Tag Archives: colleague

Court’s CFPB Ruling Is Part of a Dangerous Trend

by MargaritaTejada Posted on October 12, 2016

Mother Jones

Conservatives are thrilled about yesterday’s court decision regarding the CFPB. Here’s Iain Murray:

In a rare victory for the Constitution and American political tradition, the US Court of Appeals from the DC Circuit today found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was “structurally unconstitutional.” The offending structure consists of an independent agency with a single, all-powerful executive director. The Court found that structure fell between two stools — an agency with a single head needs to be accountable to the President, while an independent agency needs to have internal checks and balances by having a multi-member commission format like the SEC and others.

This judgment echoes the arguments the Competitive Enterprise Institute and its co-plaintiffs have been making in a separate court case, where my colleague Hans Bader argued, “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s lack of checks and balances violates the Constitution’s separation of powers. Its director is like a czar. He is not accountable to anyone, and can’t be fired even if voters elect a president with different ideas about how to protect consumers.”

There’s no telling if this ruling will hold up on appeal, but if it does, the CFPB director will now serve at the pleasure of the president. This means that President Trump could fire Jeopardy champion Richard Cordray and instead install Apprentice champion Omarosa to oversee America’s financial industry. Luckily, it appears we will be spared that indignity.

I don’t expect this ruling to have a big impact in real life. Basically, it means that a new president will be able to install a new CFPB director immediately instead of having to wait a year or two for the old one to finish out her term. In the long run that’s likely to have a neutral effect on party control of the bureau. As for being able to fire the director without cause, that’s mostly hemmed in by political considerations anyway.

At a practical level, then, I don’t have much heartburn over this. On a more abstract level, though, it represents a disturbing trend from conservatives. In this case, their real problem with the CFPB is that they don’t want to regulate the financial industry at all. Likewise, their problem with Obamacare is that they don’t want to provide poor people with health coverage. Their problem with the EPA’s Clean Power Plan is that they hate regulations that offend their business backers.

But conservatives can’t go to court on those grounds, and there’s nothing obviously illegal or unconstitutional about any of these liberal initiatives. So instead they contrive some other hair-splitting argument. The CFPB is too independent. The individual mandate violates a shiny new constitutional doctrine custom built just for Obamacare. The Clean Power Plan uses the wrong interpretation of the word “system.” These arguments vary in their legitimacy, but that hardly matters. Their goal is not legal brilliance. Their goal is to provide conservative justices with a facade they can use to overturn liberal legislation.

And it works, because these days conservative justices treat hot button cases—and, tellingly, only hot button cases—as a way to enforce their political opinions when they can’t do so through the ballot box. This is not a healthy trend.

View this article: 

Court’s CFPB Ruling Is Part of a Dangerous Trend

Posted in FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Court’s CFPB Ruling Is Part of a Dangerous Trend

We’re Using the Strongest Antibiotics More Than Ever Before—and It’s Terrifying

by DevonSheean Posted on September 19, 2016

Mother Jones

Pretend you found a mosquito in your bedroom. Would your first move be to kill the mosquito or to call in the exterminator to fumigate your whole house? Probably you’d start by killing the mosquito and, maybe, if his friends kept showing up, you’d try a few other things. If none of that worked, you’d eventually call in the big guns.

Doctors use the same approach when they treat infections with antibiotics: In general, they try to use the weakest possible drug that they know will be effective for a specific kind of infection. If that doesn’t work, they move on to the big guns—broad-spectrum antibiotics that can kill a wide range of bacteria.

But now, doctors are prescribing more broad-spectrum antibiotics than they ever have before—which leads researchers to speculate that first-line antibiotics aren’t working as well as they used to.

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Resistance tracked antibiotic prescriptions at 300 US hospitals. Between 2006 and 2012, overall antibiotic prescription rates remained the same. But prescriptions for carbapenems—a class of antibiotics used to treat infections that don’t respond to the usual drugs—jumped by an alarming 37 percent. Prescriptions of the extremely powerful antibiotic vancomycin—one of the only drugs effective against the scary skin infection, methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)—increased by 27 percent.

Meanwhile, the use of fluoroquinolones, a very commonly prescribed class of antibiotics that isn’t nearly as strong as carbapenems or vancomycin—dropped by 20 percent.

The researchers think they can explain the rise in prescriptions of super-powerful antibiotic and the decline in use of less potent drugs: As bacteria develop resistance to the most commonly prescribed drugs, doctors have to call in the big guns more often. And if bacteria start developing resistance to the most powerful antibiotics, we’re really in trouble, as science journalist Maryn McKenna explained here.

One way to avoid that dire outcome is to make sure that doctors save the last-resort drugs for bacteria that other drugs can’t kill. The researchers note that “inappropriate antibiotic use increases the risk of antibiotic resistance and other adverse patient outcomes.”

But hospitals are not the only source of superbugs. As my colleague Tom Philpott has reported, an astonishing 80 percent of all US antibiotics go to the livestock industry, where meat producers regularly dose even healthy animals with them. This practice allows farmers to cram lots of animals into small spaces without sickening each other and makes them grow faster. It also spreads antibiotic-resistant genes to humans.

Although the FDA’s rules on livestock antibiotics are pretty permissive, in response to consumer concerns about superbugs, some meat companies are moving away from antibiotics on their own. Read Tom’s story of one company that chose to ditch the drugs here.

The good news: The FDA appears to be noticing the mounting evidence that our antibiotics are losing strength. Last week the agency signaled that it may soon limit how long farmers can use the drugs.

Continue reading here:

We’re Using the Strongest Antibiotics More Than Ever Before—and It’s Terrifying

Posted in FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on We’re Using the Strongest Antibiotics More Than Ever Before—and It’s Terrifying

Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 8 April 2016

by JeramyGfylqg Posted on April 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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

April is an important fundraising month here at Mother Jones, and my colleague David Corn—you may remember him as the guy responsible for Valerie Plame and Mitt Romney’s 47 percent snafu—wrote a pitch called “Trump, the Media, and You,” explaining how our model of reader-supported journalism allows MoJo to report on substantive issues (like actual policy proposals and digging into candidates’ pasts!) that are largely missing from this year’s election coverage. Here’s David:

IN A WORLD OF RATINGS AND CLICKS, financially pressed media outlets frequently zero in on the shining objects of the here and now. Merely covering Trump’s outrageous remarks—did you see his latest tweet?!—has become its own beat. Even the best reporting that does happen can become lost in the never-ending flood of blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, and stories that appear in increasingly shorter news cycles.

At Mother Jones, we try each day to sort out what to cover—and where to concentrate our reporting in order to make a difference. Yes, we need to follow the daily twists and turns. But we recognize it’s important for journalists to get off the spinning hamster wheel and dig where others do not.

Hmmm. It kinda sounds like I’m MoJo’s resident hamster. It’s a tough job, but I guess someone has to do it. After all, with me on the hamster wheel, David and the rest of our reporters can focus their work on the in-depth, investigative journalism that might not make us rich in advertising dollars, but that voters and our democratic process desperately need.

If you’re reading this, I’d bet that you like both—coverage of the circus, and smart, probing journalism. They both matter. If you agree, I hope you’ll pitch in a couple bucks during our fundraising drive—and since we’re a nonprofit, your contributions are tax-deductible. You can give by credit card, or PayPal.

Still, hamster though I may be, we all know that Friday afternoon is reserved for cats. And I know what you’re thinking: That pod I bought last week looks lovely and comfy, but it only has room for one cat. What’s up with that?

Pshaw. There is always room for another cat. It’s the magic of cat physics, far more astounding than black holes or quantum mechanics. No matter how many cats you have, somehow you can always squeeze in one more.

Link to article:  

Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 8 April 2016

Posted in alternative energy, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Friday Fundraising and Catblogging – 8 April 2016

John McCain Concedes the GOP May Have Lost Hispanics

by RayfordHaydon Posted on March 22, 2016

Mother Jones

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

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., appears to have conceded that the Republican Party has alienated Hispanic voters and will have to rely increasingly on white voters to win in November.

“An interesting phenomenon right now is the huge turnouts for the Republican primaries, low turnout for the Democrat primaries,” McCain said in a Sunday appearance on the Phoenix-based show Politics in the Yard. “Now if all those people would get behind the Republican candidate, I think we could win this election despite the alienation, frankly, of a lot of the Hispanic voters.”

McCain will face perhaps his toughest re-election fight this fall. A former champion of comprehensive immigration reform, he is likely to struggle in a year in which Donald Trump is pushing Latinos away from the Republican Party. McCain will face off against several Republican primary challengers in August. Polls show McCain currently tied with his general election opponent, Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Ariz.).

McCain has steered clear of Donald Trump, who is the favorite to win the Arizona Republican primary on Tuesday night. The Hill reported last week that McCain would not attend any of the rallies Trump held in Arizona this weekend. McCain endorsed his colleague Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) in the presidential primary; after Graham dropped out, McCain said he would not endorse anyone.

Link to article:

John McCain Concedes the GOP May Have Lost Hispanics

Posted in alternative energy, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, solar, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on John McCain Concedes the GOP May Have Lost Hispanics

Why Were Last Night’s Debaters Cut Off When They Actually Started to Debate?

by ErnestiZff Posted on December 20, 2015

Mother Jones

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

Rebecca Traister, along with practically everyone on the left, is dumbfounded that the Democratic National Committee has gone out of its way to reduce viewership for its debates. The first two were both held on Saturdays, and yesterday’s debate was on the Saturday before Christmas. Do they really want to lower the profile of the party that badly? It’s a wonder anyone tuned in at all. But there’s more:

The DNC’s poor choices pale in comparison to the choices of Saturday night’s ABC News moderators, the usually terrific Raddatz and her colleague, World News anchor Muir. They did fine for the first hour, but as the candidates began to actually debate each other in compelling and important ways, Muir especially began to talk over them in an effort to cut them off and adhere to the rules. That precision reffing may be necessary when it comes to shutting down an offensive monologue from Donald Trump, or halting a candidate’s whine about not getting enough time. But when, as on Saturday, the top contenders for the nomination are engaging each other seriously about tax policy, drowning them out and preventing the audience from hearing what they have to say doesn’t do anyone any favors.

For what it’s worth, Twitter opinion on Martha Raddatz shifted so fast it almost gave me a neck sprain last night. At first everyone thought she was great. By the second hour, she was the worst moderator ever. Mostly, I think, this was because she spent too much time interrupting the candidates when she didn’t happen to like their answers. This was especially annoying since, for the most part, they didn’t really dodge or tap dance very much. They mostly provided substantive answers.

As for the “precision reffing” that cut off a potentially interesting argument, I suspect that Martin O’Malley is the person to blame here. O’Malley may be a vanity candidate at this point, but he’s still a candidate, and that means he’s supposed to get equal time in the debates. If the moderators allow Sanders and Clinton to get into long arguments, it takes away from O’Malley’s time and there’s really no way to entirely make that up. So the moderators apply the rules strictly and demand that Sanders and Clinton shut up and allow them to ask O’Malley a question.

This is one among many reasons that O’Malley needs to grow up and get out of the race. He’s polling at 3 percent in a 3-person race, and he’s doing himself no favors by stubbornly staying in. It makes him look like a sore loser, not a serious politician.

Original link:  

Why Were Last Night’s Debaters Cut Off When They Actually Started to Debate?

Posted in alo, Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Why Were Last Night’s Debaters Cut Off When They Actually Started to Debate?

Watch This Navy Admiral Destroy Ted Cruz’s Climate Myths

by HelaineTobin0 Posted on December 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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

Ted Cruz is certain that global warming stopped 18 years ago. He said that repeatedly during a Senate hearing he chaired Tuesday afternoon devoted to examining what he described as “the science behind claims of global warming.” Satellite data, insisted Cruz, shows that “there has been no significant global warming for the past 18 years.”

Cruz—who is currently one of the GOP front-runners in Iowa—has made this claim before. Back in March, Kevin Trenberth, a leading climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Climate Desk that Cruz’s theory is “a load of claptrap…absolute bunk.” And Ben Santer, a researcher at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, blasted Cruz for “embracing ignorance with open arms.” The scorn of those leading scientists apparently wasn’t enough to get Cruz to change his tune. But perhaps what happened at Tuesday’s hearing will make a difference.

“I would note this chart…which shows for the last 18 years, that there has been no significant warming whatsoever,” said Cruz. He then asked Retired Rear Admiral David Titley—a meteorologist who previously served as the oceanographer of the Navy—about this so-called “pause in global temperatures.”

Titley’s response was fantastic, and you should watch the whole exchange above.

He started out by explaining that Cruz’s dataset begins just before the exceptionally warm El Niño year of 1998. Out of context, this makes recent warming appear less dramatic. As the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change points out PDF, the warming trend looks much bigger if you pick 1995 or 1996 as the beginning of your dataset.

Titley, who is now a meteorology professor at Penn State, then pointed to his own chart—more than a century’s worth of temperature data that shows an unmistakable warming trend. “I’m just a simple sailor,” said Titley, “but it’s hard for me to see the pause on that chart. So I think the pause has kind of come and gone.”

Cruz then noted that his own chart focused on data from satellites (whereas Titley’s uses data from thermometers on the Earth’s surface). But Titley shot back that the satellite measurements—which are frequently touted by climate change deniers—have a number of significant problems. Indeed, as my colleague Tim McDonnell explained in March:

There are a couple important caveats with satellite temperature data that Cruz would do well to make note of. One, Santer said, is that it has a “huge” degree of uncertainty (compared to land-based thermometers), so it should be approached with caution. That’s because satellites don’t make direct measurements of temperature but instead pick up microwaves from oxygen molecules in the atmosphere that vary with temperature.

Fluctuations in a satellite’s orbit and altitude and calibrations to its microwave-sensing equipment can all drastically affect its temperature readings. More importantly, satellites measure temperatures in the atmosphere, high above the surface. The chart above shows the lower troposphere, about six miles above the surface. This data is an important piece of the climate and weather system, but it’s only one piece. There are plenty of other signs that are far less equivocal, and perhaps even more relevant to those of us who live on the Earth’s surface: Land and ocean surface temperatures are increasing, sea ice is declining, glaciers are shrinking, oceans are rising, the list goes on.

This article is from: 

Watch This Navy Admiral Destroy Ted Cruz’s Climate Myths

Posted in alo, Anchor, Citizen, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Watch This Navy Admiral Destroy Ted Cruz’s Climate Myths

Does Donald Trump Send His Own Tweets? An Investigation

by Boyce74F42 Posted on September 14, 2015

Mother Jones

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

Donald Trump tweets a lot. He’s pretty good at it too! Personally, I love his Twitter account. It’s a mix of insanity and self-promotion and insanity and, well, self-promotion. But it’s endearing!

I’ve always assumed that Trump sends his own tweets. This is not because Twitter is a holy place and everyone sends their own tweets, but his account tweets so many weird things that I figured he couldn’t have a professional ghost tweeter at the helm. That person would never let him send half the things he sends. But then a few weeks ago my colleague Ian Gordon pointed me to a Washington Post profile of his media handler, Hope Hicks, which had me in tears:

On his plane, Trump flips through cable channels, reads news articles in hard copy, and makes offhanded comments. He’s throwing out his signature bombastic, sometimes offensive tweets. Hicks takes dictation and sends the words to aides somewhere in the Trump empire, who send them out to the world.

Dictating is still tweeting in a sense, but it really isn’t the same. This means he’s not scrolling through his timeline, checking his mentions, having the full Twitter experience. He’s broadcasting.

Last night, however, the Wall Street Journal said that Trump is, in fact, tweeting:

Mr. Trump doesn’t use a computer. He relies on his smartphone to tweet jabs and self-promotion, often late into the night, from a chaise lounge in his bedroom suite in front of a flat-screen TV.

Now it’s possible that it’s a combination of both: Sometimes he dictates, and sometimes he tweets.

While this is an answer, it begs a new question: How much of his tweets are his? To figure this one out, we put on our social-media detective hats and took a trip to Twitonomy.com.

Since April 23, @realDonaldTrump has tweeted 3,197 times. (Twitter’s API limits how many tweets analytics tools can access, so we can’t go further back than that.)

Twitonomy

Twitonomy

A majority of those tweets (1,707) have come from Twitter for Android. Another 1,245 have come from Twitter.com. Ninety-nine have come from a BlackBerry, and another 99 have come from an iPhone.

Twitonomy

From the above WSJ article, we know Trump doesn’t use a computer, so Twitter.com is out. Those are being done by someone else. The question is: What smartphone is Trump using? Once upon a time, Trump made his dissatisfaction with the iPhone very clear when he demanded that Apple manufacture a larger screen. This is something Apple ended up doing with the iPhone 6 and the still larger iPhone 6+. It’s unclear if this enticed Trump back into the fold. There are some massive smartphones out there! Maybe he has a Galaxy Note 5.

An email to the Trump campaign was not immediately returned. But a second Washington Post article tells us that Trump does in fact tweet from an iPhone.

So, if that is accurate, only 3 percent of Donald Trump’s last 3,197 tweets—at most—actually came from his fingers. (Possibly less if one of his aides also uses an iPhone.) The rest were apparently dictated or, in the case of the Nazi image, sent out by an intern. He’s obviously a busy person (and old, at that), so I understand why he doesn’t send all his own tweets. But still, it takes some of the magic away.

Below are some more charts from Twitonomy about Trump’s tweets:

Twitonomy

Twitonomy

Twitonomy

Twitonomy

Twitonomy

See original: 

Does Donald Trump Send His Own Tweets? An Investigation

Posted in Anchor, Everyone, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Does Donald Trump Send His Own Tweets? An Investigation

Scientists Just Came Up With the Craziest Way to Protect Your Kale

by ManuelK44fz Posted on August 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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

A version of this story was originally published on Gastropod.

Farmers searching for an eco-friendly way to combat pests in their fields might someday have a surprising new weapon: speakers. It may seem crazy, but scientists hope that sound systems bumping just the right noises can prime plants to pump up the levels of their own, innate chemical protection.

That’s just one of the ways that researchers are eavesdropping on the sounds of the farm in order to improve agriculture, as we report on this episode of Gastropod, a podcast about the science and history of food. From James Bond-inspired spy devices that can capture the wing-beats of hungry insects, to microphone-equipped drones patrolling henhouses in search of sick chickens, we discover that sound has the potential to help reduce pesticide use, make our vegetables even more nutritious, and even improve animal welfare.

Mozart for Plants
The idea that plants can hear and respond to music has a long and checkered history. Charles Darwin made his son, Francis, play the bassoon in front of an herb while he watched to see whether its leaves twitched (the plant was unmoved); Barbra Streisand caused a veritable explosion of color when singing to her tulips in the musical On a Clear Day You Can See Forever; and, as recently as the 1970s, UNC Greensboro physicist Dr. Gaylord Hageseth claimed that his experimental “pink” noise could make turnips sprout much faster.

While the claims that playing Mozart in a cornfield will lead to a dramatic increase in yield have proved impossible to replicate, scientists are sure that plants do respond to sounds in their environment, with small changes in gene expression, for example, or slightly different germination rates. But, as Heidi Appel, senior research scientist at the University of Missouri, told Gastropod, “We never understood why plants would have that ability.”

Pest Sounds
Intrigued, Appel teamed up with her colleague Reginald Cocroft, a behavioral ecologist, to focus on a sound that, they thought, might be particularly useful to plants: the vibrations caused by insect feeding. “These are one of the earliest and most quickly transmitted signals plants have that they’re being attacked,” said Appel. And while plants can’t hear insects the same way we do—they don’t have ears, after all—they can sense vibrations, much like club-goers feel the thump of bass or worshippers hear an organ reverberate through a church. “In that case, your body is a substrate,” picking up the sound vibrations, Appel explained. “That’s much more like what plants experience.”

To test their theory, Appel and Cocroft used lasers to measure the minute leaf tremors, about 1/10,000th of an inch, that caterpillars make when they munch on Arabidopsis (rockcress), a spindly relative of cabbage and broccoli that is commonly used in plant research. Next, they played those sounds back to one set of plants, and left the control group in peace. Finally, they let the caterpillars loose on both plant populations. Astonishingly, they found that the plants that had undergone audio training actually responded to the attack by producing much higher levels of mustard oil, their innate pesticide—which made them much less appetizing to the hungry caterpillars.

“That was very exciting and we were very happy,” Appel said. “But, at one level, we thought, ‘So what?’ Plants might respond to everything.” So they tested the plants again, this time using recordings of wind and treehoppers, a bug that looks like a thorn and sings with a high-pitched whine but does not like to dine on Arabidopsis. In response to these vibrations, however, the plants produced no increase in mustard oil. With this elegant experiment, Appel and Cocroft had solved a basic question of plant evolutionary biology: Plants evolved the ability to respond to sound vibrations in order to recognize and ward off attackers.

Musical Mustard
In doing so, Appel and Cocroft may have also hit upon a potent environmentally-friendly pesticide. Perhaps a field full of speakers blasting the sounds of crunching caterpillars might help terrified crops prime themselves to ward off a real attack, removing the need to apply chemical pesticides. This summer, Appel and Cocroft are testing commercially useful Arabidopsis relatives in the brassica family, such as kale and Brussels sprouts, to see if they demonstrate the same response.

But, as Appel pointed out to Gastropod, the use of sound might have an even more direct impact on our health. While plants evolved these chemical responses to deter pests, for humans, they often provide both flavor and health benefits. In fact, the sulfurous compounds produced by Arabidopsis and its fellow brassicas form the basis of America’s favorite hot dog condiment, mustard. And those same chemicals are actively being studied by cancer researchers for their potent health benefits. Maybe, by playing predator sounds in the field, farmers could actually grow more healthful plants.

Appel is testing this hypothesis with an African plant that is currently harvested for medicinal use, to determine whether caterpillar feeding increases the plants’ production of beneficial chemicals. If so, she can then test whether playing predator sounds has the same effect. “When we look at a plant as a source of flavor or medicine, what we are looking at is the product of millions of years of evolution of the plant interacting with its own pests—and those are largely insects,” said Appel. Insects that, it turns out, plants can hear.

This is the first of a two-part series exploring the relationship between sound and food. Listen to this episode of Gastropod for much more on the experimental history and emerging science of acoustic agriculture, from the perfect bovine playlist to the lost rhythms of Southern farming. And, if you like what you hear, subscribe to make sure you don’t miss out on hearing the difference between hot and cold tea, learning how the sound of tiny bubbles in soda changes its taste, and discovering the science behind pairing wine with music.

See the article here:

Scientists Just Came Up With the Craziest Way to Protect Your Kale

Posted in Anchor, eco-friendly, Everyone, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Sprout, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Scientists Just Came Up With the Craziest Way to Protect Your Kale

America’s BBQ Grills Create as Much Carbon as a Big Coal Plant

by LucilleMickle Posted on July 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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

As your neighbors fire up their barbecues this Independence Day, the most popular day in America to grill, they won’t just send the scent of tri-tip or grilled corn over the fence in your direction—they’ll also send smoke. As my colleague Kiera Butler wrote about here, even the “cleanest” gas grills emit pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere every hour they’re used. So how many emissions can we expect from dinner barbecues on the 4th?

Roughly eighty percent of American households own barbecues or smokers, according to the Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Association. Let’s say all 92.5 million of them decide to grill on Saturday. A 2013 study by HPBA found that 61 percent of users opted for gas grills, 42 percent for charcoal, and 10 percent for electric (some respondents had multiple grills). If that reflected all households across the United States, and each household used its grill for an hour on the 4th of July, then we’d get a calculation like this:

(56.425M gas grills*5.6 pounds of CO2) + (38.85M charcoal grills*11 pounds CO2) + (9.25M electric grills*15 pounds CO2 ) = 882 million pounds of CO2

That’s roughly as many emissions as burning 2145 railcars of coal, or running one coal-fired power plant for a month.

But let’s be honest—no one wants to give up summer grilling, and these emissions stats probably won’t convince your neighbor to turn off the barbecue. You might instead offer up ideas on recipes with ingredients that are friendlier to the planet—like these 4 veggie burgers that don’t suck.

Source:  

America’s BBQ Grills Create as Much Carbon as a Big Coal Plant

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on America’s BBQ Grills Create as Much Carbon as a Big Coal Plant

Could This Bill Prevent Another "Gamergate"?

by BobbyeHeinz Posted on June 4, 2015

Mother Jones

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

The United States government has a pretty poor track record when it comes to tackling violent online threats: Between 2010 and 2013, federal prosecutors pursued only 10 of some 2.5 million estimated cases of cyber-stalking, according to Rep. Katherine Clark (D-Mass.). With new legislation introduced on Wednesday, Clark aims to step up the fight against trolls and protect victims of internet threats, particularly women. The Prioritizing Online Threats Enforcement Act would beef up the Department of Justice’s capacity to enforce laws against online harassment and fund more investigations of cyber-crimes.

As my colleague Tim Murphy has reported, Clark first started looking for ways to curb internet harassment after learning that her district was home to Brianna Wu, a video game developer targeted with a flood of rape and death threats from “Gamergate” trolls. Since September, Wu has reportedly received 105 death threats after tweeting her opposition to Gamergate, an online movement that led to the harassment of women involved with video gaming. “All I am asking is for law enforcement to go and get a case together and prosecute,” Wu told Wicked Local. “Because law enforcement has basically treated online threats as if they don’t matter, they have unintentionally created this climate.”

“It’s not okay to tell women to change their behavior, withhold their opinions, and stay off the internet altogether, just to avoid severe threats,” Clark told members of Congress on Wednesday. “By not taking these cases seriously, we send a clear message that when women express opinions online, they are asking for it.”

Women are significantly more likely to face internet bullying than men. In one study by researchers from the University of Maryland, fake online accounts with feminine usernames faced 27 times more sexually explicit or threatening messages in a chat room than accounts with masculine usernames did. Over the past several months, women across the country, from actress Ashley Judd to feminist commentator Anita Sarkeesian, have raised the alarm about this type of abuse.

The federal government has the authority to prosecute individuals who send violent threats over the internet thanks to the Violence Against Women Act. But just one day before Clark’s appeal to Congress, the Supreme Court on Monday may have made it more difficult for prosecutors to go after trolls. In a 7-2 decision, the justices reversed the earlier conviction of a man in Pennsylvania who had used intensely violent language against his estranged wife, including saying he wanted to see her “head on a stick,” despite the fact that she testified that his postings made her feel “extremely afraid for her life.”

More here: 

Could This Bill Prevent Another "Gamergate"?

Posted in Anchor, Cyber, FF, GE, LG, ONA, PUR, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Could This Bill Prevent Another "Gamergate"?