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Saturday, July 2, 2016
Join the fight for women's health
On with the show: Mystic staff to get acting training
Also
upgrades to presentation settings.
Mystic
Aquarium and the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, two of region’s most revered
cultural organizations, have launched a partnership fostering engagement and
bolstering conservation initiatives important to locals and guests alike.
The
Guest Services staff at Mystic Aquarium will receive presentation training from
the O’Neill’s educational and artistic staff.
Additionally, O’Neill
artists will work with the cast and crew of the Foxwoods Marine Theater to
elevate the current show offerings.
Fire hazard today
Beware of open fires – cook-outs, fire pits,
camp fires, etc. and cigarette butts
By Will Collette
 |
| Obviously we have conditions nothing like California, but our Rhode Island-sized hazard bears attention nonetheless |
Even though we had a delightful rain yesterday,
it wasn’t nearly enough to end our local drought or to relieve the dryness in
our woods where there are lots of caterpillar-stressed trees and dry brush that
could catch fire.
So, despite the rain, South County is under an
elevated fire hazard, according to the National Weather Service to last through
the day.
We have sunny skies, a nice breeze and very low
humidity, all conditions that could allow a small fire to get out of hand.
So watch the stray cigarette butts (which you
should do on general principle), camp fires, barbeques and yes, even fireworks.
Here is the notice
from the NWS:
Mixed marks
By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI News staff
PROVIDENCE — Hundreds of environmental bills are introduced each year in the General Assembly. Most go nowhere and simply die in committee. This year, however, saw many bills make their way into law.
Here’s what passed:
Energy
assistance: The
Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program Enhancement Plan will beexpanded throughout
the year for certain groups.
Virtual
net metering allows for shared
renewable-energy projects for people without the space or funds for a
stand-alone project.
Renewable
Energy Standard: The program that requires annual increases in the amount of
renewable energy in the mix of electricity delivered to homes and businesses
was extended from 2019
to 2035.
Renewable
Energy Fund: The Commerce RI fund that provides grants to small- and
medium-size solar projects was extended from 2017
to 2027. The program is funded through a surcharge on electricity bills.
Friday, July 1, 2016
“The Stuff of Nightmares”
The Terrifying
Truth about Climate Change
An apocalyptic future is materializing
that threatens human civilization and all life on the planet. The truth about climate change is more terrifying than our worst nightmares.
We are teetering on the brink of a world that is the stuff of nightmares. This includes starvation, riots, disease, violence, and war.
These impacts range from the seemingly innocuous, like more
potent poisonous plants, to cataclysmic extreme weather events, like
continent-sized superstorms. Other serious threats include widespread coastal
flooding, storm-surges, heatwaves, drought, wildfires, mass migration, famine, disease, conflict, anoxia, species extinction and ultimately human extinction.
Scientists tell us to avert the worst
impacts of climate change, we must keep temperatures from rising no more than
1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial norms.
Given our current
trajectory, we are looking at temperature increases that could be as much as
four times the upper threshold limit.
The rest of Rhode Island is committed to renewable energy
By in RI’s Future
On June 18, the General
Assembly passed a renewable energy legislative package that continues to move
Rhode Island towards a clean energy economy of the future.
One section of this
package, reflecting legislative language I introduced this session, expands
Rhode Island’s net metering law to provide residential accounts and low-income
and affordable housing residents the capacity to remotely net meter.
By creating new opportunities for community renewable energy projects that are open to all Rhode Islanders (not just folks who own a roof that’s perfect for solar), our legislation will spur local renewable production, boost our state’s economic development, and bring the benefits of renewable energy to thousands more Rhode Island families.
By creating new opportunities for community renewable energy projects that are open to all Rhode Islanders (not just folks who own a roof that’s perfect for solar), our legislation will spur local renewable production, boost our state’s economic development, and bring the benefits of renewable energy to thousands more Rhode Island families.
This program expansion
comes not a moment too soon. Most of us understand that there is a climate
catastrophe hurtling towards us that requires urgent action.
We also know that the move to renewable energy offers incredible economic potential – in fact, Rhode Island’s 2016 Clean Energy Industry Report found that clean energy employment grew a stunning 40% last year, to 14,000 jobs.
We also know that the move to renewable energy offers incredible economic potential – in fact, Rhode Island’s 2016 Clean Energy Industry Report found that clean energy employment grew a stunning 40% last year, to 14,000 jobs.
Charity fraud – AGAIN! – by presidential candidate
“I
bought Tim Tebow's jersey and helmet at auction for a good cause- fighting
breast cancer,” Donald Trump tweeted in January 2012.
But
as is so often the case with Trump and charity donations, the reality is more complicated.
Donald
Trump the individual did not buy the Tebow gear.
The
Donald J. Trump Foundation did, and while Trump founded the foundation and is
its president, “at the time of the auction, Trump
had given none of his own money to the foundation for three years running.”
Afterward,
three experts on tax law questioned whether Trump had violated IRS rules
against "self-dealing" — which are designed to keep nonprofit
officials from using their charities to help themselves.
Some foods you CAN get thru airport security
Here is a Big List of those
Foods from TSA
By
Will Collette, based on work by Ashlee Kieler in
the Consumerist
One of my favorite websites for up to date information on consumer issues is the Consumerist. In a recent posting, they offer very useful tips for weary summer travelers already coping with long lines and airline torture tactics.
In a recent post by Ashlee Kieler, there’s a great list compiled
from various directives put out by the Transportation Safety Administration on
what you can legally bring with you through security and onto the plane.
She writes:
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas defends right of domestic abusers to own guns
Compares domestic violence convictions to traffic
offenses
By Samuel Warde
EDITOR’S NOTE: While Clarence Thomas logic did not sway the
Supreme Court, the RI General Assembly pretty much used the same logic to “shoot
down” legislation to expand gun bans on domestic abusers. NRA
money might have played a role, ya think?
The Supreme Court handed down three opinions on
Monday: one a landmark case handing
pro-choice advocates the biggest Supreme Court victory on
abortion in decades; another opinion overturning former Virginia governor
Robert F. McDonnell’s public-corruption conviction and “imposing higher standards for federal
prosecutors who charge public officials with wrongdoing;”
and a third opinion holding that a federal “law prohibiting gun ownership does
extend to individuals convicted of reckless domestic assault.”
As PolicyMic reports that “In
February, the Voisine v. the United States case moved Justice
Clarence Thomas, famously silent, to ask his first question during oral arguments in 10 years. “
At the time, he asked U.S. Assistant to the Solicitor
General Ilana Eisenstein whether “recklessness” is reason enough to
warrant a “lifetime ban on possession of a gun, which, at least as of now, is a
constitutional right.”
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