January 2008 archive

Via PrgrsvArchitect on a comment over in a DailyKos Open Thread, here:

Just out from the Center for Public Integrity

http://www.publicintegrity.org/…

President George W. Bush and seven of his administration’s top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made at least 935 false statements in the two years following September 11, 2001, about the national security threat posed by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Nearly five years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, an exhaustive examination of the record shows that the statements were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and these three key officials, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, stated unequivocally that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (or was trying to produce or obtain them), links to Al Qaeda, or both. This concerted effort was the underpinning of the Bush administration’s case for war.

President Bush, for example, made 231 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

Heh. Right from the horses ass mouth primary oratory orifice.

The 911 truth set is up in arms about youtube’s new beta and digital rights management.  Digital Rights Management means you have no rights and what you are allowed to see is managed.  Not “censored” mind you it’s managed.  C.R.A.P is an apt name for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…

They are advising people so inclined to archive 911 “news” footage for close analysis hoping we can beat the snot out of media with their own footage later.

“Controversial” stuff gets snuffed off the internet all the time.

In light of this primary I would suggest the same technique but I fear the inevitable.

Remember when AOL and myspace were “cool” new places on this new internet thing.  Note the vacuous plastic face they present today, ever trying to monopolize by institutionalizing their software around their site exclusive of all else.  Trying to make two-way communication back into one-way.

Smurf Control is what we call this.

http://www.businessweek.com/20…

It categorizes sites and puts them into the most Orwellian sounding classes.  It is really blatant and offensive as censorship goes.  Propagandamatrix is classified as “intolerance and hate”.  I stopped access at work during lunch when my faves started coming up as “weapons”,  yup that is correct, weapons.

Even Google is becoming non-descript.  Gone are the pages upon pages of rants about the Satan inside concepts of digital rights management.  Well it was several years ago, did bitching only delay it.

Vista, a bloated piece of crap only usable with ten gigabytes of memory wants the computer to totally personalize itself to me.  Ha, no thanks I can wait a little on the SWAT team and the black helicopters.

Microshaft+Longhorn

And what does one get?  Certainly not the page after page of YOU ORWELLIAN SATANISTS that appeared four years ago.  No instead Microshaft has once again applied predatory business practices by institutionalizing them across the entire IT spectrum.

Hey, maybe with all the breadlines internet access will soon be long gone anyway.  HR 1955 and S 1959, mine and my wife’s birth years….See ya’ll at the FEMA/Wackenhut/CCA “re-education” centers!

     A great big Hollywood-style, cleavage-flashing welcome, Pony Party People, from both me and my very newest BFF, the legendary Miss Carmen Electra (save the snide remarks, okay? Without her there’s not going to be a whole lot of cleavage going on, so just be nice, you hear?). Tonight’s very special pre-Valentine’s Day edition of the Pony Party is brought to you by Carmen’s latest venture, the “Electra-Pole Professional Pole Kit,” which combines just two of her many talents — dancer and an “expert in seduction” – in one exciting product!  

    Right about now, you’re probably wondering, “Just how exciting is it?” Well, according to the press release:

“It’s the first professional dance pole designed for use in the home.”

    Pretty great, huh? In fact, they could stop the sales pitch right there, if you ask me, right after the words “professional dance pole.” Because here’s something we can probably all agree on – those amateur poles are just not happening. And now, thankfully, those days are over!  

    So far, so good. But wait … there’s more! Just in case you’re not convinced yet, the British distributor, Peekaboo Palace, has come up with the Five Big Reasons to Buy.  

1.   “Ready to unleash your inner sexiness?”   (Oh, hell, yeah — who isn’t?)

2.   “Perform any kind of move, like spins and flips and even inverts.”  (Excellent, I been waiting to cross those off the To Do list.)

3.  It “goes up and down” in a mere five minutes.  (A personal favorite — no more time wasted on account of pesky set-up problems with those amateur poles.)

4.    Perfect for experts and beginners, too, the Electra-Pole will have you “dancing and spinning around with more basic moves as you find your pole dancing feet.” (Feet? Pole dancing is about feet? Okay, if you say so.)

5.    “It will help you get the body of your dreams today!” (First thought – somebody’s been hitting the hyperbole bottle pretty hard. But who knows? Maybe it really depends on what body you’re dreaming about.)  

Some news other than the markets collapsing.

1. According to The Great Beyond, a blog at Nature, there could be a Climate change trade war brewing.

   Europe and the US could be headed for a trade war over climate change.

   In a speech yesterday José Barroso, president of the European Commission, said he would be ready to force companies outside the EU to buy carbon allowances to ensure that companies inside were not disadvantaged by Europe’s tougher emissions targets (speech).

   While this apparently went down well with the audience (of European businessmen) it hasn’t gone down so well with America.

   Reuters highlights that US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said that an earlier version of the EU plans seemed to be an excuse to close the European market and amounted to something like protectionism. More worryingly, the notes for speech delivered by Schwab last week contains the statement, “The unilateral imposition of restrictions can lead to retaliation, and dramatically impact economic growth and markets worldwide – while accomplishing nothing or worse when it comes to advancing environmental objectives.”

2. The Christian Science Monitor reports Wind, solar tax credits to expire. “After years of start-and-stop growth, wind-and solar- power industries soared in 2007, thanks to three consecutive years of tax credits that provided a critical lift for both sectors. But whether the fledgling industries can fly without tax credits, due to expire at the end of this year, is a question being debated on Capitol Hill this week.”

   Nearly one-third of all US power capacity added last year – about 5,244 megawatts – was in wind. Overall wind-generating capacity soared 45 percent last year, adding the clean-energy equivalent of 10 large coal-fired power plants, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported last week.

   Wind power injected $9 billion into the US economy and now employs 20,000 people directly, the industry says. Plans for at least eight new US wind-power manufacturing plants employing 5,000 workers were announced last year, AWEA officials say…

   Together, today’s tax breaks for wind and solar cost taxpayers a little more than $1 billion annually.

   I think this has been a good investment for America and should be continued.

Four at Four continues below the fold with a story about the Canadian border and the death of thousands of Inuit sled dogs.

IWW Demonstraters at NYC Starbucks (NY TimesPhoto)

The NY Times has the story:

The dramatic battles of the American labor movement were often fought in hazardous settings like the coal fields of Kentucky or the textile mills of Massachusetts.

/snip

And so it was that a crowd of about 50 people wrapped in scarves and bandannas against the cold gathered Monday morning outside a Starbucks at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 33rd Street.

As their breath steamed the air, they chanted and sang. They carried long banners bearing the logo of the Industrial Workers of the World, a union founded in 1905 that has been trying to organize Starbucks workers since 2004.

Red and black anarchist flags waved in the wind, and one woman held aloft a placard depicting a pouncing black cat toppling what appeared to be a venti latte cup emblazoned with a dollar sign.

Typical New York Times.  The labor struggle is supposed to be stuck in the 19th century and resemble Matewan or Hazard or Lawrence.  Give me a break.   This is 2008 and it’s time to organize and unionize the global latte retailer.  And don’t remind me, please, that the Wobblies have been trying to organize Starbucks in NYC since 2004 and haven’t succeeded yet.  Please.  Enough is enough.  It’s time.

Folks, can we help the Wobblies organize Starbucks?  Of course we can.  You’re smart.  You drink coffee.  You probably use their bathrooms and their hot spots.  And you know it’s the right thing to do to help a union organize this industry.  Let’s put our heads together and find ways to help.  Put your ideas in the comments.

Of course, one of the things we might do immediately is stop swilling Starbucks in solidarity until they recognize this union.  There are still plenty of non-globalized caffeine emporiums (emporia?) in Gotham and elsewhere in the world where we can download caffeine.  These coffee purveyors have resisted the uniformity and standardized high priced Starbucks invasion.  Instead of Starbucks we can go instead coffee places that are fair trade, organic, locally owned, non Global.  Wouldn’t that be better?  Wouldn’t we feel better about that?  Wouldn’t we be able to snear at Starbucks consumers for being tools of oppression? Scabs? And so not hip?

I’m sure there are other things we can do.  And folks like me, who are on a de facto Starbucks boycott already and have been for some time, probably need to do something to make our feelings felt.  That’s what the comments are for: ideas to support this strike.

Organize Starbucks Already!  Basta Ya!

Updated (5:24 pm ET): I put this up at orange.  Some of the comments are astonishingly anti union.  This is a surprise and a disappointment to me.  To me, it’s an article of faith and reason that organized workers are in a much better position than unorganized workers.  I thought that was beyond debate, but apparently, it’s not.  Even on allegedly progressive/democratic blogs.  For shame.