BEN JERVEY, Contributing Editor, Environment - Good Environment
Stephan: It is hard to believe politicians could be this stupid, and that voters could be stupid enough to vote for them, but welcome to Alabama, and the U.S. Congress. It is one of history's great ironies that the climate change deniers live in the states that are going to bear the brunt of what is coming.
After the devastation from last week’s historic tornado outbreak had been reported, everyone in the environmental field was compelled to try to answer the question: So, what did this have to do with climate change? Anyone who was being honest had to answer: Well, we don’t really know. It’s really complicated.
Think Progress ran responses from a number of climate scientists. Dr. Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, provided the meatiest quote:
It is irresponsible not to mention climate change.
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WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN, - The Daily Beast
Stephan: This is what a nuclear accident produces. Read this in the context of what you have read about Chernobyl in SR. People who tell you that we are prepared for a nuclear accident in the U.S. are lying to you.
William T. Vollmann is the author of nine novels, including Europe Central, winner of the National Book Award. He has also written three collections of stories, a memoir, and five works of nonfiction, most recently Into the Forbidden Zone: A Trip Through Hell and High Water in Post-Earthquake Japan from which this was adapted. He is the recipient of the Whiting Writers Award, the PEN Center USA West Award, and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In an exclusive excerpt from Into The Forbidden Zone, acclaimed novelist William T. Vollmann returns to northern Japan a month after the earthquake crippled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant to survey the radiation levels and talk to survivors.
As we twisted up through the yellow-green hills toward Ono, the bamboos shining in the sun, a man working the soil; that wasn’t yet prohibited here, as it already was in Iitate Village, which lay 40 kilometers to the northwest of the plant and hence outside both evacuation zones; it was said that the inhabitants of Iitate would soon have to evacuate.
I found myself checking the dosimeter for radiation levels more often than usual. (In general, 0.05 millirems or less per hour falls within the bounds of normal background exposure, while even 0.1 millirem can be considered unexceptional.) The driver was silent. My upper lip sweated within the mask. Coming down into Ono we saw some broken stone along the road-edge which might have had nothing to do with the earthquake, and a few specks of snow on the mountainside. It seemed like such a beautiful place to go hill-wandering. The driver pointed out some nara trees (good for growing mushrooms, he said; […]
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BRETT ARENDS, - The Wall Street Journal
Stephan: Read this piece, from the conservative Wall Street Journal, and ask yourself: Do I want, as the Right is urging, to get rid of Social Security and leave older Americans to thread themselves through this financial environment?
Turmoil in the stock market. Paltry interest rates at the bank. What are the newly retired to do?
Many are taking a look at buying a fixed annuity instead.
These products let you swap a lump sum for a fixed income for life. They’re sold by insurance companies, and have long been considered a safe way to ensure a steady income in retirement.
They have a fair amount to commend them — especially in theory. They eliminate the risk that you’ll outlive your savings. And they let you squeeze out extra income while you’re alive, at the cost of leaving nothing for your heirs.
But there’s a big problem right now. Annuity payout rates have slumped.
These may be a particularly risky bet right now. Anyone buying an annuity will be locking in today’s low interest rates for life. You’ll be earning a low level of return. And it could leave you at risk if inflation picks up.
Consider a newly retired 65-year-old woman who invests $100,000 in a fixed annuity today. According to ImmediateAnnuities.com, a comparison website, that will buy her an income of $590 a month, or about $7,000 a year.
Ten years ago, she would have gotten nearly $9,000.
And a generation ago, she could […]
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Stephan: Here is what the decline of the middle class looks like from a responsible journal looking in from the outside. Not a pretty or promising picture. While our public conversation, and our corporate media, are dominated by Birtherism and the various other lunacies of the right, the truth of our reality draws scant attention.
Pay particular attention to the linkage between education and employment, and think about what is happening to our schools: 'Those aged between 25 and 34 are less likely to have a degree than 45- to 54-year-olds. As David Autor of MIT points out, they are also less likely to have completed college than their contemporaries in Britain, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands and Spain. In recent years America's university graduation rates have slipped from near the top of the world league to the middle.'
PHILADELPHIA — Francis McCloskey lost his job at the Philadelphia city government’s information hotline in August 2009. Twenty months and more than 1,000 job applications later he is still out of work. He has attended scores of jobs fairs, sought help from job-search coaches and cold-called dozens of companies. This year he has been asked to only three interviews. Soon Mr McCloskey will join the growing ranks of ’99ers
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Stephan: You think you know the full extent of the effects of the Illness Profit System and, then, you read this, and realize that the impact of this deeply flawed model of healthcare has impacts you hardly guessed at.
Republicans claim that health care reform is dangerous to patients due to a potential for ‘rationing care.’ But we’re already in an era of health care rationing, with hospitals no longer having a large enough supply of numerous life saving drugs to be able to safely and effectively treat patients.
A record 211 medications became scarce in 2010 – triple the number in 2006 – and at least 89 new shortages have been recorded through the end of March, putting the nation on track for far more scarcities.
The paucities are forcing some medical centers to ration drugs – including one urgently needed by leukemia patients – postpone surgeries and other care, and scramble for substitutes, often resorting to alternatives that may be less effective, have more side effects and boost the risk for overdoses and other sometimes-fatal errors.
‘It’s a crisis,
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