> Nadeau: 06.10

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Brauchli: How to buy a judge
One of money’s more amusing appearances was in the 1980s when the Texas Supreme Court decided a contract dispute between Pennzoil and Texaco in favor of the former with the result that Texaco settled with Pennzoil for $3 billion. Following entry of that judgment, wags observed that in one year the lawyers for the winning side had contributed in excess of $300,000 to members of the court for their reelection efforts whereas lawyers for the losing side had contributed less than $200,000. Only a cynic would believe that the contributions affected the justices’ decision, at least until West Virginia came along.
Read more »

posted by Tom Nadeau at 4:27 AM 0 comments

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Quiet man kills 12, wounds 11 before turning gun on self
in picturesque county in northeastern part of England

Initial readings suggest that twin brothers were in some sort of dispute over the assignments of a will when one of them flipped out and killed his twin and the family lawyer.

Then it was "in for a penny, in for a pound" and the killer went on a shooting spree.
Killer Derrick Bird held a gun licence for 20 years before an apparent family feud sparked a rampage which left 12 dead and 11 more injured.

As more stories of Bird's three-hour massacre in Cumbria emerged, police tried to piece together why the quiet taxi driver snapped, taking potshots at random strangers but also targeting his brother and family solicitor.

It is believed his first victim was his twin David and reports suggested the pair were locked in a row over a will.

Bird, 52, of Rowrah, then gunned down family solicitor Kevin Commons, 60, at the lawyer's home in Frizington, west Cumbria.

He drove on to the town of Whitehaven, where he shot at least three fellow taxi drivers, killing Darren Rewcastle.

The Independent/UK

And a psychiatrist examines the snap-and-kill phenomenon.

posted by Tom Nadeau at 3:00 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 02, 2010

Fares up, services cut as more need public transit;
1 more sign the world’s on brink of an ‘age of rage’

People are losing the homes and living in their cars. Next to go in this severe economic shutdown and period of rising oil prices is the car. An increasing number of people will be homeless, carless and in deep need of a public transit ride to the Wal-Mart on the outskirts of town to buy what little food they can afford.

So what do the urban planners and government thinkers give us? Less at a higher price.
The deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression is having a devastating impact on mass public transit systems throughout the US. State tax revenues have suffered their worst decline in more than half a century, and more is still to come. Since state and local governments are legally required to balance their budgets, legislatures and governors are taking a sledgehammer to spending on everything from libraries to state parks to health, education and transit. Far from making up for these shortfalls, the austerity policies backed by the Obama administration and both parties are making matters worse.[…]

According to a report issued by the American Public Transportation Association (APTA), a lobbying and advocacy group consisting largely of transit agencies themselves, 84 percent of major transit systems have either cut service and raised fares in the last 18 months, or are considering such measures. Out of a total of 151 agencies surveyed, 59 percent have already cut service or raised fares, 69 percent have projected budget shortfalls, and 47 percent have either laid off employees or plan to do so.

WSWS

Is it any wonder why some of us think the pot is coming to the boil?
When Karl Marx wrote in the Communist Manifesto that “a spectre is haunting Europe,” he did so on the eve of the revolutionary eruptions that began in Italy and France in 1848 and engulfed much of the European continent.

In recent days, a number of media commentaries have predicted a similar eruption of social unrest of revolutionary dimensions as a direct result of the worsening economic crisis. These warnings are accompanied by dire predictions that Europe will suffer the return of nationalist tensions, the emergence of fascist movements and even war.

Writing in the Financial Times May 24, for example, historian Simon Schama stated, “Far be it for me to make a dicey situation dicier but you can’t smell the sulphur in the air right now and not think we might be on the threshold of an age of rage... in Europe and America there is a distinct possibility of a long hot summer of social umbrage.”

WSWS

posted by Tom Nadeau at 6:41 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

WSWS has the BP-Gulf disaster properly pegged

This disaster is another demonstration of the way in which global society is vulnerable to the destructive operations of privately owned corporations, whose guiding principle is profit and the enrichment and private shareholders.

The government has committed massive resources to the military and the Department of Homeland Security, on the pretext that the greatest threat to the American people is some sort of terrorist action. And yet, during the course of the past decade, the greatest catastrophes have been created by giant corporations and the capitalist system. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina exposed the decay of social infrastructure in the United States. In 2008, the operations of finance companies plunged the world into economic recession. Now, the criminal actions of BP have led to the poisoning of the Gulf of Mexico.
Only one logical, legal and moral conclusion can be reached from this.
A criminal investigation into the activities of BP, Transocean, Halliburton and other companies must be launched. Top executives should be arrested and held accountable for this disaster.

An international committee of scientists and other experts must be convened, completely independent of the corporations and the government, to determine the extent of the catastrophe and the necessary measures that must be taken. No confidence can be placed in the Obama administration or any section of the political establishment to do anything but continue to cover for BP and the oil industry.
Barely touched upon in this WSWS editorial are the profound similarities between how Bush responded to Katrina and Obama responded to the BP oil catastrophe: avoidance, prevarication, fake sympathy.

If any proof of the sameness of the two dominating parties and government subservience to business was needed. This is it.

Anyone not yet convinced should understand: we can not wait for a third proof. In all likelihood. We would not survive it.

posted by Tom Nadeau at 2:51 AM 0 comments