While this is very disappointing, consider how readily people purchase “Whole Trade” items from Whole Foods, blissfully unaware that these are not the same as “Fair Trade” products certified by an independent organization.
Going forward, freedom from EPEAT’s constraints may mean that Apple can make decisions about its product design that would have been otherwise unfeasible—but it also means that there may not be an easy, objective way to judge the environmental factors of its future products. (via Apple and EPEAT: What it means | Macworld)
The Constitution came about precisely to enable a newly large government — a national one — to tax all Americans for the specific purpose of funding a large public debt. Neither Alexander Hamilton nor his mentor the financier Robert Morris made any bones about that purpose; James Madison was among their closest allies; and Edmund Randolph of Virginia opened the Constitutional Convention by charging the delegates to redress the country’s failure to fund — not pay off, fund — the public debt, by creating a national government.
Yesterday, the two sides actually came to blows in parliament! The government has all but ceased functioning, a constitutional crisis looms, and there are worries about armed factions relaunching the civil war that plagued the country in the early 1990s. It’s that bad. Members of parliament have started carrying guns.
The administration’s forays into civics online, as I’ve argued before, have not met the public demand for deeper interaction with elected officials.
A new report from the Institute for Policy Studies.
Reversing tax giveaways to the super-rich and the nation’s largest corporations could raise $4 trillion within a decade and avert possible government closures.
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In particular, [both TEPCO and the Japanese government] have repeatedly said that below—this is a technical figure, but below a dose of 100 millisievert, there is no risk. Sometimes they qualify it by saying there’s no immediate risk, which is perhaps technically accurate. But they have completely refused to point out that these lower levels of radiation are scientifically recognized—there’s maybe some debate—but basically, the consensus is that there’s—your risk is proportional to your dose. And that goes right down, you know, right down to the lowest doses. So, this notion that you’re somehow or other safe below 100 millisieverts is—it’s not recognized in the scientific community. The difference is that there’s no—you’re not going to get acute radiation sickness; you’re looking more at long-term effects, such as cancer. But they have just refused to give that perspective, which—you know, that’s getting to the point of being outright deceptive, I think.
An interview by A-list blogger Glenn Greenwald’s with Mother Jones reporter Mac McClelland was one of the most compelling things I listened to yesterday. According to Greenwald,
She has been particularly tenacious about chronicling the joint BP/government efforts to block media coverage of both the spill and the inadequate clean-up efforts.
What’s also interesting is her description of Gulf area local media as “freaking out,” not something we are seeing elsewhere. It’s quite clear BP is devoting greater effort to, and the government greater cooperation in, cleaning up the image than the actual spill itself.
