A trick question

Q: When is lying not lying?

A: When you're lobbying.

That's right. Believe it or not, there is something called the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine that makes companies immune from prosecution while lobbying the government, unless they lie to gain an advantage over a competitor.

Some background: Here in Humboldt County, District Attorney Paul Gallegos had sued the Pacific Lumber Company, alleging fraud in a case where the company submitted a false environmental study to the EPA in order to gain access to land for logging. Apparently, this is not in dispute, but yesterday, a judge tossed the fraud suit because the DA did not sufficiently prove an exception to the Noerr-Pennington Doctrine.

You see, they weren't trying to gain an advantage over a competitor, only over the environment and the many people whose homes have been destroyed thanks to their reckless, unsustainable logging practices. As a result, they cannot be prosecuted for lying to the EPA, no matter how evil they are.

And no, I don't think evil is too strong a word. You see, until 1986, the Pacific Lumber Company was a responsible, profitable family-owned company that was the foundation of southern Humboldt County's economy and owned the last company town in America, the town of Scotia. Then Maxxam Corp., run by a Texan named Charles Hurwitz, bought Palco from the family and ever since has been trying its hardest to run Palco into the ground, leaving the Humboldt people and economy in tatters. This is what Hurwitz does best. He allegedly did it to a Texas savings & loan in the early '80s, costing U.S. taxpayers $1.6 billion. He did it to Kaiser Aluminum in Washington state, obliterating pensions and driving the company into Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

And he's promptly doing the same thing to Palco. The company recently told the California state water quality board (or it might have been a regional board) that if it wasn't allowed to log 100 percent of the areas it applied for permits for, it would be forced to consider bankruptcy. The board came back with a scathing response, saying, no, if Palco went into bankruptcy, it could only look to its own horrible business practices for blame.

(If you would like some background on this subject, here are some links: 1, 2, 3, 4. Yes, they are rather biased, but here's one from the Chronicle that is "fair and balanced." Apparently, Hurwitz is now suing the government since they failed to prevail upon him in the S&L case.)

But in the wake of yesterday's ruling, I'm sure Palco feels invincible, and on with the status quo! They've begun dissociating themselves from Scotia, announcing plans to sell the homes in the city to employees and retirees of the company, allowing them to achieve "the America dream." Isn't that sweet?! Of course, when Palco goes bankrupt, those people won't be able to pay the mortgages, and will go bankrupt themselves, because the proporty will be worthless. Who wants to buy real estate in a place where there's no work?

Oh, so THAT'S the problem

Finally, someone in the administration has admitted that America is at fault for its disastrously low image in the rest of the world right now. But it's not because of this obviously illegal war or our bullying of anyone (see: France) who disagrees. Nothing of the sort. In fact, we can now officially forgive France, because, with all due respect to Cool Hand Luke, what we've got here is a failure to communicate.

Speaking to a BBC reporter in Washington, Donald Rumsfeld said the big problem is that "the United States is notably unskillful in our communications and our public diplomacy."

Yup, France and the whole Middle East would love us if we could just properly articulate our real, honorable intentions. Riiiiigggghhhttt. Further proof of just how far from reality this administration lives.

And in other bizarro-world GOP news, the "moral values" party invited porn star and former California gubernatorial candidate Mary Carey to Tuesday's Presidential Dinner in Washington. Don't believe me? Here's the proof:



Guess it doesn't matter to those hypocrites what you do for a living, as long as your wallet, er, heart is in the right place. I wonder how many abstinence-only Christians got her business card at the event, then rushed home to check out her decidedly anti-abstinence homepage.

Dear Mr. Schwarzenegger,

Last night at your San Diego event touting your "Year of Reform" election (You Republicans love to apply bogus labels to your propaganda, don't you?), you said, "I tell them: 'Don't you dare touch Proposition 13, because the people of California voted to protect their homes.'"

However, your waste-of-taxpayer-dollars "special election" is specifically trying to find ways to circumvent Prop. 98's funding requirements for education. Hello!! Prop. 98 is also something the people of California voted for, to protect their childrens' education.

That was an unbelievably hypocritical thing to say. Please explain to me (and the rest of the people of California) why one thing Californians voted for is "untouchable" and another is fair game for you. No wonder your approval rating keeps going down the tubes.

Sincerely,
Erik Fraser

Dear people and media of England,

Help us, please! It appears that you, the people we kicked out of North America when we were born, are our best hope for holding the Bush administration accountable for this illegal war, and the (sadly) silent majority of Americans desperately need your assistance.

In the last month and a half, two extremely damning memos have been leaked from Downing Street, the first, published in the Sunday Times on May 1, explicitly stating that "the intelligence and facts (leading up to the Iraq war) were being fixed around the policy," and the second revealing that Tony Blair had agreed to back Bush's "regime change" in an April 2002 meeting in Crawford, but since that is not a legal basis for war, it was "necessary to create the conditions in which [Britain] could legally support military action."

According to the memo, this included convincing the UN to issue an ultimatum to Saddam, so that when Saddam ignored the ultimatum, that would be justification for a legal invasion, which would coincidentally result in regime change. The memo also notes that time would be needed to "shape" -- manipulate -- British public opinion in favor of the war. (Don't you just love being "shaped" by government lies? We sure do here in America.)

Now, as Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis notes, revelations like these "would have forced any of Europe's democratic governments to resign in disgrace." But you see, for unknown reasons, both memos have gone virtually unnoticed here in the American Empire, and BushCo rolls on. Despite the First Amendment, the press here does not really act "free." This should be screaming, 75-point bold headline material on every daily paper, and on the cover of Time, Newsweek, USNews & World Report, and even People, for Pete's sake. But our press has failed in its role for more than three years now, and we can't count on it any more.

This is whey we need the assistance of you, the British people and press, to drag these criminals into the headlines and the streets. That's right, I'm begging you. The American people are on their knees, asking for your help. Gloat on that for a moment, if you must, but then go out and raise hell!

Sincerely,
Erik Fraser
on behalf of all real American patriots

A veritable blogucopia

It's been a while, so I have to catch up. Where to begin? How about in Tracy (a medium-sized town in California's San Joaquin Valley), where several members of a small church in Topeka, Kansas, came to spread God's hate.

I am not making this up. They said it themselves. The 13 "Christians" -- nine from the same family -- traveled all this way to protest at Tracy High's graduation because -- get this -- a different high school in the same area had ressurected its Gay-Straight Alliance. They came bearing signs that said, among other things, "God hates fags," "God hates you," "God hates the U.S.A.," and "Thank God for Sept. 11."

And believe it or not, the church's Web site -- again, I am not making this up -- is www.godhatesfags.com. Their FAQ explains their patently anti-Christian dogma in a rather authoritarian, delusional way. My favorite question: "Do you every pray for the salvation of those who you feel are condemned?" Their answer:

Of course not! For, if we follow (as we ought) the example of our Saviour and the clear commandment of God, we would not dare to do so.

I see this as the fatal paradox of these peoples' existence, and I told them so in an e-mail:

In your FAQ, you state that you "would not dare" pray for the salvation of those you believe are condemned, because of a ridiculous ultra-calvinist predestination theory. Do you not realize that this makes your entire existence paradoxically pointless? If the rest of us are predestined to go to hell, why do you spend all your time running all over the place protesting with words of hate? Why bother, if you (according to your own beliefs) can't change anyone's ultimate fate?

That's only the beginning of my problem with your clueless, antithetical dogma, but since I don't think you'll listen to me anyway, I won't waste any more of my time on you.

In other news of the "you-don't-deserve-to-be-a-parent" variety, the San Francisco woman whose pit bulls killed her son while she was out called the SF Chronicle to explain that it never should have happened because she had shut her son in the basement when she went out that day, because she noticed that the male pit bull was being protective of the female because she was in heat.

I put him down there, with a shovel on the door. He had a bunch of food. And I told him, "Stay down there until I come back." Typical Nicky, he wouldn't listen to me.

Pardon me? You locked up your son to protect him from your dogs? Now, call me crazy, but if I had to make the choice, I'd have put the pit bulls in the basement, not the kid. Who's more important to you, lady? But to put it even more bluntly, if you have that kind of fears about your child's safety in the presence of your dogs, GET RID OF YOUR DOGS!!! Not doing so seems like blantant child endangerment, even though the San Francisco DA's Office is still "considering" whether or not to charge the mom with any crimes.

And the sheer ridiculousness of it doesn't stop there. Despite the fact that she sees the male pit bull as someone -- yes, she thinks it's a person -- who "molested my child, murdered my child," she holds no grudges: "Even after the whole thing, I'm not mad at my dogs. I just love them to death."

No pun intended, I think.

And finally, Indy Car racer Danica Patrick is my kind of girl. And I'm not talking about how sexy she is. No, I'm talking about her take on driving, as quoted in the June 13 issue of Time:

I hate left-lane drivers -- if you're going to drive slow, just drive on the side. I have road rage every day. Every day.