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With Climate Change, Denial Is More Expensive Than Reduced Consumption

Posted on April 2, 2013 in Articles

Climate Change

The Article: Price for Denial, Inaction on Climate Is Higher Than Toll of Reducing Consumption by Karen Rybold Chin in TruthOut.

The Text:

For Tad Patzek, Peak Oil – not climate change – poses the greatest risk to human health and survival on Earth.

The chair of the Department of Petroleum and Geosystems Engineering at the University of Texas and co-author with Joseph Tainter of Drilling Down: The Gulf Oil Debacle and Our Energy Dilemma, Patzek does not deny climate change or the notion that the human use of CO2 has helped caused it. It’s just that climate change has already been set in motion, and it will take 80,000 to 100,000 years to reverse it. This is, the Polish-born Patzek says, “for us, an infinite time.”

Westboro Baptist Church Defectors Speak

Posted on April 1, 2013 in Articles

Westboro Defectors

The Article: The Westboro Defectors Speak: Phelps Granddaughters Embrace Tolerance by John Avlon in The Daily Beast.

The Text: On Thursday afternoon Megan and Grace Phelps-Roper visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. They’d been inside only a few minutes when they saw a photo of their family.

There, as part of the permanent exhibit, was an image of their grandmother and sister at the murder trial of Matthew Shepard’s killers, holding the signs for which the Westboro Baptist Church has become infamous: “God Hates Fags,” “AIDS Cures Gays,” and “Matt in Hell.”

This was once their way of life. Now 27, Megan had been taken to protests since age 5; her younger sister Grace had been attending since birth—all as part of the Kansas ministry founded by their grandfather.

UN Investigator Demands Obama Release Bush Counterterrorism Program Details

Posted on March 31, 2013 in Articles

Bush 2005

The Article: UN investigator: Obama must release details of Bush kidnapping and torture program by Stephen Webster in The Raw Story.

The Text: President Barack Obama must release the details of internal probes into the Bush administration’s practice of kidnapping and torturing terrorism suspects, a United Nations investigator said Monday.

Ben Emmerson, the U.N. special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, will release a new report on Tuesday detailing his findings about the Bush-era program, according to Reuters. The report was not published online ahead of a planned hearing set for Tuesday, and a spokesperson was unavailable for comment.

“Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States,” Emmerson says in the report, Reuters noted.

Student Debt Triples In Eight Years

Posted on March 30, 2013 in Articles

Student Debt

The Article: Student Debt Tripled in Eight Years by Natasha Leonard in AlterNet.

The Text: A new report from the New York Federal Reserve further confirms what many commentators have been long saying — student debt is the bubble that just keeps expanding. Total student debt has nearly tripled in the past three years.

Total student debt stands at $966 billion as of the end of 2012, with a 70 percent increase in both the number of borrowers and the average balance per person. The overall number of borrowers past due on their student loan payments has also grown, from under 10 percent in 2004 to 17 percent in 2012.

Noting the N.Y. Fed report, HuffPo pointed out that the proliferation of indebted students and their families has knock on effects on other areas of the economy:

The Ghosts Of Tea Parties Past

Posted on March 29, 2013 in Articles

Tea Party Ghosts

The Article: Ghosts of the Tea Party by Alex Seitz-Wald in Salon.

The Text: Who are the names that come to mind when you think about leaders of the Tea Party movement? Maybe Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, Jim DeMint, Ron Paul and Michele Bachmann? Those were the most popular leaders listed by self-identified Tea Party activists in a 2010 Washington Post poll, at the height of the movement. You could add to that list a handful of other congressmen, especially outspoken Reps. Steve King, Allen West and Joe Walsh, among others.

And then you’d realize that every single one of them either lost their job or abandoned being a voice of the movement.

The 2012 election was devastating for the outspoken leaders in Congress. Allen West lost after a protracted battle, Joe Walsh was trounced by rising star Tammy Duckworth, and Ron Paul retired. Other, lesser-known members like Roscoe Barlett also lost. The two House Tea Party Caucus members who ran for the Senate last year both lost — Reps. Denny Rehberg in Montana and Todd Akin in Missouri.