Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Voodoo economics: The sequel. Bush's vast tax cut will fatten the piggies in their starched white shirts and create huge deficits. But the spineless Democrats don't have the will to stop it. [Salon.com] 8:52:15 PM

Radio: Where's the Diversity? At the Future of Music Coalition's annual policy summit held here this week, people representing musicians, record labels, consumers and others charged that radio deregulation since passage of the 1996 Telecommunications Act has destroyed diversity on the airwaves. [Daypop Top 40] 8:51:51 PM

TV Ads Say S.U.V. Owners Support Terrorists "This is George," a girl's voice says of an oblivious man at a gas station. "This is the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The screen then shows a map of the Middle East. "These are the countries where the executives bought the oil that made the gas that George bought for his S.U.V." The picture switches to a scene of armed terrorists in a desert. "And these are the terrorists who get money from those countries every time George fills up his S.U.V." [Daypop Top 40] 8:45:53 PM

Canadian programmers in San Jose jailed five days for no reason. By way of politech: You may be interested in the story of Faramarz Farahani and other high-tech workers in California who, trying to do the right thing on the advice of their lawyers, went to clear up immigration paperwork. Farahani is a Canadian who was born in Iran, as was another man. In his case, he had overstayed his visa by 2 days. When he went to the INS, they were too busy, and rather than having him come back when they didn't have so many people on staff, they jailed him, sending him on a Con Air junket, eventually to a San Diego jail, where, in the holiday spirit, he had to sleep in a crowded cell on a concrete floor while INS agents woke them every 15 minutes to ask questions. Only because he had help from his silicon valley employer and because he had good English did he make it out after only 5 days of fun. Welcome to America! Story is here, and more via Google News here. Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] 5:49:40 AM

Bush's dividend payoff. The president's tax plan offers $300 billion for a handful of plutocrats, but pennies for the rest of us. [Salon.com] Rob from the poor, give to the rich... 5:46:33 AM

Bring back the draft?. Rep. Charles Rangel says yes -- the poor, black and brown shouldn't be the only Americans fighting and dying in Iraq. [Salon.com] And while we're at it, let's draft one of Dumbya's daughters. Then let's see how eager he is to go to war. 5:33:09 AM

Protest info for INS detainees. Lisa Rein's pulled together an amazing site with resources for people interested in protesting the plight of the law-abiding immigrants who presented themselves voluntarily to the INS to complete their new immigration paperwork and instead found themselves jailed and sent on a nightmarish Orwellian journey through the American post-legal system: The detainees, who represent wide segments of society such as business owners, scientists, and engineers, were handcuffed and shackled as they were transported across several western states before they ended up in San Diego. There were several reports of inhumane detention conditions such as the collection of 17-40 people in a freezing 8-by-10 cell with one toilet and two pieces of paper each for "hygienic" purposes. One detainee was told to drink from the toilet after he asked for water. Link Discuss [Boing Boing Blog] I'm sure there are a lot of people out there who have heard the Administration's spin on this -- all of the people arrested had INS violations. Which may be true, but after you read Danny O'Brien's explanation of how hard it is to comply with INS requirements, you know its a specious explanation. As O'Brien points out, he's lucky he's from an English-speaking "friendly" nation, rather than an Arab country, because his simple form errors would otherwise have landed him in jail. 5:25:43 AM

© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.