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That’s It For Today

by TrentH06scybbv Posted on June 5, 2017

Mother Jones

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This is my last post for the day. Starting in a few minutes we’ll be replacing the guts of our website with something newer and better than what we have now, and no one at MoJo is allowed to edit the site until we’re done. That will be Tuesday morning according to our tech boffins.

I fully expect everything to go flawlessly during this conversion, because that’s how things usually go with computers. Right? Still, there’s an outside chance of something going wrong, which might mean I don’t show up for blogging duty on Tuesday. If that happens, don’t panic. Leave that to us professionals. We’ll get it all sorted.

In the meantime, I have important robot research to do and even more important vacation planning to do. See you Tuesday.

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That’s It For Today

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Revisiting the Rodney King Verdict 25 Years Later

by FlorineJxn Posted on April 29, 2017

Mother Jones

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On April 29, 1992, Los Angeles was engulfed in flames after a jury acquitted four LAPD officers who had been charged in the beating of Rodney King, an African-American motorist. Videos and images of King’s brutalization were widely circulated, provoking an immediate call for justice. When that call went unheeded, the ensuing unrest ignited a wave of violence, death, and financial loss in America’s second-largest city. Fifty-four people were killed in the riots, nearly 12,000 were arrested, and the city incurred more than $1 billion in damages. (The following year, two of the officers were convicted in federal court of violating King’s civil rights; the other two were acquitted once again.)

The parallels between modern-day police brutality and the 1991 King beating serve as a grim reminder of how little has changed today, despite efforts to reform law enforcement. Here are four documentaries and television specials that offer a window into the enduring legacy of the King verdict:

  1. LA Burning: The Riots 25 Years Later
    Despite being a retrospective, A&E’s special does not allow readers to retreat from the present-day, unfurling images of Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin at the start of the two-hour film. LA Burning spins through first-person recollections from a week of dark, incendiary nights in Los Angeles. The grievances and discontent of rioters are visible onscreen, and notable interviewees include George Holliday, the photographer whose video of King’s beating went viral in the pre-Internet age. The special is available to stream on A&E’s website.
  2. LA 92
    At a midnight speech in Sacramento, California Gov. Pete Wilson (R) declares a state of emergency in LA: “This is a matter that needs to be settled in the courts and not in the streets,” he tells residents. Using archival footage, LA 92 is National Geographic Channel’s reconstructed glimpse into the turbulence roiling the city during the riots. We shuttle from images of the California National Guard on standby duty to moments of quiet calm at the First AME Church, where African-American city council member Rita Walters tells crowds, “Tonight we must tell our children one more time: Stay cool, be calm…that for African-American children and adults, freedom is not yet a reality in the United States.” The film premieres on Sunday, April 30, on National Geographic.
  3. The Lost Tapes: LA Riots
    As conflagrations spread across Los Angeles, first responders, dispatchers, and law enforcement agents scrambled to ensure the city did not fully descend into flames. Their voices are among those highlighted in this program from the Smithsonian Channel, which stitches together raw footage and homemade videos capturing the riots at the height of their intensity—some of it rarely-seen footage. “I can smell the fires,” one resident phones into a local radio station. “I’m really angry, and I’m really very scared. I just spent the last 10 years of my life in college. But it doesn’t really matter because even with a briefcase in my hand and suit on my back, I’m still just another nigger to the cops out there.” The episode is available online.
  4. Burn Motherf*cker, Burn!
    Showtime’s 99-minute documentary evaluates the events preceding the King beating, outlining the LAPD’s long history of systematic racism. The Sacha Jenkins film revisits the 1965 Watts riots, which were sparked by the arrest of African-American driver Marquette Frye. The six-day rebellion that followed in this largely African-American LA neighborhood killed 34 people and led to approximately 4,000 arrests. It was the costliest urban riot of its period, and it served as a precursor to the 1992 riots. The documentary also examines California’s Simi Valley, the predominantly white community to which the King trial was moved after fears of media saturation led to a venue change. No black citizens served on the Simi Valley jury that acquitted the officers. The full film is available on Showtime’s website.

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Revisiting the Rodney King Verdict 25 Years Later

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Donald Trump Announces Something, Press Goes Wild

by ChanaWhelan445 Posted on September 14, 2016

Mother Jones

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A couple of weeks ago Hillary Clinton announced a plan to rein in excessive price increases by pharmaceutical companies. It was a hot topic at the time thanks to outrage over the 6x price increase of the EpiPen. However, if my sleuthing is accurate, Clinton’s plan wasn’t covered at all in the print editions of the New York Times and Washington Post, and got only a short blurb in the Wall Street Journal.

Today Donald Trump announced a modest child-care and maternity leave plan that was almost comically underfunded. The New York Times produced a long front-page story. The Washington Post ran a long story in the A section and added a second analysis piece online. The Wall Street Journal provided Ivanka Trump with prime op-ed real estate to tout her father’s plan. That’s some great coverage! And all of these pieces barely mentioned that Trump offered no remotely plausible way to pay for his proposal.

I suppose you can argue that Trump’s child-care plan is more important than Clinton’s drug pricing plan. Or that an actual policy proposal from Trump is so rare that it’s big news no matter what. Or that Republicans don’t normally propose spending money on people in need.

Sure, I guess. I mean, I realize that the marvel of the dancing bear is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all. Even so, it sure seems like the press really doesn’t care about Hillary Clinton’s policy proposals—oh God, another boring white paper from Hillz—but swoons every time Donald Trump blurps out one of his laughably ill-thought-out ideas—he’s using Ivanka to appeal to suburban women, we gotta get on this! But that’s editorial judgment for you. I’m sure the pros know what they’re doing.

POSTSCRIPT: Can I gripe about something else as long as we’re on the subject? Thanks. Here’s the New York Times:

But in selling his case, Mr. Trump stretched the truth, saying that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, has no such plan of her own and “never will.”

The Washington Post doesn’t even mention this, and needless to say, neither does Ivanka Trump’s bit of puffery in the Journal. So props to the Times. But seriously: stretched the truth? As Trump knows perfectly well, Hillary Clinton has been pressing for better child-care and family leave policies for decades, and her current proposal has been on her website for months. It’s far more extensive, more generous, and better thought out than Trump’s.

This is why Trump feels like he can simply say anything he wants, no matter how ridiculous. The obvious way to describe Trump’s statement is to call it a lie. That’s what it is. Instead, it either goes unmentioned or, at best, gets tiptoed around inaccurately. In what way, after all, did Trump “stretch the truth”? That implies there’s some kernel of truth to what Trump said, but he exaggerated it. But that’s not what he did. He just lied.

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Donald Trump Announces Something, Press Goes Wild

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Raw Data: How Does Social Security Compare to Retirement Programs in Other Countries?

by MariamTIMV Posted on July 12, 2016

Mother Jones

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Earlier today I wrote about retirement income in the United States, and that got me curious about how we compare to other countries. The obvious source for this is an international organization that does its best to make apples-to-apples comparisons, so I headed to the website of the OECD, the “rich countries club.” (I don’t really care how we compare to Chad. I want to know how we compare to peer countries like France and Japan.)

This in turn led me to “Pensions at a Glance,” which turned out to be an enormous misnomer: the 2015 edition is 374 pages long. I haven’t read the whole thing, of course, but I did find plenty of interesting stuff. I’m going to highlight one chart today, and maybe I’ll do others throughout the week.

So how do we compare? The answer, unsurprisingly, is: It’s complicated. There are lots of ways of comparing retirement income, and they produce different results. But there’s a single broad measure that gives a rough idea of how generous each country is: the percentage of GDP spent on pension programs. In the United States, that’s Social Security (public) plus 401(k)s, IRAs, etc. (private). Other countries give their programs different names, but they all employ a combination of public and private spending.

By itself, though, that’s not enough. Countries with more elderly people are obviously going to spend more. So you want to adjust the GDP number by how many people are retired. The OECD report doesn’t do this directly, but it does provide the old-age dependency ratio for each country, which is a good proxy. The higher the number, the more retired people a country has.

So all we have to do is divide the GDP number by the OADR number for each country. This provides a “retirement index” that indicates how generous each country’s retirement is. Here it is for public pensions only:

And here it is for all pension income, both public and private:

As with many other things, the United States relies more heavily on private spending than most rich countries. If you compare Social Security to public pensions in other countries, we’re about average. If you compare all pension income, our retirees are better off than nearly everywhere else.

Now, these are only average numbers. They don’t tell us anything about how rich retirees compare to poor ones. Social Security, for example, tends to favor poorer retirees, while private pensions favor richer ones, and it’s not easy to combine them to get a comprehensive distribution of retirement benefits. However, the OECD report has some other charts that come close to doing this, and I’ll see if I can extract one for tomorrow. In the meantime, make what you will of this raw data.

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Raw Data: How Does Social Security Compare to Retirement Programs in Other Countries?

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This Genius Lawyer Is Our Best Hope Against Deadly Food Poisoning

by MarcelFalk49809 Posted on May 20, 2016

Mother Jones

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Listeria in frozen foods. E. coli at Chipotle. Salmonella-laced pistachios. Practically every week there’s a new tainted food to avoid—and as a result, foodborne illness sickens 1 in 6 Americans, hospitalizes 128,000, and kills 3,000. The problem of bugs in food has stumped government agencies including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the United States Department of Agriculture.

But there’s one guy who has arguably won more battles against foodborne illness than anyone. This week’s Bite podcast guest is Bill Marler, a Seattle-based attorney who represents victims of food poisoning.

In a landmark 1993 case, Marler sued Jack in the Box over its infamous E. Coli outbreak—and won. Since then, he’s gone up against dozens of food industry giants: McDonald’s, KFC, Cargill, Taco Bell, Odwalla, and most recently, Chipotle, to name but a few. In addition to his work as a lawyer, Marler also fights for our government to tighten the rules that food suppliers have to follow. He runs the website Food Safety News, and he blogs at marlerblog.com.

We talked to Marler about why he insists on washing his own lettuce, how Chipotle became a victim of its own success, and tips on avoiding contaminated chow.

Also in this episode, Tom tells us how the giant poultry company Perdue is leading the way in ditching antibiotics (and what oregano has to do with it). And Maddie solves the mystery of how food behaves at 32,000 feet (and what sichuan peppercorns have to do with it). Have a listen!

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This Genius Lawyer Is Our Best Hope Against Deadly Food Poisoning

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This PAC Is Raising Money for Donald Trump. But Where Is It Going?

by Lucile93R19 Posted on March 8, 2016

Mother Jones

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A newly formed political action committee is using Donald Trump’s name and trademarked slogan—”Make America Great Again”—in an unusual fundraising ploy. The group, the Great America PAC, has no connection to the Trump campaign, but it has been blasting out emails soliciting donations that it claims will be channeled directly to Team Trump. In a recent email, the PAC implored donors to help “build a grassroots wall of support around Donald Trump by chipping in at least $5 to have your name placed on his official FEC report by signing the ‘I Support Donald Trump’ petition.” On the PAC’s website, donors are asked to donate between $5 and $1,000.

The website notes that the first $5 of each donation will be sent to the Trump campaign. And Dan Backer, the group’s treasurer, tells Mother Jones that this money is indeed “earmarked” for Trump. What happens to the rest of the money, for any donations greater than $5, is not clear. The email does promise to use money the group raises to build a vaguely described grassroots operation that will help support Trump. But there’s no telling how much of the money gathered by this Trumpy PAC will directly fund pro-Trump activities.

The fundraising email is signed by Amy Kremer, a former chairman of the Tea Party Express. Kremer did not respond to a request for comment.

A recipient of the email might be forgiven for assuming it comes from an official Trump-approved outfit. The website prominently features the official Trump slogan: “Make America Great Again.” And there may be a problem with that. Trump trademarked that phrase for the purposes of “political campaign services, namely, promoting public awareness of Donald J. Trump as a candidate for public office; providing online information regarding political issues and the 2016 presidential election;” and for “fundraising in the field of politics.” The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Asked about the PAC’s use of the trademarked phrase, Backer, a Virginia-based attorney who has helped set up a number of conservative-oriented PACs that capitalize on current events, said the phrase is a quote from Ronald Reagan.

The Great America PAC was first registered with the Federal Election Commission on February 1. But it paid to run pro-Trump radio ads in Iowa in January—which is legal. The ads, which cost a total of $25,000, were produced and placed on air by a mysterious ad-buying firm called GRP Buying LLC, using a rented mailbox at a shipping center in Columbus, Ohio. The PAC has also spent $10,000 on television ads and $15,000 on email blasts.

Initially, this PAC tried to associate itself even more closely with Trump by using the name TrumPAC. But a PAC may not use a candidate’s name if it doesn’t have the candidate’s permission. (For example, last year a super-PAC backing Carly Fiorina was forced to create an elaborate acronym to keep its name: CARLY for America.) When the FEC contacted the PAC in February and inquired about its use of the TrumPAC name, Backer, an FEC critic who was the lawyer in a key Supreme Court case two years ago that removed caps on how much money donors can contribute to political campaigns and committees, had a sharp response. In a letter to the FEC, he stated he didn’t know anyone running for office named “TRUMPAC.” He informed the FEC that another party, whom he did not identify, had requested it change its name and that it would do so, but not because the FEC asked.

So how much has the Great America PAC raised with its Trumpish solicitations? It doesn’t have to file any disclosure reports until late March.

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This PAC Is Raising Money for Donald Trump. But Where Is It Going?

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Rubio Announces His Neocon Dream Team

by DelHighsmith Posted on March 7, 2016

Mother Jones

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Marco Rubio isn’t just the final, fading hope of the GOP establishment. He’s also the last torch-bearer of neoconservative foreign policy left in the 2016 race. So it’s no surprise that Rubio’s just-announced foreign policy team features some of the big-name neocons who have shaped his hawkish views for years.

Among the 18 members of Rubio’s new “National Security Advisory Council,” which his campaign announced on Monday, are Elliott Abrams, a former special assistant to President George W. Bush who’s best known for lying to Congress about the Reagan administration’s role in the Iran-Contra scandal; Eliot Cohen, a historian, Iraq war supporter, and lawyer at the State Department during the Bush administration; Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security during Bush’s second term; and Michael Mukasey, a Bush administration attorney general.

Abrams and Cohen were members of the Project for a New American Century, an early-2000s group of neconservatives who pushed for big increases in defense spending, more American military intervention abroad, regime change in Iraq, and other policies that became Bush administration staples. Rubio’s foreign policy vision is basically ripped from the group’s platform: He wants to pour money into expanding the military, ramp up missile defense, get aggressive with both Iran and China, and expand the US role in Syria. He also adds modern touches, including beefing up the country’s ability to conduct cyberattacks and rolling back reforms to the Patriot Act in order to reinstate the mass surveillance program that Congress ended last year.

Rubio has reached out to leading neocons ever since his campaign began last year, and even asked visitors to his website to “Join Marco’s Fight For A New American Century!”

Here’s the full list of Rubio’s foreign policy team:

See the article here – 

Rubio Announces His Neocon Dream Team

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The Presidential Election Intrudes on the Conservative Dating Scene

by Brittan6935 Posted on March 4, 2016

Mother Jones

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The annual Conservative Political Action Conference tends to draw a large crowd of college-age Republicans and has long been known as a party scene, where young conservatives can let loose. So it wasn’t surprising to find that the first booth past the door of the exhibition hall this year is “Conservatives Only,” an online dating website strictly for those who lean right.

“We’ve made it easy and safe to meet fun, intelligent, conservative men and women,” the website says, “looking for relationship experiences ranging from friendships and casual dating to a partner for life.”

This is hardly the only politically oriented dating website. Last month, BernieSingles.com launched for people feeling the Bern. But Conservatives Only has been around for a while. It launched in 2012, although it has so far only amassed about 3,000 profiles. With those users spread across the country, dating options are likely limited in many regions.

The site’s founder, Craig Knight, had traveled from Lubbock, Texas, to man the booth at CPAC. He was decked out in a cameo baseball hat and red polo, both emblazoned with his website’s name. “I don’t care if it’s liberals or conservatives; it’s a dating deal-breaker to try to date someone from the other side,” Knight said.

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The Presidential Election Intrudes on the Conservative Dating Scene

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Donald Trump’s Yooge Flip-Flop on Outsourcing

by LizetteSymon Posted on March 2, 2016

Mother Jones

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On the night of his big Super Tuesday victory, GOP front-runner Donald Trump gave a winner’s press conference and, as he often does, railed against the evils of outsourcing.

“You look at countries like Mexico, where they’re killing us on the border, absolutely destroying us on the border. They’re destroying us in terms of economic development. Companies like Carrier air conditioner just moving into Mexico, Ford moving into Mexico, Nabisco closing up shop in Chicago and moving into Mexico,” Trump said to supporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. “We have to stop it, folks. I know how to stop it: We’re going to create jobs, we’re going to create jobs like you’ve never seen.”

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Donald Trump’s Yooge Flip-Flop on Outsourcing

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What Exactly Is in Dishwasher Detergent?

by MarionRhem2128 Posted on December 26, 2015

Have you ever wondered how the chemicals in your dishwasher detergent can scrape off the nastiest grime without any scrubbing? Most detergents have special ingredients to work their magic, but many of these ingredients can be harmful to humans and aquatic life. Heres a closer look at what youre putting in your dishwasher.

How Dishwasher Detergent Works

A detergent has certain requirements to work properly in automatic dishwashers. One key factor is that it must not produce any foam or suds. These can inhibit the washing action. The detergent must also do the following:

Reduce the surface tension of water.
Tie up minerals in the water.
Emulsify grease and oil.
Allow water to sheet off surfaces to minimize water spots.
Protect metals from the corrosive effects of heat and water.

Typically, detergents use a mixture of synthetic chemicals and additives to accomplish all these functions.

Detergent Ingredients

The chemicals and additives used in most commercial dishwasher detergents typically fall into the following categories.

Alkaline builders. Soften hard water by combining with minerals, mostly calcium and magnesium. When minerals are kept in solution, they will not leave spots or film on the dishes. Builders are typically 90-95 percent of the volume of a dishwasher detergent.

Phosphates are a commonly used builder. They are known to pollute lakes and rivers, creating algae blooms that starve fish of oxygen. For this reason, the use of phosphates in dishwasher detergent has been banned in some U.S. states.

Surfactants. Lower the surface tension of water. This allows water to evenly spread over surfaces and seep into food residue more effectively in order to break it up.

Surfactants only make up 1-5 percent of a detergent. The types used in dishwasher detergent are considered fairly non-toxic, although some surfactants are associated with skin irritation and possible respiratory symptoms.

Corrosion inhibitors. Prevent rust and protect machine parts, metal utensils and other metal ware.

Many of these inhibitors are actually corrosive themselves. For instance, inhaling sodium silicate, a common inhibitor, can lead to severe irritation of the upper respiratory tract. It can also burn parts of the digestive system if swallowed, or burn skin on contact.

Chlorine compounds and bleaching agents. Sanitize dishes and break down proteins like eggs or milk. Also remove stains and reduce spotting of glassware.

These agents are often very poisonous. Due to the high concentration of chlorine in detergents, it has become the number one cause of household poisoning. Chlorine and bleaching agents are often what you smell when the dishwasher is working, and the fumes alone can cause respiratory problems.

Perfumes. Cover the chemical smell of the other ingredients and any stinky food residue on the dishes.

Over 3,000 chemicals are used to make perfume and fragrance mixtures. Some of these chemicals have been linked to dermatitis, allergies and respiratory issues.

Alkaline salts and oxidizing agents. Break down acids, grease and oil.

Many of these agents can be very corrosive if inhaled, touched or ingested.

Enzymes. Break down starches and proteins in food residue.

Enzyme preparations can be strong eye irritants, so its important to make sure you never splash or get any dishwasher detergent in your eyes.

Safer Options

Most of the chemical ingredients in dishwasher detergent will leave small amounts of residue on your dishes. This means youre eating tiny amounts with every meal.

Thankfully, healthier options for dishwasher detergent are available. In their Guide to Healthy Cleaning, the Environmental Working Group evaluates many commercial cleaning products available today.

They recently evaluated 105 dishwasher detergents. Out of these, a mere 12 received an A rating, which means they are considered relatively safe for human and environmental health. The top 12 are listed on their website.

Many recipes are also available for home-made dishwasher detergent. The effectiveness of these can vary depending on the type of water in your home and your individual dishwasher. If youre going to try a new recipe for detergent, its best to experiment with a small batch at first to see how it works.

Related
6 Mistakes Youre Probably Making With Your Dishwasher
27 Dishwasher Maintenance Tips to Maximize Performance
E-Cigarettes Are Definitely Not as Safe as You Think

Disclaimer: The views expressed above are solely those of the author and may not reflect those of Care2, Inc., its employees or advertisers.

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What Exactly Is in Dishwasher Detergent?

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