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Why a Kindle Is the Greener (and More Community-Minded) Choice

by kyle_tonkin1980 Posted on September 19, 2017

When I gave my TEDx talk on the benefits of minimalism the audience totally resonated with the overarching theme of my message. But to a person, they all had one driving concern.

?What about books?? they wanted to know, with a poorly masked look of terror on their face.

Letting go of their books was an unfathomable concept to them. Apparently holding an actual book lends a whole different experience to reading. I don?t get it, but given my ?less is more? lifestyle I guess I?m not really in a position to comment.

Still, I don?t believe it’s a good enough reason to hold onto?books. There are exceptions, of course, such as beautifully photographed coffee table books or?dog-eared recipe books covered in flour and tomato sauce (or, is that just me?).

But when it comes to paperbacks, I?m less inclined to empathize. Let me explain.

Books and the Environment

If you?re on the fence about whether to stop buying paper books and use an e-reader instead, then perhaps this will sway you.

A 2006 study found that the US book industry consumed approximately 30m trees in a single year. Of course, producing a Kindle also takes a toll on the environment, but the more books you read on it the more you offset those emissions.

More and more publishers are moving towards sustainably sourced paper though, so if you are planning to buy a book be sure get one that carries the FSC logo. That said, given the rate that we?re losing forests due to urban creep,?perhaps?we shouldn’t be so quick to cut them down.

Okay, so how do you save the trees and still keep reading real books??There are two routes you could go here.

Join a Library

The first is to go old school and join a library. (I know, how very eighties of me.) Regardless of how state-of-the-art it is, you?re bound to find something on the shelves to appeal to your reading tastes. Plus, because you?re not actually paying for the books, you can be a little more risky in your choices. If you don?t like a book, just return it and take out something else.

Spread the Love

The second option is to buy the books you want and then, once you?ve read them you can donate them to your library, a school or an old age home, for example. Most libraries have a wishlist of books they?d like to see on their shelves, so you could check in with them first.

A lot of people struggle with the challenge of letting go of books. In my experience it?s usually for one of two reasons. They either think it?s a waste because they spent their hard earned cash on the book or the story really resonated and they somehow feel that by holding onto the book, they?ll hold onto the story as well.

If you fall into the first group, then donating the book when you?re finished reading it is a win/win. Ultimately, your money will have a far greater impact than it would have if the book remained on your shelf at home.

However, if you?re inclined to keep the book because you loved the story then I?d urge you to donate it to a library close to you. That way you can borrow it back and reread it whenever the mood takes you.

Books and Clutter

It might be difficult?at first, but if you take it slow and remember the good you?re doing by donating them, it will get easier. One approach is to start by identifying the books that spark joy and set those to one side. Knowing that you?re keeping at least some will make you feel more at ease about the task.

Remember, books take up space and they?re heavy. If you?ve ever moved with boxes of books, you?ll know what I?m talking about. Do yourself a favor and unclutter your bookshelf now, your back will thank you.

7?Awesome Things About a Kindle

1. You can read in the dark

If you buy a Kindle with a backlight you can read in bed without disturbing your partner. This feature also comes in handy if?the electricity goes out or when?you?re camping.

2. You can take as many books as you want on vacation

Picking just a couple of books to take with you on holiday is tough. What if you?re not in the mood for the ones you chose or worse, you made a bad choice and the story isn?t nearly as thrilling as the book jacket led you to believe?

3. You have access to a world of books

If you want a new book, the only thing you need is wifi and you can connect to Amazon?s storefront and browse to your heart?s content. As an added bonus, you can download a sample first to see if you like the book.

4. Giving Indie authors a leg up

Nowadays, a lot of emerging writers only publish their work on Kindle. This means?there are countless gems that you?d never have known about if you didn?t have a Kindle. Plus, you?re helping these guys get their work out into the world.

5. Moving house is a breeze

You may well own hundreds of books, but all you have to do is slip your Kindle into your laptop bag and you?re done moving them. How easy is that?

6. Look Ma, no hands!

You can balance you Kindle on your lap, leaving your hands free for important stuff like drinking hot chocolate and munching?on Oreos.?(I’m not the only one who snacks and reads, am I?)

7. They’re easier to clean

Okay, obviously if you spill the entire contents of your coffee cup directly onto your Kindle things aren’t going to look too good. However, cleaning greasy fingermarks and cookie crumbs is a breeze.

Related:
What Does Watching TV vs. Reading a Book Do to Your Brain?
7?Books to Read For Spiritual Growth
20 Ways to Reuse Old Books

Photo credit: Thinkstock

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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Why a Kindle Is the Greener (and More Community-Minded) Choice

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USDA to employees: Don’t mention climate change.

by Dorcas8538 Posted on August 7, 2017

Apparently, U.S. Department of Agriculture staff are now supposed to say “weather extremes” instead.

In emails obtained by the Guardian from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a unit of the USDA, a department director told employees to make the following phrasing replacements in their work: “reduce greenhouse gases” with “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient efficiency”; “sequester carbon” with “build soil organic matter”; and “climate change adaptation” with “resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events.”

Basically, any reference to climate change or CO2 is a no-no.

Employees were understandably confused, and some were against the change — including one employee who expressed a desire to maintain scientific integrity. But the USDA insisted that it’s not intending to obscure data and studies, and that similar procedures had been executed under other administrations.

Surprise, surprise — these new procedures began days after Trump’s inauguration. The first email obtained by the Guardian, sent by NRCS Deputy Chief for Programs Jimmy Bramblett on Jan. 24, advised of the new administration’s “shift in perspective” with regard to climate change.

That perspective appears to be: Don’t mention it.

Credit:  

USDA to employees: Don’t mention climate change.

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As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

by IsmaelFraley Posted on August 7, 2017

Apparently, U.S. Department of Agriculture staff are now supposed to say “weather extremes” instead.

In emails obtained by the Guardian from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS), a unit of the USDA, a department director told employees to make the following phrasing replacements in their work: “reduce greenhouse gases” with “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient efficiency”; “sequester carbon” with “build soil organic matter”; and “climate change adaptation” with “resilience to weather extremes/intense weather events.”

Basically, any reference to climate change or CO2 is a no-no.

Employees were understandably confused, and some were against the change — including one employee who expressed a desire to maintain scientific integrity. But the USDA insisted that it’s not intending to obscure data and studies, and that similar procedures had been executed under other administrations.

Surprise, surprise — these new procedures began days after Trump’s inauguration. The first email obtained by the Guardian, sent by NRCS Deputy Chief for Programs Jimmy Bramblett on Jan. 24, advised of the new administration’s “shift in perspective” with regard to climate change.

That perspective appears to be: Don’t mention it.

Link to article: 

As Keystone XL’s fate is decided, activists descend on Nebraska.

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Scale – Geoffrey West

by Myrna Posted on July 17, 2017

READ GREEN WITH E-BOOKS

Scale

The Universal Laws of Growth, Innovation, Sustainability, and the Pace of Life in Organisms, Cities, Economies, and Companies

Geoffrey West

Genre: Life Sciences

Price: $15.99

Publish Date: May 16, 2017

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Seller: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.


From one of the most influential scientists of our time, a dazzling exploration of the hidden laws that govern the life cycle of everything from plants and animals to the cities we live in. Visionary physicist Geoffrey West is a pioneer in the field of complexity science, the science of emergent systems and networks. The term “complexity” can be misleading, however, because what makes West’s discoveries so beautiful is that he has found an underlying simplicity that unites the seemingly complex and diverse phenomena of living systems, including our bodies, our cities and our businesses. Fascinated by aging and mortality, West applied the rigor of a physicist to the biological question of why we live as long as we do and no longer. The result was astonishing, and changed science: West found that despite the riotous diversity in mammals, they are all, to a large degree, scaled versions of each other. If you know the size of a mammal, you can use scaling laws to learn everything from how much food it eats per day, what its heart-rate is, how long it will take to mature, its lifespan, and so on. Furthermore, the efficiency of the mammal’s circulatory systems scales up precisely based on weight: if you compare a mouse, a human and an elephant on a logarithmic graph, you find with every doubling of average weight, a species gets 25% more efficient—and lives 25% longer. Fundamentally, he has proven, the issue has to do with the fractal geometry of the networks that supply energy and remove waste from the organism’s body. West’s work has been game-changing for biologists, but then he made the even bolder move of exploring his work’s applicability. Cities, too, are constellations of networks and laws of scalability relate with eerie precision to them. Recently, West has applied his revolutionary work to the business world. This investigation has led to powerful insights into why some companies thrive while others fail. The implications of these discoveries are far-reaching, and are just beginning to be explored. Scale is a thrilling scientific adventure story about the elemental natural laws that bind us together in simple but profound ways. Through the brilliant mind of Geoffrey West, we can envision how cities, companies and biological life alike are dancing to the same simple, powerful tune.

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Scale – Geoffrey West

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White People, Please Stop Asking People of Color Dumb Questions

by JacelynPittard Posted on May 7, 2017

Mother Jones

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Scaachi Koul‘s writing has it all—a gut-busting sense of humor, clear-eyed honesty, and striking introspection that she jokes is a symptom of narcissism.

In her debut book, a collection of essays titled One Day We’ll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter, Koul, a culture writer for BuzzFeed, applies her sharp wit to tricky issues of race, culture and identity: what it means to be “lighter” than other Indians on a family trip to India, for example, and how she balances her life with her conservative South Asian parents’ expectations. I called Koul and we had entirely too much fun talking about women’s words, finding boldness, and pubic hair, of course.

Mother Jones: Part of what you talk about in the book is existing in spaces where you feel unwelcome in. It seems like you manage to be really outspoken in those spaces—where do you find that sort of boldness?

Scaachi Koul: I have the unfortunate inability to be quiet, and it did not serve me very well when I was a kid. I used to get in trouble all the time for…actually, the same stuff I get in trouble for as an adult. In my later life, it’s been beneficial, but when I was younger I didn’t know how to control it or what to do with it. I’m not sure it’s so much about finding boldness as it is about retaining control at this point, because being mouthy has never been my problem. That’s very easy for me. But now I think a lot about when it’s worth it and what I’m doing it for. When you’re a kid, it’s really obnoxious because you’re just being a dick all the time. I think that’s probably the same case with being bold or bossy or mouthy. Those things are great to have, but if they are uncontrolled and wild, it can hurt you in the long term.

MJ: It must be kind of gratifying to be able to turn your obnoxious qualities from childhood into a way to make money as an adult.

SK: Yeah, why not, right? Listen, I would also like to buy a boat. So why not try to make a profit?

MJ: What made you decide to write the book?

SK: It’s a delicate balance of narcissism and self-interest and money and the hope that you can write something and other people understand it. I write for the internet all the time, but there is something very different about writing a book that you’re asking people to buy. It feels like a different beast. But you hope that you write this thing that appeals to people in this really meaningful way. I grew up on the internet, but the things that formed my understanding of the world and made me feel less isolated were books. That’s the altruistic answer, and then the other version is, “Oh, I’m obsessed with myself.”

MJ: I feel like I’ve been reading more and more books that are memoirs or essay collections from really incredible women—I don’t know if more are being produced or if it’s just what I’ve been hungry for, so it’s what I’ve been feeding myself. Have you been reading that sort of thing, or have you been feeling intimidated or empowered by those works?

SK: While I was writing the book I avoided other memoirs, because I don’t want to get distracted or pick up somebody else’s voice. So for the year that I was working on it really heavily, I didn’t read anything else, and that was actually around the time that Lena Dunham and Jessica Valenti’s books had come out. I know that right now it feels like there’s so many memoirs by young women in particular. I don’t know if it’s that there’s more—I think there’s just been a shift on the way we talk about them, and I think the internet has shaped that. I also find that for every dude who’s really dismissive of what I’ve written, there are five women who are like, “No, I get it. Don’t worry about it. It makes sense to me.”

MJ: The book is really vulnerable in places. Did you grapple with a lot of anxiety while you were writing it?

SK: I had some anxieties about my family reading it. For one, I don’t really want my parents to read about my weird, gross body. My brother read it and he immediately was like, “This is gross. There’s so much about your vagina in here.” I’m like, “Yeah, tough. Deal with it.”

MJ: Men have been writing like that for a long time.

SK: Exactly. I have had to listen to you talk about your penis for 30 years. Get over it.

MJ: I saw your tweet about your parents having read the book.

SK: My mom read it and she was appropriately sad and confused. We didn’t talk details or anything. She said she liked it, but she was clearly quite bummed out about portions of it. My dad hasn’t read it, because he knows that it’ll give him a heart attack, and I don’t think his body can take it. So he’s making a wise decision. I abide by that policy of writing about your family as if they’re all dead. So with the exception of changing some names, that’s pretty much how I handle things, in that I can’t control your perception of what you think happened. I only have my version. I’m sure there’s stuff in there that they disagree with, but I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s libelous. I don’t think they’re going to sue me.

MJ: You also write quite a bit about existing as a woman on the internet. Any advice for outspoken ladies who want to use Twitter without losing their minds?

SK: It’s so tricky. I don’t know of a social-media entity that’s really invested in how women and girls are treated. I can only speak to media Twitter, which is a very specific section of the internet. But for the women that I talk to who are in media and who use Twitter, I always hear from them that they have this anxiety about going private because they feel like it’s antithetical to the point of it. I don’t understand that at all. If you feel like you don’t want to play, don’t play. Go private. Don’t use it. You don’t need to really use it at any great capacity if you just want to tweet your work and go home, that’s fine. I like the format. I think it’s fun sometimes. But I also recognize that it can be deeply unfun, and I had a year of really not understanding why I was using it at all. I could not see any benefit. I was exclusively getting yelled at and I didn’t feel like my work was getting promoted in any way. It was just like people had access to me in this really awful way.

I have friends who do not really use the internet beyond like Google and recipes or sometimes they read the news on it and I guess they have Netflix. And that to me is so weird. Because I use it for everything. And they go to the bank. That’s crazy to me. They go to the bank? Adorable.

MJ: That’s quaint.

SK: It doesn’t make any sense. But you should have people like that in your life, because when you go to them and you’re like, “Oh my God. I just found out that there’s like some text thread going on about one bad tweet that I sent,” they look at you like you have landed from another planet. They will bring you a perspective that will give you some comfort. Which doesn’t mean that the abuse you’re dealing with isn’t real. And it doesn’t mean it’s not serious, but at the same time it can give you some comfort, because there are people everywhere who are not using the internet like we are using it.

MJ: I also really appreciate your style of clapping back at trolls.

SK: That’s something else that like sometimes it’s funny and sometimes it’s really not. There are days where they say things and it cuts you to the quick and you don’t have anything funny or witty or cute to say in response. It took me a while to remember that I didn’t actually have to answer all of them. Sometimes when I have responded to them, I have felt myself starting to unravel. I’ve had friends send me notes being like, “Hey, you sound crazy.” This was like funny or whatever, but you sound insane.” And then I have to go back and I’ll read it again and be like, “Yeah, this is nuts.” Get off the internet. Leave your phone at home and go outside and go do something in the tangible world, where nobody knows what your Twitter handle is.

MJ: It’s a good friend that will tell you when you’re being crazy on Twitter, though.

SK: You need those people who tell you to like shut your pie hole.

MJ: Let’s talk about the things you wish you didn’t have to say to white people.

SK: Oh, god. I could write a second book about the things I wish I didn’t have to explain to white people. I wish I didn’t have to explain why they have to pronounce my name correctly or spell it correctly. I’m very tired of explaining that making jokes about my name sounding like Sriracha isn’t funny because it actually doesn’t. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s not funny. I don’t get it. I would really love to stop explaining why it’s obnoxious when they ask me where I’m from and I say, “Calgary” and they say, “No, where are you really from?” I would love to not have to explain where Kashmir is because they will press me and ask me again, and I’ll say that’s where my family’s from and that’s also not satisfying. I would love to stop explaining why I don’t really enjoy Indian weddings. I would like to not have to tell people that I don’t know how to thread eyebrows. They think all brown girls know how. By the way, I’ve never even gotten my eyebrows threaded. My mother went straight to waxing because my brows are formidable. There was no like, “Oh, we’ll use this gentle threading process.” No, no, no. We’ve got to use chemicals.

MJ: Your niece has such a major presence in the book. What do you hope she’ll gain from it if she reads it when she’s older?

SK: I signed it for her, assuming she will read it when she’s like 65. Her mother said she would give it to her when she’s 16, which is probably a better, more realistic age. But that’s only in 10 years. I hope she gets some context about our family that she won’t otherwise have. It feels so weird. I feel like I gave her my diary and I was like, “Good luck.” I don’t know how eager my 17-year-old niece will be to read about like my pussy hair, but I guess she should have that option.

MJ: I mean, presumably she’ll have some too.

SK: To be honest she’s seven and I’m already talking about my pubic hair with her, so at this point I don’t think it’s going to be that much of a shock. She asked when it came out if it was about her and I was like, “Yeah, pretty much.”

MJ: Smart kid.

SK: Well, she, like her aunt is a narcissist, so we’ve just got to make sure everything’s about us. I hope it gives her some understanding of a portion of her. I’m very curious about what her life is going to look like. I worry a lot about her growing up to be self-loathing the way I was. I was really self-loathing about being brown when I was a kid. I really resented it. And I hope that she doesn’t feel like that about herself as she gets older. My parents are there and they sort of pull her into this version of her identity. I hope she doesn’t hate that. And if she does, then hopefully the book will help reverse some of it or give her something to like.

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White People, Please Stop Asking People of Color Dumb Questions

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Trump Advisor Accidentally Raises Middle-Class Taxes

by StanleyBryant Posted on May 3, 2017

Mother Jones

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Here is Gary Cohn—supposedly one of the “smart ones” in the Trump administration—explaining the president’s tax plan:

The median income in the United States today is … about $56,000. You take the $24,000 away from the $56,000, you’ve got taxable income of $32,000. At a 10% rate that’s $3,000 of tax. If you have one or two or three children and we give you $1,000 tax credit, you could end up with a—you know, very marginal, single-digit tax rate to no taxes whatsoever. That, to me, is a middle-income tax cut because you’re going to owe no taxes potentially.

“Potentially” is doing a lot of work here, as David Kamin explains:

Cohn forgot to mention the fact that our tax system, as it is currently written, provides what are called “personal exemptions” to families….The plan Trump presented on the campaign trail would eliminate these personal exemptions….So when you take into account the elimination of personal exemptions, families aren’t actually getting much tax relief after all. In fact, if that family has two or more kids, they’d actually face a tax increase under the Trump plan described by Cohn.

Here this is in chart form:

This should come as no surprise. The problem is that the average family pays most of its taxes at the state and local level, and via payroll taxes. Their federal income tax rate is already “very marginal, single-digit tax rate to no taxes whatsoever,” so it’s all but impossible to cut it. This is from the Tax Policy Center:

The bottom 40 percent pays no federal income tax at all and the average middle-class person pays 6.4 percent of their earnings in federal income taxes. If you focus solely on the federal income tax—as Republicans always do—you can’t help the middle class much. Even in theory, the only people who really benefit are high earners.

Of course, you can still do a little to help middle-class workers—but only if you’re careful. Cohn wasn’t careful, so he ended up increasing middle class taxes. It’s an easy mistake to make.

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Trump Advisor Accidentally Raises Middle-Class Taxes

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Are US Airlines Worse Than European Airlines? This Chart Won’t Tell You.

by TerrieMahler Posted on April 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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A couple of days ago I wrote that we, the traveling public, have conclusively demonstrated that we care about nothing but price. This is one reason air travel has become progressively more awful. Steve Randy Waldman is sick and tired of people like me saying things like this:

There are two things wrong with this line that air travel is awful because consumers’ true revealed preference is that it should be awful and cheap. First, there is the fact that air travel managed by the main domestic carriers in the United States is uniquely awful, and there is no evidence that US travelers are any more price conscious than consumers in other countries. No frills, discount air travel is popular in Europe as well, and it is sometimes awful, but it is on the whole much cheaper than “discount” air travel within the US. Mainstream carriers almost everywhere else in the developed world are notably less awful than the big American carriers, and often just as cheap.

When I was writing my post, this was actually at the top of my mind. Is American air travel really uniquely awful? The problem is not just that I couldn’t think of any data to bring to bear on this question, I couldn’t even think of any anecdotal data that would be meaningful. It’s true that I hear griping about American carriers a lot more than I do about European carriers, but then, living in California I would, wouldn’t I? Complaint rates might be germane, but should that be per flight or per 100,000 miles or what? And are fares really the same or lower than in the US? That’s hard to say, since Europe is simply a different environment: different regulators, shorter distances, more concentrated population centers, real competition from trains, etc. Nor do I know how subsidies play out among various countries.

The bottom line is that this would take some very careful research indeed. However, if you absolutely insist, I just spent the past few minutes doing some un-careful research. All I can say about it is that I promise I didn’t cherry pick. For the US, I chose the four biggest airlines. For Europe, I chose four representative big airlines, and I chose them before I looked at the data:

US data is for March 2017 here. European airline data is for Q1 2016 from Britain’s CAA here. For Europe, this is not continent-wide data. It’s only for complaints filed in the UK.1

I have absolutely no idea if these numbers are really comparable. Do Americans simply complain less than Brits? (Seems unlikely.) Is it easier to complain in Britain? Are “enplanements” (US) the same as “passengers” (Europe)? Or do European airlines really suck way worse than US airlines?

I don’t know, and you shouldn’t assume this chart tells you. Still, it definitely doesn’t suggest that US airlines are uniquely awful. The bottom line is that we need real research to come to any conclusions here. If I’m bored this weekend, maybe I’ll look for some.2

1One thing you can’t do is use US data to compare domestic and international carriers. The international carriers are flying exclusively international flights into the US, and the rules and flying experiences are very different for domestic and international flights. One way or another, you have to use local data so that you get a roughly comparable split of domestic and international flights for all carriers.

2But probably not. I’ve got other work to do.

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Are US Airlines Worse Than European Airlines? This Chart Won’t Tell You.

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Victory! A coal company just abandoned its plan to ruin a river and a bunch of people’s lives in Alaska.

by CooperShaver678 Posted on April 5, 2017

Catherine Flowers has been an environmental justice fighter for as long as she can remember. “I grew up an Alabama country girl,” she says, “so I was part of the environmental movement before I even knew what it was. The natural world was my world.”

In 2001, raw sewage leaked into the yards of poor residents in Lowndes County, Alabama, because they had no access to municipal sewer systems. Local government added insult to injury by threatening 37 families with eviction or arrest because they couldn’t afford septic systems. Flowers, who is from Lowndes County, fought back: She negotiated with state government, including then-Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, to end unfair enforcement policies, and she enlisted the Environmental Protection Agency’s help to fund septic systems. The effort earned her the nickname “The Erin Brockovich of Sewage.”

Flowers was continuing the long tradition of residents fighting for justice in Lowndes County, an epicenter for the civil rights movement. “My own parents had a rich legacy of fighting for civil rights, which to this day informs my work,” she says. “Even today, people share stories about my parents’ acts of kindness or help, and I feel it’s my duty to carry on their work.”

Years later, untreated and leaking sewage remains a persistent problem in much of Alabama. Flowers advocates for sanitation and environmental rights through the organization she founded, the Alabama Center for Rural Enterprise Community Development Corporation (ACRE, for short). She’s working with the EPA and other federal agencies to design affordable septic systems that will one day eliminate the developing-world conditions that Flowers calls Alabama’s “dirty secret.”

Former Vice President Al Gore counts himself as a big fan of Flowers’ work, calling her “a firm advocate for the poor, who recognizes that the climate crisis disproportionately affects the least wealthy and powerful among us.” Flowers says a soon-to-be-published study, based on evidence she helped collect, suggests that tropical parasites are emerging in Alabama due to poverty, poor sanitation, and climate change. “Our residents can have a bigger voice,” she said, “if the media began reporting how climate change is affecting people living in poor rural communities in 2017.” Assignment editors, pay attention.

Meet all the fixers on this year’s Grist 50.

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Victory! A coal company just abandoned its plan to ruin a river and a bunch of people’s lives in Alaska.

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Justice Department Gets Ready to Turn the Cops Loose

by TrishaCrombie Posted on April 4, 2017

Mother Jones

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Here we go:

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has ordered a sweeping review of federal agreements with dozens of law enforcement agencies….In a memorandum dated March 31 and made public Monday, the attorney general directed his staff to look at whether law enforcement programs adhere to principles put forth by the Trump administration, including one declaring that “the individual misdeeds of bad actors should not impugn” the work police officers perform “in keeping American communities safe.”

I think we can safely guess that many or most of these agreements will, upon review, be discovered to be heavy-handed and unfair sanctions based on a few individual bad apples. They will then be gutted or thrown out.

These are shaping up to be golden years for police departments, who are getting a very clear message: Paint the town red, boys. No need to worry anymore about the feds ginning up any ridiculous “civil rights” concerns just because you harass lots of black people or beat up prisoners in your jails. Just catch us some bad dudes, OK?

More: 

Justice Department Gets Ready to Turn the Cops Loose

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Trump Wants to Turn the Skies Black With Coal

by Jeff Howard Posted on March 22, 2017

Mother Jones

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Donald Trump is gonna bring back the coal:

President Trump is poised in the coming days to announce his plans to dismantle the centerpiece of President Barack Obama’s climate change legacy….In an announcement that could come as soon as Thursday or as late as next month, according to people familiar with the White House’s planning, Mr. Trump will order EPA chief Scott Pruitt to withdraw and rewrite a set of Obama-era regulations known as the Clean Power Plan, according to a draft document obtained by The New York Times.

….At a campaign-style rally on Monday in the coal-mining state of Kentucky, Mr. Trump told a cheering audience that he is preparing an executive action that would “save our wonderful coal miners from continuing to be put out of work.”

This is part of Trump’s plan to repeal all of Obama’s “stupid” climate change policies. “We’re not spending money on that anymore,” Trump’s budget director told reporters. No more funding for climate change science; no more worrying about carbon emissions; no more auto mileage standards; and lots and lots of beautiful, black coal.

Except for one thing:

This is from Lazard’s most recent energy analysis. Coal just isn’t competitive anymore. Oh, existing plants will keep going for a while, and maybe Trump’s executive orders—if they ever go into effect—will keep them in operation longer than otherwise. But there’s nothing on the horizon that’s likely to reduce the cost of coal, whereas wind and solar continue to drop every year. Gas is also likely to stay cheap for a long time thanks to fracking.

None of this is a secret. Everyone knows that Trump isn’t going to save any coal jobs, but the coal miners like to hear him say that he will. Based on previous reporting, I gather that even they know it’s mostly blather, but they still appreciate it. They give Trump an A for effort.

Back in the early part of last year, there was a mini-upwelling of comments from liberals suggesting that Trump might actually be better from a progressive point of view than more conventional conservatives like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. That was never true, and climate change is an example of why. Cruz or Rubio would have both tried to get rid of Obama’s Clean Power Plan, but I don’t think they would have literally tried to defund every bit of research into climate change or just flatly deny that carbon even mattered. They’re too conventional. But with Trump there’s always the danger that a combination of his signature ignorance and his rabid vengefulness will motivate him to go nuts. That’s what’s happening here. On the bright side, maybe his well-known incompetence will also keep him from being effective. But then again, maybe not.

See the article here: 

Trump Wants to Turn the Skies Black With Coal

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