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India: Forget The Centralized Grid, Community Power Is Here

By Climate Guest Blogger on Aug 22, 2012 at 4:27 pm

by Justin Guay, via Sierra Club

Just days after the historic blackout reminded us that centralized coal is the problem, not the solution to India’s energy woes, a new era of entrepreneurs marked the beginning of a truly revolutionary effort to deliver energy access.

The landmark deal that marked their arrival was lost amidst the coverage of the blackout and the continued death spiral the coal sector finds itself in. Nonetheless, the deal between OMC Power, and Bharti Infratel (India’s largest mobile phone provider) to provide clean renewable energy to its off grid cell phone towers was historic. It marks the arrival of Community Power and it couldn’t have come a moment too soon.

As my colleagues at GSMA have demonstrated in a number of excellent reports, the potential for Community Power to deliver where the centralized grid has failed is tremendous. But what is it? Check out a few of these videos from OMC and let me explain.

As mobile phones leapfrog traditional infrastructure, a population of 548 million un-electrified mobile phone users has driven the mobile phone industry to fall all over itself to help them keep their phones charged.

That’s because when people’s phones are charged they use them more, and when people use them more the mobile phone companies make more money — significantly more money. This has created a dynamic that turns the traditional view of delivering energy access on its head. Instead of seeing it as an “expensive development project” it is increasingly becoming a lucrative business proposition.

It just so happens that taking advantage of this proposition solves another vexing problem for mobile phone providers: costly diesel. By switching out the expensive diesel gen sets that power their off-grid “base stations” — radio towers that convert electricity into radio waves — the companies save money.  In India there are an estimated 400,000 towers — over 150,000 of which don’t have reliable access to the grid.

This is where Community Power comes in.

Read more

Justice

Texas Judge: An Obama-Led United Nations Invasion Of Lubbock, Texas Is Only The ‘Worst Case Scenario’

By Ian Millhiser on Aug 22, 2012 at 4:15 pm

Earlier today, ThinkProgress reported that Texas Judge Tom Head told a local television station that President Obama would turn over American “sovereignty” to the United Nations if reelected, that Obama’s actions would potentially trigger “civil unrest, civil disobedience, civil war,” and that such a conflict would culminate with “UN troops” led by President Obama invading Lubbock, Texas. We swear we are not making this up. There is video.

Today, Judge Head clarified his remarks, explaining that it is his obligation to prepare for an Obama-led United Nations invasion as Lubbock County, Texas’ Director of Emergency Management:

I’m not saying we’re going to take [newly hired law enforcement officers] and stand in front of the UN. I have to think of, as emergency management director I have to think of worst case scenario, and I used that as an example yesterday. Okay, in my opinion, the worst case scenario politically and financially right now is if Obama and the Senate Democrats stay in power. Okay, because I have some opinions what they’re doing and what they’re trying to do if they stay in power. And I have to prepare for that, okay.

Does that mean I think the UN’s going to come rolling into Lubbock? No. That probably isn’t going to happen. An F-5 tornado probably is not going to come into Lubbock. I’ve got to prepare for it, though.

It is tempting to attack Judge Head for injecting politics into the profoundly non-partisan task of emergency management. But a more important question is probably what happens if Head is right that he needs to prepare for every possible worst case scenario. Indeed, it does not appear that Judge Head has taken any steps whatsoever to prepare his county for a coming zombie apocalypse — an emergency scenario that is exactly as likely as an Obama-led invasion of United Nations soliders.

Election

Tampa Authorities Empty Jail In Anticipation Of Mass Arrests At GOP Convention

By Adam Peck on Aug 22, 2012 at 4:04 pm

Thousands of Republicans from around the country will descend upon Tampa, Florida next week for the Republican National Convention, and if recent history is any guide, so too will hundreds of protesters.

To prepare, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee has ordered the Orient Road Jail, a 1,700 bed prison in Tampa, emptied, relocating some inmates to another nearby prison and releasing others on bond. The entire facility has been transformed into a one-stop booking, detention, and bond-issuance center capable of handling large numbers of arrests, which begs the question: will Tampa police keep demonstrators on a short leash?

Sheriff Gee says no, but also indicated in a letter posted on a county website that his department would have very little tolerance for anything more than chanting and holding up signs:

To the agitators and anarchists who want only to bring a dark cloud to this event, let me be clear: criminal activity and civil disturbances will not be tolerated and enforcement actions will be swift.

Four years ago, police in Minneapolis, Minnesota were criticized for their treatment of protesters and reporters covering the RNC, and were even forced to settle in an excessive force lawsuit. And in 2004, police in New York City were found to have been surveilling dozens of protest groups for months leading up to the RNC, even embedding undercover officers within several larger groups.

Economy

RNC To Showcase ‘We Built This!’ Theme From a Stadium Mostly Financed By Public Taxpayer Dollars

By Adam Peck on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:50 pm

The stage at the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay, Florida

For weeks, the Romney campaign have used an out-of-context quote from President Obama as the backdrop to their “We Did Build This!” tour, a series of speeches and press conferences featuring a parade of small businesses that have directly benefitted from government loans and contracts.

It’s a theme that will carry over to the Republican National Convention next week, as the event organizers have titled Tuesday evening’s primetime session “We Built This!”

But as with so many of these events before it, the Republican Party will be criticizing Obama for suggesting that small businesses rely on public funding from a building built largely with taxpayer dollars.

The Tampa Bay Times Forum, usually the home to the Tampa Bay Lightning NHL team and other large-scale events, was built in 1996 for $139 million, 62 percent of which was provided by the taxpayers of Florida.

It serves to underscore the point that President Obama was trying to make, that private companies — from professional sports franchises to small businesses alike — rely on government spending to succeed. Businesses don’t buy roads or police departments or even stadiums, at least not without government help.

Nonetheless, Jeff Vinik, the principal owner of the Tampa Bay Lightning, is a big donor to Mitt Romney and the RNC, giving more than $30,000 so far this election season.

LGBT

Atlanta Will Award $250 Thousand To Police Officer Who Was Denied Job Because Of His HIV Status

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:40 pm

The city of Atlanta has agreed to pay a HIV-positive police officer $250 thousand in damages after the Atlanta Police Department denied him a job simply because of his HIV status.

Greg Nevins, an attorney at Lambda Legal’s Atlanta office who helped represent the officer, said he was glad the court reached a settlement decision that doesn’t play into misguided stigma surrounding HIV-positive individuals:

NEVINS: We are glad that the City of Atlanta has moved to right its wrong. We expect that the City, after paying out settlements in both [a previous LGBT-related case] and now this case, has learned to avoid the unnecessary costs of failing to treat LGBT people and those living with HIV fairly and appropriately.

The officer, going by the pseudonym “Richard Roe” to protect his privacy, applied for a position with the APD in 2006. However, after a round of medical screenings revealed Roe was HIV-positive, the ADP told him that his HIV status disqualified him from the position. Roe sued the city for workplace discrimination, but the court ruled in the city of Atlanta’s favor, saying Roe did not produce enough evidence to prove his HIV status will not present a direct threat to others while serving in the police force. Lambda Legal appealed and argued that, by considering Roe a “direct threat,” the city was discriminating against Roe.

Stigma surrounding HIV only helps maintain the HIV epidemic by hampering efforts for HIV advocacy and outreach. It’s important for cases like the one in Atlanta to help model a society that does not attach unfair stigma to HIV-positive individuals.

Alyssa

Superman and Wonder Woman Join the Ranks of Unsexy Superheroes

By Alyssa Rosenberg on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:36 pm

The big comics news of the day is that DC Comics, having annulled Superman’s marriage to Lois Lane when it hit the reset button on the franchise with the New 52 have decided that the Man of Steel is going to start knocking aerial boots with Wonder Woman herself. I’ll have to wait and see how the story works out to decide how I feel about it, but the cover image released to promote the team-up is a reminder for all that comics can draw the female body in exaggeratedly sexual ways, they can be depressingly awful at making actual sexual contact between adult superheroes look remotely appealing. Take a look:

The fact that Superman is tied up in Wonder Woman’s lasso is a nice little nod to her fetish pin-up origins, and a way of playing with the power dynamic between them that lends the image a nice little frisson. Or it would if Superman and Wonder Woman’s actual bodies are posed so it looks like someone is smushing a Barbie and a Ken Doll together. These don’t look like humans who are attracted to each other and in the process of making actual sexual contact.

It’s not quite as bad as DC’s Batman-and-Catwoman-bang-on-a-roof panel, in which Batman’s abs look less like human’s than a stack of chicken cutlets and Catwoman’s expression is more slack-jawed than erotically intent. If you can leach the sex appeal out of Catwoman, you’re doing something wrong:

The same is true of Frank Miller’s Holy Terror. Everything about that comic is ugly, from its vicious Islamophobia to its illustrations, but its attempts at sexytimes are particularly inept:

This sort of rampant incompetence is part of what makes something like the current characterization of Namor as a stud who will hook up with anyone, irrespective of species, fun. Even if the panels themselves aren’t always alluring, the strips have an actual grown-up sense of humor about sex that doesn’t require me to risk headache via eye-roll:

The slam that comics are the provenance of slobbering teenaged boys is an irritating one, given the sophistication of the ideas superhero stories can explore when they’re at their best. But it would definitely help if comics artists started drawing superheroines like people instead of figurines, and superhero sexuality in a way that suggested some familiarity with intimacy and the functioning of the human body.

Health

Expanding Access To Food Stamps Could Help Combat HIV Epidemic

By Tara Culp-Ressler on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco suggest that ensuring access to nutritious food — particularly through increased levels of participation in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a government assistance program that provides low-income Americans with food aid — should be a priority in the fight against the HIV epidemic. A new UCSF study reports that the majority of HIV-positive patients experience food insecurity that leads to increased hospitalization and emergency room visits.

After studying HIV-positive patients in California, scientists concluded that adequate food is an important factor in HIV treatment, even though it hasn’t traditionally been linked to medical strategies to treat the virus. However, according to the UCSF study, HIV-positive individuals who lack secure access to nutritious food are more likely to struggle with illnesses that land them in the hospital:

The food-insecure patients were roughly twice as likely to have visited the ER or been hospitalized over a given three-month period, compared with patients who had enough to eat, the researchers found. Food insecurity was more likely than homelessness, drug abuse or depression — or just about any measurable problem associated with poverty — to lead to trips to the hospital.

Earlier studies, both in the United States and abroad, have found that food insecurity also is associated with missed doctors’ appointments, less suppression of the HIV virus and greater risk of death.

It’s not shocking that inaccessibility to food would be tied to poorer health, said Dr. Sheri Weiser, a study author. But she was surprised at how strong the correlation was between not having enough to eat and needing to use health care resources like hospitals and emergency rooms.

The researchers noted that only a fifth of the participants in their study had participated in SNAP over the past year, although a total of 72 percent had received some food aid from sources like churches, clinics, or food banks. The authors of the study believe there’s “probably room for improvement” in federal assistance programs like SNAP, either by better educating eligible Americans about the benefits available to them or by lowering the eligibility requirements so more struggling Americans can qualify.

Republican legislators may not have considered the potential implications for HIV-positive individuals when they endorsed the House GOP budget, which slashes $133 billion from the food stamp program, but a failure to ensure that low-income Americans have access to food could also be a failure to effectively combat the nation’s HIV epidemic.

Security

The Right’s Econ Guru: ‘We Need To Combat The Idea That The Defense Dept Is A Jobs Program’

By Ben Armbruster on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:20 pm

Grover Norquist

Conservative tax and spend guru Grover Norquist threw cold water on the popular claim made by those trying to preserve the Pentagon’s bloated budget that cutting military spending is a big job killer. In advancing apocalyptic warnings about the looming military spending sequestration, Republicans — led by House Armed Services Committee chairman and leading recipient of defense industry contributions Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA) — have abandoned their “government spending doesn’t create jobs” mantra, saying that the Pentagon cuts will ruin the economy.

But in an interview the libertarian CATO Institute released yesterday, Norquist, to his credit, stood by the popular conservative dogma, across the board:

NORQUIST: We also need to combat the idea that the Defense Department is a jobs program. Some people who call themselves conservatives who are actually Keynesian, make work, FDR guys. They laugh at that when we see an $800 billion stimulus package. We know that’s garbage. We know that money is wasted. We know those aren’t real jobs. You haven’t created jobs. It’s just government spending that makes this country weaker. The same is true for any dollar wasted in the name of national defense. It doesn’t create jobs. It takes money out of the real economy and puts it into the government sector

Watch the interview (the highlighted portion begins at 11:00):

To be fair to the truth, Norquist is wrong that the stimulus money was “wasted.” The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said it created or saved upwards of 1.6 million jobs. And yes, Defense spending has created a job or two but the Pentagon budget is a security program not, as Norquist noted, “a jobs program,” a claim that many Republicans are now arguing.

Many experts doubt that the military spending sequester will mean massive defense industry lay-offs and have noted that, in fact, government spending in non-defense sectors of the economy creates more jobs. And CAP’s Lawrence Korb, Alex Rothman and Robert Ward pointed out that “after ten years of exponential growth in profits,” the defense industry will easily weather military budget cuts. And while the automatic $500 billion in cuts over the next 10 years is probably not the best way to reduce military spending, it’s clear that these hyperbolic warnings that they will “devastate” the military or the economy are wildly exaggerated.

But if the GOP’s go-to guy on economic issues says the right-wing argument that military spending cuts as job killer is bunk, it’s probably going to be a tough sell. (HT: AOL Defense)

Climate Progress

After Criticizing The Stimulus, Romney Will Campaign At A New Mexico Company That Benefited From It

By Public Lands Team on Aug 22, 2012 at 3:09 pm

Tomorrow Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is scheduled to campaign in Hobbs, New Mexico, where he has said he will be “describing a comprehensive energy plan.”  The speech will be at Watson Truck & Supply, a trucking and oilfield services company in Hobbs that manufacturers drilling rig equipment, provides services for rigs, and hauls heavy equipment.

Interestingly, Watson Truck & Supply benefitted from $400,744 in stimulus funds, those from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act promoted by President Barack Obama that was signed into law in February 2009.  As recovery.gov shows, the company was a stimulus vendor hired by the City of Hobbs.  It used the funds for the “purchase of building for transit center”:


This is of particular interest because both Romney and his vice presidential pick Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) have strongly criticized the president’s stimulus and its results.  Romney has said the president’s energy “vision has failed,” and on the three-year anniversary of the stimulus he released a statement saying “the only thing President Obama’s stimulus has produced is a series of broken promises.”

And it’s not the first time that Romney and Ryan have campaigned with beneficiaries of the stimulus or shown hypocrisy towards it.  In June, Romney fundraised at the home of a recipient of stimulus funds.  He also bashed the stimulus at a small Ohio college that took $80,000 in stimulus money.  And just last week, it was revealed that Ryan helped various constituent groups acquire stimulus funds for bus services, energy efficiency, and renewable energy projects while calling the package “a wasteful spending spree.”

This campaign stop also runs counter to Romney’s consistent attacks on the Obama statement “you didn’t build that.”  Conservatives quickly pounced on the comment as belittling small business owners, whereas the full text of the president’s speech reveals that he was referring to the idea that government has helped successful individuals along the way.  Benefits from the stimulus to Watson Truck & Supply is just one example of government support for small business owners.

Various studies have shown that the stimulus actually created millions of jobs and turned the economy around.

Jessica is the Manager of Research and Outreach for the Public Lands Project at the Center for American Progress Action Fund.

NEWS FLASH

Anti-Gay Group Compares Gay Activists To Polygamists And Racists | The Alliance Defending Freedom — a group that’s just as anti-gay as it was before changing its name from the Alliance Defense Fund — has released a new video defending the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act, which of course the National Organization for Marriage is promoting as “excellent.” In it, ADF attempts to rewrite history, comparing LGBT activists to polygamists and racists who tried to “redefine” marriage in the past. Of course, it has always been progressives who have challenged religion’s stronghold on culture and advocated for fairness in society, be it the  women harmed by the sexist class structure of polygamy, people of color, or gays, lesbians, and bisexuals. Still, ADF believes itself to be the hero for refusing to acknowledge the public benefit of same-sex families receiving legal protection. Watch the clip:

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