27 January 2012
DAY EIGHTY POST THREE
i have a mission, which i've had for a while. get someone from tuvalu to read this blog. next week, i'm making it my 2012 goals to send (read: spam) the blog to everyone i can find on the internet who resides in tuvalu. in other news, rachael is going on a ski holiday in the country i was first obsessed with, ANDORRA! SO JEALOUS. SO SO JEALOUS.
26 January 2012
DAY SEVENTY NINE POST TWO
In other news, IT BEGINS.
An Upcoming Change to CS Groups
Dear CouchSurfer,
You're receiving this message because you have posted in CouchSurfing groups. We wanted you to be aware that an upcoming change to the website will make public CS groups accessible by search engines. This means that if you would like to know if anyone on CouchSurfing has given advice that might help your trip, you could use Google to search for "CouchSurfing best restaurants New York" (for example) to see. It also means that it will now be possible for non-members to find limited information from our groups through search engines.
Privacy is very important to us. Here's what is important to know about this change:
* You may delete any post that you have made. We have installed a new privacy feature that allows you to delete any of your group posts. You can view a full list of your past group posts here. Click on any that you would like to view, and you'll see a "delete" button on the post itself.
* If someone searches your name, your posts will not be found. The names of post authors are visible to humans, but not to search engines.
* Names of post authors will not link to their profiles. Viewers who are not logged in can not click on your name to view your profile, even if your profile is public.
* Your photo will not be visible. All member photos are hidden in group threads from anyone who is not logged in.
* Private groups will not be visible to search engines.
This change will happen in one week, on February 1.
If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. More information can also be found in this blog post.
Happy Surfing!
The CouchSurfing Team
An Upcoming Change to CS Groups
Dear CouchSurfer,
You're receiving this message because you have posted in CouchSurfing groups. We wanted you to be aware that an upcoming change to the website will make public CS groups accessible by search engines. This means that if you would like to know if anyone on CouchSurfing has given advice that might help your trip, you could use Google to search for "CouchSurfing best restaurants New York" (for example) to see. It also means that it will now be possible for non-members to find limited information from our groups through search engines.
Privacy is very important to us. Here's what is important to know about this change:
* You may delete any post that you have made. We have installed a new privacy feature that allows you to delete any of your group posts. You can view a full list of your past group posts here. Click on any that you would like to view, and you'll see a "delete" button on the post itself.
* If someone searches your name, your posts will not be found. The names of post authors are visible to humans, but not to search engines.
* Names of post authors will not link to their profiles. Viewers who are not logged in can not click on your name to view your profile, even if your profile is public.
* Your photo will not be visible. All member photos are hidden in group threads from anyone who is not logged in.
* Private groups will not be visible to search engines.
This change will happen in one week, on February 1.
If you have further questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us. More information can also be found in this blog post.
Happy Surfing!
The CouchSurfing Team
DAY SEVENTY NINE
In college, I worked extensively with a group called Students for Economic Jusice, a student activist group that worked for labor and human rights, and part of a national group called the United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS). In particular, the group aimed to get McPherson, the president of the university - who was also a member of Young Americans for Freedom - to join a certain group to monitor sweatshops.
As an aside, in its new iteration, MSU's YAF was identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being a hate group - mentioning their actions against SEJ and MEXA (Movimiento Estudiantil Xican@ de Aztlan, particularly with their well-conceived "catch an illegal" day, where they planned to have people dress up in "Mexican" costumes and then rally the troups, chasing the folks throughout town, a Qur'an desecration day, bringing minuteman to campus and mocking a former Coke employee who had asylum due to threats being made against him (and friends killed) from attempting to unionize a Coke plant in Columbia. Brilliant. Read more about the group and winners involved here, and here.
I digress. McPherson - who wasn't all bad, but kinda was - was adamently opposed to Michigan State University adopting a certain code of coduct, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which has much stronger labor oversight of sweatshops where university apparel is produced. Instead, the University stayed part of the Fair Labor Association, a group started and run by MNC companies with such partial companies as Nike, Reebok and Adidas, with no labor oversight whatsoever. There were severe problems with the FLA, for sure. Eventually, after years of work, the University joined the WRC. Sadly, it probably had more to do with when McPherson left MSU to go fiddle with Iraq's economy than our protests - but, because we had to do actions for so much longer than most universities, we got out of the same ole boring sweatshop fashion show or dye-ins to other actions, like a snow 'thing' [ED. LOOK! JIM WROTE A CHAPTER AND I'M IN IT!], a chill-in, flash dance for justice, keg stands (root beer) for justice, and a whole lot more laid out in this document under creative tactics.
Cut to today, where people on facebook are sending around a number of articles tracing the last two weeks of one worker creating Apple iPads. Lai Xiaodong, 22, moved to Chengdu to work for $22 a day. Though Apple has a code of conduct for suppliers, laying out certain rights, including working 60 hours or less a week and prohibiting child labor, its own progress report indicated there were numerous issues with compliance. Lai was killed in a factory explosion that burned 90% of his body, but he didn't die immediately, taking two days to finally succumb. This came after an advocacy group warned Apple of the abuses and dangers in its plants. Foxconn, the company that became well known a few years back for its astounding rate of employee suicide, wired his family a check for $150,000.
To show how serious it is about stopping labor abuses, Apple has made a big production about joining the FLA - which, as you know from above, may be better than nothing but is viewed suspiciously by watchdog groups as being a way to appease the public while not really solving labor abuses. Is it a coincidence that Apple is highly publicizing its movement to join the FLA at this time - a time when the public is more focused on its labor rights violations than before?
Turns out that Labor Notes also wrote an article about the current developments at Apple. The conclusion is, for me, inevitable: "In sum, Apple is now doing what Nike has been doing for nearly 15 years: the apology-plus-transparency formula, straight out of the manuals offered by “reputation management” consultants."
Seems to me like SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) would be a better watchdog group. SACOM - the group that released a report highlighting factory problems in Lai's factory a mere two weeks before his death - has extensive experience working with Foxconn and other electronics sweatshops. Here's hoping that Apple joining the FLA doesn't distract the public, and that actual change will be possible.
As an aside, in its new iteration, MSU's YAF was identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as being a hate group - mentioning their actions against SEJ and MEXA (Movimiento Estudiantil Xican@ de Aztlan, particularly with their well-conceived "catch an illegal" day, where they planned to have people dress up in "Mexican" costumes and then rally the troups, chasing the folks throughout town, a Qur'an desecration day, bringing minuteman to campus and mocking a former Coke employee who had asylum due to threats being made against him (and friends killed) from attempting to unionize a Coke plant in Columbia. Brilliant. Read more about the group and winners involved here, and here.
I digress. McPherson - who wasn't all bad, but kinda was - was adamently opposed to Michigan State University adopting a certain code of coduct, the Worker Rights Consortium (WRC), which has much stronger labor oversight of sweatshops where university apparel is produced. Instead, the University stayed part of the Fair Labor Association, a group started and run by MNC companies with such partial companies as Nike, Reebok and Adidas, with no labor oversight whatsoever. There were severe problems with the FLA, for sure. Eventually, after years of work, the University joined the WRC. Sadly, it probably had more to do with when McPherson left MSU to go fiddle with Iraq's economy than our protests - but, because we had to do actions for so much longer than most universities, we got out of the same ole boring sweatshop fashion show or dye-ins to other actions, like a snow 'thing' [ED. LOOK! JIM WROTE A CHAPTER AND I'M IN IT!], a chill-in, flash dance for justice, keg stands (root beer) for justice, and a whole lot more laid out in this document under creative tactics.
Cut to today, where people on facebook are sending around a number of articles tracing the last two weeks of one worker creating Apple iPads. Lai Xiaodong, 22, moved to Chengdu to work for $22 a day. Though Apple has a code of conduct for suppliers, laying out certain rights, including working 60 hours or less a week and prohibiting child labor, its own progress report indicated there were numerous issues with compliance. Lai was killed in a factory explosion that burned 90% of his body, but he didn't die immediately, taking two days to finally succumb. This came after an advocacy group warned Apple of the abuses and dangers in its plants. Foxconn, the company that became well known a few years back for its astounding rate of employee suicide, wired his family a check for $150,000.
To show how serious it is about stopping labor abuses, Apple has made a big production about joining the FLA - which, as you know from above, may be better than nothing but is viewed suspiciously by watchdog groups as being a way to appease the public while not really solving labor abuses. Is it a coincidence that Apple is highly publicizing its movement to join the FLA at this time - a time when the public is more focused on its labor rights violations than before?
Turns out that Labor Notes also wrote an article about the current developments at Apple. The conclusion is, for me, inevitable: "In sum, Apple is now doing what Nike has been doing for nearly 15 years: the apology-plus-transparency formula, straight out of the manuals offered by “reputation management” consultants."
Seems to me like SACOM (Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) would be a better watchdog group. SACOM - the group that released a report highlighting factory problems in Lai's factory a mere two weeks before his death - has extensive experience working with Foxconn and other electronics sweatshops. Here's hoping that Apple joining the FLA doesn't distract the public, and that actual change will be possible.
25 January 2012
DAY SEVENTY EIGHT
throat. serious pain. fever. ow.
cool news! the turkish government has now mandated that everyone in the country buy into their socialist health care system. which is fine, except they won't accept private coverage instead, meaning that my nice american insurance that i paid for two months ago doesn't count :(
i'm now a fully formed adult with a light in the front hall, a functioning shower, and no bed. and one cat too many. here's towards hoping that jordan still wants shortbus.
PIRATES IN THE NEWS!! I am in love with pirates. ARRRGH. Except now they've moved towards being land pirates and that's a little less cool and eco-warriory and a bit more just kidnappy and terroristy.
Turkey in the Times! For Bathonea, possibly a port sattelite town of Istanbu, or part of Istanbul itself. But ew:
cool news! the turkish government has now mandated that everyone in the country buy into their socialist health care system. which is fine, except they won't accept private coverage instead, meaning that my nice american insurance that i paid for two months ago doesn't count :(
i'm now a fully formed adult with a light in the front hall, a functioning shower, and no bed. and one cat too many. here's towards hoping that jordan still wants shortbus.
PIRATES IN THE NEWS!! I am in love with pirates. ARRRGH. Except now they've moved towards being land pirates and that's a little less cool and eco-warriory and a bit more just kidnappy and terroristy.
The official said that local leaders in the area were pleased with the rescue operation, because there is little sympathy for the pirate gangs, who are blamed for sullying Somalia’s reputation and causing inflation by carelessly spending millions of dollars of ransom money.
Turkey in the Times! For Bathonea, possibly a port sattelite town of Istanbu, or part of Istanbul itself. But ew:
No shipwrecks have been found at Bathonea; nor are they likely to be anytime soon, said Mr. Oniz, the underwater archaeologist. The lake is so polluted by industrial runoff that diving in it is dangerous, he said. A new water-treatment facility may make exploration possible within a few years.
24 January 2012
DAY SEVENTY SEVEN
Interesting news from the legal world today. The Supreme Court ruled that police attaching a GPS device onto a car constitutes a search, so they may need to get a warrant. Even Scalia thought that it may be required, while Alito thinks it's always required for tracking over long periods of time.
If you don't read postsecret, you should. My favorite one is from a few weeks ago and includes the typical gamut of life, death, sadness and happiness.
Are you eating gay food or straight food?
US politics edition part two: contraception is now covered to the same extent as viagra under health plans.
US politics part III - death penalty!! Remember that guy whose appeal of his conviction for the death penalty was totally messed up because the attorneys assigned to work with him quit Sullivan and Cromwell and the mailroom sent back all information about his appeals? Check this website for a fuller history along with a ton of links about it. Whoops. Read the stuff - it's horrible - but at least he gets an appeal, even if it was unwilling to say that he had inadequate assistance of counsel. That Scalia!
And I just saw xkcd's SOPA protest. I love it as much as I love the webcomic. And its references to calvin and hobbes.
Finally, 1/998001 generates a fascinating series.
If you don't read postsecret, you should. My favorite one is from a few weeks ago and includes the typical gamut of life, death, sadness and happiness.
Are you eating gay food or straight food?
US politics edition part two: contraception is now covered to the same extent as viagra under health plans.
US politics part III - death penalty!! Remember that guy whose appeal of his conviction for the death penalty was totally messed up because the attorneys assigned to work with him quit Sullivan and Cromwell and the mailroom sent back all information about his appeals? Check this website for a fuller history along with a ton of links about it. Whoops. Read the stuff - it's horrible - but at least he gets an appeal, even if it was unwilling to say that he had inadequate assistance of counsel. That Scalia!
In his opinion, Scalia argues that Maples was, in fact, being represented by legal counsel during the appeals process because other lawyers at the firm had helped with the pro bono case. The theoretical possibility that someone at Sullivan & Cromwell was still secretly working on Maples’s case cannot be taken seriously. The most disturbing part of Scalia’s dissent, however, is his argument that the Court’s decision “invites future evisceration of the principle that defendants are responsible for the mistakes of their attorneys.” Scalia seems to take for granted that reconsidering penalties against defendants for their poor legal representation would be a bad thing. Writing for the majority, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg found that Maples’s failure to meet the deadline was legally excusable. “A client cannot be charged with the acts or omissions of an attorney who has abandoned him,” she wrote.
Coleman v. Thompson. According to the decision, if Maples’s lawyers missed a deadline because of gross negligence rather than outright abandonment, Maples would have had no legal recourse.
And I just saw xkcd's SOPA protest. I love it as much as I love the webcomic. And its references to calvin and hobbes.
Finally, 1/998001 generates a fascinating series.
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