Apple Faces Boycott Over Worker Abuses In China. It's Not Crazy Talk. - Forbes

Fair-labor organizers, Change.org and SumOfUs.org, delivered 250,000 signatures to Apple stores in six cities around the world on Thursday in protest of the company’s working conditions in China, according to a report in Mashable.

Last month, an excellent New York Times exposé ripped at Apple’s core, building on previous concerns about abuses at firms that Apple uses to make its bestselling iPhones, iPads and Mac computers.

The claims should be familiar by now as Foxconn in southern China, one of Apple’s primary suppliers, has repeatedly been the subject of accusations of worker mistreatment and unsafe working conditions. From Mashable:

Foxconn has been accused of making laborers work long hours without breaks, use dangerous chemicals that have caused severe health problems and exposing workers to dangerous conditions. The repetitive work and spartan living conditions have also been to blame for suicides at the factory.

Charlotte Hill, communications manager at Change.org, pleaded with Apple to use its creativity to “think ethically” and create an iPhone without using factories that have harsh working conditions.

“No iPhone is worth that cost,” she said.

At the same time, Apple has also generated billions of dollars in profits, in part due to the cheapness of Chinese labor. (Revenue last quarter surged 74 percent to a record US$46.3 billion and profit more than doubled to US$13.1 billion, blowing away Wall Street‘s expectations as Apple sold more stuff than in any quarter in its history.)

The Mashable report comes as rumors point to Siri, the much lauded iPhone 4S intelligent personal assistant, adding Mandarin Chinese support next month.

For perspective, read “The Apple Boycott: People Are Spouting Nonsense about Chinese Manufacturing.”

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Matt Miller: Sorry, Alan and Erskine -- it's not nearly enough - Washington Post

I'm torn between cheering some of the "tough choices" (by Washington standards) that Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson have usefully put on the table -- and running from the room screaming at how phony and inadequate so many of the steps they've laid out are, despite first-day commentary hailing them as "bold." Here's a two-minute Radical Centrists's guide to how to think about what they've floated (drafted at the airport while waiting for a flight, so forgive the short strokes).

21 versus 22. As I wrote in The Post a few months ago, the Bowles/Simpson plan to hold spending to 21 percent of GDP as the boomers age is a dangerous fantasy. All you need to know is that Ronald Reagan ran government at 22 percent of GDP when 76 million baby boomers weren't retiring. Today we're on the verge of doubling the number of folks on Social Security and Medicare. The Bowles/Simpson size of government goal is a fantasy -- it will not happen. Unfortunately, this wrongheaded goal undermines much of what they propose, since it's the organizing feature of their proposal.

2037. The co-chairs don't balance the budget until 2037! The outer limits of the ambition of a commission set up to get our fiscal house in order is thus a 27-year plan to balance the budget? Oy. The most you can say is that it's faster than the plan offered by that other falsely-hailed fiscal conservative, Paul Ryan, whose "Roadmap" wouldn't balance the budget until the 2050s!

Health-care dreaming. The long-run savings in health care are merely assumed -- they say growth rates after 2020 will slow to some rate closer to GDP growth than they are today. Everyone seeks such a result, but no one has any real idea how to achieve it, because it means taking on the Medical Industrial Complex in ways unthinkable today. But is it possible? You bet. Mighty Singapore spends 4 percent of GDP on health care versus our 17 percent, with as good or better health outcomes. We CAN do more with less. Whether we have the political gumption to get there is the multi-trillion dollar question.

Social Security. The co-chairs don't raise the retirement age to 68 until 2050, and to 69 until 2075 (a blow for today's newborns, but tough choices have to be made...). So we have a bold, 40- to 65-year plan to bring benefit eligibility ages in line with reality, when life spans are already 14 years higher than when the retirement age of 65 was set decades ago. Come to think of it, in 2075 people will probably be living to at least 100. A task for a future commission! Meanwhile, the co-chairs don't even phase in "progressive indexing" of benefits until 2050, when a more thrifty shift to "price indexing" much sooner would be justified (this is a longer, seemingly arcane, yet essential discussion for a future column on intergenerational equity).

Gas tax. On my reading, the co-chairs call for a bold new 15-cent a gallon gas tax. Ross Perot called for 50 cents twenty years ago. Our problems grow, our ambitions shrink.

Good news! The co-chairs do put tax expenditures (or subsidies) for things like employer provided health care and mortgages on the table for cuts. That's genuinely terrific and worthy of applause.

I know that within the conventional boundaries of debate, what Bowles and Simpon have offered is a step forward. But when the conventional boundaries of debate are utterly inadequate to our actual challenges, someone has to say so.

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Can a 'liberal gene' determine political stance? Researchers say it's so - Los Angeles Times

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Can a 'liberal gene' determine political stance? Researchers say it's so Share By Mary Forgione, For the Los Angeles Times October 28, 2010|1:51 p.m.

E-mail Print Text Size la-heb-liberal-gene-20101028 Now Fox political pundit Bill O’Reilly will have a new factor to consider in vetting his guests. Researchers say they have found a "liberal gene" that ties political ideology to something other than social factors.

The study published Thursday in the Journal of Politics comes from UC San Diego and Harvard University researchers who overlaid the presence of a dopamine receptor gene called DRD4 with the social networks of 2,000 people to examine the potential link.

Here's how a UC San Diego statement explains the study:

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"[Researchers] reported that 'it is the crucial interaction of two factors – the genetic predisposition and the environmental condition of having many friends in adolescence – that is associated with being more liberal.' The research team also showed that this held true independent of ethnicity, culture, sex or age." Click here to read the full story.

News media were quick to seize on the findings. "Don’t hold liberals responsible for their opinion – they can’t help themselves," a Fox news story begins. Hmmm, "fair and balanced" meets "truthiness."

So if political disposition can be part nurture and part nature, how does that account for red states and blue states? And are independents kind of genetics-lite?

Stay tuned. Lead researcher James H. Fowler, professor of political science and medical genetics at UC San Diego, says in the university's statement: "It is our hope that more scholars will begin to explore the potential interaction of biology and environment. ...The way forward is to look for replication in different populations and age groups." Copyright © 2010, Los Angeles Times

E-mail Print Digg Twitter Facebook Read This Later   Comments (1)Add / View comments | Discussion FAQ The Old Soul at 7:07 PM October 28, 2010

Sure...Liberalism can be determined by genetics...if that IS true. Then so can conservatism, and I'll happily be offensive here and say. Let's go with the side of the genetic coin that follows more than blind and stubborn values that are as obsolete as they are mindless. Saying there is a 'liberal gene' implies on some level that it's abnormal. What the hell? I don't know what they mean by 'liberal' that they've found a gene for it. Being pro choice and pro gay marriage and anti big business and for cheaper healthcare?

MAYBE just maybe, it's a gene for thinking for yourself. Nobody seems to question the conservative stance. As an example...what about the Teaparty?

I want to know what gene governs such an illogical and idiotic principal of electing officials who know absolutely nothing about politics and are divorced from reality. The inability to rationalize and face the reality of the world I feel is a far more scary genetic defect than 'liberalism'.

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The Rent Is Too Damn High Party: Jimmy McMillan Shows Dems How It's Done - Death and Taxes

Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too Damn High Party stole the show at last night’s New York gubernatorial debate.

Yesterday we wrote a piece about how ineffective Democrats were this year at fighting back against the conservative Tea Party candidates. Maureen Dowd’s “Mean Girls” article about the Mama Grizzlies only reinforced their perceived strength by calling them mean. If you don’t like the things your opponent is saying, we argued, you have to change the conversation.

Reinforcing the meanness of your successfully mean opponent is not a conversation changer. “The rent is too damn high”—now that’s a conversation changer.

Last night Jimmy McCmillan, head of The Rent Is Too Damn High party, and that party’s candidate for Governor of New York, showed mainstream Democrats how you effectively change a conversation. Gawker has a great report on McMillan, but it suffices to say he’s an eccentric Brooklyn candidate who wears gloves on his because he was exposed to agent orange in Vietnam (but, he says, “it could be psychological”) and who focuses his campaign on a singular issue with brilliant clarity: the rent is too damn high.

Jimmy McMillan will not win the governor’s race. Not by a long shot. But he does stand for progressive Democratic values (“the Rent Is 2 Damn High Party feels if you want to marry a shoe, I’ll marry you”) and he holds a valuable lesson for more mainstream Democratic candidates who actually stand a chance of winning: Political winners set the conversation, and political losers respond to the conversation.

Like them or hate them, the Tea Party has been highly effective in the last two years at setting the conversation. Democrats would do well to take a look at Jimmy McCmillan and learn from what he’s doing. Though they may not want to start the exact conversation he’s choosing to, they should take note of how many people are talking about him this morning. It’s not because he called Carl Paladino “mean.” It’s the oldest trick in the book: if you don’t like the argument on the table, change the conversation.

Below check out a clip of McMillan from last night’s debate. Below that, check out four glorious minutes of McMillan sitting on a stoop, ranting.

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NATO Says It's Ready to Help in Taliban Talks - Voice of America

VOA News 14 October 2010

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen says the alliance is ready to help in the Afghan government's efforts to pursue peace talks with the Taliban.

At a NATO meeting in Brussels Thursday, Rasmussen said the NATO-led force in Afghanistan is willing to provide "practical assistance" for reconciliation efforts.  He did not elaborate but noted the alliance will keep up military pressure on the Taliban.

His comments came a day after a NATO official said the alliance has helped secure passage of Taliban commanders to Kabul, and that such trips would be very difficult without NATO's consent.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who attended the meeting, said they support Afghan reconciliation efforts.  But they cautioned the process may not be successful.

In Kabul, a top adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for NATO forces to cease military operations in areas where militants are willing to begin talks.

Also in Kabul, the head of Afghanistan's new peace council -- Burhanuddin Rabbani -- said the Taliban is willing to take part in negotiations to end the country's nine-year war.

Rabbani, the former Afghan president, said the insurgent group has never rejected talks completely and instead has set tough conditions for peace.

Earlier this week, President Karzai acknowledged his government has held informal discussions with the Taliban but the group has denied his claim.  The militants have demanded all international troops leave Afghanistan before peace negotiations can begin.

U.S. officials have called for Taliban fighters to lay down their arms, cut ties to al-Qaida and support the Afghan constitution.

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It's Official: Emanuel for Chicago Mayor - ABC News

Rahm Emanuel officially announced his candidacy for mayor of Chicago in a YouTube video that was posted today on his new campaign website, ChicagoforRahm.com.

Emanuel's announcement has been expected since Friday, when he resigned from his position as White House chief of staff and then immediately left Washington for Chicago.

In today's video announcement, Emanuel praised current Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's leadership, but spoke of a need to address Chicago's challenges, from safety on the streets to improving schools and attracting jobs.

Emanuel said an early part of his campaign will involve a listening tour across Chicago's neighborhoods to find out what Chicago residents want from their next mayor.

"As I prepare to run for mayor, I'm going to spend the next few weeks visiting our neighborhoods," he said in the two-minute, 11-second video announcement.

"I'm calling this the 'Tell It Like It Is' tour, because I want to hear from you in blunt terms ... what you think about our city, and how the next mayor and you, can make it better," he said.

In the video announcement he highlighted his links to the city where he was born and raised by his parents, who emigrated from Israel.

Emanuel and his wife Amy also raised their three children in Chicago while he served three terms representing a North Side district in Congress.

His ChicagoforRahm.com website features a "Tell it Like It Is" blog that currently features a transcript of today's announcement and a post containing coverage of President Obama's remarks on Emanuel's departure from his cabinet.

Emanuel had to declare his intent to enter the race by Nov. 22, the filing deadline in Chicago. Candidates need to collect 12,500 signatures by that day to qualify for a Feb. 22, 2011 Democratic primary.

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