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When in drought, Californian salmon take to the road

by KlaraGuzm Posted on March 14, 2014

When in drought, Californian salmon take to the road

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duncan_idaho_2007

Spring is typically the time when salmon in Northern California hightail it to the Pacific via freshwater streams. But now that the usual thoroughfares are starting to dry up, thanks to this winter’s epic drought, U.S. Fish and Wildlife suggest the salmon do what Californians do best: Take the freeway.

Despite the recent storms, the state’s snowpack is still critically low, and unless this year’s April showers are more like April monsoons it’s likely that rivers will still be too warm and shallow for salmon to make it from hatchery to sea for their seasonal spring migration. To get them over this hurdle, as many as 30 million fish will be loaded up on tanker trucks and driven the three hours between hatcheries near Red Bluff to San Pablo Bay.

Not that this hasn’t been done before. It’s the same trucking plan that was carried out during the great drought of ’91-’92 . California actually used to truck most of its hatchery-raised fish out to the ocean, in order to protect them from predators and pollution — until they found that the salmon that hitched a ride had a harder time returning to their home base, because they missed the chance to smell the journey (salmon use their noses to imprint their migration paths). Instead, they just vagabonded it to any ol’ hatchery, often to one where they weren’t as well adapted. The result: diminished populations.

Sounds kind of fishy. But Fish and Wildlife are in the midst of a multi-year study to figure out the best mode of transit for salmon during low-water years. Who knows, come next drought, maybe instead of taking a gas-guzzler, they’ll be traveling by zeppelin.

Samantha Larson is a science nerd, adventure enthusiast, and fellow at Grist. Follow her on Twitter.Find this article interesting? Donate now to support our work.Read more: Climate & Energy

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When in drought, Californian salmon take to the road

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McDonald’s Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers

by AnnetteLorenzo Posted on March 13, 2014

Mother Jones

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

Fast food workers make very little money. How little money? Very little money! So little in fact that a single parent of one living in New York City would have to work 144 hours a week “to make a secure yet modest living.” But apparently, those wages are not low enough, a group of McDonald’s workers allege, to stop the company from also stealing from them.

Wage-theft suits brought against McDonald’s this week in Michigan, California, and New York accuse the chain of refusing to pay overtime, ordering people to work off the clock, and straight up erasing hours from timecards. If these allegations are true, and maybe they’re not, but maybe they are, then the company has been illegally screwing people who are already being legally screwed.

This is the most recent development in a months-long campaign by fast-food workers pushing for a $15/hour starting wage.

You shouldn’t eat fast food because fast food is bad for you but if you do eat fast food (and you will eat fast food at least once in a while because nobody can be perfect all the time), be nice to the people who serve you. They have to fight tooth and nail to make ends meet.

Could you make it on fast food wages? Here’s a depressing calculator. (Spoiler: Probably not!)

How many people are in your household? One Adult No Children
One Adult One Child
One Adult Two Children
One Adult Three Children
Two Adults No Children
Two Adults One Child
Two Adults Two Children
Two Adults Three ChildrenWhich state do you live in? Which area do you live in? (Area data not available for households without children.)How much do you make in a year? $

In order to make $___ a year, the typical fast-food worker has to work __ hours a week.

A household like yours in ___, ___ needs to earn $__ annually to make a secure yet modest living. A fast-food worker working full time would have to earn $__ an hour to make that much.

The average fast-food employee works less than 25 hours a week. To make a living wage in ___, ___ at current median wages, s/he would have to work __ hours a week.

In __ hours, McDonald’s serves __ customers and makes $__. That’s about __ Big Macs.

var median_fast_food_worker_wage = 8.94; // Source: National Employment Law Project, July 2013; http://nelp.3cdn.net/84a67b124db45841d4_o0m6bq42h.pdf
var work_weeks_per_year = 52;
var months_per_year = 12;
var average_fast_food_worker_hours_per_week = 24.4;
var average_weeks_in_a_month = 4.348;
var hours_worked_at_full_time = 40;

var days_in_2012 = 366; //leap year
var McDonalds_customers_per_day_in_2012 = 69000000; // Source: McDonalds 2012 Annual Report
var hours_in_day = 24;
var mcD_systemwide_restaurants = 34480;
var mcD_served_per_hour = McDonalds_customers_per_day_in_2012 / hours_in_day;

var mcD_earnings_in_2012 = 27567000000; // Source: McDonalds 2012 Annual Report http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/content/dam/AboutMcDonalds/Investors/Investor%202013/2012%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf
var mcD_earned_per_hour = Math.round(mcD_earnings_in_2012 / days_in_2012 / hours_in_day);

var cost_of_big_mac = 4;

var first_state = ‘AK’;
var first_locale = ‘Anchorage, AK HUD Metro FMR Area’;
var state_abbr =
‘AL’ : ‘Alabama’,
‘AK’ : ‘Alaska’,
‘AS’ : ‘America Samoa’,
‘AZ’ : ‘Arizona’,
‘AR’ : ‘Arkansas’,
‘CA’ : ‘California’,
‘CO’ : ‘Colorado’,
‘CT’ : ‘Connecticut’,
‘DE’ : ‘Delaware’,
‘DC’ : ‘District of Columbia’,
‘FM’ : ‘Micronesia1’,
‘FL’ : ‘Florida’,
‘GA’ : ‘Georgia’,
‘GU’ : ‘Guam’,
‘HI’ : ‘Hawaii’,
‘ID’ : ‘Idaho’,
‘IL’ : ‘Illinois’,
‘IN’ : ‘Indiana’,
‘IA’ : ‘Iowa’,
‘KS’ : ‘Kansas’,
‘KY’ : ‘Kentucky’,
‘LA’ : ‘Louisiana’,
‘ME’ : ‘Maine’,
‘MH’ : ‘Islands1’,
‘MD’ : ‘Maryland’,
‘MA’ : ‘Massachusetts’,
‘MI’ : ‘Michigan’,
‘MN’ : ‘Minnesota’,
‘MS’ : ‘Mississippi’,
‘MO’ : ‘Missouri’,
‘MT’ : ‘Montana’,
‘NE’ : ‘Nebraska’,
‘NV’ : ‘Nevada’,
‘NH’ : ‘New Hampshire’,
‘NJ’ : ‘New Jersey’,
‘NM’ : ‘New Mexico’,
‘NY’ : ‘New York’,
‘NC’ : ‘North Carolina’,
‘ND’ : ‘North Dakota’,
‘OH’ : ‘Ohio’,
‘OK’ : ‘Oklahoma’,
‘OR’ : ‘Oregon’,
‘PW’ : ‘Palau’,
‘PA’ : ‘Pennsylvania’,
‘PR’ : ‘Puerto Rico’,
‘RI’ : ‘Rhode Island’,
‘SC’ : ‘South Carolina’,
‘SD’ : ‘South Dakota’,
‘TN’ : ‘Tennessee’,
‘TX’ : ‘Texas’,
‘UT’ : ‘Utah’,
‘VT’ : ‘Vermont’,
‘VI’ : ‘Virgin Island’,
‘VA’ : ‘Virginia’,
‘WA’ : ‘Washington’,
‘WV’ : ‘West Virginia’,
‘WI’ : ‘Wisconsin’,
‘WY’ : ‘Wyoming’

var selected_state = jQuery(“#selected_state”);
var selected_locale = jQuery(“#selected_locale”);
var selected_household = jQuery(“#selected_household”);

for (var state in bfjo)
var option = jQuery(” + state_abbrstate + ”);
selected_state.append(option);

var fill_locale_selector = function(state_object)

selected_locale.html(“”);

for (var locale in state_object)
var option = jQuery(” + locale.replace(/,.*$/, ”) + ”);
selected_locale.append(option);

}

fill_locale_selector(bfjofirst_state)

selected_state.bind(“change”,
function()
var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var state_object = bfjostate;

fill_locale_selector(state_object);

)

/*
var fill_household_selector = function(locale_object)
var selected_household = jQuery(“#selected_household”);

selected_household.html(“”);

for (var household in locale_object)
var option = jQuery(” + household + ”);
selected_household.append(option);

}

fill_household_selector(bfjofirst_statefirst_locale)
*/

selected_locale.bind(“change”,
function()
var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var locale = $(“#selected_locale option:selected”).val();
var locale_object = bfjostatelocale;

//fill_household_selector(locale_object);

)

enable_disable_locale = function()
var household = $(“#selected_household option:selected”).val();
if (household === ‘1P0C’ else
selected_locale.attr(‘disabled’, ”);

}
selected_household.bind(“change”,
function()
enable_disable_locale();

);
enable_disable_locale();

jQuery(“#calculate_this”).bind(“submit”,
function()

var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var locale = $(“#selected_locale option:selected”).val();
var household = $(“#selected_household option:selected”).val();
var salary = parseInt($(“#input_salary”).val());

var annual_living_wage = bfjostatelocalehousehold;
console.log(state);
console.log(locale);
console.log(household);
console.log(annual_living_wage);
var hourly_for_living = annual_living_wage / months_per_year
/ average_weeks_in_a_month / hours_worked_at_full_time;

var hours_to_live_per_month = annual_living_wage / months_per_year / median_fast_food_worker_wage;
var weeks_to_live_per_month = hours_to_live_per_month / hours_worked_at_full_time;

var salary_monthly = salary / months_per_year;
var hours_to_salary_monthly = salary_monthly / median_fast_food_worker_wage;
var weeks_to_salary_monthly = hours_to_salary_monthly / hours_worked_at_full_time;

var hours_living_a_week = hours_to_live_per_month / average_weeks_in_a_month;
var hours_salary_a_week = hours_to_salary_monthly / average_weeks_in_a_month;

var commify = function(number)
while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(number.toString()))
number = number.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);
}
return number;
}

var salary_string = commify(salary);
var yearly_living_wage_string = commify(annual_living_wage);
/*
while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(salary_string.toString()))
salary_string = salary_string.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);

while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(yearly_living_wage_string.toString()))
yearly_living_wage_string = yearly_living_wage_string.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);

*/

jQuery(“#calculated”).show();
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_hours”).text(Math.round(hours_to_live_per_month));
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_state”).text(state_abbrstate);
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_state2”).text(state_abbrstate);
if (household === “1P0C” || household === “2P0C”)
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_locale”).text(”);
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_locale2″).text(”);
else
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_locale”).text(locale.replace(/,.*$/, ”) + ‘,’);
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_locale2″).text(locale.replace(/,.*$/, ”) + ‘,’);

jQuery(“#salary”).text(salary_string);
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_time”).text(Math.round(hours_to_salary_monthly));

jQuery(“#living_hours_per_week”).text(Math.round(hours_living_a_week));
jQuery(“#living_hours_per_week2”).text(Math.round(hours_living_a_week));

jQuery(“#salary_hours_per_week”).text(Math.round(hours_salary_a_week));
jQuery(“#fast_food_calculator_living_wage_annual”).text(yearly_living_wage_string);

jQuery(“#mc_d_customers_served”).text(
commify(
Math.round(
Math.round(hours_living_a_week) * mcD_served_per_hour
)
)
);
jQuery(“#mc_d_money_earned”).text(
commify(Math.round(Math.round(hours_living_a_week) * mcD_earned_per_hour))
);

jQuery(“#big_mac_count”).text(
commify(
Math.round(
Math.round(hours_living_a_week)
* mcD_earned_per_hour
/ cost_of_big_mac
)
)
);

console.log(hourly_for_living);
var hourly_for_living_clean = Math.round(hourly_for_living * 100)
.toString().replace(/(d+)(d2)/, ‘$1’+’.’+’$2′);
jQuery(“#living_wage_hourly”).text(hourly_for_living_clean);

return false;

}

)

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McDonald’s Accused of Stealing Wages From Already Underpaid Workers

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San Francisco moves to ban plastic water bottles, scoffs at every other sad city

by MozelleNorthern Posted on March 12, 2014

San Francisco moves to ban plastic water bottles, scoffs at every other sad city

By

Shutterstock

Two big pieces of news out of San Francisco this week: Barry Bonds started a brief stint coaching for the Giants, and the city made significant progress toward outlawing plastic water bottles. As a result, the average level of self-satisfaction exhibited by San Franciscans increased by a factor of three.

And that’s just from Bonds’ ego! Did you really think we were going to shame a city for striving to be more environmentally conscious? Not that we’re ruling out that San Francisco might have done it just a little bit to make every other American city look even worse. (Oh, come on! You were thinking it too!) Still, this is downright cheery news.

On Tuesday, the city’s board of supervisors unanimously approved a ban on selling single-use plastic bottles of water on city property. The ban, which still needs a second vote and the sign-off of San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, will go into effect in October of this year for indoor events, and 2016 for outdoor events. Sporting events that require excessive water consumption — such as the San Francisco Marathon — could be excluded from these restrictions, but not without first attempting to secure other, more sustainable sources of water.

SFGate reports:

[Supervisor David] Chiu noted that it wasn’t until the 1990s that there was a plastic water bottle industry, which is now a $60 billion a year business. He said one goal of the legislation is to get people thinking about the waste, much like the city’s plastic bag ban, which has dramatically increased the number of consumers who use reusable bags.

“I want to remind people that not long ago, our world was not addicted to plastic water bottles,” he said. “Before (the 1990s), for centuries, everybody managed to stay hydrated.”

At which point, every other city supervisor struggled to recall what life was like at any point before approximately last Thanksgiving.

Chiu, however sassy about it, has a point. Since 1991, U.S. bottled water consumption per capita has tripled. And this is in spite of the fact that bottled water is widely acknowledged as an enormous scam: 25 percent or more of bottled water is just straight tap water, but you pay as much as 2,000 times more for it than the stuff that comes out of your kitchen faucet.

As scams go, bottled water also has an undeniable environmental impact. In 2007, production of water bottles for U.S. consumption alone used up to 54 million barrels of oil. Seventy-five percent of plastic water bottles are not recycled, instead ending up on beaches, in rivers, and partially full of unidentified liquid on nearly all the empty bus seats you’ve ever tried to sit in.

San Francisco, you’ll always be The City That Waits to Die to us. That said, Most Sustainable City in the United States has a pretty nice a ring to it, too.


Source
S.F. supervisors back ban on sale of plastic water bottles, SFGate

Eve Andrews is a Grist fellow and new Seattle transplant via the mean streets of Chicago, Poughkeepsie, and Pittsburgh, respectively and in order of meanness. Follow her on Twitter.

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San Francisco moves to ban plastic water bottles, scoffs at every other sad city

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EU Concludes Google Antitrust Action With a Whimper, Not a Bang

by HeribertoMcConn Posted on February 5, 2014

Mother Jones

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

The European Union has announced an agreement with Google that resolves a longstanding antitrust action. If you search for, say, gas grills, you’ll no longer see a results page with a bunch of Google ads for gas grills. You’ll see ads from both Google and others. Tim Lee explains:

Instead of showing six Google-selected ads for gas grills, the results would show three gas grills from Google’s product search engine and another three ads from competitors. Google will be allowed to charge these competitors for including these ads at regulated rates comparable to those Google charges for inclusion in its own product search engine. Similar changes will be required in other cases where Google includes results from a specialized search engine in its general search results.

Let me get this straight. There will now be two categories of ads. One will be “Google shopping results,” which you pay Google to be included in. The other will be “Alternatives,” which you pay comparable rates to Google to be included in. Both will be displayed next to each other.

That’s not nothing, I guess, especially since advertisers will have more control over the presentation of their products in the “Alternatives” section. And there are some other tidbits in the agreement that also represent improvement, though they’re mostly things Google had previously agreed to implement. Unless I’m missing something, this seems like fairly small potatoes. School me in comments if I’m wrong about this.

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EU Concludes Google Antitrust Action With a Whimper, Not a Bang

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Teslas drive L.A. to N.Y. in three days, guzzle no gas

by ElissaStrock Posted on February 3, 2014

Teslas drive L.A. to N.Y. in three days, guzzle no gas

By

Tesla

In the wee morning hours on Thursday, just a few days after Tesla had installed its 70th Supercharger (it’s pretty much what it sounds like — an electric-car charger that works super fast), a team of the company’s employees departed from Los Angeles for an epic drive to New York City.

By Sunday morning, despite snow and freezing conditions, both Tesla Model S electric sedans had reached their destination.

The Tesla team was aiming to break a world record — not a record for speed, but for shortest charge time for an electric vehicle traveling across the U.S. Guinness officials have yet to rule on whether the team succeeded. While awaiting that verdict, Tesla found other things to brag about.

“By normal standards, most people would have considered the conditions that the Model S cars faced [on] Day Three as extreme,” the company wrote on its blog. “Heavy snowfall turned to sleet; morning ice gave way to afternoon slush; fog restricted visibility. In Ohio, the cars sped on in driving rain. In all cases, the Model S prevailed with ease, as did the newly installed Superchargers along the way in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Ohio.”

Maybe Consumer Reports was right.


Source
Cross Country Rally, Tesla
Cross Country Rally: Day Three, Tesla
Tesla stays chill to finish 3-day cross-country rally, CNET

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Teslas drive L.A. to N.Y. in three days, guzzle no gas

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Why Did Obama Go to Costco? Our Wage Calculator Explains

by zdtadaqod1 Posted on January 29, 2014

Mother Jones

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

This morning, President Obama visited a Costco in suburban Maryland to reemphasize the theme of income inequality he sounded in the State of the Union speech last night. Our calculator shows why Obama chose the home of the giant pickle jar and behemoth TP package: Even at the relatively low wages paid by big-box retailers, slightly better pay can mean the difference between inescapable poverty and a modest living.

How many people are in your household? One Adult No Children
One Adult One Child
One Adult Two Children
One Adult Three Children
Two Adults No Children
Two Adults One Child
Two Adults Two Children
Two Adults Three ChildrenWhich state do you live in? Which area do you live in? (Area data not available for households without children.)

Where you live, a Costco worker needs to work __ hours each week to make a secure yet modest living to support a family as big as yours (as a sole breadwinner). A WalMart worker would need to work __ hours a week to achieve the same.

Sources: CNN Money, The National Employment Law Project, Bureau of Labor Statistics, and Economic Policy Institute’s Family Budget Calculator. The annual costs of living for adults without children use state-wide averages from MIT’s Living Wage Calculator. Front page image: Ruaridh Stewart/ZUMA Press.

var first_state = ‘AK’;
var first_locale = ‘Anchorage, AK HUD Metro FMR Area’;
var state_abbr =
‘AL’ : ‘Alabama’,
‘AK’ : ‘Alaska’,
‘AS’ : ‘America Samoa’,
‘AZ’ : ‘Arizona’,
‘AR’ : ‘Arkansas’,
‘CA’ : ‘California’,
‘CO’ : ‘Colorado’,
‘CT’ : ‘Connecticut’,
‘DE’ : ‘Delaware’,
‘DC’ : ‘District of Columbia’,
‘FM’ : ‘Micronesia1’,
‘FL’ : ‘Florida’,
‘GA’ : ‘Georgia’,
‘GU’ : ‘Guam’,
‘HI’ : ‘Hawaii’,
‘ID’ : ‘Idaho’,
‘IL’ : ‘Illinois’,
‘IN’ : ‘Indiana’,
‘IA’ : ‘Iowa’,
‘KS’ : ‘Kansas’,
‘KY’ : ‘Kentucky’,
‘LA’ : ‘Louisiana’,
‘ME’ : ‘Maine’,
‘MH’ : ‘Islands1’,
‘MD’ : ‘Maryland’,
‘MA’ : ‘Massachusetts’,
‘MI’ : ‘Michigan’,
‘MN’ : ‘Minnesota’,
‘MS’ : ‘Mississippi’,
‘MO’ : ‘Missouri’,
‘MT’ : ‘Montana’,
‘NE’ : ‘Nebraska’,
‘NV’ : ‘Nevada’,
‘NH’ : ‘New Hampshire’,
‘NJ’ : ‘New Jersey’,
‘NM’ : ‘New Mexico’,
‘NY’ : ‘New York’,
‘NC’ : ‘North Carolina’,
‘ND’ : ‘North Dakota’,
‘OH’ : ‘Ohio’,
‘OK’ : ‘Oklahoma’,
‘OR’ : ‘Oregon’,
‘PW’ : ‘Palau’,
‘PA’ : ‘Pennsylvania’,
‘PR’ : ‘Puerto Rico’,
‘RI’ : ‘Rhode Island’,
‘SC’ : ‘South Carolina’,
‘SD’ : ‘South Dakota’,
‘TN’ : ‘Tennessee’,
‘TX’ : ‘Texas’,
‘UT’ : ‘Utah’,
‘VT’ : ‘Vermont’,
‘VI’ : ‘Virgin Island’,
‘VA’ : ‘Virginia’,
‘WA’ : ‘Washington’,
‘WV’ : ‘West Virginia’,
‘WI’ : ‘Wisconsin’,
‘WY’ : ‘Wyoming’

var selected_state = jQuery(“#selected_state”);
var selected_locale = jQuery(“#selected_locale”);
var selected_household = jQuery(“#selected_household”);

for (var state in bfjo)
var option = jQuery(” + state_abbrstate + ”);
selected_state.append(option);

var fill_locale_selector = function(state_object)

selected_locale.html(“”);

for (var locale in state_object)
var option = jQuery(” + locale.replace(/,.*$/, ”) + ”);
selected_locale.append(option);

}

fill_locale_selector(bfjofirst_state)

selected_state.bind(“change”,
function()
var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var state_object = bfjostate;

fill_locale_selector(state_object);

)

selected_locale.bind(“change”,
function()
var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var locale = $(“#selected_locale option:selected”).val();
var locale_object = bfjostatelocale;

)

enable_disable_locale = function()
var household = $(“#selected_household option:selected”).val();

if (household === ‘1P0C’ else
selected_locale.removeAttr(‘disabled’);

}
selected_household.bind(“change”,
function()
enable_disable_locale();

);
enable_disable_locale();

jQuery(“#calculate_this”).bind(“submit”,
function()

var state = $(“#selected_state option:selected”).val();
var locale = $(“#selected_locale option:selected”).val();
var household = $(“#selected_household option:selected”).val();

var hours_worked_per_year = 2080;
var walmart_hourly_salary = 9.4;
var walmart_annual_salary = walmart_hourly_salary * hours_worked_per_year;
var costco_hourly_salary = 22.8;
var costco_annual_salary = costco_hourly_salary * hours_worked_per_year;

var annual_living_wage_for_household = bfjostatelocalehousehold;

var walmart_hours_needed_per_year = annual_living_wage_for_household / walmart_hourly_salary;
var costco_hours_needed_per_year = annual_living_wage_for_household / costco_hourly_salary;

var walmart_hours_needed_per_week = walmart_hours_needed_per_year / 52;
var costco_hours_needed_per_week = costco_hours_needed_per_year / 52;

console.log(‘Walmart hours per week: ‘, walmart_hours_needed_per_week)
console.log(‘Costco hours per week: ‘, costco_hours_needed_per_week)

var commify = function(number)
while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(number.toString()))
number = number.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);
}
return number;
}

jQuery(“#calculated”).show();
jQuery(“#costco_hours_needed_per_week”).text(Math.round(costco_hours_needed_per_week));
jQuery(“#walmart_hours_needed_per_week”).text(Math.round(walmart_hours_needed_per_week));

//var salary_string = commify(salary);
//var yearly_living_wage_string = commify(annual_living_wage);
/*
while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(salary_string.toString()))
salary_string = salary_string.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);

while (/(d+)(d3)/.test(yearly_living_wage_string.toString()))
yearly_living_wage_string = yearly_living_wage_string.toString().replace(/(d+)(d3)/, ‘$1’+’,’+’$2′);

*/

/*console.log(hourly_for_living);
var hourly_for_living_clean = Math.round(hourly_for_living * 100)
.toString().replace(/(d+)(d2)/, ‘$1’+’.’+’$2′);

jQuery(“#living_wage_hourly”).text(hourly_for_living_clean);*/

return false;

}

)

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Why Did Obama Go to Costco? Our Wage Calculator Explains

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"It’s Hucking Yourself Downhill Super-Fast"

by Jonelle8381 Posted on December 30, 2013

Mother Jones

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As far as Katie Uhlaender can tell, skeleton—which involves hurtling yourself face-first on a sled down an icy course at top speeds of nearly 90 miles an hour—is the safest sport she has ever tried. “I’ve had eight surgeries,” she says, “but none of them were from skeleton.”

Four years ago, preparing for the Vancouver Olympics, Uhlaender twice shattered her left knee—the first time in a backcountry snowmobile accident—requiring four surgeries and keeping her on crutches until 20 weeks before the Games. Add in the emotional pain of the death of her father, former major league outfielder Ted Uhlaender, and it’s no wonder that she struggled to an 11th-place finish in Vancouver.

Now, for the second Olympics in a row, Uhlaender is coming off an injury. This time, it’s skeleton-related: She suffered a concussion on a training run in Lake Placid a few months ago and was limited throughout the fall. “It was the first time in 10 years that I’ve had to not take the second run,” she says.

With Sochi on the horizon, I chatted with the 2012 world champ about how she got her start on the sled, how to slide without thinking, and how to manage the double-standard between men and women, in sports and beyond:

Mother Jones: So how did you ever get started in skeleton?

Katie Uhlaender: I just happened to get to meet someone completely random and got sucked in before I knew better. Laughs. I just met a girl who was a bobsledder, and she talked me into trying it. Three weeks into it I won junior nationals, fourth week I went to junior worlds, eighth week I won senior nationals. I kind of started winning right away, and it was either go to college and get a Ph.D. or become an Olympian. So I basically made a choice.

MJ: Had you played a lot of sports growing up?

KU: My father was a major league baseball player, so if you weren’t an athlete, you weren’t cool. I just was an athlete and was looking for a sport, and that’s what happened. I just took advantage of an opportunity and made a choice.

MJ: What was it like to have so much success so early?

KU: It’s all relative, right? First, when I went to junior worlds, I was conflicted because I didn’t feel like I deserved it. And then I talked to my dad, and he referenced his first at-bat in the big leagues. He couldn’t stop shaking. And then he realized that every legend before him took the same steps he took up to the plate. Once you get to the plate, you have two options: You either quit, or you try to hit the ball.

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"It’s Hucking Yourself Downhill Super-Fast"

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 4, 2013

by ClarenceWiederm Posted on December 4, 2013

Mother Jones

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Pfc. Christina Fuentes Montenegro and other Marines from Delta Company, Infantry Training Battalion, School of Infantry-East, receive final instructions prior to assaulting an objective during the Infantry Integrated Field Training Exercise aboard Camp Geiger, N.C., Nov 15, 2013. Montenegro is one of three female Marines to be the first women to graduate infantry training with the battalion. Delta Company is the first company at ITB with female students as part of a measured, deliberate and responsible collection of data on the performance of female Marines when executing existing infantry tasks and training events, the Marine Corps is soliciting entry-level female Marine volunteers to attend the eight week basic infantryman and infantry rifleman training courses at ITB. U. S. Marine Corps photo by Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul S. Mancuso/Released.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 4, 2013

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How Filibuster Reform Could Help Obama Crack Down on Banks

by MargoRandell Posted on December 2, 2013

Mother Jones

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Last month, Democrats changed the rules of the Senate. Now, confirming President Barack Obama’s judicial and executive-branch nominees will take just 51 votes instead of the previous 60. That is good news for Obama’s efforts to rein in big banks.

Since Obama took office in 2009, GOP senators have used filibuster threats to delay and block scores of executive-branch and judicial nominees. That has greatly benefited the financial industry. Three long-standing openings on the bench of the DC Circuit Court—which hears challenges to rules required by the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial-reform act—have created an imbalance that has tilted rulings to favor big banks. And vacancies on the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, if left unfilled, could slow Wall Street rule-making to a snail’s pace. Last month’s rules change will make it easier for Senate Democrats to confirm Obama’s choices for these posts. That could lead to regulations and court rulings that are more to reformers’ liking.

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How Filibuster Reform Could Help Obama Crack Down on Banks

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Will Spike Lee’s Original Three-Hour Cut of "Oldboy" Ever See the Light of Day?

by Curtis Tangredi Posted on November 26, 2013

Mother Jones

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“Tough fucking business.”

Those are the three words director Spike Lee used to explain the studio-led mangling of his latest film, Oldboy (FilmDistrict, 104 minutes).

The movie, which hits theaters on Wednesday, is a remake of Park Chan-wook‘s acclaimed 2003 South Korean revenge film of the same name. Lee’s version stars Josh Brolin as Joe Doucett, an alcoholic ad man and deadbeat father who is mysteriously abducted in 1993. He is held in a privately run detention facility (managed by a warden played by Samuel L. Jackson), where he learns he’s been framed for the rape and murder of his ex-wife. The authorities are hunting him, and his young daughter is placed into foster care. Twenty years later (a passage of time that Lee marks with clips of Clinton, Bush, 9/11, Iraq, Katrina, Obama, and more), Joe is suddenly released, and embarks on a gore-filled mission to find his daughter, make his captors suffer, and discover why he was detained for two decades.

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Will Spike Lee’s Original Three-Hour Cut of "Oldboy" Ever See the Light of Day?

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