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Friday, June 20, 2003

Matt Bivens at the Daily Outrage clues us in on the soon-to-appear EPA report on the state of the environment:

The New York Times reveals that "after editing by the White House, a long section describing risks from rising global temperatures has been whittled to a few noncommittal paragraphs." Among the deletions were the conclusions of a 2001 global warming report the White House itself had commissioned and praised. Also blue-penciled out was reference to a 1999 study showing global temperatures have risen more sharply in the past decade than any other over the past millenium. In its place, a contradictory oil-money-financed study is cited.

"This is like the White House directing the secretary of labor to alter unemployment data to paint a rosy economic picture," one critic tells the Times. Of course that would never happen, right? Pshyeah! That's the Administration's entire modus operandi. The White House routinely alters intelligence to suit its political agenda. It's time to stop acting surprised about this.

posted by Jenny at 4:54 AM |

More on the Killer D's...

South Knox Bubba directs us to Thomas's post at Newsrack, with transcripts of phone conversations between Texas STate Troopers and the Air and Marine Interdiction Coordination Center. Excerpting here would be too confusing...but Thomas has some good analysis alongside links to the published report from Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General. Go check it out!

posted by Jenny at 4:16 AM |

Stop the FCC (continued): Senate Commerce Committee passes bill to overturn FCC deregulation

Let's just keep our fingers crossed that it generates enough support across Congress...more commentary on this from Lisa English...

posted by Jenny at 4:10 AM |

Ash sent me this one with a "mwahaha" attached...

What's in a name? At least $16 million.

That's the amount of cash The National Network says it has lost by not being allowed to change its name to Spike TV - and the network fears it could wind up losing "hundreds of millions of dollars" more.

TNN, owned by Sumner Redstone's Viacom Inc., made the claims yesterday in the state Appellate Division, where it is seeking to lift a lower court's temporary ban on the name change, which was supposed to go into effect this past Monday.

Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Walter Tolub issued the injunction against the switch last week, after director Spike Lee filed a suit arguing TNN "sought to exploit" his persona with the name Spike TV, which it had marketed as an "aggressive and irreverent" network for men.

Lee said he thought his reputation would suffer "irreparable injury" if Spike TV went on air, because it could lead the public into thinking he's involved with a station that will revolve around James Bond, wrestling and a Pamela Anderson-inspired cartoon.

posted by Jenny at 4:01 AM |

It's about time:

...a handful of companies -- among them Nike, Reebok, and Phillips-Van Heusen (PVH) -- have for the first time gone public. Their factory labor audits were posted in early June on the Web site of the Fair Labor Assn., a sweatshop-monitoring group started in 1997 with help from the Clinton Administration (table). (Nike Inc. released only limited information, citing its pending U.S. Supreme Court case.)

This is a major and long-overdue step in the whole sweatshop debate. The FLA, which includes a dozen brand-name firms as well as 175 colleges, has promised for years to publicize audits of factories, most of which are owned by subcontractors. Now that it has, human rights groups will be able to see for themselves whether the process is valid. The move also puts pressure on Wal-Mart, Disney, Gap (GPS) and every other company that does labor monitoring, to release their audits, too. "When you put these reports in the public domain, it creates a huge incentive for companies to remedy the problems," says Michael Posner, an FLA founder and head of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, a New York advocacy group. "It's like the old Reagan line: 'Trust, but verify."'

Commendable as it is, the FLA companies' gutsy move still leaves plenty of fundamental problems unsolved. For example, the FLA doesn't even try to make sure that factories pay a living wage by the standards of the countries in which they operate -- a frequent activist demand. Nor do FLA inspectors report on whether factories respect the right to form independent unions in countries like China that repress them. The FLA, under pressure from its member companies, also declined to require that the actual factories inspected be named, making it more difficult for watchdog groups to check up on the reports.

In addition, some critics say the FLA has watered down its overall inspection regime as it has struggled to get up and running. Currently, the group requires companies to inspect just 5% of their factories -- too few to be credible, says Heather White, the head of Verité, the only major nonprofit doing global factory inspections. Indeed, White recently stopped doing FLA audits partly for this reason, though she applauds their public release as a milestone.

Another complaint: Most of the FLA monitoring is handled by for-profit auditing firms that don't usually talk to workers off-site. Although this is considered the best way to uncover systematic labor abuses, it's also more expensive, and many companies don't want to spend the money.

Still, the first batch of audits is remarkably candid. In fact, one depressing result of seeing them for the first time is the realization of just how little has changed after all these years. In more than 40 factories inspected, the audits found all the ills that have plagued low-wage producers for years, from arbitrary firings to forced overtime. "There's not much sense of progress being made on these long-standing issues," says Prakash Sethi, a Baruch College management professor who heads the independent monitoring effort at Mattel Inc., the only other company to publicly release its audits.

On the plus side, though, the FLA audits list what the factories are doing to fix the problems, such as training managers and giving workers pay stubs. It's too early to tell how far the factories are willing to go with the reforms, but this should become clear as follow-up reports come out next year. "Over time, you'll be able to judge the progress being made," says Doug Cahn, Reebok International (RBK ) Ltd.'s vice-president of human rights programs. "Our goal is to be sure that the factories have systems to find problems and fix them, so we don't keep finding the same things day in and day out."

So why do other companies refuse to let the public see their audits? Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Walt Disney Co., like many other consumer-product companies, have been dogged by sweatshop allegations for years. Says Disney spokesman Gary Foster, whose company does audits on a regular basis: "We're an easy target because we have one of the most highly recognized names out there, but this is an issue we take very seriously." Problem is, outsiders have no way to know whether Disney does in fact do thorough auditing. Foster concedes this is a problem and says he is looking into whether releasing audits is a good idea. Wal-Mart declined to comment.

posted by Jenny at 3:58 AM |

And finally, some "good" news...(again via Atrios)

TARRYTOWN, N.Y. -- A judge who admitted asking an Arab-American woman if she was a terrorist when she went to court last month to fight a parking ticket has stepped down.

Village Justice William Crosbie, 79, resigned in a letter Monday to the mayor. The incident led the woman to file a complaint with the state Commission on Judicial Conduct.

Anissa Khoder, a Lebanese who has lived in the United States 14 years, said she went to court because she received two tickets within an hour for the same parking violation and believed only one was valid.

Khoder, 46, said Crosbie asked if she was a terrorist, then said "something like, 'You have money to support the terrorists, but you don't want to pay the ticket.'"

posted by Jenny at 3:49 AM |

Go Atrios go!

He's collected some choice links on "Things Right Wing Bloggers Aren't Talking About"...utterly abhorrent issues, so why aren't those defenders of freedom and democracy all over them?

posted by Jenny at 3:46 AM |

Recommended Viewing

I'd be interested to see how CMT frames this...(considering the fact that they reported "Stand By Your Man" as the #1 country song of all time...)

CMT is planning a special on the public battle between the Dixie Chicks' Natalie Maines and Toby Keith called Natalie vs. Toby: Both Sides of the War. It will premiere at 10 p.m. Friday. Featuring interviews, photographs and news coverage, CMT explores the issue's impact on country music and how Americans are taking sides. The feud began in 2002 when Maines criticized Keith's "Courtesy of the Red, White & Blue" song, and escalated when Keith displayed a fictitious photograph of Maines with Saddam Hussein at his concerts. Maines appeared at the 2003 ACM Awards wearing a T-shirt that some say blasted Keith. The special includes interviews with music journalists Jay Orr, Peter Cooper and Fred Shuster; After MidNite host Blair Garner; KZLA's Peter Tilden and Ken Paulson of the First Amendment Center.

P.S.--special thanks to skippy for the link!

posted by Jenny at 3:41 AM |

Wednesday, June 18, 2003

Things aren't looking up for Blair and AWOL's WMD credibility...while a BBC poll indicates that the majority of the world's inhabitants oppose the Iraq war, a senior senator has accused George Tenet of misleading statements on Iraq intelligence, a US counterterrorism official has stepped down in protest of the Bush administration's mishandling of the war on terrorism, and former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook has publicly denied Saddam was a threat, dealing a "series of devastating blows to the government's case for a war against Iraq."

So we know that the higher-ups have their doubts...the question is, will media spin doctors let the information through to US voters?

posted by Jenny at 8:08 AM |

You can't get more transparent than that

WASHINGTON, June 16 — Over the past decade, Ed Gillespie, who was chosen today by President Bush to be chairman of the Republican National Committee through next year's election, has worn many hats, some of them simultaneously.

Mr. Gillespie has been the party's spokesman, the manager of the 2000 Republican convention, a Congressional aide, a campaign strategist and consultant, an official on Mr. Bush's transition team, an outside adviser to the president, a political fund-raiser, a television pundit and, most recently, a lobbyist for big corporations and trade associations.

But for the next 18 months, he said in an interview, he will wear only one hat. "I will be a full-time party chairman," he said. "There will be no lobbying, no discussion of government policy with clients, no meetings about lobbying strategy."

Of course not...no strategy is necessary if your party has already merged with the corporations themselves...

posted by Jenny at 7:53 AM |

Nice when science comes along and confirms our "well, duh!" statements...

Independent Science Panel Releases Scathing Report on Genetically Modified Food and Crops

posted by Jenny at 7:48 AM |

Stop the FCC (Part II)

We've got until tomorrow to get active...all the dirt and multiple campaigns at RuminateThis!

posted by Jenny at 5:49 AM |

Vegan Blog brings us some saddening news about dwindling populations of seals, polar bears, cod, and cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) thanks to "humane" hunting, poaching, and the apathy of fisherpersons...not the most pleasant of reports, but it's something all of us should know about--the fact that our soceity ignores the deaths of thousands upon thousands of animals each year is an atrocity in itself.

If you're not a regular reader of Vegan Blog, do check it out...it's a wealth of ecologically-oriented information!

posted by Jenny at 2:41 AM |

Bob Harris shares some good ideas on how to fight Republic astroturf...kill it before it spreads!

posted by Jenny at 2:27 AM |

Tuesday, June 17, 2003

Unsurprisingly, Jane Goodall hits the nail on the head about the ecological devastation of warfare:

Refugees in Africa as they trudge towards some place of safety – usually one of the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission on Refugees) camps – have a terrible struggle to survive. They cut down trees for temporary shelter and for firewood, gather every kind of edible plant, and hunt wildlife for food. Sometimes entire populations flee into formerly uninhabited – even protected – areas where they must exploit the land to survive. And even when they are located in UNHCR camps, the young men, who are usually not allowed to work, go on illegal hunting trips in an ever increasing radius from their camp. Sometimes they do this to supplement their rations when, due to shortage of funds, the food supply to the camps is cut. This fuels tensions between the local people and the refugees. Scarcity of natural resources can actually trigger conflicts as well as prolonging existing wars.

Wild animals (as well as livestock) are often direct casualities of war. Soldiers as well as refugees hunt wildlife for food. According to the Biodiversity Support Program, war in the DRC in 1996 and 1997 led to an escalation in poaching in one area that reduced the elephant population by half, buffalo by two-thirds, and hippo by three-quarters. Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos, already seriously endangered by the commercial bush meat trade, were also affected.

Not only do landmines maim innocent humans, hundreds of animals are also affected, and vast areas of farmland are made useless so that increased destruction of wilderness areas results. The instability caused by conflict enables people to take advantage of the situation to mine diamonds and other commercially valuable resources illegally, even in protected areas – where they destroy the environment and kill all available wildlife for food.

Other insults to the environment are more sinister. Defoliants, like the infamous Agent Orange, destroyed vast areas of forest in Vietnam to provide the us and South Vietnamese armed forces with improved visibility. Eleven million gallons of this chemical were used, and it is still active in the environment today. Countless children exposed to Agent Orange have suffered birth defects, and Vietnamese researchers believe that between 800,000 and one million Vietnamese people suffer health problems related to the use of the chemical. The US government questions these statistics – yet nevertheless it is finally compensating its veterans for a variety of health conditions apparently related to their time in Vietnam, and even compensating their children who suffer from spina bifida and other such diseases, often from contaminated sperm.

More recently, countless people have been exposed to depleted uranium shells as used in the Gulf War and Kosovo. The nature of Gulf War Syndrome, which has incapacitated numerous veterans of that war, is still being investigated. Huge areas of land will remain contaminated far into the future. Toxic chemicals are regularly used for fumigation as part of the war on drugs in Columbia; these too will remain to contaminate the environment and threaten human and animal health for years to come.

And then there are the weapons of mass destruction. The environment has not recovered from the atomic bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II. People living in these areas are still suffering from increased rates of cancer and other diseases. That such weapons were ever created is an evil stain on human history. That governments have continued to develop and test nuclear bombs – along with chemical and biological weapons – is a crime against humanity that surely can never be justified. The sale of traditional weapons by the developed world to enable developing countries to fight each other is bad enough; selling weapons of mass destruction is infinitely worse. And, as an aside, billions of animals are tortured by scientists in the pay of the military during the development of these weapons; and who knows how many human beings, along with animals and the environment, have been affected by nuclear tests?

...

Another world war has been ignited, and the effect on all living things is likely to be catastrophic. Indeed, it is possible that the environment, already stressed in many places close to the point of no return, will be unable to recover. And the situation is made even worse when governments in the developed world, when preparing for war, themselves violate environmental regulations – as in exploiting protected wilderness areas for oil – persuading their citizens that such operations are to increase national safety and must therefore take priority over any concern for the environment. Our reckless burning of fossil fuel contributes to global climate change even in times of peace – imagine the monstrous increase in CO2 emissions that would be generated by modern warfare around the globe.

It is desperately important that the general public should have access to the facts. Unfortunately, a common response is to shy away from such knowledge. People prefer not to know, not to think about such things but rather, like some gigantic flock of ostriches, bury their heads in the sand. As more and more of that sand becomes contaminated as a result of war and the preparations for war, the outlook for the ostriches – and for all life on Earth – will become increasingly desolate.

posted by Jenny at 6:36 AM |

Margaret Atwood ruminates on what George Orwell might have to say here at the Guardian...as usual with Atwood, it's great reading!

posted by Jenny at 6:25 AM |

Monday, June 16, 2003

Say howdy...

...to Unbrand America, Adbusters' latest campaign...

posted by Jenny at 3:04 PM |

Tennessee terrorists

This terrifying post by South Knox Bubba is a must read...it's about a "dangerous, cult-like event ... unlawfully and deceptively conceived, sponsored, promoted and supervised by Forest Hill Baptist Church [in Blount County, TN]" in which children were partially abducted and terrorized to "help young people learn about and better understand the persecution of Christian in other parts of the world." Holy cow. Just read it.

posted by Jenny at 8:57 AM |

Finally, the chance we've all been waiting for--the ability to prove that things would be better if we ran the country! bean directs us to Nation States, where you can create and govern your own nation-state. Hop to!

Update: Here's my creation...the People's Republic of Texfrisia. The only problem thus far is that we need to figure out how to persuade the humpacks to frolic in the ocean instead of the forest. If they don't knock it off, then I'll have to choose a forest animal as our mascot.

posted by Jenny at 5:27 AM |

GOP, have you no shame?

From a flurry of reports, Bob Harris notes that it looks like the idea has been floated to lay the cornerstone at Ground Zero during the upcoming GOP convention. They've put a spin on this to keep it hidden, and changed the title of the article (first named "Goal Is To Lay Cornerstone at Ground Zero During GOP Convention") but the original NY Times headline is still to be found at different strings, with screen grabs and commentary. Now might be a good time to ask the Times why they changed the headline at all...

posted by Jenny at 2:43 AM |

Fumbling towards impeachment

skippy has the lowdown on everyday Americans rumbling about impeaching AWOL...and in case you haven't visited Common Dreams in a bit, their most-emailed article of the week is John W. Dean's "Missing Weapons of Mass Destruction: Is Lying about the Reason for War an Impeachable Offense?" Tracing the history of the WMD argument, and drawing Nixonian comparisons, Dean asserts that "[in] the three decades since Watergate, this is the first potential scandal I have seen that could make Watergate pale by comparison."

In my mind, whether this is an impeachable offense is not the question...rather, the thing we should be considering is whether or not the political culture of the United States would support or follow through on any impeachment proceedings whatsoever. Because in an era where the Laci Peterson case dwarfs the coverage of a continuing war where up to 10,000 Iraqi civilians may have been killed (via LMB), or human rights disasters such as the Congo, where young women are raped by guerilla gangs, or Uzbekistan, where one of our "coalition partners" boils his opponents to death, is anybody going to take somebody to task because he told a little white lie about weapons of mass destruction? Particularly when he looks so manly swooping in on his fighter jet?

This is why skippy's news about is so heartening....could there actually be spreading grassroots sentiment that America needs to say buh-bye to Bush & Co?

posted by Jenny at 2:35 AM |

Sunday, June 15, 2003

Hmmm...

Secret Balkan camp built to hold UK asylum seekers

Asylum-seekers arriving in Britain will be shipped to an 'offshore' camp in Croatia as part of a radical move to process all asylum claims outside European Union borders, The Observer can reveal.

In an attempt to crack down on rising levels of illegal immigration, supporters of the plan say it is logical to handle claims close to applicants' countries of origin, easing racial tension over the integration of refugees in European Union countries.

But critics claim the camps will breach international obligations to refugees, attract people traffickers and make it impossible to police any human rights abuses.

The Croatian camp will hold up to 800 people. It has been built in at the village of Trstenik, 30 miles from Zagreb near the town of Dugo Selo. The £1 million centre, funded by the European Commission, will take refugees arriving at British ports and airports from the Balkans and eastern Europe.

They would be immediately shipped to the 'transit processing centre', where their applications for asylum in Britain would be assessed.

The Home Office confirmed last night that Britain hopes to get approval at the EU summit at Thessaloniki in Greece this week for a trial series of processing centres and 'zones of protection' for asylum seekers in conflict regions. Britain already has the support of the Netherlands, Belgium and Austria for the scheme. Immigration Minister Beverley Hughes promised earlier this month the first non-EU asylum centre would be 'under way before the end of the year'. The Observer has discovered, however, that building at the Trstenik camp, a disused army base, is already nearly finished. Its 13 former barrack blocks, each with 26 rooms, will detain around 60 asylum-seekers.

The Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesman, Simon Hughes, called on the Government to explain why the plans had been kept secret: 'If this camp has been negotiated, developed and made ready with nobody being told, there are serious questions to be asked. Secrecy or deception at this level is completely unacceptable.'

posted by Jenny at 12:05 PM |

Bob Harris asks the ubiquitous question, "Why does George W. Bush hate America?"

posted by Jenny at 10:27 AM |

Nukes in space

Douglas Kellner says that NASA has just given the go-ahead for the development of engines for nuclear-powered missions to other planets. As he points out, what would happen if a nuclear-laden shuttle exploded low in the atmosphere on take off or reentry?

posted by Jenny at 10:08 AM |