Author: R J Adams

Much praise has been ringing out over Congress’s new bill to raise the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour. After all it is the first increase for over a decade. Low paid workers must be jumping for joy.

Many of them are – because they haven’t yet realized the increase they will get is only $0.70c an hour, and then not till sixty days after the legislation becomes law.

According to Bloomberg.com:

“The wage increase would be accomplished in three stages, rising to $5.85 an hour 60 days after enactment, then to $6.55 an hour one year after that and $7.25 an hour two years later.”

The full increase – to $7.25 – won’t happen for another two years. By which time inflation may well have reduced it substantially.

All Hail to our New Democratic Congress!

Filed under: Garbage

European madness appears to be rollicking its way across that continent of late as politicians vie and jostle for position amid their never-ending displays of vanity and political coquettishness.

Italy’s richest man and ex-premier, Silvio Burlusconi, had to swallow his pride – quite an achievement, even given the size of his mouth – when his second wife, Veronica, publicly accused him of “damaging her dignity” by flirting with a group of bellisima senorinas at a TV awards dinner. That she chose the publication, La Repubblica – a left wing paper critical of Berlusconi – to publicize her outrage was truly rubbing salt into the wound. Berlusconi apologized profusely to his wife, but only after the paper had gleefully splashed her demands all over their front page.

Just across the border in France, presidential election fever is rising as the Socialist candidate, Segolene Royal, demands the sacking of her main rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, whom she accuses of pulling “dirty tricks” to scuttle her chances in the election. Apparently, Sarkozy has used his position in the government to dig the dirt on the former head of Greenpeace France, Bruno Rebelle, now adviser to Segolene Royal on matters of the environment. Unfortunately for said lady, she has committed a few gaffs of her own in recent weeks by praising the Chinese justice system and calling for independence for Quebec. The Chinese hierarchy love her, but Canada’s not so keen.

While many may criticize the French, they can be eminently rational. A fine example of French commonsense is displayed in their present attitude to the new government ban on smoking in public places. One might expect these exponents of the Gaulloise and Gitanes to rise up in revolution at the very idea of authority displacing their major pleasure in the bars and cafes of gay Paris. Not at all. Seventy-five percent of the population has voiced its approval for the new law and even the most ardent of smokers admit it’s une bonne idée.

Meanwhile, across the English Channel, a furore (or, as they say in American – “furor”) still rages in the British parliament over large sums of money paid to the Labour Party in exchange for the title “Lord”, “Earl”, or possibly “M’lud”. Super-wealthy British businessmen, who love to swag about in ermine robes and fancy wigs, are it seems prepared to pay big for a seat in the parliament’s Upper Chamber, or “House of Lords”. The Labour Party appeared quite happy to take the cash and dish out the peerages, even though it is just a teensy-weensy bit illegal. So far, four people have been arrested, one of them twice. This was Lord Levy, the Labour Party’s chief fundraiser and a Middle East envoy, who was fingered by the police for a second time on suspicion of perverting the course of justice. It may well transpire that Lord Levy becomes Britain’s answer to Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Of course, Tony Blair is well and truly in the midst of this kerfuffal, and has himself on two occasions been the subject of police interrogation.

Today is a great day to be a Tory in Britain.

More on these stories: HERE, HERE, and HERE.

Filed under: European capers

While George W Bush pretends to take climate change seriously, yet only kowtows to a grain industry already forcing price rises in Third World Nations by a shortage of grain on world markets – oh, wow, Mister Andreas, your bank balance must be going through the roof! – the government of New South Wales, Australia has just received a scientific report it commissioned into the effects of climate change on the city of Sydney.

To say it was shocked by the report is to put it mildly.

The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization report says bluntly that if nothing effective is done to combat climate change and global warming, the city of Sydney is likely to be uninhabitable by 2070 – only slightly over half a century away. The state’s premier said it was a “doomsday scenario”, but one that had to be confronted.

Australia is already seeing the effects of global warming as it struggles with a drought that has lasted six years. Bush fires have devastated large areas. John Howard, the Australian prime minister, recently unveiled a $7 billion package to try and tackle the country’s water problems.

More from the BBC HERE.

Meanwhile, as George Monbiot reports in his Guardian column this week, US President George W Bush is sticking with technology to solve the climate problem, and keep his pals in the business industries happy. One idea, the government insists, is to launch mirrors, or clouds of small particles, into the atmosphere to reflect the additional sunlight radiation produced by carbon dioxide build-up. This idea was in a recent memo to the US Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. It states that “modifying solar radiance” is an important insurance against the threat of climate change.

As Monbiot declares, “A more accurate description might be ‘important insurance against the need to cut emissions’.”

Other hair-brained schemes presently on George Bush’s desk include that of a group of nuclear weapons scientists from Lawrence Livermore laboratory in California who suggest “launching into the atmosphere a million tonnes of tiny aluminum balloons, filled with hydrogen, every year.

One effect of such a practice, Monbiot notes wryly, would be to “eliminate the ozone layer”.

Yet another scheme, this time from scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, suggests spraying billions of tonnes of seawater into the air. That, too, Monbiot concludes, would have devastating effects.

One positive note, Monbiot continues, is that the debate over global warming is well and truly over:

“On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes the first instalment of its vast report, which collates the findings of the world’s climate scientists. Though conservative in its assumptions, it shows that if you persist in believing that there is no cause for concern you must have buried your head till only your toes are showing. If even George Bush now grudgingly acknowledges that there’s a problem, surely we’ve seen the last of the cranks and charlatans who had managed to grab so much attention with their claims that global warming wasn’t happening?”

It seems the only issue now remaining is to persuade George W Bush he can’t solve the problem by declaring war on Iran.

Read George Monbiot’s full article HERE.

Filed under: Global warming