Day: August 17, 2008

Rev. Warren And His Silly Forum

Would you like the snooze….oh sorry…the news from a two long yawn-a-thon, then read on McDuff.

What did anyone learn from this exercise in boredom?  Obama is a christian and is black; McCain is an Episcopalian who attends a Baptist church in Phoenix, that alone should tell you all you need to know about his character, and he is a white guy.
The one theme that got the biggest chuckle out me was, They did strike some common ground, such as the importance of rising above self-interest to serve one’s country.  What a crock of crap! They want to be the most important person in the world–country is just part to the sell job.

Obama is an hypocrite on abortions, McCain is just plain hypocritical on everything.

Shall I go on or do you get the picture?  Both are self-serving arrogant pricks that want your vote so they can continue the domination of the working class by the ruling elite.

If a voter was watching this silly exercise, then they are more confused now than ever.  Why?  The two major candidates are one in the same–kinda like Harvey Dent in Batman.

Wal-Mart To Sign Collective Wage Deal

Yippieeeeee!  But wait!  Only in China!

Global retail giant Wal-Mart plans to sign collective labour contracts at all of its more than one hundred outlets in China by the end of September, according to the official Chinese media.

The announcement in the Workers’ Daily on 31 July came just two weeks after Wal-Mart signed its first collective wage agreement in Shenyang, which mandated an eight percent pay increase for all workers this year, with another eight percent next year.

This was soon followed by the signing of similar collective contracts in the Quanzhou store, which formed the first Wal-Mart union in China in August 2006, and close to 20 other outlets, including those in Shenzhen.

All the agreements reportedly covered remuneration, working hours and paid vacations, labour insurance and welfare benefits, and stipulated that workers should be paid more than the local minimum wage.

The contracts are the result of high level campaign by the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to establish a mechanism for store-wide collective consultations between labour and management and to sign collective labour contracts at Wal-Mart outlets across China. Indeed, ACFTU Chairman Wang Zhaoguo paid a high profile visit to Shenyang a few days before the first contract was signed, presumably to ensure that the whole process went smoothly.

The ACFTU claimed on its website that Wal-Mart was singled out for the collective contract campaign because, as a major Fortune 500 company, its initiative would spur other foreign invested enterprises to sign collective labour contracts too. However, the high-profile unionization of Wal-Mart two years ago did not lead to surge in the voluntary unionization of other foreign companies and it is doubtful if this trickle-down approach to collective contracts will be any more successful.

The Chinese government and the ACFTU clearly see collective contracts as an effective means of safeguarding workers’ rights and regulating relations between management and labour. However, for the process to be truly effective, unions at the grassroots level will have to vigorously represent the interests of employees and fight for the best deal possible rather than simply go through the motions of collective bargaining at the behest of their ACFTU superiors.

To do business in China they had to make a deal.  Why cannot the US make these greedy little shits do right by their employees?

Why Do Corporations Need Tax Cuts?

A study released Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reveals that the majority of corporations pay no federal taxes on profits accrued through business conducted within the US.

From 1998-2005, the period covered by the survey, about two thirds of both domestic and international businesses paid no federal taxes, while about one quarter of large US corporations, defined as those with over $250 million in assets and at least $50 million in sales, had no tax liability.

While it failed to name the ways specific corporations avoided taxes, the GAO survey, based on Internal Revenue Service records, attributes the failure to three factors: tax credits, operating losses and “transfer pricing,” which means corporations internally shift taxable profits to their own subsidiaries in lower-tax nations.

The decline in the taxes that corporations actually pay is also suggested by the decline in the relative share these taxes contribute to the federal budget. According to an April report issued by the liberal Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in the 1950s corporate taxes represented one quarter of all federal revenue. Since 2000, this figure has fallen to about one tenth. The resulting shortfall has largely been made up through payroll taxes on US workers, according to the EPI.

The GAO study also listed the sustaining of regular operating losses as a possible explanation for corporations’ failure to pay taxes. Of the millions of companies submitting tax forms in the period, the vast majority were small businesses. There is no reason to doubt that many of these small ventures lose money year after year, and are dependant for their survival upon tax credits. Yet the crisis of the auto and airline industries demonstrates that the piling up of debt extends to the biggest corporations as well. At the same time, the tax code encourages companies to claim losses precisely as a means of avoiding tax payments.

Maybe if we elect McCain he will just give them a check once a year as compensation for their actions.  People are seriously ignorant at election time.

House To Rethink Drilling

Dropping her opposition to a vote on coastal oil exploration, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Saturday that the House would consider expanded offshore drilling as part of broad energy legislation when Congress returns next month.

In the weekly Democratic radio address, Ms. Pelosi criticized Republicans as focusing too narrowly on offshore drilling as a solution to high gasoline prices, but said she would bow to demands that the House revisit a drilling ban that has been imposed annually since the 1980s.

She said legislation being assembled by Democrats “will consider opening portions of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling, with appropriate safeguards, and without taxpayer subsidies to big oil.”

The decision came after growing anxiety among Democrats that Republicans were scoring politically with their call for a vote on offshore drilling. Though Congress is on its August break, a rotating group of House Republicans has rallied daily on the House floor, demanding that Ms. Pelosi call lawmakers back for a vote to allow oil companies to pursue offshore resources.

While Ms. Pelosi is relenting despite her longtime opposition to drilling off the coast of California, her home state, Republicans may not get the vote they wanted. Expanded coastal drilling would be just one element of a broader bill that would also contain provisions opposed by Republicans, including a requirement that utilities produce a certain amount of electricity through renewable fuels. Democrats could also impose rules denying Republicans a chance to offer changes to the measure.

JUst a way to protect themselves in the upcoming election.  It is NOT about what is the best course of action, just who will be re-elected.

Today In Labor History

17 August

IWW War Trials in Chicago, 95 go to prison for up to 20 years – 1918

Bakery & Confectionery Workers International Union of America merges with Tobacco Workers International Union to become Bakery, Confectionery & Tobacco Workers – 1978

Hormel meatpackers’ strike begins in Austin, Minn. – 1985

Maybe You Will Not Go Blind

Yet, according to Martha Cornog, of “The Big Book of Masturbation”, self-pleasuring is surely the second most common human sex act. And, despite its torrid history, that’s proving to be a good thing. Turns out this once taboo behavior has plenty of health benefits and can do wonders for your sex life.

While the shackles of masturbation have been loosening around our loins, it is only recently that society has started to let go of its guilt around solo sex. This is in part thanks to sex researchers affirming that most of us do it, as well as the embracing of it by television sitcoms. Who can forget the bet made by Jerry, Elaine, George and Kramer as to who could remain the “master of their domain” the longest?

Even if you’re not a conformist, there’s something about safety in numbers when it comes to this topic. (And if it makes you feel even better, know that masturbation is common among other animals, like dogs, cats, horses, bulls, rats, hamsters, deer, and whales, too).

Health Benefits for Men

Research summarized in a 2007 article in Sexual and Relationship Therapy found that masturbation may help men by:

— Improving his immune system’s functioning.

— Building his resistance to prostate gland infection.

— Making for a healthier prostate.

Australian researchers have reported that frequent masturbation may lower a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer. A survey of men found the more frequently a man masturbates between the ages of 20 and 50, the less likely they are to get prostate cancer. In fact, those who masturbated more than five times a week were one-third less likely to develop prostate cancer.

Health Benefits for Females

When it comes to a woman’s health, self-pleasuring serves her well by:

— Building her resistance to yeast infections.

— Combating pre-menstrual tension and other physical conditions associated with their menstrual cycles, like cramps.

— Relieving painful menstruation by increasing blood flow to the pelvic region. This will also reduce pelvic cramping and related backaches.

— Relieving chronic back pain and increasing her threshold for pain.

What are you waiting for….it is clean….safe…and healthy….stop reading and start jerking………

Domestic Spying Made Easy

The Justice Department has proposed a new domestic spying measure that would make it easier for state and local police to collect intelligence about Americans, share the sensitive data with federal agencies and retain it for at least 10 years.

The proposed changes would revise the federal government’s rules for police intelligence-gathering for the first time since 1993 and would apply to any of the nation’s 18,000 state and local police agencies that receive roughly $1.6 billion each year in federal grants.

Quietly unveiled late last month, the proposal is part of a flurry of domestic intelligence changes issued and planned by the Bush administration in its waning months. They include a recent executive order that guides the reorganization of federal spy agencies and a pending Justice Department overhaul of FBI procedures for gathering intelligence and investigating terrorism cases within U.S. borders.

Under the Justice Department proposal for state and local police, published for public comment July 31, law enforcement agencies would be allowed to target groups as well as individuals, and to launch a criminal intelligence investigation based on the suspicion that a target is engaged in terrorism or providing material support to terrorists. They also could share results with a constellation of federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies, and others in many cases.

Criminal intelligence data starts with sources as basic as public records and the Internet, but also includes law enforcement databases, confidential and undercover sources, and active surveillance.

Critics say preemptive law enforcement in the absence of a crime can violate the Constitution and due process. They cite the administration’s long-running warrantless-surveillance program, which was set up outside the courts, and the FBI’s acknowledgment that it abused its intelligence-gathering privileges in hundreds of cases by using inadequately documented administrative orders to obtain telephone, e-mail, financial and other personal records of U.S. citizens without warrants.

Gitmo On The Platte

Individuals arrested at the Democratic National Convention will be processed at an industrial warehouse with chain-link cells topped by razor wire, a facility some have compared to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay.

Groups planning marches, concerts and other events during the Aug. 25-28 convention dub the center “Gitmo on the Platte,” for the nearby South Platte River.

The Denver sheriff’s office, which operates city and county jails, insists anyone taken to the center will be there only a few hours while they’re fingerprinted, issued a court date and released after posting bail. Others will be transferred to facilities designed for longer detentions.

Lindy Eichenbaum Lent, senior advisor to Mayor John Hickenlooper, said the warehouse was formerly used to store election equipment and construction was still underway to convert it to a processing center. She said the center was an effort to allay fears that those arrested would spend several unnecessary hours waiting to be processed.

Hickenlooper’s office said police will ask people to voluntarily comply with their orders before arresting anyone. “The city does not anticipate the need for widespread arrests,” the mayor’s office statement said. But it noted “the intention of some organizations to deliberately get arrested.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and the People’s Law Project have been talking with the city about giving attorneys access to detainees. The city said attorneys can meet clients in court, not at the facility.

ACLU-Colorado legal director Mark Silverstein said city officials told him detained protesters will be taken by bus to the facility, about two miles northeast of downtown. Those who are unable or refuse to post bail will be taken to a downtown city jail to await a court date.

Denver police working the convention will make as much as $1.2 million in overtime pay, city officials said. Budget estimates were released Friday and are part of the $50 million federal grant to cover convention security costs.