Tag Archives: california

SeaWorld Is Ending Its Killer Whale Show

by Lawrenc8856 Posted on November 9, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

SeaWorld will shut down the killer whale exhibition at its flagship San Diego location by next year, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune:

In its place would be a new orca experience debuting in 2017, described as “informative” and designed to take place in a more natural setting that would carry a “conservation message inspiring people to act.”…The plan to gradually phase out the Shamu show comes amid efforts at both the state and federal level to clamp down on SeaWorld by ending the captive breeding of orcas, which would effectively bring to an end the parks’ theatrical shows.

It’s unclear whether the new “experience” will feature live orcas, and whether the decision will apply to any of the company’s other locations in San Antonio and Orlando. A SeaWorld spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

SeaWorld has faced broad public criticism—and a tanking share price—since the 2013 documentary Blackfish accused the company of keeping killer whales in inhumane conditions. The company has maintained that the whales serve a valuable scientific purpose, although many scientists disagree. The announcement also comes just days after a Congressional representative from California introduced legislation to ban the breeding of captive orcas and their capture from the wild.

See original article: 

SeaWorld Is Ending Its Killer Whale Show

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on SeaWorld Is Ending Its Killer Whale Show

Marijuana for Millionaires

by JorjaHartigan Posted on November 1, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Yesterday a friend emailed to ask if I had any thoughts about Ohio’s Issue 3, which would fully legalize marijuana cultivation and sale in the state. Ohio? I barely pay attention to California, let alone Ohio.

But Issue 3 turns out to be surprisingly fascinating—or venal and repellent, depending on your tolerance for sleaze. Apparently one of the authors of the initiative came across a Rand report on marijuana written by a bevy of drug-policy worthies, and it offered up a dozen possible options for legalization. One of them is called “structured oligopoly”:

It is natural to ask whether there is some way to get for-profit businesses to behave in the public interest. The answer is “Perhaps.”

….States might prefer [] to offer only a limited number of licenses, creating artificial scarcity that makes the licenses valuable—valuable enough that firms will have a strong incentive to cooperate with regulators rather than risk revocation….Limiting the number of licensees also makes monitoring their behavior easier. A rogue company could more easily break the rules if it were one of 1,000 licensees than if it were one of just ten.

….So a structured-oligopoly strategy might involve licensing a limited number of firms, monitoring them closely, and not being shy about rescinding a firm’s license if it behaves in ways contrary to the public interest.

This might not be your cup of tea, but let’s stipulate that it has some potential. How would you distribute these licenses? The straightforward approach is to auction them off for set periods. Unfortunately, this has a big drawback: it maximizes the payment for licenses, and thus minimizes the profit of the oligopolists. This is obviously vexing.

So how about this instead? Pick out ten rich friends. Each is required to put up $2 million to help pass a ballot initiative. In return, you promise to write the names of the investors directly into the initiative, giving them a perpetual and exclusive right to grow marijuana in the state of Ohio.1 In addition, you write a special, unalterable flat tax rate into the law, as well as a minuscule annual licensing fee. Now that’s an oligopoly you can believe in! Keith Humphreys, who brought this to my attention, has a few comments:

It has taken the alcohol industry decades of lobbying to roll back many of the restrictive, public health-oriented regulations established after the end of Prohibition. Booze industry executives must look with envy upon the emerging marijuana industry, which can use the ballot initiative process to achieve complete regulatory capture from day one.

….No one should be surprised that in a country with an entrepreneurial culture, a commitment to free markets, and a political system highly attuned to corporate donations, legalized marijuana would develop a significant corporate presence. Indeed, many drug policy analysts, including me, expected this to happen eventually. But the rate at which the change is happening is truly startling, and will become even more so if the Ohio initiative passes.

If the marijuana industry ends up being a clone of the tobacco industry, will legalization supporters experience buyers’ remorse? It depends who you ask.

Well, you could ask me. I don’t care what they’re legalizing. This stinks. It’s crony capitalism without even a veneer of decency, and if it applied to anything else nobody would have the gall to ever let it see the light of day. If this is the price of pot legalization, count me out.

1Technically, no names are actually in the initiative. Instead, it limits marijuana cultivation to ten specific parcels of land that are owned by the ten investors. Also, individuals are allowed to cultivate small amounts for their own recreational use if they get a license.

Jump to original: 

Marijuana for Millionaires

Posted in alo, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Marijuana for Millionaires

This Commercial Might Be One of the Only Factual Things to Air During Tonight’s GOP Debate

by KurtisBoisvert9 Posted on October 28, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

If you watch tonight’s Republican primary debate on CBNC, you can expect to hear opinions on the economy and pot, attacks on newly annointed front-runner Ben Carson, and more. You can also expect to see the ad above, which lays out the economic case for action on climate change.

The 30-second spot is part of a six-figure TV and digital ad buy from NextGen Climate, the advocacy group run by billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer. At the beginning of the primary season, Steyer promised to focus his group’s energy on holding Republican presidential candidates accountable for their lack of climate action, and to pursue a campaign to “disqualify” any candidate who doesn’t accept mainstream climate science.

“America has never been a country of quitters,” the ad states, over bucolic b-roll of farmers, veterans, and small town Main Streets. “We don’t ignore threats like climate change.”

Then the scene changes to wind farms and solar panels, as the narrator promises that American-made clean energy will produce jobs, innovation, and energy independence. At the end, it advocates a specific goal of getting half the country’s power from renewable sources by 2030. (We’re at about 7 percent now.)

Steyer is clearly right that clean energy is a major 21st-century growth industry. Solar is the fastest-growing energy source in the country, and employment in that sector already outnumbers coal miners two-to-one. Nearly $40 billion was invested in clean energy in the United States in 2014, 7 percent higher than the previous year. Earlier this month, California adopted the same ambitious target that Steyer is calling for: The state’s power companies will be required to get 50 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030.

But the message hasn’t yet gotten through to most of the Republican presidential candidates. Marco Rubio’s energy plan is basically the exact opposite of what Steyer wants. Jeb Bush wants to eliminate all energy subsidies, including those for renewables. Other candidates have variously denied the existence of climate change, championed fossil fuels, and taken pot shots at President Barack Obama’s climate agenda.

The one exception, believe it or not, is Ben Carson, who—despite engaging in climate change skepticism—recently said he wants “more than 50 percent” clean energy. Maybe tonight we’ll learn more about how exactly he plans to get us there.

Read More – 

This Commercial Might Be One of the Only Factual Things to Air During Tonight’s GOP Debate

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, solar, solar panels, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on This Commercial Might Be One of the Only Factual Things to Air During Tonight’s GOP Debate

A Quick Guide to Interpreting Everything You Hear About Obamacare Rate Increases

by Angeles86O Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

How much are health care premiums on the Obamacare exchanges set to rise in 2016? That depends. Here are a few possible answers:

If everyone keeps the coverage they currently have, Charles Gaba estimates that the weighted average increase—that is, weighting states with bigger populations more heavily—will be about 12-13 percent.
If everyone shops around and chooses the second-lowest price silver plan, the federal government estimates that the weighted average on federal exchanges will go up 7.5 percent.
It depends on the state. If you live in California, you can figure on about a 4 percent increase. Texas? 5.1 percent. Oklahoma? 35.7 percent.
If you live in a big city and you shop around, Kaiser estimates that the weighted average will go down 0.7 percent if you account for the average size of the federal subsidy. In some cities, the decrease is even larger.

In other words, depending on how scary you feel like being, you can accurately cite the increase as 35.7 percent, 12-13 percent, 7.5 percent, or negative 0.7 percent. For example:

Obama: “In my hometown of Chicago, rates are going down by 5 percent.”
Democratic think tank: “If you shop around for the best rate, HHS estimates an average increase of 7.5 percent on the federal exchanges.”
Republican think tank: “Liberal analyst Charles Gaba estimates an average increase of 13 percent, with 18 states seeing increases of 20 percent or more.”
Trump: “Some people tell me their rates are going up by 25, even 35 percent!”

Every one of these is an accurate citation. So which one is the fairest? I’d say (a) you should count the tax credit since that affects what people actually pay, (b) some people will shop around and some won’t, and (c) you should usually cite a broad national estimate, not a state or local number.1 With all that taken into account, my prediction is that the average person using Obamacare will see an increase of about 6-7 percent.

1Obviously there are exceptions to all of these. If the Los Angeles Times wants to report on average increases in Los Angeles, then it should use the Los Angeles number. If you’re reporting on how well insurance companies are doing at estimating the premiums they need to charge, you should use raw numbers that don’t count the tax credit. Etc.

But if you do a telephone survey of Obamacare users next year and simply ask them, “How much more are you paying for health insurance than last year,” I think we’re going to end up around 6-7 percent.

Original post:  

A Quick Guide to Interpreting Everything You Hear About Obamacare Rate Increases

Posted in Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Quick Guide to Interpreting Everything You Hear About Obamacare Rate Increases

What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

by MandyLienhop Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

A Washington Post-ABC News poll on gun violence published Monday included a stark finding: “By a more than 2-to-1 margin, more people say mass shootings reflect problems identifying and treating people with mental health problems rather than inadequate gun control laws.” Sixty-three percent of respondents blamed a deficient mental health care system as the prime reason for America’s incessant gun massacres, while 23 percent pointed to weak gun regulations.

What’s most troubling about these results and the question that prompted them is that they perpetuate a dangerous stigmatization. The vast majority of mentally ill people are not violent. I wrote about this in my recent Mother Jones cover story on threat assessment, a growing strategy for stopping mass shooters that relies on collaboration between mental health and law enforcement experts:

We know that many mass shooters are young white men with acute mental health issues. The problem is, such broad traits do little to help threat assessment teams identify who will actually attack. Legions of young men love violent movies or first-person shooter games, get angry about school, jobs, or relationships, and suffer from mental health afflictions. The number who seek to commit mass murder is tiny. Decades of research have shown that the link between mental disorders and violent behavior is small and not useful for predicting violent acts. (People with severe mental disorders are in fact far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.)

Then there is the role of guns. As a top forensic psychologist described it to me at a recent summit of more than 700 threat assessment professionals in Southern California, “One of the first things you focus on with this process is access to weapons.” Guns obviously are no more a sole cause of mass shootings than schizophrenia or suicidal depression are. But their role in such crimes is self-evident:

Can they be prevented from striking?

Possession of a firearm, of course, is not a meaningful predictor of targeted violence. But at the conference in Disneyland, virtually everyone I spoke with agreed that guns make these crimes a lot easier to commit—and a lot more lethal. “There are so many firearms out there, you just assume everybody has one,” Scalora says. “It’s safer to assume that than the opposite.” The presence of more than 300 million guns in the United States—and the lack of political will to regulate their sale or use more effectively—is a stark reality with which threat assessment experts must contend, and why many believe their approach may be the best hope for combating what has become a painfully normal American problem.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll furthered a misleading stereotype about a broad population of Americans by presenting a false choice between mental health and gun policy. The chart above shows that only 10 percent of respondents recognized that solving mass shootings is more complicated than checking one box or the other. Any solution deeply involves both, and a whole lot more.

Originally posted here: 

What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Safer, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on What a New Poll About Mass Shootings in America Gets Dangerously Wrong

Lots of People Still Aren’t Aware That Obama Wants to Give Them Cheap Health Care

by OYGBridget Posted on October 24, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Covered California, my state’s version of Obamacare, announced some discouraging results yesterday. Among the uninsured, lots of people know about the tax penalty for not buying insurance, but a full third have no idea that subsidies are available to reduce the cost of buying coverage. Here’s what they’re doing about it:

Based on the survey results, as well as a review of research from a wide range of other sources (including those who have enrolled), Covered California has refined its comprehensive outreach campaign aimed at reaching the uninsured in their communities, through Navigator grants to community organizations; support for more than 18,000 Certified Insurance Agents; and promotion of storefronts where consumers can get free, confidential help enrolling.

The outreach campaign will include a new television, radio, digital and outdoor advertising campaign to reach multi-segment, Hispanic, Asian and African-American audiences. Details about the campaign and television ads, the route of the “Spotlight on Coverage” bus tour and new dental coverage will be released next week.

Meh. I have taken the liberty of creating a punchier campaign. Just running this up the ol’ flagpole to see if anyone salutes, you understand. Of course, we’ll need to rework the website too if we want to create a disruptive culture that appeals to people who like free money. And TV too. I’m thinking of a micro-targeting campaign that uses big data analytics to reach our SES demo, and impacts eyeballs with maximum penetration at minimal cost. And let’s not forget social media either. Those guys love free stuff. Let me know what you think.

Excerpt from: 

Lots of People Still Aren’t Aware That Obama Wants to Give Them Cheap Health Care

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lots of People Still Aren’t Aware That Obama Wants to Give Them Cheap Health Care

The GOP Is the Party of No Escape

by RozellaMccune Posted on October 19, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

In the print magazine this month (yes! print!) I have a piece arguing that this year’s odd lack of enthusiasm among Republicans for repealing Obamacare—something that many folks have noted—is just a bellwether for wider GOP problems:

Obamacare’s foes running out of steam is just the most obvious sign of a larger trend: A lot of traditional conservative issues are losing their momentum. Gay marriage lost its fear factor years ago….The economy is probably in good enough shape to not be a big campaign issue. Taxes have already been lowered so much that the average family pays only about 5 percent of its earnings to the IRS.

….True, Republicans still have a short list of hot-button topics that inflame their base, but increasingly these are wedge issues that promise nearly as much downside as upside. Immigration is the most visible example….Republican voters aren’t sold on the idea of Iraq War 2.0….Even abortion runs the risk of becoming a wedge issue for the party as activists demand that candidates take extreme positions such as opposing exceptions for rape, incest, or the life and health of the mother—even though these are popular among most Republican voters.

The big Republican problem right now is not that they’re out of ideas. The problem is that just as Democrats were torn apart by their ideas 30 years ago, Republicans are being torn apart by theirs today. All the once-reliable Republican applause lines are fast becoming wedge issues that divide the party regulars from the tea party base. And this is all coming at the same time that Republicans are fighting the headwind of a long-term demographic shift that weakens them further with every election cycle. “In an era when the inmates are running the asylum, it’s not just Obamacare bashing that’s become a double-edged sword for Republicans. It’s nearly everything they’ve relied on for the past three decades.”

Read the whole thing! I’m excited about it. Not because it’s the most astute piece of political analysis ever, but because it’s my first print piece in over a year. That’s right: As of a couple of months ago, I had recovered enough from chemotherapy that I once again had the energy to start writing longer print pieces in addition to blogging. And I just finished another, better one for the next issue. Read it too! (When it comes out.)

Jump to original – 

The GOP Is the Party of No Escape

Posted in FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The GOP Is the Party of No Escape

Obama Understands That Presidents Can’t Make Empty Threats

by ShastaSnoddy Posted on October 18, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank is upset at President Obama’s “passivity” in foreign affairs. Specifically, he’s upset that Obama hasn’t threatened Iran with reprisals for its sham trial of his colleague Jason Rezaian on charges of spying.

I don’t blame Milbank. If I were in his shoes I’d be plenty enraged too. And yet, that still doesn’t make this right:

Obama said … nothing. He didn’t go to the briefing room and make a statement. He didn’t even release a written statement.

….Where was the demand that Iran immediately release Rezaian and the two or three other Americans it is effectively holding hostage? Where was the threat of consequences if Tehran refused? How about some righteous outrage condemning Iran for locking up an American journalist for doing his job? Even if Obama’s outrage came to nothing, it would be salutary to hear the president defend the core American value of free speech.

There are times when presidents should vent a little outrage, and maybe Obama should do it more often.1 But the fundamental truth about threats is that you don’t make them unless you’re willing to carry them out—and that goes double for presidents. If Obama had done what Milbank asked, and then failed to follow up, he’d open himself up to justified contempt. But if he did follow up, he’d be allowing America’s foreign policy to be dictated by the fate of a single person. Like it or not, a president can’t operate like that. He has bigger responsibilities than Donald Trump does.

Since neither of these options is acceptable, all that’s left is to take the course Obama has decided on: say nothing and allow his State Department to work behind the scenes. That’s not very emotionally satisfying, but it’s the right thing to do.

1Though Obama has publicly called for the release of all American prisoners in Iran on more than one occasion. “We are not going to relent until we bring home our Americans who are unjustly detained in Iran,” he said shortly after the Iran nuclear deal was announced. “Journalist Jason Rezaian should be released. Pastor Saeed Abedini should be released. Amir Hekmati, a former sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, should be released.”

Originally posted here:  

Obama Understands That Presidents Can’t Make Empty Threats

Posted in Casio, FF, GE, Jason, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Obama Understands That Presidents Can’t Make Empty Threats

Check Out the Homes of Some of the Bay Area’s Biggest Water Guzzlers—Including Billy Beane

by JaredSatterwhite Posted on October 17, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

One of the most frustrating things about the ongoing California drought is knowing that some people just don’t give a damn. Letting your lawn die and your toilet bowl turn yellow can seem absurd when you know that a few water hogs are keeping their gardens as green as Costa Rican golf courses (like the mystery Bel Air resident who uses 12 million gallons per year).

Citing privacy concerns, every major California water district has refused to name their biggest users. Until today.

The East Bay Municipal Utility District just released a partial list of homeowners who have violated its new excessive-water-use rules. In this district encompassing the cities and hills east of San Francisco, scofflaws are defined as those whose daily usage exceeds 1,000 gallons—four times the 250-gallon a day residential average.

EBMUD’s list of shame only covers customers who are billed in September, and excludes any who filed appeals. Yet it reveals many cases of egregious water use among the owners of massive properties in the East Bay hills. One of the largest violators is Oakland A’s executive Billy Beane, whose team is known as one of the most eco-friendly in baseball.

Here are the top five water guzzlers on the water district’s list—and aerial snapshots of their homes:

1. George Kirkland, former vice chairman of Chevron
Daily water use: 12,579 gallons
Location: Danville, California
Property value: $3.5 million
Mitigating factor: Kirkland told the San Jose Mercury News that there was a leak in a water line to the two acres of vineyards on his four-acre lot.

2. Mark Pine, venture capitalist
Daily water use: 8,091 gallons
Location: Alamo, California
Property value: $6.9 million

3. Billy Beane, vice president of baseball operations and minority owner of the Oakland A’s
Daily water use: 5,996 gallons
Location: Danville, California
Property value: $4.8 million

4. Dane Bigham, software executive
Daily water use: 5,747 gallons
Location: Walnut Creek, California
Property value: $891,000

5. Gene Yee, intellectual property attorney
Daily water use: 5,659 gallons
Location: San Leandro, California
Property value: $269,000
Mitigating factor: Yee’s water use is hard to explain given that he has very little landscaping. Perhaps he also has a leak?

Original source: 

Check Out the Homes of Some of the Bay Area’s Biggest Water Guzzlers—Including Billy Beane

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Check Out the Homes of Some of the Bay Area’s Biggest Water Guzzlers—Including Billy Beane

The Drought Is Making California Mudslides Even Worse

by Jonatho39T Posted on October 16, 2015

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Mudslides stranded hundreds of motorists on Southern California’s main north-south highway Thursday evening after severe thunderstorms rocked the area. Cleanup crews worked through the night to plow and scoop up the mud, but meteorologists say that thanks to California’s historic drought, widespread wildfires, and a potentially historic El Niño, this disaster could be just a taste of what’s to come this winter.

The rain was part of a slow-moving storm system that passed through the Los Angeles area Thursday afternoon and battered the mountains to the north of the city in Kern County. The result: flash floods that sent mud and debris flowing down hillsides and onto Interstate 5, as well as onto a smaller state highway. I-5 has been cleared and is waiting final inspection to re-open, but hundreds of cars are still stuck on the state highway.

According to National Weather Service meteorologist Robbie Munroe, it’s too soon to be certain how much we can blame El Niño for the storm—El Niño tends to affect the frequency of storms more than their severity. But if it is the beginning of of a wave of El Niño-linked rainstorms, Californians should start bracing for more flooding and mudslides. There are two reasons for this:

Normally, plants and trees are what hold the soil together, says Munroe. But drought and wildfires have decimated plant life in many areas of California. So when heavy rain flows down slopes, it brings mud and debris along with it.

Second, the drought has dried out and hardened the ground. This can be especially dangerous on hillsides and in canyons like the ones surrounding the highways buried by Thursday’s storm. Instead of being absorbed into the soil, rainwater deflects off of it and continues careening down the hill, picking up velocity and washing out whatever is in its path.

Munroe says there is one potential upside to yesterday’s storm: Rainfall early in the season could loosen the soil and rejuvenate ground cover, hopefully mitigating the destruction caused by the weather that will arrive later this winter.

Visit site:  

The Drought Is Making California Mudslides Even Worse

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, Free Press, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Drought Is Making California Mudslides Even Worse