:: blame the extended gestation.... ::

:: Friday, January 23, 2004 ::

Californians rake in the money - 2004-01-23 - Silicon Valley/San Jose Business Journal:

"Residents of the nation's largest state earned a collective $1.13 trillion in 2001, the latest year for which official income breakdowns are available. That amounted to more than one-eighth of the money earned by all Americans that year. "

Contrary to popular propaganda... the rich want to live here too! Progressive taxation isn't the scrouge of the ball after all...

:: Jim Nichols 1/23/2004 05:53:00 PM [+] ::
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TNS: International Union Body Slams US Labor Practices:

"An international trade union coalition has condemned what it says are continuing labor rights violations in the United States. In a report released yesterday, the Brussels-based International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) condemned the US for 'insufficient protection against anti-union discrimination,' charging that 'the right to strike and the right to collective bargaining are severely restricted.'"

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 10:29:00 PM [+] ::
...

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | US opens new front in war on terror by beefing up border controls in Sahara:

"The US is sending troops and defence contractors to the Sahara desert of west Africa to open what it calls a new front in the war on terror. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 09:28:00 PM [+] ::
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tonypierce.com + busblog:

"maybe one reason that some people have a hard time grasping the importance of mlk is that when many of us look back at the 60s we see it as a time of great change in civil rights and social acceptance, but the summer of '63 wasnt the summer of '69.

'63 was the year that valium was invented. a year that the andy williams show, the dick van dyck show, and walt disney's wonderful world of color were winning emmys in variety, comedy, and childrens programming respectively.

the most aggressive thing happening in music was that the beatles were writing i wanna hold your hand.

tony bennet and ella fitzgerald were winning grammys for best male and female solo vocal perfomance respectively.

the grammys named peter paul and mary the best group due to their hit, if i had a hammer.

so when martin luther king got on that podium and said that he had a dream of little black kids walking down the street holding the hands of little white kids, that was probably as punk rock as it got in those lilly white days before the civil rights act."

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 09:12:00 PM [+] ::
...

MORE:

"Drake University student union. Student Dean rally and concert with Joan Jett and Janeane Garofalo. A decent turnout. Crowd quietly milling about. A few minutes into the set, Joan Jett is interrupted by a troupe of young men (with identical short haircuts) and young women -- all dressed in business suits. They wave Bush/Cheney 04 signs. Anti-Dean slogans are yelled. A Flat George replica bandied about. A second group joins in and soon, the chants drown out the music. They are surrounded and shifted away from the hall. One grabs a Dean sign and rips it in half, smiling and posing for cameras. The music returns. The crowd is still jagged from the interaction. Murmurs in the crowd. ... muffling dissent ... censorship ... taste of what's to come... this is why we need our country back... Fox News cameras are there at the concert before the disruptions begin. At a small student gathering. Go figure. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 06:03:00 PM [+] ::
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Watching Iowa on CNN. Its kind of fun(ny). How about a Kerry/Edwards ticket? Or a Kerry/Clark ticket?

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 05:33:00 PM [+] ::
...

" In general, it's easy to externalize problems: to ask whether someone else is doing the right thing. What's far more important is to look into the mirror, and ask what we are doing to allow others to do the right thing if they choose. The major power center is here. If it operates without internal constraints, that's our responsibility and our fault." -- Noam Chomsky

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 01:04:00 AM [+] ::
...

Glowing example of why Health Care should be public
Industries & Communities - bizjournals.com:

"Kaiser Permanente has contracted with a national advertising firm to build a $40 million image campaign intended to reverse a slide in membership. It will be the health plan's first image advertising campaign in nearly 10 years. "

What a waste of $40 million...

:: Jim Nichols 1/19/2004 12:43:00 AM [+] ::
...

Schools back in action so i'm busy as all get out. I'm up to my neck in Kant, Schopenhauer, and computationalism...

:: Jim Nichols 1/16/2004 12:40:00 AM [+] ::
...

Say it with me: "No bond without tax hike" sacbee.com -- Daniel Weintraub -- Daniel Weintraub: Californians oppose the governor's bond measure:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger faces an uphill battle to win voter approval of the first phase of his fiscal recovery plan March 2. But if he is willing to place his personal and political credibility on the line, he can probably pull it off.

A new poll released today shows that voters are inclined to oppose Proposition 57, Schwarzenegger's proposal for a $15 billion bond to refinance the state's accumulated debt and ease the transition back toward a balanced budget"

:: Jim Nichols 1/16/2004 12:35:00 AM [+] ::
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CJR Campaign Desk

:: Jim Nichols 1/16/2004 12:27:00 AM [+] ::
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Georgia unemployment claims jump in December - 2004-01-15 - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

"The Georgia Department of Labor said the number of workers filing a first-time unemployment benefit claim surged in December 2003. "

Jim Nichols
testing
Jim Nichols
testing again
Jim Nichols
and one last time
Jim Nichols

:: Jim Nichols 1/15/2004 07:59:00 PM [+] ::
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ARC: 2003 metro population up, but smallest recent single-year increase - 2004-01-15 - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

"The Atlanta Regional Commission estimates that the April 1, 2003 population in the 10-county Atlanta region was 3,669,300 -- nearly 240,000 more than counted in the 2000 Census, and 57,700 higher than ARC's 2002 estimate. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/15/2004 07:58:00 PM [+] ::
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Intelligence: Hussein Warned Iraqis to Beware Outside Fighters, Document Says:

"Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday."

:: Jim Nichols 1/15/2004 12:22:00 AM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Franken Signs Deal With Progressive Media:

"They haven't got a name or a launch date yet, but the entrepreneurs who dream of launching a liberal radio network have just landed themselves a lead man: Comedian and best-selling author Al Franken. "

I don't know if Liberal talk radio is going to work...

:: Jim Nichols 1/13/2004 10:51:00 PM [+] ::
...

Wow i'm about to hit 500...

that means somebody out there actually reads...

...what they get from it is another story.

:: Jim Nichols 1/13/2004 05:45:00 PM [+] ::
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California Nurses Association will audit hospitals - 2004-01-13 - San Francisco Business Times:

"The Oakland-based California Nurses Association, which represents 55,000 registered nurses in the state, said Tuesday it will start auditing hospitals to find out if they're meeting new staffing requirements. The union said it will publish the results after its research is done on Jan. 30.

A new state law requiring minimum ratios of patients to nurses in California hospitals went into effect Jan. 1."

:: Jim Nichols 1/13/2004 05:44:00 PM [+] ::
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H-P to move manufacturing jobs to Singapore - 2004-01-13 - San Francisco Business Times:

"Hewlett-Packard Co. will spend more than $1 billion in Singapore in the next five years, according to a published report, and will move some high-end server and printer making jobs there from the United States. "

I don't really have a big problem with outsourcing to other countries, moving jobs to the most cost effective areas; it seems like xenophobic knee-jerking to me--they need jobs just like anyone else. But I do have a problem that what is not inclued in the cost are some kind of safety-net for workers who lose those jobs.

:: Jim Nichols 1/13/2004 05:42:00 PM [+] ::
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Marginal Revolution: Should you have your kids during an economic boom?:

"Children who are born during economic booms live longer than their counterparts born during leaner times. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 06:01:00 PM [+] ::
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Crooked Timber: Could blogging damage your career?:

"IA cites a member of a job search committee:

I’ll be interviewing people at MLA, and, trust me, we’ve ‘Googled’ every job candidate to establish whether they are a good ‘fit’ for our institution. Watch what you say."

I was thinking the other day about the fact that some day this blog is going to bite me on the ass. Then again fuck it; I don't want a job like that. (Then again in 10 years with lots of bills i'm pretty sure i'll take whatever job I can get.)

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 05:56:00 PM [+] ::
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Philosophy Talk

This can't last long...

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 05:53:00 PM [+] ::
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Political front line, at front door | csmonitor.com:

"this year, candidates are drawing unprecedented numbers of volunteers from all over the country willing to skip work, brave 20-hour road trips, or sleep in a crowded bunkhouse that's 100 snowy yards from the toilets and showers."

The question is can the nominee get all these people back out there under one banner? If so Dem's win...

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 05:49:00 PM [+] ::
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tonypierce.com + busblog:

"i mean i remember back in school, if a person lied about something dumb like who they liked or something, that wasnt a big deal. but if someone lied about something that, i dont know, ended in hundreds and hundreds of american military men and women dying and the country going into billions of dollars in debt - even more debt than before... well, if someone had done that in school, theyd definitely be sent to the principals office."

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 05:43:00 PM [+] ::
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AP Wire | 01/12/2004 | Open government measure finally reaches Calif. ballot:

"A long-stalled constitutional amendment to bolster public access to government meetings and records was placed on California's November ballot Monday by lawmakers after twice bogging down in the state Assembly."

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 05:00:00 PM [+] ::
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Pardon me while I stop laughing--Extremist??

GOP rivals all say they'll beat Boxer / 2-term senator's voting record of liberal 'extremism' criticized:

"The three leading Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate held competing news conferences Thursday to tackle what each says is the main issue of 2004 campaign -- ousting 'extremist' and 'ideologue' incumbent Democrat Barbara Boxer. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 04:46:00 PM [+] ::
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Biotech gathering steam / Industry more hopeful than last year as S.F. conference meets:

"A comeback year of rising stock prices, drug success stories and favorable government trends is creating an upbeat mood for the 22nd annual biotechnology conference starting today in San Francisco. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 04:34:00 PM [+] ::
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RNC wants officials to ban partisan `soft money' spending by outside groups in presidential race:

"The Republican National Committee wants federal election officials to block partisan interest groups from spending big corporate, union and personal donations on get-out-the-vote drives in the presidential race. "

This just in the RNC doesn't want people to vote.

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 04:28:00 PM [+] ::
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Karl Polanyi and the writing of The Great Transformation

After years of relative obscurity, Karl Polanyi’s 1944 book, The Great Transformation, is increasingly recognized as one of the major works of twentieth-century social science. It is an indispensable reference in current debates about globalization and it has achieved the status of a canonical work for economic sociology and international political economy. Even in the ¢eld of economics that long ignored Polanyi’s powerful critique of market self-regulation,his ideas have gained renewed consideration and respect.

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 04:11:00 PM [+] ::
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"I.M.F. Says Rise in U.S. Debts Is Threat to World’s Economy
Elizabeth Becker and Edmund L. Andrews
New York Times, January 8, 2004, Page A1

"With its rising budget deficit and ballooning trade imbalance, the United States is running up a foreign debt of such record-breaking proportions that it threatens the financial stability of the global economy, according to a report released Wednesday by the International Monetary Fund. "

From Economic Reporting Review by Dean Baker:

"This article reports on a new study by the I.M.F., which warns that the U.S. budget and current account deficits could create serious instability in the world economy if they are not soon brought under control. At one point it refers to a projection that shows the size of the long-term U.S. budget deficit as $47 trillion. This figure is reported as being “nearly 500 percent of the current gross domestic product in the coming decades.”

The $47 trillion figure is the present discounted value of future deficits. It is nearly 500 percent of this year’s gross domestic product, but it would be more reasonable to compare it to the present discounted value of future GDP. This deficit is equal to approximately 6.5 percent of the present discounted value of future GDP, which implies that a tax increase equal to 6.5 percent of GDP would leave the budget in balance. Such a tax increase would leave tax rates in the U.S. somewhat lower than the average for rich countries.

It is also important to note that approximately three quarters of this projected deficit is attributable to rising private sector health care costs, which affect the federal budget through Medicare, Medicaid, and other government health care programs. If the U.S. found a way to successfully contain its health care costs -- as has every other industrialized nation then most of the projected $47 trillion deficit would be eliminated "

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 01:19:00 PM [+] ::
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Angry, and on Message:

"Tonight, at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, a panel of celebrity judges including Michael Moore, Al Franken, James Carville, and R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe will pick the winning entry in MoveOn.org's 'Bush in 30 Seconds' political advertisement contest. The winner - the spot that 'best explains what this President and his policies are really about.' - will air in swing states during the week of President Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 20. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 01:10:00 PM [+] ::
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Op-Ed Contributor: The Vital Republican Center:

"It doesn't seem to matter to conservatives that moderates share their views on the vast majority of those bedrock principles that have always been the foundation of Republicanism: smaller government, the power of free markets, a strong national defense. Because we disagree on a few issues, most notably a woman's right to choose, many conservatives act as if they wish we moderates would just disappear."

You know, people like Christie Todd Whitman and her ilk--both Republican and Democrat--who go on and on about the postive aspects of moderate political belief sound like complete morons. If it were simply a question of the superior nature of moderate politics the political climate would have changed ages ago. The problem is political districts are written up by state legislatures not bi-partisan commisions; meaning districts are drawn up that create picking grounds for (insert your political leaning). Thats why districts have become less and less competitive. It has nothing to do with some absurd idea that we're becoming more political (fewer people are voting than ever before) or that there is some huge cultural split (people are becoming far more globalized and cosmopolitan). Its voting districts pure and simple... Whitman can whine on and on about the benifits of being moderate; but no one is gonna listen to her until districts are drawn more competitive.

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 08:13:00 AM [+] ::
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Can you spell 'Draft' boys and girls?

Study Published by Army Criticizes War on Terror's Scope (washingtonpost.com):

"A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an 'unnecessary' war in Iraq and pursuing an 'unrealistic' quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat. "

The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is "near the breaking point."

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 08:13:00 AM [+] ::
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tonypierce.com + busblog:
"and she rang the little bell and miss gwen stefani appeared with a cloud of smoke behind door number three

and we all danced.

i danced the best

there were judges."

:: Jim Nichols 1/12/2004 08:01:00 AM [+] ::
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GeorgeWBush.com :: Official Blog :: "All signs point to a continued economic recovery in 2004"
All signs? I don't call 1000 jobs in December a sign of economic recovery.

:: Jim Nichols 1/11/2004 04:18:00 PM [+] ::
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sacbee.com -- 24-Hour News: Top Stories -- Bush to announce manned missions to Mars, moon

Bush thinks Americans need some grand narrative to get behind and cheer on. I got an idea, how about Universal Health Care, improving education; jesus I could think of a zillion things. He gives us Mars. I say give us real leadership.

:: Jim Nichols 1/11/2004 03:26:00 PM [+] ::
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Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Ideas / Friedrich the Great:

"Dismissed by critics as a free-market extremist, economist Friedrich Hayek is gaining new attention as a forerunner of cognitive psychology, information theory, even postmodernism. A reintroduction to one of the most important thinkers you've barely heard of."

:: Jim Nichols 1/11/2004 03:18:00 PM [+] ::
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Its time to raise taxes Gov.

sacbee.com -- Opinion -- Mark Paul: Only taxes hurt? Think again:

"Schwarzenegger describes our plight as being in 'a spending crisis.' But had he phrased that differently, saying 'we have a crisis of too-lavish public services,' I doubt many Californians would have agreed. With school funding lagging the national average, congestion growing, colleges turning away students and the number of families without health coverage rising, the case that California has too many public goods is hard to make, except perhaps for prisons.

The budget issue, Levy says, is really an investment decision. It's about where we best use 1 percent of California's output: on the private consumption we least value or on the highest-priority public goods."

:: Jim Nichols 1/11/2004 01:38:00 PM [+] ::
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I got reviewed
The Weblog Review | weblog and blog reviews

‘blame the extended gestation.…’ seemed a rather curious title for a blog, and not one that gave any real clue to the content that was to greet me. As a reviewer one is tempted to groan when a blogspot url leads to yet another genetic blogger template, we just see so many of the same repeatedly. That said I moved on in search of an about me section, there wasn’t one. These aren’t essential to any blog, but they help to give a reader a little background information on the person behind the words. I then headed off in search of that crucial first post hoping that there might be so interesting background information there, again there was none to speak of.

The interesting thing for me was that on first observation of the site I didn’t think it would attract me the way it did. But some people manage to make the dullest things sound interesting, and more often than not Jim manages this here. His posts are often short, to the point and with no word wasted. But this is a definite advantage bearing in mind the subject matters he tends to cover - you can learn a lot about this author with just a few postings, especially his political affiliations and so on. The content in summary is a lot like the title - short and quirky!

There isn’t a great deal I can say about the site design, it is in fact a generic blogger template, which are frequently seen and not very individual. I’m not a great fan of light text color on dark backgrounds, but this one is clear enough and easy to read, so no harm done. All the links work, even the archives thankfully (it is quite often the case with blogspot that archives are neglected leaving broken links).

Amazon advertisements in the left hand column show what the author is currently reading or listening to, and some interesting links to other sites can be found further down.

I was pleasantly surprised by some of the content here, which certainly managed to exceed my earlier expectations. I’m not sure that it would be a blog I would visit on a regular basis, but it would manage to be an interesting diversion every once in a while. Not bad at all - 3

Well its a start! I need to figure out how to draw in those regular readers! I know I should write more. But thats what everyone says. Its true though, I should write more. Nobody ever seems to like my layout... but I don't know a thing about layout so its gonna have to do for now.

:: Jim Nichols 1/10/2004 07:16:00 PM [+] ::
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JobWatch:

"Year ends with Bush projections falling far short of actual job growth

While campaigning for last year's tax bill, which had large long-term revenue losses favoring the wealthy, President Bush regularly claimed that the tax cuts would remedy the biggest problem facing the country: two years of job losses. Today's job numbers for December 2003 provide a benchmark for evaluating these promises.

The president specifically promised that the tax bill would generate an additional 510,000 jobs by the end of 2003, growth above and beyond the jobs that an economy in recovery would naturally generate. In fact, the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) projected that, with no change in policy, the resilient U.S. economy would generate a baseline of 4.1 million jobs by the end of 2004, even without the tax cut. (That baseline 3% gain in jobs was modest compared to earlier recovery periods without tax cuts: job growth was 4% over a comparable period of time following the early 1990s recession.) The CEA explained that, on top of that baseline job growth, the tax bill would add 510,000 jobs by the end of 2003 and a total of 1.4 million more jobs by the end of 2004. All told, the Bush Administration projected growth of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004 if its tax cuts were adopted, or an average growth rate of 306,000 jobs a month from July 2003 to December 2004.

The December 2003 job gain of 1,000 is a staggering 305,000 jobs below the promised monthly increase. In fact, job growth has never reached even a third of the promised rate of 306,000 jobs a month since the tax cut was implemented in July 2003."

So much for all those jobs we were gonna get...

:: Jim Nichols 1/10/2004 07:12:00 PM [+] ::
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MSNBC - Bush strategy on global warming ineffective:

"Two years after President Bush declared he could combat global warming without mandatory controls, the administration has launched a broad array of initiatives and research, yet it has had little success in recruiting companies to voluntarily curb their greenhouse gas emissions, according to official documents, reports and interviews. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/10/2004 07:10:00 PM [+] ::
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Toyota.com : Vehicles : Prius

The car I want... did I mention it got...

Motor Trend 2004 Car of the Year Winner: "The all-new 2004 Prius, however, is an altogether more compelling car. Not only is it the first hybrid that an enthusiast can truly enjoy, it provides a tantalizing preview of a future where extreme fuel-efficiency, ultra-low emissions, and stirring performance will happily coexist in one package."

:: Jim Nichols 1/10/2004 07:10:00 PM [+] ::
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California Insider - A $1 billion hole:

"Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's first budget, I'm told, is likely to be $1 billion out of whack on the day it's proposed. That's because it includes reductions in payments to Medi-Cal providers that have been struck down by a federal judge. In addition to the 5 percent cut approved by the Legislature and Gov. Gray Davis last summer, Schwarzenegger was looking to cut another 10 percent from rates paid doctors, hospitals and other providers in the coming year. But federal Judge David Levi ruled those cuts invalid in a Christmas Eve order. By then, the budget document Schwarzenegger will propose Friday had already been put to bed. So the cuts -- and the potential savings to the state -- will show up as part of the plan even though it is extremely unlikely that they can be implemented any time soon, if ever."

:: Jim Nichols 1/10/2004 12:23:00 AM [+] ::
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RICARDO'S DIFFICULT IDEA by Paul Krugman:

"My objective in this essay is to try to explain why intellectuals who are interested in economic issues so consistently balk at the concept of comparative advantage. Why do journalists who have a reputation as deep thinkers about world affairs begin squirming in their seats if you try to explain how trade can lead to mutually beneficial specialization? Why is it virtually impossible to get a discussion of comparative advantage, not only onto newspaper op-ed pages, but even into magazines that cheerfully publish long discussions of the work of Jacques Derrida? Why do policy wonks who will happily watch hundreds of hours of talking heads droning on about the global economy refuse to sit still for the ten minutes or so it takes to explain Ricardo? "

I'm reading this right now... so I thought I'd drop it off

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 09:12:00 PM [+] ::
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Marginal Revolution: SUV safety debate:

"A theme in writings about SUV's (see here for a recent New Yorker article) is that consumers tend to overestimate SUV safety and grossly misunderstand the factors behind auto safety. The basic point is that safety comes from avoiding risky situations and quickly responding to danger. It turns out SUV's tend to lull drivers into a false sense of safety and they respond more slowly to danger (e.g., SUV's come to a complete stop much more slowly than many other popular types of cars). Because SUV's are cosmetically altered trucks, they don't have many basic safety features now standard in small cars or minivans, so you are more likely to die in an SUV accident than in another car (an anti-SUV site collects some Insurance industry reports). Consumer Reports has for many years argued that SUV's are quite likely to tip over.

One response I've seen is to avidly defend consumer choice (see here for Car and Driver's Brock Yate's defense, or here for Peter Klein's comment), or to minimize the SUV's dangerous design. I think this misses a basic point. When events are infrequent (like fatal auto crashes), or when cause and effect are hard to link, people can opt to believe anything they want. All economics tells us is that markets are extremely good at responding to possibly erroneous consumer beliefs."

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 09:06:00 PM [+] ::
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Factoid by way of Doug Henwood

In the last three months of 2003, Canada created 173,000 new jobs;
the U.S., with a workforce eight times as large, created just
144,000. If we had done as well as our northern neighbor last month,
we'd have added 443,000 jobs (instead of 1,000).

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 05:46:00 PM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Group Slams U.S. 'Disinformation' Against Venezuela:

" A group of African-American activists including actor Danny Glover on Thursday criticized what they called a U.S. government and media 'disinformation' campaign against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez's leftist government. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 05:04:00 PM [+] ::
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Definition of 'Jew' confronts Israel | csmonitor.com:

"Zighaya, who in addition to his father has dozens of other relatives waiting in Ethiopia, says the problem is that Ethiopian Israelis have no political power. 'The politicians do whatever they want to us,' he says. 'This is not about money, this is about racism.'"

This is the problem with religion--it boils down to money and politics.

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 04:15:00 PM [+] ::
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In war on poverty, early gains and a long stalemate | csmonitor.com:

"Big-screen TVs are blowing out the doors of retailers, but 34 million Americans still live below the poverty line. The US GDP is roaring ahead, but the nation still has the worst child-poverty rate in the industrialized world. "

A warning in regards to the "war" on terror--we move on and forget.

:: Jim Nichols 1/09/2004 04:09:00 PM [+] ::
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Governor uses the 'B' word:

"If a chief executive officer warned that his company might go bankrupt, its stock price would plummet. But California bond prices were unaffected by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's repeated warnings Tuesday night that California could go bankrupt in June if voters don't approve a $15 billion bond measure in March.

One reason: States cannot file for bankruptcy. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/08/2004 03:35:00 PM [+] ::
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Conversation with Noam Chomsky, cover page: "Welcome to a Conversation with History. I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of International Studies. Our guest today is Noam Chomsky."

:: Jim Nichols 1/07/2004 06:33:00 PM [+] ::
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Reflections on Economic Reporting:

"It really is true that we cannot have a meaningful democracy without a well-informed public. The public must take responsibility for devoting the time needed to become informed on the issues that concern it. "

I have been reading ERR reports for a few years now, it consists of some of the best economic reporting around. Check out this piece, it does a good job of opening up the field of economic reporting to a more comprehensible level so that most people can approach economic reporting with a better grasp of the bigger picture.

:: Jim Nichols 1/07/2004 01:40:00 PM [+] ::
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When doing the right thing leads to arrest | csmonitor.com:

"Danny Sigui saw a murder unfold. He called 911 and testified as the key witness during the trial. In the process, he unwittingly alerted officials to his immigration status, and days later was arrested and jailed. "

Vile...

:: Jim Nichols 1/07/2004 10:15:00 AM [+] ::
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"The world in general doesn't know what to make of originality; it is startled out of its comfortable habits of thought, and its first reaction is one of anger." -W. Somerset Maugham

:: Jim Nichols 1/07/2004 10:11:00 AM [+] ::
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News:

"What do the war in Iraq and the economic recovery in the United States have in common? More than one might expect, to judge from the last couple of rounds of US growth figures.

The war has been a large part of the justification for the Bush administration to run ever-widening budget deficits, and those deficits, predicated largely on military spending, have in turn pumped money into the economy and provided the stimulus that low interest rates and tax cuts, on their own, could never achieve.

The result, according to economists, is a variant on Keynesianism that has particular appeal for Republicans. Instead of growing the government in general - pumping resources into public works, health care and education, say, which would have an immediate knock-on effect on sorely needed job creation - the policy focuses on those areas that represent obvious conservative and business-friendly constituencies. Which is to say, the military and, even more specifically, the military contractors that tend to be big contributors to Republican Party funds."

:: Jim Nichols 1/06/2004 10:27:00 PM [+] ::
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Rest of world gets sick of propping up Bush's deficit:

"US interest rates are now further below the American GDP growth rate than at any time since the 1970s. The 'output gap' that measures the difference between the economy's production and potential has probably already closed.

By the end of next year, Kalirai predicts the effects of a falling US dollar on US import prices, rising prices transmitted through Chinese and Japanese exports, and a tight US labour market (despite rising unemployment) will translate into a US inflation reading above 3 per cent.

'The Fed's goal is not to avoid deflation but to create inflation' says Kalirai."

:: Jim Nichols 1/06/2004 10:20:00 PM [+] ::
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BW Online | January 12, 2004 | Dean Starts Testing The Tightrope:

"Is Dean a peacenik, free-spending, Big Government liberal, as Republicans and some New Democratic critics contend? Or is he a fiscally responsible Democrat simply seeking to protect the health, safety, and 401(k)s of American families by making renegade corporations play by the rules?"

:: Jim Nichols 1/06/2004 10:04:00 PM [+] ::
...

Brilliant
Crooked Timber: Illocutionary Vegas Act:

"If Britney Spears were gay, I suppose this would be an excellent example of the kind of thing that’s ruining the institution of marriage."

:: Jim Nichols 1/06/2004 05:14:00 PM [+] ::
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Coup for Dean

Yahoo! News - Dean to Pick Up Endorsement of Ex-Sen. Bradley:

"Former Sen. Bill Bradley (news - web sites) of New Jersey, who lost his 2000 presidential bid to Al Gore (news - web sites), is expected to endorse Democratic front-runner Howard Dean (news - web sites) in New Hampshire on Tuesday, political sources said. "

The two major candidates of 2000 are giving Dean the nod. Here's my take... i'm gonna eat my words but... Dean gets the nomination and takes on either Clark (who has denied he will accept the nomination) or Hillary as VP to mend the partys current strife.

:: Jim Nichols 1/05/2004 09:40:00 AM [+] ::
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A Sight Which Can Never Be Forgotten: Introduction:

"Battlefield sites are considered noble places in the landscape of American history. Gettysburg, Bunker Hill, and Normandy stand as monuments honoring the people who fought and died there. Massacre sites, no less a part of our history, are often hidden. Vaguely worded road signs might give some indication of the tragedy, but visitors are not greeted by museums as they are at battlefield sites, and there are no official cemeteries in which the victims lie. Because they are shameful episodes in our past, massacres are not commemorated and the innocent dead are not honored. The Mountain Meadows Massacre, Sand Creek Massacre, and Tulsa Race Riot do not usually come up in history class, but over 500 people were brutally killed in these events. Although they took place long ago, they exemplify the impact--emotional, legal, and political--that the past can have on our own society today."

:: Jim Nichols 1/05/2004 09:26:00 AM [+] ::
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Aljazeera.Net - Israeli MP proposes 'ethnic cleansing':

"A member of the Israeli parliament has proposed “massive ethnic cleansing” of non-Jews in Palestine-Israel as a “final solution” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict."

:: Jim Nichols 1/05/2004 08:26:00 AM [+] ::
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Economists for Dean: The Hypocrisy of the Opportunity Society:

"Its time for the media to pounce on Bush's fake rhetoric on 'opportunity' and reveal it for what it is. I won't hold my breath."

:: Jim Nichols 1/05/2004 08:15:00 AM [+] ::
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Brought to you by the people who helped train Bin Ladin

Telegraph | News | CIA plans new secret police to fight Iraq terrorism:

"Nine months after the demise of Saddam Hussein's regime and his feared mukhabarat (intelligence) operatives, Iraq is to get a secret police force again - courtesy of Washington."

Do we really need more secret police running around Arab countries, is that how we're gonna "win the hearts and minds" of them?

:: Jim Nichols 1/04/2004 02:40:00 PM [+] ::
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AlterNet: West Africa's Cash Crop:

"Marijuana grown in Ghana is of good quality, plentiful and relatively inexpensive. Twenty neatly rolled sticks of pot, or about half an ounce, sell for about $3.

That's right, good pot sells for $6 an ounce in Ghana. Here is the highest stage of capitalism – the free market – in action. "

Five bucks says theres all kinds of action in making Ghana a hospitable environment to Advertisements for cig's and booze...

:: Jim Nichols 1/04/2004 01:55:00 PM [+] ::
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Just go ahead and cancel the election....

Sun-Sentinel: South Florida news (by way of: Apostropher):

"Pat Robertson said Friday that God told him President Bush will be re-elected in a landslide."

I always knew God hated us...

:: Jim Nichols 1/04/2004 01:31:00 PM [+] ::
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This goes in the "gotta suck" file

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event:

"An unlucky patient went into surgery bearing the words 'I love women' tattooed on his leg but when he came out it read 'I love men'."

:: Jim Nichols 1/04/2004 01:25:00 PM [+] ::
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Moral scapegoats, escapades, and fraudulent bystanders...

Dean's religious accent By Cal Thomas:

"Bill Clinton and Al Gore, with their Southern Baptist backgrounds, were fluent in the language of religion, though not always in its personal application."

You know what really bugs me? These people that go on and on about needing moral leadership. Its used all the time when looking at leaders. For one I could careless about people in the public eyes sex life and/or morality; I care about their policy. And not to mention the fact that it says a lot about the people who need moral leaders. If you can't come up with some form of ethical morality on your own and can't uphold it because of the actions of people in the public eye--or just down the street; then you really have some issues that need to be addressed.

:: Jim Nichols 1/04/2004 12:44:00 PM [+] ::
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Meaning and Metaphysics by Susan Neiman

I just saw her do an interview on NOW. It was very interesting, and helped to remind me why i'm majoring in philosophy. I want to learn to be able to think in such ways; to grasp the world with far more insight and knowledge than I have right now. I'm going to have to get her book.

:: Jim Nichols 1/03/2004 02:07:00 PM [+] ::
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I don't have the greatest of people skills

You know what I was thinking today; the world is one giant counter argument to the competence of God. Granted some people may retort that God might not have intended humans to be the measure of his power and skill; maybe he made the world for Goldfish, and that Goldfish are just as happy as can be. Well i'm not a goldfish so fuck them and fuck God too. This post really had no point. I feel embarrassed that you had to read it. Hopefully I lost one or two of you before you had to finish reading. Right here is where I lose the rest of you...

:: Jim Nichols 1/03/2004 01:46:00 PM [+] ::
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It's all about the money

Texas Rep. Ralph Hall switches to Republican party:

"'I think I can get re-elected much easier if I run as a Republican,' Hall said.

He told The Associated Press that he's always said that if being a Democrat hurt his district, he would switch or resign. He said GOP leaders had recently refused to place money for his district in a spending bill and 'the only reason I was given was I was a Democrat.' "

You'd think Republicans would be embarssed. Its not the philosophy its the spoils...

:: Jim Nichols 1/03/2004 11:16:00 AM [+] ::
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Britain Says U.S. Planned to Seize Oil in ’73 Crisis:

"The United States government seriously contemplated using military force to seize oil fields in the Middle East during the Arab oil embargo 30 years ago, according to a declassified British government document made public on Thursday. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 12:03:00 PM [+] ::
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Guardian | If Libya can do it, why not Israel?:

"There's a logic to these things. Muammar Gadafy, growing older, and his isolated Libya, growing poorer, were getting nothing worthwhile from the atomic bomb they hadn't built yet or chemicals they had scant residual use for. Logic - and common sense - meant changing tack. Good for logic. But logic doesn't stop there.

What next? If weapons of mass destruction are a menace in unstable regions such as the Middle East, if their availability must be reduced, then logic begins to move us closer to the confrontation we never seek with the nuclear power we - let alone Messrs Bush and Blair - seldom mention: Israel.

Nobody, including the Knesset, quite knows what happens inside the Dimona complex, but if you put together a compote of usually reliable sources (the Federation of American Scientists, Jane's Intelligence Review, the Stockholm Institute), a tolerably clear picture emerges. Ariel Sharon probably has more than 200 nuclear warheads this morning - more if the 17 years since Mordechai Vanunu's kidnapping have been devoted to building stockpiles.

That makes Israel the world's fifth largest nuclear power, boasting more bangs from Washington's bucks than Blair's Britain. And over in the other WMD basket, nobody much dissents when a report by the office of technology assessment for the US Congress concludes that Israel has 'undeclared offensive chemical warfare capabilities' and is 'generally reported as having an undeclared offensive biological warfare programme'. Bombs, missiles, delivery systems, gases, germs? Tel Aviv has the lot. We only forget to remember because it's not a suitable subject for polite diplomatic conversation. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 11:45:00 AM [+] ::
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Introduction and Summary: Religious Beliefs Underpin Opposition to Homosexuality:

"Opposition to gay marriage has increased since the summer and a narrow majority of Americans also oppose allowing gays and lesbians to enter legal agreements that fall short of marriage. Moreover, despite the overall rise in tolerance toward gays since the 1980s, many Americans remain highly critical of homosexuals ­ and religious belief is a major factor in these attitudes."

Goes to show you that stupidity breeds stupidity.

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 11:41:00 AM [+] ::
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Amusing definitions

From the International Dictionary of Psychology:

Consciousness: The having of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings; awareness. The term is impossible to define except in terms that are unintelligible without a grasp of what consciousness means....Consciousness is a fascinating but elusive phenomenon: it is impossible to specify what it is, what it does, or why it evolved. Nothing worth reading has been written about it.

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 11:10:00 AM [+] ::
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This is +1

I'm fooling around with an html tutorial so don't mind me... i'm playing

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 09:58:00 AM [+] ::
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"May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to
the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds."
-Edward Abbey

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 08:08:00 AM [+] ::
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Juan Cole * Informed Comment *:

"That a small number of Palestinians has replied to the Israeli assault on them with violence against Israeli civilians is both morally wrong and bad political strategy. It does not change the fact that the Israelis are the ones who are gaining territory at the Palestinians' expense. It also does not excuse a series of Israeli war crimes in the Occupied Territories, which include using US-supplied F-16s to fire missiles into a civilian, occupied apartment building in order to assassinate a Hamas leader (both the pilot and Ariel Sharon should be tried for this heinous act and others like it, which killed many civilians, including a baby).

Americans all know how much US citizens identified with the little band at the Alamo back in the 1830s, and how much they despised Mexico for opposing them. For the Muslim world, Palestine is the Alamo, and the Israelis and the US together play Santa Ana. Would it have done any good for the president of the Mexican Republic to have sent performers across the border to explain how well Americans were treated in Mexico, or to point to Mexico's progressive laws? A Public Relations campaign could never have made Santa Ana popular after he abolished states' rights and attacked San Antonio."

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 07:54:00 AM [+] ::
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Dynamist Blog: LOOKING FORWARD, LOOKING BACK What did the past really look like?

:: Jim Nichols 1/02/2004 07:22:00 AM [+] ::
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Yahoo! News - Elliott Smith Case Not Closed:

"A statement issued this week by the Los Angeles County coroner has clouded the case, saying officials have been unable to determine whether Smith was the one who initiated the two 'penetrating stab wounds' in his chest.

Therefore, an official cause of death has not yet been filed. "

:: Jim Nichols 1/01/2004 03:58:00 PM [+] ::
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