Author Archives: FrancescaGresha

The BP Oil Spill Happened 5 Years Ago Today. We’re Still Paying the Price.

Mother Jones

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The Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago today, killing 11 men and sending nearly 5 million barrels of oil into the sea. After the well was finally plugged, the national media went home, but the story is still very much unfolding everywhere from federal courtrooms to Louisiana backyards.

Let’s have a look back at the nation’s worst-ever oil spill, by the numbers:

Tim McDonnell

Icon credits (via Noun Project unless otherwise noted): Oil barrel—Marco Hernandez; leaky pipe—Evan Udelsman; airplane—Luis Prado; boat—Kevin Chu; cash—Natalie Clay; eviction—Luis Prado; money paper—Alex Tai; pelican—Jennifer Gamboa; birds—Joe Looney; dolphins—Matthew Hall; oil spill—Andrew Hainen; permit—Luis Prado; oil rig—Patrick Trouvé; tourist—Jerald Kohrs; oyster—RedKoala/Shutterstock

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The BP Oil Spill Happened 5 Years Ago Today. We’re Still Paying the Price.

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Non-Chart of the Day: Where’s the Austerity?

Mother Jones

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Tyler Cowen passes along the following chart, a modified version of one Matt Yglesias used to show the trend of total government expenditures (federal + state + local) and declare “2014 is the year American austerity came to an end”:

This comes from Angus, who comments incredulously: “From this graph I concluded one of two things must be true depending on one’s definition of austerity. Either austerity means nominal cuts and we never had any of it, or austerity means cuts relative to trend and we are still savagely in its grasp.”

Oh come on. There’s an obvious third option. Let’s take a look at this chart done right:

This is real per-capita government expenditures (using 2014 dollars). I used CPI, but it looks the same no matter which inflation measure you prefer (PCE, GDP deflator, % of GDP, whatever).

Austerity is all about the trajectory of government spending, and this is what it looks like. You can argue about whether flat spending represents austerity, but a sustained decline counts in anyone’s book. The story here is simple: for a little while, in 2009 and 2010, stimulus spending partially offset state and local cuts, but by the end of 2010 the stimulus had run its course. From then on, the drop in government expenditures was steady and significant. It was also unprecedented. If you run this chart back for 50 years you’ll never see anything like it. In all previous recessions and their aftermaths, government spending rose.

Finally, in 2014, the spending decline stopped. Austerity was over, and now we’re even starting to see a small uptick in government spending. At the same time, the economy started to pick up.

This is not bulletproof evidence that austerity is bad for the economy, or that government spending helps it. But it’s certainly consistent with the hypothesis, and it’s really not hard to see.

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Non-Chart of the Day: Where’s the Austerity?

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Dot Earth Blog: A Fully Wrought Life – Stones Pianist, Tree Farmer, Green Blog Pioneer

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Gardening Basics For Dummies, Mini Edition – Steven A. Frowine & National Gardening Association

Your green-thumb guide to planning, planting, and cultivating a garden With some basic knowledge, the right tools, and a little work, anyone can transform a boring old yard into a beautiful garden. This friendly guide tells you how. From improving your soil to selecting plants and caring for them, you get just the information you need to start playing in the

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Warhammer: Wood Elves – Games Workshop

For millennia, the Wood Elves have dwelt beneath the leaves of Athel Loren, defending their greenwood home from the perils of the world. When the King in the Woods sounds his horn, longbows are strung and spears are sharpened as the hosts of Athel Loren assemble beneath ancestral banners. In the depths of the forests, enchantresses sing songs of awakening, r

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America’s most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog’s Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of German shepherds and as t

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Landscaping Basics For Dummies, Mini Edition – Philip Giroux & National Gardening Association

Create the yard you’ve always yearned for A beautiful landscape reflects well on your house, making it a welcome part of a neighborhood or native terrain. And it dramatically increases your home’s value. Landscaping Basics For Dummies gets you started on turning the little patch of earth you call your own into a personal paradise. Open the book and

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Straw Bale Gardens – Joel Karsten

You’ll find a bumper crop of vegetable gardening books on the shelves today, but it is a very rare title that actually contains new information. Straw Bale Gardens teaches gardening in a way that isn’t only new but is thoroughly innovative and revolutionary to home gardening. It solves every impediment today’s home gardeners face: bad soil, weeds, a short gr

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Cesar’s Way – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

“I rehabilitate dogs. I train people.” —Cesar Millan There are at least 68 million dogs in America, and their owners lavish billions of dollars on them every year. So why do so many pampered pets have problems? In this definitive and accessible guide, Cesar Millan—star of National Geographic Channel’s hit show Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan —reveals what do

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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz

The bestselling book that asks what dogs know and how they think, now in paperback. The answers will surprise and delight you as Alexandra Horowitz, a cognitive scientist, explains how dogs perceive their daily worlds, each other, and that other quirky animal, the human. Horowitz introduces the reader to dogs’ perceptual and cognitive abilities and then draw

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All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition – Mel Bartholomew

Rapidly increasing in popularity, square foot gardening is the most practical, foolproof way to grow a home garden. That explains why author and gardening innovator Mel Bartholomew has sold more than two million books describing how to become a successful DIY square foot gardener. Now, with the publication of All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition , t

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Codex: Astra Militarum (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

The Astra Militarum are the mighty Hammer of the Emperor, an army so vast that it has never been fully recorded by the scribes of the Administratum. Drawn from a million worlds, its men and women are the thin line between Humanity and the void. On hundreds of thousands of warzones across the galaxy the armies of the Astra Militarum hold back the advance of a

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Codex: Militarum Tempestus (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

Codex: Militarum Tempestus The Scions of the Militarum Tempestus are the highly skilled elite of the Astra Militarum. Trained from youth in the combat schools of the Schola Progenium, each one has been psycho-conditioned to obey without question and kill without remorse. In battle, the toughest missions fall to the Tempestus Scions. Their specialist sq

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Dot Earth Blog: A Fully Wrought Life – Stones Pianist, Tree Farmer, Green Blog Pioneer

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WATCH: The Religious Right has Spread the "Good News of Homophobia" Around the World Fiore Cartoon

Mother Jones

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Mark Fiore is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist and animator whose work has appeared in the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, the San Francisco Examiner, and dozens of other publications. He is an active member of the American Association of Editorial Cartoonists, and has a website featuring his work.

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WATCH: The Religious Right has Spread the "Good News of Homophobia" Around the World Fiore Cartoon

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, Mop, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on WATCH: The Religious Right has Spread the "Good News of Homophobia" Around the World Fiore Cartoon