Yearly Archives: 2013

NYC Comptroller: Legalize and Tax Marijuana

"New York City Comptroller John Liu Wednesday released a report calling for the legalization, regulation, and taxation of marijuana. Doing so would reduce the harms generated by marijuana prohibition and generate more than $400 million a year in taxes to pay for higher education, Liu said. Liu estimated the size of the city's marijuana market at $1.65 billion a year and proposed using tax revenues from the legalized trade to cut tuition at the City University of New York (CUNY) by up to 50%. 'In this way, we'll invest in young people's futures, instead of ruining them,' he said." Continue reading →

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White House: Obama has no plans to reschedule marijuana

"'The administration’s position on this has been clear and consistent for some time now that while the prosecution of drug traffickers remains an important priority, the president and the administration believe that targeting individual marijuana users, especially those with serious illnesses and their caregivers, is not the best allocation for federal law enforcement resources,' Earnest replied. At the press briefing, Earnest also indicated that the Obama administration has no intention of making it easier to research the medical benefits of marijuana." Continue reading →

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The RNC Antidote to CNN’s Hillary Love-fest donation documentary, Part 4

Finally, part 4 - Part IV: Will the Hillary Films Include the Pardon and Clemency Scandals? To think, they haven’t even gotten to her Senate record, the “Snipergate” fiasco, or Benghazzi, at least not in depth. No doubt there’ll be another Obama on the 2016 ticket, too. Scared yet? h/t RedState

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A Solar System Is Installed in the US Every 4 Minutes

"If market growth continues at its current pace, the American solar industry could be installing a system every minute and twenty seconds by 2016. That's a dramatic difference from 2006, when installers were only putting up one system every 80 minutes. Solar is on an extraordinarily fast growth trajectory. Two-thirds of all distributed solar in the U.S. has been installed over the last 2 1/2 years. And by 2016, cumulative installations of distributed PV will double. That means the U.S. will hit 1 million cumulative residential solar installations by then -- making the market in 2016 ten times larger than it was in 2010." Continue reading →

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60 Minutes: Crude Solution

"When petroleum giant BP spilled millions of litres of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico three years ago, it was the worst ever offshore oil disaster. To try and break up that massive slick, vast quantities of chemical dispersant was sprayed on the spill. It seemed to work: the oil disappeared. But people started getting sick and then people started dying. Now, this environmental disaster has become a health catastrophe. The dispersant, when mixed with the oil, increases in toxicity by 52 times. This sickly, invisible toxin, still lurks in the water and absorbs straight into peoples' skin. They're still approved for use and our authorities are clueless as to how deadly they are." Continue reading →

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West Coast of North America to Be Hit Hard by Fukushima Radiation

"While many people assume that the ocean will dilute the Fukushima radiation, a previously-secret 1955 U.S. government report concluded that the ocean may not adequately dilute radiation from nuclear accidents, and there could be 'pockets' and 'streams' of highly-concentrated radiation. A team of top Chinese scientists has just published a study showing that Fukushima nuclear pollution is becoming more concentrated as it approaches the West Coast of the United States, that the plume crosses the ocean in a nearly straight line toward North America, and that it appears to stay together with little dispersion." Continue reading →

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The Gulf is Still Struggling, But BP’s Done Paying

"Three and a half years after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig dumped 205 million gallons of crude oil into the ocean, leaving 11 workers dead and damaging hundreds of miles of shoreline, the Gulf Coast is still recovering. The company has spent or earmarked $42.4 billion so far for cleanup, compensation payments and environmental fines. Its profits have suffered, and it has sold $38 billion in assets to help cover the cost. BP filed suit last week against the U.S. government for a ban on awarding the company federal contracts. BP already has $1.34 billion in contracts in place to supply fuel to the government, including the military." Continue reading →

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Report Finds “Probably Carcinogenic” Chemicals in All Municipal Water Samples Tested

"Chlorine and other water treatment chemicals, in addition to being somewhat toxic in and of themselves, react with ordinary organic particles in the water ( manure from livestock, dead animals, fallen leaves, etc.) to create hundreds of extremely toxic byproducts, which aren’t monitored or regulated at all. These toxic byproducts have been labeled 'disinfection byproducts,' or 'DBPs,' and there are 600 we know about and probably hundreds more that we don’t. Shockingly, raising concerns about the quality of your local drinking water without verifiable evidence of your claims may now be considered 'an act of terrorism.'" Continue reading →

Continue ReadingReport Finds “Probably Carcinogenic” Chemicals in All Municipal Water Samples Tested

New turbine to capture energy from both wind and waves slated for testing

"A Japanese company is set to test a new power generation system which -- for the first time -- should harness the energy of both the sea and the wind to feed the demand for electricity on land. That's the dream of chief visionary Takuju Nakamura, anyway. At the Tokyo headquarters of his company, Modec, Nakamura explained that the new turbine design should generate about twice as much power as a traditional wind turbine of the same diameter. Nakamura explained that 80 to 90 percent of the power generated would come from the large wind-catching turbine floating over the sea, with another underwater turbine expected to produce the rest." Continue reading →

Continue ReadingNew turbine to capture energy from both wind and waves slated for testing

The Single Best Investment Opportunity Today

"At least 71 new nuclear plants are under construction somewhere in the world today, and another 484 are in some stage of planning. That exceeds the number of nuclear facilities under construction or consideration before Fukushima ever happened. It is an unparalleled level of nuclear-plant construction. The existing 437 nuclear reactors that exist consume on an annual basis about 175 million pounds of uranium. Yet, the world’s existing uranium mines only produce about 145 million pounds a year. The world has papered over that 30-million-pound gap with a U.S./Russia agreement to turn weapons-grade uranium into industrial uranium." Continue reading →

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