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After the networks called the Michigan and Mississippi primaries for Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner gave a free-flowing, bonkers press conference at the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Florida. Just…watch:
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Mother Jones
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On two separate days last month, buses carrying employees of major tech companies were blockaded by Bay Area activists. First, a bus bound for Google’s headquarters was stopped at 24th & Valencia in the Mission district of San Francisco. Activists from the anti-gentrification and eviction group Heart of the City boarded the bus and held a sign in front of it which read Warning: Illegal Use of Public Infrastructure. Meanwhile, union organizer Max Alper posed as a Google employee and shouted at the protestors (his real identity was later revealed.
The bus was one of hundreds in the San Francisco Bay Area that provide an estimated 35,000 boardings per day for private companies, who use the city’s MUNI bus stations as pick up and drop off points, free of charge.
A few weeks later, another round of blockades occurred throughout San Francisco and Oakland. Buses bound for Apple, in addition to buses bound for Google, were blockaded. This time signs read “Eviction Free San Francisco“, “Fuck Off Google” and so on. A Google bus window in Oakland was shattered during its blockade.
“LOVE THE BAY / BLOCK THE BUS” pic.twitter.com/IpkqRsDTD7 via @70torinoman
— reclaim UC (@reclaimuc)
The blockades exemplified the San Francisco Bay Area’s rising income disparity and eviction rates, caused largely by the influx of technology companies.
So yesterday, when news broke that San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee was announcing a new series of proposed regulations for these tech buses, it appeared to be a win for area activists and organizers. Among the requirements for the mayor’s plan: shuttle providers would pay a daily fee based on the number of stops they make, plus they would have to yield to Muni buses and avoid steep and narrow streets.
But SFMTA spokesman Paul Rose told Mother Jones the recent blockades did not have any effect on the timing of the mayor’s announcement. And in fact, he says data gathering for the new policy began as early as 2011.
Plus, activists are not likely to find comfort in the mayor’s financial estimates for the pilot program. Due to California’s 1996 ballot measure Proposition 218, the new proposed fees are limited to the cost of providing the new policy. So Mayor Lee expects the permit fees to generate about $1.5 million over the first 18 months, and the new fees will reportedly cost shuttle operators only $1 per day per stop. Activists were demanding the industry pay $271 for each “illegal usage of a bus zone“, which they estimated would total around $1 billion in fines.
The mayor’s proposal must be approved by the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency’s board of directors, which will vote on the proposal January 21. Final plans would be approved by public hearing in late Spring.
Read the full press release here.
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Will San Francisco’s Plan to Charge Tech Buses $1.5 Million Satisfy Activists?
Mother Jones
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On Friday morning the EPA will release its standards for carbon emissions for new power plants, the first major milestone in President Obama’s second-term plan to fight climate change. Detractors are already describing the regulations as a job-killing “salvo” in the supposed “war on coal.” The new rules, which are the first to limit greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, could effectively stop new coal-fired plants from being built.
The standards will limit the number of pounds of carbon that can be released per unit of electricity produced, and according to the Wall Street Journal, are expected to come in at 1,000 pounds per megawatt hour for gas-fired plants, and 1,100 for coal-fired units. Advanced new coal plants produce more than 1,600 pounds per megawatt hour, so to meet the new benchmark, they’d have to substantially cut their carbon emissions (a comparable natural-gas plant clocks about 790). To do this, they’d have to use a process called “carbon capture and storage,” (CCS) where carbon is separated from emissions. And according to experts, there’s still a long way to go before that’s economically viable.
EPA chief Gina McCarthy says she doesn’t see coal dying out, and at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday, she defended the yet-to-be-released rules. “On the basis of the information that we see and what is out in the market today and what is being contemplated today, that CCS technology is feasible,” she said. “We believe coal will continue to represent a significant portion of the energy supply in the decades to come.”
But the skeptics aren’t buying it. “We know that CCS costs billions of dollars,” said Republican John Shimkus of Illinois at the hearing. “For these rules to be promulgated, we know we aren’t going to have any new coal-fired power plants because of the costs of CCS.” The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group, argues that the regulations will actually hinder carbon capture technology. “The federal government should first focus on ensuring the coal industry can economically build second generation plants rather than put a halt to the innovative progress made to date,” said spokeswoman Laura Sheehan in a statement. “If the EPA acts as expected, the United States, which is the current global leader of carbon capture and storage…technology, will cede its ground and fall to the back of the innovation race.”
Coal is already falling behind though, and fast. “Even without CCS, the cost of a coal plant is more expensive than building a natural gas plant, given the low price of gas,” says Howard Herzog, a senior research engineer at the MIT Energy Initiative. “People who have access to gas, they’re going to build gas. This will make the economics even worse.” For coal to compete with natural gas, Herzog says, the price of gas would have to have top $10 per million BTU—roughly three times the current price.
“The natural gas boom is what changed the economics and is doing it to coal. It’s not the EPA,” says David Doniger, the policy director of the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Climate and Clean Air program and former director of climate change policy at the EPA during the Clinton administration. “Power companies are basically agnostic about which power source they’re using.”
Coal’s dominance of the American energy market, which it has securely held for over 60 years, was most recently cemented in the 1970s, when the Powerplant and Industrial Fuel Use Act curtailed the construction of oil- and gas-fired plants after the 1973 oil crisis. But coal’s market share has been gently declining since those restrictions were lifted in 1987—a trend which has rapidly accelerated in recent years with the glut of newly-cheap, domestic natural gas. According to the US Energy Information Administration, “between 2000 and 2012, natural gas generating capacity grew by 96%. By contrast, additions to coal capacity were relatively minor during that period, and petroleum-fired capacity declined by 12%.” In 2012, coal power accounted for 37 percent of total US electricity generation, and natural gas accounted for 30.
Source: US Energy Information Agency
The new rules will only apply to new power plants. Carbon regulations for existing plants will be proposed in June of 2014 and finalized the following year. But older coal plants are already being squeezed by new EPA standards for mercury, arsenic, and other toxins, which go into effect in 2016, according to Faith Bugel, a senior attorney with the Environmental Law & Policy Center in Chicago.
If coal is being targeted, it’s not completely without reason. In a recent study that identified the 100 power plants that produced the most carbon in the US, 98 were coal plants. Forty percent of the country’s carbon emissions currently come from power plants, with coal plants accounting for well over half.
On Thursday Mitch McConnell took to the Senate floor to denounce the forthcoming rules. “It’s just the latest administration salvo in its never ending war on coal—a war against the very people who provide power and energy for our country,” he said. “Congress cannot sit idly by and let the EPA destroy a vital source of energy and a vital source of employment.”
But NRDC’s Doniger argues that coal’s problems go far beyond the regulations. “They’re economic losers who want to blame the EPA for their lack of competitiveness in the marketplace,” he says. “If I’m tying to bench press 400 pounds and I can’t do it, it doesn’t matter if I’m trying to bench press 425.”
Coal power isn’t likely to disappear anytime soon, however. And while Friday’s standards may stop new coal-fired plants from being built, the rules for existing plants—which will be proposed next summer—might have a bigger impact. “If you’re really going to impact climate change, you’ve got to significantly reduce the carbon you’re producing,” says Herzog, which means that “the systems that produce our electricity in the future have to produce an order of magnitude less carbon.” Still, he says, “what we’re doing here is a good first step.”
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Mother Jones
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Abdel Rahman Gasser is one of more than 200 kids stuck in Florida geriatric nursing homes. Gasser family
The Justice Department Monday sued the state of Florida over its longstanding practice of housing medically fragile and disabled children in geriatric nursing homes, alleging that the state is in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The complaint has been a long time in coming. DOJ started investigating Florida’s treatment of medically fragile and disabled kids in late 2011. It’s been warning the state ever since that if it didn’t change its practices and find a way for these kids to be cared for at home with their families or in better settings in the community, it would file suit and force the state to act.
Tea party-dominated Florida has been extremely reluctant to spend any money to provide care for this vulnerable population of children. The state even went so far as to turn down $37.5 million in federal money that would help move children out of nursing homes, all because the money was seen as part of Obamacare. Not even the threat of a civil rights lawsuit, apparently, was enough to get the state to do more.
Monday’s complaint was signed by Thomas Perez, the head of DOJ’s civil rights division who is now taking over as US secretary of labor. During his time at the civil rights division, Perez has been quietly but firmly pushing states to deinstitutionalize the mentally disabled and medically fragile. Under his leadership, the Obama administration has been the first presidential administration to systematically use the Supreme Court’s 1999 decision in Olmstead v. LC to advocate for this vulnerable population. That decision bans states from segregating disabled people in institutions or other settings.
Olmstead was a landmark decision, but it wasn’t until Obama took office that DOJ really started using it aggressively. Since 2009, DOJ has filed suit against 11 states over the discrimination against the physically and mentally disabled, and prosecutors have either investigated or intervened in ongoing private litigation in some way in many others. As a result, for instance, the state of Virginia was forced to close down several “training centers” in which it had institutionalized thousands of people with mental disabilities. Those people are now being moved into community settings or back home with their families. Similar moves are underway in Georgia, Mississippi, and elsewhere thanks to intervention by DOJ. Florida is now the latest—and probably the last such case—to be brought by Perez.
The kids at the heart of the Florida suit are children who, for instance, suffered traumatic brain injuries and are reliant on ventilators, feeding tubes, and 24-hour nursing care because they could die in five minutes if a breathing tube came loose. Many of them also have cognitive deficiencies or are paralyzed in some way. In short, their families need a lot of help taking care of them. Rather than provide that support, Florida’s response has been to push many kids into geriatric nursing homes, which are sometimes cheaper than home care but which also don’t provide children nearly the sorts of developmental opportunities they get with their families or even in foster care.
The Justice Department complaint lays out just how stingy Florida has been in the past decade when it comes to taking care of these kids. According to the complaint, even after Florida supposedly took steps this year to move more out of institutions, nearly 200 children with disabilities are still living in them, where they have only limited interaction with non-disabled people and are often far from their families and friends.
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Justice Department Sues Florida Over Disabled Kids in Nursing Homes
Mother Jones
“Eighteen hours after their fools’ errand of a flight landed in Havana, much of the Moscow-based press corps is still stranded continents away from the Snowden story they were chasing: sightseeing in the region, sniffing around the José Martí airport and wondering who exactly set them up.” —Washington Post, June 25.
“Moscow’s main airport swarmed with journalists from around the globe Wednesday, but the man they were looking for, National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden, was nowhere to be seen.” —Washington Post, June 26.
“Last week, journalists staked out a chain called Shokoladnitsa, hoping they would find Snowden drinking a $7 cappuccino or an $11 nonalcoholic mojito with $9 blini and red caviar.” —Washington Post, July 4.
Since late June, reporters from some of the world’s most prestigious news outlets have been holed up at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who is believed to be in diplomatic limbo in the airport transit zone. Or perhaps he’s in Hong Kong still. Or he’s on a plane. He’s definitely somewhere. Provided he’s not actually just a hologram. In the meantime, the journalists pursuing the story have become the story. So what exactly are those reporters doing in Moscow? Here’s an exclusive look:
7:00 a.m. Rise and shine! Remind yourself that you’re assigned to a major international news story involving diplomatic intrigue and espionage. You’re in a foreign country. Some people would give anything to have your job.
7:20 a.m. Steal soap from hotel bathroom in case you have to catch a flight out today on short notice.
7:40 a.m. Arrive at Terminal F. Confidently inform your editor that you believe Snowden is likely to show up at a coffee shop with working power outlets.
7:42 a.m. Chase the story! Camp out at a coffee shop with working power outlets.
8:30 a.m. Survey of friends on G-chat concludes that drinking in the morning is okay as long as you’re at an airport.
9:16 a.m. Reluctantly change “Alec Baldwin” Google alert from “once a week” to “as it happens.”
10:45 a.m. Retweet story about Edward Snowden and Bitcoins.
10:46 a.m. Buy Bitcoins, “just to see what happens” and because “maybe there’s a story there.”
10:47 a.m. Sell Bitcoins.
11:15 a.m. Check Duty Free shop. Again.
11:35 a.m. Lanky bespectacled twenty-something white male spotted slouching through terminal F. This is it!
11:38 a.m. Bespectacled twenty-something white male is Dieter Hoefengarden, 27, a freelance ornithologist from Munich who’s here on holiday and wants to know why you chased him through terminal F. He tells you you’re the fourth reporter he’s talked to today.
11:42 a.m. Dieter agrees to keep in touch and wishes you good luck in your job search. You say something clever about birds but it gets lost in translation.
12:05–2:05 p.m. Surf journalismjobs.com
2:20 p.m. Discover that the Russian Burger Kings are, disappointingly, nothing like the commercial, and no one laughed at your “Voppers junior” joke. Also your translator has quit.
3:15 p.m. See if Anna Chapman has tweeted anything recently.
3:22: p.m. OMG that duck with the prosthetic foot.
3:30 p.m. Discuss with colleagues at other outlets the legitimate possibility that Snowden might be on that next flight to Ibiza.
3:45 p.m. I mean seriously, this duty free shop is huge.
3:47 p.m. Have second thoughts about filing another story about the Sheremetyevo airport, but you’d rather not get scooped on the ladybug backpack at the Duty Free shop. You send it off to your editor.
4:00 p.m. It’s five o’clock somewhere.
4:01 p.m. Relocate to Shokoladnitsa, a popular cafe for stranded foreign correspondents, on the theory that Snowden will will leave his hiding spot to consume a $9 blini with red caviar, and $11 nonalcoholic mojito.
4:45 p.m. $9 blini with red caviar, expensed.
Read article here:
A Day in the Life of a Snowden-Chasing Journalist at Sheremetyevo International Airport
It was a quiet year for tornadoes — until last week, that is. A string of twisters has ravaged the middle of the country over the past several days, culminating in a two-mile-wide tornado tearing up Moore, Okla., Monday afternoon. So far at least 37 people have been confirmed dead in Oklahoma, and that toll is expected to rise.
The weather has twisted a few of our fellow greenies on the internet into a tizzy. “Extreme storm, climate change, OMFG!” they cry. We almost had a seizure reading this missive from the Wonkette folks, and we’re fairly sure they had one while writing it.
But the science on tornadoes and climate change isn’t clear enough to OMFG about it just yet. As Grist’s John Upton reported recently, the number of twisters has been roller-coastering up and down from year to year. “It certainly feels like one of those boom-bust weather cycles that we expect from climate change. But there doesn’t appear to be any evidence directly linking the recent tornado cycle to global warming.”
The Associated Press wraps it up with this insight: “Will there be more or fewer twisters as global warming increases? There is no easy answer.”
“Most climate scientists believe that clearer answers will be forthcoming with better climate modeling tools — and patience,” according to the Huffington Post.
Post-Superstorm Sandy, we’ve entered a kind of fugue state when it comes to natural disaster, forgetting that there has been a long history of extreme weather events that sometimes have nothing to do with how much carbon is in our atmosphere. For as disastrous as Sandy was, be honest: You relished pointing out that climate change connection.
We really like to find reason in chaos, though, and we also like to blame things! At one point today there were several little kids trapped in the rubble of a building in Moore, Okla., that earlier today was their elementary school. If we can’t blame climate change, who can we blame?
Maybe scientists will conclude that this really is the fault of that atmospheric carbon. Maybe they won’t! For now, at least, the only thing I’ll be blaming for this mess is Sarah Palin. Because, you know.
Susie Cagle writes and draws news for Grist. She also writes and draws tweets for
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Can we blame climate change for the tornado that took out Moore, Okla.?
Mother Jones
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My Twitter feed has become almost totally consumed by reaction to today’s story about the government obtaining records of phone calls made by AP reporters:
The records obtained by the Justice Department listed outgoing calls for the work and personal phone numbers of individual reporters….In all, the government seized the records for more than 20 separate telephone lines assigned to AP and its journalists in April and May of 2012.
….The government would not say why it sought the records. U.S. officials have previously said in public testimony that the U.S. attorney in Washington is conducting a criminal investigation into who may have provided information contained in a May 7, 2012, AP story about a foiled terror plot. The story disclosed details of a CIA operation in Yemen that stopped an al-Qaida plot in the spring of 2012 to detonate a bomb on an airplane bound for the United States.
The government has been obtaining phone records like this for over a decade now, and it’s been keeping their requests secret that entire time. Until now, the press has showed only sporadic interest in this. But not anymore. I expect media interest in terror-related pen register warrants to show a healthy spike this week.
That could be a good thing. It’s just too bad that it took monitoring of journalists to get journalists fired up about this.
Source:
Fed Monitoring of Terror-Related Phone Calls Finally About to Get Some Attention
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Codex: Tau Empire – Games Workshop
Codex: Tau Empire is your comprehensive guide to unleashing the might of the Tau upon the battlefields of the 41 st Millennium. This volume introduces the four Tau castes, the Ethereals, and their mercenary allies. This dynamic race has begun its Third Sphere Expansion, setting forth into the stars to grow the borders of their burgeoning empire and bring the […]
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Trident K9 Warriors – Michael Ritland & Gary Brozek
As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he’d found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer than 1 percent of […]
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Warhammer: High Elves – Games Workshop
Warhammer: High Elves is the indispensible guide to the mighty realm of Ulthuan, its regal lords and glorious armies. This book details Ulthuan’s turbulent history from the first cataclysmic war against Chaos, through years of schism, decline and determined defiance, and provides you with full rules to field a High Elf army in games of Warhammer. […]
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Inside of a Dog – Alexandra Horowitz
A fresh look at what goes on inside the minds of dogs “that causes one’s dog-loving heart to flutter with astonishment and gratitude” (The New York Times Book Review)—from a cognitive scientist with a background at The New Yorker. As one of the millions of dog owners in America, Horowitz is naturally curious to learn what her dog thinks about and knows. And […]
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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier
From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel’s Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, says, “Yes, […]
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The Honest Life – Jessica Alba
As a new mom, Jessica Alba wanted to create the safest, healthiest environment for her family. But she was frustrated by the lack of trustworthy information on how to live healthier and cleaner—delivered in a way that a busy mom could act on without going to extremes. In 2012, with serial entrepreneur Brian Lee and environmental advocate Christopher Gavigan, […]
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The Genius of Dogs – Brian Hare & Vanessa Woods
Brian Hare, dog researcher, evolutionary anthropologist, and founder of the Duke Canine Cognition Center, and Vanessa Woods offer revolutionary new insights into dog intelligence and the interior lives of our smartest pets. In the past decade, we have learned more about how dogs think than in the last century. Breakthroughs in cognitive science, pioneered by […]
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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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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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Cesar Millan’s Short Guide to a Happy Dog – Cesar Millan
After more than 9 seasons as TV’s Dog Whisperer, Cesar Millan has a new mission: to use his unique insights about dog psychology to create stronger, happier relationships between humans and their canine companions. Both inspirational and practical, A Short Guide to a Happy Dog draws on thousands of training encounter […]
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The state of Wisconsin is seriously lagging in the wind power boom that’s sweeping much of the rest of the nation — and it’s not because it lacks for wind.
In 2012, a year that saw a nationwide surge in wind farm installations as developers rushed to beat expiring tax credits, Wisconsin added only 18 megawatts of capacity.
By comparison, Michigan and Ohio, with much lower wind potential, had already installed 138 MW and 308 MW in just the first three quarters.
Compared to other Midwestern states, Wisconsin ranks at the bottom in both wind projects under construction and in queue, according to the American Wind Energy Association.
Challenges to wind energy have come from nearly every level of government.
/ Ralf BroskvarA coal-fired power plant pumping out pollution in Sheboygan County, where a small town is worried about the health effects of four proposed wind turbines.
Gov. Scott Walker (R) has pushed legislation that would hamper wind developments, and some state lawmakers and local officials have also tried to throw roadblocks in front of the wind industry.
The town of Sherman, Wis., for example, is kicking up a fuss over a wind developer’s application to build four wind turbines, enough to power 4,000 homes. Town officials have asked the state to impose a moratorium on pending wind farm applications.
[U]nder state law, town leaders were given 45 days … to review the developer’s application to ensure it’s complete. Once the application is deemed complete, they’ll have another 90 days to hold a public hearing and then vote to approve or reject it.
But Sherman Town Chairman William Goehring said town officials feel that the state-imposed time line should be put on hold given unresolved questions about potential health risks with wind farms and a lack of clarity under state law on how wind farms can meet noise standards.
Never mind that there’s no scientific evidence that wind turbines make people sick (though they do make some people annoyed).
When will the Badger State pull its head out of the snow and join the rest of the nation in the wind- and solar-powered energy and jobs boom?
John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who
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Sally Jewell: Even some Republicans like her!
By a vote of 87 to 11, the Senate on Wednesday confirmed Obama’s pick to be the next secretary of the interior: Sally Jewell.
Many enviros like her because she’s a longtime conservationist who has worked for the last eight years as CEO of big outdoor equipment co-op REI. She takes climate change seriously and has spoken favorably about a carbon tax.
The extractive industries don’t loathe her because she started her career as a petroleum engineer and went on to become a commercial banker working with natural resources companies. “It’s been a while since I fracked a well; I think it was 1979,” she said at her confirmation hearing last month.
“How’d you get appointed by this administration?” GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.) joked at that hearing. “Sounds like someone a Republican president would appoint. That’s a remarkable background.”
Leading up to her confirmation, Jewell talked about the need for a “balanced approach” to energy production and conservation.
While Republicans have frequently criticized the Obama administration’s environmental policies — and the officials who have carried them out — Jewell won praise for her business background and openness to working with different constituencies. …
While some Republican senators, such as John Barrasso (Wyo.), remained opposed to Jewell and voted against her confirmation, none of them spoke against her during Wednesday’s floor debate.
At Interior, Jewell will oversee more than 500 million acres of national parks and other public lands, plus more than 1 billion acres offshore. The lands are used for energy development, mining, recreation and other purposes.
One of the first challenges Jewell will face is a proposed rule requiring companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to publicly disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations.
The administration proposed a draft “fracking” rule last year, but twice has delayed a final rule amid complaints by the oil and gas industry that the original proposal was too burdensome. A new draft is expected this spring.
Jewell also is expected to continue to push development of renewable energy such as wind and solar power, both of which are priorities of the interior secretary she succeeds, Ken Salazar.
Salazar also oversaw a huge jump in oil and gas drilling on public lands. Is that fossil-fuel surge consistent with Jewell’s idea of a “balanced approach”? We’ll find out.
Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on
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