Australian Internet Censorship...

There have been various stories on the Australian government's attempts to censor internet browsing by its citizens. I read an interesting article on it yesterday:
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2009/03/17/1237054787635.html?page=fullpage

I realize that the censorship & filtering proposal has been pushed back for now, but it sounds like our Aussie friends need an equivalent to our First Amendment rights. How is it that censorship is alive and well in the 21st century?

Red Cross: Detaineed Were Tortured

Red Cross report says detainees at CIA 'black sites' were tortured

The confidential report, published Sunday, could bolster calls for legal action against the Bush administration.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) concluded in 2007 that US methods to extract information from prisoners at secret CIA jails as part of the "war on terror" amounted to torture, according to excerpts from a confidential report published on the website of the The New York Review of Books on Sunday.

With US President Barack Obama on record as backing the prosecution of officials involved in "clear instances of wrongdoing," the report could fuel calls for such legal action.

Though allegations of the torture of terror suspects at CIA-run "black sites" have been widely detailed before, the Red Cross report has "an unusual claim to authenticity," the article's author, Mark Danner, wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times.

The article in the Times quoted the report's conclusion:

The allegations of ill-treatment of the detainees indicate that, in many cases, the ill-treatment to which they were subjected while held in the CIA program, either singly or in combination, constituted torture. In addition, many other elements of the ill-treatment, either singly or in combination, constituted cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.

...

We cannot let the Bush Administration get away with this. They must be prosecuted.

My Aura Smiles and Never Frowns

Many Californians remember Governor Moonbeam Jerry Brown. His father was governor, he was governor, and he followed the worst governor in our state's history. So maybe his forced spraying of malathion over urban areas fell a little short of the Reagan gold standard for ruining the state. But he was a terrible governor nonetheless. And now he wants to be governor again, pledging no new taxes along the way. No new taxes? In a state with a structural and perennial budget deficit? How insane is that?

Rule of thumb: when the Dead Kennedys write a song about you, it pretty much means you suck:

California...NOT a High Tax State

I ran across this interesting study of the California tax system today. Despite claims by right wingers, California ranks 17th in terms of total state & local taxes as a percentage of income, and we're right about the average for the country. And our motor fuels taxes rank far behind the national average. We're also the only state that requires a supermajority to pass a budget or tax increase.

But the thing that struck me most was this:

A Phillip Randolph Institute...A Local Shill

People who know a bit about San Francisco politics will tell you that the A. Phillip Randolph Institute is little more than a front for corporate interests. Now the LA Times has broken the story...on the record:

James Bryant, who earned just under $68,000 as a transit station agent in 2007, received about $117,000 that year as president of the San Francisco chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, according to the tax return and the city's Municipal Transportation Agency. He was also paid or reimbursed about $10,000 as an executive board member for SEIU Local 1021, whose political committee he chairs, the union's financial statements show.

The nonprofit's tax-exempt purpose is to promote civil rights, voter education and the interests of black workers. Its biggest contributors include Pacific Gas & Electric and other corporate benefactors that have enlisted it to campaign for or against ballot initiatives dealing with energy and land development.

During the Willie Brown era, APRI was known as hizzoner's water carriers. And since Willie was a PG&E lawyer before he became mayor, this is to be expected. Yet another corporate-funded astroturf play in SF politics.

Anyone Want to Build a Pizza Oven?

I wish I had a bigger backyard. I've been wanting to build a pizza oven, but we just don't have the room. The Oz Monsters seem to have it down, and I'm wondering why we don't have a few. There are free plans on teh interwebz, and I'm fairly handy. Just need a sucker with a backyard...

Fiona Ma Is An Idiot

I was apprehensive when Fiona Ma went to the assembly. I was glad to get her off the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, but she's trying to do more harm from Sacramento. Aside from her idiocy on mandating JROTC, she's also apparently pushing for a state tax break for the largest corporation in the world...by changing the way the state's corporate income taxes are calculated.

Let me get this straight, Fiona...you've increased taxes on the poor and middle class, yet you want to give corporate titans a permanent tax break in a futile effort to keep jobs in California? I guess we know who pays for your campaigns.