Author Archives: GeoffrePutilin

Amazon’s “advanced shopping technology” will end the greatest threat to humanity: long checkout lines.

by GeoffrePutilin Posted on December 5, 2016

Grist sent former fellow Melissa Cronin aboard a four-seat prop plane to the tiny village of Tyonek, Alaska, this summer. Her on-the-ground investigation helped expose a Texas energy company’s plans to develop a coal mine across wetlands and forest that are extremely valuable to the local indigenous people.

Through her dogged reporting, Melissa published Coal’s Last Gamble — the type of fearless journalism we are proud to produce. If you missed the story, check it out here.

As part of our annual winter fund drive, we’re highlighting the stories of 2016 that defined our year. Why? Now more than ever, the world desperately needs independent nonprofit journalism. With the media landscape rife with antagonism, spectacle, and fake news, Grist dives deep and brings important stories you just can’t find elsewhere.

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Grist’s journalism is powered by readers like you. So, if you learned something valuable from Coal’s Last Gamble or any of the great work the team brought you this year, please consider making a gift!

As an added bonus, all new monthly donors will receive a limited-edition Grist steel pint glass to drink your political sorrows away toast to the progress we make toward a more sustainable, just future. Supplies are limited — get yours now.

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Amazon’s “advanced shopping technology” will end the greatest threat to humanity: long checkout lines.

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Texas Wants Its Own Fort Knox

by GeoffrePutilin Posted on May 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Texas independence—or paranoia—strikes again. In recent years, some Lone Star officials, including former Gov. Rick Perry, have flirted with secession. Last month the new Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, asked the state national guard to monitor a US military exercise that some residents fear is cover for a federal takeover of the state that will use Walmarts as staging areas. And now the state is on the verge of seizing the gold owned by the state that is stored in New York City and building a massive bunker to hoard this booty.

Per the Houston Chronicle:

AUSTIN — Texas could get its own version of Fort Knox, the impenetrable depository for gold bullion, if the Legislature gets its way.

Under House Bill 483, approved unanimously on Tuesday by the state Senate, Comptroller Glenn Hegar would be authorized to establish and administer the state’s first bullion depository at a site not yet determined.

No other state has its own state bullion depository, officials said.

The state government has about $1 billion in gold bullion stored outside the state, mostly in the basement of the Federal Reserve building in Manhattan. The gold has been there for years—because it’s so annoying to move, it’s easier to keep everyone’s gold in the same place, and the financial center of the world is the most obvious place. When bullion changes hands, it’s mostly on paper. So why does Texas now need to grab all its gold? Is it just because Texans don’t trust New Yorkers? Is it really that simple?

Yes:

“New York will hate this,” state sen. Lois Kolkhorst said of the bill that now goes to Gov. Greg Abbott to be signed into law. “To me, that and the fact that it will save Texas money makes it a golden idea.”

The cost-cutting bit refers to the storage fees Texas has to pay to keep its gold offsite, although Texas would still have to shell out money for upkeep and security if it went the DIY route. Incidentally, Perry supported the Texas Bullion Depository when it was first proposed in 2013, telling Glenn Beck, “If we own it, I will suggest to you that that’s not someone else’s determination whether we can take possession of it back or not.”

But building a giant vault to house all the state’s gold will be the easy part. The tough task? Safely and securely moving 57,000 pounds of gold from Gotham to Texas. Perhaps we now know the plot for the eighth Fast and Furious movie.

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Texas Wants Its Own Fort Knox

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Beyond The 3 R’s: How Schools Are Incorporating Green Living Into Curriculum

by GeoffrePutilin Posted on April 7, 2015

earth911

Continued – 

Beyond The 3 R’s: How Schools Are Incorporating Green Living Into Curriculum

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The US Economy Imploded Last Quarter

by GeoffrePutilin Posted on June 25, 2014

Mother Jones

Yikes. In the first quarter GDP didn’t grow by an anemic 0.1 percent. Nor did it shrink by 1 percent. According to the Commerce Department’s final tally, it shrunk by 2.9 percent.

Everyone is brushing this off because other economic signals suggest it was a one-off event. And maybe so. But even if it is, it probably knocks about 1 percent off the full-year figure compared to a more normal growth rate of, say, at least 2 percent. The only way it turns out to be a nothingburger is if this number really is an anomaly and the economy makes up for it with supercharged growth for the rest of the year.

I have my doubts about that. I just don’t buy the tired excuse that the Q1 number was weather related. Something happened.

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The US Economy Imploded Last Quarter

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