The Hackenblog

I wonder:

“Zaha Hadid, Frank Gehry and Jean Nouvel are among architects singled out by US-based organisation Human Rights Watch for the ‘abuse and severe exploitation’ of construction labourers occurring on their projects at Abu Dhabi’s luxury Saadiyat Island development.

“In an 80-page report published last week, entitled The Island of Happiness: Exploitation of Migrant Workers on Saadiyat Island, Abu Dhabi, Human Rights Watch found that, despite slow improvements in timely payment of wages and labour conditions, abuses such as passport withholding and fines are still occurring.

“Under government developer the Tourism Development and Investment Company (TDIC), Saadiyat Island (‘Happiness Island’ in Arabic) is being developed into a £17 billion tourism and cultural centre, comprising a Nouvel-designed Louvre, a Guggenheim by Gehry, Foster + Partners’ Sheikh Zayed National Museum and Hadid’s Performing Arts Centre, all yet to be completed.

“Human Rights Watch called on the architects, and institutions such as the Guggenheim and the Louvre, to obtain enforceable contractual guarantees that construction companies will protect workers’ fundamental human rights.”
Darkening Dubai. Architects named in human rights row, by Christopher Sell, Lebbeus Woods, 28 May, 2009

Arnold can’t do math:

“In the short-term, expenditure reductions in any of these programs (CalWORKS, etc.) have significant implications for the state economy. The multiplier effects for these programs are found to range between 1.05 and 1.44, meaning that output and employment resulting from human services program expenditures are greater than the expenditures alone would suggest.

“In particular, In-Home Supportive Services are found to provide in excess of a 40 percent boost to the local economy. The multipliers for CalWORKs and Food Stamps are also significant and comparable at 1.34 and 1.37, respectively. Other programs, those that provide primarily services and less in the way of cash benefits, are found to have a smaller multiplier effect. The importance of these services, however, should not be diminished by the smaller multipliers that were found. This report discusses the likelihood that service reductions in many of these programs may result in the following: a higher incidence of homelessness, poverty, malnutrition, substance abuse, violence, and negative health outcomes for toddlers and infants. Aside from the toll these harmful circumstances have on the individuals involved, a higher incidence of these maladies produces not only higher economic costs today, but in the future as well. This suggests another sort of multiplier that ought to be included in the analysis – the indirect effect of reducing the demand for services tomorrow by providing them today.

“Finally, many of these programs are funded by federal in addition to state expenditures. These federal dollars are often only available as matching funds to state expenditures. The effect of matching funds was found to raise the multiplier for some state spending as high as 7.35. With matching funds, $1 in state spending translates into between roughly $3 and $5 in total spending on most of these programs. The effect on output and employment, and on the economic stimulus effect of state spending on these programs, is thus significantly magnified.”
SPENDING ON COUNTY HUMAN SERVICES PROGRAMS IN CALIFORNIA: AN EVALUATION OF ECONOMIC IMPACTS (pdf), By Jon Haveman, Ph.D., Beacon Economics, Eric O’N. Fisher, Ph. D., California Polytechnic State University, Fannie Tseng, Ph.D., Berkeley Policy Associates, Presented to Child and Family Policy Institute of California, March 17, 2009 (via, which has more links and is a faster read)

$1 CA dollar can, with matching funds, turn into up to $5 spent in grocery stores, doctors, public transit, etc. in California. I’m not very good at math either, so bear with me:

$1M = $5M, so $500K = $2.5M, $0.50 = $2.50, but $0 = $0, which is what I think the heartless bastard rightwingnuts in California ultimately want. Don’t any of those people have businesses, homes or investments in California? Or, y’know, humanity? Because sinking the whole State to gratify some sick fear and loathing of children, disease and poverty seems pretty crazy to me.

So, really, the only reason Arnold is going after these programs is because they have no powerful advocates. And he’s a heartless bastard placating heartless bastards.

And at a church, no less.

“KANSAS CITY, Missouri (Reuters) – A Kansas doctor who was a controversial provider of so-called ‘late-term’ abortions was shot and killed at his church on Sunday, local media reported.

“The Wichita Eagle newspaper reported that 67-year-old George Tiller, a longtime target of anti-abortion activists, was shot to death as he walked into services at Reformation Lutheran Church.

“Police are searching for a white male who fled the scene after shooting Tiller with a handgun, local media reported.”

~snip~

“Tiller’s clinic in Wichita has been the site of mass protests by anti-abortion groups and was bombed in 1985. Tiller was shot and wounded by an abortion opponent in 1993.”
Kansas abortion doctor shot dead at church: report, Reporting by Cynthia Osterman, editing by Anthony Boadle, Reuters, May 31, 2009 (also of note)

Don’t like somebody? Shoot ‘em! It’s the way we live now!

Fuck California:

“Consider this partial list of the governor’s proposed cuts to health and humans services:

· Elimination of the CalWORKs program;
· Elimination of the Healthy Families Program;
· Eliminating certain Medi-Cal state-only programs;
· Elimination of community based services programs at the Department of Aging;
· Eliminate State funding for Community Care Licensing;
· Elimination of remaining General Fund for Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health;
· Elimination of funding for community clinic programs, such as Rural Health Services and the Seasonal and Agricultural and Migratory work programs;
· Elimination of funding for drug treatment programs established by the voters through Proposition 36;
· Reducing in-home supportive services eligibility and care provider pay;
· Reducing funding for foster care rates; and
· Reducing SSI/SSP monthly payments benefiting the aged and disabled to the minimum allowed under federal law.

“All of us know someone who will be affected by these cuts. This is not just a matter of balancing the state’s books. For some Californians, it is a matter of life and death.

“A society in crisis should not throw women, children, and seniors overboard first.”
Impact of Governor’s Proposed Health and Human Services Cuts, Budget Blog, by Assemblymember Noreen Evans, May 27, 2009 (also see Noreen Explains the Budget Crisis)

I think what you mean, Assemblymember Evans, is that a civilized society in crisis should not throw women, children, and seniors-who-didn’t-buy-their-home-in-the-1950-70s overboard first. We’re talking about California, not, y’know, something civilized.

By the way, when you run for higher office, Noreen, I’m sending you some money.

“While the facts surrounding the kidnapping and rescue of the Maersk Alabama Captain Richard Phillips have been widely reported, less well-known is that ship which saved him was commanded by a black woman, Rear Admiral Michelle Howard.

“Howard received the assignment of leading the U.S. Navy’s counter-piracy task force just three days before the Maersk Alabama was attacked by Somalia pirates.”

~snip~

“Howard is the first of her 1982 U.S. Naval Academy class to reach the rank of admiral. In 1999, Howard became the first African-American woman to command a U.S. Navy ship, the USS Rushmore.”
Ship commanded by Black woman admiral rescued Maersk Alabama captain, by James Wright, AFRO Staff Writer, April 30, 2009

This is the first I’ve heard of this (via) and if this is the first you’ve heard of it, please pass it on. We should know who our real heroes are.

Check the sidebar or the J LHLS Twitter page for updates from Linda Yau, Jilly Gee, and Rachel Livingston at Book Expo in New York. We’re Twitterfied, all right. Please pass this along to any Book Expo watchers. There will be a full-on convention report in the future, but this Twitter thing is cool for this kind of event.

“It’s just wrong to claim that civil marriage equality would force changes on religious institutions. No rabbi has ever been forced by civil law to conduct a marriage between a divorcée and a Kohen, just as the availability of non-Kosher food in the general marketplace doesn’t force cheeseburger onto anybody’s plate.”
Judaism and Same-Sex Marriage, by Robin Podolsky, Jewish Journal May 26, 2009

Civil marriage is what is says it is: civil marriage. Not spiritual marriage. They’re different. Vive la difference. It’s part of the freedom of religion we all love so much in the country. Civil institutions are (generally) free of religious governance and (largely) religious institutions enjoy the protection of the law that allows them to believe and worship as they please as long as they aren’t breaking any laws. Gay CIVIL Marriage does not force any sect to recognize or sanctify any marriage between any two people. Prop 8, however, forbids religious leaders from signing a marriage license for two men or two women. Talk about the state curtailing religious freedom in a big way. Well, there you have it!

“A former probation department guard convicted of child abuse for letting five minors beat a boy who she wrongly believed had taken her cellphone at a Los Angeles juvenile hall was sentenced to a year in jail.

“Diane Buchanan was also sentenced to four years’ probation. The judge said Buchanan showed no remorse and she was fortunate the victim did not suffer more severe injuries and die.

“Deputy Dist. Atty. Natalie Adomian said that despite her conviction on three felony assault charges Buchanan she never apologized.

“Lawyers for Buchanan told the court she dedicated her life to helping children and her community and was destroyed by the case. In May 2005, Buchanan lost her cellphone at the Sylmar juvenile hall. Another boy at the facility said the victim had flushed the phone down the toilet.

“Prosecutors alleged that Buchanan opened the victim’s cell door and let in five boys to attack the youth. Buchanan did not report the incident or seek medical help for the victim.

“She later found her cellphone in her car, authorities said.”
Former juvenile hall guard sentenced to year in jail, by Richard Winton, LA Times, May 27, 2009

Over a fucking cell phone. This is a very sick woman. What does she do when something serious happens?

They’ll decide your project is obscene, sorry, “disturbing,” after they’ve taken the job.
Docucopies fucks over the Yaoi Press (also, via)

Here’s the TOS. Not a word about what kind of “disturbing” content they reserve the right not to print. Jerks.

But, I ask you: why let the end of civilization get in the way of capitalism?

(via [and I don't want to know where she finds them])

Prop 8…fuck.

For those of you wondering what the hell is going on in California:

“Assemblywoman Noreen Evans, Chair of the Budget Committee, spells out slowly for everyone the structural problems and false assertions about the California budget process.”

(via)

“But the California precedent still has me rattled. Who would have thought that America’s largest state, a state whose economy is larger than that of all but a few nations, could so easily become a banana republic?”

But, Paaaaauuuuuuulllll! It’s not a banana republic! It’s a Libertarian Paradise!

Me, I think it’s more of a dystopia.

And they could probably use the tourist dollars.

(via)

Furies Publishing (working title: 3 Girl Group) is just in the begin to beginning stages and trying to raise a little money. Please go over and click on their Google Ads or drop them a donation (the donation button is way down the sidebar, or here for those of you who’d just like to toss them a little long green. Their blog content is worth a look). Furies Publishing will publish translated Asian and original English comics in serial and book formats, and probably some in e-formats. Please support them.

Here’s why they go by the names they write under on the blog:

“Virgil, probably working from an Alexandrian source, recognized three: Alecto (“unceasing,” who appeared in Virgil’s Aeneid), Megaera (“grudging”), and Tisiphone (“avenging murder”).” Wikipedia

“Roddenberry help us.”

Roddenberry, these are funny.

(via)

Ten things you didn’t know about orgasm

I think it would be highly entertaining to be her library assistant.

MichelleMauk.com rules so hard!

Laurel Sutton explains it all to you.

Catchword Video Cafe for people like me who are interested in this stuff, but too lazy to actually, y’know, read about it. The only thing that could make these videos better would be car chases and blues numbers, like The Blues Brothers, but, alas, it’s been done.

“After Donald Rumsfeld testified on the Hill about Abu Ghraib in May, there was talk of more photos and video in the Pentagon’s custody more horrific than anything made public so far. “If these are released to the public, obviously it’s going to make matters worse,” Rumsfeld said. Since then, the Washington Post has disclosed some new details and images of abuse at the prison. But if Seymour Hersh is right, it all gets much worse.

“Hersh gave a speech last week to the ACLU making the charge that children were sodomized in front of women in the prison, and the Pentagon has tape of it. The speech was first reported in a New York Sun story last week, which was in turn posted on Jim Romenesko’s media blog, and now EdCone.com and other blogs are linking to the video. We transcribed the critical section here (it starts at about 1:31:00 into the ACLU video.) At the start of the transcript here, you can see how Hersh was struggling over what he should say:

“‘Debating about it, ummm … Some of the worst things that happened you don’t know about, okay? Videos, um, there are women there. Some of you may have read that they were passing letters out, communications out to their men. This is at Abu Ghraib … The women were passing messages out saying ‘Please come and kill me, because of what’s happened’ and basically what happened is that those women who were arrested with young boys, children in cases that have been recorded. The boys were sodomized with the cameras rolling. And the worst above all of that is the soundtrack of the boys shrieking that your government has. They are in total terror. It’s going to come out.’”
Hersh: Children sodomized at Abu Ghraib, on tape, by Geraldine Sealey, Salon, July 15, 2007

This is old news, but I wonder if these are among the images the President Obama won’t let us see. I think we have to see them so we can know what our country did and, hopefully, never do again.

Yes, it’s been a while.

I have PTSD. I take medications for anxiety and depression. I refilled my anxiety medication prescription on April 15th. I noticed that the pills were a different color, called the pharmacy, and found out that the brand I’d been taking for more than two years has been recalled. Oh. Okay. All of my medications are generic. No big deal.

Within a week, I noticed constant, building background anxiety. Then irritability, unwillingness to exert myself, anticipatory anxiety, sleep difficulties, all slowly building towards a very bad place I don’t want to revisit.

Fortunately a tiny bit of my brain suggested I research this. What I found was bad.

About half the people who take the brand of anxiolytic I had on hand liked it. Half said it did nothing. This is pretty consistent through all psychiatric drugs; nothing works for everybody.

But I found information on what’s called the 80/20 rule. The FDA’s regulations on generic drugs allow for as much as 20% more active ingredient and as little as 80% of the brand name – a 40% spread.

http://www.fda.gov/cder/ob/docs/preface/ecpreface.htm

People are suffering because of it.

http://www.peoplespharmacy.com/archives/generic_drug_problems/report_generic_drug_problem.php

It appears to be a problem across the spectrum of medication. All kinds of doctors and patients, physical and psychiatric problems, complain of variable effectiveness.

I was able to call my doctor and get a prescription for the brand-name anxiolytic. It’s going to cost me money (it’s not on the Formulary, of course), but I can afford it. I hope it works. What if you can’t afford it? What if you don’t have insurance?

What if one of the medications I take for problems that don’t have immediate perceivable changes – cholesterol, blood pressure, glaucoma – isn’t working?

There were many things I liked about the new ST:TOS movie, mainly the score, but I also like this explanation a lot:

“I’ve been hearing for years that Star Trek, unlike a lot of other space epics, used futuristic situations at metaphors for contemporary issues. And so it is with this movie, which I interpret as a roman a clef exploration of the twinks vs. bears conflict within the gay community.

“No, seriously. It’s so obvious.

“In case you’re not familiar with the differing camps, twinks are the sort of gay person familiar to television audiences: young, fair, slender, with a fondness for form-fitting clothing and hair products. Twinks have taken over all the best-friend roles that used to go to actresses like Eve Arden.

“Bears, on the other hand, are seldom represented in gay media and certainly never show up in mainstream media. Bears tend to be older, rougher, hairier, and heavier, with a fondness for tattoos, stout boots, and other trappings of untamed masculinity. Bears don’t appear in straight television or film because straight male executives can’t handle the idea of gay men who could kick the crap out of them.

“In Star Trek, the twinks are all aboard the Enterprise, along with their signature companion: a sexy, sassy female best friend. They’re all wearing the same labels. The ship is new and exclusive, with custom retro furniture and perfect lighting–the de rigueur elements of a twink nightclub.

“They are fighting the bears–thinly disguised as the Romulans–led by a pugnacious leather daddy named Nero, who struts around brandishing his gigantic staff. Aside from a nasty case of cauliflower ear, Nero is a prime candidate to get his own calendar from Colt Studios.

“Nero’s ship, the Narada, is black and spiky on the outside. Inside, it’s all shadowy corners and well-worn industrial fittings, with no women in sight–the spitting image of your typical corner leather bar.”
Do Gay Martians Have the Right to Marry?, by Franklin, The Panopticon, May 13, 2009

Thank you, Franklin, thank you. I feel like I’ve been waiting all my life for that explanation and I’m so glad I lived long enough to get it.

Celestine Arnold at psfk.com

Not much of a stand-up comic, and thank God for that, but does get a few zingers off.

(via)

Shame TPTB into action. At least in Los Angeles:

“Villaraigosa signed off on the $50,000 reward for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the killing of Agapito Gaspar Nicolas on the same day that an article in The Times examined how little attention the media, police and politicians have given Nicolas’ case compared with a similar hit-and-run that killed a USC student the same day.”

~snip~

“In contrast to the Nicolas case, Los Angeles Police Department officials and politicians acted quickly and aggressively to solve the case of Adrianna Bachan, an 18-year-old student at USC who was killed the same day as Nicolas. Within days, the council and mayor had approved a $75,000 reward — a total that grew to $235,000 with money from an anonymous donor, the university and the county Board of Supervisors. The LAPD assigned 20 detectives and officers to the case in order to deal with the hundreds of tips generated by intensive coverage of the investigation by local television stations and newspapers. Police arrested the woman suspected of driving the car that killed Bachan less than five days after the crash.

“Meanwhile, a single detective is working to find the driver who killed Nicolas.”
Reward finally approved in unsolved L.A. hit-and-run case, by Joel Rubin, LA Times, May 4, 2009

Good for you, LA Times.

A clip of Welsh shepherds who dress their sheep up on LED-studded vests and herd them in elaborate formations that resemble fireworks displays from above.