philly

Oliver Stone's Next Film?

Oliver Stone was arrested in Beverly Hills on Friday night for allegedly driving while intoxicated and drug possession. He posted his own bail and was released Saturday morning.

Will this be the plot for his next conspiracy theory film? How everyone is out to get him?

Now Public

Karl told me about this new online citizen photojournalism site called NowPublic which I promptly joined and uploaded a couple of things I've recently shot [Rittenhouse Row Festival and Seth Williams at Drinking Liberally].

It looks like a pretty cool idea. You can submit stories and request the users of NowPublic to go out on assignment to shoot it. You can then upload the photos you've taken and add footage to the story. Your images are automatically tagged with your info and Creative Commons License of your choice. Once uploaded, I think how it works is that people can use your images freely according to your CCL choices.

To sweeten the deal, they have Citizen Photojournalism Awards with some weekly $100 cash prizes during it's rollout with a $500 grand prize awarded June 16^th. Eggcellent. Let the games begin.

Two events I'll surely be covering: the Philadelphia primaries and the Star Wars midnight release at the Riverview.

And if you're worried about losing ownership of your photos, from their TOS:
6a. CONTENT OWNERSHIP
Unless stated otherwise for specific services, Member will retain copyright ownership and all related rights for information he or she publishes through NowPublic or otherwise enters into NowPublic-related services.

6b. CONTENT RESPONSIBILITY
BlueHereNow may, but have no obligation to, remove content that we determine in our sole discretion are unlawful, offensive, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene or otherwise objectionable or violates any party's intellectual property or this User Agreement.

United Air Wins Right to Default on Its Employee Pension Plans

United Air Wins Right to Default on Its Employee Pension Plans is the headline of this NY Times article.

United Airlines, which is operating in bankruptcy protection, received court permission yesterday to terminate its four employee pension plans, setting off the largest pension default in the three decades that the government has guaranteed pensions.
...
The ruling releases United, a unit of the UAL Corporation, from $3.2 billion in pension obligations over the next five years. The federal agency that guarantees pensions, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, will assume responsibility for the plans, which cover about 134,000 people.

Some retirees could see sharply lower pension payments as a result; others will see little change in benefits, depending on a variety of factors. Some retirees at US Airways, which has terminated its plans, have seen benefits drop by as much as 50 percent.

"guaranteed pensions" - what part of that did they not understand in the boardroom? While those asses in the know were off getting fat on the backs of hard labor, it's the ones at the bottom of the ladder that alwasy get fucked, royally.

But what can be done when a gigantic corporation goes bankrupt? Well for starters, the multi-millionaire assholes can pony up some of their own money. How do these people live with themselves? They shove off to St. Thomas or the Riviera to get away from it all. Maybe jet-hop from house to house across the globe to avoid all of the hate mail they get from the rank and file. It is just despicable. It makes me sick to my stomach to read stories like this.

AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!

THE RIGHT TO DEFALUT?

And other good news in this same article:

Delta Air Lines disclosed yesterday that it might have to seek bankruptcy protection if it is not able to renegotiate terms of more than $600 million in loans, or if its cash reserves dwindle. It also said it expected a significant loss for 2005. The disclosure, made in a securities filing, caused a 10 percent decline in Delta stock.

Have a nice day.

Church and State

Saw it first here on Susie's new home. And here's the dKos diary with tons of info.

For those that thought that there has not been a full scale war lanched against liberals; for those who didn't take the radical right's promise to "eradicate liberals" seriously, I present to you, Exhibit A: East Waynesville Baptist Church has just kicked out all its Democratic members.

Yes. You read that right. If you didn't vote for Bush, you had to "repent your sin". And finally, they figured why deal with the liberal sinners at all..

And the local paper there is the Citizen-Times.

Uniters not dividers?

***UPDATE*** 5.6.05
And here's a link with a 52 second video clip of the news broadcast. If the link is killed or their servers overloaded, lemme know and I can email you the file [1.4MB .wmv] or post a link for you to download the file.

And here's the story from the Citizen-Times.

Making it Harder to Get a License

This N.Y. Times article outlines how Congress is now "moving quickly" on changing the rules for obtaining and renewing one's drivers' license. I've always thought of this measure, a direct result of the threat of terrorism, as absolutely ludicrous.

A House and Senate conference now taking place has included the requirements, which apply to all 50 states and other jurisdictions that issue licenses, in a supplemental appropriations bill for Iraq, aides involved in the process said. The draft legislation will be finalized in the next few days and is all but certain to pass.

State officials complain that the new requirements will add a costly, complicated burden to the issuance of driver's licenses, which has been their responsibility for almost a century. Civil rights organizations and privacy advocates say that they are concerned that a standardized driver's license would amount to a national identification card and that a central database would be vulnerable to identify theft.

The proposed regulations, intended to deter terrorist attacks, would replace a provision of the intelligence bill passed in December that called on state and federal agencies to develop new rules for licenses. That law did not specifically require states to check the citizenship or immigration status of applicants.

Making the process of obtaining a license and citing terrorists as the justification is a rediculous argument. It's as if the entire Congress was never underage. Don't you remember how easy it was to get a fake ID? It was $50 for an okay ID when I was in high school, but you could cough up $200 and get a real ID - one that was made from a stolen blank from the DMV.

And then you'd tell me that you need more than just a drivers license. Well, printing out fake birth certificates, social security cards and the like aren't that hard either.

Supporters also say the measure will help control illegal immigration. Caroline Espinosa, a spokeswoman for NumbersUSA, a group that lobbies for tighter borders and tougher immigration laws, said, "This is really targeted toward national security, but a side effect would be discouraging illegal immigrants from coming into the United States and making it more difficult for them to open a bank account, buy a house, rent a car or buy a car."

How many illegal immigrants get paid by check or rent their own houses or buy their own cars? From what I've seen, illegal immigrants get paid by cash, live with relatives and don't own cars. But if they did need an ID, I know a place right on Arch St where they can get an ID. It's just not hard.

Does Congress really think that terrorists will stop and pack up their belongings and go back from where ever they came from if they couldn't get a legal license? I hope that they're really not that stupid.

Release of Casket Photos

The Pentagon is finally releasing some photos [WaPo] of returning flag draped caskets, but many have been redacted.

Many of the photographs released were censored, with black rectangles blocking out faces, uniform insignia, name tags and other images that could reveal the identities of military personnel involved in the honor ceremonies.

"Individual judgments were made to black out some faces and identifying information to protect privacy information," said James Turner, a Pentagon spokesman.

Thomas Blanton, director of the National Security Archive, which assisted in the lawsuit, said it was "an outrage and an insult that they blacked out those faces of the honor guard, when today on . . . [the Pentagon Web site] you can see photos of U.S. soldiers in Iraq. I can only imagine they put those black boxes there to make the photos unusable."

Not all images were of victims of today's conflicts. Some show coffins containing remains of U.S. service members from Korea and Vietnam.

A small victory. Now if we can just get them to admit that getting into this war was wrong in the first place. Is that too much to ask?

Budget Vote

And speaking of Medicaid and taxes, I point you to this N.Y. Times article. Some highlights

The House and Senate broke a lengthy impasse over federal spending Thursday night, narrowly adopting a $2.56 trillion federal budget for 2006 that aims to trim the growth of Medicaid by $10 billion over five years, add $106 billion in tax cuts and clear the way for oil drilling in an Alaskan wildlife refuge.
...
Mr. Bush cited the resolution as an example of his ability to get things done on Capitol Hill
...
Although the budget resolution is nonbinding, it is important because it provides an economic blueprint that lawmakers can use to pass specific tax and spending legislation later in the year. For instance, the resolution assumes $106 billion in tax cuts over the next five years, and explicitly directs Congress to enact legislation providing for $70 billion of those cuts. The intent, its authors say, is to extend Mr. Bush's tax cuts on capital gains and dividend income.
...
In the Senate, three Republicans - Senators George V. Voinovich and Mike DeWine of Ohio, and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island - joined with 43 Democrats and one independent to oppose the plan. Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut, was absent.

Mmmm, tax cuts during war. It's NEVER EVER BEEN DONE BEFORE. Oh wait, the Repugs just did that. Sorry. It's been done ONLY ONCE BEFORE and by the same Repugs who pushed it through this time.

Pharmacies and Prescriptions

I just read this article from the NY Times on the latest in the battle over whether or not pharmacies/pharmacists should have to fulfil a prescription for a morning-after pill. The highlighted battleground is now Illinois as Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich told pharmacists across Illinios to fulfil the prescriptions requested of them.

In some states, legislators are pushing laws that would explicitly grant pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense drugs related to contraception or abortion on moral grounds. Others want to require pharmacies to fill any legal prescription for birth control, much like Governor Blagojevich's emergency rule in Illinois, which requires pharmacies that stock the morning-after pill to dispense it without delay. And in some states, there are proposals or newly enacted laws to make the morning-after pill more accessible, by requiring hospitals to offer it to rape victims or allowing certain pharmacists to sell it without a prescription.

Some of the bills could become moot if the Food and Drug Administration approves the morning-after pill for over-the-counter sale by pharmacists, something advocates for women's reproductive rights and several Democratic senators have pressured the agency to do.

Maybe if the people who became pregnant had better sex education, they would not be in the position they find themselves in. And that is, of course, assuming that they were not raped or otherwise unvoluntarily impregnated. But W and Co. feel that people should not be having sex until they are married and feel that abstinence is the only sex-ed people need. Not even married, heterosexual, Christian couples should be seeking out these demonous devices, not even if a prophylactic should break and they cannot afford to have [another] chilid.

But it is not only W and the Repugs who want to limit the options of those seeking the morning-after pill.

Around the country, in at least 12 states, including Indiana, Texas and Tennessee, so-called conscience clause bills have been introduced, which would allow pharmacists to refuse to dispense contraceptives if they have moral or religious objections. Four states already have such laws applying specifically to pharmacists: Arkansas, South Dakota, Mississippi and Georgia.

Proposals in three states - California, Missouri and New Jersey - would have the opposite effect, compelling pharmacies to fill any legal prescription.

In California, West Virginia and a few other states, there is a legislative tug of war, with both types of bills pending in the legislature. In Arizona last week, Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed a bill that would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to dispense such drugs.

On the federal level, bills requiring all legal prescriptions to be filled have been introduced in recent days by Senator Barbara Boxer of California and Senator Frank R. Lautenberg of New Jersey. A House version of the Lautenberg bill has been sponsored by Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney of New York and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida, both Democrats, and Representative Christopher Shays, Republican of Connecticut, among others. The bills are not expected to get very far.

Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Senator Rick Santorum, Republican of Pennsylvania, have introduced the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which would allow a pharmacist to refuse to dispense certain drugs as long as another pharmacist on duty would. [emphasis added by me]

Yes, you read that correctly. That guy who ran for the Presidency who said that even though he was personally against abortions, as President, he'd not allow the banning of abortions as that decision was a personal one. Fuck you, he just said. And aside Repug Santorum.

I'm appalled that Kerry would go and introduce this kind of action. And according to this dKos entry, Sen. Clinton (D-NY) is also backing the act.

But, for now, it is ultimately those behind the counter who have the real power and they have their own ethics to live by

As the debate grows among lawmakers, a quieter debate is taking place behind the counters of many drugstores.

"As far as being a health care professional, I don't think I should be injecting my moral values on other people," Rod Adams, a pharmacist at the Colorado Pharmacy in Denver, said in an interview last week. "Obviously a morning-after pill is a personal choice that someone has to make. They've already made that choice when they come in here, and I don't think - I'm not a counselor - I don't really think that's my job."

But Patty Levin, a pharmacist for 22 years who works at Wender & Roberts in the north Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, said that she had never been asked to fill a prescription for the morning-after pill.

"I would be opposed to dispensing that particular product," she said. "It's basically an early abortion, is basically what it is. I would just hand it to the other pharmacist here," she said, adding, "If I'm not filling it, it doesn't involve me."

But it does involve you Ms. Levin! By allowing that person to have their prescription filled, you've helped them. It seems to me that Ms. Levin is on the fence, but leaning towards an individual's right to request a medicine and to have that request fulfilled.

I haven't seen Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) come out and speak to this yet. Sen. Obama hasn't been the beacon of light I hoped he'd turn out to be after the election. But he still has plenty of time to be all I thought he would become.

March 30th Roundup

Let's see... Johnny Cochran died yesterday, Schiavo died today, the Pope was read his last rites and Wolfowitz was confirmed as the new head of the World Bank.

The Media Digging on DeLay

Looky, looky. Seems like the Hammer's stance on this whole Schiavo ordeal is purely political! Who woulda thunk it? He faced a very similar situation with his own father in 1988.

From a story via AlterNet citing the original story from the L.A. Times.

The Los Angeles Times revealed that Tom DeLay personally endured an end-of-life crisis similar to the tragic Schiavo case. In 1988, DeLay's 65-year-old father Charles was seriously injured during a freak tram accident at the family's home in Canyon Lake, Texas. His injuries left the DeLay patriarch suspended in a coma, with doctors advising "that he would 'basically be a vegetable,'" according to the congressman's aunt, JoAnne DeLay. After several weeks, as Charles' organs began to fail, his family "confronted the dreaded choice so many other Americans have faced: to make heroic efforts or to let the end come." And, in a decision that belies his bellicose rhetoric of recent weeks, Tom DeLay "quietly joined the sad family consensus to let his father die."

As the last straw of hypocrisy, the Times detailed how DeLay's family later filed suit against two companies responsible for a machine part that the family said had caused the accident. The case was resolved in 1993 with payment of about $250,000, compensation for the dead father's "physical pain and suffering" and the mother's grief and loss of companionship, among other things. "Three years later," the Times notes, "DeLay cosponsored a bill specifically designed to override state laws on product liability such as the one cited in his family's lawsuit." Despite the benefits for his family, DeLay has taken a leading role promoting tort reform. He condemns trial lawyers who "get fat off the pain" of plaintiffs with "frivolous, parasitic lawsuits" that raise insurance premiums and "kill jobs."

Just when you thought that he couldn't possibly be a smarmier fucking shit faced gutless dipshit asshole, he is. Wow.