Author Archives: Bob Dole

Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an XL pipeline out there

by Bob Dole Posted on April 5, 2016

Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an XL pipeline out there

By on 4 Apr 2016commentsShare

A major section of the original Keystone pipeline is out of commission after an oil spill near the pipeline was detected in South Dakota on April 2.

The spill, estimated at 187 gallons of crude oil, serves as a reminder of the risks that pipelines pose — and that with the Obama administration’s rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline proposal, we’ve likely avoided the potential for an even bigger, more disastrous spill.

Part of the original argument against Keystone XL was that eventually, the proposed pipeline was bound to spill. A 2013 Forbes article (which claimed that it was “crazy” to think Keystone XL wouldn’t leak) pointed out that as pipelines age, they are often not properly maintained, leading to a greater possibility of a leak occurring.

The recent oil spill was discovered, of course, by TransCanada’s state-of-the-art spill detection technology — oh, what’s that? My state-of-the-art Tweet detecting system’s “Bill McKibben” sensor just went off:

Apparently, a South Dakota landowner first noticed signs of a spill and informed TransCanada of the leak. As a result, TransCanada shut down the section of the pipeline from Alberta, Canada, to Cushing, Okla. (The section of Keystone that runs from Cushing to Texas is still in operation.)

Transcanada says that “no significant impact to the environment has been observed” from the April 2 spill. We hope it stays that way — and in the meantime, we’re glad that there’s one less huge pipeline out there to worry about. Spilled milk might not be worth crying over, but unspilled pipelines are definitely worth celebrating.

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Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an XL pipeline out there

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Keystone leaks and reminds us why we’re glad there isn’t an XL pipeline out there

CBS News’ Benghazi Review Leaves Several Big Questions Unanswered

by Bob Dole Posted on November 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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It’s not surprising that CBS News today announced that 60 Minutes correspondent Lara Logan and her producer Max McClellan were taking (or being forced to accept?) leaves of absence after an internal review confirmed the obvious: they had botched their now infamous Benghazi report and helped perpetuate a hoax crafted by Dylan Davies, a security consultant who claimed he had been at the compound the night of the attack.

The review’s summary findings—which you can read here—note that the contradictions between the account Davies was peddling in public (via a book) and the information he provided to the FBI and the State Department were “knowable” prior to the airing of Logan’s report. Logan and McClellan, the review found, “did not sufficiently vet Davies’ account of his own actions and whereabouts that night.” No kidding. And the report suggests that Logan was driven by both a desire to find something new in a story already much covered and her belief that the Obama administration was misrepresenting the threat posed by Al Qaeda. This is damning: she failed to do a basic task of reporting and she might have had an agenda.

The review does not answer all the questions that popped up following the 60 Minutes report, especially this one: why the hell did CBS News continue to defend this story after evidence emerged that Davies had fabricated his tale? The summary findings note:

After the story aired, the Washington Post reported the existence of a so-called “incident report” that had been prepared by Davies for Blue Mountain in which he reportedly said he spent most of the night at his villa, and had not gone to the hospital or the mission compound. Reached by phone, Davies told the 60 Minutes team that he had not written the incident report, disavowed any knowledge of it, and insisted that the account he gave 60 Minutes was word for word what he had told the FBI. Based on that information and the strong conviction expressed by the team about their story, CBS News chairman and 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager defended the story and the reporting to the press.

Hold on. One of the best newspapers in the world reports the existence of documentary evidence that blows the credibility of your super-duper source out of the water, and what do you do? You call the source and ask him if he told you the truth? When the source insists that he did, you take his word and stick to the story? This does not seem like best practices. The Post report should have triggered a five-alarm alert within CBS News. But this much-storied media institution seemingly brushed it aside. It was only after The New York Times told CBS News that it had discovered that Davies’ account did not match what he had told the FBI that 60 Minutes kicked into action:

Within hours, CBS News was able to confirm that in the FBI’s account of their interview, Davies was not at the hospital or the mission compound the night of the attack. 60 Minutes announced that a correction would be made, that the broadcast had been misled, and that it was a mistake to include Davies in the story.

In other words, the Times had to do CBS News’ own job.

That might be the most embarrassing aspect of this episode. Logan and McClellan screwed up big time—and their motivations are fair game. But CBS News hung on to the Davies fiction after there was reason to suspect the network had been fooled and exploited. (The right-wing Benghazi truthers—this means you, Sen. Lindsey Graham—had jumped on the 60 Minutes report like fleas to a dog.) Did the brass at CBS News calculate that the network could ride out the storm? If so, they were thinking like political spinmeisters, not news people. That’s a blemish that won’t fade soon.

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CBS News’ Benghazi Review Leaves Several Big Questions Unanswered

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Yet Another Front in the War to Make the Web (Almost) Unusable

by Bob Dole Posted on October 11, 2013

Mother Jones

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Sign me up for this Felix Salmon rant:

It might have been the Slate redesign which pushed me over the edge, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just PTSD from Reuters Next. But at this point I will seriously donate a substantial amount of money to anybody who can build a browser plugin which automatically kills all persistent navbars, or “sticky navs”, as they’re also known.

It’s impossible to identify who started this trend, but it has become the single most annoying thing on the news web, recently overtaking even the much-loathed pagination for that title. If you’re reading a story on Pando Daily, then no matter what page you’re on, no matter where you are in the story, the top of your browser window always looks like this:

Click the link for examples if you’re not sure what this is all about. But Felix is right: It’s annoying. It’s evil. It needs to stop. Felix explains why in his post, but what makes navbars even worse is that they’re sometimes paired up with bizarro code that makes it difficult or impossible to cut and paste text using the normal tools that we’ve all used forever. Instead you have to go through the navbar in some weird way. There have been a few cases where I was so flummoxed by what they expected me to do that I finally just went into the page source and copied from there. So far, no one has figured out how to take over a text editor, so that still works.

(And while we’re at it, why do so many sites make it so damn hard to embed their videos? They usually have an embed option, so obviously they want you to embed their videos. But the code they provide is all but impossible to vary in even the slightest way, like aligning it on the right instead of the center, or something like that. I just went through an experience this morning trying to embed a PolitiFact video that almost makes me believe in ghosts. Just stop it, folks.)

This is all part of an ongoing evolution of the web that seems to be based on a desire to make the browsing experience as annoying as possible without quite going over the edge where people just give up on your site. A site that’s a micron short of that is ideal. You want your readers tearing their hair out, but not going ballistic enough to quit entirely. As more and more sites go down this road, it makes the web more a blood pressure raising machine than an information source. But it was nice while it lasted.

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Yet Another Front in the War to Make the Web (Almost) Unusable

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British anti-fracking occupation will continue

by Bob Dole Posted on September 18, 2013

British anti-fracking occupation will continue

By

Push Europe

British fractivists making some noise.

British opponents of fracking will continue to occupy the side of a road in a village 35 miles south of London — and they won’t have to fear being arrested for trespassing. A court ruled that a local council’s eviction notice was flawed.

The encampment of anti-fracking protesters in the village of Balcombe has become a symbolic occupation that at times has swollen to thousands of people. More than 100 have been arrested during protests since July. It’s the highest-profile battle in a war being waged across Europe by environmentalists and regular citizens who don’t want their countries to emulate America’s fracking boom.

The West Sussex County Council issued an eviction notice last week, ordering the protesters to clear out their belongings and break down the camp, which was set up near an exploratory drilling rig operated by Cuadrilla. But attorneys for the protesters argued in court that the notice violated their rights — rights such as freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.

A judge adjourned the case until October, which means the protesters will outstay the current drilling operation. From the BBC:

Two weeks ago Cuadrilla announced it had withdrawn an application for an extension to its planning permission for exploratory drilling at Balcombe.

A new planning application for the site would be lodged in the near future, the firm said, but not before next year.

Vanessa Vine, a local resident who helped organize the protests, welcomed the judge’s ruling. “We are delighted to see sanity and justice prevailing for the Balcombe protectors,” she told The Guardian. “When will West Sussex county council take action to evict those who are genuinely posing a threat to the local community — those within the gates of the drill site who are putting us at grave risk, for short-term ecocidal corporate gain?”

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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British anti-fracking occupation will continue

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Choose The Right Solar Panel Contractor By Using These Techniques

by Bob Dole Posted on June 3, 2013

You’ve saved up money for awhile now to spend on that home improvement project. Now it’s finally time to hire someone to get this work done. Whoa, slow down. Take the time to do your research and spend that hard earned cash on someone whose experience merits being hired. Figure out what you need in a solar panel installation contractor and find the one who fits the bill.

Aside from Angie’s List, there are often many other resources online to search out reviews on solar panel installation contractors from past clients. If you can find detailed reviews, check them for information about the contractor’s timeliness. If they’re showing up late everyday for work, this could end up causing a major delay in your project’s schedule – or worse: They could have overcharged you for the time it would take them to finish the project, and are now abusing that by being tardy.

Remind yourself to not get overwhelmed by your first improvement project. It can be a tough task and a whole new area of learning. But, you can keep it light by hiring a solar panel installation contractor who is equipped with an absolute positive demeanor. They should help guide you through your project process and be ready to help you learn.

Some solar panel installation contractors are very showy and tend to use very costly material for the project which may cost you very high. Try not to hire such contractors as it may increase your budget.

Visit the worksite of your solar panel installation contractor before hiring them for your project. Take the time to inspect their work and ask any questions that you may have. This gives you the opportunity to see how they conduct business and if they will perform the best work for your project.

The best way to make a learned and informed decision in hiring solar panel installation contractors is to get references for contractors from your family, friends and colleagues. Get honest opinion from them about their experiences with contractors.

You must get a professional list of finance references for every solar panel installation contractor you consider hiring. Make sure you run through all of them to get a good idea of what your contractors financial standing is like, and also what his work ethic is like. Make sure you ask if they would hire the contractor again.

You will need to make sure the solar panel installation contractor can provide all the tools necessary to complete your job. You will need to know if the contractor intends on renting large equipment that you will be responsible for paying a hourly fee on. This could run into serious expenses that you were not anticipating if the equipment is not returned on time.

Before signing a contract, you can demand a rsum with contact details so that you get to know how they portray themselves as the one that you need. If they specialize in a certain trade, ask them what it is and how they intend offering their services for a reasonable price. Visiting your job site daily keeps the solar panel installation contractor on his toes and you, in turn, can see whether they carry out their work in a professional manner or not.

Simply go to any popular search engine and enter solar panels if you need help with coming up with additional suggestions about solar power.

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