McCain's vice-presidential pick apparently used the accounts to communicate with key aides about government business
ABC News: Experts Don’t Yahoo Over Palin’s E-Mail Practices.
If I were to use my gmail account for official company business, I would get into all kinds of hot water. Many companies would consider it a serious violation of policies and procedures. Yet Americans want these people running their country? No standards whatsoever.
BBC NEWS | World | South Asia | Indian temple city hit by blasts
The first explosion took place in the major Sankot Mochan temple dedicated to the Hindu God Hanuman at about 1815 local time (1245 GMT). At least 10 people were killed and a number of others injured in the blast, Uttar Pradesh officials said. An eyewitness, Siddharth Suri, told the BBC that thousands of people were at the temple at the time of the blast. Tuesday is a special day at the Sankat Mochan temple and the explosion took place just minutes before the main worship.
It’s so friggin’ easy in India, so many targets, so many people, so much activity. The motive is obvious, to incite a hindu reprisal on muslims that can ratchet up the tension even further. Don’t worry, the BJP-RSS-VHP troika is more than willing to play the game…
The BJP has already given a call for a Varanasi bandh while the VHP has gone a step further to call for a statewide bandh in UP. The BJP has also given notice to suspend Question Hour in Parliament tomorrow. On its agenda: the blasts and the alleged ‘‘competitive minorityism’’ that has encouraged ‘‘jehadi terrorism’’ to flourish, party leaders said.
While that was for the record, Sangh Parivar insiders view the latest development as an opportunity. Their calculation is that the BJP, which has declined considerably in UP over the last few years, would benefit from a communal polarisation in the state.
A similar polarisation in the early 1990s helped Hindutva forces transcend the differences of caste that lies at the root of UP’s politics of identity. The party has not been able to revive that ‘‘Hindu unity’’ since, but is now hoping that a replay of the ‘‘Mullah Mulayam’’ theme could work.
The Indian voting population has so far tended to vote more on bread and butter issues and caste/community lines than on religious lines, which makes for a fragmented voting pattern that is harder for the political parties to manage. But the forces of Hindutva would like nothing better than to polarize the electorate on religious lines, it would make the system much more “efficient”. I guess “either you’re with us, or you’re against us” is easier to manage than “either you’re with us, or you’re with them, no, you’re with the other them, no wait???” – See US of A for classic two party “efficiency”.
Apparently, the fact that the senate would not confirm this person does not matter much. Democracy is a quaint concept in this august country!
Bush Recess Appointment Threatens Public Protections – Press Room – OMB Watch
2007—President George W. Bush today installed Susan Dudley as White House regulatory czar through a recess appointment. Dudley will now serve in the White House Office of Management and Budget as administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA).
OIRA is a powerful office responsible for reviewing and approving federal agencies’ most significant regulations. Installing Dudley threatens decades of public health and safety protections; doing so by recess appointment endangers our democratic process.
“Dudley’s record is one of anti-regulatory extremism,” said Rick Melberth, Director of Regulatory Policy at OMB Watch. “She has opposed some of our nation’s most basic environmental, workplace safety and public health protections.”
Dudley has falsely proclaimed ground-level ozone to be beneficial, opposed ergonomic standards to protect workers from repetitive stress disorders, and even suggested that airbags should never have been mandated in automobiles.
The kinds of rollbacks Dudley may push forward could render useless valuable federal laws that have saved countless American lives. OMB Watch and Public Citizen documented Dudley’s anti-regulatory views in a September 2006 report, The Cost Is Too High: How Susan Dudley Threatens Public Protections.
Dudley’s strong ties with the industries she will be regulating pose an obvious conflict of interest. For the three years before her nomination, Dudley directed the Regulatory Studies program at the Mercatus Center — an industry-funded, anti-regulatory think tank. It is likely that industry executives will have unprecedented access to Dudley, while concerned citizens will be increasingly shut out.
I have been MOOC’ing this summer and learning how to do maps. Geography as an adult is much more fun than my 10th grade geography class.
Chad Skelton over at the Vancouver Sun intrigued me with his data retrieval and mapping of British Columbia’s Smart Meter uptake. if you’re not from BC, here’s a short intro (#BCpoli-aware feel free to skip the next two paragraphs).
BC Hydro is the government owned (Crown Corporation) utility that produces and distributes electricity for the province of British Colombia in Canada. In 2011, BC Hydro announced its intention to spend $$$ upgrading all its electricity meters to “smart meters”. These meters are capable of being read via wifi by meter readers, and potentially also give BC residents the ability to monitor their electricity usage in near-real time.
Many concerns were raised about the smart meters. One was about the costs of the program vs. perceived benefits. The others, which gained traction were around an emerging movement in BC connecting wifi, cell signals and wifi-enabled smart meters with a whole variety of health effects. While few, if any of these health concerns have been actually causally linked to smart meters, or even to the amorphous descriptor “wifi radiation”, these health concerns have gained traction even among official bodies such as the Union of BC Municipalities, municipal councils and school boards. The BC provincial election in 2013 was a chance for people to voice their concerns. The opposition parties all brought the issue up during canvassing.
For my peer assessment mapping project, I wanted to see if areas of relatively high smart meter refusal were correlated or co-located in any way with voting against the ruling BC Liberals.
This is the map I made, my first ever map not scrawled on paper.
Reading the Map
The electoral districts are colour-coded by BC Liberal Party percentage, darker means higher vote for the BC Liberals. I chose this rather than “who won” because I was looking more for an anti-BC Liberal effect. I will, at some point in time, try to overlay “who won” as well. The smart meter refusal data is in three different coloured and sized circles. Large and red means higher refusal, and small and green means low refusal. This is a hybrid of a graduated circle symbol scheme and a diverging colour scheme. Clearly, using points to represent areas is a big limitation, but it is sufficient for a quick peek.
Anything to See?
The take home message for me was that the anti-smartmeter movement had little influence on the election, which was most likely won on the usual and mundane issues of the economy, trust and corruption.
Methods
Maps are fun to play with, and I know very very little about them, which is a great combination. Every minute I spent making this map was a learning experience. Comments and feedback, please. I think I will slowly incorporate mapping into my skill set. But I think I will use open source/free solutions in the future.
The gap between the rich and poor in Canada widened significantly in a recent 10-year period partly because Ottawa spent less on cash benefits than many other developed countries, the OECD says.
It was a reversal of the trend in the two previous decades when the gap was narrowing, the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development said in a report.
via The Canadian Press: Income gap widens between Canada’s rich and poor, OECD study says
Just like our southern neighbour, of course. This is no liberal-conservative divide issue, but a consequence of the neoliberal deregulation and tax-cutting policies so popular since the mid ’90s. Inequality deepens divisions within a country and creates a ruling class that is increasingly vested in keeping the inequality going as it benefits them.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper pulled the plug on his minority government to ask voters for a fresh mandate as Canadians face growing global economic turbulence, a move that opened the political floodgates for an Oct. 14 vote. Harper’s political opponents say the campaign will be a referendum on his leadership and the direction he has taken the country since the Conservatives won power in 2006.
Federal leaders deploy as election battle begins
Yes, as always, we will be 2 weeks before the Americans, and a much shorter schedule. It is good timing for the conservatives, the economy’s crap has not hit the fan yet, 6 months later, totally different story. It is going to be interesting. If all the mail I am getting and all out TV blitz are any indication, there’s only one party running, yes, it is those conservatives, not being too conservative with their use of money! I haven’t heard/seen the Liberals or the NDP run an ad yet, but I don’t watch too many commercials!
Banana Republic Alert…
Securing the nation’s borders is so important, Congress says, that Michael Chertoff, the homeland security secretary, must have the power to ignore any laws that stand in the way of building a border fence. Any laws at all.
Last week, Mr. Chertoff issued waivers suspending more than 30 laws he said could interfere with “the expeditious construction of barriers” in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. The list included laws protecting the environment, endangered species, migratory birds, the bald eagle, antiquities, farms, deserts, forests, Native American graves and religious freedom.
Power to Build Border Fence Is Above U.S. Law – New York Times
I don’t know what to say, rule of law, so quaint, so pre 9/11…