July 31, 2015

As oil-drilling bill advances, Sen. Bill Nelson vows to use all options to stop it

A bill to open new areas off Florida’s Gulf Coast to drilling and to accelerate the timetable for doing so passed out of a U.S. Senate committee Thursday, prompting a vow from one of the state’s senators to do whatever measures possible to block it.

The legislation passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, allowing for additional areas of oil and gas exploration off America’s shores. Part of the bill dealt with drilling off Florida’s Gulf Coast – and prompted the rebuke from Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat from Orlando.

In a one-line letter to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate, Nelson said, “If any measure to repeal the current moratorium on offshore drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico comes before the full Senate for a vote, I will use all available procedural options to block it.”

Currently, there’s a no-drilling zone extending 125 miles off most of the state’s Gulf coastline – and as far out as 235 miles at some points, Nelson said. That no-drilling zone is in effect until 2022.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/congress/article29598748.html#storylink=cpy

July 31, 2015

Police Shootings Won't Stop Unless We Also Stop Shaking Down Black People

In April, several days after North Charleston, South Carolina, police officer Michael Slager stopped Walter Scott for a busted taillight and then fatally shot him, the usual cable-news transmogrification of victim into superpredator ran into problems. The dash cam showed Scott being pulled over while traveling at a nerdy rate of speed, using his left turn signal to pull into a parking lot and having an amiable conversation with Slager until he realized he'd probably get popped for nonpayment of child support. At which point he bolted out of the car and hobbled off. Slager then shot him. Why didn't the cop just jog up and grab him? Calling what the obese 50-year-old Scott was doing "running" really stretches the bounds of literary license.

But maybe the question to ask is: Why did Scott run? The answer came when the New York Times revealed Scott to be a man of modest means trapped in an exhausting hamster wheel: He would get a low-paying job, make some child support payments, fall behind on them, get fined, miss a payment, get jailed for a few weeks, lose that job due to absence, and then start over at a lower-paying job. From all apparent evidence, he was a decent schlub trying to make things work in a system engineered to make his life miserable and recast his best efforts as criminal behavior.

Recently, two more deaths of African Americans that have blown up in the media follow a pattern similar to Scott's. Sandra Bland in Texas and Samuel DuBose in Cincinnati were each stopped for minor traffic infractions (failing to use turn signal, missing front license plate), followed by immediate escalation by the officer into rage, and then an official story that is obviously contradicted by the video (that the officer tried to "de-escalate" the tension with Bland; that the officer was dragged by DuBose's car). In both cases, the perpetrator of a minor traffic offense died.

When incidents of police violence come to light, the usual defense is that we should not tarnish all the good cops just because of "a few bad apples." No one can argue with that. But what is usually implied in that phrase is that the "bad" officers' intentions are malevolent—that they are morally corrupt and racist. And that may be true, but they are also bad in the job-performance sense. These men are crummy cops, sometimes profoundly so. Slager had a record for gratuitously using his Taser. Timothy Leohmann, who leapt from his car and instantly killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice, had been deemed "weepy" and unable to "emotionally function" by a supervisor at his previous PD job, who added: "I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct these deficiencies." Ferguson's Darren Wilson was also fired from his previous job—actually, the entire police force of Jennings, Missouri, was disbanded for being awful.

more

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/07/police-shootings-traffic-stops-excessive-fines

July 31, 2015

Friday TOON Roundup 3 - The Rest

GOP










1%








Police







Rights





The Issue





Hologram




Pope

July 31, 2015

Friday TOON Roundup 2 - Entertaining but Stupid

July 31, 2015

Friday TOON Roundup 1 - Law of the Jungle

July 31, 2015

African golden wolf, a new species of wild dog, identified

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They look alike, act alike and long have been considered to be the same species. But, in the case of the golden jackals found across parts of Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Europe, it turns out that appearances can be deceiving.

Scientists said on Thursday a comprehensive genetic analysis found that these populations are made up of two entirely distinct species, with those in Africa different from the others.

The scientific name for the golden jackal is Canis aureus. The researchers proposed renaming those in Africa Canis anthus, or the African golden wolf.

"Our results showed that African and Eurasian golden jackals were distinct across all the genetic markers we tested, including data from whole genomes, suggesting these are independently evolving lineages," said Klaus-Peter Koepfli, a conservation and evolutionary geneticist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in Washington.

more

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/african-golden-wolf-a-new-species-of-wild-dog-discovered-1.3174118

July 30, 2015

New Leak Confirms the Secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Is a Horrorshow

At a luxury hotel in Maui, representatives from the 12 countries participating in the highly controversial and secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal are negotiating behind closed doors. Thanks to a secret letter from a 2013 meeting, released today by WikiLeaks, we now have a clearer idea of what they’re discussing.

Unsurprisingly, based on what we know about the Trans-Pacific Partnership, or TPP, so far, the letter is mostly about limiting the power of government in favour of private commercial development.

The TPP is a massive free trade deal that is set to impact everything from the cost of medicine in Australia, to milk production in Canada, to internet governance the world over. The letter was drafted for a ministerial meeting of the TPP countries in early December, 2013, and seeks guidance on key topics relating to the negotiations. Namely, how state-owned enterprises (SOEs) should be treated under the trade deal.

According to the letter, “the majority of TPP countries” support obligations for these companies—which can include public utilities, telecommunication providers, mining companies, and state-run investment firms—that “go beyond existing obligations” laid out in existing free trade agreements and by the World Trade Organization.

more
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/new-leak-confirms-the-secretive-trans-pacific-partnership-is-a-horrorshow

July 30, 2015

All the Amazing Stuff We Just Learned About Philae's Comet

Although the European Space Agency's Philae comet lander has been incommunicado since July 9, today marks what's easily one of the most significant days in the lander's lifetime. That's because scientists across the globe working with the plucky robot have just released their first wave of discoveries and scientific research collected during Philae's slow rendezvous and inadvertently bouncy landing on comet C-G last fall. The research is published in seven papers in the journal Science.

"Last November we landed on this comet—a completely new world unlike anything humans have ever seen, and so much more different than we expected or could expect" Stephan Ulamec, the head of the Philae lander mission at the German Aerospace Center, told Popular Mechanics. In conducting this first wave of research, he says, "we've discovered that the surface of the comet is quite complex and variable, with a few structures that remind one of Mars, and that there is a high content of organic material."

One of the most interesting discoveries announced today was, ironically, only made possible by Philae's unfortunate failed landing. That's when the bot bounced several times across the surface of the low-gravity comet after its downward thruster and twin harpoons both malfunctioned and failed to anchor it.

Jens Biele, a geophysicist with the Philae team, lead a research group that not only mapped the bouncy landing with extreme detail, but also used the footprints left by Philae's unexpected journey (along with the lander's internal measurements) to investigate the makeup and hardness of the comet's topsoil. "That's data that you absolutely have to travel to the comet to acquire, there's no way we could have figured this out from orbit," says Biele.

He reports that Philae's initial touchdown site, (originally called "Site J," now named Agilkia) is covered with a dust of rocky regolith about 8 inches deep. "It's soft like snow," he says, noting that even just a decade ago, many scientists were still unsure if a comet like C-G would have been covered in many, many feet of downy-soft dust. If that were true, it would have enveloped Philae.

more

http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/deep-space/news/a16683/new-studies-comet-lander-philae/

July 30, 2015

Bill would end USPS ban on mailing booze

A House Democrat has introduced legislation to end a Prohibition-era ban on shipping alcohol through the U.S. Postal Service.

With 24 original co-sponsors, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) unveiled the USPS Shipping Equity Act on Thursday.
Current law bans the U.S. Postal Service from shipping beer, wine, and distilled spirits to consumers., which Speier said puts USPS at a competitive disadvantage against companies like FedEx and UPS that ship alcohol.

“It’s ridiculous that we’re allowing UPS, FedEx and other companies to ship spirits, wine, and beer to consumers, while banning the U.S. Postal Service from doing the exact same thing,” Speier said in a news release. “As more states allow direct to consumer delivery, we need to lift this dated ban on so-called ‘spirituous, vinous, malted, fermented, or other intoxicating liquors,’ to give consumers more shipping choices when they check out.”

Her bill would allow USPS to ship alcoholic beverages directly from licensed producers and retailers to consumers over the age of 21, opening up an additional source of revenue for the postal service.

more
http://thehill.com/regulation/249788-bill-would-end-usp-ban-on-shipping-booze

July 30, 2015

Bernie Sanders plots another universal healthcare push

By Peter Sullivan - 07/30/15 11:07 AM EDT

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Thursday that he will introduce a single-payer, Medicare-for-all bill “in the very near future.”

The presidential candidate spoke at a rally in a park across the street from the Capitol, in front of cheering union members celebrating the 50th anniversary of Medicare. He pushed for a universal system, in which the government provides health insurance for all.

The senator said Medicare was worth celebrating but that “the time has come also to say that we need to expand Medicare to cover every man, woman and child as a single-payer, national healthcare program.”

A statement from Sanders’s office after the rally said that the bill would set “federal guidelines and strong minimum standards” but that states would administer the single-payer programs.

more
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/249770-sanders-to-introduce-medicare-for-all-bill