Tag Archives: year

5 Ways to Reduce Waste at the Coffee Shop

by FloreneBabbidge Posted on November 29, 2015

Plan ahead and you’ll never have to accept a paper cup again.

The controversy over the pattern on a Starbucks cup is ridiculous because, asLloyd pointed outlast week, it doesnt address the much bigger issue of generating unnecessary trash. Coffee on the go is a fabulous and necessary thing, but more coffee drinkers need to embrace reusables and make them part of the daily routine. Here are some ideas on how to avoid the paper cup next time youre at the coffee shop.

Bring a reusable mug.

Youve probably got a few kicking around in the kitchen. Reusable mugs are insulated, which keeps drinks hotter for longer always a good thing! From personal experience, I find that I always get larger portions when I hand over a reusable cup for filling than if I accept a paper cup. A lid keeps coffee from spilling while walking or driving. TreeHugger Derek recommends the collapsibleSmash Cup.

Use a regular ceramic mug.

You have to be careful with a regular mug, but it works very well as long as you dont fill it too much. Use a mug in the car (one with a narrow base); stash one in your purse for emergency coffee stops; and keep some at your work desk for filling throughout the day. They hold the heat, feel wonderful on your hands, and add a splash of color.

Carry a Thermos or insulated bottle.

Buy a few cups of coffee at once and fill a small Thermos or insulated bottle to keep you going for the rest of the day. The coffee taste does tend to be strong and will permeate the Thermos, so its best to designate a specific one for this purpose. I sometimes use my insulated water bottle in an emergency.

Ill never forget the look of confusion on a baristas face when I presented a Thermos for filling with sweet, black coffee in Rio de Janeiro earlier this year. Clearly reusables have not yet caught on in Brazil, but all the more reason to persist!

Discover the amazing glass jar.

Glass canning jars, a.k.a. Mason or Ball jars, are incredibly versatile and very good at holding drinks on the go. You can screw on the lid tightly, toss it in your bag, and not have to worry about anything, which I often do when rushing out of the house with little kids in tow. Just remember that glass jars dont hold heat well and will cool rapidly, unless you insulate it.

EcoJarzsells really cool stainless and silicone lids that will convert a jar into a coffee mug. You can even buy a Pop Top to seal off the opening.

Reuse that old paper cup.

Its not a Zero Waste solution, but if youve already got a paper cup in your car or in the recycling bin, you might as well extend its life. Wash and hand it over the next time you get a coffee. It will still do the job.

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5 Ways to Reduce Waste at the Coffee Shop

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These Are Either the Best or Worst Political Presents We’ve Ever Seen

by WhitneyClogstoun Posted on November 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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Christmas isn’t just a time to fantasize about going Zero Dark Thirty on a bunch of elves—it’s also a chance to show your friends and family how much you care about them by spoiling them with gifts. The problem is that you’re bad at it. You either get them something they’ll forget about and leave in a closet somewhere for years, only to rediscover it later in life when they’re finally moving out of that run-down apartment and getting a place in the burbs. Or it’s something they’ll mindlessly fold into their daily lives, as if an immersion blender was just something they always had. But not this year. This year you’re getting them something they can’t return. Something that will scar them permanently. You’re getting them some weird political swag you saw on Etsy.

Bernie Sanders Prayer candle

GoSaintYourself/Etsy

Bern your house down with the Bernie Sanders prayer candle! This is perfect for that special someone who loves Bernie Sanders but isn’t really convinced that he’s Jewish. GoSaintYourself will donate $3 from every purchase to Sanders’ campaign.

Jeb Bush brown paper bags

sammo/Etsy

Sad.

“Fuck GQ” Tshirt gentlemen’s quarterly for their article about ben carson for president

BitchinTshirts/Etsy

This oddly specific piece of apparel was inspired by a GQ article by Drew Magary entitled “Fuck Ben Carson,” which Carson supporters considered far more distasteful than Carson’s suggestion that victims of an Oregon mass murder should have stopped the shooter themselves. Available in three colors—but not denim—this is a surprisingly functional T-shirt, perfect not just for Carson supporters, but for anyone who’s ever gotten upset (or will get upset at some point, any point) over the magazine’s depiction of women, overpowering cologne ad inserts, or skinny-suit recs.

Elect troll doll ben carson 2016

MyBestFriendsPillow/Etsy

What is this, a pillow for ants?

Embroidered donald trump quote about john mccain hoop art

varouna/Etsy

Celebrate the fourth (or was it the fifth?) incendiary statement that was going to sink Donald Trump’s campaign but didn’t because pundits are worthless and it turns out a large percentage of Republican primary voters also prefer people who weren’t captured, okay? For $45, we’d prefer at least a few more doves, and maybe some quotation marks. It’s not the most absurd of Trump statements, either, but this one probably reads less offensively to neutral house guests than “Somebody’s doing the raping.” (If you are looking for some less subtle embroidery, there are other options.) You may also enjoy:

celebrity quote novelty wooden wall hanging (donald trump)

ThriftInSpaceTime/Etsy

When he’s right, he’s right.

bernie sanders bouncy bernie dashboard doll

SammAjivArts/Etsy

The hair comes from a feather boa, and according to the seller, “His tie is actually done up in a full-Windsor.” Each doll is shipped via USPS, in solidarity with the pro-Sanders postal workers union, and 10 percent of all proceeds go to the Sanders campaign.

Rick Santorum ceramic party cup

littlechairprinting/Etsy

How about a nice cup of Santorum?

three hillary clinton pantsuit pancake portrait

Dan Lacey/Etsy

So here’s the thing about art: We’re all just pretending it makes sense. Billionaire Bill Koch—of the billionaire Kochs—just sold a Picasso for $67.5 billion. But not, like, one of the really famous ones, where various household objects are split into weird pieces that don’t make sense. It was kind of a low-grade Picasso; he painted it when he was 19, and I mean, you can’t hang that thing just anywhere. You can have this for $10—a steal—and it’s got a nice little post-modern touch, in conversation with themes of modernity, feminism, and notions of identity in the digital age. If you’re looking for something with a little more darkness, we might recommend:

gears of war 3 hillary anya stroud clinton vs hair deep sea lambert leviathan donald trump utilizing chainsaw lancer

(What does this mean?)

Dan Lacey/Etsy

The scene depicted in this painting actually happened. Ben Carson saw it.

donald trump butter stamp

OhCuddles/Etsy

You never know you need a butter stamp until you really need it, and then it’s too late. At that point you will have to engrave the visage of some racist rich dude from Queens into your butter by hand. Be smart. Think ahead. Stay vigilant.

Jeb bush cd clock

DicksClocks/Etsy

Sad.

Lindsey Graham as a troll painting

ogerosity/Etsy

“This is a 18×24 acrylic painting of United States Senator Lindsey Graham as a troll crying a single tear of love for his country.”

Bernie reign of sanders shirt

TheCraftedThreads/Etsy

The Venn diagram of metal fans and Bernie Sanders fans is a circle.

holiday disco party with bernie sanders and elizabeth warren paper ornament

FullSnowMoon/Etsy

Fill your amendment tree with the gift that both embraces late-stage capitalism and destroys it at the same time.

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These Are Either the Best or Worst Political Presents We’ve Ever Seen

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Marco Rubio Sure Does Have a Lot of (Very, Very) Secret Admirers

by ChelseaI05 Posted on November 25, 2015

Mother Jones

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We all know that dark money is this year’s hotness, right? So who’s the king of dark money? It turns out the answer is Marco Rubio. Other candidates all have their Super PACs, but Super PACs disclose their donors. Rubio has the Conservative Solutions Project, a 501(c)(4) that doesn’t. And as Andrew Prokop points out, CSP has been responsible for virtually all of the TV ads so far promoting Rubio.

Wait—allow me to revise and extend. 501(c)(4) groups aren’t allowed to promote candidates, so of course CSP isn’t doing so. It’s doing “issue education.” Like this, for example:

Can you feel the education? Sure you can! So far Rubio’s buddies who run CSP have spent $8.4 million educating us about the problems facing America and the types of fresh, young, Cuban-American men who are leading the charge to solve them. For some reason though, none of the worthies involved in this issue education care to make their largesse public. I wonder what they’ve got to hide?

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Marco Rubio Sure Does Have a Lot of (Very, Very) Secret Admirers

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Here’s the Latest in the GOP Horserace

by FranCarranza Posted on November 9, 2015

Mother Jones

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Apropos of nothing in particular, here’s the latest Pollster aggregate for the Republican nomination. It looks to me like Trump is finally sliding, while Carson seems to have plateaued around 20 percent or so. Rubio and Cruz are up over the past few weeks, but it’s too soon to tell if this just a blip, or the start of something real. Jeb Bush is declining slightly, but not out of it yet.

So who gets all the Trump and Carson votes when those two inevitably implode? And is it really inevitable? Beats me. This is just the weirdest Republican race ever. Ever since Scott Walker, my early favorite, displayed such awesome ineptitude that he literally dropped to 0 percent in the polls, I’ve been reluctant to utter a peep about who seems likely to win this year. Who knows? Maybe it will all come down to a savage brawl between the two Floridians.

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Here’s the Latest in the GOP Horserace

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Here’s What You Need to Know About the West Coast’s Toxic Crabs

by Dee71Xtzgwsbaf Posted on November 5, 2015

Mother Jones

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Fisherman from across the West coast are flocking to California, where the start of crabbing season is just days away. Or not: Health officials are warning that rock and Dungeness crabs along the state coast are contaminated by high levels of domoic acid, a known neurotoxin. State authorities are expected to decide this week whether or not to delay the opening of the Dungeness season—which yields one of the biggest harvests in the nation—and temporarily halt the harvest of rock crabs, which is permitted all year. In the meantime, here’s what you need to know:

How do I know whether that crab on I ordered last week was contaminated? Commercial seafood is regularly tested, so while there may be less Dungeness crab, you don’t have to freak out too much about consuming neurotoxins with the crab you ate at a restaurant or bought at a store. West Coasters should avoid eating recreationally caught shellfish (more details here). If domoic acid is ingested, it can cause vomiting, seizures, and in extreme situations, death. There haven’t been any reported hospitalizations or deaths from domoic acid poisoning since the late 1980’s, when three deaths and multiple hospitalizations spurred increased regulation.

Besides Dungeness crabs, are any other marine creatures are affected? Yes, lots. according to a NOAA report released Tuesday, domoic acid is showing up at potentially lethal levels among a record number of animals, including dolphins, whales, sea lions, and seabirds, and causing seizures among the latter two. Washington closed some areas to crabbing and clam digging earlier this year, Oregon has indefinitely postponed the start of its razor clam season, and California health officials have warned against eating recreationally caught shellfish in some regions.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

What’s this going to do the West Coast’s robust crabbing industry? California, Oregon, and Washington are the top producers of Dungeness crab in the United States; in California alone, commercial crabbing boats brought in 17 million pounds of the crab in 2014, worth nearly $60 million. Some fishermen make half of their income from the California Dungeness crab harvest, and the bloom is particularly ill-timed since Dungeness crabs are in highest demand between Thanksgiving and New Years. “These are incredibly important fisheries to our coastal economies and fresh crab is highly anticipated and widely enjoyed this time of year,” said the state Fish and Wildlife regional manager Craig Shuman. “But public health and safety is our top priority.”

Where is the domoic acid coming from? The acid is coming from a toxic phytoplankton, or algae, species that thrives in warm waters and makes its way into the food web as it’s consumed by anchovies, sardines, and shellfish. This year, thanks to a combination of El Niño and a large stretch of warm water off the west coast dubbed “the blob,” the algae has bloomed at record-setting levels, forming a ribbon up to 40 miles wide snaking up the West coast.

Is climate change causing this problem? Scientists are reluctant to attribute any one event solely to climate change, but warmer waters are certainly playing a role—and ocean temperatures are expected to continue warming with climate change. “The toxins are commonly present in the food web but this year, with this unprecedented bloom, they’re likely having a bigger impact than ever before,” said Kathi Lefebvre, a biologist at the Northwest Fisheries Science Center. “Our concern is that there does appear to be a link between warm water and bigger blooms, so what does this tell us about future years with warmer conditions?”

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Here’s What You Need to Know About the West Coast’s Toxic Crabs

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Want a Safer City? Keep Daylight Savings Time Year Round!

by EleanoreTenney4 Posted on October 31, 2015

Mother Jones

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Tonight we bid sadly adieu to daylight savings time. That means this is also the time of year for a spate of stories about whether daylight savings time makes sense. Sure, you get more daylight, which cuts down on lighting bills, but it’s colder in the morning, which increases heating bills. But wait! There’s more time for golf, and that helps the economy. Etc. Economists have conducted ever more sophisticated natural experiments about this, and the ultimate answer is….meh. Maybe it’s a tiny economic benefit, maybe it’s a tiny economic loss. Who knows?

But now we have a new study. The authors ditch the whole economic benefit argument and instead justify DST based on lower crime rates:

They found that “when DST begins in the spring, robbery rates for the entire day fall an average of 7 percent, with a much larger 27 percent drop during the evening hour that gained some extra sunlight.” The mechanism that might cause this drop is fairly simple: “Most street crime occurs in the evening around common commuting hours of 5 to 8 PM,” the authors write, “and more ambient light during typical high-crime hours makes it easier for victims and passers-by to see potential threats and later identify wrongdoers.”

Moreover, according to the paper, the drop in crime during evening hours wasn’t accompanied by a rise in crime during the morning hours. Criminals aren’t morning people, as it turns out. In addition to the decrease in robbery rates, the researchers found “suggestive evidence” of a decrease in the incidence of rape during the evening hours, as well.

The authors do provide an estimate of the economic benefit of this reduction in crime, and they peg it at several billion dollars per year. They’re economists, after all, so I guess they feel obligated.

But forget that. The DST haters will just come up with some reason why making kids wait for the school bus in the dark costs several billion dollars. Nobody will ever win this game. Instead, just focus on the crime. Everybody wants less crime, and the anti-DST forces are never going to come up with an answer to this. What kind of crime could possible go up because of daylight savings time? White collar theft?

So we win! Assuming “we” are all the righteous lovers of year-round DST. More daylight savings time, less crime. It’s a winner.

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Want a Safer City? Keep Daylight Savings Time Year Round!

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Reports of Entitlements’ Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

by RaymundHuggins Posted on October 27, 2015

Mother Jones

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When news of a bipartisan budget deal began to emerge Monday night, progressives immediately worried that President Obama and the Democrats in Congress would allow cuts to entitlement programs in order to strike a deal with Republicans. “The White House, every Democrat running for president, and every Democrat in Congress should make clear that any deal that cuts Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid benefits would be unacceptable policy—and politically, would be wildly unpopular with voters,” the Progressive Change Campaign Committee said in a statement. House Speaker John Boehner didn’t do much to allay their fears, saying on Tuesday that the deal “is the first significant reform to Social Security since 1983.”

But budget experts say these concerns are unfounded. In fact, the deal actually shores up the finances of an important entitlement program without hurting people who have already earned their benefits.

Released Monday night, the 144-page budget deal would fund the government and raise the debt ceiling for two years, punting any showdown to 2017, after Obama has left the White House. The bill also lifts the tight federal spending caps imposed by the 2011 sequestration law.

Even though the deal saves money by making small cuts to Medicare and Social Security disability insurance (the main part of the program beyond the standard retirement benefits), the budget mostly tinkers around the edges. “The agreement doesn’t have any changes in disability eligibility standards,” says Paul Van de Water, a senior fellow at the progressive Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “It doesn’t change the level of benefits. The small amount of savings are achieved through program integrity measures, which are just efforts to make sure the Social Security Administration is doing the best possible job of who’s actually eligible for benefits.” These sorts of technocratic tinkers are simple measures to ensure the integrity of the programs’ goals, something pushed by both conservatives and progressives.

Primarily, the deal shuts down a pilot program that allows 20 states to dish out benefits without requiring a prior medical sign-off. “To a very small degree, that would reduce the number of people awarded benefits, well less than a percent of the number of people getting benefits,” Van de Water says. “This is designed to produce better decisions, not to make the program more restrictive or less generous.” By awarding benefits slightly less frequently, the deal lengthens the solvency of the disability benefits program.

For Medicare, the deal cuts costs by reducing the amount the government spends on payment rates for providers. When it comes to recipients, the deal stabilizes premiums for a group of seniors who were due for a large rate spike in 2016. Because Social Security isn’t scheduled to get a cost-of-living bump this year, premium rates won’t rise for most people who receive Medicare. For the 30 percent of Medicare Part B recipients for whom rates would have jumped 52 percent next year, the budget deal keeps the current rates in place. But everything evens out for beneficiaries in the end, as the people who benefit this year will have to pay higher premiums down the road. “It’s a good way of spreading out the costs and meaning people aren’t hit by a huge increase this year, and they can budget for it,” Van der Water says. “But it’s not a net benefit over time. It’s simply smoothing things out.”

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Reports of Entitlements’ Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated

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Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor

by RashadPettis352 Posted on October 22, 2015

Mother Jones

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Medicaid funding is shared by the states and the federal government. Between 2000 and 2013—the most recent year reported by the CMS actuaries—the share of Medicaid spending shouldered by the states increased by an average of 6.1 percent per year. This is not total spending. It’s just the portion the states themselves paid for.

In 2015, according to a survey by the Kaiser Foundation, spending by states that refused to expand Medicaid grew by 6.9 percent. That’s pretty close to the historical average. However, spending by states that accepted Medicaid expansion grew by only 3.4 percent. Obamacare may have increased total Medicaid enrollment and spending, but the feds picked up most of the tab. At the state level, it actually reined in the rate of growth.

In other words, the states that have refused the expansion are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. They’re actually willing to shell out money just to demonstrate their implacable hatred of Obamacare. How much money? Well, the expansion-refusing states spent $61 billion of their own money on Medicaid in 2014. If that had grown at 3.4 percent instead of 6.9 percent, they would have saved about $2 billion this year.

Here’s what this means: the states that refuse to expand Medicaid are denying health care to the needy and paying about $2 billion for the privilege. Try to comprehend the kind of people who do this.

POSTSCRIPT: Actually, there’s more. The residents of every state pay taxes to fund Obamacare, whether they like it or not. Residents of the states that refuse to expand Medicaid are paying about $50 billion in Obamacare taxes each year, and about $20 billion of that is for Medicaid expansion. Instead of flowing back into their states, this money is going straight to Washington DC, never to be seen again.

So they’re willing to let $20 billion go down a black hole and pay $2 billion extra in order to prevent Obamacare from helping the needy. It’s hard to fathom, isn’t it?

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Red States Spent $2 Billion in 2015 to Screw the Poor

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Opiates Are Killing More People in This State Than Car Accidents. Obama Wants to Change That.

by EmelyBarger Posted on October 21, 2015

Mother Jones

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President Barack Obama announced a new federal initiative to combat the country’s painkiller problem ahead of a speech on Wednesday in Charleston, West Virginia, a place at the heart of an opiate crisis. In greater Kanawha County, of the 65 people who have died from drug overdoses so far this year, 22 people have succumbed to heroin. The same number of people have died from heroin in nearby Cabell County, the epicenter of the state’s drug problem.

For the last half decade, the state has been gripped by the rise of prescription opiates and heroin, just as the rest of the country has encountered the revival of the cheap painkiller as a drug of choice. In 36 states and the District of Columbia, deaths from drug overdoses have outnumbered those from auto accidents, with West Virginia leading the way. Of the 363 drug overdoses in West Virginia so far this year, roughly 88 percent were opiate-related and included multiple substances, with 97 deaths related to heroin overdoses, according to new data from the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ Health Statistics Center.

A crackdown on cash-only clinics for prescription painkillers and a flood of pure heroin from nearby cities have contributed to West Virginia’s drug problem. But just how bad is it?

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Opiates Are Killing More People in This State Than Car Accidents. Obama Wants to Change That.

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A Closer Look at 2016 Obamacare Enrollment

by OsvaldoTeague Posted on October 17, 2015

Mother Jones

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Warning: Lotsa numbers ahead. Sorry about that. If you’re not interested, you can skip down to the last two paragraphs for the bottom line.

A couple of days ago, HHS projected that Obamacare exchange enrollment would reach 10 million by the end of 2016. That’s not much higher than the 9.1 million who are expected to be enrolled at the end of 2015. Has Obamacare enrollment stalled?

Maybe. But keep two things in mind:

This is probably a lowball figure. HHS would rather set a low bar and beat it than set a higher bar and have to explain why they missed it.
Charles Gaba, who has a pretty good track record with this stuff, estimates that 14.7 million people will sign up and 12.2 million will remain by the end of the year.

If Gaba is right, that’s an increase of about one-third from 2015. Not too bad. Still, it’s considerably less than the CBO’s original estimate of 21 million enrollees by 2016. Again, though, keep a couple of things in mind:

The CBO figure is for “average annual enrollment.” Since people drop out as the year progresses, this is probably equivalent to about 19 million by year-end.
CBO had estimated a drop of 8 million people from employer and other insurance plans. However, those numbers appear to have turned out lower than CBO’s estimates. This is a good thing—we’d prefer that people stay on their current coverage instead of being kicked off—but it obviously reduces the market for Obamacare enrollment. We should probably reduce CBO’s estimate by 3 million or so to account for this.

In other words, on an apples-to-apples basis, a best guess suggests that we’ll end up 2016 at 12 million compared to a CBO projection of 16 million. It’s still lower than CBO’s original estimates, but not by a huge amount. This could be due to (a) an overestimate by CBO, (b) weak performance by Obamacare, (c) an improving economy, or (d) nothing more than a difference in how fast Obamacare ramps up.

Bottom line: Because of all this, a more reliable metric of success is to skip all the details of who’s insured via what, and simply count the total number of uninsured. CBO originally estimated that the uninsured population would drop to 8 percent by 2016. That estimate changed after the Supreme Court made Medicare expansion voluntary, and CBO now figures that in 2016 the total number of uninsured will come to about 11 percent. The CDC estimates that in the most recent quarter the number of uninsured dropped to 10.7 percent. If Gaba’s numbers are correct, that will decline to about 10 percent or so by the end of 2016.

In other words, once you clear away all the underbrush it looks like Obamacare is meeting or beating its goals. Some of this might be due to an improving economy, but who cares? If the economy is doing well enough that more people are getting employer coverage and fewer are being forced onto the exchanges, that’s a good thing, not a knock on Obamacare.

POSTSCRIPT: Surveys consistently show that about half of the uninsured say they’re not on Obamacare because it’s too expensive. So for anyone who’s truly concerned that Obamacare isn’t hitting its enrollment targets, there’s an easy answer: increase the federal subsidies for the working poor so that more of them can afford coverage.

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A Closer Look at 2016 Obamacare Enrollment

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