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Article Tags: Jeffrey Bossert Clark

When did America risk coming to be ruled by foreign scientists and apparatchiks at the United Nations? The answer, it would seem, is ever since Lisa Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under President Obama, chose to issue a rule determining that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger the public health and welfare.

Administrator Jackson acted to make her so-called “endangerment finding” on December 7, 2009, and befitting the historically tone-deaf selection of Pearl Harbor day for her announcement, the precipitous action embodied in the endangerment rule will also unleash immense negative consequences for the American economy entirely unexpected by most of the citizenry.

What would come as an even greater surprise to the public is that the endangerment rule is inextricably rooted in science performed by UN-designated scientists and reports written by UN bureaucrats. “I cannot think of any instance where the EPA depended so heavily on non-EPA synthesis reports to justify proposed regulatory action in [its] almost 39 years of existence,” noted Dr. Alan Carlin alarmingly.

Economist Dr. Carlin has been an employee of the EPA for 38 of those 39 years, performing complex risk assessments for EPA regulations. So his qualifications to look back with a keen eye across EPA’s history are tough to match. And yes, this would be the same Dr. Carlin that the EPA attempted to muzzle last spring and summer for arguing, within the halls of the agency, that the endangerment rule was unsupported. In an administration that congratulates itself for being the most transparent in history, Dr. Carlin was directly told to stop his work on the endangerment rule.

Source: pajamasmedia.com

Read in full with comments »   

The iPad 3G is the iPad I’ve been waiting for. It’s got two things the regular iPad doesn’t: 3G internet from AT&T and assisted GPS. The results we got from testing might surprise you, I think. More »

Well, hello! We knew it was coming, but it looks like an official Twitter app is now available in the Android Marketplace. It’s free and looks fantastic: More »

Eliminating low-traffic services a blow we can take

Editor, The Times:

Rather than threatening the usual deep cuts to police, courts and public health [“County sales tax could go up,” page one, April 29, 2010], I have a novel approach to King County’s budget woes.

The proposed increase in the sales tax would generate $47 million to the county and $32 million to the cities for a total of $79 million. Sound Transit and Metro Transit already receive 1.8 percent of the sales tax, which should equate to $711 million in subsidies.

I don’t know about you, but I value the police, courts and public health considerably more than subsidizing a transit system I don’t use. I suggest our fearless leaders get real and increase the fares on the various bus routes to cover the shortage, or get real innovative and thin the ranks of the county work force and maybe even reduce their lavish benefit program.

— Robert Fluke, Woodinville

Tough cuts part of Constantine’s career

This is King County Executive Dow Constantine’s version of water torture — dribble, dribble, dribble until you are choked broke.

He offers false choices: We pay more or he lays off law-enforcement personnel. A made-to-order guilt option. It is blatant political manipulation to always use fire, police and rescue services as the budget victim.

Let’s take a hard look at other cost-cutting choices, such as delaying a renovation or replacement project, eliminating the nice-to-have West Seattle passenger ferry or rescinding a part of the pay increases for county employees.

How about living within your current budget, just like the rest of us have to do?

— Tom Ruszala, Seattle

What happened to Constantine’s no-tax promise?

Although he pledged not to raise taxes in a recession during his campaign, here we have it. Dow Constantine wants to raise the sales tax five months after his election.

When I buy something for $1, I am going to be taxed 9.7 percent. Where do I get the .7 cents? That is impossible, so I am actually going to pay 10 cents.

Sure, it makes a difference if I am buying something for $30,000 —it is going to cost me an extra $90 in taxes. But would I care if I could afford to spend $30,000? Constantine displays a graph showing the “projected” gap between county expenses and revenue for the next 20 years. How ridiculous is that? Need I remind him it was just a few short years ago the state of Washington enjoyed a surplus? What happened to it?

Those in the political fish bowl say increase taxes. That is all they know because they cannot think outside the fish bowl, as long as it does not affect their benefits.

I hate to say it, but, when the elections in November comes, I am voting straight Republican —something I have never done. That is my way of protesting the passage of more taxes on the people in the state of Washington, passed simply by Democrats in a time when millions of working-class folks need anything but that.

It is time for politicians to stick by their agenda and pledge to the voting public and stop taking the easy way out.

— Richard Lambert, Auburn

Posted by Hal Dardick at 4:15 p.m.



New Chicago city employees should retire later with lower pension plan benefits, even after contributions to those plans are increased, according to a report released today by a committee Mayor Richard Daley appointed more than two years ago.



The changes are needed because there is only $10.9 billion in the city’s four pension funds — a shortfall of nearly $14.6 billion, states the report by the Commission to Strengthen Chicago’s Pension Funds.

Without changes, closing all but 10 percent of the gap would require that the city pay $710 million more a year into the funds starting in 2012. The city’s current budget is $6.1 billion, and in recent years Daley has tapped reserves to balance it. You can read the report by clicking here:
Download Pensionreport



Boosting city contributions could require both employees to pay more and significant tax hikes, though Daley ruled out tax hikes last week when talking about the issue.



Absent pension reforms, the firefighter’s pension fund could go broke in just 10 years, followed by the fund for police officers about 12 years later.



Daley’s administration released the report late Friday afternoon, an approach City Hall sometimes employs to ensure scant media coverage, particularly of a complex issue.



The mayor has had the report since March 31, according to a dissent report issued by the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, which was part of the commission. The Civic Federation budget watchdog group also disagreed with the commission’s recommendations.



Those groups concluded that pension payments should be reduced going forward for existing employees, as well as new employees, while contributions from employees and the city are boosted.



“Our concern is that the recommendations did not go far enough to restore the funds’ financial health,” said Laurence Msall, president of The Civic Federation, who said the city also needs to cut hundreds of millions of dollars in services, starting next year, even with increased contributions to the plans.

“We believe that this is a very, very serious issue,” Msall said. “It impacts the city’s financial health, and it impacts how the credit agencies evaluate the final health of the city.”

R. Eden Martin, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago, said the city’s recommendations would only halt the growth in the pension shortfall, rather than reduce it.

"The state’s the one that created the problem, not the city,” he added. “The city is the one that’s stuck with the problem.”

Old Glory — thirteen stripes representing the original colonies. On the field of blue — 50 stars representing the 50 states. But could that flag one day soon have 51 stars?

I’m not talking about statehood for the District of Columbia. Most residents of D.C. desperately want to be an independent state, but recent moves to make that happen imploded in Congress before even coming to a vote. No – I’m talking about Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory that belongs to, but is not a part of, the United States.

Right now, Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens, though most don’t pay income taxes. They do not vote in presidential elections and the resident commissioner who represents them in congress cannot vote. Residents of the island nation have long been split on the issue of statehood.

So, it was surprising this week when Congress debated and passed a measure that would allow Puerto Ricans to vote on whether they want to change their relationship with the U.S. If they vote yes — there would be a second vote to decide if they want to:

A.) Become a state.

B.) Become an independent nation.  

C.) Seek some other type of political association between sovereign nations.

One of the people pushing this move is the current Republican governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuno.

“I’m convinced that the framers of the Constitution, the founding fathers, never intended for this relationship to last 112 years,” Fortuno told Fox News during the congressional debate.

One member who voted against the measure thinks Congress is going about this all wrong. Washington State Republican. Rep. Doc Hastings, believes the House is “blessing a process by which we are asking them if they want to become a state.” Hastings continued, “to me that’s backwards.”

The weird thing about the House vote is that members were not whipped along party lines. Some democrats voted for it … others against. House Minority Leader John Boehner,R-Ohio, voted against it, but two members of the Republican leadership — Eric Cantor or Virginia and Mike Pence of Ohio — voted for it.

Nothing about this seems imminent or likely. The bill probably won’t even clear the Senate. Even if it did … and even if Puerto Ricans decided that they wanted full-state status, there would be many in Congress who would oppose statehood.

And there is this — if Puerto Rico were to become a state, how could we as Americans ever deal with the jealous outrage certain to erupt in the Northern Mariana Islands?

Soon after Tesla Model S’s launching in 2012, Tesla’s model lineup will expand quickly, according to Tesla chairman Elon Musk. The Model S will be priced at about $57,000, less than half the cost of the Roadster.

Tesla claims that the Model S has a 300-mile range and its battery could be switched in just one minute. Its features include an advanced 17-inch touch screen in the interior and an enviable amount of storage space. In an interview with US magazine Autoweek, Musk shared about the company’s plans to expand “at a rapid pace.” When the Model S starts selling, the Roadster will be discontinued. However, new products, such as the crossover, will be launched in 2013 and 2014. So far, about 1,200 Roadsters have been sold throughout 25 countries. Later on, a second generation mode that’s less expensive will be produced. Musk also disclosed that much of Tesla’s growth is expected to come from partnership deals. Daimler, which has an 8% share holding in Tesla, will provide batteries and chargers for the electric Smart car and electric technology for the Mercedes A-class.

[via autoweek]

Source: Car news, Car reviews, Spy shots

Fundamentally useful inventions could have prevented accident

“Oil-platform explosion illustrated risks of Gulf of Mexico drilling” [News, April 28] describes a “nightmare scenario” and questions whether a “level of perfection” could be achieved for such deep-water drilling.

Instead, our firm has proposed and patented, the Subterranean Electric Drilling Machine™ that is designed to drill laterally 20 miles. Much longer distances could be achieved so, such oil reservoirs in the Gulf of Mexico could be reached from shore or from shallow rigs. That would prevent such deep-water disasters.

Machines could also drill underground from outside the boundaries of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil reservoirs. But this machine is not being developed primarily because of the opportunity costs associated with firms such as Goldman Sachs spending excessive time and energy on “synthetic collateral debt obligations” and similar nonsense.

Other local firms such as Intellectual Ventures of Bellevue also seek to pioneer inventions that are fundamentally useful. It would be interesting to determine if they have been similarly adversely affected by the ongoing nonsense on Wall Street.

Using funds for real investment purposes would again unleash the inventive genius of this nation that will produce many unforeseen benefits.

— W. Banning Vail, president of Smart Drilling and Completion Inc., Bothell

Acura has announced a recall that will affect 167,000 TSX models built between 2004 and 2008. The problem is found on models equipped with the 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine – which was the only available engine in the U.S.

Honda has announced that is luxury division, Acura, will be recalling 167,000 TSX models that have the 2.4-liter four-cylinder engine, over a power steering hose that has potential to prematurely deteriorate.

Acura says that the hose can fail due to its prolonged exposure to high under-hood temperatures, which can in turn cause the hose to develop a crack. Acura says that if the hose cracks it could cause the power steering fluid to spray into the engine bay, and potentially onto the hot exhaust system – which could create smoke or a fire.

Acura says it has only confirmed one fire as a result of the failure.

The automaker will begin mailing recall notices at the end of May, 2010.

   

Source: Leftlane

Read more…

Second update: A spokesperson from the Coast Guard explained that a barge overturned while transporting a defunct rig to a scrap heap.

The only oil at risk is the fuel contained in the barge — less than 200 gallons.

Here’s what you need to know about the real disaster >

Update: Here’s the Coast Guard’s announcement:

MORGAN CITY, La. — The Coast Guard is responding Friday to an overturned mobile inland drilling unit (MIDU) in the Charenton navigational canal south of Highway 90.

The MIDU has a 20,000-gallon diesel fuel capacity, and while there is no current estimate on how much fuel was on board at the time of the incident, on-scene Coast Guard pollution investigators have determined that the rig is not leaking fuel at this time.  As a precaution, 500 feet of containment boom has been deployed around the rig, with an additional 500 feet arriving to provide a secondary string within the canal.

The Coast Guard has established a safety zone 1,000 yards on either side of the incident, prohibiting vessel traffic from entering the area without permission from the Captain of the Port.  A salvage plan is currently being developed for Coast Guard approval. 

There are no reported injuries and the Coast Guard is investigating the cause of the incident. 

Original post: Hopefully this turns out to be a big nothing… But Reuters is reporting that the Coast Guard says it’s responding to a second Louisiana overturned rig in the Charenton Navigational Channel.

Will update as warranted/learn more.

Join the conversation about this story »

We’re all fish in the sea, so don’t let anyone off the hook

I am distressed “Support signature privacy” [Opinion, April 18]. The issues are not as clear-cut as they were made.

Is intimidation always a bad thing, such as when some rabid hatemonger encourages the death of the president of the United States? Who gets the right to make the dividing line between protecting privacy and revealing bigotry? Who believes the votes of our members of Congress should be kept secret?

Is it fair to hide behind a mask of anonymity when a life of another and/or a principle of fairness is at stake?

I hold privacy in great respect on a personal level. Your religion and mine are no one else’s business; nor is my sex life or how I run my life when I am not invading the rights of others.

I mind my own business. Is the running of our country’s laws and regulations not my business?

In this case, legitimate rights, according to our Constitution, are being denied to some of our citizens by those who wish to remain secretive, who are not courageous enough to hold a personal belief of which they are convinced of its rightness for all our citizens. Obviously, Referendum 71 has not settled the issue for many who wish to challenge the rightness of a hateful vendetta, which is being and has been fought out internationally for many years.

Should sponsors be the only ones not protected by privacy? Why let them off the hook?

— William Houston, Port Townsend

Same hits, different day

Reading “Graffiti Vandals Cost Public Millions” left me thinking: Here is the manifestation of the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over while expecting a different result. Why would any taxpayer want his or her money spent on such a “program”?

It has been proved time and again that a reactive stance does not begin to approach solving the problem. A proactive program has been proved over time to be the most cost-effective, long-term solution that would reduce graffiti and improve the quality of life for our citizens.

I am a taxpayer, property owner raising a family in Seattle. I hate seeing waste and mismanagement. I know the intention is there, but the delivery is misguided.

— Laurie Rasmussen, Goodbye Graffiti, Seattle

Michigan Auto Accident Lawyers Urge Drivers to Join “No Phone Zone Day”

On Tuesday, I announced the welcome news that Michigan has finally banned texting while driving. Today, Governor Granholm will sign the texting-while-driving ban on ‘Oprah.’ Like our auto accident attorneys, Oprah has been very vocal about the dangers of texting while driving. Recently, she had her fans take a pledge to stop texting while behind the wheel.

I’d like to share the following article that appeared in the Detroit News, as it highlights the importance of this new law and urges Michigan residents to put their phones down while driving – starting today.

Gov. Jennifer Granholm plans to sign the state’s texting while driving ban legislation in Detroit on Friday during a broadcast of the “Oprah Winfrey Show.”

Liz Boyd, a spokeswoman for the governor, confirmed the details of Granholm’s signing plans.

The House passed the third and final bill in a texting ban package by a 82-22 vote. The Senate has passed the bill so it now goes to Granholm for her signature.

“Texting while driving is a dangerous habit that too many drivers take part in,” bill sponsor Rep. Lee Gonzales, D-Flint, said in a statement. “Michigan now joins the ranks of nearly two dozen other states that are taking action to save lives and make our roads safer.”

Winfrey will dedicate Friday’s program to distracted driving and will feature an appearance by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.

It’s part of an effort to declare April 30 the first national “No Phone Zone Day.”

Distracted driving kills nearly 6,000 Americans a year, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

“A call or text isn’t worth taking a life,” Winfrey said. “We must not allow more mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers to die before we take action against distracted driving.”
The show will broadcast rallies in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles and Washington.
Michigan’s ban will start July 1. A first offense would cost $100 and repeat offenses would cost $200.
No points would be added to a driver’s record.

Texting would be a primary offense, meaning police could pull over motorists for texting alone.
Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia already ban text messaging for all drivers, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

Steven M. Gursten is recognized as one of the nation’s top experts in serious car and truck accident injury cases and automobile insurance no-fault litigation. Michigan Auto Law has received the largest reported jury verdict for an automobile accident case in Michigan in seven of the past 10 years, including 2009, according to published year-end verdicts and settlements reports.

Related information:

Avoiding Car Accidents in Michigan

17 Mistakes that Can Kill Your Auto Accident Case

Your No-Fault Insurance Rights

Michigan Auto Law is the largest law firm exclusively handling car accident, truck accident, motorcycle accident and bus cases throughout the state. Call (800) 777-0028 if you’ve been injured in an auto accident, and would like to speak to a lawyer.

The fish and shrimp might escape the oil, but what will happen to the oysters? Marketplace talks to Sal Sunseri, the owner of P&J Oysters in New Orleans, a company that’s been around since 1876 and is the number one oyster supplier to New Orleans restaurants. The question: What’s going to happen to the oysters if the spill gets worse?

Vigeland: Can you talk us through, geographically, where are the oyster beds in relation to where this oil slick is headed?

Sunseri: Approximately 50 miles away. So we still prayfully have a lot of work to be done by the oil companies. Hopefully they’ll take our offers because shrimpers, oyster farmers and other boats are offering their services to help with the spill, help skim, whatever it takes to not allow this to enter our estuaries.

Vigeland: What happens to you if it does?

Sunseri: We’ll be devastated. No telling how long it would take for this type of spill to be cleansed again.

Oh noooooo! Mr. Suseri concluded the interview by asking the listeners to pray for the oyster farmers and shrimpers of the gulf coast. God save the delicious oysters!

We wish we had a boat and could help. Hang in there, oyster farmers.

The oil spill’s impact on oyster industry [Marketplace]

‘Might is right’ not the way

This is a response to “Veil ban overreaches [Opinion, April 16].

If the French government bans the burqa, it will impinge on the freedom of a group of women to practice their religion as they feel fit.

Each person’s interpretation of religion is different. The understanding of that diversity of thought and conscience established inalienable rights in modern civilization. One of those rights is the right to practice your faith as you feel fit, not as someone else in authority feels fit.

We cannot in this day and age and in a liberal, secular country such as France afford to have “might is right” as the underlying law of the land. The banning of the burqa is taking political might and hedging it against a basic human right.

If the French wish to integrate the burqa-clad women into their society, then alienating them by depriving them of public services will hardly achieve the desired results. You cannot take away peoples basic human rights and expect that they will embrace you after that. You are dealing with women, not robots.

— Manahil Shahnawaz, Pakistan

Want more on the LG Ally for Verizon? We’ve got it. It’s in a commercial for "Iron Man 2," and it’s clearly running Android. That keyboard looks pretty darn usable, but the D-pad could be interesting. We’ve confirmed that in fact it’s Android 2.1 with a 1GHz Snapdragon processor and 5MP camera, with all the usual bells and whistles. We’ve heard a mid-May launch window, but that’s still up in the air.

The commercial points us to LG.com/ally, which in turn points to lgim2.com, which says more is coming today. But that’s it so far. Check out the commercial after the break.  Thanks, J Blair!

read more

School lunch reform step in the right direction

Experts accurately assert that childhood obesity puts millions of American kids on a path toward disease and premature death. The latest alarm comes from military leaders who maintain that many young Americans are too obese to serve in the armed forces [“Are schools a national security threat?,” News, April 20].

While more-nutritious school lunches are a step in the right direction, Congress also should regulate the retail industry, which promotes unhealthy eating habits by retail redlining African American and Hispanic neighborhoods. National supermarket chains often avoid locating large stores in black communities, thereby reducing food options and penalizing people for their pigment.

In addition, Congress should address slotting fees that encourage convenience stores to stock shelves with the worst possible foods, such as candy and chips, in return for higher profits for their parent companies.

Like drug dealers, convenience stores push poison into the mouths of too many American kids. Congress must act now.

— Gary L. Flowers, executive director and CEO of Black Leadership Forum Inc., Washington D.C.

It was a bill so uncontroversial that it sailed through both the House and Senate without a single objection before George W. Bush made it law with the stroke of his pen. But this year, a central provision of the 2003 Prison Rape Elimination Act — the establishment of national standards designed to prevent prison rapes — is being threatened by the very folks the bill is largely designed to rein in: prison officials themselves.

Although a set of proposed standards was issued last June — and though the Justice Department opened a two-month public comment period on those guidelines in March — U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told House lawmakers last month that he won’t be meeting the legal deadline for finalizing the rules.

Why? Well, it’s largely because the law stipulates that the new standards can’t “impose substantial additional costs” on the prisons, which the prison lobby claims would be the case with the current proposal. As a result, the Justice Department has commissioned a cost analysis, which relies largely on estimates crunched by the prisons themselves. The cost study will delay the process indefinitely.

“We want to make sure that we get this right,” Holder said in March, “and also follow the dictates of the statute, which says change this situation, make sure that you eliminate — to the extent that you can — sexual predator and predator activity in prisons, but not increase the amount of money that any local jurisdiction has to spend in order to do that. … When I speak to wardens, when I speak to people who run local jails, when I speak to people who run state facilities, they look at me and they say, ‘Eric, how are we supposed to do this? If we are going to segregate people, build new facilities, do training, how are we supposed to do this?’”

Lovisa Stannow, executive director of Justice Detention International, a human rights group that supports quick adoption of the standards, has argued that cost considerations shouldn’t outweigh efforts to protect prisoners from sexual predation.

“Prison officials claim that it will be too expensive to implement [the standards] — too expensive to prevent staff from raping detainees,” Stannow wrote in the Huffington Post recently.

Furthermore, Stannow argues, the cost analyses being considered ignore the cost benefits that would result if the number of prison rapes were reduced. Medical costs could be cut, she argues, as well as the legal expenses resulting from prisoner lawsuits.

“These factors are not included in the Department of Justice cost study,” Stannow wrote in a separate piece last month, “but Attorney General Holder must take them into account.”

Justice Detention International is circulating a petition designed to nudge Holder to codify the national standards as quickly as possible.

“The standards under review have the potential to become the most important tool so far in the effort to end this terrible abuse,” the petition reads. “But every day that we don’t have these measures in place, hundreds of men, women, and children will be raped behind bars — even though we know how to keep them safe.”

A DOJ spokesperson said Friday that there’s no timeline set for finalizing the guidelines.

Meanwhile, Holder insists that the DOJ is committed to the reforms. “The fact that we will not make that deadline,” he said in March, “is not in anyway an indication this is not a problem that we take seriously.”