April 2008 archive

Apr 24 2008

Justice for Eleazar Torres-Gomez: House Panel Examines Cintas Safety

On August 22, 2007, I wrote about the death of Eleazar Torres-Gomez.

Eleazar Torres-Gomez was pronounced dead on the scene after apparently being dragged by a conveyor into an industrial dryer.  Torres-Gomez was trapped in the dryer-which can reportedly reach temperatures of 300 degrees-for at least 20 minutes.

Did Eleazar Torres-Gomez Lose his Life for Company Profits?

Today, from the Wall Street Journal:

New details about the case — from internal company memos, Cintas surveillance videotapes and people close to the federal investigation — indicate that the dangerous practices that led to Mr. Torres-Gomez’s death occurred frequently in Tulsa and at other plants operated by Cintas, the biggest uniform supplier in North America.

There was a hearing of the Workforce Protections Subcommittee of the House Education and Labor Committee today on Cintas and safety.  That, and more, after the fold.

Also in orange earlier today: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Apr 24 2008

Why Clinton is going to become 2008’s Ralph Nader

Everyone’s talking about Hillary Clinton’s win in Pennsylvania yesterday over rival Barack Obama.  Ten whole percentage points: may I make whoopee in my pants, now?  It’s still not enough to help the senator supposedly representing New York catch up to the one supposedly representing Illinois in terms of pledged delegates.

Clinton’s broke, trailing her Democratic rival by a small but undeniable margin, and now reduced to threatening to nuke Iran in the event it uses its non-existent nuclear weapons to attack Israel (let me reiterate: Iran is not developing nuclear weapons, a finding held by all sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies–so the fact that Clinton and Obama keep acting as though the opposite is true means neither of them has a fucking clue on anything, and why we’re supposed to trust their judgment when they can’t even call bullshit on the lies being shat out by the Bush-Cheney regime is beyond my comprehension).  Meanwhile, John McCain gets to have the media give him another round of reportorial oral sex for his “decency” in choosing not to run a dirty ad against Obama.

As recently as last month Zogby and other polls were showing the senator pretending to represent Arizona narrowly ahead of either of his Democratic rivals for the dictatorship.  The Republican is using the time between now and the general election to win back his party’s crazed right-wing base, raise money, and plot out his general election strategy.  Do I even need to continue explaining what this all means?

Hillary Clinton wants the presidency so bad she is willing to tear the Democratic Party asunder in order to get it, leaving it too battered and weak to win in November.  She absolutely cannot let it go, cannot allow an upstart like Barack Obama to “steal” what she thinks is hers by inheritance.  And it sure as hell doesn’t help that Obama is too big a pandering, hard-headed phony to be able to seal the deal and win a clear mandate from Democratic voters by embracing the Edwards-Kucinich bloc.  No, he’d rather use them and dump them to the curb, and his piss-poor performance at the last debate proved he, too, is running out of steam.  Like Clinton, he never expected to have to compete this long for the Democratic nomination, and he is becoming dangerously low on ideas.

So no matter how the remaining primaries play out, this fight is going all the way to the convention in August.  All because Hillary Clinton won’t let go of the illusion that the presidency is somehow hers.  If 2008 accomplishes anything, it may be to finally rid Ralph Nader of the blame (wholly undeserved) for destroying any chance Democrats might have had of winning back the White House this century.

Somebody pass me a brick, so I can throw it at my television set the next time I have news coverage of the campaign on.  Oh, wait, I have my steel mace for that.  Never mind.  At any rate, I’d be really grateful for some ideas for how we might avoid this fiasco–because if we can’t, the massive ego of Hillary Clinton is going to rain shit down on all of America.

Apr 24 2008

New Calls for Investigations on Drugging Detainees

Following a pivotal article by Jeff Stein at Congressional Quarterly a few weeks back, today’s Washington Post published an important article today, “Detainees Allege Being Drugged, Questioned.” The story, by Post staff writer Joby Warrick, notes U.S. denials in using drug injections for coercive purposes during interrogations.

Adel al-Nusairi, a Saudi national imprisoned for years at Guanatanmo, and now released without charges, has a different memory:

“I’d fall asleep” after the shot, Nusairi, a former Saudi policeman captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan in 2002, recalled in an interview with his attorney at the military prison in Cuba, according to notes. After being roused, Nusairi eventually did talk, giving U.S. officials what he later described as a made-up confession to buy some peace.

“I was completely gone,” he remembered. “I said, ‘Let me go. I want to go to sleep. If it takes saying I’m a member of al-Qaeda, I will.'”

Apr 24 2008

Pony Parthenon



roblisameehan (flickr creative commons)

Apr 23 2008

Four at Four

  1. What’s wrong with this scenario? The Guardian reports the Senate wants Pentagon to investigate courting of TV analysts. “The US Senate armed services committee today asked the Pentagon to investigate its practice of courting military analysts on popular TV programmes in order to push positive spin on the Bush administration’s anti-terrorism policy.”

    Carl Levin, the Democratic senator who chairs the armed services committee, asked for an internal probe of the Pentagon’s relationship with TV networks in a terse letter to defence secretary Robert Gates.

    Levin chastised the defence department for “giving both special treatment and valuable access” to military analysts who agreed with its decisions “while cutting off access to others who didn’t deliver as expected”.

    “While the media clearly have their own shortfalls for paying people to provide ‘independent’ analysis when they have such real and apparent conflicts, that doesn’t excuse the department’s behaviour,” Levin wrote to Gates.

    Bzzt. Levin cannot honestly expect the Pentagon to investigate itself. Levin needs to hold hearings and put network and Pentagon officials before the kleig lights answering questions. This go and investigate yourself nonsense is bunk. The Pentagon’s motive to lie and hide the evidence is too great. Put it this way Carl, what you propose is like trusting the Iranians to monitor their own nuclear program.

Four at Four continues below the fold with Iran’s alleged nuclear program, the march to war with Syria, an Israeli spy in the U.S., the “war on terror” backfiring, and the struggles of Iraqi women with dead or missing husbands since Bush brought his war to Iraq.

Apr 23 2008

Through the Darkest of Nights: Testament IX

Every few days over the next several months I will be posting installments of a novel about life, death, war and politics in America since 9/11.  Through the Darkest of Nights is a story of hope, reflection, determination, and redemption.  It is a testament to the progressive values we all believe in, have always defended, and always will defend no matter how long this darkness lasts.          

All installments are available for reading here on my page, and also here on Docudharma’s Fiction Page, where refuge from politicians, blogging overload, and one BushCo outrage after another can always be found.

   

Apr 23 2008

Unpatriotic Experts Fret As Handbasket Prices Soar

From HUA News “Your source for news from the Village!”

Standing in the rubble of a once thriving American city, President George “The Torturer” Bush today declared that the…U.S. economy is not in recession.

He declared that it was instead in a totally new phase, previously “unknown to the hordes of the nations unpatriotic librul economists who have been enabling the terrorists who have brutally attacked the economy… by not reporting the good news about our nations economic progress.” He dubbed it, “The Handbasket Phase.” When asked why this name was chosen, he chuckled and replied, “because that is where we are putting all of our eggs!”

To combat this growing threat to the economy, Bush today unveiled a sweeping new emergency economic program dubbed Operation Handbasket. To head the team tackling todays economic non-crisis he has appointed new Economic Czar, Donald Rumsfeld, to be assisted by David Addington, Douglass Feith and John Yoo. They will team with John McCain’s experts to “fully inform the nation that everything is fine and dandy” and that his and McCain’s joint effort will “keep America safe from economistic terrorists wishing to destroy the American way of life” by “spreading hate and propaganda” about rising prices, unemployment and foreclosures. He added that he had given Rumsfeld broad new powers under executive privilege to “do whatever it takes,” and had told them that “this was their baby, go do it.” At press time, this networks economic reporters, all staunch critics of Bush’s economic policies, could not be reached for comment.

McCain added, in what is assumed to be yet another one of the Maverick’s adorable gaffes, that “America is in it’s last throes and the economic terrorists spreading hate have turned the corner on progress.”

[After a quick huddle, the attending press corps all agreed that surely he had actually meant exactly the opposite and so that is what we would report. note to self, do NOT forget to edit this section out of the final piece!!]

Apr 23 2008

Deja Vu Edition: The Coming Chaos

The Democrats are either very naive and  nearsighted or they are willing participants in their own party’s destruction. Perhaps they are a mixture of both. If the Democrats win the election this fall, (personally I think Obama is the odds on favorite), then they are going to be saddled with a plethora of problems. As we reach the breaking point for serious global issues. By not fixing accountability for these long ignored problems on this runaway neocon fascist train, the fallout for ignoring those problems will fall squarely on the leader in charge. You would think that the Democrats would understand this: by not pursuing impeachment and fixing accountability where it belongs, the media will vilify and blame them for all the problems that they will be handed.  

Apr 23 2008

David Petraeus to be sent before US Senate for Central Command confirmation

Being a “YES” man in the Bush Administration, as we all know, certainly can get you some sweet positions in the Government, IF you go along with the lies, deceipt and spin of the Neo-Con elite.

If you manage to really push their unsavory agenda, it can get you the top job, no matter your qualifications (see Gonzales, ALBERTO).

When Admiral James Fallon was asked to be the head of CENTCOM, the Bush Administration put a career Navy man in charge of the entire U.S. Central Command.  When Admiral Fallon was found by the Neo-Con elite to have a mind of his own, he was on the outs with the good-ol-boys club and found the situation so untenable that he resigned in March of this year.

This JUST IN from AP:

Petraeus picked to lead Mideast command

Ray Odierno to replace him as head of U.S.’s military operations in Iraq

Apr 23 2008

in winning, are we losing?

I’ve been thinking about this for days now. Ever since my nephew told me he thought that winning was the reason one plays baseball.

And I thought::: has our obsession with winning turned us into losers? Our family routines, our learning curves, and just plain old having fun all seem to take a beating from the prevailing ends justify the means American mindset.

Is winning market share or baseball games or presidential races more important than how one plays the game, the quality/efficacy of products one puts on the market, or the policies/integrity of candidates?

Winning is only an outcome, isn’t it? What happens to all the stuff that needs to happen to get to the winning? Isn’t all the in-between stuff, those small moments, where we get our life lessons?

                   Photobucket

Apr 23 2008

The rhetoric of the other side: Ecosocialism or Barbarism

This is a rhetorical critique of the anthology Ecosocialism or Barbarism, edited by Jane Kelly and Sheila Malone, an introductory text in ecosocialist thought apparently meant for European audiences.  In it, I suggest that its main problem is that it skimps upon the presentation needed to anticipate objections to its main arguments, and so I suggest amendments here.

Apr 23 2008

Tibet: Protest Organizers in Australia Renew Calls For Nonviolence

Protests have already started in Australia before tomorrow’s Olympic torch relay. So far they have been peaceful, and protest leaders are renewing calls to use nonviolence in the waning hours before the torch takes its course through the streets of Canberra.

Australia Tibet Council chairman George Farley addressed protesters at a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese embassy:

“The world believes the cause of Tibet is moral,” Mr Farley said.

But he warned world opinion could change if tomorrow’s protests turned ugly.

Mr Farley said the non-violent approach endorsed by the Dalai Lama was the only approach to take.

“If they (pro-China activists) spit on you, just wear it.

“If they attack you, run away. Do not approach the Chinese, do not interact with them.”

link: http://www.smh.com.au/news/bei…

This YouTube is from one of a small group of protesters walking 43 miles while on a hunger strike to join the wider protest in Canberra:

Load more