Last month, the industry claimed a victory when President Bush signed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, which gives federal authorities enhanced powers to prosecute animal-rights activists for certain offenses. (The act defines “animal enterprise” as any “commercial or academic enterprise that uses or sells animals or animal products for profit, food or fiber production, agriculture, research or testing.”)
SANTIAGO, Chile, Dec. 19 — Gen. Augusto Pinochet died this month without ever being held legally accountable for human rights abuses that occurred during his dictatorship. But his subordinates are now facing a new threat: President Michelle Bachelet is pushing to invalidate an amnesty law that for nearly 30 years has exempted them from prosecution on murder and torture charges. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/world/americas/24chile.html?th&emc=th
A good example for the United States.
When you put people in survival situations, it doesn’t take long for their thinking to change to what they perceive as supporting survival. Our troops in Iraq have been under that kind of pressure from the beginning, with no end in sight.
The Iraq war and the several other wars (mentioned and unmentioned) since the mid-1960’s have one overarching characteristic that distinguishes them from all the previous conflicts fought by the US military: largely-disaffected indigenous populations that are willing to fight. In the case of Iraq, that circumstance is exacerbated by a readiness–not to say eagerness–to die as well. Not even in Vietnam, where there was always the odd chance that someone would toss a grenade into a restaurant, did our troops have to fear the faceless, fight the invisible, and sustain most of their casualties without warning, and with no way of fighting back.
Imagine, if you can, a situation where, at any time during your workday, there was a fair chance that you and/or several of your coworkers could without warning be maimed or killed by faulty office equipment. Imagine that this could happen at any time. Imagine further that remaining in your job, in that place, was the only way that you could 1) support your family, and 2) stay out of jail.
Imagine that when you took the job you were told that there could be some danger, but that you would be exposed to it for only a short time–probably not at all–and that after you had your turn you could leave for a safer position and someone else would take your place if workers were still needed.
Imagine that you were assured that you would have the best possible equipment to protect you from the hazards. Imagine that your superiors not only reneged on that, but told you that you couldn’t even leave the job when your contract expired. Imagine that when you finally were permitted a respite, after a few weeks or months they sent you back to the same office and the same old hazardous working conditions that previously obtained, if not worse.
Imagine that this job required you to leave a different job that you had chosen as a career, and work for lower pay and much longer working hours.
Imagine that you also had to leave your family, and live in conditions that were terribly substandard.
Imagine that you and your coworkers were losing marriages, businesses and other opportunities, for the privilege of “serving” your current employer.
Finally, imagine that those responsible for the dilemma showed little or no concern for your plight, problems or well being, and that your superiors were much busier sucking up to the people who would offer them cushy jobs after retirement than they were in looking out for your interests.
Imagine that the executives cut your benefits whenever they could.
How do you imagine you’d feel? Don’t say, “Well, they volunteered,” answer the question. How…do…you…think…you’d…feel?
These people’s lives–personal and emotional–have been affected and, in many cases, ruined permanently. Divorces are forever. Post Traumatic Stress is forever. Lost businesses, lost income and lost opportunities are forever. Their lives are completely out of their control, and they have no way to (legally) change their situations. Even desertion is essentially impossible, due to the location.
Is it any wonder that some of them lash out? Is it any wonder that they discharge their frustration, rage and fear inappropriately? There is no appropriate way. Is it any wonder that they project the hatred of their circumstances, their fear and their xenophobia onto the only targets available? Is it any wonder that sometimes it gets completely out of control?
The wonder is that it happens as seldom as it seems to.
I believe in compassion. I think the concept of “battlefield ethics” is obscene, as are battlefields and those who cause them. I do not in any way condone the actions of those who lost control.
Nor do I wonder why.
The Toyota Motor Company of Japan issued a 2007 forecast Friday that would make it first in global sales, ahead of General Motors, which has been the world’s biggest auto company since 1931.
Toyota, which had not even built its first automobile back then, expects to sell 9.34 million vehicles next year. That would exceed the 9.2 million vehicles that G.M. expects to sell worldwide this year.
G.M. has not issued its own forecast for 2007, but it is on a downward trajectory, closing factories and eliminating thousands of jobs, both in the United States and Europe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/business/worldbusiness/23toyota.html?th&emc=th
I know what, everybody! Let’s vote a Republican administration in again — and for good measure, let’s give them control of Congress, too. They can’t even support American business with a two trillion dollar deficit!
Not that I feel badly for GM — they brought it on with their own greed — but I feel sorry for all the folks who’ll be out of their (admittedly overpaid) jobs. Except for the ones who voted for the Bushies. Them…I just feel sorry for their kids, who’ll have to scrape, and save, and then help support them in their old age.
WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — The Democrats taking over the Congressional appropriations committees next year have boldly pledged to place a moratorium on earmarks, the pet spending items that individual lawmakers insert into major spending bills behind the scenes.
But like much resolute talk in the Capitol, the declaration may not have the sweeping effect that the plan’s backers have suggested and its critics have denounced. Although earmarks figured prominently in some recent Congressional bribery scandals, they have also become cherished instruments of political power, used by party leaders to reward or punish members and by incumbents to buy good will among their constituents.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/23/washington/23earmarks.html?th&emc=th
OK folks! Instead of forwarding all those useless, out-of-date emails about little Sally May’s cancer, why not write ONE REAL LETTER to your congressperson?
GALLUP, N.M., Dec. 20 – Earl Milford put up an artificial Christmas tree in the wooden house on the Navajo reservation near here that he shares with a son and daughter-in-law and their two little girls. But money is scarce and so are presents.
“It’s all right,” he said, “they know I love them.”
Mr. Milford is chronically broke because each month, in what he calls “my ritual,” he travels 30 miles to Gallup and visits 16 storefront money-lending shops. Mr. Milford, who is 59 and receives a civil service pension and veteran’s disability benefits, doles out some $1,500 monthly to the lenders just to cover the interest on what he had intended several years ago to be short-term “payday loans.”
Source: Seductively Easy, Payday Loans Often Snowball – New York Times
The lenders’ argument is that it helps people over rough spots, and the state regulates it so it must be OK. Mine is that it prevents people from exploring other avenues, and the state can easily be bought.
Christmas travel chaos continues
Restrictions have been put on flights because of poor visibility
Christmas travellers have endured a third day of misery as thick fog caused flight cancellations and delays, but the weather should improve on Saturday.
More than 300 flights were cancelled at Heathrow on Friday, including all British Airways domestic flights.
SPAIN DONATES $700 MILLION TO ADVANCE MILLENIUM GOALSS
NEW YORK, New York, December 22, 2006 (ENS) – The government of Spain has donated $700 million to help achieve the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight globally agreed targets that aim to improve environmental conditions, combat poverty, and encourage democracy by 2015.
RARE MONGOOSE PHOTOGRAPHED IN TANZANIAN HIGHLANDS 
NEW YORK, New York, December 22, 2006 (ENS) – A camera trap set by scientists in the mountains of southern Tanzania has recorded Africa’s least-known and rarest carnivore – the Jackson’s mongoose, known only from a few observations and museum specimens.
BEIJING, China, December 22, 2006 (ENS) – Tens of thousands of letters from concerned animal lovers around the world and across China have persuaded Chinese President Hu Jintao to halt a national anti-dog crackdown.
Check out the new old essays in Nostalgia. Click here, or on the link in the masthead.
“I like that he gave her a second chance. It shows that people should get second chances.”
~~ A former Miss USA, commenting on Donald Trump’s forgiveness of Tara What’s-her-name.
I like it that she was making out with another beauty queen in public. It shows that people should make out with beauty queens in public. (They really don’t breed them for brains, do they?)
Goode told Fox News he believes the U.S. needs to “totally stop illegal immigration, reduce legal immigration and do away with diversity visas,” which he described as an effort to increase the number of non-European immigrants in the United States.
Virgil Goode noted that members of Congress don’t actually put their hands on a Bible at their official oath-taking. They simply raise their hands and recite the oath of office. Later, at ceremonial swearing-ins, lawmakers may place their hands on Bibles – or in Ellison’s case, the Koran.
Goode said he’s not in favor of prohibiting Ellison from bringing in a Koran – but he would like to restrict immigration “so that we don’t have a majority of Muslims elected to the United States House of Representatives. Congressman On Guard Against Muslim Majority in Congress — 12/22/2006
If our country has reached a point where an idiot like this can be elected to Congress, we’re probably already beyond help or hope.
DENVER — Facing the barbs of the insatiable media, Sylvester Stallone is as gracious and imperturbable in answering all questions as Rocky was deflecting the insults of classless opponents.
With the sixth “Rocky” in theaters, Stallone at 60 knows full well many critics label him a one-note writer and actor.
No one will cry for Stallone, with his millions in crafty percentage deals, but he can be called a victim of his own success: Thirty years ago, he wrote and starred in one of the iconic American movies, and as Stallone put it in a Denver interview, “therein lies a dilemma.”
deals, but he can be called a victim of his own success: Thirty years ago, he wrote and starred in one of the iconic American movies, and as Stallone put it in a Denver interview, “therein lies a dilemma.”
ROME, Dec. 21 – Piergiorgio Welby, who had eloquently begged Italy’s leaders to let him end his life legally, died late Wednesday after a doctor sedated him and removed the respirator that had kept him alive for nine years.
But Mr. Welby, 60, an advocate of euthanasia who had muscular dystrophy for 40 years, died without the legal clarity he had hoped to achieve. His decision to be removed from the respirator seemed to be a final challenge, which was quickly taken up in this Roman Catholic country with a deep institutional opposition to euthanasia.
Source: Italian Poet Dies With Help From a Doctor – New York Times
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told The Associated Press on Thursday that Iraq is “worth the investment” in American lives and dollars. Star-Telegram | 12/22/2006 | Rice says Iraq is worth the sacrifice of lives and money
Why wouldn’t she? They’re not the lives of anyone she knows, and you can believe that very little of it is her money. Well, there’s common human decency — but then, she’s part of the Bush Administration.
