Category: government

Our government in action, for good, and mostly for worse

Salty Slushy Roadside Snacks

Seth Anderson0 comment

Going to Work

Yikes, all the more reason to avoid driving whenever possible. And work from home…

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. (AP) — Dave Barber did the math. Now Peoria’s public works director is crossing his fingers and hoping his city has enough road salt to ride out the winter.

The central Illinois city recently paid almost $48 a ton to replenish its salt supply, an increase of 30% – or $500,000 – over last year. Even so, Barber feels fortunate.

Some towns are paying as much as $170 a ton as salt prices nationwide soar because of shipping problems and surging demand. Hoping for the best – but preparing for the worst – communities are making plans to stretch supplies by mixing salt with sand, brine or even beet juice.

“It’s a balancing act between money and quantity,” said Barber, who expects to mix the city’s salt supply with two parts of sand, effectively cutting the per-ton cost to about $23. “This year, the dollars are going to govern for us, and we’re going to try to live within the budget.”

The Illinois Department of Transportation contracted to buy 687,730 tons of salt at prices ranging from $55 to $140 a ton. Combined with the 172,000 tons left over from last winter, the department has slightly more than what it used last winter, Secretary Milton Sees said.

[From Price of road salt strains cities – Dec. 2, 2008]

Bummer Dude

FBI Follies

Seth Anderson0 comment

Gee, feel so much safer after reading this:

The Hatfill search warrant material shows how an accumulation of claims from acquaintances can cast an innocent person in a highly suspicious light, said Mark A. Grannis, a lawyer for Dr. Hatfill. As an example of how innocent details can be made to look suspicious, Mr. Grannis said Dr. Hatfill was taking Cipro, a widely prescribed antibiotic, after sinus surgery in 2001.

Search warrants, Mr. Grannis said, often use hearsay and unconfirmed information to convince a judge that a suspect is worthy of further investigation.

“Whether or not it was right for the government to rely on this kind of information to obtain a search warrant in 2002, we know in 2008 that Steven Hatfill had nothing to do with the anthrax attacks,” Mr. Grannis said.

The F.B.I. affidavits were used to obtain a search warrant in August 2002 for Dr. Hatfill’s apartment and a basement storage room in his building in Frederick, Md., as well as his car and a storage locker he rented in Ocala, Fla. The agency had conducted a search with Dr. Hatfill’s permission two months earlier, but it was considered inconclusive.

[From New Details on F.B.I.’s False Start in Anthrax Case – NYTimes.com]

Salem witch trials modernized for the Great Age of Terrorism, in other words.

New era for climate policy

Seth Anderson0 comment


“Washington At Work: Back Rooms and Clean Air (2nd Edition)” (Richard E. Cohen)

Speaking of Dingell and Waxman, Kate Sheppard writes

Next Stop: Cleaner Air

By chance, just a few days before the US election, I picked up a copy of Richard Cohen’s Washington at Work, a book documenting the nearly decade-long debate over the 1990 Clean Air Act, and which I planned to read post-election in preparation for what I figured would be next year’s battle over climate legislation.

The book highlights the antagonistic relationship between two major forces in the House Democratic caucus – the curmudgeonly, industry-friendly Michigan representative John Dingell, and a wily environmentalist from California, Henry Waxman. It’s been nearly two decades since that law passed, but the two men continued to represent the different factions in the House when it comes to passing environmental laws, a division that has long stymied action.

But then came a surprise: mere hours after the election, Waxman announced he was making an attack on Dingell’s chairmanship of the energy and commerce committee, changing the entire tenor of the House when it comes to climate legislation. Even before we get down to serious debate on climate legislation, Waxman’s success yesterday in unseating the “Dean” from his perch in the most powerful House committee signals a new era for Congress when it comes to the environment.

[From Kate Sheppard: Henry Waxman’s victory over John Dingell signals a new era for climate policy guardian.co.uk ]

Again, for Congress to actually do something about climate change, automobile fuel efficiency standards, and the like, Dingell had to be removed as chair. All eyes on you, Congressman Waxman.

TSA batting average pretty low

Seth Anderson0 comment

The Transportation Security Administration batting average is pretty low, and of the tiny number of people arrested by the TSA, how many are for actual terror related activities? The number of arrests is even lower when you filter out drug-related crimes, penis-bumb related jokes, immigration issues, and whatever other petty offense sets off the wrath of TSA officials.

Had Enough for a Long Time

Fewer than 1% of airline passengers singled out at airports for suspicious behavior are arrested, Transportation Security Administration figures show, raising complaints that too many innocent people are stopped.
A TSA program launched in early 2006 that looks for terrorists using a controversial surveillance method has led to more than 160,000 people in airports receiving scrutiny, such as a pat-down search or a brief interview. That has resulted in 1,266 arrests, often on charges of carrying drugs or fake IDs, the TSA said.

The TSA program trains screeners to become “behavior detection officers” who patrol terminals and checkpoints looking for travelers who act oddly or appear to answer questions suspiciously.

Critics say the number of arrests is small and indicates the program is flawed.

“That’s an awful lot of people being pulled aside and inconvenienced,” said Carnegie Mellon scientist Stephen Fienberg, who studied the TSA program and other counterterrorism efforts. “I think it’s a sham. We have no evidence it works.”

[From TSA’s ‘behavior detection’ leads to few arrests – USATODAY.com]

I wonder if Droopy Dog Lieberman in his continued1 role as chair-loser of the Homeland Security committee is responsible for TSA oversight? I wouldn’t be surprised.

Footnotes:
  1. inexplicably continued, I might add. I can see the logic of keeping Lieberman in the Democratic caucus, but head of the Homeland Security committee? Really? With his piss-poor performance when war profiteers like Haliburton and Blackwater thumbed their noses at taxpayers? Not good. [↩]

Still President Bush Still wants to Kill Us All

Seth Anderson2 Comments

Still President Bush still wants to kill us all using his proxies in the EPA to gut any and all regulatory restrictions on polluting. Rebecca Clarren has written a compelling overview of the problem in Salon.

the story of the hundreds of sick people who live near the former Kelly Air Force Base illuminates an entirely new manner in which the Bush administration has diluted science and put public health at risk. This year, largely in obeisance to the Pentagon, the nation’s biggest polluter, the White House diminished a little-known but critical process at the Environmental Protection Agency for assessing toxic chemicals that impacts thousands of Americans.

As a coalition of more than 40 national and local environmental organizations put it in a letter to EPA administrators [4 page PDF] this past April: “EPA, under pressure from the Bush White House, has given the foxes the keys to the environmental protection henhouse.”

[From Environmental Protection Agency The Stalin Era Salon ]

Mechanics at the former Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio used a toxic chemical called tetrachloroethylene (or PCE for short) to degrease parts on the various airplanes serviced at the base. The chemical was discarded haphazardly, and seeped into the ground and water everywhere.

Although it has conducted limited testing, the EPA acknowledges that it’s possible for PCE vapor to rise from groundwater into people’s living rooms and kitchens. Yet it says the Alvarados and their neighbors have nothing to fear. Based on EPA air quality tests inside five area homes, the nation’s environmental guardian claims that it’s safe for residents to live above the plume for the next 40 to 100 years, or the amount of time it will take for the chemicals to naturally dissipate.

The fact is, EPA scientists haven’t completed an updated scientific assessment of PCE, including its health risks, for a decade. Worse, a comprehensive review of the carcinogenic chemical may never be coming. Anti-regulatory crusaders inside the Bush White House have peopled the EPA with top officials apparently more concerned with limiting government spending than public health. According to critics within and outside the EPA, the agency has stifled independent research and compromised scientific assessments of all manner of toxins and carcinogens that Americans breathe, drink and touch.

“It feels like Stalin-era Russia, like the administration set themselves up to decide what’s allowable science and what isn’t,” says a high-ranking staff scientist at the EPA, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Until the recent economic crash, this has been such an anti-regulatory administration. One of the ways to undermine regulations is to undermine the science behind them. It’s absolutely shocking what’s going on.”

Public health officials say this attempt to derail the scientific evaluation of toxins is one of the most damning legacies of the Bush administration. In late September, the Government Accountability Office issued a scathing critique of the EPA’s new toxic-assessment procedures. It concluded that the secretive procedures compromise scientific credibility and sacrifice the public’s trust in government. Despite such hefty criticism, public officials fear that because the new procedures have been instituted at the EPA so far below the public radar, their harmful impact will survive long after Bush leaves office. It will take a bold and expedient move by Barack Obama or the next Congress to curtail the influence of the Pentagon and other government agencies on the EPA.

There is also the national scourge of perchlorate, an ingredient of rocket fuel that has been found in the water supply of most states.

Since the early 1990s, the EPA has been conducting a toxic assessment of perchlorate, a major component in rocket fuel, used by the military and its contractors in bases throughout the country.

The chemical is incredibly widespread. It shows up in the groundwater of 35 states from New England to California; it has contaminated 153 public water systems in 26 states. Between 17 million and 40 million Americans are exposed to perchlorate at a level many scientists consider unsafe. According to a 2006 CDC study, 36 percent of American women are iodine deficient, putting them at risk for perchlorate-related thyroid problems. Due in part to perchlorate-contaminated irrigation water, most Americans who eat lettuce in the winter ingest the chemical. It has also appeared in melons, spinach and milk, according to 2005 and 2006 studies by the Food and Drug Administration.

A 2002 IRIS assessment led the EPA to call for a safe exposure dose of one part per billion — roughly the equivalent of a drop of water in a home swimming pool. That finding was expected to propel a stringent cleanup policy, one that could cost the Department of Defense billions of dollars.

That did not happen because the Pentagon has an ally in the EPA, an ally that decided that the budget of the Department of Defense was much more important than the health and safety of the nation.

In 2005, the EPA distributed a proposal to revise the chemical assessment process; officials at the Office of Management and Budget sat down with the IRIS blueprint and pulled out a red pen.

The plan that emerged calls for expanding the role of other federal agencies in determining which chemicals are assessed each year. It allows agencies like the Pentagon, Department of Energy and NASA to identify “mission critical” chemicals to the agency’s operations.

Significantly, the new process affords OMB more oversight and involvement in what critics say should be a purely scientific assessment. Now OMB and other non-health agencies have three additional opportunities to comment. Such comments are off-limits to public scrutiny and not available to congressional review unless subpoenaed. If OMB doesn’t agree with certain scientific findings, it can effectively block EPA from moving forward with the assessment.

Obama’s administration could reverse this crap, if they wanted. The question is, do they want to?

With a flick of a pen, Obama could reinstate the old IRIS process. Whether this will happen remains to be seen. His transition office didn’t return calls and e-mails asking if it would be likely to reverse the Bush administration changes to the IRIS process.

“If the Obama administration is serious about protecting poisoned communities, fixing the IRIS program is the place to start,” says Jennifer Sass, a toxicologist at Natural Resources Defense Council. “This should be the top priority at EPA. It’s really fundamental.”

Rep. Brad Miller, D-N.C., chairman of the Subcommittee on Investigations and Oversight of the House Committee on Science and Technology, has taken matters into his own hands. In September, he introduced legislation that would make EPA solely responsible for the IRIS process. The agency would be barred from consulting with any agency, including OMB, that had a conflict of interest in the scientific review.

Read the entire article here.

Successful Pot Smokers: a BIG List

Seth Anderson1 Comment

The Office of National Drug Control Policy is by far one of the most ridiculous wastes of taxpayer money in our nation. Their mandate is to convince young folks that marijuana is a demon weed, and that one toke will corrupt young minds forever, and ever, amen. A current ad asserts that if you partake of cannabis, the only career options left for you will be comical dead-end jobs like “Burrito Taster” and “Couch Security Guard” and so on.

Pulaski_park

Here’s my challenge to Agitator readers, bloggers, and others: In this comments thread, let’s compile a master list of admitted pot smokers—current or former—who not only haven’t ended up as heroin junkies or burnouts, but have gone on to lead successful lives. If the person is famous, include a link. But feel free to add yourselves and what you do now, too, if you fit the criteria. School teacher? Cop? Stay at home mom? Grad student? Count yourself in. You can leave out your name if you like. Or include it. Either way.

I’ll get it started:

Barack Obama, president-elect. Bill Clinton, 42nd president of the U.S. John Kerry, U.S. Senator and 2004 Democratic nominee for president. John Edwards, multi-millionaire, former U.S. Senator, and 2004 Democratic nominee for vice president. Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska, 2008 Republican nominee for vice president. British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly, and and Chancellor Alistair Darling. Josh Howard, NBA all-star. New York Governor David Paterson. Former Vice President, Nobel Peace Prize winner, and Oscar winner Al Gore. Former Sen. Bill Bradley, who smoked while playing professional basketball. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and former New York Governor George Pataki. Billionaire and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

That’s the result of a five-minute Google search. The presence of so many high-ranking politicians so early in the search results puts the lie to the ONDCP’s ridiculous ad campaign, and shows that to the extent that marijuana is harmful, the harm lies mostly in what the government will do to you to you if it catches you

[From The Agitator » Blog Archive » Successful Pot Smokers: Let’s Make a List]

I don’t want to name any names, but in my own experience, I know pot smokers who are: condominium developers, police, teachers, lawyers, real estate agents, restaurant moguls, stock traders, and so on and so on.

Our tax money funds crappy logic like this? We need a change. The list of famously successful pot-smokers being built at The Agitator is extensive, and amusing.

Get on board with train travel

swanksalot0 comment

Speaking of the nation’s rail system, the Tribune published an AP story about Amtrak

After half a century as more of a curiosity than a convenience, passenger trains are getting back on track in some parts of the country.

The high cost of energy, coupled with congestion on highways and at airports, is drawing travelers back to trains not only for commuting but also for travel between cities as many as 500 miles apart.

In the Midwest, transportation officials are pushing a plan to connect cities in nine states in a hub-and-spoke system centered in Chicago. The nine states included in the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative are Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri and Nebraska.

Californians are considering selling billions of dollars worth of bonds to get going on an 800-mile system of bullet trains that could zip along at 200 m.p.h., linking San Francisco and San Diego and the cities in between.

The public is ahead of policymakers in recognizing trains as an attractive alternative to cars and planes, said U.S. Rep. James Oberstar (D-Minn.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

[From More get on board with train travel — chicagotribune.com]

Train I Don't Rides (sic)

There is some momentum building in Congress towards fully funding Amtrak, without preconditions.

Amtrak…, drew a record 28.7 million in the year ending Sept. 30. That is 11 percent more than the year before and the sixth straight year that ridership has increased. Ticket revenue hit a record $1.7 billion, a $200 million increase from a year earlier.

Rail travel is gaining greater favor in Congress, which provides the subsidies needed to keep Amtrak rolling. Lawmakers are trying to find ways to deal with high energy prices, congested and aging roads and bridges, and an air traffic control system that relies largely on World War II-era technology.

Despite the opposition from the usual idiot opponents who hate Amtrak for some reason, like Bush:

President George W. Bush, an Amtrak critic who has opposed anything more than minimal money for the rail service over the past eight years

and John McCain:

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has been a persistent critic of Amtrak’s reliance on subsidies. Obama co-sponsored the recent Amtrak bill; McCain voted against it.

Manifold Illusions

I believe strongly that subsidy for a national rail system helps the country, insisting Amtrak pay for itself solely with fees collected is stupid policy.

Then there are ignorant Senators like Jeff Sessions:

Unlike Europeans, whose cities are connected by passenger rail networks, relatively few Americans travel by rail except in the popular corridor from Washington to Boston, in parts of California and routes extending from Chicago. Outside the Northeast, ticket fares usually do not cover direct operating costs.

Critics say it is unfair to require people in areas where there is no Amtrak service or infrequent service to subsidize the train travel of people in the few corridors where there is frequent, fast service.

“I do not think you can justify many, perhaps most, of the routes Amtrak is running,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) said during Senate debate in September.

Well, looking at the Amtrak national service map, I see there are two rail lines that go right through Alabama. What exactly is Sessions referring to? Really there should have more rail lines, and more government subsidy so that regular people would rely more upon Amtrak and less upon the interstate. Ticket prices should be cheaper, not more expensive.

Finally, another good reason to vote for Obama – he strongly supports Amtrak.

In the Midwest, expansion of the passenger rail network is supported by Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

Some cities that would be in the network have passenger train service to Chicago, but it is often slow and infrequent. The regional plan calls for using 3,000 miles of existing rail rights of way and introducing modern train cars and engines operating at speeds up to 110 m.p.h.

Amtrak and Milwaukee

Seth Anderson4 Comments

Two items, commingled: Amtrak should be fully funded, and some photos from my recent trip to Milwaukee.

First, we took an impromptu day trip to Milwaukee to visit a friend who used to live in Chicago. We didn’t want to drive, so decided to take the train. What an absolute pleasure. We left our house 15 minutes before the train departed, purchased tickets from an automated kiosk1 and squeaked through the final gate just in time. Cannot imagine doing that flying. Either Chicago airport is 45 minutes or more away, plus security lines, baggage search, the seemingly interminable delays of departure, and mechanical failures.

Once we made it to our train, we stumbled into the so-called “Quiet Car” which was exactly that. We didn’t realize at first there was such a designation, but our snotty, aging car-mate loudly asked the ticket collector to enforce the rules. We were happy to oblige with the idea of treating the car as a library, actually, especially after changing seats to avoid looking at our nemesis. Quiet is good, no cell-phones, no loud conversation, perfect for reading the newspaper. The train car was exceedingly quieter than an airplane, and you could stand and stretch as necessary without airline stewards glaring at you with the stink-eye.

The train was nearly empty. On our return journey, we quizzed the train conductor, I could tell he wanted to talk a little. He had worked for Amtrak for 21 years, initially the Hiawatha was three cars long, then four, now five, and considering adding one more. The train used to travel over 100 miles an hour, but with the advent of cars, the signal system necessitated slowing the train down to a more stately pace of 80 miles an hour. Amtrak engineers have almost figured out how to reconfigure the signal system so the top speeds could be achieved again. Our conductor expected that to occur within a year or two, knocking 25% or so off of the travel time2.

Our ticket cost $44 round trip, each. Quick mental arithmetic confirmed this was slightly more expensive than taking the company car, but we didn’t want to drive in traffic, and our friend was picking us up anyway. I am baffled that the United States does not give Amtrak as much budget as it needs to run a first class national train system. Most people3 factor in costs of travel rather simply – how much gasoline would it take to go where I am going, how long will it take, or should I fly. Riding the rails should be encouraged – if the price of a train ticket was significantly lower than the cost of driving, more people would take the train, lessening the congestion on the highways, reducing pollution, reducing gasoline (and rubber, asphalt and whatever else is consumed by automobile travel), reducing the need to constantly repair highways, and so on. Good for the whole society in other words.

I am enough of a student of history to appreciate the role trains used to have in America, but most travelers don’t even consider riding Amtrak for local trips. I priced a trip to Denver, with a sleeping car, and it would cost nearly $2,000 for the two of us. Crazy. How about4 instead of government bailouts for investment bankers and pasta-forbid, Detroit automotive corporations, we invest in encouraging train travel? Increase staffing so the trains and stations are spotless, add WiFi5, add engineers, invest in tracks and signals so the train can go faster!

We both really liked Milwaukee, we are considering renting space there for a summer house. Though my sample size is small6 I think Milwaukee is way more interesting than the city often mentioned, Madison. Madison seems very small, with not much going on for non-students. Milwaukee has a more varied character – a loft district like where I live now, but cleaner, with more preservation of historic facades, a large park along Lake Michigan, and with a bonus that the Amtrak to Chicago is sleek and efficient.

Anyway, here are a few annotated photos from Saturday:

The Quiet Car

The Quiet Car

perfect for us introverts. We both brought plenty of reading material, spread out to adjoining seats, and before you realized, we were pulling into Milwaukee.

Amtrak Hiawatha Depot Entrance – Milwaukee
Depot Entrance - Milwaukee
Amtrak Station, Milwaukee.

View from the Hiawatha
View from the Hiawatha
The route took us through fields of resplendent fall folliage, nature preserves, and farms. I took a bunch of photos, using the wrong lens7 and with various other camera settings fracked8, most did not turn out well. By the time I realized my errors, we were almost in Milwaukee. Oh well, next time.

Factory of Rex
Factory of Rex
“Factory of Rex” – sounds like a band name.Historic Third Ward, Milwaukee. Their first EP could be called, “King of Bitter”.

Wedding Party – North Water Street
Wedding Party - North Water Street
The dresses look a lot like these dresses (at least to my uneducated, and unmarried eye): www.flickr.com/photos/swanksalot/2869214540/

I was wearing a light coat, but they had bare backs, arms. Must sacrifice for fashion, presumedly. I wouldn’t know.

Wisconsin Cold Storage
Wisconsin Cold Storage
I think the other side of the river is called the Fifth Ward.

Historic Third Ward
Historic Third Ward
as it claims: nearly every building seemingly has a historic marker on it (Registered on the National Registry of Historic Places).

Menomonee River, South – Third Ward
Menomonee River, South - Third Ward
or whatever it is called. Slightly modified in Photoshop to warm the colors.

Menomonee River – Third Ward
Menomonee River - Third Ward
or whatever it is called.

Fred Vogel Building
Fred Vogel Building
yet another historical marker in the aptly-named Historic Third Ward, Milwaukee.

Fifth Ward – Milwaukee, with biker
Fifth Ward - Milwaukee, with biker
As a billionaire, there would be a lot of buildings I would purchase in Milwaukee. This was one, for some reason. I’d turn most into art collectives – cheap studio space for artsy-fartsy types, an under-served demographic, and hire management to figure out logistics.

Moderne Aire
Moderne Aire
a coffee house and/or bar, didn’t have time to stop and check. Fifth Ward, Milwaukee.

I Threw Up
I Threw Up
luckily, I did not.Street art, Historic Fifth Ward, Milwaukee.

a quickr pickr post

Footnotes:
  1. which in retrospect was a little too close: we were galloping through Union Station as the announcements called out, “Train 333 leaving in 3 minutes!” “Train 333 departing in 1 minute!” “Train 333 departing in :30 seconds!” [↩]
  2. 90 minutes down to something less. I doubt the top speed could be achieved the entire journey – there are too many road crossings and stations. I am no expert however. [↩]
  3. myself included [↩]
  4. to use the rapidly becoming cliché phrase [↩]
  5. there are already electrical outlets, which was pleasantly pleasing, though I didn’t bring any electronic devices this time, next time I’d bring a portable DVD player [↩]
  6. I’ve been three times to Madison, Wisconsin, and three times to Milwaukee [↩]
  7. not fast enough [↩]
  8. maybe mistakenly pressed some buttons while in my camera bag, or else I’m just an idiot [↩]

Michael Pollan’s Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief

swanksalot2 Comments


“The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals” (Michael Pollan)

Michael Pollan1 wrote a fascinating open letter to the upcoming new administration.

vegetables

After cars, the food system uses more fossil fuel than any other sector of the economy — 19 percent. And while the experts disagree about the exact amount, the way we feed ourselves contributes more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than anything else we do — as much as 37 percent, according to one study. Whenever farmers clear land for crops and till the soil, large quantities of carbon are released into the air. But the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food. Put another way, when we eat from the industrial-food system, we are eating oil and spewing greenhouse gases. This state of affairs appears all the more absurd when you recall that every calorie we eat is ultimately the product of photosynthesis — a process based on making food energy from sunshine. There is hope and possibility in that simple fact.

[From The Food Issue – An Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief – Michael Pollan – NYTimes.com]

Reading around the blogosphere2, there are already calls for Obama to hire Pollan as Secretary of Agriculture, or similar.

oops, never posted this article3, and now Obama claims to have already read the open letter:

was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollen about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

[From Swampland – TIME.com » Blog Archive The Full Obama Interview «]

So there you have it…

Omnivore's Dilemma
Pippen reading Omnivore’s Dilemma

Footnotes:
  1. who we’ve mentioned a few times before [↩]
  2. yes! phrase coined by skippy [↩]
  3. probably because it’s pretty half-baked, and never going to be fully baked. Regardless, read the piece [↩]

Constitution Free Zone

Seth Anderson1 Comment

Scary stuff. Scary fracking stuff indeed.

ACLU Constitution Free Zone

Using data provided by the U.S. Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders.

The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This ” Constitution-Free Zone” includes most of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas.

We urge you to call on Congress to hold hearings on and pass legislation to end these egregious violations of Americans’ civil rights.

[From American Civil Liberties Union : Surveillance Society Clock]

The ACLU has compiled a FAQ which begins:

  • Normally under the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the American people are not generally subject to random and arbitrary stops and searches.
  • The border, however, has always been an exception. There, the longstanding view is that the normal rules do not apply. For example the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a “routine search.”
  • But what is “the border”? According to the government, it is a 100-mile wide strip that wraps around the “external boundary” of the United States.
  • As a result of this claimed authority, individuals who are far away from the border, American citizens traveling from one place in America to another, are being stopped and harassed in ways that our Constitution does not permit.
  • Border Patrol has been setting up checkpoints inland — on highways in states such as California, Texas and Arizona, and at ferry terminals in Washington State. Typically, the agents ask drivers and passengers about their citizenship. Unfortunately, our courts so far have permitted these kinds of checkpoints – legally speaking, they are “administrative” stops that are permitted only for the specific purpose of protecting the nation’s borders. They cannot become general drug-search or other law enforcement efforts.
  • However, these stops by Border Patrol agents are not remaining confined to that border security purpose. On the roads of California and elsewhere in the nation – places far removed from the actual border – agents are stopping, interrogating, and searching Americans on an everyday basis with absolutely no suspicion of wrongdoing.
  • The bottom line is that the extraordinary authorities that the government possesses at the border are spilling into regular American streets.

The ACLU has also written a bit about the technology innovations which are enabling this massive and un-American database project.

Ellen Nakashima of the Washington Post wrote recently:

The U.S. government has quietly recast policies that affect the way information is gathered from U.S. citizens and others crossing the border and what is done with it, including relaxing a two-decade-old policy that placed a high bar on federal agents copying travelers’ personal material, according to newly released documents.

The policy changes, civil liberties advocates say, also raise concerns about the guidelines under which border officers may share data copied from laptop computers and cellphones with other agencies and the types of questions they are allowed to ask American citizens.

In July, the Department of Homeland Security disclosed policies that showed that federal agents may copy books, documents, and the data on laptops and other electronic devices without suspecting a traveler of wrongdoing. But what DHS did not disclose was that since 1986 and until last year, the government generally required a higher standard: Federal agents needed probable cause that a law was being broken before they could copy material a traveler was bringing into the country.

[From Expanded Powers to Search Travelers at Border Detailed – washingtonpost.com]

and added this in an earlier article on the same topic:

The notice states that the government may share border records with federal, state, local, tribal or foreign government agencies in cases where customs believes the information would assist enforcement of civil or criminal laws or regulations, or if the information is relevant to a hiring decision.

They may be shared with a court or attorney in civil litigation, which could include divorce cases; with federal contractors or consultants “to accomplish an agency function related to this system of records”; with federal and foreign intelligence or counterterrorism agencies if there is a threat to national or international security or to assist in anti-terrorism efforts; or with the news media and the public “when there exists a legitimate public interest in the disclosure of the information.”

Homeland Security is proposing to exempt the database from some provisions of the 1974 Privacy Act, including the right of a citizen to know whether a law enforcement or intelligence agency has requested his or her records and the right to sue for access and correction in those disclosures.

A traveler may, however, request access to records based on documents he or she presented at the border.

The notice is posted at the Government Printing Office‘s Web site.

Danny Westneat of the Seattle Times wrote of one such occurrence in 2007:

Layla Iranshad, 27, was headed to her job at Peninsula College. She says the agent asked her if she was a U.S. citizen (yes, she answered), then asked where she was born.

“I said in England. Then he asked how I got my citizenship. He also wanted to know where I lived and where I was going.

“It freaked me out. Since when in this country do we get stopped on the street and questioned about our citizenship?”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection announced last week it will stop drivers at a series of random checkpoints on the Olympic Peninsula in the coming months.

“The primary purpose of the temporary checkpoints is to support enhanced national-security efforts to deter, detect and prevent the threat of terrorist attacks against the American people,” says a statement from the Border Patrol.

The agency, which guards the international boundary, can set up “interior checkpoints” up to 100 miles from any border. The checkpoints have been used before near the Blaine crossing, but never on the Olympic Peninsula.

Forks is 30 miles from the border, which lies in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. By these rules, the agency could set up a checkpoint in downtown Seattle, which is 70 miles from the border off Port Angeles.

[From Local News | Checkpoint sticks in Forks’ craw | Seattle Times Newspaper]

Remind me again what country we live in? I’m writing my Senators1 and my Congress-critter about this crazy, totalitarian, government insanity. How about you?

Footnotes:
  1. one of whom should become President, and one of whom probably will become President [↩]

The Acorn Story

Seth Anderson0 comment

The New York Times editorializes about voter fraud, and lack of…

But for all of the McCain campaign’s manufactured fury about vote theft (and similar claims from the Republican Party over the years) there is virtually no evidence — anywhere in the country, going back many elections — of people showing up at the polls and voting when they are not entitled to.

Meanwhile, Republicans aren’t saying anything about another more serious voter-registration scandal: the fact that about one-third of eligible voters are not registered. The racial gaps are significant and particularly disturbing. According to a study by Project Vote, a voting-rights group, in 2006, 71 percent of eligible whites were registered, compared with 61 percent of blacks, 54 percent of Latinos and 49 percent of Asian-Americans.

Much of the blame for this lies with overly restrictive registration rules. Earlier this year, the League of Women Voters halted its registration drive in Florida after the state imposed onerous new requirements.

The answer is for government to do a better job of registering people to vote. That way there would be less need to rely on private registration drives, largely being conducted by well-meaning private organizations that use low-paid workers. Federal and state governments should do their own large-scale registration drives staffed by experienced election officials. Even better, Congress and the states should adopt election-day registration, which would make such drives unnecessary.

The real threats to the fabric of democracy are the unreasonable barriers that stand in the way of eligible voters casting ballots.

[From Editorial – The Acorn Story – NYTimes.com]

From my perspective, there should be a few changes made to the US election system.

  1. If you can get a drivers license or a social security card1 – you should be able to check off a box on your application, and simultaneously be registered to vote. Why all the restrictions?
  2. Also, the election should be a national holiday, or at least held on a weekend, so that there is encouragement for everyone to vote.
  3. The polls should always be open for a month before the actual election2.

Simple, right? Americans should all vote in election, and the government should encourage citizens to vote in as many ways as it can afford to.

Footnotes:
  1. our de-facto national id cards [↩]
  2. they are in Chicago, for the first time I know of [↩]

Mario Savio American Hero

Seth Anderson0 comment

Finally remembered the source of this speech:

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

which was quoted by a character (Chief) on a recent Battlestar Galactica episode….

original version spoken by here on the UC Berkley Sproul Hall Steps, December 2, 1964.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcx9BJRadfw

(direct link to video here)

And seems sort of familiar, doesn’t it?

In 2004, it was revealed that Mario was the subject of a massive FBI surveillance program even after he left the Free Speech Movement. The FBI trailed Mario Savio for more than a decade after he left UC Berkeley, and bureau officials plotted to “neutralize” him politically, even though there was no evidence he broke any federal law. [1] According to hundreds of pages of FBI files, the bureau: Collected, without court order, personal information about Savio from schools, telephone companies, utility firms and banks and compiled information about his marriage and divorce. Monitored his day-to-day activities by using informants planted in political groups, covertly contacting his neighbors, landlords and employers, and having agents pose as professors, journalists and activists to interview him and his wife. Obtained his tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service in violation of federal rules, mischaracterized him as a threat to the president and arranged for the CIA and foreign intelligence agencies to investigate him when he and his family traveled in Europe. Put him on an unauthorized list of people to be detained without judicial warrant in event of a national emergency, and designated him as a “Key Activist” whose political activities should be “disrupted” and “neutralized” under the bureau’s extralegal counterintelligence program known as COINTELPRO.

The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series)
“The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States (South End Press Classics Series)” (Ward Churchill, Jim Vander Wall)

more from the SFGate

Economic Snake Oil

Seth Anderson0 comment

Thomas Frank notes the inherent cynicism contained within Republican politicians. Republicans of the last few decades got elected by running against Big Gomnet1, and once elected, proceed to gut, damage and otherwise destroy the mechanisms of the very bureaucracy they were supposed to be in charge of. Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq War, the current fiscal mess, these are all direct results of electing anti-government Republicans.

now we are supposed to vote for more conservative Republicans because we learned from the last bunch of conservative Republicans that government just doesn’t work.

That is the advice of Sarah Palin, Republican vice-presidential nominee, in last week’s debate with her Democratic counterpart, discussing the dread prospect of universal health care: “Unless you’re pleased with the way the federal government has been running anything lately, I don’t think that it’s going to be real pleasing for Americans to consider health care being taken over by the feds.”

Conservative misrule, prompted by conservative disdain for government, proves that government cannot be trusted — and that the only answer is to elect another round of government-denouncing conservatives.

“Cynicism” seems too small a word for this circular kind of political fraud. One reaches instead for images of grosser malevolence. It’s like suggesting that the best way to recover from pneumonia is to stand in the rain for three hours. It’s like arguing that the way to solve nuclear proliferation is by handing out weapons-grade plutonium to everyone who asks for it.

[From The GOP Peddles Economic Snake Oil – WSJ.com]

Snake oil, in other words, pure malevolent snake oil, containing mercury, BPA, perchlorate, and who knows what else.

Footnotes:
  1. also known as Big Government, or worse [↩]

Coburn Hates Trains

Seth Anderson0 comment

Senator Tom (“Global Warming is a lot of crap“) Coburn hates trains in general, hates Amtrak in particular, and especially hates passengers on Amtrak and similar commuter trains. Coburn would be much happier if everyone drove Hummers to and from their jobs instead of taking the communistic commuter rail.

Waiting for You is Lonely

Legislation that would mandate collision-avoidance systems for trains is being blocked by Republican Sen. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, who objects to a provision that would provide a major funding boost for Amtrak that was bundled together with the safety measures this week.

In a phone interview, Mr. Coburn said that in addition to the specific reservations he has over the increased spending in the rail package, which has an estimated cost of about $14 billion over five years, the $700 billion federal rescue plan makes fiscal discipline in other areas even more imperative.

“We’re on a short financial leash for at least the next couple of quarters,” Mr. Coburn said. “We have to start doing things now … that will make a difference for the future.”

Transportation leaders in Congress reached an agreement Wednesday on a long-pending package of bills related to rail safety and service. Supporters of increased funding for Amtrak’s passenger rail service hoped to overcome Mr. Coburn’s opposition by combining that measure with legislation that would attack railway safety problems highlighted by the Sept. 12 train crash in California that killed 25 people. The safety measures include increasing the number of federal railroad inspectors and limiting the consecutive hours train crews can work.

…

Mr. Coburn also opposes a provision that would steer $1.5 billion to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, saying passengers and local authorities should fund mass-transit operations in the nation’s capital.

[From Senator Holds Up Bill on Train Safety Device – WSJ.com]

Money for Wall Street, but not a dime for safety measures for ordinary citizens. Lovely man, indeed. Too bad he’s in office until 2010 (unless of course some hinted-at scandals become public)

Wine Lovers See Red Over State Laws

Seth Anderson0 comment

We’ve discussed stupid Illinois wine shipping laws previously, but the problem is occurring in more states as well.

Wine-go-Round

A handful of states in recent years have enacted laws that, while permitting direct shipments, include requirements that bar or discourage many out-of-state wineries from participating.

Besides Massachusetts, Arizona, Kentucky and Ohio have all passed laws that ban direct shipments from larger wineries, which disadvantages many vintners in big wine-producing states, such as California. Kansas and Indiana require residents ordering out-of-state wine to first visit that vineyard and show identification proving they’re of legal drinking age; Kansas requires consumers to make the journey each time they order from the same vintner.

Critics say these laws fly in the face of a landmark 2005 Supreme Court ruling that struck down as discriminatory state laws that permit in-state wineries to ship to local consumers while denying the same right to out-of-state wineries. At the time, 26 states allowed some form of direct shipping from outside their borders. These were exceptions to the nation’s so-called three-tier system, a patchwork of state laws that usually require alcohol producers to funnel their wares through distributors to reach a store or bar. Legislators created the system in the wake of Prohibition, partly to discourage overconsumption.

[From Business – WSJ.com] [Digg-enabled access to full article here]

And the reason for the ban:

Advocacy groups for wineries say local wine and liquor distributors have pressured state lawmakers into drafting laws that protect distributors, who fear a loss of revenue from direct shipping. “What the wholesalers really want is to preserve as much as they can their monopoly pricing power, which is considerable,” says Bill Nelson, president of WineAmerica, a trade group for wineries.