De Facto single-payer is bad news for consumers

Healthcare Redlining

By Phil Mattera, Dirt Diggers Digest

Media coverage of the Affordable Care Act these days bounces back and forth between good news and bad. One day the Obama Administration signals that there are more problems with the employer mandate and once again changes the rules. Two days later, federal officials are bragging that ACA enrollment is booming and that even the Young Invincibles are signing up.

Yet perhaps the most significant recent development is the analysis just published by the Wall Street Journal on the limited range of plan options in the ACA exchanges. 

The newspaper found that in 515 counties across 15 states there is only one insurer selling coverage through the online marketplaces. In more than 80 percent of those counties, the sole insurer is a local Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan.

The truth about numbers

Bible Math

By Ruben Bolling

Click here and ye shall learn the truth.

A Rhode Island growth industry

Small Farms Growing in Rhode Island
By TIM FAULKNER/ecoRI.org News staff

Small farms and farming are on the rise in Rhode Island and across New England, while the practice is down across the country, according to a new federal report. The recently released five-year Census of Agriculture from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shows Rhode Island adding 24 farms between 2007 and 2012, an increase of 2 percent. New England had an increase of 5 percent. Across the country, the number of farms are down 4 percent since the last census.

Small farms, those 9 acres or less, accounted for the greatest growth in Rhode Island; 35 percent of all Rhode Island farms are designated as small, third most in the country. Rhode Island ranked second nationally with its percent of new farmers, at 30.8 percent.

Ken Ayars, chief of agriculture for the state Department of Environmental Management (DEM), said the report shows a trend in the state from fewer nurseries, turf and flower farming — known as the green industry — to more fruit, vegetable, livestock and aquaculture.

Exhibit celebrates Black History Month

URI Library exhibit features African American history and Civil Rights Movement highlights

By Sylvia Bogusz, URI

Ida D. McGhee, adjunct assistant professor of libraries, shows the most
significant piece of the display, a photo of a teenage boy protesting
peacefully for civil rights while being attacked by police and canines.
Its appearance on the front page of The New York Times is said to
have prompted President John F. Kennedy’s call for national unity. 

KINGSTON, R.I. – Did you know that an African American invented the potato chip? What do you know about the attacks on civil rights protestors in the 1960s by police who used dogs and fire hoses to subdue them? 

You can learn about these and related topics this month simply by visiting a lobby display at the University of Rhode Island’s Robert L. Carothers Library and Learning Commons.

Ida D. McGhee, adjunct assistant professor of libraries, developed the “African American Civil Rights Before and Beyond: Inspiring Insights and Stories Yes, There’s An App For That!” display that has extensive information about the Civil Rights movement and the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Part of URI’s celebration of Black History Month, the exhibit includes many artifacts given to McGhee by friends from Nigeria, Malawi, and Tanzania. 

Animal Rescue League’s Companion Animal of the Week

Autumn comes a little early this year

From the Animal Rescue League of Southern RI

Autumn is a 6 year old, regal, elegant girl with a darling personality.

She loves to be petted and brushed and looks forward to her afternoon naps!

She's very beautiful and once she gets to know you is all love and purrs.

Severe Weather Warning for Southern New England

Increased moisture in the atmosphere is causing more severe and frequent storms that are taking theirtime moving through the region. Are we prepared?

By FRANK CARINI/ecoRI.org News staff

Extreme rain storms are now likely to occur almost twice as often as they did just a few decades ago. Click image for larger version. (Northeast Regional Climate Center)

Correction: please note that Rhode Island's average annual rainfall has increased by a total of 12 inches since 1905. 

Climate change has forced Mother Nature to make it rain ... on southern New England. In the past decade, the region has witnessed an increase in extreme rain and snowfall events. All this extra water is having an impact on river flow and making damaging floods more frequent.

David Vallee, a hydrologist based out of the National Weather Service’s Taunton, Mass., office, called this shift in the distribution of precipitation “remarkable.” He didn’t mean that in a wicked awesome kind of way. He pointed to the beating the Rhode Island coast has taken in recent years as a prime example.

The dignified and the deserving

The Dignity of Work

By Jen Sorenson

Click here to learn how to be dignified.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Downtown Auriga 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Rich in star clusters and nebulae, the ancient constellation of Auriga, the Charioteer, rides high in northern winter night skies. Spanning nearly 24 full moons (12 degrees) on the sky, this deep telescopic mosaic view recorded in January shows off some of Auriga's most popular sights for cosmic tourists.

The crowded field sweeps along the plane of our Milky Way galaxy in the direction opposite the galactic center. 

Need directions? Near the bottom of the frame, at the Charioteer's boundary with Taurus the Bull, the bright bluish star Elnath is known as both Beta Tauri and Gamma Aurigae.

On the far left and almost 300 light-years away, the busy, looping filaments of supernova remnant Simeis 147 cover about 150 light-years.

Look toward the right to find emission nebula IC 410, significantly more distant, some 12,000 light-years away. Star forming IC 410 is famous for its embedded young star cluster, NGC 1893, and tadpole-shaped clouds of dust and gas.

The Flaming Star Nebula, IC 405, is just a little farther along. Its red, convoluted clouds of glowing hydrogen gas are energized by hot O-type star AE Aurigae.

Two of our galaxy's open star clusters, Charles Messier's M36 and M38 line up in the starfield, familiar to many binocular-equipped skygazers.

Grants for farmers, people in the fishing industry, non-profits producing local food

LASA Grants Program Frequently Asked Questions

From the Rhode Island Food Policy Council

The Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Division of Agriculture is accepting grant applications for the Local Agriculture and Seafood Act (LASA) Grants Program.  The goal of the program, established by the Local Agriculture and Seafood Act of 2012, is to support the growth, development, and marketing of local food and seafood in the Rhode Island.  

It is made possible by $100,000 in funding from the State of Rhode Island, and an additional $110,000 in matching funds from the van Beuren Charitable Foundation, the Henry P. Kendall Foundation, and the Rhode Island Foundation.  This unique and unprecedented public-private partnership will provide grants intended to directly benefit and strengthen the local food system in RI.

Who Can Apply?

Non-profit organizations, farmers, fishermen/women, and producer groups are eligible to apply. Applicants must be based in the State of Rhode Island. The Advisory Council will value geographic diversity in the applicant pool when making award determinations.  Only small and/or beginning farmers (or producer groups of small or beginning farmers) are eligible to apply for capital grants.  (Aquaculture operators are considered farmers).

How Much Can An Applicant Apply For?

The maximum grant award available to a farmer, individual, business (e.g. LLC) or non-profit organization is $20,000. Overhead and/or administrative costs are limited to 10% of total budget proposal.

Where Can I Find LASA Application Materials?

The Application and the Guidelines Document can be found on the Rhode Island Division of Agriculture website (under "grant opportunities" tab).  It also can be found on this LASA FAQ page (see LASA 2014 Documents sidebar, right).

What is the Timing for the LASA Grants Program?

·                     All grant applications are due to the RI Division of Agriculture by 11:59 pm on Tuesday, April 1^st, 2014.

·                     Applications can be emailed to LASA@dem.ri.gov or mailed to/dropped off at the Division of Agriculture office (235 Promenade Street, Providence, RI 02908). (Please note that the Division of Agriculture office closes at 4:30 pm).  Email submissions are strongly preferred.

·                     The Division of Agriculture will send an email confirmation when applications arrive at the office as long as an email address has been provided on the application form.

·                     Applicants will be notified of award decisions by May 1, 2014.

Enjoy 2 days of exciting activities at URI’s Annual Big Chill Weekend

Events to benefit student scholarships run Feb. 28- March 2

Dave Lavallee, URI

KINGSTON, R.I. – February 3, 2014 – Are you looking for a weekend full of excitement? How about events that also benefit University of Rhode Island students? Look no further than the Big Chill Weekend, Feb. 28 through March 2. 

The URI Alumni Association’s premier event has successfully raised more than $1.4 million for student scholarships since its inception. This year’s honorary chairs are Stephen Cunningham ’76, and his wife Laura. 

Online Registration is open until Feb. 7, 2014. Information for the following events can be found at: Big Chill. 

Reducing gun crime - a bad thing?

Gun Nut Paranoia Has Reached Peak Stupidity

By: Justin Rosario in Liberals Unite

What’s the best way to find out if a proposed gun law is worth the effort? Ask a right wing gun nut. Seriously! The louder and more nonsensical their objections, the more reasonable the proposed gun law is. 

I discovered this truth after watching Rachel Maddow on February 7. She discussed microstamping, a method to prevent/solve gun crime. Basically a microscopic serial number is engraved on the firing pin and every time it fires, it leaves the number on the spent casing. This, in turn, can possibly help the police to identify the gun used in a crime.

In the aftermath of labor wars at Lawrence and Memorial Hospital

Uncertain future for labor relations at L&M and at Westerly Hospital

By Will Collette

Back to work and trying to get back to normal

During the recent labor-management battle at Lawrence & Memorial Hospital, Progressive Charlestown followed the fight step by step because of the likely impact on Westerly Hospital which was recently bought out by L&M. I figured that as L&M goes, so will Westerly.

The 800 union nurses and health care workers at L&M went through a four-day strike followed by a two-week management lock-out where the primary issue was management’s practice of abolishing union jobs within the hospital by creating new, non-union jobs doing the same work at L&M’s wholly-owned subsidiaries. The union challenged this practice as an illegal unfair labor practice commonly called “double-breasting” and wanted union workers to get the right to follow the work if their job is transferred to a subsidiary.

Obamacare the job killer

The CBO report
By Kevin Siers

Click here to see all the terrible things Obamacare is doing to American workers.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

Rocket, Meteor, and Milky Way over Thailand 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

Can the night sky appear both serene and surreal? Perhaps classifiable as serene in the panoramic image below taken February 7 are the faint lights of small towns glowing across a dark foreground landscape of Doi Inthanon National Park in Thailand, as well as the numerous stars glowing across a dark background starscape.

Also visible are the planet Venus and a band of zodiacal light on the image left.

Unusual events are also captured, however. First, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy, while usually a common sight, appears here to hover surreally above the ground.

Next, a fortuitous streak of a meteor was captured on the image right.

Perhaps the most unusual component is the bright spot just to the left of the meteor. That spot is the plume of a rising Ariane 5 rocket, launched a few minutes before from Kourou, French Guiana.

How lucky was the astrophotographer to capture the rocket launch in his image? Pretty lucky -- the image was not timed to capture the rocket. Also lucky was how photogenic -- and perhaps surreal -- the rest of the sky turned out to be.

VIDEO: Legalize, regulate and tax

A Sensible Marijuana Policy for Rhode Island

By Rep. Edith H. Ajello and Sen. Joshua Miller

Photo from Rhode Island's Future

Marijuana policy reform is a hot topic these days in Rhode Island and across the country. 

Over the last three years, we’ve been discussing the issue with constituents, colleagues, opinion leaders and activists on both sides of the issue. Our conversations have led us to two points of agreement:

• Our current marijuana policy has failed. For instance, studies indicate an increase in youth marijuana use and that it is easy for them to get it.
• Most Rhode Islanders are ready for change.