The coming no-work list: Barring 3/4 Million Americans from jobs
Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 10:00:56 AM PDT
According to the Los Angeles Daily News, the Bush administration is hoping to roll out a national no-work list designed to prevent noncitizens without appropriate visas from working:
privacy experts are warning America to prepare for the "no-work" list.
Apparently, the immigration bills (eg: title VII of HR 4437) running through congress seem to be requiring the use of an existing database — one filled with data entry errors:
extrapolated over 54 million workers in a mandatory national system, that could result in more than 750,000 people wrongly being told each year they are ineligible to work.
Pledging Allegiance
Fri May 26, 2006 at 01:18:52 PM PDT
One day, I looked up at a flagpole. What I saw wasn't what I expected, not the stars and stripes, not my state's flag, nor a city flag, but a company flag.
Needless to say, I got to wondering about what this meant, and could come to only one conclusion:
Fox gets paid -- even if you don't watch
Tue Apr 25, 2006 at 10:42:56 AM PDT
Fox "news", like the operator of many cable channels, gets paid if they are distributed to your home, even if you don't watch:
It wants an increase to $1 dollar per month per subscriber, from the 25 cent to 35 cent subscriber fee the network currently earns.
Since Fox is typically part of basic cable pacakges, this means that a whole lot of Kos readers are, through their cable payments, paying to run the Fox propaganda outfit.
Unwelcoming Bush in San Jose
Fri Apr 21, 2006 at 05:19:28 PM PDT
Several members of the San Francisco Bay Area Kossacks list showed up at the "Welcoming" of Bush and Schwarzenegger in San Jose this afternoon.
Along with us, were assorted other groups, from a native american group, many of whom were using walkers or wheelchairs, concerned about the closure of a local health clinic, to a family from Iran:
UPDATED: Protest Bush's visit to San Jose
Thu Apr 20, 2006 at 10:32:48 AM PDT
On Friday, Bush and Gov. Schwarzenegger will be visiting Cisco Systems in San Jose. Want to join your fellow Californians in telling Bush (and the press) that we don't like what they've been up to?
Details below the flip.
Executive Pay: 10% of corp. income
Wed Jan 11, 2006 at 10:41:15 AM PDT
In today's Wall Street Journal was this nugget:
In the period from 2001 to 2003, top-executive compensation amounted to 9.8% of the companies' net income, almost double the 5% in 1993 to 1995.
And, to quote a
draft of the paper:
compensation levels in 2003 were much higher than they would
have been had the relation of compensation to firm size, performance and industry remained
the same as in 1993
Perchlorate: low safe level and you're drinking it
Thu Dec 29, 2005 at 01:09:41 PM PDT
Perchlorate, a chemical used in the production of flares, rocket fuel, and munitions, is found in large chunks of the drinking water supply for the western US, in large part because the Colorado river is contaminated.
Naturally, being tasked with regulating environmental safety, the EPA cooprated with industry to study just how risky perchlorate is. To their surprise, as perchlorate had been approved as a thyroid drug many years ago, they found that for newborn rats, there is no safe level of perchorate, and set a limit of one part per billion in drinking water.
Ask WaPo Ombudsman to explain mysterious changes
Tue Nov 01, 2005 at 02:24:26 PM PDT
As others
have pointed out, there are significant differences between
the initial published version and the currently online version of
Sunday's article about Fitzgerald's indictment of I. Lewis (Scooter)
Libby:
When corporations control an army
Tue Aug 02, 2005 at 01:47:48 PM PDT
Faced with a choice between a draft, withdrawal, and hiring mercenaries, I've got a nasty feeling that the Bush administration will choose mercenaries. One of the major reasons that I dislike our hiring mercenaries in Iraq is that it creates an environment which invites corporate control of military capabilities. In the past, when they've obtained such control, corporations have used it to punish those who dare to criticize them:
The bodies of the dead Nigerian villagers had not yet grown cold when the Navy captain presented Chevron with a bill: 15,000 naira, or $165 for responding to ``attacks from Opia village against security agents.''
Within 24 hours Chevron paid up.
Where have the diary comments gone?
Wed Jul 20, 2005 at 11:13:15 AM PDT
[update]: Kos has just made this script completely unnecessary
A recent site change means that all diaries are now linked via a /storyonly/ URL instead of a /story URL. This means that when you click on the link to a diary, you see only the diary, and not the comments. To view the comments, you need to click another link.
This drives me totally nuts.
As a result, I've written a script for the GreaseMonkey FireFox extension to convert all /storyonly/ URLs on the site into /story/ URLs. This saves the need to click on a separate "view comments" link at the end of the diary.
payola: not just for politics
Tue Apr 19, 2005 at 06:42:55 AM PDT
Today, the WSJ is running an article which provides evidence of something that I've long suspected: most product mentions on television are in fact paid advertisements.
More Community Reinvestment Act changes
Sun Feb 27, 2005 at 09:46:55 PM PDT
Looks like they're at it again: A Friday night press release announces more regulatory changes weakening the Community Reinvestment Act.
Notable changes this time are:
- Remove the need to open branches or otherwise service low-income areas
- Eliminate reporting requirements for medium-sized banks, so that you can't tell if they're redlining
- Redistribute reinvestment from urban areas to exurbs
- change the definition of "Illegal Lending," presumably to permit some hertofore prohibited act.
