Author Archives: ChristaU73

NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

by ChristaU73 Posted on April 15, 2016

NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

By on 15 Apr 2016commentsShare

This story was originally published by Huffington Post and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

“We invite you to comment on our page, but we ask that you be courteous and cite credible sources when sharing information.”

That’s the disclaimer posted atop NASA’s Global Climate Change Facebook page. And judging from the normally staid government agency’s response to a handful of climate change deniers who ran amok this week under a post by media personality Bill Nye, they mean it.

Nye, known as “the Science Guy,” shared a story on NASA’s page Monday about a climate change denier who refused to accept $20,000 in bets that the planet will continue getting hotter. The post inspired readers to share a torrent of poorly substantiated — yet fiercely defended — theories in the comments section, ranging from outright climate change denial to vitriolic attacks on NASA itself.

After a couple days of the lunacy (as of Friday morning, the comments section was still growing), whoever manages NASA’s climate change Facebook page finally had enough and decided to set the record straight.

One reader, who referred to NASA as a group of “leftards,” but nevertheless claimed NASA has confirmed “that fossil fuels are actually cooling the planet’s temperature,” earned a clear rebuke: “Do not misrepresent NASA,” the agency responded. “Fossil fuels are not cooling the planet.”

That stone-cold retort appears to have since been deleted, but other similarly blunt replies remain:

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Most of NASA’s replies were informative, well-substantiated, and written with admirable restraint:

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NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, global climate change, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on NASA Facebook page manager has had enough with climate deniers

Everyone Hated Sequestration, But Its Effect Was Never All That Huge

by ChristaU73 Posted on October 28, 2015

Mother Jones

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Kevin Williamson doesn’t like the new budget deal. That’s no surprise: the reason Boehner is trying to pass this while he’s a lame duck is that he knows no one will like it. But that doesn’t matter to him anymore, so he’s willing to shrug and just get it done.

So what is Williamson’s specific gripe? That the deal basically does away with sequestration:

Democrats hated sequestration. Republicans hated sequestration.

Why?

Sequestration worked.

Sequestration is the reason why in recent years we’ve reduced federal spending substantially in GDP terms, from about 25 percent to about 20 percent. It is the main reason that we have reduced the federal deficit in GDP terms. Democrat-supporting welfare entrepreneurs hated it, and Republican-supporting military contractors hated it. Ordinary Americans did not have much in the way of strong views on the matter, which often is the case when a policy actually does what it is supposed to. Effective government rarely is dramatic government.

No argument with the first sentence. Sequestration was specifically designed to be so unlikable that neither party would ever support it. The fact that it took effect anyway is a testament to the dysfunction of the federal government, not to the budget-capping wonders of sequestration.

But let’s review that last paragraph. Is sequestration really the “main” reason we’ve reduced federal spending from 25 percent of GDP to 20 percent? Hmmm:

Spending hit 24.4 percent of GDP during the recession year of 2009. It was already down to 21.9 percent of GDP by 2012 and hit 21 percent in 2015.
Sequestration started in 2013, so at most it could be responsible for 0.9 out of 3.4 points of that reduced spending.
Was it? It theoretically reduced spending by $200 billion or so.
That’s about 1 percent of GDP.
In reality, CBO estimates that adjustments—primarily to fund overseas wars—ate into half of that. This means that sequestration lowered actual spending by about 0.5 percent of GDP.
The rest of the decline from 21.9 percent to 21 percent comes from the fact that GDP recovered.
So: of the spending reduction Williamson cites, about 0.5 percentage points was due to sequestration.

Now, I suppose that any kind of spending cut is a good cut to a conservative. But sequestration is responsible for only about a seventh of the spending reduction since 2009. The rest is due to (a) the end of stimulus spending, (b) reduced safety net spending as the recession eased, (c) the 2011 budget deal, and (d) the recovery of GDP growth, which automatically reduces spending as a percent of GDP.

See the article here:  

Everyone Hated Sequestration, But Its Effect Was Never All That Huge

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Dear Marvel and Sony: We Love Movies for Their Kick-Ass Female Heroes, Too, You Jerks

by ChristaU73 Posted on May 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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While Kevin Drum is focused on getting better, we’ve invited some of the remarkable writers and thinkers who have traded links and ideas with him from Blogosphere 1.0 to this day to contribute posts and keep the conversation going. Today we’re honored to present a post from Shakesville founder Melissa McEwan.

Each time WikiLeaks posts another round of emails from the Sony hack, there is a garbage trove of misogyny: unequal pay, gendered and racist harassment, Aaron Sorkin waxing sexist, Angelina Jolie dismissed as a spoiled brat. Found among the latest collection was a dispatch from Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter to Sony CEO Michael Lynton on the subject of female-centered superhero films, and if it’s not exactly as awful as you’re already imagining, that’s possibly because it’s even worse. Sent under the simple subject line “Female Movies,” Perlmutter writes:

Michael,

As we discussed on the phone, below are just a few examples. There are more.

Thanks,

Ike

1. Electra (Marvel) – Very bad idea and the end result was very, very bad. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=elektra.htm

2. Catwoman (WB/DC) – Catwoman was one of the most important female character within the Batmanfranchise. This film was a disaster. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=catwoman.htm

3. Supergirl – (DC) Supergirl was one of the most important female super hero in Superman franchise. This Movie came out in 1984 and did $14 million total domestic with opening weekend of $5.5 million. Again, another disaster.

Best, Ike

Case closed, your honor! At Women and Hollywood, Laura Berger quite rightly notes that Perlmutter’s list is highly selective and narrowly defined. “It seems fair to assume,” writes Berger, “that Perlmutter is referring specifically to female superhero movies. If that’s the case, why is something like ‘The Hunger Games’ omitted from this list? The extremely lucrative franchise is led by a woman, and while Katniss isn’t technically a superheroine, she’s certainly marketed as one. Isn’t ‘The Hunger Games’ a more relevant example of how female-led films fare at the box office today than, say, ‘Supergirl,’ which was released over 30 years ago?” Emphasis original.

At ThinkProgress, Jessica Goldstein shows how easily one could selectively compile a list of male-centered superhero flops if one were inclined to make the incredulous assertion, based exclusively on box office returns and not on the inherent quality of the films, that male-centered superhero films don’t work.

The three films on Perlmutter’s list frankly just weren’t very good. Which has to do with their female heroes only insomuch as studios don’t generally dedicate equivalent creative and financial resources to female-centered superhero films, because they don’t want to “waste” them on films they fear won’t succeed at the box office. Thus the vicious cycle continues: Many female-centered superhero films are set up to fail, and then when one fails, the blame is directed at the women at its center, rather than the misogyny at her back.

This is a conversation that happens around every genre of “hero” film: Superhero films, action films, fantasy films, adventure films. The wildly successful male-centered flicks get rattled off as evidence of what “works,” and implicit condemnation of what (allegedly) doesn’t.

Many of the wildly successful male-centered franchises have, however, a token female character—carefully segregated from other women and girls, lest they get any ideas about taking over the world, I suppose.

And we are ever meant to understand that all of the dedicated superfans of these films watched them because of the men, always the men. What Perlmutter and his cohort don’t understand, don’t consider, or simply don’t care about is that there are plenty of us who watched those films for the women.

When I watched the Superman series, I wasn’t watching those films for Christopher Reeve; I was watching them for Margot Kidder’s Lois Lane, who I was certain was the coolest woman with the most amazing voice who had ever lived. When I watched the Star Wars trilogy, I had zero interest in Luke; I showed up for Leia. When I watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, I was watching it as much for Marion as I was for Indy. When I watched Dragonslayer (which admittedly was a commercial flop, but later became a cult classic) over and over until I could say every line, I was all about Valerian. When I watched Romancing the Stone, I was cheering for THE JOAN WILDER.

There were female heroes in my favorite films, and they were the reason I watched them. I imagine there are plenty of little girls (and little boys) who watch The Avengers not because of the guys, but because of the one, remarkable, exceptional (in every sense of the word) female hero in their midst. That doesn’t show up in the numbers—nor, apparently, in the imaginations of the men who make creative decisions based on numbers.

The thing about many of the films I mentioned is that they’re generally regarded as good movies. They were made with monumental investments of care and attention. And they didn’t have to be male-centered, but they got that care and attention because they were.

What would happen if a female-centered hero were given the same mighty powers? Welp.

Read article here: 

Dear Marvel and Sony: We Love Movies for Their Kick-Ass Female Heroes, Too, You Jerks

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Obama Administration Gives Rail Companies Three Years to Fix Their Most Explosive Oil Cars

by ChristaU73 Posted on May 1, 2015

Mother Jones

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Trains hauling crude oil have continued to explode across the United States and Canada this year as oil production booms in North Dakota and Alberta. Nearly two dozen oil trains have derailed in the past two years, many causing fiery explosions and oil spills. Lawmakers, environmentalists, and communities in the path of these trains have ramped up pressure on the Obama administration to toughen what they see as lax safety regulations at the heart of the problem.

Finally, some new regulations. This morning, U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx stood next to Lisa Raitt, Canada’s transportation minister, to announce coordinated rules across both countries aimed at making the industry safer by catching up to surging crude-by-oil shipments, which increased 4,000 percent from 2008 to 2014.

According to the new rules, older tank cars will have to be replaced or retrofitted with new “protective shells” and insulation to prevent puncture (and potential explosion) after derailment. New tank car construction will have to comply with these standards, too.

Oil trains will also be required to install enhanced “electronically controlled pneumatic” ECP braking, which allows for more control over the train when required to stop suddenly, and they will be limited to to speeds of 50 mph, and 40 mph in urban areas. Many recent train derailments and explosions have occurred at speeds far below those, however.

And lastly, train companies will now be required to minimize the chances of explosions and oil spills happening near towns and environmentally sensitive areas by assessing route options and rail conditions more closely. Once the routes are made, companies will need to tell local and state officials along the train’s pathway.

Transportation Secretary Foxx described the rules as, “a significant improvement over the current regulations and requirements and will make transporting flammable liquids safer.”

But the new rules have already drawn criticism from regulation proponents and industry players alike. The American Railroad Association believes the new braking technology is unnecessary. “The DOT has no substantial evidence to support a safety justification for mandating ECP brakes, which will not prevent accidents,” said Edward R. Hamberger, AAR president and CEO said in a statement. “This is an imprudent decision made without supporting data or analysis.”

But Senator Maria Cantwell, D-WA, who introduced legislation in March to toughen crude-by rail standards, said they didn’t go far enough. “The new DOT rule is just like saying let the oil trains roll,” she said. “It does nothing to address explosive volatility, very little to reduce the threat of rail car punctures, and is too slow on the removal of the most dangerous cars.”

Indeed, rail companies will have several years to bring their fleets up to scratch. The now-infamous DOT-111 oil tankers, involved in nearly half of oil train explosions since 2013, must be fixed within three years. And the so-called “unjacketed” CPC-1232 cars, which are newer but don’t have protective shells (and have also been involved in explosions) will still be in network for up to five years.

That amount of time is too long too wait given the potential dangers, said Anthony Swift, a deputy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We can only hope the federal government revisits the broader issue of crude oil unit trains before it’s too late.”

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Obama Administration Gives Rail Companies Three Years to Fix Their Most Explosive Oil Cars

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