SOLD to the highest bidder

This week the Supreme Court handed the country to multinational corporations. The Citizens United v. FEC ruling gave corporations unlimited ability to fund candidates. Unlimited. That means they can recruit or seduce their own candidates, give them enough money to blow a billionaire out of the water and buy the U. S. government, a seat at a time. Or all at once.

While constitutional scholars point out that this case actually strengthens First Amendment rights, the effect it will have on our political environment is undeniable.

But it’s one thing for U.S. firms to have their say. What about foreign companies that operate U.S. subsidiaries? Many of these, like American businesses, are owned by ordinary shareholders — but a host of others are owned, in whole or in part, by the foreign governments themselves.

One prominent examples is CITGO Petroleum Company — once the American-born Cities Services Company, but purchased in 1990 by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. The Citizens United ruling could conceivably allow Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has sharply criticized both of the past two U.S. presidents, to spend government funds to defeat an American political candidate, just by having CITGO buy TV ads bashing his target.

And it’s not just Chavez. The Saudi government owns Houston’s Saudi Refining Company and half of Motiva Enterprises. Lenovo, which bought IBM’s PC assets in 2004, is partially owned by the Chinese government’s Chinese Academy of Sciences. And Singapore’s APL Limited operates several U.S. port operations. A weakening of the limit on corporate giving could mean China, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, and any other country that owns companies that operate in the U.S. could also have significant sway in American electioneering.

Milton Friedman was wrong. Corporations are not people, and they don't deserve rights as such. Campaign finance needs to be reformed.

Happy New Decade

The first decade of the 21st century is now in the books. It can be remembered as the decade that conservatives were given everything they wanted. They were given all three branches of government by the branch they already owned; the Supreme Court. Osama Bin Laden gave them the war they always wanted with a bonus war, Afghanistan, thrown in. Phil Gramm, Alan Greenspan and others gave them the economy they always wanted. They were also given the energy policy they wanted (drill, baby, drill), the gun control policy they wanted, (none), the unitary executive they wanted, and the media they always wanted(Fox Noise).

They went on a binge and we were left with the hangover. We were told that they knew what they were doing and to sit down and shut up. We're now currently enjoying the results. It was only when we ignored that admonition that we could slow the destruction. Something to consider in the upcoming decade.

Ahead of their time

Seems there was a race of super-geniuses. Discovered in South Africa in 1913, fossil skulls showed a brain capacity bigger than modern humans. Not only that, but:

These people had small, childlike faces. Physical anthropologists use the term pedomorphosis to describe the retention of juvenile features into adulthood. This phenomenon is sometimes used to explain rapid evolutionary changes. For example, certain amphibians retain fishlike gills even when fully mature and past their water-inhabiting period. Humans are said by some to be pedomorphic compared with other primates.Our facial structure bears some resemblance to that of an immature ape. Boskop’s appearance may be described in terms of this trait. A typical current European adult, for instance, has a face that takes up roughly one-third of his overall cranium size. Boskop has a face that takes up only about one-fifth of his cranium size, closer to the proportions of a child. Examination of individual bones confirmed that the nose, cheeks, and jaw were all childlike.

Why did they die out? Without more information, scientists can only speculate:

Perhaps, though, it also made the Boskops excessively internal and self-reflective. With their perhaps astonishing insights, they may have become a species of dreamers with an internal mental life literally beyond anything we can imagine.

...

Perhaps the Boskops were trapped by their ability to see clearly where things would head. Perhaps they were prisoners of those majestic brains.

Wonder what they would say about life today?

Passalacqua at it again

What a surprise.

In handing down the punishment for James Luker, 47 of Santa Rosa, Judge Elliot Daum lashed out at the District Attorney's office for what he said was political grandstanding for publicizing the outcome of another repeat drunken-driving sentencing a few days earlier.

Daum said a news release issued by prosecutors complaining about a one-year county jail sentence issued to five-time drunken driver Emilio Guzman Garcia, 35, was politically motivated and filled with “grotesque misstatements and half-truths.”

The judge expressed anger about the ensuing newspaper article, which he said came on the eve of his departure from the criminal bench and the beginning of a re-election campaign for District Attorney Stephan Passalacqua. He said the Luker decision would not be influenced by the publicity.

Sounds like Passalacqua is trying to pump up his record.

The next big thing

Yo, digital artists! You want to go here. 3D fractal rendering. Fantastic landscapes, objects and surfaces.

Happy Halloween

Creature Features on WGN Sunday nights was one of the greatest forbidden pleasures of my youth. Forbidden because it came on an hour after my bedtime and I had to be reeeaally sneaky to see it. The music is by Henry Mancini from An Experiment in Terror from 1962.

Why I always vote

Recently I received a notice from my 401K plan for an upcoming proxy vote. I used to throw those away because they wanted my vote on board members I never heard of and procedures I didn't understand. But if the maladministration of George W. Bush and the continuing nefarious influence of large corporations in my own financial health have taught me anything, it's to check up on everything they do and use what little power I have to the most.

It's amazing what 15 minutes of teh Google can tell me. I quickly found this:

There was a shareholder proposal made recently requesting the board to “institute procedures to prevent holding investments in companies that, in the judgment of the board, substantially contribute to genocide or crimes against humanity, the most egrigious violations of human rights.”

...First, there was a list of very boring-sounding proposals about electing trustees, updating this, approving that, blah blah blah. The shareholder proposal request came LAST, and it was #8. What came FIRST was this:
“The board of directors/trustees recommends that you vote ‘for’ proposals 1-7 and ‘against’ proposal 8.”

Naturally, proposal 8 was the one urging divestment from companies that do business with the genocidal government of Sudan. If I had thrown this notice away, my vote would have been recorded as agreeing with the board recommendations.

This shareholder proposal was brought about by the efforts of Investors Against Genocide.

My vote may be just a drop in the bucket, but it was last year as well, and enough drops joined me to kick the corporations square in the nuts. If you have money invested in a big mutual fund, check out IAG's website and help bring about the change we need.