News: Archive for July, 2012
July 11, 2012 San Francisco
Chris Hayes, editor at large of the Nation and host of MSNBC’s UP w/ Chris Hayes appeared before a packed audience at the Commonwealth Club to talk about his recent book Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy. The talk lasted about an hour and was followed by a book signing.
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| ‘It is trickier than it looks to produce a system with huge rewards for performance that is not also a system with huge rewards for cheating.’ ~ Chris Hayes |
Report by James George
‘A new interactive map released by the group Climate Central summarizes the average temperatures of each of the 48 contiguous United States for the last 100 years. By clicking across the country (try it on the map above), you can see that lately, temperatures have been trending up no matter where you live.’
‘…If an earthquake cuts the power that runs the cooling system that keeps the nuclear core from overheating, San Onofre has diesel backup generators that are supposed to take over. But in May a study found that the backup generators could inadvertently shut down in an earthquake, causing a nuclear meltdown—exactly what happened in Fukushima.’
via ‘Shut Down San Onofre’: The New Front Line in the Fight Against Nuclear Power | The Nation.
‘California lawmakers have approved financing for a bullet train that would eventually become part of the first dedicated high-speed line in the US.’
‘TOKYO — The nuclear accident at Fukushima was a preventable disaster rooted in government-industry collusion and the worst conformist conventions of Japanese culture, a parliamentary inquiry concluded on Thursday.’
via Japanese Commission Calls Fukushima Nuclear Crisis a ‘Man-Made’ Disaster – NYTimes.com.
‘The past two weeks have witnessed the worst forest fires in Colorado history, a deadly Mid-Atlantic storm that left 23 dead and four million without power, and a record shattering heat wave across the East Coast and Midwest that has not seen since the Dust Bowl. More than 2,000 heat records have been broken in the past week. As the words “extreme weather” flash across TV screens, where are the other two words: “global warming”?’
via “This Is Just the Beginning”: Forest Fires, Deadly Storms, Record Heat Reveal a Changed Climate.
‘Science educator Bill Nye on Monday told CNN that they weren’t doing the public any favors by giving climate change deniers equal airtime because “the two sides aren’t equal.”’
via Bill Nye to CNN: ‘The two sides aren’t equal’ on climate change | The Raw Story.