Category: Journal ISSN 1078-1935

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SchwartzReport: Trying to Kill Solar….

Commerce, Corruption
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

The transition out of carbon energy is beginning to bite, and the Kochs' and their allies in carbon energy are squeezing the political whores they bought in the state legislatures and agencies to protect their interests. It's all getting very late Roman empire. Wisconsin, a state already deeply troubled is the point of their spear at the moment. The ques! tion is will the people of Wisconsin roll over like possums, or stand up for their interests? Frankly, I think it is a toss-up.

We’re Watching You, Wisconsin Public Service Commission
JOSH VOORHEES, Senior Writer – Slate

EXTRACTS

What is not in dispute is that the utilities believe their business model hinges on undercutting the rooftop solar industry before it matures. A 2013 report by the Edison Electric Institute, a leading utility group, made it clear that forcing consumers who sell their surplus back to the grid to pay more for the privilege was a ‘near-term, must-consider action.” The group’s big worry is that as more and more solar power–producing homes pay less and less each month, the cost for traditional consumers will go up, making a jump to solar that much more appealing. If utilities wait until that starts happening, the Edison report warned, ‘it may be too late to repair the utility business model.”

. . . . . . .

And so the industry isn’t waiting. In the 20 months since that report was published, utilities have taken aim at rooftop solar (and to a lesser extent, small-scale wind projects) in at least 12 states, lobbying regulatory commissions and statehouses to rewrite rules to de-incentivize customers from buying or leasing rooftop solar panels. While each proposal is different, most share the common goal of forcing people who install solar panels on their rooftops to pay for both the electricity they buy from the grid and for a portion of the electricity they sell back to it.

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Robert Young Pelton: Foreign Policy Gets It Wrong on Afghanistan — PBI: Funded Disinformation?

Corruption, IO Deeds of War, Media
Robert Young Pelton
Robert Young Pelton

There is a need to establish a truthful narrative, background and facts. Below is antithetical to all that.

Fraud and Folly in Afghanistan

The  runoff round of the Afghan presidential election on June 14 was massively rigged, and the ensuing election audit was “unsatisfactory,” a result of Afghan government-orchestrated fraud on a scale exceeding two million fake votes, completely subverting the will of the Afghan people. That is the watered-down conclusion of the press release of the European Union's yet-to-be-released report detailing its thorough and non-partisan investigation of the entire Afghan election. The report was completed last week, according to sources in Kabul who have seen it, but political pressure has so far resulted in heavy redaction and kept it from public release.

The key point is this: Ashraf Ghani did not win the election. The U.S. Center for Naval Analysis (CNA) concluded in July that it was mathematically impossible for Ghani to win, given Afghan demographics and the initial 46 percent to 32 percent first-round vote spread, according to sources familiar with the analysis. According to sources who reviewed the private report, the top experts in statistical analysis in the United States used every known computer model of election balloting and concluded that a Ghani victory was scientifically impossible. In simple terms, there is no mathematical doubt that Abdullah Abdullah won.

Continue reading “Robert Young Pelton: Foreign Policy Gets It Wrong on Afghanistan — PBI: Funded Disinformation?”

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Stephen E. Arnold: Federal Agencies Suffering Constant Connectivity Losses — “Dark Fiber”?

Corruption, Government, Idiocy, Ineptitude, IO Impotency
Stephen E. Arnold
Stephen E. Arnold

Federal Agencies Perpetually Battle Connectivity Loss

This may be stating the obvious, but ComputerWorld declares that “IT Outages Are an Ongoing Problem for the U.S. Government.” The article cites a recent report sponsored by Symantec and performed by MeriTalk, which runs a network for government IT workers. Though the issues that originally plagued HealthCare.gov were their own spectacular kettle of fish, our federal government’s other computer networks are no paragons of efficiency. Writer Patrick Thibodeau tells us:

“Specifically, the survey found that 70% of federal agencies have experienced downtime of 30 minutes of more in a recent one-month period. Of that number, 42% of the outages were blamed on network or server problems and 29% on Internet connectivity loss….

Continue reading “Stephen E. Arnold: Federal Agencies Suffering Constant Connectivity Losses — “Dark Fiber”?”

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SchwartzReport: References to Civil Disobedience Being Censored Out of US History Classes

04 Education, Academia, Commerce, Corruption, Government, Idiocy
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

This is the latest on the Willful Ignorance Trend. American schools are under attack from the Theocratic Right, who literally want to rewrite history, and get it taught the way they want. This is some very good news about that trend. Real pushback. But how many schools do you think will do this? Still it's my favorite story of the week.

Colorado Students Walk Out to Protest Conservative ‘Censorship’ of AP History
DAVID FERGUSON – The Raw Story

In Tuesday, hundreds of high school students in Jefferson County, Colorado walked out of classes this week to protest conservative censorship of the national Advanced Placement U.S. history class curriculum.

According to the Denver Post, students and teachers are protesting the removal of all mentions of civil disobedience from texts and classroom materials intended for the teaching of AP U.S. history.

. . . . . . . .

Tensions have run high in Jefferson County schools since three conservative candidates were elected to the school board. These new board members have suggested an extensive rewrite of the way history is taught to the area’s students to a model they believe is more patriotic.

The right-leaning board-members said they believe history teachers should teach nationalism, respect for authority and reverence for free markets. They should avoid teaching any historical events or acts that promote ‘civil disorder, social strife or disregard of the law.”

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Mongoose: How NGO’s Have Been Neutered

Civil Society, Corruption, Ineptitude, Non-Governmental
Mongoose
Mongoose

The NGO-ization of Resistance

Arundhati Roy

Transcend.org, 22 September 2014

A hazard facing mass movements is the NGO-ization of resistance. It will be easy to twist what I’m about to say into an indictment of all NGOs. That would be a falsehood. In the murky waters of fake NGOs set up or to siphon off grant money or as tax dodges (in states like Bihar, they are given as dowry), of course, there are NGOs doing valuable work. But it’s important to consider the NGO phenomenon in a broader political context.

In India, for instance, the funded NGO boom began in the late 1980s and 1990s. It coincided with the opening of India’s markets to neoliberalism. At the time, the Indian state, in keeping with the requirements of structural adjustment, was withdrawing funding from rural development, agriculture, energy, transport and public health. As the state abdicated its traditional role, NGOs moved in to work in these very areas. The difference, of course, is that the funds available to them are a minuscule fraction of the actual cut in public spending.

Most large-funded NGOs are financed and patronized by aid and development agencies, which are, in turn, funded by Western governments, the World Bank, the UN and some multinational corporations. Though they may not be the very same agencies, they are certainly part of the same loose, political formation that oversees the neoliberal project and demands the slash in government spending in the first place.

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SchwartzReport: No one Cares About Climate Change

01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence
Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan A. Schwartz

Did you notice as well? The paucity of coverage about the climate change rallies on the major cable and broadcast channels. Occasional mentions, but nothing sustained. You could see it on the Weather Channel, but not MSNBC. I have been really struck by this. As well as the lack of discussion about what has happened. Here is one of the best accounts of the experience I have seen.

Re: No one Cares About Climate Change
JOHN D. SUTTER – CNN

NEW YORK — You could be forgiven for thinking no one cares — or even should care, right now — about climate change.

For starters, there's all that other terrifying stuff competing for attention: President Barack Obama's war with ISIS; the Ebola outbreak, which recently put Sierra Leone on national lockdown; Ukraine; Scotland; wife-beating athletes. That scary guy in Pennsylvania.

The world seems like a pretty big mess right now.

The climate? Not top of the agenda.

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