Tag, I'm It

Uh-oh. I've been tagged by Marcellina in the 123 game.

This is a new game for me. I don’t know who started it. But here are the rules :

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

Fortunately Amazon just delivered a shipment of new fiction, so my “nearest book” isn’t “Filing Your Taxes For Dummies” or some such.

Here are my three sentences, and they’re long ones. I can’t wait to read the book:

“For the first time in recent memory, perhaps for the first time since meeting Aileen, he had a purpose, and peace. He had always loved a university campus in summer, the mysterious abandonment of the medieval city, with just a skeleton crew of damned souls left to meet his few needs: a single heavy-eyed stamper of books, a single sleepwalking ladler of gruel in the one cafeteria. Now he found that the campus on a national holiday at the onset of winter was the purest distillation of that hush he’d first known in the summers.”

From, A Person Of Interest, by Susan Choi, 2008

Now I have to tag five people. Let’s see (cue maniacal laughter) ... How about Mack, Dolphin, Sinfonian, Madamab (who is in the middle of moving and probably has little more than a Chinese take-out menu at hand) and, just for fun, my old friend Glen Dean?

Consider yourselves tagged!

Welcoming Our Corporate Overlords

This is one of the most blatant attempts to hijack democracy by a corporation that I’ve seen in a long time. At this week’s FCC public hearing on net neutrality in Boston, Comcast paid its employees to fill all the seats, so the general public couldn’t attend: 

Comcast admitted to paying its employees to sit in at a F.C.C. hearing on net neutrality at the Harvard Law School today, depriving angry protesters from their right to sit in those folding chairs. Despite the venue being filled to over capacity, keeping some people from entering, not everyone inside seemed appreciative of their privilege. One Comcast employee admitted on tape, "I'm just getting paid to hold someone's seat, I don't even know what's going on." According to SaveTheInternet.com, the Comcast employees, "arrived en masse some 90 minutes before the hearing began and occupied almost every available seat, upon which many promptly fell asleep." The stacked audience's behavior was limited to wearing a yellow highlighter, sleeping during the proceedings, and loudly applauding when Comcast VP David Cohen got on the mic.

SaveTheInternet.com has video and audio clips.

So a major corporation already in the news for violating American citizens' Fourth Amendment rights uses its wealth and power to deny citizens access to a public hearing. The mainstream media should be all over this story, right?

Wrong! They’re too busy covering this election sideshow: Texas poll numbers and Barack Obama’s middle name.

Thank God we have the internet to tell us this story.

Which might have something to do with Comcast’s interest in the net neutrality issue to begin with. Ya think?

Prison Nation

A source I used in Tuesday’s item about Corrections Corp. shill Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV mentioned this country’s “incarceration boom” -- a phrase that took me aback. I wanted to explore this issue further. Well, wouldn’t you know, today Pew Research has a study on this very topic.

It’s disturbing, to say the least:

1 in 100 Americans Are Behind Bars, Study Says

By ADAM LIPTAK
Published: February 28, 2008

For the first time in the nation’s history, more than one in 100 American adults is behind bars, according to a new report.

Nationwide, the prison population grew by 25,000 last year, bringing it to almost 1.6 million. Another 723,000 people are in local jails. The number of American adults is about 230 million, meaning that one in every 99.1 adults is behind bars.

Incarceration rates are even higher for some groups. One in 36 Hispanic adults is behind bars, based on Justice Department figures for 2006. One in 15 black adults is, too, as is one in nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34.

The report, from the Pew Center on the States, also found that only one in 355 white women between the ages of 35 and 39 is behind bars, but that one in 100 black women is.

Wow. That’s just astonishing. Think about it: of 100 adults you personally know, at least one of those people will have served time in the criminal justice system.

I thought about it and realized: yes, I know one of those people! I have a good friend whose punishment for their second DUI offense included serving time in jail.

What is going on here? A nation with incarceration rates this high needs to do some serious soul-seaching.

Are we breaking more laws than before? Do we really have this many "bad" people? Or are we locking people up for violations that really don’t warrant incarceration? Is this the inevitable result of decades of “tough on crime” talk from politicians and the media?

The article goes on:

The Pew report recommended diverting nonviolent offenders away from prison and using punishments short of reincarceration for minor or technical violations of probation or parole. It also urged states to consider earlier release of some prisoners.

I know that law-and-order types get in a tizzy over the idea of early release for some prisoners, but something isn’t working here.

Who is benefiting--besides CCA, of course --from pulling so many people out of the mainstream of society and locking them up? So many of these “get tough on crime” laws haven’t served as a deterrent or made us safer. Instead, they’ve made a bunch of people feel macho and tough by doing what’s easy, not what works.

There's something seriously wrong with a country that would rather throw people in jail and forget about them, instead of fixing the social problems that cause people to break the law to begin with.

Parking Nazis

[UPDATE]:

Just learned that the H.G. Hill Company has a longstanding philanthropic relationship with the YMCA.

There's certainly nothing wrong with that ... I just don't know why Hill Center customers must be duped roped into this particular philanthropic vision. Maybe I should change the name of this post to Charity Nazis?
--------------------------------------------

Boy, were Mr. Beale and I surprised to see those fake parking meters spring up at the Hill Center in Green Hills over the weekend.

They look just like the real thing until you get up close and read the sign: then you learn the money supposedly goes to charity, not to pay for your parking space. Hill Center is private property, after all; there is no city parking. So in other words, these are fake parking meters, not real ones. Indeed, Hills reps say you won’t get towed unless you leave your car “for an extended period of time.”

As soon as I saw them I thought: you dirty rats. They look exactly like the real thing! I imagine most people will see them and pop a quarter in for their (gasp!) 8 minutes. How many people will read the sign and realize they’re not paying for parking, but donating to charity?

And who is this charity? Is it legit? Is it a charity that I want to support, one that matches my values? Who is Hill Center to assume that “their” charity is going to be “my” charity, anyway? And how dare they not tell me who this charity is?

Just because it’s for charity doesn’t mean I want my money going there. I stopped giving to the Salvation Army’s bell ringers when I learned how that organization used their good works as a hammer to force New York City to support their bigotry.

I caught WSMV's story on these voluntary parking meters tonight and learned proceeds go to the YMCA (after covering the cost of the parking meters, of course). Thanks for letting us know. Does the Green Hills YMCA need this kind of charitable donation? They look pretty flush to me.

Look, I don’t have a beef with the YMCA but I do object to the idea that I have to a) pay to maintain the Hill Center’s fake parking meters, and b) donate to their particular charity--just for the privilege of visiting their shopping center. Screw that.

I give a lot of money to charity--charities of my choice, that reflect my values. I don’t see why I’m obligated to donate to the charity of Hill’s choice, just because I want to park my car. What arrogance!

Bush Picks A “Brownie” For TN Bench

Oh, great. Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV, Bill Frist’s old legislative aide, is President Bush’s pick for the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

This just reeks of partisan, good-ole-boy, glad-handing. “Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV” (what a mouthful!) is vice president and general counsel for Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). He earned his cred with the GOP brass by investigating Bill Clinton’s fundraising back in the 1990’s, and even prepped Dick Cheney for the VP debates in 2000 and 2004.

That’s a great GOP political background, but for a seat on the federal bench, don’t you want some trial experience? Apparently not:

Of greater concern is that Mr. Puryear lacks familiarity with the federal courts and has little trial or litigation experience. By his own admission he has tried only two cases to verdict; he has been personally involved in only five federal cases, most recently a decade ago. He is not admitted to practice before the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which is over the Middle District of Tennessee, and received only a "qualified" rating from the American Bar Association rather than a "highly qualified" rating.

So, he’s a GOP loyalist, but without trial experience, why is he in consideration for the federal bench? It seems Gustavus Adolphus Puryear IV is just another corporate shill:

Puryear has spent the bulk of his legal career at the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America, the nation's largest private prison company. As its general counsel since 2001, Puryear has made millions of dollars working for a company that profits from the country's incarceration boom, particularly through his recent sale of more than $3 million worth of the company's stock. (His financial disclosure form shows a net worth of more than $13 million.) His employer creates enormous conflicts for Puryear as a potential federal judge, as the CCA gets sued all the time, often in the very district where he hopes to preside as judge. Since 2000, roughly 260 cases have been filed in that court against the CCA, its officers, and subsidiaries. [ ... ] Inmate lawsuits typically account for more than 10 percent of the docket in Tennessee's Middle District, meaning that Puryear will see his share of them if he gets confirmed.

This isn’t ho-hum, so-what, it-doesn’t-affect-me stuff. By stacking the courts with corporate shills, we give more power to the corporate world, and take it away from ordinary citizens.

Look at the U.S. Supreme Court, and its corporate-friendly ruling last week:

The Supreme Court yesterday protected the makers of medical devices that have passed the most rigorous federal review standards from lawsuits by consumers who allege that the devices caused them harm.

The court ruled 8 to 1 against the estate of a New York man who was seriously injured when a balloon catheter manufactured by Medtronic burst during an angioplasty in 1996. Charles Riegel, who died three years ago, and his wife sued under New York law, alleging that the device's design was faulty and its labeling deficient.

Do you see where this is going? I do, and I don’t like it. This is a slippery slope that rings all sorts of alarm bells with me.

Puryear looks like just another corporate crony. In his job as CCA’s chief counsel, he's called inmate litigation “a nuisance,” and “an outlet for inmates .. something they can do in their spare time," despite the fact that CCA has been found in the wrong in several significant verdicts and settlements against the company:

For instance, in 2000, a South Carolina jury hit the CCA with a $3 million verdict for abusing juveniles. Other successful suits have alleged that the company's employees abused inmates and provided negligent medical care.

Great, just the kind of guy we want on the courts. I'd urge you to call Senators Corker and Alexander to oppose this clown's nomination, but being good GOP partisans, they probably won't listen:

Both Tennessee Senators Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker strongly support Mr. Puryear's nomination. Neither Senator has acknowledged the substantial financial contributions received from Mr. Puryear and his employer, CCA - which include over $80,000 to Senator Alexander and $27,000 to Senator Corker since 2004.

Is this the best judge money can buy? I want a government that takes care of people, not corporations.

Slave 2U

NO.

Just, no:

Looking to strike a blow against the proliferation of digital video recorders, the ABC network, its affiliated broadcast stations, and Cox Communications’ cable systems are establishing an on-demand video service that would allow viewers to watch ABC shows like “Lost” and “Desperate Housewives” any time they choose.

The catch: It uses a new technology that disables the viewers’ ability to fast-forward through commercials.

Am I stuck in a Pepé Le Pew cartoon, or what? Just when consumers figure out a way around those annoying TV commercials that we all hate to watch, corporate America finds another way to FORCE us to watch their sales pitch anyway.

STOP IT. Just, quit it. We don’t want to watch your ads, alright? You’re pissing me off here.

I hate being marketed to. I hate it. I’ve written about this before, notably here and here. I can’t tell you how offensive, intrusive, dehumanizing and manipulative I find this whole “you WILL WATCH” crap from corporate America.

Listen up, Corporate America: quit treating me like a giant, throbbing wallet. I know all you want is my money but geez, could you at least pretend we consumers are, you know, people?

Here’s what you people fail to understand: I want to buy your product. I’m a consumer. I live in America. That means I consume A LOT. It’s the American way, it’s how we show our patriotism, right? But the over-aggressive way you shove your products at me is a huge turnoff. I’m this close to going all lefty-commie-DFH and getting all anti-consumer on y’all's ass.

Keep this Advertising Nazi crap up and I will. Just you wait.

Nader’s In. Oh, And The Sun Rose This Morning, Too.

In case you haven’t heard, Ralph Nader announced he's running on today's Meet The Press.

Let’s face it, we all saw this one coming. Personally, I could care less, and unless something really amazing happens, I plan to ignore Ralph Nader. But I’m sure the rest of the media won’t. I can already tell that this will be treated as the hottest news story since the invention of the bread slicer.

This completely defies logic. Let's see, Nader got 0.38% of the popular vote in 2004, a decline from the "whopping" 2.73% of the popular vote he got in 2000. But I'm sure the media will still treat him like he's relevant, offering all sorts of front-page stories and other Meet The Press appearances.

I'm trying to remember when any third-party candidate has performed so poorly in the general election and yet received so much national media attention. The same people who wrote off Ross Perot as a miserable failure after his second attempt in 1996 netted 8.40% of the popular vote are going to be treating Nader as some kind of player this time around. Go figure.

Will this hurt the Democratic nominee? Nah. Anyone voting for Ralph Nader these days isn't going to vote for HIllary Clinton or Barack Obama anyway, no matter what they tell you. If anything, this is good news for Democrats, seeing how a Nader candidacy will likely be a magnet for GOP money, like last time. I'm not sure the Republicans have this kind of money to throw away, though; their fundraising has been weak compared to that of the Democrats, and their low primary turnout doesn't bode well for the general election either.

Anyway, this hopefully is the last blog post I'll be doing on Ralph Nader.

(Figures are from Dave Leip’s Election Atlas, one of my favorite online resources.)

Maybe It’s The Slightly-Askew Talk Express?

It seems John McCain’s “straight talk” is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.

McCain vigorously denies doing any favors for clients of his friend/telecom lobbyist Vicki Iseman. But one of those clients, Paxson Communications, refutes McCain’s claims:

Broadcaster Lowell "Bud" Paxson yesterday contradicted statements from Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign that the senator did not meet with Paxson or his lobbyist before sending two controversial letters to the Federal Communications Commission on Paxson's behalf.

Paxson said he talked with McCain in his Washington office several weeks before the Arizona Republican wrote the letters in 1999 to the FCC urging a rapid decision on Paxson's quest to acquire a Pittsburgh television station.

Paxson also recalled that his lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, likely attended the meeting in McCain's office and that Iseman helped arrange the meeting.

Oops. Oh, Mr. Ethics! We’re so disappointed! Interestingly, McCain himself earlier admitted to meeting with Paxson:

McCain himself in a deposition in 2002 acknowledged talking to Paxson about the Pittsburgh sale. Asked what Paxson said in the conversation, McCain said that Paxson "had applied to purchase this station and that he wanted to purchase it. And that there had been a numerous year delay with the FCC reaching a decision. And he wanted their approval very bad for purposes of his business."

The deposition was taken in litigation over the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law filed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The contradiction in the deposition was first reported by Newsweek yesterday afternoon.

Ooops again.

Something else I found interesting was that in addition to Paxson Communications, one of Vicki Iseman’s other clients is the dreadfully right-wing and partisan Sinclair Broadcasting. Sinclair, of course, is the broadcasting company that ordered its 62 TV stations to air the anti-John Kerry propaganda piece “Stolen Honor” two weeks before the 2004 election. How ironic that the same folks accusing the New York Times of intentionally waiting for John McCain to sew up the nomination before dropping its Vicki Iseman bombshell thought it perfectly fine for Sinclair to broadcast its lies right before the actual election.

Bloggers note that Paxson Communications also jumped on board the “Stolen Honor” bandwagon, and McCain himself refused to denounce “Stolen Honor.” He’s such a maverick! EmptyWheel at Firedoglake has more on this, and I urge you to hop over there and read the post because it raises a lot of questions.

And let me add, none of this would be quite the big deal it is if John McCain hadn’t spent the past 10 years presenting himself as some kind of “new” politician with unimpeachable integrity. We all know that Republicans are in bed with big industry and lobbysists, and finding another one doing favors for his friends is, well, expected. But McCain has said he learned his lesson after the Keating Five scandal. Guess not.

(h/t, Atrios.)

Solar: The Future’s So Bright

Newsflash: oil is over. It’s history. It’s finished. Get over it, people, it’s time to move on.

Twenty years ago I thought the oil companies would have to invest in alternative energy. It just seemed like the logical business move, what with oil running out and all. Silly me. What was I thinking? They’re oil companies, not energy companies. They’re scrambling after the last remaining scraps of a vanishing resource, like a flock of pigeons fighting over a lone saltine. It’s terribly short-sighted, but absolutely predictable. I was dumb to think they'd do anything else.

So we’re going to have to look elsewhere for new ideas. The oil companies aren’t going to do it, and the oil men in Washington who run our government aren’t going to do it.

The good news is, there’s a lot out there, and I thought I’d share some of what I’ve found in the next few blog posts.

1Watt in comments on the No Nukes thread shared this Scientific American article from January on A Solar Grand Plan. It proposes

A massive switch from coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear power plants to solar power plants [which] could supply 69 percent of the U.S.’s electricity and 35 percent of its total energy by 2050.

Great! (Read the article for the details, BTW). But making this transition will come at a price:

The federal government would have to invest more than $400 billion over the next 40 years to complete the 2050 plan. That investment is substantial, but the payoff is greater. Solar plants consume little or no fuel, saving billions of dollars year after year. The infrastructure would displace 300 large coal-fired power plants and 300 more large natural gas plants and all the fuels they consume.

The plan would effectively eliminate all imported oil, fundamentally cutting U.S. trade deficits and easing political tension in the Middle East and elsewhere. Because solar technologies are almost pollution-free, the plan would also reduce greenhouse gas emissions from power plants by 1.7 billion tons a year, and another 1.9 billion tons from gasoline vehicles would be displaced by plug-in hybrids refueled by the solar power grid. In 2050 U.S. carbon dioxide emissions would be 62 percent below 2005 levels, putting a major brake on global warming.

I’m sure the notion of $400 billion in subsidies for solar energy over 40 years strikes fear in the heart of conservatives, but why not? Even by the most conservative estimates, the Iraq War will cost us $700 billion in direct spending alone. That’s a pretty nice subsidy for the oil industry.

The best news is, this is already happening. We don’t need the Federal government because private companies are already building large solar farms in the Southwest. Check out this plan for Phoenix:

Today, Arizona's largest utility, Arizona Public Service, is announcing plans to build the world's largest "concentrating solar power" plant, a $1 billion project to spread parabolic mirrors over a 3-mile-square stretch of desert 70 miles southwest of Phoenix. To be designed and built by the Spanish firm Abengoa, it would generate 280 megawatts of electricity, or enough to power 70,000 homes.

That makes it four times as large as Nevada Solar One, near Boulder City, Nev., which last summer became the first CSP plant to open in the United States in more than 17 years. Tomorrow, Nevada Solar One's developer, a rival Spanish company, Acciona, plans a star-studded dedication ceremony for the facility ...

[...]

Unlike the solar energy that most people know, CSP doesn't use expensive semiconductor material to transform the sun's energy into electricity. CSP relies on mirrors to focus sunlight onto a heat transfer fluid, which in turn heats water into steam, which turns turbines to generate power. The big Arizona plant, which will be called Solana Generating Station, will take the technology an exciting step forward by using molten salt to store solar energy for up to six hours. "When the suns sets, this plant keeps on ticking," says Arizona Public Service President Don Brandt. "We'll have solar energy in the dark."

What is wrong with American companies? Why are European companies so far ahead of us on this stuff?

There’s a new energy future coming and America is going to be left in the dust because we’ve focused all of our attention on oil. How stupid is that?

McCain Campaign Official Rep. Renzi Indicted

John McCain is having a really bad week. First the Vicki Iseman revelations, and now Rep. Rick Renzi, co-chair of his Arizona campaign, has been indicted on 35 counts of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud and extortion:

PHOENIX — Federal authorities announced corruption charges Friday accusing Rep. Rick Renzi of engineering a swap of federally owned mining land to benefit himself and a former business partner and stealing from his insurance company's clients.

A lengthy federal investigation that had put the three-term Republican congressman under a cloud for more than a year culminated in a 26-page indictment issued Thursday against him and two other men. Renzi announced Aug. 23 that he wouldn't run for re-election in Arizona's mostly rural 1st Congressional District.

The indictment's 35 counts include charges of conspiracy, wire fraud, money laundering, insurance fraud and extortion. Most of the charges allege Renzi, 49, used his office to promote a land swap to collect on a debt owed by former Renzi associate James W. Sandlin of Sherman, Texas.

[...]

Authorities accuse Renzi of using his position as a member of the Natural Resources Committee to push land deals for Sandlin. Renzi wanted Sandlin to make money so the congressman could be paid for an earlier land deal they made together, according to the indictment.

Not surprisingly, Renzi has stepped down from the McCain campaign and House Minority Leader John Boehner is asking him to resign.

What a way to cap off a tough week.