet.

On 20 Sep 09 it was reported Jack began coming out of the coma the previous day and that his eyes had momentarily opened several times and he was incessantly yawning.  Hopefully, he will be able to tell us himself that reports of his death were greatly exaggerated.

Mr. Herer ended his speech at Hempstalk with a passionate denunciation of taxing marijuana.  It seems obvious this was in response to the filing of initiatives to tax marijuana in California and Oregon, and the attendant media frenzy over the past couple of months.

Three initiatives have been filed with the Attorney General and a bill is in the legislature that would tax and regulate marijuana in California.  Additionally, there is a move in Oregon to equate marijuana with alcohol and tax it accordingly.

Mr. Herer is not alone in his opposition to the taxation of medical marijuana.  Dennis Peron and Ed Rosenthal have publicly expressed similar sentiments.  Just last week Dennis Peron announced on Facebook he had been fired by Oaksterdamn U for giving a talk in which he stated his opposition to their initiative proposing to tax, regulate, license, administer, and police marijuana without limitation.

It is curious to note that in the major media blizzard extolling the financial prospects of marijuana, no one has bothered to ask these pioneers and founders of the movement what they think.  Certainly, none have quoted them.  All have been completely ignored.  As of this writing, a Google search of the news for the past month on - "Jack Herer" tax - returns one hit, which appears to be in Moroccan.  The word "tax" appears in the phrase "the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937".

In other words, so far no one seems to think what may have been Jack Herer's last words is important.

Mr. Herer attempted to get his own marijuana legalization initiative on the California ballot in 2008.  Evidently, he was not able to get the signatures to qualify the measure.  This, most likely, was because only volunteers were used to gather signatures.

Oakland has four dispensaries that each pay $30,000 per year to be licensed by the city to dispense medical marijuana.  These dispensaries are the proponents of The Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis 2010 Act (ROT 2010).  The argument can be made that these four dispensaries, which together grossed $18 million in 2007 and $21 million in 2008, are paying $120,000 per year to protect their monopoly on the distribution of medical marijuana in the City of Oakland.

Measure F, sponsored by The Oakland Gang of Four, raised the tax the sick and dying pay for medicine from $1.20 per $1,000 (0.12%) to $18.00 per $1,000 (1.80%).  This is equal to the tax on alcohol and will raise the amount of tax the sick and dying pay for medicine in Oakland well over a quarter of a million dollars, from about $25,000 to about $378,000.  To many, this appears to be a sell-out of the medical marijuana movement. 

Additionally, they intend to spend a million dollars on a signature drive to get their tax, regulate, license, administer, and police marijuana "without limitation" initiative on the ballot in 2010.  In other words, The Oakland Gang of Four intends to spend well over $1,500,000 of the money patients paid for medicine to protect their monopoly in Oakland, to prohibit commercial licensing in jurisdictions that do not tax, and to exhort the cities, counties, and state to tax, regulate, license, administer, and police marijuana "without limitation".

Jack Herer's initiative, titled The California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative, appears to be far superior to any of the measures purporting to legalize marijuana likely to come before the people of California.

It begins not with a long-winded and superfluous list of whereases, intents, and purposes, but with the actual legal language of §11362.6 to be added to the Health & Safety Code.

Subsection 1 of the proposed §11362.6 states:

No person, individual, or corporate entity shall be arrested or prosecuted, be denied any right or privilege, nor be subject to any criminal or civil penalties for the possession, cultivation, transportation, distribution, or consumption of cannabis hemp marijuana

Subsection 2 of the proposed §11362.6 consists of definitions.  These contain language specifically legalizing industrial hemp, recreational marijuana, and medical marijuana (or cannabis).  It is to be noted that the definition of "cannabis hemp medical preparations" specifies "mental conditions".

"Mental conditions not limited to bipolar, depression, attention deficit disorder, or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, shall be conditions considered for medical use."

Subsection 3 of the proposed §11362.6 prohibits "any special zoning requirement, licensing fee, or tax that is excessive, discriminatory, or prohibitive."

Subsection 4 of the proposed §11362.6 restores "cannabis hemp medicinal preparations" to "the list of available medicines in California" and specifically exempts "prescribed cannabis hemp medical preparations" from any tax.  It also prohibits any professional hearing or licensing review of physicians for "recommending or approving medical use of cannabis hemp marijuana".

Subsection 5 of the proposed §11362.6 prohibits the requirement of any "permit, license, or tax" for the "non-commercial cultivation, transportation, distribution, or consumption of cannabis hemp."  It also prohibits testing for "inactive and/or inert cannabis metabolites" for employment or insurance or "intoxication".  In other words, not only does it define cannabis as an "euphoric" as opposed to an "intoxicant", but it specifies that evidence of cannabis use may not be used to establish charges of "intoxication" but instead such charges must be based on evidence of impairment. 

Compare this to Oregon's Cannabis Tax Act, which defines cannabis as an "intoxicant" and therefore equates it to alcohol.  A search of the Oregon Revised Statutes shows 2 hits for "intoxicant" and 26 for "intoxicated".

Subsection 6 of the proposed §11362.6 declares the use of cannabis hemp for religious purposes an inalienable right protected by the state and federal constitutions.

Section II of The Jack Herer Initiative would "repeal, delete, and expunge any and all provisions that conflict with the provisions of this initiative."

Enactment of this initiative shall include: amnesty, immediate release from prison, jail, parole, and probation, and clearing, expungement, and deletion of all criminal records for all persons currently charged with, or convicted of any non-violent cannabis hemp marijuana offenses included in this initiative which are hereby no longer illegal in the State of California. People who fall within this category that triggered an original sentence are included within this provision.

Section III of The Jack Herer Initiative authorizes the legislature to enact measures to regulate commercial marijuana.  It sets a limit of $1,000 on any "license or permit fee required by the state" for "commercial production, distribution, or use" and requires sufficient community outlets shall be licensed to provide reasonable commercial access to persons of legal age.  Compare this to Oaksterdamn U's proposal, which stipulates cities and counties must tax marijuana in order to license "concessionary establishments", and prohibits commercial sales and distribution in cities and counties that do not pass such a tax.

This section also authorizes taxing "commercial" sales, so long as "no excise tax or combination of excise taxes shall exceed $10.00 per ounce."

The only flaw found in the California Cannabis Hemp & Health Initiative is the title.

It should be called The Jack Herer Initiative.

The suggested deadline to file an initiative with the California Attorney General is this Friday, September 25, 2009.  Filing an initiative requires a $200 application fee.  Then the Attorney General has about 30 days to prepare an official summary.  Once the official summary is filed the proponents have 150 days to gather the signatures to qualify for the ballot.

I can think of no more fitting legacy for the Emperor of Hemp than to get The Jack Herer Initiative And Act on the California ballot in 2010, and to pass it.

---

On 19 Sep 09 The Salem-News reported that to help with financial expenses, donations are accepted at all US Bank branches, make your deposit to: JACK HERER DONATION FUND. For more information, email newsroom@salem-news.com.

http://www.examiner.com/x-14883-Santa-Cruz-County-Drug-Policy-Examiner~y2009m9d21-The-Jack-Herer-Initiative

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Revenge of the Drones

 

An Analysis of Drone Strikes in Pakistan

 

By Peter Bergen, Katherine Tiedemann,

As a result of the unprecedented 41 drone strikes into Pakistan authorized by the Obama administration, aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda networks based there, about a half-dozen leaders of militant organizations have been killed--including two heads of Uzbek terrorist groups allied with al Qaeda, and Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban--in addition to hundreds of lower-level militants and civilians, according to our analysis.[1]

The number of civilian deaths caused by the drones is an important issue because in the charged political atmosphere of today's Pakistan, where anti-Americanism is rampant, the drone program is a particular cause of anger among those who see it as an infringement on Pakistan's sovereignty. A Gallup poll in August found that only 9 percent of Pakistanis favored the strikes, while two-thirds opposed them.

An important factor in the controversy over the drones is the widespread perception that they kill large numbers of Pakistani civilians. Some commentators have asserted that the overwhelming majority of casualties are civilians. Amir Mir, a leading Pakistani journalist, wrote in The News in April that since January 2006, American drone attacks had killed "687 innocent Pakistani civilians." A month later, a similar claim was made in the New York Times by counterinsurgency experts David Kilcullen and Andrew Exum, who wrote that drone strikes had "killed some 700 civilians. This is 50 civilians for every militant killed, a hit rate of 2 percent." In other words, in their analysis, 98 percent of those killed in drone attacks were civilians. Kilcullen and Exum advocated a moratorium on the strikes because of the "public outrage" they arouse.

A very different picture was presented earlier this month by the Long War Journal, an American blog that closely tracks terrorist groups, in particular al Qaeda and the Taliban. Bill Roggio, the editor of Long War Journal, concluded that according to his close analysis of the drone strikes, only 10 percent of those killed were civilians.

Our analysis suggests quite different conclusions than those of either Kilcullen and Exum or the Long War Journal.

But first, a word on our methodology. Our analysis of the drone campaign is based only on accounts from reliable media organizations with substantial reporting capabilities in Pakistan. We restricted our analysis to reports in the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, accounts by major news services and networks--the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, CNN, and the BBC--and reports in the leading English-language newspapers in Pakistan--The Daily Times, Dawn, and The News--as well as those from Geo TV, the largest independent Pakistani television network. (Links to all those individual reports can be found in Appendix 1 of this paper.)

The news organizations we relied upon collectively for our data cover the drone strikes as accurately and aggressively as possible. And though we don't pretend that our study is accurate down to the last civilian death in every drone strike, we posit that our research has generated some quite reliable data on the number of militant leaders killed, a fairly good estimate of the number of lower-level militants killed, and a reliable sense of the real civilian death rate.

Since 2006, our analysis indicates, 82 U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan have killed between 750 and 1,000 people. Among them were about 20 leaders of al Qaeda, the Taliban, and allied groups, all of whom have been killed since January 2008. (A list of their names, as well as links to stories about the drone strikes that targeted them, can be found in Appendix 1.)

It is not possible to differentiate precisely between militant and civilian casualties because the militants live among the population and don't wear uniforms, and because the militants have the incentive to claim that all the casualties were civilians, while government sources tend to claim the opposite. However, of those killed in drone attacks from 2006 through mid-October 2009, between 500 and 700 were described in reliable press reports as militants, or some 66 to 68 percent.

Based on our count of the estimated number of militants killed, the real total of civilian deaths since 2006 appears to be in the range of 250 to 320, or between 31 and 33 percent.

http://www.newamerica.net/publications/policy/revenge_drones

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Los Angeles Prepares for Clash Over Marijuana

 

By SOLOMON MOORE

 

LOS ANGELES — There are more marijuana stores here than public schools. Signs emblazoned with cannabis plants or green crosses sit next to dry cleaners, gas stations and restaurants.

A grower in a house in Berkeley, Calif., who said he could grow three crops a year, each worth about $40,000.

The dispensaries range from Hollywood-day-spa fabulous to shoddy-looking storefronts with hand-painted billboards. Absolute Herbal Pain Solutions, Grateful Meds, Farmacopeia Organica.

Cannabis advocates claim that more than 800 dispensaries have sprouted here since 2002; some law enforcement officials say it is closer to 1,000. Whatever the real number, everyone agrees it is too high.

And so this, too, is taken for granted: Crackdowns on cannabis clubs will soon come in this city, which has more dispensaries than any other.

For the first time, law enforcement officials in Los Angeles have vowed to prosecute medical marijuana dispensaries that turn a profit, with police officials saying they expect to conduct raids. Their efforts are widely seen as a campaign to sway the City Council into adopting strict regulations after two years of debate.

It appears to be working. Carmen A. Trutanich, the newly elected city attorney, recently persuaded the Council to put aside a proposed ordinance negotiated with medical marijuana supporters for one drafted by his office. The new proposal calls for dispensaries to have renewable permits, submit to criminal record checks, register the names of members with the police and operate on a nonprofit basis. If enacted, it is likely to result in the closing of hundreds of marijuana dispensaries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/us/18enforce.html?_r=3&partner=rss&emc=rss

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Breaking: Obama Admin. Announces New Marijuana Policy

by Adam Buchen

This is coming off the AP right now and is really good news...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration will not seek to arrest medical marijuana users and suppliers as long as they conform to state laws, under new policy guidelines to be sent to federal prosecutors Monday.

All I can say is: it's about time!

• Adam Buchen's diary

So as you probably know, a number of states have laws on the books allowing medical marijuana. However, the Federal DEA has ignored the state's wishes and there's been a general jurisdictional headache.

Attorney General Holder announced earlier this year that states' laws should be respected on this. But there hasn't been any formal policy change... until now!

Two Justice Department officials described the new policy to The Associated Press, saying prosecutors will be told it is not a good use of their time to arrest people who use or provide medical marijuana in strict compliance with state laws.

...

A 3-page memo spelling out the policy is expected to be sent Monday to federal prosecutors in the 14 states, and also to top officials at the FBI and the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The memo, the officials said, emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/18/794745/-Breaking:-Obama-Admin.-Announces-New-Marijuana-Policy

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Advocates Say Being a Woman Is Not a 'Pre-Existing Condition'

by Tresa Baldas

Is having a uterus a pre-existing condition?

The insurance companies seem to think so, says the National Women's Law Center, an advocacy group for women's legal rights that is on a mission to end unfair insurance company practices toward women. And it believes it's making some headway.

Over the weekend, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a new state law that bans gender rating, which is the practice of charging women higher insurance rates than men for the same services.

And on Thursday, Marcia Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, took the group's fight to Capitol Hill, testifying before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee about how insurance companies treat women unfairly and why any health care reform package must address this problem.

"Across health insurance markets, discriminatory industry practices put fair and affordable coverage out of reach for far too many women," Greenberger testified on Oct. 15. "We have heard repeatedly from predominately female businesses that have learned that their health insurance premiums are higher because of the gender of their employees."

The cornerstone of Greenberger's arguments is 2008 study in which her group looked at women's experiences in the health insurance market. It found:

• Women are charged as much as 48 percent more than men for health insurance.

• Of the more than 3,500 plans studied, 60 percent did not cover maternity care.

• Women are regularly denied coverage for "pre-existing conditions," which can include pregnancy or a previous C-section.

• In eight states and the District of Columbia, insurers are allowed to use a woman's status as a survivor of domestic violence to deny her health insurance.

Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group representing 1,300 plans, also testified at the Senate hearing. She conceded that the current system is flawed in addressing the coverage needs of women, but said that the industry is "strongly committed to meeting the health care needs of women" and wants to eliminate rating based on gender and health status.

"Our proposals directly confront the reality that the individual health insurance market…needs to be fundamentally overhauled," said Ignagni.

 

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202434670357

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Collider gearing up for bizarre test

by Dennis Overbye

More than a year after an explosion of sparks, soot and frigid helium shut it down, the world's biggest and most expensive physics experiment, known as the Large Hadron Collider, is poised to start up again. In December, if all goes well, protons will start smashing together in an underground racetrack outside Geneva in a search for forces and particles that reigned during the first trillionth of a second of the Big Bang.

Then it will be time to test one of the most bizarre and revolutionary theories in science. I'm not talking about extra dimensions of space-time, dark matter or even black holes that eat the Earth. No, I'm talking about the notion that the troubled collider is being sabotaged by its own future. A pair of otherwise distinguished physicists have suggested that the hypothesized Higgs boson, which physicists hope to produce with the collider, might be so abhorrent to nature that its creation would ripple backward through time and stop the collider before it could make one, like a time traveler who goes back in time to kill his grandfather.

Holger Bech Nielsen of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, and Masao Ninomiya of the Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics in Kyoto, Japan, put this idea forward in a series of papers with such titles as "Test of Effect From Future in Large Hadron Collider: a Proposal" and "Search for Future Influence From LHC," posted on the physics Web site arXiv.org in the last year and a half.

According to the so-called Standard Model that rules almost all physics, the Higgs is responsible for imbuing other elementary particles with mass.

"It must be our prediction that all Higgs-producing machines shall have bad luck," Nielsen said in an e-mail message. In an unpublished essay, Nielsen said of the theory, "Well, one could even almost say that we have a model for God." It is their guess, he went on, "that He rather hates Higgs particles, and attempts to avoid them."

This malign influence from the future, they argue, could explain why the U.S. Superconducting Supercollider, also designed to find the Higgs, was canceled in 1993 after billions of dollars had already been spent, an event so unlikely that Nielsen calls it an "anti-miracle."

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/10/18/BUHE1A4NJB.DTL&type=science#ixzz0UPzPV29d

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The missing...

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Gitmo High School

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The S-Word and Dr. Kevorkian's Accountant

by Greg Palast

Wendell Potter tells Greg Palast health insurers' dirty secret. (Photo: Fighting Bob Fest)

 Health care Rx from my socialist fire department.

    Tell me where it hurts, Mr. President.

    What's killing you, Barack, is what's killing us all: an evil germ called "Medical Loss Ratio."

    "Medical Loss Ratio" [MLR] is the fancy term used by health insurance companies for their slice, their take-out, their pound of flesh, their gross - very gross - profit.

    The "MLR" is the difference between what you pay an insurance company and what that insurer pays out to doctors, hospitals and pharmacists for your medical care.

    I've totted it up from the raw stats: The "MLR," insurance companies' margins, is about to top - holy mama! - a quarter trillion dollars a year. That's $2.7 trillion over the next decade.

    Until the 1990's, insurers skimmed only about a nickel on the dollar for their "service," Wendell Potter told me. Potter is the CIGNA insurance company PR man who came in from the cold to tell us about what goes down inside the health insurance gold mine. Today, Potter notes (and I've checked his accuracy), porky operators like AIG have kicked up their Loss Ratio by nearly 500 percent.

    The industries' slice is growing to nearly a quarter of your insurance bill. All of it just paperwork and profiteering.

    President Obama is never going to pull the insurance company piggies from a trough this big, especially when the industry has made room for Congressional snouts.

    So what's the Rx? Easy: Kill the pigs and call the fire department.

    The only solution to Loss Ratio piggery is to kill the pigs: eliminate health insurers from the health industry entirely.

    We can't cure our ills, as our president has attempted, by attacking the problem ass-backwards. No, Mr. Obama, we don't need HEALTH INSURANCE for everyone, we need HEALTH CARE for everyone. There's a giant difference. Instead of concentrating on PAYMENT, we need to focus solely on providing the health SERVICE.

    From my London days writing for The Guardian, I can tell you the British do NOT have national health insurance. They have a National Health Service.

   The government builds hospitals, hires doctors and, when you need the service, you just go and get it. It's kind of like the fire department. When your house is on fire, you don't call your fire insurance company, you call THE FIRE DEPARTMENT. We care first about the service, not the payment.

    The British government hires the doctors, like firemen, and Brits use them, like firemen, as they need them.

    It works. My mother-in-law, a nurse, on a visit to England, was stunned at the speed, quality and absence of mad paperwork to fix her broken arm.

    But, you might say, that's, that's SOCIALISM! Well, yes, it is. And I'm not afraid to use the S-word: Socialized Medicine. Just like America's Socialized Fire Departments. (Fun fact: socialized, i.e. publicly funded, fire departments were 'invented' by the revolutionary Ben Franklin.)

http://www.truthout.org/1015091

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Grayson calls on American public to ‘Unmask the Fed’

By Kathleen Miller

Florida Democrat U.S. Rep. Alan Grayson wants Americans to help him block Congress from confirming the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to his second term unless he hands over documents relating to the bailouts of financial institutions, including the rescue of Bear Stearns.

In the "Unmask the Fed" campaign, Grayson calls on constituents to sign petitions demanding that Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke "come clean" before senators re-confirm his appointment to the helm of the Federal Reserve.

Grayson wants access to the Bear Stearns rescue paperwork as well as the details of which financial institutions received $1.2 trillion in bailout money, how much each institution received, and what was promised in return.  He's also seeking Fed documents that discuss the Bank of America/Merrill Lynch merger, transcripts of Open Market Meeting minutes, and the terms and conditions of Fed transactions not reflected in balance sheets from the past three years.

"[T]he Senate should know who got the $2 trillion the Federal Reserve has lent out over the last two years," the petition reads.  "Only then will the Senate be able to judge whether he should keep his job."

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/grayson-calls-on-american-public-to-unmask-the-fed/

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The $800 Billion Deception

Conservatives claim the stimulus has already failed. But it has barely started.

By Daniel Gross

From the moment it passed, the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act—the stimulus bill—has been the subject of controversy. Many critics have deemed it a debacle, since unemployment has continued to rise in the months since its passage. The Republican Party declared the bill a failure over the summer, and House Minority Leader John Boehner recently deemed it a waste: "You can't spend $800 billion of taxpayer money and not create jobs when you say that's what the goal was." At a dinner several weeks ago, I heard a cable news reporter, one whose job is to report numbers accurately, declare that "we've already spent $800 billion and it was a waste." I suppose it's too much to ask political hacks and TV reporters to get the size and timing of the stimulus package right. But I expect better from my colleagues at the Washington Post editorial page, which on Sunday argued against further stimulus measures because they would add to the scary national debt and because "the government still hasn't run through half of the $787 billion in tax cuts and spending increases enacted this year."

Some things about the stimulus are indeed complicated. How precisely do you measure the number of jobs "saved" when the federal government cuts checks to states, thus allowing them to avoid budget cuts? But some things about the stimulus are quite simple, including its size and the amount of it that has been spent so far.

To begin with, the stimulus was $787 billion, not $800 billion. (Those of you who think there isn't much of a difference, please make out a check for the difference to Daniel M. Gross.) The more egregious error has to do with the timing. Many critics act as if the entire amount has already been spent. They're completely wrong. Even to argue that it's been half-spent, as the Post, does, is only half-right.

As was planned from the start, in fact, only a small portion of the $787 billion has been spent. The Council of Economic Advisers recently issued a comprehensive report on the impact of the stimulus. "As of the end of August, $151.4 billion of the original $787 billion has been outlaid or has gone to American taxpayers and businesses in the form of tax reductions," the CEA reports. That's 19 percent. If projections made for September expenditures are right, "between one-fifth and one-quarter of the total $787 billion" was spent by the beginning of October.

This is not surprising. The ARRA is divided into six different types of components, from tax cuts to infrastructure investments. Some can be done quickly (cutting and mailing tax rebate checks) while others (building bridges) take longer. "The areas where stimulus has been largest in the first six months are individual tax cuts, state fiscal relief, and aid to those most directly hurt by the recession," the CEA reported. Through the end of August, in fact, tax cuts accounted for $62.6 billion of expenditures, and government investment outlays accounted for only $16.5 billion.

In other words, nearly eight months after its passage, a large majority of the stimulus has yet to start impacting the economy—as was the plan.

http://www.slate.com/id/2232185/

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Testosterone drives men to buy fast cars

Testosterone is what drives men's desire to own fast cars, according to a study published in the journal Organizational Behaviour and Human Decision Processes.

Researchers at Concordia University's John Molson School of Business in Montreal took 39 willing young men and let them take a cruise in a $150,000 Porsche 911 Carrera Cabriolet.

The men were then asked to drive a 16-year-old Toyota Camry.

They drove each vehicle once on a busy street where they would be seen by women, and then again on a quiet road.

After one hour, the men's saliva was tested for testosterone.

The researchers found that in the sedan, the men's hormone levels remained low, but in the sports car, testosterone levels stayed high — with or without an audience.

"In other words, just put a guy in a Porsche, and his testosterone levels shoot up, whether people watch or not," said marketing professor Gad Saad, the study's lead researcher.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/10/14/study-testosterone-cars.html

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Speculated anatomy of a homie

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Reform-killing, Oligarchic Senate Still 'Treasonous' After All These Years

by Robert Becker

Where are gutsy muckrakers of yesteryear? In a stunning 1906 Cosmopolitan expose, journalist David Graham Phillips made history with his headline, "The Treason of the Senate." He then justified his condemnation of mercenary senators, then cherrypicked by states and owned by nefarious Trusts:

Treason is a strong word, but not too strong, rather too weak, to characterize the situation in which the Senate is the eager, resourceful, indefatigable agent of interests as hostile to the American people as any invading army could be.

By 1914, the 17th Amendment mandated senators be popularly elected but, judging by today's unevolved results, we have not yet salvaged one of the Founders' worst blunders. This American replica of the House of Lords, our least democratic, least representative organ, lives on, still the blockage after all these years.

You'd think franchising ex-slave descendants, non-land-owning men and wise women would save us? Yet our pretend elections, especially when counting votes tests southern I.Q.'s, only obscure contemporary 1906-style corruption. We pay senators from, say, Oklahoma as dumb as posts, as willfully ignorant about science and economics as history, hence easy pickings for modern "trusts" run by smarter executives. Beyond the energy, mining, banking and endless war cartels, robber barons of health will spend $400 million fighting reform just this year, on top of $50 million channeled to Senate Finance committee members. None dare call that treason, just good business.

This senate, literally "council of old men"

Modern misconduct invokes not just 1906 but Roman history and root meanings for "senate" - from the Latin, "senex," old man, as in senior, seniority, and senility. Toadying to tyrannical authority, and including only handpicked, aged patricians enlisted for life, early Roman senates did the bidding of kings. 2500 years later, our least enlightened senators honor this history, as feckless, impregnable lifers beholden to masters of the economic universe.

Until we reform the Senate, via election, outrage and amendment, forget strong systemic reform that reverses our hastening slide. Pogo aside, the enemy is "them" - "indefatigable," moneyed interests "hostile" to America's future. The log jam is not public opinion, the House, the White House, not deranged rightwingers gushing sound and fury - not even Senate Republican blowhards, despite bad faith fictions that poison debate. The current enemy, treasonous to good government and rationality, are Senate DINOs - Democrats In Name Only.

Just what our Bush-bludgeoned republic needs: mercenary, intellectually senile "councils of old men" who shudder at the tamest "public option" reforms - thus holding all hostage. That's only Democrats: throw in GOP primitives - Inhofe (OK), DeMint (SC), Burning (KY), Sessions (AL), Shelby (AL), and Cornyn (TX) - and voila! reactionary Lords who demagogue against heresies: a duly-elected, "colored" president, evolution, stem cell research, democratic health care, global warming, or negotiation with unconquerable foes.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/24361

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Morals Without God

by Frans de Waal

Without God, we will live like animals!

After listening to the debate between Bill O'Reilly and Richard Dawkins, it struck me again that the resistance to evolutionary theory largely stems from the illusion that without God there can be no morality. Some believers feel threatened by evolutionary theory not because the theory is right or wrong -- the evidence doesn't seem to matter much to them -- but because accepting it would mean accepting that we have been created by natural processes including our morality. The final part is what bothers them the most.

O'Reilly exclaimed that at least Jesus had "advanced the human condition in a moralistic way" and another believer, Reverend Al Sharpton, expressed the same sentiment in a 2007 debate in the New York Public Library:

"If there is no order to the universe, and therefore some being, some force that ordered it, then who determines what is right or wrong? There is nothing immoral if there's nothing in charge."

Similarly, I have heard people literally echo Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov, exclaiming that "If there is no God, I am free to rape my neighbor!"

Perhaps it is just me, but I'd be wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for a livable society, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked rules of right and wrong before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal?

Human morality must be quite a bit older than religion and civilization. It may, in fact, be older than humanity itself. Other primates live in highly structured social groups in which rules and inhibitions apply and mutual aid is a daily occurrence. Acts of genuine kindness do occur in animals as they do in humans. Altruistic behavior serves a cooperative group life, which benefits the actors of such behavior, yet the behavior is fueled by its own autonomous motivations, which vary from self-serving to other-regarding.

The animal kingdom offers so many examples that I surely cannot summarize them here (see my new book, The Age of Empathy), but the interesting part is not so much whether animals have empathy and compassion, but how it works.

In one experiment, we placed two capuchin monkeys side by side: separate, but in full view. One of them needed to barter with us with small plastic tokens. The critical test came when we offered a choice between two differently colored tokens with different meaning: one token was "selfish," the other "prosocial." If the bartering monkey picked the selfish token, it received a small piece of apple for returning it, but its partner got nothing. The prosocial token, on the other hand, rewarded both monkeys equally at the same time. The monkeys gradually began to prefer the prosocial token. The procedures were repeated many times with different pairs of monkeys and different sets of tokens, and the monkeys kept picking the prosocial option showing how much they care about each other's welfare.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/frans-de-waal/morals-without-god_b_316473.html

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The science of scams

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Why Your Idea to Save Journalism Won't Work (a checklist)

Oh, how I love fightorflight from Metafilter's checklist on why your plan to save journalism won't work. Top marks!

Your post advocates a

( ) technical ( ) legislative (X) market-based ( ) crowd-sourced

approach to saving journalism. Your idea will not work. Here is why it won't work. (One or more of the following may apply to your particular idea, and it may have other flaws owing to the avaraciousness of modern publishers.)

( ) It does not provide an income stream to the working journalist
( ) Nobody will spend eight hours sitting in a dull council meeting to do it
( ) No one will be able to find the guy
(X) It is defenseless against copy-and-paste
(X) It tries to prop up a fundamentally broken business model
(X) Users of the web will not put up with it
( ) Print readers will not put up with it
( ) Good journalists will not put up with it
( ) Requires too much cooperation from unwilling sources
( ) Requires immediate total cooperation from everybody at once
(X) Many publishers cannot afford to lose what little business they have left
( ) Anyone could anonymously destroy anyone else's career or business
( ) Even papers run by trusts and charities are already going bankrupt

Specifically, your plan fails to account for

(X) Readers' unwillingness to pay for just news
( ) The existence and popularity of the BBC
(X) Unavoidable availability of free alternatives
( ) Sources' proven unwillingness to "go direct"
( ) The difficulty of investigative journalism
( ) The massive tedium of investigative journalism
(X) The high cost of investigative journalism
( ) Unpopularity of weird new taxes
(X) Editorial departments small enough to be profitable are too small to do real reporting
( ) Legal liability of "citizen journalism"
( ) The training required to be even an rubbish journalist
(X) What readers want, in the main, is celebrity and football
( ) The necessity of the editing process
(X) Americans' huge distrust of professional journalism
( ) Reluctance of governments and corporations to be held to account by two guys with a blog
( ) Inability of two guys with a blog to demand anything
( ) How easy it is for subjects to manipulate two guys with no income
( ) Rupert Murdoch
( ) The inextricably local nature of much newsgathering
( ) The dependence of all other forms of news media on print reporting
( ) The dependence of national press on local press reporting
( ) Technically illiterate politicians
( ) The tragedy of the commons
( ) The classified-driven business model of much print publishing
(X) The tiny amounts of money to be made from online ads for small sites

Problem with your plan to save media: the checklist (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/15/why-your-idea-to-sav.html

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To prove Muslim ’spying,’ right-wing authors planted spy

By Daniel Tencer

The pre-eminent Muslim advocacy group in Washington, DC, has greeted four Republicans' accusations that it is trying to plant "spies" disguised as interns on Capitol Hill with outrage, derision and ridicule.

US House Reps. Paul Broun (R-GA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Sue Myrick (R-NC) and John Shadegg (R-AZ) announced Wednesday morning that they want the House's sergeant-at-arms to investigate claims made in a new book that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has a plan to infiltrate Congress with interns who would spy for the group.

CAIR says the evidence for the allegations made in the book is nothing more than documents showing the group is engaged in typical lobbying efforts in Congress. It also says the allegations made against them could be fuel for hate groups.

The Republican quartet's claims are based on a book published by the conservative news site WorldNetDaily, entitled Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That's Conspiring to Islamize America. The book was written by Paul Sperry and Dave Gaubatz. According to Politico, Gaubatz, an anti-Muslim activist, wrote last year that "a vote for Hussein Obama is a vote for Sharia law."

CAIR denounced Sperry and Gaubatz's claims as "racist" and "insidious," reports Politico, but the group's communications director, Ibrahim Hooper, took a sarcastic tone when responding to the allegations.

"We would love to help people find jobs on Capitol Hill," he said. "There's a Muslim Staffer Association. Should they be investigated?"

Who's spying now?

As WorldNetDaily described, to make its argument that CAIR is "infiltrating" Congress, the authors planted an infiltrator in CAIR -- specifically, Dave Gaubatz's son, Chris, who posed as "Dave Marshall," a "bearded Muslim convert," to land an internship at CAIR's Washington office.

It was that deception that seemed to raise the most outrage from CAIR's Hooper, who told TalkingPointsMemo's Justin Elliott that Gaubatz had taken numerous documents from the organization's offices.

"We treated him so well," an "angry" Hooper told TPM. "I jokingly offered to help him get married. ... They lied to us about their background. They falsely claimed to be Muslim. They would stand next to us and pray during prayers."

Hooper told TPM that Gaubatz's "evidence" amounts to little more than documents showing that CAIR engaged in standard lobbying efforts. "This guy spied on us for months, and the most they can come up with is that we're doing ordinary lobbying work on Capitol Hill?"

http://rawstory.com/2009/10/muslim-group-spies-congress/

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25 Awesome Dirty Car Window Drawings

These were all done by an artist named Scott Wade. The rest of his work can be seen here. Hey Scott, we wish our girlfriends were this dirty! Hi-Yo!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

http://www.holytaco.com/25-awesome-dirty-car-window-art

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The US Consumes 1500 Plastic Water Bottles Every Second, a fact by Watershed

by Petz Scholtus

MSLK, a New York based graphic design firm, uses art to raise awareness on the consumption of plastics. Their most recent project, Watershed, has been touring New York City during Climate Week and set the scene for benefit performances by Moby, Thom Yorke of Radiohead, and a speech by Kofi Annan during the world premiere of "The Age of Stupid". Guess what the 1500 plastic water bottles used to construct this eco-installation represent? (see video and more images below)

1500 is the number of plastic water bottles consumed in 1 second in the US!

Here a few more shocking statistics from MSLK's Watershed installation:

Out of the 50 billion bottles of water being bought each year, 80% end up in a landfill, even though recycling programs exist.

17 million barrels of oil are used in producing bottled water each year.

Bottled water costs 1,000 times more than tap water. Drinking 2 Litres of tap water a day only costs 50 cents per year.

Plastic leaches toxins into the water, which have been linked to health problems such as reproductive issues and cancer.

New York City tap water surpasses all federal and state health standards.

Most people agree that getting rid of plastic water bottles by switching to tap water instead has a huge impact on the environment as well as our wallet, and is also much more practical. To put a stop to our habits of careless over-consumption requires individual action, which is why the graphic design studio MSLK uses art to create awareness.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/watershed-art-installation.php

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