September 25, 2003
Russian economy growing rapidly.
Reuters
reports in the
Moscow Times that Russia's economy is expected grow at a rate exceeding 6% in the first nine months of 2003. Which is even more impressive than it sounds, since that's over the 2002 rate, which itself was quite good.
The nation's gross domestic product is expected to rise 6.3 percent in the first nine months of the year compared with a 4.0 percent increase in the same period of 2002, the Economic Development and Trade Ministry said Wednesday.
The ministry, which targets economic growth of 5.9 percent for the full year 2003, said Tuesday that the economy had risen by 6.6 percent in the first eight months of the year.
The economy powered ahead 7.0 percent in the first half of the year thanks to booming oil exports, mounting investment amid record low interest rates and robust domestic demand.
The ministry has said growth is likely to slow down to about 5 percent in the second half after global prices for crude ease, while higher growth rates seen in the second half of 2002 make year-on-year comparisons less impressive.
The ministry also said in an economic outlook released on its official web site, www.economy.gov.ru, that it had revised upward its forecast of industrial output growth to 6.4 percent this year from a previous estimate of 5.9 percent.
UK and US discussing reestablising death penalty in Iraq.
Guardian article.
The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is discussing with the US authorities the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, according Ann Clywd, the Labour MP who is Britain's human rights envoy to Iraq.
She said that such a step would be seen by the world as an act of revenge on Iraq.
... Many Iraqis would love to see the death penalty restored for sabotage, as well as for leaders of the former Ba'athist regime. At the UN the world community is still discussing to what extent the Iraqi people should be freed to draw up their constitution themselves, irrespective of what the UN wants.
I'm sure there are also many Iraqis who are quite opposed to reestablishing it. The desire for revenge may be strong, but generally those who have experienced a great deal of death and suffering want to see it end. And exactly who gave the UN authority to decide the future of Iraq? If the folks at the UN really want to promote democracy in Iraq, or anywhere else for that matter, they could and should begin by calling for elections of their own ranks.
27 Israeli pilots refuse to bomb civilians.
This story will certainly be widely covered. Here's the
Scotsman's story.
IN THE first mass refusal to obey orders in the Israeli air force, 27 pilots have signed a letter saying they will no longer conduct combat operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
In the letter, submitted to the air force commander, Dan Halutz, the signatories wrote that they oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"We veteran and active pilots, who have served and continue to serve the state of Israel, oppose carrying out illegal and immoral orders to attack of the kind which Israel carries out in the territories," the pilots wrote.
This is good. Peace there cannot come from "road maps" and other proposals from outside the area. But only when the people there get so sick and tired of fighting that they simply lay down their arms and refuse to participate any more. This goes for both sides.
Scotsman wins best daily news site award.
Speaking of
The Scotsman, they just won an award for best daily news site in the UK. For the second year running.
I just love their site. Lots of in-depth reporting and objective coverage of major issues, international and local, as well as always interesting
features on various topics. Their news is also available in both RSS and Javascript feeds. Best of all, they don't appear to put older articles behind a money wall.
Their
Lazy Guide to Net Culture is always fun. As is their ongoing series on
Edinburgh's sex industry.
I like the Scottish perspective. They have a bit of skepticism towards London and the US that is refreshing. Sometimes it's a bit provincial, but actually that's one of the charms of the web. Along with everything else they have numerous links to various
web cams around Scotland. So if you have nothing better to do, you can sit and watch
Loch Ness for appearances of Nessie. I don't know of any other major news site that includes web cams with their coverage.
No WMDs found in Iraq.
The team of inspectors that has been scouring Iraq for any evidence of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) is prepared to announce that they haven't found anything whatsoever. This story will be all over the web. These quotes are from an
article in the Scotsman.
THE team of 1,400 weapons inspectors which has been scouring Iraq for the past four months is set to admit that it has failed to find any weapons of mass destruction, a leaked report has revealed.
The Iraq survey group, comprising top scientists from the UK, Australia and the United States, will next month present an interim report saying their only hard find was traces of uranium shells which could well date back to the last Gulf war in 1991.
While they will stress that their hunt is not yet over, their failure so far will be a devastating blow to Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, who has staked his credibility on his "certain belief" that they would find evidence to back up his controversial dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
David Kay, the CIA adviser leading the weapons inspection team, has prepared an interim report which will show the results of the computer files, documents and soil samples his team has examined since entering Iraq in May.
Although they have searched suspect sites listed in Mr Blair’s dossier, they have found no traces of chemical or biological weapons - however small. Nor have they found apparatus which could have been used to launch such weapons.
Tony Blair is in very serious trouble. Mr. Bush may just find himself quite alone fairly soon.
If people are in fact interested in finding evidence of illegal WMDs they might just want to check the US and the UK, both of which have enormous amounts of them. And many in direct violation of numerous international agreements that they have signed which specifically prohibit them. These include nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, as well as systems capable of deploying these anywhere in the world. In fact, within the 45 minute window that Mr. Blair so prominently claimed the Iraqis were capable of. But I guess the rule is that white nations are more "civilized" and so can be trusted with them. But non-white nations are "savage" and so can't be trusted. Curious.
Dr. Edward Said has died.
NY Times article. Dr. Said was a prominent Islamic scholar, possibly the most well-known one in the world. I won't be crying any tears for him. He was a long-time supporter of Palestinian terrorism, and for many years, a strong supporter of Yasser Arafat. And he hated Jews with a passion, and supported the use of violence against them.
From 1977 to 1991, he was as an unaffiliated member of the Palestine National Conference, a parliament-in-exile. Most of the conference's members belong to one or another of the main Palestinian organizations, most importantly the Palestine Liberation Organization led by Yasir Arafat, but some were members of smaller organizations believed responsible for terrorist operations against Israelis and Americans, such as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
"The situation of the Palestinian is that of a victim," Mr. Said told Dinitia Smith in New York magazine in 1989, making the kind of statement that put him at the center of the roiling debate about the Middle East.
"They're the dispossessed, and what they do by way of violence and terrorism is understandable," he said. " But what the Israelis do, in killing Palestinians on a much larger scale, is a continuation of the horrific and unjust dispossession of the Palestinian people."
He added: "'I totally repudiate terrorism in all its forms. Not just Palestinian terrorism — I'm also against Israeli terrorism, the bombing of refugee camps."
... Mr. Said, while opposing the American-led Persian Gulf War in 1991, called the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein "an appalling and dreadful despot," and he made similar statements at times about the Syrian president Hafez al-Assad. But Mr. Said was throughout his long career far more critical of the West and of Israel and their attitudes and practices in the Arab world than he was of the Arabs or their leaders.
While Israel and its supporters saw the crux of the Middle East conflict as the Arabs' unwillingness to accept the existence of Israel and the constant Arabic threat to Israeli security, Mr. Said saw matters in terms of Zionist atrocity and Palestinian victimhood.
"In sheer numerical terms, in brute numbers of bodies and property destroyed, there is absolutely nothing to compare between what Zionism has done to Palestinians and what, in retaliation, Palestinians have done to Zionists," he wrote in "The Question of Palestine" (1979).
Mr. Said was a widely recognized figure in New York, a frequent participant in debates on the Middle East, and an outspoken advocate of a Palestinian homeland. For many years he was an ardent supporter of Mr. Arafat, whom he called "the leader of a genuinely national and popular movement, with a clearly legitimate goal of self-determination for his people."
It's a very long article, which amounts to a good overview of the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I won't say that he was an entirely evil person. For one thing, he at least realized that the two-state notion was unworkable, and was able to claim that the Palestinians and Israelis could live together in peace. But he used his position as a prominent scholar, probably the most famous Muslim academic in the world, to repeatedly attack the Israelis. I'm not claiming that the Israelis are entirely without blame, they certainly bear at least 1-2% of responsiblity for the troubles. But he genuinely hated Jews and in doing so helped to prolong the conflict.
But Mr. Said became a bitter critic of Mr. Arafat after the 1993 Oslo accords between Israel and the P.L.O., believing that the agreement gave the Palestinians too little territory and too little control over it.
In the years after Oslo, he argued that separate Palestinian and Jewish states would always be unworkable and, while he recognized that emotions on both sides were against it, he advocated a single binational state as the best ultimate solution.
"I see no other way than to begin now to speak about sharing the land that has thrust us together, and sharing it in a truly democratic way, with equal rights for each citizen," he wrote in a 1999 essay in The New York Times. "There can be no reconciliation unless both peoples, two communities of suffering, resolve that their existence is a secular fact, and that it has to be dealt with as such."
Among the criticisms leveled against Mr. Said by Jews and others was his failure to condemn specific acts of terrorism by Palestinian groups, including some that served alongside him on the Palestine National Council.
One such person, for example, was Abu Abbas, a member of the P.L.O. executive committee who is believed responsible for the hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro and the murder of a wheelchair-bound American passenger, Leon Klinghoffer.
In his interview with New York, Mr. Said called Abu Abbas "a degenerate," but he then argued that important Israeli leaders, like former prime ministers Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir, had been terrorists responsible for the killing of women and children.
To continue to claim that the Palestinians are victims is absurd. It takes two to tangle. The historical facts are that the Palestinians began this war by attacking Jews. And as a scholar it was his duty to acknowledge and publicize that. It's too bad, because at one point he was a somewhat competent scholar. His best known work, Orientalism, is an excellent overview of the distorted views Euro-Americans have of mideast and other cultures, and especially of how these views have developed over time. He should have stuck to scholarship.
Feds making California's pollution worse.
In
an article on the nomination of former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as the EPA's next administrator that, after years of improvement, LA's ozone problem is getting worse again. And that it's because of federal efforts, led by the EPA, to take away Californians' right to protect their own environment.
California's clean-air efforts, after years of hard-won progress, are faltering. It had been six years since ozone — an invisible gas and the main ingredient in smog — blanketed the Greater Los Angeles area as insidiously as it did this summer.
As you read this, however, President Bush's Environmental Protection Agency is aggressively trying to undermine California standards that might restore progress against those clouds of damaging smog. The EPA has called, for example, for eliminating California's unique ability under the federal Clean Air Act to set emissions standards higher than those of other states. Late last month, Justice Department officials sided with oil companies and engine manufacturers in a Supreme Court case challenging Southern California smog rules that require cleaner-running school buses, trash trucks, airport shuttles and taxis, street sweepers and utility trucks.
That's why the seemingly dry and political struggle going on in the Senate over whether to confirm former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt as the EPA's next administrator should matter to all Californians. Like former EPA Administrator Christie Whitman, who resigned four months ago, Leavitt is considered a moderate. So far, senators have unfortunately let Leavitt dodge questions about the administration's decisions to relax air pollution standards for aging coal-fired power plants, its orders to slow down Superfund toxic site cleanups and reversal of the president's campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions.
Beyond the environmental concerns, it doesn't make any economic sense. Pollution costs taxpayers billions of dollars a year in extra health costs, clean up costs, and many other ways. Virtually any measures that reduce pollution and to clean up the environment improve the economy. Those who claim otherwise simply either don't know the facts or are lying.
Iraq body count.
Via
Baghdad Burning I found a link to a site,
Iraq Body Count, that is attempting to keep track of the dead and wounded there. Lots of useful information there.
Extraction of media-reported civilian injuries from the Iraq Body Count database and archive of war reports provides evidence of at least 20,000 civilian injuries on top of the maximum reported 7798 deaths. 8,000 of these injuries were in the Baghdad area alone, suggesting that the full, countrywide picture, as with deaths, is yet to emerge.
The Iraq Body Count Project has never published a running total of injuries suffered in the war because injuries encompass a scale from the grievous and incapacitating to the light and fully recuperable, and in the absence of information about severity it makes no sense to assign the same unit value to each report of injury. But because injuries are not all comparable does not mean that they can or should be excluded from an accounting of the human costs of the war. On the contrary, the need to investigate and assess them is especially urgent, for many of the injured may still be suffering and their condition may be improved if we act promptly.
The protagonists of the war have repeatedly claimed an inability to provide accurate estimates of civilian deaths. Insofar as some casualties may have been burned beyond recognition, pulverised into dust or buried quickly according to Islamic custom and never officially recorded, there is indeed a possibility that not every death can be accounted for. Injuries are another matter. The injured are alive, perhaps receiving treatment, and the cause, nature and extent of their injuries will appear in medical, official, and informal records.
What follows is Iraq Body Count (IBC)’s attempt to provide an overview of the scale of the problem that needs to be tackled more directly by those who have the means to do so. First we analyse what the IBC data-base can tell us about civilian injuries in Iraq, and include various accounts of injuries suffered during the course of the war to illustrate our general conclusions. We then discuss the potential costs of compensation, and argue that the occupying powers have a moral and humanitarian imperative to meet those costs. It is our hope that they do not entirely lack the will to do so – or if they do, that their citizenry will help them to find it.
As of today civilian deaths are estimated to be between 7,346 and 9,146. It's hard to get accurate figures. In any case, it's certainly much more than the 3,000 or so that died on 9/11. How much revenge do the American people need? Or is it only American children that matter?
UNICEF has recently reported that more than 1,000 children have been injured by unexploded ordnance since the end of the war, including by cluster bombs (and now unguarded) Iraqi munitions, and emphasized that “the coalition forces have a clear obligation under humanitarian law to remove these dangers from communities.”
What are these "coalition" forces? There's no "coalition". That's just a propaganda term. It's American forces doing virtually all of it. American tax dollars at work.
LA Times reviews debate, concludes the recall lost.
The LA Times reviews the California recall debate,
Sacramento Windstorm, and comes to the conclusion that none of the candidates are acceptable.
The televised five-candidate show in Sacramento Wednesday night fell somewhere between a World Wrestling Federation event and a pie fight. Moderator Stan Statham of the California Broadcasters Assn. needed a whistle and a striped shirt. It's a shame that the probing questions that a real debate would have offered were nowhere to be found. Not one word was uttered about the structural reforms necessary to right the state economically and politically.
The loss was often the candidates'. Arnold Schwarzenegger, by participating only in this debate, needed to come across as knowledgeable about state problems — particularly the budget quandary — and offer a specific program of action. He didn't do so; this was partly his failure and partly the fault of the freewheeling nature of the 90-minute discussion. It was difficult to declare winners or losers as candidates tossed barbs at their foes, talked — or yelled — over each other, engaged in generalities and sought to win favor with rehearsed laugh lines.
... Davis was absent, both physically and in the candidates' answers. Considering the low quality of the information the event provided to voters, he should be happy about it. Nothing happened Wednesday night to give Californians reason to replace Davis. A "no" vote on the recall looks better every second.
September 24, 2003
GIs in Iraq becoming frantic.
Via
Common Dreams and the
Madison Capital Times is an extraordinary
letter from an American servicewoman serving in Iraq. She does not paint a pleasant picture.
Here's the entire letter, which deserves to be read by every American. (Emphasis mine.)
I am a National Guardsman of the 105th Personnel Services Detachment out of Lincoln, Neb. My unit and I are stationed in Kuwait at Camp Wolf. We were deployed Feb. 2. We arrived in Jordan in April and half of us were moved a week later to Kuwait to throw mail.
When our unit came back together in June we had an order to go home but it was revoked and we ended up replacing an active Army unit. When replacing the active unit we were told our date to go home was Dec. 1.
We now hear that we will be here for a full year. We are under 3rd Personnel Command. They say that when they decide who stays and who goes, it's not by how long soldiers have been deployed, just by unit necessity.
My unit processes incoming soldiers and helps soldiers redeploy for theater. We are doing a great job and are working hard to treat each soldier with care and consideration as they come past our desks. They have spread our 44 soldiers out to replace an active unit that had over 50 and to replace a National Guard unit that had over 60 soldiers. Not only are we running 24-hour operations seven days a week for these two units, but we have four of our soldiers on the redeployment side working validation for another unit! We are spread so thin and are working so hard that these knocks on our morale are devastating.
Yes, we are physically able to finish our mission, but mentally and spiritually we are dying.
If retention for the Army National Guard is of any importance, current members need to have faith in our government and our leaders. Right now, where we are, we can't see anyone taking a stand for the soldiers (as it isn't just us being treated this way but many, many soldiers).
This isn't a simple board game of Axis and Allies, this is a game people are playing with real people - people with families, not robots. You have college students out here (like me) missing over a year of college to sit and get yanked around without explanation. It has been told to the officers I have spoken to that 3rd PERSCOM refers to moving soldiers as "drug deals." You do this for me and I'll make sure your soldiers go home, etc.
Yes, without a doubt my duty is to serve my country despite her faults. I have learned I will not be able to get education and training services while I am here and I am accepting that. I am here to serve out of obligation and duty. What I'm wondering is if there are any checks and balances for those who are making decisions here?
Everyone keeps saying it is up in the air, including the personnel responsible for deciding who is going where. It feels as if every decision is off the cuff. In this situation there should be plans in place and decisions made before the rubber hits the road.
We are slowly becoming frantic. I hear people saying they are going to begin hurting themselves or others if they can't go home. The helplessness our soldiers are feeling is indescribable, it is past the point of "suck it up and drive on." We just want somewhere to drive on to.
Thank you for allowing me to bend your ear.
Sgt. Leanne Duffy is from Superior, Neb.
Note that she is part of the National Guard, not the regular army. National Guard troops are not supposed to be serving for a year in such conditions, but merely to act as support. At least they didn't used to be. There was an article in the NY Times recently stating that the bad economy was helping the army recruitment efforts, but the fact that the National Guard is being used in this was certainly indicates a tremendous lack of organization and planning. And does not bode well for the future.
I hope she's only there for a year. Shouldn't be that much longer since Bush is definitely a lame duck, one-term president, who won't be in office in fifteen months.
US leader in world arms sales.
The
NY Times reports that the US remains the number one arms dealer in the world, especially in the sales of arms to what they call developing nations.
The United States maintained its dominance in the international arms market last year, especially in sales to developing nations, according to a new Congressional report.
The United States was the leader in total worldwide sales in 2002, with about $13.3 billion, or 45.5 percent of global conventional weapons deals, a rise from $12.1 billion in 2001. Of that, $8.6 billion was to developing nations, or about 48.6 percent of conventional arms deals concluded with developing nations last year, according to the report.
Russia was second in sales to the developing world last year, with $5 billion, followed by France with $1 billion.
Hopefully none of these will ever be used against Americans, but I wouldn't hold my breath. There is some good news however. It would seem that overall arms sales worldwide are declining, not increasing.
"Many developing nations have curtailed their expenditures on weaponry primarily due to their limited financial resources," Mr. Grimmett wrote in the report. "To meet their military requirements, in current circumstances, a number of developing nations have placed a greater emphasis on upgrading existing weapons systems while deferring purchases of new and costlier ones."
Total arms transfer agreements reached nearly $29.2 billion in 2002, a decrease from 2001 and the second year in a row that total arms sales dropped, according to the study.
Ban on ads showing euro and dollar having sex.
Via
Ananova is an absolutely hysterical
article reporting that Russian authorities have banned an ad depicting the euro and dollar having sex. Go there to see the ad. I'm not sure which is more ridiculous, the ad itself, or the authorities banning it.
The campaign, by the Russian Finance magazine, was judged immoral by the Moscow Committee for advertising and information, reports Izvestia.
Ananova is a general purpose web magazine from the UK, with an especially interesting
quirky section.
Iraqi woman comments on the selling of Iraq.
The latest from
Baghdad Burning, the excellent blog written by a woman in Baghdad, addresses the wholesale sale of Iraq to foreign (read US) interests.
For Sale: A fertile, wealthy country with a population of around 25 million… plus around 150,000 foreign troops, and a handful of puppets. Conditions of sale: should be either an American or British corporation (forget it if you’re French)… preferably affiliated with Halliburton. Please contact one of the members of the Governing Council in Baghdad, Iraq for more information.
To hear of the first of the economic reforms announced by Kamil Al-Gaylani, the new Iraqi Finance Minister, you’d think Iraq was a Utopia and the economy was perfect only lacking in… foreign investment. As the BBC so wonderfully summarized it: the sale of all state industries except for oil and other natural resources. Basically, that means the privatization of water, electricity, communications, transportation, health… The BBC calls it a ‘surprise’… why were we not surprised?
After all, the Puppets have been bought- why not buy the stage too? Iraq is being sold- piece by piece. People are outraged. The companies are going to start buying chunks of Iraq. Or, rather, they’re going to start buying the chunks the Governing Council and CPA don’t reward to the ‘Supporters of Freedom’.
The irony of the situation is that the oil industry, the one industry that is *not* going to be sold out, is actually being run by foreigners anyway.
She makes many good points. One issue however that isn't normally addressed about this is that it indicates that Euro-American (I don't like 'western') interests are deliberately trying to keep non-white nations from developing the ability to do large-scale projects. They talk about how they would like to see these nations develop modern, industrial capabilities, but they really don't. They don't want global competition on any front. And they particularly don't want it to be known that other people could do projects for a small fraction of what they charge.
This would also extend to the pretended worries about WMDs. It's not the ability to manufacture WMDs that worries them. It's the possession of the underlying scientific knowledge they're trying to suppress. For instance, any nation with a first-rate university, and first-rate chemistry and biology departments, could easily create chemical and biological weapons. They're really not all that complicated. (I mean, McVeigh blew up the building in Oklahoma using common fertilizer.) But they want to keep everyone stupid.
The same reason they're trying to destroy the American educational system. It's not about money. It's that an uneducated populace is easier to control. And it's very, very deliberate.
Michael Moore attacks his critics.
Michael Moore, creator of the anti-gun movie, Bowling for Columbine, has decided to directly confront what he calls the 'wacko' attacks on him. So he wrote a lengthy
article, published on his web site, responding to the many accusations. An example:
I have mostly ignored this silliness. But a few weeks ago, this lunatic crap hit the mainstream fan. CNN actually put some guy on a show saying that my film contains "so many falsehoods, one after the other, after the other, after the other." They introduced him as a "critic" and "research director" of the "Independence Institute." He seemed mighty impressive.
Except they failed to tell their viewers who he really was: a contributing editor of Gun Week Magazine.
CNN saw no need to inform the viewers that their "expert"-- who has made a career out of opposing any form of gun control–has a vested interest in convincing the public that "Bowling for Columbine" is a horribly rotten movie.
(Are there still people who take CNN seriously, or consider it to be anything even vaguely resembling a professional news operation? Hard to believe, but I guess suckers are born every minute. They're straight out propaganda at this point. Perhaps not as amateurish and shoddy as Fox News, but not even coming remotely close to meeting professional standards. And haven't been since Time-Warner bought them.)
Here's a
link to the advertisement offering a free gun to anyone who opened a bank account. True story. And some more comments by Mr. Moore.
I can guarantee to you, without equivocation, that every fact in my movie is true. Three teams of fact-checkers and two groups of lawyers went through it with a fine tooth comb to make sure that every statement of fact is indeed an indisputable fact. Trust me, no film company would ever release a film like this without putting it through the most vigorous vetting process possible. The sheer power and threat of the NRA is reason enough to strike fear in any movie studio or theater chain. The NRA will go after you without mercy if they think there's half a chance of destroying you. That's why we don't have better gun laws in this country – every member of Congress is scared to death of them.
Well, guess what. Total number of lawsuits to date against me or my film by the NRA? NONE. That's right, zero. And don't forget for a second that if they could have shut this film down on a technicality they would have. But they didn't and they can't – because the film is factually solid and above reproach. In fact, we have not been sued by any individual or group over the statements made in "Bowling for Columbine?" Why is that? Because everything we say is true – and the things that are our opinion, we say so and leave it up to the viewer to decide if our point of view is correct or not for each of them.
So, faced with a thoroughly truthful and honest film, those who object to the film's political points are left with the choice of debating us on the issues in the film – or resorting to character assassination. They have chosen the latter. What a sad place to be.
The point about attacking characters rather than the facts is especially telling. There's all too much of that these days. On all sides of the political spectrum. But iin its way it's useful. You can always tell that when someone can't defend an argument or accusation by the fact that they attack the person rather than the argument. It's a dead giveaway.
This was via
Kuro5hin.org, which has further comments and discussions on it, and which provide a useful perspective. Mr. Moore does tend to engage in some hyperbole. And he too can be a bit of a "wacko", for instance, in announcing his support for warmonger Wesley Clark, a man who has spent his life surrounded by and learning to use weapons to destroy people. But at least he's trying.
Court blocks anti-telemarketing bill.
Reuters
reports that, at the last minute, a federal court has blocked enforcement of the anti-telemarketing bill, which would have allowed people to stop unsolicited calls to them.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal court has blocked the national "do not call" list that would have allowed consumers to stop most unwanted telephone sales, one week before the much-anticipated measure was due to take effect.
The U.S. District Court in Oklahoma City said the Federal Trade Commission overstepped its authority when it set up the popular anti-telemarketing measure, according to a court decision filed late on Tuesday.
I wonder if the (corporate-controlled) courts will also block recent legislation banning spam under some dubious free-speech provision. I think they might have to since the same principles applying to spam would also seem to apply to traditional junk mail, and in fact, all advertising in public spaces.
Kazaa sues record companies.
AP
reports that the Kazaa file-sharing service is suing the big record companies for using unauthorized copies of its software to search for so-called copyright violators. What an interesting twist. It's not clear if the suit includes the RIAA or not. Hopefully it does since they're acting as a front for the corporates.
Turning the tables on record labels, makers of the most popular file-sharing network are suing entertainment companies for copyright infringement.
Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to snoop out users.
Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users."
September 23, 2003
Spam to and from California to end Jan 2004.
California Governor Gray Davis today signed into law a bill that prohibits spam both to and from California as of the new year. Amazing. Articles from the
LA Times and
NY Times. And apparently they're serious about enforcing it.
But at a news conference today, Kathleen Hamilton, the director of California Department of Consumer Affairs, promised that the state was ready to enforce the new law when it takes effect on Jan. 1.
``There will be a focus to make sure that once this law is in effect that advertisers abide by it so consumers and businesses are free from unsolicited spam,'' she said.
This should have ramifications far beyond California. For one thing it's the spammer's responsibility to make sure the recipient doesn't live in California, not the other way around, so they'll at least have to go through their lists and make sure. And another is that many of these so-called businesses are centered in California, so at the very least they'll have to move.
This is great. We may actually get our computers back. I must confess. At first I thought the California recall was a huge joke, but they sure to seem to be churning out the legislation here lately. Some of it may be ill-considered, or sloppy or such. But damn, for once the politicians are really getting off their duffs. Nothing anywhere could ever restore my faith in so-called American democracy, but it's rather interesting. Naturally the real test is in the enforcement. There are tons of great laws on the books, both in California and the US. The problem isn't the lack of legislation, but the lack of enforcement.
Now how about some limits on how many TV commercials can be shown in any given time period? I'm really getting fed up at this. It's killing TV.
Virtual corporate slavery spreading.
Via
Common Dreams, is an article
The Price of Dignity by Anita Roddick detailing the accelerating spread of virtual slavery around the world. I'm a little skeptical of blaming it entirely on China, but that does seem to be the fastest growing area at the moment.
Multinational companies sourcing production in China are having an enormous impact on the global economy, lowering wages and rolling back labor rights. Workers in China assembling healthcare products for companies such as Viva and Sport-Elec are being forced to work 16 hours a day, seven days a week (with just 12 days off a year) for 16 cents an hour. There is no overtime premium. The workers have no health insurance and no pensions. If they try to organize, they will be fired, perhaps even beaten and imprisoned.
It does not have to be like this. But what happens when workers dare to stand up to ask that their basic rights be respected? When young women in Bangladesh, being paid just five cents for every $17.99 Disney shirt they sewed, asked for one day a week off, the Walt Disney Company responded by pulling its work from the factory. These women needed these jobs, but they also wanted to be treated as human beings. The message Disney is delivering to workers across the developing world is that if you dare to raise your voice, you too will be fired and thrown out on the street with nothing.
One thing is certain in the new global economy: workers struggling for their rights cannot succeed if there is not also simultaneous pressure on the corporations in their marketplaces. I am not talking about a boycott. It must be the very opposite: what is needed are campaigns to keep jobs in the developing world while at the same time working to guarantee respect for worker rights.
This is where the consumer comes in. We in the developed world hold the key to ending child labor and sweatshop abuses. If enough of us care, and if enough of us act, the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
While "evil" corporations certainly share a lot of the responsibility, I can't help but feel that American workers and labor unions could be doing a hell of a lot more to organize and fight this. But instead they just want to portray workers in other countries as the enemy, and focus on their own immediate short-term interests. Not just cutting their own throat but that of everybody else's as well. Sad. Ms. Roddick doesn't even mention American unions, but toes the "blame-the-corporate-for-everything" line that so many progressives and liberals use today to avoid accepting responsibility for their mistakes.
One interesting thing the article shows is that jobs are moving from countries such as Mexico to even poorer countries. That should put paid to the notion that NAFTA is to blame for the loss of jobs, since there is no NAFTA with these other countries. But it's a convenient political buzzword in the US, so I guess they'll continue to use it. But repealing won't bring a single job back to the US. Not one. It'll just drive them even further away.
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