Word: What's wrong with the school testing craze

Marion Brady, Washington Post - Arthur Costa, emeritus professor at California State University, summed up the thrust of current test-based “reform” madness:

 “What was educationally significant and hard to measure has been replaced by what is educationally insignificant and easy to measure. So now we measure how well we taught what isn’t worth learning.”

The truth of that isn’t acknowledged by Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner, Arne Duncan and other business leaders and politicians responsible for initiating and perpetuating the standardized, high-stakes testing craziness. They either can’t see or won’t admit the shallowness of their claim that “if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.” Challenged, they dismiss those who disagree with them as defenders of the status quo.

Using the scores on standardized tests to shape the life chances of kids, determine the pay and reputations of teachers, gauge the quality of school administrators, establish the worth of neighborhood schools, or as an excuse to hand public schools over to private, profit-taking corporations is, at the very least, irresponsible. If, as it appears, it’s a sneaky scheme to privatize America’s public schools without broad public dialogue, it’s unethical.

Figuring out how to measure original thought isn’t the only challenge test manufacturers need to address. Their tests:

- Provide minimal to no useful feedback to classroom teachers
- Are keyed to a deeply flawed curriculum adopted in 1893
- Lead to neglect of physical conditioning, music, art, and other, non-verbal ways of learning
- Unfairly advantage those who can afford test prep
- Hide problems created by margin-of-error computations in scoring
- Penalize test-takers who think in non-standard ways (which the young frequently do)
- Radically limit teacher ability to adapt to learner differences
- Give control of the curriculum to test manufacturers
- Encourage use of threats, bribes, and other extrinsic motivators
- Use arbitrary, subjectively set pass-fail cut scores
- Produce scores which can be (and sometimes are) manipulated for political purposes
- Assume that what the young will need to know in the future is already known
- Emphasize minimum achievement to the neglect of maximum performance

Word

You have to take the long view. First, when Moses came down from Mt. Sinai, man has already progressed to the point where a commandment against cannibalism was no longer necessary. And, second, it's like pissing on a boulder. For the first few thousand years, you don't see any effect. But after that, you start to see a definite impact." -- I.F. Stone, when asked by fellow journalist John Neary how "he could stand shoveling the same shit year after year after year, covering the same poltroons explaining and miscreants committing the same miserable malfeasances."

The growing support for legal pot

Pew Research

Minnie Minoso and Gene McCarthy

Sam Smith -   During his 1976 presidential campaign, Gene McCarthy and and his manager, Marc Plotkin, were in Florida, Bill Veeck had just announced that he was reactivating Minnie Minoso for eight at-bats so he could claim to have played over four decades. Veeck was always coming up with ideas. Some weren't so great, like putting his players in short pants, but some became traditions like having the announcer sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" during the seventh-inning stretch. When Chicagoan Plotkin read the Minoso story he quickly came up with another idea for Veeck: have him reactivate former Soo Leaguer Eugene McCarthy. Gene was excited and Plotkin made the call. Veeck had just one question: "Can he hit?" Plotkin assured him that McCarthy was a strong hitter. There was a long pause and then the reply, "Nah. . . Daley would kill me."

Who's backing the Clinton Foundation

Global Research

Founded in 2001 after the end of Bill Clinton’s second term as president, the Foundation has raised and distributed huge amounts of money, reaching nearly $2 billion. After a brief drop in fundraising coinciding with Hillary Clinton’s term as secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, when most foreign donations were discouraged because of conflict-of-interest concerns, donations jumped $100 million in 2013, reaching $262 million.

The list of the Foundation’s largest donors, available on the Foundation’swebsite, is a virtual who’s who of the super-rich and major corporations. The largest donors, having given over $25 million since 2001, include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, well known for its leading role in the dismantling of public education, Chicago multimillionaire and top Democratic Party donor Fred Eychaner, and, strangely, the Dutch national lottery.

Major corporations appear in spades in the list of 168 individuals and organizations that have given more than $1 million. Defense contractors such as Boeing and Booz Allen Hamilton, both gave between $1 and $5 million, joined by Barclays, Goldman Sachs, and the American Federation of Teachers.

The reactionary Persian Gulf monarchies have poured tens of millions into the Clinton Foundation, including Saudi Arabia ($10 to $25 million), Kuwait, ($5 to $10 million), Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates ($1 to $5 million). In addition, several groups and individuals close to the Saudi government have also made tens of millions in contributions.

Photos from Russia's marches for Boris Nemtsov

 

VOX

Word: Standardized testing

Bad Ass Teachers Association - We know that we are in the middle of a war, fighting for our schools and our students. One of the tolls in this war is the implementation of high stakes testing. These tests are like weapons, based upon the knowledge that these tests do not accurately measure educational achievement, but are more truly a measurement of the economic characteristics of the student. Today, decisions are being made to divert funds from numerous programs and appropriate staffing levels as districts are rushing to meet technology requirements and implement test practice programs. This money could be better used to increase staffing levels to allow for better student to teacher ratios, implement new programs that increase cultural and global awareness, create services that support the needs of the whole child, and renovate existing school structures that are in desperate need of repair.

The amount of stress that our students are under has become overwhelming and our schools are becoming less able to help that. As educators it is our moral responsibility to become a shield for our children and protect them from the people that seek to manipulate their education to personally profit at their expense. We have the moral obligation to become conscientious objectors as we remember our responsibility to our students.

Study: Armchair socialists more active than centrists

Science Daily - Left wing 'armchair socialists' are more physically active than people whose beliefs straddle the center of the political spectrum, suggesting that the term 'armchair socialist' is a bit of a misnomer, reveals actual published research.  The researchers analysed responses to the 2005 Eurobarometer survey, carried out on behalf of the European Commission.

Overall, left wingers were physically active for almost an hour more (just under 59 minutes) every week than centrists, while right wingers were over an hour (just over 62 minutes) more active.

Those who didn't admit to any political affiliation were the most physically inactive of all, clocking up 40 fewer minutes of physical activity every week than centrists.

Political extremists on the right also spent almost 13 fewer minutes a day sitting down than centrists, while centrists and left wingers spent a similar amount of time seated, after taking account of influential factors.

The underrated water crisis

New Yorker - The meagre allotment of water available to each Pakistani is a third of what it was in 1950. As the country's population rises, that amount is falling fast.


Dozens of other countries face similar situations-not someday, or soon, but now. Rapid climate change, population growth, and a growing demand for meat (and, thus, for the water required to grow feed for livestock) have propelled them into a state of emergency. Millions of words have been written, and scores of urgent meetings have been held, since I last wrote about this issue for the magazine, nearly a decade ago; in that time, things have only grown worse.

The various physical calamities that confront the world are hard to separate, but growing hunger and the struggle to find clean water for billions of people are clearly connected. Each problem fuels others, particularly in the developing world-where the harshest impact of natural catastrophes has always been felt. Yet the water crisis challenges even the richest among us.


California is now in its fourth year of drought, staggering through its worst dry spell in twelve hundreds years; farmers have sold their herds, and some have abandoned crops. Cities have begun rationing water. According to the London-based organization Wateraid, water shortages are responsible for more deaths in Nigeria than Boko Haram; there are places in India where hospitals have trouble finding the water required to sterilize surgical tools.


Nowhere, however, is the situation more acute than in Brazil, particularly for the twenty million residents of São Paulo. "You have all the elements for a perfect storm, except that we don't have water," a former environmental minister told Lizzie O'Leary, in a recent interview fuhior the syndicated radio show "Marketplace." The country is bracing for riots. "There is a real risk of social convulsion," José Galizia Tundisi, a hydrologist with the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, warned in a press conference last week. He said that officials have failed to act with appropriate urgency. "Authorities need to act immediately to avoid the worst." But people rarely act until the crisis is directly affecting them, and at that point it will be too late.

It is not that we are actually running out of water, because water never technically disappears. When it leaves one place, it goes somewhere else, and the amount of freshwater on earth has not changed significantly for millions of years. But the number of people on the planet has grown exponentially; in just the past century, the population has tripled, and water use has grown sixfold. More than that, we have polluted much of what remains readily available-and climate change has made it significantly more difficult to plan for floods and droughts.

Maine shows that publicly financed elections work

Andrew Bossie, Moyers & Company- Almost 20 years ago, Maine voters approved a transformative initiative to put elections back where they belong, in the hands of everyday people... Under this Clean Election Act, legislative candidates who demonstrate broad support can choose to qualify for public funds for their campaign by collecting a large number of small contributions and agreeing to forgo raising large contributions.

It worked well for several cycles. Hundreds of candidates were able to run and win office without prostrating themselves before big donors and lobbyists. Farmers, waitresses, and others who usually can’t make their voice heard in politics were able to go to Maine’s state capital Augusta and represent their constituents free from the influence of special interest cash.

The Clean Election Act has allowed Mainers to have a government that’s truly reflective and accountable to the voters. A 2007 study conducted by the Maine Commission on Governmental Ethics and Election Practices, showed that seven out of 10 women said that having the Clean Election Act was very important in their decision to run for office and that more women ran for office as a result of public financing....

In the 2014 book, White-Collar Government, author Nicholas Carnes praises Maine as having the most blue-collar legislature in the country, with one out of seven state representatives holding blue-collar jobs. He goes on to draw a correlation between Maine’s strong public policy geared toward working-class people and our citizen-led legislature of diverse economic backgrounds.

At one point, a full 85 percent of the legislature was elected using Clean Elections, but then the United States Supreme Court got in the way. In a one-two punch of decisions, Arizona Free Enterprise v. Bennett and Citizens United v. FEC, the Supreme Court made it harder for publicly financed candidates to compete with newly-empowered outside groups.

As a result, on Election Day 2014, just over half of the winning candidates used the Clean Election Act to fund their campaigns. Fortunately, something else happened that day — Mainers fought back... This January, we submitted over 85,000 signatures to the Secretary of State, more than enough to put a question on the ballot this November.

At the press conference announcing the signatures, former Republican State Senator Ed Youngblood said, “So much about politics is about divisions, but in this Clean Election endeavor, we are Mainers first. Republicans like me worked alongside Democrats, Greens and unenrolled voters to collect these signatures. That is a reflection of the widespread concern about the skyrocketing cost of elections and the growing role of Big Money.”

The ballot initiative is straightforward. We’re asking voters to approve changes to the law that will restore the viability of Clean Elections, so we can once again have a government that is accountable to everyday voters, and not bought and paid for by wealthy special interests. When enacted, this initiative will shine a light on dark money in our elections by strengthening disclosure and transparency laws. It would also raise fines and penalties on those that break our campaign finance laws – a practice which lately has become all too common.

Andrew Bossie is executive director of Maine Citizens for Clean Elections

The changing role of fire departments

Vox

 

Biofuels' bad effect on the world

Common Dreams - Government mandates to increase or maintain levels of biofuel blends in transportation fuel, with the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard and the E.U. Renewable Energy Directive being the most prominent examples, encourage biofuel production and consumption worldwide. The United States and the European Union are projected to account for at least 60 percent of global biofuel consumption in 2025.

Furthermore, states [a recent] report, "Demand for biofuels is also associated with land grabs in developing countries, where smallholder farmers growing food for their families are forced off their land to make way for energy crops for export."

In Guatemala, for instance, subsistence farmers are being forced to give up cultivation of multiple food crops for local consumption in order to cultivate just one crop that will likely be exported and used for fuel instead of food. Monoculture crops such as sugarcane or palm—both used as feedstocks for biofuels production—now take up 14 percent of the country's land, while small land holders use only 12 percent.

"In a country where half of children under the age of five are malnourished, more land is devoted to export crops than sustenance farming," reads the report.

Kelly Stone, biofuels policy analyst at Action Aid, painted a stark picture: "Farmers in poor communities around the world are being kicked off their land to produce fuel for our cars and trucks," she said. "No one should go hungry to fill our gas tanks."

Race to the Bottom: Governors

Scott Walker
Paul LePage
Chris Christie
Rick Snyder
Bobby Jindal

Word

To understand the choices open to people of another time, one must limit oneself to what they knerw; see the past in its own clothes, as it were, not in ours. -- Barbara Tuchman

The assassination of Boris Nemtsov

New Yorker

Word: Scott Walker

The Hill

"If Scott Walker sees 100,000 teachers & firefighters as his enemies, maybe it's time we take a closer look at his friends.” - Elizabeth Warren

 

In a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Thursday, Walker said, “If I can take on 100,000 protestors, I can do the same across the world.”

How to help save a million gallons of water

Eco Watch

In honor of World Water Day on March 22, Surfrider Foundation launched Every Drop Counts campaign. The nonprofit says that if 25,000 people take the pledge to reduce the amount of water they use each day and skip their shower on World Water Day, nearly one million gallons of water will be saved...

North American faucet brand Moen found that the average showers last about 13 minutes, but a good chunk of consumers (37 percent) want to conserve water. A recent report from Environment America found that more and more Americans “are concerned with the pollution and quality of our waterways more than any other environmental issue.”

Besides shorter showers, Surfrider also suggests we can save water by turning off the tap while brushing your teeth (it saves 300 gallons of water per month), fixing leaky pipes on your property (which can waste up to five gallons of water per day), or redirecting rain gutters and downspouts to irrigate your yard.

Loretta Lynch's secret prosecutions

Johnny Dwyer, NBC News - The office headed by the woman poised to become the next attorney general has used an unusual method to keep many of its prosecutions hidden from the public, an NBC News investigation has found.

Federal prosecutors in New York's Brooklyn-based Eastern District pursued cases against secret, unnamed "John Doe" defendants 58 times since Loretta Lynch became head prosecutor in May 2010. Two of the 58 are terrorism cases.

Eastern District prosecutors have also sought permission to close the courtroom to the public for 11 different Doe cases during the same period, and judges have granted permission in at least 10 of the cases, as recently as February 12.

Critics are concerned the practice may infringe the Constitution's guarantee of a public trial.

"While pseudonyms may be appropriate in exceptional cases, the courts should always opt for more transparent methods of protecting sensitive information when available," said Lee Rowland, staff attorney of the ACLU Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. "The disproportionate number of John Doe cases in the Eastern District is certainly a cause for concern; complete secrecy about the parties in a case should never be a default option."

Bank fines a fraction of what the government spent bailing them out

Dirt Digger's Digest - Investment bank Morgan Stanley has disclosed that it will pay only $2.6 billion to settle U.S. Justice Department allegations that it deceived investors in the sale of toxic securities in the run-up to the financial meltdown.

I say “only” because the amount is substantially lower than the figures paid by Bank of America ($16.7 billion), JPMorgan Chase ($13 billion) and Citigroup ($7 billion) in similar cases. Thanks to the efforts of groups such as U.S. PIRG, we know that these amounts are less onerous than they appear because the companies are often allowed to deduct the payouts from their corporate income tax obligations.

My colleagues and I at Good Jobs First have been assembling data that does more to put the payouts in perspective. As part of an expansion of our Subsidy Tracker database to the federal level, we obtained information on the massive bailout programs implemented by the Federal Reserve in 2008 to stabilize the teetering financial system by purchasing toxic assets on the books of financial institutions and by serving as a lender of last resort....

It’s already clear that the settlement amounts paid by the banks (especially in after-tax terms) have been easily absorbed as costs of doing business. The Fed bailout data shows that another reason the banks have been little fazed by their legal expenses is that they received government assistance worth a thousand times more during their time of grave vulnerability in 2008 and 2009 — vulnerability that was largely of their own making due to reckless securitization of subprime mortgages and consumer loans.

After Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, the Fed was apparently willing to spare no expense in rescuing the other big financial players. Its efforts ensured the survival of the big banks that are riding high today.

Top scientist predicts polar thaw by 2050s

Daily Mail UK - The Arctic could be completely free of ice in just 40 years as a result of global warming, one of the world's leading climate change experts has warned.

Nobel Peace Prize winner Professor Oleg Anisimov said there is evidence that temperatures are rising four times faster in the frozen region than the rest of the planet.

This means that there will only be open water in the polar region by the 2050s, with nothing more than a few floating icebergs at the North Pole, according to the Russian academic. ‘For several reasons, the Arctic climate change is more intense and faster than in other regions. There is a reduction in snow and ice cover, which has a protective function,’ he said.

‘On average over the last year, the minimum area of sea ice has decreased from 5.4 to 5.3 million square kilometres [two million square miles]. Over the past 10 years, the reduction of sea ice in the Arctic was by 13.7 per cent. 

Bringing urban farming to Pennsylvania

Sustainable Cities- The Hilltop Alliance, a Pennsylvania nonprofit, is working on a project that could drastically advance urban agriculture in the state. The organization wants to turn a vacant 107-acre lot into Hilltop Village Farm, a multi-use development that would include 120 townhomes, a 20-acre urban farm incubator, a youth farm and CSA. If the plan is successful, the farm could be one of the largest urban farms in the country.

The Hilltop Alliance was formed in 2009 as a multi-neighborhood community development organization. One of the main issues the organization focuses on is vacant land. From 2011 to 2012, the organization conducted an inventory of the vacant land in the Hilltop neighborhood. During the assessment process, the organization found out about the St. Clair housing complex, an affordable housing complex which had just been demolished.

The organization was introduced to local developer Ernie Sota, who had a vision for a community of high density town homes anchored by an urban farm.

Only 40 acres of the 107-acre lot are farmable, buildable acres. The Hilltop Alliance has structured a partnership with the developer to give them them an equity stake in the development, which will provide cash flow for the farm. Also, each town home unit will have a CSA share that will provide additional income. Members of the housing community will pay $500-600 in homeowners’ fees, and in return they will receive a share of fresh produce every two weeks. People living outside of the housing development will also be able to purchase CSA shares.

The incubator farm will include 18 quarter-acre plots that will be available for annual leases, although scholarships will be available. A farm manager will oversee the farms and manage the equipment sharing program.

“The farm doesn’t work without the housing,” says Sukenik.

At this time the Hilltop Alliance is working on financing and approval from the federal government, but hopes the project will move forward in the spring of 2016. The redevelopment is projected to cost $28 million, not including purchase of the land, and would be funded through a mix of loans and grants.

Word

The past is never dead. It's not even past. - William Faulkner

There, I fixed it

Fail Blog

hilltop pennsylvania urban farming

Phiadelphia police stop tens of thousands illegally

ACLU - The ACLU of Pennsylvania and the law firm of Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg filed a report as part of the monitoring process of the 2011 consent decree in Bailey v. Philadelphia, a lawsuit filed in 2010 alleging that Philadelphia Police Department officers had a pattern and practice of stopping and frisking pedestrians without reasonable suspicion that the person was involved in criminal activity and disproportionately stopping African-Americans. Today’s report shows that despite having almost four years to improve its stop and frisk practices, the PPD continues to illegally stop and frisk tens of thousands of individuals.

The report is the fifth filed with the court and court-appointed monitor since the consent decree was put in place. According to the report, 37 percent of the over 200,000 pedestrian stops in 2014 were made without reasonable suspicion, and thus a violation of the Fourth Amendment. Of the frisks, only 47 percent were made based on reasonable suspicion.

Although Philadelphia’s population is 42.26 percent white, 43.22 percent black, and 8.5 percent Hispanic, 80.23 percent of stops were of minorities. The disparity was even greater for frisks, with minority residents accounting for 89.15 percent of frisks.

The real economy

Michael Snyder, Activist Post

According to a survey that was just released, 24 percent of all Americans have more credit card debt than emergency savings.

At this point, approximately 62 percent of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck.

Adults under the age of 35 in the United States currently have a savings rate of negative 2 percent.

According to research conducted by Atif Mian of Princeton University and Amir Sufi of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, 40 percent of Americans could not come up with $2000 right now without borrowing it.

A different study discovered that less than one out of every four Americans has enough money stored away to cover six months of expenses.

Word: Jihadi John

 

Djelloul Marbrook -  This guy is getting more attention in the press than the underlying causes of the Middle East turmoil. The press has kept a constant focus on him, for example, while failing to give us a clue as to what happened to the thousands of troops Jordan moved to its Iraqi border and the implications of that move. There is a reason and it, as usual, money. The press is merely recycling the Jihadi John story, but it would cost the press time and money to inquire into the real reasons for the conflict. All sensationalized journalism is merely a cover for not doing the job the press claims it does. And even in the case of Jihadi John the press hasn’t given us an iota of the insight a novel might give us.

‘Jihadi John’ From ISIS Execution Videos Was Under Watch by British Intelligence

The man, identified as Mohammed Emwazi, came to the attention of the authorities in 2009, when they thought he was going to fight with Al Shabab.

nytimes.com|By STEVEN ERLANGER

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Revolutionary visionary

In short my dear Friend you and I have been indefatigable Labourers through our whole Lives for a Cause which will be thrown away in the next generation, upon the Vanity and Foppery of Persons of whom we do not now know the Names perhaps. — The War that is now breaking out will render our Country, whether she is forced into it, or not, rich, great and powerful in comparison of what she now is, and Riches Grandeur and Power will have the same effect upon American as it has upon European minds. -  John Adams, letter to Thomas Jefferson, Oct. 9, 1787

Furthermore. . .

Adjunct professors fighting back

Race to the Bottom: Federal officials

Michael Rogers
John Brennan
Arne Duncan
Jeh Johnson
Antonio Scalia
James Clapper

How to take on standardized testing

World Prosperity - Ways for teachers to fight the standardized testing movement:

• You can prepare your students for the tests, but then get back to concentrating on real learning.  Keep it clear in your mind that these are two different objectives.  Whenever possible, help others to see the difference (in letters to parents, for example).

• Don't devote all of your classroom time to test prep.  A basic introduction to the test format and a review of test content is good enough.  Some teachers spend most of the year doing exciting classroom activities that focus on real learning followed by a two week 'cram-session' that focuses on the tests.  Studies have shown that these students do just as well as the kids who have had an entire year of test preparation.

• As far as possible, make preparing for the test fun.  Use the test questions in some type of stimulating game or puzzle that the whole class can have fun playing or solving.

But the course of action listed above is hardly a solution.  It is more like a way of damage control.  Rather than just working around the tests, or attempting to accommodate them, we must do something to fight back.  We must do something that will make our views heard by the public and move our schools in the direction of eliminating standardized tests.  We need to organize.  Find people in our own areas who share our beliefs, and work together so that we can collectively have a more powerful impact.  Find friends, coworkers, and neighbors who share similar beliefs, and form an organization.  Give yourselves a name, for example, [name of your area] Educators Opposing Excessive Testing.  You'll instantly gain some credibility, and be able to recruit more members.  Whether you work alone or as part of a group, you should begin by learning all that you can about the tests that are used in your area.  Once you taken these steps, the real action begins:          • Discuss the situation with your acquaintances at every possible opportunity.  In the grocery store, at the doctors office, or whenever the chance to do so arises.

• Attend your local school board meetings and other local events that deal with education.  Voice your concerns.

• Write to school administrators, public officials, and newspapers.

• Form a delegation of concerned citizens, and visit your state legislators or other elected public officials.  Politicians will be much more likely to take your concerns seriously if you speak to them in person.

• Sponsor a forum on testing.  Invite the media.  Sign up new members for your organization.

• Protest.  Organize, participate in, and ensure press coverage for some form of protest.  This can include marches, demonstrations, and other activities.

• Challenge politicians, corporate executives, public officials, and other advocates of the 'tough standards' movement to take the tests themselves.  Do this especially if your district uses high stakes exit exams, which are increasingly being used to deny diplomas to students.  You can go about issuing the challenge in two ways.  First, you can describe it as a private invitation for these individuals to learn more about the tests.  The second approach is a bit less thinly veiled: set forth an outright challenge.  In one such instance, several top elected officials in Florida were challenged to take the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test along with 735,000 students.  All of these officials declined the invitation.  If using the second approach, you might want to consider holding a press conference to publicly issue the challenge.  Imagine the public's response if top elected officials won't agree to take the tests that they advocate!

• Consider filing a lawsuit against the tests on the grounds that they are inherently discriminatory or statistically invalid measuring instruments.

• Opt out.  Some states have a clause that allows parents to exempt their children from testing just by notifying the authorities.  Not many people are even aware that these clauses exist, so do some investigating.  If you find out that such a clause does exist in your state, do your best to make this information public knowledge.  Though this may sound extreme, in the case of their being no opt-out provision, boycott the tests altogether. 

Word

Schoolmasters and parents exist to be grown out of - John Wolfenden

How Portugal slashed its drug addiction rate

Portside - Nearly 15 years ago, Portugal had one of the worst drug problems in Europe, with one percent of the population addicted to heroin. They had tried a drug war, and the problem just kept getting worse.

So they decided to do something radically different. They resolved to decriminalize all drugs, and transfer all the money they used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them—to their own feelings, and to the wider society.

The most crucial step is to get them secure housing, and subsidized jobs so they have a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. I watched as they are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics, to learn how to reconnect with their feelings, after years of trauma and stunning them into silence with drugs.

One group of addicts were given a loan to set up a removals firm. Suddenly, they were a group, all bonded to each other, and to the society, and responsible for each other’s care.

The results of all this are now in. An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent.

Decriminalization has been such a manifest success that very few people in Portugal want to go back to the old system. The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country’s top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings that we would expect: more crime, more addicts. But when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass—and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal’s example.

Scott Walker puts labor unions in same class as ISIS

Scott Walker - I want a commander in chief who will do everything in their power to ensure that the threat from radical Islamic terrorists does not wash up on American soil. If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world."

Cable speeding up programs to get more ads in

Tech Dirt - The latest example of cable industry tone deafness? With cable and broadcast ratings continuing to fall, more and more people have been complaining that the industry increasingly likes to speed up programs notably so more ads can be stuffed into every hour. By speeding up Seinfeld by about 7.5%, for example, the industry can manage to deliver an extra two minutes of ad time during the program:

This has been going on for a while, and as complaints in this Reddit thread attest, another favorite tactic has been to heavily edit some programs for the same purpose. Fans of particularly popular programs tend to be the first to notice that their favorite content is now edited or accelerated, which may drive them to look elsewhere for a better quality version of that product (piracy, Netflix).

Furthermore. . .

The feud between Rahm Emmanuel and Howard Dean

Chicago police black site update

The Federal Communications Commission voted Thursday to overturn laws in Tennessee and North Carolina that restrict the ability of local government to provide Internet service to their own residents.

FCC votes for open Internet

Salon - The FCC voted in favor of the Open Internet Order, new net neutrality rules that would prohibit paid Internet paid fast lanes, and reclassify broadband providers as telecommunication services under the Title II of the Telecommunications Act, among other regulations.

The rules were passed by a 3-2 vote along party lines, with Commissioners Ajut Pai and Michael O’Rielly (Republicans) voting against the measure and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Jessica Rosenworcel and Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler (Democrats) voting in favor of the order.

It is a landmark decision for net neutrality advocates, and ensures that net neutrality expands to mobile platforms, and that innovation will not be disrupted by an Internet fast lane vs. Internet slow lane (with different costs).

“The action that we take today is an irrefutable reflection of the principle that no one — whether government or corporate — should control free open access to the Internet,” Chairman Wheeler stated prior to the vote.

Missouri judge rules against state's participation in Common Core

Valerie Strauss, Washington Post - The fighting over the Common Core initiative continues: A Missouri judge said the state’s membership in a federally funded testing consortium charged with creating an assessment aligned with the Common Core standards is illegal. And what’s more, he ruled that the state should stop paying fees to the group, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.

The ruling, which is expected to be appealed and well may not stand, is the newest salvo in what is an increasingly heated debate over Common Core State standards... Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green ruled that SBAC itself is:

“an unlawful interstate compact to which the U.S. Congress has never consented, whose existence and operation violate the Compact Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Article I, § 10, cl. 3, as well as numerous federal statutes; and that Missouri’s participation in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium as a member is unlawful under state and federal law.”

Wisconsin vs. Minnesota

 

Khary

West coast see huge wash up of sick and starving sea lions

Marin Independent Journal - Officials with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say about 940 sick and starving young sea lions have washed up on California beaches so far in 2015. That compares to about 225 sea lion strandings that officials normally would see between January and April.

Scientists say warmer coastal waters are forcing nursing mothers in the Channel Islands south of Santa Barbara to head out farther for food, leaving behind their young for longer than the normal two or four days. That means the young pups — about 8 months old — are leaving to look for food on their own, but many do not have the life skills to catch prey on their own.

“This is the first time in our history that we have had sea lion pups here this early in the 40 years,” said Dr. Shawn Johnson, director of veterinary science at the mammal center. “They were nursing on mom a few days ago and now they are here. They don’t have the skill to dive deep and catch fish.”

Great thoughts of Rand Paul

We must remember that our rights are unlimited, unenumerated, and given to us by God,  Your rights are who you are. Your rights are what you are. Your rights are in your DNA and the government can -- quite frankly - get lost! - Rand Paul who is, incidentally, a highly paid government official

Why does the FBI keep creating more terrorists?

Glenn Greenwald, Intercept -  The FBI and major media outlets  trumpeted the agency’s latest counter-terrorism triumph: the arrest of three Brooklyn men, ages 19 to 30, on charges of conspiring to travel to Syria to fight for ISIS. As my colleague Murtaza Hussain ably documents, “it appears that none of the three men was in any condition to travel or support the Islamic State, without help from the FBI informant.” One of the frightening terrorist villains told the FBI informant that, beyond having no money, he had encountered a significant problem in following through on the FBI’s plot: his mom had taken away his passport. Noting the bizarre and unhinged ranting of one of the suspects, Hussain noted on Twitter that this case “sounds like another victory for the FBI over the mentally ill.”
In this regard, this latest arrest appears to be quite similar to the overwhelming majority of terrorism arrests the FBI has proudly touted over the last decade. As my colleague Andrew Fishman and I wrote last month – after the FBI manipulated a 20-year-old loner who lived with his parents into allegedly agreeing to join an FBI-created plot to attack the Capitol – these cases follow a very clear pattern:

The known facts from this latest case seem to fit well within a now-familiar FBI pattern whereby the agency does not disrupt planned domestic terror attacks but rather creates them, then publicly praises itself for stopping its own plots.
First, they target a Muslim: not due to any evidence of intent or capability to engage in terrorism, but rather for the “radical” political views he expresses. In most cases, the Muslim targeted by the FBI is a very young (late teens, early 20s), adrift, unemployed loner who has shown no signs of mastering basic life functions, let alone carrying out a serious terror attack, and has no known involvement with actual terrorist groups.

They then find another Muslim who is highly motivated to help disrupt a “terror plot”: either because they’re being paid substantial sums of money by the FBI or because (as appears to be the case here) they are charged with some unrelated crime and are desperate to please the FBI in exchange for leniency (or both). The FBI then gives the informant a detailed attack plan, and sometimes even the money and other instruments to carry it out, and the informant then shares all of that with the target. Typically, the informant also induces, lures, cajoles, and persuades the target to agree to carry out the FBI-designed plot. In some instances where the target refuses to go along, they have their informant offer huge cash inducements to the impoverished target.

Once they finally get the target to agree, the FBI swoops in at the last minute, arrests the target, issues a press release praising themselves for disrupting a dangerous attack (which it conceived of, funded, and recruited the operatives for), and the DOJ and federal judges send their target to prison for years or even decades (where they are kept in special GITMO-like units). Subservient U.S. courts uphold the charges by applying such a broad and permissive interpretation of “entrapment” that it could almost never be successfully invoked.

Once again, we should all pause for a moment to thank the brave men and women of the FBI for saving us from their own terror plots

Neil Young announces boycott of Starbucks over food labelling

Ultimate Classic Rock - The next time you’re in line for a latte, don’t look for Neil Young.

Young has taken to his official site to denounce Starbucks’ involvement in an ingredient-labeling lawsuit against the tiny state of Vermont. Headlined “GOODBYE STARBUCKS!!!,” Young’s post asks his fans to join him in standing against corporations that would shield important information about how food is made from consumers.

“Tell Starbucks to withdraw support for the lawsuit — we have a right to know what we put in our mouths,” Young writes. “Starbucks doesn’t think you have the right to know what’s in your coffee.”

Starbucks is actually suing Vermont in tandem with Monsanto, a huge multi-national agricultural and biotechnology company best known for its work in genetically modified organisms — typically abbreviated as GMOs. Together, they hope to overturn a new state law set to go in effect July 1, 2016 that would force companies to identify these genetically modified ingredients. Young says their worry is that a domino effect would follow, as other states adopted similar requirements.

“There’s much more at stake here than just whether GMO foods will be labeled in a single U.S. state,” Young adds. “Vermont is the very first state in the U.S. to require labeling. Dozens of other states have said that they will follow this path — in order to encourage this, we need to ensure that Vermont’s law stands strong."

Non-traditional labor organizing grows

Dirt Diggers Digest - Remarkable is the announcement by Wal-Mart Stores that it will raise the wages of all its U.S workers to at least $9 an hour. Wal-Mart, the country’s largest private sector employer, remains entirely non-union, but the move is an indication of the impact that labor groups such as Making Change at Walmart and OUR Walmart have had on the giant retailer. Their work is far from done; $9 an hour is still too low and there are many other reforms the company needs to make. But the fact that Wal-Mart, which has a notoriously intransigent history, has budged is a significant achievement.

The non-traditional organizing at Wal-Mart is just one example of alternative approaches to building worker power. Others include the minority union model being tested by the United Auto Workers at the Volkswagen plant in Tennessee and the worker center model employed by groups such as ROC United.

Wikipedia - The Restaurant Opportunities Centers United is a not-for-profit organization and worker center with affiliates in a number of cities across the United States. Its mission is to improve wages and working conditions for the nation's low wage restaurant workforce. Its tactics and strategy have drawn fire from business groups and restaurant industry lobbyists.
As of 2013, ROC claimed to represent 13,000 restaurant workers, 100 employers and 2,000 consumer members in 32 cities across the United States. The group was founded with funding from multiple foundations with a stated goal to “organize all unorganized restaurant workers in New York City.”





LA Times, December 2014  - In a significant victory for union efforts in the South, United Auto Workers has been certified to represent at least 45% of workers at Volkswagen’s plant in Chattanooga, Tenn., a step just short of full collective bargaining rights.

The vote by workers at the plant means the UAW qualifies as a "top-tier" labor group entitled to hold meetings on plant property and meet regularly with company representatives. "This is not a union recognition vote -- it doesn’t involve collective bargaining," said Arthur Wheaton, a professor at the School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University. "But it does allow the UAW to be an employee organization representing a percentage of the workers."

The vote comes after years of failed UAW attempts to unionize foreign-owned automakers in the South, including the Chattanooga plant. A vote of greater than 50% under a certified National Labor Relations Board election is required for full union representation, according to Wheaton.

US has been at war 91% of its life

Washingtons Blog -  Since the United States was founded in 1776, she has been at war during 214 out of her 235 calendar years of existence.  In other words, there were only 21 calendar years in which the U.S. did not wage any wars.

To put this in perspective:

* Pick any year since 1776 and there is about a 91% chance that America was involved in some war during that calendar year.

* No U.S. president truly qualifies as a peacetime president.  Instead, all U.S. presidents can technically be considered “war presidents.”

* The U.S. has never gone a decade without war.

* The only time the U.S. went five years without war (1935-40) was during the isolationist period of the Great Depression.    

Year by year data

How to deal with Russia

Paul Craig Roberts, Global Research - Ambassador Jack Matlock made an important speech at the National Press Club on February 11.  Matlock served as US ambassador to the Soviet Union during 1987-91.

In his speech he describes how President Reagan won the trust of the Soviet leadership in order to bring to an end the Cold War and its risk of nuclear armageddon.

Reagan’s meeting with Gorbachev did not rely on position papers written by staff.  It relied on a hand-written memo by Reagan himself that stressed respect for the Soviet leadership and a clear realization that negotiation must not expect the Soviet leaders to do something that is not in the true interest of their country. The way to end the conflict, Reagan wrote, is to cooperate toward a common goal.  Matlock said that Reagan refused to personalize disagreements or to speak derogatorily of any Soviet leader.

Matlock makes the point that Reagan’s successors have done a thorough job of destroying this trust.  In the last two years the destruction of trust has been total.

How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington violates the word of President George H.W. Bush and takes NATO into Eastern Europe and places military bases on Russia’s border?

How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington pulls out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and places anti-ballistic missiles on Russia’s border?

How can the Russian government trust Washington when Washington overthrows in a coup the elected government of Ukraine and installs a puppet regime that immediately expresses hostility toward Russia and the Russian-speaking population in Ukraine and destroys Soviet war memorials commemorating the Red Army’s liberation of Ukraine from Nazi Germany?

How can the Russian government trust Washington when the President of Russia is called every name in the book, including “the new Hitler,” and gratuitously accused of every sort of crime and personal failing?....

By destroying trust, Washington has resurrected the threat of nuclear armageddon. Washington’s destruction of trust between nuclear powers is the crime of the century.

Co-op leads the way in Maine's health care insurance

Sun Journal, ME - Over 66,000 Mainers have signed up for health insurance with Maine Community Health Options, an increase of 65 percent for the state's only health insurance co-op.

Of those people, 57,600 got insurance through the federal marketplace established by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. That means for the second year in a row, MCHO will insure the majority of Mainers on the marketplace.

There are 23 [health insurance] co-ops throughout the country. Rating company A.M. Best has said that, as of last fall, Lewiston-based MCHO is the only one making money.

As of Feb. 18, nearly 75,000 Mainers had signed up for insurance through the marketplace, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. About 57,600 of those Mainers chose one of MCHO's insurance plans, according to preliminary numbers released by the co-op Tuesday. However, MCHO's figures include only people who have paid their first bill.

With several days left for consumers to pay for March 1 coverage, he expects that MCHO will ultimately be responsible for about 80 percent of the marketplace.

Entropy update: Great divorce cases

CNN - Hotels: $160,000 per month. Food: $14,000. Another $2,000 a month for stationery.

Those are just a few of the expenses detailed in recent court filings related to the divorce proceedings of hedge fund billionaire Kenneth Griffin and his wife Anne Dias Griffin...

Dias Griffin has claimed expenses of nearly $1 million per month, saying that's how much she needs to support the couple's three young children, who are all under 10 and have four nannies. The couple has been married since 2003.

Her husband contends that the budget includes "exorbitant expenses" that aren't for the children, but rather to fund his wife's extravagant lifestyle.

The budget includes $300,000 a month for a private jet, $160,000 for vacation accommodations, $60,000 for an office space and professional staff, as well as $14,000 per month for groceries and dining out, according to court filings. griffin monthly budget Ken Griffin's kids are living the good life.

The filing states that Griffin has paid for 100% of the children's needs, except for "her astronomical demand for $450,000 to take a ten-day vacation to St. Barth's during the winter break." He claimed he gave her $45,000 instead.

Word

I have always imagined that Paradise would be a kind of library - Jorge Luis Borges

US ranked 45th for electoral integrity

Brad Blog - Electoral integrity has not improved in the U.S. over the past year, according to a new study. In fact, elections in Mexico now have more integrity than ours, the new survey, based on the observations of some 1,400 international election experts, finds.

This year's new Election Integrity Project report is now out. It takes into account the 2014 mid-term elections in the U.S. and more elections in a number of additional countries. It appears the U.S. has fallen a few pegs from it's 26th place ranking in last year's report:" "Contests in the United States scored the worst performance among any long-established democracy. Hence the 2012 Presidential elections was ranked 42nd worldwide, while the 2014 mid-term Congressional races was ranked 45th, similar to Colombia and Bulgaria. One reason is that experts expressed growing concern over US electoral laws and processes of voter registration, both areas of heated partisan debate."

Our most recent national elections now ranked just worse than Mexico's and slightly better than those in Barbados...

Great thoughts of Mike Huckabee

Salon - Mike Huckabee has revived the incendiary notion that there’s no such thing as a Palestinian people, repeating an assertion that has been condemned by a wide spectrum of historians and political analysts.

The likely Republican presidential hopeful made the claim in an interview with the Washington Post...“The idea that they have a long history, dating back hundreds or thousands of years, is not true,” the former Arkansas governor and Fox News host told the Post.

This isn’t the first time Huckabee has advanced the idea. “I have to be careful saying this, because people get really upset — there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee told a Massachusetts rabbi during his 2008 presidential campaign. “That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.”

Foreign countries gave millions to Clinton Foundation while HRC was Secretary of State

Washington Post - The Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from seven foreign governments during Hillary Rodham Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state, including one donation that violated its ethics agreement with the Obama administration, foundation officials disclosed Wednesday.

Most of the contributions were possible because of exceptions written into the foundation’s 2008 agreement, which included limits on foreign-government donations...

The new disclosures, provided in response to questions from The Washington Post, make clear that the 2008 agreement did not prohibit foreign countries with interests before the U.S. government from giving money to the charity closely linked to the secretary of state.

In one instance, foundation officials acknowledged they should have sought approval in 2010 from the State Department ethics office, as required by the agreement for new government donors, before accepting a $500,000 donation from the Algerian government.

Morning Line

The latest Public Policy Polling survey takes another nip out of Hillary Clinton's lead over Republicans. She now leads by only 8-10 points against the GOP crop in our moving average of polls.Her popularity among Democrats has been slowly drifting down although she still has no serious competition.

Health news

Risk of death from smoking higher than thought

According to new research published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, it may not be enough. Vitamin D deficiency also appears to increase your risk of Type 2 diabetes -- no matter your weight.

People with low IQs are more likely to consume higher amounts of alcohol than those with higher IQs, a new study has claimed.The study, which was carried out by researchers at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, surveyed 49,321 Swedish men who were born between 1949 to 1951 and were conscripted for Swedish military service from 1969 to 1971. IQ tests done upon conscription, alcohol intake, pattern of drinking, tobacco use, and medical conditions were all examined

Furthermore....

Secret Service plans to invade capital's air with drones

Arkansas enacts law allowing businesses to discriminate against LGBT customers

A backpack solar system

DC's new pot law

DCist:

• It will be legal to possess up to two ounces of pot.
• It will be legal to smoke said pot on private property.
• It will be legal to transfer (give) an ounce or less of pot to someone else.
• It will be legal to grow and cultivate up to six pot plants—no more than three mature ones—in your home.
• You must be 21 years old to possess, consume, or grow pot.
• Selling pot will still be illegal.
• As will be smoking pot in any public space, which includes restaurants, bars, and coffee shops.
• And, of course, none of this applies to any federal land (which accounts for 22 percent of the District), which considers marijuana illegal.

Federal judge wrecks drug importation law in gift to pharmas

Sun Journal, ME- A federal judge has overturned Maine’s first-in-the-nation law allowing residents to purchase medication by mail from other countries.

U.S. Chief District Judge Nancy Torresen’s ruling comes more than a year after several Maine pharmacy groups filed suit against the state over the 2013 law, arguing it jeopardizes the safety of the nation’s prescription drug supply and opens the door to counterfeit and tainted medications.

Federal law strictly limits the importing of prescription drugs from foreign countries for personal use. Torresen ruled that Maine infringed on the federal government’s established regulatory authority by allowing drug importation at the state level. Her decision nullifies the law, pending a potential appeal by the state.

Fresh leak at Fukushima

ABC, Australia - Tokyo Electric Power Co said the sensors, which were rigged to a gutter that pours rain and ground water at the Fukushima Daiichi plant to a nearby bay, detected contamination levels up to 70 times greater than the already-high radioactive status seen at the plant campus.

TEPCO said its emergency inspections of tanks storing nuclear waste water did not find any additional abnormalities, but the firm said it shut the gutter to prevent radioactive water from going into the Pacific Ocean.

Though contamination levels fell steadily throughout the day, the same sensors were still showing contamination levels about 10 to 20 times more than usual, a company spokesman said.

Why Palestine could be sued in American courts but not Israel

Electronic Intifada - Because the United States does not recognize “Palestine” as a state, the PA and PLO were not eligible for sovereign immunity. Sovereign immunity protects Israeli officials who commit what human rights groups call war crimes against Palestinians from prosecution in US courts.

“The Palestinian Authority is sued, and, of course, 134 countries out of 193 consider Palestine to be a state. It’s been recognized by the UN to be a state. It signs international agreements as a state, including the International Criminal Court agreement as a state. And yet the United States courts refuse to apply the immunity law, saying Palestine Authority, the Palestinian state, cannot be sued,” Ratner told the Real News Network.

Some observers believe the recent pair of successful anti-terrorism cases against the Palestinian political groups and the Arab Bank may open US courts to further litigation under the law. Others have predicted that a verdict favorable to the plaintiffs could compromise the PA’s attempts to utilize the International Criminal Court to hold Israel accountable for alleged war crimes.

The verdict creates an interesting situation: the Palestinian Authority receives hundreds of millions of dollars in aid annually from the United States, and Israeli occupation forces cooperate closely with PA forces in order to suppress Palestinian protest and resistance.

If the verdict stands, it would mean Israel and the United States are funding and working closely with organizations that a US court has deemed responsible for “terrorism.”

Charter schools helping some a lot. . . only they're not students

Washington Post - Two of the District’s charter school leaders earned about as much as or more than D.C. Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson in 2013, though she runs a city school system that, with 45,000 students, is much larger than either of their organizations.

A Washington Post analysis of federal tax forms shows that the District’s five dozen charter school leaders earned total compensation ranging from just less than $90,000 to more than $350,000 in 2013. The Post analysis shows that leaders of some charter schools are paid no more than principals at traditional public schools, while others are earning much higher salaries to lead one school, or a handful of schools, that serve just hundreds of students.

D.C. taxpayers send more than $600 million to fund the city’s charter schools each year, but there is far less information available about how that money is spent than the tax dollars that flow to the traditional public school system.

Great Republican thoughts

Alternet -  In a deeply religious section of Idaho, a Republican state representative says that the state has no right to protect children from their parents who refuse them needed medical treatment in favor of faith healing.

“Children do die,” says Rep. Christy Perry. And it’s fine with her if Idaho children die in the name of God. Perry’s district includes many followers of a religious cult, Followers of Christ, that eschews medicine. She says that the sect’s members are more comfortable confronting death when it happens to their children.

Stupid Pentagon tricks

Washington Post - U.S. military combat vehicles paraded through an Estonian city that juts into Russia, a symbolic act that highlighted the stakes for both sides amid the worst tensions between the West and Russia since the Cold War.

The armored personnel carriers and other U.S. Army vehicles that rolled through the streets of Narva, a border city separated by a narrow frontier from Russia, were a dramatic reminder of the new military confrontation in Eastern Europe.

Four out of five scientists believe population is major problem

Huffington Post - A new poll of American scientists suggests that a large majority of them (82 percent) regard population growth as a major challenge, almost as many as those who believe that climate change is mostly due to human activity (87 percent). The poll, which was conducted by the Pew Research Center, indicates that a clear majority of the American public (59 percent) are concerned that there won't be enough food and resources to accommodate a growing world population, but the level of concern in the scientific community, as with climate change, is noticeably higher.

Race to the Bottom: Worst federal agencies

• NSA
• Supreme Court
• CIA
• FISA Court
• FBI
• Homeland Security
• Pentagon
• DEA

A mathematical model of Bill O'Reilly

Some years ago your editor took on Bill O'Reilly (who is back in the news) and managed to get in 104 more words than the interviewer. Further, editor Sam actually gave two answers of 78 and 84 words. Note that for only one brief instance did O'Reilly outtalk Sam. Sam was reduced to five or less words in only 31.11% of his replies. Full story

Why people hate liberals

Washington Post - Doughnuts are out, whole-wheat muffins in, and Virginia’s General Assembly is fed up: It wants to bring back the old sugary school bake sale.

Federal guidelines that took effect this school year have banished sales of nutritionally dubious treats to students during school hours. Anything sold while school is in session must meet the same nutritional guidelines as school lunch and breakfast.

That might be good for the fight against childhood obesity, but it has taken a big bite out of bake-sale proceeds at schools such as Brooke Point High School in Stafford County, where reduced-sugar, whole-grain muffins aren’t exactly selling like the glazed honey buns they replaced on the snack menu.

“Previously, we were allowed to sell whatever we wanted,” said Anne Jacobsen, a parent volunteer. “Since we’ve gone to the ‘smart snacks,’ sales have dropped by more than half. The kids just don’t want it.”

Never fans of new federal regulations, Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature is trying to come to the rescue with a bill that has cleared both chambers granting schools exceptions to the rules.

The measure flew through the House without controversy, but in the Senate, it inspired one of this year’s more animated debates, pitting those concerned about childhood obesity against lawmakers wary of government overreach.

Senate Minority Leader Richard L. Saslaw (D-Fairfax) warned colleagues not to vote for the bill “unless you believe America’s just not fat enough.”

Sen. Charles W. “Bill” Carrico Sr. (R-Grayson), on the other hand, said he managed to survive the cinnamon rolls his mother, Alba Carrico, used to bake in the cafeteria of Marion Middle School in Smyth County in far Southwest Virginia.

“Every time someone talks about school lunches, I think of these cinnamon rolls my mom used to make that were to die for, and she’s still making them for me today,” Carrico, 53, said in an interview after the debate. “Now it would be the kiss of death to eat a cinnamon roll. .?.?. I’ll bet you if I brought those pans of cinnamon rolls into the Senate, I wouldn’t take the pans out full again.”

Guardian exposes Chicago police's illegal "black site"

Guardian - The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.

Alleged police practices at Homan Square, according to those familiar with the facility who spoke out to the Guardian after its investigation into Chicago police abuse, include:

Keeping arrestees out of official booking databases. Beating by police, resulting in head wounds. Shackling for prolonged periods. Denying attorneys access to the “secure” facility. Holding people without legal counsel for between 12 and 24 hours, including people as young as 15.

At least one man was found unresponsive in a Homan Square “interview room” and later pronounced dead.

Brian Jacob Church, a protester known as one of the “Nato Three”, was held and questioned at Homan Square in 2012 following a police raid. Officers restrained Church for the better part of a day, denying him access to an attorney, before sending him to a nearby police station to be booked and charged.

“Homan Square is definitely an unusual place,” Church told the Guardian on Friday. “It brings to mind the interrogation facilities they use in the Middle East. The CIA calls them black sites. It’s a domestic black site. When you go in, no one knows what’s happened to you.”

The secretive warehouse is the latest example of Chicago police practices that echo the much-criticized detention abuses of the US war on terrorism. While those abuses impacted people overseas, Homan Square – said to house military-style vehicles, interrogation cells and even a cage – trains its focus on Americans, most often poor, black and brown.

Unlike a precinct, no one taken to Homan Square is said to be booked. Witnesses, suspects or other Chicagoans who end up inside do not appear to have a public, searchable record entered into a database indicating where they are, as happens when someone is booked at a precinct. Lawyers and relatives insist there is no way of finding their whereabouts. Those lawyers who have attempted to gain access to Homan Square are most often turned away, even as their clients remain in custody inside.

Word

1. If your stomach disputes you, lie down and pacify with cool thoughts.
2. Keep the juices flowing by jangling around gently as you move.
3. Go very lightly on the vices such as carrying on in society. The social ramble ain't restful. - Satchel Paige

Hillary Clinton disses Edward Snowden

Hillary Clinton - "I can never condone what he did. He stole millions of documents."

Portland uses water pipe turbines for energy

Good - Portland OR has replaced a section of its existing water supply network with Lucid Energy pipes containing four forty-two inch turbines. As water flows through the pipes, the turbines spin and power attached generators, which then feed energy back into the city’s electrical grid. Known as the “Conduit 3 Hydroelectric Project,” Portland’s new clean energy source is scheduled to be up and running at full capacity in March. According to a Lucid Energy FAQ detailing the partnership, this will be the “first project in the U.S. to secure a 20-year Power Purchase Agreement for renewable energy produced by in-pipe hydropower in a municipal water pipeline."

Furthermore...

57% Of GOPers Support Making Christianity The National Religion

Emmanuel forced into run off

Obama vetoes pipeline bill

 More Than 60% of Germans Believe Capitalism, Democracy Are Mutually Exclusive

Green energy update

Juan Cole - Here are some of the green energy good news stories of the past few weeks:


1. China put in a massive 21 gigawatts of new wind power in 2014, half of all the wind power installed in the entire world that year and four times as much as the US. China’s wind installations increased 40% over 2013. Lower oil prices are not expected to affect the continued rapid growth of renewables, since petroleum is mainly used in transport, not electricity production.

2. Turkey has announced that it will try to add 20 gigawatts of wind energy to its electricity production capacity in only 8 years. Turkey is taking this step in part because it has few hydrocarbons of its own, such that free fuel like wind is very attractive to investors there. In part, it is attempting to remain in line with European targets for green energy, since it is in the queue for European Union membership. (Although it is unlikely that Turkey will be admitted to the EU, it is good for Turkey to keep aiming at European standards.)

3. Australia has just opened the world’s first large-scale wave power facility. It will power a naval base.

4. The Jordanian government has announced its determination to install solar panels on the roofs of all 6,000 of the country’s mosques.

5. Germany cut its carbon dioxide emissions by 5 percent in 2014. The country increased energy efficiency, grew its economy, and increased the percentage of electricity generated by renewables from 25% to 28% year over year. One German state, Schleswig-Holstein,now gets 50% of its electricity from wind power. Germany also lucked out with the weather– 2014 was unusually mild. Still, the CO2 output would have declined even without this latter factor. In contrast, in 2014 the US increased its CO2 output over the previous year.

6. In the UK in January, wind turbines generated an impressive 14% of all the electricity used in the isles. Wind powered the equivalent of 8.7 million UK homes. On January 2, for a single day, wind provided almost one third of all the electricity generated in Britain. The UK has 12 gigawatts of installed wind capacity.

7. Denmark produced almost 40% of its electricity from wind in 2014, having doubled that figure in a decade.

The narrow sources of professors

Slate - A new study published in Science Advances that scrutinized more than 16,000 faculty members in the fields of business, computer science, and history at 242 schools.... The data revealed that just a quarter of all universities account for 71 to 86 percent of all tenure-track faculty in the U.S. and Canada in these three fields. Just 18 elite universities produce half of all computer science professors, 16 schools produce half of all business professors, and eight schools account for half of all history professors.

The top schools generate far more professors than even just slightly less prestigious schools. For example, in history, the top 10 schools produce three times as many future professors as those ranked 11 through 20.

Word

Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.

What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture. . . As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions." In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. - Neil Postman comparing Brave New World and 1984