Saturday, April 14th, 2012
Stephan: Our national priorities are completely out of whack.
Something as massive and amorphous as America’s War on Drugs can be difficult to imagine in concrete terms. This web of failed policies is so huge, so persistent and so deeply woven into the fabric of our nation that it’s hard to envision an alternative - or even appreciate what the conflict is currently siphoning resources away from.
That’s why the past week has been so important for the cause of ending the drug war - because it has provided three tragic examples of how that war harms not only its dead and/or incarcerated victims, but also how it makes society as a whole more susceptible to horrific crimes.
In Boulder, Colo., for example, the Daily Camera reports that ‘the University of Colorado announced a new plan to snuff out the Boulder campus’s 4/20 smoke-out, warning that police will ticket pot smokers at this month’s event.
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Saturday, April 14th, 2012
Stephan: We don't hear much about AIDS anymore but it is still a major health issue. Here, finally, is what may be a major breakthrough.
Although there is currently no cure for HIV, the body does already contain cells that fight the virus – the problem is, there just aren’t enough of them to completely get rid of it. In 2009, scientists at UCLA performed a proof-of-concept experiment, in which they were able to grow these CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (better known as infection-fighting ‘T cells
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Stephan: Climate change is beginning to seriously bite. And how ironic: it will disproportionately affect the Theocratic Rightist states whose representatives and senators block any attempt by the government to deal with climate change. These changes are going to cause great misery in those states.
Click through to see a map showing what is going to happen in your state.
The USA hasn’t been this dry in almost five years.
The Southern Nevada Water Authority won approval from Nevada’s state engineer to pump up to 84,000 acre-feet of water from rural areas along the Nevada-Utah line, including Lake Mead, to quench the thirst of the Las Vegas Valley.
Still reeling from last year’s devastating drought that led to at least $10 billion in agricultural losses across Texas and the South, the nation is enduring another unusually parched year.
A mostly dry, mild winter has put nearly 61% of the lower 48 states in ‘abnormally dry’ or drought conditions, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a weekly federal tracking of drought. That’s the highest percentage of dry or drought conditions since September 2007, when 61.5% of the country was listed in those categories.
Only two states - Ohio and Alaska - are entirely free of abnormally dry or drought conditions, according to the Drought Monitor.
The drought is expanding into some areas where dryness is rare, such as New England.
According to the U.S. Geological Survey, stream levels are at near-record or record lows in much of New England. The Drought Monitor lists all of Vermont as ‘abnormally dry,’ just six months after the state’s wettest August […]
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JOYCE FRIEDEN, News Editor - MedPage Today
Stephan: The people inside the Illness Profit System can see it falling apart. So why don't we do something about it? Profit above all, of course.
Nearly 60% of physicians ages 40 and younger don’t hold out much hope for American healthcare, according to results of an online survey released by the Physicians’ Foundation.
Among the 500 respondents, nearly a third (31%) said they were ‘highly pessimistic’ about the future of the U.S. healthcare system. Another 26% characterized themselves as ‘somewhat’ pessimistic.
Only one in five see a brighter side — just 4% said they were ‘highly optimistic,’ and 18% claimed to be ‘somewhat’ optimistic.
About a third of those who were pessimistic (34%) specifically cited the ‘new healthcare law/regulations’ as the reason. But that proportion would come closer to half if those who provided responses such as ‘system is a mess,’ ‘distrust of government,’ ‘government intervention,’ and ‘Medicare is a mess and will only get worse’ are added in.
In fact, when asked specifically how the Affordable Care Act will impact their practice, 49% of all respondents — those optimistic about the future of healthcare as well as the pessimists — said the ACA will have a negative impact.
Nearly a quarter, though, said it would have a positive effect.
Even among the optimists, there was a decided sense of negativism — 10% said they were optimistic because things couldn’t get […]
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MARK KINVER, Environment Reporter - BBC News (UK)
Stephan: Here is some classic good news-bad news. The U.S. did something smart and forward thinking -- created tax policies to encourage solar -- but has now allowed them to expire, thanks to old energy deploying its lobbyists and whipping both the Obama Administration and the Congress back into place.
Of particular note in this report is the data showing that solar is now a larger energy contributor than nuclear.
Click through to see a chart comparing the various national investments.
Thanks to Jeff Vander Clute.
The US has regained top spot from China as the biggest investor in clean energy in 2011, according to global rankings.
The table, published in a report by the Pew Charitable Trusts, showed that US invested more than $48bn (£30bn) in the sector, up from $34bn in 2010.
China slipped to second place, the authors reported, with investment only increasing by $0.5bn to $45.5bn.
Globally, overall financial backing in clean energy technologies hit a record $263bn, up 6.5% from 2010 levels.
The report, Who is Winning the Clean Energy Race, showed that G20 nations accounted for 95% of the investment in the sector (which does not include nuclear power).
The data, compiled by Bloomberg New Energy Finance, ranked the UK as seventh in the world, with $9.4bn of investment in 2011.
Over the course of the year, an additional 83.5 gigawatts (GW) was added to the world’s clean energy generation capacity, including almost 30GW of solar and 43GW of wind.
‘The sector continues to expand and is outpacing growth in the overall (global) economy. The sector reached its trillionth dollar of investment last year,’ observed Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program.
‘We now have 565GW of installed (generation) capacity around the world. That outstrips nuclear installed […]
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