Happy 4th

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World Bank: biofuels forced food crisis

Tell me something I didn't already know. In its current form, this is one of the worst ideas in a long time. Stick a fork in this and move on to something else. Will someone please raise this issue at the G8 next week, regardless of the embarrassment it may cause. Is embarrassment of some fragile ego worse than someone starving?

Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.

The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.

The figure emphatically contradicts the US government's claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.

Senior development sources believe the report, completed in April, has not been published to avoid embarrassing President George Bush.

"It would put the World Bank in a political hot-spot with the White House," said one yesterday.

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The Boss

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Republican Senator calls for national speed limit

Republicans used to attack anyone who suggested such an idea so it's going to be interesting to see how this one flies. Looking at the more radical plans the GOP is promoting (such as damaging the environment) this addresses the key issue of trimming fuel consumption in a pain-free way. Of course, I only drive on rare occasions and for reasons that do not make any sense to me, people get worked up on the issue of driving fast. More on the John Warner speed limit plan.

Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.

Warner asked the department to determine at what speeds vehicles would be most fuel efficient, how much fuel savings would be achieved, and whether it would be reasonable to assume there would be a reduction in prices at the pump if the speed limit were lowered.

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Nothing says "4th of July" like 2000 pounds of carved cheese

Maybe it's the "Cheez-It" logo that does it. Somewhere, somehow, Adams, Hancock and Franklin must be proud knowing that they have been honored and shown proper respect by receiving regular sprays vegetable oil so they don't dry out. I'm just glad we could move beyond old-fashioned American values such as privacy, human rights and separation of church and state and instead fully embrace the corporate sponsorship of all things American. Read the rest of this post...

July 4, 2003

Not planning to let a dead bigot ruin my 4th of July. Here are some shots I took 5 years ago on the mall here in DC. The best fireworks photos I ever took (and they're not doctored at all, other than adjusting contrast, etc.). Enjoy. Oh, and let's find some good YouTubes of fireworks from around the country and world like we did last year. Feel free to post em in the comments or email me.













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Racist, homophobe Jesse Helms is dead

NOTE FROM JOHN: Pig.

ANOTHER NOTE FROM JOHN: AP could only find one negative quote that Helms made? They're making him sound like Garrison Keillor.

One of the most hateful men in American politics is dead:

Former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican who became an icon to conservatives, died Friday at the age of 86, a senior congressional source told CNN.

Can't even begin to think of anything nice to say about this guy -- but a lot of other people will start praising Helms as if none of the hateful stuff matters. The hateful stuff matters. Let's reminisce on the life of one of America's biggest bigots who ruined the lives of so many.

Jesse Helms on "negroes":

As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped create attack ads against Smith's opponent, including one which read: "White people, wake up before it is too late. Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races." Another ad featured photographs Helms himself had doctored to illustrate the allegation that Graham's wife had danced with a black man. (The News and Observer, 8/26/01; The New Republic, 6/19/95; The Observer, 5/5/96; Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms, by Ernest B. Furgurson, Norton, 1986)

The University of North Carolina was "the University of Negroes and Communists." (Capital Times, 11/22/94) Black civil rights activists were "Communists and sex perverts." (Copley News Service, 8/23/01)

Of civil rights protests Helms wrote, "The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that's thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men's rights." (WRAL-TV commentary, 1963) He also wrote, "Crime rates and irresponsibility among Negroes are a fact of life which must be faced." (New York Times, 2/8/81)

Helms on "degenerate, weak, sick homosexuals":

Over the years Helms has declared homosexuality "degenerate," and homosexuals "weak, morally sick wretches." (Newsweek, 12/5/94) In a tirade highlighting his routine opposition to AIDS research funding, Helms lashed out at the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS bill in 1988: "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy." (States News Service, 5/17/88)

Helms being a racist:

And the man ABC News now describes as a "conservative icon" (8/22/01) in 1993 sang "Dixie" in an elevator to Carol Moseley-Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the Senate, bragging, "I'm going to make her cry. I'm going to sing Dixie until she cries." (Chicago Sun-Times, 8/5/93)

Helms filibusters making Martin Luther King day a national holiday:

A year before the election, when public polls showed Helms trailing by 20 points, he launched a Senate filibuster against the bill making the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday. (David Broder, Washington Post, Aug, 29, 2001)

On cutting AIDS funding:

Sen. Jesse Helms says the government should spend less money on people with AIDS because they got sick as a result of "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct," The New York Times reported Wednesday....

"We've got to have some common sense about a disease transmitted by people deliberately engaging in unnatural acts," Helms told the Times.

And before anyone says that Helms came around on AIDS in his later years. No he didn't. He came around on AIDS in Africa. Still didn't want to help Americans with AIDS because, you know, they were homersexuals. Read the rest of this post...

Susan Collins: Twelve years is long enough to be in public service

Susan Collins has served twelve years. She pledged to serve only two terms. But, she's running for a third term. Now, Susan Collins has a very, very, very thin skin. So, expect her to cause a furor because her own words are being used against her. Watch the video. She's unequivocal:
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Fourth of July Open Thread

Good morning.

It's Independence Day -- as Chris notes below, the current leadership of this country runs on fear-mongering. That wasn't how it all started. This is how it all got started. (Hat tip, Thomas Jefferson):

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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Bush ushers in 4th of July with "we are all going to die" warning

Pity how some people lack faith in the American system. For those who didn't have enough of these terror alerts, Bush is doing his best to revive the inspirational theme that carried him to victory in 2004. Promoting fear is pretty much what defines traditional American values, at least in the minds of Republicans.

Thanks to Bush, Americans can now set up protective barriers around their holiday cookouts since the Khalid Sheikh Mohammeds of the world are roaming American streets. Call out the dogs, grab your guns & ammo, set up the barbed wire and live in a free America. Dream the American dream, George. Very inspirational as we celebrate July 4th. Read the rest of this post...

Happy 4th - This Land and Woody Guthrie

Last Saturday I posted Bruce singing this great American classic. Here's Woody Guthrie singing his 1940 song. Back in his day his guitar noted "this machine kills fascists." You have to wonder what he would be thinking and saying today. Read the rest of this post...

Google to turn over "global log" in Viacom lawsuit

Privacy is probably overrated anyway.

Under the terms of a US court judgment, Google, which owns YouTube, must now surrender the details of video-watching histories, IP addresses and usernames, to Viacom, which wants to use the data to prove that the site is hosting thousands of television and other media clips in breach of strict copyright laws.

Last night, Google said it intended to comply with the court order and confirmed the ruling would affect "our global log". At this stage, the company had no plans to appeal against the ruling, a Google spokesman said.

Privacy groups described the ruling as a dangerous precedent that could lead to worldwide breaches of internet privacy.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, an internet rights group, said the ruling will allow Viacom to see what everyone is watching on YouTube. "We urge Viacom to back off this overbroad request and Google to take all steps necessary to challenge this order and protect the rights of its users," the group said.

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2009 forecast for China economy looks bumpy

I've never understood the theory that China could withstand economic problems in the US and Europe. For me it was as silly as the theory by some in France a few years back that somehow the Chernobyl cloud impacted every other country in Europe but by some strange miracle, went around the country so everything would be fine. Unless China found a secret, massive source of buyers who were willing to pay as much as Europe and the US, it never added up. The Shanghai market is firmly a bear market today, down almost 50% from its high, costs are increasing and their buyers are experiencing either a recession or close to it.

The economic bubble in China is struggling and for many reasons, it's not a good thing for either China or the world. Next year may be a very difficult year in China as the country deals with a slowing economy and the social disruptions that are bound to come with it. Many US, European, Australian and other global businesses have invested enormous sums of money there so much is at stake for the West if the situation deteriorates over there. It is easy to argue that like every other bubble, substantial amounts of money will be lost. There are only so many bubbles that can reasonably be absorbed in a short period of time. Read the rest of this post...

Home equity loan delinquencies hit 21 year high

Looks like another problem for the Republican-created credit crisis. One of these days, we need to see growth in American earnings instead of more credit thrown around or else we'll be right back to this point. To hell with credit, pay people beyond the boardroom. It's not as though they're living up to the standards of their big salaries. Read the rest of this post...