It's a Dumb Scandal, But Taxing Christmas Trees Is Also Dumb

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Timothy B. Lee, Forbe Contributor

My Twitter feed is atwitter today over this post about the Obama administration’s proposal to assess a 15-cent tax on Christmas tree sales. The tax would go to a fund that the Christmas tree industry would use to run advertising promoting Christmas trees. After some negative publicity, the USDA says it’s delaying implementation of the tax.

Obviously, the “war on Christmas” spin some conservatives have been giving this story is ridiculous. As various folks have pointed out, this concept has been under discussion since the Bush administration, it’s supported by most Christmas tree growers, and I doubt President Obama had anything to do with it.

Still, I’ve been disappointed by the number of people on the left who have gone beyond rebutting idiotic partisan spin to actually defend the proposal on its merits. For example, several people have linked to this piece:

According to a statement issued by the group, there are at least 18 programs already in effect for other agricultural commodities under the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996.

“This program was requested by the industry in 2009 and has gone through two industrywide comment periods during which 565 comments were submitted from interested parties,” the National Christmas Tree Association said in a statement, adding that nearly 90 percent of the state and multi-state associations who commented on the program supported it.

“The program is designed to benefit the industry and will be funded by the growers at a rate of 15 cents per tree sold,” the release states. “The program is not expected to have any impact on the final price consumers pay for their Christmas tree.”

But some conservatives aren’t letting the facts get in the way of an awesome headline.

The “18 programs” referred to here are industries like milk, dairy, and eggs where taxes are levied to support generic ad campaigns like the dairy industry’s famous “Got Milk” spots. These campaigns are a waste of money, and I see no reason for the government to be levying the taxes to support them. Such campaigns are particularly unfair to niche producers who seek to differentiate their products from those of larger producers, but are nevertheless forced to pay for ads that promote milk (or beef, eggs, etc) as a generic commodity.

Nothing’s stopping the Christmas tree growers who support these ads from pooling their money and buying as many ads as they like. But why should a majority of growers be able to force the minority to contribute to ads they might not want or even agree with?

It’s also hard to take seriously the claim that these taxes won’t raise consumer prices. The economics here are pretty simple: when you tax a product on a per-item basis, producers usually pass the higher costs on to consumers. This is true whether the tax is formally assessed on consumers (as sales taxes are) or on businesses (like gas and cigarette taxes). Either way, the money ultimately comes out of consumers’ pockets. There’s no reason to think Christmas trees (or milk) are an exception to this general rule.

It’s hard to think of any other context where liberals cite industry support as a justification for an otherwise-indefensible government policy. Obviously, it’s worth pushing back on the idiotic “war on Christmas” spin, but the fact that Republicans are making fools of themselves doesn’t change the fact that Congress really ought to repeal the Commodity Promotion, Research and Information Act of 1996.

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Is Your Computer Infected by DNS Malware? Seven accused in $14 million click-hijacking scam

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Seven accused in $14 million click-hijacking scam

by Elinor Mills 

This graphic shows how the DNSChanger malware worked.

(Credit: FBI)
 

The U.S. Department of Justice said today that it has uncovered a large, sophisticated Internet scam ring that netted $14 million by infecting millions of computers with malware designed to redirect their Web searches to sites that generated ad revenue.

Six people have been arrested in Estonia and a Russian is being sought on charges of wire fraud and computer intrusion, the FBI said. They are accused of infecting about 4 million computers in more than 100 countries--500,000 in the U.S. alone, including NASA--with malware called DNSChanger. The malware altered the Domain Name Server settings on the computers so they could be automatically redirected to rogue DNS servers and then on to specific Web sites.



In essence, the malware hijacked the computers when certain Web searches were done, redirecting them to sites that would pay them money when people visited or clicked on ads.

"When users of infected computers clicked on the link for the official Web site of iTunes, for example, they were instead taken to a Web site for a business unaffiliated with Apple Inc. that purported to sell Apple software," an FBI statement said.

In addition, the malware would redirect infected computers searching for Netflix to a business called "BudgetMatch" and searches or the IRS to H&R Block, according to the FBI.

Defendants also allegedly replaced legitimate ads on sites with ads that triggered payments to them. For instance, they are accused of replacing an American Express ad on the Wall Street Journal home page with an ad for "Fashion Girl LA," and an Internet Explorer 8 ad on Amazon.com with one for an e-mail marketing firm.

Computers became infected with DNSChanger when they visited certain Web sites or downloaded particular software to view videos online. In addition to altering the DNS server settings, the malware also prevented antivirus and operating systems from updating, according to officials.

The defendants allegedly created companies that masqueraded as legitimate advertising publisher networks. The operation began in 2007 and ended in October with the completion of the two-year FBI investigation called "Operation Ghost Click," the FBI alleges.

The rogue DNS servers used in the operation have been replaced with legitimate servers in the hopes that infected computers will still be able to access the Internet. Owners of infected computers will need to clean the malware off their machines. People can see if their computer is infected by typing in their DNS information on this FBI Web page.

The indictment filed in the U.S. District Court of New York was unsealed today.

Elinor Mills

Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press.

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The Third Force Politics in Malaysia; Ku Li on survival mode!

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Cometh the ‘third force’

ANALYSIS By JOCELINE TAN
joceline@thestar.com.my

The third force in Malaysian politics is getting more crowded as they vie to be the kingmaker in the event of a hung Parliament but some, like Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah, may be eyeing the Prime Minister’s post.

TENGKU Razaleigh Hamzah was all dressed up for what seemed like a normal press conference. For someone who once admitted that he is colour blind, he was a picture of immaculate grooming.
Actually, he could have been mistaken for a prosperous banker or, dare we say, a Prime Minister-in-waiting?

The Kelantan royal politician had called the press conference to announce that Angkatan Amanah Merdeka, the NGO headed by him, was now open for business as it has been officially registered.

Amanah has joined a crowded field of what has become known as the “third force” in Malaysian politics, except that Tengku Razaleigh has still got one foot in Umno.

The third force groups range from small political parties like Parti Cinta Malaysia and kita, headed by millionaire lawyer Datuk Zaid Ibrahim, to civil society groups like the Malaysian Civil Liberties Movement (MCLM) headed by Haris Ibrahim. Even Perkasa is a third force group in its own right.

At one level, these groups are signalling there is a niche out there for those who have rejected the old politics of Barisan Nasional but have not completely bought into the so-called new politics of Pakatan Rakyat.

At another level, they are essentially politicians aspiring to be the “king-maker” in the event of a hung Parliament in the next general election.

“Each group comes to the table with a slightly different political message to sell,” said political analyst and UCSI academic Dr Ong Kian Ming.

MCLM, said Dr Ong, comprises pro-Pakatan activists and intellectuals who aim to address the issue of poor quality of candidates in Pakatan, especially from PKR.

KITA, on its part, has emerged as the only Malay-led party that has stood up for equal rights among all Malaysians and is not afraid to say it openly. It has even spoken up for religious conversions.

As Dr Ong noted, some of these groups are looking for a platform and voice, some comprise indivi­duals who are looking for political survival while a few are hoping to cash out at the right time.

“On their own, they cannot knock out the established parties but they can cause a stomachache or headache,” said publisher Datuk A. Kadir Jasin.

Some of the third force groups are having headaches of their own.

For instance, kita, which was launched with a big bang earlier this year is embroiled in an internal feud even before it can really take off.

MCLM caused a stir when it was launched from London with the support of blogger-in-exile Raja Petra Kamarudin.

It has since nominated the well-known human rights lawyer Malik Imtiaz Sarwar and the less-known dentist Dr Nedunchelian Vengu to run in the general election.

The next general election is go­­ing to be fierce and there will be a wild scramble to be candidates.

Pakatan is going to have as big and as ugly a headache as the Barisan in ma­­n­­­­aging people fighting to be candidates.

Amanah, insisted its vice-president Wan Saiful Wan Jan, is strictly a civil society body.

“It is not like MCLM or kita nor is it about election candidates or where they should run. It’s about a group of people who want to make a difference,” he said.

Nevertheless, Tengku Razaleigh’s claim that he needs a new platform to speak because Umno restricts him does not really add up.

It is indeed a selective pro­cess to be ­picked to speak at the Umno general assembly but over and above th­at annual event, no one has been able to stop Tengku Razaleigh from speaking his mind and he has caused ripples with many of his comments.



He has a blog and journalists rush to his Langgak Golf “White House” each time he schedules a press conference.

In fact, he makes news because he is such a famous Umno face, he says things other Umno leaders would not say.

Speaking as the head of yet another NGO would not have the same impact. In the meantime, the perception that he is positioning himself for the Prime Minister post will persist.

Actually, he is more experienced and accomplished than the other aspiring candidates, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim and Datuk Seri Hadi Awang put together.

According to a Pakatan Rakyat insider, he could have been the catalyst had he come on board Anwar’s Sept 16 scheme in 2008.

He and Anwar met several times in the days leading up to Sept 16 but nothing happened because they simply did not have the numbers and even if they did, they would have ended up fighting each other for the top post.

Tengku Razaleigh has missed the boat one time too many and he is now banking on his final boat.

Ku Li goes on survival mode

COMMENT By BARADAN KUPPUSAMY

Critics say Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah is clutching at straws to remain relevant at a time when national politics has narrowed to a divisive tussle between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat. There is no place for a third force like his newly-formed Angkatan Amanah Merdeka.

FORMER Umno vice-president Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah has been vociferous in his criticism of the party and its policies, yet he says there is no room in it for dissent.

As president of the newly-formed Angkatan Amanah Merdeka, a non-governmental organisation that seeks to return to the comforting policies of first prime minister Tunku Abdul Rahman, he hopes to remain relevant.

Ku Li – as he is popularly known – is trying for the political main chance at a time when his role in Umno and the country is fast dwindling.

Amanah is just another platform for him, in a career of many ups and downs for the political main chance that has missed him or, rather, the chances that he has missed.

An aristocrat, he wanted to be premier ever since he challenged Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad in the 1987 battle for the Umno presidency. He lost by a handful of votes, the nearest he would ever come.

His ally in that battle, former deputy president Tun Musa Hitam, made his peace and bred that power ambition out of him. But Ku Li is different. He keeps at it.

With Amanah, Ku Li is trying to keep his hopes for the top post alive.

Critics say he is clutching at straws to remain relevant at a time when national politics has narrowed to a divisive tussle between Barisan Nasional and Pakatan Rakyat.

There is no place for a third force like Amanah, an NGO in a field of many NGOs bidding for a political role.

The Gua Musang MP has taken a critical view of Umno ever since the original party was dissolved in 1988 and he went on to form Parti Semangat 46 that contested against the Barisan in the 1990 general election.

His new party joined forces with PAS, the DAP and the Indian Progressive Front to form the Gagasan Rakyat grouping which failed in its bid to oust the ruling party.

After failing to unseat Dr Mahathir in 1990, Semangat 46 closed shop and by 1995 Ku Li had returned to Umno.

When Dr Mahathir sacked Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim in 1998, Ku Li had an opportunity to join forces with the axed deputy prime minister and take over the reformasi movement. But he failed to rise to the occasion, preferring to watch from the sidelines.

Unfortunately for Ku Li, he again missed the main chance when the top job moved to Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi after Dr Mahathir stepped down in 2003.

Ku Li tried to challenge Abdullah for the job but failed to get enough nominations because Umno coalesced around Abdullah and made short work of Ku Li’s attempt.

Throughout the six years of the Abdullah era, Ku Li stayed in Umno.

Anwar was released from prison in 2004 and began mobilising his supporters for the big polls battle in 2008, which netted for the Pakatan five states and 82 seats in Parliament.

In the uncertainties that followed Anwar’s undemocratic grab for power vis-a-vis the Sept 16 fiasco, Ku Li briefly came into the picture as possibly bringing to Anwar several Umno MPs to make up the necessary numbers to form a government.

But the promise never materialised and Anwar was not able to muster enough MPs to make the magic numbers although he did send emissaries in a hilarious chase that went all the way to Taiwan.

After the disaster of 2008 and with Abdullah giving way to Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak in April 2009, Ku Li saw his chances for the top job shrinking even further.

Najib began the transformation of the country and, by most counts, is winning the hearts and minds of many Malays and Indian voters although the Chinese voters are still holding out.

The country is firmly on a path of no return to the old ways with the repeal of the ISA, banishment laws and media freedom. Ku Li is left, still in Umno, criticising the reforms as inadequate.

On the other side, Anwar is facing a second sodomy trial and other sex related accusations even as he tries to rally his supporters as he did in 2008.

Pakatan Rakyat is, however, in a survival mode and seeking to keep as much of the 2008 win as it possibly could.

With the national political scenery changed Ku Li finds that he is being squeezed out and so he came up with his Amanah, which is a vehicle to remain in the public eye.

Who knows the political circumstances might change again and Ku Li might just land himself the top job, although the chances of that has long eclipsed.

Related articles

• Razaleigh criticises the pace of reforms (dinmerican.wordpress.com)

The Roots of Success !

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Lisa See and the roots of her success

By AKSHITA NANDA 

An author’s search for her Chinese roots has led her to write critically acclaimed novels set in her ancestral land.

CHINESE-AMERICAN author Lisa See watches about 100 movies a year, but the one film she is too afraid to catch is based on her own best-selling novel of 19th-century China, Snow Flower And The Secret Fan (the movie opened in Singapore last month but there is no Malaysian release date yet).

The story of foot-binding and female friendship is brought to the screen by Chinese-American director Wayne Wang of Joy Luck Club fame. Chinese actress Li Bingbing and South Korea’s Gianna Jun play the main roles of two devoted friends.

In a recent telephone interview, See, 56, confesses that during the July screening of the movie in New York, she posed for photographs with the director and actors, then sat outside the theatre for the duration of the film.

Chinese at heart: Author Lisa See is enamoured by her Chinese heritage.

“It made me too nervous to sit in with other people,” the California native, whose father is Chinese, says over the telephone from Colorado, where she is on vacation. “Now I understand why actors, during interviews, say they have not seen their movies!”

Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, published in 2005, is the first of See’s works to be adapted for the big screen and is among the most popular of her four evocative literary novels of China.

She declined to write the script – “I’m a novelist, not a scriptwriter” – but was insistent that the period details in the movie be accurate, down to cooking rice in a pot, without stirring.

See’s latest book, Dreams Of Joy, tackles the Cultural Revolution in China and topped the New York Times’ bestseller list when it was released in June.

She has also written three thrillers about Beijing detective Liu Hulan, and a biography of her Chinese-American grandfather, On Gold Mountain (1995, Vintage).

That family history inspired a five-month exhibition at Los Angeles’ Autry Museum of Western Heritage (now the Autry National Centre) in 2000 and an opera from the Los Angeles Opera company that same year.

Right now, See is working on a book about the “chop suey circuit” of night clubs in 1930s America. These clubs were known for their Asian dancers and performers, often touted as “the Chinese Fred Astaire” or the “Chinese Ginger Rogers”.



The daughter of Washington Post book critic Carolyn See and anthropologist Richard See, Lisa says her desire to learn more about her roots inspires most of her writing.

“I’m Chinese in my heart,” she says, even as her red hair and freckles, legacies of her mother’s Irish ancestry, give some pause.

Her parents divorced when she was three but much of her childhood was spent with her father’s family, at the antique stores her grandfather Fong See established in Los Angeles’ Chinatown.

“My mum and I moved a lot because of her work and the Chinese side of the family stayed where they were. To me, that was a part of my life that was most secure,” she recalls.

To this day, rice is comfort food for her two grown sons and she translates family conversations in Cantonese for her husband, lawyer Richard Kendall, though she insists that she is not fluent. “I think something happens in families, where you can understand one another,” she says.

Influenced by her mother’s choice of career, See, a graduate of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, turned her bachelor’s degree in humanities towards writing.

She was industry magazine Publishers Weekly’s West Coast correspondent for 13 years, wrote freelance for magazines such as Vogue and also wrote three books in the 1980s under the pseudonym Monica Highland with her mother and her mother’s partner John Espy.

“It was great fun, it was like an apprenticeship,” she says of historical novels Lotus Land and 110 Shanghai Road, and art book Greetings From Southern California.

It seemed natural then to tell the actual story of her father’s family in On Gold Mountain. She also wrote her first detective novel, Flower Net, set in modern Beijing, partly to provide a window into Chinese culture.

“I get to go so much deeper into the traditions and holidays that are so much a part of life that we’ve forgotten their meaning,” she says about her books. “Even though the books are not about my family exactly, they continue my family’s traditions.”

See is no armchair researcher. She first heard about nu shu, the women-only alphabet central to Snow Flower And The Secret Fan, while writing a review of a book about foot-binding. In order to find out more, she headed to China in 2002. With a translator, she visited villages in Hunan province via car, cart, boat and foot to interview women who might know of the language.

For Dreams Of Joy, her newest novel, she headed to China’s Anwei province and interviewed elderly folk who remembered the famine and hardship of Mao Zedong’s Great Leap Forward from 1958 to 1961. They shared stories of starvation, of families trading babies for food and in the hope that the child would fare better under foster care.

Asked if she was surprised by how easily the survivors opened up to her, she says no.

“I have found that people who are older want to tell you their stories. They have this attitude – ‘What can they do to me now?’ With my own grandmother, she felt that she had outlived her husband, friends, she could say whatever she wanted to say.

“People are willing to share their life stories with you if they know they are never going to see you again,” she adds.

Her research adds depth and texture to her novels, which are lauded by book reviewers and honoured for adding to the Chinese-American story.

The Los Angeles’ Chinese American Museum gave her its annual “historymaker” award in 2003, while the Organisation of Chinese American Women named her its 2001 Woman Of The Year.

Academics are also starting to pay her the sort of attention so far granted to the doyenne of Chinese-American literature, Maxine Hong Kingston, author of the 1976 memoir The Woman Warrior. Perhaps the only popular author ranked with Kingston in academia is Amy Tan, whose 1989 tearjerker The Joy Luck Club turned the sub-genre into a mass-market success.

Now See’s critically acclaimed 2009 novel, Shanghai Girls, is seen by some as a seminal work. The prequel to Dreams Of Joy and set during the Sino-Japanese conflict of the 1940s, Shanghai Girls was also set last year as a text for a post-graduate class in Chinese-American literature at the National University of Singapore.

The university’s literature professor, Walter Lim, 52, is also including See in a book on the history of Chinese-American writing.

“She is part of the community of Chinese- American writers who are fashioning themselves into communicators and purveyors of history,” says Dr Lim, who has taught Chinese-American literature for more than two decades.

The author herself puts it this way: “I’ve always been interested in stories that are lost or have been covered up. It’s not always horrifying, like the Great Leap Forward, just something that people would be interested in.” – The Straits Times, Singapore/Asia News Network

Irrational fear abounds, jetting the Malay psyche!

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Irrational fear abounds

MUSINGS By MARINA MAHATHIR

Prejudice and discrimination, both rooted in fear of the unknown, can always be dispelled with better knowledge, at least in those willing to learn.

TEN years ago the world turned a decidedly nastier place for Muslims. Although Islamo­phobia already existed before Sept 11, the events that day ratcheted it up several notches. Suddenly Muslims in the United States and all over the world found themselves under intense scrutiny, much of it hostile.

Stereotypes abounded. Although Islam is a religion of peace, all Muslims were branded terrorists, undemocratic, violent, oppressors of women.

The only images seen in the media were of angry bearded men wielding weapons and shouting threats to the West. Only Muslim women covered head to toe in dour black, were seen. It did not help that some Muslims themselves provided fodder for these images.

Tales of aggression against Mus­lims abounded. Headscarves were pulled off, insults hurled and, at airports, anyone with the slightest tinge of an Arabic name was pulled out for special inspection. Some people suffered even more violence, resulting in injury and even death.

New perspective: One of the biggest boosts to the image of Islam and Muslims has been the Arab Spring where young Muslims, including women, were seen at the forefront of the revolution. – Reuters 

Sometimes entirely wrong people became victims of the prejudice. A Sikh man got shot because he wore a turban, a bunch of Orthodox Jewish rabbis were pulled off a plane because they were praying in a language other passengers didn’t understand.

Fear ruled and with it came prejudice and discrimination, much of it fuelled by the media. Most of it stemmed from ignorance about the world of Islam, which is not only large but also diverse.



A Muslim in the Middle East is culturally different from a Muslim in Asia, but that was not appreciated in much of the West. Indeed Middle Eastern Muslims comprise only 15% of the entire Muslim world. Further­more there are many Western Muslims who look and act no different from their fellow citizens.

Meanwhile, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq only angered Muslims, who then reacted in ways that ingrained the stereotypes about them.

The early post-Sept 11 Islamo­phobic madness only lessened when much better information and knowledge about Islam and Muslims became available. This took two forms.

One, many Muslims took it upon themselves to educate non-Muslims about Islam, and in particular reached out to other faith communities to talk about their commonalities, rather than differences.

And two, thousands of students flocked to universities to learn more about Islam. Both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars of Islam did much to teach students about the real religion, rather than the one perpetuated by the media.

Ten years later, although it cannot be said that Islamophobia has disappeared, Western perspectives on Islam have become more measured and based on better knowledge. One of the biggest boosts to the image of Islam and Muslims has been the Arab Spring.

Suddenly the images of Muslims were young, modern, and protesting not about the West but about their own corrupt leaders. Although they did not explicitly talk about religion, in 2011 the Middle East became associated with the yearning for freedom and democracy, one not too different from what developed countries enjoyed.

Women were seen at the forefront of the revolution, both head-scarved and not, and changed the image of the oppressed Muslim woman.

It just goes to show that prejudice and discrimination, both rooted in fear of the unknown, can always be dispelled with better knowledge, at least in those willing to learn. There are of course many who simply refuse to open their hearts and minds to such enlightenment, but progress has been made in incremental steps.

It is also clear that very often those who steadfastly refuse to eliminate their prejudices do so because they think it is politically profitable to them. The loudest Islamophobes always seem to be politicians trying to win the populist vote. And the only way they maintain those votes is by keeping people ignorant. Hence, their refusal to engage at all with Muslims.

Every phobia about groups of people who are different from us works in the same way. They rely on stereotypes and on the fear that allowing these minority people the same basic rights as others would mean that they would demand more.

Thus, although no Muslim ever asked for it, some people in the US insist that there are plans to impose syariah law there. The media stokes the hysteria and stigmatisation. Unjust accusations and calls for depriving them of citizenship becomes the norm.

Although those baying for blood are small in number, they still make innocent people suffer. People who have never harmed anyone else suffer distrust and hostility from their former neighbours. Violence against them is justified, sometimes with religious backing. The entire atmosphere is poisoned by hate.

This past week, where some people seem to be proudly picking on the powerless, has reminded me of that Islamophobic hysteria. I fear for our country and where we are heading.