CONNOR GIBSON, - Nation of Change
Stephan: ALEC source of most of the legislative language for the 1,100 bills the Theocratic Right has introduced in the Congress and state legislatures to undercut the rights of women, and to deny same sex marriage also serves its funding master by crafting legislative language to protect old energy's commitment to Fracking. Here's how it works. And remember ALEC is just one such Rightist workshop.
Wake up and smell the frack fluid. But don’t ask what’s in it, at least not in Ohio, cause it’s still not your right to know.
Ohio is in the final stages of making an Exxon trojan horse on hydrofracking into state law, and it appears that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) connected Exxon’s lawyers with co-sponsors of Ohio Senate Bill 315: at least 33 of the 45 Ohio legislators who co-sponsored SB 315 are ALEC members, and language from portions of the state Senate bill is similar to ALEC’s ‘Disclosure of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluid Composition Act.
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STEPHANIE SIMON, - Reuters
Stephan: There are certain Theocratic Rightist states that are so benighted they constitute virtually other countries when compared to Northwest or Northeastern U.S.
Year after year, decade after decade the policies of the Rightists grind down the mass of citizens in these states. This is not a partisan comment, it can be seen in the social outcomes. (See Social Values, Social Wellness http://www.explorejournal.com/article/S1550-8307%2811%2900346-6/fulltext) Louisiana is one of these backward states, and it is about to get much worse. We are going to get to see exactly what the conservative educational voucher model produces.
One would think that citizens in other states would look at what the policies of the Right produce, but it doesn't seem to happen -- witness the current Presidential race, or the Wisconsin recall election. It may be that Americans just aren't up to democracy anymore.
Louisiana is embarking on the nation’s boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children.
Starting this fall, thousands of poor and middle-class kids will get vouchers covering the full cost of tuition at more than 120 private schools across Louisiana, including small, Bible-based church schools.
The following year, students of any income will be eligible for mini-vouchers that they can use to pay a range of private-sector vendors for classes and apprenticeships not offered in traditional public schools. The money can go to industry trade groups, businesses, online schools and tutors, among others.
Every time a student receives a voucher of either type, his local public school will lose a chunk of state funding.
‘We are changing the way we deliver education,’ said Governor Bobby Jindal, a Republican who muscled the plan through the legislature this spring over fierce objections from Democrats and teachers unions. ‘We are letting parents decide what’s best for their children, not government.’
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The concept of opening public schools to competition from the private sector has been widely promoted in recent years […]
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Stephan: This report may surprise you. But it is becoming more and more clear the entire American economy is declining rapidly. It isn't just the poor and the lower middle class who have been impacted. In contrast, in the emerging new power nations wealth is accumulating at an amazing pace.
America’s millionaire population declined last year for the first time since the financial crisis, according to a new report.
The population of U.S. millionaire households (households with investible assets of $1 million or more) fell to 5,134,000 from 5,263,000 in 2011, according to The Boston Consulting Group’s Global Wealth study.
Total private wealth in North America fell by 0.9 percent, to $38 trillion.
The ultra-rich were the largest losers in dollar terms. Households in North America with investible assets of more than $100 million saw their wealth decline 2.4 percent. Their population declined slightly to 2,928 from 2,989.
The main reason for all this wealth loss? Stocks.
With the wealthy today increasingly dependent on stocks for wealth, last year’s stalled stock market shrunk the population of millionaires and nicked the fortunes of existing millionaires. According to BCG, the amount of wealth held in equities declined 3.6 percent last year.
Globally, the picture looked a little brighter. Virtually all of the growth in global millionaires came from emerging markets last year. While the United States lost nearly 130,000 millionaires, the rest of the world added 175,000 millionaires. There are now 12.6 million millionaire households globally, according to BCG.
The country with the highest ‘millionaire density
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Stephan: SR reader Larry Dossey, MD sent me this report. I wrote him back and said that my Stupid Meter wasn't calibrated to go that far. He replied, 'You have one of the old models, they're just linear. You need to get one of the new models, they're exponential.' He's right of course. My measurement for stupidity was calibrated before the rise of the Theocratic Right. It is becoming dangerous to live where their governmental policies prevail.
Joe Romm is a Fellow at American Progress and is the editor of Climate Progress, which New York Times columnist Tom Friedman called 'the indispensable blog' and Time magazine named one of the 25 'Best Blogs of 2010.
Some North Carolina GOP legislators want to stop the use of science to plan for the future. They are circulating a bill that would force coastal counties to ignore actual observations and the best science-based projections in planning for future sea level rise.
King Canute thought he had the power to hold back the tide (in the apocryphal legend). These all-too-real lawmakers want to go one better and mandate a formula that projects a sea level rise of at most 12 inches this century, far below what the science now projects.
A state-appointed science panel reviewed the recent literature and reported that a 1-meter (39 inch) rise is likely by 2100. Many coastal studies experts think a level of 5 to 7 feet should be used, since you typically plan for the plausible worst-case scenario, especially with expensive, long-lived infrastructure.
The 2011 report by the National Academy of Science for the U.S. Navy on the national security implications of climate change concluded:
Based on recent peer-reviewed scientific literature, the Department of the Navy should expect roughly 0.4 to 2 meters global average sealevel rise by 2100, with a most likely value of about 0.8 meter. Projections of local sea-level […]
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JOE ROMM, - AlterNet (U.S.)
Stephan: Here is the latest in the climate warming trend. Everyone should be prepared to begin hearing stories of first thousands, then tens of thousands, then millions dying, and massive social unrest arising -- and the U.S. is going to be as subject as the poorest nation to the reality of climate change.
First the bad news from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Thanks to a huge jump in Chinese emissions, ‘global carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil-fuel combustion reached a record high of 31.6 gigatonnes (Gt) in 2011.
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