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WHO'S IN CHARGE HERE?
Magpie is a former journalist, attempted historian [No, you can't ask how her thesis is going], and full-time corvid of the lesbian persuasion. She keeps herself in birdseed by writing those bad computer manuals that you toss out without bothering to read them. She also blogs too much when she's not on deadline, both here and at Pacific Views.

Magpie roosts in Portland, Oregon, where she annoys her housemates (as well as her cats Medea, Whiskers, and Jane Doe) by attempting to play Irish music on the fiddle and concertina.

If you like, you can send Magpie an email!



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Saturday, April 16, 2005

Persecution complex.

The other day, we posted about the efforts of a Christian-right coalition to paint Democrats who oppose Dubya's attmempt to ram reactionary fundamentalist judges down the throat of the US Senate as being 'against people of faith.' Below you can see some of the nice propaganda being used to promote the so-called Justice Sunday.

Fundamentalist propaganda

So much for the US being a tolerant nation, eh?

If you have the stomach to look at it all, you can find out more about 'Justice Sunday' here at the website of the Family Research Council, the group organizing the event.

Via The Next Left.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:00 PM | Get permalink



Area 51.

Guess what you can look at easily, now that Google Maps lets you toggle between map view and satellite image of the same location?

We should all start looking at as much secret stuff as we can before Dubya's minions take the good things out of the satellite database.

Via little red cookbook.

| | Posted by Magpie at 7:52 PM | Get permalink



Unconfirmed reports.

A slide show of black-and-white photos, most or all of which appear to have been taken in New York City, sometime since 9/11. You must have Flash to view the show.

Recession special

The photographer does not identify herself/himself, which makes the photos even more compelling to this magpie. And sometimes, we'd add, quite unsettling.

Via Gordon.Coale.

| | Posted by Magpie at 3:38 PM | Get permalink



Ooooooh, shiny!

West African hairdressing signs!

Hair braiding, anyone?

Hair-braider's Sign by Kofi Art, Togo, c. 2004

In Africa a "barbershop" or "hair salon" may entail nothing more elaborate than a barber or hair-braider with a chair set up in the open and a signboard hanging from a tree or market stall. The signs may be painted by the barbers or hairdressers themselves, or by paid sign artists. They are intended both to identify the businesses and to advertise the services offered, depicting a catalog of intricate women's hairbraiding patterns or the latest in men's hair styles. Barbers' signs can often be dated by the hairstyles depicted - today inspired as often as not by events, styles and personalities in the USA. We find "Mike Tyson", "Mr. Tee", "House Party", and "Cocaine Cut" offered alongside such old favorites as "Nelson Mandela", "Back Bush", "Sportin' Waves" and "Boeing 707".

Via Update or Die.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:18 AM | Get permalink



Annual US terrorism report axed.

No, you cynics, that's not a report on terrorism by the US.

What we're talking about is a report issued annually since 1986 by the US State Department, called 'Patterns of Global Terrorism.' Each year's report contains a comprehensive listing of all the terrorist attacks that took place in the preceding calendar year. You might recall that there was a big stink over the report issued last year — Dubya's administration apparently undercounted terrorist incidents and deaths in order to make the 'war on terrorism' look successful.

Now we find out that the report on terrorism during 2004 isn't going to be issue. And the reason for that appears to be because the new report would have shown that terrorism in 2004 reached the highest level in two decades, continuing an increase that began (surprise!) right about time that the 'war on terrorism' was announced. The decision to kill this year's report was apparently made a few weeks ago. The US State Department says that this decision wasn't made for political reasons. And the moon is made of green cheese, too.

[Current] and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism," eliminated weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was eliminated, but said the allegation that it was done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."

According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.

The statistics didn't include attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."

The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures.

Kudos to the Counterterrism Blog, which posted about the dropping of the report well before the mainstream press found out about the story.

Via AP.

More: If you feel like perusing any of the terrorism reports issued between 1986 and 2004, there's a complete archive of PDF files here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:48 AM | Get permalink



Friday, April 15, 2005

Paid your taxes yet?

As we in the US pay our income taxes, lets take a moment to remember those poor corporations that don't make enough money to pay taxes.

Wait, you say they make lots of money, but pay off state and federal legislators so that they pass laws that relieve corporations of most obligations to pay taxes?

Got taxes?

Never mind ...

Via Project for the Old American Century.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:08 PM | Get permalink



Identity crisis.

Media critic David Folkenflik thinks that media companies are acting like corporations, not like protectors of the First Amendment. [Note to non-US readers: This constitutional amendment guarantees freedom of speech and of the press.] The results of this behavior, he suggests, are largely responsible for the lack of trust of the media among the US public.

Folkenflik cites a number of cases to prove his point, including this recent one involving Sinclair Broadcast Group:

As the trade publication Broadcasting and Cable first reported this week, former Sinclair Washington bureau chief Jon Leiberman recently had to return $1,000 in unemployment benefits to the state of Maryland.

He was indisputably jobless. Last October, after months of what he described as professional frustration, Leiberman accused company executives of political bias against Democratic presidential nominee John F. Kerry. This much I remember because the reporter made these charges in an interview with me; I was a reporter for The Baltimore Sun at the time.

But Sinclair has a strict corporate policy. No employees, even journalists, can talk to the media without explicit approval. Sinclair fired Leiberman the very day my article appeared. (The company denied there was any ideological bent in its newscasts, and said Leiberman was the biased one.)

Sinclair then held Leiberman to contractual language that blocked him from seeking a job at any television stations in the 39 markets where it has operations.

Out of work, and hampered from finding work elsewhere, Leiberman accordingly applied for unemployment benefits. And he got it -- until Sinclair challenged his right to get them. The company's challenge was successful, and Leiberman had to return the benefits he'd received.

Sinclair gave Broadcasting and Cable a report by the Maryland Department of Labor. The agency found the reporter's conduct "was either a deliberate and willful disregard of the standards of behavior which the employer has the right to expect" or "a series of repeated violations of employment rules" with a "wanton disregard" of his obligations to Sinclair.

On the face of it, the company can make the argument Leiberman broke its rules; but it's at the very least ironic. After all, reporters pursue information all the time from sources who are ostensibly restricted by similar corporate policies. Presumably that includes Sinclair reporters. (The Sinclair official designated to comment on this topic did not respond to calls from NPR in time for this column's deadline.)

The full article is worth reading — especially the example involving CNN and video news releases.

Via NPR.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:10 AM | Get permalink



Ever hear the term 'Disaster Capitalism'?

We hadn't.

But an article by Naomi Klein filled us in about the growth of an unholy alliance of the World Bank, a little-known US government agency, disaster consultants, and multinational corporations. The goal of this alliance? To 'reconstruct' countries around the world. Not to just rebuild the physical damage caused by disasters, mind you, but to rebuild the social and political fabric of nations in order to make them more 'democratic and market-oriented.' In other words, to turn them into US client states, ripe for fleecing by international banks and corporations.

Three months after the tsunami hit Aceh, the New York Times ran a distressing story reporting that "almost nothing seems to have been done to begin repairs and rebuilding." The dispatch could easily have come from Iraq, where, as the Los Angeles Times just reported, all of Bechtel's allegedly rebuilt water plants have started to break down, one more in an endless litany of reconstruction screw-ups. It could also have come from Afghanistan, where President Hamid Karzai recently blasted "corrupt, wasteful and unaccountable" foreign contractors for "squandering the precious resources that Afghanistan received in aid." Or from Sri Lanka, where 600,000 people who lost their homes in the tsunami are still languishing in temporary camps. One hundred days after the giant waves hit, Herman Kumara, head of the National Fisheries Solidarity Movement in Negombo, Sri Lanka, sent out a desperate e-mail to colleagues around the world. "The funds received for the benefit of the victims are directed to the benefit of the privileged few, not to the real victims," he wrote. "Our voices are not heard and not allowed to be voiced."

But if the reconstruction industry is stunningly inept at rebuilding, that may be because rebuilding is not its primary purpose. According to Guttal, "It's not reconstruction at all--it's about reshaping everything." If anything, the stories of corruption and incompetence serve to mask this deeper scandal: the rise of a predatory form of disaster capitalism that uses the desperation and fear created by catastrophe to engage in radical social and economic engineering. And on this front, the reconstruction industry works so quickly and efficiently that the privatizations and land grabs are usually locked in before the local population knows what hit them. Kumara, in another e-mail, warns that Sri Lanka is now facing "a second tsunami of corporate globalization and militarization," potentially even more devastating than the first. "We see this as a plan of action amidst the tsunami crisis to hand over the sea and the coast to foreign corporations and tourism, with military assistance from the US Marines...."

Now the [World Bank] is using the December 26 tsunami to push through its cookie-cutter policies. The most devastated countries have seen almost no debt relief, and most of the World Bank's emergency aid has come in the form of loans, not grants. Rather than emphasizing the need to help the small fishing communities--more than 80 percent of the wave's victims--the bank is pushing for expansion of the tourism sector and industrial fish farms. As for the damaged public infrastructure, like roads and schools, bank documents recognize that rebuilding them "may strain public finances" and suggest that governments consider privatization (yes, they have only one idea). "For certain investments," notes the bank's tsunami-response plan, "it may be appropriate to utilize private financing."

As in other reconstruction sites, from Haiti to Iraq, tsunami relief has little to do with recovering what was lost. Although hotels and industry have already started reconstructing on the coast, in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and India, governments have passed laws preventing families from rebuilding their oceanfront homes. Hundreds of thousands of people are being forcibly relocated inland, to military style barracks in Aceh and prefab concrete boxes in Thailand. The coast is not being rebuilt as it was--dotted with fishing villages and beaches strewn with handmade nets. Instead, governments, corporations and foreign donors are teaming up to rebuild it as they would like it to be: the beaches as playgrounds for tourists, the oceans as watery mines for corporate fishing fleets, both serviced by privatized airports and highways built on borrowed money.

The above is just a taste of what Klein has to say. You can read her full article here.

Via The Nation

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:05 AM | Get permalink



Actions speak louder than words.

And the upcoming action of US Senate majority leader Bill Frist speak volumes about his attitude toward any opposition to the Republican party. Frist has has agreed to a group of prominent Christian fundamentalists in a television program attacking Democrats as "against people of faith" because of their opposition to Dubya's most right-wing judicial nominees.

Fliers for the telecast, organized by the Family Research Council and scheduled to originate at a Kentucky megachurch the evening of April 24, call the day "Justice Sunday" and depict a young man holding a Bible in one hand and a gavel in the other. The flier does not name participants, but under the heading "the filibuster against people of faith," it reads: "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith."

It hasn't been that long since the Family Research Council was generally regarded as what it is: part of the extreme religious right. The fact that the leader of the majority party in the US Senate is willing to take part in a politcal venture organized by the FRC shows how far to the right the political 'mainstream' has shifted. Not to mention how low Republican are willing to go to keep their hands on all of the wheels of power.

Via NY Times. [Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:04 AM | Get permalink



You know that urban legend ...

About how the US never landed astronauts on the moon? Well, it's true.

And we can show you who really landed there:

Arrrrrrrr!

Arrrrrrrr!

Via that alphabitch.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink



With the bad news in Oregon yesterday ...

We totally missed the good news about same-sex unions from Connecticut. Luckily Jenny at Little Red Cookbook was keeping an eye out. Showing that the 'backlash' against same-sex unions isn't an irresistable force, Connecticut lawmakers are on their way to making their state the first in the US to legalize same-sex unions without being forced to do so by a court ruling.

By an 85-to-63 vote, the state House of Representatives has passed a civil union bill. Under that legislation, same-sex couples will enjoy the state and city tax benefits now given only to married hetrosexual couples, along with family-leave benefits, hospital visitation rights and other legal benefits. The state Senate has already passed a similar measure, and Gov. M. Jodi Rell says she will sign the bill into law. (Rell is a Republican, by the way.)

"It's an unbelievable victory," said Rep. Michael P. Lawlor (D), one of the bill's main supporters. "The idea that both houses endorsed this concept of civil unions is an incredible step."

The victory has not come without a price. In order to get the House to approve same-sex unions, backers had to agree to an amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman. Without that amendment, conservative lawmakers may have had enough votes to block the civil union bill.

"It's bittersweet, certainly, because of the amendment [defining marriage]. It's also surprising, because even last night we thought we had the votes to stop it," said Ann Stanback, president of the group Love Makes a Family, which lobbies for gay rights.

Marie T. Hilliard, executive director of the Connecticut Catholic Conference, which helped coordinate opposition to the bill, said that while she welcomes the amendment, she considers the bill "a defeat that undermines marriage for all of society...."

"I think we're just playing with words," said Rep. Alfred Adinolfi (R). "This bill is the same as same-sex marriage, it's just called civil unions."

Via Washington Post.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:03 AM | Get permalink



It's the money, stupid.

Why does the US health care system suck? Paul Krugman starts outlining the problem in his latest piece in the NY Times:

In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.

Amazing, isn't it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more on health care than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else.

What do we get for all that money? Not much.

Most Americans probably don't know that we have substantially lower life-expectancy and higher infant-mortality figures than other advanced countries. It would be wrong to jump to the conclusion that this poor performance is entirely the result of a defective health care system; social factors, notably America's high poverty rate, surely play a role. Still, it seems puzzling that we spend so much, with so little return.

A 2003 study published in Health Affairs (one of whose authors is my Princeton colleague Uwe Reinhardt) tried to resolve that puzzle by comparing a number of measures of health services across the advanced world. What the authors found was that the United States scores high on high-tech services - we have lots of M.R.I.'s - but on more prosaic measures, like the number of doctors' visits and number of days spent in hospitals, America is only average, or even below average. There's also direct evidence that identical procedures cost far more in the U.S. than in other advanced countries.

The authors concluded that Americans spend far more on health care than their counterparts abroad - but they don't actually receive more care.

Make sure to go read the whole thing.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink



American English.

'What kind does Magpie speak?', we hear the multitudes asking. Well, we happen to have just taken this test, so we have our linguistic profile right at hand:

60% General American English
20% Yankee
15% Upper Midwestern
5% Dixie
0% Midwestern

For one of those quick web tests, this one didn't do badly. It certainly caught the linguistic remnants of our 10 years in Minnesota. And the fact that one of our oldest close friends is from Massachusetts.

How'd the test do for you?

Via Sisyphus Shrugged.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink



Thursday, April 14, 2005

Who controls the US federal courts?

Republicans, that's who.

While most public and media attention focuses on the US Supreme Court in terms of deciding what's constitutional and what isn't, the fact is that most cases are settled further down in the federal system. Federal appeals courts alone deal with more than 63,000 cases a year, while the Supremes hear fewer than 100 cases.

The importance of the lower federal courts certainly hasn't escaped Republicans, as the current caterwauling over Democratic 'obstruction' of a small number of Dubya's court nominees shows very well. Currently, Republican-appointed judges are in the majority on ten of the thirteen federal appeals circuits, and a handful of appointments could shift the balance even further in that direction.

[Legal] analysts say the Bush administration is already accomplishing a significant shift within the federal judiciary. By winning a second term, he is well positioned to leave a presidential legacy that could take Democrats a decade or more to reverse.

The lineup of appeals court judges based on which president appointed them is a somewhat crude measure of the shifting ideological influences within federal courts. Not every Republican appointee votes conservative. Nor are Democratic appointees automatically liberal. But judicial scholars say that on certain divisive issues, the appointing president can be a reliable indicator of the likely outcome of a case.

This explains why Democratic senators are prepared to fight so hard to block key judicial nominees, and why Mr. Bush and his allies in the Senate are prepared to fight equally hard for their confirmation....

As the Supreme Court's docket dwindles, the regional circuit courts become even more the Supreme Courts for their regions," says Carl Tobias of the University of Richmond School of Law.

Appeals court cases can be resolved in two ways. Three-judge panels decide the vast majority of federal appeals. But in certain cases, a panel decision can be further appealed to the full circuit court for so-called "en banc" review.

Republican appointees outnumber Democratic appointees in every federal appeals court except the Second Circuit in New York City (seven Democratic appointees to six Republican), the Sixth Circuit in Cincinnati (six Democratic appointees to six Republican), and the Ninth Circuit (16 Democratic to eight Republican).

Via Christian Science Monitor

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:27 PM | Get permalink



A sad day in Oregon.

The Oregon Supreme Court has issued its long-awaited ruling on the validity of the same-sex marriages performed in Multnomah County last year. In a move that will cheer the right-wing oponents of equal rights for lesbians and gay men, the Oregon Supremes tossed out the marriages performed in Multnomah County. They also overturned a lower-court ruling that ordered the legislature to craft a law allowing civil unions for same-sex couples.

This ruling strikes very close to home for this magpie, as it was just over a year ago that we stood in rain for hours with our housemates Miriam and Sunny, as they waited in line to get a marriage license. They were married later that same day.

Waiting to get the license

Sunny and Miriam in happier days [Photo: Magpie]

As of this morning, they're no longer married. (Which we're sure doesn't bother the fundamentalists who are largely responsible the circumstances leading to today's court ruling. After all, lesbians are second-class citizens at best.)

As we read the decision, the Supreme Court found that Multnomah County had no legal grounds for its decision to marry same-sex couples. Even if the county had been correct in its assertion that the Oregon constitution barred discrimination on the basis of sex, say the Supremes, breaking the law was not an option that was available. Because of this, the county had no authority to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and those 'marriages' were never legal.

The Supreme Court also ruled on Measure 36, passed by Oregon voters last November, That measure amended the state constitution to explicitly bar same-sex marriages. Lawyers for same-sex couples had asserted, essentially, that the measure required enabling legislation to make it effective. The Supremes said 'Nope': Measure 36 is not just a statement of principle — it's the law. As a result of this, an interim measure worked out by a lower court — an order to the state legislature that it enact a civil union law — was illegal.

We couldn't say for sure how today's court ruling will affect the fate of the civil union bill announced by Gov. Ted Kulongoski yesterday, but we doubt that the Supremes have made the task of getting the bill through the legislature any easier. (If passed, that bill would also add sexual orientation Oregon's existing anti-discrimination legislation.)

Here's a fast-and-dirty copy of the parts of the decision we thought most important. For the proper italicization and footnotes, see the official posting of the decision here.

In November 2004, while the appeals were pending, Oregon voters adopted Ballot Measure 36 (2004), a voter-initiated amendment to the Oregon Constitution aimed at defining marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman. That amendment, which became effective on December 2, 2004, provides:

"It is the policy of Oregon, and its political subdivisions, that only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized as a marriage."

This court solicited supplemental briefing before hearing oral arguments in these matters, asking the parties to address the effect (if any) of that new constitutional provision on the issues raised in these appeals. In that regard, we need not examine each and every issue tendered to us by the responding parties respecting Measure 36; indeed, most are not relevant to the present proceedings. One issue, however, is pertinent, because it affects the prospective ability of five of the plaintiff same-sex couples to pursue their claims that Article I, section 20, entitles them to obtain marriage licenses on the same terms as opposite-sex couples. That issue is whether Measure 36 is an operative statement of law or whether it is only a statement of aspirational principle that requires some further action to make it enforceable. If it is the former, then the measure forecloses the five same-sex couples from obtaining the marriage licenses that they seek. If it is the latter, then the measure may not foreclose their Article I, section 20 claim. We turn to that issue. (10)

In interpreting voter-initiated constitutional provisions, our goal is to discern the intent of the voters. Flavorland Foods v. Washington County Assessor, 334 Or 562, 567, 54 P3d 582 (2002). In doing so, the text of the constitutional provision itself provides the best evidence of the voters' intent. Martin v. City of Tigard, 335 Or 444, 451, 72 P3d 619 (2003). This court also considers the context of the provision, which includes other relevant constitutional provisions, case law from this court, and any relevant statutory framework in effect at the time that the voters adopted the provision. Id. If the voters' intent is clear from the text and context, then the court does not look further. If the provision's meaning remains ambiguous, however, the court will consider the history of the provision in an effort to resolve the matter. Flavorland Foods, 334 Or at 567.

In this case, the text of the new constitutional provision states that its substantive content is the "policy" of Oregon. The parties disagree about the legal effect of the term "policy" in the new provision: Is it an operative statement of law or just an aspirational principle that requires further action to establish an enforceable restriction?

In examining the text of a constitutional provision adopted by initiative or legislative referral, this court typically gives words of common usage their plain, natural, and ordinary meaning. Coultas v. City of Sutherlin, 318 Or 584, 588-89, 871 P2d 465 (1994). The dictionary definitions most applicable to the word "policy," as it is used in this context, are:

"a: a definite course or method of action selected (as by a government, institution, group, or individual) from among alternatives and in the light of given conditions to guide and usually determine present and future decisions. b(1): a specific decision or set of decisions designed to carry out such a chosen course of action (2): such a specific decision or set of decisions together with the related actions designed to implement them c: a projected program consisting of desired objectives and the means to achieve them[.]"

Webster's at 1754. Clearly, a "policy" may be something more than a set of intentions. Giving the word its plain and ordinary meaning, a "policy" can be a concrete course of action, the law necessary to implement it, or both.

The foregoing definitional review is not dispositive; the wording of Measure 36 still could be hortatory. However, two other considerations demonstrate that the amendment is intended to state present law.

First, Measure 36 states that "only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or legally recognized." That is a statement not only of the policy itself, but also of particular consequences that are to occur as a result of that policy. Such wording is operational, not aspirational.

Second, Measure 36 lacks any wording directing the legislature to carry out the stated policy by appropriate legislation. If the measure were aspirational only, then we reasonably might expect to see such wording.

Based on the foregoing, we conclude that the use of the word "policy" in Measure 36 is intended to signal a presently enforceable tenet of Oregon constitutional law. And, with respect to the remaining text, there is no ambiguity regarding the measure's substantive effect. Today, marriage in Oregon -- an institution once limited to opposite-sex couples only by statute -- now is so limited by the state constitution as well. As the later-enacted (and more specific) constitutional provision, Measure 36 resolves any prospective claims that plaintiffs may have had under Article I, section 20, to obtain marriage licenses. The claims of the five same-sex couples that they are entitled as a matter of state law, now or hereafter, to obtain marriage licenses and to marry thus fail.

The parties also differ over the effect, if any, of the adoption of Measure 36 on the remaining issues in these appeals and, particularly, on the remedy that the trial court fashioned. In that regard, plaintiffs argue that, although the text of the measure prohibits same-sex marriage itself, it omits any reference to the benefits of marriage. Therefore, according to plaintiffs, Measure 36 does not speak to the issue whether Article I, section 20, prohibits using gender or sexual orientation as a basis for denying the benefits of marriage. Accordingly, plaintiffs urge this court to conclude that the voters did not intend to hinder this court from fashioning a remedy in these appeals that extends such benefits to same-sex couples. However, the issue of the availability of marriage benefits to same-sex couples is not properly before us. At trial, plaintiffs did not seek access to the benefits of marriage apart from, or as an alternative to, marriage itself. The trial court therefore improperly went beyond the pleadings in fashioning the particular remedy that it chose. We do not address that topic further.

Plaintiffs also raise issues concerning the effect of Measure 36 on the remaining same-sex couples, who received licenses and participated in marriage ceremonies before that measure became effective. They argue that the measure cannot be construed to affect the legal validity of those relationships because nothing in the text or context of the measure indicates an intent to either (1) retroactively invalidate the challenged marriage contracts; or (2) prospectively invalidate those contracts from the effective date of Measure 36. (11) That argument assumes that those marriages were legally valid before the adoption of Measure 36. However, we disagree with that premise. As we explain below, the county did not have authority to issue the licenses for the marriages in question....

County officials were entitled to have their doubts about the constitutionality of limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples. But, marriage and the laws governing it are matters of statewide, not local, concern. Thus, the remedy for such a perceived constitutional problem would be either to amend the statutes to meet constitutional requirements or to direct some other remedy on a statewide basis. Obviously, any such remedy must originate from a source with the authority to speak on that basis. The legislature has such authority and, in an appropriate adversary proceeding, the courts have it as well. But there is no source of law from which the county could claim such authority. To the contrary, the county's involvement in the license-issuing process is ministerial only.

These appeals do not require us to explore the full range of actions from which a governmental official might choose in vindicating that official's personal constitutional vision. Cooper illustrates one such way that that might occur, if the official has quasi-judicial authority. Another available choice, when an official is vested with discretion, is to choose not to act, such as when a prosecutor chooses not to prosecute a case under a statute of questionable constitutional validity. Yet a third choice, when an official has no discretion, might be to decline to perform a statutory duty and leave it to a party aggrieved by that action to seek a contested case decision or judicial intervention through mandamus or declaratory judgment proceedings. But none of those alternatives is analogous to what the county did here....

In summary, we conclude as follows. First, since the effective date of Measure 36, marriage in Oregon has been limited under the Oregon Constitution to opposite-sex couples. Second, Oregon statutory law in existence before the effective date of Measure 36 also limited, and continues to limit, the right to obtain marriage licenses to opposite-sex couples. Third, marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples in Multnomah County before that date were issued without authority and were void at the time that they were issued, and we therefore need not consider the independent effect, if any, of Measure 36 on those marriage licenses. In short, none of plaintiffs' claims properly before the court is well taken. Finally, the abstract question whether ORS chapter 106 confers marriage benefits in violation of Article I, section 20, of the Oregon Constitution is not properly before the court.

The judgment of the circuit court is reversed, and the case is remanded to the circuit court with instructions to dismiss the action.

There's going to be a lot of response to this decision. We'll do our best to keep you up on it, but a more reliable source of up-to-date info is the Portland Communique.

In case you missed the link above, you can find the full text of the Oregon Supreme Court's decision here.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:30 AM | Get permalink



Ooooooh, shiny!

Crescent Moon and the Pleiades.

Moon & Pleiades

The Moon and the Seven Sisters
[Photo: Jerry Lodriguss/Catching the Light]

Did you notice the earthshine?

You can read more information about the Moon, the Pleiades, and this photo if you go here. A much bigger version of the photo is here.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day.

| | Posted by Magpie at 8:29 AM | Get permalink



Here's another one we'd have trouble making up.

Three newly identified species of slime mold beetles have been named after Dubya, VP Cheney, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld,

What makes it so interesting is that the scientists doing the naming apparently weren't doing it as an insult.

Via ABC News (Australia).

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink



Wednesday, April 13, 2005

Johnnie Johnson, 1924–2005.

Musician Johnnie Johnson died earlier today. Johnson worked for many years with Chuck Berry, and was the inspiration for the song 'Johnny B. Goode.' Johnson died at his home in St. Louis. He was 80 years old.

Johnnie Johnson

Johnnie Johson, date unknown [Photo: AP]

From the AllMusic Guide entry for Johnson:
Legendary piano player Johnnie Johnson isn't exactly a household name, even among followers of blues music. That's because for 28 years, he worked as a sideman to one of rock & roll's most prominent performers, Chuck Berry. Berry joined Johnson's band, the Sir John Trio, on New Year's Eve, 1953, and afterward, Berry took over as the group's songwriter and frontman/guitar player. On the strength of a recommendation from Muddy Waters and an audition, Berry got a deal with Chess Records. Johnson's rhythmic piano playing was a key element in all of Berry's hit singles, a good number of which Johnson arranged. The pair's successful partnership lasted a lot longer than most rock & roll partnerships last these days.

Johnson was born July 8, 1924, in Fairmont, WV, and he began playing piano at age five, thanks to his mother, who provided the funds to purchase one and encouraged the young Johnson's interest. His parents had a good collection of 78-rpm records, including items by Bessie Smith and Ethel Waters. In his teens, he listened to the radio broadcasts of big bands, and taught himself based on what he heard from the likes of Art Tatum, Earl "Fatha" Hines, and Meade "Lux" Lewis. Johnson's goal in all of this listening and playing in his teenage years was to come up with his own distinctive style....

In a 1995 interview, Johnson explains his abilities with piano as his mother did, a gift from God. "I can hear something and keep it in my mind until such point as I can get to a piano, and then I'll play it...that is a gift, the ability to do that."

Bye bye, Johnnie.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 5:23 PM | Get permalink



Apples or oranges?

Over at CJR Daily, Paul McLeary has a nice piece on the inconsistent use of the term terrrorist by the AP and New York Times.

In the case of recently captured bomber Eric Rudolph, the four bombs he detonated outside a gay bar, two women's clinics and at the Atlanta Olympic Games in the mid-to-late 1990s easily fall within these criteria. His goal was political and intended to influence an audience (he wanted Roe v. Wade overturned, and saw the Atlanta Games as the first step toward a "New World Order"), and the attacks were most definitely perpetrated against noncombatants by a non-state entity. The situation seems at least as clear-cut as many acts regularly labeled terrorism in the media.

In the coverage of his guilty plea to the bombing charges, however, many reporters have stopped short of labeling him a terrorist. The New York Times online never uses the word, in keeping with a story filed on Friday, in which the Times referred to Rudolph simply as a "anti-abortion crusader and former soldier."

Similarly, an AP story which led most of the early coverage this morning shies away from the "T" word, although Rudolph planned and executed a series of targeted bombings in which two people died and over 120 were wounded. For its part, a Reuters wire story also failed to call Rudolph anything other than a survivalist and a fugitive.


One of our favorite examples of inconsistent use of terminology is whether a country is run by a regime or a government. Saddam, of course, had a regime. So does North Korea. But how about China? The press almost always says 'Chinese government,' even though China would meet most of the rules for being called a regime, we suspect. That is, if you could get anyone in the press to say just what rules they use when making this kind of decision.

And what about the US? We kinda like the sound of 'the Dubya regime.'

| | Posted by Magpie at 4:50 PM | Get permalink



Crows and the pope? Well, sorta.

The corvid news just keeps on coming.

It turns out that we missed the corvid angle to the death of Pope John Paul II, Luckily Bill Howell of StoutDemBlog kindly called it to our attention.

Check it out:

Just 15 hours after he died on Saturday night, the great pageantry around the death of a pope began Sunday morning, with a huge public Mass in St. Peter's Square and then the first rites of his funeral: The 84-year-old John Paul was laid out in Clementine Hall, dressed in white and red vestments, his head covered with a white bishop's miter and propped up on three dark gold pillows.

Tucked under his left arm was the silver staff, called the crow's ear, that he had carried in public.

But that's not the whole story. It turns out that NYT reporter Ian Fisher got the name of the pope's staff wrong. It's not a crow's ear — it's a crosier (which, in Fisher's defense, is pronounced almost the same).

This article from the Catholic Encyclopedia explains:

The crosier is an ecclesiastical ornament which is conferred on bishops at their consecration and on mitred abbots at their investiture, and which is used by these prelates in performing certain solemn functions....

The crosier is symbol of authority and jurisdiction. This idea is clearly expressed in the words of the Roman Pontifical with which the staff is presented to the bishop elect... [It is] borne by prelates to signify their authority to correct vices, stimulate piety, administer punishment, and thus rule and govern with a gentleness that is tempered with severity.

The article goes on to say that papal use of the crosier goes back at least to the fifth century. So it's not like the crosier is something new, is it?

We bet that Ian Fisher will be more careful the next time he writes about papal accoutrements.

Via International Herald Tribune.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:43 AM | Get permalink



Not just another story about health hazards.

On the surface, the story we read in the Seattle Times today seemed to be a typical one about a newly discovered health hazard.

According to a new study to be published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, there is increasing evidence that a chemical commonly used in plastic bottles and food packaging may be harmful in small amounts. After reviewing over 100 studies of the risks of bisphenol A, the authors of the study are asking the US Environmental Protection Agency to consider restricting use of the chemical.

Bisphenol A, or BPA, has been detected in nearly all human bodies tested in the United States. It is a key building block in the manufacture of hard, clear, polycarbonate plastics, including baby bottles, water bottles and other food and beverage containers. The chemical can leak from plastic, especially when containers are heated, cleaned with harsh detergents or exposed to acidic foods or drinks.

The leakage is a problem because BPA is a chemical that can mimic human sex hormones. Such compounds have been shown to affect the development of reproductive systems and brains in newborn animals — and there is evidence that they are doing the same to humans, especially young ones. The 100-plus studies done on the chemical have had mixed results, however, with some showing BPA has no effects at low levels, and a larger number showing that it harms lab animals those same levels.

But, at least for this magpie, the crux of the story is in these paragraphs:

In an interview yesterday, [study co-author Frederick] vom Saal, a reproductive biologist at University of Missouri, Columbia, said there is now an "overwhelming weight of evidence" that the plastics compound is harmful.

"This is a snowball running down a hill, where the evidence is accumulating at a faster and faster rate," vom Saal said. "You can't open a scientific journal related to sex hormones and not read an article that would just floor you about this chemical. ... The chemical industry's position that this is a weak chemical has been proven totally false. This is a phenomenally potent chemical as a sex hormone."

In their study, vom Saal and Hughes suggest an explanation for conflicting results of studies: 100 percent of the 11 funded by chemical companies found no risk, while 90 percent of the 104 government-funded, nonindustry studies reported harmful effects. [emphasis added]

What a coincidence, huh?

Of course, the industry mouthpieces have the usual answer:

Steven Hentges, executive director of the polycarbonate business unit of the American Plastics Council, said yesterday that the new report lists numbers of studies and pieces of data without analyzing them to determine their strengths or weaknesses and relevance to human beings.

"The sum of weak evidence does not make strong evidence," Hentges said. "If you look at all the evidence together, it supports our conclusion that BPA is not a risk to human health at the very low levels people are exposed to. This paper does not change that conclusion. It has an opinion, not a scientific conclusion."

Just like all those papers saying that global warming exists are just expressing an opinion.

So what we have here is another scientific 'controversy' that isn't. The reason that the plastics manufacturers can assert that there's a doubt about the dangers of BPA is that they've funded scientific studies to 'prove' the conclusion they want: that BPA is not dangerous. The fact that almost all of the non-corporate studies found just the opposite speaks very loudly, we think.

Via Seattle Times.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:03 AM | Get permalink



Talk about speaking for itself.

This surely does.

Via Cunning Realist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 9:56 AM | Get permalink



Tuesday, April 12, 2005

I spy, with Google's little eye.

Now that Google Maps lets you easily toggle between a map view and satellite view of an area, it's easier to find things that are hard to see from the ground. Like the results of industrial logging in British Columbia, as Dave Shea explains.

A picture is worth a thousand words and all that, so here's a 4000 word essay on what the forestry industry is doing in British Columbia, as of whatever the date was when the satellite snapped these. Click through any image to get to the Google Maps bookmark of the same, it's worth it to move around a bit and get a sheer sense of scale (and see how much more there is to this than what I've depicted in these 4 shots.) [Of which we have the first here. And yes, you can click through.]

Clear-cut forests in BC

What's it like on the ground in one of these clear cut areas? Well, if you're lucky and the operators of the cut have actually replanted anything, it's generally a young glade of small but healthy trees.

If they haven't, it's ugly. The bleak ground is covered with gnarled and torn wood left behind to rot in the elements, and muddy where the root systems that used to keep the soil together have died. It's disgustingly barren, while at the same time being impassable due to the amount of dead vegetation littering the destroyed ecosystem.

You can see the rest of the images Shea found here.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 6:06 PM | Get permalink



This just in ...

From Pesky Apostrophe:

I found out something hilarious today: an old college acquaintance of mine has taken a job as a pharmaceutical sales person in California. She'll be moving there in a couple of weeks.

On it's own, this isn't funny. It's funny because she has to go through extensive training so she'll know inside and out the drugs she'll be selling. And the reason that's so funny is this: she does not believe that molecules exist.

You can read the rest here.

As we find ourself saying far too often these days: Our brain hurts.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:14 PM | Get permalink



Not feeling good about yourself?

If you're a woman, it's probably just because you're not drinking the right wine:

"More than 60 percent of wine drinkers are female and women buy 80 percent of the wine sold in the U.S, yet the wine industry has largely ignored them," says Tracey Mason, who, as BBWE?s Director of Innovation, spearheaded the project. "So our all-female team started with the question: What do women want?" Through research, the team discovered that an astounding 80 percent of women are dissatisfied with their appearance and that 45 percent are on a diet on any given day. And because of the increased demands of career and home, women have less time than ever for themselves or their friends. "That was our big ?Aha,?" says Mason. "We wanted women to feel better about themselves and their choices, realizing that often our desire to have it all means we have to give up something in return: that yummy dessert, the book we?ve been meaning to read, or just sharing a laugh with friends over a few glasses of wine. So, a wine that truly responded to today?s savvy woman has to have more than just a pretty label -- it also has to be great tasting and come from a reputable winery."

So the winery and its marketers decided to create a new wine that's low-cal, so all us weight-obsessed alkies can drink without guilt. Oh, and they've called the new wine ? get this ? White Lies.

You can read the full press release about White Lies if you go here. You might also look at Tiffany Brown's comments about this new product here.

Personally, we'd feel much better about ourself if we had a different president. And as to alcohol, give us another whisky.

Via blackfeminism.org.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:56 AM | Get permalink



We're here. We're queer. We're really well-drawn.

While 'The L Word' and 'Queer as Folk' are probably the most visible evidence of the acceptance of lesbian, gay, and trans characters in the mainstream media, these TV programs are far from the only inroads, As Michele Helberg points out at AfterEllen, there are a plethora of strong queer characters in comic books:

Maggie & Hopey

Maggie & Hopey [Artist: Jaime Hernandez]

Three-dimensional GBLT characters exist nowhere for a mass audience like they do in the comic genre. While it's not surprising that most "graphic novels" are written by men, what might be surprising is that in a genre populated by a male creative force, the lesbian characters are given as much, if not more, respect then some of their male counterparts.

These heroines aren't big-breasted bimbos, or under-developed sidekicks. They cover the gambit of ages, career paths, characterizations and yes, sex appeal but what they all have in common is their importance to the story.

With lesbian storytelling dwindling on television and film, a leap to comics might be a good place to get a weekly dose of girl power.

But comic books aren't the only places to find strong lesbian and bi characters. A good example of queer girls in comic strips is Alison Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For, which has been running bi-weekly in newspapers since the mid-1980s.

Those DTWOF kids

DTWOF [Artist: Alison Bechdel]

There's an interesting blog for Dykes to Watch Out For, which you can find here. We especially liked the current post:

I recently did an interview for a Swiss lesbian magazine called "Skipper." The interviewer translated my answers from English into German. One of her questions was, "With regard to the re-election of Mr. George W. Bush, I wish to extend my condolences to you and the entire homosexual community in the United States of America. Do you not get nervous and suffer sleepless nights in light of your continual criticism of the Republican Party?"

I answered, "Thank you for your condolences. Thank you, in fact, for letting an American sully the pages of your magazine. I would still rather believe that the election was rigged than that a majority of voters here are idiots, but either possibility is pretty horrifying. Surprisingly, I don't lose sleep. My comic strip is a very good catharsis for all my anxiety. Without that outlet, I would go start raving mad."

I just received the issue in the mail, and although I don't speak German, I could make out enough to tell that she'd deleted my comment about "letting an American sully the pages of your magazine." Maybe she thought I was joking.

Comic book article via New Pages.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:26 AM | Get permalink



Welcome back!

For the first year that Magpie existed, one of our favorite blogs was Little Red Cookbook. Sadly, it went dark in March 2004 ... but we still kept it on the blogroll, hoping that someday Jenny would be back.

Well, she's back, with a new URL and a spiffy new look. You might want to drop by Little Red Cookbook and say hi. Tell Jenny that Magpie sent you.

| | Posted by Magpie at 10:12 AM | Get permalink



The Unitarian Jihad?

Yep.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We are everywhere. We have not been born again, nor have we sworn a blood oath. We do not think that God cares what we read, what we eat or whom we sleep with. Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity notes for the record that he does not have a moral code but is nevertheless a good person, and Unexalted Leader Garrote of Forgiveness stipulates that Brother Neutron Bomb of Serenity is a good person, and this is to be reflected in the minutes.

Beware! Unless you people shut up and begin acting like grown-ups with brains enough to understand the difference between political belief and personal faith, the Unitarian Jihad will begin a series of terrorist-like actions. We will take over television studios, kidnap so-called commentators and broadcast calm, well-reasoned discussions of the issues of the day. We will not try for "balance" by hiring fruitcakes; we will try for balance by hiring non-ideologues who have carefully thought through the issues.

We are Unitarian Jihad. We will appear in public places and require people to shake hands with each other. (Sister Hand Grenade of Love suggested that we institute a terror regime of mandatory hugging, but her motion was not formally introduced because of lack of a quorum.) We will require all lobbyists, spokesmen and campaign managers to dress like trout in public. Televangelists will be forced to take jobs as Xerox repair specialists. Demagogues of all stripes will be required to read Proust out loud in prisons.

We don't know about you, but this magpie is joining up. From now on, just call us The Gatling Gun of Looking at All Sides of the Question.

[You can get your own Unitarian Jihad name here. If you don't like that name, try The First Reformed Unitarian Jihad Name Generator.]

Via alphabitch.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:25 AM | Get permalink



Ooooooh, shiny!

Yeah, this is old news ... but we weren't able to blog last week. Besides, the picture of a planet orbiting a Sun-like star is just too cool to pass up.

Planet orbiting a Sun-like star

GQ Lupi and planet [Image: ESO/VLT]

Of the almost 150 extra-solar planets discovered so far, GQ Lupi's planet is the first one orbiting a sun-like star to be observed directly. The existence of other such planet (like most extra-solar worlds) has been deduced indirectly, either by seeing a star dim as a planet passes between it and observers here on Earth, or by measuring the wobble of a star being tugged upon by a planet (or planets).
GQ Lupi lies 400 light years away and is at most two million years old, much younger than our 4.6-billion-year-old Sun. The star has about 70% of the Sun's mass, but its detected planet has a far-flung orbit - about 20 times farther than Jupiter is from the Sun.

That contrasts with most of the extrasolar planets found so far, which have orbits very close to their parent star. It could be that the newly discovered planet had a closer initial orbit but somehow drifted or was forced outwards.

It is also unclear just how large this extrasolar planet is. It could be anywhere between 1 and 42 times the mass of Jupiter. The upper end of that range would not be considered a true planet.

You can find more information on the planet here.

Via New Scientist.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:02 AM | Get permalink



Pot, kettle ...

Doesn't even get close to describing this one:

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, on a surprise visit [to Baghdad], warned Iraq's new leaders on Tuesday against political purges and cronyism that could spark "lack of confidence or corruption in government."

He said the United States also opposed any move to delay the political schedule in Iraq, which includes drafting a new constitution by mid August and elections in December.

This magpie is entirely too polite to mention how Iraqis were demanding elections months before the US even started discussing a timetable for establishing a new government. And only a cynic would compare possible 'political purges and cronyism' in Iraq and the way Dubya's administration operates.

Via Reuters.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:01 AM | Get permalink



Monday, April 11, 2005

Your [US] tax dollars at work.

The old saying is that a picture is worth 1000 words. We'd add that sometimes you just can't grasp something easily unless you see it in front of you.

Like these spending comparisons, for example:

Where your $$$ goes

The Money Counter lets you view some other interesting juxtapositions as well. Our favorite is the match-up of the money spent going after Bill Clinton with the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky investigations and the funding given to the recent 9/11 commission. Republican priorities couldn't be clearer.

Via MetaFilter.

| | Posted by Magpie at 11:11 PM | Get permalink



Dubya delivers even more great news for US workers.

His administration's expert handling of the economy has caused the first across-the-board wage decline since 1991. According to federal government figures, wage growth between January 2004 and the end of February 2005 was outstripped by inflation: While wages grew by 2,5 percent, inflation went up by 2.7 percent.

These figures, of course, are for all wages. This magpie's guess is that workers at the lower end of the pay scale fell even further behind inflation.

The effective 0.2-percentage-point erosion in workers' living standards occurred while the economy expanded at a healthy 4%, better than the 3% historical average.

Meanwhile, corporate profits hit record highs as companies got more productivity out of workers while keeping pay increases down

Some see climbing profits and stagnant wages as not only unfair but also ultimately unsustainable. "Those that are baking the larger pie ought to see their slices expanding," said Jared Bernstein, an economist with the liberal Economic Policy Institute in Washington....

For now, workers' wallets are being pummeled by something of a perfect storm of economic forces: a weak job market, rising health insurance premiums and other inflationary pressures.

The biggest factor is the slack employment market, which means there is little pressure on businesses to boost pay. "They take advantage of you because there's no work and anyone will work for anything," Romero said.

Although the unemployment rate has dropped to a relatively low 5.2%, that figure doesn't count the hundreds of thousands of jobless people who've given up their searches and dropped out of the labor market at a greater rate than anytime since 1988. At the same time, the cost of health premiums has skyrocketed, eating into the pool of corporate cash set aside for raises. Although pay rose only about 2.4% last year, benefit costs jumped almost 7%. [Emphasis added]

Any wonder that the Republicans work so hard to keep voters fixated on things like same-sex marriage and Terri Schiavo?

Via LA Times. [Free reg. req'd.]

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:30 PM | Get permalink



Sunday, April 10, 2005

Ooooooh, shiny!

No, it's not a photo of hell, but it's just about as hot. What you're seeing below is a radar image of huge circular domes on the surface of the planet Venus.

Radar image of Venus

Once-Molten Venus [Image: E. De Jong et al. (JPL/NASA)]

You can read more information about Venus and about how the image above was made if you go here. A much bigger photo is here.

Via Astronomy Picture of the Day.

| | Posted by Magpie at 1:18 PM | Get permalink



Is it fighting terror or just 'stealth protectionism'?

One of the stories that this magpie would have blogged about had we not been slaving away over a hot (Web-less) computer in Seattle was another upcoming change to travel across the northern borders of the US.

A bit of history is needed here. It used to be that the rules governing the transit of US and Canadian citizens across the border were some of the most relaxed on the planet. All that was needed to cross was a driver's license or similar photo ID. After 9/11, US paranoia about the terrorists lurking in the Great White North led to a new requirement: Canadians now had to show a birth certificate or other proof of nationality to come to the States. The Canadian government quickly added similar requirements for US citizens going north. Whether either of these actions did anything other than slow border crossings to a crawl is up to serious discussion.

Now, however, the US government plans to up the paranoia level in 2008 by requiring passports for Canadian citizens wanting to enter the US, and for US citizens returning from Canada. As with the earlier rule change, Ottawa says that it will probably impose similar conditions on US citizens enterning Canada.

This magpie's initial take on the upcoming changes was that they are just another example of how Dubya's administration is making it more difficult for US citizens to come and go from their own country, under the guise of protecting them from terrorism. And that it's also another way of keeping 'pernicious' foreign influences out of the US. (The number of cases involving academics, artists, musicians, parliamentarians and others who, since 9/11, have had serious problems at the US border or been denied entry altogether are too numerous to cite here.)

However, there may be another reason why the US has decided that its border with Canada is entirely too free-and-easy. Ian Welsh suggests that it's the (US) economy, stupid:

[This] sort of stealth protectionism is the sort of protectionism Washington can get away with. They?ve got a big problem with trade, and Canada runs a trade surplus with the US. More than that, Canada is one of the big net winners from outsourcing and offshoring ? the cost of business is lower, universal health care relieves a huge burden from companies moving here, it?s easy to ship to the US and Canadian culture is close enough to US culture that it isn?t a huge shock to management?s sensibilities ? the sort of misunderstandings that cost huge amounts of money are less likely to happen between Americans and Canadians than between Americans and Indians or Chinese.

Canada exports, broadly, four classes of goods to the US. Energy, meaning oil and natural gas from the West and electricity from Quebec. Food ? both agricultural products and seafood. Commodities other than oil such as minerals and wood. And manufactured goods, primarily from the Golden Horseshoe. These manufactured goods are often not finished goods, but parts for companies which straddle the border, including the big three automakers.

You aren?t going to see stealth protectionism against energy imports any time soon. The US needs our oil, natural gas and electricity. Badly. But we?ve already seen outright protectionism against both wood products and agricultural products (beef) ? because we compete against US producers. And the fact that goods will take longer to get across the border, leading some US manufacturers to consider moving branch operations back to the US, isn?t something that Washington is going to see as a bad thing.

But Canada needs to decide how it?s going to handle this. Pressure on Federal governments to engage in protectionism is going to get stronger, not weaker because there?s no end in sight to increasing US trade deficits, and we?ve got a lot of eggs in the US basket. Way too many.

This is, really, about leverage. We?ve got energy, which they need to buy. They must have it. And we?ve got other goods they can mostly live without, or which significant internal interests wouldn?t mind reduced competition in.

The negotiation which needs to take place, quietly, is that we don?t have to sell them oil and natural gas. There are plenty of other people who want it. If they want it, they should stop trying to restrict the flow of manufactured goods into the US and stop trying to stop tourism and day tripping between the two countries.

You can read the rest of the post here.

Via BOPnews.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:53 PM | Get permalink



Rubber fetish?

We suppose that's one way you could look at our first piece of corvid news in quite a long while.

It seems that crows in Lodi, California have declared war a local landscaping firm. Company owner Glenn Sherman says that the crows have been shredding the windshield wiper blades on his work trucks, pulling the rubber off side-view mirrors, and pelting the glass doors of his business office with rocks.

Efforts to outwit the birds by covering the blades with plastic bags have proved fruitless.

Before drivers leave for the evening, they are reminded to cover their wiper blades with plastic bags each night. In the morning, workers usually find the bags shredded and the blades pulled apart.

"I've replaced the blades about seven to eight times," Sherman said, "and at $8 per blade. They were here before us, and evidently they've let their presence be known."

The birds swoop down on Sherman's landscaping yard during the early morning hours from a nest they built on the platform of a large tank a few hundred yards away.

Watching the crows come and go from the nest, it's obvious the birds are quite large.

"They stand a few feet tall," trucker Sam Alvarado said. "They're huge."

"I've seen them on the trucks," Assistant Manager Josh Hoyle said. "No ordinary crow."

The crows do seem to have singled out the landscaping business for their mischief. The Chevron gas terminal right next door says that the crows haven't given them any problems at all.

According to wildlife biologist Patrick Foy, the sorts of problems faced by the landscaping firm aren't unusual.

"With crows you never know -- they're goofy birds and do goofy things."

"Crows are probably the most intelligent bird in North America," he said. "They live very long lives and are one of the few animals that have been observed apparently playing and entertaining themselves."

Via Lodi News-Sentinel.

| | Posted by Magpie at 12:11 PM | Get permalink




Liar, liar, pants on fire!


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