Futuristic water-recycling shower cuts bills by over $1,000

By Stefanie Blendis and Monique Rivalland, for CNN

November 11, 2013 -- Updated 1951 GMT (0351 HKT)

(CNN) -- In space, astronauts go for years without a fresh supply of water. Floating in a capsule in outer space they wash and drink from the same continuously recycled source. So why, asked Swedish industrial designer Mehrdad Mahdjoubi, do we not do the same on Earth?

This was the concept behind the OrbSys Shower -- a high-tech purification system that recycles water while you wash. In the eyes of Mahdjoubi, we should start doing it now, before it becomes a necessity.

Counting the Dollars the Rich Want Uncounted 

Sam Pizzigati

Americans are gaining, ever so slowly, a more accurate picture of just how wide the gap has stretched between the nation’s most fabulously privileged and everyone else.

How unequal have workplaces in the United States become? Our best answer happens to come from an unlikely source: the Social Security Administration.

Social Security statisticians each year tally up how much compensation gets reported on W-2s, those forms that employers have to file for all their employees, from clerks to chief executives. Social Security reports these numbers out, by income level, once a year — and in the process paints an incredibly detailed pay portrait of the contemporary American workplace.

Veterans Day, 95 Years On

The Enduring Folly of the Battle of the Somme
By Adam Hochschild
Illustrations by Joe Sacco

In a country that uses every possible occasion to celebrate its “warriors,” many have forgotten that today’s holiday originally marked a peace agreement. Veterans Day in the United States originally was called Armistice Day and commemorated the ceasefire which, at 11 a.m. on November 11, 1918, ended the First World War.

Up to that point, it had been the most destructive war in history, with a total civilian and military death toll of roughly 20 million. Millions more had been wounded, many of them missing arms, legs, eyes, genitals; and because of an Allied naval blockade of the Central Powers, millions more were near starvation: the average German civilian lost 20% of his or her body weight during the war.

Lara Logan's Bogus "Correction"

Josh Marshall – November 10, 2013, 10:11 PM EST

I just watched the 60 Minutes "correction"/apology tonight and thought was pretty amazing for its brevity, lack of substance and general obfuscation. If you didn't watch 60 Minutes tonight, it won't take long. It only lasted 90s or so. And you can see it here.

In a narrow sense, Lara Logan did say she was "sorry." But the entire 90 seconds was aimed at obfuscating what happened.

Logan said 60 Minutes had found out Thursday that they had been "misled and it was a mistake to include him in our report."

Include him in their report? He was the report.

How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses

By Joshua Davis, 10.15.13, 6:30 AM

José Urbina López Primary School sits next to a dump just across the US border in Mexico. The school serves residents of Matamoros, a dusty, sunbaked city of 489,000 that is a flash point in the war on drugs. There are regular shoot-outs, and it’s not uncommon for locals to find bodies scattered in the street in the morning. To get to the school, students walk along a white dirt road that parallels a fetid canal. On a recent morning there was a 1940s-era tractor, a decaying boat in a ditch, and a herd of goats nibbling gray strands of grass. A cinder-block barrier separates the school from a wasteland—the far end of which is a mound of trash that grew so big, it was finally closed down. On most days, a rotten smell drifts through the cement-walled classrooms. Some people here call the school un lugar de castigo—“a place of punishment.”

For 12-year-old Paloma Noyola Bueno, it was a bright spot. More than 25 years ago, her family moved to the border from central Mexico in search of a better life. Instead, they got stuck living beside the dump. Her father spent all day scavenging for scrap, digging for pieces of aluminum, glass, and plastic in the muck. Recently, he had developed nosebleeds, but he didn’t want Paloma to worry. She was his little angel—the youngest of eight children.

Changes to fisheries legislation have removed habitat protection for most fish species in Canada

University of Calgary and Dalhousie University fisheries biologists say federal Fisheries Act revisions were unscientific

Federal government changes to Canada's fisheries legislation "have eviscerated" the ability to protect habitat for most of the country's fish species, scientists at the University of Calgary and Dalhousie University say in a new study.

The changes were "politically motivated," unsupported by scientific advice – contrary to government policy – and are inconsistent with ecosystem-based management, fisheries biologists John Post and Jeffrey Hutchings say.

Their comprehensive assessment, in a peer-reviewed paper titled "Gutting Canada's Fisheries Act: No Fishery, No Fish Habitat Protection," is published in the November edition of Fisheries, a journal of the 10,000-member American Fisheries Society.

Hartz IV reform did not reduce unemployment in Germany

Impact of the Hartz IV reform on curbing unemployment in Germany proved to be exceptionally low 

07.11.2013

The Hartz IV reform of the German labor market has been one of the most controversial reforms in the history of the reunited Federal Republic of Germany. It has been widely seen as the end of the welfare state leading into poverty. At the same time, Germany has been able to reduce its unemployment rate over the last years more than almost any other European or OECD member country. What role did the Hartz reforms, and the Hartz IV reform in particular, play in this success story? A recent publication by Junior Professor Andrey Launov and Professor Klaus Wälde of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) shows that the Hartz IV laws had indeed no noteworthy impact on the decrease of unemployment in Germany. Just in contrast to that, the Hartz I to Hartz III reforms appear to have been more helpful.

Informal elite network changed international politics in the 1970s

international politics

In the 1970s, a network of businessmen, politicians, and academics from the US, Europe, and Japan, also known as the Trilateral Commission, changed the way international politics was conducted. Informal links between Commission members, governments, and organisations paved the way for recognition of the new economic superpower Japan as an equal partner in international politics, concludes University of Copenhagen historian Dino Knudsen, who is the first researcher to get access to the Commission's own archives.

In 1973, American financier David Rockefeller formed the Trilateral Commission out of fear that the world's three industrial centres – the US, Europe, and Japan – were drifting apart. The aim of the Commission was to ensure that particularly the American government understood that it had to collaborate and negotiate with Europe and new economic superpower Japan. The Trilateral Commission is still active and has headquarters in Washington, Tokyo, and Paris.

Bisphenol A is affecting us at much lower doses than previously thought

Bisphenol A (BPA) is a known endocrine disruptor that hijacks the normal responses of hormones. Yet, traditional toxicology studies indicate that only very high doses of this chemical affect exposed animals—doses as high as 50 mg/kg/day. For the past decade, scientists have used modern scientific techniques to probe the effects of BPA on numerous endpoints that are not examined in those traditional toxicology studies. Examining these non-traditional endpoints reveal a very different story. Because of increased understanding of the mechanisms by which hormones and chemicals that mimic hormones work, it has recently become clear that endocrine disruptors need to be studied at much lower doses.

Privatizing Our Vote: The Ultimate Crime

Wednesday, 06 November 2013 15:47  
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed

When the Supreme Court issued its Citizens United decision in 2010, many in the media predicted that it would usher in a new era of corporate electioneering. They were right, of course, but they only had half of the story.

You won't hear it anywhere in the mainstream media, but over the past decade or so our elected representatives have slowly but surely handed the power to decide our elections over to a handful of giant, mostly Republican-connected corporations.

Billionaires Received U.S. Farm Subsidies, Report Finds

By RON NIXON
Published: November 7, 2013

WASHINGTON — The federal government paid $11.3 million in taxpayer-funded farm subsidies from 1995 to 2012 to 50 billionaires or businesses in which they have some form of ownership, according to a report released Thursday by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based research organization.

The billionaires who received the subsidies or owned companies that did include the Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen; the investment titan Charles Schwab; and S. Truett Cathy, owner of Chick-fil-A. The billionaires who got the subsidies have a collective net worth of $316 billion, according to Forbes magazine.

Al Gore: Snowden 'revealed evidence' of crimes against US constitution

Speaking at McGill University in Montreal, Gore said the NSA's efforts to monitor communications had gone to 'absurd' lengths

Adam Gabbatt in New York
theguardian.com, Wednesday 6 November 2013 18.12 EST


Former US vice-president Al Gore has described the activities of the National Security Agency as "outrageous" and "completely unacceptable" and said whistleblower Edward Snowden has "revealed evidence" of crimes against the US constitution.

Gore, speaking Tuesday night at McGill University in Montreal, said he was in favour of using surveillance to ensure national security, but Snowden's revelations showed that those measures had gone too far.

CBS Reporter On '60 Minutes' Benghazi Program: 'We Made A Mistake

Catherine Thompson – November 8, 2013, 8:42 AM EST

CBS correspondent Lara Logan apologized to viewers Friday for a disputed "60 Minutes" report on the Benghazi attack and said the program would issue a correction.

"Today the truth is that we made a mistake," Logan said on "CBS This Morning."

At the center of the dispute is Dylan Davies, a British security contractor who under a pseudonym gave "60 Minutes" a heroic account of his involvement in the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

Obama Wants to Cut Social Security

Friday, 08 November 2013 10:49  
By Ben Strubel, New Economic Perspectives | News Analysis 

What Cuts Are Being Proposed?
Obama is proposing, along with the support of Republicans and many Democrats, to change how annual increases in Social Security benefits are calculated. Obama wants to switch to a different formula, called Chained CPI. This switch would result in a benefit cut of $230 billion dollars over 10 years. All this is being done under the guise of “strengthening” the program and “securing it for future generations”.  (See here, here, here, here and here)

Right now, annual increases in Social Security benefits are calculated using changes in CPI (Consumer Price Index) which measures the price increases in various goods and services. Chained CPI is a twist on regular CPI in that it assumes that when the price of one good goes up people will substitute a cheaper good. For instance, if the price of steak goes up people will switch to chicken. While this makes sense for some things, it doesn’t for others. For instance, if the price of natural gas goes up you can’t just change the heating system you have. If the prices of essential prescription drugs go, up you can’t just substitute something different.

How the Koch Brothers Organized the Federal Shutdown

ERIC ZUESSE FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

I covered previously the decades-long Koch-operation that got us to where we are (see those earlier posts here, and here, and here, and here). I shall now describe the money-trail from there to Senator Ted Cruz, who directly headed the shutdown-effort in the U.S. Congress.

The two chief contributors to Cruz's political career donated over a million dollars to it (and no other entity donated as much as $100,000 to it). These two top sources of contributions to Mr. Cruz's political career were Club For Growth, and Senate Conservatives Fund, which together donated over a million dollars to it.

Dean Baker: NYT Endorses Imaginary TPP Deal

Wednesday, 06 November 2013 05:57

The Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a trade deal that is being negotiated completely in secret. The main actors at the table are large corporate interests like Wall Street banks, multinational drug companies, and oil and gas companies. This might lead one to think that the end product will be an agreement that furthers the upward redistribution of income rather than benefits the bulk of the population. That seems especially likely since this is a "next generation" trade agreement that is primarily about regulations, not reducing traditional trade barriers like tariffs and quotas.

Nutrient recovery reactor turns human excrement into high-quality fertilizer

By John Vidal, The Guardian
Wednesday, November 6, 2013 2:35 EST

Just a few yards from the choked M4 motorway, beyond the massive settling tanks and a steaming, 500-tonne mountain of black sewage sludge at Slough treatment works, a modern alchemy is taking place that could potentially keep the world in food for a few more years.

The plant is taking the tiny quantities of phosphorus contained in the poo of the Berkshire town’s 140,000 people and turning it into high-quality fertiliser fit to grow organic garden vegetables.

Russell Brand: we deserve more from our democratic system

Following his appearance on Newsnight, the comedian explains why he believes there are alternatives to our current regime

Russell Brand
The Guardian, Tuesday 5 November 2013 12.57 EST


I've had an incredible week since I spoke from the heart, some would say via my arse, on Paxman. I've had slaps on the back, fist bumps, cheers and hugs while out and about, cock-eyed offers of political power from well intentioned chancers and some good ol' fashioned character assassinations in the papers.

The people who liked the interview said it was because I'd articulated what they were thinking. I recognise this. God knows I'd love to think the attention was about me but I said nothing new or original, it was the expression of the knowledge that democracy is irrelevant that resonated. As long as the priorities of those in government remain the interests of big business, rather than the people they were elected to serve, the impact of voting is negligible and it is our responsibility to be more active if we want real change.

Beware: Huge Media Companies Are Selling Corporate Ideology as the 'New American Center'

By RJ Eskow

November 4, 2013  |  “IT’S OFFICIAL,” the box on my screen announced in capital letters. “YOU’RE ONE OF THE BLEEDING HEARTS.”

 

To examine the Esquire/NBC News “New American Center” is to enter a Beltway consultants’ dreamscape, a perceptual interspace where real Americans’ opinions dissolve and are replaced by a chimerical creature whose secret language is only understood by certain insider politicians, corporations and consultants.

That creature’s name is “The Center.”

The survey commissioned by these two news organizations tells us very little about American public opinion. But it tells us a great deal about the insular worlds in which certain journalists and consultants reside.

Wall Street slumlords’ outrageous new scheme: How they could wreck the economy again

Remember mortgage-backed securities and the financial crisis they caused? This latest gambit will put you in shock

David Dayen

You’d think that investors would run away from a new Wall Street innovation as fast as Congress runs away from a good idea. But instead, they’re flocking to the latest product peddled by large banking interests, even though they look almost exactly like the mortgage-backed securities that were a primary driver of the financial crisis. These new securities, backed by rental payments, also have real-world implications for millions of renters, who could end up turning in their monthly checks to Wall Street-based absentee slumlords.