Liberal to a Degree

Peru declares environmental state of emergency in northern part of Amazon rainforest

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:49:52 -0400

Peru declares environmental state of emergency in northern part of Amazon rainforest:

In declaring the state of emergency, Peru’s environment ministry said tests in February and March found high levels of barium, lead, chrome and petroleum-related compounds at different points in the Pastaza valley.

Pluspetrol, the biggest oil and natural gas producer in Peru, has operated the oil fields since 2001. It took over from Occidental Petroleum, which began drilling in 1971, and, according to the government, had not cleaned up contamination either.

Several multimillion dollar fines have been levied against Pluspetrol in recent years. The company has appealed against all of the fines in the Peruvian courts…

Note, though that “The Peruvian government plans to auction a further 29 new oil and gas concessions this year.”

"…how could anyone claim that President Bush “kept us safe,” when the worst terrorist attack in..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:49:43 -0400

“…how could anyone claim that President Bush “kept us safe,” when the worst terrorist attack in America’s history took place nearly nine months after Bush became president? Moreover, how could anyone claim that Bush “kept us safe,” when Bush’s own intelligence services produced a National Intelligence Estimate in 2006, which concluded that America’s invasion of Iraq had actually made the world a more dangerous place, due to the proliferation of terrorists and terrorism that it precipitated?”

- American Militarism: Part Two (Charles Krauthammer)

"If gun culture is going to be the foundation for the kind of gun politics we have (which will brook..."

Mon, 20 May 2013 14:49:36 -0400

“If gun culture is going to be the foundation for the kind of gun politics we have (which will brook no regulation at all, even when that regulation is designed to safeguard the lives and limbs of gun owners themselves); if the politics are the result of the culture (and it’s the kind of culture that says it’s okay to give a five-year-old a gun)…well then, I’m sorry—we need to talk about this culture.”

- Chris Hayes (via msnbc)

greenpeace: No waffling in new study of peer reviewed...

Sun, 19 May 2013 21:08:23 -0400

greenpeace:

No waffling in new study of peer reviewed literature.

"“ Among the more serious arguments against liberalizing immigration is that it can be costly to..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:29:14 -0400

“

Among the more serious arguments against liberalizing immigration is that it can be costly to taxpayers. Low-skilled immigrants in particular consume more government services than they pay in taxes, increasing the burden of government for native-born Americans. Organizations such as the Center for Immigration Studies, the Heritage Foundation, and the Federation for American Immigration Reform have produced reports claiming that immigration costs taxpayers tens of billions of dollars a year, with the heaviest costs borne by state and local taxpayers. No less a classical liberal than Milton Freidman mused that open immigration is incompatible with a welfare state. Responding to a question at a libertarian conference in 1999, Friedman rejected the idea of opening the U.S. border to all immigrants, declaring that “You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state” (Free Students 2008).

Contrary to those concerns, immigration to the United States does not pose a long-term burden on U.S. taxpayers. The typical immigrant and his or her descendants pay more in taxes than they consume in government services in terms of net present value. Lowskilled immigrants do impose a net cost on government, in particular on the state and local level, but those costs are often exaggerated by critics of immigration and are offset by broader benefits to the overall economy. And with all due respect to Milton Freidman, practical steps can be taken to allow nations such as the United States to reap the benefits of a more open immigration system while maintaining certain welfare programs for citizens.

”

”

- Daniel T. Griswold, Cato Journal, Vol. 32, No. 1 (Winter 2012

"The most significant differences between those who smoked marijuana and those who never or no longer..."

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:28:55 -0400

““The most significant differences between those who smoked marijuana and those who never or no longer did was that current smokers’ insulin levels were reduced by 16 percent and their insulin resistance (a condition in which the body has trouble absorbing glucose from the bloodstream) was reduced by 17 percent.””

- The Atlantic’s Lindsay Abrams, reporting on the results of a recent study on the health effects of marijuana. In addition, regular pot smokers were skinnier than those who abstained, “even after adjusting for factors like age, sex, tobacco and alcohol use, and physical activity levels,” and had higher levels of HDL (“good cholesterol”). source (via shortformblog)

So, obviously I’m a huge fan of this, and not just because pot is great. In the United States, it is borderline impossible to do scientific research or testing on marijuana because it is a Schedule 1 drug. That means it’s considered one of the most dangerous substances and it has no possible medical benefits. (For reference, cocaine, opium and amphetamines are Schedule 2, and ketamine is Schedule 3 - in other words, they’re considered “less bad” than pot, and there are fewer federal requirements about studying them.)

Most people who study marijuana do it like this researcher: they test people who will admit to using pot presently or in the past. Findings like this are preliminary, but it opens up a lot of questions about how cannabis affects the human body. We need to study it more. We need to be getting lab subjects high with different amounts of THC and seeing how it affects them in real time. There is so much potential for good here.

More evidence that pot can be beneficial means more people trying to study it, which means more pressure to remove cannabis from Schedule 1, which means we can do more research and maybe find cures/preventions AND fewer people will be getting mandatory life sentences for it.

PREDICTION: Monsanto will patent a THC strain in the next decade.

(via stfuconservatives)

North Carolina Clergy Jailed While Praying for ’21st Century George Wallace’ Governor - COLORLINES

Sun, 19 May 2013 13:33:34 -0400

North Carolina Clergy Jailed While Praying for ’21st Century George Wallace’ Governor - COLORLINES:

sinidentidades:

A “pray-in” in front of the North Carolina state Senate building ended with a group of 17 people — elderly ministers, college students and civil rights advocates — being handcuffed and jailed yesterday.

In the first of a series of planned nonviolent actions, Rev. William Barber, the North Carolina NAACP state conference president, led prayers and songs to protest a round of Republican-backed bills that would limit Medicaid expansion under Obamacare, reduce state funding of unemployment benefits by $700 million, and cut preschool access for mostly poor and working-class children. Barber’s group was also seeking national attention to legislation that, if passed, would make voting more burdensome for college-age, elderly, undocumented and previously incarcerated people.

Barber told reporters, before getting jailed, that “rightwing extremists in the state legislature and the governor’s office are acting as if they want to go down in history as the George Wallaces of 21st century by standing in the door of progress.”

The voter bills would impose a strict photo ID law, cut early voting, strip away voting rights for the formerly incarcerated and cause college students’ parents to pay a $2,500 tax if their kids vote at a different precinct than their home residence.

Barber called the voting restrictions unconstitutional and described them as “poll taxes”—a reference to Reconstruction-era fees specifically designed to prevent impoverished, recently emancipated black people from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

The proposed voter ID bill has already cleared the state House and will come to a vote in the state Senate soon. College students across the state began staging protests last week .

“The extreme ideology coming from the North Carolina legislature, with its attacks on the poor and working people, is alarming enough,” said Penda Hair, co-director of the civil rights organization Advancement Project. “Even more shameful is that the lawmakers who have taken control of the House and Senate are now trying to rig the rules, and disenfranchise certain voters, in order to remain in power far after this legislative session.”

These arrests came on the same day that President Obama nominated Charlotte mayor and North Carolina rising political star Anthony Foxx for Secretary of Department of Transportation. Also today, a Brookings study found that last year African-American voters turned out at a higher rate than white voters in November.

shortformblog: An affair to remember: A dating site that...

Sun, 19 May 2013 10:37:24 -0400

shortformblog:

An affair to remember: A dating site that specializes in orchestrating extramarital affairs has chosen the notoriously infidelitous Mark Sanford as its poster boy, spending $6,000 to erect this billboard in South Carolina, where the former governor is trying to convince people to forget his 2009 affair (and subsequent dereliction of duty) and elect him to the state’s open congressional seat. In an interview with Politico, the founder of the website suggested, without a shred of believability, that he actually wants Sanford to win the election. (Photo credit: AshleyMadison.com) source

fastcompany: In a new campaign, Reporters Without Borders shows...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:18:54 -0400

fastcompany:

In a new campaign, Reporters Without Borders shows world leaders flipping you off.

All the leaders depicted are of the nondemocratic sort that some might label dictators—the kind who might restrict the freedom that journalists enjoy in other parts of the world with the kind of gleeful “f*ck you” depicted here.

kcetliving: Many Servers Still Only Make $2.13 An...

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:18:45 -0400

kcetliving:

Many Servers Still Only Make $2.13 An Hour

…Thankfully, there seems to be some help on the way. Back in February, President Obama unveiled a plan to raise all minimum wages, both tipped and non-tipped, to $9 an hour. A bit more drastic, and therefore a bit more of a Hail Mary pass in the Republican-controlled House, is a bill put forth by Rep. George Miller from California and Sen. Tom Harkin from Iowa that attempts to raise the minimum wage for tipped workers to the actual minimum wage, “first moving it to $3 and then to 70 percent of the full wage through annual 95-cent increases.” Ultimately, the federal minimum wage would be raised to $10.10 by 2015.

Read more here.

"It does not have a state fire code, and it prohibits smaller counties from having such codes. Some..."

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:18:25 -0400

“

It does not have a state fire code, and it prohibits smaller counties from having such codes. Some Texas counties even cite the lack of local fire codes as a reason for companies to move there. But Texas has also had the nation’s highest number of workplace fatalities — more than 400 annually — for much of the past decade. Fires and explosions at Texas’ more than 1,300 chemical and industrial plants have cost as much in property damage as those in all the other states combined for the five years ending in May 2012. Compared with Illinois, which has the nation’s second-largest number of high-risk sites, more than 950, but tighter fire and safety rules, Texas had more than three times the number of accidents, four times the number of injuries and deaths, and 300 times the property damage costs….

It is impossible to know whether tougher regulations would have prevented the disaster near West, especially since investigators remain unsure what sparked the fire that caused the fertilizer to explode. McLennan is among the counties without a fire code.

But federal officials and fire safety experts contend that fire codes and other requirements would probably have made a difference. A fire code would have required frequent inspections by fire marshals who might have prohibited the plant’s owner from storing the fertilizer just hundreds of feet from a school, a hospital, a railroad and other public buildings, they say. A fire code also would probably have mandated sprinklers and forbidden the storage of ammonium nitrate near combustible materials. (Investigators say the fertilizer was stored in a largely wooden building near piles of seed, one possible factor in the fire.)

“It’s tough to overstate the importance fire codes would have made,” said Scott Harris, a former emergency management coordinator in Texas for the Environmental Protection Agency, who is now with UL Workplace Health and Safety, a safety science company. “Texas just hasn’t wrapped its brain around this fact yet.”

”

- After Explosion, Texas Remains Wary of Regulation - NYTimes.com (via dendroica)

Trans woman in Hong Kong wins the right to marry

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:17:58 -0400

Trans woman in Hong Kong wins the right to marry:

gaywrites:

The highest court in Hong Kong ruled that a trans woman has the right to marry her boyfriend, officially legalizing marriages between transgender people and their different-sex partners.

Same-sex marriage is not yet legal in Hong Kong or in China, and even the issue of transgender people being legally married has been hotly contested. This ruling will hopefully change that.

The surprise decision only covers the right of a transgender person who was born male to marry a man, and for one who was born female to marry a woman.

The ruling by the Court of Final Appeal brings the semiautonomous Chinese city in line with many other places in the Asia-Pacific region, including mainland China, where transgender people are allowed to marry as their new gender.

The decision will take effect in a year to give the city time to update marriage laws. Excellent, excellent news, even if we’ve still got a long way to go.

Ⓐnarcho Queer: US Justice Department acknowledges wide-ranging surveillance of AP journalists

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:17:45 -0400

Ⓐnarcho Queer: US Justice Department acknowledges wide-ranging surveillance of AP journalists:

thepeoplesrecord:

May 14, 2013

The president of the Associated Press has sent a letter of protest to US Attorney General Eric Holder over the Department of Justice’s broad surveillance of individual reporters’ phone conversations.

In a letter received by the AP on Friday, the Justice…

quickhits: Poll: voters trust Hillary over GOP on...

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:20:54 -0400

quickhits:

Poll: voters trust Hillary over GOP on Benghazi.

Republicans’ fixation on Benghazi isn’t doing them any good — and may actually be backfiring.

Public Policy Polling: PPP’s newest national poll finds that Republicans aren’t getting much traction with their focus on Benghazi over the last week. Voters trust Hillary Clinton over Congressional Republicans on the issue of Benghazi by a 49/39 margin and Clinton’s +8 net favorability rating at 52/44 is identical to what it was on our last national poll in late March. Meanwhile Congressional Republicans remain very unpopular with a 36/57 favorability rating.

Voters think Congress should be more focused on other major issues right now rather than Benghazi. By a 56/38 margin they say passing a comprehensive immigration reform bill is more important than continuing to focus on Benghazi, and by a 52/43 spread they think passing a bill requiring background checks for all gun sales should be a higher priority.

So Republicans think they’ve moved on from gun violence and can now dick around trying to gin up outrage over Benghazi, only to have the public ask, “Why are you screwing around with this Benghazi stuff? Where are our background checks?”

Bonus hilarity; behold Republican voters’ complete lack of any sense of proportion:

While voters overall may think Congress’ focus should be elsewhere there’s no doubt about how mad Republicans are about Benghazi. 41% say they consider this to be the biggest political scandal in American history to only 43% who disagree with that sentiment. Only 10% of Democrats and 20% of independents share that feeling. Republicans think by a 74/19 margin than Benghazi is a worse political scandal than Watergate, by a 74/12 margin that it’s worse than Teapot Dome, and by a 70/20 margin that it’s worse than Iran Contra.

I often use the hyperbolic statement to poke fun at conservative overreaction and make a point, but a significant percentage of Republicans literally believe that Benghazi is the worst thing ever!

How out of touch are these people? For Republicans, this is the worst scandal in American history. For everyone else it’s a typical Washington timewaster.

[photo via Wikimedia Commons]

Idiotic Backlash: "Of the 41 percent of Republicans who consider Benghazi to be the worst political scandal in American history, 39 percent are unaware that Benghazi is located in Libya. 10 percent said it's in Egypt, 9 percent in Iran, 6 percent in Cuba, 5 percent in Syria, 4 percent in Iraq, and 1 percent in North Korea and Liberia."

Tue, 14 May 2013 22:02:33 -0400

Idiotic Backlash: "Of the 41 percent of Republicans who consider Benghazi to be the worst political scandal in American history, 39 percent are unaware that Benghazi is located in Libya. 10 percent said it's in Egypt, 9 percent in Iran, 6 percent in Cuba, 5 percent in Syria, 4 percent in Iraq, and 1 percent in North Korea and Liberia.":

41 percent of Republicans believe Benghazi is the worst political scandal in American history, but nearly half don’t know where it is.

gatsbysfuneral: sulitati: La Cosecha / The Harvest (2011)...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:32:56 -0400

gatsbysfuneral:

sulitati:

La Cosecha / The Harvest (2011)

“Every year there are more than 400,000 American children who are torn away from their friends, schools and homes to pick the food we all eat. Zulema, Perla and Victor labor as migrant farm workers, sacrificing their own childhoods to help their families survive. The Harvest / La Cosecha profiles these three as they journey from the scorching heat of Texas’ onion fields to the winter snows of the Michigan apple orchards and back south to the humidity of Florida’s tomato fields to follow the harvest and provides an intimate glimpse into the lives of these children who struggle to dream while working 12 – 14 hours a day, 7 days a week to feed America.”

just goes to show you that not consuming animals does not mean you are supporting a system that is cruelty free

"For example, one study found that approximately three in ten American college students reported..."

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:32:34 -0400

“For example, one study found that approximately three in ten American college students reported using marijuana in the past year (Mohler-Kuo et al., 2003). The study also found that the prevalence of marijuana use was highest for White college students, followed by Hispanic, Asian, and African American students.”

- damn, young black folks in college smoke less weed than their counterparts in other racial groups? whodathunkit (via satanic2chainz)

How Ronald Reagan Made Genocide Possible in Guatemala

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:32:24 -0400

How Ronald Reagan Made Genocide Possible in Guatemala:

janedoe225:

http://How Ronald Reagan Made Genocide Possible in Guatemala

The early 1980s were particularly violent in the Latin American theater of the Cold War. Smack in the middle of Guatemala’s 36-year civil war which claimed 200,000 lives, Rios Montt edged out the winner of a sham election in a bloodless coup and began systematically repressing support for the Marxist opposition,as his forces raped women, burned villages, and murdered indigenous Mayan peasants.

From day one Reagan backed Rios Montt, feeding him millions first in jeeps and trucks, and then helicopter and plane parts, despite clearly articulated reports from both the CIA and international watchdogs that genocide was accumulating bodies in the ditches and gullies of Guatemala.

A cache of internal Guatemalan records from the time revealed the existence of Operation Sofia, which was the operation that led to the massacre of indigenous peasants. It was used by the 1999 UN-sponsored Historical Clarification Commission to classify the counterinsurgency campaign in the summer of 1982 as “acts of genocide against groups of Mayan people.”

The horror described by independent human rights reporters on the ground is enough to turn your stomach: “We heard many, many stories of children being picked up by the ankles and swung against poles so their heads [were] destroyed.”

Despite the fact that he knew all this, Reagan praised Rios Montt, calling him ”a man of great personal integrity and commitment” who wanted to “promote social justice.”

President Bill Clinton apologized in 1999, saying that the U.S. support for the death squads “was wrong.”

Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their Premiums

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:32:18 -0400

Obamacare Is Already Forcing Private Insurers To Lower Their Premiums:

think-progress:

Look at that. Facts!

thepeoplesrecord: This happens in the United States: modern day...

Tue, 14 May 2013 16:32:12 -0400

thepeoplesrecord:

This happens in the United States: modern day slaver/guilty judge sentenced to 28 years in prison for “selling” kids to private prisons in 2011

Accused of perpetrating a “profound evil,” former Pennsylvania judge Mark Ciavarella Jr. has been sentenced to 28 years in prison for illegally accepting money from a juvenile-prison developer while he spent years incarcerating thousands of young people.

Prosecutors said Ciavarella sent juveniles to jail as part of a “kids for cash” scheme involving Robert Mericle, builder of the PA and Western PA Child Care juvenile detention centers. The ex-judge was convicted in February of 12 counts that included racketeering, money laundering, mail fraud and tax evasion.

In addition to his prison sentence, Ciavarella was ordered to pay nearly $1.2 million in restitution.

At his sentencing, Ciavarella acknowledged his illegal acceptance of money from Mericle. But he denied ever jailing a juvenile in exchange for money.

Once the case against Ciavarella surfaced, special investigative panels began reviewing cases he handled from 2003 to 2008. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court concluded that he denied about 5,000 juveniles, some as young as ten, their constitutional rights, leading to the vacating of their convictions.

Among the young people exploited by Ciavarella were 15-year-old Hillary Transue, who was sentenced to three months at a juvenile detention center for mocking an assistant principal on a MySpace page; and 13-year-old Shane Bly, who was sent to a boot camp for two weekends after being accused of trespassing in a vacant building.

Another judge, Michael T. Conahan, used his position to shut down the county-run juvenile detention center and redirect juvenile detainees to the private prisons. He pleaded guilty to racketeering conspiracy.

Source

Huff Post article from October 2011