Just why did John Edwards drop out of the race yesterday?

Yesterday, I wrote about John McCain and the site On the Issues, which offers information on the site for any presidential candidate still in the race or otherwise. And speaking otherwise, why did John Edwards drop out January 30? Could it have anything to do with the virtual shutdown of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) over the nomination of Hans von Spakovsky which I wrote about on January 9?

Today the FEC issued a news release on its proposed rules for operations without a quorum, published in yesterday's Federal Register. Essentially the FEC will be able to do little more than offer advisory opinions. And, as reported by the Washington Post's Matthew Mosk on
December 22,

When it comes to federal matching funds, Democrat John Edwards has the most to lose. The FEC certified the payment of the first installment of funds this week, including $8.8 million for Edwards. But matching payments for money he has raised this month, or will receive in subsequent months, may have to wait until the FEC has four members.

As I commented on Mother Jones blog in response to "Jonus" who thought Edward's departure was "good riddance to bad baggage, " there have been what I regard as too many Republican/Clinton/Obama talking points criticizing Edwards. For an example of the latter, see "Dropping Oppo."

Nobody questioned Bobby Kennedy's advocacy for the disenfranchised on the grounds that he had money. Or is it just okay if your wealth is inherited? Unlike Clarence Thomas who distances himself from his modest beginnings, Edwards has embraced a fight against corporate greed. While the Washington Post exposed Edwards worked on a hedge fund from October to December 2005 and the money he received money from this sector, it also noted the contributions of this sector to Clinton, Obama, Dodd and others.

The MSM shut out coverage, not only of Edwards, but Dodd, Biden, Richardson, Kucinich and Gravel. What I want to know, and haven't seen covered in the MSM, is why did organized labor split its support? And what happened to the "I'll be in all fifty states" promise of John Edwards after NH? Why not stay until Super Tuesday, much less for the whole race? The same goes for Richardson, who might have run stronger in the vote-rich West. Were both men tired of not coming in first? Of hearing how they're perennial losers?

Richardson dropped out the day after NH with money problems, but Edwards kept competing and said he had enough to make it through the race. As late as five days before he dropped out he sent out a news release saying,

As a sign of John Edwards' growing grassroots support across the country, today the Edwards campaign announced that it has raised more than $3 million online during the first 25 days of the quarter - more than it raised during the whole 4th quarter of last year. Just yesterday, the campaign had one of its best fundraising days, taking in more than $230,000 in contributions. The vast majority of online contributions will be doubled by federal matching funds.

And just the day before his withdrawal, he was critiquing the economic stimulus package.

"States like Missouri need immediate help – or we could see devastating cuts to education, health care and other basic services, along with increases in property taxes," Edwards said. "Providing this assistance to states will not only protect our schools and our most vulnerable citizens, but represents an important and critical step to avoid a recession."

On December 22 – long before Congress, the President, or any other candidate – John Edwards warned about the prospect of a looming recession and proposed an economic stimulus plan that includes extended unemployment benefits, investments in the renewable energy industry to create jobs within 90 days, a Home Rescue Fund to help families avoid foreclosure, and immediate federal financial assistance to states.

Today, Edwards emphasized the need to increase the federal contribution to Medicaid and provide additional aid to states, helping them avoid cuts to education, health care and other basic services and avoid increases in property and other taxes that disproportionately impact working families and seniors on fixed incomes. Under Edwards' plan, Missouri would receive up to $375 million in direct aid to help avert those cuts and stimulate the state's economy.

With Congress considering the Bush stimulus plan this week, Edwards called on members of Congress to act quickly to provide this important relief to states.

One has to wonder if his announcement means he heeded the pundits of that same media who failed to provide a level playing field, when they said over and over that it was time for him to drop out. We may never know for sure and the speculation will soon give way back to the horse race and the scrapping and name calling between the anointed front runners.

What I fear is that the Democrats will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, enabling a McCain or Romney win in November. No, no candidate is without flaws, but for those who say there was no difference between the parties, between Gore and Bush during the 2000 race, I say: the Patriot Act, the elimination of habeas corpus, offers of telecom immunity, Iraq, tax cuts for the rich, weakening of environmental laws, the SCHIP veto, the threatened veto on the union card-check law, Roberts and Alito. And the list could go on.

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So where does McCain stand on the issues?

Photo by Reuters's Carlos Barria (Reuters archive, other work) shows Republican presidential candidate John McCain (R-AZ) with Mel Martinez (R-FL) on stage as, Joe Lieberman (I-CT) addresses a town hall meeting at the Savannah Center in Lady Lake, Florida on 1/27/08.

With news that McCain's candidacy is off life-support with wins in NH, SC and FL, and his attractiveness to some independents (v.s his status as an anathema for some conservative Republicans), I reckoned it was time to look at where he stands on the issues. For this, I turned to (doh) On the Issues, which provides non-partisan information based on newspapers, speeches, press releases, and the Internet.

For instance on abortion from Meet the Press:

Q: In 1999, you said, "In the short term, or even the long term, I would not support repeal of Roe vs. Wade, which would then force X number of women in American to undergo illegal and dangerous operations."

A: That was in the context of conversation about having to change the culture of America as regards to this issue. I have stated time after time after time that Roe v. Wade was a bad decision, that I support the rights of the unborn.

Q: If Roe v. Wade was overturned during a McCain presidency, and individual states chose to ban abortion, would you be concerned that, as you said, X number of women in America would undergo illegal and dangerous operations?

A: No, I would hope that X women in America would bring those children into life in this world, and that I could do whatever I could to assist them. Again, that conversation from 1999, so often quoted, was in the context of my concerns about changing the culture in America to understand the importance of the rights of the unborn.

Source: Meet the Press: 2007 "Meet the Candidates" series May 13, 2007

On foreign policy, McCain appears to be every bit as much of an interventionist as George Bush. On Cuba, he'd maintain the embargo and indict the Castro brothers (thus appealing to the conservative Cuban American émigré community in Miami?)

Q: Cuban dictatorship has survived nine U.S. presidents. What would you do differently, that has not been done so far, to bring democracy to Cuba?

A: Of course we need to keep our embargo up. Of course we cannot allow economic aid to flow to Cuba. And if I were president of the United States, I would order an investigation of the shoot-down of those brave Cubans who were killed under the orders of Raul and Fidel Castro, and, if necessary, indict them.

Source: 2007 Republican primary debate on Univision Dec 9, 2007
And while George Bush was promoting humility in foreign policy in the October 11, 2000 presidential debate, saying,

If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us; if we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us.

McCain, had, in addition to advocated for the toppling of Saddam (and his willingness, now, to stay in Iraq virtually forever), favored "rogue state rollback" for Libya and North Korea:

Q: What area of international policy would you change immediately?
A: Our policies concerning rogue states: Iraq, Libya, North Korea-those countries that continue to try to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. I’d institute a policy that I call “rogue state rollback.” I would arm, train, equip, both from without and from within, forces that would eventually overthrow the governments and install free and democratically elected governments. Source: GOP Debate on the Larry King Show Feb 15, 2000

Here are the all the categories available, all with quotes and sources on McCain:

International	Domestic	Economic	Social
Foreign Policy	Gun Control	Budget & Economy	Education
Homeland Security	Crime	Government Reform	Health Care
War & Peace	Drugs	Tax Reform	Abortion
Free Trade	Civil Rights	Social Security	Families & Children
Immigration	Jobs	Welfare & Poverty	Corporations
Energy & Oil	Environment	Technology	Principles & Values

UPDATE: 1/31/07, David Corn has an interesting piece in the Mother Jones blog about McCain and Romney's attempts to take on Reagan's mantle, "At GOP Debate, McCain and Romney Bicker Over Whom Reagan Would Love More."

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Biofuels: Poultry, Germs and Algae

Graphic (artist uncredited) from Scott Harper's 9/2/07 story in the Virginian -Pilot, "Next in biofuels: Poultry power."

My correspondent via John Dufresne, Joe from Cheese, TX, alerted me Sunday to Elizabeth Svoboda's (website, email) piece in the February 2008 Fastcompany.com, "Fueling The Future: The oil well of tomorrow may be in a California lab full of genetically modified, diesel-spewing bacteria." (Issue 122, page 45), via a blog post by Scott Streater (email), the (Fort Worth) Star-Telegram’s environmental reporter.

According to Svoboda, the fuel produced by the San Carlos, California company LS9's

microbes is virtually pump-ready -- requiring only a simple cleaning step to filter out impurities -- making bacteria fuel uses 65 percent less energy than making ethanol, which needs extensive chemical processing that drives up its price and damages its good-for-the-planet cred... [and] LS9's finished product also has 50 percent more energy content -- a gallon of bacteria fuel would last your car about 50 percent longer than a gallon of ethanol.

Closer to home, Virginia Tech, here in Blacksburg, is experimenting with poultry poop, according to the Virginian Pilot (see link accompanying the illustration at the top of this entry.) And then there's algae at Old Dominion University.

The library's closing, so I'll wrap this up, but until I get back, check out this archive of articles on Virginia's biofuels and more at the Virginia Coastal Energy Consortium.

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The Pain Will Be For Ever

Mr. Zuker's page on Poesia Diaria (Everyday Poems). The site features newspaper remembrances of the disappeared, some with translations.

Enter the exhibit and then click on:

The public is invited to see, read, and participate
in translating these fragments of stolen love.

More tomorrow. The library is closing....

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The Personal Well-Tempered Environment

Sketch from Dan Hill's post, The Personal Well-Tempered Environment

Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary — the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called a trimtab.

It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trimtab. Society thinks it's going right by you, that it's left you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole big ship of state is going to go.

So I said, call me Trimtab.

— R. Buckminster Fuller, Barry Farrell (Playboy Interview, Feb 1972)

*
I once heard Bucky Fuller speak at William and Mary around the same date as that interview. He was talking about how architecture should start with the idea of its relationship to the human scale. Such a different idea from those who set out to build monuments. I found myself in awe of his genius at encapsulating complicated ideas in simple metaphors.

Check out how Dan Hill uses the trimtab metaphor at his blog, City of Sound in a January 15 post as named above, in which he outlines his idea that feedback from devices monitoring real-time usage of electricity, gas, water and so forth could encourage conservation with

maximum information coming from a minimum of conscious engagement.

Hill cites research by the Design Council, published in its report, "Designing for a Future Climate" that

studies show that if people can see what they’re using, they use up to 15% less energy.

The post is filled with illustrations and links to other sources both philosophical and practical.

*

The Trimtab was the name for the Buckminster Fuller Insitute's newsletter, which has archives available online through 2005. Also on the site is the new of a play which opened January 17 and runs through February 10 opens at Rubicon Theatre in Ventura, CA--R. Buckminster Fuller: The History (and Mystery) of the Universe.

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Star Women Build Portable Skills

Graphic (artist not credited by source) for Vilma Patil's "Striving to Break Through the Glass Ceiling..." in the October 14, 2001 Tribune (Chandigarh, India).

In "How Star Women Build Portable Skills" in the February 2008 issue of the Harvard Business Review, Boris Groysberg (website, email) an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School, looks back at his prior research that "star performers" fade when they move to new companies. In that research, published in the May 2004 Review, "The Risky Business of Hiring Stars" (authored with Ashish Nanda and Nitin Nohria) he found that companies are usually better off "growing stars than buying them."

Now though, he has further analyzed his data and found that the trend is more true for men than for women. That's because women were more likely to have:

• built their success on relationships with clients and companies as opposed to relying on on internal networks (the good ol' boys?)
• considered more factors in assessing prospective employers as opposed to emphasizing compensation.

But here's the weird thing. Wendy Pollack (email) at the Wall Street Journal blog, The Informed Reader, posted yesterday about the study:

The female analysts’ more successful transitions might be partly inadvertent — the women could have felt compelled to build external relationships because they had more difficulty than their male colleagues securing in-house mentors. Sexist attitudes could force them to work harder to protect their portability within the industry. And women generally look for organizations “that will welcome them as individuals,” raising the odds that they will be successful at the new firm.

I'm leaving Ms. Pollack a comment at the entry inviting her to respond:

Men, when they succeed are termed "strategic." I was struck by the fact that you refer to the success of "star" women (such as yourself, I'd add) as "partly inadvertent."

more later...I'm off to the contra dance

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The Sad Death of Daniel Sun Kim

There was another student lost to the Virginia Tech shootings last April 16, not on the day itself because, as with the case of Cecil Ison, the cause was PTSD. Unlike Ison, Kim took his life. On December 9, he was found in his car, a gunshot wound to the head. You probably didn't hear this story and there's no Hokie stone dedicated in his memory. Perhaps there should be...



I'll be posting this later, as the library is closing.









i'll be post












o

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Split This rock Poetry Festival Coming March 20-23

Today I was working on a program description for a poetry reading I'm organizing for Women's month and that got me over to the site for the Split This Rock Poetry Festival in DC, March 20-23 at a variety of venues in the U Street Neighborhood and at George Washington University in Foggy Bottom. The grand finale will feature a march to, and reading in front of, the White House.

Just think, four days of readings--and we're talking about folks like Robert Bly, Grace Cavalieri, Lucille Clifton, Mark Doty, Martín Espada, Carolyn Forché, Galway Kinnell, Ethelbert Miller, Naomi Shihab Nye, Sharon Olds, Alicia Ostriker, and Sonia Sanchez, among the folks I've already read and heard read their work. I'm looking forward to discovering others to admire on the list of featured readers.

Besides the readings, there will be workshops, panels, film, walking tours, activism. The whole shebang is only $75, if you register before March 10. If you procrastinate and miss that deadline, you only need toss in an additional sawbuck.

The goals of the festival are two:

• To celebrate the poetry of witness and provocation being written, published, and performed in the United States today; and
• To call poets to a greater role in public life and to equip them with the tools they need to be effective advocates in their communities and in the nation.

Those of you who know my poetry and that of the rest of us in the Southern Appalachian Writers Coop know I support both of those goals. Here's what the founders of the festival have to say about their motivation:

Poets have long played a central role in movements for social change. Today, at a critical juncture in our country’s history, poetry that gives voice to the voiceless, names the unnamable, and speaks directly from the individual and collective conscience is more important than ever. The festival will explore and celebrate the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.

As we head into the fifth year of war in Iraq, our country faces a crisis of imagination. Most Americans agree that we need dramatic change: to end the war, reorder our national priorities to meet human needs, save our planet. How we address these challenges is a question not just for policy makers and strategists. It is a question for all of us. We believe that poets have a unique role to play in social movements as innovators, visionaries, truth tellers, and restorers of language.

*

Check out "Statement by Robert Greenstein: Reported Stimulus Package Would Provide Little Immediate Boost Due to Removal of Most Effective Provisions, 1/24/08" from th eCenter on Budget and Policy Priorities -

...the two most targeted and economically effective measures under consideration -- a temporary extension of unemployment benefits and a temporary boost in food stamp benefits -- were zeroed out, apparently at the insistence of House Republican leaders.... [Moody's] Economy.com found that for each dollar spent on extended UI benefits, $1.64 in increased economic activity would be generated. For each dollar in increased food stamp benefits, $1.73 .....

Greenstein supports his judgment with evidence. Citing CBO, Moody’s, Nobel laureate Stiglitz and now-CBO director Orszagin (I've put up the links at Newstrust), he argues Congress elevated "ideology over sound economic reasoning," deleting temporary unemployment insurance and food stamps increases, after Republican leaders argued " inclusion…would derail the package."

A lot to consider here, such as how business tax cuts "would cause states to lose at least $4 billion in state revenue, due to linkages between federal and state tax codes.” With no offsets, “many states will have to enact deeper and more painful budget cuts, likely hitting areas from health care and education to aid to local governments [which will]…act as a drag on the economy. " He suggests that since "the working poor…will spend — rather than save — the largest share of their rebate dollars, the optimal design would be one under which working-poor families do not receive smaller rebates than people at higher income levels do." His conclusion: "In the bipartisan negotiations over the stimulus package, an appropriate trade would have been to include the sizable (but not especially effective) business tax cuts in return for a rebate that extended to the working poor, but not to drop the unemployment insurance and food stamp provisions. It is unfortunate that those two provisions — the most targeted and effective measures under consideration — were removed, and that states facing deficits will be driven deeper into deficit and thus have to cut services or raise taxes more, rather than being provided some fiscal relief."

Other reading from today:

The Kings English blog

"Of FlickR, the Library of Congress and the day Beth played hooky to read up on the Great Depression and the Communist Party" David Rothman over at Teleread riffs on my entry, "Library of Congress on Flicker but CIPA may ban it."

Gnod now has a literature map and my friend John Dufresne is on it. But even more a sign he's achieved fame is this offer to help you cheat on a term paper or even a dissertation on his work. And I thought he'd arrived when W.W. Norton published his first book, The Way that Water Enters Stone, in 1990. It may have taken another ten years, but

Since 2000, our John Dufresne experts have helped students worldwide by providing the most extensive, lowest-priced service for John Dufresne writing and research. Regardless of your deadline, budget, specifications, or academic level, we can provide immediate help for your John Dufresne essay, term paper, book report, research paper, dissertation, or thesis.

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Billionaires for Bush Campaign Guide

On my way to book group. Here's something to entertain you until I get back.

Recommended reading:

• Dan Froomking, 935 Iraq Falsehoods , Washington Post
  
• Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith, False Pretenses, Center for Public Integrity
  

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Cecil Ison: Forensic Anthropomorphologist

Lexington (KY) Herald-Leader photo of Cecil Ison's dolls by David Stephenson posted May 18, 2005. You can hear Ison explain his yard art in a Herald-Leader multimedia show featuring more photographs by David Stephenson. An excerpt of Andy Mead's feature from the paper is here.


Cecil's daughter, poet Anna Sunshine Ison, writes,

my father who is an archaeologist by profession and a minister by mail order degree has also declaimed himself the premier forensic anthropomorphologist in the country. which means he finds babydolls who have been somehow mutilated in the forest or on the road (or now people just give them to him) and investigates their deaths. then he nails some of them (parts or whole) on our woodshed and puts the heads in a giant three foot bubble gum machine that someone found in the woods. Then every year he picks the most gruesome photos and adds a themed photo of himself (this year it will be the two of us in white shirts and ties seated solemly at a table examining a doll surrounded by dollparts taped to stakes) and makes a yearly calender.

Retired as chief archaeologist for the Daniel Boone National Forest (bio from that site) where he researched ancient fires in the vicinity of Cliff Palace Pond, Cecil Ison lives on the Morehead, KY farm his father bought when he returned home from WWII. A Vietnam veteran, Ison developed PTSD when the current Iraq war started, but he keeps on keeping on.

I wanted to let you hear Ison's voice and see his work, before I referred you to a feature in the January GQ, "The Long Shadow of War," by Kathy Dobie, which, while a piece of gorgeous writing, turns Ison into something less than himself.

Also, see this eloquent piece"Yesterday's Lies" by Vietnam veteran John Corey (website) on the death of Sgt. Gerald Cassidy at Fort Knox published January 8 on Truthout. In it he writes,

As I browse through old pictures of my days in war, I find myself wanting to crawl inside a photograph or two just to touch and smell those wonderful faces and hear their voices again. And sometimes when I rub my fingers over a particular photo, I'm never sure which side of the picture I'm on. Am I looking in or looking out?

For resources on PTSD disorder, see the blog, Healing Combat Trauma. For an archive of news and other items of interest to veterans, see Veterans for Common Sense.

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Martin Luther King, Jr., Worker Safety and S-MINER

Richard L. Copley's photograph from Wayne State University's exhibit on the 1968 Memphis sanitation workers' strike, at its the Reuther library, "I am a Man," curated by Daniel Golodner and Curtis Hansen.

During a heavy rainstorm in Memphis on February 1, forty years ago, a trash truck compactor accidentally triggered, crushing to death two sanitation workers. The resulting strike, which drew Martin Luther King, Jr., to that city sought not only civil rights, but union membership and worker safety.

The Sago mine disaster on January 2, 2006, captured national attention and resulted in passage of the Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act of 2006 (MINER), but critics such as George Miller (D-CA), wanted a stronger law. The deaths of additional miners in Utah in may have spurred House passage of his "Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act" or S-MINER (H.R. 2768) January 16 by a vote of 214 to 199.

As introduced, the bill proposed to require:

• establishment of emergency response plans to incorporate new technology
• installation of rescue chambers in underground coal mines
• the formulation of accident response plans to provide for the maintenance of refuges
• regulation of seals for abandoned areas in mines
• regulation of the survivability of mine ventilation controls
• a study by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) on whether changes in rock dust requirements are needed and priority given to research on technologies that could help miners in an emergency.
• regulations on flame resistance requirements for conveyor belts in use in mines
• prohibition of belt haulage entries from being used to ventilate active working places
• implementation by mine operators of communication programs at their facilities
• installation of atmospheric monitoring systems
• equipping of miners who may be working along with multi-gas detectors
• use of administrative action to protect miners from lightning
• establishment by the Secretary of a self-contained self-rescuers inspection program; advisory committees on regulations applicable to underground metal and nonmetal mines on whether the Mine Act should provide for federal licensing of mines and mine personnel; and a central communications emergency call center within the Mine Safety and Health Administration
• establishment of a Master Inspector program to provide incentives for employees to serve as mine safety and health inspectors
• establishment, within the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Labor, of the position of Miner Ombudsman, whose duties shall include ensuring that the rights of miners are upheld
• fines for a pattern of violations of health or safety standards
• notification by mine operators of specified types of accidents and measures to prevent the destruction of evidence
• uniform credentials and coordination with local emergency response personnel by mine safety teams
• determination of the Secretary of rules mine operators to have an ambulance within a specified area, revision of the training and availability requirements for medical emergency technicians contracting with the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board to conduct an independent investigation of an accident upon the request of miners' representatives or families
• concentration and exposure limits and sampling and respiratory equipment regarding respirable dust and silica dust in the mine atmosphere.

Bush’s January 15 threatened veto of S-MINER on the eve of its consideration, again raises the question of whether Congress will be able to pass any legislation which he opposes. As SCHIP revealed, mustering enough Senate votes to stop a filibuster is insufficient. There must be enough votes to override a veto, something which has happened only once during his administration, in the case of the water projects bill, where widely spread spending meant there was something for everyone to bring the folks back home.

On January 16, Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-CA), Senior Republican Member on the Education and Labor Committee, sent out a "Dear Colleague" letter saying that S-MINER would "dismantle" the MINER Act.

Before the vote, the bill's sponsor, George Miller offered an amendment to provide

the mining industry with more time to install a new generation of fire-resistant conveyor belts,

as well as funds for the the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to purchase

a new generation of dust monitoring devices to limit black lung disease, and ensure that breathable air requirements of the MINER Act of 2006 are properly implemented.

In addition, the amendment requires that the Secretary of Labor to

conduct a study on substance abuse by miners with recommendations for policy changes, in consultation with all interested parties. The Secretary shall report the findings within six months of the bill's enactment and, if she deems it feasible and effective, shall be authorized to establish a miner substance abuse testing, rehabilitation, and treatment program within MSHA in consultation with the interested parties.

Rick Boucher (D-VA) offered an amendment to provide ten million dollars for

grants to provide rehabilitation services to current and former miners suffering from mental health impairments, including drug addiction and substance abuse issues, which may have been caused or exacerbated by their work as miners.

Brad Elsworth (D-IN) offered an amendment to relieve mine operators

that have been assessed penalties and pay them in a timely fashion. It also establishes a trust fund within Treasury, composed of mine safety civil penalties. Funds from the trust fund can be used for mine safety inspections and investigations only.

All these amendments passed.

Meanwhile although there are exactly zero underground mines in SC (see the Census Bureau's 1997 Economic Census on Mining for South Carolina page 13), and the pit mining there seems to be gravel and sand and clay (page 12), Joe Wilson (R-SC) who represents the second district which comprises the midlands of Columbia down to Hilton Head Island submitted an amendment in the nature of a substitute to scuttle the bill and instead:

promote the continued robust implementation of the 2006 MINER Act.

Then, after that amendment failed and the bill passed Mark Souder (R-IN) tried to get the matter returned to committee, but failed. A look at the vote reveals that that Shelley Moore Capito of WV was one of only 7 Republicans to vote for the bill. The others were: Spencer Bachus (AL), Wayne Gilchrest (MD), Sam Graves (MO), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Chris Shays (CT) and Chris Smith (NJ). In addition, 16 Democrats joined the minority in voting against the bill:

• Barrow (GA)
• Berry (AZ)
• Boren (OK)
• Boyd (FL)
• Boyda (KS)
• Cramer (AL)
• Cuellar and Lampson (TX)
• Melancon
• Davis (TN)
• Herseth Sandlin (SD)
• Perlmutter, Salazar and Udall (CO).
  
• Peterson (MN)

The National Mining Association's (NMA) astroturf group, ACT for Mining had taken the position that Mr. Miller was

pushing a new "mine safety" bill even before the mining community has had a chance to fully implement the bipartisan Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act. The House is set to vote on Jan. 16 on the Supplemental-MINER Act (H.R. 2768), a bill that would impose new, unnecessary regulations on both hardrock and coal mining operations that will do nothing to improve mine safety. Passage of this new legislation could possibly idle or close mines and have unintended, adverse effects on mine safety.

NMA sent out multiple alerts urging supporters to call or e-mail their House members and ask them to vote against the bill. After passage, which it termed "narrow," it sent a new alert promoting thank-you letters the 199 who voted against the bill, saying that

The 199 votes cast in opposition are substantially more than the 145 votes needed to sustain a threatened presidential veto, should one ultimately be necessary. This action also will likely diminish interest in Senate consideration of H.R. 2768, in essence, stopping the progress of this bad bill.

Like others, I associate the month of January with two holidays of hope: New Year’s Day on which we can resolve to do better and Martin Luther King Day, on which we can reflect on King’s dream for all of us. As someone in Appalachia, I always remember that King devoted what were to be his last days to planning the Poor People's Campaign, a multi-ethnic march on Washington to demand action against poverty. March 14, three weeks before his assassination in Memphis, he met with 78 “nonblack” minority leaders in an Atlanta summit. In the third volume of his King biography, At Caanan’s Edge, Taylor Branch recounts that

King aide Bernard Lafayette …had checked repeatedly to make sure King wanted the hardscrabble white groups to be included, and the answer was always simple: “Are they poor?” The motor lodge's meeting room was dotted with coal miners, some of whom braved fierce criticism from Appalachian rivals.

Attending the summit was Peggy Terry, from Kentucky, raised in a Klan family, who upon seeing Martin Luther King, Jr., arrested during the Montgomery Alabama bus boycott, got arrested herself, and went on to say,

I’m so thankful I went down there that day because I might have gone all my life just the way it was.

And so, as we start 2008, I'm wondering if there is reason for hope for a strengthened Mine Safety Act or whether the National Mining Association will prevail, and things will continue just the way it was.

*

For an interesting article, see "Radical vein coursed through civil rights leader's messages," by Zack McMillin (Contact) in the January 20, 2008 (Memphis) Commercial Appeal.

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Helping Utah Phillips

Portrait of Utah Phillips by Maine artist Rob Shetterly (email) from his portrait series Americans Who Tell the Truth. (artist's statement with links to the rest of the website.)

Kids don’t have a little brother working in the coal mine, they don’t have a little sister coughing her lungs out in the looms of the big mill towns of the Northeast. Why? Because we organized; we broke the back of the sweatshops in this country; we have child labor laws. Those were not benevolent gifts from enlightened management. They were fought for, they were bled for, they were died for by working people, by people like us. Kids ought to know that. That’s why I sing these songs. That’s why I tell these stories, dammit. No root, no fruit!
--Utah Phillips, Americans Who Tell The Truth

Here I was, about to tell you about Utah Phillips--folksinger, storyteller and supporter of working men and women. About fund raising efforts because his chronic and serious heart problems have left him unable to travel or perform. About his website adding podcast interviews. And Google AdSense ups and selects my blog as an ideal match for Rick Berman's anti-union front group, the so-called Center for Union Facts. Is Google subversively wasting Berman's money or does it lack the sense God gave a flea?

More on the former "labor management" attorney's efforts against the George Miller's (D-CA) card check legislation at the end of this post. First I want to tell that though I never crossed paths with Phillips, I've loved his songs ever since Rosalie Sorrels performed them--I can't even tell you the venue. The Jonesboro National Storytelling Festival? Maybe Merlefest?

Many of his songs are railroad-centric and my friend Ron Kaminkow, one of the founders of the New River Free Press, now a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen and a steering committee member for Railroad Workers United pass on news of Phillip's plight from songwriter and New York union organizer George Mann (interview, email, website).

Local 1180 of the Communications Workers of America (NYC), and the Detroit and the Upstate New York branches of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), have passed a resolution honoring Phillips and attaching donations for his "retirement fund."

Bruce "Utah" Phillips is a truly unique American treasure. Not just a great folksong writer and interpreter, not just a great storyteller, Utah has preserved and presented the history of our nation's working people and union movement for audiences throughout the world. His recorded work keeps these songs and stories alive. He has spoken up against the injustices of boss-dominated capitalism and worked for peace and justice for more than 40 years.

Now Utah finds himself unable to continue performing due to severe heart problems. We wish to honor and recognize his great talent, spirit and love for the working people and the union movement of the United States. Therefore, we move to pass this resolution in gratitude for all he has done and will continue to do in his work and life. We also wish to contribute $____ to Utah Phillips in appreciation and in solidarity as he and his wife, Joanna Robinson, deal with his health and the loss of his ability to work.

Mann hopes that other unions, anti-war and labor-affiliated organizations will passing similar resolutions:

Utah has given so much of himself to the labor and peace movements. It is great news that some unions and many have chosen to give something back to him, to allow him and his wife, Joanna Robinson, to rest easy, work on his long-term health, and not have to worry about where money will come for the medicine and bills he has to pay.

Another way to help is to buy something from Utah's vast catalog of songs and stories. You can order his CDs online through cdbaby.com, but pay less and get more money to Utah if you order directly:

U. Utah Phillips
No Guff Records
P.O. Box 1235
Nevada City, CA 95959
(530) 265-2476

You can also send a donation to that address. Ron adds these recommendation on what to order:

For train and tramp stuff, “The Telling Takes Me Home” is probably best. The 4 CD set has a lot of this stuff on it as well together with stories on the background of how he came to write each song. For union and Wobbly stuff, the “We Have Fed You All For A Thousand Years” is probably the best. Please help out an old tramp and buy some of this great music. I already own a bunch of it and plan to buy a bunch more given the old guy’s plight. I hope you will too.

You can read "Interview with Utah Phillips" by Carolyn Crane in the July/August 2004 Issue of Z Magazine (Volume 17 Number 7/8).

*

Now back to Berman. I wrote about the card check legislation March 18, 2007 for LLRX.com:
"Labor Protections and the Role of Card-Check Agreements:

George Miller (D-CA) identified a disturbing trend July 13, 2006, in President Bush’s National Labor Relations Board [NLRB] Rolls Back Labor Protections, and introduced H.R. 800, authorizing card check-off campaigns to establish union representation unless 30% of workers wanted a NLRB-run secret ballot election. The bill, which also would increase penalties for unfair labor practices, overwhelmingly passed the House [by a vote of 241-185] on March 1, 2007, with critics claiming the status quo, in which employers can require NLRB elections, evoked the democratic tradition and protected workers.

On June 26, all the Democrats voted for cloture, along with Arlen Specter (R-PA). While enough to pass the measure, it was not sufficient to stop a threatened filibuster.

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House Mining Safety Bill Passes January 16

In "Coal: $35 million in Astroturfing," my friend, Clem who blogs with me over at West Virginia Blue, posted about about Steven Mufson January 18 WaPo story, "Coal Industry Plugs Into the Campaign" concerning the coal industry group, Americans for Balanced Energy Choices which is spending that amount

in primary and caucus states to rally public support for coal-fired electricity and to fuel opposition to legislation that Congress is crafting to slow climate change.

He aslo pointed out a long blog post of the same name by A Siegel at EnergySmart. I thought I'd add something about another such group, the National Mining Association's (NMA) ACT for Mining and George Miller (D-CA)'s "Supplemental Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response Act" or S-MINER (H.R. 2768) which passed the House January 16 by a vote of 214 to 199.

Our "friends" at the NMA took the position that Mr. Miller was

pushing a new "mine safety" bill even before the mining community has had a chance to fully implement the bipartisan Mine Improvement and New Emergency Response (MINER) Act. The House is set to vote on Jan. 16 on the Supplemental-MINER Act (H.R. 2768), a bill that would impose new, unnecessary regulations on both hardrock and coal mining operations that will do nothing to improve mine safety. Passage of this new legislation could possibly idle or close mines and have unintended, adverse effects on mine safety.

NMA sent out multiple alerts urging their supporters to call or e-mail their House members and ask them to vote against the bill. So what was the reaction to what it termed a "narrow" passage? In a new alert NMA wrote,

The 199 votes cast in opposition are substantially more than the 145 votes needed to sustain a threatened presidential veto, should one ultimately be necessary. This action also will likely diminish interest in Senate consideration of H.R. 2768, in essence, stopping the progress of this bad bill.

They're now urging that we write to thank the 199, which includes the following 16 Democrats:

• Barrow (GA)
• Berry (AZ)
• Boren (OK)
• Boyd (FL)
• Boyda (KS)
• Cramer (AL)
• Cuellar and Lampson (TX)
• Melancon
• Davis (TN)
• Herseth Sandlin (SD)
• Perlmutter, Salazar and Udall (CO).
  
• Peterson (MN)
  

My gut reaction is, instead, to ask our friends in their home states to curse them out (all right, to ask why they voted that way, express disappointment, look up the rest of their record to determine if it's problematic, and if so, work to get a more progressive Democrat elected in the next primary and General Election). Then, write to thank those who voted for the bill. Reactions? I know I've had one reader today from Whitewater, KS or thereabouts and several in TX. Could you help those of us who live in Appalachia?

Shelley Moore Capito of WV was one of only 7 Republicans to vote for the bill. The others were:
Spencer Bachus (AL), Wayne Gilchrest (MD), Sam Graves (MO), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Chris Shays (CT) and Chris Smith (NJ).

Before the vote, the bill's sponsor, George Miller offered an amendment to provide

the mining industry with more time to install a new generation of fire-resistant conveyor belts,

as well as funds for the the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) to purchase

a new generation of dust monitoring devices to limit black lung disease, and ensure that breathable air requirements of the MINER Act of 2006 are properly implemented.

In addition, the amendment requires that the Secretary of Labor to

conduct a study on substance abuse by miners with recommendations for policy changes, in consultation with all interested parties. The Secretary shall report the findings within six months of the bill's enactment and, if she deems it feasible and effective, shall be authorized to establish a miner substance abuse testing, rehabilitation, and treatment program within MSHA in consultation with the interested parties.

Our Congressman, Rick Boucher (D) offered an amendment to provide ten million dollars for

grants to provide rehabilitation services to current and former miners suffering from mental health impairments, including drug addiction and substance abuse issues, which may have been caused or exacerbated by their work as miners.

Brad Elsworth (D-IN) offered an amendment to relieve mine operators

that have been assessed penalties and pay them in a timely fashion. It also establishes a trust fund within Treasury, composed of mine safety civil penalties. Funds from the trust fund can be used for mine safety inspections and investigations only.

All these amendments passed.

Meanwhile although there are exactly zero underground mines in SC (I looked it up--the Census Bureau's 1997 Economic Census on Mining for South Carolina page 13), and the pit mining there seems to be gravel and sand and clay (page 12), Joe Wilson (R-SC) who represents the second district which comprises the midlands of Columbia down to Hilton Head Island submitted an amendment in the nature of a substitute to:

promote the continued robust implementation of the 2006 MINER Act.

Then, after that motion failed and the bill passed Mark Souder (R-IN) tried to get the matter returned to committee, but failed.

Other interesting reading from today:

• Energize America--a citizen's group which self-organized on DailyKos to come up with a plan to wean the united States from its dependence on fosil fuels.
• Keith Olbermann Does The Impossible: Admits He Was Wrong--Greg Sargent's post on The Horse's Mouth at Talking Point Memo, his blog about the reporting of politics and the politics of reporting (hat tip to Glenn Greenwald at Salon)
• Mapquest by longitude and latitude (slow loading)
• KingPing--pings multiple search engines for free
• Candidate issue mattrix from MSNBC
  

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Are schools following CIA's lead in destroying evidence?

Cartoon from 12/12/07 by John Darkow (email) , cartoonist for the Columbia (MO) Daily Tribune (archive.)

Patricia Wen's (email) Boston Globe article,"Report says shock tapes destroyed against order," caught my eye today. She writes about Judge Rotenberg Educational Center group home in Stoughton, where a video tape recorded staff administering 77 shocks, the to one emotionally disturbed teenager and 29 to another, with one of the students being placed in four-point restraints, limiting mobility of all four limbs. All this, after a "prankster" posing as a supervisor delivered supposed orders from the school's director and a chief aide.

When the investigator with the Disabled Persons Protection Commission asked for a copy of the tapes she had viewed school officials said they did not

want any possibility of the images getting into the media.

The investigator directed the school to preserve a copy of the tapes for use by State Police conducting a criminal investigation, but was later told by a trooper that the school had failed to do so.

School spokesman, Ernest Corrigan, said that investigators from the commission held an "exit interview" on Sept. 30 with school staff, leading them to believe there was no more need to keep the tapes. The school;s founder said that the the school reuses the tapes after 30 days and thought that investigation "seemed to be finished." He gave a similar explanation at the State House hearing on Wednesday on a bill to restrict shock treatments at the school.

According to a December 18 story by the same reporter, the center,

which serves about 250 adults and children from across the country, has been under fire for more than two decades for its unorthodox behavior-modification treatments, including electric shock treatments.

It's ironic that I picked Darkow's cartoon as an illustration for today's post, as I later read in Drawn to Extremes that Darkow and his paper had been sued for his skewering of a school board candidate that preached the value of a return to corporal punishment. In something that sounds like it comes out of Stanley Milgram's infamous experiment on obedience, Wen writes that the

shock devices, which are strapped to some students' arms, legs, or torsos, deliver two-second electric jolts to the skin. The devices are controlled remotely by teachers.

Other things I've been reading today:

• The New Hampshire primary recount (hat tip to the News Dissector)
  
• Mr. Fish at LA Weekly
• January 24, 2008, at 12:00 PM, The Constition project sponsors a panel discussion "What You Don't Know Can Hurt You: Congress, the Courts, and the State Secrets Privilege"
  
• Interior withholding key documents on arctic drilling from PEER
• Shutting down the Federal Elections Commission from Captital Eye
• EPA et. al.'s threat to clean water from EarthJustice
• Latest reports from POGO

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Cartoonists Bors, Rall: Stewart & Colbert are Scabs

United Feature Syndicate cartoonist Matt Bors (email, website. My Space page) released his cartoon "Scab," and to posted on his blog on "Television and Strikes."


And above's Universal Press Syndicate cartoonist Ted Rall 's (email, website, bio) cartoon from January 17 and his post.

With news that the Director's Guild of America has reached a tentative agreement, pressure increases on the Writer's Guild to settle. But, it was the studios who walked away from the table back in December. The side deals signed by Letterman and smaller film studios will be superseded by the final contract. Here's a rundown of the tentative pros and cons of the deal from the WGA perspective.

This week, Jonathan Handel, a digital media attorney who at one time worked for the Guild (email) had an op-ed in the LA Times urging the writers to used the directors to help broker a deal. But, as he pointed out earlier at his blog,

The top echelon of movie directors are paid millions and promised a cut of the gross, so new-media residuals don't amount to much mad money for them. Meanwhile, 40% of DGA members are assistant directors and unit production managers who receive practically no residuals now.

As a result, the Directors Guild likely is more willing to trade off new-media residuals against other issues, such as larger base payments up front. Indeed, the studios would prefer to hike those minimums rather than increase residuals. That's because the first residuals deal negotiated often becomes a blueprint for the others -- it's called "pattern bargaining" -- but upfront minimums don't work that way. If the directors' deal were to become the contract template, each dollar of residuals the studios grant multiplies into more than $12 across all the unions' contracts.

Patrick Walsh described what the writers at Cinematical back in December:

Writers currently make $.04 for each $20 DVD sold. The AMPTP wants to give us the DVD rate (.3% of the gross -- roughly half a cent for each $2 iTunes episode download) for the internet downloads, despite the huge amount of money (around $.50 per DVD) that they save on shipping, manufacturing, etc. (Basically, the WGA is asking for 2.5% of internet sales, the AMPTP is offering .3 - .36%...on the network websites you can watch entire episodes of television shows for free. The networks sell ads (that annoying commercial you have to watch before your show begins) and earn lotsa money from running the shows online (an estimated $4.6 billion over the next three years, to be exact). But writers receive NONE of that revenue. Not one cent. How can this be? The studios claim these downloads are "for promotional purposes only."

The WGA wanted the amount a writer earns from a DVD sale to go up from $.04 cents per sale to $.08 cents per sale....The AMPTP offered considerably less, and the WGA took the doubling proposal off the table. The writers also want internet showings to pay the same amount as television showings.... But the AMPTP claims that the internet is still "too new" a medium to set a reasonable percentage.

But with the exception of some of the blogs, the media's coverage of Leno, et. al returning to work has speculated on content, but failed to question them for undercutting the strike. At least until today, when Bors and Rall (see cartoons above) paired up to issue a press release and the above cartoons confronting political humorists Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" and Stephen Colbert of "The Colbert Report" for returning to their Comedy Central shows without writers during the Writers Guild of America strike.

the stakes are too high, the issues too important, the hypocrisy too hypocritical for us to just put down our pens and tune in to their union-busting, albeit highly amusing, programs.

The pair added that they will not appear on either show while the strike remains in effect.

We'd rather fight in Bush's wars than cross a picket line.

Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor and Publisher passed along the news release, although he said he didn't agree. Readers at his blog seemed to take this a signal to attack the cartoonists.

UPDATE of 1/18/07: Hollywood Reporter's Ray Richmond had a piece this morning questioning why the guild isn't going after high profile members who have returned to television, "WGA stance on struck work seems more like a write-off."

Jeff Hermanson, the WGA's assistant executive director, makes the point that the guild doesn't comment on alleged strike rules compliance violations until a determination is made and possible disciplinary action taken. He declined to say whether there had been any complaints lodged against Stewart, Colbert, Kimmel or Maher, or if indeed anything they have done since returning constitutes a breach.

"With regard to Leno, we clarified that he isn't supposed to be writing a monologue," Hermanson said this week. "Clearly, he had a misunderstanding of the rule." So why has the WGA allowed Leno to continue penning a nightly monologue on "Tonight" without making an issue of it? And just whose misunderstanding was this: Leno's or the guild's? Hermanson replies that the WGA isn't taking a position on that at present.

We might surmise from this that the guild has taken to having a sliding scale when it comes to perceived scab writing and enforcement. If you're a high-profile talk-show host on a struck production, it appears to be OK to use your words as long as you don't make it too terribly obvious. And even if you do, just don't rub anyone's nose in it, and nobody gets hurt.

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Library of Congress on Flicker but CIPA may ban it

Color transparency of a poster for a side show at the Vermont state fair in Rutland taken September 1941 by Jack Delano (1914-1997) posted by the Library of Congress (LOC) on its new page on Flickr. In addition, you can visit the LOC's more extensive Prints and Photographs Online Catalog.

*

The Library of Congress is one of my favorite haunts. The first time I had to sneak in because I was still in high school. I confess this, hoping that the statute of limitations has expired. While other folks ditched classes to cruise the mall, I transgressed once by riding with Dad into the District to research a senior term paper, "The Effects of The Great Depression on Communist Party Membership in the United States." I had already tried the Richard Byrd branch library. Its only book-- a 1958 tome by J. Edgar Hoover--warned that the shoe salesman peeking up my skirt might be a communist. --hat tip to civil liberties lawyer Paul Wolf (email) for the excerpt from his archival research resources) The college libraries weren't much better.

The shortage of books was my first experience with the remnants of the McCarthy era. Imagine, instead, a library where everything in print was available! When Matt Raymond announced the partnership with Flickr at the LOC blog today in a post titled, "My Friend Flickr: A Match Made in Photo Heaven," I was disappointed to learn that the Childrens’ Internet Protection Act (ALA resources) was causing access problems. See this comment by Molly Large:

I’d like to encourage the LOC to mirror the data on their own site. The vast majority of districts I work with block Flickr because of CIPA compliance. Since Flickr names images within their root directory, and only links to those from the subdirectory, it doesn’t seem to work for the district to unblock www.flickr.com/photos/library_of_congress.

As I noted in response there, rather than a ban on all of Flickr which requires mirroring, perhaps the underlying problem with the legislation or with its implementation should be fixed. But until then, as long as you're not on a blocked computer, you can interact with a portion of LOC's photo collection. As of today, there are two sets of photos there awaiting your tags and comments:

• 1,615 color transparencies taken by the United States Farm Security Administration (FSA) and the Office of War Information (OWI) between 1939-1944; and
  
• 1500 glass black and white negatives from the Bain News Service depicting sports, theater, crime, strikes, disasters, and politics, especially in new York City during the period 1910-1912.

I would have repeated such forays, but the truant officer called and when I got home Mom told me I was lucky he asked the right question:

He asked whether I knew you were not in school and I said yes. If he had asked me if I knew you were skipping school I would have told him the same thing.

Later, I'd visit the rare book room where you don cotton gloves and trade your pen for a pencil stub to wonder at William Blake's original illustrations ( still available--not sure if this link will work--and you can also view the digital copy of the 1794 edition of Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

At last count there were 93 items by William Stafford and a shelf they'll lend you as an "independent researcher to amass a temporary private stash.

Besides being able to view the catalog online, there's the Thomas legislative database, the American Folklife Center, the American Memory project, the Verterans' History project, online versions of exhibits and more.

The only thing missing (besides the books, the desks, the reading lamps....) as I sit here tapping away at the computer is the social aspect. During college, while other folks hooked up in bars, I met a fellow who took me to the Kennedy Center as I worked my way through all the works of Flannery O'Connor. Another introduced me to my first Fellini flick, La Strada.

So by all means, visit Flickr and the library online. But, next time you're in DC, why not stop in at the actual library...

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Good Jobs First Exposes Wal-Mart (Again)

Cover illustration from a October 10, 2007 report from Good Jobs First (GJF) "Rolling Back Property Tax Payments." The non-profit stresses economic development, accountability and smart growth. (to be added, as Tech has removed all the Windows machines from Torgeson and Blogger doesn't seem to want to upload a jpg from the remaining Macs. Go figure.

Before I get into the report, though, I thought I'd reverse Grandma's rule (eat your veggies before I give you dessert) and offer a few laughs from sites I found yesterday when I was researching the Robertson story:

• Adult Christianity. "37 'Bible Believing' Tricks Anyone Can Use to Prove God Agrees with Them"Without Ever Having to Open a Bible!!!
• All Hat No Cattle--Florida illustrator Linda Casey's (email) humor site started after the 2000 "elections" based on an expression Ann Richards used to described George Bush when he was running agaisnt her for Governor of Texas.

*

Now, back to Wal-Mart. While the company brags about its a good corporate citizenship, its largess in donated profits, besides being a tax write-off, actually may represent funds transferred from the tax coffers.

Most folks will have heard by now of subsidies that Wal-Mart requests before building a new store or distribution center. A 2004 report by (GJF) revealed these include:

• Free or reduced-price land;
• Infrastructure assistance such as construction of access roads, water and sewer lines;
• Tax increment financing to the company even newly-developing or even prosperous areas;
• Property tax abatements, often for ten years. In some cases, Wal-Mart lets ownership remain with public authorities, thus making it tax-exempt;
• State corporate income tax credits, which is hard to research since the tax returns are not public documents;
• Sales tax rebates in which the retailer retains retain a potion of the sales tax it collects;
• Enterprise zone which in the addition to the above may include reduced utility rates, low-interest financing and/or job training grants;
• Job training and worker recruitment grants;
• Tax-exempt industrial revenue bond financing; and
  
• General grants. Virginia provided grants to several Wal-Mart distribution centers from the Governor's Opportunity Fund.
  

Some folks may have even heard the company's reported use of the real estate investment trust exposed by the Wall Street Journal February 1, 2007 in Jesse Drucker's "FRIENDLY LANDLORD: Wal-Mart Cuts Taxes By Paying Rent to Itself. "

But what you may not have read (I know I hadn't) is that Wal-Mart often challenges its property tax assessments, forcing localities to ante up tens of thousands of dollars on outside lawyers, appraisers and other consultants to defend the challenges. Philip Mattera, the non-profit's research director and principal author of the October 10 report says,

Wal-Mart, a company with $350 billion in annual revenues and $11 billion in profits, drains vitally needed funds from communities by regularly challenging the valuation put on its properties by public officials. When the company succeeds in one of these challenges, it diminishes the funds available to pay for education, police and fire protection, and other essential services provided by local governments.

Mattera looked a large national sample of Wal-Mart stores and all of its distribution centers open as of the beginning of 2005 and concluded that the retailer has filed assessment challenges at more than one-third of its facilities, sometimes in multiple years. GJF executive director Greg LeRoy notes the irony,

When it meets opposition to a new store, the company claims it will bring economic benefits to the community, which would normally be reflected in higher property values.Yet, in these assessment appeals the company routinely argues that the value of its properties has declined. Unwittingly, Wal-Mart appears to be confirming the argument often raised by neighborhood groups that the construction of one of the company's giant stores will reduce property values.

Below are some of the statistical highlights from the report for stores and distribution centers combined:

Locations w/ at least one appeal.......................... 1,031
Locations w/ appeal as portion all locations......... 36.3%
Locations w/ at least one successful appeal................. 570
Total appeals............................................. 2,125
Total successful appeals.................................... 921
Success rate (excluding pending appeals)................... 49.8%
Total cumulative tax savings...................... $28.8 million
Approximate annual tax savings....................... $3 million

If you want an opportunity to get together with Materra and the other folks at GJF, as well as with other campaigners, researchers and experts, consider attending the organization's third national conference, to take place May 7 and 8 near BWI Thurgood Marshall Airport.

Confirmed speakers are:

• The New York Times investigative reporter David Cay Johnston (archive), author of Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You with the Bill); and
• New Rules Project Coordinator Stacy Mitchell, author of Big-Box Swindle: The True Cost of Mega-Retailers and the Fight for America's Independent Business .
  

Conference tracks are:

• Community Benefits Agreements - presented by the Partnership for Working Families the national network promoting CBAs
• Economic Development Subsidy Accountability: core policy reforms disclosure, clawbacks, and job quality standards plus corporate tax scams such as Single Sales Factor plus emerging issues such as Climate Quality Standards (to curb global warming)
• Smart Growth for Working Families: GJF's work on sprawl and good jobs, including mapping deals against race, income, poverty, transit access, plant closings
• Advanced Research Sources and Techniques (on both subsidies and corporations), led by Mattera, emphasizing new online resources; and
• Wal-Mart/Big-Box Regulation: Wal-Mart accountability, the New Rules Project, and the fascinating campaign against Cabela's by a competitor.

*

Here's some other interesting reading:

• Environmental solutions, January 14, "Microbial fuel cell (MFC) technology." (email)
• “Six Sins of GreenwashingTM”
  A Study of Environmental Claims in North American Consumer Markets", November 2007

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Media Consolidation and the Rev. Pat Robertson

Photoshop illustration #125 from UnfairlyBalanced.com (2/26/06)

I last wrote about Pat Robertson when he suggested a hit on Hugo Chavez. (See "Pat Robertson and Venezuela" from August 25, 2005). Look at the above quotes (and these with citations from church organist and computer guru Liz Stanley (current website). Is this the guy you'd want publishing your local paper?

He'd like to, if you live in Norfolk, Virginia and the surrounding area, according to business writer Philip Waltzer's (bio, email) Virginian-Pilot story of January 11, "Pat Robertson says his attorneys are looking into bid for The Virginian-Pilot." That paper is the flagship publication of Batten-family-owned, Landmark Communications, which bought the Roanoke Times from the Fishburns in 1969. In an e-mail forwarded by his personal assistant, G.G. Conklin, Robertson wrote Waltzer,

I am considering a potential bid for the Pilot and have asked my attorneys to look into it. ...It would be particularly helpful to provide internships for Regent University journalism students.

Since Robertson started his now-international Christian Broadcasting Network in Portsmouth to serve the Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News market, I thought, at first, that the acquisition had something to do with the controversial FCC ruling December 18, which according to the Washington Post's Frank Ahrens,

partially lifted a 32-year-old ban that prevents a newspaper owner from also owning a radio or television station in the same city.

But Robertson sold that station in 1988.

Landmark is not saying why it may sell its original paper the Pilot. January 2, Waltzer and his editor Bill Choycke broke the story in the Pilot that the corporation is considering selling off its assets. "" is no longer available online, but you can get it via E-library. or you read stories by the same writers which were tailored for Annapolis and Roanoke papers. Charles Apple's blog features a summary of the papers coverage of its own possible fate in his blog. Apple was the graphic designer for the Pilot for four years until the paper reorganized and demoted him to graphic artist.

Still up at the Pilot's site, is Waltzer's sequel but in case it also disappears, you can find "Landmark Communications chairman says selling company was his idea" republished story at TMC.net. Here is a list of Walzer's stories on the topic, as Apple doesn't always provide the article title with his links and who knows how many more will disappear:

• Weather Channel's profitability is behind sale, says Landmark executive
• Landmark sells video downloading service
• Baltimore Sun weighs bid for some Landmark properties
• Landmark Chairman Batten Jr.: 'It was my decision'
• Industry experts doubtful on merger of the Daily Press and The Virginian-Pilot

See also Diane Tennant's

• This newspaper might be sold. So? What could that mean to you?

There was a time, less than a year ago when the company was adding papers. On April 25 , 2007, the company announced that it had acquired full control of Annapolis publisher Philip Merrill's newpapers, in a swap for its interest in Merrill's Washingtonian Magazine. Landmark had having bought 49.9% of his holdings in 1975.

According to Washington Post reporter Elizabeth Williamson, 72-year-old Merrill, despondent about his health, set sail alone on his 41-foot boat, tied a mushroom anchor to his leg and shot himself in the head June 10, 2006, precipitating a 9-day search which included "half-dozen boats, helicopters and members of several law enforcement agencies."

Walzer reported his widow Eleanor Merrill's statement at the time of the swap:

Although this decision has been a difficult one for me, I am confident that Landmark will preserve the traditions that have made our newspapers such an integral part of their communities.

That was then and this is now.

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Norton to publish new Dufresne novel Requiem, Mass

According to the blurb at Amazon, John's novel, Requiem, Mass. due out from Norton on July 18:

takes us to Requiem, Mass., heart of the Commonwealth, where Johnny's mom, Frances, is driving in the breakdown lane once again. She thinks Johnny and his little sister Audrey have been replaced by aliens; she's sure of it, and she's pretty certain that she herself is already dead, or she wouldn't need to cover the stink of her rotting flesh with Jean Naté Après Bain. Dad, truck driver and pathological liar, is down South somewhere living his secret life. And Audrey, when she's not walking her cat Deluxe in a baby stroller, spends her time locked in a closet telling herself stories. Johnny, meanwhile, is hell-bent on saving the family from itself.

For some reason Amazon says you'll like this book if you liked Ratatouille. I'll have to ask him if he knows why. Something is kerflewy with the page at Norton--when you
search on the title, the link takes you to three books on militant Islam. Evidently it has something to do with the ISBN. I've let John know by email and will post a link, once it's working properly.

As regular readers know, I'm a fan of John's. I upgraded the Wikipedia stub on him to an article in August 2005 and his books made it to my top ten list in my post "Books That Meet the Gold Standard" from December 7, 2007.

Ten days after that entry, John had to start a new blog after his site crashed. Somehow he lost the archives to his old blog which he started in 2004. When I checked the Archive.org for him, there were entries posts for him that year covering the periods:

• July 17 - August 3, 2004
• September 1 - 16, 2004
• October 1 -11, 2004
• December 1 -29, 2004

The last crawl that captured anything was for the period July 1 - August 31, 2006. After that, the links for webcrawls bring up this message:

Not in Archive. The page you requested has not been archived. If the page is still available on the Internet, we will begin archiving it during our next crawl. Try another request or click here to search for all pages on johndufresne.com/Blog+Content.htm See the FAQs for more info and help, or contact us.

Obviously, something is wacky and a promise to crawl again is too little. too late. Similarly, with Yahoo about to bail on my blog at 360, I'm not much comforted by the Internet Archive covering me only at great intervals in 2006, with none of the links to prior entries having been recorded. Sigh. Joe Dunphy tried to download my entries to his Dad's computer, but he can't seem to email me a copy. I did discover tonight that I can backdate any entry that I transfer manually, but haven't yet figured how to get them to archive by anything other than year.

I did find a link there to a television interview I hadn't known about on cable access:

One of John's readers and now mine since April of 2007, Joe from Cheese, TX sent along a link you might enjoy, to the Salem, Virginia (since 1936) meatpacker Valleydale's archive of

TV commercials created in the late 50s featured animated pigs working or marching in a parade, playing band instruments and singing the "Hooray for Valleydale" jingle.

As I told him in my thank you note,

Valleydale's ham comes to me by way of Cheese. Now all we need is Rye. (Maybe wry will count.)

Speaking of the 50's he answered with a description of growing up on what he's called in the past the "dark side of the [Mill Mountian] star":

ya gotta remember i went to a 2 room school...
an iron stained Howdy Doody glass (water from a pump in the schoolyard) and we stayed warm
by taking turns carrying coal in to a stove in the middle of the room.
(sign of bigness was to be perceived to be big enough to carry the bucket WITH COAL.)

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David Mamet Comedy "November" Opens January 17

Caricature of playwright David Mamet © Zach Trenholm (website, drawing demonstration) from "David Mamet's New Political Play: The playwright discusses his campaign comedy opening on Broadway and his writing process," by Robert J. Hughs, Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2008 from which comes my Quote o' the Day...

WSJ: Do you find a difference between working on Broadway versus in Hollywood?

Mamet: The main difference is that in New York they treat the writer like a human being, and in Hollywood they treat him like a discarded, diseased whore. Other than that, it's very similar.

Rehearsals began at the end of November for Mamet's new comedy of the same name starring Nathan Lane as a president whose popularity rating is, as Mamet put it, according to BarbaraHoffman of the New York Post,

lower than Gandhi's cholesterol.

Boris Katchka in his New York Magazine interview on the play of January 10,2008 describes Lane's character, Charles H.P. Smith, as

a cash-poor incumbent on the verge of losing reelection...in a venal class all his own, deploring the job as “too much stress, too little opportunity for theft,” and lighting on the annual Thanksgiving-turkey pardon as a potential fund-raising scheme.

Knowing Mamet's mastery of dialogue, this may have more substance than the actual primary coverage.

See also:

• Interview aired on August 24, 2007 by Charlie Rose
  
• Salon Profile of September 11, 2001 by Paul A. Toth
• Salon Interview from October 24, 1997 by Richard Covington.
• December 4, 1984 Interview by Matthew Roudane
• 1984 Interview by Hank Nuwer

*

Going to the National Theatre on Pennsylvania Avenue in the District of Columbia with my parents, I remember the Hirschfeld covers for Playbill (archive from NYT). Five years ago on January 20, Hirschfeld died in his sleep at the age of 99. I think San Franciso illustratorTrenholm, whose work is featured above, may be his heir. Take a look at his depictions of Stallone, Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Vonnegut (my post on Vonnegut is here.)

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Congressional Report Criticizes TSA

You may remember I wrote on the TSA 11/14/07, "Is the Transportation Security Administration Providing Transportaton Security? " and on 12/27, "TSA Has More Memos."

At 4:04 p.m. today, Thomas Claburn reported in the January 11 Information Week, "Congressional Report Slams TSA For Security Breach: At least 247 travelers submitted their personal information through the unsecured 'file your application online' link, a House Oversight committee said."


This afternoon I worked on the FCC post from yesterday and participated in the Newstrust host conference call, so more later, as the library is closing.

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Comcast, The FCC and Net Neutrality

Network neutrality is the principle that Internet users should control the content they view and the applications they use. Broadband providers don't like this notion much, as they would like to optimize their profit by deciding what what content gets to whom first and fastest.

So far they have suceeded with Congress. The House passed its telecommunications bill, H.R. 5252 , 321 tto 101 on June 8, without adequate net neutrality protections after a motion to recommit garnered 165 votes including Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and two Republicans (Jones of TN and of Wilson of NM). On June 28, the Senate Commerce Committee passed its own telecom bill, S. 2686, after an amendment to add net neutrality safeguards failed 11-11, in Committee.

But at least one broadband company, Comcast, was not content to wait for legislation. Robb Topolski (pictured above, blog, email) who edits the D-Links forum on Broadband Reports posted on that site May 12, 2007 that Comcast secretly was using a program called Sandvine to hamper the peer-to-peer file sharing applications on its broadband service. The AP's Peter Svensons confirmed that Comcast was degrading BitTorrent performance in an investigation published on on October 19. Farhad Manjoo, the technology writer for Salon explained in layman's terms what this meant.

Three groups that advocate net neutrality-- Free Press, Public Knowledge and The Media Access Project--filed a formal complaint with the FCC November 1, 2007. They also filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling asking the FCC to rule service providers, in general, violated the Commission’s policy statement they degraded a targeted application, and that intentionally degrading service without informing Internet users constitutes a deceptive trade practice.

Then, last night at the Consumer Electronics Show in Nevada, FCC Chairman, Kenneth Martin finally promised the commission would investigate, as reported by Svensson.

Sure, we're going to investigate and make sure that no consumer is going to be blocked.

Writing on the Public Knowledge blog, Harold Feld, senior vice president of the Media Access Project expressed his doubts:

We all need to recognize that a lot remains unclear, we need to get more details, and who knows how it will actually play out on release.

More later. The library is closing.

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Latest Nomination Dispute Stalls FEC

According to CQ Politics's report of yesterday,

A Senate standoff over nominations to the Federal Election Commission has left the agency unable to implement, much less enforce, the bundling provision in a new lobbying law....Even the approval of additional presidential matching funds -- beyond the $20 million it recently certified for release to qualifying candidates -- will be put on hold [which] could affect the..campaigns of ...Edwards,...Kucinich,McCain and ...Hunter.

According to CQ, von Spakovsky's

nomination standoff marks the first time in 31 years that the FEC has been stalled in executing its responsibility to oversee the campaign finance regulations that guide both congressional and presidential elections. The last time was a two-month period during the 1976 presidential campaign, when the agency put some work on hold until the Supreme Court ruled in Buckley vs. Valeo that the president was responsible for nominating all six commissioners, while the Senate had confirmation authority. Prior to that decision, the White House, the Senate and the House each nominated two commissioners.

After a recess appointment on January 4, 2006, President Bush renominated Hans von Spakovsky,a former assistant attorney general for civil rights whom voting rights groups have criticized for his support of photo identification at the polls. Democratic Sens. Barack Obama of Illinois and Russ Feingold of Wisconsin placed holds on his confirmation and Mitch McConnell responded by refusing to allow confirmation votes on three other nominees.

Before going to Washington, von Spakovsky was a lawyer in private practice and a Republican appointee to the Fulton County Registration and Election Board, which runs elections in Atlanta. He belonged to the Federalist Societyand had also joined the board of advisers of a lesser-known group called the Voting Integrity Project, which Jeffrey Toobin wrote about in the September 20, 2004, New Yorker article, "Poll Position: Is the Justice Department poised to stop voter fraud-or to keep voters from voting?" For updated information, see also "Hans Von Spakovsky: Right choice for FEC Commissioner?" by Adam Lambert, published by ePluribus Media on June 11, 2007 and "FEC Nominee Hans von Spakovsky: A Repeat Offender," posted June 12, 2007 by J. Gerald Hebert at the Capaign Legal Center's blog. On January 4, that organization called on President Bush to withdraw the nomination.

While some conservatives have complained about fraud in elections, a Judge has ruled that the controversial id program amounts to a new poll tax and McClatchy has a whole series of articles about how von Spakovsky's anti-fraud efforts may have served to suppress legitimate voting. . A Brown University study released January 8 found that

requiring voters to present identification at the polls leads to lower levels of political participa-tion. The research also suggests that voter I.D. policies discourage legal immigrants from be-coming citizens. The authors conclude that voter I.D. requirements have a significant political impact, particularly on the Hispanic vote.

For additional information on voter obstables, see the Center for American Progress's report of today.

Of course von Spakovsky's nomination is not the only case of gridlock invoked by Mr. McConnel when the the majority Democrats in Congress want to use their majority. Mr. Bush's determination to submit nominees that are objectionable, rather than than non-confrontational, and his refusal to withdraw them, has resulted in impasses that he has resolved by using his power of recess appointment. Will the {resident wait for another recess and reappoint von Spakovsky?

More to come. The library is closing.

*

Two cool sites:

BigThink.com
Newser

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Is the Bush Administration Stalling on the Polar Bear Question?

Cover Art from The Center for Biological Diversity's October 17, 2007 report.

The Center for Biological diversity, "Nature's Legal Eagles," has a dynamic counter on its website marking how long since the Bush administration's Department of Interior listed a species under Endangered Species Act. When I started this entry at 4:22 this afternoon, the time elapsed stood at 609 days, 6 hours and 22 minutes.

Probably, staff at the center had hoped to restart the clock by tomorrow, the legal deadline based on a December 27, 2006 announcement by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service of its proposal to list the bears as “threatened.” The proposal resulted from a lawsuit filed under the Endangered Species Act by the Center, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Fund on December 15, 2005 charging that the administration had taken no action on theFebruary 16, 2005 scientific petition filed with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the polar bear as a threatened species.

But yesterday Fish and Wildlife announced they would miss the deadline, citing time needed to process responses to the U.S. Geological Survey report on the polar bears initiated by the possible listing and released September 7.

Future reduction of sea ice in the Arctic could result in a loss of 2/3 of the world's polar bear population within 50 years...In addition to forecasts, declines in habitat have been recorded throughout the Polar Basin over the past 20 years of observations.

Some are questioning what the delay has to do with oil drilling permits which might be reigned in by a listing. See "Groups cite oil leases in U.S. delay on rating polar bear's status," by Jane Kay in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

...Climate scientists predict that floating polar ice will disappear by midcentury, leaving the bear without food and habitat. Two-thirds of the population could disappear by 2050....In announcing the delay...[in meeting the legal deadline regarding endangered species status], Fish and Wildlife Service Director H. Dale Hall said... new U.S. Geological Survey studies on the size of the polar bear population and sea ice trends required an extended public comment period. The agency already has considered 670,000 comments on the listing... Environmental groups [and some members of Congress] fear that the polar bear decision has been purposefully delayed to allow a first-time oil lease sale to go forward Feb. 6 in Alaska's pristine Chukchi Sea, which provides one-tenth of the habitat for the world's polar bears.

This piece, although citing the Bush administration official, does not really provide his rebuttal of the criticism offered. None-the-less, it provides information on how to make your opinion known about the delay and exposes an example of possible tampering with science in order to improve the situation of business interests. See "Memos Tell Officials How to Discuss Climate," by Adnrew C. Revkin in the March 8, 2006 New York Times.

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Is HUD Evicting Poor Tenants Under False Pretext?

Suppose the Federal Government was riding roughshod over low income NYC tenants, would the mainstream media report on the matter? January 3, Eastern District Judge Frederic Block wrote,

It is difficult to fathom why...[HUD's position is that]it can take poor peoples' homes without telling them why and without affording them a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

Judge Block was setting a January 28 hearing in Linares v. Jackson, filed in February 2006, to determine the rights of tenants whom the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD) has evicted for the sole reason that it plans to rehabilitate their homes.

And yet, with the exception of a piece in the New York Sun on January 4 entitled "HUD Suffers Setback in Plan To Sell N.Y. Properties" by Joseph Goldstein, there was no coverage. Nothing, according to Google, in either the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Only Daniel Wise, writing today for the real estate site, GlobeSt.com and for the New York Law Journal, who revealed that the hearing will determine

"a meaningful opportunity" to show that HUD's "substantial rehabilitation determination" is not "arbitrarily being employed as a pretext to evict a tenant from a perfectly decent home in order to sell it to a private developer."

Block also wrote,

It is beyond cavil without telling them why and without affording them a meaningful opportunity to be heard.

HUD takes the position that you cannot not even challenge the deparatment's finding that your apartments is in disrepair in a court eviction proceeding. HUD is allowed streamlined procedures, it argues, in order to encourage "the upgrading and sale of HUD's foreclosure stock" to prospective buyers who receive federal or city funding to finance the repair work.

In granting the hearing, Judge Block maintains that the HUD rule appears to ignore the US Supreme Court's 1985 ruling in Cleveland Board of Education v. Loudermill (470 U.S. 532), that due process bars the taking of property, including poor people's homes. He also cited

Block cites Second Circuit precedents as supporting his ruling, the most directly relevant being the 1974 ruling in Caramico v. HUD (509 F.2d 694). Caramico voided a federal rule that required owners who had received federally insured mortgages to clear their buildings--without giving their tenants a chance to object--as a condition of collecting the insurance when they defaulted. The court, said Block,recognized that

[i]t is normally preferable to have the mortgagee vacate a property so that it may be programmed for repair and exposed to the sales market in the shortest practical time [but...] plaintiffs may be able to show that the housing they occupy is fit for continued habitation and that the repairs required in order to make it salable do not require the property to be vacated...Significantly, the [circuit] took note of the consequences of the loss of an abode 'in deteriorated, low-income neighborhoods where replacement quarters are not readily available at rents the occupants can afford.

Currently, under Rules for Eviction, tenants living in government-owned properties have some rights if they fail to pay rent or are accused of a crime. They must be served with notice of the reasons and then

The landlord shall not evict any tenant except by judicial action pursuant to State or local law and in accordance with the requirements of this subpart.

But, if HUD plans to renovate the property or sell it to a private party who intends to apply for public money to do so, under its Rule 247.10, the department claims that it can start eviction proceedings with no statement of reasons or opportunity to challenge the action.

This subpart shall not apply in any case in which HUD terminates the occupancy of a tenant as a direct result of a determination by HUD to substantially rehabilitate or demolish the project or to dispose of the project to a purchaser who purchases for the purpose of substantial rehabilitation or demolition.

Four tenants, three of whom have been evicted are being represented by South Brooklyn Legal Services.

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Human Events Takes Out Google Attack Ad Here? (Oh dear, Obama Too Radical? Not)

Now that I'm at Blogger, I'm always curious to know who's advertising on The Writing Corner. I'm supposed to be able to screen whom I'll accept, but I haven't had the time to figure out how. Actually, I haven't had the time to really complete an entry, what with the Tech library on short hours for break and the tasks other than writing new entries involved in moving my blog from Yahoo.

So I was a bit chagrined to see a link to the junkola above appearing on my blog today via Google AdSense. And no, I'm not providing a link to Human Events, except via a description by Sourcewatch, if there were one, which unfortunately there is not for "the news source President Reagan called his 'favorite newspaper'"

There is, however a link at Sourcewatch to Human Event's parent company, Eagle Publishing, which bought out the original founder of the magazine, Regnery Publishing, started in 1947 by Henry Regnery, Sr.

It's kind of sad that the publisher of the Great Books series, William F. Buckley, Jr. and Barry Goldwater now calls four of the

great conservative thinkers of our era -- Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin...Oliver North [and], Pat Buchanan,

and publishes a screed like the following:

From his radical stance on abortion to his prominence in the corruption scandals that has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media, Barack Obama is not fit to be Senator -- not to mention the next President of the United States.

Obama has declared his presidential intentions, but it is up to well-informed and energetic conservatives like you to spare our nation from the scourge of a far-left President Barack H. Obama.

Get your FREE PDF copy of HUMAN EVENTS' new special report - Barack Obama: EXPOSED! - when you sign up for our free email newsletters. It's the only way you'll get all the ammunition you need to end Obama's White House dreams once and for all.

If this is the best that "well-informed and energetic conservatives" (like me?) can come up with, well,...but evidently it's not. Glenn Greenwald writing in Salon on January 5, tells of efforts by the more"subtle" dog whistlers: "Jonah Goldberg and Glenn Reynolds warn of "social unraveling" if Obama loses."

By the way, Greenwald refreshes our memory about Paul Gigot's account of the 2000 Florida recount. Although Greenwald links to a Village Voice piece mentioning Gigot, here's his original Wall Street Journal piece from November 24, 2000, "Miami Heat: A burgher rebellion in Dade County."

Street-smart New York Rep. John Sweeney, a visiting GOP monitor, told an aide to "Shut it down," and semi-spontaneous combustion took over.

The Republicans marched on the counting room en masse, chanting "Three Blind Mice" and "Fraud, Fraud, Fraud." True, it wasn't exactly Chicago 1968, but these are Republicans. Their normal idea of political protest is filling out the complaint card at a Marriott.

They also let it be known that 1,000 local Cuban-American Republicans were on the way--not a happy prospect for Anglo judges who must run for re-election. Inside the room, GOP lawyers also pointed out that the law--recall that quaint concept--required that any recount include all ballots.

The canvassers then stunned everybody and caved in. They cancelled any recount and certified the original Nov. 7 election vote, claiming that the Sunday deadline didn't allow enough time to recount everywhere. Republicans rejoiced and hugged like they'd just won the lottery.

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$100 Computers

Photo by Ahmad Dan-Hamidu of deployment of the XO computer this spring in Nigeria from CNET News.

Of course, they'e not $100. That is the goal: computers cheap, simple and durable enough to put them in the hands of the poorest children in the undeveloped nations and thus bridge the digital divide. So far, lacking economies of scale, the XO computer, pictured above, comes in at $188, plus shipping.

Nicholas Negroponte, of One Laptop per Child (OLPC) announced the prototype at the at the Second World Summit on the Information Society and after testing, started off production of the machines November 7 with a Buy One-Get One Offer that ran through December 31.

Google signed on, as did chip maker AMD, but Microsoft and Intel balked. Then on July 13 of 2007, Intel joined the effort. For a while.

But on January 3, Intel announced it was pulling out of the deal. The sticking point: Intel had continued to push its Classmate competitor as a superior product, written about today in the New York Times and elsewhere.

More to come.

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It's Obama for Democrats after the Iowa Caucus

The Democratic Party's Iowa Caucus results ( Google Map--adapted above): were as follows (in delegate equivalents):

Senator Barack Obama : 37.58%
Senator John Edwards : 29.75%
Senator Hillary Clinton : 29.47%
Governor Bill Richardson : 2.11%
Senator Joe Biden : 0.93%
Senator Chris Dodd : 0.02%
Uncommitted : 0.14%

Both Biden and Dodd have dropped out of the race. Biden's statement was, some would say, uncharacteristically short:

I am not going away. I’m returning to the Senate as the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and will continue to ensure that we protect the nation’s security and show our country that Democrats know how to keep America safe, keep our commitment to our troops and restore our country’s respect in the world.

Dodd's speech was longer and eloquently repeated the themes of his candidacy. After talking about how his campaign had been rewawrding despite the outcome and his inspiration by President Kennedy to serve and make a difference, he continued:

While we came up short in the race for caucus votes tonight, our campaign has more than kept pace in the race of ideas.

By raising ideas no other Presidential candidate has ever proposed, let there be no doubt that this campaign has set the standard.

When we began this race, every Democrat was for ending the war in Iraq - a war that has made us not more secure, but less so.

But it was only when we stood up and said this President wouldn't get another penny to fight that war that other candidates committed to doing what was necessary to actually end it.

When we began this race, every Democrat—every American—agreed that in America, we should never need a national crisis to bring the country together with national purpose.

But only when we proposed a universal national service plan to create the first generation in history that served our country did the national service debate begin in earnest - to create that renewed sense of community we all want.

And after 7 years of insecurity and watching this President have to go into hiding when he traveled abroad, we were all for stopping this President's assault on the Constitution.

But it was only when I stood up and you stood with me—it was only when tens of thousands of Americans stood together and said we would do whatever it took to stop this President from shredding the rule of law—that we actually did stop him.

And that fight goes on.

Gravel's website announced he was still in the race, despites rumors to the contrary. Nothing on Kucinich's site, other than that he was throwing his support to Obama for the second round, if he were not viable. Richardson was making the most of his tiny results, as " fourth place" finish.

more soon. The library is closing.

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U.S. Election Integrity: An Update on Voting Machines

in·teg·ri·ty: n.

1. Steadfast adherence to a strict moral or ethical code.
2. The state of being unimpaired; soundness.
3. The quality or condition of being whole or undivided; completeness.

[Middle English integrite, from Old French, from Latin integrit s, soundness, from integer, whole, complete; see tag- in Indo-European roots.]
--The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000

*

How can we have sound elections, given the problems with electronic voting machines? Just yesterday, Jennifer Brunner, Ohio's current Secretary of State (replacing Ken Blackwell) the issued her first directive of the years, mandating that:

Due to the concerns raised by the EVEREST report [see here], and to avoid any loss of confidence by voters that their ballot has been accurately east or recorded, I hereby direct all counties using direct recording eleetronic voting maehines (DRE) to provide an optical scan ballot to any voter who requests it as an alternative method to casting a ballot on a DRE voting machine. This is similar to the procedures already in place for counties using a DRE for persons appearing at their office to cast an absent voter ballot.

And today, according to Kim Zetter, writing in Wired's "Voting Groups Urge Presidential Candidates to Demand Paper Ballots for Upcoming Primaries,"

Five voting integrity groups have sent a letter to presidential candidates urging them to call on states to use paper ballots for the 2008 primary elections.

The groups, among them Iowans for Voting Integrity...cited a recent report out of Ohio that examined voting machines made by Diebold/Premier, Election Systems & Software and Hart InterCivic and found serious security vulnerabilities -- among them a vulnerability in ES&S iVotronic touch-screen...

more to come--the library closeth

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Are U.S. Elections Good for Democracy?

David Swanson, one of the Founders of After Downing Street, published a thought-provoking piece December 31, "Death by Election:"

There must be a Star Trek episode (if there's not, there should be) in which all the best minds in the...political opposition on some planet are diverted into an obsession with a virtual reality game, leaving ...[the status quo] free to drive the planet into inevitable war and destruction....Elections are a fundamental pillar of democracy when not put to such use...My thesis is that, if we do not change our thinking, elections are going to be the death of U.S. democracy.

... Focusing on the choices presented to us in a two-year electoral campaign leads to insufficient pressure on Congress (with disastrous results in 2007), not to mention independent billionaire campaigns.

...[We must] start behaving like the citizens of a democracy.

Although Swanson is writing for his audience on the left, the point he is raising applies to anyone, regardless of their place on the political spectrum, if interested in true democracy. Swanson contends that we need to do more than just vote. In addition to assuring that votes are counted and that there is an informed electorate, we need to be involved between elections applying pressure to advocate for what we believe in by applying the tools set out in the Constitution: freedoms to speak, to assemble, to publish news, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. To this he adds impeachment, as he contends that we cannot tolerate lawlessness in our elected officials.

Swanson goes on to talk about the amount of time taken in the progressive media in following the horse race, while crimes continue unabated. Today's New York Times op-ed. "Stonewalled by the C.I.A." authored by 9-11 Commission Chairs Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, raises the specter of such lawlessness.

[T]he recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes -- and did not tell us about them -- obstructed our investigation.

More later the library is closing....

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So long Yahoo, Hello Blogger

Adapted from a graphic by John of All Faith.


Isn't ironic that for its own blog Yahoo has used the Wordpress platform, rather than 360? December 13 that blog alerted me to the company's new plug-in from Alex King at Crowd Favorite to make blogging easier on Wordpress.


If you were one of my blog's readers over at Yahoo 360, I had adopted that platform in August of 2005, since I was familiar with the email program. I remained for the sake of keeping all my entries in one place, even when I realized that it lacked compatibility with things like site meters.

I never heard from the company directly that they were discontinuing 360, stumbling upon entries from October 16, 2007, on its product blog and its company blog saying it was "transitioning" from 360 and to stay tuned.

Well, I did until the witching hour of this new year, having heard nothing since an update on October 24. I held off a move far longer than many who immediately left for Multiply or whatever. Since I was never a participant in the social networking aspect of the platform, I have decided to move here. Blogger lacks an import feature and Yahoo has yet to provide an export feature, so I've provided a link to the old blog, which I'll revise, if needed, once my old entries find a permanent home.

So, enough already, and on to my first real entry.

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