Are Euro ministers trying to force Greece out of Eurozone? (photo: Lars Aronsson)

New statistics out of Greece show that austerity shrunk the economy more than expected last year. GDP in Greece fell 6.8% in 2011, and a slightly faster 7% in the fourth quarter. The country is in a fifth straight year of recession, and the numbers are rapidly approaching a full-on depression.

So of course, the solution was to ink a deal with European leaders for more austerity. But it appears that Eurozone finance ministers may save Greece from the road to ruin, by forcing default and the likely consequence of an exit from the euro.

Eurozone officials have called off an emergency meeting of finance ministers to approve a vital €130bn bail-out for Athens amid a growing fight among the country’s European creditors about the merits of allowing Greece to go bankrupt [...]

Olli Rehn, the European Commission’s top economics official, warned there would be “devastating consequences” if Greece defaulted, and pleaded for eurozone governments to approve the bail-out quickly. Officials said Mr Rehn has support from the European Central Bank and the French government.

But a group of eurozone governments, particularly those that retain triple-A credit ratings, has lost faith Greece will ever deliver its end of the bargain. Hardline officials in Germany, the Netherlands and Finland are increasingly urging a Greek default.

“We are getting closer to default,” said a senior eurozone official. “Germany, Finland and the Netherlands are losing patience.”

Obviously Germany is the important actor here. If they want Greece to default, they will in all likelihood default. Germany believes – probably wrongly – that they have built a firewall to stop contagion from hitting the rest of Europe. But the larger issue is that Greece is trapped inside the euro, with its citizens doomed to massive suffering unless the Eurozone either really becomes a fiscal union, or lets them go. Right now sentiment appears to be moving toward the latter.

Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos accused some finance ministers of wanting Greece to leave the euro. My view is that he should take them up on it! As Martin Wolf writes today,

Why does Greece – a country with little more than 2 per cent of the eurozone’s gross domestic product – cause such headaches? [...] Greece itself, though an important irritant, cannot be decisive for the future of the currency area. Yet the fact that this small, economically weak and chronically mismanaged country has been able to cause such difficulty also indicates the fragility of the structure.

And so the solution is to change the structure in some fundamental way. Because the status quo will devastate Greece, if not much of the continent. Portugal has largely agreed to European demands to impose more austerity, and their debt-to-GDP load has only grown as their economy has shrunk. Italy has entered into an austerity-induced recession. And the entire Eurozone saw its GDP shrink by 0.3% in the last quarter, putting it one quarter away from an officially declared recession.

Kevin Drum offers the solutions, which haven’t changed for years – fiscal union or monetary union breakup. The other option is to muddle through, with austerity-induced recessions everywhere and needless suffering. That’s the current path.

Chocolate. Roses. Kittens. Lotz of kittehs.

What do you love, or loathe–about Feb 14? Or just in general?

That’s why this year the lovers of the world should unite and Occupy Valentine’s Day. Romantic citizens deserve a better, more authentic and sustainable ways to express their affections—whether that be spending time with their friends and families, donating money they would spend on a romantic dinner to a domestic violence shelter, forgoing that expensive wedding for a more meaningful but less costly one. Above all, let’s find a way to honor ourselves that does not rely on buying stuff.

For what it’s worth, I have zero problem with people buying each other gifts or going out for a nice meal, if that’s what turns your crank. I have a major, major problem with yet another potentially sweet holiday being turned into a festival of misogyny and meanness.

I was joking with a friend on Facebook the other night that somebody needs to found a jewelry store for couples who actually like each other. As it is, we seem to have numerous chains marketing their wares to pairs of assholes engaged in sexual bribery and/or domestic guerrilla warfare to avoid being alone.

Buy the lady a shiny so she’ll stay happy and fuck ya, fellas! Lord knows you can’t rely on her love for you, or any of your inherent virtues, to get you laid. Ladies, don’t forget to instruct your household dumbass in just what to get you for a present. You married someone so grotesquely stupid he can’t tell a diamond from a dung beetle! Hee hee, it’s all so hilarious!

Do you have Valentine’s plans?

A.

Anti-Foxconn protest in Hong Kong (iworld.com.my)

Apple’s trademark is the intuitive elegance of its designs. Yet when it comes corporate and labor practices, Apple’s track record looks like a morass of obfuscation and murky public-relations smokscreens. So activists seeking a more user-friendly Apple on the human rights front should welcome the company’s new “Supplier Responsibility” report.

But the results of 229 documented audits display the troubling gap between its slick modern ethos and grim working conditions in its supply chain. Reuters reports:

The audit found a number of violations, among them breaches in pay, benefits and environmental practices in plants in China, which figured prominently throughout the 500-page report Apple issued. Other violations found in the audit included dumping wastewater onto a neighboring farm, using machines without safeguards, testing workers for pregnancy and falsifying pay records.

The “Supplier responsibility progress report” also found that “67 facilities had docked worker pay as a disciplinary measure.” The company states it is continually working to deal with violations of overtime and child labor.

The report’s admission of several cases of underage workers at some component suppliers bolsters the anecdotal evidence presented dramatically in “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” in which performer Mike Daisey recalls encountering underage workers at an Apple supplier facility in Shenzhen.  [cont'd.]

Apple has come under fire over its connection to Foxconn, a Taiwan-based manufacturer that employs tens of thousands in fortress-like facilities–a crucial part of the supply chain for iPhones and other high-profile products. These workers are typically young migrants from more rural areas, who are willing to brave long hours and paltry wages in mechanical, hyper-efficient assembly lines.

But something cracked in 2010, and a series of harrowing suicides–workers flinging themselves from buildings–got consumers around the world talking about whether their gadget obsession was complicit in pushing workers to the brink.

In a report last year, Apple claimed it was working in close partnership with Foxconn officials to prevent further tragedies. After Foxconn instituted some safeguards, such as mental health counseling programs, Apple stated, “Foxconn’s response had definitely saved lives.”

But if Foxconn and Apple have prevented some deaths, the lives of Chinese workers are in many cases still plagued by crippling hardship and frustration.

Two events show that the broader socioeconomic trends Apple has set in motion still roil throughout China and the global marketplace. Earlier this month at a central Beijing store, customers were told that the new iPhone 4S had sold out. Soon a crowd of anxious, angry customers reacted by lobbing eggs at the storefront. The scene revealed that China too is becoming a consumerist society, racing to follow the model of Western capitalism. And yet this rising culture of consumption only deepens the irony of poorer Chinese workers getting chained to the underbelly of that system.

Just recently, Foxconn was forced to negotiate with employees when many workers went on strike and some even “climbed to the top of the six-story dormitory on 3 January and threatened to jump before Wuhan city officials persuaded them to desist and return to work,” reported the Guardian.

It seems that these workers, whose lives revolve around the Xbox, feel the only viable collective bargaining process open to them is threatening mass suicide. The workers climbed down this time, but the incident underscores how global consumerism perverts the balance between labor rights and profit-making.

The day-to-day lives of these Foxconn workers are fraught with endless working hours, surveillance and enforced silence–all in the name of ensuring “quality.” One Foxconn worker at Chengdu plant remarked to Der Spiegel last year, “Order and obedience rule here.” The oppressiveness of the workplace may feed into the overarching regime of censorship and control, which ensures that political activism is consistently stifled by authorities.

Apple–an emblem of iconoclasm, individual freedom, and youth–surely doesn’t want its crisp image blemished by such sterile brutality. So under the leadership of new executive Tim Cook, the company just announced a partnership with the Fair Labor Association, which plans to carefully monitor working conditions and ensure Apple complies with the FLA Code of Conduct. That includes provisions for freedom of association, workplace health and safety, and regulated working hours.

Advocates who have long been in the trenches with Chinese workers, fostering emerging grassroots movements, are hopeful but wary of Apple’s latest promises.

Pauline Overeem of the watchdog group Good Electronics told In These Times that the Apple-FLA agreement shows that public scrutiny and consumer-driven activist campaigns have had an impact. But she said, “the race has not yet been run, there are major challenges ahead. We are calling upon FLA to use our network, local contacts and expertise etc to work effectively towards improvements.”

Li Qiang of China Labor Watch told In These Times that when corporations ostensibly cooperate with outside monitoring groups as “partners,” it’s still “difficult for the reports to be completely independent and absolutely objective. So some problems may still remain hidden even after signing up to the monitoring system.” Qiang added that while these measures were a good step:

whether this is a turning point for Apple is still open to doubt. As we all know, Apple is one of the biggest in the industry and it has the most profits. That’s why Apple should take more responsibility and take the lead to make some changes. If Apple does not, no one in the industry will.

With relentless efficiency, Apple’s brand has broadened the horizons of the digital world. But now it has to confront the injustices lurking in the shadows of its corporate dominion.

SOPA stalled by opposition (image: DonkeyHotey)

In the end, it was not necessarily the White House’s opposition as much as the pressure on House Republicans that has all but doomed anti-piracy legislation for the year. Darrell Issa, who along with Ron Wyden has been out in front of the opposition to SOPA and PIPA, the respective bills on this issue, says that he secured a promise from House Majority Leader Eric Cantor that no bill will hit the House floor without “consensus.”

“While I remain concerned about Senate action on the Protect IP Act, I am confident that flawed legislation will not be taken up by this House,” Issa said in a statement. “Majority Leader Cantor has assured me that we will continue to work to address outstanding concerns and work to build consensus prior to any anti-piracy legislation coming before the House for a vote.”

The announcement comes just hours after Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), SOPA’s sponsor, made a major concession to the bill’s critics by agreeing to drop a controversial provision that would have required Internet service providers to block infringing websites [...]

Issa said that even without the site-blocking provision, the bill is “fundamentally flawed.”

“Right now, the focus of protecting the Internet needs to be on the Senate where Majority Leader Reid has announced his intention to try to move similar legislation in less than two weeks,” he said.

While some Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have asked Reid to postpone a vote on that legislation, so far the schedule still shows that PIPA will come up for a vote. And this has animated the grassroots community into action, with their SOPA strike scheduled for Wednesday.

But with the House unwilling to act, and the President’s advisors opposed to many aspects of the bill, even if the Senate breaks with the growing opposition and passes their version of the legislation, I don’t think we’ll see a House counterpart this year. I’m sure the coalition will not just mothball at this point. Legislation could come up in future years. The entertainment conglomerates have deep pockets and want to use the power of the federal government to maximize their profits. This should become an issue in local races, particularly in communities with major tech presences.

But for now, this means that legislation which was routinely and seemingly inescapably moving toward passage got stopped, when at first a small group of activists rallied opposition to it. That’s a hopeful sign for our democracy early in this election year.

Apparently, the easiest way to get the Fluffy Whites together in a photograph is through the use of — what else? — food. And the FWCDs are eagerly awaiting some treats in this photo. Petey’s the one with the wide-open mouth, Penny’s the one with the long muzzle.

Grab the beverage and morning comestibles of your choice, kick back and chat, and imagine that two pairs of soulful brown eyes are watching your every move to see if you wind up dropping a piece of bacon on the floor. (Please don’t, it’s too salty for them!)

Judge Jed S. Rakoff

And this had an immediate impact. First, it opened up Citi to multiple additional lawsuits. Next, other judges began to ignore the SEC boilerplate about neither admitting or denying wrongdoing. In a decision in New York state appeals court, a judge wrote that “Read as a whole, the offer of settlement, the SEC Order … and related documents are not reasonably susceptible to any interpretation other than that Bear Stearns knowingly and intentionally facilitated illegal late trading for preferred customers, and that the relief provisions of the SEC Order required disgorgement of funds gained through that illegal activity.” What’s more, the House of Representatives saw its window and scheduled a hearing on the no-fault settlement practice.

Now we get the final result of all this: the SEC plans to drop the boilerplate.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is making a major change in how it settles some securities fraud cases, telling companies that they will no longer be allowed to say they neither admit nor deny the commission’s civil charges when, at the same time, they admit to or have been convicted of criminal violations.

The change has been under consideration for some time and could be announced soon, according to people who have been briefed on the new policy.

The S.E.C. will continue to use the “neither admit nor deny” settlement process when it alone reaches a deal with a company in a case of civil securities law violations, the people briefed on the policy said. Those types of cases make up the majority of its settlements.

The S.E.C. has been sharply criticized, in federal court and on Capitol Hill, for allowing companies to repeatedly settle fraud cases without admitting or denying the charges. That policy has been allowed to continue in cases even when a company admits the same conduct to another government agency, often the Justice Department.

Now, because the SEC reserves the right to use “neither admit or deny” in singled-source civil securities violations, this may have little impact in the near term. But the jig is up. First of all, the cases where only the SEC reaches a settlement on these kinds of violations are becoming rarer and rarer. Second, appeals courts are blowing off the language, relieving it of any effectiveness as a shield for the financial institutions involved. A Wachovia settlement last month over bid rigging included the line that Wachovia “admits, acknowledges and accepts responsibility for” their crimes.

This is a first step to stopping this travesty of allowing companies to get off the hook and pay their way out of fraud violations without even admitting they did anything wrong. And this never happens without the work of Jed Rakoff.

Mitt Romney ……………… 40%
Ron Paul ………………….. 17%
Rick Santorum …………… 11%
Newt Gingrich …………….. 9%
Jon Huntsman …………….. 8%
Rick Perry …………………. 1%
Buddy Roemer ……………..0%
Fred Karger ……………….. 0%
Undecided (DO NOT READ) 15%

While Santorum’s level of support will likely continue to grow over the next few days, it is hard to imagine him coming even close to challenging Romney for first place. Santorum has probably already picked up much of the low hanging fruit, like former Michele Bachmann supporters.

Romney’s and Paul’s base of support in the state seem rather firm and consistent. Jon Huntsman just got the major endorsements of the Boston Globe, which should help him retain his share of the vote. Even if all the undecideds break for Santorum that would still leave him over ten points behind Romney.

Most likely result in New Hampshire is that Santorum will do well, but Romney will end up claiming a big victory.

Another researcher has come out complaining about how a religious right “expert” distorted her work to stigmatize the lgbtq community.

According to Box Turtle Bulletin, Rick Fitzgibbons of the NARTH (the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) wrote a piece about same-sex adoption. In the piece, Fitzgibbons cited the work of Seton Hall professor Dr. Theodora Sirota to make the case that children in same sex households are not raised better than children “in stable homes with a mother and a father.”

However, according to Sirota, Fitzgibbons misused her work. You can read the letter here, but Box Turtle Bulletin breaks the distortion down nicely:

To support his denunciation of same-sex adoption, Fitzgibbons offers this summary of Sirota’s research:

Researchers interviewed 68 women with gay or bisexual fathers and 68 women with heterosexual fathers. The women (average age 29 in both groups) with gay or bisexual fathers had difficulty with adult attachment issues in three areas: they were less comfortable with closeness and intimacy; they were less able to trust and depend on others; and they experienced more anxiety in relationships compared to the women raised by heterosexual fathers.

The problem is not with what Fitzgibbons said; it’s what he left out: The gay and bisexual fathers in Sirota’s study were married to the mothers.

Dr. Sirota’s article is about the impact of a homosexual father raising a girl in a heterosexual marriage. It has nothing to do with same-sex couples, nothing to do with same-sex adoption at all.

Or as Dr. Sirota says in her letter:

. . . no conclusions about gay or lesbian fitness to adopt children or quality of active gay parenting can be drawn from the findings of my research. No conclusions about the well-being of children who are or were actively raised by gay or lesbian parents can be drawn from the findings of my research.”

While NARTH is looked upon as experts on the lgbtq community in religious right circles, the mainstream scientific community pretty much ignores the groups’s research and with good reason.

The website Truth Wins Out calls NARTH a discredited “ex-gay” fringe organization that peddles fraudulent “cures” for homosexuality.

According to Truth Wins Out, several NARTH members have been embroiled in controversies including:

Gerald Schoenwolf, PhD, a member of NARTH’ “Scientific Advisory Committee,” who wrote a piece on the group’s website that seemed to justify slavery

NARTH psychiatrist Joseph Berger, MD, another member of its “Scientific Advisory Committee,” who wrote a paper encouraging students to “ridicule” gender variant children.

Also, according to Truth Wins Out:

NARTH’ co-founder, Joesph Nicolosi encourages male clients to become more masculine by drinking Gatorade and referring to friends as “dude”. NARTH therapists have been known to practice rubber band therapy, where a gay client is made to wear a rubber band and snap it on his wrist when sexually stimulated. It is a mild form of aversion therapy meant to “snap” the client out of the moment of attraction. NARTH members have also been known to practice “touch therapy”, where a client sits in the therapist’ lap for up to an hour, while the therapist caresses him.

In 2010, another member of NARTH, George Rekers, resigned from the organization after caught coming from a vacation overseas with a “rentboy.”

Unfortunately the distortion of legitimate scientific work by religious right experts is not done solely by NARTH. Other groups have gotten into trouble over this sadly overlooked aspect of the so-called culture wars. Over the years, there have been 11 other complaints from researchers about how their work was being distorted by religious right and so-called “pro-family” groups, including:

National Institute of Health director Francis Collins, who rebuked the right-wing American College of Pediatricians for falsely claiming that he stated sexual orientation is not hardwired by DNA.

Six researchers of a 1997 Canadian study (Robert S. Hogg, Stefan A. Strathdee, Kevin J.P. Craib, Michael V. Shaughnessy, Julio Montaner, and Martin T. Schehter), who complained in 2001 that religious right groups were distorting their work to claim that gay men have a short life span.

The authors of the book Unequal Opportunity: Health Disparities Affecting Gay and Bisexual Men in the United States (Professors Richard J. Wolitski, Ron Stall, and Ronald O. Valdiserri), who complained that their work was being distorted by Focus on the Family.

University College London professor Michael King, who complained that the American Family Association was distorting his work on depression and suicide in LGBT individuals

University of Utah professor Lisa Diamond, who complained that NARTH (the National Association of Research and Therapy of Homosexuality), a group which also share board members with the American College of Pediatricians, distorted her research on sexual orientation.

Dr. Carol Gilligan, Professor of Education and Law at New York University, who complained that former Focus on the Family head James Dobson misrepresented her research to attack LGBT families.

Dr. Kyle Pruett, Ph.D., a professor of child psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine, who has also complained that Focus on the Family distorted his work.

Dr. Robert Spitzer, Professor of Psychiatry at Columbia University, who has consistently complained that religious right groups distorted his study to claim that the LGBT orientation is easily changeable.

Judith Stacey, Professor of Sociology at New York University, who has had to, on more than one occasion, cry foul over how religious right groups distorted her work on LGBT families.

Greg Remafedi, Professor at the University of Minnesota, who has complained several times about how religious right groups such as the American College of Pediatricians and PFOX have distorted his work, all to no avail. The American College of Pediatricians refused his request to remove his work from their site.

In 2010, John Horgan, a science journalist and Director of the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology, became the 11th researcher to complain.

Last year, Tom Minnery, a spokesman from Focus on the Family, was dressed down by Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) during a Congressional hearing for deliberately misrepresenting a study. Minnery initially used the study to claim, as Fitzgibbons did in his misrepresentation, that same-sex households are inferior to two parent mother/father households.

Answers.USA.gov says:

Most of the curiosity surrounding the date involves how the ancient Maya civilization viewed time. Archaeological finds revealed that the Maya had a number of highly accurate calendars, including one known as the Long Count calendar. It uses a series of periods (cycles) to count days, months, and years. According to this calendar, a major cycle lasting the equivalent of 394.3 years ends on December 21, 2012. The next cycle begins on December 22, and ends in 2406.

NASA has a tl/dr FAQ that condenses down to:

Nothing bad will happen to the Earth in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.

But wait! Oh noes! NASA also offers this warning:

Scientists have no way of predicting with perfect accuracy whether a supervolcano will occur in a given century, decade, or year – and that includes 2012. But they do keep close tabs on volcanically active areas around the world, and so far there’s absolutely no sign of a supereruption looming anytime soon.

But fear not!