Robert Reich - The Corporate Pledge of Allegiance

Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy, University of California at Berkeley; Author, 'Aftershock'

Posted: 11/8/11

Despite what the Supreme Court and Mitt Romney say, corporations aren't people. (I'll believe they are when Georgia and Texas start executing them.)

The Court thinks corporations have First Amendment rights to spend as much as they want on politics, and Romney (and most of his fellow Regressives) think they need lower taxes and fewer regulations in order to be competitive.

These positions are absurd on their face. By flooding our democracy with their shareholders' money, big corporations are violating their shareholders' First Amendment rights because shareholders aren't consulted. They're simultaneously suppressing the First Amendment rights of the rest of us because, given how much money they're throwing around, we don't have enough money to be heard.

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Environment News Service - Irreversible Climate Change Looms Within Five Years

Environment News Service

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/nov2011/2011-11-09-01.html

LONDON - Unless there is a "bold change of policy direction," the world will lock itself into an insecure, inefficient and high-carbon energy system, the International Energy Agency warned at the launch of its 2011 World Energy Outlook today in London.

The report says there is still time to act, but despite steps in the right direction the door of opportunity is closing.

The agency's warning comes at a critical time in international climate change negotiations, as governments prepare for the annual UN climate summit in Durban, South Africa, from November 28.

"If we do not have an international agreement whose effect is put in place by 2017, then the door will be closed forever," IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol warned today.

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Ed Silverman - AstraZeneca Is Indicted By Serbia Over Bribes

http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/11/astrazeneca-is-indicted-by-serbia-over-bribes/

By Ed Silverman // November 8th, 2011 

Last August, AstraZeneca received a criminal indictment in Belgrade, Serbia, over allegations that local employees offered alleged bribes to physicians at the Institute of Oncology and Radiology, according to a filing made yesterday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (see this). The indictment, however, had actually been previously disclosed when AstraZeneca reported earnings late last month (see this).

The indictment follows the arrests last year of several officials at the Institute for Oncology and Radiology of Serbia, including director Nenad Borojevic and representatives from several pharmaceutical companies, including AstraZeneca and Roche, on suspicion of accepting and giving bribes totaling about $1.4 million (read here and here).

An AstraZeneca spokesman writes us to say that “we intend to vigorously defend the matter and have filed a number of pending preliminary procedural objections that ask the Serbian criminal court to dismiss the indictment.”

The indictment comes amid widening probes by regulators in the US and the UK into alleged overseas corruption by the pharmaceutical industry. In late 2009, the head of the US Justice Department’s Criminal Division warned drugmakers that there will be more criminal enforcement against interactions with foreign officials as they seek violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

In April, Johnson & Johnson was fined $70 million for bribing public doctors in several European countries - and paying kickbacks to Iraq - to illegally obtain business (read this). Three months ago, Pfizer provided the US Department of Justice and the SEC with info concerning “potentially improper payments” made by Pfizer and Wyeth personnel in connection with unspecified sales activities outside the US (see this). And over the past year, several other drugmakers, including Merck and Eli Lilly, received letters as the feds seeks to uncover any FCPA violations.

Dean Baker - Greece, Home of Democracy, Deprived of a Vote

Published on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 by The Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/08/greece-european-central-bank

Armed by Papandreou with a referendum, the Greek people had clout. Now, they're powerless before the troika's austerity plan

by Dean Baker

Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou touched off a firestorm last week when he proposed putting the austerity package designed by the "troika" (the IMF, the European Central Bank and the European Union) up for a popular vote. The idea that the Greek people might directly be able to decide their future terrified leaders across Europe and around the world. Financial markets panicked, sending stocks plummeting and bond yields soaring

However, by the end of the week, things were back under control. The leaders of France and Germany apparently laid down the law to Papandreou and he backed off plans for the referendum. While the government is in the process of collapsing in Greece, the world can now rest assured that the Greek people will not have an opportunity to vote on their future.

This is unfortunate, since it means that Greece's future will likely be decided by politicians who may not have the interests of the Greek people foremost in their minds. By their own projections, the austerity package designed by the troika promises a decade of austerity, with high unemployment, falling real wages and sharp reductions in public services and pensions. And their projections have consistently proven to be overly optimistic.

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Frank Schaeffer - The Shady World of Right-Wing 'Discipline' Guides

By Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet

Posted on November 8, 2011, Printed on November 9, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153006/beating_babies_in_the_name_of_jesus_the_shady_world_of_right-wing_%27discipline%27_guides

There is a brutal movement in America that legitimizes child abuse in the name of God. Two stories recently converged to make us pay attention. Last week, a video went viral of a Texas judge brutally whipping his disabled daughter. And on Monday, the New York Times published a story about child deaths in homes that have embraced the teachings of To Train Up a Child, a book by Christian preacher Michael Pearl that advocates using a switch on children as young as six months old. 

What many people may not realize is that in the evangelical alternative universe of the home school movement, tightly knit church communities and the following of a number of big-time leaders and authors, physical punishment of children has been glorified for years.

As the Times illustrates -- "Preaching Virtue of Spanking, Even as Deaths Fuel Debate" -- the books of Michael Pearl and his wife Debi have been found in the homes where several children were killed. 

They're not the only right-wing Christians who advocate these methods. Some of the most respected evangelical discipline gurus have made beating children not just "respectable" in conservative religious circles, but even turned it into a godly activity.

In 1977 James Dobson founder of the "Focus on the Family" religious empire and radio program, wrote a book called Dare To Discipline, whose purpose was, essentially, to get parents to beat their children.

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Matt Taibbi - Why Mitt Romney's Entitlement-Privatization Plan is Crazy

Published on Tuesday, November 8, 2011 by Rolling Stone

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/why-mitt-romneys-entitlement-privatization-plan-is-crazy-20111108

by Matt Taibbi

David Brooks, the [gratuitous insult deleted], wrote this this morning entitled "Mitt Romney, the Serious One." In it, he explained how Romney’s recent decision to unveil a plan for reforming the entitlement system "demonstrates his awareness of the issues that need to define the 2012 presidential election."

Romney grasped the toughest issue – how to reform entitlements to avoid a fiscal catastrophe – and he sketched out a sophisticated way to address it.

So we had a giant financial crash in 2008 that necessitated a bailout costing a minimum of nearly $5 trillion and perhaps ultimately costing $10 trillion more, we have foreclosure crisis with more than million people a year losing their homes, and we have a burgeoning European debt disaster that threatens to devastate the global financial system – and the chief issue facing the country, according to Brooks and the Times, is reforming the entitlement system?

The column goes on to throw bouquets on Romney’s plan to semi-privatize Medicare and Social Security. Romney’s ideas are not as draconian as Paul Ryan's, but they do pave the way for Wall Street’s ultimate goal – full privatization of Social Security and Medicare.

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NewsMax.com - White House Says No Evidence of Extraterrestrials

NewsMax.com  Monday, 07 Nov 2011

WASHINGTON — Sorry, E.T. lovers — the White House says it has no evidence that extraterrestrials exist.

The White House made the unusual declaration in response to a feature on its website that allows people to submit petitions that administration officials must respond to if enough people sign on.

In this case, more than 5,000 people signed a petition demanding that the White House disclose the government's knowledge of extraterrestrial beings, and more than 12,000 signed another petition seeking formal acknowledgement of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race.

In response, Phil Larson of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy wrote that the U.S. government has no evidence that life exists outside Earth, or that an extraterrestrial presence has contacted any member of the human race.

"In addition, there is no credible information to suggest that any evidence is being hidden from the public's eye," Larson wrote.

But he didn't close the door entirely on a close encounter of an alien kind, noting that many scientists and mathematicians believe that, statistically speaking, odds are high that there is life somewhere among the "trillions and trillions of stars in the universe" — although odds of making contact with non-humans are remote.

It's not the first petition to force the White House to engage on a somewhat off-beat topic since the "We the People" webpage was unveiled in September. The White House also has been forced to explain why it can't comment in response to a petition demanding "Try Casey Anthony in Federal Court for Lying to the FBI Investigators" (because it's a law enforcement matter).

And various petitions demanding legalization of marijuana have gathered more than 100,000 names, to which the White House argues that marijuana is associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment, and legalizing it would not be the answer.

The White House also has addressed topics including gay marriage and student loan debt.

When the website debuted, the White House promised to respond to any petition that garnered 5,000 or more signatures within 30 days, but it's now raised that threshold to 25,000.

Dalai Lama - 'Cultural genocide' is behind self-immolations in Tibet

by Staff Writers
Tokyo (AFP) Nov 7, 2011

http://www.sinodaily.com/reports/Cultural_genocide_behind_self-immolations_Dalai_Lama_999.html

The Dalai Lama on Monday said Tibetans faced "cultural genocide" under hardline Chinese rule that he blamed for a recent wave of self-immolations in China's southwest.

"Chinese communist propaganda create a very rosy picture. But actually, including many Chinese from mainland China who visit Tibet, they all have the impression things are terrible," the Dalai Lama told journalists in Tokyo.

"Some kind of policy, some kind of cultural genocide is taking place," the 76-year-old Tibetan spiritual leader said, in comments that are likely to rile Beijing.

Eight Buddhist monks and two nuns have set themselves alight in ethnically Tibetan parts of Sichuan province since the self-immolation of a young monk in March at Kirti monastery sparked a government crackdown.

Activists say that at least five monks and two nuns have died and that Chinese police have at times responded by beating the burning protesters and their colleagues rather than providing assistance.

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Medical News Today - Brain Chemistry Directly Altered By Parasite

Medical News Today, 07 Nov 2011

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/237203.php

A research group from the University of Leeds has shown that infection by the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, found in 10-20 per cent of the UK's population, directly affects the production of dopamine, a key chemical messenger in the brain. 

Their findings are the first to demonstrate that a parasite found in the brain of mammals can affect dopamine levels. 

Whilst the work has been carried out with rodents, lead investigator Dr Glenn McConkey of the University's Faculty of Biological Sciences, believes that the findings could ultimately shed new light on treating human neurological disorders that are dopamine-related such as schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Parkinson's disease. 

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Deborah Zabarenko - Health cost of 6 U.S. climate disasters: $14 billion

Reuters, Mon, Nov 7 2011

By Deborah Zabarenko, Environment Correspondent

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/07/us-climate-health-idUSTRE7A65SO20111107?type=GCA-GreenBusiness

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Deaths and health problems from floods, drought and other U.S. disasters related to climate change cost an estimated $14 billion over the last decade, researchers said on Monday.

"When extreme weather hits, we hear about the property damage and insurance costs," said Kim Knowlton, a senior scientist at Natural Resources Defense Council and a co-author of the study. "The healthcare costs never end up on the tab."

The study in the journal Health Affairs looked at the cost of human suffering and loss of life due to six disasters from 2000-2009.

"This in no way is going to capture all of the climate-related events that happened in the U.S. over that time period," Knowlton said. "At $14 billion, these numbers are big already."

To put this in context, 14 weather disasters in the United States so far this year have cost at least $14 billion, according to Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground website.

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