Something tells me "Nevermind" would be the first thing Gilda Radner (rest in peace) would tell Komen right now.
Open Thread below....
February 07, 2012 04:30 AM
Title: On The Other Hand
Randy Travis was arrested for public intoxication early this morning in Sanger, Texas. He was in his car, wine drunk, and parked outside of a Baptist church. Sounds like a song to me.
February 07, 2012 04:00 AM
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Saturday Night Live had a bit of fun giving Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich a bit of grief for his statement that a moon base could become the 51st state.
February 07, 2012 03:00 AM
Activist group Color of Change is calling on activists to demand that Darden Restaurants -- which operates chains like Capital Grille, Olive Garden, Longhorn Steakhouse and Red Lobster -- for apparent racism in hiring and promotion practices. Darden pays most workers in its chains subpar wages and in the one high-wage part of the company -- Capital Grille -- African-American workers are rarely hired for high-paying jobs. Even in the low-wage portions of the company, African-American workers are more likely to be hired for jobs that pay less, such as bus boys, that don't pay a living wage. Promotions are much less like for African-American workers, too. Darden workers in Chicago, New York and Washington, D.C. have filed a complaint over lost wages and discrimination.
Color of Change wants activists to send a letter to Darden's CEO:
Dear Darden CEO Clarence Otis, Jr.,
I am writing to demand that you act now to address discrimination against Black workers within your company.
Across the restaurant industry, Black workers earn on average $4 less per hour than White workers. A look at the de facto segregation within Darden explains why this is the case. Workers of color are relegated to lower-paying jobs while White workers are hired into the front-of-the-house and chef jobs, including those at your fine-dining restaurant, Capital Grille.
I understand that you are now facing a lawsuit as a result of your employment practices. I ask that you sign an agreement with the employees in the lawsuit to institute a promotions policy that's in line with EEOC standards and that allows at least 50% of non-management staff to advance to livable wage positions, including waitstaff and bartending positions, at the Capital Grille.
At a time when Black unemployment is nearly twice the national average and the private sector is being heralded as our greatest hope, Darden’s pattern of relegating Black workers to the lowest-wage work is unconscionable. Darden’s behavior indicates that you doubt that Black restaurant workers can wield nuanced knowledge of food and drink and provide top-notch service. If that’s not the case, institute an promotions system that allows Black workers to compete for jobs at Darden’s fine-dining restaurants.
The problem is part of a bigger problem at Darden:
Darden runs nearly 2,000 restaurants nationwide and boasts annual sales of $7.5 billion.8,9 But the few Black workers who make it into the big leagues there often don't stay very long. According to reports from two Black servers who worked at Darden's Capital Grille in DC -- a restaurant patronized by politicians, lobbyists, and others in the Washington elite -- Black front-of-the-house staff were let go en masse within a short period of time because they “didn’t fit the company image.” They were all replaced by White workers.10
Despite the pattern of racial discrimination, Darden -- the world's largest full-service restaurant company -- ranks in the "Top 100 Places to Work," an annual list published by Fortune Magazine.11 The company gets high marks for a diverse workforce (of course, there's no mention of who works which jobs) and for generating the third-most job growth of all the companies on the 2011 list.12
The company's CEO is Clarence Otis Jr., an African-American businessman. In an interview with USA Today, Otis boasts about his company's "talent evaluation process" and practice of providing employees with "advanced training and development."13 But that's not the story that's reveals itself if you talk to the company's Black employees, as our partners at ROC-United have done.14
At a time when Black unemployment is nearly twice the national average and the private sector is being heralded as our greatest hope, Darden's pattern of relegating Black workers to the lowest-wage work is unconscionable.
February 07, 2012 02:00 AM
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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Monday asserted that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney was "uniquely unqualified" for the GOP nomination because of the similarities between health care laws in Massachusetts and President Barack Obama's health care reforms, including the repeatedly debunked claim that "death panels" would ration care to seniors.
Speaking at a ballroom across the street from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, Santorum pointed to a report (PDF) from the the non-partisan organization Families USA that found at least 15 major similarities between Obama's Affordable Care Act and the reforms Romney enacted in Massachusetts.
"Both create government panels to dictate quality and cost containment," Santorum explained. "Some of you may be familiar with the Independent Payment Advisory Board -- which is a board separate from Congress, independent of Congress -- that President Obama created to control health care costs. How? By cutting reimbursements to doctors and hospitals under the Medicare program. Well, Gov. Romney has a similar program called the Council on Health Quality and Costs."
"Some people refer to these types of boards as death panels," he added. "Why? Because they ultimately decide to ration care to those procedures and people because they don't believe these procedures are effective in providing care, that the utilization isn't worth the costs."
"So, again, you have government making decisions and rationing and apportioning care based on research that shows what outcomes are dictated by the research that's out there."
In 2009, Politifact named "death panels," a term thought to have been first used by former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R), as their "Lie of the Year."
February 07, 2012 01:00 AM
Every three years, the Copyright Office reviews requests for exemptions to the "anti-circumvention" rules in the DMCA. EFF has successfully lobbied for a number of exemptions in the past, and we're working to renew and expand those exemptions now. You can get behind our efforts by signing on today to letters of support: the filmmaker Kirby Ferguson is telling the Copyright Office why video ripping is so important to filmmakers and video artists, and the game system hacker bunnie Huang is addressing why we need to keep jailbreaking legal for all devices.
If you still aren't sure why jailbreaking is important, one prime example of the problem is the Sony PlayStation 3. That game system initially shipped with the ability to install Linux and other Unix derivatives. As a result, not only did hobbyists use PS3s as homebrew computers, but Unix-based PS3s were also linked in labs to make affordable supercomputers.
However, in April 2010, Sony’s mandatory firmware update -- version 3.21 -- removed the ability to install "Other OS" -- meaning no more Linux on your PlayStation. To add legal muscle to its firmware, Sony sued several security researchers for publishing information about security holes that would allow users to run Linux on their machines again. Claiming that the research violated the DMCA, Sony asked the court to impound all "circumvention devices" -- which it defines to include not only the defendants' computers, but also all "instructions," i.e., their research and findings.
This means you can set your PlayStation on fire, but you can’t run Linux on hardware you own. To illustrate how ludicrous this is, we made a video illustrating what an owner can do with a PlayStation -- and what Sony contends they can’t.
Help us legalize Linux on the PS3, and protect innovative uses of personal devices by signing on to bunnie's letter to the Copyright Office or by submitting your own comment today.
February 07, 2012 12:49 AM
Seems like a good time for the citizens of Maine to march on the state capitol, doesn't it? Because these cuts aren't necessary - they're just considered desirable by the crazy Teabagger governor who managed to get himself elected:
AUGUSTA, Maine — Medicaid spending is a matter of urgency almost everywhere in the country right now, but in few places is the urgency as palpable as it is here, where the governor refers to the federal-state health insurance program for the poor as “welfare,” says it’s necessary to eliminate coverage for 65,000 adults, and wants to stop paying room and board for some 2,000 elders who live in group homes.
All these ideas are part of Republican Governor Paul LePage’s plan to close a $220 million hole in the state’s biennial Medicaid budget.
“If we are to bring our welfare system to a manageable level that Maine can afford,” LePage insists, “we must make the necessary structural changes … The state can no longer use gimmicks to fill the hole.”
The size of Maine’s Medicaid shortfall is substantial, but it pales in comparison to gaps in many other states. In fact, health experts in Maine say the program has survived far bigger shortfalls in recent years without cutting the rolls. Still, LePage argues that the program can no longer provide a “free lunch” to poor 19- and 20-year olds, or to healthy adults responsible for the care of others.
Some of LePage’s proposed Medicaid cuts, such as eliminating dental care, physical therapy and chiropractic services, are not too different from ones that governors in both parties are recommending in states across the country. Neither are his proposed reductions in payments to hospitals and doctors or limits on prescription drug coverage.
But LePage also wants to get at enrollment, and this is what makes him, at the moment, the most draconian of the governors when it comes to health policy. In his January 24 state of the state speech, LePage argued that “we have encouraged people to rely on the taxpayers, rather than rely on themselves.” The cuts to enrollment, he argues, are necessary to shore up the state’s safety net so it can continue to care for its most vulnerable residents — children, elders and the disabled.
But for many of Maine’s citizens, the enrollment cuts would be life-changing.
February 07, 2012 12:00 AM
The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees launched a new campaign last week taking on Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who is pushing a new assault on the working families of her state in an attempt to take away the collective bargaining rights of state workers. Brewer is following the pattern inspired by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and pursued by governors like Wisconsin's Scott Walker and Ohio's John Kasich:
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer is about to wipe out collective bargaining rights for public service workers in Arizona with a slate of new anti-worker bills. It’s the latest orchestrated attack from extreme right-wing lawmakers, think tanks, and their corporate cronies who are hell-bent on wiping out what’s left of the middle class.
They couldn’t be more wrong. Attacking teachers, fire fighters and police and other public service workers will do nothing to create jobs or help Arizona’s budget.
AFSCME launched a petition in opposition to Brewer's assault on union rights:
To the lawmakers, governors, policy-wonks, and corporate backers who are dead set on destroying unions in America:
Your latest attempt to dismantle workers' rights in Arizona will not go unnoticed.
Firefighters, police officers, nurses, school bus drivers, home health care workers, public servants and workers of all kinds will not stand by while you scapegoat us – the people who play by the rules and do our fair share – and take away our rights by abusing your power and forcing through your extreme anti-worker laws.
No way. That’s all. NO WAY. We will fight back wherever you attack us. Because when you attack workers you also attack the work we do. Work that matters to every single person in this country – taking care of your grandparents, picking up your trash, making sure your kids are drinking clean water, putting out your fires, and so much more.
And in the end, we will win because the American people are overwhelmingly with us – they are us.
Where you see public workers and unions as a nuisance to get rid of, we see a movement. We see a movement of public and private workers, of moms and dads, of grandparents and students. We are the middle class and we will remember your abuse of power each and every time that we vote. That’s our promise.
February 06, 2012 11:00 PM
