Arizona Governor Napolitano caved on internal US travel control called Real ID ...

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who signed an agreement with Napolitano on Thursday, said the effort to stiffen identification standards is essential to making the country safer in the wake of the 2001 attacks.

"In the hands of terrorists and criminals, fraudulent documentation, phony identification are really weapons that enable people to carry out acts of violence and destruction," Chertoff said.

If the old passports and driver's licences were really weapons when used by the wrong people, then the new super Real ID documents will be super weapons when used by the wrong people? And don't tell me they can't be faked or subverted in some way. The real purpose of Real ID is to control US Citizens, not secure the country. This is obvious from the fact that real security issues, like port security, is ignored by this administration while they pursue such things as wiretapping the nation and consolidating personal information on all Americans.

And the Democrats go along quite willingly most of the time ...

What constitutes bribery? ...

Consumer Reports reports something fishy going on:

According to the HMHB Web site, the National Fisheries Institute, an industry trade association, provided honoraria of $1,000 each to the 14 members of the panel who came up with this new advice, and also covered travel, hotel bills and food for a meeting attended by the panelists. In addition, the four-person Executive Committee received an additional $500 each for the time spent in planning the meeting. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the NFI also gave the Coalition $60,000 for its education campaign on seafood consumption.

The board of the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition decided pregnant women can, and apparently should “eat a minimum of 12 ounces per week of fish like salmon, tuna, sardines and mackerel, and can do so safely,” lead be damned.

Is this just another group organized for the purpose of pushing the corporate mafia's message? They pick a socially responsible message: healthy mothers, healthy babies. The next step is the betrayal of that message? And they get paid to do this? Republican and corporations repeat this scenario over and over:

Disclaimer Related to Partner Organizations

Recommendations and position statements issued by the National Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies Coalition (HMHB) are voted on by its Board of Directors. Any statement that is supported by the HMHB Board in no way implies that it has been endorsed by our member organizations. Questions regarding any member organizations' position on such matters should be directed to the leadership of those member organizations.

But individuals and groups keep going along ... a disclaimer isn't enough!

Immigration, migration and mankind's borders ...

Couple comments to Michael Tomasky's post in the Guardian:

Scare tactics on the border --Most Americans back citizenship for illegal migrants, but are eclipsed by a fevered minority

Only a few of the 'fevered' sorts have found the site yet but give them time. For now there's a reasonably polite and rational debated going on.

COMMENT POSTED BY amities
December 3, 2007 12:08 PM

My parents emigrated illegally to the United States back in the '80s and took up some of those jobs that WASP America seems not very keen on. I understand the argument that if they are legalized, it's saying it's OK to break the law (I don't hear opponents of the move to legalize illegals moaning and groaning about all the numerous times the current administration has violated our sacrosanct Constitution). However, I suspect that this is a superficial and vacuous rationalization; the true reason is xenophobia, pure and unadulterated racism.

I currently live in the UK (legally :P) and find myself constantly reading and hearing about the Polish blitzkrieg. They are flooding the country, driving wages down, sending their Polish-speaking children to already overcrowded schools, causing house prices to go up (how someone who is working for peanuts can afford the ludicrously expensive homes is beyond my comprehension!) and living off the dole, etc. Of course they are here legally yet these are the same things that are said about the illegals, i.e., Hispanics, in the United States.

Human beings are historically a species on the move. People have always emigrated in order to improve their lot. The Europeans that went to the Americas were doing just this. Can you imagine what America would be like had the Natives had stringent border control! ;)

COMMENT POSTED BY Ishouldapologise
December 3, 2007 11:34 AM

Isn't it strange that in an epoch where international corporations stroll around the world seting up branches of their companies at will. In an age where money flows electronically in waves from country to country unimpeded. In a time when for every gap year student the world is their oyster. In a time when Americans retire to Baja and British to Spain and France and Italy. In a time when everything is opening up.

Some people are blocked from bravely crossing one single frontier to fill an empty job vacancy, to find badly paid work and to geerously send money home to their needy family.

Talk about double standards.

"Talk about double standards." I think more manipulation than standards are involved. All 'standards' tend to dissolved in front of the neo-con (at one time called by the now almost outlawed word neo-fascist) wave that is transforming our country.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

The researchers found one theme universal to gene expression and aging: the slowing of a cell's energy factory.

They [right wing PR strategists] look down on the press with contempt as people who can be manipulated with ease. And they are right. The beltway journalists in their arrogance don't see themselves as being manipulated. And if they do see it they actually have a sick admiration for it (see Rove, Karl).

So these people, like most working Americans, are genuinely threatened, over a long period of time, by economic forces that are making a lot of people rich — but not them. They are, however, inexplicably quite content with that state of affairs, but are upset by an extremely small population of foreigners who are doing dirty work for low wages.
[...]
Aristocracy is, by definition, un-American. The question is how many Americans will be "messaged" into believing they are doing the patriotic thing by behaving like subjects and hunting down the foreign invader on behalf of their betters.
So [Mark] Steyn is mostly wrong. And to the extent that he is right, he is right by accident; liberalizing forces offend fundamentalists simply because fundamentalists have so much of their selves invested in their closed-minded views of the world. The differences between the fundamentalists of the west and those of Khartoum is a matter of degree, not of kind.
No, it is simply wrong to expect a typical panel of Republican Presidential Candidates to answer hard questions. They are practicing for the august position of President.

It's catching up with us ...

Tropics on the Move by Phil Berardelli

Scientists have detected signs that the planet's tropics may have expanded much farther north in the past 3 decades than climate models had predicted for the next century. If the findings are confirmed and the trend continues, it could place major strains on subtropical ecosystems, hasten the spread of tropical diseases, and generally make life less pleasant for populations living with the zones of change.
...

Ah, someone else thinks the Arizona Daily Star was a real newspaper once upon a time long long ago ...

1. Comment by Sam S. (1424) — December 4,2007 @ 4:36AM

Ratings: -1 +0

[...]

I sure miss the old Star, the one that did investigative reporting, the ones that balanced the power structure, by keeping citizens informed on ALL the necessary information we need to know to make good voting decision and informed opinions. Now 'investigate' isn't used when reporting community issues.......just phone calls to get local governments and big businesses say on the issue, and I should add school districts......since districts like TUSD only get Pheuffer's or Ireland's 'take' on the issues.

Sorry Star, but you did a horrible job covering the RTA suspected flipped vote scandal........intentionally. as well as other important issues, like Prop. 200. Pima County's Diebold counter and voting machines need to go, hard copy paper ballots are the only way to save the integrity of our votes and voting system, and yet you enable to very people trying to take our votes away from us.........Pima County administrator, Elections Department, and the Supervisors that refuse to give up the PUBLIC information they are required by law to divulge.......instead they allow evidence to be destroyed, and use bogus excuses to not deliver.

Article which generated the above comment was Explorer sold to Colo. publisher

David Gregory says the blogs did it ...

What a supercilious donkey's behind: David Gregory Plays “Blame the Blogs”

Democrats takes Pima County to court about vote oversight ...

Trial starts tomorrow, December 4. Democrats want all parties to have access to election data base ...

Voting Counts --Democrats' accusations of security breaches by the Pima County Elections Division go to trial next week by Dave Devine

At a trial beginning Tuesday, Dec. 4, attorney Bill Risner is expected to paint an extremely unflattering portrait of internal security within Pima County's Elections Division.

Risner--representing the local Democratic Party--hopes to secure outside oversight of vote-counting procedures, and is asking Judge Michael Miller to order the county to provide copies of its election databases to all major political parties.

Citing a prohibition on pretrial publicity, Pima County attorneys declined to discuss the case in detail. But Chris Straub, of the County Attorney's Office, did say: "We believe the (databases) are confidential."

Risner counters: "The election computer is fraught with security problems and can easily be rigged or manipulated by insiders."

. . .

Good interview with Bill Risner here.

Yesterday's QUOTES ...

Republican are scared to death that Democrats will do the right thing and Republicans will do everything they can, including cheating, lying and violence, to destroy the Democrats ability to do so!
... [The Republicans] greatest fear is that if the Democrats do win,

It would probably also mean a national health-insurance program that would irrevocably expand government involvement in the economy and American life, and itself make voters less likely to turn toward conservatism in the future.

I think that sentence contains a grim truth for progressives: the right will fight any health reform tooth and nail. They believe — and so do I — that the implications of universal coverage would extend far beyond health care, that it would revitalize the New Deal idea. And so they’ll do anything to stop it. ... will the Democrats and the people of the United States let the Republicans destroy the American peoples' future to further line the pockets of the greedy and the corrupt?


The Plot to Seize the White House" by Jules Archer It's an incredible 1974 book, re-released earlier this year (2007, about the conspiracy of US financial barons to stage a military coup to overthrow FDR in 1934. The connections to current corporate ambitions make it very pertinent to US politics today. And it's a very good read, very detailed and well researched by historian Archer.


... Under the Republican faux-libertarianism that finds its current crown princes in figures like Grover Norquist and Ron Paul, government can indeed be ably used as an enforcing tool of bigotry, but not of tolerance; government can indeed be used as a valid tool of industry against citizenry, but not the reverse; government, most of all, is a failure by its mere existence -- unless it serves their own thinly drawn purposes, of course. It is the shallowest and most crass interpretation possible of societal good and, indeed, of civilization, which goes to explain why it is so popular among certain groups.


Calling Bush stupid is certainly satisfying. It is, in a number of respects true; for Bush’s ideas are original in approximately the way tape recorders play back sounds never heard before. And originality is a sign of genius. Furthermore, it is a habit of the educated middle class meritocracy to equate stupidity with failure. So by calling Bush stupid we call him a failure. There certainly are ways in which the Bush administration failed. But we do ourselves a great disservice in dwelling on this idea; for it is not the ways in which Bush has failed but the ways he has succeeded that will define the most dangerous legacy of the administration. [...] I have long argued that the Iraq war is nothing but a distraction. It is what we talk about because we understand it. But the Iraq war is not the central thrust of the Dubya administration. It is the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, and the remarkably blatant attempts to undermine or subvert every part of the federal government that have been the main business of the administration. The remarkable level of success came, in part, because we have for the duration of his term seen Dubya as an idiot, an underachiever, a spoilt golden-boy.

It’s time we behave more intelligently.


... being less crazy than the Republicans is not a policy. ... nor a recommendation. If only Democratic politicians would allow this concept through their skulls.

Prejudice from male scientists ...

Female Fickleness May Split a Species by Matt Kaplan

Selection or choice or decision are not usually considered derogatory terms, but fickleness is definitely derogatory. Fickle comes from ficol (Old English) which means deceitful.

So why choose a derogatory term for a decision or choice being made by a female bird when so many other non-derogatory, and more scientific, terms are available?

Corporate control of government ...

Corporations didn't like the suggestion that a homeowner could use a weak solution of vinegar and water to clean linoleum (and tile, by the way) floors instead of all those products that line the grocery store shelves.

What corporations don't like, the Arizona legislature outlaws.

Consequently since 1997 the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality is prohibited by law from suggesting anything at all unless

the information is "competent and reliable and based on a test, analysis, research, study or other evidence that yields accurate and reliable results"

Arizonans are strong and resouceful and independent and don't need no stinking environment anyway. Arizonans just love using the more expensive and caustic heavily marketed products instead of cheaper and less caustic products.

"Because there is no industry to test whether a little soapy water helps with aphids or whether boric acid will help with cockroaches … and because these products are not 'registered' as pesticides, they cannot recommend most of this in lieu of some nasty chemical that we know kills stuff, but is bad for people or the environment," said Sandy Bahr, a Sierra Club lobbyist in Phoenix.

Anything the corporate mafia desires ... just let our legislatures know your latest wish.

I went to the Trader Joe's today ...

... and found an unsweetened soy milk with additives. The additive that caught my attention was inulin. Never heard of it. So I asked at the checkout. After mentioning pre- and pro-biotics (she said its one and not the other, but I can't remember which is which) she decided on the analogy of 'fertilizer for the stomach.' Who could resist such a concept? I decided to buy it and look up 'inulin' on the web. [Update 12/3/2007 As this post is getting more than the usual readership I'll just add here that Trader Joe's is my favorite store and that we all would get better food if some of the insufferably large grocery store corporations converted their stores from pushing chemically saturated pseudo food concoctions to real food.]

From Wikipedia: Inulin

for foods

Inulin is used increasingly in foods because it has unusual nutritional characteristics. It ranges from completely bland to subtly sweet and can be used to replace sugar, fat, and flour. This is particularly advantageous because inulin contains a third to a quarter of the food energy of sugar or other carbohydrates and a sixth to a ninth of the food energy of fat. It also increases calcium absorption^[2] and possibly magnesium absorption^[3], while promoting intestinal bacteria. Nutritionally, it is considered a form of soluble fiber, and it is important to note that consuming large quantities (particularly for sensitive and/or unaccustomed individuals) can lead to gas and bloating. Inulin has a minimal impact on blood sugar, making it generally considered suitable for diabetics and potentially helpful in managing blood sugar-related illnesses.

The entire list of ingredient of this additive enhanced soy milk is as follows: Trader Joe's SOY Essential Soy Beverage

• Organic Soymilk (filtered water, whole organic soybeans)
  
• Filtered Water
• Inulin
• Calcium Carbonate
• Organic Flaxseed Oil
• Natural Flavors (ed. we get to guess what this might be)
• Sea Salt
• Carrageenan
• Vitamin A Palmitate
• Vitamin D2
• Riboflavin (B2)
• Vitamin B6
• Folic Acid
• Vitamin B12

That's all well and good. I will try this product since I keep looking for a usable unsweetened soy drink [added 12/3/07: ... that is one that doesn't need refrigeration until opened. Trader Joe's has a perfectly good unsweetened Organic soy milk in the refrigeration section].

In google-ing 'inulin' I encountered the following article which I think should raise concerns about the mind set of those who see themselves in the business of 'designing' our food.

Thoroughly Modern Milk by Cindy Hazen

And more about inulin:

Studies boost the Inulin market after the discovery of its health benefits

Seems one of the main beneficiaries of all this 'good news' about inulin will be the people who make the product who just happen to also be the people spreading all the good news and doing the studies.

One of the leading inulin makers, Orafti has been influential in building the science behind this ingredient, backing the research on inulin's interaction with calcium.

Last December the Guardian Unlimited produced a Special Report called What's Wrong with our food: Just add milk ... among other things

Fortification

Vitamins were first added to breakfast cereals in the early 1930s, first the "sunshine vitamin" D, and later fragile, heat-sensitive B vitamins, and vitamin C and iron. A new wave of fortification is coming. Inulin, known to the food industry until recently as a bulking agent, is now added as a "prebiotic", and companies are looking at adding omega-3 fatty acids such as DHA. There are technical difficulties - the long chain molecules in DHA can be damaged by high temperatures and pressure processes. Firms have worked out how to take a dairy protein and carbohydrate to form a slurry with tuna oil, which is spray dried to encapsulate DHA.

Enjoy!

The Tucson Citizen cogitates about how the Internet intersects with the 'news' ...

Cogitations interesting, title poor: Why a Free Press?: Should journalists heed the cyber-mob? by Mark Evans

Prohibition: lesson not learned ...

The U.S. failed to learn anything from prohibition and proceeded to declare a WAR ON DRUGS. Also, there appear to be many in the US who seem to like a continual state of war, any war, anywhere, of any kind.

'the stash house next door'

... as Ms. Gargulinski pointed out, with Tucson becoming a major drop-off point for Mexican drug cartels, many of which are now allied with Colombian drug runners, law-abiding citizens who have lived in the same neighborhood for decades may face a danger they aren't ready to handle.

You can study for your concealed-carry permit and train to use your .45 automatic Colt pistol, but if the drug dealers wrongly hit your front door instead of the correct one - out of the 85 identical floor plans in your subdivision - they may be armed with the same guns and grenades as the Israeli army. What is worse, they are prepared to pull the trigger.

You aren't. Neither am I. I have guns enough to withstand a rampaging herd of buffalo, maybe even fight off a gang of cattle rustlers, but if a carload of Colombians - their heads full of meth and their AR-15s full of armor-piercing ammo - kicks in my front door because their computer software got my address mixed up with the house next door, which is six miles away, I'm toast.

How many in the U.S. understand that we created this mess our very selves? AND we keep it going. For this war, we sacrifice lives and expend countless dollars and destroy futures and destabilize countries.