Mine safety

Well, as you know, there's been another mine accident. Here's what CNN has to say about the current policies in an article entitled, "Five dead in Kentucky coal mine explosion":

Mine safety issues have been a key concern of lawmakers ever since two accidents in January killed 14 West Virginia coal miners.

Earlier this week, a key Senate committee endorsed a bill to make coal mining safer. The legislation would require miners to have at least two hours of oxygen available instead of one as under the current policy. It also would require mine operators to store extra oxygen packs along escape routes.

The bill also would require mines to have two-way wireless communications and tracking systems in place within three years. It now goes to the full Senate.

The Mine Safety and Health Administration recently issued a temporary rule requiring coal operators to give miners extra oxygen, but miners have been pressing Congress for a permanent fix.

In the January 2 Sago mine explosion in West Virginia, one man was killed in the blast and 11 others died from carbon monoxide poisoning. Randal McCloy Jr., the only miner who survived, has said at least four of the miners' air packs did not work, forcing the men to share.

Mine safety will not improve until mine owners are sentenced with truly punitive fines for safety infractions. As it is now, they're getting a slap on the wrist at best.

Right you are

Sickening:

Besides telling us how to live, think, marry, pray, vote, invest, educate our children, and die the GOP has done a fine job of getting government out of our lives.

-- Zing!

Friday cat blogging!

Ethel under the peach tree

Photo by Ellie Finlay

Please don't shop at Wal-mart's - Part 10 (at least)

Would you believe the above billboard was censored by Clear Channel? Here's what Campaign for America's Future has to say:

We empowered our supporters to send a message of their choice to Wal-Mart -- through a prominent billboard that we reserved less than one mile from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., World Headquarters. We received thousands of excellent slogan submissions, and narrowed the field to ten finalists. Tens of thousands of our supporters voted on the finalists and a clear winner emerged, "Wal-Mart: Killing Local Businesses One Main Street at a Time."

After selecting the winning billboard slogan, supporters contributed enough money to publish it for one month. We designed the billboard artwork and submitted it to the billboard leasing company -- the Fort Smith, Ark., division of Clear Channel.

Unfortunately the division president, Bob Sadler, decided unilaterally -- and based on what we believe are partisan political grounds -- to censor and deny the posting of our slogan.

Nearly 12,000 Campaign for America's Future emailed Bob Sadler to demand that he not censor the truth about Wal-Mart, and publish our billboard. He has yet to deliver an official response, and we're currently exploring legal options to pressure him and Clear Channel to overturn the censor.

Simply outrageous.

And now read this found on Wal-mart Watch:

“America, as we know it, can’t afford Wal-Mart,” said Robert Borosage, president of the Institute for America’s Future. “People across America are starting to realize the stark reality: Wal-Mart’s triumph is the defeat of middle-class America. If Wal-Mart sets the pace, Americans will pay the price, in declining wages, rising health care costs, longer hours, worsening workplace conditions and rising personal taxes to offset soaring corporate subsidies."

Please don't shop there. Those low prices represent the exploitation of people all over the world and the destruction of local businesses. Be willing to pay a decent and appropriate price for the goods you buy. That willingness translates into a better quality of life for us all.

What is a progressive?

I got an email today from Campaign for America's Future. Apparently they had a contest for answering the question, "What is a progressive?" Here are some of the responses:

* A progressive is someone who cares about the other guy. It's as simple as that!! (Lawrence F. - San Francisco, CA)

* A progressive is someone who realizes that she did not get where she is completely on her own. She had help along the way ... and wants to make sure others have the same opportunities, no matter where they started. (Colleen R. - Silver Spring, MD)

* A progressive ... believe[s] in liberty balanced with responsibility, economic opportunity balanced with just and open structures, and peace based upon being a global partner not a benevolent empire. (Norman B. - Cambridge, MA)

* A progressive is a person who thinks the best is yet to come ... (Craig S. - Fort Collins, CO)

Isn't it sad that the word "liberal" has been so demonized that we're afraid to use it anymore? I don't mind calling myself a progressive but I miss the word "liberal" to mean generous, responsible and free. What are we going to do when the wingnuts manage to demonize "progressive" as well?

They hate us.

And it's only getting worse. I'm talking, of course, about the rest of the world's attitude toward the United States and its citizens. The article I'm referring to is entitled, "World opinion of U.S. sinking: Dislike of everything American on the rise". Here are a couple of passages:

Polls now show an ominous turn. Majorities around the world think Americans are greedy, violent and rude, and fewer than half in countries like Poland, Spain, Canada, China and Russia think Americans are honest.

"We found a rising antipathy toward Americans," said Bruce Stokes of the Pew Global Attitudes Project, which interviewed 93,000 people in 50 countries over a four-year span.
...
Kohut finds a significant decline among those holding "favorable" views of the United States. In Brazil, 52 percent held a favorable view of the United States in 2002; by the following year that had dropped to 34 percent. In Russia, the pro-America portion of the population dropped from 61 percent to 36 percent over a year.

That's a big drop over a very short time.

I have friends overseas. And, let me tell you, it's embarrassing to be an American these days.

Snark

He deserves this:

President Bush also said in his speech that immigrants have to learn English. The immigrants said, "Hey, you first."

--Jay Leno

The reality of poverty

I want to share an article published by Common Dreams entitled, "Of Congress and Camels". The title is an allusion to the words of Jesus when he said it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Funny, I don't hear members of the religious right quoting that one. Here's an excerpt from the article:

... In the midst of a half-trillion-dollar war, in an age of stagnating wages and skyrocketing health care, fuel and housing costs, and in the face of exploding deficits and entitlements, the Republican-controlled Congress is set to pass yet another multi-billion-dollar tax cut, nearly ninety percent of which will go to the richest fifteen percent of Americans.

As if this shocking fiscal indiscipline weren’t enough to make anyone sleepless with confusion and worry for our children’s future, these selfsame Republicans, a majority of whom profess themselves “born-again” through Jesus, are brazen enough to once again enrich the rich while governing under the banner of “compassionate conservatism."

Now I’m not out to question anyone’s faith. But would the same Jesus who put first those who society counted least and put last, and who proclaimed his ministry was to “bring good news to the poor," have rejoiced at the news of yet another tax cut for the wealthy paid for by borrowing and by budget cuts for our nation’s growing poor?

Low-income Americans find themselves today in a more precarious position than at any time since the Great Depression. Nearly forty million Americans live in poverty every day. Many millions more are living in near-poverty, working hard, and often without benefits, doing all the things society tells them that they should to get ahead. And yet they’re falling further behind, watching the American dream sail away.

What really upsets me is that the right wingers blame the poor people themselves for their poverty:

Republican leaders seem to believe that the solution to poverty is to grow the economy out of the problem. And yet despite nearly two decades of generally robust economic growth poverty, especially severe poverty in single-parent families with children, has risen dramatically. Even now, in the 21st century, we do not even have to leave our country to find third-world poverty.

Republican leaders also seem to believe that the blame for poverty lies with the individual poor people themselves. Poor people are the authors of their own poverty. If you’re poor, you must not be smart enough. You must not be willing to work hard enough. In the eyes of these Republican leaders, poverty is proof of bad character, and confirms a personal flaw.

Then the author puts the real gospel message before us:

And who did Jesus speak for? The dispossessed, widows, orphans. The hungry, the homeless, the helpless. The least, the last, the lost. Jesus reminded his followers that as they have done to the least of these, they have done to him. Few plainer words have been spoken.

So, late at night, I wonder: How did the faith of Jesus come to be known as pro-rich and pro-business? What of the biblical imperatives for social justice and for uplifting the poor? How did compassion come to be reserved primarily for the rich and the unborn, with little or no interest in those who Jesus put first?

I wonder too. I don't understand how following Jesus can include completely ignoring what he actually had to say.

"Values voters"

Let's be clear. I can't stand George Will. He's smug. He's superior. He's condescending. And he shills for the right wing. But this time he's written a column for the Washington Post that the wingnuts are not going to like. I found this article by way of AMERICAblog, by the way. It's called, "Who Isn't A 'Values Voter'?" and here's an excerpt:

An aggressively annoying new phrase in America's political lexicon is "values voters." It is used proudly by social conservatives, and carelessly by the media to denote such conservatives.

This phrase diminishes our understanding of politics. It also is arrogant on the part of social conservatives and insulting to everyone else because it implies that only social conservatives vote to advance their values....

The phrase "values voters," which has become ubiquitous, subtracts from social comity by suggesting that one group has cornered the market on moral seriousness...

I certainly vote my values. And my values include peace, social justice and care for the earth.

A comment I found:

Fascism is the revolt of the elites against the masses. It is usually welcomed when it comes, by precisely those folks whom it will eventually oppress...

Biting, oh yes:

Last night was the season finale of 'West Wing.' 'West Wing' is gone. And ABC has cancelled 'Commander In Chief.' So, now the only fictional president is Bush.

--David Letterman

The coming economic collapse

I have such a sense of futility about this stuff. The train wreck we're headed for seems unavoidable. Well it is unavoidable by little people like me. But the people with power - George Bush and Company - could avoid this if they just would. But they seem to want to ruin our economy.

Read this:

Let's say you have a brother who just can't manage money or pay his bills. He's in debt up to his eyeballs. His kids aren't getting adequate medical care or education because of his spending.

Five years ago, he did have money, but blew it all, and more, on a wasteful and destructive foreign adventure that made your family a lot of enemies. Last week, however, he topped that.

He arranged to borrow a whole lot, most of it, presumably, from the Chinese. But he didn't use it to pay his bills; he gave most of it to a bunch of millionaires who didn't need it, to curry favor with them.

So you tell me: Is it time that we stepped in and did an intervention, or whatever it's called, before our family is ruined forever?

Guess what: Surprise, surprise — this is a story about you, dear comrades! Your recklessly insolvent brother is our own smirking, stoop-shouldered George W. Bush, the worst president in history.

Today the press is so weak, and we are so used to his outrages, that we barely noticed the latest atrocity — another $70 billion tax cut, nearly all of it for the well-to-do to wealthy. The worst part is not that it is unfair, though it is. The worst part is that it hastens the collapse of our economy. The Seattle Times quoted Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody's Economy.com, a financial consulting service based in Philadelphia."

If you do the math," he said "under any kind of reasonable economic assumptions the budget deficit will be 10 percent of gross domestic product 20 years from now. That's untenable. The economy will break before we get there."

That's from a conservative investor. Even if you are totally in sympathy with Puddin'head George's values, share his belief we should be launching a military crusade to save the world from radical Islam, and even if you think the war in Vietnam — oops — Iraq can be "won," you cannot be happy about his wrecking of our own economy.

The above passage is from an article entitled, "The destruction of our America" by Jack Lessenberry.

Here's a comment off of Smirking Chimp about that article:

It is not incompetence with these people. They know exactly what they are doing. They intend to wreck our economy as an excuse to dismantle Social Security and Medicare.

It makes me quite ill to consider that this commenter is right but I think he or she is.

Bitter irony

Hurts, doesn't it?

You know who I feel sorry for is Osama bin Laden because all that hating us for our freedom, and now he has to come up with a completely new reason to hate us.

--Bill Maher

The real treason

I want you to read an excerpt from the latest article by Paul Craig Roberts and I want you to think about it seriously. The article is entitled, "The real assault on America" . Here you go:

The question presents itself: Are Americans guilty of treason when they turn their backs on the Constitution? Treason is betrayal of country. And what defines country? In the United States, the Constitution defines country. The Bush regime's assault on the Constitution is an assault on America.

Moreover, it is a far more dangerous and deadly assault than a terrorist assault on buildings.

Ask yourself, gentle reader, what are we without the Constitution? Without the Constitution, how do we differ from the hapless subjects sent to Soviet and Nazi death camps? The Constitution protects our rights, and without our rights we are nothing.

It has been widely reported, apparently without causing Americans any unease, that the Bush regime has awarded Halliburton $385 million to build concentration camps in the United States. Who are to be the inmates? Certainly not terrorists. The Bush regime has proven inept at catching terrorists, and those few who are captured are kept offshore out of the reach of the courts where they can be tortured and abused. The camps are certainly not for illegal aliens who both political parties want to give amnesty and citizenship.

Concentration camps epitomize the horrors and inhumanity of the Stalin and Nazi era. Why is the Bush regime building concentration camps in America?

Just because they are called "detention centers" doesn't change the fact that they are, in fact, concentration camps. Don't say "it can't happen here". Because it is happening.

More effects of global warming

Here's a Reuters article published by CNN called, "Report: Climate change may kill millions of Africans" that goes into some of the effects of global warming:

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- Disease spread by global warming could kill an extra 185 million people in sub-Saharan Africa by the end of the century and turn millions more into refugees unless rich nations take action now, a report said on Monday.
...
Christian Aid said it based its estimate of 185 million deaths due to disease on figures from the United Nations and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Global warming should allow carriers like mosquitoes to expand their ranges.

Melting ice caps and glaciers were not only eroding coast lines at a rapid rate but were also raising sea levels and reducing reliable sources of fresh water.

At the same time changing weather patterns were increasing the incidence of floods and droughts, with arid regions becoming drier and wet regions getting wetter.

These changes would increase tensions as key resources like water and fertile land became more scarce, the religious charity said, noting the farmers in northern Kenya were fighting over a diminishing number of waterholes to feed their cattle.

"The unfolding disaster in east Africa, where 11 million people have been put at risk of hunger by years of unprecedented drought, is a foretaste of what it to come," the report said.

"In this sense, the environment is too important to be left to the environmentalists," Christian Aid said, declaring that it was switching its campaign goals to focus on the four great effects of global warming -- pestilence, floods, famine and war.

I keep bringing these articles about climate change to your attention so that we will not be infected with the mind poison of delusion - that is, the need or impulse not to know. It is important that we be willing to know what is happening. Only if a critical mass of people who understand what's at stake is reached will enough people demand change so that change takes place.

A different poll

I told you yesterday that I didn't believe that Washington Post/ABC poll that said 63% found the domestic phone spying to be acceptable. Seems there's a USA Today/Gallup poll that pretty much says the opposite:

A majority of Americans disapprove of a massive Pentagon database containing the records of billions of phone calls made by ordinary citizens, according to a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll. About two-thirds are concerned that the program may signal other, not-yet-disclosed efforts to gather information on the general public.
...
About two-thirds say they're concerned that the federal government might be gathering other information about the public, such as bank records and data on Internet use, or listening in on domestic phone conversations without obtaining a warrant.

Two-thirds are concerned that the database will identify innocent Americans as possible terrorism suspects.

That's a lot of concern out there.

Now the question is this: Will the political pundits correct themselves in this regard? Friday night I heard Martha Raddatz on Washington Week in Review make the solemn pronouncement that two-thirds of Americans support the spying program. Next Friday night will she say, "Sorry, I was wrong" or at least, "Sorry, but there's some conflicting evidence now?" I'm not holding my breath.

Not so far-fetched:

Are Democrats poised to re-take Congress in 2006? Joke's on them. By November, there won't be a Congress.

--Stephen Colbert

Net neutrality

Please go on over to Smirking Chimp and read an article entitled, "Saving the Internet is saving freedom". This is important. I've posted about it before but it needs to be regularly in our consciousness so that we will take action.

The United States Congress is currently drafting a bill known as "The Communications Opportunity, Promotion and Efficiency Act of 2006", known as "COPE." This means privatizing the Internet, by allowing such private corporations as AT&T, BellSouth, Verizon and others to actually own it, and, in the process operate the internet and other digital communications services as private networks. The bill very, very clearly states that "certain classes of Internet providers may-- not unreasonably-- impair, interfere, restrict or limit applications or services such as Web sites or voice-over IP phone connections."

On April 26, 2006, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications rejected an amendment to the bill (the Markey Amendment written by Ed Markey, D-Mass) that would have strengthened provisions for network neutrality. That amendment was defeated by a vote of 28 to 8.
...
If we are deprived of free and complete and independent access to the Internet, we will lose the last vestige of getting the real news, and the last vestige of free and open communication available to any of us.

I just wrote a scathing letter to my legislative representatives, stating -- amongst other things -- "Please remember: I am old, but I sure vote." All of you who read this, must do the same. Let them know how you feel. Let them know. After all, you are undoubtedly reading this very article on an internet site, are you not?

I've signed petitions about this and I phoned my congressman, John Sullivan. It didn't do any good though. He voted against the Markey amendment anyway. Still, we must try. Some of you who live outside Oklahoma may have representatives who are not so utterly loyal to big business.

Damage done

I want to share with you a passage from Bob Herbert's op-ed in the New York Times entitled, "America the Fearful". Unfortunately, I can't link to it because it's a subscription only article but I'll give you an excerpt here:

If you listen to the Bush version of reality, the president is all powerful. In that version, we are fighting a war against terrorism, which is a war that will never end. And as long as we are at war (forever), there is no limit to the war-fighting powers the president can claim as commander in chief.

So we've kidnapped people and sent them off to be tortured in the extraordinary rendition program; and we've incarcerated people at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere without trial or even the right to know the charges against them; and we're allowing the C.I.A. to operate super-secret prisons where God-knows-what-all is going on; and we're listening in on the phone calls and reading the e-mail of innocent Americans without warrants; and on and on and on.

The Bushies will tell you that it is dangerous and even against the law to inquire into these nefarious activities. We just have to trust the king.

Well, I give you fair warning. This is a road map to totalitarianism. Hallmarks of totalitarian regimes have always included an excessive reliance on secrecy, the deliberate stoking of fear in the general population, a preference for military rather than diplomatic solutions in foreign policy, the promotion of blind patriotism, the denial of human rights, the curtailment of the rule of law, hostility to a free press and the systematic invasion of the privacy of ordinary people.

There are not enough pretty words in all the world to cover up the damage that George W. Bush has done to his country.

The sentence above with which I've ended the excerpt tells it all. How true. How true.

The Arctic ice

It's time for another global warming article. This one is from the Guardian and is entitled, "Meltdown fear as Arctic ice cover falls to record winter low":

Record amounts of the Arctic ocean failed to freeze during the recent winter, new figures show, spelling disaster for wildlife and strengthening concerns that the region is locked into a destructive cycle of irreversible climate change.

Satellite measurements show the area covered by Arctic winter sea ice reached an all-time low in March, down some 300,000 square kilometres on last year -an area bigger than the UK.

Scientists say the decline highlights an alarming new trend, with recovery of the ice in winter no longer sufficient to compensate for increased melting in the summer. If the cycle continues, the Arctic ocean could lose all of its ice much earlier than expected, possibly by 2030.

Walt Meier, a researcher at the US National Snow and Ice Data Centre in Colorado, which collected the figures, said: "It's a pretty stark drop. In the winter the ice tends to be pretty stable, so the last three years, with this steady decline, really stick out."

Experts are worried because a long-term slow decline of ice around the north pole seems to have sharply accelerated since 2003, raising fears that the region may have passed one of the "tipping points" in global warming. In this scenario, warmer weather melts ice and drives temperatures higher because the dark water beneath absorbs more of the sun's radiation. This could make global warming quickly run out of control.

The article goes on to say that some scientists believe the summertime Arctic could be ice-free within a decade. How people in our government can continue to dismiss the reality of climate change is utterly beyond me.