i had a talented wine
Attention: if last night you were at the cocktail party at my place, and you are missing a red jacket with a hood, it's here.
Attention again: Lyse is up and running with her own domain name at slithy-tove.net.
Oncologist sued for loaning a slide containing the blood of deceased Cardinal Terence Cooke to patients, apparently as a relic to use during prayer. Only I don't think it counts as a relic unless Cooke is officially canonized. Oh, the niceties.
Salon's primer on the ongoing Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations and protests in Quebec. I recognize that globalization is inevitable, and the only way that Latin America might achieve some sort of long-term economic parity with the U.S., but secret negotiations are not the way to go about it. It encourages provisions like NAFTA's Chapter 11:
A controversial provision of NAFTA that permits corporations to sue member governments if they create regulations that cut into a company's bottom line. The deliberations are conducted in highly secretive tribunals, with no public input. Several high-profile cases have led to sharp criticism of the rule, and not without reason.
Corporations could challenge "any law in the hemisphere they see that could potentially impact the corporate bottom line," says Mark. "You could see a massive rollback of laws we fought so long to get."
You see where this is going: more power concentrated in the hands of the multinationals. With everyone placing the profit motive foremost, I don't think the game theory of the situation can work out any other way. I'm aware of the argument that child labor (for instance) is too bad, but what's the alternative: i.e., the kids wouldn't be working in maquiladoras if there were better jobs available elsewhere. I know. The logic of the market becomes more brutal as it simplifies. I know.
It's just business... cattle prods and the IMF.
