Tag Archives: labor

Solar Isn’t the Only Thing That’s Getting Cheaper. So Is Fracking.

by GemmaMcMinn Posted on October 16, 2015

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How to Raise the Perfect Dog – Cesar Millan & Melissa Jo Peltier

From the bestselling author and star of National Geographic Channel's Dog Whisperer , the only resource you’ll need for raising a happy, healthy dog. For the millions of people every year who consider bringing a puppy into their lives–as well as those who have already brought a dog home–Cesar Millan, the preeminent dog behavior expert, […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up – Marie Kondo

This New York Times best-selling guide to decluttering your home from Japanese cleaning consultant Marie Kondo takes readers step-by-step through her revolutionary KonMari Method for simplifying, organizing, and storing. Despite constant efforts to declutter your home, do papers still accumulate like snowdrifts and clothes pile up like a tangled mess of noodles? Japanese cleaning consultant […]

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Baking Soda Bonanza – Peter A. Ciullo

Learn how to soothe sunburns, dry-clean your dog, and perform other household miracles with baking soda Want to relieve your stuffy nose? Make your musty old books smell better? Kill roaches without pesticide? You can do it all with baking soda, and this updated edition of Baking Soda Bonanza shows you how! Cheap, ecologically sound, […]

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Codex: Space Marines (Enhanced Edition) – Games Workshop

The Space Marines are the Angels of Death, humanity’s finest warriors. Clad in the greatest armour and armed with awesomely destructive weapons, they defend the Imperium of Mankind from the alien, the traitor and the daemon. Codex: Space Marines is the most comprehensive guide ever to these superlative warriors. It contains all the rules and […]

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How to Paint Citadel Miniatures: XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit (Tablet Edition) – Games Workshop

The XV95 Ghostkeel Battlesuit is the last word in strategic stealth combat deployment. Towering over its smaller cousin, the XV25 Stealth Battlesuit, the Ghostkeel is an elite weapons platform that couples the Tau’s signature stealth technology with heavy armour, punishing firepower and exceptional manoeuvrability. Piloted by specially selected veteran Stealth Suit pilots, each Ghostkeel is […]

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White Dwarf Issue 89: 10th October 2015 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

White Dwarf 89 drops its stealth fields and blasts into view – and with it, the Tau Empire XV95 Ghostkeel, a new, bigger and even deadlier Tau stealth suit. We’ve got the complete lowdown, including Paint Splatter and full rules for this deadly new alien threat. Not only that, but we’ve also got an exclusive […]

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The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis – Instaread

PLEASE NOTE: This is a  summary and analysis  of the book and NOT the original book.  The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo – A 15-minute Summary & Analysis   Inside this Instaread: Summary of entire book, Introduction to the important people in the book, Key Takeaways and Analysis of the Key Takeaways. […]

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White Dwarf Issue 88: 03rd October 2015 (Tablet Edition) – White Dwarf

White Dwarf 88 locks on and takes aim with the new Tau Empire KV128 Stormsurge! The latest in Tau battlefield innovation, the Stormsurge is a hulking ballistic suit bigger than anything the nascent Tau Empire has unleashed before. We’ve got a first look, Paint Splatter, Sprues and Glue and full rules – not to mention […]

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The Art of Raising a Puppy (Revised Edition) – Monks of New Skete

For more than thirty years the Monks of New Skete have been among America's most trusted authorities on dog training, canine behavior, and the animal/human bond. In their two now-classic bestsellers, How to be Your Dog's Best Friend and The Art of Raising a Puppy, the Monks draw on their experience as long-time breeders of […]

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Trident K9 Warriors – Mike Ritland & Gary Brozek

As Seen on “60 Minutes”! As a Navy SEAL during a combat deployment in Iraq, Mike Ritland saw a military working dog in action and instantly knew he'd found his true calling. Ritland started his own company training and supplying dogs for the SEAL teams, U.S. Government, and Department of Defense. He knew that fewer […]

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Solar Isn’t the Only Thing That’s Getting Cheaper. So Is Fracking.

Posted in alo, Citadel, Dolphin, eco-friendly, FF, G & F, GE, Monterey, ONA, OXO, solar, solar power, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Solar Isn’t the Only Thing That’s Getting Cheaper. So Is Fracking.

Benghazi Staffers Spent Their Days Designing Personalized "Tiffany Glocks"

by AndreaN866031 Posted on October 11, 2015

Mother Jones

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Who said this?

He described to CNN an office environment in which employees spent their days Web surfing and sometimes drinking at work. He said staffers joined a “gun buying club” for “chrome-plated, monogrammed, Tiffany-style Glock 9-millimeters,” and some would spend hours at a time at work designing the personalized weapons.

Answer: Maj. Bradley Podliska, a former member of the House Benghazi committee, who claims he was fired for refusing to spend his time focused solely on Hillary Clinton instead of actually investigating Benghazi. I don’t know yet if I believe him, but the whole Tiffany Glock thing sounds way too weird to have been made up.

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Benghazi Staffers Spent Their Days Designing Personalized "Tiffany Glocks"

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Ben Carson Is Wrong About Hitler and Guns

by EdgardoCooney Posted on October 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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More guns, fewer holocausts?

Ben Carson said Thursday that Adolf Hitler’s mass murder of Jews “would have been greatly diminished” if German citizens had not been disarmed by the Nazi regime…”But just clarify, if there had been no gun control laws in Europe at that time, would 6 million Jews have been slaughtered?” Blitzer asked.

“I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed,” Carson said…”I’m telling you that there is a reason that these dictatorial people take the guns first.”

This got me curious: Did Hitler take away everyone’s guns? As you can imagine, I know zilch about the history of gun control in Germany, so I surfed over to Wikipedia, the source of all knowledge, for a quick refresher course. Here’s what they say:

In 1919, the Treaty of Versaille disarmed Germany. “Fearing inability to hold the state together during the depression, the German government adopted a sweeping series of gun confiscation legislation.” This was long before Hitler came to power.
In 1928 this legislation was relaxed. “Germans could possess firearms, but they were required to have [] permits…Furthermore, the law restricted ownership of firearms to ‘…persons whose trustworthiness is not in question and who can show a need for a permit.'” Again, this was before Hitler came to power.
In 1938, Hitler relaxed the law further. Rifles and shotguns were completely deregulated, permits were extended to three years, and the age at which guns could be purchased was lowered to 18.

Now, Hitler did effectively ban Jews from owning guns in 1938. However, this is highly unlikely to have affected the fate of the Jews even slightly. The Nazis were considerably better armed and organized, and if Jews had taken to shooting them it would have accomplished nothing except giving Joseph Goebbels some terrific propaganda opportunities. The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a good example of this: Jews fought back, and the result was a few dead Germans and 13,000 dead Jews.

The bottom line is familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge of history: Hitler was popular. He didn’t need to take away anyone’s guns. Whatever you think about gun control, using Hitler to defend your position is a bad idea.

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Ben Carson Is Wrong About Hitler and Guns

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Oops. Putin’s Cruise Missiles Still Need a Little Work.

by JanellGlasheen Posted on October 8, 2015

Mother Jones

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I guess Vladimir Putin’s cruise missiles aren’t quite as awesome as he thought:

Cruise missiles fired by Russia from warships in the Caspian Sea at targets in Syria crashed in a rural area of Iran, senior United States officials said on Thursday.

Bummer, dude. Can we now have at least one day where we don’t have to hear about how Russia’s crappy military is going to upend everything in the Middle East and send the US scurrying for cover?

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Oops. Putin’s Cruise Missiles Still Need a Little Work.

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Paul Krugman Explains the Latest Draft of the TPP

by LachlanPartlow Posted on October 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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Suppose there’s a complex public policy proposal being debated and you want to know where you should stand. However, you really don’t want to devote a huge amount of time to diving into all the details. There are just so many hours in the day, after all.

One possibility is to simply see what people on your side of the tribal divide think about it. But that’s surprisingly unreliable. A better approach is to take a look at who’s opposed to the proposal. That’s what Paul Krugman does today regarding the final draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement:

What I know so far: pharma is mad because the extension of property rights in biologics is much shorter than it wanted, tobacco is mad because it has been carved out of the dispute settlement deal, and Rs in general are mad because the labor protection stuff is stronger than expected….I find myself thinking of Grossman and Helpman’s work on the political economy of free trade agreements, in which they conclude, based on a highly stylized but nonetheless interesting model of special interest politics, that

An FTA is most likely to be politically viable exactly when it would be socially harmful.

The TPP looks better than it did, which infuriates much of Congress.

Krugman describes himself as a “lukewarm opponent” of TPP who now needs to do some more homework. I’d probably call myself a lukewarm supporter. One reason is that the dispute resolution provisions, which provoked a lot of anger on the left, never struck me as either unusual or all that objectionable in practice. The IP stuff bothered me more, and that’s been improved a bit in the final draft. It’s still not great, but it’s not quite as horrible as before. So you can probably now count me as a slightly stronger supporter.

But I wonder what Republicans will do? They’re the ones who are ideologically on the side of trade agreements, and they’ve spent a lot of time berating President Obama for not putting more effort into trade deals. But with campaign season heating up, it’s become more toxic than ever to support any initiative of Obama’s. Plus Donald Trump is busily working his supporters into a lather about TPP. I wouldn’t be surprised to see quite a few defections from the Republican ranks.

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Paul Krugman Explains the Latest Draft of the TPP

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Let’s Not Rewrite History on Gun Violence

by MyrnaDegree Posted on October 6, 2015

Mother Jones

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“This is something we should politicize,” President Obama said last week after the gun massacre in Oregon. “It is relevant to our common life together, to the body politic.” Jonah Goldberg is annoyed that Obama said this even though he’s routinely spoken out against politicizing issues in the past. “He’s not about to try building consensus on gun violence among people of good faith,” Goldberg says. Then this:

Obama’s comments on Thursday highlighted the problem with his approach to politics. He would rather go for everything he wants and get nothing, but keep the political issue, than make progress on common ground.

Virtually none of the proposals on his gun-control wish list — more comprehensive federal background checks, closing the gun show “loophole,” etc. — would help bring down the homicide rate….Typically, mass killers don’t buy guns at gun shows. And a CNN analysis found that a comprehensive background check system wouldn’t have prevented any of the “routine” killing sprees Obama referred to, save one.

….After the Sandy Hook slaughter, there was a bipartisan consensus that more needed to be done on the mental health side. But Obama, fresh off reelection, rejected a piecemeal approach, largely preferring to go for a “comprehensive” solution. He ended up with nothing at all.

Um, what? Shortly after Sandy Hook, Joe Biden released the final report of his task force on gun violence. It contained recommendations in four areas, one of which was increased access to mental health services. Several bipartisan bills that targeted mental health did indeed get introduced, and I believe Obama supported all of them. So why didn’t they pass? That’s always hard to say, but the best guess is that it’s because they all cost money, and Republicans were unwilling to vote for increased spending. So they died. Obama’s preference for a “comprehensive” approach had nothing to do with it.

Beyond that, sure, Obama wanted comprehensive legislation. But in the end, this got whittled down to one thing: a bipartisan bill mandating universal background checks. It was watered down repeatedly, and was about as weak as possible by the time it finally got a vote. Despite massive public support, even from gun owners, it failed after an enormous effort to reach out to all those people of good faith Goldberg talks about. I think you can guess who voted against it.1

1It was 41 Republicans and 5 Democrats, in case you’ve forgotten.

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Let’s Not Rewrite History on Gun Violence

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The Photos That Helped End Child Labor in the United States

by GustavoAstudill Posted on October 3, 2015

Mother Jones

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In the early 1900s, Lewis Hine left his job as a schoolteacher to work as a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, investigating and documenting child labor in the United States. As a sociologist, Hine was an early believer in the power of photography to document work conditions and help bring about change. He traveled the country, going to fields, factories, and mines—sometimes working undercover—to take pictures of kids as young as four years old being put to work.

Partly as a result of Hine’s work (as well as that of Mary Harris Jones, who Mother Jones is named after), Congress passed the Keating-Owens Child Labor Act in 1916. It established child labor standards, including a a minimum age (14 years old for factories, and 16 years old for mines) and an eight-hour workday. It also barred kids under the age of 16 from working overnight. However, the Keating-Owens Act was later ruled unconstitutional, and lasting reform to federal child labor laws didn’t come until the New Deal.

In 2004, retired social worker Joe Manning set out to see what had happened to as many of the kids in Hine’s photos as he could find. He’s documented his findings—showing the lives of hundreds of subjects—on his website, MorningsOnMapleStreet.com.

Breaker boys who worked in Ewen Breaker of Pennsylvania Coal Company, South Pittston, Pennsylvania

A group of breaker boys in Pittston, Pennsylvania. The smallest is Sam Belloma.

A young driver in Brown Mine in Brown, West Virginia. Hine said the boy had been driving one year, working from 7 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. daily.

A tipple boy working at Turkey Knob Mine in MacDonald, West Virginia.

A trapper boy working in the Turkey Knob Mine in Macdonald, West Virginia. The boy had to stoop because of the low roof. This photo was taken more than a mile inside the mine.

Drivers in a coal mine in West Virginia

Vance, a trapper boy, was 15 years old when this photo was taken. He was paid 75 cents a day for 10 hours of work. His job was to open and shut this door. Because of the intense darkness in the mine, the writing on the door was not visible until plate was developed.

A view of Pennsylvania Coal Company’s Ewen Breaker in South Pittson, Pennsylvania. The dust was so dense at times, it was difficult to see, Hine wrote. A man sometimes stood over the boys, prodding or kicking them, the photographer wrote.

Noon at Pennsylvania Coal Company’s Ewen Breaker in South Pittston

A young leader and a driver for the Pennsylvania Coal Company worked in Shaft #6 in South Pittson. The workers are Pasquale Salvo and Sandy Castina.

At the end of the day, workers for the Pennsylvania Coal Company waited for the cage to go up at Shaft #6 in South Pittson, Pennsylvania. The small boy in front is Jo Pume, a nipper.

A photo of a miner boy named Frank as he was going home. At the time, he was about 14 years old. He had worked in the mine for three years helping his father pick and load. He was in the hospital one year, after his leg was crushed by a coal car, Hine wrote.

Workers at the end of the day in a Pennsylvania coal mine. The smallest boy, near the far right, is a nipper. On his right is Arthur, a driver. Jo, on Arthur’s right, is a nipper. Frank, the boy on the left end of the photo, is a nipper and works a mile underground from the shaft, which is 5,000 feet down.

James O’Dell helped push these heavily loaded cars. He appears to be about 12 or 13 years old, Hine wrote. James worked at Knoxville Iron Co.’s Cross Mountain Mine, which is in the vicinity of Coal Creek, Tennessee. James had been there four months.

Shorpy Higginbotham was a greaser at Bessie Mine in Alabama, working for the Sloss-Sheffield Steel and Iron Company. Hine said the boy told him that he was 14 years old, but Hine suspected the boy wasn’t telling the truth. At work, Shorpy carried two heavy pails of grease and was often in danger of being run over by the coal cars.

A greaser at Bessie Mine in Alabama

Harry and Sallie. Harry was a driver for the Maryland Coal Co. Mine, which was near Grafton, West Virginia. Hine said the boy was afraid of being photographed because he might be forced to go to school. Harry was probably 12 years old, Hine wrote.

Tom Vitol (also called Dominick Dekatis) was photographed in Hughestown Burough, Pittston, Pennsylvania. He worked in Breaker #9 and was probably younger than 14 years old, Hine wrote.

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The Photos That Helped End Child Labor in the United States

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Bonus Labor Day Cat Blogging – 7 September 2015

by RaulPennell Posted on September 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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As a certified union thug (UAW local 2103, bitches!), I am honor bound not to work today. Unless, of course, someone is wrong on the internet somewhere and I have to step in. But that doesn’t mean you will be left blogless. Hilbert is not unionized—and, like the lilies of the field, he neither toils nor spins. He just smells the roses all day long. So it’s perfectly fine for him to entertain you today.

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Bonus Labor Day Cat Blogging – 7 September 2015

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CBO: Slow Growth Is the New Normal

by TangelaMiq Posted on August 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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Here’s something that ought to be good news: according to the CBO, the output gap—the difference between actual GDP and potential GDP—should disappear by the end of 2017. This depends on the recovery continuing, of course, but still. It’s nice to see that the economy will probably be running at full steam within a couple of years.

Except that the news isn’t so rosy once you understand why the CBO thinks the output gap will shrink to zero. It’s not because GDP growth is great. It’s because potential GDP growth is kind of sucky:

CBO projects that real potential output over the 2020–2025 period will grow by 2.1 percent per year, on average. That figure is substantially lower than the agency’s estimate of the rate of growth that occurred during the business cycles from 1981 to 2007—3.1 percent per year, on average….According to CBO’s estimates, the recession and the ensuing slow recovery have weakened the factors that determine potential output (labor supply, capital services, and productivity) for an extended period.

….The main reason that potential output is projected to grow more slowly than it did in the earlier business cycles is that CBO expects growth in the potential labor force (the labor force adjusted for variations caused by the business cycle) to be much slower than it was earlier. Growth in the potential labor force will be held down by the ongoing retirement of the baby boomers; by a relatively stable labor force participation rate among working-age women, after sharp increases from the 1960s to the mid-1990s; and by federal tax and spending policies set in current law, which will reduce some people’s incentives to work.

CBO is basically buying into the secular stagnation theory here. The recession, along with demographic factors, has caused a permanent slowdown in the potential capacity of the US economy. Slow growth is the new normal.

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CBO: Slow Growth Is the New Normal

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California Is on Fire. This Map Shows Where.

by Myrna Posted on August 18, 2015

On the two-year anniversary of the Rim Fire, the state confronts more vicious blazes. A wildfire burning near Clearlake, Calif., earlier this month. Josh Edelson/AP On August 17, 2013—two years ago today—a deer hunter near California’s Yosemite National Park ignored a campfire ban and burned trash from his dinner. The embers blew into dry brush, starting the third worst wildfire in the state’s history. All told, the Rim Fire, as it came to be called, burned 257,314 acres in and around Yosemite. No wildfires of that scale have occurred since, but, thanks to drought and climate change, California is far from out of the woods. In fact, in 2015, 4,382 wildfires have already scorched a total of 117,960 acres, more than double the 5 year average for this time of year. Firefighters have finally controlled the largest two fires, in Northern California’s Jerusalem Valley, but not before the blazes razed nearly 100,000 acres. Read the rest at Mother Jones. Continued here:   California Is on Fire. This Map Shows Where. ; ; ;

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California Is on Fire. This Map Shows Where.

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