The permission is given to frack Chelsea and West Village, NYC

I kid you not. And right on time, defenders of the right to drill and pump natural gas from any and everywhere are saying there's no proof that anything could go wrong.

http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20131021/chelsea/controversial-natural-gas-pipeline-gets-federal-approval-start-pumping

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission granted permission Thursday for the pipeline, built by Texas-based Spectra Energy, to be put into service on Nov. 1, according to a letter from commission director Lauren O'Donnell.

The companies behind the pipeline have "adequately stabilized areas disturbed by construction" and "restoration is proceeding satisfactorily," O'Donnell wrote.

However, residents have raised safety concerns about the pipeline, which will pump about 800 million cubic feet of Marcellus Shale natural gas into the city each day. The pipeline stretches from New Jersey under the Hudson River and enters Manhattan at 10th Avenue and Gansevoort Street, stretching up to 15th Street.

"It's so disappointing," Bill Borock, president of the Council of Chelsea Block Associations. "The gas companies say don't worry, but we don't have any assurances when big weather and flooding happens."

Astronomy experts and buffs - what is going on with Venus??

Monday night I joined the spouse in his evening hike to the beach. Coming back, he pointed out a bright object in the sky, and asked what I thought it was.

It was a few moments before the sun actually set, so there was nothing in the sky yet except a few whisps of clouds. And yes, over in the SW portion of the sky, there was an extremely bright object.

Since the only sky thing-ey I know of that is out like that so early in the night would be Venus, I stated it might be Venus. But it was so bright, I stood stock still for a good three or four minutes to make sure it wasn't a plane.

M. assured me it wasn't a plane, as the object had been in the exact same spot the evening before.

A jet came into the picture, flying at maybe 20K to 25K feet. And the jet flew directly above this object. (At least that is how it appeared to our naked eyes.)

Now we are both seeing reports on the internets that the object is considered an UFO. People are saying it its too bright to be Venus. And indeed, I'm in my early 60's and I have never seen Venus so bright.

Could it be the space station? Or what?

E-Voting Trouble During Today's Elections in Virginia, New York, and Elsewhere

Source: Brad Friedman's Election Website

http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10352

E-Voting Trouble During Today's Elections in Virginia, New York, and Elsewhere

"Tweeters" spell out difficulties for Dem candidates getting their rightful vote count.

From Brad's article:
The Tweet from Col. Morris Davis @ColMorrisDavis

Voting prob: Screen had McAuliffe w/aspirin size bubble then Cuccinelli. 3x touched M, checked C. 4th touched very top of bubble & got M.


In New York, for example, the Post is reporting that "Many of the city's 'optical-scan' voting machines were reported broken - or simply would not boot up - on Tuesday morning, forcing voters to toss paper ballots into overflowing baskets, according to frustrated Twitter posts." The Gothamist confirms that report with Tweets from all over the city complaining of scanners malfunctioning. "At PS 32 in Carroll Gardens this morning, Awl co-founder Choire Sicha reported a wait time of 20-30 minutes because of malfunctioning scanning machines," they report.

Many of New York state's systems are also manufactured by Sequoia/Dominion, though the city itself uses systems made by ES&S, the nation's largest e-voting company, and one with its own long and storied history of failure and inaccurate counting. (See a brief history of ES&S failures here.)

Read more: http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10352

It's a Fox news story, but still --

The New March on Washington:

Bankers re-write the rules, and allow for even weaker regulations.

Does anyone here have an honest Congress man or woman they know of?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152018354335948&set=a.10150118664235948.317168.599325947&type=1&ref=nf

Still have some problems on my computer - can't remove a program I need to.

Some five weeks ago, I installed Adware virus protection on my computer. Less than two weeks later, I started having problems.

I realized once problems were mostly resolved, I needed to get rid of Adware and use MSE.

However, when I go to the Control Panel and then to "Add/Remove Program" function,I can select the Adware program, and click to remove, but it won't get removed. Instead the computer locks up, so I have to reboot.

I also can't eliminate the "LavaSoft" homepage that immediately had installed itself as my homepage when I first downloaded the Adware "virus protection" suite.

Also, I keep getting the message (while browsing the internet) that some Shockwave file is hanging up, and do I want to continue or stop it? I'd love to know what to do about that - as after the third of fourth announcement of this problem, computer locks up, regardless of whether I choose to continue it or stop it....

The program Security Task Manager tells me that the Internet Explorer is on and constantly running the Download program. Since I use Mozilla Firefox as my browser, why is this the case? That seems REAL weird, as I don't remember that being the case two months ago. Shouldn't that program run only when asked to run?

Since computers can't do it - maybe US gov should run the ACA as the US Census ran

Its 2010 operation?

Among other things discussed in the below piece of writing, Olenick mentions that the computer firm that was in charge of processing his application back in early October made 30 million dollars for doing so. He broke that down over the 3,000 people who successfully enrolled, as being
a $ 10K per application cost to the system.

Then he goes on to say, maybe the ACA enrollment operation should be handled the way the US Census is handled.

Not only might this be more efficient, but it would allow millions of people a job that pays some $ 10 (or more) an hour. So it would help the middle class economy much more than the "normal" way of letting the lobbyists secure the patronage job for the big Computer Consulting Firm.

More at this link: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2013/10/michael-olenick-how-my-experience-with-health-gov-shows-better-software-may-not-be-the-solution.html#comment-1558717

Important study from 2011 abt RoundUp's devastating health impact

My virus protection program said "Do you want to clean"

the contaminated files.

I hit yes, and it started to then "clean" not just the our bad files, but my whole system. Within ten seconds I shut the system down.

What does this "cleaning" mean? I know what it means to quarantine a contaminated file, or delete it. But I really have no idea of what cleaning my system was going to do to it...

As always, any advice deeply appreciated. (And "cleanly" appreciated, too, I imagine.)

The War On Worker Pensions - Why it is all so absurd --

Here in Lake County, Calif., I am just reading in the newspaper about the County Supervisors meeting to decide about their request for state funds to be used in a 22 million dollar prison renovation. So it can't be that the state of California is all that broke - not if a county with 89,000 people is entitled to such a massive amount of construction monies for a prison (With under 90 cells!)

Meanwhile, the meme that worker pensions are a grand and wasteful luxury that no state can afford is going forth, with front page headlines trumpeting the righteousness of the cause.

Here is a great article on the topic:

http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/having_it_all_the_absurdity_of_the_false_choice_frame_for_pensions

Having it All: The Absurdity of the False Choice Frame for Pensions

by Dave Low, Californians for Retirement Security

The most recent alarmist language from pension opponents is that Californians must make a choice between providing a secure retirement for our state's seniors and paying for every other social service and progressive cause. The warning bells are earsplitting, as fear mongers go to such extremes as to tell us that California won't be able to tackle climate change unless we overhaul the pension system.

This is not only a false choice, it is an absurd one, used strategically to accomplish three things:

It attempts to create a wedge between voters who support both retirement security and things like K-12 education and social services. Retirement security for seniors and good public services are both worthy goals.
It shifts blame away from those elected officials who failed to fund retirement plans or the Wall Street bankers who engaged in the malpractice that crippled funds, and attempts to place it squarely on the fire fighters, police officers and teachers who rely on pensions for a secure retirement.
It turns California's budget into a zero-sum game between social programs and pensions, and fails to address the role that corporate subsidies play in our budget. State pensions make up about 5 percent of the budget, while corporate loopholes are ten times more. The state could close corporate loopholes in order to fund important social programs.
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