July 5, 2015

Frackquake Madness!: 35 Fracking Earthquakes Rock Oklahoma in a Week

Historically speaking, Oklahoma used to be a place where almost no palpable earthquakes happened at all — but hydraulic fracturing, a.k.a. “fracking” has changed all that now.

Between the dates June 17 and June 24, 2015, Oklahoma was jolted by 35 earthquakes greater than magnitude 3.0 due to fracking and fracking wastewater injection activities the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS) has confirmed — this, in a state that experienced less than two such quakes per year before 2009.

The sketchy episode comes only two months on the heels of the implementation of new regulations in the state that prevent operators and waste disposers from injecting wastewater “below the state’s deepest rock formation, believed to be one of the main causes of the quakes,” Reuters reported.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC) regulates all oil and gas activities in the state, and had a strong and vocal response to last weeks unprecedented episode. .................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31673-frackquake-madness-35-fracking-earthquakes-rock-oklahoma-in-a-week-regulators-call-event-a-game-changer

July 5, 2015

Refusing to help a dog's owner means you may get a four-legged, furry cold shoulder in return

(BBC) Most dog owners will tell you that their pets are loyal, socially intelligent animals.

And last month scientists in Japan showed domestic dogs avoid people they have seen behave unhelpfully to their owners, using a cunning test.

The experiment was designed to see whether dogs can evaluate humans interacting with one another over an object.

The result showed most dogs avoided taking food from someone they had seen behaving negatively to, which in this case means ignoring, their master. .................(more)

http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20150702-dogs-avoid-unhelpful-people

July 4, 2015

Weed the People

from the Guardian UK:


Free marijuana for all: Oregonians exercise the right to Weed the People
State legalizes recreational marijuana, but it still can’t be sold to the general public – yet growers and dispensaries find way around the law with event


“A line this long that never ends and everybody is happy,” marveled Jim Leighton, a 30-year Oregon resident. “Isn’t that great?” He and some 1,300 others stood in a queue that snaked around the block in the sweltering Portland heat Friday afternoon, waiting for entry to an event where they could get up to seven grams of marijuana for nothing more than a smile and a handshake.

Oregon is the third state in the United States, in addition to the District of Columbia, to legalize marijuana for recreational use for adults 21 years and older. But even after parts of the law went into effect Wednesday that legalized possession and growing of small amounts, marijuana still cannot be sold to the general public.

So growers and medical dispensaries at Weed the People found their way around the law by giving away their weed for free, some hoping to use it as a marketing tool later.

“We needed to throw an event to give away cannabis. I believe that no one has done this before,” said Rob Thompson, publisher of the local alternative weekly newspaper Portland Mercury, which organized the event.

On midnight Wednesday as the law went into effect, hundreds gathered on Burnside bridge in downtown Portland in celebration. The bridge was billowing with smoke as the clock struck midnight. But while the original plan was to hand out free samples of marijuana, the overwhelming turnout halted the giveaway. ................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jul/04/oregon-marijuana-laws-weed-the-people

July 4, 2015

Keiser Report: On the Verge of Despotism

Published on Jul 2, 2015

In this episode of the Keiser Report, Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert discuss how it is that Aristotle predicted this day of financial and economic despotism. In the second half, Max interviews Nozomi Hayase about bitcoin and blockchain technologies enabling evolution of the human species which is presently kept enslaved by financial weapons.

July 4, 2015

Chicago: CTA Proposed Red-Purple Bypass

Track-level view:



Street-level view:




Published on May 19, 2015

The CTA's Red and Purple Modernization Program would completely rebuild the northern portion of the Red and Purple Lines (Belmont to Linden). By replacing century-old stations and track structures, the CTA can meet growing demand and improve service for the next 60-80 years.

Part of the RPM project includes building a Red-Purple bypass north of Belmont station where Red, Brown and Purple Line trains intersect. This 1907-built junction has now capped the CTA's ability to add more trains as ridership grows.

July 4, 2015

Toronto: TTC Marks Milestone of Revitalized Union Station

On July 2, Federal Finance Minister Joe Oliver and Provincial Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Michael Coteau joined TTC Chair Josh Colle and TTC CEO Andy Byford to mark the completion of major renovations at the Toronto Transit Commission's Union Station.

About 125,000 people use Union Station each day. The addition of a second subway platform and expansion of the concourse to include a single TTC fare-paid area and pedestrian by-pass routes, have helped to reduce overcrowding and improve passenger circulation.

Construction began in May 2011 and is part of the larger Toronto Waterfront revitalization. New station features include:

• Second subway platform
• New concourse
• New fareline and collector booth
• New elevator and escalators to the new second platform
• Widened and improved access/exit to/from platforms and concourse
• Automatic entrance into the Brookfield tunnel
• Art wall
• Ceramic tiles
• Ramped walkways with glazed glass partitions
• Improved signage

Union Station remained open throughout the transformation, a challenge that called for a balanced customer-focused approach and close co-ordination with GO Transit and local businesses. The reduction of lanes on Front St. W., from Yonge to York Sts. was necessary to excavate to the existing tunnel structure and build the new platform. Crews were required to dig and temporarily support existing watermains, gas lines, sewers and other utilities. ..................(more)

http://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12089566/ttc-marks-milestone-of-revitalized-union-station

July 4, 2015

Professor Richard Wolff: Greece Needs Our Solidarity in Its Struggle Against Austerity

Greece Needs Our Solidarity in Its Struggle Against Austerity

Friday, 03 July 2015 00:00
By Richard D. Wolff, Truthout | Op-Ed


Not for many years has the issue been posed as clearly as it will be on July 5 in Greece's referendum: European capitalists, the political leaders whom the capitalists' money controls, and the austerity they together impose will be judged by the people most savaged by that austerity.

The Greek people were informed that the financial maneuvers made by Europe's biggest banks, biggest industrial capitalists, and the usual political elites (shamefully including Greeks and "socialists&quot in 2008-2009 would absolutely require massive losses of Greek jobs, incomes, property, and financial security for many years to come. Recycling Margaret Thatcher's words, they were told "there is no alternative." Other Europeans (and Americans, etc. too) were told the same although their austerities were less bleak (so far).

After all, slaves had to suffer from the mistakes of their masters and the crises of slave systems - and likewise serfs had to suffer from their lords' mistakes and feudalism's crises. So workers must now absorb the costs of capitalism's crises and capitalists' mistakes (including the documented crimes of the biggest banks). Workers must suffer the capitalists' use of the state to bail themselves out of their crisis and then, via austerity policies, to shift that bailout's costs onto the general public. This, the Greeks were told, is what must be.

The Greeks have thus provided a convenient but urgent test case. European leaders believe that workers in capitalism's old centers (Western Europe, North America, and Japan, especially) now must accept declines in their standards of living. Capitalism is abandoning them to make higher profits in Asia, Latin America, etc. - capitalism's new centers. Savaging the Greek workers' standards of living (and, if needed, a few other countries' workers' too) teaches a double lesson. The first is, "decline is your future - get used to it." The second is, "be glad your decline is - deservedly - not as bad as that of the Greeks." ...............(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/31714-greece-needs-our-solidarity-in-its-struggle-against-austerity

July 3, 2015

Economic exodus means two-thirds of Puerto Ricans may soon live in US

(Guardian UK) Facing a crisis of monumental proportions at home, tens of thousands of people are fleeing a Caribbean island in search of a better life in the United States only to find hardship and struggle on American shores. Their stories sound like those of millions of migrants – poverty at home, where the economy lies in tatters – but they differ from millions of others: they’re already American.

Unable to pay its $73bn debt, Puerto Rico has begun rationing water, closing schools and watching its healthcare system collapse and 45% of its people living in poverty. Emigration to the mainland has accelerated in recent years, activists say, and data shows that from 2003 to 2013 there was a population swing of more than 1.5 million people.

“This new wave of immigration can be compared with the immigration in the 1930s and 40s,” said Edgardo González, coordinator of the Defenders of Puerto Rico, an activist group. The Great Depression and second world war spurred the so-called “Great Migration”, when tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans moved to New York every year for nearly two decades.

Now most Puerto Ricans are arriving in central Florida, González said, but many cannot find jobs or even housing. “Some might stay with family for a few weeks, but for those who don’t have family, people end up homeless because of the lack of services,” he said. ....................(more)

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/02/puerto-rico-economy-exodus-us-mainland

July 3, 2015

Jews for Racial Justice Move the Conversation About Police Brutality Into White Communities

By Chris Crass


(Truthout) As New York City erupted in December 2014 in mass, nonviolent, disruptive direct action after the non-indictment of the officer who murdered Eric Garner and the officers who were accomplices in this brutal crime, one of the actions that grabbed national headlines and many a heart, was organized by Jews for Racial & Economic Justice (JFREJ). Over 400 members of JFREJ, including Rabbis and other leaders in the Jewish community, took to the streets of the primarily white, wealthy and Jewish, Upper West Side. This civil disobedience was planned with their longtime partner organizations based in working-class communities of color, and coordinating actions across the city took place.

Tears ran down my face as I followed the news, often with my three-year-old son nearby, of powerful, defiant, Black life-affirming, white supremacist hegemony-defying, marches, vigils and large-scale direct actions ignited around the country after the Eric Garner non-indictment - and NYC was galvanizing us all. And JFREJ was a powerful force mobilizing a majority, but not entirely, white Jewish base of members and supporters to be courageous for Black Lives Matter. I've long loved JFREJ, which began in 1990 and has been deeply committed to long-term multiracial organizing and campaigns to build people's power for collective liberation. They are "inspired by Jewish tradition to fight for a sustainable world with an equitable distribution of economic and cultural resources and political power."

I knew that their actions in December were part of a years-long campaign against police violence in working-class communities of color, and that with their vision, strategy, organizing experience, infrastructure and leadership, they could offer insights and lessons for many of us around the country who are asking, "How do we help carry the momentum of these mass action times into long-term campaigns to win structural change?" Marjorie Dove, the executive director of JFREJ, shares from their organizational experience to help us think about that question. .................(more)

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/31343-jews-for-racial-and-economic-justice-moving-the-conversation-about-police-brutality-into-white-communities

July 3, 2015

OK, this cartoon is a bit mean, but I gotta admit, I LOLed.....

http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/clown_car_20150702