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For The Trees
A weblog for Liberals who are FED UP with Bush and the Right! About the Authors: Dave Johnson John Emerson Richard Reich Thomas Leavitt 
Recent Posts: BEST OF STF: Dave's: Articles not at STF: The ATLA Speech on building a progressive infrastructure Lowering the Bar The Attack on Trial Lawyers and Tort Law Who's Behind the Attack on Liberal Professors On the Right and their communications infrastructure: Why Republicans Win Win or Lose The "Conventional Wisdom" Machine Some History of the Conservative Movement HOW TO FIGHT BACK An Amplifier Of Our Own Don't Blame the Democrats How They Do It 1 2 3 4 Getting Rolled Other: You're Gonna Get Drafted Scalia and Self-Government Who is Our Economy For? Voting Machine Story Link Collection What's Wrong with this Picture? (Voting Machines) Like Meat in the Supermarket Get Active Thin Line 1 2 3 Fixing Social Security Seeing the Forest I, II, III "Incredibly Positive News" The Breadth of It The Republican Crony Club Moon Bush Ralph Nader is a Scab John's Best Of: Kerry Smear Page Bandar Bush 9/11 Commission Report Damages Bush -- if you read it Florida Goon Squad Intimidated the Supreme Court The Use and Abuse of George Orwell Zizka's Archives (John's previous identity) Zizka Sampler News Sources: AlterNet BuzzFlash Common Dreams Cursor Drudge Retort Information Clearing House Smirking Chimp TruthOut What REALLY Happened Links to Other Weblogs: |
 Friday, January 31, 2003 Jobs Going Away I got an e-mail from someone today, titled America: the first post-modern agrarian society. ...Thanks to American Big Business... There are soooo many ways to title this message:He then points to this Business Week article. I believe that he's on the East Coast. Here in the Silicon Valley area we hear rumors that things are much better on the East Coast. Things are certainly bad here - 25% office vacancy rate. Very high unemployment. Stores closing. Friends whose unemployment runs out and they go on food stamps. I don't see how it's going to get better. People are in debt so spending is unlikely to increase. No one is getting raises. I see nothing that promises to bring back the tech industry around here. I mean, sure, the engineer getting $10,000 a year in India will eventually spend some money, but that's a net loss of spending of $90,000 per year for each engineer here who was getting $100,000, and a loss of the whole $100,000 spent here. The overall pool of paid talent is not increasing - these are replacement jobs. And what do we hear from our country's leaders? Tax cuts for the rich and permanent massive budget deficits for the future are supposed to bring us out of this? They say it will increase the investment capital? Investing in what? They already have zillions and they aren't investing that! It's the old, "It isn't working, so let's do more of it." --- Posted at 2:34 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post  
Thursday, January 30, 2003 The Huge Spending Increase From a story about federal budget deficits in today's NY Times: The Congressional Budget Office said today that the federal government shortfall would rise to $199 billion this year from $158 billion last year — even without any of Mr. Bush's new tax or spending proposals.So WITH the war, tax cuts and spending increases, we might be looking at a $300-400 billion deficit THIS year. That means that next year, and every year thereafter, we will have to pay somewhere from, $10-30 billion to cover the interest on THIS YEAR'S borrowing, depending on interest rates. That is a HUGE spending increase. And the following year the spending will INCREASE again, because of THAT year's deficit. Want to talk about where that money goes? Who GETS that $10-30 billion? How much control over U.S. policy will they be buying? --- Posted at 8:14 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Wednesday, January 29, 2003 Money Obviously someone else has noticed that you can get a pretty good return on your money just by moving it to Euros. --- Posted at 3:36 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
A Few More Words About the Speech Terrify, then harvest! --- Posted at 12:54 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Tuesday, January 28, 2003 Dean I'm not sure yet who I support for President, but I like what I hear from Dean. I'm posting a "Dean Meetup" button on the left, scroll down a ways. It's a great idea - go check it out. --- Posted at 10:22 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Speech I really think that Bush is surrounded by people who are afraid to contradict him or bring him bad news. I think he isn't aware of events outside of the good news that is brought to him. "Yes sir, you are the chosen one, sir. GOD has chosen you, sir." No one even told him that the aluminum tubes story turned out to be phony. No one even dares tell him it's pronounced "nuclear." --- Posted at 10:15 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Spines CNN: Kennedy to seek new measure on war with Iraq. Senator Kennedy is asking for a new vote. "Much has changed in the many months since Congress has debated war with Iraq," the Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement released after President Bush's State of the Union address, in which Bush tried to rally the American people to the need to disarm Iraq.It looks like the Dems are growing spines. --- Posted at 10:04 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Double Standard skimble writes about the difference in treatment of Martha Stewart and Thomas White (ex-Enron, current Bush Administration.) Stewart is a Democrat and will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law with public humiliation, White has a get-out-of-jail-free card and a look-the-other-way pass from the press. --- Posted at 11:05 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Monday, January 27, 2003 Another Scenario A friend writes with a scenario - U.S. and British forces invade and become bogged down in house-to-house fighting in Baghdad's suburbs, taking and causing heavy casualties. There are very heavy civilian casualties that are well publicized by the European press. (Civilians initially refuse to enter shelters, remembering the 1991 U.S. bombing of a civilian shelter bunker with a "penetrator" bomb that incinerated everyone inside.) The heavy casualties result in massive civilian protests in London, some erupting into riots. There is a no-confidence vote and Blair's government falls. The new government withdraws British forces, leaving the U.S. alone and bogged down in urban street fighting. --- Posted at 3:55 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Scenarios February, 2003, America invades Iraq. Two days after U.S. invasion begins, China attacks Taiwan. Simultaneously North Korea attacks South Korea. America must divert some forces to Asian theater. Iraq campaign slows. Responding to right-wing American think tanks' public advocacy that America follow Iraq conquest with initiatives to change other Middle Eastern governments, the Saudis, Syrians and Kuwaitis begin secretly supporting and funding Hamas, Hezbollah and other organizations to send fighters to Iraq to attack and bog down the American troops. American casualties begin to climb. Late February, Kurds seize northern Iraq and part of Turkey. Kurds, having infiltrated Iraqi intelligence, convince Iraqi “sleeper” agents to launch biological attacks on Israel, hoping to goad Israel into attacking Baghdad, thereby weakening Iraq’s ability to oppose to Kurdish state. Israel responds against Iraqi cities. March, Iran responds to “axis of evil” threats by attacking US fleet and invades Iraq from the west. They announce they have developed a dozen nuclear weapons and will use them on our forces and American homeland if their forces are attacked with nuclear weapons in any American attempt to reverse their gains. With insufficient forces in the Middle East American forces overwhelmed and begin retreat. Iran seizes western Iraq and southern oil fields. Late March, Al-Queda launches major attacks in Kashmir, driving India to attack Pakistan. Islamic fundamentalists seize power in Pakistan and Indonesia, immediately supplying al-Queda with nuclear weapons. U.S. initiates bombing campaign against Pakistan. April, responding to heavy civilian casualties in Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, Asian and European civilians demand boycott of U.S. products. International investors begin selling assets and pulling funds from U.S. OPEC announces oil will move to the Euro currency for all transactions. Dollar plunges, reaches eight dollars per Euro, causing oil to exceed US$240 per barrel. Stock market plunges to 1200. U.S., unable to borrow money to finance deficit, begins to default on bonds. --- Posted at 2:17 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Scam E-mail A friend received the following e-mail. From: PayPal@billingdept.comShe wants to know what law enforcement agency this can be reported to. Does anyone know? IMPORTANT - In case you don't "get it," do not go to this website and provide your account and password! --- Posted at 1:20 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Moon Bush Other webloggers have been writing about the close ties between the Moonies and the Republicans, so I'll take this opportunity to link to a piece I wrote in July, titled "Moon Bush." --- Posted at 9:37 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sunday, January 26, 2003 Why Punish Achievement? I saw one of those typical right-winger letters to the editor yesterday saying we should cut taxes on the rich because, "Why Punish Achievement?" I was thinking, this crowd thinks we shouldn't tax income that comes to people through an inheritance. So that's taxing achievement? --- Posted at 12:04 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Who Is Our Economy For? In today's New York Times there's a story, Is There Such a Thing as a Jobless Recovery? From the story, After falling into recession in 2001, the economy did indeed recover in 2002, hard as that is to believe. Despite a sluggish fall, most economists believe the United States expanded at close to 3 percent last year (final statistics are still being compiled).So the unemployed aren't finding jobs, more people are becoming unemployed, the people still working have to work harder to do the jobs the unemployed were doing, and many of them are afraid they're going to lose their jobs. Productivity means increases in wealth. But whose wealth? When you're working harder on the job for the same pay, that's called a productivity increase, and SOMEone is getting richer. But obviously it isn't YOU. Statistics show the wealth in America is concentrating at the top. WE're working (if we have jobs) and THEY're getting rich. Who is our economy for? Why are we tolerating this? --- Posted at 11:44 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Saturday, January 25, 2003 Bush Has Squandered Our Trust I posted this as a comment at DailyKos, and decided to post it here and No War Blog as well. What gets me is that Iraq could very well be the threat that the Bushies say. Iraq could very well be working on biological weapons or hoarding chemical weapons. They very well could be a threat to us, supplying terrorists, planning to hit us with smallpox, etc. If so, Bush has handled this outrageously! He has lied about Iraq. He lied about connections with Al-Queda. He lied about that report saying Iraq could have nukes in 6 months. He lied about the aluminum tubes. Getting caught lying at a time when they need the world to trust them is very bad. That, and other things he has done, have split us off from the rest of the world. Then, Bush pumped fear into the country, instead of being a leader that helps the public with their fears. They pumped fear into the population and then used that to get more of their far-right agenda passed. That is a very divisive thing to do and the country will be divided as a result for a long time. And Bush has politicized Iraq as well as the war on Al-Queda. They blatantly used Iraq to manipulate the election. This was even more divisive, but worse than divisive it undoes their credibility even with their own supporters who now assume everything has a wink and a nod behind it - that they're "only saying that" to win. Even the supporters don't trust Bush but go along because they fell Bush is doing what he has to do to beat the liberals and want to be on the winning side. And there has been this whole secrecy thing! Particularly excluding Democrats from consultation on matters of national security! What happens if this war in Iraq goes badly and they have to come to us for emergency appropriations, or for an emergency draft? They've divided the country before the war even starts. So here we are, unable to trust our own leaders. We may very well be under the kind of threat they say! If so, they have squandered their ability to pull us together by using the divisive tactics, and squandered the world's trust by lying to us. So here we are, not really knowing for sure if we're threatened, pumped full of fear by our own leaders... what a mess! --- Posted at 6:15 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Even More Pension Trouble I've been writing about problems with pension funds for a while. Finally the problem is becoming publicly serious enough that it is gaining the attention of the mainstream press. (The problem isn't growing - awareness of the problem is growing. The problem is already huge.) Companies that promise employee pensions are required to set aside enough money to cover their future pension obligations. During the big stock runup, pension funds grew faster than the obligations, and companies TOOK MONEY OUT of the funds, increasing their apparent profit. Now that stocks are in the process of returning to reasonable levels, the companies need to put that money back, plus enough to cover additional shortfalls. This means that the companies must report lower profits, reducing their stock price. An additional component is that companies must calculate future obligations, which involves forecasting the rate of return the funds will receive on the money they have. Companies have been using very high rates of return for these forecasts. The higher the forecasted rate of return, the lower the amounts they need to have in the fund now, and the money not put into the fund goes to the bottom line, which raises their stock prices, which means executives get huge bonuses. (See where this is heading?) They're using forecasts of 8.5% returns! This is my most recent entry about the pension problem. It references earlier entries --- Posted at 2:32 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Thursday, January 23, 2003 Sad Go read The Agora. I read it in reverse order, from the "last" entry on the top, scrolling down to Tuesday. --- Posted at 8:07 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
The Fattest Target Since Pearl Harbor From a great, great piece by Gene Lyons: It doesn't appear to have registered that if the White House geniuses really thought Saddam capable of attacking with "weapons of mass destruction," the well-publicized U.S. troop buildup in Kuwait offers the fattest target since Pearl Harbor.Not to mention the need for a draft to replace them - if we REALLY believe he has weapons of mass destruction and would use them. But I think the Korea situation shows us the reaction of the Bushies to a country that they actually DO think can harm us - instead of just using that as a rationale for a war they want. Update - Korea. What I said the other day - "Speak loudly and carry a don't-do-squat stick!" --- Posted at 5:48 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Propaganda I just ran across a great site discussing propaganda. Go have fun. --- Posted at 3:51 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Exploring Other Weblogs Dave Winer writes this about the cost of prescriptions and later points to this scary story at Brian D Busk's Weblog, about what can happen to you if you do not have health insurance. READ IT and be very afraid. Nathan Newman on China. TalkLeft has the Gary Hart speech that we should all read. Everything at The Hamster is good today, as always. Toby’s Political Diary talks about the relationship between Bush’s Texas record as executioner, and his drive for war against Iraq. Thinking it Through writes, ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER RIGHT-WING NUTJOB GETS A JOB WITH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION. Everything at TBOGG is always great every day. Slacktivist has a bunch about Bush’s new appointee to the Presidential Advisory Commission on HIV and AIDS. skimble caught a piece about Helen Thomas calling Bush “the worst president ever” and then read the piece below that. --- Posted at 10:29 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Wednesday, January 22, 2003 I Report - You Decide Got this e-mail from a reader. In the right-wing Fox Limbaugh Drudge spirit of just passing this kind of thing along, here it is: The Bush administration is about to start shipping a lot of smallpox vaccine. During the cold war the US spooks always watched for any kind of mass vaccination program against biowarfare agents. We knew that the Soviets vaccinated its military VS several agents, so we supposed that biowarfare was an option in battle situations. But civilian protection would presage something more sinister. Now the US is doing exactly that but under the excuse that we are afraid that somebody else will spread smallpox into our population.You decide. Leave me out of it. Remember - if Clinton were President, imagine what the wingers would be posting! They flatly claim he launched that strike on Bin-Laden to divert the press from Monica stuff - saying he "bombed an asprin factory." Now they'd be saying that his poll numbers are down, so he would do something like this. But leave me out of it. :-) --- Posted at 4:50 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
State of the Union (2) I came across this great preview of the State of the Union speech. Hilarious! --- Posted at 11:23 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
State of the Union Speech I expect that President Bush will use the State of the Union speech to do everything he can to scare the crap out of the American people. Rather than use his position of leadership - the "bully pulpit" - to calm a frightened public, Bush will continue to use language intended to whip up fear. This is their tactic. Our fear has been so useful to them. A terrified public will rally behind their leaders for their own protection. When we're under attack we must stand together. We will support our leader and will not tolerate breaking ranks. They terrify us and then they harvest the results. By terrifying us the right keeps us distracted, and uses the panic to push their agenda through the Congress. The Republicans politicized "the war" and the fight against terrorism. They drummed up the Iraq scare to influence the election – and it worked. A terrified public supports massive increases in military spending. It supports restrictions on the media. It supports restrictions on political criticism. Terrify us, then harvest the results. Terrify, then harvest. The new mantra of the Republicans: "Terrify, then harvest. Terrify, then harvest!" --- Posted at 9:51 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Tuesday, January 21, 2003 Thanks BuzzFlash Some of the best things to read here are: Paying for the War, Military, Etc. When Facts Collide with Support The Commonweal Institute - Heritage Foundation of the Left Getting Rolled Remember to bookmark Seeing the Forest and visit again! --- Posted at 4:58 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
New - BuzzFlash Headlines Scroll down a ways and you will see on the left (of course) a new section at Seeing the Forest - news headlines from BuzzFlash! More about BuzzFlash - see this piece. --- Posted at 11:48 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Sunday, January 19, 2003 Raising some Rabble with the Righties I just posted this as a comment (in the "Standards" entry) over at tacitus.org. (In response to a comment by "nerf" in the entry below.) Let me get this right - Bush went AWOL for 18 months, because he refused to take a drug test - and you guys don't think there's anything wrong there?Go over there and raise some rabble. --- Posted at 2:14 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Friday, January 17, 2003 Skippy Pointing to Bush AWOL Questions Skippy pointed me to a site titled A Military Career Distinguished Only by Favoritism looking into Bush's National Guard AWOL situation. Where was Bush? Why is this not a major issue? Even if just to be cleared up! What do we have here, Stalin? No one can question the king? --- Posted at 7:57 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
More Pointing Now I'm going to point to Paul Krugman's column today, which ends with the line, Trust me: we're going to miss Rubinomics. Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.He's saying here that we'll eventually pay a great price for Bush's deficits. I want to point out that the costs of tax cuts for the wealthy arrive sooner than that. We currently pay over $300 billion per year for interest costs because of Reagan's budget deficits. That amounts to a $300 billion tax increase, paying for Reagan's tax cuts for the wealthy. The kicker is, by and large, the wealthy receive that interest. So what we saw in the early 80's wasn't just a tax cut for the wealthy, it was also the creation of a huge government spending program, almost the largest item in the U.S. budget, almost entirely to the wealthy. This is also what the Bush tax cuts mean for our future. A huge spending increase - increased future debt interest payments from us to the wealthy. The current tax cuts are coming out of our Social Security money! We pay into Social Security, it runs a surplus, but that surplus is going out to the tax cuts for the rich. So not only will will have to pay interest to the wealthy, we will have to pay that interest instead of retirement payments to ourselves. --- Posted at 11:55 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Pointing To Someone pointed out that I have been doing more "pointing to" than "talking" here lately, and he's right and I want to apologize. I know how much many of you depend on me so much, and I have been letting you down. (Especially you, Mr. Green Ralph Nader voter, Bush elector. You know who I'm talking about.) There will be much talking soon and the masses shall rejoice. Then, of course, Mr. Green Ralph Nader voter, Bush elector, will tell me I'm talking too much. But that's why I have a blog and he doesn't. (Yet.) In the spirit of pointing to instead of talking, I want to point you to The Sideshow today, writing about a poll showing most Americans believe that most or some of the Sept. 11 hijackers were Iraqis! Sideshow writes about the press allowing the Bush lies through, but also points out something important here: Still, bottom line: Ordinary people should bother to notice. Yes, the press at this point should be spelling out that none of the hijackers were Iraqi, but a year ago their actual nationalities were all over the media and now only 17% remember that?I've written that you can often tell the message that leaders are sending by checking out what the intended audience is hearing. But the intended audience has SOME responsibility, especially when they are allowing the country to go to war. --- Posted at 8:48 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
SlashDot I see I'm a moderator over at SlashDot today. I'm taking bids here to "mod up" posts. Leave a comment including a dollar amount and your credit card number, and I'll go "mod up" your message or "mod down" a message you disagree with. (If you don't know about SlashDot and their moderating system, read the next post instead.) --- Posted at 7:31 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Trying Too Hard The right is trying a little too hard to smear John Kerry. They're circulating a story that he said he "EXPRESSED 'HATRED' OVER TRIPS TO IOWA." Actually he said - about the need for campaign finance reform - "I hate going to places like Austin and Dubuque to raise large sums of money. But I have to." He hates having to raise the money. The right smears him, claiming he said he hates Iowa. Typical. Remember when they dredged up a letter Clinton wrote as a student, saying that he could understand why some people loath the military, and turned it into a widely-repeated smear that Clinton had written that he "loathed the military"? --- Posted at 7:27 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Thursday, January 16, 2003 Terrify, then Harvest Bush and the rest of the right-wingers have been working hard to scare the hell out of the public for some time now. And they have been harvesting the results politically. Now they're harvesting cash, too. Here's the headline piece in today's right-wing Heritage Foundation TowhHall.com e-mail. (To help you get the flavor of TownHall, today's e-mailing links to articles by "Thomas, Novak, Mackenzie, Fields, McCaslin, Williams, Kudlow, Elder, Chavez, Bartlett, Tyrrell, Chapman, and Coulter".) BIOCHEMICAL ATTACKS ON U.S. COULD BE IMMINENTSo let's click on the URL, and find out how to protect ourselves from IMMINENT chemical and biological attacks. While you are vulnerable, you are far from helpless. In a moment I’ll share five simple but potentially life-saving steps to take immediately to protect yourself. But first, you must understand the threat:... A few missiles fired against the U.S. could set off a nationwide plague, which would cripple, disfigure, and even kill millions of American citizens.... And, eventually, it gets to the point, I've been selling Surviving Terrorism in various newsletters and magazines for $199.00. Hundreds of people have bought it at this price. I’m convinced the potentially life-saving information it contains is worth every penny. In fact, this is still the price I am selling it for to the general public (check out my home page here).I used to write direct mail, so I understand how this is being used. TownHall sent it out - so it's approved. Their approval demonstrates that they recognize how this "wartime Presidency" crap is about selling stuff to the rubes. Bush formula: Terrify, then harvest. P.S. One of the TownHall articles promotes Lieberman's candidacy! --- Posted at 10:09 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Code Words for Southern Bigots In case anyone missed the point, Bush chose Martin Luther King's birthday to announce he opposes Affirmative Action. You can be sure the message was heard clearly by those for whom it was intended. "Lott's gone, but we're still with you." --- Posted at 7:39 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Adjustments Jobless claims down by 32,000. But they warn that it might be off because - The level was much lower than Wall Street economists had been expecting but a Labor analyst warned that adjustments intended to deal with seasonal fluctuations in claims may have had a downward impact on the numbers.I'll bet this is the adjustment they made - this time of year there are a bunch of new unemployed because retailers lay off the Christmas help. They adjust for that so we don't get suddent huge jumps in the new unemployment claim figures. But this year retailers didn't HIRE as much extra Christmas help, so the adjustment wasn't needed. They made this mistake at the end of summer. They adjusted for all the kids who usually leave summer jobs, even though very few were hired this year. This is why the monthly employment numbers look so much worse than the adjusted weekly numbers. The monthly numbers are calculated using a different method, including surveys - actually checking with homes and businesses to see what's going on out there. --- Posted at 7:30 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Wednesday, January 15, 2003 Democrats Didn't Cave! The Democrats didn't cave. That's news, and it merits a headline. And guess what, when they didn't cave they got what they wanted. --- Posted at 9:34 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Animals I'm a vegetarian, and this LA Times op-ed piece today tells you why. (I eat some fish and once in a while I eat non-corporate-farmed turkey.) Factory farmers may do as they please in the care of animals, with no standard to consult but industry norms dictated by a rigid economic calculus and a view of animals as unfeeling machines.It's just one more aspect of the corporate ethic that is harming us all in so many ways. No regard for the environment. No regard for our kids. No regard for the poor. No regard for the elderly. No regard for our health. And this kind of stuff - horrible, cruel treatment of animals. In the merciless calculations of industrial production, the animals are not allowed to move because they would burn off more calories and require more feed. In short, as former presidential speechwriter Matthew Scully wrote in his book "Dominion," "Instead of redesigning the factory farm to suit the animals, they are redesigning the animal to suit the factory farm."What sort of harm does eating meat - participating in this corporate atrocity - do to our humanity? Is there karma? Do we have a spirit? I don't know. I just know when something is really, really bad I shouldn't participate. An examination of the industrialization of animal agriculture raises important questions about public policy issues, including water and air pollution, public health threats from overuse of antibiotics and the loss of small farms as a result of corporate consolidation. But above all it raises questions of conscience and human responsibility in the care of animals.I was volunteering at the Santa Cruz SPCA several years ago, and one day I took care of a little pot-bellied pig. It was just like a little dog. It wagged its tail and came running over to me. It liked it when I scratched it behind the ears. I haven't touched red meat since that day. Some of us distance ourselves from the violence of meat, milk and egg production through vegetarianism. But we can all agree on this: If animals are reared for food, their lives should not be plagued by the occasional torture and the daily torments and deprivations of the factory farm. --- Posted at 12:37 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
To My Green Friends My Green friends will like this over at Testify! You already know what I think. Update - Here's what Zizka thinks. Also here. He left a comment, but I'm pointing it out here. --- Posted at 12:11 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Shit Approaches Fan I have been writing about the problems with corporate pension funds. This Dow Jones Newswire story just appeared online, Most Pensions Funds Suffer Shortfalls And it will be worse that you hear about. This appears in the story, The median expected rate of return on pension assets for S&P companies in 2001 was 9.2 percent, according to Credit Suisse First Boston Corp. analyst David Zion, the author of a well-regarded study on pension underfunding.In other words, they're in as much trouble as they are in, and that is with them reporting expected earnings of 8.5 percent on their funds next year. Yes, that's right, they're saying their funds will increase 8.5% in 2003. Part of why they are in this trouble is they reported "expected" increases of 9.2% in 2001, which, of course, didn't happen. Imagine how bad the books would look if they were reporting realistic returns on their pension fund investments! --- Posted at 11:19 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
skimble I noticed that skimble has some great stuff up today and the last few days. Take a look. --- Posted at 9:15 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Tuesday, January 14, 2003 The Game Go pretend you're Bush and play the Middle East War game! --- Posted at 8:48 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Are You in a Union? Are you in a union? Not in your line of work, you think? You're a programmer? Working in sales? A middle manager? Marketing? (Weblogger?) Two years ago programmers, system administrators, web designers, product managers, marketing managers, all thought they owned the world. Now many can't find a job and have been looking for 6 months or a year or more. Wages are dropping, working conditions are deteriorating, jobs are being exported and the people they are exported to aren't paid squat so they aren't going to be buying whatever we do still make here. Click here for some things to think about. Wherever you work. Whatever you do. This is a good time to learn what would be involved in getting a union or a "professional association" going at your company. Assuming you're still employed, that is. Otherwise, maybe you should have gotten that union going while you still had time! (YES I'm talking to all of you HP workers, too, now that the second wave of layoffs is underway!) From the AFL-CIO page, How & Why People Join Unions, People who work for a living know about the inequality of power between employers and employees. Workers want to form unions so they can have a voice on the job to improve their lives, their families and their communities.The AFL-CIO site is a good website. Take a look around. Take a look at Executive Paywatch in the Eye on Corporate America section! --- Posted at 7:49 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Fury and Accusations I'm reading this story, and I come across this line: The GOP response to these demands Tuesday was fury and accusations.So I'm thinking, "What else is new?" It doesn't matter what the article is about, does it? The Republican response to anything that doesn't go their way is always fury and accusations. Like a whining little kid. "It wasn't me! Billy did it!" --- Posted at 4:20 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Why Was Bush on Cipro? Testify! wants to know. --- Posted at 4:05 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich Endorses Commonweal Institute Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich has provided an endorsement for the Commonweal Insititute. --- Posted at 3:09 PM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Bold In the news: Bush Could Revive 'Bold Initiative' for N. Korea Gotta give those right wingers credit for sticking to their talking points. A week or so back a focus group must have said that X% of target demographic Y responds favorably to the word "bold." So now everything is "bold." Even this message is bold. (That's an HTML insider joke.) I'm on board with the great white father, please don't put me in an internment camp. --- Posted at 9:30 AM by Dave Johnson Link to this | | | | e-mail this post
Was Bush a Bed-Wetter? Democratic Veteran is looking for a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) expert to help him get Bush's DD-214 released. From DemVet: The DD-214, for those of you not familiar with them, is a document given to everyone who separates from the service. The reason it's important is that it contains a "characterization" of the serviceman/woman's service. Pre-1974 or so, the program used what were called Separation Program Codes or Numbers (they are called both) which gave a very interesting set of characterizations to the separating member. Some of them were things like "bed-wetter", "homosexual"; you get the picture. Now for the punchline, a person could get an Honorable Discharge and have an SPC/SPN which was far from a characterization of Honorable. This system was amended in the '70's after it became common knowledge about the unfairness of the system and its often arbitrary application to people who were ummmm not mainstream or just not great performers or just did not show up, but you couldn't Courts-Martial sound like anyone we know?I think this is a worthy cause. Let's find out what Bush is hiding. | ||||