3.03.2005

Republican Disenfranchisement Continues...

UW-Eau Claire College Democrats: Voter ID Bill Hurts Students

“Many students already have two forms of identification, their student ID and a driver’s license from their hometown. Forcing them to find transportation to get to an out-of-the way DMV to now acquire a third form of ID for an address that will likely change in the coming months, will reduce the number of students who vote,” Caruso stated. “Republicans know this, and are throwing around the term –“fraud”- in a shameless attempt to keep students from voting.”

http://wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=32728

Here's a great way to get rid of Wal-Mart...

and maybe get back some of our good union grocery stores!

The way I see it now, unionizing Wal-Mart is an even bigger win-win now.

Peeved Wal-Mart closing Quebec store

http://www.madison.com/tct/opinion/index.php?ntid=30503&ntpid=0

Last week, for instance, they announced that they're closing the Wal-Mart store they recently opened in Quebec, Canada, apparently because the workers there had the temerity to join a union.

3.01.2005

Another Great Reason to Recycle.....

I know I am not always the best at this when I am on the road, but I promise to get better...

The low water bottle recycling rate also impacts the overall recycling rate of all plastic, or PET, products. That's fallen from 53 percent in 1994 to 19 percent in 2003.

Plastics should be recycled so that less petroleum — a finite commodity — is consumed, Franklin says.

"The environmental impacts are in the drilling of the oil," she adds, noting that burning fossil fuel also releases gases that many scientists tie to global warming.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279230/

2.28.2005

Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon

It is possible now, according to Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria:

Here's the math (thanks to Gal Luft, a tireless—and independent—advocate of energy security). The current crop of hybrid cars get around 50 miles per gallon. Make it a plug-in and you can get 75 miles. Replace the conventional fuel tank with a flexible-fuel tank that can run on a combination of 15 percent petroleum and 85 percent ethanol or methanol, and you get between 400 and 500 miles per gallon of gasoline. (You don't get 500 miles per gallon of fuel, but the crucial task is to lessen the use of petroleum. And ethanol and methanol are much cheaper than gasoline, so fuel costs would drop dramatically.)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7037844/site/newsweek/page/2/

This is something to get behind - reduce our reliance on foreign oil and increase our demand for domestic farmer's crops.

Great blog post....

...Even though it is a made-up story, it is 100% right on:

http://www.thepoorman.net/archives/002789.html

Don't Blame Wal-Mart....

Robert Reich in the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/28/opinion/28reich.html?th

Excerpts:

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.

We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

The only way for the workers or citizens in us to trump the consumers in us is through laws and regulations that make our purchases a social choice as well as a personal one. A requirement that companies with more than 50 employees offer their workers affordable health insurance, for example, might increase slightly the price of their goods and services. My inner consumer won't like that very much, but the worker in me thinks it a fair price to pay. Same with an increase in the minimum wage or a change in labor laws making it easier for employees to organize and negotiate better terms.