Hot off the Press: The Gestapo on skis edition

A Dutch minister is calling for regulation in Europe that would require airports to use "naked scanners" for all flights: http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2465652.ece/Dutch_push_for_see-through_scanners_on_all_flights. Ugh. And just what I wanted for the year I plan a European tour.

An international political rift is opening over Haiti, as a French official has accused the US occupying the country, as it did for a long time: http://www.nrc.nl/international/article2463698.ece/Americans_occupy_Haiti.

The Bavarian village that hosted the Nazi controlled the 1936 Winter Olympics is making a bid to host the games again in 2018: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6999059.ece.

The US Chief District Judge of San Francisco has dismissed a lawsuit against the Bush administration's unapproved wiretapping measures: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/01/22/BAJT1BM6MU.DTL&type=newsbayarea. The case was dismissed because AT&T customers "couldn't show that any federal actions harmed them." This is also a great quote:

To establish the right to sue, a private citizen must demonstrate a "direct, personal stake in the outcome" and cannot merely claim "a right to have the government follow the law," Walker said.

So apparently the government can, illegally, impinge on our civil liberties, and we can't do anything to stop it. Land of the free, eh?

Government officials — the prime minister, mostly — has begun to crack down on liquor stores and bars in Baghdad, and nobody really knows why: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-iraq-booze24-2010jan24,0,7685051.story.

Democracy in Russia has been relegated to a museum in St. Petersburg: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-fg-russia-democracy24-2010jan24,0,6183523.story.

A NYT profile of "class struggle" (a great pun in this sense, actually) at California state universities: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/education/24sfstudent.html?hp. By the way, everyone who's gone to a state university can tell you it's always hard to get the classes you want when you're a freshman and don't have the seniority to register early.

In the face of crushing budget shortfalls, voters in Oregon will decided whether or not to increase taxes to those in the wealthy tax brackets: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/us/24oregon.html?ref=us. Fuck 'em — they can afford it. Freedom isn't free.

A good CRG piece about Iowa counties working together, consolidating resources, and possibly, in the future, their governments to cut costs: http://gazetteonline.com/breaking-news/2010/01/23/no-mergers-but-counties-do-cooperate-share-to-get-things-done.

A review of two books wondering, "Who declares war? The president or congress?": http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/books/review/Isaacson-t.html?ref=books.

Despite being the nation's largest producer of ethanol, Iowa lags behind many states in requiring higher ethanol blends in gasoline, something the industry wants changed (surprise surprise): http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20100126/BUSINESS01/1260378/Industry-Make-all-gas-in-Iowa-contain-ethanol&theme=BIOFUELS. Here are a couple interesting tidbits:

"People in Iowa like ethanol, they just don't like to be told what to do," said Kibbie, whose district includes a Poet ethanol plant at Emmetsburg. "People need to understand that without ethanol, corn and farmland would be worth about half as much as they are today."

About 1.1 billion bushels of Iowa's 2.4 billion-bushel corn crop goes to making ethanol.

Why do Iowans like ethanol? Probably because it's the cheapest gas available there. Duh. But that's shocking that almost half of the state's corn harvest goes to ethanol production. So much for the "breadbasket" metaphor.