Don't bite on Twinkie propaganda

Labor vs. Management

By Oswald Krell in RIFuture.org

Full disclosure: I grew up in a time and an environment that accepted an adversarial relationship between labor and management.

I still agree with that belief. Everything I have experienced in the last 30 years has convinced me, over and over again that this is the fundamental relationship between the workers and the bosses.

More, the side most actively pursuing this agenda is management.

RI – What Went Wrong: Property Tax Hikes

Breakdown of Rhode Island tax revenue by type. 

Data from www.usgovernmentrevenue.com.

(Click on image to enlarge)

This is the fourth article in a series by Samuel Bell on RIFuture.org.

In the previous installment, I discussed the large income tax cuts for the rich that hit Rhode Island in 2006, a major change to the economy that was followed by an early plunge into recession. Unlike the federal government, states can’t offset income tax cuts with debt. So they have to offset them by either cutting spending or raising other taxes. Rhode Island took both approaches.

Maybe it's about time to get one

DEM Lacks Clear Climate Change Policy

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

PROVIDENCE — Environmental groups were heartened by the election results delivered by Rhode Island voters. All 28 candidates endorsed by Clean Water Action and the Rhode Island chapter of the Sierra Club won office, including seven new members to the General Assembly. The land and water bonds, ballot questions 5 and 6, both garnered an impressive 70 percent approval at the polls.

The state Department of Environmental Management’s (DEM) Janet Coit spoke enthusiastically of having environmental advocates in the General Assembly and the massive support for the referendums that invest $40 million in open space and wastewater and drinking water upgrades. “People really came out in droves to support the environment,” Coit said at a recent meeting of the Environment Council of Rhode Island (ECRI).

RI – What Went Wrong, Part 6

Have We Learned Lessons?

By Samuel Bell in RIfuture.org

What is so sad about the mess Rhode Island has fallen into is that it was completely avoidable.

Governor Carcieri did not have to launch a jihad against public sector employment. Nor was it necessary to hand massive tax breaks to the wealthy. 

Had we avoided those tax breaks, we wouldn’t have had to slash municipal aid and send property taxes through the roof. Had we not raised property taxes, we would have a stronger housing market, and had we not engaged in massive austerity, the rest of our economy would be doing better as well. If our unemployment insurance tax rate were less punitive, then fewer businesses would have gone under. None of this had to happen.

Daydreaming

Wal-Mart Strike, take two

By Jen Sorenson

To see the whole cartoon, click here.

Climate surprise in northern forests

Maple Syrup, Moose, and the Impacts of Climate Change in the North

From ScienceDaily.com

In the northern hardwood forest, climate change is poised to reduce the viability of the maple syrup industry, spread wildlife diseases and tree pests, and change timber resources. And, according to a new BioScience paper just released by twenty-one scientists, without long-term studies at the local scale -- we will be ill-prepared to predict and manage these effects.

Following an exhaustive review of more than fifty years of long term data on environmental conditions at the Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest, located in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, the paper's authors arrived at a sobering conclusion: current climate change models don't account for real life surprises that take place in forests.

Battle cry against Big Oil, coal

McKibben: Fossil Fuels Don't Add Up

By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

Bill McKibben urged civil disobedience to combat climate change
during his 'Do The Math' tour stop at Brown University.
 (Tim Faulkner/ecoRI News)

PROVIDENCE — The environmental movement's most recognized activist used humor and fun to deliver his message to combat climate change, but his call to action was serious.

Bill McKibben, author, activist and college professor, received a standing ovation when he took the stage Monday night at a packed auditorium at Brown University. He urged the audience of college students and local environmentalists of all ages to take on the fossil-fuel industry through protests and an active campaign of divestment.

"As of tonight, we're going after the fossil-fuel industry," he said.

RI – What Went Wrong: Tax Cuts for the Affluent

This is the third article in a series by Samuel Bell on RIFuture.org.

In the previous installment I discussed the devastation wrought by massive austerity, which was the principle cause of Rhode Island’s terrible jobs picture. The traditional justification from austerity apologists is that those public sector cuts were necessary, and Rhode Island was forced to make those layoffs. Of course, this argument makes no sense in Rhode Island not just because the cutbacks began before the second Bush recession but also because the government found the money for a huge income tax cut for the rich, cutting the top rate from 9.9% to 5.99%. This brings me to the subject of today’s column: taxes.

Look out, Bambi, here they come again!

Shotgun Deer-hunting season starts on Saturday, December 1

RIDEM News Release

PROVIDENCE - The Department of Environmental Management reminds all Rhode Islanders that, for safety reasons, they must wear fluorescent orange when in state management areas during the shotgun deer hunting season, which opens on Saturday, December 1.

Hunters are required to wear 500 square inches of fluorescent orange during the shotgun season. Throughout all shotgun deer seasons, all other users of state management areas also must wear at least 500 square inches of solid, daylight fluorescent orange material. For all hunters and management area users, the orange clothing should include a hat and vest worn above the waist and visible in all directions. Archers are exempt from wearing hunter orange in areas of the state that are limited to hunting by archery-only. Deer hunting hours remain one-half hour before sunrise to one-half hour after sunset.

Five reasons why Charlestown should get serious about buying LarryLand

Worried about a casino? About Whalerock?

By Will Collette

The election is over. The CCA tightened its grip on Charlestown government. Planning Commissar Ruth Platner is reviewing the catalogs looking for some Charlestown open space to buy for Christmas.

Here’s a Christmas gift suggestion: buy Larry LeBlanc’s 81 almost pristine acres sitting atop Charlestown’s moraine.

If the CCA is serious about open space (and we know they are), here are five reasons why now is the time to restart negotiations with LeBlanc.

Leave it to Beaver

A 1960 dream sequence

Brought to you in Tom the Dancing Bug by Ruben Bolling.

Who's visiting the Cleaver house?
See the entire comic strip here.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 6357's Cathedral to Massive Stars

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, nearly making it the record holder.

This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the above image. Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least.

Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record.

Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357.

Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.

RI – What Went Wrong: Austerity’s Effects

Public sector employment (normalized to 2001)
(Click to enlarge)

This is the second article in a series by Samuel Bell on RIFuture.org.

I ended my previous post on a promise to dig into the mechanics of how Carcieri orchestrated the downfall of the Rhode Island economy. Naturally, we begin with something Carcieri took great pride in—laying off huge numbers of public sector workers. To show just how severe the public sector cutbacks were under Carcieri, I’ve plotted the Ocean State’s public sector workforce alongside the national numbers since 2000. (Both are normalized to 100 at January 2000.)

NOT good news

Greenland becoming more green, thanks to Global Warming

From: Susan Clark, The Ecologist, in ENN.com More from this Affiliate 

I don't want to be told that thanks to Global Warming - now accepted by the majority (77%) of Americans and so therefore, in my opinion, a new Tipping Point - strawberry plants can now survive a Greenland winter.

I don't want to see neat little rows of budding lettuce plants growing outside a polytunnel. OUTSIDE a polytunnel; over-wintering under the snow but come the Spring, still alive and sprouting new shoots; cabbage and potatoes to follow.

Many obstacles to a Charlestown Indian casino

Ten reasons why a Charlestown casino isn't going to happen

By Will Collette

As I predicted, the Charlestown Citizens Alliance has sounded the alarm that the Narragansett Indian Tribe wants to build a full-scale resort casino in Charlestown. They sent out an e-bleat on Tuesday warning Charlietowners that Armageddon in the form of a casino in Charlestown is coming when the Senate votes on the “Carcieri Fix.” (Click here to read my earlier article that explains what the Carcieri fix is.)

This is a screen shot of the CCA's proposed e-mail text

The CCA wants you to send an e-mail to the RI Congressional delegation and the Governor. See the text of the message they want you to send (left).

It’s a bad e-mail message, not only because of the bad grammar, but also because it isn’t true. The “Carcieri Fix” does not “allow tribal gambling in Charlestown” and does not “otherwise supersede the RI Indian Land Claims Settlement Act.”