Mar 28 2008
Siberia is melting fast and so is Antarctica
Fox news: Democrats are mommies, Republicans are daddies
No frogs + no bats = serious bug problems
Dolphins give their girlfriends flowers too
Velorution (why doesn’t my school do this?)
Follow the money - which politicians get money from oil companies
The music biz and the moral high ground
Aug 19 2007
Rachel Carson inspired the environmental movement with her book Silent Spring
Sen. Tom Coburn derailed approval of a Senate resolution honoring the life of Carson, whose 1962 book “Silent Spring” warned of the dangers posed to wildlife and humans by the pesticide DDT and who is credited with inspiring the modern environmental movement.
“Rachel Carson’s work both directly and indirectly created a climate of hysteria and misinformation about the impact of DDT on the human populations,” said John Hart, a spokesman for Coburn, in explaining why the Oklahoma Republican withheld his support for the plan to honor her.
And we wonder why it’s so hard to get people moving on issues like climate change. This guy wants to bring widespread DDT use back. Of course, he probably recognizes the dangers, but he’s probably getting paid to say things like this. You’d think as a doctor he’d care a little more about the health of his constituents.
Jun 04 2007
Techdirt on the US’s interpretation of free trade and what it’s doing to poorer countries:
the US is using free trade agreements around the world to force US-style intellectual property rules on the rest of the world — often at tremendous harm to those countries. It’s doubly ironic when you realize that intellectual property rules are the exact opposite of free markets. They’re government-backed monopolies that benefit the monopolists, generally at the expense of everyone else. The New Yorker piece does a good job highlighting Josh Lerner’s research that strengthening patent laws has no impact on increased innovation, and there’s almost no connection whatsoever between copyright law and creative output. In other words, the exact reason for the laws (to put in place incentives for innovation and more creative content) aren’t supported at all by history.
Go to the actual post to read about how this is impacting the third world. Our greed is disgusting.
May 27 2007
So my representative here in AZ is Rick Renzi. He’s not a good guy. And when I write him letters, his response merely reiterates his position, IF I hear back from his office at all. Right now he’s getting into even more trouble - the FBI raided his wife’s insurance company a few weeks ago. While there do seem to be a lot of politicians in trouble right now, this seems to be a pretty big deal.
The Renzi matters now are part of a formal public-corruption probe being conducted by a federal grand jury in Tucson, reports the Wall Street Journal. On Thursday of last week, that grand jury authorized a search warrant on a Renzi family-owned business in Sonoita. And, as if that were not troubling enough, Renzi’s former chief of staff is reportedly cooperating with federal investigators.In fact, there are two on-going federal investigations related to businesses owned by Renzi and family members, both first reported in October. But of the two, the investigation of Renzi’s efforts to push a sale of a 480-acre parcel of Cochise County farmland appears to be the more troubling. There’s a lot of smoke billowing up from that fallow patch of farmland.
But like a lot of republicans in trouble recently, he has a faulty memory:
Renzi’s response to these curious events? Not much directly. But there is this from former Arizona Attorney General Grant Woods, now a Renzi attorney: “(Renzi) did not know Mr. Sandlin had an interest in that land.”
May 26 2007
The Brazilian government is working hard to deal with HIV/AIDS in their country and aren’t letting the drug companies push them around.
“We consider the offer insufficient, and we told the manufacturer,” Brazil’s health minister, Jose Temporao, told Reuters on Thursday. “The decision (on whether to break the patent) is now being analyzed by the president.” Brazil offers free universal access to AIDS drugs. [link]
