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Debunking the Food vs Fuel Myth

by Posted on February 20, 2015

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Debunking the Food vs Fuel Myth

Posted 20 February 2015 in

National

In a recent article for Biofuels Digest, Brent Erickson of the Biotechnology Industry Organization debunks the “food vs fuel” myth presented in a new working paper issued by the World Resources Institute (WRI).

Through increased crop productivity and human ingenuity, America’s farmers are sustainably meeting the demands of food crops and bioenergy crops. For America’s rural economies, the renewable fuel industry is a vital source of jobs. This will continue to be the case for years to come as long as Big Oil and their allies aren’t successful in spreading misinformation about this homegrown fuel choice.

“It makes one wonder what the real agenda behind Searchinger’s tortured assumptions is. It seems to be to try and kill off renewable biofuels and facilitate fossil carbon pollution. It’s long past time that the world recognizes the fatal flaws in Searchinger’s arguments and stores this argument in the compost pile, where it belongs.”

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Debunking the Food vs Fuel Myth

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Google Can Do Well With Its New Communications Products, But Only If It Acts Like a Genuine Startup

by MarylouMuo Posted on February 7, 2015

Mother Jones

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Brian Fung tells us that Google is making a “serious play in the communications space,” featuring an aggressive strategy that includes rollouts of new products like ultra-fast internet service, new smartphones, and even wireless service:

Google’s investments in telecom pit the company against some of the largest voice and Internet providers around. But Google has a key advantage: It doesn’t make its money from Internet service subscribers. That’s why it will be able to drive down prices for consumers, to adopt business practices that would be unsustainable for other carriers and to influence Washington policy debates in surprising ways.

“This is a multilayered strategy,” said Harold Feld, senior vice president for the consumer group Public Knowledge. “Even if Google only makes 10 percent profit margin on its fiber and wireless offerings, that’s enough for it to be successful and to achieve the desired result of driving more use of its applications.”

This isn’t quite right. Or maybe I should say it’s only half right. It’s true that these new services will probably help Google increase sales of its core products, thus offsetting low margins in the communications space. But that’s not the real reason Google can afford to do this. The real reason is that Google is a new entrant, which means that entering these new businesses doesn’t force it to cannibalize any of its current businesses.

This is the key problem that kills old companies when new technology hits the street. Every cheap new widget they sell means one less expensive old widget they sell, and very few companies have the stones to just accept reality and really dive into the new widgets regardless. So they sell the new widgets, but only half-heartedly. They defeature them. They limit their sales channels. They don’t spend enough on marketing. Meanwhile, a startup with no such issues eats their lunch because their new widgets are their main business and they just sell the hell out of them.

That’s Google’s big advantage in this space. The fact that entering the telecom business might—might!—boost sales of other Google products is great, but it’s just a bonus, and not one they should be thinking too hard about. In fact, if their new products are tailored too tightly as mere helpers for their old product lines, they could end up in the same position as all those old dinosaur companies that couldn’t quite put their hearts into new tech. That road is well trod, and it’s usually a pretty grim one.

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Google Can Do Well With Its New Communications Products, But Only If It Acts Like a Genuine Startup

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As oil buyers pull out of Venezuela, condom prices swell to $755

by ElizabeARZL Posted on February 4, 2015

As oil buyers pull out of Venezuela, condom prices swell to $755

By on 4 Feb 2015commentsShare

A globalized economy is a wacky thing! Por ejemplo: The fact that you were able to fill up your gas tank for $20 this morning means that there’s a couple in Caracas that’s stewing in sexual frustration.

In Venezuela, where the highly oil-dependent economy shrunk by 2.8 percent in 2014 — and is expected to contract another 7 percent this year — inflation has skyrocketed and grocery store shelves are empty. All the essentials have become perilously scarce — like food, medicine, and contraceptives. Yes, ma’am — a pack of condoms in Caracas will now run you upwards of $700. I’ll wait while you contemplate which you would choose: safe sex or rent?

First of all: Can you imagine the performance anxiety that comes with that kind of price tag? I’m sweating just thinking about it. But it’s much more likely that couples will forego the protection than shell out for safety — can you blame them? — and that’s where the real problems lie. From Bloomberg:

The impact of reduced access to contraceptives is far graver than frustration over failed hookups. Venezuela has one of South America’s highest rates of HIV infection and teenage pregnancy. Abortion is illegal.

The cruel irony here is that Venezuela, the fourth-largest producer of imported crude oil and petroleum, has not a single factory to produce condoms, many of which are made from petroleum-based polymers — despite promises from President Nicolás Maduro to create a network of condom factories to “protect Venezuela’s youth from the effects of ‘capitalist pornography.’” All puns aside (I swear), this is fucked.

Source:
The $755 Condom Pack Is the Latest Indignity in Venezuela

, Bloomberg Business.

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As oil buyers pull out of Venezuela, condom prices swell to $755

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Supreme Court Set to Devastate Millions of Lives Later This Year. But Will They Pull the Trigger?

by Belinda Norbert Posted on January 2, 2015

Mother Jones

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Greg Sargent notes that the future of Obamacare is one of the big political unknowns of the new year:

One of the big, looming questions of 2015 is this: Will the Supreme Court really gut Obamacare subsidies in the three dozen states on the federal exchange, potentially depriving millions of health coverage at a moment when the law, now heading into its second year, is clearly working as intended?

One thing to watch as we approach the SCOTUS hearings on King v. Burwell this spring is how many people are newly qualifying for subsidies in those states as this year’s enrollment period continues….We could be looking at a lot of people who would lose subsidies in the event of a bad SCOTUS ruling, perhaps more overall than previous estimates of around four million. And the enrollment period still has six weeks to go.

I’ve guesstimated previously that around 6 million would be affected in 2016 if the Supreme Court kills subsidies on the federal exchange later this year. Charles Gaba figures it’s somewhere around 5-6 million this year. That’s a lot of people who would face one of two things: (a) an increase of maybe $2-5,000 in their health care premiums, or (b) an end to health care coverage completely because they flatly can’t afford the unsubsidized premiums.

Will this affect the court’s thinking? It’s hard to think of a comparable case where a ruling would have had such an immediate, devastating effect on millions of ordinary people. If anything, that gives me hope. Will John Roberts and Anthony Kennedy really be willing to inflict that kind of real-world pain, regardless of their ideological convictions? Maybe not. At least, I hope not, because I’ve basically given up on the idea that the Supreme Court is anything other than crudely results-oriented these days. Especially on the conservative side of the aisle, they simply don’t seem to care much about law or precedent or common sense anymore. They like what they like and they hate what they hate, and they shape their opinions to match.

Maybe that’s just the despair of a liberal who’s seen a lot of cases go against him over the past few years. Maybe. But I guess we’re going to find out later this year.

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Supreme Court Set to Devastate Millions of Lives Later This Year. But Will They Pull the Trigger?

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Voter ID Laws: Terrible Public Policy, But Probably Pretty Feeble

by FFJLaunaxxkc Posted on November 19, 2014

Mother Jones

Republican-led voter-ID laws may be pernicious, but Nate Cohn says there are three reasons to think their actual electoral impact is overstated:

To begin with, the true number of registered voters without photo identification is usually much lower than the statistics on registered voters without identification suggest. The number of voters without photo identification is calculated by matching voter registration files with state ID databases. But perfect matching is impossible and the effect is to overestimate the number of voters without identification.

….People without ID are less likely to vote than other registered voters. The North Carolina study found that 43 percent of the unmatched voters — registered voters who could not be matched with a driver’s license — participated in 2012, compared with more than 70 percent of matched voters.

….There’s no question that voter ID has a disparate impact on Democratic-leaning groups….But voters without an identification might be breaking something more like 70/30 for Democrats than 95/5. A 70/30 margin is a big deal, and, again, it’s fully consistent with Democratic concerns about voter suppression. But when we’re down to the subset of unmatched voters who don’t have any identification and still vote, a 70/30 margin probably isn’t generating enough votes to decide anything but an extremely close election.

When I looked into this a couple of years ago, I basically came to the same conclusion. Only a few studies were available at the time, but they suggested that the real-world impact of voter ID laws was fairly small. I haven’t seen anything since then to suggest otherwise.

None of this justifies the cynical Republican effort to suppress voting via ID laws. For one thing, they still matter in close elections. For another, the simple fact that they deliberately target minority voters is noxious—and this is very much not ameliorated by the common Republican defense that the real reason they’re targeted isn’t race related. It’s because they vote for Democrats. If anything, that makes it worse. Republicans are knowingly making it harder for blacks and Hispanics to vote because they vote for the wrong people. I’m not sure how much more noxious a voter suppression effort can be.

These laws should be stricken from the books, lock, stock and extremely smoking barrel. They don’t prevent voter fraud and they have no purpose except to suppress the votes of targeted groups. The evidence on this point is now clear enough that the Supreme Court should revisit its 2008 decision in Crawford v. Marion that upheld strict voter ID laws. They have no place in a decent society.

At the same time, if you’re wondering how much actual effect they have, the answer is probably not much. We still don’t have any definitive academic studies on this point, I think, but Cohn makes a pretty good case. It’s possible that Kay Hagen might have lost her Senate race this year thanks to voter ID laws, but she’s probably the only one.

Source – 

Voter ID Laws: Terrible Public Policy, But Probably Pretty Feeble

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Here’s why narrower streets are safer

by Bernard6504 Posted on October 8, 2014

follow the narrow brick road

Here’s why narrower streets are safer

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8 Oct 2014 2:39 PM

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If you could change one thing about your city, to make it a safer and more pleasant place, what would you pick?

My first answer was solar-powered hover-buses, but it turns out that the real deal is much simpler than that. The one single thing we could actually do to limit traffic fatalities and make cities more bike- and pedestrian-friendly is *drumroll* …. restrict the lanes on our busiest streets to 10 feet wide.

I know, it’s way less cool than a diesel-free levitating commute, but on the other hand, it would actually work.

City planner Jeff Speck, also known (by me, as of this moment) as the wizard of walkability, summed it up quite pithily for CityLab:

When lanes are built too wide, many bad things happen. In a sentence: pedestrians are forced to walk further across streets on which cars are moving too fast and bikes don’t fit.

Right now, the busiest roads in cities feature lanes between 10 and 12 feet wide. But 12 feet is just absurdly wide, Speck points out. The standard in cities used to be 10 feet; it’s only recently they’ve been expanded, under an assumption that wider lanes will put cars farther away from the things and people they might hit.

But that premise ignores the fact that drivers will change their behavior in different environments. Think about it: When you’re driving down a wide, straight road with a generous buffer on all sides, you are more likely to nudge past the speed limit. Whereas a narrow road, hemmed with trees, separated bike lanes, and other traffic-calming features, might be more likely to make you slow down and keep a sharper lookout for fellow bipeds.

So far, so logical. And there are reams of studies to back up this assumption, including one authored by Rutgers professor Robert Noland, who determined that wider lanes were responsible for approximately 900 extra traffic fatalities each year.

And not only do narrower lanes lead to fewer accidents — they also mean the accidents that do occur are much less likely to be fatal. Speck again:

According to a broad collection of studies, a pedestrian hit by a car traveling 30 m.p.h. at the time of impact is between seven and nine times as likely to be killed as one hit by a car traveling 20 m.p.h. This tremendously sharp upward fatality curve means that, at urban motoring speeds, every single mile per hour counts.

Meanwhile, a multi-lane street with lanes cut down from 12 feet to 10 feet leaves plenty left over for protected bike lanes. Sounds like a win-win to me.

Source:
Why 12-Foot Traffic Lanes Are Disastrous for Safety and Must Be Replaced Now

, CityLab.

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How To Throw Shade

by MathiasLopresti Posted on September 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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Last night, PBS aired “America After Ferguson,” a town hall about race in America. A lot of really interesting and intelligent things were said! You should watch the whole thing. In addition to the really interesting and intelligent things that were said, there were also very stupid and offensive things said. Dearly oppressed white conservative dumb dumb columnist for the American Spectator Ross Kaminsky’s contributions to the evening could probably best be classified more the latter than the former.

Look, I am not going to address this dude’s points in any serious way. (You can watch them for yourself if you’re into that sort of thing beginning around minute 14 above.) They was all very much “blah blah reverse racism blah blah white people are the real victims blah blah.” And here’s the thing: This is America. You can believe whatever stupid nonsense you want. It is quite literally the reason the pilgrims crossed the ocean. So, you do you, Ross Kaminsky. But know that whenever you spout off this insidious white man’s burden bullshit, the rest of us are going to be throwing you the type of shade this amazing kid threw your way all night long.

Have a nice weekend.

(h/t to my friend @sobendito)

Source – 

How To Throw Shade

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RED 3: Mitt Romney May Be Retired, But Still Extremely Dangerous

by ReedHuittww Posted on September 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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Byron York says that Mitt Romney aspires to be the Harold Stassen of the 21st century:

Romney is talking with advisers, consulting with his family, keeping a close eye on the emerging ’16 Republican field, and carefully weighing the pluses and minuses of another run. That doesn’t mean he will decide to do it, but it does mean that Mitt 2016 is a real possibility.

….A significant number of Romney’s top financial supporters from 2012 have decided not to commit to any other 2016 candidate until they hear a definitive word from Romney. They believe they are doing it with the tacit approval of Romney himself.

….If Romney did run, one thing the loyalists expect is a change in his top strategists. Recently one veteran Republican operative who was not involved in the Romney campaign said, “All his people want him to run again because they made so much money off it the last time.” Now, Romney supporters say that if he mounts another campaign, they would demand that Romney not employ Stuart Stevens and Russ Schriefer, the Republican strategists who played key roles in the 2012 campaign. Who would take their place is an open question.

I know that Romney doesn’t want my advice, but here it is anyway: Just pay all these guys a bunch of money to go away and stop dreaming about a chance to light more of your money on fire. It will be cheaper in the long run, and your eventual job description will be the same too.

But as long as we’re supposedly taking this seriously, let’s put on our analytical hats and ask: could Romney beat Hillary Clinton if they both ran? On the plus side, Hillary’s not as good a campaigner as Barack Obama and 2016 is likely to be a Republican-friendly year after eight years of Democratic rule. On the minus side, Romney has already run twice, and the American public isn’t usually very kind to second chances in political life, let alone third chances. Plus—and this is the real killer—Romney still has all the problems he had in 2012. In the public eye, he remains the 47 percent guy who seems more like the Romneytron 3000 than a real human being.

Still, snark aside, if you put all this together I guess it means Romney really would have a shot at winning if he ran. We still live in a 50-50 nation, after all, and for the foreseeable future I suspect that pretty much every presidential election is going to be fairly close. And Romney certainly has a decent chance of winning the Republican nomination, since he’d be competing against pretty much the same clown show as last time.

So sure: Run, Mitt! I hear that Eric Cantor is available to be your vice president.

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RED 3: Mitt Romney May Be Retired, But Still Extremely Dangerous

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Tonight’s PBS Special Makes The Most Powerful Argument For Vaccines Yet

by Ludie69E Posted on September 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Tonight, PBS’s NOVA will air a strongly pro-vaccine special, called “Vaccines: Calling the Shots.” If you care about science, it’s something you should watch.

The program focuses on our faulty risk perceptions around vaccines, how many people are vastly more scared than they ought to be of a tiny risk (vaccination) while ignoring a huge one, the return of deadly diseases. The consequence could not be more grave: In a scene that is just hard to watch, the program shows a tiny infant suffering from whooping cough, its mother weeping, nurses running in constantly to sit the baby up (he cannot even raise himself) so that he does not choke. It’s heartbreaking.

Here’s a preview:

Without giving too much away, suffice it to say that “Vaccines” makes a powerful case for immunization. It lays out the overwhelming science demonstrating the safety of vaccines and also shows you how the immune system works and why conditions like autism likely have a genetic and early developmental explanation, rather than being caused by vaccine “injury.”

Unfortunately, it also shows that again and again in history, after a disease (like smallpox) is beaten back by vaccinations and medical science, people who are no longer threatened by the real danger then start to worry about the inoculation itself.

And now, we’re doing it again.

(You can watch “Vaccines: Calling the Shots” tonight at 9 pm EDT.)

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Tonight’s PBS Special Makes The Most Powerful Argument For Vaccines Yet

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Reminder: Facebook Going Down Is Not A Good Reason To Call the Police

by greenenergy4 Posted on September 3, 2014

Mother Jones

Facebook suffered a brief outage today. When these kinds of things happen—and these kinds of things tend to happen—the key is to not lose your head. Don’t panic. Stretch your legs. Go for a walk. Check out Twitter. Check out Tumblr. Check out the real world. Whatever you do, don’t call the police.

Just remember: You’re going to get through this.

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Reminder: Facebook Going Down Is Not A Good Reason To Call the Police

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