Monday, March 5, 2012
ProFlowers Latest Limbaugh Sponsor to Pull its Business
The number of advertisers who have at least temporarily cut ties with Rush Limbaugh grew to seven on Sunday in the aftermath of the conservative radio host's self-described "insulting word choices" about a female law student.
ProFlowers, an online florist, is one of the latest companies to announce it would halt advertising on Limbaugh's show.
"Mr. Limbaugh’s recent comments went beyond political discourse to a personal attack and do not reflect our values as a company. As such, ProFlowers has suspended advertising on the Rush Limbaugh radio program," it announced on its Facebook page.
ProFlowers, like other Limbaugh sponsors, faced pressure from women's groups to end its relationship with his show after Limbaugh branded Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, 30, a "slut" and "prostitute," equating Fluke’s advocacy of expanded coverage for contraceptives with her wanting to be "paid to have sex." Fluke has been a vocal supporter of a new Obama administration rule that mandates greatly expanded access to contraceptives through health insurance plans.
One activist group, UltraViolet, said 91,000 people had signed its petition urging ProFlowers to suspend advertising on Limbaugh's show.
"UltraViolet members are glad that ProFlowers decided to suspend their advertising from the Rush Limbaugh show. … Our members hope that ProFlowers will do the right thing and not only suspend their advertising but pull it permanently," it said in a statement.
Quicken Loans, Sleep Train, Sleep Number, Citrix Systems Inc., Carbonite and LegalZoom also have suspended their advertising with Limbaugh, according to The Associated Press.
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-limbaugh-sponsors-20120304,0,4986601.story
GOP Bill Labels All Single-Parent And All Gay Households As Child Abuse
A GOP lawmaker in Wisconsin is trying to pass a bill that would classify “non marital parenthood” as a cause of child abuse. Since gays cannot legally mary in Wisconsin, the bill automatically includes single and coupled gays and lesbians, plus any single person regardless of orientation.
The bill “requir[es] the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention Board to emphasize nonmarital parenthood as a contributing factor to child abuse and neglect.” Republican State Senator Glenn Grothman, who has a long history of radical positions, wants to spend tax dollars “educating” the public — with no scientific proof (because there is none) — that gays, lesbians, single mothers, and single fathers should not be allowed to be parents because their children will grow up in an abusive home.
In fact, Senator Grothman is claiming that the very lack of two married opposite sex parents in a household constitutes child abuse. Apparently, Senator Grothman believes that marriage is for procreation, and therefore only married people should be allowed to raise children.
In essence, the bill could, if it became law, be used to outlaw all gay couples raising children, and all single-parent households.
It truly boggles the mind, how stupid these radical conservatives are.
What is supposed to happen to all those children who, tragically, lose a parent to, say, cancer? A car accident? Divorce? Does the State come in the day of the parent’s funeral and rip the young boy or girl from their surviving parent’s loving arms and place them in an orphanage?
Yes, we all know these small government conservatives who want government just small enough to fit under our bedroom doors, in women’s uteruses, and now, determining who can and who cannot raise their own child.
Sunday, March 4, 2012
The Privatization of Everything
No society can aspire to democracy unless it maintains an unbreakable connection between its politics and its police powers.
Once the populace has no political access to policy and enforcement, once those with coercive power over others are not directly accountable to the people’s representatives, you can kiss your ass goodbye.
We’re on the verge of it in America, 2012.
As David Foster Wallace remarked, the truth will set you free but not until it’s finished with you.
All across the western world, there is enormous pressure being brought to "privatize" everything. Where does this pressure come from? On whose behalf? What does it mean? What is the connection between the demands for "privatization" in Greece, as part of an "austerity package" initiated by the International Monetary Fund, with the "privatization" of prisons in Florida and other states of the U.S.? Is there one?
Let’s begin with this thought: as human cultures have evolved, there has been a general agreement that some things on the planet, such as water and air, belong to everyone. Democratization has extended these rights to include access to natural beauty and to the oceans.
With various forms of democracy, even including communism and socialism, have come the acceptance that matters of common concern, however approached or regulated, are integrally connected to the political system. That is a fundamental good, since without it there is no way for the people to exercise any real power over their political environment.
If one subscribes, therefore, to democracy, one also must take with it an inviolable connection between, for example, the building of roads, and politics. Otherwise, should roads be privately built, no one could pass without paying extortionate fees. Farmers could not get their crops to market. People could not travel or visit one another. And so forth.
Severing the connection between the public and the management of and control over public resources and operations thought to be of the commons, is dangerous. It would be hard to exaggerate just how dangerous.
The issue of privatization is maybe the most important public issue we’re facing in the U.S., and it’s causing terrible dislocation and political chaos in Europe, as well. You’re not going to see it on the news (sic). As with many things in America now, this is a story we’ll have to piece together on our own.
The Corrections Corporation of America, largest company operating private prisons, has written to 48 states offering to take over the running of prisons, provided that the states guarantee a 90 percent occupancy.
The systemic corruption this invites is breathtaking.
The care of inmates is of course a responsibility of the prison systems in the states and in the country as a whole for federal institutions. How we treat inmates, provision for their food and clothing, their recreation, their activities, their health, this is a matter of public policy. The state arrests, tries, and attains convictions; inmates have been sentenced to prison. The duration of the sentence is often impacted by the behavior of the prisoner.
It should be obvious that prison conditions are subject to politics; it is politics which passes the laws and operates the judicial system. How prisons are run is our public responsibility, and this is subject to our laws.
Prisons are not meant to be, nor should they be, profit-making enterprises. They have functions to fulfill. That’s not to say that budget matters are unimportant, only that they cannot be the sole criterion for proper operation.
Otherwise, inmates would be given no services at all. Rice is cheap; rancid meat is really cheap. There would be no point worrying about rehabilitation, which can be expensive. Nobody cares what happens when they get out. Gulags give you a profit margin that would impress even Wall Street.
Government is not supposed to be a profit-making enterprise. But any governmental function, once privatized, becomes exactly that. Does anyone have to ask what happens to law enforcement and the judicial system once the state agrees to keep private prisons at 90% of capacity?
How will the national parks be run when we privatize them, as some idiot politicians are advocating? What will the nation’s coastlines be like? Years ago, California voters approved the Coastal Initiative which protected it and secured public access; if and when that promise is broken, how long before only the wealthy can enjoy the beach?
On a lighter note, how about privatizing the military? It’s being done, you know. When Obama announced the "withdrawal" of U.S. troops from Iraq he’d promised only three years before, he didn’t bother to mention that remaining behind are an estimated 50,000 private troops, a private army serving the needs of the corporate mobsters who are figuring to loot what’s left.
Xe, nee Blackwater, is a private army the government contracts with to perform certain tasks, often unspecified, which it feels the regular army cannot perform. Its soldiers are paid much more than GIs, and the casualty rate is much higher. Xe works for the U.S. or for Halliburton or Bechtel or whomever hires it. It is, as we discovered when Blackwater mercenaries murdered Iraqi civilians for pure sport, exempt from U.S. law and the control of the American government which hired it.
When private armies can operate outside the political control of a country, there is no democracy, even in form. We all know what it is, don’t we?
Privatization of water, which I wrote about recently ("As Benign as Lucifer"), has enabled major corporations to destroy wide swaths of agriculture in India and elsewhere, causing widespread suicide as farmers by the tens of thousands have lost their land. Privatization of public services, public properties, public responsibilities, is a one-way ticket to hell.
The riots in Greece are about privatization. That is the agenda of the International Monetary Fund, the consortium of bankers who run a large part of the world and want more. Through the mechanism of manufactured debt, the bankers are able to extort whatever "austerity" measures they want. These involve a reduction in the wages of public employees, a reduction in social services for the poor, and the privatization of what is publicly owned.
If you think we’re not headed in that direction in the United States, you’re dreaming. That’s what the budget arguments are about now, and the talk of America’s "debt." To whom is that "debt" owed? Why, to the bankers, of course, the same people whose looting of the Treasury caused this crisis in the first place. Pretty neat, huh?
Having taken everything else, they are going after what’s left, and what’s left are the treasures of a nation, the wealth owned in common by its people.
We simply can’t let them get it.
http://theragblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/richard-razinkov-privatization-of.html
Saturday, March 3, 2012
BP Reaches $7.8 Billion Settlement Over Oil Spill
Oil giant BP has reached a $7.8 billion (5.9 billion euro) deal to settle thousands of claims from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, but some of the victims said Saturday that the money won’t bring the disaster to a close.
The settlement announced late Friday does not affect what is anticipated to be tens of billions of dollars in fines and claims from the US government, coastal states and local governments impacted by the spill.
Nor does it resolve suits filed by shareholders or others seeking compensation because of a drilling moratorium imposed after the worst environmental disaster in US history.
But it does resolve a big piece of a very complicated legal battle.
“The proposed settlement represents significant progress toward resolving issues from the Deepwater Horizon accident and contributing further to economic and environmental restoration efforts along the Gulf Coast,” Bob Dudley, BP’s chief executive, said in a statement.
The last-minute deal means the highly anticipated trial will be delayed once again after a week-long postponement was ordered last Sunday to allow settlement talks to continue.
Judge Carl Barbier issued an order late Friday adjourning the case indefinitely “because such asettlement would likely result in a realignment of the parties in this litigation… and in order to allow the parties to reassess their respective positions.”
The case will likely still go to court even if a deal is reached with the federal government.
That’s because the British energy giant is hoping to shift some of the cost to its subcontractors, a complex legal question that will likely end up taking years and multiple appeals to resolve.
What Alabama’s Anti-Immigrant HB56 Has Wrought
Not just fear among the undocumented. A new study says the law will cost the state billions
Three days after completing landscaping work and clearing out a filthy trailer that included a bed bug-ridden mattress and moldy, wet furniture, Hortensia, an immigrant worker in Alabama, went to the man who hired her to get paid. He refused, pointed a gun at her and her relative and told her she couldn’t do anything about it because she didn’t have “papers.”
This is just one of the stories in a report released this week by the Southern Poverty Law Center “Alabama’s Shame: HB56 and the War on Immigrants.” The report came from calls to a hotline set up by SPLC and other groups last year. By late January 2012, more than 5,100 calls had poured in.
Last June, Gov. Robert Bentley signed Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, the Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act, better known as HB56. The law attacks key aspects of immigrants' lives and affects the lives of people working hard to overcome poverty. Critics says it unleashes vigilantism, racial profiling and bigotry.
Since June, thousands of undocumented workers have left the state, according to a new University of Alabama study.
It's unknown exactly how many, but using 2010 data as a basis, early estimates project between 40,000 to 80,000 undocumented workers earning $15,000 to $30,000 a year have left the state as a result of HB 56. That's according to a report from the university’s Center for Business and Economic Research, “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the New Alabama Immigration Law” authored by Samuel Addy.
The researcher says the law will cost the state “up to 140,000 direct and indirect jobs.” State GDP losses could total $2.3 to $10.8 billion and reduce local sales taxes by $20.0 to $93.1 million. Crops have been left rotting in the fields. Farmers have lost millions of dollars. Agribusiness in Alabama is a billion-dollar industry, a third of that business in poultry.
Anti-immigration supporters say if those jobs were vacated, then U.S. citizens could do them. Farmers say that’s not the case, that most of the people they’ve hired since the exodus of immigrant workers don’t stay more than a few hours laboring in the fields, Paul Reyes reports in Mother Jones magazine.
Arcelia, another immigrant story highlighted in the SPLC report, had a small hair salon and a loyal clientele. When her business permit expired in September, it was just as provisions of HB 56 were set to take effect. She was afraid to get her license renewed.
When she got a call saying she would either be fined $10,000 if she didn’t renew or deported if she worked without a permit, she went to the licensing agency.
They demanded to see her Social Security and Alabama ID. She told them she left them in the car, and left the agency. She didn’t want to risk being deported and separated from her three daughters, who are all U.S. citizens.
The SPLC, ACLU, Dept. of Justice and others have sued to block the law, one of the most draconian seen in recent history. HB 56 requires status checks by law enforcement during routine stops, it bars undocumented immigrants from entering contracts, and prevents undocumented immigrants from business transactions with state agencies.
Parts of the law took effect last September, leaving families fleeing the state, workers not showing up for work, children pulled out of school, and people afraid to drive to school, work or their jobs.
Yesterday, March 1, the ACLU and other civil rights groups presented their case before a three-judge panel in Atlanta appellate court.
“The Alabama statues at issue here impose a state law scheme to carry out the legislature’s stated purpose—‘to attack every aspect of an illegal immigrant’s life so they will deport themselves,’ Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, said.
Omar Jadwat, an attorney for the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project said, "We’ve never had a requirement in this country that everybody has to carry a certain form of identification to be free from detention by the police," he said.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice also argued before the court, saying HB 56 conflicts with federal law.
The appellate court announced it will issue its ruling after the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Arizona's anti-immigration law, which it is expected to do in June.
Said Hortensia, referring to the man who didn’t pay her for three days of hard labor, “You can’t fight with anyone if you aren’t legal, and that’s why he didn’t pay us. We haven’t gone to the court because it’s like we have no case because we’re illegal. We’re afraid to do it.”
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/12824/what_alabamas_anti-immigrant_hb56_has_wrought
‘Illegal To Be Gay’ In Mississippi, Police Shut Down An LGBT March
The state of Mississippi and the South in general isn’t exactly waving rainbow flags or collecting Ellen memorabilia as it isn’t famed for its gay-friendliness. However, the socially backwards Republican bastion of crazy religious fundamentalism and illiteracy is presently the focus of virulently anti-gay resistance as a LGBT march in the state was abruptly shut down, with Police
reportedlytelling LGBT Mississippians that it’s “
illegal to be openly gay in the state.”
Rush Limbaugh's Ratings Have Fallen 30% In The Last Six Months
The just-released Arbitron report reveals that a lot less people are listening to right-wing talk radio.
With a lull in ratings since November, Rush Limbaugh had a 3.0 share of listeners for his radio time slot, which is a 33% slide from October and from last April, reports Crain's Business.
Meanwhile, The Sean Hannity Show was reported to be down 28% from its peak numbers in the fall.
Interestingly, numbers for Don Imus' Imus in the Morning were said to be up year over year.
Premiere Radio Networks, which syndicates the shows, tells Crains they are not worried: Limbaugh and Hannity “continue to be No. 1 and No. 2."
Friday, March 2, 2012
2 Bodies Found from Coast Guard Crash in Alabama
Searchers recovered the remains of Lt. Cmdr. Dale Taylor of Snow Hill, N.C.; and Lt. j.g. Thomas Cameron of Portland, Ore., Thursday, authorities said.
A fourth crewmember, Chief Petty Officer Fernando Jorge, had been found unresponsive and later pronounced dead shortly after the Tuesday night crash.
The MH-65C helicopter crashed in the bay's shallow waters during a training mission.
Active search and rescue operations for the remaining missing crewmember have been suspended, and crews are now conducting salvage and recovery operations, the Coast Guard said in a statement.
"The decision to suspend the active search was terribly difficult," said Capt. Donald J. Rose, commander of Coast Guard Sector Mobile.
"Now, we must shift our focus to continuing salvage and recovery operations," Rose said. "As we continue to recover wreckage, we will look for the missing crewman."
http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/story/2012-03-02/coast-guard-helicopter-crash/53329632/1
Unemployment and Inflation Rise in Euro Zone
The jobless rate in the 17 euro nations rose in January to 10.7 percent from 10.6 percent in December reaching the highest level since the introduction of the euro in 1999, Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union, reported from Luxembourg. Flagging economies like Italy and Greece were responsible for much of the increase.
For all 27 European Union countries, the jobless rate ticked up to 10.1 percent in January from 10.0 percent in December, Eurostat said, with a total of 24.3 million men and women out of work.
Eurostat also reported that euro zone inflation edged up in February to 2.7 percent, from 2.6 percent in January. The European Central Bank tries to hold increases in the general level of prices to just under 2 percent; it has not met that target for 15 consecutive months.
The data were released as European finance officials were meeting in Brussels to discuss measures aimed at putting the region's economy back on firm footing.
Peeing Frenchman Sues Google for Making him 'Laughing Stock'
A Frenchman is suing Google for making him the laughing stock of his village after the firm's Street View service put on the Internet a picture of him urinating in his garden, his lawyer said Thursday.
Google's lawyer, Christophe Bigot, said the lawsuit against his company was "implausible".
Street View allows users to take a ground level panoramic view of some locations on Google Maps, based on still photographs taken by specially equipped vehicles.
France's data privacy regulator imposed a record fine of 100,000 euros ($142,000) on Google last March for collecting private information while compiling photos for the service.
Will Fox News Report On “Border Expert” Sheriff Babeu’s Gay Love Scandal With Possible Illegal?
Well, well, well. It looks like Fox News’ favorite Arizona “border expert,” Sheriff Paul Babeu has some ‘splaining to do. If reporting in the Phoenix New Times is correct, it turns out this anti-immigration sheriff-turned-Congressional-candidate had an affair with a Mexican man Babeu has threatened to deport. Oh, and there was some texting/emailing of the sort that led Fox Newsies to clamor for Anthony Weiner’s downfall.
We’ve long known there was something dishonest about Babeu. Although he likes to play a border expert on TV, in real life, his district, Pinal County, is 70 miles away. But a lengthy, salacious and detailed article in New Times reports of dishonesty on a whole new level as it relates a narrative of Babeu’s affair with a Mexican national that turned sour after Babeu was caught cheating. If Babeu’s ex-lover’s accusations are true, Babeu threatened him with deportation after he was caught posting hostile comments about Babeu on the internet.
I could care less about whether or not Babeu is gay or with whom he has sex. But threatening an ex-lover with deportation suggests some real wrongdoing. As an immigration attorney in the New Times article noted, it means either Babeu is an astounding hypocrite for having an affair with someone he knew was here illegally (identified merely as "Jose" in the article) or he wrongfully used the power of his office to threaten someone against whom he has a personal grudge.
Right-Wingers are Less Intelligent than Left Wingers, says Study
Right-wingers tend to be less intelligent than left-wingers, and people with low childhood intelligence tend to grow up to have racist and anti-gay views, says a controversial new study.
Conservative politics work almost as a 'gateway' into prejudice against others, say the Canadian academics.
The paper analysed large UK studies which compared childhood intelligence with political views in adulthood across more than 15,000 people.
The authors claim that people with low intelligence gravitate towards right-wing views because they make them feel safe.
'Cognitive abilities are critical in forming impressions of other people and in being open minded,' say the researchers.
'Individuals with lower cognitive abilities may gravitate towards more socially conservative right-wing ideologies that maintain the status quo.
'It provides a sense of order.'
The study, by academics at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, used information from two UK studies from 1958 and 1970 , where several thousand children were assessed for intelligence at age 10 and 11, and then asked political questions aged 33.
The authors claim that there is a strong correlation between low intelligence both as a child and an adult, and right-wing politics.
The authors also claim that conservative politics is part of a complex relationship that leads people to become prejudices.
'Conservative ideology represents a critical pathway through which childhood intelligence predicts racism in adulthood,' says the paper.
Oxygen Envelops Saturn's Icy Moon
A Nasa spacecraft has detected oxygen around one of Saturn's icy moons, Dione.
The discovery supports a theory that suggests all of the moons near Saturn and Jupiter might have oxygen around them.
Researchers say that their finding increases the likelihood of finding the ingredients for life on one of the moons orbiting gas giants.
The study has been published in Geophysical Research Letters.
According to co-author Andrew Coates of University College London, Dione has no liquid water and so does not have the conditions to support life. But it is possible that other moons of Jupiter and Saturn do.
"Some of the other moons have liquid oceans and so it is worth looking more closely at them for signs of life," Prof Coates said.
The discovery was made using the Cassini spacecraft, which flew by Dione nearly two years ago. Instruments on board the unmanned probe detected a thin layer of oxygen around the moon, so thin that scientists prefer to call it an "exosphere" rather than an atmosphere.
But the discovery is important because it suggests there is a process at work around the solar system's gas giants, Saturn and Jupiter, in which oxygen is released from their icy satellites.
It seems that highly charged particles from the planets' powerful radiation belts split the water in the ice into hydrogen and oxygen.
Md. Governor Signs Bill Legalizing Gay Marriage
Maryland's governor signed into law Thursday a bill to legalize gay marriage, although opponents vowed to rally voters to reverse the change this fall in a referendum that's even anticipated by advocates of the new law.
"Religious freedom was the very reason for our state's founding and at the heart of religious freedom is the freedom of individual conscience," Gov. Martin O'Malley said before signing the legislation that made Maryland the eighth state in the U.S. to legalize gay marriage. The law takes effect in 2013.
Six states and the District of Columbia currently recognize gay marriages. The state of Washington also has legalized gay marriage — its law takes effect in June. Voters there also are expected to petition the measure to referendum this fall.
Maine legalized the unions for same-sex couples in 2009, but later that year became the only state overturn a such a law passed by a legislature. About 30 states have constitutional amendments that seek to prohibit gay marriage, most by defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
In order to put the measure on the November ballot, opponents of the new Maryland law will need to collect nearly 56,000 valid voter signatures, equivalent to 3 percent of the people who cast ballots in the 2010 gubernatorial election. Last week, opponents submitted draft language for a ballot referendum to overturn the gay marriage measure after it passed in the state legislature.