Dick Cheney: Christmas Humanitarian

From the Guardian:

Dick Cheney, the US vice-president, last night blocked a global deal to provide cheap drugs to poor countries, following intense lobbying of the White House by America's pharmaceutical giants.

Faced with furious opposition from all the other 140 members of the World Trade Organisation, the US refused to relax global patent laws which keep the price of drugs beyond reach of most developing countries.

Talks at the WTO's Geneva headquarters collapsed last night after the White House ruled out a deal which would have permitted a full range of life-saving drugs to be imported into Africa, Asia and Latin America at cut-price costs.

..."The joke in Geneva this morning is that they couldn't make a decision because the CEOs of Merck and Pfizer were still in bed," said Jamie Love, director of the Consumer Project on Technology, a US lobby group. "George Bush is arguing that diseases his own children receive treatment for are off limits to poor children in poor countries."

Read more about this sick policy here

I Feel Safer Already

The Bush Administration has decided to deploy(!) a version of its missile shield. This goes beyond hugely stupid to outright criminal negligence. Putting aside the geopolitical shit storm that will come of such a decision as well as the fact that such a system will easily provoke a messier, more chaotic arms race with many more nations of the world than we ever had with the Soviets during the Cold War, there's the small problem that the damn thing DOESN'T and CAN'T WORK for the foreseeable future! Any country with the budget and technological resources to purchase an Estes rocket and a mylar balloon can fool the sensors of these lousy interceptors! However, Rumsfeld is ready to go? He's saying that "something is better than nothing..." but this system is really nothing! Isn't deploying a plan that everyone knows will not work fraud? Who really benefits from this irresponsible decision. Hint: fill in the blanks: Defense Contr_ct_rs.

So, we're up at 10,000 ft with Rumsfeld, who swears that the 10 billion dollar kleenex parachute he's put on our backs is "better than nothing," as he pats us on the back and moves us toward the door. Who of you will jump first?

Why All The Secrecy?

Remember when the 11,000 page Iraqi weapons declaration came out last wekk and the US claimed that they should get the info first because of our "superior copying abilities?" (They seriously said that). Well, a copy of the report has been leaked and it seems to have more than a few elements within it that are potentially embarassing to the US and its allies. Chief among these are the 150 foreign companies that have done weapons of mass destruction business in Iraq since 1975, many of them American & German. Apparently, the Bush administration worried that such information would be distracting to the world when they shoulod be buying thee argument of material breech. Oops.

Entrapment City

Hundreds of people from Iran & the Middle East came forward in LA yesterday to comply with new rules about registering with the immigration service. Then, they were arrested and are now being held without comment by the INS or the Justice Department. Large protests were held at the federal building on Wilshire, which included signs like "what's next, concentration camps?!!!". Well, what is next?

Story here...

Get A Posse Out On Eli Lilly

Well, as much as outgoing Dick Armey would like to claim that he inserted the Eli Lilly get out of jail free card into the Homeland Security Bill, no one is buying it. Everyone else is denying that they had anything to do with it. So, who really put that language in there? Attempts by reporters to uncover the truth have met with little to show for it. Tompaine.com is offering $10,000 for info that leads to the identification of the person or persons involved. Any guesses?

A Banning in Banning

What is it about homophobes that makes them think that they're so attractive to gays? A 15 year old girl in rural California was banned from her school's locker room beacuse she is a lesbian and the rest of the girls feel "uncomfortable" when she goes in there. Why? Do they think that their intolerance makes them irresistable or something? What about sharing the locker room with people who hold political beliefs that make them "uncomfortable?' Should they be banned, too? Apologize and get over it!

Read the story here.

If the country really has found the stomach to rid the government of devout racists, why not go after this guy? Or, how about Lott’s challenger?

No New Taxes ( For The Super Rich)

The Administration is hard at work trying to come up with a way to make a tax cut for the rich and a tax increase for the poor & middle class sound reasonable. They are actually portraying poor families as “lucky duckies,” due to their apparently tax free, carefree, state subsidized life of luxury and plenty. They argue that the payroll taxes that most people pay goes right back to the worker when they retire so it’s not really taxes. Hmm.

That would be like saying that the part of the taxes I pay for road building isn't really a tax because I get it back by being able to use the federal road system. In other words, it's a service. So is, say, the National Weather Service - I pay for the forecasts I get. In that case, I'd like my money back on a few things. For instance, I've paid a lot of money into the department of defense lately and, besides being morally opposed to its policies, I haven’t gotten the service of being protected. In fact, despite the cash that I systematically pour into this war-making money pit, I feel less safe than ever. What gives?

If the administration wants to carry this social security system (the one that they say will be insolvent unless they get to privatize it) to it’s logical extreme, couldn’t everything we pay taxes for be reasoned away as a “service” that shouldn’t be figured into any one group’s tax burden?

The war on the poor continues...more here

Can I Get Some Unicorns In There?

How about a painting of you & StevieNicks?