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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin 
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"...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone...."
Benito Mussolini
"I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country... Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money-power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until the wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed."
Abraham Lincoln, November 12, 1864
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided man."
Martin Luther King Jr., 1963
"CORPORATION, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility."
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary
"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries."
James Madison (1751-1836)
Hermann Goering, Nazi Reichsmarschall Robert Scheer
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Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? "My life is my message."
Gandhi
Posted: 31 Aug. 2004
This deals with a subject that concerns me quite a bit, given that most of what I write is for a kid audience. I worry that the children of this nation are being turned into consumer-zombies because they are bombarded with consumer-oriented media from birth. Great New Book on How Corporations Are Brainwashing Children Commercial Alert, August 30, 2004 Juliet Schor has just written the best book yet on marketing to children, titled Born to Buy: The Commercialized Child and the New Consumer Culture. Much of the book is a fine review of how corporations advertise to children, with illuminating interviews of advertising executives. But what makes the book a standout is Schor's new research on the effects of marketing and commercial culture on children. By far, it's the best research yet on how marketing harms kids. Schor is a professor of sociology at Boston College (and soon-to-be member of Commercial Alert's board of directors). For Born to Buy, Schor conducted a Survey on Children, Media and Consumer Culture, to answer the question of how children¹s involvement in the commercial culture affects their well-being. She used a complex statistical technique (called structural equation modeling) to analyze the data, which allowed her to determine directions of causality. The results are fascinating. "High consumer involvement is a significant cause of depression, anxiety, low self-esteem and psychosomatic complaints," in children, Schor reports. "Psychologically healthy children will be made worse off if they become more enmeshed in the culture of getting and spending. Children with emotional problems will be helped if they disengage from the worlds that corporations are constructing for them." She also found that "Higher levels of consumer involvement result in worse relationships with parents." Schor's book reaffirms the importance of the Parents' Bill of Rights, a set of nine legislative proposals to allow parents to control the commercial influences on their children.
Posted: 25 Aug. 2004
From GRIST online magazine. Our clueless president. Federal Report on Global Warming Produces Beltway Drama When The New York Times reported yesterday on a new Bush administration report to Congress which acknowledged the human causes of global warming, characterizing it as an abrupt shift in policy, some Beltway wags speculated that the newspaper was trying to box the administration in and embarrass it. Today brought evidence in support of such speculation. The Times ran an editorial calling the report "tardy acceptance of what mainstream scientists have been saying for years." Meanwhile, in an interview with the paper, when asked why the administration had changed its position, Bush said, "Ah, we did? I don't think so." When the paper's story on the report was brought to his attention, he said, "Oh, okay, well, that's got to be true." Elsewhere, in more informed quarters of the administration, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said policy on climate change would continue to be "guided by ... science"; White House spokesperson Trent Duffy said, despite the report, "we need to fill in the knowledge and the scientific gaps" on the issue; and Bush's top scientific adviser, John Marburger, said the report has "no implications for policy." Glad we cleared that up! straight to the source: The New York Times, 27 Aug 2004 straight to the source: The New York Times, 27 Aug 2004 This could also have major impact on the rest of the planet. Remember that India and China have nuclear weapons. Farmers Across Asia Emptying Underground Water Tables Farmers in India, Pakistan, Vietnam, and northern China are setting themselves up for drought and famine in decades to come by pushing wells deep into the ground, emptying underground reserves at a rate faster than precipitation can replenish them. India's government system of irrigation canals is decrepit, so farmers have sunk some 21 million wells and sink a million new ones every year. While the influx of water has brought short-term relative prosperity, it's not expected to last; as the water table recedes, shallower wells are drying up, and new wells need to be sunk deeper and deeper. In northern China, the country's "bread basket," 40 percent of grain is produced with pumped groundwater, and officials warn that the coming water shortage will make China an importer of grain soon. Farmers risk turning some land into desert within five to 10 years. Said Tushaar Shah of the International Water Management Institute, "When the balloon bursts, untold anarchy will be the lot of rural India." straight to the source: New Scientist, Fred Pearce, 28 Aug 2004 And one more. Auto Industry-Backed PR Firm Claims California Emissions Regs Will Kill A new ad campaign by the Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America uses "Squeezy the Clown" to warn that proposed carbon-dioxide emissions regulations in California would force automakers to (gasp!) build smaller cars, which in turn will lead to increased traffic fatalities. (You see, they argue, the regs would force people to squeeze into smaller cars. Like clowns. Funny!) Though the group's name implies a grassroots citizens' effort, in fact SUVOA was bought two years ago by Strat@comm, a Washington, D.C., PR firm with extensive ties to big automakers. Critics are calling the campaign a classic example of "Astroturf" -- industry-backed campaigns masquerading as grassroots. And critics say the ad's main contention is a bunch of hooey: Not only does the 2002 law that calls for regulating emissions specifically prohibit state officials from banning large vehicles, but just-released federal data show that SUV occupants are more likely to die in traffic accidents. straight to the source: Los Angeles Times, Miguel Bustillo, 26 Aug 2004
Posted: 25 Aug. 2004
From GRIST online magazine. THE GLASS IS HALF FULL -- JUST DON'T DRINK FROM IT Most U.S. Lakes and Waterways Contaminated with Mercury, EPA Says U.S. EPA head honcho Mike Leavitt struggled yesterday to put a positive spin on the agency's annual report on fish advisories, despite the grim news that virtually every body of freshwater in the country may be contaminated with mercury, which poses health risks to fetuses and children. Every state except Alaska and Wyoming issued warnings about mercury-contaminated fish last year. More than a third of America's lakes and almost a quarter of its miles of rivers are officially covered by fish advisories, but as Leavitt acknowledged, "Mercury is everywhere." The EPA attributes the increase in advisories to better monitoring, not worse pollution, noting that mercury pollution actually declined between 1990 and 1999 (the last year for which figures were available). The report is already adding fuel to the debate over the EPA's forthcoming mercury regulations, expected to be based on a cap-and-trade system that enviros say would be weak and too slow to produce results. straight to the source: The New York Times, Michael Janofsky, 25 Aug 2004 straight to the source: USA Today, Traci Watson, 24 Aug 2004 straight to the source: Chicago Tribune, Associated Press, John Heilprin, 24 Aug 2004
Posted: 18 Aug. 2004
From GRIST online magazine. CLIME AGAINST HUMANITY Report Warns Europe Particularly Vulnerable to Climate Change Europe will suffer worse, and sooner, than other parts of the world from climate change, according to a new report from the European Environment Agency. The report "pulls together a wealth of evidence that climate change is already happening and having widespread impacts, many of them with substantial economic costs, on people and ecosystems across Europe," said the EEA's Jacqueline McGlade. The continent can expect more severe heat waves and more frequent and violent storms of the kind that led to the flash flood this week that virtually destroyed the U.K. village of Boscastle. Northern Europe can expect more precipitation, while southern regions are likely to experience drought. By 2080, cold winters could almost entirely disappear. Economic damage from floods, droughts, storms, and heat waves has more than doubled in Europe over the last 20 years. The report urged, as you might expect, worldwide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. straight to the source: BBC News, Alex Kirby, 18 Aug 2004
Posted: 18 Aug. 2004
Here's something fascinating. “Smart skin” holds promise for morphing wings and wearable computers. by Laura Allen Terrible, horrible things can be done to this millimeters-thick patch of shimmering material crafted by chemists at NanoSonic in Blacksburg, Virginia. Twist it, stretch it double, fry it to 200°C, douse it with jet fuel—the stuff survives. After the torment, it snaps like rubber back to its original shape, all the while conducting electricity like solid metal. “Any other material would lose its conductivity,” says Jennifer Hoyt Lalli, NanoSonic’s director of nanocomposites. The abused substance is called Metal Rubber, and, according to NanoSonic, its particular properties make it unique in the world of material chemistry. As a result, the company’s small office has been flooded with calls from Fortune 500 companies and government agencies eager to test Metal Rubber’s use in everything from artificial muscles to smart clothes to shape-shifting airplane wings. At this stage, however, NanoSonic is busy meeting the demand for its 12-inch-by-12-inch samples, which take custom-built robots up to three days to create. That’s speedy, if you consider that Metal Rubber, a product of nanotechnology, must be fabricated molecule by molecule. The manufacturing process, called electrostatic self-assembly, starts with two buckets of water-based solutions—one filled with positively charged metallic ions, the other with oppositely charged elastic polymers. The robot dips a charged substrate (glass, for example) alternately from one bucket to the next. The dipping slowly builds up tight, organized layers of molecules, bonded firmly by opposing charges. Afterward the substrate is removed, leaving a freestanding sheet of Metal Rubber. With investor interest booming, Metal Rubber could make its commercial debut within a year or so. Although shape-shifting aircraft wings and sensory robotic gloves are on the horizon, Metal Rubber will probably appear first in more humble, practical roles. Abuse-resistant flexible circuits and wires, for instance, could allow you to do terrible, horrible things to your portable electronics—consequence-free.
Posted: 17 Aug. 2004
From GRIST online magazine. A PLAN FIENDISHLY CLEVER IN ITS INTRICACIES Bush's Small Tweaks to Regulations Carry Large Consequences In the third installment of its in-depth three-article series on Bush administration regulatory changes, The Washington Post today focuses on the way the administration circumvents public debate and legislation in favor of making small changes in regulatory wording that carry huge consequences -- removing the word "hazardous" from mercury emission regs, reclassifying nuclear waste from "high-level" to "incidental," and perhaps most portentously, changing the name of debris from mountaintop-removal coal mines from "waste" to "fill." The latter change -- the "fill rule" of 2002 -- has led to a boom in a practice that is loathed not only by enviros but by a growing majority of rural Appalachians, who object to the irremediable destruction of landscapes where their families have lived for generations. Some 700 miles of headwater streams have been buried in "fill" and more than 240 species of fish adversely affected. As it happens, the coal industry has raised $9 million for Republicans since 1998. straight to the source: The Washington Post, Joby Warrick, 17 Aug 2004 LOOK, OVER THERE! A WAR! With Public Attention Elsewhere, Bush Rolls Back Regulations The Bush administration, critics say, has taken advantage of the public's distraction since 9/11 to govern via regulatory initiatives and rollbacks -- which, unlike new laws, do not require congressional approval. Pro-business measures enacted by the Bushies include a rule allowing Forest Service managers to circumvent environmental reviews on logging projects and the rollback of new-source review rules for power plants. Some rule changes have been blocked in court, but with a steady flood, most get through. A budget office official brags of "cut[ting] the growth of costly business regulations by 75 percent," while Rep. David R. Obey (D-Wis.) calls it "tak[ing] a lot of loot out the back door without anybody noticing." Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope says, "Now, when I hold focus groups with the general public and tell them what has been done, they exclaim, 'How could this have happened without me knowing about it?'" straight to the source: The New York Times, Joel Brinkley, 14 Aug 2004 REGULATUS INTERRUPTUS Rule Helps Industry Weasel out of Regulations, Enviros Say Speaking of regulations: The Data Quality Act -- written by an industry lobbyist and tacked onto a massive appropriations bill in 2000 -- has become a tool used by industry to forestall regulation, critics charge. The DQA instructs the federal Office of Management and Budget to ensure that all information disseminated by the feds is reliable, and it allows companies and individuals to challenge info they say is inaccurate. It sounds innocent, but public-safety and enviro groups claim that it places scientific decisions in political hands; any industry, they say, can buy enough friendly scientific studies to muddy the waters and fight off regulation. In the last two years, industry has filed dozens of petitions under the DQA against regulations on everything from the herbicide atrazine to playground wood treated with arsenic. Environmental regulations have come under particularly furious attack. Says Jim J. Tozzi, the industry flack who wrote the rule, "Was it something that did not have hearings? Yes. Is it something that keeps me awake at night? No. ... Sometimes you get the monkey, and sometimes the monkey gets you." straight to the source: The Washington Post, Rick Weiss, 16 Aug 2004
Posted: 15 Aug. 2004
Two additional factors they failed to look at it: unsafe beef and use of MSG. Pollutants cause huge rise in brain diseases Scientists alarmed as number of cases triples in 20 years Juliette Jowit, environment editor The Observer The numbers of sufferers of brain diseases, including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, have soared across the West in less than 20 years, scientists have discovered. The alarming rise, which includes figures showing rates of dementia have trebled in men, has been linked to rises in levels of pesticides, industrial effluents, domestic waste, car exhausts and other pollutants, says a report in the journal Public Health. In the late 1970s, there were around 3,000 deaths a year from these conditions in England and Wales. By the late 1990s, there were 10,000. 'This has really scared me,' said Professor Colin Pritchard of Bournemouth University, one of the report's authors. 'These are nasty diseases: people are getting more of them and they are starting earlier. We have to look at the environment and ask ourselves what we are doing.' The report, which Pritchard wrote with colleagues at Southampton University, covered the incidence of brain diseases in the UK, US, Japan, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Spain in 1979-1997. The researchers then compared death rates for the first three years of the study period with the last three, and discovered that dementias - mainly Alzheimer's, but including other forms of senility - more than trebled for men and rose nearly 90 per cent among women in England and Wales. All the other countries were also affected. For other ailments, such as Parkinson's and motor neurone disease, the group found there had been a rise of about 50 per cent in cases for both men and women in every country except Japan. The increases in neurological deaths mirror rises in cancer rates in the West. The team stresses that its figures take account of the fact that people are living longer and it has also made allowances for the fact that diagnoses of such ailments have improved. It is comparing death rates, not numbers of cases, it says. As to the cause of this disturbing rise, Pritchard said genetic causes could be ruled out because any changes to DNA would take hundreds of years to take effect. 'It must be the environment,' he said. The causes were most likely to be chemicals, from car pollution to pesticides on crops and industrial chemicals used in almost every aspect of modern life, from processed food to packaging, from electrical goods to sofa covers, Pritchard said. Food is also a major concern because it provides the most obvious explanation for the exclusion of Japan from many of these trends. Only when Japanese people move to the other countries do their disease rates increase. 'There's no one single cause ... and most of the time we have no studies on all the multiple interactions of the combinations on the environment. I can only say there have been these major changes [in deaths]: it is suggested it's multiple pollution.' Pritchard's paper has been published amid growing fears about the chemical build-up in the environment. A number of studies have pointed to serious problems. TBT is being banned from marine paints after it was blamed for masculinising female molluscs, causing a dramatic decline in numbers. A US report linked neurological disorders to pesticides. And testing by WWF (formerly the World Wildlife Fund) found non-natural substances such as flame retardants in every person who took part. WWF has named chemical pollution as one of the two great environmental threats to the world, alongside global warming, and is particularly worried about 'persistent and accumulative' industrial chemicals and endocrine - hormone distorting - substances linked to changes in gender and behaviour among animals and even children. 'We've started seeing changes in fertility rates, the immune system, neurological changes [and] impacts on behaviour,' said Matthew Wilkinson, the charity's toxics programme leader. Pesticides and pharmaceutical chemicals must now undergo rigorous testing before they can be used. But there are an estimated 80,000 industrial chemicals and the 'vast majority' do not need safety regulation or testing, said Wilkinson. However, the chemical industry strongly rejects what it claims are often unproven fears. Just because chemicals are present does not mean they are at dangerous levels. But critics are not reassured. 'It is true that just because we find a chemical does not mean it is dangerous,' said Wilkinson. 'But it is equally true that for the vast majority of chemicals we have so little safety data that the regulatory authorities have no idea what a safe level is.' The Royal Society of Chemistry also said quantities of pesticides were declining. 'Improvements in analytical chemistry mean that lower and lower levels of pesticides can be detected,' said Brian Emsley, the society's spokesman. '[But] because you can detect something doesn't necessarily mean it is dangerous.'
Posted: 14 Aug. 2004
From TRUE MAJORITY. Congress is on break, back home campaigning. So we thought we’d update you about some of the issues on which TrueMajority members have been active. Since the beginning of the year, you’ve buried Congress with 2,622,441 faxes, e-mails, and phone calls – and you’ve gotten results. Genocide in Sudan As the situation in Darfur, Sudan, worsened, TrueMajority members called on Congress to call the disaster there “genocide.” The week after TrueMajority’s faxes flooded into the Capitol, both Houses of Congress voted unanimously for our position. The term “genocide” adds a new level of responsibility to the UN’s reaction to the crisis. Hopefully, their efforts will put pressure on the President, who can turn up the heat at the UN. TrueMajority is launching a campaign to stop the genocide in Sudan; more details will come to you soon. Tax Cuts Both Republicans and Democrats were expected to extend the tax cuts just before their August recess. TrueMajority members told Congress that America’s financial priorities need to be our children, health care, and the environment – not more tax cuts for millionaires. We succeeded, for now anyway. In the face of strong bipartisan opposition, the President pulled the tax cut extension until September. Keep hope alive. Nuclear Weapons Bush wants to build a new type of nuclear weapon, sending the wrong signal to other nations who want to get nuclear weapons or increase their stockpiles. TrueMajority members faxed Congress urging that America not develop new nukes, and came within four votes in the House of canceling a study on the issue. This impressive grassroots opposition will make it easier to derail any later plan to actually build the nukes. Star Wars This latest missile defense scheme, likened to hitting a bullet with a bullet, is untested, unproven, and unnecessary. TrueMajority told Congress to end the boondoggle. The funding request was cut by $183 million, but the money being spent on this wasted system is still far too much. The testing failures notwithstanding, Bush will announce this fall that the Alaska-based system is “operational” at a ribbon-cutting geared more toward campaign benefit than legitimate security. We’ll use paid and earned media to make that point to the American people. Media Control of Information TrueMajority joined MoveOn and Common Cause to ask the Federal Trade Commission to rule that Fox’s slogan “fair and balanced” be declared false advertising. We’re still waiting for the formal response. We can report that the federal courts have rejected, at least for now, the Bush administration’s efforts to allow big media companies to grow even bigger. Energy The Energy Bill, negotiated in secret by Vice President Cheney and industry lobbyists, was opposed by TrueMajority members and defeated by Congress. The oil, coal, and nuclear interests want another vote – which grassroots opposition has stopped for now. We’ll continue to watch it closely for you.
Posted: 13 Aug. 2004
From GRIST e-magazine. NUCLEAR MISMANAGERY Yesterday -- on the 59th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, marked by the city mayor's plea to the U.S. to abolish nuclear weapons -- Japan experienced its most deadly nuclear accident to date, with four workers killed by scalding steam (ouch) spewing from a ruptured pipe at a nuclear power plant. Officials from Kansai Electric Power Co. sheepishly admitted that the problem might have something to do with the fact that the pipe had not been properly inspected for some 28 years (!). It turns out several other of Japan's 52 nuclear power plants -- from which the nation gets a third of its electricity -- are equally old and poorly inspected. Russian enviros popped up to say that, hey, their nuclear plants are also aged and poorly maintained. However, a reassuring note was struck by the head of the Peruvian Institute of Nuclear Energy, who said this week that two stolen nuclear measuring devices probably don't contain enough radioactive material to make a dirty bomb. So, put your mind at ease! straight to the source: MSNBC.com, Reuters, 10 Aug 2004
Posted: 6 Aug. 2004
Bush is apparently not interested in genuine freedom of speech or civil rights. Bush rally was sad day for democracy Joan Collins The phrase "this is what democracy looks like" changed meaning as the protest of President Bush's appearance in Springfield unfolded. Initially, the phrase described the thousands of people lined up with tickets, waiting to enter the field house, being reminded not all people in southwest Missouri thought this president deserved four more years of leadership that had launched wars resulting in thousands dead and tens of thousands wounded, a national debt increasing at $1.69 billion a day, and an atmosphere of secrecy in America. The Secret Service told protesters where to gather; the location was excellent. Democracy was working: People were exercising their right to assemble while others exercised their right to protest. But when police told protesters they had to move about 200 feet away, while the people supporting Bush remained in place, the atmosphere grew tense. When protesters complained to local police, they replied, "We're just following orders." Then the protesters called the media: It was time for citizens to know how democracy was working in Springfield, as protesters had been herded into a "free speech zone." When gatekeepers announced final seating for those with tickets, protesters with tickets tried to get in, but their tickets were grabbed and torn up, and police threatened them with arrest if they argued back. One woman screamed, "You're tearing up my ticket," and hit back at the man when he started shoving her with his chest, trying to shut her up. The police arrested the woman. Two other people were "taken down": a young girl who could not back up fast enough because there were so many people behind her and a man who is charged with trespassing because he was standing on property his own tax dollars partially funded. All this, while the Bush supporters passed by, granted access to the president of us all because they would shout his praises at the appropriate moments. When "this is what democracy looks like" arose from the protesters this time, it had an ominous tone. People were being taken down, and the picture was not pretty. Joan Collins, Willard, is a member of the Peace Network of the Ozarks.
Posted: 4 Aug. 2004
The Water Wars are just beginning. Cholera and the Age of the Water Barons By Bill Marsden EXCERPT: The days of a free glass of water are over, in the view of these companies, which have a public relations campaign to accompany their sales pitch. On a global scale, and in many developing nations, water is a scarce and valuable and clearly marketable commodity. "People who don't pay don't treat water as a very precious resource," one executive said. "Of course, it is." A yearlong investigation by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), a project of the Center for Public Integrity, showed that world's three largest water companies — France's Suez and Vivendi Environnement, and British-based Thames Water, owned by Germany's RWE AG — have since 1990 expanded into every region of the world. Three other companies, Saur of France, and United Utilities of England working in conjunction with Bechtel of the United States, have also successfully secured major international drinking water contracts. But their size pales in comparison to that of the big three. The investigation shows that these companies have often worked closely with the World Bank, lobbying governments and international trade and standards organizations for changes in legislation and trade agreements to force the privatization of public waterworks. While private companies still run only about 5 percent of the world's waterworks, their growth over the last 12 years has been enormous. In 1990, about 51 million people got their water from private companies, according to water analysts. That figure is now more than 300 million. The ICIJ investigation, which tracked the operations of the six most globally active water companies over a 12-year period, showed that by 2002, they ran drinking water distribution networks in at least 56 countries and two territories. In 1990, they had been active in only about a dozen countries. Revenue growth, according to corporate annual reports reviewed by ICIJ, has tracked with the companies' overseas expansion. Vivendi Universal, the parent of Vivendi Environnement, reported earning over $5 billion in water-related revenue in 1990; by 2002 that had increased to over $12 billion. RWE, which moved into the world water market with its acquisition of Britain's Thames Water, increased its water revenue a whopping 9,786 percent – from $25 million in 1990 to $2.5 billion in fiscal 2002. READ THE REST. 
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