April, 2016 archive
Double Sawbuckery 0
TPM rounds up the best (?) right-wing reactions to the news that a Harriet Tubman is to be on the $20.00 bill.
You couldn’t make this stuff up.
Spill Here, Spill Now 0
Facing South looks at the long term effects of Buccaneer Petroleum’s Deepwater Horizon spill. Here’s few of the stats; follow the link for more.
As of last year, number of studies published on physical health effects reported by people directly affected by BP’s spill: 2
Number of those studies that found a higher frequency of respiratory illness, headaches, skin rash, and cough: 2
In one study looking at the disaster’s effect on cleanup workers’ lungs, number of genes in human airway cells found to be affected by exposure to a chemical oil dispersant used on the Gulf oil spill — with many of those same changes also observed in lung diseases like asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: 84
Buccaneer Petroleum, where the motto is “Safety Worst.”
American Taliban, Making America a Pariah One State at a Time 3
The government of the United Kingdom warns LGBT persons to take care when visiting the United States. Here’s the story from The Independent:
“LGBT travellers may be affected by legislations passed recently in the states of North Carolina and Mississippi.”
“Before travelling please read our general travel advice for the LGBT community.
You can read the full warning at the UK government website.
This is the sort of stuff that, when I was a young ‘un back in the olden days, the United States Department of State would say about visiting, say, eastern Europe or Rhodesia.
Jesus.
Chartering a Course for Disaster 3
The San Jose Mercury-News investigates online charter schools in Cali and discovers that it’s all about the Benjamins. Here’s a bit (emphasis added). Follow the link for the rest.
At the same time, K12’s heavily marketed school model has been lucrative, helping the company rake in more than $310 million in state funding over the past 12 years, as well as enriching sponsoring school districts, which have little stake in whether the students succeed.
Why am I not surprised?
Nothing To Do, Nowhere To Go 0
Still not bad.
(snip)
The four-week moving average of claims, a less volatile measure than the weekly figures, decreased to 260,500 from 265,000.
The number of people continuing to receive jobless benefits fell by 39,000 to 2.14 million in the week ended April 9, the fewest since November 2000. The unemployment rate among people eligible for benefits held at 1.6 percent. These data are reported with a one-week lag.
The story says this is the best report since 1973, the year I entered the workforce.
Tax Frauds 0
They pop up every year (and it’s not who you think it is).
Twits on Twitter 0
Afterthought:
Be very clear. There’s more to this than just decoding de code. There’s a presumption that if you use encryption, you must have something to hide, an assertion that a desire for privacy is inherently suspicious. (In some ways, this point of view is eerily similar to the philosophy of the Zuckerborg.)
In a snail mail world, what the cops (and the NSA and GHCQ and the FBI and their like) want would be to steam open all your envelopes and read all your mail and all your everything else without showing cause (not that lots of them aren’t already doing that just because they can).
“An Armed Society Is a Polite Society” 0
Politeness takes practice.
Adam Malaby apparently stepped into the line of fire about 8:30 p.m. while attempting to photograph or record video of someone else firing a .40-caliber pistol at a makeshift shooting range in Sutton, reported the Alaska Dispatch News.
If he had shot back, no doubt he would be alive today.
No Longer Welcome 0
A long-time Maine Republican explains why she has finally chosen to–more properly, been driven to–leave the Republican Party. Here’s bit:
Details, Details 0
One of the facts seldom mentioned in the coverage of the Democratic presidential campaign is this: Even though he’s campaigning for the Democratic nomination, Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat.
If you think this somehow doesn’t matter to persons who are grassroots members of a political party–attending boring meetings even when no election is imminent, campaigning on behalf of candidates and causes about which they may be at best lukewarm because the party chose to support them, handing out literature in the rain and making GOTV phone calls to persons who probably don’t care, sometimes supporting the lesser of two evils because the alternative is the evil of two lessers–you need to think again.
“The Word” 0
The Roanoke Times thinks it may have found “the word” that explains the resilience of Republican rule of the rural.
Methinks they are on to something. Follow the link to decide whether I am correct.