June 13, 2008 archive

I’ve written about Uniform Justice before.  An earlier diary I wrote that about  Uniform Justiceyou may recall is Did Eleazar Torres-Gomez Lose his Life for Company Profits?  

Today, I have good news.  A panel of the California Court of Appeal ordered the Cintas Corporation to pay more than $1.18 million in back wages and interest to hundreds of Northern California workers for violating the city of Hayward’s Living Wage Ordinance.  This judgment likely is the largest living wage award in U.S. history.

“Cintas had a moral and legal obligation to pay workers a living wage, but they ignored it.” says UNITE HERE General President Bruce Raynor.  “The company would rather fight workers tooth and nail than pay them what they deserve.”

 COURT ORDERS CINTAS TO PAY WORKERS $1.18 MILLION IN BACK PAY AND INTEREST

They fought tooth and nail, but lost to 219 workers.  It’s a great victory for working people.

More, after the fold.

Also on Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

Friday The 13th

Do You Feel Lucky?

In Myanmar, a Times reporter worked in secret to cover the story

From a Times Staff Writer

June 13, 2008

KONG TAN PAAK, MYANMAR — From the far side of a murky brown river, the only moving thing visible on the ravaged landscape was a tattered maroon cloth, fluttering listlessly atop a tree stripped of its branches.

Two Buddhist monks had torn it from the only material they had, one of their own coarse robes. Its message was just as plain: “Alive! Please help.”

Tropical Cyclone Nargis killed 300 people in this village, wiping away almost every trace of the people, their homes and a monastery. Surviving monks went to a relief camp, but after nearly three weeks, they figured that what they had fled couldn’t be much worse.

So they took some of the meager rice rations they received from the military, came back and made themselves a tent by stretching tarps over a frame of fallen trees.

In the two days they had been living in it, our riverboat was the first to stop. My interpreter went ashore first.

News Analysis

Detention Camp Remains, but Not Its Legal Rationale

By WILLIAM GLABERSON

Published: June 13, 2008

The Guantánamo Bay detention center will not close today or any day soon.

But the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday stripped away the legal premise for the remote prison camp that officials opened six years ago in the belief that American law would not reach across the Caribbean to a United

States naval station in Cuba.

“To the extent that Guantánamo exists to hold detainees beyond the reach of U.S. courts, this blows a hole in its reason for being,” said Matthew Waxman, a former detainee affairs official at the Defense Department.

And without that, much will change.

USA

Earmark Spending Makes a Comeback

Congress Pledged Curbs in 2007

By Robert O’Harrow Jr.

Washington Post Staff Writer

Friday, June 13, 2008; Page A01

More than a year after Congress pledged to curb pork barrel funding known as earmarks, lawmakers are gearing up for another spending binge, directing billions toward organizations and companies in their home districts.  

Earmark spending in the House’s defense authorization bill alone soared 29 percent last month, from $7.7 billion last year to $9.9 billion now, according to data compiled by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group in the District. The Senate bill has not been approved, but the proposal includes an increased number of earmarks, although for a slightly lesser total cost.

On August 9, 2006, during the waning days of Israel’s offensive military operations in Southern Lebanon, a group of anti-war protesters from the Derry Anti-War Coalition occupied the Raytheon Munitions Plant in Northern Ireland.

OUR MOTIVATION was to prevent war crimes. Israel’s bombardment was causing carnage and destruction in Lebanon, and we knew they were using Raytheon manufactured bombs.

We were particularly outraged by the bombing of the town of Qana. Israel dropped a bomb on one complex there, killing 28 people, the majority of them women and children, crushed and suffocated beneath the rubble.

We believed this required an immediate response. We decided to take action to disrupt, delay and hamper Raytheon’s ability, in whatever way possible, to deliver weapons of mass destruction to Israel and participate in war crimes.

The civil disobedience of the anti-war activists shut down production at the Raytheon plant for three crucial days near the end of the offensive.

The “Raytheon 9” were eventually arrested and charged with Criminal Damage.  Six of those nine protesters were finally put on trial in May of this year.

During their three-week trial in Belfast, the Defendants argued that it is not a crime to resist a war crime. On Wednesday, the jury agreed.

I’ve always thought of my Dad as two different people.  There was Dad during his drinking years, and Dad after he quit.

He grew up with alcoholic parents.  His father would send him to buy bread, and his mother would make him take it back so she would have money for booze.  He didn’t talk much about his early family life, only about the times he would live with his grandmother on the farm.  Those were happy times for him.  His grandmother loved him well.

My Dad was a real charmer.   Six foot two, sparkling blue eyes, dark hair, and a wicked sense of humor, and grin.  During one period when he was dating my Mom, they had a fight and broke up.  Dad asked another girl to a dance during this time, and then him and Mom got back together.  So Dad, being the honorable soul that he was, took them both to the dance.  🙂

Not long after my 20 year old Dad married my 16 year old, five foot two Mom they moved up to Michigan so he could get into the pipefitters union.   Pretty soon my oldest sister was on the way, and Dad started drinking.  Once he passed out in the hall in front of their apartment.  Mom didn’t want the neighbor kids to see him in the morning, so she kicked the shit out of his ribs to get him up and inside.  He woke up the next day not knowing what he had done to his sides, but they sure hurt.  When they had 3 kids he blew out the pilot light on the oven trying to gas everyone.  Mom packed up the kids and went to the train station.  He came after her, and quit drinking for a little while.

“You introduced legislation (S1973-1 and S.1003) and claimed that legislation was justified by a non-existent range war between the Dineh and the Hopi,” Andrew Jackson said –

– to McCain.

This will be really short.  The Boston Globe reports:

Mike Huckabee, whose quips and one-liners livened up the Republican nomination race, has a new gig: political commentator for Fox News Channel.

Huckabee will regularly contribute to the “America’s Election HQ” coverage, the network announced this afternoon.

“Governor Huckabee’s campaign experience and knowledge of politics makes him a great addition to our ongoing election coverage,” Bill Shine, Fox senior vice president of programming, said in a statement.

Huckabee’s humor and homespun turns of phrase won’t hurt either. One recent joke fell flat, however, when at the National Rifle Association conference last month, he quipped about Barack Obama ducking for cover when a loud bang sounded offstage while Huckabee was speaking.

Pardon me while I barf.

Thursday,  I  Think  Seriously,  About  Stupid  Shit

Association…..