tagged w/ Corporate Greed
-
Take That Clown!
http://i.imgur.com/U05rU.jpg
-
-
Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in penalties after promoting drugs for uses not approved by the FDA. This unlawful behavior may not end until prosecutors force a drugmaker into bankruptcy.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=a4yV1nYxCGoA&pos=10Pfizer and Lilly lead a parade of U.S. companies that have paid $7 billion in... more
-
-
http://www.theage.com.au/world/horrendous-legacy-20091030-hpte.html
THE rickshaw driver pulls in to the side of the road to allow us to take shelter from torrential rain. There, under a shop's awning, a small crowd is waiting for the weather to break. The group includes Sapna Sharma and her brother-in-law, Sanjay. Sanjay is holding his 18-month-old nephew, Anshul, who has kohl-rimmed eyes and silver bracelets on his ankles.
As we stand talking, some of the people start pointing to the child's hands and feet while speaking animatedly to us in Hindi, and then Sapna explains through our translator that her son was born with 12 toes and 12 fingers.
Shortly afterwards, about a kilometre away in the Shankar Nagar area of Bhopal, we meet another Indian child with congenital malformations, three-year-old Raj, who is visually impaired, cannot walk and whose head is oversized. ''The doctors said bad water could have been a cause of my son's condition. Older people here are gas victims and now the younger people are victims of the water,'' his mother, Poona Bai, says.
Here, in the city of Bhopal, in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of children are being born with deformities and mental health problems. As we walk back to our rickshaw, we come across more afflicted youngsters who have followed us along the road. They include 12-year-old Rajesh, who is barefoot and bald. The other children make fun of him as his mother, Yashdabai, explains that they do so because they believe he is mad. Rajesh's older sister, Sonia, scolds the other children and says she has to protect her brother from bullies. Sonia is barefoot, too, and as she speaks a colleague notices that the young girl has huge feet.
This is the horrendous legacy Bhopal is facing 25 years on from the world's worst industrial accident. The Bhopal gas disaster, as it became known, has been dubbed the ''Hiroshima of the chemical industry''. It happened shortly after midnight on December 3, 1984, when a cloud of poisonous gas escaped from a Union Carbide pesticide plant. The release of 42 tonnes of methyl isocyanate (known as MIC) from the factory exposed more than 500,000 people to toxic gas. Up to 10,000 are thought to have died within the first 72 hours after the leak.
At least 25,000 people exposed to the gas have since died, and today in Bhopal tens of thousands more Indians suffer from a variety of debilitating gas-related illnesses such as respiratory and psychiatric problems, joint pains, menstrual irregularities, tuberculosis and cancers. Then there is the escalating number of birth defects, including cleft palates, webbed feet and hands, twisted limbs, brain damage and heart problems.
Shankar Nagar is a slum area of the city, just north of the derelict Union Carbide factory. For years local campaigners have been demanding that Union Carbide, now owned by US multinational Dow Chemicals, clean up the abandoned pesticide plant, but so far their pleas have been ignored.
In 1999, a Greenpeace investigation found severe chemical contamination of the environment surrounding the former factory, which, the NGO said, was polluted with heavy metals and chemical compounds.
The report said: ''Analysis of water samples drawn from wells serving the local community has also confirmed the contamination of groundwater reserves with chemicals arising either from previous or ongoing activities and/or incidents. As a result of the ubiquitous presence of contaminants, the exposure of the communities surrounding the plants to complex mixtures of hazardous chemicals continues on a daily basis.
''Though less acute than the exposure that took place as a result of the 1984 MIC release, long-term chronic exposure to mixtures of toxic synthetic chemicals and heavy metals is also likely to have serious consequences for the health and survival of the local population.''
The Greenpeace study was backed in 2004 by Amnesty International, whose Clouds of Injustice report said, ''toxic wastes continue to pollute the environment and water supply … and it is appalling that no one has been held
accountable.http://www.theage.com.au/world/horrendous-legacy-20091030-hpte.html
THE rickshaw... more
-
-
China has been looked down as the land of pirated products for a while. Now, that's a bad image about to be turned into something good.
Chinese fakes might rescue the interests behind technology: from corporations back to consumers.China has been looked down as the land of pirated products for a while. Now, that's a... more
-
-
MONEY has thrown society out of kilter. Banks that once appeared to have mountains of cash have collapsed. As a consequence of the global recession, governments now recognise that banking is too important to be left to the bankers. States have taken action, from wresting control of financial institutions to introducing new regulations.
I believe the financial meltdown has implications for pharmaceutical research. The running of large pharmaceutical companies carries a social responsibility that is as heavy as running any bank. Recently, however, this unwritten contract between society and drug companies has not been fulfilled. Is our health now too important to be left to big pharma?
To illustrate my concerns, let's look at the treatment of heart disease. Many important cardiovascular drugs have been invented: statins, ACE inhibitors, beta blockers, fibrinolytics. But in the last 10 years, few of significance have emerged, even though the pharmaceutical industry has spent unprecedented amounts of money on research and development: in each year of that decade, Pfizer spent about $6 billion, Eli Lilly $3bn, and GlaxoSmithKline $2.5bn.
Funny that, spending Billions trying to cure Illness and Diseases that they created themselves, but we all know it's more profitable to research this rather than cure it, after all what good is a healthy alert nation to it's government?MONEY has thrown society out of kilter. Banks that once appeared to have mountains of... more
-
-
An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for a Special Counsel to be appointed to investigate the allegations of FBI translator-turned-whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. John M. Cole, who now works as an intelligence contractor for the Air Force, made his comments during an audio interview released late last week with radio journalist Peter B. Collins.
He also offered a detailed insider's look at the concerns among high-level officials inside the Bureau as Edmonds' disturbing allegations began coming to light back in 2002, before they would be quashed for seven long years by the Bush Administration's unprecedented use of the so-called "State Secrets Privilege" to gag her.
Earlier last week, following the publication of a remarkable American Conservative magazine cover story interview with Edmonds --- detailing a broad bribery, blackmail, and espionage conspiracy said to have been carried out between current and former members of the U.S. Congress, high-ranking State and Defense Department officials and covert operatives from Turkey and Israel, resulting in the theft and sale of nuclear weapons technology on the foreign black market --- Cole had been quoted by the magazine confirming one of Edmonds' key allegations.
"I am fully aware of the FBI's decade-long investigation of" Marc Grossman, he said in response to the AmCon article/interview. Grossman had served as the third-highest ranking official in the Bush State Department and was alleged by Edmonds in the interview, and in a sworn, video-taped deposition a month earlier, to have been the U.S. ringleader for a massive Turkish espionage scandal reaching through the halls of power and into top-secret nuclear facilities around the country to the benefit of allies and enemies alike. Cole said that the FBI's counterintelligence probe "ultimately was buried and covered up," and that he believes it is "long past time" for an investigation of the case to "bring about accountability."
In his subsequent interview with Collins last week (audio and text excerpts posted below) Cole elaborated on those comments in much greater detail, noting that Edmonds has been "one hundred percent right on the money, on the mark" and confirming the existence of an "ongoing and detailed effort by Turkey to develop influence in the United States" through various illegal activities.
"Yes, I can confirm that," Cole told Collins, "That's true."
The FBI veteran executive also offered an insider's account of the panic that ensued inside the highest echelons of the bureau following Edmonds' first disclosure of information in 2002, recounting how an executive assistant director admitted to him at the time, just after the story first broke, "Well, all I know is that everything that Sibel is stating is true. I read her file. Everything she stated is, in fact, accurate."
Cole further describes how the concerns about Edmonds ultimately led to the Bush Administration's two-time use of the Draconian "State Secrets Privilege" in hopes of keeping her extraordinary information from becoming public. "Everybody at headquarters level at the bureau knew that what she was saying was extremely accurate."
"I know they didn't want her to go out and speak about it at all," Cole revealed, "and I know they were trying to figure out ways of keeping this whole thing quiet, because they didn't want Sibel to come out."
He also offered information which directly counters one of the criticisms of Edmonds' allegations as frequently offered by skeptics. Namely, that as a short time FBI contract translator --- even though she was tasked to review some seven years of counterintelligence wiretaps made from 1996 to 2002 --- she couldn't have had enough understanding of the full scope of the investigations to understand what was really going on.
More...An 18-year Counterintelligence and Counterterrorism Manager for the FBI has called for... more
-
-
When private equity giant Wasserstein & Co. bought Harry & David in 2004, the future seemed as sweet as one of the Medford company's baskets of juicy Rogue Valley pears.
Harry & David's 75-year history of quality and Wasserstein's Wall Street savvy appeared to be a potent blend. Almost immediately, Harry & David took the requisite first steps toward a public stock offering, which held the promise of a hefty payday.
What happened? The economy, of course. There are few more discretionary buys than one of Harry & David's spendy mail-order gifts. For customers nationwide, the company's $29.95 5-pound box of Royal Riviera pears became dispensable after the economy tanked.
But it was more than that. Harry & David also illustrates the downside of big debt.
After Wasserstein took control, Harry & David's long-term debt soared from zero to $245 million.
The debt itself did not drive these companies to the precipice. But it did put additional pressure on their balance sheet and removed much of the cushion they had when the economy soured.
"The thing that has shocked economists and business owners worldwide is how fast and deep consumer demand has declined," said Portland money manager Michael Elfers in a July missive to his investors. "We have reached "peak debt," the point where additional credit is no longer available and interest payments on outstanding debt forces a reduction in spending.
"This is the new normal," Elfers added, "forced frugality."
Adding to many corporations' problems is the sudden difficulty in getting credit. Nearly a year since Congress authorized the controversial multitrillion-dollar bank bailout, required in part to save the industry from its mistakes and malfeasance, the credit crisis remains a reality for many borrowers. Banks, which enabled and profited immensely from the run-up in debt, have retreated from the market as their own loan portfolios have deteriorated in quality.
Some well-known retailers didn't last a year in the new era of austerity. Locally, Portland-based sporting goods retailer Joe's folded last spring after its banks pulled its financing.When private equity giant Wasserstein & Co. bought Harry & David in 2004, the future... more
-
-
-
How many strikes should a corporation be allowed before we, the public, revoke their charter?How many strikes should a corporation be allowed before we, the public, revoke their... more
-
-
Your clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem.
The cotton in your shirt was likely grown with a strong dose of pesticides and chemical fertilizers. Many synthetic fabrics such as nylon, acrylic and polyester are petroleum-based.
But it's getting easier for consumers to break the habit, as more clothing made from organic cotton or renewable and reused fabrics hits store shelves and the Internet.
Q: Why should I be concerned about chemicals used to make my clothes?
A: We probably won't experience any ill effects from these chemicals when we wear the clothes. It's the farmers or factory workers and their families, usually thousands of miles away, who face the greatest risk.
About half the pesticides used to grow cotton globally are classified as hazardous, according to the London-based Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF). Children commonly suffer from pesticide poisoning because of the closeness of their homes to cotton fields and the reuse of empty pesticide containers.
The environment pays a price as well. Hazardous cotton pesticides have contaminated rivers in India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Brazil, Australia, Greece, Western Africa and the U.S., says the EJF. Petroleum used in synthetic fabrics contributes to global warming.
Q: Hasn't the cotton industry reduced its use of pesticides?
A: Since 1996, the global environmental impact of insecticides used on cotton has decreased nearly 25 percent due to the development of genetically modified, insect-resistant cotton, says the industry organization Cotton Inc. However, some researchers have concerns about long-term effects of genetically engineered crops.
Three percent of the world's agricultural land and 8 percent of all pesticides are used for cotton production, Cotton Inc. says. Some environmental groups claim the percentage of pesticides used for cotton is much higher.
Please follow link for more Q & A and for additional resources for going 'green' with your wardrobeYour clothes may have a chemical-dependency problem.
The cotton in your shirt was... more
-
-
When the Environmental Protection Agency declared this year on September 11 that all pending mountaintop removal mining permits in four Appalachian states stood in violation of the Clean Water Act and required further review, Lora Webb didn't have time to join in any celebrations. As she and her husband, Steve, a coal miner, packed up their possessions and left his family's ancestral property outside Lindytown, West Virginia, Lora was more concerned about finding a place to sleep that night.
For the past few years, ever since a massive twenty-story dragline landed on a ridge near their home, the Webbs had endured twice-daily, bone-rattling explosions and the quasi-apocalyptic storms of coal dust and fly rock that blanketed their home and garden. Lindytown's creeks and mountain hollows no longer exist, and a once-thriving community has been reduced to a ghost town. "It's unreal. It's like we're living in a war zone," Lora Webb told a local newspaper last fall.
By the spring of this year, the Webbs were one of the last holdouts in the area. Hoping to avoid displacement, they pleaded with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WVDEP) and various federal agencies to enforce mining laws. Lora Webb even toted a jar of coal dust to Capitol Hill. In the end, though, they threw up their hands in bewilderment at the government's inaction and sold their beloved home to Massey Energy, the Richmond-based corporation that runs the nearby Twilight mountaintop removal site. Then they were issued a sixty-day order to evacuate.
The temporarily homeless Webbs are a stark example that mountaintop removal does more than "likely cause water quality impacts," as the EPA has determined. More than 3.5 million pounds of explosives rip daily across the ridges and historic mountain communities in West Virginia; a similar amount of explosives are employed in eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and eastern Tennessee. Mountaintop removal operations have destroyed more than 500 mountains and 1.2 million acres of forest in our nation's oldest and most diverse range, and jammed more than 1,200 miles of streams with mining waste.
In cautious but no uncertain terms, the Obama administration has finally acknowledged these hazards, and has taken some important steps toward mitigating the damage. On June 11 the Council on Environmental Quality chief, Nancy Sutley, declared that the administration "has serious concerns about the impacts of mountaintop coal mining on our natural resources and on the health and welfare of the Appalachian communities."
more at link...When the Environmental Protection Agency declared this year on September 11 that all... more
-
-
'Link TV - Television Without Borders' http://www.linktv.org/
Meet Nina and Mickey McCoy, schoolteachers from Inez, Kentucky, as they take their fight against King Coal to Washington.
This special documents some of the disastrous impacts of coal mining on Central Appalachia, where twenty-five percent of the McCoys' county has now been strip-mined.
In addition to the destruction of these historic landscapes, the process of mountaintop removal wreaks havoc on the ecosystem.
The leftover material is dumped into "valley fills," which have thus far killed over 1,000 miles of streams.
The cleaning of the coal brings still more problems: the sludge left over from the process is stored in enormous ponds, one of which broke in Inez, sending 350 million gallons of toxic waste into the McCoys' community.
Since the sludge spill in 2000, residents of Inez have not been able to drink the town's water, and water remains the best-selling item in the supermarket.
"How can anybody claim that if we don't have coal, we'll be worse off?" asks Nina. "I don't think we could be any worse off."
THE REAL McCOYS also documents the McCoys' journey into activism. Tired of writing letters to their representatives and getting no response, they decide to go to the next level: they will risk arrest, along with hundreds of others, at the Capitol Climate Action in Washington.
"We're going to take our part of the problem to Washington DC, and hope that the whole nation begins to realize that there is such a thing as global warming, and coal is at the heart of it."'Link TV - Television Without Borders' http://www.linktv.org/
Meet Nina and... more
-
-
and Other evil corporations taking over our world for the profit of a few
Feels good to take action.and Other evil corporations taking over our world for the profit of a few
Feels... more
-
-
Survival International
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF and US company Hunt Oil over their plans to explore for oil on their land.
Local indigenous organisation FENAMAD has filed a lawsuit asking for an injunction to be placed on both the companies’ activities. The suit argues that the government did not consult with local people before giving the companies permission to work there, as is required under international law, and oil exploration would violate local peoples’ fundamental human rights to ‘enjoy a balanced environment’.
Hunt and Repsol-YPF own the rights to explore in an area known as ‘Lot 76’, which includes land belonging to the Yine, Matsigenka and Harakmbut tribes. At the heart of the Lot is the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, used by many villages in the region and the source of six rivers that are the only fresh water supply for an estimated ten thousand people.
‘FENAMAD hopes that this legal action will paralyze any activity inside the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve, as otherwise the very existence of Madre de Dios’s indigenous peoples would be put at risk,’ said FENAMAD spokesperson Jaime Corisepa.
Representatives of villages potentially affected by the exploration met with two Hunt employees at a recent meeting organised by FENAMAD http://fenamad-indigenas.blogspot.com/2009/09/native-communities-of-madre-de-dios.html
The representatives told Hunt they rejected the company’s presence on their land.
Watch a film of the meeting with Hunt http://fenamad-indigenas.blogspot.com/ (in Spanish), entitled ‘See how the Peruvian Amazon’s indigenous peoples say ‘NO’ to Hunt Oil company’.Survival International
Indigenous people from south-east Peru are suing Repsol-YPF... more
-
-
But will people use it? And even if they did - is there a difference?
-
-
Today sees the publication of Ralph Nader's utopian future/alternate history, Only The Super-Rich Can Save Us! The 736-page epic ends with third parties winning elections, corporations being neutered, and America being saved. Oh, and Yoko Ono creates a mind-expanding logo.
According to the New Yorker, Nader includes several real people in the novel, including Warren Buffett, Barry Diller, and Ted Turner, and he telephoned them up to let them know that they were in the book. Nader felt sensitized to this issue, because he's been featured as a character in other people's novels, including Greg Bear's Eon, which the New Yorker says
portrays Nader as "a saintly figure, a hero in a wasteland," whose followers win landslide elections in North America and Western Europe (in 2011) and bring down the Soviet Union (in 2012). "You see, that's science-fiction utopia," Nader said. "Nobody can give that any credibility."
Some people, including one famous billionaire, were a bit "snippy" about being included in Nader's book. But Yoko Ono and Warren Beatty were thrilled
It's just as fantastical as the idea of somebody like Tony Stark or Bruce Wayne becoming a selfless hero.
Nothing would thrill me more than to have the power of the wealthy elite on our side. But i think i have a better chance of pulling myself inside-out first.-omgwtflolbbqbye
It's the anti-"Atlas Shrugged." I bet that prude Nader didn't even put in any sex scenes. Evil Tortie's Mom: R.O.A.C.H. promoted this comment --Franklin Harris
I was just reading the Chronicle's description of the novel and thinking "Ralph Nader is like a bizzaro Ayn Rand."
Maybe all the characters munch on baby carrots instead of constantly lighting up cigarettes.--WindowlickinDaywalkerToday sees the publication of Ralph Nader's utopian future/alternate history, Only The... more
-
-
Who is really backing the "public plan" and the "single payer option"?
Why should only 80% of America be able to shove "Health Care" down the throats of of the other 20%? That is purely anti-fascist and amounts to something as insidious as "majority rule".
What about those of us with lots of Insurance Company holdings and stocks? Maybe we make our livings denying health care to sick people. What about us? We have a constitutional right to screw people for a living.
It's just not fair!Who is really backing the "public plan" and the "single payer option"?
Why should... more
-
-
LINK TO FULL ARTICLE: http://amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/
Who’s Afraid of Sibel Edmonds?
GIRALDI: And Grossman received money as a result. In one case, you said that a State Department colleague went to pick up a bag of money…
EDMONDS: $14,000
GIRALDI: What kind of information was Grossman giving to foreign countries? Did he give assistance to foreign individuals penetrating U.S. government labs and defense installations as has been reported? It’s also been reported that he was the conduit to a group of congressmen who become, in a sense, the targets to be recruited as “agents of influence.”
EDMONDS: Yes, that’s correct. Grossman assisted his Turkish and Israeli contacts directly, and he also facilitated access to members of Congress who might be inclined to help for reasons of their own or could be bribed into cooperation. The top person obtaining classified information was Congressman Tom Lantos. A Lantos associate, Alan Makovsky worked very closely with Dr. Sabri Sayari in Georgetown University, who is widely believed to be a Turkish spy. Lantos would give Makovsky highly classified policy-related documents obtained during defense briefings for passage to Israel because Makovsky was also working for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
GIRALDI: Makovsky is now working for the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Policy, a pro-Israeli think tank.
EDMONDS: Yes. Lantos was at the time probably the most outspoken supporter of Israel in Congress. AIPAC would take out the information from Lantos that was relevant to Israel, and they would give the rest of it to their Turkish associates. The Turks would go through the leftovers, take what they wanted, and then try to sell the rest. If there were something relevant to Pakistan, they would contact the ISI officer at the embassy and say, “We’ve got this and this, let’s sit down and talk.” And then they would sell it to the Pakistanis.
GIRALDI: ISI—Pakistani intelligence—has been linked to the Pakistani nuclear proliferation program as well as to al-Qaeda and the Taliban.LINK TO FULL ARTICLE: http://amconmag.com/article/2009/nov/01/00006/
Who’s... more
-
-
In a House committee hearing last june, WellPoint's Blue Cross of California subsidiary and two other insurers were found to have saved more than $300 million in medical claims by canceling more than 20,000 sick policyholders. Through an industry practice called "Rescission" one Blue Cross employee earned a perfect score of "5" for "exceptional performance" on an evaluation that NOTED the employee's role in dropping THOUSANDS of policyholders and avoiding nearly $10 MILLION worth of medical care.
"The committee investigation uncovered several rescission practices that one lawmaker called egregious, including targeting every policyholder diagnosed with leukemia, breast cancer and 1,400 other serious illnesses. Such investigations involve scouring the policyholder's original application and years' worth of medical and pharmacy records in search of any discrepancies." [from LATimes article]In a House committee hearing last june, WellPoint's Blue Cross of California... more
-
-
YouTube Video of banner being deployed at Niagara Falls
AWESOME ECO-ACTIVISIM!
-
