Daily Archives: July 26, 2004

6 posts

More Waste in the Military Industrial Complex: U.S. Air Force Makes $2.6 bn “Mistake” in Favor of Lockheed Martin, Inc.

Air Force Faulted on 50-Plane Purchase: Transport Craft Fail Key Readiness Tests 24 July 2004 | Washington Post [page A-1] by R. Jeffrey Smith The Air Force spent $2.6 billion to buy 50 transport planes that do not meet the military’s requirements, preventing squadrons based in six states from being fully prepared for their missions in the Middle East and elsewhere, the office of the Defense Department’s inspector general disclosed yesterday.

What liberal infidels will never understand about the president: The Church of Bush

[ This article presents a representative sample of the pattern of selective memory that characterizes Bush’s supporters — or perhaps more properly, selective perception. That is, I doubt many of his supporters even perceive his falsehoods as false, or his meanness as mean. And if unperceived, of course they can’t be remembered. Because so many of his supporters are impervious to evidence, so convinced of his integrity and compassion, they ignore the gigantic mass of counter-evidence, or, where necessary, generate irrationally charitable interpretations of his actions. The work of George Lakoff printed here from time to time helps explain this […]

Blackwashing

21 July 2004 | GadFlyer.com Scratch the surface of a black conservative group and you find a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy by Joshua Holland “Black Conservative to Rebut NAACP Leader’s Remarks in C-SPAN Interview,” read the press release from Project 21, an organization of conservative African-Americans. I had read in Reuters that Kweisi Mfume, president of the NAACP, had called groups like Project 21 “make-believe black organizations,” and a “collection of black hustlers” who have adopted a conservative agenda in return for “a few bucks a head.” So I tuned into C-SPAN with interest to hear what a leading voice in […]

Subway: Junk Food, Junk Economy

13 July 2004 | OrganicConsumers.org by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman The American Heart Association’s (AHA) recommendations are revered as pure fact by doctors and patients alike. But as is the case in most sects of the U.S. government, a public institution’s policies can also be heavily swayed by corporate dollars. As an example, AHA only endorses Bayer aspirin, and in return, Bayer “donates” $500,000 to AHA every year. Since 2002, Subway has also been riding the AHA bandwagon.. In exchange for $10 million in “donations” over the course of 5 years to AHA, Subway can proudly plaster the AHA’s […]

Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz: Bush is pressuring countries to stop producing life-saving drugs

Bush accused of pressuring countries to stop producing generic drugs 24 July 2004 | BMJ (formerly British Medical Journal) by Fiona Fleck Geneva — The United States has come under fire for pressuring developing countries to give up their right to produce cheap, generic anti-AIDS medicines in return for bilateral trade agreements that strengthen protection of costlier, brand name drugs. Nobel economics laureate Joseph Stiglitz joined advocacy groups Oxfam and M?decins Sans Fronti?res this month in criticising Washington for bowing to industry pressure by pursuing a policy the groups say could prevent millions of AIDS patients in poor countries from […]

US report on prison abuse a ‘whitewash’

25 July 2004 | Agence France Press US newspapers The New York Times and The Washington Post have opened fire at the conclusions of a report by the US Army on abuses in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, with the Times calling it a “whitewashing” to exonerate the high command. “A newly released report by the Army’s inspector general shows that Mr Rumsfeld’s team may be turning over stones, but it’s not looking under them,” the Times said in an editorial. “The authors of this 300-page whitewash say they found no ‘systemic’ problem – even though there were 94 documented […]