BP Rewrites its History
BP edited its own environmental record on Wikipedia – Salon.com
Wikipedia editors have accused BP of editing its own page entry to whitewash its environmental impact in the public record. As CNET reported Thursday, “angry Wikipedia editors estimate that BP has rewritten 44 percent of the page about itself, especially about its environmental performance.”
BP edited its own environmental record on Wikipedia – Salon.com
(Originally put up on May 24, 2012 – now reissued!)
It is my privilege to present my colleague, William Denton. Some days ago he showed me this article and I was very impressed. He has very kindly offered to share it with my readers. It is my pleasure to present the work of our guest columnist, William Denton.
James Pilant
The United States and The imprisonment Rate
By: William Denton
America is known throughout the world as a place of freedom, where anyone has the chance to do and become whatever their heart desires also referred to as “The American Dream.” America is considered home to approximately 5 percent of the world’s population, although America is known for its many attributes and liberties it holds 23 percent of the world’s prison population making the United States the highest prison populated country in the world, (“Wikipedia, 2012). Our prison rate along with our continuous dilemma of overcrowding prisons can be attributed to our enacted draconian laws that make any chance of success to reduce our prison rate and subsequently alleviating our over-crowded prisons impossible. In a 2009 statistical study 754 per 100,000 American Citizens are incarcerated. In the previous year, “a report released in February 2008, indicates that more than 1 in 100 adults in the United States are in prison,” (“Wikipedia, 2012).
Each U.S. state is responsible for the United States ranking 1st in the world for its high incarceration rate. However, when examined individually each state incarceration rate can vary from 854 per 100,000 to 151 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012). The infamous three strike laws and the mandatory minimum sentencing have caused the explosive increase in the incarceration rate nationwide, leaving each to implement methods if any, to alleviate the growing issue of their overcrowded prisons. Some will argue that a state with a higher incarceration rate compared to a state with a lower incarceration rate is due to the state that has the highest and lowest crime rate. Although that can be an arguable point it still doesn’t explain why for example Louisiana incarceration rate is 854 per 100,000 citizens and other states have incarceration rates anywhere from 151-300 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012). Another aspect that is irrelevant into claiming why one state has a higher incarceration rate than another is because of the state’s population which is going to subsequently have a higher crime rate. We know that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate, but ranks 25th for population, while New York ranks 3rd for highest population and is ranked 37th for incarceration rate at 307 per 100,000 citizens, (“Wikipedia,” 2012). The population of a state and crime can be determining factors of a states incarceration rate, however, other factors that have remarkable results in having low incarceration rates are the states who have sufficient “parole and probation programs; diversion programs, increasing good-time programs for people incarcerated, and sentencing reforms for non-violent offenders,” (Morris, 2009). Without any implementations to reduce the incarceration rate states will continue to have these unnecessary draconian numbers.
The United States compared to Russia who holds 2nd place for incarceration rates, followed by South Africa ranked 3rd and Europe who ranked 4th is still substantially higher than the runners up. Russia who has a 611 per 100,000 people incarceration rate compared to the United States is a 134 per 100,000 differences. That difference alone is substantially higher than that of many other nations worldwide. The state of Louisiana who again has an 854 per 100,000 incarceration rate is higher than our nation’s current imprisonment rate and every other nation worldwide, (“Wikipedia, 2012). Although there are multifarious reasons along with speculations of why America has the highest incarceration rate, two factors are true today. Reason one being that American citizens are “being locked up from writing bad checks to using drugs that would rarely produce prison sentences in other countries,” (Liptak, 2008). The second reason being the American Citizen is “kept incarcerated far longer than prisoners of other nations,” (Liptak, 2008).
In my opinion only, I think American Law has gotten to the point of everything being political correct and that anyone who commits a crime has to be punished no matter what the crime is. These draconian drugs laws are really the culprits that are responsible for the major increase in our prison population and overcrowding. The majority of inmates incarcerated today are for non-violent drug offenses that initially when these laws were enacted during the “War on Drugs” campaign where to mainly target the producers and distributors of the drug trade not the additive customers that are being sentenced today. As a result of these laws still in effect, although the violent crime rate is decreasing in the country, prison population is still increasing. I think that is how we stand above all other nations in the incarceration rate because of our drug laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, and three-strike laws. As I mentioned above, writing bad checks to drug offenses are rarely imprisonment punishments in other countries, and our country has longer prison sentences that contribute overcrowded prisons. We are punishing for offenses that probably could be resolved through other forms of punishment that does not have to do with imprisonment just like other countries.
I am completely against our statics involving our imprisonment rate and the number of incarcerated inmates we currently have. There are a couple states that have a higher imprisonment rate than actual countries throughout the world. These statics need to be pounded into someone’s head and take a hint of what reformalities we need to reduce these harsh rates. These enacted three-strike rules and mandatory minimum sentences, and all other harshly related drug laws need to change. They are ruining lives, in lieu of helping people and destroying families for what? Nothing. Drugs are an addictive substance that people need help to reform, so putting these non-violent offenders in overcrowded prisons is not going to rectify the problem, but going to make it worse. I feel like we are wasting our money for no positive gains when it comes to incarcerating offenders for drug offenses and other minor crimes that can be solved in another form of punishment. Are American laws are in desperate need for reform.
REFERENCES
Liptak, A. (2008). U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations. Retrieved March 18, 2012, from
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/23/world/americas/23iht23prison.12253738.html?_r=2&pagewanted=all
Morris, T. (2009). Louisianan’s Incarceration rate is No. 1 in nation. Retrieve March 17, 2012, from
http://www.nola.com/news/index.ssf/2009/03/louisianas_incarceration_rate.html
Wikipedia. (2012). Incarceration rates worldwide. Retrieved March 16, 2012, From
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Incarceration_rates_worldwide.gif
Wikipedia. (2012). List of U.S. States and Territories by population. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_population
Wikipedia. (2012). List of U.S. States by incarceration rate. Retrieved March 14, 2012, from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_incarceration_rate
Corn Syrup Kills
Big Soda: We’re not mass killers – Salon.com
Harvard researchers have found that over-consumption of sodas and sugary drinks may be linked to 180,000 worldwide deaths a year. The report, released Tuesday, also notes the studied beverages contribute to about 25,000 American deaths a year, placing the country third overall.
The report, unveiled during an American Heart Association meeting, links sugar-sweetened beverages to “133,000 diabetes deaths, 44,000 deaths from cardiovascular diseases and 6,000 cancer deaths” a year. The study’s co-author, Gitanjali Singh, also recommended regulations to curb the intake of sugary drinks, specifying that “taxing sugary drinks in the same way as cigarettes, or limiting advertising or access, may help reduce usage.”
Big Soda: We’re not mass killers – Salon.com
Prison Population is Falling
The Washington Monthly – Ten Miles Square – Why The Prison Population is Falling
The number of people incarcerated went up every single year from the mid 1970s until 2009. Over that more than 30 year period, there have been economic booms and contractions, changes in the relative strength of the major political parties, alterations in the demographic makeup of the US general population, the waxing and waning of drug epidemics, and countless other changes in American life. What that should tell us is that any simple explanation for why America has the prison policy it does at any given time is wrong or at least incomplete.
Pew notes that over the past 5 years, incarceration fell in 29 states (ruling out another simple explanation: that this is all due to the court order to reduce overcrowding in California prisons). …
The Washington Monthly – Ten Miles Square – Why The Prison Population is Falling
MIT to Release Swartz Files
MIT agrees to release redacted Aaron Swartz files – Salon.com
The president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced on Tuesday that the school will voluntarily release public documents related to the prosecution of the free-information activist Aaron Swartz, who killed himself in January as he faced trial on hacking charges.
The email announcement by MIT president L Rafael Reif came in response to a request on Friday by lawyers for Swartz’s estate to have the US district court in Boston make the documents public. The university has come under fire for what critics say is its compliance with federal prosecutors in the legal case against Swartz. Supporters of Swartz have painted him as a zealous advocate of public online access, a martyred hero hounded to his death by the government he antagonized.
MIT agrees to release redacted Aaron Swartz files – Salon.com
Change the Legal System?
Commentary: Right to counsel? It’s stacked against the poor | McClatchy
It turns out there is a gulf between the 1963 promise and the 2013 reality. It turns out one lawyer can be expected to try 400, 500, 600 cases a year. It turns out public defenders are so underfunded and overwhelmed it is not uncommon for a defendant to meet his attorney for the first time in court. It turns out the situation is so dire that in at least one jurisdiction a judge pressed tax attorneys and property lawyers into service in criminal court. It turns out poor people’s justice is to justice as monkey business is to business.
Ask Clarence Jones, who spent over a year in prison just waiting for an attorney — and was still there as the book went to press — on a charge of burglary.
Ask Carol Dee Huneke, a novice lawyer with no experience in criminal law who was hired as a public defender on a Thursday and assigned a case that began Monday. She had never even seen a trial before.
And ask Greg Bright, who spent 27 years in prison on a murder charge he might have easily beaten, writes Houppert, had his court-appointed attorney done even minimal investigation on his behalf. As a later attorney discovered, the single witness the state’s case hinged upon was a mentally-ill heroin addict with a history of hallucinations who physically could not have seen what she claimed she did.
Twenty-seven years. “Make me wanna holler,” indeed.
What is reflected here is not simply incompetence but disdain, contempt for the rights, lives and humanity of the less fortunate. And perhaps your instinct is to look away, secure in the naïve delusion that no one gets arrested unless they’ve “done something.” Truth is, it happens every day.
Commentary: Right to counsel? It’s stacked against the poor | McClatchy
Is Tipping Necessary?
Political Animal – Why you should (still) tip generously: a response to Michael O’Hare
Yes, I agree that if tipping were suddenly banned, the likely result is that markets would adjust to some extent, via increases in restaurant wages and prices. Unlike Michael, though, I’m not so sanguine that labor market in the restaurant industry works well enough that workers would entirely make up in wages what they would lose in tips. In case you haven’t noticed, the magic of the market really is not working so well for most wage earners. Productivity continues to soar but nearly everyone’s wages are stagnating or declining, and low-wage earners like restaurant employees are doing worst of all. This economy is a catastrophe and workers, especially those at the lower end of wage spectrum, have precious little bargaining power.
If tips were banned, I have every expectation that employers would opportunistically enact the equivalent of wage cuts, by refusing to make up in wages what workers would lose in tips. After all, what would stop them? The all-powerful labor unions? The many strict, scrupulously enforced labor laws that workers in this country enjoy?
Political Animal – Why you should (still) tip generously: a response to Michael O’Hare
The Minimum Wage Helps the Poor
Political Animal – The minimum wage, part 2: Casey Mulligan fail edition; or, the $100 minimum wage gambit
The vague suggestion that perhaps that minimum wage really does not “confer benefits on the poor” teeters dangerously close to the “opinions on the shape of the earth differ” school of journalism. Let’s talk specifics here. The impact of the minimum wage, and particularly the impact of the minimum wage on employment, is, as economist John Schmitt has noted, one of the most studied topics in all of economics. The results are most definitely in, and contrary to the clear impression Mulligan is trying to give, there is little reason to believe that the outcome from the years 2007 through 2009 would be any different than the results we have from any other year before that. And contrary to the neoclassical dogma so beloved by University of Chicago types, the overwhelming body of the most rigorous empirical evidence shows little or no relationship between employment and the minimum wage. When there does seem to be a negative relationship, it tends to be extremely small.
A review of the literature, and a summary of various theories as to why Econ 101 minimum wage models don’t turn out to hold up in the real world, can be found in Schmitt’s excellent recent report for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. The reasons are complicated, and there are competing hypotheses, but basically what it comes down to is that the many of the assumptions required for perfect competition in the labor market don’t hold. I know, I know — try to recover from the shock.
Sympathy for Rapists?
Why are we supposed to have sympathy for rapists? – Salon.com
An evolved society is one that extends understanding and forgiveness for its offenders. But not because it’s such a goshdarn shame some kids can’t play football now. We have to look at what happened in Steubenville, what happened in Cleveland, Texas, what happens on college campuses and in marital beds and military bases every single day and recognize that rape is not a crime that is just perpetuated by what Sean Hannity recently flippantly called “evil” men. We have to see that one of the tragedies here is how badly we are failing our men and boys, every time we pretend that rape is something that happens entirely because of a how girl dresses or how much she drinks. We have to believe when Ma’lik Richmond’s father says, ”I’m sorry for what you all had to go through, and I hope somewhere in your hearts that you can forgive Trent and Ma’lik for the pain that they caused your daughter and put you through. I’m gonna bear his pain with him. I’m sure Trent and Ma’Lik will learn a valuable lesson from this and become productive citizens in this world one day.” We have to hope that those boys can indeed learn what it means to be a man from all of this. We have to teach then. So that one day, they can teach their own sons.
Why are we supposed to have sympathy for rapists? – Salon.com
Swartz Honored
Aaron Swartz Posthumously Awarded ALA’s James Madison Award | Occupy America
On Friday, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) posthumously awarded internet activist Aaron Swartz the American Library Association’s (ALA) 2013 James Madison Award during the 15th Annual Freedom of Information Day in Washington, D.C. According to the American Library Association, “Swartz will receive the award for his dedication to promoting and protecting public access to research and government information.
“Aaron loved libraries. I remember how excited he was to get library privileges at Harvard and be able to use the Widener library there. I know he would have been humbled and honored to receive this award. We thank you,” said Robert Swartz, Aaron’s father in reaction to the award. “Aaron’s goal was to make knowledge freely available to everyone and we can all further his legacy by making this happen.”
Before his suicide in January, Swartz was a co-founder of Demand Progress, an advocacy group that organizes people to take action on civil liberties and government reform issues. Swartz was also a leader in the national campaign to prevent the passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act, a bill that would have diminished critical online legal protections.
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The James Madison Award honors individuals who have championed, protected and promoted public access to government information and the public’s right to know national information. ALA has long been a supporter of open access policies that increase the amount of research made available to the public.
Aaron Swartz Posthumously Awarded ALA’s James Madison Award | Occupy America
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