Penn State climate scientist Dr. Richard Alley hosts parts II and III of Earth: the Operator's Manual on PBS beginning at 7pm Sunday, April 22--Earth Day. Part I of this excellent series aired in April 2011. The series gives an overview of climate change, but primarily focuses on what we can do to help slow down climate change though smart energy choices. Dr. Alley, a registered Republican, geologist, and former oil company employee, is the Evan Pugh Professor of Geosciences at the Pennsylvania State University, and one of the most respected and widely published world experts on climate change. Dr. Alley has testified before Congress on climate change issues, served as lead author of "Chapter 4: Observations: Changes in Snow, Ice and Frozen Ground" for the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), and is author of more than 170 peer-reviewed scientific articles on Earth's climate. He is also the author of a book I highly recommend--The Two Mile Time Machine, a superb account of Earth's climate history as deduced from the 2-mile long Greenland ice cores. Dr. Alley is an excellent and engaging speaker, and I highly recommend listening to his 45-minute keynote speech, "The Biggest Control Knob: CO2 in Earth's Climate History" given at the 2010 American Geophysical Union meeting, via this very watchable recording showing his slides as he speaks in one corner of the video. If you want to understand why scientists are so certain of the link between CO2 and Earth's climate, this is a must-see lecture.
And Joel Selvin on Levon Helm:
No singing drummer was ever better.
In fact, Grenell’s homosexuality does not mean he’s pro-equality (self-loathing professional and personal behavior is sadly, part of GOP gay history as well). Mike Rogers, who did groundbreaking work exposing the double lives of politicos — gay hating homosexuals in positions of power who professionally worked to restrict or prevent expansion of LGBT rights — profiled Grenell on BlogActive (Rogers and his work were also the subject of the documentary Outrage). Mike bestowed one of his Roy Cohn Awards on Grenell for homophobic professional behavior while in the Bush admin back in 2006, asking readers to “Let him what you think of a gay man representing a homophobic administration. Let him know what you think of his defending the US vote with Iran and Sudan on gay rights”
This is blogACTIVE‘s first internationally connected Roy Cohn Award. blogACTIVE has learned that John Bolton’s spokesman at the United Nation’s, Richard Grenell, is gay.
The Senate refused to confirm the pugnacious Fox New contributor as U.N. envoy in 2006, forcing a recess appointment. Known for extremely hawkish positions and undiplomatic conduct, Bolton has maintained close ties to the Islamophobic right — but sometimes only when the money was good enough.
Cantor Suggests Anti-Semitism Is A Problem Within The House GOP Caucus
Is Nikki Haley’s book full of lies? Supposed Romney running mate front-runner under fire for memoir distortions
Supposed Romney running mate front-runner under fire for memoir distortions
The CSU system has already weathered a 33 percent cut in its overall state funding — $1 billion — over the last four years, and faces another $200 million cut if Gov. Jerry Brown fails to convince voters to pass a state initiative authorizing a tax hike this November. The UC system is in similar straits. Once upon a time, California gave every student who qualified for the UC system a completely free ride. Now the state pays only 11 percent of UC tuition costs. As a result, for in-state students, tuition has tripled over the last 20 years, to $13,200. But out-of-state students pay three times as much as that, a fact that has made them more and more attractive to admissions departments.
The UC system is in similar straits. Once upon a time, California gave every student who qualified for the UC system a completely free ride. Now the state pays only 11 percent of UC tuition costs. As a result, for in-state students, tuition has tripled over the last 20 years, to $13,200. But out-of-state students pay three times as much as that, a fact that has made them more and more attractive to admissions departments.
California’s troubles paying for higher education can be traced all the way back to the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, which made it extraordinarily difficult for the state to raise taxes. But California’s s woes are by no means unique. In 2011, state funding for higher education dropped by $6 billion, or 8 percent nationwide. And with the federal government caught in the same vice grip — an intransigent refusal to raise taxes for any purpose whatsoever — there’s little help that can be expected from Washington. In fact, the same graduate students who are getting their unpleasant mail from CSU this week are due for another unhappy surprise on July 1, when interest rates on their federal student loans bump up, a result of one of the cost-cutting deals that was part of the debt ceiling agreement one year ago. All these numbers add up to another simple, straightforward truth: Quality higher education is increasingly available only to those who can afford it.
All these numbers add up to another simple, straightforward truth: Quality higher education is increasingly available only to those who can afford it.
Summitt’s announcement on Wednesday that she was stepping aside, taking on the title of head coach emeritus while her longtime assistant Holly Warlick became head coach, was as soft a landing as she could muster, her former assistant Mickie DeMoss described it. Summitt found a way to do it with dignity and class, David Climer writes in The Tennessean, as she always has. John Adams writes in The Knoxville News-Sentinel that Summitt always made the right choices to stick by her program, so this made total sense. She will turn her star power now on the fight against Alzheimer’s, writes Dan Wetzel on Yahoo.com and if Summitt showed anything in her farewell season, it’s that she can teach people how to fight, Ann Killion writes on SI.com. </ The task quickly becomes how to quantify Summitt’s legend, which isn’t as easy as counting victories (1,098) or national championships (eight), writes Gene Wojciechowski on ESPN.com. She changed the sport so profoundly and became such an icon that reaction to her stepping down drew reactions from people ranging from Peyton Manning to LeBron James. She was as much a force of nature as anything, an example of all the right ways to handle success and failure and everything in between, writes Gary Parrish on CBSSports.com.
George Zornick carries a rebuttal from Eric Schneiderman’s team on yesterday’s damaging expose of the securitization fraud working group. Here’s what it has to say: There are 50 staffers “across the country” working on the RMBS working group (the official title). DoJ has asked for $55 million for additional staffing. The five co-chairs of the working group meet formally weekly, and talk daily. There are no headquarters for the working group, but that’s because it’s spread across the country. There is no executive director. Activists still think the staffing level is too low. If any of this looks familiar, it’s because it’s EXACTLY what Reuters and I reported a week ago. In other words, it was unnecessary. And it doesn’t contradict what the New York Daily News op-ed said yesterday, either. Like that op-ed, this confirms that there is no executive director and no headquarters for the working group, which sounds more like a central processing space for investigations that could have happened independently, at least at this point.
If any of this looks familiar, it’s because it’s EXACTLY what Reuters and I reported a week ago. In other words, it was unnecessary. And it doesn’t contradict what the New York Daily News op-ed said yesterday, either. Like that op-ed, this confirms that there is no executive director and no headquarters for the working group, which sounds more like a central processing space for investigations that could have happened independently, at least at this point.
On Spain, Lagarde says the Madrid authorities are taking the situation extremely seriously. She then argues that Europe's bailout fund should be allowed to bail out Spanish banks directly, rather than having to work through its sovereign government (a view not shared by some EU states, including Germany).
Unfortunately, the US Congress — caught up in partisan rancour, including debates about expanding offshore oil drilling — has failed to adopt legislation to address the lessons learned and the recommendations of the oil-spill commission and others. Such legislation should codify the executive reforms mentioned earlier into law, increase liability limits, and dedicate sustained funding for oil-spill research and environmental assessment and monitoring. Even in the current constrained fiscal circumstances, improved oversight and essential R&D could be supported by industry fees amounting to pennies per barrel, imperceptible within the daily fluctuations in price on the world market or at the pump. New laws were passed within a year of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. If important lessons are not to be lost as the events of 2010 fade from memory, there is a pressing need tochange the law to make such accidents less likely, and our response more effective.
Even in the current constrained fiscal circumstances, improved oversight and essential R&D could be supported by industry fees amounting to pennies per barrel, imperceptible within the daily fluctuations in price on the world market or at the pump.
New laws were passed within a year of the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. If important lessons are not to be lost as the events of 2010 fade from memory, there is a pressing need tochange the law to make such accidents less likely, and our response more effective.
Like snow sliding off a roof on a sunny day, the Greenland Ice Sheet may be sliding faster into the ocean due to massive releases of meltwater from surface lakes, according to a new study by the University of Colorado Boulder-based Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. Such lake drainages may affect sea-level rise, with implications for coastal communities, according to the researchers. "This is the first evidence that Greenland's 'supraglacial' lakes have responded to recent increases in surface meltwater production by draining more frequently, as opposed to growing in size," says CIRES research associate William Colgan, who co-led the new study with CU-Boulder computer science doctoral student Yu-Li Liang.
Such lake drainages may affect sea-level rise, with implications for coastal communities, according to the researchers. "This is the first evidence that Greenland's 'supraglacial' lakes have responded to recent increases in surface meltwater production by draining more frequently, as opposed to growing in size," says CIRES research associate William Colgan, who co-led the new study with CU-Boulder computer science doctoral student Yu-Li Liang.
Democracy for America and America's Voice Education Fund have teamed up to provide financial assistance to fifty outstanding bloggers and activists so they can attend this year's Netroots Nation conference.