Archive | June, 2011

Hiring in U.S. Slowed in May With 54,000 Jobs Added – NYTimes.com

3 Jun

But things are fine for the rich Wall Streeter’s who keep bleeding the rest of us.

The Labor Department reported on Friday that the United States added 54,000 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, following an increase of 232,000 jobs in April. May’s job gain was about a third of what economists had been forecasting.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent from 9.0 percent in April.

“The economy clearly just hit a brick wall,” said Paul Ashworth, chief United States economist at Capital Economics. “It’s almost as if it came to a complete standstill.”

via Hiring in U.S. Slowed in May With 54,000 Jobs Added – NYTimes.com.

California’s Disappearing State Parks – NYTimes.com

3 Jun

Along with 69 other sites, Jack London State Historic Park will be shuttered, gates locked, and left to meth labs, garbage outlaws and assorted feral predators. Nearly 50 percent of all of California’s historic parks are on the closure list. This is not a scare tactic from the state. Parks go dark starting in September.

via California’s Disappearing State Parks – NYTimes.com.

Medicare for All! | The Nation

3 Jun

Instead of just hoping that Republicans continue to play to their Tea Party base and implode in a general election, Democrats should be taking this moment to lead and to educate, not just on the practical virtues of Medicare for all but on the principle of social solidarity behind it.

via Medicare for All! | The Nation.

The Good Banker – NYTimes.com

2 Jun

Wilmers, it turns out, is that rarest of birds: a banker willing to tell harsh truths about banking. That, for instance, much of the money the big banks earn comes from trading profits “rather than the prudent extension of credit that furthers commerce.” That derivatives had helped bring about the crisis and needed to be regulated. That bank executives were wildly overpaid. That the biggest banks — the Too Big to Fail Banks — were operating, as he put it, an “unsafe business model.”

via The Good Banker – NYTimes.com.

 

 

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A Bad Day That Never Changes | Common Dreams

2 Jun

Yet just as we participate in the creation of climate change, or “global weirding,” with our voracious consumption of coal, oil and natural gas, we also participate in the creation of our own insecurity by spawning, bomb after bomb, endless reasons for people to hate us. Terrorists wind up being no more than people with grievances — very often, legitimate ones.

We are not pursuing peace. We are not pursuing security. We’re just producing dead insurgents, combined with collateral damage. And we can’t stop.

via A Bad Day That Never Changes | Common Dreams.

Why We’re Building a Civic Commons — And How You Can Be Part of It | Civic Commons

2 Jun

Hmmmm. . . .

In sum, Civic Commons is built around two central convictions: first, that wave after wave of innovation is delivering amazing new capabilities to the people and organizations that can take advantage of them, and second, that, with a little help, governments can absolutely understand and seize the opportunities created by the rapid evolution of information technology.

via Why We’re Building a Civic Commons — And How You Can Be Part of It | Civic Commons.

Some fear U.S. nuclear agency is playing ‘regulatory roulette’ – CNN.com

2 Jun

Does “NRC” really stand for “Nuclear Radiation Commission”?

Monitoring wells in New Jersey’s Cohansey aquifer last year detected tritium levels of 4 million picocuries per liter, 200 times what the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.

Such radioactive spills are a problem nationwide. More than half of the country’s 65 nuclear power plant sites have suffered significant tritium leaks or spills, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The worst was at the Braidwood plant, 60 miles southwest of Chicago, also owned by Exelon, which leaked more than 6 million gallons of contaminated water, causing some tritium to enter a drinking water well. …

“The NRC’s almost acting like they’re waiting till somebody dies till they enforce the regulation. Tombstone regulation — that’s too high a price to pay by Americans,” said David Lochbaum, director of the Nuclear Safety Project of the Union of Concerned Scientists.

via Some fear U.S. nuclear agency is playing ‘regulatory roulette’ – CNN.com.

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Rose

1 Jun

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The Truth About the American Economy | Truthout

1 Jun

The top mar­gin­al in­come tax rate dur­ing World War II was over 68 per­cent. In the 1950s, under Dwight Eisen­how­er, whom few would call a rad­ical, it rose to 91 per­cent. In the 1960s and 1970s the hig­hest mar­gin­al rate was around 70 per­cent. Even after ex­ploit­ing all pos­sible de­duc­tions and credits, the typ­ical high-income tax­pay­er paid a mar­gin­al feder­al tax of over 50 per­cent. But contra­ry to what con­ser­vative com­men­tators had pre­dic­ted, the high tax rates did not re­duce economic growth. To the contra­ry, they en­ab­led the na­tion to ex­pand middle-class pro­sper­ity and fuel growth.

via The Truth About the American Economy | Truthout.

Scents and sensibility | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

1 Jun

We are a visual species. Bright, colourful blooms attract gardeners the way aromatic hydrocarbons attract bees. Over the last few generations flower breeders have selected plants for their visual characteristics – colour, size, contrast – at the expense of scent.

via Scents and sensibility | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk.

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