Judicial Coup

Few Americans of any party question our laws against foreign involvement in our domestic politics. But last week’s Supreme Court decision opens the door for global corporations to openly and directly dominate political discourse here. These corporations have allegiance to no country. The only connection many ‘American’ companies have to us anymore is to extract our dollars in exchange for foreign-made goods, before forwarding the profits to foreign tax havens.
Corporations have already established an international trading system through the WTO that usurps national law, and have used their surrogates in the media to portray opponents of this hyper-national framework as unpatriotic. Clever misdirection, that. They can be expected to use their newly legitimized power to further the subordination of national laws to theirs.

A Christmas Carol

We watched A Christmas Carol as a family the other night. It's a worthwhile exercise to watch this from time to time – not so much as a period piece as it is a window into our own hearts, and our current society. I think very little revision would be needed to update this story.

Ghost of Christmas Present: If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my species will find him here. But if he is to die, then let him die...! "AND DECREASE THE SURPLUS POPULATION!"
Ebeneezer Scrooge: You use my own words against me?
Ghost of Christmas Present: Yes! So perhaps, in the future, you will hold your tongue until you have discovered where the surplus population is, and WHO it is. It may well be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than MILLIONS like this poor man's child.
       – Charles Dickens

Wealth, Power, and Government

Absent an effective countervailing force, power and wealth will attract one another into an increasingly tight, inwardly spiraling orbit, resulting eventually in the black hole of concentrated wealth and monopoly power. Government which fails to act as that countervailing force—instead becoming a mere agent of wealth and power—violates its raison d’être, and is worse than no government at all.

Nobel vs. Bolton

Do you think it would placate those who are so wildly upset about Obama’s Nobel Prize if we came up with a little something for his predecessor?  I suggest that Cheney be given the first annual John Bolton Prize in International Diplomacy and cooperation.

A House Divided

It is delusional to believe that we can maintain decent, sustainable environmental and labor standards here, while laying open our economy to unrestricted imports from nations where no such standards exist. We have become an integrated world economy, and—to borrow from Abraham Lincoln—‘A house divided cannot stand’. The world economy will either move in unison to an environmentally sustainable, humane model, or will race to the bottom of ecological desolation and degradation of labor.
mjn

The Invisible Hand

An individual's belief in the beneficence of the so-called invisible hand depend largely on whether one identifies more with the slapper, or the slappee.

The Pinky - A Real Stinker from Unocal

Some ideas are so bad that they immediately go from obscurity to a place of honor beside ‘We’ll invade Russia in late summer; and be home in time for Christmas’, or maybe this technique for getting rid of a beached whale (from a few years back here on the Oregon coast):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFwxH3PPWiU

Unocal 76 has the distinction of coming up with the newest of these flashes of brilliance. Maybe you’ve seen the ads.

They call it ‘The Pinky’. The idea is to show your appreciation for a random act of kindness on the highway by raising your little finger in the general direction of the perpetrator of said kindness - much like 'flipping the bird', but with the little finger; the pinky - get it? 

This makes the extremely short list of non-verbal gestures subject to dangerous misinterpretation. A finger would be seen – which finger would require a second look, while driving in traffic. Even after correctly identifying the little finger, most drivers would have no idea what this means, and how they should respond.  At best, it’s a lame idea; at worst, it could get people killed.

The commercial promoting ‘The Pinky’ features a number of vignettes, each of which went well.  All smiles; no punches were thrown – basically because everybody involved was an actor, and were following the script. Only a fool would try this out in real life.

The only positive aspect to this is that these geniuses have trademarked this gesture – which may limit its adoption, and hopefully save some lives.

In the meantime, we have a perfectly good way of indicating approval … all five fingers, and a smile.