An orgy of legislation

Guests at a wedding in Serbia celebrated in the time-honored manner, shooting guns in the air. They shot down a plane.

As we know, when Bush promised cheap AIDS drugs for Africa, he didn’t actually mean it. At the WTO the US insisted on making any country that wished to import or export cheap generics jump through many many hoops. But Canada plans to try. The Guardian (oh, originally a Nation story) asks whether the US will use NAFTA provisions to stop them. Last week the Senate approved Bush’s choice for head of his AIDS initiative, a former CEO of Eli Lilly, one of the Canada plan’s enemies.

Among the many laws signed by incredibly lame duck Gray Davis includes one prohibiting companies retaliating against employees who refuse to break state or federal laws. Did you know that was legal up until now? One requires people who own or possess kiddie porn to register as sex offenders, which is stretching the term. Soda is banned from school vending machines. School restrooms should be clean. Schools previously called “low-performing” in state laws will now be called “high priority,” in order to build morale (Ralph Wiggum: “I’m special!”). It is now a crime punishable by 1 year in prison to record a movie in a movie theater; talking, cell phone use, teenagers, over-loud crunching of popcorn, etc etc, are still not subject to the death penalty. Domestic partnerships as of 2005. Transgendered people are protected from housing and work discrimination, which is all very well, but doesn’t that put the state in the business of deciding what clothes are gender-appropriate, in order to decide who is “transgendered”? AB 663 bans doctors and med students performing pelvic exams without consent on unconscious women. The execution of retarded people is banned. Unsolicited email is banned, although I’m not sure how the mailer is supposed to know who’s a Californian.

George Monbiot is suggesting that the US military is being dragged into politics by the politicians. Bush uses them as back-drop. Since June 2002, 14 of his major speeches were delivered to captive military (or veteran) audiences. “The marines were the first to be told about his interstate electricity grid; he instructed the American Legion about the reform of the Medicare programme; last week he explained his plans for the taxation of small businesses to the national guard. The troops may not have the faintest idea what he's talking about, but they cheer him to the rafters anyway. After that, implementing these policies looks like a patriotic duty.” He started this well before 9/11, so it’s not that. The military is now getting spending it’s not even asking for, and if you include the $87 billion and the $19 billion hidden in the Dept of Energy for new nukes, the federal gov is spending more on it than on education, public health, housing, employment, pensions, food aid and welfare put together. “You would expect this sort of allocation from a third world military dictatorship.” “Bush's reverse coup has meant that the Democrats must suck up to the armed forces as well, in order to be seen as a patriotic party. Wesley Clark's campaigning slogan is "a new American patriotism".”

The claim that Israel has submarine-based nuclear weapons may in fact have been a lie.