A place were I can write...

My simple blog of pictures of travel, friends, activities and the Universe we live in as we go slowly around the Sun.



July 31, 2013

Climbing the income ladder

Climbing the income ladder occurs less often in the Southeast and industrial Midwest, the data shows, with the odds notably low in Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Raleigh, Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Columbus. By contrast, some of the highest rates occur in the Northeast, Great Plains and West, including in New York, Boston, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh, Seattle and large swaths of California and Minnesota
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“Where you grow up matters,” said Nathaniel Hendren, a Harvard economist and one of the study’s authors. “There is tremendous variation across the U.S. in the extent to which kids can rise out of poverty.”
      
That variation does not stem simply from the fact that some areas have higher average incomes: upward mobility rates, Mr. Hendren added, often differ sharply in areas where average income is similar, like Atlanta and Seattle.
       
The gaps can be stark. On average, fairly poor children in Seattle — those who grew up in the 25th percentile of the national income distribution — do as well financially when they grow up as middle-class children — those who grew up at the 50th percentile — from Atlanta.
       
Geography mattered much less for well-off children than for middle-class and poor children, according to the results. In an economic echo of Tolstoy’s line about happy families being alike, the chances that affluent children grow up to be affluent are broadly similar across metropolitan areas. The team of researchers initially analyzed an enormous database of earnings records to study tax policy, hypothesizing that different local and state tax breaks might affect intergenerational mobility.
 
What they found surprised them, said Raj Chetty, one of the authors and the most recent winner of the John Bates Clark Medal, which the American Economic Association awards to the country’s best academic economist under the age of 40. The researchers concluded that larger tax credits for the poor and higher taxes on the affluent seemed to improve income mobility only slightly. The economists also found only modest or no correlation between mobility and the number of local colleges and their tuition rates or between mobility and the amount of extreme wealth in a region.
But the researchers identified four broad factors that appeared to affect income mobility, including the size and dispersion of the local middle class. All else being equal, upward mobility tended to be higher in metropolitan areas where poor families were more dispersed among mixed-income neighborhoods.
       
Income mobility was also higher in areas with more two-parent households, better elementary schools and high schools, and more civic engagement, including membership in religious and community groups.
       
Regions with larger black populations had lower upward-mobility rates. But the researchers’ analysis suggested that this was not primarily because of their race. Both white and black residents of Atlanta have low upward mobility, for instance.
      
The authors emphasize that their data allowed them to identify only correlation, not causation. Other economists said that future studies will be important for sorting through the patterns in this new data.
Still, earlier studies have already found that education and family structure have a large effect on the chances that children escape poverty. Other researchers, including the political scientist Robert D.
 
Putnam, author of “Bowling Alone,” have previously argued that social connections play an important role in a community’s success. Income mobility has become one of the hottest topics in economics, as both liberals and conservatives have grown worried about diminished opportunities following more than a decade of disappointing economic growth. After years of focusing more on inequality at a moment in time, economists have more recently turned their attention to people’s paths over their lifetimes.
      
Polls show that Americans are worried about whether living standards will rise for most people in coming decades, as they have for nearly all of the nation’s history. In interviews in Atlanta and its suburbs, residents reflected many of the national concerns and many of the patterns in the study.
 
In previous studies of mobility, economists have found that a smaller percentage of people escape childhood poverty in the United States than in several other rich countries, including Canada, Australia, France, Germany and Japan. The latest study is consistent with those findings.
       
Whatever the reasons, affluent children often remain so: one of every three 30-year-olds who grew up in the top 1 percent of the income distribution was already making at least $100,000 in family income, according to the new study. Among adults who grew up in the bottom half of the income distribution, only one out of 25 had family income of at least $100,000 by age 30.
      
Yet the parts of this country with the highest mobility rates — like Pittsburgh, Seattle and Salt Lake City — have rates roughly as high as those in Denmark and Norway, two countries at the top of the international mobility rankings. In areas like Atlanta and Memphis, by comparison, upward mobility appears to be substantially lower than in any other rich country, Mr. Chetty said.
      
Especially intriguing is the fact that children who moved at a young age from a low-mobility area to a high-mobility area did almost as well as those who spent their entire childhoods in a higher-mobility area. But children who moved as teenagers did less well.
 
That pattern makes economists more confident that the characteristics of different regions — as opposed to something inherent and unchangeable in the local residents — are helping cause the varying mobility rates.
 
The comparison of metropolitan areas allows researchers to consider local factors that previous mobility studies could not — including a region’s geography. And in Atlanta, the most common lament seems to be precisely that concentrated poverty, extensive traffic and a weak public-transit system make it difficult to get to the job opportunities. “When poor communities are segregated,” said Cindia Cameron, an organizer for 9 to 5, a women’s rights group, “everything about life is harder.”

The State of Rights and Wrongs

By Bernard Weisberger:

The world continues to turn upside down and sometimes you can’t make sense of it even by standing on your head.

Recent news has focused on the scramble of a number of states, following the Supreme Court’s evisceration of a key part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, to rush through new measures aimed at booby-trapping the path of low-income — particularly, black and Hispanic – voters to the polls.
In Texas, the spotlight fell on the failed struggle of women to defeat a fiercely restrictive law that would in effect shut down most of the state’s few remaining abortion services. Elsewhere, the campaign to destroy public unions goes merrily on in various state capitals and the strangulation of public services with chokeholds on funding continues with a zeal that must warm Grover Norquist‘s heart.

Yet here’s the paradox: these assaults are not limited to traditionally conservative states, especially those in the South, but are carried on in such places as North Carolina, long considered one of the most liberal of Southern states; in Pennsylvania and Ohio; in North Dakota, once the home of the radical labor and agrarian Nonpartisan League; even in usually liberal Wisconsin, the great “laboratory of democracy” in the Progressive Springtime of a century ago.

The reason for this fast-spreading virus of reaction can be found in the liberal disaster that was the midterm election of 2010, when no fewer than 25 state senates and 28 state assemblies flipped from Democratic to Republican control.

Possibly the cruelest stroke of these new state regimes is the rejection by some of Medicaid funding provided by the federal government under the new Affordable Care Act, leaving those unlucky enough to be both sick and poor to suffer and die rather than take a sullied dollar of help from Washington.

The guardians of this brand of obstinacy defend it as resistance to the “tyranny” of the central government, and for support brandish the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution (which reserves to the states any powers not explicitly granted to the federal government). There is even a Tenth Amendment Center website where online visitors can explore the implicit power of the “deliberately hidden” power of nullification, the doctrine that within its borders a state can unilaterally refuse to enforce what it sees as an “unconstitutional” law.

But here is the uncomfortable truth. Any such extreme (and destructive) interpretation of states’ rights has as much to do with who holds the reins at a given moment as it does with a theoretical embrace of the separation of powers. In our version of federalism, for example, lightly populated states have an undemocratic amount of power in the Senate simply because back at the original Constitutional Convention in 1787 they threatened to torpedo the whole exercise unless they got equal representation.

James Madison entered that convention as a confirmed nationalist, but only a few years later, when the new Democratic-Republican Party that he and Jefferson had founded was in a minority, he helped draft the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which affirmed the right of those two states to nullify the anti-democratic Alien and Sedition Acts passed by the ruling Federalists.

The Federalists themselves were the “outs” during the War of 1812, which was hugely unpopular in New England, their major stronghold. At an 1814 convention in Hartford, outraged Federalists openly spoke of, but luckily did not pursue, nullification and even secession.

In 1833 South Carolina’s legislature tried to nullify a tariff that it denounced as oppressive, but backed off when the federal government showed its readiness to use force and then offered a compromise. Generally, though, Southern protests against federal power were in defense of slavery. (Although in 1850, when the South secured a Fugitive Slave Law compelling Northern authorities to help slave owners recapture their unfortunate runaways, it was abolitionist-influenced states who turned to the weapon of nullification.)

In short, the noble principle of states’ rights has been more or less what the historian Arthur Schlesinger, Sr., called it decades ago: a “fetish” that is in itself morally neutral but which has justified as many states’ wrongs as rights.

What we are seeing at this moment is the commission of some grievous wrongs to democracy. Since the Reagan revolution, the goal of hard core conservatives has been to wipe out every vestige of the handiwork of two generations of Progressives and New Dealers who believed in the creative role of government to ensure a fair society with equal opportunity for all – one that does all those things that are hated by the parade marshals of the march toward plutocracy.


Still, we need to give due credit to their strategic shrewdness in carrying their battle to the states and framing it as a struggle for freedom from a meddlesome Washington bureaucracy. It has allowed them to draw on two centuries’ worth of states-rights rhetoric and tradition and takes advantage of some vulnerabilities in state governments. Archaic laws hobble many state lawmakers with mandatory short sessions and caps on their compensation. This produces a crowded legislative calendar full of complex measures that the best-intentioned men and women, for many of whom the job is only part-time, struggle to master.

Despite efforts by organizations like the National Council of State Legislatures, state legislators lack the staffs and research agencies available to members of Congress. So the “help” of groups like the right-wing American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in providing model statutes is an easy alternative to simply voting as their party leaders tell them. Reform organizations need to match that effort, and direct more resources towards state capitals. Until they do, state houses will remain happy hunting grounds for the lobbyists of better-organized, deep-pocketed special interests.

Another factor favoring takeover of the states by neo-Social Darwinists is public apathy. Voter turnout, dismayingly poor even in presidential years, drops to 30 and 40 percent – or worse — in off-year elections. Even then, many voters pay attention only to top-of-the-ticket offices like governor or senator and fail to complete their ballots — or simply check the box for a straight party-line vote.
What’s more, media help identifying and explaining candidates is scarce. Big city papers and networks carry little if any state political news, and small town, locally owned newspapers and radio stations have long gone the way of the dinosaurs.

For what it’s worth, my own take as an historian is that our federal system has great usefulness for governing a gigantic and diverse nation. But it needs to be rooted in realism. The varied economic interests of states of different sizes can be protected and reconciled at the national level, as they are in parliamentary systems, by building alliances and striking deals. But the notion that peoples of different states have different ways of life that only they can cherish and understand began to die with the first click of Morse’s telegraph, the first puff of smoke from a locomotive, the first squeal of static from a primitive radio set.

We now live in a homogenized culture in which most of us know far more about our national than our local elected officials. So what I fear has happened is that in typical American style we drift towards bombast and exaggeration and inflate “state rights” to “state sovereignty.” Baloney! The states never were genuine mini-nations (no matter what Texas may say). The fantasy of pretending otherwise cost us a Civil War and over half a million lives. To revive it now may well cost us what’s left of our democracy.

Paul Ryan’s War on Poverty

By Greg Kaufmann:

Kudos to Melissa Harris-Perry for having Tianna Gaines-Turner, a Witness to Hunger, on her show once again to talk about her experiences with hunger and poverty; also to Congresswoman Barbara Lee who, after listening to Gaines-Turner, is now pushing for House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan to allow her to testify at tomorrow’s hearing on the War on Poverty.

Harris-Perry played a clip from Representative Ryan’s interview with NBC News’s In Plain Sight poverty project, in which the congressman argues that the solution to poverty is “reviving” churches and community groups, and that federal programs like food stamps and Medicaid have failed and should be cut.

“People themselves need to get involved in their community to help people. That’s what solidarity is,” said Representative Ryan. “That act of involvement, of human beings coming together to help one another — that’s so much better than some cold government program.”

In response, Gaines-Turner said that Representative Ryan and those who share his point of view “have no clue.”

“Everyone has something to say about someone who lives in hunger and poverty,” she said. “They’re making decisions which affect our lives without even having conversations with us. They think they have the answers.”

Harris-Perry asked Gaines-Turner what she would like to say to Representative Lee — “one of the most important members of the Progressive Caucus” (and truly committed to fighting poverty) — who was also a guest on the panel.

“Have more people who are going through these programs at the table,” said Gaines-Turner. “Not after both [chambers] have already voted. Invite us to the table, have us sit there, and you hear my story, and you understand. Walk in my shoes. It’s easy for people to sit back and judge me, without even asking me.”

Representative Lee shared that she was on food stamps in the early 1970s when she was raising her two children and that “it was really hard.” She agreed that Congress needs to hear more from people who are struggling. She said that she would ask Representative Ryan to allow Gaines-Turner to testify as a witness tomorrow.

Yesterday, the congresswoman indeed sent a letter to Chairman Ryan requesting that Gaines-Turner be included on the witness list.

This is an excellent opportunity for the chairman, since he told NBC News, “We need to do more listening to people who are in the trenches fighting poverty.”

That’s exactly what Gaines-Turner and the other Witnesses to Hunger have been doing since 2008.
Now is the chairman’s chance.

Chairman Paul Ryan has informed Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s office that Ms. Gaines-Turner will not be permited to appear as a witness, but she can submit written testimony.

North Carolina Passes the Country’s Worst Voter Suppression Law

By Ari Berman:

I’ve been in Texas researching the history of the Voting Rights Act at the LBJ Library. As I’ve been studying how the landmark civil rights law transformed American democracy, I’ve also been closely following how Republicans in North Carolina — parts of which were originally covered by the VRA in 1965 — have made a mockery of the law and its prohibition on voting discrimination.

Last week, the North Carolina legislature passed the country’s worst voter suppression law after only three days of debate. Rick Hasen of Election Law Blog called it “the most sweeping anti-voter law in at least decades.” The bill mandates strict voter ID to cast a ballot (no student IDs, no public employee IDs, etc.), even though 318,000 registered voters lack the narrow forms of acceptable ID according to the state’s own numbers and there have been no recorded prosecutions of voter impersonation in the past decade. The bill cuts the number of early voting days by a week, even though 56 percent of North Carolinians voted early in 2012. The bill eliminates same-day voter registration during the early voting period, even though 96,000 people used it during the general election in 2012 and states that have adopted the convenient reform have the highest voter turnout in the country. African-Americans are 23 percent of registered voters in the state, but made up 28 percent of early voters in 2012, 33 percent of those who used same-day registration and 34 percent of those without state-issued ID.

And that’s just the start of it. In short, the bill eliminates practically everything that encourages people to vote in North Carolina, replaced by unnecessary and burdensome new restrictions. At the same time, the bill expands the influence of unregulated corporate influence in state elections. Just what our democracy needs — more money and less voting!

“I want you to understand what this bill means to people,” said Representative Mickey Michaux (D-Durham), the longest-serving member of the North Carolina House and a veteran of the civil rights movement who grew up in the Jim Crow South. “We have fought for, died for and struggled for our right to vote. You can take these 57 pages of abomination and confine them to the streets of Hell for all eternity.”

Here are the details of everything bad about the bill, via North Carolina Policy Watch. It’s a very long list:
  • The end of pre-registration for 16 & 17 year olds
  • A ban on paid voter registration drives
  • Elimination of same day voter registration
  • A provision allowing voters to be challenged by any registered voter of the county in which they vote rather than just their precinct
  • A week sliced off Early Voting
  • Elimination of straight party ticket voting
  • A provision making the state’s presidential primary date a function of the primary date in South Carolina
  • A provision calling for a study (rather than a mandate) of electronic candidate filing
  • An increase in the maximum campaign contribution to $5,000 (the limit will continue to increase every two years with the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics)
  • A provision weakening disclosure requirements for ”independent expenditure” committees
  • Authorization of vigilante poll observers, lots of them, with expanded range of interference
  • An expansion of the scope of who may examine registration records and challenge voters
  • A repeal of out-of-precinct voting
  • A repeal of the current mandate for high-school registration drives
  • Elimination of flexibility in opening early voting sites at different hours within a county
  • A provision making it more difficult to add satellite polling sites for the elderly or voters with disabilities
  • New limits on who can assist a voter adjudicated to be incompetent by court
  • The repeal of three public financing programs
  • The repeal of disclosure requirements under “candidate specific communications.”
“We will see long lines, many citizens turned away and not allowed to vote, more provisional ballots cast but many fewer counting, vigilante observers at the polling place and all disproportionately impacting black voters,” says Anita Earls, executive director of the Durham-based Southern Coalition for Social Justice and a former deputy assistant attorney general for civil rights in the Clinton administration. “This new law revives everything we have fought against for the past ten years and eliminates everything we fought for.”

The legislation should be a wake-up call for Congress to get serious about resurrecting the Voting Rights Act and passing federal election reform. Six Southern states have passed or implemented new voting restrictions since the Supreme Court’s decision last month invalidating Section 4 of the VRA, which will go down in history as one of the worst rulings in the past century. Voting rights groups (and perhaps the federal government) will soon challenge at least some of the new restrictions through a preliminary injunction, others sections of the VRA, or the state constitution. But if Section 5 of the VRA was still operable, North Carolina would have to clear all of these changes with the federal government and prove they are not discriminatory — practically herculean task given the facts. The new law would’ve been blocked or tempered as a result. Instead, the North Carolina legislature interpreted the Court’s decision as a green light for voter suppression, which it was, and made the bill as draconian as possible.

Move aside Florida, North Carolina is now the new poster child for voter suppression. The Moral Monday movement in the state is now more important than ever. Maybe someday we’ll look back at this period as the turning point when the nation realized just how important the Voting Rights Act was and is.

AC news...

Emirates Team New Zealand will not sail in Tuesday’s scheduled Louis Vuitton Cup race after the team clinched the round-robin competition Sunday.

Team Artemis, which was supposed to compete against New Zealand, also will sit out. Artemis has not participated in the round-robin races as it recovers from a May accident.

New Zealand will not race again until the Louis Vuitton Cup finals, which begin Aug. 17. The best-of-seven semifinals are scheduled to begin next Tuesday. Luna Rossa said Monday it would sail Thursday in a one-boat race. Artemis was scheduled for that race.

Hoag's Object

Is this one galaxy or two? This question came to light in 1950 when astronomer Art Hoag chanced upon this unusual extragalactic object. On the outside is a ringgap that appears almost completely dark. How Hoag's Object formed remains unknown, although similar objects have now been identified and collectively labeled as a form of ring galaxy. Genesis hypotheses include a galaxy collision billions of years ago and the gravitational effect of a central bar that has since vanished. The above photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in July 2001 revealed unprecedented details of Hoag's Object. More recent observations in radio waves indicate that Hoag's Object has not accreted a smaller galaxy in the past billion years. Hoag's Object spans about 100,000 light years and lies about 600 million light years away toward the constellation of the Snake (Serpens). Coincidentally, visible in the gap (at about one o'clock) is yet another ring galaxy that likely lies far in the distance. dominated by bright blue stars, while near the center lies a ball of much redder stars that are likely much older. Between the two is a

Solar eclipse???

This is not a solar eclipse. Pictured above is a busy vista of moons and rings taken at Saturn. The large circular object in the center of the image is Titan, the largest moon of Saturn and one of the most intriguing objects in the entire Solar System. The dark spot in the center is the main solid part of the moon. The bright surrounding ring is atmospheric haze above Titan, gas that is scattering sunlight to a camera operating onboard the robotic Cassini spacecraft. Cutting horizontally across the image are the rings of Saturn, seen nearly edge on. At the lower right of Titan is Enceladus, a small moon of Saturn. Since the image was taken pointing nearly at the Sun, the surfaces of Titan and Enceladus appear in silhouette, and the rings of Saturn appear similar to a photographic negative. Now if you look really really closely at Enceladus, you can see a hint of icy jets shooting out toward the bottom of the image. It is these jets that inspired future proposals to land on Enceladus, burrow into the ice, and search for signs of extraterrestrial life.

If you can't win one way, sue....

The name John Podmajersky was forever registered into the annals of sailing douchebaggery after the Chicago developer sued the Chicago Yacht Club to get his name on a trophy, and his cancer-battling long time crew for a million bucks. That long and sordid story is long over and “Pod” is back to quietly enjoying sailboat racing, but he’ll always be remembered for bringing lawyers and the courts somewhere they never, ever should have been allowed: Into a disagreement between two sailors over amateur sailboat racing.

We understand that the America’s Cup will end up in court every few years; it’s a mega-million dollar business with jobs, team survival, and sponsor dollars, and huge fragile and unbalanced egos at stake, and sometimes only a judge can force someone to do the right thing. But outside of the AC, litigation in sailing is rare enough – and distasteful enough – to stop and take note. And, when appropriate, to register your disapproval.

We’ve seen a handful of nasty lawsuits over the years , but most are basic injury claims and most disappear to the black hole of insurance company settlements with a confidentiality clause – as it should be. But every now and again, someone pops up with a big, nasty lawsuit that not only makes the plaintiff look like a world-class a-hole, it makes all sailors look just a little more litigious, a little more petty, and a little more like the upper-crust, Thurston P. Howell III dickheads that most of the population already thinks we are.

Let’s say you’re a part of a big local one-design class; the Chief Measurer, in fact. Now, imagine you show up to the Class’s biggest annual event – the North Americans – and you win it. Other teams complain that the boat doesn’t appear to be one-design, and in fact when the boat is finally hauled (just after the protest deadline passes), the keel doesn’t look at all like the other keels. Cellphones pop out, pictures get sent around, and everyone knows this shit ain’t Kosher.

Fast forward to the annual meeting a few months later, when ‘Champ’ admits that he profiled the keel before the NAs, but has since returned it to Class spec. When the new Chief Measurer gets aboard to inspect as required when a keel alteration has been made, he finds a lot of things no one has seen on these boats before:

-Perpendicular ribs attached to main bulkhead

-Gussets attached to ribs and deck at main bulkhead

-Longitudinal “ring” frames connecting main and forward bulkhead

-Extra layers of glass connecting deck skin, gussets, and main bulkhead.

-V-berth bunk panels taped and bonded to main bulkhead, hull, and v-berth bulkhead

These are certainly all great ideas to stiffen your handicap boat, but this is the ultra-competitive Tartan 10 Class in the Great Lakes, where more than 30 of them race against each other on a regular basis. As you’d expect, the Class pulls “Champ’s” measurement certificate and tells him he’ll need to bring the boat back into one-design spec in order to race. So what does the former Class Measurer do?

He sues. Not just the Class, but he goes after the measurer, the board, and some other folks – personally – just for good measure. He asks for an injunction requiring the Class to reinstate his boat. He asks for a ruling that they violated an unwritten contract. And most incredibly outrageous of all, he claims he suffered “emotional distress” at the hands of the big, mean TTen Class – and he wants them to pay.

If there’s an appeal with US Sailing or an attempt to resolve it with any other body, we can’t find it. There’s no record of him ever bringing his boat into full compliance. All we have are a few measurement rulings on the Class site and a lawsuit filed by one of Michigan’s top law firms that, frankly, you have to see to believe.

Windsurfing

I simply cannot miss this terrific opportunity to promote the sport of Windsurfing. We would be remiss in our duty to do otherwise. In these last few years, Kite Boarding has really taken off and windsurfing has dragged. In most cases, people like to Kite since the equipment is easier to transport and cost less to get into the sport. Also, the equipment design has kind of reached a limit. But that still doesn't mean that Windsurfing isn't a fun sport. And of course there are always nice girls around...

July 30, 2013

Peripheral Tunnels is another name for Peripheral Cannal

The current configuration of the old “Peripheral Canal” project is now being sold as underground tunnels. The “Peripheral Canal” in 1982 was a plan to build an above-the-ground canal around the Delta near Stockton somewhat where the current BDCP map below shows their so-called “Eastern Alignment” (in green). The PC project was a bad plan because it removed fresh water before it flowed through the Delta and was voted down by a wide margin. The new Tunnel Project is even worse. (The water would go to Southern California so developers could make more money)

The 1982 Peripheral Canal, besides removing much needed fresh water from the Delta, would have had the same pumping intakes that now threaten the lovely communities along the Sacramento River like Clarksburg, Hood, Courtland. However, the old PC would have preserved many of the scenic central waterways (although they would have still ended up filled with brackish salt water and dead fish).

Fast forward to 2013 and the “Peripheral Tunnels” are the current project plan. These tunnels are still referred to as the “Peripheral Tunnels” because they do all of the environmental damage the Peripheral Canal would have imposed. However, they have an even worse effect on the scenic Delta itself. During construction, waterways will be ripped up, the noise of pile drivers 24×7, barges and construction will make it hard for boaters to enjoy a peaceful outing and even harder for birds and wildlife to remain in the area.

The Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) proposing the new tunnel project studied three alignments as shown in the map below. Besides the Eastern Alignment, a “Western Alignment” that would have gone somewhat around the Delta although I don’t know the impact on Rio Vista and other scenic towns in that area and a through-the-middle “Central Alignment.” Instead of a Canal, they plan to go 150 feet below the Delta. But don’t feel placated that it means less impact to the scenic beauty. The construction is not all “below” the Delta because to build the tunnels requires creating a swath of construction destruction from Hood to the Clifton Court Forebay. The “chosen” alignment is the Central Alignment.

For Delta farmers, boaters and people in the South Delta, the worst choice was the “Central Alignment.” When it was an above-the-ground canal, the plan was to cement-wall in the entire core of the Delta including Mildred Island – virtually wiping out boating in the South Delta. This was for many the worst choice albeit the shortest. Because if the state is trying to preserve the scenic beauty of the Delta, as stated in the Delta Plan, then building cement walls down the middle was a disastrous idea. Some felt appeased hearing that instead of a canal, the new plan was tunnels going “beneath” the Delta. But that is a misconception.

They won’t go under the Delta and leave it’s scenic beauty unharmed. No – the construction project will rip up the entire central portion for 10-20 years and leave smelly tunnel muck in it’s wake.
These new tunnels create all of the environmental damage the canal would have done plus the construction project will destroy numerous scenic waterways including half of the scenic waterways in the South Delta. Huge barges – football size – will be constructed along the 35 mile stretch. Pile driving 24×7, lights, power lines – right next to the Hilton fireworks display area where traditionally thousands of boats anchor out for a week of festivities around the July 4th event which will cause boaters to look elsewhere than boating for that holiday for years. Similarly Mildred Island anchorage will be disrupted with a football size dock next to it, pile driving, lights. It is unlikely that the hundreds of boats, if they can even get into the anchorage, will want to gather there for the big weekends and events such as the Labor Day SeaRay “circle” of over 100 boats each year. When summer weekends and holidays don’t attract boaters to the marinas, businesses will suffer, people will move away.

Delta farmers are threatened from all sides. Many are being told the state can take away their family farms by eminent domain for habitat projects. Some of their farms are planned as tunnel muck sites which would totally destroy their lands, homes and facilities. And for many others still able to keep their farms, the plans to move and close roads needed to get their produce to market will put them out of business.

Melinda Terry, manager of the North Delta Water Agency and participant on the BDCP panels, describes the construction horror in detail in a recent video and write-up in the Central Valley Business Times.

Very little information is offered by the BDCP about why the Central Alignment is the chosen alignment. Perhaps since it’s a bit shorter there’s a cost advantage. But if you are trying to protect a scenic wonderland you don’t put a 10-15 year construction project through it’s heart. If you wanted to restore the Yosemite Valley, would you dig up the floor for 10 years? Bring in power lines, lights, pile drivers 24 x 7? Scare away all of the native species? Of course not.

Yet this is what the Delta Plan is allowing due to its lack of real requirements about what projects need to do to “save” the Delta.

http://nodeltagates.com/2013/07/25/tunnel-damage-they-wont-just-go-under-the-delta/

Mimas and Pandora

The Saturn moons Mimas and Pandora remind us of how different they are when they appear together, as in this image taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Pandora's small size means that it lacks sufficient gravity to pull itself into a round shape like its larger sibling, Mimas. Researchers believe that the elongated shape of Pandora (50 miles, or 81 kilometers across) may hold clues to how it and other moons near Saturn's rings formed.

This view looks toward the anti-Saturn hemisphere of Mimas (246 miles, or 396 kilometers across). North on Mimas is up and rotated 28 degrees to the right. The image was taken in blue light with Cassini's narrow-angle camera on May 14, 2013. The view was acquired at a distance of approximately 690,000 miles (1.1 million kilometers) from Mimas. Image scale is 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel. Pandora was at a distance of 731,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) when this image was taken. Image scale on Pandora is 4 miles (7 kilometers) per pixel.

July 29, 2013

Working Poor

By John Light

This week marked the four-year anniversary of the last time Congress increased the minimum wage — from $5.15 in 2007 to $7.25 in 2009. Groups demonstrated across the country, demanding increases at both the state and federal level. President Obama pledged that he would continue to press for an increase in his economic policy speech at Knox College.

But there’s another problem: Millions of working Americans make less than minimum wage. In fact, more Americans are exempt from it than actually earn it.

The Pew Research Center examined Bureau of Labor Statistics data and found that about one and a half million Americans earned the minimum wage in 2012, but nearly two million people earned an hourly wage that was even less than $7.25 an hour. These workers, for one reason or another, are exempted from the part of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) that requires employers to pay at least the minimum wage, and include tipped workers and many domestic workers, as well as workers on small farms, some seasonal workers and some disabled workers.

The largest of these exempted groups is tipped employees, many of whom work in food service. Today, tipped employees earn just $2.13 an hour — the rationale being that tips cover the rest. In fact, some of these workers do earn a reasonable living through their tips, but, as Saru Jayaraman, co-founder and director of the Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, told us, many don’t.

“Imagine your average server in an IHOP in Texas earning $2.13 an hour, graveyard shift, no tips,” she said. “The company’s supposed to make up the difference between $2.13 and $7.25 but time and time again that doesn’t happen.”

The Obama administration proposal laid out in the State of the Union calling for $9 an hour also called for an increase in the minimum wage for tipped workers, and for that increase to be indexed to inflation. At the moment, the minimum for tipped workers has not changed for 22 years, because, in 1996, Congress detached tipped worker wages from the normal minimum wage at the bidding of the National Restaurant Association — a powerful lobbying organization headed, at the time, by Herman Cain. This leaves millions of tipped workers — a group that is mostly women — living in poverty.

Another large subset of American workers exempted from both minimum wage and overtime pay is domestic workers who provide “companionship services.” The actual duties of these workers range from providing medical care to the disabled and the elderly to helping with basic tasks like eating, dressing and bathing, shopping, transportation and cooking.

The “companionship” exemption was first created in 1974, when the FSLA was extended to cover domestic workers. At the time, in-home caregiving was a relatively small industry. But it’s grown; in 2011 the National Employment Law Project estimated that about 1.7 million Americans fell under the exemption. On Tuesday, hundreds of domestic workers rallied near the Department of Labor headquarters, urging newly confirmed labor secretary Thomas Perez to take action and extend to them the same workplace protections almost all other Americans enjoy. Vice President Joe Biden expressed his support for doing so last month, as did Obama in 2011.

Three and a half million workers make either minimum wage or less than it — that’s at most $15,080 a year, well below the poverty line for a family of two — and millions more Americans make something only slightly above it. Raising the minimum wage to $10.10 by 2015 , as many of the protests this week urged, would mean higher wages for the 21.3 million Americans who make less than that. The Economic Policy Institute blog reports that it would create a ripple effect, leading to higher wages for a total of 14.2 percent of all U.S. workers, creating a mild economic stimulus, helping to close the gender pay gap and decreasing income inequality.

Recent polling has found that the majority of Americans, regardless of political party affiliation, support an increase to $10.10. And if Congress makes the (what seems at the moment unlikely) decision to take action and raise the minimum wage, pulling millions out of poverty, they should also reexamine the loopholes that exclude some two million American workers from the minimum.

Congress Fiddles While the Western States Burn

by Michael Winship

In the weeks and months immediately following 9/11, one of the most touching responses in my neighborhood, not far Ground Zero, was the overwhelming support of police and fire departments from around the country. Across the street from my apartment, at the 6th Precinct headquarters from which two officers had rushed to the scene and died, every day a different police contingent from a different town in America guarded our street. And a couple of blocks away, at the Squad 18 firehouse, which lost seven men on September 11, fellow firefighters from all over came to stand vigil and pay their respects. Solidarity.

All this came back to me when the memorial was held a couple of weeks ago for the 19 firemen who died battling the Yarnell Hill wildfire in Arizona. The tragedy was the worst to befall firefighters since the World Trade Center came down, and the most deadly in eighty years for the men and women who dedicate themselves to taming blazes in the wilderness.

Thousands jammed into an arena in Prescott Valley, Ariz., with the overflow of the crowd in an adjoining parking lot, standing, listening and mourning under the desert sun. There were firefighters there from Phoenix, Tucson and Yuma, but also from Sacramento, Los Angeles – and New York.
Nine days before, the crew members of the Granite Mountain Hotshots had been fatally overtaken by flames and smoke. When the winds picked up and the fire changed direction, surging four miles in twenty minutes, they were trapped, surrounded in a box canyon, trying to save themselves under emergency fire shelters that melted from the heat.

Anyone who has ever been in the middle of a serious fire knows how terrifying they are and unpredictable, even for those like the hotshots, with their courage, skills and conditioning. Much of what gets them through is their camaraderie and the knowledge that what they do saves lives and property. The least we can do is stand in solidarity behind them, but on both a micro and macro level, our stalwart U.S. Congress, aided and abetted by government bureaucracy, is cutting Western firefighters’ lifeline much as it did when members of the House initially balked at aid for sick and dying 9/11 first responders. This, despite their publicly professed pride in the men and women who rush into danger when the rest of us rush out to safety.

“In May, Obama administration officials warned that sequester cuts would inhibit the nation’s ability to effectively fight wildfires in the West,” Derek Pugh wrote in the progressive Campaign for America’s Future blog on July 1. “… Budget cuts are putting the lives of our firefighters and those who live in and near forests at an unacceptably high risk.

“… The automatic spending cuts have forced the U.S. Forest Service to shed 500 firefighters, between 50 and 70 fire trucks and two aircrafts in this year’s budget. The sequester will leave agencies $115 million short of normal firefighting capacity, meaning that 200,000 fewer acres will be treated to prevent fires.”
Fighting actual fires has meant shifting money from fire prevention, which in a Catch-22-like situation may actually create more and worse fires in the future. And, according to the Climate Desk at Mother Jones magazine, “…The agency’s next proposed budget cuts preventative spending by a further 24 percent.
“It’s all part of what fire ecologists, environmentalists, and firefighters interviewed by Climate Desk describe as an increasingly distorted federal budget that has apparently forgotten the old adage about an ounce of prevention: It pours billions ($2 billion in 2012) into fighting fires but skimps on cheap, proven methods for stopping megafires before they start.”
This worry was echoed by four Western senators in a letter to the Office of Management and Budget and other cabinet departments – written, coincidentally, on the very day the fatal Yarnell Hill fire began: “This approach to paying for firefighting is nonsensical and further increases wildland fire costs.” And a May report from Northern Arizona University’s Ecological Restoration Institute “found that the bulk of the costs from megafires are borne not by the federal government but by local governments – and the federal budgeting process ignores those bills when weighing whether prevention saves money.”

As for the macro, the simple fact that we refuse to take legislative action to curb climate change is part of the reason fires will continue to worsen. “Big wildfires… thrive in dry air, low humidity and high winds,” James West reports in Mother Jones. “Climate change is going to make those conditions more frequent over the next century. We know because it’s already happening: A University of Arizona report from 2006 found that large forest fires have occurred more often in the western United States since the mid-1980s as spring temperatures increased, snow melted earlier, and summers got hotter, leaving more and drier fuels for fires to devour.”
“Thomas Tidwell, the head of the United States Forest Service, told a Senate committee on energy and natural resources recently that the fire season now lasts two months longer and destroys twice as much land as it did four decades ago. Fires now, he said, burn the same amount of land faster.”
It’s part of that “new normal” you keep hearing about – drought, heat, earlier growing seasons, new insect infestations, global air and water currents, like the Gulf jet stream, shifting. And fewer trees mean less carbon dioxide being absorbed by them, more CO2 given off when the remaining ones burn, which adds to the warming and more fires… you get the picture.

“The West is burning,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid recently told reporters. “We have climate change. You can’t deny it.” And if you don’t believe him, listen to Dr. Michael Medler, a scientist at Western Washington University who used to be a wildland firefighter himself. “On the firelines, it is clear that global warming is changing fire behavior, creating longer fire seasons, and causing more frequent, large-scale, high severity wildfires,” he told a House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. “Many firefighters have commented that they are facing more extreme fire behavior than they have witnessed in their lifetimes.”

The good news is that Dr. Medler says some of his colleagues speculate there’s a ten-year “window of opportunity to… have some control over fire behavior with desirable effects…”

The bad news is he said that nearly six years ago. The Granite Mountain Hotshots have just finished burying their dead.

Bridge.... Still not open..

After a brief glimmer of hope, prospects for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge opening over the Labor Day weekend appear to be fading fast — if they aren’t dead already.
“Let’s be clear — Labor Day is not back on the table,” said Caltrans spokesman Andrew Gordon.
Not for lack of trying, however.
The chances of a Labor Day opening seemed to have been revived earlier this month, when a member of Caltrans’ seismic safety peer review panel said that while contractors are installing fixes for two seismic safety devices rendered useless by 32 broken high-strength rods, the agency could make a simple change to two other devices that would make the bridge safe in an earthquake.

The quick-fix plan called for installing steel plates between bearings to prevent them from swiveling. That would limit bridge movement in an earthquake and maybe even allow the span to open over Labor Day, the thinking went. Meanwhile, work on the long-term fix for the two seismic safety devices, known as shear keys, would continue.

Caltrans officials decided to turn to the full seismic review panel and the Federal Highway Administration for their opinion on whether the temporary fix would make the new span safe enough to open to the public. Gordon said their reports could be ready by mid-August.

Others, however, are not so optimistic. And even if the fix gets the double blessing, officials would have to give a couple of weeks’ notice of the four-day shutdown needed to attach the new span to Yerba Buena Island.

However, the Metropolitan Transportation Commission — the local panel that oversees the whole project and is mostly made up of elected officials — has gone on summer break and won’t return until after Labor Day.

In other words, forget about it.

McKenzie trail


The blue pool
OK so I didn’t post anything on Firday, this is why. I took a long weekend trip to mountain bike the McKenzie trail in central Oregon (to the west of Bend and East of Eugene). This is rated one of the best rides you can do. There are two sections, an upper part that runs through some old lava fields and a lower part that runs through stands of pine trees. Yes there are lava fields in Oregon, actually the McKenzie is close to the Sisters Volcano’s and is in the Cascades Volcanic range.
 
On the trail through the trees
The trail follows the McKenzie river, runs by several interesting lakes and pools, through old lava fields that are in different stages of forestation and finally through a section of old growth fir and pine trees. The lava fields are very hard and a technical rider would love it, the lower is much more suited to a more average rider. Read up on the upper part if you think of doing it, body armor is not uncommon and most riders will fall at least once on the hard basalt rock. But it is a great ride and there is a lot to see on the way, shuttle service is available for a fee if you need it.

 
Also the McKenzie River is great for rafting or kayaking and tours are also available. There is hot springs in the area so look into those too, one is right on the river and you can just jump in, others are at fee based locations, either a lodge or park.

What you see along the way

Makes my skin crawl....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yCYZZPwJr_c

If you are afraid of heights, don't watch this.......

Blue

The blue Artemis gets going in anger. Are they are having some difficulty foiling, perhaps?


Porto

The Exrteme Sailing Series at Porto, Purtual. An epic nine races were sailed in open sea on the opening day of the Extreme Sailing Series™ Act 5 in Porto, with plenty of hull flying. 13 knots of breeze that built to 15 knots for the final race gave the teams a chance to stretch their sails and push their carbon fibre catamarans hard around the course, with each race lasting an average of 14 minutes.

July 25, 2013

Grand Canyon

Jagged oranges, reds, purples and pinks make up the view from the rim of the Grand Canyon, changing color as the sun's angle constantly adjusts their tint and position. Meanwhile, the Colorado River swerves and curves through the canyon floor, slowly expanding the 600 million-year-old gash in the high desert of northwest Arizona.

 The Grand Canyon is in northwest Arizona near the Utah and Nevada borders. Flagstaff is about a 90-minute drive from the South Rim. The park is about a four-hour drive north of Phoenix and a four-hour drive east of Las Vegas. The Grand Canyon became a national park in 1919. It stretches along 277 miles of the Colorado River, which runs through the bottom of the canyon. The distance from the South Rim to the canyon floor is a full vertical mile. While the canyon's width varies, it measures 18 miles in several places.
Temperatures on the rim change with the season, and increase dramatically during summer hikes into the canyon. Visitors should be prepared for extreme cold and intense heat. Hiking at the Grand Canyon is physically demanding, even for experienced hikers. Be sure to drink plenty of water, carry plenty of food and never hike alone. The trail from the South Rim to the canyon floor is seven miles. Mules are a common sight on hiking trails into the canyon. When you see them approaching, move off the trail to the side away from the edge, stand still, keep quiet and do not return to the trail until the mule is at least 50 feet away from you. Always follow directions given by the mule wrangler.

Deadly but beautiful...

A hiker taking a photo on a rock formation known as The Wave in the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument in Arizona. Only 20 hikers are granted permits each day, a limit defended as necessary to protect the rock formations and preserve a sense of wilderness around the signature rock formation said to be one of the most photographed spots in North America.

Hikers are given plenty of warnings about how to survive. They also get pictures of prominent landmarks and access to eight guides who can lead the way.
 
"It's not like going to Zion National Park and hiking on an asphalt trail," said Kane County sheriff's Sgt. Alan Alldredge.

"Once you hit the slickrock, nothing distinguishes the trail."
 
"It seems to go well for people going to The Wave," he added. "But for some reasons on the way back, they end up getting lost."
 
In this northern corner of Arizona, summer temperatures can reach 115 degrees or more (41 C) and there is no services or help near. No cell phone coverage also, it is true wilderness and this makes it so much more special. But it is a deadly combination, hikers die each year in this extreme environment.

Are you a tourist???

A family of four touring San Francisco in a GoCar Monday took a wrong turn and ended up getting stranded halfway across the Bay Bridge, authorities said.
The California Highway Patrol responded around 2 p.m. to calls of a caravan of GoCars chugging along slowly in the left lane of the Bay Bridge, heading toward Oakland, said Officer Mike Ferguson.

GoCar was dispatched to pick up the passengers, who were charged a $100 tow fee for each car that had to be brought back to San Francisco.

“They’re not from here — they’re tourists,” Ferguson said. “They don’t even speak English. They were very confused. They had no idea how they wound up on the bridge.”

Have you seen these 'cars' around??? They are kind of scary since they are so small, but they can be a good way to get around a city to see some sights. But there is nothing that says TOURIST more than driving one of these things....

Ursa Major from the space station


M20

The beautiful Trifid Nebula is a cosmic study in contrasts. Also known as M20, it lies about 5,000 light-years away toward the nebula rich constellation Sagittarius. A star forming region in the plane of our galaxy, the Trifid illustrates three different types of astronomical nebulae; red emission nebulae dominated by light emitted by hydrogen atoms, blue reflection nebulae produced by dust reflecting starlight, and dark nebulae where dense dust clouds appear in silhouette. The bright red emission region, roughly separated into three parts by obscuring dust lanes, lends the Trifid its popular name. But in this sharp, colorful scene, the red emission is also surrounded by the the telltale blue haze of reflection nebulae. Pillars and jets sculpted by newborn stars, below and left of the emission nebula's center, appear in Hubble Space Telescope close-up images of the region. The Trifid Nebula is about 40 light-years across.

This object was one of the first things I saw as a child looking through a book on astronomy. Of course that book was printed in the 60's or early 70's so the images were a lot less clear and detailed. But I remember looking at the picture and just wondering what else was in space. That got me started down the road to study astronomy in college. It is still fascinating to see these images, though now when I look at the picture I see the physics involved and understand the processes that are shaping these interesting objects in the sky.

Mini Transat 6.50

Sean McGinn sailed Daisy Cutter, his Mini Transat 6.50, across the finish line in Hawaii at 10:20am HST this morning to become the first ever winner of the Mini 650 Pacific Challenge. He has been at sea, sailing singlehanded, for 17 days, 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 58 seconds.

This inaugural race captured the imagination of all the Mini sailors in the US and had 7 registered entrants. Inspired by the popular, and very competitive, Mini Transat race in Europe this “mini-only” event was the first of it’s kind in the US and marks the beginning of an era for the North American Mini Class. In the end 3 boats made it to the start line but after an unfortunate case of “cold feet” and a “medical emergency“ in the first few days, Sean McGinn became the only competitor.

Being the only boat in the race didn’t make it any less of a challenge and Sean has certainly been pushed mentally and physically as he sailed the 2,300 nautical miles single handed across the Pacific on a 21 foot boat. He has had to deal with all kinds of adversary – commercial traffic, debris in the water, breaking gear, periods of no wind, as well as violent squalls.

Rocking..

This shot is of Jolie Brise rounding the Fastnet Rock as part of the Glandore Classic Regatta in Ireland yesterday. Jolie Brise is 100 years old, built in France in 1913, she won the first ever Fastnet Race in 1925 and will compete again in this years race starting from Cowes next month.

Dorade wins the TransPac!

Dorade, the 1930 Sparkman & Stephens cutter rigged yawl – Olin Stephen’s first boat – is world renown for her early victories in the 1931 TranSat and Fastnet, for which the team received a ticker tape parade upon her return to New York. She is returning now to her roots of victory, winning again, first in class and first overall, the race she won way back in 1936. The TransPac. They may not get a ticker-tape parade when they return to San Francisco (wouldn’t that be nice?), but owners Matt Brooks and Pam Rorke Levy can certainly expect their fair share of heart felt accolades.
They and their crew deserve it. The boat after she was moved to San Francisco last fall, has been worked on day and night, put through her paces in all conditions, and sail tested by a number of crew. Dorade brings delight and a smile to each person who hops aboard her for a sail, and as a piece of sailing history, the 52′ wooden boat gets double takes where ever she goes. On every front, this boat is a classic winner, and a winning classic.

On July 8th with a crew who brought a great diversity of skills along with owner and avid outdoorsman Matt Brooks at the helm, Dorade set sail to win the TransPac. And they did it.

Artemis!

Foiling, that is. Even Artemis! We’re glad to see them back at it, and now they provide the only real intrigue leading up to the actual Cup. All systems go? Photos thanks to Sander van der Borch / Artemis Racing.

Artemis Racing took its first test run in its new boat, dubbed "Big Blue," in winds as strong as 15 knots Wednesday. Helmsman Nathan Outteridge said it couldn't have gone better.

"It was a perfect day and exactly what our team needed," he said. "We got the boat on the water and foiling, and we're happy with how it was foiling."

He called the first sail "a massive tribute to all the guys who have been working so hard to get us back out there."

The Swedish team has been out of action while building its boat following a wreck May 9 that killed a crew member.
Artemis will miss its seventh scheduled race in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series Thursday, so Luna Rossa will sail unopposed. It is not known when the Swedish team will enter the regatta, but it probably won't happen until the semifinals start Aug. 6.

"We'd like to hope Aug. 6 is achievable," Outteridge said, "but we know how much work is ahead of us now, and we don't have a lot of time. This was Day 1 for us while the other teams are on Day 70 or 80."

July 24, 2013

Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity

NASA's Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity appears as a bluish dot near the lower right corner of this enhanced-color view from the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The rover's tracks are visible extending from the landing site, "Bradbury Landing," in the left half of the scene. Two bright, relatively blue spots surrounded by darker patches are where the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's landing jets cleared away reddish surface dust at the landing site. North is toward the top. For scale, the two parallel lines of the wheel tracks are about 10 feet (3 meters) apart.


HiRISE shot this image on June 27, 2013, when Curiosity was at an outcrop called "Shaler" in the "Glenelg" area of Gale Crater. Subsequently the rover drove away from Glenelg toward the southwest.

When HiRISE captured this view, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was rolled for an eastward-looking angle rather than straight downward. The afternoon sun illuminated the scene from the western sky, so the lighting was nearly behind the camera. Specifically, the angle from sun to orbiter to rover was just 5.47 degrees. This geometry hides shadows and reveals subtle color variations.

Why not...

Had to put this on... Was a funny litllte story about a man trying to figure out which girl to marry.


 
 
A man had three girls but didn't know whom to marry.
Then, he decided he would do a test to see which was best suited to be his wife.
 
He collected 15,000 dollars from his bank, gave 5,000 to each telling her to spend it as you wish.
 
The first went shopping, bought clothes, jewelry, went to the hairdresser, beautician etc.
Returning to the man and said, "I have spent all your money to be nicer for you, to be the best, because I love you."
 
The second went on a shopping spree, buying clothes for her, a CD player, a flat-screen television, two pairs you jogging shoes, golf clubs and porn movies.
Returning to the man, she said, "I have spent all your money to make you happy, to enjoy life, and enjoy me, because I love you."
 
The third took the money and invested it in stocks. In three days, doubled its investment, made the 5,000 dollars 10,000 dollars the returned to the man and said to him, "I have invested your money and I doubled it. Now you can do what you want with twice the money, because I love you."
 
Then the man began to reflect, ponder ... reflect ...
 
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ... (men reflect a lot ...)
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ... (men reflect really a lot...)
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...
reflect ...

And married the girl who had the bigger tits.
 
Because a man reflects a lot ... but always ends up doing the same crap.

ALEC again.. see what they are up to now.....

If you’re an American who lives in the middle of nowhere and you want phone and Internet service, you can pretty much have them, albeit in their least sexy form. That’s right, we’re talking about old-fashioned landlines for the phone and (shudder!) dial-up for the Internet. Hyper-wired, connected citizens have long since relegated those services to the dustbin of tech history. But for people living in remote areas (or some low-income neighborhoods), landlines and dial-up are still the lifeblood of telecommunications. Take them away, and you’re sending people back to the Stone Age of telecommunications.

But taking them away is effectively what big telecom companies — companies like AT&T to be specific — may well end up doing if they have their way.

First, a little background. Thanks to a mix of federal and state standards and mandates, even the poorest and remotest among us must receive what collectively are called “wireline” services, telephone and Internet provided via cords that come out of your wall and connect to your devices the old-fashioned way. They aren’t cool, but they work. And they keep many Americans connected.


So when AT&T filed a petition last year with the FCC asking to get out from under regulations and lay its wireline services to rest, it meant trouble for those who rely on them.

But the federal petition is but the most visible part of the strategy. AT&T has been playing a long game, flying under the radar at the state level. How? With the help of ALEC — the American Legislative Exchange Council — of which AT&T appears to be a devoted member. (Not only does an AT&T representative sit on the group’s Private Enterprise Advisory Board, AT&T sponsored ALEC’s most recent conference, the Spring Task Force Summit in Oklahoma City.) Published on ALEC’s website are at least four model bills and statements echoing AT&T’s position on telecommunications regulations — briefly, that there should be little to none.

Chief among the model bills are ALEC’s Regulatory Modernization Act, which allows service providers to elect whether or not they would like to partake in state regulation, which is a little like asking students to elect whether or not they would like to partake in homework. The bill was approved by ALEC’s board of directors in 2009. In the ensuing three years, according to a 2010-2012 “Telecommunications Deregulation” report issued by the National Regulatory Research Institute (NRRI), more than 30 states have considered and/or passed laws eliminating or restricting government oversight and basic service requirements. Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina and Wisconsin are just a few to have passed deregulation legislation in the past three years. In each of these states, AT&T is a primary service provider. And in each of these states, a confirmed ALEC member was responsible for introducing the bill.

ALEC publicly endorsed AT&T’s petition this year, submitting public comments to the FCC, which read, in part, that it “believes public policy should become neutral with respect to existing and emerging business models and technologies in the burgeoning broadband ecosystem. Moreover, policy responses should seek to preserve organic market forces and not attempt to replace them with regulatory fiat.” Translation: companies should have the right to do what they want in pursuit of profits. The problem with that, as Jessica Gonzalez, vice president of policy and legal affairs at The National Hispanic Media Coalition told The Nation magazine, is that “it is often the underserved and hardest to reach that are left out when profit maximization is the only consideration driving investment decisions.”

In May, the FCC granted AT&T’s petition. It will begin to “move forward with real-world trials” — promoting the transition from wireline to wireless services – shortly. As for those who will be left with no phone or Internet service? One supposes they’ll just have to write their congressperson, the old-fashioned way. They certainly won’t be able to call and complain.

Banks are making money, not you...

By Leo Gerard, United Steelworkers President

Wall Street held itself a big fat profit party last week. The nation’s six largest banks reported $23 billion in profits. That’s for one quarter — three months. Pop the champagne. Buy another Lamborghini.

Well, if you’re a Wall Street banker, that is. Not if you’re a college student looking for a loan. Because bankers and Congress don’t intend to give you a break today.

Not if you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed because of the sequester. Because Congress has no intention of charging highflying banks a financial transaction tax, the revenues from which could prevent many of those cuts.

Not if you’re one of those middle class Americans who bailed out the banks and now fears renewed recklessness on Wall Street will require another rescue. Because Wall Street has persuaded Congress that it really, really should not closely regulate banks.

But, hey, they’re partying on Wall Street, right? The thing is, people are supposed to rule. Not Wall Street, not banks, not money. People rule in a democracy. This is something apparently forgotten by some in Congress. Banks are corporations, which are legal entities established under rules written by people. Their existence should advance America and Americans. Not the other way around. Many in Congress need to be reminded of that.

Start with the U.S. House of Representatives. Just last month, the House passed measures to reverse regulations in the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Financial Protection Act and to deregulate derivatives, those high-risk financial instruments at the heart of the 2008 market collapse.
Members of the House lost sight of who they work for, who rules. Here’s a hint: It’s not banks.
Over in the Senate, by contrast, several lawmakers have made it clear they know people rule. Two groups of Senators are working to strengthen financial regulation.

A Democrat and a Republican, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, introduced legislation requiring big banks to increase the capital they must hold to cover losses. That would diminish risk of another taxpayer bailout. It would also encourage the nation’s largest banks to break into smaller financial institutions with reduced capital requirements.

Similarly, two Democrats, a Republican, and an independent in the Senate introduced legislation to update and reinstate the Glass-Steagall regulations that prevented market crashes for 70 years — from the time they were passed in 1933 in response to the Great Crash until 1999, just nine years before the 2008 crash that caused the Great Recession.

The 21st Century Glass-Steagall Act would restore the regulations that prohibited banks that use federal deposit insurance from engaging in risky Wall Street activities like swaps dealing. The key sponsor is Elizabeth Warren, the Democrat from Massachusetts who succeeded in getting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau included in the Dodd-Frank law. She’s intent on ending too-big-to-fail banks. She says bankers are free to gamble on Wall Street, but not with the federally insured money in Main Street Americans’ checking and savings accounts.

Republican John McCain of Arizona is with her. Which is remarkable because he voted to repeal the original Glass-Steagall Act. He says overturning Glass-Steagall was a mistake because “a culture of dangerous greed and excessive risk-taking has taken root in the banking world” imperiling everyday bank customers.

Some bankers agree with them. That includes bankers who pushed for repeal of Glass-Steagall like Sanford “Sandy” Weill. He engineered mergers of traditional and investment banks to create Citigroup. Taxpayers forked over $476 billion to rescue Citigroup, the largest of the bank bailouts.
Now, Weill says investment and insured banking should divorce. Joining him are Phil Purcell, former chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley, and David Komansky, former CEO of Merrill Lynch.

Despite that support and despite the fact that the four biggest banks now are 30 percent larger than they were at the time of the crash and continue high-risk practices, previous attempts to revive Glass-Steagall failed. Warren and McCain aren’t backing down, though. They want bank rules that protect Americans. They don’t believe banks rule.

Warren made that clear on another matter — borrowing for tuition. She called for the interest rate on student loans to equal the rate that the Federal Reserve grants big banks.

Unfortunately, the majority in Congress failed to agree with her that the government should give students the same deal it gives banks. Instead, Congress is proposing legislation that would set the student rate at 3.85 percent for one year, but after that allow it to rise up to 8.25 percent. That rate increase would hit about 7 million students a year. But not banks.

That suggests a Congress that is ruling for banks — as does its failure to adopt a financial transaction fee. This tiny tax, about 3 cents on every $100 traded as currently proposed, would cool risky high-speed trading and raise about a third of the money needed to restore programs cut by the sequester.
Clearly, when six Wall Street banks can make $23 billion in three months, they can afford to pay this fee. Still, they’ll hand over millions to lobbyists to avoid it — just like they did to prevent reinstatement of Glass-Steagall. JPMorgan Chase spent $8 million lobbying last year; Wells Fargo, $6.8 million; Citigroup, $5.6 million.

Congress should pass the tax anyway. And Glass-Steagall. And a student loan rate matching the Federal Reserve rate for banks. Americans have the right to make the rules for corporations, particularly ones like banks that have failed spectacularly at self-governance.