One more picture to add to the March 20th Day of Protest... Taos, New Mexico, where my brother was, and where they built this lovely papier mache statue of Donald Rumsfeld riding a missile. Enjoy!

  ¶ 12:59 PM

  There has never been a hurricane in the South Atlantic before....

UNTIL TODAY.



For more on this subject, see the articles on climate change compiled HERE

or see the website for the upcoming climate-change disaster movie THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW

  ¶ 11:03 AM

  Richard Clarke, the counter-terrorism expert who has been serving White Houses since Reagan, is currently exposing bu$hCo for what it is: the worst presidency, ever, not only when it comes to the environment and our economy, but also when it comes to protecting us from attack.

But that's not why I'm blogging...

I'm blogging because Clarke did the ONE THING that no one in any position of power and responsibility has done to date: he APOLOGIZED.

CLARKE (before the senate 9/11 panel, before an audience of the families of victims): "I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11. To them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. And for that failure, I would ask -- once all the facts are out -- for your understanding and for your forgiveness."

As you probably know, these hearings are happening because of the perseverence of the families of the victims of 9/11, who have been, as a group, treated like absolute shit by our government, stonewalled and refused in their search for answers.

The oddest thing about these 9/11 hearings is that they're happening in 2004, and not in 2002, and only because the powers that be have stalled them for this long.

In my opinion, our government doesn't want us to have answers; they don't want us to participate in reasoned analysis: it is far more politically useful to keep us in a state of disoriented, irrational FEAR, which is exactly where they've tried to keep us for the past two and a half years.

I think I speak for us all when I say, fuck fear.

Thank you, Richard Clarke, for having the honesty and the character to not blame but to accept responsibility and to apologize.  ¶ 8:47 AM

  from Jim Hightower's "common-sense commentaries":

A CORPORATION THAT BREAKS THE GREED MOLD
3/18/2004

Do big time CEOs – no matter how compassionate and cuddly they might be personally – have to be SOBs on the job?

Yes, says the conventional wisdom of greater CorporateWorld. The bottom-line dictates that wages and benefits be slashed and that offshoring be pursued with a vengeance. It's not personal, just business. "Look Ye to Wal-mart," boom the Market Gods, directing CEOs to follow the anti-labor, low-wage, no benefit, move-it-all-to-China ethic of this giant. The gods decree that no one can out-compete Wal-Mart, so best to imitate the beast.

Apparently, Jim Sinegal has been going to the wrong church. He's CEO of Costco, the profitable warehouse club retailer that's fast growing across the country. He takes a shockingly heretical view of his job, boasting of his company's fair treatment of employees: "We pay much better than Wal-Mart," Sinegal says. "That's not altruism. It's good business."

Indeed, Costco's pay is much, much, much better – a full-time Costco clerk or warehouse worker earns more than $41,000 a year, plus getting terrific health-care coverage. Wal-Mart workers get barely a third of that pay, plus a lousy health-care plan. Costco even has unions!

Yet, Costco's labor costs are only about half of Wal-Mart's. How's that possible? One reason is that Costco workers feel valued, which adds enormously to their productivity, and they don't leave – employee turnover is a tiny fraction of Wal-Mart's rapidly revolving door.

Another thing Sinegal rejects is offshoring: "We could move [some operations] to Bangladesh or somewhere. But what kind of message would that send to our employees? Not a good one, I think."

While Wal-Mart makes twice as much profit as Costco, Sinegal believes its better business to make a nice profit, but not a killing, and to invest more in Costco's 92,000 workers. "I don't see what's wrong with an employee earning enough to be able to buy a house or having a health plan for the family," he says.

  ¶ 10:59 AM