Ontological Deviations on MS (Mad Scientist) Syndrome

US Banks Forced to Limit Debt Card Fees

According to the NY Times, legislation was passed by the US Senate several days ago to "impose price controls on debit transactions over the furious objections of the beleaguered banking industry."

The Durbin amendment gives the Federal Reserve new authority to regulate and limit the fees that businesses pay to card companies. It specifically addresses payments processed through the Visa and MasterCard networks. American Express and Discover cards are not covered by the bill...
 
The legislation directs the Fed to cap those fees at a level that is “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing transactions. The Nilson Report estimated that last year, fees averaged 1.63 percent of the transaction amount.

A second set of provisions applies to both credit and debit card transactions. Visa and MasterCard impose an all-or-nothing requirement on businesses, requiring them to accept cards even on small transactions, and prohibiting businesses from offering discounts based on the method of payment. The amendment strikes those rules.

Despite the narrative of the Times article, the change in rates is not necessarily a victory for consumers, but  rather a win for businesses (including some very large ones like Amazon.com, Home Depot, and Walmart) over the much reviled banks.   This was a contest between lobbyists for the banks versus lobbyists for retail businesses utilizing debt cards. 

Earlier last year, consumers did achieve a decisive victory through the Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act of 2009, which includes the following:

• Cardholders Deserve Protections against Arbitrary Interest Rate Increases
• Cardholders Who Pay on Time Should Not Be Penalized.
• Cardholders Should Be Protected from Due Date Gimmicks.
• Cardholders Should Be Protected from Misleading Terms.
• Cardholders Deserve the Right to Set Limits on Their Credit.
• Card Companies Should Fairly Credit and Allocate Payments.
• Card Companies Should Not Impose Excessive Fees on Cardholders.
• Vulnerable Consumers Should Be Protected From Fee-Heavy Subprime Credit Cards.
• Congress Should Provide Better Oversight of the Credit Card Industry.

Overall, these two pieces of legislation firmly limit some of the excessive and predatory actions conducted by the banks upon both consumers and retail operations alike.

Federal Reserve to be Audited

The worm has turned several times in the effort to audit the US Federal Reserve and reclaim some democratic  accountability of the secretive machinations of this institution.  Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel recipient in economics, has called the Fed a corrupt institution.  Many on both sides of the political spectrum, like Congressmen Ron Paul (R-Tx) and Alan Grayson (D-Fl), have questioned the basis and decision making structure of the Fed and demanded that more transparency be provided.

On the other hand, many Democrats, Republicans, and status quo defenders of Fed have attempted to defeat any legislation that would review and address the gross failings of the Fed, which directly lead to the Great Recession.  The arguments offered by these groups have varied from the supine to the ridiculous.  For example, claims were made that American capitalism itself would be imperiled (unlike the current situation) if politicians were given the ability to review the monetary policies of the Fed.  The sacred independence of the Fed would be lost and monetary policy would be subject to the whims of politicians, who are subject to short-term re-election thinking; thus potentially pushing the country into a Zimbabwe-like economic collapse.  However, the problem isn't so much congress' meddling in monetary policy, but the Fed's persistent habit of defining fiscal policy, which is clearly the purview of the elected representatives in Congress and the executive.  During the past recession, the Fed shifted its position from being the lender of last resort to the investor of last resort.  In practice this meant that the Federal Reserve, under Ben Bernanke, has been picking the winners and losers in the US market by defining who would be protected by the state if their businesses faltered.   That is the definition of crony-capitalism.

Last week, 11 May 2010, the US Senate voted 96-0 for the Government Accountability Office to audit the "Fed's activities since the outbreak of financial turmoil in 2007."   Unlike in the past where the Federal Reserve and its Chairman were given "deference and near-reverence" by members of Congress, populist anger at all branches of government have forced politicians to respond.

The chief backers of the audit idea are a political odd couple, Rep. Ron Paul (R) of Texas in the House and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) of Vermont. On the right, Representative Paul is a libertarian who sees the audit as a step to help the public conclude that the Fed should not exist at all. On the left, Senator Sanders is known as a "democratic socialist" crusading against an institution that critics say is closely allied with powerful Wall Street bankers.

The recipients of all those trillions of dollars, which to date the Fed has refused to provide, and the underlying rationals for providing these parties with such grandiose sums, will now be open to public inspection.  As Senator Sanders said, "We also need to know what possible conflicts of interest exist involving the heads of large financial institutions."

Noam Chomsky Prevented from Entering Israel

According to news sources, this past Sunday Professor Noam Chomsky, MIT linguist and America's leading political dissident, was barred entry to the state of Israel.  The rational for his visit to Israel was to present a series of lectures at Bir Zeit University, a Palestinian university located in the occupied West Bank. 

The situation has brought strong criticisms of the state by Israeli legal experts and equal condemnation of Prof. Chomsky from right-wing politicians within Israel.  Boaz Okun, a commentator in the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot, describes it as, "a foolish act...[that] may mark the end of Israel as a law-abiding and freedom-loving state, or at least place a large question mark over this notion.” Carlos Strenger said in today's Haaretz newspaper,

Nobody in his right mind can claim that Chomsky represents a security threat to Israel. He’s 81 years old. He is not a specialist on armed insurrection, and he has never called for violence against Israel...

If anything, barring Chomsky gives ammunition to those who say that Israel is infringing on academic freedom in the Palestinian Authority, and that a boycott against its universities is therefore justified.

If Israel feels it can defend its actions morally and politically, it should not fear thinkers who criticize it. But Israel is beginning to tamper with free speech, and this is a truly worrying development.

If Israel feels it cannot survive free speech, then it is one step closer to flirting with totalitarianism. In fact, during his questioning, when Chomsky was asked whether he was ever denied entry into a country he said, yes: into Czechoslovakia in 1968, after the Russian invasion, when he wanted to visit his friend Dubcek. This puts Israel into very poor company indeed.

Given that Professor Chomsky is of Jewish heritage and had previously lived in an Israeli Kibbutz, during the 1950's, the entire event leaves an impression usually associated with ham-fisted authoritarian regimes. Due to Prof. Chomsky's international notoriety and known criticisms of Israel, which have not changed since his last visit to Israel in 1997, the office of Israeli Prime Minster Benjamin Netanyahu is backtracking and claiming the whole incident was a mistake by an over-zealous customs officer and all are free to visit Israel.  However, the facts seem to dispute this statement.  According to today's NY Times and other international dailies, the following persons who have at one time or another been vocal of Israeli policies, have been barred:

• Richard Falk, an American Jew and United Nations investigator of human rights in the Palestinian areas
• Norman Finkelstein, a Jewish American scholar who is a critic of Israel and its policies
• Irish Foreign Minister Michael Martin, who is known as a critic of the Israeli-led blockade of Gaza
• Singer Yusef Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) was banned from a Peace Concert to be held in Israel
• Numerous non-violent peace activist groups and Palestinian Relief Agencies

American Idiots: Deep South Edition

One of the great paradoxes of America is that although more Americans have won Nobel prizes in the fields of science and medicine than any other nationality, and given the fact that the nation has the best universities and some of the greatest research and development centers in the world, Americans as a whole remain woefully ignorant, if not completely hostile, to basic scientific knowledge and rationality.

Over the past twenty years repeated surveys have found that as much as 95% of the American population is scientifically illiterate.  A recent study conducted by the California Academy of Sciences found that 47% of Americans did not know how long it takes Earth to revolve around the sun, and 41% believed that dinosaurs and early humans coexisted.  Another recent poll done by the Pew Research Foundation, found that only 52% of Americans understood the basis of stem cells in relation to normal differentiated cells and a mere 46% knew that atoms are larger than electrons.  As described in the Boston Globe, "On a highly contentious issue like global warming, meanwhile, the gap between scientists and the public was vast: 84 percent of scientists, but just 49 percent of Americans, think human emissions are causing global warming."

So it should come as no shock to discover that only a mere third of the population "believe" in the theory of biological evolution.  Worst, more than 50% of the population "believe" in literal creationism.  It is this latter group of simians that I wish to highlight.  In the state of Alabama, a state that is ranked as having the largest percentage of obese citizens and least educated persons in the country, the local Republicans managed to achieve a new intellectual low through a primary election campaign commercial.  According the online political news-blog TPM,

[An Alabama] state PAC recently went on the air with an ad attacking one of the Republican gubernatorial candidates for supporting the teaching of evolution in schools and for saying that parts of the Bible aren't true.

The candidate, Bradley Byrne, responded with a lengthy press release vehemently defending his belief in creationism and the infallible truth of the Bible.

The aggrieved Republican pol went on to further dismiss every piece of scientific analysis in the past 4,000 years -from the ancient Babylonians who studied astronomy to 19th C. scholars who developed theories of electromagnetism and nuclear chemistry to modern 21st C. molecular biologists- by making the ludicrous claim of "I believe the Bible is the Word of God and that every single word of it is true ..."

All these dunces and like-minded inbred yahoos south of the Mason-Dixon line are a burden to the rest of humanity.  They are idiots, who are morally debased, scientifically illiterate, and lacking in any common sense.  Just watch the following clip as evidence.

CIA Agents Sought by Spanish Prosecutors

Scott Horton at Harper's Magazine is stating that, "Prosecutors attached to the Audiencia Nacional in Madrid are reportedly requesting that Judge Ismael Moreno issue an order for the arrest of thirteen CIA agents involved in an extraordinary rendition operation from 2004."

The agency has come under substantial investigation over the past few years for their gross incompetence and servitude to the Bush junta's policies of extrajudicial kidnapping, torture, and murder.  For example, only last year 23 American intelligence officers were found guilty, in absentia, of the kidnapping and extraordinary rendition of an Egyptian cleric known as Abu Omar, who the CIA agents seized off the streets of Milan, took to Egypt, and then subsequently tortured.

Similarly, in 2004 another individual named,

Khaled El-Masri, a greengrocer from Neu-Ulm, Germany, [was] seized by the United States as a result of mistaken identity while he was on vacation in the former Yugoslavia. El-Masri was placed on a CIA-chartered jet that arrived in Macedonia from Palma de Majorca in January 2004, en route ultimately to Afghanistan. It appears that Majorca was used regularly as a refueling and temporary sheltering point for the CIA, with the knowledge of the prior conservative government. While held in the notorious CIA prison known as the Salt Pit, El-Masri was apparently tortured during extensive interrogations before intelligence officers realized that they had seized the wrong man. The Washington Post reported that CIA agents, fearing the consequences of releasing him, argued for his continued detention and in fact held him for at least several weeks after his release had been ordered. Condoleezza Rice, then national security advisor to President Bush, intervened and directed his release. El-Masri’s CIA abductors entered Spanish territory using forged British passports, according to the prosecutors.

Criminal proceedings are also underway in Germany on similar charges of kidnapping and torture.

Quote of the Day: New Labour is a Parasite!

George Monbiot in yesterday's Guardian UK describes why Gordon Brown's new Labour cannot be trusted any longer:

There's a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that colonises the brains of rats, altering their behaviour to attract them to the scent of their predators. The rats seek out cats and get eaten, allowing the parasite to keep circulating. This is New Labour. It has colonised a movement that fought for social justice, distribution and decency, rewired its brain and delivered it to the fat cats who were once its enemies.

He challenges the voters in the UK to admonish the most right-wing government in the UK since 1945.  The party that once claimed to support working class people, introduced legislation that criminalized public protest, eviscerated civil liberty laws, engaged in torture, subordinated national defense and international affairs to Washington's Imperial whims, and turned the nation into a quasi-police state, with more CCTV cameras than anywhere in the world and a 41% increase of prisoners since Labour took office.

What was Moody's Board Doing Before the Crisis?

McClatchy's News Services has an interesting article titled, Where was Moody's board when top-rated bonds blew up?

The article follows up on a series of earlier articles that they published last year, which sought to dissect the role of the bond rating agencies -namely Moody's, Fitch Rating Services, and Standard and Poor's- leading up to the Great Recession. What is virtually accepted by all parties is that these rating houses gave preferential treatment to clients and inflated the rating value on securities that have now turned out to be labelled as "toxic waste" by every financial institution in the world. As the article states, Moody's for one, "had been handing out Triple-A grades like candy for Wall Street mortgage securities that were backed by pools of home loans that turned out to be junk."

One of the questions that remains to be answered, given the outcome, is what was Moody's board doing during this period?

The article presents a business that scuttled its risk management committee, changed senior management to prevent serious questions and inquiries from being made about their "Structured Finance Division", and a boardroom filled with people either unable or unwilling to understand the activities that were generating profits for the company.

Leading up to the September 2008 Crash:

Moody's dominated the ratings for "structured finance" products — securities backed by pools of loans that are packaged together and provide a monthly income stream to investors.

The structured finance division powered Moody's revenues past the $1 billion mark in 2002, and past $2 billion in 2006. The company's stock price soared nearly six-fold between 2001 and 2007, from $12.70 to $72, which created a huge windfall for its largest shareholder, billionaire investor Warren Buffett.

The board, however, apparently had few questions on the way up — or later, on the way down, a former Moody's officials said.

Not everyone at Moody's was comfortable with the company's philosophy as the housing market began to disintegrate across America. Two executives reached out to Warren Buffett to warn him of the impending situation.  During a October 2008 House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform meeting,

Jerome Fons, a former Moody's managing director of credit policy, told lawmakers "the deterioration in standards was palpable," adding that managers "turned a blind eye to this, did not update their models or their thinking and allowed this to go on."

The article evaluates the background of the individual board members at Moody's and concludes that few of them understood or appreciated the situation.  Furthermore, none of them it appears acted with due diligence to verify that shareholder interests were being protected.

***

The whole affair stinks.  From the board room to the desk of the lowly bond rating analyst, the people within these companies lied to the general public and investors about the risk and overall value of these toxic instruments.  Why none of these fiends aren't facing criminal prosecution and SEC fraud charges is only a question that officials within the Obama administration can answer.

You may Not Patent my Genes!

In a decisive blow to the fraud-mongers in the biotech industry and US Patent office, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Sweet in New York State invalidated part of seven patents granted to Myriad on the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes. BRCA1 and BRCA2 are two alleles or variants of a tumour suppressor gene that is found in all humans and responsible, under normal situations, in removing malignancies that may arise. The BRCA1/2 mutational variants substantially increase the risk of a carrier developing breast, ovarian, prostate, pancreatic, colon, and other cancers. Based on current data, females carrying either of these two mutations, will encounter lifetime risks above normal for developing ovarian cancer at 10-20% for BRCA-2 mutations and 40-60% for BRCA-1 mutations.

USA Today outlines the discovery process of BRCA1/2:

The genes for both BRCA1 and BRCA2 were first patented by geneticist and Myriad founder Mark Skolnick, who in the 1990s began looking at detailed family histories to zero in on the genetic basis for breast cancer. Family histories helped him figure out which genes probably carried the mutations. Using gene sequencing, he found exactly where on the genes the mutations occur.

For the past twenty years, due to legal gimmickry, the biotech industry has been able to wage a concerted racket against patients and scientific advancement.

A case was filed against Myriad Genetics by the ACLU and the New York-based Public Patent Foundation on behalf of doctors, patients and several medical groups, including the Association for Molecular Pathology and the American College of Medical Genetics. To the surprise of both legal analysts and the biotech industry, Judge Sweet effectively told Myriad as described by Stanford Law Professor Hank Greely, “You didn't invent this, you didn't make it, and you shouldn't get a patent on it!"

The Judge overturned all the patent claims held by the defendant, based on the fact that they cover products of nature and abstract ideas. In his decision, Judge Sweet wrote:

The resolution of these motions is based upon long recognized principles of molecular biology and genetics: DNA represents the physical embodiment of biological information, distinct in its essential characteristics from any other chemical found in nature. It is concluded that DNA’s existence in an “isolated” form alters neither this fundamental quality of DNA as it exists in the body nor the information it encodes. Therefore, the patents at issue directed to “isolated DNA” containing sequences found in nature are unsustainable as a matter of law and are deemed unpatentable subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.

Beyond the legal arguments, there exists the practical dimension that these patents impinge on necessary scientific research, inhibit patients from effectively ascertaining their genetic profiles and evaluating treatment options, and gouge consumers with excessive charges. In the latter case, Myriad Genetics charged patients $3,000 to assess whether they were carriers of the BRCA1 or 2 alleles. Patients like Lisbeth Ceriani, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer in both of her breasts, had to wait a year and a half to find out if she needed to have her ovaries also removed, because Myriad Genetics refused to deal with her insurance company (Massachusetts MediAid), due to the low reimbursement rate provided.

The Economist magazine discussess a report published by Duke University researchers, which concludes that gene patenting and its monopoly granting status prevents access to these critical tests for many poor Americans, prevents diagnostic accountability from the monopoly providers, and hampers business innovation in the field of medical diagnostics.

Again and again, the typical business model in America is to put the profits of individual corporations over the collective needs and in this case the lives of ordinary people. My genes, your genes, or that of any organism on this planet are not for sale, nor is it the ownership of crooked scientists who have sold their souls to profit on the exploitation of the genetic commons.

Why African leaders can't be taken seriously: Part III

Last month, if one can imagine, race relations in South Africa hit a new low.

On April 3rd 2010, Eugene TerreBlanche, the country's leading white supremacist, was murdered by two of his farm workers.  Supporters of his said they would seek vengeance on greater South Africa for his murder and have warned nations not to send their athletes to the upcoming 2010 World Cup Football Games to be held there.

In the context of the murder, Mr. Julius Malema, the controversial leader of the ANC's youth league and potential future leader of the ANC party, attempted to seek short-term political gain by repeating in public an old ANC song; which if taken literally, calls for the killing of Afrikaners.  Since the end of apartheid in 1994, more than 3,000 white farmers are estimated to have been murdered.  South African courts have ruled that the song is an incitement to violence and illegal.

Malema then visited Harare, Zimbabwae, where he linked arms with Robert Mugabe, the country’s incompetent and bigoted dictator, and declared his own demands for nationalizing South Africa's mining industry and confiscating the land of white farmers, just as Mugabe had done.

 

South Africa's problems with this dunce do not end there.  In an interview with International journalists at ANC headquarters in Johannesburg, Malema publicly accusing BBC reporter, Jonah Fisher, of exhibiting "white tendency" then calling him a "bastard", "bloody agent" and "small boy".  The BBC reporter was then told by Malema to leave the press conference.

According to the Guardian UK newspaper, the dispute between Mr. Malema and the reporter began when:

Malema, who has just returned from Zimbabwe, praised Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party and poured scorn on the "Mickey Mouse" opposition. He mocked exiles linked to the Movement for Democratic Change, led by Zimbabwe's prime minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, for using offices in Sandton, a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg.

Current South African President, Jacob Zuma, who I have ridiculed for his corruption and incompetence (here), was forced to publicly rebuke his unstable lieutenant; although in the meekest of terms.  Feckless ANC leaders condemned Zuma for merely saying that leaders must “think before they speak, as their utterances have wider implications for the country.”  Bloomberg news service is reporting,

Malema’s supporters will tell Zuma at an ANC national working committee meeting scheduled for April 19 that he was wrong to reprimand Malema in public... The ANC is divided on the issue and Zuma’s actions will be defended by the party’s military veterans association and the ANC Women’s League president, it said.

What future can South Africa have, when such flamboyantly idiotic and incompetent leaders are posed to seize control of the nation?

Capital G Award: Big Pharma, Agents for Fraud

Fraud is one of big-Pharma’s most profitable endeavours. Just consider Pfizer Inc., which is the world’s largest pharmaceutical company with approximately $50 Billion in annual revenue. This past September (2009), BusinessWeek reported that Pfizer, “plead guilty to one felony count to settle federal criminal and civil charges that it illegally promoted its Bextra painkiller and other drugs.” The admission of guilt comes with the largest criminal fine ever imposed in US history; $2.3 Billion. Pfizer will pay a criminal fine of $1.195 Billion, $1 Billion to resolve civil claims, and will enter a corporate integrity agreement with US HHS, which will monitor the company’s future marketing activities.

The same BusinessWeek article summarizes the underlying rational for the 2009 fines:

The settlement stems from a four-year investigation instigated by six whistleblowers, who between them will receive $102 million from the federal fines. The complaint charged that Pfizer sent doctors on all-expense-paid trips to resorts, gave out free massages, and paid kickbacks to doctors, all to get them to prescribe its drugs for off-label uses. Although it is legal for physicians to write such prescriptions, and a common practice, companies are barred from actually promoting their drugs for purposes other than those that have won Food & Drug Administration approval.

Pfizer however, has proven itself to be a recalcitrant corporate criminal, with no less than four additional settlements since 2002 resulting in $513 million in fines.

This past March, Pfizer was found guilty by an eight person jury for “engaged in a racketeering conspiracy over a 10-year period” Evidence provided during the trial found that Pfizer’s own studies showed that the drug in question, Neurontin, was completely ineffective and had no more effect than a placebo; a fact which Pfizer never disclosed to either doctors or patients. The jury described the activities conducted by Pfizer as pure fraud, a violation of RICO statutes, and California’s Unfair Competition Law. Under RICO, the initial damages found by the jury -$47.36 million- were tripled; i.e. $142.1 million in total.

Lawyers for the plaintiff, Kaiser-Permanente of California, described the verdict as a “triumph for evidence-based medicine over marketing-based medicine.”

Pfizer isn’t alone it is morbid fascination with bilking the sick and pushing useless products onto desperate people. Since May 2004, Pfizer, Eli Lilly & Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. and four other drug companies have paid a total of $7 Billion in fines and penalties. Six of the companies admitted in court that they marketed medicines for unapproved uses.

Eli Lilly, an American based pharmaceutical company with annual revenue of $20 Billion was charged and fined by the US government $1.42 Billion, for bribing doctors to prescribe a schizophrenia drug, Zyprexa, to elderly patients suffering from dementia, despite clinical trial data, which indicating a death rate of 31 people out of 1,184 participants (double the placebo rate). Bloomberg News describes that, “Lilly already had a criminal conviction for misbranding a drug when it broke the law again in promoting schizophrenia drug Zyprexa for off-label uses starting in 1999.”

In September 2007, New York-based Bristol-Myers paid $515 million -without admitting or denying wrongdoing- to federal and state governments in a civil lawsuit brought by the Justice Department.

Impact of Fines

The deterrence factor of imposing these fines, even those in the Billon dollar range, is in question. For example, Zyprexa provided Lilly with $36 Billion in revenue from 2000 to 2008. A fine of a Billion dollars does not offset the profits to be made from off-label marketing. Bloomberg further elaborates:

The $2.3 Billion in fines and penalties Pfizer paid for marketing Bextra and three other drugs cited in the Sept. 2 plea agreement for off-label uses amount to just 14 percent of its $16.8 Billion in revenue from selling those medicines from 2001 to 2008.

The total of $2.75 Billion Pfizer has paid in off-label penalties since 2004 is a little more than 1 percent of the company’s revenue of $245 Billion from 2004 to 2008.

Lon Schneider, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine, states that Big-Pharma won’t stop pursuing this strategy of fraud and deceit. He argues that, “They’re drivers that knowingly speed. If stopped, they pay the fine, and then they do it again.”

UK Conservative Party Candidate Believes Gays are Possessed!

Today's Guardian newspaper has a story that speaks about the bizarre socio-political beliefs of Mrs. Philippa Stroud, who is "a high-flying prospective Conservative MP, credited with shaping many of the [Conservative] party's social policies, [and] founded a church that tried to 'cure' homosexuals by driving out their 'demons' through prayer."

As ridiculous as the claims appear, Ms. Stroud is not being misrepresented by the center-left newspaper.  In her book, God's Heart for the Poor, she discusses how to deal with people showing signs of "demonic activity". For example, an excerpt below should provide any rational person evidence of her enlightened state of mind:

One girl lived in the hostel for some time, became a Christian, then choked to death on her own vomit after a drinking bout. Her life had changed to some extent, but we wondered whether God knew that she hadn't the will to stick with it and was calling her home.

They wondered if an omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent deity, who supposedly created this woman and for whatever reasons allowed her to become possessed, knew the girl was a "loser" to which they could not cure.

I realize that this is election season in the UK and these outcropping of absurdity are bound to avail themselves.  However, these religious fanatics, election time or not, aren't doing anyone a favor by proselytizing this rubbish and engaging in what is clearly psychological abuse. 

The fact that this woman is not your average nutter, but a prominent member of the Conservative Party and a close confident of David Cameron, the Conservative party's leader, should convince everyone that these jackasses will never change and need to be permanently exiled to some Scottish island in the North Sea, where they can believe all the dogmatic malarkey they wish and practice their bizarro-land witchcraft preferably on their own rancid offspring or a stray local goat.

Religious frauds are a danger to us all.  And if 9-11 has taught anyone anything, it is the portentous evil that can be caused by zealots of all stripes advancing their religious objectives upon civilized people.

You should know Nick Clegg and the Lib Dems

For Americans, Nick Clegg, the leader of the UK"s Liberal Democratic Party, remains a nobody.  After all who in the land of rape and honey would know about the leader of a party which at the dissolvement of parliament held a meager 3rd place standing in Westminster?  However, something extraordinary has happened since the first television debate held between the three leading parties a couple of weeks ago to which all persons in the West should be aware of. 

The people of Britain, who to this day remain weary of the Thatcherites and the mealy-mouth platitudes of the Conservative party and have grown equally unsatisfied with the perennial deceit of New Labour, decided that maybe it was time to give someone else a chance at governing.  The Liberal Democrats in the past few weeks have rocketed in national polls from 3rd place standing  to overtake both the Conservatives and Labour at different times.

Unlike the twedledum and twedledee politics of Labour and the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats have embraced real ideas and proposed real changes to make the UK a better and different place.  As today's Observer newspaper states,

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil liberties, alone in opposing the Iraq war.

However, it is Mr. Clegg who has infused the imagination of those who dare to think that the lesser of two evils is no longer an acceptable choice.  Unlike the slick talking David Cameron, leader of the Conservatives, and the woefully dour Mr. Brown of Labour, Mr. Clegg appeared during those debates to be a very rare type of politician: a man with principles who could generally be described as decent. The Observer editorial elaborates,

Mr Clegg's mettle cannot be fully tested until he is in office. But he did manage, in the televised leaders' debates, to articulate sensible, liberal positions on immigration and on European integration that many Labour ministers might share but would be afraid to express. He resisted the temptations of casual populism and stated his case with passion and clarity.

On this side of the Atlantic, Andrew Sullivan's blog has been providing us with many key quotes and analysis during the British election.  Yesterday, he posited a quote made by Mr. Clegg that I thought was beyond anything I have heard from any serious politician during an election:

Every time I go back to Beckett he seems more subversive, not less; his works make me feel more uncomfortable than they did before. The unsettling idea, most explicit in Godot, that life is habit – that it is all just a series of motions devoid of meaning – never gets any easier.

It's that willingness to question the things the rest of us take for granted that I admire most about Beckett; the courage to ask questions that are dangerous because, if the traditions and meanings we hold so dear turn out to be false, what do we do then?

But amid the bleakness, there is also humour, and it's no surprise that there are so many comedians among Beckett's fans. His appeal lies in his directness – the sparse, unembellished prose that can make his meticulous stage directions unexpected. He leaves you with a sense that you knew what he meant, even if explaining it back would leave you lost for words. Direct and disturbing – it is impossible to grow tired of Beckett.

Can you imagine George W. Bush and his armada of maladroits possibly contemplating Beckett, much less philosophizing on the inherent existential meanings of his work?  In America, politicians that don't spout prefabricated and dogmatic responses are feared as subversive elite who couldn't possibility understand the woes of self-absorbed fatties who blame the world for their ills!

The people of the UK have a once in a lifetime chance to simultaneously throw-the-bums-out and reform their government while embracing modernity, everyday environmentalism, and pro-Europeanism in a single vote.  I wish them and Nick Clegg much luck on Thursday.

Deepwater Horizon: Spill, baby, Spill...

"Every asshole who ever chanted 'Drill baby drill' should have to report to the Gulf coast today for cleanup duty." - Bill Maher

On April 20th 2010 the Deepwater Horizon, an offshore drilling platform located approximately 80 kilometres off the Louisiana coast, was critically damaged by an explosion.   Eleven workers were lost at sea and are presumed dead.  Initial estimates provided by operators of the platform stated that the rig may have had as much as 700,000 gallons of diesel on board and 1,000 barrels a day of petroleum were leaking out of the broken wellhead.

Two days after the initial explosion the entire platform sunk.   New assessments indicate that the amount of petroleum leaking out of the ruptured wellhead is approximately 5,000 barrels a day; five times the original estimate.  At least six million litres of petroleum have spilled so far, according to U.S. Coast Guard, making this incident the worst U.S. oil spill since the infamous Exxon Valdez.  In addition, millions of animals, including 1.8 million migratory waterfowl, are at risk.  The potential environmental/economic damage extends across the entire aquatic zone adjacent to the Louisiana coast, which is abundant in shrimp, oysters and other marine life.  The state's aquaculture industry, the largest in the lower 48 states, is worth $1.8-billion annually.

News reports are emerging that BP (the facility’s operator) de-emphasized the risk of a catastrophe in risk analysis’ it submitted to the U.S. government as recently as last year.  BP claimed that it was
"unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur" and in the event of such an unlikely situation, "due to the distance to shore and the response capabilities that would be implemented, no significant adverse impacts are expected."  As of today, the oil mass has already reached the Louisiana shoreline and substantial levels of heavy oil contained within a 1,500 square kilometer oil slick is anticipated to wash ashore in Mississippi on Saturday, before reaching Alabama on Sunday, and Florida on Monday.

According to the federal Minerals Management Service, since 2001 there have been 69 offshore deaths, 1,349 injuries, and 858 fires and explosions in the American controlled Gulf of Mexico.   Occupational health and safety management under the previous Bush administration was neutered.  Republican hacks, corporate yes-men, and people who had spent their entire careers fighting OSHA were placed in positions of authority.  Policies were then created to allow industries to set their own standards of compliance.   A culture of indifference to human life and the environment, which was the trademark of the "toxic Texan", became the national standard.

With the actual consequences of Mr. Bush’s deregulatory framework and anti-environment policies becoming clearer, the dunces of the Republican Party, who made "Drill baby drill" their call to arms during the 2008 federal election, have suddenly gone silent on this issue.  The Wasilla whack-job (Ms. Palin) has yet to provide an intelligent response to the catastrophic risk she demanded Americans accept so that they could drive their Hummers and fat-asses to their anti-tax and anti-government Tea Party rallies.

Mr. Obama on the other hand, who during his election campaign vigorously defended the position that no offshore drilling should be permitted on America’s coastlines, reversed himself several weeks earlier and allowed Atlantic drilling to proceed in an attempt to garner the support of Republicans for the passage of a global warming bill.  The hypocrisy and sheer spinelessness of this president to abandon the principles for which he was elected to execute is staggering.  Unlike the daft feces-throwing monkeys of the Republican Party, Mr. Obama promised America he would deliver real change and not simply continue on with the policies of the most hated administration in the history of the nation.

The damage is now done.  Millions of litres of toxic sludge will continue to contaminate the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the shorelines of the Southern states.  Wildlife will die, ecosystems will be destroyed, and the lives and welfare of those people and communities that depend on these commons will be decimated.