Stephan: It has the quality of a myth: In a country of 317 million people five aging male ideologues in an instant changed the very nature of American democracy. It was done with intention to give the uber-rich, who are the only people for whom Citizens United was directly relevant, who have the money to buy an election, control of the government. You can see the comic book pronounced angle drawing of the Justices on the bench, and any reader would see that in the next strip billionaires are holding auditions for a champion to serve their interests.
This is an interview with former Montana Supreme Court Justice James Nelson. It is an insider's view and should be taken very seriously.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito poses for an official photograph with the other Justices at the Supreme Court in Washington, September 29, 2009.
Credit: Reuters/Jim Young
When the current Supreme Court makes news with a ruling pertaining to campaign finance, it is, almost without exception, a bad day for those who’d like to constrain money’s influence on American government. But I write “almost without exception” for a reason — because on the second-to-last day of April, when precious few were paying attention, the Supreme Court issued a ruling to make it harder for the wealthy to buy control of the government. (Shockingly, this news was not accompanied by a report of a pig who learned to fly.)
Yet while the so-called Williams-Yulee ruling, which upheld a Florida law barring judicial candidates from personally seeking campaign funds from donors, was greeted by many in the campaign finance […]
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Maura Dolan, Reporter - Los Angeles Times
Stephan: The Median price for a home in the U.S. $188,900. I was recently in San Francisco and had a conversation with a woman in her forties, with a young child, a serious professional at the top of her curve. She told me she was trying to buy a house and and 189,000 wouldn't even buy one side of a garage in the city.
In the cities where the 21st century technologies and their financing are centered a kin of intra-county migration is happening. Gentrification, and violently steep rent and purchase price increases are forcing the poor out of the city cores. This story of San Francisco is an example of what I mean.
Will Hambrick hugs Robert Harris after giving his public comment at the San Francisco Police Commission meeting. The fate of several police officers involved in racist and homophobic text messaging was under consideration.
Credit: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, San Francisco Chronicle
SAN FRANCISCO — When black friends come to visit, they inevitably ask Timothy Alan Simon the same question: Why are there so few African Americans?
A San Francisco native, Simon attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, the University of San Francisco and Hastings College of the Law. At one time, he saw other black faces in all of the city’s neighborhoods. It seems every year there are fewer, he said. Even his own children prefer Oakland, which has a thriving and economically diverse black community.
“We’re down to bone marrow in San Francisco,” said Simon, 59, a […]
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Stephan: Used to perpetuate mono-culture this technology could produce disaster. But used as described it could do great good in restoring the Amazon rain forest, for instance. It would make the task doable.
A drone based reforestation system. Credit: Good News Network
A start-up plans to help solve the world’s climate problems by using drones to plant forests of seedlings.
“We are going to counter industrial scale deforestation using industrial scale reforestation,” says Lauren Fletcher, the founder of BioCarbon Engineering.
The environmental engineer who worked 20 years with NASA wants to use drone technology to plant up to one billion trees a year, without having to plant each one by hand.
Drones will fly two or three meters above the ground and fire out pods containing pre-germinated seeds that are covered in a nutritious hydrogel.
The company’s CEO, who might be called ‘Johnny Apple Drone’, thinks it should be possible to plant up to 36,000 trees a day, and at around 15% of the cost of traditional methods. And they aren’t just looking to create plantations of trees, but full ecosystems.
“Together with tree seeds, we hope to seed in other species including micro-organisms and fungi to improve the soil quality and ensure long-term sustainability of our […]
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Samuel Oakford, - Vice News
Stephan: This is a very important geopolitical story, and it has gotten almost no coverage in the U.S. This and the pipelines the Russians and Chinese are negotiating constitute a consciously taken shift of power. From a Chinese point of view working with Russia puts America off-balance. For the Russians it is a validation independent of the West, and bolsters their economy.
Meanwhile we are mired in the Islamic Crescent, our force and standing in the world dissipated by endless war. And in those lands where the battle rage we are seen as a kind of Judeo-Christian American reincarnation of a 13th century crusade.
We are being outplayed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and Chinese President Xi Jinping
Credit: www.timesunion.com
While the world watches Moscow’s ostentatious commemoration of 70th anniversary of the end of World War II this Saturday, the eyes of Russia’s politicians and bankers will be firmly fixed on China’s President Xi Jinping — or, more specifically, on his pen.
Xi, who will attend the WWII festivities as part of his three-day trip to Moscow, has already inked a number of deals this week cementing China’s investment in Russia’s floundering economy. While the two countries have played up Xi’s budding friendship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, experts say China is playing coy and stands to gain from Russia’s desperation. One went so far as to say Beijing has become Moscow’s “loan shark.”
Moscow has been hit hard by a combination of low oil prices and economic sanctions imposed by Western countries after its annexation of Crimea last year and for its support of rebels in eastern Ukraine. Since last April, the Kremlin’s foreign reserves have fallen by more […]
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Kate Sheppard, - The Huffington Post
Stephan: I think we have to face the truth, that the ignorance and prejudice of certain areas of the country are simply so great that they are incapable of electing public officials smart enough to deal with climate change. Republican representative Lamar Smith makes my case. He is a moron, yet he is the chairman of the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee and in a position to shape America's response to what is coming. He simply isn't up to the task. The people of the 21st districtof Texas, which includes most the wealthy sections of San Antonio and Austin, have been re-electing him since 1987, so they clearly aren't up to the task either.
House Science, Space and Technology Committee Chairman Lama Smith (R-TX)
Credit: latimes.com
WASHINGTON — Scientists are balking at major cuts to NASA’s budget that the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology approved last week, cuts that critics say will imperil climate change research in the U.S.
The committee-approved 2016 and 2017 NASA budgets would cut the agency’s earth science funding by at least $323 million. Climate is a major part of the agency’s earth science work, and NASA plays an important role among government agencies in helping to develop our scientific understanding of how the planet works.
The budget contains two different funding possibilities: “aspirational” and “constrained.” Under both scenarios, the budget would be cut significantly, to figures lower than the $1.947 billion that the Obama administration had requested for fiscal year 2016.
NASA’s earth science program is funded at $1.773 billion in FY2015. The request for FY2016 is $1.947 billion. Under the bill’s aspirational scenario, it would receive $1.450 billion […]
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