The Current Events/Issues Thread - Read the First Post

[Kieli]

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You're right there justin, but since I believe that (sad as it may be) Communism is against human nature I don't see it "work" in any kind of system that's not totalitarian.

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I would agree with that assessment up to a point. If we could find a way to get around some of the worst parts of human nature, the concept of communism (or any other -ism that posits a cooperative effort and a stronger spirit of community/communal love) might actually be feasible. But since it doesn't seem that, after a few thousand years of existence, we've managed to make that happen, I'm rather pessimistic about its potential.



I'm not sure that I agree with GG's positing that a faith-claim is being made, per se. One can say something is against human nature (or some other claim to that effect) without "faith" even entering into the equation. Unless I am misunderstanding her statement in assuming that she's talking about religion and not necessarily a general statement about what is and is not feasible according to human nature.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[maudmac]

I have no comments about economics and no personal experience with Communism and not really any particularly big or deep thoughts to add.



But I just wanted to say that it's always seemed to me that the intention of communism was more in line with the way families work than capitalism. Because families do that "from each according to her/his ability, to each according to her/his need" thing. Well, most of them. The good ones, anyway. Then again, the fact that a lot of people can't even be good to their own kin sort of proves that a larger, national version of that doesn't stand a chance.



The way I'd like things to be is somewhat capitalist with much more broad and deep social services than we have these days in the States. I want universal healthcare. I want the minimum wage to be a livable wage. I want scholarships and/or job training programs for poor folks. We could have all that and more if we quit spending money on stupidness like Iraq and the so-called War on Drugs.

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i wasn't sniffing your spicy brains

[Gatito Grande]

But what do we mean by "human nature"? As an abstract concept, it seems inevitably to be an item of faith (in one form or another).



GG Unless we simply (?) mean biological processes: e.g. "Not breathing is against human nature" (i.e. the nature of a living human being). But Communism? Capitalism? (Any -ism?) And "human nature"? Sounds like faith to me. Out



Or unless we're talking history: "Under political system x, [whose features included r, s and t] in the years p to q, group of humans n experienced totalitarian repression [as indicated by conditions y and z]. But, IMO, that's a long way from

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since I believe that (sad as it may be) Communism is against human nature I don't see it "work" in any kind of system that's not totalitarian.

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YMMV.

[Kieli]

That would all depend on what you mean by "faith"...are we talking religious concepts or are we talking about faith as a "given" variable in an experimental theory? (i.e. a constant variable in an equation like the speed of light being a constant in a physics equation...a measurable variable that is just assumed exists even in the absence of certain other variables).



My observation of what we keep calling "human nature" are those set of observed, measured behaviours in "humans" and/or "human societies" that are present, time and again, throughout the course of its existence....these behaviours could be genetic (read: genetic predisposition in exhibiting said behaviours) or have other outside influences (i.e. family unit, societal mores, etc). A good bit of human behaviour is not strictly limited to human interaction but also to the way other "animal species" interact with each other...behaviours that encourage species fitness and what not, with religion in absentia. Religious concepts are not new to humanity but cannot be considered part of "human nature", biologically speaking (unless you think of it as the human tendency to try to find a way to explain phenomena or concepts or situations that they can find no measurable way to understand or define given the tools with which they have to work).



Agreed, there are many -isms that seem to go against the ethics or morality of human societies today: racism, classism, sexism, just to name a few. However, it's only been in recent centuries that there has been a shift to realizing that these things are "improper, immoral and unhealthy". In previous history, it would've been a "survival of the fittest" mentality that allowed these things to come into existence in the first place. I suppose that it's still that mentality now that allows such things to continue to exist. It seems that high-minded morality and the increased development of organized religion has now deemed these things to be abhorrent. IMHO they always were abhorrent....but it was ever in the "nature" of humans to find a way to increase their chances of their survival by weeding out the weak and undesirable, "thinning of the herd" if you will. Creating those types of -isms was the way to do that. But those are "societal isms" and not "economic isms", two very different types of definitives. One cannot merely lump all isms together and proclaim they are all bad. That's simply not the case.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

Edited by: Kieli  at: 6/19/04 7:26 pm

[darkmagicwillow]

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Unless we simply (?) mean biological processes: e.g. "Not breathing is against human nature" (i.e. the nature of a living human being). But Communism? Capitalism? (Any -ism?) And "human nature"?

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Your mind consists of biological processes; indeed, all human behavior is a biological process.



It's important to understand human nature, so that we know what types of social and economic systems will work for us, but people cannot be described simply with either the amoral egoism of capitalism or the utopian generosity of capitalism.

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But I just wanted to say that it's always seemed to me that the intention of communism was more in line with the way families work than capitalism. Because families do that "from each according to her/his ability, to each according to her/his need" thing. Well, most of them. The good ones, anyway. Then again, the fact that a lot of people can't even be good to their own kin sort of proves that a larger, national version of that doesn't stand a chance.

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The vast majority of people have always been more generous to their own families than to strangers, which is only to be expected given the nature of evolution. However, we generally deal well with friends as well as family, but as you suggest, scaling our behavior from a small group of people we know to the anonymous millions of the nation state is the real issue.



The size of the neocortex in primates is closely associated with size of living group. Lemurs, with their small neocortex, typically live in groups of less than 5, while chimpanzees, with their four times higher ratio of neocortex to brain size, live in groups of around 55. Most other primates fall between the lemurs and chimps, but we're the exception, with the largest ratio. Following the pattern, the large human neocortex indicates that we should live in groups of about 148, and indeed anthropological censuses of hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers lived in groups of about 153 and Neolithic Middle-Eastern villages housed between 120-150 people. Even today, business management studies show that companies function well on a person-to-person basis up to 150 people, and American Hutterites split and start a new colony when their community reaches the size of 150.



However, we're an adaptable species, so we've used another part of human nature--our innate understanding of language--and built bigger communities using the concept of hierarchy, dividing society into layers of authority, and we've learned to deal with people impersonally. Of course, both of those social adaptations have had costs, some of them deep such as the tremendous destruction we inflict when we scale up our tribal conflicts to modern wars. However, another one of those costs is attempting to develop an equitable and sustainable economic system, bringing us back to the original topic of the old systems capitalism and communism that we started with.

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The way I'd like things to be is somewhat capitalist with much more broad and deep social services than we have these days in the States. I want universal healthcare. I want the minimum wage to be a livable wage. I want scholarships and/or job training programs for poor folks.

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I tend to agree with maudmac, at least in general, that we need to balance the various facets of our economic human nature: reciprocity (returning favors and detecting and punishing cheaters, which is why people are so incensed at the fraction of percent of the budget that goes to welfare fraud), generosity, and greed. We can't base our economy simply on the honor system of communism, but we also can't ignore the poor in general as capitalism and our tribal instincts would suggest because we don't know each and every one of them.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[wildnexu]

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but we also can't ignore the poor in general as capitalism and our tribal instincts would suggest because we don't know each and every one of them.

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I agree.The question is what is best for the poor.



I am an unabashed capitalist and believe that capitalism gives the poor the best chance to improve their lot.The problem is not with the systen itself but with those who would abuse it for their own selfsh aims.



I believe the heavy taxation required in socialism and the redistribution of wealth in communism gets in the way of people improving their lot.



you say Capitalism is about greed.I say it is about oppurtunity.I do not know this for a fact but my gut tells me you will see alot more rags to riches stories under a capitalist system than any other.



I have no problem with helping the poor.The question is welfare the best way to do it.I prefer work fare,where you earn what you can and the gov helps you with the rest.



The cycle of dependency created by welfare is hurting poor more than helping in my opinion

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forcing mom's t work 30 hour weeks is helping no one except the prison industry.But requiring them to do what the can gives them dignity and in at least one case(mine) motivated me to start wrking to be self suffiecient.



The main problem is getting the gv to let you make the journey from dependecy toself suffiency without punishing you.



tabby

[Kieli]

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I have no problem with helping the poor.The question is welfare the best way to do it.I prefer work fare,where you earn what you can and the gov helps you with the rest.

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If you've never had to go on welfare, you really have no clue what it entails. There was a point in my life where, as I was struggling to put myself through undergrad, I needed to go on welfare for about four weeks until I could find another job as the one I had abruptly ended when I went into work one day to find the company had gone bankrupt overnight. I was desperate but I did not seek a handout per se...just some temporary relief so that I wouldn't lose my apt and so that I could still have food. I went to apply but was told that I was ineligible because I was a student. Needless to say, I was upset. The application officer told me she understood and said, "Just between you and me..." and she pointed to a HUGE stack of files that came from one family of foreigners. She told me that family and every...single...member...had been on welfare for TWENTY YEARS. None of them bothered to get a job even though welfare offers the chance for job training, job-finding assistance, etc. The abuse of welfare and a revamping of the system is in order, not the total abolition of one the few things that the poor have available to them to survive. People like me, who only wanted temporary help until she could get another job, are the ones that suffer the most. After much to-do, I was able to get meager sustenance from the welfare system, but did not have access to the full range of benefits that this family of loafers did. I felt helpless and vowed to never feel that way again.



Thus, twelve years and two degrees later, I'm getting there. But the inequity that capitalism brings still stays with me. What concerns me is that a good many of the "rags to riches" stories are done at the expense of others: the tragic underpayment of wages for the poor in order to increase profit margins, the dismissal of loyal employees in order to increase profits, the shopping out of services to foreign countries that we can more readily exploit b/c international labour law is tenuous at best...is this the capitalism you so readily espouse? I hope not b/c this is the capitalism that is going on today and will continue as long as we Americans continue to ignore it.



And while we're at it, why not also blame our government for the tragic waste of monetary resources by allowing them to spend $500 on a toilet seat for a senator, thousands of dollars to send lawmakers on "political junkets" to foreign lands which amounts to nothing but a glorified vacation and allowing them to vote on their own pay increases! THAT in and of itself is a travesty that we, the people, should have NEVER allowed to come to pass. The government is wasting the taxpayers money on their own pet projects and in making themselves rich instead of helping the people they were elected to serve. Am I angry? You're damn skippy I am. Let's not get rid of the few things the American public has to practically beg for, even though they have a right to it. Let's stop goverment corruption and greed. It's about damn time.

Time flies by when the Devil drives.
It's not the pace of life that concerns me, it's the sudden stop at the end.

[justin]

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.I say it is about oppurtunity.I do not know this for a fact but my gut tells me you will see alot more rags to riches stories under a capitalist system than any other.

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But do you really want a society which is like a lottery, where for every winner (who goes from rags to riches) there are millions of losers (who goes from rags to rags, or riches to rags)

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The question is welfare the best way to do it.

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You're right welfare is a kludge needed to make capitalism slightly less broken than it otherwise would be.

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.But requiring them to do what the can gives them dignity and in at least one case(mine) motivated me to start wrking to be self suffiecient.

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You mean a system of from each as to their ability, to each as to their needs?



Sounds like communism to me.

"To mess up a Linux box you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box you just need to work on it."

[Gatito Grande]

I'm clearly out of my depth here, but I just wanna say "Right On!" to Kieli and justin.



I, too, once ventured into the welfare office---just last September. W/ the exception of the day my husband left me, I can pretty confidently say it was the worst day of my life.



I sat through the de-humanizing interviews, and assinine forms. I ultimately did not apply (even at a time when I had $18 in the bank account), because one form required me to go to my landlord (to verify my rent amount), and I really did not want to announce to my landlord "Hey, I'm going on welfare!" (I discovered I could rob my future pension instead ).



GG This system sucks, and damn skippy, I'm angry too. Out

[darkmagicwillow]

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What concerns me is that a good many of the "rags to riches" stories are done at the expense of others: the tragic underpayment of wages for the poor in order to increase profit margins.

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Yes, I'm always incensed when pundits claim that increasing the minimum wage would criple the economy, while having no problems with the tenfold increase in executive pay from 1980-2000. Take a company with 100 executives paid at an average of $4million per year (if that seems like a lot, it is, but it's not atypical) and 20,000 minimum wage employees. The cost of the company's employees is approximately $500,000,000, of which $400,000,000 goes to 100 out of 20,100. Of course, the company can afford to double the minimum wage. Admittedly, executive pay would go down to $3million, but I don't expect they'll starve on that, do you?



I've borrowed this example from Marshall Brain's "What if we doubled the Minimum Wage?" essay. He might be considered a rags to riches story himself. The essay goes on to examine the specific example of Walmart, a company well known for its low pay and how much it costs in government services to provide for its employees while the Waltons make up half the top 10 world billionaires list.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[maudmac]

Ah, Wal-Mart. I have long burned with hatred for that company. *spits*



I have watched them come into little towns, drive the locals out of business, and become the only damn place to shop, which forces everyone in that town to support them. Wal-Mart is only recently trying to sink their evil talons into markets like Chicago and Los Angeles - and Europe, as well. Those talons have already ripped to shreds small towns and cities across the South and Midwest.



Unfortunately, Wal-Mart is very smart. Because, come on, you've got kids, you make minimum wage, you live in a trailer and drive a misbehaving 15-year-old car...you are really struggling to stretch your paycheck as far as you possibly can. This is the reality for a giant chunk of the American population and those people are truly grateful to be able to buy food, clothes, hardware, etc., for less than they paid at the locally-owned stores that are now gone.



It's a captive clientele. The problem is that Wal-Mart lies. Their prices aren't actually always lower and they really do cost communities jobs. They kill about 1.5 jobs for every 1 they create.



Ah, I can't rant for too long about Wal-Mart without needing to step away and throw things. I hate them that much.



If anyone's interested in learning more, wants to see where I get these crazy ideas from, or loves Wal-Mart and doesn't see what all the fuss is about, have a peek at some of these stories, all from AlterNet:



A Corporation That Breaks the Greed Mold



HUTCHINSON: Courting People of Color



Bought and Paid For



Duped by Wal-Mart



Riches Flow Uphill



Cheney Sings Wal-Mart's Praises



Wal-Mart Welfare



The Wal-Mart Effect



Will Labor Take the Wal-Mart Challenge?



There's also a great book on the subject, How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America (and the World) And What You Can Do About It by Bill Quinn.

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i wasn't sniffing your spicy brains

[skittles]

Oh, there are some kittens that agree with you....



I'm in a small town & there is one SuperW 10 miles to my south, one 20 miles to my west & they are building one 30 miles to my northeast. The one to my south causes the most "problems" because it has become a major employer.



To top that off, most people won't speak out because they also "fund" local projects in the form of "grants" (I think of them more as "bribes")... the grants aren't big, but schools, churches & charities need every penny they can find.... so people won't bite the hand that gives them "little" gifts. In their minds, little gifts are better than no gifts at all. They don't realize what is being done to our communities.



The only advantage to having a megamart in the area is that the local businesses realize that they have to change &/or expand to compete. Change isn't always a bad thing, but it just has to be handled so it improves the community over the long term, not just for profits.



In my really little town, the local "grocery" is so filthy you hesitate to shop there, even for prepackage necessities. But since it has no competition, it won't improve.... it doesn't have to.

skittles



"You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here." Desiderata, Max Erhmann

Edited by: skittles at: 6/20/04 4:54 am

[wildnexu]

v

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You mean a system of from each as to their ability, to each as to their needs?



Sounds like communism to me.

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Cognitive dissonance again.I guess my beliefs are communistic.but although i believe in helping the less fortunate I think those who produce more should get more.



i read the article on the minimum wage and walmart.They opened my eyes.there is redistribution of wealth going on.But in the wrong way.



and the thing is i bought that line that liberals want to take all the money from the rich and give it to the poor.



The rich would still be rewarded for putting up capital and such.the only reason to not support a living minimum wage and help to the poor is greed.I still believe everyone should be encouraged to do what they can.But it is a lie that liberal policies only spread the misery."only" getting 2 mil a year does not sound like misery to me.as someone on disability struggling to become self suffcient it sounds pretty darn good.



Maybe since all economic systems have draw backs maybe instead of blind devotion to one system we need to pick the good from all systems and reject the bad.The opportunity of Capitalism, the altruism of socialism and communism while rejecting the dependency of the latter and the the greed that can come out of capitalism.



Tabby

[justin]

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The rich would still be rewarded for putting up capital and such

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That seems reasonable on the face of it, but there is one problem with that attitude, where did that capital come from?

"To mess up a Linux box you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box you just need to work on it."

[Gatito Grande]

That's easy, justin!

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Ming Tzu: "I have the greatest respect for thieves. Every man born to wealth has a good thief amongst his ancestors, somewhere."

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GG Everything important I learned from "Xena: Warrior Princess" Out

[darkmagicwillow]

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The rich would still be rewarded for putting up capital and such

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That seems reasonable on the face of it, but there is one problem with that attitude, where did that capital come from?

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You have a good point, for capital ultimately derives from either labor, or as GG suggests, theft. If you ever wondered why Amtrak can't make money, look at its history: the US government gave away large amounts of land to railroad companies to connect the US. While the railroad companies did build many railroads, they also turned around much of that real estate and sold it for much higher prices, then gave back the unprofitable parts as Amtrak. Governments around the world are doing the same thing today as they sale off the em spectrum and expand copyright and patent monopoly rights.



Despite the fact that the modern world has gone too far in the direction of giving all the rewards to capital, which is often obtained through dubious means, we still need to provide some type of rewards for capital investment to make our economy function. Stockholders should be rewarded as important stakeholders by having voting rights in a corporation. The problem with corporations isn't that stockholders have rights; it's that workers don't have any rights in the corporate government that exerts far more control over them than it does over the stockholders. Read The Divine Right of Capital, which makes a solid argument that multinational corporations threaten not only democracy but the free market that they claim to support, for further ideas on reforming corporate governance.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[justin]

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Stockholders should be rewarded as important stakeholders by having voting rights in a corporation. The problem with corporations isn't that stockholders have rights; it's that workers don't have any rights in the corporate government that exerts far more control over them than it does over the stockholders.

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I agree with this. The workers in most companies are undervalued and misused. After all while it's the stock holders who provide the capital, it is the workers who create the profit. Rather than just getting a miniscule salary the workers should get an equitable part of the profit which they create.

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which makes a solid argument that multinational corporations threaten not only democracy but the free market that they claim to support, for further ideas on reforming corporate governance.

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It has always seemed to me that when a company talks about the free market what they mean is a heavily regualted market, which is regulated in a way that gives them an advantage over their competitors.



As an example, Microsoft always claims to support the free market but spends a lot of time lobbying governments, either directly or through paid lackeys, to stop them from using FLOSS (Free/Libre or Open Source Software)



N.B. I feel I should point out that my feelings about Microsoft are the same as Maudmac's feelings about Walmart.

"To mess up a Linux box you need to work at it; to mess up a Windows box you just need to work on it."

[wildnexu]

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Ming Tzu: "I have the greatest respect for thieves. Every man born to wealth has a good thief amongst his ancestors, somewhere."

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I am glad you brought up this qoute.It sums up the class warfare rhetoric that liberaism is based on.



If you are rich someone had to suffer for you to get there.That is bunk.



good forbid we blame the poor.Their bad choices have nothing to do with their predicament.It is all the riches fault.The rich made them have sex at a young age and get pregnant out of wedlock.The rich made them take drugs.The rich frced them to not take school seriously.



I am not saying everyone who is poor deserves to be and even if they did there but for the grace of good go we so we should help them.



however,I am tired of this vilification of the rich.Are there greedy bastards who need to be briught down a notch or two.Yes.Are there a lot of generous,kind peoplewho earned what they have but also give back?YES!!



I hear it all the time if a rich person gives nothing to charity he is a greedy bastard if he does,big deal,they can afford it.



Give the people a break.If they are greedy bastards,call them on it;But give them credit for what they do right.



Rich people are people.Just like you and me.There s just as much greed in the ranks of the poor as the rich.Granted the greedy rich tend to affect a lot more people than the greedy poor but they are no different in character.



Tabby

[darkmagicwillow]

I don't think that you should denigrate someone because they're rich, but it's important not to ignore the fact that the US does have classes, not as strongly as its parent country, but they do exist.

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good forbid we blame the poor.Their bad choices have nothing to do with their predicament.It is all the riches fault.The rich made them have sex at a young age and get pregnant out of wedlock.The rich made them take drugs.The rich frced them to not take school seriously.

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I don't have a problem with blaming people for stupid choices, but here's one of the differences between America's social classes: the poor are blamed and experience serious consequences for their failures, while the rich seldom do. You only have to look at the Bush family to see that fact. Bush II's drug use and business failures led to essentially no bad legal or monetary consequences to him. You wouldn't be so lucky, if you'd be in the same situation; you would've gone bankrupt and you would likely have gone to jail.



There's also the flip side of greater opportunity. For example, if you were rich and lucky enough to have Bush II as a brother, you'd be making millions as a semiconductor industry consultant even though you know nothing about the field and have no notable business success, like Neil Bush. Also, government handouts to rich corporations dwarf government handouts to the poor, so there is wealth redistribution going on, but it's largely from the lower and middle classes to the richest economic entities on the planet. The CEO of the corporation that purged Florida's voter rolls in 2000 testified under oath that he had been told by Jeb Bush's administration what to bid for that contract; his bid was a over 100X higher than the next one and he got the contract. That's the advantage of being in the right social class, even if you aren't part of the first family.



I agree that there should be consequences, but there already are for the poor. The problem is that it's the upper class who rarely sees consequences and that it's often your and my tax dollars that go to prevent their consequences. It cost $1.6 billion of our tax dollars to bail out Neil Bush's Silverado Savings and Loan. Jeb Bush only got bailed out of his debts for a comparatively tiny $4 million.

"We may be having class warfare, but my class won."

-- Warren Buffet

p.s.: It's not just the Bushes, of course, though they're exceptionally bad. Hilary Clinton was on the board of directors for Walmart from 1986-1992, her law firm represented Walmart, and it's estimated that 15% of the Clintons current net worth is in shares of Walmart.



p.p.s.: If you want to see what corporations are buying your representative's or president's vote, check opensecrets.org, which is a database of campaign contributions. Click here for Bush's top 2004 campaign contributors and here for Kerry's.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

Edited by: darkmagicwillow at: 6/21/04 6:29 pm

[Gatito Grande]

Tabby, I think you're missing the key word in the quote: "born to wealth."



Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I recall reading somewhere, that the best predictor of a person's wealth is that they were born w/ it.



This is not to say that hard work does not take a few (a few) from literal rags to riches (much less those from the U.S. lower middle and middle classes to riches). But many, many more people work just as hard (in terms of hours worked, and maximum exertion of their physical and mental capacities) as the wealthy do (if not harder), and never become wealthy.



Poor choices? Sometimes. "Just bad luck"? Now and then I suppose. A deck overwhelmingly stacked against 'em? You betcha!



Yes, rich people are people. Not only have I never seriously advocated eating them , but my commitment to non-violence extends even to Paris frickin' Hilton as to the janitor working full-time plus, and still stuck below the poverty line.



Call it "class warfare," but I like that far better than the current alternative: class massacre. Should the poor and working classes continue to be sheep discarded at the pleasure of a CEO (and the politicians s/he bought)? Should the middle class pay the overwhelming burden of taxes compared to the wealthy (in amount of after-tax discretionary income)? Should vast sums of wealth continue to be passed down (sans so-called "Death Tax" ) in families whose grandparents may well have had union organizers in their companies shot (and/or are exporting jobs to countries where that's still happening, to say nothing of environmental degradation)?



GG HELL NO!!! Out



"Workers (and wanna-be workers) of the world unite!"

Edited by: Gatito Grande at: 6/21/04 8:53 pm

[Warduke]

Just for you Holley



From Yahoo...

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Judge Approves Wal-Mart Class-Action Case



SAN FRANCISCO - A federal judge on Tuesday approved a class-action sex-discrimination lawsuit against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. representing as many as 1.6 million current and former women workers, in what has become the largest private civil rights case in U.S. history.

       

The suit, originally filed on behalf of six women workers, alleges Wal-Mart set up a system that frequently pays its female workers less than their male counterparts for comparable jobs and bypasses women for key promotions.



Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer and the world's biggest retailer, sought to limit the scope of the lawsuit filed in San Francisco three years ago.



In anticipation of the ruling, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the Bentonville, Ark.-based company will appeal and is confident in its contention that it does not discriminate against women employees.

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Firefox: One Browser To Rule Them All.

[Gatito Grande]

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In anticipation of the ruling, Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams told The Associated Press

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. . . before running off to make coffee for the boss.



GG And then heading home to check on her insurance-free sick child, before going on to her second job Out

[darkmagicwillow]

Diebold, a maker of insecure and unreliable voting machines, apparently gave large kickbacks to the National Federation for the Blind to get them to sue counties to force them to buy Diebold e-voting machines. They've done something similar in the past by suing banks and forcing them to buy Diebold ATMs. Read the full story at www.blackboxvoting.org.

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"Omnia mutantur, nihil interit." -- "Everything changes, but nothing is truly lost."

[justin]

I think E-voting is one of the many areas where the government should mandate the use of free/open source software (which I think the Australian government has done)

What other people think of me is none of my business - Ellen Degeneres

[justin]

The butler report, into the inteligence used to justify the invasion of Iraq, has just been published. Well while it doesn't totally condemn the government, it isn't a white wash either. You can read a summary of it here.



ETA: Of course despite this the government is still saying that the war was legal.



Of course this brings up the interesting question of how you determine the legality of a war.



Still I think that whether the war was legal or not isn't really the issue. What is the issue is whether in deciding to join in the war the government was fulfilling it's role as the people's representative. To know this we need to consider how many people were in favour of the war, and out of those people were only in favour of it due to the misleading inteligence coming out of Whitehall and the Whitehouse.



From the growing levels of dissatisfaction with the government it seems that a lot of people don't think that their wishes were being represented. As long as the government keeps trying to gloss over what happened, this dissatisfaction is just going to increase.



Which brings about the worrying prospect of the Tories getting in at the next election,

What other people think of me is none of my business - Ellen Degeneres

Edited by: justin at: 7/17/04 9:41 am

[skittles]

Found this "news item" on another board & thought that I would share it with you.

Quote:

---

At PhoenixSkyHarbor airport today, an individual later discovered to be a public school teacher was arrested trying to board a flight while in possession of a ruler, a protractor, a setsquare, a slide rule, and a calculator. At a morning press conference, Attorney General John Ashland said he believes the man is a member of the notorious al-gebra movement. He is being charged by the FBI with carrying weapons of math instruction.



Al-gebra is a fearsome cult," Ashland said. "They desire average solutions by means and extremes, and sometimes go off on tangents in a search of absolute value. They use secret code names like 'x' and 'y' and refer to themselves as 'unknowns', but we have determined they belong to a common denominator of the axis of medieval with coordinates in every country. As the Greek philanderer Isosceles used to say, 'there are 3 sides to every triangle'."



When asked to comment on the arrest, the President said, "If God had wanted us to have better weapons of math instruction, He would have given us more fingers and toes."

---

skittles



"You are a child of the universe,

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here." Desiderata, Max Erhmann

[Gatito Grande]

. . . which is, TERRORISM SUCKS! (and so does trigger-happy govt responses )

Quote:

---

High death toll in Russia siege





At least 200 people have been killed during the bloody climax of a three-day hostage crisis at a school in southern Russia, health ministry officials say.



Hundreds of people were injured when explosions and shooting brought the siege to a violent end. Many of the casualties were children.



Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived on a surprise visit to the site at Beslan, North Ossetia, reports say.



Officials said 27 hostage-takers were killed and three were arrested alive.



The BBC's Damian Grammaticas, at the scene, says three other hostage-takers are still on the run.



The armed group took over the school on Wednesday.



Russian officials have described some of the hostage-takers as mercenaries from Arab countries.



Terrified children



Heavy gunfire and explosions began on Friday morning, and it was many hours before special forces had control of the school.



It appears the violence began as medical workers drove into the school complex in a pre-agreed trip to collect the bodies of casualties who died when the school was first seized.



A sudden explosion, which some reports suggest may have gone off accidentally, seems to have prompted hostage-takers to begin shooting indiscriminately.



Hostages panicked and tried to flee, while Russian forces stormed the school in an unplanned operation.



There were scenes of pandemonium, as terrified and half-naked children ran from the school amid intense gun battles.



More than 700 people were injured. The health ministry of North Ossetia told Interfax news agency that by the early hours of Saturday morning local time, 531 people remained in hospital - half of them children.



Ninety-two children are said to be in a critical condition.



More than 1,000 people are thought to have been in the school as parents joined their children for festivities on the first day of term.



'Grim reminder'



Correspondents say the day's events have taken Moscow by surprise.



There has been no public comment so far from President Putin, though two Russian news agencies report he is visiting a local hospital where survivors are being treated.



Meanwhile, US President George W Bush described the events as "another grim reminder" of terrorism.



"We stand with the people of Russia, we send them our thoughts and prayers in this terrible situation," he said.



Correspondents say many of those released were desperate for water when they came out, and some were barely able to stand.



One boy described his escape.



"I smashed the window to get out," he told Russian TV. "People were running in all directions... [The rebels] shot from the roof."



Ambulances ferried hundreds of people to hospital.



Witnesses later saw at least 100 bodies piled inside the ruins of the school.



The attackers - both men and women, some wearing bomb belts - had demanded independence for the troubled region of Chechnya, where Russian forces have been involved in a bloody conflict with separatists for several years.

---

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3624024.stm



GG Pray (send good thoughts, whatever) for the people in this terrible tragedy . . . and (duh!) a peaceful resolution of the Chechnya struggle Out

[urnofosiris]

A tragedy is an understatement, but what else can you say. There really are no words to describe what happened there.

[justin]

The UN secretary general has spoken out against the invasion of Iraq, saying that it did not conform with the UN charter and that from a charter point of view the war was illegal.



He also says that it's important that the elections in January go well but that will be difficult given the continuing violence. You can read more at bbc news

"VOOM"?!? Mate, this bird wouldn't "voom" if you put four million volts through it! 'E's bleedin' demised! - The Parrot Sketch

[Gatito Grande]

It's the tragedy of American politics that this (Annan's declaration of the war's illegality) might actually increase American support for the war.



GG After all, many Americans are more afraid that UN "black helicopters" will take over (or that U.S. sovereignty might otherwise be subordinated to the UN, as President Cheney has been ranting of late), than that saying "F___ you!" to the UN makes America more likely to be the target of terrorism Out