A good idea
Ralph Nader on why we should get rid of athletic scholarships.
Who takes Paul Ryan seriously?
Other than other wingnuts and the members of our fawning media, I mean.
Debt collectors are pursuing one in seven Americans
So they don’t have to have the right person, the right amount and even the right debt — and they can do whatever they want without consequences:
Last month, Amrit Singh, an adjunct professor at Hostos Community College in the South Bronx, received a letter from the New York City Marshal, advising him that he owed $10,000, due within 20 days. If Singh did not pay, the letter said, money would be garnished from his paycheck. “It got me worried, because I knew I didn’t owe this amount of money,” Singh said.
Singh called the Marshal’s office, and they told him Atlantic Credit, a debt collection agency, secured a judgment against him for the $10,000. Singh had never heard of Atlantic Credit and had no contact with them in the preceding months. He was also told that the original debt came from HSBC Bank, for accumulated fees and interest on an account dating back to 2008. “This was more suspicious, because I had never opened an account with HSBC, neither me nor my wife,” Singh said. His credit report showed no record of him owing money to the bank, or any other credit incident matching this level of debt.
A colleague of Singh’s, hearing the story, had a theory. “He said, they probably told an intern, ‘Amrit Singh owes this money, go look up a name.’ And the intern found me.”
That’s not far from the truth. According to statistics from the Federal Reserve, one in seven Americans is being pursued by a debt collector, up from one in 12 just ten years ago. And substantial numbers of these Americans report being hounded for debts they do not owe. A new report from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau logged tens of thousands of complaints claiming just this—that the debt in question is simply not theirs.
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Nothing’s rare anymore
I don’t think we have any safe places anymore:
SAN FRANCISCO — Tornadoes touched down during storms in Northern California, including one twister near Sacramento that damaged a dozen homes and left a path of debris about 300 yards long.
Twelve houses suffered roof damage and six reported fence damage when a tornado hit near Roseville in Placer County shortly after 6:15 p.m. Wednesday, Division Chief Kathy Finney of the city’s fire department told the Merced Sun-Star. No injuries were reported and no residents were displaced.
The path of debris extended up to 300 yards, with a width of 10 to 20 yards, the newspaper reported.
A tornado also touched down in Ordbend, in Glenn County, the National Weather Service said. There were reports of at least four twisters, which are rare for California.
Coming attractions: Food shortages, violent conflicts
And this is the climate group known for being cautious and conservative! I suppose the PTB would rather use militarized police to stop hunger riots than to prevent hunger in the first place? Via ThinkProgress:
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has issued its second of four planned reports examining the state of climate science. This one summarizes what the scientific literature says about “Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability” (big PDF here). As with every recent IPCC report, it is super-cautious to a fault and yet still incredibly alarming.
It warns that we are doing a bad job of dealing with the climate change we’ve experienced to date: “Impacts from recent climate-related extremes, such as heat waves, droughts, floods, cyclones, and wildfires, reveal significant vulnerability and exposure of some ecosystems and many human systems to current climate variability.”
It warns of the dreaded RFCs (“reasons for concern” — I’m not making this acronym up), such as “breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes.” You might call them RFAs (“reasons for alarm” or “reasons for action”). Indeed, in recent years, “several periods of rapid food and cereal price increases following climate extremes in key producing regions indicate a sensitivity of current markets to climate extremes among other factors.” So warming-driven drought and extreme weather have already begun to reduce food security. Now imagine adding another 2 billion people to feed while we are experiencing five times as much warming this century as we did last century!
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Worldwide Wave of Action
The #WaveOfAction extends from the day Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated to Independence Day. The campaign will begin with candlelight vigils around the world at the time of MLK’s assassination, which was 7:05 pm EST on April 4. You should be there. At former Occupy sites around the world:
The Worldwide #WaveOfAction begins April 4th and runs through July 4th. During this three-month cycle, people throughout the world will be protesting corruption, rallying around solutions and taking part in alternative systems. The new paradigm will be on full display. Studies have proven that it only takes 3.5% of the population taking nonviolent action to create meaningful and positive change. The #WaveOfAction gives all of us who want change a powerful opportunity to #EvolveSociety. Change-makers all over the world will be engaged at the same time in an unprecedented wave of transformation.
On April 4th, there will be launch celebrations at hundreds of former Occupy locations globally. We will honor Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy of nonviolent action and spend the day connecting with allies and strategizing Spring action campaigns. This crowdsourced campaign will become what you, the people, make of it, self-organizing and organically evolving, a new culture will emerge. What are you most passionate about? What are you doing to be the change? Whatever it is, passionately be it in public this Spring. Get together with like-minded friends and have fun with it. We have power in numbers. United we are unstoppable. OUR TIME HAS COME!!
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He ‘wouldn’t fare well’ in prison
In case you didn’t know, the DuPont family owns the state of Delaware:
Du Pont Heir and Child Rapist Free on Probation Because He Wouldn’t ‘Fare Well’ in Prison (Video) (via Americans Against The Tea Party)
Robert H. Richards IV, a du Pont heir, is an unemployed rich boy living off of a trust fund. He’s also still living in his $1.8 million 5,800 square foot mansion after admitting that he raped his 3-year-old daughter. Richards was originally charged…
Yee haw
I’m pretty sure the Texas wingnuts weren’t counting on this:
SAN ANTONIO (March 25, 2014) Planned Parenthood says it will build a $5 million abortion clinic in San Antonio that meets all of the strict new abortion standards adopted last year by Texas lawmakers.
Planned Parenthood South Texas President and CEO Jeffrey Hons said at a fundraising event that the facility will follow new ambulatory surgical standards.
He said $3.5 million has been raised so far for construction.
An estimated 16 clinics across the state have closed since the new law went into effect and additional clinics are expected to close in the coming months.
Critics of the law say women’s access to legal abortions has been severely limited.
Dream
My ex-mother-in-law appeared to me in a dream. I told her how healthy she looked (she’s been dead for more than 15 years) and she burst into tears. She ripped open her shirt and said, “Look what they did to me! They got it all wrong!” Her chest was covered with peculiar scars. (In real life, she has multiple open-heart surgeries and a full mastectomy.) I felt very sad for her.