SkeptiCats

Nuclear Power Is Expensive and Bad for the Environment … It’s...

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 13:33:47 -0700

Nuclear Power Is Expensive and Bad for the Environment … It’s Being Pushed Because It Is Good For Making Bombs

Virtually all of the nuclear reactors in the U.S. are of the same archaic design as those at Fukushima. This design was not chosen for safety reasons. Rather, it was chosen because it worked in Navy submarines, and produces plutonium for use in nuclear weapons.

Indeed, safer designs – such as thorium reactors – were left on the shelf because they don’t produce weapons-grade plutonium.

U.S.’s shameful Bahrain policy The defiance Alkhawaja continues...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 16:31:06 -0700

U.S.’s shameful Bahrain policy

The defiance Alkhawaja continues to show through his actions has justifiably made him a hero to many of those in the region struggling under the weight of oppressive regimes. He has suffered through unconscionable torture at the hands of Bahraini security forces and yet has remained steadfast in his commitment to peacefully fighting for his rights and the rights of all Bahraini citizens. Standing silent as he dies would be an act of moral cowardice on the part of the United States and a betrayal of its promise to support those who stand against tyranny.

America’s pill-popping capital What is happening in Appalachia,...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 15:04:02 -0700

America’s pill-popping capital

What is happening in Appalachia, about 10 years into an explosion of prescription drug abuse, is so pervasive a problem that law enforcement officials say they cannot solve it alone.

The West Virginia newspapers offer daily examples of what the Mingo County sheriff, Lonnie Hannah, calls the “spinoffs of drug abuse”: Murders, assaults, robberies, burglaries, domestic violence, child abuse, child neglect, elder abuse, DUIs, overdose deaths. West Virginia, the ninth smallest state, has the highest rate of prescription drug overdose deaths in the nation.

Hannah estimates that two-thirds of the crimes and incidents his department handles are related to pill abuse. Chasing down pill dealing is more than enough work by itself.

Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America The...

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 13:32:49 -0700

Uncompromising Photos Expose Juvenile Detention in America

The stories he heard covered a range of issues, including children running drugs, parental abuse, homelessness, suicide attempts, addiction and illiteracy. But as difficult as the juveniles’ lives are, Ross is astonished by America’s widespread reliance on incarceration in its attempts to intervene.

“Many of these children should be out in the community getting better services and treatment where they stand a chance of rehabilitating and being corrected. From lock down facilities we’re not going to see a change in behavior. Maybe society needs this to gain retribution against kids that they think have gone wild? But for the most part, these are vulnerable kids who come from dysfunctional families. And, for the most part, the crime is a crime of lack of expectation, a crime of a lack of opportunity,” says Ross.

Japan is Poisoning Other Countries By Burning Highly-Radioactive...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 15:03:12 -0700

Japan is Poisoning Other Countries By Burning Highly-Radioactive Debris

Burning radioactive debris does not destroy the radioactivity. It merely spreads it. Gundersen says that radioactivity from the burnt debris will end up not only in neighboring prefectures, but in Hawaii, British Columbia, Oregon, Washington and California. Gundersen said that burning radioactive debris is basically re-creating the Fukushima disaster all over again, as it is releasing a huge amount of radioactivity which had settled on the ground back into the air.

THE BRUTAL LIFE OF ONE L. GOH & THE MAKING OF A “GOING...

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 13:29:57 -0700

THE BRUTAL LIFE OF ONE L. GOH & THE MAKING OF A “GOING POSTAL” RAMPAGE MURDERER

The depressingly familiar dead-end life that One L. Goh found himself in — surrounded by petty scams as revealed in the ex-staffer’s lawsuit and the bleak performance of the school’s graduates, combined with the back-to-back deaths of two family members — could make a lot of sane people desperate and enraged and suicidal. Not to mention the larger context of an inequality-ravaged America where opportunity and dignity are scarcer and scarcer.

On top of all this, as he complained often, students at the nursing program wouldn’t talk to him. That could be traumatizing even under better circumstances, but under his conditions, being mocked and ignored by fellow fundamentalist Christians for being an aging loser, would be devastating.

Ryan In Two Numbers So the budget is a fraud. No, it’s not...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 15:11:52 -0700

Ryan In Two Numbers

So the budget is a fraud. No, it’s not “imperfect”, it’s not a bit shaky on the numbers; it’s completely based on almost $5 trillion dollars of alleged revenue that are pure fabrication.

On the other side, 14 million is the minimum number of people who would lose health insurance due to Medicaid cuts […]

RECOVERED ECONOMIC HISTORY: “EVERYONE BUT AN IDIOT KNOWS THAT...

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 13:32:43 -0700

RECOVERED ECONOMIC HISTORY: “EVERYONE BUT AN IDIOT KNOWS THAT THE LOWER CLASSES MUST BE KEPT POOR, OR THEY WILL NEVER BE INDUSTRIOUS”

“Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society…It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth.”

Get a Grip: NRA Fearmongers Are Whipping Up a Nasty Case of...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 16:30:21 -0700

Get a Grip: NRA Fearmongers Are Whipping Up a Nasty Case of Extremism After the Election

[…] telling people that Obama is going to take away all of their freedoms if he wins re-election will leave a lot of people who actually believe this crap angry and frustrated beyond belief. And if they happen to have an unstable and violent disposition to boot, then they are going to cause problems.

This is just classic Bad Speech: profoundly irresponsible, cancerous and toxic, inevitably tragic.

State-dominated media and Iran The article is basically written...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 15:03:09 -0700

State-dominated media and Iran

The article is basically written by “American officials,” all of whom are granted anonymity with no real justification, given that they’re all reciting the official government line about Iran in unison. The first three paragraphs of the story consist of literally nothing other than the unchallenged pronouncements of these officials.

The War Against Youth The situation is obviously unsustainable:...

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 13:26:10 -0700

The War Against Youth

The situation is obviously unsustainable: At the exact moment when the United States and all other Western countries are trying to deal with aging populations, they are failing to capture the energy and potential of the people who will have to work to support those aging populations. We have arrived at a moment, just before the 2012 election, in which the hedges, the corner-cuts, the isolated decisions about young people from a host of institutions have accrued to the point of a continuous catastrophe. The question rises from the wreckage: How long can you eat the young?

Mike Bloomberg’s New York: Cops in Your Hallways If even...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 16:30:59 -0700

Mike Bloomberg’s New York: Cops in Your Hallways

If even one law enforcement official had been able to take just one stroll through, say, the credit card collections office of a Chase or a Bank of America at any time in the last decade, he would have seen rows of cubicles full of entry-level employees whose entire job was to sit around all day long, right out in the open, forging court documents. Whole departments attended to this job for years and years and somehow nobody with a badge ever got a whiff of it.

But in New York, we have cops cruising through private buildings, checking bags full of ketchup 200,000 times a year. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

Screw Your Analysis to the Sticky Point What the paper shows is...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 15:03:59 -0700

Screw Your Analysis to the Sticky Point

What the paper shows is that many, many workers are getting precisely zero wage growth in dollar terms.

[…]

The prevalence of zero-change wages constitutes overwhelming evidence that we’re suffering from lack of demand, not lack of supply. It also undercuts one of the favorite arguments of those claiming that we really do have a supply-side problem, the persistence of (low) inflation and positive wage growth despite the low level of employment. The reason we have positive wage growth is that workers with a good bargaining position are still managing to eke out increases, while those without aren’t facing wage cuts.

New Study: U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on...

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:30:52 -0700

New Study: U.S. Ranks Last Among High-Income Nations on Preventable Deaths, Lagging Behind as Others Improve More Rapidly

“This study points to substantial opportunity to prevent premature death in the United States. We spend far more than any of the comparison countries—up to twice as much—yet are improving less rapidly,” said Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen. “The good news is we know lower death rates are achievable if we enhance access and ensure high-quality care regardless of where you live. Looking forward, reforms under the Affordable Care Act have the potential to reduce the number of preventable deaths in the U.S. We have the potential to join the leaders among high-income countries.”

Exactly Why This Time IS Different And the Fed Will Be Powerless...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 16:30:49 -0700

Exactly Why This Time IS Different And the Fed Will Be Powerless to Stop What’s Coming

In simple terms, this time around, when Europe goes down (and it will) it’s going to be bigger than anything we’ve seen in our lifetimes. And this time around, the world Central Banks are already leveraged to the hilt having spent virtually all of their dry powder propping up the markets for the last four years.

Again, this time it is different. I realize most people believe the Fed can just hit “print” and solve everything, but they’re wrong. The last time the Fed hit “print” food prices hit records and revolutions began spreading in emerging markets. If the Fed does it again, especially in a more aggressive manner as it would have to, we would indeed enter a dark period in the world and the capital markets.

Take Over Artists The building owned by the Catholic Church...

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 15:03:33 -0700

Take Over Artists

The building owned by the Catholic Church that has been an eyesore in the neighborhood for years was appropriately Occupied on Sunday by the SF Commune with the idea of creating a community center and also a place that shelters the homeless (ironic that the archdiocese has ignored the homeless people camped on the sidewalk next to this building for years). By Monday afternoon the police with the request of the Church cleared everyone out and I read arrested 75 people.

[…]

I am not sure what it will take to get our neighbors who own that property to get real and see the crisis we are in, to hear the message the artists are putting out their. In the meantime, any constructive program we can undertake these days to make the better world we want is going in the right direction.

Tunisia constitution ‘will not be based on Islamic...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 16:27:40 -0700

Tunisia constitution ‘will not be based on Islamic law’

Ennahda, which emerged as the biggest party in Tunisia’s first democratic elections last year, said Monday it would keep the first article of the 1956 constitution in the new basic law now being drafted.

The article enshrines the separation of religion and state, stating that: “Tunisia is a free, independent and sovereign state, its religion is Islam, its language is Arabic and it is a republic.”

[…]

A Muslim majority of more than 90 percent has lived peacefully for years with religious minorities in Tunisia, including Jews.

Tibetan immolations, largely unnoticed, among history’s biggest...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 14:59:31 -0700

Tibetan immolations, largely unnoticed, among history’s biggest waves of suicide-by-fire

Dozens of Tibetans have set themselves on fire over the past year to protest Chinese rule, sometimes drinking kerosene to make the flames explode from within, in one of the biggest waves of political self-immolations in recent history.

But the stunning protests are going largely unnoticed in the wider world — due in part to a smothering Chinese security crackdown in the region that prevents journalists from covering them.

[…]

Each immolation has prompted authorities to heighten the security that has smothered the area since an uprising against Chinese rule in 2008. The security cordon has kept journalists out. Searches of Tibetans and Internet and mobile phone service suspensions keep the message from spreading.

Without the graphic images of a person ablaze, the immolations have yet to produce an iconic symbol the world can latch onto.

Burma rejoices on a long-delayed day for democracy The daughter...

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 13:27:12 -0700

Burma rejoices on a long-delayed day for democracy

The daughter of independence fighter Aung San, the Lady – as she is called here – is herself in many ways considered a demigod after spending the greater part of 22 years under house arrest. Since her release in November 2010, Suu Kyi has been able to take on the role that many Burmese thought she may never have a chance to perform: that of a pro-democracy campaigner-turned-political leader who may finally make the changes for which she has so long called.

[…]

“I’m poor, and I want Daw Suu to give me a job,” said betel-nut farmer Sae Sein Myint, 47, from her dusty roadside village of a handful of bamboo huts and a group of pigs snoozing under trees.

“I earn 1,000 kyat a day, and that keeps going down because of fluctuating prices. I’m struggling. I want my kids to be able to work in a factory, not struggle like me.”

Recall elections ordered for Walker, Kleefisch, 4 GOP...

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:41:18 -0700

Recall elections ordered for Walker, Kleefisch, 4 GOP senators

“Now it is time for voters to examine the choice they will be faced with in June,” Matthews said.

Walker will be only the third governor in U.S. history to face a recall, joining California Gov. Gray Davis, who was recalled in 2003, and North Dakota Gov. Lynn Frazier, recalled in 1921.

The roots of the Walker recall began shortly after he took office in Jan. 2011, when about one month after taking office he unveiled a measure to all but end collective bargaining rights for most public workers in Wisconsin. It also amounted to a cut in pay.

Walker’s move made national news, and sparked massive demonstrations that drew tens of thousands of protesters to the state Capitol for days on end and led to an occupation of the building. Wisconsin’s 14 Democratic senators left the state for Illinois to delay a vote on the measure, but it was pushed through anyway.

Walker argued the changes were needed to help balance the budgets of state and local governments. But Democrats and labor advocates said the true aim was to weaken unions and gain a political advantage, as unions tend to back Democrats over Republicans.

Wisconsin has historical significance to the labor movement as the first state to enact a comprehensive collective bargaining law and the birthplace of the national union representing non-federal public workers.

Mike Tate, chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, called Friday “a very serious day,” and said the decision to recall Walker was not made lightly.