Thursday, April 21, 2011

Inhofe Claims Fracking Has ‘Never’ Contaminated Water Supply One Day After Spill Contaminates Stream

The defenders of hydrofracking in the natural gas industry are engaged in full-blown deception on a national level. This is a new and largely unregulated process that has already been shown to be dangerous to groundwater in the documentary Gasland as well as in repeated investigative reports by the NYT and ProPublica, and such threats to drinking water need to be addressed by our public servants.
http://thinkprogress.org/2011/04/21/jim-inhofe-fracking-never-contaminate/

Apple's secret location tracker: An "ominous development"

There is a hidden file on the iPhone G4 and the iPad 3G that tracks locations by GPS and stores them on the devices. This, of course, has enormous implications for privacy and constitutes an invasion that has great potential for abuse.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/04/21/apple_tracking_implications/index.html

Wisconsin Democrats to challenge Republican recall petitions

In the wake of Democrats filing recall petitions for five GOP Senators in Wisconsin, the Republicans have now gotten into the act with three petitions of their own to recall Democratic lawmakers there. However, there appears to have been widespread misconduct in how the signatures were collected and Democrats will challenge their validity.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/04/21/969040/-Wisconsin-Democrats-to-challenge-Republican-recall-petitions?utm

Nevada Sen. John Ensign announces resignation

The Democrats will have a shot of picking up a seat in the Senate in the special election to replace the scandal-plagued Ensign in Nevada.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gf4D8icp1fn1j7SZJUcA1pCPgmLw?docId=5179b28af5f744938209b25653c70b3c

What Industry Doesn’t Want You To Know About Animal Factories

Recent legislation to make it illegal to take photos of CAFO operations is just the tip of the iceberg of efforts to keep animal factory farms from public view.
http://civileats.com/2011/04/21/what-industry-doesnt-want-you-to-know-about-animal-factories/

A Year After Gulf Tragedy, Offshore Oil Companies Still Shielded by Liability Limits

ProPublica reports on the $75 million liability cap in the oil industry, fostered by the Oil Pollution Act, that does not provide enough of a deterrent for reckless cost-saving practices that put workers and the environment at risk.
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/a-year-after-gulf-tragedy-offshore-oil-companies-still-shielded-by-liabilit

Dem Rep To Introduce Bill Aimed At Squelching Tea Party License Plates

Here's to Gary Ackerman (D-NY) for introducing the "License Plate Political Slush Fund Prevention Act" in response to legislation in AZ that would generate income for the Tea Party through license plate sales. He also points out that the state could forfeit 15% of highway funds if they violate the principle that government should not support political organizations.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/04/ackerman_to_introduce_bill_aimed_to_squelch_tea_pa.php?utm

Budget Deals Deep Cuts to Obama Administration’s Transparency Sites

Transparency laws in government, like climate change, environmental regulation and financial reforms, are the enemy of corporate interests fueling the American political landscape. Read the ProPublica report on how the budget compromise would undercut the transparency movement promoted by President Obama.
http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/budget-deals-deep-cuts-to-obama-administrations-transparency-sites

What’s Worse Than an Oil Spill?

Ocean acidification, as a result of CO2 in the atmosphere that is absorbed by ocean, threatens coral reef formations, oysters and other mollusks at the bottom of the food chain, while systemic overfishing by factory fishing fleets threatens to wipe out one of our greatest renewable resources, fish. 
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/19/whats-worse-than-an-oil-spill/?ref=opinion

Wind turbine suffers catastrophic failure; no one is irradiated

Human error is inevitable in any system but can only have catastrophe consequences in particularly risky operations, such as, deep water drilling and nuclear power plants. Both of these activities are so risky that government liability caps (former) or 100% government financing (latter) are required before the private sector will touch them. Why should we, through the actions of our government representatives, assume these massive environmental and financial risks?
http://www.grist.org/list/2011-04-14-wind-turbine-suffers-catastrophic-failure-no-one-is-irradiated

Capitalism's Crisis Within, and How Larry Summers Still Doesn't Get It

Proponents of the disastrous financial deregulation of the financial markets, such as Alan Greenspan, JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon and former Clinton Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers, are back on the scene fighting against implementation of Dodd-Frank reforms.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janine-r-wedel/capitalisms-crisis-within_b_851876.html

Greenspan's Back to Lead the Charge Against responsible Regulation.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ted-kaufman/greenspans-back-to-lead-t_b_851909.html

Bill McKibben’s must-watch speech to climate activists at Power Shift 2011

It's truly amazing that the US Chamber of Commerce and the GOP can be so aggressive in promoting climate denial in their push to profit from fossil fuel extraction and consumption in this country. They have managed to dissemble the critical argument that we face a massive global crisis resulting from an over-heated planet burning too much greenhouse-gas fuel. The topic was hot a few years ago in the US and now it's decidedly on the sideline of national priorities. We are victims not only of our collectively short attention spans but of a political establishment that does not have the will and courage to change course for the sake of humanity and the future. Bill McKibben, the founder of 350.org, wrote the first book on climate change 22 years ago and has dedicated his life to fighting with other climate activists to save the planet. You may be tired of hearing about climate change but the problem is not going away. We all need to take a stake in this battle for a sensible and responsible policy to preserve the earth as we know it, or resign ourselves to a future marked by ever-increasing droughts, floods and human devastation. Watch the video and get onboard. Talk it up everyday. Pass your energy to others. Fight the good fight and hope we can get the numbers to realize substantive change in time to make a difference.
http://www.grist.org/climate-change/2011-04-18-bill-mckibbens-must-watch-speech-at-power-shift

Thousands March for Clean Energy in DC
http://www.350.org/en/about/blogs/breaking-thousands-march-clean-energy-dc

Obama to Thousands of Young Climate Activists: Push Me
http://www.thenation.com/article/160001/obama-thousands-young-climate-activists-push-me