When I said “maybe we should have a three-strikes law for corporations who are ‘recidivist felons’” a few weeks ago I was joking, but it looks like this is on track to become a reality :

A “three strikes” bill that would prohibit companies with multiple convictions from doing business in California was launched in the senate on Tuesday.

Sen. Gloria Romero (D-Los Angeles) said her plan would provide a new level of safety for the public from corporate crimes in the same way that the state’s three-strikes law makes citizens safer from other types of criminals.

Democrats on the senate Judiciary Committee agreed. On a 5-2 vote over Republican opposition, they sent the bill (SB 335) to the full senate, where its passage is expected.
…
Revoking a company’s ability to do business in the nation’s most populous state would be a powerful deterrent against breaking the law. “Most people in California understand the phrase ‘three strikes.’ Why should white-collar crimes be enforced less seriously?” she said.

Call me a pessimist, but I doubt this will ever go anywhere. It’s hard enough to get a corporation convicted of one crime, much less three. Considering the economic complications that would result if a huge corporation was ever forced out of business, I have a hard time seeing this being enforced for the big companies that deserve this the most.

Why is it that the U.S. keeps siding with the “bad guys” on human rights issues?

The United States sided repeatedly with Iran and other repressive regimes at the annual session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women last month. The commission’s agenda was to address women and technology, and violence against women.

The first topic wasn’t controversial. The second was.

The American delegation joined with Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Libya and others in efforts to delete a phrase – included in previously agreed-upon UN statements dating back a decade – that calls on countries to condemn violence against women and “refrain from invoking any custom, tradition or religious consideration” to avoid the obligation to stop the violence.
…
The alliance isn’t new – it took root when the Bush administration took over. But it is often unseen. The United States has frequently sided at the UN with countries such as Algeria, Libya, Sudan, Iran and Iraq – when it was still controlled by Saddam Hussein – in battles over language involving women and children’s rights.

So, to figure out why our adversaries are sometimes allies, here is a good rule of thumb. They are members of the axis of evil when they endanger our geopolitical interests. But not when they endanger women’s lives.

A month ago, I wrote about the Middle East Television Network, which is being set up by the State Department to send pro-American messages to the Arab world. Yesterday is was revealed that the network will be broadcasting from Grace Digital Media, a studio that is “controlled by fundamentalist Christians who are rabidly pro-Israel”. One of GDM’s primary ventures is the Grace News Network :

According to its web site, Grace News Network is “dedicated to transmitting the evidence of God’s presence in the world today.”

“Grace News Network will be reporting the current secular news, along with aggressive proclamations that will ‘change the news’ to reflect the Kingdom of God and its purposes,” GNN proclaims.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, who produces the Middle East Television Network, claims that Grace Digital Media’s input is on the production side only and that “Grace will have nothing to do with the editorial side of the news broadcast”. I’m sure they’re probably right. I don’t expect them to have stories about Allah being a false prophet or anything like that, but shouldn’t the government be a little more concerned about the message they’re sending?

According to Thomas Spencer of History News Network, some Republicans in Missouri want to levy a masturbation tax. That’s as brilliant as the Iowa man who wants to outlaw lying and the Florida mayor who issued a proclamation to banish the devil from her small town :

Be it known from this day forward that Satan, ruler of darkness, giver of evil, destroyer of what is good and just, is not now, nor ever again will be, a part of this town of Inglis. Satan is hereby declared powerless, no longer ruling over, nor influencing, our citizens.

In case you missed it, here’s a link to The Daily Show’s hilarious debate between Gov. George W. Bush and President George W. Bush. While you’re there, The Daily Show Rocks is also very funny (not “laugh out loud” funny, more like a “cry youself to sleep again” funny).

Whoah, this sounds like it’s the equivalent of the Patriot Act for the Pentagon :

Brace yourself. The Defense Secretary is pushing a 205-page bill through Congress that would — take a deep breath:

* Strip Defense Department employees of their unions, whistleblower protections, annual pay raises, and rights to appeal disciplinary actions;

* Let the Defense Secretary dole out no-bid, no-oversight, no-accountability contracts worth billions (one observer calls it “the Halliburton Bill of Rights”);

* Exempt the military from environmental and wildlife protection rules on more than 23 million acres of American lands;

* Free the Pentagon from dozens of requirements it report to Congress.

Dissing Congress seems only fair. As long as the Pentagon is offering contempt to taxpayers, the environment and its own workers, why should it pretend it respects our elected representatives? Especially since Congress doesn’t respect itself: Rumsfeld’s bill is moving up Capitol Hill with a bullet. It was being discussed this morning at a House subcommittee hearing, and soon could make its way into the front pages.

The American Federation of Government Employees has more about Rumsfeld’s plan here. They’ve got sample faxes to send to your Representative or Senator as well as a flyer. If you’d like to email your representatives in Congress, click on the links to the left under “Complain”.

There are at least two campaigns right now to revoke Michael Moore’s Oscar :

Bowling for Columbine violated the Academy’s own rules. These limit the documentary competition to nonfiction films. Bowling isn’t nonfiction. Whenever it was necessary to his theme, Moore invented facts, fabricated events, staged scenes, or doctored the depiction of what actually happened.

Have these guys even read the Academy’s rules?

An eligible documentary film is defined as a theatrically released non-fiction motion picture dealing creatively with cultural, artistic, historical, social, scientific, economic or other subjects. It may be photographed in actual occurrence, or may employ partial re-enactment, stock footage, stills, animation, stop-motion or other techniques, as long as the emphasis is on fact and not on fiction.

Since revoketheoscar.com begins with a condemnation of Moore’s film as “a nasty bit of anti-American propaganda”, it’s hard to believe that they’re concerned about the integrity of the documentary as an art form or that somehow the Academy has tainted its legacy by awarding an Oscar to a film that contains numerous half-truths. Any film lover will tell you, the Oscars rarely go to the films that deserve it the most. Hell, they gave Forrest Gump an Oscar over Pulp Fiction. (I thought Roger and Me was much better than Bowling for Columbine).

Corporate synergy invades the pope’s upcoming visit to Spain :

So, although Jesus managed to feed the 5,000 with a handful of loaves and a couple of fish, the Spanish bishops have turned to McDonald’s. Those who buy top-price tickets will have not just lunch, but also dinner provided by the burger chain. The meals are to include “a burger, fries, soft drink and an ice-cream or baked apple pie”, according to the You Will be My Witnesses website.

The tie-in between McDonald’s and the church comes at a time when both need help. McDonald’s last year said it was to shut 175 restaurants worldwide. Madrid’s Cardinal Rouco Varela, meanwhile, said recently that while most Spaniards are still nominally Roman Catholic, fewer than 40% follow the church’s doctrine.

Also, the Pope’s sermon will be an examination of God’s commandment “thou shalt not steal” with a demonstration by Grimace and the Hamburglar.

Tom Tomorrow points out this L.A. Times story about Cincinnati county commissioner Todd Portune’s lawsuit against their NFL team :

In a lawsuit filed earlier this year, Portune alleges that the Bengals conspired to “shake down” the citizens of Hamilton County by demanding a new stadium in the mid-1990s, and then failing to deliver a winning team. He accuses Mike Brown of creating a “false crisis” by claiming that he didn’t have enough money for quality players ? when, in fact, the National Football League’s salary cap would have prevented him from boosting his payroll significantly, no matter how much cash was rolling in.

Harvard law professor Paul Weiler goes further, calling public subsidies of sports stadiums “truly, truly evil” because the owners pocket most of the profits, leaving taxpayers with little economic benefit and often, not even a winning team. “It’s totally a lie when anybody says a city or county is getting a good deal [from building a stadium],” said Weiler, who has written a book on the topic, “Leveling the Playing Field.”

Public money subsidizing a sports team? None of the profits going back to the city? Why does this all sound so familiar?

Here’s a scary story from my home state :

The U.S. government was preparing for germ warfare by secretly spraying biological agents on its own citizens. The tests were conducted in 239 cities, including one of Oklahoma’s most prominent communities.

“Among the hundreds and hundreds of tests that the army did, Stillwater, Oklahoma was targeted,” said Cole, an expert on the Army’s development of biological weapons. In some cities reports indicate Americans actually died because of the testing.

Government records show florescent particles of zinc cadmium sulfide were released in Stillwater in 1962.

There was no medical monitoring of the population exposed to the particles and Payne County health officials have no records to show the affect, if any, on the people in the Stillwater area.

What they forget to mention is that Stillwater is a small town with the second largest college in Oklahoma. Assuming they did expose a large number of people, 75% of those affected were probably from other towns in Oklahoma or out of state. Simply looking at cancer rates in the town wouldn’t necessarily show the overall affect of the testing, especially if they released the chemicals near the dorms. Then again, maybe that’s why they chose to experiment with a college town in the first place.

I always find it funny that many Christians are willing to jump to the conclusion that use of the words “God” and/or “Creator” is proof that the founding fathers were Christians, but insist that “In God We Trust” and “Under God” are somehow religiously neutral. Obviously, the person who is invoking god is making a reference to their idea of who/what god is. As far as the founding fathers are concerned, they were most likely Unitarians or Deists :

Deism was a philosophical belief that was widely accepted by the colonial intelligentsia at the time of the American Revolution. Its major tenets included belief in human reason as a reliable means of solving social and political problems and belief in a supreme deity who created the universe to operate solely by natural laws. The supreme God of the Deists removed himself entirely from the universe after creating it. They believed that he assumed no control over it, exerted no influence on natural phenomena, and gave no supernatural revelation to man. A necessary consequence of these beliefs was a rejection of many doctrines central to the Christian religion. Deists did not believe in the virgin birth, divinity, or resurrection of Jesus, the efficacy of prayer, the miracles of the Bible, or even the divine inspiration of the Bible.

These beliefs were forcefully articulated by Thomas Paine in Age of Reason, a book that so outraged his contemporaries that he died rejected and despised by the nation that had once revered him as “the father of the American Revolution.” To this day, many mistakenly consider him an atheist, even though he was an out spoken defender of the Deistic view of God. Other important founding fathers who espoused Deism were George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Ethan Allen, James Madison, and James Monroe.

In fact, the writings of many of the founding fathers espoused a contempt for Christianity :

“Christianity…(has become) the most perverted system that ever shone on man. …Rogueries, absurdities and untruths were perpetrated upon the teachings of Jesus by a large band of dupes and imposters led by Paul, the first great corrupter of the teaching of Jesus.”

- Thomas Jefferson

“During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What has been its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indolence in the clergy; ignorance and servility in the laity; in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution.”

-James Madison

“All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.”

-Thomas Paine

“The divinity of Jesus is made a convenient cover for absurdity. Nowhere in the Gospels do we find a precept for Creeds, Confessions, Oaths, Doctrines, and whole carloads of other foolish trumpery that we find in Christianity.”

-John Adams

With that in mind, I think it’s safe to assume that when Jefferson wrote “Endowed by our creator”, he wasn’t referring to they guy who turns chicks into pillars of salt.

It looks like George Bush isn’t the only person who’s been waging war against the English language. Here’s a stunning example of reverse political correctness (courtesy of Linkmeister) :

Scientists who study AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases are warned by federal health officials that their research may come under unusual scrutiny by Health and Human Services Department or members of Congress because topics are politically controversial…The scientists, who spoke on condition they not be identified, say they have been advised they can avoid unfavorable attention by keeping certain ”key words” out of their applications for grants from the National Institutes of Health or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those words include ‘’sex workers,” ”men who sleep with men,” ”anal sex” and ”needle exchange,” the scientists said.

So would Congress and HHS be more likely to approve the grants if the terms “sex workers” and “men who sleep with men” were replaced with “whores” and “fags”?

During the 2000 debates, Bush claimed that he’s “been standing up to Big Hollywood”, but apparently he forgot about all the shitty movies he helped fund during the 80’s :

George W. Bush, who rails against the “pervasiveness of violence” in Hollywood, served for a decade on the board of a company that financed more than two dozen R-rated movies, including one in which a hitchhiker rips a young woman’s body in two.

His presidential campaign said Thursday that Bush played no role in Silver Screen Management Co.’s decision to finance the horror-suspense film, “The Hitcher,” which one reviewer in 1986 described as a “massacre about every 15 minutes” and another called “gizzard-slitting depravity.”

Luckily for us, one Amazon user was kind enough to put together a list of some of George’s R-rated films.

Remember this one? Bush’s plan to combat wildfires is to cut down more trees.

“It is ironic,” said Timothy Ingalsbee, a firefighter and director of the Oregon-based Western Fire Ecology Center, “that in this time of corporate and financial scandals, President Bush wants to completely deregulate the system. They speak with the corporate elite, but never the working people. Not one of the 17,000 firefighters out on the line was ever consulted about how to protect their communities.”

The President’s plan, said Randi Spivak, executive director of the American Lands Alliance, “would basically gut environmental laws, keeping the public and the courts out of the process. It proposes to pay for this work by removing the larger, fire resistant trees.”

Dr. Patrick Withen, a Ph.D. sociologist and veteran smokejumper who has fought fires in every Western state in the lower 48, said “the most effective place to fight fire is in a mature forest. Yet the administration is essentially trading logging [of the largest, most commercially valuable trees] for thinning. This is just increasing the fire danger.”

Of course this is from the same guy who tried to prevent crime by executing more people than any other governor in US history.

It looks like reporters are finally getting sick of Ari Fleischer avoiding their questions :

Q Why won’t you answer the question about —

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Hold on. We’re entitled to follow up, Ari — this isn’t homeroom.

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Why won’t you answer the question about whether or not — he said there are going to be consequences —

MR. FLEISCHER: David, there are other qualified reporters in here, too, who can follow-up.

Q I didn’t say they were not qualified, Ari. I’m saying you’re running it like it’s homeroom, like we can’t follow-up when you’re refusing to answer a question that’s been posed twice to you, directly. The Secretary of State said that there would be consequences. Why won’t you say what they might be?

MR. FLEISCHER: Greg.

Q Do you want to elaborate on what those consequences would be?

MR. FLEISCHER: I addressed it earlier. You heard what I said about consequences.

Q You didn’t address it, which is the point. But you can’t tolerate that kind of dissent.