You are currently browsing the Corporate EKG weblog archives for December, 2008.
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- : Interest Groups Running Ads in Obama Era
- : Protest Lessons
- : Group Protests Foreclosure Auction
- : Enviro Slime: Stunt or Assault?
- : Australian Mining Co. vs. Aborigines?
- : Toilet Paper Wars
- : Groups Torch Luxury Cars
- : Impromptu Tea Parties Protest Stimulus Package
- : Jewish NGO Effort: Fixing the world's forsaken lands
Archive for December 2008
Interest Groups to Obama: We’re Watching
by bgetch.
Interest Groups, Bloggers Remind Obama They’re Watching
Amy Schatz reports on the FCC and tech policy issues.
With President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team sprinting to the end of the cabinet-appointment process, anticipation is rising among public interest groups, unions and lefty bloggers about who Obama will name for posts at independent agencies that oversee Internet and media issues, such as the Federal Communications Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
On Thursday, a coalition of groups is planning to send a letter to Chicago to remind Obama about his campaign promises on issues such as net neutrality, universal broadband and media ownership reform.
“The commitments you made and the detailed plan you published represent a fundamental shift toward communications policy in the public interest,” the letter states. “The more than one hundred people signed onto this letter – and the millions more we represent in our organizations, workplaces and communities – join your call to create a more vibrant and diverse media system and to deliver the benefits of the open Internet and new technology to all Americans.”
The Service Employees International Union, National Organization of Women, MoveOn and Center for American Progress are among the groups that signed the letter, which also drew support of several prominent bloggers and musicians including REM’s Mike Mills, Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard and My Morning Jacket’s lead singer Jim James.
“The letter is a reminder to the president-elect that the public interest community is squarely behind the agenda he’s set forth and we want to make sure that he appoints public officials who will carry out his goals,” said Josh Silver, executive director of Free Press, a public interest group which was behind the effort.
Harvard Law School’s newest hire, Lawrence Lessig, also signed the letter. Lessig’s name has been floated by supporters for both the top FCC job and as the first national “chief technology officer” but told Washington Wire recently in an interview he wasn’t interested in either job.
It’s not clear yet when the Obama team will get around to naming a new FCC chairman or prominent jobs in other independent agencies. There’s speculation the FCC job could happen sooner rather than later if only so the Obama team will have someone to help with planning for the U.S.’s transition to digital-only television on Feb. 17. The Obama transition team has already been focusing time on the issue and anxiety is rising on Capitol Hill about what could happen in February if millions of Americans who rely on free over-the-air television suddenly find themselves without a working TV.
So far, four FCC alumni are most often cited for being in the running for the FCC’s top job: Obama tech policy advisers Julius Genachowski and Larry Strickling, Stifel Nicolaus telecom analyst Blair Levin and Level 3 Communications executive Don Gips.
Posted in Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »
Exempt Tax Status Under Attack?
by bgetch.
From WSJ opinion page 12/24/08
Congress Targets Philanthropy
New evidence on the benefits of foundation giving.
Like divining rods, Members of Congress are always alert to fresh sources of money, which once discovered they will spend. California Democratic Congressman Xavier Becerra thinks he’s discovered a new source of political treasure: the money inside private and community foundations.
The tax exemption foundations enjoy, says Mr. Becerra, is a “$32 billion earmark.” As he explains: “I have an obligation to make sure that those $32 billion that would have gone to the federal government are used for a . . . public good.”
This sounds like political intimidation. Unless the foundations reprogram money in the direction of Mr. Becerra’s preferences, he’ll start proceedings to dismantle their tax exemption. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »
“America’s Pastor” Rick Warren and Barack Obama (and response)
by bgetch.
Response from People for the American Way
Posted in Barack Obama | Print | No Comments »
Non-Profit Numbers Game
by bgetch.
WSJ goes inside charity and non-profit rankings and explains why the process is complex. Ratings agencies include Charity Navigator, American Institute of Philanthropy, and the Better Business Bureau’s Wise Giving Alliance, which uses 20 different criteria. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in NGOs | Print | No Comments »
President-elect Obama sides w/sit-in workers
by bgetch.
CHICAGO (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama is weighing in on behalf of workers staging a sit-in on the factory floor of their former Chicago employer to protest abruptly losing their jobs last week.
Obama told a news conference Sunday that Republic Windows and Doors should follow through on its commitments to the 200 workers, who say they won’t leave the plant until they are assured they’ll receive their severance and vacation pay. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Barack Obama | Print | No Comments »
Worker Sit-In
by bgetch.
Workers Remain In Shuttered Plant
Protest Becomes Symbol For Economic Mess; Meeting Set For Today To Discuss Standoff
CHICAGO (CBS) ― Chicago window factory workers in the fourth day of a sit-in at their former workplace will meet today with politicians, company owners and bank officials to help resolve the standoff.
The 200 workers demanding severance and vacation pay have become a national symbol for thousands of employees laid off nationwide. They occupied the plant of their former employer, Republic Windows and Doors, after the company abruptly fired them last week. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Jesse Jackson | Print | No Comments »
Dressing up for global warming
by bgetch.
POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) - Thousands of climate protesters, some dressed as polar bears, devils or penguins, demanded on Saturday swifter action from the United Nations to combat global warming.
Outside U.N.-led talks in Poland aimed at pushing 187 countries toward stiffer targets to fight global warming, some 1,000 demonstrators said governments were risking the planet’s future by delaying action to squabble over who was to blame.
Several thousand more protesters took part in a march through London to demand “urgent and radical action” from the British government on climate change. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Friends of the Earth, Global warming | Print | No Comments »
Whales vs. National Security?
by bgetch.
WSJ
Court Affirms Navy’s Right to Train; ASW Is No Game
Regarding your editorial “The Greens Get Harpooned” (Nov. 13): Since moving to the West Coast I have been following Natural Resources Defense Council v. Winter more closely, since there are fewer whale pods on the East Coast with damaged hearing. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Companies Tracked | Print | No Comments »
Geologist: No big oil, no whales
by bgetch.
Letter appeared in the WSJ 12/6/08:
Saving the Whales, Circa 1852
I read with interest the Letter to the Editor about saving whales by Joel Reynolds of the Natural Resources Defense Council (”Protect Whales as the Navy Trains,” Nov. 24), but as I suspect Mr. Reynolds doesn’t know who really first saved the whales, I propose to tell him.
Between 1848 and 1851, a Scottish chemist named James Young recovered petroleum from coal, which occurred in England and when that source was exhausted, went on to recover oil in Scotland, initially from coal similar to that previously exploited and, latterly, from oil shale that occurs in the Midland Valley. Oil was recovered and treated in plants built near the town of Bathgate, located between Glasgow and Edinburgh.
In 1852, Young patented certain techniques, some of which, without his permission, were used by refiners in the U.S. Young challenged the unauthorized use of his patented technology and his claims were upheld in U.S. courts. He then traveled to Pennsylvania to collect royalties. In the event, Young — known to friends as “Paraffin” (the British equivalent of kerosene) created what, in the words of one reference, “became the first truly commercial oil-works in the world.”
Overfishing of whales and decreasing supply of whale oil caused the major fuel used in oil lamps to rise very rapidly and this development created the market Young sought to satisfy. In short, if variants of petroleum had not been discovered and developed, whales almost certainly would have gone the way of the woolly mammoth, sabre-toothed tiger and dodo bird: They would be extinct.
The next time someone thinks about saving whales or reflects on the iniquities of “big oil,” I hope he or she will pause to offer a prayer to James Young and those who followed in his footsteps and thereby helped preserve the magnificent “Leviathans of the Deep.”
Paul Gilmour, Ph.D.
Consulting Geologist
Tucson, Ariz.
Posted in whales | Print | No Comments »