Pastafarian headgear approved for Austrian drivers license

Excellent.

An Austrian atheist has won the right to be shown on his driving-licence photo wearing a pasta strainer as "religious headgear".

Niko Alm first applied for the licence three years ago after reading that headgear was allowed in official pictures only for confessional reasons.

Mr Alm said the sieve was a requirement of his religion, pastafarianism.

The Austrian authorities required him to obtain a doctor's certificate that he was "psychologically fit" to drive.

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Giuliani defends Murdoch... who just happens to be a former client (AP doesn’t mention that slightly relevant fact)

In a story about how the revered (snark) Rudy Giuliani is defending Rupert Murdoch over accusations from a British paper that his News Corp may have, among other things, tried to hack the phones of 9/11 victims, the Associated Press didn't bother mentioning that Rupert Murdoch is a former client of Rudy Giuliani's.  (It took me a whopping 30 seconds of Googling to find that out.)

Time for a blogger ethics panel. Read the rest of this post...

Western businesses linked to pollution in China

The businesses in the west ought to care a lot more about the impact they have on the other part of the world. Consumers should care as well about what goes on in China. If the toxins are disrupting the earth in China and impacting humans, what impact are they having on consumers who wear their products? Cleaning this up is a win for everyone.

A Chinese conglomerate supplying Nike, Adidas, Puma and other leading brands has discharged hormone-disrupting chemicals and other toxins into the country's major water systems, according to a new Greenpeace investigation that raises questions about corporate responsibility for the firms they do business with.

The environmental pressure group has also linked hazardous textile plants in the Yangtze and Pearl river deltas to Lacoste, H&M and half a dozen other international fashion brands despite many of those companies' claims to set high environmental standards in their supply chains.

The allegations follow a series of high-profile pollution scandals at Chinese firms that provide materials for multinational corporations. Chinese environmental activists say these cases highlight the hypocrisy of western outsourcers who promise high safety standards for rich consumers at home even as they trade with firms that benefit from lax environmental regulations overseas.

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Video: Humpback whale saved from fishing nets, puts on show

If this doesn't touch your heart, you may not have one. Read the rest of this post...

What really happened in the McDonald’s coffee lawsuit (interview with the filmmaker)

Chris in Paris wrote about the HBO documentary, Hot Coffee, here. The film details what really happened with the iconic (and deliberately misrepresented) McDonald's coffee lawsuit.

Keep in mind what you think you know — an elderly low-income–type woman buys a cup of nice warm McDonald's coffee, puts it in her lap, then stupidly drives down the road happy as a clam. The coffee spills, she gets a little burned, and sees a great opportunity to get undeservedly wealthy. It's the old old story.

And totally false. From the movie's self-description:

Everyone knows the McDonald’s coffee case. It has been routinely cited as an example of how citizens have taken advantage of America’s legal system, but is that a fair rendition of the facts? Hot Coffee reveals what really happened to Stella Liebeck, the Albuquerque woman who spilled coffee on herself and sued McDonald’s, while exploring how and why the case garnered so much media attention, who funded the effort and to what end. After seeing this film, you will decide who really profited from spilling hot coffee.

Here's a great opportunity to get current on this fascinating tale. Listen to the filmmaker, Susan Saladoff, talking with Sam Seder on Majority.fm about what really happened. It's a good interview and Saladoff is a clear explainer. Fascinating.



Two points:

■ The second part of the movie (not discussed here) deals with the Jamie Leigh Jones lawsuit against KBR, the infamous gang-raped-&-held-in-a-shipping-container story. The film was produced prior to the jury trial and its outcome, so some information was not available at that time.

In fact, some of what we "know" about the story could not be established by the evidence (for example, the roofies), and some was not claimed by Jones and her lawyer (for example, the gang rape). This is not to say Jones' story is false; just that much of it was either not asserted in her complaint or not proved.

So tread cautiously when discussing this one; read here for more.

■ Majority.fm could use your support to stay on the air (or in the electronic iTunesean ether). Please help if you can.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Dubai Journal: My friend Bicyclemark checks in from Dubai on his way back to Afghanistan

Greetings from Dubai, where one year after my work with international election observers in Afghanistan, I'm once again preparing to journey into that infamous land.

Like so many who are on their way to do work in Afghanistan, I'm currently sitting pretty in one of Dubai's luxury resort hotels as I spend my time filling out visa forms and preparing material for the job that awaits me. And like any journalist, reporter, observer of life, and student of history, I'm constantly asking questions and evaluating what it is that is happening and has happened in this old port city turned modern capitalist experiment.

As the world's economy came to a screeching halt over the last few years, so too did the massive investment in once booming Dubai. Suddenly there were fewer new skyscrapers being erected and the big construction projects seemed to be taking longer to be completed. Shiny new office space remains empty, in a city that had forgotten what it was like before the oil and tourism dollars came flooding in.

That's not to say life and luxury have suddenly stopped here. On the contrary, anyone who visits Dubai today will see plenty of both. The skyline is still filled with bright multicolored lights, once the merciless sun goes down, the streets are still filled with people heading to or from work, the old Souq shopping districts as well as the never ending list of modern shopping malls are still busy. The economy may not be what it was, but the world still comes to Dubai on giant 747 and superjumbo Airbus A380 airplanes. They come seeking comfort, they come to go shopping, and if you really take the time to speak with people here you'll learn they still come seeking work.

This week I've been talking with Indian, Pakistani, and Afghan workers here in Dubai. Some who've been here long enough to have seen a dramatic change beyond imagination. Others haven't been here long enough to know much about it, but staying in their home country was no longer an option. It's a story that occasionally see's the light of day in the mainstream media, but it's a story that still amazes me.

(to be continued)

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FBI looking into alleged News Corp (aka Murdoch) phone hacking of 9/11 victims

Wash Post has more.

What do you call it when three of your "news" entities allegedly break the law to get a story? A criminal conspiracy. And what do you call it when one of them allegedly tries to bribe a cop? A potential violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.  (More on the FCPA and its relation to this case here.)

Oh, and by the way, the practice they allegedly wanted to use to hack into the phones is "pretexting," the practice that I exposed by buying Wesley Clark's phone records a few years back, and one that was ultimately made illegal in the US as a result of our exposé.

Man this is getting fun. Read the rest of this post...

Rupert Murdoch refuses to appear before Parliament

As his type likes to say, if they have done nothing illegal, surely they shouldn't mind the temporary inconvenience. Why is Rupert Murdoch refusing to be open and honest with the British parliament?

Brooks, who edited the News of the World at the time of one of the most serious alleged incidents, agreed on Thursday to appear before the committee next week, but said the police inquiry might restrict what she could say.

Murdoch, a U.S. citizen, said he would only give evidence to a public inquiry announced by Cameron after questions were raised over the role of some police officers in the scandal and over the relations between British politicians and media owners.

Murdoch's son James, chairman of News Corp.'s UK newspaper arm who the company said had dual U.S./U.K. citizenship, said he could not appear before Parliament until next month.

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VIDEO: Marcus and Michele Bachmann are thuper therious about defending marriage

Michele Bachmann's husband Marcus runs a clinic that claims to "cure" gays and make them heterosexual (not surprisingly, the "cure" doesn't work). Michele is herself quite the anti-gay biddy, and is currently promoting an amendment to the Minnesota constitution that would ban gay marriage. It's therefore ironic (some would even say, queer) on multiple levels that her husband Marcus is coming under increasing scrutiny for his oddly effeminate comportment. Some have jokingly asked why Michele Bachmann is trying to ban others from having what she already has.

Totally unrelated, a number of religious right anti-gay leaders, including those involved with "curing" gays, have themselves recently been exposed as - wait for it - gay.

More from our good friends at Second City.



UPDATE: Jon Stewart and Jerry Seinfeld have some fun with the Marcus Bachmann story. Read the rest of this post...

Ezra Klein, Paul Krugman: WH wants a "farther to the right" deal, not the McConnell plan

Well, that didn't take long.

Less than 24 hours after Lawrence O'Donnell twice proclaimed Obama's 11-dimensional genius for checkmating Mitch McConnell in a "clean bill" corner, we get a spate of news stories that confirms what I suspected — that the Dems may turn the McConnell window of opportunity into a door to Reagan dreams.

In plain words, Obama doesn't want a clean bill after all; he wants his original, safety-net-shredding offer.

Here's Ezra Klein in the Wash Post (h/t Glenn Greenwald; my emphasis):

In my Bloomberg column today, I argue that the Obama administration is much more intent on reaching a deficit deal, and much less intent on making revenues a major part of it, than is commonly assumed. That’s led them to offer Republicans a deal that is not only much farther to the right than anyone had predicted, but also much farther to the right than most realize. In addition to the rise in the Medicare eligibility age and the cuts to Social Security and the minimal amount of revenues, it’d cut discretionary spending by $1.2 trillion, which is an absolutely massive attack on that category of spending.

This deal isn’t just a last-ditch effort to save the economy from the damage of a federal default. The White House would far prefer this deal to the McConnell plan, which would lift the debt ceiling without making any cuts at all.

That's the fact, and Klein is good on the facts. The rest of the article deals with Klein's view of their reasoning. Feel free to read; but agree or disagree with the reasoning, for Klein the facts above are not in dispute. This is what Obama wants.

Paul Krugman sees this as well (emphasis in original):

What Obama has offered — and Republicans have refused to accept — is a deal in which less than 20 percent of the deficit reduction comes from new revenues. This puts him slightly to the right of the average Republican voter.

So we learn two things. First, Obama is extraordinarily eager to make concessions. Second, Republicans are incredibly unwilling to take yes for an answer — something for which progressives should be grateful.

The chart in that short post is especially telling. It shows how Republicans, Indies, and Dems would balance Tax Increases and Spending Cuts. The most conservative group (Repubs, natch) want 26% tax increases. Obama wants 20%.

About that chess game — if you look behind you and the 11-dimensional genius isn't back there, whispering great strategy into your shell-like ear, he's the guy across the board taking your pieces.

Occam's Switchblade: He's not weak, but strong; his apparent goals are his real goals; he's usually successful; and he does what he does because he wants to.

UPDATE: Digby piles on:

So basically they really are still counting on Morning in America to magically appear in time and think that massively cutting government will ruin the Republicans' plans to complain. (Maybe that explains the Reagan comment yesterday.)

Indeed.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Bush economist: Americans will work 10 more years to payoff US debt

It sounds so easy for him to say it, but really, the political class has been saying it without saying it anyway. Whether it's the banker bailouts without strings, profitable Fortune 500 companies paying no taxes, the unstoppable military industrial complex that demands war and spending without question, or the Ben Bernanke quantitative easing 1, 2 or 3, the policies have all pointed in this direction. These policies offer very little for the middle class but they've been a bumper crop of riches for the rich. The Bush economist may be a jerk but at least he's honest, unlike the rest of the political class that won't say this. CNBC:

“Will the US go into technical default? This is quite possible,” Philippa Malmgren, a former economic advisor to George W Bush and the president and founder of Principalis Asset Management told CNBC on Thursday.

While this is a serious problem in Malmgren’s view, she said the solution is easy enough.

“Yes it is a serious problem but the US can easily fix it by having everybody work 10 years longer which they'll do anyway,” she said.

Any recovery of the US economy will be based primarily on manufacturing, agriculture and innovation in Malmgren’s view but the banks need to watch out if they continue to refuse to lend to American businesses and consumers.

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Bi-partisan calls for News Corp investigation in US

Yesterday it was Senator Rockefeller as well as Bush's former SEC chairman calling for an investigation. Now the list includes NJ Democrat Senator Menendez and GOP Congressman King calling for a US investigation of News Corp. The Democrats would be wise to get in front of this issue.

New York Republican Pete King is calling on the FBI to investigate whether Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation hacked into the voicemail accounts of Sept. 11 victims, calling the allegations of the scandal “disgraceful.”

“As I see it, I would expect more things to be coming out over the next several weeks,” King told POLITICO. “And as we approach 9/11, the tenth anniversary, it’s even going to get worse.”

King said in the letter, addressed to FBI Director Robert Mueller, that the journalists should face felony charges if the allegations are proven true.

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Moody's may cut US debt status to junk

The ratings agencies are a bunch of frauds but unfortunately they still carry weight when it comes to debt payment rates. The GOP wants to play games and the ratings agencies are not impressed. As they did during the bailout, the Republicans are scaring the heck out of the market. They're trying to make a point but the only point that Americans will see is even higher costs to fund the government. Great plan guys.

"The Weiss ratings is very close to downgrading the sovereign debt of the United States one more notch to a 'C-', which will put it just one notch above junk," Martin Weiss, President of Weiss Ratings told CNBC on Thursday.

In April, Weiss Ratings gave the U.S. sovereign debt rating a 'C'.

Moody's warning came as the White House and President Barack Obama are locked in tense negotiations to raise the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by August 2 or risk a default. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke has told a U.S. House of Representatives panel that failure to increase the ceiling will immediately cut government spending by 40 percent.

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Rupert Murdoch abandons BSkyB takeover bid

Even the partial ownership that he controls today may be in question. What a rapid fall.

After 10 days of sustained public outcry over phone hacking, and facing the prospect of a unanimous call by MPs to withdraw his bid for total ownership of the broadcaster, Murdoch succumbed at a morning board meeting in Wapping.

Company insiders indicated Murdoch was not making a tactical retreat and that a future bid for total control of BSkyB was now unlikely. The media giant said it was likely to "deploy our capital elsewhere" to avoid any more damaging battles in the UK. The News Corp deputy chairman, Chase Carey, said the bid had become "too difficult to progress in this climate".

The withdrawal represents the biggest single reverse of Murdoch's mercurial career, but may presage even further commercial damage not just in the UK, but worldwide. News Corp's current 39% stake in BSkyB could also still be at risk from the "fit and proper" test for ownership being conducted by regulator Ofcom.

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Mumbai financial district bombing the fourth since 2003

Another terrible act of terrorism in India. BBC News:

Indian cities are on a state of high alert after three blasts shook the commercial hub Mumbai, killing 18 people and hurting dozens.

Indian PM Manmohan Singh has appealed to the people of Mumbai (Bombay) "to remain calm and show a united face".

No group has said they carried out the attack, which took place in three districts during the evening rush hour.

The attacks are the deadliest in Mumbai since November 2008, when gunmen killed 165 people in a three-day raid.

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