May 27, 2012

How to Forget on Memorial Day: Whistling Past the Graveyard of Empires

from TomDispatch:



How to Forget on Memorial Day
Whistling Past the Graveyard of Empires

By Tom Engelhardt


It’s the saddest reading around: the little announcements that dribble out of the Pentagon every day or two -- those terse, relatively uninformative death notices: rank; name; age; small town, suburb, or second-level city of origin; means of death (“small arms fire,” “improvised explosive device,” “the result of gunshot wounds inflicted by an individual wearing an Afghan National Army uniform,” or sometimes something vaguer like “while conducting combat operations,” “supporting Operation Enduring Freedom,” or simply no explanation at all); and the unit the dead soldier belonged to. They are seldom 100 words, even with the usual opening line: “The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.” Sometimes they include more than one death.

They are essentially bureaucratic notices designed to draw little attention to themselves. Yet cumulatively, in their hundreds over the last decade, they represent a grim archive of America’s still ongoing, already largely forgotten second Afghan War, and I’ve read them obsessively for years.

Into the Memory Hole

May is the official month of remembrance when it comes to our war dead, ending as it does on the long Memorial Day weekend when Americans typically take to the road and kill themselves and each other in far greater numbers than will die in Afghanistan. It’s a weekend for which the police tend to predict rising fatalities and news reports tend to celebrate any declines in deaths on our roads and highways.

Quiz Americans and a surprising number undoubtedly won’t have thought about the “memorial” in Memorial Day at all -- especially now that it’s largely a marker of the start of summer and an excuse for cookouts. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175546/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_the_road_to_amnesia/#more

May 27, 2012

Fox News Viewers (cartoon)

May 27, 2012

McDonald's, the meat industry, and chickens (from Food, Inc)

From Food, Inc. The history of McDonald's, how the top meat companies control 80% of the market, and how the chicken has been changed to grow faster and larger.

May 27, 2012

Beryl-ing toward the coast

from weather.com:



Subtropical Storm Beryl is headed for landfall Sunday evening near the border of Georgia and Florida. No significant strengthening is expect before Beryl moves onshore. Below is an outline of what we expect.



Sunday: Bands of rain and gusty winds will arrive prior to landfall along the Georgia and northern Florida coastline. The entire Southeast coast can expect another day with a dangerous rip current threat. Some beaches have actually closed due to the rip current danger (see rip current safety tips). Tropical storm warnings remain in place from northern Florida to southwestern South Carolina.

Memorial Day: Beryl weakens inland over far north Fla. or extreme south Ga. Lighter south-southeast lingering breezes from northeast/east-central Fla. coast to S.C., & N.C. coasts. Showers and thunderstorms, particularly in northern Florida and southeast Georgia.



Tuesday-Wednesday: Beryl will begin to make a move northeastward as a dip in the jet stream arrives from the nation's midsection. This should move Beryl from out of northern Florida or southern Georgia to near the Carolina coastline where locally heavy rain is expected. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.weather.com/news/weather-hurricanes/depression-storm-beryl-20120526

May 27, 2012

Too Dry in the Great Lakes state

NEWBERRY, Mich. -- A fast-moving wildfire fed by dry conditions in Michigan's Upper Peninsula continued to burn Saturday, consuming nearly 20,000 acres and prompting evacuations of homes and sections of a state park, officials said.

The Michigan Department of Natural Resources said the blaze it's calling the Duck Lake Fire was in an area of Luce County north of Newberry that includes Lake Superior State Forest land. It was detected Wednesday after a lightning strike and intensified Thursday, scorching the tops of jack pine trees as flames hurtled northward.

The fire nearly doubled in size and reached Lake Superior's southern shore Friday, said Ed Golder, DNR spokesman. It was being compared to the Sleeper Lake Fire of 2007, which burned more than 18,000 acres in the same area.

"The whole sky is just smoke," said Beverly Holmes, Newberry village manager, who was driving on a highway east of town. "It's like a heavy fog." ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.weather.com/news/wildfire-michigan-20120526

May 27, 2012

Noam Chomsky: More rights than people (THE CORPORATION)

The Corporation is a 2003 Canadian documentary film written by Joel Bakan, and directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott. The documentary is critical of the modern-day corporation, considering its legal status as a class of person and evaluating its behaviour towards society and the world at large as a psychiatrist might evaluate an ordinary person

May 27, 2012

How the Post Office Is Being Destroyed By a Phony Budget Crisis

from OnTheCommons.org:



How the Post Office Is Being Destroyed By a Phony Budget Crisis
Congress, not the post office itself, is the problem

May 25, 2012 | by David Morris


As every 6 year old learns, there is real and there is make believe. The massive Post Office deficit that is driving its management to commit institutional suicide by ending 6-day mail delivery, closing half of the nations’ 30,000 or so post offices and half it’s 500 mail processing centers, and laying off over 200,000 workers, is make believe.

Here’s why. In 1969 the federal government changed the way it did accounting. It began to use what was and is called a unified budget that includes trust funds like social security previously considered off budget because they were self-sustaining through dedicated revenue.

At that time the Post Office was, as it had been since 1792, a department of the federal government like the Department of Energy or the Department of Agriculture. While generating most of its revenue from postage it also received significant Congressional appropriations.

In 1970 Congress transformed the Post Office into the U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The new quasi-public agency was intended to put the Postal Office on a more business like footing. The Postal Service was given was allowed to borrow to make needed capital investments and was given more flexibility in how it spent its money. In return Congress required the Postal Service to become self-sufficient. The subsidy, at that time running about 15 percent of total revenues (close to $10 billion a year in 2012) was phased out over the next 15 years. After the mid 1980s the only taxpayer funds involved in the Post Office, amounting today to $100 million a year, subsidizes mail for the blind and official mail to overseas voters. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://onthecommons.org/magazine/how-post-office-being-destroyed-phony-budget-crisis

May 27, 2012

Fast-food burgers have tripled in size since the 1950s

from Grist:



Fast-food burgers have tripled in size since the 1950s
By Jess Zimmerman





According to this chart from the CDC, fast-food burgers have more than tripled in size since the 1950s, going from four ounces (i.e. a quarter pound) to a whopping 12. And if you think that’s bad, the average soda is six times as big as it used to be.

I don’t know what’s worse, the idea that we’re eating three times as much unsustainably raised snout-meat, or the idea that we’re throwing the overage out and thus wasting tons more food. It’s probably some of both, and neither is great.

Obviously a lot of people, even conscientious people, will eat fast food sometimes, for reasons of convenience or finance or being stuck at a rural rest stop and not really having a choice. I hear some people even like the taste and occasionally eat it deliberately. But just be aware that when you eat that McDonald’s meal, you’re actually essentially eating three of them.


http://grist.org/list/fast-food-burgers-have-tripled-in-size-since-the-1950s/

May 27, 2012

Toronto: G20 senior commander facing misconduct charges for ordering U of T mass arrest

(Toronto Star) Toronto police Insp. Gary Meissner is facing disciplinary action for ordering the early-morning raid and unlawful mass arrests at the University of Toronto during the G20 summit two years ago, the Star has learned.

In a 120-page report, the province’s police complaint’s watchdog alleges Meissner was responsible for one of the most embarrassing errors committed by police during the G20. On June 27, 2010, he failed to obtain a proper warrant before officers under his command barged into a U of T gym and arrested more than 100 people — all of whom later had their charges withdrawn due to the oversight. In a report dated March 2011, a House of Commons standing committee condemned the U of T operation.

While it has been previously reported that Meissner is one of two senior Toronto police officers facing misconduct hearings, it was unclear what the allegations were against him until now. He was also in charge of deploying the Long Range Acoustic Device (LRAD) at Queen’s Park.

The Office of the Independent Police Review Director is recommending charges be laid against Meissner under the Police Services Act. The charges are not criminal and Meissner has not yet had the opportunity to defend himself against the allegations. If the charges are upheld, penalties range from docked pay to termination. .................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.thestar.com/news/article/1197157--g20-senior-commander-facing-misconduct-charges-for-ordering-u-of-t-mass-arrest?bn=1

May 27, 2012

Raj Patel: Treaty Like It’s 1999: Connecting the Dots on Trade

from YES! Magazine:



Treaty Like It’s 1999: Connecting the Dots on Trade
From Japan, Raj Patel on the expansion of the Trans-Pacific trade agreement and the homegrown battle to stop it.

by Raj Patel
posted May 25, 2012


Although it seems they fell out of fashion after the 1999 WTO protests, trade agreements are still being drafted. Every few months, urged by chambers of commerce and under cover of darkness, legislators ink up new pacts to make it easier for goods to flow and workers to be shed.

Last year, the US Korea Free Trade Agreement was passed. This year, making the Korea deal look piddly, the Trans-Pacific Partnership is expanding. The TPP began in 2006 as a hardcore trade agreement between the most trade-dependent countries around the Pacific: Chile, New Zealand and Singapore. Brunei joined the negotiations near their conclusion, rounding out the "Pacific 4." Their zeal to reduce tariffs, harmonize standards, and prevent subsidies goes far beyond the ambitions of the World Trade Organization. And now six other countries want in: the U.S., Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam.

In part, the reason that news about trade agreements doesn’t hit front pages is because, er, it’s news about trade agreements. Not the stuff of which editors’ dreams are made. But just because the agreements don’t make the front pages doesn’t mean that people haven’t heard the news. There have been protests against the TPP across the Asia-Pacific region. And at the protests, people are connecting the dots. Like here in Okinawa, Japan.

This month, I visited a rally commemorating the 40th anniversary of this small Pacific island being transferred from the U.S. to Japan. Although Japan runs the prefecture, there’s a rather large U.S. base still here. And there were plenty of people ready to make the connection between an oppressive base and an oppressive trade agreement. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/treaty-like-its-1999