“The cook on the Maersk Alabama who was held hostage for 12 hours after pirates took over the ship on April 8 today filed a suit in state district court in Harris County (that’s Houston, Texas, home of outrageous speculative litigation) against ocean carrier Waterman Steamship Corp. of Mobile, Ala., and shipping company Maersk Line Ltd., of Norfolk, Va.” (link to Texas Lawyer).
He’s suing for — I’m not kidding here — failure to provide a safe work environment. His lawyer suggests that the shipping company could have taken more protective measures like — and I’m not making this up — putting barbed wire on the outside of the ship. The douchebag/attorney is Terry Bryant, owner of Terry Bryant Injury Lawyers in Houston.
Administration Seeks Increase in Oversight of Executive Pay
Officials said the proposal would seek a broad new role for the Federal Reserve to oversee large companies, including major hedge funds, whose problems could pose risks to the entire financial system…. The new rules will cover all financial institutions, including those not now covered by any pay rules because they are not receiving federal bailout money. Officials say the rules could also be applied more broadly to publicly traded companies, which already report about some executive pay practices to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Because this is exactly what the framers meant when they said “provide for the common defense”.
Jim Inhofe, the senior GOP Senator on the Environment and Public Works Committee has been a strong critic of attempted EPA regulation. Alright, we can debate the merits of and the extent to which the EPA should be regulating air quality, carbon emissions, global warming, blah-blah-blah, sure. But then he said this:
If Congress does not act, then the resulting regulations could be the largest regulatory intrusion into Americans’ personal lives, a nightmare scenario. Big Brother is alive and well in the career ranks at the EPA.
I’m sure that every EPA staff member below political-appointee level makes Mr. Inhofe’s well-oil-moneyed skin crawl, but lollerskates, mang! If I were to compare the current administration to Big Brother (and I would), the EPA is not where I would start.
Which leads us to the new FISA law! Remember that no search or seizure in defense of liberty and/or the Empire is unreasonable! Besides, this FISA law stuff doesn’t apply to our new wartime SUPERexecutive branch of government as it just sorta does what it needs to, anyway. What the new law will do is make Ma Bell feel better and keep any of those pesky lawsuits from prying the lid off the War on TerrorTM.
Allahu Akbar, bitches.
CNN has an article about a new report out by Physicians for Human Rights outlining US treatment of foreign prisoners (or terrorists, if you prefer, though it turns out some were not?). From the article:
The report is prefaced by retired U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led the Army’s investigation into the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal in 2003.
“There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes,” Taguba says. “The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account.”
That’s a big question, General. My guess is no.
It’s showtime in LA with some serious industrial grade porn on trial. Prosecutors have charged an artist filming more than some light petting and hair-pulling like those bullshit women in prison movies on SkiniMax. We’re talking straight-to-video stuff here. Bestiality, feces, stuff-your-parents-didn’t-tell-you-about gonzo porn. There is an upside for the defense noted by the AP article on CNN:
In an unusual twist, the trial is being presided over by the chief judge of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Alex Kozinski, under a program that allows appellate judges to occasionally handle criminal trials at the District Court level. Kozinski is known as a strong defender of free speech and First Amendment rights.
I caught this story yesterday driving after work. Click the listen now link and hear the ridiculous background noises and descriptions ([crunch, crunch]“Sandeep Jusraheen walks down [crunch, crunch] a gleaming white gravel driveway past a black fence and verdant winter wheat fields [crunch, crunch] to his kitchen where his wife and sister [clink clink of silverware] prepare dinner ….” Those always make me laugh.) It’s the story of the town in Iowa whose major industry is a kosher meat packing plant staffed primarily by Mexicans (not Mexi-can’ts), and how happy the town is to be multi-cultural - until the ICE gets involved.
What really struck me at the time was the absolute lack of culpability of anyone in the community. If you listen you’ll notice that the word “illegal” is never used, attached to “immigration” or otherwise. There’s a “massive raid” and many of the workers “plead guilty and will be deported” - guilty of what? The company is searching for a new CEO - why, did the last one break some laws? Did she eat some bad shrimp and die?
So I’m amazed at the lengths media outlets - NPR being probably the best example - will go to in order to avoid mentioning the illegal nature of illegal immigration. They’re all migrants, and undocumenteds, and “out of status” and “unnaturalized migrants.”
All that said, what does the Mingdom think about immigration policy? Part of the law school answer is that controlling borders and immigration is a hallmark of a sovereign nation. It’s also is a security issue. But we don’t do a very good job of it, and I’m not so sure it is a necessity of governments. Immigration control at national borders is a fairly recent development - historically it’s been a local issue (you know, chasing gypsies out of town when they’re done sharpening our knives because they steal babies).
Thoughts on immigration and border controls, NPR issue shaping via language?
