Author Archives: VirgilioWjd

AFFH: What You Need to Know to Keep Up With the Latest Right-Wing Outrage

by VirgilioWjd Posted on July 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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Conservatives have a whole laundry list of stuff they’re outraged about: Benghazi, Fast & Furious, Agenda 21, Obamaphones, etc. etc. So what’s the latest from the right wing? Stanley Kurtz tells us:

Conservative opinion has been alive with outrage over AFFH for a month now.

Huh. Never heard of it. But a few minutes of Googling will get me up to speed. Hold on a bit.

OK. So it turns out that the Fair Housing Act of 1968 outlaws most of the obvious forms of housing discrimination, and has done a relatively good job of enforcing discrimination rules since then. However, it also requires the Department of Housing and Urban Development to run its programs in a way that affirmatively furthers fair housing. That is, if a local community is heavily segregated, it has to affirmatively try to reduce that segregation in order to qualify for HUD funds.

It turns out that HUD hasn’t done much of anything about this particular aspect of the law, and President Obama would like them to start. So a couple of years ago HUD started developing guidelines called, uncreatively, “Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.” Last year they released a tool for assessing segregation and fair housing choice that can be used by community planners, and a few days ago they released the final 377-page rule.

That’s the basics. It’s surprisingly hard to get more because Google returns almost exclusively either (a) evaluations of AFFH by civil rights and fair housing groups, or (b) outraged rants from conservative outlets. Ordinary newspapers seem to have little interest (or, as Kurtz puts it, “The mainstream press has been straining to avoid AFFH”).

Obviously I’m not going to pretend to be an instant expert now that I’ve read half a dozen pieces about AFFH, but basically the concrete goals seem to be (1) providing communities with data regarding the racial, ethnic and income distribution of housing in their towns; (2) encouraging and funding affordable housing in prosperous areas; and (3) pressing communities to change zoning rules that promote segregation.

Will it work? Hard to say. HUD’s only tool for enforcing its guidelines is to withhold money for HUD programs if communities don’t comply. However, prosperous communities don’t get much HUD funding in the first place, which means HUD has little leverage in high-income suburbs. They’ll probably be able to almost entirely avoid the long arm of HUD tyranny.

Anyway, that’s that. Mostly I just wanted to let everyone know that this thing called AFFH is the latest outrage among the conservative base. It fits in perfectly with their hysteria over Agenda 21 and their general belief that Obama wants to round up every well-off white person in the country and pack them like sardines into high-rise buildings in big cities. Now you know.

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AFFH: What You Need to Know to Keep Up With the Latest Right-Wing Outrage

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California Gov. Jerry Brown gets more ambitious about tackling climate change

by VirgilioWjd Posted on January 6, 2015

California Gov. Jerry Brown gets more ambitious about tackling climate change

By on 6 Jan 2015commentsShare

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) wants to make his state even more of a climate leader during his fourth and final term. In a wide-ranging inaugural speech yesterday, he laid out plans to go out with a bang.

He quoted E.O. Wilson — “Surely one moral precept we can agree on is to stop destroying our birthplace, the only home humanity will ever have” — and then called for California to pursue ambitious climate goals for 2030 that build on those the state has already laid out for 2020. Brown said that California’s “impressive” 2020 goals, which the state is “on track to meet,” still “are not enough” for California to lead the world on the path to containing climate change to 2 degrees Celsius of warming, a target that the U.N. hopes will keep the worst effects in check.

From The New York Times, an overview of Brown’s new plans:

Gov. Jerry Brown began his fourth and final term on Monday proposing a broad reduction in California’s energy consumption over the next 15 years — including a call to slash gas consumption by cars and trucks by as much as 50 percent — as part of what he said would be a sweeping campaign to heighten the state’s role in the fight against global warming.

Mr. Brown, a longtime champion of electric cars and limiting greenhouse gas emissions, called in his inauguration speech for 50 percent of California’s electricity to come from renewable energy sources by 2030, up from the current goal of one-third by 2020, and doubling the energy efficiency of existing buildings.

Mr. Brown was in effect proposing that California, which is already viewed as at the forefront in the battle to curb emissions, greatly expand cutbacks put in place in the state’s landmark 2006 greenhouse gas emission bills. And he made clear that he would use his final years in office to try to make this happen.

Brown’s time in office has seen tremendous pushback from the fossil-fuel industry, which has opposed implementation of the state’s cap-and-trade program, put in place by that landmark 2006 climate bill, and other measures. The political money battle will likely only intensify now that Brown’s environmental initiatives are more ambitious, with Brown’s own well-heeled allies — notably environmentalist-billionaire Tom Steyer, who was present at the state Capitol for Brown’s speech — pushing back.

The Western States Petroleum Association, one of the primary industry lobbying groups active in California, told the Associated Press that it was reviewing Brown’s proposals.

Environmental groups, on the other hand, told the AP that Brown should have gone still further — they want the governor to ban fracking in the state during his final term.

Source:
Gov. Jerry Brown Begins Last Term With a Bold Energy Plan

, The New York Times.

Jerry Brown seeks new green regulations in historic fourth term

, Los Angeles Times.

California governor toughens climate-change goals

, Associated Press.

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California Gov. Jerry Brown gets more ambitious about tackling climate change

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This Judge Just Destroyed the Stupidest Argument Against Gay Marriage Ever

by VirgilioWjd Posted on July 1, 2014

Mother Jones

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On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled Kentucky’s ban on same-sex marriages unconstitutional and issued a withering take-down of marriage equality opponents.

Kentucky had argued that legalizing gay marriage would harm the state’s birth rate. “These arguments are not those of serious people,” wrote US district judge John Heyburn. “Though it seems almost unnecessary to explain, here are the reasons why.

“Even assuming the state has a legitimate interest in promoting procreation, the Court fails to see, and Defendant never explains, how the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage has any effect whatsoever on procreation among heterosexual spouses. Excluding same-sex couples from marriage does not change the number of heterosexual couples who choose to get married, the number who choose to have children, or the number of children they have.

“The state’s attempts to connect the exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage to its interest in economic stability and in ‘ensuring humanity’s continued existence’ are at best illogical and even bewildering…The Court can think of no other conceivable legitimate reason for Kentucky’s laws excluding same-sex couples from marriage.”

Heyburn stayed his ruling while Kentucky appeals, meaning no same-sex marriages are taking place just yet.

Read the full ruling:

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A Federal Judge Just Struck Down Kentucky’s Gay Marriage Ban (PDF)

A Federal Judge Just Struck Down Kentucky’s Gay Marriage Ban (Text)

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This Judge Just Destroyed the Stupidest Argument Against Gay Marriage Ever

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One of the Films on This Year’s Black List is an Alternate History of Stanley Kubrick Faking the Moon Landing

by VirgilioWjd Posted on December 16, 2013

Mother Jones

On Monday, this year’s Black List—the annual list of the best unproduced scripts in Hollywood as voted on by over 250 studio executives—was announced via Twitter. This list features 72 titles, six fewer than last year’s. Previous Black Lists have included what would become three of the last five Best Picture Academy Award winners: Argo, The King’s Speech, and Slumdog Millionaire. Being on the list gives your script roughly a 120 percent higher chance of getting made into a feature film by a studio than if it were an average unproduced script.

One of the screenplays inducted onto this year’s Black List (check out the complete list here) is by self-described “newbie” Stephany Folsom, and is intriguingly titled, 1969: A Space Odyssey or How Kubrick Learned to Stop Worrying and Land on the Moon (an obvious reference to both the title of Stanley Kubrick’s classic black-comedy satire from 1964, and to the director’s 2001: A Space Odyssey from 1968).

Folsom’s 108-page script (a drama) focuses on “Barbara,” a lone wolf working in the publicity department at NASA’s office in Washington, DC, in 1969. The story is an alternate history of how, as the Cold War rages, Barbara reaches out to and convinces acclaimed director Stanley Kubrick to work with NASA to fake the moon and one-up the Soviets.

“Hijinks ensue,” Folsom says.

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One of the Films on This Year’s Black List is an Alternate History of Stanley Kubrick Faking the Moon Landing

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on One of the Films on This Year’s Black List is an Alternate History of Stanley Kubrick Faking the Moon Landing