Undernews For August 13, 2009

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August 13, 2009

WORD

Conventional economics is Scientology for those who went to grad school - Josiah Swampoodle

You know a sales pitch is in trouble when it starts with 'Look, you gotta trust me, we're not going to kill your grandparents' - Jon Stewart

MAJOR BACKER OF GAY MARRIAGE BAN DUMPS WIFE OF 43 YEARS

San Diego City Beat - In July 2008, hotelier and developer Doug Manchester donated $125,000 to help gather signatures for a proposition that would ban same-sex marriage in California. The early money was crucial to getting the initiative-which ultimately passed-on the ballot. At the time, he told The New York Times that he made the donation because of "my Catholic faith and longtime affiliation with the Catholic Church," which preferred that marriage remain between a man and a woman. Indeed, the Catholic Church has vehemently opposed gay marriage. Then again, it's also not too keen on divorce. On Oct. 9, 2008, Manchester ended 43 years, eight months and nine days of marriage to Elizabeth Manchester by moving out of their La Jolla abode. The couple spent the next several months trying to reach a quiet settlement on how best to distribute millions of dollars in cash and other assets. In July, those talks totally broke down, and Doug started playing financial hardball with Elizabeth, allegedly draining the couple's shared accounts and stealing her mail. On Aug. 6, Elizabeth filed a petition for redress in family court. . . . The court records say Doug pushed very hard for a speedy divorce agreement after he moved out, but Elizabeth would have none of it.

HOMELAND HORRORS

UK.TV - Paul O'Grady has revealed that he was held by officials at a US airport because they thought he was a communist. The TV presenter said he was taken aside for questioning at Miami airport by staff who made the assumption because of his 'funny' accent. He was then held for two hours while an officer accused him of being an 'illegal alien' from Cuba. He told listeners of his Radio 2 show: "How could I be accused of being an illegal Cuban alien? Do I look Cuban? Do I sound Cuban?" He added: "I've been to hell, folks - it's called Miami airport." The Channel 4 star was later released after the customs officials studied his passport and found no links with Cuba.

MAINE PREACHER BLAMES HEAVY RAINS ON GAYS

On Top - In an editorial published in The Times Record, Michael S. Heath, head of the Christian Civic League of Maine, a group backing a "people's veto"�to repeal gay marriage in the state, links Maine's lack of sunshine to the legalization of gay marriage in the spring. Heath says the "moral climate in Maine has caused the sun to hide its face in shame." . . . "In May, our elected officials overturned a law of nature, and in its place paid honor to evil and unnatural practices. Our leaders allowed a cloud of error to hide the light of reason, and then the rain began. How fitting that this eclipse of human reason is mirrored by the disappearance of the sun!"

COURT RULES AGAINST DVD COPYING SOFTWARE

Guardian, UK - American software company Real Networks has been banned from selling a program that lets people make copies of their DVDs, in a US court decision that could have far-reaching implications. After a year-long case over the legality of the company's RealDVD software, a district court in San Francisco ruled that Real had violated America's copyright laws and granted a preliminary injunction against Real to prevent it selling the program. The ruling stops Real from selling RealDVD, a piece of software that allows to make back-up copies of their movie discs and save them to their computer. . . In her ruling, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel said that the complex meant that it was not illegal for consumers to copy their own DVDs - just illegal to produce a program that allowed them to do so.

RECOVERED HISTORY: THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION

A friend was describing this over dinner the other night and we thought we'd share the remarkable story

Wikipedia - The Halifax Explosion occurred on Thursday, December 6, 1917, when the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, was devastated by the huge detonation of the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship, fully loaded with wartime explosives, which accidentally collided with the Norwegian SS Imo in "The Narrows" section of the Halifax Harbour. About 2,000 people were killed by debris, fires, or collapsed buildings and it is estimated that over 9,000 people were injured. This is still the world's largest man-made accidental explosion. . .
At 9:04:35 AM, the cargo of Mont-Blanc exploded with more force than any man-made explosion before it, equivalent to roughly 3 kilotons of TNT. (Compare to atomic bomb Little Boy dropped on Hiroshima, which had an estimated power of 15 kilotons TNT equivalent.).

FIGHTING BACK

Photographer Not A Terrorist, UK - Photography is under attack. Across the country it that seems anyone with a camera is being targeted as a potential terrorist, whether amateur or professional, whether landscape, architectural or street photographer. Not only is it corrosive of press freedom but creation of the collective visual history of our country is extinguished by anti-terrorist legislation designed to protect the heritage it prevents us recording. This campaign is for everyone who values visual imagery, not only photographers.

WHEN THE LAWYERS TAKE OVER BURNING MAN, YOU KNOW IT'S OVER

Electronic Frontier Foundation - In a few weeks, tens of thousands of creative people will make their yearly pilgrimage to Nevada's Black Rock desert for Burning Man, an annual art event and temporary community celebrating radical self expression, self-reliance, creativity and freedom. Most have the entirely reasonable expectation that they will own and control what is likely the largest number of creative works generated on the Playa: the photos they take to document their creations and experiences. That's because they haven't read the Burning Man Terms and Conditions. Those Terms and Conditions include a remarkable bit of legal sleight-of-hand: as soon as "any third party displays or disseminates" your photos or videos in a manner that the Burning Man Organization doesn't like, those photos or videos become the property of the BMO. This "we automatically own all your stuff" magic appears to be creative lawyering intended to allow the BMO to use the streamlined "notice and takedown" process enshrined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to quickly remove photos from the Internet. The BMO also limits your own rights to use your own photos and videos on any public websites, (1) obliging you to take down any photos to which BMO objects, for any reason; and (2) forbidding you from allowing anyone else to reuse your photos . .

BAD CHEVY MATH

Mark C. Chu-Carroll, Science Blogs - Chevy is coming out with a very cool new car, the Volt. It's a hybrid with massive batteries. It plugs in to your household electricity when you're home to charge its batteries. It operates as an electric car until its batteries start to get low, and then it starts running a small gas motor to power a generator. . . Chevy has announced that for city driving, the Volt will get gas mileage of 230 miles per gallon. . . The trick is that they're playing with the definition of mileage. In city driving, the Volt is primary an electric car: it's powered by its batteries which you must recharge every night, not by gasoline. On average, you can drive it for about 40 miles on a full charge before it needs to start using any gasoline.The "mileage" figure, as it's presented, is really meaningless - because it's being presented for a situation in which the gasoline engine almost never runs at all. . . What if you drive your volt around the city all day? Your mileage will drop to around 50 miles per gallon once you've driven more than 40 miles. If you drive your car 100 miles in a day, you'll consume a bit over a gallon of gas. That's very impressive. But it's absolutely not what you'd expect after being told that it gets 230 miles per gallon.

PAY RAISES SMALLEST IN 33 YEARS

Time - For 2009, the typical non-hourly worker will see a 1.8% bump in salary, according to a survey by the human-resources consultancy Hewitt Associates. That increase, the smallest in at least 33 years, doesn't even keep up with inflation. . . Going back to the early 1990s, base salaries never increased by less than 3.4% a year, according to Hewitt, which polled 1,156 large companies to get its latest data. Companies desperate to slash costs are turning to worker salaries more deliberately than they have in the past. Some 48% of companies have frozen salaries this year, compared to just 2% last year

SURGEON GENEAL NOMINEE HAS BEEN ADVISING BURGER KING

Washington Times - President Obama's nominee for surgeon general, whose job it is to help encourage Americans to get thinner and healthier, has been working part time as a scientific adviser to the fast-food giant that sells sandwiches like the Whopper and BK Triple Stacker. Dr. Regina Benjamin, hailed by Mr. Obama for her efforts in running a health clinic in hurricane-ravaged rural Alabama, has been paid $10,000 since last year for serving on a scientific advisory board for Burger King, according to newly filed public financial disclosures.

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Why is it that these town hall loons are being considered representative of the voice of the people, yet when ten times the amount of people protest against the Iraq War, the news barely reported on it, and acted as if their opinions were "fringe" opinions not worthy of consideration? - A Reddit reader

WHOLE FOODS BOYCOTT IDEA HITTING THE INTERNET

Russell Mokhiber, Counterpunch - John Mackey is a right wing libertarian. He's a union buster. He believes that corporations should not be criminally prosecuted for their crimes. He has just launched a campaign to defeat a single payer national health insurance system. . . That's why, today, we are calling on all American citizens to boycott Whole Foods.

Tremayne, Open Left - The CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods has written a WSJ editorial attacking the still-in-the-works Obama health care plan in favor of less regulation on the insurance industry and downsizing Medicare. Here's one blogger's take: "Not very smart for a company that depends almost entirely on wealthy Democrats who are willing to pay five dollars for a six ounce carrot soda. Come on, you can do it, boycott them for at least a week and discover how much money you can save at Trader Joe's."

WAR ON PUBLIC SCHOOLS MAKING HEADWAY

Wall Street Journal - The U.S. Education Department is engaged in a high-pressure campaign to get states to lift limits on charter schools through a $4 billion education fund, that encourages more charters as one of the criteria for states to qualify for a piece of the pie. . . In recent weeks, seven states have lifted restrictions, a spokesman for the department says. Tennessee, for instance, passed a law that raises the state's limit on the number of charter schools to 90 from 50 and allows more students to qualify for entry. Illinois doubled its limit on the total number of charter schools to 120. Louisiana passed a law that simply eliminated the existing cap of 70. And several other states are moving in a similar direction. . . Teachers' unions want to see the $4 billion more squarely focused on traditional public schools. In a statement, Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said that "the vast majority of kids-90%-attend traditional public schools and that is why we have proposed the lion's share of Race to the Top money be directed to helping improve those public schools."

HIDDEN DANGER TO THE WHITE HOUSE

A couple of weeks ago a fire gutted the mansion of DC's Peggy Cooper Cafritz and home to one of the capital's best art collections. Among the problems, as local Channel Four reported was that the water pressure from the hydrants was so low "that when firefighters made it to the second floor of the home in the 3000 block Chain Bridge Road they had to back out and attack the fire from the exterior." In the wake of the fire, the DC Fire Department has listed nearly three dozen locations in the capital with serious water problems. But buried in the WUSA story was this startling note: " The department left two of the locations off the list for security reasons. But two years ago fire officials mentioned that areas around the White House complex have some of the city's smaller water mains."

CHARTER SCHOOL FOUND CHEATING ON TESTS

Washington Post - The teacher at Howard Road Academy Public Charter School suspected something was seriously amiss in April when a student taking the math portion of the DC-CAS standardized test announced that she was finished -- way early. "You can't be finished. Go back and check your work," the teacher said. "We did this yesterday. I know all of the answers," the student said. . . The scene comes from a report by school officials detailing the investigation of a cheating scandal at their G Street campus in Southeast D.C. When the probe was done, an administrator and two teachers were dismissed and 27 fourth- and sixth-graders had their test scores invalidated. . . According to a statement from an unnamed school official, copies of the test were "distributed strategically to two new teachers who have never administered a DC-CAS before and didn't know what they looked like. The pages were copied without covers and distributed to them as extra practice for the kids."

MIDDLE CLASS JOINING THE POOR ON FOOD STAMPS

CNN - As the [Detroit] area's economy worsens --unemployment was over 16% in July -- food stamp applications and pantry visits have surged. Detroiters have responded to this crisis. Huge amounts of vacant land has led to a resurgence in urban farming. Volunteers at local food pantries have also increased. But the food crunch is intensifying, and spreading to people not used to dealing with hunger. As middle class workers lose their jobs, the same folks that used to donate to soup kitchens and pantries have become their fastest growing set of recipients. . . There have been plenty of people struggling in Detroit for a long time. What makes this recession different is the type of people coming in. It's no longer just the homeless, or the really poor. Now it's middle class folks who lost their $60,000-a-year auto job, or home owners who got caught on the wrong side of the real estate bubble. Many of these people have never navigated the public assistance bureaucracy before, and that makes getting aid to them a challenge. "They have no idea where the DHS office is," said DeWayne Wells, president of Gleaners, the food distributor.

ATLANTIC HAVING MOST HURRICANES IN A THOUSAND YEARS

Science Now - Researchers examining ocean sediments have concluded that current climate conditions resemble those that led to peak Atlantic hurricane activity about 1000 years ago. So if you live anywhere from the Caribbean to the coast of Maine, prepare for the possibility of stronger and more frequent storms.
As the researchers report in Nature, they found strong evidence that Atlantic hurricane activity peaked about 1000 years ago, producing up to 15 hurricanes a year on average--a level matched in recent times only over the past decade and a half. At the time, according to estimates constructed from other geologic data, Atlantic water temperatures were relatively warm, "though not as warm as today." . . .

COMCAST DROPS MSNBC, LEAVES FOX, IN BASIC LINEUP

Beachwriter, Daily Kos - Comcast has moved MSNBC from its Digital Starter Package to its Digital Classic Lineup while leaving Fox News on the Starter package. What this means is that one now has to pay an additional $17 per month ($204 per year) to view anything progressive enough to even remotely balance out FNC's right wing extremism . . .

MADOFF AIDE EXPLAINS HOW IT WAS DONE

NY Times - Frank DiPascali was a "kid from Queens" fresh out of high school when he landed a job in 1975 with a rising star on Wall Street named Bernard L. Madoff. On Tuesday, Mr. DiPascali stood in a federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan and admitted that, for at least the last 20 years, he had helped Mr. Madoff carry out one of the biggest frauds in Wall Street history. Indeed, he detailed for the first time how he and unidentified others helped Mr. Madoff perpetuate the crime - using historical stock data from the Internet to create fake trade blotters, sending out fraudulent account statements to clients and arranging wire transfers between Mr. Madoff's London and New York offices to create the impression that the firm was earning commissions from stock trades. . . Mr. DiPascali described how he, Mr. Madoff and unidentified "other people" created fake account statements, shuffled money between bank accounts and perpetuated a years-long fairy tale that they were making money for clients of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities.

LOCAL CURRENCIES COMING BACK

Nicholas Riccardi, Chicago Tribune - Last popularized during the Great Depression, scrip, or stand-ins for U.S. currency, is making a comeback. Pittsboro, population 2,500, is one of three communities that launched its own money in recent months. It reports an avalanche of calls from other communities that have lost faith in the global financial system. "The Plenty is not going to get siphoned off to Wall Street, or Washington, or make a stop in Bentonville on its way to China," said B.J. Lawson, a software entrepreneur who is president of the board of the Plenty cooperative. "It gives us self-reliance." Over the past two decades, a few communities have created their own cash in an effort to preserve local ties or businesses. These bills -- such as the "BerkShare" or the "Cheer" -- can be spent at neighborhood merchants, which then can use them at other local shops or, should they choose to, trade them in for federal currency or other goods. "Right now there's a lot of interest because of the economy, but a lot of these efforts come about to rebuild social capital," said Ed Collom, who teaches sociology at the University of Southern Maine and studies local currencies.

GALLERY

RECYCLER OF THE DAY

SUPERMODELS WITHOUT MAKEUP

TALES OF ARKANSAS CONT'D

During the 1990s, the Review took a lot of flak - including its editor being banned from CSPAN and other talk media - for its coverage of the Clinton Arkansas scandals. Those who thought we were exaggerating might find this story informative

NY Post - A former top aide to Bill Clinton when he was Arkansas governor was charged Wednesday with trying to smuggle a knife and 48 tattoo needles stashed in a bag of Doritos onto the state's death row. Betsy Wright, 66, a vocal death penalty opponent, was detained May 22, prison officials said. It was unclear why she allegedly carried the items into the prison. Wright denied the charges, but admitted bringing in the Doritos, which she claimed she found in the bottom of a prison vending machine. Wright served as Clinton's chief of staff and during his 1992 presidential campaign. She's expected to surrender to authorities in the coming days to face 51 charges filed against her.

The back story

Carl Limbacher, Newsmax 1993 - In 1992, when "the Pelican" [ private detective Anthony Pellicano] hired on to do damage control for Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, Mary Matalin, then the political director for President Bush 41's reelection campaign, found herself in the unenviable position of being sought out by women who were linked to Clinton - and threatened into silence by Mr. Pellicano.

Matalin, now a senior White House advisor, discussed the episode in 1997 during a stint as a talk radio host on CBS's Washington, D.C. affiliate. "I got the letters from Pellicano to these women intimidating them," Matalin told her audience. "I had tapes of conversations from Pellicano to the women. I got handwritten letters from the women.". . .

"I controlled the money in the [1992 Bush] campaign," Matalin explained. "And [Clinton damage controller] Betsy Wright announced that she was putting $28,000 on the 'bimbo' patrol and on Jack Palladino and Pellicano, the other guy. . .

"And $28,000 to me, the political director, was four states in the Rocky Mountains. You had a limited budget. I said, how could they spend this much money? How could they basically give up four states to track down 'bimbos'?

"That's why it was kind of shocking to me that it must have been a bigger priority than putting money into states for the purpose of winning and that's why I flagged it at the time."

Newsmax, 1993 - Former senior White House advisor Dick Morris is challenging Hillary Clinton's claim that her husband's affair with Monica Lewinsky came as a surprise to her, revealing that on several prior occasions, one of Mrs. Clinton's most trusted aides was dispatched to interrupt Mr. Clinton's extramarital liaisons. "I know that she wasn't [surprised] because Betsey Wright, his chief of staff [in Arkansas], had the full time job - in addition to helping him run the state - of fishing him out of bedrooms," he told WABC Radio's Monica Crowley on Saturday. . .

"[Wright] once told me over the phone, 'I've had to pull [Bill] out of one-too-many bedrooms,'" Morris claimed.

Working on Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, Wright compiled a list of 19 women who she described as potential "bimbo eruptions." According to published accounts, Mrs. Clinton personally sought out San Francisco private detective Jack Palladino, whose job it was to discourage the women from coming forward. According to Federal Election Commission records, Palladino was paid $110,000 from the campaign's federally matched account.

BREVITAS

Bob Herbert, NY Times - Only 65 of every 100 men aged 20 through 24 years old were working on any given day in the first six months of this year. In the age group 25 through 34 years old, traditionally a prime age range for getting married and starting a family, just 81 of 100 men were employed. For male teenagers, the numbers were disastrous: only 28 of every 100 males were employed in the 16- through 19- year-old age group. For minority teenagers, forget about it. The numbers are beyond scary; they're catastrophic.

ENN - Over 350 new species including the world's smallest deer, a "flying frog" and a 100 million-year old gecko have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas, a biological treasure trove now threatened by climate change. . . . One of the most significant findings was not exactly "new" in the classic sense. A 100-million year-old gecko, the oldest fossil gecko species known to science, was discovered in an amber mine in the Hukawng Valley in the northern Myanmar.

LINK CORRECTION

PUSHING ANTI-DEPRESSANTS ON THREE YEAR OLDS

FURTHERMORE. . . .

A HISTORY OF THE TALIBAN

READER COMMENT EXCERPTS

POLISCUM: JOHN EDWARDS

I developed a great admiration for Elizabeth Edwards and her approach to this traumatic experience in her life. I strongly suspect that despite the recent trials and tribulations, there must be a strong foundation based on something which may not be easily defined, which keeps them together. Let's hope that the family unit is not further damaged by whatever is disclosed during these hearings. - Inspector Clouseau

NY POLICE MAKE MORE POT ARRESTS THAN ANY OTHER CITY

If the legislative and jurisprudence functions of gov't. were controlled by Black people, we wouldn't have marijuana prohibition, we'd have snuff and chewing tobacco prohibtion. The complexion of the prison population would change overnight.

MAJOR PRISON RIOT IN CALIFORNIA

They pack those men in a "dormitory" three deep with no air conditioning. What did they expect? Charades? It will get worse before it gets any better.

BLASTING THE RIGHT IS NOT A POLICY

I really enjoy MSNBC's leftie shows. Yeah, sometimes Keith and Ed can be wrongheaded and overbearing but, you know, sometimes it just feels good to see people on TV who agree with me on something, and who take genuinely progressive positions rather than "liberal" ones a la Chris Matthews. I actually tend to agree with Sam more than just about any other leftish commentator I've seen but he doesn't have a TV show. And Rachel and Ed especially do a good job of calling out the administration for avoiding single payer.

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