DeSmogBlog

About Us: "DeSmogBlog exists to clear the PR pollution that is clouding the science on climate change.

An overwhelming majority of the world’s climate scientists agree that the globe is warming - the world's climate is changing - and that the indiscriminate burning of fossil fuels is to blame. We know that the risks are incalculable and, increasingly, we understand that the solutions are affordable.

Unfortunately, a well-funded and highly organized public relations campaign is poisoning the climate change debate. Using tricks and stunts that unsavory PR firms invented for the tobacco lobby, energy-industry contrarians are trying to confuse the public, to forestall individual and political actions that might cut into exorbitant coal, oil and gas industry profits. DeSmogBlog is here to cry foul - to shine the light on techniques and tactics that reflect badly on the PR industry and are, ultimately, bad for the planet.

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GREED still in charge.... as usual...

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participants_Senegal — GISD Portal

participants_Senegal — GISD Portal: "Workshop on Scientific Data for Decision-Making Toward Sustainable Development
Senegal River Basin Case Study
11-15 March 2002

Preliminary List of Participants

World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST)

The World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology COMEST* is an advisory body and forum of reflection composed of 18 independent experts. The Commission is mandated to formulate ethical principles that could provide decision-makers with criteria that extend beyond purely economic considerations.

Since its inception by UNESCO in 1998, the functioning of COMEST has been guided by its Statutes adopted by the UNESCO Executive Board at its 154th session.

* Acronym taken from the French name 'Commission mondiale d’éthique des connaissances scientifiques et des technologies'.

nothing new

YouTube - Alan Grayson (High Quality Version): Is Anyone Minding the Store at the Federal Reserve?: "Guys and gals....the time has come for mass non-compliance. Stop paying your taxes. All you are doing by paying taxes is supporting the ultra-elite rich and the corrupt federal government. Let them send the jackboots...that is what the 2nd Amendment is for. I will not let my soul to go hell supporting a satanic government.



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Thank You Jesus Christ for Creating The Way of Your Word!

Individual Rights Pledge 2010 | Goldwater Institute

Individual Rights Pledge 2010 | Goldwater Institute:

I support the opening declaration of the Arizona Constitution which reads, “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and are established to protect and maintain individual rights…” I pledge to use my elected office to protect and maintain the individual rights of the citizens of Arizona. I will focus my lawmaking authority on keeping government focused on its core functions in an effort to protect individual rights. I will carefully consider how each vote I make and each law and regulation I support will impact the right of Arizonans to live their lives free from excessive government interference. I pledge that actions I take as an elected official will comply with the Arizona and U.S. Constitutions.

Furthermore, I pledge to respect the intentions of our state’s framers by complying with the spirit of the taxpayer protections included in our state constitution.

Specifically:

1. I will respect the intention that our state founders set by including a debt limit in the Arizona Constitution. I will commit to stop deficit spending. I will not vote for a budget that adds to the state’s (or county’s) structural deficit, including sale-leaseback or securitization schemes and “roll-overs.” I will not vote to increase the size of any program’s budget, including education, while the state (or county) faces a structural deficit.

2. I will respect the intention that our state founders set by including the “gift clause” in the Arizona Constitution. I will support tax proposals that apply equally to all taxpayers. I will not support laws that single out certain industries or individual companies for special tax benefits or penalties, except those that eliminate tax or regulatory burdens that are specific to one industry.

The Politics of Contracting

The Politics of Contracting: JUST GETTING WORSE

The Politics of Contracting

May 1, 2004

POGO has examined the top 20 federal government contractors from Fiscal Year (FY) 2002. Since 1997, the federal government has awarded over one trillion dollars to federal contractors. In FY 2002, the federal government spent over $244 billion on contracts for goods and services on behalf of the American public. Over 40% of the $244 billion was awarded to the top 20 federal government contractors. POGO investigated the top 20 government contractors, examining campaign contributions, lobbying expenditures, and government contract award dollars.

Another way contractors gain influence is to hire away civil servants and political appointees with access to inside people and information from their government positions, often offering higher salaries, bonuses, or other inducements. In some cases, highly-skilled and well-connected former senior government officials, many of whom have worked for the Department of Defense or in Congress, enter the private sector as executives or lobbyists, or on the boards of directors of government contractors - a practice known as the "revolving door."

The revolving door has become such an accepted part of federal contracting in recent years that it is frequently difficult to determine where the government stops and the private sector begins. The practice of senior federal employees going to work for the federal contractors over which they had authority creates six critical problems:

(1) It provides a vehicle for public servants to use their office for personal or private gain at the expense of the American taxpayer;

(2) It creates an opportunity for government officials to be lenient toward or to favor prospective future employers;

(3) It creates an opportunity for government officials to be lenient toward or to favor former private sector employers, which the government official now regulates or oversees;

(4) It sometimes provides the contractor with an unfair advantage over its competitors due to insider knowledge that can be used to the benefit of the contractor, but to the detriment of the public;

(5) It has resulted in a highly complex framework of ethics and conflict of interest regulations. Enforcing these regulations has become a virtual industry within the government, costing significant resources, but rarely, as the record shows, resulting in sanctions or convictions of those accused of violating the rules; and

(6) The appearance of impropriety has two significant negative implications. First, it exacerbates public distrust in government, ultimately resulting in a decline in civic participation. Second, the vast majority of career civil servants do not use their government jobs as stepping stones to high paying jobs with government contractors, and it demoralizes them to see their supervisors and co-workers do so.

The revolving door is a story of money, information, influence, and access - access that ensures that phone calls get through to policymakers and meetings get scheduled. The American taxpayer is left with a system that sometimes compromises the way the government buys goods and services from its contractors.

This appendix includes some of the most egregious, but not illegal, examples of the revolving door. POGO is not accusing any of the persons herein of any illegal actions. Furthermore, POGO is not suggesting that all cases included are unethical. Rather, POGO is illustrating the frequency with which former career government employees or political appointees go to work for federal contractors. Finally, POGO does not claim to have cited all cases of the revolving door.

Top 20 Federal Government Contractors	HTML Link	PDF Link
1. Lockheed Martin	HTML	PDF
2. Boeing	HTML	PDF
3. Northrop Grumman (includes TRW)	HTML	PDF
4. Raytheon	HTML	PDF
5. General Dynamics	HTML	PDF
6. University of California	HTML	PDF
7. United Technologies	HTML	PDF
8. Computer Sciences Corporation - CSC	HTML	PDF
9. Bechtel	HTML	PDF
10. Science Applications International Corporation - SAIC	HTML	PDF
11. Carlyle Group	HTML	PDF
12. TRW (merged with Northrop Grumman in 2002)	HTML	PDF
13. AmerisourceBergen	HTML	PDF
14. Honeywell International	HTML	PDF
15. Health Net, Inc.	HTML	PDF
16. British Nuclear Fuels - BNFL	HTML	PDF
17. General Electric	HTML	PDF
18. L-3 Communications	HTML	PDF
19. California Institute of Technology	HTML	PDF
20. BAE Systems	HTML	PDF

POGO's list of the top 20 government contractors for FY 2002 was compiled by Government Executive magazine (Vol. 35, No. 12, August 2003, p. 24). The dollars for total, individual, political action committee, and soft money contributions, as of December 1, 2003, were provided by the Center for Responsive Politics. Lobbying expenditures were compiled by POGO from information obtained from Political Money Line and the Center for Responsive Politics. Contract award dollars from FY 1997 through FY 2002 were compiled by Government Executive magazine. In February 2004, DOD listed its top 100 contractors in FY 2003 and we provided those DOD contract award figures for completeness.

For more information about the revolving door between the government and federal contractors and about campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures, please see POGO's report "The Politics of Contracting." For more detailed information regarding misconduct by the government's top contractors, see POGO's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database and POGO's report Federal Contractor Misconduct: Failures of the Suspension and Debarment System.

Founded in 1981, the Project On Government Oversight (POGO) is a nonpartisan independent watchdog that champions good government reforms. POGO's investigations into corruption, misconduct, and conflicts of interest achieve a more effective, accountable, open, and ethical federal government.

Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich : Information Clearing House: ICH

Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich : Information Clearing House: ICH: "Power does not rest with the electorate. It does not reside with either of the two major political parties. It is not represented by the press. It is not arbitrated by a judiciary that protects us from predators. Power rests with corporations. And corporations gain very lucrative profits from war, even wars we have no chance of winning. All polite appeals to the formal systems of power will not end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We must physically obstruct the war machine or accept a role as its accomplice.


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Either you are against war or you are not. Either you use your bodies to defy the war makers and weapons manufacturers until the wars end or you do not. Either you have the dignity and strength of character to denounce those who ridicule or ignore your core moral beliefs—including Obama—or you do not. Either you stand for something or you do not. And because so many in the anti-war movement proved to be weak and naive in 2004, 2006 and 2008 we will have to start over. This time we must build an anti-war movement that will hold fast. We must defy the entire system. We must acknowledge that it is not our job to help Democrats win elections. The Democratic Party has amply proved, by its failure to stand up for working men and women, its slavishness to Wall Street and its refusal to end these wars, that it cannot be trusted. We must trust only ourselves. And we must disrupt the system. The next chance, in case you missed the last one, to protest these wars will come Saturday, March 19, the eighth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. Street demonstrations are scheduled in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. You can find details on www.answercoalition.org/national/index.html.  

Michael Prysner, a veteran of the Iraq War and one of the co-founders of March Forward! 

" I saw that Iraq was a microcosm. The U.S. military is used to conquer countries for the rich, to seize markets, land, resources and labor for Wall Street. This is what drives U.S. foreign policy."

Prysner said

“All these people join the military because there is an abysmal job market and tuition rates are skyrocketing. Many young people are cut off from a college education. People are funneled into the military so they can make a living, have a home, health care, take care of their children and have an education. If a fraction of the money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was used to meet human needs, kids would be able to go to college at affordable rates. We would be able to create jobs for young people when they get out of high school. Vast amounts of wealth, which we create, are poured into these wars and the military while people here are facing increasing hardship. We have to demand and fight for change, not ask for it.”