In the song and a video accompanying it, fat pigs represent politicians who get rich on the backs of the people

Reporting from Mexico City - Los Tigres del Norte, Mexico's superstar norteño band, abruptly canceled its participation Wednesday in a major awards show after it was barred from performing a song critical of the government's campaign against drug cartels.

 

Organizers of the show insisted the band refrain from playing its latest single, "La Granja" ("The Farm")

 

In the song and a video accompanying it, fat pigs represent politicians who get rich on the backs of the people, and a vicious dog with fiery red eyes represents drug trafficking. A zorro, or fox (former President Vicente Fox), releases the dog and there is hell to pay, especially for peasant farmers who get caught in the middle.

Translated into English, the lyrics go:

Today we have, every day

Much insecurity

Because they let the dog loose

And it all came tumbling down . . . .

The band sings that peasant farmers can't plant like they used to, a reference to the destruction of their marijuana and poppy fields, and can't escape the farm because of a huge fence -- the wall built on the U.S. border with Mexico. Finally the dog bites the farmer "even though he didn't agree" with the government's actions, and the farm -- Mexico -- ends up a virtual wasteland.

 

 http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-mexico-narcos29-2009oct29,0,6889517.story

Meeting of the World Trade Organization

WTO opponents claim the agreements produced by the body foster the growth of wealth among corporations at the expense of farmers, workers and others at the low end of the economy. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/28/geneva-wto-protests-2009-_n_372855.html

'Geezer Bandit' Sought By FBI For Bank Robberies

FBI officials say an elderly, thin, gray-haired man nicknamed the "Geezer Bandit" is responsible for holding up five banks since summer.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/18/geezer-bandit-sought-by-f_n_362538.html

Judge Orders Phoenix Church To Stop Feeding Homeless

The ruling sets a precedent for all churches zoned in residential areas of Phoenix, which will force church volunteers to relocate their homeless food services to commercial parts of the city or end their meal services entirely, reports Change.org.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/12/judge-orders-phoenix-chur_n_355902.html

The Halliburton Loophole

Among the many dubious provisions in the 2005 energy bill was one dubbed the Halliburton loophole, which was inserted at the behest of — you guessed it — then-Vice President Dick Cheney, a former chief executive of Halliburton.

Skip to next paragraphIt stripped the Environmental Protection Agency of its authority to regulate a drilling process called hydraulic fracturing. Invented by Halliburton in the 1940s, it involves injecting a mixture of water, sand and chemicals, some of them toxic, into underground rock formations to blast them open and release natural gas.

Hydraulic fracturing has been implicated in a growing number of water pollution cases across the country. It has become especially controversial in New York, where regulators are eager to clear the way for drilling in the New York City watershed, potentially imperiling the city’s water supply. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/03/opinion/03tue3.html?hpw

 

Tests Find Wide Range of Bisphenol A in Canned Soups, Juice, and More

The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease.

Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we tested contain some BPA. The canned organic foods we tested did not always have lower BPA levels than nonorganic brands of similar foods analyzed. We even found the chemical in some products in cans that were labeled "BPA-free."

The debate revolves around just what is a safe level of the chemical to ingest and whether it should be in contact with food. Federal guidelines currently put the daily upper limit of safe exposure at 50 micrograms of BPA per kilogram of body weight. But that level is based on experiments done in the 1980s rather than hundreds of more recent animal and laboratory studies indicating serious health risks could result from much lower doses of BPA.

 

The Smartest Guy in the Room

"Oscar Wilde once famously said that a cynic is someone 'who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing,'" Rakoff wrote.

The proposed consent judgment in this case suggests a rather cynical relationship between the parties: the S.E.C. gets to claim that it is exposing wrongdoing on the part of the Bank of America in a high-profile merger; the Bank's management gets to claim that they have been coerced into an onerous settlement by overzealous regulators. And all this is done at the expense, not only of the shareholders, but also of the truth.

Rakoff's ruling may well mark the dawn of a new era in corporate accountability, since the judge has pressed for the names of the bank executives responsible for hiding the bonus payments.

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-collins/the-smartest-guy-in-the-r_b_335417.html

Thomas Donohue, the president and chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce

The Chamber recently disclosed it spent $34.7 million to lobby the government in the third quarter. That was up 68% from the same period last year.

A former Postal Service executive and trucking lobbyist, Mr. Donohue has tripled the Chamber's revenue over 12 years, helped beat back tougher air-quality rules and helped pass legislation that makes it harder to bring class-action lawsuits. The Chamber's board has rewarded him with a chauffeured car, $3.1 million in annual pay and the use of corporate aircraft