Author Archives: kastijoo8753

It’s True. Tim Kaine Rules at the Harmonica.

by kastijoo8753 Posted on August 16, 2016

Mother Jones

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While visiting a local brewery in Asheville, North Carolina, on Monday, Tim Kaine broke out his legendary harmonica skills to join a bluegrass band for an impromptu performance of Bob Dylan’s “Wagon Wheel.” It was the first time the public has seen the Virginia senator, a noted harmonica enthusiast, play the instrument since Hillary Clinton announced him as her running mate last month.

The Democratic vice presidential candidate also sang (!) and sipped on some post-performance brew. Dad jokes and mediocre Donald Trump impressions not included.

“That felt great,” Kaine said. “Nothing makes me more nervous than doing that, but it’s good to get out of your comfort zone.”

According to the New York Times, Kaine lugs around multiple harmonicas in his briefcase at all times.

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It’s True. Tim Kaine Rules at the Harmonica.

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Design Lampshades for Solar Lanterns to Help People in Need

by kastijoo8753 Posted on January 17, 2014

During Panasonic’s Cut Out the Darkness project, visitors to the company’s website can design lampshades for solar lanterns that will be donated to regions without electricity. Photo: Panasonic

Want to light up the life of someone who needs it? Now you can. Panasonic’s Cut Out the Darkness project allows visitors to the company’s website to design lampshades that could be sent along with solar lanterns to those who live in areas without access to electricity.

Worldwide, one in five people lives without electricity. Those people face a number of economic and health problems, according to Panasonic, since they can’t perform basic tasks like studying in the evening or receive medical treatment at night. Additionally, many people in these regions use kerosene lamps, which pose fire risks and cause health issues from the smoke.

Panasonic first became involved with this issue through its 100 Thousand Solar Lanterns initiative, which aims to donate 100,000 solar lanterns to those without electricity by 2018, the company’s 100th anniversary. These solar lanterns charge during the day and provide light at night. They also reduce CO2 emissions, according to a company press release. In 2013, Panasonic kicked off the project by donating 8,000 solar lanterns to nonprofits, humanitarian groups and refugee camps in Asia and Africa.

In 2013, Panasonic donated 8,000 solar LED lanterns throughout Asia and Africa. Photo: Panasonic

Now, to raise awareness about the difficulties faced by residents of regions without electricity and to involve people with the company’s work, Panasonic is asking its website visitors to get creative and design images for lampshades using paper-cut techniques. You don’t necessarily have to be handy with scissors, since the designs are made virtually using a Web application — all folding, drawing and cutting are done with the click of a button.

A Web application allows users to easily make their own cutout designs. Photo: Panasonic

In February, people can vote for their favorite designs, and the top 100 will be turned into lampshades and donated with the solar lanterns. Panasonic plans to transport the donated solar lanterns and shades to recipients in March.

Eleven recognized paper-cut artists from around the world have also contributed designs to support the project — check out their work for inspiration.

To participate by creating a design or voting, visit the Cut Out the Darkness project’s home page.

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Design Lampshades for Solar Lanterns to Help People in Need

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The Warming Climate Could Scorch America’s West

by kastijoo8753 Posted on September 25, 2013

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the Atlantic Cities website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Long-lasting drought has been the force behind several of this year’s American calamities. Hot temperatures and scarce rainfall set the stage for the explosive development of California’s Rim Fire, turned Utah into one big disaster zone, and prolonged the worst drought in Colorado since the 1950s.

These western areas should brace themselves for even more onslaughts of ugly parching, according to a new study that suggests a warmer climate will bake them (as well as many other places) like a Spicy Wing Zing under a 7-Eleven heat lamp.

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The Warming Climate Could Scorch America’s West

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Immigration Reform Is Driving Republicans Insane

by kastijoo8753 Posted on June 27, 2013

Mother Jones

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Today, Dave Weigel passes along the non-news that House Republicans don’t care—at all—about the Senate immigration reform bill. Rep. Peter Roskam, the Republican deputy whip, outlined the reasons for reporters this morning, and it was mostly the same stuff we’ve been hearing about forever. But then there was this:

But the no-go reason Roskam kept returning to was all about electoral politics. “If you’re the White House right now,” he theorized, “and you have a signature law — that is, Obamacare — that is completely a legacy issue for the president, and it’s looking like implementation is going to be a disaster, and if you’re on your heels in terms of these scandals, and you’re flummoxed by the NSA, there’s one issue out there that’s good for the White House. That’s immigration. The question is: How much energy does the White House actually put into getting the legislation, or do they want to keep the issue for 2014?”

It’s a paradoxical theory with a little whiff of projection. Roskam (like many Republicans) was saying that a desperate White House would rather run against Republicans in 2014 on the immigration issue than pass a bill and remove the issue. With that in mind Roskam was saying Republicans would probably kill the bill, thus keeping the issue alive. How far has Obama crawled inside their heads?

Well, either Obama is way inside their heads, or else Roskam is desperately flailing around to figure out a way to avoid having Republicans take the blame for the failure of immigration reform. Maybe a bit of both.

Here in the real world, we know perfectly well why Obama is keeping a low profile: because everyone on both sides of the aisle wants him to. Obama Derangement Syndrome is so virulent on the right that speaking in favor of the bill would almost certainly doom the whole enterprise. That’s the reality of the Republican base these days, and Roskam knows it. We’ve already got Obamacare, Obamaphones, and Obamacars, and this would just add ObamaMexicans to the list.

Of course, the conundrum for House Republicans is that Roskam is right: Killing the bill probably would be good for Democrats in the short run. It would gin up lots of Latino resentment against Republicans and probably help Democratic turnout in 2014. Conversely, passing the bill would be good for Republicans. They wouldn’t get a ton of credit for it right away, but at least it would blunt Democratic efforts to rally the Latino community to the polls. Relatively speaking, that’s a win for the GOP, which would then have a freer hand to set the terms of debate for next year’s midterms.

So we’re faced with a peculiar prospect here. Democrats are fighting to pass a bill because it’s the right thing to do, even though they’ll probably take an electoral hit from it. Republicans are fighting to kill a bill, even though it would be an electoral winner, because a small part of their base hates it. It’s basically electoral suicide because they simply can’t get out from under the tea party elephant that’s strangling the life out of them. They built a monster, and now it’s turned on them.

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Immigration Reform Is Driving Republicans Insane

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Foraging Goes Virtual

by kastijoo8753 Posted on June 2, 2013

Virginia Belder

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Here’s the Way Diet Soda Can be Just as Bad For You as Crack

13 minutes ago

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Foraging Goes Virtual

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A Tax Everyone Can Love (But No One Actually Does)

by kastijoo8753 Posted on April 21, 2013

Mother Jones

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Doyle McManus writes today that a carbon tax would promote efficiency, reduce air pollution, slow climate change, and increase energy independence. What’s more, conservative economists like the idea:

If it were part of a “revenue neutral” deal, in which all the taxes that came in were returned to the taxpayers some other way, it wouldn’t cost a nickel. If it were part of a revenue-raising deal, in which some of the taxes didn’t come back, it could help cut the federal deficit and reduce the national debt.

So let’s consider this a test of the American political system: How long can Congress resist an idea this good?

How long indeed? Let’s allow McManus himself to answer the question:

Until 2011, there was at least one conservative champion of a carbon tax in the House, Rep. Bob Inglis (R-S.C.). But Inglis was defeated in the 2010 GOP primary by a tea party candidate who criticized him for believing in global warming. “I really am the worst commercial for this idea,” said Inglis, who now runs a think tank promoting the carbon tax. “There are lots of Republicans in Congress who know better … but they’re not going to come out of their foxholes until they think it’s safe.”

Okey doke. Last year there were about 240 Republican House members. A grand total of one (1) supported a carbon tax. For this, he was primaried and lost. Today the number of Republican House members who support a carbon tax stands at zero (0).

So how long can Congress resist an idea this good? Probably a good long time.

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A Tax Everyone Can Love (But No One Actually Does)

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The Next Step in Social Media Pranking

by kastijoo8753 Posted on April 19, 2013

Mother Jones

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Dave Weigel reports that a fellow with the Twitter handle @FootyTube_ quickly changed his handle last night to @Dzhokhar_ and swapped out his avatar for a thumbnail of the suspect in the Boston bombings. That’s hilarious!

Or not. But I predict a growth industry in this kind of thing. FootyTube’s idiocy was easy enough to see through, but someone out there now has the bright idea of creating a Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr/etc. account and populating it over time with grievances of some kind. Islamic, gun nut, anti-tax, libertarian, PETA, whatever. Just create a nice long chain of posts and then wait for the next terrorist attack. As soon as pics and names are available, switch the account name, make it public, and wait to be discovered.

Actually, I’m a little surprised this hasn’t happened yet. It takes some planning ahead and could be a little tedious, but surely there are plenty of bright high school juniors who are bored enough to think this would be a pretty cool prank?

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The Next Step in Social Media Pranking

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EPA sued over failure to protect bees from pesticides

by kastijoo8753 Posted on March 22, 2013

EPA sued over failure to protect bees from pesticides

By John Upton

Shutterstock

A federal courtroom will bee-come a hive of activity, with lawyers attempting to sting the government into action over buzz-killing insecticides.

The battle for the bees is headed to court.

Beekeepers and activist groups, fed up with the wanton use of insecticides that kill bees and other pollinators, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday. They are suing to try to force the EPA to ban or better regulate neonicotinoids and other pesticides that kill bees and butterflies and lead to colony collapse disorder.

From a press release put out by the Center for Food Safety, one of the plaintiffs in the case:

“Beekeepers and environmental and consumer groups have demonstrated time and time again over the last several years that EPA needs to protect bees. The agency has refused, so we’ve been compelled to sue,” said Center for Food Safety attorney, Peter T. Jenkins. “EPA’s unlawful actions should convince the Court to suspend the approvals for clothianidin and thiamethoxam products until those violations are resolved.”

The case also challenges the use of so-called “conditional registrations” for these pesticides, which expedites commercialization by bypassing meaningful premarket review. Since 2000, over two-thirds of pesticide products, including clothianidin and thiamethoxam, have been brought to market as conditional registrations.

“Pesticide manufacturers use conditional registrations to rush bee-toxic products to market, with little public oversight,” said Paul Towers, a spokesperson for Pesticide Action Network. “As new independent research comes to light, the agency has been slow to re-evaluate pesticide products and its process, leaving bees exposed to an ever-growing load of hazardous pesticides.”

The lawsuit comes a week after the European Union failed in an effort to ban the use of neonicotinoids. From The Independent:

To the dismay of environmental campaigners, but to the relief of the pesticide industry and some agricultural scientists, the vote resulted in a stalemate. 13 of the 27 European Union member states voted in favour of a ban, while nine voted against and five, including Britain, abstained.

The arithmetic of the vote meant that the necessary qualified majority — with votes weighted according to member states’ populations — could not be obtained, and so the vote was deemed inconclusive.

However, the question of a ban is likely to be voted on again fairly soon. If the issue remains deadlocked, it is possible that the European Commission, the EU civil service which proposed the ban in the first place, could act to bring one in on its own initiative.

John Upton is a science aficionado and green news junkie who

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Creating PACs and Spending Their Money

by kastijoo8753 Posted on March 16, 2013

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This story originally appeared on the ProPublica website.

In August 2008, as the right wing of the Republican Party grew increasingly disenchanted with the party’s direction, the men from Russo, Marsh and Associates sensed opportunity: They created a political action committee, Our Country Deserves Better, and in time launched the Tea Party Express.

Russo, Marsh—an established California outfit of Republican consultants—was just getting started. The firm formed a second political committee, this one with a pro-military agenda. And eventually, seizing on the President’s unpopularity in certain circles, they opened a third, the Campaign to Defeat Barack Obama.

Throughout the 2012 election cycle, the committees were relentless. In email after email, they pleaded for small donations to run ads supporting candidates who would defeat President Obama’s “socialist” agenda. And it worked: They collected more than $14 million in donations—from all over the country, and from donors who gave as little as $10 to elect Ted Cruz as a Republican senator from Texas or to put Mitt Romney in the White House.

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Creating PACs and Spending Their Money

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New law aims to make eating lions illegal, because right now it’s totally not

by kastijoo8753 Posted on March 13, 2013

New law aims to make eating lions illegal, because right now it’s totally not

By Susie Cagle

When Mufasa gave Simba that speech about the circle of life, he maybe should have included an extra warning about becoming lion jerky for some hungry folks in the U.S. Because apparently that is a thing.

Illinois Rep. Luis Arroyo wants to make eating lions illegal in his state, and the proposal is a lot more controversial than you might think. If passed, the Lion Meat Act would make it “”unlawful for any person to slaughter a lion or for any person to possess, breed, import or export from this State, buy, or sell lions for the purpose of slaughter.” Right now, eating lion is legal nationwide.

safaripartners

Burgers? Tacos? Snack sticks? Really?

For a ban on eating a threatened species, Arroyo’s proposal is garnering a lot of criticism — and not just from the guy who runs the weird-meat store, though he’s certainly the most annoyed. Richard Czimer of Czimer’s Game & Seafood, Inc. (mm mm lion snack sticks and bear bacon!) told National Geographic that the ban is “trying to curtail a choice.” Of Arroyo: “He’s discriminating against all my customers and everybody who wants to try something new,” said Czimer, who was only able to buy two lousy lions last year.

Czimer, who was jailed for six months in 2003 for buying and selling illegal tiger and leopard meat, is mostly but not entirely alone in his love for lion, which also enjoys a bit of market share in Arizona. Other critics of the Lion Meat Act seem to be bothered by the big-government overreach of preventing people from eating threatened species. From Take Part:

“Most people would never even conceive of eating lion meat,” said Kristina Rasmussen, vice president of the Illinois Policy Institue. “If this is a problem—and I’m not convinced that it is—surely it can be solved by civil action and community consensus and open debate. Do we have to rush in with a law, especially when we have so many other problems right in front of our face?”

Yeah, ‘cuz when did laws ever make things better? More from NatGeo:

“[E]ating carnivores is mostly not a good idea,” argued Luke Hunter, president of Panthera, a U.S. based wild-cat conservation group …

For one, carnivore populations worldwide are dwindling—the African lion is listed as threatened by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and is endangered in certain West African countries.

Though wild lions aren’t killed for food, there’s concern that weak or poorly regulated laws regarding the ownership, breeding, and trade of captive big cats in the U.S.—in particular tigers—could fuel the black market for big-cat parts, Will Gartshore, senior program officer for U.S. Government Relations at WWF, said in an email.

So, sorry: Legal or not, big cats aren’t the best burger choice. But if you’re interested in some other adventurous meat-eating, BuyExoticMeats.com is currently having a sale on its “Exotic Meat Club” monthly package. October is the “Manager’s Special”! Yum, cross your fingers for some big cats!

If you were skeeved out by the idea of horse meat — which is harder to get in the U.S. than lion — do not click on that link. And if you care about the environment, or still have a special place in your heart for baby Simba (who doesn’t?), might I recommend a black bean patty, or an invasive species?

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

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New law aims to make eating lions illegal, because right now it’s totally not

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