And if some should die of cancer, oh well

California will probably not raise the legal smioking age to 21 because, golly, they need the tax revenue all those young smokers will produce.

A measure touted as one of the best ways to reduce smoking among young people — raising the legal smoking age — is expected to fail in the state Legislature this week.

By most accounts, it isn’t big tobacco money or partisan politics that threatens a bill that would make California the first state in the nation to raise the smoking age to 21.

Cash-strapped California just can’t part with the tax revenue it gets from the sale of cigarettes to young adults, some lawmakers say.

And in an especially brain-dead statement, Sen. Dede Alpert, said “If this were a health issue, it would be different. But this is a tax issue.”  Uh huh.

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Fire Ants aren’t invading!

Nope, apparently fire ants, the latest in a slew of supposed nasty insect invaders to the U.S. aren’t posing much of a threat after all.  Neither did killer bees, for that matter (remember them?).  And, I suspect, neither will West Nile.

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U.S. bitten by their own free trade bug

I wonder if those Americans who told us how wonderful WTO and Free Trade is still think the same now.

The World Trade Organization today ruled that the European Union can impose trade sanctions of up to $4 billion against the United States in a tax dispute, the biggest penalty it has ever allowed.

The sanctions are 20 times the amount levied in any previous WTO dispute. Experts say their potential effect on EU-U.S. trade would be so serious that the ruling will likely prompt a new compromise between the two sides.

The WTO considered the request from the EU after ruling last year that a system of tax breaks for companies from the United States was an illegal subsidy and violated international trade rules.

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Back from backpacking

My overnight backpacking trip in the Mt. Wilson area of the Angeles National Forest was instructive and fun.  I’ve done considerable group backpacking, this was my first solo trip. I planned it as a test trip for possible longer solo trips.

Things I learned.

1) Bring insect repellent even when you are sure it is so dry there couldn’t possibly be bugs.  There were, in fact, swarms of annoying gnats who enjoyed dancing in front of my eyes, especially on tricky parts on the trails.

2) Use your topographical maps!  This avoids unscheduled adventures such as two miles the wrong way because I was sure it was the right trail (it wasn’t).

I started at the top of Mt. Wilson, dropped 2800 vertical feet, camped in Devore Trail camp, then climbed up that 2,800 feet and went in the back way to Mt. Wilson - basically a circular route.  The final 3.5 mile route from Newcomb Pass to Mt. Wilson was marked “Closed - Hazardous conditions”. (Yes, I’d called the rangers and asked about the route, they said it was fine).  I ignored the sign, as I only had two quarts of water left, and the trail was fine, if a bit washed out in places.

I learned backpacking from the great folks at Adventure 16, a high-end outdoor supply firm with several stores in L.A. and San Diego.  If you live in the area and want to learn how to do backpacking or climbing, go on their trips.  They have trips at many skill levels - from overnights to serious treks in the High Sierras. Their goal is to teach you enough so you can do your own trips, and that’s just what they did with me.  Thanks A16!

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Gone backpacking (overnight)

I’ll be backpacking Fri-Sat in the Angeles National Forest.  Just a little 14 mile overnight trip to see how I like solo backpacking.

Backpacking is different this year.  Due to the drought and the resultant extreme fire hazard, no fires or cooking are allowed. You can not even boil water on a propane stove (how backpackers generally prepare food, as freeze-dried food is now quite tasty.  Seriously!).  Plus, the normal water sources are dry, thus water must be packed in.  So, it’s cold food and fifteen pounds of water in the backpack.

And yes, I’m looking forward to this!

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Two excellent websites                
LAOkay.com has 10,000+ links of things to do and places of see in L.A. Recently it started an architecture section, which has been growing fast.

Many photos, detailed information, and maps - featuring adobes, Victorians, Frank Lloyd Wright, Craftmen, historic, Greene & Greene, and even octagonal buildings!  Many of the photos were taken by webmaster (and friend) Don Allred, who thinks he may soon have the most photos of historic abode sites online anywhere. 

Don also has a humungous genealogy site, AllredRoster.com, with 147,000+ searchable entries.  Both sites are free, and both run on databases he created.  Nice stuff!

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LA Examiner presents their California Quarter design!

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Canadian Op-ed on the dangerous lunacy of an Iraq war

This is from a long-term, friendly ally. And not unlike what much of Europe is saying.  Y’know, it occurs to me, Dubya has become so dangerously belligerent and irrational that - maybe he’s fallen off the wagon and is drinking again?

A war only the White House wants, Eric Margolis

The White House is hoping its threats of war will provoke a coup against Saddam Hussein by the Iraqi Army. But if one does not come, the George Bush administration shows every sign of plunging into an unprovoked war that the rest of the world will view as blatant aggression.

Bush’s accelerating campaign to invade Iraq and turn it into another U.S. oil protectorate is also provoking a storm of outrage across Europe, the Mideast and Asia, where people believe pollution and climate change are far bigger and more urgent threats than the bogeyman of Baghdad.

There are two important exceptions. First, Israel. Last week, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, sounding like he was giving orders to a subordinate, demanded Bush speed up plans to attack Iraq. Right on cue, American supporters of Sharon’s far-right Likud party, led by the Bush administration’s Rasputin, Richard Perle, intensified their clamour to send American GIs to fight Iraq.

These bloodthirsty “neo-conservatives” - most of whom evaded military service in their own country - dominate the Pentagon and exercise a virtual monopoly on U.S. media commentary on the Mideast. They are ardently backed by loony Armageddon-seekers of the Christian far right.

George Bush, who takes pride in not reading books, and calls Greeks “Grecians,” is charging like a Texas bull into the trap set for him by both bin Laden and Gen. Sharon.

Israel has been trying for 20 years to get the U.S. to go to war against the Arabs and Iran, knowing this will permanently enlist America’s vast wealth and power in its cause, and permanently alienate the U.S. from the Islamic world.

If ever the United States needed real friends, it is now. And real friends like Canada, Germany and France are trying to deter the empty, misguided George Bush and his hijacked cabinet from committing an outright aggression that risks plunging the Mideast into chaos, or even nuclear war.

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Real Hip Hop

MINISTER PAUL SCOTT, DAVEY D’S NEWSLETTER

Unfortunately, despite all our hip talk and politikin’, to borrow from the Last Poets, “Nigga’s Are Still Scared of Revolution” in 2002.  This is especially evident in the world of Hip Hop, where the self proclaimed “Thug Niggas’” despite all of their screaming and shoutin’ over a hot track about how bad they are, never use that anger to fight against the oppression of Afrikan people.

Even when they do address issues pertinent to the state of Black America, their rhetoric is markedly different than when they are getting’ at a brotha for dissin’ them on a CD.  While they may scream and shout at the top of their lungs about their beef with another brotha, when facing “the man” they can only whisper a prepared statement that has been proofread and approved by their record label’s public relations department . . .

Although, they appear to be on opposite ends of the spectrum, the white power structure and the Thugs actually have a love/hate relationship and while on the surface they appear to be in opposition, they are really interdependent.  The white power structure needs the Thugs to use as poster children for the justification of things like the prison industrial complex , discrimination and police brutality and the Thugs need the white power structure to supply them with the cash to get their Bentley’s detailed.

Contrary to popular belief, white America’s biggest fear is not a gangsta, but an educated Black man with his priorities in order . . .

The problem that we are facing today is that everyone is waiting for something .  The church folks are waiting to die and go to heaven, the conscious brotha’s and sista’s are waiting on the revolution and the Hip Hop heads are waiting for the second coming of Biggie.  So many of us spend our lives in a conscious coma, fully aware of what is going on but powerless to lift a finger to stop it.  via ProRev

HIP HOP REFORMATION CAMPAIGN
operationmedia@yahoo.com

DAVEY D’S NEWSLETTER
http://www.daveyd.com

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California prisons

The California Three Strikes and You’re Out law is one of the harshest, if not the harshest, in the nation.  Under Three Strikes, a third felony conviction can, and often does, mean life without parole no time off for good behavior.  Great idea you say, lock up violent career criminals and throw away the key.  Hold on.  Many of those doing life on Three Strikes are there for non-violent crimes.  Some unforunates are doing life for three non-violent felonies.  Sometimes those felonies could have been classified as misdemeanors but weren’t.

There are people doing life on a third strike for stealing $20 worth of video tapes.  A crime that could easily have been filed as a misdeamor.  This isn’t justice, this has nothing to do with justice.  So, what does it have to do with?

Gray Davis, Governor of California, for one.  One of his largest campaign contributors is the prison guard union.  They’ve given him hundreds of thousands of dollars.  In return, Gray builds more prisons, and keeps those guards employed.  And, of course, the prisons must be kept full.

Other politicians also get great mileage by foaming at the mouth about gitting tough on street crime.  It gets them elected.  If some spend their lives rotting in prison for minor crimes, oh well too bad.

Life in California prison can be something out of Kafka.  A guard can put an inmate into permanent isolation for ”associating” with gang members.  This “associating” can be as simple as talking to them in the yard.  There is no appeal, if the guard says it’s so, off you go. 

Then you get put in a cell 23 hours a day, no human contact allowed - no speaking or talking to anyone.  You either stay there until your sentence is done or you rat out someone.  If an inmate is released back into general population it is assumed he informed on someone.  Stalin would be proud.

My opinion?  No human contact for years on end is by definition “cruel and unusual punishment” and should be banned.  So should Three Strikes.  There are very few countries with prisons and sentences as harsh as the US.  Most of the rest of the world views our prisons as something out of the Dark Ages.  Especially the death penalty.  Most especially the death penalty for those under eighteen.  And really especially the death penalty for those under eighteen who are mentally retarded.  We are one of the very very few countries on the planet who execute mentally retarded children.

Contacts: 
FACTS (Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes). 
CJC (Criminal Justice Consortium)

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Cellblocks or Classrooms?

The Funding of Higher Education and Corrections and its Impact on African American Men

Part of a summary from JusticePolicy.org. Spending on prisons is increasing fast while spending on education is declining fast.

Background

During a time in which 41 states face budget shortfalls, many state legislatures are cutting spending on colleges and universities and raising tuition. The way state spending has evolved throughout much of the country, the costs of maintaining prisons and universities have collided in the same part of a states’ discretionary funding envelope. Throughout the1980s and 1990s, states have chosen to pay for an ever increasing and costly corrections system. At the same time, the progress made in improving African American access to college has been eclipsed by the growth of the African American male incarcerated population.

In Cellbocks or Classrooms? the Justice Policy Institute provides both a fiscal analysis of state spending on colleges and corrections from 1985 to 2000, and illustrates the impact of state and federal spending decisions on African American male representation in education systems versus prisons and jails.

Key Findings

1. The Share of Total State and Local Government Spending on Higher Education has Declined as Spending on Prisons has Increased.

Between 1980 and 2000, the American prison and jail population quadrupled from 500,000 to 2 million prisoners, and the cost of the expanding corrections system came to occupy a much larger share of state and local spending. During the last two decades of the millennium, corrections’ share of all state and local spending grew by 104%, while higher education’s share of all state and local spending dropped by 21%.

2. Between 1985 and 2000, State Corrections Spending Grew at 6 Times the Rate of Higher Education.

In constant dollars, the increase in state spending on corrections was nearly double that of the increase to higher education ($20 billion on corrections, $10.7 billion on higher education). The total change in spending on higher education by states was 24%, compared with a 166% increase for corrections.

3. As Corrections Consumed a Larger Share of State Spending, College Costs have Also Risen, and the Burden for Paying for College has Shifted to Students.

From 1980 to 1998, student tuition and fees support for higher education has risen at 8 times the rate of state support. For a low-income family (the lowest income quintile) the cost of paying the tuition at a four-year public institution increased from 13% of their income in 1980 to 25% in 2000.

4. More African American Men are in Prison and Jail than in Higher Education.

In 1999/2000, there were more African American men in prison and jail (791,600) than were in higher education (603,000).

Between 1980 and 2000, JPI estimates that 3 times as many African American men were added to the prison systems than were added to the nation’s colleges and universities.

Choosing to Cut Correctly?

If fiscal year 2003 is, as predicted, as difficult on the states as the previous year, recent history suggests that states will make up some of their shortfalls by constricting spending on education and social services, including higher education. If spending on higher education is limited or cut, these decisions would compound declining state investment in higher education over the fifteen-year period, as the growing corrections system crowds out colleges and universities

Via PrisonSucks.com

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George Bush, enemy of capitalism

Why Bush Doesn’t Support Free Markets.

The New Yorker’s James Surowiecki says “there are reasons to doubt” whether the Bush Administration really believes in free markets. He notes that although much was made of the corporate credentials of President Bush’s cabinet when they took office, it’s now clear that most of the former CEO’s Bush tapped were not entrepreneurs and “have more in common with crony capitalism, in which whom you know is more important than what you do and how… [Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

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Bush abdicates America’s global leadership role

From the International Herald Tribune.  Strong words, from a world class newspaper, and indicative of how Europe views the neanderthals of the Bush Administration.  The US is losing support and credibility worldwide.  Strong allies?  Even Britain is twitchy about what the overgrown boys in DC, long on macho talk, short on results, are trying to do. 

Hmmm, if Nader did get Bush elected, then long-term, this may have been the best possible outcome, as the extreme Right in the US, having finally seized power, is blowing it big time.  Pendulums do swing back, y’know.  And this particular pendulum is swinging leftwards now.

At present, there is much talk about the unparalleled strength of the United States on the world stage. Yet at this very moment the most powerful country in the world stands to forfeit much political capital, moral authority and international goodwill by dragging its feet on the next great global issue: the environment.

Before long, the Bush administration’s apparent unwillingness to take a leadership role - or, at the very least, to stop acting as a brake - in fighting global environmental degradation will threaten the very basis of the American supremacy that many now seem to assume will last forever.

American authority is already in some danger as a result of America’s relative absence from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg - “relative,” that is, to its share of both the world economy and global pollution. The absence of President George W. Bush from Johannesburg symbolizes this decline in authority.

But when a country that emits 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gases acts as an uninterested, sometimes hostile bystander in the environmental debate, it looks like unbearable arrogance to many people abroad.

It is high time for the United States, metaphorically speaking, to get out of its oversized, gas-guzzling sports utility vehicle and join the rest of the world in doing more to combat global warming and protecting the planet.

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Halliburton’s recent financial disclosure has some interesting info

Its subsidiaries alone take up pages — the co. is in over 140 nations…almost as many as at the Earth Summit II! The report states that its finances have been hurt by the prolonged US “recession,” the 9/11 attacks which hurt its airline gas/oil business, the numerous legal suits against the company for its abstestos-related building and contracting (which it says is unfair and is lobbying congress to prevent), and its long-term investments in deep-water drilling (especially in West Africa and South America). Plusses have come from the military contracts in Kosovo and now war-on-terror business. Also, domestic oil/gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Texas have been delivering unexpected volume.

Also, L. Eagleburger is one of the Directors of the Board — something, concerning the military-mindedness of this transnational, that doesn’t shock me but did come as a surprise…move gov’t implosions into big-time corporate power. [BlogLeft: Critical Interventions]

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This just in - Bush says he may follow the law!

Yessiree, even though the Constitution says that only Congress has the right to declare war, Dubys says, golly, he may ask them.  May…

Bush May Request Congress’s Backing on Iraq, Aides Say

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Investor Tax Cut Is Just Election Year Posturing.

“The White House has made it clear to concerned conservative economists that its plan to push for tax cuts for investors is designed more to help Republicans in the fall elections than to pass Congress this year,” the Washington Post reports. White House economic advisor Larry Lindsey said President Bush is simply “giving GOP candidates an answer to Democrats who blame the president’s party for this summer’s dramatic stock slide.”… [Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

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World Summit on Sustainable Development news

60,000 people are meeting at a UN in Jo’burg, South Africa now, trying to determine how to manage the resources of the the planet.  The nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) are at odds with corporate/governmental entities on the wisdom of letting the ‘invisible hand of capitalism’ gives us the finger, er no, provide a wondrous new world of prosperity through privatization of public entities and corporatization. 

Mbeki Slams North-South Wealth Divide
South African president Thabo Mbeki identified the growth of the wealth and prosperity gap between North and South was one of the key aspects that needed to be addressed at the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). The WSSD, aimed at helping to solve the world’s poverty and ecological problems, was officially kicked off by Mbeki in Johannesburg this morning (26 August).

Mbeki said world powers had failed to implement resolutions of the Johannesburg summit’s predecessor, the 1992 Rio Earth Summit whose Agenda 21 set out to integrate social and economic development with enviromental protection. “The tragic result of this is the unavoidable increase in human misery and ecological degradation, including the growth of the gap beween North and South,” Mbeki told a packed auditorium at the start of Johannesburg’s first plenary session.

Summit agrees deal to save fish
First major breakthrough in Johannesburg involves plan to restore heavily depleted stocks by 2015  A plan to restore the world’s heavily depleted fish stocks by 2015 was agreed by 189 nations at the earth summit yesterday, the first major breakthrough in the negotiations.

With 60% of stocks “being fished to destruction” the rescue package involves creating a series of protected marine areas around the world by 2012 and restricting fishing until stocks recover in many other parts of the oceans. The protected areas would be used as nurseries for species of fish such as cod, herring and tuna.


One often gets the impression that the US doesn’t like playing with the other children.


Anti-globs vs. capitalists, a handy check list

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‘Ignorant and inept’ FBI failed to heed warning of terrorist attacks

Your tax dollars at work. 

The ignorance and ineptitude of FBI supervisors and lawyers in Washington obstructed agents all over America from pursuing evidence that could have provided them in advance with a “veritable blueprint” of the September 11 attacks, a Senate report has found.

The report by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which is expected to be made public next month, is the result of an investigation that began shortly after the terrorist attacks.

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The War in the GOP

All summer long, the debate over U.S. intervention in Iraq has whirled into full force. If the answers aren’t yet clear, at least the questions increasingly are.

And so far, the debate is almost entirely between two camps of Bush Republicans, with Democrats on the sidelines. One camp, often known as ”neoconservatives,” includes the president, the vice president, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and others in office.

The second camp, historically dubbed ”realists,” includes Baker and Scowcroft.

Should we wake the Democrats up and inquire if they would be so bold as to actually venture an opinion on the US going to war?  Of course we do realize this would entail them actually taking a forceful stand on an issue.

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Qatar also refuses to allow be used as staging area for Iraq War

This is huge news.  Qatar joins Saudi Arabia in refusing to allow the US to use their country to invade Iraq.  This leaves, I believe, Turkey as the only possible staging area. 

Qatar’s foreign minister ended a two-day visit to Baghdad on Tuesday during which he added his voice to a growing chorus of Arab opposition to a U.S. invasion of Iraq, complicating the Bush administration’s ability to launch an attack from the region.

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Israel’s ‘corrupting’ war under fire - from chief rabbi

Britain’s chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, has warned Israel that it is adopting a stance “incompatible” with the deepest ideals of Judaism, and that the current conflict with the Palestinians is “corrupting” Israeli culture.

In a move that will send shockwaves through Israel and the world Jewish community, Professor Sacks departed from his policy of offering only public endorsement of Israel by giving an explicit verdict on the effect that 35 years of military occupation and decades of conflict are having on Israel and the Jewish people.

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Gulf War Council Divided On Iraq This Time

“Vice President Dick Cheney’s sharp rebuke this week of critics of the Bush administration’s approach to Iraq is striking for two reasons: He wrote that passage into a speech himself, and the words were aimed at rebutting some of his closest colleagues from the first Bush administration,” the Wall Street Journal reports. The AP says the State Department tried to cool down the rhetoric Tuesday, all but confirming that Secretary of State Colin Powell is… [Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire]

So, the War on the Right about a War in Iraq extends deep inside the Adminstration itself.  Despite their macho rhetoric, the hawks are really quite bumbling.  How many times have they changes their story on this now?  Does anyone, including them, know what they’re doing?  Do they have any plan at all?  Saddam must be chuckling…

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Slashdot | Network Associates Buys “Better Carnivore”.

ShaunC writes “CNet is reporting that Network Associates has just purchased a software company called Traxess, whose main product - DragNet - supposedly makes Carnivore look like a toy. DragNet is capable of monitoring everything from email to web, FTP sessions to IMs, even print jobs and VOIP conversations; sorting the protocols and logging it all to disk at gigabit speeds. One NAI exec envisions “the government using it to investigate employees and hackers.” NAI has also issued a press release about DragNet.”  [Privacy Digest]

And you thought you had privacy…

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US court rules against secret deportation hearings.

Federal appeals court says Bush administration’s attempts to hold secret deportation hearings of suspected terrorists undermines democracy.

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