May 2010 archive

In the spirit of Counry Joe & the Fish’s late 1960s rendition of “Fixin’ to Die Rag”, the following video will first invite laughter, followed by the inevitable, but disconcerting question, “Why does this all sound so familiar?”

The person posting this video provides some helpful clarification which is hopefully still accurate, reassuring us that Tastykakes and Little Debbie products are made in the U.S. and contain no harmful ingredients.

The poster also listed the following ten REAL reasons to avoid products made in China (good luck with meeting that resolution):

1. Products made with hazardous materials

2. Lack of quality control, monitoring, and safety regulations, plus corruption

3. Tainted food, deadly drugs, adulterated products

4. High levels of antibiotics and toxins in seafood

5. Exploitation of the Chinese workforce and use of child labor

6. Predatory pricing and unethical business practices

7. Massive industrialization at the expense of the environment

8. Deforestation and mining has destroyed the water supply in Asia

9. Chinese military manufactured goods

10. Manufacturing in forced (laogai) labor camps and prisons

The question we must also ask is, “How many of the above ten reasons apply to the United States as well?”  

We had a interesting debate Friday night over Arizona’s right to enact laws as a matter of a State’s Right to autonomy on WWL Radio. My esteemed partner and I saw it very differently.

As a matter of distrusting my own choice of words, when the semantic point came up that the idea of “Federalism” meaning FOR State’s rights, I chose to wander over and pick up my copy of “The Federalist Papers” off our library shelf. I also googled and skimmed “The Anti-Federalist Papers” which were published at the time to make the case against a strong centralized government and arguing against ratifying the Constitution. It was the Anti-Federalists who made the Bill of Rights being the first act of Congress an absolute guarantee. Jefferson was a strong Federalist in believing that the Separation of Powers would ensure a Central Government that would create safeguards against the Federal Government becoming an entity with enough power to become abusive to individual State’s or Citizen’s welfare.

The Federalist Party; thereafter was a product of pro-banking, pro-business who wanted a fiscally stable strong central government. Hamilton’s centralized banking economic policies were opposed by Jefferson – the arguments were essentially elitism versus populism; but culminated moreso in the only Federalist President, John Adam’s creation of a tax subsidized standing military (Navy) and the creation of the “Alien and Sedition Act” …the very first shot in the effort to create a Unitary Executive. However Jefferson also penned the Ky & VA resolution, which supported State’s Rights should the Federal Government overstep its bounds. A sticky wicket this term.

So, consider my usage of the term “Federalist” in description of my views for this debate only, as the Jeffersonian argument for a Central Government, and as the opposing view of the “Anti-Federalist” State’s Autonomy arguers of that era. I am comfortable in my use of this term under this intended usage. I am not employing all of the nuances of Federalist’s platforms or views in this debate, rather using the most simplistic of usages.

Ok, that said, let us move on to the legalities and ethical questions surrounding these points of views in this present era.

Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery is fresh evidence that the leak from the broken undersea well could be substantially worse than estimates that the government and BP have given.

“There’s a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to what you see in the surface water,” said Samantha Joye, a researcher at the University of Georgia who is involved in one of the first scientific missions to gather details about what is happening in the gulf. “There’s a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column.”

The plumes are depleting the oxygen dissolved in the gulf, worrying scientists, who fear that the oxygen level could eventually fall so low as to kill off much of the sea life near the plumes.

Read the whole thing at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05…

According to the AP:

Researchers Vernon Asper and Arne Dierks said in Web posts that the plumes were “perhaps due to the deep injection of dispersants which BP has stated that they are conducting.”

Meanwhile, BP began spraying undersea dispersants at that leak site and said the chemicals appear to have reduced the amount of surface oil.

This unprecedented use of chemical dispersants underwater, and the depth of the leak has created many unknowns regarding environmental impact, and researchers hurriedly worked to chart its effects.

Federal regulators on Friday approved the underwater use of the chemicals, which act like a detergent to break the oil into small globules and allow it to disperse more quickly into the water or air before it comes ashore.

The decision by the Environmental Protection Agency angered state officials and fishermen, who complained that regulators ignored their concerns about the effects on the environment and fish.

“The EPA is conducting a giant experiment with our most productive fisheries by approving the use of these powerful chemicals on a massive, unprecedented scale,” John Williams, executive director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, said in a news release

Of course, this has not been reported at our government’s and BP’s disinformational website : deepwaterhorizonresponse.com  .  

What a surprise.

The following is from a post I made at zcommunications’s Chomsky forum, outlining program ideas for an internet-based media replacement that bypasses corporate and government influenced gatekeepers.  I currently don’t support creating the following, as a Day 1 media bypass implementation, unless big $$ appear, first. Instead, as a Day 1 media bypass implementation, I recommend just creating new “uncommercials”, which replace the standard commercials. Later, when the new system takes off and there is a significant revenue stream, it can be funneled into creating democracy-friendly, cutting edge content, of the sort that I indicate after the flip.

Oh, no you don’t!

You’re not doing that!

Not-In-My-Back-Yard!!!  

This is perhaps one of the most natural of human reactions.

Sludge plant? I might poop but don’t put that upwind of me.

Oil Refinery? I’ll drive as much as I want but don’t let that cancer-causing behemoth ruin my view or threaten my kids’ health.

Prison? Put the bums away, far away from me.

Not-In-My-Back-Yard!!!

Natural and understandable doesn’t make NIMBYism right or correct.