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America's Fertilizer Keeps Blowing Up. It Doesn't Have To

Thu, 02 May 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Tim Murphy - May. 02 (Comment) - It didn't take long in the aftermath of April's explosion in West, Texas, for the problems with the fertilizer industry to come into focus. Inspections are virtually non-existent; regulatory agencies don't talk to each other; and there's no such thing as a buffer zone when it comes to constructing plants and storage facilities in populated areas. Lost in the fallout, though, is a damning fact: fertilizer doesn't have to be explosive. Pure ammonium nitrate like the kind that caused the West disaster is already banned in the United Kingdom, Germany, Colombia, the Philippines, and China, due to its explosive risk; Australia's largest fertilizer manufacturer discontinued the use of the compound after it was used in the 2002 Bali hotel bombing. And the Department of Defense has pressured fertilizer manufacturers overseas to neutralize their own products, warning that anything less constitutes a threat to American personnel. But in the United States, with the backing of the chemical industry, ...

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TIMELINE: Deinstitutionalization And Its Consequences

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Deanna Pan - Apr. 29 (Investigative Report) - 1773 The first patient is admitted to the Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds in Williamsburg, Virginia. The rebuilt Public Hospital for Persons of Insane and Disordered Minds in Williamsburg. Wikipedia 1841 Boston schoolteacher Dorothea Dix visits the East Cambridge Jail where she first sees the horrible living conditions of the mentally ill. Believing they could be cured, Dix lobbies lawmakers and courts for better treatment until her death in 1887. Her efforts lead to the establishment of 110 psychiatric hospitals by 1880. Dorothea Dix Wikipedia 1887 On assignment for New York World , Nellie Bly feigns lunacy in order to be admitted to the Women"s Lunatic Asylum on New York"s Blackwell"s Island. Her exposé, " Ten Days in a Mad-house ," detailing the appalling living conditions at the asylum, leads to a grand jury investigation and needed reforms at the institution. Wikipedia 1907 ...

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A red state/blue state chasm

Mon, 22 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Washington Post - By Fred Hiatt - Apr. 22 (Opinion) - In the week since modest gun control died in the Senate , those of us who don’t think guns make the country safer have been inclined to blame a few cowardly senators whose votes could have shifted the outcome. ...

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A GOP Bill To End the War on Pot

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - Apr. 20 (Opinion) - Like pothead soccer dads in the sitcom Weeds, however, some of the biggest backers of legalization are turning up where you'd least expect them. Take, for example, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, who last week introduced a bill designed to prevent the feds from a

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Why the 90 percent lost on gun background checks

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Christian Science Monitor - Apr. 18 - The Senate defeated background checks for gun sales, despite 90 percent of Americans favoring broader checks. The simplest explanation for this is Senate procedures, but NRA intensity counts for a lot. The way ahead for gun control groups is to match the NRA email for email. ...

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Jeremy Grantham on population growth, China and climate sceptics

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Leo Hickman - Apr. 15 (Opinion) - 'The world's most powerful environmentalist' on battling the 'misinformation machine' and why China is his 'secret weapon' My interview with Jeremy Grantham, the environmental philanthropist and legendary fund manager, was published in the Guardian on Saturday. As I have done for my interviews with the likes of Al Gore , Bill McKibben and James Lovelock (in 2010 and 2012 ), I have taken the time to transcribe the full interview so readers can see what Grantham said in the kind of detail that the print edition of the Guardian can't provide. The interview lasted three hours, so I have split the transcript in two. I will publish part two tomorrow, but here's part one... Jeremy Grantham on why he has stepped up his environmental activities: It's data driven. We [the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment ] were gracefully moving into the environment, save these animals and habitats, and all these good things, then the data on resources - starting about four years ago – ...

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Annette Funicello, Beloved Mouseketeer, Dies at 70

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By DOUGLAS MARTIN - Apr. 08 (Special Report) - Annette Funicello , who won America’s heart as a 12-year-old in Mickey Mouse ears, captivated adolescent baby boomers in slightly spicy beach movies and later championed people with multiple sclerosis, a disease from which she suffered, died on Monday in

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Wind-Power Subsidies? No Thanks.

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - By Patrick Jenevein - Apr. 02 (Opinion) - I'm in the green-energy business. If Washington sent a little less 'green' our way, it would be good for the industry.

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Lessons From a Comeback

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By By PAUL KRUGMAN - Apr. 01 (Opinion) - Surprise! California isn’t doomed just yet.

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California's Coming Green-Outs

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Wall Street Journal - Mar. 30 (Opinion) - The wind and solar mandate means future power shortages.

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MIA at the Supreme Court: DOMA Lawyer's Most Homophobic Arguments

Fri, 29 Mar 2013 00:00:00 -0700

Mother Jones - By Adam Serwer - Mar. 29 (Opinion) - Former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who was chosen by House Republicans to defend the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court, had previously argued that people can change their sexual orientation, that marriage is only for couples that can produce children, that gay and lesbian couples could be worse parents than heterosexuals, and that barring same-sex marriage "encourage[s] heterosexual relationships." But in a sign that the anti-same-sex marriage crowd may be losing faith in its own rhetoric, Clement didn't deploy any of those arguments at the Supreme Court on Wednesday . Instead, he stuck to trying to convince the justices that the Defense of Marriage Act didn't infringe on the states' power. Clement insisted that defining marriage as between one man and one woman was acceptable because the federal government needs to characterize marriage for its own purposes. Clement never bothered trying to prove that excluding same-sex couples from marriage is a ...

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Big Labor's Lock 'Em Up Mentality

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By James Ridgeway, Jean Casella - Feb. 22 (Special Report) - On January 4, the Tamms Correctional Center, a supermax prison in southern Illinois, officially closed its doors. Tamms, where some men had been kept in solitary confinement for more than a decade, was notorious for its brutal treatment of prisoners with mental illness—and for driving sane prisoners to madness and suicide.

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The Women's Movement's Next 50 Years

Fri, 22 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Ruth Rosen - Feb. 22 (Comment) - This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website. In 1968, the Phillip Morris Company launched a memorable campaign to sell Virginia Slims , a new brand of cigarettes targeting women, itself a new phenomenon. It had a brand-new slogan: "You've come a long way, baby."

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REOPENING PROBE:LAPD to Investigate What Led to Ex-Cop's Firing

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Associated Press - Feb. 10 (News Analysis) - BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. – The hunt for a former Los Angeles police officer suspected in three killings entered a fourth day in snow-covered mountains Sunday, a day after the LAPD chief ordered a review of the disciplinary case that led to the fugitive's di

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Dangerous Gun Myths

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Feb. 03 (Opinion) - The idea that weapons make women and homes safer is wrong. The opposite is true.

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Kids online: Social media sites can help develop identity, study says

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Christian Science Monitor - Jan. 31 (Special Report) - A new study that seeks to understand how new, kid-focused online venues effect adolescence says that social media forums can promote forms of social and identity development. Those skills, the study says, can help encourage civic involvement later in life.

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"A Killing Machine": Half of All Mass Shooters Used High-Capacity Magazines

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Mark Follman, Gavin Aronsen - Jan. 30 - As lawmakers across the country and in the nation's capital debate possible restrictions on high-capacity magazines, one question emerges: Are these ammunition feeding devices, which allow a shooter to fire many times without reloading, in fact commonly used by mass killers? We examined the data from Mother Jones ' continuing investigation into mass shootings and found that high-capacity magazines have been used in at least 31 of the 62 cases we analyzed. A half-dozen of these crimes occurred in the last two years alone. (With some of the cases we studied, it remains unclear whether high capacity magazines were used; for more details, jump to our data set below. ) Tragedy in Newtown See our full special report on gun laws and the rise of mass shootings in America. In the shooting that injured Rep. Gabby Giffords in Tucson, Jared Loughner emptied a 33-round magazine in 30 seconds, killing 6 and injuring 13. Inside a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, James Holmes used 40- and ...

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Editorial: Beyond Mr. Obama’s Inaugural Message on Gay Rights

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Jan. 28 (Editorial) - By including gay rights in the arc of the struggle for civil rights — the road “through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall” — President Obama linked his presidency to ending antigay discrimination and underscored the legal wrong of denying gay people t

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Green Blog: A Solar-Powered Shed for India's Perishable Food nce

Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By JOANNA M. FOSTER - Jan. 28 (Opinion) - While the unit is too costly for the vast majority of India's farmers, designers hope one day to make it available to the poorest of the poor.

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Green Blog: In India, Solar Ambitions Are Suddenly Outsize

Wed, 09 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - By By DAVID FERRIS - Jan. 09 (Opinion) - States propose to add solar installations at such a frenetic pace that doubts have arisen over the projects' viability.

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Inside the Radical Plan to Fight Foreclosures With Eminent Domain

Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By Josh Harkinson - Jan. 07 (Special Report) - On a drizzly November morning, Steven Gluckstern speeds through the half-empty subdivisions that spread out for miles as you head east from San Francisco into California's Central Valley. Taking the exit in downtown Merced, a small city that's hit hard times, he passes a grizzled panhandler holding a sign that says, "Will work to get out of Hell."

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Watchdogs to IRS: Reject Rove Group’s Tax Application

Sat, 05 Jan 2013 00:00:00 -0800

Mother Jones - By By Justin Elliot, ProPublica - Jan. 05 (Investigative Report) - This story first appeared on the ProPublica website . Two watchdog groups are calling on the IRS to reject Crossroads GPS' request to be recognized as a social welfare nonprofit. Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center, nonpartisan outfits that favor tighter campaign finance regulations, wrote a letter to the tax agency today citing ProPublica's recent reporting on Crossroads' 2010 IRS application . The application said that the group's activities seeking to influence elections would be "limited in amount, and will not constitute the organization's primary purpose." In today's letter, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center called those statements by Crossroads GPS "simply not credible, in light of the actual practices of the organization and the tens of millions of dollars Crossroads GPS spent on campaign ads since then." Conceived by Karl Rove, Crossroads GPS was one of the biggest outside spenders in the 2012 elections, reporting more than $70 million in expenditures to the ...

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Immigration and Policing

Wed, 26 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

New York Times - Dec. 26 (Opinion) - The Obama administration promises a stricter focus on deporting serious offenders.

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The Republican Tax Panic

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Wall Street Journal - Dec. 10 (Opinion) - The GOP should negotiate with Obama, not each other.

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'Quite literally, the opposition to gay marriage is dying'

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 00:00:00 -0800

ABC News - By George Stephanopoulos - Dec. 09 (Opinion) - While Supreme Court watchers ponder how justices will come down in the debate over gay marriage, ABC News’s George Will said Sunday on “This Week” it’s clear where public opinion is headed. “There is something like an emerging consensus,” Will said, noting voters in three...

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