Making Big Tobacco invisible and the materializin other lies of language

Notes 79

When will the U.S. strangle the manufacture of cigarettes, stop subsidizing growers, and get serious about eliminating the deadly impact of smoking?

UK Tobacco Display Ban, Plain Packaging Requirement Move Forward
March 16th, 2011

The British government said earlier this week that it plans to ban the display of tobacco products and may even introduce a plain packaging requirement, a concerted effort to curb smoking, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Coinciding with the publication of the plan, the government also launched a formal consultation on ways to reduce the effect of tobacco packaging, including introducing plain packaging
The British American Tobacco (BAT) , producer of Dunhill cigarettes blasted the government’s announcement, saying that it will have economic consequences for small retailers.
“We are disappointed the government didn’t properly consider the views of the tens of thousands of smaller retailers nationwide who are worried about costly shop refits, losing trade to big supermarkets and the black market, especially against a backdrop of tough economic times,” a BAT spokesperson said.
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Stupidity can be infectious OR what did the boss say he’d like to read

Paul Krugman | All Aboard the Collectivist Train
Paul Krugman, Krugman & Co.: "Columnist George Will wrote a piece recently for Newsweek on President Barack Obama's high-speed rail initiative that was truly bizarre. 'So why is America's 'win the future' administration so fixated on railroads, a technology that was the future two centuries ago? Because progressivism's aim is the modification of (other people's) behavior,' Mr. Will wrote. 'Forever seeking Archimedean levers for prying the world in directions they prefer, progressives say they embrace high-speed rail for many reasons - to improve the climate, increase competitiveness, enhance national security, reduce congestion, and rationalize land use ... the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism.' It is astonishing to see Mr. Will - who is not a stupid man - embracing the sinister progressives-hate-your-freedom line with regard to train travel."

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Tempest in a teapot? Lotsa money to be made selling nuclear tea kettles while risking the end of tea

Can US Nuclear Plants Handle a Major Natural Disaster?
John Sullivan, ProPublica: "As engineers in Japan struggle to bring quake-damaged reactors under control, attention is turning to U.S. nuclear plants and their ability to withstand natural disasters. Rep. Ed Markey, a Massachusetts Democrat who has spent years pushing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission toward stricter enforcement of its safety rules, has called for a reassessment. Several U.S. reactors lie on or near fault lines, and Markey wants to beef up standards for new and existing plants."

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If the public can’t be screwed one way, corporations will find another, more devious way.

The Toll Road to Serfdom
Tuesday 15 March 2011
by: Ellen Dannin | American Constitution Society | Op-Ed

If you want to experience a real disconnect, find out how highway privation actually works and then read the glowing raves by infrastructure privatization boosters.
They claim that privatization transfers risk to the private contractor, while providing high quality infrastructure that a cash-strapped public cannot otherwise afford. They say that the public will have easy drives with new roads and new lanes, all assisted by the installation of the latest tolling and messaging technology.
Today's deals include terms intended to make the toll road drivers' only alternative. Commonly found "noncompete" terms forbid building or improving "competing" road or mass transit systems. They may also require what is called "traffic calming" but which means by narrowing lanes or making other changes to make alternative routes unpleasant or less useful. Other contract terms require that the government "partner" compensate private contractors for "adverse actions," such as promoting car pooling to lower air pollution and urban congestion that could affect revenues. For the next 40 years, the HOT lanes contract with Transurban of Australia and Fluor Corporation of Texas requires Virginia to reimburse the private companies whenever Capital Beltway carpools exceed 24 percent of the traffic on the carpool lanes - or until the builders make $100 million in profits.
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The Japanese don’t believe their government. The intelligence community does not believe Petraeus. Nobody to believe anymore.

Washington Smackdown: Petraeus vs. "Substantial Drawdown"
Robert Naiman, Truthout: "Gen. David Petraeus spoke yesterday before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and is speaking today before the House Armed Services Committee, selling Congress a 'progress' story about the war in Afghanistan that isn't believed by US intelligence analysts. Whether members of Congress choose to believe Petraeus' reassurances over the assessments of the US intelligence community ('who you gonna believe, me or your lying eyes?') could prove decisive in determining whether the July drawdown of US forces from Afghanistan that President Obama has promised will be 'token,' as the Pentagon
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Now U.S has gained control of U.N. metrics. No place to turn for facts

UN Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths From US Raids
Gareth Porter and Shah Noori, Inter Press Service: "The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan published last week, an IPS investigation has revealed. The report also failed to apply the same humanitarian law standard for defining a civilian to its reporting on SOF raids that it applied to its accounting for Taliban assassinations."
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“Surgical” can have deadly different meanings depending which end of the knife you are on.

Taking the War Out of Air War: What US Air Power Actually Does
Tom Engelhardt, TomDispatch: "Over the years, Afghan civilian casualties from the air have waxed and waned, depending on how much air power American commanders were willing to call in, but they have never ceased. As history tells us, air power and civilian deaths are inextricably bound together. They can't be separated, no matter how much anyone talks about 'surgical' strikes and precision bombing. It's simply the barbaric essence, the very nature of this kind of war, to kill noncombatants."
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So much for surgical. It assumes you can identify the arget AND hit it on the button

Pakistan army chief condemns US drone attack


By Sebastian Abbot, Associated Press –
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army chief strongly condemned a U.S. drone attack that killed more than three dozen people Thursday, saying the missiles struck a peaceful meeting of tribal elders near the Afghan border.