Lovely online Advent calendar.

Via Rebecca's Pocket is this wonderful online Advent calendar. 25 fun filled days of surprises. Interesting and very well done. Every day is something different. I particularly like the coloring-book like day 2.






A proper suit.

Via the ever interesting caterina.net is a delightful blog, English Cut, by Thomas Mahon, a "bespoke savile row tailor, london." Everything you ever wanted to know about a proper suit. Quite fascinating.

He makes what they call "bespoke" suits, which are evidently the top of the line. Here he explains what that is.


In case you're wondering, these start at around $4000. Since that's probably a bit too much for most of us, he also kindly tells here all about the various types of suits, from ready-to-wear up to bespoke. Every man should read this. I've never seen it laid out so comprehensively.

All in all a most interesting and classy site. After reading about Iraq, especially about the savagery of the British over there (we wouldn't want the Americans to get all the credit), it's nice to be reminded that there are still civilized people out there. Somewhere. Or if not civilized, at least properly dressed. That may be all we can hope for at this point.






Happy May Day.

Thought May Day would be a good time to get back into blogging a bit. Haven't been doing it since I've been moving again, from Oregon back to Southern California, and find it hard to blog when I'm on the road. Unlike some other folks.

If you're interested in the roots of May Day, and some other nice links, you might try this link at the always interesting Wood s Lot. Some stuff about Mother Jones and other community oriented people.






Historical female pirates.

Via the excellent Kalilily Time is this fascinating page of Historical female pirates. Some fascinating true stories as well as reviews of some notable fictional ones. Some ladies you really, really don't want to mess with. Elaine of Kalily explains.


Further browsing finds a Pirate Web Ring. I guess all of these pirate links stem from the utterly absurd Talk Like A Pirate Day, which I hope is followed by a Get A Life day. Or at least a Get A Boat day. I remember I really wanted to be a pirate when I was a little kid. I think it was my favorite Halloween costume. I've mostly outgrown it, I would hope, although I have to admit that there are quite a few people in this world that I would just love to see walk the plank.






French turn Seine into beach

Guardian article. For the second summer, part of Paris normally reserved for cars has been covered with sand and turned into a "beach."


What a great idea. If this idea catches on there could be beaches everywhere.



Back in business

Sorry I've been offline the last couple of weeks. Have been moving into a new office, as well as transferring my sites to a new internet provider. And rearranging them some as I do it.

There's still much to do, but it's getting there. Blogging should resume on a regular basis now.






Immigrants indignant over patronizing treatment.

A personal account published in the SF Gate, tells of the increasingly humiliating treatment of immigrants attempting to become American citizens. It was occasioned by his experiences on the day he became a citizen.


And this in San Francisco, a city that supposedly prides itself on its internationalist flavor. And in California, a state where whites are now the minority. You'd expect at least a little sensitivity. And no matter how bad things are, no matter how much of a threat there is from so-called terrorism, no matter what, there's always room for common courtesy. America is about treating everyone with respect.

  permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, June 22, 2003 at 06:14 PM

Corporate sponsorship of schools growing.

Via Booknotes. The Washington Post reports, Today's Lesson, Sponsored By..., on the increasing amount of corporate sponsorship of schools, and even worse, the increasing amount of school time spent doing corporate marketing.

This year, 5,200 schools competed in the SweetTart contest. Submissions included a SweetTart mosaic of Mona Lisa and a life-size, three-dimensional car called the Sweetmobile that was covered in thousands of pieces of the pastel candy. The grand winner went to a Boston school for its staircase mural, with replicas of famous paintings by Monet, van Gogh and Dali, each incorporating the candy in some way ... In addition to the contest, Dunkin' Donuts provides an eight-page activity guide and doughnut coupons for students who consistently complete their homework. The coupons are good for two donuts -- one for the student, another for the "helper," usually the parent.

"Doughnuts are not the major focus of the program, but just a small part, a little sweet addition to doing something," McCullogh said.

Oscar Mayer spokeswoman Sarah Delea said the company decided to offer its "School House Jam" contest after concluding that music education is often underfunded. "Everybody loves the jingle so we saw a lot of synergy," she said.

The company teamed up with the National Association of Music Educators. Mike Blakeslee, the group's deputy executive director, said the program was a "real white hat issue."

While they may promote a product, the "jingles are valid music," Blakeslee said. They provide a point of departure for learning music. "You can talk about structure, pitch, rhythmic value," Blakeslee said. And for younger kids, he said, there is value in performing -- being on a stage and learning patience and teamwork.

As far as the claim goes that they are helping "cash-strapped" schools, the only reason schools are short of cash is corporate corruption and greed. This country's rolling in money, like none in history, so the claim that schools, or any other area, are short can only be due to mismanagement and screwed-up priorities, not the lack of cash.

  permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, June 22, 2003 at 01:18 PM

No "international" democracy means no "international" law.

The efforts to regulate mines and such are admirable, but the fact is it's doomed to fail since there really are no international laws at all.

Since there is no democratically elected international body with the power to legislate any so-called "international" laws, no democratically elected executive or police organization with the power to enforce such laws, and no democratically elected international judiciary to adjucate charges and claims, for all intents and purposes there really is no "international law."

It's a myth propagated by the so-called "great powers" and global corporations who want everybody to think that there already are rules and laws regulating their activities, so that they won't take the measures necessary to establish same. It's a hype. Whatever "laws" there are, are all made by appointed people operating entirely without any popular or regulated oversight.

This applies to virtually all international organizations, beginning with the UN and G8 of course, and extending to the International Court of Justice, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, the WHO, TRIPS and other copyright and patent groups, and so on.

They are all operating without any established, legitimate authority, and without any clearly established legal processes and procedures. No one's really in charge, no one really has any authority to deal with problems. It's all based on the notion of voluntary compliance by each country, providing they find it convenient to do so.

Nowhere is this lack more urgent than in the environment. The fish stocks, and the oceans themselves, are going to die unless we establish an international body with the power to protect them. And one armed with the power to arrest individuals and corporations, along with the power to tax in order to finance their activities. And PDQ, I'd say.

Money laundering for terrorists, drug dealers, arms merchants and so is another area that very desperately needs international regulation. Also PDQ, I think. See this article in the Observer, Drowning in a sea of dirty money, about the inability of local police to cope with the crimes of international syndicates.

Nobody wants an all-powerful world government, me included. But the only alternative is to allow the most powerful and wealthiest international groups, ie the corporations, to set their own rules and regulate themselves. The unelected IMF, WTO and World Bank are basically operating as an unelected world government, and in doing so causing an enormous amount of damage.

  permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, June 22, 2003 at 11:36 AM

June 17, 2003

Second installment in J.K. Rowling's story.

The Scotsman is running a three part series about the famed Harry Potter author. It's all rather amazing.

Rowling showed she shared the pluck of Harry Potter when she disagreed with Steven Spielberg, who took an interest in directing the film. The director of ET and Raiders of the Lost Ark wished to merge the plots of the first two books and cast Haley Joel Osment, the American child actor who starred in The Sixth Sense as Harry Potter. Rowling insisted each film tackle one book and that Harry had to be British. Spielberg walked away.

... There are now only four days to endure before the publication of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Rowling can gaze with considerable pride on what her work has achieved. In just six years more than 160 million Harry Potter books have been sold in more than 100 countries, both films have achieved box office records and a Harry Potter duvet set brought a little financial light to a despondent Marks & Spencer. Harry Potter licensing deals have been struck with the biggest companies in the world, with Coca-Cola bidding £65 million for the rights. Next week Rowling will become the first artist since Madonna to participate in a live-webcast at the Albert Hall, at which 4,000 children have the chance to ask her questions as Stephen Fry tries to contain them. Even Prince Charles has swooned in her presence, commenting: "I©–m staggered that someone can write so beautifully."

Her story also says an awful lot about the economics of the book publishing industry these days. All by herself, she has made more money than the entire Amazon.com corporation. Something to think about.

  permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, June 17, 2003 at 09:27 AM

June 09, 2003

"After dark it becomes a fast shade of worse."

Via Booknotes. The Observer publishes an account of daily life in Baghdad by Euan Ferguson. Not entirely anti-American though, the Iraqis are all definitely glad Saddam's gone, but wonder why after two months the Americans can't get the power on. A must read I guess, but quite depressing.

Kareem is terribly keen, though, not to blame the Americans. Not to blame them too much, anyway. 'You must remember how much we hated Saddam, how happy we are that he is gone. Saddam not only damaged us physically, but he damaged the ... the grain of ourselves. So much that was good and beautiful about the Iraqi people. There was no culture, no teaching, and he turned humans into animals, which is what you see in the streets of Baghdad. This is not true Iraqi people . These are people made mad by Saddam.'

... And you realise, belatedly, just what a cultural as well as physical effect sanctions brought to Iraq: not one single English-language book came into the country after 1992. The national literacy rate was 89 per cent in 1985; by 2000 it was down to 58 per cent. This is a theme I am going to hear repeated in the café, often: they talk not about 'before the war' or even 'before Saddam', but about 'before sanctions'.

... Baghdad has turned into Afghanistan faster than Afghanistan. As I write this, the UN weapons inspectors are going back in to see whether the looting of the city's main nuclear power station has given Baghdad a radioactive water supply. Could this really imaginably be, in the minds of those who went to war for even the best intentions, the preferred legacy? A land where all the children smell of petrol? A land fit only for flies?

He describes a visit to a mental hospital, and the sight of men dressed in rags and covered with flies. It sounds horrendous, but reminds me of the description in the NY Times I read quite a while ago of the conditions of mental patients there. Same thing, rags and flies. As he says here, it opened up "a whole new perspective on just how tissue-thin is, and probably always has been, our claim to civilisation."

  permalink, posted by mike on Monday, June 9, 2003 at 05:00 PM

June 06, 2003

Duped and Betrayed.

In a NY Times op-ed piece, Paul Krugman reflects on the deceptions involved in the recent tax cut bill. Says "a golden age of tax evasion" is coming. Nice way to put it.

According to The New Republic, Senator Zell Miller Ð one of a dwindling band of Democrats who still think they can make deals with the Bush administration and its allies Ð got shafted in the recent tax bill. He supported the bill in part because it contained his personal contribution: a measure requiring chief executives to take personal responsibility for corporate tax declarations. But when the bill emerged from conference, his measure had been stripped out.

Will "moderates" Ð the people formerly known as "conservatives" Ð ever learn? Today's "conservatives" Ð the people formerly known as the "radical right" Ð don't think of a deal as a deal; they think of it as an opportunity to pull yet another bait and switch.

Let's look at the betrayals involved in this latest tax cut.

Most media attention has focused on the child tax credit that wasn't. As in 2001, the administration softened the profile of a tax cut mainly aimed at the wealthy by including a credit for families with children. But at the last minute, a change in wording deprived 12 million children of some or all of that tax credit. "There are a lot of things that are more important than that," declared Tom DeLay, the House majority leader. (Maybe he was thinking of the "Hummer deduction," which stayed in the bill: business owners may now deduct up to $100,000 for the cost of a vehicle, as long as it weighs at least 6,000 pounds.)

Less attention has been paid to fine print that reveals the supposed rationale for the dividend tax cut as a smoke screen. The problem, we were told, is that profits are taxed twice: once when they are earned, a second time when they are paid out as dividends. But as any tax expert will tell you, the corporate tax law is full of loopholes; many profitable corporations pay little or no taxes.

The original Bush plan ensured that dividends from such companies would not get a tax break. But those safeguards vanished from the final bill: dividends will get special treatment regardless of how much tax is paid by the company that issues them.

I think there's a silver lining in this, and one thing the radicals are forgetting: people will only continue to support the US government as long as it does something for them. If it's just a corporate tool, they why bother?

  permalink, posted by mike on Friday, June 6, 2003 at 08:55 AM

June 05, 2003

The Day of the Jackals.

Via AlterNet.org, first published in The Socialist Worker. The inimitable Arundhati Roy speaks on what she calls the most cowardly war ever fought. Another must-read from her. Also check out this other speech she recently gave in New York. She's very eloquent, and doesn't allow her anger to cause her to lose perspective, as so many others do.

Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris and Euphrates. How many children, in how many classrooms, over how many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on the wings of these words?

And now the bombs have fallen, incinerating and humiliating that ancient civilization. On the steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers scrawled colorful messages in childish handwriting: For Saddam, from the Fat Boy Posse.

A building went down. A marketplace. A home. A girl who loved a boy. A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's marbles.

On March 21 -- the day after American and British troops began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq -- an "embedded" CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in there and get my nose dirty," Private A.J. said. "I wanna take revenge for 9/11."

To be fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded" he did sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that linked the Iraqi government to the September 11, 2001, attacks. Private A.J. stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the end of his chin. "Yeah, well that stuff's way over my head," he said.

One point though, about where she talks about Mesopatamia, etc, and in how many classrooms it has been mentioned and taught. Yes, but not in American classrooms. At least not any more. So in defense of these, as she points out, not very well educated American soldiers, no they don't appreciate the history there. Why should they? How could they? No one's ever taught it to them. They don't show documentaries about Babylonian civilization on American TV, they show Survivor and American Idol. They might have heard the words once or twice but that's it.

There's no world history, no global geography taught in most American schools these days. Blame their officers and the politicians, for sure, but the grunts there are as much victims as anybody else. It's not their fault. Most of them are there because it's the only kind of job they could get. "Childish handwriting," she says. She's right, because they're the product of American education. They don't have the historical or political knowledge and background necessary to evaluate the truth, so they believe what they're told.

And it's deliberate too. That's why they're shutting down the schools. It's not lack of money. They have tons of money. No, they need and want an ignorant populace. Much easier to manipulate and control

  permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, June 5, 2003 at 10:22 AM

May 30, 2003

Is There Anything Left That Matters?

Benedictine Sister Of Erie Joan Chittister, OSB, wants to know. A sobering reflection. Well, Sister, there is at least one thing left that matters, and that's people like you. :) Lots of them in fact. As Ted Turner says down below, "This isn't over."

  permalink, posted by mike on Friday, May 30, 2003 at 03:04 PM

May 27, 2003

Update on Russian oil and oil pipelines.

The Moscow Times on the latest developments in the Russian oil industry, A National Energy Plan Fit for Caligula. What a title.

Last week, the government approved its national energy strategy up to 2020. That is a long way off, and the government heaved a sigh of relief as it resolved that oil production by 2020 would rise to between 480 million and 520 million tons. However, had the government focused on issues closer to home such as its energy strategy between now and next year's presidential election, the picture would not have been quite so unclouded.

Let's take, for example, oil pipelines -- an important element of the energy strategy. The country's pipelines are on their last legs. If new ones aren't built, we won't have much to export oil through. The authorities, however, won't allow the construction of privately owned pipelines for fear of losing a lever of control over Russian oil companies.

What really struck me though were these final paragraphs, making comparisons to Caligula, and pointing out that bribes are generating more income than the oil industry. Ha.

"Let them hate us, so long as they fear us," was a favorite saying of emperor Caligula's. "Let them go under, so long as they are dependent" -- that's what the state's energy strategy amounts to.

Which national energy plan prevails will determine the main areas of growth in the economy between now and 2020: Will it be oil production (which last year was 380 million tons) or the market for bribes, which experts at the INDEM think tank estimate at $38 billion per year?

  permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, May 27, 2003 at 02:49 PM

May 26, 2003

Thanks for the memories.

Bob Hope's 100th birthday is Wednesday, May 29th. The LA Times begins the celebration with an affectionate memoir, It's Been a Century of Hope and Laughter, by Larry Gelbart, one of his former writers.

A Hope writer, admittedly well paid, was correspondingly well worked. His staff of six cobbled together his weekly radio program (39 a year), his television "specials" (one every couple months or so), material for his personal appearances (numerous enough to splinter an abacus) and "punched up" two or three of his movie scripts every year, inserting enough jokes to sink the Bismarck (and occasionally the movie).

But, by God, you learned to turn the stuff out Ð thousands of one- liners, some witty, some only half so; a monologue here, some dialogue there; guest spots, sketches, blackouts, rewrites Ð working in tony suites at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome or in tinny Quonset huts in Nome. All the while, sharing the company of probably the most delightful man I've ever known.

Equally entertaining off-mike or off-camera, frequently even more so, Hope enjoyed making his writers laugh. Their approval meant a good deal to him.

  permalink, posted by mike on Monday, May 26, 2003 at 01:14 PM

US preparing to overthrow the Iranian government.

The Washington Post reports that the US is taking moves to begin destablilizing the Iranian government.

The Bush administration, alarmed by intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda operatives in Iran had a role in the May 12 suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia, has suspended once-promising contacts with Iran and appears ready to embrace an aggressive policy of trying to destabilize the Iranian government, administration officials said.

Senior Bush administration officials will meet Tuesday at the White House to discuss the evolving strategy toward the Islamic republic, with Pentagon officials pressing hard for public and private actions that they believe could lead to the toppling of the government through a popular uprising, officials said.

The State Department, which had encouraged some form of engagement with the Iranians, appears inclined to accept such a policy, especially if Iran does not take any visible steps to deal with the suspected al Qaeda operatives before Tuesday, officials said. But State Department officials are concerned that the level of popular discontent there is much lower than Pentagon officials believe, leading to the possibility that U.S. efforts could ultimately discredit reformers in Iran.

In any case, the Saudi Arabia bombings have ended the tentative signs of engagement between Iran and the United States that had emerged during the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is also an article in the Scotsman on the same issue.They also discuss the conflict between the reformist and conservative factions there, and how American intransigence is hurting the efforts of the reformers. It's always useful to get a foreign perspective on American actions.

The American argument is that Iran is supporting, or at least tolerating, Al Qaeda forces. In fact, they're not just claiming it, they're stating it as a fact, with the same certainty with which they claimed Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Seems to me that this is just another attempt to divert attention from the real problems. Go to war in Iraq to distract attention from the failures to capture Osama and the problems in Afghanistan, then go to war in Iran to distract attention from the failures to capture Saddam and the problems in Iraq. And after Iran, I suppose Korea is next, or maybe Syria. All of course, to distract attention from the growing domestic problems inside the US. What's next, declare Howard Dean to be a terrorist and attack Vermont?

More: Bob Harris over at This Modern World gives a nice roundup of various articles on this subject. (Picked up from Craig over at Booknotes, who says it's his birthday. Happy Birthday, and keep up the good work.)

  permalink, posted by mike on Monday, May 26, 2003 at 11:57 AM

May 25, 2003

Power, Ever More Power.

The LA Times has a surprisingly frank description of the Bush administration's efforts to destroy civil liberties. When the corporate media are using phrases such as "creepy" and "these proposals are assaults on the Constitution", you know we're in serious trouble. (Bold emphasis in these quotes is mine.)

When it passed the USA Patriot Act in October 2001, giving law enforcement agents sweeping new powers, Congress unleashed a spying free-for-all that shows no sign of abating. Pentagon analysts are even trying to figure out if they can nab terrorists by watching how people walk Ð "gait recognition," it's called.

Now pushing for even broader authority, the Bush administration's operating principle seems to be if a lot of power is good, a lot more would be better.

Here is what's on the table now:

¤  "Patriot Act II," a hush-hush draft that would give the Justice Department more power to snoop and more leverage over suspects. This measure, formally known as the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, seeks to free the FBI from requirements that it get a judge's OK before prying into a person's phone, bank or credit records. It would expand government power to make secret arrests, like those of hundreds of people, mostly Middle Eastern nationals, after Sept. 11, 2001. The Justice Department largely refused to reveal the identities of those suspects, where they were detained or the reasons for their arrest. The draft measure would also allow the attorney general to strip Americans of their citizenship in some cases for donating to what they may have thought were legitimate nonprofit groups. Although the measure doesn't officially exist, a copy was leaked this year. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft has declined to brief Congress on his proposals.

¤  The CIA and the military are asking for authority to peruse phone records, credit card records and e-mail logs of people in the U.S. These agencies can ask the FBI for much of this, but the Bush administration believes that giving the CIA and the Pentagon direct authority would be more efficient. It would also mark an unprecedented expansion in the mission of the CIA and the military. Senate Democrats struck this program from a larger bill but it probably will return.

¤  The Defense Department wants permission from Congress to use a new high-powered computer system, costing billions to create, to paw through the private records of millions of Americans in search of patterns that might Ð might Ð lead to a terrorist. The architects of this creepy Terrorism Information Awareness initiative (previously Total Information Awareness) want access to health-care files, rental car receipts, employment and school records, credit histories, e-mail traffic and more.

Set against the broad Patriot Act powers already in place and the administration's continued refusal to release the House-Senate investigation into the 2001 terrorist attacks, these proposals are assaults on the Constitution. Americans understand the need to temporarily relinquish some liberties in light of terrorist threats. But so far, neither the president nor Ashcroft has identified what specific intelligence weak spots remain and why the prosecutorial tools they have aren't enough. Until Congress hears compelling arguments, its answer should be no.

And the NY Times is running an article, Buoyed by Resurgence, G.O.P. Strives for an Era of Dominance, on Republican plans to subvert American democracy and make this a one-party state controlled by them. They're not even trying to hide it any more. It's become a naked battle for power, with not even lip service being paid to respecting the rights of the minorities.

Republicans already hold the White House, expect to continue to control the House of Representatives and have a majority in the Senate. For the first time in 50 years, a majority of state legislators are Republicans. Almost as many Americans (30 percent) call themselves Republicans as call themselves Democrats (32 percent), the narrowest gap since pollsters began measuring party identification in the 1940's.

Note that even though they represent only 30 percent of the people, less than one-third, they feel they have the right to control everything and everyone. Also note that 30 percent Republicans and 32 percent Democrats adds up to 62 percent. Meaning there are substantially more Americans (38 percent) who do not belong to either party, but who apparently don't count at all. Are we going to stand by and let 30 percent of the people in this country establish a dictatorship?

Personally, I think there's an excellent chance that they may lose both Congress and the White House, and most of the states for that matter. They're making enemies all over the world every day. Everybody I know totally despises these people. And they have another year and a half of wars, recessions, school closings and such to come. At the current rate of change, there could be 80-100 million people without health care by then. Or close to it. It's already over 60 million, and increasing at over a million a month.

I think the Republicans are getting way ahead of themselves. They may get a sweep. On the other hand, their arrogance could be the Democrat's biggest asset. This could be the greatest Democratic sweep since FDR threw out the Republicans in 1932, at the depth of the Depression. It seems to me, with people like the LA Times and Warren Buffet against them, it's wide open at this point. But we shall see. It sure is going to be an interesting campaign year. A violent one too, I fear.

"Every action has an equal and opposite reaction." -- Isaac Newton, the laws of energy.

  permalink, posted by mike on Sunday, May 25, 2003 at 04:32 PM

May 22, 2003

"The Truth Will Emerge".

Senator Robert Byrd, apparently one of the few in Congress willing to challenge the Bush administration, offers an eloquent post-mortem of the invasion of Iraq. He doesn't mince words.

Truth has a way of asserting itself despite all attempts to obscure it. Distortion only serves to derail it for a time. No matter to what lengths we humans may go to obfuscate facts or delude our fellows, truth has a way of squeezing out through the cracks, eventually.

But the danger is that at some point it may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor.

...

As so many warned this Administration before it launched its misguided war on Iraq, there is evidence that our crack down in Iraq is likely to convince 1,000 new Bin Ladens to plan other horrors of the type we have seen in the past several days. Instead of damaging the terrorists, we have given them new fuel for their fury. We did not complete our mission in Afghanistan because we were so eager to attack Iraq. Now it appears that Al Queda is back with a vengeance. We have returned to orange alert in the U.S., and we may well have destabilized the Mideast region, a region we have never fully understood. We have alienated friends around the globe with our dissembling and our haughty insistence on punishing former friends who may not see things quite our way.

...

Indeed, we may have sparked a new international arms race as countries move ahead to develop WMD as a last ditch attempt to ward off a possible preemptive strike from a newly belligerent U.S. which claims the right to hit where it wants. In fact, there is little to constrain this President. Congress, in what will go down in history as its most unfortunate act, handed away its power to declare war for the foreseeable future and empowered this President to wage war at will. As if that were not bad enough, members of Congress are reluctant to ask questions which are begging to be asked. How long will we occupy Iraq. We have already heard disputes on the numbers of troops which will be needed to retain order. What is the truth. How costly will the occupation and rebuilding be. No one has given a straight answer. How will we afford this long-term massive commitment, fight terrorism at home, address a serious crisis in domestic healthcare, afford behemoth military spending and give away billions in tax cuts amidst a deficit which has climbed to over $340 billion for this year alone. If the President's tax cut passes it will be $400 billion. We cower in the shadows while false statements proliferate. We accept soft answers and shaky explanations because to demand the truth is hard, or unpopular, or may be politically costly.

  permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, May 22, 2003 at 10:58 AM

May 20, 2003

Case of mad cow disease found in Alberta.

The Globe and Mail reports that a single case of Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or "mad cow disease" has been found in a cow in Alberta, which has been destroyed and removed from the food chain. This is the second case in Canadian history, one being found in a cow in 1993. There have been no cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease, the fatal brain disease one can catch from infected meat.

In response, the US has blocked the import of all Canadian beef products, hopefully a temporary move.

"USDA is placing Canada under its BSE restriction guidelines and will not accept any ruminants or ruminant products from Canada pending further investigation," the statement said. "We are dispatching a technical team to Canada to assist in the investigation and will provide more detailed information as it becomes available."

The inclusion of ruminants means that all shipments of sheep and goats are also banned.

  permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 at 12:37 PM

Gabriel Garcia Marquez says legalisation of drugs the only way to end war in Columbia.

The Scotsman reports on a speech the famed author gave in Medellin marking the 200th anniversary of its university.

"It is not possible to imagine an end to the violence in Colombia without the elimination of drugs trafficking." said Colombia©–s most famous writer. ... "And it is not possible to imagine an end to drugs trafficking without the legalisation of narcotics."

Garcia Marquez, the author of 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera, is a close friend of Fidel Castro, the Cuban leader, and is well known for his left-wing views.

What do left wing ideas have to do with this? Why do they have to mention that? Legalisation of drugs is just common sense. Is there anyone left who still thinks that making them illegal will stop people from using them? As the article points out it's usually criminals or terrorists who end up profiting from it, and the poor who suffer.

The Nobel laureate's message mentioned the millions of Colombians displaced by the fighting.

It said they can never escape the circle of violence that engulfs the country: "They continue being the victims of a sustained violence, thanks to the two most lucrative, heartless businesses in the world - drugs trafficking and arms dealing."

While the Colombian government has boasted of success in reducing drug cultivation, there has been a rise in neighbouring Peru and Bolivia.

A percentage of every pound spent on Colombian cocaine or heroin ends up in the hands of the country's Marxist rebels or right-wing paramilitaries, further fuelling the 39-year civil conflict.

Nobody wants to talk about it, but the US has got itself in a nasty little way down there. Maybe not so little, though, and getting bigger.

  permalink, posted by mike on Tuesday, May 20, 2003 at 09:01 AM

May 16, 2003

Howard Dean announces his health plan.

Doctor Dean released his health care proposals. They make sense, as you may expect coming from a doctor, and would cover nearly all Americans at a reasonable cost.

Extending Medicaid to every child and young adult under 25, up to three times the poverty level. It will also require employer health plans to extend coverage to dependents up to age 25.

Expanding coverage to working families who earn up to 185% of the federal poverty level.

Allowing those with incomes above that level, as well as small businesses, to buy into a health plan similar to the plan for government employees, while providing tax credits to keep insurance affordable.

Limiting tax deductions and government contracts for large companies which do not extend health benefits to their employees.

Read the complete speech on his Dean for America web site. He even has an official blog, the Howard Dean 2004 Call To Action.

  permalink, posted by mike on Friday, May 16, 2003 at 03:53 PM

October 17, 2002

British hypocrisy at work.

The Moscow Times reports that the British and Americans harassing the Ukrainians for selling Iraq an early warning system.

"KIEV -- U.S. and British experts fanned out across Ukraine on Wednesday, inspecting its main arms producer, other large military plants and holding talks to investigate charges the country's administration sold Iraq an early warning system."

But the Guardian reports, in an article mostly on an encounter between Prince Andrew and some Iraqis at a Jordanian arms show, that the British themselves don't seem to have any qualms about selling weapons to pretty much anyone, terrorists or otherwise.

"Prince Andrew's equerry, Major Rob Olney, today said today that he was not at the fair to meet the Iraqi delegation. "He's here to promote British investment and trade in the Middle East," Major Olney said.

"The British army and British arms companies are at the fair to showcase a range of weapons, including landmines, tanks and fighter jets. The countries there to buy arms include Syria, Sudan, Libya and Iran.

"Lord Bach said British sellers at the fair were not targeting Iraqi delegates. "Anyone can come and look, but I think looking won't help them very much. There is a United Nations resolution that embargoes defence exports to Iraq.

"We have close relations with many of the Arab states and I am delighted that we do. They are a force for stability in this troubled region. Many of them are moving towards democracy in their own way, in their own time."

A force for stability, huh? "Delighted???" Seems to indicate that the main reason the Americans and British are against other folks selling arms to the Iraqis and other countries in the Middle East, is not that they don't want arms going there. No, it's just that they want the market for themselves.

I'll put this in bold so that it's clear: The British and the Americans are continuing to sell arms to virtually all of the countries in the Middle East, even as we prepare to go to war with them. Personally, I'd object to even letting them just _look_ at the weapons, since one can learn a lot from that.

  permalink, posted by mike on Thursday, October 17, 2002 at 09:51 AM

October 14, 2002

Questionable assumptions about the impact of war and deflation on the global economy.

Read another article, this one in the Guardian stating that war in Iraq will cause problems in the global economy. As always, this is mostly based on assuming that future events will be the same as former ones, in this case, attributing earlier recessions to fluctuations in oil prices caused by uncertainty in the Middle East.

This may have been true before, but there's one factor that doesn't seem to be considered. Namely, that the technology for alternative energy sources has taken an enormous leap forward in the last ten years, and that, unlike previous times, it is now a viable alternative to oil. So it's entirely possible that any serious, lasting disruptions in the world's oil supply may not result in an economic slowdown, but rather in a boom propelled by a new generation of alternative energy start-ups. Of course, this is dependent, at least to a certain degree, on market forces being allowed to operate. That is, if oil prices start to rise, governments not attempting to control them but rather to let them rise enough to encourage alternative sources to compete. And once they begin to compete, allowing them to continue to grow as they become more and more self-sufficient. And it's unlikely this will happen given the degree and extent to which the US government (and others) are interwoven with the oil industry.

Another questionable assumption in this article is that deflation is an economic problem. "Deflation is a much bigger threat to the west than Saddam will ever be..." Huh??? It may be of course, but I don't think that's as automatic as many economists seem to think. Deflation is basically a rich man's disease. I mean, it affects everyone, but mostly it affects those who have quantities of money that could decline in value. For most of us, defaltion means things are cheaper, which is usually a good thing. I mean, when I go to the store and find things have come down in prices, I'm hardly ever upset. :)

And yet another questionable assumption in this article is that the health of the global economy is still tied to the health of the American (and European) economies. Again, based mostly on the premise that because something was true in the past it will be true in the future. But I feel that the weaknesses in these areas could just as well encourage other economies, not harm them. For instance, the decline in the economic value and power of American corporations in the last year, has made it possible, for the first time in a long time, for companies from other countries to compete. And more importantly, to be seen as just as good a potential investment, if not better, than American corporations.

As always, the "West" (whatever that is) likes to think that's what's good for them, is good for the world. A convenient assumption, but one that is simply no longer so. And these reports of a "global recession" are simply not true. In point of fact, the global economy has continued to grow during the last few years, as it has every year since the end of World War II. It's just that the growth is now being generated by countries such as India, China and Russia, as well as by smaller countries such as Ireland, Finland and so on, all of whom are still doing rather well.

  permalink, posted by mike on Monday, October 14, 2002 at 10:47 AM

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