Los Angeles, California CNN — Federal authorities have charged a trendy Santa Monica sushi restaurant with serving whale meat — an investigation that was spurred by the team behind the Oscar-winning documentary, “The Cove.”Prosecutors charged Typhoon Restaurant Inc., the parent company of The Hump, and one of its chefs — Kiyoshiro Yamamoto, 45 — with the illegal sale of a marine mammal product for an unauthorized purpose.

via Feds charge trendy sushi restaurant for serving whale meat – CNN.com.

This took a long time to happen! I saw The Cove last year (in the summer) I think. I’m glad to see that Taiji, Japan has come under immense international pressure to stop killing dolphins. I’m glad that The Cove has gained accolades and has been recognized by the academy. What was done to film these dolphin killers was extraordinary. Now the fruits of their labor appear to be ripening. If only Rick O’Barry wasn’t censored when he held up  a sign at the Oscars trying to get more people involved in the campaign.

Three Greenpeace activists were taken into custody after deploying a floating banner in the atrium of the Hart Senate Office Building in plain view of a favorite destination for polluter lobbyists — Senator Lisa Murkowskis Washington DC office. The banner exposed Murkowskis close relationship with dirty energy interests and promoted PolluterHarmony, a spoof online dating site launched just before Valentines Day to help connect polluters, industry lobbyists, and politicians.

via Lisa Murkowskis Big Oil Love – Greenpeace USA Blog.

We’re getting to the point where radical direct action appears to be the only option left. Ninety-nine percent of the country simply does not have a seat at the table when going up against the likes of major corporate polluters like Exxon and Chevron. This managed democracy we’re in must be turned on its head.

When I opened up a package for a computer part from Dell Computers (a ssci controller card) I found a warning on a piece of paper. I did not see it right away mind you, which puts in question the utility of warnings written on small pieces of  paper put inside of product packaging. The notice referenced California’s Proposition 65.

California Proposition 65 Notice

Warning: This product contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other reproductive harm.

MAN-00232-01-A rev A

I had to ask myself, what purpose does this notice serve exactly? If it was meant to deter someone from handling the package shouldn’t it be placed on the box itself? Secondly, why is Dell or it’s supplier using such carcinogenic material in the first place? It seems to me that they are just complying with a state law, so that they can continue business as usual. It’s possible that the EPA hasn’t taken this matter up yet so it is not a federal law. So to them it’s like they’re being forced to put this notice into their packaging and they probably just view it as the cost of doing business. Yet is it morally the right thing to do?

The question is whether your decision to see this film is affected by Polanski’s personal life: the sex-related charges, his fleeing from this country before sentencing. It’s not a new question — maybe you asked yourself the same thing before seeing The Pianist, Frantic or any of the filmmaker’s movies from the 1980s onward. However, the extradition issues from late last year have brought Polanski’s past back into the spotlight, in a way they were not when The Pianist was released, for example.

via Discuss: Will You See Polanski’s New Film? – Cinematical.

As good and interesting as it looks I will not be going to see the Ghost Writer. Yes, it is all about the man Mr. Polanski who fled prosecution for what he has done so many years ago. While it is hard to be a socially responsible consumer I must try. I have given up Starbucks and have started patronizing local businesses, local chains and other socially responsible companies. I’m getting better and I must.

Therefore, I cannot knowingly go and see this movie after all the pain Roman Polanski has caused. It is sad that all these companies Summit Entertainment LLC., R.P. Films, Elfte Babelsburg Film, France 2 Cinema,  and Runteam III would work to put out his film. It is also sad that good actors would act in Polanski’s film. For the movie corporations it is about making money which is corporatism. For the actors I don’t have an answer.

In the end there is a time when you have to draw the line. Of course you can’t be the best at judging and will sometimes choose to consume or support something that you should not unknowingly or even knowingly. But that does not mean that you must continue to keep on doing it. If the director had accepted his responsibility it would have been a different story, but he did not.

As for how far you take a boycott of a film I’ll end it with the director, but I question the actors and the film companies who worked with him. If they were to continue to make bad judgments then I assume I’d have to reconsider them as well. If anything I’ll be more quick to stay away from Summit Entertainment LLC.

Over the last 14 months, Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, and three other purchasing managers, at Frito-Lay, Safeway and B&G Foods, have pleaded guilty to taking bribes that have allowed millions of pounds of tomato products with high levels of mold or other defects to be used in their companies’ products. Five people connected to one of the nation’s largest tomato processors, SK Foods, have also admitted to taking part in the scheme, the NY Times reports.

via Bulldog Reporter – Daily Dog | | Dirty Business: Kraft Foods Ingredient Buyer and Three Others Plead Guilty to Taking Bribes that Allow Tomato Processor SK Foods to Sell Tainted Food.

The sad part is that the corporatist lobby would have you believe that regulation is a bad thing. They rail against a consumer protection agency when the truth is that these people are the enemy of America.

Services such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare and Buzz can alert criminals when users are not home, according to Confused.com, the price comparison service. Foursquare, for example, shows that people are in a specific spot and, more importantly, that the user is definitely not at home, Confused.com added.

via Using Facebook or Twitter ‘could raise your insurance premiums by 10pc’ – Telegraph.

These people will use anything in the attempt to extract more money.

Late last year, JPMorgan Chase JPM, Fortune 500, the nation’s largest credit card issuer, warned it expected its credit card business to lose as much as $750 million this year as a result of the new legislation.

Executives at rival Citigroup C, Fortune 500, which issues cards to consumers from Maine to Mexico, warned last month the revenue lost by its domestic business could tumble anywhere between $400 million and $600 million.

All told, the new law is expected to cost the industry as much as $5.5 billion in lost revenue this year and more than $50 billion through 2015, according to the credit card advisory firm R.K. Hammer.

via Banks nervously await new credit card law – Feb. 19, 2010.

Tough. The money you have made has been by entrapping and enslaving people in debt. You preyed on people and lent to people who you should not have lent to in the first place. A long time ago it took a great credit history and other determining factors to get a credit card. Now they’re given away.

Banks made the money off of the interest payments so it was more about volume than anything. Then they’d hike the interest rates to extract even more money.

Three occupied Massey Energy subsidiary Marfork Coal Company, Inc.’s main office this morning at eight. The protestors plan to present a citizen’s arrest warrant and list of violations on the Marfork processing plant, Bee Tree Surface Mine and Brushy Fork sludge impoundment to company president Christopher Blanchard and Massey CEO Don Blankenship.

DC Indymedia: Protestors occupy W.Va. mining office in response to mounting environmental violations

If they are violating the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s codes, then why isn’t the state doing more to clamp down on Massey Energy.

Gizmodo reports, based on a story in the subscription-only El Norte, that workers in a Foxconn factory in Juarez, Mexico became enraged and set the building on fire. Supervisors had misled the workers into working unpaid overtime.

Foxconn Workers In Mexico Revolt, Set Factory On Fire – The Consumerist

Not that I condone setting one’s workplace on fire, but if you did not lie to your employees and make them work unpaid overtime you would not have had an issue.

Here’s another story of a corrupt pharmaceutical corporation who will release drugs to the public regardless of whether it is safe or not. The NY Times obtained an internal FDA report which brought these issues to light.

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month, according to confidential government reports that recommend the drug be removed from the market.