Whatever Happened to Overtime? - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/11/overtime-pay-obama-congress-112954_Page3.html#ixzz3KkQ4HTj8

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Corporate racketeers use bought-and-sold politicians to defeat honest food labeling laws

	Congress Is Hearing Monsanto's "Dream Bill" Next Week Tell Your Members of Congress to Stop the Bill That Kills GMO Labeling! We Deserve the Right to Know What We Are Eating Email Congress: Stop the Monsanto Dream Bill to Kill GMO Labels! Next week, a U.S. House committee will hold a hearing on Rep. Mike Pompeo's (R-KS) bill that would kill labels for genetically engineered foods — even at the state level! Tell your Members of Congress to reject Monsanto's "Dream Bill"! The Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), with about 300 member companies like Monsanto, Coca-Cola, Nestlé and Smithfield, represents the largest food, beverage and biotech companies — and now on behalf of all these companies, they've gotten Rep. Pompeo to sponsor a bill that will prohibit states from creating their own laws on labeling genetically engineered (GMO) foods, while also making it illegal to create "mandatory" labeling at the federal level. The GMA member companies have spent more than $90 million to defeat ballot initiatives on labeling genetically engineered foods in California, Washington, Oregon and Colorado. Instead of taking this fight state by state, the GMA would like to pass its bill through Congress to stop all genetically engineered food labels nation wide. Even Vermont, Connecticut and Maine, which have already passed legislation to require labels on GMO foods, would not be allowed to enact their own laws if this passes! We know that more than 90% of people want labeling on foods that contain genetically engineered ingredients, and right now the Oregon ballot initiative to label genetically engineered foods is in a recount because the vote is so close. In 2014 alone, more than 20 states have considered their own labeling laws, but the GMA's anti-labeling bill would nullify all of these efforts! By genetically engineering food, these big companies are changing plants and animals in a way that could never happen in nature. Most of these crops are engineered to withstand heavy chemical applications or to produce their own pesticides. And these GMO crops are untested, unlabeled and could be unsafe, which is why we believe everyone has a right to know if their food has been genetically engineered. The GMA bill already has 37 co-sponsors, and if your elected officials don't hear from you, they could be swayed by the GMA's deep pockets. What we need is for you and your friends, family and neighbors to speak out. Send an email to your U.S. Representative to let them know where you stand. Your lawmakers need to hear from you right away.  Thanks for taking action, Sarah Alexander Deputy Organizing Director Food & Water Watch act(at)fwwatch(dot)org P.S. Our friends and allies from all over the country will be coming to DC next week to show opposition to this bill. Find out how you can get involved: http://orgcns.org/1qyIMuh

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

REALLY outrageous example of forced arbitration

http://bit.ly/1AuyX0Q

 

To have a sense of just how unfair the U.S. Supreme Court's decisions relating to forced arbitration are, THIS is a powerful example.  

An 88 year old consumer goes to a Rent-A-Center to rent a refrigerator.  One of their employees comes to his house, in uniform, and severely beats him, leaving him to be found three days later.  But he can't go to court, because all his legal rights are tossed into forced arbitration.  

Who would ever expect that signing a consumer agreement about a refrigerator would mean that you've lost your rights if someone invades your home and savagely beats you?

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Public Involvement This Good Doesn't Come Cheap

The team running the Bridgeasaurus Boondogglus shows their dedication to facilitating public involvement with the Calendar of activities for the project, taken 30 minutes before the first of two workshops today, Wednesday, 3 December.

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Fight GIGO! Take the Fantasy Funding Survey

GIGO is the old wisdom from early computer days, a reminder that no process is better than its inputs, so garbage in gets you garbage out.

The gangsters running the 3d Bridge scam have resorted to Survey Monkey surveys on Salem's willingness to spend imaginary money for an imaginary benefit with no alternative uses for the money considered in the mix. It's pure garbage of the rankest kind.

An unscientific funding survey is a particularly deep crock of GIGO because we actually know quite a bit about how to identify preferences for spending -- there's nothing more well studied in America than how to know what people are willing to pay for things (which is often quite different from what people will tell you, or that they even realize themselves).

So the only reason for this little joke of a survey is to allow the con men (CH2M-Hill) running this very cushy racket through their obedient pets at ODOT ($60k/month corporate welfare for the last seven years, with millions more in the pipeline) to collect some propaganda nuggets they can try to use to sell their product to the rubes ... Which is to say, us, the people of Salem.

The deep, abiding cynicism of Salem's Bridgasaurus Boondogglus Crew is a marvel to behold. It's our own little version of life as it is lived in many little banana republics and African barely-nations, where the gangsters on the top ignore the needs of the people and instead build themselves massive, useless projects funded by debt that ends up bankrupting the people and lashing them to debt for generations.

It's the oldest story in public administration -- one of the reasons the poor are always with us is that the capture of the people's representatives by the well-heeled few, the Chamber of the 1%, is almost always with us too.

> ODOT is fielding an unscientific Survey Monkey survey to enable anyone to voice their opinion on how to fund the 3rd Bridge:
>
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SYJMC9J
>
> Questions 14-20 ask about the four identified funding methods: property tax, gas tax, vehicle registration tax and tolls on all bridges (Marion, Center and the 3rd Bridge).
>
> We urge you to take the survey and indicate that you "strongly oppose" all four methods of bridge funding.
>
> You can also indicate on Question 12 that "the project should not be built."
>
> Do it now!
>
> Forward this to your friends and ask them to take the survey. This is a great opportunity to send a strong message that we don't want a 3rd Bridge and we don't want to pay for it.

Tuesday, 12/2, 6 p.m. Salem Police Facility Task Force Meeting, change of location

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

>
> The Police Facility Task force is meeting Tomorrow, Tues, Dec. 2 from 6 to 8 pm at Courthouse Square (Transit building) on Court St., in the 5th Floor Boardroom. Consultants will be present to discuss the design of the proposed facility. The public is invited to come and observe the meeting and to comment as well. I really hope that some of you will attend. Thanks.

Powerful: Ferguson Rorschach [feedly]

Ferguson Rorschach
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.resilience.org%2Fstories%2F2014-11-25%2Fferguson-rorschach&theme=white&size=medium
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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

A horribly depressing article full of happy talk

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Fenergy%2Frenewables%2Fwhat-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change&theme=white&size=medium
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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

WORD: Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question [feedly]

Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.resilience.org%2Fstories%2F2014-11-26%2Fsix-myths-about-climate-change-that-liberals-rarely-question&theme=white&size=medium
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"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

The forgotten scourge that never went away

MisLEAD Trailer, 3 min from Tamara Rubin on Vimeo.