Rick Santelli's Chicago Tea Party |
- Barack Obama pushes for $1bn green tax credits
- New York Declares War on Wine
- List of Words Dept. of Homeland Security Tracks on Facebook and Twitter
- Occupy Rolls Out Its Most Subversive Tech: A Mobile Arcade Game for the 99%
- More Than 15% Obese in Nearly All U.S. Metro Areas
- Ron Paul aides ponder ‘frustrating’ race
- Under tea party pressure, House GOP may renege on budget deal
| Barack Obama pushes for $1bn green tax credits Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:32 AM PST By: Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian Another week, another car talk. Barack Obama stopped by a North Carolina truck factory on Wednesday to announce $1bn in tax credits and grants for alternative-energy cars and trucks. It was Obama’s third speech on cars and fuel in an election battleground state in three weeks. The president has travelled from New Hampshire to Florida and now North Carolina to insulate himself from Republican attacks on rising gas prices and the on-again, off-again Keystone XL tar sand pipeline ahead of the general election. “We can’t just keep on relying on the old ways of doing business. We can’t just rely on fossil fuels from the last century. We’ve got to continually develop new sources of energy,” Obama said in his speech at the Daimler truck plant in Mount Holly North Carolina. The White House, briefing reporters on the plane and through a factsheet emailed out before the event, said Obama’s factory tour was intended to spur the development of a new generation of clean, fuel-neutral cars: electric, natural gas, and alternative fuels. The Daimler plant is working to produce 18-wheeler trucks that use only half as much gas as current models. Long-haul trucks make up just 4% of all vehicles on the roads, according to the White House, but suck up 20% of all transport fuel in the country. The factory also makes hydrogen-powered trucks. The tax credits – which must be voted on by Congress – would help up to 15 cities and towns to pay for charging stations for electric cars and biofuel pumps for alternative fuel vehicles to encourage people to switch to electric cars. “At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much natural gas, or flex-fuel or electric vehicles you have if there’s no place to charge them up or fill them up,” Obama said. To read more, visit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/mar/07/obama-southern-trucks-north-carolina |
| Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:30 AM PST By: Adam Morganstern, CNBC.com The most important wine region to New Yorkers isn’t Bordeaux, Tuscany or the Mosel. It’s New Jersey, where almost all the fine wine they drink is warehoused before being delivered to local stores and restaurants. An amendment before the New York Senate would end this practice, and require wines to be stored in-state for 48 hours. Small wholesalers are up in arms, claiming this is an attempt to drive them out of business by the state’s two biggest liquor distributors, Southern Wine & Spirits and Empire Merchants, who already have their storage facilities within state lines. “It’s two very large companies trying to monopolize the fine wine market by squeezing us out,” says Tina Fischer of Polaner Selections. “It’s bad for our retail and restaurant customers, and bad for consumers. Prices will go up, selections will go down. The only people this is good for are Southern and Empire.” David Bowler, of David Bolwer Wine, agrees and says Southern has been trying to get this legislation passed for years. “They just want to squash the competition, like any unfettered company with that kind of money. New York is the most unique wine market in the country, because we have smaller wholesalers who provide choices.” The majority of New York wholesalers store wine in New Jersey for economic reasons, space is cheaper, as well as practical; the warehouses receive imported wines directly from shipping piers and also provide quick deliveries into New York City. “There are no places in New York who do what they do,” says Bowler. Moving operations would force some companies to close. “I would be out of business, until another solution was found,” worried Fischer. Those that remained would have to raise prices and offer fewer choices, which would in turn affect customers at wine stores and restaurants. “Distributors have already decreased selections because of the economy,” says Scott Pactor of Appellation Wines, a retail store in Chelsea. “This law would be a significant change and there should be more time for all voices to be heard.” To read more, visit: http://www.cnbc.com/id/46665488 |
| List of Words Dept. of Homeland Security Tracks on Facebook and Twitter Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:15 AM PST From: AllGov.com If not getting enough attention in your life is a problem, there's one surefire way to get the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to notice you: Use any of its proscribed watch words on social media sites. According to a DHS document, the agency is maintaining a lengthy list of "Items of Interest"—in other words, words. The words are categorized by subject, such as those falling under "Domestic Security," "Southwest Border Violence," "Health Concern + H1N1," "Terrorism" and more. Besides the obvious ones like "Al Qaeda (all spellings)," "weapons cache," "meth lab" and "jihad," the words being monitored on Facebook and Twitter include: · airport To read more, visit: http://www.allgov.com/Unusual_News/ViewNews/List_of_Words_Dept_of_Homeland_Security_Tracks_on_Facebook_and_Twitter_120305 |
| Occupy Rolls Out Its Most Subversive Tech: A Mobile Arcade Game for the 99% Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:09 AM PST
It's not often that something new for cultural alarmists to fret over just rolls up, all flashing and beeping. But here it comes: the homebrew Occupy arcade game on wheels. If conservatives are worried about videogames encouraging violence, imagine how they'll react to an itinerant amusement designed to topple the 1%. The OAK-U-TRON 201X console and the videogame that lives therein, Keep Me Occupied, are the most recent inventions of a movement that has spawned human-microphone apps and its own brand of music. They made their inaugural voyage Jan. 28 as Occupy protesters marched in Oakland, dragging the awkward cabinet along with them like ants shuttling weighty foodstuff. Protesters teamed up for games while miraculously avoiding the tear gas and flashbang grenades that eventually made their way into the crowds that day. The OAK-U-TRON 201X (a nod to the Mega Man games that took place in the ambiguous year of 200X or 20XX) is the brainchild of game designers Alex Kerfoot, Anna Anthropy and Mars Jokela, a project designed both as entertainment and as a microcosm of the Occupy movement — collaborative, ambitious and optimistic. And it's set to officially debut before the gaming community at San Francisco's Game Developers Conference on Friday. The premise of Keep Me Occupied is a simple one, though its execution is unique (see video of gameplay below). It requires no more and no fewer than two players, who have 60 seconds to ascend a tower loaded with switches. In order to advance, one player must hold down a switch while the other passes through the opening gate. When time runs out, the players parachute down to the last switch each tripped, saving their progress, in a sense "occupying" that switch. Although the next players begin the next game back at the bottom of the tower, their final gates from previous games will already be open. Thus can the team progress higher and higher with each turn. ust don't dare claim to be "winning" at the game within earshot of the game's programmer, Anna Anthropy. And trying to play alone, with one hand on either set of controls, is downright sacrilege. "The game [marries] the idea of the social movement where everyone who's playing contributes to the overall success of everyone," says Anthropy. "Someone who's maybe not super good at videogames might only get to an early switch, but they'll still stay behind and hold that switch and help all future players to still be contributing something that's significant." To read more, visit: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/oakutron/ |
| More Than 15% Obese in Nearly All U.S. Metro Areas Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:06 AM PST By Dan Witters, Gallup.com WASHINGTON, D.C. — Adult obesity rates were higher than 15% in all but three of the 190 metropolitan areas that Gallup and Healthways surveyed in 2011. McAllen-Edinburg-Mission, Texas, residents were the most likely to be obese, at 38.8%, while people living in Boulder, Colo., were the least likely, at 12.1%. Nationwide, 26.1% of American adults were obese in 2011. The average obesity rate in the 10 metro areas with the highest obesity rates in 2011 was 34.8%, compared with 15.9% in the 10 metro areas where rates were lowest. Boulder, Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, Conn., and Fort Collins-Loveland, Colo., are the only three metro areas that achieved the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s nationwide goal of lowering obesity rates to 15%. The 2011 metro area findings are extracted from Gallup’s 2011 daily tracking data set of more than 350,000 U.S. adults, aged 18 and older, and living in ZIP codes that map to each respective metro area. Gallup categorizes U.S. metro areas according to the U.S. Office of Management and Budget’s definitions for Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs) and reports on all MSAs for which there are a minimum of 300 interviews available. Chronic Conditions More Prevalent in Most Obese Metro Areas Those living in the 10 areas with the highest levels of obesity are much more likely to report a diagnosis of chronic diseases, including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and depression at some point in their lives than those living in the 10 areas with the lowest obesity rates. For example, reports of diabetes diagnoses are 70% higher, on average, in the 10 metro areas where obesity rates are highest than in the 10 places where obesity levels are lowest. Residents living in the 10 cities where obesity rates are highest are also — over the course of their lifetimes — 58% more likely to report having had a heart attack, 34% more likely to report having high blood pressure, 30% more likely to be clinically diagnosed with depression, and 23% more likely to report having high cholesterol than are those living in the 10 cities where obesity rates are lowest. To read more, visit: http://www.gallup.com/poll/153143/Obese-Nearly-Metro-Areas.aspx |
| Ron Paul aides ponder ‘frustrating’ race Posted: 08 Mar 2012 10:04 AM PST By JAMES HOHMANN, Politico.com Ron Paul's top strategists are confused and frustrated that the wild enthusiasm they see at their campaign rallies and events is not translating into votes. Thousands turned out to see the Texas congressman at events in Alaska, Idaho and North Dakota in the days before Super Tuesday. Paul said publicly and believed privately that he could win all three states outright. When the votes were counted, though, he finished third in Alaska and Idaho and second in North Dakota. Paul may still emerge with a big chunk of delegates in the GOP nominating race, but the candidate's much-hyped focus on caucus states has yet to yield an outright victory in any state. This gap between dreams and reality came to a head during a Wednesday morning conference call for senior staff when the discussion turned to why the campaign keeps underperforming its own forecasts. "They count the numbers and then they count the votes," said Doug Wead, a Paul senior adviser who was on the call. "Did they get overconfident? … We're digesting that." Despite his lack of success, Paul is unlikely to get out of the race anytime soon. He often says he is leading a "movement" and his campaign is concentrated on amassing delegates rather than winning the nomination, though the two are not mutually exclusive. Paul admits his "chances are slim" to win the GOP nod (that's how he put it on CBS last Sunday), but the lawmaker and his team feel zero pressure to exit the race. A slowdown in fundraising would force them to scale back their ambitions, but that wouldn't stop their campaign. To read more, visit: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73746.html |
| Under tea party pressure, House GOP may renege on budget deal Posted: 08 Mar 2012 09:59 AM PST
Less than a year after reaching a budget agreement with President Barack Obama, House GOP leaders now seem likely to walk away from it under pressure from tea party-backed conservatives eager to show they are serious about shrinking government. Democrats and the White House are crying foul, and many GOP veterans warn it will produce gridlock later, when the House turns to spending bills setting agency budgets for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. GOP leaders including House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio were top architects of last summer’s budget pact. It traded a $2-trillion-plus increase in the government’s borrowing cap for a decade’s worth of cuts to agency operating budgets passed annually by Congress and the promise of more cuts by a bipartisan deficit supercommittee. But the supercommittee deadlocked, adding to the frustration among many Republicans that they haven’t done enough to cut spending or curb deficits that still exceed $1 trillion a year. Many Republicans are intent on using an upcoming budget debate to demonstrate their bona fides to voters — especially core conservative supporters they’re counting on to turn out in large numbers to maintain the GOP’s majority in the House. “We can’t continue to have budget deficits of over a trillion dollars a year,” Boehner said Tuesday. “This is not sustainable. So our members want to show the American people a way forward, and they will.” In the eyes of Democrats, the White House and many Republicans, a deal’s a deal — the $1.047-trillion agency spending cap for fiscal 2013 should govern the upcoming round of spending bills. To read more, visit: http://www.freep.com/article/20120308/NEWS07/203080567/Under-tea-party-pressure-House-GOP-may-renege-on-budget-deal |
| You are subscribed to email updates from RE Tea Party To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment