Author Archives: f45

Texas is thinking about giving its oil and gas inspectors guns

by f45 Posted on January 29, 2013

Texas is thinking about giving its oil and gas inspectors guns

By Philip Bump

This is the kind of story that people look back on after a tragedy and say: Well, that was a bad idea.

The Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates oil and gas development, is considering arming its employees. From NPR:

In announcing his initiative, [Commission Chair Barry] Smitherman cited “recent shooting tragedies around the country”. In response to questions from StateImpact, he elaborated in an email: “At the Railroad Commission, many of our employees — such as our field inspectors — often work alone in remote, desolate areas of the state that can pose dangers. It is my position that Commission employees have the right to protect themselves.”

One Texan who agrees is Gary Painter, sheriff of Midland County where oil drilling is booming.

The sheriff said Railroad Commission inspectors can sometimes encounter resistance from crews on drilling rigs, crews he said that can be “on the edge” because of long hours and the use of drugs to stay sharp in spite of their fatigue.

I’m no expert, but it seems like maybe there are some other things that need to be fixed before we throw guns into the mix.

facebook

From Barry Smitherman’s Facebook page. Click to embiggen.

Then there’s the matter of other groups with which the Railroad Commission finds itself in conflict. Landowners, for example, whose land the Railroad Commission has seized through public domain to build TransCanada’s Keystone pipeline. Or the Keystone protestors, who are in active conflict with the state over TransCanada’s progress. Some of them may be on drugs, too, but probably different ones.

There are two consolations here. First, Smitherman was appointed to the commission by Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is known for his unerring sense of judgment. Second, over the state’s history, no one in Texas has ever accidentally been shot.

Source

RRC’s Smitherman: ‘Much Interest’ in Gun Training, NPR

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Read more:

Climate & Energy

,

Politics

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

More:

Texas is thinking about giving its oil and gas inspectors guns

Posted in GE, LG, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Texas is thinking about giving its oil and gas inspectors guns

Congratulations to ExxonMobil, the new largest company in the world

by f45 Posted on January 25, 2013

Congratulations to ExxonMobil, the new largest company in the world

By Philip Bump

Congratulations to our friends at ExxonMobil, once again the largest company in the world. I think we can all agree that this is a deserved promotion, given how much more ExxonMobil brings to our lives than does Apple. How much more good ExxonMobil does for the planet. Capitalism, guys: It works.

Reuters explains what happened:

Exxon Mobil briefly overtook Apple as the largest U.S. publicly traded company by market value on Friday as shares of the technology giant continued to fall.

Apple shares traded down 2 percent on the day at $441.31, down from a high above $700 set in September, for a market value of roughly $416 billion. Exxon shares, flat on the day at $91.33, added to a market value of about $416.5 billion.

Apple has closed the day as the largest company by market capitalization since late January last year, when it passed Exxon.

Or, in English: A publicly traded company’s market cap is its value calculated by multiplying its share price by the number of public shares it offers. As of a second ago, here’s what that looked like for each company.

Google

Google

ExxonMobil’s public shares were worth a combined $417 billion; Apple’s, $415 billion. 417 is bigger than 415, so: news stories.

All of this could reverse by the time markets close. Apple is down eight points in trading today; the company could recover that value. It’s real money, but an effervescent, artificial marker. And it’s a reflection far more of Apple’s fortunes than of ExxonMobil’s. (Mashable explains why.)

It is nonetheless discouraging that the company waiting in the wings behind Apple is ExxonMobil. Stock markets are often an indicator of expected economic growth; one buys a stock with the hope that its value will increase over time. Meaning that investors in 2013 see a fossil fuel company as one of the best long-term bets, throwing more money at it than any other company in the world.

Sad thing is: They’re probably right.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Read more:

Business & Technology

,

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Follow this link – 

Congratulations to ExxonMobil, the new largest company in the world

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Congratulations to ExxonMobil, the new largest company in the world

Good news for Kabul’s Tourism Bureau: The city’s air is unhealthy, but not full of feces

by f45 Posted on January 22, 2013

Good news for Kabul’s Tourism Bureau: The city’s air is unhealthy, but not full of feces

By Philip Bump

Particulate matter is a particularly (pun intended and embraced) dangerous form of air pollution. Particulates are usually in the air as soot, small bits of burned fossil fuels which may cause millions of premature deaths annually. It was largely soot pollution that caused Beijing’s Bladerunner-esque pollution last week.

jdennesDust over KabulAs I said, particulate pollution is usually soot. It doesn’t have to be. Sometimes, the polluting particles are something … much less pleasant. Take Kabul. From the Times:

It has long been a given that the air pollution in this city gets horrific: on average even worse than Beijing’s infamous haze, by one measure.

For nearly as long, there has been the widespread belief by foreign troops and officials here that — let’s be blunt here — feces are a part of the problem.

Canadian soldiers were even warned about it in predeployment briefings, which cited reports that one test had found that as many as 30 percent of air samples contained fecal particles. The Canadians were worried enough that the government ordered a formal investigation, officials say.

There’s reason to think that this apocryphal pollution assessment could be accurate. Kabul is bursting at the seams. The Times indicates that only five percent of homes are connected to sewage systems, in a city that now holds ten times what it was designed for. And a common heating source is dried dung.

But not to worry. Science, history’s greatest killjoy, suggests that Kabul’s air is nearly feces-free. Not that this means it’s great to breathe.

When the United Nations Environment Program did a study that included air sampling, in 2008, it found plenty to worry about, but mostly what would be expected of a traffic-congested city: a lot of sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides. Plus a very high concentration of particulates, known in the trade as PM 10 — which means particles smaller than 10 microns, small enough to penetrate deeply into the lungs, and an important indicator of air pollution — but no specific fecal bits. …

In fact, when the Canadians investigated the matter in response to their worried soldiers, the investigators said that some fecal matter in the air was normal — even in Canada. Some of it could just be bird and flying-insect droppings.

Kabul’s bigger problems are dust and geography — it lies on a plateau surrounded by mountains, limiting airflow. Breathing the air in the city is a health hazard regardless of what it is you’re inhaling, making this little consolation to residents or visitors.

But on the long list of reasons tourists might choose not to visit Kabul, at least the city can cross off “you will be inhaling feces.” Small victories.

Source

Despite a Whiff of Unpleasant Exaggeration, a City’s Pollution Is Real, New York Times

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

Read more:

Cities

,

Climate & Energy

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

This article is from: 

Good news for Kabul’s Tourism Bureau: The city’s air is unhealthy, but not full of feces

Posted in GE, LG, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Good news for Kabul’s Tourism Bureau: The city’s air is unhealthy, but not full of feces

7 Gun Groups That Make the NRA Look Reasonable

by f45 Posted on January 19, 2013

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

On Saturday, January 19, an alliance of pro-gun groups is commemorating the very first Gun Appreciation Day, encouraging Americans to head to their local gun shows, stores, and ranges to prove their support for the 2nd Amendment. The fake holiday is a call to arms to conservative gun owners as well as a direct rebuff to President Obama’s push for gun legislation in the wake of mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook Elementary. “Scheduled to send a message to Washington two days before Obama’s second inauguration, the ‘Gun Appreciation Day’ is expected to rival ‘Chick-fil-A Day‘ as a public statement of protest against government policies,” a blast email from the organizers reads.

Some of the organizations promoting Gun Appreciation Day are so extreme that even the NRA won’t go near them. (One of the now-disavowed official sponsors was a hardcore white nationalist political party.) These groups are smaller, far less powerful, and do not enjoy anything close to the NRA’s hundreds of millions of dollars in annual fundraising. Here’s a look at five groups that are hyping up the occasion—and two more of their ilk:

revolution pac

RevolutionPAC.com

This super-PAC—run by Lawrence Hunter, a Forbes columnist and ex-adviser to the Reagan White House—was influenced by the tea party and libertarian fixture Rep. Ron Paul. Pet causes include raging against antidepressants as deadly and dangerous and equating the president to Hitler and other dictators:

Revolution PAC

Second amendment foundation

Founded by conservative author Alan Gottlieb in 1974, the Second Amendment Foundation is the country’s oldest legal-action group focusing on gun rights. It claims about 650,000 members. It is known for its flurry of federal lawsuits, including a pair filed in conjunction with the NRA. The foundation also runs a series of magazines, including Women & Guns:

womenshooters.com

Women Warriors pac

Facebook

Speaking of women and guns: Women Warriors PAC was formed during the past election season to support “strong Conservative Women fighting the Obama political machine’s ‘war on women’ message”—women like Mia Love. (It emphasizes that its members are “warriors not helpless minions!”) The PAC only has a few hundred dollars on hand, but what it lacks in funds and publicity, it makes up for in enthusiasm:

Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms

ccrkba.org

Alan Gottlieb also serves as chairman for this nonprofit that started in 1971. Its tax forms show that it rakes in less than $70,000 annually. However, it does have this bit of gun-enthusiast cred: CCRKBA is credited as having coined this wildly popular slogan:

JEWS FOR THE PRESERVATION OF FIREARMS OWNerSHIP

jpfo.org

Unlike the previous four, this group isn’t listed as an official Gun Appreciation Day sponsor. But that hasn’t stopped them from cheerleading for the event.

This Wisconsin-based organization was founded in the late ’80s by ex-arms dealer Aaron Zelman. Over the decades, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership has made some high-profile friends, including musician and anti-Obama gun-toting zealot Ted Nugent (whom Zelman praised for his “talent, success, wit, and celebrity“). The group has criticized the NRA for its incessant “kowtowing to authoritarian police bureaucrats.”

Perhaps more than any other group, JPFO likes to push the idea that gun control always leads to totalitarianism and/or genocide: It’s known for selling posters and bumper stickers tying Nazism to gun laws. Zelman even wrote a book in the ’90s that supposedly contains “startling evidence that the Gun Control Act of 1968 was lifted, almost in its entirety, from Nazi legislation”:

jpfo.org

Continue Reading »

See original article:  

7 Gun Groups That Make the NRA Look Reasonable

Posted in Citizen, GE, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on 7 Gun Groups That Make the NRA Look Reasonable

Friday Downer: BPA Substitute Is Still Bad For You

by f45 Posted on January 18, 2013

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Years of research have found evidence that Bisphenol A—also know as BPA—is making humans fat and anxious, screwing with our ovaries, and making us develop tumors in our breasts and brains. Those findings have prompted regulators in the US, Canada, and the European Union to ban BPA in baby bottles (though other products still contain it). But new research published this week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives indicates that a major chemical substitute isn’t much better.

BPA creates problems when it leaches into foods and liquids, since inside the human body it mimics estrogen and screws with your endocrine system. Given the ever-growing body of evidence that it’s bad for you, manufacturers have been looking for BPA substitutes. One of those newer substitutes is Bisphenol S. While it is less likely to leach from the plastic when it comes in contact with heat or sunlight, it can still leach into food and liquids under normal use. This most recent study, conducted with rat cells, found once it got into their bodies, Bisphenol S behaved much like BPA. Like BPA, BPS also disrupts the endocrine system, making cells signal, grow, and die in ways they shouldn’t.

Study co-author Cheryl Watson, a professor in the biochemistry and molecular biology department at the University of Texas, notes that both BPA and BPS can have a large impact even in small doses, much like hormones. “If hormones act that potently, it’s not much of a surprise that componds that mimic hormones act very potently,” Watson told Mother Jones.

Watson also suggested that there should be more testing of chemicals like BPS before they’re put into consumer products. She’s working with other biologists and chemists on an effort, called Tierd Protocol for Endocrine Disruption (or TiPED) to get the two branches of science to collaborate on this kind of testing. “Why not pretest chemical before someone does all the work and investment of putting them into a product, and then we spend the next 20 years fighting about it?” said Watson. “Think of all the money spent on lawsuits, human disease. There’s an awful lot of societal expense in regulating these products after they are introduced.”

View article – 

Friday Downer: BPA Substitute Is Still Bad For You

Posted in GE, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Downer: BPA Substitute Is Still Bad For You

USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

by f45 Posted on January 16, 2013

USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

By Susie Cagle

Make your hydroponic backyard organic kale dreams come true, now with help from the federal government. Yesterday the U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized a microloan program to assist veterans, minority growers, and small-time farmers who might otherwise have to rely on credit cards to get their farms up and running.

The microloans, up to $35,000 each, will be majorly helpful in an industry where loans are usually for much bigger sums, and involve much bigger stacks of paperwork. More microloans could mean more microfarms, and more diverse ones on the whole, and super-low interest rates (currently 1.25 percent) could certainly cut down on farmers’ debt load. From the Associated Press:

Over the last three years, there has been a 60 percent increase in local growers who sell directly to consumers or farmers markets, Agriculture Department Secretary Tom Vilsack said…

The loan can cover the costs of renting land, buying seed and equipment, and other expenses. One goal is to create more opportunities for entrepreneurship and employment in the farming industry, Vilsack said. Another goal is to provide beginners a chance to build credit, so that they can eventually qualify for higher-value loans and expand.

“It’s about making sure that we have diversity within agriculture, that we have a good blend of large production facilities, medium-sized operations and smaller operations,” Vilsack
said. “It will help bolster the local and regional food system movement that is taking place.”

Some small-time farmers were optimistic, but is $35,000 too micro of a loan to do much good?

That would be a good question for economists who don’t have a beef with their local farmers market. Iowa State University economist and local food researcher David Swenson is particularly grumpy about the USDA’s goals. “This is a policy area where community affection and political affection for the idea of local foods has gotten itself way out in front of the economics,” he said. Goddamn that community affection. David Swenson must be hanging out with Glenn Beck lately.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

.

Read more:

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Read more:

USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on USDA offers up new seed money for small farmers

Corn on MSNBC: Right-Wingers Warn of "Civil War" Over Second Amendment

by f45 Posted on January 16, 2013

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

As President Obama got ready to release his proposals on gun reform Wednesday, the right wing was continuing its freak-out over alleged “threats” to the Second Amendment. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Obama is acting like a “king” by proposing executive orders on firearms, and there have been multiple threats to impeach Obama for such action, and calls for “civil war” from the right-wing talk show people.

Mother Jones‘ DC bureau chief David Corn joined The Daily Beast‘s Bob Shrum on MSNBC’s The Ed Show with Ed Schultz to talk about the dangers of this kind of rhetoric.

For more of David Corn’s stories, click here. He’s also on Twitter.

Link: 

Corn on MSNBC: Right-Wingers Warn of "Civil War" Over Second Amendment

Posted in GE, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Corn on MSNBC: Right-Wingers Warn of "Civil War" Over Second Amendment

California’s nutty farmland values are spiking

by f45 Posted on January 15, 2013

California’s nutty farmland values are spiking

By Susie Cagle

Over the past few years, farmland values have ballooned nationwide. In California, that rise has not only changed the economics of Central Valley farming, but the crops themselves.

A weak dollar has pushed up demand for exports of California’s goods to Asia, especially almonds, pistachios, and walnuts. In 2011, almonds beat out California’s iconic grapes as the state’s second top commodity, at $3.9 billion a year. Nut-growing farmland value has grown 15 to 20 percent over the last two years, and it’s still consistently selling for 10-20 percent above asking price.

In the economically troubled Central Valley, this is the kind of market that makes short-sighted investors drool and long-view economists wince. From the Associated Press:

Investors both foreign and domestic have taken notice, buying up farmland and driving up agricultural land values in a region with some of the highest residential foreclosure rates.

California’s almond industry, which grows about 80 percent of the global almond supply and 100 percent of the domestic supply, saw the most dramatic growth powered by strong demand from new money-spending middle classes in India and China. The growth has prompted a rush for almond-growing land and pushed almond land values through the roof …

Revenues for almonds and walnuts increased by 30 percent between 2010 and 2011, and revenues for grapes rose by 20 percent, according to the USDA. California’s agricultural exports during that time grew by more than $3 billion …

In Fresno County, almond land was valued at up to $18,000 per acre in 2012, and pistachio land at up to $25,000 per acre. That’s higher than citrus, grape, or tree fruit land — and much higher than the $7,200 average per acre farm real estate value in California last year, according to the USDA.

This farm boom is happening at the same time that California state is trying to figure out how to snag all the farmland it needs to turn into high-speed train tracks. The more lucrative the farming and the more expensive the land, the dirtier the fight over high-speed rail is likely to get. If California ends up using its power of eminent domain on these fancy farms, things could get truly nutty.

Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for

Twitter

.

Read more:

Business & Technology

,

Food

Also in Grist

Please enable JavaScript to see recommended stories

Visit site: 

California’s nutty farmland values are spiking

Posted in GE, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on California’s nutty farmland values are spiking