Saturday, June 21st, 2014
ALLEN YOUNG, Staff Writer - Silicon Valley Business Journal
Stephan: This is another story that has gotten almost no attention. This is what it takes to try to create high speed rail in the U.S. As a nation we are hobbling ourselves so that a small clique can continue to enjoy their profits.
The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed legislation Tuesday to stop federal funding for high-speed rail in California.
The action is largely ceremonial, however, as the California High-Speed Rail Authority has not requested additional federal funding this year above the stimulus grants the agency is already spending.
That said, a rebuke by withdrawing additional federal money by the House certainly hurts the project’s future funding prospects.
‘I’m pleased to have the support of so many of my House colleagues who recognize that we shouldn’t be spending any more taxpayer money on a project without a future,” Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Modesto, said in a statement.
In response, the authority called the House action ‘just another ploy to delay the project.”
‘A project, which employees over 8,600 people in California. A project, which currently has 168 small businesses committed to do work on the program … a project which has 26 disabled veteran businesses committed for work … does Denham realize his actions hurt the very Veterans that he claims to assist?” authority spokeswoman Lisa Marie Alley wrote in an email.
Denham, who added the amendment to a transportation appropriation bill, chairs the House Transportation Committee’s Railroads, Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Committee.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority continues to […]
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PHILIP KENDALL, - Ricket News 24 (Japan)
Stephan: This is what I mean about small quotidian choices, and the effect they can have in the smallest things.
Click through to see the pictures and video.
Their national team may have lost their World Cup game against Ivory Coast yesterday morning, but Japanese fans didn’t forget their manners, it would seem.
Like all good kids who remember to say thank you to their friend’s mother after playing at their home, Japan’s passionate football fans reportedly grabbed refuse bags and cleaned up after themselves before leaving the stadium following their team’s match against the African side.
During my first winter in Japan, I went up to Sapporo with some friends to check out the Snow Festival that I’d read so much about. As I was walking along taking in the spectacular ice sculptures with my fellow sightseers, the woman just in front of me suddenly stopped dead, making me almost trip over her son, who can’t have been more than three years old and barely came up to my waist. The woman apologised, then quickly squatted down to pick something up off the snow-covered ground.
Thinking that her little boy must have dropped something – a handkerchief or cherished toy, perhaps – I peered around him to see if I could help. It was then that I realised his mother was crouching down to pick up two ketchup-slathered french fries […]
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REBECCA RIFFKIN, - The Gallup Organization
Stephan: A democracy in which over nine of every 10 people do not trust the government can not long endure. This is absolutely appalling.
Click through to see the charts and tables which are very helpful.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans’ confidence in Congress has sunk to a new low. Seven percent of Americans say they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in Congress as an American institution, down from the previous low of 10% in 2013. This confidence is starkly different from the 42% in 1973, the first year Gallup began asking the question.
Confidence in Congress since 1973
These results come from a June 5-8 Gallup poll that updated Americans’ confidence in 17 U.S. institutions that Americans either read about or interact with in government, business, and society.
Americans’ current confidence in Congress is not only the lowest on record, but also the lowest Gallup has recorded for any institution in the 41-year trend. This is also the first time Gallup has ever measured confidence in a major U.S. institution in the single digits. Currently, 4% of Americans say they have a great deal of confidence in Congress, and 3% have quite a lot of confidence. About one-third of Americans report having “some” confidence, while half have “very little,” and another 7% volunteer that they have “none.”
Confidence in Congress has varied over the years, with the highest levels in the low 40% range recorded […]
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LAUREN WINDSOR, - The Nation
Stephan: This story of the uber-rich and their flagrant attempt to buy the government should give every American pause. The Kochs and their allies don't even bother to hide what they are doing. That's how legally corrupt we have become in the wake of the Supreme Court's decisions about money in politics. Note the politicians who came when the rich beckoned. They should all be voted out of office.
Charles and David Koch wrapped up their annual summer seminar on June 16 in Dana Point, California, at the St. Regis Monarch Bay resort-a fitting location for two men whose combined net worth is more than $100 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The highly secretive mega-donor conference, called ‘American Courage: Our Commitment to a Free Society,” featured a who’s who of Republican political elites. According to conference documents obtained through a source who was in attendance, Representatives Tom Cotton (AR), Cory Gardner (CO) and Jim Jordan (OH) were present, as were Senators Mitch McConnell (KY) and Marco Rubio (FL). Cotton, Gardner and McConnell are all running for the Senate this year; Jordan for re-election in the House. Rubio is widely considered a major contender for a 2016 presidential run. According to the documents, the conference attendees discussed strategy on campaign finance, climate change, healthcare, higher education and opportunities for taking control of the Senate. (The draft agenda is available for viewing here.)
According to another source who also attended the conference, 300 individuals-worth at least a billion each-were present. This source said that the explicit goal was to raise $500 million to take the Senate in the 2014 midterms […]
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Stephan: Here is a very straightfoward assessment of what the energy sector must do and why. We need to make this part of the public conversation.
Click through and you can download both the IPPC energy sector reports.
The energy sector is facing increasing pressures from climate change. All segments of the industry will be affected by the changing global climate and the policy responses to it. So says a briefing published jointly by the World Energy Council (WEC), the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL), the Cambridge Judge Business School, and the European Climate Foundation.
Cover Climate Change – Implications for the Energy Sector -Summary from IPCC AR5 2014The briefing, released on 18 June at the Asian Clean Energy Forum in Manila, brings into sharp focus the energy-related findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fifth Assessment Report (AR5) for policymakers and business leaders in the energy sector. It identifies the need to incorporate climate change mitigation and adaptation measures into energy policymaking, infrastructure planning, and investment decisions.
The briefing, ‘Climate Change: implications for the energy sector”, reveals:
Energy demand is increasing globally, causing an increase in greenhouse gas emissions from the energy sector. The trend is set to continue, driven primarily by economic growth and rising population.
Climate change presents increasing challenges for energy production and transmission as a result of temperature increase, extreme weather events, […]
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