America’s Huge Racial Wealth Gap Is No Accident

For the first time, Democrats are acknowledging America's deep racial wealth gap — and the policies that created it.

By Josh Hoxie

Party platforms are dense and often morosely boring documents filled with wonkish policy proposals and partisan jeers at the other side.

At over 40 pages, this year’s Democratic Party platform lives up to its predecessors in length and ennui. However, it also includes a section not yet seen in platforms from either side: an acknowledgement of the racial wealth gap.

Wealth has been unfairly distributed since our nation’s founding, and that unfairness has always had a racial bent. It goes something like this: White families have more; black and Latino families have less. (Asian and Arab Americans have more complex economic histories.)

The gap is far larger than you might expect.

A 2014 study from Pew Research revealed that median white families have 13 times more wealth than median black families, and 10 times more than median Latino families. That gap has remained relatively consistent for decades.

The American Dream Moved to Canada

We're witnessing accelerating advantages for the affluent and compounding disadvantages for everyone else.

By Chuck Collins

Does your family aspire to the American Dream of a decent paying job, a few weeks of paid vacation, a home of your own, and the hope of retiring before you die?

Maybe try Canada.

Our country has historically prided itself on being a socially mobile society, where your ability is more important than the race or class you’re born into. Indeed, during the three decades after World War II, social mobility increased — particularly for the white working class.

That mobility became part of our self-identity, especially when juxtaposed with the old “caste societies” of Europe and their static class systems. Today, however, that story has been turned on its head.

If you forgot to be born into a wealthy family, you’re better off today living in Northern Europe or Canada, where social safety nets and investments in early childhood education have paid big dividends for ordinary citizens. In fact, Canada now has three times the social mobility of the U.S.

Nostalgic look back at the 2016 Republican National Convention

For more cartoons by Tom Tomorrow, CLICK HERE.

Astronomy Picture of the Day

NGC 1309: Spiral Galaxy and Friends 

From NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day

A gorgeous spiral galaxy some 100 million light-years distant, NGC 1309 lies on the banks of the constellation of the River (Eridanus).

NGC 1309 spans about 30,000 light-years, making it about one third the size of our larger Milky Way galaxy.

Bluish clusters of young stars and dust lanes are seen to trace out NGC 1309's spiral arms as they wind around an older yellowish star population at its core.

Not just another pretty face-on spiral galaxy, observations of NGC 1309's recent supernova and Cepheid variable stars contribute to the calibration of the expansion of the Universe.

Still, after you get over this beautiful galaxy's grand design, check out the array of more distant background galaxies also recorded in this sharp, reprocessed, Hubble Space Telescope view.

Why hummingbirds are different

Hummingbird vision wired to avoid high-speed collisions

UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Hummingbirds are among nature's most agile fliers. They can travel faster than 50 kilometres per hour and stop on a dime to navigate through dense vegetation.

Now researchers have discovered that the tiny birds process visual information differently from other animals, perhaps to handle the demands of their extreme aerial acrobatics.

"Birds fly faster than insects and it's more dangerous if they collide with things," said Roslyn Dakin, a postdoctoral fellow in the UBC's department of zoology who led the study. 

"We wanted to know how they avoid collisions and we found that hummingbirds use their environment differently than insects to steer a precise course."

Note: Watch a video of the experiments here: https://youtu.be/6Z45BaswaOs

Kitty of the week

Meet Mango!

Animal Rescue Rhode Island

Meow! My name is Mango, and I have to say, I'm a busy cat.

First, I've got to check out what's happening out the window.

Next, I'll see if any closets or cupboards need looking into.

And then there are my naps-can't be late for those.

I can fit a little socializing into my schedule.

I don't mind other feline friends, but I would do best as the only pet in the home.

I am a little chatty, so I hope you don’t mind the occasional conversation.

Shall we plan on breakfast and dinner? I hope you like kibbles.

He Loves Us... Unless We Don’t Love Him

On watching Donald Trump's acceptance speech

By Diane Ravitch in Diane Ravitch's Blog

I watched the Republican convention's final  night.

Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka was light-hearted, loves her father, and gave a good introduction to a man whom few know well.

Watching Trump give his speech was an out of body experience.

I suddenly felt fearful. I felt fearful for myself, my community, my family, my country. 

Only he has the strength to save and protect us. 

Only he knows how to fix everything that is broken. 

Only he can bring back the happiness and prosperity that was once there for everyone. 

Remember the Good Old Days? Only he has the tenacity and courage to restore the American dream. 

Everyone else is too weak, too politically correct, too timid. 

He can do it. He said so.

A few thoughts on Cleveland

EPA, climate change fail to make the cut at GOP scare-a-thon

By Peter Dykstra, Environmental Health News

I was very surprised to see so little climate denial and EPA- and regulation-bashing from the Republican National Convention podium this past week.

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito and The Donald Jr. got a few licks in, but not much else. In his acceptance speech, Trump Sr. repeated a campaign promise to bring jobs back to coal miners.

Note that Bob Murray, the hyper-zealous coal baron, says he advised Trump to stop saying that.

It seems Republicans moved off of the usual items, including hot anti-environment rhetoric, to focus on opportunistic things like the police shootings, Benghazi, fear, emails, Benghazi, fear, and Benghazi.

I wonder if the EPA and Al Gore just aren't scary enough to feature.

Teeshirt politics

Screenshot of Associated Press news story says it all

Pictured: David Duke, former head of the KuKluxKlan

Ransomware: Extortion extinction

New way found to deal with Ransomware

University of Florida

Ransomware -- what hackers use to encrypt your computer files and demand money in exchange for freeing those contents -- is an exploding global problem with few solutions, but a team of University of Florida researchers says it has developed a way to stop it dead in its tracks.

The answer, they say, lies not in keeping it out of a computer but rather in confronting it once it's there and, counterintuitively, actually letting it lock up a few files before clamping down on it.

"Our system is more of an early-warning system. It doesn't prevent the ransomware from starting ... it prevents the ransomware from completing its task … so you lose only a couple of pictures or a couple of documents rather than everything that's on your hard drive, and it relieves you of the burden of having to pay the ransom," said Nolen Scaife, a UF doctoral student and founding member of UF's Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research.

Your money – come and get it

State Treasury Reunited 8,860 People with $11.7 Million in Unclaimed Property in FY16

The Office of Rhode Island General Treasurer Seth Magaziner reunited 8,860 people with $11.7 million in unclaimed property in the fiscal year that ended on June 30, 2016.

"At the Treasurer's Office, we work hard every day to reunite Rhode Islanders with money and other unclaimed property that is rightfully theirs," General Treasurer Seth Magaziner said. 

"Many of the claims we process average a few hundred dollars, which helps a working family to buy groceries and fill the gas tank. If there's money out there with your name on it, we want to put it in your pocket."

Rhode Island Treasury's Unclaimed Property Division collects money and other tangible and intangible assets that get lost or abandoned, for the purpose of returning it with its rightful owner. 

Unclaimed property can include money left in old bank accounts and safe deposit boxes, uncashed paychecks, unused gift certificates, unreturned utility deposits, uncollected insurance payments and forgotten stocks and dividends.

In total, Treasury oversees more than $265 million of unclaimed property waiting to be reunited with Rhode Islanders across the state.

VIDEO: Is Donald Trump really nuts?

Trump Got Put Through A Sanity Test And It DID NOT End Well (VIDEO)

By Vera ·

 To Watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDMxCgQFl1s

Most of us are fully aware that Republican nominee Donald Trump is not only a racist, a misogynist and a bigot, but a complete psychopath and compulsive liar.

But what happens when Trump is actually put through a clinical sanity test? Political commentator Keith Olbermann decided to find out.

In a courageous attempt to understand the way Trump’s disturbed mind works, Olbermann examined Trump using clinical psychology practices, which lead to his conclusion that Trump would not pass any of the “sanity” tests commonly used to identify criminal and antisocial tendencies.

Olbermann released his findings on Thursday in Vanity Fair, and the results were not good for the future of America. 

Why the trust problem?

Trustworthy Hillary

By Robert Reich

Not trust Hillary but trust this guy? Really?

Hillary Clinton’s 6-point lead over Donald Trump in last month’s CBS News poll has now evaporated. As of mid-July (even before Trump enjoys a predictable post-convention bump in the polls) she is tied with him.  Each garners the support of 40 percent of voters. 

This is astounding, given that Trump’s campaign is in shambles while hers is a well-oiled machine; that he’s done almost no advertising while she began the month spending $500,000 a day on ads; and that Republican leaders are deserting him while Democrats are lining up behind her.

The near tie is particularly astonishing given that Trump has no experience and offers no coherent set of policies or practical ideas but only venomous bigotry and mindless xenophobia, while Hillary Clinton has a boatload of experience, a storehouse of carefully-crafted policies, and a deep understanding of what the nation must do in order to come together and lead the world.

Third Party bid?