What Caught My Eye Today

Ecuador - Few legal battles have been more exotic than the lawsuit tried over the past 5 years in a steamy courtroom in the middle of Ecuador's Amazon rainforest pitting thousands of indigenous Indian peasants against U.S. oil giant, Chevron. The suit accuses Chevron of responsibility for the dumping (allegedly conducted by Texaco, which Chevron bought in 2001) of billions of gallons of toxic oil waste into the regions' rivers and streams creating what some environmentalists call an Amazon Chernobyl. Events took an ominous turn when a court appointed expert recommended Chevron be required to pay between $8 billion and $16 billion to clean up the rain forest. Okay, now here's where things get rather interesting. The case has spawned a battle in Washington between Chevron lobbyists and a group of savvy plaintiff lawyers, one of whom has tapped an old schoolmate for support--Barack Obama. I told you it was going to get interesting. Roughly two years ago, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs brought the issue to the attention of Obama, who attended Harvard Law School with him. Obama vetted the issue with Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy and the two drafted a letter urging the White House to let the Ecuadoran peasants have "their day in court." At the risk of stating the obvious, Chevron is trying to settle this issue as quickly as possible, seeing as if Obama wins the upcoming election, he probably won't do much to assist Chevron's cause. I imagine that someone out there is going to try to spin this story negatively against Obama, but other than voicing his opinion that this matter should be settled in a court of law, has Obama done anything that warrants criticism. Sure Chevron is an American corporation, but if the accusations against Chevron are true, then it should clean up its mess. Given the windfall profits that most oil companies have enjoyed over the past couple of years, I'm pretty sure Chevron can afford it.

China - It really isn't my intention to constantly rail on the Chinese for their missteps leading up to the Summer Olympics. It's just that they make it so darned easy to do. China has resumed public executions after a hiatus of several years, part of an effort to deter protests ahead of the upcoming Olympic Games. And this is the best idea that they could come up with? Authorities in western China bused in thousands of students and workers to witness the shooting of 3 ethnic Uighurs who had been convicted of plotting terrorist acts to disrupt the Games. Were thousand of witnesses really necessary? I'm thinking they could have reached a much broader audience by broadcasting the executions on state-run television. I don't want to interfere in an internal matter, but this is the sort of thing that generally does very little to improve one's image on the international stage. Now this isn't a problem for the United States--clearly we don't care who we piss off--but I'm thinking that China should give a bit more consideration to the PR implications of killing people in clear view of the public.

India - Always nice to see another government besides ours ignoring the will of the people. The Indian government narrowly survived a no-confidence vote that could have killed a major nuclear energy deal with the U.S. The ruling party persuaded wavering lawmakers to vote its way by promising special perks and millions of dollars in funding for pet projects. Now where I come from, this sort of thing is called a bribe, but apparently federal governments have different standards than the rest of us. The deal, which gives India access to nuclear fuel and technology in exchange to opening its reactors to international inspection, has attracted strong opposition from leftists who fear it might make India overly reliant on the U.S. Aw, come on. No need to fear us. We're just a like a big cuddly teddy bear, one that happens to have enough nukes to blow you away if you don't do exactly what we tell you to do.

Vampires - One never ceases to be amazed by the lengths that will be taken to protect the rights of the minority...any minority. Before I go any further, let me set the stage for this item. I'm sitting at the table flipping through a magazine and come across a print ad showing the picture of a smiling woman accompanied by a tagline that reads, "Vampires were people too. Support equality for all citizens. Support the Vampire Rights Amendment." Naturally, I assumed this to be some sort of gag, but I could find anything suggesting that this wasn't a legitimate ad. So with that in mind I give you the American Vampire League. The American Vampire League is the largest organization in the United States dedicated to promoting the equality and civil liberties of vampires. The AVL takes a three-pronged approach: lobbying for the Vampire Rights Act at state and national levels, disseminating accurate information about vampires to the general public and offering guidance to vampires seeking to mainstream. Each of these efforts supports one ultimate mission: To eradicate the fear and hatred of vampires that is caused by both widespread misinformation and an entire race's punishment for the crimes of a few. Since the discovery and marketing of synthetic blood, there is no longer any reason for vampires to remain hidden — or to be shunned or discriminated against. To humans we say: Vampires are your neighbors, your nightwatchmen, your ancestors. And to my fellow vampires: It's time we all come out of the darkness. Let's learn to live together without fear. Of course if you actually visit the web site (click here) as I did, and if you scroll to the bottom on any page on the web site, you may notice a little copyright by the fine folks at HBO. You have to hand it those marketing guys for coming up with such a creative stealth campaign for what will hopefully be a rather entertaining television series.