tagged w/ Current News NYC
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- As President Obama presses the House and Senate to finalize their own versions of health care reform, the real battle over the issue is just heating up -- and it's about to get very personal.
From Jim Acosta
CNNWASHINGTON (CNN) -- As President Obama presses the House and Senate to finalize their... more
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Children and adults at risk of permanent hearing loss due to repeated exposure to loud music would turn down the sound or use ear protection if told to do so by a health care professional, a new Vanderbilt study performed in conjunction with MTV.com shows.
The study “Intentional Exposure to Loud Music: The 2nd MTV.com Survey Reveals an Opportunity to Educate,” from Vanderbilt’s Roland Eavey, M.D., is being released today in the Journal of Pediatrics.
By Craig Boerner,Children and adults at risk of permanent hearing loss due to repeated exposure to loud... more
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A proposed ordinance aimed at quieting loud motorcycles passed the city's Public Safety Committee Tuesday and will now be considered by the full city council.
By Casey Conley
ReporterA proposed ordinance aimed at quieting loud motorcycles passed the city's Public... more
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MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A leading human rights activist was abducted and killed in Russia Wednesday, the organization she worked for told CNN.MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) -- A leading human rights activist was abducted and killed in... more
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HAZEL PARK, Michigan (BNO NEWS) -- A bridge over the I-75 near Hazel Park in Michigan has "completely collapsed" after two gasoline tankers exploded, creating a massive fire, authorities say. There is no word on casualties.HAZEL PARK, Michigan (BNO NEWS) -- A bridge over the I-75 near Hazel Park in Michigan... more
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HAZEL PARK, MI -- A gasoline tanker explosion has forced the shutdown of an interstate highway in suburban Detroit.HAZEL PARK, MI -- A gasoline tanker explosion has forced the shutdown of an interstate... more
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GIVE the Commonwealth’s miffed motorcyclists credit for imagination. The aggrieved group protesting Boston’s new ordinance against poorly muffled bikes has christened itself the Massachusetts Riders for Justice Committee.
Here, in the interest of greater accuracy - and onomatopoeia - is my suggestion: ROARR, or Riders Outraged About Reasonable Restrictions.
Let’s face it. Motorcycles are prime offenders when it comes to noise pollution. One night a few weeks back, a friend and I were walking near the Public Garden when there arose such a clatter that all heads turned to see what was the matter. A dozen or so bikes came snarling and snorting around the corner, almost all with unmuffled pipes.
By Scot Lehigh
Globe ColumnistGIVE the Commonwealth’s miffed motorcyclists credit for imagination. The aggrieved... more
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Central District Newsletter
Captain James I. Dudley
July 14, 2009
“Arm yourself….with knowledge!”
Captain’s Comments
It’s great to be back in San Francisco!
I had the good fortune to have spent the past two weeks travelling in our great State of Alaska. What a great experience. If you haven’t been, I would encourage you to take the trip north and see the last American Frontier. While there I visited Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali, Juneau, Skagway, Petersburg, Sitka and Ketchikan, as well as the great glaciers of Glacier Bay. Wild life was abundant and the fishing was unbelievable. Not much crime in the back country, at the fishing streams or on the cruising ships.
Policing of most of the towns was unlike what we do here, in “the lower 48.” Some towns had only 4-5 sworn officers, including the Chief, but that was to police populations of under 1,000. In Juneau, several dozens of police officers lined the July 3rd parade route. It also happened to be the 50th Anniversary of their statehood. The locals do enjoy their Independence Day celebration and many also celebrated the resignation of their Governor as well, which seemed a bit perplexing to me. I was told by some officers that many of the jurisdictions supplement their force in the summer months when harvesting and canning of salmon is in full swing and that many of their calls of violent incidents are usually alcohol fueled.
Thanks to Lt. Rich Pate for assuming duties here while I was gone. I understand things went very well. See below for the Crimes of Note he submitted for the past week. It was disturbing to see that there was a shooting on Broadway Thursday night inside a club. Two individuals suffered non- life threatening gunshot wounds. I have asked the Entertainment Commission to hold a hearing to examining the clubs promotions, business plan and security plan. Hopefully we will put an end to dangerous and preventable situations.
The Central Station Community Meeting is this Thursday July 16th at 6 PM at 660 Lombard, the Tel-Hi Community Room, please join us. Don’t worry, if the crowd is unruly, I can always break out a slideshow of my vacation!
SAFE Night Out! We hope to keep the “Bocce with Cops” night going this year at DiMaggio’s Playground Bocce Courts August 4th at 5 PM. Save the Date!
Happy Bastille Day! Look for several celebrations and street closures around the district. Traffic should not be impacted significantly.
Crime Trend in Chinatown
The “River Rock Burglar” is back at it in Chinatown. Over the past two weeks we have experienced up to 5 burglaries in Chinatown. The MO has been the same as in previous years. The suspect takes a cobblestone or river rock and breaks a store window and makes off with cash or merchandise. The latest hit was for a tray of computer equipment on 6/13/09 from a store on the 500 block of Washington. It has been frustrating to experience the same type of burglary over the years. We have caught the suspect twice and he was most recently released from prison on parole on July 3rd, about the time when we started experiencing the burglaries again. Plainclothes officers from Central Station are investigating and searching for the suspect. The suspect is described as a 48 year old white male, 6’, 190 pounds, blue eyes and grey and brown hair. He was released by parole and listed “homeless” as his address. In the past he was found to be sleeping in local SRO hotels and parks.Central District Newsletter
Captain James I. Dudley
July 14, 2009
“Arm... more
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Betsy Smith and her husband, Robert El, have lived on Court Street for more than 20 years, and in all that time they thought their street near Martin Luther King Boulevard in Newark was zoned residential. They started to wonder one day recently when they saw workers on the roof of a commercial garage next door to their home.
by Barry Carter/Star-Ledger ColumnistBetsy Smith and her husband, Robert El, have lived on Court Street for more than 20... more
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BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing world, Bogotá’s Seventh Avenue resembles a noisy, exhaust-coated parking lot — a gluey tangle of cars and the rickety, smoke-puffing private minibuses that have long provided transportation for the masses.
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
The New York TimesBOGOTÁ, Colombia — Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing... more
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UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has criticised leaders of the G8 industrial nations for failing to make deeper commitments to combat climate change.
Ban Ki-moon: "The policies stated so far are not enough"
By BBC News UKUN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has criticised leaders of the G8 industrial nations... more
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Air fresheners, disinfectants, and cleaners found under your sink are more dangerous than you think.
By Staff , Sustain Lane.Air fresheners, disinfectants, and cleaners found under your sink are more dangerous... more
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"A little while ago, the Senate voted to pass HR 2918, the Legislative Branch Appropriations Act. This $3 billion bill contains, among many other things, provisions for GAO audits on certain agencies.
Seizing on a chance to take quick action to bring Audit the Fed up for a vote, and with the GAO provisions in mind, Senator DeMint attached the full text of S 604, the Senate version of Ron Paul’s Audit the Fed bill, to HR 2918 as Senate Amendment 1367 before it was considered for final passage.
However, Senate Democrats refused to even allow a vote on the amendment! That’s right. The internationalist, Fed-loving elite in the Senate used a parliamentary tactic to shut down DeMint’s amendment.
After Senator DeMint brought Audit the Fed to the floor, Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska raised a “point of order” to prevent a vote, claiming that the amendment violated Senate Rule 16 by “legislating” on an appropriations bill. The Senate president agreed, and the amendment was shot down.
Senator DeMint did not back down, though, and directly challenged Senate leadership by pointing out the other GAO audits contained in the bill. As Senator DeMint listed them off, the Senate president was forced to agree with Senator DeMint that each one he described, all of which would be left in for final passage, also violated Senate Rule 16.
Which tells us at least one thing: the problem wasn’t with “legislating” on the bill or violating Senate Rules (which is commonly done). Shooting down the amendment was about preventing a thorough audit of the Federal Reserve for the first time in its history!"
Source - http://www.infowars.com/"A little while ago, the Senate voted to pass HR 2918, the Legislative Branch... more
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Rua XV de Novembro
We've already written about Curitiba's great Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system, but that's not all the Brazilian city has to teach us. Our friends at StreetFilms write: "In 1972 under the direction of then Mayor Jaime Lerner, it became the first major pedestrian street in Brazil. The first phase of closing the street took place in only 72 hours. At first the project was unpopular, but today is seen as a success and spans 15 blocks." Check out the video at the link above!Rua XV de Novembro
We've already written about Curitiba's great Bus Rapid Transit... more
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"Electric Vehicles" Mostly Means Electric Bikes, So Far...
Petrobras, the semi-public Brazilian oil giant (the government of Brazil owns 55.7% of Petrobras' common shares with voting rights), has just built the first of what it hopes will be many electric charging stations. It is located in the Barra de Tijuca neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro because that area has the most electric motorcycles and bikes in circulation in the country.
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, Canada"Electric Vehicles" Mostly Means Electric Bikes, So Far...
Petrobras, the semi-public... more
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Saving Fuel, Cleaning Up the Air, Reducing Traffic
Six new hybrid double deck buses will provide service on Route 141 in London.
by Michael Graham Richard, Ottawa, CanadaSaving Fuel, Cleaning Up the Air, Reducing Traffic
Six new hybrid double deck buses... more
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Staring at the camera, Shona Holmes says a brain tumor would have killed her had she relied on her Canadian, government-run health plan that would have provided treatment far too late. "Now, Washington wants to bring Canadian-style health care to the U.S.," a narrator says darkly.
The television ad from a conservative group is dramatic — but deceptive.
In fact, President Barack Obama and Democrats pushing to overhaul health care want to create an optional, government-run plan to compete with private insurers but not replace them. As Obama told a health forum last week, "We're not suddenly just going to completely upend the system. We want to build on what works about the system and fix what's broken about the system."
The ad is part of a handful of commercials that are expected to grow this summer in both numbers and criticism as detailed health bills emerge from Congress and dozens of interest groups, companies and labor unions tussle over influencing lawmakers.
Millions spent on TV ads
Through June 27, $31 million has been spent for roughly 47,000 TV ads on health care this year, says Evan Tracey, president of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, a firm that tracks issue advertising. That's double the roughly $14 million the insurance industry spent in 1993 and 1994 for the famous "Harry and Louise" ads credited with helping kill President Bill Clinton's health care drive, but a fraction of the $250 million Tracey guesses will ultimately be spent this year.
Hoping to shape the early debate, the initial ads are "really being aimed at some people in the administration, some people on Capitol Hill, a whole bunch of reporters, a few bloggers," Tracey said. As Congress' direction becomes clearer and interest groups seek public support, "then I think you're going to see the spending go on a hockey stick curve straight up," he said.
So far, Tracey said about $15 million has been spent on ads favoring the Democrats' push to revamp the health care system and $4 million to oppose it. Another $12 million has gone to ads generally favoring better health care — nearly all of it by the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, representing drug makers, which hopes its market will expand if more people have insurance.
These figures might be too low, with several groups reporting higher figures reflecting costs Tracey doesn't track.
'It's setting the table'
Ken Johnson, spokesman for the pharmaceutical group, says the association has spent tens of millions on television ads since late 2008, thanking lawmakers for supporting previous health initiatives or urging them to support a comprehensive effort this year.
"It's conditioning the environment, it's setting the table for the debate to come," he said.Staring at the camera, Shona Holmes says a brain tumor would have killed her had she... more
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It sounds big, but it just isn't enough. Leaders of the G8 industrial nations meeting in Italy this week are likely to agree that the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent by 2050. That means cuts of 80 per cent among the rich nations.
They will say that this is essential to keep global warming below 2 °C - widely regarded as the tipping point beyond which scary global feedbacks could wreck the climate system that keeps us fed and watered.
Sorry, guys, but this is scientifically illiterate. We might be lucky: if the atmosphere is less sensitive to those gases than most scientists suppose, it could be enough to keep us below 2 degrees, for a while at least. But the best estimate is that the world needs at least 80 per cent cuts in global emissions, and probably more like 100 per cent, to stay below two degrees.
The smart talk back at the climate lab is about negative emissions. We may need to construct a planetary air-conditioning system to keep us cool by sucking carbon dioxide out of the air.
Now I have been writing about climate change since the mid-1980s, when it was not much more than a scary thought among a few atmospheric chemists. Even at the end of the 80s, insiders say Greenpeace decided not to launch a campaign on climate change because they were not sure about the science.
So I am amazed at how far the world has come since, in admitting the need to control the emissions of gases fundamental to our economies. I know the 1997 Kyoto protocol was a bit of a damp squib, with the US bailing out and everyone else taking their cue. But even to be talking about 50 per cent emissions cuts today is, from the historical perspective, dazzling politics.
The trouble is the science has moved on even faster. The planet is not waiting for the diplomats. Climate chaos is coming down the tracks fast.
Even a decade ago, most scientists figured that we could probably cope with doubling the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from pre-industrial levels. That is, going from 275 parts per million to 550 ppm. Right now, we are at approaching 390 ppm and pushing up by around 2 ppm a year. So it seemed that we had a bit of time.
But five years ago, with growing concern about climate tipping points, scientists began to see 450 ppm as the threshold we should not exceed. That's a lot closer. We will be there in 30 years.
And more recently the talk has been about 350 ppm. In other words, because of the timelags involved in the whole global warming process, we will need to lower concentrations of greenhouse gases to below where they are now.
Either that or we may face the rapid breakup of the Greenland ice sheet, runaway African droughts, drowned cities and oceans so acid they dissolve coral reefs. As the cover story of New Scientist magazine eloquently put it last week: "It's worse than we thought".
But I won't despair when the G8 leaders walk away basking in the glow of having made a strong statement on climate change. Despair isn't really an option. And there is good news.
The White House is listening to its chief scientist, Nobel prize-winning energy campaigner Steve Chu, who certainly gets it. He tells Americans they will have to abandon California to the desert if they don't act fast. He and Obama believe there can be a worldwide revolution in how we generate energy: a low-carbon revolution within a generation.
I believe that too. There are tipping points in human society, as well as the climate system. But will we reach ours in time to prevent nature going over the edge? That I don't know.It sounds big, but it just isn't enough. Leaders of the G8 industrial nations meeting... more
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The White House signaled a willingness Monday to compromise on details of a public plan to compete with private insurance companies as negotiators sought ways to advance health-care legislation.
A senior administration official said one way to meet President Barack Obama's goals would be a mechanism under which a public plan is introduced only if the marketplace fails to provide sufficient competition on its own.
Mr. Obama has pushed hard for a public option, saying it will keep the insurance industry honest, but he has also said he won't draw a "line in the sand."
The official noted that congressional Republicans created a similar mechanism when they introduced a prescription-drug benefit in Medicare. In that case, private competition has been judged sufficient and the public option has never gone into effect.The White House signaled a willingness Monday to compromise on details of a public... more
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The US House of Representatives on Friday narrowly passed historic legislation to cut carbon emissions blamed for climate change, handing President Barack Obama a hard-fought victory.
After hours of bitter debate, lawmakers voted 219-212 to put the US economy under a "cap-and-trade" system in a move supporters said would restore shaky US leadership on the issue of global warming.
The pitched political battle on how best to address the problem now shifts to the US Senate, which is not expected to take any major steps before a self-imposed mid-September deadline for laying out legislation.
The House's "American Clean Energy and Security Act" aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and 83 percent by 2050, create "green" jobs and wean the US economy from oil imports.
"Just remember these four words for what this legislation means -- jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. Let's vote for jobs," Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exhorted her colleagues minutes before the vote.
Her comments came after Republican House Minority Leader John Boehner, relying on traditional House perks for party leaders, stretched an allotted two minutes to speak about the measure into a one-hour, one-minute intervention.
The 1,200-page bill, the fruit of months of tough negotiations, would create a "cap-and-trade" system limiting overall pollution from large industrial sources and then allocating and selling pollution permits.
The Democratic-crafted bill would require utilities, by 2020, to get 15 percent of their electricity from renewable resources -- solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass -- and show annual energy savings of five percent from efficiency measures.
The European Union plan calls for getting 20 percent of all electricity from renewable resources by 2020.The US House of Representatives on Friday narrowly passed historic legislation to cut... more
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