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Yet another in a long line of unqualified industry foxes has been appointed to guard this country’s henhouses. And miners will pay the price.

In deliberate defiance of Congress and the families of mineworkers killed on the job this year, President Bush has appointed Richard Stickler to head the Mine Safety and Health Administration. Because the Senate refused to confirm him, Bush made a recess appointment which he is allowed to do without Senate approval when Congress is out of session.

Stickler was nominated to the post in September 2005, before the Sago disaster and other mine incidents that have raised this year’s number of deaths to levels not seen in years, but his nomination was blocked in the Senate and sent back to the White House twice. Forty coal miners have been killed on the job so far this year, compared with 22 in all of last year.

There is nothing in Stickler’s work history or public statements that show him to be the man best qualified for this job. Stickler made an completely unimpressive impression at his confirmation hearing. His appearance was less than dynamic, to put it mildly. Some observers quipped that they were tempted to check his pulse to see if he was alive. But it wasn’t just his style that was lacking. As Charleston Gazette editors wrote in an editorial opposing Stickler’s confirmation:

Despite widespread belief that more communication equipment and better safety enforcement might have saved at least 11 of those men [lost at Sago], Stickler told U.S. senators that current mine safety laws are “adequate.�? A day later, two more miners died in separate incidents in Boone County.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist was forced to cancel a vote on Stickler’s confirmation last June due the lack of Senate support for Stickler’s nomination. Then in August, in an unprecedented action, the Senate returned Stickler’s nomination to the White House before it went on break. But refusing to take the hint, the President renominated Sticker at the beginning of September. The Senate was obviously not amused and again returned the nomination to the White House.

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Sean Smith, the Guardian’s award-winning war photographer, spent nearly six weeks with the 101st Division of the US army in Iraq. Watch his haunting observational film that explodes the myth around the claims that the Iraqis are preparing to take control of their own country.

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LGM-118A Peacekeeper missile system being tested at the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands.

The lines shown are the re-entry vehicles — one Peacekeeper can hold up to 10 nuclear warheads, each independently targeted. Were the warheads armed with a nuclear payload, each would carry with it the explosive power of twenty-five Hiroshima-sized weapons

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A time exposure showing 8 MX re-entry vehicles passing through clouds during their descent to the Kwajalein Missile Range in the Pacific Ocean, December 20, 1984.

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It seemed like a “gotcha�? moment for Republicans in one of the most closely watched congressional races in the country: catching the Democratic candidate calling a sex phone line and billing the call to the local taxpayers. Now it may backfire on the Republicans.

Newspapers in the upstate New York district have had a field day chronicling the dispute, with the latest twist seeming to reveal that the Democrat, or an aide, had simply dialed a wrong number.

Democrat Michael Arcuri is vying with Republican, Ray Meier, to replace longtime GOP Rep. Sherwood Boehlert, who is retiring. The race is very close and may help decide if the Democrats take the House.

The national GOP campaign office started airing an ad Friday that showed Arcuri leering at the silhouette of a dancing woman who says, ”Hi, sexy. You’ve reached the live, one-on-one fantasy line.” He supposedly dialed the service two years ago from a New York City hotel room and billed taxpayers – for all of $1.25 for a one-minute call. He is the district attorney in Oneida County.

Now the Utica Observer-Dispatch today notes that Arcuri’s campaign has released records to the paper showing the call to the 800 sex line was followed the very next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services – and the last seven digits of the two numbers are the same.

Arcuri now says the ad was ”clearly libelous” and threatens to file a lawsuit. At least seven television stations in Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton refused to run the ad.

The ad’s sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stands by the 30-second message.

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Diebold Election Systems Inc. expressed alarm and state election officials contacted the FBI yesterday after a former legislator received an anonymous package containing what appears to be the computer code that ran Maryland’s polls in 2004.

Cheryl C. Kagan, a longtime critic of Maryland’s elections chief, says the fact that the computer disks were sent to her – along with an unsigned note criticizing the management of the state elections board – demonstrates that Maryland’s voting system faces grave security threats.

A spokesman for Diebold, which manufactures the state’s touch-screen voting machines, said the company is treating the software Kagan received as “stolen” and not as “picked up” at the State Board of Elections, as the anonymous note claimed. Lawyers for the company are seeking its return.

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Sony has warned that it will take legal action against anyone engaging in grey importing of its products after scoring a High Court victory over online retailer Lik-Sang.

In his ruling yesterday, Judge Michael Fysh found that Lik-Sang – which offered Japanese PSPs to European consumers via its website – was in breach of intellectual property rights.

Lik-Sang had claimed that it was operating within the law as the company is based in Hong Kong, and has no trading presence in the UK or European Economic Area.

[..]

He continued, “Ultimately, we’re trying to protect consumers from being sold hardware that does not conform to strict EU or UK consumer safety standards, due to voltage supply differences et cetera; is not – in PS3′s case – backwards compatible with either PS1 or PS2 software; will not play European Blu-Ray movies or DVDs; and will not be covered by warranty.”

Right. Because when I think “Sony”, I think “customer protection”. Like, with power supplies that are rated 100-240V, so they can be used world-wide. And of course region encoding is for the customer protection!

All these large companies use globalization to find the cheapest labor to create their products, but when that same globalization allows customers to find the cheapest product, it’s suddenly illegal. Funny, isn’t it?